Centuries ago, Desmani went through a gilgul instated by his order. This process has the effect of destroying one's Avatar, which results in him losing ALL magical skills. However, something didn't go as expected. A few years ago, various kids were born, with each of them hosting a fragment of that Avatar, making each of them a Master in one of the nine known spheres of magic: Correspondance, Entropy, Forces, Life, Matter, Mind, Prime, Spirit and Time.

Apparently, some Naga was hired by Desmani to capture all the kids, so Desmani could recover his lost Avatar. This wave of children kidnapping caracterized by the apparition of some black "blob" made the FBI put an expert on paranormal events sent by Interpol: Harold Cunningham. While on the site of one of those kidnapping, Harold met with a group of mages who got also interested in these events. This is how the whole Cabal started, almost three years ago.

The group succeeded in tracking down the kids, and tried to bring them back to Chicago. In the process however, some of them were taken by Faith, who hid them for their own safety. The technocracy also got ahold of one of them. Most of the rest was left in the care of the Order of Hermes. Harold had to face his superiors, having to explain why he failed to recover them as he claimed he had done. The Cabal tried to fake the kids's death in a bus accident, so the mundanes would stop worrying about them.

Some of the Nine Kids are better knwon than the others.

• One is the daughter of a werewolf named Samantha, and is currently living with her.
• One is the daughter of Zatanna and Jonathan Swift. She is currently under the Verbena's protection and tutorship.
• One ended up caught in a magical link with Harold Cunningham, and was entrusted to the Order of Hermes.

During the events that involved the final confrontation with the demon controled by Mephisto, the Order of Hermes decided to go ahead with a ritual that would create a body that would then be inhabited by the joined fragments of the Avatar. Everything almost went fine, until the rejoined Avatar managed to get ahold of the gauntlet controling the demon, and left with it.