As the newly appointed sheriff of Edinburgh, budding author Walter Scott expects his job to be a simple one. Old buildings torn down in favor of new, and prosperity among the citizenry make the future seem bright and peaceful. But no modern meddling can bury evil forever. Soon after he takes office, Scott witnesses a grisly discovery. Bones, bodies, and what is worse, parts of bodies are found on the banks of the half-frozen loch. At first the new sheriff assumes that the horror is related to the work of grave robbers. Then living women begin to go missing. The town's people take little notice - these women are gipsies, with no settled kin to worry after them. But a young gipsy woman named Midge Margret soon makes the vanishings the talk of the town, with her tale of a mysterious black coach seen traveling the snow-shrouded forest. When it appears, women disappear. Scott's writer's mind is haunted by the mystery, so when the lovely gipsy asks for his help, he offers it willingly. The solution, he will find, is perilously close to hand. And he will also find that there is a method to the madness behind the killings - a method forged by the blackest of magic...