Realm
The Foundations of the Domain of ‘The Earth Realm’
The Absolution of Salem unfolds as an eleven-volume epic series within a vast, layered cosmology that feels both familiar and unsettlingly hidden beneath our current reality. Earth as we know it is only one of eleven interconnected Realms, each existing in parallel dimensions, bound together by a fundamental force underlying all of the layers of the Quantum known as the Arcane. A primal energy that underlies all quantum physics and sustains the very reality of our existence. This universe merges theology, mythology, and science into a unified system.
Angels, Demons, Witches, Vampires, Djinn, and other ancient, evil beings are not contradictions or fables, but expressions of the same deeper structure of reality. The Creator forged existence itself, while unseen forces within the Quantum, including Dark Matter, act as a sentient, malicious counterbalance to the ‘strings of light’ of M-Theory Quantum creation. This shapes the eternal struggle between light and darkness.
Outside of this Creation, Angels walked in unity, until a civil war in Heaven, initiated by Lucifer’s rebellion, fragmented all of Creation. Now, cast-out Fallen Angels populate all the Realms, some masquerading as old Gods, while many others have become the very ‘devolved’ monsters of legend and lore, preying on humanity in numerous ways. Yet, humanity is blithely unaware, even though their souls are the most powerful, craved sustenance in existence.
Arcane power and enchantments are also reality. To those genetically equipped who can touch the Arcane, intake it’s power, and weave the strings of light into powerful enchantments, which is the manipulation of the quantum fabric of reality itself. This Earth Realm blends urban gothic realism with epic mythological scale, spanning ancient and modern history, World War II battlefields, exotic modern cities around the Realm, and other-worldly domains including Valhalla and a very vivid, disturbing Hell. One both horrific and revealing to modern theological arguments.
But evolved Fallen monstrosities are not humanities’ greatest threat. That lay in the Nephilim revealed in Biblical times. Those half Watcher Angel, half human creatures who not only survived the Flood sent to wipe them out, but prospered. Inbreeding tightly to maintain genetic strengths over many long-lived generations of the creatures. Stronger, more intelligent, longer-lived, and in the main… without conscience in their desire to dominate humanity and the Earth Realm.
Now, the Nephilim represent the most wealthy and powerful of ancient dynastic families who have controlled the Earth Realm from the shadows for millennia. Manipulating governments, corporations, education systems and the media. Installing tyrants as leaders, funding global war efforts, and now with a master plan to destroy western, democratic society ‘from within.’ All with one goal: to create chaos and collapse within western societies. So that they may tighten their reins of control much, much further. To reduce humanity to the slaves and sheep they see them as.
Series Arc: The Absolution of Salem
The Absolution of Salem V1: Resurrection
Status: Published 07/2026 by Archway Publishers
As Volume 1, Resurrection begins, Don “Donnie” Waterman is a dying World War II veteran, tormented by loss and the PTSD invading his mind. His final days cloaked in loneliness, wracked by intense pain, waiting for death. His war-blackened soul heavy with unforgiven sin; damnation, and Hell’s eternal torments, waiting for him at the edge of his final breath.
Salem arrives in his VA hospital room in the night. A Fallen warrior Angel exiled to the Earth Realm after Heaven’s civil war, Salem has come to repay him a life-debt. Don saved her eternal life on the battlefields of World War II. She intends to save his soul from Hell as repayment, but mercy is only the beginning.
To earn her own absolution and reclaim her place in Heaven, Salem must cleanse the evil trapped inside the soul of the ancient Vampire body she now possesses. A monstrous being strong enough to contain her powerful angelic spirit, while she utterly possessed it’s soul for her own.
The path forward in her own quest for redemption requires blood, battle, and Arcane power, as she hunts and destroys Fallen Angels on the Earth Realm, those who devolved into the monsters of humanities’ legends and lore. She requires a soulless hunter capable of wielding a weapon for her, that can turn monstrous evil into virtue to cleanse her own black soul.
Don is offered his soul’s salvation and a second existence. Not as the man he was, but as Salem’s supernatural weapon against the hidden horrors humanity has mistaken for myth: Vampires, Demons, Djinn, Werewolves, Wendigo, and other Fallen monstrosities twisted by time.
Behind those nightmares lies a greater enemy: the Nephilim. Ancient Biblical families of vastly wealthy and powerful half-angelic spawn, who have manipulated and fed on humanity from the shadows for millennia.
One dying soldier. One Fallen Angel. One impossible bargain. One Hell of a partnership.
The Absolution of Salem V2: The Making of a Warrior
Status: Completed       Publication Date: TBD
In Volume 2: The Making of a Warrior Don awakens in a dead but cryogenically preserved Navy’s SEAL’s body. Built for war but now in death, stripped of strength, conditioning, and skill. Which Don must rebuild, as well as his confidence. Apprenticed to his martial Master Salem… a ruthless master of precision and pain… he will be systematically remade. Under her relentless discipline, every flaw will be punished, every gain earned and praised, while Don is rebuilt into something stronger, faster, more skilled, and far more dangerous than he could have imagined.
Salem begins to strip away the illusion of his old reality. Don begins to perceive the hidden world beneath the Realm’s visible reality: ancient forces, monstrous entities, and Arcane powers that bend existence. Each revelation expands his understanding, even as his trained mind and body continue to sharpen into a weapon capable of surviving legendary monsters no ordinary man could face.
Salem will drive him through the Art of Steel, lethal combat disciplines, and modern weapons mastery until Don becomes a supernatural warrior and assassin. When he surpasses human limits, Salem will reveal to him his final transformation: a sentient katana forged for him from dragon’s tooth, darker Elven arcane power, and Divine will in the holy relic the handle is forged from. It cannot simply be wielded. It must be overcome, mastered by Don’s will, and bound to him in his blood.
Through a ritual of unbearable pain… flesh, ancient bone, and Arcane metal must fuse. The sword will test his breaking point, his worthiness. Don must endure and bend it to his now trained will. If he survives, the bond becomes permanent. Don Waterman will no longer be just a normal human. He will have become the weapon that will secure his Master’s Absolution, and perhaps aid Salem in breaking the shadowed forces seeking to strengthen their control of humanity.
