Reconnecting Four

Today was not a good day for Reginald Spronck the Third, warding specialist on tenure with the PID. His job was to provide security at one of their primary Earth-side storage sites. All the arrays were functioning perfectly, as far as he could tell. Even the one that he hadn’t made – and barely knew how to maintain – that filled the deepest portion of the base. They were layered around the luxurious suite of rooms holding the single most dangerous prisoner on Earth.

And that was the problem; all of them said there was nothing wrong. He could see, very clearly, that something that might end his career was happening. In the scrying pool in front of him – itself a violation of several regulations despite being run through three airgapped divinatory arrays in sequence – he saw two solid beings. There should’ve been a cloud of swirling mist and profane symbols. It congealing would have been an anomaly, but one well documented and accounted for even if it shouldn’t have taken that form when contained.

That was the intended occupant.

The second figure was the real problem. It was a Faerie, one of the Ashen Court if he had to guess. The Spronck practitioner wasn’t well acquainted with their kind, but his wards should have stopped – or at least inconvenienced – any of the Fae who regularly interfered with the mortal world. If he couldn’t even detect this one…

One of them meeting with the contained entity was both above his paygrade and terrifying enough that he hadn’t even smashed the alarms yet. He knew that he’d be blamed for this. It didn’t matter that there were maybe a thousand practitioners world-wide that could stop an un-weakened noble Faerie – he was the one in charge of security when it happened. So he sat there, watched, and decided to break another regulation.

He couldn’t dig this hole any deeper if he tried.

The two beings were clearly talking. Listening in was even more against protocol than watching – but a similar protection to the scrying pool should work. Combined with his own mental wards, he was confident he could get something useful out of it. Maybe enough to bargain for leniency when this got reported. He really, really wanted to stay free and not get sent through the wards to join that loosely defined ‘asset’ of an entity. He’d seen what happened there.

It wasn’t much of a secret what was actually inside – mostly because there was no point hiding something that people would forget on their own – but he wanted nothing to do with something that they’d had to contract Olaf Aufrey to contain.

No, what was secret enough that he wouldn’t be allowed to go free after screwing up was that the U.S. government had one of the strongest known Demons locked inside one of their blacksites and was using it to erase memories.

Reginald was the poor bastard left to watch as one of the Fair Folk met with Merith, of the Fourth Line of Loss. The aural component of his scrying spell went live as he started to shake.

The two monsters were hugging when he did. As they pulled apart, the Fae started to speak. All he caught were the words ‘Aufrey’ and ‘trial’. Both of their voices were like whispers on the wind, but only one set his mental defenses screaming as parts of their conceptual strength vanished.

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That one was the Demon.

He had to cast something to boost his hearing. He had to hear. They were talking about…

…he blinked and realized he didn’t know what they’d been talking about, or where the Faerie had gone, or even that he was now staring directly into the Demon’s eyes with his jaw hanging open. Everything between turning on the sound and now was just gone. So were the protections meant to preserve his memory.

Not that he remembered enough to worry about that.

“My current warden, I presume. Such a downgrade.” The words crackled in Reginald’s ears. “Some things are private, little mage, and not for you to remember.”

As he was speaking, alarms finally started to scream throughout the base, jolting the practitioner out of his daze. His wards – according to the mental diagram that streamed their status to him – had just collapsed across half the facility. The feedback of it hurt. The knowledge that his entire world was collapsing around him hurt worse.

That, he wasn’t allowed to forget. Merith laughed at him, from his seat on an armchair fancier than anything the practitioner or his family had ever owned. “Of course, she won’t let herself be forgotten that easily. Ash has always been loath to do so, their trueborn moreso than the rest. But that’s not for you to know either, yet.”

The man’s face went slack for a moment before the panic resumed like nothing had happened. He was just missing a few words – his mind could fill in the gap.

A few words would be enough, the Demon decided. “You’re in quite a lot of trouble, it seems. I could help, for a small price.”

“I’d never…”

The Demon’s grin cut into a grim line across the face made of wrapped strips of pallid flesh. Harsh words, it would be.

“Bluster doesn’t suit you. Your work is sub-par, at best, and you are a coward at heart. You still remember what you did that night, when you left her to suffer. Who are you to claim the strength to deny me, Reginald Spronck. The fool? The accessory? The failed brother.”

There. The hook was dangling.

The man’s eyes twitched and he started to shake. “I…”

“You knew what was happening and let it. Your job was more important than her mind and body.”

The words cut deep and sent flashbacks to the night Reginald had had a chance to stop what happened to his sister. To the lies and weakened practice, to what led him here. How his family refused to meet his eyes anymore and how everything he’d thrown away would be for nothing when his superiors heard about this. How…

Perfect. It was set into his memories now. Merith reached out through the pool of water, brushing aside its protections to touch the shivering man.

“I can let you forget. I can make them forget.”

It felt like the Demon’s hand, so far away, was cradling his face as the first tears fell.

“Your wards will have held through all of this if only you agree. You’ll be the hero. You can forget the shame, forget the failure. Maybe you’ll even have patched the work of Aufrey that kept me in here. All of it can be yours.”

The promises and the bait, now.

Reginald Spronck slumped down, falling to the ground and still seeing the Demon behind his eyes. Between sobs, he choked out, “W-what do you want?”

“Nothing of substance, little mage, only Names. Whisper one into a missing ear, the second into the hungry dark. The third to the dawning of the year, the fourth to a dog that does not bark. A fifth to the pale-boned deer, a sixth to a girl that dwells beneath inky leaves and undead bark. The seventh let no one hear, for it will leave a horrid mark.”

The Demon grinned. Human priorities were so simple. Look at what they wanted to remember and what they craved to lose. Pull a few threads, sample a few memories, and they were putty. Detestable as some specimens were, others had potential. And with his old friend’s news, Merith had decided to end his vacation and make some plans.

“Do we have a deal?”

Really, the answer had never been in doubt.