A/N: As always, thank you for reading. This is an AU where the Percy Jackson and Mercy Thompson storylines are in the same world. This is primarily a PJ fanfic, so if you aren't familiar with the MT series, you'll still know what's going on. Story takes place just after the events of the Heroes of Olympus series, and Leo is still presumed dead. The whole spiel about this not being my original story- except for the OC's- still applies.

Percy

As a demigod, I thought I'd seen it all. In the past my friends and I have gone on some crazy adventures, from the top of Olympus to the deepest pit of the Underworld. I've battled countless dangers, and would have had my butt handed to me a couple of times if it hadn't been for luck. Okay, and sometimes Annabeth. Point is, I've seen some stuff. But I have to say, a group of werewolves running around New York was something new. And not the kind like Lupa the she-wolf, or the hairy dude Lycaon either. These guys were closer to Hollywood's idea, silver allergies and everything. Well, almost everything.

Annabeth and I were walking along the path that led to New York City Hall just before noon. She loves the architecture of the place, and was telling me all about structural supports, ways to improve the overall design, and two guys named Brush and Mandarin.

"McComb and Mangin," Annabeth corrected.
"Yeah, sure."
She gestured to the building as we passed. "They built the modern version, but this isn't the first City Hall. The original was made by the Dutch in the 1600's."

"Fascinating," I said, squinting my eyes to get a better view. To me, it just looked like any old building. Annabeth took my hand, and I let her tell me all about how many times City Hall was made and remade, and the locations and histories of each place. Personally, architecture was right there next to watching paint dry on my list of things that interest me. But Annabeth was obsessed with it. And when she got going, here grey eyes lit up and she talked as if she were showing off her favorite toy. It was pretty cute. Plus, this was the last summer we had until we moved to New Rome together for college, and I was going to enjoy every minute of being in New York while I could. So I squeezed her hand and watched her get all excited over a couple dead guys and their centuries-old group project, happy to just be walking by her side.

No monsters. No apocalypse. Just me, Annabeth, and some pizza we were going to get later. I didn't know she had asked me a question until I saw she was staring at me, waiting for my answer. I tried to stop grinning like an idiot.

"Say what?"
Annabeth gave me her delux gods, Percy, I can't take you anywhere without you zoning out look. "I asked if you think we should stop by and say hello to your mom."
My smile faded.

Throughout our last ordeal with yet another apocalypse, I never got to talk to my mom and tell her I was okay. The first time around, she was up-to-speed with everything, but there was a period where my mom didn't know where I was or if I was even alive. It really got to her. Of course, I came to visit as soon as I could, and when she saw me she burst into tears and gave me the whole if-you-ever-save-the-world-without-calling-me-again-I'll-ground-you-till-you're-fifty lecture. It was a fun night. We've talked a few times since then, had some diners with my stepdad Paul, but I wasn't in the mood for another talk like that. She could be unbearable sometimes, in that mom kind of way. Annabeth, being the usual mind-reading, all-knowing super being that the children of Athena are, noticed the look on my face and laughed.

"She's your mom, Percy. Sally loves you- and being a demigod isn't easy."
I ran my fingers through my already messed up hair. The wind kept blowing it in my eyes. "Yeah, I know," I said.

I loved my mom more than anything. She had sacrificed so much for me to be safe, even if it meant working a dead-end job married to a smelly, abusive scumbag for years. Her only child was a demigod, and instead of caving like a lot of first-time parents who have normal kids, she went above and beyond for me. Every time I got kicked out of a school, she found a new one. A demon bull from the Underworld comes after us? She gets me to safety and sacrifices herself. My mom put up with a lot because of my being a demigod, she was entitled to some maternal rants here and there. And she didn't complain too often.

I stopped in my tracks. Annabeth turned, lifting her brow as a silent question.
I kept staring at her. "Since when are you on a first-name basis with my mom?"
The look I got was something between smug and devious.
"Since a certain demigod vanished without a trace, and left us to sit at home wondering what happened to him."

Fair enough.

