Free Sky Coyote by Kage Baker

last night’s party seemed like a good idea.
    I thought about Latif, the self-assured little administrator-in-training,all his buttons polished, intent on asking the right questions and making the right moves. Funny that he so worshiped my buddy Suleyman, who was anything but a bureaucrat. Still, when you’re tiny and mortal and frightened, and this big god comes looming out of the darkness to offer you a hand—well, it makes an impression. I thought about what it must have been like, in the stinking hold of a slave ship, with all the comfort and safety you’d ever known lying beside you bewilderingly dead … and just as the loss got through to you, and the scream began to rise in your throat because you knew you were
alone
, just then the big man appeared and called your name.
    I don’t know how he knew my name. I don’t even remember what my name was. But he was there, looming against the darkness, a god in a bearskin, and his axe and his hands were red. Lying around his feet were the bad guys, all smashed, the tattooed devils who’d caught my family away from the rock shelter. He didn’t smell or look anything like anybody else I’d ever seen. He looked like a mountain and his brow was a cliff, with his pale eyes staring out from its shadow. He saw me where I was hiding. He put out his red hand and called my name, in his flat high voice. I went to him. He took me out of the painted cave and past the fires where his army was burning the bodies of the tattooed men. He explained that the tattooed men had to die because they were bad and made war. I was glad they were dead and burning, because it meant that I wasn’t going to die.
    He told me I would never die. He took me to the other place, where there were clean quiet people who didn’t smell. They fed me, washed me, and put me to bed where it was safe. Later they made me immortal.
    But I could never seem to get completely out of that darkness that was scary and smelled so bad. Then I was in the prison and staring through the doorway at the little girl who sat huddled inthe straw, such a thin, sick little girl, her arms and legs like white sticks. All the life she had left was burning in her eyes, furious black eyes. I loomed against the light and put out my hand to her. She told me to go to hell. I knew then she had to be immortal; you need a tough will to work for Dr. Zeus.
    “Hey.” Mendoza shoved me. Light all around us, clouds drifting past the window. “Wake up. We’re over Alta California.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

    C ALIFORNIA .
    Named after a queen, supposedly, and you could see why. She’s the schizoid goddess Fortune herself: sometimes a smiling benefactress who gives mortals all they could hope for in life, sometimes a snarling bitch driving her children from her with a whip and a flail. The trick is, see, you have to know what you really want from her when you go there.
    First we saw a pretty coastline: mountains that rolled back from the coastal bluffs, scored with deep valleys. Everything was green, but it was winter, you have to remember.
    We saw a place where the land stuck out like a snail’s head just emerging from its shell. That was Point Conception, our destination. No trees here: bare scrubby headland, and even from the transport you could see the bushes tilting sideways in the sea breeze. We felt the wind buffeting us as we sank toward the landing platform.
    When we stepped out, wow. An ice-cold gale that made my eyes water. I noticed that all the field personnel lined up to greet us wore sunglasses, the wraparound kind like goggles. I hopedI’d be issued a pair. The winter sunlight was sharp as diamonds.
    “Where are the palm trees?” said Mendoza through gritted teeth. “Where are the swimming pools?” There was the sea and a lot of bare rolling hills, and that was about it. We slogged across the platform, the wind whipping at the train of Mendoza’s gown, and presented ourselves to the foremost of the goggled welcomers.
    “Hi.”