❦𝓕𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓲𝓶𝓮❦ - 𝓟𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓬𝓴𝓼𝓸𝓷

𝒳𝐼𝐼. 𝐿𝓊𝓀𝑒'𝓈 𝒢𝒽𝑜𝓈𝓉 𝒞𝓇𝓊𝒾𝓈𝑒 𝒮𝒽𝒾𝓅

𝒜𝓃𝓃𝒶𝒷𝑒𝓉𝒽 volunteered to go alone since she had the cap of invisibility, but Percy and Zoe convinced her it was too dangerous. Either they all went together, or nobody went.

"Nobody!" Tyson voted. "Please?"

But in the end he came along, nervously chewing on his huge fingernails. The four of them stopped at their cabin long enough to gather their stuff. They figured whatever happened, they would not be staying another night aboard the zombie cruise ship, even if they did have million-dollar bingo. Zoe made sure Thorn, her sword, was in her hair (in clip form), along with Darkheart. Percy didn't want Tyson to carry everything, but the brown eyed cyclops insisted, and Annabeth told the son of Poseidon not to worry about it. Tyson could carry four full duffel bags over his shoulder as easily as any of them could carry a backpack.

They snuck through the corridors, following the ship's YOU ARE HERE signs toward the admiralty suite. Annabeth scouted ahead invisibly. They hid whenever someone passed by, but most of the people they saw were just glassy-eyed zombie passengers.

As they came up the stairs to deck thirteen, where the admiralty suite was supposed to be, Annabeth hissed, "Hide!" and shoved them into a supply closet.

They 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."

Zoe squeezed Percy's arm hard. She knew that second guy's voice. Chris Rodriguez, an unclaimed camper from Cabin Eleven.

"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!" Annabeth took off her cap and turned visible. "You remember —from Cabin Eleven."

"Yeah, I remember," Zoe nodded.

"What's another half-blood doing here?" Percy questioned but none of them knew the answer.

Annabeth shook her head, clearly troubled.

They kept going down the corridor. Zoe wasn't sure what it was but she 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 like the ones who'd attacked Percy with dodgeballs, two hellhounds, and a few Dracaenae. They looked like vaguely humanoid females with twin serpent tails instead of legs.

"Scythian Dracaenae," Annabeth whispered. "Dragon women."

The monsters made a semicircle around a young guy in Greek armor who was hacking on a straw dummy. A lump formed in Zoe's throat when she realized the dummy was wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. As they 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 brave. "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 they were thirty feet away, Tyson stopped. "Voices inside."