Chapter-by-Chapter Summary
Prologue: This is the presentation of a dream-state in which ADAM—blind, naked, and defenseless—stumbles to the edge of a murmuring brook and falls fast asleep. The scene shifts to a man in the present day waking with the words of his dream still echoing in his head. He finally gets out of bed and writes what he can remember about his dream in a journal. He needs to find some way to understand why the dreams keep happening and what in God’s name they have to do with him.
Chapter 1: In the laboratory of a hospital, a technician has just received the DNA results of a test he was ordered to run by a mysterious, silver-eyed man bearing the hospital administrator’s personal seal. He quickly calls the findings in to the man and is commanded to send the proof to the front desk in a sealed envelope. Nine floors above in the maternity ward, men in black suits attempt to steal a newborn infant named MARA from her mother’s arms, but the baby is taken instead by a pair of men in trench coats. Two of the black suits pursue the trench coats as the third stops in the doorway to attend to the distraught mother. She begs him to find her baby and he assures her that all will be made right. Then he withdraws a 9mm from his coat and shoots her in the forehead. Outside, the two in trench coats have made it to a clearing on the other side of the parking lot:
Racing through the parking lot, the baby robbers far outmaneuvered their two assailants as they wove around the parked cars and made their way to the clearing on the other side. Realizing their disadvantage, the black suits halted and withdrew their pistols. Bullets exploded into the night, tearing through the mist. But the pair with the baby was undaunted. Once at the grassy edge of the clearing, their bodies lurched forward as they began to morph into wolves. Now on four legs, their claws dug into the cold earth, propelling them on with such force that to be pierced by the futile intentions of a bullet was almost comical.
The wolf in the lead gripped the swaddled package between his fangs, careful not to harm the newborn life within, and disappeared into the night. Halfway across the clearing, the other stopped and threw back his feral head in a terrifying howl, as if to mock the two still in the parking lot firing wildly at targets they could no longer see.
Chapter 2: The main character, ANDREW, has just finished a bowl of Cheerios and a National Geographic article on strange happenings in Brazil. Unimpressed and somewhat amused, he heads to the foyer to get his coat. But on the way, a sudden, intense headache drives him into the cushions of the couch, and he experiences a vision of a baby being carried away by wolves.
Chapter 3: Reverend Victor M. WOOLGRAB is introduced as the glitzy shepherd of the ultra-modern New Life Evangelical Church. The greasy born-again is ushered to a limousine idling in the parking lot on a rainy night during the witching hour in order to meet with a stranger masked in the darkness of the cabin. After subtly insulting the eager minister, the stranger promises WOOLGRAB an ironclad kingdom, then—
The Reverend felt a hand on his shoulder, heavy and clamping, then his blood slowed and the sound of his heart beat vaguely in his ears. He was getting drowsy, unable to resist the complete feeling of relaxation. And the orders reverberated in his brain: Seven days…nine o’clock flight to Rome…car waiting with everything needed to do it…in and out…Swiss bank account…iron-clad kingdom….
Chapter 4: From the pulpit of New Life Evangelical Church, WOOLGRAB is hotly absorbed in a tirade about the “devil,” who he suggests is the Pope of the Catholic Church. His entranced flock clutches at their hearts, calls out in praise to their powerful shepherd, and damns the blasphemers that WOOLGRAB emphatically names. Meanwhile, outside O’Neill Library on the campus of Boston College, ANDREW listens to the prophetic words of a vagrant that has stumbled into the square. When he and the old man finally make eye contact for an unsettling moment, ANDREW believes that the vagrant mouths the words, You will believe. Unnerved, ANDREW makes his way to his morning class.
Chapter 5: It is learned that ANDREW is a professor of comparative religious studies at Boston College. He begins to deliver the last lecture of the spring semester to his graduate students, dealing with what he calls “precipitating events.” After offering the students some examples of precipitating events, he asks the bombshell question: What is the precipitating event that caused mankind to create God? Baffled, only a single student dares to claim that the professor has the notion backwards. Crushing the student’s apparent ignorance of what he believes is truth, ANDREW soon hurries out of the lecture hall at the conclusion of the class, unwilling to entertain the groupies heading for the podium with dozens of questions.
Chapter 6: MARA is nine-years-old and with her silver-eyed stepfather at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. She has grown into a Middle Eastern beauty with long black hair and brilliant green eyes. The two soon leave the castle and drive to their private jet waiting on a reserved airstrip. As her father turns the Audi onto the asphalt, his head slams into the headrest and blood showers the windshield. MARA screams as the car careens across the runway and smashes into a hanger. The police arrive to find the car engulfed in flames. Forty minutes later two steaming bodies are pulled from the wreckage. But miles away, MARA has already been carried onto a different private jet that now soars high above Europe.
Chapter 7: ANDREW returns to his apartment later that night and struggles with the mixed emotions of the morning’s lecture. He is, and always has been, obsessed with finding a unified theory of religion. He believes that somewhere there is evidence, or at least insight into the ultimate truth of the universe and all of existence. In the throes of another headache, he sits in his recliner and falls asleep. He finds himself having a surreal conversation with a voice in his head calling itself MANTRELLA. He is given a series of names by which MANTRELLA is also known then abruptly awakes. He soon realizes that not only has he experienced another strange dream, but also that this time while sleeping he automatically recorded the list of names on a legal pad.
Chapter 8: MARA is living in Sri Lanka. She has collapsed on her bed with her nose bleeding, body wracked in pain, and brain ravaged by a migraine. She has a vision of an angel impregnating Mary then the girl’s limp body is found by a farmhand in an Indiana crop circle. MARA’s silver-eyed grandfather arrives and instructs the farmhand to bring her up to the house.
Chapter 9: ELI, ANDREW’s newly married ex-roommate, has revealed to his best friend the necessity for ANDREW, now living alone, to get a dog. At first, ANDREW refuses the idea, but is then reluctantly ushered away to a Salem animal shelter where he adopts a brown and white wolfhound that he names NEVYN. Later, ANDREW suddenly awakes from a dream and discovers that he has automatically written again, this time two separate pieces of conversation. One conversation deals with someone reprimanding “Blue Eyes” for impregnating a virgin girl. The other involves MANTRELLA speaking to ADAM about a woman and the Awakening. The conversation ends with the words: Andrew…prepare for Rome!
Chapter 10: It is MARA’s eighteen birthday party on an Indiana farm, and her silver-eyed grandfather has just arrived with a present that he playfully refuses to give her. Later, when all the guests have left, she begs the old man for the present and he finally gives in, telling her to take the box up to her bedroom to open it. She complies and races upstairs, where she collapses again and disappears.
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