Wow, so this is like a month late... Sorry guys, seriously. I was recently plagued with some health issues, though, and it took alot of my time and energy to deal with them. I haven't been feeling great at all, and with that I also didn't have the energy or inspiration to write. But I'm feeling better now and I thought you guys deserved a little Halloween treat :D

Just a warning, though, the next couple of chapters probably won't be updated regularly, because this year I am tackling NaNoWriMo, a 30 day writing adventure where you attempt to write a 50,000 word book in a month... ha, let's see if I can do that. The Lightning Theif: Annabeth was only 35,000 words and it took me close to 6 months to complete. But I'll try anyway.

So, enough rambling. As always, enjoy :)

The air curled up around me, cradling me as it rushed past by, caressing my sleep-worn shirt roughly. The adrenaline and excitement that had rushed through me only seconds before was gone, replaced with reality and a sharp fear of what awaited us at the bottom of our fall.

"Thermos!" I heard Percy yell through the roar of the wind.

"What?" I cried back; what good was a thermos in a time like this? I tightened my hands on the boat straps so hard an ache started to plague my arms, but I didn't dare let go. The harsh wind stung my eyes, and I had to blink rapidly in order to keep my vision working.

Next to me, Tyson grabbed a duffel bag and forced it open, extracting the thermos Hermes had given us. He handed it to Percy.

I heard a shrill whistle to my left and saw arrows and javelins cutting through the air next to us, barely missing the inflatable platoons of our boat.

"Hang on!" Percy yelled.

"I am hanging on!" I yelled back shrilly.

"Tighter!"

I decided not to argue.

I felt Tyson's rough hand grab the back of my shirt, twisting his fist into the fabric so that I didn't fall. For once, I didn't mind him touching me.

I saw Percy give the thermos cap a quarter turn. It didn't look like the thermos would do much, but I was proved wrong. Instantly, a white sheet of pure air shot from the thermos and propelled us sideways. The change in direction startled me, and my eyes grew wide as I peeked over the side. We were almost flying, plummeting toward the water at a forty-five-degree angle.

I braced myself for the landing. When we hit the water, the impact jostled my entire body. My hair jumped around my face as we skipped over the water once, twice, thrice, transforming our vessel from a stationary emergency boat to a life-size skipping stone.

And then we turned into a speed boat, propelled by the magic air spilling out of the thermos. Sea spray jumped up and hit me in the face and I loosened my grip on the straps, suddenly realizing just how hard I'd been gripping them.

As I massaged my fingers, I looked back into the distance. The Princess Andromeda was no longer the impressive cruise ship that had towered above us on our hippocampi. It had shrunk into an innocent toy boat, floating over the distant choppy waters. I watched it until it disappeared, not even a speck on the horizon.

I sunk onto the uncomfortable plastic inflatable sides of the boat as I rubbed my eyes, which were burning from the salt water.

"That's the last time I free-fall from a cruise ship." I said weakly.

Percy managed a strangled laugh as he adjusted our direction.

I thought back to Luke and the evil smirk on his face as he gestured to the golden coffin lying in his suite. He was planning to bring Kronos back, and we had to find a way to stop him.

"Chiron," I said suddenly. "We have to tell Chiron about this."

Percy nodded. "Yeah. He's the only person who would listen."

I grabbed my duffel bag and fished for the leather pouch of drachmas. When my hand came in contact with the rough fabric, I brought it out and removed a single golden coin.

It turned out that the sea spray churning from our speed was perfect for rainbows when hit with just the right amount of light. I threw the drachma into the mist and prayed to Iris to show us Chiron, and my old mentor appeared—but in a questionable place. Strobe lights pulsed in the background, and music blared, like he was at a dance club.

We told him about us sneaking away from camp and boarding the Princess Andromeda, running into Luke and finding out about the golden box for Kronos's remains. But I'm not sure how much he heard, taking into account the earsplitting music on his end and the rushing water on ours.

"Percy," Chiron yelled. "you have to watch out for—"

His voice was drowned out by a loud whooping behind him, like his dance club had gotten invaded by Comanche warriors.

"What?" Percy yelled.

"Curse my relatives!" Chiron ducked as a plate soared over his head and shattered somewhere out of our sight. "Annabeth, you shouldn't have let Percy leave camp! But if you do get the Fleece—"

"Yeah, baby!" somebody yelled behind Chiron. "Woo-hooooo!"

