Percy Jackson The Complete Collection (94 page)

I burst through a door onto deck six and kept running. I’m sure the carpeted hall had once been very plush, but over the last three years of monster occupation the wallpaper, carpet and stateroom doors had been clawed up
and slimed so it looked like the inside of a dragon’s throat (and, yes, unfortunately I speak from experience).

Back on my first visit to the
Princess Andromeda
, my old enemy Luke had kept some dazed tourists on board for show, shrouded in Mist so they didn’t realize they were on a monster-infested ship. Now, I didn’t see any sign of tourists. I hated to think what had happened to them, but I kind of doubted they’d been allowed to go home with their bingo winnings.

I reached the promenade, a big shopping mall that took up the whole middle of the ship, and I stopped cold. In the middle of the courtyard stood a fountain. And in the fountain squatted a giant crab.

I’m not talking ‘giant’ like $7.99 all-you-can-eat Alaskan king crab. I’m talking ‘giant’ like bigger than the fountain. The monster rose over three metres out of the water. Its shell was mottled blue and green, its pincers longer than my body.

If you’ve ever seen a crab’s mouth, all foamy and gross with whiskers and snapping bits, you can imagine this one didn’t look any better blown up to billboard size. Its beady black eyes glared at me, and I could see intelligence in them – and hate. The fact that I was the son of the sea god was not going to win me any points with Mr Crabby.

‘FFFFfffffff,’ it hissed, sea foam dripping from its mouth. The smell coming off it was like a garbage can full of fish sticks that had been sitting in the sun all week.

Alarms blared. Soon I was going to have lots of company and I had to keep moving.

‘Hey, crabby.’ I inched around the edge of the courtyard. ‘I’m just gonna scoot around you so –’

The crab moved with amazing speed. It scuttled out of the fountain and came straight at me, pincers snapping. I dived into a gift shop, ploughing through a rack of T-shirts. A crab pincer smashed the glass walls to pieces and raked across the room. I dashed back outside, breathing heavily, but Mr Crabby turned and followed.

‘There!’ a voice said from a balcony above me. ‘Intruder!’

If I’d wanted to create a distraction, I’d succeeded, but this was not where I wanted to fight. If I got pinned down in the centre of the ship, I was crab chow.

The demonic crustacean lunged at me. I sliced with Riptide, taking off the tip of its claw. It hissed and foamed, but didn’t seem very hurt.

I tried to remember anything from the old stories that might help with this thing. Annabeth had told me about a monster crab – something about Hercules crushing it under his foot? That wasn’t going to work here. This crab was slightly bigger than my Reeboks.

Then a weird thought came to me. Last Christmas, my mom and I had brought Paul Blofis to our old cabin at Montauk, where we’d been going forever. Paul had taken me crabbing, and when he’d brought up a net full of the things he’d shown me how crabs have a chink in their armour, right in the middle of their ugly bellies.

The only problem was getting to the ugly belly.

I glanced at the fountain, then at the marble floor, already slick from scuttling crab tracks. I held out my hand, concentrating on the water, and the fountain exploded. Water sprayed everywhere, three stories high, dousing the balconies and the elevators and the windows of the shops.
The crab didn’t care. It loved water. It came at me sideways, snapping and hissing, and I ran straight at it, screaming, ‘AHHHHHHH!’

Just before we collided, I hit the ground baseball-style and slid on the wet marble floor straight under the creature. It was like sliding under a seven-ton armoured vehicle. All the crab had to do was sit and squash me, but before it realized what was going on, I jabbed Riptide into the chink in its armour, let go of the hilt and pushed myself out the back side.

The monster shuddered and hissed. Its eyes dissolved. Its shell turned bright red as its insides evaporated. The empty shell clattered to the floor in a massive heap.

I didn’t have time to admire my handiwork. I ran for the nearest stairs while all around me monsters and demigods shouted orders and strapped on their weapons. I was empty-handed. Riptide, being magic, would appear in my pocket sooner or later, but for now it was stuck somewhere under the wreckage of the crab, and I had no time to retrieve it.

In the elevator foyer on deck eight, a couple of
dracaenae
slithered across my path. From the waist up, they were women with green scaly skin, yellow eyes and forked tongues. From the waist down, they had double snake trunks instead of legs. They held spears and weighted nets, and I knew from experience they could use them.

