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Chapter 16: Eyes of the Beholder

Tuco helped the exhausted Lord Krastor up the steps of the Throat as best he could, following the other changed Brothers and apprentices who were already on their way up and out. As they traveled, he explained what had happened inside the Void. "I knew it was wrong to leave that thing alive," Tuco told Lord Krastor. "It had been suffering for so long. I couldn't leave it. I couldn't let it remain there, especially not when I intended to close the gate forever."

"I cannot fault you," Lord Krastor said. "Even before my incarceration in that wretched place, my sleep was never undisturbed, knowing that that dreadful thing buzzed beneath us. And I understand why you had to do the things you did. But it saddens me that one with your pure heart should have to carry that burden."

Tuco was about to protest, but then admitted, "I do feel a heaviness inside. I wish I could have found another way. And I suppose it was a mistake after all, wasn't it? Somehow I broke the seal. The sound of the trumpets came right after I-right after it died." He was silent for a time, and Krastor said nothing as well. "I should have known it, too. I should have expected. I saw the carvings on the seal. I don't know why I didn't think of it. I had warnings. I know that the Almighty commanded us not to murder. And yet, I..." He shook his head.

"Had you known the impact of your actions, would you have chosen differently?" Lord Krastor inquired.

"Of course I..." Tuco thought for a moment, remembering the abject pity with which he'd regarded the Warden, the impossible cruelty of leaving the creature trapped for all eternity in the lifeless Void. "Perhaps not," he confessed. "Even knowing the danger to the world, it would have been wrong to let the creature suffer."

He lifted his new eyes to the staircase ahead of them and saw through them the miracle of stonework and enchantment that had burrowed it deep into the heart of a mountain, the warm caress of torchlight from above casting the shadows of the steps and walls into waving patterns. "What are we going to do about Brother Gabriel?"

Lord Krastor was silent again for some time. "He used fear of the Throat to control the Brothers above, but few of them care for his leadership or wish to follow his orders. His edges are too hard; he hews to an ascetic ideal that none can satisfy."

"There is vanity in him. It is very strong."

"This surprises me little. All men have their weaknesses, and those who are the most unyielding are also the most brittle. We will join with the others and retake the Abbey. Now that the portal to the Throat has been destroyed, Brother Gabriel's threats have little sway. He would not murder another; his adherence to his faith will not permit it. He may threaten to involve the Primacy in the affairs of the Abbey, but that will necessitate months of travel, and the Primates bother little with the affairs of us here, far from the Continent. He will not be able to stop us. But do exercise caution, Master Witchywine. He may have lost his power, but that does not mean he is not dangerous."

"I will be careful," Tuco promised.

"Oh, Tuco Witchywine, what a fortunate day it was when you first came to my tower. What would the Abbey ever have done without you?"

Remained one step further from the Apocalypse, thought Tuco, but he remained silent and tirelessly aided Lord Krastor to the top of the stairs.

The Abbey itself was a riot of sound and light and confusion. The Brothers and apprentices freed from their prisons in the Void mingled with those hurrying up to see what the hubbub was about. The time was still early, dawn not yet having met the horizon, but many monks had risen early for prayers. They were shocked and amazed to see their brethren returned to them, and soon someone was running to the dormitories to fetch those monks and apprentices still asleep. As the hallways clogged, someone eventually suggested convening in the apprentice refectory, which was met with widespread enthusiasm. All were hungry, including Tuco, and despite the early hour, wine seemed appropriate, both for celebration and to calm the nerves of those who had been rescued from endless torment.

Some of these had indeed been trapped for centuries, and they soon gathered together in their own group, trying to reckon with the new reality they faced, talking amongst themselves and a few others as they tried to understand how the world had changed since they had first entered the Throat. They sampled foods and wines which had not yet been invented when last they tasted fresh air. Brother Hofstaed, the physician, moved among them, as his skills of healing extended beyond physical wounds to those psychological, and with his demon-granted gifts he was able to soothe frayed nerves and calm pounding hearts, allowing them to find some respite.

Other Brothers were sent to prepare spare beds; the Abbey did not have sufficient rooms or bunks to accommodate all those who had been imprisoned, and Tuco was grateful that the responsibility for caring for all these did not belong to him.

Still more of the freed inmates had been imprisoned due to being legitimately dangerous, however, and Lord Krastor instructed Tuco, due to his unique gifts and impenetrable hide, to tend to them, offering them wisdom, comfort and guidance, teaching them how to avoid harming others, calming their anger when he could. In several cases he had to physically restrain transformed apprentices who lashed out in fury or confusion; in others, he distracted them with his lust powers. And in a few rare instances, he soothed them with comforting lies, the sibilance of his devil-tongue ensuring that they believed and trusted his words. Ultimately, some of the more dangerous Transformed needed to be locked away in cells in order to protect the safety of the others.

