Chapter #14Volunteer yourself by: Seuzz "Don't take this the wrong way," you reply. "But fuck off. It's my book and my spell." You clamber into the middle of the sigil, lay back, and clasp your hands over your chest.
No one says or does anything until you snarl at them to get on with it. Then there are some quiet murmurs and you feel dirt being sprinkled over you. Then some liquid is splashed over you. That doesn't seem right, and when Caleb leans in to ask, in a quiet voice, if you really want to go through with it, you come very close to chickening out. But then you catch sight of Dylan smirking at you. You clench your jaw and tell him to finish the spell.
Probably you should have studied it more closely, because you yelp in surprise when the lit match lands on your torso. Everything turns very purple and then very dark.
* * * * *
You not only feel but hear an audible "click" when you open your eyes. You feel stiff—incredibly stiff, as though you've been asleep with heavy weights on all your limbs and joints. You grunt and with a great strain lift yourself into a sitting position. There's a creaking sound as you turn your head. Dylan and Caleb are staring at you slack-jawed. "What the hell happened," you mutter. The noise comes from deep in your chest; it feels like stone blocks are grinding against each other.
Caleb swallows hard. "You can move? Andtalk?"
"Yeah, I think so." Actually, it's a bit of a strain. You drop off the table. Everything is stiff and it takes a lot of concentration to move. You shuffle over to the other two. "So, what happened?"
Caleb opens his mouth, but Dylan speaks first. "Suck my cock, Prescott," he orders in a commanding voice.
You blink—another clicking sound—and swing a fist at him. You didn't mean to hit him hard, but the blow lifts him off both feet and sends him flying back. He curls into a fetal position and clutches his jaw. "The fuck is going on here," you ask Caleb. You are beginning to get very angry.
He gestures you over to the mirror and points.
At first you think you must have fallen into a sack of flour, for your body (though not your clothes) are a grayish white, from your hair down to your finger tips. And then you notice that even your eyeballs are the same color. You look just like a statue.
"I'm a golem," you murmur. Your breath becomes to come very fast. "It turned me into a golem! The fucking spell turned him into a fucking golem!"
"Yeah, that's why I asked you to suck my cock," Dylan says in a slurred voice. He stumbles up behind you. "Like yesterday. I wanted to see if you were a real golem or just ... made up like one."
You'd like to faint, but your knees don't easily bend, so you stand rooted to the spot. "I'm fucked," you say. "I can't go home like this."
"Maybe if you put on a mask," Caleb suggests.
"Who have we got?" you ask, grasping at any chance.
Caleb hurries over to the supply cabinet. "Jeremy Richards," he says as he returns. "Dylan has Eva, and—" He breaks off.
You place the mask over your face. It may be a side-effect of the golemizing spell, but you don't pass out. Instead, you see the world grow slightly smaller as you unbend to Jeremy's full height. Of course, you don't have his memories recorded in this mask, but you are once again limber. The main problem at the moment is that all your clothes are now much too small and tight.
"Well, at least you can now pass for human," Caleb says with relief. "Now if we can just make a mask of you— Oooohhh!"
Yeah. Actually, the word you want to use is "Shit." Or "fuck."
"We have to reverse this." You feel yourself begin to shake. "We don't have a mask of me. We have to reverse it. I mean, what do I tell my folks?"
"You can't go home like that," Caleb says. "I mean, period."
Dylan, who has been listening to all this silently, impatiently slaps the book against your chest, holds it there, and when he takes it away he turns the next page. The three of you sit close and try to puzzle out the next spell.
"It's just another mask," Caleb says. He flips between the new spell and the previous spell. "See? It calls for a mask and then you just ... well, it looks like you do golem-type stuff to it."
"Maybe it reverses the golem effects of this spell?" you ask hopefully.
"I dunno," says Caleb. "It says you need to use a mask that already has a memory strip in it, plus an image. If it's just a reversal spell, why does it need that stuff?"
"There's nothing else to do but try it," Dylan points out. "If it doesn't work, you're no worse off than you are now. Well, probably you won't be worse off," he has to grudgingly add as an afterthought. "So, what do we use for a mask on this guy?"
Caleb takes a deep breath. "I've got the blank mask I made up for Dylan here," he says. He clears his throat of the quaver. "I'll use it on myself."
It's a nice gesture, but you and Dylan exchange skeptical looks. "Can't you use the mask you're wearing now?" he asks you.
"It hasn't got a memory strip," you reply. And that reminds you. You look over at the storage cupboard, where there is a memory strip of Lisa's.
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