Unfocused desperation gripped Tash like the creature's thighs clamped Tash's legs into immobility. Its other clawed hand imprisoned Tash's arm with superhuman strength.

But Tash had one arm free. With a grunt, she jabbed stiff fingers into one red eye. The pliant ocular deformed under the vicious poke, but did not pop.

She who had been Renna jerked her head back and emitted a brief snarl of pain. A subtle wetness cooled Tash's fingertips, but a new sluggishness pervaded her whole body.

The creature leered down at her, both eyes still intact. The beautiful alien whispered, "Try that again, and I'll bite your fingers off."

But the heavy feeling dragged at Tash's limbs. Her second punch flopped like a dead fish. Her third try met no success at all. Her body no longer answered her commands, and her tense muscles relaxed as if in death. Quiet reigned, broken by slow, deep breathing from the other bed.

Succubus. The word echoed in Tash's dizzied mind. A shape-changing denizen of the Abyss, loyal to its demon masters. Seldom did the unleashing of a succubus bring good to the material world, if the stories were true.

The succubus slid her hand free of Tash's mouth to dig under her head.

New bursts of dismay lit up Tash's fevered brain. Those coins were hers. No one steals from this thief. But no protest leaked from her paralyzed lips.

Helpless, Tash watched the demon dredge up her coin purse and yank it open. With a clawed finger, she stirred the coins inside. Finally, her lips stretched in an upward curve, making her fangs protrude. She dropped the coin purse on Tash, but she retained the fancy key, pinched between clawed fingers.

"There we go," the succubus cooed. The exotic creature leaned forward to lick Tash's cheek. "I wanted to suck you dry, too. So sad that I have to go."

The heaviness of her lifted from Tash's thighs. Wings protruded from the beautiful creature's back, and the moonlight caressed her impossibly perfect breasts and belly. The succubus leaned to rummage by Tash's head again, this time retrieving a slender dagger.

"Goodbye." The demon shifted the dagger to a better grip, then poised it for a quick, clean thrust.

She's very professional, thought Tash. Death will be instant.

A wooden thunk rang out. Hot droplets spattered Tash's face.

The succubus jerked to one side like a curtain being slammed open.

Séa stood revealed, grim-faced and nude except for her mace, from the end of which black liquid dripped and steamed.

If Tash had been able, she would have cheered. A blow as mighty as that would kill anybody. Tash was saved.

But celebration was premature. The hot blood droplets began to steam and sting on Tash's face, and the wreckage of Renna stirred and rose again. Hisses like a hundred vengeful snakes filled the tiny room.

"Torugg, aid me in my time of trial. Hyaaah!" Séa waded in.

Tash's eyes were stuck staring forward. The battle crisscrossed her field of vision, giving her glimpses of flashing claws, blurs of the swinging mace, and impressions of thrusting legs, wings, and arms. Once, a greenish light flared, but then it faded to moonlight again. The succubus did most of the screaming, though Séa injected her own defiant battle cries and shrieks of pain. The tiny room shuddered and banged as the combatants smashed against walls.

The succubus stumbled on Tash's unresponsive legs and pain exploded in her calf. Séa followed, and Tash caught a glimpse of her leaping, mace raised high, face set in concentration. Séa landed and a low, ugly snap resounded, like a tree limb breaking. A scream of pain and terror ripped from the demon's throat. Her leg bent and dragging, the succubus beat her wings toward the window. But her speed was insufficient for escape, and only her head and shoulders crashed through the web of lead solder and panels of wavy glass.

"I smite thee," Séa said. With a long stride, she raised her mace high once again, then flashed it down between the wings of the succubus. A splintering crash resounded. Face-down, the succubus slumped. Her body twitched but did not rise again.

Silence fell, broken only by Séa's heavy breathing. The paladin stood, legs wide, chin high, abdominal muscles rippling for the sake of her needy lungs. Victorious, she viewed the twisted body hunched over the windowsill, and the heroic tableau imprinted itself on Tash's memory.