One of the Transformed shot glass needles from his body whenever he opened his eyes; another changed anything he touched into gold and would not stop attempting to remove his golden gloves; another, in gaseous form, was inhaled into a hapless Brother's lungs and began controlling his body from the inside, until he was forcibly expelled. All of these and more had to be dealt with, and before the morning was half out, Tuco was weary and running out of ideas as to how to care for all of them.

After the initial surprise of seeing everyone returned from the Throat, most of the apprentices had gone. Tuco had seen the three-headed Braxus, the spined Hhalbor, and the imp Etreon, and had spoken to them as quickly as he could, but Pike had remained behind. "He's waiting for you," Etreon had squeaked at him. "In the watchroom. When you're done." And that thought was enough to give Tuco renewed energy, while also instilling impatience in him as he reckoned with the problems of all these strangers.

Lord Krastor's leadership in the wake of the return from the Throat went unchallenged. While there was concern about the sound of thunder from beneath the mountain, and the blasting of trumpets, he put those aside for another time, saying all would be addressed once those who had suffered had been cared for. Just as he had promised, few seemed disappointed that the stewardship of Brother Gabriel had reached an end, and even some of those who had been the Brother's most loyal enforcers-Brother Herodotus and Cantor Jacobs among them-seemed eager to prove their renewed loyalty to their former abbot.

Of Brother Gabriel, strangely, there seemed to be no trace. His quarters had been abandoned with signs of apparent haste, and he could not be found in any of the common areas. Nor was he to be located in any of the rooms being set up as temporary dormitories. "Do not fear," Lord Krastor assured Tuco when he expressed concern. "He may be dangerous, but we will find him." With a wink, he added, "Should you run across him, you have my personal permission to use any ability you have on him. Short of physical injury, of course."

Tuco hoped it would not come to that. He would not feel safe until Brother Gabriel was dealt with, but at the same time, he would be grateful never to see the domineering monk again.

Finally, not long after the midday meal, all those who had been imprisoned in the Throat had been secured and cared for, and while Tuco's body seldom felt physical exhaustion, he was weighed down by a mental and social weariness he had seldom felt before.

"You have done more than enough," Lord Krastor assured him, though the restored abbot appeared nearly as tired as he. "Go, and rest for as long as you like. We will discuss the future of our institution another day. There must be many changes, of course, but that is a talk for the morrow."

Gratefully, Tuco left the refectory and walked back down through the cloisters toward the stairwell, shrugging off with an apology any attempts by other apprentices to engage him in conversation-and more than a few solicitations for sex. Down the stairs of the Throat he went, the tunnel wide enough that he could spread his wings and glide most of the way. He lit on the ground at the tunnel that had once led to the Void-now only an empty cavern with a shattered portal. And there he saw the door of the watchroom, ajar just enough to let out the warm firelight within.

He stepped through and was surrounded by the heat and crackle of a fire, the smell of woodsmoke overlaying the fresh foods laid out on the table beside it. And there, in the bed, lay Pike. His long ears were folded back, his head tilted toward the door. His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open, and he was drooling just a bit on his pillow. Even in sleep, his erection jutted up under the soft sheets.

Tuco's heart nearly burst at the sight of him. Smiling, he let his incubus power extend outward, watching his lover stir in the bed, back arching. He wondered what Pike was dreaming as he twisted in his sheets and let out a low moan. Eyes still closed, the rabbit-man's fingers slid down to his shaft, curling around it and stroking lightly. Tuco remembered all too well the intense feelings of unending arousal he'd felt when moving around in Pike's body. Pike needed an incubus as a partner, someone who could wrangle that powerful drive and channel it into ever more exquisite expressions of pleasure and relief. They could help each other, he thought-he granting Pike the satisfaction no mortal ever could, Pike training him how to use his incubus nature to greater efficacy.

He gazed on Pike with his new eyes and thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful in all his life-not Elf, not even the Earl of Beauty himself. As the love surged in him, so did his power, almost without his awareness, driving his sleeping friend toward even greater arousal. Pike's cock jerked in his fingers, fountaining precome across the underside of the sheets, soaking them through. "Tuco," Pike moaned in his sleep, and then cried out as he came, his lean body bucking with pleasure over and over.

He woke slowly, eyes blinking blearily as the sensations of whatever he'd been dreaming blended with the reality before him. "You're here," he murmured. "No, it's the dream, I-"

"It's no dream, Pike," Tuco rumbled fondly, stepping toward the bed. "I'm here, finally. It's over." He lifted the wet sheet off of Pike, carefully peeling the soaked part away from the rabbit's sensitive and still-jerking shaft.

"What do you mean, it's over?"

