Abstract

James Thunderstorm, a Blackfoot Native from Northern Ontario, travels to Montreal to pursue a college education. His girlfriend Madeline Swift doesn't want him to leave, citing her clairvoyant grandmother Ruth's prediction that James will die a horrible death in the city. Ignoring the warning, James arrives in Montreal. Once acclimated to the city, he becomes involved with a fellow student named Erica Frost. Then one night in Chinatown with his friends, James takes a hit of a mystery drug that replicates a near-death experience. Weeks later, he suffers nightmare flashbacks, particularly the recurring image of a demon. This image is used in the creation of a Halloween effigy by James and his friends at a party. Soon after, everyone involved in this creation suffers varying degrees of bad luck--some of it incidental, some of it fatal. James discovers that one of his friends is dealing out the near-death drug, infringing on the territory of criminal gangs in the process. James is dragged into the conflict against his will. He doesn't realize that the drug has caused a dangerous side-effect in his body. The visions he experienced--stemming from a previous life, according to a psychic--might manifest themselves in reality. Threatened by both the criminal underworld and an ancient spirit world, James is forced to confront it all.