The extraordinary Vampire Chronicles continue as golden-haired Marius, true Child of the Millennia, one-time mentor to the Vampire Lestat, reveals the secrets of his two-thousand-year existence.

Once a proud Senator in Imperial Rome, Marius was kidnapped by the Druids and made a blood god and protector of the Queen and King of the Vampires. Through his eyes we see the fall of pagan Rome to the Emperor Constantine, the horrific sack of the Eternal City at the hands of the Visigoths, and the vile aftermath of the Black Death.

Ultimately restored by the beauty of the Renaissance, Marius becomes a painter, living dangerously yet happily among mortals, and gives his heart to the great master Botticelli, to the bewitching courtesan Bianca, and to the mysterious young apprentice Armand. But it is in our own time, deep in the jungle, when Marius will meet his fate seeking justice from the oldest vampires in the world.