Hello there, gods, half-bloods and friends, welcome to the next chapter of The God Hunter.
Hope you enjoy and now story time.
"You are in so much trouble." Clarisse said.
She had just finished a ship tour the group didn't want, through dark rooms overcrowded with dead sailors. She showed them the coal bunker, the boilers and engine, which huffed and groaned like it would explode any minute. The pilot house and the powder magazine and gunnery deck, Clarisse's favorite.
Everywhere they went, dead Confederate sailors stared at them, their ghostly bearded faces shimmering over their skulls. They approved of Annabeth because she told them she was from Virginia. They were interested in Percy, too, because his name was Jackson, like the Southern general, but then he ruined it by telling them he was from New York.
They all hissed and muttered curses about Yankees.
Tyson was terrified of them. All through the tour, he insisted Annabeth hold his hand, which she didn't look too thrilled about and she was thankful for Matt when he suggested Tyson should just stay close to him, which did make the Cyclops feel better.
Finally, they were escorted to dinner. The CSS Birmingham captain's quarters were about the size of a walk-in closet, but still much bigger than any other room on board. The table was set with white linen and china. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, and Dr. Peppers were served by skeletal crewmen.
"Tantalus expelled you for eternity." Clarisse told them smugly, "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."
"I would like to see him try." Matt scoffed, putting his hands in his pockets.
"Did they give you this ship?" Percy interrupted her.
"Course not." Clarisse huffed, "My father did."
"Ares?" Matt said surprised, "He's alive?"
Clarisse sneered. "Yes he is, and he's not very pleased with you." she told him, "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..."
"If that's the case, wouldn't Ares be cursed?" Matt said smugly, "Because he got defeated by a thirteen year old?"
"Keep talking like that, Hauer." Clarisse hissed at him, "I will have to do some rework to your pretty face..."
"Hold on." Matt said holding up a hand as he tilted his head, "You think I'm pretty?"
Clarisse gritted her teeth in annoyance but she didn't say anything as Annabeth spoke up, "Clarisse, Luke might be after the Fleece, too." she said, "We saw him. He's got the coordinates and he's heading south. He has a cruise ship full of monsters..."
"Good!" Clarisse said, "I'll blow him out of the water."
"...Not actually a bad idea." Matt noted
This made the Daughter of Ares do a double take, "Now I'm having second thoughts..." Clarisse muttered.
"This is no time for jokes!" Annabeth said, "We have to combine forces. Let us help you..."
"No!" Clarisse shouted as she pounded the table, "This is my quest, smart girl! Finally I get to be the hero, and you three will not steal my chance!"
"Where are your cabin mates?" Percy said, "You were allowed to take two to three friends with you, weren't you?"
"They didn't... I let them stay behind." Clarisse told them, "To protect the camp."
"Sure." Matt said with a shrug, "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"Shut up, Pretty Boy!" she protested, "I don't need them! Or you!"
"There she goes again." Matt said gesturing at her, "Your really giving me mixed messenges."
"Not now Matt!" Percy said before turning to her, "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..." Clarisse said, but she stopped herself.
"What?" Percy said, "What did the Oracle tell you?"
"Nothing." Clarisse said as her ears turned pink, "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..."
"So we're prisoners?" Annabeth asked.
"Guests. For now." Clarisse said as she propped her feet up on the white linen tablecloth and opened another Dr. Pepper, "Captain, take them below. Assign them hammocks on the berth deck. If they don't mind their manners, show them how we deal with enemy spies."
The moment Matt laid down, he found himself waking up in the now familiar blue version of his home. Sitting up, he had expected Asherah to be waiting in his dad's chair, but instead he found it empty.
Getting off the couch, he looked around but didn't saw her anywhere in the living room. Walking across the room, he looked out the window with a view of the backyard where he found the woman sitting in a plastic lawn chair, just gazing up at the sky.
"There you are." Matt said after exiting the house as he walked up to her.
"Matt, when did you..." she said surprised, looking over her shoulder, "My apology, it wasn't my intention to take you from your dreams. I have had a lot on my mind. Please, take a seat. Stay a while." she gestured to an empty chair next to her, which Matt was sure hadn't been there a second ago.
"Something bothering you?" Matt said as he took a seat, "Maybe I can help."
"Your doing plenty already." she assured him, "I've just been observing, taking stock in the ally's and rivals your making. Which could be useful, and which one would be a problem down the line."
"Oh, gossip time! Please, do tell." Matt said cheerfully, "Share your thoughts."
"Take your rival Clarisse for example." she said.
"I wouldn't call her my rival." Matt said, "More like a girl who wants to beat me bloody, or have sex with me. Or both, she gives mixed signals."
"That she does." Asherah said with a small laugh, "She has an inability to cooperate with others. She seeks fame and glory, while she's also secretly afraid of disappointing her father and much like your friend Perseus, is a sucker for her father's good opinion."
