Chapter #7Interrogations and Revelations by: Seuzz   "Just relax and answer my questions," Joe says. "What's your name?"
"William Martin Prescott." You surprise yourself with the use of your full name.
"Age?"
"Twenty-three."
"Where do you work?"
"I'm doing some freelance programming for my dad."
"What did you do to Aubrey Blackwell," Frank asks.
"Nothing that I know of."
Joe sighs. "How long did you work for him?"
"I never worked for him."
"Okay, then with him," Joe says impatiently.
"Never!"
Joe makes a face, and those bands tighten about your torso. "Did you know him?"
"I took a class from him. Fucking waste of time."
"Why's that?"
"It was a bullshit class on myth and magic."
"What was bullshit about it?" Joe's tone turns satirical.
"It was about magic," you retort. "You know. Bullshit."
He stares at you, then throws his head back in a howl of laugher. "Will Prescott calling magic a lot of bullshit! This is worth it just to hear that!"
"You're wasting breath, Joe--"
"And I got plenty to waste, Frank. Keep that temper leashed. Okay, Will, let's try a different angle. You remember a guy named James Black? This woulda been when you were a senior in high school."
You've done your best to put high school behind you; you only really remember your good friends and the worst of the bullies. "No."
"Hmm. What about Adam Karter? No?" He runs a tongue over his lower lip, and a gleam comes into his eye. "You ever suffer any blank spots, Will?"
"Like what?"
"Any period of your life, especially in high school when you can't remember what happened?"
You've not thought of that weird blank spot in a long time. It was your senior year, two months that are completely unaccounted for in your own mind. Before you can answer, Frank interrupts. "That's a leading question, Joe."
"He's not taking us anywhere as it is, Frank."
"Yeah, there is this one spot," you say. "When I was a senior I was in a car accident. A hit and run. It knocked me out and gave me some amnesia or something. I could never remember the start of school."
"What months?"
"September, October, around in there."
"What do people say you were doing then?"
"Going to school. Being stupid. Nothing special I should have remembered."
Frank loudly snorts.
"Anything special about this hit and run," Joe asks.
"Uh--" Your gut roils, and words tumble out unbidden. "It was in the middle of the night and I was a couple of blocks from home and I was totally naked when it happened."
Joe blinks hard and takes another long drag on the cigarette. "Sounds like truth, Frank," he says.
"Just more bullshit."
"No, I could feel it. He didn't want to say that, and he said it anyway." He peers at you searchingly. "That's a very interesting incident, at a very interesting time in your life," he says softly.
"Let's see if he sticks to it after I've stuck his head through the ceiling," Frank says.
"Shut up," Joe says with sudden heat. "Stop being an ass. We've both been asses, it suddenly occurs to me. Too many assumptions."
"We know what happened to us--"
"We know what it looked like, Frank. But we've forgotten that there were masks involved."
"You might have forgotten," Frank says, and his voice seethes. "I'm not likely to."
"We both have. We know that someone who looked like Will Prescott lured us here to Blackwell's. But Prescott says it wasn't him. Don't you, Prescott?"
"If I knew what you were talking about, I might deny it," you say.
"You didn't know Blackwell when you were a high school senior? Then you'd deny it." Joe stands up. "I think it was someone else in a Prescott mask."
Frank stares at you, and pales a little. "Fuck."
"Exactly. Trail's dead, unless we risk putting on Blackwell's mask."
"We just got out from under Black's and Karter's," Frank says.
"You chicken, Frank? Buh-gawk, buh-gawk!"
"Bring it in, and I'll show you--"
"I'm already dressed for the part." Joe sprints from the room.
You look up fearfully at Frank. His expression grows pinched. "Look, Prescott," he says. "If you're bullshitting us, you're not getting out of here alive. If you're not--" He relaxes a little, and those bonds fall away from you. "Then I'm going to give you the mother of all apologies."
You slowly get up, then fall back. You're trembling all over. You crawl over to a chair and lift yourself into it. You rest your arms and head on a desk.
But you've not long to gather yourself before you get another shock.
Joe comes back in and sits opposite you. He holds something up.
