[ADMIN - this episode is by Dark Icon and Greg Dewey.]

[Sarah]

Her shoes tapped on the polished white granite floor as she walked to one of the doors to the second of two operating theatres in the Clinic of the Coliseum. Sarah glanced through the small window in the stainless steel door. Since a little past sunset she had been hearing the voice of the medicine demoness say things like, "Okay, heal it again, babe." "Babe," was a habitually drunk 300 pound dark-haired mage, named Lovvorn. The man was just short of average height and wore the loudest colored robes Sarah had ever seen, not only that, but he pursued her, and she assumed most other women, with a certain unpleasant veracity.

It was not long ago that Sarah knew nothing about such men. She had been a quite homely and somewhat disfigured gentlewoman who had lost everything to the war between the Church and the Republic. Then the tent city where she had eked out an existence after the war had caught on fire, and she had been overcome by the flames. That is when her life had taken a turn for the... strange. Sarah had awakened from a long, magic-induced slumber and many unremembered surgeries in the opulent manse of Bryce Amberghylles, necromancer and owner of Montfort's coliseum. She had been burned beyond recognition, and necromantically reanimated while clinically dead. The reanimation had restored her body, and had paradoxically allowed her to return from her very brief lapse into the land of the dead. Now she was an unholy cross between woman and flesh golem. She tried not to think about it. To make matters... stranger, the demoness for whom she now worked as an indentured servant had sculpted Sarah's charred and reanimated body into an image of Aphrodite. Men like Lovvorn were now teaching her that the beauty she had always wished for was not always so pleasant as she had imagined.

The mage, Lovvorn, had had a knee crushed by a mace or similar weapon a couple weeks ago. The demoness doctor had visited him then and had told him to come in for reconstructive surgery as soon as possible. Instead, the mage had applied a number of minor healing spells. Not surprisingly, the flesh and bone had knitted, but wrongly so that the joint did not function. Tonight the medicine demoness was reconstructing the knee under a local anesthetic, making use of the mage's minor healing ability to lock in changes as she made them. At first Sarah had expected the operation to take less time, but Ironically, the medicine demoness, Clussh, seemed to be pursuing the fat man with the same kind of zeal that he applied to most women. Sarah had no idea what the demoness saw in the fat mage, but she had long ago decided not to worry about the sex life of her mistress.

The medicine demoness was a living contradiction, a beautiful horror, a cultured predator, a reptile mammal. Her head could be described as something between that of a pit viper and a lioness, her small, membranous ears resembled those of a bat. Her basic frame was recognizably reminiscent of a velociraptor, yet her arms and hands were far too developed. The surgeon's hand-claws were removable and interchangeable surgical instruments grown on the tops of the demoness' feet. She seemed to be able to grow quite a variety of them which she kept in a case. Each of her meticulous hands had dual-opposable grip, a thumb on either side of four fingers so that she could pick up and manipulate two small objects at once with each of her powerful hands. The demoness had a well-rounded rump that ought to have seemed more at home on something mammalian, a horse or even a woman. Reptiles did not have such hind quarters, yet her long, spike-tipped tail was unmistakably draconic. For all the varied pieces the medicine demoness seemed to be composed of, she was not a mish-mash. Her lines were true, her curves precise and her intricately patterned black,

gray and rust-colored scales covered her whole body in glossy reptilian splendor.


Neither Clussh's surgeon's hands nor the intelligence that burned behind her rust-colored eyes did a thing to soften the realization that one was facing 666 pounds of flesh-rending muscle with more teeth than one could easily count, and several sets of fold-down fangs such as would be found in the mouth of a HUGE rattlesnake. The claws on the tips of the demoness' thick "toes" looked like sickles. It had taken Sarah time to get used to the boss from hell, more specifically the Iron City of Dis, but somehow she was managing. The demoness had certain mannerisms that Sarah was learning to read. For instance certain tail motions and the drooling. Clussh nearly always drooled a little bit, but in the presence of a desirable male, she drooled more copiously. Sarah had no idea how the occasional man could manage to overcome the wisdom of his fear and actually bed the demoness, but she had overheard Mr. Amberghylles mentioning a possible explanation: The scent of a demoness contained sex attractants that affected the males of a wide range of species, and the demoness doctor's were particularly "good."

