"You are in so much trouble," Clarisse said.
They had just finished a ship tour they didn't want, through dark rooms overcrowded with dead sailors. They had seen the coal bunker, the boilers and engine, which huffed and groaned like it would explode any minute. They had seen the pilothouse and the powder magazine and gunnery deck—Clarisse's favorite—with two Dahlgren smoothbore cannons on the port and starboard sides and a Brooke nine-inch rifled gun fore and aft—all specially refitted to fire celestial bronze cannon balls.
Everywhere they went, dead Confederate sailors stared at them, their ghostly bearded faces shimmering over their skulls. They approved of Annabeth because she told them she was from Virginia. They were interested in Percy, too, because his name was Jackson—like the Southern general—but then he ruined it by telling them he was from New York. They all hissed curses and muttered curses about Yankees.
Seeing Y/N, one of the zombies started pointing his rifle at him. "You! I know you!"
"Uh?" was all he could think to say.
"Yeah, it's you!" the Confederate continued. Y/N wouldn't have bet on his brain being fresh. "Remember that?" He showed the torn part of his face. "You did that to me! D'like to have the same?" His face split with a toothless grin.
"I never saw you in my life," Y/N said, disturbed—whether by what he was hearing or the guy's smell, he didn't know.
Tyson was terrified. All through the tour, he insisted Annabeth hold his hand, which she didn't look too thrilled about.
Ethan, for his part, didn't seem to give a damn. He had miraculously saved a donut and savored it. When Y/N raised an eyebrow at him, he just said, "This is far from the craziest thing that's ever happened to us, anyway."
Finally, they were escorted to dinner. The CSS Birmingham captain's quarters were about the size of a walk-in closet, but still much bigger than any other room on board. The table was set with white linen and china. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, and Dr Peppers were served by skeletal crewmen.
"Tantalus expelled you for eternity," Clarisse told them smugly. "Mr. D said if any of you show your face at camp again, he'll turn you into squirrels and run you over with his SUV."
"If he likes dreaming," Y/N said, swallowing a handful of chips. "They gave you this ship?"
"'Course not, punk. My father did."
"Ares knows how to do this?"
Clarisse sneered. "The spirits on the losing side of every war owe a tribute to Ares. That's their curse for being defeated. I prayed to my father for a naval transport and here it is. These guys will do anything I tell them. Won't you, Captain?"
The captain stood behind her looking stiff and angry. His glowing green eyes were fixed on Y/N with hunger. "If it means an end to this infernal war, m'lady, peace at last, we'll do anything. Destroy anyone."
Clarisse smiled. "Destroy anyone. I like that."
Ethan gulped. He rammed his banana sunhat lower on his head, as if it could have been some kind of protection.
"Clarisse," Annabeth said, "Luke might be after the Fleece, too. We saw him. He's got the coordinates and he's heading south. He has a cruise ship full of monsters—"
"Good! I'll blow him out of the water."
"You don't understand," Annabeth said. "We have to combine forces. Let us help you—"
"No!" Clarisse pounded the table. "This is my quest, Wise Girl! Finally I get to be the hero, and you three will not steal my chance."
"Where are your cabin mates?" Percy asked. "You were allowed to take two friends with you, weren't you?"
"They didn't . . . I let them stay behind. To protect the camp."
Y/N sneered. "You mean even the people in your own cabin wouldn't help you?"
"Shut up, punk! I don't need them! Or you! Or nobody!"
"Clarisse," he 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."
The dream came as soon as Y/N was asleep.
The same, as usual, again and for eternity, it seemed. Was this all going to happen—the fall from the frozen cliff, the run with the crevasse gapping behind him, the sky and the earth getting closer and closer, New York asleep—or was it just a dream? An illusion?
He didn't know.
He woke to the alarms ringing throughout the ship.
The captain's gravelly voice: "All hands on deck! Find Lady Clarisse! Where is that girl?"
His ghostly face appeared above Y/N. "Get up, Yankee. Your friends are already above. We are approaching the entrance."
"The entrance to what?"
The zombie gave him a skeletal smile. "The Sea of Monsters, of course."
Y/N stuffed his few belongings that had survived the Hydra into a sailor's canvas knapsack and slung it over his shoulder. He had a sneaking suspicion that one way or another he would not be spending another night aboard the CSS Birmingham.
He was climbing up the stairs when something made him stop in his tracks. A presence nearby—something familiar and unpleasant. For no particular reason, he felt like picking up a fight. He wanted to punch a dead Confederate. The last time he had felt like that kind of anger. . . .
Instead of going up, he crept to the edge of the ventilation grate and peered down into the boiler deck.
Clarisse was standing right below him, 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.
He gritted his teeth. It was his least favorite Olympian: Ares, the god of war.
"I don't want excuses, little girl!" Ares growled.
"Y-yes, father," Clarisse mumbled.
"You don't want to see me mad, do you?"
"No, father."
"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 L/N steal it from you—"
"But the Oracle said—"
"I 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. Y/N heard voices coming toward him, officers yelling orders to ready the cannons.
He crept back from the ventilation grate and made his way upstairs to join Annabeth, Ethan, Percy and Tyson on the spar deck.