‘What isss thisss?’ one said. ‘A prize for Kronosss!’

I wasn’t in the mood to play break-the-snake, but in front of me was a stand with a model of the ship, like a
YOU ARE HERE
display. I ripped the model off the pedestal and hurled it at the first
dracaena
. The boat smacked her in
the face and she went down with the ship. I jumped over her, grabbed her friend’s spear and swung her around. She slammed into the elevator and I kept running towards the front of the ship.

‘Get him!’ she screamed.

Hellhounds bayed. An arrow from somewhere whizzed past my face and impaled itself in the mahogany-panelled wall of the stairwell.

I didn’t care – as long as I got the monsters away from the engine room and gave Beckendorf more time.

As I was running up the stairwell, a kid charged down. He looked like he’d just woken up from a nap. His armour was half on. He drew his sword and yelled, ‘Kronos!’ but he sounded more scared than angry. He couldn’t have been more than twelve – about the same age I was when I’d first arrived at Camp Half-Blood.

That thought depressed me. This kid was getting brainwashed – trained to hate the gods and lash out because he’d been born half-Olympian. Kronos was using him, and yet the kid thought I was his enemy.

No way was I going to hurt him. I didn’t need a weapon for this. I stepped inside his strike and grabbed his wrist, slamming it against the wall. His sword clattered out of his hand.

Then I did something I hadn’t planned on. It was probably stupid. It definitely jeopardized our mission, but I couldn’t help it.

‘If you want to live,’ I told him, ‘get off this ship
now.
Tell the other demigods.’ Then I shoved him down the stairs and sent him tumbling to the next floor.

I kept climbing.

Bad memories: a hallway ran past the cafeteria. Annabeth, my half-brother Tyson and I had sneaked through here three years ago on my first visit.

I burst outside onto the main deck. Off the port bow, the sky was darkening from purple to black. A swimming pool glowed between two glass towers with more balconies and restaurant decks. The whole upper ship seemed eerily deserted.

All I had to do was cross to the other side. Then I could take the staircase down to the helipad – our emergency rendezvous point. With any luck, Beckendorf would meet me there. We’d jump into the sea. My water powers would protect us both, and we’d detonate the charges from a quarter of a mile away.

I was halfway across the deck when the sound of a voice made me freeze. ‘You’re late, Percy.’

Luke stood on the balcony above me, a smile on his scarred face. He wore jeans, a white T-shirt and flip-flops, like he was just a normal college-aged guy, but his eyes told the truth. They were solid gold.

‘We’ve been expecting you for days.’ At first he sounded normal, like Luke. But then his face twitched. A shudder passed through his body like he’d just drunk something really nasty. His voice became heavier, ancient and powerful – the voice of the Titan lord Kronos. The words scraped down my spine like a knife blade. ‘Come, bow before me.’

‘Yeah, that’ll happen,’ I muttered.

Laistrygonian giants filed in on either side of the swimming pool as if they’d been waiting for a cue. Each was two and a half metres tall with tattooed arms, leather
armour and spiked clubs. Demigod archers appeared on the roof above Luke. Two hellhounds leaped down from the opposite balcony and snarled at me. Within seconds, I was surrounded. A trap: there’s no way they could’ve got into position so fast unless they knew I was coming.

I looked up at Luke and anger boiled inside me. I didn’t know if Luke’s consciousness was even still alive inside that body. Maybe, the way his voice had changed … or maybe it was just Kronos adapting to his new form. I told myself it didn’t matter. Luke had been twisted and evil long before Kronos possessed him.

A voice in my head said:
I have to fight him eventually. Why not now?

According to that big prophecy, I was supposed to make a choice that saved or destroyed the world when I was sixteen. That was only seven days away. Why not now? If I really had the power, what difference would a week make? I could end this threat right here by taking down Kronos. Hey, I’d fought monsters and gods before.

As if reading my thoughts, Luke smiled. No, he was
Kronos.
I had to remember that.

‘Come forward,’ he said, ‘if you dare.’

The crowd of monsters parted. I moved up the stairs, my heart pounding. I was sure somebody would stab me in the back, but they let me pass. I felt my pocket and found my pen waiting. I uncapped it and Riptide grew into a sword.

