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Chapter 13: Small Sacrifices

"Our souls?" Pike shouted. His voice echoed down the long stone corridor.

"Shhh!" Tuco had found Pike and Etreon at the far corner of the large cloister, poking around the walls for the missing door to the library. They'd found a door where the entrance to the library once had been, but that had led only to an old and apparently little-used storage room. "The Brothers are not far off."

Pike folded his arms. "I really don't see why I should be quiet. You just told us you ate our souls."

"Not--not on purpose. And not all of them. That's why you shrank, you see?"

"Sure. Sure." The rabbit threw his hands up into the air. "Because now, when you fuck someone, you accidentally eat part of their souls, which makes them shrink. Do you have any idea how insane all of that sounds?"

"I'm a giant devil man with two dicks now," Tuco said.

"Yes, yes, all right, I concede the point." Pike's shoulders slumped a little. "So you... have part of our souls inside you. Can you give them back?"

"I don't think so," Tuco answered miserably. "I think they're part of me now. Or maybe... maybe in the Abyss already."

"Where, if I understood you right, all our souls are going. Every one of us. Even the Brothers."

Tuco nodded.

"And you know all of this how?"

"If you think everything I've told you so far is insane, perhaps waiting another day for those details would be best."

"But you are certain."

Tuco nodded. "Pretty certain." He absently stroked his fingers through the hair of Etreon, who was currently hugging his arms around Tuco's thigh and remaining quiet.

Pike slumped against the wall and slid down to hug his knees. "So that's it. We're doomed. No Paradise for any of us."

Tuco was quiet.

"You know, I--I came here partly because I thought it might help me get in," the rabbit-man said. "I wasn't a bad person, exactly, but I wasn't exactly... virtuous. I stole things. Sometimes because I needed them, but most of the time just to see if I could. It was fun. And then one day I ducked into a church to hide from the guard and it suddenly hit me how wrong it was. And I thought, wait a minute. All this is going to catch up with me one day and then what? Tortured endlessly by demons in the Pit when I die." He looked up at Tuco, his brown eyes large. "It frightened me. So I thought, what better way to look after my soul than a life of sacrifice. In a monastery, no less. Trying to stop the Apocalypse. And I could send all the coin I make to charity. I thought--I hoped--it would be enough. But it won't. I'm damned, you're damned, Etreon's damned, and there's nothing we can do about it."

Tuco shrugged his heavy shoulders and his tail coiled around Etreon's waist. "I suppose not, but... Pike, what if Paradise and the Abyss aren't what we were told?"

"How do you mean?" the rabbit-man's voice was suspicious, but his ears lifted in curiosity.

"I mean maybe Paradise isn't as wonderful as we were taught. And maybe the Abyss doesn't have to be bad."

"Paradise not wonderful? Do you hear what you're saying?"

"Not if you're damned and I'm not. It wouldn't be Paradise without you, Pike. And if you were with me, the Abyss couldn't be that terrible."

The rabbit-man blinked at him several times and then wiped at his eyes with the back of his arm. His voice broke when he spoke again. "You realize you're a giant devil trying to convince me that damnation could be a good thing. I shouldn't go listening to devils."

"If you're already damned, what does it matter?"

"That's a pretty big if."

"Only, the more I think about everything, the less it makes sense. Nothing here quite fits with what we were taught in church, does it?"

"I tell you what you need. You need to go to mass. Go to confession. Pray for forgiveness. Maybe you're wrong about all this. Maybe the Almighty hasn't damned us and maybe he has, but it can't hurt to be a little more devout and beg for mercy, can it?"

Tuco sighed again. "You might be right. But that doesn't solve the problem we have now. If I can't get rid of this incubus curse, then it's only going to get worse. What happened in the refectory, I'm sure it's only the beginning."

Pike gave a low whistle. "I'm sorry I missed that. Several score of Changed apprentices all climaxing in unison. They'll be talking about that forever. It sounds incredible."

"It was," Tuco admitted. "But I also took a tiny bit of soul from each of them. I saw it, like shining threads going into me. It helped the urges a little, but I can already feel them coming back. I think the next time it will be worse. I might take more. Or from more people. I can't control it when it happens."

