The Nature of a Demigod

Tooth for a Tooth

She hurried out of the cramped room we were in, and retrieved Percy and Tyson from where she left them. We kept going down the hallway. We stopped bothering with the maps, since I could pretty much smell the evil stink coming from down the way. Everything felt cold and filthy. Suddenly, I felt really uncomfortable in my own skin.

"Y/N. Percy." Annabeth stopped suddenly. "Look."

She was standing in front of a wall of glass, looking through the giant middle of the ship. At the bottom it was lined with a whole city block sized strip mall. But, I don't think that's why she stopped. There was a group of monsters huddled in front of a candy shop, called "Candy shop." Really creative name.

There were a dozen of the giants that had attacked Percy. I wondered if any of them were that 'baby cakes' fellow the one I stabbed was going on about. Maybe I could deliver the news in person, just to be nice, you know? There were also two fully grown hellhounds and a group of women with scaly bodies, ending in a tail.

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

"What are they all doing here? Is this supposed to be some kind of war ship?" I muttered. Annabeth shook her head, muttering, "I don't know."

The monsters were huddled around a young guy in armor slicing through something. When we got a better look at it, Percy almost shrieked. "They're killing a camper!" I slammed a hand over his mouth and one behind his neck so I didn't knock Percy off his feet, creating even more noise than his yelling.

I caught a lump in my throat when I looked back at the guy hacking and slashing, realizing it was just a straw dummy in a camp half blood shirt. That wasn't a very good feeling either, but it was certainly better than if it were a living and breathing person.

While we surveyed the damage, the guy in the armor ran the dummy through and sliced upward, sending straw fluttering all over the place. The monsters cheered and howled at the action.

Annabeth stepped away from the window, a horrified, yet sickened expression on her face. Percy, Tyson and I followed shortly. I put a hand on her shoulder. "Come on. The sooner we find Luke the sooner we can get out of here." I swallowed the lump in my throat and we started again.

Eventually, we reached the part of the corridor that ended in a large pair of oak doors. They looked like they belonged on the front of an old scottish castle, rather than on a cruise ship full of half gods and monsters. When we were hardly a few feet away, Tyson stopped us. "Voices inside."

"How can you hear that?" I turned and asked him. He closed his eye and scrunched up his face, concentrating on whatever it was he was going to do. His voice changed, sending a violent chill down my spine as he imitated Luke Castellan. "-the prophecy ourselves. The fools won't know which way to turn."

Before I even had time to process anything, the voice changed again, deeper and scratchier than Luke's, sounding like that guy we heard talking to Luke outside of our bathroom hiding spots. "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."

"Please never do that again, Tyson." I felt my brain cycle through some of the jagged memories I had of that night Luke left camp, grabbing the sides of my head, feeling my heart start racing again. Annabeth 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?"