The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Joe Returns

Previously: "Hiding Blackwell" 

The house is quiet, but still you hide yourself in Cindy's walk-in closet before making the change. Once you are outside of her mask you have no heart to thump wildly in your chest, but you still feel nervous about donning Joe's mask. You hesitate for only a moment, though, before jamming it to your face.

The new personality comes over you in a rush, like golden sunlight pouring through your mind and limbs. You gasp: You are inside Joe, but he seems to be inside you as well, as a ghostly presence, and you feel his happiness at your decision. You are going to work together to take on Frank, and rescue him from the influence that Blackwell put on him. You feel light and vibrant and energetic, and you stretch your limbs and admire the feeling of power that ripples through your supple muscles. You can hardly restrain yourself from hopping on the balls of your feet as you pull on his boxers and cargo pants and sweatshirt. They are loose and comfortable and hardly impede your movements.

You slip Cindy's mask and a change of her clothes into her backpack, hoist it onto your shoulders, and slip silently out of her window. You will have to jog back to the old elementary to retrieve the truck, but the air is cool and refreshing, and it stimulates you into a fast run rather than a gentle jog. Joe is, naturally, a runner, and his blood slides like quicksilver through your veins as you sprint fleetly along the dark streets. You grin as you go, drinking in the sharp night air.

It's several miles to the elementary school, but you find running conducive to good, hard thinking, and by the time you arrive at the school you've figured out a strategy that you think will allay the worst of Frank's suspicions.

* * * * *

"When was the last time we had the fucking truck serviced?" you yell as you slam the front door behind you. Plates rattle in the kitchen, and Frank, his eyes blazing, appears around the corner. You glare back. "I like a good run," you continue, "but tonight was ridiculous."

"The fuck happened to you?" the possessed Frank demands.

"The truck wouldn't start. Then it turned out it was, like, leaking gas or something, because it ran out in the middle of fuck nowhere. I had to hotfoot it down to a gas station, and then take it in to a shop to have it looked at."

Frank glances out the window: the night is completely dark. "At this hour?" His tone is incredulous.

"No, not at this hour, dipshit," you retort. "Earlier. But it took 'em forever, even though they kept saying it would be just 'five more minutes.' Anyway, I'm starving. What've got to eat?"

"Why didn't you call? And why didn't you answer? I've been calling you forever."

"Phone was in the truck most of the time. I musta missed you. And then I was so pissed off I didn't even check my calls." You push past him and yank open the door to the pantry. "Prescott get in touch with you?"

"We talked briefly. Is the truck okay now?"

You shrug as you pound a bag of instant noodles to dust, then rip it open and pour the contents into your mouth without benefit of water. "Got me here," you mumble. "Made a few stops, including over at Cindy's. He tell you the family's going out of town?"

"No."

"Guess it was last-minute thing. Anyhoo, sounds like it'll just be the two of us for the next few days." You open the refrigerator and pull out a bottle of cola. "I started to go out to the old villa, see if there were a few more books we could bring back over here, but changed my mind." You take a long swig, and let out a huge belch.

"You shoulda called, Joe." Frank's tone is grim.

"I should take a shit, too. You wanna hold my hand while I do that?"

He glowers, and you briefly catch sight of the Blackwell spirit that has possessed him. "Hit the books," he orders. "Pull an all-nighter. You don't need sleep."

Something tugs at you--an insistence that you comply. You fight it off, but accede anyway. "Your wish is my command," you reply, not bothering to hide the sarcasm. He snorts and turns back to the sink and the dishes it contains.

You're actually pleased by Frank's order, as you desperately want to get back into the Libra anyway. You're also pleased that the mask still holds some residual power over its wearer--it means you will be able tell when "Joe Durras" is supposed to follow his master's orders. You saunter back into the living room, snatch up a couple of tomes, and retreat into the single bedroom. You expect Frank to come find you at some point, but after an hour the sound of the back door opening and closing tells you he has retired for the night. Even possessed, he sleeps outside, in the open, on bare ground.

* * * * *

You carefully read through the spell that copies anima, and thanks to Joe's own knowledge you are able to discern exactly how it operates. It is a band, very similar to the band that copies a person's mind and memories, but the spell encompasses a lot more than just personality--it gives the wearer the impression that he is person whose anima has been copied. The band itself goes on and comes off in much the same way that a mind band can go onto and come off a wearer; but Frank is a light sleeper, and you seriously doubt you will be able to get it off him without somehow being able to render him unconscious.

Well, Blackwell has lots of little tricks and potions you might be able to use if worse comes to worse, but for the moment you haven't access to them. Instead, you do lots of cross-checking and cross-referencing with the other books, to see if there is some other way of disabling it, but none are readily apparent.

You move on to the following spells, which are already open to perusal. Memories come to you as you look at them:

The first made up a varnish that could be applied to the interior of a mask. The two Blackwells had used it on Lucy's mask, and to their dismay found that it erased her image from the mask, leaving them with Lucy's golem but no way to disguise it as the girl again. You blink: So that's why you haven't seen Lucy around in a few days. She often spends nights on end away from the house, so you hadn't thought much of her absence until now. There is no explanation for what the varnish does: the reverse of the page is blank. The next spell is equally opaque, showing wheels of sigils enclosed within wheels of other sigils. You don't need to try turning it to see that it won't yield; the cryptic inscription has left Blackwell's puppets thoroughly stymied.

Except--

You stare at the sigils closely, tracing out their connections and comparing them in your mind's eye to the sigils you carry within you. Ah, no wonder they look familiar! They are sigils for making masks and sigils for the new varnish, enclosing each other in layers. The intended meaning now seems obvious: the layers of the new varnish will bury old images, allowing new images to be laid over them. Perhaps it's just a device that allows masks to be recycled after they are no longer useful, but--

You smile to yourself. "Good for you, Joe," you murmur happily to yourself. You recognize that the enslaved Joe had come to the edge of the solution, but held back from saying anything about it. Even under Frank's control, the mask retained enough of the original to avoid helping him when it didn't have to.

You take out Joe's phone and idly consider calling their "dad," to tell him of the crisis and seek his guidance. But it would be a long and difficult conversation, and there would be no guarantee that the old man would even believe you: when masks are involved it is tricky to tell who is telling the truth. You will have to solve the problem on your own.

* * * * *

"Anyone seen Straussler around?" Shawn Gregory asks as he drops into the seat next to you at lunch on Monday. He looks around the table.

"He wasn't at practice this morning," you reply.

"Tell me something I don't know," he snaps back.

"The square of the length of the hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle is equal to the sum of the square of the lengths of the other two sides."

"That's a right triangle, you idiot," Frank snaps. He's been in a bad mood all morning.

"What's up? He owe you money?" Kyle Lakewood asks.

"Not bloody likely," Shawn retorts. "It's Jonathan Moneybags I'm talking about, remember? No, it's 'cos I lent him my calculus homework yesterday afternoon."

"Did you try calling him?"

"Yeah, and he doesn't answer."

You turn back to Jessica Pearce, giving her your most beguiling smile. But you still listen to Shawn bitching about Jonathan's disappearance, for his absence has concerned you, too. You put Blackwell in his place so that he could be nearby, not so he could vanish. Chicken-shitted old fool must still be too scared of Frank to even show up at school. Maybe you should go look for him if he doesn't show up in time for after-school practice.

Next: "A Coffin Gets Another Nail" 

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