"The Ninth Angel" by Tatyana Korsakova, summary Automatic translate

The action-packed novel "The Ninth Angel" was written in 2018 and published in 2019. This dark, mystical detective story tells the story of the investigation of a series of mysterious murders and the awakening of an inherited power. The story unfolds in a remote rural area, where ancient family secrets intertwine with the brutal reality of the criminal underworld.

Meeting with the past

Yulia Chernova is a seventeen-year-old orphan. Her mother, Lina, recently died of an overdose. Lina suffered from mental illness and painted disturbing images. At the funeral, Yulia’s previously unknown younger brother, thirty-year-old biker Max Chernov, appears. He offers his niece a deal: he’ll grant her guardianship for a year to free her from the orphanage. She agrees.

Max brings Yulia to a sleepy provincial town. He puts her up in an abandoned "house by the ravines." This old family home, with a broken ceiling on the second floor, looks eerie. Max leaves her some money, promises to come back the next day, and leaves on business. Left alone, Yulia decides to scout the way to the city. She sets off through a nearby ravine.

A gruesome discovery in a ravine

The descent into the ravine seems short and cool. Yulia trips on last year’s rotting leaves and slips to the very bottom. She falls into a deep quagmire of rotting leaves. Trying to climb out, she feels invisible touches and a frightening whisper. She grabs a branch, but realizes she’s holding a dead human hand with pink nail polish.

Panicked, Yulia climbs to the surface. Her desperate cries are heard by Pavel, a young man riding his bike nearby. He pulls the terrified girl up the side of the ravine. After listening to her halting story about the bodies at the bottom, Pavel lowers himself down on a safety rope. There he discovers a horrific sight: the bodies of the dead girls, with wire wings attached to their ribs.

Pavel and Yulia call the police. An investigative team, led by investigator Pyotr Ivanovich Samokhin, arrives at the scene. Soon, Max Chernov breaks through to the ravine. He falls into a rage and despair, searching among the bodies for his fiancée, Yana Svetilova, who disappeared six months ago. However, Yana is not among the dead. The police interview witnesses. Pavel walks Yulia home and decides to stay with her for the night.

Awakening the Hereditary Gift

At night, paranormal phenomena begin to occur in the old house. The lights go out on their own, footsteps are heard, and dry leaves fall through a hole in the bedroom ceiling. The ghost of a dead girl with wire wings tries to enter the room. Yulia loses her composure in terror. At that moment, Max Chernov returns.

Max confesses to Yulia that their family possesses the gift of witchcraft. It’s passed down through the female line. Their late great-grandmother was a powerful witch. She died a painful death, so a hole had to be cut in the ceiling to ease her passing. Lina rejected the gift and fled, having gone mad. Max hopes that Yulia’s awakening power will help find Yana.

The conversation is interrupted by a frightened Yulia fleeing. Police intercept her on the porch. They lead Max away in handcuffs. Investigator Samokhin informs Yulia that material evidence was found in Max’s forge: forged wings, a coil of wire, and a box containing the victims’ jewelry. Among them is half of Yana Svetilova’s silver heart. Traces of Max’s DNA were also found on the bodies.

Great-grandmother’s inheritance

Investigator Samokhin interrogates Yulia at the police station. She doesn’t believe her uncle is guilty. She convinces the investigator to allow her to meet with Max. During their meeting, Yulia tells him she saw her great-grandmother in a dream. This gives Max hope that Yana is still alive. Samokhin allows Yulia to go home under the supervision of detectives.

Yulia returns to the old house with Pavel. That night, her great-grandmother’s power finally transfers to Yulia. The ghost of Sonya Rogozina, the dead girl from the ravine, appears to her. Her great-grandmother’s spirit then appears, drives away the undead, and performs the ritual of transferring the gift. Yulia experiences severe physical pain, but endures the ordeal.

