Antigoddess Read Online Free PDF

few friends of Misty Walker’s snarled at their heels, but a raised index finger from Andie put their tails well between their legs.
    “You about ready to go?” Aidan asked.
    “As soon as Andie’s done playing captain.”
    The fight looked to be over as quickly as it began. No one was shouting anymore and Matt was clearly trying to explain the situation to Henry; he looked embarrassed and ashamed, head low, feet scuffing the dirt. Casey’s face was red with fury and firelight, and Cassandra frowned. When the anger faded, all Casey’s toughness would fade with it. She’d spend the rest of the weekend thinking about Misty and Matt and what she would have to say at school on Monday.
    “Is it weird that this never happens to us?” Cassandra asked, still leaning back on Aidan’s chest.
    “That we never pull each other’s hair out at campfires?”
    “No.” She smiled. He knew what she meant. No girl had ever “come sniffing” around Aidan. No one had ever tried to entice him away. Even though he was far better-looking than Matt Bauer. “You know what I mean. No one even flirts with you.”
    “Yes, they do.”
    “Well, they don’t flirt with feeling. ” She turned and saw his face, amused and blinking, feigning innocence. It was probably the one expression his features couldn’t hold.
    “They must know it’d be a waste,” he said. “We’ve got some very smart girls in Kincade.” He smiled and she pushed her fingers into his hair. “Hang on, is this your way of hinting that some guy is flirting with you ?” He slid his hands underneath her jacket, warm fingers pressed around her waist to the curve of her back. “Because I guess that would mean … I’d have to flay him. It’d be pretty grisly. I’d probably go to prison.”
    “Probably?”
    He grinned. Blood coated his teeth.
    “Aidan? I think you bit your lip.”
    “What?”
    “I—” Cassandra stopped. It wasn’t just his lip. Blood seeped up into his eyes. Glimpses of his tongue as he spoke words she couldn’t hear looked cracked, split open, wet and red. Pinpricks stood out on his cheeks and forehead, tearing the skin as she watched. Something pressed through as she looked closer, frozen in horror as his face degraded right in front of her. Feathers. White, and speckled brown. After they wriggled free they fluttered to the ground, leaving bleeding gashes behind, all over his body. He was a monster, holding her shoulders, his sliced-open lips mouthing her name.

 
    4
    BEWARE OF BARS BEARING JACKALOPES
    The first building they saw as they left the desert was a bar. A bar aptly named the Watering Hole. It stood alone, a dusty clapboard one-story structure ten miles from the middle of nowhere. Long rectangular shafts of yellow light cut across the dirt from the windows. Athena and Hermes hadn’t seen the bar on their way in, because they hadn’t passed it. After their encounter with Demeter, they hadn’t turned around the way they had come, but kept on walking and crossed over the top of her. It had taken four hours to get off the skin, and another six before they came across anything but cactus and sagebrush. Dusk had come and gone, and Hermes had wrung their water skin dry five miles ago. As they approached the building, Athena stopped short, and Hermes drew up alongside her. A light breeze kicked up from the west and chilled them, making the hairs on the back of their necks stiffen.
    “Tell me you have money,” he said.
    “Of course I do,” she replied. “But if I didn’t, I’d drink that place dry and burn it down.”
    Hermes laughed. “Now you sound like me.”
    Inside the bar, they were surprised to find a handful of patrons and much less dust. The floorboards still squeaked under their feet, and on one wall there was a mounted head of some rabbit/deer monstrosity labeled a “jackalope,” but the bar was polished hardwood, and a stone chimney held a small fire. To Athena it felt like coming home. It was primitive and