In the stark beauty of a remote desert, a mansion built by a madman rears its impudent architecture like an insult to its surroundings. The estate is called Windcote, "its very name a masquerade," and its master, the odious Raoul Meridian, has invited a group of guests to spend a weekend, over the course of which they will find themselves driven by obsessions and confusions unlike any they've experienced before. Among them is Albert, a disowned scion searching for an identity, and his too-beautiful companion Nadine, who is irresistibly drawn to the desert and the inscrutable vortex of Windcote. Living deep within this world of fevers and failures is the indomitable child Destina, who will lead them into the heart of a mysterious canyon, where desire and cruelty forge an implacable truth.