The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Demons by Night, Demons by Daylight

Previously: "A Call Across the Dimensions" 

You stare at the closet, and your hand twitches on the knob of the bedroom door.

It was my imagination, you try to assure yourself. Just nerves. The door didn't close by itself. It couldn't have, it would have made a noise, it would have gone thump. I would've heard the door dragging across the carpet.

And so what if it did? It was just the change in air pressure as I came in the room.

You could check. You could test the door, you could look inside the closet.

But you don't. For you can't shake the impression that it was pulled shut from within.

You watch it from the corner of your eye as you undress, and you don't put your back to it, even when you sidle over to flick off the light. The room vanishes into shadow. You stumble with trembling limbs onto and into the bed. For the first time since you were very little, you are actually afraid that there's something in your closet.

Well, that was the point, wasn't it? you remind yourself as you wrap the sheets tight about yourself. That's what Sydney said, the point is to make yourself believe there's a portal in there, for Baphomet to come through. At the time you didn't think much of it. Or, at least, you didn't realize exactly what it would feel like: to imagine that behind one door there is another, and that on the other side of that door is a thing snuffling at the cracks for a way to get in.

You hide under the covers. Sometime later, when you aren't looking, you fall asleep.

* * * * *

You're woken early from a deep sleep and a dark dream about swimming through cold, underground channels by the chime of an incoming text. You squint at your phone through a fog of early-morning darkness and just-dispelled sleep: Meet me at Borman McDs asap. It's from Kelsey's phone.

You groan and turn over and only with supreme willpower stop yourself from falling back asleep. Now, Sydney? you mutter into your pillow. You can't wait to switch out of Kelsey's mask until after—? You look at your phone, and cuss when you see just how early it is.

* * * * *

Sydney said ASAP, so you're at the McDonald's on Borman Road just after they open, a little after six. A cup of hot and bitter coffee acts drives sharp spikes into the back of your eyeballs, but your limbs are dragging. Your humor isn't improved by the fact that Sydney doesn't appear for almost another forty minutes.

Or is it Sydney? The girl who strides in has all the imperious hauteur of Kelsey Blankenship. Her eye is sharp and her frown cloudy as she drops her bag with a bang on the Formica tabletop in front of you.

But you're not to be intimidated. "Where the fuck have you been?"

"Don't cuss at me, Amanda. I was getting ready. I've been up longer than you."

You glance her up and down: a men's buckskin shirt with fringe dripping over the chest; a dark jeans-skirt with beading up the side; and cowboy boots. When she tucks back a strand of her hair—intentionally so, you'd bet, so you'll notice them—square turquoise earrings glow dully in her lobes. And is she wearing a thin head-band—a leather string—up just over her hairline?

"Am I to take it," you ask her, "that you and Kelsey got acquainted last night?"

She gives you a look as she unzips her pack.

"I woke up a little after five," she says, "in a perfect panic attack because I hadn't got my homework done. I was actually up and at my desk and starting my first math problem when I remembered who I am and who I'm supposed to be, and which one is which. God, Will." She presses her temples between her hands. "How do you keep it straight?"

"I just go with whoever has the strongest feeling about what's happening. Right now, for instance, I'm feeling like telling you to go fuck yourself for dragging me out of my house without so much as a shower—"

"I've got homework to do, that's why you're here," she says as she pulls out her Statistics book. "I can't do it without someone around. Besides, we've got stuff to talk about."

"What stuff?"

"Will and Sydney," she says. "And David Kirkham." She gives you a very knowing look before turning to go buy some coffee.

* * * * *

"Jesus, Will," she mutters when she's back. She's bent over her homework, but she keeps glancing up at you as she scribbles out her math problems. "You didn't tell me that happened yesterday."

"I figured it wasn't going to be a problem, I'm not him anymore. I mean, that's not me that Kirkham—"

"It might be you, later on. You might want to go back to being yourself, at least for a little while. Also—and I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want you getting jealous in a weird way—but that guy you left behind in your place is a real sweetheart."

