Succubated!

The succubus rose from the bed and slipped carefully down to the floor, her restraints flopping at her wrists and ankles. Una felt a dull ache from her joints, as though she’d spent a long time lying in one position. Her head throbbed as well.

What the hell is going on here? This place seems quite unlike a dream. But if so, then where am I? And what have they done to me now? She peered around the dark room, but saw no sign of life.

The floor felt soft with carpet; Una’s bare toes sink into plush fibers as she walked. She crossed to the door and tried the handle, but the door was locked. Bolted too, if the glimpse of metal she saw between frame and door was any indicator.

She looked around, her small heart pounding faster. To her left, a full-length mirror reflected the same girlish form she’d seen earlier—a girl of perhaps thirteen years or younger, with smooth dark hair and bright golden eyes, wearing a modest chemise with two shoulder straps. No horns, Una thought, then felt at her back. Nor my tail.

She lifted her wrist and inspected the strap: the kind used in hospitals to secure patients to a bed, made of thick leather and fastened with heavy metal buckles. The metal that had secured these straps, however, was bent and twisted open.

Una frowned. I couldn’t have done that just by pulling against them, surely? She ran her fingers across the metal; it sure looked and felt like steel, not some cheap alloy or substitute. And yet the buckle looked as if sheer force had deformed it, allowing the straps to rip free from their moorings.

The succubus moved to the window and peered outside. The room she occupied overlooked a sheer drop; an apartment building, and facing onto an expanse of trees, paths and grass. Central Park, she realized, and then knew where she was.

Central Park West, near Lincoln Center. Where Nezz had taken up residence in a penthouse, posing as a certain Mr. Nestor. Nezz, who had erased her memory of their meeting, and apparently promised some kind of non-interference… therefore sent Kyber to do his dirty work.

She reached for the clothes on the chair, and confirmed her guess: it was her business suit and red camisole, the same clothing she’d worn to meet Kyber. The inside breast pocket even had her wallet, phone, and keys inside, though with no battery or cash.

Her old clothes were at least two sizes too large for her pre-teen body, but she dressed anyway, rolling the waistband of her slacks to keep from tripping on the cuffs, rolling up her sleeves and tying her belt in a knot.

I may be trapped in a young girl’s body, she thought, but that doesn’t mean I have to wear the creepily cute little nightgown one of them dressed me in. She shuddered at the thought, wondering which one of her captors had stripped her naked and put this garment over her. Kyber, probably, given his perverse tastes and gloating humor.

But why transform her into this childish form? Was it another trick to disorient her? Or was it meant to make her more pliable—was she meant to believe, as she had once before, that she had become an entirely different person? If that was so, then the plan had backfired. She knew herself; her foes could not deny her true form or her freedom.

For a moment, Una considered subterfuge. She could pretend she had no memories, that they had brainwashed and remade her into a helpless adolescent. But the thought of staying in the power of Nezz and whoever else—Kyber, Mary Margaret—felt repugnant. She would not allow them to touch her, not without a fight. She would not put on a show of docile, girlish confusion for them—would not let them think for a moment that they had broken or warped her.

Una inspected the door’s lock and the hinges. She had nothing in her pockets with which to pick the lock, but she did not want to risk making noise, nor was the door flimsy enough to be kicked in. A search of the room’s sparse furniture revealed nothing helpful. There were no lamps, only recessed overhead lights. Each drawer and shelf was completely empty. A made-to-order rich man’s penthouse, she thought, recalling her previous visit. One which looks like no human’s ever lived there, since none has.

The diminutive succubus went to the window again and examined the casement. A crank handle opened and closed the windows, but it too was useless, immobilized by a safety bolt.

“Fuck this… seriously, fuck this whole setup.” Panic welled up, tightening her chest with dread and memory. If I could get the window open, maybe I could pop my wings and fly. Hell’s empty depths, if they’re planning on using me… using this body as their plaything, or their vessel for—no, I can’t bear to think about it.

Una’s hands gripped the crank handle and pulled at it in frustration. Almost immediately, the whole assembly came away in her hands, and she fell back with a cry of dismay, landing hard on her rear end.

“Ow.” The succubus picked herself up, holding the mechanism gingerly as she inspected it. The bolt that had secured the handle to the window frame had snapped, leaving jagged edges. Una glared at it thoughtfully, then at the metal clamps that held her wrist restraints. She took one end of the metal handle in each hand and bent, testing her strength. Like the clamps, it looked like steel, but she could bend it as though it were a strip of aluminum.

