v2 CHAPTER TWO: In which boulders are flung, compacts invoked, and dread bargains made.

Una knew how to fly: she flexed, and her great, dark wings beat at the air, carrying her higher. She relaxed to glide, and let the wind catch her. She had no memory of ever flying before, but she had—or one part of her knew. Yael flew on wings like these, she thought, and knew it for a fact, but did not know how she knew, and couldn’t summon any memory of flying. Where is Yael? Why don’t I remember the things she would remember?

She sped over the forested mountainsides and valleys of upstate New York. This is freedom, she thought, as the trees grew thicker, the landscape wilder and less cultivated. Behind her, Nezz was howling. The voice of her pursuer echoed across the hills like an unholy fusion of distortion-heavy speaker feedback and the bellow of an enraged beast. Glancing back, she could easily see where it moved. The great archdemon’s passage kicked up great plumes of dirt and pine needles, knocking trees aside like snapped toothpicks and creating a billowing cloud of debris in its wake.

As she flew higher, the rush of her own wings drowned the sound of Nezz’s roaring out. I must go further, she thought. Away from where Susan and John might be… give them a chance to get away. The power she had gathered in her first hours as Una, as her new self, had to be used well—to fuel her distraction and her escape. She turned north and west, her flight becoming erratic, more of a darting glide than the controlled motions of her initial ascent. Maybe she could throw him off.

Before she could wing away, a massive hand shot towards her, hurtling out of the treetops with terrifying accuracy. It seemed to be formed from dust, dirt and bark, all the matter torn from the ground by Nezz and coalesced into his terrible body. The blow seemed meant to swat her out of the air and came within inches of hitting her before she spun and rolled in mid-air to evade. As she tumbled, she realized she could hear his speech clearly; the sounds boomed through the mountains as if electronically amplified.

“Mine. Nezz lays claim to you, minor thing. O creature of broken vessels and secondhand flesh, your soul and powers are mine. You may submit, or I will consume you and make you part of me, in service to Nezz, the master of masters. Do you submit, tiny demon? Your essence, mine to mold and use as I see fit, forever and for eternity.”

Turning in an arc to stare back at her pursuer, Una almost laughed, but her breath caught in her throat. The archdemon was rambling, almost talking to itself as it swore and threatened. Still it grew, pulling more of the stuff of the world into itself, just as it promised to absorb her. The primordials, she thought, using a term she hadn’t realized she knew, are terrors that defy comprehension. Archdemons with power and will cast enough to shatter reality, given time and the whim.

This one was mad with rage. The air grew chilly as it continued to swell, towering above the treetops. Its rampage left deep furrows in the earth of the hills, as if some enormous plow had laid waste to the area.

She tried to outpace Nezz and veer around its reach, intending to fly further west into the mountains. Each time it lunged to strike, she almost lost her airborne poise as the claw-like fingers closed just short of her wings or back. But there were always gaps between those strikes when she could gain distance. Finally, Una let her momentum carry her up into the sky, until she could turn in mid-air to look back down on Nezz. It stood tall as a building atop a ridge on the eastern edge of the valley she hovered over. Shattered trees and dense undergrowth surrounded the massive form.

Nezz raised its bizarre head, an inverted pyramid topped with four twisting horns. Its eyes were nothing but chaotic scribbles of blackness inscribed on one face; the whole apparition looked like a madman’s abstract rendition of a cattle skull. Nezz looked at her with that face. The shadowy ink of its features swirled as it focused on her, and then it screamed again, a noise that combined the shattering of glass with the cry of a raptor. From the lower part of the face, out of a crude gash serving as a mouth, two sets of long, crooked tusks seemed to writhe with movement, growing and protruding.

Then the enormous thing sank down. Is it shrinking? Is it possible I’ve exhausted it? Una didn’t intend to wait around to find out. Tilting one wing, she started a steady beat to carry her down towards the ravine below her, away from Nezz. The shadows here were darker, deeper, still unpierced by the rising sun. The foliage grew denser and wilder here, the mountain ridge curving in to create a sheltered spot that offered protection from Nezz, even if only for a moment.

