Heat

He growled at the apology and lifted her again. She felt heavier this time and wearing her over his shoulder was like wearing a fur coat, but Kane kept teeth on his temper and started walking. His body was full of complaint—he was hungry, thirsty, hot, sore and exhausted by Heat’s daily assaults—but complaints don’t change facts, and the fact was that reaching the lights meant a goodish hike so he’d better keep moving.

He needed to keep things in perspective, that was all. The human on his back was heavy now, but he’d be damned glad of her when the day rolled around and brought Heat with it. Besides, she wouldn’t be dehydrated forever, and before she’d gotten quite so sick with it, she’d been reasonably good company. She was quick enough, strong in her own way, and so determined to please. Under other circumstances, Kane thought he could come to like a human like this. He was positive that Urak would.

And it was also true that the lights he saw in the woods were a half-night’s walk away, but at least when he reached them, there were sure to be water and food, and there was likely to be a groundcar as well. The speed that would lend him in the hunt was worth this rotten night.

So he would walk, and he had better keep his temper as he did so. Things will always get worse before they get better, or so Urak had been fond of saying. And since this was about as bad as he could imagine things getting, surely there had to be improvement on the way.

“Let me down,” the human said, her voice slurred. “I can walk.”

“Be still,” he grunted. The protein boost would no doubt give her all kinds of delusions of strength, but it wasn’t flooding her with moisture. He needed her to conserve her energy, and he was prepared to use force if he had to.

“I’m okay now,” she insisted, pushing against his back to half-rise. “I want to get down.”

Kane gave her thigh a stinging slap and she fell limp again at once. He wasn’t used to fussing over humans. Apart from the little pets that Urak was in the habit of keeping, Kane was accustomed to taking the sorts of liberties that could leave a human dead if one pissed him off enough. But if the lesson of the yellow-haired female had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that he was by no means assured of finding another if he was careless with his toys.

The valley was flat and open; the woods on the other side, far distant. And the human’s impatience was contagious. Kane risked a light run, his eyes darting over the dry grass for dangers, aware that a broken ankle now would be as good as a plasma burst to the head. His own strength was not unlimited, but it felt good to run, as satisfying in its primal way as raking claws down an enemy’s chest or feeling a female’s bite on your shoulder. His pulse sounded in his ears, his feet flew over the dry earth and the female who rode him swayed with his stride. It was a good run, and all the while, the lights ahead drew nearer.

The forest reached out to embrace him again and Kane slowed. He was tempted to rest, to set his human on the ground and wait until his breath came slow and steady. Maybe to finish out the high mood his run had put him in by having a roll with his Raven, one untempered by Heat’s madness, and to catch a nap in the shade of Earth’s night.

But the lights, invisible now behind the sloping thick of trees, still beckoned. Food, water, perhaps a groundcar, and shelter for a few more hours of sleep. A place for Raven to regain her strength before he moved them on. These were the things he had to focus on now. The night was waning.

Kane got moving, keeping unerringly to the course of the lights. Earth slowed him as much as it was able-brush and branches slapped at him, roots made the ground into treacherous footing, fallen trees and thorny thickets did their best to herd him off course-but he made his distance one step and a time, and eventually, he could make out the flash of lights behind the screen of trees. Another hundred paces brought him into the clearing where the house stood, and he stopped there to take its measure.

He counted six structures in the clearing, most too small and crudely-built to be inhabitable. There was one large building contained within a fence; its roof had fallen and the whole thing sloped dangerously to one side, and yet there was an animal housed there. It drank from a rusted bucket, a creature nearly as tall as Kane himself, with four horn-capped feet and a back bent by hard time and neglect. He’d seen creatures like this one before, had even tried to eat one once, and he knew it was harmless, just another dumb animal that humans kept for their own unknowable purposes.

Kane set Raven on her feet, but kept his hand around her wrist as he approached the only building that showed signs of human life. The house was decrepit, badly built and fallen into further disrepair, but light poured from its windows and no one appeared to be standing watch. Someone had cared enough once to paint it, but the color was washed out and the paint itself had come up in great peels and cracks. Thorns had overgrown one wall and much of the roof, which was itself much patched against the weather. There were groundcars in the lot leading to the musty porch, but some were rusted, others missing wheels. Kane drew nearer, keeping close to the fence, and sca

He saw none, save for that of the animal, which kept pace with him as he walked. It made an urgent nickering noise when Kane stopped again and Kane reached out absently and patted the side of its huge head. His fingers came away grimed with dust.

