Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected for ascension. Someone or something is stealing them and no one knows where they are going, or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else. He's still trapped in the body of a fourteen-inch-tall "meat puppet" waiting for his Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey, to find him a suitable new body to play host.

To get to the bottom of this abomination, a motley crew of heroes will band together: the seven-foot-tall death merchant Minty Fresh; intrepid grandmother-nannies, Mrs. Ling and Mrs. Korjev; retired policeman-turned-bookseller Alphonse Rivera; the Emperor of San Francisco and his dogs, Bummer and Lazarus; and Lily, the former Goth-girl. Now, if only they can get little Sophie to stop babbling about the coming battle for the very soul of humankind as she plays with her two pony-sized hellhounds . . .