FLOWER POWER ─ percy jackson

xxv. manners, please?

"Guys." Annabeth stopped suddenly. "Look."

She stood in front of a glass wall looking down into the multistory canyon that ran through the middle of the ship. At the bottom was the Promenade—a mall full of shops— but that's not what had caught Annabeth's attention.

A group of monsters had assembled in front of the candy store: a dozen Laistrygonian giants like the ones who'd attacked Percy with dodgeballs, two hellhounds, and a few even stranger creatures—humanoid females with twin serpent tails instead of legs.

"Scythian Dracaenae," Annabeth whispered. "Dragon women."

The monsters made a semicircle around a young guy in Greek armor who was hacking on a straw dummy. Aster swallowed nervously. She realized the dummy was wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. As they watched, the guy in armor stabbed the dummy through its belly and ripped upward. Straw flew everywhere. The monsters cheered and howled.

Annabeth stepped away from the window; her face was ashen. Aster took a deep breath as her heart pounded hard in her chest. Percy put on a brave face, but his eyes showed his uneasiness. 

"Come on," he told them. "The sooner we find Luke, the better."

At the end of the hallway were double oak doors that looked like they must lead somewhere important. When they were thirty feet away, Tyson stopped. "Voices inside."

"You can hear that far?" Percy asked.

Tyson closed his eye like he was concentrating hard. Then his voice changed, becoming a husky approximation of Luke's. "–the prophecy ourselves. The fools won't know which way to turn."

Before they could react, Tyson's voice changed again, becoming deeper and gruffer, like the other guy they'd heard talking to Luke outside the cafeteria. "You really think the old horseman is gone for good?"

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

Aster's eyes went wide, her mouth falling open slightly. She remembered the cyclops back when she was seven years old, who had imitated her friends' voices just like Tyson just did.

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

Tyson opened his eye and looked puzzled. "Just listening."

"Keep going," Percy said. "What else are they saying?"

Tyson closed his eye again.

He hissed in the gruff man's voice: "Quiet!" Then Luke's voice, whispering: "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Tyson said in the gruff voice. "Right outside."

Aster realized what was happening too late.

Percy just had time to say, "Run!" when the doors of the stateroom burst open and there was Luke, flanked by two hairy giants armed with javelins, their bronze tips aimed right at their chests.

"Well," Luke said with a crooked smile. "If it isn't my three favorite cousins. Come right in."

Aster's teeth grit together, some rouge sand grinding between them. The stateroom was beautiful, and it was horrible.

The beautiful part: Huge windows curved along the back wall, looking out over the stern of the ship. Green sea and blue sky stretched all the way to the horizon. A Persian rug covered the floor. Two plush sofas occupied the middle of the room, with a canopied bed in one corner and a mahogany dining table in the other. The table was loaded with food—pizza boxes, bottles of soda, and a stack of roast beef sandwiches on a silver platter.