Three years ago, Heather Kennedy left the Metropolitan police under a shadow that has followed her ever since. Now she has been called in to advise on a supposed burglary in the now-defunct British Museum reading room. Kennedy soon establishes that rather than steal anything, someone has broken into the stacks in order to photograph pages from books about Johann Toller, a crazed prophet of 17th century Europe. Toller believed that the end of days was at hand, and he made a number of prophecies relating to the Apocalypse and the events that would precede it. None of them came true.
Until now.
One after another, the grotesque signs and wonders Toller predicted come to pass, no matter how unlikely they seem. The river Rhine runs bright red, the towers of London bow to kiss the ground, and an angel with a fiery sword is seen over Jerusalem. With the help of a nineteen-year-old girl from a secretive tribe and ex-mercenary Leo Tillman, Kennedy must work to stop the next prophecy coming true - the destruction of an unnamed city...