Cagnazzo

by ariel emms (if you enjoy this story, please feel free to let me know or to distribute it to others)

Tiger sprang from sleep like a cat pouncing on a mouse.  “Asleep?” she thought to herself “how could I have fallen asleep here?”  Being hogtied in this glass cage was nothing new to her, she could bear that easily even for long stretches, but even so she had never fallen asleep before.  How long have I been here this time, she began to wonder, as she looked around, trying to flex her shoulders and get her bearings.  Suddenly, more suddenly even than she had awoken, she froze!

“Holy shit!!!” Tiger thought to herself “what the fuck is that!!”  She stared at the looming figure advancing through the door and moving slowly toward her.  Its head nearly reached the top of the doorway as it entered, and it was clad in what looked like dark leather.  No, Tiger realised as her gaze shifted from the horned head and mouth filled with sharp teeth, to the muscular chest and - fuck! - it had three sets of arms, clawed hands on each! - it was not clad at all, the dark leather was its skin.

Tiger stared up as the creature came closer, its eyes appraising her as hers were fixed on it.  This can’t be real, she thought, I’m still asleep, I’m still dreaming.  She would have rubbed her eyes had her hands been free.  It stopped directly in front of her glass cage. Slowly, like a giant tree falling, it knelt in front of her, staring into her eyes.

“Fuck!” Tiger thought, as she struggled against her bonds.  She knew it was useless, that she could not loosen them, but with her hands free she could fight back.  This thing had to have some weak spot, she thought, its eyes if she could reach them, but she needed her hands!

The creature’s upper arms reached slowly out, grabbing the side of the glass cage, inch long talons from its thumbs resting on top of it.  Tiger watched the tendons in its arms tighten and heard a snapping sound as the glass roof cracked and broke, the creature’s thumbs going through it.  A moment later there was a shattering sound as the creature pulled the cage to pieces, shards of glass flying everywhere.

Tied as she was, Tiger tried to leap forward at the creature, uselessly.  In a moment she felt herself suspended, as the creature grabbed the ropes tying her wrists to her ankles and lifted her into the air.  “I’m not going without a fight”, Tiger thought to herself, the tiny tincture of fear that had been there from the start, mixed with her rage, becoming a little stronger.  She spat at the creature’s face, missing and hitting its shoulder instead.  The creature looked over at the wet spot near its neck, then back at Tiger where she hung from its grip, baring its teeth.  The creature, its eyes staring curiously at Tiger, brought its arm forward, swinging her face closer to its own.

Seizing the best chance she was likely to have, Tiger darted her face forward, sinking her teeth into the creature’s cheek.  To her surprise, the creature did not react at all for a moment.  It then pulled her away, seemingly oblivious to how long she managed to hold her bite before she was dragged off.  The creature knelt once again, holding her only a foot or two from the floor, then without warning dropped her.

Tiger felt the wind knocked out of her as she hit the ground, and anger and determination rose in her again, the fear subsiding.  “Fuck!” she thought again “if my hands were free I’d rip its face off!”  The creature looked down at her, its teeth bared once more.  One long claw from an index finger reached toward her, touching her cheek, tracing a line down her face to her neck, her shoulder, down her arm, and to her wrist.

To her astonishment, Tiger felt her arms and legs spring away from each other as the rope binding them was severed.  She sprang immediately to a crouch, one arm forward, her left leg poised to kick if the creature came nearer.  She watched as it bared its teeth more broadly - there were a lot of teeth, all sharp - and she heard a deep guttural sound, like heavy stone dragged across a marble floor.  It took her a moment to realise the source was the creature - it was talking.

“Yessss....fffffighttt” it said.  Tiger felt amazement - and satisfaction - mingle with her rage.  She looked more closely at its face, realising what she should have seen before.  It was smiling.  Not, to be sure, in a friendly way - it looked happy at the prospect of killing her.  But if it was willing to let her die fighting, Tiger thought, that suited her better than dying helpless.

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Cagnazzo had been drifting in the updraft, feeling the warm currents lifting him, roaming, listening for the right place to land.  It had been too many years of confinement, too long since he had enjoyed the music, too long since he had hunted.  He had flown over many locations, heard many tones, jumbled together, clanging, rancorous noise, nothing pure and true.  Soaring up a valley breeze over a range of stony hills, he had heard a muted vibration below - soft, subtle, but very pure.  Worth, he had decided, investigation.  He had been right.  Alert, alerted, this one was a rare chord, a wonderful motif in choler, so little of that dull tone of fear Cagnazzo heard so often.  Even with the few notes he had played he could detect the quality of this instrument.  The rage - so lyrical, so pure - and to be accompanied by those strains of pain and pleasure so perfectly intermingled - a treasure!  He must play this one for all its potential, nurse it, tease its music out through pain and torment - it could give him much pleasure for a long time.