Nezz’s uncanny visage kept falling until it disappeared below the edge of the ridge. Una gasped, feeling a pang of relief at the thought she might lose her pursuer. She still thrummed with the energy she’d greedily lapped up when her lovers fed her with their sexual ecstasy. The power came at a cost; the raw, untamed vibrations coursing through her left her disoriented. That, along with something else, threw her off: this whole existence, her sense of self, was all so new.

There are people depending on me, she thought. Gotta make sure I lead Nezz away from them, away from the mortals’ world. But maybe she could take a moment… find a place to duck out of sight, think about how to deal with the rampaging demon, or flee from it. Just for a moment…

She could still hear the monster thrashing in the trees across the ridge, although she could not see it. She looked around to orient herself. Below her, a rocky cliff jutted up, forming a sort of canyon with a shallow creek-bed at the bottom. There! A cluster of pines had fallen against each other in the ravines and had tumbled down to create a thickly packed mound. With her next wing-stroke, Una alighted on a carpet of needles and pranced lightly on her hooves to a gap between two fallen trees. She pressed her body through the opening and found a hollow large enough to stand inside. The enclosed space remained shrouded from the sky and light by barriers of wood, slowly rotting into chips and dirt.

For a long time, Una stood unmoving with her back to an angled trunk, only praying silently that the giant archdemon wouldn’t find her. Finally, she let out a slow breath and pressed her forehead against the soft bark, trying to collect her thoughts. If Yael were here, I’d ask her what to do. Una thought back to the nights they’d spent in a bare cell, waiting for their tormentors. But now Yael’s gone… or she’s here in the sense that I am Yael… somehow.

It was damnably confusing: on one hand, she knew things that only Yael could know. On the other, everything she could easily recall were memories and facts from Michael’s life. Michael Belmont, a quiet boy who’d grown into a kind priest, a devout man who never spoke about his lifelong attraction to men… or his deep-seated feelings about gender. Or she could recall more recent events, how Michael had fallen prey to Yael, an ancient demoness in search of a body to call her own.

Yael’s possession had swept Michael into a whirlwind of change. With weeks of tricks and dark rites, she’d gradually transformed him over weeks into a stunning, demon-horned woman. A woman who found pleasure and purpose in sexual intimacy with men and women alike, and who blossomed into a succubus in her own right. Micki had learned to sense desire, to feast on the pleasures of others and harness that energy to transform the shapes of mortals in accordance with their deep desires.

In the silence and shade of the forest’s early morning, Una gazed down at her own shape. Her outfit, a caricature of a maid’s uniform, hung in tatters across her curves, a dark reminder of how Spencer had tried to mold her into a plaything. She tore at the corset, letting her full breasts fall free of their laces; she shifted her ample ass out from the remnants of the short skirt to give her hips more freedom to move. With one finger, she traced a path from the point of her hipbone up her inner thigh and along her nether lips to her clit, drawing a sigh of satisfaction. I really am a succubus now, she thought. Stop running and I immediately finger myself.

Not so many weeks ago, this flesh had been the body of Michael Belmont: middle-aged, overweight, balding. Now the body was that of a young woman, although with skin the color of burgundy wine, curving horns, a lithe tail that moved on its own, and calves that tapered into dainty goat hooves. Now Micki and Yael were two sides of a single entity, united in one form.

Una, the new succubus, had Yael’s unnaturally perfect, round breasts, their crimson spheres tipped with pert, black nipples. Yael’s rounded hips swayed atop Micki’s lithe and slender frame. Micki had emerged from her transformations taller than Yael, with graceful arms and legs. Una knew that she still looked like Micki to her friends, her angular face with a hint of Michael Belmont framed by a sleek black bob.

