Excerpt: The Gods of the Golden Gate

Kit was just starting to fall asleep in the back seat on the ride back to Kit’s place, when it hit. There was a sound in the sky, like the crying of a hawk only thirty times louder and something slammed down on the hood of the car. Steve, startled and now mostly blinded, slammed on the brakes and tried to keep the car going in more or less a straight line. Kit, in his seat belt, got thrown around very little. He could hear the screeches of other tires, the wailing of horns. There was the sound of a crash and a car alarm started sounding.

“My fucking hood!” Steve wailed in the fracture tone of a betrayed child.

“Yes, I’m fine, thanks,” Kit said in response. He could taste blood in his mouth and thought he might have bitten his tongue.

Both he and Steve blinked a few times and took a better look at the thing on the hood. It was a woman. She was tall and had the strong, stout figure considered beautiful a hundred and twenty years and more ago, but added to it the length and attenuation of a Personification. Her golden hair was intricately coiled. She wore a pale green Grecian robe and had a crown that supposedly resembled sun rays emerging from her tresses. Any American would recognize her.

Kit threw himself out of the car.

“Liberty! Liberty, my God, what happened?”

“Keep it safe,” she whispered, blood leaking between her lips. “Descendant of fire, ancient one, do your best to keep it safe till we can again take it from you and keep it safe ourselves.”

Then she coughed up more, brighter blood. She seized his wrist in her long, pale, strong hand.

“Don’t give it up. You spell doom for us all, human and Personification alike if you—.”

She was cut off by the sound of gunshots and screams. Bullets, leaving behind red holes that was for the moment like some obscene string of ruby beads, cut her chest in half from right shoulder down to left ribcage. The blood soon took away the necklace illusion. Kit heard someone screaming mindlessly in terror. Kit was grabbed by the arm. He started to scream himself, but it was Steve pulling him down behind the car.

“Stay down, you silly bitch,” Steve hissed. He had his gun out and crouched down on the pavement in a splay of twisted legs, arms and crutches that made him look like some bizarre spider.

“Shut up,” Steve growled. “I don’t want to have to slap you, sweetie.”

Some very distant, calm part of Kit understood what Steve was saying. Kit put his hands over his mouth and with effort made himself stop screaming.