The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Lackey With Two Faces

Previously: "The Coming of Jeff Spencer" 

It was luck, managing to catch Jeff Spencer at a vulnerable moment at the McDonalds; then animal cunning, once you were inside his mask, that brought you to the present point. Spencer—the real Jeff Spencer—is stretched on the floor of his tumble-down apartment. But it's as another Jeff Spencer that you stare down in horror at what is left of him.

Well, okay, it doesn't look that bad. Sure, it looks like you've turned him into a pedisequos, like the one you left back in the school basement. But it's not horrible to look at, for unlike the first one you made, this one looks almost human even without a mask. In fact, it looks a lot like Spencer himself.

He has the stony pallor of the thing back in the basement, and when you press your finger to him he has the hardness and texture of pumice, though there is the slightest rubbery "give" under pressure. But his shape and all of his features, right down the crinkles in his lips and the zits breaking out under his retreating hairline, are preserved in miniscule detail. Even the hair has the texture of strands that have been fossilized into place.

The fire that consumed him didn't last long, maybe a few minutes. Whatever polishing he might need is accomplished by simply removing his clothes. Spencer's own instincts are strong enough that you can regard his petrified junk with a dull, direct interest.

Then your hand is down the front of your own pants, feeling for balls and shaft so as to make a comparison, almost before you realize it.

You'd have to take Spencer's mask off in order to test it on him, and that would involve knocking yourself out, and you don't want to do that. But so complete were your preparations at the basement, even to the point of combining all the dry ingredients, including a second hank of your own hair, that you've got Caleb's mask down in the truck. You thunder downstairs to retrieve it.

As in the school basement, so here: The mask vanishes into Spencer's stony visage, and Caleb Johansson appears. He does a horrified double-take at you, and scrambles back. But before you can reassure him, he squeaks out a terrified, "Will?"

"Yeah," you grunt. "How'd you know it was me?"

He makes a face. "Just a feeling I got. Every time I wake up naked"—he squints down at himself—"you're close by."

"I'm wearing a mask."

"Really. That's why you're looking like Jeff Spencer? I wouldn't have guessed." He looks around with curling lip. "Is this Spencer's place?" He picks up a sock, fingers it with a frown, then hurls it away when he realizes what it is stiff with. "Where's the real guy?"

"Don't you know where?" you ask.

"How would I? Until a few seconds ago, I was back in that basement where you conjured me up." He glances around. "And speaking of which, shouldn't there be a magic circle or something around me? I bet this is what demons feel like when they get yanked into the real world."

You yourself would snicker, at least a little, in appreciation of his attempted wit. As Jeff Spencer, though, you want to swing that bat in his face. You compromise by giving him another grunt.

"I got rid of him," you say. "Put him out of our misery, I guess you could say." You point at Caleb. "He's inside you."

"What, like my conscience?"

"No, I turned him into one of those things, a lackey thing." Even though you're thinking clearly, it's like Spencer's tongue doesn't want to wrap itself around the words you're giving it. "Like back in the basement, I told you, I made it and I put the mask on it and you popped up. The next spell in the book turned him into one of those, and I put the mask on it, and now here you are again. So he's inside you."

Caleb's expression has acquired a green hue during this explanation. "So if I vomited hard enough, could I hurl him up?" he asks. "Because I feel like I'm going to."

You just grunt again. "What am I going to do now?" you mutter.

"Is this a quiz?" Only with Caleb's reply do you realize you spoke aloud. "We're not going to spend the night here, are we?"

You could. Jeff Spencer is out of the way, and you're in his apartment, in his clothes, in his body, and you were only a minute or so away from filling one of his socks with your (his) cum when the real guy came in. But you have your own home and bed to get back to.

"Come on," you tell Caleb. "We're going back to the elementary school."

"For what?" he asks as he scrambles to his feet. "To get me some clothes so I don't have to go around naked?"

You point to your own discarded clothes. "Put those on. We're going back to the school."

"Well, you're a fucking brilliant conversationalist," he mutters as he picks up your old underwear.

