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Can be read in her gallery, here:\n\n[center]#M2177552[/center]\n\nThank you!", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Taleir is a street urchin working to learn magic, until an encounter with a ghostly black dog changes her world.

For \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTaleir\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t		\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTaleir\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
, who also made the thumbnail. Can be read in her gallery, here:

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\r\n\t\t\t\tBlack Dog by Taleir\r\n\t\t\t
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Thank you!", "writing": "[center][b]Black Dog[/b][/center]\n[center][i]by Quincy Connally[/i][/center]\n\nI still remember when I first took an interest in magic.\n\nI was living on the streets of a city called Caldwin. There were a lot of us, street urchins of every kind, humans and furred-folk and scaled-folk all alike. I don’t know if you’d say we were close, but we worked together from time to time, stealing and scrounging and raiding trash heaps for the things we needed to survive. Once, a bunch of us were sitting around a fire pit on a cold night. The pit had a bit of fuel left in it from the last time it was lit, but none of us had any flint to light it with, so we were miserably cold, especially the humans with their rags clutched around their weird, furless bodies. Nobody had anything much to say, until one of the boys, a dark-skinned human, reached into his bag and brought out a small leather pouch.\n\n“Hey,” he said. “Look what I got from the wizard I work for.”\n\nHe threw the pouch’s contents, a bright yellow powder, into the pit, and instantly there was an odor like someone had dumped a chimney in my face.\n\nA girl near him sneered. “Brimstone? You didn’t steal that, did you?”\n\n“Of course not,” said the boy. “He let me have a bit since I was doing such a great job cleaning his study. And look, he taught me a trick.”\n\nHe drew a pattern in the dirt in front of him with his finger, then raised his hands in a peculiar motion and spoke some strange, rhythmic syllables. There was a loud [i]fwoosh[/i], and a fire burst into life in the depths of the pit.\n\nAll around were oohs and aahs of amazement. A few applauded. But none were more transfixed than I was, staring into that magically-conjured blaze. I’d always known [i]about[/i] magic, obviously. Like anyone, I saw the wizards coming and going from their guilds and schools, or leaving and entering town as part of adventurers’ parties. But that world had always seemed so many leagues distant from mine that it hardly bore occupying space in my mind. I’d never thought to conceive of magic as something I myself could learn and do.\n\nUntil that moment.\n\nSuddenly I ached to feel that power in my own fingertips. To wave my hands, speak arcane syllables, and make objects float or have fire burst forth on my command or any number of miraculous things. I could fight monsters, go on adventures, earn glory and make real money and take control of my life in ways I’d never dreamed. I started visiting the magic guilds, but they, trying very hard not to look like they were peering down their noses at the lone fox-girl announcing excitedly that she wanted to join, would hum and haw for a bit before finally formulating a question about my magical experience or ability. I would reply I was hoping to join in order to gain such experience, but they would go on to ask about any credentials, such as from a magic school. So I visited the schools as well, hoping to enroll, but there it was much the same except that they would start talking about tuition and fees, knowing full well I couldn’t pay any of it.\n\nSo the higher institutions of learning were intent not to share their secrets with the likes of me. Fine—I would learn on my own. I gathered what little savings I had stashed along with my most precious possession, a fine steel dagger, sturdy yet thin enough to be concealed in a boot, and got myself a purple cloak that hung around my shoulders, which I thought looked appropriately wizardly. We urchins took what work we could get, performing errands that people preferred not to do themselves, often running across rooftops in order to traverse town while avoiding the crowds below. I directed my focus on the magical folk, the old, retired wizards who, being more advanced in years, didn’t mind having someone younger go and gather alchemical reagents or organize their books or run and get laurels for their soup, and would sometimes even share a bit of knowledge in exchange. That was how I met the wizard Mosley, who had left his old post in disgrace over some kind of mind-control mishap, and now used his talents mostly on tonics meant to stupefy himself. I didn’t ask much about his life before we met. He was the opposite of sociable, but after I’d done enough work to become familiar with him, he started letting me into his private library to study what I could in my downtime.\n\nMagic literature, it turned out, was almost deliberately impenetrable without instruction to help interpret it. There was nothing like a beginner’s guide to one’s first spells, or tips and tricks to casting, just page after page of dense theory and indecipherable jargon that might as well have all been written in ancient symbols. Just looking at it for too long made my head start to hurt, but I kept at it, picking up what tips I could from the wizards. I let my hopes rise, once, when I came to the workings of a bonfire spell, with a pattern in the book that looked like it might have been the same one I’d seen the boy use, but as usual the writing was so obscure that I couldn’t begin to comprehend how to actually cast it. I pushed the book away in disgust, but then my eyes wandered to the shelf stuffed with magical materials, and I couldn’t help but notice the glass jar of bright yellow powder. Why not learn by doing? I grabbed the powder along with some chalk, went to the unlit fireplace and threw in a pinch. Then I drew the pattern on the floor, moved my hands, and spoke the words as closely as I could remember to the way the boy had done it.\n\nI felt a shock of the sort you might get from a sheep that’s been out on a dry afternoon for too long, strong enough to send me tumbling onto my back. When I got up, however, the fire was still obstinately unlit.\n\nAnother of the frequent quest-givers were the apothecaries, always in need of the various plants and materials from which they mixed their medicines. They would buy from traders and adventurers when they came through, but at other times they would send people like me out to look for particular items. One day, my local apothecary, when I came around asking what I could get for him, dug around in his cupboards and grumbled that he was low on “the Durwood stuff.” These were a collection of alpine materials that grew only on the nearby mountains—lichens that could be mashed into a paste that soothed muscle pain, cave mushrooms that brewed into tea that gave a quick burst of energy, and particularly, an orchid that made a potent health potion. With a list of plants and a leather knapsack, I set out for Durwood, the only settlement in the region where foragers and travelers could stop and rest. As I left, I heard the apothecary mutter to himself, “I hate going up there, that place gives me the creeps.”\n\nThe journey from Caldwin to the base of the mountain, and then up most of its slope, took most of the day. I came to the village late in the evening, a collection of thatch-roofed buildings and patchwork farming plots perched in a clearing overlooking a vast cliff, run through with clear mountain air. Most of the villagers were human, but some, particularly those I saw working in the fields, were furred or scaled. As I walked through the streets looking for the inn, a boy ran across my path, nearly running into me, and just after him went a yapping little collie. The boy laughed as the dog jumped up and down to play with him, but after he turned a corner and ran out of sight, the dog stopped for a moment and looked back at me, and what I saw turned my stomach. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed the flesh of the left half of the face was missing, exposing much of the skull, as well as an empty eye socket. In another moment the dog turned away to chase its master, and I was left to wonder whether I had really seen what I thought I saw.