The past never truly dies for men like Dr. Lancaster "Lance" Hawthorne. And when his on again, off again girlfriend of ten years goes missing in Chicago, he is forced to confront his family's insidious past yet again. The scion of one of the original families to settle America, his family had been tasked for one duty in the New World: Protection. And what swims in the deep, dark waters of Lake Michigan is precisely what the Hawthornes are oathbound to slay. Pursued by a shadowy Boston organization with ties to Old Salem Village, harassed by a beautiful corporate headhunter for a mysterious project he isn't interested in, and the subject of a serial killer's obsession, Lance doesn't think things can get any worse, until he confirms what has returned to the waters around the City of Chicago - A creature named Unktehi by the Lakota Sioux when they inhabited the region hundreds of years ago. But they also had another name for the creature: The Devourer of Worlds. The Thing in the Water is the debut novel of Nick Williams, and the first book in the Witch Doctor Chronicles Look for its exciting follow up, The Creatures in the Dark, to learn more about Lance's dark past and the creatures who haunt his nightmares