Thanks for the review! :)

I have one more pre-made chapter to post, then updates will start taking a little longer.

Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson, unfortunately. He, his peeps, and his existence belong to Rick Riordan. I don't own Narnia, either ;-;

Maybe an hour and forty-five minutes later, after Mom had fallen asleep, a flight attendant offered us more pretzels. When Cooper said no, she insisted. We had to say no a few times before she stopped asking.

We thought she was going to leave, but instead she snapped her manicured fingers. Everyone except Cooper, Isabella, and me fell asleep instantly. "Well, girlie," the flight attendant said to me. "You're a special one. Master is awakening. He'd love it if I brought you to him alive, but I'm opposed to the company you keep." With this, she growled at Isabella.

"I am excellent company!" Isabella cried indignantly, throwing her empty Sprite can at the attendant. She caught it with ease and examined it. A huge chunk was missing, like it had melted at the attendant's touch.

"You've got spirit, little one. You're a terrible protector, though," she said. She pointed at the college-age guy next to Mom.

He jumped up and shoved me over. He was about to punch me when the flight attendant lunged at Isabella and so I did the only thing I could think of: using the college guy as a springboard and launching myself at her. I knocked her into her cart, covering both of us with sodas and snacks. She shoved me off, righted herself, and roared with anger. Slowly, her face drained of all color until it was chalky white. Her eyes glowed bright red. When she spoke, I could see two huge fangs in her mouth.

"You pretzel! This is a brand new dress! I usually restrain myself to men, but I think I'll make an exception for you, girlie!" she screamed.

I didn't have time to think why she had called me a pretzel, or why a she had two different legs: one a metallic bronze, the other a chicken leg. She was surprisingly fast despite this. To demonstrate her power, I guess, or maybe just to grab a snack since you should never fight on an empty stomach, she jumped at the college guy and bit him. It was really, really gross. I wouldn't wish that death on my worst enemy. The poor guy's skin melted off him, and the vampire ate him alive. The bones deteriorated as they were exposed.

Once I got over my shock – the vampire seriously waited for me to attack her – I kicked at the chicken leg, since it didn't look very sturdy. I was right. The vampire tumbled back into the heap of concessions. Cooper grabbed a really heavy hardcover book, like a dictionary, from someone's lap and smashed it into the bronze leg, denting it. She howled in pain. Cooper whacked the bronze leg again, and I stomped on the chicken leg. I heard a bang and a sickening crack.

The vampire screamed. "I am Jane, Princess of Empousai! No one breaks my beautiful legs!" she wailed. She struggled to get up and failed, and I realized her legs were broken. Isabella pulled out a dagger the same color as the bronze leg and stuck it into Jane's chest, taking great care to avoid the flailing arms. Cracks spread across Jane's body like she was made of porcelain, then she turned into sand that melted into the carpet. All that was left was a very badly dented bronze leg. I put it under my seat. As soon as we sat down, everyone except Mom woke up and resumed whatever they were doing like nothing had happened.

Cooper and I were really freaked out, but all we could do was sit there and wonder how Isabella's knife had gotten through security, or why no one seemed to notice the broken cart and heap of concessions in the middle of the aisle. Isabella seemed to know, but she was practically in shock. She kept muttering things in what sounded like Spanish.

She was a bit better by the time we landed, but she was still shaken. She made sure we were the last ones to get off, then grabbed the bronze leg and gave Mom a business-card-sized rectangle that apparently had a phone number on it. Mom blinked when she saw the leg, as if a bit confused, then she took out her phone and called someone. She whispered something, and whoever was on the other end must have asked her to speak up, because she said, "I can't, the kids are right next to me." Then she started whispering again.

After a few minutes of whispering, she said, "Alright, see you there," and hung up.

"What was that about?" I asked as we walked to the taxi pick up area.

"Just a hotel change," she said nervously. Her expression led me to think otherwise.

"What's wrong? Why do we have to change hotels?" I said.

"Don't ask questions, Emily Cadence," she snapped. My face must have shown some degree of fear since she never snapped at me, and she softened. "Please don't ask. Please."

"Alright," I said, although all I could think of was questions.

We got into the taxi. No one said anything except Isabella, who kept muttering in Spanish and making weird gestures with her hands. We were supposed to be going to a nice hotel in Manhattan, but instead Mom told the driver to stay on Long Island. She gave him the card from earlier. He raised his eyebrows briefly, but he drove to the address on the card.

After about an hour and a half and exactly three "Pick Your Own Strawberries" signs, we were in a heavily wooded area that didn't look like it could have even a rustic hotel within ten miles. Mom usually pays for everything with cash, but she didn't have enough to pay the driver. She had to use her debit card.

