The sign was even duller than Evelyn had expected.

"Johnson & Associates — Private Investigations."

Black letters on pale metal. No crests, fingerprints, silhouettes of men in fedoras, or any of the other tasteless flourishes private detectives tended to use to prove their profession existed.

Just Johnson.

A surname common enough to belong to anyone: an insurance agent, a dentist, the owner of a funeral home. Or a middle-aged private investigator with a tired face, cheap coffee, and a habit of calling younger employees "son."

So painfully ordinary.

It was almost reassuring.

The rain had stopped only a few minutes earlier, almost precisely when Evelyn emerged from the subway. A fine mist still hung over the street, settling on people's hair and coat collars. Wet asphalt gleamed in the early evening dusk, breaking the reflections of streetlamps, headlights, and the red sign of the twenty-four-hour diner on the opposite corner into wavering fragments. Heavy drops still fell now and then from the roof of the old bank building.

The building was far more impressive than the sign.

Three stories of dark brick and gray stone, tall narrow windows, a heavy cornice, steps worn smooth in the middle by decades of use. Once, people had stored money here, taken out loans, and been ruined by flawlessly drafted contracts. Now, judging by the plaque beside the entrance, the place dealt in cheating spouses, missing heirs, and unlicensed artifacts.

Evelyn checked the folder in his hands one more time, looked back up at the sign, and took a deep breath.

He needed this job.

Not necessarily Johnson's job.

Preferably this one, though.

The agency handled anomalous cases, held a license for artifact storage, and, according to the two references Evelyn had managed to find, maintained a working relationship with the New Vice Police Department. Its owner had been brought in more than once as an outside consultant, although no details of those cases were publicly available. The agency might have the right contacts, the right archives, and, if Evelyn was very lucky, access to the questions the Department had strongly advised him to stop asking.

That was enough to send in a resume.

It was not enough to explain why he had spent the last ten minutes standing across the street, unable to make himself go in.

Evelyn adjusted his collar.

"It's a job interview," he reminded himself under his breath. "Not a federal archive robbery."

The latter would probably have been easier.

He crossed the street.

Halfway over, a car hissed past and cut through a shallow puddle. Evelyn stepped back just in time to save his trousers from a sheet of dirty water and briefly regarded the incident as one final opportunity to turn around.

Then, annoyed with himself, he climbed the wet steps and pulled open the heavy door.

Inside smelled of old wood, coffee, paper, and the faintest trace of expensive men's cologne.

The reception area was small without feeling cramped. The high ceiling still carried the bank's old decorative plasterwork, and behind a counter converted from what had once been a teller station sat a man of about thirty-five in a wrinkled gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Two monitors glowed in front of him. The phone was ringing. An open file lay beside the keyboard, bristling with colored tabs in a vaguely threatening way.

He looked as if his workday had begun yesterday and no one had yet worked up the courage to tell him it was over.

The man glanced at Evelyn. His irises were so pale they looked almost colorless in the evening light.

"Mr. Gilmore?"

"Yes. I have an interview at six."

The stranger checked the time.

"You're early."

Evelyn automatically looked at his own watch.

"By five minutes."

"For the boss, that's early."

There was no irritation in his voice, only the exhausted certainty of a man who had long since stopped arguing with the structure of the universe.

"Oliver Burke," he introduced himself.

"Evelyn Gilmore."

"I gathered that from the resume."

The phone rang again. Oliver looked at it with the expression of someone personally betrayed, picked up, and said,

"Johnson's Agency. No, ma'am, we don't perform exorcisms. Because the existence of ghosts has not been established. Yes, I understand your ex-husband has been acting strangely. No, that still doesn't prove—"

He covered the receiver with one hand and nodded toward a row of chairs along the wall.

"Have a seat. Boss'll be free soon."

Evelyn sat and placed the folder across his knees.

Licenses hung on the walls beside a detailed map of New Vice, several crime-scene photographs angled so visitors could not make out the details, and an old clock that ran exactly seven minutes slow.

A low male voice came from behind a closed door deeper inside the office. Evelyn could not make out the words, but for some reason he knew immediately who it belonged to.

Probably the same man he'd spoken to briefly on the phone three days earlier.

The voice had stayed with him more clearly than the conversation itself: calm, deep, stripped of unnecessary courtesy. Quite pleasant, actually. At the time, Evelyn had decided Mr. Johnson was simply older than the dry registry information suggested.

Possibly a smoker.

Possibly accustomed to being listened to.

The voice fell silent.

A few seconds later the door opened, and a man in a courier uniform emerged clutching a small metal container to his chest.

"Do not turn it over," came the voice from the office.

It was even deeper than it had sounded on the phone.

The courier went noticeably paler.

"Got it..."

He slipped past Evelyn and left the agency at something very close to a run.

"Encouraging start," Evelyn observed.

"That's one of the good deliveries." Oliver got up, waved Evelyn over, and knocked on the open door. "Boss, Mr. Gilmore."

"Send him in."

Oliver stepped aside.

"Good luck."

There was something in his tone that almost made Evelyn ask what, precisely, he was expected to survive.

But he needed the job, and he had no intention of demonstrating uncertainty before he'd even met his potential employer.

He stepped into the office.

Then he saw Mr. Johnson and realized the surname had lied to him with astonishing cruelty.

The person sitting behind the desk had nothing whatsoever to do with the word ordinary.

Evelyn stopped without meaning to.

The face was the first thing he noticed.

Not merely handsome. That word felt lazy, absurdly inadequate. Mr. Johnson's features were too sharp, too striking, and somehow too perfectly proportioned: a strong jaw, straight nose, high cheekbones, eyes so black the darkness swallowed almost all the white. His skin was pale, nearly bloodless, but not sickly — smooth and dense, as if whatever he had been made from was tougher than human flesh.

Dark hair had been combed neatly back from a high forehead. There was no gray at his temples, no visible sign of age, though the stillness in his gaze did not belong to anything truly young.

His mouth was wider than a human mouth should have been.

Only slightly.

Just enough that, at first glance, Evelyn could wonder whether he had really noticed it.

Then Mr. Johnson said his name, and for an instant a row of sharp, unnaturally even teeth showed between his lips.

"Mr. Gilmore?"

Evelyn thought he should answer immediately.

First, unfortunately, he had to remember his own name.

Most of Mr. Johnson's body was hidden by the desk, but what remained visible was already more than enough. The dark suit fit him perfectly and had clearly been made to measure; no standard jacket would have fallen that cleanly across shoulders that broad. A white shirt made the contrast with his skin almost unreal. His tie was neat, though not pulled overly tight.

One hand rested on Evelyn's resume.

Large. Long, strong fingers. Short, carefully trimmed nails. It looked like a hand equally capable of holding a gun, breaking someone's face, or turning a page with complete calm.

At the moment, it chose the page.

Evelyn followed the movement of the fingers.

Then the wrist.

Then the way the sleeve pulled taut over the forearm.

Only then did he remember that Mr. Johnson was looking at him.

"Yes," Evelyn said.

"You are here for the interview?"

A pause.

"Yes."

Mr. Johnson tipped his head slightly.

The movement was almost human.

Almost, because there was something too precise in it, an effortless predatory grace no amount of training could have taught. It was the way one of the nonhuman lineages moved: not trying to look dangerous, and therefore making a considerably stronger impression.

A monster.