𝒊𝒊. 𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆

𝒗𝒊𝒊𝒊.

Annabeth volunteered to go alone since she had the cap of invisibility, but both Noelle and Percy 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. They stopped back at their rooms to gather the stuff they hadn't brought with them earlier. They figured whatever happened, they would not be staying another night aboard the Princess Andromeda.

Even though Noelle hadn't grabbed her throwing knife when she left the room earlier, it had materialized in the empty sheath she had wrapped around her waist before leaving camp. She hadn't noticed until she walked over to the nightstand and it wasn't there. She didn't tell anyone else, but she figured it was similar to how Percy's sword/pen worked.

Tyson insisted on carrying everything, all four of the duffels bags. He carried them as easily as the teens would carry a backpack.

They sneaked 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 the others into a supply closet.

If it had not been a life or death situation, Noelle and Percy would've been flustered by the sudden closeness of their bodies.

They heard a couple 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."

Annabeth was still invisible, but she squeezed both Noelle and Percy's arm. When Noelle looked at the empty space Annabeth was and nodded, Percy got the feeling he should know that second guy's voice.

"I hear they got two more coming," the familiar voice said. "They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man— no contest!"

The voices fade down the corridor.

"That was Chris Rodriguez!" Annabeth took off her cap and turned visible. Noelle nodded at her statement. "You remember— from Cabin Eleven."

Now that Percy thought about it, he realized he hadn't seen Chris at camp this summer. "What's another half-blood doing here?"

Annabeth shook her head, clearly troubled. Noelle looked at the door to the supply closet, scared for what else they'd possibly learn.

They kept going down the corridor. No maps were needed to know they were getting close to Luke. They just knew by the sense of something cold and unpleasant— the presence of evil.

"Guys." Noelle 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 Noelle's attentions.

A group of monsters had assembled in front of the candy store: a dozen Laistrygonian giants like the ones who's attacked Percy with bronze dodge balls, two hellhounds, and a few even stranger creatures— 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 Percy's throat when he 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.