The Immortals

by Jordanna Max Brodsky

  Suddenly, he spoke. “Se tan enaulois hypo dendrokomois,” he began.

  At first, Selene could barely process the words. Then she couldn’t help smiling triumphantly. Ancient Greek. What better evidence that he’s involved in a ritual killing? She forced herself to remain hidden, listening.

  “Mouseia kai thakous enizousan.”

  It had been centuries since she’d heard a mortal speak the ancient tongue so fluently, but she had no problem understanding his words.

  “O you who settle in the leafy coverts,

  Singing melodious bird, sorrowful nightingale.

  Come to my help in the dirges I make,

  As I sing of Helen’s pitiful pains.”

  Selene recognized the elegy. A summons to the wild birds of the forest to join in a requiem for Helen of Troy.

  “Who among men, though he search to the uttermost end,

  Can claim to have found what is meant

  By god or the absence of god or of something between?

  For he sees the works of the gods

  Turning now here and now there,

  Now backwards again through a fate

  Beyond calculation or forethought.”

  Selene felt his words like a wound. Nearly two thousand years ago, the Olympians’ capriciousness—protecting then punishing, manifesting then vanishing, healing then destroying—had pushed men toward a new god, one both understandable and understanding, who cemented his will in commandments and wrote his words in books. Mankind abandoned Artemis and the other Athanatoi—Those Who Do Not Die—and the Diaspora began. They fled their heavenly perch, condemned to wander the mortal realm below, remembered only as figments of ancient imagination, insubstantial as dreams.

  “You, O Helen, carry to the sorrowful sorrows

  And pain upon pain.”

  The man’s voice drifted to a murmur. He stood for a moment in silence, the wind whipping his fair hair across his high forehead. Finally, he turned to face the boulders where the woman had lain in her yellow shroud.

  With Hippo beside her, Selene left the shadows of the woods. She stood for a moment, watching the grieving man at the waterside. Normally, she avoided talking to men—female clients like Jackie Oritz were hard enough to deal with. She preferred hurting first and asking questions later.

  But in truth, Selene had little choice. His dirge had not just summoned the birds of the wild—it had summoned the deities of the wild as well. It would seem that the gods were not forgotten after all.

  Chapter 5

  MOON GODDESS

  Only after Theo had finished the poem did he look down at the rocks where Helen’s corpse had lain.

  “Katharsis,” he said aloud with a bitter laugh. “All these years explaining it to my students, and I guess I finally understand what it means.” He took a last shaky breath and lifted his glasses to rub his eyes, glad no one was around to see the tears that had finally come.

  He kept imagining Helen’s terrified screams as she realized what was about to happen to her. He could do nothing to help her now, but at least he’d marked her passing in a way that might return some of her stolen dignity. The right words had eluded him: He’d used Euripides’ instead.

  The boulders revealed no sign of tragedy—at least none that Theo could see—but hopefully the police had found plenty of evidence that would bring Helen’s killer to justice. For him, there were other responsibilities to attend to—making sure Everett hadn’t thrown himself off a bridge, providing a shoulder for Helen’s roommate to cry on, dealing with the inevitably tone-deaf press release no doubt already drafted by Bill Webb. He turned to go.

  A woman and a large shaggy mutt stood a few yards away, staring at him.

  “Holy Roman Empire!” he yelped, stepping backward and nearly tripping over his own feet.

  She lifted one perfectly sculpted black brow and looked at him with eyes so light they seemed almost silver. “Don’t worry. I’m just walking my dog. I’ll pretend I didn’t see you jumping the police barricade.”

  “Good. And I’ll pretend I didn’t just exclaim something utterly pretentious.” He started walking away. As he passed, he glanced again at the woman and almost stopped in his tracks. Flawless pale skin, aquiline nose, chin-length black hair peeking out from beneath a ratty New York Liberty cap. At first he assumed she was young, but something about her stern gaze made him suspect she was closer to his own age. Perhaps thirty. She was extremely tall—almost as tall as he—and though she wore a leather jacket over baggy pants, nothing could hide the sleek lines of her long limbs. A gust of wind blew across Theo’s face, carrying the scent of a summer cypress forest that only added to her allure. I must be delusional, he thought, looking at the maples and oaks in their September foliage. Wishing I were back in Greece.