Una flexed and stretched her limbs, rolling her neck to relieve tension and looking at the mess she’d made of her clothing. If I must leave here, she thought, I should get out of these things, or at least tidy them so they don’t trip me up. She tore away the ragged hem of the skirt, leaving it shorter than ever, and fastened a strap over her shoulder to serve as a makeshift camisole. Then she peered out of her hideaway into the near silence of the morning.

In front of her, the scant waters of the creek flowed quietly along the gully. There were a few spots of disturbed mud where she had walked across to find her shelter, but her hoofprints were few and small. Una doubted anyone, even with a demon’s supernatural senses, would detect her traces as more than a passing beast’s. She sighed and felt the quirk of a smile cross her face as she saw a couple of fish leaping up from the stream. It’s just me and them now, she thought, then crouched and squeezed out of the opening.

The sun was up now; it felt like hours since she had absorbed the energies of pleasure from Susan and Cassandra, Maria and John. Along the far side of the ravine, dense vegetation grew in patches, blocking Una’s view. A thin veil of fog drifted up from the surface of the creek, which looked only calf-deep in most places. Then she saw it: the shape in the trees, hunkered low in the undergrowth. It had a misshapen torso that ended in an unnaturally smooth triangle: its head, but with no arms or legs that she could see. Nezz.

It’s watching me. It’s been here watching me, she realized with horror. For one long moment, she stared at the bizarre form crouched in wait like a patient predator. Frozen, she stared as if it might disappear if she looked hard enough, as if she could take flight before it noticed. Then eyes appeared on the smooth surface, blurring into existence like a smear of condensation snarling into a swarm of black gnats. Una and Nezz made eye contact.

Snarling in fury, Nezz erupted from its hiding place and barreled across the creek towards her. It had changed again, now long and lithe, like a many-limbed lizard, but still huge—its length over ten times Una’s height. With a leap of its sinewy legs, it left the earth cracked and scarred in its wake and flung its bulk at her. Screaming, Una scrambled away on her hooves as claws smashed down where she had stood, raising clouds of dirt. With one flap of her wings, she flung herself upward into the trees.

The archdemon turned and reared, lifting a boulder from the creek-bed in its amorphous grip. With a snarl, it flung the stone towards her. Una banked hard, just evading the flying missile, but felt it whistle past, close enough to send her off course and make her spiral to the ground. She crashed through branches and bushes, then skidded on wet rocks before regaining her balance. As she picked herself up, she saw Nezz hefting an entire pine like a spear.

I’m faster and airborne, but he’s bigger and stronger. If he can hurl things at me, I’ll never be able to avoid him, she thought. I’ve gotta get away and lose him for real or find some way to stop him. How did he find me?

She thought she saw the bizarre, abstract face of the archdemon smile, just before Nezz launched the pine towards her with a garbled roar. It arced at her like a fifteen-foot javelin, and Una ducked under it to flee into the open, where she could unfurl her wings. With another mighty bellow, Nezz gave chase. Una flapped hard, beating her wings as she ran until she had built enough momentum to soar above the treetops.

With a static-laced shout of frustration, Nezz clambered after her into the trees. Its mass made it harder to maneuver, but its body had changed again. Now it bulged into an armored form, like a squat turtle’s shell with four thrashing tentacles emerging from the sides and extending downwards into the trees. As Una gained altitude, the archdemon snaked a tentacle forward and yanked itself ahead like an obscene parody of an orangutan. The slope of the hills rose steeply ahead, towards a mountaintop with sparser foliage. They’d come high enough that the trees grew thin.

Una beat her wings, her face and hair whipping back from her face in the wind as she fled towards the barren heights of the mountaintop. Up here, this horrific battle might endanger no one else, she considered. As Nezz neared the peak, its shape had swollen and shifted again, its head regaining the smooth pyramid shape.

