Hey guys, welcome to the first chapter of Percy Jackson and the Curse of Olympus. As I mentioned, some of these chapters are very close to the original chapters from the Last Olympian, but they will progressively drift away from that.
The end of the world started two weeks before my sixteenth birthday, when my pegasus decided to land on the hood of the car I was borrowing from my stepdad. Up until that moment I was having a pretty chill day, my mom and stepdad, Paul, had taken me and my friend Rachel to this private stretch of beach on the South Shore, with Paul letting us borrow his Prius for a spin, even though I wasn't sixteen yet, so technically wasn't supposed to be driving.
You're probably thinking, "Wow, that's irresponsible."
Well, Paul's seen me slice up hideous monsters and leap out of buildings that I may or may not have set on fire.
So, anyway, Rachel and I were driving along, and it was a pretty hot August day. Rachel's bright red hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and she was wearing a white blouse over her swimsuit. Up until this point I had never seen her in anything other than ratty T-shirts and paint-splattered jeans before (apart from the time she was completely gold. Yeah, she's an interesting girl alright.), she looked like a million golden drachmas.
"Oh, pull up right there!" she instructed me.
We ended up parking on a ridge that was overlooking the Atlantic. The sea is always one my favourite places to be, but today, it was looking especially nice – sparkling green, reflecting the suns rays, and as smooth as glass, it was almost like my dad was keeping it especially calm just for us.
My dad? Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. So yeah, he can do stuff like that.
"So," Rachel said, turning to me and smiling, "about that invitation."
"Oh… Right." I tried my hardest to sound excited. She had invited me to her family's vacation house on St Thomas for three days. It was extremely rare that I got offers like that. My family's idea of a fancy vacation was a weekend in a rundown cabin on Long Island with some rental movies and a few frozen pizzas; Rachel's parents were willing to let me tag along with them to the Caribbean.
In any case, I seriously needed a vacation. This summer had been the toughest of my life. The idea of taking a break for even a few days was really tempting.
But I was "on call" for a vitally important mission. Even worse, in a couple of weeks was my birthday. There was this prophecy that said when I turned sixteen, I would decide the fate of the world.
So yeah, you can understand why a vacation sounded extremely appealing.
"Percy," Rachel began, "I know the timing is bad. But it's always bad for you, right?"
She had a very good point.
"I do really want to go, Rachel," I promised her, "It's just -"
"The war."
I nodded in response. I didn't like talking about the war, but Rachel knew about it. Unlike most mortals, she had the ability to see through the Mist – the magic veil that distorts humans' vision, allowing monsters to disguise themselves. But Rachel had seen monsters. In fact, the first time we'd met I had almost stabbed her. She'd met other demigods as well, who were fighting the Titans and their allies. She'd even been there last summer, when the chopped-up Lord Kronos rose out of his coffin in a terrible new form, and she had earned my permanent respect when she'd nailed him in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush.
She placed a hand on my arm.
"Just think about it, okay? We still don't leave for a couple of days. My dad…" Her voice faltered.
"Is he giving you a hard time?" I asked her.
Rachel shook her head in disgust.
"He's trying to be nice to me," she said, in a tone that made the prospect seem entirely alien, "which is definitely worse. He wants me to go to Clarion Ladies' Academy in the autumn."
"The school where your mom went?"
"It's a stupid finishing school for society girls, all the way in New Hampshire. Can you see me in finishing school?" she asked, giving me a look that just screamed, "I dare you to not agree with me."
I didn't need the look to make me agree with her that the idea sounded pretty dumb. Rachel was into urban art projects and feeding the homeless and going to protest rallies to 'Save the Endangered Yellow-Bellied Sap Sucker,' and that sorta stuff. I'd never even seen her wear a dress. It was extremely hard for me to imagine her learning to be a socialite.
She sighed.
"He thinks if he does a bunch of nice stuff for me, I'll feel guilty and give in."
"Which is why he agreed to let me come with you guys on vacation?" I guessed.