[Jade]

Clussh's muscle-bound gladiator slave came by with a mop and bucket. "She done yet?"

[Sarah]

"Looks like she's closing up his knee now. There's going to be plenty of work in there, I think she likes him."

[Jade]

"Yeah, I knew that, she had me fetch a bottle of gin and some candies for him early in the surgery. I don't get it though, He's fat as a bore," Jade whispered.

[Sarah]

Sarah nodded and shrugged, "I better go out front, He will be coming out to pay his bill soon."

[Narraton]

Within the operating theater, mage-light strongly illuminated the room from the high ceiling. It was well the lights were high above since the demoness was cursed with a null-magic aura that seemed to annihilate any supernatural power that came within a foot of her scales, including any spell or ability she herself tried to use. It was annoying to be without magic or telepathy, and equally annoying to be confined on the earthly plane indefinitely by the same force, yet the demoness had specialized in medical science, not medical magic, thus her professional skills had remained largely intact.

Secreting surgical glue through the tip of her long, dexterous tongue, the medicine demoness had closed up the flesh covering the reconstructed knee and asked the mage to cast a final minor healing to finish the job. Lovvorn was droolingly fat. Demons could not afford to carry more than a small to moderate energy reserve. Increased mass, especially without increased muscle mass, meant increased inertia, and increased inertia meant decreased speed and agility. In the harsh world of the lower planes, slow demons seldom lived long, thus fat was the province of the pampered play-things of demon lords who could afford to have pleasure slaves who were soft and palpable, useless for much more than slaking lusts or serving up as part of a banquet. On occasion, a demon mage or psion might pose as a pleasure slave and enjoy a luxurious life while taking over a demon lord's mind or serving as a bodyguard concealed in plain sight.

[Clussh]

The mage, Lovvorn, sat on the edge of the stainless steel operating table, Clussh moved his finished leg with one hand while squeezing his fat thigh above the knee with the other as she tested the motion of the joint. "That's about the best you're going to get without sacrificing your tattoos to a re-grow. Why don't you come back later for a little physical therapy," Clussh winked, drooled fetchingly and palpated Lovvorn's fat thigh.

[Lovvorn]

"Hmmm..." Lovvorn flexed his leg and winced. "I believe this will do. It took me a lot of time to create and charge these runes..." he pointed to the patchwork of tattoos that covered his leg... as well as every other part of his body. "Hate to have you chopping them off just because someone got careless with a spiked mace."

Lovvorn smiled, reveling in the revenge he had enacted on the person who'd maimed him. THAT had been a particularly fun night!

The leg still hurt. It was stiff, and he couldn't tell how much better it was going to get. At least he could move it now. After spending a couple of weeks treating it himself with healing spells, the damn thing had locked up on him. And at the most inopportune time, too. Luckily the young lady he was entertaining was in an understanding mood that night.

Speaking of entertaining... Lovvorn eyed Clussh's muscular rump.

"You know... for a demoness, you are quite comely," Lovvorn said for the fifth or sixth time that night.

[Clussh]

Clussh grinned, her front teeth were very like those of a lioness with a certain amount of space beside the canines that could be occupied by one of her various sets of folding venom fangs. Her lips were more dexterous-looking than those of a lioness, more closely resembling a smooth, scaly version of equine lips. "Yes, you said that already, but you can say it again," Clussh winked and drooled fetchingly.

[Lovvorn]

"I am behind...heh, heh... on my drinking right now, but I may be back...heh... to take you up on that therapy. Afterwards perhaps we can have a few more drinks... in private."

Lovvorn didn't know what it was about the doctor. By human standards she was hideous, yet she had a certain charm. And she smelled good, too.

[Clussh]

Clussh nodded, "Uhuh, let's do it. I think I'd enjoy a few drinks with a man as palpably handsome as you are," The demoness grinned toothily and licked her chops.

[Lovvorn]

Lovvorn got up and straightened his robe. The garment was a painful combination of greens, oranges, and purples that was very difficult to look at for very long. It was one of Lovvorn's favorites. He pulled the sleeves down over his arms, hiding the runes that were tattooed there. Each one held a particular spell ready for instant use. All of his tattoos were similarly functional... although some were in more accessible locations than others.

Lovvorn retrieved his walking stick and slid off of the table.

It took a few moments to steady himself, during which he held on to Clussh's backside for support.

