Silver Casket, Golden Key

[Dara Marks]

Once upon a time in a kingdom by the sea there lived an unlucky man.

He was not a bad man or an evil man but he was not a very clever man. Try as he might, nothing he set his hand to succeeded - not love, not money, not respect. Coins slipped through his fingers like water; his neighbors grew fat and prospered while he struggled. Eventually his heart, although not evil, turned to bitterness. Why did others have manna fall from the heavens while he went without? Why did good things happen to those that did not deserve them as much as he who worked so hard and received so little? Was he not righteous in his life? Did he not pray each night, asking for the path to be revealed?

Thus did the unlucky man turn step by step to darkness. He began to lie and he began to steal. He began to cheat his friends and they turned from him. When that was not enough, he started to take what he could not earn. He began to hoard all that came to his hands.

And when greed overcame fear, he turned finally to magic.

The unlucky man was still not entirely bad and he was certainly not evil. But summoning demons, even small ones, is never an act performed in daylight. So under a round moon, hidden from everything with eyes to see, he drew the circle made of salt, cut the throat of the lamb and said the words that he had paid dear to learn. He expected an imp or a geist to come, drink the blood, be trapped as his servant. He expected a creature that could be contained by salt on the grass.

The thing that rose up in the circle did not care anything for salt, but oh, she had a use for men. Was she the one trapped? Was he? He lay down with her under the pregnant moon and felt the tides of his fortune change against in the ocean of her skin.

No luck is so bad that it lasts forever. Even unlucky men can be blessed in unexpected ways. When nine months had passed she came back and pressed the babe into his arms. It could not live with her; so fragile with its half human blood, the roundness of its ears, the bluntness of its ten fingers. She did not want it so it was his. She had no interest in something so likely to break.

A bargain was made then. Good luck to replace every moment of bad, three fold and more. Power to hold anything he could scheme to take, her cast off magic to sway other men, to cloud suspicion and doubt. It was everything - and all of it for the price of a squawling girl-child with nubbins of horns at her downy temples. He looked at her and he said the words without even a pinch of salt for protection.

He was, after all, not very clever.

Once upon a time in a kingdom by the sea, there lived a lucky man. His daughter was as blue as the ocean at midday, dark as a secret. They lived in a castle on the highest hill in the land, king and princess together. And for many years, they were happy there as luck washed over them like sunshine - until the time it came for the princess to go to school.

But that is another story.

[Dara Marks]

The slim lady at the front of the room was smiling gently as the new students trickled into the classroom. Her gloved hands were folded neatly in front of her, her gray pencil skirt impeccable. She was easily the most beautiful person Dara had ever seen.

The nun ushered them in, exchanging a glance with the teacher before quietly closing the door.

"Thank you everybody. Could you please all take a seat?" She smiled again. "Don't worry about where for now." Even the voice was cultured and soft, reinforcing the impression of quiet authority.

Dara found herself looking around like everyone else. Where to sit? Not at the front because that was too much like you wanted the teachers to notice you. Not at the back because that was where the guys always sat and made noise. In the middle? She shuffled forward, not really willing to be the first person to break from the herd, even in as small a group as this.

When she'd been enrolled in public school last year, she'd been one of nearly a thousand kids. Everyone had sat in the bleachers of the big auditorium as the principal welcomed the entire school over the PA system. Home schooled her entire life, the change had been frightening. She'd been jostled, stared at, made miserable as everyone left a clear space around her on the bench. Making utterly sure she knew that she was too different to ever fit in.

"Everybody please, find a seat. We have a lot to talk about today and we need to get started."

In desperation Dara looked around again, trying hopelessly to figure out if any of these people would ever want to be her friend. Everybody looked normal, that was the worst part. There was a boy with his blonde hair stuck straight up in a mohawk but that wasn't exactly weird. A trio of girls were stuck together as if with glue, obviously friends. A deeply tanned boy with black hair slouched a little ahead of her.

