 After Dixon was acquitted thirteen years later, he was magically given a new life as a child (Quinn Lord) in an effort to make up for the mistaken identity; Dixon instead was driven to murder both Pynchon and the acquitting judge.Unconnected with the Pynchon case, DCI Wilder Blanks (Walker) begins seeing visions related to the Stoics, "a group dedicated to the destruction of magic" in favor of "reason, rationality, and [...] science"—a laughable prospect, but one about which they are deadly serious.Twelve years previously (1999), the Stoics committed a series of murders to further their cause, but have neither been seen nor heard of since.