It is 1868, and a 21-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night. A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen --- a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen --- and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning.