Selene stood across the street from Theodore Schultz’s apartment building for nearly two hours before he appeared at the doorway just after ten in the morning, a large satchel slung over his shoulder. With his rumpled overcoat, tousled hair, and feverish eyes, he looked like he’d either just rolled out of bed or been up working for hours. A scowl of concentration made him seem sterner than she remembered. Selene stayed away until he’d barreled down the sidewalk and out of sight.
She’d almost held an arrow to his jugular yesterday in the park and insisted he confess to killing Helen Emerson. And if he admitted to the crime, she could’ve pushed that same arrow through his windpipe with no compunction. But as they spoke, something about his grief, clearly deep despite his attempts at humor, had stopped her. She’d told him the details of Helen’s death to see his reaction, and he seemed genuinely horrified. She never shied from punishing men if the victim identified them, or if she herself saw the crime committed, but a long-ago tragedy had taught her not to rely solely on hearsay or circumstantial evidence. And with Schultz, that’s all she had: friend of the victim, expert in Ancient Greek, loiterer at the crime scene. She needed to be patient if she wanted to find proof of his involvement. To stalk her prey a little longer before moving in for the kill.
It took only a few minutes before another tenant left Schultz’s building; Selene held the door for her with the warmest smile she could muster, then slipped nonchalantly inside. She wished she could get into Helen Emerson’s building with such ease. When she’d swung by earlier that morning, cop cars lined the block and officers trooped in and out the front door. Selene had no choice but to let the police investigate the victim while she pursued the suspect.
In her backpack, she’d stowed all the tools she might need for this little adventure. It felt good, using her old skills again. In her time in exile, she’d been a cop, a bodyguard, a naturalist, and briefly, an assassin. And that was just the beginning of the list.
She donned a pair of gloves and used her picks to jimmy his door open. Schultz hadn’t bothered with high-security locks; maybe he was naïve enough to think he’d never get robbed. Selene had three different locks on her own door. It wouldn’t do to have a burglar discover the god-forged golden bow in her closet.
The door swung open with a creak, revealing a large studio apartment with a living and dining area separated from the bedroom by a folding screen. The room was clean, but far from neat. Books and papers littered every surface, like an ancient library pillaged by Visigoths.
Selene moved to a small dining table completely covered by tall stacks of papers. She picked up the first, a student’s essay on the Odyssey, and thumbed through. The professor’s red ink emendations lay between the printed lines, streamed down the bottom of the page, curled into the side margins, and continued onto the back. Finally, a scrawled C+, accompanied by yet another comment: Impressively meta: You’ve taken a tortuous journey of Odyssean proportions before arriving at your point. But next time, don’t bury your thesis statement on page ten. Selene checked the other papers. All similar palimpsests of black text and red ink. It must have taken the professor an hour to grade each one.
Next to the papers lay a stack of lecture notes. She skimmed the first few pages with a raised eyebrow. Someone who actually thinks the gods have something to contribute to the modern world, she thought, impressed. But as she kept reading, she grew disheartened. I see. Myths are manmade creations, not to be taken literally, but to be torn apart and dissected and put back together. They’re all about human civilization, because of course humans are the center of everything. Such arrogance. She looked at the anthologies of myths lining the bookshelves. Within their pages lay the history, the loves and losses, the deepest secrets of beings far removed from mere mortals, if only the professor knew to look.
But, she had to admit, Schultz was right about one thing: The line between fiction and reality was never clear—not even for her. Like all the gods, she had little control over her pre-Diaspora memories. Artemis had existed more as a metaphor than as a maiden, her very reality shaped by the tales poets told of her. Thus, her recollections of the first two thousand years of her life were like scenes viewed through a forest pool—twisted and warped, sometimes so cloudy she could remember nothing, sometimes so bright that she was equally blind. How could the mind of an omnipresent being—a goddess presiding over her temple at Delos, hunting through the forests outside Rome, riding the moon across the sky—be contained within a mind that grew more mortal with every passing day? Only certain memories remained sharp—mostly those described by the poets and retold over the centuries. She knew that those stories—the transformation of Acteon, her father’s bestowal of her divine attributes, the punishment of Calisto, and many others—had actually happened, but her memories were like sand dunes in the wind, carved by poets who both augmented and eroded the past in equal measure. Most maddening of all, Selene could never be sure how much her memories had changed; she could only trust that some kernel of truth remained within them.
The books and notes in Schultz’s apartment spilled off the shelves, then lay like a trail of breadcrumbs across the living area before joining another pile of research lying on, around, and under a large desk. She scanned the titles briefly—cult practice, mainly.
