Five doors remain.

Matthew Klein stands alone in the wreckage of everything he tried to protect.

His wife believes him unfaithful.

His son Logan has been poisoned by the demon's lies, turned against his own father.

His friends lie dead. Bridget impaled by a falling

star. Lewis killed in a crash meant for him. Simon shot down in his own possessed fury. The

phantom smell of burning hangs over all Marshport now, a constant reminder of the fire that

took his family 30 years ago, and the cowardice

that let him survive it.

The demon has a name.

Zervon, a lion-headed god wrapped in serpents, worshipped through chaos and blood during

the darkest days of winter.

For three decades, he waited in the burned remains of a spirit board,

biting his time until Wilbur Ward unknowingly carved that cursed wood into something new,

something that would find its way back to the boy who escaped.

December 24th approaches the culmination of Zervon's midwinter celebration. Father

Olson's warning echoes in Matt's mind. When a possessed vessel dies, the demon finds

someone close, someone vulnerable. Simon is dead. Wilbur is dead. Zervon will need a new host.

The Advent calendar sits in his home, waiting.

It has proven it cannot be destroyed, cannot be discarded, cannot be ignored.

Every act of defiance has been met with death.

Ren Nguyen drowned at gulls' rest, a python coiled around Mason's small body, Wilbur's

...