  “Did you know the woman who was murdered?” the stranger asked suddenly, stopping him when he was a few yards past her.

  He wanted to shake his head and keep walking. The standard New Yorker’s response to nosy tourists or needy panhandlers. But Theo had never been the standard New Yorker. And he couldn’t bear to deny Helen’s existence. Soon enough, no one will ask after her again.

  “We taught together up at Columbia,” he said. “Her name was Helen Emerson.”

  “So you’re here looking for evidence?”

  “Me? The closest I’ve ever gotten to detective work is piecing together potsherds from ancient urns.”

  “Then what’re you doing in a crime scene?” the woman asked. “My dog refuses to pee in any other part of the park. I’ve got an excuse.”

  “Maybe I refuse to pee anywhere else, too.”

  She didn’t smile. Instead, she closed the distance between them. Now she stood only a few feet away, her face cloaked in the shadow of a nearby tree. Again the scent of cypress washed over him.

  “You’re sure you aren’t involved in the investigation?” she asked.

  “Police work’s beyond my pay grade. I’m a classicist.”

  “You were close to her?”

  “You’ve got a lot of questions, you know.”

  She shrugged. “Just curious.” She stroked her huge dog absently as she spoke, as if only vaguely interested in what Theo was saying.

  “You’re not a reporter, are you?” Theo asked, suddenly suspicious.

  “Do reporters usually bring their dogs to crime scenes?”

  “Maybe they should. Might provide some much-needed cheer.” The woman just stared at him. Theo gamely placed a hand on the dog’s wide head. It snarled and snapped at his fingers; he took a quick step back.

  The woman didn’t even try to restrain the dog. “She doesn’t like men.”

  “Oh. Well, honestly, right now I don’t either.”

  She finally laughed. Brief, dry, bitter. “I don’t hear that every day.”

  “Well, it’s not every day a man kills a friend of mine and dumps her body in the river,” he retorted, suddenly angry.

  The woman’s levity vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The set of her jaw, the narrowing of her eyes, made him think she understood exactly what he meant.

  “Theodore Schultz,” he said impulsively, offering his hand.

  The woman just stood, staring at him, through him with her silver eyes. Judging. He noticed her fingers twitching and thought for a moment she might refuse to touch him. But finally, she stretched out her hand. Her flesh was as cold and smooth as shadowed marble. She didn’t offer her name.

  When she spoke again, all hint of idle curiosity had vanished. “Tell me exactly what Helen taught,” she demanded.

  Theo nearly walked away right then, shaken by her sudden, startling ferocity, but he found himself answering. “Unless you’re a classicist, it won’t mean much to you. We spend most of our time trying to convince our students that the ancient world is still relevant, but they’re all too busy trying to get jobs as hedge fund managers to really believe us.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “She was a professor with th
e Archeology and Art History Department, with a specialty in images of femininity across ancient cultures. Priestesses of Isis, the Panathenaic Festival, Vestal Virgins, a whole range of things.”

  “And was she one?”

  “One what?”

  “A virgin.”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” he said, struck by a sudden image of Helen, lying naked in a sunbeam on his rug, flipping through the latest Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists. “Why does it matter?”

  “Don’t you see what happened to her?” Her lip curled in a snarl. “You really think this is some random homicide? She was mutilated. Ravaged. This was a ritual.”

  “How do you—”

  “Did you care about this woman or not?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Then start using your head, Professor. A criminal this heinous doesn’t usually stop with one woman. He’ll strike again. Trust me. So I need you to tell me everything you know about this case.”

  “I don’t know anything,” he said, angry now. “If I did, don’t you think I’d be doing something about it? Who are you anyway?”

