The monster halted. Its eyes glinted warily, as if to say, Have you been reading my diary?
Annabeth’s courage rose. Finally she was getting the measure of her enemy. She’d met lots of three-headed creatures before. When it came to mythical beings, three was sort of a magic number. It made sense that this monster would have another head.
Crabby had been some kind of statue, divided into pieces. Now something had awakened it. It was trying to put itself back together.
Annabeth decided she couldn’t let that happen. Those glowing red hieroglyphs and Greek letters floated around it like the burning cord of a fuse, radiating magic that felt fundamentally wrong, as though it were slowly dissolving Annabeth’s cell structure.
‘You’re not exactly a Greek monster, are you?’ she ventured. ‘Are you from Egypt?’
Crabby didn’t like that comment. It bared its fangs and prepared to spring.
‘Whoa, boy,’ she said. ‘You’re not at full strength yet, are you? Attack me now, and you’ll lose. After all, you two don’t trust each other.’
The lion tilted its head and growled.
Annabeth feigned a look of shock. ‘Mr Lion! How can you say that about Mr Wolf?’
The lion blinked.
The wolf glanced at the lion and snarled suspiciously.
‘And, Mr Wolf!’ Annabeth gasped. ‘You shouldn’t use that kind of language about your friend!’
The two heads turned on each other, snapping and howling. The monster staggered as its forearms went in different directions.
Annabeth knew she’d only bought herself a few seconds. She racked her brain, trying to figure out what this creature was and how she could defeat it, but it didn’t match anything she could remember from her lessons at Camp Half-Blood.
She considered getting behind it, maybe trying to break its shell, but before she could the train slowed. They pulled into the High Street station, the first Brooklyn stop.
The platform was strangely empty, but a flash of light by the exit stairwell caught Annabeth’s eye. A young blonde girl in white clothes was swinging a wooden staff, trying to hit a strange animal that weaved around her legs, barking angrily. From the shoulders up, the creature looked like a black Labrador retriever, but its back end was nothing but a rough tapered point, like a calcified tadpole tail.
Annabeth had time to think: The third piece.
Then the blonde girl whacked the dog across its snout. Her staff flared with golden light, and the dog hurtled backwards – straight through a broken window into the far end of Annabeth’s subway car.
The blonde girl followed it. She leaped in through the closing doors just as the train pulled out of the station.
For a moment they all just stood there – two girls and two monsters.
Annabeth studied the other girl at the opposite end of the car, trying to assess her threat level.
The newcomer wore white linen trousers and a matching blouse, kind of like a karate uniform. Her steel-tipped combat boots looked like they could inflict damage in a fight. Slung over her left shoulder was a blue nylon backpack with a curved ivory stick – a boomerang? – hanging from the strap. But the girl’s most intimidating weapon was her white wooden staff – about five feet long, carved with the head of an eagle, the whole length glowing like Celestial bronze.
Annabeth met the girl’s eyes, and a feeling of déjà vu rocked her.
Karate Girl couldn’t have been older than thirteen. Her eyes were brilliant blue, like a child of Zeus’s. Her long blonde hair was streaked with purple highlights. She looked very much like a child of Athena – ready for combat, quick and alert and fearless. Annabeth felt as if she were seeing herself from four years ago, around the time she first met Percy Jackson.
Then Karate Girl spoke and shattered the illusion.
‘Right.’ She blew a strand of purple hair out of her face. ‘Because my day wasn’t barmy enough already.’
British, Annabeth thought. But she didn’t have time to ponder that.
The dog-tadpole and Crabby had been standing in the centre of the car, about fifteen feet apart, staring at each other in amazement. Now they overcame their shock. The dog howled – a triumphant cry, like I found you! And the lion-wolf-crab lunged to meet it.
‘Stop them!’ Annabeth yelled.
She leaped onto Crabby’s back, and its front paws collapsed from the extra weight.
The other girl yelled something like: ‘Mar!’
A series of golden hieroglyphs blazed in the air:
The dog creature staggered backwards, retching as if it had swallowed a billiard ball.
Annabeth struggled to keep Crabby down, but the beast was twice her weight. It pushed up on its forelegs, trying to throw her. Both heads turned to snap at her face.