"I'm just going to warn you, my family is a bit... Greek."

I zipped her up as she held those dark curls away from the catch, my nose catching the scent of sandalwood, poppy, and clean skin.

"It's okay. It'll just be weird to see you clothed in a room of people for once." I deserve the playful slap as she turns, those rich brown eyes glinting with mischief.

We met at a figure drawing class. I had decided I wanted to create something, something truly beautiful. She came in, tall and curved, laying supine, arm across her chest.

It took three weeks of asking, a week of begging, and a nice bottle of rose after a walk in the Park, but a few months along? It was going great.

"Really? Alexandria Antonopoulous? Always thought that was an Irish name."

I dodged the lobbed stuffed bull I had brought her from my trip to the Iraq. I grabbed her waist, about to go for the kiss before I backed away.

"What is it with you and this thing?" She smiled. The thing was a pendant she stopped wearing when we started dating, a gift from her grandmother. A silver circle with a lapis eye inlay.

"I don't know, it's just not my thing. Gives me the creeps." I hated lying to her. I knew exactly what the problem was, but talking about how your dad's the Devil is usually an engagement ring level conversation.

We went over the names. So many names. Being an only child I always loved hearing about families. All those minor squabbles and petty beefs, the little family rituals. It hadn't been like that with Mom, especially after we started moving ahead of the cults, madmen, and covers that wanted a piece of me.

I was nervous. Me. Nervous. We rode in the Uber across town, Ali checking her hair and makeup, me wishing I could smoke. It's a terrible habit, but the nerves were really rattling me, and my pack was digging into my side from my suitjacket pocket. I felt overdressed from my usual jeans and a t-shirt, but I wanted to make a good impression.

I fidgeted with a coin in my dominant hand, making the silver dollar dance across the knuckles of my left, vanishing and reappearing. It was my little bit of stress relief, and I knew I had to be on my best behavior.

"You're not even listening, are you?" Ali snapped, those eyes digging a hole in me.

"Aunt Thali and Daphne, married to Andrew and Phillip respectively. Your mother is Alexandria, but you're Ali to the family, your father is Theodore."

"That's better. Jesus, you need a cigarette. Get out a block down, smoke as you walk, I'll wait for you and spritz you before we go in." She never liked me smoking, but since she liked the rest of the things I did with my mouth she never really complained.

She must have seen the grin, as her hand came up to grip my cheek. "Don't screw this up, Gabe."

She kicked me out down the block and I started walking. I was about fifty feet in when I felt him come up on my left side, and smelled the scent of ozone.

"Hellspawn." "Watcher."

My Namesake had decided, from an early age, to keep his eyes on me. For that purpose he used the grigori. Most people don't even remember their existence, but the Watchers like it like that. The guy walking with me as I puffed away was sent down millennia ago to keep an eye on my Grandfather's flock, and make sure the Truce was kept between the City and Down Below.

"You are going to the house of Theodore Antonopoulous this night, are you not?" that voice, clear as a bell and twice as annoying. "What business does the Fallen have with one of our Father's anointed?"

I stopped in my tracks.

"You're fucking with me."

"Even if I were to have the means to, I do not find filth appealing."

"Christ, you're all so damned literal. Ali's father is a priest?"

For the first time since they started pestering me a Watcher smiled.

"Oh. Oh my. This will prove a pleasant diversion."