Bewitched || P. Jackson

𝕋ogether

A half dozen telkhines were tromping down the stairs. Percy cut through them with Riptide faster than they could yelp. Barely visible flashes of purple shot into telkhines, dispersing them into showers of golden dust.

Percy kept climbing—past another telkhine, who was so startled he dropped his Lil' Demons lunchbox. Percy left him alive—partly because his lunch box was cool, partly so he could raise the alarm and hopefully get his friends to follow them rather than head toward the engine room.

Nicki kept right behind Percy. Her breath tickled the side of his face for a fleeting second, Percy forgot where he was.

The pair burst through a door onto deck six and kept running. 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.

The two demigods reached the promenade, a big shopping mall that took up the whole middle of the ship, and Percy stopped cold. He staggered slightly when Nicki slammed into him but didn't keep running.

In the middle of the courtyard stood a fountain. And in the fountain squatted a giant crab. Not "giant" like $7.99 all-you-can-eat Alaskan king crab. Giant like bigger than the fountain.

The monster rose ten feet out of the water. Its shell was mottled blue and green, its pincers longer than Nicki's 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 glared at Percy, and he could see intelligence in them—and hate.

The fact that he was the son of the sea god was not going to win Percy any points with Mr Crabby. "FFFFffffff," it hissed, seafoam 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 the demigods were going to have lots of company and they had to keep moving.

"Hey, crabby." Percy inched around the edge of the courtyard. "I'm just gonna scoot around you so—"

The crab moved with amazing speed. It scuttled out of the fountain and came straight at Percy, pincers snapping. The boy dove 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. Percy dashed back outside, breathing heavily, but Mr Crabby turned and followed.

A thick purple haze surrounded the crab's pinchers. Something in Percy's mind figured that even if Nicki could make sure he couldn't get sliced in half, those claws were still gonna hurt f they hit you.

"There!" a voice said from a balcony above where Percy and Nicki stood. "Intruder!"

If Percy wanted to create a distraction, he'd succeeded, but this was not where he wanted to fight. If he got pinned down in the centre of the ship, he was crab chow.

The demonic crustacean lunged at him. Percy sliced with Riptide, taking off the tip of its claw.

It hissed and foamed, but didn't seem very hurt. He tried to remember anything from the old stories that might help with this thing. Annabeth had told him about a monster crab—something about Hercules crushing it under his foot? That wasn't going to work here. This crab was slightly bigger than Percy's converse.

Then a weird thought occurred to him. Last Christmas, Sally and Percy had brought Paul Blofis to their old cabin at Montauk, where they'd been going forever.

Paul had taken Percy crabbing, and when he'd brought up a net full of the things, he'd shown Percy how crabs have a chink in their armour, right in the middle of their ugly bellies. The only problem was getting to the ugly belly.