This choice: Spend the night with Blackwell • Go Back...Chapter #40A Sally Into the Dark by: Seuzz   You don't like the thought of spending the night in this house, and with this man, but until you get better answers you're going to stick close to him. Your friend's expression suggests he feels the same way.
"We need to get better acquainted," Blackwell says, and takes out a fresh sheet of paper.
"You ain't puttin' me in any of your spells," Justin sputters.
Blackwell smiles faintly. "I only mean, that you should tell me who your friends are, what masks you have, and who is pretending to be whom."
"Okay," you say. "There's Justin Roth, Perry Small, Shep Tsosie. Gordon Black. Will Prescott."
"The young man who was upstairs," Blackwell says.
"Yeah, but that's me," you say. Blackwell gives you an amused glance. "This mask, it's Gordon Black."
"And where is Mr. Black?"
"That's me," says Justin. "I'm wearing Justin Roth's mask."
"And where is Justin Roth?" Blackwell asks as he scribbles out the names, and draws lines connecting the real people to aliases.
"Being himself," Justin says. "Well, until--" He glances uneasily upstairs. Blackwell draws an arrow from Roth's name to an "X." "Same with Perry and Maize. Masks, but they weren't wearing them."
"Mr. Prescott's mask is upstairs," Blackwell muses. "Any others?"
"Last I knew, there was a mask of Dane Matthias, and one of Victoria Rodriguez," you say.
"Do they know about the Libra and--?" He writes the names as you shake your head. "So." He adds a circled "g" next to the names of Roth, Tsosie and Small. "Messrs. Small and Tsosie will probably have returned to their houses, since there are masks the golems could have donned. Heaven knows where Mr. Roth is." He sniffs. "There is a small possibility that the golems are attempting only to replace those--such as yourselves--who know about the masks, but I rather doubt they will stop there. Certainly the masks of Mr. Matthias and Miss Rodriguez will tempt them into inducting their originals into their ranks. From there? They can execute the transformation spell, which argues that they can execute the spells that make additional masks. That means they can continue."
"Continue?" you ask, your heart sinking. "How many--?"
"Indefinitely?" Blackwell says. "Until the world is a walking cemetery? In practice, until we recover the Libra from them. But they will be guarding it closely, and I fear they will be using it at every opportunity."
"Jesus," Justin whispers.
"Well might we pray," says Blackwell grimly. "And they will be looking for you."
"What if we hit them first," you ask. "Go out to Tsosie's? Maybe the book is still there."
Blackwell glances at the clock. "You have time for that," he says. "But I want you back here by eleven. I really don't mean to alarm you boys, but you should not go home. They will be looking for you there. You must hide tonight, at least, where they will not know to look for you."
"They can't get us at our houses," you say. "Our families will be there."
Blackwell looks very grave. "I said I don't want to alarm you. But they may have already been to your houses, and left them booby-trapped."
You and Justin stare at each other in horror.
* * * * *
There's a light in Tsosie's window when you pull up. "You sure you want to go in like that?" you ask Justin. "It might be better if it were two dudes built like this." You tap your chest.
"I can take him," Justin says. "We just won't give him a chance."
And you don't. As soon as the door opens you bust in hard and grab Tsosie in a tight embrace. He fights, but Justin gets a hold of his face and rips at it.
He ceases to struggle. Statues can't move.
You look palely at each other, then shut the door and ransack the house. The book isn't there--only a second statue, this one looking like Justin Roth.
Gordon takes off Justin's mask and puts Tsosie's on.
* * * * *
"It's not here," he says when he's recovered himself. He paces the room, head down, brow furrowed in concentration. "And the mask has been on and off that thing a couple of times. Fuck! They know enough not to leave any memories behind. They--! Shit, they got another copy of me!"
"What? How?"
"I dunno." His eyes are feverish. "But after they got Perry they brought it out again. Put it onto Justin. Then they pulled the mask off Tsosie. Prescott was gone by the time they put it back on him. I guess maybe he'd gone out to Blackwell's. Black, the fake one, then left. Oh, Jesus, if he went back to my place--"
He stops, and you don't finish the thought you both share: The only thing worse than Russell Black would be a Russell Black who is actually an undead thing only pretending to be Russell Black.
