The Blood of Athens by Amy Leigh Strickland Page B

They’ve
got hot girls with them. Duh. That’s how night clubs work. They’ll
take an Evan if it gets them Penny and Minnie.”
    Celene
scowled. “Alright. So we wait?”
    “ Or,” Nick
said, looking around at the line outside the club, “I could try to
get in with one of those lovely ladies over there.”
    “ We wait,”
she said, ignoring Nick’s suggestion. “They have to come out some
time. And when they do, I’ll rip them a new one.”

    Lewis and
Minnie pushed their way through the crowd until they had made it to
the table that the rest of The Pantheon had claimed. Teddy was
gesturing wildly as he told a story to Astin, Penny, and Evan.
    Lewis clamped
his hand over Teddy's shoulder.
    “ Do you have
my hundred Euros?” Teddy asked.
    “ Plus some.
We'll talk about that later. Just saw cops talking to the manager at
the back. They want to close-off this joint. Time to go.”
    They hurried
to stand up. Nobody wanted to be delayed in getting back to the hotel
before they were missed.
    “ Where's
Peter?” Penny asked.
    “ Taking a
leak,” Teddy said.
    “ Someone
should get him.”
    “ No
problem,” Lewis said. He turned his head towards the bathroom and
narrowed his eyes. His lips moved as he whispered. “Got it,” he
finally said. “Unless he wasn't in the bathroom, but the cops were
out at that end of the club, so I'm not risking my ass to drag him
out of the bathroom.”

    Peter had
spent the evening alone. He had only come along on their late-night
excursion to be close to Penny, but she had spent the evening talking
about music with Astin and Evan, and Peter had spent it sitting in a
corner booth, invisible. At first he had let himself slip out of
sight to see if anyone would notice. They hadn’t. He had spent the
last hour people-watching, and only had risen to use the bathroom
when a couple had invaded his booth to make out.
    Peter scanned
over the graffiti on the door of the bathroom stall. What could he
have done differently? He thought he looked good, or as good as he
could look when all of his clothing came from Goodwill. His clothes
fit, and wasn’t black flattering on everyone? Maybe he should have
flirted with other girls or sat near her and laughed at her jokes.
That kind of jovial facade was just not Peter.
    Peter left the
bathroom stall and crossed to the sink. He turned the water on,
finding that it went from freezing cold to scalding hot, and never
rested anywhere in between. After a rushed hand-washing job, he
pressed on the large button for the hand drier. He spotted something
odd in the mirror.
    The stall
directly behind him was cracked open, but there were feet showing
beneath the door. Peter turned and knocked. “Dude, your door is
open.”
    No response.
    “ You
alright?” he asked. He was a bit worried that, if he opened the
door, he'd find someone passed out with their drawers down. He asked
again, then gently pressed on the door, giving the occupant plenty of
notice to push it closed.
    The door swung
open. The man sitting on the toilet was wearing clothes stained black
with blood. His eyes were wide, one red with the blood of a burst
capillary. He appeared to have multiple stab wounds, as well as
bruising around his throat. Peter staggered back as the first drops
of blood wicked through the corpse's trousers and dripped onto the
tile floor. The man's mouth hung open, his tongue hanging out.
Resting there was a single gold coin.
    “ Not again,”
Peter mumbled.
    “ It's in
here,” someone said, obviously American, through the door. “I
just went to take a piss and there was a dead guy. You gotta call the
police.”
    Peter ducked
into another stall. He couldn't be caught with a body in the
bathroom. He'd already been associated with enough suspicious deaths
to last him a lifetime. Like turning off a television, Peter's image
disappeared. He waited by the bathroom door, and when the manager
opened it to come look, Peter slipped out behind him.

    The other
members of The