The music got cranked up, going from "ear-shattering" to "brain-piercing." The subwoofers were so loud it made our own boat vibrate.

"—Miami," Chiron was yelling. "I'll try to keep watch—"

Before he could finish, our connection was shattered—literally—as if someone had thrown a bottle at it, and Chiron was gone.

After an hour of jostling waves and sea salt in my eyes, we finally spotted land—a long stretch of beach dotted with high-rise hotels and tourists. The water became crowded with fishing boats and tankers. A coast guard glided past our starboard side, and seemed to do a double-take when he saw our dinky little boat going as fast as we were.

"That's Virginia Beach!" I said as the shoreline become clearer. I remembered coming here so many times as a kid with my father, and plenty more without him… "Oh my gods, how did the Princess Andromeda travel so far overnight? That's like—"

"Five hundred and thirty nautical miles." Percy said.

I stared at him, wondering how he had known our location. The number seemed too exact to be just a guess. "How did you know that?"

"I—I'm not sure."

I thought for a minute. He was a son of Poseidon, so it made sense that he could know where we were by just feeling it.

"Percy, what's our position?"

"36 degrees, 44 minutes north, 76 degrees, 2 minutes west," Percy said immediately. Then he shook his head. "Whoa. How did I know that?"

"Because of your dad," I guessed. "When you're at sea, you have perfect bearings. That is so cool."

Percy considered that, but before he could respond, Tyson tapped his shoulder. "Other boat is coming."

I looked over his shoulder, and saw that he was right. The coast guard was on tail. I guess he found three kids on an inflatable boat in the middle of the sea questionable. The lights were flashing and it was steadily gaining speed.

"We can't let them catch us," Percy said. "They'll ask too many questions."

I looked back at the pristine beach, with children running along the shoreline and adults lounging in the sun.

And suddenly I was struck with a memory I didn't even know I still had—a little girl, her blonde hair raggedy, trudging across the white sands of Virginia Beach, lagging behind two people who looked equally as exhausted. They headed north—towards Chesapeake Bay, where they knew safety awaited them…

"Keep going into Chesapeake Bay," I said automatically. "I know a place we can hide."

Percy, thankfully, didn't ask any questions. He just opened the thermos a little more, and I held on to the boat tighter as we zoomed across the water with our fresh burst of wind. We soared around the northern tip of Virginia, circling into Chesapeake Bay. The coast guard fell behind. We didn't slow down until the sides of the bay narrowed and we entered the mouth of a river.

Percy's overall posture immediately changed as we left salt water and entered fresh water territory. His shoulders drooped and his grip on the thermos lessened. I directed him through the bay, going off memory.

"There," I said. "Past that sandbar."

The boat veered into a swampy area choked with marsh grass. I could hear the buzzing of bugs and the humidity hit me like a bucket of water. Steam curled off the river in the muggy heat. Vine-ridden cypress trees dotted the shoreline, blocking out the sun. It was all so familiar.

Percy beached the boat at the foot of a tree.

"Come on," I said, standing up. My knees were sore from sitting so long. "It's just down the bank."

"What is?"

"Just follow." I grabbed a duffel bag. "And we'd better cover the boat. We don't want to draw attention."

After burying the boat with heaps of branches and brambles, I set off down the shore with Percy and Tyson on my heel. My feet sunk into the red mud as I walked, slapping the bugs away from my face and avoiding the occasional snake.

"Not a good place," Tyson muttered from behind me.

After a few minutes, I stopped them. "Here."

I reached out and grabbed a handful of the rough branches that Thalia and I had spent half a day weaving. I tugged; it still worked.

The inside looked the same: it was spacious, constructed with woven-together branches as its walls, and built to accommodate half-bloods. Sleeping bags were tossed haphazardly into a corner, along with a jumble of blankets. An ice chest stood nearby with a kerosene lamp perched on top. Javelin tips, a quiver full of unused arrows, and an extra sword gathered dust by the door. It smelled musty and wet from being vacant for so long.

"A half-blood hideout." Percy looked at me; I kept my eyes securely on the floor. "You made this place?"

"Thalia and I," I said quietly. "And Luke."

