Pope Pious is not whom he appears to be. He is traveling from Switzerland to a remote orphanage in Brazil under an assumed name-because the church hierarchy in South America wants him gone. But someone even more important has given him this assignment. Odessa is in love with an admiral. His ships, far off the coast of Alaska, fly no flag. Now he has asked her to go in his place-to a Brazilian orphanage they once visited together. The children there are dying. She takes a handwritten list of names he passes to her. "Oh, my God!" Odessa whispers, as she reads the names. "I know what you want me to do!" Natavia has just finished the Christmas Eve service for eight-thousand people at her Colorado church. They've all left. She's alone. She sits quietly in the senior pastor's office, handling the knife as she decides whether to end her life-and the fraud it has been. On the frozen pond outside her office, she sees a girl skating. The girl looks very much like Julie, her daughter. But Julie died eight years ago. The supernatural has invaded our world. Will technology give us control over the veil of eternity?