DIVINE! | percy jackson

chapter nine - luke... gross!

CHAPTER NINE

☽ 𓆉

         ANNABETH VOLUNTEERED TO go alone. Estella learned that she had a cap of invisibility, which was pretty freaking awesome. She made a mental note to attempt to enchant something to do that.

Percy protested Annabeth going alone. It was either all of them or none of them. The more Estella thought about it, the more she agreed. From the sound of his voice, Luke seemed pretty scary. Not to mention, there are a ton of monsters at his disposal that could kill them.

"Nobody go! Please?" Tyson asked.

Eventually, Tyson followed along. Before they went, the teens gathered their things that were in their cabins. Nobody wanted to stay here any longer.

They sneaked through the corridors, following the ship's YOU ARE HERE signs toward the admiralty suite. Annabeth was somewhere ahead, invisible. Tyson, Percy, and Estella were burdened with having to hide when a monster passed by.

When they came up the stairs to deck thirteen, Annabeth hissed, "Hide!" and shoved them all into a supply closet.

"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?"

"Yeah, it's awesome."

"I hear they got two more coming," a voice said. "They keep arriving at this rate oh, man, no contest!"

"That was Chris Rodriguez!" Annabeth took off her cap and revealed herself. "You remember, from Cabin Eleven," she said to Percy.

"What's another half-blood doing here?"

Annabeth shook her head with a disturbed look on her face.

They kept going down the corridor. None of them needed maps to know where they were going. Estella's skin tingled at the feeling of cold— evil.

"Percy, Estella, look."

A group of monsters assembled in front of a candy store. They were the monsters Percy fought back at her school, which felt like years ago, two hellhounds, and other odd creatures.

"Scythian Dracaenae. Dragon women," Annabeth said, reading her mind.

The monsters formed a semicircle around a young guy in Greek armor. He was stabbing something— a straw dummy, that wore an orange Camp Half-Blood shirt.

Estella's blood went cold.

"Come on," Percy told the two horrified girls. "The sooner we find Luke the better."

They continued until the end of the hallway, where there were double oak doors that looked like they led somewhere important.

Tyson stopped walking. "Voices inside."

"You can hear that far?" Percy asked.

Tyson closed his eye. His voice turned into that of Luke's, making Estella take a step back "—the prophecy ourselves. The fool won't know which way to turn."

"You think the old horseman is gone for good?" Tyson continued.

Tyson laughed like Luke. "They can't trust him. Not with the skeletons in his closet. The poisoning of the tree was the final straw."

Annabeth shivered. "Stop that, Tyson! How do you do that? It's creepy."

Tyson opened his eye, looking confused. "Just listening."

"Keep going. What else are they saying?" Percy pressed.

Tyson closed his eye again. "Quiet!"

"Are you sure?"