The past history of Sydney Taine is shrouded in mystery, she resided in a shadowy realm referred to as the Nightside, the secret world of vampires, shape-shifters, and worse. It has existed in the shadows of history since the dawn of human civilization. Taine took on the task of discovering who was killing the bosses of New York City's Nightside community. Her persistent poking around provoked the culprit to send seven of his shape-shifting tiger minions to her apartment to assassinate Taine and her humongous partner Ape Largo. thumb Six of the seven tiger like shape-shifters were slain, but a seventh gave up the name of their boss, in exchange for his life. He revealed to Taine and Largo that he had been contracted by Nomura and his partner Osato, who were members of the Black Dragons Society. Largo revealed that he had encountered the Black Dragon while on a mission in Chicago with Taine's brother. He explained that the Black Dragons were a Japanese secret society formed at the beginning of the 20th century. They were the ones behind the expansionist policies that led to Japan's entry into the second world war. After the war a bunch of them founded the Yakuza, the Japanese version of the Mafia.
Taine tried to contact Arlen Cyrus leader of the Others, to warn him of the Black Dragon's murders, but was only able to reach his henchman Phil the Snake, who informed her that they were aware of the murders and believe that Benedict and the Vampires were behind the murders. Taine and Largo made a special the club ran by Cyrus. Phil informed them that Cyrus would speak to them after he welcomed the crowd of Others. The Others was a race coexisting with mankind, sharing the globe since the immemorial. They appeared normal acted normal, seemed normal, but they were not normal at all. The others were creatures of the night. They possessed incredible powers, supernatural powers, their passions were darker and their cravings were inhuman, for they were Werewolves creatures of the Nightside. While addressing his patrons Cyrus was attacked by the huge worms of the Earth, who were controlled by the Little People. Sal immediately took control over the Others as both Cyrus and Phil the Snake were apparently killed by the worms.
Puzzled by all the killings Taine returned to the Nightmare House the home of the vampire like creatures that the inhabited the shadow lands between the Sunset and Sunrise, Taine expected to see a huge crowd in front of the club, although witnessed an empty Nightmare House, which was closed and the vampire boss Benedict was dead. To Taine's surprise the attacker was still on the premises. He revealed himself as Risso, the assistant to Simon Benedict, and that he was now taking over. Taine was trapped, unarmed and in his way, knowing that a vampire possesses ten times the strength of mortal beings from the dayside, conventional wisdom says an ordinary human can not defeat a vampire, but Taine practiced Capoeira. A high-speed fighting technique developed in Brazil, it combined martial arts with dance, acrobatics, and ritual. Using this technique and a wrestling move that was once known as the swinging neck breaker, which was known to snap a man's spine in an instant. The only problem Risso was no ordinary man, and broken bones never stopped a vampire. The resourceful Taine rammed her spiked heel into the heart of Risso, ending his life.
