Coyote Walking

I know I said I wanted to get away for a while - out of all the messed up politics of the pack, to get some space from Samuel and Adam to see what it was I wanted, but this is ridiculous.

Deities who control the entire City at their whim. Curses that can turn people into odd versions of themselves or dolls or animals. Turning into a coyote is more than enough for me, thank you very much.

I miss my garage. I want to get my hands deep into the innards of a transmission, lose myself and my problems tracking down an impossible fault, swear when I drop a screw and it bounces totally out of reach.

I miss my trailer and thinking up new things to do to the parts car out back to aggravate Adam, all the while I'm pretending to be the good little obedient coyote.

And I miss my cat, damnit. Why couldn't at least Medea have come with me?

At this point I'd even be glad to have Ben show up, arrogant misogynist that he is.

To hell with it. I'm going off to the woods for a good run.

If anyone's looking for me I'll be the coyote wearing the bright purple collar with pink flowers on it.

[character abilities]:
Mercy is able to shift into a coyote at will. Because she's only about 32 pounds in her coyote form she's able to shift while still clothed, though she then needs to struggle free of her clothes. She's not tied to the phase of the moon and doesn't need to change, though she doesn't feel quite herself if she goes too long without it. In her coyote shape she's faster than a werewolf and has enhanced smell and hearing that carries over somewhat into her human shape. She can tell someone's emotions from their scent and can also tell whether they're lying from their scent. She is stronger than the average human, though not as strong as a were. Silver doesn't harm her, but she also doesn't have the accelerated healing that werewolves have.

She has some immunity to vampire magic and it's hinted at that 'walkers' were somehow dangerous to vampires, which is why the vamps worked hard to eliminate all of them. As far as Mercy knows she's the only one.

She is also able to see and talk to ghosts and has some limited ability to influence them.

In terms of more mundane abilities, she's a great mechanic, specializing in Volkswagens and other German made cars. She's studied martial arts for the past five years, specifically Shi Kei Kai Kan - designed for soliders dealing with multiple opponents - and has earned a purple belt in it. She's a good shot and knows how to make her own bullets. She also knows how to pick locks.

[character personality]:
Mercy is a very strong-willed and independent woman, about 31 years of age currently. She's always felt like an outsider - both as a coyote growing up with werewolves as well as someone who needs to hide what she is from the world at large. However, that perspective has served her well and allowed her to observe, learn about, and make friends with other supernatural beings such as vampires, witches, and the fae as well as get along well with normal humans.

She's been independent from a young age - living on her own from age 14 to 16 - and known for either finding trouble or having it find her. Living within a werewolf pack taught her to know when to be submissive - or at least appear that way - and when to assert herself. She also has learned how to play the game of appearing to be submissive while actually doing as she chooses - a very fine line to walk. She also knows that sometimes backing down from a dominant being is too dangerous to do and has stood up to some amazingly scary characters no matter how frightened she might be inside.

She's smart, well-educated and curious, with a dry sense of humor. She finds life in a werewolf pack to be claustrophobic and violent and is very glad to only be on the outskirts of the local pack. She's scrupulously neat in her garage and every area of her house except her bedroom, which often results in a struggle to find clean clothes to wear. She attends church each Sunday and always wears a necklace with a lamb on it - her version of a religious symbol. She had a bad experience with a cross when she was first attending church and finds them very off-putting, thus the use of the lamb (Christ being the lamb of God).

She can also be very gentle and kind-hearted; taking in a stray werewolf, watching out for the Alpha's teen daughter; helping a battered woman. Not surprisingly this sort of thing also gets her into a great deal of trouble from time to time.

[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: Just after the first book Moon Called.