Homer Tracy is the ever-smiling impresario of the Majestic, Never’s raucous, slightly ramshackle Vaudeville theater tucked between a gunsmith and a bakery on Pecos Ave. With a booming laugh that echoes through the rafters and a knack for finding talent in the unlikeliest places, Homer brings joy, spectacle, and a touch of the absurd to a town that often forgets to smile. He feeds the hungry out of the Majestic’s back door twice a day, no questions asked, and knows every name, every face, every trouble that passes through his ticket booth.
But beneath the greasepaint and good humor, Homer is serious about trying to gently shepherd lost spirits toward the light. He doesn’t preach, doesn’t scold, doesn’t judge. He believes in laughter as a kind of salvation, in shared meals as sacred, and in friendship as a divine act. Even demons get a warm hello and a clap on the back when they cross paths with Homer — He insists that anyone can change, and that Heaven always has room for one more.
Charles Four Rivers
Even before Satan’s rebellion, the angel who would eventually take the name Charles Four Rivers was possessed of a terrible curiosity. Created as a recording angel, he bent himself to the task of denoting the thoughts and deeds of men, as God commanded, but he could never find an entirely comfortable position in his work. He was meant to be content with what; he couldn’t stop himself from wondering why. Those questions proved troublesome, of course, as questions from angels always do, and when he finally crossed the border between observer of human nature and participant in human history, his own fall from divine grace was all but assured. Too clever to serve in heaven but too wholesome to languish in hell, he found himself trapped in the liminal spaces of reality. Never is hardly the worst place for a mostly-fallen angel to end up, and the human guise he’s chosen lets him use the skills God granted him at the universe’s inception.
Nettie Hogan, aka Lily
Nettie Hogan — Known as Lily at the Pearl, the upscale gambling hall and brothel in Never — seems to glide effortlessly through the high-society world of gilded poker tables and expensive perfume. She’s a strikingly beautiful young woman with dark eyes that seem to hold the secrets of the whole town. Beneath her polished exterior, however, lies a heart that yearns for something more than the fleeting touches and whispered promises of men who don’t know her real name.
Though she’s carved out a place for herself in the Pearl’s glittering world, Nettie is no mere object of desire. She’s an artist at her core, with a mind full of stories, poems, and dreams of a love far more real than any she’s experienced. Her passions are hidden behind the mask of Lily, but she carries them with her always: The deep ache for romance, for a connection that isn’t bought or bargained for.
Boone Duning
Boone is a MEDICINE MAN WITCH.
Boone straddles Never’s two worlds with a quiet intensity. A sheriff’s deputy, he is known for his stoic demeanor, keen tracking skills, and an unsettling ability to “hear the dead wind” — a supernatural talent passed down through his mother’s bloodline. Though he keeps his craft hidden from most, whispers of Boone’s eerie intuition and uncanny luck haunt the town’s saloons and prayer circles alike. His most valuable possession is a charred silver pocket watch that once belonged to his late mentor. The watch ticks only in the presence of lies, and sometimes, when Boone holds it, it speaks with the voice of the dead man who gave it to him.
Alvin Lucas
Alvin Lucas serves as a steady, good-humored sheriff’s deputy, and is well-known for his easy charm and unshakable calm even in gunfire’s heat. Dependable and a loyal friend, he is also quietly but intensely dedicated to his true mission of gently coaxing restless spirits toward redemption before they can become something darker, something irreversible.
To aid him, Alvin carries a battered hymnal bound in faded leather — A relic that glows faintly under moonlight. The book doesn’t contain just hymns, but names. Names of the dead. Some are scratched out. Some still whisper. Each time Alvin helps a spirit find peace, a page turns on its own. But when a name appears in blood-red ink, it means the soul is tipping toward damnation and time is running out.
Alexis Leclerc
Word around town is that Mr. Leclerc will get you where you need to go. He’ll sell you a ticket with an unblinking stare and an indulgent smile, and depending on your reason for traveling, you may find his presence anywhere along the spectrum between oddly comforting and wildly unsettling. You might also find that his definition of where you need to go is different from yours, or that it changes somewhere along your way, and the destination on your ticket may change to match. Alexis is cheerfully untroubled about the possibility. If you’re meant to go somewhere–anywhere–in particular, a greater power will ensure that you get there eventually.
