Newspaper columnist Selby Coates plans to spend his retirement watching vintage sci-fi and horror flicks with his one-eyed cat Pancake and having an occasional drink with friends.

Then he gets struck down by the Number Seven midtown bus.

Halfway through Selby's final heartbeat, a mysterious woman called Laylah brings him back from the edge of death. Selby soon learns that this strange person has saved his life so he can serve as her pawn in a conflict with her equally uncanny sister, Doma.

Who — or what — are Laylah and Doma, and what do they have to do with Selby's father, who disappeared more than fifty years ago? What secrets from Selby's past threaten to destroy his future? With the help of friends like glamorous bartender Royal Freeborn, schoolteacher Barry Ratliffe, and the sinister Colonel Cabrera-López, Selby intends to find out, even if it kills him.

Again.