Chapter #8An Offer You Shouldn't Refuse by: Seuzz   "We've got his brain and his library," you say. "Perhaps we should try using them."
You cancel the rest of Blackwell's classes for the day and go back to his house. It is marginally less creepy during the daylight hours, and anyway, you've got his reflexes to keep you calm. You sit in the library and look around.
The trouble is that there are too many places to start, none of them obvious. Blackwell has never messed with anything so complex as the Libras before; you intuit that he has been severely daunted by it. The man knows an enormous amount, but his own repertoire of tricks is mostly limited to nasty little things like hexes and curses; he can cast temporary forms of influence over people, but he is not an illusionist or alchemist, and certainly the more complex methods of bending matter are entirely beyond him. That is one reason he was so eager to lay his hands on the Libras: it would be like a 17th century scientist getting his hands on the designs for a nuclear bomb. However far it is beyond his abilities or comprehension, he hopes that close and sustained study of it will yield up great secrets.
So the best you can do, as the afternoon turns into the evening, is to find some spells that might cast some form of protection over you and Lucy. Tomorrow you will have to find some way to begin closing a noose around him.
And then, unbidden, he steps into your web.
* * * * *
Shortly before nine, you hear the front door open. It can't be Lucy: she would have called. So you are both surprised and not surprised when around the corner steps a familiar face: your own.
He doesn't look haggard, exactly, but he does look grim. You wonder if he feels as hunted as you did. It can't be fun, feeling sure that a prodigious intellect like his own is bent upon finding and dealing with him. Or maybe he found that the book's spells were not as helpful as he might have hoped.
"This is an unexpected pleasure," you say, keeping very still and watching him carefully. No matter that he looks like a lanky and uncertain teenager, you know he's a very dangerous man.
"Congrats on getting out," he says, and you hope he's the one responsible for the slightly nasal whine in his voice, that it isn't a feature of your own body. "I shouldn't have been so nice as to leave a bed down there."
"Or a window. And what ugliness do you have planned for tonight?"
He raises his hand. "Pax, okay? I didn't have to come, but I thought I'd give you one last chance."
"You're not the type to offer last chances."
"Just hear me out." He licks his lips. "If this goes on, one of us is going to get killed."
"That's likely. Certainly, even."
"And that would be a huge waste. Let's stop before it gets that far. Reach a compromise."
You lean back and appraise him shrewdly. "If you thought you stood a chance of winning, you wouldn't make an offer. Unless the offer is a trap to help you win. On the other hand, if you thought you didn't stand a chance of winning, why should I accept your offer?" You raise your eyebrows. "You're a chess player, not a poker player. I can see through you."
"No you can't," he snaps. "Because I know two things you don't."
"And they have you so spooked you'll come begging for a compromise? I like my odds more and more."
"Fuck you," he says. Interesting. Just as you are finding it easier to lapse into Blackwell's mannerisms, he is finding it easier to lapse into yours.
He regains his composure. "The first thing," he says, "is that I've already got another mask and a way of using it. Once I'm out that door, you'll never see me again until it's too late for you."
"I figured as much. So why offer a compromise?"
He holds up a card: a complex symbol glows on its surface. "You see this?"
"Yes. It's a metamorphic sigil. Very high level stuff."
"Exactly. You shouldn't even be able to see it. It's the kind of sigil that hides itself."
"I'm looking at the world through your eyes, Professor. I should be able to see it."
"Yeah, maybe that's why you can see it. But I had an interesting talk with your dad last night. Don't worry," he adds as you jump a little. "He's okay. Everyone's okay. For the moment." His lips twitch. "The point is, I had an interesting talk about your family history. What do you know about the Shabblemans?"
You think. "They're some kind of distant cousins of mine. Inbred hillbilly weirdos, if you want my opinion." Something else in the name rings a bell. "The Libras used to belong to someone named Shabbleman. Well, that was her maiden name. You stole it from her estate."
He nods sardonically. "And you know what that makes me think."
You suck on a stray bit of moustache. "Absurd. Well, you wouldn't think it absurd, but—"
"The book is trying to find you. Or something is forcing it toward you. That and the fact that you can see this sigil—" he indicates the card again. "I think you have a lot of innate magical talent."
"You would think that, wouldn't you?"
"I want to strike a bargain. Instead of fighting each other, let's work together. Join forces."
"For what?"
He smiles faintly. "Whatever you want. You can start as my adept. But I'll grudgingly confess I will end as yours."
You let the moment play out maliciously before stabbing it. "Ludicrous. How soon before one of us—almost certainly you—double-crosses the other?"
"There are ways of preventing that." He holds up another sigil.
You rear back. "You cannot be in earnest."
"Absolutely. Mutual assured destruction, they call it."
"That's one name for it. 'Shotgun wedding' is another."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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