Disclaimer: I don't own PJO.

Chapter Eight

Tyson Fights A Bear Thing

Luke wanted to go alone since he was the sneakiest of us, but I refused, saying that it was too dangerous. Either we all went together, or nobody went.

"Nobody!" Tyson voted. "Please?"

But in the end he came along, nervously chewing on his huge fingernails. He stopped after I gave him a stern look, wary that the loud crunching noises he was making would draw unwanted attention.

We stopped at our cabin 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 an all-you-can eat buffet.

I made sure my pin was in my hair and the vitamins and thermos from Hermes were at the top of my bag. I didn't want Tyson to carry everything, but he insisted, and Luke pointed out that it would be easier to fight with the straps of the bag constricting my movements.

Besides, Tyson could carry three full duffel bags over his shoulder as easily as I could carry a single backpack alone.

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

It was seriously creepy, seeing people look right through us, like we were invisible, and at the same time state these programmed responses mechanically. So. Creepy.

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

A second later, I heard a couple of 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."

Luke squeezed my arm hard. I frowned, getting a vague feeling of recognition towards the first guy's voice.

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

The voices faded down the corridor.

"That was Alabaster Torrington!" Luke exclaimed when they were gone, looking stricken. "He was in my Cabin, but he didn't come back this summer."

I sort of recalled Alabaster 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. Kind of standoffish.

"I guess we know why, now," I replied slowly, frowning deeply. "But what's another half-blood doing here?"

"I don't know," Luke said, shaking his head. "It makes no sense."

We kept going down the corridor. I didn't need maps anymore to know I was getting close to Annabeth and/or Ethan. I sensed something cold and unpleasant—the presence of evil.

"Ana, wait." Luke stopped suddenly. "Look at this."

He stood in front of a glass wall looking down into the multi-story 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 Luke'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 with dodge balls, two hellhounds, and a few even stranger creatures—humanoid females with twin serpent tails instead of legs. I recognized them a second before Luke said their names, his voice grim.

"Scythian Dracaenae," he whispered. "Dragon women."

The monsters made a semicircle around a young guy in Greek armour who was hacking on a straw dummy. My stomach churned and I leaned away slightly when I realized the dummy was wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. As we watched, the guy in armour stabbed the dummy through its belly and ripped upward. Straw flew everywhere. The monsters cheered and howled. I shuddered in horror.

Luke stepped away from the window. Both of our faces were ashen, I could tell from the window's reflection.

"Come on," I urged him, trying to sound braver than I felt. "The sooner we find Annabeth and Ethan the better."

At the end of the hallway were double oak doors that looked like they must lead somewhere important. When we were thirty feet away, Tyson stopped. "Voices inside."

"You can hear that far?" I asked.

Tyson closed his eye like he was concentrating hard. Then his voice changed, becoming a disturbing approximation of Ethan's. "—the prophecy ourselves. The fools won't know which way to turn."

Before I could react, Tyson's voice changed again, becoming deeper and gruffer, like the other guy we'd heard talking to Annabeth outside the cafeteria. "You really think the old horseman is gone for good?"

Tyson laughed Annabeth's laugh, and spoke again in Ethan's voice. "They can't trust him. Not with the skeletons in his closet. The poisoning of the tree was the final straw."

Luke shivered. "Stop that, Tyson! How are you doing that? It's freaky."

Tyson opened his eye, looking puzzled. "Just listening," he claimed. I supposed that it was just a Cyclopes thing.

"Keep going," I told him firmly. This was useful. "What else are they saying?"

Tyson closed his eye again.

He hissed in the gruff man's voice: "Quiet!" Then Annabeth's voice, whispering: "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Tyson said in the gruff voice. "Right outside."

Too late, I realized what was happening.

I just had time to cry, "Run!" when the doors of the stateroom burst open and there was Ethan, flanked by two hairy giants armed with javelins, their bronze tips aimed right at our chests.

