Alex Orlov is a changed man.

Not because his time in Pelican Bay Prison rehabilitated him — rehabilitation is for the guilty, after all — but because helping a stranger cost him three years of his life and his dream job as a forest ranger. All Alex wants now is to stay out of other people’s business, finish his parole quietly, and to never, ever return to the harrowing experience of living behind bars.

Goals that are shattered when an encounter with an elderly Russian man embroils him in a conflict between three Slavic gods. Conscripted into a game he doesn’t understand, Alex mistakenly believes he can refuse to play. But when creatures out of dark Russian folklore follow the gods to his small Northern California town, and then to his home with his sister and her children, the rules of the game change. Alex has looked out for his sister since they were teens and he’s not going to stop now, even if it means going head-to-head with gods.

As the conflict drags him ever closer to parole violation and a return to prison, however, it becomes clear that protecting his family may carry the cost of coming face-to-face with his greatest fear.