\n\nI found the inn and paid for my room for the night, only too happy for the rare chance to sleep in a real bed. Early the next morning I continued further up the mountain. As I left the village, I passed a lone building in the distance that looked like it might have been a chapel. There didn’t seem to be anyone there, and in any case I didn’t pay it too much mind. I traipsed across the mountain for most of the day, scrutinizing the list, comparing its hasty descriptions to what I saw on the ground, cutting stalks with my dagger and tying the plants into bundles which I stuffed in the knapsack. I passed the chapel again on my way back into the village, only this time there was something near it. It looked like a dog, not the collie from earlier but a big black dog, sitting still and upright like a statue at the gate of a shrine. His eyes reflected the red glint of the sunset, and even over such distance I could feel them closely watching me.\n\nI hurried past. My intention was to return to the inn and start down the mountain the next morning, which would have been the sensible thing, but I thought if I traveled by night, I could save the cost of the room, arrive in Caldwin by morning, drop off my load and collect my payment all the sooner. I stopped by the baker’s stall, where the baker was gathering what remained of the day’s supply. I handed him a coin and asked for a loaf.\n\nThe baker was a round man with a gray beard. He turned to me and said, with a laugh, “You’re not planning on heading down the mountain tonight, are you?”\n\nI said, “I am, in fact.”\n\nHe just laughed again. “Whatever suits you.”\n\nHe gave me the bread, and as I took it I noticed him eyeing me from head to foot. “Would you happen to be a magician?” he said.\n\nInwardly I was pleased that I’d managed to look magical enough to prompt that question, but I was careful in how I answered. “I’m a novice one,” I said.\n\n“That’s interesting. We once had a magician of our own in the village, a long time ago. She was a vixen, quite like yourself, by the name was Aoife. Perhaps you noticed her chapel while you were about.”\n\nI felt a twinge of apprehension as I recalled it, but replied coolly. “The stone building? It looked abandoned.”\n\n“That would stand to reason seeing as Aoife died many decades ago and no one’s been up there since.”\n\n“Right,” I said, then waited to see if he planned to expand on that. He seemed content to leave it there, so I turned to go. I should have let my curiosities be and walked away then, but with some truly unaccountable temptation I turned back.\n\n“Did I happen to see an undead dog in this town yesterday?” I said.\n\nHe fixed me with a broad smile. “I’m supposing you did. Was it Jim with his little collie?”\n\n“His little collie appeared to be missing half its face.”\n\nHe laughed in his jolly way, like I was describing an encounter with an adorable kitten.\n\n“Aye, that’s Aoife’s handiwork,” he said. “That pup originally belonged to Jim’s grandfather. And he’ll be in the family for a good, long time to come, of course.”\n\nHe said this all with such levity that it took me a moment to register his meaning, and then I felt the sort of vertigo that comes with peering down a long, dark hole. “Did Aoife have a black dog of her own?”\n\n“You’ve seen him, eh? That was hers, but he’s no normal dog, that much is apparent from looking at him. He was with her when she arrived here. None but her knew where he came from or by what means they found each other.”\n\n“No normal dog? What do you mean to say, that it’s some kind of monster or demon? Or is it another undead horror like Jim’s little collie?”\n\n“I mean to say nothing for certain,” he said. I recalled what I’d learned about practitioners of the so-called “dark arts,” magicians who wielded dark magic through consorting with evil spirits. Usually they were no more than footnotes in history, their reigns of terror mentioned in the same breath as the heroes who defeated them. Yet I had seen, tucked in a forgotten corner of Mosley’s library, a leather-bound volume that looked enticing with forbidden knowledge, and I would be lying if I said I hadn’t wanted to crack it open.\n\nThe man pointed somewhere behind me. An old woman was on her plot of farmland, putting away the last of her equipment for the night. Something about the size of a child was helping her, but by the fur on its body it looked more like an exotic pet monkey, until it turned around, and I saw its red eyes and the horns on its head.\n\n“Mrs. Williams’ son left the village more than sixty years ago and never returned, so Aoife summoned that little creature to help her in the field and with her household tasks. Aoife guided her through the ritual that bound them together, and now that she’s grown quite old, her little assistant’s proven invaluable. He even lets her use a little magic to sooth her bones every night. Aoife’s been gone a very long time, but a few in the village still have companions she left for them. And that’s not to speak of herself, who used her powers to heal the sick, to protect us from invaders, or to bring us fortune.”\n\n“You mean she was a secluded magician who raised the dead and summoned demons and monsters to live among you,” I said. “Creatures like that frequently lay waste to villages like this, which is why most people are interested in [i]destroying[/i] them, not bringing more into the world. Sometimes, when they do attack, a wizard or someone powerful enough to drive them off turns up in time to stop them, but as often they get there and all that’s left is husks of building and half-devoured bodies.”\n\n“Ha! Don’t talk to me about powerful wizards. They isolate themselves in their towers and develop spells for their own benefit, but how often do they really do good for common folk? They fight monsters, but only when there’s money, or some kind of reward, or glory in it for them, and when there isn’t, they leave villages like ours to fend for ourselves. Aoife turned the monsters into friends. She and her hound used to walk the streets of the village, and children would run up to play with him, and he never showed an ounce of aggression toward them or her or anyone save our enemies. Her hordes drove off trolls and dragons, and even raiders on a few occasions. They protected us when no one else would have.”\n\n“How did Aoife die?” I said.\n\nHis demeanor turned a little more downcast. “Aye, that. Some villagers went up to the chapel after she wasn’t seen in a while. The whole place was strewn with blood and entrails. There wasn’t a piece of her left that was recognizable, but there were the remains of a recently-drawn summoning circle. She spent her life dealing in dangerous forces, after all. All of her beasts have since vanished, except those still bound to villagers, and the dog, her first and most loyal companion.”\n\n“What about you?” I said. “You go to great lengths to speak well of her. Do you have a particular reason?”\n\nHe undid the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled something from around his neck. It looked like a crude charm of wood twined with string, with five points like a star.\n\n“True,” he said, “it could be because I’m one of the few old enough to remember her, her kindness, and the real joy she seemed to get from helping people. But this is the greatest gift she ever gave to me personally. I was a much younger man then, smitten with the girl of my dreams. She loved me, too, of course, but she was afflicted with hesitation and indecision, so Aoife made this to nudge us in the right direction, and we’ve shared many happy years together since.”\n\nThere were many things I could think to say to that, but suddenly I didn’t feel like spending another moment in this man’s presence. I was less confident than I had been about traveling by night, but I wanted even less to spend another night in this village, now or ever again. I took my bread and hurried out as quickly as I could. The moon was bright and the night clear, so once I was among the forest paths, it wasn’t terribly hard to find my way. Indeed, the cold night air seemed to do me good, and I felt myself calming the more distance I put between myself and that village.\n\nA crow shot past my head with a shriek, then flew up into the black of night to settle on a branch. There was a whole chorus of them gathered, crows lining the tree branches all around me, all of them cawing so aggressively as to give me a headache. I realized that I had been hearing them for a while. I had ignored it as regular forest noise, but once I noticed it, I did not like the way all of them were pointed right at me, screeching with such unyielding determination that it seemed undeniable they were trying to tell me something.