The Immortals (3 page)

That nest of leaves in her matted blond hair might be more than just river detritus. Laurel sprigs—she recognized the leaves
that had so often graced her twin brother’s brow—twined together in a crude crown. She examined the sheet more carefully. A safety pin still held it closed at one shoulder, and a tiny hole showed where a second pin had secured the other side. She sat back on her heels, struck by a realization: The sheet was no makeshift shroud. It was a chiton. A draped garment not unlike those worn by ancient Greek women. This woman had been wreathed and draped like a priestess.
Or,
Selene realized with a shock,
like a sacrifice.

She looked again at the braids in her hair. She turned the head gently from side to side, counting. Six braids. A
sex crines
. The hairstyle worn by Roman virgins.

“You’re one of mine,” she murmured. Instinctively, she pulled the leather glove off her right hand and laid a fingertip upon the woman’s brow. In that moment, a vision swam before her.

River water sloshes lazily against the shore while my heart drums with terror. His footsteps, swift on the pavement, draw closer and closer no matter how fast I run. I glance behind—but shadows cloak his face even as he passes beneath the lampposts. Then a knife glints red in the darkness.

He catches me, binds me. “I wish there were another way,” he says, slipping the ring from my finger and holding it to his lips. “But you know there isn’t.” He puts aside the knife, and for a moment I clutch at hope. Then he pulls forth something else—small and silver and curved like a fishhook. He pushes aside the folds of my yellow robe; my bare thighs tremble on the cold ground. There is pain beyond imagining. I look toward the heavens, searching for help. Searching in vain.

Feeling as if she’d awoken from someone else’s dream, Selene grasped at the swiftly receding images.
A needle,
she saw in the final flash.
He had a suture needle and black thread.
She reeled, sitting down hard on the rock, clutching her hand to her chest with a gasped curse.

Selene hadn’t received a vision of a woman’s last moments
since the Diaspora.
Why now? Why this?
Her heart still raced with the woman’s fear. Selene could picture her, braids streaming as she ran from her attacker, a modern simulacrum of the innocents who’d once prayed at the altar of Artemis.

The image brought swift rage to blot away her terror. She rose to her feet, frantically scanning the riverside once more. The names she’d rejected only hours before now sprang to her lips. “I am the Goddess of Virgins,” she seethed under her breath. “I am the Protector of the Innocent.” For millennia, she’d guarded her own virginity, the most sacred of her divine attributes. Much of the time, such abstinence felt like an anachronism: Few of the women she helped were virgins anymore. Yet she had never forgotten the duty she owed her ancient worshipers.

She reached for her bow.

Then she froze, uncertain.

In ancient days, she would’ve already known the perpetrator’s identity. As Artemis guided the moon across the sky, she heard the pleas of women and witnessed the crimes of men. No one could hide from her swift vengeance. But she’d lost such supernatural abilities more than a thousand years before. Selene raised a finger to the swollen bruise on her chin, feeling the silky texture of the powder, a tangible reminder of how far she’d fallen.

In recent decades, she’d preferred to work in the shadows, defending only women who asked directly for her help—those like Jackie Ortiz, whom the cops usually ignored. Now, if even a bully like Mario Velasquez could overpower her, what use would she be tracking a murderer? Then again, how could she not try?

She looked down at the woman.
You were killed steps from my home,
she realized.
Sacrificed as a sick invocation, a perversion of rituals I once held sacred. And I did nothing to stop it.
Disgusted, she thrust aside her self-pity, her hopelessness, her despair.
I may be only a shadow of what I once was, but that doesn’t mean I’m powerless. Not yet.
“I promise,” she said aloud, “this will not go unpunished.”

She would let the cops do most of the legwork, but she didn’t intend to let them arrest the murderer. This heretic would die. Not in some cell, after a drawn-out trial and years of appeals, but at the swift and deadly point of a goddess’s arrow.

Seventy eager young students stared at Professor Theodore Schultz, their hands poised above laptops or clutching pens, ready to absorb his wisdom.
Make that sixty-nine,
Theo amended, noticing Anant Paravastu’s eyes slowing rolling back into his head.

“We have to ask ourselves, what are the myths that shape our own lives, our own society?” Theo paused, as if waiting for an answer. No hands rose, unsurprisingly. Students these days preferred to be told what to think. But he didn’t believe in letting them off that easy.

“Mr. Paravastu, what about you? What are the myths that shape you?” he asked cheerfully. All eyes swung toward the dozing boy in the back row. Theo’s unusual insistence on learning all of his students’ names, even in large lecture classes, had made him the object of both their adoration and their greatest fear.

Anant sprung upright in his chair and chuckled weakly. “Umm… that you can get two hours of sleep and still be functional for your nine a.m. class. Turns out to be a complete myth. No truth to it at all.”

As the students laughed, Theo threw Anant a formal salute.
“Nice save. I won’t ask why you only got two hours of sleep. Wouldn’t want you to tell another myth.” The laughter built to a crescendo as Anant turned beet red beneath his sheepish smile.

