Chapter 1

To human senses, the Chicago night was dark and quiet—at least as dark and quiet as a big city could be. But Sidney Westerbrook knew, somewhere beyond the stark neon and the shouts with the flattened vowels that grated on his merely human eyes and ears, the streets seethed with demonic fury.

And after coming nearly four thousand miles, he wasn't getting the chance to experience any of it.

Sid stuffed his hands to the bottom of his trouser pockets, as if he might find a last kilojoule of warmth down there. His father had warned him London's fog had nothing on Chicago's wind.

Then again, his father had warned him of quite a lot, only some of which had seemed relevant. Sid hunched his shoulders, and his gusty sigh bounced off the upturned collar of his tweed jacket, fogging his spectacles.

Who would've guessed the Chicago talyan would be such contrary blighters? All his Bookkeeper studies had prepared him for the same old, same old: immortal, menacing warriors with preternatural fighting skills and tortured demon-possessed souls, et cetera. But these upstart Yanks—from one of the secondary leagues, no less—had blown apart the theories of generations of Bookkeepers before him. Yet despite their obvious need for objective guidance, they wouldn't give him, their emergency Bookkeeper, even the time of day.

No way in hell were they giving him their nights.