A woman lighted a cigarette, puffed it a few times, and began to scream, to tear her clothes from her body. Her head twisted back between her shoulders and she died a horrible convulsive death-death from tobacco smoke! The lascivious cultist, Deacon Coslin, had seen his mad prophecy fulfilled... for already other smokers, everywhere throughout the land, were dying by tens of thousands! With Richard Wentworth's beloved Nita in the power of the enemy, facing an unspeakable death; with his faithful servants drugged and out of the battle; with the police hounding hint and the arch-criminal foreseeing every strategy, how can the Spider combat the overwhelming odds aligned against him? How can he save his compatriots from the Red Death Rain-save the land he loves from domination by an ambition-twisted brain?