Cassie, meanwhile, had managed to stumble into an equally dangerous situation. She was now standing face-to-nose with a large golden-brown stallion.

"Take it easy, boy," Cassie whispered to the stallion, not wanting to be trampled by the horse. "Easy boy, easy does it,"

The stallion was not calming down, however, and Cassie knew that it was only a matter of time before the horse's owner or some other worker came into the stall to see what was making the horse so uneasy. Cassie decided that the only way she would be able to get out of this situation without being caught by the workers would be to morph into the horse.

Pressing her hands against the stallion's smooth coat, Cassie felt the animal slip into the usual acquiring trance, and imagined that she could feel his DNA flowing into her body. Once she was done with the acquiring process, Cassie backed away from the stallion.

"One of those kids is still inside." Cassie heard one of the workers say from somewhere not so far away. "What happened to that black haired one?"

"We lost him in the stalls. I don't know how, but we did. That other guy must still be in here somewhere. I don't think he managed to get out."

For a moment, Cassie thought that they were talking about one of the others. That Jake or Marco or even Ax had been spotted somewhere inside by the attendants. Then she realized that the voices of the workers were coming her way, and Cassie felt a slight flame of anger grow inside her.

They think I'm a guy?! She shrieked silently. Okay, so Rachel keeps telling me that this morphing outfit I wear isn't all that fashionable, but still, a guy?! Cassie snorted, sounding almost like a horse herself, before she started morphing.

The physical changes were pretty much what Cassie had expected, having morphed a horse several times before today. She was less than halfway morphed when she heard the trumpet fanfare that announced the start of one of the races.

"Start searching every stall!" one of the men shouted. "Who knows what those kids have been doing to the horses. They've already managed to turn one horse blue!"

"If we're going to do it like that, then we'd better hurry it up," another one of the workers said. "The first race has already started."

Cassie clamped down on her rising panic, focussing her mind on her morph. The changes were coming more quickly now, but the bangs of doors being slammed open and shut were getting closer every second. Cassie figured that she had two minutes of good time, if that. Blocking out all the things she heard, or even thought she heard, Cassie concentrated on the change.

Cassie yelped when she saw the flesh of her hands seem to melt right off, exposing the gleaming white bones underneath.

"What was that?" one of the other workers demanded. "I think I heard someone! Over at the end of the hall!"

"Just keep searching the stalls," the first man said calmly. "There ain't no way that any more of those kids is going to get out of here."

Meanwhile, the horse in the stall with Cassie was starting to get very agitated. He didn't know exactly what was happening, but the fact that the scent of the strange girl standing beside him was changing so rapidly and drastically was enough to put him off. Cassie tried to reassure him, but just as she had almost finished speaking, one of her most drastic changes begun.

Cassie's entire face seemed to explode in slow motion; her nose and mouth stretching out to form a foot-long muzzle. Cassie had long since lost the ability to stand on two legs, and once the changes to her face had been completed, Cassie felt the horse's tail sprout like some fast-growing weed at the far end of her body.

The first thing Cassie noticed about this morph was that the eyesight, while not nearly as bad as that of any of the insects she had morphed, wasn't exactly what she would call good. Oddly enough, the reaction of both the racehorse next to her and her own horse mind was just the opposite of what she had expected.