He glanced at Raven and found her also searching each dirty window in turn. “Well?” he asked, his voice pitched low.

She swept her gaze across the yard. “There’s lots of cars,” she said. “I only see two that look like they can drive, but they can drive…there’s tracks in the dirt.” She pointed.

Good eye. Again, Kane found himself thinking that his father would definitely like this human.

“And there’s a lot of junk everywhere, but it’s not all overgrown. Someone lives here.” She sniffed the air, an action that struck Kane as incredibly cute, considering how useless the human olfactory senses were. “And someone’s been barbequing tonight.” She licked her lips and then stiffened up and looked at him. “Are you…going to kill people?”

“Yes.” Kane gave her wrist a squeeze to get her attention as she tried to curl in on herself. “But if you’re good, I won’t make you help.”

She looked up at him, wan and unhappy, but nodded.

Kane raked his eyes over the house, assessing its size and the speed with which he would have to move to take the inhabitants. He had seen no activity, but the fact of the light told him that someone must be awake, and he had to assume that they were armed. Kane wasn’t, and he had his human and his chemist’s pack to protect besides. The decay of the house was a trap; any step he made could result in a creaking alarm to the humans within. He had to be careful.

Kane gave the female beside him a final warning glance and then released her. “Stay close,” he said, “but stay behind me. Step where I step. If I tell you to run, you run. And know that I will find you.”

He saw no doubt in her eyes. Good. He was finally begi

Kane took his harvester but left the rest of his pack behind at the edge of the porch. He tested each of the warped steps before letting them take his weight. Despite all his efforts, the boards that brought him to the door groaned and muttered. Kane listened closely after each step, but continued to hear nothing within. He came to the door, tried the latch, and found it unlocked.

Humans. The further they lived from one another, the more vulnerable they made themselves, and the more reckless they became about guarding their lives. It was almost like they wanted to die, separating themselves from the herd in the hopes of attracting a passing predator.

Kane entered, primed for ambush. The i

The kitchen beckoned. There were dishes still thick with scraps piled in the sink and the smell of meat and smoke was heavy in the air. Kane waved Raven over and put a hand on her shoulder, moving his lips right against her ear and giving his next command in a voice only a breath above silence.

“You need to drink,” he told her. “Slow. But as much as you can. And we both need to eat.” He put a claw right to her face and added, “If you try in any way to warn them we are here, I’m going to kill them anyway and the food you eat will be pulled from their own bodies.”

Raven paled even further, if that were possible, and she nodded.

Kane stepped back and watched while Raven opened cupboards and found a drinking glass. She went to the cold storage and filled her glass with something white, her face expressionless. She made very little noise.

Kane growled low approval when she started to drink and left her to it. She wasn’t as quiet as she thought she was; he would hear her if she ran and he was prepared to abandon the house to keep her. But he didn’t think she’d run.

Upstairs, he found his prey at last. Two humans—a male in one room and a younger female in another, the overpowering scent of their sweat betraying their genders from the hall. Both were sleeping. And if they’d turned off the light in the kitchen before they’d gone to bed, they might have been able to wake up in the morning. Life was fu

Males tended to be stronger and more aggressive than females, so Kane moved on the male first. The human was snoring loudly enough to cover Kane’s approach, but he wakened just as Kane reached the side of the bed. He managed half a shout before Kane’s hand muzzled him, and he struggled ferociously as Kane swiftly flipped him onto his face. It ended with the dull snap of bone beneath the muffle of a pillow and Kane harvested the precious fluid the human’s brain provided in silence.

The female in the other room uttered a sleepy query and Kane went to meet her, ejecting the spent gland from his harvester as he went. She was already lying back down when he opened her door, but she was quick enough to fly up again at the intrusion. She tried to scream, but Kane leapt, smashing the legs out from under the bed when he landed and crushing the breath from her body. He covered the human’s mouth and shouted for Raven, just to know that she was still in the house.

She came, her footsteps echoing clumsily on the stairs, but stopped when she reached the bedroom door. She looked at him, at the struggling female he pi

“Don’t help,” he said, and rolled the human onto her side. She was still struggling weakly, like the bird whose breast he had broken, and there was blood flecking her lips as she sucked in her gasping breaths. Time was limited; the gland could not produce its chemicals once the human died. “Just stay where you are.”