The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Basics on Baphomet

Previously: "How to Replace a Stepfather" 

"Rituals?" you exclaim. "Supreme Pentagram? What are you talking about?"

"The Brotherhood of Baphomet," Sydney replies. "I told you there's always either five members or ten members. If we can make our own members, rather than recruiting them—"

"Ten of them?" Your head reels.

"Ten are more powerful than five."

"But to do what? What rituals? And what's a Supreme Pentagram?"

Sydney releases your hand and smiles up at you mischievously, like a little girl trying to use her winsome ways to get a prize.

"The ley line that we found," she says. "You remember that."

"In the cemetery. Yeah, no way I'm forgetting that."

"Well, one ley line isn't a really big deal. I mean, any ley line is potent, but the more you have, and if they intersect the right way— Look, the notebooks I gave you explain it. Didn't you look at them?"

"Can you give me the tee-ell-dee-ar?"

She rolls her eyes. "Alright. Ley lines can be made to intersect, and an intersection creates a vibration between them. My dad's notes call it 'an occult consonance.' You get more consonances if you have a third intersecting line, making a triangle. Like in geometry, when you have the triangle ABC, and you have three lines? AB, AC and BC?"

You were never one for geometry, but you let her roll with it.

"You can have up to five lines, and the more lines, the more consonances to play with, plus if you have enough members in your brotherhood you can create three- or four- or five-way harmonic consonances using all the lines at once."

Her brow furrows. "It's in the notebooks. There's diagrams, even."

"Sure, I'll look at them, but where does this Supreme Pentagram come in?" That's the thing that's giving you pause.

"That's the five-line figure, the most powerful one. You've seen them. The upside-down, five-pointed stars."

"Oh, Jesus."

"Anyway, it turns out there's already three ley lines running through Saratoga Falls. I can't believe it! Except I guess I can. I was having the hardest time pinning down the one that we found in the cemetery, but that's because the other two were interfering with it. Well, interfering with the instruments. The ley lines themselves don't actually—"

"Do these other lines also run through the cemetery?"

"No. One of them runs next to the railroad tracks. The other one runs through the wilderness out by Fort Suffolk."

"How do you know all this?"

"From the memory strip I got out of Nicholas. He knows all about them. He's one of the Brotherhood of Baphomet here in Saratoga Falls. That's something else I can't believe, there's a Brotherhood here, and there's ten of them! The one back in Kansas City only had five." She glances around with a vexed expression. "What is it around here that would get a ten-person Brotherhood so interested?"

Plenty, you think. A used bookstore that sells powerful magical grimoires. Coffee shops with names like The Crystal Cave and The Flying Saucer. Sandwich shops decorated with pentagrams.

For all your gallows humor, you are actually more than a little creeped out by the thought of a ten-person, goat-headed-demon-worshipping cult operating in your little burg. "So who besides your stepdad is in this local group?"

"I wish you'd stop calling Nicholas my 'stepdad'. But he doesn't know. After—" She shuts her eyes and shudders. "After he killed my dad, he became head of the five-guy group back in Kansas City, so he knew who the rest of them were. But only the head of a Brotherhood knows the identities of the other members. And when he transferred out here he became a junior member again."

"Transferred?" you echo. "What, did the Brotherhood make him change jobs to come out here or something?"

"It was all worked out through the company he and my dad worked for. It's all shot through with members of the Brotherhood, apparently." She takes your hand again. "We could have our own Brotherhood, though, Will."

You grip her hands but don't reply. When you feel the silence becoming awkward, you say, "Let me look at those notebooks and think about it."

Sydney shows her dimples. "Don't be freaked out about it, okay?" She kisses you on the side of your mouth. "This is something I really want us to share!"

* * * * *

Those parting words run over and over through your mind after you're home. Is she saying that she wants to be with you, and this is something she wants to do? Or is she saying this is something that she wants to do, and she'd really like it if you did it with her?

If you put the choice to her, would she pick you or this "Brotherhood" idea?

You're pretty sure you know the answer. She was into the Baphomet stuff long before she met you. And if you declined to help her out with the Baphomet stuff, would you have the nerve to tell her that she couldn't work with you on the mask stuff? That wouldn't end well. If you broke up with her, how long would it before she sent a goat-headed demon galloping after you down the street?

