You didn't want to return to the Professor's creepy house. Particularly not on a Sunday, after church, to bargain with a man who, in your imagination at least, was beginning to take on the aspect of a devil. You weren't even sure it was a good idea to follow up with him. Did you have a good reason to believe Scott's story that he was actually "Taylor Mitchell"? lt sounded like a scam to get the book away from you.
But something in his voice sounded genuine, and he did give you back the mask that you put onto Marc.
Also, that book was totally was your project. Your father shouldn't have made you sell it.
So, in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, you are standing on the professor's porch again, rattling the wolf's-head door knocker, and holding an envelope with the professor's money. You've plenty of time to regret your decision to come out before the door is opened by the last person you'd expect: a lovely young woman with long, platinum-blonde hair, and large and luscious breasts. You gawk at her.
"Uh...hello?" she says, warily.
As soon as she speaks, you place her: It's Lucy Vredenburg, older sister of Cindy Vredenburg, one of the cheerleaders at Westside.
"Hi!" you exclaim in a strangled squeak. "Wow! Funny meeting you here, Lucy!"
She raises an eyebrow. "Do we know each other?"
"What? Oh, uh, not really." You feel yourself blushing. "I go to Westside. I know your sister. I—" You just catch yourself from admitting you had a massive crush on her your sophomore year, when she was a senior.
"Are you looking for the professor?" she coolly asks.
"Oh. Yeah! Has to do with— My dad and me were out here yesterday, had some business—" You grimace with embarrassment. Without waiting for an invite—because it's just too awkward standing on the porch, talking to her—you shove your way past into the dark, cold foyer beyond. "Is he home?"
Lucy looks astonished at your effrontery—you're a little astonished too—then gestures down the hallway. "He's in the library. I was just leaving anyway, so don't mind me." With a soft snort she walks out, pulling the door shut behind. You cringe inwardly, then pad down the hallway, deeper into the gloomy house.
Professor Blackwell looks up at you over the top of a pile of books when you peer into the library at him. He blinks owlishly, and his lips purse inside his beard. "Mr. Prescott, isn't it?" he says. "This is unexpected."
He doesn't gesture you in, and it's on fretful tiptoes that you enter the library. The books seem to glare down at you from their shelves, and you glance around, looking for the vampire cyclops-monkey, regretting it instantly when you spot it. "If you have a minute, professor," you stammer, "I want to talk to you about something."
The professor only leans back in his chair, to regard you with a steady stare. You draw a deep breath and hold up the envelope. "I'd, uh, like to buy that book back from you."
As Lucy had, he raises an eyebrow. "What you'd like, Mr. Prescott, and what I am willing to do for you," he says, "are two entirely different things."
"You mean you won't sell it back to me? I mean, I'd give you your, uh, money back."
"I would hardly be willing," he replies in a very dry tone, "to give up the book for less than I paid you for it. I take it you have been doing your research, and have discovered that the Libra Personae is worth considerably more than what I paid you for it?"
"What?" The question completely wrong-foots you. "No! I haven't—! Is it worth more than—?" You rattle the envelope. Yesterday you were thrilled to get four hundred dollars from him; now it occurs to you that the professor might have paid you only a fraction of what the book is worth.
"Considerably more, Mr. Prescott. Unless you are prepared to return me an envelope many times fatter, in bills of a denomination several times larger, we have nothing at all to discuss."
"You cheated us!" you exclaim.
"I paid you a price you were willing to accept. It is not my fault if you did not perform due diligence before accepting my offer. Moreover, the Libra is not for sale, by me, at any price. I am a collector, and that particular item is the capstone of my collection. No one who values it as highly as I do could afford to buy it off me, and no one who could afford to buy it off me would value it so highly. This conversation is a waste of time. Good day, Mr. Prescott."
"But my dad—!"
"Your father was also most adamant, as I recall, about taking the book from your hands. I believe he was afraid that you would lose several fingers by mishandling it." He lowers his great chin to give you a hard stare. "Does he know you are here?"
"N-no."
"Would he be pleased to learn that you have attempted to buy back that which he insisted you sell?"
You flush hard. Obviously you are not going to get anywhere, and now he's all but threatening to call your father. With a muttered Oh, fuck it, you stalk out of the library. The professor doesn't call after you. Or, if he does, his shout is swallowed in the oppressive darkness of his house.
--
Monday afternoon. You are parked on the other side of the road, staring at the front gate of the professor's villa. But it's Scott Bickelmeir's truck you're sitting in, for it was Scott who drove you out here after school.
He wasn't happy when you told him yesterday evening that the professor wouldn't sell the book back. You're not happy about his plan now to break into the villa and steal it. But against your better judgment, here you are. You figure Scott could use your help; and you'd like to see him succeed, if for no other reason than to get back at the professor for cheating you.
And now here comes Scott, jogging alongside the wall that encircles the villa, returning from reconnoitering the house and grounds. He gestures you to join him at the corner. "Now or never," he says as you trot up.
"You don't see his car?"
"I don't see any car," he retorts. "Only tire tracks up and down here." He points. "If this is where he parks, there's no one here."
"Except Lurch, maybe," you mutter to yourself.
Scott gives you a look, then bends over and makes a stirrup with his hands. You put your foot in his hands, and he lofts you to the top of the wall. You reach down and help him up and over. Together you drop into the barren side yard together, and hustle over the house. You make to peer in through a window, but Scott pulls you back. "Don't be an ass," he hisses. "You won't be able to see in, and anyone inside will be able to see you."
"So what's your plan?" you ask.
"We just go in. We'll try the front door first."
"It'll be locked!"
He gives you another look. "And if it is, we'll find another way inside. If it isn't locked, that means someone is home, and we'll beat a retreat." He turns away, and you make a face at back.
The front door is, in fact, locked, so you make a circuit of the house. There are two other entrances, one into what through the windows looks like a kitchen, and the other through a pair of French doors into the library. Back where you started, Scott cranes his neck and stares up at the house a moment before tugging you into making a second circuit.
"Okay, we're going to have to break something when we go in," he says after you've made that second trip around the house. "How are you at climbing trees?"
"I'm okay at it. I mean," you add, "it's been, like, ten years since I climbed one, but I was pretty good when I used to."
Scott snorts. "You were also, like six years old and you were a lot smaller. But that tree on the other side of the house—"
It was the only piece of living vegetation in the yard, a single tree, standing near the house, beside a stone shed. Scott tells you of something you didn't notice: a single branch snarled out from the trunk, ending near a window in the upper story. "We could bust in through there," he says, "if you can still skinny up a tree."
You shrug.
"Or," Scott continues, "we go in through the basement."
"What basement?"
"Here." He leads you past the French doors and the patio they open onto, to point to a single window that peeps out at ground level. The panes are dark and grimy. "We can try busting in through there," Scott says.
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