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Chapter 12: Heaven's Light

Around the Abbey, it seemed that the thunderstorm had never stopped. Tuco beat his wings in exhaustion, fighting intense gusts of wind, the cold rain streaming across his scales and into his eyes, his limbs hanging wearily. After untold hours scanning the bleak, grey mountain ranges in the driving rain, he'd started to believe he was never going to find it, and considered finding some crag to huddle under and try to sleep until the storm passed.

But of course, he didn't dare stop, as he hadn't for the entire flight back from his town. Any place he stopped would change to suit him, would cost more souls that would perish just for him. He knew he had made compromises back home. He had changed people, had changed the town, had fed lust and lies to people to protect his family, but the destruction of souls was a travesty he could not brook. And so he flew on, stopping only once to snatch up a wandering sheep as he flew. He quickly killed it before it could panic too much, and fed in mid-flight. As much as he could, he kept away from roads, fearful that even his presence in the air could spread his corruption to those below.

Again and again, he had attempted to open a crack in the world that would take him directly to the Abyss, but he couldn't manage the trick of it. He'd only passed through it twice before-once with the help of Flavros, disguised as Hob, and the second time with Hob himself. Alone, his claws couldn't find the crack in reality to pull open. Perhaps it was easier when closer to the Abbey; perhaps it worked only above the mouth of the Abyss itself. It didn't work here. Finding his way back through the Throat was the only way. And so, wearily, he winged his way on.

Navigating back to the mountains had been easier than flying to his hometown, because he could see them, but once he reached the rolling grey ridges, he spent the better part of a day flying through them, looking for the passes that led back up to the Abbey, and even then, once he'd found it, he lost the track in the storm. He felt about ready to drop from the sky when a flash of lightning finally illuminated the Abbey's craggy walls perched like a square gargoyle atop the broken crest of a mountain, and he winged toward it with the last of his strength.

He nearly overshot the roof, but folded his wings at the last moment and dropped, hitting the stones with a blow that knocked the wind from him, rolling over and over across the wet stones until he lay panting and exhausted beneath the angelic statue that had sheltered him with Hhalbor, what felt like months ago.

He couldn't stop here. He couldn't. Not when he would change the Abbey itself, and perhaps everyone in it, costing more souls their existence. Barely summoning the energy, he pushed himself up to hands and knees on the rain-soaked stones of the Abbey's roof. His vision was blurred with rain and weariness. He crawled, trying to drag himself across the rooftop to the stairwell that led down below.

"Alkeides?" a small voice quavered.

He tried to focus on the little figure in front of him. Etreon, coming toward him. "Don't," he gasped. He lifted one hand to ward his little friend away. "Don't come any closer. Stay back."

The last of his strength left him, and he slumped to his side on the roof, cold raindrops spattering his scales. Through his blurred vision, he saw Etreon run toward him, calling his name. He saw the horns sprout on his little friend's brow. And then he saw nothing at all.

---

When he awoke, it was still dark, and still raining. He didn't feel as though much time had passed, but the roof of the Abbey beneath him had changed, its stones gone dark and glassy. The statue still loomed above him, but it no longer depicted an angel, feathered wings arched and sheltering. Instead, the statue was one of Sathanus, the massive, four-armed dragon devil. Tuco thought of the realm of torment and hatred that the devil had devised and shuddered. Blearily, he wondered why the curse of belonging would cause this statue to form, but he remembered that his devil logos had been stolen from Sathanus, and supposed that the abyssal magic must accommodate that side of him as well.

He was shivering and numb from the cold rain, but his strength was returning, and he managed to push himself upright and rub the water out of his face, lifting a wing to shelter his head from the storm-though careful to keep it turned against the wind. The last thing he needed now was to be gusted off of the roof to plummet down the mountainside again.

