Chapter 4
Ben shook his head as he got to the end of the contract.
It was quite comprehensive, but the gist was simple enough.
It more or less stated that the ‘Bearer’ of the contract would receive the debts and powers inherent to Mr. Leery.
Except it made no mention of an inheritance, nor did it actually list what the debts or powers were. Lacking crucial information that’d be needed to actually weigh out the pros and cons of the contract.
As far as Ben saw it, this contract was a trap of epic proportions and Ben was positive of the fact that it would cause him a great deal of problems.
He set the tablet to the side.
Given that it was so badly written, and clearly lacking information, he was most certainly not going to sign it.
He saw no reason to.
While he wanted whatever magical power Mr. Leery had, it wasn’t at the cost of nebulous and vague terms. That would most certainly not be something Ben would be agreeing to.
“That’s a no from me, boss,” Ben said to himself with a chuckle and a grin. “Signing something as vague as that is just asking for issues.”
Ben got up and started to leave the work-room.
“Okay, okay, it’s pretty vague, I admit it,” said a voice from the mirror causing Ben to look back into the room.
The shadow figure that he’d seen previous in it was back once again. Like it had never actually been gone but was just hiding.
This time it appeared even more see-through. As if it was losing solidity by the hour.
Raising his eyebrows, Ben had a momentary thought that the entire situation had just stood on it’s head.
What he’d been told was that this would be an inheritance that’d be passed down, not debts and powers.
This new development with the reflection he’d been speaking to would be vanishing once the task was complete and wouldn’t be returning, paired with the contract, made Ben very anxious.
Any credibility this shadow-person had, was now spent, and Ben was the very definition of on guard.
There would be nothing this individual could say without Ben wanting to dissect it and peer at it from any and every angle.
“It reads like a contract promising ones soul for a bag of skittles,” Ben deadpanned. “Now I like skittles but not that much. So, unless you want to tell me what all the debts and powers are, in excruciating detail, this won’t happen.
“But to be honest, even if you did that, I’m not sure I’d sign it.
“You’ve proven yourself to be completely untrustworthy. Realistically, there’s no way I’d ever know you’re telling me the whole truth now.
“There’s no going backward and you kinda already blew up any possibility of a negotiation, ya know?”
“I… yes,” admitted the shadow in the mirror. “It’s fucked. You’re right. You’re right. This is absolutely a broken situation that I can’t rectify in the way I was hoping.
“So, how about you and I start up a contract. One from the beginning rather than inheriting anything. We can go over it bit by bit and hash things out.
“And… before you say you’d rather walk away and use the building as you see fit, the… power… that keeps the magical seals working, will fail in about a week. You’re welcome to assume I’m lying, but really, all things require power. Energy. Fuel.
“The needs and how to power those sigils are locked by knowledge. That knowledge is locked to me and my contracts with the late Mr. Leery. That means you can sign a deal with me, or go back to how things were before this.”
Ben thought about that.
Deeply.
Life had been hard before this, but it was workable.
Even if he had to live by himself, he could probably make a go of things. Especially with the building he was in now.
If he only had a week, he could still absolutely entrench himself here.
Clear out the whole building, weld the windows shut and board them up tight. Scavenge the whole building, top to bottom. Drag any zombies out in the street into the doorway and getting them dissolved.
There was a lot he could do in a week and it wouldn’t require him to get any more involved with this strange shadow in a mirror.
“Ah… I assure you we can make a deal you’ll be comfortable with,” interjected the shadow. Apparently they’d been paying attention to Ben and had noted the point when he’d been about to just walk away. “Truly. At least haggle with me, alright? I’ll even give you a starting point to work with me on this, even just for hearing me out.
“If you would please inspect the tablet, Bernard? I assure you it’ll worth at least hearing me out.”
Well, he’s desperate. But why is he desperate? There’s far more going on here.
Far more.
There’s also clearly the fact that he’s vanishing.
She?
The voice is strange now that I’m thinking about it.
It’s higher pitched but also not. It doesn’t sound human.
If this is a negotiation, I’ve got the upper hand. I don’t need them.
But… I think… they need me.
“Fine,” Ben murmured and walked back to the tablet. He picked it up and looked it over.
He noted that it had moved back to the very top of the tablet’s screen and he was reading a three paragraph statement.
After reading it over, it was fairly simple and straight forward.
Ben just had to hear out the individual marked as “S.T.” which Ben assumed was the Shadow in the mirror.
What he’d get for hearing out S.T. was the building would be powered for exactly twenty-one days.
Everything stated during this conversation would be the absolute truth, without lie, lie through omission, or misdirection.
“You’re S.T.?” Ben asked, looking up from the tablet.
“Yes,” confirmed the Shadow.
“I will only hear you out for exactly ten minutes at most,” Ben clarified. “Please modify the statement to include the time limit. Otherwise we could end up going back and forth how long ‘listening’ counts for.”
“Ah, yes. That’s not an issue,” stated the shadow a moment before the tablet flickered. The text changing. “There. I added a few other clauses to limit and safeguard you since we’re being clear.”
When Ben looked back to the tablet again, he found it was true.
