"Hey, crabby." I 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 me, pincers snapping. 1 dove into a gift shop, plowing through a

rack of T-shirts. A crab pincer smashed the glass walls to pieces and raked

across the room. I dashed back outside, breathing heavily, but Mr. Crabby turned

and followed.

 

"There!" a voice said from a balcony above me. "Intruder!"

 

If I'd wanted to create a distraction. I'd succeeded, but this was not where I

wanted to fight. If I got pinned down in the center of the ship, I was crab

chow.

 

The demonic crustacean lunged at me. I sliced with Riptide, taking off the tip

of its claw. It hissed and foamed, but didn't seem very hurt.

 

I tried to remember anything from the old stories that might help with this

thing. Annabeth had told me 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 my Reeboks.

 

Then a weird thought occurred to me. Last Christmas, my mom and I had brought