The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

That Voodoo That You Do Too Well

Previously: "Two-Faced Girlfriend" 

"Hey Will," Stephanie says as she strides over. "You here on a date?" There's a hard twinkle in her eye, and the corners of her mouth are like the curved tips of a scimitar.

You give Katy a wide-eyed glance and say, "Uh."

"Yes," Katy tells Stephanie in a very prim voice.

"Cool," Stephanie says. She rubs her nose with her palm. "Where's your friend Johansson?" she asks you.

"It's not a double date."

You expect her to give you a look, but she only laughs and punches you in the shoulder. "We won't bust in on you then, we just stopped in for coffee. Come on." She grasps Kristy by the arm and whirls her away.

"She comes to Dairy Queen for coffee?" you ask Katy.

"It's cheaper than Starbucks," Katy murmurs. "Why didn't you tell her we were on a date?"

Your guts freeze. "I didn't know if we were! I thought we were just talking, and—

"We're on a date, Katy!" you exclaim as her frown deepens. You lunge across the table to cover her hands with yours. You pull her fists to your face—she resists at first, then relents—to nibble on her knuckles. "That's why I asked you out and not—" You glance back at the counter, where Stephanie and Kristy are ordering. "Not Stephanie." you hiss.

"You can let her join us if you want," Katy says, a little petulantly.

"I wasn't talking about the real Stephanie! I'm talking about the one I was with last night." You rub your cheek over her fists. "Do you wanna bail on here, go up to the university again?"

A small smile twitches onto Katy's face. "Actually, I wanna see this thing you did with Hannah."

You stifle a sigh, then pull Katy to her feet.

"You leaving, guys?" Stephanie calls out as you head for the door. "Hey, party at Meghan's house on Friday! You'll be there, it's gonna be fun!"

* * * * *

"That's where they're going to do the voodoo thing on her, on Hannah," Katy tells you the next day at lunch, which again you take with her in your truck, in the student parking lot. "Meghan Farris's party."

You don't know Meghan Farris real well, except by name and sight, and have the impression that there's nothing very special about her. Maybe a voodoo prank at her place against Hannah Westrick is just the thing to give her some notoriety. But you can't help worrying a little about what might happen. The book you found at Arnholm's has turned out to be full of real magic. What if the voodoo that Stephanie and her friends try also turns out to be real, and it does something to the lackey you made?

"I don't know," Katy confesses when you ask exactly what her friends have planned. "I've been hanging out more with you, I haven't been keeping up."

You suppress a half-smile, but when she edges closer to you, you edge over to meet her. You lean in for a tiny smooch. Katy titters and sighs.

"I just can't help thinking it might be a bad idea," you sigh, and describe your fear about what might happen if voodoo and mask-magic collided. "Can't you talk them out of it?"

"No one's ever talked Stephanie out of anything," Katy says. "Besides—" She groans. "Oh God, I need to stop wearing that mask of her to bed."

"You're still doing that?"

"Yes, and I need to stop! It's, like, addictive!" She rubs her face. "I keep imagining myself coming to school while wearing it." She turns a wet-eyed frown on you. "Does that make me sound, like, sick?"

"I don't think so," you tell her, though you know what she means. You lean in to nuzzle at the side of her head. "It just means, well, that you want to be more like Stephanie."

Katy twists around to put her arms around you. "Anyway," she says, "that's how come I know it's no use trying to talk Stephanie into not doing the trick. She hates Hannah so much. Now I hate her so much." She sniffs. "It's how come I'm kind of glad you did the mind-control thing on her."

You cringe a little. What if Katy ever asks you to reverse it?

"Well, then, we'll let Stephanie and them do it," you sigh. "I'm sure everything will work out."

* * * * *

"Dude, I didn't ask you to turn this into a double date." Caleb gives you an exasperated look. "I was gonna go pick up Meghan—"

"It's not a double date," you retort. "I just got a text from Stephanie, asking me to carpool with someone so we wouldn't cover up the street out front with cars."

"Well, there's your problem," Caleb says, "getting texts from Stephanie. Bossy bitch-lady can't stand the idea of—"

"She didn't text you?"

"No." Caleb's expression turns smug. "I guess Stephanie figures I got my shit cinched up tight enough she doesn't need to micromanage me."