“I’ve got my own myth,” Theo went on. “I often tell the story of how, when I was eleven years old, my mother handed me
D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths
. I read it cover to cover in one day, memorized the Twelve Olympians, and constructed my own papier-mâché replica of Athena’s helmet and spear, which I proceeded to wear to school all week. And how did that go over in my very bland suburban middle school, you ask? About as well as can be expected. I got my ass kicked all over the playground, called all sorts of names we would now deem hopelessly homophobic, and was eventually asked by the principal to stop acting like such a, I believe his term was ‘anomalous child.’ But did I back down? Did I hang up my helmet?” He raised his fist defiantly and shouted, “Of course not! Because I knew the Goddess of Just War was on my side. I was the epitome of self-righteous heroism—at least until the rain turned my helm into a yeastily odiferous paste, and I was forced to relinquish my warrior’s raiment.” More laughter.

“Or at least, that’s the story I tell everyone. Why? Because it follows an archetype. I’m given a magical talisman—the book of myths—by an older mentor, I follow my heart into danger, I’m given a powerful weapon that only I can wield, and I come out a hero on the other end. Just like in so many Greek epics. But is my story
true
?” He paused for dramatic effect.

“Trick question. I’ll never tell.” A few groans, rueful smiles. “Because it
doesn’t matter
.” He waited a moment for that to sink in, then launched into the conclusion of his lecture.

“Our definition of ‘myth’ in common parlance: a widely believed, but
false
story. That’s the definition Anant so helpfully illustrated. But that’s not how the Greeks defined it.” Theo turned to the whiteboard behind him and scrawled “μῦθος:
muthos
” in large blue letters.

“
Muthos
just means ‘story.’ No connotation of fictitiousness. The Greeks didn’t question whether Persephone had actually been abducted by Hades, or whether Artemis truly turned the hunter Acteon into a stag. On one level, they understood that these stories certainly weren’t meant to be taken literally, but on another level they believed that the stories held ultimate
truth
. Ways to understand their society, their own behavior, their relationship and duties to the gods. That’s something that fundamentalists in our own day have trouble grasping. That the words in the Bible could be both true and false at the same time. It’s natural to be literal-minded with holy texts, because written words are essentially static. But the Greeks had
oral
traditions, constantly adapted by different storytellers, coming from the mouths of men—no one ever conceived of them as the direct, immutable, literal word of the gods. So. Here’s the hypothesis I propose. Drumroll, please.” He pointed to Anant, who obliged with a quick thrumming on his desk. “The very nature of their myths, even more than their politics, their economics, or their geography, advanced the Greeks to unparalleled heights. Perhaps, I submit, creating a society even more adaptable, more flexible, more
creative
than the monotheistic, literal-minded Judeo-Christian civilization that followed.”

May Chin in the front row raised her hand. “Are you saying the Greeks were more advanced than we are? Even though they lived in, like, 400 BC?”

“Did we invent democracy, theater, and philosophy in less than a century?”

May grinned at him and scribbled in her notebook while a serious boy with a worried frown raised his hand.

“Yes, Mr. Freemantle.”

“Are you suggesting we’d be better off as pagans?”

“I certainly don’t intend to be reading my future in the entrails of dead birds anytime soon, and I don’t recommend you do either. Might get me into all sorts of trouble with the
authorities. What I am saying is that as we enter the second month of this course together, I want you to shake up your perspectives. Open your minds. That’s your assignment for next week. Five pages on how the complex, contradictory, ever-changing nature of Greek mythology may have influenced the progress of Greek civilization as a whole
and
how our own myths influence our lives today—one copy to me and one to Professor Halloran. Sky’s the limit. Go crazy and have fun with it. Now get out of here—and get some sleep tonight, Anant!”

The students rumbled to their feet. Belatedly, Theo shouted over the hubbub, “Professor Halloran will be taking over next week to discuss gender relations in Greek drama, so don’t forget to read
Lysistrata
! You won’t regret it, I promise. Dick jokes and snarky heroines—it’s like the latest Amy Poehler comedy. Enjoy!”

As the students streamed out of the hall, his co-teacher, Everett Halloran, rose from the front row and clapped Theo on the back warmly. Everett was six-three, his wavy dark hair nearly sculptural in its perfection. Although only an inch or two shorter, Theo, with his narrow frame and floppy fair hair, always felt like some pale mole creature standing next to him.

“I could listen to you all day,” Everett said, squeezing Theo’s shoulder one more time for good measure. “Your connection with the students is just mesmerizing.”

“Thanks,” Theo said, a little uncomfortable with what felt too sycophantic to be genuine. But that’s who Everett was, making everyone else feel like they were the center of the universe, while simultaneously pulling them into his own orbit.

“I hate that I missed the first half of the lecture,” Everett went on.

“Busy morning?”

“Up all night working in the office on some research for my latest article.”

“Helen must’ve been thrilled with that.”
Stupid—I shouldn’t even mention her,
Theo thought.
It only makes things awkward.

But Everett just laughed good-naturedly. “She’s been so busy with her own preparation for the conference that I’m sure she had no idea. She’s going to present an abstract of her book.”

