Joanne Walker has accepted her path as a shaman-but she's lost her spirit guide along the way. 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. .

. .