With a sigh you reconcile yourself to the fact that Sydney isn't just about getting back at the guy who killed her father. She's about following in her father's footsteps. Or maybe she's just a girl who likes power. And you're going to have to go along with the ride. Maybe to influence her, maybe to steer her a little, maybe to stop her from going too far. But you're going to have to go quite a ways with her.

With a noise halfway between a gulp and a sigh, you open up the notebooks that she lent you, and start reading.

* * * * *

"Hey, you seen that new movie, Cravenmoor?" You ask the question without preamble as you drop to the grass next to Braydon Delp. Christian Knouse, who is seated beside him, leans forward to regard you from under a quizzically lifted eyebrow.

It's lunchtime, and normally you'd be off with Caleb and other friends. But today, as you were heading outside, you spotted Braydon slinking along next to the music wing. It struck you that he might be a good resource—or at least a resource—to consult on this Baphomet business.

Braydon freezes in mid-chew. He lifts his nose and looks down it at you. His eyes droop insolently.

"No," he drawls, then resumes chewing. "Not yet."

"Well, this character Baphomet shows up in it, and—"

"Hey!" Christian shouts. "Spoilers!"

"I'm not blowing the plot," you retort. "I's just wondering if you've seen the movie yet, and what you thought of, you know, the way it deals with this Baphomet thing. You heard of it?"

"Who? Baphomet?" Contempt drips off Braydon's tongue. "Yes, Will, I've heard of Baphomet."

"Well—"

"A demon supposedly worshipped by the Templar Knights. In the nineteenth century the iconography got all mixed up, so he's usually represented as having a goat's head. In actuality, the Templars were just supposed to have worshipped a mummified head, though sometimes it was a head with three faces."

"Yeah, but—"

"And they were framed, you know. The Templars. The king of France wanted to grab their money, so he cooked up a bunch of bullshit charges against them. The mummified head was just a religious relic, and 'Baphomet' is just a corruption of Mohammed.' They were crusaders, you know, so they would have been talking about Mohammed all the time anyway."

"Sure, but—"

"The name's got a lot of street cred, of course. Like Puzuzu. But he was just invented for a movie."

"What movie?" Christian asks.

"The Exorcist," Braydon tells him. To you he says, "You could find all this out on Wikipedia, Will."

"Well, okay, but you say he's got street cred. You saying there's people who actually, maybe, you know—" You jerk your shoulders in a shrug. "Do for real what the Templars are supposed to have done?"

Braydon snorts softly. "I'm sure there are. Edgelords gotta edgelord, you know."

Consider that he's wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt and is sporting a silver necklace, silver bracelet, and silver ring on an index finger, it seems to you that Braydon Delp hasn't got a lot of reason to look down on "edgelords."

Christian pipes up. "You looking to start a Baphomet Fan Club, Will?"

"No!"

Braydon snorts again. "Well, don't ask me to join if you do. I'm in charge of my own destiny."

"Is that so?" Christian jeers. "In that case, how come you're leaving it to the rest of our quest group to haul your half-giant's double-wide ass through that haunted forest Howie's tricked us into exploring?"

Braydon returns him a serene smile. "It's my destiny to get other people to do my dirty work for me."

Christian's expression curdles into a scowl.

* * * * *

So Braydon really didn't have anything to tell you. Still, his skepticism about any organized "Baphomet" cult is a data point to add to what you learned in the notebooks. It complements the impression they gave you, that these "Brotherhoods" are a new thing, and that there really isn't such a being as "Baphomet" anyway.

Do we still want muscle? Sydney texts you right after school. I can get us some.

who?

Dont want to say, dont want you jealous ;)

You doubt now that you do need muscle. Sydney's got a plan that would put her stepdad off his guard, and between you and Caleb's golem-doppelganger, you could likely overpower him.

But if Caleb would work, then anyone else would work, and you might as well pick out the muscle yourself. Braydon, for instance, could be a good resource to have in the form of a mask.

But Sydney's probably got a good one picked out, you reflect with a sigh.

* To let Sydney pick out some muscle: "The Muscle" 
* To counterpropose making a mask of Braydon: "Picking a Warlock" 
* To tell her you don't need muscle: "The Wicked Stepfather" 

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