\n\n[i]Crows—an omen of death,[/i] I thought, but I shook the thought away. I was in the woods. It was night. Of course there were crows, they were just being noisy jerks, what else did one expect?\n\nDespite my assurance, I chanced to look behind me. Nothing there, so it was birds being dumb, as I thought. But they didn’t relent as I went on, they kept pace with me, hopping from branch to branch all the while screaming their desperate message. I looked back again. Still nothing, except … was there something red among the bushes? I blinked, and it was gone. I thought it must have been a trick of the eyes.\n\nBut not long after, I felt some kind of presence and looked back again. Unmistakably the very black dog who had watched me from the chapel was sitting in the path.\n\nWhen he had been far away, with his extremities tucked in close, he had looked like a normal, if spooky, black dog. But closer up, it was clear that he was anything but normal. He had draconic pointed ears, and his four broad limbs ended in dragon-like talons with wickedly long, curved claws. Behind him, a long, serpentine tail slithered across the ground. But most disturbing of all were his eyes, which even in the darkness flickered and glowed with red light, like little fires.\n\nI stood frozen, but he just sat in the middle of the path, making no motion either to hide or advance on me. [i]Are you going to rip me to pieces? Go ahead and do it, then![/i] I thought, but he went on sitting right where he was. He yawned, flashing momentarily a view of his unnaturally long, sharp teeth. [i]What, then? You just want to watch me? You want to be my guardian angel on my way down the mountain?[/i] That would be something! Walking all night with a demon skulking behind me, why not?\n\nI turned my back to him and went on just as I had been. The woods were suddenly very silent—the crows, their warning delivered, had flown off, and anything else that might have been lurking was keeping its distance. The beast followed behind me, matching my pace. I could hear each heavy footfall, each loud breath, and the occasional smacking of his chops. I could feel the burning of his fiery eyes on my back. [i]He’s not doing anything. He’s just walking,[/i] I tried to tell myself, yet I felt my heart beginning to pound, and I couldn’t seem to calm it. I walked a little faster, supposing that he would keep going as he was and I would get ahead of him. But when I looked back, he too was walking faster to keep up with me. That was when my anxiety boiled over into panic. I broke into a run, faster and faster, until I was sprinting down the path. All the way he galloped along after me.\n\nMy foot caught on a tree root, and all my fears became real. The knapsack went flying, and the beast pounced, landing with all his weight on my back just as I hit the dirt. His two massive talons pinned me down, sharp claws digging into my shoulders. I was certain this was the end, that I would feel those teeth on my neck at any moment. But it didn’t happen. Instead, I heard sniffing right by my ears, and felt the motions of his nose along the fur on the back of my neck. He wasn’t tearing me apart just at the moment. He was just … examining me.\n\nIt only took me a moment to regain enough of my senses to realize I had a chance to act. I moved my hand slowly downward until I reached my boot, then pulled my dagger and swiped it across the beast’s right wrist. The flesh was cut, and he pulled away with a yip. I jumped to my feet and dashed away, but he hit my back and toppled me onto my hands and knees, and my weapon fell out of reach. His claw on my head pressed my face into the ground. He went on sniffing me around the head and neck. He ran his long tongue along his jowls, and a string of warm drool dropped onto the back of my neck, causing all the fur on my body to stand on end.\n\nThen he positioned his rear legs closely behind me, and I felt something hard and pointed jab into my backside. I scrambled to get away, but his heavy talons held me firmly, and I scratched up the earth in vain. He jabbed into me with quick motions until his tip slipped from its sheath and found its way into my opening.\n\nLow growls erupted from deep within his throat, reverberating throughout his body and mine. His growls grew quicker, and he arched his back, leaning more of his weight on me as he pushed his girth deep inside of me faster and faster. His claws cut searing gashes into my back and shoulders. Tears ran down my snout, my arms outstretched clenching fistfuls of dirt. I was subsumed in a kaleidoscope of pain and pleasure, terror and ecstasy, intermingling sensations of such rising intensity as I never thought imaginable.\n\nHis body curled tightly around me, his fur pressed to mine, rutting me harder and harder as it all came to a crescendo. With a final shove, he pushed his knot entirely inside me. The knot and shaft swelled to lock us together, filling me almost to the barrier, as my climax rocked my body and my walls pulsed and squeezed about him. I could feel the growing pressure of a great amount of thick seed trapped in my birth canal, flowing into my womb.\n\nI don’t know how long we remained like that. At various times he shifted his weight and positioned his talons, giving little tugs that caused me to let out involuntary moans, until the knot deflated enough that he came unstuck from me.\n\nHe stepped off of me, turned away, and disappeared. I fell prone where I was, then rolled on my back and gingerly ran my hands over my belly. Warm fluid gushed out of me in a burst, then trickled out in waves for some time, coating the fur on my thighs and collecting in a puddle on the ground. I wanted to lie there forever, but I heard the sounds of forest creatures returning and realized I didn’t have it in me to die just yet. I retrieved the knapsack and dagger and went on, one shaking foot in front of the other. Near the base of the mountain was a small spring where I was able to clean myself off by the first rays of the morning sun. Milky whiteness kept diffusing out of me into the water. I couldn’t get it all out, but I could at least rinse my fur, and the water’s icy coldness was refreshing. Finally I arrived in Caldwin, where people were just starting to move about and open up their shops.\n\nI collected my payment from the apothecary and retreated to my den. A lot of us urchins had little spots for ourselves carved out of whatever out-of-the-way nook we could find in the city—mine was a hole at the end of an alley where I was seldom disturbed. I shut out the daylight and sank into my bedding. Despite my exhaustion, sleep was slow and intermittent. In the evening, I got some bread and a bit of beef to eat, then went back to sleep. The next morning I stumbled out and cleared my stomach onto the street.\n\nIt was hard to make myself get up and get back to work, but being busy helped to keep my mind off things. I took on more quests, poured myself ever more fervently into Mosley’s books, and tried not to let people see the terror or panic that overtook me from time to time. Some nights, as I was going to sleep, I was haunted by visions of the dog hanging over me, as though he never left, but was still stalking me from just beyond where I could see. It was terrifying, yet with a strange, indescribable excitement about it. I grew hot in view of his snarling snout, his gleaming teeth, his growls rumbling inside my head, and his fiery eyes piercing through me. More than once I had to reach between my legs to find relief.\n\nI settled back into my familiar habits over the next several weeks. The gashes on my back were slow to heal, and when they finally did, it was in bright, jagged scars that my cloak didn’t totally conceal. I managed not to think about what happened for much of the time, until I was making my way across the roofs somewhere. I jumped over a gap and landed little hard, and at the same time I felt another impact from deep within me.\n\nI stopped and sat up against a chimney, out of sight from the streets. That couldn’t have been a kick … could it? I ran two trembling hands over my belly, and I could just make out the little round bump that definitely hadn’t been there before. An inhuman creature growing inside of me. What would happen when I grew big enough for people to notice? A young vixen walking around with a swollen belly and a monster’s claw marks down her back—would it be obvious to anyone who looked what had been done to me?