v2 CHAPTER TWENTY: (18+) In which dark promises are fulfilled, and flight proves hazardous.

Maria opened her eyes slowly. Cesar was kneeling on the sidewalk before her, his shorts around his ankles and his erection limp in his lap. He had a strange look in his eyes, dazed and exhausted. Maria felt strange too, like something had energized her and drained her at the same time. What just happened? We fucked, and then I felt his feelings, his fantasies… I touched him. Cesar mumbled something; Maria bent down to hear him, adjusting her skirt.

“Wow… girl, you were crazy…” His voice trailed off; Maria blinked as she saw a lock of chestnut-brown hair curling down from his temple. She gasped: Cesar’s hair was growing. The roots were pushing out, dropping the gel-slicked inches at the ends lower, around his cheekbones… which also looked different. Maria squinted: Cesar’s facial structure seemed more delicate than before—a softer chin, rounder cheeks.

“No, no, no….” she muttered. “Um, stop?” She touched his face, which shifted beneath her fingertips. His prominent nose was diminishing slightly—its bridge narrowing, the tip becoming a button shape rather than a beaklike point. Maria put both of her hands on the sides of his head, as if she could push back the changes. Instead, she felt more of Cesar’s energy flow into her hands. Maria sucked in a breath as his transformation sped up—Cesar’s ears shrank slightly too; his brow line advanced towards a delicate widow’s peak.

“Reverse! Become male!” Were there magic words she should say? She couldn’t remember all the details of her own transformation, just that she’d felt amazing as her body became softer, her hips and breasts pushed out.

Alarmed, she looked at Cesar’s chest. No doubt about it: she could now see thick, dark nipples poking through the thin white fabric of his tank top. Beneath them, Cesar’s breasts emerged: swelling first into pert handfuls, then larger globes. Cesar’s shoulders narrowed too as Maria watched; his collarbones receded and grew elegant beneath smooth brown skin.

Maria tried to will Cesar back to masculinity again, focusing on what he’d looked like before, but nothing happened. Well, not nothing: Cesar’s legs were shifting now—lengthening and rounding, even as his overall frame shrank!

Maria reached out to touch Cesar’s cock, the tool he’d used so well to satisfy her. It was smaller now too: Maria grasped it tentatively. It grew erect in her palm—Cesar let out a squeak as she stroked it. But then it withered again, shriveling downwards until it resembled a penis belonging to a pubescent boy rather than a grown man.

“Damnit!” she said, and Cesar finally seemed to notice.

“Girl, what’s—” he stopped, hearing his voice. His vocal cords had changed too; instead of his low tenor, Maria heard a sweet feminine soprano emerge from his mouth: “Maria?”

Cesar touched his own head: “My hair…” His hands drifted lower as he ran them along his new breasts: “What the… what are these?”

Maria gulped: “Um, they’re breasts?” Cesar touched one gingerly with one hand, still enervated. Maria heard him let out a sob as he cupped one full mound and traced his fingertips over its nipple; Cesar bit his lip as he let out a second sob and covered his face with his other hand.

“What the fuck is happening to me? What did you do to me? You turned me into—” He didn’t finish the sentence, instead reaching for his crotch with fingers. Those, too, had changed—now slender and tipped with neat fingernails rather than coarse digits. He gasped: “Oh god…”

Maria winced as she watched Cesar discover what was happening to his nether regions. His dick dwindled out of the grasp of those slim fingers, burrowing into place as a clitoris, complete with hood and protruding nubbin. Below, Cesar’s testicles had disappeared. His scrotal sack was flattening, smoothing against his pelvis into two pronounced labia majora, opening up in the middle to reveal pink inner lips.

Cesar was sobbing openly now, covering his face with both hands; then his body shook again as his expanding breasts pushed his arms up and out. His hips tilted slightly as they rounded; Maria watched Cesar’s ass blossom with layers of flesh that rippled invitingly with each sob that Cesar emitted. Maria swallowed and saw Cesar’s waistline pulled inwards. The sound of ribs cracking came beneath his thin tank top as his body assumed the shape of a petite hourglass.

