The doors of the stateroom burst open and there was Luke, flanked by two hairy giants with javelins, their bronzes tips aimed right at Y/N's, Annabeth's, Ethan's, Percy's and Tyson's chests.
"Well," Luke said with a crooked smile. "If it isn't my three favorite cousins. Come right up."
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.
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 had changed since the last summer. Instead of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, he wore a button-down shirt, khaki pants, 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. And propped 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 five dining chairs scooted themselves into the center of the room.
None of them sat.
Luke's large friends were still pointing their javelins at them. 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 snoutlike, 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."
Y/N said nothing. Despite the javelins pointed at him, it wasn't the bear twins who scared him.
He had imagined meeting Luke again many times since Luke slipped through his fingers. He had figured himself challenging him to a duel, cornering him before he could do anything. But now that they were face-to-face, Y/N could barely stop his hands from shaking.
"You don't know Agrius and Oreius's story?" Luke asked. "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 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 had 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, guys, we let you survive another year. I hope you appreciated it. How's your mom, Percy? How's school?"
"You poisoned Thalia's tree," Y/N interrupted.
Luke sighed. "Right to the point, eh? Okay, sure I poisoned the tree. So what?"
"How could you?" Annabeth sounded so angry Y/N 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 the 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!" She seemed about to burst into tears.
Luke's 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?" He pointed at Tyson.
"Hey!" Percy said.
"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.
Y/N didn't know what Luke was talking about, but Annabeth buried her head in her hands like she was about to cry.
"Leave her alone," he said.
"And leave Tyson out of this," Percy said.
Luke laughed. "Oh, yeah, I heard. Your father claimed him." He smiled at Percy's surprised face. "Yes, Percy, I know all about that. And about your plan to find the Fleece. What were those coordinates, again . . . 30, 31, 75, 12? You see, I still have friends at camp who keep me posted."
"Spies, you mean," Y/N said.
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. Do you have any idea what's in store for you if you reach your sixteenth birthday? Has Chiron even told you the prophecy?"
"I know what I need to know," Percy retorted. "Like, who my enemies are."
"Then you're a fool."
Tyson smashed the nearest dining chair to splinters. "Percy is not a fool!"
He charged Luke. His fists came down toward Luke's head—a double overhead blow that would have knocked a hole in titanium—but the bear twins intercepted. They each caught one of 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 the color of pepperoni. "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.
The box creeped Y/N out, but he was determined not to show it.
"So?" Percy demanded. He didn't get it. "What's so special . . . ?" Suddenly his eyes bulged. "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 insane," Annabeth said.
"Join us and you'll be rewarded. We have powerful friends, sponsors rich enough to buy this cruise ship and much more. Percy, your mother will never have to work again. You can buy her a mansion. Y/N, you'll never have to go back to that godforsaken place of Vermont, you'll never have to satisfy the pride of a goddess who only sees you as an object of her glory. You can have your own renown! Yours the power, the fame—whatever you want. Annabeth, you can realize your dream of being an architect. You can build a monument to last thousand years. A temple to the lords of the next age!"
"Go to Tartarus," she said.
Luke sighed. He stood still for a moment, looking down at the floor, thinking. Then, all of a sudden, he raised his head and shrugged, as if giving up a lost cause. "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, but Y/N had a feeling this 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 Y/N, Annabeth, Ethan, Percy and Tyson with his javelin and herded them out of the stateroom, followed by the two human security guards.
As Y/N walked down the corridor with Oreius's javelin poking him in the back, he thought about what Luke had said—that the bear twins together were a match for Tyson's strength. But maybe separately. . . .
They exited the corridor amidships and walked across an open deck lined with lifeboats. Y/N knew the ship well enough to realize this would be their last look at sunlight. Once they got to the other side, they'd take the elevator down into the hold, and that would be it.
He glanced at Percy, who seemed to understand and, turning to Tyson, said, "Now."
Thank the gods, Tyson got it. 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 Ethan knocked the wind out of him with a well-placed hoof kick. The other guard ran for the nearest alarm box.
"Stop him!" Annabeth yelled, but it was too late.
Just before Y/N banged him on the head with a deck chair, he hit the alarm.
Red lights flashed. Sirens wailed.
"Lifeboats!" Percy yelled.
They ran for the nearest one.
By the time they got the cover off, monsters and more security men 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. Laistrygonian archers assembled on the deck above them, notching arrows in their enormous bows.
"How do you launch this thing?" Annabeth screamed.
A hellhound leaped at Y/N, but Tyson slammed it aside with a fire extinguisher.
"Get in!" Percy yelled.
Y/N found his sword suddenly in his hand. At the same time as Percy, he slashed the first volley of arrows out of the air. Any second they would be overwhelmed.
The lifeboat was hanging over the side of the ship, high above the water. Annabeth and Ethan were having no luck with the release pulley.
Y/N, Percy and Tyson jumped in beside them.
"Hold on!" Y/N yelled, and he cut the ropes.
A shower of arrows whistled over their heads as they free-fell toward the ocean.
A/N: Hey! Hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Just to say, I'm now writing book 4 of this fic—The Battle of the Labyrinth—in the French version. I'm trying out changing the POV from Y/N's to Annabeth's for this book. So, yeah, it won't happen before a moment, but so you know.
See you next time and happy reading!