The idea of dealing with Lucy’s double once and for all is tempting, but Blackwell seems to be watching her closely. You figure it’s not a good idea to be so close – you already tempted fate once when Blackwell ignored you – and you are about to run, when your mind returns to the satchel.
The Libra wasn’t at Blackwell’s house. What if it’s in his office? The satchel seems large enough for a book of that kind, and this could do the ultimate damage.
You make a quick check of his office, wary that Blackwell might return at any moment. The books on his office shelves look to be of the mundane kind, so you concentrate on the satchel. As you peep inside it, your heart leaps. It contains a single book!
It’s not the book you got at the used-book store, but it's bound in crumbling leather. Could it be the book he used to duplicate Lucy? You pull it out, and scamper from Blackwell's office before he can return.
Back in your truck, away from the college, you stop off in a strip center parking lot to examine your prize.
You are very careful in handling it, for although the cover isn't as fragile as you'd feared, it looks very old. It appears to be hand-written, and composed on parchment, not paper. The first few chapters have no illustrations, but your heart leaps when you read forward and find it contains some simple sigils. You study the text around these, and realize to your delight that it is exactly what you went up to the library to find: a primer on the theory and practice of sigil making!
Now you flip through the book eagerly, looking for anything related to the sigil or symbols that unfolded in your dream. But eventually hunger and a fear of being discovered lead you to drive off. You tuck the book into your bag and return to the basement, to catch up with Scott and Lucy.
--
"Lucy?" you call out as you enter the basement. "It’s me, Will! I’m coming in!" You pause at the head of the stairs when no one answers. "Put the crowbar down, Lucy! I don't want you accidentally braining me with it!"
Still no answer. Where are they? "Scott?" you call.
There's a sound of movement below, and a stranger steps out from behind a bookcase to grin up at you. "Hey Will!" he says.
In a flash, you're overwhelmed by a half-dozen thoughts, each more terrifying than the last. You've been discovered! It's the maintenance crew from the community center! It's the police! It's the FBI!
No, it's Blackwell! One of his duplicates followed you and he's captured Scott and Lucy and now he's going to get you!
"Will?" the guy says. He frowns with alarm as you trip and fall onto your ass at the top of the stairs.
"D-do I know you?" you stammer.
"Will, it's me!" he says. "It's—"
Another voice sounds. "It's Taylor!" Lucy steps out to join him. She embraces him from behind with one arm.
Your jaw falls open.
For a moment you still fear it's a trap, because you just got back from the university where you saw another "Lucy." But this is the real one, the dirty and sallow one. She's as dirty and sallow as ever, but she looks a lot happier as she hugs Scott from behind.
But it isn't Scott anymore.
He's as big as Scott, unless he's actually bigger, with short, curly blond hair and a broad face. His eyes slope lazily down at the corners, and his smile is very easy. There is something very familiar about him, like you've seen him before. But the real identifiers are his clothes. He's wearing the same vintage Iron Maiden t-shirt that Scott was wearing when you parted from him, and he's also wearing the same battered, tan ball cap.
"Oh, Jesus!" you exclaim, and climb back onto your wobbling feet. "Scott? I mean— Taylor?" The guy grins again, and holds out his arms as though to say Ta-da! "You got the mask off?"
"Yeah! Turns out it's all in the way you have to hold your hands." He lays a hand across his forehead, much higher than where you had been grabbing him. "It took us awhile—it was Lucy who got it off me—but we did it!"
"It knocked him out cold," Lucy says. "I thought he was dead! I almost called 911."
You blink hard and shake your head, trying to get used to the idea that Scott Bickelmeir is gone and this ... stranger ... has appeared in his place. Even his voice is different, you think.
"That's great," you tell him, feeling breathless with astonishment. "I'm sorry I couldn't figure out earlier how to get it off you." You can't help suspecting, though, that Scott—er, Taylor,—would have been a lot more patient with Lucy bending over him, touching his face, than he was with you. "So what now?" you ask.
