Time is running out for half vampire, half human Vlad Tod. The Elysian Council has given him only weeks to live, and that's if the Slayer Society doesn't get him first. Then there's the issue of Vlad's father, who may or may not be still alive. And how is a teenage boy to cope with love and hormones, not to mention school and family. Oh yeah, and the Pravus prophecy foresees Vlad ruling vampirekind and enslaving the entire human race, and Vlad can't see a course on that in any of the college prospectus he's been looking at.