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Without hesitation, thinking surprise her best tactic, Tiger leaped forward at the creature’s face.  To her own shock the tactic succeeded, overbalancing the creature momentarily as it crouched on its backward-bending knees.  She dashed past it, heading for some chairs, thinking to use one as a weapon.  As she ran, she suddenly felt a blow to her back and found herself thrown forward, landing by the dance pole.  She quickly stood up, just in time to meet the creature’s own leap onto her.

Tiger aimed blow after blow at the creature’s face, trying to strike with her sharp nails, occasionally finding her mark but for the most part being blocked by the creature’s upper arms.  In the back of her mind was the thought that the creature was only defending, and she felt if she could keep pressing her attack, keep it off-guard, she might, well, she might find something to do.  The thought was only in the back of her mind, because the rage had taken her, and the front of her mind was filled with anger, and determination, and apprehension and - and excitement.

Suddenly the creature’s lowest arms lashed out, grabbing her hips and pulling her close.  Those arms enveloped her, lifted her, and she cried out involuntarily as the claws sank deep into her flesh, pulling her closer, till her hips and the creature’s were pressed together.  Bony ridges on the creature’s skin pressed painfully into her as she felt that familiar sting of pain from its claws.

The creature’s mouth opened, and it leaned in closer to her neck.  Tiger forgot for a moment to keep striking - though she realised with a shock that the creature had not closed its upper arms around her - as she felt the warm sulphurous stench coming from the creature’s mouth.  Its tongue rolled out - long, thick, sinuous and dark - and rasped its sandpaperiness across her face, then her neck, her breasts.  Tiger felt her skin scrape and burn, felt the scratches rise, drank in how those sensations complemented the slicing pain still in her hips, before she suddenly pulled herself from her sensuous stupor and began to flail once again at the creature’s face.  The creature’s middle arms then grabbed her, below the shoulders, squeezing her tight and making it difficult to breathe.  Still her arms were free, and as long as she could she kept trying to gouge out the creature’s eyes, draw blood, tear off an ear, anything!  As her eyes started to darken and she began to lose consciousness, she could hear a rumbling sound, like thunder in the distance, and she knew in her heart that the creature, incredibly and inexplicably, was laughing for joy.

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“Ahhh” thought Cagnazzo, “how lyrical that was, that crescendo of pleasure rising up, nearly swamping the other sounds, yet drawing the undercurrent of pain with it, feeding on it, the two swirling together, deepening the sound - truly a marvel!”  He had been saddened to put his instrument away for the moment, but he had not wanted to overplay it, put it out of tune.  No, it would require careful nurturing, he could draw years of delight from this one.  And it had been necessary to investigate the others, the harsh, dull notes he had sensed arriving.  Though they had been a waste after all- monotones of terror, no better than tin whistles, nothing of interest to be played on them at all.  At least snapping them squeezed out enough pain to be heard over the sound of the fear, a tiny chord, something, but hardly worth the trouble - like dragging a stick along fenceposts when there was a pipe organ to be played.

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Ayla walked in to the club smiling happily to herself, as she noticed Tiger in the distance.  Why was she sitting by the dance pole, Ayla wondered to herself, and what was she fiddling with at her feet?

“Hi Tiger” Ayla called out as she got closer.  Tiger looked up in alarm: “Ayla! RUN!”  It was the last thing Ayla heard before losing consciousness.

Ayla struggled back to wakefulness and disorientation.  She opened her eyes, unable at first to sort out what she was seeing.  Eventually her mind resolved that she was upside down - at least her head was.  She seemed to be hanging in some kind of inverted V position, though, because she could see her legs behind her - in front of her? - with her ankles tied by rope to some sort of frame.  Going through the process of feeling out the parts of her body, she could feel a pressure in her hips - she must be hanging over a bar or something - and she could feel that her arms were pulled back, tied somewhere behind her back.  She was also, she was pretty sure, naked.

She lifted her head to try to find where she was.  “Ayla?  You’re awake?  You’re ok?” she heard Tiger’s voice say.  Ayla turned as best she could to the sound, and saw Tiger sitting across the room from her.  She realised now that she was in the basement at the mansion - though how she had gotten there was still a mystery to her.

Ayla noticed that Tiger was again fumbling at her ankle, and she could see now that there was a thick rope tied around it.  With some difficulty, tracing it with her upside-down eyes, Ayla saw that the other end of the rope ended in a large stone boulder resting on the floor.  “Tiger?  What’s going on?” she asked. 

