The Weakest Link Chapter 2: Not a Devil, Not a God

Not a Devil, Not a God

Marigold stood on a street corner in the middle of skid row, watching carefully for a person she knew would be coming. After years of searching and research, she had finally begun to execute her plan. The man came, wearing a long coat that hid his face. His back stooped almost comically, with humps at regular intervals along his spine.

Marigold held out a golden apple, carefully. The man’s eyes seemed to gleam from behind the hood, even though Marigold could not see them. He took the apple in both hands.

“You’re not getting a fair deal, you know that, right?” said the hunchbacked man. He held the apple up to the light of a streetlamp and examined it. It twinkled, glittering. He tucked it into his jacket with one hand and pulled out first a mask, and then a dagger, holding them in the same hand as he handed them to Marigold.

Marigold took the mask. Her eyes blazed with Machiavellian intensity.

“You know what that does, right?” said the hunchbacked man.

“Of course,” said Marigold. “Why would I trade a gapple for it if I didn’t?”

The man seemed to think for a minute. “You have a long road ahead of you, then.”

Marigold’s anger flashed. “What do you know about long roads?” she said.

The man backed away, bowing. “Much more than you think I do,” he said, before disappearing into the darkness.

Marigold held the mask in her right hand. She turned it. It was nondescript, made of jade, representing the face of an ugly man. Marigold smiled. This was what she had been waiting for.

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Fey’s phone buzzed. He picked it up, its light throwing shadows against the bedframe.

Come to my house. I have something to show you.

Fey sighed. Sometimes, his sister would call him to help with various problems she encountered with her house as a handyman. To her, it was cheaper than hiring real help. Even though she was vastly rich, she still nickeled and dimed everything.

But Fey needed the money. His computer was in its dying stages and he needed a new one.

Doberman woke up and began to whine. Fey, getting out of bed, patted him, ruffling his hair. Doberman’s eyes appeared to ask him “why are you awake?”

Fey sighed, walked to the dresser, and got ready for an outing in the cold winter might.

Walking about two miles, watching for muggers and squinting at headlights, he reached the Beverly Hills area. After another mile or two he arrived at Marigold’s mansion.

He knocked. There was silence for a while, and then Marigold opened the door. She was, for some reason, dressed in a fancy outfit that was definitely not easy to put on—almost as if she were preparing for a formal occasion. She smiled. “Glad you came.”

Fey followed her into the grand reception room. Fancy decorations, probably worth millions, lined the walls and sat in the corner. Fey had long since stopped worrying about the income disparity between himself and his sister.

“What broke?” he said.

“Just the light bulb in one of the rooms,” said Marigold. “It would cost me triple to call for professional help.”

Fey sighed. Saying anything about how unfair it was would not change anything. Plus, he still held a fondness for his sister that he couldn’t pinpoint the origin of.

“Take me to it,” he said.

Marigold led Fey up the grand staircase. Glancing at the clock, Fey noted that it was five minutes to midnight. So much for his sleep schedule.

The room’s door was wide open. Fey recognized it as Marigold’s workshop, where she put together costumes and stored all of her magical equipment.

As Marigold had indicated, the light bulb was out. The room was lit with candles, which flickered ominously.

Strange, thought Fey. They weren’t the scented candles that Marigold seemed to like so much. In fact, they looked almost ceremonial.

Fey turned to Marigold. “A ladder, please.”

“Of course,” said Marigold. However, she did not move from the doorway. “Can you try reaching for it yourself?”

Fey looked at the ceiling. It was just high enough for him to reach if his stretched. He sighed, again, and reached for the broken bulb.

Electricity crackled out of the bulb and entered his body through his arm. He was frozen. Unable to move, thoughts rushed through his mind. Was it an accident? Did Marigold leave around one of her magical tools?

Marigold walked around him until she was facing him. She grinned—the smile that Fey knew to mean she was going to do something horrible.

“I do care about you, little brother,” she said. “But you’re probably going to die anyways from your illness. Even when treated, type one diabetes can do that.” She brushed aside a lock of his hair. “So I’m just expediting the process. And, in the meantime, I gain something.” She pulled out a dagger with one hand, and brought Fey gently to the floor with the other.

“Be quiet for me, will you?” she said. She then slit her own finger and dribbled the blood on Fey’s forehead. With a brush dipped in that blood, she drew a character from some foreign language on Fey’s neck. The blood was warm and slimy.

Marigold stood up. She wiped the blade with a cloth. “Sorry about this,” she said, clearly not sorry. She then chanted a mantra in a language that resonated like magic. Fey’s body felt a million miles away.

The dagger fell with a flash. Fey’s stomach burned, and then the lights in his mind went out.

A swirling whirlwind of darkness surrounded him. He could see nothing, feel nothing.

