Kevin looked at the teacher. "You guys wanted to get I rid of all of the gods? There weren't any of them you liked?" ;
Holbrook leaned forward. "They're evil. All of them.": He gestured around the basement, at the pictures on the walls. "People think that the ancients lived an idyllic life in a golden age, that they were enlightened, intelligent men who lived happily amidst their temples and oracles. But do you know what horrors the gods perpetrated on men? We were slaves. They were masters. And they enjoyed that They thrived on it Our order grew out of the resistance to them."
"So you're the ones who killed them off?"
Holbrook shook his head. "I wish I could say we were, but no. We tried to foster disbelief, and it was disbelief that eventually weakened them to the point that they were forced to go into hiding and protect themselves before they faded away entirely. Ovid was a big help with that. But no, it was probably the emergence of Christianity, more than anything else, that caused people to stop believing in the old gods."
"But your group kept on?" Penelope said.
"We knew they'd be back. We didn't know how, didn't know where, didn't know when, but as long as the maenads and the other believers survived, we knew the gods weren't dead."
"So was, like, your dad an Ovidian?" Kevin asked. "And his dad? All the way back?"
"No. I mean, yes, my dad was, but his dad wasn't. Being an Ovidian is not a hereditary thing. You're not born into it. Usually we recruit."
Holbrook sat down on the swivel chair in front of his computer terminal.
"We keep in touch through an online network." He reached around to the back of the machine, turned it on.
"But the phone lines are down ..."
"Yes. We can't communicate now. But I'm sure they know what's happening.
Right now I'm trying to access the Ovidian database. I knew this would happen, so last week I down loaded everything I thought I'd need."
Holbrook's smug, I-knew-this-was-going-to-happen attitude was really starting to irritate the shit out of him, and Kevin nudged Penelope. She did not turn to look at him, but nodded as though she understood why he had elbowed her.
"The other gods," Holbrook said to Penelope. "You did not say how the other gods will be revived. Or how long it would take."
Penelope cleared her throat. "My mothers said that the other gods ..."
She trailed off, redness rushing to her face. "They said the other gods are in Dion too. And that if I had sex with him, I could give birth to them."
"Dionysus is supposed to father the others?" Holbrook smiled. "We may have gotten a break here."
"Why?" Kevin asked.
"He was always something of an outcast on Olympus. The other gods loved order and symmetry. Dionysus loved chaos. He might not be so willing to bring the others back." He typed something on his keyboard. "Dion's mother is a maenad too, right?"
Penelope nodded.
"Same parents as your mothers?"
"Same father. Different mothers."
He raised his eyebrows. "Father. That's new. yob wouldn't happen to know this name, would you?"
"My mother told me, but I ... I can't remember."
"Think."
"She said ..." Penelope thought for a moment. "Harl ris," she said finally. "Harris. Son of Elsmere. Whateve that means."
"Harris," Holbrook repeated, typing. "Elsmere." He| pushed a series of keys, then leaned back to wait. Therel was a moment of clicking and humming before a fullf page of text appeared on the screen. "Harris Naxos," read, scanning the display. "He was found murdered inl his town house in New York, torn apart, along with the| bodies of four women who'd been drowned in his base-f ment. The women had been chained up and had all recently given birth, although none of the infants well&ij found. Harris' mother, Elsmere, was a known maenad^f Emigrated from Greece. We knew about her, apparently^ but since she'd given birth to a son, not a daughter, wej concentrated our efforts at that time on keeping track of the maenad Ariadne and her children in Athens.*!
Holbrook looked up from the screen. "If we'd known alf| this then, we could have killed Harris. And the babiesf too."
Kevin was chilled. He glanced at Penelope. Her facef was pale. "You would have killed the babies?"
"Maenads, as we have always advocated, need to be! eradicated. Only then will the threat of the gods' return bej ended. We haven't always been able to manage it, ofj course, but when we can ..." His attention returned to the; screen. "We got Ariadne. And her children when they grew up."
"What about me?" Penelope demanded angrily. "Do Ij need to be 'eradicated' too?" She grabbed the back of his| chair, swung it around until he was facing her.
He shook his head. "Of course not. You're more us! than them. And as long as you don't procreate--"
She backed away from him.
"No, no. I'm not saying that we would automatically have to kill your child--"
"Shut up," Kevin told him. "Just shut your fucking mouth." He put an arm around Penelope, drew her close to him. Her body was stiff, her muscles tense, but she allowed herself to be maneuvered.
They were silent for a while, Holbrook reading the information on his computer screen, Kevin holding Penelope.
"So what about your buddies?" Kevin asked. "Are they flying in to help us?"
"No."
"No? I thought you said--"
"They don't know anything's wrong. I didn't have time to warn them before communications were cut off. They may figure it out on their own, but it might take a while." He paused. "It might be too late then."
"Are there any Ovidians in Napa?" Kevin asked. "You guys are spread out all over the world, but is there anybody here in the valley besides you?"
"Of course. This is one of the locations we've been monitoring."
"Then what are. we doing here? Get off your lazy ass and find them."
"They're dead."
"How do you know?"
"We were supposed to meet here if anything happened. It's been two days.
No one's showed."
"They might've--"
"They're dead."
The flat certainty of the statement cut off Kevin in mid sentence, hanging heavily in the air between them.
"So what's your plan?" Kevin asked finally. "What are we going to do now? How are we going to get out of this?"
"We'll have to think of something."
"You'll have to think of something?" Penelope said, her voice rising.
Kevin glared at him. "You mean to tell me that your little group's been around for centuries and your sole purpose is to put a stop to this--and you never came up with a plan?"
"We have ideas--"
"Ideas? Shit! You should have plan A, B, C, D, all the way to fucking Z!
You've certainly had enough time to think about it. Did you think that just knowing it was going to happen was enough? You'd just wing it from there?"
Holbrook was not on the defensive. "Actually, we had planned to prevent the resurrection from occurring."
"Well, you totally failed at that. Did you think that asking Penelope for a bottle of wine was an attempt to stop it?"
"You're right. I should've killed her mothers years ago, when I first found out."
Penelope sucked in her breath.
"I should have killed Dion the first day of class."
Penelope whirled around, strode out of the basement, stomped up the stairs. Kevin hurried after her, only a second or two behind.
Downstairs, at his desk, Holbrook laughed.
The two of diem stopped in the living room, unsure of where to go or what to do.
"I always knew Holbrook was an asshole," Kevin said. "But I never knew he was so ..."
"Weird?" Penelope said.
"Crazy."
She nodded. "You don't think about what teachers are like in their real lives, what they do at home, on the weekends, with their families."
Kevin gestured back toward the basement. "Now we know."