The Shadowman carries the responsibility and duty of protecting the living world from the dark parallel world of the Deadside. Jack Boniface has carried that burden, but now he is gone, murdered by the demented Tommy Lee Bones and his Dead Men who have slipped through from the Deadside to New Orleans. To stop them someone else must take up the mantle of Shadowman and send them back. Nettie, a voodoo priestess, and her Deadside spy Jaunty believe that person may be Zero, a contract killer with a mysterious past.
While Shadowman comes face to face with the deadly killers of the sorcerous Societe at the birthday part of Judge Napoleon, Nettie makes a dangerous wager with the voodoo loa Baron Samedi.