She hadn’t considered the murder could be the work of multiple people in an organized group. She flipped through one of the professor’s books, her heart sinking. I might have more than one Greek-inspired killer to deal with, she thought. Just what I need. For the last thousand years, she’d barely thought about Greek cults. Holy Roman Emperor Theodosius had banned cult worship in the fourth century, and it had died off quickly after that, taking most of the Athanatoi’s supernatural powers along with it. As their godhood waned, her father Zeus summoned his divine family to a Great Gathering on Mount Olympus. The golden roofs of their palaces had grown dull, the marble colonnades cracked and listing. There, Zeus declared that the Diaspora was at hand. Since the people of Greece and Rome had abandoned the Olympians, the Olympians would abandon them in return. No longer would they provide protection in return for homage. In fact, Zeus swore a great oath upon the River Styx that the Olympians would not step foot in their ancient homeland again. Instead, each Athanatos gathered what sacred objects he still possessed and walked forth into the world to make his way among the thanatoi. Some traveled to Africa, others to the farther reaches of Europe, and eventually, many made their way to the New World, lured by the promise of a land not yet dominated by Christianity. Never, in all that time, had the gods believed that mankind would revive the old cult practices.
But maybe the books strewn across Schultz’s apartment proved that the professor himself had decided to do just that. Or perhaps he was just following her advice to look into sacrificial rites. She couldn’t be sure.
Selene scanned the rest of the room, looking for the sort of mementos that ritual mutilators kept of their kills. If you looked hard enough, especially if they lived alone, you were bound to find some proof of their hobby. But so far, Schultz seemed more eccentric than truly crazed. Photos hung on most of the walls and stood propped on the mantle of his small fireplace. She recognized the professor’s teenage self in many—gangly, acne plagued, but grinning hugely—always surrounded by people. The same faces showed up in later photos, when Schultz’s skin had cleared and his frame filled out—even once his temples had gone gray. This was a man with strong personal bonds: not exactly the profile of a serial killer. Women featured prominently in many of the photos. A player? wondered Selene. But something about the laughter in their faces made her think not. The backgrounds—the Coliseum, the Louvre, the Palace at Knossos, and a series of archeological digs on dusty hillsides—indicated they might be fellow academics.
She picked up a beach photo of Schultz and a short, curly-haired Latina woman who appeared in multiple photos. The woman filled out her red bikini in a way Selene’s boyish figure never would, all breasts and hips, with a slightly rounded stomach. Schultz, wearing shorts and a T-shirt reading Vivant Linguae Mortuae! (“Long Live Dead Languages!”), stood with his arm around her, his lean frame bent nearly horizontal so he could rest his fair head against her dark one.
Selene put down the photo and walked to the coffee table in front of the couch, curious about the mess of cardboard scraps littering its surface. Only when she got close did she realize they were jigsaw pieces, all turned upside down. The puzzle was half-done, a beige expanse fitted together with a watchmaker’s skill.
Behind the folded screen stood a rumpled queen-sized bed. Beside it teetered three piles of well-thumbed books—everything from Star Trek novels to presidential biographies to the works of Cicero and Ovid. She crouched to peer beneath the metal bedframe. If you really wanted to find a man’s secret vices, this was the place to look. Sure enough, she spotted a battered shoebox. As she lifted the lid, she winced in preparation for the inevitable trove of porn. Instead, she found a pile of letters and a few photographs.
She wasn’t just your colleague after all, Professor Schultz, she thought, pulling out a picture of a short, pretty woman with a fall of long blond hair and a guileless grin—a woman who had appeared nowhere in the other photos littering the room. Helen Emerson wore a strapless blue sundress and held a plastic cup of wine, toasting the camera. The Hudson River glinted in the background, with New Jersey apartment complexes visible beyond its shores. The Boat Basin Café in Riverside Park, Selene realized. Less than a mile downriver from the scene of Helen’s death.
One other photo from the same day. The light golden as the sun set, flaming orange and violet over the water. Helen and Schultz. His arm outstretched as if taking the photo with one hand while his other arm lay protectively around her shoulders. His lips pressed against her cheek. Her face scrunched with delight.
Selene put the photo back where she found it and pulled out the stack of letters. An envelope addressed to the professor, care of the University of Athens in Greece. Beneath the torn flap lay a letter on thick stationery, a Greek key embossed in gold around its border. The handwriting was barely legible: a miniature garden of curlicues, some words too small to read, others obscured by long, trailing flourishes. It took Selene, who’d never been much of a reader in the first place, nearly a minute to decipher each sentence.
Dearest Theo, Helen had written. You’ve been gone for two weeks, and it feels like an eternity.
Selene checked the date at the top of the page. September. Almost exactly a year ago.
This last year with you has been the happiest of my life, and now I feel it’s all slipping away. I know you’re coming back, but January feels so far away. How can I bear it?
Every time I pass the Met, I think of our first kiss. Every time I walk by your apartment, I think of our first night together.
Selene shifted uncomfortably, but forced herself to keep reading. In her job as a private investigator, she was used to watching people exhibit their lustful perversions—love, on the other hand, always discomfited her.
I love your letters. Love to think of you visiting the digs in the hills of Crete and spending your evenings watching Aeschylus and Sophocles in the place they were meant to be performed. But it’s not the same as being with you.
The letter went on in a similar vein for three excruciating pages, closing with Mainolai thymoi, “With a raving heart.” Selene rolled her eyes. The next letter was more of the same. And the next. But by December, Helen’s missives changed.
I write every day, sometimes twice. And all I get from you are e-mails full of academic details and superficial jokes. You say you miss me, you care for me, but where’s the passion, Theodore? I keep waiting for the part where you say how you’ve bought a plane ticket on a whim and flown home to surprise me, if only for a day, because you can’t bear to be away from me. Instead, you sound like you’re enjoying yourself, while I feel increasingly insecure.
She signed it Syn philoteti, “With friendship.” Finally, the last letter to Greece. Dated just before Christmas.
I’ve fallen in love. I met him and it was a flood tide. Like all my thoughts of anyone else were just wiped away and I was left newborn, clean, with my eyes finally opened to another world. He makes me feel confident, strong, complete, and at the same time, I can’t help feeling you never really loved me enough. I’m sorry if this hurts you, but I know something you don’t—sometimes Aphrodite just can’t be stopped.
Selene let out a dismayed whistle. Ouch. Was wounded pride enough to push the mild professor over the edge? One final note lay in the box, a single folded sheet with no envelope. It was dated only three months ago.
I can’t stop thinking about last night. One moment keeps replaying in my mind. After you fell asleep, I ran my fingers along your ribcage—as if I were a blind woman and you the map. I followed the line of your sternum, my hands rested along your collarbone, I traced your jaw until I found your lips. I didn’t know what I sought at the end of the trail—you? Everett?
I miss you, Theo. I love you. I always have. But I’m with Everett now, and I love him, too. My engagement ring seems more appropriate than ever. A Greek meandros… maybe because love isn’t always a straight line? It twists and turns back on itself. But, I hope, it continues to move forward. And that’s what I have to do.
You said we shouldn’t have let last night happen. Now, in the light of day, I know you’re right.
The letter ended there, but the image still lingered in Selene’s mind—for an instant, she recalled how it felt to run her palms over the hard muscles of a man’s chest. She’d had a lover of her own once. Schultz’s books told their own versions of the tale, but this was the one memory from her pre-Diaspora godhood that she’d managed to preserve in its true, unaltered form. It had taken a great act of will, but from the moment she’d realized her memories had begun to shift and fade, she’d started reciting the story of her love, in all its passion and heartbreak, over and over to herself through the millennia, so the poets’ versions might not eclipse her own. So, while the rest of her history had slipped away, this story remained clear.
Hesitantly, she traced the sharp contour of her collarbones, the square lines of her own jaw, trying to imagine her lover’s caress.
“Orion.” She whispered his name aloud, the shape of it like a kiss upon her lips. She closed her eyes, falling into the memory of the only man she had ever loved—would ever love.
Stag and boar flee before us, but we chase them down. All through the night we hunt, my silver moon lighting our path. Even my hounds cannot keep pace, and dryads and naiads fall panting behind us. Only Orion and I remain, leaping over rivers and across hills, then crouching down to hide behind the sheltering trees, ready to spring forth once more when prey crosses our path, I with my golden bow and the Hunter with his bronze sword.
I marvel at my own unfettered joy, so unlike the wrathful vengeance of my hunts with Apollo. My twin and I chase those who insult us, those who do not pay proper homage. But with Orion, I am only the Huntress of Beasts, the Goddess of Wild Places, Mistress of the Moon. To be with him is freedom. It is ecstasy.
I kneel with my Hunter behind a fallen tree, watching a stag and its doe pace silently into a moonbeam’s path. I start to raise my bow, but Orion takes my hand in his instead. I might protest, but for the look in his eyes, both gentle and hungry. “I would do anything to be with you,” he whispers. His words are a flame, heating my skin. There, in the shadow of the trees where even my father the Sky God might not see, he takes my face in his hands and kisses me.
I taste a man’s lips for the first time. I run my hands through his dark curls. I feel his heart beat strong against my breast, and I suffer both heat and chill when his hand slips beneath my tunic to rest against the small of my back.
Heart pounding, Selene pulled herself from the memory. She replaced the love letters in their box. As Helen’s ex-boyfriend and sometimes secret lover, Schultz looked even more suspicious. But no visible fingerprints marked the dust covering the lid. The professor hadn’t opened it in months. If Helen had indeed been his prey, he likely would’ve sought the photos and letters often, reliving his humiliation and heartache, stoking the fires of vengeance. Shaking her head resignedly, she stowed the box back under the bed. She’d had thousands of years of experience with hunts like these, and she prided herself on knowing when a man was guilty. But now she just wasn’t sure.
