Holy Blood begins with a wedding and a war and progresses to more normal circumstances for the Order of the Red Cross of Gold as Sir Mark Andrew Ramsay, Knight of Death, finally defeats Semiramis' curse and restores the Order to a simpler time, hoping to find a bit of peace for himself. The Order moves back to the restored Villa in Southern Italy and leaves Scotland to Ramsay and his family. In the meantime, the Ancient Evil has dropped out of sight leaving the powers of the Abyss worried about where he might pop up next. Simon makes an effort to reconcile his differences with his eldest son and Luke Matthew takes Merry on a trip to Texas to visit the orphanage. The new Grand Master's first order of business is to send Mark Andrew, his son, Luke and Lucio Dambretti on an assassination mission in old Budapest in search of blood-drinkers, but these are not your run-of-the-mill vampires; they are something much more complex and much more interesting to the Chevalier du Morte.