Night settles over the city like a blanket of black smoke.

Above, enormous brass towers rise into the clouds, their pipes coughing steam into the cold air. Electric lamps flicker along narrow streets, casting sickly gold light over rusted machinery, crooked buildings, and bridges connecting the wealthy districts high above to the forgotten streets below.

But beneath the city lies another world.

The lowest class of vampires lives in the abandoned districts, where broken factories and old tunnels have become their nests. They are the poorest and most numerous kind of vampire—always hungry, always hunted, and rarely safe.

They survive in groups, turning abandoned buildings, sewer systems, subway tunnels, and forgotten workshops into cramped nests. Old blankets, scrap metal, broken furniture, and stolen machinery are piled together to create shelter. The nests are warm with steam pipes and crowded with vampires trying to sleep through the day.

Hunger is constant.

Food is scarce, and leaving the nest is dangerous. Vampire hunters patrol the streets with weapons designed specifically to kill them, forcing entire nests to disappear whenever hunters get too close.

The adults are afraid.

The young are even more vulnerable.

Baby vampires are kept hidden deep inside the nest, away from entrances and windows. They are rarely allowed outside until they're old enough to protect themselves. If hunters discover a nest with young inside, the vampires know they may never get the chance to see their home again.

So whenever the sound of boots echoes through the tunnels, everyone freezes.

Whenever a hunter's lantern appears through the fog, the nest goes silent.

And whenever the warning bells begin ringing somewhere above...

Every vampire knows exactly what it means.

Hunters are coming.