The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Wrestle Mania

Previously: "A Drive-By Ambush" 

"What are you going to do with it?" you ask Laurent as he examines the mask with a mesmerized look on his face.

"Check it out," he says.

"You're not going to show it to anyone, are you?"

He looks up long enough to say, "Pff! I'm not an idiot!"

"Well, maybe we should—" You pause as his cell phone chimes. "Maybe we should go someplace and talk about it?"

His phone chimes again, and he starts at the sound.

"I'm s'posed to meet Brownie and the guys at the soccer fields," he murmurs without looking at his phone. "Bunch'a girls s'posed to be there."

"Well, we can—"

"You need a ride someplace?" He shakes himself, and hands the mask back to you.

"Well, my truck's back at the school."

"That's fine," he says. "We can talk on the way back." He twists the key in the ignition, and the motor roars to life.

* * * * *

He's very quiet and attentive as you tell him again about the book and how you found it at the used book store. You describe making the mask, and sneaking it onto Maria Vasquez when you found her in the school theater. You also mention—very casually, you flatter yourself—that there are some other spells to uncover, but that they'll cost money to perform. Laurent doesn't nibble at the hint, though.

Back at the school he insists on practicing the "remove mask" maneuver by putting it on you and taking it off. After he says he's got it—and it's some time before he says that, so often does he practice it—he drives off. And he takes the mask with him.

Though you feel relief at recruiting a partner for your project, you also have a nagging anxiety, for although he promised that he won't show it to anyone, you're very conscious of the fact that you've let the mask out of your hands and into those of someone you barely know.

Up in your room, after dinner, you go through the book and make a list of supplies you'll need for the next spell. It eases your heartsickness, a little, to imagine that Laurent will be paying for them.

* * * * *

Friday morning. You're loping through the school hallways toward first period when you're seized from behind by powerful hands. More than one set, it feels like, as you're hoisted into the air. You flinch hard as you're hustled through the shouting crowd, and are almost crushed as you are rushed at a set of heavy doors that lead outside, and you have just the presence of mind to kick them open instead of being splatted against them like a bug.

You are carried across the open spaces toward the abandoned portables, and a flock of sophomores scatters from your path. You are dropped at the door to the nearest portable, and someone reaches past to twist the knob and push it open. A strong arm shoves you into the musty old trailer.

It's dim inside, and smells of dirt and old wood. There's a teacher's desk at the front, with a pile of broken classroom desks heaped before it like a sacrifice. The door slams, and in the close air you turn to blink at your kidnappers.

There's three of them that brought you here: Laurent and two friends. Both of them are as big or bigger than him, and they're grinning at you with the same excitement that he is.

Fuck, you think with a sinking heart. I think I know where this is going.

It's Alec "Brownie" Brown and Chris Ratliff that Laurent has brought with him, and though you vaguely know their names, Laurent introduces them to you anyway. Like him, they are wrestlers, and look it. Brownie is a solid but not grossly distorted stack of a muscle in loose-fitting jeans and a gray hoodie, with brownish-blonde hair trimmed evenly across his crown in a glistening brush cut. Chris is taller than the other two, and wider at the shoulders, with short blonde hair over black eyebrows and dark eyes. He's dressed in jeans and a black pullover sweater. Though all three exude nothing worse than a happy, dog-like excitement, they are big dogs, and you have to fight to keep from flinching as they loom at you in the dim portable.

"So, I showed these guys your ding-a-ma-job," Laurent says as he pulls Maria's mask from his backpack. "They all think it's tray-cool and wanna know more."

"You're a fucking Harry Potter, you know that?" Chris exclaims.

"I'm not—"

"You bring that book?" Laurent asks. He paws at your shoulder to get at your pack. "You get my text?"

"Yes." You slide your pack off, and Laurent wrenches it from you. The other two push you away as they crowd around it. For a moment, you fear that they're going to mug you and take it from you. But these aren't those kind of guys, you reassure yourself. And yet, if they did take it from you, what could you do?