His eyes darkened at the name. A frown tugged at his lips and something was slithering around in his eyes, an expression that looked foreign on his face. At first glance, he just looked angry and uncomfortable. But then I narrowed my eyes. Was he… jealous?

For some reason, seeing him become envious made it hard to contain a smile.

"So…" Percy said, changing the subject. "You don't think Luke will look for us here?"

I shook my head. "We made a dozen safe houses like this. I doubt Luke even remembers where they are. Or cares." I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my tone.

Thalia would be on my side, I was back on the Princess Andromeda, Luke's voice slithering between my skin. I could practically hear the smirk. If she were alive.

I threw myself down on a musty blanket and started rifling through my duffel bag, trying to ignore the burning in my eyes. I used rough movements and kept my head down, sending a pretty clear message to Percy and Tyson: Don't you dare try to talk to me.

It seemed they got the general idea.

"Uh, Tyson?" I heard Percy say. "Would you mind scouting around outside? Like, look for a wilderness convenience store or something?"

"Convenience store?"

"Yeah, for snacks. Powdered donuts or something. Just don't go too far."

"Powdered donuts. I will look for powdered donuts in the wilderness." I heard his feet thumping against the dirt and the creak of the branch door as he left. "Here, donuts!"

Once the Cyclops's naïve shouts dwindled down in the distance, Percy sat down across from me. I didn't look at him. "Hey, I'm sorry about, you know, seeing Luke."

"It's not your fault," I said airily, unsheathing my knife and cleaning it with a rag, wishing fiercely I could stick into Luke's arm.

"He let us go too easily."

I nodded. "I was thinking the same thing. What we overheard him say about a gamble, and 'they'll take the bait'… I think he was talking about us."

"The Fleece is the bait? Or Grover?"

I studied the edge of my knife, wishing the answer to everything would be reflected in the blade. "I don't know, Percy. Maybe he wants the Fleece for himself. Maybe he's hoping we'll do the hard work and then he can steal it from us. I just can't believe he would poison the tree."

"What did he mean," Percy started. "that Thalia would be on his side?"

I flinched minutely; I hoped he didn't notice. "He's wrong."

"You don't sound sure."

I glared at him. He retreated a little under my gaze, eyeing the knife cautiously. "Percy, you know who you remind me of the most? Thalia." As I said it, the similarities fell into place: the stubbornness, the will to fight, the unwavering confidence, and, most of all, the sarcastic comments. "You guys are so much alike it's scary. I mean, either you would've been best friends or you would've strangled each other."

"Let's go with 'best friends.'"

"Thalia got angry with her dad sometimes. So do you. Would you turn against Olympus because of that?"

Percy fixed his eyes at a point above my shoulder. "No."

"Okay, then. Neither would she. Luke's wrong." I stuck my knife blade into the dirt, instantly dirtying the blade I'd just cleaned.

Percy dropped his eyes from the unseen point behind me. He looked like he wanted to say something. We sat in silence for a couple moments, though, before he opened his mouth again.

"So what did Luke mean about the Cyclopes?" he asked. "He said you off all people—"

"I know what he said," I cut him off before he could quote any more of Luke. I didn't want to talk about anything pertaining to the fair-haired traitor, but I guess that was the direction we were going. I guess Percy deserved to know. "He… he was talking about the real reason Thalia died."

Percy's eyes widened minutely, either from the shock that there were more than one reason for Thalia's untimely death, or that I was actually breaking the silence on my past after I'd been so tight-lipped about it.

I drew a shaky breath. "You can never trust a Cyclops, Percy. Six years ago, on the night Grover was leading us to Half-Blood Hill—"

I never got to finish my sentence. Just then, the door creaked open and Tyson crawled in. A white box was clenched in his hand.

"Powdered donuts!" he proclaimed proudly, holding up what I presumed to be a pastry box.

I stared at him, gaping. Where in Hades had he gotten powdered donuts? We were in the middle of nowhere, for crying out loud!

"Where did you get that?" I said. "We're in the middle of the wilderness. There's nothing around for—"

"Fifty feet!" Tyson finished. "Monster Donut shop—just over the hill!"

Monster Donut shop?

I looked over at Percy, and one thing passed between us: this couldn't be good.

At once, we scrambled out of the hut, following Tyson. I clutched my knife close like it was a lifeline.

"This is bad," I muttered.

