"Teresa Noncoire, Tess to her friends and fans, was a successful fantasy writer, a profession anyone who'd ever attended a science fiction, fantasy, or gaming convention wished could be theirs. Tess had worked hard to get where she was, and now she was on the road much of the time promoting her books and appearing at cons across the country. But ever since she'd lost her husband Dill in a tragic fire, it just hadn't felt the same." "Then, not long after Dill's death, Tess' life took an entirely unexpected turn. She fell ill with a strange and potentially deadly virus. In her delirium she somehow managed to find her way to the one place where she could receive help - the hidden retreat of the Sisterhood of the Celestial Blade Warriors. The Sisters saved Tess' life and began to teacher her the martial arts they used to fight demons that sought entrance to the world from other dimensions. When the moment arrives for her to bond with an imp, she found herself partnered with a strange little creature called Scrap, who hardly seemed big enough to defend himself let alone Tess." "However, there was more to Scrap than there appeared to be. Crude, rude, under-sized, and mischievous he might be. But through cunning and perseverance he had not only survived, he'd escaped his own dimension and defeated far larger and more powerful imps to win the right to link up with Tess." "Whether either of them would live through the challenge they were about to face remained to be seen. A ferocious hound was on the loose and had targeted Native American children to attack." "Tess and Scrap had fended him off several times, but in the process others had died or been severely injured, including one of Tess' closest friends. And everywhere she searched for both the hound and a young Native American girl who had vanished, she found she was not the only person following this trail. Two men were intent on solving the mystery of the hound and the child." "As Tess and Scrap pieced together an understanding of the threat that could destroy their world if they could not find the hound and the child in time, the forces of darkness begin to close in on them, to cut them off from their goal."--BOOK JACKET.