"Yes… but, Percy, you'd be doing me a huge favour. It would be so much better if you were there with us. Besides, there's something I want to talk -" she stopped abruptly.
"Something you want to talk about?" I asked, "You mean… something so important that we have to go to St Thomas to talk about it?"
She pursed her lips.
"Look, just forget it for now. Let's just pretend that we're a couple of normal teenagers. We're out for a drive, and we're watching the ocean, and it's just nice to be spending time together."
I could tell that something was bothering her, but she'd put on a brave smile, the sunlight making her hair look like fire. We had spent a lot of time together during that summer. I hadn't exactly planned it to be that way. It was just… the more serious that things got with camp, the more I'd find myself calling her up just to get away from it all and have a bit of breathing room. I found myself needing to have a reminder that there was a normal mortal world still existed, away from all the monsters that wanted to use me as a their personal punching bag.
"Okay," I agreed, "Just a normal afternoon and two normal teenagers."
She nodded in response to my statement.
"And so… hypothetically, if these two normal teenagers liked each other, what would it take to get the stupid teenage boy to kiss the girl, huh?"
"Oh…" I felt like one of Apollo's sacred cows – slow, dumb and bright red. "Ummmm…" I managed to respond.
I couldn't deny that I hadn't thought about Rachel in that way. She was so much easier to be around than… well, some of the other girls that I knew. I didn't have to work hard whilst I was with her, I didn't have to watch what I said, or wrack my brain trying to figure out what she was thinking. Rachel definitely didn't hide much, she often would let you know what she thought and felt.
I'm really not sure what I would have done next if I'm honest, but I was so distracted I didn't notice the huge black form swooping down from the sky until four hooves landed on the front of the Prius with a deafening WUMP-WUMP-CRUNCH!
Yo, boss, a voice in my head said. Sweet ride you got!
Blackjack the pegasus was an old friend of mine, so I desperately tried not to get too annoyed at the huge craters he'd just slammed into the hood of the car, but I imagined that Paul Blofis wouldn't be too stoked about them.
Not exactly a "Pimp My Ride," sort of decoration.
"Blackjack!" I sighed, "What are you -"
It was then I noticed who was riding on the back of my pegasus, and I realised that my day was about to get a whole lot more complicated.
"'Sup Percy."
Charles Beckendorf, senior counsellor for the Hephaestus cabin, would make most monsters cry for their mommies just by looking at him. He was huge, with ripped muscles from working in the forges at camp every summer. He was two years older than me and was one of the camp's best armour-smiths. He'd made some seriously ingenious mechanical stuff. A month before, he'd rigged a Greek fire bomb in the bathroom of a tour bus that was carrying a whole bunch of monsters across the country. The explosion took out a whole legion of Kronos's evil meanies as soon as the first Harpy went flush.
That gives you a slight idea of the mechanical genius that was sat atop Blackjack.
It was then that I realised that Beckendorf was dressed for combat. He wore a bronze breastplate and war helm with black camo pants and a sword strapped to his side. His explosives bag was slung over his shoulder.
"Time?" I asked meekly.
He nodded grimly at me. I felt a lump form in my throat. I'd known that this was coming, we'd been planning at for weeks back at Camp Half-Blood, but I'd half hoped it would never happen.
Rachel looked up from the passenger seat at Beckendorf.
"Hi."
"Oh, hey. I'm Beckendorf. You must be Rachel. Percy's told me… uh, I mean he mentioned you."
Rachel raised an eyebrow at me, a small smirk playing on her face.
"Really? Good." She then glanced at Blackjack, who was clopping his hooves against the hood, seemingly anxious to get flying again. "I take it you guys go and save the world now."
"Pretty much." Beckendorf agreed.
I looked at Rachel helplessly.
"Would you tell my mom –"
"I'll tell her. I'm sure she's used to it. And I'll explain to Paul about the new décor on the hood of his car."
I nodded my thanks, figuring that this was probably the last time I loaned Paul's car.
