# chapters

path: 111131131111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: Date with an Angel
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You're in a state of shock as you walk out of school at the end of the day. Your feet drag like you're sunk up to your ankles in the asphalt—but at the same time your head feels full of helium. <br/>
<br/>
You're going to meet up for coffee and conversation with Sydney McGlynn, the drop-dead gorgeous ex-cheerleader that you met through Caleb. Well, technically you haven't met her yet. You've only exchanged a few texts with her, and spoken to her briefly the hallway, just to confirm tonight's date.<br/>
<br/>
And tutored her for a whole night while disguised as your best friend.<br/>
<br/>
<i>But tonight's date!</i> The phrase, as it occurs to you, sends your ego ricocheting off the cloud banks above. <i>I have a date with a fucking cheerleader!</i> Your eyeballs are prickling and your head is spinning as you climb into the cab of your truck. You grip the wheel, force yourself to be calm, and turn your truck toward the parking lot exit.<br/>
<br/>
You're halfway home before it occurs to you that you have no idea what you'll have to talk to Sydney McGlynn about.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Seven o'clock. The Crystal Cave.</i> You're scratching under your pits and sweating, for you've layered up in a couple of shirts and long pants. You scratch your scalp (still wet from the shower). Your eye recurs to the paperback book on astrology by your hand, but you can't bring yourself to open it up again.<br/>
<br/>
You picked it up on your way home, making a long detour over to Arnholm's to find something—<i>anything!</i>—that you could show to Sydney as proof that you are interested in the occult. Arnholm didn't have what you really need—<i>Baby's First Book of Black Magic</i> would have done nicely—so you picked up a book on astrology on the assumption that that stuff is occult and it might actually connect up with the Astronomy class you're taking.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Astronomy!</i> Yes, you'll need to work the fact that you're taking that as your science class into the conversation.<br/>
<br/>
At home you ignored your school work in favor of reading your purchase, but found it really heavy going. You'd picked it up because of the title—<i>The Fate in Our Stars</i>—and to your distress discovered that it was more of a history book than a practical guide to horoscopes or whatever the fuck it is that astrologers actually deal with. You got through maybe the first ten pages, on the Egyptians and the Babylonians, before it fell from your nerveless fingers. You've got it with you now, though, but it's going to have to be a prop only. <i>Yeah,</i> you've decided to tell her, <i>I've started boning up on astrology. I figure it's, like, the foundation of everything, so I thought I should start with—</i><br/>
<br/>
"Will?"<br/>
<br/>
You jump so hard your knees bounce off the underside of the table.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry," Lisa says. She frowns but her eyes—those soft, violet eyes—twinkle. "I thought you saw us walking up."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Us?</i> You swing your head five degrees to the right and lock eyes on— <br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck!</i> Geoff Mansfield.<br/>
<br/>
Lisa has been seeing an awful lot of him lately. You've been trying to ignore them. But the cankered sore in your soul flares again at the sight of Mansfield putting his arm around Lisa's shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
You wouldn't mind so much that Lisa dumped your ass at the start of the semester in the most humiliating way possible—<i>by telling you that the two of you </i>hadn't even really been dating<i> over the summer</i>—if it wasn't obvious that she'd dumped you for this asshole. Geoff Mansfield is tall, dark-haired, handsome in a well-groomed and well-tailored way, takes AP classes and is on his way to an Ivy League school, and comes from a family rich enough to belong to the country club and vacation in the Grand Caymans every winter. The asshole has every advantage that you don't, and he knows it, and he fucking <i>flaunts</i> it in a way calculated to make you feel small and juvenile.<br/>
<br/>
Like right now. His gaze drifts from your face down to the table. You see it in his eye—he's looking at the cover of your astrology book. His lip twists into a light sneer as he looks back up at you. Helplessly, you count down the seconds until he says something arrogant and condescending. <i>Three ... two ... one ...</i><br/>
<br/>
"Trying to figure out why your horoscope keeps getting it wrong, Prescott?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you!" You pale as Lisa catches a horrified breath. "I'm sorry! I mean—!"<br/>
<br/>
Mansfield laughs. "No, that's okay, I shouldn't tease you about it. Anyway, this is the place to read something like that, huh?" He glances around at the zodiac symbols on the walls.<br/>
<br/>
"Why are you reading a book on astrology, Will?" Lisa asks. Her expression has turned doubtful.<br/>
<br/>
"I have a date." <i>Yeah, that's it!</i> It's a relief and a joy to contrast what you suffered with Lisa with what you'll get with Sydney. "She's interested in this stuff, so I'm boning up on it."<br/>
<br/>
"Cool," says Mansfield. "When you're done here, you can take her to a Chinese restaurant and split a plate of fortune cookies."<br/>
<br/>
"Geoff," Lisa says.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm just teasing again. Good luck on your date, Prescott. If you really have a lucky star, maybe you'll get lucky."<br/>
<br/>
Lisa gasps at him, but he smiles and pulls her over to a table on the other side of the room. You lower your head and glower at your ex- from under your brows. In front of her is a little metal rack with a card on it, showing a circle sitting atop a cross. You're goddamned sure you know what it means, but you double-check in the astrology book anyway. <br/>
<br/>
Yes, fuck it. They're sitting at the "Venus" table.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Luckily, you're not given much time to stew over Lisa and Geoff. Not after Sydney comes in.<br/>
<br/>
She's dressed down in a sweatshirt and jeans, and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. That's okay. The shapeless top—maybe it belongs to an older brother who's a football player, because it drapes around her like a tent—may hide her form, but that just gives your imagination more room to fantasize about her breasts and her tummy. The ponytail gives you a better view of her pedestal-like neck. And her face and her eyes are bright and alert, and her teeth—really, she could be a model in toothpaste commercials—gleam like alabaster.<br/>
<br/>
"Hi, Will," she says as she slides into the booth opposite you. Her eye falls on the astrology book. "Hey, is this what you're into?"<br/>
<br/>
All those rehearsed words and speeches fly away like startled birds, and you bite your tongue—"Gyow!"—as you try to stammer out an answer. Sydney covers her laugh with a tapering hand, then leans forward to apologize.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry, I think I startled you. Maybe we should introduce ourselves? Hi, I'm Sydney McGlynn." She extends a hand.<br/>
<br/>
"Will Prescott," you croak. "Uh, I'm a friend of Caleb's. Best friend, er—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, you told me. You're the friend who's interested in magic?" Her eyes crinkle up with something like skepticism and you feel yourself blushing. Did you misjudge her and her interests?<br/>
<br/>
"Well, kind of curious about it, you know? The, uh—" You remember the book, and grab it up like a security blanket. "I'm curious about it, and I heard that astrology is the foundation of all, uh, metam— metemphysical—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Metaphysical?" she corrects you.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, metaphysical, uh, thingabobbies, so I'm just starting to—"<br/>
<br/>
"Who told you that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Pardon?"<br/>
<br/>
Her lips twitch. "You <i>are</i> polite. Who told you—? I mean, where did you read that astrology is the foundation of all metaphysical—" Her lips twitch again. "Thingabobbies?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Oh." Your face starts to burn. "Somewhere. I don't really—"<br/>
<br/>
"So what got you interested in metaphysics and the foundations of metaphysics?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Well ... Astrology, I guess. 'Cos I read that—"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I mean what were into that got you into metaphysics and occult knowledge?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Well." The book falls from your fumbling fingers. "I was always kind of interested in magic, you know, so I started doing a little, um, research on it. Looking online—"<br/>
<br/>
"Where?"<br/>
<br/>
If this was a job interview, this would be the point where you stood up, thanked her for considering you for the position, and threw up in her lap. "Wikipedia?"<br/>
<br/>
You would have expected her to turn cold at that. You would have expected her to turn cold and bored and maybe even angry. Instead, her expression turns more alert and more interested. She puts her chin in her hand and peers closely at you with dancing eyes. "When did you read that Wikipedia article?"<br/>
<br/>
You sag. "A couple of months ago? This stuff is really <i>hard!</i>" Even to you, your protest sounds like a whine.<br/>
<br/>
She doesn't answer, but only holds your eye. You find you can't look away. She's so beautiful, and she seems keenly interested in you. Amused, too. Her lips purse up into a tiny smile. She looks like she's savoring a private joke, but there's no meanness or contempt in her eyes, as there was in Mansfield's.<br/>
<br/>
"You'd tell me the truth if I asked you to, wouldn't you, Will?" she says. She grasps your hand. If you were a cartoon character, your ball cap would have rocketed off your head and now be pinging around the room like a bullet. "I can really see us hanging out together. You and me and Caleb and the rest of your friends and a lot of mine."<br/>
<br/>
"Ungh-hungh?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. Absolutely. So you'd tell me the <i>real</i> truth, wouldn't you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, what real truth?" you croak.<br/>
<br/>
"That you're not really into the occult. Your friend Caleb is, though, and he put you up to this. Didn't he?"</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: A Mask Is Dropped
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Caleb?" you exclaim. "Caleb doesn't know anything, he doesn't give a shit about—!"<br/>
<br/>
You cut yourself off. Sydney is still smiling at you, but her eyes narrow. It's a look your mother sometimes gives you when she's running out of patience with your shit.<br/>
<br/>
Jesus, she is gorgeous. Her eyes are a slate-blue color; her skin, smooth and soft, is drawn tightly over cheekbones and jaw; her hair is a waterfall of gold. Even if she'd never be your girlfriend—and she is so far out of your class that you'd have to have a fist-fight every day for the rest of your high school career, just to keep the assholes off her—it would be beyond awesome just to have her as a friend.<br/>
<br/>
Not an acquaintance, not like Eva and Jessica Garner, who will sometimes speak civilly to you when you speak first to them. Not someone who'll say "Hi!" and pretend to be glad to see you when you bump into them in the halls once every couple of days.<br/>
<br/>
No, a <i>friend</i>, the way Caleb and Keith and you are friends. Someone you could text with—<i>what up dudette?—</i>and hang out with. Someone who would eat lunch with you and study with you and hang out at your house playing video games and watching movies. Someone who could give you shit and take shit from you and let you—<br/>
<br/>
Touch her? Push her? Horse around with her?<br/>
<br/>
And didn't she just say <i>I can really see us hanging out together, you and me and Caleb and the rest of your friends and a lot of mine?</i><br/>
<br/>
She seems really into the occult stuff, and she doesn't believe you are. Why does she think Caleb is?<br/>
<br/>
Oh, fuck Caleb. If the only way to get her mind off Caleb and onto you is to show her what you've made and what you could make ...<br/>
<br/>
Your heart and your cock rise in tandem.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, come with me," you say, and you surprise yourself with how low and calm your voice is. "You wanna know how I got into this stuff, got into ... magic?" You shove that shitty astrology paperback off the table. "I'll show you what I've got. And it ain't," you add as you stand; Sydney looks up at you with widening eyes, "Penn and Teller."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"So what is this place, exactly?" Sydney asks as you lead her down the creaking basement steps. A musty smell of grime rises to meet you. "An old school?"<br/>
<br/>
"Old elementary school. There's a community center on the other side of the building,. This is a basement storage thing," you add, as though the tumbled wreckage—old book cases and cabinets, conference tables and stacks of student desks—could be anything else. "I busted in about a year ago, looked around, had some fun here with my friends Caleb and Keith." You put your hands on your hips and squint around the dark and shadowy basement, like you're some kind of bad ass who doesn't care if he could or would get into trouble for breaking and entering. "I put a lock on the door, but no one comes down here. So it's just me. Me and my magical club house." <br/>
<br/>
<i>Oof. "Magical club house." So much for sounding and acting like a bad ass.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh." Sydney, barely visible in the gloom, is hanging back near the bottom of the stairs. "So what makes it magic?"<br/>
<br/>
This is the first time you've been down here since Monday morning, and it disconcerts you to find that the fire has gone out. How long has it been out? Does that mean the thing is finished, or that it just needs to be relit? You fumble about the room until you remember the light on your cell phone. It's no better than a pencil flashlight, but with it you find the cigarette lighter and the pile of earth. It looks different—less like a pile of dirt and more like a mound of clay—but the light's not good enough for a detailed examination.<br/>
<br/>
"This is the magic thing here, I think. It didn't come with the basement," you hasten to add. "I'm using a book to make it, and I'm pretty freaking sure it's magic. I don't think real chemicals are supposed to do the things that this thing is doing."<br/>
<br/>
The book is still under the earthen mound, but you don't pull it out, for fear that the spell still needs that sigil to work. "Watch," you tell Sydney over your shoulder. You flick the lighter and put it to the pile.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Foom!</i><br/>
<br/>
That same bloom of purple light fills the basement; you are standing directly over it, but the blow is as light as the brush of a butterfly's wings against your cheek. As you stagger back a step, violet flames silently lick the mound.<br/>
<br/>
"Come check it out," you tell Sydney, and put out your hand to her.<br/>
<br/>
She hesitates, then worms her way through the junk to your side. She stares down at the flames, her nostrils distending. She puts her hand into the flames. A little gasp escapes her throat. "No heat."<br/>
<br/>
"That's right. Which is funny, because it's, like, rocket fuel that's burning. This place ought to've exploded like a fireworks factory."<br/>
<br/>
"So why didn't it? What is it? What's it making?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know. The book—"<br/>
<br/>
"What book?" Her tone is sharp.<br/>
<br/>
"The one under the dirt." You point. "There's a sigil thing in the book, and you're supposed to put the ingredients in the sigil. So I had to pile everything onto the book. I think it needs to stay there 'til it's done."<br/>
<br/>
"When will that be? What's it making?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know, and I don't know. The book's funny. It tells you what to do, but you don't know what you're making until you turn the page. Oh, right," you add as she frowns at your words. "That's another funny thing about the book. All the pages are glued shut. You have to perform a spell before a page turns loose. Then when you turn the page, you get a new spell—which doesn't tell you what it does—but on the reverse side of the first page you get a paragraph that tells you what you made and how to use it. I've made some other stuff—"<br/>
<br/>
"Like what?"<br/>
<br/>
Now her voice is hard, demanding, even a little shrill. You don't like it, so you only tell her, "Like some glues and sealants. And a couple of dinguses."<br/>
<br/>
She's breathing hard, and her eyes are slits. But you say nothing more, and only hold her eye. Finally, she looks away, and swallows audibly.<br/>
<br/>
"Your friend Caleb," she says in a low voice. "He's helping you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. Why do you keep thinking that he's got something to do with this? He's all into science and shit, he thinks magic is bullshit." Well, you suppose he would. You've never talked to him about it.<br/>
<br/>
"Where did you get the stuff?" She points at the burning pile. "That's dirt, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Right. I got it out of a graveyard. At midnight," you can't help adding with a jocular leer.<br/>
<br/>
"Last Saturday," she says. "Is that when you got the dirt? And you brought it down here and you piled it up and poured all that other stuff on it, and you set it on fire?"<br/>
<br/>
A chill settles on your shoulders. "Yeah. But how did you know it was Saturday?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I saw you." She backs away slowly, her eyes locked on your face. "Except it wasn't you. It was your friend Caleb."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Well, that knocks you for a loop. You cast your mind back. Yeah, you put on Caleb's mask before you went out to the cemetery, and you didn't take it off until you got back home. So if anyone had seen you—<br/>
<br/>
"What were <i>you</i> doing out at the cemetery?" you demand.<br/>
<br/>
She doesn't answer. You can hear her breathing heavily through her nose. You could swear you hear her heart beating, but you know it's your own pulse pounding in your ears. "Come on. I told you about all this stuff. Now you tell me what you were—"<br/>
<br/>
"I was doing my own thing, okay? But the person I saw, was it you or was it your friend?"<br/>
<br/>
Your throat tightens. "You answer me first." Your fists bunch up of their accord. "You tell me—"<br/>
<br/>
"There's a ley line that runs through the cemetery," she blurts out. "I was surveying it, marking it. I saw someone, heard someone. I snuck over to see. It was your friend Caleb. Except—" She swallows noisily. "He was driving a truck like yours. And when he was done digging up ... stuff, he came back here and unloaded it and set it on fire." Stiffly, she points at the burning mound. "Are you trying to protect him, or something?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Now you feel trapped. She has answered your challenge. How are you to explain why she saw Caleb, except with the truth?<br/>
<br/>
But you've already told her so much that it's surprisingly easy to tell her the rest. "It's a spell in the book I told you about. I made myself look like him. That way if I got caught, it wouldn't be me who got in trouble."<br/>
<br/>
"Go on," she says.<br/>
<br/>
You bridle. "No, you go on. We'll switch it up. I'll tell you a little and you tell me a little. Start with this ley line thing. The fuck is a ley line?"<br/>
<br/>
She stares at you, then surprises you with a giggle: a short, silvery bubble of laughter. She covers her mouth and grabs the edge of a table as she sways on her feet. You feel yourself flushing, the way you were with Mansfield back at the coffee shop.<br/>
<br/>
"Sounds like we've got a lot we can teach each other," she says. She smiles, and the light is dancing in her eyes again.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you say, Will? Partners?" She puts out a hand.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: Confessions of Two Magic-Users
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Partners? You're doubtful. But there doesn't seem any graceful way to refuse. You take her hand and reply, "Okay, partners."<br/>
<br/>
And maybe it'll work out. You'd like to hang out with Sydney anyway. There will be time later to decide if you're genuinely interested in being <i>partners</i> with her.<br/>
<br/>
It's almost pitch-dark in the basement. Your cell phone casts an acrid light that dazzles more than it illuminates, and the silent flames from the earthen mound paint the darkness in violet hues rather than dispelling it. But though the basement is so dark that you can hardly make out Sydney's face, it is also secret and ... intimate? <i>A dark room for dark talk.</i> Is that a line you read somewhere? <br/>
<br/>
"So what's this book you found, and how does it work?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa, hang on. I already told you a lot about it. What can you bring to this partnership?"<br/>
<br/>
She shrugs. "I've got some stuff. Some notebooks of stuff." She hikes herself up onto a table and swings her legs. "My dad left them to me."<br/>
<br/>
"What was your dad? A wizard? A warlock?" <br/>
<br/>
"He was a financial officer at Parsons Collegiate Media." She titters like it's the punch line to a joke. "Vice-president of accounting, or something like that."<br/>
<br/>
"Was?" you prompt her.<br/>
<br/>
"He died." She takes a deep breath. "About ... three years ago?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry."<br/>
<br/>
She shrugs again. "It was sudden. A car wreck. Anyway, he was part of a secret society, and he left a bunch of notebooks behind. I've been studying them, trying to figure them out. Trying to—" <br/>
<br/>
Again she takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Trying to figure out how to get back at the guy who killed him."<br/>
<br/>
"Wait, what?" It's like there's been a time skip, and the conversation has jumped several minutes ahead and changed subjects. "I thought you said he was in a car wreck."<br/>
<br/>
"It was a car wreck. But it was arranged." Her voice tightens. "Someone set it up so as to kill him."<br/>
<br/>
An instinct moves you, and you hop onto the table next to her. You like that she doesn't scoot away.<br/>
<br/>
"You know who did it?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. I don't have any proof, but this one guy made out real good after my dad died, and it's like he was <i>waiting</i> to collect." She kicks at the air. "So this book you have. Where'd you get it?"<br/>
<br/>
You'd like to hear more about the car wreck, but you figure that can wait. Besides, it's your turn in the confessional.<br/>
<br/>
"At Arnholm's. I saw you there, by the way, last night, just before your tutorial thing with Caleb. Oh, also—" You can't keep a note of pride from your voice. "That wasn't Caleb you studied with. It was me. Disguised as him."<br/>
<br/>
Your brag is met with the most deathly silence you've ever heard. Sydney finally fills it with only two words: "Prove it."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm. Well, you had a book with you, on tarot. Um," you continue as she remains silent, "we only got up to problem ... thirty-four? And you took part of a biscotti home."<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb could have told you all that."<br/>
<br/>
"Look, if you want me to show you, I can."<br/>
<br/>
"Please."<br/>
<br/>
You grimace. "The thing's back home, up in my room."<br/>
<br/>
"Convenient. What thing?"<br/>
<br/>
"The mask. It's a mask, kind of like a— Well, you know in theaters, those masks that are like part of the logos? They're white and one of them is laughing and the other is crying? It's like those. Except this one isn't laughing or crying. And it doesn't have eye holes."<br/>
<br/>
"How does it make you look like someone else?"<br/>
<br/>
So you pull out the last batch of masks that you made and show them to her, and explain how you cast and polish them, and put them onto people to copy them, and seal them up. (But since it's just you and her, you don't demonstrate.) You also talk about the metal bands that copy memories and personalities and talents—"It's how come I could do that calculus stuff with you. I'm a moron when it comes to math, but Caleb's kind of a whiz at it"—and how with the two of them you can perfectly imitate someone else. "Then it's just a matter of making sure they're not around when you show up. I tricked Caleb into staying up at the municipal library so I could meet up with you at The Crystal Cave."<br/>
<br/>
"But he's the one who suggested we change our meeting place."<br/>
<br/>
"No, that was me too. I talked him into skipping school yesterday. I told him he'd make a total idiot of himself if he tried talking to you in math class, and that he'd also look like an idiot if he didn't talk to you. So it was just best if he skipped school totally." You shrug. "Then I went to school as him."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh," she says, still sounding skeptical. "That was pretty smart of you. I still wanna see that mask, though."<br/>
<br/>
"We can go get it when we leave here. But what's this ley line stuff you were talking about?" She's not the only one who can change the subject. "Does that have to do with your dad's secret society and stuff?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sort of. It's one of the things his notebooks talked about. But a ley line is kind of like a power beam. You can tap it to do magic stuff. One line by itself isn't very strong. But if you get a couple of them and tap them at the same time or in sequence, you can do stronger stuff. And if you can intersect and close them up, to make a triangle or a pentagram—"<br/>
<br/>
She closes her mouth with a snap, and you realize that she thinks she's said too much.<br/>
<br/>
But you're not ready to let her change the subject back to you. "There's a ley line that runs through the cemetery?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. One of the focal points is in there someplace."<br/>
<br/>
"Focal points?"<br/>
<br/>
"If you're going to draw a line, you need two points, right? It's the same thing with ley lines. If you want to make a ley line, you have to establish two focal points for it to run through. One of the focal points is inside that cemetery. It's why I was out there, I was trying to find it.<br/>
<br/>
"Look," she continues, "I can't stay out much longer. I've got a stupidly early curfew. How long would it take you to show me this mask you've got of your friend?"<br/>
<br/>
"I live just a couple of blocks away. Fifteen minutes?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can you show me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. But I'd rather bring it back here to show you. I don't want my parents catching me."<br/>
<br/>
She nods. It takes you a moment to realize she's giving you permission to leave <i>right now.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Later. Your house. Your bedroom. Your bed.</i><br/>
<br/>
You're fully dressed, but you cradle your cock and balls inside your jeans as you stare up at the ceiling. It's nearly eleven, and you really should be in bed, but you figure that even with the lights out you'd be stuck staring sleeplessly at the dark ceiling.<br/>
<br/>
You took Caleb's mask back to the school and put it on. When you were awake again, you honked at her in Caleb's voice and told her a few more things you could better remember about that tutoring session. You told her about some of the things you've done to get Caleb in trouble. Then you'd taken the mask off and driven her back to The Crystal Cave to pick up her car.<br/>
<br/>
It was like the other night when you parted after the tutorial session. She was very quiet then, too. But tonight after you dropped her off and were standing in the parking lot, she hurried back over from her car and pressed up close to you. Lightly she brushed her lips against your chin, then stepped back. "I'm really glad we're going to be friends, Will," she said.<br/>
<br/>
You don't remember anything about the drive back home. You're amazed that you made it without running someone over or being run over yourself.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I think I've got a girlfriend.</i><br/>
<br/>
It's like the thought should belong to someone else, but got the address wrong and settled in your brain instead. Someone else should be entertaining himself with that thought. Even when you were dating Lisa—and fuck her, you <i>were</i> dating—you didn't think <i>I have a girlfriend.</i> She was just <i>Lisa, who I am going out with.</i><br/>
<br/>
But Sydney wants to be your partner. Sure, it's a partnership built on a shared interest in magic. But she shared secrets with you, just as you shared some with her. That's an intimacy between you that you have with no one else. And she kissed you. On the chin only, it's true, but it's a gesture that Lisa never made.<br/>
<br/>
You and Sydney are going to be partners. You're going to be friends. You are sharing one-on-one secrets. And she's not averse to ... affectionate touches.<br/>
<br/>
What else would you need in order for the two of you to be <i>going out together?</i> A public declaration?<br/>
<br/>
Ay, there's the rub.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney hasn't said anything about guys hitting on her. (But why would she tell you about that?) Maybe they are hitting on her. Or maybe they're waiting for her to find her feet and to stop being "a new girl"?<br/>
<br/>
But if she starts going out publicly with you, what's to stop some of the meatier elements from pulling you aside and suggesting for the sake of your dental health that you drop Sydney and let "other guys" have a chance with her?<br/>
<br/>
And what would Caleb think?</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: Love Scene in a Cemetery
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Pretty romantic, huh?"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney returns your jape with a sidelong look and half of a smirk.<br/>
<br/>
It's Thursday night—the night after your tete-a-tete in the elementary school library—and you and she are back in the Masonic cemetery. There's a front moving through: the wind is blowing and the clouds are flying and the temperature is falling. So although it's still too warm for the mood to be truly Halloween-ish—it's only October 2—the mood is right for some corny jokes.<br/>
<br/>
It's your and Sydney's second "date," though you decided last night that it would be too risky to boldly proposition her. It seems enough, for now, to have a spark between you. A spark borne of a secret, shared interest in the occult; a spark she couldn't share with anyone else at school. So why would you even bother to ask her if you're "going steady"? Just be friends, and wait for the benefits to fall into your lap. <br/>
<br/>
(Or, more accurately given your state of arousal, "impale themselves upon your lap.")<br/>
<br/>
Anyway, it's your second date, and romance has led you back to the cemetery so that she could show you what she was up to last Saturday night, just as you've shown her all the stuff that you were up to.<br/>
<br/>
She has brought two instruments with her. The first is a thing like a gyroscope. Or, as she explained, like a dowsing rod. "You set it spinning, and the axis points to any ley lines nearby. You have to triangulate on them, though, and if they're too far off then you have to drive all over the place and mark lots of angles and lines on maps before you can start pinning down its exact location."<br/>
<br/>
Mostly this explanation only served to remind you that she's taking a bunch of AP classes and that you aren't.<br/>
<br/>
But once you were in the cemetery, she could show you directly. And, sure enough, as she paced the grounds with the spinning top suspended from a string, the central axis first rose to point ahead of her, then dipped to point straight at the ground, then twisted to point back the way she came. "Right here," she said, returning to the spot where the rod pointed at her toes. "It runs right through here."<br/>
<br/>
You stood beside her, but felt nothing but the animal excitement of being close to a small, slim, tautly muscled blonde goddess.<br/>
<br/>
She has set that instrument aside now, and has been fiddling with the other one she brought. It's like a sextant, made of brass or of gold, with strange figures and devices carved into the curved compass. After pushing two pencils into the ground to mark the direction of the ley line, she has laid down on the grass, with you beside her, and is sighting through the eyepiece.<br/>
<br/>
"There," she says. "You can see it now." She rolls away. "Go on, take a look. It's like a phosphorescent line."<br/>
<br/>
You flatten on your stomach and peer through the eyepiece without touching the instrument. At first you see nothing but the dark ground. Then, as though your eyes were adjusting to the dark, a faint, bluish-green glow appears, stretching out in a thin line in front of you.<br/>
<br/>
You peer over the top of the scope. "I don't see anything," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be derpy. Of course you can't, not with the naked eye. That's the whole point of the thing, it helps you see lines that are invisible."<br/>
<br/>
"Where did you get things? Did your dad teach you about this stuff?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. I don't think he'd have told me about it, not in a million years. You sure never could've told just by looking at him that he was into this stuff."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Just like you,</i> you think. But Sydney is still talking.<br/>
<br/>
"I told you he left a bunch of stuff behind when he died. These things, plus a lot of notes and papers. He had them in a rental unit. A high-security place, practically a bank vault, not like where you store an old sofa you can't get rid of. My mom and—" She snorts. "Her new husband, they couldn't ever get into it because you needed a security code. Not just to get into the unit but into the facility. My dad paid, like, twenty years in advance on the place." <br/>
<br/>
You're both lying on the ground, and when she props herself on her elbow you mirror the pose. It's very easy, you find, to listen intently and sympathetically to a beautiful girl.<br/>
<br/>
"My mom's new husband—" She hesitates. "I heard him talking to her one day. This was back when they were just dating, a couple of months after my dad's funeral." She makes a face. "Anyway, he said he'd found this Ouija board in our game closet. He asked if she'd ever tried using it to contact my dad. She said she hadn't, and she never would. Good for her," she snorts. "But something about the way he said, it gave me the feeling that <i>he</i> wanted to use it, that there was something <i>he</i> wanted to learn from it. I went in and stole it before he could get to it. I played with it, and it worked."<br/>
<br/>
"You talked to your dad?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think so. But some kind of message came through. It just kept giving me a seven-letter code over and over again. It gave me the idea that maybe that was the security code for the rental unit. I got a friend's mom to take me out, and it worked, it got me in. I snuck all the stuff out and hid it in my room. I've been figuring them out ever since."<br/>
<br/>
You stare deeply into her eyes, even though you're pretty sure she's staring at a spot a couple of miles behind your ear.<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway," she says as she sits up, "speaking of figuring out where things are, how about let's find the focal point of this ley line." <br/>
<br/>
"You think it's here in the cemetery?"<br/>
<br/>
"A ley line only becomes visible when it's close to a focus, so yeah. I was just starting to trace it out last Saturday when I heard your truck. Go on." She pushes you away from the sextant and takes your place at it. "Take a hike. I'll tell you if you get off the beam."<br/>
<br/>
So you trudge across the cemetery, dodging head stones and following Sydney's shouted instructions when you deviate from the line. You've no idea what you're looking for.<br/>
<br/>
Then, all at once, you're pretty sure you've found it. Sydney comes in answer to your shout, then brings that sextant over to confirm. "Well, it might not be in there," she says as she stands up and brushes herself off. "But it seems pretty likely, right?"<br/>
<br/>
That's what you thought. If anything is going to be the focus point for a power line of occult significance, it would be a mausoleum, wouldn't it? And the ley line runs straight through the center of its door.<br/>
<br/>
It's built of white stone and shaped like a Greek temple, with solid walls under a slanted roof with two pillars in front. The iron door is low—you'd have to duck your head to enter—and locked. You and Sydney circle the exterior, looking for other entrances. You've no idea how many coffins could be squeezed inside a building of this size, but you'd guess it could fit half a dozen without crowding.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney has brought a flashlight, and she casts the beam about until it catches a name etched over the door. "Keyserling," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"What, like the college?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess so." She looks around. "Oh my God," she murmurs a moment later.<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"This has got to be the focus. The axis is all wrong."<br/>
<br/>
"What are you talking about?"<br/>
<br/>
"The axis. Graves are almost always oriented east to west, with the gravestones facing east. If they're not east to west, they'll be north to south. See?" She points to the nearest gravestones. As near as you can judge, she's right that they are facing east. "But this thing—" She points at the crypt. "It's not east to west. It's not north to south, either. It's at least—" Her head swivels. "At least thirty degrees off a north-south line."<br/>
<br/>
"So?"<br/>
<br/>
"So that means it's <i>intentionally</i> laid out wrong. You don't just make that kind of mistake. The ley line runs through the door, and the axis is turned to align with it. The focus <i>has</i> to be in there."<br/>
<br/>
You lick your lips. "Do we have to get in there?"<br/>
<br/>
"We do if we want to tap it."<br/>
<br/>
"Do we?"<br/>
<br/>
She is very slow to answer. "I had an idea for what I wanted to do," she finally says, "if I found one of its foci." She looks around. "We could try finding the other focus, though, if we don't want to use this one."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you want to do when you find one?"<br/>
<br/>
She hesitates much longer.<br/>
<br/>
Then she does something wonderful. She steps up close and puts her arms around you. In your surprise, you fail to reciprocate as she pulls herself close to you.<br/>
<br/>
"I've never been with a guy before, Will," she murmurs, and rubs her face in your shirt. "I'm a virgin."<br/>
<br/>
You freeze all over. It sure as fuck sounds like she's leading up to the idea of ... fucking.<br/>
<br/>
But your burgeoning erection—which she can surely feel through your trousers, but you can't help yourself—slows at her next words: "And I have to stay a virgin."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" you croak.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh. But I think there's a way around it, if you'll help me."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Anything!</i> your brain screams. <i>I'll do anything!</i><br/>
<br/>
"I can keep my virginity, but also—" She gulps. "I think I can do what I need to do, at a focus point, if you make me a mask. So that it's technically <i>someone else</i> who gives herself to you at a focal point."</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The One Who Might Be Your Girlfriend
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Your voice seems to be hiding at the bottom of your lungs, and it's like it's trying to pull your throat in after it. "Um ... Yeah, I could do that," you gasp out. You feel yourself in danger of hyperventilating. "Um, does she ... the other girl ... Does she have to be a—?" You swallow. "A virgin too?" The last word comes out as a squeak.<br/>
<br/>
"Mm-mm." Sydney rubs her face into your shirt, and finally you are able to put your arms around her. "But it's up to you."<br/>
<br/>
For a long time you stand in the cemetery, holding each other. You don't have any more words for her—your head is spinning so hard it might unscrew itself and fall with a thud to the turf—and you don't want to let go of her. At the same time, your face is melting off the front of your skull in embarrassment at the boner you're pressing into her through the front of your pants. She's got to feel it, and yet she doesn't seem to mind.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, she draws back and looks up into your face. But still she keeps hold of your shoulders. "It's really great of you to help me, Will," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, there's a couple of complications," you tell her after taking a deep breath. "First of all—" <br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh, Jesus it's a hateful confession, but you feel like you need to make it anyway.</i> "I don't actually know a lot of girls," you croak. "Not— Not the way that I can, um, get real ... really close to, close enough to— I mean, there's one girl, Jenny. Jenny Ashton? You know her?"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney thinks a moment. "Long brown hair, sassy attitude, likes to play softball?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Does Jenny like to play softball?</i> you wonder. "I think you have her in an environmental science class?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's her. She's cute. Would you—? Um?" Now it seems to be Sydney's turn to be bashful. "Would it be weird for you to, uh, do the thing with her? Even if you knew it wasn't really her?"<br/>
<br/>
You try to say "No," but you wind up pulling in a deep breath instead. Now that Sydney has put it that way, it does sound really weird. Jenny isn't a close friend, but she is a friend. "Um, well."<br/>
<br/>
"So you're saying maybe it should be one of my friends, or someone I know?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeh, eb, ubb ..." You reset the gears inside your mouth. "I don't want to, you know, put a job onto you!"<br/>
<br/>
"No, it's fair, Will. It's my idea, you'd be doing a huge favor for me. Just show me how you copy people with a mask or whatever, and I can do it. I could do it this weekend, easy. Could you get me a mask by then?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure! No, wait. Shit!" You've remembered the second complication. "I have to use the book to make the masks, and it's, uh, under that thing in the basement."<br/>
<br/>
"Can't you get it out?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to screw up the spell while it's going."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm. Well, how long until it's done?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know." You blush to confess your amateurish ignorance. "The book doesn't say."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh. Well, that's okay. I've waited this long." Sydney gives you a squeeze—one that almost makes you cream your shorts—and releases you. "We got a lot done tonight. Do you want to try finding the other focal point of his ley line?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can we save it for tomorrow night? Or—" Your heart plunges. "Do you have a date with someone?"<br/>
<br/>
"No date. I'm not seeing anyone." Your heart leaps, then crashes at the implication that she's not "seeing" you, either. "But I am supposed to go to a party." Her brow furrows. "You're coming too, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... Could I?"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course. It's just a thing over at Catherine Muskov's house. I thought everyone went to her things."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't go to a lot of parties. But yeah, if no one's going to throw me out or anything." You shrug. "I'd love to go ... with ... you."<br/>
<br/>
"Great, can you pick me up around seven? It's an all-afternoon, all-evening thing." She traces her fingertip down the front of your shirt. "We can go, hang out, dance, have some fun, then take off before my curfew? My mom's idiot new husband makes me come home so early. But if we take off early enough we could maybe do something just the two of us together before you have to take me home?"<br/>
<br/>
Desire gurgles and bubbles in the back of your throat. "Like looking for a ley line?"<br/>
<br/>
She titters. "It was romantic out here tonight, wasn't it? You said so yourself."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You lay in bed, sleepless, staring at the ceiling with three straining eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Two of them, of course, are the eyes in the front of your head. The third belongs to your one-eyed trouser snake. It can't see the ceiling, of course, not even metaphorically. But it has firmly tented the sheets.<br/>
<br/>
You're not even touching it. You're not encouraging it in any way. It's just there, dammit.<br/>
<br/>
What was all that flirty stuff with Sydney tonight? You sure know what it looked like. It looked like she's interested in you. It looked like she's <i>hot</i> for you. Hell, she all but said that she'd fuck you except she needs to preserve her virginity for some reason. <br/>
<br/>
But you of all people know that looks can be deceiving. What does she really want?<br/>
<br/>
<i>You?</i> Even though you've told yourself <i>I've got a girlfriend,</i> it scarcely seems conceivable that you've got a girlfriend <i>to that degree.</i> Lisa sure didn't want you that way, and she knew you at your best, and she's not nearly as hot as Sydney McGlynn. <br/>
<br/>
And Sydney's a pretty good little actress. She sure did a good job pretending to be interested in Caleb, until you told her that Caleb had nothing to do with the stuff she's interested in.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it's the grimoire she's really interested in. Is she manipulating you to get her hands on it? All that hugging and touching and scrunching up her nose at you like you're the cutest thing ever ... Standard female tricks for melting a guy down into jelly so she twist him into any shape she wants.<br/>
<br/>
You throw a forearm across your sweating brow.<br/>
<br/>
Unless maybe she <i>is</i> interested in you, but as a practicing magician? You have executed some spells. She acted genuinely interested in Caleb when she thought he had some magic skill, and she didn't think he had a book. In that case, she might be genuinely interested in you! As someone with a shared interest, a shared quirk! That's what good relationships are supposed to be built on, right?<br/>
<br/>
It is a satisfying train of thought, and you feel yourself relaxing, until a vexing objection occurs to you. You're not the only guy in school who is into the occult. <i>Braydon Delp,</i> you groan to yourself.<br/>
<br/>
At least, he's reputed to be into the occult. He looks like he would be. Delp is a scrawny social misfit—a misfit in a creepy kind of way, not a dopey one like you and Caleb and Keith—who hangs out with the RPG crowd. He's not an evil kind of guy, at least you've never got that kind of a vibe off him. But he dresses in black and he paints his fingernails black and he wears mascara and a lot of silver. People say that he's into the occult. Maybe he isn't, and Sydney found out he isn't, so that's why she's not attracted to him the way ... Well, the way she seems to be attracted to you. (A quiver runs through you as the very concrete thought "the way she's attracted to me" forms in your head.) But if he is into the occult, and she's not attracted to him, why would she be attracted to you? Because you've proved you can do something, while Braydon probably only listens to death metal and carries around little vials of blood in order to shock people? (Disclaimer: You've never actually seen Braydon with a vial of blood; that's just more of those rumors.) You squirm between the sheets, and your boner does start to subside as your bewilderment returns.<br/>
<br/>
Your only comfort is that it is probably this way for most guys: <i>Why is this girl interested in me? Is she really interested in me? Do I have a legitimate chance with her?</i><br/>
<br/>
Except, of course, it wouldn't be this way for Steve Patterson. Or Marc Garner. Or Laurent Delacroix. Or even—<i>dammit</i>—for Geoff Mansfield.<br/>
<br/>
Melancholy turns to sleepiness, and your raging erection puddles, as the names of guys who are probably totally confident that girls are horny for them drift through your mind: Seth Javits, Erik Carstairs, Noah Lepley, Chris Ratliff ...<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb is in a mood all day Friday, especially at lunch, which he takes with you and Keith and Carson and James and the others. They seem to have forgiven him—or maybe they are just tolerating him for friendships' sake—so talk is light and pleasant until Carson happens to mention Sydney's name. Caleb curses, grabs up his trash, and stalks away. "What's biting Johansson?" Carson asks. But you just shrug.<br/>
<br/>
What's biting him, obviously, is that Sydney has totally forgotten about him after making that very promising approach.<br/>
<br/>
But you don't care. He wouldn't have had a chance with her anyway. But it does give you pause when you meet Sydney up at her house a little before eight. "I checked the spell back at the school, just before coming out," you tell her. "The fire went out."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah? Does that mean it's done?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, it's not done until it doesn't relight. And it relit. But it got me thinking."<br/>
<br/>
You break off before suggesting that you skip Catherine's party and go looking for the ley line instead. Caleb doesn't go to many parties; but what if he caught you at this one with Sydney?</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: Who One Is and Who One Might Be
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Got you thinking what?" Sydney asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Well." You make a hard turn onto Borman Avenue, and a hard turn in the conversation as well, toward the direction of the masks and of disguises.<br/>
<br/>
"I was thinking about how, uh, you want me to make you a mask so you can copy someone so that we can, uh ..."<br/>
<br/>
But Sydney doesn't fill the hole you provided her. <br/>
<br/>
"That would be for business, right? The thing doing with the masks? I mean—" Your chest starts feeling like it's about to explode. "It would only be for, uh, doing business with the ley lines?"<br/>
<br/>
Seriously, it feels like you're about to have a heart attack. Only now do you realize what you're saying. You're asking if she wants to use a mask to have sex with you because the ley lines require it, not because— <br/>
<br/>
Well, not for any reason having to do with <i>you</i>.<br/>
<br/>
It's a good thing you have a strong instinct for self-preservation, or else you'd likely steer the truck into a light pole and try to kill yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"Right," Sydney says. Her tone isn't cool, exactly, but there's no flirtiness inside it. "Tapping a ley line is like plucking a string. You know, like on a guitar. Or hitting a piano key. Uh, <i>coitus,</i> according to the stuff I've read, is one way that you, um, pluck the string. A really powerful way."<br/>
<br/>
There was the tiniest little titter, you think, inside the word "coitus," and by the end it does sound like she's trying to suppress a giggle. You chance a quick glance at her. But it's dark inside the truck cab, and you can make out nothing of her expression. Only her hair gleams in the dark, and the streetlights reflect off her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
<i>God, you want her in a lighted room, with her arms around you and your arms around her, peering down into her face and her face turned up to peer into yours. Maybe then you'd be able to tell how sincerely interested in you she is. And </i>what<i> that interest is.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Well, I was thinking about what masks we could get. That's all."<br/>
<br/>
"Did you have some ideas?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well. No," you have to admit. A sudden thought bites you—something that could be a genius question or a disaster. "You want to wear a mask. Do you want <i>me</i> to wear a mask?"<br/>
<br/>
Silence.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Yeah,</i> you think as your heart jackhammers in your chest. <i>This is a genius question. Also a dangerous one. I'm giving her a chance to say something about me, about my—<br/>
<br/>
Well, fuck it. About my sex appeal.</i><br/>
<br/>
You feel yourself crimsoning in the dark as she makes no reply. The trunk bench grows very hot under your butt.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I'm asking her if she could stand having sex with me, or if she'd rather pretend it was someone else. Some football player or one of the basketball players. Some slicked-up asshole like Mansfield. <br/>
<br/>
I'm asking her if I'm up to her standards.<br/>
<br/>
'Cos I sure as fuck don't feel like I am.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Do we both have to wear masks if we do it?" Sydney asks. "Is that part of the magic, that you can't, uh, be intimate with someone if one of you's wearing a mask and the other one isn't?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," you confess. "I hadn't thought of that."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh."<br/>
<br/>
Then she bursts out laughing. "What?" you growl. Now you are ready to die of humiliation.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, nothing," she gasps. "You're just such a gentleman. So chivalrous."<br/>
<br/>
"How am I chivalrous?" you demand, as though she's just called you an asshole.<br/>
<br/>
"Being so thoughtful. I'm going to turn myself into another girl for you." She puts her feet on the truck console. "You want her to be sexy, right? You want it to be with a sexy girl."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't say—!" you try to protest, but your mouth fills with a froth.<br/>
<br/>
"You don't have to, Will. I know that's what you'd want. It's what any guy would want. Or are you saying you could get it up for some dumpy, fat-faced girl with zits and weird hair?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um—"<br/>
<br/>
"No you couldn't." She giggles. "You don't have to be <i>that</i> chivalrous, Will. You're being chivalrous enough. Because now you're asking if I want you to make yourself up the same way. I'm gonna be the sexy girl for you, and you're asking if you have to be the sexy guy for me."<br/>
<br/>
You're at a stoplight, so you can't steer the truck into a wall. But you could maybe hop out of the truck cab and scamper off into the night. Keep running until you crossed a state line. Change your name and get a job as a dishwasher and bury yourself in some big city where no one—especially Sydney—could ever find you again.<br/>
<br/>
"You can do anything you want, Will. You can be the sexy guy when we do it. You can be the unsexy guy. You can be yourself. It doesn't matter to me, as long as it's a guy who can get it up and work it until something comes out."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh my God!</i> Her description—"get it up and work it until something comes out"—almost scorches your face off the front of your skull. But in reply you only murmur, "So it really is just business?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh!" She sighs. "Don't work yourself up so much about it. We're friends, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah! I hope so. I want to be." You shoot her a couple of ardent, sidelong glances. "That's what I keep telling myself. 'I'm friends with this girl, isn't it great?'"<br/>
<br/>
"So we're friends. We're having fun." She strokes your arm. "On the mask thing, I'll leave it up to you. I need one, but I'll leave it up to you if you want to put a mask on too. Leave it up to you who, too."<br/>
<br/>
"Even if he's fat and pimply and has weird hair?"<br/>
<br/>
She throws her head back and laughs.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>We're friends, aren't we?</i> Sydney said to you in the truck. But are you? You barely know her. And you wonder if she really feels like she knows you. The disconnect between what you've said and how you feel becomes most apparent at Catherine's.<br/>
<br/>
You don't go to many parties, but this one doesn't feel much like the ones you've been to or like the ones you crashed while wearing Caleb's face. Those parties had food and drinks set out, with music and dancing and people falling over each other and making out. This party at Catherine Muskov's, though ...<br/>
<br/>
Well, there is music and dancing in the living room. There's food in the dining room and kitchen. People are sitting on stairs and there's lots of raucous laughter. But the feel is different. It's disorganized. The music and the dancing starts and stops, and there's usually not more than four or six people dancing to it. The food and drink is BYOB—sacks of fast food and chips and bottles deposited by people coming in and out. Most of the people are entertaining themselves on their cell phones. The mood isn't somber, but it is so relaxed that it's practically boneless. You don't even glimpse your hostess except once, when she goes gliding through the dining room with a faint smile on her face.<br/>
<br/>
So it's more like a "hanging out" session than a party. And your time with Sydney is more like "hanging out" than partying together. She finds herself a cluster of kids in the dining room early on and talks intently with them about school and acquaintances and movies and books. <br/>
<br/>
Books especially. It seems to be a bookish group. Shakespeare is a particular topic. They've got lots of things to say about Shakespeare.<br/>
<br/>
You don't, so you linger at the edge, feeling out of place and studying the others, wondering which of the girls she might get a mask of. Wondering which girl you would <i>like</i> for her to get a mask of.<br/>
<br/>
You only know two of them by name, for you've had them in classes: Reagan and Whitney. They're volleyball players, you <i>think.</i> Neither one is very beautiful. They are husky girls—not fat, but they don't look like girls who have been smoothed down by lots of running and swimming. They are like the female equivalent of football players, you decide. Strong of thigh and shoulder and fist and face. Reagan in particular wears a very bold expression, and when someone spills a little dip on her front she blows very indignant and tosses her long, blonde hair like it's a horse's mane. <br/>
<br/>
Two other girls are there with their boyfriends. You don't catch their names, but all four are in AP classes, judging by their conversation. The guys in particular remind you of the AP assholes like Mansfield, and one of them—when talking about <i>Richard III</i>—casually describes like it's no big deal a performance he saw in London last year. He's also full of things to say about Hamlet and "Oedipal interpretations." You also note that, except for an Indian-American girl who gives you a couple of lingering, curious glances, they completely ignore you.<br/>
<br/>
The guy who doesn't ignore you, though, is Tony Peterson. You had him in middle school P.E., and though he didn't hassle you it was only because you did your best to stay out of his way. He's a wrestler now, and he hasn't got anything to say about Shakespeare or books, so he has plenty of time to glower at you in a sidelong way.<br/>
<br/>
Occasionally you wander off, forgetting your fear of running into Caleb; never do you find more welcoming company, and no one hails you by name. Sydney never notices when you return from these vacations, and when she glances at you, her smile suggests that she never saw you go.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Hours wear on. Finally Sydney takes you aside to say she has to get home before her curfew. "You kept to yourself," she observes as you drive off.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't do so good in big groups," you admit.<br/>
<br/>
"I had an idea tonight," she says. "Maybe I could hang out with you tomorrow while wearing that mask of your friend Caleb? That's one way we could get to know each other fast."</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: Is You Is or Is You Ain't My BF?
