Āšipu. Exorcists of ancient Mesopotamia - healers who used rituals and natural remedies to protect their communities against natural and supernatural threats. The knowledge to weave this magic has been passed down matrilineally from generation to generation. Ailments were thought to be caused by the presence of demons inhabiting the body. It was the exorcist’s job to use her skill and wisdom to eradicate them. Over the course of history this role has been warped and co-opted by other civilizations and religions, but the original tradition persists in secret. Even today.
Sophie was supposed to be an exorcist but, when her grandmother, Mabel, died suddenly right when Sophie was a child, she buried the memories of Mabel’s late-night rituals and incantations. Now, after her first year of university in Toronto, Sophie returns to her small Alberta hometown, Black Valley. She’s disillusioned for not having lived up to her own potential in the big city and now struggles with her identity between rural Alberta and the new life she’s experienced in the city. And if that wasn’t already tough for Sophie, she finds out that her dad, Simon, has put her childhood home on the market. Even her relationships with her childhood best friends, Hamp and Edie, have been rocky since she left for the big city. Though she tries to make amends with them the day she gets back, Hamp oddly confesses his undying love for her - a total curveball - and when she rebuffs him, Hamp dry-heaves then projectile vomits all over her and the diner where they met.
A demon has begun to possess him.
Black Valley is like many rural Alberta towns: the glory of the oil boom has faded away and former rig workers are having their F-150’s and ski-doo’s repossessed left, right, and centre. Boomers watch the world that enriched them crumble as younger oil patch workers try to hold on to what was. This desperation is fertile ground for the greater-demon Rabisu, whose human followers have opened a gateway beneath Athabaska Sands, the new condo building. Rabisu's demonic minions, the Gallu, have been unleashed in Black Valley to feast on the town’s fears and insecurities, with the heartbroken Hamp as their first target.
Hamp is suddenly hostile, violent, and, most of all, speaking in ancient Sumerian. Horrified, Sophie is spurred to get to the bottom of what the cuneiform symbols grown out of Hamp’s own chest mean, which puts her on a path back to her exorcist roots.
With the help of her grandmother’s old books and supplies, long buried in a box in the basement, Sophie faces off against a progression of powerful demonic creatures. She’s aided by her uncle Peter, the recently-divorced social studies teacher who’s knowledge of the occult is only outmatched by his lack of hands-on experience. Together they tackle bigotry and demons, leading them to the nexus of Black Valley’s evil affliction... the basement of Athabaska Sands and its cabal of condo board members, led by Dr. Kerry Matthews - who also happens to be Peter’s ex-wife and Sophie’s aunt.
Fighting demons isn’t as simple as it seems for Sophie. An early victory against a demon that takes possession of one of Sophie’s kindergarten macaroni art projects gives her the impression that obliteration is the goal of exorcism. But what should she do if someone she cares about is possessed? Sophie learns the hard way that she has to find balance between defeating the enemy and saving the soul.