The sound of footsteps came from the stairs. It might be his friends, but it might just as easily be the Brothers of the Abbey, and with the wind blowing away from him like this, he couldn't smell which it was. He pushed himself to his feet and cast about, looking for a place to hide as torchlight appeared in the stairwell, but unless he wanted to dive off the roof and fly away again, there was no shelter other than the statue of Sathanus. Wearily, he stumbled to the edge of the roof, shuffling his tired and aching wings, but then Pike's voice called out, "Tuco?" from the stairs.

It seemed months since he had heard that voice. Tuco turned.

Pike stood at the far end of the roof, his ears folded back, holding up a lantern in the wind. He looked small and uncertain, peering into the gloom, and then as he made out Tuco's shape, his muzzle broke into a grin of joy. His ears lifted, only to be blown sideways by the wind. Tuco had never loved him so much as in that moment. "You're alive!" PIke breathed, and even though his voice was barely a whisper, it rang like a bell in Tuco's ears. "Oh, I knew it had to be true!" And he rushed across the rooftop toward Tuco.

"Wait!" Tuco held up a hand, backing away from Pike. Unfortunately, there wasn't far to go; the edge of the roof behind him dropped thirty feet to a lower cloister, and while Tuco felt sure he could survive that fall, he was less certain about the roof.

Pike slowed to an uneasy halt, bemusement spreading across his face. "It-it is you, isn't it? Not another trick?"

Tuco pinned his wings tightly to his back. "Yes. Yes, it's me, but-Belial cursed me, Pike. I'm changing everything around me. Making it... like me. More demonic."

"Yes, I remember," Pike answered, puzzled. "You changed me more than once, you know."

"Not like this. This isn't from wishes or desire. It's just corruption, spreading away from me. Look at the roof, the statue!"

"I can't-" Pike began, and then a fortuitous fork of lightning illuminated the whole roof in brilliant light for an instant. Pike's eyes widened as he saw. The glassy stone of the roof. The four-armed dragon statue. The protruding spikes that had begun to grow up from the edges of the roof like jutting fangs. Pike's response was drowned out by a deafening crack of thunder that growled up and down the mountainsides, but he took one uncertain step back.

"I can't turn it off, Pike. I can't stop it. And it's using up my souls to do it, just snuffing them out like candle flames. I have to go back to the Abyss. It's the only way."

Pike's ears lowered. "Well, that certainly explains what happened to Etreon."

"Why? What happened to-"

With a cry of "Alkeides!" what looked liked like a little sapphire-scaled imp came scurrying across the rooftop toward him. He had horns, a barbed tail, and glittering red eyes, and was perhaps eighteen inches in height-bigger than Hob, but small enough that Tuco could have easily seized him up in one hand.

"Etreon?" Tuco asked in shock as the little imp danced excitedly back and forth. "Oh, poor Etreon, what have I done to you?"

The imp turned adoring eyes up to him. "You remade me in your image. And look! I'm even smaller!"

"But you shouldn't have come close to me. You must hurry back, right away, before you change any further!"

"But I want your changes for me..." Etreon paused, and then gave a little shiver as he added, "Lord."

Concerned, Tuco reached down to shoo him away, and as Etreon saw Tuco's huge hand reaching for him, his red eyes grew wide and he went very still. And then clutched at his sides and hunched over. The muscles of his back were writhing under those sapphire scales, and then they stretched, bulged, and two wings like Tuco's unfolded from his shoulder blades. He stayed crouched, panting. The new limbs made little uncertain twitches.

"All right, if I'm your Lord, then I order you to get back immediately. And fold those tight to your back before the wind carries you off the roof and I lose you!"

Etreon stood up, his eyes like saucers, and with a sound like flapping cloth his new wings clamped against his back. He gaped, baring tiny fangs, as though he wasn't quite sure what had happened, but obediently scampered back toward Pike.

Pike just stared. "And so now he's an imp? Just like that? That's permanent?"