Tuco sat beside him, the bed frame creaking in protest at his tonnage, his heavy tail falling across Pike's legs, its spaded tip curling up on its own to caress Pike's cheek. "We freed everyone that we could. Lord Krastor, the Brothers, the apprentices, everyone Brother Gabriel put away. And then I destroyed the portal to the Void. It's gone forever, Pike. They can never put anyone in there again. And everyone is united against Brother Gabriel. His reign is ending."

"Oh, Tuco." Pike sat, aided by the gentle curl of Tuco's tail, and embraced what he could of Tuco's arm. "That's wonderful."

"We still have the devils to worry about, of course," Tuco said, electing not to mention the broken seal for now. "But somehow they seem less frightening to me than Brother Gabriel. Lord Krastor and the other monks are going to deal with him. And more importantly, now we have time to be together."

"Don't you want some of the others to join us?" Pike asked with a smile. "Etreon, Braxus?"

"Not today. Today it's just you. And you are mine." Tuco growled the word hungrily, and at that, Pike's eyes widened and he clutched at Tuco's arm, twitching as he came again, his cock firing thick ropes of seed across the bed.

Tuco chuckled and brushed the backs of his fingers against the hot, jumping flesh, letting the latter half of Pike's climax fall across them. Then he let his long tongue curl out and licked the taste of his lover off his fingers. "I wore your body for a while, and I know what that felt like," he said with a smile, dabbing Pike's erection dry with the sheets. "And I know just how much more there is in those balls of yours." He hefted the orange-sized, cream-furred orbs. "And today we're going to find out if it's possible to drain you dry."

Pike whimpered with excitement as Tuco stood up from the bed, hefting his rabbit-man with his tail and one hand, then pulling him into an embrace against his chest. Pike gripped at his head with both paws and kissed him fiercely, and Tuco kissed back, sliding one hand down to support Pike's thigh, the other arm around his back.

He heard a patter as his own cock rose, spilling a stream of his precome across the floor. Like a serpent, his prehensile member curved and twisted upward, rubbing itself through the achingly soft fur up Pike's leg and thigh until it found his muscled rump. He paused there, nestling up against Pike's ring, feeling it twitch against his tip as he oozed his precome. Pike moaned, and he pressed it just a little closer, so that the slippery fluids were actually squirting up into him.

Pike wriggled in his arms, trying to work himself backward onto it, but Tuco's grip was unyielding.

He grinned down at Pike. "Ask me for it."

"Please," Pike panted with ragged breath. "Fuck me."

"Beg me," Tuco growled.

Pike shuddered in his arms, his lavender eyes rolling back in his head. "Please, lord among devils, master of my soul, please take what belongs to you."

Tuco couldn't hold back at that, and his cock pushed of its own accord up into Pike, several inches at once, making the rabbit-man tense in his arms, crying out in pleasure. Tuco bent his thick neck and silenced that cry with a passionate kiss, his forked tongue sliding into Pike's mouth even as his cock worked itself deeper and deeper. Pike's insides gripped at him, surprisingly tight but also stretching around him as he pushed more and more of his thick devil cock in, his prehensile length easily able to work its way deeper than any cock should be able to go. Pike groaned around his tongue, huffing breath through his nostrils, and again he climaxed, his own prodigious length jerking as it coated Tuco's belly and the bottom of his pecs with hot seed. As he came, his whole body clenched around Tuco's cock, and Tuco growled involuntarily into Pike's muzzle with the incredible pleasure. He had never experienced a sensation like this in any of his sexual encounters. It was as though his shaft were being slowly swallowed by an enormous, powerful snake, as though Pike's entire body was just a muscular sleeve made to encase his cock, tease it, pleasure it-and perhaps, he realized through the fog of lust, that was indeed the case.

Pike had wished in their last intimate encounter to be perfect for Tuco, and some change had happened-perhaps this was it: his whole body was now made just to give Tuco pleasure. Tuco shuddered and drove himself deeper. There seemed no end to the length of cock he had left to feed into Pike, and no end to the depths that his mate could accept. He flexed his shaft, allowing his incubus power to flow out more strongly, and the pleasure-wracked creature in his arms shivered, bucked, and came again. Tuco tasted salt and musk on his tongue and leaned back in surprise, breaking his kiss. Pike stared at him in wonder and adoration, and then spluttered a clear fluid. There was no mistaking the odor or taste of it: it was Tuco's precome. Tuco wondered in amazement just how deep he had penetrated, and then he felt the strange shape of Pike and leaned back just a little to see the thick bulge slowly rising up within Pike's chest, slightly distending it.

It would never have been possible with a mortal creature, but Pike's wish had made him into something else, and there was no going back. Not that Tuco could consider such a thing now; lust drove him to drive his hips upward, sending that bulge rising into Pike's neck. His mate stared up at him, tasting of fear and desire overwhelming him, and Tuco leaned down to kiss him again, hilting all the way in his rabbit and sliding his tongue into Pike's muzzle and down his throat to lick the tip of his own cock. His cock bulged, and Tuco nearly choked as he shot precome into his own mouth.

