In every family there's an embarrassing relative that no one wants to talk about. But Kally never thought that hers would be a hideous batlike creature from Ancient Greek hell.

Kally didn't have time to be shocked at her new "relative". The Fury screeched and used her hold on Kally's ankle to drag her upwards so that she was dangling upside down.

'Such a pretty face,' Meg mused, the talons on her free claw stroking Kally's cheeks tenderly. Kally turned her face away and gritted her teeth. 'It's such a shame my master told me not to kill you. I would certainly enjoy ripping that pretty face clean off your skull.'

From the malicious smile Meg was giving her, Kally was pretty sure she wasn't speaking figuratively.

Kally tried to play the "family" angle. If they were really related (even though she was sure that wasn't even remotely possible) maybe Meg would show some restraint, or even let her go.

'Come on,' Kally pleaded. She was trying for sweet and innocent, but her voice came out so shaky that she sounded more like she'd gone a few too many rounds on a rollercoaster. 'You said so yourself, we're practically family! You don't want to kill your own family do you?'

'Well, I wouldn't usually,' Meg told her, sounding very sincere. 'But for such a pretty relative I think I'll have to make an exception.'

'What?' Kally cried. 'How does that make any sense?'

It turned out Meg didn't much like having flaws in her logic pointed out. She shrieked with rage and flung Kally across the room into the far wall. She landed with a painful crunch on the floor under the section marked From the 1950's.

'Think, stupid girl,' the creature snarled. 'Who am I? Which Fury am I? Come on, think! Surely you must remember something from your lessons!'

It seemed stupid to take the advice of a murderous bat who wanted to tear her face off, but Kally did as Meg instructed. She didn't know how Meg knew about them, but she thought back to her lessons on Greek mythology – not the lessons with her father, but all those school lessons she thought she hadn't paid attention to.

Think Kally, she demanded from herself. What do you remember about the Furies?

From what she could remember there were three Furies, all sisters. They were goddesses of vengeance. They did the bidding of Hades.

All this coursed through her mind in seconds, but it didn't help her any. Meg had already told her all of that. Come on, think Kally!

Slowly, Kally recalled her school lessons. Something her teacher had said once stuck in her mind. The Furies were the punishers of crime. They each were dominant over one particular part of their gruesome trade. Tisiphone was the avenger of murder, Alecto was the angry one, and Megaera must have been the third Fury. But what was her specialty?

Kally thought about everything Meg had said to her. She had acquired all of her clothing items over the years. She thought about the story of the suit of armour and the dress. What had happened to them? She'd never found out. She thought about what Meg had said about them. Oh, they were such a lovely couple. I was quite jealous of them really.

That was it!

'Jealousy.' Kally said under her breath. She wasn't sure why, but she had a feeling that telling the Fury that she knew who she was would be a bad idea.

Meg growled impatiently. 'You're wasting my time child!'

She stalked towards Kally, talons poised to kill. Kally scrambled to the front display cabinet next to her. She grabbed a plastic arm that must have detached itself from its mannequin and slammed it into the glass, shattering it all over the dusty wooden floor.

Reaching inside the cabinet, she grabbed the first sharp item she saw: a steel hair clip with a flower on the end. Not exactly a graceful weapon, but her knife was tucked away in her backpack, which had been flung the opposite way to Kally so that it now lay behind the rapidly approaching Fury.

Kally concealed the hair clip in her sleeve just as the Fury reached her and hoisted her into the air again. She aimed a kick at the creature's head but overshot it and got her foot stuck in a rack of Elvis-style costumes.

'A brave attempt, but I'm afraid it'll take far more than your foot to get rid of me.' Meg jeered, saliva dripping down her grinning features.

Kally frantically tried to free her foot, but it seemed to be caught in a sequined coat pocket. She grimaced and yanked hard, but her leg refused to budge.

She had to get Meg to let go of her. She could use the hidden hair clip in her sleeve to stab the Fury, but that would leave her without a weapon. She thought about just pulling up the creature's feet, but where would that leave her? On top of a stacks-on pile with a vicious Fury, possibly with her foot still stuck on a sequined Elvis jacket. No, she had to get away from Meg. She couldn't just get Meg to drop her and hope she could get away fast enough. She needed a plan.

