The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Spencer for Hire

Previously: "The Taming of a Shrew" 

It won't occur to you until much later that you have deeper motive for asking Mrs. Matthias to help you hijack the brother of the girl she's going to be impersonating. Right now you are just looking for a plausible identity that can get you back into circulation pretty quickly.

"So, those guys who helped you, uh, pick Leslie," you say. But Mrs. Matthias is in some kind of reverie and continues to stare down at her cell phone. "Hey," you say. She looks up at you with a start; and there's a look in her eye like she's not sure she's ever seen you before.

"Those guys who helped you pick Leslie," you repeat. "You know that they're, uh, gonna be getting themselves some new lives too. Right?"

"Hmm?" Then she shakes herself, and smiles at you until her dimples show. "Yeah, we talked about that. Some of the guys they've picked out for themselves are really cute." Her dimples deepen. "But some of those guys are pretty cute themselves."

"Yeah, okay. Well, I, uh—"

You break off. Mrs. Matthias is now staring at you with a slightly hungry look. Is she thinking that you're pretty cute yourself?

"So, I've got this friend," you begin again. "He, uh, wasn't with Joe and them tonight, but he's also supposed to be, uh, getting himself a new situation."

"Uh huh?"

"Well, you said that Lindsay has a brother. Spencer? I know him, he's actually a friend of Dane's."

Her eyebrows go up. "Really."

"Yeah. So I was thinking, if my friend could be Spencer, then he could hang out with me, 'cos I'd be, uh, being Dane, you know." You feel yourself starting to tremble. It's very weird talking to a guy's mother about turning yourself into her son. "Also, you know, if he was Spencer, then he could help you get Leslie. 'Cos he's her brother."

Her eyes widen. "That would be perfect!"

"You wouldn't have a problem with that?"

"No! Why would I?" She grabs your arm. "What's your friend's name?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, K- Keith." You almost said Caleb, but that might cause confusion later on.

"How soon could he get to Leslie's brother?"

"Pretty soon," you rashly assure her.

Her fingernails bite into your arm. "That would be terrific, Will. Will? Is it Will?" She beams at you. "It would be so awesome if we did things that way!"

So enthusiastic is she that you almost back out. What is she up to? But you just swallow hard and tell her that you and your friend will be delighted to help.

Then an awkward silence enfolds you. When you can't stand it anymore, you say, "I'll go get my friends now and we'll get out of here."

Her expression turns puzzled, and you feel her eyes on you as you stalk into the back of the trailer. Her puzzlement turns to surprise with a tinge of shock when you reappear with Caleb and golem-Lindsay, and wish her a good night.

Her shock might be worse if she knew that you had Dane's clothes and mask bundled up with you.

* * * * *

You tell Caleb about your plans on the drive to Lindsay's house, and he nearly explodes.

"Spencer Osbourne? Are you nucking futz? The fuck you wanna be Spencer Osbourne for?"

"It's a convenient hide-out," you sputter. "Keeps me close to Dane and to, uh ... you?"

"Me? Since fucking when do I hang out with Spencer Fucking Osbourne?"

"You could start!"

"I could also try to stop a freight train with my face! There's a lot of fucking things I could do, Will, that I wouldn't ever do!"

You fold your arms. "There something wrong with Spencer?" He's kind of skeezy, you'd admit—the kind of guy who hangs out smoking by the portables—but he's not a thug or a lowlife.

"Pah! What isn't wrong with—? Number one—" Caleb takes one hand off the wheel so he can tick off his fingers. "He's going nowhere fast with his life. Jesus, if you're gonna steal someone's life, why don't you make it a life worth stealing? In for a penny, in for a pound, or whatever it is."

"Well, it's not forever," you stammer. Then you're seized by a thought. "And if it's not forever, it makes more sense for it to be someone like that. No one would pay any attention if he came back after a couple of months or whatever, and was all, like, I don't remember the last few months. Right?"

"I'm still not hanging out with him, even if he is really you. The guy's a total dick. That's number two."

"Number two what?"

"Number two on the list of what's wrong with him. He's a dick, Will."

"I don't know him that well," you confess.

"Well I do! I sat next to him in three classes my sophomore year, and he spent the whole year inventing nicknames for me."

