Dr. Alyce Hunter was an archaeologist at the Royal Ontario Museum who was studying artifacts brought back from a dig in Mexico. Then a guard at the museum was murdered, and a jade cup from the dig stolen. The guard had been drained of blood; and, since this resembled the manner of death in a series of murders of homeless people, the detective assigned to that case, Nick Knight was assigned to look into the museum murder as well. Later, when Nick, Don Schanke, and Natalie Lambert were leaving the museum, Alyce—now a vampire herself—looked in on them through the skylight.