As she stood up, her skin prickled as if sensing something just beneath the range of human hearing. She stayed still for a moment, listening closely. Her hearing hadn’t been supernatural in centuries, and yet—yes, a quick step on the stairs, the jingling of keys. She snatched up her backpack and dashed toward the window, hoping for a fire escape. No such luck. Still, there was a narrow stone ledge overlooking the alley. Once she would’ve hopped onto the ledge without a thought, but that was before she’d lost her uncanny balance and agility—not to mention her ability to quickly heal from a fifth-story fall. Still, hiding in the closet seemed even stupider.
She opened the sash and swung onto the sill. Balancing on the six inches of granite with one booted foot, she slid shut the window with the other, then sidled out of view along the ledge, her back pressed against the brick wall of the building. Gingerly, she pulled off her left glove with her teeth: Her bare fingers could better grip the masonry. When she took the glove out of her mouth to shove it into her pocket, it slipped from her grip. Instinctively, she reached after it, bending down as it fluttered past her fingertips.
Then she froze. With a gasp, she realized she hung suspended fifty feet in the air, her feet on the narrow ledge and all her weight hanging over the abyss, with only the fingers of one hand to hold her steady. Yet somehow, she didn’t fall. Slowly, she stood upright, willing her heart to stop its panicked gallop.
From the apartment behind her, she heard the sound of an opening door. Curious, she glanced down at the window. Double-paned, as she thought. She shouldn’t be able to hear through it so easily. So I can hear through walls again, she mused. If only I could see through them, too. She’d give anything to see what Schultz was up to. Don’t do it, don’t even think about it, she chided herself. Just because you’re feeling particularly agile doesn’t mean you’re suddenly Artemis again. But she couldn’t help it—she raised herself onto the toes of her boots, then bent into a precarious squat so she could lean toward the window. She twisted her head over her shoulder and peeked inside.
Schultz was on his hands and knees beneath his desk, shuffling through more papers. He finally emerged, dusty-haired, with a thick book. Selene could just make out the title: Asclepius by Trismegistus. An ancient Arabic text translated first into Greek, then from Greek to Latin, then Dutch, and finally into English in the seventeenth century. She doubted such an oft-translated text would hold any reliable clues. Reading it would be like playing an ancient game of telephone, with words, stories, entire chapters corrupted by time.
The professor moved toward the door, knocking a mug of tea off a shelf as he went. The mug didn’t break, but the tea spilled all over his chest. With a huff, he dropped his satchel and tore off his overcoat and T-shirt. A sunbeam from the window illuminated a blond tracery of hair across the taut planes of his chest. It seemed scholarship was better exercise than she imagined. His body was slimmer, less heavily muscled than Orion’s had been—surely it was only her recent reminiscing that brought a flush of heat to her cheeks. Her eyes traveled the path of Helen’s fingers: across the curve of his lower rib, up the shallow declivity of his sternum, resting for a moment in the hollow between his collarbones before skimming the sharp point of his chin and coming to rest on the thin line of his lower lip.
When Selene’s phone rang, she nearly fell off the window ledge.
She cursed and stuck her hand in her pocket, silencing the ringer as she pulled it out. She glanced back through the window, but Schultz was busy yanking a new T-shirt over his head. He hadn’t heard. She waited until he left the apartment again, then answered the call.
“Moonshine?” asked a familiar voice. “Hello… are you there? Moonshine, it’s me.”
“I know who it is.” Only one man ever used that nickname. The cold shiver down her spine had nothing to do with her hazardous perch.
“Mother gave me your number—”
“I asked her not to do that. Look, this isn’t a good time.” She bent back toward the window, but realized she wouldn’t have enough leverage to open it again from the outside.
“I don’t care. This is an emergency.”
“Oh, yeah?” Awkwardly, Selene swung her backpack around her body and fished inside with her free hand until she found the length of rope she’d packed—just in case. “Another girl get out of your grasp? Now that they don’t turn into trees anymore, I thought you’d have an easier time of it.” Selene balanced the phone against her shoulder and made a quick loop in the rope. Above her, an exhaust pipe stuck through the brick. She slung the rope over and tightened the knot, praying the pipe would hold. “Why are you calling?”
“It’s Mother. She’s at New York-Presbyterian.”
“The hospital?” Selene swayed a little, and only reflexes she’d thought she’d lost centuries before kept her from toppling off the ledge. She gripped the rope harder to steady herself.
“Yes. I’m here with her. You need to come soon. She’s… she’s fading.”
Numbly, Selene pushed off from the wall and slid down the rope. At the bottom, she stood frozen, clutching the rope in one hand and her phone in the other.
When her twin brother spoke again, his voice, usually smooth and velvety, shook and cracked. “It has begun.”