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Chapter 10: Homecoming

Tuco fell. For a horrible moment, his stomach wrenched inside him and he flailed in terror. The wind and rain were cold against his naked scales. His thoughts raced around his brain like lightning. Hhalbor had betrayed him! How far below was the ground? It was impossible to tell up from down; all around was mist. His eyes were brimming with raindrops.

He wondered if it would hurt when he hit. His scales would surely protect his flesh from being torn, and his bones might now be unbreakable, but it was all the other bits inside him, the soft, unpleasant, squishy bits he needed to live. When he hit the ground, all his organs would surely splatter inside him. Maybe, he thought, he'd hit a steep slope and be able to roll to a safe stop. Perhaps his flailing arms or tail could catch an outcropping and stop his fall--though he wasn't sure it wouldn't wrench his arm from its socket. For all those necessary organs inside him, a sudden stop from catching a rock was probably little better than slamming into the ground.

He wondered what would happen to Hhalbor. Once the initial flash of hurt and betrayal had passed, he realized he couldn't blame the poor boy. Brother Gabriel was terrifying; no one could be faulted for faltering under his imperious regard. Tuco only hoped that Hhalbor wouldn't castigate himself too much in the coming days.

It occurred to him that he seemed to have a lot of time for thoughts and realized that he was no longer pitching head-over heels into the mist, but was dropping steadily, the upward wind blowing his chest and face. But, he thought, not as vigorously as it ought to be. How was he still falling? The Abbey stood atop a tall cliff, certainly, but surely not this tall. His forked tongue flickered and he tasted something fiendish in the air, a raw scent of sulphur and hunger for power.

"Ah, so finally you notice me," came a rumbling voice very, very near to his ear. Tuco would never have thought it was possible to be startled while falling to one's death, but his heart nevertheless leapt in his chest, and he turned in the air to behold a devil falling next to him, head down, as though he swung upside down at the end of a rope. His face was handsome, but blunt, his eyes canted and all ablaze with an internal fire, his nose flat against his face, his mouth a jagged opening like that of a Jack-o-the-lantern. His shoulders were broad and his build powerful, the bulky frame of a predator. From head to taloned toe, his skin was colored a slate as grey as the rain around them, but cracked, and within those cracks burned a liquid white fire. His craggy jaws opened in what might have been a grin. "Count Belial. A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Tuco Witchywine."

The world around them slowed even more, and the wind no longer blew against Tuco's scales. Droplets of mist hung around him. He felt neither heavy nor light, but simply stalled, as though his body were caught in the moment of finishing a yawn. He looked about himself in astonishment. "How is this possible?"

Rows upon rows of thorny teeth flashed at him. "To the most powerful of devils, time itself is but a plaything. If a costly one. You've no idea the souls I am expending to speak to you now, Tuco Witchywine."

Tuco thought of the lights steadily dimming in Count Belial's voidsea, souls' existences unraveling, all to stop him from falling. "And you would not do so without something to gain. So you've come to bargain for my souls as well."

"Bargain?" The count's craggy eyeridges raised, and his thick tail whipped at frozen raindrops, erasing them from the air as they soaked his stony skin. "And what have you to bargain with, my dear demi-devil? What have you left but several seconds of terror? What have you to give but a splash of brilliant red on the stones below you? No, I do not come to deal. I come to offer you an out."

"But what of all my souls?" Tuco asked.

"Ah, ignorant incubus, t'was Mammon who was my vassal. When you took his Barony, you took his allegiance, and thus are you sworn to me. When you are destroyed, all your souls will belong to me at last."

Tuco frowned. He tried to twist in the air to face Belial directly, but could not move. "Then why would you be here at all?"

Belial shrugged. "You are a powerful ssservant, and it would be a pity to loossse one so gifted."

Tuco's ears pricked at the sibilance on Belial's tongue. The count had tried to use deviltongue on him. He was lying. "Wait, but what happens when my mortal body dies? My soul would go to--" He frowned. "To the devil that caused me to fall." His mind raced as he worked through the problem. "The price for summoning a demon or devil is your soul. I took Pellinore's soul because he summoned me. But with Brother Melvin, I helped summon... Sathanus!"

Belial's smug countenance cracked, his jaws parting. "That cannot be so."