The paladin's faceted mace, poised for battle, lowered. In the next heartbeat, Séa dropped her mace to the floor and spun to crouch by the paralyzed rogue. She cradled Tash's head and leaned within inches. Her forehead wrinkled in dread and extra water glistened in her eyes. In a mousy squeak utterly unlike her Valkyrie battle cries, she pleaded, "Tash? Friend? Are you dead?"

Tash attempted a lengthy and scathing rejoinder that questioned Séa's observational powers, dwelt upon her gullibility, and focused cruelly on her general lack of judgement. What came out sounded like, "Hnk."

"Ai!" shrieked Séa. "You're alive!"

Séa stripped the blanket from Tash and ran her hands down Tash's body. Tash wore linens, but still, the pat-down seemed awfully personal. Séa muttered, "Nothing. Nothing. Oh, there. Claws to the leg. Nasty." Séa's face returned to Tash's limited field of vision. "And there! Blood on the neck. A puncture?"

A wheezy, old-man voice drifted faintly in. "Séa? Tash? Are you all right? Your door appears to be in the process of dissolving. Acid, I should guess."

Séa sniffed at Tash's neck wound, giving Tash a view of her braided hair coils and the whorls of one of her ears. The paladin's face popped back into view. Her eyes sparkled and a joyous smile stretched to her cheeks. "Spider venom, I think. You, my friend, are paralyzed."

The faint commentary from the hallway continued. "Séa? Is that your voice? Is everyone well? Oh, by Bandibandi's imp stool, I need a little more light."

Séa bawled over her shoulder, "Ghomarck? You got a cure for paralysis in your spellbook?" Dark dots speckled her face and shoulders, and some of them had dripped down. The wizard's bluish light flooded the room, bright compared to the tepid moonbeams. The illumination revealed more of Séa, including shocking claw slashes across her upper left arm and left breast from which blood oozed and dripped down her side in braided streams.

Tash hurtled another word out, with all her strength. It emerged as a whisper. "Key."

Séa cocked her head at Tash, then her eyes roved around the floor and bed.

Ghomarck wheezed, "Paralysis? No, not per se. Why do you— Oh!" His voice cracked like an adolescent. "Gracious. It's a massacre!"

"Here it is, Tash," Séa said. From her crouch position, she lunged forward and reached toward the outer wall of the room. Dripping succubus slashes also marred the paladin's right hip and thigh. Tash attempted to grimace, but she doubted that her numbed face actually changed shape.

The paladin's face returned to her line of sight along with a hand holding the fancy skeleton key. "See?" the warrior said, "All safe and sound."

From the doorway, the wizard spluttered, "Is that a dead demon? By Vawl's razor! It's a succubus!" He made a sound intermediate between a cough and gag. "Lady Séa, are you aware that you are unclothed?"

The query brought a merry smile to Tash, whether or not her lips curved upward.

Séa drawled, "Close your eyes if you're offended, master Ghomarck. I need to tend to Tash, now. Covering up can wait."

The wizard harrumphed. "It was merely an observation, milady. I am certainly not offended, and I do sincerely hope that you are not, either. Indeed, my tongue outran my thinking mind. I had previously noted the presence of the unresponsive body of a succubus. Surely, in the presence of that particular demon type, I should have expected certain modifications of traditional habits of adornment. It is a notable quirk of mine that upon occasions of slight awkwardness or tension, I tend to wax rather loquacious. While this tendency often works to my advantage, in this particular instance the effect might have gone a bit sideways ..."

He droned on, but for Tash the wizard's drizzle of words faded to irrelevance when the nude paladin's hands alighted upon Tash's injured calf. Ghomarck's drivel drowned out Séa's pious mumbles, but the light touch brought Tash an involuntary intake of breath. A rosy glow from Séa's location competed with the wizard's ball of blue flame. The warm radiance lasted a few seconds, during which unsettling, squirmy sensations crawled along Tash's lacerated calf. The pain of the wound drained away even as unbidden movement tightened the flesh.

The warm glow faded, and Séa gushed a satisfied sigh, all as Ghomarck babbled.

The paladin next entered Tash's frozen field of vision when she sought the water jug. The fired clay basin had been shattered in the battle, but the pewter jug had survived. Séa found the jug lying on its side, but by virtue of its narrow neck it still contained water. The knight wet a wad of linen and began washing her own wounds.

