(Ella's POV)
“Full reverse!” Clarisse screamed above the noise. The sea churned around us, 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 & forth. The propeller grinded into reverse, trying to slow the ship, but we kept sliding toward the center of the vortex.
A zombie sailor burst out of the hold & ran to Clarisse. His gray uniform was smoking. His beard was on fire. “Boiler room over heating, ma’am! She’s going to blow!”
“Well, get down there & 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,” I said. “He’s immune to fire. And he knows mechanics.”
“Go!” yelled Clarisse.
“Tyson, no!” Percy grabbed his arm.
“It’s too dangerous!” I added.
He patted his hand. “Only way, brother.” His expression was determined-confident, even. He told me. “I will fix it. Be right back.”
As I watched him follow the smoldering sailor down the hatch, I had a terrible feeling. I wanted to run after him, but the ship lurched again-& then I saw Charybdis.
She appeared only a few hundred yards away, through a swirl of mist & smoke & water. The first thing I 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 storm.
All around it, water curved into a funnel, like light around a black hole. Then I 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 & driftwood & 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, & she’d done nothing for centuries but eat without brushing after meals. As I watched, the entire sea around her was sucked into the void-sharks, schools of fish, a giant squid.
And I realized that in a few seconds, the CSS Birmingham would be next.
“Lady Clarisse,” the captain shouted.
“Starboard & 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 & shot back at us, snapping the Ares flag off its pole.
“Again!” Clarisse ordered. The gunners reloaded, but I knew it was hopeless.
We would have to pound the monster a hundred more times to do any real damage, & we didn’t have that long. We were being sucked in too fast.
Then the vibrations in the deck changed. The hum of the engine got stronger & steadier. The ship shuddered & we started pulling away from the mouth.
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