Hilary Thomas knew terror as a child, but never anything like this. He is hunting her with a sick desire more terrifying than hatred could ever be. And he is in her house again. He is on the stairs, and he can't be stopped. Hilary killed him once and he keeps coming back. Again and again.

Thomas Odd is a fry cook rumored to have the ability to talk to the dead. Odd is pulled inexorably to the sea, to a small California coastal town where nothing is as it seems. Now the forces arrayed against him have both official sanction and an infinitely more sinister authority ... and in this dark night of the soul dawn will come only after the most shattering revelations of all.

There once was a killer who knew the night, its secrets and rhythms. How to hide within its shadows. When to hunt. He roamed from town to town, city to city, choosing his prey for their beauty and innocence. His cruelties were infinite, his humanity long since forfeit. But still...he had not yet discovered how to make his special mark among monsters, how to come fully alive as Death. This is the story of how he learned those things, and of what...

A series of communications from a deranged killer in which he is offered a number of devastating choices and deadlines draws Bill Wile into a confrontation with pure evil as his life becomes a downward spiral into a nightmare in which he must risk everything in a desperate race against time.