v1 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: (18+) In which an unlikely savior emerges, complete with lights, sound, and steam.

Sweating with fear, the two priests ran inside and started barring and securing the final wicket door, the only one that they hadn’t already bolted or welded shut. “Never thought the job would involve anything remotely like this,” observed John, rolling a large plastic barrel of some sort to one side of the aisle, behind a column. Their preparations were as complete as they could be.

The holy demon-smiting spear, with its hidden collapsible lance, leaned against another pillar. Susan stood in a gallery over the entrance, armed with water balloons of holy water and other equipment she’d scrounged. It was makeshift; Michael felt as if they were doing the amateur community theater version of demon-fighting, but it’d have to do.

The waiting was by far the hardest part, even for mere minutes.

They could hear the mob outside—lots of shouting; they could even hear them pounding on the doors. The sound made Michael nervous. They knew there wasn’t much they could do without actual weapons. “Similarly, I never thought I’d be wishing that the Church armed its clergy with firearms,” muttered John. “Not that a gun would work as a deterrent… they’re not remotely rational at this point.”

Michael paced up the aisle, and lifted his crucifix, brandishing it like a talisman. “Mastema! Mastema, I know you can hear me, you… massive hypocrite! You claim to stand for what is righteous, and yet you hide behind your pawns like a coward! I name thee worthy of contempt!”

There was no response from the far side of the door; but then Michael heard something else: a high-pitched whine. It sounded like a drill or some other sort of power tool.

Then he saw it—a bright light shining through the cracks at the edges of the main doors. Someone had forced the sides, carving a hole through the wood around the hinges. A few seconds later, the side of the wicket gate collapsed; a man leaned in. He looked drunk or drugged out of his mind. His eyes were glazed over and unfocused, his face contorted into a scowl.

“We want to see Belmont’s dick!” the man shouted, as if trying to get someone’s attention. Then he started chanting again: “We want to see Michael’s dick!” Another voice joined in behind the first man, a head and shoulders squeezing into view. They’d breached the entrance.

Michael did his best to ignore the obscene—and frankly impossible—request, and yelled Mastema’s name again, demanding the demon show himself. Father John was brandishing the smiting rod and tripped one invader with it as he crawled in and tried to rise to his feet.

Some of the mob was openly carrying semiautomatic rifles and handguns, Michael realized with horror—but they were carrying them more like accessories than with any intent to fire, seeming strangely unaware of the possibility of using their deadly weapons.

“They’re like zombies,” came Susan’s voice over Michael’s earbud. Some kind of static was interfering with the phone call they’d set up to stay in touch. Demonic energy, he thought, and felt his nipples harden at the thought.

“The walking dead? I don’t think so,” said John. “This whole break-in is too well-organized, too well-planned!”

Another man leaned into the opening. This one had a pair of bolt cutters. He grabbed the latch that held the door shut from inside and began snipping away. There was a loud snap as the lock broke free. A crowd of people—at least twenty—surged into the church, shouting and laughing like a pack of hyenas. They wore mostly camo colors or black, with ski masks or balaclavas covering their faces. One man carried an axe, which he swung wildly around his head. Another wielded a sledgehammer.

Father John fell back towards the altar, with Michael flanking him. “We can’t possibly hold these maniacs off!” yelled John. “If we try to fight them, they could take us out with a shot!” The other doors were being pounded apart with sledgehammers and axes, bashing away at the bolts and barricades. They could retreat into the cellars, thought Michael, but then they’d be trapped like rats. God, thought Michael. Only God can save us now.

It wasn’t God who answered his prayers for help. It was a succubus.

The waning light of dusk, filtering into the nave through the stained-glass windows, suddenly changed. Spots of spinning color appeared on the columns and walls, as if reflected from an invisible disco ball. Music began playing, bouncy and with a new wave beat. “I know what boys like,” came the voice of Patty Donahue, coming from nowhere but echoing loud through the grand acoustic space of the nave. “I know what boys want.” Something was descending from the ceiling through all the flashing lights. Everyone stopped to watch, faces slackening in surprise.

It was a figure that could only be described as a stripper—a young woman dressed in lingerie, fishnet stockings and stiletto heels. She had long black hair falling around her shoulders in untamed curls and wore an embroidered red bustier that revealed her ample cleavage. She came down slowly, turning around so everyone could see her body.

