Herald Childe continues what started out as a murder case—a very gruesome one, admittedly—but which has now become a struggle against the strange and deadly beings who have taken his wife, who threaten his manhood and who threaten mankind itself. His seems a hopeless quest. He is fighting not people but inhuman, unhuman monsters from another universe. They take grotesque physical forms, they recklessly indulge cruel whims—and they are utterly sex-crazed. There's Vivienne—amazingly beautiful—who used to be Joan of Arc. But she has false teeth and she comes, literally, to pieces. Her lover is a snake-like horror whose needle teeth drip aphrodisiac venom. There's Count Igescu, a real live vampire. And these three are surrounded by a crowd of ghastly aliens, grisly characters in a science fiction nightmare.

But for Childe there is no waking up. It is no bad dream. Though no one else will believe him, he knows this is for real...