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A high school student finds a grimoire that shows how to make magical disguises. |
Previously: "Even a Football Player Has Weak Spots"  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. You glance back into the driveway. But there's only your truck parked there. "Is she here already?" "No, I don't think she's coming." "What?" Sydney grabs you by the arm and yanks you inside. 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. This is where the rich folk live, 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. Well, Sydney lives off this way, it turns out. 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. 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. 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. "I don't ever have guys up here, just him and me, with the door closed." "No?" you squeak. "No. Nicholas's rule, but fuck him. It would be my rule anyway, though. I don't want guys getting the wrong idea." 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. "I won't get the wrong idea," you promise her. "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—" 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." 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. "Maybe she got lost," you suggest. "I had a hell of a time finding this place." "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." You chew on the inside of your cheek and smile wryly to yourself. 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, Only you. And the ones we're going to make. 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. 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. 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 stacked. "Oh," Sydney says with feigned surprise as comes in. "This is my boyfriend, Will." 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. "So," Sydney continues. She crosses to the window and leans against the sill. "The school clubs I was asking about—" "I don't think we're taking new members." "You have to apply for membership?" Sydney sounds surprised. 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." "Why not?" Amanda crosses her arms and shrugs and looks everywhere but at you and Sydney. Your girlfriend gives you a sidelong look. "Well," she says, "how do you go about setting up a new club?" Amanda looks nonplussed. "I don't have any idea." Then: "What kind of club?" "Well, it isn't so much a club as it is a kind of cult." "A cult?" Amanda's brow furrows. 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. But Amanda only returns her a tired smirk. "Cute," she says. "But if you just called me out here to waste my time—" 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. * * * * * 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. "There aren't any." "I can see that, I'm wondering—" "They don't come with toes, Will." Sydney glances back from the blouse she's undoing. "It's a style." 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. How short is she without the footwear? you wonder. 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. "Leave it to you to what?" "To change." "Were you going to put on the mask?" Sydney's eyebrows arch further. "Were you planning to?" 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 pedisequos 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. Like, what if she decides she actually likes the asshole? She admitted once upon a time that he was her type. Next: "A Flesh Exchange" |
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