absquatulate━━HEROES OF OLYMPUS

: ̗̀➛ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟐𝟎

—LEO deserved a dunce cap.

If he'd been thinking straight, he would've switched the ship's detection system from radar to sonar as soon as they left Charleston Harbor. That's what he had forgotten. He'd designed the hull to resonate every few seconds, sending waves through the Mist and alerting Festus to any nearby monsters, but it only worked in one mode at a time: water or air.

He'd been so rattled by the Romans, then the storm, then Hazel and Evan, that he had completely forgotten. Now, a monster was right underneath them. The ship tilted to starboard. Hazel gripped the rigging.

Hedge yelled, "Valdez, which button blows up monsters? Take the helm!"

Leo climbed the tilting deck and managed to grab the port rail. He started clambering sideways toward the helm, but when he saw the monster surface, he forgot how to move.

The thing was the length of their ship. In the moonlight, it looked like a cross between a giant shrimp and a cockroach, with a pink chitinous shell, a flat crayfish tail, and millipede-type legs undulating hypnotically as the monster scraped against the hull of the Argo II.

Its head surfaced last—the slimy pink face of an enormous catfish with glassy dead eyes, a gaping toothless maw, and a forest of tentacles sprouting from each nostril, making the bushiest nose beard Leo had ever had the displeasure to behold.

Leo remembered special Friday night dinners he and his mom used to share at a local seafood restaurant in Houston. They would eat shrimp and

catfish. The idea now made him want to throw up.

"Come on, Valdez!" Hedge yelled. "Take the wheel so I can get my baseball bat!"

"A bat's not going to help," Leo said, but he made his way toward the helm.

Behind him, the rest of his friends stumbled up the stairs.

Percy yelled, "What's going— Gah! Shrimpzilla!"

Frank ran to Hazel's side. She was clutching the rigging, still dazed from her flashback, but she gestured that she was all right. Duska gripped Evan's shoulders, doing a once-over, but despite his earlier shock, the shorter boy seemed all right now.

The monster rammed the ship again. The hull groaned. Annabeth, Piper, and Jason tumbled to starboard and almost rolled overboard.

Leo reached the helm. His hands flew across the controls. Over the intercom, Festus clacked and clicked about leaks belowdecks, but the ship

didn't seem to be in danger of sinking—at least not yet.

Leo toggled the oars. They could convert into spears, which should be enough to drive the creature away. Unfortunately, they were jammed. Shrimpzilla must have knocked them out of alignment, and the monster was in spitting distance, which meant that Leo couldn't use the ballistae without setting the Argo II on fire as well.

"How did it get so close?" Annabeth shouted, pulling herself up on one of the rail shields.

"I don't know!" Hedge snarled. He looked around for his bat, which had rolled across the quarterdeck.

"I'm stupid!" Leo scolded himself. "Stupid, stupid! I forgot the sonar!"

The ship tilted farther to starboard. Either the monster was trying to give them a hug, or it was about to capsize them.

"Sonar?" Hedge demanded. "Pan's pipes, Valdez! Maybe if you hadn't been staring into Hazel and Evan's eyes, holding hands for so long—"

"What?" Frank yelped.