* * * * *
But no one is at Gordon Black's house. Time is running short--Blackwell had been vehement about eleven o'clock as a curfew--and after a short but intense argument, you decide to go by Perry Small's. Force will be useless there, so you go in disguise: Gordon puts on Tsosie's mask again, and you take off Gordon's. That way you will appear to be undead-Perry's confederates: Shep Tsosie and Will Prescott.
His step-dad answers the door, and gruffly calls Perry down. He smirks when he sees you, and saunters out into the yard with you. "What's the good word?" he asks.
"We tracked down the other two," Maize says. "We're on our way to meet them. Since one of them is looking like Gordon Black, we came by for reinforcements."
"Excellent," Small laughs. "Once we get Gordon-- Ha! Patterson, Chelsea, Lynch, Huber, Delacroix, the cheerleaders." He snaps his fingers. "Summon 'em up to the fuck room and do 'em hard. Life'll be sweet, and then we'll get their folks." He glances back at the house. "Tom's already-- Hey, how come you're driving Black's car?"
Maize grabs him, and you rip at his face.
"Tom? Tom's what?" you gasp as you bundle the statue into Gordon's Bug. "Already a golem?"
"I dunno." He fingers Perry's mask. "I could put it on and see."
"It's ten-thirty now," you say. He swears, and you both get in the car.
* * * * *
You're less than pleased when Blackwell reveals that the real curfew was midnight, but now it's too late to do anything. "Do not open this door until seven o'clock at the earliest," he tells you as he puts you in the bedroom that had held Lucy's golem. (He had sent it away during your absence.) "The thing that destroyed the golem prowls the house at night, and if you break the seal that is about this portal, it will do worse to you than it had done to the golem."
"Nice fucking guard dog," Gordon mutters. "What's wrong with a Rottweiler?"
The day's events have left you stressed out, and the stress isn't improved by seeing that you and Gordon will be sharing a bed. You both keep your clothes on, and by some mutual consent lay down on opposite sides of the bed. You hear noises a little after midnight, but they're not so bad that you can't sleep.
You wake to find Gordon's arms around your torso, and his boner in your crotch. You manage to disentangle yourself without waking him, and as it's after seven go downstairs, where you find Blackwell. He is in a somber mood, but he fixes you breakfast. Gordon comes down a little later. "I got to get to practice," he says.
"I agree that you should go to the school," says Blackwell, "but not as yourselves. You have a variety of aliases to choose from, and any secret confederates will be more likely to approach you in them."
"That's true," says Gordon, and makes a face. "Besides, there's gonna be a scene today after practice. Right, Prescott?" He whaps you hard on the side of the head. Like the Seth and Cindy business matters now.
And then his eyes widen. "Oh, shit! And there's those guys."
"Who?" you ask.
"Those Durras douches."
"Who are they?" Blackwell asks sharply.
"We don't know," you tell him. "It's these two guys. They were at Eastman--we're at Westside, you know--and they overheard me talking about magic and that book." Blackwell frowns. "And then yesterday they showed up at our school. Transferred. The golem was being me, and they talked to it about magic and stuff. They seemed interested. It told them it had had a book of magic, but had buried it."
"We wondered if maybe they were the ones who were screwing with the golem," Gordon adds.
Blackwell sinks into a chair. "Describe them." You and Gordon do your best: jock basketball players, one dark and quiet and smart, the other blonde and loosey-goosey. "They don't sound like the types who'd be interested in fantasy role-playing," he muses when you're done. "But neither do they sound like serious students of the occult. It probably means nothing," he says, "but it would be best if you steered clear of them."
* * * * *
You and Gordon get dressed: Him as Tsosie, you as Perry, and drive out to the school in Justin's car, which is more non-descript than your other choice of vehicles. "I'll look for Dane," your friend says. "Check him for damage. More than usual." His mask and Victoria's were missing from Tsosie's.
That leaves you free to hang out. As you're leaning against the wall near the gym, trying to stay in character by sneering at the passing parade, you see the Durrases go walking by.
Despite Blackwell's warning, you find yourself wondering if maybe you don't need more allies.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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