Chapter #44A Portal from the Past by: Seuzz   "It would be a little weird if I showed up, wouldn't it?" you ask. The idea does not fill you with enthusiasm.
"I could tell her I found you. You're a long-lost relation, you know."
"Why does she want her grandson back home?"
"Beats me why anyone would want this asshole back," Frank grumbles. It's an ironic-sounding statement, since he's been wearing Shabbleman's face all this time. "And I didn't ask. You don't ask Grandmother her reasons."
"You taking off tonight?"
"In the morning."
"Well, watch yourself."
"I don't have anything to worry about, Prescott. She does, maybe, depending on what I find out there. I'll call Joe with an update tomorrow night. You just keep working on our project." He hangs up.
Our project, you snort to yourself. Frank hasn't done anything connected to the Libra since his conversion to your side. Even Joe has done more by playing around with Monique. So it's real nice of him to pretend like he's had anything to do with anything at all since he and his brother--
And then very dimly the memory comes to you. It's just out of reach, for it's not your memory. It's only a memory of a memory, something you vaguely remember from your time inside Joe's mask. Something to do with ... drains? That doesn't make sense. You scribble the word down and put your mask back on, flipping it to Joe's face.
* * * * *
Drains. You're inside Joe's body and mind, frowning at the note you'd left yourself. You free associate, trying to grab that shadow you'd clutched at. Drains. Cisterns. Pipes. Sewers. Basements.
Basements! You scramble over to Joe's closet. The old box is in the corner: the old box that Joe and Frank had found in a sub-cellar at Eastman High School. It had been the damnedest thing. Joe had stumbled on it while looking for a private makeout spot beneath the gym. And they weren't sure what they'd found. But it contained a couple of masks and a notebook filled with sigils and gibberish, which suggested to them that it was connected to the Libra.
You haul out the box and dump the contents on the floor. It only takes a glance to see that Joe and Frank had been correct: the masks are identical to the ones you've been making. You pick up the notebook first.
It's an old-style composition book, like an elementary school tablet. The pages are yellowed and brown and brittle. The handwriting is spidery. But you've only to glance at it to see that it contains notes on the Libra spells. Whoever wrote it had the Libra at hand, or was long familiar with it, and had written down as much as possible about it, the spells, and its workings. You flip casually through it, but don't see anything that you don't already know. The notes are sketchy, too, and you doubt that anyone who didn't already know the Libra would be able to glean anything from them.
But that's not what you were remembering. It's one of the masks. Two of them look normal, but the third one has a sigil inside it. You smile faintly as you study it. "So someone else was making remote controlled robots," you murmur, for it's a "remote" mask like the one you made up.
You trace the sigil work with a fingertip, finding the spot where the spellcaster put his name. Well, it might be his name, and it might not. It only has to be a unique code, something to link it to the remotes, and the spellcaster could use his mother's name, or the name of a President, or even "Daffy Duck" if he wanted to. But you feel you know magicians well enough to feel certain that this is the name of the man who made the mask: "Julius Keyserling."
Keyserling. That's the name of the local university. You are vaguely aware that it took its name after receiving a big endowment. Could these be the same Keyserlings?
It would have to be. Blackwell's villa belonged to the Keyserlings as well. You hadn't thought much of that fact--it seemed a bit of trivia--when you found it while trawling his memories. But now ...
You lay back on the floor and let your mind and Joe's pull the threads together. Blackwell, living in a house that belonged to the family that endowed the university. A member of that family apparently had the Libra, and got deep enough into it to fashion a remote control mask. Somehow that mask, and a notebook--Julius Keyserling's? But it looks like an old lady's handwriting--got into Eastman. But the Libra only recently found its way to Saratoga Falls. Where had it been? In upstate New York, where it had been discovered in a deceased woman's estate.
And her name was Shabbleman. The Libra and the rest of her estate was supposed to go to Cuthbert, but Blackwell waylaid it.