"Interesting." Matt said, happy he was cheering her up with just some talking, "Anything about my friends?"
"I have noticed your affinity for Annabeth Chase. She's an extreme know-it-all, but worse than that, her pride will never allow her to face the fact she can't do everything. She's one to think that she can solve every problem that she has and because she thinks that she can fix every problem, she never really lets them go and move on. Like how she will never stop believing that her friend can be redeemed, no matter how many times he has or will try to kill her."
"Her friend?" he said, feeling bile rise up, "You mean Luke?"
"Yes, that is his name." Asherah said before averting her gaze, "Children... Can be difficult."
"Sounds like you speak from experience." Matt said, resting back in his chair.
"I do..." Asherah admitted, a hint of sadness in her eyes, "And I miss them dearly."
"That's a fact about you I didn't knew before." Matt said with a supportive smile, "I just realized I don't know much about you... So come on! Spill! Tell me something interesting."
"There isn't much to tell that is important or that you don't already know... But I used to have a family, similar to many others." Asherah said as she leaned forward, "A Mother, a Father and six beautiful children, two girls and four boys. But one day, my husband become distant from them and me, and started to spend all his time in his Garden working on a new project... My eldest became unruly and then he started a rebellion. He failed and in retaliation my husband wanted to destroy him. I pleaded with my husband to spare our son from destruction, instead he should be banished."
"Asherah, you... You did the right thing." Matt said approvingly, "You saved his life."
"Did I? I thought banishment would be better but... Maybe I could have done more?" Asherah said unsure of herself, "Maybe I could have visited him before my own banishment... Matt, you are needed."
Before he could speak, Matt woke up to alarm bells ringing throughout the ship. The captain's gravelly voice: "All hands on deck! Find Lady Clarisse! Where is that girl?"
Then his ghostly face appeared above Matt. "Get up, Blondie." he said, "Your friends are already above. We are approaching the entrance."
"Who's entrance are we entering?" Matt said.
He gave a skeletal smile. "The Sea of Monsters, of course."
"Obviously." Matt muttered.
Matt was on his way upstairs when something caught his attention. A presence nearby, something familiar and unpleasant. He crept to the edge of the ventilation grate and peered down into the boiler deck.
Clarisse was standing right below, talking to an image that shimmered in the steam from the boilers, a muscular man in black leather biker clothes, with a military haircut, red-tinted sunglasses, and a knife strapped to his side.
It was Ares, the god of war.
"I don't want excuses, little girl!" he growled, "You don't want to see me mad, do you?"
"N-No, father." Clarisse mumbled.
"No, father." Ares mimicked, "You're pathetic. I should've let one of my sons take this quest."
"I'll succeed!" Clarisse promised, her voice trembling, "I'll make you proud."
"You'd better. You asked me for this quest, girl." he warned, "If you let Hauer steal it from you..."
"But the Oracle said..."
"I don't care what it said!" Ares bellowed with such force that his image shimmered, "You will succeed. And if you don't..." He raised his fist. Even though he was only a figure in the steam, Clarisse flinched.
Having seen enough, Matt took his leave and began to make his way upstairs. "What is this feeling?" Matt thought, "Am I feeling pity for Clarisse?... I must be getting sick."
Told you, she's desperate for her father's approval.
"Yes, I will never question your wisdom again."
Sure, be a sarcasm about it. But I wanted to extend my thanks to you, Matt. Just sitting around and having a simple talk with you... It was refreshing.
"Hey, no problem. That's what friends are for." Matt thought, "We should do this more often."
Indeed we should.
Matt went upstairs to join Percy, Annabeth and Tyson on the spar deck.
"What's wrong?" Annabeth asked.
"Oh, had a deep talk with the woman living inside my head." Matt said casually which he was sure his friends wouldn't believe him about.
Clarisse came up the stairs right after Matt.
She grabbed a pair of binoculars from a zombie officer and peered toward the horizon. "At last. Captain, full steam ahead!"
They looked in the same direction as she was, but much couldn't be seen as the sky was overcast. The air was hazy and humid, like steam from an iron. If one would look really hard, one could make out a couple of dark fuzzy splotches in the distance.
The engine groaned as they increased speed.
Tyson muttered nervously, "Too much strain on the pistons. Not meant for deep water."
After a few more minutes, the dark splotches ahead of came into focus. To the north, a huge mass of rock rose out of the sea, an island with cliffs at least a hundred feet tall. About half a mile south of that, the other patch of darkness was a storm brewing. The sky and sea boiled together in a roaring mass.
"Hurricane?" Annabeth said.
"No." Clarisse said, "Charybdis."
Annabeth paled, "Are you crazy?" she yelled.
"...Have you met Clarisse?" Matt said dryly.
