If you haven’t already, meet Harry Eberhardt. Harry is a magician in the employ of the Office of Occult Affairs, the U.S. Government’s agency charged with dealing with magical threats to the country. Harry has not been a great success in the Office as of late. In fact, he’s stationed in the worst branch of the organization, protecting thousands of square miles of the most desolate parts of the American West.

Harry’s a demon slayer, a damn good one, he’d tell you. So when he got put on a case involving a demonic serial killer traveling the Interstates, he thought of it as his opportunity to make a comeback and get transferred back to D.C.

Part I of Magician’s Misfortune, “Search for the Demon,” covers Harry’s misadventures while trying to track down and kill this demon. Along the way, his life has got tangled up with Persephone Désirée Arabia Nightfeather Sanderson, another magician who somehow is key to this whole affair. At the end of part I, Sanderson was confronting the serial killer demon while Harry was being stomped by other demons.

Several days have passed as part II, “Search for Sanderson,” opens with chapter 16, “Lost.”

(SS Austria, destroyed by fire at sea, 13 September 1858)