The world had a history of gods, strange and mundane. Gods of miracles. Gods of wrath. Gods of love. Gods of hate. There must have been thousands of them. But the one thing all these gods had in common was that they were always somewhere else. Atop Mount Olypmus. Above the clouds. In the firmament. Beyond.

Gods didn’t hang out with mortals, and now that they did, everyone understood why.

The gods weren’t anything humans had ever imagined. Powerful titans rising from the oceans, beneath the earth, astride passing comets, they came to this world without explanation. Great and terrible things, hideous and inhuman.

Anna lived in the shadow of one of the sea gods. A monster fish the size of a skyscraper, it had washed ashore one day. There it sat. Its glistening flesh undulating while its gills opened and closed.… Read the rest “In the Shadow of the Sea God”