The vampire Count Saint-Germain, disguised as a missing Hungarian nobleman, is on a spy mission in the heart of Czarist Russia. Almost by the power of his will alone, Peter the Great is wresting the city that will one day be St Petersburg out of swampland.

The vampire Count finds himself a virtual prisoner in the Court of Kunigunde in Bohemia in the 1600s. Rakoczy Ferancsi, as Saint-Germain is known, passes his days making jewels to delight Queen Kunigunde and trying not to become involved in the Court's intrigues. In this, the vampire fails.

The year is 1817. In Switzerland, the Count has become intrigued by the work of an Austrian noble who is investigating the properties of blood, a subject always of key interest to a vampire. But when the noble's beautiful young ward fixates sexually on the Count, the vampire fears that it is his blood the Austrian will be most interested in!