"Fuck you Hauer." Clarisse snarled.
"You wish." he said as he rolled his eyes, "Whore."
"This is our only way into the Sea of Monsters." Clarisse said, pointed to the top of the cliffs, "Straight between Charybdis and her sister Scylla."
"What do you mean the only way?" Percy said gesture to the side of the boat, "The sea is wide open! Just sail around them."
Clarisse rolled her eyes, "Don't you know anything?" she said, "If I tried to sail around them, they would just appear in my path again. If you want to get into the Sea of Monsters, you have to sail through them."
"What about the Clashing Rocks?" Annabeth said, "That's another gateway. Jason used it."
"I can't blow apart rocks with my cannons." Clarisse said, "Monsters, on the other hand..."
"Matt has a point." Annabeth said, "You are crazy!"
"Watch and learn, Wise Girl." Clarisse said as she turned to the captain, "Set course for Charybdis!"
The engine groaned, the iron plating rattled, and the ship began to pick up speed.
"Hey, Charybdis sucks up the sea." Percy said, "Isn't that the story?"
"And spits it back out again, yeah." Clarisse told him.
"What about the other one?" Matt said.
"Scylla? She lives in a cave, up on those cliffs." Clarisse said, "If we get too close, her snaky heads will come down and start plucking sailors off the ship."
"Choose Scylla then." Percy said, "Everybody goes below deck and we chug right past."
"No! If Scylla doesn't get her easy meat, she might pick up the whole ship. Besides, she's too high to make a good target. My cannons can't shoot straight up. Charybdis just sits there at the center of her whirlwind. We're going to steam straight toward her, train our guns on her, and blow her to Tartarus!"
Clarisse said it with such relish one would almost be willing to believe her.
The engine hummed. The boilers were heating up so much the deck was getting warm beneath their feet. The smokestacks billowed, the red Ares flag whipped in the wind.
As they got closer to the monsters, the sound of Charybdis got louder and louder, a horrible wet roar like the galaxy's biggest toilet being flushed. Every time Charybdis inhaled, the ship shuddered and lurched forward. Every time she exhaled, they rose in the water and were buffeted by ten-foot waves.
Undead sailors calmly went about their business on the spar deck. Probably not bothered by the fact that they couldn't die a second time.
Annabeth was gripping the rail, "You still have your thermos full of wind?" she said to Percy.
"Yeah, I do. But it's too dangerous to use with a whirlpool like that." Percy said, "More wind might just make things worse."
"How about you use what your dad gave you?" Matt said, "Use your water powers."
Percy closed my eyes and he began to concentrate.
But nothing happened.
"I-I can't." he said miserably.
"We need a backup plan." Annabeth said.
"Let's throw Matt at them." Percy suggested, "He fights a monster, it dies, and we are safe."
"Hey, my favorite idiot has a pretty good idea." Matt said.
"Another plan, one that doesn't involve sending Matt to his death." Annabeth said, "Because Clarisse's plan isn't going to work."
"Annabeth is right." Tyson said, "Engine's no good."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Pressure." Tyson said, "Pistons need fixing."
Before he could explain more, the cosmic toilet flushed with a mighty roar! The ship lurched forward and before Percy could be thrown to the deck, Matt grabbed him by his upper arm. They were in the whirlpool.
The sea churned around them, waves crashing over the deck. The iron plating was now so hot it steamed.
"Full reverse!" Clarisse screamed above the noise, "Get us within firing range! Make ready starboard cannons!"
Dead Confederates rushed back and forth. The propeller grinded into reverse, trying to slow the ship, but they kept sliding toward the center of the vortex. A zombie sailor burst out of the hold and ran to Clarisse. His gray uniform was smoking and his beard was on fire.
"Boiler room overheating, ma'am! She's going to blow!"
"Well, get down there and fix it!" Clarisse ordered.
"Can't!" the sailor yelled, "We're vaporizing in the heat."
Clarisse pounded the side of the casemate, "All I need is a few more minutes! Just enough to get in range!" she told them.
"We're going in too fast." the captain said grimly, "Prepare yourself for death."
"No!" Tyson bellowed, "I can fix it."
Clarisse looked at him incredulously.
"Yeah, he's a Cyclops." Annabeth said, "He's immune to fire. And he knows mechanics."
"Go!" Clarisse yelled.
"Tyson, no!" Percy said as he grabbed Tyson's arm, "It's too dangerous!"
But he patted his hand, "Only way, brother." Tyson said.
"Big T." Matt said, patting his shoulder, "You got this."
Tyson's expression was determined, confident, even, not wishing to let his brother and friends down. "I'll be back." he said giving a thumbs up before he followed the smoldering sailor down the hatch.