The Absolution of Salem V3: First Hunt
Status: Completed       Publication Date: TBD
In Volume 3: First Hunt Salem intensifies Don’s training by field testing him against the ‘Coffin Girls,’ six legendary vampires imprisoned cryonically in the attic of the historic New Orleans Ursuline convent. He battles one, then several at once, Don proving his speed, discipline, and instincts.
Salem rewards Don’s performance with the gift of ‘Steve.’ Temporarily disguised as a massive Bulldog, but in reality, a Hellhound bred in Salem’s own Kennel. A breed of nightmares originally created by Lucifer in Hell. Highly intelligent; partly Demonic; three hundred plus pounds of killing machine Hound bred to hunt escaped souls and Demons. Steve by nature will challenge him; Don must overpower the Hound physically, and with his will. Only then, asking Steve to give him his heart, and offering to give the Hound his in return, will the two forge the eternal ‘heart-bond.’
Don and Steve must train daily as a team, mastering obedience, restraint, and combat tactics. Steve’s intelligence, strength and supernatural senses make him a lethal asset on any hunt. Their bond must become a disciplined partnership built on trust, control, and shared loyalty. Their preparation shifts toward real missions, the first planned being a large Vampire nest in Montana. Don and Steve will be forced to prove their capabilities together.
While in Montana, they by chance locate an ancient Vampire. One who ultimately surrenders the hidden location of Vlad Dracul in Budapest, Hungary. Salem decides Dracul will be their next target, possessing a very personal reason to rid the Realm of his evil. Salem begins the undertaking of detailing to Don the much greater enemy: ancient Nephilim families of immense wealth and power, who secretly manipulate global governments and systems.
They are insidiously behind all that is happening in the Realm to create chaos and tear western democratic countries apart from the inside. Salem explains this will ultimately expand their mission beyond her Absolution, into open war against these hidden powers.
The Absolution of Salem V4: Old Evil in the Pearl of the Danube
Status: Completed       Publication Date: TBD
In Volume 4: Old Evil in the Pearl of the Danube the team travels to Budapest to hunt down and destroy Vlad Dracul, the legendary Vampire Salem created centuries ago. Trying to gain Vatican support, Salem convinces local Cardinal András and Archbishop Ferenc that Vlad’s human trafficking empire can no longer be tolerated, despite lingering Vatican unease over Dracul’s historic defense of Christian Europe.
Delving Budapest’s supernatural underworld, the team learns from the Shape Shifter Freya that Vlad controls a huge network of werewolves, corruption, and organized crime. Werewolves attack Freya outside the nightclub; Don kills them publicly, igniting open conflict. They save the young doorman Milán, from human traffickers, to discover he is Vlad’s bastard Dhampir son.
Seeking sanctuary at the Basilica of Esztergom, Salem exposes Father Sandor there as possessed by the Fallen spirit Megyar. After exorcising him, Sandor dies redeemed. Vlad retaliates with a werewolf assault on the Basilica, but the defenders prevail after a bloody battle. The victory comes at a cost when a young volunteer, Misha, is bitten and becomes a werewolf.
The conflict culminates near Vajdahunyad Castle in Central Park. Vlad arrives with werewolves, Djinn, and ancient Fallen allies. Salem’s gathered forces meet them in a supernatural war. Wielding the soul-devouring katana, Don defeats Vlad in a magnificent clash, earning the title Master of the Blade by overcoming a six-hundred-year-old master swordsman.
In the aftermath, Don becomes an accidental internet celebrity when captured on video by Asian tourists. Salem acquires Vlad’s hidden ledger, hiring a Ghoul to locate the item where it is buried deep in a crypt in the Fumei Cemetery, exposing a vast network of traffickers, supernatural enemies, and secret bloodlines. The team attends a Black-tie Ball at the Buda Castle, to politic amongst the supernatural’s in the area. As the volume ends, Lilith, former Queen of Hell and now Succubus Demon takes a keen interest in Don’s mysterious nature. Lucifer arrives in New Orleans seeking a conversation about his former queen, who has breached Salem’s house to ask to work for her.
The Absolution of Salem V5: The Devil Drops By
Status: Completed               Publication Date: TBD
In Volume 5: The Devil Drops By Lucifer arrives uninvited at the door of Salem’s mansion, calmly warning that Hell is collapsing under the weight of countless souls, allowing dangerous entities to spill into Earth. He insists that he no longer attempts to draw souls into Hell for a very long time now; that humanity’s exploding population and loss of faith are to blame. The combination has caused Hell to overflow to the breaking point.
After Lucifer departs, Lilith leads the group to a wealthy, powerful Nephilim she discovers is staying near Baton Rouge. Their mission uncovers something worse: engineered hybrid monsters. The Nephilim have collaborated with Hell to create a childlike assassin infused with Basilisk DNA; highly intelligent, vicious, and lethally venomous. She kills her Nephilim father before Shauna takes her down, as she nearly gets the drop on Don during the confrontation. Creating a massive guilt reaction in Shauna for killing a child, no matter it is a dreadful monster.
Destroying this long-standing Hell-Nephilim alliance provokes retaliation. Elite Demon-led assassin teams target Don and Lilith. Though the team survives the major battle, largely due to the enhancements and weaponry Reginald has installed on Don’s SUV, they have become central players in an escalating supernatural conflict. Lilith’s true history is revealed; her Succubus Demon curse, which created the ‘Night Hag’ of legend, was forced on her in a horrific manner by Lucifer’s enemies, after he cast her aside. A method so vile, it is difficult to contemplate.
Francine and Salem’s help create and deploy a massive enchantment on Lilith, which frees her from her Succubus soul hunger, beginning a fragile path toward redemption. Heaven offers the team a perilous mission: enter Hell as ambassadors to uncover the truth behind its potential collapse, with Demons and black souls pouring out and into the Earth Realm. The rewards are immense, but failure could trap them in Hell and spark a catastrophic war between realms.
The Absolution of Salem V6: Hell
Status: Completed       Publication Date: TBD
As revealed in Volume 6: Hell, Hell is not chaos. It is a kingdom; vast, layered… and ready to break apart as Lucifer warned Heaven. When Salem and her companions descend into the abyss at Heaven’s request, they expect fire, torment, and endless suffering. Instead, they uncover a sprawling, deeply structured empire shaped by Lucifer’s appointed Fallen Angels. Lords and Kings of every level and many sub-levels of Hell, an eternal afterlife governed by hierarchy, power, resentment and hatred.
