Maleficium: Duo (Devil's Playground 2)

“She’s a jester,” Dion corrected in the same pitch.

Was that seriously important right now? I’d called this crazy bitch both. It didn’t make a difference to me what she was. All I knew for sure was that she should’ve been a patient here.

“Visiting hours are almost over. I’d be quick and, in a hurry, if I were you,” she lilted.

Her sing-song voice grated on raw nerves. Looping the dog leash around her wrist, she stood from the leather chair and tapped a bloodied glove on an open book.

“Come, come. Get your name tags and sign yourselves in.”

I glanced towards a set of metal double doors on the far side of the room. An intercom was positioned on the wall beside them.

I doubted we could ignore her and go right on through. This nutcase was the only one who could grant access. We had no choice but to play along.

“She has to let us in,” I remarked, walking over to the reception desk.

Her human dog cocked his head and looked up at me. His brown eyes were surprisingly alert, like he was fully aware of what was happening.

I hoped this was their kink. Otherwise, seeing a grown man act like a pet was mildly disturbing. I looked away from him and focused on the brunette. She was way bloodier than she’d been back in the school media room. I had a few guesses as to why.

“Sign, sign away,” she offered me a pen, smiling almost warmly.

I accepted it gingerly, half expecting her to leap over the desk to try and maim me with the ballpoint.

“Aren’t you going to ask who were here to see?” Mel questioned, signing her name once I finished.

“I already knew the question, and already had the answer.”

“You’re really into character, huh?” Dion eyed her warily.

Her smile instantly a vanished, a curled lip completely rearranging her face. The blonde man at her side looked up at her, his disheveled hair falling backward. With a low whine, he edged closer to her side.

“The one in this room that has a role to play, is you Mr.” She’d taken on a venomous tone, but as soon as she got done giving that mystifying omen, she was right back to her usual smiling self.

“Your turn now,” she tittered, showing all her teeth when she smiled at him.

Dion took the pen from Mel and wrote his name in the book beneath ours.

“Good work. Now put these on and don’t take them off until you’re done.” She placed three name tags on the desk’s overhead rim.

I lifted mine and studied it.

06-16-2026

That was weird. A few days off, okay. But three years?

“Why is the date wrong?”

“Stay a while longer and you’ll know all you need to know.”

Right. I couldn’t expect to get a straightforward answer from her of all people. I shouldn’t have wasted the breath.

“Can we go now?” Mel asked irritably.

“Someone’s eager.” The girl reached down and flipped a switch, causing the double doors to buzz and swing open.

“Hurry, hurry.”

I took a few steps back, keeping my eyes on her until I felt it was safe enough to turn around.

“Have fun!” she called just as the double doors shut behind us.

We were in an empty corridor. It wasn’t exceptionally long and almost entirely lit up by fluorescent lights.

“It’s quiet,” I noted.

“Too quiet,” Dion seconded.

Nothing about this place seemed asylum-ish to me. Mel walked over to the bulletin board hanging on the right wall. It was covered in various papers and some pamphlets. She read the bottom of one out loud.

“Real treatment. Insane results.” She scoffed. “Isn’t that an insensitive pun?”

Before I could reply, the overhead lights began to flicker, eventually shutting off altogether. When they came back on their output was significantly dimmer.

“What--?”

A sound system clicked on, and the jester’s voice carried up and down the empty corridor a second later.

“The doctor has become a bit tangled up. Mr. Wendigo is now prepping his patient for operation. Visitors are advised to proceed with caution.”

The speaker clicked off, leaving us in silence once again. I repeated what she’d said in my head, brow furrowing as I tried to decipher what she’d meant.

“Is that our riddle?” Mel asked.

“That didn’t sound like a riddle to me,” Dion replied.

“Yeah, I don’t know what most of that meant. Proceeding with caution is a given, so let’s start with that.”

We began moving down the hall, and a peculiar smell started becoming more apparent, lingering in the chilled air. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

We passed by a doorway, nothing inside of it but some vending machines and round tables. At the end of the hall was a set of stairs going up. A few feet in front of them was another pair of double doors, these ones chained shut.

Off to the side was an elevator with a sign that read wheelchair accessible. An out of order warning was taped on top of it and the elevator’s floor counter was cracked. Using it clearly wasn’t an option but even if we could I wouldn’t have gotten on there. I didn’t trust it.