v1 CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: In which trauma shudders through the body and recovery begins.

She left the goat-things behind in the muddy clearing and staggered uphill, towards the path. Hospital, she thought. I should get to a hospital. Nobody had ever told her that when you get sexually assaulted, you have to figure out how to get to the hospital yourself. She’d left her phone at home. Stupid. Staggering out onto the street at the edge of the park, she looked around for a phone booth. None were visible—did phone booths still exist?—and she was getting soaked to the bone.

Micki took a deep breath and ran. She felt strangely tiny, and weak, as if she’d become a child, but with heavy breasts that she wasn’t used to, throwing off her balance and swinging without enough support, aching as they moved. As soon as her legs began pumping, she heard screams of pain and terror echoing in her head: the memory of her own voice. Yael? She thought inwards with a question, but felt nothing in response but a kind of mental static.

A block from the park, she stumbled into a corner store. The woman behind the counter took one look at Micki’s bruised face and torn t-shirt and called an ambulance.

The ambulance brought Micki to a nearby emergency room. She sat in a waiting area while a nurse checked her over and asked her questions. Micki couldn’t remember everywhere the men had injured her during the attack. She tried to answer questions. Yes, the man had been on top of her. Yes, she was sexually active with two partners. No, she did not want birth control. She had no permanent address; she was staying with a friend. No, she did not want to file a police report. How would I even describe the suspects? “They look like goats with crotch tentacles?”

She gave the nurse Susan’s contact information, as well as she could recall it, and drank some soup. Someone inspected her genitals with lights and swabs, so her mind fled a million miles away again. They bagged her clothes up, so they put her in thin papery underwear, and a paper gown, and then in a hospital bed. She complained about the cold, and they brought her a blanket and a thin wool cap. Everything moved around her, but she felt stuck, spinning in one place. Where is Yael?

In the afternoon, a tired, competent-looking woman in a lab coat came by, reading her chart and looking her over before speaking. “Miss Belmont? I’m Doctor Al-Faroukh. Do you feel up to discussing some of your test results?” Micki nodded mutely.

“First, the hard stuff. Your rape kit shows that someone sexually assaulted you, although you should know that there were no signs of penetration. If the police detain any suspects based on your report, it’s likely they could identify them based on genetic material, even though you didn’t get a good look at them. I’m just telling you this so you can think about it for now, all right?”

Micki nodded again. Her voice felt hoarse, as if she shouldn’t use it for speaking. She knew that wasn’t an entirely physical situation.

“Now, the other hard stuff, but probably not news to you. We’ve had to put you in a separate wing of the hospital because your DNA is anomalous, and so are your etheric readings. Are you registered with the city as a supernatural entity?” Micki shook her head; the doctor frowned. “I see. Well then, I have to ask you a few questions. To your knowledge, do you have any family history of supernatural involvement? That could include curses, stories about an ancestor with powers, sexual activity…”

Micki didn’t reply for a moment. There wasn’t enough air in her lungs for words like yes or no. She shook her head, then opened her mouth. “Not other than… me.” Her voice sounded thin.

“It’s fine if it’s hard to talk, Micki. I’ll try to make this simple… And if it’s too much, I can come back tomorrow.” Tomorrow? Micki thought. I want to go home now. I want to be lying on the couch with Susan, eating Szechuan food.

“Did the men who attacked you show any signs of supernatural nature or activity? Were they flying, glowing… strange body parts, anything like that?” Mikki laughed, but it came out sounding like a gasp.

“No, Doctor,” she heard herself saying. “I was like this before.” She pushed her cap up off her forehead, showing the doctor one of her horns.

Doctor Al-Faroukh inhaled a little but showed no other signs of discomfiture. A city doctor who’s seen everything, Micki thought.

“Micki… if I had to guess from your readings and a quick examination, I would say you’ve been possessed by a succubus. Have you dreamed about or seen glimpses of a strange woman recently, since the time the changes began?” Mikki nodded.

The doctor’s eyes widened slightly. “This woman would have had unusual features, like horns or fangs, possibly hooves or wings.”

Micki nodded again; her eyes were closed, and tears dripped down her cheeks. Am I crying because a succubus possessed me? Or because I need Yael with me? She did not know.

“Yes!” she said suddenly, opening her eyes and swiveling her gaze away from the doctor. Al-Faroukh put a hand on her arm. “You’re not the only person who’s experienced something like this, Micki. But as you might have heard, it can be very dangerous.” Micki nodded again. She wondered how many people had been consumed, or simply died because of succubus possession over the centuries.

“What do I do?” Micki asked.

Doctor Al-Faroukh leaned forward. “We need to get you to a specialist. We’ll send you to a hospital with a department for these types of cases.” She wrote something on a prescription pad and handed it to Micki. “Take these pills twice daily until you see me again—and don’t stop taking them without talking to me or another doctor here first.”

“A specialist? You mean like, an exorcist?” Micki asked.