She waited for me to catch up to her, but it wasn't long before our competitive sides got the better of us. Soon it turned into a race to the finish line, but in downtown New York in the middle of the day, that can be kind of difficult. We were halfway to my favorite pizzeria, and I was just about to claim my victory as best crowd-dodging champion of all-time, when something short ran into me with an "Oof!"

I got a flash of pink hair and shiny earrings before the person disappeared. Someone behind me apologized, so I said "It's cool" and continued on like nothing happened. By the time Annabeth doubled back to make sure I didn't fall into traffic, I forgot about it.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I've had much worse scrapes than walking into a pixie-girl."
Annabeth rolled her eyes, taking my hand again.
"Come on, Seaweed Brain," she said with a laugh. She hauled me off like a sack of potatoes. "Let's go get something to eat."

Mercy

"What is it?"

I looked up at my husband. "I don't know- I've never caught a scent like that."

Adam Hauptman lifted his head, inhaling through the nose. Judging by the look on his face, he could smell it to. Today he wore a tight black shirt and a pair of jeans that accented every muscle on him. Being twenty-eight for all of time looks good, but being a ripped twenty-eight-year-old with a body like that should be illegal. Though I'm pretty sure he chose this particular getup as revenge for the top I wore yesterday. Nothing too flashy, but when I stumbled into a stranger he got quite a show. Werewolves can be pretty territorial, and when a guy looks at their mate the way that passerby did me, Adam all but ripped his throat out.

"Mercy."

Five minutes ago, Adam was enjoying every second of watching me squirm. Since the moment he stepped out of the hotel bathroom, he made an effort to stay within my line of sight. It was hard to focus. He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting my face so that I would have no choice but to meet his stare. "Tell me what you smelled."

I'm no werewolf, but as a coyote shifter, my nose can be pretty useful. And whatever it was that we picked up, Adam was having as much trouble with it as I was. It would take both of our noses to figure this out. I blinked, hard. "There was this scent, like sea breeze. Books. And-something else. Something...golden." Adam looked at me. "Golden?" His voice was calm, which told me he was on-edge. Werewolves are weird like that. I shrugged. "That's the best I could do. If I had to put a name to it, 'golden' would be my pick." He let go of my face to scratch his chin.

"Anything in your Indian stories about creatures that smell like water and...gold?"

I crossed my arms. "Let me go to yonder wigwam and consult Great Spirit." As I spoke, I was sure to keep my eyes from meeting his, so he would know I wasn't challenging him. If you want to die a painful death, look a werewolf in the eye and yell. Good thing my husband had a lot of self-control. Adam took a moment to consider while Jesse, his teenage daughter from his first marriage, looked around to see why we had stopped. This week she sported bright pink tresses to offset the dangling earrings she just bought. She dyed her hair as often as she could, both to get her dad's attention and to accommodate her rebellious personality. Jesse rubbed her shoulder. "You think it was him?" she asked.

"Who," said Adam mid-thought.
"The guy I ran into back there."

"You ran into a guy?" asked Gabriel as he caught up to us. Adam stiffened when he came to a stop beside his daughter. Bringing Jesse' boyfriend along on vacation wasn't something Adam wanted to do, but I persuaded him to reconsider (with the help of the lingerie I bought before we left). Gabriel Sandoval comes from a large family, the only man in the house since his father died. He has to work twice as hard as most kids to make sure his sisters are all fed and clothed. The kid deserved a break. Of course, I had to swap places at the hotel and sleep in the same room with Jesse while Adam bunked with Gabriel, but it was worth it. We had been here three days, and so far no one had died. Yet.

"Take the overly-protective-boyfriend act down a couple notches," Jesse said with a roll of her eyes. She always chided Gabriel whenever he expressed even a little concern for her. As daughter of the Columbia Basin Pack's Alpha, she had enough babysitters. But I knew she loved it when Gabriel looked at her like that, as if she was the center of gravity. "There was this guy I bumped into, it's not a big deal." Gabriel frowned, so she added "He was with a blonde girl."

That lifted his spirits.
"Oh, okay." He looked from Jesse to me to Adam, whose gaze he'd been avoiding since we'd arrived. "So what's wrong?"

