by Hilary Duff
As the daughter of a senator, Clea has many advantages. However, she also has to deal with the fame that comes with it. She and her life long best friend, Rayna, are spending some time in Paris. They go to a party and Rayna leaves with a guy. Clea goes back to their hotel, not enjoying herself at all. She pulls out her camera and spends the rest of the night taking pictures (her late father had inspired this hobby). Clea falls asleep and dreams about her father dying in a burning hotel room. She wakes up to the news telling her the apartment building her friend is at caught fire. when Rayna doesn’t answer her phone, Clea gets a cab and calls her friend, Ben, to calm her down on the way. She arrives to find Rayna is safe and starts taking pictures.
Back home in Connecticut, Clea starts going through the pictures she took. A knock on the door distracts her and she goes to answer it. Her mom sent irises to apologize for not being there to welcome her home. She goes to her dad’s office, but something doesn’t feel right, as though something has been moved or is missing. Ben, her international advisor, shows up and scares her, which in turn causes him to spill coffee all over himself. Rayna comes by to invite them to a welcome home parter her parents are throwing. When Clea returns home, she continues to go through her pictures. She notices that the same man is in all all of the ones that caught her eye, including one where he is floating in midair. She takes pictures around the room and check them to see him in a picture of her closet.
Clea feels someone reaching for her throat and turns around to see that no one is there. After checking the closet, she goes to bed and dreams. She is a singer in a speakeasy. Eddie, the owner, owns her and just about everything else in Chicago, but she is in love with the piano player. When the cops come for a staged raid, she sneaks away to meet him. He accidentally calls her Olivia (though her name in the dream is Delia) while saying they should run away together. She forgives him, they kiss, and Clea wakes up. She realizes the piano player is the man in her pictures. Clea meets with Ben to get her assignments for work. She wants to take one in Brazil, knowing that is where her father went missing. She calls her mom for permission, but she insists they will discuss it later. That night, Clea’s dreaming continues. This time she is Anneline, an actress, but it is the same man pursuing her. While trying to replace the roses someone else sent her with his irises, he cuts himself on the thorns. Anneline checks his had, but finds nothing. He asks her to marry him. After accepting, Clea wakes up. The dreams continue every night with Clea being Delia, Anneline, Catherine, or Olivia (Renaissance painter in Italy). Each woman from a different time, but all wooed by the same man. Clea herself starts to fall in love with her imaginary dream date. When Rayna asks, Clea tells her about the dreams. When Ben asks, she tells him about the pictures. He demands to see them.
After showing Ben her pictures, he takes Clea to her dad’s studio and shows her some of her father’s pictures of her. The man is in pictures of her from childhood on. Ben pulls out an old, large tome and Clea flips to her dad’s first marked theory: guardian angel. Ben points out the flip side: incubus. Clea laughs off the idea of an evil spirit biding his time to make horrible things happen to her. That night in her dreams, the man comes, but the romance is gone. She dreams of being the same women, but the dreams always end in horror. Ben also seems to be in the dreams and one includes the vials from her dad’s archaeological dig.
As soon as they arrive in Rio, Clea and Ben go to GloboReach to talk to Dr. Pichard about her dad’s disappearance. They only additional information he is able to give them is that her dad was oddly serious that day. They head back to the city. Clea takes pictures of the Samba Parade as well as other events at Carnival. She and Ben dance on the beach with an obvious spark between them. As Ben is about to tell her something, they are separated by a crowd. While looking for him, she sees the man from her dreams.
When the man sees Clea, he starts running. Clea takes off after him, but trips and looses him in the forest. She twisted her ankle and he comes back to help her. Ben arrives and tells her how to banish an incubus. As the man gets ready to leave them behind, Ben points out that he is wearing her father’s watch. The man, Sage, gives it to them and then walks away. Ben pulls out his phone to call the police, but they are attacked. Sage comes back to rescue them and they hide in a cave. Sage says the men are after him. Clea demands an explanation.
Sage explains that Grant (Clea’s dad) came to him because he knows where the Elixir of Life is. With their combined knowledge, the two of them could retrieve it. They made plans to meet (Grant leaving Sage his watch), but Grant never showed up. Sage thinks one of two groups, the Saviors of Eternal Life or Cursed Vengeance, have her father and he is still alive. Ben and Clea agree to keep Sage with them because he won’t divulge what he knows. They decide to sleep in the cave until nightfall, when they will all go back to Connecticut to look through Grant’s research.
