Charmolypi

Chapter 106

She appeared only a few hundred yards away, through a swirl of mist and smoke and water. The first thing Percy 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 he 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.

"Shit."

"My gods this is terrifying."

Charybdis was a nightmare. She was nothing but a huge black maw with bad teeth alignment and a serious overbite. As they watched, the entire sea around her was sucked into the void-sharks, schools of fish, a giant squid. And Percy realized that in a few seconds, the CSS Birmingham would be next.

"No," James said, shaking his head in denial. "There's no way that my daughter will get sucked into a monster."

"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.

"They're so dead."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Potter."

"They lived an okay life."

"Again!" Clarisse ordered. The gunners reloaded, but 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 we started pulling away from the mouth.

"Tyson saved them!"

"Tyson did it!" Annabeth said.

"Wait!" Clarisse said. "We need to stay close!"

"We'll die!" Percy said. "We have to move away."

The demigods gripped the rail tighter as the ship fought against the suction. The broken Ares flag raced past the ship 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.

"The calm before the storm," Regulus mumbled. Unknown to him, his siblings and cousins had said the same thing at the same moment, knowing the dangers of a quiet sea.

Then, just as quickly as it had closed, the mouth exploded open, spitting out a wall of water, ejecting everything inedible, including the cannonballs, one of which slammed into the side of the CSS Birmingham with a ding like the bell on a carnival game.

The ship was thrown backward on a wave that must've been forty feet high. Percy used all of his willpower to keep the ship from capsizing, but they were still spinning out of control, hurtling toward the cliffs on the opposite side of the strait.

James was hyperventilating at that point, but no one could console him because everyone was too emersed in the movie.

Another smoldering sailor burst out of the hold. He stumbled into Clarisse, almost knocking them both overboard. "The engine is about to blow!"