Kyle Kiraly doesn’t do birthdays, not since his dad committed suicide the day Kyle turned seven. All he wants is to play himself into a video game coma. He almost gets his wish when he turns fourteen . . . until the witch, Baba Yaga, marks him as the next heir to a relic of mind-boggling powers. The relic helps Kyle pay back the school bully and win the friendship of a clever girl, but it also makes him a target of the Obshestvo, a militant group of Russian women bent on wiping him off the face of the earth. Even worse, it exposes him to the influence of the witch, who delights in tormenting and testing his will. As Kyle combats the Obshestvo and tries to resist Baba Yaga’s power, he confronts the truth about his father’s death and his extended family's shady past, and he is forced to make a choice—one with eternal consequences for both living and dead.