Without Coyote's cryptic guidance, and entangled in the disaster she calls a love life, Joanne finds herself the last one standing as a magical illness sweeps the Seattle police force, bringing down the people around her. As her friends fall to the 'Blue Flu, ' Joanne's boss, Morrison-who has believed in her when she didn't and who is definitely not in any way part of that emotional train wreck she's struggling with-is taking Joanne's concerns less seriously than she expects him to...just when she'd started to believe in herself.

Determined to prove herself, and certain she can help where medical science can't, Joanne steps up-but as it turns out, medical science really disapproves of shamans banging around in hospital rooms. Rejected by the system, caught in an ever-tightening knot between her desperate search for Coyote and a romance gone incredibly wrong, Joanne plunges between the ordinary, every-day 'Middle World' and the mystically powerful Lower World in search of the sickness's source.

But when she finally discovers the cause, Joanne must make a decision that will alter how she approaches shamanism-and perhaps her future with Captain Morrison-forever...