Nezz extended both of its mock-hands toward her, reaching with the appendages of black mist and rock. He flicked his wrists like pistons, throwing off pieces of earth and tree limbs. She evaded every attack, spiraling in the air, turning and twisting as she ran from the massive creature. Nezz’s monstrous body seemed to have no weight as it rolled and turned in the air, crashed down and then reached for again; now, in the grasses and boulders above the tree line, the archdemon had nothing to slow or impede it as he chased after her, higher.

Una alighted on a crag, leaped to a withered, leafless tree, then launched into flight towards the summit. And where do I go then? She could see the uneven peak of the mountain—the sky, blue; clouds scudding across its depths. Nezz was not far behind her now. With a last surge of energy, Una’s wings carried above the mountain, rising like an anguished song. Her wings spread wide, catching the wind that blew in from the sea. She sped toward the crest of the peak.

An enormous, clawed hand reached an impossible distance, unbound by considerations of gravity; it seized her ankle, dashed her towards the mountaintop. With her hands outstretched to catch her balance, she tumbled through the air before crashing into a pile of loose rocks at the edge of a cliff.

Disoriented, Una tried to pick herself up. Yael, help me! The panicked thought skipped across the surface of her mind, but there was no answer. Whatever part of her was Yael could not provide answers. Then, like a faint caress, she felt a sensation like a hand on her shoulder.

Una backed away as Nezz clambered up over the edge of the cliff that bounded one side of the summit. Its tentacles had reformed into huge, muscular arms, wisps of smoke and dust curling around the gray shapes like black fur in motion. The total effect was like some monstrous, pyramid-headed gorilla the size of an apartment building.

The summit was broad and float, littered with boulders, but not big enough for Una to retreat forever. She grabbed for a rock, not thinking what she might do with it—throw it at a massive archdemon? I have to do something, anything. Nezz’s eyes now glowed pure white—but buzzing, twisting, as if composed of a thousand worms writhing on the slate-like surface of its pyramid. The shapes undulated like maggots swarming a carcass.

It regarded her silently, lifting its hands as if about to throw a punch. As the thing reared up, Una saw another figure embedded within the churning, solidifying torso of the beast. The body of Thomas Spencer still hung there, the head, torso and limbs of the Vatican’s foremost exorcist hanging limply, as if trapped in hardened lava. She took a quick breath, then raised her own hands as Nezz’s enormous fists hovered overhead.

“Stop. Running.” The demand was monotone, garbled, but commanding. As the demon spoke, its fists pulverized stone, sending shards of rock and gravel into a wave that hit Una like a spray of shrapnel. She flinched, trying to get her arms up to block the debris from her eyes.

“Pellis sicut corium, caro sicut lignum,” she moaned, trying to renew one of the few lessons from Yael that she could summon to conscious memory. The words comprised a charm to harden her supernaturally dense flesh against injury. It seemed to work, or was still in effect from her earlier ordeals, because she could weather the initial barrage with little pain. Nezz struck the ground with his fists again, sending another shockwave towards her, and Una dove out of the way to avoid the worst of the damage.

With a sudden crack of sound, a fissure split the mountaintop where Nezz stood, snaking across the rocky ground. Una launched herself to the side but stumbled forward, her hooves clacking against the bare stone. She threw her hands out to catch herself.

Suddenly, Nezz loomed above her; it had expected her movement. She rolled onto her back to avoid a crushing blow from the massive fist, but the sheer force of the impact next to her drove Una backwards towards the edge of the cliff.

A sudden insight hit her, whether from her observation of Nezz or some lost memory she could not tell. He doesn’t want to kill me, she realized. He needs to control me. This is all a show. To convince me he means business, that he’ll hurt me and chase me until I give in.

“Stop!” Una screamed, her face contorted in anger and fear. The memory of being bound and tormented, held against her will, surged to the front of her thoughts. She raised her hands. “Stop, I’m not running. Parlay, Lord Nezz.”

An enormous, seething fist of crumbling particles halted in the air above her.

Una pushed herself to her feet. “Parlay. I invoke the Compact of Sigils, that we may treat.” She spoke words she’d never heard before, at least not in her own memory.

