There are creatures lurking in our world. Obscure creatures long relegated to myth and legend. They have been sighted by a lucky-or unlucky-few, some have even been photographed, but their existence remains unproven and unrecognized by the scientific community.

These creatures, long thought gone, have somehow survived; creatures from our nightmares haunting the dark places. They swim in our lakes and bays, they soar the night skies, they hunt in the woods. Some are from our past, and some from other worlds, and others have always been with us-watching us, fearing us, hunting us.

These are the cryptids, and Systema Paradoxa tells their tales.

***

Federal Agent Chimalis Burton has defeated many demons in her day, both figuratively and literally. But when a senator's daughter goes missing in the wilds of Alaska, reportedly pulled beneath the water by a creature out of folklore, she is forced to confront dark secrets rooted in her own past, secrets she has shared with no one.

As more children go missing, the case the senator wanted kept quiet suddenly becomes high-profile. Additional forces are pulled in and the chase grows hot. Cornered, the creature lashes out and several agents fall victim, some fatally.

Can Burton put her fears to rest in time to prevent more deaths? Or will she lose even more than she realized was at risk?