“When some supernatural filth tries to carry off the children, call Roman so he can wade through blood and sewage to rescue them, but when it’s something nice like a wedding or a naming, oh no, we can’t have Chernobog’s volhv involved. It’s bad luck. Get Nikolai. When he finds out who I’m going to marry, he’ll have an aneurysm. His head will explode. It’s good that he’s a doctor, maybe he can treat himself.”

He plugged the phone into the outlet.

It rang.

Roman stared at it as if it were a viper.

The phone rang again.

He unplugged it. “There.”

“It can’t be that bad,” I told him.

“Oh, it’s bad.” Roman nodded. “My dad refused to help my second sister buy a house, because he doesn’t like her boyfriend. My mother called him and it went badly. She cursed him. Every time he urinates, the stream arches up and over.”

Oh.

Curran winced.

“You hungry? Do you want something to eat?” Roman wagged his eyebrows. “I have smoked brisket.”

My fiancé leaned forward, suddenly interested. “Moist or dry?”

“Moist. What am I, a heathen?”

Technically, he was a heathen.

“We can’t,” I told him. “We have to leave. We have Conclave tonight.”

“I didn’t know you still go to that,” Roman said.

“Ghastek outed her,” Curran said.

The Conclave began as a monthly meeting between the People and the Pack. As the two largest supernatural factions in the city, they often came into conflict, and at some point it was decided that talking and resolving small problems was preferable to being on the brink of a bloodbath every five minutes. Over the years, the Conclave evolved into a meeting where the powerful of Atlanta came together to discuss business. We had attended plenty of Conclaves when Curran was Beast Lord, but once he retired, I thought our tortures were over. Yeah, not so fast.

“Back in March, Roland’s crews started harassing the teamsters,” I said.

“In the city?” Roman raised his eyebrows.

“No.” I had claimed the city of Atlanta to save it from my father, assuming responsibility for it. My father and I existed in a state of uneasy peace, and so far he hadn’t openly breached it. “They would do it five, six miles outside of the land I claimed. The teamsters would be driving their wagons or trucks, and suddenly there would be twenty armed people blocking the road and asking them where they were going and why. It made the union nervous, so a teamster rep came to the Conclave and asked what anyone would be doing about that.”

“Why not go to the Order?” Roman said. “That’s what they do.”

“The Order and the union couldn’t come to an agreement,” Curran said.