Chapter #38The Professor's House, and What Happened There-2 by: Seuzz   Blackwell blocks the door, and tentatively puts his head out. He glances around, then steps back. He mops his brow. "Bring him inside," he says in a hoarse voice. "Quickly, quickly. And if you hear footsteps, drop him and get back inside." He stops you with a firm hand. "Please do as I say," he says with enormous gravity. "Beware of footfalls."
You and Justin look at each other, and then move past him. The late afternoon air is a golden color, and you feel as though you are at the bottom of a deep but transparent sea. Or perhaps the house and its grounds are at the bottom of a well. There is something oppressive in the air, and the motionless body of Will Prescott looks like a broken toy that has drifted in on a current.
You and Justin hustle out, ears straining for any sound of pursuit, but there is only the crunch of your own shoes on the dirt walk. You hastily gather up Prescott--he feels light in your strong arms--and hurry him back to the house. Blackwell waits by the wide-open door, and closes and double-locks it when you are back inside. "Into the library," he says.
"You got some kind of guard dog?" Justin asks.
"Some kind," mutters Blackwell. "It is very curious that--" He shoots you and your friend a sharp glance as you drop Prescott onto an empty table. Your double is pale, but there are no marks on him. His eyes are open and staring, and his chest doesn't move.
Blackwell brushes you back and leans over him. He puts an ear to his chest, and then to his mouth. "You gonna try CPR?" Justin asks.
"There's not much point in that," Blackwell says as he peers into Prescott's eyes. He looks up at you. "You boys told me that you made masks?" Justin answers the question with a jerk of his head. "Then you won't be surprised when I do this." Blackwell puts a hand to Prescott's face, mutters under his breath, and pulls.
But you are surprised, and can tell that Blackwell is too, when the mask comes away. Prescott vanishes, to be replaced by something black. A sickly sour odor--a stench raw and loathsome--rolls out into the room, and all three of you gag. The form on the table crumbles into a loose pile of earth, restrained only by the clothes.
Blackwell puts his fist over his mouth, and you and Justin step back. For nearly a minute, the three of you can only stare at it. It's no longer a golem. It looks like the stuff that you used to make it.
The professor turns over the mask in his hand and studies the inner surface. "William Martin Prescott," he says. "That's your friend who had the book?"
"It's complicated," you say after a moment's hesitation. "The book is with someone else. This--"
"This was the, ah, 'recalcitrant golem'?" Blackwell asks. "You'll have to make a new one. This one, I suppose, is now better classified as an 'ex-golem'."
"The fuck did you do to it," Justin asks in a furious whisper. He advances a step. "The fuck did you--?"
"I?" Blackwell gasps. "I did nothing! I am only relieved to see that we have not suffered an actual casualty! My dear lads, if you knew the horror I felt when I thought--"
"Tell me what's going on!" Roth yells, and steps up with a fist raised high by his ear. "Black! Grab this asshole and--"
"Don't threaten me, boy!" Blackwell says in a harsh voice, but he has turned very pale, and his cheek twitches as he looks up at you. "This is--" He wavers. "I don't know what this is, but I am as perturbed as you. There is something going on here that I do not understand."
Justin doesn't lower his fist, and he plants his other hand, open-palmed on Blackwell's chest. You also step up close to the professor. "Then tell us what you do know," Justin says. "About that book, about golems, and about whatever just happened."
Blackwell's lip curls, but he also swallows in a way that conveys fear. "Very well," he says. "It will help me to think aloud." His eyes dart about furtively. "The Libra was mine, and I was using it to conduct research of a very esoteric nature. I too have created a golem, one that has never given me any grief, and which has been in and out of this house many times without ever being ... attacked."
"Attacked by what?" you ask.
"By the gwarcheidwad. It's a kind of guardian spirit that roams these grounds. Yes, I confess before you lodge the accusation! I am a student of the occult!" Of course, you're not surprised. "The gwarcheidwad is mostly powerless during the day, at least against humans," he continues. "And it has never betrayed any animus toward my golem. I can't begin to guess why it would attack yours, or how it-- I must conduct some research."
