Chapter 1

Annabeth's POV

I ran through the woods, jumping the big roots of the trees as I past, through the deepest dark of the night. I clutched the tiny vial to my chest, hoping I wouldn't drop it because it would by a night mare to have to try to find it in the undergrowth, even in the daylight. I saw a speck of light up ahead, through a tangle of branches. Camp Half-Blood. I must be getting close. Relief flooded through me. The woods always creeped me out at night, what with the monsters of all shapes and sizes, lurking at the edge of the shadows.

I burst out of the last of the trees into the small garden behind the Athena cabin. After checking that no one saw where I had just come from, I ran round to the stone building which was Hecate's cabin.

"Kyle, your Mom is awesome," I said as I skipped towards my favourite guy with blonde hair and warm brown eyes. I put my arms around his neck, hugging him to me.

"So, she was in, then." He wrapped his arms around me and gave me his routine "hello" kiss.

"Yeah. I went to the cave as you suggested and she said she had been expecting me." I held up the little vile filled with the cloudy purple mixture. "She gave me this and told me one sip of this would take complete care of the one I despise of."

Kyle held the wrist of the hand that held the answer to my one problem, concern filling his face. " You sure you want to do this. It won't kill him if that's what you want and once it's done it can only be reversed if the one who gives it to their enemy dies."

"I'm sure," I say, as I gently pull away from him and head out into the night. "Trust me."

Percy's POV

I threw the Ancient Greek Language book to the floor. My dyslexia had been getting worse and worse with every word I read. Letters, syllables and numbers had been floating around my head tauntingly for hours.

"Hey" said a familiar voice from the door. Annabeth. I felt terrible as soon as she had walked through the door. She had really wanted to go on a quest with me for ages, but each time I got one, someone else would step forward and guilt me into choosing them because I owed them or something. "I brought you some hot chocolate."

I pulled my eyes away from her beautiful face, to her hands which were cupping a steaming mug of coco. I took it from her hands, but didn't drink it immediately. "Hey, I'm sorry about the quest to Alaska. I owed Clarisse. It was fair since I did break her shield…" I trailed off, knowing that it sounded really lame. Annabeth smiled.

"Just drink it, Seaweed Brain. I don't mind. Don't worry about it," she replied softly.

I lifted the mug to my lips, Annabeth tensed but I didn't think much of it. I downed it in one.

Immediately, I started to feel woozy. I collapsed onto the floor in a heap. I could barely keep my eyes open. Annabeth shrieked, not with shock but with laughter.

"What have… you…?" I could barely speak as well. I was hunched over on my side. My eyes went in and out of focus.

"Wow," Annabeth chocked out between fits of giggles. "When she said it would work immediately, I didn't think she meant this fast. Here." She hefted a full length mirror off one of the walls of my cabin and turned it to face me. I gasped.

My face was bubbling and reforming in different shapes as if it was deciding what I should look like. My hands and feet were shrinking a bit and becoming paws. My face finally decided what it was doing and my nose elongated into a furry snout. Hair grew all over my body. I tried to scream but all that came out was a low whining sound. In less than a minute, I had… become a… a wolf.

"How does it feel to become an animal again, Percy?" Annabeth laughed and gave a big sigh, a grin of contempt settling on her face. "Goodbye, Percy," she whispered as she stepped towards a shadow at the door. "You may take him now, Lady Hecate. See how he likes the wild."

Annabeth left and the shadow stepped forward murmuring under her breath.

That's when I blacked out.