Shadow Prey

energy.
    It was as though he had disappeared, as Mexican wizards were said to do, changing into crows and hawks and jumping straight up in the air.
    Indian demons.
    Hart shivered again.
     
    A block away, Shadow Love was on the phone.
    “Barb? Could you pick me up?”

CHAPTER
19
    Lucas woke in the dark, listening, and finally identified the sound that had woken him. He reached across the bed and touched her.
    “Crying?”
    “I can’t help it,” she squeaked.
    “A little guilt, maybe.”
    She choked, unable to answer for a moment. Then came a muffled “Maybe.” She rolled over to face him, her knees pulled up in fetal position. “I’ve never done this before.”
    “You told me that,” he said into the dark. He groped around for a moment, found the switch on the bedside lamp and turned it on. Her head was down, her face concealed.
    “The thing is, I knew I would be. Unfaithful. That one night, in my room, I almost didn’t stop you. I shouldn’t have. But it was . . . too quick. I couldn’t handle it,” she said. “Then when Hood went down and I was freaked out and you were freaked out and I got out of town . . . . On the way to New York, on the plane, I cried. I thought I wouldn’t see you again, wouldn’t get to sleep with you. But I was relieved, you know. When they told me I had to come back, I was crying again. David thought I was crying because I didn’t want to come back. But I was crying because I knew what would happen. I was so . . . hungry.”
    “Hey, look. I’ve been through this,” Lucas said. “I feel bad about it sometimes, but I can’t stay away from women. A shrink would probably find something weird is wrong with me. But I just . . . want women. It’s like you said, I get hungry. I can’t stop it. It’s a drug, you crave it.”
    “Just the sex?” She rolled over a bit, her head cocked toward him, watching his eyes.
    “No. The woman. The back-and-forth. Hanging around. The sex. Everything.”
    “You’re a relationship junkie. Always need something new.”
    “No, that’s not quite right. There’s a woman in Minneapolis, I think I’ve gotten in bed with her once or twice a year since I was a rookie. Sixteen, eighteen years. I see her and I want her. I call her up, she calls me up, I want her. It’s not newness. It’s something else.”
    “Is she married?”
    “Yeah. For fifteen years, must be. Has a couple of kids.”
    “That is strange.” There was a moment of silence, then she said, “Part of the guilt is that I don’t feel worse than I do. You know what I mean? I liked it. I haven’t had sex that good since . . . I don’t know. Ever, I think. It was like a blackout. With David, it’s soft and gentle and the orgasms come, most of the time anyway, but nothing feels . . . driven. Everything is always under control. David is thin and doesn’t have much hair. You’re hard, and you’ve got all this body hair. It’s like . . . it’s so different.”
    “Too much analysis,” Lucas said after a moment. She reached out and touched his face. “I just wanna fuck,” he said in a gravelly parody of lust.
    “That’s ridiculous,” she said. She pulled herself closer to him, snuggled on his arm. “Do you think the guilt will go away?”
    “I’m pretty sure of it,” he said.
    “That’s what I think too,” she said.
     
    They left early, Lucas grumpy in the morning sunlight, but touching her often, on the elbow, the cheek, the neck, brushing hair out of her face. “Let’s go for a while. We can stopon the road for breakfast. I can’t eat when I’m up this early,” he grumbled.
    “Your internal clock is screwed up,” Lily said as they settled into the Porsche. “You need to get reoriented.”
    “Nothing happens in the morning, so why get up?” Lucas said. “All the bad people are out at night. And most of the good ones, as far as that goes.”
    “Let’s just try to make it back to the Cities in one piece,” she said as he spun the drive wheels and left the motel parking lot. “If you want me to drive . . .”
    “No, no.”
    They drove straight into the morning sun. Lily was feeling chatty and craned her neck at the oddities of the prairie.
    “I’m going back a different way, a little further south,” Lucas said. “I like to see as many roads as I can. I don’t get out here very often.”
    “That’s fine.”
    “It won’t add much time,” he said.
    The day started cold but rapidly warmed up. A few minutes