Staggering with pleasure, he made his way to the bed, opened his wings like an enormous canopy, and lowered his mate to the sheets.

They fucked for hours. Tuco drove Pike into the mattress with his thrusts, rolled over and speared him toward the ceiling, gripping him with both hands to hold him in place and watching the bulge of his girth move up and down inside his lover's body. He stood and rutted Pike upright, cinching his tail around Pike's shaft to jerk him as he thrust. He let his dick divide into two inside the rabbit, making him gasp and cry out at the new sensation. He drank his own come from Pike's muzzle; he shot it through him, until the mattress was soaked and cream oozed down the walls and dripped from the ceiling. The scent of incubus musk only made their rutting more intense and frenetic. Pike came again and again and again, far more often than Tuco, as the waves of erotic power crashed against him, and every time his stamina seemed to be flagging, a little touch of Tuco's fiendish influence instantly restored them. They fucked past mealtimes, neither of them hungry, their bellies full with come.

And while Pike never needed rest before resuming activity, eventually his mortal body tired, until he was drifting into half-sleep while fucking, and so reluctantly Tuco pulled out of him at last, lying back on the mattress. While coated with his semen, his fluids didn't seem to cool like they had when he was purely human, and so at least he wasn't lying in cold dampness. Breathing slowly, Pike sprawled across Tuco's chest, his eyes closing, his body limp with exhaustion.

"It's funny," he murmured into Tuco's chest as he lay atop him. "But for the first time in perhaps a year I'm actually not aroused. It's rather nice, as a change."

And Tuco laid a heavy arm across him and drifted into a doze himself, so grateful not to have any worries for once.

When he woke, what felt like several hours later, the room was clean and restored, and the scent of fresh food wafted from the nearby table. Hob's demons must have come through and cleaned the place while they were asleep, though Tuco had no idea how they had managed to replace the bedclothes with fresh ones while he drowsed. His devil's body didn't require the rest needed by a mortal one, however, and he was feeling restless, so he gently eased Pike into the plush bedclothes and covered him with what seemed an impossibly soft blanket. Pike barely even stirred as he did so.

Tuco slowly edged out of the bed and stood, eyeing with chagrin the holes his spikes and horns had left even in the replaced sheets. He helped himself to a steaming slice of warm bread and butter from the table and then stepped out into the tunnel, closing the door behind him.

It was strange-and pleasant-not to hear the howls and screams from the tunnel to the Void. The air was still and peaceful, and it seemed to him that even the scent had improved. Less salt and dampness in the air, which he supposed was to be expected now that there was no longer an open portal to an endless sea nearby.

Letting his wings stretch, he strolled down the passage to the stairway leading up to the Abbey and down to the Abyss. Here, a strange, hot wind rose from below, and Tuco's ears twitched as he caught what sounded like faint chattering and giggling in high-pitched voices. He scanned the tunnel with his enhanced vision, and was certain he caught sight of skinny limbs or serpentine tails moving through or around the stones. Another seal had been broken, and the mouth of the Abyss was surely open just a crack further. If the Abbey had been plagued with demonic influences before, they would doubtless worsen now. And yet he could not regret what he had done. Surely mercy could not be an evil, even if it emboldened treacherous forces.

He breathed in deeply for a sigh, his tongue curling out, and tasted desire on the air. Desire for power. He nearly turned, but then an enormous hand fell on his shoulder, its large fingers delicate against the globes of muscle-crystalline, and achingly beautiful.

The voice of Samael rang like a bell in his ears. "Thou has enjoyed thy time with thy plaything, one trusts."

Tuco stiffened. His tail coiled itself tightly around the ankle of the titanic devil. "He is my love, not my plaything."

"Ah, love," Samael sighed. "Thou speakest like Astaroth, my liege, the Marquess of Love. He thinks us similar, but in truth, we stand opposed. For love be blind, and beauty that which blinds it."

Tuco frowned. "I don't think that's what that-"

"What thou thinkest matters little, vassal. Thou hast completed the task set before thee, and slain the Warden of the Deeps."

"That was never my task..." he began.

"Was it not? Thou traveled where no devil could, and broke the seal to the Abyss that no mortal could. Of every being in Creation, only thou couldst have opened this lock to the end of the mortal world. Only thou. As surely thou wast fated."

Tuco's tail tightened of its own accord around Earl Samael's ankle, and he thought he heard the faintest grunt of pain from the enormous devil. "But I wasn't driven by fate! I chose to-"

"Certainly. Free will is thine. What else fate but the choices we make because of our nature? And thy nature is kind. Caring. Merciful. It led thee to free the denizens of the Void and release its maddened gaoler unto oblivion. As our Emperor knew thou wouldst. But that same nature is..." Samael paused, letting their breath hang in the air with all the silence of snowfall. "...unfit for what befalleth after. The Apocalypse hath little use for one such as thee. It demands ruthlessness. Cruelty. Brutality. All qualities of pure beauty. The men of the mortal world shall fall beneath the might of the Beast that will rise. And thou shalt not be an impediment in its path."

