For Phillip McKinley, life in the rural town of Verdance seems textbook perfect on the surface: heÆs captain of the high school football team, dating the girl most of his buddies wish was theirs, and forced to endure the usual problems of popular, attractive eighteen-year-old guys. But Phillip, like the mysterious new arrivals to Verdance who take up residence at the local haunted house late one rainy night, is a young man with secrets. PhillipÆs deepest desires manifest in the form of Julian, the shaggy-haired youth now living up at Hindenwood House. JulianÆs crafty guardian refuses to let Phillip anywhere near his charge û though the attraction the two come to feel for one another could be the key to victory in a devastating secret war whose opening shots are creeping ever closer, and stopping an invasion that could soon engulf the world.