“Control,” rumbled Nezz. The voice issuing from the gash of a mouth seemed to resonate in her chest, as if the word was being whispered inside of her. “As ever, that is my sole interest. By what right do you invoke that Compact, feeble demonling?”

Una brushed herself off, suddenly all too aware of how ragged her outfit had become, barely a bandeau top and micro-miniskirt at this point. “Am I not a succubus? I may not be one of the thrones or principalities, but I may still call upon that binding. You wish to control me? To dominate and shape me as you see fit?”

“Of course.” The thing hovered over her, suspended by several of its undulating limbs, their broad hand-like tips resting on the crags of the mountain.

Una stared at Nezz’s twisted features and considered what to say next. “Then we must come to an agreement… unless you simply want to crush me. Obviously, you could do that, Lord Nezz. That’s what this merry chase has been for, no? To show me you can hunt me tirelessly, or smash me to bits. Fine, but…” she trailed off.

Nezz made a horrible sound that Una belatedly realized was a chuckle. “Continue.”

“But that would not satisfy you as much as… my willingness.” She forced her lips into a faint smile. “My obedience freely given. You would rather have that, I’m sure.”

“Or I can destroy you now.” Two of the misshapen hands grasped each other and flexed, erupting sounds like firecrackers.

“You could,” Una pointed out, “but to destroy is not to control. You have subtler instruments, as I know too well from dealing with your host, Thomas Spencer.” The swarming, abstract face seemed to recoil curl at the hated name, even as Spencer’s body hung inert within Nezz’s chest. “And from seeing the trap you laid to escape the prison of his body,” she concluded.

Nezz’s mouth opened into a black void that seemed to drain light from the air. The archdemon laughed, and its laugh was as hollow as the space it emerged from, the echo of a cavern without bottom or sides, filled with nothing but the sound of its own meaningless song.

With one hand, Nezz pulled up a fistful of roots and dirt from inside it and lifted it to the back of its head, bunching it together like hair. Then it said, in a voice that sounded like thousands of snakes slithering across each other, “You are her, aren’t you?”

Una never took her eyes off the monstrosity in front of her; she scarcely could, as it filled most of her vision. “No newborn kitten of a succubus would know of such things,” Nezz continued. “No youngling would invoke a compact that was ancient and forgotten when last I walked this realm. With your name and the debts of old, you are rightfully mine—your ancient mind, your twisted soul, and this body you’ve lately made. As my pawn, you may exist under my dominion. I don’t know how you refashioned yourself and your sigil, but I name you once more, Yael. Brood of the endless brood of the bitch Lilith, daughter of the tiresome wretch Lucifer. D’khataa-Inanna, Shaushka.”

Somewhere within, Una felt a passing twinge, but smiled. This time, her smile was genuine and free. “I am not she, great lord. You mistake me, nor do you have any claim. Lilith and Lucifer are neither sire nor dam. You may crush my body here with your power, but you will never control my mind or soul. They remain mine, and mine alone, to bargain with.”

Nezz lowered its great fists and placed them gently on the ground, looking as if it was crouching on all fours. Its form was shrinking, coalescing into something different. The voice modulated itself, growing more genteel. “You claim self-control? An interesting contention, one oft made but seldom demonstrated. What if I prove you wrong? If I can control your mind… your feelings, your ambitions, your very soul?”

Una looked around and saw the forest stretching away from the cliff’s edge in every direction. She was here alone, surrounded by a world of trees and rocks, moss and gravel. Inside somewhere, she might find Yael’s voice, but out here she faced an ancient horror all on her own. A cold sensation ran down her spine like an icicle: doubt and fear hardening in her gut.

The archdemon had already backed her into a corner, stripped choices from her like the remnants of her clothing. He had won their physical contest, ripping her from the sky. Her remaining choice was to submit, die, or play some cruel game.