Tuco turned, careful to close his outer eyes lest the beauty of Samael overwhelm him. Even so, the radiant majesty of the being buckled his knees and stole the breath from his body. He gazed in terror up into the being's diamond eyes. "You mean to kill me."

"Nay," sang Samael. "What purpose serves the death of a devil such as you in the cosmic design? Beauty doth not destroy. It embraceth. It consumeth. And so shall it consume thee. Thou shalt become part of us."

Tuco's tail uncoiled from Samael's ankle, and he took a step back toward the stairs. "What do you mean?"

"Be not afraid, little one. Thou art not the first. We have embraced many before thee. Thou shalt join our glory. Thou shalt become a part of our beauty. Another name have we. We are Legion." And Samael reached out long, crystalline fingers toward Tuco. "Unite with us, Baron Witchywine. Join the Legion."

In panic, Tuco sprang backward, nearly striking the roof of the tunnel with his powerful leap. He landed sideways on the stairs, feet splayed across several steps. A weaker devil would have twisted an ankle, even broken it, but Tuco's strong legs kept him from rolling his ankles, his tail lashing out, wings flaring to catch his balance. "No!" he cried in panic as he scrabbled at the stairs, his claws tearing away hunks of stone.

He found his footing and leapt up the steps, moving on all fours like a beast, bounding several stairs at a time as he had when ascending E-Temen-Anki, but behind him, the Earl of Beauty was gliding toward him like a dandelion seed on the wind, silent and beautiful and terrifying all at once, their arms outstretched as if to draw Tuco into an embrace. "Thou canst not escape, vassal mine," they sang after him.

He felt his tail slap against their chest as he bounded up the stairs as quickie as he could-but not quickly enough. Their cool fingers curled around the upper limb of his right wing and gripped, as smooth and heavy as polished crystal-and just as unyielding. He flared his wings wide, trying to break the grip of the devil behind him, but their strength was beyond his own. He shot one terrified glance backward-careful to keep his outer eyes closed-and saw their enormous frame hovering just behind him, floating through the air as if they weighed nothing at all.

"Thou must be made beautiful in order to join with us," Earl Samael told him in a calm voice. "We shall allow no imperfections to sully our beauty."

Imperfections? Tuco thought in confusion as he ran. He could feel a strange energy flowing into him from the devil at his tail. "But-but imperfections are beauty," he protested. "Isn't that what you gave me these new eyes to see? That there is beauty in everything?"

Samael was silent for a moment, and that tide of change surging into Tuco stemmed. "Thou seest beauty in imperfection? It is thy mortal corruption that perceives it so. Nay, beauty is in symmetry, in perfect facets and angles, in the elegance of curves, in pure a priori precision expressed in an infinitude of complexity. We gave thee new eyes that thou might gaze past the mad visions of the Warden, that thou might know them for the corruption they represent."

Tuco turned back, then, looking once more upon the Earl of Beauty, all four eyes wide open. And now he saw what he could not before: a creature that could not understand frailty, loss, struggle against weakness. A creature that saw no beauty at all in mortal life, with all its failing, that demanded perfection of everything. And all at once, he pitied them. Samael was dazzling to gaze upon, wondrous even, but they were not half so beautiful as Pike, or Etreon, or Braxus, or even poor Erlin or Walstein.

Samael must have noticed the tears springing to the corners of Tuco's eyes, for their perfect features shifted into an elegant expression of anger. "How darest thou pity us? Thou shalt soon see what it is to embody true beauty!"

Again their fingers reached out and seized upon Tuco's wing, and again Tuco felt that strange surge of power into him... and he felt himself alter. His horns twisted against his skull, and he reached up to feel them changing shape as they became longer, more elegantly curved, more symmetrical. And then he felt subtle, uncomfortable cracks move through the bones in his face as his features realigned.

He didn't wait for more. He turned and bolted up the stairs as fast as he could, terror at what was happening to him spurring his strength and speed. He moved faster than he knew he could, beating his wings to grant him additional swiftness. The stairs beneath him flew by in a blur, so fast he couldn't reliably land his feet or hands on a flat surface as he raced, but it mattered little: with his immense weight, strength, and powerful talons, he simply smashed stone as he ran.

But no matter how fast he moved, he could not outpace the devil that floated behind him. He couldn't see past the spread of his wings or the breadth of his beast-like shoulders without slowing more than he dared, but he knew the devil was still just behind him, their smooth, crystalline fingers keeping hold of his wing even as it beat to propel him forward. And as it gripped him, so did the feeling of change move through him. His scales itched as they crawled, changing shape, and even as he moved, he could see them realigning down his arms into perfect arrays, neatly ordered, none of them out of place, growing or shrinking into even sizes, their dusky colors brightening into a ruby luster, appearing almost gemlike. His appearance was becoming more fascinating, surely, but he was also losing what made him distinct, what made him real. He could not let that go, could not let himself become some unmarred, precise thing. Even Rigby, the clockwork apprentice, had the blemishes and foibles of life.