"Well," Ethan said with a crooked smile. "If it isn't my old friend, Luke, and his girlfriend. Come right in." Given the weapons pointed at our hearts, we couldn't exactly refuse the 'kind offer'.

The stateroom was beautiful, and it was horrible.

The beautiful part: Huge windows curved along the back wall, looking out over the stern of the ship. Green sea and blue sky stretched all the way to the horizon. A Persian rug covered the floor. Two plush sofas occupied the middle of the room, with a canopied bed in one corner and a mahogany dining table in the other. The table was loaded with food—pizza boxes, bottles of soda, and a stack of roast beef sandwiches on a silver platter.

If it were just that, minus the monsters and terrifying parts, I would be tempted to like the room.

But the awful part completely overshadowed any nice parts. On a velvet dais at the back of the room lay a ten-foot-long golden casket, with an unnatural coldness radiating from it.

A sarcophagus, engraved with Ancient Greek scenes of cities in flames and heroes dying grisly deaths. Despite the sunlight streaming through the windows, the casket made the whole room feel cold.

"Well," Annabeth said, gesturing around herself proudly and grinning broadly at Luke. "A little nicer than Cabin Eleven, huh Luke?"

She and Ethan had both changed since the last summer. Instead of shorts and a T-shirt, Ethan wore a button-down shirt, khaki pants, and leather loafers. His dark hair, which used to cover his eyes, was now clipped short. He looked like he was showing off what the fashionable college-age villain was wearing to Harvard this year.

Annabeth was dressed in a long pair of cargo pants, a red blouse made of silk, and a pair of black ballet flats. Her blonde curls were tied back in a plait, and the knife Luke had given her when they first met hung from her hip. I saw Luke cast it a bitter glare, his expression the darkest I'd ever seen it, save for when I had first told him and Chiron of Annabeth and Ethan's betrayal.

"Sit," Annabeth told us with a smug smile. She waved her hand and three dining chairs scooted themselves into the centre of the room.

None of us sat.

Her large friends were still pointing their javelins at us. They looked like twins, but they weren't human. They stood about eight feet tall, for one thing, and wore only blue jeans, probably because their enormous chests were already shag-carpeted with thick brown fur. They had claws for fingernails, feet like paws. Their noses were snoutlike, and their teeth were all pointed canines.

"Where are our manners?" Ethan said smoothly. "These are our assistants, Agrius and Oreius. Perhaps you've heard of them."

I said nothing. Despite the javelins pointed at me, it wasn't the bear twins who scared me.

I'd contemplated what would happen when I inevitably met Annabeth and Ethan again many times since he'd tried to kill me last summer. I wanted to kill them both, so badly for everything that they had done. Everything that they had almost done. But now that we were face-to-face, I had to clench my hands into to stop them from shaking.

"You don't know Agrius and Oreius's story?" Annabeth asked. "I'm not surprised, wisdom has never been your strong point."

"Clearly it isn't yours either," I interjected coolly, in a typical display of my inability to keep my mouth shut. "Given the company that you keep nowadays."

She glared coldly at me, but Ethan's grip restrained her from attacking. She continued telling the story of the Bear Twins. "Their mother … well, it's sad, really. Aphrodite ordered the young woman to fall in love. She refused and ran to Artemis for help.

Artemis let her become one of her maiden huntresses, but Aphrodite got her revenge. She bewitched the young woman into falling in love with a bear. When Artemis found out, she abandoned the girl in disgust.

Typical of the gods, wouldn't you say? They fight with one another and the poor humans get caught in the middle. The girl's twin sons here, Agrius and Oreius, have no love for Olympus."

"They like half-bloods well enough, though," Ethan added with a sly smile.

"For lunch," Agrius growled. His gruff voice was the one I'd heard talking with Annabeth earlier.

"Hehe! Hehe!" His brother Oreius laughed, licking his fur-lined lips. He kept laughing like he was having an asthmatic fit until The Traitors and Agrius all stared at him.

