Nominated for Best Horror Novel in the 2020 Aurealis Awards! Bi-polar has ruined Detective Jenny Ashton's life, but when she gets the chance to use the disease for good, she takes it, even though it leads her into a world that shouldn't exist, filled with monsters of the very worst kind. Something lurks within the dark alleyways of Parkton, preying upon the Gutterbreed forever trapped there. A naturally evolved predator, one the town itself doesn't want - and one Ashton has already faced before. Byron James knows these alleys and the Darkness they contain. He's spent a lifetime walking them. A lifetime trying to escape. His skin is marked with the passage of his trespass - but he's never encountered anything like this. As Byron guides Ash deeper into insanity on the hunt for a killer, they discover far worse than Albert 'Skinner' Reynolds waiting for them in the dark. A growing nightmare festers in the shadows of Parkton, its madness eager for the real world. Only Ash stands in its way - but is this a battle she's willing to fight?