Damn, she thought in a distant part of her mind, Cesar’s more stacked than I am now. The changes finally seemed to have slowed, though. Cesar was still crying, and Maria wasn’t sure what to do—comfort him? Apologize? Maybe, just maybe…

“Cesar…?” she began. “Um, I was wondering…”

“What!? What!?” Cesar glared at her through tear-stained eyes; Maria shrank back a little from his expression, also startled by Cesar’s unfamiliar face. The newly transformed young woman before her looked furious, but also stunning. Wide eyes were ringed with dark lashes, above a delicate button nose and pouty lips. Cesar was now small, maybe five foot three. Much shorter than Maria—but with curves that rivaled hers, looking even more voluptuous on Cesar’s petite frame. The newly grown tits strained against the tank top now; they looked firm and high but big enough that they’d need significant support.

“Um… there isn’t any chance you wanted this, is there?” Maria cursed herself inwardly as she said it. He’s angry and crying. I was a little repressed about my own desire, but I didn’t shed a tear when this happened to me…

“Wanted… wanted what!?” Cesar wiped his eyes with his knuckles. “To be turned into a chick!?” Maria saw tears still pooling in his eyes: “Is this your fault? What did you do to me?!” Cesar sounded incredulous.

Maria blinked hard, trying to keep from bursting into tears herself. “I didn’t mean… I don’t know what happened…” Maria thought back to their coupling: Cesar’s emotions flooding into her, the sensation of energy. I did it, I know I did. It’s these… She felt at her forehead, and Cesar gasped when he saw what she was touching. “You have horns…”

Maria gulped again; they were definitely longer than before, with hard tips prodding through her scalp: sharp little thorns, she realized with a shiver of fear. “Um… yeah, I do.” Maria blinked back tears now too as she considered her transformation and his.

“What are you… some kind of demon?! Are you going to suck my soul out now?” Cesar scrambled backwards against the wall, terror etched on his girlish features.

“No! I mean, I’m not, I don’t think…” Maria held her hands out placatingly. “I swear, Cesar… I’ll find a way to fix this. And change you back, okay? I owe you that…” I just have no idea how.

Cesar rubbed his eyes again. “Find a way? You mean you don’t know how. What do we need to do?”

Maria’s thoughts raced: what she knew about Yael and Una, what little she’d heard about succubae. “Um, we had sex and I… I didn’t mean to, but I changed you. So maybe if we…”

Cesar shrieked, “You want sex!? To fuck me like this, like a puta?!” He gestured at his new body wildly: “To drain me some more?” Cesar’s hands trembled as he balled them into fists. “I’m going to… you took it all away from me. I have no choice.”

Maria recoiled as Cesar advanced on her. “Fine! Come on! If that’s what you want! Fuck me now!” Cesar pulled up his tank top with trembling hands. Maria saw his new breasts bounce slightly as they emerged: caramel-colored globes the size of ripe melons, capped with dusky nipples that stood erect despite Cesar’s distress.

Maria shook her head. Any lust she’d felt this evening had fled, replaced by pity and dread—not to mention guilt about her involvement in Cesar’s distress. She didn’t want sex, not like this. “No… Cesar, I didn’t mean… right now. I have some friends who might know what happened, or have a better idea of what to do.”

Cesar slumped against the wall. “Really?” Maria nodded wordlessly, trying to think of what to do next. The errands could certainly wait. Call Susan and Una, obviously. Get help from John? She gulped, imagining how angry the priest would be about this abuse of power. But I didn’t even know I had these powers… did I?

“Shit. Shit, what am I going to do? I can’t go see my mom like this. I can’t go home… my roommates would… they’d see me and…” Cesar trailed off, his thought incomplete. He pulled his tank top back down with shaking hands, and his shorts back up. Maria averted her eyes politely. Cesar sobbed again as he continued: “I can’t even get a drink; I don’t have any ID.”

Maria gulped. “I’m going to take care of you, Cesar. You’ll just have to trust me. Can you do that?” She looked into his eyes—the same hazel she’d noticed earlier—and hoped he could calm down and listen to her words. Cesar sniffled, but nodded.

“Yeah. All right. I don’t know why I would trust you, some kind of diabla, but I guess I have no choice.” Cesar buckled his belt; it hung loosely around his waist, but the shorts stretched tight over his new curves. He sniffled again. “Let me see a mirror.”