"Good luck." Rachel kissed me before I could even react. "Now get going, half-blood. Go kill some monsters for me."
My last view of her was sitting in the shotgun seat of the Prius, her arms crossed, watching as Blackjack circled higher and higher, carrying Beckendorf and me into the sky. I wondered what Rachel had wanted to talk to me about, and whether I'd end up living long enough to find out.
"So," Beckendorf said, turning back slightly in his seat and smirking at me, "I'm guessing you don't want me to mention any of that little scene to Annabeth."
"Oh gods," I muttered. "Don't even think about it."
Beckendorf chuckled, and together we soared out over the Atlantic.
It was dark by the time we spotted our target. The Princess Andromeda glowed on the horizon – a huge cruise ship lit up by yellow and white. From a distance, you'd think it was just a party ship, not the headquarters for the Titan lord. Then, as you got closer, you might notice the giant figurehead – a dark-haired maiden in a Greek chiton, wrapped in chains with a look of horror on her face, as if she could smell the stench of all the monsters that she was being forced to carry.
Just seeing the ship again managed to twist my stomach into knots. I'd almost died twice on the Princess Andromeda. Now it was heading straight for my hometown of New York.
We had to stop it.
"You know what to do?" Beckendorf yelled over the wind.
I nodded. We'd been doing dry runs at the dockyards in New Jersey, using abandoned ships as our targets. I knew how little time we would have. But I also knew this was our best chance to end Kronos's invasion before it had ever started.
"Blackjack," I said, "set us down on the lowest stern deck."
Gotcha, boss, he said. Man, I hate seeing that boat.
Three years ago, Blackjack had been enslaved on the Princess Andromeda until he'd escaped with a little help from my friends and me. I figured he'd rather have his mane braided like My Little Pony than be back here again.
"Don't wait for us," I told him.
But, boss –"Trust me," I said. "We'll get out by ourselves."
Blackjack folded his wings and plummeted towards the boat like a black comet. The wind whistled in my ears. I saw monsters patrolling the upper decks of the ship – dracaenae snake-women, hellhounds, giants and the humanoid sea-lion demons known as telkhines – but we zipped by so fast none of them raised the alarm. We shot down the stern of the boat and Blackjack spread his wings, lightly coming to a landing on the lowest deck. I climbed off, feeling slightly queasy.
Good luck, boss, Blackjack said. Don't let 'em turn ya into horsemeat!
And with that, my old friend flew off into the night. I took my pen out of my pocket, uncapped it, and Riptide sprang to full size – one metre of deadly celestial bronze glowing in the dusk.
Beckendorf pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. I thought it was a map or something. Then I realised it was a photograph. He stared at it in the dim light – the smiling face of Silena Beauregard, daughter of Aphrodite. They'd started going out last summer, after years of the rest of us saying, 'Duh, you guys like each other!' Even with all the dangerous missions, Beckendorf has been happier this summer than I'd ever seen him.
"We'll make it back to camp," I promised.
For a second I saw worry in his eyes. Then he put on his old confident smile.
"You bet," he said. "Let's go blow Kronos back into a million pieces."
Beckendorf led the way. We followed a narrow corridor to the service stairwell, just like we'd practised, but we froze when we heard noises above us.
"I don't care what your nose says!" snarled a half-human, half-dog voice – a telkhine. "The last time you smelled half-blood, it turned out to be a meatloaf sandwich!"
"Meatloaf sandwiches are good!" a second voice snarled. "But this is half-blood scent, I swear. They are on board!"
"Bah, your brain isn't on board!"
They continued to argue, and Beckendorf pointed downstairs. We descended as quietly as we could. Two floors down, the voices of the telkhines started to fade.
Finally, we came to a metal hatch. Beckendorf mouthed the words, Engine room.
It was locked, but Beckendorf pulled some chain cutters out of his bag and split the bolt like it was made of butter.