"And you won't be able to unless you... unless you take a whole person."

Tuco nodded.

"Which would kill them."

"I suppose? I don't know if shrinking into nothing is the same as dying--" He broke off, frowning down at Etreon, who had noticeably stiffened against his leg when he said that. "But er, but the effect is the same. They'd be gone, and their soul would be in the Abyss."

"And if you don't take a person's complete soul?"

"Then I think what happened in the refectory is going to happen, bigger and bigger, more and more powerful, until... I don't know. Maybe I'll take everyone at once, whether I want to or not."

Pike stared at him and then down at the floor. "Saints preserve us. You must... you must be wrong about this, Tuco. You still don't sound dangerous to me at all, and my ears are never wrong."

"Because I'd never do anything to hurt you, Pike."

"You already ate part of my soul."

"But if you were damned already, it didn't change anything, did it?"

"I've noticed my clothes are a lot baggier."

Tuco smiled faintly and shrugged at that.

"But you don't intend to consume anyone, do you?"

"No. Which is why we have to break the curse."

"And do you have any idea how?"

"Summon the devil who did this to me and defeat him," Tuco said. "But we don't know his name or how to do it yet. Or how to defeat him when he shows up. I'm working on finding all that out, with the help of a friend."

"A friend?" Pike peered at him.

"Yes."

"It's a demon friend, isn't it? That's why you're being so cagey about how you know all this. You made friends with a demon."

"It's... complicated. And I promise I'll explain it later," Tuco said. "But for now I just need time. And if I don't want to lose control again..." He trailed off, unwilling to voice the words.

Pike's eyes widened. "You need volunteers. People to take the edge off enough to stop what happened in the rectory from happening again. Like Etreon and I did this morning."

Tuco grimaced. "Yes. It's the only way I can think of."

"Hold on." Pike put up his paws. "Hold on. You're asking us to go out and find souls to sacrifice to a devil."

"Not whole souls!" Tuco squeaked. "Just a little. Maybe there are apprentices out there who ended up bigger than they'd like! It's better to have people give it up willingly than everyone all at once, isn't it?"

"I'll do it," Etreon said in a small voice, gazing up at him.

"You're already small enough, Etreon. You've got to be four feet tall now."

Etreon scowled. "I could be smaller," he muttered.

Pike strutted up to Tuco and poked him firmly in the chest. "This is a slippery slope, friend. I hope you realize what you're asking us to d.."

"If there were another way." Tuco spread his arms. "I suppose I could go back into the wilderness and stay far away from the Abbey, see if the power can't reach that far."

"No, it only delays the problem. It doesn't solve it. And we don't know whether it would work." Pike sighed. "I'll see if I can find some volunteers. You're probably right, there has to be a few of them out there who wouldn't mind being a little smaller. But I'm not telling them about the soul thing. It's too crazy, and it'd just bring the Brothers down on us."

"But they have to know what they're giving up," Tuco protested.

"If you're right and they're already all damned, they're not really giving up anything, are they?"

"I suppose not."

"All right then. Are you coming, Etreon?"

The cloud-skinned apprentice reluctantly let go of Tuco, tugging himself free of Tuco's tail. "Don't worry, Alkeides. We'll find people for you. I know you can beat this devil, whoever he is." His eyes shone. "There's nothing you can't do."

Tuco stared at the storage room door behind him, the one that ought to have led to the library but now did not. Then he followed after, wishing he shared Etreon's confidence.

---

He passed most of the night in half-sleep. Worry consumed him. He didn't wish to take any apprentice's life, but he was no closer to finding the devil that cursed him or having any idea of how to defeat it. Worry, though, gave way to rising arousal. He hadn't gone soft since the whisper--not entirely--and remaining achingly erect was beginning to feel almost normal, as though his cocks weren't made to be soft. As though they were changing so they couldn't be. And that thought alone was simultaneously so arousing and worrying that it kept him awake longer.

