Rick Riordan
The Sea Monsters - 02
our own. Tyson had somehow given us just enough juice to keep the ship from being sucked in.
Suddenly, the mouth snapped shut. The sea died to absolute calm. 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 our cannonballs, one of which slammed into the side of the
CSS Birmingham with a ding like the bell on a carnival game.
We were thrown backward on a wave that must've been forty feet high. I used all of my
willpower to keep the ship from capsizing, but we 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?" I 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, m'lady. 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. I couldn't even
make out the thing's face, just a flash of teeth and scales.
I uncapped Riptide and tried to swipe at the monster as it carried off another deckhand, but I
was way too slow.
"Everyone get below!" I yelled.
"We can't!" Clarisse drew her own sword. "Below deck is in flames."
"Lifeboats!" Annabeth said. "Quick!"
"They'll never get clear of the cliffs," Clarisse said. "We'll all be eaten."
"We have to try. Percy, the thermos."
"I can't leave Tyson!"
"We have to get the boats ready!"
Clarisse took Annabeth's command. She and a few of her undead sailors uncovered one of
the two emergency rowboats while Scylla's heads rained from the sky like a meteor shower with
teeth, picking off Confederate sailors one after another.
"Get the other boat." I threw Annabeth the thermos. "I'll get Tyson."
"You can't!" she said. "The heat will kill you!"
I didn't listen. I ran for the boiler room hatch, when suddenly my feet weren't touching the
deck anymore. I was flying straight up, the wind whistling in my ears, the side of the cliff only inches
from my face.
Scylla had somehow caught me by the knapsack, and was lifting me up toward her lair.
Without thinking, I swung my sword behind me and managed to jab the thing in her beady yellow
eye. She grunted and dropped me.
The fall would've been bad enough, considering I was a hundred feet in the air. But as I fell,
the CSS Birmingham exploded below me.
KAROOM!
The engine room blew, sending chunks of ironclad flying in either direction like a fiery set of
wings.
"Tyson!" I yelled.
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.
Then I heard a different kind of explosion—the sound of Hermes's magic thermos being
opened a little too far. White sheets of wind blasted in every direction, scattering the lifeboats, lifting
me out of my free fall and propelling me across the ocean.
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