The Sacrament, a female spirit from the beginning of time, has escaped the Citadel and the Sancti are dead with the exception of one. A strange disease, a blight, has taken hold, creating boils that cover the one remaining Sancti. Soon after, the disease spreads to the Citadel as well as to their beloved garden. Trees that have withstood the centuries now grow withered. Without the Sacrament the Citadel lies fallow, the people that serve it, confused. One member sees the future and assists in the restoration of the Sacrament another sees darkness and is determined to bring the ancient spirit back to the Citadel.
Will Rabjohns has everything. He's handsome, he's rich, and he's revered as the world's greatest wildlife photographer. He's also a haunted man, driven to risk his life for his art - to capture the raw tragedy of the wild, the beauty of nature's violence. After a near fatal encounter with a polar bear, he lies in a coma. There he must relive a central childhood memory: a meeting with ancient and terrible forces which revealed to him the mystery at the heart of nature. and he realizes that if he awakes, he must confront the darkness of his past and wage a war
Back in Rome after their dramatic adventures in Venice, Costa, Peroni and Leo Falcone are rebuilding their lives. But they team up once again when faced with the sudden appearance of fresh bloodstains on a missing young boy's T-shirt in a small museum exhibit displaying supposed evidence of communication from souls in Purgatory. Soon they find themselves embroiled in a mystery involving both the ancient cult of Mithras and a sinister ossuary, the House of Bones.