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Fresh and early the next morning—a Saturday, so "fresh and early" means "around 11:15"—you meet Sydney at the elementary school. You had offered to drive over to pick her up, but she told you not to be silly.<br/>
<br/>
You're meeting at the school both because it's the center of your own occult studies, and also so that you can check up on the fire. To your delight, you see that it has gone out. But the flames spark to life again when you put a lighter to it.<br/>
<br/>
"So, I wore by biggest, floppiest track suit," Sydney brightly announces when she arrives ten minutes later. The gray-and-white suit does hang very loose on her, like footie pajamas for a little kid. "I figured I should wear something extra-large if I'm gonna balloon up." She squints up into your face. "You're about Caleb's height, right? I hope they're big enough."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I brought some of his things anyway." You gesture at the grocery bag with the last batch of clothes you stole from him. "You can put them on if the track suit still doesn't fit."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm," she says, and her dimples pop out. "I think I'll try it with the track suit on. Change clothes after, if I have to. Anything I need to know before we start?" She hops onto a table.<br/>
<br/>
You describe the process—what little of it there is—to her: That the mask will knock her out and that she'll wake up looking like Caleb Johansson. "The memories and stuff come crowding in pretty quick," you tell her. I was actually kind of confused at first about who I really was. It was like when you're waking up from a deep sleep," you hastily add as alarm shows in her eyes. "You know how you can be kind of groggy and confused, but then after you're awake everything's clear? It was like that."<br/>
<br/>
She accepts that with a nod, and at your direction lays back on the table and takes the mask from you. (And just in time you remember to tell her to kick her shoes off.) She holds the mask over her face, studies its inner surface, then after shooting you a quizzical look she lowers it onto her face.<br/>
<br/>
You stare at her hard, curious to see what the transformation looks like.<br/>
<br/>
It's over before you can even brace yourself. One moment, it's Sydney McGlynn lying on the dusty old conference table. Then it's Caleb Johansson. He is so solid and natural looking—no glow, no sparkles, no shifting or morphing of flesh—that it's like it always was him laying on the table.<br/>
<br/>
His expression is slack and peaceful. You bend over him, twisting yourself around to look straight down into his face. Big nose, liverish lips, tightly curled hair, a little acne next to one ear and some downy fuzz on his cheeks and upper lip. <br/>
<br/>
Wow, it is totally Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
Which is why it's really creepy to feel your cock engorging as you study his face. You back away.<br/>
<br/>
Okay, you tell yourself, it's because you know it's really Sydney under that face, right? Getting turned on by your best friend would be super-weird. Getting turned on by Sydney is totally natural. <br/>
<br/>
So getting turned on by Sydney while she just happens to look like Caleb? More weird than normal, but not as weird as if it was Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
Still, when you have the sudden, vivid image of Caleb smiling at you, and flirting with you, and putting his arms around you and slipping inquiring lips up to yours—<br/>
<br/>
Okay, no that would be too much!<br/>
<br/>
But sitting up close to him? Putting your arms in his? Talking quietly and laughing at private jokes? Being cozy and conversationally intimate? (Conversationally intimate! <i>Conversationally!</i> you emphasize to yourself.) Well, that would be ... interesting. In a good sort of way. Sort of. Maybe?<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly it's all too much to take in. You scramble from the basement and take a long, hard jog around the perimeter of the school grounds to burn off the nervous energy—and confusion!—that's now fizzing and popping inside you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
There's noises coming from inside the basement when you get back, panting and blown, from your run, and when you go inside you see a figure twisting around in the darkness. It turns as you tramp down the stairs.<br/>
<br/>
It's Caleb. He's got his shirt off. "Oh, hey," he says in that honking voice. "I was wondering where you went. You get tired of waiting for me?" A mischievous smile—a disgusting, flirty thing—twists onto his lips. "I was gonna change while you were gone."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, man, you do that, I'll give you some privacy," you gulp.<br/>
<br/>
"Will!" he shouts as you turn away. "You don't have to go." You glance back, just in time to see him shove the sweat pants down to ankles. <i>Oh God, Sydney came to this meeting commando!</i> You quickly avert your eyes. "Guys take their clothes off in front of each other, don't they?" he says as his dick flaps openly in the breeze.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, yeah, that's what the jocks do," you say. "But guys like me and Caleb, we keep our clothes on around each other."<br/>
<br/>
"I see. Something to know," he says. "There's a lot I need to find out. Those memories you were talking about are having a hard time coming."<br/>
<br/>
"Really?" You study a crack in the wall as, out of the corner of your eye, you watch Caleb pulling on some underwear. "Where does Caleb live?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know. Not a clue. I wasn't at all confused when I woke up, by the way. I had to— Well, I had to touch myself in a couple of places to make sure I was actually changed. Checked myself out on my phone."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh," you say. "Maybe it was quicker for me 'cos I know Caleb, know a lot about him already."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, I'm not panicking," your friend's doppelganger says. "We can wait until I get them before we go out."<br/>
<br/>
"Go out?" You jump half an inch into the air. "Go out where?"<br/>
<br/>
"Anywhere." He falls back onto the table and pulls on his shoes. He is still shirtless. "Hang out where you'd hang out, pretending like we're you and him."<br/>
<br/>
"What if we run into him? Get caught?"<br/>
<br/>
"That'd be fun, wouldn't it?" He stands and picks up his shirt. That creepy smile is back on his face. It's a shock to realize that it's a smile like you've seen on Sydney's face: coy and a little secretive. It looks awesome on her. On Caleb—<br/>
<br/>
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but on Caleb ... And with the dainty way that he moves as he puts on the shirt ...<br/>
<br/>
Oh, Jesus. He's mincing around like the biggest flaming queen in the universe.<br/>
<br/>
He's still talking as you boggle at him. "But we can go someplace we wouldn't run into him. Call him, find out what he's doing, then we go someplace else. Anyway, if we get caught or get in trouble, you can just pretend like you thought I was the real Caleb. Like there's a real shapeshifter on the loose. You play innocent, and I play the monster. Rar!"<br/>
<br/>
He rakes the air with a clawed hand, which is all that it takes to cement the picture of this person as Caleb Johansson's Ultra-Swishy Mirror Universe Twin.<br/>
<br/>
"No, let's stay down here," you argue. "I mean—!" you gasp as a picture of the two of you here, alone, in the dark, being flirty, flashes across your inner movie screen like a porno-horror picture. "We really should keep out of sight! We don't want to, uh, spread any more rumors about weird, magical stuff going on than we can. Right?"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "If you say so. You can tell me about you and Caleb. Maybe it'll start jogging the memories."<br/>
<br/>
He jumps onto a table and clasps his hands over his crossed legs.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So that's what you do. You sit in the basement—though it is dark and dusty and chilly—and tell her about your cramped and boring life. How your two best friends are total dorks like you are, and how you spend most of your time at school going to classes and dodging bullies. How you don't go to parties much or do much of anything outside school except hang out with Caleb and Keith while playing video games or going to movies or comic book stores or fast food restaurants where you tease and jeer at each other. "And I haven't even really been doing a lot of that," you concede, "since finding that book."<br/>
<br/>
God help you, you even tell her about you and Lisa. She's sympathetic but she hasn't got a lot to say except, "It sounds like you really weren't that compatible."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Are you and me compatible?</i> you want to ask, but you don't.<br/>
<br/>
After taking a break to pick up some burgers at a drive-through, you return to the school where she tells you some things about herself. She's from Kansas City originally, and yes she was a cheerleader at the high school there. She loves track and gymnastics and tennis, but she isn't doing any of them (except for a P.E. class and after-school gymnastics practice) while she concentrates on her school work. She's made a lot of friends, but she's steered clear of the cheerleaders and most of the sports teams because "they don't seem very nice."<br/>
<br/>
As for her own past experience with the occult, she still very reticent and only fills in little dabs of detail to what she's already told you. The most salient is that the car wreck that killed her father was arranged by magical means. "I found out how to do it in his notebooks," she tells you. "Someone did it to him. He wanted the stuff my dad had. The position, the knowledge, the prestige."<br/>
<br/>
"And it doesn't seem creepy to you?" you ask her. "That your dad was into this stuff?"<br/>
<br/>
She returns you a very even look. "I don't care," she says. "I'd make a deal with the devil to get back at the guy who killed him."</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: A Movie Steps Off the Screen
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>By the middle of the afternoon you feel you've exhausted the subject of yourself, and Sydney has no more to say about herself. During all that time, moreover, she has completely failed to pick up any of Caleb's memories or personality traits. <br/>
<br/>
"I think you were making it up," she teases, "the stuff about having your friend's memories. I think you were just pretending to be him." But beneath the teasing tone you can hear a peevish annoyance. You can only lamely speculate that the mask worked for you and not her because you're the one who cast it. "Then let me make the next one," she says.<br/>
<br/>
There's no chance of that, though, as long as the grimoire is buried under that burning mound of earth.<br/>
<br/>
Speaking of which, you've had plenty of time during the afternoon to study it more closely. Something is happening to it, so you know that despite the time it's taking that the spell is (probably) working. What started as a mound of loose dirt has pulled together and hardened into a solid shape. At first glance it looks like a fat lawn cigar, albeit one dropped by a dog the size of an elephant. It's irregular in shape, though. A fissure has opened up at one end, nearly splitting the thing in two up the middle, and farther up two smaller fissures have opened up on either side. Those cracks give you pause—Is the thing deformed?—but there's nothing to do but wait for the thing to finish.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
By three o'clock Sydney has started to go a little stir crazy. "Maybe you don't need people to hang out with, but I do," she says. "No offense, Will, but all this one-on-one time with you is a bit much of a good thing."<br/>
<br/>
"No offense taken," you tell her. In truth, you've gotten a little antsy as well.<br/>
<br/>
So she changes back into her track suit, and with you to guide her she pulls off Caleb's mask. It knocks her out, and for a long minute you bend over her, staring into her face. As your trouser snake stirs, though, you decide it would be best if she didn't wake to find you looming over her with a haggard, lustful stare, and mount the steps to wait outside. You have to move into the cab of your truck, though, as it starts to rain.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm going over to Sophie Van den Berg's place," Sydney tells you when she comes out to join you a quarter-hour later. She's got a dazed expression on her face, and she squints up at the cloudy sky. "Wanna go with?"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe meet you there later?"<br/>
<br/>
Her lips purse into a wry smile like she had when wearing Caleb's face, but it looks much nicer on her own. "That means no, doesn't it?"<br/>
<br/>
Then, to your astonishment, she leans in through your truck window to give you a solid smooch on the side of the mouth.<br/>
<br/>
"That's for sharing your stuff with me," she says. "And talking with me. I'll bring over some of my dad's stuff tomorrow. If we can't look at your book, we can look at his." She jumps into her car and drives off before you can find your voice.<br/>
<br/>
For almost ten minutes you sit in your truck. You press the palms of your hands against the roof of the cab, and your feet into the floorboard—it's the only way you can keep from exploding with surprise and excitement. <br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Maybe Sydney meant the kiss to persuade you to follow her out to her friend's house, but it actually has the opposite effect. You want to keep it a special thing, and so after going home, locking yourself in your room, and air-guitaring joyfully for half an hour to the most up-tempo music you can find, you text Caleb and Keith to see if they're up for something. Caleb isn't, but Keith texts back to say that he's planning a late-afternoon cinema run with some of his other friends, and to ask why you didn't reply to his earlier text informing you of the fact.<br/>
<br/>
"Because you're full of shit," you tell him when you call him directly. "You don't have any other friends."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you," he says. "Keep talking like that, and the only friends I got will <i>be</i> my other friends."<br/>
<br/>
"And what a tragedy that would be. Who are these assholes?"<br/>
<br/>
"My homies Montoya and Hollister. You know, the guys I'm making videos with."<br/>
<br/>
"What videos?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you. Don't you ever listen to a thing I say?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not if I can help it. What's this movie you're gonna see?"<br/>
<br/>
"<i>Cravenmoor.</i> New horror thing, s'posed to be a new cinematic universe, like that <i>Conjuring</i> shit. Started yesterday. You'll wanna get in on the ground floor if you're gonna get in at all."<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes, but it's something to do, so you tell Keith you'll meet him and his "homies" at the Silver Cineplex up by the mall at five.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Keith has three "homies" with him, not two, when you arrive, but introductions are quickly made. You recognize Michael Hollister and Carlos Montoya as guys in your English class. The third, Philip Fairfax, is someone you've had classes with in the past. Hollister and Montoya are a couple of laughing goofballs who can't help spilling popcorn all over themselves as they race down the hall to the auditorium. Fairfax is a sober, tight-lipped red-head with black frame glasses who answers your questions in an emotionless monotone. After a few minutes you finally place him: He's the kid whose kick-ass science-fair project back at Schuyler Middle School took him to Washington DC for some kind of national finals.<br/>
<br/>
These days, though, he explains as you settle into the plush, stadium seating of the largest screen in the cineplex, he's helping his friends with a YouTube channel. "Movie reviews," he says. "I'm not cinematically inclined myself, so I'm helping run the technical end of it. It's all educational, of course." <br/>
<br/>
He pauses as Michael, who is sitting in the row directly in front of you, squirts a stream of Pepsi into Carlos's face; Montoya retaliates by flicking a cheese-drenched Nacho at him. "Analyzing algorithms, I mean," Philip says. "The reviews themselves won't be putting any critics out of work," he mutters.<br/>
<br/>
Keith, who is sitting on the other side of you, jumps in at that point to remind you that he <i>told</i> you all about the channel, and how he's helping them run it, and how any week now he's going to guest-host one of the videos. "Do a whole bunch of 'em as extra credit in Hawks's class," he brags. "That's the plan. Too late now for <i>you</i> to get in on it, though," he adds with a jeer.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, I've got a girlfriend," you retort. The words surprise you.<br/>
<br/>
"Pfft, sure, you say that now, but when mid-terms are— What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing."<br/>
<br/>
"Christ. You and Lisa are bust-o for good-o. You need to stop huffing glue, man."<br/>
<br/>
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop taking amphetamines!" Carlos hoots.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, birds too!" Mike exclaims.<br/>
<br/>
"And Leon's getting <i>larger!</i>" They collapse against each other in gales of laughter.<br/>
<br/>
Fortunately, right about then the lights go down and the ads begin.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
An hour and forty minutes later, your quintet is swaggering toward the exits. Mike and Carlos are chortling in a nasty way and chanting (for no reason you can understand), "Quiet quiet quiet <i>boom,</i> quiet quiet quiet <i>bang,</i> quiet quiet quiet <i>zing</i>, quiet quiet quiet <i>ah-OOO-gah!</i>" Keith says a few sneering things—"Was that ectoplasm or ectojism?"—while Philip (when you ask what he thought) says, "Any insufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from mere incompetence," which sounds like the kind of thing that probably got him to Washington DC when he was thirteen years old.<br/>
<br/>
And you? <br/>
<br/>
You are seriously <i>freaked out.</i><br/>
<br/>
Oh, the movie itself wasn't all that scary. Mostly it was just things jumping out of walls.<br/>
<br/>
Nor was it the iconography. Even when one of the characters pulled down a mirror—which had been prone to go cloudy and show ghastly visions of torture and murder—to reveal a grotesquely primitive portrait of a horned goat (glaring balefully) daubed onto the wall, you stifled a yawn.<br/>
<br/>
But when that same character dropped the mirror (which shattered, naturally) and turned white and murmured, "Baphomet!" you sat up very sharply.<br/>
<br/>
And when it turned out—helpfully shown in flashback—that the house had been the headquarters for a red-robed cult dedicated to the worship of a demon by that name, you shrank back in your seat and pulled your knees up to your chest.<br/>
<br/>
"Any of you guys know anything about that demon those characters were worshipping?" you ask with studied indifference when you're in the parking lot.<br/>
<br/>
"Blegh-heh-heh-heh-heh!" Carlos bleats in mocking imitation of a goat.<br/>
<br/>
"You gotta have a serious craving for cock if you're gonna suck off a giant goat!" Mike chortles.<br/>
<br/>
You shiver.<br/>
<br/>
When Keith suggests a group party at La Cocina, you almost demur, then decide you'd rather be with friends than home alone in your bedroom. You're not much company for the other guys, though, and no one is broken up when, on getting a text from your dad, you announce you have to run a short errand and then go home.<br/>
<br/>
When you are in your bedroom, you temporize for as long as you can stand, then fire up a web browser to research that demon. It turns out to be a real thing—the deity supposedly worshipped by the heretical Templars.<br/>
<br/>
More to the point, the "Brotherhood of Baphomet" was the name of the secret society to which Sydney's father belonged.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: While There's Time to Turn Back
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You feel a darkness closing all about you as the evening and the night wears on, and for the first time since you were little you dread the coming of bedtime, and the putting out of the lights. It's even worse than when you were eight years old. Back then you could hide your head under the covers and pretend that nothing could find you. You can't do that now, and you spend a very sleepless night watching the black corner of your room on the other side of your closet door, waiting for the massive, red-eyed head of a goat to appear within it.<br/>
<br/>
Morning brings no relief, for going to church just makes things worse. Where before St. Michael's Episcopal was just a place to slouch and doze while wearing itchy pants, now it feels like hostile ground. You actually have the sense that God has come down from heaven and is sitting in the sanctuary, leaning over you with a frown and silently asking, from under raised eyebrows, if you're actually going to <i>keep doing that stuff.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Nothing's going to jump out and eat us, Will," Sydney sighs when you express your doubts to her later that afternoon. "Nothing's going to smite us. It's just another kind of natural phenom—"<br/>
<br/>
"You said somebody used this stuff to kill your dad," you remind her. "They used the secrets of Baphomet, or whatever."<br/>
<br/>
"The craft," she corrects you. "You might as well call it the 'science', 'cos that's what it basically is."<br/>
<br/>
You point at the lump of hardened dirt in the corner of the school basement, where you're meeting. The fire is out, but you haven't tried relighting it. You've got things to hash out with her first. "I don't think science can explain <i>that!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"It's just a different kind of science, Will." She sounds very tired. In fact, she sounds exactly like your mom when she's trying to explain why you need to bring your gym clothes home at least once a month so they can be washed. "Back in the Middle Ages, back when they believed in alchemy and stuff, they'd have been totally freaked out by nuclear physics. It's a similar thing here, only in reverse."<br/>
<br/>
"But you're talking about worshipping a demon!"<br/>
<br/>
Her nostrils flare, and for the first time since you've met her she looks like she's going to yell at you. But her tone continues calm and measured.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not totally clear on who or what 'Baphomet' really is," she says. "See, I'm being totally honest with you! But a lot of the stuff that I've read in my dad's notes, it sounds like it's not a real thing. It's more like a— Well, I don't know." She shakes her head. "It's like if you wish really hard, then the wishing <i>makes</i> Baphomet, and then Baphomet does what you want, and when your wish is fulfilled then Baphomet goes away."<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "Yeah, wishing up a goat-headed thing and getting it to do stuff," you snap. "That totally sounds like it's not summoning up demons. That <i>totally</i> sounds like the kind of thing that goes on in a nuclear reactor or whatever!"<br/>
<br/>
She cocks her head. "What has got into you? I told you about the Brotherhood and you were totally cool with it. Did something happen last night? Or did your preacher deliver a really good sermon for once?"<br/>
<br/>
You make a face—no way you're going to tell her that you freaked out over "Baphomet" appearing in a crummy horror movie. "I did some research, that's all," you mumble. "I thought it was just, like, a name that your dad and his friends came up with for their secret society. Like he was their mascot. Like Ronald McDonald or the Geico lizard."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, <i>Jesus!</i>" Sydney face-palms. "Did you actually think my dad worshipped <i>Ronald McDonald?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"No! Not Ronald Mc— The thing's got a history! It goes back to the Middle Ages! To the Templars!"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't derp out on me, Will. Of course it goes back. I told you, this stuff is just like science, basically. Only it's a science that people figured out a long time ago and then they got interested in other things and mostly forgot about it. Like how they used to write with quill pens."<br/>
<br/>
You fold your arms. You're not going to let her talk you out of it. You see this stuff in a new light, and it bothers you.<br/>
<br/>
So when she glances over at the dirt pile and says, "Is it done or do we have to set it on fire again?" you just shrug and tell her to do whatever she wants.<br/>
<br/>
After giving you a look and a snort, she scrambles around for the lighter and flicks it against the thing. It flashes into flame, then gutters. She tries again. Nothing happens. No matter where she puts the lighter, the thing will not catch fire.<br/>
<br/>
You are, despite yourself, intrigued by this development, but you only settle back on a desk—your arms still tightly folded—to watch as she tugs the book out from under the thing. She flips pages. "It's in Latin," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"I told you that."<br/>
<br/>
"You want to tell me about the spells?"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug. "You can make a mask. You can make a thing that copies brains. You can glue them together. You can make that thing over there." You jerk your chin at the book's latest creation, and she rolls her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
It looks like a giant lawn cigar: a fat, lumpy cylinder off hardened, off-white clay. But what is it? You resist the tug of curiosity, and leave Sydney to study the book on her own, using the browser on her phone to translate. Except for one question—"Do any of the other spells call for dirt from a graveyard?"—which you answer, she works silently, and you zone out.<br/>
<br/>
How much time passes? You're not sure, but it feels like hours before she announces, "It's a <i>pedisequos.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"What's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"A magical robot."<br/>
<br/>
You sit up, then stand and totter over on stiff legs. "Does it need a windup key or something?"<br/>
<br/>
"It needs a mask." Sydney looks around. "Can we use that one you made of your friend Caleb?"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos I don't want anything to do with this."<br/>
<br/>
She finally snaps. "Then why are you still here?"<br/>
<br/>
You stare at her, then shrug and turn toward the door. You're on the other side of it and almost at your truck when you hear her shouting your name. You turn. She comes running up.<br/>
<br/>
"Will," she says, and twines her arms around your hips. She looks up at you with a pale face. "You're not mad at me, are you? You're not going to leave me, are you?"<br/>
<br/>
You swallow around the lump in your throat. "No," you tell her. "I don't want to. But I don't want to do any of this—" You swallow again. "Any of this stuff anymore. Can you stop with it? Can you still be friends with me, but you stop with this stuff?"<br/>
<br/>
Her brow darkens. "Can you still be friends with <i>me,</i> even if I don't?"<br/>
<br/>
You hesitate.<br/>
<br/>
Then you kiss her.<br/>
<br/>
You bend your head and close your eyes and put your lips to hers. They part, and you feel her tongue and you taste her mouth. You crush her in your arms, and she tightens her hold on you.<br/>
<br/>
Is it fun? Is it wonderful? Is it awesome? Yes, it is. <br/>
<br/>
But it's also an argument. You can feel it inside the kiss. <i>Come away with me,</i> you urge her with your lips, your jaw, and your tongue. <i>Come away, come away, come away.</i> You pull at her with your mouth, as though with it you can pull her spirit out of her and into communion with your own.<br/>
<br/>
And you feel her argument in her kisses: <i>Stay with me, Will. Stay and help me. Don't throw me over because you're frightened. Come back down with me and help me with the craft.</i><br/>
<br/>
You are breathless when you break off, but you don't release her, and she pulls herself closer to you. She's trembling, and you know that she can feel you trembling too.<br/>
<br/>
"What are we going to do?" she whispers after the silence has lengthened.<br/>
<br/>
"What are <i>you</i> going to do?" you counter.<br/>
<br/>
She looks up at you. You look down at her. <br/>
<br/>
"I can't stop, Will," she says in an aching whisper. "For my dad. I'll do <i>anything</i> to—" She breaks off. Tears are welling in the bottom of her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Pity wells in your heart. But so does regret.<br/>
<br/>
"I can't help you with this, Sydney," you whisper back. "Yesterday— Well, I started off just being scared. But now it's like something's broken in me. I just can't do it anymore. Not any of it."<br/>
<br/>
She buries her face in the crook of your neck, and snuffles. "Then what are we going to do?" she asks again.<br/>
<br/>
There's an ache in your voice when you reply. "You'll do whatever you'll do," you say. "I can't help you with any of this stuff, but anything else, I can and will."<br/>
<br/>
She cries some more into your shoulder and neck, then sniffs it all back when she looks into your face. "So you're not going to do anything with that book anymore?"<br/>
<br/>
You shake your head.<br/>
<br/>
"Will you let me have it, then?"</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112
author_id: seuzz
title: Stuff Gets Real
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>That freaked-out feeling fades as the evening wears on, and though you have some uncomfortable moments after you're in bed and the lights are out—there's a deep shadow in the far corner of your room by the closet, and even after you shut your eyes and turn onto your side you suffer an eight-year-old's terror that something vast and hideous may put its head out from it—you quickly fall asleep.<br/>
<br/>
You're jumpy all through church, though. Until now you have been thinking of your project as a kind of scientific lark, like playing around with toy rockets or building a homemade weather station. But if it's the same sort of occult stuff that Sydney is interested in, and if the occult stuff she inherited from her dad is related to an actual supernatural entity, then that changes the complexion of the thing. <br/>
<br/>
Until now the sanctuary of St. Michael's Episcopal Church, where your family worships, was just a place to slouch and doze while wearing itchy pants. Now you feel like an interloper, or a spy.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Does it bother you going to church?" you ask Sydney later that afternoon, when you've met at the old elementary school again. You had texted to apologize for being late in meeting her; she had replied it was okay because she had church too.<br/>
<br/>
She shrugs. "It's not my idea to go, but what the hey, right? My dad took us to church when he was alive."<br/>
<br/>
"But it doesn't seem, I dunno, blasphemous?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, because I don't believe in any of it. Whatever we're playing with is just another natural phenomenon, Will. Nothing's out there going to eat us or smite us."<br/>
<br/>
You wonder if she really is quite so blase as she acts. There's an edge to her words. If she really didn't care about the contradiction between going to church and studying the arcane rituals and knowledges of the Brotherhood of Baphomet, then why would it make her upset when you called her on those contradictions?<br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, whatever.</i> You unlock the basement door and lead her down into it. She's brought those notebooks that she promised to show you, and the basement seems like the best place to hide out and study them together.<br/>
<br/>
The earthen pile has gone out again, but it's fooled you so many times already that you only sigh. Sydney starts setting out the books as you snap the cigarette lighter and put it to the pile. Nothing happens.<br/>
<br/>
You don't let yourself feel excited though, and it's with irritation that you put the flame first to one place and then another without result. You are about to let your hopes rise when with a <i>whoosh</i> the fire catches.<br/>
<br/>
Then it gutters and goes out.<br/>
<br/>
You look back at Sydney. She is bent over the conference table and watching you with a pinched but alert expression. You hold each other's gaze for a moment. Then you return to playing with the lighter.<br/>
<br/>
After a solid minute of trying to reignite the thing, you give up.<br/>
<br/>
It seems to be done.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Baphomet is forgotten in the excitement that follows. You pull the grimoire out from under the thing that it has made, and the pages flop about as with trembling fingers you show Sydney your great prize. "Okay, this is the spell that makes a mask," you tell her. "This one seals it up. This one, uh, this is the one that makes that metal band that copies peoples' brains and personalities—"<br/>
<br/>
"So it says," she needles you. <br/>
<br/>
"This one lets you glue the metal bands into the masks. This one— Hang on." Two of the pages had turned together, and you flip one of them back. "This— Oh yeah, this is the one that we just did, that made that thing." You jerk your chin at the lawn cigar. "And this next one—"<br/>
<br/>
That's when you realize that you really have succeeded at the last spell. The page has unlocked. You leap about, crowing, and Sydney beams when you explain to her why you're so excited. "So what did it make?" she asks. "Won't it tell you now?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah! Break out your browser, let's do a translation!"<br/>
<br/>
The other side of the locked page is covered in a long and complicated paragraph that has to be run through the translation software, and you and Sydney argue over some of the translation choices. She's the one who makes the breakthrough that lets you understand it, though.<br/>
<br/>
"It's a kind of golem," she says, and quickly explains when you return her a puzzled frown. "They're like robots, but made out of clay. Jewish legend says that you can make one and imbue it with life, and it will do what you command it to do. But with this one—" She gestures at the thing. "You imbue it with life by putting a mask on it. That's what the <i>pedisequos</i> it's talking about actually is. That thing on the table is just the shell for one. You put the mask onto it, it turns into the person who's inside the mask, and then you've got yourself a slave. A footman, like it says, who'll do what you tell it to do."<br/>
<br/>
You bend over the thing. Now that you know what you're looking at, you understand what you're seeing.<br/>
<br/>
The "lawn cigar" is bigger and broader than a human being, but it has the rough shape of one. That rent up the middle? That separates the thing's legs. Those rents up the sides? Those separate the arms from the torso. The onion-shaped lump at the top? A head. You put your hand on it. It's cold and hard and lifeless. But if you put a mask onto it—<br/>
<br/>
"Quick, hand me Caleb's mask," you bark at Sydney. Then— "Shit!" Your palm is covered in a fine, talcum-like dust. "The book says we have to polish it, right?" You groan inwardly. If it took forty-five minutes to polish a mask, it could take days or even weeks to polish this giant turd.<br/>
<br/>
Fortunately, it turns out to be nothing near as intense. A light dusting with a rag over the surface removes the grime and leaves it gleaming like marble. You and Sydney exchange bright, shining glances as you set Caleb's mask onto the head of the thing.<br/>
<br/>
It vanishes, like a plate slipping into a pond, leaving neither ripple nor bubble. Caleb Johansson—naked and bony—is now lying where the golem had been.<br/>
<br/>
He winces and opens his eyes. He looks around. When his gaze settles on Sydney, he bolts upright and covers his crotch with his hands. "Jesus Christ!" he exclaims.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe I should leave you two to get acquainted," Sydney giggles.<br/>
<br/>
"I already know this cocksucker," you retort. Then, idiotically, you ask it, "What's your name?"<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb Johansson," it replies. Then it does a full-body flinch and grabs its head. "Fuck!" It quickly covers its crotch again.<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"Freaking deja vu, man!" It shakes its head violently, like a dog shaking off water. "I've had a couple of other people in here with me, right?" It looks at you with a pale face. "Like I was being possessed?"<br/>
<br/>
The phrase gives you a chill—a reminder of yesterday's freak-out about Baphomet. But you quickly set golem-Caleb straight.<br/>
<br/>
"It's the mask," you tell it. "You're a fake, a copy of Caleb." You peer at it. "Do you remember crashing a couple of parties a few weeks ago? Getting thrown out?"<br/>
<br/>
It makes a face. "Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"And having a study session with Sydney at The Crystal Cave?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, I remember all that," it says. "Happened like it was yesterday." It licks its lips.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney jumps in. "What's the last thing you remember?"<br/>
<br/>
It glances around uneasily. "Being in here. Talking with you, Will. Talking about, uh, you and me and Keith. You were giving me my own fucking biography and I was talking about ... my dad?" Its brow crinkles. "And my mom's new husband? All my friends on the tennis and volleyball teams and in the orchestra?" It licks its lips again. "That's what I mean about being possessed!"<br/>
<br/>
"Where do you live?" you ask it. "What's your mom's name? Who was our eighth grade math teacher?" Golem-Caleb answers all the questions quickly and correctly. "It's got all his memories," you tell Sydney. "It's acting just like him, too."<br/>
<br/>
"Bully for me," golem-Caleb says. "Now can you fill in some fucking gaps? Like <i>what the fuck is going on with me?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So you explain to it that it's a copy of Caleb given independent life. A few tests—ordering it to punch itself in the nuts—also demonstrate that it is entirely obedient to your commands. Sydney's commands, though, it ignores.<br/>
<br/>
"Must be because I crafted it," you say after you've removed the mask from the golem, restoring the thing to its raw state. "Or, hang on, I used my hair in the spell. Maybe that's it."<br/>
<br/>
"Congratulations, Will," Sydney says. She puts out her hand. "You're a father."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, bite me," you mutter. Your heart freezes for an instant at the words, but Sydney only laughs.<br/>
<br/>
"It's really an interesting thing," she says. "Really useful. Lots of possibilities."<br/>
<br/>
"Like?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, come on, Will, use your imagination. It's a remote-controlled copy of your best friend. It could be a remote-controlled copy of whoever you want it to be, as long as you get a mask of them. You can send it out to do stuff, send it out to pretend to be whoever." She crosses her arms and slowly paces the basement. Her eyes flick back and forth. "You could replace the original person, even, with one of these things," she murmurs.<br/>
<br/>
The words rise like a shriek in your throat. "I'm not replacing Caleb!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I'm not talking about Caleb," she retorts. "I told you there's someone I need to get back at." She turns to stare at the golem. <br/>
<br/>
"Everyone thought my dad died in an accident," she says. "But it was murder. And with a thing like this, I could get rid of the guy who did it, and no one would even suspect he'd been killed!"</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111121
author_id: seuzz
title: Killing a Mood
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Killing?" you shriek. "I'm not gonna kill someone! Even if I could—" You choke on the words <i>replace them with a robot.</i><br/>
<br/>
Sydney freezes and gives you a sidelong look. She stands in the middle of the basement—ankles together, arms folded, shoulders hunched—like a spike. Her expression is hooded but calm even as you feel your eyes bulging and your jaw working.<br/>
<br/>
She gazes at you for a long minute, then closes her eyes and shrugs.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, Will," she says. "It was just an idea."<br/>
<br/>
Instantly you feel abashed. "Look, I'm sorry," you stammer. "I know this guy, whoever he is, hurt you. And I want to help you. Really, I do. But—" The thought <i>using magic to kill a guy</i> leaves you light-headed and short of breath.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I understand," she says. "You're right. I guess. If I really wanted to get back at him I guess I could just use a gun or a knife or poison or <i>something</i> that would get me caught."<br/>
<br/>
You make a face at her sarcastic gibe. <br/>
<br/>
But then your jaw sags. "Have you, have you really—<i>ng'um</i>—thought about—?"<br/>
<br/>
You don't have to finish the question. You can see it in the hard eyes she turns on you. <i>She has. She really and definitely has thought about killing the man who killed her father.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Sydney," you groan. "If there's anything I could do to help you. To make it better for you." <br/>
<br/>
She doesn't reply.<br/>
<br/>
You fumble your way over and hang your arms around her to pull her into a light embrace. She doesn't hug you back, and only relaxes a little. "Anything but <i>that.</i>" you tell her.<br/>
<br/>
"What would you say, Will," she says into your shoulder, "what would you do, if you woke up one morning and read online or heard at school that I'd been arrested for killing my step-dad?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Her step-dad? Shit, it's her step-dad who killed her father?</i><br/>
<br/>
"I'm not totally sure, not absolutely," she tells you after you've recovered from the shock. You have to take the rest of her story sitting down, though. While you hunch on an old conference table, she leans against a bookcase, her arms still folded. "But the way he acts," she says, "the things he does, his relationship with my dad. It all makes sense that he'd be the one who did it. And I know he used the rituals of Baphomet, to do it."<br/>
<br/>
Her stepfather's name is Nicholas Lawhorn, and like her father he worked for Parsons Collegiate Media. "Except he was in marketing. The snake," she snarls. He was also a member of the Brotherhood of Baphomet, one of five in their cell in Kansas City. "There's always five," she explains. "Five or ten. My dad was his superior, in the Brotherhood and at Parsons. Except that Nicholas"—she calls him by his given name when she has to refer to him at all—"didn't report to my dad at the company."<br/>
<br/>
Among the notes that her father left behind were minutes of their meetings and records of their rituals, and running through them was a constant thread: the insubordination of Nicholas Lawhorn and his obvious ambition to take over the cell. Sydney's father, as leader, was privy to arcane knowledges not known to the others, and coordinated with other cells of the Brotherhood; Lawhorn hardly bothered to disguise his burning thirst to take Matthew McGlynn's place, and in private notes McGlynn recorded his suspicion that Lawhorn was secretly using malign and forbidden rituals to sabotage him.<br/>
<br/>
"And my father died in a car wreck," Sydney tells you. "It's a standard trick. You put an <i>aureax</i> in the car with them. It takes the steering wheel and drives them off the road, killing them. No one ever questions a car wreck, unless it's done with mechanical sabotage, and an {i]aureax isn't mechanical sabotage."<br/>
<br/>
"But your mom married this guy," you point out.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney's complexion curdles so hard you think her skin's about to split and peel back, exposing the skull. <br/>
<br/>
"Yes. Oh, <i>fuck him. Fuck him!</i> God damn it!" She pushes a stack of old school desks to the floor. "That ... <i>fucker!</i>" she gasps. "He was always at our house, back in Kansas City," she hisses, "'cos he and my dad were in the same business together. My dad didn't like it, I could tell. He thought Nicholas was a snake, and I think—" She hiccups. "I think he thought he was after my mom, too. But he was always showing up unannounced, with a wine bottle or something. He and my dad would lock themselves in the den to talk. But Nicholas was always coming out and making nice with my mom. And he was all over her after the funeral, being so ... so <i>fucking comforting and ... and shit!</i>" She buries her face in her hands, and her shoulders shake.<br/>
<br/>
"I try not to blame her," she moans after she's recovered herself somewhat. "She felt lost, I'm sure. Lonely. And that asshole— Well, he can be charming. Even I can see that. But he doesn't love her, I can tell. After they were married he— Well, he's not bad to her, but he doesn't pay hardly any attention to her anymore. I've caught her crying a couple of times. She always stifles it and says she's just thinking about my dad. But I see the way she looks at Nicholas, and I know she doesn't love him either."<br/>
<br/>
"So why did he marry her?"<br/>
<br/>
"To get at my dad's things! My dad hid them all, I told you. Nicholas spent the first month after the marriage—they didn't even go on a honeymoon!—he spent it 'cleaning and reorganizing' things." She says it so you can hear the sarcastic quotation marks around "cleaning and reorganizing." "He was just snooping, snooping hard, and I could see it made him mad that he didn't find anything. Or not everything he wanted to find. I'd found it and hid most of it by then. I have to be really careful, you know," she adds in a fearful aside. "I don't think he suspects me. I just try to play the, you know, popular cheerleader." She strikes an ironical pose with her arms and hands in the air. "But sometimes I catch him looking at me, and I think he wonders. I did catch him snooping through my stuff when we were packing to move here from Kansas City."<br/>
<br/>
"But he didn't find it?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. I'd packed it all up separately and given it to my friend Alexandra, told her to mail it to me after we got an address here in Saratoga Falls. Even then, I had her send it to one of my new friends here, and I picked it up from her. Told her it was an ultra-secret birthday present for my mom."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney's theory sounds very plausible. But even as sympathetic as you are toward her, you know that it's all supposition and guesswork. And though you know there is a way of finding out if it's true, you are firm against doing anything like what Sydney wants.<br/>
<br/>
You are even firm against using a memory-band on Lawhorn to confirm her suspicions, even after Sydney has suggested it herself.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you really want to know?" you tell her. "Do you really want to put his brain inside yours, and see him doing the stuff? You don't just get the memories," you continue when she stares back at you with a hard expression. "You get the feelings and the personality, too. Do you really want your dad's killer inside your head, and to feel what he was feeling when he did it? While he was <i>planning</i> it?"<br/>
<br/>
"It would make me hate him more," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I'm scared of!" You grip her by the elbows, and she shudders. "Sydney! I'm not going to let you <i>kill</i> a guy, not if I can help it! And I probably couldn't stop you, not if you actually got inside his head and saw and felt all the shit that's probably up inside it!"<br/>
<br/>
She bursts into tears, and her eyes fall as she weeps. "So he's just going to get away with it! So you're just going to let him—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not going to 'let' him do anything! I'm going to stop you from doing anything just as bad!"<br/>
<br/>
She glares at you through her tears. "That's the same as letting him get away with it!"<br/>
<br/>
You fall back onto the conference. "Sydney! I just can't—"<br/>
<br/>
"You could but you won't, Will!" She whirls and stalks up the stairs to the doorway. You call her again, and you chase her outside. But she gets in the car before you can reach her, and she locks it when you grab the handle. You step back and watch with an aching heart as she drives off without giving you a look.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You give her an hour to cool off, then send her a text: <i>i'm sorry pls we can still talk.</i> She's very long in replying—a wait that leaves you in agonies—but she doesn't cuss you out: <i>Yes we can still talk.<br/>
<br/>