\n\nI could think of one solution. I remembered a recipe for a potion I’d learned, one that young women sometimes went asking for at the alchemist’s late at night or in the early morning, when few other people were around. Most of the ingredients weren’t too hard to come by. I sought them out in the woods nearby, then returned to the city and locked myself in Mosley’s library. I found a reference book, took the last of the materials I needed from the shelves, and brewed the concoction carefully to specification in water heated over the burner. When it was finished, I collected the hot substance in a flask, smelling like pine trees in a swamp full of sulfur. I had only to down this unpleasant mixture, and all that was inside me would be cast out in a horrible, bloody ordeal. I would free myself of the monster I was being forced to bear, and also, I hoped, the monster who’d forced me to bear it.\n\nI sat gazing at the noxious liquid for a while, but I couldn’t bring myself to drink it and put the little creature to death. It was the most perverse sort of sentimentality, an outright failure of the will, but it was my child, and in a strange, but also not so strange way I suppose, I loved it. I cursed myself as I took up the potion and dumped it over the unlit logs in the fireplace.\n\nI sat down and held my head with a long sigh, and that was when I became aware of a tingle in my fingertips that seemed to radiate from the center of my body. I held my hands out slowly and moved my fingers one by one. I could feel the radiation flex and waver in response to my movements. I rose from the chair and looked to the fireplace where the discarded potion glistened over the logs.\n\nI raised a hand toward it. There was a swelling of energy through me, then a bright flare and an outburst of sparks, and when it was over, a gentle blaze was left, filling the room with orange warmth. I thought I must have been in a dream. No drawn shapes, no magic words, just the imposition of my will on the universe and there it was.\n\nFire.\n\nYou couldn’t imagine my elation. So the creature inside me, sharing my flesh and blood, had given me a taste of dark power. Was this how Aoife had done it? All those beasts she bound to herself, growing her power and adding to her horde—had they not all been summoned? Had she in fact borne demon children in her own body, who would remain ever loyal to her as her blood kin? I would learn everything in time, but in the moment I could hardly contain myself. I ran outside, out of town and into a remote field, where I loosed the full extent of my new powers. A lone larch stood nearby—a wave of my hand and it erupted in flames which soon reduced it ash. Towers of flame rose from the ground, leaving charred circles where green grass had been. Even rocks were blackened in the torrents of fiery fury I unleashed. And when I was spent, when all around me was a blasted hellscape, I lied back on the scorched earth of my making.\n\nLater, I finally sought out that leather-bound volume from Mosley’s forgotten corner. As I’d suspected, it contained accounts and commentary from witches and warlocks who’d gained power through pacts with otherworldly beings. Some told of how their familiars had appeared to them in their time of greatest despair, or the rituals and spells by which they’d summoned them for purposes such as revenge. There were theories on the nature of demon magic and instructions and cautions as to wielding it—and not in the impenetrable prose of the more mainstream texts, but in understandable, usable terms, as though it were inviting the reader to try their own hand at the dark arts. I took the book with me when I left.\n\nIn my den, as I tried to sleep, I once again saw the beast in the darkness. I saw him come upon me just as he had done before, pressing my face into the dirt and forcing himself on me. And after I brought myself to an intense climax, I knew what it was I had to do.\n\nThat was how I found myself climbing the mountain toward the village of Durwood, this time with a burden that had grown heavier by the day. I reached the village late in the evening, but I didn’t stop to chat—I continued toward the chapel, taking the path to see the building up close for the first time. Decades of neglect and exposure had not been kind to the place. Those stones that were still in place were worn and dusty, windows were broken, and grass and weeds grew wildly about the premise. I looked around for any sign of life, but all was still. I pushed open the large wooden doors, which creaked loudly with the effort. A cloud of dust rose from where my footstep disturbed it. The front door led into the sanctuary, which by all appearance could have been a simple place of worship if one didn’t know any better. Pews lined the space leading up to the pulpit, but half of them were overturned, and while the walls were lined with bookshelves, many of the books were strewn about the floor. I picked one up from where it had been lying open in an awkward position. Some of the leaves fell from the binding as I raised it, and what was left was too faded to read.\n\nIn the back of the sanctuary was a small door. I stepped through it and was struck with a sight far different from the room that led into it. This was clearly a place for demonic rites. In the center was a stone slab, about the right size for a human body to lie on, and I could still make out the faint remains of many drawn circles and patterns, as well as alcoves for candles and incense caked with wax and ash. All around were the faint stains of decades-old blood.\n\nI put down my bag and took out the book and some chalk. I drew a circle around the slab, then checked the book and carefully reproduced the symbols and patterns from its pages. I placed candles at prescribed positions as well as a few sticks of incense, all lit with little flourish of magic from my fingertips. Lastly, I made a cut on my left arm with my dagger, dabbed a bit of the blood with the tip of my finger, and used it to draw a few more patterns in the circle.\n\nMagical energy was already sparking with tension throughout the space. I sat on the slab and shut my eyes. When I opened them, he was there, sitting in front of me, his form like a great black shadow in the light of the candles. I couldn’t have been more terrified or more eager. I lied on my back, and he rose onto his four massive feet to approach me.\n\nThe leap in my heart when he put his nose against me! He sniffed about my lower regions, then his long tongue lapped across my folds, first wetting the outside and then plunging into me, tickling my deepest walls. I didn’t restrain my moans of delight. He leapt up with his two front legs onto the slab, his talons coming to rest beside my shoulders, his entire body bearing down on mine, fur pressing against my gravid belly. He lined up his sheath with my opening, and with a few quick jabs, entered me. I wrapped my arms around him and grabbed fistfuls of black fur. His teeth were an inch from my face, his snout snarling as though he might snap me up at any moment.\n\nHe laid his moist chin across my neck and pressed his body tightly into mine. I nearly pulled out his fur in clumps when he knotted me. I let my cries of ecstasy ring off the walls, climaxing together with him.\n\nWe came to rest, both of us panting, and I looked into his fiery eyes. His tongue hung out in such a goofy, dog-like manner that I could hardly recognize him as the specter that had so haunted my nightmares. I ran my hands along the sides of his head and kissed him on the tip of his snout. He returned my affection with a few wet licks across my face. Still tied with me, he scrabbled with his back legs up onto the slab and laid his body across mine, not quite aware of how his considerable weight squeezed the wind out of me. He, I, and our child between us—what a strange family we were! And soon to be much bigger. He was mine, the magic had done its work and he was bound to me forever, consummated with that last act of passion and the willing flow of life from male to female.\n\nHis knot began to shrink, and he slipped out of me, but didn’t otherwise move. This was no time to be lazy, though! I had a lot to learn, and there was much to do, and a town full of eager followers waiting for their new dark sorceress. I pushed my companion to the side and sat up.\n\n“What are you lying around for?” I said, giving him a quick scratch behind the ear. “Let’s go do some magic.”", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "
Black Dog

