“There is a place where terror is good. It should remain enthroned as a guard over the mind. If citizens and mortals do not nourish some dread in their hearts, how will they honor justice?” –From The Eumenides by Aeschylus
(Photo by Omar Rodriguez Rodriguez)
As he stepped out of Lucky 13, he heard a flurry of wings behind him and twisted in time to see a gray bird settle next door on the drab Victorian. He couldn’t see it clearly in the deep twilight above the ragged leaves, but it was huge. What the hell was it? San Francisco had peregrine falcons living on a skyscraper downtown, he knew, and probably hawks and owls in the parks and the Presidio, but this bird was much too big.
And its curved beak seemed to be pointing directly down at him. Was it glaring at him? No, that was unlikely. Why would it be interested in him? What could it possibly want with him?