Clea wakes up to the scratching noises Sage makes while he draws in the dirt a picture of a girl that looks like Clea. She checks his back for scratches that should’ve been left when she clawed him (during the rescue), but there is nothing. They go to Sage’s secluded tree house. He swaps out the contents of his wallet to take on a new identity. Clea heads for the bathroom, but instead sneaks into a room full of paintings of Sage and the women from her dreams (her past lives). She finds a stack of canvases that depict their deaths and four iris necklaces on the wall. There is an empty nail for hers. When Sage comes to check on her, she is in the bathroom throwing up.
On their way back to the US, Ben and Sage bond over historical facts. Clea gets a hold of Rayna to pick them up from the airport. She explains the situation to her best friend, who informs her that the house is crawling with secret service agents for a luncheon her mom is holding. Rayna tells Clea’s mom that Sage is her new boyfriend. Clea and Ben sneak off to Grant’s studio while her mother’s friends grill the “new couple.” They find a password protected file on Grant’s computer and the password engraved on his watch. It leads them to Clea’s room, where her cribbage board hides coordinates for the Dark Lady’s last known descendant (who happens to share the Dark Lady’s name, Magna Alessandri). They are headed to a mall in Tokyo to find her shop, The Little Door.
Rayna takes them to a hotel near the airport. Clea and her go to their room where Clea tells her everything. Rayna makes her promise not to think, but to act on feelings for the night. The guys join them in their hotel room for dinner and Clea concentrates on how she feels. She loves Ben, but when she looks over at Sage, he is the one she wants. Rayna gives them an excuse to be alone by sending Clea and Sage out for snacks. Clea asks how he keeps finding her. He says that her soul calls to him. They pull over and have six in the car.
The next morning, Clea tells Rayna everything. She is excited to see Sage, but he gives her the cold shoulder. She tries to not let it bother her and focuses on finding her dad. They make it to the mall in Tokyo and eventually find a small door in the stairwell between floors. Clea opens it to find a tunnel. They follow it to find a room of antiques. Clea moves a beaded curtain to find a dead body that turns to look at them. She screams and passes out.
When Clea wakes up, Magda shows them all Sage’s past. He told Giovanni (Ben) about the Society and the Elixir of Life they protect. Giovanni tells a few friends of the riches and the Elixir. They get a group together to rob the Society. They kill everyone, including Olivia, who was there to get the group’s blessing to marry Sage. When the thieves discover that Sage is still alive, they make him drink one of three bottles of the Elixir. When they realize that it works, they torture him as a test of its strength and argue over how to distribute it amongst eight of them. Two men free Sage for his help in killing the others, but Sage kills them instantly He kills three more that come after him. The last three flee and their descendants become Cursed Vengeance. The Societies’ descendants become the Saviors of Eternal Life. Sage drain the remaining vials into the ground. Magda continues to show Sage finding Clea’s soul in subsequent lives and their horrible endings. Jamie (Ben) accused Catherine of being a witch because she left him for Sage. Anneline, the actress, went into hiding from a stalker at Sage’s request. Julian (Ben) leaked their location. The stalker found and killed her. Sage tried to stay away from Delia, but couldn’t. Richie (Ben) tried to get the mob boss, Eddie, to get over her with other women, but this lead to him finding out about Sage. He shoots them both in the head. Last, Magda shows Clea’s father after she showed him the same thing she just showed them. He goes to Sage to tell him he must die to break the cycle. Sage agrees. Magda gives Sage the means to kill himself. His soul will search for a new body. When it can’t find one, it will be painfully ripped apart. Magda breaks the spell that has kept her alive.
They hear people coming and decide to make a run for it. After Sage hot-wires a car and looses their pursuers in a high speed chase, they go to the beach so he can end his life. When he stops for supplies for the ritual, Clea uses his phone to inform the Saviors of Eternal Life where they will be. Sage starts the ritual while Clea watches. Ben has agreed to let them be alone. The Saviors arrive and Clea shouts out to them. They open fire and Sage is forced to stop and protect Clea. Ben see Clea get shot in the leg and runs towards her. The Saviors grab him and Sage trades his life for Ben’s. Clea is furious that Ben messed up again. Clea is taken to the hospital for her leg. When she is released, Clea and Ben decide to go home.