Terrifying creatures, unseen to all around him, have tormented Elisse since he was a little boy. These "nightmares" and the cruel life as a young Westerner in a refugee camp have left him isolated and alone. The only clue to his past is an old, tattered envelope with a picture of his father who mysteriously abandoned him at a monastery as a baby. When Elisse flees India and journeys to New Orleans in search of his father and the truth of his troubled existence, he finds not only the answers to his extraordinary life, an ancestral secret with a grave responsibility, but also the one thing he most desires. A family-but of beasts. Now, Elisse's awakening gifts attract dark forces rooted in Louisiana magic, and he must do the unthinkable to protect everyone he loves. Will Elisse accept the burdens of his gifts and conquer darkness? Or will that same darkness consume him and destroy the love he so desperately longs for?