You flip him the bird.

It's Friday evening, and you've swung by Caleb's to pick him up before heading over to pick up Katy and then Meghan. (Velasquez, that is.) Like you, Caleb is in nice jeans and a long-sleeve, button-up shirt. But you figure that, with your cap and shock of hair, you look a lot less like a dweeb than he does.

You thought he'd be happy to come along with you, so as to act as a buffer between him and Meghan. But maybe you were underestimating him. Because when he returns from Meghan's front porch with her, he makes a point of stopping in the middle of the walk to give her an open-mouthed kiss right in front of you. Jesus! you exclaim to yourself, but say nothing.

Meghan Farris lives in a modest house in a modest neighborhood, and you can see why she would want people to carpool in, for by the time you arrive the street is already filled up along both sides, and you have to creep between the parked cars and onto a side street before you can find a place to pull in. All the houses are squeezed close enough in that you wonder how many families are gritting their teeth at the beat that is softly thumping from the party house.

If you thought this was going to be a date, you and Caleb are both quickly disabused, for your girl and his both quickly drop you to scurry off with Stephanie and some other girls. "This is going to be a disaster!" Caleb says.

"They'll be back!" You have to shout it over the music, which jumped in volume shortly after you walked in.

"I mean the thing they've got planned! You hear about that?" He squints at you.

"You mean their prank on Hannah? Yeah, but I didn't know you knew about it!"

"I helped them set it up!"

"What?"

"Yeah!" He sounds glum. "Meghan showed me the book they're working out of, and I helped 'em get the stuff together for it! Added something a little extra, too! Shit! I need a drink!" He wanders off, looking for refreshments.

Katy and Meghan pop up a few times to keep you company, but mostly they are out of sight, presumably helping their friends prep the prank. You come close a couple of time to texting Hannah, to tell her not to show up, but that would just be putting off the inevitable, you sense. When she does show up, about an hour after you arrived, she is with her boyfriend, Marc Garner. It's only then, when you look around, that you realize that there's not nearly as many jocks as you would have assumed would show up. Marc is just about the only guy there who can boast a set of muscles, and you suspect Hannah and Stephanie between them could take down most of the guys as well.

"Yeah," Caleb drawls when you mention the lack of sports guys. "I noticed the party was a lot less stupid than I was expecting it to be."

Maybe your nerves have rubbed off on Katy, for she is twitching when she finds you an hour later.

"It's almost set to happen," she tells you. "Dominique's putting the contacts in." She looks at Caleb. "Your girlfriend wants you there, watching, make sure nothing too bad happens." Caleb shrugs.

"What the fuck are they planning on doing?" you ask him in alarm.

"Didn't your girlfriend tell you?" he replies. "Come on, let's watch." He pulls you through the house until you find Hannah, and settle back in a corner to wait for the excitement.

* * * * *

"Meghan's never going to speak to you again," you inform Stephanie. "Farris, I mean."

"I know, it was brilliant!" she exclaims "You were brilliant!" she tells Caleb. "Boo-yah!" She high-fives him.

You're all out on the street—you and Caleb, your girlfriends and their friends—having been thrown out by the hostess. You don't particularly mind. The girls don't seem to mind either, for they are laughing, and Stephanie is jubilant. "Fuck, I wanna go do it again," she chortles. "Only we wouldn't have the element of surprise. Come on!" She nudges Kristy Suffolk. "Let's go celebrate!"

But you take Caleb home, and you drop off Katy as well. Unlike her friends, she was muted after the prank, and you ask her what's wrong. "Now I'm worried," she says. "I didn't know they were going to set her on fire!"

You assure her it was just some flash powder that Caleb cooked up for the gang, but she reminds you of the fear that you had expressed, about your magic and the voodoo interacting with unexpected results.

So you're not too surprised when the next morning you get a frantic text from her, but you're a little more worried to see she wants you to meet her at the clubhouse. Her car is there when you arrive, but there's also an SUV. Horror sits on Katy's face.

"Look what they did to her, Will!" she cries, and points at the SUV.

A stone statue of Hannah Westrick is sitting behind the wheel.

* To confess it was all your fault this happened: "Coming Clean with Katy Conlee" 
* To pretend that the voodoo was responsible: "Katy Takes Charge" 

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