Gabriel was a smart kid. If the situation were different, he could have gone to a better college, gotten a good job, and lived in comfort for the rest of his life. But instead he wore old t-shirts, ratty jeans, and too-big shoes. His hands stained with grease from the time he's spent helping me in my car shop. Despite the outward appearance, he knew a thing or two. He knew something wasn't right- and this was a human kid living among a werewolf pack. The years with us had made him pretty receptive.

"Adam and I smelled something," I said, "Something inhuman."
Gabriel's brows lifted. "Is it dangerous?"
"We don't know yet," answered Adam with a growl.

Jesse shifted her weight from one foot to the other, paying no mind to Gabriel's hand against her back. I looked around again, shading my eyes from the heat of the sun, just in time to see a pair of bright orange shirts race into a local pizza shop. It was the kid who ran into Jesse. I started forward. "Follow me."
Without waiting to see if they'd listen, I made my way across the street. Dodging so many pedestrians and cars was still new, but I was starting to get the hang of it. Adam matched my pace without effort. It would be a lot easier to track the scent if I could shift, but in order to do so I'd have to strip down to nothing. And as comfortable as I was being nude (something you get used to when you're a coyote shifter who's lived among wolves your whole life), it would warrant a few looks and intervention from law enforcement. In the end, my human nose was what I had to work with.

When we got to the front entrance my husband stopped beside me, followed by Jesse and Gabriel. I could see the skeptical look Adam was giving me in the door's reflection and stared back at him without wavering. Unlike most people, I knew when to hold my ground against a wolf. He narrowed his eyes. "Want to tell me what your plan is?"

"I'll clue you in when I figure it out myself."
"Mercy-"
But I wasn't listening. We didn't have time to sit her and debate- we had to see what this thing was, and if it was dangerous. I opened the door and walked into a blast of cool air, greeted with the scent of fresh food.

Percy

I was halfway through my large pepperoni and bacon pizza with extra olives when Annabeth shot me a look across the table. It wasn't the kind she usually gave me, like when I say something stupid or get food on my shirt. I looked down at myself just in case, but I was clean.

"Percy."

She sounded urgent. Like we-need-to-go-now urgent. I glanced from my t-shirt to her, but she wasn't looking at me anymore. Her eyes were focused on something behind me. I nodded once. Something was in here with us. We both stood, looking like a normal couple about to go off to our next destination. The Mist did a good job of hiding monsters, but that didn't mean it would hide a couple tenagers freaking out and running for the door. I tucked a couple bills under my plate as Annabeth gathered up her jacket. Between Riptide in my pocket and her fighting knife and baseball cap, which had started working again after she had found the Athena Parthenos, we were in pretty good shape. It had been a few days since our last battle, so we were expecting something to happen. Something always does. But the fact that our date was interrupted had me in a bad mood.

I don't get to spend much time alone with Annabeth, and after I was dropped into New Rome with nothing but her name in my memory bank, we didn't want to take any more chances. We've spent more time together, sure- in between sword training, configuring Daedalus' laptop, and making sure new arrivals get to camp safely before any nasties could take them out. I love my friends to Olympus and back, but they never leave us alone. So we improvise. Going out and sitting in an air bubble at the bottom of the lake, taking a short field trip outside of camp. Today was our one shot at having complete privacy, and it was over before it started.

The bell on the door jingled as we left, and when we were about five feet away it went off a second time. No denying it now; we were being followed.
"Come on," said Annabeth, "we'll catch a taxi for camp and ditch them in traffic."
I gritted my teeth. "How many we talking here?"
"Four. One of them, a hispanic-looking boy, kept staring. I didn't think anything of it until his friend's eyes started turning gold. Other than that, they look completely normal."
"Which means they must be dangerous."

Annabeth nodded, still looking straight ahead. "My thoughts exactly."

We came to the end of the street and had to wait for traffic to come to a stop. I did a slow turn, looking here and there like a tourist taking in the scenery. When I made a full three-sixty, Annabeth waited to my right. "Pixie girl," I said under my breath.
"What?"
"That girl I bumped into, just before we ate. She's with them."

