Visiting American journalist Johnson finds more in Guatemala than he's bargained for. His reporter contact is missing and nobody's looking for him; his first assignment is to meet with priest Pupo, so fevered with the advent of Satan that he clobbers an altar boy he fears is possessed; but there's also love, in the form of nurse Arloa Reston but who is she meeting in the jungle? Cosmic discussions of good and evil, with Pupo and a nihilistic colleague, turn into a battle for survival with the still-lurking forces of repression.