v2 CHAPTER NINE: In which each friend runs into a different kind of trouble and deals with it in a different manner.

Cassandra looked up with a start, like a wolf scenting blood in the air. She leaned her head out of the window of the church van, eyes narrowing. Maria blinked at the wiry hunter from the back seat, where she lay propped upon a pile of assorted clothing.

“What is it?” Maria asked. “What’s going on?” Cassandra held her hand up.

Maria peered out the window, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The road before them stretched out empty, the sun climbing towards its zenith, illuminating the lively green of spring growth in the trees.

Cassandra shook her head, then slowly indicated the opposite direction with a nod: behind you. Maria carefully peeked over the back of her seat. Another van sat a couple hundred feet away, parked on the other side of the road. Unlike theirs, this van was black with no markings, and Maria felt sure it hadn’t been there when they’d arrived.

They were not alone; someone was watching them.

The two women shared a glance. Then Cassandra reached for the door handle. Maria hissed between her teeth and leaned forward, so Cassandra stopped and met her gaze.

“I have to warn the others,” the demon hunter whispered. “Got to be a forward surveillance team. Other forces won’t be far behind. Can you watch them?”

Maria stared at the other girl, processing what she’d just said. “I’m feeling better. The water and food helped. But can’t you just like… call Susan or something?”

Cassandra shrugged. “Have you checked signal? This place has no bars. Probably on purpose. Susan put a GPS locator signal on my phone, but…” She pulled up her phone and tapped the screen, then swore loudly.

“What is it now!?” Maria said in a loud whisper. “I thought we were trying to be quiet!”

“Her signal’s completely gone,” the other girl replied, her brow furrowed. “Not good… or at least, not mundane.”

“OK, so go check on them. But what am I supposed to do if they come over here?” Maria rubbed her eyes, sitting up straight.

“Hm.” Cassandra’s eyes darted across Maria’s form. “Recon types probably won’t bother you. If they do, maybe you say Father Hayes is taking you to reform school. A bad girl. Held back a few years.” She winked at the tall blonde. “Very believable.”

Maria stuck out her tongue at Cassandra, but the skinny, androgynous girl with the silver hair was already out the door. She slid silently down onto the ground on the far side of the van, then slipped into the trees, taking off at a run.

Left behind, Maria swallowed and started fixing her hair.

***

Una yelled in frustration as she pounded on the invisible barrier that separated her and Susan from John. At least, John assumed she was yelling; he couldn’t hear either of them. The interior of the building had been magically sealed by some kind of force that couldn’t be smashed or cut.

Susan put a hand on Una’s shoulder and said something, which seemed to convince Una to stop pounding and yelling. Telling her it’s a waste of energy, maybe? John did his best to nod calmly.

“I’ll try to find another way in,” said John, pointing to the left. With a cringe, he realized he was speaking loudly, as if his volume would make some kind of difference to their hearing.

But Susan and Una understood, though the succubus looked vexed. She took a deep breath, then sighed and held a hand up to the barrier. He raised his own hand to meet hers, unable to touch through the thin, invisible barrier. She mouthed something, exaggerating the movements of her lips: Be Careful!

John nodded, did his best to smile reassuringly, and hurried around the side of the building. Picking his way through chunks of rubble and storage containers, he quickly discovered that the same barrier covered the front doors. Feeling the walls—or as close as he could get to the walls—he could tell that the barrier extended upwards as far as he could reach. Whatever this force-field was, it even covered the recesses for the small basement-level windows.

It extends below ground too? Are they trapped inside a bubble? I’m not equipped with this shit, John realized. This magical bullshit… I’m not much more than a parish priest with a strong back and a stubborn will.

He exhaled and unclenched his fists, walking back towards the basement door. Shit… could they run out of air? Not soon, he realized. With an office building of that size, it’d take days for the air to go bad. Unless there are hundreds of people trapped down there. Or Una exhales sulfur and we just don’t know about it. John shook his head. In the meantime, Susan and Una would have a better idea of what to do; they had the power and knowledge.

John heard the sounds as he rounded the corner. First, a strange roaring howl. Almost immediately afterwards, a scream of terror, high pitched and frantic. A woman’s voice, or a child’s. John’s gaze snapped towards the trees; the sounds had come from somewhere in the forest. His thoughts raced. Was that Maria’s voice? Who else could it be? One of the survivors they were looking for? Or… shit, another trap?

