His head was let go, and he opened his eyes, looked down. His erection was huge, quivering, and covered with blood.
He wished he could shove it in Penelope's mouth and down her throat to gag her and stop all that infernal racket.
No, he didn't.
Yes, he did.
He turned his head around and looked into the trees at the carved god with his face.
What the hell was happening?
More wine was poured into his mouth. That was one thing that was happening: they were trying to get him drunk. He tried to spit out the wine, but it only dribbled down his chin.
God, it tasted good.
They were chanting, the mothers, singing, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. The words were all Greek to him. He giggled. Greek to him. Oh, God, he was already getting drunk. He'd never be able td| get out of here if he didn't concentrate on keeping ' wits about him and trying to stay sober His mouth was jerked open again, more wine poured down his throat He gagged, tried to swallow, almost choked, but the warm liquid went down smoothly and he was filled with a pleasant lightness.
He understood some of die words the mothers were! saying now. Not all of them, but some of them. They were foreign, but he'd heard them before somewhere. In dreams, perhaps.
He realized that they were praying.
To him.
This wasn't right. This shouldn't be happening. He struggled against the mothers' hold, but they were stronger than he was, their fingers and wrists like iron.
They gave him more wine.
He looked out across the meadow. Others were gathering, appearing at the periphery of the field, emerging from between the bushes and the trees.
They were pale, slack-jawed, and nearly all appeared to be drunk. They were walking like remote-controlled zombies, men and women, some with flashlights, some with knives, some with dead cats or dogs, some only with bottles of liquor.
They saw him, waved to him, called to him.
He was communicating with these people, he realized, acting like some sort of homing beacon. He saw in his mind's eye all of the intoxicated men and women of the valley suddenly cocking their heads to hear an invisible sound, like pod people in a monster movie, suddenly dropping what they were doing to come here, to this meadow, to him.
The mothers let go of him, but he couldn't move. He was like a statue, frozen in place. They'd done something to him, put some sort of spell on him, trapped him here in his body. Mother Janine was still rubbing blood on his toes, but he couldn't feel it. He wanted to kick her, to lash out and smash her face in with his foot, but he was unable to move. Tears of rage and frustration slid down his immobile face.
He tried to scream, but no sound would come out He saw his own mother off to the left. She was naked and obviously wasted, rubbing sensuously against Penelope's Mother Margaret. He wanted to call out to her, to run to her, but he could do neither, and he watched as she stared at him, glassy-eyed, then turned away.
From somewhere deep within him came a rumbling, a low, vibrating seismic sound that echoed in his brain and rose to a roar, he was not sure if it was only within him or could be heard outside as well, but it was the loudest thing he had ever heard, and it overpowered his senses and pushed everything else aside.
The sound became words. His words and yet not his words. His thoughts and yet not his thoughts. An announcement of triumph and an admission of defeat:
I AM HERE
April could feel the desire building, the need increasir_
She was not drunk, but she soon would be, and already! she could smell the blood. It hung thick in the air, lent as the wine, and she was starting to get antsy, ious, wanting only for events to accelerate so she couldff satisfy her lust.
Margaret gave her a long kiss on the mouth, pressing^ her body against April's, and April felt the delicious softness of touching nipples, the wiry scratchiness of rubbed j pubic hair. She could sense Margaret's blood pulsing just| below her skin, and she wanted to rip (hat skin open and'-1 let the blood wash over her.
Margaret pulled away, smiling. 'Almost time.'
April looked toward the altar, toward where the otherf women were smearing the fat of the policemen on the! body of her son, and her excitement faded. Dion was| struggling against the hard hands that held him, grunting with exertion and pain.
She felt queasy and a little sick. Part of her, the deep part that had always guided her actions but of which she had only recently been made aware, longed for the con- . elusion of the ritual, craved the freedom that the transformation would bring. But another part of her, an equally strong part, the part that had borne and raised and cared for her son, wanted only for Dion to escape.
Dion.
Her son.
She knew now that she had become pregnant, had deliberately tried to get pregnant, so that this could occur. She had had a child specifically to bring about His return, and on some level she had always known that. But she had also loved her son, loved him as a mother, any mother, would. She had wanted him to grow up and go to college, fall in love and marry, be successful. The normal things.
Dion stiffened, froze.
'No!' she cried. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she angrily wiped them away.
Wine always made her so sentimental.
The meadow was becoming crowded. People were arriving by the carload, by the van load, running, staggering, crawling across the grass toward the altar. She too heard the voice within her son--His voice--calling out to her, and she understood why everyone was here, but she could not help wishing that she and Dion were alone, that she could help him through this, explain to him what was happening.
She looked over at him, saw the pain in his eyes, looked away.
She took another long drink of wine from the bottle, felt a hand on her buttocks. She turned, saw Margaret.
'It is time,' Margaret said. 'He is here.'
She saw him change.
It was the most horrifying thing she had ever witnessed, and Penelope wanted to run, wanted to turn and flee, but she was rooted to the spot, unable even to look away, wishing with all her might that it would stop, reverse, knowing that it would not.
And he started to grow.
It began with his penis, his erection expanding immediately to more than twice its natural length, the rest of his body a step behind that accelerated pace, his arms, legs, torso, and head only belatedly catching up to the first conspicuous spurt of growth. The skin didn't rip as he grew. It should have. She had touched his skin, had felt it, had rubbed it, and it was normal, average, everyday human skin. But now it was stretching impossibly, like rub^ her , expanding with the elongating bones, the developing muscles.
There was no sound accompanying the change. Dion's mouth was open in a scream, but his voice was silent and the only noise in the meadow was the chanting of her mothers and the drunken babbling and overloud footfalls of the arriving inebriates.
It was a terrifying thing to see, and Penelope felt the down on her arms bristle as she watched his head flop unnaturally back and forth on his strangely extended neck, watched his metamorphosing hands twitch as spurts of growth shot through diem, watched his legs buckle and dance as biologically created rhythms contorted them.
It was frightening, but the most frightening thing of all was the change in his face. It was not his features exactly, though they grew and broadened in such a way that the elements of his appearance, while remaining recognizably his, distorted the original to such an extent that he looked like a different person entirely. No, it was his expression, the way that his screaming mouth straightened into a lustful grin, the way his panicked gaze grew blank, then shifted suddenly into slyness. It was power and a knowledge of that power that settled over him,