"You see?" Tuco said, extending both hands palms up. "I can't stop it. Even as far away as you are, it's still probably too close. And with Brother Gabriel on the rampage-"

"He's calmed down a bit, actually," Pike said. "Had Brothers searching the bottom of the cliffs for your body. Went on a tear through the Abbey, ransacked rooms, looking for who knows what. He's even had the Brothers abjuring the demon enchantments, so the food is getting a little whiffy, and no one's had clean laundry for a couple days. No demons in the Abbey, who'd have thought we'd live to see the day? But nobody else got sent to the Throat, thank the Almighty. Last anyone saw Brother Gabriel, he muttered something about a plan, went into the library, and hasn't come out. Can't think what he's up to."

"Nothing good," Tuco said grimly. "But whatever it is, I don't think I can help. Look, Pike, I've missed you terribly, but the longer I stand here, the more this... corruption, or whatever it is, is going to spread through the Abbey. I have to go. And I can't really push past you without changing you."

Pike dropped his gaze, and when he spoke, his voice was heavy. "Not even a quick kiss? Not an embrace? We thought you were dead, Tuco." He looked up, his eyes brimming. "We mourned you. Hhalbor couldn't forgive himself for what he did. We've had to keep someone with him."

"I'm... terribly sorry about that. A devil saved me from dying after I fell, but there was a cost. He said I could go home, so I went. It... didn't go well. I couldn't do to you what happened to my family, Pike."

The rabbit winced. "I... understand. Very well. We shall smuggle you inside and back into the Abyss." He pointed one fuzzy finger at Tuco. "But don't think for a moment this is the end of it. We'll find a way to sort this out and you will be back with us."

"All right. Thank you, Pike. I... I missed you."

"I'll go down with Etreon and keep lookout. He'll carry my message when we're certain it's clear." Pike gave him a long look, filled with yearning and relief and worry all at once, and then disappeared down the stairs again, Etreon scurrying after, new wings folded tightly to his back.

They seemed gone an interminable amount of time, and all the while Tuco worried about whether they'd been found by a wandering Brother or worse, detained by Brother Gabriel. And his corrupting influence crept down the walls of the Abbey. A balustrade of glittering black ice erupted from the edge of the roof, creeping farther and farther down its length and guarding the edge, making the dropoff, perversely, much safer. All the while, a low, distressing rumble came from beneath him, as though the entire building were imperceptibly sliding down the mountain. He hoped the sound was not much louder below, or surely it would rouse the Brothers.

Just as Tuco grew certain that the two of them were not returning, and was resolving to go and look for them himself, his tongue caught the scent of Etreon, now tinged with a sulphurous odor, fluttering up the stairwell. The newly fledged imp flapped just inside the stairwell, his red eyes glittering in the shadow. He was brimming with desires-for security, for sex, for love-so intensely that Tuco worried that he might instinctively change the poor apprentice more.

"Come on," Etreon called in his tiny voice, beckoning with one arm. "Quickly, before someone else comes."

"I'm coming. Fly ahead." Tuco prowled as stealthily as he could toward the stairwell and ducked into it, only to feel the rasp of stone bump against his wing arms. Grumbling to himself, he stepped back, folded his wings as tightly to his back as he could, and tried to squeeze into the passage again, but even so, the entrance was just too small to admit him with his bulky body and enormous wings jutting over his head.

"Well?" hissed Etreon from down the stairs. "Hurry up!"

"I'm trying! Maybe if I crouch on all fours..." This proved somewhat successful, but the sides of his wings still scraped the walls, and he continually felt as though he were about to fall, preceding headfirst down a steep stairwell. Only his prodigious strength and the death grip of his claws prevented him tumbling downward. Halfway to the second story landing, the entire Abbey began to shake. He half-jumped, half-fell down the remaining steps, and crouched low on the landing, peering up in terror as the whole building seemed to sway and yawn around him.

There were several loud cracks, the sounds of boulders snapping in half, and all around Tuco, the walls stretched. The stairwell grew in size around him, and as it did, the rumbling and the cracks became louder. "What is happening?" Tuco cried aloud, and though his deep voice boomed throughout the hallways below, it was drowned out by the rumble and cracking of stone. In desperation, he stood and made a mad dash down the stairway. The stones of the stairwell shifted beneath his toes as he ran, the steps growing, becoming slicker as the rough-hewn stone transformed into dark, polished cherrywood. He leapt and landed on all fours in the cloister hallway, tail whipping behind him, his wings half-spread.

