The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Third Masketeer

Previously: "Making a Magical Second Impression" 

The moment with Sydney is interrupted by a groan from the table; to your chagrin, she releases you and steps back.

Keith raises his head. "The fuck?" he says. He rubs an eye, then adjusts his pants.

"Caleb?" Sydney says.

The person on the table doesn't answer. "Yo, Tilley," you bark.

"What?"

"Remember who you're supposed to be."

"Fu—?" Then, even in the dark, his face lights up.

"Oh, yeah, Johansson here," he says in a honking imitation of Caleb's voice. "Yo, someone got some calculus homework they need helpin' with?" He sits up, and swings his legs off the table. You fight the urge to face-palm.

Sydney steps up close to him, putting her face almost right up to his. Keith flinches, then catches himself and grins. "Like what you see?" he says.

"It's perfect," Sydney replies after a moment's hesitation. She raises her hand, hesitates, then pinches his nose. "It feels real, too!"

Keith rubs the enormous nose he's inherited from Caleb. "Yeah, feels real on this end, too. Feels real all over, if there's something else you'd like to manhandle." He waggles his eyebrows.

"Okay," you jump in before things can go too far, "we showed her it works, how it works. You can take it off now, Keith."

"No, this is fun," he retorts. "Let's go out and do something." To Sydney: "We can, like, go out do whatever you and Johansson like to do."

"Do you have any more masks?" she asks. "Of anyone else?"

"No, just Caleb. Come on, man," you tell Keith. "That's enough."

"I just got into it!"

"Can I try it out?" Sydney asks.

"What?" The exclamation comes from both you and Keith, simultaneously.

She returns you both a knowing smirk. "I want to try it out," she says. "Or is this something only you guys get to do?"

You can only stammer incoherently—"You, you, uh, guh?"—but Keith has greater presence of mind.

"Sure," he says. "Lemme just get out of it— Um." He sucks in his lips and gives you a look. "I need your help getting out of it, right?"

"Whuh? Oh. Yeah." You sidle up. "Just lay back." He shuts his eyes as you grasp him by the brow and pull.

Your fingers slip off. "It's kind of tricky," you tell Sydney, and grab Keith again. This time, at least, you remember that there's some funky words you have to repeat three times fast as you pull, and this time the mask comes away in your hand, returning Keith his regular features.

"What language was that?" Sydney asks.

"I dunno. Latin or something. Whole book's written in it." You gesture at the burning pile of dirt. "I'd show you, you know, but I don't want to mess up the spell that's workin' out over there."

"Mmm. What else are you going to do with it?" She reaches out to take the mask from you. "What else does the book show you how to do?"

"So far nothing. I mean, there's lots of steps to making a mask. Like, there's making the mask, and there's another spell for sealing it up, and this thing here?" You point to the metal band attached to the inside of the mask. "That's the thing that's got Caleb's memories and stuff in it. You can make it up separately, wear it separately without turning yourself into, you know. Then there's another spell that—" You trail off as Sydney studies the inside of the mask closely. "You know, you don't seem really freaked out by any of this," you observe with a stab of candor that surprises even you.

"Were you freaked out by it?"

"Oh, fuck yeah. I mean," you hastily add as she dimples at you, "I got used to it pretty fast, now it's all like, you know." Your heart, which is beating in your throat, seems to be interfering with your tongue. "But I'm really impressed that you didn't scream or nothing when I showed you."

OH GOD OH GOD YOU DID NOT JUST TELL HER THAT YOU EXPECTED HER TO SCREAM OR SOMETHING!!!

But she only laughs. "I don't scream for anything, Will. I do fine with snakes, for instance."

"Oh wow. 'Cos I don't like snakes."

"Most people don't."

That's the end of the small talk—thank God!—and she asks you a lot of business-like questions about each spell and how each one is useful on its own. You explain, for instance, how you can get someone else's memories and personality inside the metal band just by wearing it alone without changing your appearance, and how you can make up a new physical form by merging different people into a mask before sealing it. She asks questions of her own—like, is it possible to read another person's mind while wearing one of the metal bands, and where a person's own natural parts disappear to while wearing a mask.