let me think sydney we cant do that thing but maybe something else.</i> When she doesn't reply, you add, <i>we can do smthing to hurt him i pranked caleb we can do smthing way worse to him.</i> When still no reply you add, <i>we can make his life hell.<br/>
<br/>
How?</i> she asks.<br/>
<br/>
You don't know, and you tell her you'll think about it.<br/>
<br/>
And as you think about it—though nothing immediately suggests itself—you flip through the grimoire. In making that golem thing you have unlocked a new spell, and study it to see if it will give you an idea. It uses the same ingredients, almost, as went into the golem, so you guess it will make something of the same kind. But there are two key differences.<br/>
<br/>
The first is that it calls for a lot less graveyard dirt, only forty pounds. The second is that calls for a human being as one of the ingredients.<br/>
<br/>
And that's when it first occurs to you that maybe you should get rid of the book entirely.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122
author_id: seuzz
title: Corpses and Killers
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Killing?" you shriek. "Who says we're going to—?" You choke on the words <i>kill someone and replace them with a robot.</i><br/>
<br/>
Sydney freezes and gives you a sidelong look. With her ankles together, arms folded, and shoulders hunched, she stands like a spike. Her expression is hooded but calm even as you feel your eyes bulging and your jaw working.<br/>
<br/>
She gazes at you for a long minute, then closes her eyes and shrugs.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, Will," she says. "It was just an idea."<br/>
<br/>
Instantly you feel abashed. "Look, I'm sorry," you stammer. "I know this guy hurt you, and I want to help. But—" The thought <i>using magic to kill a guy</i> leaves you light-headed and short of breath.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I understand," she says. "You're right. I guess if I really wanted to get back at him I guess I could just shoot him."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shoot him?</i> You gulp. "Have you really thought about—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Wouldn't you?" she asks, "if someone killed <i>your</i> dad? The only thing stopping me," she goes on, "is I'm afraid of getting caught. But I don't know how long even that will hold me back."<br/>
<br/>
She glares at you. "What would you say, Will," she asks, "what would you do, if you woke up one morning and read online or heard at school that I'd been arrested for killing my step-dad?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
That's who it is, it's her mother's new husband, she explains after she's calmed down. <i>Calmed down,</i> though, is a relative condition, and she snarls and snaps and hunches and paces as she tells you what she knows and what she suspects.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not totally sure, not absolutely sure. But the way he acts, the things he does, his relationship with my dad. It all makes sense that he'd be the one who did it. And I know he used the stuff he and my dad knew about it, the rituals of Baphomet, to do it."<br/>
<br/>
Her stepfather's name is Nicholas Lawhorn, and like her father he worked for Parsons Collegiate Media. "Except he was in marketing. The snake," she snarls. He was also a member of the Brotherhood of Baphomet, one of five in their cell in Kansas City. "There's always five," she explains. "Five or ten. My dad was his superior, both in the Brotherhood and at Parsons. Except that Nicholas"—she calls him by his given name when she has to refer to him at all—"didn't report to my dad at the company."<br/>
<br/>
Among the notes that her father left behind were minutes of their meetings and records of their rituals, and running through them was a constant thread: the insubordination of Nicholas Lawhorn and his obvious ambition to take over the cell. Sydney's father, as leader, was privy to arcane knowledges not available to the others, and coordinated with other cells of the Brotherhood; Lawhorn hardly bothered to disguise his burning thirst to take Matthew McGlynn's place, and in private notes McGlynn recorded his suspicion that Lawhorn was secretly using malign and forbidden rituals to sabotage him.<br/>
<br/>
"And my father died in a car wreck," Sydney tells you. "It's a standard trick. You put an <i>aureax</i> in the car with them. It takes the steering wheel and drives them off the road, killing them. No one ever questions a car wreck, unless it's done with mechanical sabotage, and an {i]aureax isn't mechanical sabotage."<br/>
<br/>
"But your mom married this guy," you point out.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney's complexion curdles so hard you think her skin's about to split and peel back, exposing the skull. <br/>
<br/>
"Yes. Oh, <i>fuck him. Fuck him!</i> God damn it!" She grabs a stack of old school desks and hurls it to the floor. "That ... that <i>fucker!</i> He was always at our house anyway, back in Kansas City," she hisses, "'cos he and my dad were in the business together. My dad didn't like it, I could tell. He thought Nicholas was a snake, and I think—" She hiccups. "I think he thought he was after my mom, too. But he was always showing up unannounced, with a bottle of wine or something. They'd go off in the den to talk. But Nicholas was always coming out and making nice with my mom. And he was all over her after the funeral, being so ... so <i>fucking comforting and ... and shit!</i>" She buries her face in her hands, and her shoulders shake.<br/>
<br/>
"I try not to blame her," she moans after she's recovered herself somewhat. "She felt lost, I'm sure. Lonely. And that asshole— Well, he can be charming. Even I can see that. But he doesn't love her, I can tell. After they were married he— Well, he's not bad to her, but he doesn't pay hardly any attention to her anymore. I've caught her crying a couple of times. She always stifles it and says she's just thinking about my dad. But I see the way she looks at Nicholas, and I know she doesn't love him either."<br/>
<br/>
"So why did he marry her?"<br/>
<br/>
"To get at my dad's things! My dad hid them all, I told you. Nicholas spent the first month after the marriage—they didn't even go on a honeymoon!—he spent it 'cleaning and reorganizing' things." She says it so you can hear the sarcastic quotation marks around "cleaning and reorganizing." "He was just snooping, snooping, and I could see it made him mad that he didn't find anything. Or not everything he wanted to find. I'd found it and hid most of it by then. I have to be really careful, you know," she adds in a fearful aside. "I don't think he suspects me. I just try to play the, you know, popular cheerleader." She strikes an ironical pose with her arms and hands in the air. "But sometimes I catch him looking at me, and I think he wonders. I did catch him snooping through my stuff when we were packing to move here from Kansas City."<br/>
<br/>
"But he didn't find anything?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. I'd packed it all up separately and given it to my friend Alexandra, told her to mail it to me after we got an address here in Saratoga Falls. Even then, I had her send it to one of my new friends here, and I picked it up from her. Told her it was an ultra-secret birthday present for my mom."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney's theory sounds very plausible. But even as sympathetic as you are, you know that it's all supposition and guesswork.<br/>
<br/>
Fortunately, there's a way of finding out if it's true.<br/>
<br/>
You show her the spell for making the metal bands that copy people's brains, and explain that by getting one of them onto her stepfather, she would be able to get into his memories to see if he had done what she suspects him of doing. She hesitates for only a few seconds before eagerly declaring her willingness to try that method of confirming her theory.<br/>
<br/>
She insists on performing the spell herself, and you supervise her as she mixes them together and fires them over the sigil. "It'll take a couple of hours to carve the runes into the band," you tell her, but she's more than willing to do the work. At her request, you also guide her through making a mask as well, even though you have five blank ones already. You make a second memory strip and sit with her, keeping each other company, as you work on them. You have both finished your respective tasks by the time you part early in the evening, and you take the memory strips you've made home with you.<br/>
<br/>
You take the grimoire home, for you are interested to see what the next spell will be. It gives you a very bad turn when you read it. It is very similar to the spell that made the golem. Only instead of four hundred pounds of graveyard earth, it calls for only forty.<br/>
<br/>
But it also calls for a "human body."<br/>
<br/>
<i>A corpse?</i> you wonder. <i>Or a person?</i> Neither sounds appealing, and the spell pitches you back into that horror you felt yesterday when "Baphomet" reared his goat-like head. So bothered are you by this turn in the book that you put the memory strip away without working on it and turn with relief to the homework you've been neglecting. Tomorrow is Monday, after all.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Will!" You turn at the voice, and your heart leaps to see Sydney running across the student parking lot toward you. You have a momentary vision of her crashing into you, embracing you, and burying her face in yours.<br/>
<br/>
But she just pants to a stop in front of you.<br/>
<br/>
"I did it!" she says, and there's exultation in her voice. "That metal strip! I got it onto Nicholas last night and I put it on! I got into his head, Will, and I saw it!"<br/>
<br/>
Her face is flushed and her pupils dilated. <br/>
<br/>
"He did it, Will! The fucker did it!"</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221
author_id: seuzz
title: How to Replace a Stepfather
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>So Sydney's suspicions were correct: Her stepfather used magic to kill her father.<br/>
<br/>
She doesn't have to ask you if you'll help her get revenge—you realize now you've already made that decision.<br/>
<br/>
"I think I know how we can do it," you tell her. Her eyes blaze with hope and excitement. "Meet me after school at the place?" She nods.<br/>
<br/>
Then she grabs you by the elbow, slides her arm in yours, and pulls you toward the school. You almost swallow your tongue.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh God, it's so great that I found you, Will," she murmurs; she's trembling all over as well. "So great that we got together. I feel like I'm on fire all over, inside and out." Her nails bite into your arms. "The stuff we've got—that you showed me, that I already had—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey Sydney!" Reagan Hackett calls and waves from the other side of a row of cars. Sydney tenses, then waves back.<br/>
<br/>
Reagan trots over. She's got a bold, Romanesque nose and an impudent mouth, and she tosses her hair behind her shoulder as she falls into step with you and Sydney. "So what happened to you yesterday?" she asks her friend without so much as glancing at you. "Everyone was looking for you, you know, on account of—"<br/>
<br/>
She breaks off and leans around Sydney to peer around at you. Her gaze falls on the arm that Sydney has put through yours. Then her eyes travel upward to your face.<br/>
<br/>
You feel your own expression curl up into a grimace of embarrassment as a slow grin unfurls across Reagan's mouth.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh," she says. Her grin widens. "Hey Woody."<br/>
<br/>
"Will," you correct her. <br/>
<br/>
At least, you hope you're correcting her; you hope she's not referring to the boner you're fighting down.<br/>
<br/>
"So what are you doing for lunch?" Reagan asks Sydney. Her tone has turned very slick. "George and David were talking yesterday about going off campus. We could make it a foursome—" She leans over again to give you a sly look. "What lunch do you have?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fifth." You feel yourself blushing hotly.<br/>
<br/>
"That's too bad. We have fourth." She says "fourth" like it means "lunch at the country club dining room, with linen napkins and real silverware."<br/>
<br/>
You let her prattle on this way, and let Sydney handle the other end of the conversation, until you reach a junction inside the school where you have to part ways. "I have gymnastics after school," Sydney reminds you. "I'll text you after that." She pecks you on the side of the mouth.<br/>
<br/>
Then she slips away into the crowd. Reagan lingers to give you a vastly amused look before following her friend.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It pisses you off to think that Sydney's friends could turn out to be a lot of snobs. Okay, so far it only looks like Reagan is a snob, and maybe she's not a snob but is only surprised that a girl like Sydney might go for a guy like you. But you remember her other friends from Catherine's party, particularly that George guy and that David guy, who remind you so much of Geoff Mansfield, and it leaves you seething.<br/>
<br/>
Even worse, you have to struggle inside that fog of resentment while dealing with a separate but consonant issue: Sydney is going to have to copy (and maybe even seduce) the kind of guy that she is clearly more suitable for.<br/>
<br/>
That's because her stepfather is not going to be lured quietly into an ambush where you can perform a spell on him. Even if you do lure him out someplace (and you're not sure how you can do that), you are going to have to overpower him. You're not sure how big he is, but unless he's the shrimpy sort you're going to need some muscle to get the job done. The kind of muscle that football players or basketball players or wrestlers have.<br/>
<br/>
In other words, the kind of muscle that Sydney should be dating instead of you. You're going to have to copy such a person into a mask and use them when it comes time to put the pinch on Sydney's stepfather.<br/>
<br/>
And the only way you can see toward getting a copy of some muscle is to send Sydney in to get it.<br/>
<br/>
"What are you grinding your teeth for?" Keith asks you at the start of Hawks's film class.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not grinding my teeth!"<br/>
<br/>
"Dude, I can hear them grinding from all the way back here. You forget to write that paper on that movie we saw Saturday?"<br/>
<br/>
"What paper?" You bolt upright.<br/>
<br/>
"Thought you was gonna write an extra credit essay on that pee-oh-ess we saw with my hombres." He tilts his chin.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't remember saying that."<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos you didn't but you should'a 'cos you're gonna need the credit."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, bite me."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
When classes end you kill time doing homework in the library, then wait in your truck until Sydney comes out from gymnastics. You honk when she appears; her expressions registers surprise when she swings around to see you. "Yeah, I wanted to make sure we had a chance to talk," you tell her after she's climbed into the cab with you. You don't drive off, but have your conference there.<br/>
<br/>
You tell her about the new spell and how it calls for a body. "I don't know what it does to the person," you tell her, "but it sounds like a human sacrifice. Uh, I assume you'd be okay doing that to your stepdad?" Your hair prickles even as you say it.<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes widen, and she swallows. It occurs to you only now that maybe she's been talking big without actually thinking through what it would mean to actually do something to him. <br/>
<br/>
"We can look it over together," you say, "maybe you'll find something I missed—"<br/>
<br/>
"I was thinking we'd just poison him and bury him someplace," she blurts out. "Then use that golem to replace him."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh," you stammer after a moment's hesitation. "Okay, I guess we could do that." Now it's your turn to feel horrified. "But this way it would be like killing—" You catch yourself at having uttered the word. "Like killing two birds with one stone."<br/>
<br/>
"Except we don't know that it'll kill him. Do you know what it'll do? This spell?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well—"<br/>
<br/>
Okay, now you think you see what she's getting at—and you also think you see why you're not on the same page with her. Sydney wants to be sure of getting rid of her stepdad, and it sounds like she's afraid this new spell won't go that far. But you are afraid of going that far, and maybe you're secretly hoping the new spell will only get him out of the way somehow without actually killing him?<br/>
<br/>
"No, I don't know what it'll do," you admit. "But we could try it on him. If it doesn't, uh, knock him off we could do that afterward. Look, he's going to be knocked out anyway if we try that spell on him. He's not just going to let us pour dirt and chemicals all over him and set him on fire. So we'll—" You gulp, and your voice almost fails. "We'll knock him out and, uh, do the thing, and if he's still, uh, kicking at the end of it, then we'll—" You have lick your lips. "Then we'll do it your way."<br/>
<br/>
"We'll have to make a mask of him."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." Your chest tightens. "We'd have to make a mask of someone else, too." You explain that part of the plan to her as well.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You drive out to the elementary school after stopping briefly at your house so you can get the book. Together you pore over the new spell. Sydney agrees that the phrasing is ambiguous, but coolly observes that if a corpse is required then she knows of how to get a "really fresh and disgusting one" to use. <br/>
<br/>
You hope that she never hates you the way she hates her stepfather.<br/>
<br/>
As for getting some "muscle"—which is the other part of your plan—she's skeptical. "I don't think we need that," she says. "We'll just stage a breakdown someplace in my car, or your truck. I'll call Nicholas and he'll come out to help. When his head is under the hood or something, we'll jump on him with a mask. Knock him out that way, carry him back here for the ritual."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that's great." You sigh in relief. "That's a lot better. I couldn't figure out how we were gonna do it."<br/>
<br/>
"I like the idea of having some muscle, though," she adds, and you feel your face fall. "You don't want to have to dig up hundreds of pounds of dirt again, do you?"<br/>
<br/>
"We only need forty pounds." You point to the spell.<br/>
<br/>
"Not for that. I mean, we need that too. But for the other golems."<br/>
<br/>
"What other golems?" You wonder if you've had a stroke, because she's talking with perfect confidence about something you don't understand at all.<br/>
<br/>
"We need at least one more," she says, "one that'll obey <i>me.</i> For Nicholas. I mean, for now we can stick his mask onto the one you already made, but I want version two-point-oh to obey me. So we'll have to make a new one.<br/>
<br/>
"And," she continues, "I think we'll probably want a few more. We should run some experiments first, to make sure they'll work. But then we'll want, like, eight of them total. Or maybe even ten."<br/>
<br/>
"What for?"<br/>
<br/>
"For the rituals. Our own Brotherhood of Baphomet, Will. Us and eight puppets we can control, if the puppets can work in the rituals and make a Supreme Pentagram!"<br/>
<br/>
She seizes your hands when you don't reply. <br/>
<br/>
"Our own Brotherhood, Will!" she exclaims, "under our control! Think of it! I mean, you're sharing your stuff with me—" She raises your hand to her mouth, and nibbles hungrily on your knuckles. "I <i>really</i> want to share my stuff with you!"</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211
author_id: seuzz
title: The Basics of Baphomet
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Rituals?" you exclaim. "Supreme Pentagram? What are you talking about?"<br/>
<br/>
"The Brotherhood of Baphomet," Sydney replies. "I told you there's always either five members or ten members. If we can make our own members, rather than recruiting them—"<br/>
<br/>
"Ten of them?" Your head reels.<br/>
<br/>
"Ten are more powerful than five."<br/>
<br/>
"But to do what? What rituals? And what's a Supreme Pentagram?"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney releases your hand and smiles up at you mischievously, like a little girl trying to use her winsome ways to get a prize.<br/>
<br/>
"The ley line that we found," she says. "You remember that."<br/>
<br/>
"In the cemetery. Yeah, no way I'm forgetting that."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, one ley line isn't a really big deal. I mean, any ley line is potent, but the more you have, and if they intersect the right way— Look, the notebooks I gave you explain it. Didn't you look at them?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can you give me the tee-ell-dee-ar?"<br/>
<br/>
She rolls her eyes. "Alright. Ley lines can be made to intersect, and an intersection creates a vibration between them. My dad's notes call it 'an occult consonance.' You get more consonances if you have a third intersecting line, making a triangle. Like in geometry, when you have the triangle ABC, and you have three lines? AB, AC and BC?"<br/>
<br/>
You were never one for geometry, but you let her roll with it.<br/>
<br/>
"You can have up to five lines, and the more lines, the more consonances to play with, plus if you have enough members in your brotherhood you can create three- or four- or five-way harmonic consonances using all the lines at once."<br/>
<br/>
Her brow furrows. "It's in the notebooks. There's diagrams, even."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, I'll look at them, but where does this Supreme Pentagram come in?" That's the thing that's giving you pause.<br/>
<br/>
"That's the five-line figure, the most powerful one. You've seen them. The upside-down, five-pointed stars."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Jesus."<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway, it turns out there's already three ley lines running through Saratoga Falls. I can't believe it! Except I guess I can. I was having the hardest time pinning down the one that we found in the cemetery, but that's because the other two were interfering with it. Well, interfering with the instruments. The ley lines themselves don't actually—"<br/>
<br/>
"Do these other lines also run through the cemetery?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. One of them runs next to the railroad tracks. The other one runs through the wilderness out by Fort Suffolk."<br/>
<br/>
"How do you know all this?"<br/>
<br/>
"From the memory strip I got out of Nicholas. He knows all about them. He's one of the Brotherhood of Baphomet here in Saratoga Falls. That's something else I can't believe, there's a Brotherhood here, and there's <i>ten</i> of them! The one back in Kansas City only had five." She glances around with a vexed expression. "What is it around here that would get a ten-person Brotherhood so interested?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Plenty,</i> you think. <i>A used bookstore that sells powerful magical grimoires. Coffee shops with names like The Crystal Cave and The Flying Saucer. Sandwich shops decorated with pentagrams.</i><br/>
<br/>
For all your gallows humor, you are actually more than a little creeped out by the thought of a ten-person, goat-headed-demon-worshipping cult operating in your little burg. "So who besides your stepdad is in this local group?"<br/>
<br/>
"I wish you'd stop calling Nicholas my 'stepdad'. But he doesn't know. After—" She shuts her eyes and shudders. "After he killed my dad, he became head of the five-guy group back in Kansas City, so he knew who the rest of them were. But only the head of a Brotherhood knows the identities of the other members. And when he transferred out here he became a junior member again."<br/>
<br/>
"Transferred?" you echo. "What, did the Brotherhood make him change jobs to come out here or something?"<br/>
<br/>
"It was all worked out through the company he and my dad worked for. It's all shot through with members of the Brotherhood, apparently." She takes your hand again. "We could have our own Brotherhood, though, Will."<br/>
<br/>
You grip her hands but don't reply. When you feel the silence becoming awkward, you say, "Let me look at those notebooks and think about it."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney shows her dimples. "Don't be freaked out about it, okay?" She kisses you on the side of your mouth. "This is something I <i>really</i> want us to share!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Those parting words run over and over through your mind after you're home. Is she saying that she wants to be with you, and this is something she wants to do? Or is she saying this is something that she wants to do, and she'd really like it if you did it with her?<br/>
<br/>
If you put the choice to her, would she pick you or this "Brotherhood" idea?<br/>
<br/>
You're pretty sure you know the answer. She was into the Baphomet stuff long before she met you. And if you declined to help her out with the Baphomet stuff, would you have the nerve to tell her that she couldn't work with you on the mask stuff? That wouldn't end well. If you broke up with her, how long would it before she sent a goat-headed demon galloping after you down the street?<br/>
<br/>
With a sigh you reconcile yourself to the fact that Sydney isn't just about getting back at the guy who killed her father. She's about following in her father's footsteps. Or maybe she's just a girl who likes power. And you're going to have to go along with the ride. Maybe to influence her, maybe to steer her a little, maybe to stop her from going too far. But you're going to have to go quite a ways with her.<br/>
<br/>
With a noise halfway between a gulp and a sigh, you open up the notebooks that she lent you, and start reading.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Hey, you seen that new movie, <i>Cravenmoor?</i>" You ask the question without preamble as you drop to the grass next to Braydon Delp. Christian Knouse, who is seated beside him, leans forward to regard you from under a quizzically lifted eyebrow.<br/>
<br/>
It's lunchtime, and normally you'd be off with Caleb and other friends. But today, as you were heading outside, you spotted Braydon slinking along next to the music wing. It struck you that he might be a good resource—or at least <i>a</i> resource—to consult on this Baphomet business.<br/>
<br/>
Braydon freezes in mid-chew. He lifts his nose and looks down it at you. His eyes droop insolently.<br/>
<br/>
"No," he drawls, then resumes chewing. "Not yet."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, this character Baphomet shows up in it, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey!" Christian shouts. "Spoilers!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not blowing the plot," you retort. "I's just wondering if you've seen the movie yet, and what you thought of, you know, the way it deals with this Baphomet thing. You heard of it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Who? Baphomet?" Contempt drips off Braydon's tongue. "Yes, Will, I've heard of Baphomet."<br/>
<br/>
"Well—"<br/>
<br/>
"A demon supposedly worshipped by the Templar Knights. In the nineteenth century the iconography got all mixed up, so he's usually represented as having a goat's head. In actuality, the Templars were just supposed to have worshipped a mummified head, though sometimes it was a head with three faces."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"And they were framed, you know. The Templars. The king of France wanted to grab their money, so he cooked up a bunch of bullshit charges against them. The mummified head was just a religious relic, and 'Baphomet' is just a corruption of Mohammed.' They were crusaders, you know, so they would have been talking about Mohammed all the time anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"The name's got a lot of street cred, of course. Like Puzuzu. But he was just invented for a movie."<br/>
<br/>
"What movie?" Christian asks.<br/>
<br/>
"<i>The Exorcist,</i>" Braydon tells him. To you he says, "You could find all this out on Wikipedia, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, okay, but you say he's got street cred. You saying there's people who actually, maybe, you know—" You jerk your shoulders in a shrug. "Do for real what the Templars are supposed to have done?"<br/>
<br/>
Braydon snorts softly. "I'm sure there are. Edgelords gotta edgelord, you know."<br/>
<br/>
Consider that he's wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt and is sporting a silver necklace, silver bracelet, and silver ring on an index finger, it seems to you that Braydon Delp hasn't got a lot of reason to look down on "edgelords."<br/>
<br/>
Christian pipes up. "You looking to start a Baphomet Fan Club, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"No!"<br/>
<br/>
Braydon snorts again. "Well, don't ask me to join if you do. I'm in charge of my own destiny."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that so?" Christian jeers. "In that case, how come you're leaving it to the rest of our quest group to haul your half-giant's double-wide ass through that haunted forest Howie's tricked us into exploring?"<br/>
<br/>
Braydon returns him a serene smile. "It's my destiny to get other people to do my dirty work for me."<br/>
<br/>
Christian's expression curdles into a scowl.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So Braydon really didn't have anything to tell you. Still, his skepticism about any organized "Baphomet" cult is a data point to add to what you learned in the notebooks. It complements the impression they gave you, that these "Brotherhoods" are a new thing, and that there really isn't such a being as "Baphomet" anyway.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Do we still want muscle?</i> Sydney texts you right after school. <i>I can get us some.<br/>
<br/>
who?<br/>
<br/>
Dont want to say, dont want you jealous ;)</i><br/>
<br/>
You doubt now that you do need muscle. Sydney's got a plan that would put her stepdad off his guard, and between you and Caleb's golem-doppelganger, you could likely overpower him.<br/>
<br/>
But if Caleb would work, then anyone else would work, and you might as well pick out the muscle yourself. Braydon, for instance, could be a good resource to have in the form of a mask.<br/>
<br/>
<i>But Sydney's probably got a good one picked out,</i> you reflect with a sigh.</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Muscle
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Sydney still has gymnastics practice to attend, so you run home and return with the mask, glue and memory strip that she will need to copy you some "muscle."<br/>
<br/>
"Get us whoever you want," you gruffly inform her after she's met you at your truck. You slip the supplies into her bag. <br/>
<br/>
"You're so sweet." She kisses you—just a smack on the lips—then goes in for a more probing nuzzle. "You don't have anything to be jealous of, you know," she murmurs.<br/>
<br/>
"So how are you getting close to this guy?" It comes out almost as a gurgle: you feel strangled by your own erection.<br/>
<br/>
"A study thing tonight. He's been chasing me since I showed up, and I told him I could help him with his math."<br/>
<br/>
You still don't like the sounds of it—you parlayed a study session with Sydney into a serious relationship (you think). "He's in your math class?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, but he needs help with his. 'Cos he's a lunkhead. That's what we want him for, right? Muscles, not brains."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. And, uh, your step— Nicholas," you correct yourself. "I guess we can have everything ready to go by tomorrow."<br/>
<br/>
"Awesome. Then we can have a date tomorrow night, and he can come rescue us." <br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You've got a lot to think about that night, but it's hard to think it over in a systematic way, not when you've got homework and a memory strip to finish. So you do most of your thinking with your gut.<br/>
<br/>
There's Sydney's stepdad, for instance. He's a killer and a cultist, so you figure that he deserves whatever you and Sydney have planned for him. On the other hand, if you do this, you'll be a killer too. And Sydney wants to recruit or even make her own little "Brotherhood", which would put you in the same "cultist" camp as her stepdad, right alongside "killer," so then what would be the difference between you? If he deserves what's coming to him, wouldn't that mean you would deserve the same sticky end? It leaves you with a feeling like there's something creeping up behind you, so strong that you actually catch yourself looking over your shoulder a couple of times.<br/>
<br/>
And this "Brotherhood" thing. The notebooks are a jumble of disconnected jotting, not at all like a handbook or even a Wikipedia article, and you've only read through some of them, so there's still a lot you have to learn about it. So far, though, from the things that Sydney's dad wrote, the rituals sound more like a rave or maybe even just a sports game than a summoning. There's lots exhortations about "intensity of belief" and "the actualized manifestation of the group will," and there's a pretty strong hint—almost an assertion—that if or when "Baphomet" appears, it's just a collective hallucination that focuses the Brotherhood's metaphysical energies. But, it adds, the Brotherhood must actually <i>believe</i> in Baphomet for the thing to work, so who knows.<br/>
<br/>
Well, there's one thing you know. Unless you find and copy the ten members of the local chapter of the cult, you and Sydney are not going to be able to create your own Brotherhood unless you manufacture some members with masks and golems. Even Delp, it sounds like, would be very cool toward joining.<br/>
<br/>
And in back of all this, your deepest preoccupation: Sydney herself. She keeps talking like you and her are together. And yet you can't quite believe it. Is it because you can't shake the feeling that you're being manipulated by her? Or is it because you're the kind of loser who is so convinced that he's a loser that he'll lose a girl rather than lose the illusion that he's really a loser?<br/>
<br/>
And that question tortures you even more than the ethical quandaries of killing a murderer, or the practical dangers involved in trying to summon up demons.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Tuesday evening.</i> You and Sydney are down in the school basement, where everything is set up. You've been out to the cemetery to get the dirt, and there's a hank of Sydney's own hair mixed in with the other ingredients. All you need now is to call her stepdad and tell him that her SUV has broken down at the Acheson Community Center. Once he's arrived, you'll ambush him with a mask, drag him into the basement, and add him to the pile.<br/>
<br/>
But Sydney wants to run some tests on the <i>pedisequos</i> first. "We'll use the mask I got of Blake," she says, and she's got it out before you can counter-propose using the mask of Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
It's very gloomy in the basement, so your first impression, after she's dropped the mask onto the golem, is that he has a pale skin. He doesn't look muscle-bound or even very tall, though. But it is definitely a "him." The chest is flat and there's a pink hump inside the hairy bush between its legs. Then he sits up, and you see that he does have well-defined muscles in his torso and arms.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney glances back at you. "Well, come on up and say hello, Will. He belongs to you, right?"<br/>
<br/>
You approach. The guy frowns at you. His eyes and his hair—which is trimmed in a bowl-shaped haircut—are dark, and he has a large, black mole on his left-hand jaw, midway between his chin and his ear.<br/>
<br/>
You don't know his name, but you do recognize him from your fourth-period English class—a jock buddy of football players like Erik Carstairs. "Hey," you say. "I'm Will."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey Will." His eyes flick over to Sydney. "The fuck's going on?" he demands. "And where are my clothes?" He seems completely unembarrassed about being stark naked. Of course, with his well-defined pecs and his six-pack, he has no reason to be embarrassed. He's also smooth and hairless, from his neck to his ankles, except at his crotch, where (you can't help noticing) a short, fat cock lounges like a lion relaxing inside a thorny bush.<br/>
<br/>
"Will, tell him who his boss is," Sydney says.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey you, I'm your boss," you inform the guy.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" His expression tightens. But you think you see fear in his eye and a flutter at his throat.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. Hit yourself. Slap yourself across the face."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Wack!</i> His arm goes up and across as though operated by remote control, and the guy jumps, startled by his own action. He flushes and grimaces at you.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm your boss," you remind him, feeling more confident now. "You have to do what I say. Stand up." He lurches to his feet. "Sit down." He drops to his haunches. "Um—"<br/>
<br/>
"Tell him to put out his hand so I can take some blood," Sydney says. She unzips her bag.<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"You heard me, Will. Tell him to put out his hand so I can take some blood."<br/>
<br/>
You and the <i>pedisequos</i> exchange a glance of surprise and horror. "What—?" you start to ask, then backpedal as Sydney gives you a look. <br/>
<br/>
"Put out your hand and let her take some blood," you tell the guy. He puts out an arm even as he tries merging with the bookcase behind him. "I'm the boss of him," you grumble at your partner, "but it's like I'm not the boss of me."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, hush." Sydney has taken out a syringe. "This is for science." She grabs the <i>pedisequos</i> by the wrist.<br/>
<br/>
"Who is this guy?" you ask. "How do you know him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why don't you ask <i>him?</i> He has to answer you."<br/>
<br/>
"Yo, what's your name?"<br/>
<br/>
"Blake O'Brien. Ouch! Fuck! Bitch, do you even know what you're doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"How do you know Sydney?"<br/>
<br/>
"I seen her around school." He grits his teeth as she pulls blood from his arm. "Seen her in my fantasies, jacked off to her a couple dozen times."<br/>
<br/>
"Charming," Sydney retorts. "If you'd told me before, I'd've gone out with you sooner."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, I'm not complaining now. Tonight's turning out to be a lot of bullshit." Fake-Blake scowls. "If this is your idea of foreplay you're a psychotic cunt, and you don't know fuck about statistics."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney holds up the syringe and examines it. "I know more than you."<br/>
<br/>
"Bullshit. You couldn't even do the baby problems. And for your fucking information, I'm taking the AP class, not the regular one, and I'm getting a ninety-three percent in it."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney freezes. "Will, make him tell the truth."<br/>
<br/>
"That is the fucking truth!" Fake-Blake howls after you've relayed the order. "And it's a ninety-three and not a ninety-six only 'cos I was hung over the Monday fucking morning Muniz dropped a fucking double-point pop quiz on us!"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney stares at him, then looks back at you. "I <i>thought</i> he was a lunkhead," she says. "He's on the football squad."<br/>
<br/>
You can't help snickering. "So you pretended to be math-challenged to get a date with Caleb, and this guy pretended to be math-challenged to get a date with you. I'd call it karma."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney continues what is turning out to be a medical examination. She snips off some of Fake-Blake's hair, has him spit into a cup, and scrapes off some of his dead skin cells, all of which she carefully stores away. You tense as she asks him to fill a glass jar with some urine, then relax when she doesn't follow it with a request for a stool sample.<br/>
<br/>
But you nearly ricochet off the ceiling when she hands him a small plastic container and says, "I need you to whack off and put your cum into this. I'll take my clothes off, if it'll help."<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa whoa whoa! Time out!" You wave your arms. "You're not going to—! I mean," you correct yourself when you see her expression. "What do you need a, a semen sample for?"<br/>
<br/>
"To see if these things are fertile."<br/>
<br/>
You nearly choke. "What are you running, a science fair project?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, Will," she replies. "Some of the things I want to do with the ley lines require ritualistic sex acts. And I want to know exactly what kind of things these things are, if they're going to be having sex with each other or with us."</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mess
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Ritual sex acts?" you shriek. "With <i>us?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"I thought I mentioned that before."<br/>
<br/>
In the silence that follows, Fake-Blake's eyes flick between you and Sydney.<br/>
<br/>
"Fine," you exclaim. "Do whatever you want. But I know I don't wanna see <i>this part of it!</i>" You flee up the stairs.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your mind is a stormy maelstrom of half-formed thoughts when Sydney catches up to you a minute later. "Hey," she calls, and you turn as she comes running up. "I'm sorry," she says, and catches your hand in hers.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry for what?"<br/>
<br/>
"For being insensitive to your feelings."<br/>
<br/>
You blink at her words. "No," you stammer in surprise, "I don't think— I mean, you weren't—"<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't?" She squeezes your hand. "You kind of blew up at me in there, Will. So I think I <i>was</i>, at least a little."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't blow up!" <br/>
<br/>
Except you did, and you are so abashed at her smile that you have to hang your head and kick at the grass.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry," you grumble. "I guess I did get kind of pissed. I didn't— Well, I don't know what I was thinking."<br/>
<br/>
She squeezes your hand again. "No, it's my fault. I'm so caught up in all this that I didn't stop to think about what it means to you."<br/>
<br/>
But what does it mean to you? When she asks, you have to shake your head and shrug.<br/>
<br/>
"That's kind of what I thought," she says. "You were just playing around with stuff, right? Just figuring it out? No plan?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess."<br/>
<br/>
She steps in close, and your breath shortens. <br/>
<br/>
"But then I come along and basically tried taking it over, didn't I? I told you that we're going to make a golem to replace my stepdad, and that we're going create a Brotherhood, and that that we're going to use the golems to fill it up. And I even pick out the first guy for it and made a copy of him, and then I start poking and prodding at your <i>pedisequos</i> like he's—" She snickers. "Like he's my science project."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, at least you know what you want to do. And I do want to help."<br/>
<br/>
"Why, Will?" She is so close you can feel her breath on your cheek. "Why do you want to help?"<br/>
<br/>
You're too tongue-tied to answer. Because the only answer that makes sense is <i>I love you</i> and that sounds like just about the stupidest thing you could say.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, part of this is my fault too," she continues. "Mostly it's mine, probably."<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos you're trying run things?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, 'cos of the way I've been acting with you."<br/>
<br/>
Now she steps back, and you tense at what you anticipate will be a hideous confession.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, I was a cheerleader back in Kansas," she says, "so I know what I do to guys, and I know how to do it to them." You're seized by a wave of nausea that settles in your stomach like a lump of cold, undigested oatmeal. "And I've been doing it with you. The hard flirting, all the little affectionate things." She grabs your hand and plays with your numb fingers. "Tricks to keep a guy interested but off-balance when I don't want to go <i>too</i> far with him. It's kind of a self-defensive thing, 'cos, you know—" She shrugs. "There are things I sometimes want from a guy, but there's things I'm not actually willing to trade for them."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh." You pray you don't actually vomit on her.<br/>
<br/>
"It's habit, Will. And it's hard to drop a habit—" She takes a very deep breath, and exhales. "Even when it's not an act."<br/>
<br/>
Her words hang. Your nausea rises ... then pauses and hangs alongside her words.<br/>
<br/>
"I've never really been <i>friends</i> with a guy," she continues, "except the guys who were going out with my girlfriends. But every other guy, either I'm ignoring them, or I'm, like, fencing with them, trying to keep them back without acting totally uninterested in them. 'Cos I like them and want to keep them close, but on the other side of a boundary."<br/>
<br/>
She grips your hand and takes another deep breath.<br/>
<br/>
"But you're not dating one of my girlfriends. And I'm not ignoring you. And the only reason I'm fencing with you is because that's the only other thing I know how to do. Because—" She swallows and looks away. "Because I'm used to wanting a boundary. But I don't think I want a boundary with you."<br/>
<br/>
That lump in your gut has risen to your throat, but now it's only a lump and not nausea. <br/>
<br/>
Still, it takes an effort to push the words past it. <br/>
<br/>
"Why?" you croak. "Because I've got this occult stuff? Because I'm into it and can help you?"<br/>
<br/>
She takes a short breath, so you figure she can't deny the accusation outright.<br/>
<br/>
"That's part of it," she says, "but it's because it's part of <i>you.</i> And I like <i>you.</i> Because you're a mess."<br/>
<br/>
You must have reacted—you do feel staggered—for she titters.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, you're a mess, Will," she says, and she pulls the cap off your head. "But I like that you're a mess. I like that you're messy and honest and you don't put on an act, that you're not just about getting grades or going to a great school or being the big guy. I gotta tell you the truth," she adds, "I never really paid a lot of attention to guys like you. To tell the truth, I kind of thought guys like you didn't give a shit, so why should I give a shit about you? <br/>
<br/>
"But I get now that you do give a shit—or at least <i>you</i> give a shit, Will—but it's about things that are important to <i>you.</i> This stuff we're doing, it's important to you, so it's what you're focused on."<br/>
<br/>
"That's because you're interested in it," you protest.<br/>
<br/>
"Bullshit, Will. You were into it before I came along. Remember? You were disguising yourself like your best friend." She strokes your chest. "So you were focused on something I'm focused on, and that's why I noticed you. <br/>
<br/>
"But now that I have noticed you," she says, "I really like what I've noticed."<br/>
<br/>
"My mess, you mean."<br/>
<br/>
She grimaces. "You're a mess because you don't have a plan. But that's what I like. Most guys, they look at me, they have a plan. Right?" Her dimples deepen. "And they don't want to make a mess, they just want to execute a plan. I guess why I like you so much is because—"<br/>
<br/>
She goes up on her toes to put her face close to yours. "Because I'm hoping you'll make a real mess with me," she whispers. "And because you don't have a plan, you'll never <i>stop</i> making a mess with me. Just us, making messes together."<br/>
<br/>
The night fills with the sound of her breathing softly into your face.<br/>
<br/>
Then she says, "This is the point where you're supposed to kiss me."<br/>
<br/>
It takes a moment for you to oblige.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So it's a quarter-hour before you return to the basement. Fake-Blake is lounging on the bench with a satisfied smirk on his face and the tiny plastic container between his fingers. Sydney takes it from him and glances in it. She frowns. "I told you to fill this thing," she tells him.<br/>
<br/>
His face falls. "I did."<br/>
<br/>
With a snort she shoves it into his face, and his eyes pop as he peers into it. "I'm telling you," he protests, "I filled it with enough cock snot to—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, do it again." <br/>
<br/>