On either side of him, the halls were stretching, being pushed apart by the growing stairwell as the cherrywood color spilled down the steps like pouring oil, pooling around his feet. The entire Abbey was growing to accommodate him. He glanced past his shoulder and saw Pike standing, mouth agape, only a few meters away. "Get back!" he growled in alarm. "You're too close!" Pike pivoted with rabbit swiftness to scamper away from him, but already it was too late: the sharp tips of horns were sliding up from his brow.

"I have to get out of here," Tuco groaned. He turned to head down the next flight of stairs, the one that would take him to the long journey down into the Throat and finally to the Abyss, and stared in dismay. On the ceiling above the stairwell, glittering as though it were painted in ground-up starlight, was a circled pentagram: a binding circle strong enough to hold any devil. If he traveled that way, he'd be trapped. The Brothers had been busy.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded, turning to Pike.

The rabbit-man stood a short distance away, frowning in puzzlement. He didn't seem to notice the lengthening horns rising from his temples. "Tell you what?"

"About the-the circle! The binding circle!" Tuco gestured toward it with both arms.

Pike peered. "What circle? Where?"

The cherrywood spread across the floor; behind Tuco, the walls were changing to white marble. A torch flared as it transformed into a crimson candle clutched in a golden sconce shaped like his own clawed hand. Desperately, he glanced up again at the circle; it stretched almost all the way across the stairwell. Even if he were the size of an ordinary man, he'd have little chance of squeezing past it. The only direct way to the Throat was closed off to him. Now what? He could probably break through the wall on the other side of the stairwell and descend like that, but he wasn't sure how long that would take-the abbey stone walls were thick-and in the meantime the noise would certainly alert Brother Gabriel and the other monks. Still, it was the only option he had.

"I'll have to go back," he told Pike. "Have to find another way down." But no sooner had he said this than he heard the sound of running footsteps coming from the upstairs hallway. Many footsteps, and shouting voices. They hesitated when they reached the stairs. "What's happened here?" a voice asked. The unmistakable hard-edged voice of Brother Gabriel responded: "Vile magic. Go with caution. Be at the ready, Cantor Jacobs."

Panic gripped at Tuco's stomach as he recalled the dread incantation that had weakened him the last time he'd been here. He couldn't go up, and he couldn't go down, so in desperation he turned and dashed down the hallway, away from Pike, his heavy footfalls thudding against a floor that transformed from crude stone into luxurious cherrywood with every step. Windows with glass so clear it looked invisible opened up on the wall to his left as he ran, changing the gloomy cloister to one more airy and open, even if it did look out on the rain-shrouded, stony crags of the mountain. The hall led back to the room that had first led him into the Abbey on the first day he'd arrived-perhaps he could find his way out there.

He skidded to a halt so abruptly that he stumbled forward onto all fours, wings instinctively spreading, his tail lashing. Glittering in the ceiling stonework at the end of the hallway, another binding circle. He'd nearly dashed straight into it. A cold pit formed in his belly. This was deliberate. They'd planned for him to come back. He pivoted, bounding on all fours like a beast as he raced toward the other end. "Get back!" he roared to Pike and Etreon as he approached, and the two of them shrank back into the stairwell as he barreled past them. Footsteps were descending from the upper floor, the sound of many panting men, the smell of their desire for victory, their hunger to reassert their place in the hierarchy of the world, along with the stench of their fear, pouring down the steps before them.

Already fearing what he would see, Tuco raced to the other end of the hall, but slowed before he reached it. Where it met the cloister, another binding circle, this one painted into the floor, sparkling with divine power, the reagent, Tuco realized, almost certainly blessed diamond dust. Wretchedly expensive, but powerful enough to trap even the most fearsome devil. He was trapped. In desperation, he turned back down the hall, grabbing a door handle and yanking it so hard he tore the door away from the wall. He cast the flimsy wood aside and peered in, but only a storage room lay beyond, filled with piles of old cloth, broken chairs, and rusted candelabra.