"But it is. I helped summon Sathanus, so my soul was forfeit to him. And then... something... went wrong. And he was destroyed. And now all his souls belong to me. And since I owed him my own soul for summoning him... that means even when I die, my soul belongs to myself. And hitting those rocks might kill my mortal body, but it won't destroy my devil logos, will it? So even after, I'll just end up in the Abyss, owning my own soul, and all those other souls Sathanus held in his hoard will still belong to me." He stared past Belial in wonder. "I own my own soul. I am become the devil that caused my fall. And that means," he concluded, turning his gaze to Belial, "that you do need to bargain. If I die now, you gain nothing."

The white blaze of Belial's eyes narrowed to slits. "And yet you do not wish to die, do you? To lose your mortal form forever, to be wholly subject to the laws of devilkind, and dwell in the Abyss with the rest of us? To lose your family, your friends, your home? No, you oh-too-clever boy, you cling to life as a tick to a dog, you will be torn in two rather than let go of it."

"You overestimate my attachment," Tuco said, sobering. "It was one of my friends who has killed me. Pushed me from the roof of my home. My family sent me here. Those in the Abbey hunt me and would destroy me if they could. Why should I hold onto it?"

"And yet you do so," Belial hissed. "You hunger to be accepted, to be drawn in, to belong."

"And that is your temptation, isn't it? So that is how you expect to gain me?"

"A temptation? Is a drink of water a temptation? Bread for a starving belly? Breath to inflate your lungs? Belonging is not a desire, incubus--it is a need. Humans die in solitude; they waste away, they lose the will to continue. I tempt only with what all humans require. It is the One Above who decreed that the need for acceptance of others interfered with His relationship with them. Had He His way, all would worship only Him, love only Him, need only Him, be accepted by only Him. By His own admission, He is jealous. But alas, all devils fall, and this is yours, Baron Witchywine. You will never reside in the One Above's mansions. And thus you need to belong. It is not temptation I offer. It is not desire. It is what you must have." His eyes flashed with inner fire.

"Well, my time is yours," Tuco said, shrugging. "What do you offer?"

If Belial had been discomfited by Tuco's words, he had recovered. "Besides your life? What I offer you is exactly what you suggest: belonging. Wherever you go, you will fit in. No place will be closed to you, no doors barred. All will accept you as one of their own."

More transformations, Tuco thought, but this sounded better. Not to stand out, not to send people running in fear or staring in amazement, but always to be right for any place he went... that sounded like an improvement. But a devil's bargain always had a catch. "And what do you want from me in return?"

Belial snorted. "You are scarcely in a position to negotiate. If you do not take my deal, you will be an unappealing splatter of organs in the wilderness to be picked apart by crows." His blazing eyes widened in mock fascination. "I wonder if you will live through it! Perhaps your infernal body will survive as you are devoured by crows, your intestines ground by the gravel in a corvid gizzard, feeding you pain in every instant."

Tuco sighed. "To the point, Count Belial?"

"Ah, you young devils, never allowing us old stars our ancient pleasures. Very well. In exchange, you swear to serve me, to pledge your souls to my orders whenever I command it. No," he said, raising a taloned hand to Tuco's unspoken objection, "I will not demand that you donate them to me. But should I require them to fuel magic for my own design, you will offer them without question. And never will you act to harm me or wield your influence against me."

The mists below were dark and deep. "And you will save me from perishing in this fall?"

Belial's eyes blazed. "You will not die, should you act."

Tuco wanted to refuse. He should refuse. The souls in his demesne were his responsibility. He knew that he would care for them as well as he could, but he did not know this Count Belial. How greedy would he be for Tuco's souls? How many would Tuco be called upon to surrender at his liege's command? It was not only the souls of murderers and villains that floated in his voidsea. His friends were there as well: Pike, Etreon, Braxus--a fraction of every soul in the Abbey had been claimed by him. If he made this bargain, and Belial demanded them, he would have to surrender them up, and watch their lights dim as they fueled the Count's infernal power, perhaps even to wink out entirely.

"You think to refuse," Belial purred. "Well, far be it from me to pressure you. In a way, I envy you. True, you will lie alone and broken on the rocks below, the cold rain spattering your scales as your life bleeds out of you. True, you will stare up into the empty mists, your breaths growing shallower, your sight dimming as your blood ebbs away, and your friends may never know what happened to you. True, as you are a devil, you will never ascend to Paradise, and only the Abyss waits you. who knows what will happen to a human who owns his own soul, nor what nefarious and cruel devil may challenge the powers that be for all the souls in his hoard? The important fact, though unrecognized by the One Above, is that you will have died doing the right thing. How noble. Truly, that matters above all else, does it not?"

