The wedding of the century between vampire hunter Anita Blake and the vampire king of America Jean-Claude is almost here, but an ancient evil arrives in St. Louis and even Jean-Claude's unmatched power isn't enough to save them. Only with the return of a lost love can they hope to combat the monster and save their loved ones and every vampire in the country from being consumed by darkness.

Anita Blake lives a dual life as animator and vampire hunter, with a man she loves on both sides of her life, but when she becomes a wanted woman, she must choose between the two men or risk all their lives.

Just returned to St. Louis after six months away, Anita is still no closer to choosing between her lovers--Jean-Claude, a vampire, and Richard, a werewolf. But she has to rely on both for help after two of the wereleopards that she has been watching are abducted at a seedy club called Narcissus in Chains. Anita and her boyfriends rescue the wereleopards from the sinister people holding them, but Anita is wounded in the fight and put at risk of becoming...

Anita Blake is small, dark, and dangerous. Her turf is the city of St. Louis. Her job: re-animating the dead and killing the undead who take things too far. But when the city’s most powerful vampire asks her to solve a series of vicious slayings, Anita must confront her greatest fear—her undeniable attraction to master vampire Jean-Claude, one of the creatures she is sworn to destroy...

"These days, Anita Blake is less interested in vampire politics than in an ancient, ordinary dread she shares with women down the ages: she may be pregnant. And, if she is, whether the father is a vampire, a werewolf, or someone else entirely, she knows perfectly well that being a Federal Marshal known for raising the dead, and being a vampire executioner, is no way to bring up a baby" --From publisher description.

"When a fifteen-year-old girl is abducted by vampires, it's up to U.S. Marshal Anita Blake to find her. And when she does, she's faced with something she's never seen before: a terrifyingly ordinary group of people--kids, grandparents, soccer moms--all recently turned and willing to die to avoid serving a master. And where there's one martyr, there will be more ... But even vampires have monsters that they're afraid of. And Anita is one of them."--Publisher....

When a rogue master vampire named Alejandro hits town and claims Anita Blake, an expert on undead creatures of the night, as his human servant, a war of the undead breaks out between the interloper and Jean-Claude, the city's Master Vampire, a situation complicated when Anita falls for Richard Zeeman, a handsome teacher with his own dark secret.

When her independent reputation is compromised by her engagement to master vampire Jean-Claude, Anita takes an assignment from the FBI to track down a practitioner of dark voodoo who is victimizing women.

Assassins are coming to St. Louis to kill master vampire Jean-Claude, necromancer Anita Blake, and werewolf Richard Zeeman. Anita knows they're coming, but even being forewarned doesn't mean the triumvirate will win.

Here's a job to strain even Anita Blake's capabilities: raising an entire graveyard of two-hundred-year-old corpses.