The ship lurched again and Charybdis appeared, though only a few hundred yards away and through a swirl of mist and smoke and water. A black crag of coral with a fig tree clinging to the top, an oddly peaceful thing in the middle of a maelstrom. All around it, water curved into a funnel, like light around a black hole.
Anchored to the reef just below the waterline, an enormous mouth with slimy lips and mossy teeth the size of rowboats. And worse, the teeth had braces, bands of corroded scummy metal with pieces of fish and driftwood and floating garbage stuck between them.
Charybdis was an orthodontist's nightmare. She was nothing but a huge black maw with bad teeth alignment and a serious overbite. The entire sea around her was sucked into the void, sharks, schools of fish, a giant squid and in a few seconds, the CSS Birmingham would be next.
"Lady Clarisse." the captain shouted, "Starboard and forward guns are in range!"
"Fire!" Clarisse ordered.
Three rounds were blasted into the monster's maw, but only one blew off the edge of an incisor.
Another disappeared into her gullet. The third hit one of Charybdis's retaining bands and shot back, snapping the Ares flag off its pole.
"Again!" Clarisse ordered.
The gunners reloaded, but it would be pointless. They would have to pound the monster a hundred more times to do any real damage, and time wasn't on their side in that regard.
Then the vibrations in the deck changed. The hum of the engine got stronger and steadier. The ship shuddered and they started pulling away from the mouth.
"Big T!" Matt said with a smile, "You did it!"
"Wait!" Clarisse said, "We need to stay close!"
"We'll die!" Percy said, "We have to move away!"
The ship fought against the suction, the broken Ares flag raced past and lodged in Charybdis's braces. They weren't making much progress, but at least they were holding their own. Tyson had somehow given them just enough juice to keep the ship from being sucked in.
Suddenly, the mouth snapped shut, the sea died to absolute calm and the water washed over Charybdis.
Then, just as quickly as it had closed, the mouth exploded open, spitting out a wall of water, ejecting everything inedible, including the cannonballs, one of which slammed into the side of the CSS Birmingham with a ding like the bell on a carnival game.
Thrown backward on a wave that must've been forty feet high. The only reason the ship didn't capsize was because Percy was using all his willpower to keep the waves under control. But even he had his limits as they were still spinning out of control, hurtling toward the cliffs on the opposite side of the strait.
Another smoldering sailor burst out of the hold. He stumbled into Clarisse, almost knocking them both overboard. "The engine is about to blow!"
"Where's Tyson?" Matt demanded.
"Still down there." the sailor said, "Holding it together somehow, though I don't know for how much longer."
The captain said, "We have to abandon ship."
"No!" Clarisse yelled.
"We have no choice, milady." the captain said, "The hull is already cracking apart! She can't..."
He never finished his sentence. Quick as lightning, something brown and green shot from the sky, snatched up the captain, and lifted him away. All that was left were his leather boots.
"Scylla!" a sailor yelled, as another column of reptilian flesh shot from the cliffs and snapped him up.
It happened so fast it was like watching a laser beam rather than a monster.
"Get to the life boats!" Matt yelled, calling his sword.
"They'll never get clear of the cliffs." Clarisse said, "We'll all be eaten."
"We don't have any other options." Matt shouted before turning to his friend, "Annabeth, get the boats ready. Percy give her the thermos, and follow me. We're getting Tyson."
"You can't!" she said, "The heat will kill you!"
"Annabeth, I'm immoral." Matt said with a wink, "Remember it for once."
"You mean immortal!" she shouted.
"That too!" he shouted back.
The duo ran for the boiler room hatch, when suddenly Percy wasn't running next to him anymore.
Scylla had somehow caught Percy by the knapsack, and was lifting him up toward her lair.
The last thing Matt saw was Percy being dropped before an intense heat enveloped him as he was thrown off the deck, the CSS Birmingham exploded.
The engine room blew, sending chunks of ironclad flying in either direction like a fiery set of wings.
The lifeboats had managed to get away from the ship, but not very far. Flaming wreckage was raining down. Clarisse and Annabeth would either be smashed or burned or pulled to the bottom by the force of the sinking hull, and that was thinking optimistically, assuming they got away from Scylla.
Matt spun in the air, got clonked on the head by something hard, and hit the water with a crash that would've broken every bone in his body if he had been a normal human.
The last thing Matt remembered was sinking in a burning sea before everything went dark.
There we go, another chapter, hope you enjoyed. Many thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, favorite, or follows this story.
I liked writing this chapter because of the little heart-to-heart Matt had with Ash. I'm kind of trying to go for a mother/son relationship with them. As for when Asherah get's released from her prison? Somewhere at the end of The God Hunter: Part II.
Speaking of sequels, apparently there is another sequel series called The Senior Years (I just recently found out about them). I'm going to have to read them but... The God Hunter: Part III?
But that is later and this is now. So take care of yourself, get some rest, drink plenty of water and I will see you people next time.