The descending figure was sitting on a trapeze which hung from a pulley system, like something a circus performer would use, a contraption of wires and rods hanging in the air with a long shaft of metal at the center. A suspended stripper’s pole. She waved to the crowd of black-clad men, flashing them a winsome smile from between her shiny red lips. Michael caught the hint of a long canine, and she turned to wink at him. It was Yael, of course.

The song continued, “They talk about me / I got my cat moves / That so upset them / Zippers and buttons.” Stopping about fifteen feet off the ground, Yael leaned backwards off the trapeze and unzipped her bustier halfway, revealing a lacy black bra. One perfect, cantaloupe-sized breast popped out, jiggling. Yael lifted a hand to her mouth, upside down, in a “Oops!” expression of mock horror.

The music changed: now it was an old disco hit from the 1970s—a sexy, slow number with a funky bass line. The Church speakers were pumping out the music directly, with no source. As if on cue, the lights flashed and spun faster than ever before. “What the… what the fuck?!” yelled one man. “What is this shit?” But another man was already clutching at his pants.

Yael reached up behind herself and unfastened the lower part of her bustier, where laces held it to a black garter belt; she peeled the fabric away like a banana skin until the G-string beneath came into view. Then she wriggled, lifting her ass in the air as if inviting someone to spank or finger her. A few of the men whistled appreciatively. “Unnnh,” yelled one man, dropping his gun to unzip his fly.

“This is a trick, men!” yelled one older man in urban camouflage fatigues. He was holding a handgun—a semi-automatic assault weapon that looked like it could blow a hole through a tank. “It’s a trap!” he shouted, but the others just laughed and kept watching.

Yael wore only in a black bra, G-string, and heels. She lifted both arms above her head in a stretch, showing off her taut body to its best advantage. Even the older man stopped to look as she gyrated, spinning herself around the pole that extended back up the trapeze wires towards the ceiling. Yael bent over backwards, touching her toes with her hands clasped together; then she slowly straightened up again, arching her back and thrusting out her chest.

Even Michael was staring at her breasts—her big round tits, which were bouncing so much they were practically gyrating in parallel to her ribcage. They had been perfect when she first arrived, but now they seemed to grow even bigger with each sway and bob. His own nipples ached with the waves of lustful vitality pouring from her—when had she grown so powerful? Or was she exhausting her own stores of energy? The bra burst with a snap and fell to the ground. Yael’s breasts swayed free.

Yael closed her eyes and tilted her head back, like a cat stretching after sleeping all day. “Welcome to the show, boys,” she intoned. “You weren’t invited, but now you’re here… in a house I’ve claimed as my own. You will partake and do so eagerly.”

Below, a man with a bandana over his face was trying to grab the succubus’ discarded bra away from another guy in a tactical vest. Yael opened her mouth wide, displaying her pearly white teeth to the crowd. Her tongue licked out between those sharp canines, as if tasting something delicious on them. “I want you boys to dance for me,” sang Yael. “Get those cocks out and start pumping.” The crowd was milling around, some reaching up in attempts to touch her, just out of reach.

Michael could feel heat and moisture growing between his legs; he looked over at Father John, whose face held a mixture of horror and fascination, and wondered if his friend’s cock was growing inside his black, clerical trousers. He couldn’t repress a sudden pang of jealousy. “John! Snap out of it, don’t let her get to you! This is what a succubus does,” he hissed.

Father John was still staring at Yael—his eyes glazed like a dog hypnotized by a spinning wheel. He shook himself and blinked. “Saints,” he said. “That’s quite the… effect.” The men who had been breaking into the church moments before clearly agreed. Some had already dropped their pants, fumbling in their underwear with frantic hands. Others were unbuckling belts or were rubbing themselves, doglike, against the pews and columns.

“She’s so fucking hot!” one man moaned. Michael noticed, with a tiny sliver of his remaining attention, that none of the men had taken off their shirts. They stood there bottomless and vulnerable, in their balaclavas, Pepe scarves and confederate flag T-shirts, yearning for Yael to come down and touch them, see to their needs and hungers.

But the demoness was up high, dancing around the pole again, this time moving her hips in a circle, gyrating against the smooth hardness of the metal length. “I wanna FUCK, boys!” she moaned. “I want ALL of you to fuck me. Oh please, please, let me suck your cocks. Let me make you cum like you can’t stop—oh yes! Yes! YESSSS! Suck my tits. Let me do anything you want. Just don’t stop fucking me. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. DON’T STOP! I’m gonna cum all over your big fat cocks.”

