As they got closer to the cruise ship, Y/N realized just how huge it was. He felt as though he were looking up at a building in New York. The white hull was at least ten stories tall, topped with another dozen levels of decks with brightly lit balconies and portholes. The ship's name was painted just above the bow line in black letters, lit with a spotlight. It took him a few seconds to decipher it:
PRINCESS ANDROMEDA
Attached to the bow was a huge masthead—a three-story-tall woman wearing a white Greek chiton, sculpted to look as if she were chained to the front of the ship. She was young and beautiful, with flowing black hair, but her expression was one of absolute terror. Why anybody would want a screaming princess on the front of their vacation ship, was something that completely escaped Y/N.
He remembered the myth about Andromeda and how she had been chained to a rock by her own parents as a sacrifice to a sea monster. Maybe she had gotten too many F's on her report card or something. Anyway, Perseus had saved her just in time and turned the sea monster to a stone using the head of Medusa.
By the by, the original Perseus was one of the only heroes in the Greek myths who got a happy ending. The other died—betrayed, mauled, mutilated, poisoned, or cursed by the gods.
"How do we get aboard?" Annabeth shouted over the noise of the waves, but the hippocampi seemed to know what she needed. They skimmed along the starboard side of the ship, riding easily through its huge wake, and pulled up next to a service ladder riveted to the side of the hull.
"After you," Percy told Y/N.
Y/N slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and grabbed the bottom rung. Once he had hoisted himself onto the ladder, his hippocampus whinnied a farewell and dove underwater. He began to climb. Percy followed him after he got a few rungs up. Annabeth and Ethan climbed the ladder right after them.
Finally it was just Tyson in the water. His hippocampus was treating him to 360° aerials and backward ollies, and Tyson was laughing so hysterically, the sound echoed up the side of the ship.
"Tyson, shhh!" Percy said. "Come on, big guy!"
"Can't we take Rainbow?" Tyson asked, his smile fading.
Ethan stared at him. "Rainbow?"
The hippocampus whinnied as if he liked his new name.
"Um, we have to go," Percy said. "Rainbow . . . well, he can't climb ladders."
Tyson sniffled. He buried his face in the hippocampus's mane and whispered, "I will miss you, Rainbow!" Well, it was a whisper made by a Cyclops—not what you'd call quiet.
The hippocampus made a neighing sound like crying.
"Maybe we'll see him again," Ethan suggested.
"Oh, please!" Tyson said, perking up immediately. "Tomorrow!"
They didn't make any promises, but they finally convinced Tyson to say his farewells and grab hold of the ladder. With a final sad whinny, Rainbow the hippocampus did a back-flip and dove into the sea.
The ladder led to a maintenance deck stacked with yellow lifeboats. There was a set of locked double doors, which Annabeth managed to pry open with her knife and a fair amount of cursing in Ancient Greek.
Y/N figured they'd have to sneak around, being stowaways and all, but after checking a few corridors and peering over a balcony into a huge central promenade lined with closed shops, he began to realize there was nobody to hide from. Sure it was the middle of the night, but they walked half the length of the boat and met no one. They passed forty or fifty cabin doors and heard no sound behind any of them.
"It's a ghost ship," he murmured.
"No," Tyson said, fiddling with the strap of his duffel bag. "Bad smell."
"Yep," Ethan confirmed.
Annabeth frowned. "I don't smell anything."
"You're not a satyr or a Cyclops," Ethan told her. "You can't smell monster, remember? But we can. Isn't that right, Tyson?"
Tyson nodded nervously. Now that they were away from Camp Half-Blood, the Mist had distorted his face again. Unless you concentrated very hard, it seemed that he had two eyes instead of one.
"Okay," Annabeth said. "So exactly what do you smell?"
"Something bad," Tyson answered.
"Great," Annabeth grumbled. "That clears it up."
"He's not that wrong," Ethan said. "Actually, me too, I don't know what it is. It's just bad. It's . . . different from anything I've smelled before. Maybe there was something similar in the Underworld, but then, everything smelled weird there."
They came outside on the swimming pool level. There were rows of empty deck chairs and a bar closed off with a chain curtain. The water in the pool glowed eerily, sloshing back and forth from the motion of the ship.
Above them fore and aft were more levels—a climbing wall, a putt-putt golf course, a revolving restaurant, but no sign of life.
And yet . . . Y/N felt something familiar. Something dangerous. He had the feeling that if he weren't so tired and burned out on adrenaline from their long night, he might be able to put a name to what was wrong.
"We need a hiding place," he said. "Somewhere safe to sleep."
"Sleep," Percy agreed wearily.
They explored a few more corridors until they found an empty suite on the ninth level. The door was open, which struck Y/N as weird. There was a basket of chocolate goodies on the table, an iced-down bottle of sparkling cider on the nightstand, and a mint on the pillow with a handwritten note that said: Enjoy your cruise!
They opened their duffel bags for the first time and found that Hermes really had thought of everything—extra clothes, toiletries, camp rations, a Ziploc bag full of cash, a leather pouch full of golden drachmas. He'd even managed to pack Tyson's oilcloth with his tools and metal bits, and Annabeth's cap of invisibility, which made them both feel a lot better.
"I'll be next door," Annabeth said. "You guys don't drink or eat anything."
When she closed the door behind her, Ethan asked Y/N, "You think this place is enchanted?"
He frowned. "I don't know. Something isn't right. Just be careful."
They locked their door.
Tyson crashed on the couch. He tinkered for a few minutes on his metalworking project—which he refused to show to anyone, according to Percy—but soon enough he was yawning. He wrapped up his oilcloth and passed out.