At Hell’s highest level, beauty masks despair. “Good” souls, but those who could not pass the Judgment, live in serene surroundings, yet suffer eternal separation from the Creator. Below, each level, and countless sub-levels, descends into ever escalating horror. Psychological torment; brutal labor under the whip; horrific tortures and grotesque eternal punishments crafted by Hell’s Kings and Lords, who rule with bitterness, and blame humanity for their own Fall from grace.
At the center stands Discordia, a vast, suffocating, ever-expanding dark city of billions. Here, violence is law, survival is won, and the central Arena reigns supreme. Before roaring crowds, Demons, damned souls, and even Hell’s Demon Kings and Lords… battle for dominance, power, and great rewards in brutal spectacles that entertain, distract, and sustain the masses.
But Hell is failing. Overcrowded beyond control, its structure and order is collapsing. Rebellion stirs. Ancient rivalries rise. And a hidden conspiracy, one linking rogue Hell factions with the Nephilim of Earth, the same group behind the creation of the child assassin, threatens to assassinate and overthrow Lucifer himself. Even the powerful Lord of Hell fears what comes next. Because if Hell falls… it will not fall alone.
Demons, damned blackened souls, and even its ruthless armies, will spill out into the living Earth Realm. Quickly destroying the Earth Realm, and the cosmic balance of Creation. As Salem’s group along with Lucifer uncovers the truth of who the rogue elements are, they are drawn into an ancient and epic conflict.
The Absolution of Salem V7: Wendigo
Status: Completed       Release Date: TBD
Volume 7: Wendigo opens with Lilith’s final Will read in New Orleans, granting her estate to Don. At her heavily warded storage locker, the team uncovers rare classic cars, priceless royal jewelry, and dangerous Arcane grimoires. One grimoire nearly incapacitates Francine, revealing origins beyond the Earth Realm Creation. Among the artifacts is a trapped Djinn. When confronted at the estate, the creature transforms into Iblis, an ancient evil tied to the earliest days of Eden and the inspiration for all Djinn. After a high-powered battle, the team narrowly destroys him, eliminating a threat of extraordinary magnitude.
Shifting to personal stakes, the group honors Lilith’s heartfelt wish to ‘pay it forward’ for her as a team, working on restoring a 1969 Corvette for Bill, a dying man whose soul they hope to save. Heaven stabilizes Hell by having the Creator obviate two thirds of its oldest souls. Shauna is granted a human soul from the Guf, while Salem is denied full absolution, but three quarters of her remaining sin is removed. Don learns he has earned a high place in Heaven but chooses to remain with the group.
Their next hunt takes them to Kelowna, B.C., where a Wendigo is preying on vulnerable homeless victims. Discovering gruesome victim remains in abandoned railcars, and tracing its movements through sewer systems, the team devises a plan. Salem creates six Golems from special clay, using forbidden Kabbalistic power, commanding the Golems to drive the creature out of the sewer systems where it travels, enabling a coordinated ambush.
With their help, the Wendigo is defeated in a brutal final confrontation. Recognizing the original Watcher Angel the Wendigo had been, Salem condemns its consciousness to a personal Hell using a terrible Elven enchantment. At the same time Don claims its soul for Salem, stolen from its victims, by using the sword as the creature is being consumed. After the savage battle, Salem gently returns the Golems to clay, promising them beautiful dreams until she wakes them again.
The Absolution of Salem V8: Bloodlines
Status: Completed       Release Date: TBD
Volume 8, Bloodlines, opens with Lilith’s final wish to ‘pay forward’ her own found grace fulfilled. The cherished 1969 Corvette is completed, and returned to Bill, a terminally ill man whose kindness has deeply moved Don and Kevin. Along with Lilith’s final letter to him, written while the team was in Hell, explaining all she has truly been, Bill is shown the truth about Salem, Shauna, and the supernatural world. Helping him to find his own salvation, allowing him to face death and Judgment with peace.
With Valhalla hopefully ahead, and the optimism of reuniting with old friends, the group travels to Europe seeking Odin. Revealed to be the Archangel Metatron. Their journey begins in London, where Salem stops to recover a dangerous grimoire she unwisely lent out over a century earlier, still in the hands of the infamous mage Aleister Crowley. Whose influence over London’s supernatural underworld has grown far beyond expectation.
Their arrival in London triggers attacks by ancient Persian assassin cults, hired by the Nephilim families as retribution for destroying their child assassin aimed at Lucifer, in expectation of triggering Hell’s implosion. Salem’s group responds with a devastating attack on the Hashishin operation in London, including locating a list of their entire hidden global assassin network. Enough leverage that the Hashishin cancel their contract with the Nephilim.
From London, the group travels to Bergen, Norway, where Metatron, now living as Jakob, welcomes them into his family’s home. While there, Jakob reveals he can sense Don as his own blood, suggesting Don may be his Nephilim great-grandson. Salem sends for the remaining team at home, to bring Don’s human bloodwork and DNA samples, hoping to confirm a truth that may explain the strange ‘something’ other supernatural beings have always sensed in him.
Bloodlines explores inheritance in every form: family blood, supernatural legacy, and choices whose consequences echo across millennia. Above all, it affirms that the family we choose can matter as deeply as the one we are born into.
The Absolution of Salem V9: Valhalla
Status: Completed       Release Date: TBD
In Volume 9, Valhalla, Salem, Shauna, Don, Steve, and Jakob enter the Viking afterlife to reunite with Ivar and Lilith, and recover Lilith’s knowledge of hidden Nephilim bloodlines. They discover Valhalla is a vast living world where Viking souls farm, hunt, feast, raid, train, die, and rise again.
They are initially welcomed by Jarl Harald Olafson and Hilda in at their smaller center, where the team earns the Vikings’ respect through combat and training with the town’s population. They then journey by Dragonboat to Kaupang where Ivar and Lilith rule, combatting a massive shark along the way. Lilith, once feared and hated, has found peace and love among Valhalla’s people, while Ivar’s exploits in Hell have already become legends written into the sagas.