Inside, a row of yellow turbines the size of grain silos churned and hummed. Pressure gauges and computer terminals lined the opposite wall. A telkhine was hunched over a console, but he was so engrossed with his work he didn't notice us. He was about a metre and a half tall, with slick black sea-lion fur and stubby little feet. He had the head of a Doberman, but his clawed hands were almost human. He growled and muttered as he tapped on his keyboard. Maybe he was messaging his friends on .
I stepped forward and he tensed, probably smelling that something was wrong. He leaped sideways towards a big red alarm button, but I blocked his path. He hissed and lunged at me, but one slice of Riptide and he exploded into dust.
"One down," Beckendorf said. "About five thousand to go." He tossed me a jar of thick green liquid – Greek fire, one of the most dangerous magical substances in the world. Then he threw me another essential tool of demigod heroes – duct tape.
"Slap that one on the console," he said. "I'll get the turbines."
We went to work. The room was hot and humid, and within no time we were drenched in sweat.
The boat kept chugging along. Being the son of Poseidon and all, I have perfect bearings at sea. Don't ask me how, but I knew we were at 40.19° north, 71.90° west, making eighteen knots an hour, which meant the ship would arrive in New York Harbor by dawn.
This would be our only chance to stop it.
I had only just attached a second jar of Greek fire to the control panels when I heard the pounding of feet on metal steps – so many creatures coming down the stairwell I could hear them over the engines.
I'm not a genius or anything, but I'd say that wasn't a good sign.
I caught Beckendorf's gaze.
"How much longer?" I asked, a look of frustration drifted over Beckendorf's face.
"Too long." He tapped his watch, which was our remote control detonator. "I still have to wire the receiver and prime the charges. Without a doubt that's gonna take me ten minutes at least."
Judging from the sound of the footsteps, we barely had about ten seconds.
"I'll distract them," I said. "Meet you at the rendezvous point."
"Percy –"
"Wish me luck."
He looked like he wanted to argue his point with me. The whole idea of the plan had been to get in and out without being spotted. But we were going to have to improvise.
He frowned slightly at that fact, but nonetheless wished me good luck.
I charged out of the door.
Half a dozen telkhines were waiting for me on the other side, tromping down the stairs. I cut through them with Riptide faster than any of them could yelp. I kept climbing – past another telkhine who was so startled he dropped his Li'l Demons lunchbox. I left him alive – partly because his lunchbox was pretty damn cool, partly so he could raise the alarm and hopefully get his friends to follow me, rather than head towards the engine room.
I burst through a door onto deck six and kept running. I'm sure the carpeted hall had once been very plush, but over the last three years of monster occupation the wallpaper, carpet and stateroom doors had been clawed up and slimed so it looked like the inside of a dragon's throat (and, yes, unfortunately I speak from experience).
Back on my first visit to the Princess Andromeda, my old enemy Luke had kept some dazed tourists on board for show, shrouded in Mist so they didn't realise they were on a monster-infested ship. Now, there was absolutely no sign of any tourists. I hated to think what might have happened to them, but I really doubted that they'd been allowed to return home with their bingo winnings.
I reached the promenade, a big shopping mall that took up the whole middle of the ship, and I stopped cold. In the middle of the courtyard stood a fountain.
No, the fountain wasn't what made me stop cold.
In the fountain squatted a giant crab.
I'm not talking 'giant' like $7.99 all-you-can-eat Alaskan king crab. I'm talking 'giant' like bigger than the freaking fountain. The monster rose three metres out of the water. Its shell was mottled blue and green, its pincers longer than my body.
If you've ever seen a crab's mouth, all foamy and gross with whiskers and snapping bits, you can imagine this one didn't look any better blown up to billboard size. Its beady black eyes were trained on me, and I could see intelligence in them – and hate. The fact that I was the son of the sea god was not going to win me any points with Mr Crabby.
"FFFFffffffff," it hissed, sea foam dripping from its mouth. The smell coming off it was like a garbage can full of fish sticks that had been sitting in the sun all week.
Alarms blared. Soon I was going to have lots of company and I had to keep moving.
