The Blood Runners are an ancient culture, a separate branch of humanity. Possessors of occult knowledge and power, isolated by their own choosing in the forbidden Obeah system, they conduct horrific experiments exploring the nature of suffering, death and immortality. And the person Owen Deathstalker cares for most has fallen into their aberrant clutches. But Owen''s Madness Maze-given powers appear to have abandoned him after the exhausting battle of Lachrymae Christi. In a stolen starship, the Deathstalker races against time on a desperate mission that is equal parts rescue and suicide.