A raid on Kaupang by a collective of villages becomes one of Valhalla’s great spectacles. Salem’s group helps prepare the city for battle with new techniques, and the clash proves both Kaupang’s strength and the enduring ferocity of the Viking souls. Afterward, a hunt turns legendary when a monstrous bear attacks; Shauna transforms into a colossal silver bear to save Lilith, and Jakob is forced to reveal his Archangelic power to heal her from the dire injuries she takes while killing the bear.
That evening, the Valkyries descend on Kaupang, sensing Odin’s power as he healed Shauna, and ask Jakob to make them human. They wish to bear children and restore that joy which Valhalla lacks. Jakob grants their request, their transformation dramatic as the black feathers of their huge wings fall to the ground. They are now eternal human women who can bear children, giving Valhalla the possibility of shared families and new life.
Lilith and Ivar are safe and happy, Jakob has reconciled with his past, and Salem returns with the information she needs to pursue the remaining Nephilim dynasty families.
The Absolution of Salem V10: The City of Fury
Status: Completed       Release Date: TBD
Volume 10, The City of Fury, after returning from Valhalla, the team discover that Freyda, Jakob and Ingrid’s daughter, and Kevin, have fallen in love in their absence. They intend to marry, uniting Jakob and Ingrid’s supernatural family with Salem’s, while Don is formally welcomed into the bloodline. DNA testing has confirmed him as Jakob’s newly discovered great-grandson.
When Kevin and Freyda choose to become Vampires so they can share eternity together, Salem and Ingrid assist them in what becomes a perilous transformation. Francine and Salem work to eliminate their blood hunger using a modified version of the enchantment created to cure Lilith’s soul hunger. Soon after, intelligence garnered from Lilith leads the team to Buenos Aires, Argentina seeking the most powerful Nephilim families.
Their investigations, including using a Necromancer to recall and question targeted souls in the Recoleta Cemetery, draws them into violent conflict with cartel-based human traffickers, powerful criminal networks, and wealthy supernatural families connected to WWII Nazi escape routes and a vast global Nephilim cabal. The same that has manipulated the entire Realm from the shadows for millennia.
Battling Djinn, Vampires and other monsters surrounding the powerful Nephilim families in El Tigre’s waterways, seizing ancient relics, and uncovering a database that maps the entire membership of the Realm-wide Nephilim conspiracy, they learn their enemies have been working toward the creation of a new Fourth Reich for more than seventy years.
Preserving and strengthening their tight bloodlines through using an ancient captive, half-evolved original Watcher Angel in a grotesque breeding program began at the end of WWII. Argentina had welcomed fleeing Nazi’s post WWII, members of the same party that had been initially funded by the wealthy Nephilim there, with the intent of conquering Europe. Now using those Nephilim among the Nazi’s that had arrived, as part of a new foundation.
As Salem’s power grows and the team’s abilities deepen, they come to clearly understand they are facing an ancient force deeply embedded within global governments, possessing immense wealth, and controlling much of the Realm’s media, financial institutions, and education systems. After striking and destroying several major Nephilim strongholds throughout Buenos Aires and the El Tigre waterways, they take refuge at a Vatican sanctuary outside of Buenos Aires under Father András’s protection, preparing for the larger war to come.
The Absolution of Salem V11: Terminal Point
Status: Completed       Release Date: TBD
Volume 11, Terminal Point after destroying the powerful Kuhlmann and PerĂłn Nephilim networks in Buenos Aires, Salem’s team relocates to Bariloche, Argentina, the suspected stronghold of the hidden Fourth Reich. Their final mission is to attempt to eliminate as many of the surviving Realm-wide Nephilim leadership as possible, a major strike to end their personal war against supernatural evil manipulating the Realm.
Unable to penetrate Bariloche’s secretive power structure through surveillance alone, the team turns to the Catholic Church. Father Frank, a local priest, becomes an ally after Salem reveals the truth about Fallen Angels, Nephilim, legendary monsters, and the hidden war beneath human history. Through him they meet Jessica Langerman, a ninety-seven-year-old German immigrant who personally witnessed the postwar arrival of Nazi fugitives and their supernatural allies.
Jessica confirms that Nephilim bloodlines, black witches, and Nazi-linked families have dominated Bariloche for generations. In return for her invaluable intelligence, Salem and Shauna give her peace before death, which Salem can feel is arriving soon. By showing her a glimpse of Salem’s memories; giving her comfort that Heaven is very real.
The investigation leads to Gabriela Flores, a powerful black witch loyal to the Nephilim. Captured after a swift assault, she reveals that in rapid response to the team’s massively destructive attacks in Buenos Aires, the surviving global Nephilim leadership is secretly gathering at the Llao Llao Hotel. Many hundreds of powerful descendants, tight bloodlines, dark Arcane practitioners, and supernatural guardians will be present, creating the greatest concentration of Nephilim power collected in modern history.
Recognizing a once-in-history opportunity, Salem once again seeks Vatican support, but help cannot be guaranteed. After surviving an internal betrayal, the team plans to launch a devastating Arcane strike of their own, one aimed at annihilating much of the assembled Nephilim global leadership in one terrifying strike. Using a massive, dark Eleven vortex Salem intends to conjure in the hotel’s basement.
A darker enchantment of the Elven Realm that would require so much power, it would without a doubt nearly end her. But if she can conjure it, a devastating, massive weapon would be unleashed that would travel up into the collected Nephilim they plan to have trapped in a conference room, literally tearing them apart. While sending their souls to a private Hell.
While the team moves into action, Vatican forces finally seem poised to arrive by helicopter in time to potentially engage hundreds of the gathered Nephilim’s monstrous bodyguards in a massive firefight and clash of Arcane powers on the grounds of the Hotel. But possible victory will perhaps come at a terrible personal cost, if the team can even manage to escape.
Heaven will certainly reward the survivors if they are successful in inflicting such immense damage on the true evil that infects the shadows of the entire Realm. At the same time, suppressed emotions begin to surface. Some that cannot ever be acted upon, but are at the least shared before any final ending can arrive.
The journey will ultimately end at Charon’s sanctuary, where Jakob and others have collected all of those who matter to Salem and the team. To await their hoped for arrival. Judgment, sacrifice, love, and eternity await for the team members at such as time as they may arrive there, to share the same with those they call family, for the last time.
