Chapter #7Role Reversal by: Seuzz   As much as you'd like to wear her form again, it seems like a better idea to keep her in good humor. "It might be dangerous, but you should do it," you tell her. "Anyway, one Lucy Vredenburg is enough to have running around," you add under your breath. She glares at you.
After she's changed—which involves briefly donning the mask of herself, so she can recover her "memories" of the past few days—and goes back home, you reflect on what you should do. Blackwell's gwarcheidwad, the "guardian" that prowls his house, is bad enough in the late evenings. After midnight, which it now is, it is downright deadly. That rules out Blackwell's house as a place to crash; you also don't want to go to your own "clubhouse"—the basement of the deserted elementary school near your house—for fear of running into Blackwell unawares. The safest place, then, is the school.
You go inside, feel your way to your gym locker, and change into your own workout clothes. Lucy has left the loft over the weight room unlocked, and with a groan of exhaustion you throw yourself onto a smelly gym mat and fall asleep.
You'd intended to wake early, but strong morning light is streaming in when you open your eyes. You jump up in a panic and look out: cars are already beginning to fill the parking lot. Luckily, you slip out of the gym and back to Blackwell's car before any of the jocks can corner you.
But here's another puzzle: You've no idea how long Blackwell intended to play the part of Will Prescott, or what he intended to do during his time as you. He has the Libras and has probably unlocked another spell; who knows what nastiness it contains. He might skip school and go back to his own house to prepare the new spell; on the other hand, he might choose to hide out as you, using the "clubhouse" as a nearby place to prepare another golem so he can safely get you out of his hair.
On a hunch that you might catch him at the latter, you drive out there. You find the padlock you put on the basement's outside door still hanging there; you use the tire iron as a crowbar to pry it off, and find nothing inside to indicate that he has been there. And then you curse yourself: With the lock twisted off, he'll know the clubhouse is no longer secure and avoid it. That eliminates one place you might have easily caught him.
So you rush back to his house. The door is closed, and inside everything appears to be undisturbed. You put on Blackwell's own mask, hoping to spot any signs that he has been by. But it has been several days since Blackwell wore the mask, and so your "memories" as you look through his eyes are no help. Except ...
He had one more mask, one that was half-polished when he last donned his own mask. It wasn't in the workroom last night, so either it is still in the house—another useful acquisition—or he has it. You search everyplace you can think of and don't find it. You can only grimly conclude that he in fact did stop by the house, found you and Lucy missing, and took that mask with him when he fled.
* * * * *
"Has he called you?" you ask Lucy.
"Not a word," she says, shaking her head.
You lean back and gaze out the window. You are wearing Blackwell's form and sitting in his office. It seemed best to put yourself in public where he can't get to you; and, anyway, he almost certainly knows you have his mask and one other.
"That's unfortunate," you say. "It probably means he's not sure of you anymore. He knows we have his cell phone and access to everything he knows. He probably figures the first thing we did was get rid of his golem." You grimace. "Which is the first thing we should have done instead of—"
"No wisecracks about last night," she warns. "You may look like one of my professors, but the door's closed and I will hit you."
"I was going to say 'instead of running around in a panic,' but I think that covers what happened last night quite adequately." She glowers. "Anyway, it means we don't have any natural or obvious way of trapping him."
"How do you mean?"
You steeple your fingers; you are so soaked in Blackwell's personality that it is easier to assume his mannerisms and mode of speaking than to fight them. "Well, he won't be back to his house. I'm reasonably sure he's been there already and recovered whatever he thinks he needs. I made an inventory, and there are some, ah, tools missing from their usual place." You begin to tick off fingers. "Thanks to my ham-handed investigation we can also rule out my hiding place as one of his haunts. He knows it would be very foolish to go to yours. His only option, I think, short of running off, is to stick very close to where he is, surrounding himself with friends and family."
"Why can't we just go in and grab him, then?"
"We have no authority to do that, in any of our guises. We can't lure him out, either. We have to get close to him and grab him. And quickly, before he finds a new hiding place."
"I don't understand."
"He has a nearly completed mask, and no scruples. He may simply kill someone and assume their identity. He has the book, so he can make new masks, for further shifts after that. He will find a position in which he can make golems. Given ... oh, let us say, three or four slaves in appropriate guises he would be able to strike back at us with a high probability of success. We are, after all, only two."
Lucy turns pale. "He could get Cindy."
"He'd have an easier time getting my own brother or parents, if we're going to start worrying about family, but your point is well taken."
"So what should we do?" | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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