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one long, muscled appendage. He stood balanced on it like a snake’s tail curled beneath him. At the end a broad fin waved lazily.
    All of this she saw in an instant, and in her silence, Hermes looked as well. He reacted with more force, spinning off of his stool and sending it swiveling unevenly to the floor with a sharp thud.
    “Nereid,” she said lowly. They had of course seen the oceanic creatures before, swirling about their master, Poseidon, the god of the sea.
    “Make that plural,” Hermes added. The other bar patrons had almost finished shedding their human makeup: shirts and jeans slid down scaled and rubber-skinned legs. When the Nereids stood, they made a wet squelching sound like they’d been sitting in a mud puddle, and a look at the seat of their chairs revealed a flesh-colored pool of water. Their disguises ran off of them in rivulets.
    “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 fucking 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