She's asking about medical procedures—"Like, can you have your appendix taken out while you're wearing a mask? And will you have your own appendix still when you take the mask off?"—when Keith stirs and wakes. He grimaces sleepily at the two of you, then says, "Thought one of you was gonna put the dingus on."

"We were talking," you tell him.

"I'll need a change of clothes," Sydney says. "Can I put on some of yours?"

You and Keith exchange a glance. Keith says, "Um," but it's your turn to think quickly. "I live just around the corner," you say. "I'll run get some of Caleb's things. The ones I was using when I was, um—"

Only after you're in your truck do you realize you left that dazzling girl alone with Keith.

* * * * *

So you make it a fast trip home. Once you're back you thrust Caleb's clothes at Sydney, then haul Keith upstairs and outside so she can have some privacy while changing.

"Dude!" he wails. "That's the whole reason I wanted her getting into and out of that thing! So we could see her with her clothes off!" He bends next to one of the windows, but you yank him back.

"What did you talk about while I was gone?" you ask.

"Nothin'. I told her you were running things, that I was just helping out. Fuck, I wish you'd'a explained it all to me better so I didn't have to be the derpy guy. Anyway, she was asking all, like, about stuff we could do with the masks, if we were gonna do anything except prank Johansson. Which we should totally get up to, you know." He regards you over a lifted chin. "You don't got the imagination for this, Will. Or maybe the cojones."

"So what would you do with these masks?"

"I 'unno." He jerks his shoulders, then gives you a sidelong look. "Actually, I can think of one thing we could do, and it's the other reason I wanted her putting that thing on." He shudders. "And it sure wasn't 'cos I was missing Johansson."

"Just cut to the chase, man."

"Well, the way I see it, she owes us one. You know." He rolls his tongue around in his cheek and nudges you. "We be lettin' her put on a copy of our friend's body. She should be lettin' us put on a copy of one o' her friends' bodies."

You have to stare at his smirk for a couple of seconds before you get what he's saying. "You mean one of her— Her girl friends?"

"No, Will," he retorts. "One them hairy jocks she's probably sucking off. Course I mean one o' her girlfriends. Jesus!" He mimes fondling a set of prodigious breasts that are invisibly attached to his chest. "Just 'magine having a couple of jugs to play with, a pussy to finger. We should totally tell her she has to score us a copy of one of her friends. Make it her initiation fee."

You're too preoccupied with balancing two conflicting reactions to the image Keith has given you—Whoaw! and Ewwww!—to immediately catch his last words, but you do a double-take at him when you catch up. "Initiation fee?"

"Sure. She's gonna be hanging out with us after this, right? Helping us out? Pfft! You don't think she's just gonna go home and forget about this, forget about us." He nudges you again. "Maybe we should think about bringing in some other chicks as club members. Yeah! Make it their fee they have to copy two of their friends to get in."

"I don't think anyone else is going to be as cool with this as Sydney is."

"No tellin' if you don't try."

"No, let's just keep it the three of us. I don't want word of this getting out. I mean— Fuck! Can you imagine what would happen if, like, the CIA found out about this? Or the Russians or the Chinese or—"

"Yeah, you'd be totally hosed."

"No shit. I— Me?" you shriek. "I'd be hosed? What about you?"

"Forget it, Will, we'll keep it close if you want to." He wheels toward the basement door. "Come on, we should check to see if she's ready to go yet. I hope she isn't."

* * * * *

It's Caleb again on the conference table, still asleep though already dressed, so Sydney must have changed clothes first. She soon wakes up, though, and fights her way through the clutter to a dusty mirror in the corner, where she studies herself with boggling eyes.

"So we're letting you take a test drive of our guy's undercarriage," Keith says with blunt nonchalance while you're still trying to figure out a way to broach the request. "Can you score us a copy of one of your friends?"

"What?" The girl-who-now-looks-like-Caleb glances back at you. "Oh, sure. I can do that. Who do you want?"

That's all for now.

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"