Great-grandmother warns Yulia that the real killer is heartless and extremely dangerous. He creates his own otherworldly "pack" from his victims. To complete the ritual, he needs nine angels. Seven of the girls are dead, but the eighth — Yana Svetilova — is still alive, but her strength is waning. Yulia must become the ninth angel.

Search for the lair

In the morning, Yulia discovers she has the ability to heal. She relieves Pavel of a severe headache. Then they go to the police. Yulia asks Samokhin to show her a photograph of Yana Svetilova. Upon touching the picture, the newly-minted witch senses that Yana is alive. She experiences terrible pain in her ribs from the attached wings.

Yulia and Pavel walk toward the ravine. Seven dead girls appear to Yulia and write their names in the ground with her handwriting. They explain that the killer always wore a painted mask and blindfolded them. One of the victims remembers the place where she was imprisoned. It’s located by the water, near a dock, a boat, and a dead tree.

Pavel realizes they’re talking about the reservoir. They head to the Lebyazhye recreation center, owned by his uncle, Pavel Sr. There are no boats at the center because it’s the height of the season, and the gamekeeper, Trofim, has taken the motorboat. Pavel Sr. decides to personally drive the young people to Trofim in an SUV.

They arrive at Trofim’s house. There they meet the gamekeeper and Innokenty Plotnikov, a local historian and writer nicknamed Kesha. Trofim is aggressive towards Yulia, hinting at her great-grandmother’s witch past and claiming that Max Chernov is guilty. Pavel restrains Yulia, sensing the witch’s rage boiling within her.

Returning to the recreation center, Yulia notices photographs on the restaurant wall. Accidentally dropping Pavel Sr.’s folder, she finds sketches of various wings there. She concludes that Pavel Sr.’s uncle is a murderer. Panicked, she flees the recreation center into the woods. Pavel Sr. pursues her, trying to bring her back, and calls someone on the phone.

The Mad Ethnographer’s Trap

Yulia runs out onto the road and throws herself under the wheels of a passing car. The driver turns out to be Innokenty Plotnikov. She asks Kesha for help, hoping to escape Pavel Sr. However, in the car, she suddenly loses consciousness. Kesha takes her phone and calls her his "ninth angel."

Yulia awakens in a cold basement, chained to the wall. Next to her, she sees an emaciated Yana Svetilova with wire wings attached to her ribs. Kesha appears. He confesses that in the 1990s, he found a rare book describing a ritual for creating an angelic army. For seven years, he killed one girl a year, attaching wings to them.

Kesha attacked masked girls, hanged them, and threw them into a ravine, creating a docile "pack." He deliberately framed Max by planting evidence in his forge. Now he needs a ninth angel to lead the army. Kesha approaches Yulia with a leather noose in hand.

In mortal danger, Yulia uses her newfound witch power. A golden wave of energy knocks Kesha off her feet and pins her against the wall, ripping the door off its hinges. Max Chernov, who has escaped custody, Trofim, Pavel Jr., Pavel Sr., and investigator Samokhin burst into the basement. It turns out the men had been tracking the killer for a long time.

Deliverance

Kesha falls into a cataleptic state and no longer poses a threat. Yana and Yulia are taken to the hospital. Investigator Samokhin confirms that Plotnikov planted evidence in Max’s workshop, and that the forged wings in the forge were merely elements of the gate for the Lebyazhye recreation center. Samokhin’s call to Pavel Sr. was made to warn him of the danger.

Some time later, Yulia returns to the ravine with Pavel. Using her magic, she removes the wire wings from the ghosts of the dead girls. Their souls find peace and ascend to heaven. Pavel, although he lacks magical powers, also witnesses this beautiful moment of liberation thanks to Yulia.

In the epilogue, the old house by the ravines completely accepts Yulia and Pavel. He helps them with the daily chores, tends the Moorish lawn in the yard, and turns the weather vane on the roof. Yulia gradually learns to live with her power, surrounded by the care of her loved ones.