The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Girl's Final Act

Previously: "The Real Danger" 

Chapter by rugal b.

Sydney lives in a house -- far nicer than your own -- in a part of town that the ritzier set seem to have congregated. Though you're not sure who you'd bet that some of the snobs from school, Kelsey and them, live in the area. It surprises you that Sydney would live here too given that she comes off as fairly unpretentious but appearances, as you know, can be deceiving.

Take Sydney's stepfather for one. He's a normal looking and, loathe as Sydney would be to admit it, handsome guy living a normal life in a nice house in a new town with his new family. Yet underneath the normal, upper-middle class facade lies a man so ruthless in his pursuit of what he feels should be his that he has quite literally killed to obtain it.

Sydney herself is another example. A pretty blonde cheerleader like an ersatz Chelsea Cooper. One would expect her to be as vacuous as the stereotype would portray. Yet underneath her appearance lies a fascination with the occult and a ruthlessness that might well, when directed at the wrong target, match her stepfather's. Adding another layer to it is the fact that, right now, all of that is being guided by a skinny boy. When you breathe, it's her chest that heaves. When you step out of the car it's her well-sculpted legs that move. When you reach for the front door it's her slim hand that grasps and turns the knob.

When you think, for the next little while, it will be with her mind. You won't be Will Prescott playing the role of Sydney McGlynn. You will be Sydney McGlynn. Because only she would have the will to go through with his. So you close your eyes, steel yourself, and step through the doorway. When you open them you see things differently.

The house doesn't feel right. It's not your home after all, your home is back in Kansas City. This is just a place where you live in a city you feel no connection to. A city you only moved to because... you stop. You see him coming down the stairs. His hair is long, his beard scruffy. He spots you soon after you spot him and his brown eyes look at you with a hungriness. You shiver. They're the eyes of a predator but what kind you're not sure. Does he intend to do to you what he did to your father?

Or does he have something else in mind? Because there are these little looks he'll throw you and you can't help but wonder if that might be something else of your father's he'd like steal. His position at their company, his life, his wife... his daughter.

"Is mom here?" you ask tensely as he reaches the bottom of the stairs.

"Stepped out to pick up something to eat," he replies in a manner so calm, so casual that it unnerves you. "It's just us here right now," he adds which only amplifies the way that you're feeling and you tense up as he walks past you.

His back is now to you and your heart is pounding. You don't want to delay this any longer. This is what you'd been looking forward to, anticipating with barely contained excitement. Now there's nobody around. Your hand goes into your bag and feel the smooth mask. You grip it. Though it seems much longer it's not more than a few seconds from when he's passed you that you take the mask out and, with the agility provided by a body sculpted from a lifetime of gymnastics and cheerleading, you move forward, reach your hand around and smash the mask onto his face.

Nicholas Lawhorn crashes to the ground with a thud. You don't even bother making an attempt to break his fall.

* * * * *

In the basement lays another statue much like the one you'd made of Sydney earlier. It's the same cold alabaster color and though it looks stone when you press it there's just the slightest amount of give much like the previous one. The difference, though, is that this one is bigger as it's a man nearing forty, not a girl in the last days of high school. You feel a sense of satisfaction when looking it because you know that Nicholas Lawhorn won't be a threat to anyone ever again.

It was the new spell unlocked after what you'd done to Sydney that allowed you to get here. It was incredibly simple and you wonder why the two harder spells -- especially the previous one -- were before it. All it required was essentially a miniaturized version of the same set up you'd use to make a person into a pedisequos only used on a mask instead of a person. The end result was a mask that, when placed on a person, would turn them into whoever was copied into the mask though under the total control of whoever's hair was used.

It was a gamble if placing Nicholas' own mask on himself would work but it was a gamble that rewarded you handsomely. You could've left it there of course, Nicholas under a mask and under your control, but that wouldn't have been good enough. You were still thinking like Sydney and for her that would've been like getting off with probation. What if the mask was somehow removed or something otherwise happened? The risk was always there of him coming back. No, this was just the first step to a more permanent answer to the Nicholas question.

