Soul for a Soul

The Masters Reimagined, Vol. 2

A Masters Reimagined novelette

Before St. Augustine earns his position as bishop, he and his teenage son must save the good name of the early Christian Church and rescue an altar boy from the clutches of a soul-capturing daemon. To do so, one of the two must travel to an unknown spiritual realm called the Neither, which lies between Purgatory and Hell, risking their eternal soul in the process.

This Masters Reimagined tale is written as if Gothic painter Michael Pacher painted his St. Augustine Confounds the Devil masterpiece specifically for the story. The painting depicts a daemon-like creature in all its bizarre detail interacting with a human St. Augustine of Hippo. Soul for a Soul posits Augustine meeting up with the daemon bearing the Book of Vices in fourth century northern Italy during a tumultuous period of the Christian Church.

Amongst backstabbing, spiritual mysticism, murder, and unspeakable acts within the confines of the early Church, this fast-paced novelette is a gripping parable that interweaves historical fact with spine-tingling fantasy and attempts to answer what really happened to Augustine’s son.

©2020 John Hope (P)2020 John Hope