Chapter #17A Spy Is Unmasked by: Seuzz   The police can't do anything against the supernatural, you decide. You get out of the truck, and pace. You stay well away from the wall and gate, though.
It's chilly, and you flap your arms against your torso, trying to keep warm.
It's silent for a very long time.
And then you hear running footsteps, and Lucy, Sean, Joe, and Frank dash through the gate. Frank whips around as he exits, and punches the air. The gate slams shut.
Joe hops up and down. "Boo-yeah! In your face, cocksucker! We are the champions!" he sings.
"Shut up, Joe," Frank snaps. From the gate comes a horrible snarling sound, but Frank ignores it. "Get in the truck, everyone. Prescott, Mitchell, you're up front with me."
"And I'll get in the bed with the girl," Joe exclaims. "Hey baby, what's your sign? Mine's 'yield'."
"Get bent," Lucy snarls. She stands stiffly and refuses to move.
Frank steps up and glowers into her face. "Get. In. The back." She flinches, and with a muttered oath swings into the back of the truck. "Don't piss her off, Joe," Frank says to his brother.
You squeeze into the cab between Frank and Sean. "What happened in there," you ask.
"We had a little trouble on the stairs," Frank says as he starts the truck. "You didn't mention that thing."
"Sorry. How'd you get past it? What is it?"
"Never mind what it is, and we got past it. Joe knows a lot about some damnably queer things. How are you? Cold?" He punches on the heater.
You turn to Sean. "How about you? This wasn't the rescue we'd planned."
"Yeah, but it works. So, are we going to the police now?" he asks Frank
"We're taking you back to our place," Frank says. "We got some questions for you." But he apparently means to save them for later. He says only one other thing during the drive, after Lucy gives a little shriek. "My brother gets horny at the worst times."
* * * * *
They pull up in the driveway of a small house in one of the cheaper parts of town, near the campus of Keyserling College. Joe and Frank lead Lucy into the house while telling you to stay; Joe returns a minute later and hands you and Sean some clothes. "The girl's frightened enough," he says. "She doesn't need you guys walking in like you're late for an all-night sex buffet."
"She's had a hard time," Sean says.
"Oh, I wasn't that bad with her," Joe says carelessly.
"I'm talking about at that house," Sean yells back hotly. "She was a prisoner for a couple of weeks in there."
"Dude," Joe says, and suddenly sobers up. "I didn't know." He looks at the house. "She seems to be in pretty good shape, considering."
In the house you find Lucy sitting stiffly on the sofa. Frank is standing before her, hands on his hips. He looks over his shoulder as you and Sean and Joe enter. "Well, I hope you guys have a little more to say about what's going on."
"I just wanna call the cops," Sean says.
"That's fine," Joe says. "What are you gonna tell them? You can tell us first. You can practice." Sean blinks, and looks at you. You look at him. Joe cocks an eyebrow. "Was it a kidnapping, or was it a party?"
"Maybe we should just go home," Sean says.
Now Frank and Joe exchange a glance.
"I'm going home," Lucy says archly, and stands up.
"You were in that basement for a couple of weeks," Joe says. "That's what these guys say."
"Well, these guys don't know what they're talking about. I got there this afternoon."
Your jaw drops. "That's not what you told me!"
"Do I look like I was cooped up in there for a couple of weeks," she says. She tosses her hair back. It is very clean, and falls in platinum sheets. Her skin is smooth, bright, flawless. Her clothes look freshly laundered.
You feel yourself turning very red. "She was in shit shape when I saw her!" you explode. "Hair all dirty, and she smelled like a goat! "
"Will!" Sean says in a warning tone.
"If you just let me call my parents," Lucy says in a serene voice, "I think they'll say that I left the house after lunch to run errands. That included stopping by Professor Blackwell's, where, well ... there was some unpleasantness." She takes a cell phone from her pocket, and smiles.
The smile fades a bit after she finds everyone staring at her. "Did you have that with you the entire time you were down there," Frank asks her quietly.
