Draculiya, knowing that he will be searched for, takes the young man's identity and makes his way to New York City.

The year is 1893.  The Civil War is going on, and the people of New York are sick of war and want it to be over. The poor are being drafted. The rich buy their way out.

Into this world, Enoch Bales arrives, uses jewels sewn into his robes to buy a fine house, and with his faithful Chinese servant, begins a new life.

At the same time, Echo Van Helsing and her young brother arrive searching for Draculiya, believing him the murderer of their father.  Echo joins up with the only female Pinkerton detective, Kate Warne, and they begin the search.

In the present day, archaeologist Carrie Norton and cold case detective Max Slattery find themselves working on the case of a body found where a new building is about to go up.  The body is that of a Negro sailor from the Yankee ship the Monitor, which sank during the Civil War.

Thus the two stories become tied together.  The reader spends time in both worlds - the search for the vampire in the year of 1863 and the search for whatever or whomever killed the black man and left his body stuffed into a sewer.

The conceit of the book is that Draculiya is one of nine Vampyre left, and that one of those nine is evil. He goes by the name Adamo, and he creates Damphyr who are the ones who are truly evil.

The book ends with a clear direction for a second novel, and with very little satisfaction for those who read this one.  Echo never got the killer of her father. Carrie turns out to have a historical "significance" that's sprung on the reader at the last minute - literally.

So while the book has lovely detail about New York in 1863, and generates an interesting world, it never really holds up to the promise that is made in the early parts of the book.