Tuco felt the energy surge into his ribs, the odd shifts and cracks in his chest as they settled into perfect alignment, while his huge hands straightened, his chipped and marred claws restoring into crystalline perfection. The magic affecting him was closing around his heart.

He knew, with dread certainty, that once it reached his heart, once he had been made perfectly beautiful in Samael's eyes, the creature would absorb him. Everything that made Tuco himself, that made him different and worthwhile, would be gone. Truly this was what it meant to become a kadav, a cursed thing with no intrinsic value.

The top of the stairway was ahead. Surely someone up there would help him. Surely someone would know what to do. His hips popped as they settled into a new, more perfect alignment. His tail lengthened and thickened, the cords of muscle swelling out into something less serpentine, more crocodilian, the better to match the muscle of his waist and the sinew of his back. The magic inside him sank deeper; he felt his lungs fill more fully with air, deep imperfections and scarring that he'd never known were there clearing away.

His heart pounded.

And then he reached the doorway at the top of the stairs. Almost too late, he remembered the binding circles that had been painted there, and at top speed, he turned to race along the side of the wall, sharp talons like curved steel tearing at the stone. He flung himself through the side of the stairwell as hard as he could, and as he did so, he turned to glimpse Samael, hovering behind him, as still as a star behind a stormcloud, their glassy fingers curled delicately around Tuco's right winglimb. As Tuco sailed past the doorway to slam with a terrible crash into the opposite wall, he flicked his wing just enough to move Samael into the binding circle.

The devil's grip around his wing broke like a glass smashing against a stone wall. And at the same moment, the Gasen above the doorway screamed to life. Its draconic beak stretched unnaturally wide, fangs bared. Its scream blasted down the corridors, so loud it seemed it could shatter stone. Tuco stumbled backward against the wall, hands clamped over his ears, trying to shut out the painful sound, but it reverberated through him, making his skull ache. He folded his wings about him, trying to shut out the sound.

Within the binding circle, Samael's elegant composure had fractured. They hammered against the invisible walls of the spell with pounding attacks; they clawed at the floor with their toes and at the ceiling with their fingers, so impossibly large they could perform both at once, but the circle had been well-crafted, and Samael's efforts were all for nothing. Even in their panic, the devil was coldly beautiful, a dazzling array of mirror fragments and prisms assailing their confinement. The devil screeched and shivered as the Gasen's scream tore through them, but they could no more stop the Abbey's alarm than could Tuco.

The stone gargoyle in the archway moved in sudden, jerky movements, its solid body cracking and snapping as it crawled down the wall, its mouth still distended in its unending scream, the hollow circles of its eyes fixed on Samael. Partway down the wall it stopped, thrusting out one leonine arm to point a thick, clawed stone finger at the trapped devil. Tuco wished he could flee the sound, but he didn't dare leave an archdevil like Samael alone inside the Abbey; nor could he risk them coming after him again. In his pain he found himself grateful to see Brothers racing down the hallway, their cossacks flapping around their knees as they ran. Tuco scurried backward in the hallway, but for the moment, none of the Brothers seemed interested in him.

One removed a pouch from his cloak and poured some substance that glittered black; Tuco flicked his tongue in the air and tasted, to his surprise, the unmistakable scent of limbostone. As soon as it appeared, the Gasen stopped screaming, its gaze fixed on the powder, and then with juddering movements and the scraping of stone, it crawled down off the wall and began licking at the powder on the floor, shuffling its stone wings with a contented expression.

Tuco shook his head to clear the ringing, so relieved to be freed from the wretched sound of the scream that he'd nearly forgotten about the trapped devil. He looked up just in time to see Cantor Jacobs pushing his way through the Brothers gathered in the cloister, all of whom had stopped, staring at Samael. Cantor Jacobs lifted from his robe a clear phial of holy water, and Tuco winced, wondering where he could go to escape the dread light, a light which had obliterated Belial and would surely destroy both him and Samael. He turned and raced down the hall in the other direction, hoping he could make it around the corner before the terrible killing light fell across him.

"Lux-" He heard Cantor Jacobs begin, and then the words died on the monk's lips. Tuco skidded to a halt and turned. Cantor Jacobs stood still, staring up in enraptured fascination at the enormous, shining form of the devil enclosed in the binding circle. And now Tuco saw what he had missed before: all of the Brothers were staring at Samael, many of them pressing toward the front of the group to see better, their eyes shining in wonder.

