Chapter 14: We Do A Cabin Crawl With Dead People

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Clarisse looked ready for capture the flag, dressed as she was in full Greek battle gear, complete with her red-plumed helmet. Except beneath her gleaming bronze breastplate, she wore a loose tunic and animal-skin breeches that could have come out of Pirates of the Carribean. Instead of her usual spear, she carried a three-foot carbine rifle with a leather cover over the barrel. She was surrounded by skeletons in army uniforms—confederate soldier uniforms, to be exact. They moved efficiently about the ship like a well-trained crew.

I looked around for her companions, but if there was anyone else alive on this ship besides Clarisse, they were well-hidden.

Clarisse pulled off her helmet and tucked it under one arm. She invited us on board, sneering and calling us losers, but underneath her arrogant words, she actually sounded glad to see us.

I guess I could understand that. If I'd been alone on a ship full of zombies, I'd have been glad for human company, too.

The zombie sailors didn't seem so bad, though, if you could get past the creepiness of the glowing green eyes staring at you out of hollow sockets. Up close, I saw that they did have faces, but they were transparent, ghostly images that hovered insubstantially in front of their skulls. Clarisse did the introductions, her nose wrinkling when she said Percy's name. The crew muttered excitedly when they heard it.

'Jackson?' one of them said. 'Any relation to General Stonewall Jackson?'

'Er, no,' Percy said. 'I don't think so, anyway. I'm from New York.'

The mood of the sailors changed in an instant, excitement turning to seething resentment.

'Yankee,' one of them hissed.

I cut in quickly, shoving my Yankees cap deeper into my pocket and flashing Percy a warning look. 'I'm from Virginia,' I told them.

They liked that better.

'Where from, m'lady?' asked the first mate.

'Richmond.'

There was a general murmur of approval. One of the skeletons clapped me on the back. It felt like being prodded with a stick.

'We died in the defence of Richmond,' the first mate explained. He stared on a long spiel about the Civil War, some of which I was able to follow, based on what I knew of my dad's research on military war history.

Clarisse grew bored of the subject quickly. 'How about a tour of the ship?'

'Er, that's okay,' Percy said, but she glared at him.

'Tour,' she repeated. 'Let's go.'

She proudly pointed out all the fancy trappings on the deck, from the refitted cannons with new celestial bronze balls to the array of guns—pivot guns affixed at the bow and broadside guns that could shift along both sides of the ship. I didn't understand half the terminology, but I thought my dad would probably have appreciated it. Clarisse boasted happily about all of it. She clearly enjoyed showing off what she'd gotten.

'I flew in to Virginia to pick up the ship this morning,' she explained as she led us past dark crew quarters. They were closet-sized rooms with bunks so small, Tyson would have had to double over just to fit in one. A few of the ghostly crew members followed us, piping up helpfully from time to time about displacements and horsepower and other battleship trivia that made no sense at all to any of us (including Clarisse, I bet). Tyson was jittery around them. When we descended below deck, he inched closer to me.

'Scared,' he muttered, and grabbed my hand like a kindergartener clinging to his mom on the first day of school. His big, clammy hand gave me the chills. I would have pulled away, but I remembered how he'd jumped between me and the Hydra. I decided I owed him one. Still, touring an ancient warship manned by zombies while holding the hand of a Cyclops definitely wasn't on my list of top ten things to do.

A random thought flitted across my head that maybe, if it were Percy's hand I was holding instead …

I blinked and waved it away, glad that it was dim in the engine room so no one could see my sudden blush.

Tyson finally let go of my hand when Clarisse showed us the boiler room. He became so excited about the machinery in there that he forgot to be scared of the undead sailors.

We finished up with dinner in the captain's quarters. It wasn't precisely a proper meal, more like Clarisse's idea of one: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, and Dr Peppers. Food was food, though, and whatever I felt about her, I trusted Clarisse at least not to poison us.

Clarisse surveyed us smugly over her bottle of Dr Pepper.

'You are in so much trouble,' she said cheerfully. She was in an excellent mood after getting to show off her big new toy. 'Tantalus expelled you for eternity. Mr D said if any of you show your face at camp again, he'll turn you into squirrels and run you over with his SUV.'

'Did they give you this ship?' Percy asked.

'Course not. My father did.'

'Ares?'

Clarisse looked affronted by his scepticism, a bit like when I'd doubted her dedication to camp. 'You think your daddy is the only one with sea power? The spirits on the losing side of every war owe a tribute to Ares. That's their curse for being defeated. I prayed to my father for a naval transport and here it is. These guys will do anything I tell them.' She turned to her zombie captain with a steely glint in her eyes. 'Won't you, captain?'

Something in her tone reminded me of the way Luke had spoken to us, as well as to his henchmen: a touch of haughtiness, like they were savouring the experience of being in charge. I wondered if maybe captaining a ship just gave people a sense of power.

At least I could be fairly certain that Clarisse, unlike Luke, wasn't going to kill us. Since we'd found her, we might as well continue the quest together, especially since she didn't appear to have any companions—human ones, that is. And it was only fair to warn her what we were up against.

