Arkgrave — a Gothic city of spires, bell towers, and narrow cobbled streets, where gas lamps cut through the fog with dim gold, and windows are boarded from the inside at night. Here, people once sought salvation in the Sacred blood, called the Ascension Ichor, and instead received the Lunar Disorder — The Beast Plague. On ordinary nights, the townsfolk lock themselves away and pray, while hunters take to the streets, exterminating those who could not withstand the Call. During the Scarlet Canon, the moon draws dangerously close, and the city drowns in blood, smoke, and screams.

William Craig is one of the hunters of the Order of Purification. He is thirty-five. He survived the first Scarlet Canon as a teenager and has since known the smell of burnt flesh and wet stone after a slaughter. He has accepted blood. He hears the Call. He understands that his own scarlet night will one day come. But until it rises, he does what he does best: walking the dark streets of Arkgrave and purging them of the Plague — calmly, methodically, until the last shot is fired.