As if on cue, a plan formulated in Kally's mind. A desperate plan, but a plan all the same.

'I know what happened to that girl,' Kally said, trying not to let the desperation show in her voice. She gestured to the far wall. 'The one who wore that dress? I know what happened to her, and her fiancée.'

Meg snarled and narrowed her beady black eyes at Kally. She prayed to whatever god was out there that her plan wasn't complete madness.

'You saw them together, all happy and in love, the way couples are,' Kally continued. 'And you thought that you should be just as happy as them.'

Meg's face began to relax back into its normal scowl. Kally must have said something wrong. She tried hurriedly to fix whatever mistake she'd made.

'Not just that you should be happy, but that they should be as miserable as you were, all alone,' Kally told Meg, trying to make it sound like she believed it herself. It was almost as if she was willing Meg to believe her story, even if she was wrong. 'You thought, why should they be happy together while I sit here alone?'

The growl arising from inside Meg's throat told Kally she'd touched on the truth. Her luck gave her a strange adrenalin rush. She continued to babble on, almost forgetting that she could slip up at any second.

'And so you killed them,' Kally said. 'You killed them both, didn't you? Just so that they couldn't be happy, and you wouldn't have to watch them. After all, that's what jealousy is.'

Meg screeched loudly in Kally's ear and flung her across the room, right into the shiny suit of armour. However, her plan didn't entirely work out. She had hoped the momentum would let her foot slip out from the Elvis costume and free her. But instead, the material pulled tighter against her leg and flew across the room with her, collapsing on top of her and enveloping her in a sea of sequins and fabric.

'They didn't deserve happiness,' Meg hissed across the room. 'No one does! Everybody has committed crimes! Nobody on this earth deserves to be happy! It's not fair that everybody up here gets to live and sin, while I rot down in the Underworld! Everybody will die one day soon, when my master has risen to power!'

During Meg's tirade, Kally had managed to haul herself out of the pile of costumes and now saw the Fury barrelling towards her at top speed. Kally turned around frantically, grabbing the sword from the clutches of the armour. She faced Meg again, but she didn't see how a sword would help her in that moment. So she turned again and rushed for the beaded door next to the counter.

As Kally had hoped, there was a metal door wide open behind the beads. She slammed it shut behind her and dropped the bolt, stepping away quickly. No sooner had she left the door did it start shaking and reverberating. She heard Meg screaming and yelling profanities behind it. A shrill screech sounded through the room, like nails on a blackboard – or in this case, talons on a metal door.

'Help!' a voice said from behind her. Kally whirled around and saw a strange pair of people in bronze cage.

There were two boys inside. One had long dark hair that looked like it hadn't been cut in a while. He wore dark clothes – jeans and a black t-shirt, with a leather jacket over the top. A black sword sat on the ground beside him. His skin was pale, almost like ivory. A skull shaped ring was on one finger. He looked quite young. He couldn't have been older than thirteen. He gave Kally a cold shiver up her spine, but he seemed vaguely familiar to her.

The other boy was much stranger. He looked slightly older, maybe fifteen? He too had shaggy hair, but with two small protrusions from underneath. Looking closer, she realised they were horns. He wore an orange t-shirt and baggy jeans. Where his feet should have been there were small hooves, like a sheep.

Kally yelped and jumped back a bit.

'What are you?' she demanded, looking at the sheep-boy. Her eyes widened in shock. 'Some sort of sheep/human hybrid?'

The one wearing black supressed a laugh, but the one in orange looked offended.

'I am not a sheep.' He said indignantly. 'I'm a satyr. Half human, half goat. Not sheep.'

'Sorry,' Kally mumbled. She nodded her head at the cage. 'What happened to you two?'

'The Fury locked us up,' the sheep-boy (satyr, whatever) said. 'We came in here looking for-'

'A costume for a party,' the boy in black interrupted, rolling his eyes. 'It doesn't matter what we came in here for Grover, it makes no difference to her. The point is Megaera caught us, and now we're stuck.'

'And you want me to help you?' Kally guessed.

'That'd be nice,' the boy in black agreed sarcastically.

