“D-don’t—” she whimpered, reaching back to try and push him away.

He stood up fast, yanking her off the ground so that all her weight was on his hand, snapping his arm around her shoulders to restrain her, and drove another finger into her, rocking her whole body in rhythm. She came explosively, kicking and slapping, but she came anyway.

“Don’t tell me don’t,” he said reasonably, and shook another series of spasms out of her. She was dripping, dripping off his hand, and she was crying. “Don’t do that, Raven. I don’t like it, and you ought to fucking well know that by now.”

“I-I’m suh-suh-ar-ree-ee,” she sobbed, clutching at his arm, still trying weakly to lift her hips away from him.

“I think I’ll make you do this all night,” he continued thoughtfully. “How would that be?”

All she could do was nod and cry.

“Stop making that noise. I can’t understand you when you do that.” He made her cum again, just to hear her trying not to wail as she composed herself, and then asked, “The tattoo, Raven. Why?”

It had been just a hell of a long time since he’d had this much fun.

“It wuh-us his name,” Raven said, swiping desperately at her face. “So everyone would kn-know I worked for h-him.”

Kane’s entire body stopped moving. Not just his hands, but his heart, his lungs, even his blood. An ugly heat cut upwards through him from his stomach to the back of his throat. “Say that again,” he said softly.

“His name.” She tried to look at him, but timidly, as if she didn’t quite dare. “His name was Coyote, like the animal, so he—”

Kane put her down and stepped around her. He picked up the towel she’d discarded earlier and wiped his hands, trying to sort out just what he was feeling and why. The urge to kill was a maddening itch in his hands and right behind his eyes, but it wasn’t Raven he wanted for a target. Just what he did want to do to Raven wasn’t quite clear, but one thing was extremely certain.

Kane turned around. “Get it off,” he said. He even managed to sound calm.

“I can’t,” she said, and threw up her arms, falling submissively to her knees as he came at her. “It’s under the skin! I can’t do it!”

He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back up, giving her a vicious shake and snarling, “I will cut it right the fuck out of you and don’t think for a second—”

“I can’t! I can’t! Please don’t kill me I can’t take it off!”

He shook her again to shut her up and roared, “Then who can?!” full into her face.

She pressed her lips together, staring at him with her huge eyes. “I don’t know,” she whispered, “I don’t know. Please. I don’t know.”

An idea came to him. Kane let go of her and took a step back. “Do you know where you can find another tattoo human?”

She blinked twice and cast a dazed look around at the table and the phone that was there. “I…I could find one,” she said.

“Do that. And then get dressed.” Kane sat down and picked up one of the oversized human boots. Another thought occurred. “Where is this human Coyote?” he asked.

Raven had found a large yellow book in the table and had it open already. She looked around at him, her fingers marking her place in the book. “Someone told me he got killed.” Hesitantly, she added, “They said he was shot in the stomach.”

Gut wound. Took a long time to die from that.

Kane felt better.

*

“This is it,” Raven said, pulling the car up to the curb before The Priestess of Ishtar Tattoo Parlor. It was 8:50, and according to the sign, the place closed at nine, but it didn’t look empty. Although it was difficult to see past the posters plastered over the windows, Raven thought there were still people moving around in there.

Kane only grunted, waited for her to kill the engine, and then unstrapped himself and let himself out. He slung his pack over his shoulder, glancing up and down the empty street, and then went on ahead of her without looking to see if she followed.

There was a moment, even now, when Raven thought of running. Sitting there in the car, in that heartbeat-fast flicker of time, she looked at her hand on the ignition of the stolen car and thought of turning the key, gunning the gas, and getting the hell out of Dodge. The wheels would make a sound like a woman screaming when she peeled away from the curb, the smell of rubber would drift up even inside, and she’d be thrown back by the momentum of her leave-taking.

Yeah. All of that. All of it, so intensely visualized that it was almost like a memory of something that had already happened…along with the thought-memory of Kane leaping onto the back of the car (his weight bumping her, unbuckled, half-out of her seat), the sound of his claws blackboard-scraping-shrill as they peeled back the roof and then, oh, probably a burning, heavy sensation as he hooked them under her chin like a fishing gaffe and hauled her out by her jawbone.

No. Escape was still a thought for her, but it was a fleeting thought, and it was ignored.

She got out of the car, slipped the keys into her back pocket, and ran a little to catch up with Kane before he decided he had to look for her, an action that would terminate in a sound slap for her when he found her.

The door chimed when he opened it, and a huge, painted mass of muscle seated in front of an ancient rotary fan said, “We’re closed, pal,” without looking up from his magazine.

Kane did him one better by not even looking to see who spoke. He held the door open at arm’s length until Raven ducked inside, and then turned around to close the door and lock it. He leaned close to the glass panes, checking up and down the street with a practiced eye, and then turned off the neon ‘Open’ sign and began to lower the window shades.

That made Raven a little queasy. The windows of the tattoo parlor were completely covered in posters from about arm’s-reach and down. The fact that Kane was covering them the rest of the way pretty much meant he’d already decided on doing something that would…splash.

The big man with the magazine watched all this with an expression of mild interest. “What the fuck are you doing?” he inquired at last, pleasantly.

Kane continued to ignore him.

Raven hugged herself uneasily, shifting her weight from foot and foot and wondering when this was going to get bloody. She no longer thought of this eventuality in terms of ‘if’, only ‘when’. Later was better than sooner, but at least with sooner it was over faster. Kane was methodically giving the store the appearance of non-function, which meant he intended for them to be here for a while. Just what else he intended was not entirely known to her, and the uncertainty made her nervous.

The parlor was small, made even smaller by a low, oriental-style screen that separated the little waiting area where the big man sat from the artist’s area, from which place Raven could hear a high-pitched whine like that of a dentist’s drill. There was one other door, which Kane opened, examined, and shut again. Closet or bathroom then, but definitely not an exit.

The big man finally stood up, tossing his magazine onto the chipped coffee table that cramped the waiting space, and loomed over Raven. She could see his eyes, murky blue and slightly unfocused, and she could smell the thick, green scent of some quality pot lingering around him like a hazy halo. “What’s his story, Violet?” he asked, thumbing back at Kane, still with an appearance of good humor, but now with a little menace as well.

“He’s from outer space and he’s going to kill you,” she told him.

Kane spun around fast and stared at her.

“Jesus Christ,” the big man sighed, and pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Why do they always crawl out after dark?”

Well. She’d tried. And she wasn’t entirely immune to the ominous narrowing of Kane’s eyes either, but a person could only be so freaked out before she just sort of numbed over. She shrugged a shoulder, avoiding Kane’s black stare until he grunted and turned away.