John stared at the doorway leading to the basement. The entrance was dark, Susan and Una no longer standing where they’d been. John cursed beneath his breath, then broke into a sprint across the clearing toward the woods. Someone might be in danger, screaming for help. I’m a damn fool, he thought, but God put me on this path to help others, so that’s what I’m gonna try to do.

He ran into the tree line, crashed through the underbrush, and emerged onto a trail that ran parallel to the clearing. John couldn’t maintain the sprint, but kept jogging steadily toward the noises. The disturbing howl, somewhere between the call of an elephant and a dog’s growl, sounded again. Ahead, the trees parted to reveal a sunlit clearing. Heedless of his own safety, Father John Hayes burst into the open and saw the source of the noise. Then it was his turn to scream.

***

“Well, I’ve tried everything I can think of. We can’t get back out of this basement,” said Susan, “and nobody can hear us.” Una’s former assistant tapped her lower lip with a pen—her long-standing habit when lost in thought.

“Except for whoever’s in here with us,” Susan continued. “The victims we’re looking for might be trapped, for instance.” Una nodded in response, her arms crossed beneath her breasts.

“I suspect whoever laid this trap might be here as well.” Susan fixed Una with a serious stare. “There’s only one thing to do.”

Una rolled her eyes. “Right… you want to go looking for that person? Walk right into it.”

“We came here to see who was still here, not knowing what we might encounter. So we might as well continue—we’ll just have to be on our guard. That barrier is a potent casting; I don’t have the faintest idea how to undo it.”

Una rolled her neck, the spaces between her vertebrae popping softly. “You’re right, as usual. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, smartass! Let’s get going.”

The pair crept down the stairs and along the main hallway, passing the large examination room that Una remembered too well, even through the disturbing distortion of Spencer’s mental manipulation. In that room, she’d confronted first James Kincaid, then his murderer—Thomas Spencer. Finally, she’d shattered Spencer’s control and unleashed Nezz.

Una shuddered. Glass and fragments of metal littered the floor, with a huge section of the outer wall torn away. The entire building in that direction looked as if Nezz had torn it apart on his way out. So far, there were no signs of inhabitants. Somewhere deeper in the building, a pipe clanked.

“Saints, Una.” Susan was saying, “When did you get so mean and sarcastic? Father Michael was always such a sweetheart…”

Una gave Susan a leer, glad to think of something else. “Oh, sweetie. You know I’m not Michael anymore. Or just Micki… that’s why I’m called Una now, remember? There’s plenty of Yael in me too, if you need reminding. Do you need a… physical reminder?” Una reached towards her with one black-nailed hand.

“Yes, Dark Lady,” said Susan, with only a hint of sarcasm. “I mean… no, Dark Lady. Only if you… wish to give me one.” She smirked, looking faintly nervous.

Although Una felt like letting the flirtation continue, she turned and pointed at a stairwell marked by a simple sign with a downward arrow. “I think we should head for the lower levels. When they were holding me here, at first… I don’t think I was on this floor, or higher. I’m pretty sure I was in a sub-basement.”

“Good thinking,” nodded Susan. “If anyone’s locked up, and still alive… they’d have a better chance down below, given what Nezz did to this floor.” They entered and hastily descended the stairs. The lights flickered on the next floor, illuminating puddles of water filled from leaking cracks in the walls. In the distance, they heard someone crying.

Susan and Una moved carefully along the corridor; the sound came from the end of the hall, and Una gestured for Susan to stop at the corner. Two rooms faced each other across the hallway, where it reached its end. Whoever was crying was in the room on the right, down a small flight of stairs.

The door on the other side was barely hanging on its hinges. A man sat huddled on the ground just inside the doorway: a man with gray, kinky hair and deeply tanned skin, wearing blue jeans and a tattered sweatshirt. His hands were bound with a plastic zip tie, and blood dripped from his left earlobe.

“He’s got to be one of Spencer’s test subjects,” whispered Una. The man showed no signs of noticing them and just stared at the floor.

Susan shook her head. “Or that’s what someone wants us to think. He could be anybody.” They crept closer, and the man looked up at them with alarm and surprise.

Approaching the door, Una and Susan could see other figures crouched on the floor, or sitting against the wall: a short figure covered in what looked like fur, two women wearing black and white masks, and someone in a wheelchair, covered in a blanket. The man opened his mouth as if to say something and pointed. Some others looked up; the man had clearly drawn their attention, but Susan and Una couldn’t hear a word.

Tentatively, Susan reached out to the doorway. Another barrier rippled at her fingertips. The man nodded and knocked on the barrier, demonstrating its solidity. He mouthed something slowly, but neither Una nor Susan could make out the words.