Realm
The Foundations of the Domain of ‘The Earth Realm’
The Absolution of Salem unfolds as an eleven-volume epic series within a vast, layered cosmology that feels both familiar and unsettlingly hidden beneath our current reality. Earth as we know it is only one of eleven interconnected Realms, each existing in parallel dimensions, bound together by a fundamental force underlying all of the layers of the Quantum known as the Arcane. A primal energy that underlies all quantum physics and sustains the very reality of our existence. This universe merges theology, mythology, and science into a unified system.
Angels, Demons, Witches, Vampires, Djinn, and other ancient, evil beings are not contradictions or fables, but expressions of the same deeper structure of reality. The Creator forged existence itself, while unseen forces within the Quantum, including Dark Matter, act as a sentient, malicious counterbalance to the ‘strings of light’ of M-Theory Quantum creation. This shapes the eternal struggle between light and darkness.
Outside of this Creation, Angels walked in unity, until a civil war in Heaven, initiated by Lucifer’s rebellion, fragmented all of Creation. Now, cast-out Fallen Angels populate all the Realms, some masquerading as old Gods, while many others have become the very ‘devolved’ monsters of legend and lore, preying on humanity in numerous ways. Yet, humanity is blithely unaware, even though their souls are the most powerful, craved sustenance in existence.
Arcane power and enchantments are also reality. To those genetically equipped who can touch the Arcane, intake it’s power, and weave the strings of light into powerful enchantments, which is the manipulation of the quantum fabric of reality itself. This Earth Realm blends urban gothic realism with epic mythological scale, spanning ancient and modern history, World War II battlefields, exotic modern cities around the Realm, and other-worldly domains including Valhalla and a very vivid, disturbing Hell. One both horrific and revealing to modern theological arguments.
But evolved Fallen monstrosities are not humanities’ greatest threat. That lay in the Nephilim revealed in Biblical times. Those half Watcher Angel, half human creatures who not only survived the Flood sent to wipe them out, but prospered. Inbreeding tightly to maintain genetic strengths over many long-lived generations of the creatures. Stronger, more intelligent, longer-lived, and in the main… without conscience in their desire to dominate humanity and the Earth Realm.
Now, the Nephilim represent the most wealthy and powerful of ancient dynastic families who have controlled the Earth Realm from the shadows for millennia. Manipulating governments, corporations, education systems and the media. Installing tyrants as leaders, funding global war efforts, and now with a master plan to destroy western, democratic society ‘from within.’ All with one goal: to create chaos and collapse within western societies. So that they may tighten their reins of control much, much further. To reduce humanity to the slaves and sheep they see them as.
Series Arc: The Absolution of Salem
The Absolution of Salem V1: Resurrection
Status: Published 07/2026 by Archway Publishers
As Volume 1, Resurrection begins, Don “Donnie” Waterman is a dying World War II veteran, tormented by loss and the PTSD invading his mind. His final days cloaked in loneliness, wracked by intense pain, waiting for death. His war-blackened soul heavy with unforgiven sin; damnation, and Hell’s eternal torments, waiting for him at the edge of his final breath.
Salem arrives in his VA hospital room in the night. A Fallen warrior Angel exiled to the Earth Realm after Heaven’s civil war, Salem has come to repay him a life-debt. Don saved her eternal life on the battlefields of World War II. She intends to save his soul from Hell as repayment, but mercy is only the beginning.
To earn her own absolution and reclaim her place in Heaven, Salem must cleanse the evil trapped inside the soul of the ancient Vampire body she now possesses. A monstrous being strong enough to contain her powerful angelic spirit, while she utterly possessed it’s soul for her own.
The path forward in her own quest for redemption requires blood, battle, and Arcane power, as she hunts and destroys Fallen Angels on the Earth Realm, those who devolved into the monsters of humanities’ legends and lore. She requires a soulless hunter capable of wielding a weapon for her, that can turn monstrous evil into virtue to cleanse her own black soul.
Don is offered his soul’s salvation and a second existence. Not as the man he was, but as Salem’s supernatural weapon against the hidden horrors humanity has mistaken for myth: Vampires, Demons, Djinn, Werewolves, Wendigo, and other Fallen monstrosities twisted by time.
Behind those nightmares lies a greater enemy: the Nephilim. Ancient Biblical families of vastly wealthy and powerful half-angelic spawn, who have manipulated and fed on humanity from the shadows for millennia.
One dying soldier. One Fallen Angel. One impossible bargain. One Hell of a partnership.
The Absolution of Salem V2: The Making of a Warrior
Status: Completed       Publication Date: TBD
In Volume 2: The Making of a Warrior Don awakens in a dead but cryogenically preserved Navy’s SEAL’s body. Built for war but now in death, stripped of strength, conditioning, and skill. Which Don must rebuild, as well as his confidence. Apprenticed to his martial Master Salem… a ruthless master of precision and pain… he will be systematically remade. Under her relentless discipline, every flaw will be punished, every gain earned and praised, while Don is rebuilt into something stronger, faster, more skilled, and far more dangerous than he could have imagined.
Salem begins to strip away the illusion of his old reality. Don begins to perceive the hidden world beneath the Realm’s visible reality: ancient forces, monstrous entities, and Arcane powers that bend existence. Each revelation expands his understanding, even as his trained mind and body continue to sharpen into a weapon capable of surviving legendary monsters no ordinary man could face.
Salem will drive him through the Art of Steel, lethal combat disciplines, and modern weapons mastery until Don becomes a supernatural warrior and assassin. When he surpasses human limits, Salem will reveal to him his final transformation: a sentient katana forged for him from dragon’s tooth, darker Elven arcane power, and Divine will in the holy relic the handle is forged from. It cannot simply be wielded. It must be overcome, mastered by Don’s will, and bound to him in his blood.
Through a ritual of unbearable pain… flesh, ancient bone, and Arcane metal must fuse. The sword will test his breaking point, his worthiness. Don must endure and bend it to his now trained will. If he survives, the bond becomes permanent. Don Waterman will no longer be just a normal human. He will have become the weapon that will secure his Master’s Absolution, and perhaps aid Salem in breaking the shadowed forces seeking to strengthen their control of humanity.