We were crouching behind a tree, peeking around the trunk and looking at what was most definitely a donut shop. It was surrounded by woods, and its crisp white plaster walls and shiny windows with stickers advertising 50% percent off scones for a limited time only contrasted hugely with the raw wilderness. An empty parking lot was tucked off to the side with an asphalt road leading off into the forest. On a sign facing the road were the words MONSTER DONUT.

"This shouldn't be here," I whispered. "It's wrong."

"What?" Percy asked. "It's a donut shop."

"Shh!"

"Why are we whispering? Tyson went in and bought a dozen. Nothing happened to him."

"He's a monster."

"Aw, c'mon, Annabeth. Monster Donut doesn't mean monsters! It's a chain. We've got them in New York."

"A chain," I agreed. I remembered something I'd read last summer when I was filing papers in the Big House archive. Back in the fifties, some entrepreneurial children of Hermes found that by breeding monsters and tying their life force to a certain chain of stores through some complicated magic, they could open a new store with every monster killed. It was rather brilliant, actually.

"And you don't think it's strange that one appeared immediately after you told Tyson to get donuts?" I questioned. "Right here in the middle of the woods?"

Percy still looked lost, so I elaborated a bit more. "It could be a nest,"

"A nest for what?"

"Haven't you wondered how franchise stores pop up so fast?" I asked him. "One day there's nothing and then the next day—boom, there's a new burger place or coffee shop or whatever? First a single store, then two, then four—exact replicas spreading across the country?"

"Um, no. Never thought about it."

"Percy, some stores multiply so fast because all their locations are magically linked to the life force of a monster. Some children of Hermes figured out how to do it back in the 1950s. They breed—"

And then I froze.

Peeking over Percy's shoulder was a head—well, heads, to be exact. I saw in horror a reptilian monster slithering towards us, its front half writhing in the leaves almost hypnotically and propelling it forward. It moved fluidly; dangerously. Seven necks sprouted from the torso, each sporting a head. They were diamond-shaped and scaly, with forked tongues larger than my arm slipping through sharp teeth and flicking out in the air.

A Hydra.

"What?" Percy demanded, not sensing the danger that was a mere three meters away. "They breed what?"

"No—sudden—moves," I whispered tensely. "Very slowly, turn around."

Percy did just that, his eyes widening as he took in the monster. Immediatley, being the brainless hero type that he was, he reached into his pocket for his sword.

No, I thought, forcing his eyes to lock on mine. Not yet. It might see us. There's a chance it'll just pass.

He nodded, understanding. Monsters had terrible eyesight, and I thought, though maybe naively, that the Hydra would just ignore us.

The monster continued to slither towards us. I noticed that two of the heads were ripping something apart, something yellow—a duffel bag. So it had found the safe house. I almost sighed in the sudden sense of déjà vu. Another safe house, no longer safe.

I gripped my knife, hoping I didn't have to use it. The only way to permanently decapitate a Hydra was to burn the neck stump after the head had been sliced off. And, seeing as there was no fire around, slicing off the heads with just my knife would be useless and detrimental.

So escape was the only option. I scanned my surroundings, considering the road that led out of the woods. Maybe if we were quiet enough, we could creep out on to it and evade the monster, and somehow find another way to get back out into the ocean to continue our quest. The most ideal path—the one that led back to the safe house and river, was blocked by the Hydra. So the road was the only chance we had.

I was about to relay my plan to Percy when Tyson stumbled back, trembling, onto a twig. The crack that followed sounded like a gunshot in the tense silence.

Immediately, the Hydra's heads—all seven of them—turned in our direction, their necks swiveling around so fast they probably got monster-whiplash. Their beady eyes glared at us, hissing.

Well, crap.

"Scatter!" I hissed, diving to the right.

Percy rolled to his left, barely missing the arc of green acidic spit that flew from one of the Hydra's mouths. The poison instead found a victim with the tree behind Percy, boiling the bark and eating right through the trunk, disintegrating it. It tumbled down toward Tyson, who stood petrified from being in the presence of such a monster.

"Tyson!" Percy yelled, jumping at him and tackling him to the ground just as the Hydra lunged. The tree toppled down onto the monster, crashing on top of two of its heads.

The Hydra stumbled back, wailing in outrage. With a loud hiss, it shot seven arcs of greenish acid at the mangled tree, turning it into a nice-sized puddle of muck.

