CARTER

It all started when I got the message I had been dreading for so long:

Carter.

My eyes snapped open. One of the precious few nights my ba decided to stay in my body, and he had to call now.

He was Percy, the most mysterious and dangerous person I have ever met. He and I met on Long Island, almost killed each other, then fought a petsuchos (which turned out to be a baby crocodile with a necklace which turned it into an immortal son of Sobek) together. He wielded crazy water powers I couldn't quite understand, and a single slash from his creepy, glowing "celestial bronze" sword almost made me faint from the pain. [Stop laughing, Sadie.]

I'd written a single hieroglyph on his hand - the Eye of Horus - which would allow him to contact me and summon me, but it only worked once. And he'd called me. I hoped it was worth my actually restful sleep.

I shook sleep from my head. Of course it was worth it. As creepy as he was, Percy had seemed pretty smart. He was either in serious danger, or… I wasn't sure. He wouldn't just call me to him out of curiosity, and he would've been careful not to speak my name, which would trigger the hieroglyph. We'd agreed to stay separate unless absolutely necessary - some powerful force which wanted us to be enemies had brought us together using the petsuchos. Now he was summoning me, which meant something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Immediately, a floating vortex of sand was floating in front of my bed. I was relatively familiar with these. They were Egyptian portals. A magician could summon one with relative ease, as long as they had the training or happened to be hosting the goddess of magic (Long story involving my sister, and an exploding Rosetta Stone.) As far as I knew, Percy couldn't do that. I wasn't sure what he was, but I knew he wasn't Egyptian. He was anything but. I just had no idea what. He'd agreed not to go into detail about each other - we just knew we each had magical powers, and that we were both near New York.

Immediately, I knew where he was. New York, the Empire State Building. I couldn't see him, or feel his condition, but I knew I needed to get there - quickly. The portal would take me there. I was ready to jump through, but I couldn't go alone. I needed to bring my sister, Sadie. [No, I would not have been lost with you, Sadie.]

I jumped out of bed and knocked on the wall of my room. Sadie's was right through the wall, and I was pretty sure she would hear me and wake up. Within a few seconds, she opened my door and walked in.

I must've looked pretty desperate, because she didn't even hesitate to follow me. "We need to go. Now."

We leaped into the portal.