"Hey, crabby." I inched around the edge of the courtyard. "I'm just gonna scoot around you so –"
The crab moved with such amazing speed. It scuttled out of the fountain and came straight at me, pincers snapping. I dived into a gift shop, ploughing through a rack of T-shirts. A crab pincer smashed the glass walls to pieces and raked across the room. I dashed back outside, breathing heavily, but Mr Crabby turned and followed.
"There!" a voice yelled from a balcony above me. "Intruder!"
If I had wanted to create a distraction, I had certainly succeeded, but this wasn't where I wanted to fight. If I got pinned down in the centre of the ship, I was crab chow.
The demonic crustacean lunged at me. I sliced with Riptide, taking off the tip of its claw. It hissed and foamed, but it seemed more irritated then hurt.
I tried to remember anything from the old stories that might help with this thing. Annabeth had told me about a monster crab – something about Hercules crushing it under his foot? Well, that was going to work wonders, I wondered how the crab would appreciate a Reebok imprint on it's shell, coz the damn thing was a Hades of a lot bigger than my shoes.
Then a weird thought came to me. Last Christmas, my mom and I had brought Paul Blofis to our old cabin at Montauk, where we'd been going forever. Paul had taken me crabbing, and when he'd brought up a net full of the things, he'd shown me how crabs have a chink in their armour, right in the middle of their ugly bellies.
The only problem here was me getting to that ugly belly. Not that I was particularly keen on getting there, but I had to get away from the centre of the ship, and rendezvous with Beckendorf.
I glanced at the fountain, then the marble floor, already slick from scuttling crab tracks. I held out my hand, and the fountain exploded. Water sprayed everywhere, three stories high, dousing the balconies and the elevators and the windows of the shop. The crab didn't care. It loved water. It came at me sideways, snapping and hissing, and I ran straight at it, screaming, "AHHHHHHHHH!"
Just before we collided, I hit the ground baseball-style and slid on the soaking marble floor straight under the creature. It was like sliding under a seven-ton armoured vehicle. All the crab had to do was sit and squash me, but before it realised what was going on, I jabbed Riptide into the chink in its armour, let go of the hilt and pushed myself out the other side.
The monster shuddered and hissed. Its eyes dissolved. Its shell turned bright red as its insides evaporated. The empty shell crashed to the floor in a massive heap.
I didn't have time to admire my handiwork, but I silently thanked Paul for the info on how to defeat giant killer crabs. I ran for the nearest stairs while all around me monsters and demigods shouted orders and strapped on their weapons. I was empty-handed for now. But Riptide, being magic, would appear back in my pocket sooner or later, but for now it was stuck somewhere under the wreckage of the crab, and I had no time to retrieve it.
In the elevator foyer on deck eight, a couple of dracaenae slithered across my path. From the waist up, they were women with green scaly skin, yellow eyes and forked tongues. From the waist down they had double snake trunks instead of legs. They held up spears and weighted nets, and I knew from experience they could use them.
"What isss thissss?" one said. "A prize for Kronosss!"
I wasn't in the mood to play break-the-sneak, but in front of me was a stand with a model of the ship, like a YOU ARE HERE display. I ripped the model off the pedestal and hurled it at the first dracaena. The boat smacked her in the face and she went down with the ship. I jumped over her, grabbed her friend's spear and swung her around. She slammed into the elevator and I kept running towards the front of the ship.
"Get him!" she screamed.
Hellhounds bayed. An arrow from somewhere whizzed past my face and impaled itself in the mahogany-panelled wall of the stairwell, but I didn't care, I was on a mission, and I was focused on accomplishing it, I had to keep the monsters away from Beckendorf, and give him enough time to rig the charges.
This mission had to be a success; otherwise, New York would be overrun.
As I was running up the stairwell, a kid charged down. He looked like he had only just woken up from a nap. His armour was only half on. He drew his sword and yelled, "Kronos!" but he sounded terrified, not angry. He couldn't have been more than twelve – around the same age I was when I first arrived at Camp Half-Blood.
