"The universe requires sacrifice. It always has, and it always will, because the universe is sacramental." Broken and scattered, the survivors of the strange events in the Taklamakan Desert are trying to make sense of what happened while the rest of the world tries to recover its balance by scapegoating the artilects. The Process--an ancient, alchemical plan to transform human consciousness--goes far deeper than anyone thought, and only the artificial magnetic shield developed by astrophysicist Sarah Baumgartner is preventing the newly transhuman Ralph Channing from fulfilling it. The Lucifer Particles, a mysterious high-energy flux that seems to originate from beyond spacetime itself, may hold the answers, but the path to understanding leads through the strange, sub-quantum world of the Holomovement, guarded by the secretive scientific cult known as the Divers. And the price of understanding might be Sarah's soul itself. In Rome, the Princes of the Church converge to elect a new Pope. Cardinal Marco Leone does everything in his power to stop the rise of his rival, the worldly and cunning Leo Pensabene, while Father Gabriel Serafian, an exorcist and former neuroscientist, is drawn even deeper into a conspiracy of global--and possibly supernatural--dimensions. Confusion reigns. New discoveries threaten the very foundations of both science and faith. A cloud of unknowing has descended upon the world. Meanwhile, visions of a young Chinese girl who died in the concentration camps decades ago point to a way forward...