Chapter 3

I sank into a fitful sleep filled with swirling red eyes and twisting shadows. After what felt like minutes, morning sunlight streamed through my window, stirring me awake.

For one blissful moment, I thought the demon Zalthos had been a vivid nightmare. Then my sleepy gaze fell upon the mask resting innocently on my desk, and icy dread coursed through me.

It was real. All of it.

I sat up slowly, half expecting Zalthos to be lurking in the corner. But I appeared to be alone. Alone, yet not alone. The demon and I were supposedly “bonded” now.

I shivered, skin crawling. My sane, rational mind struggled to accept the madness of it all. Demons don’t exist! This has to be some kind of hallucination or psychotic break.

Yet my gut told me Zalthos was very real. I couldn’t deny the incredible time freezing I’d witnessed. Or the searing pain when I’d tried to resist the bond. No mere hallucination could manifest physical agony like that.

I held my head in my hands. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Carry on with life, pretending some horned demon didn’t share my body? Keep freezing time to satisfy its creepy whims?

No. No way was I letting Zalthos use me as his puppet. There had to be a way to break this so-called bond. To get my normal life back.

First things first – I needed to learn more about what I was dealing with. All I knew about Zalthos was that he was a “demon of time.” But what did that entail? Where did he come from? How and why was he trapped in the mask?

The internet seemed like an obvious place to start researching. I opened my laptop and typed “demon of time mythology” into the search bar. Hundreds of results popped up, but nothing that seemed relevant. Cursing under my breath, I tried again with “time demon mask.”

I was about to give up when a page buried deep in the results caught my eye. “Zalthos – Demon of Frozen Time.” Hands trembling, I clicked the link. A geocities-esque website loaded, full of flashing gifs and Halloween themes. The text read:

“Zalthos the Tormentor was a powerful demon lord who ruled an army of darkness in medieval times. He was able to freeze mortals in place with a gesture, making them helpless against his cruelty.”

My mouth went dry. The site had to be describing my Zalthos. I scrolled down rapidly.

“Many believed Zalthos drew his time-freezing power from an enchanted bronze mask that never left his side. But in 1403, a mysterious holy order finally defeated Zalthos, imprisoning him within his own mask as punishment for his evil deeds. The mask was then hidden away so the demon could never again walk the earth.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I sat back, stunned. According to this obscure website, Zalthos was an ancient evil that had been trapped in the mask for over 600 years – until I came along.

A troubling thought occurred to me. When I’d first touched the mask at Dan’s party, time hadn’t frozen instantly...it had taken a minute or two first. Maybe it took time for Zalthos to fully wake up and access his powers after lying dormant for so long.

I read the page over again, looking for anything helpful. The article mentioned a holy order defeating Zalthos, but gave no other details. Still, it was a lead. If some ancient monks or priests locked the demon away once before, maybe their records held clues about how to banish him again.

I dug deeper, switching search terms to “Order of Zalthos” and “Imprisoning time demon.” The trail led me to a Catholic sect active in medieval France called The Order of Saint Chronos, known for battling unholy beings. Jackpot.

Cross-referencing Saint Chronos with time demons finally pulled up a Latin-titled text scanned onto another website. My high school Latin was rusty, but I could make out enough key terms to piece together the gist:

“In the year of our Lord fourteen hundred and three...holy brothers of The Order of Saint Chronos defeated the time demon Zalthos...sealed the wicked beast within its infernal mask...buried the vessel deep so its evil could not rise again.”

Sadly, it gave no specifics on how they imprisoned Zalthos. But the text did list the names of five monks who performed the ritual – including where they were from. One, Brother Tomaso, had been sent from a monastery in southern France.

I leaned back, exhaling slowly. This was real. Centuries ago, an order of holy men had defeated Zalthos and bound his essence into the mask. If I could find their monastery, perhaps some records remained that could teach me how to trap the demon again!

It was the first real lead I’d found. But visiting an ancient monastery in France was no simple task. I’d need time to plan out the trip without arousing suspicion at work or with friends.

A knock at my front door jolted me from my thoughts. I started, glaring angrily at the demon mask as if it had drawn someone here to spy on me. Paranoia was already taking root.

Cautiously, I approached the door and peered out through the peephole. My shoulders relaxed when I saw it was only my buddy Jake from down the hall. I opened the door with what I hoped was a normal smile.

“Hey man, what’s up?”

Jake grinned, oblivious to my chaotic inner state. “Me and few others are gonna go catch that new action flick downtown. Wanna come?” His eyes dropped to the laptop on my desk. “Whatcha working on?”

“Oh, uh, nothing!” I tried to subtly position myself so he couldn’t glimpse the webpage about demons on my screen. “Just some research for class. Boring stuff, you know.”

Jake shrugged, buying my excuse. I felt a twinge of guilt at lying to him, but how could I even begin to explain the surreal truth?

“So you down for the movie or what?” Jake prodded.

I briefly considered going to keep up a facade of normalcy. But finding a way to stop Zalthos had to take priority. Once I got rid of the demon, I could return to my regular life.

“Sorry man, I should really finish this project.” I forced a convincing yawn. “Gotta spend all day in research mode. Raincheck?”

Jake gave me a thumbs up as he headed off down the hall, oblivious to my racing pulse. As soon as he was out of sight, I closed the door and returned to my desk.

Time to book a flight to France.