orbitbooks.net
orbitshortfiction.com
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Jordanna Max Brodsky
Excerpt from Olympus Bound copyright © 2017 by Jordanna Max Brodsky
Excerpt from A Secret History of Witches copyright © 2017 by Louise Marley
Author photograph by Ben Arons
Cover design by Kirk Benshoff
Cover photograph by Trevillion Images
Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Orbit
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
orbitbooks.net
orbitshortfiction.com
Originally published in hardcover and ebook by Orbit in February 2017
Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
Callimachus’s Hymn to Artemis translated by Yvonne Rathbone © 2005 Yvone Rathbone. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brodsky, Jordanna Max, author.
Title: Winter of the Gods / Jordanna Max Brodsky.
Description: First Edition | New York, NY : Orbit, 2017. | Series: Olympus bound ; 2
Identifiers: LCCN 2016037117 | ISBN 9780316385916 (hardback) | ISBN a 9781478946540 (audio book cd) | ISBN a 9781478940920 (audio book (downloadable))
Subjects: LCSH: Women—Crimes against—Fiction. | Goddesses, Greek—Fiction. | Gods, Greek—Fiction. | Mythology, Greek—Fiction. | New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Contemporary. | FICTION / Fantasy / Urban Life. | FICTION / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology. | FICTION / Action & Adventure. | FICTION / Fantasy / Historical. | FICTION / Literary. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3602.R6354 W56 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037117
ISBNs: 978-0-316-30622-5 (trade paperback), 978-0-316-38591-6 (hardcover), 978-0-316-38590-9 (ebook)
E3-20170602-JV-PC
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
The Gods’ Family Tree
The Gods’ Roman Names
Epigraph
Chapter 1: The Festive Maiden
Chapter 2: She of Good Repute
Chapter 3: Bear Paws for Hands
Chapter 4: The Furies
Chapter 5: Angel of Death
Chapter 6: Lord of the Dead
Chapter 7: Intermissio: The Hyaena
Chapter 8: The Bare-Fisted
Chapter 9: Goddess of Golden Shafts
Chapter 10: Lady of Hounds
Chapter 11: Leader of the Muses
Chapter 12: Messenger of the Gods
Chapter 13: Deerlike
Chapter 14: The Sooty God
Chapter 15: Laughter-Loving
Chapter 16: The Winged God
Chapter 17: The Haruspex
Chapter 18: She Who Brings Up the Rear
Chapter 19: Long-Cloaked Marshal of The Stars
Chapter 20: Intermissio: The Hyaena
Chapter 21: Deathless Ones
Chapter 22: Earth Shaker
Chapter 23: Plague Bringer
Chapter 24: God of Bloodlust
Chapter 25: Sons of Hera
Chapter 26: God of the Zodiac
Chapter 27: Ruler of the Cosmos
Chapter 28: Chained One
Chapter 29: The Titans
Chapter 30: Makarites
Chapter 31: The Corvus
Chapter 32: Diana
Chapter 33: Apollo
Chapter 34: Intermissio: The Hyaena
Chapter 35: Khaos
Chapter 36: Sunbeam
Chapter 37: Moonshine
Chapter 38: The Host
Chapter 39: God of Fire
Chapter 40: The Chaste One
Chapter 41: Persuader of Animals
Chapter 42: The Colossus
Chapter 43: Lightning Bringer
Chapter 44: She Who Rides the Moon
Epilogus: The New Moon
Author’s Note
By Jordanna Max Brodsky
Praise for Jordanna Max Brodsky
Appendix Olympians and Other Immortals
Glossary of Greek and Latin Terms
Acknowledgments
Extras
Meet the Author
A Preview of Olympus Bound
A Preview of A Secret History of Witches
Orbit Newsletter
To Helen, my nine Muses in one
THE GODS’ ROMAN NAMES
PHRODITE: VENUS
APOLLO: APOLLO
ARES: MARS
ARTEMIS: DIANA
ATHENA: MINERVA
DEMETER: CERES
DIONYSUS: BACCHUS
EROS: CUPID
HADES: PLUTO
HEPHAESTUS: VULCAN
HERA: JUNO
HERMES: MERCURY
HESTIA: VESTA
KRONOS: SATURN
POSEIDON: NEPTUNE
ZEUS: JUPITER
For more information on the gods, please consult the Appendix: Olympians and Other Immortals here.
And how many times, goddess,
did you test your bow?
First at an elm
Next you shot an oak
And third some wild beast.
And fourth you shot not into a tree
but a city of unjust men, who betray
their guests and themselves with
many wicked deeds. On them
you press your fearsome wrath.
Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, CIRCA THIRD CENTURY BC
Chapter 1
THE FESTIVE MAIDEN
The Salvation Army Santa Claus narrowly escaped having his bell ripped from his hands and shoved down his throat. Lucky for him, the six-foot-tall, silver-eyed former goddess hoofing it down Broadway had recently decided to limit her less socially acceptable behaviors. But if the street had been a little less crowded and the streetlights a little less bright, Selene DiSilva might have made Christmas in New York just a little less annoying.
To avoid the jarring tinkle of Yuletide charity, she hopped lightly over an icy, pee-stained snowdrift and jaywalked across the street. But she couldn’t escape the signs of the season. At the end of the block, a Christmas tree stand hogged the sidewalk, its wares bedecked with colored lights. She peered up from beneath the brim of her WNBA New York Liberty cap at the giant inflated angel wobbling atop the sales shed.
Tempting target, she mused, thinking of the bow and arrows in her backpack. And much less morally abhorrent than ta
king out the Salvation Army guy. She glanced up and down the street, then sighed. No way could she get away with it. Already the tree seller had taken note of her, blinking eagerly though the thin gap between his wool ski cap and striped scarf.
“Only eighty dollars for a ten-footer,” he offered, his cheer apparent even through the muffling effects of his outerwear.
She should’ve ignored him, but the smell of cut pine assaulted her senses and demanded an answer.
“Only eighty dollars?” she marveled, stepping closer to bring all her superior height to bear. “What a bargain! I would’ve thought you’d charge a lot more for destroying our forests.”
“It’s a tree farm—” he began diffidently, but she cut him off.
“All these trees, cut down in their prime, and why? So rich New Yorkers can prop them up in a can of water, drape them with tinsel like some beribboned whore, then watch them lose their needles like mange until they toss them on the sidewalk, one more addition to the garbage heaps in the world. All to celebrate the supposed birthday of their supposed savior, but really just to wallow in a yearly tradition of gluttonous consumerism.”
“The city chips them for mulch,” the tree seller protested weakly, but Selene stopped listening as she headed off down the street. She heard only the outraged monologue that ran through her mind in an endless loop from sometime in late October to January second. Normally, she kept such ranting internal, but her recent association with a certain garrulous classics professor had taught her the cathartic effects of occasionally letting loose.
She turned down West Eighty-eighth Street, muttering angrily to herself about the gaudy twinkle lights her neighbors had strung across their brownstones. The building next door to hers had gone all out this year. Three-foot-long blue and white plastic icicles hung from every windowsill. Twinkling, flashing, neon icicles. As if Times Square had picked up its lurid horrors, dragged them forty blocks uptown, and plunked them down next door out of sheer pique.
Her own house remained blessedly barren. A narrow facade, half as wide as the others on the block, reaching up four stories. Only a single dim bulb illuminated the wrought iron grate shielding her front door. The building looked dark, uninviting, a little rundown. Just how she liked it.
She bounded up her stoop two stairs at a time, reaching into the pocket of her leather jacket for her keys.
“Selene!”
She froze and looked up.
Theodore Schultz, distinguished Columbia University professor of Ancient Greek and Latin and the cause of her recent loquacity, hung his head off the edge of her roof, his glasses slipping down his nose. A string of colored lights dangled from one hand while he waved eagerly to her with the other.
“Look what I found in your attic!”
Moments later, Selene had burst into her house, galloped up the stairwell, and launched herself through the trap door to the roof, moving just a little faster than any woman had a right to move. “You put a single one of those bulbs on my house and I’ll strangle you with the whole damn cord.”
Still lying prone on the snow, Theo rolled over and raised an eyebrow. “If you hate Christmas lights so much, why do you have them in your house?”
She thought about lying but decided she’d save the deception for the really bad things in her past. “I used them to strangle a pedophilic priest on Christmas morning in 1969.”
Theo dropped the lights with a grimace. “And you kept the murder weapon?”
“Figured it might come in handy next time I needed to do some seasonal killing. Makes a statement.”
Theo got to his feet and brushed the snow off the knees of his corduroys. “I’m assuming you don’t mean a ‘peace on earth and goodwill toward men’ sort of statement.”
“More like a ‘screw this stupid holiday’ and ‘all men are assholes’ statement.”
“Ouch,” he said mildly, coiling the string of lights with a regretful sigh. “Why do I feel like the city gets jollier and you get crankier in direct proportion?”
“Cranky?”
“Poor choice of words. How about ‘wrathful’? Is that more in keeping with your dignity?”
She glowered at his teasing grin but let him lead her to the western side of the roof.
They sat with their legs dangling over the edge. From here, she could see past the other houses on her block and the treetops in Riverside Park, all the way to the Hudson River. It glinted silver in the moonlight, while the illuminated windows of New Jersey formed yet another string of Christmas lights on the far shore. A bitterly cold night, but at least, for the first time in days, it wasn’t snowing. Theo’s arm felt warm as it snaked around her waist and tucked her close. She wanted to melt into his embrace and punch him all at the same time.
