Chapter 1
Jack Nightmare was one of those quietly happy men who secretly drive less happy men insane with jealousy. In his thirties, looking eternally youthful, with hair the color of coffee and eyes like tanzanites, he was envied by men and women alike by default anyway; to be content on top of that was simply unforgivable.
He loved his job. In one world he was a police officer by choice, Detective Nightmare of the New York police force; in the other one, the hidden one, he was born an angel—savior of humans, slayer of creatures of the dark. Being a cop was equally his passion as being an angel. It allowed him to bring order and justice to the world, the mundane as well as the hidden one. And he managed to keep both sides balanced; even though a lot of creatures didn’t forgive him for upholding justice in two worlds; even though no human was ever to know they were not alone in life—a secret that sometimes weighed heavily on his shoulders.
He loved his private life; he was, after a few bumps in the road, in a blissful relationship. He even liked the greasy donuts his partner, Detective Theo Butterman, sometimes brought with him and the watery, sickly sweet coffee from the precinct’s vending machine.
Jack Nightmare was, to synopsize, walking on his personal ray of sunshine. Which was probably why his life was about to turn inside out and upside down in the equivalent of a cosmic heartbeat. The universe despises quietly happy people—or maybe just witches do; sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two forces.
In any case, to put it metaphorically, Jack was about to fall headfirst into the abyss he had no idea was gaping right in front of him. 1
Of course it started on a Wednesday, the most ludicrous of weekdays. Of course Jack didn’t notice anything at first.
Neither the odd glances a young group of vampires cast him on his way to see a potential witness, nor the startled gasp of a zombie who watched him from behind the one-way mirror in one of the interrogation rooms.
Noon found Jack and Theo at their workstation, typing a report. Jack was still riding an early morning shower sex high. Not even the prospect of writing the report of a more than dissatisfying case could spoil his mood.
Jack found writing a report sometimes was a lot like writing the opposite of a fantasy novel—he had to carefully take out all the supernatural bits and fantasy allusions to make it look like a perfectly normal case. The cunning businessman who killed mermaids and sold powder made from their dried, ground fins as an aphrodisiac to spider people thus became a dodgy dealer who offered useless herbal medicines to gullible customers.
Theo eyed him from the other side of their desks, no doubt flirting with the Danish Jack had half-forgotten. Just then a commotion in the corridor caught their attention. The drug-dealer the two of them had almost casually picked up two hours earlier was being transferred to jail.
He wasn’t, however, going quietly. Yelling at the cops who flanked him, then pleading for mercy, spinning some yarn about his large family, all completely dependent on him. For the first time Jack believed the guy’s every word, seeing that he was part rat and probably had an extensive family indeed.
When the culprit, Jeremy Sniffles, passed the open door to the office in which Jack and Theo were sitting, he immediately began raging. Tearing at his handcuffs, the wiry man screeched, “My family will suffer because of you! And so shall yours, bitch!”
Jeremy’s eyes, tiny black dots like the heads of needles, fixated on Jack during this little speech. The guards dragged him on, but he kept repeating insults until he was out of earshot.
Jack and Theo shared a bemused glance.
“Did he just call me a bitch?” Jack asked, bewildered.
Theo shrugged. “Just ignore him. He knew selling drugs was a risky business, now he has to face the music.”
“Yeah, but bitch?”
“Whatever. How’s that report coming?”
Jack grinned. “Done. Lunch?”
“Starving,” Theo replied, an answering grin on his face. His hand was already groping for the jacket that hung over the back of his chair.
They were just leaving the precinct when they passed Captain Baron, their superior, who nodded without stopping to greet them. Jack vaguely heard his steps coming to an abrupt halt behind them, but he didn’t turn around. Thus he didn’t see their captain, gargoyle protector of this city, shoot him a deeply inquisitive, almost musing look.
* * * *
Then a school girl found a body in a Dumpster, lunchbreak was cut short, and the next thing Jack knew, he was standing in Baron’s office, asking for protection for the girl and her family. Moonlight was struggling to stream in through the furious rain outside, basking the office in an eerie pattern of shadow and light. It had felt like a long day, even though it was barely eight. There was something about the month of November that made nights seem longer and darker than usual. Plus, of course, the creature world was generally in turmoil around Hallowe’en.