It's a mask, bluish-white in color, an oval about the size of a face. There are bumps and ridges where a brow and nose and lips would be, but there are no eye sockets. Light plays oddly over its surface. "Recognize this," he asks.
"No," you croak.
"Well, maybe you'll recognize the motherfucker when I put it on." He lifts it to face, and falls backwards in the chair.
His head seems to waver and blur, and his face is a featureless blob when his hands fall away. The illusion lasts only a moment. Then--
It's Aubrey Blackwell sitting opposite you. You remember that loathsome face. The fat cheeks with the nasty tangle of moustache and goatee. The bald pate. His eyes are closed, and he breathes softly.
You rear back. Reality feels like it is cracking.
"Steady there, Prescott," Frank says. He reaches over to shake the professor by the shoulder. Blackwell continues to snore. Frank shakes him harder. Still no response.
Suddenly, his whole head snaps to the side, and his eyes spring open. He clutches his cheek with a groan. "Son of a bitch," he yells.
"Who's calling me dirty names," Frank demands.
"I am, Frank," Blackwell says. "Ugh. It's like spiders and snakes inside this jelly roll." He presses his hands to an enormous gut, and grimaces. "I'm beginning to wish you'd put it on."
"How long am I going to have to wait before we learn anything?"
"Awhile, Frank. It doesn't all come at once." Blackwell makes a face and settles back with a deep sigh.
You finally find your strength and stumble out of your chair, knocking it over, staring in horror at--
Frank puts a strong hand on your shoulder. "Back in your seat. This isn't something you've never seen before."
"I'm afraid it is," Blackwell rumbles. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Too bad you don't like cock, Frank, because you're going to have to suck off Prescott long and hard in order to make things up to him."
You keep your eyes locked on the monstrosity in the other chair, but you feel a tremble pass through Frank's hand.
* * * * *
"It was Delp," Blackwell says after a long pause. "Braydon Delp, not Prescott."
"Who's this Delp fucker," Frank asks.
"One of Prescott's classmates. He was the one working with Blackwell. He was using Prescott as one of his disguises, had him hidden the way he hid us. Prescott was already a victim by then."
"But he let Prescott go?"
"Obviously. I don't know when." He thinks very long and hard before shaking his head. "I also don't know when he turned on the professor, turned him into a golem. It was so subtle that the golem didn't even catch on. He thought he was the real Blackwell. He noticed that his ability to execute spells had evaporated. It worried him, finally panicked him, but he kept on trying. But it's been several years. Delp is long gone."
"You can't guess why he let Prescott go?"
"No. He would have kept us under wraps, though. He knew who we were, what we were. He might have--" He swallows. "He might have thought he could go back to Olympia and fool the others, do the same thing to--"
Frank wheels around. "We have to call Dad. We have to warn him--"
"It's way too late for that, Frank! If he tried that, it's probably over, one way or the other, a long time ago."
"We can't just sit here--"
"So we go back home, but carefully, scout it out, see what we see."
Frank pounds his fist into his hand. His eye falls on you. "What do we do about Prescott?"
"Apologize to him, deeply and profusely," Blackwell says.
"But what he's seen, what we've told him. What's he's just listened to us saying."
"What are you suggesting, Frank?" Blackwell archly asks. "Putting him in the kind of place where Delp once had him?"
Frank flushes. "No. But you're supposed to be the smart one. You see the problem. You got any ideas?"
Blackwell looks at you. You rear back as his expression turns cagey. "Maybe there isn't a problem," he says. "He doesn't understand what's going on. Look at him. And what could he tell people? What could they believe? And even if they did, he doesn't know who we are, so who could he tell them to go looking for? "
Frank mulls this, turns to you. "You heard the man, Prescott. Beat it."
"Nice apology, bro," Blackwell says.
"Alright. Sorry for the mix up, Prescott. No hard feelings. Now beat it."
"Would Margaret accept that from you?" Blackwell's tone turns very acidic. "A proper apology has got to include an explanation. Unless--" He turns to you. "Unless Prescott would prefer not knowing anything about it all."
He raises a querying eyebrow.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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