She listened with disbelief as Tiger described the events of earlier that day - at least she wanted not to believe, but Tiger would have no reason to fabricate such a story, and clearly believed it herself, and, well...here they both were.  Ayla suspended judgment for the moment as Tiger told how she had awoken to find herself tied to a rock, unable no matter how she tried to loosen the knots in the rope, and not within reach of anything sharp enough to cut them.  She had tried her teeth and nails as well, she said, to no effect.  She had relative freedom of movement, she showed Ayla - she could walk in a circle the radius of the rope, ten feet or so in any direction, but that encompassed only empty floor.

“I’m glad you’re conscious, Sis” Tiger said.  “After it hit you on the head and you collapsed I wasn’t sure whether you were alive or dead, and you didn’t move till now.  For that matter I don’t know why I’m alive - it looked like it wanted to kill me, and it could have.”  Ayla realised that the base of her skull ached - she hadn’t noticed that before.  She also thought ruefully, as she contemplated how her naked ass stuck up into the air, her legs pulled apart, that she feared she might know why she herself was still alive.

Ayla suddenly felt the room grow chill, and heard Tiger hiss.  Looking toward the door, through her own legs, she saw a pair of dark legs...not human, more like a goat’s hind legs, but dark, leathery, smooth and hairless, and much much bigger than any goat. She watched the legs walk away from her, until through her own legs she saw the entire lower half of the figure they carried came into view - it reminded her of drawings she had seen of satyrs, or even more, of demons, it was so huge.  The figure turned toward her, and involuntarily she drew her breath in sharply - my god! Huge was a completely inadequate word for what hung between the demon’s legs - it must hang down way over a foot, Ayla thought to herself, and was as thick as...Ayla shook her head to stop this line of thought.

Ayla watched as well as she could as the demon walked toward her, a route taking it past Tiger.  She could see that Tiger had retreated - no, that wasn’t the right word - Tiger had positioned herself on top of the rock to which she was tied.  As the demon passed, Tiger launched herself, trying to land on its back.  The rope pulled her short, though her fist struck the demon in the back as she landed.  Ayla saw the demon pause, turn, and reach down deliberately with a clawed hand, lift Tiger with those claws, and casually toss her back to where she had come from, knocking her unconscious.  Then she felt, rather than saw, the demon walk past her and stand behind her head.  She could hear its breath, slow and deep, and feel the menace of its presence. 

Ayla did her best to remain calm.  She could panic, she knew, but panic wouldn’t help.  If he had wanted her dead, she’d be dead already, she thought to herself - and she could survive what she thought he probably wanted.  At least she hoped she could, she thought, fear flaring up in her mind for a moment at the thought of that giant cock....intruding into her.  She fought down the fear, she ignored the apprehension, the anticipation, forcing her mind to focus and stay calm.

Suddenly she felt her arms strain, her shoulders contract painfully as she was pulled upward.  Hanging painfully from the rope binding her wrists behind her, she pivoted upward from her waist, her face drawn up past the demon’s gigantic cock, drawing level with it for a moment and causing a small wave of emotions to ripple across the surface of her calm, then being lifted higher still, to meet the demon’s unexpectedly intelligent and appraising eyes.

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Cagnazzo smiled internally.  After the first monotones had arrived, he had begun to doubt whether his site could yield more such complex instruments at the other.  But this one - so different, yet with a subtlety in other ranges that made it equally compelling.  Fear was commonplace, no longer interesting alone, but an undercurrent of fear, a slight drone of fear, was not a bad base provided it was moderated with other sounds.  And this fear was different, this edged over into the range of dread, not fear of pain, of death, but a more nuanced understanding of the future - a nice variation with a surprising smoothness to it.  Also apprehension - such a layered tone, apprehension, when sounded fully as this one managed - apprehended, knowing it was caught, apprehending, understanding what would happen, apprehension, fearing what would occur.  So rich a sound.  And to have that thin little note of curiousity, of anticipation, almost silent - easy for the non-trained ear to miss, but so satisfying to one that could.  Yes, so different from the other, so many different notes, but equally capable of merging unlikely combinations into a beautiful sound.  Perhaps to be played a little less allegro than the other...or....yes, that was it, play it pizacatto to start, then a glissando to something more adagio, yes, that might work.

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Ayla dared not look away, though its gaze made her feel more naked than the absence of clothes ever had.  She watched for what seemed many long minutes, her arms aching, till, to her surprise, the creature slowly lowered her back to where she had been.  Then she felt, rather than heard, a sound - something just out of the range of her hearing, but she knew it was there, knew the demon had somehow made it.  Moments later, she felt answering calls, and heard a flurry of movement somewhere outside the room, moving closer - a scurrying, unpleasant sort of sound.

Even Ayla’s calm was disrupted by the sight of the crowd of figures that burst into the room.  She couldn’t count how many there were exactly, they dashed about so much, and they were small.  In other circumstances they would have been almost comical - sort of one quarter bat/three quarter human creatures rushing about, imps it occurred to her they must be, and like the demon dark and leathery skinned, and each, like the demon, with a cock entirely out of proportion to its body size.  Ayla’s calm, beyond being disrupted, was challenged to the breaking point at the sight of them milling about, looking at her, stroking themselves to hardness.

