I Tamed The Twin Demons

Chapter 4 — A Name That Isn't Mine

Marco had discovered three important facts about his new life.

First, death was apparently not a permanent condition.

Second, making a deal with demons was considerably easier than convincing them to like him.

And third, whenever he thought his situation could not possibly get worse, the universe treated that thought as a personal challenge.

He stood beside the damaged altar while Devana examined the golden covenant mark on his wrist. Devana watched from a short distance away, her arms crossed over her chest and her expression suggesting that she regretted every decision that had allowed him to remain alive.

The strange heartbeat beneath the floor had stopped, but Marco could still feel its echo in his ribs.

“Are we certain that thing is gone?” he asked, glancing toward the sealed doorway.

“No,” Devana replied.

Marco turned to her. “You could have pretended to think about the answer first.”

“I could have, but lying would not make you safer.”

“I'm beginning to appreciate your honesty. It's almost as comforting as a knife in the stomach.”

Davea gave him a thin smile. “I can arrange that if you prefer.”

“Thank you. I'll keep it in mind.”

Devana released his wrist and stepped toward a narrow stone table near the wall. Several objects lay scattered across its surface, apparently collected from the dead man's belongings before the ritual began.

There was a cracked leather pouch, a small notebook bound in dark material, a silver ring, and a flat metal token whose surface had been scratched almost beyond recognition.

“We should determine who occupied this body before you arrived,” Devana said. “His possessions may reveal something useful about the ritual.”

Marco approached the table cautiously. The sight of the objects stirred an uncomfortable feeling in his chest, as though he were trespassing in a room that belonged to someone who had stepped outside for a moment and would soon return.

Except the owner was dead.

At least, that was what the twins had told him.

He picked up the metal token and wiped away a layer of dried blood with his thumb. A few letters emerged beneath the grime, followed by a narrow family crest depicting a closed eye surrounded by three curved lines.

Most of the inscription had been damaged, but the name remained legible.

MARCO VEYNE.

Marco stared at the words.

For several seconds, the room seemed to drift away from him.

The name was unfamiliar, yet something deep inside his borrowed body reacted to it. His fingers tightened around the token, and a sudden pressure gathered behind his eyes.

Then the memories began.

He saw a narrow street illuminated by rain-soaked lanterns. A man hurried past shuttered shops, clutching a leather satchel against his chest. His breath came in ragged bursts, and he kept looking over his shoulder as though someone were following him.

The vision shifted.

He stood inside a study lined with books and ancient maps. A heavy wooden door trembled beneath the force of someone pounding against it from the other side. On the desk lay a collection of strange symbols, including the closed-eye mark from the altar.

A voice shouted from beyond the door. “You don't understand what you've uncovered!”

Another voice answered, strained and furious. “Then explain why you want it buried!”

Marco tried to see the speaker's face, but the memory dissolved before he could make out the features.

A third image followed. Someone seized his arm. A chair overturned, scattering papers across the floor. There was a flash of red light, the sensation of falling, and a terrible certainty that the ground would never rise to meet him again.

Marco staggered backward, dropping the token.

Devana caught his elbow before he fell. “What happened?”

He struggled to draw a steady breath. “I saw something.”

“A memory?”

“I think so.”

“Whose memory?”

Marco looked at the token lying on the stone floor. “That's what I'd like to know.”

Davea retrieved the token and examined it. Her expression offered no hint of surprise.

“The name is Marco Veyne,” she said. “That was the man we killed.”

Marco felt his stomach tighten. “You're certain?”

“I do not make a habit of killing strangers and forgetting their names.”

“That's a fascinating hobby, although I wouldn't recommend it at social gatherings.”

Davea ignored the remark. “Marco Veyne was a minor human noble who became involved in forbidden infernal research. We were ordered to investigate him after his experiments disturbed a sealed chamber beneath these ruins.”

Marco looked at her sharply. “Ordered by whom?”