"Well, well, fancy our surprise at catching you here again, Tuco Witchywine," Brother Gabriel purred. "And we were all so certain you perished in the fall. Well. What a relief. That is you, isn't it? I may not be able to see you, but I know you're there." He stepped forward, a heavy wooden staff in his hand, its clack against the floor echoing up and down the hallway like the strike of a gavel. At his side strode Cantor Jacobs, holding his silver crucifix aloft in one huge, shaggy hand. The other monks clustered behind, taking shelter behind Brother Gabriel's severe auspices.

"Please," Tuco said, flattening himself against the wall. "I haven't done anything!" Behind him, the stone of the wall smoothed to white marble, cool against his scales. The entire Abbey shuddered again as the hallway expanded.

A curious expression crossed Brother Gabriel's stern face, as though he'd been taken with a fit of gas. He reddened, his aquiline nose wrinkling, and then abruptly a bark of a laugh escaped him. "Ha! Ha ha ha!" He leaned forward on his staff, sides shaking. "Let it never be said that the Devil lacks a sense of humor. Haven't done anything? You dare to claim this as the walls of this very Abbey are corrupted by your presence? As those you proposed to call your friends stand horned before you?" He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. "It feels good to laugh after all this time. And laugh I can, for you, Creature, are finally defeated. There is nowhere to run, no force that can save you now. The light of Paradise will burn you from this world and the next."

He nodded to Cantor Jacobs, who lifted his crucifix higher. Tuco shrank back further, stumbling right up to the edge of the circle on the floor. The entire Abbey shook again as the hallway widened itself, solid oak beams erupting to cross the hall as it enlarged, great iron chandeliers sprouting from it like blooming flowers. The only thing, curiously, that seemed unaffected by his power was the Gasen, the gargoyle-like gazers who crouched in the rafters of the hallway, scowling down at everything. The world around them changed, but they did not.

No, Tuco realized. They were not the only things that did not change. The circle drawn on the floor behind him did not, either. Of course a sigil made to bind infernal energies would not be affected by them. And if the hallway expanded enough, if he could just avoid the terrible, sickening light of Paradise long enough, perhaps the floor would expand enough to allow him to move past the circle and escape. He needed to stall for time.

"Wait-wait!" he stammered. "You must know about the four seals, yes?"

Brother Gabriel lifted a hand to Cantor Jacobs, stilling the man before he could begin his incantation. "The four seals, yes. What about them? And do not think to deceive me with your forked tongue."

Tuco hastily withdrew his tongue, which had begun to flick in and out with his nervousness. He tried not to glance down at the floor and draw the Brothers' attention to his plan. "One of them has already been broken. The Apocalypse is on its way."

"You tell us nothing we do not know, Creature. The Guardian blinded. You stall for time, but it shall not avail you."

"But-but-" Tuco stammered, feeling the wall move back behind him. He gave a quick glance down. A full foot between the edge of the circle and the wall, not nearly enough for him to squeeze by. Pity, he thought. If I'd been my old size and shape it would have been easy for me to get by. But with wings, tail, and his impossibly muscular build, he'd need another three feet at least. "But who is the Guardian who was blinded?" he asked. "You cannot see me, can you? And you guard this Abbey from all demonic incursions. The Guardian blinded mussssst be you." He flinched as he heard his tongue hiss with infernal power, planting the lie in Brother Gabriel's mind. And the monk's mind was thirsty soil for that falsehood, rich as it was with ascetic vanity.

A strange spark lit Brother Gabriel's eyes. "It's true," he murmured, staring past Tuco. "Who else in this place has stood against the tide of evil? And why should I be blind to you, when all others can see you? Why indeed, unless the plans of infernal powers depend upon me being unable to stop you?" He frowned. "But our histories tell us it was centuries ago that the seal was broken, not long after the founding of Abyssus. What ancient rite could have reached out to me through hundreds of years, today? And why this time, why now? What is special now? Tell me, Creature!"