Kronos’s weapon appeared in his hands – a two-metre-long scythe, half celestial bronze, half mortal steel. Just looking at the thing made my knees turn to Jell-O. But before I could change my mind I charged.

Time slowed down. I mean
literally
slowed down, because Kronos had that power. I felt like I was moving through syrup. My arms were so heavy I could barely raise my sword. Kronos smiled, swirling his scythe at normal speed and waiting for me to creep towards my death.

I tried to fight his magic. I concentrated on the sea around me – the source of my power. I’d got better at channelling it over the years, but now nothing seemed to happen.

I took another slow step forward. Giants jeered.
Dracaenae
hissed with laughter.

Hey, ocean
, I pleaded.
Any day now would be good.

Suddenly there was a wrenching pain in my gut. The entire boat lurched sideways, throwing monsters off their feet. Four thousand gallons of salt water surged out of the swimming pool, dousing me and Kronos and everyone on the deck. The water revitalized me, breaking the time spell, and I lunged forward.

I struck at Kronos but I was still too slow. I made the mistake of looking at his face –
Luke’s face
, a guy who was once my friend. As much as I hated him, it was hard to kill him.

Kronos had no such hesitation. He sliced downward with his scythe. I leaped back and the evil blade missed by a millimetre, cutting a gash in the deck right between my feet.

I kicked Kronos in the chest. He stumbled backwards, but he was heavier than Luke should’ve been. It was like kicking a refrigerator.

Kronos swung his scythe again. I intercepted with Riptide, but his strike was so powerful my blade could only
deflect it. The edge of the scythe shaved off my shirtsleeve and grazed my arm. It shouldn’t have been a serious cut, but the entire side of my body exploded with pain. I remembered what a sea-demon had once said about Kronos’s scythe:
Careful, fool. One touch, and the blade will sever your soul from your body.
Now I understood what he meant. I wasn’t just losing blood. I could feel my strength, my will, my identity draining away.

I stumbled backwards, switched my sword to my left hand and lunged desperately. My blade should’ve run him through, but it deflected off his stomach like I was hitting solid marble. There was no way he should’ve survived that.

Kronos laughed. ‘A poor performance, Percy Jackson. Luke tells me you were never his match at swordplay.’

My vision started to blur. I knew I didn’t have much time. ‘Luke had a big head,’ I said. ‘But at least it was
his
head.’

‘A shame to kill you now,’ Kronos mused, ‘before the final plan unfolds. I would love to see the terror in your eyes when you realize how I will destroy Olympus.’

‘You’ll never get this boat to Manhattan.’ My arm was throbbing. Black spots danced in my eyes.

‘And why would that be?’ Kronos’s golden eyes glittered. His face – Luke’s face – seemed like a mask, unnatural and lit from behind by some evil power. ‘Perhaps you are counting on your friend with the explosives?’

He looked down at the pool and called, ‘Nakamura!’

A teenage guy in full Greek armour pushed through the crowd. His left eye was covered with a black patch. I knew him, of course: Ethan Nakamura, the son of Nemesis.
I’d saved his life in the Labyrinth last summer and, in return, the little punk helped Kronos come back to life.

‘Success, my lord,’ Ethan called. ‘We found him just as we were told.’

He clapped his hands and two giants lumbered forward, dragging Charles Beckendorf between them. My heart almost stopped. Beckendorf had a swollen eye and cuts all over his face and arms. His armour was gone and his shirt was nearly torn off.

‘No!’ I yelled.

Beckendorf met my eyes. He glanced at his hand like he was trying to tell me something.
His watch.
They hadn’t taken it yet, and that was the detonator. Was it possible the explosives were armed? Surely the monsters would’ve dismantled them right away.

‘We found him amidships,’ one of the giants said, ‘trying to sneak to the engine room. Can we eat him now?’

‘Soon.’ Kronos scowled at Ethan. ‘Are you sure he didn’t set the explosives?’

‘He was going
towards
the engine room, my lord.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Er …’ Ethan shifted uncomfortably. ‘He was heading in that direction. And he told us. His bag is still full of explosives.’

Slowly, I began to understand. Beckendorf had fooled them. When he’d realized he was going to be captured, he turned to make it look like he was going the other way. He’d convinced them he hadn’t made it to the engine room yet. The Greek fire might still be primed! But that didn’t do us any good unless we could get off the ship and detonate it.