
A scientific expedition is launched westward to explore beneath the Pacific Ocean floor, both to catalog the riches there and to learn how life could develop in the sunless abyss. Nations, armies, religions, and industries rush to colonize and exploit the subterranean frontier.

With all of Hell's precious resources and territories to be won, a global race ensues. So begins mankind's realization that the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth riddling the continents and seabeds, one inhabited by brutish creatures who resemble the devils and gargoyles of legend. When his lover disappears, Ike pursues her into the depths of the earth.In a leper colony bordering the Kalahari Desert, a nun and linguist named Ali von Schade unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old.In Bosnia, Major Elias Branch crash-lands his gunship near a mass grave and is swarmed by pale cannibals terrified of light. In Tibet, while guiding trekkers to a holy mountain, Ike Crockett discovers a bottomless cave. When his lover disappears, Ike pursues her into the depths of the earth.In a leper colony bordering the Kalahari Desert, a nun and linguist. One thing is certain: Miles inside the earth, evil is very much alive.Hell exists. But in the dark underground, as humanity falls away from them, the scientists and mercenaries find themselves prey not only to the savage creatures, but also to their own treachery, mutiny, and greed.

So begins mankind’s most shocking realization: the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth populated by another race of beings. In Bosnia, something has been feeding upon the dead in a mass grave. In the Kalahari Desert, a nun unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old. In a cave in the Himalayas, a guide discovers a self-mutilated body with a warning: Satan exists.

And they are waiting for us to find them.
