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.