In this book, Jalil tells it all as he, Christopher, David, April, and Senna travel across a seemingly African plain, on a mission for the Goddess Athena: find Senna's mother, a witch who supposedly has enough power to open gateways between the universes. Along the way they have plenty of problems of their own, mostly revolving around Senna, who we're pretty sure now is at least a partial enemy. Jalil has a few real world difficulties as well (such as getting a date, hee hee). The characters are real as ever, and the discriptions vivid as always, but as a warning to those younger than fourteen or so, this one is also exceptionally gory, even more so than usual.