Una’s eyes widened as she examined what she’d done. What kind of weird fakery is this? Then the thought struck her: Maybe it’s me? Could this body really be that much stronger, even with no demonic traits? She flexed her arms; they certainly felt thin and weak. She tried to rip the leather straps from her wrists and ankles, and found they came apart in her hands like cardboard.

She stared at her hands, turning them in front of her face. In recent weeks, she’d learned to fly and summoned the strength to rip a door from its hinges. This latest body seemed fragile, almost breakable… yet she could tear leather as though it were paper and bend metal in her bare hands. Is this part of some trap? Another twisted dream?

The reflection of a yellow-eyed girl met Una’s gaze from across the room. “Think, Una. You have all the knowledge of Yael at your disposal… sort of. There’s must be some explanation.” She took a deep breath and exhaled, then walked over to where the mirror stood.

She studied her reflection. “I woke in a different, smaller form. This doesn’t look like the body I had earlier. I look… as though my dream self had grown younger, and human.” A faint smile played on her lips. Una let her mouth run, saying the words that came to mind, hoping they would lead her somewhere useful.

“Kyber captured me and delivered me to Nezz. But he also wanted something from me… something about my power and his obligations. His magic locked me in a dream, where at first I was trapped by Nezz but then escaped, pursued. I descended, grew in power by absorbing sexual energy, and fought free.”

Una stared into her own uncanny eyes and continued, not sure what she would say next. “My power, circulating in a body flooded with nanobots, protected me by compressing me. It changed my body into this smaller, densely powerful form to protect me from Nezz’s attempts to invade and control my psyche.”

She blinked in confusion. Could that be right? “Yael,” she said, still looking at herself in the mirror. “If that was you speaking through me, give me some sign?” The reflection only looked back at her, perplexed and offering no response. Fine. Makes no difference to the fact that I need to get the fuck out of here.

Una looked down at her hands, then at the window. No, she thought. There must be an easier way out—or at least, a quieter one. She returned to the door and braced her foot against the wall.

Una leaned back, gripping the doorknob in both hands, and pulled. The metal of the hinges creaked in their housings but resisted her pull. With a grunt, Una planted her other foot on the door and pulled again, as gradually as she could. The wood of the door splintered, bit by bit, and finally the knob and latch popped free, the door swinging open with a crack and a groan.

She tossed the doorknob on the bed and stepped through the doorway, listening for many long moments for any sound of movement. In one direction, down the hallway, she heard the rhythm of slow, deep breathing. In the other, where more hallways branched off past several closed doors, she saw a tiled marble floor—the kitchen, if she remembered the decor correctly—and heard a more disturbing noise. Something was eating, tearing at flesh with sharp teeth and wet, sucking noises. She smelled meat—raw meat, with blood still fresh and warm—and wrinkled her nose.

Undaunted, she crept down the hall towards the source of the sound, keeping her steps as close to the wall and as light as she could manage. The carpet absorbed most of the noise, but she still winced with every footfall, and froze whenever the floor creaked in warning. The sounds of eating continued; as she approached, she heard a low, rumbling growl. Una paused, considering, and in her nostrils the smell of blood and flesh grew stronger.

She peered around the corner and saw the misshapen, gray shoulders and head of a familiar sort of creature. A gargoyle. Its broad, muscular back faced her, and it crouched in front of the island counter, tearing into a carcass with its claws and teeth. Una saw blood pooling on the floor beneath the counter, soaking the creature’s clawlike hands and staining its lips as it chewed.

The sight of her enemy brought forth a wave of memories, and Una felt her stomach lurch. So they’re real after all, she thought. I hoped perhaps they were only dream figments, representations of fear. Now that she faced one in reality, the most noticeable difference had to be the stench. The creatures in her nightmares had reeked of blood, but now she detected other odors. A coppery tang of raw meat, the sour stench of unwashed body, and something worse beneath that—a sickly sweet scent, a hint of decay that made Una’s gorge rise.

The creature grunted, and Una saw its shoulders tense. She froze, but the monster only tore off another strip of flesh and stuffed it into its mouth, chewing and grunting. Una considered the beast. It looked much like its dream counterparts, with the squat, hunched posture of a gorilla, the wings folded along its back, and thick gray hide with the texture of stone.

Still, I have no idea if they’re stronger or tougher than they are in the dream world, she thought. I’m stronger, but should I risk trying to fight that thing when it might raise a fuss? Someone’s sleeping at the end of the hallway, she recalled. Nezz? Do archdemons sleep? No matter how strong my new body is, I doubt I’m a match for his powers.