I refuse. The words clung to his tongue, would not leave his mouth. This could not be it, could not be the end for him. His friends were still in jeopardy. Lord Krastor was still locked up in the Throat. Millions of souls hung in the balance, and he could either risk them to stay in the fight, or risk them by giving it up. Tuco set his jaw. He had not defeated so many devils, overcome so many challenges, changed so much, only to die broken on the rocks. The deal with Belial was risky, but it bought him time--time to find a way out of the bargain, time to think of a way to defeat the devil without violating their deal. It was not, he knew, the righteous thing. But sometimes the righteous thing wasn't the right thing.

The word dropped like lead weights from his lips. "I accept."

And Belial grinned so widely that the smile nearly split his head in two. "Then we have a deal. Very well, my vassal. I have some magic to work, and I will require souls to power it. I believe I will use yours."

"But that's not--" Tuco broke off. Of course it wasn't; why ought a devil to play fair? As though he were still under the impetus of Pellinore's summoning, he found himself compelled to surrender souls, quickly sifting through his voidsea to offer Belial only the most evil and irredeemable he could find. The devil did not demand many, but already the deal was costing Tuco.

"Excellent," Belial purred, and his tail extended around toward Tuco's back, the tip of it sliding across his scales, inscribing some strange sigil or pattern there. "I've given you what you need to save yourself," he announced in a voice dripping with satisfaction. "I do hope you use it well; I should hate to lose a vassal so soon. Know that as my servant, wherever you go, you will belong to that place; nowhere will you be unwelcome for long. And now I must depart. I have, after all, a County to administer."

And with that, he simply blew apart and vanished, like a cloud dissipating in high wind. For a moment, Tuco hung blinking in the air. And then time slowly ground back up to speed, the droplets beginning to fall around him, the wind picking up against his face. His stomach lurched as he plummeted again, first slowly, but rapidly increasing in speed. Panic set in. What had Belial done to him? What was he meant to do to save himself?

He flailed in the air, arms, legs, and tail all pinwheeling for anything to catch onto, anything to stop the fall. And then something twisted in his back. There was an odd stretching sensation, the feeling of bone and muscle moving, the thick muscle there folding around something extending. Arms. He had arms growing out of his back; he could feel them more clearly each moment, could move them. He felt the roll of strange shoulder-like joints behind and between his shoulders, could feel the flex of muscle as he bent the new limbs. He felt fingers extend at the ends of them, growing longer and longer, far longer than those on his hands. The webbing between them seemed to stretch wider and wider, they caught the air.

He hurtled toward the ground--he could see it now, the jagged rocks at the bottom of the mountainside jutting up like broken fangs, and again he flailed in panic, pushing those new limbs downward. He felt powerful new muscle pull across his back and chest, and the webbing between his new fingers stretched taut, pushed back against the air.

With a sudden jolt his body was hoisted on the strength of his new arms; his innards felt scrambled by the sudden arrest in his movement, but the reprieve was only temporary and immediately he began falling again. He lifted his new arms high and pushed downward again and again they caught the air, and again. He reeled toward the ground, pushed downward with those arms once more, and then dropped onto the rocks below with no more speed than if he had leapt off the roof of a house. His powerful legs caught his weight, his taloned feet snapping stone beneath him with a crunch. He stumbled forward a few steps before he caught his balance entirely and stood panting in the early morning mist, unsure what exactly had happened.

He curled his new arms inward and saw taut, red membranes stretched wide between long, scaled digits. Wings. He had grown enormous, batlike wings from his back. A thrill of elation shuddered through him--he would be able to fly! He stretched his new limbs as wide as they would go, trying to estimate his wingspan, and the wind immediately caught them and sent him tumbling backward, head over tail. Embarrassed but unhurt, he picked himself up, finding it easier to do so if he kept his wings tightly folded against his back, though even then the wind tugged the membranes and ruffled them. The sensations were almost overwhelming; he had all this new flesh and scale and muscle and bone, and all of it was feeling: limb rubbing against the muscle of his back, new, powerful sinew stretching and flexing and learning how to position and settle itself, the stiff new fingers that formed the "panes" of his wings, and the webbing between them that felt every minute change in the wind; every droplet of rain or mist, every sudden colder gust.