[Clussh]

The demoness turned to leave the operating room but stopped and looked back at the mage as he grabbed her. Drool ran over her lips as she gamely wrapped her sinuous, spike-tipped tail around the mage's abdomen and gave the soft fat a squeeze not so unlike the one the mage was giving her rump.

[Lovvorn]

When he was able to stand without staggering or wincing in pain, he paused for a moment and then hobbled out of Clussh's operating room.

[Clussh]

The medicine demoness followed the mage into the waiting room watching his robe wiggle as his fat jiggled beneath it. "There's no need to put your full weight on that leg, your stick or half a levitation spell should lighten the load, but put a little weight on it and most importantly, you need to keep that joint moving as much as possible over the next few weeks."

[Lovvorn]

There was a small window set into the wall in the next room, and seated behind the window was a vision of loveliness.

I believe her name was Sarah, Lovvorn reminded himself. Or was it Samantha? Sabrina? Sabella?

"Helloooo there," he said. "You must forgive me... your beauty is so great that it seems to have displaced your name. Perhaps that is what I'll call you... 'Beauty'? Very fitting, I think..."

Lovvorn gave his payment to the woman and hobbled to the door. He turned around and winked at Sarah. He pulled the door open...

gggGRRRRRRR

The *thing* outside was canine, although it could have easily been a short-haired bear. Its muscles were twisted and knotted into unnatural bulges beneath the thick coat of matted fur. It dripped long strands of drool onto the ground, and the blood-red eyes almost glowed with a light of their own.

And right behind it were its three twin brothers.

"Ahhh... Clussh? I think your next appointments have arrived..."

RAAAHH!!

Lovvorn quickly reached for the fresh glyph tatooed on his left forearm. His pudgy fingers brushed it just as the first hound reached him... and passed harmlessly though the now-intangible mage. Lovvorn stepped out into the street, where watched with mild curiosity as the hounds all ignored him and ran into the office.

"This looks like fun..."

[Clussh]

As soon as Lovvorn opened the door, the night breeze had brought with it a canine scent and the sound of growling. The demoness was standing just inside the waiting room. "Lock it," she hissed pointing at Sarah as she closed the inner door with a hand behind her back. There was no time to leave the waiting room.

[Sarah]

Sarah couldn't see the enormous dogs for a split second, and it was a lucky thing. She knew better than to question the demoness when she took that tone. Sarah was not sure what "it" was, so she locked the window first and had just began to turn to run out of the receptionist's office room and lock the door from the operating and examination rooms behind the demoness when the first dog ran across the waiting room breathing and snarling as it leapt at Clussh. A split second later, another huge dog launched itself at the window Sarah stood behind.

Sarah blinked and threw up her hands as the huge canine catapulted into the window. She expected to be showered by shards of glass, but instead she heard a crunch as the creature broke its open jaws on the window and tumbled to the waiting room floor. Thanks to the doctor's policy of seeing the most unsavory sorts of patients, Bryce Amberghylles, necromancer and owner of the coliseum, had used his magic and wards to insure that a robbery of the clinic would be much more difficult than it appeared.

[Clussh]

Protecting the now closed door from the waiting-room side, the demoness stepped forward and reared up so that the leaping dog's mouth hit her chest, which was too broad for the mutt to sink her teeth into. Clussh knew hell hounds but was unprepared for the shear strength of the dog's leap which knocked her over backwards. The demoness heard the second dog's jaw break on the window while two more canines rushed through the door. In a second they would be on her. Clussh grabbed the neck of the bitch that had knocked her over to keep her from scoring a bite while the demoness started "running," but of course the demoness was laying flat on her back under the dog. A shower of intestines and internal organs fountained between the dog's rear legs, out the door and into the street as the sickle claws on the demoness' feet eviscerated her. Startlingly the bitch just kept trying to bite the doctor, and the canine was much stronger than she should have been. For a second the demoness thought the dog would never die, but when several ribs and the creature's heart flew out the door, she stopped moving and Clussh let go of her neck and tossed her into the street with her powerful demonic legs. Clussh was about to roll up onto her feet but the two dogs that had arrived in the mean time had other ideas...

[Dogs]

The next two dogs ran through the outer door with their noses perked and their tongues hanging lustily out of their mouths. As they reached the demoness, their hips began to gyrate, humping and pumping crazily.

