The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

A Coffin Gets Another Nail

Previously: "Joe Returns" 

"So what're we gonna do until Prescott gets back to town," you ask Frank after school.

He guns the engine of the truck. "He say how long he'd be gone?"

"No. Sick grandmother or something. They're probably wondering what's happened to Lucy. Speaking of whom--" You pull a mask out of your bag. "I solved our problem with her."

"What's that thing?"

"It's Lucy. And Jessica Pearce. I got it onto her this afternoon. Pushed her into a dark corner and breathed heavily onto her glasses."

Frank swears. "We don't have time to fuck around, Joe."

"I'm not fucking around. Although once I get this thing onto a golem, I hope my nights won't be quite so lonely."

"Don't forget, I can turn you gay if I want."

"You'd like that too. Add a little brotherly incest to your crimes. But seriously, just get us out to the old villa."

An abandoned air has begun to settle over Blackwell's old house, which makes it even creepier. Frank leads you into the secret basement behind the library bookcase, where the golemized Lucy has been stashed. "Okay, watch and try not to scream like a little girl," you say as you drop the mask onto her. She glows and wavers, and a naked duplicate of Jessica appears with a confused expression on her face. "Joe?" she squeaks.

"Lovely," Frank sneers. "Want me to capture the moment digitally?"

"Bite me." You turn back to Jessica. "It's alright, sweetheart. Just hold still." She tries to bat your hand away, but you're too fast, and quickly draw your hand across her brow while making a complicated motion. She vanishes, and Lucy appears in her place. She looks just as confused as Jessica had been, but is far too resigned to say anything.

Frank's eyebrows shoot up. "Interesting. How does it work?"

"It's a three-part spell. That varnish we made is the first part. The second part, which we were far too moronic to figure out, shows how to use it. It lets you put multiple images into a single mask, so you can switch faces without switching masks. After I got Jessica into it, I used it to unlock that page we were stuck on." You pull the Libra from your bag. "That unlocked the third part, which is the simplest spell we've hit so far." You show him the page, which is a magically animated drawing showing how to pass one's hand over the mask so as to switch between images. "And now that we've used that trick-- Lucy, I need your face back." Her expression tightens, but she doesn't resist as you remove the mask; as it's the golemized Lucy underneath, the illusion is of her turning to stone as the mask comes away. You laugh. "Who says we need Prescott's help?"

"I am impressed," Frank says. "I thought you'd be educating him, but it's almost like he's been educating you." He leads you back up to the library proper, where you use the mask to open the next page of the book. There is silence for almost a quarter of an hour as the two of you decipher it silently in tandem.

"Well, this is pretty straightforward," Frank says. "Even I can follow it. Get a nail from the workroom, will you?"

You curse to yourself as you mount the stairs. Last night you'd made the mistake of confirming your deductions about the varnish by applying some to the interior of Joe's mask, and using it to open the next page. (Stupidly, the boys hadn't even seen that you don't need to put a second image into a mask in order to open the second spell.) That was the only reason to acquire Jessica's image--so that you could explain how you got past that spell. Now you are into a new section of the book, and you really don't like the looks of the new spell--you can all to easily guess how Frank is going to use it.

He smiles when you hop back into the library, and sets the nail your proffer onto the book's sigil. "A little of my hair," he says, snipping off a loose lock from behind his ear and dropping it onto the nail, and you have to suppress a grimace. "Now the magic words." He wets his fingertip and runs it three times around the sigil while murmuring the designated words. The hair vanishes in a brief spasm of flame, leaving only the nail, which now glows and glitters with an eerie blue color.

"What are you going to do with it?"

"I've got an anima band on me," he says with a smile. "And I don't want anyone getting bright ideas about trying to take it off." He puts the tip of the nail to his forehead and grits his teeth. With a sharp blow with heel of his free hand he drives the spike into his own forehead.