'Clarisse, Luke might be after the Fleece, too,' I said. 'We saw him. He's got the co-ordinates and he's heading south. He has a cruise ship full of monsters—'

'Good! I'll blow him out of the water.' It was such a typical Ares response.

'You don't understand. We have to combine forces. Let us help you—'

'No! This is my quest, smart girl!' Clarisse's eyes flashed dangerously. 'Finally I get to be the hero, and you two will not steal my chance.'

I ground my teeth in frustration. This quest was no longer about who succeeded—not when the existence of camp itself was at stake. I felt a little stab of worry, though. Clarisse's desire to be the hero wasn't terribly different from the way Luke spoke about being the one to tear down Olympus and rebuild the world. And I had to admit, I was guilty of that same thirst for glory myself. I'd wanted to lead this quest instead of Clarisse, after all. For years I had hungered to be given a quest, and if I were completely honest about it, that desire wasn't entirely altruistic.

It was perhaps the fatal flaw of all demigods. We all wanted to prove ourselves to be the greatest and the best.

Kronos played on this hunger. It was probably how he had corrupted Luke and all the other demigods who had defected to his side. It scared me that we might all be just as susceptible.

'Where are your cabin mates?' Percy asked. 'You were allowed to take two friends with you, weren't you?'

'They didn't …' Clarisse grimaced. 'I let them stay behind,' she corrected herself. 'To protect the camp.'

'You mean even the people in your own cabin wouldn't help you?'

It was definitely the wrong thing to say. Clarisse flared up, jumping to her feet with her fists balled. 'Shut up, Prissy! I don't need them! Or you!'

Percy tried to backtrack. 'Clarisse, Tantalus is using you. He doesn't care about the camp. He'd love to see it destroyed. He's setting you up to fail.'

'No! I don't care what the Oracle—' Her eyes widened, as though she'd realised she'd said too much.

'What? What did the Oracle tell you?'

'Nothing,' Clarisse said quickly. 'All you need to know is that I'm finishing this quest and you're not helping. On the other hand, I can't let you go …'

I frowned at her. 'So we're prisoners?'

Clarisse thought about this. 'Guests,' she conceded. She sat back down and opened herself another bottle of Dr Pepper. 'For now.' She waved her hand and summoned the Confederate captain to take us to the berth deck. When I looked back at her before leaving her quarters, she was frowning hard at her drink. The look on her face gave me an eerie sense of déjà-vu.

I wondered what her prophecy from the Oracle had been, and if it had anything to do with why no one had wanted to join her, or why she was so adamant against our help.

The captain brought us one floor down, where the berth deck turned out to be a large room with rows of hammocks strung from end to end.

'Pick any you like,' he said.

'Are the rest for the crew?' Percy asked.

'Well, yes and no. They were, originally, but we don't sleep any more.'

I wondered why, if the crew didn't sleep, we couldn't have one of the other tiny bunks we'd seen on our tour earlier. Then I looked at Tyson. He definitely wouldn't have fit in those quarters. As it was, we were probably going to have to string several hammocks together for him.

Tyson didn't seem to be considering any of this. He just looked relieved that he wasn't going to be sharing a room with a bunch of zombie sailors.

'Come on, big guy,' Percy said, and they got to work putting together a larger hammock for Tyson. They dug into Tyson's duffel bag, where he had an oilcloth wrapped around a bunch of tools and bits. We'd lost one bag—Percy's—to the Hydra, but we'd managed to retrieve the other two before boarding the ship.

I let them get on with it. Maybe tomorrow I'd be able to talk to Clarisse and try again to convince her into accepting our help. I knew she did care about the camp. Maybe I could reason with her when Percy wasn't there to rub her the wrong way. In the meantime, at least she hadn't thrown us off the ship or imprisoned us outright. We were still travelling together and heading south overnight. That was a plus.

I got into my hammock and settled in for the night.

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A/N: Okay, a few apologies-first, I know I said I was aiming for a chapter a week and this one is horrendously late. Sorry! I totally intended to get to it last week, but between school deadlines and then going on holiday right after, I (a) didn't manage to make a post before rushing to catch my train and; (b) forgot to put the fic files in my USB to work on while away.

And I know this chapter is kind of short and not much happens, but it didn't really fit on the previous or the next chapters, so here it is as a stand-alone. BUT I am going to try and get the next one out before next weekend! The next chapter will definitely be longer and get back to the action.

Side note, I was enjoying geeking out about the battleship. I am actually a sailor, but not a navy one, so I had to research quite a bit to give the ship tour. I based the design for Clarisse's CSS Birmingham off the CSS Virginia (see Wiki/CSS_Virginia). Clarisse's rifle is a Sharps Hankins Model 1862 Carbine (manufactured for the confederate navy, complete with leather cover that protects against sea-spray and salt air!) (see Wiki/Sharps_%26_Hankins_Model_1862_Carbine).