The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

A Stolen Life

Previously: "When Worlds Collide" 

"'Cos I been wanting to give that fucker shit back for the longest fucking time," David Kirkham gloats in answer to your question. You glance over nervously at Gordon, who is hunched over the spell book.

It's after eight, and the three of you are in the basement for that "afterschool" meeting that went sideways, thanks to the detention you forgot and then other commitments at home. You and Caleb (still in Kirkham's mask, of course) are sitting cross-legged on the conference table while Gordon slouches in that swivel chair he dug out from the back of the basement.

"Maybe you should dial it back a bit," you advise Caleb.

"Dial what back?"

"The act. Come on, it's only us here. You don't gotta impress anyone." Still, you can't help casting another glance back at Gordon, who has been mulishly silent while Caleb relives the fight he had at school with Gordon's friend.

Kirkham rolls the toothpick around in his mouth, then shrugs.

"In that case"—you reach out to pull the toothpick from his mouth, and fling it away—"you don't need that."

He groans and falls onto his side.

"The fuck am I even here for, then?" he sighs. "When I could be off someplace with Mindy McAdams, scratching this itch she's got way up inside her pussy—"

"Shut up."

"Fine. Yo! Black! You finding us anything good in there?"

Gordon looks up at you from under those very level brows.

"It looks like the same ingredients as the last spell," he says. "Except it doesn't need a body. And it doesn't need as much dirt. Only about the same—" He flips back a page. "Yeah, about the same amount as the other spell."

"Then what do you do with it?"

"I haven't got that far yet."

Yes, Gordon is reading the next spell. And the wonder of it is, he is studying it without using a translator.

It was a surprise he had for you when you met up: He had made another mask and brain strip last night, while you and Caleb were at your place. But instead of gluing them together, he took the strip up to school with him, and slapped it onto James Lamont (after first hauling up to the loft). He was looking for a "brain donor" from the AP Latin II class, and since he has a grudge against Lamont anyway (and against his friend Carson Ioeger) he chose Lamont when Lamont came loping out of the classroom.

And now, wearing the band, he is using Lamont's Latin skills to make a free translation of the next spell.

Well, not entirely free. After pulling at his lip for a minute, he does dig his phone out to consult an online translator.

Meanwhile, as he's busy with that, you quiz Caleb about David Kirkham and the life he has taken over.

"Well, it turns out it's not a lot different from my other one," he sighs. He sprawls on the table, propped on an elbow, and every now and then he glances down at his hands or rubs his thigh, as though reminding himself of where he is. "Except I've got a little brother now."

"You mean Kirkham has a little brother." He seems to have mostly relaxed out of his assumed persona, but you want to make sure he stays out of it.

"Yeah." He pulls off his tinted glasses and squeezes the bridge of his nose. Losing the glasses doesn't change his demeanor that much, for Kirkham has a heavy brow over deep-set eyes, which give him the affect of a feral animal glaring out from under cover with deadly intent. He folds and unfolds the arms of his eyeglasses as he talks.

"So, he's got a single mother, and a brother in middle school," he says. "Same age as your brother, I guess. Is Robert in the eighth grade? Yeah, so is Tad. But his mom's sending Tad away, though. Money's tight."

"Where's she sending him?" You can't imagine money in any family being so tight that someone would have to be "sent away," and though Robert can be a pain, it would nearly wreck you if your parents had to "send him away" because they didn't have enough money to support all four of you.

"To his grandmother. She lives up in Adaberg, just outside it, on a farm. David and his brother spent last summer there for the same reason, so his mom could save up some money." His expression tightens. "Guess they spent their way through it."

"What's she do? For a living, I mean."

"She's a nurse at an urgent care clinic." Then his brow furrows. "Now, hang on. The money from that can't be that bad," he muses. Then he shrugs. "I dunno. Maybe she's got medical school debts."

"What happened to his dad?"

"I dunno. He doesn't know. He never knew his dad, doesn't remember him, never asked." His expression darkens as he pulls at his nose. "Guess he was just some fucker who knocked up his mom and then took off."

Which would be worse than what Caleb's own dad did.