All was very quiet, save for the steady scrape of the Gasen's stone tongue against the floor. Then Belial's voice rang out like a bell, resonating up and down the hallway. "Thou gazeth upon the beauty of the heavens, mortals. Thou hast blasphemed the firmament by containing it. Such beauty should neither be contained nor imprisoned. Dost thou not agree?"

To Tuco's horror, murmurs of agreement rose from the assembled Brothers.

Samael laughed like a bubbling brook. "And thou wouldst not trespass against beauty. Thou wouldst free it." Their voice took on a hard, commanding edge. "Break the binding circle."

The transfixed monks almost fell over each other in their eagerness to be the first to do so. Tuco scrambled down the hall toward them, desperate to stop them, but he'd retreated too far in his attempt to escape Cantor Jacobs's light. He'd hardly made it halfway to the group when one of the monks, on hands and knees, eagerly used the corner of his cassock to scrub away one edge of the binding circle, scouring it away with a bit of holy water he'd poured from another phial.

Samael burst free, laughing in triumph, their arms and wings spread wide, sending their dazzling stained-glass reflections spinning down the hall in kaleidoscopic coruscation. "Now we shall take thee, Baron Witchywine," they sang, and their crystalline body resonated with every note, flooding the remnants of the Gasen's scream from Tuco's ears.

Not even certain what he was doing, but out of options, Tuco bounded down the hallway directly for Samael, who paused in puzzlement, but opened their arms wide as if to embrace Tuco. As before, Tuco turned in the hallway, racing along the wall, his perfected talons digging through the stone easily, and then up onto the ceiling, gripping at the rock, his powerful shoulders and back holding him close as he pulled himself along, folding his wings tightly to his back, his tail swaying behind him. Muscles bulging, he clambered across the ceiling right over Samael's horned head and dropped down just behind him, the impact of his weight hitting the floor, making the stones shudder and crack, knocking the nearby Brothers off their feet.

As Cantor Jacobs stumbled backward, still gazing rapt at Samael, Tuco snatched the phial of blessed water from his hand and held it aloft. He knew it would kill him. He dreaded the cruel, cold light blazing away all that he was. But that was better than losing himself, becoming a part of the monstrous, unfeeling creature Samael.

He meant to cry out, "Lux mundi." He did. But for a moment it was as if his lips were not his own. And he heard the deep, rumbling roar that his voice had become over the past year bellow out, "Lux inferni!"

Samael hesitated. There was no sound but that of Tuco's voice echoing in the corridor. And then the phial in Tuco's hand erupted in a pillar of yellow flame, spewing up to lick at the stones of the ceiling and rapidly turning them a molten red. Tuco flinched, but though he could feel the tremendous heat of the flame in the air and against his hand, there was no pain, and almost instinctively he turned the end of the phial toward Samael. The heat of the flames grew from yellow to white as they erupted around the devil's crystalline frame, roaring and snapping.

Samael's cry rang out both beautiful and terrible, like the breaking of a magnificent stained glass window, like a songbird caught by a cat. If the devil had some means of quickly returning to the Abyss, they could not use it. The flames jettisoning from the phial in Tuco's hands propelled them up against the pillar between the stairs up and down and pinned them there, their limbs and wings flailing even as they melted, running away from their body in vitreous streams to puddle on the floor. They jerked their head back and forth desperately, even as their body melted away. The stonework of the pillar behind them itself began to melt, slow red stone oozing down over their dwindling frame.

The erupting flame in Tuco's hand guttered, the phial coughed several times, and for a moment, Tuco saw Legion inside Samael: an interlaced web of tiny skeletons, infernal and mortal alike, all joined together, all screaming. And then that, too, evaporated, and there was nothing left of the Earl of Beauty but a steaming, iridescent puddle on the floor, gradually steaming away.

The fire finally died, the blessed water that had fueled it expended, and Tuco dropped the phial. It clinked several times and rolled across the floor. He turned toward the dazed Brothers, who still lay sprawled in the corridor. "I-I didn't mean to-" he began, but then he buckled as a rush of power washed through him.

He saw his Voidsea suddenly surge as another massive flood of souls poured into it, Samael's incredible hoard joining his in an overwhelming surge of power. Dizzied, he stumbled backward, certain that in the hierarchy of devils, he had just become an Earl.

Cantor Jacobs, shaking, pushed himself to his feet and extended a trembling arm to point at Tuco. "You... you slew a devil!"

Another, one Tuco did not know, nodded. "We all... Brother Gabriel had told us... we thought you were evil. You were on our side! But you... and it... it was so beautiful, we thought that... none of us could..."

"You saved us!" others cried.

Abashed, Tuco moved among them, helping them to rise with hands and tail. One monk wept openly, tears running down his cheeks as he pressed his forehead to Tuco's hand. "You must forgive us," he mumbled brokenly. "We didn't even see... couldn't see... how beautiful you were as well."

