NAOMI WOKE TO A SHIP'S WHISTLE and a voice on the intercom—a guy with an Australian accent and too-happy tone.
"Good morning, passengers! We'll be at sea all day today. Excellent weather for the poolside mambo party! Don't forget million-dollar bingo in the Kraken Lounge at one o'clock, and for our special guests, disemboweling practice on the Promenade!"
Naomi blinked, turning her head to look at an awake Annabeth, who was staring at the ceiling with a half-confused, half-angry expression.
"Did he say... disemboweling practice?" Naomi asked.
"I think so."
Once all of the questers were all dressed, they ventured out into the ship and were surprised to see other people. A dozen senior citizens were heading to breakfast. A dad was taking his kids to the pool for a morning swim. Crew members in crisp white uniforms strolled the deck, tipping their hats to the passengers.
Nobody asked who the four unaccompanied minors were. Nobody paid them any attention, really. But there was definitely something wrong.
As a family of swimmers passed, the dad told his kids, "We are on a cruise. We are having fun."
"Yes," his three kids said in unison, their expressions blank. "We are having a blast. We will swim in the pool."
They wandered off.
"Good morning," a crew member greeted the questers. His eyes were glazed over like he was sleepwalking. "We are all enjoying ourselves aboard the Princess Andromeda. Have a nice day." He drifted away.
"I'm officially freaked out," Naomi whispered. "What's going on?"
"They're all in some kind of trance," Annabeth whispered.
Then they passed a cafeteria and saw their first monster. It was a hellhound, her front paws on the buffet counter and her muzzle buried in the scrambled eggs. She must've been young, because she was small compared to most—no bigger than a grizzly bear.
The weird thing was, a middle-aged couple was standing in the buffet queue right behind the hellhound, patiently waiting their turn for the eggs. They didn't seem to think anything was amiss.
"Not hungry anymore," Tyson murmured.
Before anyone could reply, a reptilian voice came from down the hall, "Ssssix more joined yesssterday."
Annabeth gestured frantically toward the nearest hiding place—the women's room—and all four of them ducked inside.
Something—two somethings, from the sounds of it—slithered past the restroom door, making sounds like sandpaper against carpet.
"Yesss," a second reptilian voice said. "He drawssss them. Ssssoon we will be sssstrong."
The things slithered into the cafeteria with a cold hissing that might have been laughter.
"We have to get out of here," Annabeth said.
"You think I want to be in the girls' restroom?" Percy asked.
"I mean the ship, Percy! We have to get off the ship."
"Smells bad," Tyson agreed. "And dogs eat all the eggs. Annabeth is right. We must leave the restroom and ship."
Then there was another voice outside—one that was more frightening than any monster's.
"—only a matter of time. Don't push me, Agrius!"
It was Luke—there was no doubt about it. Naomi could never forget his voice.
"I'm not pushing you!" another guy growled. His voice was deeper and even angrier than Luke's. "I'm just saying, if this gamble doesn't pay off—"
"It'll pay off," Luke snapped. "They'll take the bait. Now, come, we've got to get to the admiralty suite and check on the casket."
Their voices receded down the corridor.
Tyson whimpered. "Leave now?"
Naomi, Percy, and Annabeth exchanged looks.
"We can't," Percy told Tyson.
"We have to find out what Luke is up to," Annabeth agreed. "And if possible, we're going to beat him up, bind him in chains, and drag him to Mount Olympus."
"Hear, hear," Naomi mumbled in agreement.
❊
Annabeth volunteered to go alone since she had the cap of invisibility, but it was way too dangerous. Either they all went together, or nobody went.
"Nobody!" Tyson voted. "Please?"
But in the end he came along, nervously chewing on his fingernails. They stopped long enough at their cabin to gather their stuff. They figured whatever happened, they would not be staying another night aboard the zombie cruise ship, even if they did have million-dollar bingo.
Naomi felt bad about Tyson carrying everything, but he insisted, and Annabeth said not to worry about it. Tyson could carry four full duffel bags over his shoulder as easily as Naomi could carry a single backpack.
They snuck through the corridors, following the ship's YOU ARE HERE signs toward the admiralty suite. Annabeth scouted ahead invisibly. They hid whenever someone passed by, but most of the people they saw were just glassy-eyed zombie passengers.