Kally had no idea what to do to unlock the cage. She had to help them, but she had a Fury trying to break down the door behind her, and the only thing she had to defend herself with was a hair clip and a sword.

The sword. Kally mentally hit herself in the head. She was so stupid. She'd grabbed the sword as she escaped Meg. She could probably use it to break the lock, or maybe even slice through the bars.

'Okay, stand back,' Kally warned.

The boys backed up as best they could to the far corner of the cage, but there wasn't much difference.

Kally lifted the sword and swung it straight into the lock. The force of the collision jarred her bones. Sparks flew from where the blade hit the metal, but the lock stayed closed. The guy in black rolled his eyes.

'That sword's celestial bronze. So is this cage. The metal won't break being used against itself,' he scoffed. 'What kind of demigod doesn't even know that?'

'Demigod?' Kally repeated dumbly. She felt like she should know what that was.

The boy in black's eyes widened. 'You mean, you don't know?'

'Know what?' Kally demanded, getting impatient now. The boy shook his head and ignored her.

'Never mind,' he said. 'Just get us out of here! Possibly without damaging that sword of yours? It might come in handy later on.'

'Well I'd like to see you try,' Kally scoffed. 'You've got a sword, why don't you cut your way out?'

The guy looked at his sword as if just noticing it was there. 'I can't. Stygian iron doesn't work inside here. It's as useless as your celestial bronze.'

'Right. Of course.' Kally muttered. 'Well unless you have a brilliant plan of escape, I can't help you.'

The satyr, Grover, bleated nervously like he really was half goat. He pulled out a tin lid and took a chunk out of it with his teeth.

'Okay, that's gross,' Kally pointed out.

'What? I have a nervous eating disorder, okay?' Grover said defensively. He took another bite so that the lid now resembled a thick paperclip.

An idea struck Kally.

'Satyr!' she said suddenly.

'The name's Grover,' he grumbled.

'Fine, Grover.' She rolled her eyes. 'Hand me that… uh… thing.'

'This?' Grover's face became confused as he handed her the scrap of metal.

'Yes.' She snatched it from his hand and pulled the hair clip out from her sleeve.

Hurriedly, she worked on the lock, fidgeting around with the metal delicately.

'You can pick locks?' the guy in black asked.

'Yeah, it's a handy skill I picked up.'

'Well it's never going to work,' he continued. 'That's lock's enchanted. It's not gonna just open up because you put some metal in-'

Click. The lock popped open, and Kally ripped it off the door, letting it swing open. She allowed herself a smug smile at the boy's dumbfounded expression.

'You were saying?' she said, one eyebrow raised.

The boys clambered out of the cage and stood upright. Kally was surprised that they were both taller than she'd thought. Grover stood almost to her neck, and the guy in black was at shoulder height.

'So.' Kally started. 'We have Grover the satyr and the unnamed Goth.'

'Nico,' the Goth guy snapped. 'And I don't see you introducing yourself, Purple Hair!'

Kally had always hated her dark hair. Her mother always said it was lovely, but maybe that's what irritated her. So one day when not long before she ran away, she dyed it deep purple, her mother's least favourite colour. She had no idea why, but the colour never seemed to fade from her hair. Three years later, it still looked at vibrant as when she'd walked out of the bathroom right after setting the dye.

She shot a sneer at Nico. 'It's Kally.'

'Well Kally,' Nico stated blandly, 'now that we're out of the cage, what's the next stage in your brilliant plan?'

'Uh, next stage?' Kally repeated sheepishly. 'I didn't really have a "next stage".'

'Oh, well then I guess we'll all just be taken down to Hades with the Fury trying to scratch down that door,' Nico rolled his eyes and gestured to the door that was still shaking from Meg's attempts at breaking through. Kally had completely forgotten about her.

Grover bleated nervously again and started chewing on his own t-shirt.

'Well you come up with a plan then, since you're such a genius,' Kally snapped.

Nico thought for a moment. He pivoted on the spot slowly, scanning the room, and somehow ignoring the banging on the door that was getting louder every second. Suddenly he snapped his fingers.

'I've got it,' he said. He smiled triumphantly and turned to Kally and Grover. 'We go out there, guns blazing, and fight our way through.'

