Almost 20 years earlier, two gunmen entered the diner where Opal worked and opened fire, wounding both Wyatt and Opal, who was pregnant with their son, Adam. In the present, 19-year-old Adam has the misfortune to be picked up after his car runs out of gas by 24-year-old Vera Coffey, who's stolen the Tartarus Stone, reputed to be a kind of compass that can point the way to hell. The victim of the theft, Dr. Horus Whiteside, who believes himself to be part of a murderous cult known as the Pitch, holds nothing back in his efforts to recover it.