That answer, naturally, turned out to be ordering the now under your control Nicholas to follow you out to the elementary school and into the basement. In there you set everything up ordering him to lay on the book. Some dirt, fuel, a removed mask (both his and your's in order to grab more hair) and a lit match later and Nicholas Lawhorn was well and truly dealt with.

You'd leaned back against the wall with a sigh of relief once the deed was done.

* * * * *

You're alone in the basement. The mask of Nicholas had been placed on the statue baring his image and after some basic experimenting on what you could get him to do you'd ordered him back home. If Sydney's mother was back and wondering where he was you'd told him to simply tell her that Sydney's car needed a jump. He was gone after that and you were then left by yourself.

Well, not completely by yourself. You grab Sydney's mask off of the table and look at it. It stars back at you lifelessly, the image of the girl barely visible like some kind of magical hologram. It makes you want to cry and you almost do.

"I'm sorry," you say quietly to the mask. "I'm so sorry. I was able to get revenge for you but it should've been you getting it. I took that from you the same way I took,' you pause and gulp, "the same I took your life from you. But the job's finished. Nicholas will never hurt anyone ever again. I hope that's enough for you to forgive me."

With a sigh you sit back onto the cold floor. Everything is done. Through you Sydney has gotten her final revenge on her stepfather. But it doesn't feel like an ending because you're still left with a feeling of "now what".

Well the obvious thing, probably the most prudent thing, would be to just try and put everything back in its place. Call your double out here, get the mask off, throw Sydney's mask onto it and work to fix things. Largely what would need mending would be your relationship with Caleb and you wonder if showing him the book might be a mea culpa. Maybe if he'd have access to girls via masks, either masks of them or masks of guys who could get girls, that'd be enough to make him forget about Sydney. Then the two of you could go back to getting into mischief the way you always would. Just mischief fueled by the book and the masks.

No more revenge killings. No more occult stuff. No more talk of freaky devil worshipping cults like the Brotherhood of Baphomet. Just light fun to wile away the days as the clock counts down on your senior year.

The Brotherhood of Baphomet. You want to curse that name. Sydney's gone because of it. Because you were too scared of what may just be a lot of empty hocus pocus to go with her. Because you thought a girl like her, even one into freaky magic, would have no genuine interest in you. But Sydney wouldn't be gone of course, not when you put the mask onto the pedisequos. But it wouldn't be the real Sydney, it'd just be a thing parading around in her skin. Like a spirit possessing and animating her, acting as her.

But you... you can think like her and unlike the statue you're a creature of flesh and blood. You'd hope that dealing with Nicholas would be enough to earn Sydney's forgiveness but you begin to wonder if maybe you can earn it by following her plans and her desires to their ultimate conclusion: create that Brotherhood of Baphomet she was so looking forward to running with you.

Yet there's one other thing that's bugging you as well. You'd learned about it when you were in Sydney's mask. She'd learned about it when she'd had Nicholas' mind strip. Stuff like this can fade but it was something so shocking that it burned itself clear into her mind, much as it had for you when you'd learned about it.

Because everything about Nicholas Lawhorn was a lie. Not his name, that's real enough, but the job at Parsons Collegiate Media? It was a cover for his real work for the owners of that company. Those owners were the real reason he decided to pack up and move "his" family to Saratoga Falls. Because they're involved in stuff that's not just shady, it's dangerous. The same stuff that Sydney's father was involved in. The same group that had played off of Nicholas' avarice and offered substantial rewards and promotions to him should Sydney's father meet a rather unfortunate accident.

It might be dangerous, extremely dangerous even, but you wonder if your ultimate gift to Sydney might be investigating the truth behind her father's death and the one name that seems deeply tied to it: Fane.

Next: "A Kind of Professional Consultation" 

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