His expression tightens, and he glances over at Lucy.
"I don't know," he says in a resigned tone. "I've just been trying to take it one step at a time. I can't go back to my own life, you know." A wistful look comes into his eyes. "Taylor Mitchell is dead."
A silence fills the room. You think on what he says. Could you handle it if your family thought you were dead when you weren't, and if you couldn't go back to tell them you were alright?
Then Taylor smiles again.
"But at least I feel I can breathe again," he says. "You have no idea what it is to be trapped under someone else’s face, Will, unable to be yourself. I wouldn’t wish this even on my worst enemy."
He is different, you think. Not nearly as high-strung or neurotic as Scott. Was it just frustration at being trapped as Scott that made him so difficult to be around before? Is it just relief now that his nightmare is over? Or is it a genuine change, from being Scott Bickelmeir to being Taylor Mitchell?
"So it's not over, not by a long shot," Taylor continues. He puts his arm around Lucy's waist and pulls her to him. "I'll have to put that mask on again, go back to being Scott. But at least I can get it off when I want to. And Blackwell still has his books. We've got to get Lucy back to her family, and stop him."
His words bring back your adventure. "About that," you say as you reach into your bag. You draw out the book you stole from the professor, and hold it out.
"The book!" Lucy exclaims. "You found it?" Taylor's jaw falls open, and his eyes shine.
"Er, no, not exactly," you tell them. "It's a different book, one I got out of his university office when he wasn't looking. But I think it can help us figure out that notebook we got off him. So that's a plus."
You glance back up the stairs. "So I should go get to work on it," you continue. "I just stopped by to tell you what I found. Between this book and his notes, I think we got a pretty good chance of making our own copy of the spell book."
You turn to go, but you're stopped by a sharp word from Lucy. "What?" she says.
"I'm going to go work on his notes for the spells," you repeat.
"Why?" she asks, stepping around Taylor to frown at you.
"Because ... Well, if we can't get his copies away from Blackwell, at least we can make our own—"
"Why do we need our own copies of the spells?" Lucy demands. Her eyes have hardened. "Jesus, Will, what are you planning?"
You stare at her, dumbfounded. Then you turn to Taylor. "Hey man," you ask, "can you explain to your— to Lucy," you correct yourself before you can call her your girlfriend, "that we need Blackwell's books to, uh—?"
The words die on your lips, for Taylor is giving you the same look that Lucy is. "To do what, exactly, Will?" he says.
"You know we were trying to get those books away from him!" you remind him.
"Yes," Taylor says. "We're trying to get the books away from Blackwell. But not because we wanted them for ourselves. Right, Will?"
Now you really are dumbfounded. Wasn't Taylor the one who was so hot to get ahold of the books that he almost got you caught back at the villa?
Then it hits you: He wanted to get the book back because he thought it was the only way of getting the mask off himself. Now that he's done that, what does he want the book for?
And now that you think about it, what do you want it for?
"But don't we need to figure out the spells?" you insist. "To figure out how to stop Blackwell? If he can duplicate people—"
You snap your fingers at Lucy.
"Your clone, your evil double! I saw her up at the university! She was with Blackwell in his office. Don't we need to figure out how he made her, how he controls her, if we're going to get rid of her?"
Lucy pales, and exchanges a terrified glance with Taylor. He takes her hand, and squeezes it.
"I see your point, Will," he says. "But do we need to make up a spell or anything like that to deal with her? Can't we just go pick her up, bring her back here? If we can get her out of the way, then Lucy can get her life back."
"Except then Blackwell can just capture her again," you point out.
Taylor frowns at the ground and kicks at it, echoing the "Scott" you're more familiar with. You've scored a point with him, you can tell.
But he's a scored a point with you. You don't need to master the magic of the masks to kidnap Lucy's duplicate and steal Blackwell's books.
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
