Enlisting the aid of a “haunting agent,” he finds a new residence that has the requisite dark history and terrible secret that makes it appropriate for haunting. Here he meets new spirits who reside in this version of the afterlife, a middle place between life and the ultimate destination.

Against his intentions, Bierce becomes caught up in the unsolved mystery of his new haunt. In partnership with an old friend, a Buddhist priest named “Sid” who has inhabited the spirit world for 25 centuries, he reluctantly involves himself in the matters of still living people. Bierce and his friend also become aware of the presence of mysterious “others” who are spirits who never held human form.