Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 33

What does someone have to do to get some sleep?

It just felt like she'd closed her eyes when Percy was shaking her awake as the ship listed.

She was still leaning on him heavily as they stumbled up the stairs.

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

The monster was at least as long as the ship. In the moonlight, it looked like a cross between a giant shrimp and a cockroach. 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 anyone could ever behold.

Frank ran to Hazel's side. She was clutching the rigging, still dazed from her flashback, but she gestured that she was all right. The monster rammed the ship again. The hull groaned. Annabeth, Piper, and Jason tumbled to starboard and almost rolled overboard, Percy barely managing to keep himself and Cressida upright.

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.

"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's eyes, holding hands for so long—"

"What?" Frank yelped.

"It wasn't like that!" Hazel protested.

"It doesn't matter!" Piper said. "Jason, can you call some lightning?"

Jason struggled to his feet. "I—" He only managed to shake his head. Summoning the storm earlier had taken too much out of him. Leo doubted the poor guy could pop a spark plug in the shape he was in.

"Percy!" Annabeth said. "Can you talk to that thing? Do you know what it is?"

The son of the sea god shook his head, clearly mystified. "Maybe it's just curious about the ship. Maybe—"

The monster's tendrils lashed across the deck so fast, no one could even dodge it.

One slammed Percy in the chest and sent him crashing down the steps as Cressida rolled the other way onto the deck.

Another wrapped around Piper's legs and dragged her, screaming, toward the rail. Dozens more tendrils curled around the masts, encircling the crossbows and ripping down the rigging.

"Nose-hair attack!" Hedge snatched up his bat and leapt into action, but his hits just bounced harmlessly off the tendrils. Jason drew his sword. He tried to free Piper, but he was still weak. His gold blade cut through the tendrils with no problem, but faster than he could sever them, more took their place.

Annabeth unsheathed her dagger. She ran through the forest of tentacles, dodging and stabbing at whatever target she could find. Frank pulled out his bow. He fired over the side at the creature's body, lodging arrows in the chinks of its shell; but that only seemed to annoy the monster. It bellowed and rocked the ship. The mast creaked like it might snap off.

They needed more firepower, but they couldn't use ballistae. They needed to deliver a blast that wouldn't destroy the ship. But how...? 

Leo's eyes fixed on a supply crate next to Hazel's feet.