"You never— Wait!" You snap your fingers. "Was he the one who got people to start calling you 'Jojo'?"

Caleb hits you hard in the thigh.

"Fuck!" You rub the spot. "Okay, that was kind of an asshole thing for him to—

"He's a dick, Will, not an asshole."

"Is there a difference?"

"Sure there is! An asshole just smells. But a dick penetrates!"

* * * * *

You talk a little more about Spencer and the nuances of being a dick, a prick, an asshole, and a motherfucker before you pull up to Lindsay's house. You wait there while the golem fetches the grimoire, which Lindsay hadn't destroyed yet. You warn her (it?) to keep her mouth shut about the night's activities; she seethes, but acquiesces. Then you return to the Donna long enough to pack all your things and check out (so you won't chance running into Kim again) and move a block down to the Layzee-Nites. Caleb keeps you company for a little while before leaving for the night. You turn in early, for the stresses of the day have exhausted you.

The next morning you note with satisfaction that Dwayne's car is missing; a glance at the city newspaper's online edition discloses a notice that a car answering its make had been torched in the Layzee-Nite's parking lot; police were investigating. Good luck with that, you smirk, and declare that chapter of your life (not to mention Dwayne Macaulay's) closed.

You're in no hurry to return to school—your impression that Spencer is a slacker who skips most of his classes is probably one reason you picked him—and Dane's return isn't expected to be imminent. So after taking breakfast at the Sunshine Diner (again; hey, it's convenient) you mosey back to your room to look over the grimoire. You're probably not even a twentieth of the way into it, so there are lots more spells to uncover, though in truth you're not sure how many more tricks can be turned with a mask. Maybe the book will culminate in actual body-swapping and not just disguises? But even if you weren't interested in studying the book more deeply, you have nothing else to do.

Alas, you are in for a nasty surprise. The book is damaged—someone tore away part of one of the pages.

It's the page after the spell that details how to make the golem paint that is torn. The top of the page is intact, and it details a list of ingredients, plus one line of what looks like an instruction. But the bottom half of the page, which would have the rest of the instructions and a sigil, is missing.

Bad enough that you can't perform the spell and find out what it does. Worse is that if you can't perform the spell you can't turn the page and get at any of the spells that come afterward. And even though the bottom half of the next spell is visible where the page before it has been torn away, it is a blurry, unreadable mess.

Maybe Lindsay did it, maybe it was her way of stopping anyone from getting any further in the book even without destroying it. You text Caleb on Dane's phone to ask what the deal is; he texts back an hour later saying that he knows about the damage but doesn't know how it came about.

So that leaves the day blown to hell. You entertain yourself with some TV and the internet, then an hour before classes are to let out you text Spencer—whose contact info is in Dane's phone—and (pretending to be Dane) ask him to come out to the Layzee Nites Motel when school is over. Just you, you emphasize. He replies: paranoid much? You: Just careful and just want you. He replies with an LOL emoji and the all-capped SEXY! which alarms you a little.

* * * * *

He's early, too; apparently he was skipping last period, and you barely have time to prep things when there's a machine-gun-like rattle at the door. "Hey Dane," a muffled voice calls through the door, "I'm here and I'm turgid for your sexy ass!" More knocking. You almost rip the door off the hinges when you open it.

Spencer Osbourne blinks at you, and his grin fades a little. Then it lights up again. "Ay, Prescott!" he exclaims. "Wasn't expecting you here." He peers around your head. "The Danester in? I got a text—"

"Yeah, he just stepped out." You haul Spencer into the room. "You're early and he's not back yet."

"I'm never too early for a three-way." His eyes crinkle up as a Joker-like leer stretches across his face. With his arched eyebrows he looks more than a little like a seventeen-year-old Satan. "Didn't know you were into—" He waggles his eyebrows.

Your blood freezes.

"I'm not! And this isn't a, uh—"

"It isn't?" Spencer leans in so close you can feel his breath on your face. "All we're missing is a sheep," he gurgles, "and then it'd be a real—"

That's enough from him. You slam a mind-band onto his forehead, and catch him as he goes cross-eyed and falls.

After hauling him onto the bed you think: I didn't have to be Lindsay. Maybe I don't have to be him.

Next: "The Frenemy of My Friend" 

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