* * * * *

There's no car downstairs, for Jeff doesn't have a car. He gets rides from people, or he walks or he takes the bus. Vaguely you wonder how he got home and what he was doing in the meantime. But not until you're at the school basement, and you've stripped "Caleb" of clothes and mask, do you hunch over and consult the phone you picked up from next to his petrified corpse.

The last text from his account is a profanity-ridden tirade to Josh Call about some "fucker" who left him at the soccer fields. Only the fact that you have Spencer's brain allows you to decipher the truncated, typo-riddled, ungrammatical text. How Call figured it out, you don't know. He couldn't come pick up Jeff because he was working at the Warehouse, but in his reply he said he was sending Horner to pick Jeff up. So you have to assume that's who dropped Jeff off at his apartment.

As for what to do now—

You're back in the school basement, and you've taken Caleb's mask off the Jeff-shaped pedisequos. After scratching at your pits awhile, you decide to test Spencer's mask out on one of the pedisequoses. You're too worried that putting the mask on the original Spencer will bring him back in full force, so after wrenching the mask from your face—and waking up cold and disoriented and really, really grossed out—with clammy feelings of dread and slightly chattering teeth, you set Spencer's mask on the lumpy thing you made earlier in the day.

This time Jeff Spencer appears.

He frowns when he looks at you, though his eyes remain dull. "I know you," he mutters.

"You're my lackey," you tell him.

"The fuck is that?"

"It means you have to do what I say."

His chest heaves a little, and he sits up. "Huh," he says.

The meaning is ambiguous enough that you test him out, as you did Caleb. He performs the tasks you set him—standing, walking about, picking up the end of desk, and hitting himself—in a perfunctory way, but by the time you order him to suck your balls (which you countermand at the last moment) he is staring at you with eyes that are bottomless wells of hatred.

The world, in your opinion, is not improved by the presence of Jeff Spencer, but it would be best if he didn't go missing, so after confirming that he is now your lackey, you tell him to dress, and after dressing yourself you summon him out to your truck so you can drive him home.

"Don't tell anyone about being with me," you instruct him. "Tell them you went home, and you went to bed. You never saw me tonight."

You can sense him staring at you, but he only says "Huh" again. You have no idea if that means that means "Okay" or "I don't understand" or merely "Huh." It's with a sinking feeling that you wonder if he's actually understood you and can therefore follow your instructions, or if he's just humoring you by agreeing to do stuff he doesn't understand.

Then he startles you with a pertinent observation: "I been in this truck," he says. "I was driving."

"That's right."

He mulls this. "There was this cocksucker in it with me. He wouldn't shut up."

That was Caleb. He's remembering the drive back to the basement. "Forget about him," you tell him.

"Huh."

Another long silence.

"There was a guy in my apartment. I hit him with my bat. Then I set him on fire."

"Don't tell anyone about that either," you hastily instruct.

"I'm not a fucking moron," he growls. "But the guy looked like me. He was in my clothes."

"Well, you don't have to worry about him anymore. I'll take you home, you'll go to bed, you'll get up in the morning, and you'll act normal, like tonight didn't happen. What's your name?"

"Jeff Spencer," he says, like a kid giving the rote answer to a multiplication problem.

"Right. That's why you don't have to worry about that other guy anymore."

* * * * *

You get him back to his place then return to the elementary school to offload the supplies from your truck. You keep back one of the blank masks, though, and the sealant and the book.

It's because you're not a stinking mess this time, you suppose, that your dad lets you off with only a warning even though you're almost twenty minutes past your curfew as you come inside. Upstairs you make preparations for bed, then sit down with the book. The next spell, now unlocked, resembles the earlier spells by using the same ingredients and a fire. But it uses even less of them, and there's no call for a human being. It looks like it will be easy to execute.

But it's the blank mask you brought back that preoccupies you. You could copy yourself into it. Then, if you put it on the petrified Jeff Spencer that is in the basement, you would have a lackey who looks and acts just like you, who could take your place at home and school as you concentrate further on the book and the spells.

Next: "Coffee and Unwanted Company" 

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