“Not exactly,” the doctor replied. “We don’t use terms like that. Even ‘succubus’ is slang; that’s a name from mythology, and clinically we’d say that your etheric matrix has become entangled with a Type IV memetic entity, subclass DeltaFosB. But that means nothing to most people. There are some treatments that can disentangle the entity, but they’re not without risks.”

The doctor laid a hand on Micki’s arm. “We can talk about that tomorrow when we handle your referral. In the meantime, the pills should suppress any visions or dreams you might have of that woman. The good news is that you don’t show too many signs of physical changes. You have horns, of course, and I’m sure you know your pupils and irises are unusual. Your skin has also changed. Despite what you’ve been through, and injuries from the attack today, you’re a healthy young woman.”

Doctor, Micki thought, a few weeks ago I was an overweight middle-aged man, going to seed. She decided not to say anything on the subject.

Al-Faroukh stood up and moved her hand to Micki’s shoulder. “After we take care of the most urgent treatment, there are support groups for possessed people, and other services offered by the city for people who’ve gone through this kind of experience. For tonight, let’s get you settled in an observation bed. I can arrange a private room for you.”

***

Micki woke up in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of her arms. The sheets felt cold against her skin. What happened to the nice soft blanket? she thought.

In a rush, it all came back into her memory: her argument with Yael, the run in the park, the rapists who she’d transformed into monstrous goat-creatures.

She sat up; the movement made her wince in pain. Her ribs hurt like hell, and her larger breasts shifted uncomfortably against them. She looked around the room. A white curtain blocked off the rest of the room from view. Micki pulled it aside; behind it was a door to a bathroom and an empty bed.

She took a deep breath, then another, feeling the pain against her ribs. Bruised, she thought, but maybe not broken. How long have I been here? Micki got up, tied her flimsy gown around her, and walked down the hallway past several other bedrooms.

A nurse saw her coming and motioned to her. “Can I help you?”

“I need to make a phone call,” Micki said. “My roommate… she’s got to be worried sick about me.” She hadn’t been able to remember Susan’s phone number earlier, she realized; just an e-mail address that she wasn’t even sure Susan used anymore. But now her head felt a little clearer.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the nurse replied. “But it’s getting late. Wouldn’t it be better to call in the morning? We’re not supposed to make exceptions to visiting hours, either.”

“I really need to speak to her. Please?” Micki begged.

The nurse sighed. “Fine. Follow me.” At the floor’s central nursing station, Micki dialed Susan’s number. She picked up immediately.

“Oh, thank god!” Susan breathed.

Micki could feel her own relief, as if someone had removed a weight from her chest. Then she remembered why she was calling, and the heaviness settled on her body again. “Susan… I’m at… I’m in…” she halted, realizing she didn’t know the name of the hospital.

“Micki?” Susan sounded alarmed. “You sound terrible—what happened? Where are you?” Micki briefly explained everything that had occurred since she’d gone out running, leaving out the supernatural details.

When she finished, there was a long pause on the other end of the line before Susan spoke again. “I’m on my way, right now.” Susan hung up the phone before Micki could say anything further. The nurse insisted she return to her room and gave her some pills that had arrived for her. Micki stared at the oblong shapes laying in a small paper cup but hesitated to take them. Careful, she thought, but wasn’t sure where the thought had arrived from.

Yael? she questioned once more. She heard a faint sound, like someone shushing her. Seconds later, a knock on her door startled her awake. She’d fallen asleep while waiting for Susan’s arrival. She rolled painfully off the bed and walked across the cold tile floor to open the door.

Susan rushed in, followed by Maria. Her two friends practically picked her up and put her back in bed, fussing over her.

“Thank God, we’ve found you,” Susan said, looking Micki over. “You can walk… contusions… Are you all right?” Micki nodded, mostly feeling relieved to be among friends.

“I’ve been worried sick,” Susan continued. “I tried to call you yesterday, hadn’t heard from you, called John and Maria…”

Maria sat beside Micki on the bed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “What happened to you? You’re so… small now. And these scratches and bruises! Your chest, too…”

Susan gasped at Micki’s grapefruit-sized breasts, which looked enormous on her new, smaller frame. “Yael did this?”

Micki looked down at herself. “It… this didn’t happen in ways it did before. I couldn’t… I couldn’t control… it wasn’t her; it was them…” She put a hand on her forehead, feeling a hotness behind her eyes.

Susan came to her other side, and the two women held her. Micki cried, and then sobbed, long moans that wracked her diminished frame. The pair hugged her tightly until her gasps and sobs subsided.

After some time, they let go; Micki wiped tears from her cheeks and sighed. “Sorry if I scared you guys,” she said. “This is all very new to me. They—those men—were able to change me, somehow. Or I changed myself because of what they were doing. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, sweetie,” Maria replied, squeezing her shoulders again. “None of this is your fault. I haven’t been a woman long either, but that much is completely clear to me and I’ll remind you a hundred times if I have to. We’ve got your back.”