Some men were stroking themselves in earnest, pumping their dicks; others just stood there jerking as Yael danced around. Dubstep music throbbed through the air now, lights flashing in rhythm and sourceless spotlights stroking their glare up and down the succubus’ limber frame.

Michael and John watched her, mesmerized. Suddenly, Susan’s voice broke through the static in their earbuds. “… come in? Michael, I think you’d better get up here. Yael is flickering, I think the energy flow is not enough to—” There was a pause. “Michael?” She sounded confused.

“Susan!” he hissed. “What’s wrong?”

“Yael’s ritual is slowly fading away,” she said. “She needs more energy to keep her form. She doesn’t have a body, remember? This is all a glamour, an illusion that takes power to affect anything physical. I have an idea—can you meet me in the south gallery? I’m overlooking her… her pole dance thing.” Michael looked up at the swaying succubus.

She did appear to be slowing down, but then she suddenly whirled around and grabbed one man by the head, lifting him in the air with inhuman strength; her other hand went between his legs. He came instantly, groaning like a dying animal. The rest of the crowd took notice. She threw him down on the ground, writhing.

“Oh, fuck yeah!” Yael cried out. “I knew you could do it! I want to see more… more of that…” she took a breath, seemingly strangely human in that moment, a pole dancer overdue for a shift change. Michael moved around the edge of the nave, towards the stairs.

“Michael? Where are you—what?” called John.

“Stay there and stay back! Don’t get…. you know, sucked in!” yelled Michael as he broke into a run. Yael was still dancing; she’d persuaded two men to make out against a wall, kissing each other frantically and groping at each other’s crotches. “Susan, what’s going on?” Michael asked again.

“I’m not sure,” Susan replied. “I don’t think Yael is fully here anymore. Her presence is fading. I don’t know if she’ll be able to keep these bastards under her thrall.”

Michael burst into the gallery above the entrance to the nave. Susan had drawn a crude pentagram in chalk near the edge of the balcony, and she had already… discarded her underwear? Indeed, Susan had exposed her smooth-shaved cunt to the air. Naked from the waist down, just like the men gyrating below, she spread her legs wide open like she was on display at a sex education demonstration.

“Susan?! What… what is this?” Susan was already stroking her lips gently, preparing herself.

“What does it look like, Michael? This is how we’re going to help save the day,” said Susan as she pulled her hand away from her pussy and held it up for him to see; her fingers shone with moisture. “We need to make sure we get enough sexual energy flowing through us so that Yael can keep this going, maybe incapacitate them. They’re resisting, but we won’t; we’ll just feed her. Get your clothes off.”

Michael hesitated, frantic. “But…” The light show in the nave flickered into darkness, the music skipping before returning. He heard Yael’s voice yelling, but without the same clear note of command it had held only a minute or two before.

“Michael!! There’s no time for prudishness.” Susan was panting, slapping her fingers into her glistening cunt with a gasp. “Pull that ass out of your panties now, like a big boy.”

Michael gulped and unbuckled his baggy trousers, throwing his cassock over one shoulder. As he did so, the lights went out again—but not completely; there was still some illumination coming from outside. Michael could hear shouts and screams echoing up from below. Yael’s voice rang out, sharp and commanding: “All of you! Stop what you are doing right now!”

Michael glanced down to see if she was visible in the church nave—and saw her standing atop the trapeze, completely naked but out of reach of the crowd. She looked simultaneously like an angel and a devil; her bare flesh covered in gold-dust glitter. She now bore her horns, curling over her head, and held her writhing tail in her hand. Her eyes were glowing yellow-white, shining with supernatural power.

“This is it,” said Susan, who had her hands on either side of her cunt, rubbing herself vigorously. Michael pulled his underwear off, revealing his own recently acquired vulva. “Holy moly, Father,” said Susan. “Your backside! That’s a fine ass you’ve got there, Michael!”

Michael was already touching himself, gingerly; already aroused by Yael’s energies, he felt the slippery wetness of his cunt engulfing his fingers as he slipped them between his labia. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine John’s face, but Yael’s demonically scarlet features were filling his inward gaze. “Do it for her,” Susan whispered, in accord with his thoughts. “Think about how much this will help us save her. I know she’s the enemy in some ways, but you’ve got to be feeling some kind of connection to her.”

“For her,” whispered Michael. The whisper seemed to echo through the space of the church.

“Michael,” moaned Susan. “We have to do this together. Touch me… I’ll touch you.” She leaned forward, and their lips met—they kissed tentatively, tongues entwining. Then she moved back a little way and put her hand on his vulva, which was now pulsing with blood and lust. “We dedicate our pleasure to our dark lady, Yael.”