The demon strode to the midst of them and paused for a moment as they all looked up at him.  Then, in a flash, the demon turned and walked out of the room, as the cloud of imps rushed at her, and despite herself Ayla screamed.

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Cagnazzo was amazed that fortune would smile on him so frequently in one day.  It was distant, it was faint, but it was a note of extraordinary complexity.  While the irrumatio tuned this one, he thought, and began the song, he would investigate.

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Ariel looked at the bodies in the stable with a staggering tangle of emotions.  She felt nearly physically ill at the sight, mixed with horror at the twisted shapes, muted by elation at the joy of realisation that it was not her friends but strangers who had died here, but also guilt at feeling elation over anyone’s death, and all overlaid by fear for how this had happened, what might happen, and concern for whether her friends were still safe. 

She had known something was wrong the moment she had arrived at the estate.  Things had seemed different, somehow, some smell or sound or something in the air, and she had felt very dizzy as she walked inside, so dizzy she’d had to sit down on the floor for a moment.  When she recovered, she had seen why things felt so wrong - obviously some sort of fight, or robbery, or something had taken place.  Not a robbery, she had quickly decided, since nothing seemed taken but all sorts of things were broken.  Most obvious was the shattered glass cage - Tiger had been in that when Ariel had left, but there was no sign of it now.  There was no sign of Ayla either, whom she was supposed to have met here.  That was when she decided she had better look around, to see whether everything was all right - the search which had led her to the discovery of the three bodies in the stable.

She’d had to force herself to look, it was so hard, she didn’t want to, but she needed to know that...that Ayla and Tiger weren’t there.  The bodies were all...bent, they, they weren’t bloody or anything - it just looked like something had, had - broken them.  Ariel shuddered.  All three faces - a man and two women - had expressions of stark terror. 

Confused, having no idea what to do but knowing she must do something, Ariel walked back toward the club.  Perhaps Miss Alt would be there by now - or she might contact her somehow - or someone else.  Looking up, she saw some huge dark bird in the distance, its wings flapping slowly, then drifting on an updraft.  Birds, flying, so free, she thought to herself  She watched it curiously as she walked, an unaccountable feeling of dread beginning to seep into every bone.  Feeling a chill spread through her, she broke into a run, knowing with a sense of foreboding that she had to hide, even if she had no idea why.

She ran into the club, eyes quickly scanning the room for possibilities as her mind raced through all the hidden nooks she knew to exist.  Yes, she thought, the small cages hidden in the floor - she could get in one, and, well, there must be some way to make it drop back down once she was in it!  She could think of no better option, and there was no more time to think, she was sure.  She dashed to the corner, pulled the small iron cage up from its small hidey-hole, and was momentarily torn over whether it would be better to simply drop down into the hole herself or whether she should stick to her original plan.  Hearing a loud banging sound outside, she acted on impulse and leapt into the cage, pulling it shut tightly behind her and looking for some release to lower the cage again.  She froze, partly in amazement but also as a precaution, as an enormous dark winged figure stepped into the room, its head nearly the height of the ceiling, its wingspan - is wingspan amazing, it could fly anywhere, fly forever!  Perhaps, she was amazed to find herself calmly thinking to herself through her terror, if I remain perfectly still it won’t see me here.

She might as well have cried out or thrown things for all the good staying still did her.  The monster turned in her direction immediately, walking straight toward her cage.  Ariel felt fear rise up in her, mixed with sorrow that she would never see her friends again, causing concern over their fate to tumble into her mind, tangling with anger at this monster if it had hurt them.

The monster paused for a moment, baring its teeth at her.  Then it reached forward, and Ariel closed her eyes, not prepared to die but expecting to, and hoping not to scream but knowing she would when she was, was - oh my god! - broken, like the bodies in the stable.  Moments passed, and lengthened into seconds - not a long time, but longer than she had expected to live.  Forcing herself to open her eyes, she saw the monster still there, not frozen, but not moving.  Its eyes wandered over her cage - the monster itself even walked around it, Ariel doing her best to follow it with her eyes, while moving as little as possible.  She had no idea what was happening, or why she was still alive, but inaction seemed safer than any action she could think of.  “How am I even able still to think?” she found herself thinking.

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Potential, Cagnazzo thought, great potential.  But harsh and cacophonous, too many contrary notes, too little blending.  Possibly it could be tuned, perhaps not a complete waste, but too awkward to take at present, and a great deal of fear mixed in there, and in any case a tune he knew would satisfy awaited.  He would return to the symphony he had begun.