“Really? It’s about time. I feel like this book is her Holy Grail, and she’s decided none of us are virtuous enough to see it.”

“Well, soon enough. Meanwhile, she’s been holed up in the library or at her apartment or God knows where, and I haven’t seen her in days. I’ve been teasing her that she’s the worst fiancée ever!”

Theo laughed weakly. Everett and Helen had gotten engaged only six months after they started dating. He’d found their haste disconcerting, but not all that surprising. Sitting near them at conferences lately felt like sitting beside a furnace—all heat and flame and glow. If Theo felt it was all a little stifling, well, who could blame him?

“You coming to the faculty meeting later today?” Everett asked as Theo shoved his lecture notes into his satchel.

“Only if they threaten me with corporal punishment. Even then I might beg off.”

“The privileges of tenure.”

“Damn straight. God knows they would’ve already fired me if they could.”

“Come on. It can’t be that bad.”

Theo snorted. “You’re refreshingly naïve. Wait until you’ve been here a little longer. Trust me, the best way to get your colleagues to resent you is to be their students’ favorite teacher. Second-best way is to thwart their dreams of bigger, cushier office space.”

“You think they’re still sore about the eminent domain dispute?”

“Word gets round, I see.”

“Rumblings. It was before my time.”

“Let’s just say the protest group I formed with the students pissed off the administration to no end. We managed to stop just enough of the university’s expansion so that a few low-income
families got to keep their homes, but the Columbia Classics Department will still be stuck here in musty old Hamilton Hall in perpetuity.”

“And let me guess, our esteemed department chair never forgave you.”

“That sort of brilliant supposition is why you’re on the tenure track, Professor Halloran. Eventually you, too, will be able to infuriate your boss and still hold on to your job.”

Everett’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “Ah, speak of the devil.” He held it up so Theo could see Bill Webb’s name on the screen.

“What can I do for you, Bill?” Everett asked, his voice perfectly smooth and ingratiating as he spoke to the department chair. Theo cringed a little, but he couldn’t help a twinge of jealousy as well. He’d never had Everett’s skill at managing his superiors. “I’m just finishing up our
Intro to Myth
class. I’m still downstairs in 516.” His eyebrows flew upward as he listened. “Uh-huh. A policeman?”

Just then, the door to the lecture hall swung open, revealing a bantamweight man in a neat blue suit. He made his way toward the podium, a serious frown just visible beneath his grizzled mustache. “Everett Halloran?” he asked, pulling a badge from his pocket. “I’m Detective Brandman.” With his gravelly voice and stiff brush cut, the cop reminded Theo of an ex-Marine, maybe the veteran of some covert ’80s Latin American operation gone wrong.

Everett said a hurried good-bye to Webb and stepped forward to greet the detective. “What can I do for you?” he asked, clasping the Brandman’s hand with what Theo knew would be an impressively manly grip. Helen—and everyone else—loved the passionate sincerity Everett’s strong grasp implied. Theo always found it mildly suffocating.

“Would you like to sit down?” the detective asked.

Everett obeyed, folding his large frame into a narrow seat in the front row.

Theo was getting a bad feeling. “What is this about?” he asked.

The detective ignored him and spoke to Everett. “Your chairman said Helen Emerson listed you as her emergency contact. You’re her fiancé?”

“Yes…” His polite smile dissolved. “Is she okay?”

The detective cleared his throat. Then he ripped apart Theo’s world. “I’m sorry to inform you that Helen Emerson’s body was found early this morning in Riverside Park. She’d washed up out of the Hudson wearing only a sheet.”

Everett stared dumbly ahead as the color drained from his face.

Theo felt the room around him begin to spin. He sat down heavily beside Everett.

“How?” he whispered, his mouth gone dry.

“We don’t know yet,” the detective replied calmly. “But this was no suicide. And certainly not an accident.”

“Are… are you sure?” Everett stammered. His hands trembled like an old man’s despite his white-knuckled grip on the chair’s arm.

For the first time, Brandman’s impassive façade slipped a fraction. “We don’t usually reveal the details of the investigation at this point, but we’re having trouble tracking down Miss Emerson’s next of kin. There’s no delicate way to say this.” His lower lip tugged at his mustache as if he would swallow the words. Then, while looking at Theo and Everett as if to gauge their reaction, he said, “Her genitalia had been removed.”

Theo felt a mantle of ice settle around his shoulders. “Removed?”

“With a sharp instrument.”

As if felled by a giant’s fist, Everett slumped forward in the chair and buried his hands in his hair. The detective was still talking, but Theo heard nothing except Everett’s choked sobs and his own racing heart.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but images of Helen streamed through his mind in an unstoppable torrent. Her fair head bent over a thick stack of books in the library. Her hazel eyes shining up at him as they argued over the meaning of some ancient text. Her laughter as she discussed her favorite Egyptian pyramids with a group of undergrads.

Her body, so frail, so delicate, sprawled across cold rocks, covered in blood.

Her gentle smile as she lay, flushed and tousled, in his bed.