Chapter #38Magic Happens, Part 2 by: Seuzz   You twist about to make yourself more comfortable. Gordon rolls over and closes his eyes. You wonder if he is trying to make peace with the universe in the time you two probably have left to live. You wonder if you should do the same. But you don't know how.
How much time passes? Fifteen minutes? Thirty? An hour? At one point the truck starts up again and moves a few dozen yards. You strain up to see where you are, and only find blank fences on either side, so you must be in the alley next to Tsosie's house. You lay back again. You hear cars, some of which have possibly stopped nearby. You can only stare up at the sky. You can't even see the stars, for the city's light pollution has entirely blotted them out.
Eventually, you hear the crunch of gravel, and the truck creaks. Frank drops into the bed and crouches down between you and Gordon. To your surprise, you see he is wearing your clothes, and they are quite small on him. He holds two masks in his hands.
He hesitates a bit before speaking. "Okay, guys," he says quietly. "First thing I'm going to say is that it's not your fault. Joe and I know that. Because we put on your masks, and we saw that you were telling us the absolute truth earlier. The second thing is that it's not our fault either. We only came to get the book back. We didn't want to hurt anybody. Really. Despite everything I said earlier."
He balances the masks on his knee. "But of course you're not going to believe us. So you're going to have to see it for yourself. See what we saw and what we did in there. You're not going to like it. But I'm sorry. It can't be helped."
He rips the tape off your mouths. You expect Gordon to scream at him, but he keeps silent. So do you. Frank waits, perhaps for a stream of abuse, and then puts a mask onto Gordon. He puts the other one onto you. You just have time to see the name "WILLIAM MARTIN PRESCOTT" on its inner surface before it swallows you.
* * * * *
"Soon as we see he's alone, I'll grab him, and you check for a mask," you say as you approach the door.
"We should do like we did with Black and Prescott," Gordon says. "If you can break Gordon--"
"Big ones always break easy," you say. "And if Tsosie doesn't talk--" You rap on the door. "Then we'll put a mask on him and start chipping away."
Tsosie opens the door, and his eyes pop. "Guys," he says. "This is kinda late."
"Yeah, sorry," Gordon says. "You alone?"
"Yeah, the others got tired of waiting--"
You close your hand into a fist. Tsosie gasps and goes very stiff. Gordon puts a hand to Maize's face and mutters as you close the door and lock it behind you. You move swiftly, checking out the kitchenette and the bedroom to confirm the place is clear. Gordon speaks before you're done. "Frank, you better look at this."
You step back into the living room. Gordon is holding a mask. Tsosie is standing in front of him. But there's something wrong.
He's dressed, but standing rigidly, and his color is gone. Literally, everywhere--his skin and hair and eyeballs--he is an ashy white. You step quickly over and touch him. He is cold and hard. Even his hair is stiff, as though carved from stone. You put your palm to his nose and mouth. There is no hint of a breath.
Gordon extends the mask and you both peer into it. It shows Tsosie's name. "This the mask they made of him?" Gordon asks.
"Maybe," you grunt. "Question is, who did this to him?"
"Question is, what did they do to him?"
"Then let's find that book."
You and he tear the place apart, and whistle over another statue hidden in the bathroom: Justin Roth. You also find some mask supplies but no sign of the book or the copied spells. "Maybe Small has it," Gordon says.
"Then let's call him out here."
"Check out things from a Maize-eye view first?" Gordon asks, gesturing at the mask.
"Unless it's booby-trapped," you say. "I like you as a blonde, Joe, and you gotta nice tan. Think you can do his voice?"
"Close enough." He snatches up Tsosie's phone and dials. "Hey Small," he says in a voice like Tsosie's. "How about you come over. Yeah, they're on their way," he adds in reply to a short question. Then he hangs up. "Interesting. He asked if Black and Prescott were here, and then said he'd be right over. One of us should be Tsosie when he gets here."
"No, we'll just leave the door ajar and hide in a corner."
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later Perry Small walks in. Gordon calls from the bedroom with Tsosie's voice while you crouch down in the kitchenette. When you hear a yelp you leap out and with a clenched hand pin Perry in place. Gordon comes out and feels at Perry's face, muttering esoteric words. A mask comes off, and Small seems to turn into a statue.
You and Gordon debate what to do. You let him put Tsosie's mask on only after he copies himself into a blank mask you found do you let him put Tsosie's mask on. You clamp him firmly to the sofa.
"It's me, Frank," he says when he revives. "I'm still here." But you don't let him go, and he doesn't fight. He sits very quietly for nearly ten minutes, his brow furrowed in concentration, and then he tells you to take it off him. You slap him awake afterward, and question him closely, to make sure nothing is amiss, before releasing him. Then he puts his hand to your face and pulls.
* * * * *
You are cold and stiff when you wake, and with a jerk of your head toss the mask off to the side. The truck is rocking again. But your limbs have been freed. Gordon is sitting up. "You saw all that stuff," you ask him.
"Yeah. I don't know what it means."
"Me neither, and it sounds like those guys up there don't either. Where are we going?"
"Beats me." You're passing through a subdivision.
You lapse back into silence. You shift around and bump into something. It's dark, but some close examination shows it to be the golem that you and your friends had made. The golem that, while wearing your mask, had been caught and questioned by Frank and Joe.
The drive continues and soon you recognize the neighborhood. It's your own. The truck pulls up in front of the elementary school basement.
Two figures appear a moment later--Frank and another Gordon--and toss some clothes at the two of you: your own, and Joe's. "You can get dressed, but you don't have to come with us," Frank says.
"What are we doing here?" Gordon asks.
"That book might be here. Or maybe those copies Prescott made. It'll be our only lead on figuring out what happened back at Tsosie's. Are you guys okay?"
"I think so," you say, though in truth you are so freaked out that you can't even scream.
"Well, hang loose if you're not gonna come. But don't run off. We don't know what's out there."
You doubt it can be worse that what's here with you in the form of Frank and Joe Durras. But they've been more decent to you in last half hour, so you're inclined to stay. You dress. But when Gordon leaps from the bed of the truck, you follow.
They must have found the key to the place, because the lock is off. The basement is illuminated, though you can't see the light source. They glance back at you while rifling through desks, and then from one extract a familiar-looking sheaf of papers. Joe--still looking like Gordon--hops onto a desk and hunches over them. "You have to wear that thing?" Gordon asks him.
"Call it a fetish," he says without looking up. "Now shut up. I'm busy."
Frank smiles wryly, and pulls you and Gordon back outside. "Look, guys, we've been really mysterious, and we've treated you rough. But we're the good guys, okay? You and your friends have really fucked things up, and we're here to help straighten it all out."
"Who are you?" Gordon demands.
"Since Joe's inside and not feeling much like himself, I guess it's up to me to channel him," Frank replies with a thin smile. "You can think of us as magical-fu fighters or something. We're members of a very old and secret group that tries to keep the bad things at bay. That book you've been playing with? Very bad. We came out to Saratoga Falls to pick it up and take it off for safe disposal, before anyone else could find it and start doing things with it. We were too late, obviously."
"What happened to our friends," you ask.
"That's what we're trying to figure out. Or, Joe is. Of the two of us, he's the relative expert. And you're wondering who did it to them, right?" he adds. You nod. "That's another mystery," he says. He looks at Gordon. "You're standing here with me, Black. And there's another one that looks like you inside that basement. But there's a third someone running around who looks like you. As near as we can tell, that third Gordon is the one behind it all." You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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