Then her eye falls on the other samples, and she gasps. "You jerk! You went through and emptied everything!"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't touch your shit!"<br/>
<br/>
She holds up the empty syringe. "Will!" she yells at you.<br/>
<br/>
"What am I supposed to do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Get him to confess, and tell him—!"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't do shit!" Fake-Blake hollers.<br/>
<br/>
You loose your shrillest whistle to shut them both up. Fake-Blake, when you ask him, insists he never touched any of the stuff that Sydney took off him. Sydney snorts hard and grabs him by the wrist to take another blood sample. "Now get back to whacking off," she tells him after drawing more blood. You nod when he looks over at you for confirmation.<br/>
<br/>
Upstairs and outside—for again the both of you flee—she examines the syringe and squirts a drop onto her finger, smearing it around to test its consistency. "It's not natural," she says, "stuff just disappearing like that. But he's not natural either. And I've had just about enough of him."<br/>
<br/>
"Why'd you pick him out?" you ask. You like that she's pissed off at the thing.<br/>
<br/>
"We wanted muscle. And he's been pestering me for a date. But not in a bad way, so I thought I could get one date with him without committing to anything." She glances back at the basement. "He was okay in the car. The way this copy is acting, though, it makes me wonder if the real guy's going to be a handful starting tomorrow."<br/>
<br/>
Against your better instincts, you mutter something about Blake O'Brien seeming like he'd be "her type." Probably you were hoping she'd deny it.<br/>
<br/>
"That he is," she sighs. <br/>
<br/>
A crack opens up in your heart. "What type is that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Kind of an alpha, but not gross about it. And he is cute."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that why you picked him out for the ritual sex acts?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't get all stupid jealous, Will, not after what I was telling you earlier. Besides, we agreed to pick out good ones."<br/>
<br/>
You mumble something in the back of your throat, and a silence descends on you both. It's not broken for another ten minutes or so, until Sydney, with a gasp, holds up the syringe.<br/>
<br/>
"Will! The blood! It's gone!"</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Inner Animal
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's dark outside, so you jump into Sydney's SUV to double check under the dome light. Sure enough, the syringe is empty. There isn't even a stain or a smear of film left.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, this is creepy," she says. "What do you think?" You agree that it's pretty creepy. "Yeah," she says, and thinks a moment. "I have to go check," she says as she hops out.<br/>
<br/>
"Check what?" you call. But her answer is inaudible.<br/>
<br/>
She's back a few minutes later with more samples, including the little plastic cup. She keeps that one for herself, though, along with another syringe of blood, and lays out some skin flakes and hairs on the dashboard. "Set the timer on your phone," she orders, and the two of you sit back to watch the items she got off <br/>
<br/>
Eight minutes pass before Sydney inhales sharply. "His semen just went," she says, and she rubs the inside of the tube with her finger. "Like frost off a window." Two more minutes pass, and the blood evaporates. A minute later, the skin flakes and hair vanish in a little puff of dust within seconds of each other.<br/>
<br/>
You let out a low whistle. "That's interesting."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, it is." You look up to find Sydney giving you an appraising look. "I wonder what would happen if <i>you</i> were wearing the mask, and I drew blood from <i>you.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
You'd rather try it with Caleb's mask than Blake's, but Sydney insists. "We have to control for everything," she says as she leads you down the basement stairs. "So you put on Blake's mask, and I'll put your friend's mask onto the golem and get blood from him. That way we'll see if it's just Blake's mask that this happens to, and if it makes a difference who or what's under the mask."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Like a science project,</i> you think.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wake from what feels like a very short and rudely interrupted nap by a lot of thumping and shouting. "Will!" Sydney screeches. "Will!"<br/>
<br/>
Instinct brings you to your feet. Two figures are wrestling nearby. One is Sydney, who is being overpowered by a lanky creature with the twisted lips and curved nose of a troll. It is also nauseatingly naked.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey!" you shout. "The fuck?" The troll looks up. "Get off her before I—"<br/>
<br/>
The troll drops Sydney and shrinks away. Its lips peel back in a snarl as you spring at it and grab it by the throat. Dimly, you're aware that you're dressed only in boxers.<br/>
<br/>
You pull back a fist. "You fucking—" you snarl, and the troll twists in your grasp. "Get the fuck down before I—!" It collapses in a heap and starts weeping. You blink and release it.<br/>
<br/>
"My hero," Sydney says. She has come up beside you. "Now can you tell him to put out his arm?"<br/>
<br/>
The world reels, goes out of focus, then reassembles itself into the exact same shape while at the same time totally changing. "Put out your arm," you murmur at the <i>pedisequos</i>—a copy of your best friend, Caleb Johansson. "Let her take your blood. Let her get some of your hair. Anything else you want?" you ask Sydney. "Want me to tell him to jack off?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think we can skip that one," she says as she bends over Caleb's arm.<br/>
<br/>
You sink back against a table. It's cold and hard, but it's better than collapsing onto the floor. You hold your head in your hands.<br/>
<br/>
That wasn't you who jumped in to save Sydney. It was Blake O'Brien. He's inside you, like the lining of this skin that you're wearing. You feel him wrapped about you, stuffed inside you, jammed into every crevice and crack of your brain. He fills you like water fills a sponge. And when you look at the world, you see what he sees, and his thoughts course through and among yours. When you look at Caleb, you see your best friend, but you also see the creature that was fighting Sydney: a thing like a lanky troll.<br/>
<br/>
When you look at Sydney—<br/>
<br/>
You rub the spot on your forearm where twice she has drawn blood. A tiny drop wells up from the wound.<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks for jumping in," she says as she steps back from Caleb. "I thought I could handle him, that I could just <i>ask</i> him to let me take some samples—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, you should've waited for me to wake up," you mutter. "Even he's not going to like being ordered around. Are you, cocksucker?" you demand of the troll-golem.<br/>
<br/>
"No," he grinds out with a sneer.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney turns to you. "Well, it's your turn again now—"<br/>
<br/>
"Look, can you stop being a fucking doctor or scientist for just a minute?" you bark. She jumps back, her eyes wide.<br/>
<br/>
You catch your temper and rub your forehead. "Sorry, I'm just sick of you poking and—" <br/>
<br/>
You suck in a breath as you see the fear flood into her eyes. You swallow.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, it's me, Sydney," you assure her. "Will. But it's just a little confusing up here at the moment."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" Her look of fear only deepens.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh." You tense up all your muscles and fall into a hunch, as though gripping a giant ball with your body. You hold your breath, and you face starts to pound with blood. For a slow count of ten you hold it, then blow out and relax. You take a very deep breath, and exhale slowly. "That's better," you tell her, though your head still buzzes.<br/>
<br/>
"When you say it's confused, are you saying you've got his memories?" Sydney asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh yeah, and a lot more." You look her up and down, but your cock is so raw from two intense back-to-back workouts that it just whimpers. "That wasn't me who saved you just now. It was Blake."<br/>
<br/>
She starts. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I was totally him when I woke up. I didn't even recognize Caleb, that's how out of it I was. I just saw this guy getting up your grill, so I—" You shrug, and lift your chin. "So I did what Blake would'a done. 'Cos I didn't know I wasn't him."<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes widen. "He would've jumped in to save me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. He's going to be a cop. Or Special Forces. Be a cop if he can't work out to be the other one." You give her a sidelong glance. "You know, if you'd been nicer to him, he wouldn't have called you a psycho bitch while you were getting those samples."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney shows you a smile—a tight, satirical thing. "So if I asked you nice now, you'd—?"<br/>
<br/>
Quick as a cobra, you grab and pull her to you. She grunts as you squeeze her close. For an instant, you let your lips hover over hers. Then you tear into her, like a panther plunging its muzzle into a freshly gored carcass.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"You said this guy was your type," you laugh after Sydney—panting and trembling—has fallen back against another table. You used nothing but your lips and tongue and teeth, and strong fingers upon her lower spine, to bring her to what looks almost like a climax. "You got the mask onto ol' Blakey so fast last night I don't know what happened after. Did you dump him after mugging him, or did you give him a chance to show you how much he liked your tutoring?"<br/>
<br/>
"I just slapped him with it, then made my excuses." Sydney rubs a flushed and perspiring cheek. "How much of that was you, Will, and how much of it was, um—?"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug. The air is frigid and clammy, but Blake is used to swaggering around without any clothes on. Your eye falls on the golem, who has been cowering silently in a corner all this time. Your lip curves as you say, "Hold still," and reach down to pull the mask off it.<br/>
<br/>
"I wouldn't have the guts to kiss you like that," you tell Sydney when you turn around again with Caleb's mask in your hand. "I mean, I've been wanting to. You know that, I kiss back when you kiss first. Blake wouldn'a had the guts either. He's too nice. I think. He didn't do anything like that with you the other night, did he? 'Cos—"<br/>
<br/>
Your hand flexes at the thought of Blake O'Brien grabbing your girlfriend the way you just grabbed her. If ever he did that to her, you'd break a chair over his head, haul him outside, and whip him across his bare back with chains. <br/>
<br/>
Well, that's what Blake would do.<br/>
<br/>
"No," Sydney stammers. "No. He was a total gentleman."<br/>
<br/>
"Good." You're both relieved (as yourself) and pleased (as Fake-Blake). "So I guess right now I did it 'cos I wanted to do it, and 'cos Blakey thought he could get away with it, seeing as how—" You swagger up to her. "You did say that he's your type." You grab her hands, and play with her fingers.<br/>
<br/>
She sighs. "You don't want me going out with him, do you, Will? While I'm going out with you?"<br/>
<br/>
You groan and clench your eyes and fall back onto the table. "Just take the fucking samples already, so I can get out of this fucking thing."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But when you wake again, you're still in Blake O'Brien's world. <br/>
<br/>
"We want muscle, right?" Sydney tells you, "for when Nicholas gets here? And I'd rather it was you than the golem," she explains. She has already called her stepfather, telling her that her SUV won't start and that she's stranded at the Acheson Community Center.<br/>
<br/>
She's brought clothes for you, some old rags that she picked up at a thrift shop. A flimsy t-shirt, flimsier athletic shorts, and flip-flops. They actually suit Blake's frame, what you can make out of it in the dark mirror in the corner of the room. As you dress, Sydney tells you that everything she scraped or snipped off both you and golem-Caleb has evaporated. "What does this mean for your virginity?" you ask with Blake's native insolence.<br/>
<br/>
She hesitates, then gives you a narrow smile. "We can talk about that later," she says.</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Stepford Stepfather
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You haven't long to wait outside before headlights show and a luxury sedan pulls into the lot next to Sydney's SUV. A man gets out. "So what happened?" he brusquely demands.<br/>
<br/>
You cast a startled look at Sydney: Even in the dark, the guy is far from the middle-aged "Dad" that you were expecting.<br/>
<br/>
His hair is long and thick, for a start, and hangs to his shoulders. He sports a scruffy beard. Though you can't make out his features, your first guess is that he can't be more than twenty-eight years old.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," Sydney tells him. "We can't get it to start." She gestures at the hood, which is already propped open. The engine is illuminated by a flashlight balanced on the edge of the compartment.<br/>
<br/>
Nicholas Lawhorn grunts and walks over to it. "Try turning it over," he orders Sydney. <br/>
<br/>
She gives you a frightened look, for she's got the mask, but gets behind the wheel. "Ready?" she calls as he bends over the engine.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, any time," he growls back.<br/>
<br/>
You slip up behind Lawhorn. The motor churns for half a second, and catches. Sydney races it. Lawhorn straightens up. "So what's the—?"<br/>
<br/>
That's as much as he gets out. You grab him under the armpits and pinion him in a headlock. "Sydney!" you bark. "The mask!"<br/>
<br/>
She falls out of the car and trips forward as Lawhorn twists in your grasp. But Blake O'Brien is a football player; he's in top shape; and he works as a bouncer/enforcer at The Warehouse—the toughest party spot in the city.<br/>
<br/>
Still you grunt and strain until Sydney finally runs up and pops the mask onto her stepfather's face. He sags all over. "Can you get him downstairs?" Sydney asks.<br/>
<br/>
"No problem," you tell her as you shift your hold. "You get his feet."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Nicholas Tyler Lawhorn crouches with a bestial snarl on his face. With his long, tousled hair and beard, he looks like the Wolfman. Only an order from Sydney keeps him from springing. "So how old is he, anyway?" you ask your girlfriend.<br/>
<br/>
"Nicholas?" she says. "How old are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Thirty-eight!" he spits.<br/>
<br/>
You'd have pegged him at closer to thirty, but the confession is believable, at least in this light. The three of you are in the basement.<br/>
<br/>
After getting him downstairs and undressed—he came in t-shirt and jeans but with a sports coat and boots; <i>California office casual</i>—and after retrieving the mask when it came out of him, you dumped him, the dirt, the powders, the liquids, and a few strands of Sydney's hair onto the book and set him on fire. Not until the purple flames shot out did you stop to think, <i>What if this spell takes a week to finish like the last one?</i><br/>
<br/>
It didn't, thank God, it lasted only a minute, and when the fire went out it left a petrified version of Nicholas Lawhorn behind.<br/>
<br/>
Really. He lay on the table looking completely unharmed save for the unnatural pallor of his skin. And when you pressed a fingertip to him, you found that except for a slight "give" he was as stiff all over as concrete. Even the hairs had turned to something like stone. But he was so perfectly detailed that you could even see the pores.<br/>
<br/>
You wondered if he would wake up, and what would happen then, until you pried at his eyes and found the lids frozen shut. That's when the word "petrified" suggested itself. And when Sydney pointed out the similarity of color between him and the unmasked golem nearby, you deduced almost simultaneously that the spell had turned him into a golem.<br/>
<br/>
The test came when you dropped Caleb's mask on him. Caleb appeared and woke up, and under a little questioning showed that he had no idea who or where "Nicholas Lawhorn" was. He also refused to obey your orders, though he did obey Sydney's.<br/>
<br/>
The second, and more dangerous, test came when you sealed up Lawhorn's mask and put it on him. His skin instantly turned flesh colored, and his hair softened, and he woke. But now he obeys Sydney: not only telling you his age, sign, and Social Security number while pounding himself in the balls, but even confessing with his own mouth to the murder of her father.<br/>
<br/>
You wince as she grips your arm, the nails digging into your flesh. "We did it," she says in a haggard whisper. "Oh, God, Will, we did it!"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh. Better tell him to calm down." She does, and the feverish light in his eyes dies. "Better tell him to get dressed."<br/>
<br/>
"I can handle it," she tells you. "I know <i>exactly</i> what to tell him to do."<br/>
<br/>
You quail, worrying that she'll tell him to drown himself or steer his car at seventy miles per hour into a wall. But she's a lot more restrained than that. She only tells him to leave her alone, to not speak to her unless she speaks to him first, and to tell no one about what has happened that evening.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are mentally exhausted by the time you get home—divested of Blake O'Brien's mask, of course—and make an early night of it. The next morning, after you shower, you find a text from Sydney on your phone, asking if she can pick you up for school. After caroming off the walls a few times, you text back to say "Sure."<br/>
<br/>
"God, that was intense last night," Sydney says as she pulls away from the curb with you in the passenger seat. "I think I still haven't come down yet."<br/>
<br/>
You resist the urge to smirk and say something about how <i>Yeah, damn, Blake sure was intensely sexy when he kissed you, wasn't he?</i> and only ask how she dealt with Nicholas after she got home.<br/>
<br/>
"I went back in his office with him," she says. "I wanted to ask him some stuff, like, about my dad. That's one reason I'm still on a high. Except I also feel like I drank Drano or something."<br/>
<br/>
You hesitate, and almost don't react. Then, feeling like you're jumping off a cliff, you stroke her thigh. She gives you a quick, warm smile, though her face has turned pale.<br/>
<br/>
"But that gave me a little closure, I think," she continues. "Hearing him actually confess everything. How he did it, why he did it." She shudders. "What a slimeball. But knowing that I had him right here, Will. <i>Right here!</i>" She cups her hand. "With his balls and everything. Knowing that he was— Was my <i>puppet!</i>" She looses a soft shriek.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm glad," you tell her.<br/>
<br/>
Her nostrils flare. She is still pale, but by the time you reach the school, there's a light in her face again.<br/>
<br/>
"Are we getting together again this afternoon?" she asks after parking. She turns to give you a direct look when you don't answer.<br/>
<br/>
That's when you lean over to kiss her. You're a lot less bold now than last night, when you had Blake O'Brien's animal passions coursing through you. But it's the boldest you've been with her yet, and bolder far than you've ever been.<br/>
<br/>
She's blushing brightly when you pull back. "God, I've been waiting so long for you do that," she says. "And I guess that's a 'yes'?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you gave me a ride up here, so I guess I'm stuck with you for a ride back."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, you figured it out, why I asked if you wanted a ride."<br/>
<br/>
"And you figured out why I said yes."<br/>
<br/>
"You should come find me at my locker between classes."<br/>
<br/>
"I will."<br/>
<br/>
"And walk me to some of them."<br/>
<br/>
"I will."<br/>
<br/>
"And stand in the doorway and watch me after I'm inside and sitting at my desk."<br/>
<br/>
You kiss her again before things can get too sugary-cute between you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
And yet, when you're joined by Reagan Hackett—who seems to be lurking in the parking lot these days, waiting for Sydney to arrive—you don't put your arm in Sydney's, or lean in close to her, or treat her as anything except a friend. Part of it is your own native dislike of PDAs. But there's no denying that Reagan's bold and skeptical curiosity has you a little daunted. <i>I bet Blake would put his arm around Sydney and not even look at Reagan,</i> you reflect with gritted teeth.<br/>
<br/>
Speaking of Blake O'Brien, you almost jump out of your skin when he comes shambling into your fourth-period English class—you'd forgotten that you share it with him. He gives you the briefest glance, and you quickly avert your gaze before he can notice that you're staring at him. Your heart thumps—for a moment you thought he was the <i>pedisequos,</i> following you to school. You sink down in your seat, and watch as he flops into a desk next to another footballs player. They grunt and mumble at each other, and Blake runs his hands through his hair.<br/>
<br/>
"What's biting you?" Caleb asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing," you tell him. "Just, uh, a case of deja vu."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
As you'd promised, you go looking for Sydney at her locker throughout the day, but you only manage to catch her at the start of sixth, and walk her to class.<br/>
<br/>
You stop in the doorway while she proceeds in, but catch at her hand. She stops and turns to dimple brightly at you. That's all you do, and let her go to her seat. Your heart is soaring as she slips into it and watches you from under lowered brows as she unpacks her bag.<br/>
<br/>
Then you notice the guy sitting behind her: Tony Peterson, the wrestler. He's in a sleeveless sweatshirt, and he's folded his arms so that his biceps bulge. He glowers at you from under heavy brows, and a sneer distends his lips.<br/>
<br/>
Your heart takes a dive, and so do you: You quickly shuffle off to your own sixth-period class.</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111
author_id: seuzz
title: Will Versus the Competition
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Sydney treats you to Panera after school. She gossips about her day while you quietly drink her in. <br/>
<br/>
<i>God, she's so beautiful. Her hair is long and straight and golden. Her eyes are bright and clear. Her nose is small and so is her mouth, and when she smiles her teeth—white as fresh-laid snow—flash and dazzle. Her skin glows softly, her neck is long and graceful, and her breasts are like plump, ripe melons.</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>And she's my girlfriend!</i><br/>
<br/>
But it's going to be very hard to treat her as your girlfriend at school, unless want to draw attention to yourself. <br/>
<br/>
<i>Attention,</i> unless you're a basketball player, a football player, or a wrestler, is a bad thing to attract at Westside.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Thursday. Fourth period.</i> You're composing a dopey, sentimental text to Sydney when Caleb leans over. You put your phone to your chest and glare at him.<br/>
<br/>
"What's Tilley got to say?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't that who you're texting?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Yeah." The question, <i>How am I going to tell Caleb I'm going out with Sydney?</i> suddenly blazes across your brain. In all the excitement of the last few days, you'd almost forgot to worry about it.<br/>
<br/>
"He still after you to do those videos?"<br/>
<br/>
You grunt.<br/>
<br/>
"You could probably use the extra credit."<br/>
<br/>
But your retort dies on your lips when an unwelcome figure strides into the room.<br/>
<br/>
Until a day or two ago you never paid any attention to Blake O'Brien. He sits on the other side of the room, and you've never spoken to him that you can recall. Now you find yourself jumping when you see him.<br/>
<br/>
And you flinch harder when you realize that he's started noticing <i>you.</i><br/>
<br/>
He stares at you now from under lowered brows as he comes into the room, and he keeps his eyes locked on you as he crosses the front of the room. Not until he turns into his own row does he break eye contact. You sink further into your chair and watch him out of the corner of your eye. He falls into his desk, turns sideways, and glares balefully in your direction. His friend James Bridges (another football player) leans forward to mutter something at him.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Sixth period.</i> You've just left Sydney at her AP Environmental Sciences class—but have been careful not to look in after her—and are turning toward your own Calculus class when strong hands seize you from behind and you are hurled into the door leading outside. The blow knocks the wind from you, but you're grabbed and carried outside before you can fall. Rude laughs sound as you're hustled along, feet barely touching the ground, toward the portables. The flock of sophomores huddled out front scatters, and your chest is used as a battering ram to slam open the doors to one of the portables. A stink of mildew and rotten wood sweeps over you as you're thrown onto the teacher's desk. Before you can turn over and stand, you're snatched up and shoved against a wall. Half a dozen boys, smelling of sweat and gym socks, crowd around you.<br/>
<br/>
The one in your face is Dylan Lloyd, a basketball player. He smirks at you along an uplifted nose. Behind him crowd Ryan Shuler and Luke Bennett, two more basketball players, and Roy Nelson of the football squad. Blake's friend James Bridges is there too, glowering at you with a soft smile. The sixth guy, a hard-faced Hispanic, you don't know.<br/>
<br/>
"So we're all dying to know, Prescott," Dylan hisses softly, lisping your name. "That's your name, isn't it? Prethhhhcott?" You say nothing. "So we're all dying to know, what does Sydney McGlynn's pussy taste like?"<br/>
<br/>
Chortles and guffaws from the others. Roy puts his hand by your ear and leans in with an inquisitive leer.<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>have</i> tasted it, haven't you, Prethhhcott? You've eaten her out, haven't you?"<br/>
<br/>
Your jaw works, but you say nothing.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't hold out on us, Prethhhcott. We're all dying to know." Dylan grabs his crotch and snarls softly in your face. "We're <i>starving.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
You hate the way your breath is whistling loudly through your nose.<br/>
<br/>
"How about her tits?" Luke says, and Ryan jeers, "Bet you think her asshole's sweet," and Roy says, "Did you need GPS to find your way in?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
That's only the start. For a solid ten minutes they jeer and invent vile fantasies, most of them involving your inability to satisfy a girl of Sydney's physical talents. The floor burns through the soles of your shoes, and your vision goes blurry as you try staring through them instead of at them, and your chest contracts, squeezing and squeezing your heart you think it will implode.<br/>
<br/>
Only James, Blake's friend, refrains from taunting you. His stare is steady and cold, but tight-lipped. A few times you think you see him flush as something particularly nasty gets said about Sydney.<br/>
<br/>
Finally he appears to have had enough. He pulls Dylan away and takes his place in front of you. The others fall quiet as he stares at you from under lowered brows.<br/>
<br/>
"Why don't you give someone else a chance?" he mutters at you. "Huh? Someone else a chance with Sydney?"<br/>
<br/>
Hoots and cheers from the others. A couple of high-fives are exchanged, but James silences them with a raised hand. "Just tell her that it was fun, but that you're ready to move on."<br/>
<br/>
To your own amazement, you feel your head swiveling on your neck.<br/>
<br/>
James flushes.<br/>
<br/>
"It takes two to tango, Prescott. If you tell her you want to sit out the rest of the dance until you graduate—" He shrugs. "What can she do?"<br/>
<br/>
Roy says, "She can—" But James, without glancing away from your face, backhands  him in the chest with his fist.<br/>
<br/>
"Give other guys a chance," Bridges says. His voice lowers to a growl. "If <i>you</i> want a chance to—"<br/>
<br/>
The door creaks open, and a rough voice calls out: "So what kind of faggot circle-jerk's going on in here?"<br/>
<br/>
The others start, and half turn to the door. The Hispanic guy says, "None of your fucking business!" but Shuler grabs him by the neck and hushes him.<br/>
<br/>
"I can make it my fucking business, if any of you faggots care to argue. No?" There's a shuffling of feet from your tormentors, followed by a slithering hiss from the interloper: "Get out!"<br/>
<br/>
Roy shoots you a venomous glance, then with the others shuffles toward the door. Only with a supreme effort do you keep yourself from sliding to the floor in a wet, self-soiled heap. Instead, you look over at the door.<br/>
<br/>
Your rescuer is the last person you'd have thought would have ever expected: Steve Patterson, the tallest guy on the basketball squad, and by reputation the meanest. He towers over you at six-and-a-half feet, his glacier-colored eyes boring down on you. A moment ago you were hot with humiliation; now you are cold with terror.<br/>
<br/>
But Patterson says nothing, and you can't bring yourself to say anything to him, not even a muttered, "Thanks." (You're sure he didn't rescue you intentionally. Probably he was more interested in daunting and humiliating the others.) You shuffle toward the door with your head down.<br/>
<br/>
Patterson doesn't move, and blocks you in at the doorway. With your head still down you try to squeeze past him.<br/>
<br/>
He grabs you by the chin, forces you back, and pushes your head up to look you in the face. For the length of an Ice Age he holds you there, his contemptuous curiosity piercing you like a Plutonian stalactite.<br/>
<br/>
Then he grunts, "Huh!" and by your neck flings you outside, where you fall face-first to the grass. When you look up, you see the back of his calves as he stalks away.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You skip the rest of school, and drive around town under a thundercloud of rage and terror until it's safe to point your truck home. "Traffic was good," you explain to your mom when you pass her on your way up your room. You snag the grimoire and haul ass back to the elementary school. Your brain is swelling with fantasies of burning all of those assholes into golems, the way you burned Sydney's stepdad.<br/>
<br/>
Instead, you perform the next spell—which results in a black and smelly paste—and turn the page to find out what it does.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"You're awful quiet," Sydney says when you pick her up after gymnastics.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry. I'm just thinking." Fortieth Street is coming up. "Do you want to stop someplace, get something to eat?"<br/>
<br/>
"Is that what you were thinking so hard about?"<br/>
<br/>
"No." You force a smile as you stroke her thigh. <i>God, I can't believe I'm allowed to touch her this way.</i> Except maybe you won't be allowed, not for long. "I skipped school after I left you. Went over to the other school and unlocked the next spell in the book."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" She sits up.<br/>
<br/>
You hesitate.<br/>
<br/>
It didn't take long to perform the spell or to translate the instructions. It made a paste that gets put on the inside of a mask. It took longer—but not much longer—to see the uses of such a thing. Two stand out.<br/>
<br/>
First, you could use it to enslave those assholes who grabbed you this afternoon—and without killing them, either. It's a much easier and tidier way than using the spell you used on Sydney's stepdad.<br/>
<br/>
Alternately, you could use to pull off a kind of body swap—taking over someone else's life while forcing them to take over yours. If Blake's friends want Sydney for him (and if he really is Sydney's type) maybe you could keep her while dodging them by <i>turning yourself into Blake O'Brien.</i><br/>
<br/>
But either way, you'd have to tell Sydney what happened this afternoon—and that you don't see any way of surviving the school year in a relationship with her without using the new spell in one of these two ways.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The End of One Road
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"So what does the new spell do?" Sydney asks again after you've not answered her for a minute.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it's complicated," you stammer. Then you explain that it uses most of the same stuff that you used to make a golem and that you used on her stepdad: flammable powders and liquids, a few special extra ingredients. As for cemetery earth, it only calls for a spoonful, and there are no human sacrifices. "But it's still a lot like the last spell," you conclude.<br/>
<br/>
"How?"<br/>
<br/>
The day's resentments come bursting out. "Because we can use it to get rid of some assholes!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You tell her what happened to you in sixth period. It makes you feel a little better to see her eyes pop with shock and anger.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, those <i>fuckers,</i>" she hisses when you're done. "Oh, Jesus! I knew that people could be real shits, but— Really? There are guys at school who do shit like that?"<br/>
<br/>
"We'll, there's guys at <i>Westside</i> who do."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh!" She slumps in her seat. "We're going to do something about it, right?"<br/>
<br/>
Your voice trembles as you reply. "Like I said," you tell her, "the new spell makes it super easy to!"<br/>
<br/>
She listens intently as you explain.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney studies the spell for herself once you're at the school basement, and she concurs with your translation. But she still wants to test it out; and she's confident enough in the translation that she insists on being the test subject. You lose your argument with her over that, but at least you force her to use Caleb's mask instead of Blake's. You brush the stuff you made into the interior of Caleb's mask, giving it a tar-like coating. You then set a hank of your own hair into the mask and set it aflame. It burns for only an instant, and the interior of the mask turns the same color as a golem.<br/>
<br/>
Meanwhile, Sydney strips off her clothes and lays out on a table; you have to blush and look away. "Get used to it, Will," she tells you as she rolls her eyes. "We're going to be doing a lot of stuff sky-clad."<br/>
<br/>
The test goes off perfectly. As soon as she drops the treated mask onto her face, Caleb appears. You question him, and he disclaims all knowledge of Sydney and her whereabouts; he answers questions about his own biography perfectly; and he punches himself in the balls when you order him to. (That's the moment you regret not using Blake's mask after all.) You then pull the mask off Sydney, and she reappears, as perfect as before she vanished. When she wakes up, she tells you that she remembers nothing that you had her do while she was looking like Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"This is perfect for us," she purrs after you've told her what happened. "We can get rid of those assholes—some of them at least—<i>and</i> make our own Brotherhood, all in one go." Her eyes flash. "You know, I figured we'd have to make up half a dozen of those golem things"—she glances at the stony heap in the basement corner—"and we'd only be able to do stuff with them at night, out of sight. But with this stuff—" she stabs her finger at Caleb's mask—"we can <i>replace</i> them, even at school, <i>even in their own homes,</i> with our own acolytes."<br/>
<br/>
"And we won't be killing them, either," you point out. That was an important to you. You might be pissed at those assholes, but you don't seriously want to burn them into golems, like you did with Sydney's stepdad.<br/>
<br/>
She eyes you hungrily. "So who do you want to start with? Blake? We've already got a mask of him."<br/>
<br/>
"I want to think about it," you reply after a moment's hesitation. We can talk about it while making up some new masks."<br/>
<br/>
She glances at her phone. "I have to get home for supper," she says. "But pick me up later? We'll come back here and get started. Oh, Will!" She grabs you in a tight hug. "We're going to fuck things up so good!"<br/>
<br/>
Her words jolt you, even as you embrace her back. You know what she means—you're going to fuck over a lot of assholes real good. But you can't help worrying that her actual words are a grim and unintentional prophecy.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You pick her up around seven and drive back out to the basement, but you're only able to cast four masks and mind-bands before running out of supplies. That will be enough to get started tomorrow, though; and you'll have the weekend after that.<br/>
<br/>
And, as if fate has been storing up complications for you, the next day brings you a few more choices to entertain.<br/>
<br/>
You've parted with Sydney in front of the gym—she has a P.E. class first thing—and are nearing your locker when again strong hands are laid on you. You're thrust through the crowd, and a punch to a kidney slams you face first into a locker. Your knees buckle, but the hand supports you as you're wrenched around. You sphincter loosens to find David Kirkham grinning into your face.<br/>
<br/>
Kirkham is a little smaller than you, but he's compact and strong. He rolls the ever-present toothpick about in his mouth beneath the ever-present shades.<br/>
<br/>
He puts his face close to yours so that he can make himself heard without lifting his voice over the mutter of the crowd.<br/>
<br/>
"I hear you're getting fucked these days, Prescott." His voice is soft, but there's a hard rattle in it, like the scales of a serpent sliding over stone. "Wanna tell me about it?"<br/>
<br/>
Your shoulders rise in a weak shrug. It's never a good idea to talk back to David Kirkham—one of the most fearsome bullies at Westside—but it's an even worse idea to say or do nothing when he address you.<br/>
<br/>
"You're not sure?" His grin widens. "What kind of a pussy-sniffer doesn't know if he's getting fucked?"<br/>
<br/>
Now you just swallow. <br/>
<br/>
"I'm going to do you a favor, Prescott," he hisses. "I'm going to <i>ride</i> you." He tightens his grip on your collar. "I've seen that girl that you don't know if you're fucking or not. Oooh! If I was with her, she's know she was getting fucked. I'd fuck her into a coma then fuck her back out of it. But I was saying I'm gonna do you a solid."<br/>
<br/>
He puts his face so close to yours you can smell the cinnamon on his breath. <br/>
<br/>
"Starting Monday I'm gonna fuck you up every day, in front of her. Give you a chance to prove to her that you got balls big enough for her. You got balls big enough for her, don't you? She <i>inspires</i> you, doesn't she?" He punches you again. "So I'm gonna let you <i>show</i> her how much she inspires you. And as an <i>extra</i> favor, 'cos I like you so much, I won't pull any my punches."<br/>
<br/>
He drops you, and sniggers as he pats your chest. "So get ready for a good show on Monday, Prescott. Play it like your life depends on it." With another hissing laugh, he melts back into the crowd.<br/>
<br/>
You run into the nearest bathroom and throw up.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The next complication comes in Walberg's class. You drop into your desk and grunt a "Hey" at Caleb, but he doesn't reply. When you look up, you find him very white in the face, with his arms folded as he stares at the front of the room with glittering eyes. "Caleb," you say. "Hey!" But even when you wave your hand in front of his face he just turns the color of Antarctica and stares straight ahead.<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck is the matter with Johansson?" you ask Keith when you fall into the desk in front of his in second period. "The son of a bitch went all last period ignoring me."<br/>
<br/>
"It's pro'ly on account of your being such a backstabbing asshole," Tilley replies. He leans back, turns his cap brim-side front, and pulls it down over his eyes. "Can't say I blame him," he adds as he lifts his cell phone to block his view of you.<br/>
<br/>
"What are you talking about?" But with a sinking heart you can make a pretty good guess.<br/>
<br/>
"What you think I'm a'talk about? What's her name? Girl wanted to get to know Caleb only you got to her first?"<br/>
<br/>
You grip your desk and glare. "What are you talking about?" you repeat.<br/>
<br/>
"You know exactly what I'm'a talk about, motherfucker. Girl comes on to Caleb, you sling a lot of shit at him so he don't come back at her, you pick her up and walk off with her instead. Not fucking cool, man." He shakes his head and clucks his tongue. "Not fucking cool."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, first of all, who told you some girl was coming on to Caleb? And second, what makes you think I'm—"<br/>
<br/>
But the words falter and die. You've never been good at bluffing. Obviously Caleb would have told Keith about Sydney, and about how you talked him into ignoring her; and just as obviously word must have spread back to the two of them that you and her had started going out.<br/>
<br/>
"I tell you one more thing," Keith says, "and then I start talkin' to you like you was a wall. As in, I ain't talkin' to you ever again." You can't help rolling your eyes at Keith's attempt to sound "ghetto." "You better go lookin' for some new friends, 'cos you ain't findin' none where you been findin' 'em b'fore. An' that includes Carson and James." He whistles. "Ain't no one cool wit' what you done to Caleb. You gonna find 'em all <i>cold.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"So who's our target for tonight?" Sydney asks when you meet her after school.</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: Even a Football Player Has Weak Spots
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"So who's our target for tonight?" Sydney asks.<br/>
<br/>
You're driving home from school and squinting hard at the coagulated traffic on Borman Road—so many assholes trying to get home at the same time as you—so that you don't answer her right away.<br/>
<br/>
Which is just as well, for it gives her a chance to drop a thought that startles you: "I mean," she says, "it's not like it has to be <i>Blake</i> that we do the thing to."<br/>
<br/>
"What? Well, who else would we—?" you start to ask, then bite the question off to jerk the truck into an opening on your left.<br/>
<br/>
"Sweetheart, maybe we could turn you into someone who wasn't a maniac driver?"<br/>
<br/>
You grimace. "Sorry."<br/>
<br/>
"What I meant was, we don't have to tackle Blake directly if we don't want to. I mean, if <i>you</i> don't want to."<br/>
<br/>
"Why wouldn't I?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know. But maybe you could sort of sideswipe him? I'm talking about Blake, not the sedan on our right."<br/>
<br/>
"Ha ha. But you mean, do the thing to one of his friends? Replace them and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Right. Then they wouldn't be his friends anymore. Would they?"<br/>
<br/>
The hair on the back of your neck prickles. "You mean, turn them against him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. Or, you know, even if you didn't 'turn them against him,' they still wouldn't be his friends anymore." She giggles. "Not really."<br/>
<br/>
Yes, it's a nasty idea. <br/>
<br/>
You like it.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The first thing is to take stock of your supplies, so you drive out to the elementary school. You've already got two masks and two memory strips made up, but your other supplies are too low to make any more. You suggest going to pick up some more, but Sydney answers with a wry smile: "The Brotherhood will provide."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"I mean," she says, picking up one of the masks, "that we can get our first Brother to buy us what we need." She dimples at you.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess we could do that." You pick up the other mask. "Are we going to make two Brothers?"<br/>
<br/>
"We could do that too," she says. "Unless one of us is going <i>to be</i> the Brother." She holds up the mask in front of her face, then peers around it with a mischievous smile.<br/>
<br/>
A grin pulls at your mouth. "Which one of us goes first?"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe we should figure out who it should be, first." She looks around. "Where's that mask we made of Blake?"<br/>
<br/>
"Around someplace. Why?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will, you didn't throw it away, did you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No! I told you, it's around here some—" You peer around without immediate success. "Why?" You clamber over a conference table to get to some shelves where it might be.<br/>
<br/>
"For clues about who to hit. Who would it <i>really hurt</i> Blake if we turned him into an enemy. A <i>secret</i> enemy."<br/>
<br/>
You pause in mid-scramble. After today, you've got more enemies than Blake O'Brien to deal with.<br/>
<br/>
You're still thinking about the complications that come with having David Kirkham and Caleb out for your heart's blood when you find Blake's mask. With it in hand, you heave yourself back over to Sydney. She lays her fingertips on its edge.<br/>
<br/>
Your throat feels like it's closing up. "You know," you gurgle, "if I'm going to put this on, maybe you should go pick us up something to eat."<br/>
<br/>
"Is Blake going to be hungry?"<br/>
<br/>
"For you, he is." A prickling pang shoots through your cock as it extends.<br/>
<br/>
"Mm. That could be fun."<br/>
<br/>
"But I don't want ... <i>him</i> ... touching you." You swallow. "Even if it's really me."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I see." She bites her lower lip, then goes up on tiptoes to kiss the side of your mouth. "It's sweet of you to think of me."<br/>
<br/>
You close your eyes. You're not <i>thinking</i> of her. You're <i>throbbing</i> at her.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll go get us an early supper. And I'll take my time getting back. But you know, Will, if I get back and you're still Blake and you can't control yourself, well ... It's not like I'd <i>scream</i> or anything. Until we were in the middle of it."<br/>
<br/>
You wait until she's gone before collapsing onto the conference table.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You've taken the precaution of removing your shoes and pants and shirt before putting Blake's mask on, so you're cold all over when you wake, and you shiver as you stumble onto your feet.<br/>
<br/>
Your bony, boat-like feet with the toes that are almost as long as fingers—the big toe almost like a thumb. You make a face at it as you stumble into the back of the basement in search of the floor-length mirror that's been shoved up against a wall.<br/>
<br/>
You know what you'll find in it, of course.<br/>
<br/>
It's weird, you reflect as you shuffle through broken desks and dusty, tumbled-over bookshelves, trying not to stub your toes. It's been days since you were inside Blake's mask, but it feels now like you've never been out of it. His mind, his memories, this <i>mental musk</i> clings to you. <i>Fuck, what am I still doing in this goddam basement? I'm gonna punch some dickface's heart out if I don't get out of here.</i><br/>
<br/>
You find the mirror and lean against it as you study your borrowed face from under a lowered brow.<br/>
<br/>
Dark hair cut in a bowl haircut. Coffee-colored eyes and a straight, narrow nose. A long jaw with dime-sized mole on its side. Not a bad-looking face, and it's a face that's had lots of girls smiling up into it. Your pale lips twist into a sardonic smile as you think of some of the girls that you've taken back at the Warehouse, pinning beneath your lean, bow-like torso as they've wrapped their thighs around your narrow hips.<br/>
<br/>
Fuck. You're arousing yourself, and it isn't even your cock. You splay a hand over the reflected face and turn away.<br/>
<br/>
How to hurt this guy?<br/>
<br/>
His dad's gone—left to chase cocktail waitresses or some shit like that—so there's no angle there. His mom's a branch manager at a bank, drawing a decent salary. Blake stays on her good side so there's no drama to be exploited there. His sister—<br/>
<br/>
His sister. <i>Hmmm.</i><br/>
<br/>