If the wings were like new, elongated arms, the shoulders where they met his back, and the panes his fingers, then the "elbows" of the wings folded down behind his backside; his tail bumped into them when it swayed. And his new "wrists" were high above his head, at the top of his wings--from here, the fingers radiated outward, capped by a stubby, clawed thumb that jutted upward. Holding his wings closed felt a bit like holding his arms in at his sides--though he had not been able to do that in a long time, not since his back had grown so wide and his arms so thick. He shuffled the new limbs and found they seemed to fit a bit better. While clearly powerful, they were not so over-bulked as the rest of him.

Cautiously, he unfolded his new wings a little bit at a time, and immediately they caught the breeze again, cupping the sails, and he had to lean forward and brace his legs a bit to counter the force of the gusts. He canted his wings forward, tilting them into the breeze, and felt the resistance of the wind change, lifting upward slightly instead of pushing him backward. This would take some getting used to, he realized. All his life he'd gone about never worrying about which way the wind was blowing, nor how stiffly, but now he had enormous kites attached to his back. He'd never be able to ignore the air again. Slowly, he extended his wings more and more, turning the sails into the wind and feeling them lift him more strongly. His feet were still planted firmly on the ground, but he felt much lighter than before. He gave a little hop and lifted a good five feet off the ground before his wings wobbled and sent him crashing down heavily again. Looking to the right and left, his wingspan seemed impossibly wide; though folded, his wings didn't quite reach the ground and reached only a couple feet above his head; when extended, they seemed to stretch perhaps fifteen feet to either side of him. Where did all that width go when he folded them? Some infernal power, he supposed.

He canted his wings into the wind again, extended them to their fullest reach, and flapped hard. The upward lift launched him into the air far higher than he expected, and he quickly caught himself with another flap, and then another. And his feet were bobbing above the ground. The motion felt almost natural to him, as though his body remembered how to perform it, and yet he spent some time learning how to lift up, how to sail forward gently, how to hover in place--a maneuver that required a surprising amount of effort. But his powerful devil's body seemed tireless, and soon he was flapping or swooping about with his feet just above the rocky mountainside.

The elation racing through him was almost uncontrollable, and he found himself laughing in delight, despite all his recent woes. He could fly. He could fly! With powerful beats of his wings, he lifted himself into the air higher and higher, until he rose out of the mist that coated the mountainside and found himself suspended between clouds above and clouds below. Dawn rose before him, golden light piercing the mists and bathing him in warmth as he hovered in that ethereal valley. Whatever price he owed Belial for this joy, it was worth it, he decided. He swooped forward, skimming the mist below with his toes and then flapped higher and higher, spinning upward in a pirouette of pure delight, wet droplets spraying in all directions. He folded his wings and hung in midair for a moment, and then he dropped, a giddy thrill racing through him as he fell back downward again and caught himself on his wings once more. I shall never walk anywhere again, he thought to himself in glee.

But soon he began to wonder if someone in the abbey above might notice him flapping about. The enchantments the Brothers had used before could still be dangerous to him; they could knock him out of the sky. Belial had told him he would belong any place he went, but Tuco still didn't know what that meant, and he didn't want to risk confronting that lux mundi spell--or whatever worse they might have waiting--without understanding. Nor did he think it wise to return to Brother Gabriel's domain so soon; surely they would all still be on high guard.

There was a place he had been secretly longing to return to for weeks now. He flapped about until he found the roads leading away from the Abbey. One of them he knew, for he had traveled it months ago. It led back home.

He followed it.

---

The world from the sky was almost unrecognizable to that of the ground-bound. Tuco beat his wings high above, following a curving, tan line as it wended its way through the countryside. On the ground, he'd have been able to see no more than a few minutes walk in any direction; from just below the clouds, he could see hours worth of journey in all directions. Hills, muddy patches, stones in the road, streams to ford all meant nothing to him; they were difficulties for those without wings. But just as the travel was easier, so was it less interesting--each beat of Tuco's wings was the same as the previous, and there were no interruptions to break up the journey. Still, flying was so much of a novelty that Tuco scarcely minded it.

At times he soared high to cavort among the palaces of the clouds, but from there he lost sight of the road, and the air was much colder, so usually he winged his way to the northwest not far above the road. The distance to the ground, while at first dizzying and unsettling, soon became nothing to fear, and any uneasiness he had once held about heights vanished within several hours of flight. The new muscular limbs that sprouted from his back seemed tireless, and worked with a steady, easy gait as though he had been flying his whole life.