"But the pisser of it is, Will, this motherfucker is gonna pull himself out of it. He's bound to. He's too fucking smart and too fucking determined not to. Fuck! It makes me realize how fucking much I've been slacking, and I feel like I've been working my ass off!"

"What makes you say that?"

"For a start—" He ticks off his fingers. "He's taking two AP math classes and an AP Physics class, and he's acing all of them. I mean, I'm in the same calculus and physics classes as him, but he's getting better grades than me. Plus, he's in the school orchestra. Plays the fucking cello."

Gordon pipes up from the other side of the basement. "You didn't know that?"

"No I didn't! I found out about it last night when I was checking his texts, but— He's taking lessons from a university professor! Guy's telling Kirkham he could be a pro! So he's in the school chamber orchestra, not just the regular orchestra, and he's in a string quartet that him and Nathan Cruz put together. They play gigs for money."

"And he sells weed," you dryly add.

"Well, he doesn't sell, not exactly. Chen gives him a few grams he can do whatever he wants with. He smokes some it, sells some of it to guys if they ask him, but he doesn't push any. He does help Chen push some, and he rides Mendoza and the other guys that Chen uses to push the stuff. Fuck!" He laughs, and slides his glasses back on. "I hauled Tanner Evans out behind the music annex today, and pounded him double a couple of times. Fucker still hasn't sold his quota for the month, and a new batch is s'posed to come in in a day or two. I told him I'd make him buy it and eat it if he didn't move what he had left." He slides a new toothpick into his mouth and grins around it.

And that completes the return of David Kirkham. You turn back to Gordon to ask him what he's found.

* * * * *

With all the ingredients on hand, it takes only a few minutes to complete the spell. The powders, liquids and dirt go into a bowl set on the sigil and are set on fire. They burn only a minute or so, creating in a bowl of a goopy paste the same color as the rock-monsters you've already made. After that, you paint the inside of Gordon's mask until the surface is coated, then push a hank of his hair—it's his turn to make a contribution, given that you and Caleb have used your hair in earlier spells—into and set it on fire. This results in the characteristic purple flash of smoke, and then the inner surface of the mask is a glossy off-white color. But Gordon's name still seems to float above the surface.

Setting the mask on the book unlocks the page, and the three of you gather round to read the continuation of the spell, to find out what it does.

Caleb winds up being the one to understand and explain it. It appears, he says, that Gordon's mask, if placed on someone, will transform that person into a copy of Gordon: same as before. But the result will be a doppelganger under Gordon's control, that he can order around the way Caleb can order his doppelganger around. Then, when the mask is removed, it will restore the person to the state they were before.

"And the genius of it is," Caleb concludes, "that the fucker we put the mask on won't remember what was going on after we take it off him. If he does, it's a design flaw."

"Whaddayou mean?"

"So, here's you can do with it." He is holding Gordon's mask, and he mimes pushing it onto your face. "Gordon uses it to turn you into him, only you, the new Gordon Black, have to do what Gordon says. But he's got a mask of you, okay? So he puts on that mask and turns himself into you. Now he's you, and also he's gotten rid of you so there's not Will Prescotts running around. And he's left a copy of himself behind so he hasn't disappeared. Fuck, it's practically like a body swap. But it's the genius part that really sells it.

"The genius part?"

"You have to act like Gordon when you're wearing the mask, and you have to do what he says. But when you take the mask off, you don't remember nothing. That way there's no evidence of after the masks come off. Things go back to normal."

He turns the mask over and over in his hands, and muses, "You could use these things to steal someone's life, or just borrow it for a little while, and no one 'cept you would ever know what you did."

An uneasy silence falls over the basement.

Then Gordon takes the mask from Caleb.

"I gotta get back to your place," he says quietly. "I got homework I gotta do."

"That's fine," Caleb says. "Me and Will can hang out." His nose quivers slightly as he eyes you from behind his shades.

* To hang out with Caleb: "The Temptation To Be Another" 
* To go with Gordon: "The Temptation To Be What Another Wants" 
* To go back to your place: "The Temptation To Not Be Yourself" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"