"What's wrong?" Annabeth asked him. "Another dream?"
Y/N nodded, but he didn't say anything. He didn't know what to think about what he had seen downstairs. Not that he felt sorry for Clarisse—that was unthinkable, of course—but seeing Ares. . . . Ares was all the fouler, now.
Clarisse came up the stairs. She grabbed a pair of binoculars from a zombie officer and peered toward the horizon. "At last. Captain, full steam ahead!"
Y/N looked in the same direction as she was, but he couldn't see much. The sky was overcast. The air was hazy and humid, like steam from an iron. If he squinted real hard, he could just make out a couple of dark fuzzy splotches in the distance.
The engine groaned as they increased speed.
After a few more minutes, the dark splotches ahead of them came into focus. To the north, a huge mass of rock rose out of the sea—an island with cliffs at least a hundred feet tall. About half a mile south of that, the other patch of darkness was a storm brewing. The sky and sea boiled together in a roaring mass.
"Hurricane?" Annabeth asked.
"No," Clarisse said. "Charybdis."
Annabeth paled. "Are you crazy?"
"Only way into the Sea of Monsters. Straight between Charybdis and her sister Scylla." Clarisse pointed to the top of the cliffs, and Y/N got the feeling something lived up there that he did not want to meet.
"What do you mean the only way?" Percy asked. "The sea is wide open! Just sail around them."
Clarisse rolled her eyes. "Don't you know anything? If I tried to sail around them, they would just appear in my path again. If you want to get into the Sea of Monsters, you have to sail through them."
"What about the Clashing Rocks?" Annabeth said. "That's another gateway. Jason used it."
"I can't blow apart rocks with my cannons," Clarisse said. "Monsters, on the other hand. . . ."
"You are crazy," Annabeth decided.
"Watch and learn, Wise Girl." Clarisse turned to the captain. "Set course for Charybdis!"
"Aye, m'lady."
The engine groaned, the iron platting rattled, and the ship began to pick up speed.
"Clarisse," Percy said, "Charybdis sucks up the sea. Isn't that the story?"
"And spits back out again, yeah."
"What about Scylla?"
"She lives in a cave, up on those cliffs. If we get too close, her snaky heads will come down and start plucking off the ship."
"Choose Scylla then," Percy said. "Everybody goes below the deck and we chug right past."
"No!" Clarisse insisted. "If Scylla doesn't get her easy meat, she might pick up the whole ship. Besides, she's too high to make a good target. My cannons can't shoot straight up. Charybdis just sits there at the center of her whirlwind. We're going to steam straight toward her, train our guns on her, and blow her to Tartarus!"
She said it with such relish Y/N almost wanted to believe her.
The engine hummed. The boilers were heating up so much he could feel the deck getting warm beneath his feet. The smokestacks billowed. The red Ares flag whipped in the wind.
As they got closer to the monsters, the sound of Charybdis got louder and louder—a horrible wet roar like the galaxy's biggest toilet being flushed. Every time Charybdis inhaled, the ship shuddered and lurched forward. Every time she exhaled, they rose in the water and were buffeted by ten-foot waves.
As bad as Scylla might be, those cliffs were looking awfully good to Y/N.
"Clarisse," he said, "we should choose Scylla."
"Shut up, punk."
"That's what all the heroes did! Odysseus, Heracles—"
"Yeah, and they lost crewmembers and cows."
"But not Jason!" Y/N said. "On his way back, he passed right between the two thanks to my mother's blessing."
"And you're going to tell me that you can summon Hera's blessing now? Just like that?"
"Er—yeah."
"Oh," Clarisse said wryly. "And how is that?"
"I am her blessing."
Clarisse raised her eyebrows at him, as if wondering whether he had lost his mind.
"Just choose Scylla," he insisted. "I'll distract her."
"And how, punk?"
He didn't answer.
Closing his eyes, he focused. Next moment, he was way shorter than Clarisse, only reaching her knees. He waved his wings. A year had passed without him doing it, but it was like riding a bike—you never forget.
He let out a cry to Clarisse, just to remind her of what she had to do, then rose into the air, flying toward Scylla.
He saw her long before she attacked him. The upper half of her body, till her waist, was that of a beautiful nymph, her long, silky hair flowing over one of her shoulders, as if she were combing it. But the beauty ended there. From her waist grew six long necks, each equipped with grisly heads. Inside of their mouths were three rows of sharp teeth—the perfect razor for the best shaving, supposing that you still had your head after it. Where should have been her legs were twelve tentacles and a tail instead.
Scylla spotted Y/N in the sky.
Everything happened at once.
One of her snaky heads threw itself at him. He narrowingly managed to dodged when another one leaped. And another. One more. All the heads attacked him, tangling around him, stopping him from coming nearer the nymph part. The tiniest flying error would be lethal.
As he spun in the air, adrenaline rushed through his veins, and ADHD did its job. He was vaguely aware that the CSS Birmingham would be going past the cliffs now.
He nosedived. Miraculously, he passed just between the grisly heads and the necks, landing on the rocky platform where she Scylla was standing.
