Rowan Platts is addicted to success. When she's presented with the chance to work on a top secret project fronted by her idol, renowned virologist Dr. Margot Miller, Rowan signs her life away without second thought. The realization she's gotten in over her head comes only after the subject of their study is revealed: a boy with a bad attitude and an uninhibited taste for human blood. He's a medical anomaly. Having the ability to crush metal with his bare hands and hear a heartbeat from across the room, it would make Rowan's career if she was the one to discover what made him so unusual. Easier said than done, with a subject who prefers snapping necks over answering questions.

Sing a song of spiders, a pocket full of flies. Four and twenty naughty boys, baked in a pie. When the pie was opened, the pope began to feast; Wasn't that a dainty dish, to set before a priest? (Anonymous, children's rhyme, sung on streets of Dublin, early 22nd century, origin unknown.) Dublin in the future is like a grey web for orphans Dex, Rachel and Karma. Their only freedom comes from working as time tour guides in the be-movies. Daily shepherding tourists though the past on excursions like Titanic 4D and Roman Holiday. They know they could be working in the Chthonic church-run giant spider silk farms, so things could be much, much worse. Then one day Rachel disappears. The Inquisition take an interest and things get dangerous for Dex and Karma. They find themselves making new friends and new enemies in a underground they never knew existed. Then they uncover an evil plan by the church to ensure eternal obedience that they know they must try and stop before the whole world is devoured.