Nezz had shown his willingness to hunt her for as long and far as necessary. Now her mind, too, could become his prey. She felt panic rise in her chest, but then a quiet, wordless whisper arose. She recognized it: how Yael used to speak to her, in the night. No, the faint voice came. You are not alone. We are in this together, inseparable.

When she spoke again, she traced the line of her lower lip first, tilting her head to one side. “O Nezz, Hand of Dominion. Isn’t it I who holds sway over your feelings? Why else would you pursue me so ardently? I must say… it’s disturbing but flattering.”

Una lowered her chin, then gazed up through her eyelashes at the thing hovering above her, her rectangular pupils narrowing. “Tell me what you really want, and perhaps you’ll get it. Or at least… some of it.” She put her finger into her mouth, grazing one canine, and licked the tip.

“Oh, I shall take all of it,” Nezz said. “When my power has grown enough; when you have forgotten this moment as if it never happened.”

Una nodded slowly, lowering her gaze again. This was not a gambit to make lightly; she stood to lose everything. Thomas Spencer—a mortal chaining the powers of Nezz—had used those powers to strip Micki of her freedom, her friends, even her memories and identity. If she bargained with Nezz over control, she sensed she could lose more, until she was nothing but a puppet. What makes me imagine I can stand up to a creature like this? But what other choice is there? Faced with that awful certainty, the succubus licked her lips.

“But what is it you want right now, mighty Nezz? Now that you’re out of prison, hmm? You hunted me down so eagerly for a reason, I’ll wager.” She placed her hands on her hips and rocked them to one side. “Obedience, for a short while? Service… from a girl like me? Do you seek that which the succubae offer?”

Nezz’s voice grew deep and sonorous; it was almost a human voice, with a few subtle modulations added to it. “You know well that I demand your submission. There are few experiences you could offer that I cannot provide for myself; sex is the merest tip of full servitude. I want your beauty, your mind, your spirit… on my leash. You are a perplexing creature of desire, something new. To harness you is to harness all of this. Will you kneel?” It reached forth a great hand, palm down, as if to compel her.

In response, Una raised a single sharp-nailed finger to stop. “First… what do you offer in exchange? This is a contract, not a seizure. If you would control me only to destroy me, I might as well end my existence here.”

Nezz seemed amused; its head twitched like a cobra, rearing back and darting forward, as if by instinct. “We are far from equals, tiny thing, but for now we are close enough. My power swells again in this realm, and soon I will drown you as the sun outshines the stars. But for now… in exchange for the service you will freely give to me, I shall vow not to harm your mind or soul, nor try to control them… save with your permission. When I have grown to my might, a magnitude stronger than you, I reserve the right to negotiate different terms, and to withdraw all records of this meeting.”

Una stared at Nezz for a moment, trying to understand the arcane language. She folded her wings behind her back, and they vanished into her shoulder blades as if they’d never been. “No matter whether you renegotiate or whatever, your word shall bind you, even then. I would also have your promise to leave those I love alone.” In her mind, she pictured all those who’d helped her escape the Vatican black site: Cassandra, Maria, Susan, John. God in heaven, she thought. When will I see them again?

“In exchange, I offer you my willing obedience on this day, in this place. Use me as you will… for a time, or until your satisfaction.” Clad in the remnants of a maid’s uniform, she performed a mock curtsy.

Nezz was silent, save for the dust of its misshapen form slowly churning. For the first time, the tone of its increasingly human voice showed a glimmer of respect. “A hard bargain,” it said. “It seems you realize how a sliver of control is worth much to Nezz… perhaps more than a full slice. As for your friends… I am less interested in them than you, after all. But should they seek me out—and some shall, like unwitting mice to the owl’s roost, even as you fail to take heed—their choices shall be on their own heads. The contract is offered. I agree, as Nezz Himself. Do you agree?”

The monstrous archdemon raised three fingers of the hand-like mass at the end of a limb, and the air seemed to crackle with latent energy.

Una stifled a nervous gulp. What was she getting into?

“I agree, as Una Belmont.”