Saif kept his wits about him as he left the apartment. It had been a few days since the attack, and the investigation was well underway. The cops had been by to get his take on things, not even bothering to hide their disbelief over the fact that he and Marik were an honest-to-god system. He felt a little bad over it all; it had been self-defense and utterly justifiable - the fact that they'd been shot helped their case, unfortunate as it was - but that it had escalated so badly had to have been hell for Marik. Everyone was expecting them to get a slap on the wrist at most, so he could only hope this would blow over soon.

But Saif wasn't concerned about that right now. The Dark One hadn't so much demanded he return as it had told him to, and he didn't want to find out if disobeying would have any worse consequences than going to jail. It took a while for him to find the door again, but once he spotted it, he stopped short, taking a deep breath. Hopefully, it wasn't too angry.

To his surprise, the shrine room was empty. The sleeping bags were gone, as was most of the evidence of the slaughter that had occurred here. The only thing out of the ordinary was a word written on the wall in blood with an arrow pointing to the altar. "THE BLOOD OF THE WORTHY," the words said. Saif followed the arrow down to see a knife sitting on the surface, the same one a man had tried to murder him with a few nights before. "You're kidding me," Saif said.

But it made a bit of sense when he thought back on it. The words engraved on the altar had mentioned blood, and the Dark One had only appeared after he'd been cut. Saif grabbed the knife and stared down at it for a second before lifting it and cutting it into the pad of his thumb. The knife was sharp, so it didn't even hurt aside from a light sting, and he held his hand out over the altar and squeezed blood onto the surface.

Just like last time, the candles lit themselves, the air growing cold and quiet, and Saif held his breath as he felt a presence behind him. "Well," the Dark One said almost pleasantly. "Welcome back, Ishtar. I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me."

"I've… been busy. Legal issues over those guys - where'd they go?" Saif asked, turning towards it.

The Dark One just smiled, showing off sharpened canine teeth. "I accepted them as sacrifices. They were a bit stringy, but it was still quite a meal you left me."

"You ate them?"

"What would you rather I have done, left their corpses to stink up the place?" The Dark One scoffed, crossing its arms. "I have far too much pride for that. But it works out perfectly - I have a job for you."

"Listen, Dark One, I appreciate your help the other night -"

"Deny me this and you'll join them, Ishtar." Saif stopped, glancing up at the Dark One. Its eyes seemed to flare slightly, its tail flicking in a somewhat agitated manner behind it. "I do not give out favors freely. You must prove that you've earned it."

Saif swallowed hard. He had kind of hoped it would be as easy as a gentle rejection. "…Alright. What can I do to make it up to you?"

"Much better." The Dark One reached out to stroke his cheek with a clawed thumb. "There's hope for you yet." Saif's heart skipped a beat as it continued, "My previous cult, well-intentioned as they were, accidentally bound me to this shrine. Free me, and I'll be able to go somewhere a bit more… welcoming. I'd consider your debt paid, and you'd be free of me."

Saif nodded slowly. "So, an unbinding ritual?"

The Dark One's smile widened affectionately. "Look at you! I knew you were a smart one. Yes. A book of ancient rituals was written thousands of years ago. It's considered a historical artifact these days. Find the unbinding ritual and get me the hell out of here. Easy enough, right?"

"Alright. Consider it done."

The Dark One let him go with a pleased purring sound. "The sooner the better, Ishtar," it said with fake, cloying sweetness. "Try not to leave me waiting too long, hm?"

"Of course."

The Dark One stepped back and dissipated into smoke, the candles on the altar flickering out. Saif sighed, turning back to the altar and placing the knife on the surface. His hands were shaking slightly. He knew without a doubt that the Dark One was lying; he'd heard something similar many times before. Empty promises had been their father's main method of manipulation growing up: memorize the texts and I'll let Ishizu take you to the market. Follow the prayers and Rishid can join you for your birthday dinner. Utter bullshit that got Marik slapped and locked in his room if he tried to cash in on it.

He pushed his doubts down as he ascended the stairs. All he could do was hope that there would be a way to get him out of this mess without the Dark One realizing it. But in the meantime, he knew exactly where to look first: the local museum.

He was never a fan of museums, honestly. History had never captivated him the way it had Ishizu, so he wandered idly, staring at ancient papyri and taking a moment to appreciate some old, hand-carved statues. Deep in the building, however, he came upon a book encased in glass and started to read the placard attached with mild curiosity. It was some kind of documentation written by priests thousands of years ago regarding heka.

He stopped, eyes widening slightly as he looked up at the book. It was written in hieratic, of course, but his eyes fell upon a sentence: "Regarding the practice of binding spirits…"

"No way," he muttered to himself. There was no way it was going to be this easy. But reading further down the page, he was completely convinced that this was the book Zorc needed. Or, at the very least, it was something similar enough. The problem now would be getting the book, but if his luck was going to keep up, he might have had a solution there as well. He took a picture of the placard with the title and hurried home to do some research.

It took about an hour of intense searching through literary archives and sketchy, fake-spell pagan sites on their laptop to find the book, but he was eventually to find some PDFs of photocopied pages, including one for the unbinding ritual the Dark One was searching for. But he kept scrolling, and the very next page read, clear as day, "Binding Spirits". He downloaded the page, emailed it to himself, and shoved it into Marik's work bag; he'd have to work fast.

He grabbed some paint the next day, leftover from the last time Marik had detailed his bike, then headed to the library to print out the page. Only then did he head back to the shrine, his heart pounding in his ears. He planned to bind the Dark One so thoroughly to the shrine that it wouldn't bother him again if it tried. As gorgeous as it was, he wasn't dumb; entities like this, ones that could kill three men in the blink of an eye, were bad news. If he messed this up… well, he could be thankful he wouldn't be around to see what the Dark One might do if it got free.