Kelly is a sophomore at Westside, a tomboy who fights with her big brother but clearly adores him, just as he adores her. She very short, even for her age, so she can't pursue her real love, which is basketball, so she exerts herself on the JV softball team at school. Isn't Sydney friends with girls on the varsity softball team? Could she get to Kelly through one of them? Slipping a duplicate in for Blake's sister would certainly hurt him. But she'd have to start acting out of character. What is her character? Is she popular? Blake doesn't like to think that she is. Blake doesn't like to think about his sister starting to party out at the Warehouse—<br/>
<br/>
Your heart moves sideways in your chest: Blake's horrified reaction as well as your own excited one. <i>Pair up Kelly with a guy who's really bad for her, really bad news. Start partying hard. Fight with her big brother, who's only looking out for her. Get her in trouble. Get her in real trouble.</i><br/>
<br/>
You shiver hard.<br/>
<br/>
Okay, that's one possibility. What about at school? Erik Carstairs, of the football team, is one of Blake's best friends. If Erik turned against him suddenly, that would really screw with his head. And there's no way Blake could touch Erik, particularly if Erik turned the other guys against him. Hell, if you were  Erik Carstairs you could safely hassle anyone at school, except probably for Gordon and Steve. You could even—<br/>
<br/>
You rub your eyes. You could take on Kirkham. You sure as hell could squash Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
Yeah, Erik would be a three-ring-circus of trouble for the guys who are trying to make your life miserable.<br/>
<br/>
Okay, are there any others like that? Guys who could make trouble for more people than just Blake?<br/>
<br/>
A daisy chain of associations takes you from Erik (who deals weed to the football team) to Gary Chen (who deals weed at school generally),  and who hangs around with Kirkham. Chen couldn't hurt Blake, but he could hurt Kirkham by turning on him, and he could definitely hurt Caleb. But you'd have to explain to Sydney that there's more than one guy you want to get back at—and why—before you could explain picking Chen.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"You can get back at whoever you want, Will," Sydney assures you later that evening. You were out of Blake's mask before she got back (with barbecue) and so far you've pitched her on the two most obvious choices: Carstairs and Chen. (Kelly you've held back as being maybe a little too perverse.) "We're going to have ten of these things," she continues as she scoops some coleslaw out of a Styrofoam cup, "so it's not like we only have to target one of the guys you're mad at.<br/>
<br/>
"But," she adds after tearing off a piece of Texas toast, "I was kind of figuring we'd hit Blake where he's most sensitive."<br/>
<br/>
<i>His sister?</i> you almost blurt out in shock. <br/>
<br/>
"A girl," she explains. "Someone he has a crush on."<br/>
<br/>
"He has a crush on <i>you</i>," you remind her.<br/>
<br/>
"He must've had a crush on someone before I moved to town."<br/>
<br/>
You snort.<br/>
<br/>
Then you catch yourself. You've been out of the mask for twenty minutes, but the associations haven't fully faded. One face and form blazes out at you, with such ferocity that you <i>know</i> it must have imprinted itself on your soul while you were wearing Blake's mask.<br/>
<br/>
Amanda Ferguson. One of Kelsey Blankenship's snobbiest, most frigid friends.<br/>
<br/>
Blake has a raging hard-on for Amanda.</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111111
author_id: rugal
title: The Nuclear Option
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You get a certain thrill out of the thought of having Amanda Ferguson under your control. Of all the haughty girls running in the snobbish AP circle, Amanda may very well be the haughtiest of them all. She carries herself as if almost everyone else is beneath her. Not in the snooty way that her friend Kelsey does but in a way that seems to barely, if at all, even acknowledge the existence of others. As if they're so far beneath her notice that they don't even get the sneers that her friends are so ready to give others.<br/>
<br/>
To take someone like her and have complete control of her... and what if Sydney put on her mask? Would she be willing to... would you be actually be able to fool around with Amanda freakin' Ferguson? The flip side of the coin is what she might do with Blake. Would she have to seduce him? Get physical with him? All in service of breaking his heart?<br/>
<br/>
Without even realizing it you start to feel antsy and can't stem the tide of jealousy that starts bubbling up from deep within you. No, you definitely don't want to even think of the possibility of that happening. So what then? <i>You</i> put on Amanda's mask? Could you even be a girl? Technically you know it's possible; if Sydney could wear Caleb's mask then you could wear Amanda's. But being her and <i>being</i> her are two different things. Could you handle everything that would come with being a girl? With being Amanda and all that her life would entail? Could you handle seducing Blake yourself?<br/>
<br/>
Oh you'd life to see his heart get ripped in two right in front of your face. The smug prick definitely deserves it. But could you handle all that you'd have to do to get to that point?<br/>
<br/>
You begin to doubt if you could. If not Amanda then that just leaves the guys.<br/>
<br/>
Someone like Chen is too complicated to explain to Sydney any more than you have, or rather you don't feel like explaining it to her right now any more than you have as your focus needs to remain squarely on Blake. Carstairs is out as well because that jealousy is still boiling and you can't help but think you'd be introducing more "competition" even if you were playing the role yourself.<br/>
<br/>
Besides, Sydney seems intent on using a girl.<br/>
<br/>
So what then? Well there is one option...<br/>
<br/>
"I don't really know about any crushes," you say with a shake of your head, "but... he's got a sister."<br/>
<br/>
The nuclear option.<br/>
<br/>
"A sister?" Sydney perks up. "Do tell."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," you answer. "She's a sophomore, plays on the JV softball team. Do you know a Kelly O'Brien? You're friends with some of the softball players right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure but I can't say I know anyone on the JV team," she answers. "Maggie might though."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean might?" you ask in surprise. Maggie Crenshaw is captain of the varsity team so it's natural to assume that she'd know what's going on with the JV team isn't it?<br/>
<br/>
"I don't really follow the goings on of the softball teams," Sydney admits, "so I don't know who's in charge of working with the JV squad."<br/>
<br/>
"Wouldn't it be Maggie since she's the captain?"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe," she shrugs, "but I think it just works out to whoever wants to or can do it. I've heard Anita's pretty hands off with the JV soccer team and it's a couple of the other varsity players that deal with them for instance." She scrunches up her face as she thinks and you can't help but find it really cute. "I think I've got a JV player in fifth but I don't remember who it is and I wouldn't be able to talk to them about Kelly until Monday."<br/>
<br/>
"Well if we have to wait..."<br/>
<br/>
"Will, honey, I'd rather get started on building the Brotherhood as soon as possible," she states completely shutting you down. Instead Sydney pulls out her phone and begins tapping away, the chimes making you aware she's texting. You want to ask who but she seems more focused on that than you so all you can do is wait. After a few minutes she stops but continues to stare at her phone impatiently. A few more minutes later and she sends a few more texts off before closing the screen.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, we're going to have to get back to my house," she says. "Like right now."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that what all that was about?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Yep," she nods. "I told Maggie I needed to get in touch with Kelly but she doesn't really know her, she really only talks with the JV captain."<br/>
<br/>
"Who's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Some girl named Bridget Atwater," Sydney explains. "Anyway skipping the boring stuff we'll have to go through her if we want to get in touch with Kelly. So Maggie was texting her and I guess she agreed to come out to my place." She grumbles as she starts to gather up some stuff. "It's like we're being interviewed. It's kind of ridiculous."<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe," you say as you go over to where the masks you'd made are, "but we've got a way to guarantee we pass that interview." You say this as you grab a mask and hold it up.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney's house is in the northwest section of town. The kind of place where people like Kelsey Blankenship is and the kind of place that makes you start to feel very self-conscious. Her home, naturally, is much nicer than your own and her bedroom, though fairly normal in its decoration and even a tad austere, is likewise nicer than the entirety of your house. It's here that you wait for this Bridget Atwater girl.<br/>
<br/>
"So what are we doing once she's here," you ask as you run a finger over a large desk.<br/>
<br/>
"We shove a mask into her face duh," Sydney replies lamely.<br/>
<br/>
"After that," you say. "I mean is she gonna be a <i>pedisequos</i>?"<br/>
<br/>
"Probably," she replies.<br/>
<br/>
"Well I'd rather get this switch into Kelly done quickly," you tell her. "If she's like that then we'd probably have to wait for whenever she'd find time in her schedule to get out here. Even if she's one of those things I don't want to muck up her life or anything."<br/>
<br/>
"So what? Do you want me to wear her mask then?"<br/>
<br/>
"If you want," you say as you turn to face her. "But I was thinking of wearing it."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney's eyes widen in surprise when she hears that. "You wearing... but she's a girl and all so could you even...?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't see why not," you shrug. "This whole thing with Blake and all of them has really pissed me off. When we hurt him I want to see it first hand and up close."<br/>
<br/>
"And manipulating his sister to do it--<i>no!</i> Doing it <i>as</i> his sister," Sydney gasps in excitement. "That is so perverse, so malicious. I didn't know you had it in you."<br/>
<br/>
With a smile she grabs you and pulls you in close. Then your lips are pressed together, your tongues probing each others' mouths and wrestling with one another. You're not sure how long you stay like this before she eventually pulls away.<br/>
<br/>
"It's a side of you I like seeing Will," she says with a smirk.<br/>
<br/>
"Well maybe I've got incentive to show a little more of it," you say and can do nothing to contain your own grin. In fact you're in such a daze that you barely have time to notice a mask getting shoved into your face before everything goes black.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Fuck, warn me before you do that," you grumble as you pick yourself up.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry but she's going to be here any minute so I didn't want to waste any time," Sydney states as she hands you the mask. You notice the inside is gray instead of blue. "I even took the time to snip some of your hair for the spell so you're good to go to make this switch."<br/>
<br/>
No sooner does she say that than you hear a doorbell ring. "Good timing too. That's probably her," she states as she heads towards the doorway. "Stay here, I'll bring her in." She bounds out and very shortly you hear her yell at her step-father that she's "got it" and to "get the fuck back to your room and stay in there".<br/>
<br/>
You find and grab one of the blanks. Very shortly this will by on Bridget's face. Then it'll be on yours as you appropriate her face for your own. A perfect disguise that will allow you to get close to your ultimate weapon all so you can unleash untold destruction on a person you feel most aggrieved by.<br/>
<br/>
You don't have very long to wait as it's not long before Sydney comes walking back with a girl a tad shorter than herself with thick, dark hair. You're quick and no sooner have the doors to her room been closed than you're on the girl, catching her and gently placing her on the floor as the mask sinks into her.<br/>
<br/>
Bridget Atwater; the first of the two keys you'll need to let fly your most devastating weapon against Blake O'Brien.<br/>
<br/>
"You know," Sydney cuts in. "Are you sure you're really up for this? Being her... being a girl. It was weird enough for me going from being a girl to a guy so if you think it might be too weird for you, well, I'd be willing to switch with her instead." Her smile and tone are both seductive. "You know, I wouldn't be myself either. We could do actually do a little more than heavy petting if you wanted."</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111111
author_id: rugal
title: The Boyish Girl
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's a tempting idea; very tempting. Being able to actually do something significant with Sydney even if she's under a mask? Well that was one of the things this whole Brotherhood promised wasn't it? And yet...<br/>
<br/>
"It's fine," you say as you look over Bridget. "It'll be an adjustment but this is something I really want to do myself."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but--"<br/>
<br/>
"I appreciate the offer and the, uh, potential but," you turn to look at Sydney, "I don't want you having to feel like you need to fight my battles for me. It's an issue I'm having and the idea was mine so I figure it's only right that I'm the one who has to deal with it all."<br/>
<br/>
"Hmm," is all she says before grabbing you and directing you towards the bathroom that's connected to her own room. "Your doppelganger's going to need clothes so just take them off in here. You can put the mask on in here as well."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't want to see that girl in all her glory?" you wryly joke.<br/>
<br/>
That only earns you a harder shove into the bathroom and the door is shut behind you. You get to stripping down to first your skivvies and then your birthday suit before you hear a knock on the door a few minutes later followed shortly by Sydney asking if you're done as you hear some shuffling outside. You open the door a crack and hand your clothes over. You don't even get the chance to close the door as Sydney does that. Then you hear some chatter, then a frustrated grunt. Then another knock on the door.<br/>
<br/>
"Will, the <i>pedisequos</i> is being a little shit," Sydney's muffled voice complains. "Can you tell him to put some damn pants on?"<br/>
<br/>
You can't help but snicker softly before opening the door and poking your head out (while making sure the rest of you is safely hidden). "Hey dipshit," you say when you lock eyes with your double, "you know who I am right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um, yeah?" he responds.<br/>
<br/>
"And you know you have to listen to me right?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess so," he grumbles.<br/>
<br/>
"Good, then get dressed and get the hell out of here."<br/>
<br/>
"And go where?"<br/>
<br/>
Yeah, he definitely is being a shit but you're not going to play any kind of game with him. Not at this moment. "Just go home, sheesh! Do you need me to tell you to wipe your ass when you're done taking a shit too?" you answer.<br/>
<br/>
You watch as he rolls his eyes. "Are you telling me to do that?" he says with as much sass as he can toss at you. But he doesn't argue any further and he starts getting dressed properly by the time you're closing the door.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll seal the mask and then get it to you once he's gone," Sydney says through the door. "I'll be nice when I see him by the way. Your <i>pedisequos</i> I mean. But maybe have a conversation with him to stop acting like such an annoying doof when you get the chance?"<br/>
<br/>
"Am I that bad?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
But you receive no answer either because you are that bad and she doesn't want to say it or (hopefully) more likely she's moved away from the bathroom door and can no longer hear you properly. It's another couple of minutes before a last knock on the door and this time when you open it your handed a mask and then, before you can close the door, a pile of clothes is shoved through a well. You close the door behind you and take a look at the mask, now labelled as <i>BRIDGET SUSANNA ATWATER</i>, and lay down.<br/>
<br/>
The darkness isn't long in coming.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You awake with a start. The floor is cold and it jolts you up and off of it before you have time to even really be conscious of it. You're unsteady on your feet, both because you're groggy and because your balance is off for a number of reasons. Chief among them is that the bathroom feels larger and it takes you a moment to realize it's because you're smaller. You reach out and steady yourself against the sink and allow yourself a few deep breaths. You can spot a mirror just at the top of your field of vision and slowly you lift your head and stand up straight.<br/>
<br/>
The face that looks back at throws you off at first. It's not an un-attractive face by any means. But the shape of it, the way everything is positioned on it, eyebrows that are a little thicker lack typical shaping. There's a very boyish quality to that face. It lacks the more feminine beauty of Courtney Blessing's or the elfin adorableness of Mona Stiles' -- names and images pulled up from your borrowed mind -- but it's a nice face all the same.<br/>
<br/>
Though maybe there's a bit of compensation going on as you can't help but marvel at the hair. A dark, chocolatey brown it falls and falls and falls some more and you wonder how Bridget actually plays softball with hair like this. Because straight and thick, it stops just below your waist and just above a very well-shaped butt that you can't help but grab and rub.<br/>
<br/>
Your legs are well-shaped and well-muscled too and your -- you gulp -- breasts while not large are a nice handful and they look nice atop the rather compact torso that's sandwiched inbetween the T and the A.<br/>
<br/>
Unfortunately for you you'll have to get better acquainted with this body on your own time. You pick through the clothes and put on the underwear and bra. The rest is simple: jeans, a t-shirt, socks and a pair of white Adidas sneakers. Well you suppose it's appropriate for someone with her face to very much be the classic tomboy and you're grateful that you don't have to fiddle around with fancy skirts and making sure all of your makeup is perfect or any of that.<br/>
<br/>
But you do make sure to give yourself one more appraisal in the mirror and, satisfied, prepare to head back out and talk to Sydney in your new guise.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Will? That's you isn't it?"<br/>
<br/>
You regard Sydney for a few seconds, trying to think of how to respond. It is you of course but if you're going to be Bridget for a little bit, at least long enough to get around Kelly without arousing suspicion so as to get a mask onto her, then you think that it's better to <i>be</i> Bridget. Or at least to start getting a handle on her and to do that you partially slip into her persona. Not enough to where you're thinking as her but enough to filter your personality through her lens.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, dude, it's me," you say in a voice that is a bit deeper, a bit raspier than you'd have thought. "How do I look?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, you look fine," Sydney says as she eyes you skeptically. "But, uh, the attitude and the way you're moving and such is off. I thought you said it gave you everything."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah? There's not a problem is there?"<br/>
<br/>
She continues to look at you intently as she responds. "You're not really coming off as, uh, feminine," she states.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that?" you say with a small, throaty laugh. "God, no, everything's good trust me on that. Bridget doesn't really do feminine. How the fuck didn't you notice that? You brought her up here."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, it's not like we talked or anything," she says. "We just said a few words and then yeah." Sydney's eyes narrow once more. "She, uh, <i>is</i> a she right? Well I mean, I guess if she was she'd still be a she but..."<br/>
<br/>
"You're asking if she's transgender?" you respond but shake your head, the thick dark hair practically enveloping you as you do. "Nah, she's got all the right parts and she doesn't think of herself as, like, a boy trapped in a girl's body or any of that shit. She's just, tomboy."<br/>
<br/>
"A pretty extreme one."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, when you're raised in a home with a single dad and three brothers it probably has some kind of effect on how you turn out, ya know?" you reply and your tone is very defensive. But it's a spot that, while not sore, does cause her annoyance at having to explain. "People have such a hard fucking time with anything that doesn't fit into whatever bullshit ideas they've got about stuff."<br/>
<br/>
"Look Will, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to say anything bad about it," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"It is it what it is, you pretty much spit at preconceived notions yourself" you shrug. "Anyway, I need to get out of here."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? But there's something I need to tell you about--"<br/>
<br/>
"Can it wait 'till tomorrow?" you ask. "She's on a pretty tight schedule and I want to keep to it."<br/>
<br/>
"Is she going to see Kelly? We still have a few of the masks you grabbed here--"<br/>
<br/>
"No," you say bluntly as you cut her off. "Other shit she's gotta take care of. Family shit, real important."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney wants to push back but she seems to think better of it and holds back, simply asking you to make sure you came back tomorrow when her mother's out. You give her Bridget's phone number so she can get in touch with you once the coast is clear and then head out. You hop in the old Tacoma, a parting gift from Bridget's oldest brother, and drive off.<br/>
<br/>
You do feel a bit bad as well for having to lie to Sydney because Bridget doesn't have anything to to help out her family with and she is, in fact, going to see Kelly. Because maybe it's Bridget's natural instincts regarding her mixed with your own wanting to not rush things but you want to get a proper feel for the girl first before you throw a mask onto her. Besides, actually getting her to agree to come out to a party is a rare thing indeed and you can very much tell that Bridget doesn't want her to give the opportunity to walk back on it.</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111111
author_id: rugal
title: Homebodies
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The O'Briens live in a modest home in a neighborhood between Dawes and Evarts. It's a home that Bridget's seen too many times to count as more often than not Bridget has always found her way over to play or hang out, eat dinner and sleep over. But for the moment you drive past it to another modest home a few houses down, pulling into the driveway and killing the ignition. You give yourself a moment to settle in because now you can't just be Will Prescott colored by Bridget Atwater, you'll have to pass yourself off fully as the girl for most of the rest of the evening and night.<br/>
<br/>
Once you feel comfortable you hop out of the truck and head through the front door where you're almost immediately greeted by an old lab who pops his head up from the couch. "Hey to you too ya old mutt," you say as you walk by and rub his head.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh you're back?" asks Cody, the second oldest of Bridget's brothers and a freshman at Keyserling, as he pops his head out from the kitchen. "Thought you were going out."<br/>
<br/>
"I am but not right this second. Plus I wanna grab some stuff," you reply. "Got any beer I can jack?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not any for you. You're still a kid, you shouldn't be drinking that stuff anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck right off," you fire back as you walk by him and open the fridge and begin rooting around. "You're still underage too. I'm taking this by the way," you say as you pull out a barely used twelve pack.<br/>
<br/>
"Be my guest. Have fun telling dad you took his shit. Or that you were drinking," he responds and immediately you put it back.<br/>
<br/>
"Guess I better hope Catherine's got something better than wine coolers," you grumble as you head out of the kitchen.<br/>
<br/>
Down the hallway you curse at Jonah, Bridget's younger brother, as he emerges from the bathroom just as you're walking by causing a minor collision. You mentally sigh at the fact that you can't do much more than that to him anymore as he hit a growth spurt some time last year so now, despite being in the eighth grade, he towers above Bridget leaving any sisterly bullying off the table.<br/>
<br/>
In her room -- unsurprisingly unfeminine -- you flop down on the bed and let her phone charge though you still take the time to look through it to get a better idea of what, or rather who, you've gotten yourself into. In her phone and on her social media you see lots of pictures with lots of people. The most surprising being Bridget with other girls -- softball teammates, other JV athletes, some Eastman girls and other assorted types -- at Courtney's pool party last weekend because you'd half-expected her to be in shorts and a shirt instead of the swimsuit that she, admittedly, fills out nicely.<br/>
<br/>
But you're really only killing a few minutes while your phone charges and once that's done you make a trip to the bathroom to relieve yourself and grab your stuff. As you walk out into the living room you see Cody on the couch, controller in hand with an open beer on the coffee table in front of him.<br/>
<br/>
"Have fun with dad," you tease him as you walk by.<br/>
<br/>
"It's what I was keeping in the garage. I'm not stupid," he says before realizing his mistake.<br/>
<br/>
He shoots off of the couch but Bridget's the athlete and closer to the door besides so he has no shot at even coming close to reaching you before you're through the door, locking it from the other side (a design flaw that everyone's been too lazy to fix). You beeline towards the mini fridge where you see two unopened twelve packs. You grab one and head back into the house pulling your wallet out of your purse (one of Bridget's few feminine concessions).<br/>
<br/>
"Here," you say as you toss a twenty onto the coffee table. He barely looks up from his game and doesn't say anything by the time you're out the door.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"What's up smelly boy?" Blake asks as he opens the front door.<br/>
<br/>
"Not much, knuckle dragger," you answer as you step into the house.<br/>
<br/>
"Kelly's in her room," he states and you roll your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"No shit," you reply sarcastically before noticing the red shirt. "You going out?"<br/>
<br/>
"They've got me on security tonight," he says as he walks into the kitchen and digs through the refrigerator. "You're not going out there are you?"<br/>
<br/>
You notice the trepidation in his voice when he says it. You'd love to needle him, and not in the friendly way Bridget normally would, but it would be way too out of character so you have to hold your tongue. "Nah, Catherine's," you answer.<br/>
<br/>
He grunts at that as you hear a microwave door close. "Guess that's better then. She's more responsible," he states. More seriously though he adds, "Just make sure nothing happens."<br/>
<br/>
But you don't say anything else. Oh Bridget and Kelly's older brother get along fine. So fine in fact that the relationship between the two isn't wholly different from the one she shares with her own brothers (which is why, despite being handsome and, ugh, nice she finds it impossible to view him in a romantic or sexual way). But that doesn't mean that <i>you</i> want to maximize the amount of time spent around him before absolutely necessary. So you're quick to go to the end of the hallway and knock on the door.<br/>
<br/>
"It's me," you say in response to a muffled "yeah" and let yourself in. Immediately you feel disheartened. "You're not even ready?" you ask when you see that Kelly's dressed as if she's done for the day.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't really feel like going," she mutters as she swipes away at her phone.<br/>
<br/>
"Too bad Kel, you already said you were," you reply. "You already backed out of Courtney's and I'm not letting you do it twice in a row."<br/>
<br/>
"Parties aren't my thing," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"<i>Nothing</i> is your thing," you say in frustration, "but you've gotta get out some time."<br/>
<br/>
"Ngh," she grunts as she pushes herself up into a sitting position. "There's going to be too many people there. It's going to be way too crowded and way too noisy and way too annoying. You can't just call up a few people to come over here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Most of them are probably out doing other shit," you argue, "probably at Catherine's. But I can see if Zelda's free if you're so desperate for some people to hang out with."<br/>
<br/>
Kelly glowers at you but pushes herself off the bed. She can't stand Zelda McPherson, a pink-haired bohemian freshman who feels incongruous with the rest of the team, because Kelly is a serious girl who takes everything seriously.<br/>
<br/>
Though it's something deeper than that you realize as you take her spot on the bed while Kelly rummages through her closet. Bridget's known Kelly for a very long time -- not surprising as they live on the same street -- and the two are close enough to practically be family but the two could not be any more opposite otherwise. Where Bridget is laid back and outgoing, Kelly is moody and introverted.<br/>
<br/>
Bridget is the type who can jump into conversation and keep it going easily enough but Kelly is just too socially awkward and more prone to hanging back and keeping quiet than saying something. It's really only on a court or a field, too caught up in the heat of the moment and hyped up on adrenaline, does she allow herself to feel looser.<br/>
<br/>
"I'd still rather hang out here," Kelly says as she slips off her sweatpants for her own pair of jeans.<br/>
<br/>
"Just the two of us?"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe Shannon, Candice, just a few people."<br/>
<br/>
"Look, Catherine's parties are fine. She doesn't tolerate shitbags," you tell her. "You need to start getting out more."<br/>
<br/>
"You know I've never really liked hanging around a bunch of people," she grumbles as she throws a sweater over her head.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah but you've never been this bad," you state. "If you're that uncomfortable we can go to the Warehouse. Your brother's playing security tonight." You snicker at that as you watch her tense up though quickly you alleviate things. "Joking, fuck. Look we don't even need to stay all night, okay? Just hang out for a few hours. Get loosened up. They're not gonna bite you just because..."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm getting dressed aren't I?" Kelly fires back. "Just stay close by alright? I really don't want get swallowed up in a crowd."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Though you try to stay true to your word for most of the night that you'll keep her company, you eventually do get quite literally pulled away when James Randolph, a sophomore on the JV basketball team, bring you into a quieter corner. He fondles you and his tongue wrestles with your own and the part of you that's Bridget thrills as he's seriously handsome and one of the few guys on the team he's not a douche.<br/>
<br/>
"Why aren't we going out?" you ask during one of the times he pulls back.<br/>
<br/>
"Because I'm still dating Tiffany" he answers referring to his girlfriend Tiffany Kinyon.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude, that relationship is going nowhere," you say in a huff. "Fucking two-faced bitch is just clinging on for social status."<br/>
<br/>
"She's not like that," he sighs.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, okay," you roll your eyes. "That's why you're always finding me at every party."<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't respond to that exactly. "You actually got Kelly to come out?" he instead asks. "David's into her you know," he says referring to one of his buddies, David Harrell. "Help him out and then we can see about..."<br/>
<br/>
He leans in and starts to kiss you again when your phone buzzes. You push him back for just a second so you can check it and your mood sours a little when you do.<br/>
<br/>
It's a text from Kelly saying she wants to "get the fuck out of here" right now.</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111111111
author_id: rugal
title: The Second Key
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>James seems to notice the turn in your mood because he doesn't even bother to make a move once you've put your phone back. "Something wrong?" he asks before finally trying to grab your hands. "Suggesting that didn't piss you off did it? I know how you can be about--"<br/>
<br/>
"It's not you," you say as you quickly pull away. "It's me. I should've fucking known she'd want to leave sooner rather than later."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh," he says with the benefit of clarity. "Let her stew for a bit. Long enough for us to..."<br/>
<br/>
He trails off as he leans in to kiss you again and you shiver with excitement as his hand moves its way down your side to your waist then lower and behind until he's kneading and massaging your ass. The Bridget half of your mind is incredibly worked up and, though it wouldn't be the first time, you're being urged to find a room to disappear into as your mouths and tongues work harder, faster and more passionately. <i>Just a little time</i>, you think, <i>just give me half an hour. You can do that can't you?</i><br/>
<br/>
But the thoughts barely come out and your phone auspiciously buzzes again. You don't even need to check it this time. In disappointment you gently push James away.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry but this kinda takes priority," you tell him. "Besides, it won't really do David any good if Kel has a public freakout."<br/>
<br/>
"Too bad but you gotta do what you gotta do," he says with disappointment. "Really felt like we were going the whole nine yards this time."<br/>
<br/>
Mentally you curse. He felt it too. Sure Bridget and James find each other at a party and spend some time making out and grabbing each other but they've never gone off into a private room before and now just when it seemed like things had finally progressed to that point... of all the luck. But if he's into the idea you don't want to leave him completely hanging.<br/>
<br/>
"You free tomorrow?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Tiff wants to do something for lunch," he answers. "Her treat so I can't really pass it up. What about you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Working the afternoon shift. I get off at six."<br/>
<br/>
"I should be done with her by then."<br/>
<br/>
"Well I've probably got someone I need to talk to after..." But you cut yourself off. Is he suggesting that the two of you meet up tomorrow? "You free at all tomorrow night? You don't have anywhere you need to be?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing sticks out."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, uh, if you want I can get in touch with you if you wanna... you know..."<br/>
<br/>
His face, that handsome face, brightens. "I'd like that," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh but if we're going to... break up with Tiffany," you tell him. "I'm fucking serious James. Do it right 'cause I sure as fuck am not gonna be your side piece. Also it'd probably be fair to her or something, I dunno."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't know you cared so much about Tiff's feelings," he replies. "I'll see you tomorrow?" he asks as he leans in for a quick kiss before leaving.<br/>
<br/>
You want to melt. Well Bridget wants to. She's very much into James and has been for a while and she'd definitely do whatever she could to land him. If he wanted her in a dress she'd actually wear one. So you're feeling good as you go back out into the crowd to find Kelly. Though it's until a few minutes later that you realize he never actually said he was going to break up with Tiffany.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You'd found Kelly easy enough in the first place you'd looked: outside in the front. You grumbled and moaned but agreed to drop her off back at her place. You drive in silence on the way there until you finally pull up into her driveway with the both of you getting out. You're not really mad at her -- you'd expected it after all -- but you can't help but be a little annoyed all the same. Which is why you're surpised at how contrite she appears to be regarding it.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry, I saw you go off with James and I know you like him and all but," she sighs.<br/>
<br/>
"It's whatever, don't worry about it," you respond trying to defuse any potential tension. "I'll probably head back. Maybe I can find him again."<br/>
<br/>
"It was Jeremy," she says without prompting. "I saw him with that cheerleader he hangs around with and I just, I don't know, I got really fucking upset."<br/>
<br/>
Well that makes sense and it certainly dampens the annoyance you'd been feeling. Kelly doesn't really hide her crush on Jeremey Richardson, the same basketball player that you used to be friends with what seems like a lifetime ago.<br/>
<br/>
"I get it," you reassure her, "especially since you'd just saw me go off with James and all."<br/>
<br/>
"It was Stephanie too," she says more bitterly. "I ran across her and I know she saw me but she just... just <i>ignored</i> me like I hadn't... ugh!"<br/>
<br/>
Stephanie, in this case, refers to Stephanie Wyatt, another person that you have familiarity with. She's the virtual, if not technical, captain of the girls' basketball team because she tends to act so bossy that people find it hard to push back. Certainly that's what she'd done to you in elementary school and it's what she did during varsity and JV try outs during the summer.<br/>
<br/>
Kelly, from what she'd told Bridget, wasn't expecting to make the varsity team but thought for sure she was good enough for the JV team and was really hoping to impress Stephanie. But Stephanie herself seemed to have a certain idea regarding the team and told Kelly she was too much on the small side to get a place on the team.<br/>
<br/>
You find yourself feeling a lot more sympathetic as you walk up with her to her front door. Probably because Bridget is naturally very protective of her best friend.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, you know I can stay here if you want," you tell her. "We can just hang out."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't have to do that," she insists.<br/>
<br/>
"It's fine. There's gonna be more parties."<br/>
<br/>
"And I'm saying don't worry about it, jeez," she replies more forcefully. "I'll read a book or something. You don't need to baby me."<br/>
<br/>
"Kel, I'm not babying you I swear. If you wanna hang out--"<br/>
<br/>
"Bridget. Please," she says as she places a hand on your shoulder. "I like that you and Blake look out for me but I can function on my own. Just give me a little bit of space and go back to Catherine's?"<br/>
<br/>
You regard her for a moment before giving her a friendly -- sisterly even -- hug. "Sure," you tell her. "I don't know when I'll be free tomorrow but we'll do something this weekend. That cool?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's fine, see ya."<br/>
<br/>
Once she's back in you head back out to Catherine's to continue things. You have no luck running into James but you do see plenty of Stephanie around, hanging out and chatting with her friends, and though you say nothing mentally you sneer both because Bridget for obvious reasons doesn't like her and because it reminds you of your own experience with her.<br/>
<br/>
But aside from her you're able to sin back into Bridget's personality and when you come across some of her other friends the group of you (including a few juniors) are able to polish off that twelve pack you'd nabbed from her brother.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"So that makes sense right? About belief and the way these work?" Sydney asks you the next morning. You were out too late last night and because of your afternoon schedule the only time you could really meet her was for brunch at her place. "Are you even listening Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I was listening," you insist. "You draw a box on a wall, hold the magic wand, imagine <i>real</i> hard and your demon godmother appears to turn you into a real princess so you can go to the ball. That about right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Please take this seriously," she shoots back. "But yes that's, I guess, more or less what I said. That's what was in my dad's notes. That belief, mental focus and a doorway are what's needed for Baphomet to enter into this world."<br/>
<br/>
"And then what? What happens when he does?" you ask; Bridget could not find this type of stuff any dumber if she tried which is coloring your own attitude. "Does he take over your body? Does the world end? Does he do a little dance and then jet?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," she admits sheepishly, "but that's part of what makes it interesting right? That we'll be exploring the unknown like this?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," is all you say.<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway, what about you? You got a feel for Kelly right? We've still got masks so we can make a move on her whenever you're ready."<br/>
<br/>
But are you ready? More importantly do you want to? This may also be Bridget's mind coloring your thoughts but after last night you're suddenly a little more loathe to the idea of using Kelly for something so petty. Bridget knows him very well and Blake, loathe as you are to admit, probably isn't the asshole you assumed he was and she would be 100% against the idea of using Kelly for anything, ever.<br/>
<br/>
Of course Bridget's not in control of anything, you are, but you still can't help but feel sympathetic towards her which is also a cause for hesitation.<br/>
<br/>
Besides, being Bridget is fun because Bridget's a fun person. You enjoyed yourself last night, being the type of person who flows in and out of conversation easy; who people gravitate towards. People like James Randolph. If you were looking for more Brotherhood members someone like him would certainly make a good choice and you may have the opportunity tonight to get him.<br/>
<br/>
And maybe you could give his mask to Sydney to wear or, you shiver excitedly, you can wear it and give her Bridget's. That way you could date with little issue.<br/>
<br/>
Through all that though, something else from last night is on your mind. If you're feeling less ire towards Blake than you were someone new has emerged to earn and both your mind and your borrowed one are in agreement about it: if you should target anyone it should be Stephanie Wyatt. Do it through her friends or hell just get a mask on her and make her a recruit. Either way it'd be a nice little act of revenge both for you and for Kelly.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111112
author_id: seuzz
title: Girls, In and Out of Character
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Doing something significant with Sydney even if she's under a mask? It's a tempting idea; very tempting.<br/>
<br/>
Too tempting to resist.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, if you want to, um—" You look past Sydney to goggle at the sophomore girl who is sprawled out on the floor of her bedroom.<br/>
<br/>
"Handle Bridget's duties?" Sydney finishes for you. She looks amused, and lays a palm against your chest. "We'll have all the fun you want, Will," she says as she gently pushes you back toward the door, "after I've got the job."<br/>
<br/>
She closes the door in your face, almost catching your toes.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're sitting in the backyard, brooding in a distracted way on the future and on your plans for it, when the kitchen door opens and Sydney comes out. Her appearance momentarily surprises you. Shouldn't she be busy with Bridget?<br/>
<br/>
She's changed her clothes at least, into skimpy black jogging shorts and a red t-shirt, and you get a good, long look at her shapely, tanned legs, and at her bust, as she saunters toward you. She notices you studying her, and her mouth spreads into a soft, open-mouthed grin, and she brushes back her golden hair.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey there," she says when she's standing in front of you. "You got a place for me to sit?"<br/>
<br/>
You're by the back wall, in the corner, where there's an ornamental, wrought-iron table and two ornamental, wrought-iron chairs under the canopy of a spreading tree. The other chair is puddled with dirty water and sodden leaves—it rained off and on for most of the day—so you brush your knees, and Sydney sinks onto your lap, straddling you. She runs her tongue inside her bottom lip, and her smile widens.<br/>
<br/>
"Anything wrong with the masks?" you ask her. It feels like your Adam's apple is trying to turn sideways in your throat.<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"Is Bridget, whatever her name is, still out?"<br/>
<br/>
"Unconscious, you mean? I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"Nn-hnn. Is it okay to leave her up in your bedroom?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney holds your eye in a dreamy gaze, then tilts her head and leans forward to put her face to yours.<br/>
<br/>
"Is Sydney almost done changing into her mask?" you interrupt.<br/>
<br/>
The girl stops, then leans back again. That look of amusement returns. "Who do you think I am, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"I know who you look like," you tell her, and your pecker raises itself as though to second the identification. "But I'm pretty sure my real girlfriend is, uh, still up in her bedroom. With Bridget."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney sniggers. "Your real girlfriend," she echoes. "Who do you think I am, Will?" she asks again.<br/>
<br/>
"Listen, um, <i>you,</i>" you gasp. "I think—"<br/>
<br/>
"I know who your <i>body</i> thinks I am," she says, and she gently covers your crotch with her hands. You spasm runs through you. "Why are you letting your brain get in the way?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sydney, um, please," you murmur, but she stifles your protests by suddenly covering your mouth with hers.<br/>
<br/>
She's very gentle, probing, inquisitive, with her lips and her tongue. She presses with them, and pulls with them, feeling your mouth out with hers. Every now and then you can feel the tip of her tongue, but she doesn't press it on you, but only explores the outlines of your mouth with it as she pulls your mouth into hers.<br/>
<br/>
You try not to reciprocate, but your lips have other ideas.<br/>
<br/>
The kiss doesn't last long, though. Sydney breaks off, but leans against you and puts her cheek against yours. "We don't do this often enough, Will," she breathes.<br/>
<br/>
"Technically, I don't think we—you and me—have done it ever," you protest.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I remember—"<br/>
<br/>
"That wasn't <i>you.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"You think I'm a <i>pedisequos.</i>" She says it very matter-of-factly as she sits back up again. "You think I'm my own <i>pedisequos.</i> How could you ever tell the difference?"<br/>
<br/>
"I could pull the mask off you."<br/>
<br/>
"Would you try?" She leans in to breathe the words softly into your ear. "That would be so hot."<br/>
<br/>
You twist under her, trying to push her. "Sydney. Fake— Whatever you want to call yourself." You grimace and grunt. "I know you think you're the real girl—"<br/>
<br/>
For all practical purposes, I am," she says. "I wish you'd see that." She settles herself still more firmly on your lap. "If we went off someplace and did it, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."<br/>
<br/>
"Do it?" you repeat. "It?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know." She grinds herself into you. "Go all the way."<br/>
