***
It was like I had blacked out and just came too. This event was vivid in my mind, even before the nightmares of it started. Sometimes I would go weeks without it, then it would come back full force.
"Call off the bug," Percy said. "If you're so strong, fight me yourself."
Luke smiled. "Nice try, Percy. But I'm not Ares. You can't bait me. My lord is waiting, and he's got plenty of quests for me to undertake."
"Luke-"
"Good-bye, Percy and Lillian. There is a new Golden Age coming. You won't be part of it."
He slashed his sword in an arc and disappeared in a ripple of darkness as the scorpions lunged.
I swatted it away with my hand and took off my bracelet, a sword appearing. The thing jumped at me and I cut it in half in midair. I was about to congratulate myself until I looked down at my arm. My sleeve was ripped, and beneath the fabric I had a huge red welt, oozing and smoking with yellow guck. The thing had gotten me after all.
I looked at Percy, and saw that he had one on his palm.
My ears pounded. My vision went foggy. The water, I thought. It healed him before.
I grabbed my friend and brought him to the creek, submerging his hand. Nothing seemed to happen, the poison was too strong. Percy had begun to black out, and the same happened to me. My vision grew dark, and I couldn't stand up.
'Sixty seconds' Luke had told us.
I had to get us back to camp. If we died here, we would become the dinner for a monster. No one would know what happened.
Pitch was standing on the other side of the river, though his expression was impossible to read. For a moment I thought I saw concern and a satisfied smile all at once.
My legs felt like lead as I pushed him from my mind, and Percy was practically limp in my arms. His forehead was burning, and I knew mine was too. I stumbled toward the camp, and the nymphs stirred from their trees.
"Help," I croaked. "Please..."
Two of them took my arms, pulling me along. They tried to take Percy from me, but I held on to his hand. I remember making it to the clearing, a counselor shouting for help, a centaur blowing a conch horn. Then everything went black.
***
I woke to Annabeth shaking me.
"Time to get up."
I was about to say five more minutes, but then remembered where I was.
"Gods you're lucky we are on a quest." I mutter and look over at her, noticing she is already dressed.
I stood up as the ship's whistle blew 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!"
As he had said this, I quickly got dressed, putting on a pair of jeans, a tee-shirt, and light flannel jacket, which I was grateful for. A normal outfit for me. "Do I even want clarification on what he said?"
Annabeth groaned, but walked to the door. "Probably not."
Something on the floor beside me caught my eye. Carefully I bend down, pinching it between my fingers. A black, glittery substance that feels strangely similar to sand falls back to the ground.
"What is that?" I ask Annabeth quietly. My gut is telling me to leave it alone, but it also feels familiar.
"What is what?"
I point to the ground, but she stares at me blankly. "What?"
After a moment I shake my head, confused. "Nevermind. We should go."
I stood up, following her out of the room to the next room where Percy and Tyson are. The blonde knocks on the door, and I notice just how messy her hair is. Once again I am grateful for the braid in my hair, though a few more days of a quest I may be in the same boat as my friend.
Annabeth stuck her head in the open doorway, signaling to the guys to get dressed. Once they were ready, the four of us ventured out into the ship. We were all 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 we were. Nobody paid us much attention. But there was something wrong.
As the family of swimmers passed us, 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 told us, his eyes glazed. "We are all enjoying ourselves aboard the Princess Andromeda. Have a nice day." He drifted away.
"Guys, this is weird," Annabeth whispered. "They're all in some kind of trance."
"Really, that looks like normal cruise behavior to me," I whisper back sarcastically. "Of course they are in a trance."
Then we passed a cafeteria and saw our 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've been young, because it was small compared to most- no bigger than a grizzly bear. Still, my blood turned cold. It may look cute, but I've heard the stories.
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 any of us 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 -and all four of us 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.
Annabeth looked at us. "We have to get out of here."
"You think I want to be in the girls' restroom?" Percy retorted.
"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."
I shuddered. If Annabeth and Tyson were actually agreeing about something, I figured I'd better listen.
Then I heard another voice outside- one that chilled me worse than any monster's.
"-only a matter of time. Don't push me, Agrius!"
It was Luke, beyond a doubt. I 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?"
Annabeth, Percy, and I exchanged looks and came to a silent agreement.
"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."
"Oh my gods." I mutter. "We're actually going through with that?"
"Yep." Annabeth told me.
"How did you make it through your first quest?"
"Let's just go."
***
Annabeth volunteered to go alone since she had the cap of invisibility, but Percy convinced her it was too dangerous. Either we all went together, or nobody went. He reminded her that I could use the Mist to cover Tyson, Percy, and myself, and if I did that we could still see each other.
"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. I made sure Nightmare was on my wrist and the vitamins and thermos from Hermes were at the top of Percy's bag. I didn't want Tyson to carry everything, but he insisted, and Annabeth told me not to worry about it. Tyson could carry four full duffel bags over his shoulder as easily as I could carry a backpack.
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 asked.
The other laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome."
Annabeth was still invisible, but she squeezed my arm hard. I got a feeling I should know that second guy's 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. "You remember -from Cabin Eleven."
I 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 I thought about it, I realized I hadn't seen Chris at camp this summer. Immediately I felt bad about not noticing. Of course I noticed my sister, but not Chris. Am I going to see Ahmya here?
"What's another halfblood doing here?" Percy asked.
Annabeth shook her head, clearly troubled. We kept going down the corridor. I didn't need maps anymore to know I was getting close to Luke. I sensed something cold and unpleasant- the presence of evil. It was similar to Pitch, but slightly different. Something older and potentially even more dangerous that sent a shiver down my spine.
"Percy." 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 me with dodgeballs, two hellhounds, and a few even stranger creatures- humanoid females with twin serpent tails instead of legs.
"Scythian Dracaenae," Annabeth whispered. "Dragon women."
"Appropriate name." I say.
The monsters made a semicircle around a young guy in Greek armor 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 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," Percy told her, trying to sound braver than I 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 we were thirty feet away, Tyson stopped. "Voices inside."
"You can hear that far?" I 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 I could react, 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," I 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.
I 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.
***
A/N: I can't believe I didn't title the last chapter. I was tired, so that was probably why.
...
And I almost did it to this chapter. Let's see how many more times this is going to happen.