You and Justin exchange a long glance. "Knock yourself out," Justin says, and nods at the French doors. "Can we open those?"
"We would all like some fresh air," Blackwell says.
* * * * *
You and Justin sit in a far corner and watch the professor. He leaves for a few minutes, and returns in some large rubber gloves and carrying a vacuum cleaner. After scooping up a handful of the golem's remains onto a paper, he vacuums up the remainder and sets the clothes in a pile on the patio outside the French doors. "I doubt anyone would want to put those on again," he says. "And it wouldn't be healthy to." After that, he spends a quarter hour tracing some kind of elaborate pattern onto the now-empty desk, sprinkles some powders over it, and mutters long and elaborately over it. Ghostly blue flames--like those that had appeared when the golem was burning--flare out briefly, and then vanish. He then takes down some books and sits heavily at a table.
Not long after, you hear the front door open and close. Blackwell exits the library, and you and Justin follow. You are surprised to find him in conversation with a beautiful young woman. It takes you a moment to place her, and then you nudge Justin sharply. He nods. It's Lucy Vredenburg: the older sister of your classmate, Cindy Vredenburg.
Blackwell gives you a pinched look before turning back to Lucy. "Wait upstairs in the bedroom," he tells her. She nods and slides past you and Justin, giving you each a coolly appraising glance as she passes. Strong desires stir in you. She is nicely packed in all the places that count, and many is the time that Will Prescott and Gordon Black have longed to clench those places in hungry hands. She vanishes up a staircase.
"She one of your students?" Justin asks.
"She is one of my projects," Blackwell says. "I'd rather you gentlemen had stayed where you were. She is a golem, and as you can see, her arrival, as ever, was much less dramatic than that of your golem."
"Kind of dangerous, isn't it, having another Lucy Vredenburg running around?" you ask.
Blackwell freezes. "Oh, you know the girl? Well, no fears. There are ways to prevent them from running into each other." His expression is furtive. "I brought her out," he continues, "because we need to explore the memories inside that mask your golem left behind. None of us, I fancy, wishes to don the mask and 'remember' what happened outside a little while ago. The golem can answer our questions instead."
"We can tell you everything it knows, at least up until lunchtime," Justin says. "We were both inside its mask then. It was acting weird, and we wanted to check up on it."
Blackwell snorts. "I've told you boys what little I know," he says in a peevish tone. "Perhaps if you told me about yourselves and your misadventures, I would be in a better position to help you."
He doesn't sound like he much wants to help, but you give him the short version: How you and Justin Roth and Perry Small and Shep Tsosie and Gordon Black have been experimenting with the book. He asks which of you "crafted" the golem; you tell him that Perry and Justin got the materials together, and that you and Perry actually set it on fire. "But which of you put his hair in it," Blackwell impatiently asks.
You can only blink. It was quite a few days ago, and Perry's memories have completely faded from your head. Justin, though, raises his hand. "That would have been me. Well," he adds. "It would have been someone who was looking like this at the time." He points to his face.
"Is that not your own face?" Blackwell asks. "No, wait, let's not add to the confusion. Just tell me how it transpired. Whose hair is in the golem?"
"Well," Justin says. "Perry Small put the stuff together. He was wearing this mask--" Again, he points to his face "--while he was working. He clipped off some hair. I remember, because it took him almost ten minutes to find some scissors--"
"Wait," says Blackwell, raising a hand. "Is that a mask you are wearing?" Justin nods. "And the person--the young fool who prepared the spell--was wearing it, and clipped off some of its hair to use?" Justin nods again. "I begin to see the problem," Blackwell mutters. "Come with me."
He leads you into the kitchen, where he takes out a pair of scissors and snips off a lock of Justin's hair. "Watch," he says, and holds up the hair.
Nothing happens. "What are we looking at," you ask, but Blackwell motions you to be silent.
And then you have to blink, for the thick brown hair has suddenly dissolved into a thin wisp of smoke, and vanished.
"The problem," says Blackwell, "is that no one's essentia got used in your golem."
"And that's a problem?" Justin asks.
"Possibly, it's a very serious problem." You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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