Adrian and his hotshot brother Ray work for Brigade One, in the walled-off city of Fortune on the outskirts of the Gore Point. Like their father before them, it's the Porters' job to protect citizens from the creatures that emerge from rifts opening inside the dead zone.
Nobody knows what the Gore Point is or where it came from. It cannot be eradicated. It cannot be closed. The Brigades can only offer triage. Demons have always come through ... and the only solution is to slaughter them when they do.
These days, few people die from the spawn that infiltrate Fortune from its rotted middle ... though as children, Ray and Adrian vividly remember watching their father do exactly that. But something has always struck intellectual Adrian as wrong about that day. The thing that killed their father (an enormous red beast called a hellbringer) wasn't supposed to be there. Adrian suspects there's something beneath the simplicity of modern riftfare, but bullheaded, showboating Ray thinks he's crazy.
Until one day, when the rifts suddenly and inexplicably change. It starts to look like Hell has been sandbagging to lull us into complacence ... with help from a saboteur on the inside.
Johnny B. Truant is the bestselling author of Fat Vampire, adapted by the SyFy network as Reginald the Vampire. His other books include Pretty Killer, Pattern Black, Invasion, The Beam, Dead City, Unicorn Western, and over 100 other titles across many genres.
Originally from Ohio, Johnny and his family now live in Austin, Texas where he's finally surrounded by creative types as weird as he is.