Rose MacBride, a discredited photojournalist, returns to the small country town of her birth to find that her beloved childhood friend, Hannah, has become part of a religious cult lead by her erratic, charismatic brother, Nicky ‘Raphael’ Carver. As MacBride and a companion, Harvey Marshall, investigate the cult, Carl Lucas, an adolescent protégé of MacBride becomes drawn further into the danger zone around Raphael.