There was a time-limit included, as well as a specification of what justified a minute, and what justified a second.
There was an additional verbiage that listed out what an hour was, what a day was, and what a week was. Then led into the exact amount of time that would be provided to the building down to the second.
A bit over the top, but I get the intent.
A sigh, a tap, and Ben had signed the form.
“I’m now hearing you out and listening for at least ten minutes,” Ben stated.
“Wonderful, wonderful. Okay,” the shadow began. They even held their arms out as if gesticulating. Whoever, or whatever, this was, was well aware of conversation and communication. They were expressing mannerisms reserved for the living.
“I’ll just get right out and say it, Mr. Leery was indeed a warlock by your definition,” confirmed the shadow. “He bartered deeds for power and fostered certain actions for guaranteed results from me.
“An example that actually occurred was he got a co-worker wrongly fired and I helped him negotiate his divorce cleanly in his favor.
“It is entirely quid-pro-quo and the terms were, and are, always very clear in each bargain. There is no charity, no gifts, no honoring of contracts, and the only thing that matters is exactly what’s written.
“To that end, it is exactly whats in the contract, and nothing else. There is an arbiter should we have a disagreement, but more often than not, all they tend to do is nullify the deal on both sides, take a price from whoever technically ‘lost’, and then leave.
“To that end, it’s very non-beneficial to have that outcome occur, so I spend a great deal of time to get details and clauses worked out.”
“Uh huh, except when you give me a tablet and try to wrangle me in without anything explained at all?” Ben asked.
S.T. laughed at that and Ben realized in that moment the shadow was a woman.
She’d lifted her hand up and covered her mouth, her body shifting to one side, and her silhouette becoming sharper in that moment.
Feminine and quite clearly so.
“You can’t blame me for trying. I needed a new guarantor of my ability to remain on this plane,” the shadow murmured, the feminine voice losing volume yet firming up. The longer they spoke, the more clearly the voice became entirely female it seemed. “Well, hopefully you understand now.
“My goal is to wring from you every scrap of power I can get from you, while giving you the least amount in return.
“Which really works out the best for both of us when you lean into things that are easy for me such as violence, psychology, and building.
“I’m not very good at healing, hunting, or purification. I’m not much of a domestic, you could say. Building a home, a mind, or breaking either, that I’m good at.”
“Alright, that… makes sense,” Ben murmured. “Though, listen here lady, this world is pretty fucked, but I’m not a fucked person. If you’re looking to have me go straight into the torturing and cruelty while selling my soul, wrong guy.
“You’re better off looking for single mortals elsewhere. Preferably in your local area. And what’s with S.T. as your name? Succubus the Third? Sexy-Time? Suitably Terrible?
“I’m just going to call you Stacy unless you’ve got something else you want me to call you.”
There was a choked breathless noise followed by a round of warm laughter.
“Stacy is fine, I suppose. I don’t actually have a gender, mind you, I just tend to morph to whatever fits my contractor best.
“For you that seems to be a female of your own age. And no, I won’t tell you my age,” answered the newly named Stacy. “I’m not a living being, nor have I ever been. I’m a demonic spirit. Not a Succubus or anything else you could likely think of. Again, I’m not a physical being. Never was one.
“Though, even as a demonic spirit, I might as well be a demon to you.
“And I’m not expecting you to go out and murder children, Bernard. I’m just hoping to skew you in one way or another as we go through this world.
“My primary concern is to remain here in your realm, which is guaranteed to me if you make a pact with me. The baseline price for me to pay for the pact is to power this building as it is now. Preventing any zombies, or those mortals you do not invite inside, inside.
“Secondary to that… well… when I can get you to take deals for things.”
“Deals,” Ben said and then sighed. “Could you give me an example here? I’m actively listening. I’m trying to hear you out. But this… if I wasn’t fighting the living god damned dead in hand to hand combat, I would have a hard time believing any of this.”
“That’s a very good point,” Stacy conceded. “Well, alright. Let’s say a group of five comes to your building wanting to join your little community.
“Perhaps I could offer you some type of power, or change in reality, for only allowing three in. Or maybe you allow all five in, but I want one of them to become your concubine.
“If we’re talking extremes though… something I would never expect you to do… sacrifice one of the five, take in the four, and I do you a massive favor of some sort.”
Ben felt his eyebrows raise up at the very idea of what she was suggesting. It sounded horrifying to him and not something he really wanted to consider.
“It’s just an example, mind you,” Stacy asserted quickly. “Just an example. It’s not something you’d have to do, and for all you know, I’d never make such an offer. An example, that’s all.
“Though, I do have a great number of powers and… and… favors and… ah… what… what is that…?”
A heavy boom shook everything.
Ben felt a lot like someone had decided he was a damn etch-a-sketch and everything needed to be erased. That the very world itself was being torn apart.
Violently rolling one way then the other.
There was a scream that tore at something Ben couldn’t really identify. Pulling at his guts, his mind, and perhaps even his very soul.
“It’s a Chaos Eldritch,” hissed Stacy. “Sign… sign this. Quickly. Otherwise I’ll be torn from this world and you’ll get to face it on your own.”