Oh no.

As if stung, Tuco pulled his hand away. "Please... no, thank you, I know it seems a lot, but I was... I'm sorry, but I have to go."

He pushed through them, trying to ignore the way they reached for him, the way their hands brushed at his arms, his tail, his thighs.

"Wait, don't go!" Cantor Jacobs called. "Let us come with you! We can help you!"

"Uh-Another time!" Tuco called back, and, unnerved, he hurried away from the monks, making his way back to the apprentice dormitories. On the way, he encountered other monks and apprentices, and each of them stopped as he passed, staring at him, eyes wide. In the air he could taste their desire for him.

At this time of day, most of the apprentices would be in classes, so Tuco didn't find too many in the apprentice halls, but there were a few, and as he moved past them, the chatter went quiet, the young men stopping what they were doing to get up and watch him as he hurried past them to the washrooms. One who was staring at him went suddenly short-breathed, and then hunched over. Tuco tried to tell himself the sound he heard wasn't the apprentice's come spattering the inside of his tunic, but the sudden scent of male sex in the air told him otherwise. What had Samael done to him?

The washroom was blessedly empty, and Tuco made his way to the mirrors to crouch down and peer at himself from every angle. To his relief, he did not appear to be greatly changed, but there was something different about him. The lines of his body were more symmetrical, the curves more perfectly rounded, his scales in glittering, gemlike alignment. He was startled at the look of his face; he'd not seen his new eyes before, and they gave a frightening, inhuman cast to his expression, their red depths lambent and seeming to swirl slowly. His face looked both more feminine and more masculine, the cheekbones higher, his jaw squarer, his nose more broad. His eyes were lined with black, as were his lips, which made his teeth look both huge and dazzling white, a massive set of predatory fangs when bared. He supposed in some ways he did look more entrancing than before, but that hardly explained the reactions others had given him in the hallways.

But neither had Samael appeared so enthralling to him any longer. He had seen through the artifice of the beauty in Samael's opinion, and found it cold and shallow. Others had not. Combine that with his innate sexual allure as an incubus, and it made him an attraction few could resist.

He stepped back, straightening. He would have to be cautious about this new change, but at least for now, it seemed his difficulties with the Brothers might be over. No longer did they see him as a threat, he'd openly killed a devil right in front of many of them, and Lord Krastor had returned and vouched for him. There were still the other devils to worry about, of course, but perhaps life could now return to some sense of normalcy.

Of course, he was still naked. Briefly, he cast about for robes that he might wear, but then asked himself, why bother? If his form was not unappealing to the others, why worry about it? There was little chill in the air, so he decided not to concern himself with clothing unless someone requested he do so. Or, he added mentally, remembering the apprentice who had climaxed as he passed, unless his nudity proved overly distracting to others.

Yes. Perhaps everything would now be better. He could work with Lord Krastor and the other Brothers to determine what to do about the devils above him, and tell them what he had learned about the Abyss. Together, they could work to stop the Apocalypse. And now, finally, he could be with Pike. And Braxus, and Etreon. And... whomever!

He turned to head out of the washroom, and felt an uncomfortable but familiar pulling sensation. The world around him grew dim, and then smaller and smaller. Then there was a sudden pop in his ears and for a moment everything was dark.

He opened his eyes to find himself in a forest, sheltered from the midday sun by a swaying canopy of trees. His toes touched, and a cool wind blew past him. Leaves drifted down from the trees. Puzzled, he blinked and stepped forward. And hit an invisible wall. He looked down to see that the earth had been cleared around him to bare the stone beneath it. And carved-no, hewn-into that stone were the sigils and runes of a binding circle.

"Demon, are you there?" came a rough, rasping voice behind him. "Tuco Witchywine?"

Tuco turned.

It took him a moment to recognize Brother Gabriel. The monk's robes were tattered and filthy. He held an open book in one hand, and his face and arms were smeared with mud, soot, and blood. Stubble had grown in a ring around his bald head and his eyes and mouth were twisted in an expression of utter madness. "I cannot see you, as you well know. And so I command you to answer, demon!" the man screamed. "Are you there?"

Tuco felt the words bubble unbidden from his throat. "I am here."

"This is what you have reduced me to." Brother Gabriel thumped his chest with a bony hand. "All my life I swore never to consort with devils, never to dabble in witchcraft or enchantments. But you have left me no choice. You have forced me to do this. You have forced me to sully my own soul. And as the Almighty is my witness, I will make you suffer for it. I will destroy you utterly, Tuco Witchywine."

He bared his yellowed teeth in a rictus grin. "But first, you and I are going to do great things. First, you and I will rid this world of devils." He snapped the book closed and tucked it under one arm, but not before Tuco saw what was tucked inside it-the spell from hundreds of years ago, the summoning spell with his name on it. "Now ready yourself, hellspawn. We have so much work to do."