Amongst towering mountains of trash in the backstreets of Lima, three young boys are trying to raise an ancient demon. They don't think their incantation has worked; but that night a teenage drugrunner is gunned down across their makeshift altar. As his killers walk away, his body stirs. Not because it still contains a spark of life. But because something is stirring beneath it...Port Callao. The MV Lysicrates, a three-quarter-mile long supertanker, is being loaded with hundreds of tonnes of trash. Esther Mulholland, a young American anthropology student, has missed the boat she should have been on and is hitching a ride back to Texas. It should have been a routine run for the captain and his hungover second officer, Matthew Cotton. But as soon are they put out to sea, even the rats are panicking. They should have paid more attention to the trash.