Then a pale girl with straight platinum hair slid into a seat near the front, her eyes looking a little bruised as if she didn't get enough sleep. As if that was the signal, everybody started to sit down.

Dara found herself staring at the boy with the short dark hair. It was somewhere between wavy and curly and trying to flip up at the nape, his skin the color of dark coffee and milk. He was dressed in army surplus that bagged over a pair of boots.

Impulsively she walked over as he chose a seat and quickly slid into the one next to him. She tucked her skirt under her legs, folded her hands on the desk, crossed her ankles. Sit straight, don't slouch, be a lady always. The litany ran through her mind. The pit of her stomach felt a little strange.

After a few minutes she glanced out of the corner of her eye. He was looking back the same way. For a second the ghost of an uncertain smile crossed his lips and she smiled back before she could help herself.

She suddenly felt better about everything. She turned her attention to the front of the room. Maybe this school wouldn't be so bad.

"Wonderful, thank you. Now, my name is Janine Sinclair but you can call me Gemini if you wish. I've met some of you already." The woman looked at each of them, still with that smile. "Now, how many of you are new to St. Joseph's this year?" Dara put up her hand along with four other people, including the boy next to her. "I just want to say that we're happy to have all of you here. Once we've talked a little bit, I'll be taking you all through orientation, then down to Stores to get everybody measured for school uniforms and then to get your dorm assignments. This afternoon you'll all be tested at the Athletics Center."

There was a chorus of groans from some of the other kids who obviously knew what that meant, one girl saying something that Dara didn't quite catch. If Miss Sinclair heard, she ignored it to pick up a clipboard from the desk. Dara snuck another look at the boy beside her. His profile was clean against the backdrop of the autumn window, skin smooth over a rounded cheekbone. "Now, I'm going to do roll call so please answer to your name. If I get it wrong, please let me know. Simon Abrahms?"

"Here."

"Tracey Jorgens?"

"Here." Gemini ticked the names off.

"Aura King?"

"We're here. Hi!" Dara thought that was a strange answer but Miss Sinclair didn't seem to mind, smiling at the pale haired girl.

"Dara Marks?"

"Here," Dara answered softly, raising her hand.

"Carlitta Schmidt?"

"Here," the boy next to her answered.

"Jay Sanzetti?"

Dara didn't actually hear the rest. Carlitta. Carlitta. Not Carl.

She couldn't help it. Couldn't possibly help it. She looked sideways.

Subtle alchemy made dark hair pert now instead of just messy. It was still trying to curl at the ends. She stared at the clean line of the jaw that could mean anything, the straight nose.

Carlitta.

Dara turned back to the front of the room, twisting her fingers. Dull heat flushed the back of her neck. For the first time ever she was glad her skin was blue, that a blush wouldn't show.

Utterly and completely grateful that nobody would ever, ever know.

[Dara Marks]

"Senor Marks?"

He made the mistake of opening his eyes. The light stabbed into his brain, overriding the queasy sensation in his stomach with the knife through his temples. He groaned, rolling over.

"Senor Marks, there is a phone call for you."

"...No phone calls."

"Senor Marks, it is... "

"Goddamn it, I said no phone calls!" He made the second mistake of raising his head to yell. The pain spiked through the left side of his face, twisting his temper higher. What was she, stupid? The woman next to him made a sound of protest at the noise, the tan curve of one shoulder hunching. A manicured hand groped for a sheet. He glared at the housekeeper in the doorway.

"Senor Marks. It is the school."

He squinted. "I don't own any schools." The effort of being even that little bit vertical made itself known and he flopped down, covering his eyes. What the hell time was it anyways? Too damned early, it was still light out.

"No, senor, it is your daughter. There is some problem. They say they must to talk to you right away."

