“Which family branch were or are you?” I asked. I turned to the couple. “Three branches, each loosely themed after one of the Endbringers. There was a nascent fourth in twenty-thirteen that was based on one or all of the other three, but I missed the memo on that.”

“Crowley,” the guy said. “We were the jackasses.”

“McVeays were the ultra-religious, more violent ones, loosely themed after Behemoth,” I said. “Mathers were the ones themed after the Simurgh. They’re still around too, they did a lot of the kidnappings of kids and capes, with intent to force marriages. Then you have the Crowleys, who were a little bit more than jackasses. Stirring panic, scaring people, violence.”

“To draw attention to the imminent end of the world,” the guy with the tattoos said. “Do you want us to apologize for trying to get people’s attention and failing? Or should we not have tried? We were right.”

“Is there a problem?”

A woman’s voice. I thought it was the girl with the moons on her costume. It wasn’t. Another woman with tattoos, with friends. One of the tattoos was of a bat-winged schlong. Another was of a cartoon character I didn’t recognize getting spit-roasted, in the metal pole, open fire sense.

She had others, but I couldn’t see enough of them to tell what they were. I could guess they were similarly tasteful. Her top was tied at the sternum, exposing ribs and stomach.

“Just a bit of one,” I said. “You guys are openly recruiting from this crowd here?”

“Recruiting is an strange way to put it,” the guy with the tattoos said.

I looked at the couple. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Free rent, free food, drinks, company?”

“Cheap rent,” the woman with the tattoos said. “A lot of people stay just long enough to make some extra money while commuting to Hartford and paying rent to us.”

“All we ask is that people who decide to go make sure to tell people that hey, we aren’t assholes,” the tattooed guy said.

“We aren’t assholes!” the burly guys who were keeping the woman company cheered in near-unison.

“Which Crowley is in charge?” I asked.

“Hey, bitch,” the woman said. “Just move on. Fuck off.”

The cheering had drawn attention. The teenage girl with the moons on her costume approached, ducking beneath one of the burly guy’s arms. She spotted me, saw that last exchange, and drew close to me, putting one hand on my shoulder.

“You’re the one Whorl was talking to?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Take it from me, it’s not worth it. Come on.”

The guy with the tattoos smirked.

“You know they’re recruiting here, right?” I asked.

“We know,” she said. “We’ve drawn attention to it. We were told to keep out of it, so long as they behave.”