Michael felt his voice repeating the words. “...our dark lady, Yael.” Suddenly he was thrumming with power, his connection to Yael activating. He felt his spine stiffen and crack, flesh rippling slightly. “Oh… Oh my God!”

“Now you’re getting it,” said Susan. She had taken off her shirt and was rubbing her breasts. “Put your hand on me… stroke me.”

Michael’s eyes were closed; he was concentrating on the sensations coming from his cunt. He reached out and felt something he had never felt before: another woman’s vulva. Like his own, but configured slightly differently, with a hint of stubble and delicate, petal-like lips. Susan.

He carefully stroked Susan with one hand while touching himself with the other. “Wait,” said Susan, “I have something else that will help.” Michael kept fingering himself as Susan reached into a nearby bag, fumbling with a plastic bottle.

Michael’s waist ached, something shifting in his ribs, pressing into his internal organs. Was his body changing again? The lights downstairs were flashing, music playing and Yael’s sing-song voice drifting up. Her sex-crazed ritual was continuing without falter.

Susan lifted something towards him, slick with lube. Long and flexible, with bulbous ends—a dildo? For once, Michael didn’t hesitate; he took the long black dildo in his fingers like a cock. He leaned forward to lick it. It tasted of sweat, silicone, and lust. A shiver ran through him. But that wasn’t exactly what Susan had in mind.

“I’m going to put it inside myself,” said Susan. “We’ll use this together.” The dildo was much longer than any he’d ever seen, curved at two points, with one end hooking upwards. Susan settled herself onto that end, sighing heavily, and the other side protruded from her cunt, looking like a cock of black silicone. “Come here, Michael,” she said, and he did, mounting the other side of the dildo slowly.

Although he’d dreamed of being fucked by a cock, this was the first time he’d truly felt anything penetrate him there. It was an unusual sensation, the pleasurable pressure filling an ache he didn’t know he had, then becoming strangely comforting. Susan stared him in the eye as she moved her hips, letting him feel every movement. Michael gasped. “Susan… I didn’t know…” In response, she guided his head down to her breasts. He kissed them; they were warm and soft.

Susan was moaning softly. Her hands on his back were firm. They both started moving their hips slowly. After a halting start, their rhythm matched, and soon he could feel her body shuddering with his. The dildo connected them, joining their pussies. Michael felt an intense heat rising from within and knew that it wasn’t just his own arousal. Yael’s energy was there too, stimulating their flesh to new heights, making both cunts wetter, more receptive to each other’s reciprocating thrusts.

Susan’s legs wrapped around him as she braced herself against the floor with her hands. “Unnhhh,” she said. “It’s good. It’s filling us both. I… I like this.” Michael felt the muscles of his cunt throb as the dildo slid in and out of him, tugging at Susan’s g-spot at the same time. He had never been so close to another woman before; he could feel every inch of the dildo—its length and its shape.

“I like you touching me with your fingers,” said Susan. “You can do anything you want, Michael. You’re so hot.” Michael reached around to rub her clit now, both of their hips pumping. The dildo felt like it was sliding deeper into him with each stroke. He wondered if this would be enough to make him come.

“Let me turn the vibe on,” said Susan, and pressed a hard nub at the center of the dildo. A sharp buzzing sound filled the room; lights flashed and the sensations at his clit and inside his pussy intensified. Michael slammed his hips against Susan. The dildo was all the way inside him, then out again, rubbing against every part of him. The black phallus joined them as one, vibrating and humming. Susan’s face was red, her eyes closed tight. “Oh… Oh Michael! Yael, dark lady! Accept this, our offering.” Michael hissed, his pleasure snaking through his spine like something electric.

He could feel the vibrations in his stomach. His clit, his labia, his whole vagina pulsed with energy—Yael’s energy. It wasn’t just his own orgasm that he felt building within him. He looked at Susan. She was gasping for breath. She clenched her hands around his back. “We accept your offering, mortal,” Michael said, in a voice not entirely his own. Their bodies shook together as they came, screaming and yelping.

Something spurted on their faces. Ropy, sticky cum. Michael looked up to see Father John standing only feet away, his stiff cock out and in his hand, stroking. Another spurt of cum shot out; it landed on Susan’s cheek. A third fell on Michael’s lips. He opened them like a crocodile’s maw. “Yesss,” he hissed, then licked John’s cum off his mouth. It was sweet, musky, delicious. It was what he wanted, had always wanted. He bucked his hips again, stroked Susan. Another shockwave of orgasm ran through him—his body shaking with it.

