The Last Rite

Part historical adventure, part vampire thriller -- the fifth and final darkly chilling chapter in Jasper Kent's acclaimed 'Danilov Quintet'.
     Russia 1917. Zmyeevich, king of all vampires, is dead.
History records that the great voordalak -- known across Europe as Dracula -- perished in 1893 beneath the ramparts of his own castle, deep in the mountains of Wallachia. In Russia, the Romanov tsars are free of the curse that has plagued their blood for two centuries. But two decades later and Tsar Nicholas II faces a new threat -- a threat from his own people. War has brought Russia to her knees and the people are hungry for change. Revolution is in the air.
     Mihail Konstantinovich Danilov -- who himself carries Romanov blood -- welcomes the prospect of a new regime. Like his ancestors he once fought to save the Romanovs from the threat that Zmyeevich brought them. Fought and won. But now he sees no future for a Russia ruled by a tyrant. He is joined in the struggle by his uncle, Dmitry Alekseevich -- a creature born in a different era, over a century before. For more than half his existence he has been a vampire, and yet he still harbours one very human desire; that his country should be free. But the curse that infects the blood of the Romanovs cannot be so easily forgotten and Mihail soon discovers that it -- that he -- may become the means by which a terror once thought eradicated might be resurrected.