The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

You or Blackwell?

Previously: "Casting for a New Part" 

Reluctantly, you have to concede that the golem makes a good case. You don't know what the spell will do to a person, so you are reluctant to use it on someone you know. And because you are wearing Melody's mask and know everything she knows, you also know how to get her out to the old school.

* * * * *

She has a wary look as she gets out of her car. You feel a sweat break out all over your body as you grin and greet her. "Hey, I'm Will!"

"Nice to meet you, Will," Melody Weiss says. She doesn't smile.

"Thanks for coming out. Um, it's this way." You gesture toward the opposite side of the school.

It's Friday evening, and neither you nor she had any plans, so there was nothing to interfere when you texted her earlier that afternoon with a wild story about finding hieroglyphs and runes on the cornerstone of the old elementary school Acheson. The only reason Melody would have paid any attention was because (a) such things are the sort of stuff she's naturally interested in; and (b) she is becoming increasingly convinced that there is a weird, underground story to be told about Saratoga Falls and its founding, and so is alert to anything that would corroborate, refute, or complicate the hazy thesis that has been forming in her mind.

So here you are now, leading her from the rec center parking lot over to the wing where the basement is. The plastic bag holding the mask jostles your leg as you walk.

"How did you get my contact info?" she asks. In the reply to your text she had only said she would stop by the old school for a few minutes.

"A department secretary," you smoothly reply, having prepared yourself (while in her mask) with a plausible story. "I called up yesterday to ask who I could talk to about some weird, like, carvings and stuff I'd found, and after giving me some professors' names, she gave me yours because she said a student would be more likely to come out and look."

"Huh. And who was this secretary you talked to?"

"I don't remember her name. She was in the, uh, anthropology department."

"Hmm. Okay, so where—?"

And that's the last thing she ever says. As you round the corner of the school wing, you step behind her and close the mask over her face. Her legs seem to melt out from under her, and you catch the back of her head in your chin as she falls onto you. Almost she drags you to the ground, but after a short, hard fight you manage to get your arms around her torso and drag her over to the steps. There you have to lower her to the ground as you run down to unlock the door. The Umeko-golem, which has been waiting inside, comes up and helps you carry her down.

* * * * *

"Oh Jesus," you mutter as you gape at what's left of Melody Weiss. "What the fuck am I doing?"

It was the mask of Melody Weiss herself that you pressed to the girl's face, gambling that it would knock her out long enough to get her down into the basement and undressed for the spell. That much worked out according to plan. You hauled her up onto the long conference table that you've been using for a work bench, splayed her atop the open pages of the book, piled earth and fuel over her, dropped a few plucked hairs from your scalp onto the mess, and then, after the mask had reappeared on her face, set her on fire.

There were so many ways it could have gone wrong. How it did go wrong was totally unexpected it.

It petrified her.

There seems no other way to describe it. Where the girl had lain before, there is now an exact copy of her, apparently executed in stone, that perfectly replicates her form and features, even down to the tiny hairs on her forearm and the pores on her nose. So lifelike is it that you almost fancy that her breast is rising and falling with breath and a pulse.

And it leads to a terrible question: Is what you've done to Melody Weiss any better than what you fear Aubrey Blackwell could do to you?

The golem seems to read your thoughts. "It's you or him, boss," it tells you grimly. "You gotta do what you gotta do."

"I guess," you mutter, and try to thrust the dread and guilt you feel from you. I'll figure out a way to make things right, you swear to yourself, once I've taken care of the professor. "But what am I going to do now? She can't just, you know, disappear! Can she?"

The golem doesn't answer, and for a wild moment you think maybe you could just let Melody Weiss disappear: let her be just another person who vanishes without leaving a trace.

But then you remember the text you sent her. The cops will surely find it while investigating, and then you'll be tied in to it.

"I think you turned her into a kind of golem," your golem says. She tugs the book out from under the stony form, and turns the newly unlocked page. Together you pore over the reverse of the spell, and find that the golem's conjecture is correct. You have done nothing more nor less than craft another magical auto-bot. Once that fact is clear, you and the golem both turn to gaze at the mask of Melody Weiss that sits nearby. No one has to say anything: All you have to do is pop the mask onto this new golem, and something that looks and acts like Melody Weiss will appear.

Better, it will be a Melody Weiss that is your obedient servant.

But then the golem says, with a meaningful look, "You were looking for a place to hide."

And in a flash you see the alternative. You could turn yourself into Melody Weiss and take her place. You have the materials to make another mask-plus-mind combo: if you copied yourself, you could put it onto the new golem and send it home and to school in your place. You would be safe from the professor, and from Melody's dorm room you could plot your next strike against him.

Next: "Armed to Strike from the Shadows" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"