- Krista has a bad dream where she bites her mother's neck. Both Blade and Marcus starts to hunt an ash dealer, Cain.
- A lucrative trade has developed in which vampires are captured and harvested for ash, which has become a popular street drug because it gives snorters all the powers of a vampire albeit temporarily. Krista has returned to House Chthon to spy on Marcus van Sciver for Blade. She keeps herself lucid with injections of Blade's serum, which she keeps hidden in her shower drain. Blade and Shen are worried that Fritz is a new kind of vampire who is impervious to garlic and silver, so Blade has asked his friend, the Reverend Carlyle who works with ashers (kids that are addicted to vampire ash) for anything he might know about Fritz. Reverend Carlyle suggests that Blade talk with an ash dealer named Cain.
Meanwhile at House Chthon, Winston Haup from the Prague office has arrived to evaluate Sciver's vaccine, which they are now calling "Aurora." Marcus informs Winston that they are moving Project Aurora operations to the west coast and that several test subjects are currently being transported there. One of the subjects is Detective Brian Boone. Sealed in an airtight bag, Boone's body is in the back of an American Butcher truck on its way through Rapid City, South Dakota, when Boone suddenly regains consciousness. He pulls out one of his fangs, uses it to cut open the airtight bag, and escapes.
While Krista and Marcus dine at the Lotus restaurant and Blade attempts to beat information about Cain from an asher, Cain has followed Winston on his way back to the airport. When Winston makes a stop at Mina's to sample some American cuisine (an honor student plucked off a beach in Cancun), Cain kills Winston's driver. When Winston returns to the car, Cain ashes him and delivers his remains to the ash lab. When Marcus gets word that Winston missed his flight and that the tracking device on his car went dead outside of Mina's, Marcus and Chase pay Mina a visit, and Marcus shuts down her business by ripping out her heart. Marcus does not think Winston was taken by Blade. He would also have come for Mina and her clientele, Marcus reasons, so he has Chase grab a young asher named Shari and torture her until she reveals who was involved in Winston's disappearance.
Blade has gotten word to Krista asking her to find out about Fritz. Krista waits for a time when she's alone with Fritz and gets him to tell her about Project Aurora. She then asks Marcus to inject her with the vaccine, but he refuses. Partly to remove Fritz from a possible confrontation with Blade and partly because the board in Prague wants proof of Aurora's success, Marcus arranges to send Fritz to Prague, something that doesn't make Fritz very happy, as he wants another chance to finish off Blade.
Chase is successful in getting Cain's name and location from Shari. She puts together a team to make a hit on Cain's lab. Blade hasn't been successful in getting information out of the asher, so Blade has had him dumped on the side of a road, figuring that he will run straight to Cain to warn him. Blade figured correctly, and now Blade also plans to make a hit on the lab. When Chase's team, which includes Krista, gets to the ash lab, they find it abandoned save for the asher, who is bound and gagged and tied to a chair. As one of the team members starts to rip the duct tape from the asher's mouth, Krista realizes that it is a trap. She and Chase manage to jump to safety just as the duct tape is removed, revealing a bomb stuffed into the asher's mouth and set to detonate when the tape is removed.
Just after the bomb explodes, Blade enters the lab. As he prepares to destroy Chase, a car suddenly breaks through the door, knocking Blade to the ground. Fritz hops out and confronts Blade. "Let's finish this," Fritz growls, and he and Blade go at it. When Blade knocks Fritz to the ground, Chase picks up her machine gun and open fires on Blade. Chase orders Krista to kill him, but Krista grabs a "Caution: Hard Hat Area" sign and uses it to whack off Fritz's head. Krista then falls on a broken post that goes right through her abdomen, back to front. Marcus has Krista taken to a hospital while Blade returns to Shen to have the dozens of bullets removed from his body.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Kansas, a state trooper comes upon a car with South Dakota plates seemingly abandoned at the side the road. She finds a man's body in the back seat and calls for the coroner and a tow truck. Then she hears screams coming from the trunk. She opens it to find a women inside. As she calls for an ambulance, the trooper is suddenly attacked by the man from the back seat. He turns out to be Detective Brian Boone.
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