Child psychologist Nicola Grainger and her husband Howard have chosen to remain childless, but when Nicola's sister and her husband are killed in a car accident in Egypt, Nicola feels duty bound to offer their young twin sons a home. After their arrival, it quickly becomes clear that their upbringing in Egypt, their father's country, has left them spoiled and difficult to handle. They also have the disconcerting ability to finish each other's sentences and constantly answer to each other's names. At times Nicola feels that they're not two children at all, but in fact represent different aspects of one child. As a child psychologist, Nicola knows that the boys need time to adjust to their new life, but she has failed to understand their ability to read the minds of people around them, playing on their most terrifying subconscious fears with horrific results. In addition to these problems, Nicola finds that she is having to cope with the boys' attachment to the handsome Sergei, a friend of their father's in Egypt, who visits them regularly to provide a much needed link between their past life and their new one. Only Sergei truly understands these children, and only Sergei knows the truth about their past and what the future holds for them. As he draws Nicola into his magnetic web she is literally unable to get him out of her mind. To the astonishment of everyone, including herself, she abandons Howard and travels to Egypt with Sergei and her nephews. Once there, she is plunged into a world of dark eroticism and looming evil - the hidden, gaping gateway to hell.