Former "Afghan" Ilya Privalov unexpectedly recognized his school friend Kostya Zhityagin, who died a year ago in a car accident, in a beggar on a church porch. A letter fell into the hands of Major Gromyko, in which the clergyman tells a certain historian about the supernatural forces that once had power over the world, but remained even now, about half-people, half-gods. A high school student, quiet "nerd" Mitya Filippov finds strange notes in an abandoned dungeon in Terletsky Park. In them, Count Torletsky tells how, at the beginning of the twentieth century, as a member of a group of esotericists, he heard a terrible prophecy about future disasters awaiting Russia.