You hold your breath as he blinks and staggers back. The nail has vanished, and he wobbles for a moment. Then he smiles. "I assume that's done it." He rubs at his forehead gingerly. "Now I'm the only one who can get the anima band off me."

"And who was gonna try?"

He smiles at you queerly. "Didn't you have ideas?"

"Why should I have ideas? I'm just a gol--" The word catches in your throat, and you feel the color drain from your face.

Frank makes a light, gripping gesture with his hands; iron bands seem to close around your torso, and all the air rushes from your lungs. "Yes, that's what you're supposed to be. A golem. But you're such a fucking show-off, Prescott. You forgot that golems can't do magic. They can't turn pages in the book, and they can't get masks off of people. But you just had to show how clever you are." He cocks his head, and his eyes glitter. "So you got the mask off Blackwell, got the whole story from him, either from the fool's own mouth or from Joe's mask. Where is he? Hiding out as Cindy?"

You twist in place, but you know it's hopeless. You've none of Joe's own talents, and even with them you'd be hard pressed to best Frank in a battle of brawn. You're reduced to holding your tongue.

Frank's eyes bore into you. "I could find out, just by putting Joe's mask on. But I think I'll twist it out of you. Then I'll put the mask on, find out if you're lying or not."

Your mind flashes back to the noises your own golem made when Frank had it in his grip. "I put him inside Jonathan Straussler," you blurt out tonelessly. "Find him and you'll find Blackwell."

Frank's face twists up in an ugly way. "So you're also a chicken-shit. Joe wouldn't give up so quickly."

"Nothing chicken-shit about it," you retort. "Like you say, you can just check whatever I say whenever you want. So do your worst. It'd be pointless, but you're going to do it anyway. Because you're not Frank Durras anymore, you're Aubrey Blackwell, and he's the type to pull the legs off of spiders for his own pleasure."

Frank's eyes blaze. "You underestimate both of us, Mr. Prescott. Myself and my alter ego." He seems sorely tempted to lash out at you, but he restrains himself. "Yes, I would like to hurt you, but you've actually done me a kindness by folding so quickly." He tears the mask from your face, and the disappearance of Joe Durras from your psyche is like losing a limb and a best friend both.

"I don't understand you," he mutters as he examines the inside of the mask. "My golem seal is still here, but you were able to resist my orders." He licks his lips. "I should pound you to dust, but you hold secrets I want. Badly. So the only thing to do is to keep going through the book until I understand it and can take you apart."

He twists his wrist, and you are wrenched from your feet and thrown to the floor. It's like being held by a giant claw: he pushes and drags you over to the hidden door and hurls you down the stairs closing the door.

But he's gone for only a few minutes, and when he reappears, it's with a restored golem of a naked Joe Durras. "Straussler's not answering his phone," he says. "So I wouldn't count on him showing up to rescue you. But just in case, I'm putting Joe in here as guard until morning. I can't stand the sight of his face anyway. He'll be wanting his clothes back, by the way." With a last, malicious glance he vanishes up the stairs.

Joe glances at you ambivalently, then holds out a mask--the one of Lucy, you guess. "It'll make it friendlier if you at least look human."

"What does it matter? We're both fakes. Just in different ways."

It's very dark, but you catch a gleam in Joe's eyes. "Yes, but not in the way certain people think." He snaps his fingers, and a small globe of light floats above his raised index finger, filling the room with light.

You blink and gasp: a golem, not even a golem of Joe Durras, should be able to--

He flicks his hand as though extinguishing a match, and the light goes out; he puts a finger to his lips and hurries to your side. "Don't ask me how," he says in a low voice. "But I seem to be myself again."

"What--? How--?"

"Shhh. Like I say, I don't understand, even though I think I'm up to speed on things." He puts his finger to his temple. "I don't know what you were thinking while wearing this mask, but I know what's been happening and can do the math. Right now, all I know is that I'm here and feeling like my old self again.

"So what do think? Take him by surprise, or just play along for awhile?"

Next: "The Hole" 

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