I straightened up with a start, plunging my hand into my jacket to withdraw his wand, pointing it at the girl who'd spoken. It was Saria, who put her hands up in surrender.

"Woah! We're not… Wait, is that supposed to be a weapon?" She was looking at my wand with a puzzled expression, which confused me. I knew she couldn't be a mortal, and yet she didn't recognize my wand. Her hands lowered some as she looked at me, her mouth starting to curve into a smile.

Wynne sighed, pushing past her companion and saying, "We don't have time for this. Listen-AJ, is it?-we need to go. We can be pretty sure that there are monsters following you." She reached down to a ring of keys attached to a belt loop, unhooking one which immediately transformed into a large bow. The weapon was impressive, some sort of pale wood inlaid with silver filigree. She was definitely some sort of magician, which could only mean one thing-she was an enemy.

"Alright, I'm guessing you're Per Ankh… I don't know how you found me, but at least I don't have to keep my head down anymore." I barely registered their confusion. Perhaps they didn't expect me to figure them out. In any event, hieroglyphs blazed in the air in front of my wand, and suddenly the three of us were encased in a small sandstorm. I told you I knew magic, didn't I? The sandstorm didn't hurt any of us, but it sufficiently blinded the girls to the point where I could duck away, hiding behind some nearby bleachers before the storm ended.

I risked a glance out of my hiding spot at them. They were covered in a fine layer of sand, which almost made me chuckle a bit. Wynne spat some sand out of her mouth.

"What in Hades was that!?" she exclaimed, her eyes scanning angrily for me. I ducked back down behind the bleachers, hoping she hadn't seen me.

"I don't know, I've never seen something like that…" Saria's voice said, "Who do you think his parent could be?"

That was confusing. Surely if they were hunting me, they would know about my father. And perhaps they weren't expecting sand magic, but there was no way they had never seen it before. That combined with their confusion about my wand started me thinking, but before I could reach a conclusion, a new voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Ha, well ain't this nice. Here we were tracking down one filthy half blood, and suddenly two more show up. It's our lucky day, ain't it?" A couple voices guffawed in agreement, and I recognized the voices of some of the football team's top players. The guys basically ruled the school. I had no idea what the first one meant by "half blood," though.

I dared a peek over the bleachers again, and saw the three jocks, all wearing their jerseys underneath their letterman jackets. They were spread out, grinning with an almost feral expression. Wynne had her bow drawn, but instead of a normal arrow, there was a beam of silver light nocked on her string, the tip wavering between the boys. Saria had pulled a leaf-bladed falcata from somewhere, but blade trembled, and I could tell she wasn't used to fighting.

Then something weird happened. Or rather, it would have been weird were I not used to dealing with monsters all the time. The boys heads flickered, as though a hologram were lifting, and suddenly they had dog heads. The one who had spoken first had a rottweiler's head, one was a doberman, and the last-poor guy-was stuck with a chihuahua.

"Kunokephali," Wynne hissed. The word was strange to my ears, but the rott just let out a barking laugh.

"Smart little demigod… Not like that will help you." My mind was reeling. Demigod? Did they mean someone who was half god? No, that's impossible, gods didn't have children with mortals. Perhaps they were using a strange term for godlings. That was the only explanation I could comprehend.

Suddenly everyone sprang into action at once. Wynne loosed her arrow of light at the rott, who dodged it as he ran towards her. The doberman also headed for Wynne, while the chihuahua headed for Saria, who yelped and almost dropped her blade. As the two dog-men teamed up against Wynne, she turned her bow back into a key and drew two other keys in the blink of an eye, and they turned into hunting blades. She was obviously skilled with the blades, but it was two against one, and while she was distracted by the doberman, the rott landed a bite on her shoulder, hanging on while Wynne ineffectively tried to slash at him. Saria was barely holding her own against the chihuahua, and it looked like he was toying with her.

I had a decision to make. I could slip away during this distraction, make an easy get away. I could draw on Set and blast all five of them to pieces. Or I could give these two girls the benefit of the doubt and help them against these jocks.

I stepped out from behind the bleachers, drawing a small length of wood which quickly expanded into my staff, six feet of unadorned black wood. I pointed it at the doberman and yelled, "Hey, kibble-breath!" He looked up, and that's when red lightning lanced from my staff, hitting him in the chest and throwing him against the wall of the school, where he dissolved into sand. The rott must have loosened his grip in surprise, because Wynne managed to get free of his jaws. She swung around and slashed across his chest with her knives, causing him to let out a yelp of pain and back away cautiously. The chihuahua looked at Wynne and me, beginning to shake some, and so didn't notice when Saria darted forward, jabbing her blade into his stomach. He, too, dissolved into sand. The three of us surrounded the remaining foe, our weapons at the ready. He tried to dart away, but I gestured with my wand, and the ground beneath him turned to quicksand. He sunk up to his furry neck in a matter of moments.

I looked at the two girls. Saria was staring at me in awe, but Wynne looked less impressed. Grumpy, even. "So, I take it you girls aren't actually from Per Ankh. I don't know what you want with me, but we can talk after we see why these mutts were after you."

"They weren't after us," Wynne grumbled, "They were after you. We just happened to get in the way. This is what I was warning you about."

I was about to say something, but I was interrupted by someone slowly clapping. Saria, Wynne, and I gripped our weapons tighter as we realized it was another football player. I recognized him as the quarterback, Dameon Quaker. He grinned at us like we were some sort of act. As he moved forward, we backed up cautiously. He came to where the rott was stuck in the earth, looking down at him and clicking his tongue in a disappointed noise.

"Good help is so hard to find these days, don't you think?" he said. He rested one foot lightly on his teammate's head, who then howled in pain right before he exploded into sand. Dameon looked back up to us.

"Looks like I'll just have to deal with you myself."