The Forbidden Daughter | PJO Book One

nine

"Shut up, Prissy! I don't need them! Or you."

"Clarisse," Ariana said, "Tantalus is using you. He doesn't care about the camp. He'd love to see it destroyed. He's setting you up to fail."

"No! I don't care what the Oracle -" She stopped herself.

"What?" Percy said. "What did the Oracle tell you?"

"Nothing." Clarisse's ears turned pink. "All you need to know is that I'm finishing this quest and you're not helping. On the other hand, I can't let you go.."

"So we're prisoners?" Annabeth asked.

"Guests. For now." Clarisse propped her feet up on the white linen tablecloth and opened another Dr Pepper. "Captain, take them below. Assign them hammocks on the berth deck. If they don't mind their manners, show them how we deal with enemy spies."

Ariana woke to alarm bells ringing throughout the ship.

The captain's gravelly voice: "All hands on deck! Find Lady Clarisse! Where is that girl?"

Then his ghostly face appeared above her. "Get up. Your friends are already above. We are approaching the entrance."

"The entrance to what?"

He gave her a skeletal smile. "The Sea of Monsters, of course."

She stuffed her few belongings that had survived the Hydra into a sailor's canvas knapsack and slung it over her shoulder.

She had a sneaking suspicion that one way or another she would not be spending another night aboard the CSS Birmingham.

Ariana was on her way upstairs when something made her freeze. A presence nearby - something familiar and unpleasant. For no particular reason, she felt like picking a fight.

She wanted to punch a dead Confederate.
The last time she had felt like that kind of
anger...

Instead of going up, she crept to the edge of the ventilation grate and peered down into the boiler deck. Percy was already there.

Clarisse was standing right below them, talking to an image that shimmered in the steam from the boilers - a muscular man in black leather biker clothes, with a military haircut, red-tinted sunglasses and a knife strapped to his side.

Percy's fists clenched. It was his least favourite
Olympian: Ares, the god of war.

"I don't want excuses, little girl!" he growled.

"Y-yes, Father." Clarisse mumbled.

"You don't want to see me mad, do you?"

"No, Father."

Percy and Ariana looked at each other but said nothing.

"No, Father!" Ares mimicked. "You're pathetic. I should've let one of my sons take this quest."

"I'll succeed!" Clarisse promised, her voice trembling. "I'll make you proud!"

"You'd better." he warned. "You asked me for this quest, girl. If you let that slimeball Jackson kid steal it from you -"

"But the Oracle said-"

"DON'T CARE WHAT IT SAID!" Ares bellowed with such force that his image shimmered. "You will succeed. And if you don't..."

He raised his fist. Even though he was only a figure in the steam, Clarisse flinched.

"Do we understand each other?" Ares growled.
The alarm bells rang again. Ariana heard voices coming towards her and Percy, officers yelling orders to ready the cannons.