The Sea of Monsters

birthday?
    I mean, I knew Chiron had received a prophecy from the Oracle many years ago. I knew part of it was 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. “Percy is not a fool!”
    Before I could stop him, he charged Luke. His fists came down toward Luke’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,” Luke said. “Looks like my grizzly friends together are more than a match for your strength. Maybe I should let them—”
    “Luke,” I cut in. “Listen to me. Your father sent us.”
    His face turned the color of pepperoni. “Don’t— even — mention him.”
    “He told us to take this boat. I thought it was just for a ride, but he sent us here to find you. He told me he won’t give up on you, no matter how angry you are.”
    “ Angry? ” Luke roared. “ Give up on me? He abandoned me, Percy! I want Olympus destroyed! Every throne crushed to rubble! You tell Hermes it’s going to happen, too. Each time a half-blood joins us, the Olympians grow weaker and we grow stronger. He grows stronger.” Luke pointed to the gold sarcophagus.
    The box creeped me out, but I was determined not to show it. “So?” I demanded. “What’s so special . . .”
    Then it hit me, what might be inside the sarcophagus. The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees. “Whoa, you don’t mean—”
    “He is re-forming,” Luke said. “Little by little, we’re calling his life force out of the pit. With every recruit who pledges our cause, another small piece appears—”
    “That’s disgusting!” Annabeth said.
    Luke sneered at her. “Your mother was born from Zeus’s split skull, Annabeth. I wouldn’t talk. Soon there will be enough of the titan lord so that we can make him whole again. We will piece together a new body for him, a work worthy of the forges of Hephaestus.”
    “You’re insane,” Annabeth said.
    “Join us and you’ll be rewarded. We have powerful friends, sponsors rich enough to buy this cruise ship and much more. Percy, your mother will never have to work again. You can buy her a mansion. You can have power, fame—whatever you want. Annabeth, you can realize your dream of being an architect. You can build a monument to last a thousand years. A temple to the lords of the next age!”
    “Go to Tartarus,” she said.
    Luke sighed. “A shame.”
    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.
    Luke 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,” Luke said. He glanced back at the golden casket, as if something were troubling him. “Agrius, stay 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 Orieus’s javelin poking me in the back, I thought about what Luke 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