Then the gray-haired figure tapped his chest, and made a motion where he pulled his hands apart. Una wasn’t sure what it meant—asking to be freed? She nodded. Another figure joined the man, rolling up in the wheelchair. The blanket obscuring most of the person in the wheelchair dripped with water, and Una saw something moving near the wheels—something with scales.

The man waved to draw their attention and pointed to the narrow window letting in light near the ceiling of the back wall. He held up four fingers.

“Four… of something. Four people? Maybe there are four enemies outside we need to worry about, or four of the prisoners here escaped?” said Susan. “I’m not sure. But—”

A loud sob from the room behind them cut off Susan’s thoughts. The bespectacled scholar glanced over hesitantly, but Una was already moving towards the stairs, as if drawn by the sound of emotion.

“Someone else is in trouble,” the succubus said. “And there’s no barrier here.” The man behind the other doorway shook his head, waving his hands.

Does he want us to stop? Susan’s gaze shifted from Una to the man and back again. She held her own hands up, then raised one finger. “Wait here,” she mouthed. “I’ll be back.” She turned towards Una. “Boss, wait just a second, we don’t know—”

Una peered through the doorway, her left hoof on the first step. The other chamber looked less like a prison cell and more like a storage room. Inside, a figure huddled in a black cloak on the ground, and let out another sob. Una stepped inside.

***

Maria touched up her lipstick again, peering at herself in the visor mirror. Guava Glam, she thought, and scratched at her forehead. A warm tropical shade ought to work if I have to play goofy and innocent? Not that it’s such a huge stretch…

Cassandra had sped into the forest fifteen minutes earlier, and Maria was growing restless. The black van just sat there like an enormous, predatory beetle, and she felt like an ant separated from her colony. Should have made that hot little masc take me with her, she thought. If only I wasn’t so wobbly.

There wasn’t much she could do here, at any rate. Her phone was charged now, but had no signal, so “keep watching that mysterious van” about summed it up. Then she saw another vehicle approaching, at the top of a hill on the far side of a dip in the road. A motorcycle.

Wait, is that…? Maria raised an eyebrow as another possibility occurred to her. She opened the passenger-side door and walked around the front of the van. Not so wobbly after all, she thought, a tingle of energy running through her legs as if they’d fallen asleep and had blood rushing into them again. Just a little worn out from all that… sucking.

The motorcycle sped towards her. Her hunch had been right: it was the dark-blue vehicle of a New York State trooper. She waved, bouncing on the balls of her feet, her blonde hair rippling behind her.

***

John’s scream sound less like of a shriek of terror than a yell of horror and surprise.

A monster paced before him in the clearing. Monster: he didn’t know what other word to use for it. The beast’s face resembled that of a great cat; but its horned head stretched longer than a feline’s, with a muzzle filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth and large ears folded flat against its skull. Two massive forelimbs ended in taloned paws, nearly as large as John’s head, while the monster’s massive haunches and thighs propelled its body forward in restless steps.

The thing stalked around its prey on the other side of the clearing: four figures huddling against a low rock face. John saw an older man, and someone who looked like a young girl—but then the swaying motion of the beast’s tail interrupted his searching gaze.

The tail was long and tipped with a wicked barb—the same shape as a scorpion’s stinger, but easily the circumference of a dinner plate. The monster was a manticore, John realized with a start. He’d only seen videos of these creatures—among the rarest wild beasts that occasionally stumbled through a spontaneous portal. Like wyverns and other large paranormal predators, these things hunted whatever prey they could find on Earth… and usually required a trained military team to take down.

The creature lunged forward with surprising speed, and the old man jumped backward to avoid the strike. The girl in his arms fell aside like a doll, and the man yelled in anguish. Did it get him? No, John saw. He was edging to the side, trying to grab the girl’s ankle without getting too close.

The manticore paused again, raising one of its forelegs and sniffing at the air with its enormous nose. As it moved, John noticed that the animal’s skin was strangely pale, almost translucent in places. It shimmered in the sunlight, solidifying and growing transparent as it moved in and out of shadow.

Swearing under his breath, John grabbed the nearest thing he could find to use as a weapon—a heavy fallen tree branch. What the hell am I doing? Gonna get myself killed this way. Even as he thought it, he stepped forward on instinct.

