The Demigod Business

Chapter 9

Dean

"So how does this work again?" Dean asked.

Dean didn't have to look at Percy to know he was rolling his eyes. "Annabeth's cap will keep Euryale and/or Medusa from seeing her. Once she spots them, she'll signal me and we'll come in to help fight them off."

Sam glanced at Percy. "And you're sure the signal will work?"

Percy nodded, crossing his ankles as he leaned against his car. "I'm connected to the puddle of water near her hiding spot. I'll be able to sense any disturbances. Once she drops Riptide into the puddle, I'll feel it and we'll move."

Dean sighed but kept his new Celestial bronze knife at the ready. Percy and Annabeth hadn't asked for it back, but he knew they were well aware of where Sam and Dean had gotten their weapons from. Dean barely felt guilty about what they'd done. He didn't fully understand who these kids were and everything they'd done in their short lives, but they shouldn't be doing this. It was far too late for Sam and Dean to truly get out of the hunter life, but Dean would be damned if he let it take these kids.

Why couldn't they see that he was just trying to protect them? Dean had been through so much shit since he was four years old. Suffered and lost and hurt so much. These kids still had a chance to escape all that. To escape the decades of sacrifice and trauma that followed Dean everywhere he went.

Dean would be lying if he said he wasn't a bit jealous of them, too. Somehow, they had normal lives with friends and families and romantic partners in the midst of their constant fight for survival. It had never been like that for Sam and Dean. Before Cas, all Dean had had was one-night stands. Hell, it had taken quitting hunting cold turkey to have that brief escape with Lisa and Ben all those years ago.

And here Percy and Annabeth were. Friends for five years. A loving relationship for two. College classes and the possibility of a normal future, with the occasional monster fight on the side.

If something went wrong on this hunt, Dean didn't want it to take Percy and Annabeth. That's why he'd convinced Sam to ditch them and try to slow them down. With everything Dean had gained over the past few months with Cas, he knew how precious it was. And Percy and Annabeth were too young to lose any of it.

"You said something before about monsters being able to smell demigods," Sam said. "So won't they still know you and Annabeth are here?"

Percy seesawed his head. "Hopefully not. Annabeth's a daughter of Athena like Lily, so if they smell anything, they'll just think it's Lily. And the reason I'm back here with you two is so your scent will hide mine."

Dean frowned. "Are you saying we smell?"

Percy waved his hand dismissively. "Don't take it personally. Monsters have really good noses. Besides, I'm sure you smell way better than my old stepdad. I called him Smelly Gabe."

Dean barely knew what to make of that, so he just ignored it and peered across the parking lot. He could just see the back door to the theater beyond the fence of the parking lot. Annabeth was hiding there with her invisibility cap—Dean so wanted one of those—next to a puddle they'd made with one of Percy's every-present water bottles to use as their signal.

"There's one thing I still don't understand," Sam said. "How are all these kids Athena's children? Some of them are only a few months apart in age."

Percy chuckled. "Athena's kids aren't created the normal way. She's a maiden goddess, so when she forms an intellectual connection with someone, a child is sometimes born from that. Just pops out of her head as a baby and she drops them off at the father's house."