Eventually he drifted into a half-sleep in which he dreamt of prowling the halls of the Abbey, seducing each of the apprentices one by one--and then two by two, filling two mouths or rumps at once. And once he'd had all of the apprentices, he moved on to the Brothers, beguiling them into acts of erotic excess, railing two of them across the chapel altar, urging another to summon a demon so the monk could be thrust into at each end by infernal creatures. And once all the Brothers had corrupted themselves with his cocks, he went out into the world to conquer it lay by lay.

At times he woke, his belly and chest painted with precome, and he toweled off as best as he could, but eventually all his linens were soaked, and he was too exhausted to rouse himself, so finally he drifted into a deeper sleep. But the dreams continued. He conquered all creation with his lust, and once he had done so, he began to float, rising into heaven to tempt the very angels. At first they were angry, but then the power of his seduction overwhelmed them and they held him down, moaning as they stripped their clothes away. They fell from grace as they touched him, the feathers dropping away from their birdlike wings to reveal webbed, batlike demon wings beneath. They licked with lengthening tongues across his chest, around his thighs, suckling at his fist-sized balls. Their tongues split into forks as they curled them around his single, proud shaft, jutting up like a middle finger to the Almighty...

And then he awoke, and the dream was not wholly a dream. His shaft was being gripped, teased, kissed, and licked by someone warm and downy-soft. His first thought was that if he opened his eyes, this pleasure would end, and so he left them closed, but now that he was aware, he couldn't help but let out a low, happy moan, nor lift his hips a little under whoever was servicing him. They scarcely weighed anything. Soft, almost downy thighs straddled one of his, and arms were wrapped around his girth, a narrow chest pressed to it. A tongue slid across his cock head, and a mouth suckled at the tip, but it pulled away at his moan.

"Are you awake, Alkeides?"

Tuco opened his eyes. "Etreon?"

Pale, early morning light shone through the window slit on his wall, illuminating his huge, pre-slicked body and a single enormous cock jutting up in front of him. It was so massive he could have stuffed it into his own mouth if he could have bent it around the shelf of his chest. Etreon was clinging to it with both arms, his body covered in some kind of soft, silvery down. The small apprentice blinked up at Tuco. "Lie back and let me help you," he urged. His soft-feathered hips rocked against Tuco, the prod of his own erection nudging against Tuco's enormous tower.

"But--" Tuco began. He didn't want to stop. But he shouldn't take any more of Etreon's soul. "You've already shrunk, and--"

"Shh." Etreon gave a long lick up Tuco's oversized shaft. "Let me do this for you, hero."

Tuco breathed in deeply. The room smelled of him, of male, of sex, and the fog of it seemed to amplify his lust. He felt so close to climax. Would it be so harmful to--no, he told himself. He couldn't risk it. He reached around the breadth of his chest and the spire of his cock and grabbed Etreon about the waist with both hands. His shaft gushed with a sudden eruption of pre like a fountain and he had to fight the urge to push his adoring friend down on it. Instead he shifted his grip to hold Etreon in one hand and used the other arm to push himself to his feet, holding the apprentice in the air like a wriggling bird. "I can't let you," he said. "It's too big a risk."

Etreon stared at him, down the length of an arm that seemed as massive as his own body, up past his chest. "You lifted me like it was nothing," he squeaked, and then his body tensed hard in Tuco's hand. He bit his lip, his eyes rolled back in pleasure, and then he bucked in Tuco's grip, drops of come arcing from his tip as he cried out in pleasure.

And as he did, his soul poured out of him like a fountain of light, out of his eyes and mouth, streaking toward Tuco as if coming home, as if his soul belonged with Tuco. Tuco gasped in shock and then pleasure as the strange satisfaction of Etreon's spirit flowed into him. It was like cold water on a hot day, like a breath of air after being underwater far too long. It was life, and he didn't just crave it. He needed it. In his hand, the grey-feathered apprentice began to dwindle. Etreon seemed aware of it; he clutched at Tuco's fingers as he shrank.