In recent weeks, Father John Hayes had found himself in too many situations beyond his own imagining: defending his church from a golem and a demon, making love to a succubus, commandeering a church van to rescue his lover. Pissing off a manticore… why not add it to the list? He spat and circled towards the manticore’s back, staying out of the thing’s line of sight.

John blinked, his body tensing. The beast was moving towards the girl on the ground; the old man scrabbled backwards in the dirt, his attempt to grab her overwhelmed by fear. Another young woman, tall with dark skin and coiled braids, stepped out of the shadow of an overhang, yelling something.

As John watched, she held her hands out, and they glowed red, the air shimmering around her palms. The creature seemed to pause—but then lowered its head like a bull about to charge. It swerved to the side and lashed out at the woman with its tail. Instead of falling back or trying to get out of the way, as most anyone would have done, she stood her ground and caught the blow on both palms.

The swipe of the tail knocked the young woman off her feet, but a sharp crack and a sizzling sound accompanied the impact. The manticore howled and reared back, and John caught a whiff of a smoldering scent, like burned meat.

John finally saw the fourth figure, a lanky boy in his late teens. He held his hands up too, but in a placating gesture, as if trying to calm the beast. But the manticore was shifting again towards the small, fallen girl. As John circled closer, he could see her features: probably no more than ten, with a shock of red hair. She struggled to her knees, clutching the side of her head.

The pain and fear on the younger girl’s face clinched it for him. John gritted his teeth and yelled. “Hey, ugly! Leave those kids alone!”

Charging from the side opposite its tail, he slung the makeshift club at the creature’s head and let fly with a two-handed throw. The branch spun with surprising speed and connected behind the monster’s ear with a dull thud. Everything fell silent for a long instant. Then the manticore roared and spun around to face him, its eyes glowing like hot coals. John froze, meeting its gaze with the shock of terror.

The manticore charged straight at him—and for John Hayes, the world snapped into motion again. He ran for his life, towards the trees.

***

Maria pointed at the black van. “I don’t know them, no… my van broke down here, and I’m supposed to get it back to church. Ten minutes later, those guys pulled up and… they’ve just been sitting there watching me!”

The state patrolman took off his sunglasses and frowned. “Well, miss… it’s not exactly against the law to watch you, understand?” He stared at her himself, his gaze roaming southward from her eyes to her curves.

She frowned in distress and hunched her shoulders, letting her breasts press together under his stare. “I guess I know that, yeah… I’m just scared, out here by myself, you know? What if they’re sex traffickers? Can’t you at least go and… I don’t know, make sure they’re not doing anything wrong?” Maria blinked at him, trying to look as if she might burst into tears at any second.

The patrolman looked from her to the black van and back again. “Don’t be afraid, all right? I won’t let anything happen to you.”

My hero, she thought, and did her best to project the feeling, her mouth falling open slightly as she kept her gaze fixed on the man’s face.

He pulled at his navy jacket and nodded. “I can certainly go ask if they’re all right. See why they pulled over here? Maybe they’re having engine trouble too. But what about you… you said you called a garage?”

Maria nodded. “My phone lost signal, but I got in touch… There’s a garage about ten miles away, I think? It’s just… I don’t know how long they’ll take to get here!” I’m not lying all that much, she told herself.

She watched as the officer got back on his motorcycle and rode up to the van, stopping just behind it and approaching on foot. He knocked at the window. A moment later, the window rolled down. A man inside wore sunglasses, a dark jacket, and a sullen expression.

Maria couldn’t hear what they were saying. After a few minutes and the inspection of some documents, the New York state patrolman pointed at the road and made hand motions. Officer Kelsoe, Maria reminded herself, that’s what his badge says. The exchange grew confrontational, their voices louder. Kelsoe’s hand dropped to his waist, on the side with his radio, and the guy in the van suddenly lifted his hands.

A minute later, and the van was turning around, driving away from her down the road. Holy shit, Maria thought. I got rid of the Vatican. Kelsoe was jogging back towards her, a goofy smile on his face as he drew near.

Hmm, Maria mused. I wonder if I could find any more help around here… with Officer Kelsoe’s help.

***

Una peered at the crying figure on the floor. It wore some kind of robe but seemed almost too small to be a person. A child, or some smaller supernatural creature?

The storeroom was larger than the cell across the hall, with a shaft in the ceiling admitting pale light from outside. Shelves stacked with boxes and assorted equipment lined the walls, and a pallet-like cot sat in the corner. Susan stepped into the room behind her, and then the door slammed shut. Shit, Una thought. Not again.