"Yeah?" You tense all over.

"Yes. He's just like you. I wanted to take him home yesterday and cuddle with him and pet him and rub him and play with him, like a puppy. He's adorable."

"Gee, thanks. Makes me regret what I'm missing out on."

"The point is, I don't like what happened to him. David didn't have any right—"

"Kelsey doesn't give a shit," you remind her.

"Well, not officially, but—"

"I'm sure it'll blow over. Kirkham had his fun, he'll—"

"That's not what I hear. I hear—" She glowers at you, as though you were the bully who beat up her boyfriend. "Kelsey heard that David was promising to come find him again today too, give him the same treatment. And you know David, he's the sort to keep those kinds of promises. Besides," she continues, "it's all of a piece with what those pee-oh-ess friends of Blake were doing to you. And what are we going to do about them?"

"Blake and his friends? I told you, I'm going get Blake to ask me out, and I'm going to go out with him—"

"While still going out with Ricky?"

"—and cocktease him all the way until he's forgotten about me and has gotten a raging case of blue balls from Amanda."

"That doesn't do you any good, Will. It doesn't do your pedisequos any good. Blake wasn't even one of the guys at the portables, according to you, and David wasn't one of them either. You left your pedisequos in a real shithole."

"So what do you want do about it? I mean, I know you know what Kelsey should be done. You and me should break up." Your lip curls hard.

"And you didn't tell me about that, either. Jesus, there's a lot you didn't tell me."

"I didn't think—"

"Like about you and Lisa," she barrels on. "What were you thinking at the party on Saturday? Jesus! No wonder you kept staring at them."

You squirm. "I didn't know I was staring at them. I was baked out of my mind."

"Well, you were. Do you want to do anything about them?"

"No! Why would I? I'm going out with you now."

"Which brings us back to where we started. You and Blake. You and David. You and all the assholes that want to break us up."

You nurse your temple and the headache that is blooming inside it. "I'm too exhausted to think about this right now, Sydney. Can you just do your homework, and I'll—" You stifle a sudden yawn.

"Well, promise me you'll think about it, Will. These people we're pretending to be, they're not our permanent identities. There's eight more out there we need to convert, and after they're converted, we might just as well go back to being ourselves. And when we do, I want us to still be together. Together and happy."

Her expression turns grave. "It's funny, Will, but hanging out with your pedisequos yesterday, it reminded me all over again of how adorable you are. I want to be back with him at some point. Only I want it to be you."

* * * * *

Sydney's words give you a hard thrill, so that you don't share with her your doubts about returning to the life of Will Prescott. With five (or more?) lives under your control, why should you? Except to be with her, of course ...

You hang out with her at the McDonald's until it's time to head out to the school, so that you're still an unshowered mess in a t-shirt and old jeans when you tramp into Sociology. Anthony gives you a sideways grin when he saunters into the classroom. "Rough night last night, Amanda?"

"Fuck you," you mutter back. He snickers. Kelsey is smirking when you glance back at her. "What?"

"You really do look like shit, Mandy." The light dances in her eyes.

Fuck, you think. She's going to be in character.

So you're in a surly mood when you go looking for Blake. It's between third and fourth when you at last corner him at his locker. "Hey, I thought you were going to get back to me yesterday," you tell him.

He gives you a quick look up and down, but his expression today is unreadable—a bad sign. "I did," he grunts.

"Bullshit. I didn't see you at all."

"Yeah, well, I guess that was my answer." He slams his locker shut, and with another quick glance brushes past you.

"It's for the best," Kelsey tells you later that day in Student Congress, after you've texted her the news. "I told you, it wasn't going to work anyway."

You glance at your boyfriend, who is blinking blankly at the talk. "No one likes it when you say 'I told you so'," you tell Kelsey.

"They've gotten use to it. But what you need to think about now is what to do about a certain someone and their victim. He did it again today. And this time he hauled him out to the portables to do it."

Next: "Surprise Admirer" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"