The Absolution of Salem V3: First Hunt
Status: Completed       Publication Date: TBD
In Volume 3: First Hunt Salem intensifies Don’s training by field testing him against the ‘Coffin Girls,’ six legendary vampires imprisoned cryonically in the attic of the historic New Orleans Ursuline convent. He battles one, then several at once, Don proving his speed, discipline, and instincts.
Salem rewards Don’s performance with the gift of ‘Steve.’ Temporarily disguised as a massive Bulldog, but in reality, a Hellhound bred in Salem’s own Kennel. A breed of nightmares originally created by Lucifer in Hell. Highly intelligent; partly Demonic; three hundred plus pounds of killing machine Hound bred to hunt escaped souls and Demons. Steve by nature will challenge him; Don must overpower the Hound physically, and with his will. Only then, asking Steve to give him his heart, and offering to give the Hound his in return, will the two forge the eternal ‘heart-bond.’
Don and Steve must train daily as a team, mastering obedience, restraint, and combat tactics. Steve’s intelligence, strength and supernatural senses make him a lethal asset on any hunt. Their bond must become a disciplined partnership built on trust, control, and shared loyalty. Their preparation shifts toward real missions, the first planned being a large Vampire nest in Montana. Don and Steve will be forced to prove their capabilities together.
While in Montana, they by chance locate an ancient Vampire. One who ultimately surrenders the hidden location of Vlad Dracul in Budapest, Hungary. Salem decides Dracul will be their next target, possessing a very personal reason to rid the Realm of his evil. Salem begins the undertaking of detailing to Don the much greater enemy: ancient Nephilim families of immense wealth and power, who secretly manipulate global governments and systems.
They are insidiously behind all that is happening in the Realm to create chaos and tear western democratic countries apart from the inside. Salem explains this will ultimately expand their mission beyond her Absolution, into open war against these hidden powers.
The Absolution of Salem V4: Old Evil in the Pearl of the Danube
Status: Completed       Publication Date: TBD
In Volume 4: Old Evil in the Pearl of the Danube the team travels to Budapest to hunt down and destroy Vlad Dracul, the legendary Vampire Salem created centuries ago. Trying to gain Vatican support, Salem convinces local Cardinal András and Archbishop Ferenc that Vlad’s human trafficking empire can no longer be tolerated, despite lingering Vatican unease over Dracul’s historic defense of Christian Europe.
Delving Budapest’s supernatural underworld, the team learns from the Shape Shifter Freya that Vlad controls a huge network of werewolves, corruption, and organized crime. Werewolves attack Freya outside the nightclub; Don kills them publicly, igniting open conflict. They save the young doorman Milán, from human traffickers, to discover he is Vlad’s bastard Dhampir son.
Seeking sanctuary at the Basilica of Esztergom, Salem exposes Father Sandor there as possessed by the Fallen spirit Megyar. After exorcising him, Sandor dies redeemed. Vlad retaliates with a werewolf assault on the Basilica, but the defenders prevail after a bloody battle. The victory comes at a cost when a young volunteer, Misha, is bitten and becomes a werewolf.
The conflict culminates near Vajdahunyad Castle in Central Park. Vlad arrives with werewolves, Djinn, and ancient Fallen allies. Salem’s gathered forces meet them in a supernatural war. Wielding the soul-devouring katana, Don defeats Vlad in a magnificent clash, earning the title Master of the Blade by overcoming a six-hundred-year-old master swordsman.
In the aftermath, Don becomes an accidental internet celebrity when captured on video by Asian tourists. Salem acquires Vlad’s hidden ledger, hiring a Ghoul to locate the item where it is buried deep in a crypt in the Fumei Cemetery, exposing a vast network of traffickers, supernatural enemies, and secret bloodlines. The team attends a Black-tie Ball at the Buda Castle, to politic amongst the supernatural’s in the area. As the volume ends, Lilith, former Queen of Hell and now Succubus Demon takes a keen interest in Don’s mysterious nature. Lucifer arrives in New Orleans seeking a conversation about his former queen, who has breached Salem’s house to ask to work for her.
The Absolution of Salem V5: The Devil Drops By
Status: Completed               Publication Date: TBD
In Volume 5: The Devil Drops By Lucifer arrives uninvited at the door of Salem’s mansion, calmly warning that Hell is collapsing under the weight of countless souls, allowing dangerous entities to spill into Earth. He insists that he no longer attempts to draw souls into Hell for a very long time now; that humanity’s exploding population and loss of faith are to blame. The combination has caused Hell to overflow to the breaking point.
After Lucifer departs, Lilith leads the group to a wealthy, powerful Nephilim she discovers is staying near Baton Rouge. Their mission uncovers something worse: engineered hybrid monsters. The Nephilim have collaborated with Hell to create a childlike assassin infused with Basilisk DNA; highly intelligent, vicious, and lethally venomous. She kills her Nephilim father before Shauna takes her down, as she nearly gets the drop on Don during the confrontation. Creating a massive guilt reaction in Shauna for killing a child, no matter it is a dreadful monster.
Destroying this long-standing Hell-Nephilim alliance provokes retaliation. Elite Demon-led assassin teams target Don and Lilith. Though the team survives the major battle, largely due to the enhancements and weaponry Reginald has installed on Don’s SUV, they have become central players in an escalating supernatural conflict. Lilith’s true history is revealed; her Succubus Demon curse, which created the ‘Night Hag’ of legend, was forced on her in a horrific manner by Lucifer’s enemies, after he cast her aside. A method so vile, it is difficult to contemplate.
Francine and Salem’s help create and deploy a massive enchantment on Lilith, which frees her from her Succubus soul hunger, beginning a fragile path toward redemption. Heaven offers the team a perilous mission: enter Hell as ambassadors to uncover the truth behind its potential collapse, with Demons and black souls pouring out and into the Earth Realm. The rewards are immense, but failure could trap them in Hell and spark a catastrophic war between realms.
The Absolution of Salem V6: Hell
Status: Completed       Publication Date: TBD
As revealed in Volume 6: Hell, Hell is not chaos. It is a kingdom; vast, layered… and ready to break apart as Lucifer warned Heaven. When Salem and her companions descend into the abyss at Heaven’s request, they expect fire, torment, and endless suffering. Instead, they uncover a sprawling, deeply structured empire shaped by Lucifer’s appointed Fallen Angels. Lords and Kings of every level and many sub-levels of Hell, an eternal afterlife governed by hierarchy, power, resentment and hatred.
