The Book of Masks

Steve, as per the arrangement, arrives at the old school with a supper he picked up at a supermarket: cold cuts and side dishes from the deli for him and Caleb, and a packaged chef salad for you. He wears an uncharacteristically worried expression as he treads slowly down into the dim basement. "How'd you get into this place?" he wants to know. And: "You're gonna get caught," he warns.

Philip is also surprised to see Caleb, who of course he knows from school, and bluntly asks if he's "really" him. Caleb grunts an affirmative. "I'm not into the, uh, body switching," he says, and taps his forehead. "Can't let anyone know what I know, can't share what I've got upstairs about this stuff."

"Caleb's in charge," you gush. "He's the mastermind. He's the one who knows how it all works!"

You sense, rather than see, the sidelong look of surprise that Caleb gives you.

"Really?" Steve says.

"Caleb," you order, "show Philip the book. Explain it all to him."

So you settle around one of the dusty, dented conference tables with the grimoire, and Caleb goes patiently through it, spell by spell, explaining what each one does, and lets Philip use his cell phone to double-check Caleb's translations and explanations of the text against the Latin originals. He gets very intense, and pulls at his lip thoughtfully as he soaks it all up, and asks a lot of probing questions that you and Caleb haven't thought to ask yourselves. (Like, "Can you make and wear a mask of an animal?" and "What happens if you mix a male and female form inside a single mask?") Caleb is forced to admit that you and he have been moving through the book by trial and error, moving on to the next spells without doing a lot of experimenting on the old ones—a confession that Fairfax seems unhappy with.

Caleb also says nothing about the misadventures you've had along the way, and each time he comes close to dropping your real name, you nudge him under the table. But Philip is too sharp not to make some connections and deductions.

"Gordon Black," he says before Caleb has even gotten to the new spell, and the help that you want from him out at the cemetery. He looks between the two of you before settling his gaze upon Caleb. "Did you guys do something to him?"

Caleb stiffens. "Yes," he admits. "That was a, um, experiment that didn't go right. We didn't know how to fix it."

"We?" Steve's eyes shift to you, and for the first time his voice and his icy gray eyes harden like the real Patterson's do.

"Gordon was being a butt," you jump in before Caleb can start spilling secrets you'd still like to keep. "We just had the masks then, didn't have the, um, memory thingies. So we used two masks to, um, switch Gordon with someone else. To teach him a lesson."

"Who did you switch him with?"

"Dane Matthias," you blurt out before you can stop yourself. "That's how come Gordon's been so, um—"

"Right." Patterson's gaze goes distant. "And Dane, didn't I hear—? Didn't he get sent away to some school out of state?"

"Mm-hm." Actually, you're not a hundred percent certain of that. Chelsea told you she was being sent away, but you've been too busy your new scheme to do a follow up confirming that she's out of the way. "So we can't fix that thing. Anyway, that's how I— I mean, we—" You elbow Caleb in the ribs. "How we came up with the plan for you. And for some other people." You titter.

Steve compresses his lips till they disappear, then asks Caleb to continue where he left off.


The explanations last until after dusk has fallen, with a lot of the time taken up with Caleb and Philip talking about the next spell. It sounds dangerous, and Philip particularly sounds skeptical, even a little scared. It calls for mixing up the graveyard earth with a lot of volatile chemicals, then setting it all on fire, and Fairfax refuses to help out unless the spell is performed out in the country someplace, rather than inside the basement. And then he also refuses to help you dig up the dirt. His manner is very cold and stiff when he suddenly gets up and leaves.

You and Caleb exchange worried glances, and you hurry after him. He's already outside by the time you catch up. "What's wrong?" you ask as you grab him by the elbow.

"Nothing's wrong," he says.

"But you won't help out."

"This is your project," he says.

"It could be yours too. That's why we wanted to tell you about it." He says nothing. "Please don't act like you're a victim or something."

He's silent for a long moment. Then he says, "You said you wanted to do this with other people. Who?"

"Well, um." You take a deep breath. "Cindy Vredenburg. Kelsey Blankenship. They're a couple of cunts I'd like to ... improve."

"Like you want to improve Steve Patterson. But who are you going to switch them with? Who are the guys, like me, that you are going to—?"

"I haven't decided yet?"

There's another silence. Then: "I have some friends."

"Uh huh?"

"If you invite them in," he says, "then I'll help. But you have to invite them in before. You can't ... ambush them like you ambushed me."