The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Story with Sydney

Previously: "The Man from Lemuria" 

Kill someone? Is this guy serious?

No, the real question is even worse than that: Could Sydney be serious about something like that?

You can't help shivering. "I'll talk to Sydney about it," you mumble with downcast eyes.

"Yeah, you do that," Dee drawls, and the contempt in his voice is unmistakable. "You ready to go do that now?"

"What?" You jerk your head up.

Dee snorts at you, then stands. "I said—"

* * * * *

You have to admit you don't know where she lives, so Dee has you text her for directions, then gets her number from you so he can talk to her directly.

This is the first time you've been out to Sydney's house. Her address, once fed into the GPS in Dee's truck, take you to the northwest side of town, where the subdivisions fade into rolling countryside with woodland stands. This is where the rich folk live, your dad always mutters out of the side of his mouth when driving out this way, and it's country where the McMansions stand aloof from each other with pastures and grazing land to buffer their borders. Kelsey Blankenship lives out this way, you think, and who knows who else with money.

And, it turns out, Sydney lives off this way too.

Hers is a rambling, asymmetrical house of white stone walls and gray shingled roofs, with a tower rearing up over the front door. The foyer is spacious and cool, and the living room also spreads out under a vaulting ceiling.

But Sydney's pulls you and Dee—who cranes his neck to give the place an admiring once-over—out into a spacious backyard for privacy.

Dee comes bluntly to the point. "Will here wants to know who it is you want whacked."

Sydney looks as startled as you feel, and gives you an uneasy glance. Then she flushes. "Well, maybe I don't want him 'whacked', exactly," she says. "Maybe I just want you to take him back to wherever with you, so I don't ever have to see him again."

Dee laughs, then he clucks his tongue. "Amateurs," he sneers. "It's always this way with amateurs. I mean, it makes it easy and all, but then you gotta go making up stories for them. 'Your puppy's okay, sweetheart,'" he mewls. "'We just took him to a farm in the country, where he could have lots of fresh air and room to run and play!'"

Sydney flushes deeper. "So feed him to a dragon when you get there! Promise me you will!"

"Okay. So who is it? Who is it you want me to—? Look, I can't feed him to a dragon," Dee growls when Sydney only bites her lip, "if I don't know who it is. And if you want to play Twenty Questions—"

"It's my mother's new husband," Sydney blurts out.

"So ... your stepdad."

Sydney winces. "Don't call him that. Call him 'Nicholas', if you have to call him anything."

Dee glances back over his shoulder at the house. "So maybe I should call him 'Uncle Richard'."

The fuck? you wonder.

"Tell me all about it," Dee says. "Tell us all about it." He jogs you hard in the side with is elbow. "Your boyfriend's dying to know all about it too." His tone is cold and brutal.

* * * * *

The story comes out in fits and starts, and Dee has to drag some of the details out. When it is all said and done—

Sydney's stepfather—who is only in his late twenties or early thirties—and her father both worked for a textbook publisher in Kansas City. But they were also colleagues in a secret society, something called "The Brotherhood of Baphomet." Her dad was the head of it and Nicholas was one of the underlings. He was always coming out to the house, where he would suck up in a really disgusting way to her parents. (To Dee's blunt query, Sydney gives a furious denial: No, her mother wasn't also part of this "Brotherhood.") But her dad died in a traffic accident. Afterward, Nicholas managed to worm his way into her mother's affections, and they got married. Sydney, who hated Nicholas, managed to salvage some notebooks and instruments that her father had hidden away in a high-security storage complex—she got the combination code to it from a Ouija board—and since then has been studying them. It was from those notes she learned the truth about her father and about Nicholas, and put together the clues that led her to believe—though she has no direct evidence—that her stepfather used occult means to murder her dad and take his place in the Brotherhood.

The contempt on Dee's face grows deeper the longer he listens. His attitude, you can tell, pisses Sydney off. "Is he going to be too much for you?" she sneers.

"No," Dee says. "I could take him off your hands this afternoon." He snaps his fingers. "Temporarily. But this Baphomet business is a complication. Things like that, they're like weeds. You got to get the roots out." He cocks his head and gives Sydney a steady look. "I could remove your stepdad from the mortal plane real easy. But the metaphysical plane— You don't want a revenant, I take it."

Her eyes narrow. "What do you mean?"

"He has roots, your stepdad does. That's why he's into this Baphomet business. Gives him roots so that death, not the ordinary kind anyway, can hurt him. He's probably looking forward to it, actually." He shakes his head. "They're nasty things," he says in a soft voice, "things like what he's mixed up in. They're greasy. There's no smarts in guys like that, but plenty of malice. If you want your stepdad out by his roots, you're going to have to give me a little time and a little room."

Sydney gives him an appraising look. "To do what?" she asks. "And what do we give you in return?" She glances at you.

"Just time and room to prepare, for now. Help with the ley lines, too. It's a million to one if Nicholas and his friends don't know about them, and if they're not how come they've chosen to base themselves in this little shitburg." He squints into the sunlight, then glances around. "Did you look for any ley lines running through this house?"

Sydney hesitates. "I didn't look for one. But I've tested the instruments out around here, and I didn't find—"

"Tomorrow," Dee says. "Meet up with me tomorrow at my place." He gives her a number and a street name. "Right now I want your instruments, and I want to know where else you've found a ley line. Tomorrow, two o'clock, we meet at my place to talk."

He does a slight double-take at you, and his lip curls. "You can bring a friend," he tells Sydney, "if you think you wouldn't feel safe with me alone."

* * * * *

Dee takes the gear but leaves you with Sydney. "Do you believe all that stuff he told you," you ask, "about your stepfather needing to be, like, exorcised or something?"

She hesitates, then nods. "I think he knows what he's talking about," she says in a low voice. "Those things he wrote out at the coffee shop, they mostly check out with some of the things my dad left in his notebooks."

Mention of her dad leaves you queasy. He was into the same stuff, just as deeply as her stepfather. Dee said that people like that were "full of malice." Was her dad like that? What did it do to Sydney to hear Dee say something like that?

"Is this really worth getting into?" you ask her. "I mean, I'd hate anyone who did something to my dad, but—"

Sydney shudders.

"Don't ask me that, Will," she says. "Let's just talk to him tomorrow and see what he says."

You want to linger, but it appears she wants to be alone with her thoughts, so you let her drive you home.

* * * * *

But you're restless all afternoon and evening. There is something very "off" about Dee. Sydney vouches for his credibility on the occult, but his story about being from "Lemuria" sounds ridiculous, and the longer you think about it the more paranoid you become. It's scary enough that you and Sydney have caught the attention of someone who knows a lot more about magic stuff than you do. Worse is the dreadful suspicion that he's a con man of some sort. And Sydney just went and gave him those instruments you were using to track the ley line!

As dusk falls you pace your bedroom, trying to work up the courage to come to a decision. It sounds like Dee is going to take those instruments out tonight to do some surveying with them. If he is, that would give you a chance to go out to his address and snoop around.

Trouble is, if he's as dangerous as he pretends to be, you could find yourself dead—or worse!—if he caught you!

Next: "Dee's Domicile" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"