At Hell’s highest level, beauty masks despair. “Good” souls, but those who could not pass the Judgment, live in serene surroundings, yet suffer eternal separation from the Creator. Below, each level, and countless sub-levels, descends into ever escalating horror. Psychological torment; brutal labor under the whip; horrific tortures and grotesque eternal punishments crafted by Hell’s Kings and Lords, who rule with bitterness, and blame humanity for their own Fall from grace.
At the center stands Discordia, a vast, suffocating, ever-expanding dark city of billions. Here, violence is law, survival is won, and the central Arena reigns supreme. Before roaring crowds, Demons, damned souls, and even Hell’s Demon Kings and Lords… battle for dominance, power, and great rewards in brutal spectacles that entertain, distract, and sustain the masses.
But Hell is failing. Overcrowded beyond control, its structure and order is collapsing. Rebellion stirs. Ancient rivalries rise. And a hidden conspiracy, one linking rogue Hell factions with the Nephilim of Earth, the same group behind the creation of the child assassin, threatens to assassinate and overthrow Lucifer himself. Even the powerful Lord of Hell fears what comes next. Because if Hell falls… it will not fall alone.
Demons, damned blackened souls, and even its ruthless armies, will spill out into the living Earth Realm. Quickly destroying the Earth Realm, and the cosmic balance of Creation. As Salem’s group along with Lucifer uncovers the truth of who the rogue elements are, they are drawn into an ancient and epic conflict.
The Absolution of Salem V7: Wendigo
Status: Completed       Release Date: TBD
Volume 7: Wendigo opens with Lilith’s final Will read in New Orleans, granting her estate to Don. At her heavily warded storage locker, the team uncovers rare classic cars, priceless royal jewelry, and dangerous Arcane grimoires. One grimoire nearly incapacitates Francine, revealing origins beyond the Earth Realm Creation. Among the artifacts is a trapped Djinn. When confronted at the estate, the creature transforms into Iblis, an ancient evil tied to the earliest days of Eden and the inspiration for all Djinn. After a high-powered battle, the team narrowly destroys him, eliminating a threat of extraordinary magnitude.
Shifting to personal stakes, the group honors Lilith’s heartfelt wish to ‘pay it forward’ for her as a team, working on restoring a 1969 Corvette for Bill, a dying man whose soul they hope to save. Heaven stabilizes Hell by having the Creator obviate two thirds of its oldest souls. Shauna is granted a human soul from the Guf, while Salem is denied full absolution, but three quarters of her remaining sin is removed. Don learns he has earned a high place in Heaven but chooses to remain with the group.
Their next hunt takes them to Kelowna, B.C., where a Wendigo is preying on vulnerable homeless victims. Discovering gruesome victim remains in abandoned railcars, and tracing its movements through sewer systems, the team devises a plan. Salem creates six Golems from special clay, using forbidden Kabbalistic power, commanding the Golems to drive the creature out of the sewer systems where it travels, enabling a coordinated ambush.
With their help, the Wendigo is defeated in a brutal final confrontation. Recognizing the original Watcher Angel the Wendigo had been, Salem condemns its consciousness to a personal Hell using a terrible Elven enchantment. At the same time Don claims its soul for Salem, stolen from its victims, by using the sword as the creature is being consumed. After the savage battle, Salem gently returns the Golems to clay, promising them beautiful dreams until she wakes them again.
The Absolution of Salem V8: Bloodlines
Status: Completed       Release Date: TBD
Volume 8, Bloodlines, opens with Lilith’s final wish to ‘pay forward’ her own found grace fulfilled. The cherished 1969 Corvette is completed, and returned to Bill, a terminally ill man whose kindness has deeply moved Don and Kevin. Along with Lilith’s final letter to him, written while the team was in Hell, explaining all she has truly been, Bill is shown the truth about Salem, Shauna, and the supernatural world. Helping him to find his own salvation, allowing him to face death and Judgment with peace.
With Valhalla hopefully ahead, and the optimism of reuniting with old friends, the group travels to Europe seeking Odin. Revealed to be the Archangel Metatron. Their journey begins in London, where Salem stops to recover a dangerous grimoire she unwisely lent out over a century earlier, still in the hands of the infamous mage Aleister Crowley. Whose influence over London’s supernatural underworld has grown far beyond expectation.
Their arrival in London triggers attacks by ancient Persian assassin cults, hired by the Nephilim families as retribution for destroying their child assassin aimed at Lucifer, in expectation of triggering Hell’s implosion. Salem’s group responds with a devastating attack on the Hashishin operation in London, including locating a list of their entire hidden global assassin network. Enough leverage that the Hashishin cancel their contract with the Nephilim.
From London, the group travels to Bergen, Norway, where Metatron, now living as Jakob, welcomes them into his family’s home. While there, Jakob reveals he can sense Don as his own blood, suggesting Don may be his Nephilim great-grandson. Salem sends for the remaining team at home, to bring Don’s human bloodwork and DNA samples, hoping to confirm a truth that may explain the strange ‘something’ other supernatural beings have always sensed in him.
Bloodlines explores inheritance in every form: family blood, supernatural legacy, and choices whose consequences echo across millennia. Above all, it affirms that the family we choose can matter as deeply as the one we are born into.
The Absolution of Salem V9: Valhalla
Status: Completed       Release Date: TBD
In Volume 9, Valhalla, Salem, Shauna, Don, Steve, and Jakob enter the Viking afterlife to reunite with Ivar and Lilith, and recover Lilith’s knowledge of hidden Nephilim bloodlines. They discover Valhalla is a vast living world where Viking souls farm, hunt, feast, raid, train, die, and rise again.
They are initially welcomed by Jarl Harald Olafson and Hilda in at their smaller center, where the team earns the Vikings’ respect through combat and training with the town’s population. They then journey by Dragonboat to Kaupang where Ivar and Lilith rule, combatting a massive shark along the way. Lilith, once feared and hated, has found peace and love among Valhalla’s people, while Ivar’s exploits in Hell have already become legends written into the sagas.