Una looked towards the full-length windows facing east over the park. The blinds were closed, but the light of dawn shone through the cracks. Then she glanced back at the gargoyle. It had turned around, and she could see its face now, with its wide mouth, protruding snout, and tiny black eyes, set far back under bony brows like a bat. It didn’t seem to have noticed her—but it was sniffing at the air instead of its meal.

Stifling her alarm, Una swung back into the concealing shadows of the hallway. Did it see me? Smell me? Unsure, she stepped lightly back the way she came, looking for other routes. She tried the first door she came to. Locked. She tried the next; also locked. Of course, she could break any of the knobs as easily as the first, but now any racket would mean a fight. At the third door, near the far end of the hallway, the knob turned easily, and she slipped inside.

Una found a bedroom, larger than the one where she’d lain, but decorated in a similarly sterile fashion. This one, however, had a king-sized bed with rumpled sheets and a comforter thrown back. On the bed lay a bizarre figure, pulsating softly. It had the shape of a huge, heavyset man, but its form was lumpy and featureless, as if molded from clay by a child. It had sausage-like fingers and toes—and between its legs, a crude penis like a club with a slit at the tip—but the overall effect was grotesque.

Atop the crude humanoid’s shoulders lay a shape Una had hoped to never see again: an inverted pyramid with its tip resting on the broad chest beneath it, and the one edge of the base resting against the wall. Two great horns spiraled out of the pyramid’s upper corners, almost scraping the ceiling. The surface of the object rippled with a sickly sheen, each face filled with a kind of seething static in which forms appeared and disappeared: a nose, a hank of hair, an eye rolled back and showing only sclera, a mouth gaping open.

She stared at the true head of Nezz, Archdemon of Control. Una had last seen this bizarre, inhuman incarnation of the ancient demon in the Catskills—when it had emerged from within the body of Monsignor Thomas Spencer. In that encounter, the strange shapes moving across the planes of the pyramid had resolved into a single, confident face. Now, lying still on a bed, the inhuman shape seemed inert, almost dead. Only the steady rise and fall of its chest gave evidence that it lived at all.

Inside the chest, Una saw another horrifying and recognizable visage. A body lay encased there, as if drowning in quicksand made flesh. His skin hung slack around bones, and his eyes were sunken and sightless, filmed over with white. Still, she knew him. Spencer’s beard had grown wild, and his hair fell long and tangled. He wore the tattered remains of a priest’s cassock and collar—and he snored in ragged gasps, as though struggling to pull air into his lungs through thick fluid.

Una shuddered at the sight, feeling waves of pity and revulsion clash in her gut. The man looked as though he was suffocating slowly in that coffin of flesh and muscle. He deserves this, she thought. After all he’d put us through, I want him to endure a slow, agonizing, horrible death. She blinked, struggling to focus through eyes that watered. And also… it’s not his fault. He was a victim too, possessed by that creature from childhood and twisted to serve it until it broke him utterly.

Nezz’s plans would not grant even a slow death to the Vatican exorcist. Spencer had imprisoned him for too many years to count easily, making of his own soul a prison for the archdemon; now it seemed the Lord of Control paid the favor back in kind.

She shook her head slowly and clenched her fists. No matter what he did in the past, no matter his crimes or misdeeds… even Spencer doesn’t deserve such a fate for eternity. I could… She wrestled with the thought, feeling guilt war with compassion. With the strength I have right now, I could probably end his suffering with a blow to the neck or the heart. A mercy killing.

Una stared at the body within the demon’s chest, at the slow pulse of the throat and the shallow movement of the ribcage. She imagined herself walking forward, placing a hand over Thomas Spencer’s throat, and pushing until bone and cartilage cracked. The thought made Una’s stomach churn, and a wave of nausea washed over her.

No. Not yet. Maybe not at all. I don’t even know if that would harm Nezz, or simply strengthen him. If Spencer’s death would help him, Nezz surely would have done it by now, but… Una turned away and stared at the window instead, its blinds admitting slivers of the morning light and glimpses of the skyline beyond. I have to get out of here. This place, this fear… it’s clouding my judgment. Someplace safe. Somewhere to rest and think.

The window was locked and bolted just like the other, and she didn’t dare make noise in this room. Una glanced back at the bed where the monstrous figure rested, watching its chest rise and fall in its unnatural slumber. Then she turned back to the hallway, towards the gargoyle’s feast in the kitchen. Beyond that room… there was an elevator, she remembered. There must be stairs somewhere too.

When she reached the kitchen, she saw the monster had finished its meal. Blood stained the floor, and bits of gore littered the marble countertop. A few scraps remained, including the head of a small animal: the carcass of a raccoon, its skull smashed and its eyes gone. The gargoyle itself was nowhere in sight. Not good, she realized. I can get past this point, but which way could it have gone?

