When John Hardin's brother, a priest, apparently commits suicide, he goes to his brother's parish in Philadelphia to find out the truth of what happened. The events of the suicide are revealed to him by the pastor and by a possessed man through a series of short stories. Painted Demons presents a series of violent confrontations between people and elements they see as evil. The reader may not always agree with those judgments; where a character sees evil, the reader may see justice, sickness or blind authority. Before that realization, however, the reader must often wait to see from which character or source the horror will come. In each case, normal people are introduced leading average lives; but their existence becomes threatened by something or someone they have previously known as sane and safe: an elevator, a city bus, a bit of trivia, a parent, a spouse. The stories always encase a vein of normalcy. Character and relationships become the backbone of each story and contrast with the fast plot, violence, sex and horror which develop to drive each story to its climax.