by Quincy Connally


I still remember when I first took an interest in magic.

I was living on the streets of a city called Caldwin. There were a lot of us, street urchins of every kind, humans and furred-folk and scaled-folk all alike. I don’t know if you’d say we were close, but we worked together from time to time, stealing and scrounging and raiding trash heaps for the things we needed to survive. Once, a bunch of us were sitting around a fire pit on a cold night. The pit had a bit of fuel left in it from the last time it was lit, but none of us had any flint to light it with, so we were miserably cold, especially the humans with their rags clutched around their weird, furless bodies. Nobody had anything much to say, until one of the boys, a dark-skinned human, reached into his bag and brought out a small leather pouch.

“Hey,” he said. “Look what I got from the wizard I work for.”

He threw the pouch’s contents, a bright yellow powder, into the pit, and instantly there was an odor like someone had dumped a chimney in my face.

A girl near him sneered. “Brimstone? You didn’t steal that, did you?”

“Of course not,” said the boy. “He let me have a bit since I was doing such a great job cleaning his study. And look, he taught me a trick.”

He drew a pattern in the dirt in front of him with his finger, then raised his hands in a peculiar motion and spoke some strange, rhythmic syllables. There was a loud fwoosh, and a fire burst into life in the depths of the pit.

All around were oohs and aahs of amazement. A few applauded. But none were more transfixed than I was, staring into that magically-conjured blaze. I’d always known about magic, obviously. Like anyone, I saw the wizards coming and going from their guilds and schools, or leaving and entering town as part of adventurers’ parties. But that world had always seemed so many leagues distant from mine that it hardly bore occupying space in my mind. I’d never thought to conceive of magic as something I myself could learn and do.

Until that moment.

Suddenly I ached to feel that power in my own fingertips. To wave my hands, speak arcane syllables, and make objects float or have fire burst forth on my command or any number of miraculous things. I could fight monsters, go on adventures, earn glory and make real money and take control of my life in ways I’d never dreamed. I started visiting the magic guilds, but they, trying very hard not to look like they were peering down their noses at the lone fox-girl announcing excitedly that she wanted to join, would hum and haw for a bit before finally formulating a question about my magical experience or ability. I would reply I was hoping to join in order to gain such experience, but they would go on to ask about any credentials, such as from a magic school. So I visited the schools as well, hoping to enroll, but there it was much the same except that they would start talking about tuition and fees, knowing full well I couldn’t pay any of it.

So the higher institutions of learning were intent not to share their secrets with the likes of me. Fine—I would learn on my own. I gathered what little savings I had stashed along with my most precious possession, a fine steel dagger, sturdy yet thin enough to be concealed in a boot, and got myself a purple cloak that hung around my shoulders, which I thought looked appropriately wizardly. We urchins took what work we could get, performing errands that people preferred not to do themselves, often running across rooftops in order to traverse town while avoiding the crowds below. I directed my focus on the magical folk, the old, retired wizards who, being more advanced in years, didn’t mind having someone younger go and gather alchemical reagents or organize their books or run and get laurels for their soup, and would sometimes even share a bit of knowledge in exchange. That was how I met the wizard Mosley, who had left his old post in disgrace over some kind of mind-control mishap, and now used his talents mostly on tonics meant to stupefy himself. I didn’t ask much about his life before we met. He was the opposite of sociable, but after I’d done enough work to become familiar with him, he started letting me into his private library to study what I could in my downtime.

Magic literature, it turned out, was almost deliberately impenetrable without instruction to help interpret it. There was nothing like a beginner’s guide to one’s first spells, or tips and tricks to casting, just page after page of dense theory and indecipherable jargon that might as well have all been written in ancient symbols. Just looking at it for too long made my head start to hurt, but I kept at it, picking up what tips I could from the wizards. I let my hopes rise, once, when I came to the workings of a bonfire spell, with a pattern in the book that looked like it might have been the same one I’d seen the boy use, but as usual the writing was so obscure that I couldn’t begin to comprehend how to actually cast it. I pushed the book away in disgust, but then my eyes wandered to the shelf stuffed with magical materials, and I couldn’t help but notice the glass jar of bright yellow powder. Why not learn by doing? I grabbed the powder along with some chalk, went to the unlit fireplace and threw in a pinch. Then I drew the pattern on the floor, moved my hands, and spoke the words as closely as I could remember to the way the boy had done it.

I felt a shock of the sort you might get from a sheep that’s been out on a dry afternoon for too long, strong enough to send me tumbling onto my back. When I got up, however, the fire was still obstinately unlit.

Another of the frequent quest-givers were the apothecaries, always in need of the various plants and materials from which they mixed their medicines. They would buy from traders and adventurers when they came through, but at other times they would send people like me out to look for particular items. One day, my local apothecary, when I came around asking what I could get for him, dug around in his cupboards and grumbled that he was low on “the Durwood stuff.” These were a collection of alpine materials that grew only on the nearby mountains—lichens that could be mashed into a paste that soothed muscle pain, cave mushrooms that brewed into tea that gave a quick burst of energy, and particularly, an orchid that made a potent health potion. With a list of plants and a leather knapsack, I set out for Durwood, the only settlement in the region where foragers and travelers could stop and rest. As I left, I heard the apothecary mutter to himself, “I hate going up there, that place gives me the creeps.”

The journey from Caldwin to the base of the mountain, and then up most of its slope, took most of the day. I came to the village late in the evening, a collection of thatch-roofed buildings and patchwork farming plots perched in a clearing overlooking a vast cliff, run through with clear mountain air. Most of the villagers were human, but some, particularly those I saw working in the fields, were furred or scaled. As I walked through the streets looking for the inn, a boy ran across my path, nearly running into me, and just after him went a yapping little collie. The boy laughed as the dog jumped up and down to play with him, but after he turned a corner and ran out of sight, the dog stopped for a moment and looked back at me, and what I saw turned my stomach. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed the flesh of the left half of the face was missing, exposing much of the skull, as well as an empty eye socket. In another moment the dog turned away to chase its master, and I was left to wonder whether I had really seen what I thought I saw.

