Ghosts of Manhattan by George Mann Page A

slowed a little, losing some of its power.
    "No! Don't slow down now!"
    "I can't help it. They've hit a valve." Frustrated, Gabriel flung the vehicle around another corner, only to find them approaching Union Square. An immense holographic statue of Atlas stood proud over the city there, a true titan, towering over one hundred feet tall, supporting the celestial spheres on his broad, unyielding shoulders. The statue cast the surrounding streets and buildings in an eerie blue glow, washing everything as if it were being viewed through a filter, as if someone had painted the sky a different shade. The base of the statue, which housed the projection equipment, was at the center of a large park, around which the roads crisscrossed in a grid pattern.
    Gabriel forced the car around another bend at speed, causing it to shake dramatically and almost lose its grip on the tarmac. The other vehicle swung around behind it, and the onslaught of bullets continued. He realized that they weren't trying to hit him; more that they were attempting to riddle the car with so many bullets that it was rendered useless. They didn't want to harm Celeste.
    Gabriel watched her weigh the revolver in her hands. She looked across at him. "Do you love me?"
    Gabriel tried to keep his voice even. "I love you."
    "Good." She turned about in her seat, resting the barrel of the weapon on the seat back. Then, taking a deep breath, she squeezed the trigger. The shot was like an explosion in the confined space of the vehicle, and she flinched at the sound. But her aim was true, and the bullet caught the windshield of the other car, punching a hole in the glass and causing a spiderweb of fracture lines to spread out from the site of the impact. The other car swerved, and then the man in the passenger seat used the butt of his tommy gun to smash the broken glass out, sending shards of it skittering off the hood.

    Celeste ducked back behind the seat as a retaliatory burst of fire sprayed the rear end of the vehicle again, a stray bullet yipping through the hole where the rear windshield had been, burying itself in the roof of the car not far from their heads. Both cars swerved again, circling the enormous sculpture of light, driving around Atlas's massive feet.
    Celeste took aim again, and this time she was ready for the noise. Gabriel watched her out of the corner of his eye, saw the look of intense concentration on her face. He tried to hold the car steady for a moment. She loosed a bullet.
    For a moment, Gabriel thought that she'd missed, that her shot had gone wide or had no effect. But then he saw the driver of the other car collapse over the steering wheel, and the vehicle careened off the road at high speed, mounting the curb and hurtling directly for the park. He watched in the rearview mirror as it shot across the grass verge, through Atlas's flickering blue foot, and over a wall, rolling onto its roof and sliding, with a loud crunch, into a large stone fountain. Hot coals spilled out across the plaza, and steam was gushing out of the engine housing in long, hissing jets. He had no doubt that the people inside were dead; there was no way anyone could have survived a crash like that.
    Gabriel turned to Celeste. She'd collapsed back into her seat, the gun discarded in the footwell, and she was weeping uncontrollably. He felt his heart break, then and there. All he wanted to do was take her somewhere, anywhere, away from all of this, to hold her in his arms and tell her she was safe. But he knew she would never be the same again. He knew that she was different, now. He remembered how it had felt to take his first life, back in the war, and how you never, ever recovered from the experience. He'd tried to shield her from that, to stop her from being damaged, like him. He knew that there was nothing he could say, now. Nothing he could do to make it better.

    The car was losing power as they pulled into a nearby side street, rolling up to the curb. Black smoke was