This choice: Study Shabbleman's imago • Go Back...Chapter #43Bits and Pieces, and How to Get Them Off People by: Seuzz   You wrench open the bedroom door. Nothing. Still, you can't shake the feeling that something has been trying to eavesdrop on you. You close the door with a frown.
You'll have to talk to Frank and Joe about it, but you should arm yourself with something other than your sense of unease.
So you pick up your mask and flick the images until Will Shabbleman's face appears in it. Again you lay the mini-golem into the mask and grasp it. You close your eyes, and the imago of Will Shabbleman appears.
He's no more handsome in this slightly abstract form than he is in real life. In fact, it's probably more unpleasant, since in its monumental way his imago looms over you. You grit your teeth and look him over.
There's nothing odd about his face, which is where you'd found the hex on your own imago. You concentrate and turn him about. Nothing about the head or shoulders or torso. You scan lower and lower, and--
At the genitals. What is that?
There's a glow, dull and metallic. Luckily, studying the imago of a guy's cock isn't nearly as distasteful as it would be to study the thing itself. It's just a lot of formulas.
Some you recognize. The genitals are one place where imago and essentia interact, and you see the "hooks" where those two metaphysical elements can merge. Semen comes charged with essentia, you remember from your reading, and it's through that merger that essentia can manifest physically. It's the "plumbing" that allows semen or hair or fingernail clippings or blood or any other bodily effluvia to be used in the crafting of golems.
But right now it's that metallic thing that's got your attention. It's a foreign object, but like the hex it is bound deeply into his imago. You'd have to pull it free in order to study it. Without thinking, you pluck at it as you'd plucked at the hex. The binding strands dissolve, and too late you realize what you're doing. As the last binding thread vanishes, the glow itself flares and fades away, leaving nothing behind.
You drop the golem, and with senses reeling lunge for the door. You half crawl, half scramble into the hallway and to your feet. Golem-Frank looks up with a puzzled expression as you dash into the dining room. "You doing your meditation exercises," he asks, for you're outside of Joe's mask.
"Shut up," you say. "I gotta see--" You grab at his face, but he grabs your wrist.
"The fuck are you doing?"
"Let go, Frank," you demand through gritted teeth, for he's hurting you.
"I don't gotta do what you say, Prescott. That's for Frank to--"
"And Frank would let me look. I gotta look at the asshole you have under that face."
His frown deepens, but after a moment's thought he releases you. "This better not be a trick, Prescott."
"It's fine. I was just snooping around inside Shabbleman's head, and I saw something I want to double check."
With a scowl he lets you twist the mask from his face. Shabbleman appears. You grimace hard as you unbutton his jeans and root around until you find his penis. Your fingertips also find--
You pull it out. It's a little golden ring.
* * * * *
"I don't see anything special about it," Jonathan says. He fingers the ring, peering at it. "It's a hell of a thing to have to wear down there--"
"I don't know what it is either," Shabbleman says. That would be Frank, still in disguise. It's Thursday night, and you've called an emergency meeting at Blackwell's. "And I don't like remembering what it was like when they put it on."
"And his grandmother didn't tell him what it was for?" Jonathan asks.
"No. Switch over into his face, and you can have the whole story for yourself."
"I already checked," you say. "Just before I called you guys. It's something like a chastity belt. Keeps him from jerking off."
"We didn't get it when we copied him," Jonathan says.
"And thank goodness for that," Shabbleman says. "Not that I've been jerking off while wearing this goddamned face," he hastily adds. "But I remember it being fucking uncomfortable."
"We didn't get it on our copies because it's like jewelry," you say. "But the original still had it on him."
"So?" Jonathan asks. "And how did you get it off him?"
"I was fucking around with one of the spells," you say. You're wearing Joe's face, so you're able to tell a half-truth without sounding evasive. "Trying to isolate some of its elements, make something new and useful. I used Shabbleman as a guinea pig. I got curious about that cock ring of his, and decided to see if I could use the new spell to get it off him."
"And you did," says Jonathan. "So?"
