Akhenaten had been a dangerous Pharaoh - fanatical, mad, a creator of unrest throughout Egypt. Many welcomed his death. The passing to the underworld of his wife, the beloved Nefertiti, was a different matter. It was murder. Now Lord Meren, confidential advisor to the boy king Tutankhamun, is investigating the crime under a dark cloak of secrecy. He knows that the killer must possess great political power and a streak a pure evil. But the witnesses he needs to interview are dying mysteriously. Suddenly he too is ensnared in a venomous trap. Accused of high treason, forced into hiding by the Living God himself, Lord Meren must find a villain while he himself is hunted - or become the prey of the drinker of blod, the killer of Nefertiti.