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At first Ayla just felt undifferentiated sensation, a kind of overload.  She felt herself covered in the imps, felt nerve endings firing everywhere, felt an enormous range of sensations channel to her brain from every direction.  She did not know what to think, how to think, she couldn’t even sort out what was being done to her.  As she struggled to regain some modicum of control, to keep herself together, to own, to control the humiliating experience, tame it rather than let it take her, she became more aware of the details.  Tiny clawed hands everywhere, slapping, pinching, scratching, and tongues, and teeth.  Her breasts hurt from squeezing, her nipples from being sucked and chewed and bitten.  She could see imps changing places, roaming over her body, taking her in new ways.  Her back felt as though it must be bloodied, small clawed hands and feet clinging to it.  She felt the cock in her pussy, plunging and thrusting, and realised it was not the first, that in the flurry she had been fucked several times already, imps thrusting a few strokes then switching to some other diversion.  She felt, suddenly, a pressure at her ass - she closed her eyes, she had known this would come, and tried to prepare for the anal rape about to begin.  “At least my hips are elevated”, she found the thought absurdly springing into her head, before she gritted her teeth in pain when with a single thrust a cock penetrated her, splitting her wide, burrowing deep as it could into her ass.  It was suddenly pulled nearly out, then thrust in again, and again, no time to adjust to it, to accommodate it, the painful sensation causing her to cry out in pain.

It continued.  Ayla wished she could lose consciousness, that she could turn herself off, but she couldn’t.  The imps were insatiable - no sooner would one leave her ass than another would enter it, leaving her pussy to be taken by yet another.  She could feel their cocks rub against each other inside her, feel herself stuffed.  Her breasts cried out in pain by themselves, the imps’ claws scratched and scraped her, and still it went on.  Almost insensible, wishing she were beyond caring but still all too aware, Ayla suddenly realised that the demon was back. 

She felt herself lifted again, felt the imps that clawed and sucked at her breasts fall away as her upper body became horizontal, though they just joined the crowd of imps behind her taking turns fucking her.  Her head hung limp from her sore shoulders, but she sensed the demon’s attention, and lifted her head to look up.  Her face was level with its cock once more...its cock, no longer hanging limp between its legs, but stiffer, harder, longer, held by the demon in one hand, and pointed at her mouth. 

Ayla didn’t know what to do.  She knew what he wanted her to do, he wanted her to suck his cock, and she knew she had to do it to survive.  If it were only to survive, she thought, she would have done it - with regret, with shame, but she would have done it.  But she didn’t know what to do, because, fearing, peering deep inside, she didn’t know what she wanted.  To her disgust, to greater horror than anything that had happened so far, she realised that the thing holding her back was fear - fear of the awful possibility that...that she wanted to do it.

Her eyes looked up at the demon’s face.  It was not watching her - strangely, it seemed to be listening to her.  It was hard to understand how that face could show pleasure, but somehow it did.  Ayla found this so remarkable, she forgot the constant predations of the imps.  She stared at the face, and she found herself, not thinking, not deciding, she just found...her mouth...opening, unbidden, undecided, just opening.  It was some sort of hypnosis, she told herself, like snakes mesmerizing small prey.  She almost could make herself believe it.  She felt the demon slide forward, the huge head of its cock slip past her lips, further past, pushing into the back of her mouth, filling her completely, making her want to cry out but unable to do so, regretting immediately her sudden impulse as the cock invaded further and further, pushing into the back of her throat, trying, impossibly to push further in, well over half of it still in front of her face.  She began to feel herself short of breath, she would have choked if she could, she tried futilely to pull back, to show that she couldn’t breath, to struggle away, anything to breathe, to get air, to gasp, to...she passed out.                                   

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Ariel had stared with incomprehension as the monster abruptly walked off, its wings spreading out behind it, striding out the door with just a few steps.  She heard a loud flapping sound - surely it had not - it would not just - leave?  Ariel waited.  Such a huge thing, it would have no need to trick her - would it?  It could have torn her in half, broken her like the others if it wanted - it didn’t need deception!  For reasons she could not fathom, it must have simply abandoned her.  Logic told her it was safe to get out of the cage.  Her fear told her not to be stupid and to stay where she was.  Finally it was concern, the knowledge that she had to know what had happened to her friends, the fear of what that might be, that she had to help if she could, that led her to unlock herself and step out.

She had seen the creature flying from the direction of Miss Alt’s mansion.  She knew she had to go there - she was terrified, but she had to.  But, well, maybe taking some sort of weapon would be smart, for all the good it would do.  Ariel looked around the room, trying to find something she might protect herself with.  The only possibility was one of the large glass shards, it might work as a knife, except she would cut herself just holding it.  She tried to find some tape or something to wrap around it, but with no success.  Finally she tore the sleeve from her top and tied it into a sort of handle - though unfortunately the missing sleeve meant that her top kept slipping down on one side, forcing her to hold it up.