As they came up the stairs to deck thirteen, where the admiralty suite was supposed to be, Annabeth hissed, "Hide!" and shoved them into a supply closet.
Naomi heard a few guys coming down the hall.
"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" one of them said.
The other laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome."
Naomi frowned. She knew that voice.
"I hear they got two more coming," the familiar voice said. "They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man—no contest!"
The voices faded down the corridor.
"That was Chris Rodriguez!" Annabeth took off her cap and turned visible. "From Cabin Eleven."
That's who it was. Naomi remembered now—he'd been her first sword-fighting partner, during her first week at Camp Half-Blood. He'd been so nice, calling out pointers, giving her tips and tricks to take down her opponents. He'd left for the school year at the end of last summer, but now that she thought about it, she hadn't seen him around since the start of this summer.
"What's another half-blood doing here?" Percy asked.
Annabeth shook her head, clearly troubled.
They kept going down the corridor.
Soon, Annabeth stopped short. "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 giants, two hellhounds, and a few even stranger creatures—humanoid women 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. Naomi's stomach dropped when 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 upwards. Straw flew everywhere. The monsters cheered and howled.
Annabeth stepped away from the window. Her face was ashen.
Naomi reached for her hand, and Annabeth gripped it tightly.
"Come on," Percy said gently. "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 a few yards 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 Naomi could comprehend that, 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. Now 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 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."
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 half-bloods. Come right in."
❊
The stateroom was beautiful—and 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.
The horrible part: on a velvet dais at the back of the room lay a ten-foot-long golden casket. A sarcophagus, engraved with Ancient Greek scenes of cities in flames and heroes dying grisly deaths. Despite the sunlight streaming through the windows, the casket made the whole room feel cold.
"Well," Luke said, spreading his arms proudly. "A little nicer than Cabin Eleven, huh?"
He'd changed since last summer. Instead of Bermuda shorts and a t-shirt, he wore a button-down shirt, khaki trousers, and leather loafers. His sandy hair, which used to be so unruly, was now clipped short. He looked like an evil male model, showing off what the fashionable college-age villain was wearing to Harvard this year.
He still had the scar under his eye—a jagged white line from his battle with a dragon. Naomi felt a tiny spark of pride at the sight of a new scar on his palm where she'd cut him last summer after he'd tried to kidnap her.
Propped up against the sofa was his magical sword, Backbiter, glinting strangely with its half-steel, half-celestial bronze blade that could kill both mortals and monsters.
"Sit," he told them. He waved his hand and four dining chairs scooted themselves into the center of the room.
None of them sat.
Luke's big friends were still pointing their javelins at Naomi and her companions. They looked like twins, but they weren't human. They stood about eight feet tall, for one thing, and wore only blue jeans, probably because their enormous chests were already shag-carpeted with thick brown fur. They had claws for fingernails, feet like paws. Their noses were snout-like, and their teeth were all pointed canines.
"Where are my manners?" Luke said smoothly. "These are my assistants, Agrius and Oreius. Perhaps you've heard of them."
When no one spoke, Luke asked, "You don't know Agrius and Oreius's story? Their mother... well, it's sad, really. Aphrodite ordered the young woman to fall in love. She refused and ran to Artemis for help. Artemis let her become one of her maiden huntresses, but Aphrodite got her revenge. She bewitched the young woman into falling in love with a bear. When Artemis found out, she abandoned the girl in disgust. Typical of the gods, wouldn't you say? They fight with one another and the poor humans get caught in the middle. The girl's twin sons here, Agrius and Oreius, have no love for Olympus. They like half-bloods well enough, though..."
"For lunch," Agrius growled. His gruff voice was the one they'd heard talking with Luke earlier.
"Hehe! Hehe!" His brother Oreius laughed, licking his fur-lined lips. He kept laughing like he was having an asthmatic fit until Luke and Agrius both stared at him.
"Shut up, you idiot!" Agrius growled. "Go punish yourself!"
Oreius whimpered. He trudged over to the corner of the room, slumped onto a stool, and banged his forehead against the dining table, making the silver plates rattle.
Luke acted like this was perfectly normal behavior. He made himself comfortable on the sofa and propped his feet up on the coffee table. "Well, Percy, we let you survive another year. I hope you appreciated it. How's your mom? How's school?"
Percy glared at him.
Luke rolled his eyes. "What about you, Naomi? Cabin Four treating you well?"
