There are no governments, no rulers, no presidents, no politicians or principalities. Rape, robbery, and murder are no longer just fears in the back of one’s mind but morbid guarantees to those that do not protect themselves accordingly. The only rules are those set forth by those that have the most drugs, and as a result, the most money.

One such man is The Don. A man who controls the mostly dead remains of the graveyard that used to be Vegas. Everything and everyone in the town of ‘Lost Vegas’ is owned by The Don and his men: the psychotic rockabilly punk Viggy, the hulking muscle Butch, and the quiet beautiful man named Angel Eyes. Together these men keep the inhabitants of Lost Vegas controlled with heroine and the threat of an execution order with your name on it. Seemingly the only weakness in The Don’s armor is his wife, Meghan. Beautiful and as majestic to the world now as a cold soda or a warm bath, Meghan is seemingly one of the few untainted and untarnished creatures left in Lost Vegas.

Will Morris is the gardener of The Don’s estate, a handsome and innocent young orphan who is simply trying to survive long enough to earn the money to run away to Missouri where people say that the air is good and the sounds of birds are not just recordings on the old videos. These are the things of Will’s dreams. That is until he sets eyes on Meghan, and she on him.

So sets the scene for the star-crossed love of two people born into a world that has forgotten the meaning of the word. A small piece of paper slipped under a door and sealed with a kiss that reads “Meet Me At The Ruby Slipper”.

A bride dressed in her finest wedding gown in the back of a dimly lit strip club and a suitcase full of stolen cash. A gardener with just the clothes on his back. Together they race through the desert hand in hand towards Missouri, leaving Sin City behind to be together forever.

Until they are run off the dirt road by a black Cadillac and out steps a lover scorned and his men. The two are brutally beaten by The Don and his men and then forced to kneel at the barrel of a gun. The last thing that Will will ever see with his soul intact is the flash of red that exploded from the forehead of Meghan before the deafening sound of thunder that pulled the curtains down on his life echoed through the cascading red hills of the Nevada desert.

Will awakens face down in the sand. A smoking hole occupying the back of his scalp, but besides that no evidence of the events that occurred before he blacked out are visible. Adding to the confusion is the cabin standing against all reason before him, a thick cloud of dark smoke rising from its stack. The door is open. The Gardener stumbles into the house of The Hermit, a shriveled and tired looking old man who might have seen much in his time, but one could not tell with how deep his eyes have sunk back into his skull. He offers Will a seat with the reassuring calm of a grandfather offering the same to his grandchild.

Then the offer comes. The Hermit tells him that Meghan is dead, with the scorpions crawling up and down the very same curves that he once caressed beneath the sheets of his bed. According to The Hermit, The Gardener himself is dead as well, but there is a chance of that changing. IF he says yes that is.

The offer is this: take the lives of 99 evil men so that The Hermit may ‘take what is rightfully’ his and he will give Will back his dearly departed lover good as new. In order to carry out his end of the deal The Hermit promises that he will provide the young man with all the tools necessary. These are the stipulations and these are the rules. There is no negotiation nor is there room to question.

Will agrees. Will is damned.

So begins the story of death, damnation, and morality that is the final days of Will Morris’ soul. For when he awakens Will is less of a man and more of a monster. A monster that cannot step into the sun directly without searing the flesh from his bones and boiling the impossibly stilled blood in his veins. A monster with a hunger for revenge and death that will stop at nothing until its debt is paid in full. A monster that becomes less human by the day, seeming to put a terrible deadline on Will’s contract.