If my grandmother Phoibe, Goddess of the Night, could still look down from the moon, she’d be sick to her stomach, Selene thought. Artemis, Goddess of the Wild, Protector of Virgins, the famous loner and misanthrope, snuggling in the arms of an extroverted mortal classicist who didn’t even know I was real until three months ago. Once, the thought would have sent her into spirals of self-doubt. But she’d learned to stop worrying about her relationship and just enjoy it. Mostly.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Theo asked after a moment. “I’ve never seen you quite so angry for so little reason. Usually there’s a woman being murdered or a god being dishonored or maybe a dog refusing to obey … but twinkle lights? They used to call you the Festive Maiden, remember? What happened?”
For their first weeks together, she’d simply ignored his demands of emotional openness. But Theo could be as relentless as the Relentless One herself. Better to just tell him.
“Everything about this loathsome holiday makes me mad. The waste. The materialism. The false cheer. Worst of all, the Jesus carols, each one a little prayer offered up to the god who displaced us. They’re like tiny knives in my brain, slicing out my sanity. The closer we get to Christmas, the more I want to throttle everyone around me. It’s like my own little advent calendar from hell.”
He laughed and refused to stop despite her angry scowl. “‘You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch,’” he started singing off-key.
“That string of lights is right over there,” she threatened. “And you know I don’t like pop culture references I barely understand.”
“Fine,” he said with a grin. “You’re nothing like the Grinch. He mends his ways at the end of the movie. You’re much too stubborn for that.”
“Thanks.”
“But at least admit that part of your Scrooge-iocity comes from the fact that everyone else in the city is spending the holidays with friends and family, while you’ve always spent them alone.”
“I like being alone. In fact, I’m starting to regret giving you a key. Do you realize you’ve been singing nonstop for the past two weeks? Even though I specifically told you I hate Christmas carols?” He’d avoided the most religiously offensive of them, but still. Even “Jingle Bells” rubbed her the wrong way.
Theo ignored her. “How about we have people over for the holidays? We can call it a Saturnalia party. Invite your twin, maybe a few half siblings, some friends of mine.”
She stared at him. “Can you see your friend Gabriela making small talk with Dash?”
“Yeah, actually, Gabi would love Hermes. She likes fast-talkers and has no respect for the law. The God of Liars and Thieves is exactly her type.”
“Well, forget it. It’s bad enough you know about the Athanatoi. You start having everyone over for cocktails, and your friends are bound to wonder who all your super-tall, super-attractive, suspiciously talented new acquaintances are.”
“They’d never imagine the truth. Athanatoi? ‘Those Who Do Not Die’? Hah! What self-respecting thanatos would believe they existed? And I’d never tell. I can be very discreet.”
She snorted.
“What?” he protested. “You’re the one whose emotions are written all over your face. Like right now. I call this one
‘Disdainful Incredulity.’”
“Exactly. Because you can’t keep your mouth shut, and you know it.”
“I just don’t see what the big deal is.”
“Besides the fact that you’re one of the few mortals in the world who knows that large portions of the ancient Greek pantheon are alive and well and living in Manhattan? And that if word got out to the rest of the world, we’d either be put in an insane asylum or locked in a secret lab?”
He rolled his eyes. “Hyperbole much? I’m the one they’d lock up as a crazy person for believing in Greek gods in the first place. But all right, maybe we don’t invite my friends. How about an intimate dinner gathering for your immediate family instead? We could work on your whole ‘antisocial and estranged’ problem.”
“I went to Paul’s concert last month, didn’t I?” she demanded. She and her twin brother Apollo, God of Music and Light, currently known as indie rocker Paul Solson, had been on the outs for millennia until they’d joined forces three months earlier to take down a homicidal cult terrorizing Manhattan. When their mother died that same week, the twins had begun a cautious reconciliation. Theo’d insisted Paul’s music was quite good; Selene stood in the crush of sweaty bodies with her hands over her ears and her eyes closed until the torture ceased. It’d been a week before her head stopped ringing.
“Besides your twin,” Theo pressed. “I thought you were turning over a new leaf, remember? But you haven’t had anything to do with Hermes or Dionysus or Hephaestus since they showed up in September to help fight the cult.”
She twisted to look Theo square in the eye. He glanced away, but not before she caught a flash of guilt. She poked him hard on the arm. “Gotcha.”
“What?” He was all innocence.
“You just want me to reunite with my family because you’re curious about the other Olympians. Admit it, you’re using me.”
He gave an exasperated groan. “Of course I’m using you! For God’s sake, Selene, I’m a classicist! You expect me not to want to meet Zeus and Athena?”
“I told you not to use their real names if you don’t have to. It can draw their attention to you. And why do you always bring her up?”
Winter of the Gods Page 1
