Now thirteen years old, Tom Ward continues his apprenticeship with the Spook as they confront a dangerous bane who can control people's thoughts.

As creatures of the dark hunt for the witch assassin Grimalkin, who carries the captured Fiend's head, Spook's apprentice Tom tries to find a way to finish this terrifying evil once and for all.

Tom is dismayed when his master the Spook decrees that they will be spending the winter on gloomy and forbidding Anglezarke Moor but soon discovers the reason for his master's decision, as they tangle with two dangerous witches and struggle to keep a dark mage from resurrecting an ancient evil.

When witches steal Tom's inheritance and kidnap his relatives, Tom, the Spook, and Alice set out for Pendle Hill, a particularly dangerous district, in hopes of preventing the three witch clans from uniting to raise the Fiend, the Devil himself, thus bringing about an age of darkness.

Separate tales reveal the backgrounds of four terrifying witches, including Alice and the Spook's love, Meg.

Tom Ward is now Spook of the county, and with his apprentice, Jenny, he continues the fight against boggarts, witches and terrifying new creatures of the dark. Along with the witch assassin, Grimalkin, Tom and Jenny lead an army into battle against a dangerous enemy -- but it all goes catastrophically wrong. The situation seems hopeless until Alice, Tom's lost love and a powerful witch, appears. But Alice had turned to the dark: can Tom trust her...

Young Tom, the seventh son of a seventh son, starts work as an apprentice for the village spook, whose job is to protect ordinary folk from "ghouls, boggarts, and all manner of wicked beasties."