For a moment, Annabeth didn't say anything. I could almost see the gears turning as she sorted through our options. If there was any way we could get out of this with as little damage as possible, Annabeth could figure it out. Not only is she a child of Athena, but she's the only child of Athena who could make it past all kinds of obstacles and get to the giant statue of her mother. I trusted her with my life. We stood there for a couple minutes- New York traffic waits for no one- not even a couple of demigods on the run from monsters. Pressing her thumb and finger to her lips, Annabeth let out a shrill whistle that was impressive for someone who wasn't a local. Then again, she had a way with studying up on places, knowing the ins and outs of the area as well as anyone born there. Not to mention the time she's spent at camp. Right on queue, a taxi pulled up, and she took me by the collar of my shirt and dragged me inside.

Annabeth gave the guy directions to the road just outside of camp boundaries, and the driver turned in his seat. "You sure you want to go that far, girl?"

Annabeth paid him double what would have been owed. That shut him up right away. It also saved us some time, because the second we were clear, the taxi driver put the pedal to the floor. I almost fell out of my seat before I could get strapped in. Annabeth stumbled backwards, her blonde hair falling in her eyes. She looked like a blonde Cousin Itt. I would've laughed if we weren't on the run- again. No rest for the awesome.

"Percy," she said in a neutral tone, "when we get out, have your pen ready."
I nodded. "Got your baseball hat?"

She pulled it out and showed it to me. We must have sounded crazy, because I could see the driver's eyes in the rearview. He was watching us with interest until someone cut him off. For the next fifteen minutes or so, we sat in silence as streets and buildings flew by- every now and then Annabeth would tell me random facts about something, which I forgot the second she finished- and the cars on the road became more and more scarce.

One thing I always liked about Camp Half-Blood: there wasn't ever a traffic jam nearby. The paved roads turned to gravel, then dirt, which took a bit longer for the old taxi to drive on, but it did the job. We got out, assured the man that we'd be okay, and watched the trail of dust pick up as he sped off. I turned to Annabeth. Riptide was already in my hand, and when I uncapped it, the blade sprang from pen to sword in one fluid motion. "Let's rock and roll."

We hadn't been by ourselves for two seconds when something roared behind us. Annabeth's eyebrows furrowed. "That's impossible," she said, "we left them back in the city." She paused. "Unless-"
I faced the source of the noise, sword-pen in hand. "It must have smelled us when we got out of the car." As if in answer, a huge wave of stink hit me like a ton of bricks. At least the other guys had the decency to shower before they found us. With a quick alteration of plans, Annabeth and I faced the bushes that began to move.

Mercy

"What do we do now?"

The second the taxi drove off, I knew we hit a dead end. There were about five hundred taxi's on this one strip of road, and trying to single one out with nothing but Adam and my human noses was impossible. "We have to find them," I said. "There's no telling what they might do. Jesse- you and Gabriel need to go back. Do some shopping, go to the hotel-"

"Absolutely not," barked Adam. "Those two are not going back to a hotel room by themselves."
Gabriel flushed, and Jesse stomped her foot. "Dad!"
"No," he said again.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "We can't bring them with us- we don't know anything about those kids."
Adam looked like he was about to argue, so Jesse cut in. "Nothing's going to happen, Dad. You can trust us- but if you stay and fight it out, you're going to lose them."
With a great deal of effort, Adam remained calm. He pointed a finger at Jesse. "You call me every hour and give me updates. And you will do well to remember that there are surveillance cameras in those rooms that I hooked up to my phone."

Jesse rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure. Whatever. Just get going already."
I took his hand and gave it a light tug. "We need to shift so it's easier to find their scent."
Adam shook his head. "Only you shift. It takes me too long, and a full-grown werewolf running about in broad daylight will draw attention."
"Okay."

