The showers were in little booths with a fan hidden behind the dropped ceiling and a little shelf for you to put your clothes on. There was a full length mirror on the inside of the door, tagged and scratched with signs around the edges. Someone had gouged fuck the salvation army! into the glass by the door handle.

Colleen was heavier now, but still bony enough that black lines striped her chest, shadows of her ribs. They fed her, but it was a slow process, relearning to eat. “I’m going to get fat,” she promised her reflection. “I’m going to be huge.” The hair between her legs had started to turn gray and she touched it with wondering fingers.

Steam fogged the mirror when she stepped out of the shower. The Devil watched her while she got dressed slowly, his horns and face white and misty, his eyes blank reflection. “I don’t know how,” said Colleen. “Do I pray?”

“Later,” said the Devil. “Later will I instruct you, and later will I spread the world before you. Rest now, and rebuild. Eat, o my best beloved, and be safe.”

The fire started in the basement and took out the stairs before Colleen became aware of it. She was sleeping, dreaming of a shadowy banquet and writhing with desire, and the crash of the stairs woke her. She ran toward the roof, seeking fresher air, kicked the door at the top against the chains on the other side until they fell clattering to the tar paper, stood wheezing against the railing, looked down at the flames licking out of the windows. The building swayed under her and the Devil spoke to her in the groaning.

“Cast yourself down,” he said, “and angels will bear you up.”

“Go away,” Colleen growled.

“Trust in me and I will save you.”

The fire discovered the paint supplies on the fourth floor and exploded through the walls with a mighty whump. The roof dropped three feet and began to slide toward the ground. For a moment she seemed to hang in the air, seemed to drift slowly upward, but she grabbed for the railing and swung back against the side of the building. The ground was coming up to meet her but it was still miles down through the smoke and flames.

“Colleen,” whispered the Devil.

Four days since Colleen had last eaten, which she knew was not a world record and probably not even a local one, but it was her longest stretch of time so far, a fact she regarded with a certain bleak approval. It had been a solid meal: ham, eggs, toast, coffee, pie and ice cream. It had taken all her money — ten dollars — and had made her sick and constipated. She had no regrets.

She had too much pride or foolish obstinate wilfullness to steal food from dumpsters or to dine and dash or to eat and then admit smilingly her inability to pay. They were dirty habits, and though she had many dirty habits, she did not have those particular dirty habits. And so four days had gone by without anything solid to eat. The drinking fountains around the city were free, if unclean. Water was not an issue, would not be an issue until winter came and the pipes froze. By then she would have to have moved on, farther south, into Oklahoma or Mexico maybe.

She had found a mattress and a gray and plague-splotched blanket and slept on these when the hunger made her shake and slaver fruitlessly. The hairs were growing in white upon her arms, which she dimly thought was a bad sign.

Her dreams were all about food, charbroiled steaks, mountains of eggs, fresh and honeyed bread, thick, creamy milk. Sweet and crusty pie. The blanket when she woke was twisted and soaked with her dreams, with the residue of her nocturnal desire.

The Devil came to her in the flame dancing on the end of her cigaret lighter. She had no money, she had no job, she had no family, no friends, no home, no possessions. She had a talent for surviving. When the Devil came to her, she was somewhere in Missouri that wasn’t St. Louis, huddled in a doorway until the gas station across the street opened. She was out of cigarets, but she was flicking her lighter nervously, anyway, just for something to do.

“Colleen,” said the Devil. “Worship Me and I shall make you a Power and a Mighty Dominion. I shall set you above all the Kingdoms of the Earth.”

Colleen thought about this. “Where were you during the winter?” she asked.

“At your word I will turn these crushed pop cans and condom wrappers to food, a Vast Banquet.”

“Where were you two years ago?”

“Worship Me,” said the Devil. “Bow down before Me, and on you will I shower Riches, you will I drape in Silk and Satin and Rare Gems.”

“Where were you when I was seventeen?”

“Worship Me,” said the Devil. The lighter burned her fingers and she dropped it. The Devil disappeared.