“A mirror…?” The request caught her off guard.

“Yeah, girl! You’re a woman, don’t you have a makeup mirror? I want to see myself…” Cesar dabbed at his eyes with the bottom of his tank top.

Maria found her handbag and rooted through it, then handed Cesar a compact. Cesar held it in both hands as he examined himself. Maria heard him gasp softly as he tilted the mirror up and down, examining his reflection from every angle.

“No fucking way,” the transformed man said in a breathy whisper. “I look like…”

“Like the girl of your dreams?”

He looked at her. “Yeah. This girl I used to go to school with… but like, a grown-up version. Camila Cabello, but hotter and with bigger tits. How the fuck you know that?”

Maria gestured at herself. “My fantasy woman. Same deal.” Except I wanted it, she thought.

“Madre de Dios…” Cesar’s full lips hung open, making him look like a pouting pinup girl.

Maria raised an eyebrow. “Madre de… diabolos, maybe?”

***

Una took flight shortly after the twilight had faded into true darkness. It wasn’t as if she had anything to pack—in fact, all her personal articles were already at the Brooklyn loft. But there had been time for a quick shower and some lingering kisses.

After goodbyes, Susan leaned out her apartment door to watch her lover depart. She blinked when Una went up the stairs. “Wait… Una? You’re going to fly there? I thought I mentioned, in city airspace…” The succubus had already stepped out the door to the rooftop.

Stumbling after her in slippers, Susan called: “Una, did you hear me? There’s radar tracking of anyone—” Susan yanked the rooftop door open. “Una, did you hear—” Susan stopped, blinking, as she saw Una already poised at the edge of the roof, looking south towards downtown Manhattan. The succubus was a work of art: clad in the form-fitting bike suit, the back unzipped to show her gorgeous shoulder blades, she looked sleek and predatory.

Susan swallowed: Una’s leather-encased ass was full and luscious, and the succubus’ tail was poking out the base of the suit’s zip-down crotch seam. Susan felt herself flush with the same strange tingle she’d been feeling for the past few days around her lover, as if all her nerve endings cried out: Yes! Yes, Una! This is she, follow her!

Una flexed her shoulder muscles, and great black feathered wings burst forth; Susan inhaled as the wings beat once, twice, sending gusts of wind towards her. Una looked over her shoulder and winked at her. “Don’t worry, babe,” Una called: “I’ll fly low and fast.” Air hissed between Susan’s teeth as Una stepped off the ledge and plummeted, appearing to fall towards the street before her wings caught an updraft. The demoness soared skywards in a graceful arc, her tail streaming behind her like a pennant. Susan watched Una ascend, her lithe body dark against the night sky, before she angled southward with powerful strokes and sped towards Central Park.

Susan closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to calm her pounding heart. Shit, Una. Were you always this impetuous? She reached for her phone, but she’d forgotten it downstairs. Damnit! She rushed back inside and sprinted down the steps, and in a moment found the right contact to dial: Gail Kelley.

“Pick up, pick up, Gail…” Susan bounced impatiently on her heels. When the line connected, she blurted: “Gail, I need a favor. Do you still have a contact at the OSA?” She took a deep breath and listened. “Well, I need you to try. They’re going to have some unexplained radar activity tonight. A friend of mine is flying through—yes, I know, I know. Please, Gail?”

Susan drummed her fingers on her countertop. “Yes, I admit it. That friend. Yes, she and I are still… involved.” Susan’s mouth curved in a smile despite herself, but then opened in indignation. “Gail! You cannot tell anyone else about that!”

Another call beeped in her ear. Susan took a quick look: John Hayes. She blinked, then spoke quickly: “Gail, I have another call—please, please, do what you can, ok? I have to take this.”

Susan switched the call: “John? Yeah… thanks for asking. I’m doing a little better now.” She paused as John spoke. Then her jaw dropped. “She did WHAT? John, slow down—are you sure?” Susan listened again, quickly grabbing a pen and notebook. “I’ll come down right away. Nope, Una can’t be reached right now—long story. But first, give me some details about Maria and the subject of her… fling?”

Susan scribbled rapidly. It was going to be a long night.

