Alistair nodded. “We should be safe. I’m sure Sullivan is already moving to take over Ursino’s territory. And, if the surviving guards from the casino spread the word, everyone will know to stay far away from the Gatti family.”
“Good. I guess I can start looking for an apartment, then.” Sam paused. “Want to get out of this basement?”
Alistair looked around at the tired furniture, the room that still carried little stamp of his personality after so many years living in it. It had been a place to lay his head, but it had never been home.
“I can’t wait,” he said, and kissed Sam again.
The adventures of Alistair and Sam continue in Lion’s Tail, book 2 of The Pride.
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End Notes
Special thanks to my Patreon patrons Laura D., Noelle D., Amanda D., Dusk T., Laura F., Shane M., and Robin H. Thanks also to Meredith M., who suggested the name for Club Grimalkin, and Melissane S. for naming The Black Rabbit. You can join them on my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/jordanlhawk.
Bevo (pronounced bee-vo) was a very popular “near beer” during Prohibition, brewed by the Anheuser-Busch Company. At its peak, over 5 million cases were sold annually.
Sleeping porches were extremely popular during the 1920s, and were believed to be more “sanitary” than indoor bedrooms. They were roofed to protect the sleeper from rain, and often enclosed by canvas curtains or were glassed in.
The gangster landscape of the real-life Chicago was very different from what is portrayed in this book, mainly because I preferred to use made-up crime bosses instead of trying to shoehorn Al Capone in. Sullivan, however, was inspired by Dean O’Banion, who ran his gang out of a florist’s shop and arranged flowers himself.
Towertown is no longer the name of a Chicago neighborhood, but at one time it encompassed the general area of the Near North Side. It took its name from a water tower on Michigan Avenue that marked one of its boundaries. Towertown was a bohemian district from the late 1800s on, and home to artists, radicals, and queer people, until gentrification occurred shortly before the 1930s.
The hello girls of World War I were a group of volunteer phone operators who formed the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit. They enabled fast, vital communication between field commanders and various headquarters, and often worked in dangerous conditions. Though they were sworn into the US Army Signal Corps, after the war the government decided they weren’t really in the army after all, in order to avoid paying them military pensions.
If you want to learn more about the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, I suggest starting with Betrayal at Little Gibraltar by William Walter. The book lays out not only what went right in the offensive, but lesser known details of the tragic blunders, petty jealousies, and sheer hubris that resulted in a much higher loss of life than there would have been otherwise.
While researching veteran suicides after WWI, I was horrified to come across a number of articles claiming that only modern soldiers suffer from PTSD. This is simply not true. According to a New York Times article on June 2, 1922, approximately two veterans a day died from suicide, a figure which is likely undercounted given the stigma attached to mental illness. Psychiatric professionals of the day also recognized that symptoms of “shell-shock” could appear or worsen years after the war.
The Chicago freight tunnel system was in operation between 1909 and 1959. It was largely forgotten until the system flooded in 1992, causing millions of dollars of damage to the buildings it connected.
For more information on the historical queer scene in Chicago, I recommend The Boys of Fairytown by Jim Elledge, and Chicago Whispers by St. Sukie de la Croix as good starting points.
Also by Jordan L. Hawk
Hexworld
“The 13th Hex” (prequel short story)
Hexbreaker
Hexmaker
“A Christmas Hex” (short story)
Hexslayer
Hexhunter
Spirits:
Restless Spirits
Dangerous Spirits
Guardian Spirits
About the Author
Jordan L. Hawk is a trans author from North Carolina. Childhood tales of mountain ghosts and mysterious creatures gave him a life-long love of things that go bump in the night. When he isn’t writing, he brews his own beer and tries to keep the cats from destroying the house. His best-selling Whyborne & Griffin series (beginning with Widdershins) can be found in print, ebook, and audiobook.
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