The disgusting face of a devil appeared out of the blackness. It grinned, mischievously. “You got sacrificed, eh?” he said. A small window into the room where Fey had been killed appeared. Marigold was wearing a weird jade mask and smearing his own blood all over it. There was no sound, but she appeared to be laughing.

The window closed. “A small price for her to pay for what she’s going to receive,” said the devil. His grin grew wider. “So let’s surprise her a little bit. I don’t want my compatriot whom she is sacrificing you to gaining an advantage over me.” The devil’s entire body appeared. He had the lower body of a goat and the upper body of a human. A classic demon. “And since you have been sacrificed as a human offering, you fall straight under my jurisdiction.” The devil motioned to himself. “As you can see, I am a devil. Not just any devil though. I am the god of sacrifice.”

Fey coughed up blood. His insides were still a mess because of the stab wound.

The devil approached Fey. “My name is Offool. Sounds a bit like offal or offering, right?” He motioned to himself again. “I was planning on this playing out differently. The man who was supposed to use the Mask of the Necromancer should have been a quarter as powerful as your sister is. As things are right now, I could stand to lose my position.” He smirked. “Thus, I have to do everything in my power to utilize my resources—you—to fight back against that bastard Nero.”

Offool walked up to Fey and touched his chest. “You have been healed. As I am the god of sacrifice, though, all power that will be vested in you must be obtained through the sacrifice of something. That’s just how things work around here.”

“Necro …” said Fey. He remembered a small part of the mythology class he took in college. “He’s the god of the dead, right?”

“The undead,” said Offool. “You mortals don’t understand him enough.” He swept his hand and a picture of a skeleton wearing voluptuous robes on the throne of a palace appeared. “He is giving your sister the ability to raise the dead. She is becoming a necromancer.”

“Necromancer …” said Fey. His brain was still playing catchup to his sudden teleportation.

Offool walked up to Fey and put his hand on Fey’s forehead. “I am allowing you to access some of my power. The more you sacrifice to me, the more power you will gain.” He touched Fey’s recent wound. It healed in a flash of red light. “Money,” he said. “Gold. Dollars. Silver. Riches. All of it. I need all of it.”

Fey shook his head. “I’m poor. I have no money.”

Offool began walking in circles around Fey. “I’ll give you something to start with,” he said. “Call it an investment. An investment that I expect to pay dividends.” He snapped his fingers and a goblet of wine appeared in his hand. He sipped it. “I will give you something I have been working on for a long time.” He paused. “I’ll regale you the tale of how I acquired it.” He snapped his fingers again and a metal box with two holes on opposite sides appeared in his free hand. It was about the size of an apple. He placed it on the ground, carefully, and a blue interaction screen popped up in front of him.

“I was traveling the expanse of space somewhere in this galaxy and encountered a Dyson Probe sent out millennia ago by an unknown race of beings.” He tapped the screen and the box grew to the size of a large dog. “This device takes in material and spits out whatever you have the plans to make. There are a few preloaded designs in there, but the rest of what this thing can make is locked behind a series of security walls. I can get the keys, yes, but it will take a long time.” He tapped the screen again and the box shrank back to the size of an apple. He tossed it to Fey.

Fey caught.

“I will cut you a deal. You give me money, and I will use my connections and ability to unlock more plans for you to use. Thus, as I get richer, you will gain the power of this factory.” Offool flicked his wrist and the goblet of wine disappeared. “I’ll leave it to you to figure out how to get money. I’ll start by demanding half a million dollars’ worth of straight cash or precious metal obtained in ten days.”

“What happens if I don’t get it by then?” said Fey. He shivered. It was cold.

“Then you’ll be dispersed into nothingness. I can’t support minions who don’t make me profit, after all.”

Fey watched as Offool circled him. He thought for a minute. “What about my sister?” he said.

Offool smirked. “She’s going to be pursuing her own goals,” he said. “Of course, they involve taking over at least the entirety of North America.”

Fey shivered. “My sister … She’s really doing this?” Thinking back on his relationship with her, he couldn’t believe that she would do this. Even though she was a penny pincher, even though she was sometimes a tyrant, Fey thought that deep down, she was a good person. She had to be. She was his sister, after all. The person Fey had always looked up to. She was strong. She wouldn’t fall to the temptation of whatever dark forces created that jade mask.

Offool laughed. “You do not understand the depths of greed that infect humanity. Everyone is capable of doing evil.”

“But …” said Fey. “Why?”

“Take a look,” said Offool, opening the view portal again.

Marigold had since finished the ritual. Fey’s body was halfway through disintegrating into black dust. She took the jade mask she had been wearing and carefully placed it within a safe behind a mirror. Wiping her hands, she sat down in a plush chair next to a cluttered table. She then picked up the phone. “Hello? Is this the police?” she paused. “Yes. My brother, Fey Darwin, hasn’t been answering my calls. He’s been gone a whole day. I think he’s missing.”