The second I stepped out of the car, I heard an ear-splitting screech. The taxi driver looked towards the sound and started to drive away, and I freaked out. A huge bat-like thing was flying toward us at the speed of a falcon diving (which can be over 200 miles per hour) and I desperately wanted something bigger than a tree to hide behind. And as I thought this, the taxi just stopped.

I wanted to put up my hands and say "Hold everything, what the heck just happened?" but we still had a 100-pound bat after us. I motioned Cooper and my mom under the car. Isabella was scared out of her wits, but for whatever reason she had that bronze knife, and I was unarmed.

"I'll act as a diversion, try to get it to follow me. You can, like, throw your knife or something," I told her. She nodded.

"Two attacks in a day," she muttered. "You and Cooper must really be special." I didn't pay much attention. Instead I ran to the left, towards a large hill with a tall pine tree. My instinct told me to stay away, but it was also telling me to run as fast as I could and leave my friends and Mom in the dust. So I moved towards it.

Like I had hoped, the bat chased me. It was even uglier close up. I could see now its face was human. It looked a bit like the attorney Mom had hired when she divorced the guy she had married when she was adopting me. "Bella, throw!" I yelled. She did.

Her aim wasn't the best.

The knife hit the bat, which I had nicknamed Mr. Biblio, the name of the lawyer, in the wing. He spiraled towards the ground. I was hoping that he would crack and turn into sand like the vampire did, but no such luck. He hit the ground and almost instantly popped back up again, hopping on one foot while holding a whip in the other. He didn't have very good balance, and he would have been pretty funny to watch, except for the flaming leather strip threatening to kill me. It was really quiet for a moment as we looked at each other, then the bat thing said in a voice somewhere between gravelly and screeching, "You're favored by my master's enemy." I was quite relieved that he was holding off killing me.

"Sorry about that. I don't choose my sponsors, you know," I told him. "Who is this Master, anyway?"

"My master, you'll find out soon enough. And the one the empousa, Jane, mentioned... he'll contact you when the time is right. You're quite interesting. Neither I nor my sisters nor any of my master's army will harm you until they know your allegiance. And it will be a hard choice, Emily Cadence. Also, I am a female. Don't confuse me with your Mr. Biblio."

With that, she erupted in flames.

Isabella stood frozen where she stood. She blinked once, and the taxi drove off. Luckily, Mom and Cooper had already gotten out of the way. "What... what was that?" I asked Isabella.

"A Kindly One. We'd better cross the border. Just over the hill," she replied. She handed a wad of cash to my mom. "That's $100," she said. "Should pay for another taxi."

"Hold it," I said. "My mom is coming."

Isabella sighed. "She can't come in, Emily."

"She's coming," I told her.

"Mortals typically shouldn't enter, but you're not going in without her, are you?"

I crossed my arms and tried to save the questions about mortals for a later time.

Isabella looked at Mom and said, "I, Isabella Buzzard, give you permission to enter camp. Now come on."

Cooper asked the questions for me as we walked in. "What did you mean by 'mortals?' Why does Mrs. Parkenson need permission to come in here? What was that bat thing? Hey, that doesn't look like a hotel." He pointed at an Ancient-Greek style building.

It was the Parthenon if it had been built in the 21st century. Stuff was hung on the pillars, inside and out, or scattered around it - everything from paper-plate-and-Popsicle-stick sculptures to giant marble statues of people and animals. Strawberry fields extended to the left. A river threaded through the area, coming from Long Island Sound and going into the woods that we had come from.

I was about to ask Isabella what the heck was going on, but she was already trotting down the hill towards a large blue house.

Wait.

Trotting?

Isabella carried her cowgirl boots in one arm and her jeans in the other. I blinked, pinched myself, rubbed my eyes, everything I could think of, but I wasn't imagining it. Isabella had goat legs. She was a faun – straight out of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I stood there for a minute, then ran to catch up.

"Isabella," I shouted. She stopped and turned around. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Isabella blushed beet red.

"Oh. Sorry. I, uh, should have told you earlier."

"Y-You're a faun," I stammered. "Like from Narnia."

Isabella looked at me indignantly. "Faun? Fauns are Roman. I am a satyr. And Narnia is not where fauns came from."

I blinked intelligently. Isabella sighed again. "Come on. Chiron will want to see you." I followed, too dumbfounded to argue.

Cooper, of course, kept asking questions. "Chiron?" Who's that? Is he, like, the guy who owns this place? How would you spell Chiron? K-Y-R-O-N? K-I-R-O-N?"

"It's C-H-I-R-O-N," Isabella said. "And you'll get to meet him if you stop asking questions."

That shut him up.

MY BROTHER IS AT CAMP ALL WEEK! WHOO! He won't be hogging the computer so it'll be easier to post regularly. Come Saturday, expect less frequent posts.