This choice: It's probably too late for that • Go Back...Chapter #8The Master and Mistress of Magic by: Seuzz   Caleb is waiting when you arrive. "You get things solved?" you ask.
"Probably," he grins. "But not the way Chelsea is expecting." You don't like the implication, and fold your arms. "The solution, if there is one, comes after the next spell in the book," he says, tapping its cover. "Back me up when we meet her. Tell her that we need to execute the next spell. We actually do. There's no going further in the book if we don't."
He continues to grin when you ask what the next spell does. "Okay, those things that Gordon made, that we found and left at the quarry?" he says. "I studied the spells that made them. Best way to describe them is that they're golems."
"You mean those clay robot-like things," you ask, drawing as best you can on your memory of your old sword-and-sorcery role-playing days.
He snorts. "Well, yeah, if that's the best you can come up with. Except these golems can't move on their own. You have to put a mask on them."
"What happens then?"
"They come to life. They turn into the person whose image is in the mask. But the golem is under the control of the magician who made them. It's a way of making a slave. Like, you make this doppelganger of someone, by getting a copy of them into a mask, and then you put it on the golem. Abraca-presto, you've got a duplicate of that person, and that duplicate has to obey your orders."
"What happens to person that they're duplicating," you ask, dreading the answer.
He shrugs. "Whatever you want, I guess. If you're, like, super unethical …" He trails off. "Or maybe you just keep the duplicate in a secret place so you can have fun with … it."
"So Gordon is a golem now?" you ask, and Caleb nods. "What's the other spell do? The one that just makes that generic mannequin thing, like Gordon made?"
"Same thing. It's just that one of the spells uses a lot of cemetery dirt to make the golem. The other one uses a live person." He sucks on his upper lip. "You were asking about what happens to the person who's being duplicated," he says quietly. "Maybe that's your answer. You get them out of the way by turning them into a--"
"Oh, Christ!" You shake your head. "And Gordon did it to himself."
"Yeah. Neat, right? So, that's the way bring Gordon back. Put that mask of him onto one of the golems. Maybe if you put it onto the Gordon-golem, it will totally change him back."
"So that's what we tell Chelsea. Hang on, I thought you said there wasn't a way to change him back unless--"
You stop short, as Caleb is shaking his head. "Come on," he says. "We don't tell her what I just told you, not unless we have to. And if we use this next spell on her, we won't have to."
"'Use it on her'?" you echo. "Oh, God."
"This next spell," he starts, and leans over the table to continue talking more furtively, "is for a special kind of sealant that you put into a mask. It actually uses the same stuff that you use to make a golem. So what I'm thinking it does, is that it's kind of like a booby-trap. You put it into a mask, and then someone puts the mask on, and it turns the mask wearer into a golem."
You pinch the bridge of your nose. "Look, give me a concrete example."
"Okay." He grins. "There are two ways of doing it, it seems to me. First way, is that we convince Chelsea to make a mask of herself. Shut up," he says as you snort. "This is just an example. Maybe. She makes a copy of herself in a mask. Then we slip this sealant into it. She puts on the mask again. But when she puts it on, underneath the mask, she turns into a golem. On the outside, it still looks like Chelsea. Still acts like her, too. But she'd be our slave. Because of the sealant inside the mask. So, Chelsea is still around, but she's our slave." He grips the side of the table, and the tendons in his neck stick out. "Can you imagine it, dude, having Chelsea Cooper as our slave?"
You almost swallow your tongue. Yeah, that would be something and a half. Several somethings and multiple halves. "Yeah, but talking Chelsea into putting a mask of herself on--twice, even!"
"Well, there's the other way. We get that sealant inside Gordon's mask. She puts it back on, and bam! Gordon's back, but now he's our slave, and we don't have to worry about him or Chelsea."
He should have saved the first idea--Chelsea as your slave--for last. The way he just put it--"We don't have to worry about him or Chelsea"--has brought you up short. Why should you worry about them? Gordon did things to himself, and Chelsea has already promised to be grateful if you bring him back. Why in the world is Caleb treating them like a threat?
