The Blood of Athens (9 page)

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 Pantheon made their way to the front door and waited
across the street. It was getting so late that it was early again,
and the group knew they would be dragging on their tour tomorrow.
“Where is he?” Teddy asked, tapping his foot impatiently.

“
Right
here,” Peter said. Teddy jumped.

“
Shit, don't
sneak up on us like that,” Teddy said, glaring at a seemingly-empty
space beside him.

“
Guys,”
Peter said, still invisible. “We need to talk.”

“
We sure
do,” Nick said. The group turned to see Nick and Dr. Davis walking
up the street.

“
Benedict
Arnold,” Lewis murmured.

“
We were
just about to come looking for you. You seven are in deep--” Celene
started.

Peter
interrupted her. “No offense, but we've got worse things to worry
about.”

“
Peter?”
Celene asked, staring at the empty space between Penny and Teddy.

“
I'm this
way because I had to sneak out of the bathroom,” he said. “Before
the police came.”

Celene rolled
her eyes. “What did you do?”

“
Nothing,”
Peter said. He lowered his voice so that he was just barely audible
over the sounds of late-night traffic on the busy street. “I mean,
someone else did something. There was a body,” he said. “There
was a dead guy in the bathroom. All jacked-up.”

“
Cool,”
Nick said. “Murder in Athens.”

“
Wait,
there's been a serial killer in the news,” Minnie said.

“
Yeah,”
Peter said, “Remember that article we read on the plane? The police
said he liked to kill in public places--”

“
But they
never released an M.O.” Minnie said.

“
Right,
well... it might be a total coincidence, but I'd say this guy knows
his Greek history.” They all waited for him to go on. “The killer
left a coin in the guy's mouth.”

“
Coincidence
or not,” Celene said, “I don't want you seven seen at the scene
of another murder. Let's get back to the hotel. I'll let Jason scream
at you when we get home.”

“
A mad
bull is not to be tied up with a pack thread.”

-Greek
Proverb

xii.

The
infants were twins, but only half-brothers.
One was the true son
of their mother's husband
and the other belonged to the mighty
Zeus.
The boys shared a crib.

Jealous
Hera plotted to kill the bastard
and sent a pair of most poisonous
serpents
to visit the infants in their crib at night.
Herakles
woke up.

When
their mother sensed trouble under her roof
she ran in the room to
find one child sleeping
while the other child waved two strangled
serpents
and gleefully laughed.

“
Act when
you know.”

-Delphic
Maxim

XII.

“
We’ll be
in town for Haley’s birthday,” Elizabeth Livingstone said as she
hugged her nephew. Paul Livingstone loaded their suitcases into the
trunk of his Lexus while his sister fussed over Jason. “You’re
getting grey. Pretty soon we won’t be able to tell you and your
father apart.”

Jason ran his
fingers through the sides if his hair. “Yes, well, working with
teenagers, you age quickly.”

They said
their goodbyes and pulled out of the driveway. Jason went inside and
sat down with a fresh mug of coffee. The kids were in the living
room, coloring pictures from
My
Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
and
eating toaster waffles.

Jason perched
his mug on the ceramic coaster next to his computer and opened his
email. There was an incredibly cryptic message from Celene waiting
for him.

Jason,

Everyone is
safe.

Celene

He chewed on
the edge of his tongue as he mulled that one over. Surely Celene
wouldn't send an email about just that topic unless it had some
relevance in their lives.
Everyone
is safe?
Was
there some reason they shouldn't be?

He was just
reaching for his mug of coffee when his phone vibrated in his pocket.
Jason jumped out of his chair to retrieve it, hoping that it was Zach
finally getting in touch with him. It was Frank.

“
Frank,”
he said when he answered the phone. “Everything alright with the
baby?”

Devon's voice
spoke over her boyfriend's phone. “You need to come see this.
Really.”

Jason frowned.
“Alright. Uh... let me call the sitter. It might take me a while.
Is this an emergency?”

“
Uh,”
Devon hesitated.

“
You know
what, don’t tell me over the phone,” Jason warned.

“
Okay,”
Devon said. “You’ll see when you get here.”

Jason pulled
up outside the Guerrero home forty minutes later. The house was owned
by Frank's aunt, but his aunt and his mother worked days, leaving
Frank and Devon alone with their new baby. Devon had only been
released from the hospital the morning before, and Xander had been
given a clean bill of health. What could have changed in twenty-four
hours?

