


Together we defeated the crocodile, which Carter explained was a son of Sobek, the Egyptian crocodile god. A kid named Carter Kane showed up, said he was a magician and proceeded to help me by blowing up stuff with hieroglyphs and turning into a giant glowing chicken-headed warrior. Only problem: I wasn’t sure what the heck was going on.Ī couple of months ago, I fought this giant crocodile on Long Island. Whatever spell he’s casting, we have to stop him.’Īt this point I should probably back up and explain what the heck was going on. ‘The scroll he’s reading from is the Book of Thoth. If that wasn’t creepy enough, flying around him were half a dozen winged serpents, blowing flames in the rain. Basically the dude was in full-on crazy mode. As he paced, he read aloud from it, occasionally throwing back his head and laughing. In his hands he held an old scroll, like a treasure map. His greasy pompadour hairdo seemed impervious to the rain and the wind. He looked like a runty Elvis Presley, strutting back and forth in skinny black jeans, a powder-blue dress shirt and a black leather jacket. Our main problem was the guy standing in the middle of the lawn doing a magic ritual. Annabeth had told me this place was a fort or something from the Revolutionary War, but I hadn’t listened to the details. At the far end of an arched entryway, a grass courtyard stretched about a hundred yards square, surrounded by redbrick buildings. ‘All right.’ Annabeth wiped the rain out of her eyes, which didn’t help, since it was pouring buckets. (Actually, I have been surrounded by fire-breathing death snakes before, but not ones with wings. But usually we weren’t stranded on Governors Island in the middle of a hurricane, surrounded by fire-breathing death snakes. Annabeth and I had been in a lot of bad situations without any backup. Usually I wouldn’t panic if the cavalry failed to show.