Ariel began walking to the mansion, not absolutely sure of the way there.

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“I think I have to just ignore the creature” Tiger said “not try to fight back.  It wants me to fight back.  What do you think, Ayla?”  Tiger stroked Ayla’s lower leg gently - it was all she could reach, tethered to her boulder as she was.  Ayla was still bound at the wrists, but now hung from the ceiling, her head limp.   

Tiger had in fact already made up her mind - she was speaking only out of concern for Ayla, to keep her distracted.  Tiger had seen only a little of what Ayla had gone through, but since regaining consciousness Ayla had been introverted, and Tiger worried about her.

Ayla tried to get the images out of her head - the demon lifting her, its cock looming in front of her face, taunting her, fucking her mouth with it.  Then her mind was filled with the images of the creature withdrawing, moving behind her, that huge cock poised at her pussy, beginning to push, to fill her beyond capacity, to...Ayla shook her head.  That part had not happened!  She had to get rid of these thoughts, break free from its spell.

Tiger felt a chill fall over the room again, heard the slight chittering of the imps behind them, as the creature entered the room again.  It looked at Tiger and Ayla, seeming to ponder for a moment. Apparently having reached a decision, it walked to Tiger’s boulder, grabbed her rope, and drew her back.  It did not tug or jerk, just pulled steadily on the rope, but Tiger might just as well have tried to hold a train back as not to be drawn forward.  The creature brought her within arm’s reach and waited - but Tiger did nothing.  The creature extended one clawed finger forward, slowly letting the dagger-like point come to rest between Tiger’s breasts.  Tiger did her best to remain motionless, impassive.  The creature pressed the claw forward slightly, but Tiger did not react, beyond closing her eyes, and leaning in ever so slightly, feeling the skin break and a small drop of blood drip out. 

The creature did not move for a long time.  Finally, though, it withdrew its claw, and stood up.  Tiger turned to watch apprehensively as the creature walked past her, toward Ayla, who lifted her head to regard it.  Its back to her, the creature stopped in front of the hanging woman, meeting her gaze for a long time, then slowly reached up with one of its hands, opened its fingers, and cupped Ayla’s breast, quite gently.  Tiger saw Ayla’s face, staring back at the creature, her expression unreadable, as the creature delicately fondled her, its hand enveloping her rounded flesh.

Four things then happened in rapid succession.  Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the creature sank its claws into Ayla’s flesh and viciously twisted her breast in a half circle; Ayla cried out in surprise and in pain; Tiger, her resolve instantly washed away, screamed “you fucking bastard!!” and leaped at the creature’s back, and; with a sound no-one would recognize as joyous laughter, the creature quickly turned, greeting Tiger’s leap with a clawed embrace.

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Cagnazzo marvelled again at this fierce instrument he had drawn in on the rope.  Sitting so impassively in front of him, as he played it, provoking it with a single claw, and it tried so hard not to fight him, succeeding even in that - defiance in a minor key, who would ever have expected it from such a one!  It failed in its effort to suppress the joy it felt, that was true, but such a soft delicate note it sounded doing so.  And the defiance, yes, if that could be brought to crescendo, roaring up, what a tune that would be.  Cagnazzo smiled as he realised exactly how this song, this symphony, could be produced - from the two instruments together, a lyrical harmony, it would be a masterpiece.

Cagnazzo moved to contemplate the hanging one, so still, yet deep tones even now ringing through it.  He felt the flaring behind him, knew his plan was right, his playing would be strong, the tune would be true, saw perfectly how he would draw the submission and fear from one, combine it with - there! - just enough pain, and then - yes! - the perfect tympanic resonance from the other, rising, rising, nearing - and then caught!  Wondrous, wonderful, he thought to himself, he would keep these two for years till he tired of them.

A loud, raucous note from elsewhere suddenly interrupted his pleasure.  He threw the tethered one to the side for the moment to listen.  Fear, fear, nothing but fear, so dull, so monotonous - except...except this was unusual.  This was the instrument he had left earlier, he was sure of it, but so much fear sounding - how could it be drawing closer?  Odd, he thought, such a monotone should be fleeing, not drawing closer and louder.  He listened more closely, realising the sound was more subtle than he had thought.  Fear, yes, but not a monotone - layers of fear, shades of fear twining with one another, competing, somehow forming a near-harmony.  And not, to be more accurate, all fear - mostly that, but other sounds bursting through occasionally.  Interesting...but not interesting enough to interrupt the masterpiece he was playing now.  He would send the irrumatio for it.  At his wordless command, his small minions rose up to rush from the room, skittering by his instruments, a folly of notes produced as they bumped and bounced casually into the hanging and the tethered ones as they swarmed past.

