For a man who recently met Death - and Death's killer - a few months of normal life are more than James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, can handle.

So, when Stark and Candy are asked by the Sub Rosa council to investigate the disappearance of a young boy, the request couldn't come at a better time. But their plans change when a dying angel gives Stark a vial of a mysterious black liquid - a potential weapon in the ongoing war between the angels.

And when one of their closest friends is poisoned with the black liquid, Stark and Candy have to go to the only place where they might find a cure: Hell.

But standing in their way are the damned souls who, even after death, still work for the subversive Wormwood. Stark has to find a way to break the stalemate in the angel war, score the Perdition cure for the black poison, and make it back to LA in one piece -where an old enemy waits to finish him once and for all.