***

Una winged southward, savoring the rush of chilly night air on her skin and the surge of endorphins in her blood. Flying is intoxicating, she thought. Better than sex. She laughed: “Ha! Except not at all.” She banked eastward, flying above Broadway, staying as low as she could while avoiding taller buildings and rooftop water towers. Ahead of her, a dark patch without lights let her orient herself: Central Park. Una slowed her wing strokes and descended further, flying just above the treetops.

Something was strange about the sky over the park. The night had grown dark enough now that Una could see stars, but there was something blurry in her peripheral vision. A haze, almost like cloud cover, obscured the heavens. Una frowned, and her frown deepened as she flew deeper into the park, towards the triangular dark patch that was Belvedere Castle. The dark haze was worse here: so dense that Una couldn’t even see the moon’s glow from beneath it. What is that? A fire?

The cloud of obscuring darkness moved, and Una realized with a start that it was composed of living things… things were moving towards her. Hundreds, no, thousands of moth-like creatures, but much larger than any moth Una had ever seen. The largest ones, maybe eight inches in wingspan, had bodies the size of her hand, with markings like fanged skulls. She banked, trying to avoid them; her wingtip brushed against a cluster and Una felt a strange jolt—she shuddered with dread as the moths surged towards her.

She tried to rise upwards: her wings beat faster as she pumped them, sending her up several feet above the tops of the highest trees. As if in pursuit, the cloud of moths rose around her, engulfing her with flapping, chittering insectoid life. Their fluttering covering Una’s skin and wings with powdery dust that seemed to sap her strength. Una gasped: her wings slowed, and she spiraled downwards, landing hard on a broad, flat tree branch that creaked under her weight. All around her, the darkness swirled. Una felt moths crawling on her; she slapped and batted at them reflexively, but there were too many.

Una gritted her teeth as she tried to flap her wings again. She managed a single powerful thrust that shook the branches and sent dozens of moths tumbling earthwards, but the weakness remained. Una struggled, swiping at the crawling insects, as the shadowy insect cloud darkened further. She gasped, and then screamed, as an image flashed into her mind’s eye, burning itself into her consciousness as she writhed on the branch.

Father John Hayes was bound to an altar. Una could see his limbs spread-eagled and roped into place. The young priest’s eyes were wide with terror and resignation. Maria had John’s head in her hands. She was bent over his face and sucking out his essence, draining him dry. Una could feel Maria’s ecstasy as her prey withered. John’s fading life force slipped out through his mouth, where Maria’s lips clamped onto his. Father Hayes twitched, convulsed, then let out a dying gasp.

Maria straightened, her lips wet with spittle. John’s energy coursed through her as she moaned in pleasure. Her skin crackled and darkened to a lustrous burgundy and her slender limbs flexed, growing larger and more muscular. Maria shook her head like a dog shaking off rain, letting ebony horns emerge and grow upwards. Her tail sprouted and whipped energetically behind her, its length spiny and slick.

The newly transformed succubus turned to Una as her feet hardened into hooves, and spoke: “See, mother? This is what you wanted.” Maria’s yellow-white eyes glared with contempt as she regarded the elder succubus: spread-eagled on the tree branch, covered in moth-powder, useless.

Then Una thrashed, agony over the horror she’d witnessed competing with terror at the suffocating mass of scales, bodies and wings around her. Una clawed at the insects as they swarmed over her skin and face, covering her completely with their soft bodies and chitinous appendages.

She beat her wings again, screaming with inchoate fury. Several hundred moths tumbled earthwards, but Una collapsed, sagging on the branch. She struggled to stay conscious, panting in exertion to move, fall, do anything. The darkness swirled, enshrouding her again. Una clawed weakly: her fingernails scraped against branches and bark as she staggered forward along the limb.

Una stumbled, pitched forward and fell: another branch arrested her descent with a thud, knocking the wind out of her and sending more moths tumbling. She clutched at the bark, fingers scrabbling for purchase, as the cloud swirled again, darkening further. Una felt more visions shudder across her consciousness: Sherill, surrounded by priests in black domino masks; Susan, her head burning with a golden halo and her face devoid of expression; a strange young nun, swinging a staff towards Una’s side.

