Dracula is on the verge of coming into his full power. Department 19 is on the back foot. Ladies and gentlemen: welcome to war. The stakes? Mankind's very survival...

As the clock ticks remorselessly towards Zero Hour and the return of Dracula, the devastated remnants of Department 19 try to hold back the rising darkness.

Jamie Carpenter is training new recruits, trying to prepare them for a fight that appears increasingly futile. Kate Randall is pouring her grief into trying to plug the Department's final leaks, as Matt Browning races against time to find a cure for vampirism. And on the other side of the world, Larissa Kinley has found a place she feels at home, yet where she makes a startling discovery.

Uneasy truces are struck, new dangers emerge on all sides, and relationships are pushed to breaking point. And in the midst of it all, Department 19 faces a new and potentially deadly threat, born out of one of the darkest moments of its own long and bloody history.

Zero Hour is coming. And the Battle Lines have been drawn.

This is volume 3 in Department 19 .

There are 704 pages in this book. This book was published 2013 by HarperCollins Publishers .

Will Hill grew up in the north-east of England and worked as a bartender, bookseller and in publishing, before quitting to write full-time. His first novel, Department 19 - the first in a series of five - was published in 2011 to widespread acclaim, garnering Will, and the series, a huge fan base. Will now lives in east London with his girlfriend.