The disadvantage to flying below the clouds, however, was that he was easily visible to travelers on the road, and from great distances he saw riders and cart-drivers pointing at his approach. Riders often bolted their horses to tear across the field. Carts wheeled into the ditches and their drivers scrambled beneath them to hide from Tuco's gaze--as though he hadn't seen them from far away. He supposed he looked like a monster or demon to them; perhaps they expected him to swoop down and carry them off to his lair, or simply gut and devour them by the side of the road. Either of which, to be fair, he was certainly capable of, had he any inclination to do so. You are a monster now, a fearsome predator, his thoughts accused him. But no, evil was defined by your actions, not your capabilities, he countered. And he would never willingly harm anyone.

All the same, several times carts stopped in the middle of the road and the drivers drew longbows, firing at Tuco when he flew overhead. The third time, the arrow actually struck him, clattering off his scales. The fourth time, he caught the arrow and flung it back toward the archer below with an indignant roar. He wasn't doing anything to them! Why should they fire at him? After that shot, however, he veered off to fly some distance from the main road. Travelers still noticed and pointed at him, but never came near enough to feel the need to hide or fire at him. Still, it was harder to find his way home from the sky. On the ground, the world was limited by roads; above, the countryside extended boundlessly in all directions. Many times, he had to descend to the ground--a maneuver which he still had not mastered, sending him stumbling into awkward runs upon touchdown, with horrible jolts that left monstrous tracks in the earth--to examine road signs too faded to read from the air. Once, to read a sign, he had to circle an intersection for nearly an hour before frightened travelers moved far enough away for him to land without terrfying them.

All the same, his flight proved a swift and expedient way to travel. The journey to Abyssus Abbey from his home had taken the better part of a week, on foot and hitching rides on carts when he could; yet by the time twilight fell, he reckoned he had journeyed nearly half the distance back toward his home. Though his wings seemed not to tire, and darkness proved no obstacle to him in his flight, as the sun set before him, he decided some rest was in order, and veered farther away from the road.

His stomach complained mightily of hunger, but it was not as though he could stop in a tavern and purchase some roast chicken and vegetables and ale. You could, he thought idly. Who would dare refuse one such as you of anything he demanded? But even if he dared show himself, and even if those in the tavern were bold enough to stay about and serve him, he couldn't be sure that, thinking him a fiend, they would not slip poison into his meat or ale. Their world was not his anymore, he knew--though Belial's promise that wherever he went, he would fit in, tugged at his musings. He still was unsure what that meant. But if he belonged anywhere, he belonged at home, so that was where he would go, and besides, he had no coin for food or bed in an inn.

Winging his way across the countryside, he found himself following the line of a dark forest, its trees tall and ancient, lining a meadow that the moon limned with silver light. A stag had ventured out into the lea, tentatively sampling the grasses there. The spread of its antlers put Tuco in mind of Hhalbor, and sadness and anger filled him, remembering how his friend had thrown him from the roof of the Abbey, for all he had known, to the death.

But then hunger snarled its way through Tuco's belly, and before he knew what he was doing, he had folded his wings and was diving on the hart. It lifted its head in alarm as its ears caught the sound of Tuco hurtling toward it, and it turned to bolt, but was too late. Tuco's talons sunk into the creature's back and flanks as he bore it down to the earth. It bleated a foggy gasp of terror as it went down, and then its throat was between his jaws and its hot blood was in his mouth. His appetite took over then, and for a moment he was lost in the rich flavor of venison and the increasing fullness of his belly. It was only after several minutes that he came back to himself and realized what he was doing; yet even then, he didn't back away from the carcass in horror as he might have done. Did not all men eat meat? Did they not hunt for sustenance? He had simply done the same. Perhaps he might have poached from the Empress's wilderness, but other than that, he could see no wrong in it. He had hunted and fed, and if he possessed personal attributes to make that easier for him, even if unusual, where was the shame? Add a bow, a knife, and a cooking fire, and there was no difference.

Still, he could not deny the predatory thrill he had felt swooping down on his prey out of the darkness, and when he had sated himself, he did his best to clean the blood from his scales and talons. He would have cooked it, he told himself, had he means to make a fire, but fresh and hot from the life still beating through it, the meat had tasted better than anything he'd had in days.