You almost call Frank, to tell him you will go up to Cuthbert with him. But you decide to let him snoop around on his own first. You can join him later.
For now ...
You're not an idiot, and you're not going to put on this old control mask. The box is so ancient that the remote might be sitting on a corpse, and then you'd be stuck in a coffin with no way to get out. But you don't have to leave it here.
You go out into the garage, where there are a few mask makings, and with them you put a fresh layer into your own mask, just after the control sigil that links you to your own golem. You then use the "copy" spell in the Libra to transfer the control sigil from the old mask into your own. Now you'll be carrying it around with you, and if you ever figure out where the remote is, you'll be able to access it even without taking off your own mask.
It's been a good night's work, but you're not ready to give up yet. You flip to the next spell in the Libra. It only takes you an hour to figure it out, for it's very similar to the previous one. It leaves you smiling. That can be very useful, you think to yourself as you prepare for bed.
* * * * *
The next morning. "Switch with me." You nudge Jonathan.
You're in the showers after pre-class practice, and it's only the two of you. He looks over, startled. "Now?"
"Sure. It's safe." You wave your hand in front of your face. "I wanna hang out with Monique. You can have her after school."
He grumbles but accedes, and draws his hand over his face in the arcane gesture.
You do likewise, and the floor falls away a few inches. Now you're looking down at Joe Durras. "Anything I need to know?"
"Fake it," he says. "See how you do. I'll be watching."
You just grin, and wander back into the changing room.
* * * * *
Whether you cock anything up, you don't know; certainly, no one says anything to you, and you slide through Jonathan Straussler's day without incident. At lunchtime you pull Monique aside and eat with her alone in back of the school. She's shy and a little distant, and you wonder if this is what Joe was wanting to watch; but you bully through her defenses with a lot of light flirting, and by the end you've got her in your lap. "Shh, don't squirm," you say, for she keeps trying to turn to look at you, and you clasp your arms more firmly about her. "I like this. Looking at the world over your shoulder. The two of us, against the world." Actually, it's the two of you against the football practice field and the screen of trees hiding a subdivision beyond, but it can stand in for "the world."
She relents and drops her head back against your shoulder. She's silent, and your breath and hers mix. You wait until you feel her relax. Then your hand creeps over to the open bag at your side. The mask--
Dammit. It's wedged in with the books.
"What are you doing?" she asks, looking over.
"Just a little something I wanted to show you," you say, and she stiffens at your words. "Close your eyes." She doesn't move, and you put your free hand over her brow. "Come on. It's a surprise."
She sighs.
You get the mask free and bring it up to her face, jerking your other hand aside just as you press it to her. She goes limp, but only for a moment, and then she really does start to squirm. "What are you doing?" she demands, and twists herself off you.
You kneel over the bag, rummaging through it. "I put it down in-- Oh, fuck." You slap at the bag. "Never mind. I forgot it at home, I guess."
"What is all this--"
"It was just a little present I got for you," you say. You scramble over to her, putting your face close to hers. "You know I like to give you little things."
You press in for a kiss, but she pulls back. "The bell's gonna ring," she says.
"Come out to my place after school, so I can give it to you?"
She gives you a weary look. "Maybe. I've already got a ton of homework."
You smile to yourself. She'll be out there. She won't be able to help herself.
* * * * *
"Yo, stupidus!" you yell into the house as you slam the door. "Frank! Where'd you get off to? Carpenter was--" But the house is empty. Golem-Frank disappeared from school, and he's not here.
But you just shrug and go back into Joe's bedroom, to throw yourself on the bed. This is gonna be great. You brush your hand over your face until you come to the "control sigil" layer.
The world goes blank. This bothers you for a moment, until you see the two patterns floating nearby, like spider webs suspended in a breeze. As you look at them, you instinctively know: One is Will Prescott; the other is Monique Travers. You touch the latter.
The world reappears. You're in a small bedroom, a pencil clutched between your fingers. You blink, and stare, then let a small smile twitch onto your lips.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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