She put pressure on my shoulder, urging me to move. I took one step back.

I didn’t want to let this go. I would have more regrets if I walked away.

“Which Crowley?” I asked. “There were three brothers and one sister, last I heard.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the tattooed guy said.

“Eldest brother was a murderer, got ousted from the family for that, back in twenty-eleven, when the Fallen were still minor. But around the time their numbers swelled in twenty-twelve, early twenty-thirteen, he got accepted back, head of the Crowley branch. He killed two of his own family members after that. I think that matters a lot, since if he’s in charge, you can’t really call yourselves mere jackasses.”

“Not him.”

There were a few more faces appearing in the crowd. Unfriendly.

The girl with the moon design leaned in close, murmuring in my ear, “They have someone with powers in the crowd. They send people out to fish for recruits, and if there’s trouble, they have these reinforcements summoned into the middle of the crowd and they’ll shout you down.”

“Okay,” I said. “Middle brother and the sister were pretty skeevy too. They didn’t kidnap anyone directly, but they networked with the other families, gave shelter to some McVeays who needed to duck the attention of the law, and they traded a few of their family members for some of the kidnapped minors and capes the Mathers family had. I’d be concerned about going to that camp.”

“The little brother,” the guy with the tattoos said.

“The party animal,” I said.

“That’s what we’re about!” were the shouts. There was more of a raucous response from the other reinforcements. Cries and shouts of ‘party’. People throughout the crowd were looking.

“He’ll try to steal your girlfriend before he makes you welcome!” I had to raise my voice to be heard. The people who were pushing forward made it harder for me to see the couple. “It’s not worth it. You can look him up at a library. Jake Crowley! Four wives, all half his age!”

There were shouts and bellows of denial, a few swears directed my way. One ‘cunt’, from someone close enough to have punched me if he’d felt the desire.

“Throw away the paper,” I called out. “It’s not worth it!”

With the press of bodies, I didn’t see the paper get thrown away. But I saw the guy hugging his girlfriend closer, I saw the fractional nod.

That was all I got. The moon girl pushed me harder, and I allowed myself to be pushed this time.

I walked backward out of the crowd, looking at the group. They were still making a lot of noise.