I Tamed The Twin Demons

Chapter 2 — Three Seconds to Live A

Marco's fingers locked around it as a violent current surged through his arm. He felt something cold race beneath his skin, followed by a pressure behind his eyes that made the entire chamber seem to tilt sideways.

The symbols around his left hand flared white.

The next heartbeat arrived.

Instead of travelling outward toward the sealed door, the dark energy struck the clasp and reversed direction. It rushed through the exposed channels, circled the altar, and plunged into the broken runes on the opposite side.

The entire chamber erupted in crimson light.

Davea shouted something that Marco couldn't hear. Devana threw up both hands, forming a shimmering golden barrier just as the energy exploded outward.

The blast hurled Marco off the altar.

He struck the floor shoulder-first, rolled across the stone, and crashed against the base of a pillar. His lungs emptied in a painful rush, and for several seconds he could not draw enough breath to speak.

Above him, the altar groaned.

A section of the wall continued melting, but the dark tendrils had stopped spreading. The symbols were no longer flashing wildly, and the terrible heartbeat beneath the stone had faded to a low, distant throb.

Marco coughed and tried to sit up. Every part of his body protested.

Davea appeared through the drifting smoke, her silver hair dishevelled and her expression murderous.

“What,” she demanded, “did you do?”

Marco looked at the still-glowing clasp, which had landed beside his boot. “Improved the situation.”

Davea pointed toward the wall. “The wall is melting!”

“I said improved, not solved.”

Devana stepped around a fallen piece of stone and examined the altar. Her golden eyes moved from the broken runes to the metal clasp, then to Marco, who was struggling to get his legs beneath him.

“He's either remarkably clever or remarkably stupid,” she observed.

Marco pushed himself upright, wincing as pain travelled through his ribs. “Can I be both? Because I think that's the most accurate description of me.”

Devana almost smiled, but Davea did not.

She seized Marco by the front of his shirt and pulled him toward her until he could see the red glow reflected in her eyes. “You will explain exactly how you interrupted the ritual.”

Marco opened his mouth to answer, but the words disappeared before he could speak.

A sharp pain stabbed through his skull.

The chamber vanished.

He stood in a different room, one lit by the warm glow of a fireplace. His hands were larger, scarred across the knuckles, and covered in dark hair. A signet ring rested on his right index finger, bearing the same closed-eye symbol he had seen on the altar.

Someone sat opposite him, hidden behind a curtain of shadow.

Marco watched his unfamiliar hand press a black seal into a sheet of red wax.

A man's voice spoke from the darkness. “If the body wakes again, do not trust the twins.”

Marco tried to turn toward the speaker, but his borrowed body refused to obey him.

The memory shifted.

He saw a pair of crimson eyes reflected in a polished blade. He heard someone screaming behind a locked door. Then he felt a hand close around his throat, squeezing until his vision filled with darkness.

A final whisper followed him into the void.

The second occupant must never reach the door.

Marco gasped.

The chamber returned in a rush of colour and sound, and he discovered that he had fallen to his knees. Sweat ran down his face, while his hands trembled uncontrollably.

Davea had released his shirt.

Devana crouched in front of him, studying his expression with unsettling intensity.

“What happened?” she asked.

Marco swallowed, struggling to steady his breathing. “I saw something.”

“A vision?”

“I don't know.”

“Was it a memory?”

He looked at her sharply. “I don't know that either.”

The answer seemed to interest her more than a confident explanation would have. She glanced at the altar, where the remaining runes had settled into a faint, irregular glow.

“You interacted with the containment circle without casting a spell,” she said. “You redirected its energy using an ordinary piece of metal, even though you have no apparent understanding of its structure.”

“I'm beginning to suspect that I have a very strange talent for making bad decisions.”

“Do not mistake luck for talent.”

“Trust me, I'm not.”

Davea approached them, her sword still drawn. “We should destroy the altar and whatever is inside it before the containment fails again.”

Devana rose to face her sister. “And if destroying the altar releases the thing we've been containing?”

“Then we kill it.”

“You do not even know what it is.”

“Neither do you.”

“Which is precisely why we should learn more before making an irreversible decision.”

Davea's expression darkened, and Marco realized that the twins might agree on very little when danger presented them with a difficult choice. Davea preferred decisive violence, while Devana seemed willing to tolerate uncertainty if it offered the possibility of understanding a threat.

For the moment, that difference might be the only thing keeping him alive.

“Fine,” Davea said at last. “He gets to live until I decide what to do with him.”

Marco exhaled slowly. “That's remarkably generous.”

“Do not test my generosity.”

“I wouldn't dream of it.”

“You will explain how you interrupted the ritual.”

Marco looked at the clasp lying beside his boot. He could not tell her that he had understood the magic, because he hadn't. He had noticed a pattern, formed a hypothesis, and acted before he could think of a better option.

That was the truth, and it sounded disappointingly unimpressive beside the supernatural events unfolding around them.

“I noticed the energy was travelling through the circle in a repeating pattern,” he explained. “When I saw the exposed channels, I guessed that connecting them might interrupt the flow. The clasp conducted the energy, and the magic changed direction.”

Devana watched him carefully. “You guessed.”

“Yes.”

“And you risked your life on that guess.”

Marco gave her a tired smile. “I was already lying on an altar with a sword against my throat. My options were limited.”

For the first time, Devana laughed without trying to hide it.

Devana looked ready to strangle both of them. Before she could respond, a metallic click echoed from the far end of the chamber.

All three turned toward the sealed door.

The seven metal spikes surrounding its circular indentation began retracting one after another. Ancient mechanisms groaned inside the walls, and a thin line of pale light appeared between the door's two halves.

Marco slowly rose to his feet. “Please tell me that's supposed to happen.”

“It's not,” Devana replied.

Devana moved in front of her sister, raising her sword toward the opening.

The door swung inward.

Beyond it stood a man wearing a dark coat, his face pale beneath strands of silver hair. A deep scar crossed his throat, and black veins spread from his collar toward his jaw.

Marco stared at him. The man had his face. Not a similar face. Not a distant resemblance. It was the exact face Marco had seen reflected in the blood on his hands—the face of the man whose body he had inherited.

The stranger regarded the demon twins with a cold, familiar contempt before turning his gaze toward Marco. For several seconds, neither of them moved.

Then the stranger's expression twisted into something resembling grief.

“You shouldn't have come back,” he said.

Marco's stomach tightened.

Davea shifted her stance, placing herself between the newcomer and the altar. “Who are you?”

The stranger ignored her.

His eyes remained fixed on Marco, and the pale light behind him began to darken. “You were supposed to stay dead,” he whispered. “Now you've broken the seal, and it knows where to find us.”

A low heartbeat sounded beneath the floor.

The stranger's face drained of colour. Then he looked directly at Marco and mouthed three words that made his blood run cold. “It's wearing you.”