He would have liked to doze for a while with a full belly, but he thought it best to continue on toward home as quickly as he could. The problems in the Abbey would not wait for his dawdling; he had Brothers and apprentices being sent to the Throat, and who only knew if Pike, Etreon, and Braxus were safe. It felt like ages since Tuco had seen them. But he couldn't return now, not when Brother Gabriel and his monks had that terrible enchantment that he had no way of fighting, and certainly not without understanding what exactly Belial had done to him. Home would give him the time and familiarity to find himself again, to collect his thoughts and his determination. The sooner he reached it, the sooner he could gather his valor and return to the Abbey.

Besides, he did not care for the look of the forest he had landed in. All knew that monstrous apprentices and Brothers who had escaped from the abbey roamed the forests below, and though Tuco thought he had winged his way far enough away to avoid the Dreadwood, the plants here looked strange and sinister: black and purple in color; the trees around him were thorny, and a low, sulphurous mist settled in the gullies between them. Tuco was not overly concerned about any predators that might be lurking in the forest, but still he found it not a nice place to spend even an hour napping. He prowled toward a clearing wide enough to permit his wingspan, bunched his thighs, and launched himself into the air again, lifting himself clear of the treetops with powerful beats of his wings.

He stopped again by a stream to properly clean away the deer's blood, but beyond that, he made no further delays in his journey. He flew over small hamlets and villages that slumbered peacefully, never knowing a devil winged his way above them. From the night sky, the little lights in their windows glittered like stars, and put him in mind of the false stars that twinkled in the Abyss. Fields that would have been wide promises of hard labor on the ground were broad patches that passed by in moments. Tuco could scarcely believe his own speed; more than one startled bird veered out of his path as he soared onward.

Night turned to day, and he found several times he had to swoop down to examine road signs to find the way back to his hometown--he had never made the return journey by foot, and from the air, nothing at all looked familiar. Early evening had arrived by the time he finally spotted the familiar thatched roofs and stone cathedral of his home, and a sharp twinge of nostalgic longing thrummed through his chest. He had never expected to see home again. Now, though he longed to alight and visit his old haunts, and though his wings were finally wearying from the constant flight, he did not dare show himself to the villagers. And so, reluctantly he flew a little ways off toward a field that lay fallow and untended, and rode the air in idle circles as he waited for the sun to set.

When at last darkness fell and he felt reasonably sure of going unseen, he glided back to his family's home and lit on the ground, folding his wings. Crickets sang in the grass all round, and he smelled rich earth and manure. The air carried smoke from the hearth, with the scent of a stew cooking; his keen tongue caught the flavors of mutton, cabbage, leek, onion, and carrot, along with fresh bread. More unsettling, he realized that he could smell his family, noting each of them by their own distinct scent, though he had never learned to identify them like that when he had resided at home. Too, he could smell that there were four goats in the yard; his mother had tended five before, but the eldest was no longer there; it must have died or been slaughtered sometime in his absence.

Trying to keep his steps light, he crept closer to the house. It looked distressingly small; he could hardly believe he had grown up there. Even hunched over, he could not have squeezed himself through the front door, and were he to stand by the wall, the windows would look out onto his navel. Stretching upward, he found that he could nearly reach the roof of the second story with his fingertips. How could this little playhouse be the same building he had run around in, eaten every meal in, sheltered in all winter from the snows? His dreams of sneaking inside to sprawl once more on his own pallet or sit at the table for a home cooked meal were dashed.

Tones of some argument between his parents floated from the open window again, and despite himself, he crept closer, straining his ears. The goats must have spotted him or caught his scent, though, because one bleated a scream of alarm, and the others immediately followed in kind. A clattering came from the yard as they scrambled away from a perceived predator, bleating like mad.

"Something's upset them," came the muffled voice of Tuco's father.

"Well, go and see. It could be a fox. Or Rolf Tarrymoor wandering drunk again."

Someone clumped to the window and Tuco drew back into the shadows, holding his breath. Ever since he'd left home, he'd imagined over and over how seeing his family again would go. They would be shocked at first, but they knew the Abbey's reputation and would have expected him to change. And once he showed them how strong and capable he was, they would admire his changes and, though it would be difficult for a while, would learn to love and appreciate his new self just as much as they had his old. More than that, he reflected hopefully, as he'd never exactly been the favorite son. But he hadn't prepared himself for the moment, and besides, he suddenly realized, he was naked, and although they were his parents, he couldn't exactly claim that how he looked now was nothing they'd never seen before. And his father responding to his incubus powers was too mortifying to consider. He never wanted to find out what kind of dick his father found most attractive.

