Most people knew the Greek Erinyes as Furies, deities who undertook vengeance against men. Patrick didn’t know which one they were trapped in the room with, but he didn’t trust the glint of insanity in her eyes one bit. Lack of prayers maybe, or too long walking alone through the centuries. Whatever had made the Erinyes unstable wasn’t something her worshippers could fix.
Patrick would’ve wished her worshippers had prayed her into a grave right about now.
The Erinyes stepped forward, her aura breaking free with a blinding blast of light that made spots dance in front of Patrick’s eyes. Despite not being nearly as well-known or powerful as the major gods in her pantheon, the Erinyes still carried a godhead.
She was still a threat.
Patrick raised his shield between them, tapping a ley line through Jono’s soul to power the defensive magic. He slammed the flat side of his dagger against the barrier, holding the weapon between them and the immortal hell-bent on murdering them.
The explosion of power she directed their way sent furniture flying into the walls, knocking everything off the shelves. Bookcases splintered, but the wards never broke, glittering brightly around them like stars. Patrick ducked his head against the eye-searing light that burned around them, hoping the heavenly magic in his dagger could hold up against the fury directed at them.
Jono pressed his hand between Patrick’s shoulder blades, bracing him against the force aimed their way. “I’ll shift, and we’ll go for her throat.”
Fenrir being willing to murder another god wasn’t unheard of, except the Erinyes wasn’t of his pantheon. That was a mess Patrick wasn’t sure the Greek gods would be willing to ignore with everything else happening.
Patrick tried to blink the spots out of his vision before he realized it wasn’t his eyes that were the problem, but the wards surrounding the reception room. He turned his head and squinted at the walls, watching sigils fade to nothing, the magic disintegrating. If the Erinyes noticed, she didn’t seem to care. All her rage and power was still focused in their direction, Patrick’s dagger all that stood between them and getting burned to ash a janitorial crew would have to sweep up.
The floor shook beneath their feet like an earthquake, breaking the Erinyes’ attention enough that her attack faltered. Her stormy blue eyes went wide when she finally realized the wards were no longer holding.
“What—?” she began.
Her words were cut off by the door exploding inward with enough force to send her flying. She crashed to the other side of the reception room, sprawling on the floor with wooden shards embedded in her back and thighs. She bled red, but the wounds wouldn’t kill her. If Ares could survive Gerard’s attack, she could survive this. Maybe it had something to do with the way their myths were told, the way their stories ended, but he doubted the Erinyes would die from something so mundane as shrapnel.
“Tisiphone,” the Dagda said as the Celtic god entered the reception room. “They were never yours to murder.”
Patrick thought it was a little ironic that the Erinyes who punished crimes of murder had tried to take them out.
“Thatbloke is the mayor?” Jono asked, his fingers digging into Patrick’s back, ready to haul him away it felt like.
“Ferbenn,” Patrick said, not dropping his shields. “I should have realized.”
The Dagda inclined his head slightly in their direction. “One of many names I am known by.”
First Maat as a federal judge, and now the Dagda as a mayor of one of the world’s most prominent metropolises. Patrick hoped no other immortals were masquerading as people in positions of power, but he had a feeling that wasn’t the case.
The wards came back to life, powered by the Dagda’s magic. The shattered door reformed itself, pieces pulling back into a whole, including the ones embedded in Tisiphone’s back. The immortal arched against the pull, scrabbling at the floor with sharp fingernails as the wooden shrapnel slid free.
Patrick didn’t lower his shield, keeping his dagger at the ready. The Dagda might have put Medb in her place last December, he might be the Morrígan’s husband, but none of that meant the god was on their side.
The wards spread across the door, interlocking in place with a magic that felt far different from the sort Patrick had noticed earlier. The Dagda crossed the room to where Tisiphone was pushing herself up on her hands and knees. He held out his hand to her, but she knocked it aside, sharp teeth bared in a snarl.
“Back off,” she spat out.
The Dagda stayed where he was, watching her with a cool-eyed gaze, his aura outshining hers. Tisiphone finally sat upright, kneeling amidst the mess of the reception room. She tipped her head back and stared at the Dagda, eyes unblinking in her face.
“You should have let me kill them,” Tisiphone said.
“Murder is your livelihood, but I promised you guidance when you came to me,” the Dagda said.
Patrick passed his fingers through his mageglobe, lowering his shield even if he didn’t lower his dagger. The Dagda had proven he was mostly on their side of the fight, unless he’d drastically changed his mind. Considering the company he kept, it was a distinct possibility.
“She watched Ethan torture me,” Jono growled.
“Tisiphone was prayed into existence to murder. Torture is near and dear to her heart,” the Dagda said.
“Not hearing a bloody apology, you arsehole.”
“I have nothing to apologize for, and neither does Tisiphone.”
