Chapter 1

*Zoe's POV*

I actually like funerals. The smell of the flowers, the calm, subdued atmosphere, the many emotions hanging and mixing in the air. Not that I like that the person died, of course, that is sad, but I like the aura of sadness that hangs around the coffin. Maybe that's why people call me goth or weird, but I just consider myself a normal 14 year old who likes funerals and rock music. My grandma on my mom's side died three days ago, and now I'm sitting through the funeral service, twiddling my thumbs and drawing on my arm with Sharpie.

"Honey. Zoe. Time to go up." my mom is shaking my arm. It's time for us to lead the procession to view my dead grandma then walk out to the graveyard for the burial. As I walk up the red-carpeted aisle to the front of the church, I study the people still sitting. My grandma's doctor. Her knitting group friends. A random guy in a Monster baseball cap and torn-up jeans. Many families from her church. My grandma was an influential woman, making her mark on the world around her, like a beam of sunshine bestowing happiness on all who knew her. My mom and I reach the front, and I look into the open coffin. The face I see there is not the Grandma I knew. She was always laughing and smiling, dressing in ratty jeans and t-shirts, working in the community garden, painting, riding her bike. The grandma I see in the coffin is unrecognizable, the workers at the morgue had dressed her in a hideous flowered dress, caked makeup on her face an inch thick to make her look more alive. Her face is slack, her eyes are closed. She looks… dead. Which of course she is, but I had never thought of her actually being dead before. It had just seemed like a nightmare from which I would wake up any second. But now that I see her pale, makeupped face, it seems so much more real. My grandma, Elizabeth Naomi Black, is dead. Tears trickle down my cheeks and I hug my mom tightly, sobbing quietly.

"I know. I know. It's okay." my mom murmured, rocking me back and forth. "Zoe. Let's go. I have some news for you. Let's go home. Come on." I looked at my mom.

"But… the burial?"

"We can skip that. I'll tell Mr. Anderson." She nodded at the pastor, and gently pried my arms away from her so she could go talk to him. I quickly walked down the aisle and ran out the big wooden church doors, leaving all those people putting on a facade of sadness behind. I ran to my mom's car, and climbed in the passenger seat, slamming the door behind me. My mom walks out of the doors, and I stop to admire how beautiful she is. Her long, blonde hair and blue eyes have been the subject of my envy as long as I can remember. I have pitch-black hair and bright green eyes, an unusual combination which I hate. My mom says I get my looks from my dad, who 'disappeared' before I was born. I hate him. He probably left my gorgeous, kind, loving mom for some slut with big boobs and empty promises. Jerk. Up until three days ago, my mom and I lived with my grandma in her house, which happens to be a huge mansion in Virginia. Now that grandma's dead, I'm not sure what we'll do with the house. I guess we'll sell it and rent an apartment or a townhouse. My mom climbs into the car and starts it, expertly pulling out of the tightly-packed parking lot and onto the road.

"So, you said you wanted to tell me something?" I look expectantly over at my mom, who keeps her eyes fixed on the road, her face tight.

"Yeah. I… okay. You're never going to believe me. You-" She cut her sentence off short as a huge, looming shape appeared in the road. She swerved to avoid it, crashing the car into the bank by the side of the road. "You okay?" She looked over at me in concern.

"I'm fine… my nose is bleeding though. What was that thing? Why was it there?"

"Okay. That is a Hel-Hound. You are a daughter of the Asgardian god Loki. You need to go to a camp. Camp Half-Blood. It used to only be for children of the Olympians, but Zeus and Odin made a treaty, now all demigods can go there, no matter who their parents are. Camp Half-Blood is in Long Island. We need to get you there. First, we need to get rid of that beast."

"Woah. Hold up. So my dad is a god, that's a mythological Asgardian Hel-Hound, and I need to go to a camp for children of the gods."

"Yeah. Now, your dad gave me this before he left. He said there would be a time when monsters would come after you, and if we needed help, to throw this on the ground." My mom held out a crystal on her necklace, and wrapped her fingers around it before opening the car door and throwing it onto the ground. It exploded in a puff of green smoke, and out of the smoke came twenty-some mummies rising out of the ground like zombies. By this time, the Hel-Hound was becoming angry that we hadn't come out of the car, and was growling viciously, pacing back and forth across the road. The mummies approached it, chanting in a language I don't recognize. Suddenly, the gigantic dog crumbled into dust and the mummies sank back into the ground.

"I… woah. That just happened." I sank into my seat, feeling faint.

"Zoe, we need to get you to camp now. My mom backed the car out of the ditch and drove straight to the airport. "I can't come with you, we can't afford two tickets, but just know that I love you and please, promise me you will stay safe. Someone from camp should be waiting at the airport for you." My mom pulled me close and kissed my forehead, then sent me off on the greatest adventure of my life. Not the plane ride, but what happened after.