Free The Blood of Athens by Amy Leigh Strickland

looked
around at the students. Curious eyes waited for Celene to go on. She
took a deep breath and wrapped her hand around Penny’s arm. “Come
here, I want to show you this relief.”
    “ I’ve
already seen it, Mom.”
    Celene lowered
her voice to a whisper, “I don’t want you near that pit.”
    Penny nodded.
“Alright.”
    Peter watched
Celene drag Penny away from the cave. He glanced back down into the
darkness before shaking his head. He was never going to get a chance
to explore with all of these eyes on him. He quietly said goodbye to
the promise of answers and rejoined the tour group. It was nearly
time for dinner anyway, and Peter was starving.

    When they
returned to the hotel Wednesday evening after dinner, the group still
had copious amounts of energy. Celene was certain that they would not
escape the hotel this time, and planted herself with a book next to
the lobby door.
    That left them
with no choice but to wander from room to room before curfew, hanging
out and spending their time talking, rather than getting up to
trouble.
    Peter sat on
the bed in Penny and Minnie's hotel room, fiddling with a metal
puzzle that he had picked up at a gift shop. Penny sat on the floor,
organizing a bag of brochures and tickets for scrap-booking when she
returned home.
    “ I'm just
saying, there were way too many people at The Agora for it to be
fun,” Peter said. “Dead and alive.”
    “ But there
was so much to see and buy.”
    “ We cross
the Atlantic Ocean to go shopping? We could do that at home.”
    “ You can't
buy that stuff at home.”
    “ You can on
the internet,” Peter mumbled. “And this piece of crap. This, I
could easily buy at home.”
    “ Well that
was the museum gift shop. And you only think it's crap because you
can't solve it.” Penny got up and walked to the bed. She took the
puzzle out of Peter's hand and twisted it. In just a few moves it was
in two pieces.
    “ How did
you--?”
    “ I've been
watching you attempt it for an hour. I got some ideas.”
    Peter tossed
the puzzle to the foot of the bed.
    “ Are you
going to complain about a free trip, Peter? Wasn't the Acropolis
alone worth it? And I know you didn’t get to go inside, but the
cave at the cemetery...”
    Peter sighed.
“It's just not what I thought it would be.”
    “ You
expected more than walking through an archway to Mount Olympus? And an
entrance to Hades?”
    “ I didn't
expect to fly almost six thousand miles away from home, only to find
yet another dead body.”
    Penny sat down
next to Peter. “Oh. That.”
    “ Yeah.
That.”
    “ We sure
have found a lot of bodies, huh?” Penny tried to recall them all.
First it was the guy that Diana found in the woods, then the museum
curator, and did they count the Titans that they killed? Penny had
helped Frank bury the body of Atlas only a few months before. “I
would think you'd get used to death, what with seeing ghosts,”
Penny said.
    “ Yeah. Well
a ghost and a recently offed corpse are two different things.”
    “ Is it weird
that the guy's ghost wasn't hanging around?”
    Peter
shrugged. “Maybe? Not all violent-deaths leave spirits behind.
Maybe he was slightly suicidal. Maybe he was just extremely
emotionally healthy and didn't fear death. Anyway, I didn't have time
to look around. I didn't want to be found with a corpse in a bathroom
overseas. American students don't exactly do well in foreign courts.”
    “ I'm sorry,
Peter.”
    Peter just
nodded.
    “ Really.
Anyone could have found that guy. I'm sorry it had to be you.”
    “ It's okay.
Someone from the Pantheon needed to see it. We might be in danger.
Again.”
    “ Or it's a
serial killer who is really into his heritage. We are in Athens.”
    “ True.”
Peter looked down at his hands. “I'm just a magnet for death.”
    “ That's not
true. Diana found that guy last fall and everyone found the museum
curator together. You don't have it any worse than the rest of us.”
    “ Penny,”
Peter said. “I