Red spots show in her cheek. "The battery's dead."
"It's not dead now," Frank observes.
"Whew!" Joe waves his hand in front of his face. "Something stinks, and if it isn't Lucy shitting her panties, it must be her story."
"It's a double," you hear yourself say. You're trembling. "Lucy said--"
"Will!" Sean clutches your arm, and his nails dig deeply into your flesh.
"Lucy said that the professor made a duplicate of her!" you continue. You're so angry and scared you don't care. "He took her out of the basement, and when she came back she was all cleaned up. It's a fucking golem!"
* * * * *
Sean is sitting cross-legged on the floor. He is bent over with his hands buried between his knees. His head sags.
Frank is standing over him. He cracks his knuckles one at a time, and rolls his shoulders. "That's not a tenth of what I could do, fella," he says. "But I'm worn out from the evening."
Joe is leaning against a doorway, bouncing a small, glowing ball in the palm of his hand. Your eye catches his; he smiles, and squeezes the ball in his fist. When he opens it again, the ball has vanished. He purses his lips, and blows out a long, thick stream of smoke.
You are sitting on the sofa with your knees drawn up. You are trembling lightly. Between watching Frank bat Sean around without laying a finger on him; and watching Joe's little pyrotechnical displays; and Lucy--
You peer up at her, and shudder. She is standing, fully dressed, in the middle of the room. But her skin and hair are greyish white, the hue of a department store mannequin. Even her eyes are opaque. On the coffee table is a blue mask, turned face down. Her name blazes over its inner surface.
You'd pulled it off her face after Frank had caught and held her. Caught and held her without even touching her. And when the mask had come off, that was what had remained.
"And you've no idea how he did it to her?" Joe asks quietly. He's caught you staring at her again.
You shake your head. "It has to be her, though. It looks like her, like when I saw her in the basement. Hair all messed up. That expression--" You lower your head. That expression of dismay and despair.
Joe gets on the couch next to you, squatting on his haunches with his feet planted firmly on the cushions. "He'd have done the same to you guys, you know," he says, nodding at you and Sean. "That story about letting you go?" He shrugs. "Yeah, he would've. Wearing masks of yourselves, while looking like that underneath. Nice, pliant little slaves, who would have gone out and gotten the rest of your friends. You'd have taken them back to that house, so he could do the same thing to them."
"But why didn't he do it to her before?" you mutter. "She'd been in there for weeks."
"Probably because he'd just gotten the book from you," Joe says. "There's a spell in there that does stuff like this, isn't there? Mitchell?" he asks.
Sean says nothing, until Frank shifts on his feet. "Yes," he says hurriedly. "There's a spell that does stuff like that. It was an accident, I didn't want to do it." He swallows hard. "But it wasn't my decision."
"You did this to someone?" Frank asks. "Who?"
Sean hangs his head. He blinks, hard and rapidly. His mouth opens and closes. He flinches--but not from Frank. He says something you can't catch.
Frank squats and puts his head close to Sean. Your friend murmurs again--long and low. Frank listens. Then he pulls his nose, sniffs, and stands up. "Yeah, okay," he says. He picks the mask up off the coffee table, and regards it thoughtfully.
"Blackwell thinks he left a spy with you guys, to keep an eye on you until he got back. He's off somewhere being someone else, probably. I don't think he'd be going back to his house, not with that thing prowling the grounds."
"Why not?" you ask. But he ignores you.
"He's probably at Mitchell's house, but he might be at Prescott's. A call from his spy will tell us where he is, and the sooner we find out, the sooner we can stop him from doing anything to your other friends."
"I can make the call," Joe says. You rear back: it was Lucy's soft but imperious voice that came from his mouth.
"The caller needs to know what she knew," Frank says. "You'll need to put it on."
Joe smiles. "Like I'm not dying to get inside her!"
He puts out his hand, but Frank withdraws the mask. "Maybe someone else should make the call," he says. "Someone who wants to start repairing the damage they've helped cause?"  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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