A raid on Kaupang by a collective of villages becomes one of Valhalla’s great spectacles. Salem’s group helps prepare the city for battle with new techniques, and the clash proves both Kaupang’s strength and the enduring ferocity of the Viking souls. Afterward, a hunt turns legendary when a monstrous bear attacks; Shauna transforms into a colossal silver bear to save Lilith, and Jakob is forced to reveal his Archangelic power to heal her from the dire injuries she takes while killing the bear.
That evening, the Valkyries descend on Kaupang, sensing Odin’s power as he healed Shauna, and ask Jakob to make them human. They wish to bear children and restore that joy which Valhalla lacks. Jakob grants their request, their transformation dramatic as the black feathers of their huge wings fall to the ground. They are now eternal human women who can bear children, giving Valhalla the possibility of shared families and new life.
Lilith and Ivar are safe and happy, Jakob has reconciled with his past, and Salem returns with the information she needs to pursue the remaining Nephilim dynasty families.
The Absolution of Salem V10: The City of Fury
Status: Completed       Release Date: TBD
Volume 10, The City of Fury, after returning from Valhalla, the team discover that Freyda, Jakob and Ingrid’s daughter, and Kevin, have fallen in love in their absence. They intend to marry, uniting Jakob and Ingrid’s supernatural family with Salem’s, while Don is formally welcomed into the bloodline. DNA testing has confirmed him as Jakob’s newly discovered great-grandson.
When Kevin and Freyda choose to become Vampires so they can share eternity together, Salem and Ingrid assist them in what becomes a perilous transformation. Francine and Salem work to eliminate their blood hunger using a modified version of the enchantment created to cure Lilith’s soul hunger. Soon after, intelligence garnered from Lilith leads the team to Buenos Aires, Argentina seeking the most powerful Nephilim families.
Their investigations, including using a Necromancer to recall and question targeted souls in the Recoleta Cemetery, draws them into violent conflict with cartel-based human traffickers, powerful criminal networks, and wealthy supernatural families connected to WWII Nazi escape routes and a vast global Nephilim cabal. The same that has manipulated the entire Realm from the shadows for millennia.
Battling Djinn, Vampires and other monsters surrounding the powerful Nephilim families in El Tigre’s waterways, seizing ancient relics, and uncovering a database that maps the entire membership of the Realm-wide Nephilim conspiracy, they learn their enemies have been working toward the creation of a new Fourth Reich for more than seventy years.
Preserving and strengthening their tight bloodlines through using an ancient captive, half-evolved original Watcher Angel in a grotesque breeding program began at the end of WWII. Argentina had welcomed fleeing Nazi’s post WWII, members of the same party that had been initially funded by the wealthy Nephilim there, with the intent of conquering Europe. Now using those Nephilim among the Nazi’s that had arrived, as part of a new foundation.
As Salem’s power grows and the team’s abilities deepen, they come to clearly understand they are facing an ancient force deeply embedded within global governments, possessing immense wealth, and controlling much of the Realm’s media, financial institutions, and education systems. After striking and destroying several major Nephilim strongholds throughout Buenos Aires and the El Tigre waterways, they take refuge at a Vatican sanctuary outside of Buenos Aires under Father András’s protection, preparing for the larger war to come.
The Absolution of Salem V11: Terminal Point
Status: Completed       Release Date: TBD
Volume 11, Terminal Point after destroying the powerful Kuhlmann and PerĂłn Nephilim networks in Buenos Aires, Salem’s team relocates to Bariloche, Argentina, the suspected stronghold of the hidden Fourth Reich. Their final mission is to attempt to eliminate as many of the surviving Realm-wide Nephilim leadership as possible, a major strike to end their personal war against supernatural evil manipulating the Realm.
Unable to penetrate Bariloche’s secretive power structure through surveillance alone, the team turns to the Catholic Church. Father Frank, a local priest, becomes an ally after Salem reveals the truth about Fallen Angels, Nephilim, legendary monsters, and the hidden war beneath human history. Through him they meet Jessica Langerman, a ninety-seven-year-old German immigrant who personally witnessed the postwar arrival of Nazi fugitives and their supernatural allies.
Jessica confirms that Nephilim bloodlines, black witches, and Nazi-linked families have dominated Bariloche for generations. In return for her invaluable intelligence, Salem and Shauna give her peace before death, which Salem can feel is arriving soon. By showing her a glimpse of Salem’s memories; giving her comfort that Heaven is very real.
The investigation leads to Gabriela Flores, a powerful black witch loyal to the Nephilim. Captured after a swift assault, she reveals that in rapid response to the team’s massively destructive attacks in Buenos Aires, the surviving global Nephilim leadership is secretly gathering at the Llao Llao Hotel. Many hundreds of powerful descendants, tight bloodlines, dark Arcane practitioners, and supernatural guardians will be present, creating the greatest concentration of Nephilim power collected in modern history.
Recognizing a once-in-history opportunity, Salem once again seeks Vatican support, but help cannot be guaranteed. After surviving an internal betrayal, the team plans to launch a devastating Arcane strike of their own, one aimed at annihilating much of the assembled Nephilim global leadership in one terrifying strike. Using a massive, dark Eleven vortex Salem intends to conjure in the hotel’s basement.
A darker enchantment of the Elven Realm that would require so much power, it would without a doubt nearly end her. But if she can conjure it, a devastating, massive weapon would be unleashed that would travel up into the collected Nephilim they plan to have trapped in a conference room, literally tearing them apart. While sending their souls to a private Hell.
While the team moves into action, Vatican forces finally seem poised to arrive by helicopter in time to potentially engage hundreds of the gathered Nephilim’s monstrous bodyguards in a massive firefight and clash of Arcane powers on the grounds of the Hotel. But possible victory will perhaps come at a terrible personal cost, if the team can even manage to escape.
Heaven will certainly reward the survivors if they are successful in inflicting such immense damage on the true evil that infects the shadows of the entire Realm. At the same time, suppressed emotions begin to surface. Some that cannot ever be acted upon, but are at the least shared before any final ending can arrive.
The journey will ultimately end at Charon’s sanctuary, where Jakob and others have collected all of those who matter to Salem and the team. To await their hoped for arrival. Judgment, sacrifice, love, and eternity await for the team members at such as time as they may arrive there, to share the same with those they call family, for the last time.