*Knock knock knock!*
After waiting a minute, I knocked at the door again, but there was no answer. I was going to peer in through a window, but...
"Can I help you?"
I turned. A short, curvy woman with brown hair and glasses was approaching the house from across the street. "Patty Calloway?" I asked her.
She stepped up. "Yes?"
I thrust the romance novel at her. "Just returning your book."
Her face broke into a grin. "Oh, I've been missing that! I...umm..." Then her eyes went wide. "Umm, I mean that's...not mine..."
I gave her a flat look. "Uh huh...where's Eros?"
Her eyes went even wider. "Um...umm...who?"
There was a loud clatter from inside the house, followed by a deep grunt and a higher-pitched yell. Demie! She had gone around the back.
"Eros!" Patty quickly opened the door to see her flipped-over coffee table and Demie and Eros fighting. Eros still looked like Fabio, and seemed to be winning...he had pinned Demie to the floor with his knee while his arms held hers immobile. Even with her shape-shifting, he seemed to be adapting just as fast.
"Tom..." Demie looked up at me.
Right, Plan B. I grabbed Patty from behind and put her into a headlock.
"Eros!" Patty yelled again.
He looked up. "Let her go, Tom," he growled menacingly. But he couldn't come at me, or Demie would be all over him.
"You first," I told him firmly.
"Fine, fine." He disengaged from Demie and stood back. "I know you're not going to hurt an innocent woman, nerd."
"Gukhh!"
I had squeezed, cutting off Patty's oxygen. "If she's your summoner, then she killed someone already, so she's not innocent. I'm gonna ask you nicely, Eros: what'd you do with Otie?"
"Who?"
"GGHKK!" Patty was pulling at my arm now, unable to breathe.
"My brother, asshole! Looks like me?"
His eyes flickered to Patty's reddening face and back to mine. "I'm right here, bro." Then he transformed into Otie, which meant that he looked just like me.
I lessened my grip so that Patty could breathe, but I covered her mouth with my hand. She might know this one. In my best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression I said, "Chill out...?"
Eros blinked, confused.
"...dickwad," I completed the line from Terminator 2, Otie's favorite movie. "Did you kill him?"
Eros' features shifted back to Fabio's. "Yeah, he had the primal matter I needed to get away. Sorry, man." He gave me an 'aw shucks' look.