Heat Stroke Page 0,2

I knew the hands of the person who'd last touched it. I had the queasy feeling that if I wanted to, I could follow his story all the way back through the line of his ancestors. Hell, I could trace the plastic back to the dinosaurs that had died in the tar pit to give petroleum its start.

David said, "All you have to do is focus."

I controlled a flash of temper. "Focus? That's your advice? News flash, Obi-Wan, you kinda suck at it."

"Do not." He opened his eyes, and they were autumn brown, human, and very tired. "Give me your hand."

I took it off the gear shift and held it out. He wrapped warm fingers over mine, and something hot as sunlight flashed through me.

The horizon adjusted itself. Sunlight faded to normal brightness. The edges and dimensions and weight of things went back to human proportions.

"There." He sounded even more tired, this time. "Just keep driving."

He let go of my hand. I wrapped it back around the gearshift for comfort and thought of a thousand questions, things like Why am I still breathing and If I don't have a heart, why is it pumping so hard and Why me? Why save me?

I wasn't sure I was ready for any of those answers, even if David had the energy to tell me. I wasn't ready for anything more than the familiar, bone-deep throb of Mona's tires on the road, and the rush of the Viper running eagerly toward the horizon.

I had another question I didn't want to ask, but it slipped out anyway. "We're in trouble, aren't we?"

This time, he did smile. Full, dark, and dangerous. "Figured that out, did you?"

"People say I'm smart."

"I hope they say you're lucky, too."

"Must be," I murmured. "How else do I explain you?"

Brown eyes opened, studied me for a few seconds, then drifted shut again. He said, just as softly, "Let's pray you never have to."

The car didn't need gas, and I discovered that I didn't need sleep-at least not for more than twenty-four hours. We blew through Tulsa, hit I-70 toward Chicago, bypassed Columbus, and eventually ended up on a turnpike in New Jersey. David slept. I drove. I was a little worried about mortal things like cop cars and tollbooths, but David kept us out of sight and out of mind. We occupied space, but to all intents and purposes, we were invisible.

Which was not such an advantage, I discovered, when you get into heavy commuter traffic. After about a dozen near misses, I pulled Mona over to the side of the road, stretched, and clicked off the engine. Metal ticked and popped-Mona wasn't any kind of magical construct, she was just a plain old production car. Okay, the fastest production car ever made, with a V10, 7990 cubic centimeters, 6000 RPM, top speed of over 260 miles per hour. But not magic. And I'd been pushing her hard.

I rolled down the window, sucked in a breath of New Jersey air laden with an oily taste of exhaust, and watched the sun come up over the trees. There was something magical about that, all right-the second morning of my new life. And the sun was beautiful. A vivid golden fire in the sky, trailing rays across an intense, empty blue. No clouds. I could feel the potential for clouds up there-dust particles and pollution hanging lazily in the air, positive and negative charges constantly shoving and jostling for position. Once the conditions came together, those dust particles would get similar charges and start attracting microscopic drops of moisture. Like calls to like. Moisture thickens, droplets form, clouds mass. Once the droplets get too heavy to stay airborne, they fall. Simple physics. And yet there was something seductive and magical about it, too, as magical as the idea that chemical compounds grow into human beings who walk and talk and dream.

I watched a commercial jet embroider the clear blue sky, heading west, and stretched my senses out.

There wasn't any limit to what I could know, if I wanted ... I could touch the plane, the cold silver skin, the people inside with all their annoyances and fears and boredom and secret delights. Two people who didn't know each other were both thinking about joining the mile high club. I wished them luck in finding each other.

I sucked in another breath and stretched-my human-feeling body