You look over at Caleb. His face is pale. You raise an eyebrow. He shrugs helplessly.
You grimace as you turn toward Dylan. You don't like this guy, and you still don't trust him, and you don't want him on your "team." But it takes balls to volunteer this way. You step back and extend a hand. "Okay. Welcome aboard."
He gives you a lopsided smile as returns you a soft handshake and climbs into the sigil. You turn to help Caleb.
The rest of the spell involves covering Dylan with graveyard dirt and fuel, and then— You swallow hard. "Are you sure you want us to set you on fire?" you ask him incredulously.
"No pain, no gain," he says. "And I'll thank you to spare me the 'flamer' puns," he adds acidly.
You're feeling a little green as you pour the liquid over him, and you can't bring yourself to actually light the match. Trembling, you hand it to Caleb. He wobbles on his feet and licks his lips.
"Oh for fuck's sake, give it here," Dylan yells. He snatches the match from Caleb, strikes it against the side of the matchbox, and drops it onto himself.
There is a purple flash and a quick hot wave of air blooms through the room. You and Caleb dive to the ground. "We have to get something to put it out," you yell. The two of you scramble across the floor, looking for some kind of sheet or tarpaulin, but there's nothing but lots of wood and metal. Caleb finally croaks something about the seat covers in his car, but just as he staggers to his feet, the light dies out.
You hurry over to the table, terrified that you'll find a charred corpse.
What you find is worse. It's a golem.
It looks just like Dylan, except everything, from the skin and hair to the open, staring eyes, is now made of the same clay-like golem flesh. Only his clothes are unchanged. You and Caleb prod and poke at him and call his name, but he is completely unresponsive. Finally, exhausted of ideas, you tell Caleb to fetch a mask.
"What good will that do?" he demands.
"It'll show whether he's a golem or just a ... a slab of dry cement. Who do we have?"
"We've got Jeremy in the cupboard, but he hasn't got a memory strip. We've got the blank mask I made for ... for Dylan." Caleb swallows hard.
"What about the mask I made," you ask. "You know, the—"
"The one of him, you mean." Caleb's voice is hard. He glares at you. "Yeah, I've still got it. I can't find a hammer strong enough to break it."
"Can you get it?"
"It's in my car. Under the passenger seat."
"The fuck?"
"Well, who looks for stuff under car seats? Nothing but old gum and grease and rotten sandwiches, usually."
"Just get it."
He still seems to be mad when he returns, and he won't let you touch it. Instead, he places it himself on the new golem.
As with the first golem, it sinks without a trace into the grayish mass, and almost instantly it turns a healthy flesh color. It blinks its eyes rapidly and sits up. "Okay, so what did I miss?" it asks.
"We turned you into a golem," Caleb blurts out.
It blinks. "Uh-huh," it says noncommittally.
"You dropped the match and burst into flame, and when it went out—" Caleb begins blinking furiously; he's obviously trying to fight back tears.
The golem leans forward, and in that snide, talking-to-kindergartner tones says, "You assholes are going to try turning me back to normal, aren't you?"
Caleb nods, but there's something in the thing's tone that strikes you as odd. You smack Caleb in the arm. "Dude, go get my cell phone out of my car."
"What?"
"Just do it. I need to make a call, but I need to think first."
He stares at you, then trots away. Once he's gone you wheel on the Dylan golem. "Suck my cock," you order.
It rolls its eyes. "We're not going through that shit again, are we?"
"I said suck my cock, you fag," you repeat in a hard voice.
With vast reluctance it hops to the ground and starts to tug at your zipper. You slap it away.
"Never mind. Just so we're clear that you're my slave.
"Of course I am," it says. "Didn't you learn anything from the—"
You're not listening; you have a wild idea. If you can convince Caleb that this thing is not really a golem but the resurrected Dylan, then you will have turned his cousin—who you still don't trust—into a secret slave. This would make you feel a lot better.
And in some ways it would make you feel worse, since you would have more or less killed the original.
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