At the center is the beautiful, unconquerable witch Merrick. She is a descendant of the gens de couleur libres, a society of New Orleans octoroons and quadroons steeped in the lore and ceremony of voodoo, who reign in the shadowy world where African and French -- the dark and the white -- intermingle. Her ancestors are the great Mayfair witches, of whom she knows nothing -- and from whom she inherits the power and the magical knowledge of a Circe.

Into this exotic realm comes David Talbot -- hero, storyteller, adventurer, almost-mortal vampire, visitor from another dark realm. It is he who recounts Merrick's haunting tale -- a tale that takes us from the New Orleans of past and present to the jungles of Guatemala, from the Maya ruins of a century ago to ancient civilizations not yet explored.