Tuco considered lying to him again, spinning some story about why the seal had broken, why Brother Gabriel was, as he believed himself to be, special. But every devil's lie seemed to create incalculable damage in the minds of those they touched. It was not his right to cause such madness, even in those who threatened him. "I do not know how or why the seal was broken," he answered truthfully. "For I only grew my horns this year. I am too young for such knowledge."

"And yet clearly a devil of terrible power."

Tuco lowered his eyes. The hallway continued to stretch, the cherrywood spreading farther. Two feet now between the edge of the circle and the wall. Not far enough. He edged a little further into the space it afforded.

"And now you shall be destroyed," Brother Gabriel continued. "Cantor Jacobs?"

The monk to his side lifted his crucifix. "In nomine Patri, et Filii, et Spiritu Sancti," he intoned. "Lux-"

With a sudden, terrible crack, the entire Abbey shook again. The sound was so deafening that everyone, Tuco included, hunched, clapping hands to their ears. Red light, like that of a hellish fire, licked down the hallway. Then there was no sound at all but the ringing in Tuco's ears. Uneasily, he lifted his head, straightening. Brother Gabriel and all the monks were still hunched as though caught reeling. But they moved not at all. Their robes did not sway in the draughts. Their chests did not rise and fall with their breaths. Neither, Tuco realized suddenly, did the torchlight flicker on the walls. The flames were as still as if they had been frozen. The entire hallway before him was unmoving, a tableau of pain and panic. Tuco felt a prickle across the scales on the back of his neck. He tasted sulphur on the air. With creeping certainty, he turned slowly around.

Belial grinned from just behind him, his many rows of fangs jutting from the glowing gash in his craggy mouth. "Been busy, haven't we, Baron?" he leered. "Back to the Abbey so soon? What's the matter? Decided you don't want to hang around the old place? And you had it looking wonderful." His glowing eyes roved over the hallway before him, which now looked more like a room in Tuco's Abyssal manor than the cloister of a centuries-old stone abbey. "Fine, fine. Very classy, very tasteful. You know, Sathanus would have ruined this place. Turned it into some Lucifer-forsaken abattoir, but this? Not bad for a second-rate would-be devil."

He inhaled deeply, his own forked tongue tasting the air. "So full of desire, this place. Almost I can understand why you wished to return. But it wasn't for the souls, was it, boy? No, deep down within you, your soul stinks of righteousness. You sought to make your way back to the Abyss. Twas my power sealed it from you, you know. Doubtless you sought to return magically, but the Mouth of the Abyss here? Would have barred you in this world as well. Your blessing makes the world change to suit you; it is a condition of your ongoing existence, a part of the bargain you made with me. But your place in the Abyss cannot be changed by me; to go there would be to default on our agreement, which would work against my designs, and you have agreed not to do that."

The devil shrugged stony shoulders. "And so you are trapped here. Endlessly changing the world around you to bring the Abyss to the mortal world, unable to leave, and using our dear fallen Prince's wealth of souls to do it. There is no way out of our bargain for you. None."

Tuco took a little step backward. "I don't think you understand where you are right now," he ventured.

A sneer abruptly marred Belial's face like a crack suddenly appearing in a pane of dark glass. "You truly think this place affords you any protection? It does not. It is harder to change than other places, true, but that only means it consumes more souls. I must admit, my ambitious little incubus, I thought the souls I'd taken from you before would last months, and yet here I am, a day later, to dip my talon once again into your hoard. This time I shall take many, many more to cover your expenses." His hate-filled eyes flashed. "Though I could, perhaps, be persuaded to take fewer, if they are of higher quality. The souls of your friends. Your family. The innocents I know you seek to protect. You may as well let me have them now, and I will leave you alone for a full century. Think of it. A hundred years to live and lust and corrupt whomever you please before I return. I'll have all of the souls eventually, anyway. I am patient."

