The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Bad Cop, Worse Cop

Previously: "Twenty Questions (At Least)" 

Frank and Joe don't linger in the basement with you. They hustle you back outside and loft you into the bed of their truck, where Frank throws you onto your back and squats over you with his knee on your chest. Joe hunches nearby and pores over the grimoire.

"Where did you get that book?" Frank demands of you.

"I found it at the used bookstore." You are too broken in spirit to resist his questions. "In the special collections," you gasp when he presses his knee into your ribcage.

"Ask him about the professor," Joe says.

"Do you know a man named Aubrey Blackwell?"

"No."

"Liar," Joe says. "We found you and the girl outside his house last night."

"But we don't—! We were just looking for ley lines, and—"

"When did you find the book?" Frank presses you in the chest with his knee.

"I don't know! Um, a couple of weeks ago?"

"And it had a spell that showed you how to make yourself invisible?"

"No! I don't think so! It—"

Joe says, "That's not the Personae's subject matter, Frank."

"Then where did you learn the invisibility trick?" Frank asks you.

"I didn't—! I don't know why you guys didn't see me! Maybe you're blind!"

"You ever fuck around with this kind of stuff before?"

"No! I told you, I just found that book, and I was goofing around with it! That's how I met Sydney! I was, uh, getting some dirt. From the cemetery."

"Yeah, you already told us," Joe says. He is still concentrating on the book. "So this book and Sydney's instruments, and that's all you know about shit. Is that your story?"

"Yes!"

"Well, we know you made some other shit with this thing," Joe says. He shuts the book with a snap. "Lemme in, Frank, lemme try something."

Frank shifts position, and Joe leans over you, so close you can feel his hot breath on your face. He grasps you by the forehead and mutters under his breath as he pulls at your temples.

You grit your teeth. "I'm not wearing a mask!" you cry, for it's obvious he's trying to pull one off you. But Joe has to try half a dozen times before he gives up, and even then he glares at you in suspicion.

"Prescott," Frank muses after Joe has squatted back down with the book. "The name's familiar."

"Harris Prescott," Joe says. "Salopek Engineering."

"That's it."

"My dad?" you gasp.

Frank's lip curls. "Your dad, huh? But you said you got the Personae at the bookstore."

"I did!"

"So why did your dad sell it to the bookstore?"

Now you're just bewildered. "He didn't! Did he? What makes you think—?"

"You made a mask, Prescott," Joe says. "And some other stuff. Who did you use it on?"

"Huh? Oh!" Crimson shame washes over you. "My friend. Caleb."

"He's mixed up in this too?"

"No, I just— I tricked him into putting it on."

Joe hefts the grimoire thoughtfully, then makes a face at Frank.

"Well, there's nothing in here to explain how he got past us, Frank," he says, "and nothing the girl's admitted to could either." He stands up, to join Frank in glaring down at you.

"You're going to spend the night with us," Frank growls at you. "And we're going to have a long talk between now and dawn."

Weirdly, fear of your father briefly washes away fear of these two. "I have a curfew! I have to get home!"

Frank looks at Joe, who chortles. "Oh, that's no problem!" he says.

* * * * *

What he means by that, you don't find out. But that silvery, silken bag goes back over your head, and the next thing you know you are back in their house, sprawling on the sofa while Frank and Joe, their arms folded, take turns playing "bad cop, worse cop" with you.

Wearily you tell them your story from the top, then backward and forward and in fragmented order, leaping from time and date to subject and biography, from every possible direction, in mind-numbing detail and repetition. They're trying to break your stories, and a couple of times they act like they've tripped you up in a contradiction. But you're telling the truth—

You found that book Arnholm's Used Books, where you paid two dollars for it when you pointed out it was damaged, and you took it home where you experimented with it by making some items. You tricked Caleb into putting some of those items on, and you stole money from friends by wearing his face—a confession that now horrifies you but which Frank and Joe seem uninterested in—and you tell of how you also used his face and form to get close to Sydney, who had observed you digging up dirt in the cemetery. That was only a few days ago, and you were just getting friendly with her by sharing the magical trinkets each of you had, when you ran into Joe outside that house.