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Ariel walked slowly down the hallway, looking from side to side, not actually knowing what to look for or where, her glass shard held in front of her.  She was so afraid.  What if something had happened to Ayla and Tiger?  What if something happened to her?  Oh god, that winged thing was so huge!  She had to distract herself, she thought as she pulled her top back over her breast once again, she had to think of something else.  But it was so hard - she could never live with herself if her friends were in trouble and she had just abandoned them!  She was afraid to help them, but even more afraid not to.  She’d just die!  Except she knew she might really die - think of something else!  She looked around again, remembering the first time she’d been here in the house, how proud she had been to be invited, how nervous she’d been about behaving appropriately because she so wanted to be invited back again.  She tugged her top back up again as she suddenly heard a rushing noise from around the corner ahead.  Swallowing, she grabbed the glass shard firmly in both hands and held it in front of her, standing perfectly still.

She was not prepared for the sight which rushed upon her.  In the quick glance she had before they were on her, leaping at her legs and hands and body, knocking aside her glass shard through sheer numbers, they looked to her like nothing so much as flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz.  She barely had time to form that thought before the force of their charge drove her backwards, landing in an armchair, little hands all over her, holding her legs down, her arms pinned to the chair, struggling, her head pulled back, little bodies squirming around all over her as she felt her top torn from her!  Oh yuck, she thought, they weren’t like monkeys, they were all slimy, she thought, as she felt them rubbing themselves against her, she could feel the warm goo on her skin - warm? - oh god!  they - they weren’t slimy!  Oh god no! Oh my god, they were - they were - cumming all over her!!  Oooh ick!   

Ariel opened her mouth to cry out, an action she immediately regretted.  A creature on her shoulder immediately leaped for her face, pushing its cock into her mouth and beginning to thrust rapidly.  Ariel was stunned, wide-eyed with fright and shock, she struggled more furiously but to no better effect, the creature hugged to her face with arms and legs, humping furiously, its cock thrusting again and again past her lips, then she was disgusted as she felt her mouth filled with a bitter viscous fluid - oh god!, she thought, it came in my mouth, oh god!! oh god!!!  Ickkk!!!   She tried to spit it out as the creature leaped from her, but with her head held back the cum merely began to slide down the side of her face, as another cock was suddenly thrust into her.  She saw more creatures standing nearby, waiting their turns, she thought with dread, till a jet of cum shot into her eye, causing her to cry out as well as she could through her stuffed mouth, and to shut her eyes.  As she felt more cum cover her face, felt her mouth filled with the sticky fluid, unable even to spit before a third creature was there, Ariel began to think she might lose her mind.

Suddenly she felt that creature pull suddenly away from her face, she heard a loud chittering, and was aware of movement, of loosening in their grip.  She dared to open her eyes, and was astounded to see Miss Alt standing there, clad in - a sort of - thin - chain mail?  and long chain link - evening gloves???  Miss Alt was shooing the creatures off, merely sweeping them away as one would vigourously brush snow from a winter coat, but the creatures were screeching and fleeing before her.  Ariel wondered whether she had already lost her mind.

“Are you all right, little one?  Will you recover?”  Miss Alt bent to pick up the torn remains of Ariel’s top from the floor and gently reached over to wipe her face and chest clean.

“Oh Miss Alt!” blurted out Ariel “there were...and they were...and they...”  “Shh-shh-shh, it’s all right, dear, they’re gone now, you’ll be fine, you’re a strong girl”.  “But Miss Alt, I think - I’m sure - there’s, there’s a, a big one, a big flying thing, and - oh, there were people dead! it was horrible, and - and I’m worried about Ayla, and Tiger, because...”  Miss Alt cut her off.  “It’s all right dear, I’m here now, I’ll look after it.”  Miss Alt looked down at Ariel, shivering before her.  Unhooking some straps from around her own neck and back, Miss Alt reached over to put a piece of her chain mail, a sheet of it that served as a breast plate, on Ariel.  “There you go, dear, that should keep you safe - and covered up, I know you worry about that”.  Ariel looked down, embarrassed that that should be true even at a time like this, but grateful that Miss Alt remembered.  “Now run back, quickly, to the club - the iron you’re wearing now should be enough to keep these things away from you for that long.  And once you’re there find one of the cages - an iron one, mind you - and hide in it till I’m back.  That’s one of the reasons they’re there.  I have to move on.”

Ariel did not look up, but she said “Please Miss...if...if you’re going to save Ayla and Tiger...I...I don’t want to go back to...to the estate.  I - I’d like to..to come with you.”  Had Ariel been looking up, she would have seen the quickly suppressed hint of Miss Alt’s eyes widening in surprise, followed by the slightest suggestion of the corners of her mouth turning up in a smile, before hearing the reply “Of course you may, dear”.  “And if you’re coming, I suppose you’d better take this” she continued, taking a knife from her belt and handing it to Ariel. “Do try to hold on to it” she added with a smile, glancing at the glass shard on the ground..  “But Miss” Ariel replied “won’t you need it?”  “We’ll see, little one, we’ll see.”