Tuco looked over his shoulder, back at the group of frozen Brothers, at Pike trying anxiously to peer around them. He looked back at Belial. "No, I mean, I don't think you understand exactly where you are right now." He took another step back, and another, moving toward the storeroom whose door he had wrenched from the wall. There was not quite enough room to step inside. He tried pushing aside several chairs blocking his entrance and discovered that he could not move them, even with all his strength.

"Time is mine, little devil," Belial said, stepping forward. "There is no escape for you, no way to-ahh!" There was a crunching sound as he moved, and his face flattened strangely, as though pressed up against glass. His confidence faltered. "What is this-?" he began. His hand pressed against the invisible wall, and he looked down to see the glittering lines of the circle the Brothers had inscribed on the floor. Glittering with blessed diamond dust.

The bright yellow fires in his eyes and mouth guttered and then burned a low blue as smoke billowed from his face. "No," he muttered. "No, it's impossible. You cannot work against me!"

"And I didn't," Tuco said. "This was none of my doing. Perhaps you should look where you are going."

The devil pounded uselessly on the wall of the circle; the stony surface of his arm cracked and flaked, sending rock chips scattering across the floor, but it was futile. "You must free me," he hissed. "To fail to help me is the same as working against me."

"That is a terrible argument. And anyhow, what could I possibly do? Time is stopped, as you said. Nothing moves. Even if I could move things, how could I possibly free you from a binding circle? It's devil-proof." Tuco shrugged. "You just had to have more souls. As many as you could get." And then he paused and laughed to himself. "I am the Baron of Greed, I suppose. Maybe you were just too tempted."

Belial gnashed his fangs and said nothing, casting about for any possible means of escape. Tuco pointed down the hall toward Cantor Jacobs. "As soon as your time spell ends, that Brother down there is going to cast a spell that will probably destroy me. I don't know if it will be strong enough to destroy a Count of the Abyss, but I wouldn't throw bones over it. I don't know how long you can keep this spell running. You did say it was very expensive, the last time you stopped time. And, well... neither of us can go anywhere."

He looked at the smooth, polished cherrywood of the floor, and saw his strange, monstrous reflection staring back up at him. Such a lovely floor, he thought. Not what I grew up with, but so nice. He looked down the hallway and saw Pike standing on tiptoe behind the Brothers, his ears back in fear, shouting something, reaching out one paw as if he could reach Tuco and save him. And at the lead, Brother Gabriel, hunched forward, arm over his eyes. Cantor Jacobs, holding aloft his crucifix. Soon, none of this would be his problem anymore.

He looked back at Belial, who still shook his head in disbelief. With every second, the fires inside him seemed to burn lower. "Well," Tuco said, "I'm ready if you are."

Black smoke billowed from Belial's eyes and mouth as the embers within him hissed and popped. "It's unfair," he growled low. "I did everything right. It was perfect. A perfect plan." And then with a rush of sound and fury, time returned.

And time brought with it the echo of Belial's teleportation thundercrack rolling down the hall, the groans of the Brothers as they clutched at their ears. "Tuco! Tuco!" someone's voice called from down the hall, but Tuco couldn't see anyone.

"What in blazes?" Brother Gabriel shouted-probably over the sound of his ears still ringing-as he stood upright, his widening eyes fixed on the smoke-billowing figure of Belial, trapped within his binding circle. He turned a scowl to Tuco. "Did you try to summon help, fiend? It will avail you nothing. The both of you will be obliterated. Cantor Jacobs? Cantor Jacobs!" he snapped, swatting at the bear-armed man who still rubbed at his ears in obvious pain.

"Yes... yes," the monk answered, and lifted his crucifix once again. "Lux Mundi!" he called out. The hallway filled with light, so bright that the walls disappeared, so bright that the figures of the monks became vague, twisting shadows. It slammed through Tuco's eyes and into his brain like an ice hammer; the light from Paradise was not warm and soft and enveloping; it was cold and hard; it left no room for humanity. It slammed Tuco back against the wall and beat into his scales and muscle and bone, pounding through him as though intending to reduce him to jelly, to liquid, to nothing. He would die from this, he knew. Too much of him was devil, now. Paradise would not admit his corruption. It would beat and burn him away with pale lightning.

