While excavating for a new sewage treatment plant, Jimmy Quayle discovers a large, curved object buried in the rock. It looks like plastic, but it wasn't buried intentionally; it had lain there while the sediments had formed into rock around it, nearly 400 million years ago. Not only that, the object emits a strange 'dark light' during the day, and glows red at night.

'The Pod' as the object becomes known, draws crowds from around the world. To the media, it is anything from an atomic bomb planted by Russia to the gathering of armies for the end of times battle between good and evil. Detective Chief Inspector Angus Slooth is charged with crowd control at the dig. To him, the pod is a pain in the chest, and one that will prove his downfall.

Meanwhile, Sparky, the life-partner of DI Sarah Flemons, is tasked with protecting the most obnoxious young lady he has ever had the misfortune to meet. But there's more to Jo Kennaugh than meets the eye. A lot more – as Sparky soon discovers – and it will eventually threaten both their lives.

While naked Wiccans run amok in the ancient Viking castle, and while Elvis and Ozzie are picking fights with the wrong people, DI Sarah Flemons knows something that she's not prepared to share. Not even with her best friend, Penny Chakyar. It's too important for sharing. Except, maybe, with a chosen few who are already bearers.