ARIANA DROWNS
"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'd seen the coal bunker, the boilers and engine, which huffed and groaned like it would explode any minute.
They'd seen the pilot house and the powder magazine and gunnery deck (Clarisse's favourite) 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 cannonballs.
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 and muttered curses about Yankees. Tyson was terrified of them. All through the tour, he insisted Annabeth hold his hand, which she didn't look too thrilled about.
And they didn't seem too bother Ariana much; she didn't know whether or not to be offended by them.
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.
Ariana didn't want to eat anything served by ghosts, but her hunger overruled her fear.
"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."
"How lovely." Ariana commented.
"Did they give you this ship?" Percy asked.
"Course not. My father did."
"Ares?"
Clarisse sneered. "You think your daddy is the only one with sea power? 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 fixed me with a hungry stare. "If it means an end to this infernal war, ma'am, peace at last, we'll do anything. Destroy anyone!"
Clarisse smiled. "Destroy anyone. I like that."
Tyson gulped.
"Clarisse." Ariana 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, smart girl! Finally I get to be the hero, and you three will not steal my chance."
"Where are your cabin mates?" Ariana 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."
"You mean even the people in your own cabin wouldn't help you?" Percy said.
"Shut up, Prissy! I don't need them! Or you."
"Clarisse," Ariana 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."
Ariana woke to alarm bells ringing throughout the ship.
The captain's gravelly voice: "All hands on deck! Find Lady Clarisse! Where is that girl?"
Then his ghostly face appeared above her. "Get up. Your friends are already above. We are approaching the entrance."
"The entrance to what?"
He gave her a skeletal smile. "The Sea of Monsters, of course."
She stuffed her few belongings that had survived the Hydra into a sailor's canvas knapsack and slung it over her shoulder.
She had a sneaking suspicion that one way or another she would not be spending another night aboard the CSS Birmingham.
Ariana was on her way upstairs when something made her freeze. A presence nearby - something familiar and unpleasant. For no particular reason, she felt like picking a fight.
She wanted to punch a dead Confederate.
The last time she had felt like that kind of
anger...
Instead of going up, she crept to the edge of the ventilation grate and peered down into the boiler deck. Percy was already there.
Clarisse was standing right below them, 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.
Percy's fists clenched. It was his least favourite
Olympian: Ares, the god of war.
"I don't want excuses, little girl!" he growled.
"Y-yes, Father." Clarisse mumbled.
"You don't want to see me mad, do you?"
"No, Father."
Percy and Ariana looked at each other but said nothing.
"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 Jackson kid steal it from you -"
"But the Oracle said-"
"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. Ariana heard voices coming towards her and Percy, officers yelling orders to ready the cannons.
They crept back from the ventilation grate and made their way upstairs to join Annabeth and Tyson on the spar deck.
"What's wrong?" Annabeth asked Percy. "Another dream?"
Percy nodded, but he didn't say anything. Clarisse came up the stairs right after them.
Ariana tried not to look at her.
She grabbed a pair of binoculars from a zombie officer and peered towards the horizon. "At last. Captain, full steam ahead!"
Ariana looked in the same direction as she was, but she couldn't see much. The sky was overcast. The air was hazy and humid, like steam from an iron.
If she squinted real hard, she could just make out a couple of dark fuzzy splotches in the distance.
The engine groaned as they increased speed.
Tyson muttered nervously. "Too much strain on the pistons. Not meant for deep water."
Ariana wasn't sure how he knew that, but it made her nervous. 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 thirty metres 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."
Ariana 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.
"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?" Ariana 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 plating rattled, and the ship began to pick up speed.
"Clarisse." Percy said, "Charybdis sucks up the sea. Isn't that the story?"
"And spits it 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 sailors off the ship."
"Choose Scylla then." He said. "Everybody goes below 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 cannon can't shoot straight up. Charybdis just sits there at the centre of her whirlpool. We're going to steam straight towards her, train our guns on her, and blow her to Tartarus!"
