As they kissed, Rachel's hand found the scrivener's readied instrument. Her fingers closed about him. With a slow shifting of her thighs, she eased him into her, into the moist and heated opening that relaxed to allow entry and then more firmly grasped once he was sheathed deep.
Matthew was unable to move, but Rachel was unrestricted. Her hips began a leisurely, circular motion punctuated by stronger thrusts. A groan left Matthew's mouth at the incredible, otherworldly sensation, and Rachel echoed it with her own. They kissed as if eager to merge one into the other. As the woodsmoke swirled about them and the fires burned, as their lips sought and held and Rachel's hips moved up and then down to push him still deeper, Matthew cried out with a pleasure that was verging on pain. Even this central act, he thought in his state of sweating rapture, was a cooperation of God and Devil.
Then he just stopped thinking and allowed nature to rule.
Rachel's movements were steadily strengthening. Her mouth was against his ear, her pine-scented hair in his face. She was breathing quickly and harshly. His heartbeat slammed, and hers pounded against his damp chest. She gave two more thrusts and her back arched, her head coming up and her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She shivered and her mouth opened to release a long, soft moan. An instant later, the feeling of pleasure did translate into a white flashing pain for Matthew, a fierce jolt that rippled from the top of his head down his spine. In the midst of this riot of sensations, he was aware of his burst into Rachel's clinging humidity, an explosion that brought a grimace to his face and a cry from his lips. Rachel kissed him again, so ardently as if she wished to capture that cry and keep it forever like a golden locket in the secret center of her soul.
With a strengthless sigh, Rachel settled against him yet supported herself on her elbows and knees so as not to rest all her weight. He was still inside her, and still firm. His virginity was a thing of the past and its passage left him with a delicious aching, but his flame had not yet been extinguished. And obviously neither had Rachel's, for she looked him in the face, her wondrous eyes sparkling in the firelight and her hair damp from the heat of exertion, and began to move upon him once again.
If this was indeed Hell, Matthew thought, no wonder everyone was in such a fever to make their reservations.
The second time was slower-paced, though even more intense than the first. Matthew could only lie and vainly attempt to match Rachel's motions. Even if his movements had been totally free, a weakness that affected every muscle save one had claimed his strength.
Finally, she pressed down on him and—though he'd tried to restrain it for as long as he might—he again experienced the almost-blinding combination of pleasure and pain that signalled the imminent nearing of a destination two lovers so vigorously sought to reach.
Then, in the warm wet aftermath, as they breathed and kissed and played a game of tongues, Matthew knew the coach must by necessity be retired to its barn, as the horses had gone their distance.
Presently, he closed his eyes and slumbered again. When he opened them—who knew how much later—the demon with a yellow third eye was at his side, using a white stone to crush up a foul-looking brown mixture of seeds, berries, and fetid whatnot—and the whatnot was the worst of it—in a small wooden bowl. Then the demon gave a combination grunt-and-whistle and pushed some of the stuff toward Matthew's mouth between thumb and forefinger.
Ah ha! Matthew thought. Now the true torments were to begin! The mixture being forced upon him looked like dog excrement and smelled like vomit. Matthew clamped his lips shut. The demon pushed at his mouth, grunting and whistling in obvious irritation, but Matthew steadfastly refused to accept it.
Another figure emerged from the smoke and stood beside Matthew's pallet. He looked into her face. Without speaking, she took up a pinch of the exquisite garbage and put it into her own mouth, chewing it as a display of its worth.
Matthew couldn't believe his eyes. Not because she'd voluntarily eaten it, but because she was the dark- haired, thin mute girl he'd last seen at Shawcombe's tavern. Only she was much changed, both in demeanor and dress. Her hair was clean and shining, more chestnut colored than truly dark brown, and on her head was a tiara- like toque formed of densely woven, red-dyed grass. Smudges of ruddy paint had been applied to her cheekbones. Her eyes were no longer glazed and weak but held determined purpose. Also, she wore a deerskin garment adorned with a pattern of red and purple beads down the front.
'You!' Matthew said. 'What are you doing h—' The thumb and forefinger struck, getting some of that gutter porridge past his lips. Matthew's first impulse was to spit, but the demon had already clamped one hand to his mouth and was massaging his throat with the other.
Matthew had no choice but to swallow it. The stuff had a strange, oily texture, but he'd tasted cheese that was worse. In fact, it had a complexity of tastes, some sour and some sweet, that actually... well, that actually called for a second helping.
The girl—Girl, he recalled Abner saying with a laugh when Matthew had asked her name—moved away into the fire-thrown shadows before he could ask her anything else. The demon continued to feed him until the bowl was empty.
'What is this place?' Matthew asked, his tongue picking at seeds in his teeth. There was no answer. The demon took his bowl and began to also move away. 'This is Hell, isn't it?' Matthew asked.
'Se hapna ta ami, ' the demon said, and then made a clucking noise.
In another moment Matthew sensed he was alone. Up above, he now could make out through the smoke haze what looked to be wooden rafters—or rather, small pinetrees with the bark still on them.
It wasn't long before his eyelids grew heavy. There was no resisting this sleep; it crashed over him like a green sea wave and took him down to depths unknown.
Dreamless. Drifting. A sleep for the ages, absolute in its peace and silence. And then, a voice.
'Matthew?'
Her voice.
'Can you hear me?'
'Ahhhhh, ' he answered: a sustained, relaxed exhalation of breath.
'Can you open your eyes?'
With only a little difficulty—and regret, really, for his rest had been so deeply satisfying—he did. There was Rachel, her face close to his. He could see her clearly by the flickering firelight. The dense smoke had gone away.
'They want you to try to stand up, ' she said.
'They?' He had a burned, ashy taste in his mouth. 'Who?'
The demon, who no longer wore the third eye, came up and stood beside her. With an uplifting motion of the hands and a guttural grunting, the meaning was made plain.
Two of the females who'd attended Matthew appeared, and began to work around his head. He heard something being cut— a leather strap, he thought it might be—and suddenly his head was free to move, which immediately put a cramping pain in his neck muscles.
'I want you to know, ' Rachel said as the two females continued to cut Matthew free from his pinewood pallet, 'that you've been terribly injured. The bear—'
'Yes, the bear, ' Matthew interrupted. 'Killed me, and you as well.'
She frowned. 'What?'
'The bear. It killed—' He felt the straps give way around his left wrist, then around the right. He'd stopped speaking because he realized Rachel wore her wedding dress. On it were grass stains. He swallowed thickly. 'Are we... not dead?'
'No, we're very much alive. You nearly died, though. If they hadn't come when they did, you would have bled to death. One of them bound your arm to stop the flow.'
'My arm.' Matthew remembered now the terrible pain in his shoulder and the blood dripping from his fingers. He couldn't move—or even feel—the fingers of his left hand. He had a sickened sensation in the pit of his stomach. Dreading to even glance at the limb, he asked, 'Do I still have it?'
'You do, ' Rachel answered grimly, 'but... the wound was very bad. As deep as the bone, and the bone broken.'
'And what else?'
'Your left side. You took an awful blow. Two, three ribs... how many were broken I don't know.'
Matthew lifted his right arm, unscathed save for a scabbed wound on his elbow, and gingerly touched his