He came back up on one elbow and stared at her in disbelief. For this, she'd woken him up? "Problem. There's a problem." He rolled it around on his tongue. "What the fuck has she done now, singed the curtains with crying on them?" The housekeeper didn't reply, just stood there in the door with a neutral expression. He really hoped she was thinking about the pink slip he was going write as soon as he could see past the hangover. "Tell them... shit. Tell them I'll call them back."

"Yes, senor."

"Wha' was that, baby?"

He threw the covers back and put his feet on the floor. "Nothing. Go back to sleep."

A hand slipped out and groped along his thigh. "Ah, don' leave now. Party's just starting."

He stood up and the hand fell away, the ragged edge of a nail scoring a line. "I said, go back to sleep." He found a robe and shrugged it on. Something ugly was trying to chew its way out the front of his forehead and he grimaced."We can party more later." He looked back but she was already passed out again, blonde hair a rumpled mess. What was her name? Candice? Candy? Ah, who the hell cared, not like it mattered. He could pick up two more just like her later.

-------------------

A Bloody Mary and some eggs and toast later, he felt as if he could deal with talking to somebody about whatever the silly bitch had done. The headache was muted by the kick of tomato juice and alcohol. He took the second glass into the study and fell into the leather seat, digging around in the desk for the chequebook.

He ran a hand over his chin as the phone autodialed.

"St. Joseph's School, head office. How may I help you?"

"Get me Arthur Winston."

"May I tell him who's calling?"

"Sure you may." The joke never failed to give him a kick. He smiled as he took a belt of the laced juice.

"Your name, sir?"

"Robert Marks."

There was a definite hesitation as his name registered. "A moment, please." The music drilled through his ear and he held the phone away until the line clicked over.

"Robert, thanks for calling back so quickly." The voice of the headmaster of St. Joseph's in Paragon City was professionally warm. He'd only met the man once, when he'd gone to sign the paperwork for Dara, and hadn't much liked the experience. Something about the administrator raised hackles, something subtle he could never point to afterwards. Maybe it was the arrogant authority in the voice or the way his eyes seemed to figure out every squirmy, nasty thing somebody'd ever done in their life.

Robert Marks had done many squirmy, nasty things in his life. "What's this about my daughter? I'm paying you good money to keep her out of trouble and happy up there."

"I regret to inform you that there's been an accident."

-------------------

The bitch in his bed had been packed off, the housekeeper dismissed. Against the backdrop of the downtown skyline, he paced from one side of the room to the other, biting an expensive manicure to pieces. The small bag of salt he'd snatched from the kitchen slumped on his desk like a weird new wave statue, like it could possibly help what was coming.

What the fuck. What the fuck was going on? A goddamned field trip, was what Winston had said. Out on a field trip and yes, he'd signed the damned consent forms for that shit somewhere in the welter of admission requirements so of course Dara had gone with her class, gone out and not returned and the best fucking answer he'd gotten was that Winston didn't fucking know why either.

The cold prickling sensation spreading through his body obliterated the hangover. Dara was missing. Sweet precious little Dara. Dara with her smooth blue skin and little curving horns and that plaid skirt that just barely covered her thighs. Gone in some sort of fucked over time rift or hole in space or whatever the hell else but gone, gone, gone.

Fear sat on his shoulder and gibbered deliriously in his ear.

He had to get her back. He had to make sure she was all right, untouched, unharmed. That was the deal. He had to fix this before the something bad happened, the something that he'd always known was coming if he crossed the line.

It was that fear alone that had kept him from ever reaching out and touching the curve of her knee in that skirt. Had kept him from dwelling too long on what it would feel like if he only dared. He found himself watching the floor in horror. A vision crawled across his sight of a circle blackening, smoking as something tore its way into the world, intent on punishment. He shook his head, mouth dry, stepping over the nightmare in his mind.

Fuck if he was waiting. He had to find out what the hell had happened because damned if he was going to let that silver haired asshole tell him to be calm, that it was being worked on. How long before the bargain failed? Was she dead even now? How long did he have? There wasn't enough salt in the fucking world for this.

