After growing up in the shadow her mother's disastrous exorcism-that ended in death and years of public scrutiny-Liora Mayfield enters her Texas university's coveted educational fellowship for her final year, hoping its research into miracles and demonic phenomena will finally help her understand what happened to her family.But when the beloved town miracleworker dies under eerily familiar circumstances-almost identical to the events that preceded her mother's possession a decade ago-she can't ignore it. Determined not to repeat the past, she finds an unexpected ally in Rhys Hayes, a brilliant and guarded PhD candidate whose own research points toward something unthinkable.Now she must face the possibility that the demon her mother feared has resurfaced-and the hellmouth she suspected as a teen wasn't make-believe at all. And if it is real, she and Rhys may be the only ones who can stop it from opening.