The way behind her was clear. She was not being chased.
Dion had let her go.
It was nearly noon by the time Penelope arrived back at Holbrook's, and the teacher and Kevin were in the driveway, loading the trunk of Holbrook's car with boxes from the garage.
Both stared at her in shock as she drove up the driveway and parked behind Holbrook's Subaru. She got out of the car, grinning wryly. 'Hey, guys, how's it going?'
'Where were you?' Kevin said, putting his box on the ground and running over. 'What happened? We were just coming over to rescue you.'
'Coming over where?'
'Your winery. Didn't your mothers kidnap you?'
'Yeah, but they took me someplace else. Dionysus has moved his base of operations.'
Holbrook strode over. 'You escaped?'
'Sort of. He let me go.'
'Who? Dionysus?'
'Dion.'
'What happened?' Kevin asked again.
She shook her head. 'Let's go inside. It's a long story, and I need something to drink. Some breakfast would be nice too.'
'Lunch,' Kevin said.
'Lunch, then.' She frowned, looking around. 'Where's Jack?' she asked.
Neither Kevin nor Holbrook said anything, and Penelope's gaze moved from one to the other as a sinking feeling grew in the pit of her stomach.
'Where is he?'
Holbrook looked embarrassed. 'He got into my wine,' he said. 'We were downstairs going over the rescue plans, and he went back up to get something to drink. He found the bottles in the kitchen and ... drank them.'
'What? ... Why? ...' She shook her head, confused, not yet able to assimilate the information.
'I don't know,' Kevin said. 'Jack sure didn't seem like a risk.' He glanced toward Holbrook. 'And I didn't even know about the wine.'
'Where is he?'
'We locked him in the bedroom.'
Penelope closed her eyes, feeling suddenly exhausted, the events of last night and this morning seeming to catch up with her all at once. Kevin moved behind her, put a hand on her shoulder.
She pulled away.
'Leave her alone,' Holbrook said. 'She'll get over it.'
'Fuck you!' Kevin yelled. 'It's your fault anyway!' He touched her back, and this time she didn't pull away.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm just ... It's been a tough day. I didn't mean to take it out on you. It's just ... stress.'
'We were just trying to find you--'
'I know.'
'--before something happened.'
'I know.' She reached out, hugged him, and after a brief hesitation he hugged her back. If Holbrook wasn't here, she thought, she'd fuck Kevin.
That would make him feel better. She'd take off his pants 'Well, isn't that cute?' Holbrook said.
They pulled apart. 'Asshole,' Kevin said.
Penelope faced the teacher. 'How long has Jack been locked up?'
'A couple hours. He'd taken off all his clothes and was using one of the wine bottles when we found him.' The teacher grinned. 'He attacked us with the bottle, and it took us a while to subdue him.'
'How long before he dries out?'
Holbrook shrugged. 'Who knows?'
'I want to talk to him.'
'You can't.'
Penelope glared at him. 'You think you can stop me?'
'No. I mean, you can't. He doesn't listen or he doesn't /
hear. And what he says doesn't make any sense.' He picked up Kevin's box, put it in the car, and slammed the trunk. 'But I guess you'll have to see for yourself.'
She could hear Jack screaming the second they walked into the house. She passed through the living room, went down the hall, following the sound of the policeman's voice. The door to the bedroom at the end of the hallway, the one in which they'd been sleeping, was shut, a newly installed dead bolt keeping it closed.
The knob rattled.
'Jack!' Penelope called.
'Eat me!' the policeman screamed. His voice was hoarse, raspy, and unrecognizable. There was a loud thump as he threw himself against the door. 'Lick my cock! Lick my balls! Lick my ass!'
'It's me! Penelope!'
'I want virgin blood!'
'It's going to be a while,' Holbrook said.
Penelope nodded. She stood there for a moment, staring at the closed door, then walked tiredly back to the living room, dropped onto the couch.
'So tell us what happened,' Kevin said as he and Holbrook followed her into the room.
She started with her nighttime abduction, described waking up in the field, told them of her encounter with Dionysus and the way he'd told her to leave.
'He let you go,' Holbrook mused. 'You say he wasn't drunk?'
'A little maybe. He'd been drinking out of that skin, and his eyes were a little red, but no, not really.'
'You think if he was completely drunk, he would've let you go?'
'No. I think ... I think he's still split. And I think he's closer to Dion when he's had less to drink. I think that's the only reason he let me go.'
'And the others left you alone? In the field?'
She nodded, puzzled. 'Except for the satyr, yeah. Pretty much.'
'It's obvious that they take their cue from him. We suspected as much.
He's not only their leader, their god, but he's the one who calls the emotional shots. If he's happy, they're happy. If he's angry, they're angry. They're automatons, there only to do his bidding. The maenads might be different, but the others ...'
From his seat on the floor, Kevin snorted. 'So what do we do? Sober him up and force him to start preaching abstinence?'
Holbrook raised his eyebrows. 'Not a bad idea.'
'Come on. Be serious.'
'I am serious.'
'So how do we do that? Capture him and pump him full of black coffee?'
Holbrook thought for a moment. 'We could capture and isolate him. But I
think it would be better if we killed him.'
'Hey,' Kevin said, 'why didn't we think of that earlier? You want me to go down there and off him now?'
Holbrook ignored him, faced Penelope. 'We could all go over there. We'd wait while you went in. If you could just lure him over to where we were hiding, we could kill him.'
'But he let me go.'
'He's not Dion.'
'Part of him is.'
Holbrook looked levelly at her. 'You really are your mothers' daughter.'
'And what's that supposed to mean?'
'Just because he has a big dick--'