He stopped in the middle of the room. Out of this world. His head snapped to the phone. Yes. Yes. He knew what to do. His fingers fumbled with the buttons.

There were mages on his payroll. A little of this, a little of that, none of it particularly legal but not enough to cause a judge to notice. Protecting certain assets. Disappearing certain problems.Even to finding what didn't want to be found.

He had things of hers, secret things. She could be found through that, they could tell him what was going on. He'd get her back before her mother realized what he'd done.

Get her back before his entire life came apart at the bloody seams.

[Carlitta Schmidt]

There was never a good time to feel the pull, but with a shrug, the squat yellow being put down the parchment it was committing to memory and waited patiently for the ritual to complete. Five days had passed since it had last responded to a summoning, and the distraction would not prove unwelcome. Within minutes, the indistinct tug tightened and strengthened, drawing attention towards a back corner of the study chamber. There, below a shelf containing a collection of eighteenth-century silverware, a growing weakness in the barrier between the Fourth Plane and the mortal world was apparent to anyone with the properly attuned senses.

“Arkandi! Tomanthira! Zu’PLAH!” boomed a sonorous voice, as the rapidly forming gateway achieved audial transfer strength. The waiting creature almost laughed in response, slapping its bulbous body with a three fingered hand.

“Tomanthira?” it spoke incredulously, knowing the distant mortal wizard could not hear. “You seek to summon Ninzilducharkrazonisath with an invocation from the Twenty-Third Charter?” In spite of the affront, the creature beamed with pride as it spoke its own, newly-shortened name. It had been less than a year since its master had permitted removal of the ninth syllable, indicating greatly increased status within the Archival hierarchy. “I am no Scrivener Drone, you fool. No Implet or Demi-demon. I am a Sagacious Demonic Servitor. A valued member of my order. The very Lords of Hell have sought my counsel! And you summon me with this? I should destroy you for such impude…”

The diatribe was cut off as something new was felt through the pull. Perhaps an offering of some kind.. A smell, unrecognizable, but appealing to some deep instinct within the demonic archiver. Curiousity was awakened, for such was the weakness of its kind. A Sagacious Demonic Servitor hungers for knowledge above all else. A familiar itch developed in the back of this one’s head, and for just a moment the tiny horns above its misshapen eyes seemed to glow with an inner light.

The rationalization began. The summoning was too weak to compel, but strong enough for passage. There were standing instructions to take all opportunities to seek knowledge in the usually inaccessible mortal plane. Besides, nothing important was being interrupted. With just a tiny bit of eagerness, the creature shuffled into the gateway and allowed the ritual spell’s power to carry him through.

Noise was the first thing it noticed. The mortal world always seemed an endless cacophony of random sounds. So many mortals, so much talking and doing of things, often to no purpose discernable to this visitor from the Fourth Plane. A moment was taken to adjust for levels, then visual senses were opened. Ignoring the summoner for now, it scanned the surroundings for clues, picking up on the most minute details and quickly drawing conclusions.

A darkened room with no windows. Piles of books suggested library, no… evidence of retail activity. A bookstore then. But the back room. In a city. A large city from the noise volume. Hints in the air suggested the east coast of North America. Accents in distant voices, as well as documents pinned to a corkboard on the wall, indicated the bookstore was located in New York City. It was late afternoon, a fact cleverly deduced from a quick glance to the digital clock sitting on a nearby desk.

The mage was uninteresting. Pale. Thin. Long brown hair in a pony tail. Wearing elaborate robes with minor warding symbols woven into them, but beneath those… jeans and t-shirt. Sneakers on his feet. Good voice though. He spoke the words clearly and forcefully. There was no actual flaw in his execution, he had simply chosen an ineffective ritual for the being he had attempted to summon. Said being had no intention of informing the mage of his mistake though. No point in telling a greedy mortal how to compel one, is there? The current situation was ideal. The demon could choose for itself when to respond to calls from this supplicant.

