Paul Conklin is a rather ordinary, thirtyish fellow, sharing his ordinary, present-day San Francisco apartment with the ghosts of his dead wife and daughter, Suzanna and Cloe. Suzanna is cooking for him again, and Cloe's bouncing around the apartment in her school uniform, and things are almost back to normal.But a piece of Paul realizes he's really just plain nuts, or at least that's what he thinks. He has no idea that a Primus caste demon from the Netherworld covets his soul and that he's going to have to take a crash course in killing big, bad hoodoo demons or lose his soul for all eternity.For Paul, magic and ghosts exist only in fantasy stories, and he thinks Suzanna and Cloe are just hallucinations, that he's losing his mind. He doesn't realize that he's spontaneously using powerful sorcery to bring them back and that when Suzanna's ghost cooks for him, he's actually conjuring real food for his table.But his ignorant and unknowing exercise of unprotected sorceries and wizardry has drawn the attention of the denizens of Faerie and some powerful mortal wizards. And since Paul exhibits certain unusual abilities, they think he is either himself a demon or at least demon possessed, so they want him dead.There's also a Secundus caste demon from the Netherworld that's crossed over to the Mortal Plane and has been feeding on human souls for centuries. It merely wants to possess Paul's soul. So everyone wants Paul dead, or possessed, and the poor, dumb fool just doesn't realize what's about to hit him.

Rat is no ordinary thief. A feral, filthy and malnourished child; he haunts the streets of the medieval city Anistigh and survives on what he can steal. When he tries to steal a purse and bungles it, a mob wants to cut off his hand as punishment, so to save himself he slips into a convenient shadow to hide. Rat thinks it's just another warm and comfortable shadow cast by the sun, but a clan wizard sees him create the shadow with his magic, an instinctive act of which Rat is unaware. Rat's magic is subtle, but potentially quite powerful, so he is adopted into the greatest of the Lesser Clans, adopted into a family, and given the name Morgin. Morgin quickly grows into manhood and the clan teaches him wizardry and sorcery and swordsmanship. Having survived the streets of Anistigh, Morgin is inclined to avoid conflict, would be content to remain on the sidelines in the ever present clan rivalries. But as a clansman he inherits the enemies of the clan, and his shadowmagic proves to be a potent weapon. And when he comes into possession of a powerful talismanic sword, he's thrust into the forefront of the clan rivalries. As the ancestral conflict between the Greater and Lesser Clans once again leads to war, not even the clans realize that their petty little war is spawned by the primeval battle between the righteous gods of the Celestial Plane and the fallen gods of the Nether Plane. And Morgin learns that it is upon the Mortal Plane, with mortal lives, and mortal pain and suffering and death; it is upon the Mortal Plane that the gods meet and fight their wars.

Rat is no ordinary thief. A feral, filthy and malnourished child; he survives on what he can steal. But he creates his own shadows and hides within them, though he's completely unaware of his use of magic. When a clan of powerful wizards see his shadowmagic they adopt him, because they want such magic in the clan. Perhaps that's a good thing for Rat, as long as they don't kill him in the process.