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PROLOGUE - THE COMING STORMS

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Gavin couldn't remember the last time he had a day this bad. There was that time New Orleans flooded, but he'd lived and none of his own stuff had actually gotten damaged. But today. Today, Gavin got to watch in miserable silence as the bakery he'd spent decades saving for burnt down, two demigods lingering outside killing anyone who escaped, not that many did.

Gavin sighed, letting the grocery bags he'd shoved full of sugar and flour and baking supplies fall to the ground, pulling reassuringly on his long ears. And here his sister had warned him about being anything other than a mercenary. 'You gotta be careful, Greaver!' she'd snarled, 'The little demigods have gotten pushy with the monsters they's huntin'. No one's safe anymore, least of all us.'

Gavin should have believed her.

He hadn't, though. Gavin had always enjoyed baking, always enjoyed the way his sister would light up as she tried a new recipe, and the way his brother would collect flowers for him to put on top of cakes. He'd been happy cooking at the pandai enclave, with the only thing to worry about being how he'd filch the baking supplies themselves.

And then ma' had told him to get off his ass and get a job.

There wasn't any way ma' hadn't meant a mercenary job, but Gavin hadn't ever really wanted a mercenary job. Sure, he'd trained three hundred years to prepare. Whatever. He had three hundred more (at least) till his fur even started to gray. So he'd bounced around, cheffed for a whole lot of small eateries, and saved up until he could buy his own bakery.

And there it was.

Burning.

"That shop yours, pandai?" a deep voice asked, Gavin couldn't help the yelp, or the way one of his eight-fingered hands clenched around a now-there sword. "Hey, hey, relax. I'm not here to fight."

Gavin turned slowly to face the speaker, and stopped short upon recognizing who it was. And it took him quite a while to recognize who it was. Gavin's first assumption when someone recognized what he was was always demigod. This man was not a demigod. No, the old hunched man with his gnarled hands wrapped around a walking cane, and the very air around him listening… This man was very far from a demigod.

"Then what are you here for, planetnik?" Gavin asked slowly. Planetnik were a little bit of a step up from pandai. 'Near-gods,' as Gavin's ma' used to say, 'tutelary spirits are the ones ya've got ta watch out for. They've got the oomph of an angry god and the jury's diction ta use it.'

"Got an offer for you, kid." the protector spirit continued. Gavin's nose wrinkled at the address —he was well into his four hundreds after all— but he didn't say a word. "See, my ovinnik went out collecting a while ago, and brought back one of your pastries. Damned if it wasn't one of the best I've had —you're a good baker, pandai." He thrust his chin in the direction of Gavin's now-burnt bakery. "And now you're lacking a shop. Bummer about that, fucking demigods." he said aside, "Anyways, I've got a homeless domovoy and an empty shop, if you want it. Not far from here either."

"You're offering me a protector spirit and a new bakery?" Gavin clarified, bewildered, "What do you get in return?"

"Good pastries," the planetnik grinned a toothless grin, and tapped one long bent finger against the side of his nose, "and aside, us not-folk have to have some sense of unity, what with the coming storms."

"The coming storms?" Gavin echoed.

"Don't you know, boy?" the planetnik asked, "The end-times are upon us."

a/n: okay, trying to make this my only authors note for this story, so here goes: obligatory not Rick Riordan, this will probably be updated weekly on Thursdays, it's crossposted on AO3, and it's betaed by Cardinal Snowflame. If you ever want a glossary for the monsters/creatures listed in any given chapter, dm/ask in a review and I'll send one to you. This will be monster/OC-centric, if you couldn't already tell. Please review and let me know what you think... hopefully that's all.

ciao & thanks for reading, kie