  “I’m a private investigator of crimes against women. I found her.”

  “Oh, Christ.”

  “I found her lying on the rocks with her eyes open and her womb cut out. A bloodless piece of meat. Torn apart by some man who wrapped her up in a chiton, bound a laurel wreath around her brows, and dressed her hair in six braids. Did they tell you that part?” She narrowed her eyes, as if waiting for his reaction. “Your friend Helen was dressed up like a virgin sacrifice. You’ve read your Homer, right, Professor? The gods don’t like human sacrifices—and neither do I.”

  Theo doubled over, his stomach heaving, body convulsing. He’d eaten little that day, but still he retched until bitter bile dripped from his lips.

  He took a final rasping breath, then straightened, wiping his mouth with the last scrap of dirty tissue in his pocket. She watched him coldly, unsurprised. “That’s catharsis,” she said.

  Had she given him a clean tissue, offered to call for help, or expressed her sympathy in any way, Theo would’ve gone home that day, mourned his former lover, and eventually gotten on with his life: immersing himself in intellectual challenges, taking on the occasional social justice cause, basking in his students’ adoration. But the complete lack of pity in those steely eyes was like a slap in the face, challenging him to be a bigger man.

  “Have you told the police what you know?” he asked.

  “That’s your job. I don’t work with the police. I don’t work with anyone. But you can give them all the facts so they’ve got a chance to solve this thing.” She grimaced. “But I’m warning you, they may not believe you. Policemen don’t always accept the extraordinary.”

  “Why not? Sure it’s a bit bizarre… but if you’re right about the chiton and the wreath, a ritual sacrifice makes some sense to me.”

  “Yes, but you’re an expert in the field. A learned man.”

  Is that what I am? His academic knowledge had never felt less relevant. “But I’ve got no expertise in life and death circumstances. No one gets hurt, or even particularly disappointed, if you translate Virgil poorly.”

  “The cops need you. You’ll see things they can’t, or won’t.” One brow lowered skeptically, she looked him over. Judgment. Again. But she must have seen something she thought worthy, because after a moment, she reached into the bulky black pack on her shoulder, pulled out a pen and a scrap of take-out menu, and scrawled a few lines. “Here’s my number. Tell the police everything, but leave me out of it. And if they let you down, call me.” She took a single step closer to him. The sharp scent of pine tickled his nostrils. “I have no intention of letting Helen’s murder go unavenged.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Good.”

  He looked down at the piece of paper. Selene DiSilva. Private Investigator.

  He thought immediately of the Homeric Hymn to the Moon Goddess. Hail, white-armed goddess, bright Selene, mild, bright-tressed queen. He’d never understood the “mild” part. The Moon had always seemed fierce and lonely to him, like Artemis, the celibate Huntress who shared Selene’s mastery over the night sky.

  “Good luck, Professor.”

  “And to you, Moon Goddess.”

  She laughed. A bitter, harsh sound. Her huge dog pranced and barked along.

  Then she left, her every motion a lesson in grace, melting back into the woods as mysteriously as she’d emerged.

  In the myths, he thought, watching her go, you can tell by her blazing eyes and her proud bearing that a goddess has visited you in mortal form. Then, for the first time since he’d learned about Helen, he laughed.

  Chapter 6

  A LEARNED MAN

  Theo dreamed of making love in a moonbeam. The light was a palpable thing, a bright, cold cradle that cast the woman’s features in bold relief. Yet when the phone rang and dragged him from sleep, he couldn’t remember her face. Only that he was surprised it wasn’t Helen’s.

  He sat up, drenched in sweat, fumbling for his glasses and then his phone. When he saw that it was six in the morning, he was sure another woman had been murdered. Why else would someone call at such an hour?

  He checked the caller ID and swallowed hard. “Jesus, Gabriela, are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay!” came the shrill reply.

  “Where are you?” Theo was already out of bed and trying to pull on yesterday’s pants while balancing his phone between his ear and shoulder. Still half asleep, he decided the killer had struck again. Selene DiSilva warned me—why didn’t I do something sooner? “I’m on my way.”