Frank came to
the door when Jason knocked and cracked it only an inch to look
outside. When he saw Jason, he rushed him inside with a very
conspiratorial wave.

“
What's
going on?” Jason asked. “Is it... horns or something?”

Frank walked
silently towards his bedroom; Jason followed.

Until a few
months ago, Frank's room had been sparse with a few posters, basic
furniture, and the occasional dirty sock on the floor. Devon had
taken over since moving in. The walls had been repainted a sea-foam
green and, mounted on the wall, was Frank's football jersey from
Olympia Heights Senior High. It was framed with a photo of their
team, the Olympia Thunder, gathered around the state championship
photo from December of this year. Devon had thrown out Frank's
tattered comforter and replaced it with the red quilt from her old
bedroom. Most noticeably, the once bare room was now filled with baby
toys, baby clothes, and baby books. The cheerleading team had gone
overboard hosting her baby shower.

Jason crossed
the room to Xander's crib. He looked down. Just Sunday morning, the
infant had had thick, dark hair. Jason's own daughter, Haley, had
come out of the womb with almost black hair, only to sprout blonde
curls by her first birthday. But this had been three days, and what
he saw now was not natural at all. Xander's hair, once thin, black,
and straight, was now a thick mass of springy curls, as tight as
fleece. That wasn't the extraordinary part, however. What Jason saw
was impossible. The hair on that baby's head was the color of pure
gold.

Xander looked
up, and Jason looked back into his green-blue eyes, the same color as
Devon's. “That's not normal, right?” Devon asked.

Jason shook
his head. Xander smiled. “No,” he said. “That's not normal.
Devon, pull the blinds. Frank... do you have an electric razor?”

“
You're
going to shave his head?” Devon asked, alarm evident in her voice.
“Is that really necessary?”

Jason
tore his eyes from the infant and nodded at Devon. “It is,” he
said. He took a deep breath. “I've got something to tell you both.
We have a new friend... Mr. Spade.”

“
It is of
the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for
the gratification of it.”

-Aristotle

xiii.

Zeus
was not the only god known for his lust.
The god of the sea had as
many affairs.
His desire was not confined to his marriage.
This
is one such tale:

When
Poseidon set his mind to seducing
Demeter, the true goddess of
the harvest,
she did not reciprocate his interest,
so she fled
from him.

The
goddess took the form of a dappled mare,
and so Poseidon turned
into a stallion,
and in like form he chased her across the
earth
and overtook her.

Demeter
bore an offspring from his conquest.
As they had both taken the
form of horses,
their new child was a stallion, a hero's
mount
they named Areion.

“
Our sins
are more easily remembered than our good deeds.”

-Democritus

XIII.

The escapades
of the night before hadn't done much to hinder the waking hours for
The Pantheon. Their bodies still weren't used to the time difference
between Florida and Athens anyway, and there was plenty of time to
sleep on buses. They had spent the morning sleep-walking through the
National Archaeological Museum, but a nap on the bus followed by the
discovery of a foreign caffeinated drink in a bright red can had
renewed their energy.

The afternoon
tour was to the Kerameikos cemetery. The enormous ancient cemetery
featured low stone walls and crumbling columns that divided patches
of green grass. They had walked through the museum shortly after
lunch, looking at ancient pottery much like the pieces they had seen
in the National Museum that morning. Red clay pots were painted with
black bases and scenes of static figures enacting ancient myths.
After a walk through the museum, they made their way out into the
cemetery. To keep them on task, the art teacher had given them a
scavenger hunt of statues to photograph.

Peter and
Penny had snapped the bull on her pink camera and the lion had been
directly next to it. They traveled with a group of students being
chaperoned by one of the history teachers. The group had stopped to
listen to Mr. McCracken read a tour pamphlet about a relief of Athena
when Peter saw something just beyond the palms behind them.

“
What’s
that hole?” he asked, leaning to whisper to the closest ear.

He had asked
one of the soccer players, and the other boy looked around before
saying, “What hole?”

“
Uh, you
know, the gaping cave mouth right behind us.”

The boy kept
looking before turning back to listen to Mr. McCracken. “Stop
messing around, Hadley.”

“
I’m no--”

“
Whatever.
Loser.” He shoved Peter’s shoulder, but not hard enough to make
him fall.

Peter fell
back in the crowd and drifted to the left until he was standing next
to Penny. He nudged her with his elbow.