[Y/N's POV]
I started out of the bathroom to scout ahead. I got the go ahead from Percy, since this was his quest really. Annabeth was the only one who seemed to have a problem, kicking me in the shin and exclaiming, "We just talked about this!" I hopped in pain on one foot, grabbing onto my throbbing leg.
Meanwhile, Annabeth pulled out her invisibility cap and said she was going instead. We had a bit of a back and forth, about hypocrisy. Eventually, we agreed that it was far too dangerous for either of us to go alone.
Either we all went together, or nobody went.
"Nobody!" Tyson voted. "Please?"
I patted him on the back and we all started walking. In the end, he did follow us, gnawing on his massive fingernails to calm his nerves. We took a few minutes back at our cabins to grab our things. And there was a silent agreement, that no matter what happened, we weren't spending another night on this cruise ship. Not even if the shuffleboard tournament paid a few million dollars.
I fastened my new sword's scabbard around my back and tightened the armor on my arms. I massaged some of the scars from my last bout with Luke, and quickly stretched my legs.
Hopefully I can escape this thing without any more broken bones. We've only got so much nectar and ambrosia, and I'd rather save that for a life or death situation. And a broken leg isn't really that. Maybe a hundred and seventy years ago, but not today.
Percy and Annabeth searched through their bags, rearranging the items so that the magical thermos full of the winds and Hermes' vitamins would be readily available. Tyson seemed willing to carry all of the bags, so we draped them over his shoulder, like a pack mule.
I felt bad that he was doing all of the heavy lifting, but the fact that he also threw me over his shoulder to show me I was being foolish alleviated all my worries. This was like carrying a blanket for him.
After he put me down, we snuck around through the ship, following the invisible Annabeth's recon and the ship's maps. Every time we heard footsteps, all four of us ducked and hid, even though we only ever saw the glossy eyed ship inhabitants. As we came up another flight of stairs, entering deck thirteen, Annabeth hissed "Hide!"
She shoved Tyson and Percy into a dark alcove, and grabbed my arm and yanked me inside of a supply closet. We heard a couple of people pass by, speaking with inflection in their voices, not like the droning zombie passengers milling about, thoughtlessly.
"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" one of them said. The other laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome." The voice sounded somewhat familiar, and I got the idea I should recognize it right off the bat.
Annabeth still had her invisibility cap on, but she squeezed my upper arm tightly, probably leaving marks in the skin. It genuinely hurt, and it took a lot of my willpower to not shout in pain. I bit down on my knuckles, keeping the cries of pain inside somehow.
"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." That got me thinking for a moment. Chris... CHRIS! I have no idea who Chris is.
After looking down at Annabeth's worried expression, and searching my brain for a bit, I vaguely recalled Chris. He was one of the kids stuck in the Hermes Cabin because he wasn't claimed. I guess he hadn't been at camp this summer. "Why is there another halfblood on board the ship?" I wondered in a whisper. "I'm not sure, but whatever the reason is, it's not good." Annabeth said, shaking her head, worriedly.
She hurried out of the cramped room we were in, and retrieved Percy and Tyson from where she left them. We kept going down the hallway. We stopped bothering with the maps, since I could pretty much smell the evil stink coming from down the way. Everything felt cold and filthy. Suddenly, I felt really uncomfortable in my own skin.
"Y/N. Percy." Annabeth stopped suddenly. "Look."
She was standing in front of a wall of glass, looking through the giant middle of the ship. At the bottom it was lined with a whole city block sized strip mall. But, I don't think that's why she stopped. There was a group of monsters huddled in front of a candy shop, called "Candy shop." Really creative name.
There were a dozen of the giants that had attacked Percy. I wondered if any of them were that 'baby cakes' fellow the one I stabbed was going on about. Maybe I could deliver the news in person, just to be nice, you know? There were also two fully grown hellhounds and a group of women with scaly bodies, ending in a tail.
"Scythian Dracaenae," Annabeth whispered. "Dragon women."
"What are they all doing here? Is this supposed to be some kind of war ship?" I muttered. Annabeth shook her head, muttering, "I don't know."
The monsters were huddled around a young guy in armor slicing through something. When we got a better look at it, Percy almost shrieked. "They're killing a camper!" I slammed a hand over his mouth and one behind his neck so I didn't knock Percy off his feet, creating even more noise than his yelling.
I caught a lump in my throat when I looked back at the guy hacking and slashing, realizing it was just a straw dummy in a camp half blood shirt. That wasn't a very good feeling either, but it was certainly better than if it were a living and breathing person.
While we surveyed the damage, the guy in the armor ran the dummy through and sliced upward, sending straw fluttering all over the place. The monsters cheered and howled at the action.
Annabeth stepped away from the window, a horrified, yet sickened expression on her face. Percy, Tyson and I followed shortly. I put a hand on her shoulder. "Come on. The sooner we find Luke the sooner we can get out of here." I swallowed the lump in my throat and we started again.