The view faded.

“Let’s accelerate a week,” said Offool.

The screen flickered. There was Fey’s mother, dying from cancer, laying in a hospital bed. Marigold had been paying her medical fees—a sign to Fey that she wasn’t as bad as her actions told. Even after she sacrificed him.

The detective knelt down beside Ms. Darwin. “We haven’t found anything about your son yet.” He turned as Marigold walked in. “Your daughter is being hit the worst by this, I assure you.”

It appeared that Marigold had been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy and her makeup was a little messy.

Ms. Darwin began to sob silently. The tube that was helping her breathe made a swiping sound after each sob.

“I wanted to see him one last time before I died,” said Ms. Darwin. “I can’t believe that he’s gone.”

“I did the best I could,” said Marigold, kneeling beside her mother. “I don’t know where he’s gone, but I will find him and I will bring him back to talk to you before … Before you die.”

Ms. Darwin grasped Marigold’s hand. “Please …” she said. “Bring back my little boy.”

Fey continued to watch, enraptured. Marigold’s deceptive face was perilously well-acted. She appeared the perfect rendition of an older sister who was worried to death about the fate of her little brother.

“Sorry to show you this,” said Offool, opening a new portal while closing the one showing the hospital. There was Doberman, in a cage at the animal shelter. His eyes were dead and his breathing shallow. A worker at the shelter gently opened the cage and pulled him out. Doberman was taken to a white room and placed on a table.

Fey collapsed. “No …” he said.

Offool shook his head. “Your sister was thorough. She knew that Doberman might be the key to figuring out what happened to you.”

The animal shelter worker pulled out a needle. His eyes were as glazed over as the dog’s. He whispered something—there was no sound—and then injected Doberman with the syringe. Doberman’s breathing slowly faded until his eyes darkened and he slumped down.

Offool closed the portal. “As you can see,” he said, pausing to let Fey regain his composure, “Your sister has covered all the bases.”

Fey rubbed his stinging eyes. “I don’t know … Why would she do this?”

Offool laughed. “Power, of course!” he said. “Your sister wasn’t expected to be the one to receive the power given to her, but Necro—that bastard—is probably giggling into his wine glass about obtaining her.”

“You said something about her being four times as powerful as the previous candidate,” said Fey, now mostly recovered. He wiped the snot coming out of his nose.

“Your sister was rated as the eighth most powerful A-rank in California.”

“What about the other A-ranks? Or the S ranks?”

Offool chuckled. “You don’t have to worry. There will only be one necromancer.”

Fey turned to look at the darkness behind him. “What now?” he said.

Offool snapped his fingers and a spider dressed in a butler suit scuttled into the room through an opening in the darkness.

“Since your previous body would be recognized, we are giving you a new one.”

The spider unloaded what it had been carrying, wrapped in silk. It was a mannequin, but of a higher quality than those in clothing stores. The face, especially, was very realistic. Handsome, of course, but with an almost imperceptible plastic feel to it.

“Is this …” said Fey.

“Your new body,” said Offool. He tilted his head. “What, did you expect me to actually bring you a flesh-and-blood body?”

“I thought you were a god,” said Fey.

“I just used that term because it fit in some way,” said Offool. “I’m not really a god. Just a very powerful individual.” He shook his head, smiling. “In any case, this body is special. With every blessing I give you, it will grow stronger.”

“Blessings, as in exchange for the money you want?”

Offool rubbed his hands together. “You catch on quick.” He opened another portal with a snap of his fingers. “The only shrine to me in the United States is on the East Coast, in Boston.”

“So I won’t have to meet my sister?”

“If you don’t want to,” said Offool.

The portal Offool had opened was of a more physical nature than the previous ones. The room beyond was a nondescript concrete box with a couple of simple-looking altars in it.

“You’re not really a devil, are you?” said Fey, as he stepped towards the portal.

Offool laughed. “I’m neither an angel or a devil. Just a very powerful person.” He paused. “You’re wondering why I look like this.”

Fey nodded.

Offool snapped his fingers, and his body turned into an ordinary bearded man with a rather sprightly facial expression. “Those were my work clothes.” He clapped once.

The spider butler brought him a platter with an ordinary egg and ham breakfast on it. Offool picked up the toast and crunched it, waving his hand.

“Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll be getting ready for work again. My break is almost over.” He looked as if he had just remembered something. A smartphone appeared in his hand. He tossed it.

“Catch,” he said.

Fey caught it with the hand that wasn’t holding the micro factory. “For contacting you, right?”

Offool gave Fey the finger guns, winking. “You got it.” Then his image fuzzed up and disappeared. The spider bowed, as best a spider could, and backed away through the door it had arrived from.

Fey shuddered. He stepped through the portal, allowing it to close behind him.

3

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