More interesting were the various items laid around the summoning circle. The smallest was a tiny case containing a number of reddish hairs. The largest was a pair of shoes sized and styled for a female child. An assortment of smallclothes made up the rest. They looked entirely mundane, and yet it was something in one, some, or all of these things which had attracted the demon’s interest from across the barrier. Something here was not as it appeared.

“Attend me, Servitor, and hear my wishes,” the mage began in a commanding yet somewhat pompous tone. “Obey and produce, and your release from the circle shall be swift.” The demon nodded as if in agreement, not bothering to point out that escape from the circle was unnecessary as long as the gateway remained open. It hadn’t even probed for weaknesses, having no interest in running loose in New York City on this particular occasion. Instead it began to examine the shoes as the mage continued.

“I am Azelthraxus, Adeptus Secondus of the Falconte Brotherhood, and I invoke the Rule of Dominance and Submission, compelling your obedience.” The demon suppressed a snort. Such names the mortals chose for themselves, in mimicry of the Diabolic Order, it supposed. This one’s true name was David Burkowitz, and the Falconte Brotherhood but a shadow of the once thriving order that had terrorized southern Europe through much of the Renaissance.

“What is your desire, Master?” the creature rasped, the words so much easier to say when not actually compelled, and useful for sidestepping the Rule. The demon wanted to investigate this human’s challenge, but preferred to do so without subjecting itself to potential bondage. Fortunately, this mage, like so many others, did not realize that verbal acquiescence did not suffice to enforce the Rule. In the old days, the best of the human mages, like this one’s forebears in the Brotherhood, would have known to insist on the battle of wills, taking the necessary risk to ensure that control over their summoned demons was validated by Rule and Compact.

“The artifacts before you belong to a human girl, the daughter of my employer. She is not to be found in the mundane world. I wish you to seek her in the Outer Planes.”

A small wince at that command. The demon wondered how far to actually go in pretended service. It certainly had no intention of searching all the Outer Planes. Even with its special talents, such an undertaking would require hours of work and no little risk. Still, it was worth some effort, and there was clearly something to learn here. Something that even this mage was probably unaware of. It reached out for one of the items, noticing a snicker from the human as a garment was passed over in favor of the case with the hairs. It took only a single sniff for at least one mystery to be solved.

A human girl? No, not that. Not quite, anyway. These hairs came from a half-breed. Half human, half demon. Such things were rare. Rare at least for one to survive any length of time. Typically they were unwanted by either parent. But this one had a… the mage spoke of an employer, and presumably one interested in the child’s welfare. Almost certainly the human parent. Likely a mother, but no… a Falconte would never serve a woman. That meant a human father, and somewhere… a Demoness for a mother. That was almost unheard of. Such pregnancies were never carried to term. What Daughter of Hell would wish to bear a half-mortal bastard?

Gathering its energies, the Sagacious Demonic Servitor focused its inner sight upon the thin red hairs. Its orange-black eyes shrank to narrow beads as the delving began. The room fell into darkness as one by one the mage’s candles flickered and went out, their fire absorbed by the demon as it sought more power for its scrying spell. A glow came from the small case as the magic grew in intensity. A faint smell of cinnamon wafted through and around the circle.

The mage watched in fascination, not recognizing what was happening but understanding that some great working was in effect. The demon no longer noticed. It was entirely focused upon the hair samples, utilizing all twenty-three senses available to it at a magnification almost unheard of even among its own kind. A human mind would have shattered if exposed to such a volume of input for even a micro-second, but the creature from the Fourth Plane took it all in, processing and discarding, furiously searching for something, anything, that would soothe the itch in the back of its head.

And there it was. The traces were faint, yet unmistakable. The supposition easily confirmed with a more narrowly focused spell. A second mystery solved, but a third opened. Possibilities considered, and then a dawning realization.

It was back through the gateway in a flash, taking the hairs with it. This had to be reported. Its true master would want to know about a half-demon girl possessed of two souls.