Y/n Pov:
Annabeth volunteered to go alone since she had the cap of invisibility, but I convinced her it was too dangerous. Either we all went together, or nobody went.
"Nobody!" Tyson voted. "Please?"
But in the end, he came along, nervously chewing on his huge fingernails. We stopped at our cabin long enough to gather our stuff. We figured whatever happened, we would not be staying another night aboard the zombie cruise ship, even if they did have million-dollar bingo
We sneaked through the corridors, following the ship's YOU ARE HERE signs toward the admiralty suite. Annabeth scouted ahead invisibly. We hid whenever someone passed by, but most of the people we saw were just glassy-eyed zombie passengers.
As we came up the stairs to deck thirteen, where the admiralty suite was supposed to be, Annabeth hissed, "Hide!" and shoved us into a supply closet.
I heard a couple of 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."
I recognized that voice. It was Chris! Chris Rodriguez! I squeezed Percy's arm to get his attention. Maybe he'd recognize him too.
"I hear they got two more coming," Chris said. "They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man—no contest!"
The voices faded down the corridor.
"That was Chris Rodriguez!" I said once they were out of hearing reach. "You remember—from Cabin Eleven."
Percy's eyes lit up, now recognizing him.
"What's another half-blood doing here?" he asked.
I shrugged.
What is another half-blood doing here?
We kept going down the corridor. I didn't need maps anymore to know I was getting close toLuke. I sensed something cold and unpleasant—the presence of evil.
"Guys." 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, two hellhounds, and...
"Scythian Dracaenae," I whispered. "Dragon women."
The monsters made a semicircle around a young guy in Greek armour who was hacking on a straw dummy. A lump formed in my throat when I realized the dummy was wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. As we watched, the guy in armour 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," Percy said. He grabbed ahold of my hand to comfort me. "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 we were thirty feet 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."
I shivered, remembering what had happened when I was seven. Hearing Luke's voice, just made it worse. I squeezed Percy's hand. Percy shifted closer to me.
Tyson's voice changed again, becoming deeper and gruffer, like the other guy we'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. 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."
Too late, I realized what was happening. 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 our chests.
"Well," Luke said with a crooked smile. "If it isn't my two favourite cousins. Come right in."
~
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. The Green sea and blue sky stretched 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. 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 us. He waved his hand and three dining chairs scooted themselves into the centre of the room.
None of us sat. I wanted to run up to him and open up that scar again but concluded the large guys with the javelins would get me before I even touched Luke.
Luke's large friends were still pointing their javelins at us. 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."
I said nothing. Despite the javelins pointing at me, it wasn't the bear twins who scared me.
I'd imagined meeting Luke again many times since last summer. I'd pictured myself boldly standing up to him, challenging him to a duel. But now that we were face to face, I could barely stop my 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. Shebewitched 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?" he looked at me, then back at Percy. "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 I'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 behaviour. 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?"
"You poisoned Thalia's tree."
Luke sighed. "Right to the point, eh? Okay, sure I poisoned the tree. So what?"
"How could you?" I spat. "Thalia saved your life! Our lives! How could you dishonour her—"
"I didn't dishonour her!" Luke snapped. "The gods dishonoured her, Y/n! If Thalia were alive, she'd be on my side."
"Liar!" I argued. "You're killing her, Luke. Her spirit is still in that tree and you're killing her. The last thing we have of her, you're letting it die!"
"If you knew what was coming, you'd understand—"
"I understand you want to destroy the camp!" I yelled. "You're a monster!"
Luke shook his head. "The gods have blinded you. Can't you imagine a world without them? 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 cunningness, Y/n."
"Because you have none of your own!" I screamed.
His eyes narrowed. "I know you, Y/n. 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 said.
"Traveling with a Cyclops," Luke chided. "Talk about dishonouring Thalia's memory! I'm surprised at you, Y/n. You of all people—"
"Stop it!" I shouted.
Annabeth buried her head in her hands like she was about to cry. I felt the stinging of tears fill my eyes, but I buried them deep within and let out a shaky breath.
"Leave her alone," Percy said. "And leave Tyson out of this."
Luke laughed. "Oh, yeah, I heard. Your father claimed him."
Percy stepped back. Luke smiled. "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."
He shrugged. "How many insults from your father can you stand, Percy? Do you think he is 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 managed. "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've 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 Tysonstumbled. 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."
His face turned the colour of pepperoni. "Don't—even—mention him."
"He told us to take this boat. 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 Olympusdestroyed! 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 me out, but I was determined not to show it. "So?" Percy demanded. "What's so special..."
Then it hit me and I guess it must have hit Percy too because he stepped back. 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 insane," I 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. 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! Y/n, you can make your mother proud and join the hunt. You can become a y/d/j and finally gain respect from your mother."
Even though it all seemed very tempting, I stood my ground. "Go to Tartarus, and rot."
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 I'd seen, but I 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 us with his javelin and herded us out of the stateroom, followed by the two human security guards.
~
We walked down the corridor with Orieus's javelin poking me in the back. We exited the corridor amidships and walked across an open deck lined with lifeboats.
Percy looked at Tyson and said, "Now."
Tyson turned and smacked Oreius thirty feet back 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 I banged him on the head with a deck chair, he hit the alarm.
Red lights flashed. Sirens wailed.
"Lifeboat!" I yelled.
We ran for the nearest one.
By the time we 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 armour drew his sword and charged, but slipped in a puddle of piña colada. Laistrygonian archers assembled on the deck above us, notching arrows in their enormous bows.
"How do you launch this thing?" screamed Annabeth.
A hellhound leapt at Percy, but Tyson slammed it aside with a fire extinguisher.
"Get in!" Percy yelled. He uncapped Riptide and slashed the first volley of arrows out of the air. Any second we would be overwhelmed.
"Toxótis!" I called. I shot at the monsters with my silver arrows. Some disintegrated, some just dodged them.
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.
Percy and I jumped in beside them.
"Hold on!" Percy yelled, and he cut the ropes.
A shower of arrows whistled over our heads as we free-fell toward the ocean.