I found the inn and paid for my room for the night, only too happy for the rare chance to sleep in a real bed. Early the next morning I continued further up the mountain. As I left the village, I passed a lone building in the distance that looked like it might have been a chapel. There didn’t seem to be anyone there, and in any case I didn’t pay it too much mind. I traipsed across the mountain for most of the day, scrutinizing the list, comparing its hasty descriptions to what I saw on the ground, cutting stalks with my dagger and tying the plants into bundles which I stuffed in the knapsack. I passed the chapel again on my way back into the village, only this time there was something near it. It looked like a dog, not the collie from earlier but a big black dog, sitting still and upright like a statue at the gate of a shrine. His eyes reflected the red glint of the sunset, and even over such distance I could feel them closely watching me.

I hurried past. My intention was to return to the inn and start down the mountain the next morning, which would have been the sensible thing, but I thought if I traveled by night, I could save the cost of the room, arrive in Caldwin by morning, drop off my load and collect my payment all the sooner. I stopped by the baker’s stall, where the baker was gathering what remained of the day’s supply. I handed him a coin and asked for a loaf.

The baker was a round man with a gray beard. He turned to me and said, with a laugh, “You’re not planning on heading down the mountain tonight, are you?”

I said, “I am, in fact.”

He just laughed again. “Whatever suits you.”

He gave me the bread, and as I took it I noticed him eyeing me from head to foot. “Would you happen to be a magician?” he said.

Inwardly I was pleased that I’d managed to look magical enough to prompt that question, but I was careful in how I answered. “I’m a novice one,” I said.

“That’s interesting. We once had a magician of our own in the village, a long time ago. She was a vixen, quite like yourself, by the name was Aoife. Perhaps you noticed her chapel while you were about.”

I felt a twinge of apprehension as I recalled it, but replied coolly. “The stone building? It looked abandoned.”

“That would stand to reason seeing as Aoife died many decades ago and no one’s been up there since.”

“Right,” I said, then waited to see if he planned to expand on that. He seemed content to leave it there, so I turned to go. I should have let my curiosities be and walked away then, but with some truly unaccountable temptation I turned back.

“Did I happen to see an undead dog in this town yesterday?” I said.

He fixed me with a broad smile. “I’m supposing you did. Was it Jim with his little collie?”

“His little collie appeared to be missing half its face.”

He laughed in his jolly way, like I was describing an encounter with an adorable kitten.

“Aye, that’s Aoife’s handiwork,” he said. “That pup originally belonged to Jim’s grandfather. And he’ll be in the family for a good, long time to come, of course.”

He said this all with such levity that it took me a moment to register his meaning, and then I felt the sort of vertigo that comes with peering down a long, dark hole. “Did Aoife have a black dog of her own?”

“You’ve seen him, eh? That was hers, but he’s no normal dog, that much is apparent from looking at him. He was with her when she arrived here. None but her knew where he came from or by what means they found each other.”

“No normal dog? What do you mean to say, that it’s some kind of monster or demon? Or is it another undead horror like Jim’s little collie?”

“I mean to say nothing for certain,” he said. I recalled what I’d learned about practitioners of the so-called “dark arts,” magicians who wielded dark magic through consorting with evil spirits. Usually they were no more than footnotes in history, their reigns of terror mentioned in the same breath as the heroes who defeated them. Yet I had seen, tucked in a forgotten corner of Mosley’s library, a leather-bound volume that looked enticing with forbidden knowledge, and I would be lying if I said I hadn’t wanted to crack it open.

The man pointed somewhere behind me. An old woman was on her plot of farmland, putting away the last of her equipment for the night. Something about the size of a child was helping her, but by the fur on its body it looked more like an exotic pet monkey, until it turned around, and I saw its red eyes and the horns on its head.

“Mrs. Williams’ son left the village more than sixty years ago and never returned, so Aoife summoned that little creature to help her in the field and with her household tasks. Aoife guided her through the ritual that bound them together, and now that she’s grown quite old, her little assistant’s proven invaluable. He even lets her use a little magic to sooth her bones every night. Aoife’s been gone a very long time, but a few in the village still have companions she left for them. And that’s not to speak of herself, who used her powers to heal the sick, to protect us from invaders, or to bring us fortune.”

“You mean she was a secluded magician who raised the dead and summoned demons and monsters to live among you,” I said. “Creatures like that frequently lay waste to villages like this, which is why most people are interested in destroying them, not bringing more into the world. Sometimes, when they do attack, a wizard or someone powerful enough to drive them off turns up in time to stop them, but as often they get there and all that’s left is husks of building and half-devoured bodies.”

“Ha! Don’t talk to me about powerful wizards. They isolate themselves in their towers and develop spells for their own benefit, but how often do they really do good for common folk? They fight monsters, but only when there’s money, or some kind of reward, or glory in it for them, and when there isn’t, they leave villages like ours to fend for ourselves. Aoife turned the monsters into friends. She and her hound used to walk the streets of the village, and children would run up to play with him, and he never showed an ounce of aggression toward them or her or anyone save our enemies. Her hordes drove off trolls and dragons, and even raiders on a few occasions. They protected us when no one else would have.”

“How did Aoife die?” I said.

His demeanor turned a little more downcast. “Aye, that. Some villagers went up to the chapel after she wasn’t seen in a while. The whole place was strewn with blood and entrails. There wasn’t a piece of her left that was recognizable, but there were the remains of a recently-drawn summoning circle. She spent her life dealing in dangerous forces, after all. All of her beasts have since vanished, except those still bound to villagers, and the dog, her first and most loyal companion.”

“What about you?” I said. “You go to great lengths to speak well of her. Do you have a particular reason?”

He undid the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled something from around his neck. It looked like a crude charm of wood twined with string, with five points like a star.

“True,” he said, “it could be because I’m one of the few old enough to remember her, her kindness, and the real joy she seemed to get from helping people. But this is the greatest gift she ever gave to me personally. I was a much younger man then, smitten with the girl of my dreams. She loved me, too, of course, but she was afflicted with hesitation and indecision, so Aoife made this to nudge us in the right direction, and we’ve shared many happy years together since.”

There were many things I could think to say to that, but suddenly I didn’t feel like spending another moment in this man’s presence. I was less confident than I had been about traveling by night, but I wanted even less to spend another night in this village, now or ever again. I took my bread and hurried out as quickly as I could. The moon was bright and the night clear, so once I was among the forest paths, it wasn’t terribly hard to find my way. Indeed, the cold night air seemed to do me good, and I felt myself calming the more distance I put between myself and that village.

A crow shot past my head with a shriek, then flew up into the black of night to settle on a branch. There was a whole chorus of them gathered, crows lining the tree branches all around me, all of them cawing so aggressively as to give me a headache. I realized that I had been hearing them for a while. I had ignored it as regular forest noise, but once I noticed it, I did not like the way all of them were pointed right at me, screeching with such unyielding determination that it seemed undeniable they were trying to tell me something.

Crows—an omen of death, I thought, but I shook the thought away. I was in the woods. It was night. Of course there were crows, they were just being noisy jerks, what else did one expect?

