[1] Middle-aged man Mike Raglan specializes in paranormal investigations (and normally debunking the phenomena) has received urgent calls and mail from an old friend of his, Erik Hokart.

He was investigating a mountainous area in the Southwest, intending to build a secluded home on top of a mesa around which rumors had long swirled.

A man breaks into his room to try to steal the package and is chased off with an Eric Ambler book and a threat from a .357 Magnum.

The first night on the mesa, glowing lines appear on the blueprint of a kiva (a room used for religious rituals) attached to the ruins of the house Hokart was using as a makeshift shelter.

Hokart is a little perturbed when the glowing lines turn out to be correct, and he begins to excavate the underground kiva even though it looks to have been deliberately buried.

Afraid, Hokart begins to leave; Chief mistakes his abrupt movements for an intention to attack the kiva and plunges through the window and into a far invisible distance through to an alternate dimension.

As Hokart resolved to leave now that his dog had been returned, he is confronted by a raven-haired ivory-skinned woman who orders him to accompany her back through the portal in the kiva.

At the designated place, Raglan is frightened off by the presence of a squad of investigating Shibalban soldiers, "the Varanel, the Night Guards of Shibalba".

Raglan rendezvouses with Tazzoc in his archives, located within the trap-filled citadel the Hand lives in and where Hokart is presumably being held, the Forbidden.