The answer is there on his face: Lust. An understandable emotion. But he tried getting himself a Gordon-disguise so he could get to Chelsea, and he's talking about making her into a slave. He has inadvertently just reinforced your own implicit decision not to double-cross Chelsea.
"No," you calmly say. "Let's just play things straight. Let's help her get Gordon back to normal--whatever passes for normal with him--and then let's get rid of the book before anything worse happens."
"Are you fucking kidding?" he exclaims.
"No, I'm not. And if you don't tell Chelsea what you told me--about the golems and the new spell and everything--I will." You fold your arms and stare at him.
He stares back. Then with another oath he gives up.
* * * * *
The meeting with Chelsea goes as well as can be expected. Caleb grumbles his way through his explanations, and you prod him along when he seems to hang back. Naturally, nothing gets said about his ulterior schemes. Chelsea, still dressed up as Gordon, listens intently in a hulking kind of way. When Caleb is done, she crouches down next to the golems. "Yeah, okay, so if I get what you're saying," she says, "we can use this mask and these golem things to kind of bring him back." She raps on her boyfriend's torso with a knuckle. "Close enough so no one will notice, I guess." She looks up. "What about the next spell in the book? I mean, the one after the one with that … sealant stuff?"
"I don't know," Caleb says. "See, you have to actually perform a spell before you can progress. There's some kind of magic on the book. Each page is locked until you perform the spell. Then you can turn the page and get a new spell."
"So we have to try this sealant thing?"
Caleb nods, and shoots you a sidelong glance. You notice, but it doesn't seem like Chelsea does. She just nods and stands up again. "Okay, you've done what you could for now. Lemme have the book back."
"Well, hang on a moment," Caleb starts to protest.
"Hand it over, fuckface," Chelsea says in a hard voice, and advances on Caleb. He flinches and hands it over. Chelsea glances down at it briefly. "You can get lost now. I'll find you at school on Monday. So don't skip or anything."
Caleb looks like he wants to argue, but you drag him away. Back in your truck, he punches the dashboard. "Well, I hope you're happy," he snarls. "She's as crazy as Gordon. Or she's being crazy like him. And she's got the book again and she knows everything we do. If we wind up like Gordon back there, I hope I have time to say 'I told you so' before it happens."
You don't argue. You're beginning to feel like he'll have just that chance.
* * * * *
You and he spend the rest of the weekend talking listlessly about what might happen and what you might do about it, but you can't really see your way around. So when Monday comes you trudge onto the school grounds with a sense of foreboding. Whatever else she has planned, you note that Chelsea has put Caleb's insights to use: You glimpse two people who look like Chelsea and Gordon moving through the hallways, acting like normal, which means they are hugging each other tightly while Gordon shoves the small fry out of the way and Chelsea grins and prattles. You wonder which is Chelsea and which is the golem.
The answer comes at lunch time, when you and Caleb turn from your lockers to find Gordon gazing down at you with a disgusted smirk on his face. "I was told to come find you two," he says. "You're having lunch with me and Chels. Don't you feel special?" You and Caleb exchange a nervous glance, and dutifully follow.
"Lunch" is just a conference in the back one of the deserted biology labs; Mr. Cash busies himself up front with whatever the hell teachers do when not teaching. Still, your group keeps voices low.
Chelsea looks perky and radiant. "So, I've been thinking about what you told me on Saturday," she says, and pauses to give Gordon's arm a tender, knowing squeeze. "It sounds like it's going to take awhile to get a cure. We're going to have to meet regularly, and it's going to be awkward if we have to keep hiding away like this." The jerk of her chin takes in the classroom.
"Ashamed to be seen with us, huh?" Caleb mutters.
She ignores him. "Also, we need to get past that one spell, so we need to do that. I'm thinking we can kill both birds with one stone. Gordon?"
At her prodding, he hikes his backpack onto a lab table and opens it. Peering inside, you can see a couple of bluish-white objects. "Those are masks," Caleb says hollowly.
"Exactly," Chelsea says, and dimples. "One of you gets to be Jonas Martin. The other gets to be Cara Fuhrman." She looks directly at you. "Which do you want to be, Will?"  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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