‘Realm of Angels’ Now in Print! (Plus another new excerpt)

Greetings fellow Angel lovers!

Exciting news about the novel Realm of Angels by Judith Page and myself.  It is now available in hard copy – paperback to be precise:

 

Click to Buy ‘Realm of Angels’ in paperback

 

What, you want another excerpt??  Ok, then, here you go:

——-

I took a deep breath and leaving the mundane, entered a sanctum.

The room glowed softly in the lantern light. I placed my notes and the goblet on the altar and lit the candles, first the red then the black. I blinked dazedly. The candles were beautiful. I’d always associated the burning of candles and incense with Communion, but somehow this seemed different, evoking a far older tradition long before Christianity took hold in the Fertile Crescent.  The mood in the room had changed; it felt a space apart from the ordinary. It was unfamiliar and, dare I say, scary. The emotions running through my mind in that moment were the ones I didn’t want to dwell upon.

I nervously picked up the charcoal with tweezers and set fire to it with a lighted match, watching the flame lick around the edge. It caressed the darkness, the power building quickly as the flame suddenly spluttered and spat, releasing tiny salamander-sparks that traveled through the black tablet. It glowed first red then white hot as I dropped it on a bed of soft sand inside the terracotta dish. Adding a sprinkling of frankincense resin to the charcoal completely changed the ambiance in the room. In a few moments the entire space was shrouded in a haze from the smoke, giving it an ethereal or otherworldly vibe. I inhaled the aroma deeply.

Next, I raised the goblet of wine in salutation to the angels and placed it back on the altar. So far, so good, I thought. Taking a deep breath I sent a silent prayer to the heavens. A state of prayer was something I hadn’t visited for a long time but my very being demanded this sacrifice and I was not going to refuse my soul’s wish. It was done.

Picking up the ball of Rutilated Quartz and the notes, I stepped back from the altar, sat down on the chair, closed my eyes and began to inhale slowly and deeply. I waited. Nothing special was happening, just the pleasant aroma of incense drifted around the room. This was fine, a gentle introduction. It relaxed me.

After several more inhalations everything changed and the air not only filled my lungs but the whole of my body, starting from the soles of my feet and culminating at a point between my eyebrows. The sensation was exhilarating. I began to feel an intimate connection of both mind and breath. This flow of energy swirled within and without my body; it permeated every cell, filling each with an incredible power. It felt good. I opened my eyes and looked at the words I’d copied from the grimoire. A brief thought came and passed, that my father may actually have said this too.  With a new intake of breath, I uttered in a shaky voice:

‘I call upon thy sacred name
Of the being that has been with me.
Since the beginning of beginnings.’

I paused and cleared my throat; I was unused to hearing the sound of my own voice and felt very self-conscious:

‘As I gaze upwards,
May I behold thy beauty and thy splendour unto eternity,
Time without end.’

I continued breathing in and out, in and out – concentrating only on my breath and allowing the room’s mystical atmosphere to wash over me. I focused my eyes, unblinking, upon the image of Lucifer on the altar.

Suddenly it happened to me again, that strange but familiar feeling of assault as I encountered something angelic. The whole world grew dark and drained away, narrowing my sight down to tunnel vision. This time it was far more intense than before. I broke out in a cold sweat and began to shiver. I could just make out the distant sound of flapping wings and whispering voices – they seemed somehow impatient. Insistent!

A shock of vertigo hit me, so powerful I would have fallen if I’d not been sitting. I was no longer looking down a long tunnel, I was falling into it! I gasped and gripped the seat of the chair until my knuckles were white, working hard to stave off the rising panic. The ball of Rutilated Quartz lay forgotten in my lap. What was happening to me? Was I having a seizure? A brain aneurism? For the first time it dawned on me that this experiment wasn’t safe; it was deadly serious, and I may very well be putting my mind and/or my soul on the line. Terry had known what he was talking about after all…

And just like that, it was gone. As if the mere thought of Terry had calmed the storm, as if a lead blanket had suddenly been pulled away – the vertigo and panic lifted from my mind. The world, the altar, the incense smoke, even the chair I’d been sitting on had vanished, and I was standing alone in featureless darkness. Somehow I had fallen entirely out of the real world and journeyed to… where?

——-

Click to Buy ‘Realm of Angels’ in paperback

 

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