Sir Charles Augustus Shelmadine was an autocrat. He ruled his village with a firm but kindly hand - instructing his tenants on their crops, their children and their love affairs. When he died and the new Squire came, the village stirred uneasily. For the new Squire had strange ideas - and even stranger friends - people like Mr. Mundford who never seemed to grow any older and whose name was linked with the terrible Hell Fire Club. Mr. Mundford was interested in too many things that should not have concerned him...like the ruins of the old Roman temple where the rites of Mithras had once been enacted...and in the silent, amber-eyed young woman called Damask Greenaway. Damask was the daughter of a Bible-thumping Christian. But when she lost the love of her life, she turned against all she had been raised to believe and a strange power possessed her; a power to make people do what she pleased. It was this power that Mr. Mundford was hoping to harness on that most powerful of nights: All Hallow's Eve.