Eventually, we reached the part of the corridor that ended in a large pair of oak doors. They looked like they belonged on the front of an old scottish castle, rather than on a cruise ship full of half gods and monsters. When we were hardly a few feet away, Tyson stopped us. "Voices inside."
"How can you hear that?" I turned and asked him. He closed his eye and scrunched up his face, concentrating on whatever it was he was going to do. His voice changed, sending a violent chill down my spine as he imitated Luke Castellan. "-the prophecy ourselves. The fools won't know which way to turn."
Before I even had time to process anything, the voice changed again, deeper and scratchier than Luke's, sounding like that guy we heard talking to Luke outside of our bathroom hiding spots. "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."
"Please never do that again, Tyson." I felt my brain cycle through some of the jagged memories I had of that night Luke left camp, grabbing the sides of my head, feeling my heart start racing again. 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."
I realized what was happening just a bit too late, as I was able to shove Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson out of the path of the swinging doors. As soon as they clicked open, I was smashed in the back of the head with something. But before I could hit the ground, I was put in a headlock by a set of very hairy arms. The others were held at spear point by a giant.
I looked up at the guy holding me and saw another giant, using one arm to wrap tightly around my neck. The giants were both very hairy, and their faces were those of bears.
I kicked my feet for a moment, until the giant squeezed tighter around my neck. My head started to feel a little fuzzy and stars were flashing in my eyes.
Luke looked over at me and gave that smug smirk of his. Maybe he was trying to show me that he had all of his teeth back in that mouth. He spoke to the giant holding me, "Not yet. I need something out of him while he's conscious." Then he turned to the others. "Well," Luke said with a crooked smile. "If it isn't my two favorite cousins. Come right in."
[Percy's POV]
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'd changed since 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 us. He waved his hand and three dining chairs scooted themselves into the center of the room.
None of us sat.
Luke's large friends were still pointing their javelins at us. One of them held Y/N tightly. He had his arms up around the giant's big hairy arm, clawing at it, trying to get even a second of extra air. The giant didn't seem to notice though.
The giants 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 pointed at me, it wasn't the bear twins who scared me. I'd imagined meeting Luke again many times since he'd tried to kill me 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."
Luke tapped his fingers on a table. "She bewitched the young woman into falling in love with a bear. When Artemis found out, she abandoned the girl in disgust. Typical of your mother though, huh Y/N?"
He looked over at Y/N, who had started to slow down in his escape attempts. "Ah you get the picture." He said as he waved Y/N off and turned back to us. "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 behavior.
Suddenly, Agrius yelped, dropping Y/N to the ground. He knelt there, holding a hand to his throat, breathing raggedly and deeply. He looked at Luke with pure rage in his eyes.
Staggering, he drew his sword and took a few steps towards Luke, who just stood there, still, with a look in his eyes that said, 'Come at me.' Y/N did. He charged towards Luke, and swung his blade.
But the giant, Agrius, intercepted his arm, twisting it behind his back, causing Y/N to drop his sword. It clattered onto the floor right in front of me. Y/N cried out in pain as Agrius pinned him, holding his arms behind his back, with Luke pacing in front of him.
Luke started rubbing his hand on his chin in thought, suddenly stopping in front of my friend. He struck Y/N across the face with his fist. Tyson jumped in surprise. Luke punched him again. And again. And again. To the point where Y/N's face started to resemble Rocky Balboa's after he fought that Russian dude. Tyson whimpered more with each blow that landed.
Luke made a disappointed 'tsk' sound, and snapped his fingers. Agrius let go of Y/N, who dropped weakly to his knees, his eyes barely open. Luke squatted down in front of him. "Say... Where's that guy from last year? I want to see him. He was much more fun than you are."
He grabbed Y/N by a clump of his hair and held his eye open. "Look at me when I'm talking to you." Luke said venomously. A blood vessel must've burst because Y/N's eye had started to turn dark red.
Luke tilted his head as Y/N fought to get a breath out. Y/N spit out blood that sprayed into Luke's face. He closed in eyes in disgust. Luke tightened his grip on Y/N's head, grimacing. He grunted and kneed him in the face.
Y/N went sprawling down limply onto his back. Annabeth let out a surprised cry. I think the three of us were a little too shocked to move, because we did nothing but watch as Luke proceeded to kick Y/N in the side of the head again.
He stood over him, waiting for a moment, when Y/N's weak sputtering breaths stopped entirely. Tyson looked like he was about to cry, and Annabeth looked away. I couldn't peel my eyes off of him. Was he dead?
No.
Y/N's body starts seizing and he started making these strangled growling noises. Y/N sat bolt upright. Luke smiled widely. "There he is."
His face was covered in more of those black veins again, and his eyes had gone a pale white. His teeth were razor sharp and Luke stepped back, laughing. "See, Y/N. This is what I wanted out of you! Show me what you can really do!" Luke drew his sword, gesturing as if this were some kind of game. Y/N's body snapped to his feet, moving in jerky, stiff motions. He pounced at Luke.
In return, he received a large gash in his side. Y/N's body didn't stop moving, snarling and punching Luke across the head, knocking him back through a cabinet. He charged again, baring his teeth at Luke. The older boy just rolled out of the way, letting Y/N go flying into the debris of the cabinet. Luke watched in stunned awe as my friend's body stood and faced him.