Tuco fought the relief he felt, the pure rightness of taking a soul offered to him, and tried to cut off the connection as he had done before. He felt the latch between his spirit and Etreon's begin to tear away, pulling apart like glue, but Etreon must have sensed it. He shook his head, beating his fists against Tuco's arm. "More," he moaned. "Take more."

And Tuco's attempt to disengage faltered. It wasn't that he lost the will to separate; it was that he couldn't. Etreon poured into him, diminishing in his grip. In shock, he dropped the apprentice and backed against the wall. Etreon landed on the floor, stumbled, fell backward, and then arched his back, his naked hips thrusting toward the ceiling as he continued to climax, dryly, the stone of the floor spreading beneath him.

Tuco took more and more, his friend pouring into him, shrinking smaller than any grown man had ever been. Tuco groped for the latch between them again, searching for it with his mind, his spirit, but he couldn't find it, and Etreon dwindled, already down to what must have been two feet high, and Tuco could not stop it. He was going to consume his friend. He flailed with his spiritual senses for latch, he slid out his long, forked tongue to try to taste it... and finally, there it was: an overlapping of their spirits, a mesh, somewhere in his chest, and he wrenched himself away, tore his spirit from Etreon's. What remained of the light extending from Etreon floated in the air, the man's soul groping for his, eager to find him again, but there was nothing for it to latch onto, and then it was pulled back inside him, and he lay panting and wide-eyed on the floor.

Tuco reeled, dizzy but also clear-headed for the moment. He hadn't climaxed at all, but this apparently didn't matter for an incubus. The eruption of come was only a physical acme; the true peak was the consumption of a soul, and he had had so much now.

His erection flagged, a pillar nearly the size of his arm beginning to droop, a rivulet of pre cataracting onto the floor. He put his hand to his head, rubbing around the bases of his horns, and when he lowered it, he saw that where once he'd had fingernails, now his fingers were capped with thick, wicked-looking black claws, each an inch long at least. He curled his toes and felt pressure there suggesting that they, too, were similarly taloned.

Etreon was less than half the height he'd been a moment ago, surely less than two feet tall. He looked small and fragile. "What did you do?" Tuco roared, storming across the room toward him. "Why would you do that?"

The little man wilted under his shadow and then scurried away, falling over his own clothes as he ran. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" he squeaked, cowering in the corner of the room. "I wanted to--wanted to help you!"

Tuco felt immediately guilty; he hadn't realized how terrifying it must be to have a comparative giant thundering after you like that. Especially moments after you'd lost more than half your soul and half your height. He stopped and tried to calm himself, clenching and unclenching his fists, but his new claws dug sharply into his palms, drawing wells of blood. "Etreon, I... it just scared me. You could have lost yourself. You don't know how hard it was for me to stop."

"But I knew you would! You're my Alkeides. Of course you would stop."

"You didn't know that!" Tuco shouted.

Again Etreon cringed, but there was a flush in his cheeks and his erection was clearly intensely hard. "But you did." He ventured over and put a small hand on Tuco's leg, gazing up at him with wonder in his eyes. "You can do anything. And now look at you."

"Look at me? Look at you!" Tuco said. "You're smaller than my--my--oh no, look at my shaft, what did you do to it?" It really was enormous. More than half as long as his arm and nearly as thick around, it jutted forward with a heavy weight he could feel in the small of his back. It had softened with the satisfaction of a fresh soul, but pre still ran from its tip to deepen the pool on the floor. "Ugh, and my balls." He couldn't see them past his chest, but now that he was paying attention, he could feel their weight nestling against his thighs, nearly halfway to his knees. He reached down and found that each one easily overfilled his grip

Etreon found an unsullied bit of blanket and began drying his feathers with it. "I kept wishing it were big enough to hug around. To stick my tongue in the end. I couldn't help it. A mighty hero deserves a mighty cock."

"Maybe so, but this? Etreon. At least there's only one of them again." He sighed, looking at the massive phallus jutting out from his hips. "What in heaven's name am I supposed to do with this?"

"Crush me under it?" Etreon suggested.