"Sew buttons. The trick I invented isn't even really useful, and I didn't write it down. But I went snooping in Shabbleman's head afterward, to find out what the cock ring was for, since it needed magic to get it off."
"So what's the crisis?" He's sounding more and more impatient with you.
"No crisis, Joe. I just thought you'd be interested."
"I'm not," he snorts. With a jerk he flings the ring onto the table. "And now I'm really not interested, now that I realize I've been fingering another dude's junk jewelry."
"Fine," you grumble. "So it's not a big deal. Fuck me for keeping you guys in the loop with what I'm doing. It's not like either of you are--"
"What have you been doing, Prescott?" Frank asks.
"A little of this, a little of that," you say defensively. "Look, this is all real new to me. New spells, new crap, even the whole idea of magic is still new. I'm not like you guys. I've been meditating--"
Their expressions are stony.
"If you guys are bored or something, how about you go take care of Joe and Frank's old partners, the Stellae?"
"We're not going to lay our cocks in front of a buzz saw," Frank says. "We're not going to do anything until we've got a better idea of what we can do with the Libra and with your talents. I don't feel like I've been seeing a lot of the latter--"
"There's a lot of stuff in the Libra to figure out," you repeat. "If you guys want to have fun with the Libra, go make masks of some cheerleaders, or of Jonathan's girlfriend--"
"I told you, we're not doing anything until--"
"Then leave me alone until I've got something for you!" You master your anger. "Here's the thing about the Libra," you say, leaning forward. "It's giving us all these spells, but it's also giving us the technique behind the spells. I can feel it. There are things we can do that it's not telling us we can do. We have to figure those extra things out ourselves. But I have to have time to take the pieces apart and see how they might go back together."
"Do you have any ideas for the kinds of things we could do?"
You slouch, hating the ambush. "Well," you say, improvising. "That spell that turns people into golems, the one you used on Melody?" The girl herself is gone; there's just a golem walking around with her mask. "It's not just an asshole spell. It works by stripping imago and essentia and anima out of a person. That's why there's only substantia left behind. That's what a golem basically is. But if you could take the sigil apart, you could come up with a spell that would only remove anima, let's say. Then maybe you could modify the spell that copies people onto golems, modify it so that it only copies anima onto them. Maybe with that you could switch people's anima around without using those bands like I put on you guys."
"What's the use of that?" Frank demands.
"There wouldn't be any bands to detect," Joe says thoughtfully.
"Exactly," you say. "That's one reason you guys don't want to run into the other Stellae, right? They might spot those things on you. But if you had my anima inside you, instead of riding around on a band--"
"We'd be perfect fakes," Joe finishes for you.
You nod. In truth, this idea has surprised even yourself. You'd not thought of it before, and can only figure that your subconscious has been at work on it while you were otherwise preoccupied.
"You know how to do that?" Frank asks.
"Not yet," you say. "I don't even know how to start. But that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. But you have to give me time."
"It's a neat idea," Frank says. "Work on it."
"There's other things I'd have to work on first. But I'll make that a long-range goal."
* * * * *
The meeting breaks up soon afterward, to your relief. It was nasty for awhile, but you feel better for clearing the air, and feel like you've bought yourself some time. And Frank's suggestion--though it was phrased as something harsher than a "suggestion"--will give you a goal around which to center your research.
But first you want to see if you have any more ideas bubbling down inside you that you've not been aware of. Back at the house, you take off Joe's mask and do the night's meditation.
You don't have many visions when you meditate, and you don't have any visions now, but when you come out of it you've a strong sense that you've noticed something without actually noticing it. You relax and try to let the answer come.
You're interrupted by the chirp of the phone. Golem-Frank gets it, but then he comes to knock on your door. It's Frank, who's still at Blackwell's. "Just got a call from Grandmother," he says. "She wants me to come back home."
"Great. Something to keep you busy," you say.
"Don't be a jerk, but yeah, it will. I'm calling to ask if you want to come along too. They're your relatives."   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author