In the circle, Belial was howling like a mad thing. His head vomited black smoke that filled the circle, turning it into a cylinder. He flailed, beating his fists and tail against the edges of it. A dark, alien shape in the unmerciful light, his stony countenance began to crack and break; a limb dropped to the floor with a sound like a falling boulder; he gave a croaking gasp and clutched at it with his other arm before falling over, and then Tuco's legs faltered, and he fell to the floor, unable to summon strength. The light of Heaven would destroy him. He blinked through the unending, cruel whiteness, through the headache that stabbed through his mind, through the streaming of his eyes, searching for his friends.

Almost, he thought he could hear someone calling his name, but he was too weak to see them. The pain hammering through him was too great. He managed to lift a hand to wipe away his tears. And in that moment, he saw Braxus barreling toward him, calling his name, bounding like a feral creature past the shadow shapes of the monks, a huge, shaggy beast, reaching out toward him with both arms as he caromed off the wall and leapt past Cantor Jacobs. The fall of his shadow across Tuco was like the warmth of a fire in the dead of winter; Tuco croaked in a gasp of air, only then aware that he had stopped breathing. And in the span of that breath, Braxus reached him, pouncing atop him and enfolding him in his soft fur and faithful limbs, holding him close and shielding him from the blistering light of Heaven.

At first all he could think was Thank the Almighty, and then he recalled that it was the power of the Almighty that had nearly destroyed him. He opened his eyes. He was nearly engulfed by Braxus's body protecting him from the terrible brilliance, but from here, he could just see the shaggy grey fur, and Braxus towering over his fallen form, holding up both arms against the light. And yet Tuco's curse still worked on Braxus. Even here, with the power of Paradise streaming around him, his fur turned dark, to solid black, and then deep oranges and reds filled in his undercoat, inscribing arcane patterns across his body. Something strange was happening to his head, but Tuco's vision swam and he could not make it out.

Weakened, he dropped his own head back, and behind him he saw Belial burning away in the light, his stony limbs thin now, bits cracking and flaking away, floating upward in the light as they disintegrated. His legs and arm jerked wildly, like a dying spider's, and then they were only thin, black branches, waving horribly, and then those burned away too. The light of Brother Jacob's incantation faltered, and the room seemed oddly dark afterward, but warmer. More human. Of Belial, not even smoke remained.

What did remain was a mass of glittering light, a spiderweb of reflected incandescence-Belial's soul. And whether he would or not, Tuco found himself gasping toward it, inhaling. It streamed into him, pouring into his eyes and nose, his ears, and mouth, filling him with strength, with life, with sudden awareness of the awful pain that still wracked his scales and bones. He squinted up above him, but his vision was still blurred.

"Tuco!" a voice called, but it sounded odd, as though spoken by a chorus of men. "Tuco, are you alive? Are you all right?"

Then the clack of Brother Gabriel's cane on the floor. "Get away from this creature, Hellhound!" he snapped. And when Braxus made no motion, there was the sound of a cane hitting furred muscle, and multiple yelps of pain. "You're a monster. An aberration. Were I not busy with this thing, I would imprison you myself. I suggest you take this chance to flee the Abbey while you can."

"I won't leave him," the many voices of Braxus answered.

"Then you will join him in the Throat. Is that what you wish?"

"Braxus." This voice, Pike's. "Braxus, no. Come on. There's nothing you can do."

"It is best he is not found in this Abbey on the morrow. Do I make myself plain, devil hare?"

"Yes, Brother," Pike answered humbly.

"Good. You are fortunate I do not imprison you all," Brother Gabriel said. "This creature called Tuco, however, this is something interesting indeed. One of the Lords of the Abyss showed up for him, unless I miss my guess. The Apocalypse must be near, nearer even than we have feared. I must question this Devil. Brothers! Take him. Bind him in manacles forged in holy oil. And deliver him to the Throat."

He raised his staff and struck Tuco hard between the eyes, and Tuco knew no more.