The old priory is a house built for the Church, but designed by Satan. In the house, nuns are drained of blood by things far worse than vampires, and a virginal student is seduced by the perverse and haunted by things more terrifying than ghosts. When Venetia Barlow began work at St. John’s Priory, she expected a quiet summer of drudgery and boredom. But almost immediately she is haunted by lurid desires and visions of a city filled with monsters—monsters who know her name. Is the house really a place of meditation, or is it a temple of abominations? Venetia learns the truth when a long-dead priest gives her an unspeakable message direct from the howling, blood-drenched streets of Hell.