I Tamed The Twin Demons

Chapter 2 — Three Seconds to Live

The voice inside Marco’s head sounded exactly like his own voice would have sounded if it had spent a thousand years buried beneath the earth.

Move aside, little thief. You’ve been sitting in my body long enough.

Marco’s blood turned cold, but he forced himself not to look beneath the altar. Whatever was trapped down there had already demonstrated that it could speak directly into his mind. He had no intention of giving it the satisfaction of watching him panic.

Unfortunately, the two demonesses standing over him seemed determined to make that difficult.

Davea raised her sword toward the ceiling, where cracks of crimson light spread across the ancient stone. Devana backed away from the altar, her golden eyes fixed on the symbols that were rapidly turning black.

“Get away from him,” Devana ordered.

Marco stared at her. “I would love to. Unfortunately, I seem to be lying on a table designed by someone who hated furniture and human comfort.”

“Move, then!”

“I would also love to do that, but there's a rather large sword pointing at my throat.”

Davea's eyes narrowed, and Marco immediately regretted reminding her that she possessed a sword.

She stepped toward him, apparently intending to solve the problem by removing his head. Before she could reach the altar, the entire chamber shuddered beneath their feet. A deep, rhythmic thumping rose from the stone beneath Marco's back, and the sound grew louder with every passing second.

Thump. The red symbols surrounding the altar brightened.

Thump. A jagged fracture raced across the floor, splitting one of the runes in half.

Thump. Dark energy burst from the broken symbol and curled toward the ceiling like a swarm of black serpents.

Marco watched the energy travel across the room. His fear remained, but something more useful began to push through it: curiosity.

The pulses were not random.

Each time the strange heartbeat sounded, the magic surged from the circle beneath his left hand. It travelled around the altar, gathered at the outer ring, and then streamed toward a massive sealed door at the far end of the chamber.

The door had no handle, only a circular indentation surrounded by seven metal spikes.

Marco followed the energy with his eyes. “Ladies,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, “I think we have a problem.”

Davea barely glanced at him. “Your continued existence is already a problem.”

“I was referring to the room that's about to collapse around us.”

“The room will survive.”

A section of the wall behind her began to melt. Stone sagged like wax, revealing a glowing red layer beneath its surface.

Devana looked at the damage, then back at her sister. “Devana, I believe he has a point.”

“I do not need a dead man's opinion about architecture.”

“Then perhaps you should listen to the living man who is currently lying on the magical device causing our predicament.”

Marco lifted one finger. “For the record, I would also appreciate not being blamed for things I don't understand.”

Another pulse shook the chamber, and the sword in Davea's hand vibrated violently. She swore under her breath before turning toward the altar.

The glowing symbols were fracturing faster now. Thin threads of darkness escaped through the cracks, reaching toward Marco's chest as though the magic wanted to pull something out of him.

He tried to sit up, but Pain ripped through his ribs, and he collapsed against the cold stone with a strangled gasp.

Devana moved instinctively toward him, but Davea caught her wrist. “Don't touch him.”

“He may need help.”

“He may be the reason we're all about to die.”

“And killing him will somehow make that better?”

Davea's silence suggested that she had not yet considered the question.

Marco took advantage of their argument to examine the altar more carefully. The glowing circle contained several channels, each connected to a different group of symbols.

Most of them were still illuminated, but two channels near his left hand had gone dark, exposing narrow grooves cut into the stone.

A loose metal clasp rested beside his wrist.

It appeared to have fallen from the strap securing his blood-soaked shirt, although Marco could not remember wearing anything with such an elaborate fastening. The clasp was blackened silver, with a hooked end and a thin, flattened tip.

He picked it up.

The nearest rune flashed.

Marco immediately stopped moving.

“Put that down,” Davea snapped.

“Gladly. As soon as someone explains why the magic reacts whenever I touch anything.”

“You are not touching anything else.”

“That's an excellent rule for the person holding the sword.”

Devana leaned closer to inspect the exposed channels. Her expression had changed from amusement to concentration, and Marco suspected that she was beginning to understand something about the ritual that her sister had missed.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“I see a containment circle that is no longer containing anything properly.”

“Can it be repaired?”

“Not by me.”

“Can you switch it off?”

Devana gave him a look that suggested the question was insulting. “If I could switch it off, do you imagine I would be standing here discussing it with you?”

“Fair point.”

Marco looked down at the clasp in his hand.

He had no magical knowledge, no secret understanding of ancient runes, and certainly no convenient ability to repair supernatural machinery.

However, he had spent enough of his previous life solving practical problems to recognize that complicated systems often failed for surprisingly simple reasons.

The circle was designed to contain something.

The circle was unstable.

Two channels had stopped glowing, while the remaining channels continued to carry energy toward the sealed door.

What if the problem was not the amount of energy but the direction in which it was travelling?

Marco glanced at the metal clasp again.

He was not sure whether the idea would work, but doing nothing would almost certainly get him killed. He would rather risk a bad decision than wait politely for the universe to finish murdering him.

“Devana,” he said, “if I make the magic change direction, could you keep it from spreading?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“You cannot control magic.”

“I wasn't planning to control it. I was planning to interfere with it.”

“Those are not the same thing.”

“I'm relieved we agree on something.”

Davea stepped forward, her sword rising again. “If you touch that circle, I will cut off your hand.”

Marco looked at the blade, then at the black cracks spreading across the wall. “Under ordinary circumstances, that would be a convincing threat. Unfortunately, we're currently experiencing extraordinary circumstances.”

He pressed the clasp against the two exposed channels; the metal touched the stone for one terrifying instant, and nothing happened, then the clasp began to glow.