A sudden inhuman high-pitched shriek came from around the bend.  “This way, I rather think” said Miss Alt, and the two of them hurried down the corridor and burst through an open door.  There was almost too much to take in at once.  Ayla hanging from the ceiling -  the enormous creature standing next to her - Tiger, flinging the limp body of an imp to the ground next to a boulder, as she picked up the now severed rope and leaped at the creature - the creature, clearly surprised to find a rope suddenly pulled tight around its neck, swinging violently about, sending Tiger flying through the air to crash against a wall - the creature, murder in its eyes, advancing toward Tiger - Miss Alt crying out “Down, dog - down!” - the creature pausing, turning to Miss Alt and advancing slowly on her instead - “Bad dog - down” - stunningly, the creature pausing for a moment, hesitating, struggling with indecision - “You will stop now, dog - you will flee if you have any sense - I will give no more warnings!” - the creature looking meek, seeming to begin to sit - then suddenly leaping at Miss Alt! - “Cagnazzo! Stop!  By your name, Cagnazzo, stop!” - the creature’s limbs freezing mid-leap, its body crashing to a graceless fall - “Cagnazzo - didn’t I warn you?  Don’t I always warn you?” - Ariel, Ayla and Tiger all looking speechlessly on, more amazed now than at anything which had gone before...

__________________________

“...but in a lower concentration next time - ah, and here’s the last of our weary travellers back” Ariel heard Miss Alt’s voice saying from nowhere as she struggled to orient herself.  She was sitting in a chair in the club, she realised, Ayla next to her, and Tiger just over there - it really was like the Wizard of Oz!  Had she just clicked her heels together to get home, she wondered?                   

“Still groggy, dear?” said Miss Alt “Just sit there a while, you’ll feel better.  I was just explaining that the gas in my latest trap is clearly at too potent a strength right now - a brief spell of unconsciousness and dreaming was all that was intended, not the sustained hallucination that these two went through - well, that all three of you went through.  Come, then, let’s hear your version”.  Ariel quickly related the brief outline of her experience - well, not really an experience, I suppose, she thought to herself.

Tiger said “Ok, wait, though - maybe I’m just being slow here - so none of it happened?  We all just fell to the floor by the trap and dreamed this?  How did we have the same dream?”

“The same dream - well, I’m not sure that’s exactly true” replied Miss Alt.  “For each of you, it was your own unconscious mind controlling the details.  Perhaps not quite deciding what would occur, but it was a world that you helped shape yourself.  Think about this - Tiger, what was the most obvious feature of that Cagnazzo thing?”

“Most obvious?  Kind of hard to miss three pairs of arms!”

Ayla said “Three pairs of arms - what the hell are you talking about?!  It didn’t have three pairs of arms!”

“But that would give it a lot of extra claws, wouldn’t it Ayla?” replied Miss Alt with a smile.  “So partly that’s the answer” she continued “you each controlled, in a small way, what happened.  It can hardly be a coincidence, I think, that Tiger got free by using her bare hands to kill something with teeth even sharper than her own, after all”. 

Ayla looked pensive, thinking about the demon’s most obvious feature in her mind.  Ariel thought about wings, about flight, about freedom - did it really frighten her that much? - and then suddenly thought to herself “oh my god, even in a world I control, that I get to make, I still had to be rescued - and with magic clothes, no less!  oh god, that’s so embarrassing!”  Ariel felt her pulse racing, felt her heart fluttering, felt dizzy again.  She felt Ayla reach over to squeeze her hand.  “I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking, sweetie”, she said “but I know that look, so think about this - in my world I never got free - I just lay there, a prisoner, being...shit, now I’m embarrassed!”

“And” continued Miss Alt, “you weren’t all just lying there dreaming - you were hallucinating, not dreaming.  You were interacting with one another - not in the reality you thought was there, but you were interacting nonetheless.”  Miss Alt looked ruefully around the club, at the shattered cage, the pictures fallen or askew, the broken furniture.  “It might have been better if you were just dreaming.  I’ve had quite the time keeping the three of you from walking out the door and off a cliff, and I had some vague sense of what you were undergoing from the things you were saying.”

“So we broke the class cage?” said Tiger.  “Yes, actually you did that Tiger” replied Miss Alt.

“And you don’t have chain mail?” asked Ariel.  Miss Alt smirked “Let’s just say that you didn’t see me wearing chain mail, shall we?”

The three girls laughed.  Ayla added “well, I’m just happy to learn that there aren’t really any demons!”

Miss Alt slowly smiled.  “I don’t think I would say there aren’t any demons, dear - just that you  don’t all have the same ones.”