A hundred years ago, churchmen in Lancashire set upon one another -- one sold his soul to the devil, and used his unfathomable power to send his rival to the gallows. The man he condemned died cursing him and his children . . . and those children became "The Lancashire Witches." Mother Demdike -- the crone who was the child of the man who sold his soul to the devil -- has become an arcane monster, and she and her vile family are challenged only by their witchly rivals, Mother Chattox and Alice Nutter. . . .