"Don't even consider it." Tuco pointed a clawed finger at Etreon. "Even if I could stop before taking your entire soul, if you get any smaller, the Brothers are going to decide you're too little to help with rituals anymore, and you'll have to leave. And I can't--" He frowned, realizing what he was about to say. I can't protect you if you're not here. It was a strange thought for him. He'd arrived at the Abbey meek and wide-eyed and open to anything, but lately he'd begun to feel strong and capable. And there was something fierce inside him now, something that felt boldly protective when he thought of Pike and Etreon. Because they are yours, said a voice deep inside him. A voice he wasn't sure he agreed with. But he was responsible for Etreon and Pike. Their souls were a part of him now. And they were his closest friends. He'd do anything to protect them.

"Alkeides?" Etreon asked, looking up at him.

"I can't do this without you and Pike," he amended. "I need you both here. But what you did... I'm grateful, but now it's too dangerous for you to be around me."

"Just pick me up and hold me against your chest a little," Etreon suggested.

"And what if you come again?"

"I--I wouldn't."

Tuco didn't need to be a devil to hear the lie there. "You painted the inside of your tunic when I got back the other day. Don't pretend you didn't; I could taste it on the air."

"You can taste that?"

"And now that I must look--" Tuco counted on his fingers. "Lord Almighty, twenty feet tall to you, it's going to be even worse. If I take from you again, one way or another, you'll be gone from here. And I could never forgive myself if something happened to you. So you have to stay away for now. Do you understand?"

Etreon shook his head, pulling the blanket around his naked body. "But--but I want to be with you. I feel safe with you. Please don't make me go, Alkeides. Please."

"It's the only way. For now. Until I can end this devil's curse. I will miss you, Etreon, but you must stay far away from me."

The tiny apprentice's shoulders slumped. "But... but when your curse is ended, I can stay with you, can't I? Sleep under your arm or on your chest... or on that cock?"

"Of course," Tuco said. "But you'd better go now, before your libido returns. And before mine does." He walked over and opened the door for Etreon, who gathered up what he could of his tunic and wrapped it around his body like a giant blanket, shuffling out into the corridor with tunic dragging on the floor behind him.

"Cor," Etreon muttered, staring up. "This place looks enormous now. It's going to take me ages to get around."

"Well, look out for the rats," Tuco cautioned. "They'll be the size of dogs to you now." He shut the door and looked around at the once again sex-sodden room, down at his enormous body, and felt a disorienting sense of bewilderment. How had this become his life so quickly? And if he remained at the Abbey, how long would it stay that way?

"Hob?" he called.

There was a scraping sound from the ceiling, and then the tiny form of Hob scrambled from behind a moved stone. He dropped into the air and began fluttering before Tuco's face. "Good news, master! I-- Oh, master! Hob loves what you have done with your cock! So proud and enormous! Now you cannot bother with any of those silly clothes you were wearing."

"It's too big!" Tuco protested.

Hob rubbed at his spiky chin with one tiny, taloned, black hand. "Too big for what, master?"

"Nearly anything! I can't go around like this! I'd be knocking things off of tables and--and banging it into doors and things."

Hob shrugged his little shoulders. "If you say so, master. Then why not change it back like it was before?"

"I can't change it. It only changes when other people wish it different."

"Hob could not say for sure, but other incubi can change their tools to fit their needs. Perhaps you have not found the method, master?"

"Well, I've been wishing and hoping and trying to will it back to normal for a full day now and nothing has helped."

"Normal, master?" Hob made a sour face, which on his already squashed features resembled a rotting jack-o-the-lantern. "Who would want that?"

Tuco sighed. "Now I've only one again, but I can't go around all day with an arm-sized erection wagging before me. Even having two was preferable to this."

Even before the words were out of his mouth, his enormous rod throbbed with pleasure and felt as though it were stretching sideways. As he stared, the head of his shaft began to widen. The curve of it pulled apart and began to bifurcate, and the dull, persistent throb of pleasure from it suddenly doubled, drops of pre dripping from two slits at once. Then there were two heads at the end of his shaft, which forked. Slowly, the fork deepened, two shafts slowly pulling away from each other, each diminishing as they separated. The sensation was odd, but achingly sensual; he could feel the shift inside the organ, the strange sense of doubling as one sense of pleasure and stiffness bifurcated, the feeling of condensing as each reduced in size, until the fork between them met his loins. He could feel his sac rising too, could feel the spread of his thighs against his condensing balls as they resumed their previous size, and then he stood much as he had the previous night.

