A branded man with divine fire he never asked for must question the god who gave it — before the corruption consuming the Southwest consumes him.
The brand burns against Elias Shaw’s chest like a coal that never cools.
Eight years ago, he was taken from the life he knew and marked against his will — a serpentine brand seared into his flesh during a ceremony that fused ancient ritual with corrupted faith. The cult called it divine selection. Elias called it blasphemy. He’s been running ever since.
But the brand has a purpose. Beneath the New Mexico desert, something old and hungry stirs — entities that have fed on corrupted faith for two centuries, growing stronger as the Spanish mission network that once contained them crumbled to dust.
With federal cavalry closing in, three competing factions converging on the same ridge, and an ancient intelligence trying to corrupt the one man capable of stopping it, Elias Shaw has one week to decide what he truly believes about divine fire — and whether he’s willing to use it.
A man across the post-Civil War American Southwest, carrying divine fire he never asked for — and every reason to question the god who gave it.
Set in 1880s New Mexico Territory. Elias Shaw confronts the cult that branded him, and the ancient force the brand was built to contain.
Order NowClara Vale — operative code name: The Huntress — joins Elias Shaw as co-lead in a new investigation that carries the series to Southern California, 1881. The Veiled Hand’s reach extends further than either of them imagined.
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