<br/>
Your eyes nearly pop. "But you wanted to, uh, not do that. Keep yourself intact, you said, it—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I guess I should," she sighs. "Who knows how these things work. But I wish you'd stop acting all embarrassed with me, Will." She pouts a little. "Is this how you're going to treat me after—" She winces. "After my <i>original—</i>" she says the word with loathing "—has gone off to do her secret agent thing?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think she'd like me to stay, uh, faithful to her."<br/>
<br/>
"But I <i>am</i> her!"<br/>
<br/>
"No you're—! Look. What would Sydney say? Pretend that you're her. Okay, so that isn't hard," you admit hotly as the <i>pedisquos</i> sniggers. "So what would she say about, um, me and a copy going off and, you know?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." She titters. "Go for it, have fun."<br/>
<br/>
"Be serious! Okay, what if we made another copy of you, of Sydney, I mean," you correct yourself. "Would you be okay with it if I went off with that copy?"<br/>
<br/>
She hesitates, then laughs again. "Oh, why limit yourself, Will? Why not make a bunch of copies of me, and go off with all of us?"<br/>
<br/>
You feel like your head's about to explode. "Okay, say I went off with those copies but left you behind?"<br/>
<br/>
"With them and not with me?"<br/>
<br/>
You nod. She studies you, then sags. <br/>
<br/>
"Alright, fine," she sighs. She slumps with downcast eyes. "I wasn't serious anyway," she says, and pulls her hair back. "I just saw a chance to screw with you is all."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, mission accomplished."<br/>
<br/>
She looks up, and studies you some more with a tilted head.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you going to be like this, though, when <i>you're</i> a <i>pedisequos?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean? When am I going to be a—?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're going to turn yourself into someone else, right? And you're going to leave a <i>pedisequos</i> behind."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I'm acting just like—" She rolls her eyes. "Like my original would. So your <i>pedisequos</i> will act just like you would. Right?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"So is your <i>pedisequos</i> going to act like this, like <i>you</i>, around me? Is he going to be all—" A pink splotch breaks out across her brow. "You're not real, so I'm not interested in you?" Her expression turns very pinched.<br/>
<br/>
You gape at her.<br/>
<br/>
But before you can figure out an answer to her question—a question, you dimly sense, that could lead to paradoxes—you hear your name shouted. You look past her ear toward the house. An upstairs window has gone up, and a girl with long, brown hair is leaning out of it, glaring at you with haggard eyes.<br/>
<br/>
You push yourself to your feet, and this time the <i>pedisequos</i> lets you rise.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"We've got a problem," the girl bursts out once you're in the bedroom, and points to her face. "I'm not getting any of the memories or anything!"<br/>
<br/>
You stare at her. And as you stare at her, it's like you see her for the first time.<br/>
<br/>
She's a small girl, the crown of her head coming up maybe to the bridge of your nose. She has a broad face with wide-set eyes and a mouth that looks like it could open from ear to ear. Her most striking feature is her chocolate-colored hair, which is long and thick and falls like a great man down her back and around her shoulders all the way to her waist. She's dressed very simply in a t-shirt and jeans.<br/>
<br/>
Her name is Bridget Atwater, but she's really your girlfriend, Sydney. You have a sudden desire to wrap your arms around her and pull her close.<br/>
<br/>
It's a desire that gives you a sudden spasm of smug pleasure. <i>I tried pushing off a girl who looked like Sydney,</i> you congratulate yourself, <i>but now I want to grab and hold a girl who doesn't, but really </i>is<i> her. So I must really be in love with her and not her—</i><br/>
<br/>
Bridget snaps an impatient finger your face. "Will! Focus! I said—!"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean you're not getting the memories?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not getting the memories! I didn't forget how to speak English just because—! It's like when I put on Caleb's mask." She pales. "Remember how I put it on, I couldn't remember anything, couldn't act like him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh-huh."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus! What if these masks don't work for me?"<br/>
<br/>
Well, if they don't work for her, then she's not going to be able to wear them. But you don't tell her that.<br/>
<br/>
Instead, you put her under the covers of her bed, where she wriggles out of Bridget's clothes, and you pull the mask off so you can study it for flaws.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Well, it worked fine for me," you remind Sydney an hour later, after she's back in the mask after you'd put it on to try yourself. "Maybe you should give it some time?"<br/>
<br/>
"So what do we do about all these texts we getting, asking where Bridget is?"<br/>
<br/>
Yes, Bridget Atwater seems to be a popular girl. She's getting texts from her brother, from a couple of guys, from some of her girlfriends ...<br/>
<br/>
And from Kelly O'Brien.<br/>
<br/>
From behind any of these faces, you could probably give Sydney support and cover while she waited for Bridget's memories to start coming.</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111124
author_id: seuzz
title: Party Crash
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Well, it always had been the plan to replace Kelly O'Brien, right? So it seems like a no-brainer to tell Sydney, "Let's get Kelly out here."<br/>
<br/>
She blinks at you. "But what about Bridget?"<br/>
<br/>
"You can keep playing Bridget."<br/>
<br/>
"But I don't—"<br/>
<br/>
"Calm down, it'll be okay. If Kelly's mask works, then I can help you manage as Bridget. We can hang out together, I can answer your texts—"<br/>
<br/>
"And you're okay with that? With the being-a-girl thing?" Her brow furrows.<br/>
<br/>
But you have to be okay with it, don't you? "Hand me Bridget's phone," you tell the girl who looks like Bridget Atwater. "I hope Kelly doesn't think there's anything weird about coming out to your house."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
She is inquisitive—<i>whats going no?</i> she asks—and you have to pretend to beg when she tells you she's not real keen on showing up to any party at Sydney McGlynn's house, but you persevere while being evasive. You can almost hear the exasperated grumble behind her final reply—<i>Fine whts the adress?</i>—and you have to wipe a film of sweat from your forehead. It surprises you that it was such hard work getting her out to a party at a senior girl's house.<br/>
<br/>
"You better get your <i>pedisequos</i> up here and tell her what's going on," you advise Bridget. "Oh and—" She turns from the doorway at your interruption. "Maybe we'd both better have a talk with it when it gets up here," you lamely conclude.<br/>
<br/>
Fake-Sydney perches patiently on the corner of the bed after Bridget-Sydney has summoned her up from the den, where she was lazing away watching Netflix. She listens with an amused smile as her mistress tells her that Kelly O'Brien will be along shortly, and that she is to bring the girl upstairs to be replaced. And the smile stays fixed on her lips even as her eyebrows arch when Sydney asks you what else there is to talk about.<br/>
<br/>
"Tell her she needs to leave me alone," you explain to your girlfriend. "The real me, not the, uh, <i>pedisequos</i> we make of me."<br/>
<br/>
"I know what you want, Will," the <i>pedisequos</i> says. "I'm not a dummy." Then she laughs. "I mean, I guess I am, sort of, but I'm not an idiot."<br/>
<br/>
You feel yourself blushing as the "dummy" twinkles at you. "So we're all clear, then?"<br/>
<br/>
"No," she says. She leans back on the bed and points her foot at your crotch. "What are you going to tell <i>your</i> dummy to do with me?"<br/>
<br/>
Now your face is burning, not least because you can feel Bridget's eyes locked onto you. "Well," you stammer, "I'll tell it that, uh—"<br/>
<br/>
"We'll tell it something after we've got it made," Bridget interrupts with brisk dispatch. "Will, darling," she continues as she grasps you, "I know we already made a copy of you, but you think maybe it needs an update? I'd hate to have to explain to it all the stuff that's happened since—"<br/>
<br/>
She thrusts the mask of your own <i>pedisequos</i> into your hand and propels you toward the bathroom door.<br/>
<br/>
You pause on the other side after she's shut it, and listen. But you can't make out any words, only Bridget's husky voice and Sydney's more silvery one. So you give up, lay out on the floor, and balance the mask over your face. Your own name—WILLIAM MARTIN PRESCOTT—glares down at you from its inner surface.<br/>
<br/>
You make a face of your own, then lower the mask so as to renew another of your faces.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Kelly is a long time in coming, so long that you text her again to find out what the wait is about. <i>were coming,</i> she replies. "We're" or "were"? you wonder. <i>On our way,</i> she replies when you ask when she'll be out.<br/>
<br/>
But that just raises another question: Who is we?<br/>
<br/>
The dreadful answer comes about twenty minutes later, when a beat-up sedan pulls up and two figures climb out. You have to guess that the girl is Kelly. But you know who the guy is.<br/>
<br/>
"Shit," you exclaim as Blake saunters up alongside his sister.<br/>
<br/>
Bridget joins you at the window. "What's he doing here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Guess she had to get a ride. Oh, God <i>damn</i> it! What if he figures he was invited to this 'party' too?"<br/>
<br/>
"Take it easy, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"So what are we going to do? We don't even <i>have</i> a party going, not like we told 'em!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's how we'll get rid of them," Bridget says. She dashes for the bedroom door. "I better get hold of my double before she—"<br/>
<br/>
But even as you run out onto the landing, you hear a doorbell, an the creak and swish of the front door opening. "Oh, hi!" Fake-Sydney cries out. "You must be Kelly! And—"<br/>
<br/>
You and Sydney grab each other as the <i>pedisequos</i> momentarily falters. "Blake? Are you two related?"<br/>
<br/>
"Kid sister." That's Blake talking, in his soft, resonant baritone. "So you're having a party?" He sounds puzzled.<br/>
<br/>
You shove Bridget, knocking her halfway down the landing. She grabs the banister and glares back up at you. You shovel at her with your hands, telling her to get downstairs, but she just freezes in place.<br/>
<br/>
"Trying to," Fake-Sydney is saying. "Maybe. Pizza party for the softball team. It was Maggie's idea. Girls only."<br/>
<br/>
You and Bridget exchange wide-eyed glances.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Well, I couldn't make it anyway, I gotta work tonight. Why are <i>you</i> hosting the thing if it's Maggie's idea?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just doing my part."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what time's it supposed to run to?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why, does your sister have a curfew?"<br/>
<br/>
"Eleven. I don't, though. I'll be out at the Warehouse till seven. You know, if you feel like coming out after things wind down here."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll talk to Will about it. We're gonna want to do something after."<br/>
<br/>
You almost shit yourself, and the thunder in your ears is loud enough that you don't hear Blake's reply. You grab the banister when the door shuts, but the next voice you hear is Fake-Sydney's. "Well, come in, Kelly. I guess Bridget's busy upstairs."<br/>
<br/>
Bridget flies up the stairs at you, and you backpedal down the hall with her. You almost trip over each other as you scamper back into her bedroom.<br/>
<br/>
But once you're inside, you push her back toward the door. "Get out there and talk to her!"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know her, Will!" she hisses back.<br/>
<br/>
"You don't have to! Just go out and talk and get her in here!" You lunge for the last of the blank masks you brought. "You can fake it for five seconds!"<br/>
<br/>
Bridget turns green, but stumbles back into the hallway. You catch your breath, and shift the mask from hand to hand as you dry your palms on the front of your shirt. Your heart jackhammers in your chest, and you jump at the sound of an engine turning over in the driveway below.<br/>
<br/>
Then you wheel at the voices in the hall: "Oh, hey, you're finally here." "Sure, where's everyone else?" "We're, uh, still getting things organized." "You didn't tell me it was a softball thing." "I didn't? Heh, well, I guess it just sort of slipped my mind." "How can it slip your mind when—?"<br/>
<br/>
Two sophomore girls come round the corner with Fake-Sydney trailing behind. Bridget has a ghastly grin riveted to her face. Kelly O'Brien looks vexed and confused.<br/>
<br/>
You throw yourself at her, brandishing the mask.<br/>
<br/>
Four bodies bang together, making a kind of "Kelly O'Brien sandwich" as you all tumble to the floor. "Get off!" someone groans as you try to untangle yourself from all the limbs.<br/>
<br/>
Downstairs, a door slams and a voice calls out, "Hello?"<br/>
<br/>
"Great, that's my mom," Fake-Sydney grunts as she pulls herself to her feet. "I'll go downstairs and distract her. You can all thank me for my presence of mind later."<br/>
<br/>
Bridget flashes her a dirty look, then gestures you over to help. Together, with you taking her feet and Bridget taking her hands, you haul Kelly into the bedroom and shut the door.<br/>
<br/>
"You'll have to go out the window," Bridget says as she catches her breath. "My mom doesn't let me have guys up in my room."<br/>
<br/>
"But I have to change into Kelly!"<br/>
<br/>
"After that, I mean! Your <i>pedisequos</i> will have to go out that way." She shoves you lightly. "Come on, get changed."<br/>
<br/>
"We have to finish up Kelly's mask."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll finish that, Will, just get out of your clothes!" She pushes you back into the bathroom—a room you're getting quite familiar with.<br/>
<br/>
And as you pull off your things—a job which takes all of ten seconds—you wonder if Sydney isn't actually coming under the influence of Bridget's mask. She might say she hasn't got the memories from it, but she's acting a lot less like herself—as is easy to tell because there's another Sydney walking around to compare your girlfriend to.<br/>
<br/>
But you're smart enough not to say anything when there's a soft knock ten minutes later, and Bridget peers in. You're squatting on the far side of the room with your knees up under your chin, but your clothes are on the sink by the door. She says, "Hey," takes the clothes and sets a mask down in their place. Not until she's closed the door do you scramble over to pull it down.<br/>
<br/>
KELLY NICOLE O'BRIEN.<br/>
<br/>
The name flares at you in letters that seem to float above the grayish inner surface of the mask. You gnaw your lip.<br/>
<br/>
Well, this is it. The moment you were aiming for. In all the excitement and confusion of the afternoon, though, you've lost your sense of anticipation.<br/>
<br/>
So it's almost with a shrug of the shoulders that you settle back against the wall and push the mask into your face.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111111241
author_id: seuzz
title: The Kid Sister
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's the cold that wakes you. A stealthy, clinging chill that plucks at and seeps under your skin. You grimace and twist and hug yourself as look around. You're in a bathroom—a nice bathroom of peach and aquamarine, but what the hell?<br/>
<br/>
And you're naked!<br/>
<br/>
You grab the edge of the vanity and hoist yourself onto swaying feet. You catch a glimpse of the face in the mirror, and of a dark and angry glower on it. There's a pile of clothes on the corner of the vanity, and you feel some slight relief at touching them to find that they're yours.<br/>
<br/>
But still— What the hell?<br/>
<br/>
A memory tugs as you rest a hand on your sweatshirt. A memory of clothes—other clothes—in a messier pile, sitting on a bathroom vanity. Not this vanity, of course, you've never been in this bathroom before.<br/>
<br/>
Except even it is starting to feel familiar, the more you frown at it. Stupid <i>deja vu.</i><br/>
<br/>
You push aside the sweatshirt and find your panties and socks beneath, sandwiched atop your jeans. You're just fluffing the panties out when it hits you.<br/>
<br/>
Underwear. <br/>
<br/>
Your underwear. <br/>
<br/>
A memory of stripping it off and piling it on the vanity with the rest of your things for Sydney to pick up. In this—<br/>
<br/>
You whirl to boggle at the bathtub.<br/>
<br/>
In this, Sydney's bathroom.<br/>
<br/>
A hard chill slips down your spine. A chill that has nothing to do with the cold, dead air that clings to your skin.<br/>
<br/>
You twist to give yourself a furtive look in the mirror over your shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
Kelly O'Brien—looking frightened and angry—glares back at you.<br/>
<br/>
Oh my God.<br/>
<br/>
You close your eyes and lower your chin and turn all the way around to face the mirror. You take a couple of deep breaths as Kelly's memories—now that you know whose they are—well up, filling your brain like water filling a sponge.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"So is she one of the girls you've got a hard-on for?"<br/>
<br/>
Blake takes his eyes off the road long enough to give you a sidelong, slit-eyed glance. "Where'd you learn that word? Hard-on?"<br/>
<br/>
"From one of your friends. Listening to you and them sitting around talking about who gives you guys hard-ons."<br/>
<br/>
"P'tch!" But that's all he says, and turns his attention back to driving.<br/>
<br/>
So, yeah, your big brother wasn't at all interested in giving you a ride out to this Sydney McGlynn's place until you told him that's where you needed a ride to. Before that, he was all about getting himself into his work shirt and jeans, and grousing that you should just call one of your other friends to give you a ride out, because it's not like he was going to be able to pick you up afterward and there was no freaking way he was going to sit out in the street and wait for you to finish whatever your business was with Bridget.<br/>
<br/>
Then you said the magic words "Sydney McGlynn," almost on accident, and he froze and blinked, and then he said, "Fine, whatever, just as long as you get a ride home from someone else," and he plucked the car keys down from off the hook by the garage door.<br/>
<br/>
"So do you got a hard on for her?" you ask again.<br/>
<br/>
Blake sucks in his lips and brakes to a smooth stop at an intersection. "You really want me to tell you what my cock does when I see her?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're so fucking gross, Blake."<br/>
<br/>
"You're the one who wants to talk about my penis, Kelly. You gonna study to be a proctologist or whatever it is that—?"<br/>
<br/>
"So fucking gross." You cross your arms and turn to stare out the passenger-side window. <i>Why can't he buy himself a car of his own, leave me this one to drive?</i> you think. <i>What's he doing working at the Warehouse if he isn't making money he should be saving up to buy himself a car?</i><br/>
<br/>
And one thought leads to another, and you wonder if Bridget isn't going to try getting you to go out to the Warehouse tonight. You were supposed to be going out to Catherine Muskov's house, but Bridget's been trying to get into the Warehouse ever since your freshman year, and maybe she thinks tonight's the night she can swing it.<br/>
<br/>
You shiver a little. What would Blake say if he caught you out there? It would almost be worth it, just to piss him off ...<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You lean over the vanity to give Kelly O'Brien a long, hard look in the mirror.<br/>
<br/>
Because you are her now. This is you. This is the face and body and person you are going to inhabit as you get your revenge on Blake O'Brien.<br/>
<br/>
She is on the small side, even for a sophomore girl. Even in elementary school and middle school, when boys and girls are more evenly matched, Kelly was shorter than most of the guys. Not that she's a midget or anything. But even with her memories and instincts, which are hardening into second nature as you study yourself, you are struck by how different the world feels when you have to raise your eyes to look a guy in the face.<br/>
<br/>
She has long, brown hair that is twisted up in a single, messy braid hanging halfway down her back, and large, dark eyes. Her nose and mouth are small; the former turns up in an impudent little pug; her lips are chapped. She has hardly begun to lose the tan that burned her face and arms and legs and shoulders over the summer, and you twist your left arm over to rub at the scabbed-over scrape on your elbow.<br/>
<br/>
And below the neck? You can't help wincing a little, for you see yourself also with Kelly's eyes. Madison Crawford's eighth-grade jibe—"Why don't you try out for the boys' teams, Kelly, you look like you'd fit right in"—still hurts.<br/>
<br/>
It is a very "boyish" body you've got now. Your boobs are small and pointed, like undernourished pears, and your hips are very slim and you've no butt to speak of. Your legs and arms are toned by exercise, but they're too toned, and wouldn't look out of place on, yes, one of the sophomore guys. Even your stomach, which curves slightly in between your chest and your hips, is less "hourglass" and more "boy who runs a lot and does fifty crunches a day."<br/>
<br/>
You tug at your braid. <i>At least I won't have any guys hitting on me,</i> you try to reassure yourself. But even in your own mind, the thought sounds mournful.<br/>
<br/>
There's a knock at the door. "Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just a minute," you call back. "I'm getting dressed." You slide your (boyish) legs into the panties and draw them up. You gasp a little as they snap tightly to the one spot where your femininity cannot be mistaken.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Yeah, we're not taking you out anyplace until you can do a better Bridget impression," you tell Sydney after you've given her a good, long, hard look. You're sitting in the back yard, at that ornamental table, eating an apple while Fake-Sydney lingers nearby, watching with silent amusement.<br/>
<br/>
"So I don't get why the thing works for you but not for me," your girlfriend grumbles.<br/>
<br/>
"The face works," you remind her. "The rest of it— Well, I don't know." You tilt your head to frown at her intently. "You're freaking out on me," you tell her, then point at Fake-Sydney. "She isn't. Bridget I think would freak out. So maybe you are getting her, a little."<br/>
<br/>
Bridget—it's hard not to think of her as Bridget, even though she doesn't act much like her—rolls her eyes. "So what should I be doing?" she whines. "What should I be doing about <i>this?</i>" She shows you her cell phone again, and the text messages that are piling up on it.<br/>
<br/>
"Here. Let me." You lay the apple aside as you take her phone. You scroll through the names, and can't help making a face at them. <i>So many people she knows and hangs out with.</i> Not like you, not like Kelly, who'd rather stay in with a movie and some popcorn and one or two friends. You sigh as you start thumbing in some texts.<br/>
<br/>
Bridget scoots her chair over. "What are you telling them?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing that'll get you in trouble," you assure her. "I'm telling them you decided to do something with me. Oh God." Dana DiBenedetto has instantly replied, asking what Bridget will be doing with you. <i>Way to be obvious about trying to wangle an invitation over,</i> you snort to yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"What are we going to do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hang out at my house. You can sleep over if you want. Blake'll be at—"<br/>
<br/>
The thought of Blake, and what you intend to do to him, washes over you. "He'll be at work all night," you finish.<br/>
<br/>
Bridget noticed your stumble, but she hesitates before picking up on it. "You still want to do something to him?" she quietly asks. "Using Kelly?"<br/>
<br/>
You turn to give her the same direct stare as he gave you in the car earlier. "I want to cut his heart out with a spoon."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that how Kelly feels?" she asks with widening eyes.<br/>
<br/>
You shake your head and go back to texting. "He's overprotective of her, that's all," you murmur.<br/>
<br/>
Which will make it all the more perfect to use Kelly against him.<br/>
<br/>
<i>A guy.</i> Kelly hasn't got a boyfriend, but there's lots of guys in the sophomore class you could use to give Blake heartburn. Some of them even on the JV football squad.<br/>
<br/>
You freeze at the sequel thought: What about using one of Blake's own friends instead? If one of them got it on with Blake's kid sister ...<br/>
<br/>
The cell phone dings: a text from James Randolph, mock-pleading with Bridget to come out to Catherine's. Yeah, with Bridget as bait, you could start moving tomorrow on getting Kelly the kind of boyfriend that Blake would want to kill.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111112412
author_id: seuzz
title: A Conundrum Called Kelly
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It takes you almost twenty minutes to deal with the bulk of Bridget's texts—the ones that have come in and the replies that you get—and even then you can tell that there's going to be no end of them for the rest of the night. Bridget is just that popular. Then when you finally come up for air—<br/>
<br/>
"Where's my pedi-thing?" you ask aloud. You look around.<br/>
<br/>
"Pedi-thing?"<br/>
<br/>
"The thing that looks like me. The pedisequel."<br/>
<br/>
Bridget's expression falls. "Pedisequos, Will," she says. "I sent it home." You look at the bedroom door. "Out the window."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh my God." You run over and look out, as though you might spot it still in the driveway, gazing up at you like a dog that's been put out for the night. "What are we going to do about it?" you ask. "Like, plans?"<br/>
<br/>
Bridget stares. "I thought we were just going to let it be you," she says. "Like we were going to let, um, the girl downstairs be me." Her brow crinkles. "Did you have any ideas for it?"<br/>
<br/>
You didn't and you don't, but you still feel at a loss, like there's a wasted opportunity with it.<br/>
<br/>
You chew your lip. <i>It's going to get beaten up for me,</i> you think. <i>Blake and Kirkham and all the other assholes are going to use it for a punching bag.</i> The thought fills you with a miasma of guilt, one that's hardly dissipated by the contrary thought that at least it will have Fake-Sydney to hang out with.<br/>
<br/>
But before you can further start to wonder if <i>pedisequoses</i> can really feel love (or at least lust) or if it's all just programmed pretending, your girlfriend tugs at you. "Are you done taking care of Bridget's phone, finally?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. I think so. Mostly." You turn your back on the window. "You should spend the night at my house, though, keep under cover there. It's something Bridget usually does."<br/>
<br/>
It gives you a prickle to look at the girl standing before you—the one who looks like your best friend, Bridget Atwater—and to refer to her in the third person, as though she's someone else. "Come on," you tell her before the feeling can get worse. "Let's see if we can get a ride from Sydney."<br/>
<br/>
"Hang on." Bridget shakes free and goes to the closet. Uneasily you watch as she rummages inside it. <i>This isn't her room,</i> you find yourself thinking, <i>she's got no business digging out stuff that doesn't belong to her.</i> Then: <i>But it does belong to her. It's that body—</i>Bridget's body<i>— that isn't hers.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Okay." She comes back out with a "Candyland" board game under her arm. "If it's going to be a slumber party— What?"<br/>
<br/>
She must have noticed the incredulous look you're giving her. "How old do you think these girls are?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
She stares at you, follows your glance down to the board game, then flushes.<br/>
<br/>
"Let's just get back to your place, <i>Kelly,</i> and I'll show you. It's not a kid's game I've got in here."<br/>
<br/>
You cock a skeptical eyebrow, but say nothing more about it.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Fake-Sydney buys you and Bridget some burgers on the way back to Kelly's place, and you're so sunk in Kelly's personality that Bridget has to slap your hand away from the bag so you won't eat more than half of the fries before you get there.<br/>
<br/>
"That's where you live," you inform her as you pass a modest house. You're in an old part of the town, the kind of the neighborhood where the trees, being mature and majestic, look better than the tired and slightly shabby houses that they front. "And this is mine," you announce a few houses down. At your direction, Fake-Sydney pulls into the driveway.<br/>
<br/>
"So we're neighbors?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, practically."<br/>
<br/>
"Do we ride to school together?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nhn. I get a ride with Blake, and he goes in early and stays late. You ride the bus. Except sometimes I ride it with you. Come on," you continue as you scoop up the bags. "You should go use the bathroom when we get in, that way you don't have to talk to my mom."<br/>
<br/>
"Is there something wrong with her?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. But there's something wrong with <i>you.</i>" For starters, she hardly talked on the way over, and Bridget is usually a chatterbox.<br/>
<br/>
Once inside, you point her down the hall while you go into the kitchen to tell your new mom that you're back. Mrs. O'Brien, a tired-looking single-mother, has a look of surprise on her face when you come in. "I thought you were going to a party at someone's house."<br/>
<br/>
"Changed my mind. I didn't like it." You drop the bags on the countertop and open the plates cabinet. "Bridget came back with me. She's going to spend the night, if that's okay."<br/>
<br/>
"If it's okay with her folks. What was wrong with the party?" There's an edge to the question.<br/>
<br/>
You shrug and avoid her eye. "There were a bunch of seniors there," you reply when she persists with the stare. "The girl whose house it was, she's a senior. I don't think her parents were home." You turn a shoulder to Mrs. O'Brien as you unload the food.<br/>
<br/>
There's a long and rather awkward silence during which you unwrap the burgers, pour out the fries, and fetch the ketchup from the refrigerator. At last, Kelly's mother says, "Well, if you didn't feel okay about it, honey, I'm glad you decided to come home. You shouldn't have to stay anyplace where you don't feel okay."<br/>
<br/>
"I know," you mutter through frozen lips. "Anyway," you add, "Bridget said she'd come home with me if I left. We haven't had a sleepover in awhile."<br/>
<br/>
"That'll be nice. Where is she?"<br/>
<br/>
"Bathroom. I'll take these back and we'll eat in my room, if that's okay." You pick up the plates.<br/>
<br/>
"Just be sure to bring them back when you're done. And I don't mean tomorrow morning when you're done." You return her wide smile with a thin one of your own.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Kelly the Party-Pooper,</i> you find yourself grumbling as you carry your dinner into the house. That excuse you gave was all too plausible. Kelly doesn't even like parties where there's <i>nothing</i> happening, where the music is just too loud or the boys are just a little too pushy. The thought of a party where there's alcohol, or marijuana, or kids making out really hard, gives her a hard fright.<br/>
<br/>
And a sour sense of resentment.<br/>
<br/>
Everyone else has fun at those kind of parties, why can't you? And Blake works at the Warehouse, which is like a hundred of those parties all happening at once. But your mom doesn't worry about <i>him</i> being at a place like that. <br/>
<br/>
You don't know which is worse, that no one likes you going to those kinds of parties, or that you don't like the thought of them yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"Psst!"<br/>
<br/>
You almost heave the fries and burgers at the wall in fright as Bridget pops out of the hall bathroom. "Is the coast clear?" she hisses.<br/>
<br/>
"Jeez, watch it. Yeah, it's okay." You glance behind you. "Come on, this way. My bedroom's on the left."<br/>
<br/>
It feels funny having to direct Bridget Atwater, who's been to your house any number of times. Maybe she has the same thought, because she titters. "Your bedroom, Will?" But you ignore her.<br/>
<br/>
The bedroom is small and spare, with a twin bed, a corner desk hardly bigger than the desks you have at school, a chest of drawers, and a small bookcase. The latter is crammed with paperbacks, and there are more paperbacks stacked on top of it and the chest, for Kelly likes to read—fantasy, mostly. A couple of pennants grace the walls, but the trophies are in a footlocker under the bed.<br/>
<br/>
"So what's this 'adult rated' board game you brought over?" you ask after setting the plates out on the bed.<br/>
<br/>
 Bridget sucks down some of her chocolate shake, then opens up the box. "So I started making these right after we started talking about making ourselves a Brotherhood," she says. From inside the box she takes two rods of polished, blonde wood. They are about a foot long, with a carved grip at one end and a knob at the other. She hands you one. "I know what they look like, so I don't want to hear any smart comments from you."<br/>
<br/>
As far as you can tell, they just look like ... wooden rods. Oh, if you strung a length of clothesline between them, they might look kind of like the handles to a jump rope, except that they're too long. You lay the rod in the palm of your hand and stroke it. It's very smooth, and you get an oddly pleasurable tingle as you cup your hand around it and stroke it up and down. You feel a soft, warm flush of recognition ...<br/>
<br/>
But it's not until you look up to see Bridget smirking into your face that you realize what you're holding and what you're doing with it. "Oh my God!" You fling the dildo away as though it stung you.<br/>
<br/>
"Chill out." Bridget hands it back to you. "It's a meditation wand. We're all of us going to need one."<br/>
<br/>
"All of us?" you echo.<br/>
<br/>
"Members of the Brotherhood. You meditate using it, and it, uh, sychronizes you with the plane where—" She turns a little pink. "Where Baphomet dwells," she adds somewhat lamely.<br/>
<br/>
You stare at her. "I thought you said there wasn't such a thing as Baphomet." <br/>
<br/>
"Well, no, there isn't. But the meditation is what's important. Also, um—" Her blush deepens. "You have to use it to open up a doorway."<br/>
<br/>
The hair on your head prickles. "What kind of a doorway."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't freak out on me, Will. I told you, none of it is literally true. It's just, like a mind game you have to play on yourself."<br/>
<br/>
"What kind of doorway?" you repeat through gritted teeth.<br/>
<br/>
She sighs. "A doorway that Baphomet can come through."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh my God,</i> you think. <i>This is it, the start of the real Baphomet stuff. Am I ready for this?</i><br/>
<br/>
More important, is <i>Kelly</i> ready for it? You were only going to use her to get back at Blake. But you don't have to turn her into a ... cultist ... while you do that, right?  <br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111124121
author_id: seuzz
title: An Occult Tutorial
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"So," Bridget continues when you don't reply, "we need a place we can make a door." She looks around, then opens the closet. "I guess this is the best place for—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hang on." You grab her by the shoulder. "You're not gonna knock any holes in anything, are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm just going to—"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos my mom—Kelly's mom—she really wouldn't like—."<br/>
<br/>
"I said I'm not going to make any holes, Will. I'm just going to <i>draw</i> a door, is that okay?"<br/>
<br/>
You release her with a shrug and she turns back to the closet. But then she stops. <br/>
<br/>
"Actually," she says, "I need <i>you</i> to draw it." She holds out her "meditation wand." "I'll show you how."<br/>
<br/>
You take the wand, but make no other move. "How about you explain it to me first."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It gives you the shivers to hear it. After your own experience with magic—you're wearing the body of a fifteen-year-old girl, which is about the best proof possible for showing that it's real—you can't really feel any skepticism about what Sydney has to tell you. And Kelly, despite a certain flinty cynicism, is pretty credulous when it comes to the occult. Back in the eighth grade some of her friends wanted to goof around with a Ouija board, but she refused because she'd heard too many stories about kids who accidentally summoned demons with one. <br/>
<br/>
And now Sydney is talking about doing just that.<br/>
<br/>
So even though she insists that it's all just "mind games" and is about "spiritual empowerment," your skin is crawling soon after she starts to explain it.<br/>
<br/>
"Like, I said," she says after extracting a sheet of papers from the Candyland box, "what we have to do is make a doorway for Baphomet. He—it—can only come in answer to an invitation, and the doorway is the, um, invitation."<br/>
<br/>
"So once he's out, how do you put him back?" You can't help glancing at the closet door a little fearfully.<br/>
<br/>
"What? Oh, well." She starts to stammer. "You don't put him back, because he's not really—" <br/>
<br/>
She stops to stare at you. You stare back.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, Will," she says, "I told you he's not real. He's just a, uh, a visualization technique. You have to <i>imagine</i> that he's something you've invited in. That's all. But that's what empow—"<br/>
<br/>
"So how do you 'visualize' putting him back?" you insist.<br/>
<br/>
Bridget bites the inside of her cheek. She lowers her head and shuffles through the papers she took out of the box.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, there are ways," she mumbles. "You've heard of pentagrams and magic circles, right?" You nod. "Yeah, those are ways of putting, uh, things inside a box so they don't get out. But in this case, it isn't like that."<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
She sighs—deeply—and looks up at the ceiling.<br/>
<br/>
"It's all just mind games, Will," she again assures you. "There's nothing supernatural or occult about this stuff. It's just psychological. It's a way of psyching yourself up to be able to do something." <br/>
<br/>
She cocks her head. "Haven't you ever done that? Wasn't there something you had to do, but you couldn't until you psyched yourself up for it?"<br/>
<br/>
You're about to say "No," but a vivid memory comes to you first. <br/>
<br/>
It was the seventh grade, in P.E., the first class you ever shared with Madison Crawford. You were broken up into groups and practicing free throws by playing Horse. At the end of class, it had come down to you and Madison.<br/>
<br/>
You were each tied with an H-O-R, both of using failing each successive challenge as the clock ticked down toward the bell. It was only a few weeks into the school year, and already you hated Madison, who was taller than you and was starting to get boobs and was already wearing light makeup. And it ate you up from the inside that she was also just as good as you at basketball and was even better at gymnastics. So there was no freaking way you were going to let her win this game of Horse.<br/>
<br/>
Then she made a shot and you missed it, and all of a sudden you had H-O-R-S on the scoreboard.<br/>
<br/>
And then Madison passed the next challenge.<br/>
<br/>
As you took the ball and bounced it and lined it up for the next shot, you heard her chanting under her breath: <i>Horse, horse, horse, horse.</i> This was totally against the rules, and Coach Burnett had had to stop some of the other girls before when they tried distracting opponents, but in this case she apparently didn't hear.<br/>
<br/>
Then you realized that Madison wasn't chanting <i>horse</i> over and over again. She was chanting something else: <i>Whores, whores, whores, whores.</i><br/>
<br/>
Then she dropped the "s".<br/>
<br/>
The world went gray and fuzzy; your brain filled with bees; but a kind of tunnel opened up between you and the basket. A tunnel like an invisible, curving chute running from your hands to the basket. All you had to do was slide the ball down that chute, and it would go in.<br/>
<br/>
You dropped the ball, caught it on the bounce. Dropped it, caught it on the bounce. Held it. Lifted it. Lofted it.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Swish.</i> The flap of the net was even softer than Madison's chant.<br/>
<br/>
Well, she made the next challenge, and the bell rang before you could take another turn, so technically you lost, and like a total snot she lorded it over you.<br/>
<br/>
But at a moment that you couldn't afford to choke, you had psyched yourself up not to. In fact, it was a brilliant shot, and several of the other girls told you so.<br/>
<br/>
But you'd feel prouder of that moment if it was one of your memories you're reliving, and not one of Kelly's. <br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I know what you mean," you tell Bridget as you jerk yourself back to the present.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it's like that," she says. "You have to psyche yourself up to let that spiritual power out. And to do that you have to, like, pretend you're getting the power from outside." She reddens a little. "That's how come you have to, um—"<br/>
<br/>
"Summon a demon?"<br/>
<br/>
Her blush deepens, but she nods. "And that's why you don't <i>want</i> to put it back. You're not summoning a demon, Will," she sighs. "You're summoning a power from within. That's all."<br/>
<br/>
"And that's what it says there?" You point at the papers she's holding. "What are those?"<br/>
<br/>
"Notes my dad left behind." She pulls them to her chest.<br/>
<br/>
Her manner has turned rather furtive, and you notice she's having a hard time meeting your eyes. But you decide not to challenge her. "What else do they say?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just how to do it," she replies. "How to use the wands." She drops her dad's notes and picks up a wand again. <br/>
<br/>
"So," she continues, "like, one use is, you take them to bed with you, and you meditate with them, like this." She cradles the polished bore of the wand in her free hand and strokes the shaft, up and down, while closing her eyes. "You concentrate on whatever you it is that you need to concentrate on, and this focuses your mind on it." She slides her cupped palm faster along the bore. "And that builds up the potential. It builds and builds." Faster and faster. "Until—" Very fast.<br/>
<br/>
Then she stops. "You make the connection with your spiritual energy."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, hell,</i> you can't help thinking, <i>I used to do that almost every night with my cock.</i><br/>
<br/>
She seems to sense the lameness of her explanation. "Look, I'm just trying to summarize what my dad wrote, and it's probably coming out all wrong. But this is what the Brotherhood has to do," she insists, "so it's what we're going to have to do, if it's going to be a Brotherhood, you know, and not just some kind of club."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You accede to her explanations with a shrug—really, what else are you going to do—but you draw the line at making the doorway, at least tonight. Sure, she's not going to knock a hole in the wall, she's just going to use the meditation wand to sketch the outline of a doorway and fill the edges with invisible arcane script. But the ceremony will involve a certain amount of caterwauling, and with Kelly's mom out in the living room, you don't want to draw any more attention to your shenanigans than you can help. And maybe Sydney is also relieved, for she's happy to go along when you suggest getting into some kind of character by watching videos.<br/>
<br/>
"So Kelly's into fantasy, huh?" she observes a little while later, after you're stretched out on the floor. Bored with the videos (maybe) she's turned on her side and is studying the bookcase. "Kind of makes her a good choice for this, huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"Is it just her and her brother and her mom living here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. Dad ran off a long time ago. Or Mom threw him out."<br/>
<br/>
She chews on this. Her next question she asks in a very soft voice.<br/>
<br/>
"What does Kelly think of her brother?"<br/>
<br/>
You cringe. It's hard not to, though you've tried avoiding the question Sydney has now directly put to you.<br/>
<br/>
You can definitely separate Kelly's feelings from your own, at least enough to tell which are hers and which are yours. You're still smarting hard from the beat-down that Blake inspired his friends to give you, and you still want to see him suffer.<br/>
<br/>
Kelly's feelings, though, are more ... um ... ambivalent.<br/>
<br/>
Oh sure, she loves her brother and respects him. She has to, as he's the closest she's got to a father in her life. But at the same time he is <i>not</i> her father, and she resents the way that he tries to shelter and protect her by controlling what she can and can't do. So even if 80% of her feelings are undiluted love, a equal percentage of her energy is given to wrestling against him and his control.<br/>
<br/>
"Will?" Bridget asks.<br/>
<br/>
Still you don't answer. <br/>
<br/>
You picked Kelly as an alias because you wanted to get back at Blake. But that doesn't mean you have to act against him right away. You could temporize by expanding this "Brotherhood" you're putting together. You need at least eight more members anyway.</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111111241211
author_id: seuzz
title: Concentrate on Blake
chapter_content:
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path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111111241212
author_id: seuzz
title: Bridges to a Brotherhood
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You’re awakened the next morning by a shake to the shoulder. “Will,” someone hisses. “Will!”<br/>
<br/>
You clench your eyes shut and burrow deeper under the covers. Again you’re shaken. “Kelly!”<br/>
<br/>
“What?” you groan. Now you remember that Bridget was spending the night with you.<br/>
<br/>
“I think I hear your brother.”<br/>
<br/>
You listen. Yes, there’s the tramp of heavy footfalls in the hallway, followed by the <i>snick</i> of a door shutting. “Yeah, so?” you ask.<br/>
<br/>
“So he’s brought the car back. We can go out and get donuts.”<br/>
<br/>
<i>God.</i> Bridget and her fixation on getting donuts first thing in the morning after a sleepover. It’s like she thinks sneaking out early is the same as staying out past curfew.<br/>
<br/>
Then it hits you.<br/>
<br/>
You flip over. Bridget is grinning gleefully down into your face.<br/>
<br/>
“Did I tell you about the donut thing last night?” you ask.<br/>
<br/>
“Nope.” Her grin widens.<br/>
<br/>
“You mean you <i>remembered</i> it on your own?”<br/>
<br/>
“Yep!” She tickles you under the covers, which is another of those really annoying things that she likes to do. “I think I’m Bridget now!” Sydney exclaims.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
“Mrs. Heine! God!” Bridget rolls her eyes and pops the last of her powdered donut into her mouth. “Ask me a hard one! No way I don’t remember our second-grade teacher. Not when she had a name like that and a butt like that.”<br/>
<br/>
Sunlight pours through the front windows of Salvation Donuts; highlights gleam off the plastic-and-Formica tabletops, and early morning traffic rumbles on the boulevard outside. You and Bridget have each gobbled down two donuts. With ten “life trivia” questions, Sydney has proven to your satisfaction that she knows most everything that she ought to know about Bridget Atwater. <br/>
<br/>
And as for her personality: as she squirms and plays with the plastic cutlery, she is doing a bang-up job of living up to her alias’s nickname: Fidgety Bridgety.<br/>
<br/>
“So I didn’t screw anything up for you yesterday, did I?” you ask. “When I didn’t go out to Catherine’s with you?”<br/>