Then she saw Niamh, the little redhead with milky eyes and a metal plate in her head. Niamh looked directly at her and shrieked, the sound of a scared little girl.

“Close your eyes, Miss!” Niamh yelled. “Close your eyes and fly!” Then the girl’s face was gone, replaced by the mask of Thomas Spencer, laughing at her as his blue eyes blazed with malice.

“Your turn, succubus… your turn to become a cage, a puppet, a coffin—” Una squeezed her eyes shut, and Spencer’s voice disappeared along with his visage. Now. I’ve got to get out now!

She rose unsteadily, ignoring the tiny bodies beating against her. Una fanned her wings and felt the clouds of moths around her peel away. She pushed herself upwards blindly with a second powerful stroke and launched herself skywards, rising above the canopy of trees.

The rush of wind, and a patter of rain, stripped some of the powder from her wings. Una gasped as strength returned to her, and she soared higher, guided by instinct alone. Now that she was free, she dared to open her eyes; the cloud of moths still hovered nearby, but there was an opening—to the west, the edge of the park!

Una swerved in mid-air: her wings arced with graceful sweeps as she headed westward. The moths surged towards her but didn’t block her path until she bent her path south, along Central Park West. The fast-moving swarm, flying in precision formation as if they were migratory birds, attempted to intercept her as she turned. Una dodged them easily this time. She beat her wings and angled upwards and west, back towards the gap in the swarm.

A tall apartment building loomed in front of her, with a church next door that she recognized. Holy Trinity, she recalled. Lutherans. It wasn’t likely they’d welcome her, so she swooped upwards to the best of her ability. The cloud of moths was still hovering nearby, streaming into the space where she’d just been, and to either side of her path of flight. As she reached the peak of her ascent, Una let herself tumble forward. Her wings folded up against her body as she picked up speed and dropped towards the roof of the apartment building, outpacing the horrid bugs.

She landed with a hard thump and rolled, slowing herself against a concrete surface. Una coughed, her body trembling as she remained prone, her wings aching and her limbs weak.

“You took quite a tumble. Would you like a drink?” The voice was mellow, smooth. Una rose to her feet, unsteadily. Her wings faded into her sore shoulders, a few feathers fluttering to the smooth floor. She stood on a penthouse terrace, with a row of plants and a rooftop bar set up for cocktails. The view of the park to the east was magnificent; the moths were nowhere to be seen.

A very tall man with a ponytail and a neatly trimmed goatee was pouring a drink into a tumbler. His slick, dark hair crested to a slight widow’s peak on his forehead; Una could see that beneath his tailored black jacket, his chest and shoulders were broad and well-defined. Do I know this guy from somewhere? He almost looks like one of my high school teachers…

Something about him set her alarm bells off—maybe he was a supernatural being? She unfocused and shifted her vision to glimpse his aura, but he was just an ordinary, shadowy form with tendrils of desire tightly wrapped around it. Until he turned to her with two glasses of scotch. Now his desire become clear, extending towards her: he wanted her to have a drink. Blinking her vision back into focus, she noticed the bottle behind him: Macallan, decades old by the look of it. Damn expensive tastes.

Realizing she hadn’t said anything since crash-landing on this stranger’s rooftop, Una coughed. “Thanks, but after the evening I’ve had, I don’t think intoxication will improve things.” She still felt weak and drained. The man shrugged and took a sip.

“Your choice,” he said smoothly, setting one glass down on the bar and taking a seat on a stool. He gestured with his free hand, indicating that Una should sit.

Una eyed him suspiciously as she moed to take a seat, but his manner was relaxed, if curious. She settled herself carefully on an expensive leather couch, trying not to disrupt the cushions with her tail, which was still poking through the slit in the back of her bike suit. “Excuse me, but… do I know you?”

The man smiled. His mouth was wide and full-lipped; his teeth were straight and white.

“So, you’ve forgotten me already, Una Belmont? Ah well. I am, under some circumstances, completely unmemorable.” Una raised an eyebrow. This man knows me, and he’s anything but unmemorable.

“I apologize, but… you have me at a disadvantage, then.”

The man took a sip of scotch and let the liquid roll over his tongue and down his throat before responding: “I’m a businessman, and I have some propositions for you. You may call me… Mr. Nestor.”