Once a warning whispered to bad children, the Black Bishop is all too real. With armies of Black Monks to seek out new recruits and a select coterie of self-amputeed nuns, his power is spreading like a plague, both in the real world and in the astral plain.

The great windmills on the plains of Palm Springs are now home to the crucified; I-10 has been shut down and is used as an asphalt strip where 'the staked' live their last joyous hours in a chrysalises of pain; and in Cathedral City cutters try and outdo themselves, slashing and cutting into their skin in epic contests against each other.

The problem is that these people aren't being forced to do these things... they beg to do it… they ache to do it…

And things are only getting worse.