"Move!" Percy told Tyson. He whipped out his sword, and soon the Celestial bronze had claimed all of the Hydra's attention.

Oh gods, he better not be thinking about slicing off a head…

The Hydra continued to hiss and bare its knife-like teeth threateningly.

Percy waved his sword.

"Don't—" I started to say, but my voice was drowned out by a loud hiss of outrage. I seemed to be watching in slow motion as Percy raised his sword above his head, the blade coming down close to one of the monster's scaly necks…

"No!" I cried, but it was too late. With a sickening schlik, the head was no longer connected to the Hydra. The reptilian head, its jaws ajar mid-hiss, rolled away into the grass.

I watched in horror as the neck bled for a few seconds, and the bloated and began to swell. The single neck continued to enlarge until it split in two, each sprouting another hissing head, both looking madder than before.

"Percy!" I scolded. "You just opened another Monster Donut shop somewhere!"

A spray of acid whistled past Percy's face. "I'm about to die and you're worried about that? How do we kill it?"

"Fire!" I said. "We have to have fire!"

I looked around and saw we were woefully low on fire.

I thought of my short-lived escape plan, and revised it a bit. Maybe if we could get to the river and back onto the boat, we could escape the Hydra. It was worth a try.

We backed up toward the river. I moved in next to Percy and tried to take away one of the heads' attention by shoving my knife in its face—metaphorically, of course. I parried its teeth with my knife to keep it from munching on me, but I got blindsided by another head. It swung sideways and crashed into me like a pendulum, sending me flying into the tree-muck.

I landed with a grunt. A dull ache gathered in my low abdomen, spreading to my shoulder blades. I winced. The Hydra head towered over me, looking at me hungrily, and opened its jaw.

"No hitting my friends!" I heard Tyson scream. And suddenly he was between me and the Hydra, smashing in its face with a vicious force I'd never seen Tyson possessed by. With each punch the head recoiled, hissing but never spitting acid.

I quickly got to my feet, feeling oddly grateful. But even Tyson couldn't hold off the monster for long.

We kept inching backwards toward the lake, dodging acid and snapping heads. We deflected the scaly heads without cutting them off, but it didn't bring us any closer to killing the monster. If we didn't find out a way to escape soon, we would run out of fuel, and then we'd be done for.

And then I heard something strange—a type of chug, chug, chug coming up the river. It was so loud it made the riverbank shake.

"What's that noise?" I shouted, not daring to relinquish my gaze on the Hydra to look behind me.

"Steam engine," Tyson said.

"What?" Percy said, dodging an acid spray.

And then a familiar female voice floated up from the river behind us, one that was tough and strong and sent a groan rocking through me. "There! Prepare the thirty-two-pounder!"

It was Clarisse.

Figuring out her identity was a no-brainer, once I heard the voice. The real question was: would she serve as an enemy, or an ally?

"They're too close, m'lady!" a gravelly voice said.

"Damn the heroes!" Clarisse shouted. "Full steam ahead!"

"Aye, m'lady."

"Fire at will, captain!"

Enemy, I thought. If she was willing to fire at us, then she was definitely posing as an enemy.

"Hit the dirt!" I yelled.

I dropped down, burying my face in the nasty soil, covering my head as an ear-shattering BOOM sent tremors rocking through the ground. There was a flash of light, a coulumn of smoke, and a shower of Hydra guts raining down over us.

I couldn't help but shout "Gross!" as the slime vaporized.

"Steamship!" yelled Tyson.

I stood up, coughing on the strong scent of gunpowder and smoke lingering in the air.

I searched for the source of the gunshot. I looked down the river and saw, chugging towards us, an old-fashioned steamboat, like one that I'd seen in a museum. It rode low on the water, half the hull covered by the murky river. The deck was plated with iron, hosting a casemate with slats on the sides for cannons. On the top, a flag depicting a wild boar and a spear—the symbol of Ares, unsurprisingly— snapped in the wind. On the side of the ironclad prow were the words CSS Birmingham. Lining the deck were dozens of zombies in gray uniforms—dead soldiers with shimmering faces that only partially covered their skulls.

And, standing next to a smoking canon, wearing Greek battle armor and a triumphant sneer, was Clarisse herself.

"Losers," she mocked. "But I suppose I have to rescue you. Come aboard."

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