This choice: Explain everything to Caleb. • Go Back...Chapter #13Explain everything to Caleb. by: Seuzz   Naturally, he is surprised to find his cousin down here. Before he can speak, though, you raise a warning hand. "Don't freak out on me, okay?" He looks puzzled. "I'm serious," you warn him. "Do. Not. Freak. Out." He still just stares at you. "Promise?"
"Alright already," he says. "What is the big fucking deal?"
You rip the mask from your face.
There's a silence so profound you think you can hear a clock ticking across the street. Then Caleb shouts and swings a fist at your head.
You duck. "I told you not to freak, you freak!"
"Over this? Fuck yeah, I'm gonna freak!"
You finally grab him around the torso and wrestle him to the ground, where you sit on him. Eventually he stops fighting and just glares at you.
"You have to put it on. That mask, you have to put it on."
"Fuck you!"
"I'm not fucking with you, dude! Put it on and you'll know why!"
"Jesus! You had no right to—"
This isn't going anywhere good. Luckily, the Dylan mask is close by your hand, so you grab it and jam it down onto his face. He goes limp, and then his face is replaced with Dylan's.
You take a chance on him being calmer when he comes to, so you get off his chest. With a groan he sits up. "You son of a bitch," he snarls as he catches your breath.
"We'll deal with that later. Right now you need to use Dylan's head. Just answer some questions for me, like you're Dylan." The fake Dylan glares at you. "This is super important, and you'll thank me later. And If I'm wrong I'll let you punch me in the balls. Repeatedly."
His nostrils flare, but he says and does nothing more.
"Okay," you say, "what is Dylan going to do tonight?"
He thinks a bit. "Going out as Eva. Probably gonna call one of the Crows."
"And then?"
"Try to hit a party over at ... this one house he knows."
"And?"
His gaze turns inward, and he is very quiet for several minutes. When he speaks you can't hear him. "I said," he repeats in a louder and angrier tone when you ask him to repeat it, "he's gonna copy one of the guys there and then steal a bunch of money off him."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
"Well, we thought about doing something like that, with Eva."
"But we didn't."
"And anyway, how is that worse than jumping my cousin and stealing his memories so you can snoop around in them?" he snarls.
"Because I didn't trust the guy. I could tell he was up to something." You wave off his interruption. "Look, just keep going. And then what's he going to do?"
He sighs. "Pay for the second golem and mask?"
"And what's he going to do with them?"
He thinks awhile, then shrugs. "He doesn't know yet. Something."
You blink. "Don't cover up for him, Caleb. I know he's your cousin, but—"
"Alright, so he's going to copy someone and then turn the golem into his live-in sex-slave. That's what we're going to do!"
"And the original? What's he going to do with them?"
He looks confused. "Nothing."
"I said don't cover up for him! What's he going to do to them?"
"Nothing!"
You feel your face turning red. "He's not going to replace that person with the fake?"
Now it's his turn to redden. "Are you on crack? No!"
"He's not going to try getting a supply of golems by replacing us?!"
He raises his hands. "Dude, you are totally fucked in the head. That's just paranoid!"
"I'm not the one fucked in the head," you shout. You point at his head and then yours. "I was in there, so don't bullshit me! Don't pretend you don't see and hear the same stuff!"
He stares. "Will, whatever the stuff is you're on, lay off it."
* * * * *
Technically, you and Caleb are still on speaking terms after he takes the mask off, but it is very hard to find words for each other. He refuses point blank to let you try the Dylan mask back on, and says he's going to take it and destroy it if he can. He accuses you of inventing paranoid fantasies about his cousin in order to ruin him. He doesn't actually say it, but he comes real close to threatening to take the book from you.
For your part ... Well, you're bewildered. You know exactly what you heard inside Dylan's head while wearing the mask. But you can't believe Caleb would pretend he hadn't heard the same stuff. So what is going on? You spend Friday night and Saturday pondering it. You come to no firm conclusions, but maybe ... Well, maybe Caleb's right and you were being paranoid. Maybe it was really you having those thoughts: believing the worst of Dylan, maybe you invented all those thoughts for him to have. Maybe it is all going to be okay.
The air is tense on Saturday afternoon when Dylan and Caleb come by to pick up the golem and the blank mask Caleb had made for him. You're not happy to have Dylan back in the basement, but you are polite to both of them. Your temper is strained, though, when Dylan insists on looking at the next spell, and when Caleb, with a dirty look in your direction, ostentatiously opens the book and gives it to him. Dylan gives you a sly, sidelong glance of amusement at your evident discomfort.
Well, fine. Let him look it over. You wander around the basement pulling at furniture and trying to make your displeasure very audible. It makes no difference. After about twenty minutes, Dylan and Caleb have determined that they have all the ingredients for the new spell right on hand. "I suppose the book owner should be the one to make the sigil," Dylan says. "Probably ought to be his hair, too."
You briefly think about refusing to cooperate, but then figure that Dylan would just take over. To keep some measure of control, you wordlessly take out a penknife and dig the new sigil into another section of the conference table and snip off some of your own hair. Caleb is very quick about mixing up the other magical ingredients, and you pour all of them into the sigil. "And now," says Dylan. "We just need a volunteer."
That gets your attention, and you hurry over to examine the book. Caleb points to the line: a living man, it says (though you assume a woman would do just as well). Three pairs of eyes exchange glances.
"We don't know what it does," you point out. "It could do something very bad to the victim."
"It could do something very good," Dylan retorts.
"But if it's bad we can't try it on ourselves."
"Well, if it's bad we can't try it on anyone else, can we" Dylans says. His smile is nasty. "Or were planning on kidnapping someone and trying it out on them?"
"Fine," you say. "Try it on me." You start to get up on the table, but Dylan restrains you. "You don't like me, do you, Prescott," he says. "That's okay. I don't care. But you're right. It could be dangerous. I'm willing to take that risk, though, if you finally let me join. Make me an official partner in this little club, and I'll let you cast this spell on me." | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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