Heat by R. Lee Smith Page B

where she was now, and she liked it like that. She liked it here, all alone in the dark.
    Hands closed on her, rolled her firmly onto her back, and then fingers pried her eyes insistently open.
    The sky beyond the interlocked branches above still had the grayish-blue light of dusk. It was enough to see the Devil’s face by. She looked up into the twin voids of his eyes and felt nothing.
    The Devil grunted, apparently satisfied with whatever he saw, and let her eyes close. “Can you talk?”
    “No,” said Raven, rolling onto her side again. Her head hurt terribly and there was a bitter, metallic taste in her mouth. Her whole body ached. She felt like she’d run a thousand miles, just to end up where she’d started, sleeping with the Devil. “I can’t talk. No one can.”
    She heard a sigh and then a rustle as he stood. Raven’s eyes opened of their own dulled will and she watched him pace around the clearing. Every few steps, he would reach down and give his bulging groin a hateful grope. His chest was bare and soaked with sweat. His feet were bare and tipped with talons. All he wore was a black armband on his left forearm and pants. Shiny, shiny pants.
    He was looking at her again. “Can you get up?” he asked.
    “No,” she said, but she was already pretty sure she could.
    That sigh again. This time with a little more irritation in it. “How do you feel?” he asked.
    Raven thought about it. “Sad,” she said.
    He looked at her for a second, and then smiled faintly. There was absolutely no humor in the expression. He came to her very slowly and hunkered down before her. He held up one hand, showing her his three fingers tipped with great, sharp claws.
    And then he slashed.
    Raven shrieked, falling back as the two sleeping halves of her memory collided, bringing with it the unrelenting reality of this—of her, of him, of everything. She kicked back blindly, both hands clapped to her mouth to keep from collapsing into screams, and when she realized that there had been no pain, she risked a glance at him.
    His hands were loosely clasped between his knees. The smile was gone from his face, and his eyes were furious and unblinking. “Are you here?” he asked curtly.
    Raven nodded, fighting back the shivers with the very last of her resolve.
    “What hurts?”
    The last time Raven had admitted that anything at all hurt, she’d been living at home with two parents and still had three names, but there was no lying to the Devil.
    “My head,” she said, and touched the back of her skull. “Here.”
    “Nothing here?” He reached out and touched a claw, cool and slick as a razor, to her belly.
    “No.”
    He raised his claw to the level of her heart and cocked an eye at her.
    “No.” She fished for the hanging flaps of her shirt and tied them together without any conscious thought or any memory of how it had been torn. All her attention was on his face, his eyes.
    “Good. Raven.” The man leaned forward. She could see him shaking slightly, but he had no trouble at all focusing on her. “You’re going to slow me down until we find a way to work together. I can live with that. But don’t think you can slow me down forever. I have only so much patience.”
    Raven nodded. She didn’t know if that was really the right answer, but thought it best to acknowledge his words.
    “Are you going to make trouble for me?”
    “No.”
    He nodded and leaned away from her, then rose, already rubbing at his crotch. “We’re going to do a lot of walking,” he said, staring grimly down into her face. “By sun-up, I want to have another…” His eyes raised and he tapped one talon against the ground, thinking. “Car,” he finished. “You are going to pilot it.”
    “Okay.” Raven steeled herself and then asked, “What’s your name?”
    That threw him. He didn’t step back, but he did tip his head and give her a long, narrow stare. “Kane,” he said finally.
    Raven didn’t know she’d been holding her breath