That thought depressed me. This kid was brainwashed – trained to hate the gods and lash out because he'd been born half-Olympian. Kronos was using him, and yet the kid thought I was his enemy.
No way was I going to hurt him. I didn't need a weapon for this. I stepped inside his strike and grabbed his wrist, slamming it against the wall. His sword clattered out of his hand.
Then I did something I probably shouldn't have, I didn't plan on doing it, but I couldn't stand to see brainwashed demigods die because they didn't know any better. It almost definitely jeopardized our mission and it was incredibly stupid of me, but I couldn't help it.
"If you want to live," I warned him, "get off this ship now. Tell the other demigods." Then I shoved him down the stairs and sent him tumbling to the next floor.
I kept climbing.
Bad memories: a hallway ran past the cafeteria. Annabeth, my half-brother Tyson and I had sneaked through here three years ago on my first visit.
I burst outside onto the main deck. Off the port bow, the sky was darkening from purple to black. A swimming pool glowed between two glass towers with more balconies and restaurant decks. The whole upper ship seemed eerily deserted.
All I had to do was cross to the other side. Then I could take the staircase down to the helipad – our emergency rendezvous point. With any luck, Beckendorf would meet me there. We'd jump into the sea. My water powers would protect us both, and we'd detonate the charges from a quarter of a mile away.
Of course, our luck is just never that perfect.
I was halfway across the deck when the sound of a voice made me freeze.
"You're late, Percy."
Luke stood on the balcony above me, a smile on his scarred face. He wore jeans, a white T-shirt and flip-flops, like he was just a normal college-aged guy, but his eyes told the truth. They were solid gold.
"We've been expecting you for days." At first he sounded normal, like Luke. But then his face twitched. A shudder passed through his body like he'd just drunk something really nasty. His voice became heavier, ancient and powerful – the voice of the Titan lord Kronos. The words scraped down my spine like a knife blade.
"Come, bow before me," he said, a small smirk on his face.
"Yeah, that'll happen," I muttered back, glaring up at Luke's face.
Laistrygonian giants filed out on either side of the swimming pool, as if they'd been waiting for a cue. Each was two and a half metres tall with tattooed arms, leather armour and spiked clubs. Demigod archers appeared on the roof above Luke. Two hellhounds leaped down from the opposite balcony and snarled at me. Within seconds, I was surrounded. A trap: there's no way they could've got into position so fast unless they knew I was coming.
I looked up at Luke and anger boiled inside me. I didn't know if Luke's consciousness was even still alive inside that body. Maybe, the way his voice had changed… or maybe it was just Kronos adapting to his new form. I told myself that it didn't matter. Luke had been twisted and evil long before Kronos possessed him.
A voice in my head said: I have to fight him eventually. Why not now?
According to that big prophecy, I was supposed to make a choice that saved or destroyed the world when I was sixteen. That was only fourteen days away. Why not now? If I really had the power, what difference would a couple of weeks make? I could end this threat right here by taking down Kronos. Hey, I'd fought monsters and gods before.
As if reading my thoughts, Luke's smirk grew bigger. No. He was Kronos. I needed to remember that.
"Come forward," he said, "if you dare."
The crowd of monsters parted. I moved up the stairs, my heart pounding. I was sure somebody would stab me in the back, but they let me pass. I felt my pocket and found my pen waiting. I uncapped it and Riptide grew into a sword.
Kronos's weapon appeared in his hands – a two-metre-long scythe, half celestial bronze, half mortal steel. Just looking at the thing made my knees turn to Jell-O. But before I could change my mind I charged.
Time slowed down. I mean literally slowed down, because Kronos had that power. I felt like I was moving through syrup. My arms were so heavy I could barely raise my sword. Kronos smiled, swirling his scythe at normal speed and waiting for me to creep towards my death.
I tried to fight his magic. I concentrated on the sea around me – the source of my power. I'd got better at channelling it over the years, but now nothing seemed to happen.
I took another slow step forward. Giants jeered. Dracaenae hissed with laugher.
