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.'
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.'
