I ran up the porch and pounded on the door. “Roman!”

Behind me the bone spines whipped out of the soil. What I’d thought were fins turned into a cluster of tentacles, each consisting of bone segments held together by remnants of cartilage and dried, ropy connective tissue. The tentacles snapped, grabbing Curran. He locked his hands on the bones and strained, pulling them apart. Bone crunched, connective tissue tore, and the left tentacle flailed, half of it on the ground.

“Roman!” Damn it all to hell.

A bone tentacle grabbed me and yanked me back and up, dangling me six feet off the ground. The scorpion dashed forward, its barb poised for the kill.

The door swung open, revealing Roman. He wore a T-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms, and his dark hair, shaved on the sides into a long horselike mane, stuck out on the left side of his head. He looked like he’d been sleeping.

“What’s all this?”

Everything stopped.

Roman squinted at me. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We had to come here because you don’t answer your damn phone.” Curran’s voice had that icy quality that said his patience was at an end.

“I didn’t answer it because I unplugged it.”

Roman waved his hand. The scorpion retreated. The tentacles gently set me down and slithered back into the ground.

“You would unplug yours too if you were related to my family. My parents are fighting again and they’re trying to make me choose sides. I told them they could talk to me when they start acting like responsible adults.”

Fat chance of that. Roman’s father, Grigorii, was the head black volhv in the city. His mother, Evdokia, was one-third of the Witch Oracle. When they had fights, things didn’t boil over, they exploded. Literally.

“So far I’ve avoided both of them, so I’m enjoying the peace and quiet. Come in.”

He held the door open. I walked past him into a large living room. Golden wooden floors, huge fireplace, thirty-foot ceilings, and soft furniture. Bookshelves lined the far wall, crammed to the brink. The place looked downright cozy.

Curran walked in behind me and took in the living room. His thick eyebrows rose.

“What?” Roman asked.

“No altar?” Curran asked. “No bloody knives and frightened virgins?”

“No sacrificial pit ringed with skulls?” I asked.

“Ha. Ha.” Roman rolled his eyes. “Never heard that one before. I keep the virgins chained up in the basement. Do you want some coffee?”

I shook my head.

“Yes,” Curran said.

“Black?”

“No, put cream in it.”

“Good man. Only two kinds of people drink their coffee black: cops and serial killers. Sit, sit.”

I sat on the sofa and almost sank into it. I’d need help getting up. Curran sprawled next to me.

“This is nice,” he said.

“Mm-hm.”

“We should get one for the living room.”

“We’d get blood on it.”

Curran shrugged. “So?”