Hey, ocean, I pleaded. Any day now would be good.
Suddenly there was a wrenching pain in my gut. The entire boat lurched sideways, throwing monsters off their feet. Four thousand gallons of salt water surged out of the swimming pool, dousing me and Kronos and everyone on the deck. The water revitalised me, breaking the time spell, and I lunged forward.
I struck at Kronos but I was still too slow. I made the mistake of looking at his face – Luke's face, a guy who was once my friend. As much as I hated him, it was hard to kill him.
Kronos had no such hesitation. He sliced downward with his scythe. I leaped back and the evil blade missed by a millimetre, cutting a gash in the deck right between my feet.
I kicked Kronos in the chest. He stumbled backwards, but he was heavier than Luke should've been. It was like kicking a refrigerator.
Kronos swung his scythe again. I intercepted with Riptide, but his strike was so powerful my blade could only deflect it. The edge of the scythe shaved off my shirtsleeve and grazed my arm. It shouldn't have been a serious cut, but the entire side of my body exploded with pain. I remembered what a sea-demon had once said about Kronos's scythe: Careful, fool. One touch, and the blade will sever your soul from your body. Now I understood what he meant. I wasn't just losing blood. I could feel my strength, my will, my identity draining away.
I stumbled backwards, switched my sword to my left hand and lunged desperately. My blade should've run him through, but it deflected off his stomach like I was hitting solid marble. There was no way he should've survived that.
Kronos laughed. "A poor performance, Percy Jackson. Luke tells me you were never his match at swordplay."
My vision started to blur. I knew I didn't have much time.
"Luke had a big head," I said. "But at least it was his head."
"A shame to kill you now," Kronos mused, "before the final plans unfold. I would love to see the terror in your eyes when I realise how I will destroy Olympus. Even your own flesh and blood won't be standing alongside you then, I made sure to that many years ago."
The last part of his speech didn't register in my head properly. Flesh and blood? The only flesh and blood relatives I had in New York was my mother. And there was no way in Tartarus I was letting her get involved in the war. Tyson was my half-brother on my dad's side, and gods don't technically count as flesh and blood, as they don't really have DNA. Kronos's statement severely confused me, but I pushed it aside to focus on later.
"You'll never get this boat to Manhattan," I murmured, black spots dancing in my vision.
"Oh? And why would that be?" Kronos's golden eyes glittered. His face – Luke's face – seemed like a mask, unnatural and lit from behind by some evil power. "Perhaps you are counting on your friend with the explosives?"
He looked down at the pool and called, "Nakamura!"
A teenage guy in full Greek armour pushed through the crowd. His left eye was covered with a black patch. I knew him, of course: Ethan Nakamura, the son of Nemesis.
I'd saved his life in the Labyrinth last summer and, in return, the little punk helped Kronos come back to life.
"Success, my lord," Ethan called. "We found him just as we were told."
He clapped his hands and two giants lumbered forward, dragging Charles Beckendorf between them. My heart almost stopped. Beckendorf had a swollen eye and cuts all over his face and arms. His armour was gone and his shirt was almost torn off.
"No!" I yelled.
Beckendorf met my eyes. He glanced at his watch hand like he was trying to tell me something. His watch. They hadn't taken it yet, and that was the detonator. Was it possible the explosives were armed? Surely the monsters would've dismantled them right away.
"We found him amidships," one of the giants said, "trying to sneak into the engine room. Can we eat him now?"
"Soon." Kronos scowled at Ethan. "Are you sure he didn't set the explosives?"
"He was going towards the engine room, my lord."
"How do you know that?"
"Er…" Ethan shifted uncomfortably. "He was heading in that direction. And he told us. His bag is still full of explosives."
Slowly, I began to understand. Beckendorf had fooled them. When he'd realised he was going to be captured, he turned to make it look like he was going the other way. He'd convinced them he hadn't made it to the engine room yet. The Greek fire might still be primed! But that didn't do us any good unless we could get off the ship and detonate it.