Una looked down at the mess on the countertop, at the blood and viscera. A trail of blood led towards her left, where doors opened onto the rooftop patio that surrounded the penthouse—the impressive outdoor lounge and bar where she’d met with Kyber and “Nestor.”

In that case, let’s try the other way. Una recalled just where the wood-paneled doors of the elevator opened into the main living space, and she headed straight there, moving with as much silence as she could. The foyer was silent and empty, and the single button on the elevator’s panel glowed red.

Una hesitated, then pressed the button. The light blinked once, then resumed its steady glow. She cocked her head, listening. No sound reached her ears save a faint electrical hum. The elevator did not come. Una swore under her breath. Can’t anything ever be easy? She could force the doors open, but then what? Try to open her wings inside the shaft? Climb down like a spider?

A droplet of clear fluid splashed onto the floor next to her. Una jumped backwards and spun in place to look up. The creature clung to the ceiling above her, its claws buried into the plaster. Its eyes gleamed, and it showed rows of pointed, bloody teeth as it grimaced. A low rumble of anticipation burst from the gargoyle’s mouth. “Girl,” it said. “Stay. Master says stay. You are his now.”

A small part of Una’s brain noted, with some surprise, that the creature’s voice sounded just like the lead gargoyle she’d encountered in her vision.

“I am nobody’s property,” she replied, backing towards the patio. “Least of all your master’s.”

The thing’s face contorted in a scowl. Its muscles tensed, and it dropped to the floor in one fluid motion. The thump as the gargoyle landed sent vibrations up Una’s legs.

“His!” The insistent growl rose to a roar, and the creature charged at her, its stony claws scraping on the hardwood floor. Una leaped to the side and found that her compact legs were just as shockingly dense with power. Her spring carried her nearly five feet, and her awkward landing sent her bouncing another two along the floor towards the glass doors that opened onto the patio.

The gargoyle spun at once, changing direction more swiftly than Una would have expected, and lunged at her again. Its jaws opened wide, and it swatted at Una with one enormous paw as it pounced. Off-balance and unused to her small size and increased strength, the succubus misjudged her second dodge. The thing’s claws slammed into her, knocking her to the ground. Hard impact drove the air from her lungs, and she rolled, dazed by the shock to her head.

The gargoyle loomed over her and roared in triumph, pinning her midsection with one claw. “For Master,” it grunted, its grin widening. His breath smelled like a slaughterhouse. The enormous, slavering jaws darted forward to close around Una’s neck.

Una felt panic surge through her small body, and her arms flailed for a moment before she grabbed each side of the monster’s snout with her hands. Her fingers found the hinge of its jaw, and she pushed against the muscles that threatened to close around her with all her might. To her astonishment, the gargoyle’s maw sprang open, its tongue lolling and its teeth clacking. She pushed harder and felt the resistance in its neck and shoulders.

Una snarled wordlessly, and effort coiled in her biceps as she moved her hands apart. With the sound of snapping bone, the creature’s lower jaw dislocated and ripped free. The demoness flung it aside with disgust, and the disembodied mouth flopped onto the floor, its tongue writhing in a puddle of its own blood.

The gargoyle screamed in pain and swiped at Una with a claw. She sidestepped easily and kicked it in the gut. The force of her foot connecting with its abdomen lifted the gargoyle from the floor, and it crashed into the glass doors behind them, cracking the glass and shattering several panels with its weight.

It struggled to its feet, roaring and snarling through its ruined mouth as its hands scrabbled for purchase. Una ran towards it, her fists balled, and leaped into the air with a shout of anger. She brought one knee to her chest and extended her foot in a second kick, aiming through the gargoyle’s chest. The blow knocked it off-balance, and it fell backwards onto the balcony, crashing through more of the doors and rolling into the open-air space outside.

So much for staying quiet. Una followed the tumbling creature, stepping over shattered glass. The morning sun shone in her eyes, and she squinted, raising a hand to block the light as her eyes adjusted. The gargoyle lay sprawled on the patio, its limbs splayed, and Una stalked towards the creature with grim determination.

She came to stand over the monster, staring into its tiny eyes. Its gaze was dull, unfocused with pain, and a trickle of dark blood oozed from its mouth.

“You don’t belong to him either,” she said to the gargoyle. Somewhere behind her, she heard a horrible noise, like a hundred subwoofers thrumming to life. Nezz.

Una brought her foot down on the creature’s throat, crushing it with her heel. Its head snapped sideways with a crack, leaving its body twitching.