Chapter #19New masks by: Seuzz   Blackwell notices your thoughtful mien when you arrive at his house. "Don't tell me young Yumi is having troubles at school?"
"Hm? No. I just screwed up on something and it's got me thinking. Oh, and I need to make a new mask. That's what I screwed up on. Would that be a problem?"
"Not as far as I'm concerned, though you really should be careful about such thing."
"Why?" you ask in some alarm. After what you'd learned about there being a limit on the number of golems you should make ...
"Because screw ups can be costly, as you've just learned." You roll your eyes but nod. "You should make that mask tonight, and anything else you will need, like the mind strips or sealing compound. I'm going out of town over the weekend and will be taking the Libras with me."
You've learned not to inquire into his private plans. "Don't we have a pot of the sealing compound?"
"The Libras is regrettably imprecise about a number of details. I'm not sure the sealing compound doesn't come with a 'best by' date, and so I only make up enough at a time as I need it. If you don't need to seal a mask before Monday, you might wait for my return."
So after changing into Jared and sending Yumi home on the spare golem, you run up to the workroom and quickly prepare a mask. And then, on a sudden whim, you prepare two more, on the thought that it would be a good idea to have extras around for emergencies. You also make three basic mind strips to go with the masks, and then on a similar whim make three more.
Downstairs, Blackwell remarks on the amount of time you spent in the workroom; you cover your activity by saying that you got absorbed in studying the sigils and the spells, trying to commit them to memory. He approves this diligence, and because you are still so bad at Latin insists on making that the day's lesson. You groan.
* * * * *
Blackwell usually leaves for the university at eleven in the morning, but because of his trip, he mentions, he'll be leaving at nine. You nod absent-mindedly, and as per your usual routine change into Yumi by eight and drive off for school. But this morning you keep driving around town, killing time, until nearly nine-thirty, when you head back to the house, change back into Jared, and send the golem to school instead. You don't care that Yumi is late and has missed her first-period and most of her second-period classes by that point.
And to maintain the illusion that the house is empty (and to discipline yourself) you let the guardian roam free in his "daytime" guise. He will not bother you in your "sealed" bedroom of course, except to snuffle around the edges of the door, rattle the knob and sometimes knock; he is also easy to dodge if you leave the room, and if you have enough courage you can even face him down. But you're not eager to find out just how brave you are. In the daytime, he is only supposed to scare the crap out of intruders, to the point of chasing them out of high windows to their deaths, and you are sure he is quite good at his job.
You don't start on the mask, though, but on the mind strips. This work is almost as tedious as polishing, and even more fraught, since you must be very precise in how you chisel out the runes. You also can't waste time; incomplete runes tend to attract "flies," Blackwell has warned, which can attach themselves to the incomplete strips. At best, these things ruin the strip. At worst, they sink unnoticed into them, to manifest in the mind of the wearer afterwards as mental malignancies, causing symptoms eerily similar to the more violent and debilitating forms of madness. Luckily, "flies" are easy to hear coming, and slow but conscientious work on a mind band will keep them at bay.
But at least mind bands don't take very long to complete. You have two of them done by the time school lets out, and you call Will to come over to help you. The guardian has been very active in your hallway, so you avoid it by going out the window, sliding down the sloping roof and dropping to the ground, then going around to put him to sleep with the key to the front door. Prescott shows up about fifteen minutes later.
"When it's time to go, call mom and dad and tell them you're sleeping over at Caleb's," you tell him.
"He's not talking to me."
"I don't give a shit. Will mom and dad believe you if you tell them you're staying over there?"
"Yeah, I guess. What, I'm staying over here? Is it a sleepover?" he grins.
"Something like that."
"Do we get to make s'mores and tell ghost stories?"
"You don't want to tell ghost stories in this house."
"No shit, Steven King. But are we gonna have fun?"
You hand him an unpolished mask. He screams and falls melodramatically onto his back like a dead thing.
* * * * *
By noon on Saturday you have one newly polished mask and six blank mind strips prepped for loading. A long conversation with you twin—who is just as brilliant and twisted as you—has given you a new scheme: it involves introducing a new ally into Westside, one with all the beauty and brains of a Mata Hari. You begin the scheme by uncovering the real Yumi long enough to copy her face into the newly polished mask.
As for Lucy, who you still need to spy on: The easiest way to do that is to stick a mind strip on her and rip out her memories for your own later, lazy perusal. It would take a little effort to set up a meeting, but surely Lucy wouldn't mind meeting "Mrs. Cooper," the mother of the current captain of the cheerleader squad.
That's the situation as it stands when the phone rings. It is Blackwell, telling you that Lucy is on her way over and that you are to let her in and let her go about her business unmolested. Prescott whoops with delight: "No need for Mrs. Cooper now!" You're less sanguine: hitting Lucy in the house might make the cause of her "fainting spell" a little too obvious, which you definitely don't want. | Members who added to this interactive
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