When 17-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, she's trying
to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she
takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway
system. But there's something eerily beguiling about Val's new friends.When 17-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, she's trying
to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she
takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway
system. But there's something eerily beguiling about Val's new friends.
Impulsive Lolli talks of monsters in the subway tunnels they call home and
shoots up a shimmery amber-coloured powder that makes the shadows around her
dance. Severe Luis claims he can make deals with creatures that no one else can
see. And then there's Luis's brother, Dave, who makes the mistake of letting
Val tag along as he makes a delivery to a woman who turns out to have goat
hooves instead of feet. When a bewildered Val allows Lolli to talk her into
tracking down the hidden lair of the creature for whom Luis and Dave have been
working, Val finds herself bound into service by a troll named Ravus. He is as
hideous as he is honourable, and as Val grows to know him, she finds herself
torn between affection for him - and fear of what her new friends are becoming
because of him.