So they're never able to pry anything further from you because there is nothing more to pry.

They're also not able to break you into confessions about some other people. You insist you have never heard of "Aubrey Blackwell," whose house it was where you ran into Joe—or "Dee" as he called himself last night—and you insist that you were there only because that's where you had tracked one of the ley line anchor points to. You're more baffled, and even angered, by the way they press you about your dad, for they seem to believe he must know something about the book. You can only insist that you're sure he knows nothing about it, and that he only yelled at you for stinking up your room while making the first mask.

* * * * *

It is well after midnight when, exhausted and belligerent, they give up. They shove that bag over your head again, and when it come off a moment later, strong sunlight is filtering through the blinds of the front window.

"On your feet, Prescott," Frank says. He's standing over you, right where you saw him last, but he's changed clothes, into a nice set of slacks, a dress shirt and tie, and a sports coat. It gives you a pang of jealousy to recognize how much better he wears nice clothes than you do. "Your dad's waiting for you."

"Is he here?" you bleat. You're too punch-drunk to think clearly.

"You're meeting him at church," Frank says. "It's Sunday."

Oh yeah. Church. If Frank and Joe are letting you go on account of that, it will be the first time in your life you will be glad to go to services.

Frank claps a hard hand on your shoulders after you're on your feet. "You're driving," he tells you. "And we're stopping by your house first."

It's just you and him, and the drive out is oppressed by a deep and uneasy silence. Your family has already left when you slide the key into the front door of your house. Frank sticks close to you, parking himself in your bedroom while you change into church clothes, and not explaining himself. He forces you to give him the mask you made of Caleb—which he takes in a very gingerly manner—and all the supplies you had gathered for the making of masks and whatnot. Then he makes you drive to church.

He calls Joe after you're parked, and makes you wait until Joe—also dressed to the nines, and looking like a catalog model in them—comes out to meet you in the church parking lot. They talk for a minute and there must be something wrong with your hearing, because you don't understand a word they say. Neither one looks happy.

"Okay, time to go in and sit with your family," Frank tells you when he's done consulting with Joe. "But remember, we'll be in the back of the sanctuary. And you're going to lunch with us afterward. Joe already set it up with your dad."

You glance at Joe, who returns your stare with a gleaming eye.

* * * * *

So church winds up being even more dreadful than usual. The service drags forever, but it still manages to be far too short for your taste, and on heavy feet you trudge to the back of the sanctuary to look for Frank and Joe. (Your dad only asked you if you'd be home for supper. And when you said you weren't sure, he nodded absent-mindedly.) But when you leave, this time it is Joe who rides with you, and directs you back to the house he and Frank share.

He's a lot friendlier than he's been before, though his manner is still muted, and he spends the first minute of the drive giving you sidelong squints. Finally he says, "Okay, you got us."

You flinch. "What are you talking about?"

"Last night. Listening in on us. The whole 'Dee' act was a just that, an act. I ain't really from Lemuria."

"I kinda wondered," you mutter.

He laughs. "I had you going, though, didn't I? Come on, tell me I had you going! Frank was all, like, 'You're overplaying it, Joe,' but I was, like, 'No no, they're buying it!' Tell me you were buying it, so I can get in Frank's face about it!"

"You were scary," you admit.

He laughs. "Alright, that works. But with a purpose!" He points at you. "You need to be scared off this shit!"

"Uh huh."

"I'm serious! Promise me you've learned your lesson."

"You don't have to—"

"Just repeat after me. 'I've learned my lesson.'"

"I've learned my lesson," you grumble.

Joe only looks amused. "Yeah, I know, it's just words for now. But trust me, words spoken aloud have a way of freezing into facts." He claps your thigh.

Then, in a sly tone, he says, "Now come on, really, you can tell me. How'd you turn yourself invisible last night?"

The words seem to erupt from deep inside your chest. "I don't know!"

The denial seems to stun Joe.

"Wow," he says after sucking in a deep breath. "You're going to be worth knowing!"

Next: "New Friends, Or Something" 

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