Arthur Hartley poses as a legitimate archaeologist, but is in fact a grave robber and despoiler of the dead. When he went to Egypt in the 1920s, inspired by the sensational find at the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amun, he hoped only to bring back jewels and valuable objects, not important scientific discoveries. But, when one of his finds is protected by a spell invoking Xepera, the beetle god whose name means to Come Into Being, he finds that he has more than he bargained for on his hands.