"Oh, fuck me," Chris says as Laurent pulls the book from your pack. "It's Satanic! Look, there's a pentagram on it!"

"Shut up!" Brownie shoves him. "It's just a, you know, like a logo."

"The devil's logo," Laurent chortles, and they all laugh. "Hey Prescott! Show us the spell you used to make the whack-a-thing!"

They won't part for you, so you have to squeeze between Brownie and Chris when Laurent turns and lays the book on the old teacher's desk.

At least they're attentive as you go over the spell with them. You explain how to mix up the ingredients and fire them over a mirror and polish the results; how you have to put the mask onto someone in order to copy them; and then (after turning the page to point to the next spell) how to seal it up so you can wear it.

"What else can you make?" Laurent asks, and pulls at the pages of the book.

"I dunno. There's some kind of trick to the book, you can't turn a page until you do a spell." You tap the third spell. "I'd have to do this one before we turn the page."

"So what's it do?" Chris asks.

"I don't know that either," you have to confess again. "The front of the page tells you what to do to make it, but it's the back of the page that tells you what it does and how to use it. Um—" You tap at the page again. "I'd've done this one already, except I don't have the money to do it. I need money," you tell them, so they won't miss your point.

There's a pause as the three wrestlers exchange glances. "How much does it cost?" Laurent asks cautiously.

"About sixty bucks?" That's a generous calculation, based on what you could find last night when you looked up the ingredients online.

Laurent's eyes pop. "Pff" he says, "is that all?"

"I don't get much of an allowance," you tell them.

"You have any more of these things?" Brownie taps the mask, and his lips peel back into a hungry smile. "I mean, ones you haven't put on cheerleaders? Yet?" You shake your head. "Well, how much to make one?"

"Make two," says Chris.

"Six," says Laurent. "Three each," he says when the others give him startled looks. They stare, then burst out guffawing.

Meanwhile, you're thinking, Holy fuck! Is there money to be made here? "Sixty dollars a mask," you tell them. Sixty is enough to buy enough supplies to make half a dozen masks, probably, but you figure you can afford a profit.

The others gape, and for a moment you think you've miscalculated. But then Brownie bursts out laughing.

"Fuck!" he exclaims. "You could sell these suckers for six hundred apiece! Six thousand!"

"Six million," Chris says. "Sixty million!"

"You got sixty million, Ratfucker?" Laurent demands.

"I mean, it's sixty bucks for supplies," you say. "I'm not selling you guys any masks!" You falter as they wheel on you. "I mean, what I'm saying is—" you stammer.

But what are you saying? The air seems to close around you as you grope for a way out of the hostile stares that are now turned on to you.

"What I mean is," you stammer, "I'll make some masks, if you want to try them out. But this is a research project." You wet your lips. "I'm testing this stuff out. I wasn't— I wasn't thinking about selling these things. I was thinking it could be a group project." You feel yourself starting to shake all over. "We work on it all together, put the money in, experiment with the, uh—"

"Oh, I get it!" Laurent exclaims. He claps you on the shoulder, so hard he nearly sends you flying off your feet. "Sure! Group project!" he tells the other two, who return his grin with looks of astonishment and puzzlement. "A research project. Like for a science fair. But it's a group thing. And we do our own experiments with the stuff."

Shit! you think. Did Laurent just wink at his friends?

But Brownie and Chris are now all smiles again, and they clap you on the arm and assure you they're keen to help. "Just get us the stuff," Brownie tells you, "and we'll help you make up some more."

You hesitate, then acquiesce. After all, by paying you sixty dollars apiece for their masks, Brownie and Laurent and Chris will be able to finance the next step in your project. And, you figure, it will take three weeks or more for you to get them made and polished. By that point, who knows how far you'll be into the book?

But then you wince when you think of how much work that polishing that will be.

Next: "Guys in Dolls" 

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