Summer in San Francisco. A killer is on the loose. Twelve victims so far. Men, women, children. All ritually disfigured. Scrawled in each victim's blood, a single word: Morningstar. The citizenry is terrified. The police are powerless. And two innocent people suddenly find their lives swept up in a maelstrom of madness and murder. Shelley Masterton -- her dreams invaded by a dead friend, one of the killer's victims - becomes an unwitting recruit in a plan for revenge from beyond the grave. And Donovan Moon, freelance journalist, receives a phone call offering the scoop of a lifetime - Morningstar is on the line and wants to talk. Inexorably drawn into a nightmare of death, destiny and unholy power - the roots of which go far deeper than the recent string of killings - Donovan and Shelley must find the truth amidst a whirlwind of terror, mayhem, and dark desire. Before it finds them...