Jonas Harrow

The night air over Los Angeles, always carried a charge—part electricity, part enchantment, part trouble. Jonas Harrow could taste it as he stepped out of his office, a bitter little office perched above a speakeasy that never slept and always smelled faintly of cheap bourbon. Down on the street, a pair of werefolk in tailored coats haggled with a goblin cabbie, while a siren in a beaded dress lounged beneath a flickering streetlamp, humming a tune that made passersby forget their names for a heartbeat. Just another Tuesday. Jonas tugged the brim of his hat low as he lit a cigarette, watching the match flare with an unnatural green tint—the apothecary’s wards reacting to another magical surge somewhere in the district. He’d gotten used to it. You learned to, in a city where the supernatural and the ordinary shared sidewalks, secrets, and sins. Peace was a thin coat of paint over a rotting wall, but it was peace all the same. He took a drag, exhaled slow, and tried not to think about the case files stacked precariously on his desk. Clients with cursed debts. A vampire baron threatening litigation. A ghost who wanted its bones found before dawn. Nothing he couldn’t handle—nothing he hadn’t handled before. But tonight felt different. The city’s heartbeat thudded faster, almost nervous. Something was shifting behind the shimmer of neon and glamour, as if Eidolon itself were holding its breath. Jonas ground out the cigarette and headed back inside. He had a feeling his next case was already on its way up the stairs, and whatever it was, it would change everything.