So he hunched in the shadows and stayed very still as the window shutters were pushed open, emitting the warm glow of firelight spilling in a square across the yard, accompanied by the soul-deep scents of home. His father pushed his head out the window and peered back and forth, squinting in what Tuco supposed was deep darkness. "Don't see nothin'," he announced.

"Well, go out and have a look round! You don't suppose a fox would sit politely in front of the window waiting for you to peep out at it, do you?"

The shutters closed around his father's mutters, and footsteps moved toward the front door. Well, this was it. No avoiding the meeting now unless Tuco took to the skies. He cast about in panic for something to wrap around his middle, and found nothing but an oiled canvas used to keep hay and firewood dry in the rain. Lacking anything better, he swooped it up and managed with some difficulty to gird his loins with it, though the bulge in front was nearly as obscene as nudity.

He withdrew behind the house just as his father leaned out of the front door, holding a rushlight in one unsteady hand. "Anyone out there?"

Tuco peered around the corner, and was astonished at how small his father appeared now; always he had been much taller and broader than Tuco, but now he seemed almost childlike in stature, despite the workman's stoop to his shoulders and his labor-thickened frame. And yet he seemed much older than Tuco remembered him; the grizzle in his beard had spread to his hair, and the lines in his face had deepened.

Tuco longed to call out to him, but told himself now was not the moment--not just yet. Not until he could make himself more presentable.

Something tickled at his legs and he nearly leapt in alarm; looking down, he saw that brambles from the yard had somehow entangled themselves about his thick calves and thighs as if they'd grown up around him. The yard was thick with the things, which was surprising; typically the goats stripped away anything remotely edible, and thorns concerned them little. These were nasty-looking brambles too, with finger-long thorns that glistened as though with poison, growing on gnarled, woody vines. Tuco leaned against the wall of the house as he tried to kick them free of his legs, and as he did so, the whole building canted to one side with the loud groan of complaining timbers. Cries of alarm came from within, followed by hushed whispers, and Tuco's father whirled in his direction so fast it nearly put out his rushlight.

His jaw went slack as he stared directly at Tuco, his hand trembling. "Who's there?" he demanded. "What are ye?"

Tuco nearly cursed himself--he'd forgotten the red flash of his eyes in the darkness. Well, nothing for it now. "Don't be afraid," he said as he stepped around the side of the house. "I know I look different, but it's only me, Father."

His father stumbled backward and fell sprawling into a puddle, dousing his light. His face had gone taut with terror. "Do not harm me nor my family, I beg ye, creature. We're good, God-fearing folk. Oh Lord Almighty, protect us now!"

The fear on his father's face was like a knife wound. "I'm not going to hurt you," Tuco said, holding out both hands. "It's me, Father, it's--it's your son, Tuco."

For a time his father just stared up at him, his face white, his eyes searching. Tuco wondered how dark it was for him, how much he could make out of his son's changed shape. "It cannot be," he breathed. "The voice is like, and yet unlike. Almost I could swear I know ye."

"You know the Abbey changes people. We discussed it before I left. You remember? And you told me that--that--"

His father's face softened. "That no matter how you changed, you'd always have a home here. Aye, but..."

"I've changed a lot, Father. And doubtless I will change further. A great deal has happened."

Stiffly, his father pushed himself to his feet. "Does that mean you're home, then? We never received your last stipend, nor nary a letter from ye in all that time."

"Lawrence? Lawrence, what is it?" came Tuco's mother's voice. She pushed open the shutters and instinctively Tuco stepped back again from the golden spill of light.

His father waved a hand at her. "Go back inside, Milly, it's all right, I'm taking care of it. Nothing to worry about." He was trying to keep his voice reassuring, but if Tuco could hear the tremble in it, his mother surely could as well.

"You don't want the light? Your rush has gone out."

"Clumsy me, slipped in the mud. But no sense in letting all the warmth out. I'll be back in in a bit."

Suspiciously, she added, "You seen that fox? The whole house lurched like it were pushed. Like a giant sat upon it."