Their task was to locate females... and the demoness was DEFINITELY female...

...irresistibly female...

...probably MORE female than anything they had encountered so far...

[Clussh]

"Hey! Stop that! Get off me you mutts! Chchchcssss," Clussh chuckled in spite of herself. These two dogs were obviously males.

[Clussh]

"Sarah, lock this door and get my adventure-belt!" "Lovvorn! Where in hell did these mutts come from?" Clussh hissed as two of the dogs continued to try to make puppies with her.

[Sarah]

Stifling a grin, Sarah was already on her way to do the bidding of her mistress.

[Clussh]

Clussh flickered an ear as she saw the second female dog's jaws rapidly regenerate after her head-long altercation with the window. That's odd, thought Clussh. The dogs looked like hell hounds, smelled mostly like hell hounds, but seemed to regenerate rather than breathe fire as most of the hell hounds she had run into did. It didn't take a genius to figure out what might have attracted the males to her clinic, but what of the females?

The demoness heard Sarah lock the door Clussh had been protecting from the other side. That was good, it would keep the dogs out of the rest of the clinic. Unfortunately she had a dog clamped to each leg trying to play Casanova, otherwise she might easily have flipped up onto her feet and leapt out into the street to give herself more room to maneuver. With legs captive to the astoundingly strong Casanovas, her combat options were somewhat more limited and although the other female had had only a second or two to recover from her crash against the window, she was already moving on Clussh. The Demoness, still laying on her back, brought her legs together and forward towards her chest. It brought the males much closer to what they wanted but it also put them in direct competition. The doctor brought her tail around low beside one of the preoccupied males and prepared for a surgical strike against the onslaught of the second bitch.

[Lovvorn]

Still out in the street, Lovvorn leaned on his cane and scratched his head.

Everything was happening so fast... one minute he was leaving, and the next minute a pack of large, foul smelling dogs was attacking the clinic... and Clussh in particular.

It looked like Clussh was in trouble, but then one couldn't quite tell with demonesses...

"Never fear... Lovvorn is here!"

Lovvorn pushed up the right sleeve of his robe, revealing his meaty, heavily tattooed arm. He ran his pudgy index finger across another one of the runes. Lovvorn rose high into the air and floated through the door well out of reach of the hounds... which were ignoring him anyway. He hovered near where Clussh was struggling with the beasts.

"Bad doggy!"

WHACK!

Lovvorn struck the nearest beast with his staff. The dog looked up at Lovvorn , sniffed the air around him, and then turned its attention back to Clussh. Lovvorn hit it again, this time putting as much force as he could behind the blow... which admittedly wasn't much. After all, he was a mage, not a fighter.

WHACK!

The hellhound let go of Clussh and leapt at him, but Lovvorn was already floating backwards, and circling around. The hound followed him, growling and dropping sulfurous saliva with every step...

"Now what do I do? Let me check my notes...."

Lovvorn quickly reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a folded sheet of parchment. He opened it to reveal a large, artfully drawn rune that began to glow as soon as it was exposed to the light.

"Hmmm...." said Lovvorn. He executed a sharp turn to avoid the leaping beast. "Six... five... four..."

Lovvorn sank to the floor and crumpled the parchment into a tight ball. When the hound saw that he was within reach, it leapt.... with jaws wide open, ready to clamp down on the mage's fat throat. Lovvorn threw the paper right into the dog's mouth, and then quickly floated back up as the hound bit down.

"...one... zer-"

THOOOM!!!!

The entire front half of the hell hound vanished in an explosion of seared, bloody flesh. Charred chunks of dog meat flew in all directions...

SPLAT! Splat...splat.... SPLAT!

"Ohhh... how I LOVE that sound," giggled Lovvorn, who was starting to enjoy himself a bit too much.

[Clussh]

With Lovvorn beating on one of the male dogs, the fight she had planned between the two males failed to materialize, instead one dog left to fight the mage and the other let go of her leg and jumped between her legs. "Chchch, not now honey, I've got a tail-ache." Clussh sprung to her feet before the dog could get a good grip. At the same time her tail whipped around as the second bitch, now fully recovered from her encounter with the window came leaping at the doctor's face. Clussh opened her capacious mouth, pulled her head backwards and blocked the bitch's chest with her arms. The bitch's jaws snapped at empty air just inside the demoness' open mouth.

