The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Lord of Discipline

Previously: "A Very Merry Re-Birthday" 

Almost you yield to immediate temptation: the faster you get yourself a sophomore identity, the faster you can get laid.

But it's better to get your secret crime ring set up first, you remind yourself. Indeed (you reflect as you think through the future), once the guys have gotten you into a sophomore face, they'll be expecting you to be inside it, and that's not a location where you'll be able to get the rest of your ring set up.

* * * * *

Caleb drops the grimoire off at Bhodi's house, along with the masks and brain-bands he brought along. In exchange, he brings out two more brain-bands, which he passes along to you. Both of them have your names on them—they're the brain-bands that you lent to Bhodi and to his friend Joe.

As for the items you dropped off, you ask Caleb what Bhodi is going to do with them.

"For him and the rest of the gang," Caleb says as he pulls back into the street. "We might have to make some more," he adds with a sigh.

"How many more people are going to be making these swaps?" you demand. It seems to you that you've made more than enough.

"Well, there's me and you," Caleb says, ticking off his fingers. "Bhodi and his friend Joe. Paulina and Evie—"

"Paulina and Evie?" you exclaim. "What the fuck?"

"Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that. Well, I only found out this morning. It turns out Paulina and Evie want to play too. Apparently, everyone's now into it except Lindsay."

"Evie wants to—?" You are choking on the revelation. "After, um—?"

Caleb gives you a wry glance. "Yeah, I guess she didn't take any harm from it," he says with a tinge of sarcasm.

You flush and slump in your seat. You should feel relief (you suppose) that she wasn't scarred for life by what you did to her. At the same time, it reinforces your decision to concentrate on your "crime ring." That will put some distance between you and a girl whose abduction you still feel guilty about.

So after you return to Dane's trailer—where a full-blown party is apparently in progress—you sneak out again, taking the notebook and its newly copied sigils with you, along with two small tubs of sealant and a magical glue. It's Mrs. Matthias's trailer, you figure, so she can decide when it's time for the party to end.

You text Erik Carstairs from your car, asking him to meet you up at the high school.

* * * * *

The sun is lowering in the western sky after you have pulled Erik's mask off the football player and got it onto yourself. You have also attached one of the brain-bands copying your own mind and memories into the mask of Dane Matthias, and sealed it up with some of the golem-making paste, and that's the mask that you put onto Erik. The result is a "Dane Matthias" who's got your memories and personality, rather than Dane's. That will be good enough to keep "Dane" in circulation, you figure, and it will be a convincing fake for those (like Caleb) who assume that you are stuck playing the Danester for right now.

"Pretty freaky news about Evie, huh?" the new Dane says after you've woken again and are pulling on Erik's clothes. You grunt. "Didn't see that coming, right?"

You ignore him. "We're gonna have to hit the supply stores separately," you reply. "It's getting on closing time for most of them."

"Do I need to go back to the trailer after that?" the fake asks. "Or can I spend the night with you?"

"What are you, queer all of a sudden?"

"No! I just meant— Uh—"

"Listen, if I spend the night out, it's not gonna be anyplace you want to hang out at." You reach for the sketchbook and review the hints you scribbled down for the list of ingredients. "Meet me back up here," you tell the golem after giving it a shopping list. "Then we'll see."

"You're gonna go out and get laid, aren't you?" the golem glumly replies.

"If I want to." You pull a few twenties from your wallet, give them to the golem, then push it out of the car.

* * * * *

In fact, it was Erik's plan to hit a night spot: The Warehouse. Last night was his night to work there, and tonight it was his plan to party there. So much pussy to be plucked, you think with a groan as you turn your car toward town. So much hot, dripping, luscious pussy. Erik's popular with the girls anyway, and the kind of girls who like going to the Warehouse are the kind who like the studs who manage and police it, and as far as anyone knows, Erik is the one who runs it, which means on work nights he can hardly finish a patrol without having one or more girls throw themselves across his path. Come back tomorrow night, he tells them. Then, with a firm but gentle grip (and a smirk) he pushes them aside.

But you're got stuff to do first. Anyway, the fun never starts at the Warehouse before ten or even eleven, so you've got plenty of time to get the basics done.

It takes you an hour to collect your part of the ingredients, and it's another half hour before the golem returns with his. So dusk is falling hard as you camp out in a dark corner of the Westside parking lot to fire a mask and make a brain-band. These you take back to Erik's house—Dane you order back home, there to "have as much fun" as it can—for some supplementary work. Out in the garage, you use Erik's dad's car buffer to polish the mask to a deep, glowing blue. But you toss the unfinished brain-band into the bedroom, to finish up tomorrow. Erik's dad—an ex-jock who empathizes with his son and encourages him in his training and his playing without inquiring too deeply into what he's doing—asks you if you plan on hitting a party. "Shower first, party after," you tell him as you saunter through the living room.

What's the difference between me and guys like Erik? you ask yourself after you're washed and dressed. You are studying yourself in a full-length mirror. You're wearing fresh jeans and a white t-shirt under a large, crimson, billowing football jersey. The body in the mirror is strong, hard, and stacked with muscles; you can't stop a confident smirk from twisting itself onto your lips. Was the difference always in the seed? you wonder. Or could "Will Prescott" have had that kind of reflection, even without the help of magic?

But the difference, even if it wasn't there at birth or conception, goes a long way back. You liked playing sports in elementary school, but you weren't as good at them as kids like Erik were, so you didn't play them as much, and after years of discouragement you finally stopped, while kids like Erik just worked harder and harder at them.

So was it that kids like Erik were just better at sports, so they liked sports better and played them more? Or did kids like him enjoy sports more than you did, so they played them more, and that's what made them better at it?

You retreat into Erik's memories. School was never fun for him. His experience with math and science and English and the rest ... Well, it was like your experience with sports. They frustrated him, and he didn't have fun with them, and he felt more and more discouraged by them, until he finally just gave up and now skates through school with Cs and Ds. But recess ... P. E. class ... sports ... He always loved physical games, and through himself into them with everything he had.

So now here he is. Or, rather, now you are, being him.

And you wouldn't change anything about him.

"See you in the morning," Mr. Carstairs says as you saunter back out to the garage.

* * * * *

There's hardly any parking at the Warehouse, so you have to drive up to Eastman, where you'll meet friends to carpool out. Blake O'Brien ... James Bridges ... Scott Bickelmeir ... Cole Stanchik ... Most of the guys are waiting for you, and after you've collected them (and a few girls who've wandered over to blush and grin and flirt) you pack into the bed of Blake's truck for the drive out. You quickly have your arm around a blonde girl in a lacy white dress and cowboy boots, and lots of bare, tanned leg between the hem of one and the top of the others. She pretends to be mad at you, even as she snuggles up warmly in your embrace. "I shouldn't even be talking to you!" she pouts, but she has to put her mouth to your ear to make herself heard over the whine of the wind and the roar of the engine. "You're stealing our best players from us!"

"What are you talking about?" You bury your nose in the side of her head, and keep it there, breathing in deeply the scent of her freshly washed hair.

"Frank and Joe Durras!" she retorts.

You grunt.

That's a situation Erik has watched, so at least you're conversant with it. They're brothers, new to Saratoga Falls, and made a splash at Eastman High when they entered the school in September. But now, only a month later, they are transferring to Westside.

But they're basketball players, not football players, so it's nothing to do with Erik, and even less to do with you.

"So you go to Eastman, huh?" you tell the girl. It reminds you that you should give some thought to the "business opportunities" at the other high school.

But first you need to decide on which teacher at Westside to "recruit" to your gang.

Next: "Grading the Teachers" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"