On the brink of failing out of school, graduate student Allen Cabbot agrees to participate in a research project to save his academic career. He is swept into an adventure with witches, vampires, ghosts, and a hunt for the famed philosopher's stone and its transforming powers.

A latest satirical work by the Edgar-nominated author of Shotgun Opera finds hapless grad student Allen accompanying an eccentric professor on a research trip to a Prague castle, where he searches for a supernatural device capable of restoring humanity to the undead. <B>Original.