Before he summoned it, he set up a binding circle in the center of the room where it had manifested before and took a deep breath. Now or never. He pricked his thumb on the knife and stepped back, far out of reach of the circle.

The Dark One manifested almost instantly, staring at him expectantly. "So? You have it?"

"Yes."

The Dark One laughed. "Ah! It's so nice to have someone capable." It tried to take a step forward as Saif pulled the printout from his bag and was met with a strange whirring sound. It frowned, looking down at the floor. "What - a circle? Ishtar, what is this?"

It was Saif's turn to laugh, daring to look up. "Our father was a grade-A narcissist. I know the playbook, Dark One. I'm not that easy."

As Saif started to recite the binding spell, the Dark One raised its voice, eyes flaring. "You're going to pay for this, Ishtar. After what I did for you, this is how you repay me? I'll tear off your head and use your skull to decorate this shrine, you - you -" It stopped, listening to his words for a moment before its eyes widened. "…Ishtar, wait. Stop! This isn't the spell you think it is!"

Saif smiled to himself and kept reading. It was panicking now. He had it right where he wanted it. "…And with these words, I bind thee to me!"

There were five seconds of dead silence as Saif realized what he'd just said. Wait - what?

The lightbulb above them exploded and the Dark One screamed. Saif felt the air leave his lungs. It wasn't just a binding spell. He had read the first half of it before printing it out and the language had been perfect - spirits being bound to stop from wandering, sealing their power - but he hadn't read the second half, and he definitely hadn't read the final line. He felt a strange pressure just behind his eyes, a vision of a demonic face baring its razor-like teeth at him in the darkness. The true Dark One, the entity behind the being he'd trapped in the circle.

And then, it was over. In the flickering candlelight, the pressure subsiding from his skull, he could hear the Dark One's labored breathing. Then, it broke the silence, growling, "What have you done?"

"I…" Saif dropped the paper, stunned.

"You… fucking idiot!" The Dark One lunged at him, the energy of the circle depleted now, and raised its tail, aiming it directly at Saif's chest… and it bounced right off, the Dark One yelping as it fell back. "You bound me to you," it practically wailed, utter despair in its voice as it sank to its knees. "You bound me to you!"

Saif ran. He left the Dark One in a heap on the floor, sprinting up the stairs and rushing back to his apartment. This was bad, astronomically, phenomenally bad. Why hadn't he read the entire thing through? Was it too much to assume that a binding ritual would just be a binding ritual? Especially when it was right after -

The unbinding ritual. Of course. If he could just print that out and perform that, he could undo this mess. He'd have to find the proper binding ritual, of course, just to make sure that the Dark One wouldn't immediately eviscerate him for his transgression, but maybe he wasn't completely screwed. He slammed the door to his apartment shut and tossed his bag on the sofa, desperately searching for the book on the computer again. Thankfully, it was in his page history, so he started scrolling through, muttering, "Come on, come on -"

"That's not going to work."

Saif stood with a scream, twisting to see the Dark One standing right behind him with an expression of utter hatred. "How the - what -"

"You bound me to you," the Dark One said a third time, all of the fight seemingly fled from it. "I go where you go now. Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted?"

"I… I didn't… I thought it was just going to bind you further into the shrine."

The Dark One laughed humorlessly. "Yeah. Good job there. Next time, try reading what you're doing." The Dark One approached the computer, hesitantly tapping the keys to read through the page. "This unbinding ritual is only for things bound to objects, which I already was. If you hadn't come back, if you'd just left me alone, you would have been fine. But now I'm bound to you, and that's a whole other mess to deal with."

Saif's head blanked. "…Was it really that easy?"

"Yes, Ishtar. It was really that easy."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, now you're sorry - you don't even know the meaning of sorry!" The Dark One turned on him again, its tail whipping angrily. "You're lucky I can't hurt you. Otherwise, I'd be eating your goddamn heart right now -"

There was a knock on the door. They both started, staring at the door in silence. "Shit," Saif said, shoving the Dark One into the bathroom. "Threaten me later."

"You -"

Saif closed the door, cutting the Dark One's rant short. He sighed, pulling his hands through his hair as the knocking started again. He made his way to the door and opened it to see Nizar on the other side. "I'm Saif today," he said in lieu of a greeting.

"I heard back about the investigation," Nizar said as he made his way into the living room. "I know it's short notice, but they set the trial date for tomorrow. It's mostly a formality since there's no one to argue against you. At most, they're probably just going to increase your therapy appointments."

"Oh," Saif said, glancing at the bathroom. All was quiet for now, so he sat on the couch and asked, "They're not taking what happened to our father into account?"

"No. Zahida's sure she can convince them that enough time has passed and your file should remained sealed. Small victories, right?" Nizar cocked his head slightly. "How are you two holding up? You look sick."

"It's been a lot." It wasn't technically a lie, at least. "Marik's… still not really over what happened when we were kids."

Nizar nodded slowly, a sad frown coming to his face. Nizar wasn't one to get emotional, at least not in front of them, so Saif was a little surprised. "Gotta say, what happened to you guys… you kids really got the short end of the stick."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, since we have both you and Marik's accounts of what happened, you won't need to do much. Let me do all the talking, be honest if the judge asks you any questions, and we'll be golden. The police still haven't found the other guys, but the security footage we got should take care of them."

"Here's hoping they got the hell out of dodge," Saif tried to joke. Nizar smiled humorlessly and bid him farewell, and Saif locked the door behind him. As soon as he did, he could hear scratching at the bathroom door and displeased hissing, and he groaned to himself. This was going to be hell to explain to Marik.