  “You don’t need to come, for Christ’s sake. What’re you going to do? The stuff’s already been stolen.”

  “Stolen?” Theo sat down hard on his bed, one foot half out of a shoe. “What?”

  “There was a break-in at the museum—can you believe it?”

  “Ah. So despite hysterically calling me at the ass-crack of dawn, you haven’t been ritually mutilated by a psychopath.”

  “What? Oh, because of Helen—no, no, sorry, querido. It’s nothing like that.”

  Groaning, Theo lay back on his bed and retreated under the covers, his pants still around his calves. It was like Gabriela to scare him half to death for no reason.

  “I didn’t think,” she went on. “You sound awful. You holding up?”

  “Barely. I was up all night poring over Helen’s published journal articles, trying to find some clue to explain what happened. Then when I couldn’t see straight anymore, I gave up and regressed to my fifteen-year-old self, watching Saturday Night Live reruns.”

  “You see the one with the new girl, Jenny Thomason? You know she’s only nineteen?” As usual, Gabriela could switch gears on a dime.

  “Yeah. She did this amazing Beyoncé bit—part coy striptease, part feminist manifesto. I remember thinking Helen would’ve loved all the subversive symbolism, then that just depressed me further. I must’ve finally passed out sometime before dawn. But I’m definitely awake now, and if I keep thinking about Helen, I’m going to completely break down, so just tell me what’s up.”

  Theo and Gabriela had become fast friends while teaching at Kansas University after their postgrad stints at archeological digs. Theo left Kansas’s Classics Department after only a year, when the siren call of the Big Apple lured him to Columbia. Gabriela left the Anthropology Department a year later; she’d never been much of a teacher. She spent the next three years doing fieldwork throughout the Southwest on the Pueblo and Anasazi reservations until New York’s American Museum of Natural History recruited her to help them update their moribund Native American exhibits.

  “I came in super early to work this morning to get started on that cursed Navajo diorama,” she began, “and I was cutting through the Division of Vertebrate Zoology on my way to the fabrics storeroom when I nearly sliced my foot open on broken glass.
Someone broke in through a skylight. I swear it’s just like Mission Impossible in here.”

  Everything seemed more dramatic to Gabriela Jimenez than it did to the rest of the world, which was part of why she and Theo had become friends: Each had a rather overactive imagination.

  “What’d they take?” Theo asked with a sigh. Normally, the theft of a museum artifact would’ve been the most shocking news in his week, but after yesterday, he had much more important mysteries to solve. “Was it from your collection?”

  “No, otherwise I’d be going after the guy myself, police be damned.”

  “Then why are you so upset? I thought you didn’t even like the museum.” He yawned and felt his eyes drift closed. They’d spoken a thousand times about Gabriela’s love-hate relationship with her career. He could do it half-asleep.

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t respect it. I do work here, you know. I just think—”

  “That it’s racist that they put brown people in dioramas down the hall from the dinosaurs as if they were some other form of extinct wildlife, while the white people wind up in art museums and historical societies? I couldn’t agree more.”

  “Right. But it is the most famous natural history museum in the world, and it’s not okay for people to break in and steal stuff!”

  “I never said it was,” he soothed.

  “And you know this isn’t the only museum robbery this week?”

  “Really?” Theo sat up a little in bed.

  “Monday night someone broke into the Met. Stole two pieces of pottery.”

  “That’s outrageous. Who’s running museum security in this town?”

  “I know. But honestly, they’re such prissy bitches over there that I’m glad they got robbed, too.”

  “Very collegial.” He could imagine her sticking out her tongue at him. “Now tell me what was stolen from Natural History.” He was used to steering her back on track; she did the same for him.

  “I called the guy who runs the herpetology collection because the lock on his storeroom had been busted open. He got here half an hour ago and is still searching through the inventory, but he said that at least one specimen is missing. A Zamenis longissimus, or something like that.”