Kronos hesitated.
Buy the story, I prayed. The pain in my arm was so bad now I could barely stand.
"Open his bag," Kronos ordered.
One of the giants ripped the explosives satchel from Beckendorf's shoulders. He peered inside, grunted and turned it upside down. Panicked monsters surged backwards. If the bag really had been full of Greek fire jars, we would've all blown up. But what fell out were a dozen cans of peaches.
I could hear Kronos breathing, trying to control his anger.
"Did you, perhaps, send someone to actually CHECK THE ENGINE ROOM?"
Ethan scrambled back in terror, then turned on his heels and ran.
I cursed silently. Now we had only minutes before the bombs were disarmed. I caught Beckendorf's eyes again and asked a silent question, hoping he would understand: How long?
He cupped his fingers and thumb, making a circle, ZERO. There was no delay on the timer at all. If he managed to press the detonator button, the ship would blow at once. We'd never be able to get far enough away before using it. The monsters would kill us first, or disarm the explosives, or both.
Kronos turned towards me with a crooked smile.
"You'll have to excuse my incompetent help, Percy Jackson, but it doesn't matter. We have you now. And soon, I'll have an even greater servant in my arsenal, someone you should have known about, if not for the gods." For a moment, Kronos's eyes flashed blue – like Luke's – and a look of anger crossed his face, but it faded just as quickly as it came on.
Suddenly, an image flashed in my mind, blocking out my vision. It was a face, a boy's, possibly the same age as me, and he looked almost the same as me. He had dark brown hair instead of black, one of his eyes was a deep sea green, like mine, but the other kept flashing between electric blue, black, and occasionally, gold.
Just as quickly as the image blocked out my vision, it disappeared.
My head throbbed, and I sluggishly held a hand up to it.
I could see Kronos smirking at me.
"He's coming closer to release," Kronos said. "If you are seeing him now, his presence is getting closer."
What? I thought, who's getting closer to release?
"But that doesn't matter for now," Kronos added, dismissively waving a hand. "We have known you were coming for weeks."
He held out his hand and dangled a little silver bracelet with a scythe charm – the Titan lord's symbol.
The wound in my arm and the headache from the vision was severely sapping my ability to think, but I muttered, "Communication device… spy at camp."
Kronos chuckled. "You can't count of friends… or gods for that matter. They will always let you down. Luke learned that lesson the hard way. Now drop your sword and surrender to me, or your friend dies."
I swallowed. One of the giants had his hand around Beckendorf's neck. I was in no shape to rescue him and, even if I tried, he would die before I got there. We both would.
Beckendorf mouthed one word: Go.
I shook my head. I couldn't just leave him.
The second giant was still rummaging through the peach cans, which meant Beckendorf's left arm was free. He raised it slowly – towards the watch on his right wrist.
I wanted to scream, NO!
Then down by the swimming pool one of the dracaenae hissed, "What isss he doing? What isss on hisss wrissst?"
Beckendorf closed his eyes tight and brought his hand up to his watch.
I had no choice. I threw my sword like a javelin at Kronos. It bounced harmlessly off his chest, but it did startle him. I pushed through a crowd of monsters and jumped off the side of the ship – towards the water thirty metres below.
I heard rumbling deep in the ship. Monsters yelled at me from above. A spear sailed past my ear. An arrow pierced my thigh, but I barely had time to register the pain. I plunged into the sea and willed the currents to take me far, far away – fifty metres, a hundred metres.
Even from a distance, the explosion shook the world. Heat seared the back of my head. The Princess Andromeda blew up from both sides, a massive fireball of green flame roiling into the dark sky, consuming everything.
Beckendorf, I thought.
Then I blacked out and sank like an anchor towards the bottom of the sea, the last thing I saw was the image of the boys face.
Who are you? EOCSo, what did you think? I've tried my hardest to add in bits of my storyline, and not drift too far from the original as of yet, but as the chapters go on, it should split away from the canon.
Every read and review is appreciated!
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