"Go to Hades," Naomi told him.
"Want me to give a message to your stepdad while I'm there?"
There were a few words on the tip of Naomi's tongue, and she was pretty sure all of them would have made the nuns at St. Monica's wash her mouth out with heavy duty soap.
"You poisoned Thalia's tree," Percy said, still glaring at Luke.
Luke sighed. "Right to the point, eh? Okay, sure I poisoned the tree. So what?"
"How could you?" Annabeth sounded so angry Naomi thought she'd explode. "Thalia saved your life! Our lives! How could you dishonor her—"
"I didn't dishonor her!" Luke snapped. "The gods dishonored her, Annabeth! If Thalia were alive, she'd be on my side."
"Liar!"
"If you knew what was coming, you'd understand—"
"I understand you want to destroy camp!" she yelled. "You're a monster!"
Luke shook his head. "The gods have blinded you. Can't you imagine a world without them, Annabeth? What good is that ancient history you study? Three thousand years of baggage! The West is rotten to the core. It has to be destroyed. Join me! We can start the world anew. We could use your intelligence, Annabeth."
"Because you have none of your own!"
His eyes narrowed. "I know you, Annabeth. You deserve better than tagging along on some hopeless quest to save the camp. Half-Blood Hill will be overrun by monsters within the month. The heroes who survive will have no choice but to join us or be hunted to extinction. You really want to be on a losing team... with company like this?" Luke pointed at Tyson.
"Hey!" Percy protested.
"Traveling with a Cyclops," Luke chided. "Talk about dishonoring Thalia's memory! I'm surprised at you, Annabeth. You of all people—"
"Stop it!" she shouted.
Naomi wasn't sure what Luke was talking about, but Annabeth buried her head in her hands like she was about to cry.
"Leave her alone," Percy said. "And leave Tyson out of this."
Luke laughed. "Oh, yeah, I heard. Your father claimed him."
When he noticed Percy's surprise, Luke smiled. "Yes, Percy, I know all about that. And about your plan to find the Fleece. What were those coordinates again... thirty, thirty-one, seventy-five, twelve? You see, I still have friends at camp who keep me posted."
"Spies, you mean."
Luke shrugged. "How many insults from your father can you stand, Percy? You think he's grateful to you? You think Poseidon cares for you any more than he cares for this monster?"
Tyson clenched his fists and made a rumbling sound down in his throat.
Luke just chuckled. "The gods are so using you, Percy. You and Naomi. Do either of you have any idea what's in store for you if you reach your seventeenth birthday, Percy? Has Chiron even told you the prophecy?"
Luke knew just how to throw Percy off-kilter. He was stunned into silence for a moment.
"I know what I need to know," he finally managed. "Like who my enemies are."
"Then you're a fool."
Tyson smashed the nearest dining chair into splinters. "Percy is not a fool!"
Before anyone could stop him, he charged Luke. His fists came down toward Luke's head—a double overhead blow that would've knocked a hole in titanium—but the bear twins intercepted. They each caught Tyson's arms and stopped him cold. They pushed him back and Tyson stumbled. He fell to the carpet so hard the deck shook.
"Too bad, Cyclops," Luke said. "Looks like my grizzly friends together are more than a match for your strength. Maybe I should let them—"
"Luke," Percy cut in. "Listen to me. Your father sent us."
Luke's face turned red. "Don't—even—mention him."
"He told us to take this boat," Percy continued. "I thought it was just for a ride, but he sent us here to find you. He told me he won't give up on you, no matter how angry you are."
"Angry?" Luke roared. "Give up on me? He abandoned me, Percy! I want Olympus destroyed! Every throne crushed to rubble! You tell Hermes it's going to happen, too. Each time a half-blood joins us, the Olympians grow weaker and we grow stronger. He grows stronger." Luke pointed to the gold sarcophagus.
"So?" Percy demanded. "What's so special...?"
It seemed to hit them all in the same moment, what might be inside the sarcophagus. The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees.
"Whoa, you don't mean—"
"He is re-forming," Luke said. "Little by little, we're calling his life force out of the pit. With every recruit who pledges our cause, another small piece appears—"
"That's disgusting!" Annabeth said.
Luke sneered at her. "Your mother was born from Zeus's split skull, Annabeth. I wouldn't talk. Soon there will be enough of the titan lord so that we can make him whole again. We will piece together a new body for him, a work worthy of the forges of Hephaestus."
