Dizzy opened her eyes. The coldness of hard stone beneath her — naked, thank you very much — body. She was in the NeuroScape. This wasn’t real. But it sure as heckin’ balls felt real. The sweltering heat around her. The cold stone bed beneath her. No, wait. Not a bed . . . table of some kind. No . . . an altar. A stone altar. And there was fire. Fire all around her. She was in a cave. A dark, dimly lit cave, illumined only by the raging infernos that burned deeper in, and all around her, raging behind the stalactites and stalagmites in its recesses, the stone all around her the colors of ember, charcoal, and ash. Despite the blazing fires, a breeze blew past her, wafting over her naked limbs, face, and breasts. She tried to move her arms — they were just over her head for some reason — to cover herself, but —

Crap. Her hands were tied above her head; tied, it felt like, with rope, fastened at her wrists. She struggled to get free, writhing and twisting on the stone, grunting with effort, but it was no good. Damn! The knots held tight. Then —

My legs work! He programmed the Simulation so as to give me working legs! Hallelujah! The reason she had built the NeuroScape to begin with — the reason she had commissioned the project in the first place — was that she had wanted a world — albeit, a virtual one — where the lame could walk, the blind could see, and the disabled could be able again . . . and the NeuroScape had been the result. And here she was within its virtual embrace once again; and lo, once more, her Avatar had, unlike her Real World Self, working legs. But —

Crap. Again. Those were bound with rope as well, tied at the ankles. Why program a Simulation wherein her Avatar had working legs, but they were tied? Unless it was just torture her. Figured. Ravenkroft was such a bastard.

She took another look around. Wait, this wasn’t a cave. It was a cathedral. And a Satanic one, at that. Upside-down crosses adorning the stone walls? Check. Pentagrams drawn on the shiny obsidian floor? Check. Arcane symbols drawn around their edges? Double check. And all sorts of other details, too, all of them designed to up the place’s creep factor, no doubt: Great spiders spun webs in the far-lofty corners; their black eyeballs pierced her with their gaze, staring at her hungrily, their mandibles drooling and chittering. Gee, that was homey, and didn’t make her the slightest bit nervous. Not. Upon the vaulted stone ceiling, far above, giant bats hung in the arches, their leathery wings folded over their bodies . . . they seemed restless as well, hungry for the night and the blood of the kill, no doubt. Eesh. A great bell tolled somewhere in the upper echelons of the cathedral, as well. Outside, somewhere, the howling music of baying wolves filled the night; because of course it was nighttime; you didn’t do Satanic rituals during your lunch hour on Tuesdays. The cathedral had high, arched windows, which looked out onto a sky filled with alien constellations. Yeah, this wasn’t exactly a cheerful place — it wasn’t going to improve with a few flowers and some throw-pillows — and it hit all the right markers for things Dizzy found creepy and unsettling. It was straight out of a Clive Barker or Stephen King novel, this place. Which was why she never watched those movies. They touched a deep nerve in her, one she couldn’t put words to or conjure up tangibly to get a grip on . . . but one that, once touched, filled her with a nameless dread and a primal terror, and that robbed her of her usual bravado and spirit of adventure.

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She turned her head to the right, then, and it was there.

The Goat-Demon.

Shit. Fuck.

She had no other words for it other than “Goat-Demon,” because those were the first words that came to her mind. It stood two and a half meters tall, with the well-muscled body of a weight-lifter and the head of an adult ram — horns, gruff, and all. Belted around the creature’s waist was a great sword of blackened steel that shimmered darkly in the torchlight; as it moved, the tip of the sword scraped the stone, a terrible sound, like fingernails working their way down a chalkboard. And it was naked, as well, save for the sword, and some heavy, iron armor plating on its shoulders and its chest.

Okay, this was officially fucking — forget “frakking”; fucking — terrifying. Dizzy struggled against the ropes that bound her. Panic filled her, and the rope burned her wrists and ankles as she twisted and writhed on the altar. The Goat-Demon gurgled in its throat, a sound of . . . Hunger? Worse — desire? Her eyes went to its manhood, which grotesquely swelled and engorged as it approached her, its gigantic erection stiffening and hardening, its enlarged, reddened penis throbbing, its huge testicles the size of coconuts

Dear Christ on a pogo-stick. Oh fuck, no. No, no, no! Panic turned to horror turned to nausea and adrenaline. Terror of the Goat-Demon, fear of what she knew it wanted to do with her. To her. And — fear of giving it what it wanted despite the vomit and revulsion churning in her stomach; fear of the sudden — and wholly artificial spark of desire that some strange, viral bit of NeuroScape code had now ignited inside her brain and that now burned within her, the darkness of the shadows closing in on her, and touching her in dark places . . .

Let me in, the Goat-Demon whispered in the darkest recesses of her mind. Let me into you and all will be well . . . a paradise awaits you if you will but eat of the black fruit that I offer . . .

Dizzy tried to scream, but only a squeak issued from her lips. Wide-eyed with terror, and at the whispering voices in her skull urging her to give into it, she shuddered again, trembling, her mouth moving but making no sound, the horror of the moment drilling so deep into her that it became one with her bones, freezing them. She could feel her blood curdling as her heart thumped and thumped, panic and desperation filling her. And desire . . . again unbidden, unwelcome. Sickening, revolting. Yet there, all the same . . . desire for this thing. Some deep, corroded corner of her soul — a part that Ravenkroft, somehow, was stimulating, programming from somewhere else — actually wanted this thing, ached to have it inside her . . .

No! She shook it off, or tried to. She forced that part of her to back the hell off — beat it into submission with every ounce of will she possessed.

Shh, whispered the Goat-Demon, reaching forth and caressing her naked stomach, running a black-clawed finger through the slick of sweat that lay there. I will make it better . . . if only you let me in. Let me become one with you, let me inside you, and all will be well . . .