"Strong wind, I expect. Like as the same that sent me in the mud. Go, go." He waved his hands at her until she narrowed her eyes and closed the shutters again. Once there was no more than a crack of light across the ground, he came closer, peering up at Tuco. "So, it's my son in there, is it?"

Relief swept over Tuco. He had so deeply feared not being recognized, not being acknowledged. "Yes, but a lot has changed. The Abbey is... in turmoil. Everything there is so dangerous. There's a madman running the place, and he's had everyone thrown out and, Father, everything seems so uncertain now. I know what we were taught in church, but there was so much we didn't know about Paradise and the Abyss, and Sathanus and the Almighty and the Apocalypse. I'm so lost. I don't know what's true anymore."

His father rubbed at his chin, fingers scriffling through his beard. "Well, I ain't no priest, and I've no wisdom they couldn't offer better. Just a carpenter who's seen better times. But if ye are my son, well, he's got a good heart in him. I seen it raising him. When we needed the money for taxes and to pay off our eldest's debts, I knew t'were only he who could join all them monks and--and--" he broke off, rubbing at his temples, scowling as though something pained him. "Anyway, if ye are he, then you'll know what to do. Listen to that heart of yourn, for it's there that God speaks to ye. And he cares not what shape ye wear as long as ye treat others with kindness and mercy. So and I taught him, and so he ought to remember."

He lifted his eyes to Tuco's shadowed face again, and again Tuco saw him falter at his monstrous visage. "Have ye come to stay, son? Or will ye return to the Abbey? If not, I reckon ye could plow a field with one hand if ye'd a mind to. Though it might be trouble finding employ in your current... configurement."

"I'm sorry they're not sending you the money, Father. I'll see what I can do about that. But I don't think I can stay. My friends at the Abbey need me. There's great evil there, and I think perhaps only I can stop it." His heart sank at the naked relief that passed over his father's face when he said he couldn't stay. "But--but I needed to come back, just to know that I wasn't forgotten, that..." He couldn't quite keep his voice from breaking. "That I still had a home."

"Oh, Tuco." Warmth filled his father's voice. "I hear ye in there. Your voice is like a lion's, but I hear my son within it. I'd know ye even if ye hadn't told me." He stepped up to Tuco, arms wide for an embrace.

And then he faltered, stumbling. "Something--something's strange. My head..." He lifted his hands to his temples, rubbing at them. He pressed his fingers to them and then jerked them back with a gasp. Two black points were growing from his forehead, little nubs of horns that were steadily stretching upward.

Tuco's heart sank. "Oh no, Father, what did you wish for?" Amidst everything else, all the changes and curses and challenges he'd faced lately, he had forgotten about his devil logos, transforming others according to their conscious and unconscious desires. He backed away from his father, almost stumbling because again, the black briars had grown up around his legs.

"Wish for? What do ye mean?" His father stared at him with eyes that were going red and slitted. "I wished for naught, save that ye might be home with us again. And where's the darkness gone of a sudden? The world looks so strange." Fear twisted his expression. "What's happening to me?"

"No. No," Tuco murmured, and hurried backward from his father. "You're changing, and it's all my fault."

"Changing?" Fangs flashed in his father's gasp. "But-but how? Did ye haul back the infernal forces with ye somehow?" He groaned suddenly and bent to remove his boots, which were bulging at the toes. He managed to prise one off of his foot, but thick, taloned toes burst through the end of the other before he could get it off. "Not me good boots," he protested.

"I'm-I'm so sorry, Father. I need to stay away from you!" Trying to keep the tears from his eyes, Tuco scrambled further back. And now he saw clearly what he'd been missing the whole time. It was not just his father that was changing. Everywhere he'd stepped, the grass had turned wild and dark, purple and black, filled with briars. Where he'd leaned against the house, the wooden wall had become gnarled and twisted.

"Wait, son!" In a stumbling gait, nearly tripping over his oversized feet, his father came after him, a tail slithering out of the back of his tunic to wave in the air behind him. "Ye must tell me what's happening, and how to change it back!" His clothes seemed increasingly ill-fitting, bulging around shoulders that were definitely broader than a moment ago, thicker thighs stretching his leggings.

Tuco's vision misted. "I can't. I'll only make things worse!" And before his father could say another word, he spread his great wings wide and leapt into the air. He lifted higher, the wind knocking the small man who had raised him off his feet to sprawl in the grass, the black color spreading as briars continued to grow.