Chapter #44A New Investigation by: Seuzz   You shrug helplessly, and Joe rolls his eyes as he opens the door. Will Prescott is on the other side, bearing a large pizza box, and Joe grabs it before he can even step inside: "Food!" Joe yells, then introduces you to your double with a jerk of the chin. "Oh yeah, you haven't met the new guy," he says. "Sue, this is Will. Will, Sue."
You blink. "Sue?"
"Hey boss," Prescott says nonchalantly before smiling maliciously. "I like the new look, and I love the new name."
Joe swivels in surprise. "How'd you recognize him?"
You too are at a loss, until you remember: "It's the golem shell inside the mask. He's under my control, so he recognizes me whatever I look like." It's a protective device: If Blackwell does return and happens to get the mask off the golem (one of the extras left over from the destruction of the villa) he won't be able to use it to infiltrate your team.
"Oh well, so much for that test," Joe grumbles. He looks at the golem, who is standing in the door with an expectant look on its face. "Yeah?"
It holds out its hand. "That'll be twenty eighty-one. I won't charge for gas."
Joe jerks a thumb at the golem and blows an amused raspberry between his lips. "Look who wants to get paid!" he chortles. The golem frowns.
So do you. "Don't be a jerk. Pay him."
"I haven't got any money! That's how come we got Clayface here to--"
"We'll owe you," you interrupt, turning to your replacement. "Give us a couple of days." The golem shrugs and shoots Joe a dirty look before leaving; the latter gives a bark of incredulity as he closes the door. "Come on, be nice to the thing," you chide him. "It's basically me."
"Fine," Joe shrugs. "If you wanna pay him back, maybe you can get a job." He leads you into the dining room, drops the box onto the table, and pulls it open. A warm draught of sausage, cheese, tomato sauce and bread rushes into the room.
"Why do you want me going to school with you," you ask as you pull out a piece--trailing gooey mozzarella--and sit opposite Joe.
"What, you'd rather hang around the house all day?" Joe mumbles through his own slice. "That's what you've been doing for the past week while we've been at Eastman."
"I'm not enrolled," you point out.
"You could be," Joe replies. "We don't know how long we're going to be out here waiting for Blackwell."
"We might be here for only a few days."
"Well, there's still stuff to do besides wait for Blackwell," he says. "We think you're not the only one who got mixed up in this Libra business. So unless you can clear up a couple of points over supper, we still have some mysteries to solve."
"Like what?" It sounds like he's got a story to tell, so you take advantage by shoving the hot and tangy pizza slice into your mouth.
He sucks on a wad of cheese, smacks it around loudly, swallows; then, still holding the slice, ducks into the kitchen long enough to fetch a roll of paper towels. "What do you know about a box out at Salopek Engineering?"
"My dad's work?"
"It's your dad's box, as near as we can tell." You stare at him dumbly. "You know, we never got the full story on how you got ahold of the Libra."
You glance down at your pizza slice regretfully, then unroll some paper towels and set your dinner down on them. "I found it at Arnholm's Used Bookstore." You give him the story of the trip to Arnholm's and your attempt to return it, and volunteer without prodding all the details of your employment at Blackwell's.
"So you don't know anything about Salopek or a box in one of their storerooms," he says. You shake your head. "Or about a box of stuff in a sub-basement at Eastman? That sucks," he says as he looks ruefully at the pizza, "and not just because you're going to catch up to me and then get about two slices ahead while I tell you about them.
"Okay. We--that's our people, Stellae people--heard about the Libra late in June. It turned up in New York, upstate, among the effects of a dead woman. We went up to get it, but it had already been packed and mailed to some of her survivors. Funny thing is that it never made it to where it was supposed to be going. It got diverted, and wound up at Salopek Engineering, addressed to a guy named Harris Prescott."
As he is speaking, you are doing your best to prove his best fears well founded by gobbling at the pizza, but mention of your dad stops you dead.
"It got opened while it was at Salopek, and most of its contents got removed," he continues. "Frank and I showed up too late to prevent that, and nearly lost the trail for good." He gives you an amused glance. "We came real close to hitting the bulls-eye, though, because Harris Prescott was our number one suspect, and we almost paid your house a visit back in August."
He looks at you carefully. You take a big bite of the pizza crust and shake your head. "Wouldna done you any good. I didn't get it until early in September."
"Your dad didn't have it?"
"Pretty sure he didn't. I mean, he doesn't tell me anything, but Blackwell had it by that point, I'm pretty sure."
"And how did he manage that?"
"Beats me. But he showed up at Arnholm's, desperate to get it back. And he'd had it a bit by then, if he had golems and shit when I showed up."
"It's very strange," Joe says after a few seconds' thought, "but I'm pretty sure you're right. Because before we could visit your dad we heard about stuff going on at Eastman."
"This was before school started?" you ask, puzzled.
"Not long before. But I mean the school property, not the institution. There were some Eastman guys who worked at Salopek. They got fired for being drunk on the job just after that box would have arrived. Not long after that, they go onto the school property. They're doing something--no one is sure what--but one of them falls into a coma, and the other dies in a car accident."
You pick up another piece of pizza, but let the cheese ooze off it while you think. "That sounds creepy, but it doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the Libra."
"Doesn't it? Ask Blackwell how healthy it is to play with that book."
You regard your pizza slice thoughtfully. "But that was Blackwell's own fault."
"It's always someone's fault," Joe says. "But would you trust an expert opinion if I told you that playing around with magical items--especially the really advanced ones--is about as healthy as playing around with a bag full of mousetraps, plutonium, and angry weasels? Yeah, people make their own luck when things like the Libra are sitting on their bookshelves, but things like the Libra are loaded dice in a crooked casino where they don't let winners walk out the door. Can I have that last piece? I lose control of my metaphors when I haven't had enough to eat."
"So you think these guys got into that box and got the Libra and screwed up?" you ask, ignoring his last question--not that it matters, since he helps himself to the remaining slice anyway.
"It doesn't explain how the book got to Blackwell, I know," he says. "And I'd say it has nothing to do with the Libra--just some glue-huffers who were stupid at work and stupid behind a wheel--except that Frank and me also found a box in the Eastman sub-basement, containing a bunch of Libra-related items."
"Like what?"
"Masks, and a notebook containing references to masks and a bunch of sigils."
"You're joking."
"I don't joke about this stuff. Oh, fuck me, what am I saying, of course I do. But not in this case."
"So you found this box and enrolled at Eastman because you figured someone there had the book."
"Eh, the other way around. We played a hunch, enrolled at Eastman, and found the box. That seemed like confirming evidence, and Karl Popper can bite my sexy ass in return for having the last laugh in this case."
You've learned to ignore it when Joe makes those weird references. "So you want me to enroll at Eastman and help you find out if there's another guy in a mask running around."
"It's something to do while waiting for Blackwell to show up again." He looks into the now empty pizza box with a sigh. "And like I said earlier, it's always friendlier with two."
* * * * *
You make a late night of it, talking over all the evidence each of you has, and constructing lots of hypotheses. Or, rather, Joe constructs them and you knock them down. You don't get anywhere, though, until Joe mentions "those three guys at Salopek." "I thought you said there were only two," you say.
"Three guys got fired. Only two were at Eastman."
"What happened to the third guy?"
"Well, he was an Eastman student, but he transferred to Westside at the start of the year. We almost followed him, but he wasn't with those guys when those accidents happened, so he wasn't involved, it sounds like."
"Well, not in the accidents. But--"
"That's true. But that box was at Eastman, and still is."
You mull this. "Maybe we should split up? You take Eastman and I go back to Westside?"
He looks skeptical.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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