The crying ceased. The figure before them rose with a creaking sound, like the straining of human joints, amplified. It seemed to shift and grow—still short, but now over five feet—and then it threw the hood back.

Before them stood a woman with a round face and a pleasant enough demeanor—marred by her red-rimmed, sleep-deprived eyes and the trickle of blood oozing from her mouth. If not for those signs of trauma, and the nun’s scapular and belt she wore over her robe, she might have looked like a suburban mother. Una sensed Susan freeze behind her, standing motionless by her left shoulder.

“Sister Mary Elizabeth,” said Una. “I can’t say I hoped to see you again.”

The woman smiled. “Oh? But I did hope we might meet once more, succubus. I know our previous… collaborations became strained, at best. But now that Monsignor Spencer is no longer in control here—no longer in control of himself, or anything—I have other plans. Plans which could include you.”

Una’s mouth curved into a snarl. “Why would I trust you? You helped run this place. You impersonated Sherill and—” she stumbled over the words, flustered, “—you tricked me, transformed me, did your best to turn me against myself.”

The succubus felt herself flush with anger, remembering the violation of Mary Elizabeth’s hypnotic powers. How she’d harnessed Sherill’s ability to walk in dreams to warp Una’s own powers, turning her into—but the thought cut off before she could fall into it.

Instead, she yelled. “Rot in the forgotten void, Sister. I’m sure you’re behind the barrier over this building too, right? As if kidnapping me once wasn’t enough.”

“…not to mention, you cut my throat,” Susan added, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Una turned to her with a horrified stare. Susan just shrugged; there hadn’t been time for her to explain the strange events that transpired just before they’d found each other again.

Mary Elizabeth chuckled dryly. “I was merely following orders from above. Defending the vital work here, as it were. But now that the situation has changed, now that the Archdemon Nezz is free… there’s a certain urgency to seize new opportunities.”

The nun tapped a short, double-bladed knife in her hand. “You’ve clearly blossomed a bit, Belmont… I could help you, you realize? I have influence within the Church and—officially, at least—I always disapproved of Thomas’s experiments. The way they used all of you like lab rats. That is why you’re here, isn’t it? A silly, noble quest on behalf of the dregs left at this facility?”

“Look,” Una began carefully, rage still threatening to surge in her chest and out through her hands. So help me, I want to slap her in the face. Throttle this bitch. “If you unseal this building, help us free the people across the hall and whoever else is here, perhaps we could—”

The round-faced woman cut her off with a dismissive gesture. “I’m not interested in your demands. Besides, you may be a… less than ideal candidate for my needs. Do you know of the Maiden, Mother and Crone, children?”

Una shook her head slowly. “No,” she replied. “I don’t believe I’m familiar with that particular trinity.” She felt Susan shift her weight slightly. Of course, the graduate student in the occult knew all about such things, but Una wanted to get the strange nun talking.

The woman nodded, her face haughty. “Of course you aren’t. It is an ancient but consistent aspect of the goddess-worship practiced by many cultures. Most of those practices are long forgotten or lost to history, seen only as mythology today. Yet the triune principle is very much alive in the revitalized magic of this world. A hidden power lies dormant, fueled by archetype and ingrained belief: a power that may awaken again for a chosen few, the Three Sisters of Witchcraft.”

“Three women?” Una asked, genuine curiosity sprouting amidst her anger.

“Oh yes. One must be young, one middle-aged, and one elderly. It will not surprise you to hear that I practice the way of the Mother,” she smiled. “And as for the Crone, my colleague—”

“Sister Mary Margaret,” finished Una with a scowl. She had not forgotten the cruel, elderly nun who’d beaten her regularly during her first days at the compound.

“Margaret,” agreed Mary Elizabeth. “She shall serve as the final stage of the Triune power—that is, if she can master herself to gain the wisdom of endings. You handed us a setback through your wanton struggles with her; she turned towards feral savagery again.”

The nun clucked her tongue, and Una felt Susan stiffen. Her lover was quieter than she’d ever known her to be. “But no matter,” Mary Elizabeth continued. “The young sister, of course, is the Maiden: someone to bring balance between the other two. One whose purity of spirit and fertile potential shall awaken the hidden powers.” She paused. “Someone like yourself.”

Una blinked. “Me? A maiden? You realize I’m a succubus, right?”

Susan coughed. “Not exactly virginal. But in some traditions, the Maiden represents both sides: alluring innocence and lust, the pure body and the curious psyche—virgin and seductress.” She cleared her throat. “As you are no doubt aware.”

