It starts when the body of a young woman disappears from the local morgue. Then more corpses, dead from an inexplicable disease that solidified their blood, also vanish. Soon the U.S. government - and eventually biomedical researchers, disgruntled lawmakers, and even an insurgent faction of the Catholic Church - must come to terms with what they're too late to stop: an epidemic of vampirism that will sweep the world. With heightened strength and beauty and a steady diet of fresh blood, these changed people, or "Gloamings", rapidly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society. Soon...