Chapter 3:

Painful Recognition

~Annabeth~

OK, I'd seen – and fought – some pretty wacko monsters in my time as a demigod. I'd dealt with anemoi thuelai, Medusa, hydras, Dr. Thorn, Atlas – but no part of my training had ever prepared me for this. "Percy!" I yelled, unsheathing my dagger and charging toward the monsters.

"On it!" Percy answered from behind me. Once he caught up with me, I noticed that Riptide was fully operational, the celestial bronze blade glinting in the lights of the hall. Together, Percy and I charged forward to meet these beasts head-on.

Until the pixie-looking girl with curly strawberry blonde hair stepped up, that is.

"Stop!" she screamed, and I could almost hear the force of her power through her words. Percy and I instantly froze in our tracks – unable to move, but still able to speak and observe what was going on. With one hand still pointing towards Percy and me, the girl walked over to the panther and the leopard and . . . started talking to them! "Keller, Galen – you might want to be in half-and-half form for this." The panther growled, and the girl placed a hand on the panther's back and . . . started petting it! OK – what Twilight Zone did I just step into? "Now, Keller – I know you want to be able to make a quick getaway – but it doesn't always work like that! You need to verbalize and use your words – we have no idea what we've gotten ourselves into!"

The leopard – Galen, by process of elimination – nudged the panther – er, Keller. She nudged the leopard back, and then did the closest thing I'd ever seen to a panther rolling its eyes. In a sudden flash of energy – much like a god or goddess when they reveal their true form – the panther morphed into a girl with long black hair and cool grey eyes, the leopard morphing into a boy with golden hair and jewel-like green eyes. The girl still had claws and black paws for hands, but the boy still had his leopard paws intact as well. Instinctively, I noticed that they both still had cat ears and tails. So this was what the girl had meant by half-and-half form!

"Let us go, monster!" Percy screamed at the blonde girl – er, other blonde girl.

She examined her nails thoughtfully for a moment. "Hmmm, let me see . . ." She paused in her talking to walk towards us and examine us more closely. "Not unless you promise to put your weapons down and act like civilized human beings." The girl spread her arms wide. "All we want to do is talk."

I glared at the girl – I had the strangest feeling that she couldn't be trusted. "You bet you're a-"

"Annabeth," Grover interrupted, galloping over to us. "Just do it! No possible harm could come."

"See?" the girl said, smiling sweetly at Grover. "Listen to the nice shapeshifting goat and promise you'll put down your weapons. Then – and only then – will I unfreeze you."

I groaned, but agreed. After Percy and I had both promised, the girl waved her hand – and we were free. Seeing that we were no longer a danger, the panther girl and leopard boy finished their transformations back into full human form. "Now," I began without preamble, striding forward until I was face-to-face with magic-girl, "I believe you owe us some information. Who are you, where did you come from, and – most importantly – why are you here?"

"All easy questions," the panther girl – Keller – said, stepping forward. "'Who are you, where did you come from, why are you here?' Why, I feel like I should be asking you the same thing. But, just to satisfy you, I'm Keller. This is Galen –" she gestured to leopard boy "– and this is –"

"Winfrith Arlin, witch!" the magic girl said with a bright smile. I hated her at once. "We're from Circle Daybreak. We came here because we were informed that there would be a meeting of the Council of the Witches at the top floor of the Empire State building at eleven, but the concierge gave us the wrong key. So . . . now we're here!"

"Winnie," another voice added to the melee from the doorway, and everyone turned to see a girl with light blonde hair cowering behind a girl with short mink-colored hair. Just by the amount of confidence the mink-haired girl exuded, I could tell instantly that she was the one who had spoken. "You talk too much." With that, this new girl threw the ironwood fighting stick she held in her hand; the weapon spun through the air until it sank into the wall at the opposite end of the hall – just narrowly missing Ares' head.

Ares looked at the spear momentarily in utter shock before doing something no one expected him to do. Without warning, the god of war burst into laughter. "Now that's how it's done!" He stood, removing his shades to once again reveal his fire-ridden eyes. "Nice aim, girl!"

The new girl glared at him, confused. "I'm not sure I know what you mean by that, sir."

A look of shock crossed the god's face, but he burst into laughter again. "Girl doesn't even know her own father! Olympians, Jackson, Chase, Underwood, this here is my – only – vampire daughter: Nissa Johnson."

~Nissa~

The big guy with the biker outfit – he looked immensely familiar – laughed. "Girl doesn't even know her own father! Olympians, Jackson, Chase, Underwood, this here is my – only – vampire daughter: Nissa Johnson."

Inside, I was panicking. How was it that this guy knew me? And what authority did he have to call me his daughter? Although I was a range of emotions on the inside, I fought to maintain the deadly calm I was famous for.

It worked.