It let out a guttural growl and did something I never expected it to. It spoke. It was a deep, booming voice, but a whisper still.
"Luke..." it croaked. Luke's eyes widened and he grinned widely. "So the demon speaks?" He asked. The so called 'demon' went to charge Luke, but he was grabbed again by Agrius. This time though, Y/N bit down on Agrius' arm and drew blood.
The giant didn't go poof like the other monsters did. This just one lost a chunk of its arm and bled profusely. The demon spat out a chunk of flesh and licked its lips, looking at Luke like he was hungry. Luke started to look a little worried now.
From behind, Y/N was hit over the head with Agrius' javelin. He turned to face the giant who looked somewhat frightened as well, snarling. Luke quickly ran over and smoked Y/N over the top of the head with the pommel of his sword. A loud crack echoed in the large room. His body went rigid, tumbling to the ground.
Luke took a few deep breaths and started wiping some of Y/N's blood off of his face and hands. "Well..." He said jovially, as if he was a child that got a new Nintendo. "Have you guys seen that before? Because I have. Actually, last summer, before he turned into that, Y/N knocked one of my teeth out. I wanted to get one of his, but I think I may have gone a little too far to really need that."
Agrius picked Y/N up from the ground and dumped him at our feet. He was laying motionless in a heap, blood spilling from his side and the back of his head. I think his skull had been cracked open.
Tyson started shaking and a large tear slid down his face. Annabeth had a horrified expression and crouched down to look him over, but the giant kept her up with his weapon. I was frozen in shock.
Agrius went off to nurse his wound as Luke 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?" Annabeth sounded like a mix between terrified, on the verge of tears, and so angry I 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 trying to kill people that were your friends!" Luke rolled his eyes as Annabeth looked down at Y/N. "To be fair, he deserved that. I only broke his legs last year." he said.
"You're a monster!" she cried, her voice cracking.
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!"
His 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?" Luke pointed at Tyson.
"Hey!" I 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.
I didn't know what Luke was talking about, but Annabeth buried her head in her hands. She dropped to her knees. She sounded like she was a few words away from bursting into tears. "Leave her alone," I said. "And leave Tyson out of this."
Luke laughed. "Oh, yeah, I heard. Your father claimed him." I must have looked surprised, because 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? 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 wanted to get in Luke's face and tell him off, but as usual, he knew just how to throw me off balance.
Sixteenth birthday?
I mean, I knew Chiron had received a prophecy from the Oracle many years ago. I knew part of it was about me. But, if I reached my sixteenth birthday? I didn't like the sound of that. "I know what I need to know," I managed. I looked around at the other three, Y/N's body not moving, Tyson looking angry enough to break a chair, and Annabeth looking distraught. "Like, who my enemies are."
"Then you're a fool."
Tyson smashed the nearest dining chair to splinters. "Percy is not a fool!"
Before I could stop him, 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 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. I mean they handled that demon you guys call a friend, so what chance do you have, big fella? Maybe I should let them-"
"Luke," I cut in. "Listen to me. Your father sent us." His face turned the color 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 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 me out, but I was determined not to show it. "So?" I demanded. "What's so special... "
Then it hit me, what might be inside the sarcophagus. 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," Annabeth said, her voice wavering.
"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!"
Luke looked at her for a moment. He smirked. "Maybe I can save Y/N for you. I bet you'd like that." Annabeth's ears turned pink. "I think he's gonna die soon if we just leave him there. Maybe he'll join us as thanks. I mean, he'd certainly owe me. Then you can all join on and not have to fight each other."
"Go to Tartarus," she said. 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. Feed that one to it first. He's a bit of a pain in the ass." He pointed to Y/N's motionless body. 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 scooped up Y/N in one arm and with the other, prodded us with his javelin and herded us out of the stateroom, followed by the two human security guards.
As I walked down the corridor with Orieus's javelin poking me in the back, I thought about what Luke had said-that the bear twins together were a match for Tyson's strength. But maybe separately...
We exited the corridor and walked across an open deck lined with lifeboats. I knew the ship well enough to realize this would be our last look at sunlight. Once we got to the other side, we'd take the elevator down into the hold, and that would be it.
I looked at Tyson and said, "Now."
Thank the gods, he understood. He turned and wrenched Y/N out of the bear giant's grip and smacked Oreius thirty feet backward into the swimming pool, right into the middle of the zombie tourist family.
"Ah!" the kids yelled in bland 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. "Tyson! Grab Y/N!" He nodded and hoisted him over his large shoulder, running with us down towards the lifeboats. 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 armor 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 leaped at me, but Tyson slammed it aside with a fire extinguisher. "Get in!" I yelled. I uncapped Riptide and slashed the first volley of arrows out of the air. Any second we would be overwhelmed.
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. I jumped in beside them.
"Hold on!" I yelled, and I cut the ropes. A shower of arrows whistled over our heads as we free-fell toward the ocean.