"The Sorcerer from the Death Clan" by Alexey Pekhov, Elena Bychkova, and Natalia Turchaninova, summary Automatic translate

"The Sorcerer of the Death Clan" is an urban fantasy novel written by the creative duo Alexey Pekhov and Elena Bychkova, co-authored with Natalia Turchaninova. The book opens a series about the world of the Kindret — beings divided into clans with varying magical abilities, living side by side with humans in a modern city. The novel reads like a detective story with elements of a political thriller: behind the façade of the supernatural lies a war of intrigue and dark conspiracies.

Vivian without a past

The narrative begins with two parallel lines. The first is a mental scanning session: a Cadavercian necromancer named Darel attempts to read the memories of Christophe’s dying apprentice, Vivian. The young man dies from "grave rot" — a deadly weapon of the Cadavercians’ ancient enemy, Luder, thought lost for over six hundred years. Christophe decides to undertake a desperate experiment: transfer Vivian’s essence into another body.

The second storyline follows Vivian himself, waking up in a damp basement with no memories of his past. He discovers that his body has changed: his vision has become sharper, fangs have appeared, and he is overcome by an overwhelming hunger. Two faryartos — Victor and the beautiful Idalia — find him and take him to a luxurious mansion with bizarre architecture, where the rooms change shape, and outside the windows, the midday sun shines and night falls simultaneously.

The owner of the mansion, an arrogant Fariartos named Francis, immediately makes it clear that he needs Vivian not as a person, but as a source of some kind of power. Under Idalia’s magical "Influence," the young man is subdued, but deep within his mind, anger and instinctive resistance simmer. A book, "History of the Kindret," found by chance in the bathroom in French, becomes his first window into the world of the clans: Fariartos, Viesci, Aciman, Dakhanavar, Kadavercian, Vrykolakos, and Nachtzerret. Vivian doesn’t know which one he belongs to.

Concert and anxious premonitions

At the same time, the story of Dona, a young but very powerful Wiliss of the Cadavercian clan, unfolds. Together with the clan’s leader, Christoph, she attends a concert by rock star Gemran Vance, a newly converted Faryartos whose music possesses genuine magic: his songs evoke the stories of the Kindreth themselves — their losses, their battles, their eternity. Christoph comes here partly to distract Dona from her anxiety — after all, not long before, his apprentice, Vivian, was poisoned by "grave rot," and they both understand that the weapon’s appearance is a deliberate warning.

On her way home, Dona is intercepted by Ramon de Cobrero, the head of the Vieschi clan, a wealthy and calculating banker who has long courted her. Dropping his facade of social charm, Ramon reveals something important: he has received orders for rare magical ingredients — Chilean "horsehair" for the "Moon Abyss" potion, and the coral snakes of the Lugat clan. Individually, these ingredients are harmless, but together they form an arsenal of ancient, deadly spells. Someone is preparing for a major war. Ramon seeks an alliance with the Cadavercians, bluntly admitting that he does not want a new division of the world.

Rapait in the park

The conversation is interrupted by the attack of a rapait — a corpse filled with hungry betailas spirits, clearly targeting Ramon. Dona enters the fray, using necromancy to disentangle the spirits and send them back to the afterlife. One of the betailas barely manages to identify its victim before Ramon destroys the creature with a shot from an unusual weapon. This prevents Dona from learning the identity of the client — the body had been implanted with a self-destruct spell that was triggered upon exposure.

Dona tries to follow a magical trail that leads to an underground passage beneath an old cemetery. Ramon, contrary to her expectations, follows her and reveals a secret: ancient artifacts have been implanted in his body, granting him a kind of personal magic — "complete immobilization." The trail eventually ends at a locked gate beneath the park, yielding no names or clues.

The Conversation That Changes Everything

On the way back, Ramon utters a phrase that changes Dona’s worldview. He tells her that on the day of Wolfger’s disappearance — the former head of the Cadavercian clan, whom Dona considers her mentor — Christophe called him and canceled Wolfger’s scheduled meeting with the banker. Dona doesn’t believe it, but she can’t dismiss it either: the seed of suspicion has been planted. She demands to go to Christophe immediately — she can’t allow misunderstandings to divide the clan now, when an arsenal of ancient spells is being assembled somewhere.

Darkness in the Moon Fortress

A distinct thread in the novel revolves around the story of the night watchman Miklós Balsa. In the underground hall of his residence, known as the "Moon Fortress," he performs a ritual to summon the Demon of Decay — a monstrous, spectral hyena that devours prepared corpses as a sacrificial offering. Among the victims is a bound Johan, who unexpectedly manages to survive thanks to a strange protective pattern that appears directly on the floorboards around him. Balsa, perplexed and irritated by this anomaly, which even the demon could not destroy, calls a certain Mr. Belov and demands an urgent, extraordinary meeting of the Clans.

All three plotlines — the fate of the lost Vivian in Francis’s hands, the political game of Ramon and Dona against the backdrop of the impending war, and the dark rituals of Balsa — converge on one point: someone is methodically gathering power and artifacts, intending to shift the balance between the clans. And the first casualties have already been claimed.