When the devil comes to town, who're you going to call?

May 08, 2025

Hi! I have great news! The kickstarter is fully funded! So all rewards are guaranteed. There’s no risk to back the campaign now and get these beautiful books that are much more affordable than previous illustrated books, thanks to the new printer I’m working with in the US.

In the last email, you met up with Sovvan, but she was in a tough spot. Before we get back to that to find out what she does about it, let’s raise the stakes with His Angelic Keeper: Books 3-4, Illustrated Edition!

What if saving your twin meant battling the devil and uncovering a plot that could end everything? Sovvan faces down Hell’s worst, even as her soul is at stake and the line between worlds blurs. (She also gets help from a dragon, a spiky ex-goddess, and, of course, her lovable-but-grumpy allies.)

Expect flying skeleton armies, wild magic, and entire chapters that might have you laughing one minute and gasping the next. Plus, my original art brings each moment to life.

An interior spread from His Angelic Keeper Books 3-4.

What’s in this volume?

697 pages of heart, chaos, and world-shaking choices
117 original illustrations (yes, I painted them ALL)
Epic fights and big feels

Ready for a wild ride through the afterlife (and beyond)? Back the kickstarter to secure your copies of the illustrated editions of His Angelic Keeper Books 1-2, His Angelic Keeper Books 3-4 and Chaos Rises!

You guessed it! It’s time to return to our preview of

His Angelic Keeper Hidden

By Melinda Kucsera

Chapter 1, part 2

Which ones held the information she needed? Not the ones she’d landed on. Damn it. Oh well, the answers only fell into the hero’s lap in stories. Sovvan put all thoughts of reclaiming her lost memories out of mind for now. The Memory-Eaters had just been doing their job when they’d taken them. She had larger problems than the holes in her recollections.

I’ve wasted enough time. Sovvan let go of the spent leaves, and they slipped, gray and lifeless, through her hands to land on their red brethren.

Sovvan blinked as those leaves blurred. She fought to keep her eyes open as two people whispered about chaos and order and agents who tried to maintain some sort of balance between the two. But there was no one else here except her and the trees and the clockwork creatures coming toward her. Numbness crept up her body. Those whispers must have come from the many memories she’d absorbed.

“That sounds like something Misriah would drone on about,” Sovvan said to the voices arguing in her head. What are the odds I’d land on the handful of memories about some old debate about those two arcane powers?

Too small for Fate not to have played a role in that. Too bad Sovvan wasn’t aware enough to pay attention to those fading voices. Hopefully, those memories would become information she could access later when she wasn’t so damned tired.

The Memory Trees shivered in the increasing wind from whatever Malachiah was doing. Was it too much to hope the God Misriah served would smite her ex-guardian angel? Probably unless Fate lent a hand.

Fate. Fay, that ex-goddess had given her something. An apple! Sovvan forced her eyes open. Of course, that crabapple was still rolling away from her. A spent leaf fell from her numb fingers as she willed her hand to reach for that beautiful apple. It might cure her of whatever the Agent of Chaos had injected into her if she could just grab that apple before it rolled out of reach.

But her arm refused to obey her. Shades, fades, and blades. Why is no one ever around when I need help? Sovvan blinked away the gray, edging her vision. So the Gray Between was coming to collect her again. Not good unless the portal to this place was still in there.

But Sovvan couldn’t remember where the only Memory-Eater who was on her side had created that portal. Everywhere in the Gray Between pretty much looked the same as everywhere else except for the forest, but Four hadn’t made the portal near there. Hopefully, that portal will be visible from a long way off on that gray plain. But it probably wouldn’t be because her luck was never that good.

Worry about that later. Right now, you need to get that apple. Sovvan tried to move her legs, but they wouldn’t obey her either. Damn, and Misriah was gone; Red, the guardian angel of this place, was still unconscious, and only God knew what had happened to Four. That memory-eating pachyderm had vanished before the fight with Malachiah.

This can’t be the end. Sovvan railed against that. But her very being was slowly unraveling into white-glowing strings. How Strange. What did that Agent of Chaos do to me? Sovvan stared at her disappearing hands. Did they want Malachiah to win?

Sovvan could still raise her head, so she checked her feet, but they were gone, taking with them the dull throbbing pain from kicking a certain ex-guardian angel, and her ankles and calves were unraveling too. As Sovvan watched her unmaking, part of her detached from her body and floated upward past the red-and-white blur crawling toward her. What on earth was that?

“Get the apple!” Fay shouted from somewhere nearby. Was that ex-Goddess back again?

I thought she couldn’t manifest without throwing things seriously out of whack. Though maybe that restriction had been lifted since things were pretty screwed up right now. Sovvan glanced around for that ex-Goddess, but everything had become blurry and indistinct.

Maybe Fay had appeared on a leaf again. But everything was fading to that hateful shade of gray as Sovvan floated up into the roiling sky above.

What’s happening to me? Since she was already dead, Sovvan couldn’t die again. But what did that leave? What happened to souls that unraveled? Was there one last reprieve? Or was the darkness sweeping her consciousness away from the last thing she would ever see?

I’m sorry, bro. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you or your son. I wish I’d met him. But now, Sovvan might never do that, not if this final darkness was it for her. She mustered all the energy she had left for one last prayer. Forgive me, O Lord. Send me back. I’ll get things right this time. I just need one more chance.

But if the God Misriah believed so heartily in heard, He gave no sign. The darkness consumed her mind, snuffing out its light for a while. Sovvan dissolved into a cloud of shimmering motes and floated out of the Grove of Memory and back to the Gray Between, the crossroads of the afterlife where all souls were sorted.

***

The shining cloud that had been Sovvan descended in a shower of sparks onto a foggy hill. Gray light filtered through a break in the thunderheads, and it shined on the metal carapaces of the clockwork beetles crawling up that hill. They each grabbed pieces of the entity that had been Sovvan and pushed them together, reassembling her.

More clockwork insects scurried about until a ghost of a girl lay on the brow of that hill. Her dark hair and white skirt blew in the wind, whipping across the plain. Job done; those insects scuttled away, and a fog bank chased them. It rolled over Sovvan, hiding her from view as she stirred.

Get the illustrated edition now!

Next up: the Chaos Rises, Sovvan’s next adventure. Stay tuned!

Melinda

(Ran will return soon. Hopefully, he’ll tell you what he’s been up to since he’s not talking to me!)