This choice: Volunteer to put on the mask • Go Back...Chapter #18The Story of Lucy by: Seuzz   "I'll do it," you say. "I've put these things on before." You take the edge of Lucy's mask and glance at Sean. He's rubbing his face in his hands, and looking very tired.
You close your eyes and raise the mask to your face.
* * * * *
It's like thick, ropy spider webs in your head. You can't see anything. You bat and grapple. The world is black, but it turns grey as you struggle. You feel yourself moan softly, and the real world returns in a rush. You throw your head back, gasp, and exhale.
Joe and Frank are standing before you. Frank is frowning; Joe is grinning. You remember being in the back of the truck with him, and feel your lip curl.
Joe's grin widens; without looking at his brother, Frank jabs him sharply in the ribs, and Joe buries the smile in a secret place. "Who are we talking to," Frank asks quietly.
"It's me. Will," you sigh, and rub your eyes. "But Lucy's here too." You glance down. You have very large, very firm, very inviting breasts. The t-shirt scratches at them. Carefully you adjust the shirt, and shoot a sharp look at Joe. He turns red.
"When you're comfortable--" Franks says.
"I'm as comfortable as I'm going to get." Lucy's mind is raging, with anger and confusion and horror. You shake back your hair. "Okay, I can't tell you where Blackwell is, but--"
"Tell us everything you know," Frank says. Joe murmurs something you don't catch. "Everything pertinent," Frank growls.
"Well, this is Lucy Vredenburg. She's a senior at Keyserling College. Cheerleader. "Blackwell was one of my-- Look, it's going to be easier if I talk like Lucy. It's a little confusing up here." Frank nods. "Blackwell was one of my professors. I didn't want to do any work, so at the start of the semester I went to see him. To, uh, persuade him to give me good grades no matter how I did in his class." You feel yourself turn beet red, even though you are not Lucy. No, you're just a horny teenager trawling the recesses of her mind while trying to ignore the breasts that you're propping up with your forearms as you hug your torso. "He took me out to his house. I blacked out. When I woke up again, I was naked. He was there. He talked to me, told me to go on as though nothing had happened. But I had to do what he said. And I did. I knew I had to.
"So I went home, pretended nothing happened. Just ... carried on. Sometimes he would call me to the house. I'd get undressed and he would ... touch my face. I'd black out and then wake up again. Sometimes he would be gone. Sometimes he'd be there, but then I'd talk to him like he was my servant or slave. I'd get dressed." You draw your legs up and clasp them. "I'd go out and have fun, with all my girlfriends and boyfriends. Find some new friends. Go home with them," you mutter.
Joe whistles. "Kinky."
"It would happen a lot. But I'd eventually wind up back at the house, and Blackwell would come back, and I'd go on."
"This afternoon he called me out to the house. He took me upstairs and he took my face off. But when I woke up, I was in a little room. It was a little stone room, and I was laying on a slab. There's a little stone shed or something next to his house, and that's where I was. He told me to get up, and he made me get dressed." You point to the clothed golem.
"Wait, you were never in the basement?" Frank asks.
"Not before," you say. "But he told me that there were two guys he was holding prisoner in his basement. I was to join them and pretend to be another prisoner, and that I'd been down there with them. I was to pretend like I'd been down there for a couple of weeks. I was to say that he'd taken me upstairs and let me wash and clean myself and get dressed, because he was going to let us all go in the morning."
You sigh. "So that's what I did. And then ... I ... Will ... escaped, and then you guys came and got us out."
Joe and Frank probe your story a little more. "Okay, so Blackwell already had a fake Lucy running around," Joe concludes. "He calls it out to the house, turns the real Lucy into a Michelangelo, puts the fake Lucy's face onto it. But how was he able to make a double of the real Lucy in the first place?"
"When did Lucy go out to see him, the first time?" Frank asks you.
"First week of school," you reply. "Late August, early September."
Frank turns to Sean. "When did you get ahold of the Libra?"
"A couple of weeks ago," he says, and drops his head again.
"More specific, Mitchell."
"I found it in Arnholm's Used Bookstore in the middle of September," you volunteer.