Either way, the rumors about people leaving town on round-trip tickets and never coming back, or coming back fundamentally changed? Probably true.
Ada Blaesy, aka Kitty
Ada is a NAGUAL WITCH.
Ada Blaesy, known as Kitty at the Pearl, is a vision of beauty in the heart of Never’s wealthiest and most exclusive gambling hall. With a face and figure that seem to belong to the painted canvases of the world’s finest artists, Ada captivates every man who crosses her path. But what they don’t know is that behind the delicate features and soft-spoken charm lies a sharp mind, a practical heart, and a will of steel.
A cunning strategist in a world where appearances are everything, Ada plays her part with precision. Kitty is exactly who she needs to be to thrive in the Pearl’s high-stakes, high-society game. Her magic is as fluid and adaptable as the persona she wears. Her particular gift lies in shape-changing, a skill she has honed over the years to perfection. With a thought, she can become someone else entirely: Someone more suited to the whims of a client, someone who can slip through the cracks when danger looms, or someone who can disappear into the shadows when she wishes.
Though she wears the mask of a sultry courtesan, Ada knows the rules of Never’s dark underbelly all too well. She has learned to manipulate those around her without them ever realizing it, shifting her form and her intentions as easily as the moon shifts the tide. In a town where things are never quite what they seem, Ada keeps her secrets close. After all, it’s better to be a mystery than a pawn, and Kitty might be the perfect mask, but Ada Blaesy is the one who holds all the cards.
Imelda Salazar
Imelda is a MEDICINE WOMAN WITCH with PHYSICAL HEALING/HARM powers.
Imelda “Madrita” Salazar would deny that she moved to Never to flee her own heart, but her total reluctance to discuss her prior life might suggest otherwise. Unable to prevent her physician husband’s death at the hands of a group of bandits, she accepted her sister Gloria’s invitation to join her and her family in Never, and now stubbornly applies all of her time and energy into healing others. She charges little when she charges at all, and refuses to lose patients to even the most dire of wounds or maladies. She hopes that in some way, she can thus make up for the most important life she could not save.
Aracely Solares
Aracely is a NAGUAL WITCH.
Aracely thinks she might be cursed. Animals have shied away from her for as long as she can remember; milk sours if she looks at it sideways for more than a second or two; fires won’t light in the stove or the hearth unless she leaves the room. Her mother, sunshine incarnate, says it’s just the magic in her blood working itself out. Her grandmother says she needs a good dose of balance. Aracely just wants the people in town to quit crossing to the opposite side of the street when they see her coming. If they knew about the visions of disaster that she’s started seeing in her dreams, they would like her even less.
Effie Rickett, aka Daisy
Effie is a REVENANT SPIRIT.
Death put a serious damper on Effie’s grand plans. She had everything going for her–youth, beauty, talent, and the cleverness to unite all three–when she turned eighteen and her father promised her to Cornelius Gander Rickett, factory owner and railroad heir. Rickett was well-bred, appropriately connected, and twenty years Effie’s senior. Worse yet, he was absolutely disinterested in allowing his fiancee to follow her passions for art and music. Effie had dreamed of performing on the stages of the world. Instead, she found herself standing before an audience of New York’s upper crust, speaking vows over her own strongest protests, and boarding a train for a honeymoon trip across the country.
Rail travel could be dangerous, of course. Desolate country. Potential derailments. Slippery tracks. The shock of a new bride disappearing barely a week after her wedding was dreadful, but her husband’s obvious grief made for excellent tragedy in the society papers. Two families mourned. Life moved on.
Effie…didn’t. Move on, that was, and her memory of what had actually happened that dark night on the train stayed crystal clear. Tied now to Never, she’s forced to make do with what she has left–her pretty face–but the possibility of someday wrapping her delicate hands around her former husband’s neck keeps her focused on the future.