"Shut up, you idiot!" Agrius growled. "Go punish yourself!"

Oreius whimpered. He trudged over to the corner of the room, slumped onto a stool, and banged his forehead against the dining table, making the silver plates rattle. I felt kinda bad for him, actually. He seemed like he needed a hug.

Annabeth and Ethan both acted like this was perfectly normal behaviour.

"So, I hope that you enjoyed your last year of life, Ana," Ethan smirked. "What have you been doing with it?"

"Not much," I replied coldly. "But, I know what you've been doing. You poisoned Thalia's tree."

For a second, I thought that I saw regret flashed over Annabeth's face. But it disappeared too quickly for me to be sure.

"Right to the point, eh?" Ethan sighed. "Okay, sure I poisoned the tree. So what?"

"How could you, Annabeth?" Luke sounded so furious I thought that he might run straight forward and attack her. "Thalia sacrificed herself to save your life! Our lives! How could you just poison her tree and dishonour her—"

"I didn't dishonour her!" Annabeth snapped, standing and glaring at him. "The gods dishonoured her, Luke! If Thalia were alive, she'd be on my side."

"You're wrong!"

"If you knew what was coming, you'd understand—"

"I understand you want to destroy the camp!" he yelled. "You're a traitor!"

Annabeth shook her head. "The gods have blinded you. Can't you imagine a world without them, Luke? What good is that ancient history you study? Three thousand years of baggage! The West is rotten to the core. It has to be destroyed. Join me! We can start the world anew. We could use your experience, Luke."

"Because you have none of your own!"

Her eyes narrowed. Annabeth had always resented not being allowed on quests, and only once tried going back to her father. It hadn't ended well.

"I know you, Luke," she insisted. "You deserve better than tagging along on some hopeless quest to save the camp. Half-Blood Hill will be overrun by monsters within the month. The heroes who survive will have no choice but to join us or be hunted to extinction. You really want to be on a losing team … with company like this?" She pointed at Tyson.

"Hey!" I snapped, temper flaring as I stepped in front my brother defensively.

"Traveling with a Cyclops," she spat. "Talk about dishonouring Thalia's memory! You of all people—"

"Shut up!" he shouted.

"Leave him alone," I ordered. "And leave Tyson out of this."

Ethan laughed scornfully. "Oh, yeah, we heard. Your father claimed him."

I must have looked surprised, because he smiled smugly. "Yes, Ana, we know all about that. And about your plan to find the Fleece. What were those coordinates, again … 30, 31, 75, 12? You see, we still have friends at camp who keep the two of us posted."

"Spies, you mean."

He shrugged. "How many insults from your father can you stand, Ana? You think he's grateful to you? You think Poseidon cares for you any more than he cares for this monster?"

Tyson clenched his fists and made a rumbling sound down in his throat.

"You think I give a damn about Poseidon's opinion?" I snapped back. The only parents that had ever mattered to me were my mother and Chiron. Not Poseidon, who had called me a 'wrongdoing' the only time we met.

Annabeth chuckled bitterly, turning away from her and Luke's staring contest. "The gods are using you, Ana. Do you have any idea what's in store for you if you reach your sixteenth birthday? Has Chiron even told you the prophecy?"

I hated that he knew just how to throw me off balance.

Sixteenth birthday?

I mean, I knew Chiron had received a prophecy from the Oracle about the possible destruction of the world many years ago. I knew that part of it was probably about me. But, if I reached my sixteenth birthday? I didn't like the sound of that.

"I know what I need to know," I managed. "Like, who my enemies are."

"Then you're a fool."

Tyson smashed the nearest dining chair to splinters. "Ana is not a fool!"

Before I could stop him, he charged Ethan. His fists came down toward Ethan's head—a double overhead blow that would've knocked a hole in titanium—but the bear twins intercepted.

