That was the most difficult adjustment to make. He knew things that he should not have known, felt things he should not have felt, thought things he should not have thought. He knew this new language, knew this new culture. He had memories of this existence. He had been reborn, but the rebirth had not happened the way he'd thought it would. He closed his eyes. The others would not have this problem. They would be reborn pure, as themselves. He was the only one who would have to suffer this dual existence.
And it was not fair.
It had always been thus. He was forever the outcast, Zeus' whipping boy, forced to endure humiliation after humiliation merely because of the fact that he was half human.
And the fact that he preferred wine to ambrosia.
Those self-important elitists never could understand sensual pleasures, the wonders of the flesh. Or perhaps they could, on a purely intellectual level. But they could never feel it.
He could.
And they were jealous of that.
And they took it out on him.
He walked out of the river, back onto the bank. He was supposed to mate with Penelope, who would bring forth from her golden womb the remaining gods. He desperately wanted to mate with her--a combination, he knew, of his own sexual desires and Zeus' subliminal prodding --but he was not at all sure that he wanted to share this world with the others. This was his world now, his alone, and he liked it that way. There was no reason he should share. He was as powerful as the other gods and more versatile in a lot of respects. He could assume their duties. He could take over Poseidon's role as ruler of the seas. That was a part-time job to begin with. And Ares?| Who couldn't wage war? A moron could handle that.
What about an underworld? That was a much bigger re-1 sponsibility.
Could he maintain that?
There was only one way to find out.
He looked around, finally focusing his attention on the < land across the river. Drawing upon the power within,: him, he loosed a withering blast of heat and fire at the location. The land scorched, burned, and was changed. In place of the trees and bushes, lawns and houses, there was charred earth and burnt air. The perfect environment for the dead.
But how to effect the dead's transition?
He glanced about him. To his left, on a slab of concrete, was the mutilated body of a young man, someone's used plaything. Grinning, Dionysus walked over and picked up the man's corpse, raising it to the level of his face. He held the body and concentrated.
The man's glazed eyes blinked, his mouth worked silently. His stiffened limbs moved slowly, with effort, the jelled blood in his joints flowing slowly across the cold skin.
Yes.
He could maintain an underworld too.
He threw the corpse across the river. It bounced against a burnt tree, cracking a branch, then stood awkwardly. The dead man remained unmoving for a moment, then shambled dumbly into the smoke away from the water.
Fuck the others. Fuck Zeus. Fuck Hera. Fuck Athena. Fuck Apollo. Fuck all of them! This was his world now. He did not need them.
He would not bring them back.
The clocks had stopped. All of them. Penelope thought at first that it was merely electric clocks that were not working, but battery-powered watches, wind-up alarm clocks, every timepiece in the house was now functionally dead.
Power had gone out sometime last night, although the water was still on.
Thank God. She didn't relish the idea of not bathing, of not having a toilet that flushed.
But power? Water? Those were minor inconveniences.
The clocks worried her.
She might have imagined it, but last night had seemed unusually long, much longer than it should have, and she could not help wondering if Dion Dionysus --had somehow affected time, had somehow altered the normal laws of physics. She thought of the bolt of power she'd seen shooting into the sky from the meadow that first night, and she had no trouble believing that he could do it.
Maybe he was planning to shorten the days, lengthen the nights. Maybe everything here in the valley would happen in the rest of the world's split second.
There was a sharp knock at the front door.
She glanced quickly toward Kevin, who was lying on the floor, reading a mythology textbook. He scrambled to his feet, looking as panicked as she felt.
Holbrook came rushing out of the kitchen, motioning for them to lay low.
He grabbed his shotgun. 'Stay down!' he ordered.
There was another series of knocks.
Penelope hit the floor, crawling next to Kevin as she watched Holbrook first peek through the closed living room curtains, then hurry over and open the front door.
'Jack!' the teacher said. He ushered in another man, a short-haired, stern-faced, well-built, middle-aged man wearing the tattered remnants of a dark blue suit. The two of them gave each other what looked like some sort of secret handshake, a ritualized greeting that involved twisting thumbs and touching elbows.
Another Ovidian.
Penelope rose to her knees, then stood, as did Kevin.
Holbrook led the man into the living room. v 'Jack, these are two of my students: Penelope Daneam and Kevin Something-or-other.'
'Harte,' Kevin said.
'Daneam?' Jack's eyebrows went up.
'Their daughter.'
'And you are?' Kevin said.
'Jack Hammond. Napa P. D.'
A cop! Penelope smiled, filled with relief and a buoyed sense of hope.
'Thank God you're here.'
'Are you a maenad?' Jack asked her.
The relief died as quickly as it had flared. There was a flat coldness in the cop's eyes, a studied detachment in the way he looked at her that made her extremely uneasy.
'She's one of us,' Holbrook said. 'I think we can use her to get him.'
Use her.
She moved closer to Kevin. She didn't like the way this conversation was going.
'So where are the rest of you?' Kevin asked. 'Is this 'I it?'
Jack nodded, and the coldness in his face fled, replaced by a weariness that looked closer to exhaustion. She suddenly noticed that there were bruises on his skin, dull splashes of dried blood on his torn suit.
'I couldn't get here right away,' he said. 'So I holed up in the H. Q.'
'Were any of the others there?' Holbrook asked.
'They were all there. They'd been slaughtered. Mike was naked and drenched with wine--it looked like he'd been trying to pass--but he'd been killed just like the rest of them.' He took a deep breath. 'Their heads had been switched.'
'Bastards,' Holbrook breathed.
'They were still outside, and I only had one round in my revolver, so I
stayed there, hid. This was the first day I thought it was safe to come out.'
Penelope was extremely uncomfortable. She wasn't sure if Jack--or Holbrook and Jack--blamed her in any way for what had happened, but she felt guilty nevertheless, as though she was a spy in the enemy camp.
She wasn't a spy, though. She was on their side.
She was a traitor.
'Did you save your toga?' Holbrook asked.