“A what what?!” shrieked Ben, falling down to the ground and trying to brace himself against the floor even as it shook wildly.
Except as he did it, he realized the world wasn’t shaking.
A water bottle that was half drunk was partially hidden under a work-bench caught his eye as he laid there.
Despite feeling everything shaking, the bottle wasn’t shaking in any way shape or form.
Perfectly stationary, unmoving, as stationary as a telephone pole.
“I can’t explain it better than saying it’s a type of deity,” Stacy said loudly. “This is somewhat my fault I suppose. Contracts into your world are very rare. It must’ve realized what I was doing and tried to take hold of the opportunity for itself.”
With a heavy jolt, the world came to an immediate stop.
“As if I’d believe you,” hissed Ben as he struggled to his feet.
A strange noise that sounded almost like a strangled ‘hmph’ came from Stacy and then the tablet flashed in Ben’s hand. The text had been changed.
It was a contract that asked nothing of him, other than to offer him proof that what was happening right now, was not due to Stacy’s direct meddling. That as far as she knew, this was the work of a Chaos Eldritch.
As well as promising that from this point on, everything Stacy said in regards to this current situation, she would be completely truthful and answer any question forever onwards.
“I… but…” whispered Ben, staring at the tablet.
Then he jammed his finger on the accept button, signed it and looked to the mirror.
“That rumbling you felt? That was it arriving. It’s trying to take hold of the building, but it’s out of phase,” Stacy explained quickly. “It’s reorienting itself right now to try and… attune… itself to the phase were on. I wish I could explain it better, but that’s the best I can manage right now. I’ll answer more later.
“If we make it through this, that is. I’m no match for a Chaos Eldritch. It’d use me as an idle thought and wonder why my spirit broke under the strain of even that.”
“Alright, what’s the answer then. How do we survive it?” Ben demanded.
The shadow in the mirror shook it’s head.
“We don’t. The only thing we can do is shift the phase further out of it’s reach and hope it can’t attune and just gives up,” Stacy confessed. “That’s my best answer. I’m bound to this mirror and I can’t leave it since Leery died. You’re stuck in this building, since leaving would just cause the Chaos Eldritch to find you.
“We’re two people stuck in the middle of a rope bridge and one of the lines just broke. You either grant me permission to stay in this realm as your benefactor, or you don’t, and we both die.”
A simple contract appeared on the tablet.
Ben would become Stacy’s benefactor and guarantor of her ability to remain on this realm. Stacy would become the power source for the building as well as the majority of its defenses as well as protecting him, and the building.
It did have a clause as well in it to teach him all that Mr. Leery had learned and discovered in Magical Engineering.
It was simple, to the point, and it didn’t have any hidden terms.
“There’s no other choice with good odds?” he demanded as he looked at the contract.
“No good odds for you, at least,” Stacy admitted. “There’s several different things I could do to give me better odds, but it’s unlikely you’d have agreed to them. You would have given up a significant portion of yourself or taken on greater odds for your own non-survival.
“I presented the best option that I think you’d take based on what I can discern of your personality and this situation as a whole. Since you accepting it is the most likely way for me to survive this as well.”
Ben grunted, growled, let out a huff, then accepted the contract. Followed by a quick signature of his finger in the box that appeared.
“I accept the contract as well,” hissed Stacy quickly and in the next moment the shadow in the mirror solidified into a completely black silhouette. Going from somewhat opaque and misty to a completely black shadow as if it were a shadow person on a wall.
“What do I do?” Ben asked.
“Nothing,” answered Stacy quickly, the black form swirling into itself in the mirror as bright lights appeared, faded, and were born again in different colors all along the edge of the mirror.
Ben also felt a strange squirming and disgusting sensation writhing across his senses and his stomach. It felt as if he’d eaten a jar of pickles and the salt content was about to find both emergency exits.
At the same time.
“It’s found the phased reality we’re on but it can’t get in,” stated Stacy, sounding entirely too calm for the situation given the stakes she’d previously described to him. “It’s working at it but I think I’ve gotten us out of the way. Out of the immediate pathway, that is.”
“I don’t get it, but thanks Stacy, you’re the best,” Ben muttered instead and just stood there, watching the shadowed mirror. “I promise to throw trash out the window and think bad thoughts about littering just for you?”
Stacy snorted at that, followed by an actual laugh.
Only for her to freeze in the mirror and let out a soft squeak. As if she’d just been shocked to the point that she no longer had the ability to breathe.
A rumbling and grinding sensation rolled through Ben and sent him crashing to the ground. Squirming about it as if he were nothing more than a worm.
Even as he laid there on the tiled floor, Ben swore he saw the top of the building get pulled clean off.
Followed by inhuman skinny black clawed fingers reaching into the structure and start poking around. Everything and anything it touched blew apart into fragments of black goo and smoke.
And then the world exploded in a massive detonation of soundless colors and visual violence. A roaring echo of cosmic power that Ben couldn’t even grasp the edge of in unknowable horror.
Yet at the same time, he swore he recognized a part of it.
A fraction of a thing he understood.
Infinitesimally so.
He recognized it as hunger.
Everything went dark.