Prior stepped into the combat zone again, leading with that massive genital bludgeon. The demon's nerve broke; it was outgunned. It tried to run, but bounced off the invisible shield outlined by the pentagram and fell, its front scorched. Prior strode forward and caught it from behind, reaching a hand down and under to grasp the hanging testicles and yank the entire loin back. With his free hand he hauled one of the large gray arms around, tweaking those demonic balls when he encountered resistance. Soon he had the demon's hands and feet together, and tied them in one bundle with the remains of his torn trousers: wrists and ankles crossed under the clumsy knot.

Now the demon got over its momentary shock and struggled earnestly, but that delay had been fatal for it. Prior wrestled the folded posterior into an upright posture and applied the pulsing tip of Monster to the demon's anus. The sphincter resisted, so Prior stepped back and kicked it with his snowboot, leaving a smear of caked vanilla across the hole. The muscle loosened only enough to fire a gaseous stench at him, then sealed as tightly as before. The demon flesh was tough!

"So it's like that, is it?" Prior muttered as he choked on the fumes. He picked up the candle and applied the flame to the aperture. "Fart again, why don't you!"

The demon did, not realizing what was waiting. A blow-torch developed as the gas hit the fire, and Prior had to reel back before he got singed. But first he jammed the blazing candle-wick into the open rectum.

The demon howled. Its body distended, blimplike. Flame shot out of its ears. Then the candle blasted out of its ass and accelerated like a rocket toward the ceiling, leaving a trail of thick smoke.

Prior launched himself at the rectum again, and drilled in with Monster before the sphincter could recover. It was like a furnace inside the demon, but he gritted his teeth and rammed in every inch before he began bouncing.

"Fee foo fii fanch!" he chanted in time to the beats. "I smell the sap of a cherry branch!"

"Mercy, you fucking bastard!" the demon cried as the odor of burning cherry-wood rose from it.

Prior might have let up then, but something about the phrasing of this appeal annoyed him. "Be ye green or be ye brass, I'll grind your wood to wipe my ass!"

As he finished the chant, he came, putting out the fire with living fluid.

The demon emitted a terrible scream as the first jet of semen struck. Then it dissolved in greasy reddish vapor. Prior was left spurting into air.

"You did it!" Black cried. "You beat the branch! You roasted its cherry!"

"Yeah," Prior said, contemplating the spatter on the floor. He knew that his victory had been largely luck—that and a brief combat rage that now was gone. He had never reacted that savagely before. Of course no one had ever tried to sodomize him against his will before, either.

Black was right: the Cherry Tree was dangerous! He wouldn't care to try battling another demon like that. His quest for his natural penis wasn't worth such macabre risk of life and limb, not to mention virgin anus. They would have to go back down the mountain.

"I thought you didn't know the score," Black said as he erased the pentagram. "But that's the finest fuck I ever saw. By a white cock, I mean. You screwed that cherry right out of existence! Man, I sure wouldn't stand in your way now! Let's go on up and smear the whole spook-ridden Cherry Tree with baby-juice!"

"Amen," Klo said. "I thought you were a eunuch, but now I know you were just biding your time for a real challenge I want to watch it all."

And what could Prior say?

Chapter Twenty-Four

The ascent to Stage Four was the roughest yet. It was not a far piece, but it was steep and treacherous. Prior had found new clothing at Stage Three, but it did not fit him well, and chafed in sundry new places. They used the pitons and ropes to scale a crystalline cliff, then had to lay low in the colored snow for two hours while a black walnut-flavored storm whistled over. The ice cream dumped on their heads was bad enough, but the pelting fragments of nut were like shrapnel, threatening to gouge out the skin of face and hands wherever it was exposed. In addition, their leaking body warmth sank them down into an underlayer of mixed sludge that became jelly-like around them. Prior would gladly have abolished all ice cream from the universe for all time!

They resumed the climb when the storm abated—and got caught in an avalanche of chocolate chip. The chips were like darts, then like stilettos, and at the height of it like fine swords, for the weather here did not honor dessert-bowl conventions. Black got gashed on the arm by a fragment weighing several pounds, and his cherry-colored blood stained his sleeve, but he wouldn't quit.

"To get cut by chocolate!" he grunted in disgust. "It's enough to make a fellow believe in white!" Then he looked about nervously, worried that the candy lightning might strike him down for his blasphemy.

"Probably there was an admixture of vanilla in it," Prior suggested as Klo did some makeshift bandaging. "That's what made it nasty. It was hybrid."

"Say, yeah," Black agreed. "Pure black chocolate would never slice me. You, maybe, but never me. Always trouble when you mix races."

"Can't trust halfbreeds," Prior agreed. No, it wasn't at all difficult to get along with the big militant, once he knew how!

They made it. Prior was dead tired, but it occurred to him that he might be better off tackling the four remaining Cherry Tree branches individually instead of in concert. He was not one of those men who could spurt twice in five minutes (except perhaps in extraordinary cases, such as the time with Oubliette) and certainly not four times consecutively, despite the fine array of weapons available. But if he could space each demon a day or so apart, and make careful preparation....

"I dunno," Black said in answer to Prior's query. "My magic ain't all that strong. I'm pretty much a layman, there. I might get the second branch here, but it could reach out of the pentagram some. And I know I couldn't handle the magic of the third branch, even with my amulet. You're strictly on your own there."

He considered a moment. "But with a dingus like that twelve incher, you can do it. Man, I almost came myself when I saw that thing start pumping!"

Every time Prior thought it was time to give up, he got unwelcome support for his quest. "Well, I'll give it a try," he said, more bravely than he felt.

Black set the stage and chanted his chant:

FII FOO FUM FEE, I SMELL A BRANCH OF THE CHERRY TREE!

BE IT DEAD OR BE IT GREEN, I'LL GIRDLE IT TO JACK MY PEEN!

And the branch was there, its leaves green, its cherry bright.

Prior decided to stick with a winner. He had Monster attached and erect. He took a breath and jumped into the arena, grabbing for foliage where he judged an arm would materialize, and thrusting the phallus toward the anticipated rectum. He wanted to do this rapidly, before the demon had a proper chance to fight. That might spell the difference!

He found himself with a handful of leaves, his penis nudging rough bark.

Um. "So you won't convert, eh? Well, I can still core your cherry!" he cried. He picked up the candle and brought it near, hoping that he hadn't been tricked into assaulting a genuine non-demonic tree-limb.

Then the metamorphosis occurred, but quietly.

A woman formed from the wood. She was a dusky nude knock-out—bold of breast, massive of thigh, classic of feature. She wore a necklace of little shriveled sticks, oddly incongruous against her physical beauty. "You wouldn't club an innocent maiden, would you, handsome?" she purred.

Black exploded with derisive mirth at the sideline. "Innocent! My uncle's cunt!"