“Ah,” murmured Mary Elizabeth. “Yes. That’s quite good. I apologize for cutting your throat the other night, my dear. You seem none the worse for wear, I must say.” She fixed Susan with an inquisitive glare. “You should be dead; why aren’t you?”

Susan shrugged. “If you don’t know, I’m not inclined to tell you.”

Una frowned, casting a glance back at her partner. “Look… I’m not sure I want to cosplay as witch sisters with you and that wizened old bird-fucker.”

Mary Elizabeth clucked her tongue. “So rude, Micki Belmont. That Yael creature really has infested you through and through at this point, hasn’t she? I agree, you’re clearly too polluted.”

The nun’s matronly features twisted into a sneer. “Horns, hooves and tail… all signs that you’re unclean, a beast. Possession has tainted your soul; it’s unfit for my purposes.” Her eyes darted to Susan instead.

Una grimaced. “Then what do you want with me?”

“You’ll find out,” she replied evasively. “It’s your little friend I’m interested in, don’t you see? She not only knows her lore and history, but has much of the innocent seductress in her manner.” She approached Susan, who watched Mary Elizabeth like a rabbit cornered by a cobra. Una stepped in front of her, in the nun’s path, but the plump little woman seemed to ignore her utterly.

“The Crone is the wise woman who knows violence and death far too intimately. The Mother is the guardian and shaper of all that grows. But the Maiden, the virgin-seductress, is the embodiment of the pure life force, fertile and ready.”

Mary Elizabeth leaned towards Susan as if drawn to her. “You have that life force, girl… I can smell it.” Una saw the nun’s teeth; her canines were unnaturally long and pointed.

Lamia! The thought abruptly pierced Una’s mind. Witch of the ancient crossroads! Beware!

Una reached out to grab Mary Elizabeth’s hand, but the round, pleasant nun was already lifting her left arm. She swatted the succubus’ grasp away and reached out with her right hand, three fingers twisting into a claw.

“Deste kai stereoste!” hissed Mary Elizabeth. “Siopiste kai paidefste!”

“You bitch,” Una growled, losing control of her temper. “I’ll flay the fucking meat from—”

An invisible force grabbed Una, as if an enormous hand clenched her around the middle. Una’s body spun in the air and slammed to the ground. She hit face first and lay still for a moment as she tried to catch her breath. Mary Elizabeth approached her, her arms outstretched as she continued to murmur words in an ancient tongue. Some form of Greek? The thought came dimly.

“Don’t hurt her!” Susan yelled, lunging forward. “If it’s me you have business wi—!”

Mary Elizabeth raised her right arm, and Susan halted motionless, her mouth still open in an inarticulate cry of fear and surprise.

On the walls of the storage room, ripples of blackness appeared, miniature apertures into a lightless place. From those strange holes, thin chains of dark iron sprouted, snaking their way through the air to wrap around Una’s limbs and torso. The lengths of red-tinged metal looped into fetters and manacles at her ankles and wrists, encircled her tail, coiled under her breasts and ran straight down her sternum. More chains criss-crossed her clavicle and thighs, from a seemingly infinite spool of imprisoning metal.

Una, initially too stunned to react, thrashed her arms ineffectually as the chains pulled taut. The bonds forced her first up her knees, then lifting her further until she hung suspended in the air like a fly caught in a web. She screamed in fear and rage—and as she did, more of the dark iron chains shot forth from the corners of the darkened room, like a serpent striking at prey.

Mary Elizabeth made a gesture, walking beneath the captive demoness, and a band of iron slid across Una’s jaw, covering her mouth and clamping it shut. Una’s eyes widened as her scream of defiance became a muffled moan of terror.

“There now,” said the witch dressed as a nun. “No more rude interruptions to our conversation.” She reached up to run a hand across the black leather of Una’s bike suit, tracing the curve of her abdomen down to her groin. She tugged at the zipper there, then stopped as Una tried to twist away. The succubus could barely move now, only turning her head enough to glare at the nun above the black band of iron that sealed her mouth.

Mary Elizabeth clucked her tongue. “It is a pretty little body you’ve made, but so befouled. You demons and your slutty ways! We’ll come up with a use for you—the physical parts, at least.”

She turned back to Susan, whose hand was sliding into her shirt—reaching for her crucifix, Una realized.

“Mitera hupakouo,” said Mary Elizabeth, and Susan’s arms fell helplessly to her sides. The nun smiled. “Now, where were we, dear? Ah, yes. I have a job offer I’d like you to consider.”