Adam passed off his hotel key to Jesse, and with a "Don't get yourself killed," she was off with Gabriel in tow. Adam took something from his backpack (leave it to him to bring a crapload of things around town while on vacation) and I frowned.
"You still have that old thing?"
He shrugged, holding up the leash so that I could see. "I saved it in case we'd have to use it again. Looks like my suspicions have been confirmed."
"Always prepared, aren't we."
"One of us has to be ready for anything."

The harness was frayed from the time I spent running around neighborhoods in coyote form disguised as a domestic pet, but it would do. Seeing someone walking their dog- or what looked like a dog- on a leash wouldn't cause as much alarm as a wild animal prowling the streets. I ran with him into the nearest restaurant, and the waiter at the front approached to ask how many were in our group. I feigned embarrassment and told him I just needed to use the restroom. He directed me with a hand, looking annoyed at the Native American woman who dared to use the toilet, and I walked into the ladies room. So far, New Yorkers seemed to be every bit as territorial as werewolves. I undressed in one of the stalls on the end, folding my clothes and stacking them to the side. When a werewolf shifts, it can take up to fifteen minutes for the bones to expand and adjust. It's a painful process, and I've been told it's something akin to the pains a woman has in childbirth. For a coyote shifter, it only takes a second to change. Quick and painless- unless you're caught in your clothes and can't get out of them. Hence the stripping.

One minute I was human and the next a sandy-furred coyote stood in my place. I tried my best not to inhale through my nose- which could pick up on the contents of the toilets from the past few hours- and gathered my belongings in my mouth. Thankfully Adam was right outside, and he took them from me and put them in his pack before anyone noticed. In the same moment, the harness was wrapped around my torso, the collar fastened, and we were out the door before the waiter could come back and see us.

I trotted to the place where we last saw those kids get into the cab. The scent was very faint- it was a wonder that it was still there with so many people walking around- but I was able to find it within a few minutes. I looked up at Adam for a brief moment and went back to tracking. They got in a cab, but the sea-breeze-and-book scent was still in the air. We walked along without much disruption, until a man approached us from behind.

"You look like you could use some directions," he said, observing the way I veered this way and that to catch onto the trail. I didn't bother looking up at him- Adam could fend off a random passerby on his own. The New-Yorker continued. "Not a good part of town to be lost in."

I sniffed once. The scent continued from here, but there was nothing else that smelled otherworldly to me. Odds are whatever was beyond this point wasn't anything a werewolf and coyote shifter couldn't face. Where we are from, everyone knows about Adam. Some of the locals treat him like a hero, but others aren't so friendly. Werewolves had just come out to the public a few years ago, and nowadays you could go to your local Wal-Mart and buy silver bullets in bulk. I guess there must not be too many wolves in New York, because this guy had no clue what was in front of him. The man looked Adam up and down, sizing him up to see how long he'd last. If he wasn't careful, he could warrant an attack. But Adam had pretty good control over his wolf, and he just gave the guy a "We're fine, thank you" and carried on.

"You don't want to go that way," the stranger insisted, "That'll take you out of the city."

I pulled against my harness to tell Adam that's exactly where we wanted to go. He got the message.

"We'll find our way back," said Adam. He turned away from the guy before we could be further delayed, but he added "Thank you." The stranger cocked his head as we continued on, but he didn't say anything else. Pretty soon, we were alone again.

For such a dangerous part of town, this place looked pretty normal. Smelled normal, too. At one point a cat crawled out from behind a dumpster. It took one look at me, hissed, and ran. Someone was out on their apartment balcony hanging clothes. Another walked across the street with their earbuds in. They were listening to rap music. The road turned into a dirt path as we continued, the sun bearing down at our backs. We must have walked for a half hour before anything happened. I was just about to tell Adam that we were getting close, but then the air changed. I lifted my nose and sniffed. Adam did the same. Something rustled in the bushes nearby, and he let out a growl that wouldn't be possible for a human to make. He pulled the harness off me, and with a quick shake I prepared myself to charge.

The bushes grew still. In a sudden burst of movement, a dark-haired boy with an orange t-shirt that had Camp Half-Blood written in bold letters across his chest barreled out, coming to a skidding halt in front of us. In his hand was a bronze sword.