She said it with such relish Ariana almost wanted to believe her.
The engine hummed. The boilers were heating up so much she could feel the deck getting warm beneath her 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, the ship rose in the water and were buffeted by three-metre waves.
Percy tried to time the whirlpool. As near as he could figure, it took Charybdis about three minutes to suck up and destroy everything within a half-mile radius.
To avoid her, they would have to skirt right next to Scylla's cliffs. And as bad as Scylla might be, those cliffs were looking awfully good to her.
Undead sailors calmly went about their business on the spar deck. She guess they'd fought a losing cause before, so this didn't bother them
. Or maybe they didn't care about getting destroyed because they were already deceased. Neither thought made her feel any better.
Annabeth stood next to Percy, gripping the rail. "You still have your Flask full of wind?"
He nodded. "But it's too dangerous to use with a whirlpool like that. More wind might just make things worse."
"What about controlling the water?" Ariana asked. "You're Poseidon's son. You've done it before!"
Percy closed his eyes and tried to calm the sea, but he couldn't concentrate. Charybdis was too loud and powerful. The waves wouldn't respond.
"I can't." He said miserably.
"We need a backup plan." Annabeth said. "This isn't going to work."
"Annabeth is right." Tyson said. "Engine's no
good."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Pressure. Pistons need fixing."
Before he could explain, the cosmic toilet flushed with a mighty roaaar! The ship lurched forward and Ariana was thrown to the deck. They were in the whirlpool.
"Full reverse!" Clarisse screamed above the noise.
The sea churned around them, waves crashing over the deck. The iron plating was now so hot it steamed.
"Get us within firing range! Make ready starboard cannons."
Dead Confederates rushed back and forth. The propeller grinded into reverse, trying to slow the ship, but they kept sliding towards the centre of the vortex.
A zombie sailor burst out of the hold and ran to Clarisse. His grey uniform was smoking. His beard was on fire. "Boiler room overheating, ma'am! She's going to blow!"
"Well, get down there and fix it!"
"Can't!" the sailor yelled. "We're vaporizing in the heat."
Clarisse pounded the side of the casemate. "All I need is a few more minutes! Just enough to get in range!"
"We're going in too fast." the captain said grimly. "Prepare yourself for death!"
"No!" Tyson bellowed. "I can fix it."
Clarisse looked at him incredulously. "You?"
"He's a Cyclops." Annabeth said. "He's immune to fire. And he knows mechanics."
"Go!" yelled Clarisse.
"Tyson, no." Percy grabbed his arm. "It's too dangerous."
He patted his hand. "Only way, brother." His expression was determined - confident. "I will fix it. Be right back."
As Ariana watched him follow the smouldering sailor down the hatch, she had a terrible feeling. She wanted to run after him, but the ship lurched again - and then she saw Charybdis.
She appeared only a few hundred metres away, through a swirl of mist and smoke and water. The first thing Ariana noticed was the reef - a black crag of coral with a fig tree clinging to the top, an oddly peaceful thing in the middle of a maelstrom.
All around it, water curved into a funnel, like light around a black hole. Then Ariana saw the horrible thing anchored to the reef just below the waterline - an enormous mouth with slimy lips and mossy teeth the size of rowboats.
And worse, the teeth had braces, bands of corroded scummy metal with pieces of fish and driftwood and floating garbage stuck between them.
Charybdis was an orthodontist's nightmare. She was nothing but a huge black maw with bad teeth alignment and a serious overbite, and she'd done nothing for centuries but eat without brushing after meals.
As Ariana watched, the entire sea around her was sucked into the void - sharks, schools of fish, a giant squid.
And Ariana realized that in a few seconds, the CSS Birmingham would be next.
"Lady Clarisse." the captain shouted.
"Starboard and forward guns are in range!"
"Fire!" Clarisse ordered.
Three rounds were blasted into the monster's maw. One blew off the edge of an incisor. Another disappeared into her gullet.
