The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Armed to Strike from the Shadows

Previously: "You or Blackwell?" 

It is, you quickly realize, a classic no-brainer. By taking Melody Weiss's place, you will be safely hidden from Professor Blackwell. And it seems hardly likely that he will be able to do anything bad to the magical robot that you leave in your place.

It is then the work of just fifteen minutes to copy yourself into the mask that the golem has recently finished polishing. The metal strip will take longer to complete, so you take it home with you to work on.

As for Melody, you have to leave her behind. She will have no plans for the evening, so there's no reason anyone will miss her before morning.

* * * * *

You're up early the next morning, trembling with excitement—almost with a suppressed hysteria—as you prepare for the switch. Though you have impersonated Melody briefly already, today brings something altogether new and different. You will become Melody Weiss, assuming her identity and life in full, and with no obvious end in sight. Only when you have made yourself safe from Professor Blackwell will you be able to contemplate becoming "Will Prescott" again.

By nine o'clock you are at the old school; by nine-fifteen you are staring palely at a teenage boy who looks exactly like you, and who regards you back with the same look of wary fear; and by nine-thirty you are lifting yourself off the table and looking around for the clothes that you pulled off Melody Weiss, so that you can pull them onto your own body.

The first switch was by far the most unnerving. You almost dropped the mask a couple of times as you glued the newly-made metal strip (one now encoded with your memories and personalities) into the mask, and sealed the combo up. Then, dreading the possibility that the figure that awakes would be Melody Weiss, but inhabiting a copy of your body, you set the mask onto the golem that you made yesterday. The white statue vanished in the blink of an eye, and the naked, skinny figure of a teenage boy appeared. He turned his head to blink in puzzlement at you, then reared up in surprise.

"Oh, Jesus," he gasped.

"What's your name?" you croaked at him.

"My name? You know my— Will," he said with a sour grimace. "Will Prescott. Boss."

"You know what's going on?"

"Yeah, yeah." He sat up, his expression one of irritation and some little fear. He sighed when you asked him to explain the situation, and told you that he was a golem who was going to take your place while you took the place of Melody Weiss. "I guess she's somewhere under here, huh?" he said as he poked at his narrow chest. He grumbled to himself as, on your orders, he began to dress in the clothes that you pulled off and handed to him.

He seemed so very much up to speed that he had only one question for you after he was dressed. "What do I do about ... that?" He pointed at the other golem, the one that looks exactly like your cousin but acts exactly like you. It had been watching all this while hanging back in a corner.

"Just work with it," you told him. "If I have any work for you guys, I'll let you know. Otherwise, just ... You know. Hang loose, do your job being me. Uh, keep out of trouble—"

"Try not to get killed by a black magician," the other you said sarcastically.

"Stay away from other people," you continued. "You know, don't go off with anyone—and I mean anyone—alone. Not even in groups, 'cos, you know, one of them might then try to get you alone."

"No social life," he sighed. "Like that'll be a change. You know, I'm supposed to be your decoy, boss, maybe I should try to draw a little fire— Oh, what am I saying?"

You ended by reiterating that he should do his best to stay safe. For though he isn't you, you have no idea what tricks the professor knows that could draw dangerous information out of your doppelganger.

Then, after dismissing him, you laid out on the table and put Melody's mask on.

Though this was a change more intimate, by comparison with the other it rolled off your back. You have been in the mask before, so it wasn't a great shock. You felt nothing worse, in fact, than a rolling giddiness as you recalled anew that this was going to be you now. I am Melody Weiss, you told yourself as you looked down at your naked body, past the small boobs and flabby tummy to the legs and bare feet. I don't just look like her, I'm going to be her. Wear her clothes, sleep in her bed, take her classes, talk to her friends.

What friends? the mordant reply came back. Melody really only has time and attention for her studies.

"Hold down the fort," you told the remaining golem as you tucked the cotton blouse—a riot of colors and patterns, like a Hawaiian shirt—into the top of your jeans. "Just finish that last mask for now. I'll send, uh, the other guy to check on it in a day or two." The golem nodded and said nothing, even as it looked you up and down.

Then you went out, got in Melody's car, and drove back to campus.

* * * * *

"Fuck! Why are you always in the way?" Hailey Green yells as she pushes down the stairs past you. She is taking them two at a time in her rush.

You are almost too shocked to retort. But as Hailey is rounding the landing on the next leg down, you catch her with a yell: "I'm sorry to hear about your friend Lucy!"

Hailey catches herself and looks up sharply at you. Her expression is haggard.

Hailey Green is one of the college cheerleaders, a friend of Lucy Vredenburg's. She has long, soft brown hair, green eyes, and teeth so white against her tanned face that they look fake. Those blinding choppers are showing now as she stares back up at you.

For a moment, she says nothing. Then she looks down, and resumes her descent of the stairs, but now at a more sedate pace. She is quickly out of sight, even as you hear her thumping the rest of the way down the stairwell. You resume your own climb up to the floor where your—Melody's—dorm room is.

It was quick thinking on your part to shout that at her, so quick that you don't even know where it came from. Some combination of your brain with Melody's, probably.

Hailey lives in the same dorm as Melody, and she must be constantly coming and going, for it seems like they are always running into each other in the hallways whenever Melody makes one of her infrequent excursions. Hailey, being pretty and popular and having lots of girlfriends and boyfriends, has never had much time for Melody, but today was the first time that she ever really snapped at her. It's stress, was the charitable thought that instantly came to you. But it was a shot in dark to chalk it up to Lucy's recent death, for though Melody has seen Lucy with Hailey quite often, she didn't know the girl's name and wouldn't have known she had died in a car wreck last Wednesday. You knew it, though, and somehow you put all the pieces together, and shouted the consequence of your deduction, in record time.

Lost in thought about what just happened, you unlock your door and go inside. The place feels musty and unlived in, even after just one night's absence. You take a shower, change into fresh clothes, and push open a window to let in a little air. That's enough, at least, to take the edge off.

Then you sit down with the book.

You brought it with you, of course, not only so you can tackle the next spell, but to keep it close. You grumble after you pore over it and the previous spells, for it turns out that you have all the ingredients that you need for it, but they are all back at the elementary school. So you text your doppelganger with orders to gather up the list of stuff you're sending him, and bring it up to a certain room in Mirren Hall. You fix yourself a little lunch while waiting to hear back from him, and when you get his signal you make the short hike over to where you instructed him to leave it.

Mirren Hall is one of the oldest buildings on campus, with many small nooks and dead ends and passageways that seem like they will lead somewhere interesting before finally looping back to where they started. A year ago Melody found a tiny classroom tucked under a stairwell, which she has made into her own little study corner, as no one ever seems to use it. That is where you sent the golem, and that is where you find the supplies he left, packed in a plastic sack. Thirty minutes later, you have finished the spell—surely some kind of record for you—and have unlocked the next spell. It gives you a shock and the shivers—but also your strongest sense of hope yet—when you read what it does.

It has made a kind of runny paste, like the sealant, which you can apply to the inside of a mask in place of the sealant. But not only will it close up the mask so that it can be worn, if it set on fire inside the mask with a bit of hair, it will cause the wearer of the mask to become enslaved to he whose hair is used in the spell. In this way you can temporarily turn someone else into an obedient golem—moreover, an obedient golem with the form and mind of whomever you have cast inside the mask.

You are all atremble in your room afterward as you think through the possibilities. With a set of such masks, you could make a small army of golems—in any disguise you want—to surround the professor.

You could even transform the professor into an obedient servant of your own.

Next: "The Light of the Planets" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"