I am the Caretaker. I keep a light burning in the darkest night. I serve all who come to me, whether their hearts are filled with hope or tainted by despair.

Here I stand, at the end of the world, where the night is darker than ever, and the lamps have gone out, one by one. What lies ahead is mystery. But the road to the end is clear.

It began one misty morning, close to Albert Bridge in London, where Jack Churchill wandered, lost in the depths of grief for his dead girlfriend, Marianne. Drawn by the sounds of struggle, Jack – an archaeologist known as Church – stepped away from his world and into a stranger and more real one when he encountered one of a race of shape-shifting creatures from the depths of Celtic mythology: the Fomorii, also known as the Nightwalkers. Though the creature fled, Jack met the woman who would become the great love of his life, Ruth Gallagher, and together they uncovered the first signs of an invasion by the Fomorii.

But Church and Ruth were also inducted into a greater and more uplifting mystery, that of the Blue Fire, an energy that ran through the land along leys, its power focused at ancient sacred sites. For more than two thousand years, this force for Life – Existence – had chosen groups of five champions, the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, who would fight to protect the land. Bound together by the Pendragon Spirit, Church and Ruth were only the latest members, and they soon met the other three of their team: an Asian mystic, Shavi, the acerbic Laura DuSantiago, and Ryan Veitch, a tough ex-criminal from South London.

The Fomorii were engaged in battle with their ancient race-enemies – the Golden Ones, the Tuatha De Danaan, who had been the gods of the ancient Celts. Many of these golden-skinned gods were contemptuous of humans – Fragile Creatures, as they named them – and manipulated them to their own ends. The Tuatha De Danaan, however, had an odd, symbiotic relationship with their mysterious shape-shifting companions, the Caraprix, which at times appeared to be more powerful than the gods.