Bloodline — David R. Lewis

This story continues with Joseph Casey, the central character from Bloodtrail. Casey, now working with an investigative laboratory, spearheads a team expedition into the African rainforest in search of the origins of the Nosferati virus in an attempt to isolate a healing mechanism contained in the twelve strands of DNA carried by those few individuals who survive death from the viral infection and become addicted to human blood. While in the Congo, Casey and his party deal with river pirates, discover a secondary blood-driven civilization powered by our closest simian relatives, and are present at the death of the oldest sentient being to have ever lived, an ancient woman born during the Bronze Age. Returning home, he must then attempt to rescue his son, who has been lured away to a Nosferati breeding facility in southern Mexico.

From the depths of the Salonga River Basin near The Great Rift in Central Africa, to the Mountains of Colorado, to easy pickings among the destitute and homeless of sprawling Mexico City, Bloodline is a novel of brutality, love, need, and humanity among the un-human. Featured is the infant Hope, torn from her mother's womb in Bloodtrail, as she deals with becoming a woman and a Nosferati.