"You're crazy," Naomi said.
"Join us and you'll be rewarded. We have powerful friends, sponsors rich enough to buy this cruise ship and much more. Naomi, you'll never be an outsider again—you'll have all the glory you could ask for as Kronos's champion. Percy, your mother will never have to work again. You can buy her a mansion. You can have power, fame—whatever you want. Annabeth, you can realize your dream of being an architect. You can build a monument to last a thousand years. A temple to the lords of the next age!"
"Go to Tartarus," Annabeth snarled.
Luke sighed. "A shame."
He picked up something that looked like a TV remote and pressed a red button. Within seconds the door of the stateroom opened and two uniformed crew members came in, armed with nightsticks. They had the same glassy-eyed look as the other mortals on the ship, but Naomi had a feeling that wouldn't make them any less dangerous in a fight.
"Ah, good, security," Luke said. "I'm afraid we have some stowaways."
"Yes, sir," they said dreamily.
Luke turned to Oreius. "It's time to feed the Aethiopian drakon. Take these fools below and show them how it's done."
Oreius grinned stupidly. "Hehe! Hehe!"
"Let me go, too," Agrius grumbled. "My brother is worthless. That Cyclops—"
"Is no threat," Luke said. He glanced back at the golden casket, as if something were troubling him. "Agrius, stay here. We have important matters to discuss."
"But—"
"Oreius, don't fail me. Stay in the hold to make sure the drakon is properly fed."
Oreius prodded the four questers with his javelin and herded them out of the stateroom, followed by the two human security guards.
❊
They exited the hallway amidships and walked across an open deck lined with lifeboats.
Percy looked at Tyson. "Now."
Thank the gods, he understood what Percy meant. He turned and smacked Oreius thirty feet backward into the swimming pool, right into the middle of the zombie tourist family.
"Ah!" the kids yelled in unison. "We are not having a blast in the pool!"
One of the security guards drew his nightstick, but Annabeth knocked the wind out of him with a well-placed kick. The other guard ran for the nearest alarm box.
"Stop him!" Annabeth yelled, but it was too late.
Just before Percy banged the guard on the head with a deckchair, he hit the alarm.
Red lights flashed. Sirens wailed.
"Lifeboat!" Percy yelled.
They ran for the nearest one.
By the time they got the cover off, monsters and more security guards were swarming the deck, pushing aside tourists and waiters with trays of tropical drinks. A guy in Greek armor drew his sword and charged, but slipped in a puddle of piña colada. Giant archers assembled on the deck above them, notching arrows in enormous bows.
"How do you launch this thing?" Annabeth screamed.
A hellhound crouched, prepared to pounce, but Naomi shouted, "Get back! Bad dog!"
The beast seemed to have no choice but to whimper like a scolded puppy and back away.
"Get in!" Percy yelled. He uncapped his sword and slashed the first volley of arrows out of the air.
Any second they'd be overwhelmed.
The lifeboat was hanging over the side of the ship, high above the water. Annabeth and Tyson were having no luck with the release pulley.
Naomi and Percy jumped in with them.
"Hold on!" Percy yelled, and he cut the ropes.
A shower of arrows whistled over their heads.
"Flask!" Percy screamed as they hurtled toward the water.
"What?" Annabeth was holding onto the boat straps for dear life, her hair flying straight up like a torch.
But Tyson seemed to understand. He managed to open Percy's duffel bag and take out the flask Hermes had given him without losing his grip on it or the boat.
More deadly projectiles whistled past.
Percy grabbed the flask. "Hang on!"
"We are hanging on!" Naomi shouted.
"Tighter!"
Tyson grabbed Annabeth and Percy by the backs of their shirts, Annabeth grabbing Naomi around the waist. Percy opened the flask just a little.
Instantly, a white sheet of wind jetted out of the flask and propelled them sideways, turning their downward plummet into a forty-five-degree crash landing.
The wind seemed to laugh as it shot from the flask, like it was glad to be free. As they hit the ocean, they bumped once, twice, skipping like a stone, then they were whizzing along like a speed boat, salt spray in their faces and nothing but sea ahead.
There was a wail of outrage from the ship behind them, but they were already out of weapon range. The Princess Andromeda faded to the size of a white toy boat in the distance, then it was gone.
❊