One stormy night archaeologist Candice Armstrong is summoned to the bedside of her old professor, John Masters, who is ill and is asking for her. The dying man begs her, incoherently, to go to his house, mentioning the Star of Babylon and a mysterious key. She is accompanied there by Glen Masters, the professor's estranged son, who is desperate to find out who would want to harm his father. Meanwhile, Philo Thibodeau, maverick member of an ultra-secret sect known as the Alexandrians, has become obsessed with collecting rare religious writings for his own nefarious purposes, in order to hasten the coming of God and the Luminance', a sacred light that has inspired members of the sect through the ages. Candice and Glen who is also an Alexandrian, through his mother, Lenore must race against time to reach the Star of Babylon before Philo does.