“Sorry to drop in unannounced,” Patrick said.
“We saw the news this morning about what happened to you last night. We wanted to call you, but Mother said to leave you be, that you were probably busy. Are you all right?”
“We’re fine.”
Behind him, Jono and Nadine crossed the threshold. Patrick saw Madelyn’s gaze linger on his and Nadine’s sidearms, a faint frown settling on her face. “Are you here on SOA business?”
Patrick ignored the question. “Is Eloise here?”
“Of course. We’re having brunch. We can make up a spot for you three if you like.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Madelyn eschewed asking them for hospitality and led them to the back of the house, which was packed with family. It was a whole coven affair, presided over by the woman sitting at the head of the long dining table, who only had eyes for them.
“Pat,” Jono said in a low, warning voice. “It’s not her.”
No hint of ozone stained the air; no cut of recognition burned through his soul and magic from hell or something else. Patrick might not be able to sense the imposter—the more powerful a god, the harder it was to find them when they were playing at being human sometimes—but he trusted Jono and whatever ability Fenrir gave him to sniff out a problem.
“Demon?” Patrick asked.
“No.”
Patrick unsheathed his dagger, the matte-black blade erupting in bright white heavenly fire, and stared at the person wearing his grandmother’s face. “Where is she?”
“Patrick?” Madelyn asked, staring at him. “What are you talking about?”
She wasn’t the only one starting to look concerned at their arrival. Finley and Grant stood from the table. Brittany and the other cousins twisted around in their seats at the table and in the living area to stare at them.
Patrick pushed past Madelyn, eyes on his target. “I won’t ask again. What thefuckdid you do with Eloise?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Finley demanded.
Patrick ignored him. Grant tried to step in Patrick’s way but came up short against Nadine’s shield. His expression of shock lasted only a moment before he conjured up a mageglobe, the spell in it not tactical in any way. For all that he was a mage, Grant wasn’t trained in combat, and his magic’s affinity was for weather.
“Get out of our family’s ancestral house,” Grant ordered.
Nadine made a punched-out sound behind him as the threshold rose up to defend against a perceived threat, the power of it sliding right over Patrick. He spared a single glance back to see Jono with his arms wrapped around Nadine, keeping her in place, the blue in his eyes replaced by the shining white fire of Fenrir’s presence, the god more than enough to stand up against a threshold. Nadine’s shields held, cutting around his mother’s family in a desperate bid to keep them safe against the threat in their midst.
The imposter masquerading as Eloise put down her fork, expression never changing. “Is this any way to behave, Patrick?”
Grant’s mageglobe exploded harmless against Nadine’s combat-ready shield as Patrick skirted past the man, holding his dagger tight.
“Answer my fucking question. Where the hell is Eloise?” Patrick ground out.
“I’m right here.”
The condescension in her tone went well with the frown on her face. Whoever was masquerading as his grandmother pulled off genteel annoyance frighteningly well.
Patrick got closer, dagger raised, heavenly fire burning along its edges. The imposter’s blue eyes flicked to the dagger for a single second, all the answer Patrick needed to know it was a god of hell standing before him, one with a penchant for shapeshifting.
He’d only had to deal with two of those in recent memory.
Patrick lunged around the corner of the table, ignoring the way Grant yelled and beat his fist against Nadine’s shield. The imposter flung themselves out of their seat with a fluidity no eighty-something-year-old woman would ever have. Patrick grabbed the chair and tossed it aside, clearing his way forward. He never took his eyes off Eloise’s figure as the imposter darted around the other end of table, so quick they were only a blur.
Nadine had segmented her shields to cover the Patterson family, and the imposter cut between them. Patrick moved so he stood opposite the enemy, shifting his weight to be ready to move in any direction.
“I see Zachary finally sent along our message,” the imposter said in a male voice laced through with amused mockery. The juxtaposition of it coming out of the shape of his grandmother’s mouth was jarring.