The wizard's monolog ended mid-word, and he pivoted to, "Lady Séa! The succubus. I think she's ... persistent."

That sounded like jargon to Tash, and she knit her eyebrows together. Remarkably, she felt her face respond. She tried pursing her lips, and that action, too, succeeded.

Séa flicked a glance to Ghomarck, then to the twitching ruin of the demon. She murmured, "I think you're right, master. She must rank highly."

Tash blurted, "Whassat?"

The wizard answered her. "The term persistent refers to a powerful charm sometimes applied to demons when they visit the material plane. It makes them effectively unkillable. In time, their body will reassemble itself. I have heard it on good authority that even burning a demon until they are dry ashes is insufficient to break the charm."

Tash found herself able to flap a hand. "The feck y'say."

Séa began to wrap gauze around her shoulder wound. "Master Ghomarck's lore agrees with what I learned from Father Kay in demonology class. It's a problem, isn't it?"

Tash thrashed and tried to discipline her floppy tongue. "What will—? Revenge? Follow us ... forever?" I still sound as hammered as a smith's anvil. This whole episode is eleven out of ten for sheer embarrassment.

Ghomarck said, "It is possible, though who knows what motivates a demon? But if we do nothing, the creature will soon recover." Evidently he had breached the acidic doorway because he shuffled by Tash to crouch at the twitching feet of the demon. In grave tones, he said, "Rejecting that option as unpalatable, two choices remain."

Séa wrapped gauze around her hip, passing the roll between her legs at the crotch.

She's not trying to tease me, but by Giaslippi's slippery fingers, she is. Tash's face heated. I'm a hopeless case. I'm a goatish harlot. Paralyzed and injured, with a not-dead-enough demon close enough to touch and I still have time to get all dizzied by peeks at her physique?

The wizard lectured, "The first, I am loath to attempt. I could cast a ritual of binding. The succubus would answer to my will for as long as the binding lasts. The obvious downside being that the binding cannot last forever. When it breaks, it will fail with no warning and the demon servant becomes instead the demon unbound."

"Unbound and presumably mightily miffed and murderously minded," Séa observed. She finished her bandage and strode a pace to rummage in the pile of armor parts.

Tash found that her eyes could rove, and she therefore observed the paladin's ample rump and mighty thighs in full display, only partially wrapped in bandages. What are you looking at, Tash? Seriously. Stop it.

Ghomarck said, "Séa, can you banish the demon?"

Séa straightened and shrugged her gambeson on over her head. Once she patted the padded garment into place, she answered in solemn tones. "Theoretically."

Tash had never before heard the color of the paladin's voice darken so. Séa treated the moment with gravity far greater than, for example, telling an aristocrat to move along.

"It is by far our best option, Lady Séa." The wizard removed his pointy hat and clutched it in both of his hands in entreaty.

Tash thrashed and wriggled, trying to raise her head. Clumsily, she triumphed. She levered her head and upper torso up, her elbow planted on the straw mattress. "What's the," she panted, "downside?"

"No downside for you or master Ghomarck, Tash," Séa recovered her mace. She stood over the demon and twirled her weapon. "I'll probably be all right, too. She is defeated. The more outrageous stories you hear about are usually the result of a cleric trying to banish a demon while they still have fight left in 'em."

"I don't know those stories," Tash said.

"Well," Séa said, "you end up in the Abyss to be tortured or killed. Or you could be possessed, or your mind overthrown. Parasites are an option. But we're off track. Hush, everybody. Suddenly, I'm eager to try this. It's a part of temple training, but you can't really practice in advance. You have to have a real demon in front of you." Her voice hiccupped in wonder and glee. Her bright smile turned the moonlight sunny. "This is my first."

To Tash, Séa's prayer sounded just like her previous one, except that it ended in a handclap from which blinding blue light flashed. When the rogue blinked spots out of her eyes, only black mists remained of the succubus.

Light from a lantern wavered outside. A gruff voice called, "What's all that noise, then? Hey! My window! You people broke my window!"