Once a man-made paradise, the pleasure planet of Canaan is now a man-made hell. The seas have boiled, the floating cities have crashed from the skies and the few who survived the disaster scrabble to survive long enough for rescue.Even before he broke her hard old heart and became a soldier, Shea's ma said he'd come to a bad end. Now, stranded on a burned out pleasure planet, Shea thinks she might have had a point. He doesn't think even his ma imagined the feral, starving vampires that hunt him through the ruins.An elder of his species, an Old Earth émigré, Anatoly Druget was used to being invulnerable. At least he felt that way until the sun fell out of the sky and burned him blind. When he finds Shea he thinks he's only found dinner, but maybe there is more to the unsentimental soldier than his carotid. And maybe there's more to Anatoly than a monster.