An ordinary private eye finds himself on a twisting, turning roller-coaster ride to hell when he enters the nightmarish world of a powerful, evil sorcerer masquerading as a sleight-of-hand magician and the murderous cultists that surround him. The shamus, Harry D'Amour, is based in New York, but all the trouble begins when he heads for Los Angeles to work on a case and finds himself involved with the worshipers who desire to reincarnate their evil master Nix, who was killed by the sorcerer Philip Swann, a former student of Nix. Swann makes his living as an illusionist whose tricks are anything but. Swann has Nix's corpse in his possession, but he refuses to divulge its whereabouts to the other angry cultists who now conspire to kill him. Philip's wife Dorthea fears for her husband and has hired D'Amour to guard him. Before Harry can help Philip, the magician ends up impaled by his own magical swords during a performance. Now Dorthea's life is endangered and D'Amour must simultaneously protect her and solve the mystery of the apparently late Nix.