"WHAT?" Keller bellowed, and I turned a little to look at her just as she spun back to face me. "Do you even know this guy? Nissa, is there some explanation as to why you never brought this up?" She was freaking out. I had never seen Keller go crazy like that. Winnie, sure, but not Keller. Like me, the Boss usually kept a pretty level head. Apparently, this was so major that it was freaking out time.

"And, of course, she's not the only one," another voice boomed throughout the hall. I looked up to see a twenty foot tall man in a pinstriped suit rise from his throne and step forward. Zeus, something whispered in my head, and I realized that it was the same voice that had told me what the concierge had said to us prior to our departure from the Empire State building. I pushed the voice down and listened intently – the twenty foot tall '20s gangster was speaking again. "There is also the one she hides." The man turned sideways so that he could face the two demigods and satyr – God, how did I come up with that word? – and speak directly to them. "The one that the Daughter of Ares hides is the key to you being invited here to be told of your quest. The one she hides deserves her rightful place at Camp, although she has more power now than she knows how to contain. The one she hides from all our eyes is the Lost Daughter of Hecate."

"Hey!" another voice shouted into the hall. This voice brought a fierce heat wave that washed over me even where I stood against the cool night air as the new voice spoke. "Don't end your little tirade like that, Zeus! I'm the poetry god – I'M supposed to be the one to do that!"

"Can it, Apollo!" the biker guy – my dad, Ares – fired back at the god that had just spoken. "Just let it go – Zeus' poetry is way better than yours, anyway!"

"Ares! Apollo!" another voice – female, for once – resounded, carrying with it a power I could only hope to have. "Let's be rational. We did not come here to cause a war. We came here to unite these heroes and begin them on their quest."

The blonde demigod turned to look at the goddess as she spoke, and I realized at once who both the goddess and girl were. The goddess was Athena, and the girl was a Daughter of Athena. Ares had introduced her to us as "Chase," and something tugged at my insides as I tried to remember. The blonde girl was, the blonde girl was . . .

"Annabeth!" I suddenly screamed, lurching forward and sprinting down the steps towards the blonde girl. "Oh, my gosh, Annabeth! Annabeth Chase! It's been forever since I've seen you!" My deadly-calm expression had dissipated at the sight of her, and I threw my arms around her in a huge hug. "Wow . . . the last time I saw you, you were with Luke and Thalia, being chased by monsters!"

~Keller~

After Nissa's outburst, I had honestly no idea what was going on. I'd never seen Nissa this excited – and now she was hugging this girl as if she were some long-lost friend or relative that had been separated from her for almost her whole life.

I watched the blonde girl's expression. Her cool grey eyes – coincidentally, almost the same color as mine – scrunched up in confusion before an expression crossed her face and sparkled in her eyes, and it was an expression I knew at once: painful recognition.

"Nissa?" the girl – Nissa had called her Annabeth – whispered softly, and I knew that only Nissa, Galen, and I could hear it. Her voice rose so that everyone could be let in on the conversation. "Nissa, I – I thought you were dead! Luke told us to just leave you – gods, you were even older than Thalia at the time!" She broke away from Nissa to examine her face. "You still look as old as you did when we lost you! Sixteen . . ." Annabeth's voice broke off, and I hiked an eyebrow up to my hairline at what I was hearing. This was crazy – absolutely crazy! This so couldn't be happening! "But . . . how is this possible? How can you still look sixteen?"

Nissa made a sweeping gesture with her arms until they were spread wide. "It's what happens when you become an immortal. I'm a vampire now, Annabeth – I can never die, and I'm stuck forever at the age of sixteen."

Despite the silent look of disapproval, Annabeth pulled Nissa in for another hug.

"Um," Iliana said silently from the doorway, and we all turned to look at her. "So . . . where do I play into all of this, exactly? I know the door guy called me a Daughter of Hecate, but what the heck does that mean? I thought I was a Daughter of Hellewise – not Hecate! And what does that big guy mean when he says 'Lost Daughter'? How can I be lost? I know where I am . . . well, sort of. But what does this all mean?" Suddenly, the little ball of corn silk-haired fluff stalked toward me and pointed an accusing finger at my nose. "And Keller – I thought you said all I had to do was reveal myself as the Wild Power and defeat Azhdeha! And now I have to go on a . . . a . . . a quest? Keller," she said softly, turning her sad eyes up to look at me, "why did you lie to me?"

A lump had formed in my throat, but I swallowed it down to maintain my calm. "Iliana," I began, and confidence blossomed from my voice as Galen came to stand beside and laced his fingers through mine. "I never knew what extent your power would have to be used for. I honestly thought that defeating the dragon would be the end of it. I never meant to keep you and use you like a weapon, Iliana. I just . . ." At this point, I couldn't handle it anymore. I yanked my hand out of Galen's grip and rushed forward, through the door to the hall. Once I was outside, I shrank down and did something for the second time that day that I'd never really done in my life: I cried.