Susan nodded. “That’s why we’re here. So, what do you need from us?” She reached for Micki’s hand and held it between both of hers.

“Well,” Micki began. “I could use your help to make sense of it all. When Yael showed up—in the mirror, at Jay’s loft—for a moment I thought we could find some way to work together.” Susan and Maria leaned close to listen closely to Micki’s story told again, in more detail—from the argument with Yael to the encounter in the park with the two men, to the way she’d unleashed a horrible transformative spell.

“Yael… she—she said I had to wait until they got aroused, to power the spell as a succubus. But I think I waited too long and I could feel… that man, his—he didn’t manage to, but—” Micki shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes again; she blinked them back.

After a moment she continued: “Then he fell off me, and he was changing into… I don’t know how to describe it. It was like there was nothing human about him anymore. Horns and hooves, bleating and chewing grass.”

Her two friends stared at her in silence. Finally, Maria spoke. “You turned him into an animal?”

Micki frowned. “Not exactly. A goat with some random human parts. With tentacles all over its… between its legs? Like a weird kid’s drawing of a monster goat. I don’t know if they were supposed to look like that, or if I’m just not very good at magic.”

Susan hummed, tapping her lip with her index finger. “Can you write the words Yael told you to use?”

Micki nodded; she accepted Susan’s phone and pulled up the notes app. She typed quickly before handing the phone to Susan.

Susan read the lines carefully. Then she looked at Micki again. “You used these words to cast your spell, and that was it?” Micki nodded.

Susan’s eyes were bright. “Fascinating. This is a sort of revenge spell, using Latin. Yael must have Hermetic training… this curse removes the humanity from one who commits dark deeds and transforms them into a beast—precisely because they’ve done beastly things.”

Maria laughed lightly. “Let the punishment fit the crime?”

Micki’s smile faded. “That sounds a curse straight out of ancient myth… or Hell.”

“Yes,” Maria agreed. “But it doesn’t matter where she learned something like this—”

“It matters to me,” Micki interrupted. “I’ve still taken priestly vows, even if I now look like…” she gestured at her body, “…a barely legal pinup girl. I wish Yael hadn’t… I wish I could have…”

“You can’t undo it,” Susan murmured. “And just like what those men did, this isn’t your fault either, Micki. Please remember that. Yael is a demon; she came up with a way to save you, a cruel and hideous way. But those men brought it on themselves. A spell like this won’t work unless the victim commits a heinous act.”

“Is that why I had to wait until that motherfucker was almost inside of me?!” retorted Micki, angry tears welling again.

Susan shook her head, her face set in a stern expression. “I don’t know. Maybe it had something to do with the amount of sexual energy needed to unleash the curse. Or perhaps Yael was worried that if they weren’t getting what they wanted, they could transform you further, just by wishing for it. I don’t fully understand that, but… has Yael been in contact with you at all?”

Susan watched Micki shake her head slowly. “Hmm. She might have depleted her own energy for that spell as well.”

Maria put a hand on Susan’s arm. “Maybe we ought to let Micki rest for a little while,” she suggested delicately. Micki had a hand over her face, covering her badly bruised left eye.

“Yes,” Susan agreed immediately. She turned to Micki and smiled warmly. “All right? We’ll talk about this later.”

Micki wiped away her tears and nodded vigorously, then paused. “Wait, there’s one more thing! The doctor said they want to transfer me to a hospital where they’re going to disentangle Yael from my matrix, or something. I’m supposed to be taking these pills, but… they think I’m just some girl who got possessed! Would these pills, I don’t know, exorcise me?”

Susan looked alarmed and grabbed for the paper cup of medication, peering closely. “Clozapine… this is an antipsychotic medication; it’s used to treat demon possession as if they’re hallucinations. I don’t think it would affect you, but it might make you unable to communicate with Yael. As for etheric matrix disentanglement…” Susan shook her head. “There’s a reason people call it electroshock therapy for the supernatural.”

Micki swallowed hard. “That sounds uncomfortably close to exorcism. I don’t want to lose… myself, who I am!” she cried out in anguish. “If they try to shock the demons out of this body, I might not come back either. I don’t know what would be left!”

Maria touched her shoulder. “Micki, honey, nobody’s going to let happen. You’re not alone. We’re here to help you through this. It’s a hospital, right? You’re not committed to a mental institution, so you don’t have to consent to any of that.”

Susan’s expression was grimmer. “Just try to stay calm and don’t sign anything. If they think you’re a danger to yourself or others, or if another entity is in control of your body, they can still commit you against your will.”

She leaned down and looked at the electronic chart affixed to the foot of the bed. “It looks like they have your name, but you don’t have any identification or records in the system, not as Micki Belmont. Maybe we should just get you out of here? We might convince them to discharge you.” She saw how ragged Micki looked, and added, “Well… by tomorrow morning, at least.”

Micki took a deep breath and nodded; it was too much—she didn’t have any strength left. “Okay. Tomorrow morning, then."