He blinked, and he transformed back to his normal self, his golden, slightly curved sword in his hand.
He couldn't take any time off. The heads barked and tried to bite him. He danced between them, swinging his sword and slashing, going around the monster.
BOOM!
As Y/N was cutting one of the snaky heads, a gigantic wave hit him from behind. He was thrown like a cannon ball against the rocks—a flash of pain went through all his body.
The impact was so powerful he bounced against the rock wall and fell like a stone toward the ocean.
But just when he should have hit the water, he landed flat on the deck of the CSS Birmingham.
"The engine is about to blow!" a sailor yelled.
"Where's Tyson?" Percy's voice demanded.
"Still down there," the sailor said. "Holding it together somehow, though I don't know for how much longer."
The captain said, "We have to abandon ship."
"No!" Clarisse yelled.
"We have no choice, m'lady. The hull is already cracking apart! She can't—"
The captain never finished his sentence. Y/N saw, through the millions of stars dancing in his eyes, quick as lightning, something brown and green shooting and snapping him up.
"Scylla!" a sailor yelled as another column of reptilian flesh shot from the cliffs and snapped him up.
Y/N was in agony, lying on the deck.
Ethan ran up to him. "Y/N!" He looked around. "Someone! Help!"
"What's happening?" Annabeth asked, her voice shaking behind Y/N.
He felt her hands palpating his shoulder.
"Gods!" she muttered. "Well, no time to seek for ambrosia. Y/N, I warn you, you're not going to like that. Ethan, at the count of three, you hit him in the stomach."
"What?" Ethan said.
"So he'll feel less pain in his shoulder," Annabeth said. "I've got nothing better in store."
"Are you mad?"
"Do as I say, goat boy!" Annabeth ordered.
Y/N felt two hands grabbing his shoulder and arm firmly. He gritted his teeth. Annabeth started to weigh down on him, and the pain increased seconds by seconds. Despite the panic that ruled over the deck, he could hear her breathing. And it wasn't that of someone confident with what she was doing.
"One—two—three!"
A hoof hit Y/N right in the stomach at the exact moment a flash of pain shot from his shoulder to his whole body. He let out a long, painful scream. The adrenaline that was already pumping through his veins increased, if that was possible.
Next moment, pain diminished, even though temporarily. Annabeth forced him to sit up.
"I don't have time to make up a splint," Annabeth said as she looked around. "At least, your shoulder's back in place, now. It'll have to make do."
"Why are you still there?" Y/N managed to say. "I told Clarisse to choose Scylla—I was distracting her."
"What would you think?" Ethan said bitterly. "Clarisse didn't listen to you. She said she needs nobody and you can go playing heroes alone and die, for all she cares."
"We have to get out of here," Annabeth muttered.
She stood up and put her hands around her mouth. "Lifeboats! Quick!"
"They'll never get clear of the cliffs," Clarisse said. "We'll all be eaten."
"This wouldn't have happened if you had listened to Y/N and swallowed your ego," Annabeth told her sharply. "But it's too late, now. Percy, the thermos."
"I can't leave Tyson!" Percy said. "He's still in the boiler room!"
"We have to get the boats ready!" Annabeth insisted.
Clarisse took Annabeth's command. She and the few of her undead sailors uncovered one of the three emergency rowboats while Scylla's heads rained from the sky like a meteor shower with teeth, picking off Confederate sailors one after another.
"Get the other boats." Percy threw Annabeth the thermos. "I'll get Tyson."
"You can't!" Ethan said. "The heat will kill you!"
Percy didn't listen. He began running for the boiler room hatch.
Ethan chased after him and grasped him round the waist, trying to get him back toward the lifeboats.
But suddenly their feet weren't touching the deck anymore. They were flying straight up.
Scylla had somehow caught Percy's knapsack, and was lifting them up toward her lair. Ethan held on to Percy's legs as they raised high over the water, screaming in terror.
Y/N began to rush to try and hold them back, but Annabeth seized him and forced him toward one of the three lifeboats. He was so weak he couldn't go against her.
Clarisse and some of the zombie sailors were in another lifeboat, already down onto the ocean.
Annabeth began cutting the ropes that held their embarkation with her dagger, and when—
KABOOM!
The engine room blew, sending chunks of ironclad flying in either direction like a fiery set of wings. Y/N and Annabeth's lifeboat got propelled thirty feet over the water, before crashing with a great SPLASH! onto it.
Flaming wreckage was raining down. They would either be smashed or burned or pulled to the bottom by the force of the sinking hull, and that was thinking optimistically, assuming they got away from Scylla.
Then Y/N heard a different kind of explosion—the sounds of Hermes's magic thermos being opened a little too far. White sheets of wind blasted in every direction, scattering the lifeboats.
Everything was going so fast, he didn't understand anything anymore. His body was tossed in all directions; images followed one another without link between them.
He started to go overboard, and only Annabeth's hand clutching his T-shirt kept him in the lifeboat.
The last thing he saw was one of Scylla's grisly heads swooping down on the survivors. Then a piece of metal hit him in the forehead, and darkness surrounded him.