Mestaclocan

Do other creatures walk this earth beyond the veil of human awareness? Do they even now walk among us? Or even prey upon us?

Far more practical considerations fill San Francisco Police Detective MARTY O’BANNON’s brain as he stares down at the body of a thirty-something attractive redhead crumpled up against the concrete wall of a bunker at the Presidio in San Francisco. He can see without even bending over that her throat has a large gash. That makes three: three bodies with the same wound in the last 18 days. His friend ZACK TOLLIVER, an FBI Agent in Arizona has taken an interest in the case. O'Bannon gives him an early call.

Zack is instantly awake. Another victim with her throat ripped open means that the killer he pursued in vain in Los Angeles is now in San Francisco. And this monster won't stop killing until someone stops him.

Zack’s wife LIBBY WHITESTONE won’t be happy if he goes off to San Francisco. And neither will LUKE FORRESTER, his supervisor at the Tuba City, Arizona, FBI office. But that can’t be helped. This killer must be stopped at all cost.

In the time it takes to down a cup of coffee in Julia's Diner, Zack’s friend and Navajo hunting guide EAGLE FEATHER agrees to go with him. He knows it will require both of them to stop this killer.

JIM SNYDER, veteran reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, knows this too. He has seen that the killings occur every nine days like clockwork. There is always one wound, never any witnesses and no evidence is ever left at the scene. Snyder launches his own investigation, enlisting the aid of SUSAN APGAR, Anthropology Chair at UC Berkeley. They begin to suspect what Zack and Eagle Feather already know - that the killer they seek isn’t any ordinary human being.

Zack and Eagle Feather are following their own clues and suspect that the killer may be using help to set up these killings. Witnesses describe a woman with the last victim just before he disappeared. But when they locate her it is too late; she is lying on the sidewalk with a bullet in the brain.

The men investigate her previous activities and learn that she has been to confession at the Star of the Sea Parish. They visit the church and discover that the priest has disappeared and an imposter has taken his place. But by the time they arrive, he is gone. The pace of the investigation increases rapidly now. All the investigators compare notes, a likeness of the killer is drawn and distributed, and the search is on.

It is now the ninth day since the last murder and the killer has not yet been found. A subterfuge draws Snyder and Susan Apgar to a lonely and dark Lands End Park for a rendezvous. Zack, O'Bannon, and Eagle Feather conclude independently that the killer has gone to the park to take refuge. Pursuers and potential victims all converge. And when the moon rises and the fog wisps across the headland, the predator hunts one more time.