Chapter 23

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I don't remember falling asleep, but I jerked to alertness, nearly landing on my face as I fell out of my chair, at the sound of all our alarm bells going off. I stood up, thankful that no one had been around to witness me jump out of my seat.

Outside the glass that separated the helm from the deck, I saw undead soldiers running around, relaying orders to each other. Underneath me, I felt the cannons getting deployed, the ship rumbling slightly as they moved into position.

I exited the helm, finding Clarisse on the spar deck with a pair of binoculars, telling the captain, "Full steam ahead!"

Percy was standing next to her, squinting at the black splotches out on the horizon – Scylla and Charybdis. Not that they were easy to make out if you didn't know about them. The sky was an overcast gray, and somehow the humidity got worse overnight. But even though the water was deceptively calm, I knew we were about to get into a lot of trouble.

The engine, which was at least eight feet below us, could be heard from up on the deck, groaning as we picked up speed. I frowned, knowing that the pistons of this ship weren't made for deep water or lengthy missions. During the Civil War, ironclads had been used on quick and dirty missions, usually only going deep enough so that the entire hull was submerged; so the fact that it had survived this long in the open ocean was a miracle in its own right.

Tyson picked up the strain on the engine, too, saying that the ship wasn't made for deep water.

As we began approaching Charybdis, I armed myself with my bow. It wasn't my preferred weapon, not by far, but when you needed to take out a person sitting in the middle of a massive whirlpool, I think it's better to shoot an arrow than try to throw a knife. Plus, if we were going to tangle with Scylla as well, I could shoot her while taking cover in the stairwell.

Beneath my feet, I could feel the deck heating up, like it was about to catch fire – heat from the boilers as they worked overtime. Smoke poured out of the smokestacks, leaving behind puffs of black clouds as we chugged on towards Charybdis. The Ares flag Clarisse had put up when we first got on board was whipping loudly in the wind, which had started to rapidly pick up.

As we got closer to the two guardians of the Sea of Monsters, Charybdis' roar got louder and louder. Percy had muttered under his breath that the whirlpool sounded like the galaxy's largest toilet was getting flushed. I couldn't help but smile at that.

As far as I could figure out, there was no method in Charybdis' timing of her whirlpool. The maelstrom would suck in water for about three minutes, destroying everything within a half-mile radius of where Charybdis was sitting. When the whirlpool stopped, Charybdis would exhale, her breath echoing across the ocean, causing for waves at least ten feet high to bash against the side of the ship, sending us backwards.

This couldn't be good for the engine, I thought to myself, before getting violently tossed into the ship's railing. I gasped as all the wind was knocked out of me, forcing myself to keep a grip on the railing so I wouldn't fall off. The sound of roaring water filled my ears.

We were getting sucked in by the whirlpool.

"Full-reverse!" Clarisse shouted over the noise. Waves were crashing onto the deck, but the iron plates of the hull and the helm were so hot that the water steamed the second it made contact with the metal. "Get us within firing range! Make ready starboard cannons!"

The dead Confederates ran back and forth, desperately trying to prepare the cannons while also pulling the propeller to reverse. The entire ship was shaking under the immense pressure the propeller was under, but it did nothing to keep us from continuing to get pulled in. If we kept taking this kind of a beating, none of us were going to make it out alive.

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