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Mixed Drinks

by Rachel Green

There was nothing quite like a cocktail party in an English country garden on a June afternoon. The mansion behind the host glowed with the heat of the sun, but the terrace upon which a dozen assorted dignitaries were about to champagne and strawberries was shaded by a pair of enormous Judas trees. Louis straightened his modest morning suit, smiled and nodded to the waiters to open the bottles. Corks popped and champagne flowed as freely as the Styx and the dignitaries; two bishops, three deacons, four parish priests, two rectors and a visiting American evangelist, drank freely and were dead less than seven minutes later. Louis was pleased. He’d poisoned the grapes twenty years ago, nursing them along from harvest to bottle to this very moment where the apocalypse began.

6S - C3

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