“That’s right,” said Michael. “Come for us.” And then he screamed: the rising moan of a woman in the throes of pleasure. Susan let out several quick gasps, and John grunted again and again. Seeing with his strange new pupils, Michael glimpsed tendrils of energy floating up in the air, sucked downwards towards the light and heat of the bodies moving below, on the floor of the nave.

Then it was over; they were all lying there panting. Susan looked like a truck had hit her—her face red from exertion, her hair disheveled. She reached out to touch Michael’s cheek. He felt himself blush. Then he looked over at John. “I… I can explain?” he said to his junior priest, the young man he was supposed to be helping, mentoring. The man who had just watched him fuck their assistant with a double-headed dildo and then ejaculated all over him.

John shook his head. “I don’t even know what… what to say.”

“Sorry,” said Michael. “This is my fault. I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Michael!” Susan interrupted. “Look downstairs!” She was leaning over the railing of the balcony, still naked from the waist down. The lights pulsed staccato, stronger than ever, and the music blasted Daft Punk’s “Harder Better Faster Stronger.” Yael was spinning around on the elevated pole by one leg, her tail whipping through the air. Men were dancing beneath her, some of them naked now, most of them with one hand grasping their swollen members, bouncing between their legs.

“That’s amazing,” breathed John. “And terrifying… in our church…” he rubbed his hands over his forehead, clearly thinking about how he’d just orgasmed in ropy strands all over the gallery of his own house of worship, not to mention two of his coworkers.

Susan nodded. “It’s like an orgy down there.” Her eyes glinted in lust. “All those horny guys are ready to blow their loads at any moment. They could never have expected an attack of this nature.”

Michael said nothing; he was too busy watching Yael, who had been spinning on the pole for quite some time, her tail whipping back and forth with increasing speed. He noticed she seemed to be sweating more than before—and it wasn’t from exertion.

As she spun faster, completely naked and demon-red now, her breasts bounced up and down obscenely. They looked like they’d grown, their pillowy shapes rippling as she gyrated. It looked a little painful, thought Michael; but maybe succubae didn’t have to worry about that? Her skin began to glow as if made of embers from a fire.

Then Michael realized what was happening: Yael’s body was absorbing light and heat of the dancing bodies below her. She was drawing off the sexual energy of the surrounding men. “Come closer, my thralls,” she moaned, and lowered herself upside down on the trapeze. “Suckle from mommy.”

Michael watched in horror as the men rushed to her. Some were already erect; others reached out with trembling hands to touch her soft skin. One man licked his lips hungrily. Another rubbed himself against the nearest pew. A third tangled his hand in her hair and tried to reach towards her nipple with tongue extended, but another man who wanted a turn at the teat pushed him away.

“Yes,” whispered Susan eagerly, “She’s going to do it. I wonder if they’ll all fall unconscious, or…”

Father John gripped the railing tightly. “She’s a succubus! Supposedly… couldn’t she kill them, drain them to husks? We can’t… we can’t—”

“We have to trust her to some extent,” said Michael. “We have to let her proceed; otherwise, this is all for nothing. They came here to kill us, or worse.”

Father John gave him a dark look. “What’s happened to you, Father? To… to your eyes, your body? Oh my God. You’re the one who’s possessed, aren’t you?”

Michael nodded. “This is no longer solely my body. Yael is laying claim to it. But don’t worry: I’m still in control of it, even if I’m changing. I’m not letting her take over, not yet.”

Below, the men were worshipping Yael, touching her and trying to suck on her. She was smiling sweetly down at them, as if they were her adoring sons. “All praise to me,” she cooed. “I am your mother, and you are my beloved children. All will be well with you. Come, come!”

Pounding to the music, some with fingers up their own asses, others slurping down their neighbors’ cocks, the men began to writhe and moan; some fell into trances, swaying on their feet, their hands still mindlessly pumping their own cocks. Yael had her hands and her tail between her own legs as well, presenting her sex upside-down towards the ceiling.

Yael screamed, an ululating noise. Hands reached for her, stroking her. A demonic orgasm wracked her body, and all around her the men began to climax. Michael watched in fascinated horror as the semen from several men shot from their penises in separate geysers, arcing in the air over the trapeze.

