GODS AND MONSTERS , pjo

08 , meet n' greet on a boat

CHAPTER EIGHT:
MEET N' GREET ON A BOAT

Annabeth volunteered to go alone since she had the cap of invisibility, but Percy convinced her it was too dangerous. Either we all went together, or nobody went.

"Nobody!" Tyson voted. "Please?"

I completely agreed.

But in the end we went along, Tyson was nervously chewing on his huge fingernails, and I kept punching my thigh.

We stopped at our cabins long enough to gather our stuff. We figured whatever happened, we would not be staying another night aboard the zombie cruise ship, even if they did have million-dollar bingo.

Percy didn't really want Tyson to carry everything, but he insisted, and Annabeth told him not to worry about it. "Tyson could carry three full duffel bags over his shoulder as easily as I could carry a backpack." She had said.

We sneaked through the corridors, following the ship's YOU ARE HERE signs toward the admiralty suite. Annabeth scouted ahead invisibly. We hid whenever someone passed by, but most of the people we saw were just glassy-eyed zombie passengers.

As we came up the stairs to deck thirteen, where the admiralty suite was supposed to be, Annabeth hissed, "Hide!" and shoved us into a supply closet.

I heard a couple of guys coming down the hall. "You see that ethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" one of them said.

The other laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome."

I felt this weird familiarity in the second boys voice, but I wasn't really sure so I didn't say anything.

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

The voices faded down the corridor.

"That was Chris Rodriguez!" Annabeth took off her cap and turned visible. "You remember-from Cabin Eleven."

I sort of recalled Chris from the summer before. He was one of those undetermined campers who got stuck in the Hermes cabin because his Olympian dad or mom never claimed him. Now that I thought about it, I realized I hadn't seen Chris at camp this summer.

"What's another half-blood doing here?" Percy asked.

Annabeth shook her head, clearly troubled.

We kept going down the corridor.

"Percy." Annabeth stopped suddenly causing half of us to slam into her. "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 Annabeth's attention.

A group of monsters had assembled in front of the candy store: a dozen Laistrygonian giants like the ones who'd attacked me and Percy with 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."

I squinted slightly wondering if maybe the mist was hiding the dragon part. "They look more like snakes" I whispered.

Annabeth sent me an annoyed glare

The monsters made a semicircle around a young guy in Greek armor who was hacking on a straw dummy. A lump formed in my throat when I realized the dummy was wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. As we watched, the guy in armor stabbed the dummy through its belly and ripped upward. Straw flew everywhere. The monsters cheered and howled.