She shook her head. "Not really."
"That's too bad. If you did, we might be able to reverse the process. As it is ..." He trailed off.
"Can he be killedr Kevin asked.
Penelope looked from Holbrook to Kevin. "Killed?" she said, her voice rising.
Kevin could not meet her eyes. "Can he?"
The teacher nodded slowly. "I think so. But I don't know for sure. I
suppose we should be thankful that the first god to come back is a god of flesh. It increases our odds greatly. Dionysus is also a cyclical god. Like the other agricultural gods which sprang up in his wake, his life parallels the cycle of nature, in his case, the grape, the vine. He lives and blooms, withers and dies, is reborn again next season."
"Then he should be dying pretty soon," Kevin said. "The season's over for this year, I think." He glanced toward Penelope for confirmation, but she would not look at him.
"Perhaps not." Holbrook walked to the other side of the basement and from between two piles of books produced a Mcdonald's cup in which a twig was half immersed in water. He brought the cup over, pointed at a sprout of green on the side of the otherwise brown twig. "Look at that," he said. "What do you see?"
Kevin shrugged. "A bud."
"Yes. A grape vine. Blooming. In the late fall. Do you know what that means?"
Kevin shook his head.
"The cycles have changed, to coincide with Dionysus' rebirth." He put the cup down on the desk. "I don't know how far this phenomenon extends, whether it's only here in the valley, whether it's everywhere, but the vine is supposed to be dying now, to be reborn in spring." He stopped, staring into space for a moment, then began writing in his notebook again. "I never thought of that before. Dionysus and Siva."
"What?"
"Siva, or Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration. Siva has many parallels with Dionysus. Maybe they're the same god, different name."
"Who gives a shit?" Kevin said. "Jesus. We came to you for some help."
Penelope cleared her throat. When she spoke, her voice was quieter than it had been before. "How will he die?" she asked.
Holbrook looked at her. "He'll be torn apart."
"Oh, God."
"Maybe we can speed up the season somehow," Kevin suggested. "Once he's dead, maybe the rest of them'11--"
"What are you talking about?" Penelope demanded. "That's Dion! Your friend!"
"It's not Dion," Kevin said. "Dion's dead."
"No, he's not. He's in there. Trying to get out."
Kevin shook his head, resigned. "It doesn't really matter anyway, does it? Even if we kill him, he'll only be reborn again next season."
"Then he'll be dead. Dionysus might be reborn, but Dion won't. If we kill him now, we'll be killing Dion."
Holbrook closed his notebook. "You're right. You're both right. It's possible that Dionysus can't be permanently killed. But the form he has taken can be. And if he was driven into dormancy for thousands of years, he can be driven so again."
"How?" Kevin asked.
"I don't know yet. But for all these centuries Dionysusl has been like a seed waiting for the right soil. And that! soil was Dion. If we can destroy this incarnation, it mig be centuries before another compatible host can be foundi again."
Kevin took a deep breath. He realized that his hands were shaking, and he slipped them into the front pockets of his jeans to steady them.
"What about God? Our God? What's He doing? Why doesn't He do something about this? Have we been worshiping the wrong god all this time? Was He something we just made up?"
Mr. Holbrook shook his head. "God's real. At least, / think He's real.
But I also think that we can't and shouldn't count on Him for help. He doesn't intervene in wars, He doesn't stop natural disasters, He doesn't halt the spread of disease. These are all problems we must deal with ourselves. And I think this is the same way. You know, we refer to Dionysus and the other Old World dieties as 'gods,' and perhaps to us they are. But I don't think they're gods in the true sense of the word.
I don't think they're omnipotent. The myths, in fact, tell us that they're not. I think they're beings or creatures with powers greater than our own, but I do not think that their power can be measured against that of a true god, against ... well, God."
"So they're, like, demons. Monsters."
"Yes."
For the first time since entering the basement, they were all silent.
Kevin watched Holbrook as he put his notebook back on the desk. Penelope was right, he thought. There was something creepy about Holbrook, something secretive and unsettling. And though he didn't doubt that the teacher was on their side in all of this, that he was one of them and not one of them, he didn't feel comfortable being down here alone with the man. He wished there was another adult around. Or at least another male. Penelope was fine, but, sexist as it was, he'd feel a hell of a lot better if there was another guy here with them.
She'd probably kick him in the nuts if she knew he thought that.
He smiled to himself, then glanced over at Penelope. She did not smile back at him, but she did not turn away this time, and the look that passed between them told him that she was not angry with him, that everything was okay.
Once again he found himself glancing around the basement. His gaze alighted on a large urn, a carved marble vessel on which nymphs and satyrs frolicked between Doric columns. He turned toward Holbrook, about to ask about the photos, the artifacts, the shrine, this whole strange Grecophile basement, but Penelope beat him to it.
"So what," she asked, gesturing around the room, "is all this?"
Holbrook looked up. "All what?"
"All this ... Greek mythological stuff."
Mr. Holbrook smiled proudly. "I knew this day was coming. I was preparing."
Kevin snorted. "Boy, you're a regular Sherlock Holmes, aren't you?"
Penelope ignored him, faced the teacher. "You knew this was coming? What made you think so?"
"Dion's last name. Semele. That's why I asked you about your name and your mothers and your wine. Semele was a Theban princess, the daughter of Cadmus, who was consumed by fire when she beheld Zeus in all his glory. Dionysus is the son of Zeus and Semele."
Penelope stared at him incredulously. "And that was what made you think this might happen? Dion's last name?"
"Your last name. 'Daneam.' It's 'maenad' spelled backward."
Penelope was silent. She obviously had not noticed that.
"So?" Kevin said.
"This didn't come out of nowhere. They've been preparing for this for centuries." He paused. "As have we."
Kevin's uneasiness increased, and he moved next to Penelope. "We?"
The teacher stood straighten "The Ovidians." He looked at them proudly.
"Mankind's protectors against the gods."
Kevin looked at Penelope, but her eyes remained fixe on Holbrook.
"Our order was originally formed to prevent gods meddling in the affairs of men. In ancient Greece, during the time of the gods, they were always raping our woe playing with us, using us to combat the boredom of imf mortality. We attempted to put a stop to that."
"Godbusters," Kevin said.
"If you like."
"Ovidians," Penelope said. "After Ovid?"
"Yes."
"I thought he was the one who wrote down the myths -j and, you know, saved them for posterity."
"He was a Latin chronicler of the gods, but he thought ^ it was all nonsense. We'd been around a few hundred* years by that time, but we didn't really have a name for j ourselves. It was Ovid's disparagement of the gods, his insistence that these were fictional tales, not factual recountings of actual events, that further weakened people's already waning belief. We named ourselves after] him. He wasn't one of us, but he furthered our cause."