An Agreement With Hell was another National Novel Writing Month work, like the first Clockwork Heart, that I developed and sold as a novel. They say “write what you know,” and this novel’s academic setting is, well, familiar to me. When Apex Publishing released the rights to the novel back to me, I digitally self-published it, although Amazon often goes to the Apex edition. However, below is the cover of the “I now own the rights again” version, which cleaned up a few digital formatting errors found in the old version. I fully intended to write more stories featuring Jack Langthorne, and maybe I still will someday.
In the struggle between good and evil, humans are hardly noticeable to the mal’akhim — but when an ancient seal is broken on the grounds of a California college campus, beings from dimensions beyond the balance of holy and unholy erupt from the earth and draw the attention of both angelic and demonic beings. A retired priest and an ailing magickian must trust the mysterious Walker Between the Worlds and his daimon familiar as they step through wormhole passages of probability to confront forces that cannot fully manifest in earthly dimensions. Amidst earthquakes, cthonic attackers and interdimensional intruders, the students and staff of California Hills University grapple with the boundaries of knowledge and faith while the night erupts in earth and blood.