<br/>
“Screw it up for who?” Bridget’s smile is mischievous.<br/>
<br/>
You give her a look. “You know who I mean, <i>Bridget.</i>”<br/>
<br/>
She laughs, but just as suddenly turns thoughtful. She studies you, then leans across the table.<br/>
<br/>
“How weird would it be for you,” she asks in a low voice, “if James and I, um, got together?”<br/>
<br/>
You can’t help biting your lip.<br/>
<br/>
James Randolph is one of “cute” guys in the sophomore class—a slim, clean-limbed blonde with a quick, white smile and a way of looking into your face that excites the butterflies. It doesn’t hurt that he plays JV basketball, and looks great in shorts. He’s also friends with some of hot junior guys.<br/>
<br/>
You avoid her eye. “Do what you have to do,” you tell your girlfriend.<br/>
<br/>
She doesn’t reply. Probably she’s trying to figure out what you’re thinking. You wish she’d hurry up and guess at what you’re thinking, because you don’t know either.<br/>
<br/>
“You know.” She puts her elbows on the table to lean in really close. Her lips hardly move as she murmurs, “He’d be a really good addition to the Brotherhood.”<br/>
<br/>
“You think?”<br/>
<br/>
She makes a face. “Come on, you know he would. He could definitely help us get some others. Why do you have a problem with him?”<br/>
<br/>
Put like that, of course, you don’t. But Kelly’s own residual feelings are very strong. Aside from the obvious—the jealousy of James at pulling her best friend away, and the (even worse) jealousy of Bridget for landing such an attractive admirer—there are Kelly’s doubts about James. He is, after all, supposedly going out with Tiffany Kinyon, and had been promising Bridget since the start of the year that he’s going to break up with Tiffany to go out with her. But he hasn’t yet. And Kelly can’t help suspecting that James is just trying to score with Bridget. Either he’s trying to score by leading her on with a promise he doesn’t mean to keep, or he’s trying to pressure her into letting him score as the price for finally dumping Tiffany.<br/>
<br/>
Is that someone you want in the Brotherhood?<br/>
<br/>
Yes, probably, he’s exactly the type for the Brotherhood. But you only shrug and murmur noncommittally when Bridget says, “It would all be alright, wouldn’t it, if, um, <i>he</i> was <i>you?</i>”<br/>
<br/>
And after you shrug, you shiver.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney has some other ideas for recruits—it’s as if conquering one girl, body and mind and soul, has given her a hankering for others—but you don’t pay really close attention as she shares them, and only one suggestion sticks in your head, maybe because it’s the only sophomore she doesn’t recommend as a recruit: Maggie Crenshaw, the captain of the varsity softball team, who would be a link between your sophomore and senior aliases. On the way home, Sydney accuses you of being a “grump,” and threatens the spend the afternoon with some of her “other” friends.<br/>
<br/>
Back home, you strip your clothes off and take a shower. This gives you another chance to get acquainted with Kelly’s body. It’s not even as stimulating now, even under the hot water with soap, as when you woke inside it, probably because you’re more used to it and have Kelly’s own feelings to complicate your own. She is slim and boyish in build, with small boobs, and with legs and muscles sculpted by four or five years of tomboyish athleticism. Only when you palm the bush between your legs do you get a thrill. <br/>
<br/>
Which is odd, when you think about it. Normally, you’d freak out at the absence of a package inside that curly, wiry clump.<br/>
<br/>
Afterward, while toweling off, you study yourself in the mirror. You can’t help wincing again at the smallness of your boobs. But you study your face more thoughtfully. There’s a hardness about your eyes, there’s no missing that, which is unfortunate, as they’re big and brown, and when paired with your small nose and mouth they should make you very “cute.” Or they would if they didn’t have such a wary, defensive flintiness about them.<br/>
<br/>
You sigh. <br/>
<br/>
It’s all Madison Crawford’s fault, you think. Bad enough that she’s already stacked and has cheerleader legs (which she likes to show off in short-shorts and ankle socks), and holds herself above everybody else. With looks and a body like hers, she’s got it made already. So why does she have to go out of her way to make other girls—like you—feel small and contemptible? Was hers one of the names that Sydney mentioned? Probably not. Surely you would have noticed it if <i>Madison’s</i> name got mentioned.<br/>
<br/>
But now that it has been mentioned, even if it’s by yourself to yourself, you can’t help dwelling on it as you get dressed in fresh clothes. (Flannel shorts, a t-shirt, and ratty sneakers without socks; definitely not the kind of clothes that Madison would wear, unless she was going for the “sexy waif” look.) You turned yourself into Kelly as a means of getting revenge on someone who was making your life miserable. Maybe you could use the masks to get back at someone who has spent even longer—years—making Kelly feel small? If not Madison herself, one of her friends, the way you are using Kelly against her brother? That would be a way of making it up to Kelly—what you’re doing to her—wouldn’t it?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Blake is still asleep (he will sleep into the early afternoon) when you emerge from your bedroom.  You’re tempted to text Bridget, to see if Sydney is up for getting together again. But you just parted, and you don’t see what you’d have to do with her anyway.<br/>
<br/>
So instead you scrounge together what little money Kelly has managed to save up, and go shopping for a few more magical supplies, which you take out to the school basement. Once there, you settle in to make another mask.<br/>
<br/>
You’ve just polished it up and are well into the memory strip, when Bridget texts you. <i>Come hang out @ Warehouse?</i> Before you can reply, she calls you direct. “Well?”<br/>
<br/>
“What’s going on?” you ask. <br/>
<br/>
“Getting an early start on Saturday night. Well, not really.” She laughs. “Just meeting some guys out there. To help clean up from last night and get ready for tonight. Come on, Kelly,” she sighs when you don’t answer. “It won’t be like, a regular Saturday night party. Just having fun. At the Warehouse.” She giggles again, but nervously.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t know,” you reply. But she starts talking to someone else, someone with a gruff voice. You make a face. <i>A guy. Probably James.</i><br/>
<br/>
“Listen,” she says when she comes back on, “just come on out, for a little while. Someone <i>really</i> wants you out here. And it’s not me.”<br/>
<br/>
“Who?”<br/>
<br/>
“Darrell Jackson,” she says, sounding like she’s whispering into the receiver.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh right.</i> That was one of the names she mentioned at the donut shop. Another basketball player. She mentioned him and some of his friends. Another batch of cute, popular guys, like James.<br/>
<br/>
You look at the mask. This afternoon could be your chance to snag a new Brother. <br/>
<br/>
It might also be a chance to test out the new batch of <i>pedisequos</i> paste you made. You screwed up the recipe by putting the hair in with the rest of the stuff, but the result is a paste that is the color of a <i>pedisequos.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
A percussive beat is thumping the air as you approach the Warehouse. “Have they already started tonight’s party?” you ask Bridget.<br/>
<br/>
“Just a band practicing.” She grips you by the elbow. “The Scorchicos guys.”</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111112412121
author_id: seuzz
title: Turn yourself into James Randolph
chapter_content:
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path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111112412123
author_id: seuzz
title: Two Virgins Walk Into the Warehouse
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The walls of the Warehouse rise before you: sooty red brick, broken and cracked and scored with the years. High up, under the short eaves of the roof, a row of dirty windows glares blindly down. Behind it looms an abandoned grain elevator: the crowning, post-apocalyptic touch.<br/>
<br/>
Bridget pulls open one of the dented double doors leading in; a stink of dirty bodies, and stale beer and cigarettes, rolls out. You choke on the tendrils.<br/>
<br/>
It’s dark inside, and the room beyond is a lot smaller than you were expecting—like a concrete box fitted inside a larger box. The floor is bare concrete (stained) and the walls are murals of graffiti covered by still more graffiti. Voices—loud and raucous—sound from deeper inside the building, but the words are smothered by the rumbling bass thump of the music coming from another room.<br/>
<br/>
“Hello?” Bridget calls out. “Have you ever been here before?” she asks you.<br/>
<br/>
“You know I haven’t.”<br/>
<br/>
“I was talking to someone else, Kelly,” she says. “Hey!” she calls as she edges deeper in.<br/>
<br/>
Spitefully, you shove her in the shoulder. “Come on, you’re the one who wanted to—“<br/>
<br/>
“Don’t push me!”<br/>
<br/>
“Let’s just find someone, okay?”<br/>
<br/>
But you don’t have to find them. They’ve found you. <br/>
<br/>
A tall guy in a football jersey and jeans, with lank hockey hair draping down to his shoulders, comes swaggering in through another doorway. Behind him swaggers a second guy, also in jeans and a jersey, with short blonde hair and a “don’t fuck with me” stare under his black eyebrows. <br/>
<br/>
“Oh, hey,” Bridget calls out to them. “We’re looking for— Um. Is—?” But she falters as they stride up, silent and unblinking.<br/>
<br/>
Not until they are on top of you do they speak. “Coupla virgins,” Hockey Hair mutters to his friend. He ducks and grabs you about the waist.<br/>
<br/>
And then you’re airborne, tossed over Hockey Hair’s shoulder like a sack of grain. “What the—?” you gasp the world turns upside down, and the blood gushes into your face. Hockey Hair’s grip is like iron, and you’re jolted along as he carries you back the way he came in. From somewhere close, Bridget squeaks and squawks. “We can walk, you know!” you shout.<br/>
<br/>
Laughs and jeers break out around you. You raise your head, but all you can see are the legs of the people crowding around you. Someone yanks at your hair.<br/>
<br/>
You’re hurled with a jolt onto a hard surface. A table top? Hockey Hair thrusts his face into yours. His breath is hot and stinks of beer. “Get away!” you yell. He grabs your hands in his, then with a grunt and a leap wedges himself atop you, straddling your lap and pinning your hands under his thighs while gripping you by the wrists. He shoves his mouth over yours, and jams a thick tongue past your teeth fast enough to tear away a quick kiss.<br/>
<br/>
Then—still panting heavily in your face—he fishes a hand up your shirt and grabs you by a boob. You yelp and twist under him, but he’s got at least sixty pounds on you, maybe more. His fingers pull and tug and probe at the front of your shorts.<br/>
<br/>
Then, with a grimace, he leaps back and off. He smirks down at you as the crowd behind him hoots and claps. “Fuck,” he drawls. “She got titties like teabags.”<br/>
<br/>
You can only gasp and glare, bug-eyed, at him.<br/>
<br/>
He throws out his arm and grabs his friend, who is wedged in next to you, about the neck and pulls him back. Bridget appears from beneath him, gasping hard for air.<br/>
<br/>
A long, gloating cheer goes up from the crowd. Faces—some you recognize—press up and leer at you. You scramble backward, hoping that some kind of crack will open up in the wall behind you, to let you squeeze out and escape.<br/>
<br/>
But the gap, when it opens, is in the crowd. The last person you expect—Avery Ayala—pushes through. She grins as she reaches for you and Bridget.<br/>
<br/>
“Go away!” “Stop that!” You slap at her. “Kelly!” she shouts. The crowd guffaws. “Just come with me!” “I’m gonna start screaming in a moment!” Hoots from the crowd. Hockey Hair turns to yell at it: “Hey! Fuckers! Back to work!” “Just calm the heck down,” Avery implores you.<br/>
<br/>
“The hell was that?” Bridget asks as Hockey Hair and his friend push the crowd back. Her voice is faint.<br/>
<br/>
“Just come on.” Avery pulls at her. “You want a Coke? Or maybe a beer? Something else?”<br/>
<br/>
“I wanna vomit,” you tell her.<br/>
<br/>
“We’ll go sit in a corner,” she says. “It’s all over now.”<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Well, she says it’s over, but you’ve still got the shakes, even after you’re huddled in the corner of the room. Looking around, you see you’re in something that looks like saloon. Mismatched tables and chairs are scattered around the floor, and lining the walls are booths that look like they were salvaged from the city dump (or worse). Along one wall is a makeshift bar. Guys, including Hockey Hair and his friend, are setting up and unpacking boxes of beer and colas and snacks, but none of them pay the slightest attention to you. The few times you accidentally make eye contact with one of them, they look away as though they don’t even recognize you.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s on account of you’re virgins,” Avery says after you and Bridget are calmed down enough to listen. She is very bright-eyed, almost giddy, as explains it all. “This is your first time out here, right?” You don’t answer, but Bridget insists she has been to the Warehouse before. “I mean, first time before things get started,” Avery says. “Just hanging out, you know?”<br/>
<br/>
“How do they know we’re ‘virgins’?” you demand.<br/>
<br/>
“They can just tell,” Avery says. “By the way you walked in, probably. And they do that to everyone, all the virgins.” Her smile turns nervous. “There was nothing to be scared of. I mean, it freaked me out the first time it happened to me.”<br/>
<br/>
“You mean there’s other times they do it?”<br/>
<br/>
“No! Well.” She twists in her seat, and her grin turns brittle. “I mean, now that you’re, um, not virgins anymore, it’s all over, it’ll be okay for you to come out on the weekends. Like now, when they’re cleaning up. I wouldn’t come out on the weekdays, though,” she adds with a shiver.<br/>
<br/>
You lapse into a moody silence, and catch yourself glaring at Avery as she continues to explain the weird sociology of the Warehouse.<br/>
<br/>
She’s such a delicate flower. How did she manage to “lose her virginity” at the Warehouse before Kelly did? She’s tall and skinny, with a big head and big eyes and big hair, like a flower stalk with a bulb of delicate petals bobbing atop it. She is Hispanic or something, with dark skin and coal-black hair and wide-set eyes. Her mouth relaxes easily into a smile is very broad and white. But despite her gawky build and fidgety mannerisms, she is very graceful, and during your freshman year she was a star tumbler on the gym mats.<br/>
<br/>
But your discomfiture at seeing that Avery is a regular at the Warehouse is nothing on learning that Dana DiBenedetto, Kaylee Mercier, and Wendy Adler are too.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
They’re with Darrell Jackson and his friends—when they finally show up—and they only laugh and offer congratulations when Avery tells them that you and Bridget have just “lost your virginity.” As for Darrell and his friends, they just nod and tell you that it’s “Cool.”<br/>
<br/>
“Are you going to be okay?” Bridget asks you an hour later, as you’re scrubbing down the saloon tables. (That’s the official reason you came out, to help Darrell and his friends with cleaning and setting up the place again.)<br/>
<br/>
“I’ll be fine as soon as we get out of here,” you retort.<br/>
<br/>
She looks hurt. “If you want to go off with Darrell,” she starts to say.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t!” you hiss. You glance over your shoulder. “Is he trying to hit on me or something?” He has been more than a pest, hovering near you and voicing any silly thought that comes into his head.<br/>
<br/>
“You have to ask?”<br/>
<br/>
“Is this his idea of a date? I could be at home doing my brother’s stinky laundry.”<br/>
<br/>
She gives you a look. “He’s a guy,” she says. “And he’s only a sophomore, he doesn’t know any better.” She leans in very close. “On our first date, we basically hung out at the cemetery, remember?”<br/>
<br/>
You grimace, then glance around. Kaylee and Dana have given up even pretending to help with the cleaning, and are perched at the bar, where they’re flirting with (ugh!) Hockey Hair.<br/>
<br/>
Ryder Hillberger! You actually snap your fingers when his name comes back to you. A.k.a., “The Thrillberger.” A football player, on the JV squad. Everyone assumes he’ll be quarterback next year. No wonder Kaylee and Dana are flirting with him. Like Madison, they’re on track to be cheerleaders.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Madison.</i> You look around. Is she here? “I don’t know,” Bridget says when you ask her. “Why?”<br/>
<br/>
So you tell her the idea you had, for putting a mask onto her, or onto one of her friends.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, I like that plan,” she says. “Of course, we’d have to find a way to get to her. I don’t think even I could just call her up.” She looks over your shoulder. “One of her friends,” she murmurs, half to herself. You don’t have to follow her gaze to know that she’s looking at Avery, or Kaylee, or Dana.<br/>
<br/>
Then her eyebrows shoot up. “Or Ryder?” she says. “I bet she’d pick up the phone for him.” </span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111124121231
author_id: seuzz
title: A New Kind of Carjacking
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><i>Ryder Hillberger?</i> The guy who molested you and then insulted your tits? You’ve already aiming to revenge yourself on one football-playing asshole—Kelly’s brother—and you’re taking aim at Madison Crawford too. You don’t a third target, especially when the very sight of Ryder now makes you want to puke.<br/>
<br/>
“Let’s just go for Avery or Dana or one of them,” you mutter to Bridget.<br/>
<br/>
“Got a preference?” she murmurs back.<br/>
<br/>
Do you? Dana and Avery, as near as you can tell, are equally gaga over Madison—trailing her around, laughing at her jokes, giving her and each other makeup and beauty tips while gossiping about boys. At least they’re not <i>mean</i> with you and the other girls the way Madison is. And sometimes—though maybe this is just your imagination—you’ve seen them wince just the tiniest little bit when Madison lets fly with one of her put-downs.<br/>
<br/>
“Whichever one we can get to,” you tell Bridget.<br/>
<br/>
“And I’ll take the other?”<br/>
<br/>
That stops you cold. You’d not thought beyond the point of getting one of them. <i>We’ll see,</i> you tell yourself.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It’s late afternoon by this point, and more and more kids are filtering in to the Warehouse. At least one fight breaks out, right there in the saloon, when two guys jump a third. Girls squeal and scream, and a couple of the brawnier guys, including Ryder, dive in to separate them, and one of the brawlers gets dragged into a back room when he tries fighting the guys who grabbed him. You didn’t like the place when you walked in, and now that it’s filling up and getting feisty again, you’re starting to get nervous. Blake had to work out here last night, but he’ll be out again tonight to party and drink and to try to pick up a quick and easy lay with his bomber jacket and those soulful, staring looks that Kelly has spotted him giving to girls at school. You don’t want him to catch you out here.<br/>
<br/>
Bridget, though, is in her element, and when you find her (for she’s wandered off while you weren’t looking) she is laughing and flirting (yes, that’s what it looks like to you) with a couple of the guys who, if their shining grins and glinting eyes are anything to go by, are getting pretty deeply into her. <br/>
<br/>
You pluck at her elbow until she stops jabbering at them about something funny that someone did up at the school. “Can you take me home?” you ask.<br/>
<br/>
“What?” She turns a blank and uncomprehending face on you.<br/>
<br/>
“I need to go home. Like, soon.”<br/>
<br/>
“Well, okay. Right now?”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah,” says Charles Sweeney, a classmate who combines the paunch and curly-headed ‘fro of a hobbit with the sharp glance and grin of an half-elven sex pervert. “Does it have to be now?”<br/>
<br/>
“Soon.” Into Bridget’s ear: “Before Blake gets here.”<br/>
<br/>
She sighs. “Alright. I wanna dance when I get back,” she tells Charles.<br/>
<br/>
“After midnight,” he says.<br/>
<br/>
“Why?” She giggles. “You turn into a pumpkin or something?”<br/>
<br/>
“No, I just don’t want you going home early, want you hanging out here.” <br/>
<br/>
Then he turns that sharp glance onto you. “Hey, your brother works out here, right? Yeah!” He snaps his fingers and points at you. “He put a guy in the hole last night. Had him up like this.” He gestures with his hands. “Back of the shirt, back of his pants. It was awesome, guy looked so funny trying to walk on tiptoes while your brother was hustling him into the back. Were you here last night?”<br/>
<br/>
“No.”<br/>
<br/>
“How come? Your brother works here, ain’t no one gonna mess with you.”<br/>
<br/>
<i>Ryder Hillberger might,</i> you think. <br/>
<br/>
And you should have said it aloud, it would have been better than what Bridget lets fly. “Blake doesn’t let Kelly come out here,” she says.<br/>
<br/>
“What?” Charles’s eyebrows go up.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s not like that.” You also grab Bridget by the upper arm, digging your nails into the soft flesh. “You won’t be able to get your car out if we don’t go soon.”<br/>
<br/>
“But then I won’t have a parking place for when I get back!”<br/>
<br/>
“I’ll follow you out,” Charles says. “They want us to carpool in anyway. Sure!” His eyes light up and again he snaps his fingers and points. “Hey, let’s get a bunch of people, go do something. Get something to eat, go hang out awhile, then we ca all come back together.”<br/>
<br/>
Bridget looks over at you. You give up. “Sure,” you say.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Even then, Bridget and Charles have to round up the people they want to go along, and then those people have to round up other people. First Charles wanders off, and then his friend Benjamin disappears, and then Bridget goes off in search of more friends to take along. When Charles comes back into the saloon, his head is down as he texts on his phone. “Trying to get Matthew to come meet us,” he mutters when you ask what he’s doing. Which Matthew it is, he doesn’t clarify.<br/>
<br/>
After fifteen minutes of this, you can’t take it anymore, and stride out of the Warehouse to wait in Bridget’s car. You find it already boxed in on both sides and behind, which will mean a further delays as you try to track down the people who parked behind.<br/>
<br/>
While you’re fuming, the front doors open up and Dana DiBenedetto comes out. Your heart skips  when you see her.<br/>
<br/>
Dana is almost as short as you are (in this body). Like you she has long, brown hair that falls past her shoulder blades, and like you she is almost boyishly slender.<br/>
<br/>
And yet, somehow, she manages to be, like, five times as feminine and sexy as Kelly O’Brien. Maybe her bust is just that tiny bit bigger. Maybe her hips are just that tiny bit wider. Maybe her torso curves that tiny extra bit more, so as to suggest an hourglass and not a warped plank.<br/>
<br/>
And maybe you should wave her over while you’ve got a chance to get her alone.<br/>
<br/>
“Hey, here you are,” she says as joins you. She doesn’t sound that interested, and cranes her neck to watch as an SUV turns into the lot. “Bridget is looking for you.”<br/>
<br/>
“She can find me out here. We have to take her car anyway.”<br/>
<br/>
“Can I get a ride with you guys?” she asks, neatly anticipating your offer. She clucks her tongue softly. “Kaylee’s being a bitch.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah, sure, no problem.” You open the back door of Bridget’s car for her. She gives you a direct look—one of puzzlement—then climbs in. “Don’t mind the stuff,” you add as she sits on the plastic bag carrying the mask and your supplies. <br/>
<br/>
She scoots off and over. “I hope we don’t have to wait much longer,” she says. “I’m starving.” She gives you another puzzled look as you clamber into the car after her, then takes out her phone. “Kaylee is such a butt sometimes.”<br/>
<br/>
She would have to poke you with a sharp stick in order to prompt you any harder. “Yeah? What’s she being a butt about?” you ask as you pull the mask from the bag.<br/>
<br/>
“Okay, get this. Ethan’s got a birthday coming up, you know, and a bunch of us are planning to—“<br/>
<br/>
“Hold that thought,” you interrupt her. “I want to <i>be</i> you when you tell me.”<br/>
<br/>
Dana manages to blink once—she surely didn’t even register what you said—before you lift and gently smush the mask into her face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your timing couldn’t have been worse. Not a minute later, the Warehouse doors open again and Charles comes out. He looks around, then catches sight and locks eyes directly with you. You cuss under your breath as he starts to come over.<br/>
<br/>
You scramble out of the car. “You seen Dana around?” he says as you rush up to him. “She was coming out to look for you.”<br/>
<br/>
“No,” you stammer. “I was waiting in the car. I guess she didn’t see me.”<br/>
<br/>
“Well, she didn’t come back inside.” He looks around the lot.<br/>
<br/>
“Are you sure?”<br/>
<br/>
“I was standing just inside the door. We’re about ready to go.”<br/>
<br/>
“We can’t go yet.” You point to Bridget’s car. “We have to get that guy behind us to move.”<br/>
<br/>
He squints at it. “You know whose car it is?” You shake your head. “Then we’re gonna have to take someone else’s.”<br/>
<br/>
“But we have to move Bridget’s!” you protest. “You said she has to move her car so we can carpool back!”<br/>
<br/>
“Nobody <i>has</i> to move anything. She can get it out tomorrow. We have to find Dana now.”<br/>
<br/>
You start to shake all over. “Well, you go look for her. I have to get my stuff out of the car. Who are we driving with?”<br/>
<br/>
“You and Bridget can come with me. Dana too, if she wants. Her and Kaylee are, like, <i>pthbpt!”</i> He looks around again with a frown, then trudges off toward the far end of the lot.<br/>
<br/>
You hurry back over to the car and dive in the back seat. With trembling thumbs you start to text Bridget, then change your mind and call her directly. The band has started up again inside, and you can barely hear her over the thumping beat when she answers. “Hey, where are you?” she asks without preamble.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m outside. Listen, you need to call Charles and pretend like you found Dana inside, and then when he comes back in tell him that she wandered off again.”<br/>
<br/>
“Wait, what?”<br/>
<br/>
“I’m in your car with Dana! I put the mask on her! But Charles is wandering around out here looking for her!”<br/>
<br/>
Silence. Then Bridget says, “We’re all here, Kelly. We’re just waiting for you and Dana before we can go.”</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111111241212311
author_id: seuzz
title: An Exercise in Substitution
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You feel like you’re going to faint—everything is going wrong at once. <br/>
<br/>
“You have to get rid of everyone!” you squeal into the phone. “I need your help out here!” You cast a fearful glance at the unconscious Dana. “If I get caught out here, like this—!”<br/>
<br/>
“Where are you?” Bridget snaps.<br/>
<br/>
“Back seat of your car. And Charles is out here looking for Dana.”<br/>
<br/>
The Warehouse door opens again, and Bridget steps out. You catch here eye and frantically point down into the seat beside you. “Dana’s in here with me!”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah, you told me. Chill. Lemme think.” <br/>
<br/>
She steps back inside. You listen to the sound of your own breathing. Your heart goes sideways when you spot Charles trudging back toward you. <br/>
<br/>
“Bridget?” you squeak into the phone. “Bridget?”<br/>
<br/>
And now the line is dead.<br/>
<br/>
But as you’re wiping the sweat off your palms and trying to figure out a new way of bamboozling Charles, the door opens again, and a crush of kid spills out. Charles, surprised, gets caught up in the mob until  he is pulled aside by Bridget. You watch anxiously as the other kids wander off to other corners of the parking lot, but she and Charles remain behind, him frowning and her waving her arms and talking a mile a minute. The conversation ends with him rolling his eyes and going back inside. Bridget looks over at you, raises a single finger, then follows him in. A moment later your phone rings. “What’s going on?” you demand when you answer.<br/>
<br/>
“We’re looking for the guy who’s parked behind me. I told everyone else to go on ahead. But now I need you to get onto Dana’s phone. Text Charles and tell him you—you text like you’re Dana—you’re in the bathroom and you’ll meet him outside when you’re done. That’s the best I can do.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh God thanks!” Faint with relief but still shaking with fear, you snatch up Dana’s phone. Almost every word you have to type three times because your thumbs are trembling so hard: <i>Sorry in bathroom. Meet you outside in ten.<br/>
<br/>
Will that be enough time?</i> you wonder. What if they find the guy whose car is parked behind you before you can finish up with Dana?<br/>
<br/>
And as if in answer to your unspoken prayers, the mask reappears on Dana’s face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
“Remember,” you hiss at Dana as Charles and Bridget step out of the Warehouse, “you were in the bathroom, and we have to drop you off at your house.”<br/>
<br/>
“Psh!” The <i>pedisequos</i> rolls its eyes. “I don’t know why you’re telling me again. You’ve only told me half a dozen times.”<br/>
<br/>
“Just do what I tell you. Also, I’m stopping off with you when we get to your house.”<br/>
<br/>
The thing had been studying its face in Dana’s cell phone, but now it drops the phone and raises its head to stare straight ahead. You’d ask what the trouble is, but the others are drawing up to the car.<br/>
<br/>
There’s a gangly, blonde-headed kid with Charles and Bridget; you can’t place his name, but you do recognize him from some of your classes. He squints at you, then gives Dana a slightly longer look-over, leaning over to keep her in view as he passes the window. <i>Jerk,</i> you think. <i>Pervert.</i> Charles and Bridget get in the front. Charles turns to look at Dana, and opens his mouth.<br/>
<br/>
“I was in the bathroom, and you have to drop me off at my house,” the Dana-pedisequos tells him in a toneless voice. “Also, Kelly is stopping off with me when we get to my house.”<br/>
<br/>
Charles stares at her, his mouth hanging open. Then he says, “I didn’t say nothing.”<br/>
<br/>
“Give her a break,” you snap at him, and take Dana by the elbow. “Kaylee was being a butt and she needed some time alone.”<br/>
<br/>
“Whatever,” Charles turns to the front. “But are you coming out with us at least? Are you coming back here?”<br/>
<br/>
Dana looks at you. You shrug.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t know,” Dana says in that same robotic tone. You facepalm.<br/>
<br/>
So Bridget comes to the rescue.<br/>
<br/>
“You know, I think it’s really great,” she says as she puts the car in gear and backs up, “that we’ve got this place where we can all party and we can all pitch in to help to keep it running. Like, we’ve got the guys who come in and sell the, you know, food and drinks, and we make our own music and we have our own security and we even clean up after ourselves. And we do it all without anyone have to tell us to or to organize it!”<br/>
<br/>
“Thbt!” Charles interrupts. “It’s organized. You just don’t know who runs it.”<br/>
<br/>
“So who runs it?”<br/>
<br/>
“You don’t want to know.”<br/>
<br/>
“What<i>ever,</i> Chazz,” Bridget scoffs, then plunges back into a rhapsodic appreciation of the Warehouse and the way it practically runs itself. You’d love to tell her to stuff it and give your and everyone else’s ears a rest, but you know she’s doing it to shut Charles up and to keep him from asking any more awkward questions, so you grit your teeth and put up with it.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It turns out that Dana lives in Acheson, just a couple of blocks from your old house, and it gives you kind of a creepy feeling to go driving through your own neighborhood when you’re not yourself, and when you know that the thing at your house that your family thinks is you really isn’t. <i>What kind of trouble is it getting into?</i> you wonder.<br/>
<br/>
With that same lack of emotion, the Dana-<i>pedisequos</i> guides Bridget to a two-story house about the same size as your old place, but with a much better paint job and a much nicer lawn. Almost too nice. You can’t help peering at it suspiciously as you climb out onto the curb.<br/>
<br/>
“Will I see you again tonight?” Bridget shouts at you from behind the wheel of the car.<br/>
<br/>
“Probably not,” you call back. “I feel like staying in tonight.”<br/>
<br/>
Bridget’s eyes shift to your companion. “What about you, Dana?”<br/>
<br/>
Again, the <i>pedisequos</i> looks directly at you for instructions.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, probably,” you call back on her behalf. “I think we just have to, you know, get her into a change of clothes, a change of mind, and she’ll be back to being herself. I mean,” you hastily correct yourself, “she’ll be like a whole new person.”<br/>
<br/>
Bridget visibly winces. You slam the car door shut and grab the <i>pedisequos</i> by the wrist. You even open the front door for her. “Tell your mom and your dad that I’m a friend from school,” you growl at her.<br/>
<br/>
So she leads you through a small entryway and down a short hall to a living room, where a fat woman with eyes black as currants is knitting. “Mom,” Dana says tonelessly, “this is a friend from school.” She then marches from the room.<br/>
<br/>
“My name’s Kelly,” you gasp at Dana’s mom.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s nice to meet you, Kelly,” Mrs. DiBenedetto says. Her mouth twists into a smile of surprise as she watches her daughter briskly march off without another word.<br/>
<br/>
“We’re kind of busy,” you tell her, and hurry after.<br/>
<br/>
And the <i>pedisequos</i> says the same thing, in the same way, to her dad, who is in some kind of study, reading papers over a pair of half-moon spectacles. He only gives you and his “daughter” an astonished look before you’re scrambling after Dana again. “Take me up to your room,” you tell her. With robotic precision she wheels and marches up a flight of stairs.<br/>
<br/>
“What are you doing?” you exclaim once you’re inside a bedroom and have the door shut.<br/>
<br/>
“I took you to my room,” Dana informs you. “I do just what you tell me to do, as you instructed me in the car.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, for God’s sake!” You bunch up your fists. “Fine. As long as you’re doing what I tell you to do, take off your clothes. No! Wait!” You think through the necessary steps. “Do you have a private bathroom?” The thing points at a door. “Answer your folks if they call you down, but stay here and keep out of trouble until, um, this door opens again.”<br/>
<br/>
Inside the bathroom: <i>The Kelly-</i>pedisequos<i> better not be that bad once you get it up and running,</i> you think to yourself after you start to peel.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You run your hands slowly down the sides of your new—and naked—body. You were right. Dana’s body is just that five or fifteen percent more feminine that you need to go from being a “tomboy” to  being “pert but sexy.” You slide your palms over those curves as though sculpting them while studying yourself in the bathroom mirror.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, there are flaws, and with Dana’s eyes you can pick them out. Calves that are just a little too skinny for thighs that are just a little too chunky. The short hairs that have to be shaved in the bikini area. Tiny blackheads. But she’s got a strong stomach that curves inward from bowl-like hips, and breasts more like small, firm mangos than Kelly’s underdeveloped bananas. And that’s all it takes to make all the difference. You take a deep breath as your gaze travels up to your face. Dana DiBenedetto—<i>that’s you!</i>—gazes back with an expression of surprise and wonder.<br/>
<br/>
Movement in the room outside reminds you that you have to get dressed if you’re going to go out to the Warehouse again with your friends, of which you’ve got so many. You wouldn’t miss out for anything. Sure, Kaylee was being a butt about Ethan’s party—<br/>
<br/>
You freeze at the thought of Ethan’s party.<br/>
<br/>
Dana is helping Madison organize a surprise birthday party with Ethan Clayborne. It’s part of her plan to get him to start going out with her.<br/>
<br/>
But how great would it be—how perfect the revenge for all the small cruelties that Madison has inflicted on Kelly, and on other girls, if Ethan bypassed Madison and started going out with … you, Madison’s BFF?<br/>
<br/>
You could arrange that.</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114
author_id: seuzz
title: Bondage Girl
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Sydney doesn't look happy when she open the door for you. "I hope you appreciate all the trouble I went to to get her out here," she fumes.<br/>
<br/>
You glance back into the driveway. But there's only your truck parked there. "Is she here already?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I don't think she's coming."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney grabs you by the arm and yanks you inside.<br/>
<br/>
Though you've been dating for awhile now, this is the first time you've been out to her house. She lives on the northwest side of town, where the subdivisions fade into rolling countryside with woodland stands. <i>This is where the rich folk live,</i> your dad always mutters out of the side of his mouth when driving out this way, and it's country where the McMansions stand aloof from each other with pastures and grazing land to buffer their borders. Kelsey Blankenship lives off this way, you think, and who knows who else with money.<br/>
<br/>
Well, Sydney lives off this way, it turns out.<br/>
<br/>
Hers is a rambling, asymmetrical house of white stone walls and gray shingled roofs, with a tower rearing up over the front door. The foyer on the other side is spacious and cool, and the walls loft all the way up to the tower's cupola. The living room on the other side also spreads out under a vaulting ceiling.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney tugs you up a narrow set of stairs to a short hallway with a pair of double doors at the end. These open out into an ivory-colored bedroom whose tall, clear windows overlook the driveway. She gives you a look as she shuts the door behind you.<br/>
<br/>
Then, to your astonishment and delight, she grabs you by the shoulders and rips a hard kiss from your mouth. "Whoa," you mutter when she releases you.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't ever have guys up here, just him and me, with the door closed."<br/>
<br/>
"No?" you squeak.<br/>
<br/>
"No. Nicholas's rule, but fuck him. It would be my rule anyway, though. I don't want guys getting the wrong idea."<br/>
<br/>
You glance around at the room, at the four-poster bed and the blonde oak desk—whisked clean of clutter—that you could land a helicopter on; at the armoire and the vanity table with mirror and the two dressers and the cabinetry built into the wall.<br/>
<br/>
"I won't get the wrong idea," you promise her.<br/>
<br/>
"I wish you would. My mom's not here and Nicholas— Well, pft, like he counts anymore." She grabs you by the belt and yanks herself to you. "Jesus, Will," she says as she gravely stares up into your face. "Sometimes I think you—"<br/>
<br/>
What she sometimes thinks you are goes unfinished, for she turns at a noise and skips over to the window. "Finally," she snorts. "Only twenty minutes late. I assume that's her."<br/>
<br/>
You cross over to join her. A wine-dark BMW—only a few years past its best-by date—is now parked next to your truck. Someone is moving around inside it, but it's a full minute before the door opens and Amanda Ferguson confirms her arrival by getting out.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe she got lost," you suggest. "I had a hell of a time finding this place."<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever." Sydney yanks open a dresser drawer and pulls out one of the masks you gave her last night when you parted. "Make yourself comfortable for when I get back," she says as she thrusts it at you." Then: "At the desk," she adds from the doorway. "Not the bed."<br/>
<br/>
You chew on the inside of your cheek and smile wryly to yourself.<br/>
<br/>
She had said nothing yesterday when you told her that Amanda Ferguson would be your first recruit for the Brotherhood, except to ask (as she took out her phone) how to get in contact with her. "I don't know," you admitted. She said, "So who's she friends with?" and you said, "Kelsey Blankenship." Sydney made a sour face at that, for which you could have kissed her—though you could have kissed her anyway—for it told you that she'd run into Kelsey and was no more enamored of the stuck-up, AP-track bitch than you were. "Eva or Jessica Garner could probably tell you too," you said. Sydney said, "Don't you have any friends of your own, Will?" and you grimaced instead of replying, <i>Only you. And the ones we're going to make.</i><br/>
<br/>
So it was today—a Saturday afternoon—before Sydney called to say that Amanda was on her way over. And in typically selfish Amanda style, Amanda had contrived to be seriously late.<br/>
<br/>
You're sprawling at Sydney's desk and pretending to study the darkened laptop screen when the doors open and your girlfriend comes in. Amanda comes in after. Maybe her expression tightens a little when she sees you. But Amanda has resting bitch face anyway.<br/>
<br/>
When wearing high heels, which is always, she's as tall as you, and she's very pale all over. Not the bluish-pale of someone never exposed to sunlight, or the pink-pale of a girl who burns easily and has to protect her skin, but a snowy pale that looks like it would give you frost-burn if you touched her. Her hair is very dark, though, and falls in straight sheets to her shoulders; she wears bangs in the front. Her features are small but regular, and might even be beautiful if she didn't set her mouth and brow in a shriveling frown so often. As for the rest of her: She keeps herself in good shape, with strong legs, a narrow waist, and a bosom that is at least proportional if not exactly <i>stacked.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Oh," Sydney says with feigned surprise as comes in. "This is my boyfriend, Will."<br/>
<br/>
Amanda's gaze remains cool, and when the corners of her lips tweak into a small smile, it's like she's making a duckface at you. Then she sniffs and looks about the room—which clearly interests her more.<br/>
<br/>
"So," Sydney continues. She crosses to the window and leans against the sill. "The school clubs I was asking about—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think we're taking new members."<br/>
<br/>
"You have to apply for membership?" Sydney sounds surprised.<br/>
<br/>
Amanda makes that duck face again. "What I mean is, I don't think it would really be appreciated—no one would really appreciate it—if someone came in late."<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
Amanda crosses her arms and shrugs and looks everywhere but at you and Sydney. Your girlfriend gives you a sidelong look.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," she says, "how do you go about setting up a new club?"<br/>
<br/>
Amanda looks nonplussed. "I don't have any idea." Then: "What kind of club?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it isn't so much a <i>club</i> as it is a kind of cult."<br/>
<br/>
"A cult?" Amanda's brow furrows.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney gives you another look, and you unfold yourself from the chair. "Yeah, you know," Sydney says as you trudge over to join them, "the kind where you draw pentagrams on the floor and burn candles and invoke demons in a quest to tap the dark powers of the universe." You half-stumble at her words.<br/>
<br/>
But Amanda only returns her a tired smirk.<br/>
<br/>
"Cute," she says. "But if you just called me out here to waste my time—"<br/>
<br/>
That's all she says, breaking off as you shamble up. She just has time to flinch and give you a disdainful look before you've raised the mask. She tumbles back two steps and you have to chase her, but you plant the mask squarely onto her face, and catch her as her legs give way.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney insists on being the one to undress Amanda after she's splayed out on the bed, though she does let you tackle her footwear. "What happened to the toes on these boots?" you wonder aloud as you unlace them.<br/>
<br/>
"There aren't any."<br/>
<br/>
"I can see that, I'm wondering—"<br/>
<br/>
"They don't come with toes, Will." Sydney glances back from the blouse she's undoing. "It's a style."<br/>
<br/>
You whistle. They're a pretty expensive-looking boot, considering there's a lot of material missing at the tip. They're made of stiff, black leather and ride up well over the ankle. The heels are four inches long, at least. You glance up at Amanda. <i>How short is she without the footwear?</i> you wonder.<br/>
<br/>
The rest of her clothes are similarly tight and on the skimpy side: a black leather skirt that rides high on her thighs, and a starchy, white, long-sleeve blouse. After Sydney has them and her underclothes off, she covers Amanda over with the bedspread and turns to you. "You want to leave me to it now?" she asks with arched eyebrows.<br/>
<br/>
"Leave it to you to what?"<br/>
<br/>
"To change."<br/>
<br/>
"Were you going to put on the mask?"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney's eyebrows arch further. "Were <i>you</i> planning to?"<br/>
<br/>
That's a question you had shied away from, actually. You really like the idea of sicking a fake Amanda onto Blake, and you suspect it's got to be either you or Sydney under the mask—you wouldn't trust a mere <i>pedisequos</i> like what you turned her stepfather into—to handle things properly. But much as you don't like the idea of flirting with and seducing Blake O'Brien, you hate more the idea of Sydney doing it.<br/>
<br/>
Like, what if she decides she actually <i>likes</i> the asshole? She admitted once upon a time that he was her type.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141
author_id: seuzz
title: A Flesh Exchange
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Listen, I'll do it," you mutter at Sydney as you goggle with watering eyes at Amanda. "At least to start. Maybe after awhile we could switch off?"<br/>
<br/>
"If you want to, Will," she says, sounding doubtful. "You know, it's going to be a real change for you, going from being a— Well, never mind."<br/>
<br/>
But you know what she means.<br/>
<br/>
This isn't going to be like dressing up for Halloween, or putting on a skirt and high heels and a wig just for a laugh. (Not that you've ever dressed up as a girl before, even for a costume party.) This is going to be a fully-in-the-flesh transformation. When you come out the other side, you're going to have breasts, and a slit where your cock used to be. Everything else is going to be redistributed too.<br/>
<br/>
And you're going to have a girl's brain inside yours.<br/>
<br/>
It was weird enough plugging Blake's brain into yours. After all, he was a guy too, so everything he felt—the lusts, the pride, the impatience, the surging need to strut and preen and showboat, and to grasp a girl and show her with his mouth and his fingers and his straining penis just exactly what he thought of her and for what purposes— <br/>
<br/>
Well, Blake was just you with the dial turned up another twenty or twenty-five percent.<br/>
<br/>
But to become a girl—<br/>
<br/>
And in particular, to become <i>this</i> girl—<br/>
<br/>
"Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?" You jerk back into the moment. How long has Sydney been trying to get your attention?<br/>
<br/>
"Just making sure you haven't checked out on me. Uh, if you're going to, um, change places with her, won't she have to change places with you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney gives you a very close look. "What I mean is, aren't we going to have to turn <i>her</i> into a copy of <i>you?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... So don't we have to make a mask of you, same as we're making a—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh! Right!" You blush at having been caught so flat-footed.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You had given Sydney all the mask material on hand last night, including both blank masks. It surprises you a little that she hadn't copied herself into one of them—she seemed all ready to take over the part of Amanda. But you lay out on the floor next to the bed and drop it onto your own face. You're not surprised that it knocks you out cold. Not that you feel anything, being knocked out cold and not being awake to have any kind of reaction, of course.<br/>