Y/N lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He thought he heard voices out in the hallway, like whispering. He knew that couldn't be. They had walked all over the ship and had seen nobody. But the voices kept him awake.
Panic overcame him at once. He jumped out of the bed and ran to open the door of the suite. No one. The hallway was completely empty. Not a breath of air, not a soul other than his own, Ethan's, Percy's, Tyson's and Annabeth's, who was asleep behind the inside door, if all was well. If all is well, Y/N repeated to himself.
He opened the door to Annabeth's room with a bang. Nothing was wrong here, too. She was already asleep in the bed, curled up under the blanket. Nothing else.
"What are you doing?"
Percy was rubbing his eyes. Apparently he also had trouble falling asleep.
"I—I was just making sure everything was okay," Y/N said. "I think the sound of the waves is making me a bit paranoid." But he knew very well that it wasn't the sound of the waves. You couldn't hear them, lost so deep in the boat.
He went back to lie down on the bed. Ethan, who had collapsed against a wall, gave a loud snore, and Tyson stirred on the couch.
Finally his weariness got the best of him. He fell asleep . . . and, for the three hundred and sixty-fifth and some time, he had his dream.
He woke to a ship's whistle and a voice on the intercom—some guy with an Australian accent who sounded way too happy.
"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!"
Y/N sat up in bed. "What did he say?"
Ethan was already awake, staring at the intercom.
Tyson groaned, still half asleep. He was lying facedown on the couch, his feet so far over the edge they were in the bathroom. "The happy man said . . . bowling practice?"
"It was more like disemboweling practice," Ethan corrected.
There was an urgent knock on the suite's interior door. Annabeth stuck her head in—her blond hair in a mess. "Disemboweling practice?"
Once they 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 they were. Nobody paid them much attention. But there was something wrong.
As the family of swimmers passed them, 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."
The family wandered off.
"Good morning," a crew member told Y/N, Annabeth, Ethan, Percy and Tyson, his eyes glazed. "We are all enjoying ourselves aboard the Princess Andromeda. Have a nice day." He drifted away.
"This is weird," Annabeth whispered. "They're all in some kind of trance."
Then they passed a cafeteria and saw their first monster. It was a hellhound—a black mastiff with its front paws up on the buffet line and its muzzle buried in the scrambled eggs. It must have been young, because it was small compared to most—no bigger than a grizzly bear. Y/N felt his blood turning cold. He had almost gotten killed by one of those before.
The weird thing was: a middle-aged couple was standing in the buffet line right behind the devil dog, patiently waiting their turn for the eggs. They didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.
"Not hungry anymore," Tyson murmured.
Before anyone could reply, a reptilian voice came from down the corridor, "Ssssix more joined yesssterday."
Annabeth gestured frantically toward the nearest hiding place—the women's room, all time hiding place for heroes—and all five of them ducked inside.
Something—or more like two somethings—slithered past the bathroom door, making sounds like sandpaper against the 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 snake laughter.
"We have to get out of here," Annabeth said.
"You think we want to be in the girls' restroom?" Y/N said.
"I mean the ship, Bovine Eyes! We have to get off the ship."
"Smells bad," Tyson agreed. "And dogs eat all the eggs."
"Annabeth is right," Ethan said. "We must leave the restroom and the ship."
Then Y/N heard another voice outside—one that chilled him worse than any monster's.
"—only a matter of time. Don't push me, Agrius!"
It was Luke, beyond a doubt. Y/N 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?"
"Good idea," Ethan said.
"We can't," Percy told them.
"We have to find out what Luke is up to," Y/N agreed.
"And if possible, we're going to beat him up, bind him in chains, and drag him to Mount Olympus," Annabeth added.
Ethan stared at them. "You all share the same brain to talk non-stop like that, or what?"
Annabeth volunteered to go alone since she had the cap of invisibility. But Y/N retorted it was either all went together, or nobody went.
"Nobody!" Tyson voted. "Please?"
But in the end he came along, of course, chewing on his huge fingernails. They stopped at their cabin long enough 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. Y/N put his duffel bag on his shoulders; Annabeth did the same with hers. Tyson took his, Percy's and Ethan's like it was nothing. Surely because he was a Cyclops.
Then they sneaked 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.
Y/N heard a couple of guys coming down the hall.
"You see the Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" one of them said.
The other laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome."
Annabeth was still invisible, but she squeezed Y/N's arm hard. He got a feeling he should know that second guy's voice.
"I hear they got three 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. "You remember—from Cabin Eleven."
Y/N sort of recalled Chris from the summer before. He was one of those undetermined campers who got stuck in the Hermes cabin because his Olympian dad or mom never claimed him. Now that he thought about it, he realized he hadn't seen Chris at camp this summer.
"What's another half-blood doing here?" Percy asked.
Annabeth shook her head, clearly troubled.
They kept going down the corridor. Y/N didn't need maps anymore to know he was getting close to Luke. He sensed something cold and unpleasant—the presence of evil.
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 at Percy's school, two hellhounds, and a few even stranger creatures—humanoid females with thin 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. A lump formed in Y/N's throat when he 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.
"Come on," Y/N said, trying to sound braver than he felt. "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?" Ethan asked. "Why can't satyrs do that?"
Tyson closed his eye like he was concentrating hard. Then his voice changed, becoming deeper and gruffer, like the guy they had 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."
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."
For a second, Y/N exchanged looks with the others. Then he realized. He grabbed Annabeth's hand and wheeled around. "Run!"