Percy Jackson and The Mortal Instruments (Fan fiction)

Chapter 10

PERCY'S POV:

Once again, they were all gathered in the library. It seemed to Percy like this was the fall back room the Shadowhunters came to when they had nothing else to do; he couldn't imagine why, he thought the room was quite boring. Nico had been bugging them to tell him what had been going on since they had left the Infirmary, Percy had been ready to tell him but Annabeth, as always, held fast and told him to wait for Lucy. It was at times like this that Percy actually remembered that Nico was still only a kid. They were all young, and the need to survive every day had made them grow up a lot more quickly than your average kid.

Percy hadn't failed to notice that there were no children in the Institute, he supposed they were all safely tucked away in the city that Jace had mentioned, Idris. Maybe it was too difficult to have someone around who would remind them of Max. But it sounded nice, having a place where you can stay without danger. Sure, they had camp but Percy had never actually spent an entire Summer there. It didn't really register as a calm and safe place in his head. Though he supposed that wasn't really his fault - more like the fact that he was a son of Poseidon. There was a reason that 'The Big Three' didn't have many children, besides the fact that they had made a pact not to (a pact that Zeus and Poseidon had in fact broken).

He looked around at the different groups of people who were talking in the room. The adults - Maryse, Luke, Jocelyn and Magnus - were all stood together, talking in hushed tones and glancing up now and again. Annabeth was talking to Isabelle, Jessie and Clary and Grover was talking to Alec. Clarisse was, of course standing by herself with a scowl planted firmly on her face. From the corner of his eye Percy saw Jace walk over and stand next to him.

They stood in awkward silence for a minute or so, Percy could feel Jace's eyes on him every so often.

"Rough day, huh." Jace said, it wasn't so much a question as a statement and it pretty much summed things up.

"Yeah...Um, Jace about earlier-"

"Annabeth told us." he interrupted, looking at where Annabeth stood talking with elaborate hand gestures.

"Oh... well... that's good." Percy replied awkwardly. He never really liked discussing his own feelings, unless it was with Annabeth and Jace wasn't overly talkative. That accompanied with the fact that he was just stood staring ahead with a serious look on his face made Percy feel less inclined to talk.

At that moment the doors opened and Jessie strolled in with Lucy following her. As soon as they entered Nico got up and went over to Lucy who hugged him immediately. Percy raised his eyebrows in disbelief when Nico didn't move to push her away. Sure the kid tensed like he'd just received an electric shock but Percy had never seen Nico actually have any contact with another person beside his sister, Bianca.

When Lucy released Nico she seemed to notice the number of eyes focused on her and suddenly became nervous.

"Hi." she said with a tiny wave and a small smile, her eyes darting around to try and look at all of our faces at once.

Clary stepped forward with Isabelle and Jessie, just as Percy opened his mouth to speak a flicker in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He distantly heard the girls start a conversation with Lucy while the others moved forward, but most of his attention was focused on the flicker of movement he had seen. Moving behind a bookshelf Percy was shocked to see a man stood there with a smirk plastered on his face. Percy was taken aback by the man, he'd thought that the only people living here were those who he had been introduced to.

As the man took a step towards him, Percy took one back. He didn't know what made him wary of the stranger but he seemed to have a sort of evil look to his appearance. His face was all sharp angles with coal black eyes set in sunken hollows. He wore a crisp, black suit that was cleanly pressed, it looked even darker compared to his pale, white hair.