Antigoddess Read Online Free PDF Page B

firelit, and even the ridiculous jackalope felt familiar, a lame contemporary of the old creatures: the Chimera, the Minotaur, the Sphinx.
    When they sat upon the swiveling stools, exhausted and confused, only the last remnants of their gods’ pride kept them from resting their foreheads on the bar. Not that anyone would have noticed. The patrons, all men, ignored them completely, immersed in their beers and in the baseball game playing on the surprisingly nice flat-screen TV. Behind the bar, the bartender absently dried glasses with a white terry towel, his eyes trained on the game while he rolled a toothpick in the corner of his mouth.
    “Yo,” Hermes called out irritably. “Can we get two waters?”
    “There’s a two-drink minimum,” the bartender replied without looking over.
    “That wasn’t posted anywhere,” Hermes grumbled, but Athena set her pack up on the bar.
    “Two waters and two Bud Lights then,” she said.
    Hermes’ eyes widened. “Bud Light? I’d rather dehydrate. How about a Rolling Rock?”
    “Bottle okay?”
    “Fine.”
    “I’m going to need to see some IDs.”
    They flipped their wallets open and tapped sand out onto the floor. The bartender checked them, but it was just for show; he didn’t seem to care if they were fake as long as they were IDs.
    “Let me see that.” Hermes snatched Athena’s license out of her hand. “Twenty-one. Mine too. You should change yours so people don’t think we’re twins.”
    “Why should I change mine? I don’t look twenty-two. You change yours.”
    “You barely look nineteen. That’s not what I meant. But with the way you are …”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    There was a sharp hiss and a pop as the cap was taken off of a beer. A few seconds later, the bartender set the Rolling Rock and a frosty mug of Bud down in front of them. Athena tossed a ten onto the counter and he spared her a wink. She didn’t think he’d bring back change, and she didn’t have the energy to argue. In days gone by she might have smote him, turned him into a tree or a statue or something. Glory days.
    She took a long drink of her beer. He’d forgotten to bring the waters, but it didn’t matter. The Bud was ice cold, the carbonation a satisfying burn in her throat. Behind them, a meager cheer went up from two or three patrons as apparently something good happened to whatever baseball team was being rooted for.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” Hermes asked after half of his Rolling Rock was sitting comfortably in his stomach.
    She nudged the roof of her mouth with her tongue. The quill of the owl feather was more defined, but still several days from poking through the skin. When it did, she wouldn’t be able to help herself from yanking it free, drawing blood and leaving a ragged, stringy wound. Then it would probably turn into a canker sore because she wouldn’t be able to stop sucking at it.
    She shook her head, but said, “I guess we have to.” Their voices were low, cloaked in that way that they still knew how to do, so that people could hear that they were talking but if pressed would never be able to remember just what it was they had been saying.
    “It wasn’t exactly what you wanted her to say, was it.” Hermes sighed.
    “I never expected it to be easy.” She shot him a look. “I just thought maybe we’d band together this time instead of tearing each other apart. How stupid of me.”
    “Some of us will band together. Only … to eat the other band. Still a team effort, depending on how you look at it.”
    Athena snorted. “And these reincarnated tools? I never figured on dealing with humans again.” Even though she had lived among them, blended into their population almost since the day they tossed her and her brethren off of Olympus and sent it crashing into the sea.
    “So much bitterness. I thought the humans were your friends. That they came even before us.”
    “They did. Once.” Before they forgot me. When I was a true