'That's your master plan?' Kally said blandly. She huffed. 'Fine, since no one else seems to have any better ideas, let's go with it. Heck, why not? We'll all probably die anyway.'

Nico ignored her comments and drew his sword, ready to burst into action. Kally lifted her own sword and stood nervously by Nico's side. Grover just kind of stood there chewing a hole in his shirt. They were all about to raise the bar across the door and make a run for it when the banging and screeching suddenly stopped.

Kally looked at Nico, confused. He gave her the same look back and they took the bar off the door. They were about to click it open slowly when they heard voices.

'Master! Why are you so far from home? At this stage you must be-'

A deeper, smoother voice cut Meg off. The man's voice alone sent a shiver up Kally's spine. The air coming in from the crack under the door seemed to be several degrees cooler, and Kally doubted that it was a coincidence. With the chilly air came the stench of wet earth and blood, a combination so sickly it smelled how she imagined a rotting corpse to smell. To Kally, this was the smell of death.

'You disobeyed my orders,' he said, calmly but forcefully. 'I told you the girl was not to be harmed. And my son is not a part of this.'

Nico's eyes widened. He mouthed the words 'my dad' to Kally. Nico's dad was Meg's master? What relation did he have with Kally's own father?

Kally's head began to throb.

'My deepest apologies master, but I only wanted the satyr. The boy was in the way. I never intended to harm him, of course.'

Nico swung the door open and stepped out.

'Nico what are you doing?' Kally hissed. He was stepping out to his death, surely. But Grover seemed calm about Nico's move. Well, about as calm as he was before anyway.

Now that the door was open, Kally could see the man who had spoken, Nico's father.

His hair was black like Nico's, and slicked back. He wore a dark suit that seemed to have the faces of unfortunate people grimacing sewn into it, like it was made from their despair. His eyes black, but held a flame in the pupils that seemed to flare up at the sight of Nico. A black helmet sat on his head that he wore almost like a crown.

'Father, that's a lie,' Nico told the man, walking up to him unafraid. 'Megaera here said she was going to eat Grover and then me because I was being meddlesome.'

Meg's eyes filled with dread when she saw Nico, but pure hatred flooded them when she spotted Kally behind him.

Nico's dad turned to Meg, his eyes furious.

'You are not to touch my children ever again, do you understand me Megaera?' he raged.

'Yes master,' she whimpered.

'And you will spend a month in the Fields of Punishment doing Alecto's duties,' the man told Meg.

'Yes master,' she replied again, although her eyes pleaded with him, screaming not fair!

'Go,' he told her, waving her away.

Meg gave one more angry look at Nico for getting her in trouble, a loathing glare at Kally, and a strange look of longing at Grover. Then she flapped her wings and took off through the front door, taking it off its hinges, screeching furiously until she disappeared into the sky.

'Thanks dad,' Nico said to the man. 'We were about to make a run for it and take our chances.'

'You should know better than to anger her,' his father scolded. 'You know how jealous she is of you.'

'Yes dad,' Nico hung his head.

'Why were you even here?' his father sighed.

Grover spoke up. 'We were here to find another half-blood. I caught the scent of one nearby, and we came in here and then…'

'Yes I know the rest satyr,' the man interrupted. Then he turned to Kally for the first time. His eyes hardened. 'And is this the half-blood you came for?'

'We're not sure, sir,' Grover told him. 'But she definitely is. We'll take her to camp with us now.'

The man's eyes did not move from Kally. He seemed almost reluctant to let her go, but he nodded slightly and said, 'Yes, she should go to camp. Take her there, where she will be safe.'

Then the man turned back to Nico, put his hand on his shoulder, and vanished into smoke.

Nico seemed unfazed by this event, and Grover seemed used to it at least, although it seemed to still freak him out.

'Nico what the hell just happened?' Kally demanded.

'I'll explain everything on the way to camp,' he promised. 'Now come on. Just because my dad told her to keep away doesn't mean she'll keep her word.'

'Where are you taking me?' Kally asked, afraid of the answer.

'The only place that's safe for us,' Nico said. 'Camp Half-Blood.'