The cum splashed over Yael’s face and chest. She seemed to absorb it, her body glowing with shining white strands. The rioters, the men who had stormed into the church full of resentment, were orgasming in unrelenting shockwaves that pulsed through their bodies, pulling every drop of pleasure out of them—and giving it to Yael.

Michael looked at Susan; she was staring at him with wide eyes. “They’re still alive,” he said. “We have to let her do this.”

“But the men! She’ll drain them dry!”

“We can… we can—let’s get downstairs,” decided Michael, and he fumbled for his pants. He felt like a stranger, watching himself from afar as he struggled with his belt buckle. In the nave, men were still twitching and spasming, lying in the aisle and on the pews, creamy white ribbons of semen connecting them to each other, laced all over the center of the nave.

Yael’s face was flushed with ecstasy and slathered with cum. With his odd second-sight, Michael could see the strands of energy being drawn into her. As the men fell over, Yael lowered herself from the contraption; both she and the trapeze-pole-dance device were flickering and wavering again, becoming insubstantial.

“So much… so sweet…” the succubus moaned, then dropped to her knees. She clutched her belly as if someone had punched her, then leaned forward until her head was in the pool of cum that had gathered in front of her, lapping at it like a thirsty beast. Some men tried to pull themselves away from her as they continued to orgasm—but Yael grabbed them by their throats or hair or testicles, pulling them closer.

“Yael… it’s enough, don’t keep…” muttered Michael, unsure of what to say. Yael’s form was shifting, stretching. Her breasts and hips widened; her hair became longer, a forest of ebon curls. More than anything else, her eyes grew brighter. She opened her mouth and took a deep breath. Then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she convulsed once. Her horns, once curling delicately around her head, shattered with a ringing sound, then regrew into monstrous arcs that extended a foot or more above her head.

Yael’s eyes flew open. She stood up, suddenly seeming taller, a towering figure of a woman with her legs covered in scales and fur, her hips and breasts heavy like those of a fertility statue. The men stared at her in awe, too weak to move. She stretched out her arms. Some scrambled to get away from her as she approached. But there was nowhere to run: the men were too weak from their orgy of self-pleasure to stand; and some of them crawled along the floorboards towards Yael, their mouths hanging open as they watched her approach. She drained them.

“This is why,” said Yael to the assembled crowd of exhausted, prone vigilantes. “You ought to respect women a little more.” She began to feed on them, exhausting them further, her spiked tail darting among the recumbent forms like a cobra. One man gave a final shuddering gasp before falling limp, like someone had cut his life-support system. Yael moved to another, but Michael grabbed her scaled arm.

“That’s too far!” he yelled. “You don’t need to…” Yael turned her baleful, goat-like gaze and stared into Michael’s own horizontally slitted pupils.

“My little one,” she said, “My child, my nest. We aren’t together yet?” She seemed confused, her form still growing insubstantial, misting away at the edges. “But I can’t… I can’t absorb so much. Not without you.”

Susan was yelling something, something about Yael destabilizing. He was her body, realized Michael. She had no other. She had told him she needed an anchor; she had insisted she would eventually hollow him out and discard him like a pupa’s shell. But now she’d saved all of them with the most ridiculous, over-the-top erotic pole-dance imaginable.

“Give it to me, Yael. I accept you, just this once.” Michael placed one hand on Yael’s heart, the other over her throbbing, deep-red vulva. Yael cried out, and energy was pouring into Michael. He felt it ripple into his waist and stomach, which melted like butter, reflowing into something new. Something strange; and familiar. He could feel himself becoming different. His bones were cracking. There was a feeling of fire inside him. It hurt. This wasn’t supposed to be happening—

Then everything snapped back together. Michael looked down at his naked body. Yael’s eyes were closed; she lay on the ground. Michael looked down at his body. His waist had shrunk dramatically, curving into a tiny hourglass shape, accentuating his chest and shoulders. In fact, his whole torso was narrower than it had ever been before, making his small breasts seem larger. But the energy kept pulsing up through his head. He cried out in pain, clutching at his brow. Then there was a pop, as if a china pot was bursting under pressure; his vision cleared.

Michael raised his hand to his skull. His forehead was no longer entirely smooth; two nubs of horn sprouted from either side of his brow—curving slightly, with the texture of bone. The flesh around each was itchy, erupting in a painful blister. Michael stood up, but the world seemed to tilt under him. All the blood rushed to his head—his skull felt like it was going to crack apart.

Then he heard a sound like thunder echoing through the nave. Michael, Susan, and John all turned towards the source of the noise, just as the giant wooden doors to the church exploded inward.