<br/>
But you are more than a little surprised when you wake to find a straw-headed kid staring down into your face. He has a crooked smile and eyes that easily twist into a kind of wince. He's hanging over the side of the bed with a sheet wrapped around him, exposing only his head, his neck and his bony,  naked shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
His mouth twists into an impudent grin. "You know," he chortles, "I could'a, like, totally smothered you in your sleep. Taken your place. Become the new and improved you."<br/>
<br/>
"What the—?" You scramble back and away.<br/>
<br/>
"Chill out, man." He rolls his eyes. "'Cept I guess <i>I'm</i> the one who's s'posed to be taking orders from <i>you.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
The only thing you can think to reply is, "Eep," but from somewhere else come the words you actually say aloud: "Where's Sydney?"<br/>
<br/>
"Locked herself in the bathroom. She told me she would if I didn't stop pestering her, and I didn't, so she did. Pft. Dumb of her. Like I said, if you hadn't woken up, I could'a taken your clothes and your keys off you and taken off in your truck. You should give me your clothes now though anyway, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ng'yum ..."<br/>
<br/>
Fortunately, just then a door opens and Sydney pokes her head in. "Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" you and your double reply.<br/>
<br/>
She makes a face. "Real Will." She glances between you. "You better not be trying some kind of thing, you know, pretending to be the <i>pedisequos</i> while he—"<br/>
<br/>
"Nah," your twin replies. "We were just getting changed. I just got through giving it my clothes. You done with Amanda's thing? 'Cos I'm all ready to put on her—"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up," you say, and the thing closes its mouth with a grimace. "It's me, Sydney," you say, scrambling to your feet. "I just woke up."<br/>
<br/>
Her expression remains wary as she comes into the room. "Well, you should give it your clothes so we can get rid of it—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey!"<br/>
<br/>
"And you can change in the bathroom if you want." She holds out a mask.<br/>
<br/>
"If you're going to be mean to me," the other Will Prescott starts to mutter.<br/>
<br/>
"I said, Be quiet." Then you cast a worried glance between the <i>pedisequos</i> and Sydney. "Um, it's supposed to be me," you remind her, "and we're going out together. Aren't we?"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course, Will. I'll be good to it, if that's what you're worried about. Well, good enough. I don't want you getting jealous of a thing that looks and acts just like you."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh God, you hadn't thought of that!</i> "Um, well, we should be getting you a, uh, a new identity too. Right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, but let's not rush into anything right away. Except this." She presses the mask into your hand. "You asked for it, so quit stalling."<br/>
<br/>
Your heart does a somersault, and when Sydney tugs you toward the bathroom door, you almost fall over.<br/>
<br/>
Inside the bathroom, you listen for voices on the other side of the door. Sydney says something, and your twin replies, and then they talk over each other, but you can't make out any of the words. The voices briefly come close to the bathroom door, and you hear soft footfalls on the carpet. Then a door closes.<br/>
<br/>
You wait a moment, holding your breath. Nothing happens.<br/>
<br/>
It preys on you, though, the question of what Sydney will be doing with your doppelganger while you're being Amanda. Will she treat him better or worse than she treats you? It hardly seems possible that she'll treat him exactly the same—more likely she'll either go overboard with being affectionate, or will be a little cooler toward him, a little more impatient, a little more dismissive.<br/>
<br/>
You can't decide which direction you'd like to see her err toward.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude," your double says through the door, and he taps softly. "You getting undressed?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hang on." <br/>
<br/>
When you've got your stuff off, you pull the door open a few inches and hurl it through, and you've just time to see the other's astonished expression before you slam the door shut again. "Get dressed and go home," you bark. It mutters back something that sounds like, "Alright, alright, Jesus!" and you hear the bedroom door open and close again. You fall onto the toilet.<br/>
<br/>
You're still holding the mask, and you turn it over to regard the inner surface: AMANDA MATHERS FERGUSON. <i>Funny middle name,</i> you think. <i>I wonder why they gave it to her.</i> Then: <i>Guess there's a quick way to find out.</i> You drop onto the floor, prop your back against the wall, and push the mask onto your face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You've got that "ice cream headache" again, and with a short grunt you knead your eye with a knuckle. <i>Dammit, I've got to stop knocking myself out.</i><br/>
<br/>
Then, with a rush, it comes over you: <i>I knocked myself out by putting Amanda Ferguson's mask on, which means I should be Amanda Ferguson now!</i><br/>
<br/>
And then the sequel thought as you look down: <i>Yeep!</i><br/>
<br/>
You've a shelf where your chest was: a shelf of snowy white breasts. Bluish veins and pink undertones glow beneath and within them. Something catches in the back of your throat, like a stifled hiccup. You pull your knees up to your chin—<br/>
<br/>
And nothing down below gets in the way.<br/>
<br/>
A little drool cups in the bottom of your mouth. You grit your teeth, and with tentative fingers explore between your thigh.<br/>
<br/>
Your fingertips touch a patch of tightly curled hair, like wire. Your palm covers it, and presses it. It yields ... and there's nothing inside it. Your finger searches ... and it finds a slit.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh my God!</i> Your head falls back against the wall with a thump. <i>I've got Amanda's body!</i><br/>
<br/>
You scramble to your feet, and feel hair tumbling to your shoulders. Amanda's surprised face stares back at you from the bathroom mirror.<br/>
<br/>
You gape. Then you remember who you're supposed to be, and close it with a snap.<br/>
<br/>
And that tiny snap is the rattling pebble that looses an avalanche. You reel as Amanda's memories—which were banked up someplace hidden—sluice into your head with a roar. You bow your head and grab the edge of the sink.<br/>
<br/>
A tap at the door, and Sydney's tired voice—"Will?"—lift you back up again. "Yes?" you call back.<br/>
<br/>
"Good, you're awake. Everything okay? Can you come out?"<br/>
<br/>
"In a minute, just let me—" <br/>
<br/>
But there's no clothes in the bathroom. They must be outside. With a sigh, you grab the door handle and wrench it open.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney falls back as you push into the bedroom. "Where's my things?" you ask. When she doesn't answer, you giver her a direct look. "Sydney."<br/>
<br/>
"On the bed," she stammers. "Um. Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes." You scrutinize the clothes, where are nicely folded.<br/>
<br/>
She relaxes with a short sigh. "Good. You're sticking around, aren't you? To talk?"<br/>
<br/>
You should. But Amanda has friends waiting.</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411
author_id: seuzz
title: The Old In and Out
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"What do we need to talk about?" you ask Sydney. On instinct you glance down for your cell phone—<br/>
<br/>
And then you're very conscious of the fact that you're naked.<br/>
<br/>
With a girl's body. A warm, gooey feeling, like melted caramel, gushes thickly through you.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what we're going to do with this girl, for a start," Sydney says, flicking a finger at you.<br/>
<br/>
"You mean, like, with Blake?" You clamber onto Sydney's bed to start sorting through your clothes. You'd love to scope yourself out in a mirror, but that doesn't seem like a good idea in front of your girlfriend. <br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, there's that, I guess. But there's also the Brotherhood."<br/>
<br/>
<i>The Brotherhood.</i> Amanda's instincts feel very close—tickling the bottom of your brain, like a frothing mass of ants—and you do a quick gut check on the topic of invoking demons.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Pff. There's no such thing as demons,</i> she tells you. <i>It'll be stupid, but do whatever.</i><br/>
<br/>
"I'm up for doing the Brotherhood still," you say as you shake out Amanda's panties.<br/>
<br/>
"Good. Because I don't want to waste a lot of time before getting started on it."<br/>
<br/>
You look up. "Do we have to do something tonight?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, no. But—"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I've got a party to go to—" You slide the panties up over your legs and tug them up around your hips. "And I'm supposed to help get it organized."<br/>
<br/>
"Can you spare five minutes at least?"<br/>
<br/>
Something in her tone catches your ear, and she frowns at you with eyes clouded with doubt.<br/>
<br/>
She looks gorgeous.<br/>
<br/>
You roll off the bed and onto your feet, and your breasts flop as hop three quick steps over to grasp her by the elbows. "I've got all the time in the world for you," you say as you look up into her eyes—<br/>
<br/>
Yes, up. A quick wave of vertigo washes over you as you realize that now, in Amanda's body and outside her boots, your girlfriend is a little taller than you are.<br/>
<br/>
You smile sweetly up at her. "I can stay with you. Kelsey and them can go hang."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney tenses a little, and her eyes grow shifty.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I don't need you <i>all</i> afternoon. Just a little while, just enough to— <br/>
Gmnph!" she says as you peck her on the lips.<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong?" you murmur. Still you hover at her mouth.<br/>
<br/>
"Will," she murmurs back in a muffled way. "Is Amanda a lesbian?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. But I'm still straight."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm." She hesitates, then gives you a quick tentative kiss back. "Look, Will," she says. "Um."<br/>
<br/>
"Um?" You brush the side of her nose with the side of yours.<br/>
<br/>
"I'd love you whatever you looked like, love you whatever, uh, parts you've got and whatever parts you don't—"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't like this?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. I mean, I do, but—" <br/>
<br/>
She seems to gather herself, before the rest rushes out. "I didn't go along with you on this just so we could have hot lesbian sex with each other."<br/>
<br/>
You step back. "You think I'm pushing you."<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"You think I'm forcing myself on you because I'm turned on by the idea of doing it with another girl while <i>being</i> a girl."<br/>
<br/>
"No!"<br/>
<br/>
"You think I'm just your typical horny guy who's turned on by lesbian porn, and want to get some of it for myself, and so I'm going to <i>force</i> myself—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus! Will!" Sydney steps back. Shocked mortification shows on her face.<br/>
<br/>
"Relax, Sydney, I'm just busting your balls." You look around for your bra. "I know what you're thinking and what you're trying <i>not</i> to think. Get used to the fact that I've gotten an upgrade and can probably keep up with you now. God, can't one girl kiss another without being a dyke? It's fucking presumptuous of you to think that, you know." You give her a look as you clasp the bra to your bosom, then wind it front-side forward to tuck yourself into the cups.<br/>
<br/>
And she blanches. For the first time since you've known her, Sydney looks completely wrong-footed.<br/>
<br/>
But she's not long in rallying. "Where did all <i>that</i> come from?"<br/>
<br/>
"From Amanda. You want to know what they say about you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Who? They? Who's they, who says—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Amanda and her friends. They say you're—"<br/>
<br/>
But she stops you with a raised hand. <br/>
<br/>
"No, no," she stammers. "I don't— Will— You— Uh— The point— Look, can we just focus on business?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'd love to focus on business." You shake out your blouse, which is crisply starched and very white. "I've been wanting to focus on business since I got here. Because I told you, I've got things to do, a party to help organize. It was a real fucking chore, you know, coming out here in fucking <i>summons</i> to a text."<br/>
<br/>
Now your girlfriend shows her teeth, and for a moment it looks like she's going to yell. "Is this you still being Amanda?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes." You leap at her again, catching her in your arms. "God, it's fun doing it to you."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
At Sydney's insistence, you calm down and start giving her a respectful listen. You finish dressing as she talks: the blouse, the short, black leather skirt, and the toeless, high-heeled boots cinched tightly around your ankles.<br/>
<br/>
She begins by pulling down an old Candyland board game box from a shelf high in her closet. "I started making these things after you said you were okay with making ourselves up a Brotherhood," she says as she opens the box and extracts two rods of polished, blonde wood. They are about a foot long, with a carved grip at one end and a knob at the other. It strikes you with a note of shock—and more than a little excitement—that they have the length, shape and heft of a dildo. <br/>
<br/>
You look up at Sydney from under a raised eyebrow.<br/>
<br/>
"They're meditation wands," she says, and if she's read your mind she doesn't show it. "You hold the haft in one hand, and cradle the shaft in the other." She demonstrates, gripping the hilt in her right hand and cupping the length in her left. She closes her eyes. "Then you concentrate."<br/>
<br/>
"On what?"<br/>
<br/>
"On whatever needs concentrating on. It's part of a, uh, multi-step process, designed to— to synchronize you with the plane where—" She turns just the slightest shade of pink. "With the plane where Baphomet dwells. At least," she adds in a quick mutter, "that's the way my dad's old papers put it."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh." Amanda's rock-like skepticism keeps you unfazed. "Are there any other instructions beyond—? Um—"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. That's why I wanted you to stick around, to show you the first step or two." You follow her back into the walk-in closet, which smells of freshly laundered fabric.<br/>
<br/>
She pushes aside some of her blouses, exposing a patch of wall behind. "You can't see it," she says, "but there's a door there. A door into, or out of—" Her brow furrows. "Well, it's a door for Baphomet to come through."<br/>
<br/>
"He comes through a door?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not the way you're thinking, Will. It's psychology, mostly, a psychological trick. That's the way I read the stuff my dad left behind." <br/>
<br/>
She freezes, and her gaze briefly turns watchful. Then she relaxes. <br/>
<br/>
"I sometimes forget that Nicholas isn't a problem anymore," she mutters, "and I worry about getting caught by him. But anyway, it's about belief. Getting yourself to believe in it. To <i>really</i> believe in it."<br/>
<br/>
Her expression curdles as she studies your face. "It's going to be hard talking you into this, isn't it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you can give it a try. Amanda's a total atheist—" You cluck your tongue over the idiocy of religious belief. "And normally she'd believe that magic is just a total shit show. Of course, look at her now." You let your lip curl. "So go on."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it can't be— It's not like—"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney gathers herself.<br/>
<br/>
"The way it's explained, there's like two kinds of belief. The first kind is all, just, like, the stuff you agree with. Oh, yeah, sure, New Delhi is the capital of India, Jupiter's the biggest planet in the solar system. Stuff like that, stuff you say 'Yes' to when someone asks you about it."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh."<br/>
<br/>
"But the other kind is the stuff that, like, you believe because it's right in front of you, and you can't help believing it. It pokes you in the eye. You don't just say 'Yes' to it, it would actually hurt if you said 'No.'"<br/>
<br/>
"Like?"<br/>
<br/>
She studies you. Then she grabs and kisses you. Her tongue is silky and succulent, and it explores your mouth like a snake darting for prey.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you believe I'm kissing you?" she murmurs when she pulls back for a second.<br/>
<br/>
You swallow. "Oh yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"Now, try to say 'No', Will. Try to say—" She nips at your tongue. "That I'm <i>not</i> kissing you. Try to believe I'm not kissing you," she says just before shoving herself back inside your mouth. <br/>
<br/>
"Wow," you mutter when she finally releases you. "That's—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hard to not believe? Yeah. That's the other kind of belief. The kind that puts its face into yours, grabs you by the ass, and dares you to look away."<br/>
<br/>
You swallow again. "And that—?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's the kind of belief you need to have in Baphomet. And that's the kind of belief—" She raises her meditation wand. "That <i>this</i> is supposed to give you."</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112
author_id: seuzz
title: Prelude to a Party
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"So," Sydney continues as you study the patch of wall where she insists there's an extra-dimensional door through which a demon can come, "I'll give you the instructions on making it. Be sure you match the designs exactly," she warns.<br/>
<br/>
"How do you draw them?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"With the wand." She touches the wall with the knobbed end of the wand she's holding. "You trace the frame of the door, and then draw symbols around the frame."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't see anything on your wall."<br/>
<br/>
"It doesn't leave a mark, Will. And you don't have scratch the paint, either. Just trace it." She drags the wand lightly over the wall. "There's also a chant to perform as you make each design."<br/>
<br/>
"And that makes a door for Baphomet to come through?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. So I only made my door last night," she adds with a nervous squirm, "and nothing's happened yet. But—" She bites her lip, and shivers. "I can already feel it coming."<br/>
<br/>
"Who? Baphomet?" For the first time you feel a small pang of alarm.<br/>
<br/>
"Something. Maybe just <i>belief</i> in him. In it. I— I've definitely started something. I can feel it." She shivers again, and her smile is pale.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
From another box she takes a sheaf of papers and thumbs through until she finds the one with the designs for the door. To Amanda's educated eye, the symbols resolve into Arabic letters and phonemes, though of course you can't read them.<br/>
<br/>
"It also helps," Sydney explains as she shows you out, "if at night after going to bed you concentrate for a little while on the mediation wand. Just hold it like I showed you and concentrate on the door you made. Get yourself to really believe that you traced a door inside your closet."<br/>
<br/>
"Does it have to be inside my closet?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, it can be anywhere. But the, uh, documentation says it's best of if you put it someplace you don't usually see it. If you put it out in the open, then it's easiest just to think there's nothing really there. If it's out of sight, then it's easier to believe it's real.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Just like it's easier to believe in monsters in the dark,</i> you reflect.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Amanda was running fifteen minutes late already when she stopped by to see Sydney; now you're an hour behind schedule as you leave. As you buckle yourself into the BMW, you take just enough time to check the increasingly irate texts from Kelsey. <i>I got caught by a thing,</i> you text her back. <i>Will be there when I get there.</i> You can easily imagine the exasperated "Pah!" she'll let loose when she reads it.<br/>
<br/>
The errands you have to run—to pick up snacks for Kelsey's party tonight—take you to three distant corners of town, which gives you lots of time to sink into and become comfortable with the circumstances of your new life. Not that you sit back and review your biography. You just let Amanda's reactions come, and follow each train of association. None of them bring a sense of surprise—for you <i>are</i> Amanda Ferguson now, and she's not the least bit surprised by anything that she knows and remembers.<br/>
<br/>
"They didn't have any of the crab cakes at Le Metropolitain," you announce an hour later as you breeze with a couple of paper bags into Kelsey's kitchen, where she's waiting with a slit-eyed glower. "So I got shrimp cakes instead."<br/>
<br/>
"You could have called," she snaps.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, but I decided not to. <i>You</i> don't have to eat anything you didn't pay for." <br/>
<br/>
Kelsey sniffs as from one bag you draw out one tinfoil tray of shrimp cakes (with horseradish dressing) and one stuffed with cold smoked salmon; from another you pull a box of margherita flatbread (with buratta cheese and basil chiffonade) from Ristorante Locarno; and from the third you take a deep dish packed with racks of ribs from Ray's BBQ. The latter leaves you feeling faintly nauseated—Amanda's reaction—but it's a favorite of the guys who'll be attending; and it's better than the BuenoPak of disgusting taquitos from Taco Famoso that Amanda has to fetch when Marc Garner attends.<br/>
<br/>
"So what did Sydney want?" Kelsey asks as you slide the food into a restaurant-sized oven and set the temperature to Warm.<br/>
<br/>
"Tch. God. She wanted to know about the Justice Issues club, the Global Awareness club, how to join them."<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey snorts again. "Little Miss Sydney-Come-Lately."<br/>
<br/>
"I told her we weren't taking new members." You open the refrigerator—another piece of stainless steel kitchen equipment that could serve a small restaurant, though Amanda has never seen more in it than a little almond milk, some condiments, and a few cases of San Pellegrino sparkling water. There's one of those in it now, and you take it without asking. "Bet she talks to Chelsea next, asking how to join the cheerleader squad." <br/>
<br/>
"Oh, to be a fly on the wall if she does. She was probably expecting to be <i>invited.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
You pant a little after knocking back the water. "Yeah, and she got pretty goddam pissy when I told her the clubs were closed to new members."<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey snickers. "No! You did? You told her—?"<br/>
<br/>
"What else was I going to say? And get this, you know what she said back? She asked if—she fucking <i>asked</i>—if we thought we had enough members already to solve all the world's problems."<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey rolls her eyes. "God, I'm so glad <i>you</i> were the one to talk to her. I'd have probably lost it if she said that to me."<br/>
<br/>
You return Kelsey's scowl with a light smirk and put the water back in the fridge.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Brooke Galloway arrives about twenty minutes later, and the three of you empty her minivan of freshly cleaned throws and pillows and cushions, and lug them upstairs to the party den. That's the room where the Saturday-night parties are always held, in Kelsey's private wing of the ridiculously overlarge McMansion her daddy owns. They always leave the furniture reeking of weed, and every Monday Kelsey packs up the soft goods to be steam-cleaned, and every Saturday Brooke or another one of her friends brings them back. Once unpacked, you scatter the floor with the cushions and pillows, the quilts and blankets, and the comforters, and throws. With all the low-lying furniture—including some lacquered Japanese chabudai tables and the zabuton to go with them—the room is soon sunk in a vaguely Oriental air of incipient debauchery.<br/>
<br/>
You've just got things arranged—involving a good thirty minutes of tweaking the cushion arrangements, and untweaking the tweaks that other girls have tweaked—when Martin Gardinhire arrives with the party favors: a large baggie of freshly rolled joints and another baggie of loose weed for smoking out of a bowl. While Kelsey is freshening up in the bathroom, you and Brooke distribute the weed around the room in little ceramic bowls.<br/>
<br/>
You've got one of the joints between your fingers when footsteps sound on the stairs and your boyfriend comes in. At least you manage to keep your expression neutral.<br/>
<br/>
Ricky Golia is a doughy little AP student with black-frame glasses and splotchy skin that somehow always looks like it's on the point of breaking out into a crop of zits without ever actually doing so. It's no complement to his complexion that he wears his hair short, turning his forehead into a blank billboard waiting to be scrawled over with acne. He's not unhandsome—his features are regular at least—but his nose and his mouth are small, his cheekbones are layered with baby fat, and his dark eyes (which blink and blink and blink and blink) gleam with only a nebbishy kind of intelligence. Today he's dressed in a dark polo shirt and cherry-red shorts that leave him looking paler and pudgier than ever.<br/>
<br/>
In your bare feet you're almost as tall as him. In your boots, you tower over him. "Hey," he croaks as he sidles up to you.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey." You turn your head as he goes up for a kiss, so that he catches you on the cheek. "Got a light?" You slip the joint between your lips.<br/>
<br/>
"Already?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't start with me, Ricky," you warn him. "Kelsey's been a bitch all afternoon. If we had any vodka I'd be drinking already."<br/>
<br/>
He pats his pockets. "I'll have to go get a lighter."<br/>
<br/>
"Do that." Behind him, you see Kelsey breezing past the open door. "I have to use the toilet."<br/>
<br/>
In the bathroom you run a stream of water in the sink as you tinkle into the bowl. After flushing, you soap and rinse your hands thoroughly and bathe your face. You are feeling very pale as you study your reflection. All the little flaws spring out at you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Don't let her fuck with your head,</i> you tell yourself as you make a face at yourself. <i>You're not the fat little girl you were in middle school, Amanda, when your fat ass blew out all those skirts you wanted to wear. So what that you're never going to be as skinny or as toned as Kelsey or the girls on the basketball or cheerleader squads. You're not an athlete. But you've got the right curves and you're soft in places that guys like their girls to be soft.</i> You plump out your breasts. <i>If Blake O'Brien has crush on you—</i><br/>
<br/>
You push away the thought of Blake, and how you're going to balance him and a boyfriend at the same time. You adjust your skirt, fluff out your hair, and with chin high exit the bathroom.<br/>
<br/>
Voices drift up the nearby stairs. One of them chills you: the voice of Lisa Yarborough.<br/>
<br/>
Besides a boyfriend, you'll have an ex-girlfriend to deal with at this party.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121
author_id: seuzz
title: Party and Postlude
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Ricky is in the den with a cigarette lighter when you emerge from the bathroom, and he awkwardly extends it toward you. You pick up a new joint—you put the other down where you forget—and the tip crackles as you inhale. <br/>
<br/>
"Thanks babe," you murmur as you draw a heavy waft of smoke down into your lungs. It's warm and pungent, and seems to lightly stroke and tickle the base of your brain. Loathing the gesture, but knowing it has to be done, you give him a quick nibble on the ear. "Love you lots."<br/>
<br/>
Like hell you love him.<br/>
<br/>
But you're lounging with him on some cushions, tucked inside a loose and sprawling embrace, when Kelsey comes in. "Well," she says with a bright, sharp smile. "Aren't we cozy as two bugs in a rug."<br/>
<br/>
You buzz into Ricky's ear: "Told you she was being a bitch." Kelsey can't have heard, but she gives you a narrow smile before bending over to rearrange some of the cushions whose earlier placement by her you had patiently corrected.<br/>
<br/>
More voices herald the arrival of the main body of partiers: Martin with Brooke; Brent Pruitt; Rachel Burton and Olivia Byrne in sheer party dresses and their hair done up; Anthony Kirk, dressed like Ricky in a polo shirt and shorts, but looking much more dapper and athletic (and bronzed; he's a golfer); and Geoff Mansfield and Lisa Yarborough.<br/>
<br/>
You can spare the latter two only a brief glance before you have to turn away. <i>Why does it hurt so much to see them with his arm around her hip?</i><br/>
<br/>
They've brought the food up with them, not only the stuff you brought but other snacks—deli meats and expensive cheeses, mostly—that is far higher toned than the usual chips and shit. Everyone gets settled, and Kelsey turns on the TV. She navigates it to a movie: something in black-and-white, in a foreign language.<br/>
<br/>
Not that anyone pays any attention to it, not even Kelsey. It's only there for mood. Instead, after everyone has settled in—you can't help noticing that Anthony has chosen Olivia for company on his cushion tonight—they all take out their cell phones and start scrolling through them.<br/>
<br/>
So do you. So many social media sites to keep up with. So many memes to find and comment on and like and share. So many tweets to read and expostulate over. So many videos to watch with pursed lips and arched eyebrows. On the TV, a man in a soiled suit and a woman in a beret argue with each other in French while pacing the sidewalks beside a damp, cobblestone street; in the den, the air grows hazy with marijuana smoke and the grumble of muttering as people share their cell phones with each other.<br/>
<br/>
You don't realize how badly you're buzzed until you find yourself wondering how that cat in the gif can eat so much.<br/>
<br/>
<i>It's looping,</i> you think. <i>No it isn't. It's a different cat, different cats eating the same food the same way. No, it's the same cat, I've just come back to it again. What was I watching between now and the last time I landed on it? I landed on it before, didn't I? I remember seeing it before. I've been watching it and watching it. I've seen this cat before, doing this. When? A couple of years ago? How many cats look like this one, a big fluffy calico cat, with hair draping off it like yarn. It would come away in fistfuls if you pulled at it. What an empty face it's got.<br/>
<br/>
Why am I looking at it?</i><br/>
<br/>
Your eye travels to the bottom, to the text embedded with the post: <i>Lisa Y.</i><br/>
<br/>
You blink at it. <i>Lisa why. Why Lisa? Why. It does look like Lisa, the cat. Fluffy and dumb, dumb and fluffy.</i> You stare at it, then lift your heavy head to blink at Lisa, who is canoodling with Geoff. <i>Dumb and fluffy, fluffy and dumb.</i><br/>
<br/>
Oh my God.<br/>
<br/>
Something toothed, like a lamprey, attaches itself to the side of your neck. "Uchh," you mutter and push Ricky away. He says something, and someone else says something back as you heave yourself onto tottering legs. A hand steadies you until you find your balance, then you stumble off toward the door.<br/>
<br/>
Water on your face doesn't clear the fumes. It only sharpens the sensation of time ticking and catching and lagging, second by second, as you hang on to the edge of the sink. <i>Oh God I'm here. Oh God I'm here. Oh God I'm still here. Still here, oh God I'm still here.</i><br/>
<br/>
It's Ricky who rescues you from this gif-like loop after who knows how long, pulling you back into the den. You grimace as he gropes at you, but you're too tired and distracted to stop him. At some point, though, you cease to be aware of what's going on around you, though the darkness that falls about you is as lagging and stuttering as the wakefulness you left.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your head is full of smoky, acrid fumes when you wake, but that's exhaustion, not hangover. Most of the others are moving already. Well, if not <i>moving,</i> they are awake: sprawled across cushions and blinking slowly behind drooping lids; hunched with their heads in their hands; curled up in with their faces in their knees. It's Kelsey as usual who whips them all into motion. She doesn't actually fetch a broom, but her screeching whine—"Come <i>on,</i> guys"—could scour the grime off a dirty saucepan.<br/>
<br/>
All the boys roll up and out the door, taking most of the garbage with them. Lisa leaves with Rachel, so that soon it's just you and Olivia and Brooke left behind with Kelsey. She taps furiously into her cell phone while you and the others strip off slept-in clothes and wrap yourselves in some terrycloth robes from her closet. Then you all troop downstairs and out through a small side door, where a narrow, shady sidewalk guides you to the Blankenship bath house. There, over the next hour, you girls alternate cold showers, hot steam rooms, and rehydrating bottles of sparkling water taken in a plant-stuffed atrium. No one talks much, and even the cell phones are put away.<br/>
<br/>
By ten o'clock you're all feeling human again—human enough to put on the fresh clothes that you all keep at Kelsey's—and start sniping at each other as you put on makeup in her bedroom.<br/>
<br/>
"So you and Anthony sure got on good last night," Kelsey tells Olivia as the three of you hunker in front of the vanity mirror. (There's only room for three, so Brooke—poor, rake-thin Brooke—has been banished to the bathroom, though she is listening with the door open.) "You need to be careful of him, you know."<br/>
<br/>
"No, Kelsey," you sigh, "she doesn't know."<br/>
<br/>
"Tch." Kelsey gives you a look in the mirror. "She's not clueless."<br/>
<br/>
Olivia says, "We were just, you know ..." She trails off.<br/>
<br/>
You sigh again. "Not everyone was paying attention, so no, Olivia, we <i>don't</i> know."<br/>
<br/>
She mutters something in the back of her throat. Kelsey says, "Well, as long as you're not <i>counting</i> on anything, you can have whatever fun you want with him."<br/>
<br/>
"You hear that, Brooke?" you call out. "Kelsey's giving Olivia permission."<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey drops her lipstick to glare directly at you. "Maybe someone should be in charge of giving <i>you</i> permission."<br/>
<br/>
You know what she's alluding to, but don't give her the satisfaction of showing a reaction. Instead, you ask Olivia, "Is there anything wrong with Brent?"<br/>
<br/>
"No," she says. "Why—Why are you—?"<br/>
<br/>
"No one's interested in Brent," Kelsey says. "Except maybe Martin."<br/>
<br/>
You can picture the look of hurt that must have just flashed over Brooke's face.<br/>
<br/>
Talk lapses, long enough for you to drop your powder into your bag and to tug at the very short hem of your very tight dress—navy blue, silk—and to toy with teasing Olivia with something like <i>It's too bad Michael on the swim team has a girlfriend</i> when Kelsey forestalls you: "I guess Geoff and Lisa have stopped pretending."<br/>
<br/>
"Pretending what?" You feel your heart in your throat.<br/>
<br/>
"So who's pretending now she doesn't know what I mean? You spent all night staring at them."<br/>
<br/>
You were? Now your pulse does race. Did you do anything else out of character? "I don't know what I was staring at," you insist. "I was pretty wasted."<br/>
<br/>
Instantly, you regret the words—they sound like a weak and desperate excuse to cover up an admission. Kelsey's smirk tells you that's exactly how she reads them.<br/>
<br/>
Olivia says, "They looked to me like they were, you know, into it."<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly. Lisa and her whole 'virginal' thing." Kelsey snorts. "I swear, Geoff was <i>this close</i> to dry humping her."<br/>
<br/>
Your stomach turns over.<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey likes to dress as a wild bohemian—this morning she's in a jean skirt stitched over with microbeads in an Anasazi design—but she long ago became transparently predictable, especially to a good friend like Amanda. The morning after a party is when she declares what behavior has pissed her off and who is going to get the business. Olivia will be one of them. Geoff and Lisa will be another. You could almost pity them.<br/>
<br/>
And you almost do, until you arrive at the country club for the usual Sunday brunch with most of the kids from last night. Rachel Burton has shown up as well; but Lisa has church.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, and Ricky is there too, of course. Your skin crawls as he lays his hand on your waist and walks you into the clubhouse.<br/>
<br/>
As was said, you could almost feel sorry for Geoff and Lisa, until your party of ten is sitting out on a patio overlooking the river, at a table covered with a crisp white tablecloth and decorated with a crystal bowl filled with flowers. For you're seated directly across from Geoff, and the longer you watch his smug face and listen to his horsey, superior laugh, the greater the temptation you feel to use this identity to amplify whatever misery Kelsey has planned for him. </span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212
author_id: seuzz
title: Some Backstory on Amanda
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Brunch at the country club is a thing of cheeses and cut crystal. The boys—noisy and brash—scoop up omelets and Belgian waffles and slabs of bacon; the other girls, more finicky, nosh on white cheeses, fresh fruit, and slices of lean ham; you pick at plump wedges of red grapefruit, scoops of low-fat cottage cheese, and paper-thin slices of prosciutto. The boys guzzle coffee; the girls sip juices; you nurse a flute of sparkling water. Talk is of the lameness of parents, the idiocy of high school teachers, and applications to college.<br/>
<br/>
After brunch, Geoff and Martin and Anthony and Rachel staying behind for a round of golf while everyone else splits. You catch a ride back to Kelsey's, where you collect your car. Sydney has been texting you, and once you're around the corner, you pull over to text her back. She lives nearby, and she wants to meet.<br/>
<br/>
She's outside when you pull up, and she meets you at the car. "My mom's home," she says. "I figure we can take a walk."<br/>
<br/>
<i>In these heels?</i> You make a face behind Sydney's back as she brushes past you toward the street.<br/>
<br/>
"So, did you do anything with the meditation wand last night?" she wants to know.<br/>
<br/>
"I had a party, I'm just now getting away."<br/>
<br/>
She gives you a sidelong look. "Some party."<br/>
<br/>
"It was at Kelsey Blankenship's. You've heard of her parties?" It irritates you when she only shrugs. "We close off her wing of the house and go all night."<br/>
<br/>
"A wing?" Sydney echoes. "She's got a freaking <i>wing?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"You have a wing." You glance back the pile of stone blocks where she lives.<br/>
<br/>
"I have a bedroom <i>en suite.</i> Okay, yeah, all to myself, and on the other side of the house from— What are you rolling your eyes for?"<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't rolling my eyes."<br/>
<br/>
"Will, sweetheart, I think you must be channeling Amanda again."<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry," you mutter. <i>Not sorry,</i> you silently add, then kick yourself mentally.<br/>
<br/>
"I want us to keep on pace," Sydney continues. "We've got nine more of these pedies we need to make—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Pedies?</i> you almost ask. Then: <i>Oh. Pedisequos.</i><br/>
<br/>
"—so we can't waste time with each one."<br/>
<br/>
"So why don't we grab a bunch of them, all of them, get it all done at once?"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney grunts. "I was thinking of that, and maybe we will. Thing is, I'm not sure about these things, if they'll work. I mean, the ones we make that don't have <i>us</i> inside them. Nicholas seems normal and all—" She makes a face. "And I get the feeling he'd be on top of me and doing things if I didn't have a chain on him. But I also can't shake the feeling that he's not, well, <i>real.</i> And I don't know if something that isn't real can, you know, <i>believe</i> in things like the way I told you yesterday that Baphomet needs—"<br/>
<br/>
"Sydney, my darling, can you please slow down?" You clutch at her, pulling her to a standstill. "You're in tennis shoes, but I'm in these things." You flex an ankle inside one of your toeless boots.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney glances down. "Oh, I was meaning to ask where Amanda got those."<br/>
<br/>
"Anbrog."<br/>
<br/>
"The hell?"<br/>
<br/>
"Anbrog. The Shoppes at Fells Lake?" She shakes her head, and you sigh. "Up behind Northgate. The <i>real</i> shopping district. Anbrog, Chesterbrook, Eve, Cafe Oro."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't know there was a place back there."<br/>
<br/>
You smirk. "So you're asking I should take you? We need to buy mask supplies anyway, and you said the Brotherhood would provide."<br/>
<br/>
Her expression turns skeptical. "We need to buy supplies, but I think that should be all."<br/>
<br/>
"So do I." You sniff. "After the things I was saying about you to Kelsey yesterday, it would be really funny if anyone caught us out shopping together."<br/>
<br/>
"Will," Sydney says. "You're channeling her again."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It probably wouldn't do to be seen together even at a hobby supply store, so you and Sydney split up the shopping list and spend the afternoon hitting up separate stores. Your trip is complicated by repeated text blasts from Kelsey and Olivia and Eva Garner and even from Lisa at one point, most of them containing links to Instagram posts or x2z threads with gossip to be savored or deplored. You're too preoccupied to participate, though you do snap at and tuck away one morsel. You're picking up plaster at Michaels when you spot Karl Hennepin in one of the aisles. He doesn't see you, so you're able to take a quick picture of him with your phone. <br/>
<br/>
You don't upload it anyplace, though. You'll just keep it in your album until you can think of a really catty meme to use it in. Then you'll post it to x2z anonymously as a swipe at Kelsey. She's been fucking Karl in dirty motel rooms for the past few weeks. She thinks it's a secret; probably everyone at school knows about it though.<br/>
<br/>
So she's one to talk when she snipes that someone should be giving or withholding permission from <i>you.</i> It rode all over you that you couldn't fling Karl back in her face when she said that this morning.<br/>
<br/>
And, naturally, thinking of that—and of Anthony and Olivia, and of Geoff and Lisa, and of others—puts you back to thinking how you can use Amanda to get at Blake.<br/>
<br/>
Though the more you turn it over in your mind, the more you think it won't be as much of an issue as it should be.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"They're doing it at the Donna," you explain to Sydney as you show her the picture of Karl on your phone. "Which is really fucked up, because it's Kim Walsh's dad who owns the Donna, and Kim and Kelsey are supposed to be friends, so for her to be doing it there, practically under Kim's nose—"<br/>
<br/>
You're in the school basement again with the supplies. You and she are carving runes into a new pair of brain bands while the fake Will Prescott hunches in the corner with a car buffer, polishing the first of the two new masks you cast.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney smiles briefly, and bends her head back over her work. "That's interesting," she says with patent insincerity, "but what's it got to do with what I was asking you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I was just following a train of thought. She acts like she's got clean skirts, but—" You deflate when Sydney gives you another look. "I got in trouble— Amanda got in trouble," you correct yourself, "at the start of the year. It was out at the Warehouse. She got a little toasted— Oh, fuck that, she was krunked. And she grabbed hold of Laurent Delacroix and got his shirt off him and tried sucking his man-titties off him. Someone got a picture of her doing it, too, and posted it on x2z. Kelsey did her best to cover for Amanda, and isn't letting her forget it."<br/>
<br/>
"Why, was there something wrong with her making out with Laurent?"<br/>
<br/>
"She's got a boyfriend who isn't Laurent. Technically, she has a boyfriend. Tch. Theoretically."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney's expression turns hooded with curiosity, so you expound on Amanda and Ricky, painting as unflattering a portrait of him as possible, and relating how she can barely tolerate him. So why are they going out? Sydney asks. You shrug. "It was a thing that just happened, back in their sophomore year. They're in the same classes, their parents are friends, they hang out together. It just seemed natural at the time that they'd be going out, and Amanda, well—" <br/>
<br/>
You make a face. Though you don't mind humiliating this girl that you're pretending to be, you still feel reined in by her own reticence and pride, and so don't want to say anything about how she was still self-conscious about being "chunky," and so was desperate to validate herself by getting  a boyfriend, but couldn't imagine any of the really hot guys being interested in her.<br/>
<br/>
You compromise by saying, "Amanda wanted to have a boyfriend before Kelsey or anyone else got one, so when she realized that Ricky was interested in her, she decided to go out with him. Be a couple. And now she's stuck. She can't break up with him for anyone else."<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, Sydney. It would be like admitting she made a mistake. Besides, there's no one else to dump him for."<br/>
<br/>
"Not even Laurent?" Sydney smirks.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck, Amanda would push Ricky under a train to get to Laurent. But it's a fucking class thing. She'd have to dump Ricky for one of the other guys in her circle. For Anthony Kirk or Martin Gardinhire—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Or Geoff Mansfield.</i> Your heart thumps as you think of Geoff smiling at you.<br/>
<br/>
"—or one of them. But that'd be fucked up, dumping your boyfriend for one of his friends."<br/>
<br/>
"It happened all the time at my old school back in Kansas City."<br/>
<br/>
"That's because your old school was full of tramps."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney's head whips up. <i>"What?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"I'm channeling Amanda again. I don't mean it, Sydney. But that's what she'd say. It happens all the time at Westside, too. But it's a trash thing to do. And there's no one <i>outside</i> her circle who's good enough for her in a class way. So she's stuck."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney's expression turns incredulous. "Who says there's no one outside her circle good enough?"<br/>
<br/>
"Her and the people inside her circle. They're up here—" You raise your hand over your head. "And everyone else is somewhere down here." You lower your hand between your knees. "At least, that's what they think."<br/>
<br/>
"So you're saying that Blake isn't her type?"<br/>
<br/>
"Blake is totally her type, Sydney. Amanda would push Ricky under a train, then drag him over and throw him under a second train, to get to Blake."<br/>
<br/>
"But if she's got a boyfriend—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm going to cause a scandal, Sydney." You crack your knuckles. "I'm going to put Amanda in the middle of the biggest fucking scandal Westside ever saw."</span></div></div>