He was still enormously endowed, but at least it was manageable again, even if he was back to two.

Hob cheered. "You see, master? Hob knew you could do it!"

Tuco looked down at himself. "Well... it would be even better if I was like I was before all this started." He waited expectantly, hoping to see the twin shafts join back together and reduce to a size that was no longer obscene. Nothing happened.

"Or at least only one that could fit comfortably inside a tunic?" he said aloud, hopefully. Nothing. "Hob, why isn't it working?"

Hob fluttered around, examining him. "Hob has never been an incubus, so could not say. But perhaps you can change yourself only to be as your prey has desired you. Devils use souls for their power. If the souls you have taken inside you desired you like this..." He smiled optimistically up at Tuco. "Then that is what you can be for them."

Tuco grimaced. "Then what you're saying is if I want to change from all of this--" He waved a clawed hand at his twin semi-hard shafts.

"Just find someone who wishes you different. And then devour his soul!" Hob crowed. "Very clever, master!"

"Yes, all right, but I'm not going to do that. Did you find out anything about which devil might have done this to me?"

Hob fidgeted and sunk slowly to the floor. "Well, master, you know, finding out that kind of thing is very difficult and even if clever Hob could have found that out, it might be very tricky. It would be much better to command Hob to find a filthy, awful, evil soul that master could consume without feeling guilty about it." He gave Tuco a hopeful, fang-filled grin. "Would you like that, master? A nasty, evil murderer or wicked king with a big, plump, evil soul for master to devour?"

"So you couldn't find out who did this to me," Tuco muttered in disappointment. He leaned against a wall. "I don't want to kill anyone, Hob. Not even a wicked king."

"You are certain, Master?" Hob's red eyes gazed up at him almost sadly. "Then... then Hob has both good and bad news for you."

"Go on."

"The good news is that Hob scurried up and down the Abyss, asking demons and devils everywhere he could, and Hob did learn that one incubus has been boasting to all about a soul he has ensnared. One that he promises will make him wealthy and powerful beyond all imaginings. None believe him but Hob. Hob followed him to his desmenes and asked his imps and they bustle with excitement. They are ready to serve an even more powerful master. And they say he roars the name Witchywine when he feeds."

"But that's wonderful news!" Tuco cried. "That is surely the devil who cursed me!"

"Yes, master, but this devil, he... You should forget about pesky old devils and curses. Go somewhere dark and hot and eat souls to your heart's content."

"Hob," Tuco said in a warning voice, though what he could actually do to the creature even if he would, he had no idea.

"Yes, master," Hob said miserably. "Master, the devil is a Knight of the Abyss. He is Sir Asmodeus. The greatest and most powerful incubus ever to have lived. With a crook of a finger he can tear a man's climax and soul from his body in an instant."

"Then why didn't he do that?" Tuco wondered aloud.

"Sir Asmodeus wishes to take ownership of Lord Witchywine's souls. For that he must use cunning and deceit. But even a Lord as wise and powerful as you could not defeat him, master. No one ever has. He was Prince Sathanus's Knight-Captain, striding through the world, making men fall to their knees in desire for him. No one has ever stood against him in matters of lust."

Tuco took a deep breath. "Then we will have to worry about that later. First we need to find a way to summon him. Do you know what it will require?"

Hob hung his head. "Hob knows. You will need a black pearl, the rite of Erotes, and... the seed of a virgin."

"The black pearl we can find in the ritual supplies, I think. If we can get past the Brother who guards it. The library will surely have the rite, but none of us can find the door. But the last one..." Tuco grimaced. "Where are we going to find the seed of a virgin here?"

But even as he posed the question, he realized he knew of at least one. One man who boasted that he had never wavered at the Abbey, never succumbed to temptation.

Brother Gabriel.