Vicki says, “Iacchus now passes that mantle onto you, Henry. That means you have to take on the responsibility, one way or another. It’s something your cousin Peter learned that the hard way.”
“My cousin?”
“Arbuthnot is your cousin Peter. Didn’t you know that? Remember your cousins Peter and Paul? Peter Carolla Dioscuri, from back in San Pedro? He changed his name to Carol Arbuthnot.”
Henry’s brain is spinning, seeking avenues of escape. “What are you talking about?”
“After you and I moved away from the Del Monte Hotel, your aunt Helen and her husband decided that their sons were the rightful inheritors of the Zagreus dynasty. With our parents’ blessing, they arranged a coup against your uncle Thaddeus on Catalina, intending to kill him and take back the Omphalos—the sacred figure of the horned child—before Thaddeus could confer it upon his daughter.”
“That would be me,” says Lisa.
Thaddeus—there is that name again. Uncle Thaddeus. Principal Thaddeus. Sheriff Thaddeus. No wonder, they are all the same guy: Thaddeus the Butcher. Barely able to summon reason, much less outrage, Henry says to Lisa, “Wait. So you’re my fucking cousin?”
“Oh, it gets better,” she says.
Vicki continues, “Needless to say, the coup failed. Your uncle Thaddeus had complete authority over the islanders, down to the last schoolchild. In fact it was the children that did your aunt and uncle in: our little Furies, led by Lisa here. A very rough bunch, as I’m sure you remember. For her sins, my sister met the Mouth of Iacchus; her foolish husband was burned with his boat; our parents were strangled in their beds; and the Del Monte Hotel was razed to the ground.”
“Holy shit.”
“Your cousin Paul was brought to the island and embraced the faith. Peter ran away, changing his identity and disappearing for many years, until last week he returned to the island as Carol Arbuthnot and murdered old Thaddeus. What he might not have realized was that by killing his uncle and taking possession of the Omphalos, he effectively crowned himself High Pontiff of the Sacred Mysteries of Eleusis. Last night, Paul was killed while searching for you—he stupidly witnessed the sacred rite and was sacrificed. And now you have killed Peter, which places you first in the line of succession.”
“Unless something happens to you,” Lisa says.
“It’s really a miracle, Henry,” Ruby cuts in. “How you’ve come here and without any urging put on the sacred vestments. The same ones your father wore, and his father before him. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“What do you mean, ‘my father’?” Henry furiously whirls on his mother. “You always said my father died before I was born!”
“I’m sorry, Henry. I was trying to protect you. Your father was very much alive all these years, and living here on the island with his wife…right up until last week, when your cousin Peter murdered them and took the idol.”
Ruby says, “I only had the honor of meeting your father once, when I was chosen to marry you, and he told me that he remembered you from when you were a child—that it was you who elected him High Pontiff.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You gave him the Idol. Right after your aunt tried to steal it. You found her purse and handed it to him.”
The purse, the little horned statue. Thaddeus the Butcher. Henry reels: My father? No…no way!
Nodding sympathetically, Henry’s mother says, “Now Thaddeus is dead; Peter is dead; Paul is dead. You are last in line, the end of the direct male lineage. You were the one we always wanted, Henry. You are the true heir of Zagreus.”
“So wrong,” Lisa mutters.
Connecting the dots, Henry says, “Wait a minute, does that make her my sister?”
Lisa says, “Hello! Of course I’m your sister, dumb ass.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God.”
“Yes,” Vicki says, somberly. “Praise your Father, and be His son.”
Henry isn’t listening, and doesn’t hesitate this time. Clutching his struggling daughter, he lowers his head and charges. The ranks of women in his way brace themselves like football halfbacks, weapons raised, but they are no match for his momentum…or his horns.
Expecting them to get out of the way, Henry crashes through their line, feeling the sickly crunch of horns punching flesh and bone. Blows fall on his head and back, mostly muffled by the thick hides. Then he is clear, running toward the brush.
He feels a crimping agony in his right breast—Moxie is biting him!
“Aaugh! God!”
Baby teeth or not, Henry has no choice but to let her go—she’s savage as