1914. The outbreak of war. In the French city of Arras, a priest is brutally murdered. The Catholic Inquisition-still powerful, but now working in the shadows-sends its most determined and unhinged of Inquisitors, Poldek Tacit, to investigate: his mission to protect the Church from those who would seek to undermine it, no matter what the cost. Yet as Tacit arrives, armed forces led by Britain and Germany confront each other across No Man's Land. As the Inquisitor strives in vain to establish the truth behind the murder and to uncover the motives of other Vatican servants seeking to undermine him, a beautiful and spirited woman, Sandrine, warns British soldier Henry Frost of a mutual foe even more terrible lurking beneath the killing fields that answers to no human force and wreaks havoc by the light of the moon. Faced with impossible odds and his own demons, Tacit must battle the forces of evil, and a church determined at all costs to achieve its aims, to reach the heart of a dark conspiracy that seeks to engulf the world, plunging it ever deeper into conflict. The first in The Darkest Hand series, The Damned is a gripping work of dark fiction set in an alternative twentieth century, where humanity's desire for love, compassion and peace face daunting challenges in a world overwhelmed by total war and mysterious dark forces.