“That is not your concern.”

“I'm beginning to think that everything connected to my continued existence is somehow not my concern.”

Devana intervened before Davea could answer. “The important point is that the original Marco was investigating the same magic that brought you here. His possessions may explain why.”

She returned to the table and picked up the small notebook.

Its cover was scratched and stained, but the pages inside had survived remarkably well. Most were filled with symbols, numbers, and short lines of writing that appeared deliberately disordered. Some entries had been crossed out so aggressively that the paper had torn beneath the ink.

Marco leaned closer. “May I see that?”

Devana handed it to him.

He turned several pages, examining the strange markings. At first glance, they resembled a mixture of mathematical notation and an unfamiliar alphabet.

However, the same clusters of symbols appeared repeatedly, often beside different numbers or at the beginning of otherwise unrelated entries; he recognized the general principle.

The notebook was encrypted.

Not with any modern algorithm he knew, but with a crude substitution system, possibly combined with a shifting pattern. The author had tried to conceal his observations by replacing ordinary words with symbols and numbers.

It was an imperfect method, but imperfection was useful. Every time a pattern repeated, it offered another opportunity to work out what the author had intended.

Marco pulled a broken piece of charcoal from the table and began copying several lines onto a clean patch of stone.

Davea watched him with growing impatience. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to read the notebook.”

“Those marks are not a language.”

“They're arranged too consistently to be random.”

Devana leaned over his shoulder. “You can understand them?”

“Not yet. But the writer repeats certain symbols in places where names, locations, or common words would normally appear. If I can identify one of those patterns, I may be able to work out the rest.”

He compared two entries and circled a symbol that appeared at the beginning of several lines. A second symbol appeared beside dates, while a third was repeatedly followed by the same group of numbers.

The system was crude, but the author had made a mistake common to anyone who believed a code was secure simply because it looked complicated.

He had hidden the words without hiding their habits.

Marco worked through the patterns, using the surrounding numbers and repeated references to test his guesses. Several attempts produced meaningless results, and he had to cross out entire lines before he found a combination that made sense.

After several minutes, a recognizable name emerged.

THE LOWER ARCHIVE.

He looked up at the twins. “Does that mean anything to either of you?”

Devana's expression changed.

“Yes,” she replied. “The Lower Archive is a restricted chamber beneath the old infernal court. It contains records of forbidden pacts and entities whose names have been erased from official history.”

“Convenient place to keep secrets.”

“An intentional feature, I assure you.”

Marco returned to the notebook. More fragments emerged as he continued deciphering the entries. He identified two additional locations: a ruined observatory on the northern ridge and a district of the capital known as Ashmarket.

The same closed-eye symbol appeared beside all three; he copied it onto the stone beside his notes.

“This symbol seems to connect everything,” he said. “It appears in the notebook, on the identification token, and in the ritual circle. If the original Marco was investigating these places, they may all be connected to the thing that spoke through the projection.”

Devana studied the symbol with unusual seriousness. “You may have found something important.”

Devana, however, seemed unimpressed. “Or you may have wasted our time copying meaningless marks onto the floor.”

Marco looked at her. “Do you always assume the worst about people, or am I receiving special treatment?”

“You are occupying the body of a man whose experiments nearly destabilized an ancient containment ritual. You should consider yourself fortunate that I have not killed you already.”

“I have considered it. Repeatedly. Usually while looking at your sword.”

Devana gave an amused sigh and moved toward the table. “Continue reading.”

Marco turned to the next page, but the handwriting there was different. The lines were shorter, the symbols more widely spaced, and the ink had been pressed so deeply into the paper that the letters had left grooves on the page beneath.

The writer had been frightened when he made these notes.

Marco could feel it in the hurried strokes and the uneven spacing.

He read the first line aloud as he deciphered it. “The anchor was never designed to resurrect the dead.”

Devana immediately straightened.

Davea stepped closer.