Father Polycarp has a Gift. He can bring peace and rest to the restless dead. At his touch, each hungering corpse lies still at last. But to do this, Polycarp must first look into each one's blind eyes and find the remnant of the soul caught within the shambling corpse. He must witness its secrets, its suffering - all that it loved and feared and regretted in its brief life. Only then can he absolve that soul and set it free. Only then will it cease to walk and feed. But Polycarp has more than the dead to worry about: second-century Rome is bitterly divided. The patricians hope to appease their ancestors by lavishing food upon the tombs of the dead, even as the city's poor starve in the streets. Blaming the rising of the dead on Polycarp and his followers, they seek his death, certain his rejection of the old ways has left the ancestors restless and starving for flesh. To save the Eternal City, Polycarp will have to stand against the might and corruption of Roman justice and the terrible moaning of the ravenous dead!