"Gofya!" Clussh said, her jaws lunging forward, her numerous teeth closing down over the dog's jaws, muzzling it quite effectively as her tail spike penetrated the dog's belly. "Nww lefs tahe thif ouhide," The demoness talked with her mouth full as she walked out the door into the street. Her tail pulsed imperceptibly, the skewered dog hung from her mouth, ineffectually trying to pull away by pitting her front paws against the grip strength of the demoness' jaws. The other dog was sticking its nose where it did not belong but following enthusiastically. Once outdoors the demoness bit down hard on the bitch's jaws and jerked her neck from side to side until the bitch's jaws came off in the demoness' mouth.

[Jawless Dog]

Bleeding and jawless, the bitch flew down the street slamming into the pavement in a heap. As she got up, her jaws began to grow back, and the wound in her belly where the demoness' tail had entered sealed closed. A strange sound issued from the female dog's viscera; it was the sound of a group of voracious and unmannerly diners feasting. The dog took two convulsive steps forward, fell down, got up, coughed blood, whined, gagged, growled and nipped at her ribs as if hunting for a particularly noisome flea, then she took three ungainly steps forward, keeled over for a moment then started to unsteadily get to her feet again.

[Clussh]

Clussh strode back into the clinic, leaving the uncomfortable bitch in the street. It was only a matter of time before the demon larvae she had injected into the bitch through her tail spike ate something inside the bitch that she would not be able to recover from. The male dog, hips gyrating, hastened to follow the demoness, trying to grab one of the demoness' legs with its paws. The doctor from Dis licked the blood from her chops. Sarah was at the window with a large equipment belt. She peered out the window, then unlocked it and handed the belt to the demoness who kept moving this way or that every time the canine Casanova got too close to his mark. Clussh donned the equipment belt as she spoke, "Get Jade out here to clean up this mess before the stains set. The doctor pulled the six claws she was wearing out of the fingertips of each of her hands and replaced them from a case on her belt. The claws she selected were broad-based sickle-claws that could be used for climbing, raking or stabbing.

"Now lets see if we can get Casanova here to let us know what he came for. Clussh donned forearm bracers as she folded down her needle fangs and adjusted the valve-core within them, then accessed a few of the many reservoirs within her body that secreted and contained pharmaceutical substances and channeled the proper ingredients and base to a mixing bladder and thence up to her fangs. She bent over and misted the dog's nose with a local anesthetic. She knew the effect would not last long given the beast's regeneration, but for a moment the beast's over-active sense of smell would go dull, and her demoness' scent would no longer cause the dog's glands to generate the chemicals of lust. "Now lets wait a second and see if Casanova here wants to attack or if he has something else in mind."

[Lovvorn]

With two of the beasts dead and another writhing harmlessly in the street, Lovvorn turned his attention to the final hound. However, it looked as if Clussh had it under control.

The final beast was sniffing and growling in some confused state. Lovvorn didn't know what Clussh had done to it... but whatever it was seemed to be a rather interesting trick.

He was jealous.

"Now THAT was invigorating..." said Lovvorn.

Suddenly the hound jumped at Clussh, grabbed her leg between its jaws and began trying to drag her out into the street.

[Clussh]

"He wants to take me somewhere. I'd like to see where these dogs came from. I'll be back later." Clussh turned to Lovvorn, "I liked your exploding paper. 'Could be useful for prescriptions for the terminally

ill," Chchchchch, Clussh giggled draconically.

[Lovvorn]

"Or as gentle reminders for those who... ahem... forget to return to render payment. Say, there may be more of those hounds. It may be safer if I accompany you."

Lovvorn got an odd look on his face, and then:

"Did I just say what I thought I said?"

[Clussh]

"Hchchch, yeah, I think you said what you think you said. Maybe you're belly's going soffft, or you're just along to show off thinking maybe you can get a piece... of the action. The doctor winked and thrust her tail spike in and out of the dog's mouth, just so, until the canine gagged. When the dog released her leg, the demoness made sure he got hold of her tail-spike and left her leg alone. Then she let him pull her out into the street as though she were walking the dog on a living leash. Meanwhile, she donned hand-guards made of some sort of odd-looking metal in preparation for combat.

[Lovvorn]

Lovvorn floated to the ground and hobbled after them.

[To Be Continued]