A thirty-year-old detective-novelist living in southern California named Tommy
Phan is on top if the world. He had just purchased a brand new Corvette and is
living his fantasy of living the American dream. On his way home he calls his
mother to inform her of his new toy. After feeling guilty about the
conversation, because he is living his dream and not living with his family and
working at the family business. On his way home he stops at a diner to get
something to eat he meets a young blond. After he pays he speeds up in his new
car so he can arrive home. When he arrives at his home he notices a small rag
doll on his doorstep. Confused, but intrigued he picks up the doll and carried
it inside. He proceeded up his stairs to his computer work with the doll still
in hand and placed it up against a lamp. After he sits down he studies the doll
more carefully and notices a small folded note with a pin holding its place next
to the small hand. The note is written in Viennese, not knowing the language
since he was eight, he puts it down and examines the doll and sees two stitched
crosses where the eyes should be, one for the nose, one over the heart, and five
for the mouth. He leaves the room and when he enters the doll isn't where he
left it and there is a message on his computer that had not been there before.
It reads " the deadline is dawn ". Scared by the note he tries to find
the doll. When he picks it up off the floor and props the doll next to the lamp
where it had been before. He starts to work on his books, about a detective
named Chippen Wen a charming, brave man who can do anything if he has a gun and
his fists. A small pop alarms him and he looks at the doll and notices that the
stitching across the heart on the doll was not there. He picks up the doll and
places his hand over the heart and can here ticking, almost like a heart
beating. Another popping sound and he could see eyes and a mouth. Breaking out
of the cloth that it was wrapped in the demon leaps off into the darkness. Not
only is it quick and supernatural but it is intelligent. The demon creature is
bent on killing Tommy and after trying to kill it he decides to run away. He
hops in his new corvette and drives away. After a while he here's noises in the
engine and realizes that the demon disabled his brakes and uncontrollably he is
accelerating after he crashes he tries to escape seeing the demon mesmerized by
the fire he starts running without looking back. He sees Deliverance Payne, the
blond he met at the restaurant, and they escape with a quick brush in with the
demon. After driving around he decides to go to his brothers so he can translate
the message. He gives the note to his brother but the note is smeared and he
will need a few hours to try and translate it. They decide to leave and not stay
in fear of the demon. They decide to steal a car because her car was
mysteriously missing. They go to her house to get weapons and ammunition. The
demon has grown to the size of a human and has super strength. They get her dog
and start to run away. After escaping from death, deliverance decides to go on
her boat to escape from the demon. They get to the island where her mother lives
to get advice and a car. Tommy meets her mother and they call his brother to see
if he translated the message. The note was not perfect but he could make out
most of it and it wasn’t good. Tommy's brother translated most of the message
and it said if he stayed alive till dawn he would survive. His brother had
called his mother for advice and she knew exactly what to do. Deliverance and
Tommy raced out side and drove the mother's house. When they arrived Tommy's
mother had already called Tay Maan Pan, the witch doctor who put the curse on
Tommy, and were on their way there. After explaining to Tommy they the curse was
only meant to scare him for trying to escape his real roots and trying to become
an American. They reached their destination and Tay was waiting for them. The
demon could not harm him in the house in which the curse had been set. They
waited till dawn. He survived till dawn and the demon slowly transformed into
the Rag doll once again. Later Deliverance and Tommy got married and Tommy's
mother accepted Tommy's American Lifestyle and his new wife.