Indigo Eyes

Chapter 58

They landed in San Francisco near the Embarcadero building while Hank and Chuck ran off to party with their statue friends. Cressida was just glad to be back on the ground and able to move again while Percy didn't mind the close contact if he was being completely honest, despite the way Aphrodite's conversation with him still made his heart race every time he was around Cressida now.

His new problem though was that they'd made it to the west coast but now they had no idea what to do. Artemis and Annabeth were somewhere here and they had until tomorrow to find them. Not to mention that they still had no clue what the monster that Artemis was hunting was.

Grover then reminded them about what Apollo had told them back on the train about Nereus. And Zoë, whose mother was a sea goddess, knew him and knew how to find him. And Cressida was almost tempted to join the Hunters right then and there because Zoë had stopped at a Goodwill drop box and gotten Percy a new outfit. A ragged flannel shirt, jeans that were three sizes too big, bright red trainers and a floppy rainbow hat.

"Oh, yeah," Grover said, trying not to burst out laughing, "you look completely inconspicuous now."

Cressida on the other hand wasn't hiding it at all as she leaned on Grover's shoulder. "Gods, I wish I had a camera," she wheezed as she wiped water from her eyes. "Can you imagine if he met Aphrodite dressed like this?"

That was when Grover lost it as they clung to each other and laughed their asses off.

Thalia was working on keeping her laugh in as she bit her lips hard, her eyes lining with water as Zoë nodded with satisfaction.

"A typical male vagrant," she remarked, praising her work.

"Yeah, thanks a lot," Percy grumbled. "Why am I doing this again?"

"I told thee. To blend in," Zoë answered before beginning to lead the way down to the waterfront. They spent a rather long time searching, before Zoë finally stopped in her tracks and pointed down a pier where a bunch of homeless guys were huddled together in blankets, waiting for the soup kitchen to open for lunch.

"He will be down there somewhere," Zoë said. "He never travels very far from the water. He likes to sun himself during the day."

"How do I know which one is him?" Percy wondered trying not to act as if he was uncomfortable in his clothes which he was.

"Sneak up," she answered. "Act homeless. You will know him. He will smell... different."

"Great," Percy huffed. "And once I find him?"

"Grab him," she said. "And hold on. He will try anything to get rid of thee. Whatever he does, do not let go. Force him to tell thee about the monster."

"We've got your back," Thalia said, at least before she picked something off the back of his shirt – a big clump of fuzz that came from who knows where. "Eww. On second thought... I don't want your back. But we'll be rooting for you."

Grover gave him a big thumbs-up before Percy turned to Cressida who was smirking at him. "Anything you'd like to add?"

Her smirk only grew as she sauntered over to him. "Just that if you can take on Ares, an old sea god should be cake."

In retrospect, what she did next was probably more to embarrass him than it was for good luck, but he wasn't complaining - not at all. If her hugs were magic, he had no idea what her kisses were, just that they were something otherworldly.

She lifted the brim of his hat up as she pressed her lips to his cheek before stepping away, her smirk even bigger than before as Thalia and Grover bit their lips to suppress their laughs at his red cheeks. "Good luck," she sang before she and Zoë pushed him towards the homeless men.