The otherworld has a new upper class—humans. And those werewolves and sorcerers and alchemists have industrialized Faerie itself, churning out magical goods that command a high price in the mundane world. But when they fire Charles the gnome, well, that’s just too much to take.
It seems that the new synthetic blood substitutes (readily available, highly nutritious, and completely disgusting) have led these socialites to believe that they can run their factories on nothing but vampire labor. And though vampires are stupid, smelly, and ponderously boring, they keep quiet, thinking they’re getting a good deal.
Charles is lucky enough though to have Otherworld’s first investigative reporter on his side: Jane, a half-vampire with all the smarts the devil denied other vampires. He has to help Jane convince the other workers to strike, convince the whole of Otherworld to work together. But a budding romance complicates everything while the discovery of darker powers, driving what the humans have called Progress, threatens the doom of two worlds.