THE TRAP

Gene escapes from certain death at bloodsucker hands—and from drowning and starvation on the river, freezing in the mountains, wickedness in the creepy murder village, a deadly plummet on a death train—until finally he’s right back in vampire central.

After their death-defying escape from the Mission in The Prey (2013), Gene, Sissy and the other humans (or hepers) find their escape vehicle takes them not to the promised land of safety, but to a cavern full of starving hepers beneath the Palace: the Ruler’s larder. Double agents promise to rescue Gene and Sissy, but the cost—the sacrifice of all the other humans in the cavern—is too high. Gene and Sis together make up the Origin; their blood combines to fuel weapons that can de-fang the vamps back into hepers. They’re the only source of the weaponized blood (for no good reason), so when their next frying-pan–to-fire maneuver sends them straight back to the metropolis filled with millions of starving man-eaters, the salvation of humanity is at risk. As if gore-drenched certain death weren’t enough cause for despair, Gene suspects his vanished father didn’t love him enough, and he has to choose between two different girls, one of whom is a vampire, which should make it easy.

At least there’s a lot going on