Joe and Frank swivel in surprise. "You found it?" Frank frowns.
"I didn't think it was important," you stammer. "Caleb was the guy who was--" You wince; it sounds like you're trying to shift the blame elsewhere. "I found the book at the bookstore. It freaked me out, so, like, the next day I gave it to Caleb. I didn't think about it anymore until, like, a week ago?" Joe nods at you to continue. "I borrowed it from Caleb to show to some other friends, because we were talking about magic? And that book looked like a magic book? So, I borrowed it, and then Caleb told me about it, and ... that's when all this started."
"So, Blackwell must have had the Libra up until the start of September, and then somehow it wound up at this bookstore," Joe says. "Which is where Prescott--" He catches himself, and a gleam comes into his eye. "Which is where Prescott found it. Him and his friends have fun, but they get to wondering about where it came from. They ask around, stumble onto Blackwell. He knows what they're talking about, and grabs them in order to get the book back."
"So how did he lose it to start with?" Frank asks.
"Find Blackwell and ask him," Joe retorts.
"Okay, so that's the next step," Frank says. "Lucy--"
"Hang on," Joe says. "I got just one more question, if you don't mind." He pauses, and his eyes go slightly cross-eyed. "My wife, she's such a huge fan of--" Frank punches him. "Okay, seriously, Will Prescott." He sucks on a tooth. "What's your dad's name?"
"My dad? Harris."
"He work at Salopek Aerospace?" You nod. Frank looks startled. Joe smiles smugly to himself. "Okay, back to finding Blackwell."
"Why do you want to know about my dad," you ask cautiously.
"Just a little detail I was worried about," Joe says.
"Yeah, well, Sean and Caleb work at Salopek too."
Now Joe and Frank both look startled. They turn to look at Sean, who stares back up at them with faint embarrassment on his face. They look back at you. They look at each other. "Yearbook," they say in unison. Joe leaps from the room.
"Sean Mitchell, right?" Frank says to Sean.
"Yeah." His voice is husky, and he raises his chin. "So what?"
"Sew buttons," Joe retorts as he leaps back into the room. He has a glossy book in his hand, and Frank looks over his shoulder as he excitedly pages through it. They mutter to each other. Then they freeze. Joe jabs a finger at the page. "Ha!" he barks.
Sean sucks on the inside of his cheek. "You find something funny in there?" he growls.
The air seems to coagulate. Then Frank speaks. "No, nothing funny at all," he says quietly. "Quite the opposite. We just know who we're talking to now."
Sean stares back, then shrugs.
Joe and Frank return to you. "Okay, let's try Mitchell's house first," Joe says. "Sean, what's the number?" He gives it to you. Then Joe tells you what to say. You make the call.
The conversation is brief, and you hang up with a frown. "He just said he'd call me back," you tell them.
"Bullseye with the first shot," Joe exults. "Let's go."
"Hang on," Frank says. "He might try going back out to his house."
"So what if he does? That thing of his will eat him alive."
They argue for a bit, and then your phone rings. You listen briefly to the message, and pass it on after hanging up. "He said not to worry about it. He said the guardian would have got Sean and Will. He asked if I was sure I heard screaming." Joe grins. "And he told me I could go home. The thing wouldn't bother me."
"Okay, so Lucy goes home," Frank says. He turns to the golem. "But not that Lucy."
"Excellent!" Joe exclaims. "Dibs on the hot college cheerleader."
"What about me?" you ask. "Apparently I'll have a double at home too. Another one of Blackwell's goons."
"We can take care of him." Joe says. "Get it out of the way, and you go home."
"I'm not so sure about that, Joe," Frank says slowly. "It would be best if Prescott's double got replaced by one of our own agents."
"So I go as Lucy, and you step in for Prescott," Joe says. "These guys stay here."
"Or I just go home," you insist. The thought of an evil twin at your house fills you with loathing.
"That's too dangerous, Prescott," Frank says. "I'd rather you stay as Lucy. Blackwell's not depending on her. You'd be safe in her place until all this is over. Joe can cover for you, and I'll stay here with Mitchell."
You wince.
"Well, I'll let you make the call," Frank says.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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