Despite my assurance, I chanced to look behind me. Nothing there, so it was birds being dumb, as I thought. But they didn’t relent as I went on, they kept pace with me, hopping from branch to branch all the while screaming their desperate message. I looked back again. Still nothing, except … was there something red among the bushes? I blinked, and it was gone. I thought it must have been a trick of the eyes.

But not long after, I felt some kind of presence and looked back again. Unmistakably the very black dog who had watched me from the chapel was sitting in the path.

When he had been far away, with his extremities tucked in close, he had looked like a normal, if spooky, black dog. But closer up, it was clear that he was anything but normal. He had draconic pointed ears, and his four broad limbs ended in dragon-like talons with wickedly long, curved claws. Behind him, a long, serpentine tail slithered across the ground. But most disturbing of all were his eyes, which even in the darkness flickered and glowed with red light, like little fires.

I stood frozen, but he just sat in the middle of the path, making no motion either to hide or advance on me. Are you going to rip me to pieces? Go ahead and do it, then! I thought, but he went on sitting right where he was. He yawned, flashing momentarily a view of his unnaturally long, sharp teeth. What, then? You just want to watch me? You want to be my guardian angel on my way down the mountain? That would be something! Walking all night with a demon skulking behind me, why not?

I turned my back to him and went on just as I had been. The woods were suddenly very silent—the crows, their warning delivered, had flown off, and anything else that might have been lurking was keeping its distance. The beast followed behind me, matching my pace. I could hear each heavy footfall, each loud breath, and the occasional smacking of his chops. I could feel the burning of his fiery eyes on my back. He’s not doing anything. He’s just walking, I tried to tell myself, yet I felt my heart beginning to pound, and I couldn’t seem to calm it. I walked a little faster, supposing that he would keep going as he was and I would get ahead of him. But when I looked back, he too was walking faster to keep up with me. That was when my anxiety boiled over into panic. I broke into a run, faster and faster, until I was sprinting down the path. All the way he galloped along after me.

My foot caught on a tree root, and all my fears became real. The knapsack went flying, and the beast pounced, landing with all his weight on my back just as I hit the dirt. His two massive talons pinned me down, sharp claws digging into my shoulders. I was certain this was the end, that I would feel those teeth on my neck at any moment. But it didn’t happen. Instead, I heard sniffing right by my ears, and felt the motions of his nose along the fur on the back of my neck. He wasn’t tearing me apart just at the moment. He was just … examining me.

It only took me a moment to regain enough of my senses to realize I had a chance to act. I moved my hand slowly downward until I reached my boot, then pulled my dagger and swiped it across the beast’s right wrist. The flesh was cut, and he pulled away with a yip. I jumped to my feet and dashed away, but he hit my back and toppled me onto my hands and knees, and my weapon fell out of reach. His claw on my head pressed my face into the ground. He went on sniffing me around the head and neck. He ran his long tongue along his jowls, and a string of warm drool dropped onto the back of my neck, causing all the fur on my body to stand on end.

Then he positioned his rear legs closely behind me, and I felt something hard and pointed jab into my backside. I scrambled to get away, but his heavy talons held me firmly, and I scratched up the earth in vain. He jabbed into me with quick motions until his tip slipped from its sheath and found its way into my opening.

Low growls erupted from deep within his throat, reverberating throughout his body and mine. His growls grew quicker, and he arched his back, leaning more of his weight on me as he pushed his girth deep inside of me faster and faster. His claws cut searing gashes into my back and shoulders. Tears ran down my snout, my arms outstretched clenching fistfuls of dirt. I was subsumed in a kaleidoscope of pain and pleasure, terror and ecstasy, intermingling sensations of such rising intensity as I never thought imaginable.

His body curled tightly around me, his fur pressed to mine, rutting me harder and harder as it all came to a crescendo. With a final shove, he pushed his knot entirely inside me. The knot and shaft swelled to lock us together, filling me almost to the barrier, as my climax rocked my body and my walls pulsed and squeezed about him. I could feel the growing pressure of a great amount of thick seed trapped in my birth canal, flowing into my womb.

I don’t know how long we remained like that. At various times he shifted his weight and positioned his talons, giving little tugs that caused me to let out involuntary moans, until the knot deflated enough that he came unstuck from me.

He stepped off of me, turned away, and disappeared. I fell prone where I was, then rolled on my back and gingerly ran my hands over my belly. Warm fluid gushed out of me in a burst, then trickled out in waves for some time, coating the fur on my thighs and collecting in a puddle on the ground. I wanted to lie there forever, but I heard the sounds of forest creatures returning and realized I didn’t have it in me to die just yet. I retrieved the knapsack and dagger and went on, one shaking foot in front of the other. Near the base of the mountain was a small spring where I was able to clean myself off by the first rays of the morning sun. Milky whiteness kept diffusing out of me into the water. I couldn’t get it all out, but I could at least rinse my fur, and the water’s icy coldness was refreshing. Finally I arrived in Caldwin, where people were just starting to move about and open up their shops.

I collected my payment from the apothecary and retreated to my den. A lot of us urchins had little spots for ourselves carved out of whatever out-of-the-way nook we could find in the city—mine was a hole at the end of an alley where I was seldom disturbed. I shut out the daylight and sank into my bedding. Despite my exhaustion, sleep was slow and intermittent. In the evening, I got some bread and a bit of beef to eat, then went back to sleep. The next morning I stumbled out and cleared my stomach onto the street.

It was hard to make myself get up and get back to work, but being busy helped to keep my mind off things. I took on more quests, poured myself ever more fervently into Mosley’s books, and tried not to let people see the terror or panic that overtook me from time to time. Some nights, as I was going to sleep, I was haunted by visions of the dog hanging over me, as though he never left, but was still stalking me from just beyond where I could see. It was terrifying, yet with a strange, indescribable excitement about it. I grew hot in view of his snarling snout, his gleaming teeth, his growls rumbling inside my head, and his fiery eyes piercing through me. More than once I had to reach between my legs to find relief.

I settled back into my familiar habits over the next several weeks. The gashes on my back were slow to heal, and when they finally did, it was in bright, jagged scars that my cloak didn’t totally conceal. I managed not to think about what happened for much of the time, until I was making my way across the roofs somewhere. I jumped over a gap and landed little hard, and at the same time I felt another impact from deep within me.

I stopped and sat up against a chimney, out of sight from the streets. That couldn’t have been a kick … could it? I ran two trembling hands over my belly, and I could just make out the little round bump that definitely hadn’t been there before. An inhuman creature growing inside of me. What would happen when I grew big enough for people to notice? A young vixen walking around with a swollen belly and a monster’s claw marks down her back—would it be obvious to anyone who looked what had been done to me?

