“Neat trick,” Athena said to the bartender. “Who taught it to you?”
She glanced around. It was hard to believe that these monstrosities had once been jewels of the sea. That they swam in swirling patterns and entranced fishermen from their boats. The silver hair and shining body was gone, evolved into cracked scales and oily eyes. They reeked of salt and old blood.
The bartender didn’t answer her question. But it didn’t take a genius to figure out the Nereids had been planted there. They’d been waiting, and they’d listened to everything she and Hermes said. Once the two of them got to the interesting part, it was time to lose the masks and get down to business.
“Six of them, two of us,” Athena said.
“I think Uncle Poseidon’s trying to send us a message.” Hermes kept his eyes on the group of Nereids clustered around the television, still droning out a baseball game in the seventh inning.
Athena flexed her muscles. I’m tired, I’m tired, I just crossed the f**king desert, they protested, but beneath the protest was springy strength.
“I guess it’d be rude if we didn’t reply.”
The attack came all at once. The group darted forward, knocking over whatever tables and chairs got in their way. Their movement reminded her of a pod of fish, fast and synchronized, as if they shared one brain. Athena was up instantly, moving almost as fast as Hermes, who had grabbed the first of the pod by the throat and didn’t waste any time tearing its gills out and throwing them to the floorboards where they bounced like bloody, rubber filters. Athena drew her legs up to perch on the seat of her stool. With a grimace, she flung herself headlong into the bunch, and felt a sharp fin slice through the skin of her underarm. The wound barely registered. Claws gripped her legs, her shoulders, and the strength in them was almost enough to pop her joints. The air filled with the smell of salt and a watery, raspy sound that the Nereids made from their lampreylike mouths.
Athena reached for the nearest body, and her fingers slid against the slick mucous coating the skin. She almost didn’t get a grip, but with a deep breath she twisted her arms and tore the head free. The body fell to the floor and flopped, webbed hooks still grasping. Then she used the head like a bludgeon, swinging it wide and knocking three of the others back. The head flew out of her hand and knocked into the TV. It crashed to the ground and sparked.
“Don’t kill them all,” she hissed, and Hermes shot her a disbelieving look.
“I’m killing until they stop,” he shouted, but he pulled his fingers out of the gills of the creature atop him and punched it in the face instead.
Athena feinted backward as the hooked finger-claws of the last Nereid in front of her passed dangerously close to her face. There had been a time when no god or mortal would have dared try to disfigure her cheeks. The attempt now struck her as incredibly rude. She reached out and smashed Hermes’ bottle of Rolling Rock against the bar, feeling cold beer fizz over her knuckles. The jagged edge went right into the Nereid’s belly, and she sawed her way up to its chest. The thing fell, jerking, at her feet. Her breath came fast and light, angry but not labored, and unfettered by feathers, which was a relief.
With most of its patrons now dead and the TV broken, the interior of the bar was quiet. The sound of Hermes struggling with the last one, on his back against the rough wooden floor, was oddly magnified. So were Athena’s steps as she walked calmly over to him. She scooped a chair up in one hand, the legs scraping along the wood as she used her other hand to flip the Nereid off of Hermes, planting it on its back. She drove the legs of the chair through its shoulders, through the floorboards, all the way into the tightly packed dirt beneath.
Hermes got to his feet and brushed himself off.
“That was fun,” he muttered, staring down at the Nereid as it hissed and thrashed and tried to pry the chair loose. Black blood oozed from the punctures in its shoulders and pooled on the floor. Hermes reached for Athena’s arm. “You’re hurt.”
She jerked away. She was looking down at the carnage, counting bodies. And the count was off.
“Where’s the bartender?” she asked.
“God,” Hermes said.
The door to the bar hung open, literally. It had been opened with enough force to rip the top hinge off, and swayed back and forth at them like a shaming finger. Without sparing each other a glance, they ran to the door and through it, into the black. Cold wind prickled their skin as their eyes searched the dark for movement. The bartender could be miles away. He could be anywhere.
Stupid, stupid. She was becoming careless, sloppy. It was a mistake she never would have made two thousand years ago.