Patrick had to look away. Wade’s true self shining out of the teenager’s aura made his eyes water. Wade apparently lacked that thing called control, which made him stick out like theWelcome To Vegassign in the middle of the desert.
“I’m not a kid,” Wade said, voice coming through the speaker system in the room from the mic pickups on the other side of the glass.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Casale said. He eyed Juan with the distrust of a state official used to getting overridden and not liking it one goddamn bit. “We already called in the SOA for this.”
Juan shrugged. “My two years’ worth of evidence says the case is mine.”
“Nope,” Patrick replied.
Casale shook his head. “I’ll leave you two to argue this out while I get on a conference call with the commissioner. It’s one in the morning and he’s not happy.I’mnot fucking happy.”
Casale left and didn’t bother closing the door behind him. Before Patrick could focus on the immortal, Jono stepped through the doorway with a grim look on his face.
“Patrick,” Jono growled.
“That is your murder voice,” Patrick said, eyeing him. “No murder allowed on the premises where cops can see.”
“Aw, that’s a shame,” a gratingly familiar voice drawled. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Pattycakes.”
Patrick reached for his tactical handgun anyway because greeting Hermes over the barrel of his pistol was pure fucking tradition at this point in his life.
“Why aren’t you in Greece?” Patrick demanded as Hermes squeezed past Jono to enter the observation room, dragging the door shut behind him.
“Because Zeus and Hera are having their usual fight over where he puts his dick and I want no part of it,” Hermes retorted. “I don’t consider that a vacation.”
Patrick could grudgingly agree about that, but he’d never admit it. “What the hell are you wearing?”
Hermes ran a hand over the same sort of DEA windbreaker the other immortal wore. “A uniform, what does it look like?”
“And you talk about me murdering a bloke,” Jono said. “Put your gun away before someone sees, Pat.”
“I saw it,” Wade piped up from the other side of the glass.
“You don’t count,” Patrick said.
Wade very pointedly waved his middle finger at them. If the teenager was bringing attitude, then he was probably feeling better. Patrick opted to ignore him for the moment. He’d cast a silence ward except he knew from experience that it wouldn’t stop a dragon from eavesdropping.
Hermes reached out and tapped the muzzle of Patrick’s pistol. “You know these don’t kill us.”
“I am well fucking aware of that fact, but filling your chest full of bullets would make me feel better.”
“We didn’t come here to fight,” Juan said.
“Of course you didn’t,” Patrick said, rolling his eyes. “Your kind usually makes me do the dirty work for you.”
The immortal spread his hands and shrugged. “I have asked nothing of you.”
“Yet.”
That wide mouth quirked at the corners. “Yet.”
Patrick shoved his pistol back into its holster. “Who are you? And why are you dressed up as a federal agent?”
“You may call me Quetzalcoatl. As for the uniform, being a DEA agent is actually my job.”
Patrick pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing when he forgot it was still tender from getting broken during his case last week. He’d never had any interaction with the Aztec pantheon before now, but it looked like that was about to change.
“Are you here for Wade?”
