The two of them met one misty February morning just before dawn, underneath Albert Bridge on the banks of the Thames in London, where they witnessed an act of terrible ferocity: the murder of Maurice Gibbons, a Ministry of Defence civil servant, by a giant of a man whose face seemed to melt and change. Whatever it became was too awful for their minds to comprehend and they both fell unconscious.

Over the following days, the repressed memory of the sight assailed their subconscious, driving them to the edge of despair, forcing them to join forces to uncover the truth of what they had seen. And what they found when they probed into the hidden areas of their minds was at first too much to believe: it appeared that the figure had transformed into a monstrous, demonic being. Yet when they encountered Kraicow, an elderly, bedridden artist, their worst fears were confirmed, for Kraicow, too, had seen the creature.

During this period of personal upheaval, the world seemed to have been turned on its head. From all over the country came reports of bizarre supernatural acts, spontaneous miracles, wonders and terrors, discounted or jeered at by the cynical media. If only we all could have recognized those first signs then, we might have been able to prepare ourselves for what was to come. The culmination of this outbreak of the unknown, for Church at least, was the manifestation late one night of his dead girlfriend's spirit.

It was a turning point for this young man who was filled with so much darkness: a chance, possibly, to find the answer to all the questions that had tormented him. When he received a message over the Internet with a cryptic comment about "Marianne" from a woman purporting to have an insight into the strange events, he felt driven to investigate further. And so the external crisis and his own personal troubles converged.