The third hit one of Charybdis's retaining bands and shot back at us, snapping the Ares flag off its pole.
"Again!" Clarisse ordered.
The gunners reloaded, but Ariana knew it was hopeless. They would have to pound the monster a hundred more times to do any real damage, and they didn't have that long.
They were being sucked in too fast.
Then the vibrations in the deck changed. The hum of the engine got stronger and steadier. The ship shuddered and they started pulling away from the mouth.
"Tyson did it!" Ariana said.
"Wait!" Clarisse said. "We need to stay close!"
"We'll die!" Percy said. "We have to move away!"
Ariana gripped the rail as the ship fought against the suction. The broken Ares flag raced past her and lodged in Charybdis's braces.
They weren't making much progress, but at least
they were holding their own. Tyson had somehow given them just enough juice to keep the ship from being sucked in.
Suddenly, the mouth snapped shut. The sea died to absolute calm. Water washed over Charybdis.
Then, just as quickly as it had closed, the mouth exploded open, spitting out a wall of water, ejecting everything inedible, including cannonballs, one of which slammed into the side of the CSS Birmingham with a ding like the bell on a carnival game.
They were thrown backwards on a wave that must've been fifteen metres high. Percy used all of his willpower to keep the ship from capsizing, but they were still spinning out of control, hurtling towards the cliffs on the opposite side of the strait.
Another smouldering sailor burst out of the hold. He stumbled into Clarisse, almost knocking them both overboard.
"The engine is about to blow!"
"Where's Tyson?" Percy 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 -"
He never finished his sentence. Quick as lightning, something brown and green shot from the sky, snatched up the captain, and lifted him away. All that was left were his leather boots.
"Scylla!" a sailor yelled, as another column of reptilian flesh shot from the cliffs and snapped him up.
It happened so fast it was like watching a laser beam rather than a monster. Ariana couldn't even make out the thing's face, just a flash of teeth and scales.
Percy uncapped Riptide and tried to swipe at the monster as it carried off another deckhand, but he was way too slow.
"Everyone get below!" Ariana yelled.
"We can't!" Clarisse drew her own sword.
"Below deck is in flames."
Ariana, had a hold on both her swords.
"Lifeboats!" Annabeth said. "Quick!"
"They'll never get clear of the cliffs." Clarisse said. "We'll all be eaten!"
"We have to try. Percy, the Flask!"
"I can't leave Tyson!"
"We have to get the boats ready!"
Clarisse took Annabeth's command. She and a few of her undead sailors uncovered one of the two 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 boat." Percy threw Annabeth the Flask. "I'll get Tyson!"
"You can't!" she said. "The heat will kill you!"
Percy didn't listen. He ran for the boiler room hatch. Ariana groaned and followed him, when suddenly her feet weren't touching the deck any more.
She was flying straight up, the wind whistling in her ears, the side of the cliff only inches from her face.
Scylla had somehow caught her by the knapsack, and was lifting her up towards her lair.
Without thinking, she swung one of her swords behind her and managed to jab the thing in her beady yellow eye.
She grunted and dropped Ariana.
The fall would've been bad enough, considering she was thirty metres in the air. But, as she fell, the CSS Birmingham exploded below her.
KAROOM!
The engine room blew, sending chunks of ironclad flying in either direction like a fiery set of wings.
"Tyson!" Percy yelled.
The lifeboats had managed to get away from the ship, but not very far. Flaming wreckage was raining down.
Clarisse and Annabeth 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 Ariana heard a different kind of explosion
-the sound of Hermes's magic Flask being opened a little too far.
White sheets of wind blasted in every direction, scattering the lifeboats, lifting Ariana out of her free fall and propelling her across the ocean.
She couldn't see anything. She spun in the air, got clonked on the head by something hard, and hit the water with a crash that should've broken every bone in her body.
Oh god. Poseidon is finally going to murder me.
The last thing she remembered was sinking in a burning sea, knowing that Tyson and possibly Percy were gone forever, and wishing her death would be a slow one.