They each caught one of Tyson's arms and stopped him cold. They pushed him back and Tyson stumbled. He fell to the carpet so hard the deck shook.

"Too bad, Cyclops," Annabeth said, voice filled with spite. "Looks like my grizzly friends together are more than a match for your strength. Maybe I should let the two of them—"

"What's in the sarcophagus?" I demanded, frantic to distract her.

Both of their expressions grew maniacal, and if I had held any illusions as to them being insane before, that would have dealt with it swiftly.

"He is re-forming," Ethan declared. "Little by little, we're calling his life force out of the pit. With every recruit who pledges our cause, another small piece appears—"
You're insane," Luke said, as disgusted as I was at the very thought.

"Join us and you'll be rewarded. We have powerful friends, sponsors rich enough to buy this cruise ship and much more. Ana, you can have power, fame—whatever you want. You too, Luke, anything your heart desires!"

"Go to Tartarus," he spat in reply. I simply glared, hoping that erased any illusions of my being tempted by his suggestion.

Ethan sighed. "A shame." Annabeth looked away, hiding her face from Luke's betrayed, bitter glare.

He picked up something that looked like a TV remote and pressed a red button. Within seconds the door of the stateroom opened and two uniformed crew members came in, armed with nightsticks. They had the same glassy-eyed look as the other mortals I'd seen, but I had a feeling this wouldn't make them any less dangerous in a fight.

"Ah, good, security," Luke said, "I'm afraid we have some stowaways."

"Yes, sir," they said dreamily.

Ethan turned to Oreius. "It's time to feed the Aethiopian drakon. Take these fools below and show them how it's done."

Oreius grinned stupidly. "Hehe! Hehe!"

"Let me go, too," Agrius grumbled. "My brother is worthless. That Cyclops—"

"Is no threat," Annabeth said. She glanced back at the golden casket, frowning as if something were troubling her. "Agrius, you're staying here. We have important matters to discuss."

"But—"

"Oreius, don't fail me. Stay in the hold to make sure the drakon is properly fed."

Oreius prodded us with his javelin and herded us out of the stateroom, followed by the two human security guards.

As I walked down the corridor with Oreius's javelin poking me in the back, I thought about what Annbeth had said—that the bear twins together were a match for Tyson's strength. But maybe separately …

We exited the corridor amidships and walked across an open deck lined with lifeboats. I knew the ship well enough to realize this would be our last look at sunlight. Once we got to the other side, we'd take the elevator down into the hold, and that would be it.

I looked at Tyson and said, "Now."

Thank the gods, he understood. He turned and smacked Oreius thirty feet backward into the swimming pool, right into the middle of the zombie tourist family.

"Ah!" the kids yelled in unison. "We are not having a blast in the pool!"

One of the security guards drew his nightstick, but Luke knocked the wind out of him with a well-placed kick. The other guard ran for the nearest alarm box.

"Stop him!" Luke yelled, but it was too late.

Just before I banged him over the head with a deck chair, he hit the alarm.

Red lights flashed. Sirens wailed.

"Lifeboat!" I cried.

We ran for the nearest one.

By the time we got the cover off, monsters and more security men were swarming the deck, pushing aside tourists and waiters with trays of tropical drinks. A guy in Greek armour drew his sword and charged, but slipped in a puddle of piña colada. Laistrygonian archers assembled on the deck above us, notching arrows in their enormous bows.

"How do you launch this thing?" screamed Luke.

A hellhound leaped at me, but Tyson slammed it aside with a fire extinguisher.

"Get in!" I yelled. I summoned Anaklusmos and slashed the first volley of arrows out of the air. Any second now we would be overwhelmed.

The lifeboat was hanging over the side of the ship, high above the water. Luke and Tyson were having no luck with the release pulley.

I jumped in beside them.

"Hold on!" I yelled, and I cut the ropes.

A shower of arrows whistled over our heads as we free-fell toward the ocean.