Despite her refusal to face the truth, some mysterious force makes Sophie leave her lover, Jake, and her secure, normal student life in London for the village of Pendlemere, lurking under the sinister Pendle Hill.
For centuries Pendlemere has been the source of legends of witchcraft, and, with a growing sense of fear, Sophie knows that she has been there before, perhaps in another existence....
In Richmond, Virginia, young lovers are dying. So far, four couples in the area have disappeared, only to be found months later as mutilated corpses. When the daughter of the president's newest drug czar vanishes along with her boyfriend, Dr Kay Scarpetta knows time is short. Following a macabre trail of evidence that ties the present homicides to a grisly crime in the past, Kay must draw upon her own personal resources...