I could think of one solution. I remembered a recipe for a potion I’d learned, one that young women sometimes went asking for at the alchemist’s late at night or in the early morning, when few other people were around. Most of the ingredients weren’t too hard to come by. I sought them out in the woods nearby, then returned to the city and locked myself in Mosley’s library. I found a reference book, took the last of the materials I needed from the shelves, and brewed the concoction carefully to specification in water heated over the burner. When it was finished, I collected the hot substance in a flask, smelling like pine trees in a swamp full of sulfur. I had only to down this unpleasant mixture, and all that was inside me would be cast out in a horrible, bloody ordeal. I would free myself of the monster I was being forced to bear, and also, I hoped, the monster who’d forced me to bear it.

I sat gazing at the noxious liquid for a while, but I couldn’t bring myself to drink it and put the little creature to death. It was the most perverse sort of sentimentality, an outright failure of the will, but it was my child, and in a strange, but also not so strange way I suppose, I loved it. I cursed myself as I took up the potion and dumped it over the unlit logs in the fireplace.

I sat down and held my head with a long sigh, and that was when I became aware of a tingle in my fingertips that seemed to radiate from the center of my body. I held my hands out slowly and moved my fingers one by one. I could feel the radiation flex and waver in response to my movements. I rose from the chair and looked to the fireplace where the discarded potion glistened over the logs.

I raised a hand toward it. There was a swelling of energy through me, then a bright flare and an outburst of sparks, and when it was over, a gentle blaze was left, filling the room with orange warmth. I thought I must have been in a dream. No drawn shapes, no magic words, just the imposition of my will on the universe and there it was.

Fire.

You couldn’t imagine my elation. So the creature inside me, sharing my flesh and blood, had given me a taste of dark power. Was this how Aoife had done it? All those beasts she bound to herself, growing her power and adding to her horde—had they not all been summoned? Had she in fact borne demon children in her own body, who would remain ever loyal to her as her blood kin? I would learn everything in time, but in the moment I could hardly contain myself. I ran outside, out of town and into a remote field, where I loosed the full extent of my new powers. A lone larch stood nearby—a wave of my hand and it erupted in flames which soon reduced it ash. Towers of flame rose from the ground, leaving charred circles where green grass had been. Even rocks were blackened in the torrents of fiery fury I unleashed. And when I was spent, when all around me was a blasted hellscape, I lied back on the scorched earth of my making.

Later, I finally sought out that leather-bound volume from Mosley’s forgotten corner. As I’d suspected, it contained accounts and commentary from witches and warlocks who’d gained power through pacts with otherworldly beings. Some told of how their familiars had appeared to them in their time of greatest despair, or the rituals and spells by which they’d summoned them for purposes such as revenge. There were theories on the nature of demon magic and instructions and cautions as to wielding it—and not in the impenetrable prose of the more mainstream texts, but in understandable, usable terms, as though it were inviting the reader to try their own hand at the dark arts. I took the book with me when I left.

In my den, as I tried to sleep, I once again saw the beast in the darkness. I saw him come upon me just as he had done before, pressing my face into the dirt and forcing himself on me. And after I brought myself to an intense climax, I knew what it was I had to do.

That was how I found myself climbing the mountain toward the village of Durwood, this time with a burden that had grown heavier by the day. I reached the village late in the evening, but I didn’t stop to chat—I continued toward the chapel, taking the path to see the building up close for the first time. Decades of neglect and exposure had not been kind to the place. Those stones that were still in place were worn and dusty, windows were broken, and grass and weeds grew wildly about the premise. I looked around for any sign of life, but all was still. I pushed open the large wooden doors, which creaked loudly with the effort. A cloud of dust rose from where my footstep disturbed it. The front door led into the sanctuary, which by all appearance could have been a simple place of worship if one didn’t know any better. Pews lined the space leading up to the pulpit, but half of them were overturned, and while the walls were lined with bookshelves, many of the books were strewn about the floor. I picked one up from where it had been lying open in an awkward position. Some of the leaves fell from the binding as I raised it, and what was left was too faded to read.

In the back of the sanctuary was a small door. I stepped through it and was struck with a sight far different from the room that led into it. This was clearly a place for demonic rites. In the center was a stone slab, about the right size for a human body to lie on, and I could still make out the faint remains of many drawn circles and patterns, as well as alcoves for candles and incense caked with wax and ash. All around were the faint stains of decades-old blood.

I put down my bag and took out the book and some chalk. I drew a circle around the slab, then checked the book and carefully reproduced the symbols and patterns from its pages. I placed candles at prescribed positions as well as a few sticks of incense, all lit with little flourish of magic from my fingertips. Lastly, I made a cut on my left arm with my dagger, dabbed a bit of the blood with the tip of my finger, and used it to draw a few more patterns in the circle.

Magical energy was already sparking with tension throughout the space. I sat on the slab and shut my eyes. When I opened them, he was there, sitting in front of me, his form like a great black shadow in the light of the candles. I couldn’t have been more terrified or more eager. I lied on my back, and he rose onto his four massive feet to approach me.

The leap in my heart when he put his nose against me! He sniffed about my lower regions, then his long tongue lapped across my folds, first wetting the outside and then plunging into me, tickling my deepest walls. I didn’t restrain my moans of delight. He leapt up with his two front legs onto the slab, his talons coming to rest beside my shoulders, his entire body bearing down on mine, fur pressing against my gravid belly. He lined up his sheath with my opening, and with a few quick jabs, entered me. I wrapped my arms around him and grabbed fistfuls of black fur. His teeth were an inch from my face, his snout snarling as though he might snap me up at any moment.

He laid his moist chin across my neck and pressed his body tightly into mine. I nearly pulled out his fur in clumps when he knotted me. I let my cries of ecstasy ring off the walls, climaxing together with him.

We came to rest, both of us panting, and I looked into his fiery eyes. His tongue hung out in such a goofy, dog-like manner that I could hardly recognize him as the specter that had so haunted my nightmares. I ran my hands along the sides of his head and kissed him on the tip of his snout. He returned my affection with a few wet licks across my face. Still tied with me, he scrabbled with his back legs up onto the slab and laid his body across mine, not quite aware of how his considerable weight squeezed the wind out of me. He, I, and our child between us—what a strange family we were! And soon to be much bigger. He was mine, the magic had done its work and he was bound to me forever, consummated with that last act of passion and the willing flow of life from male to female.

His knot began to shrink, and he slipped out of me, but didn’t otherwise move. This was no time to be lazy, though! I had a lot to learn, and there was much to do, and a town full of eager followers waiting for their new dark sorceress. I pushed my companion to the side and sat up.

“What are you lying around for?” I said, giving him a quick scratch behind the ear. “Let’s go do some magic.”", "pools_count": 0, "title": "Black Dog", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "application/msword", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "3", "name": "Violence", "description": "Mild violence", "rating_id": "1" }, { "content_tag_id": "4", "name": "Sexual Themes", "description": "Erotic imagery, sexual activity or arousal", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "1", "views": "344" }