This choice: Try tackling Frank with Joe's help • Go Back...Chapter #40The Ambush by: Seuzz   "Tell Frank--" you start.
"Which one?" Joe interrupts.
"The one who's driving, to head over to the old elementary school near my house. You remember, the basement."
"What's the deal?"
"I'll explain when I see you. Keep your companion under control, okay?" You turn off the phone and turn to the golem, who has been watching dubiously. "Look, you wanna be free of Frank, right?" He nods. "Then don't argue. Just go with me over to the clubhouse and help me out."
You lead him downstairs, past the kitchen, where you shout to your Mom. "Rob-- I mean, Will and me are going to play basketball."
She looks up from the counter, where she's cutting vegetables. "You finish your homework, Will?"
"Mom!" he cries.
"If your father--"
"Mom!" you whine. "Come on, you're always saying we need to do more stuff together."
She rolls her eyes and waves at you dismissively. The two of you dash out and jog quickly down to the school, where Will unlocks the door, and the two of you wait.
It's about ten minutes before the Durrases pull up. Joe looks shiftily between you and the golem before nodding at the latter. "What's up?"
You raise your hand. "Over here." He looks startled. "I had to make a deal with Frank before he'd let me out."
"Went for option three, huh?" the Frank-golem says sardonically. "I'm disappointed in you, Prescott."
"Shut up. You're one to talk, you asshole." He flushes at your rebuke, but follows you into the basement. The Will-golem lingers near the doorway; Joe follows with much obvious reluctance.
You turn to confront Frank--a rather terrifying thing to do, as he's a full head taller than you. "I'm going to need your face, Frank.
"How come?" His frown is ferocious.
"I just do. It's for your boss."
"I better clear it with him first. This whole thing seems really fishy." He takes out his phone, but he moves slowly; it appears to have qualms about what it thinks it has to do.
"Joe, grab him," you say, and Joe, after a moment's hesitation, grabs the golem around the torso. The latter is too startled to fight back, but it's still a touch-and-go moment as you grab at his face. The mask comes off, and the transformed Lucy reappears.
"Well, we've got a matched set again," you mutter, jerking your chin toward the corner where Cindy is hidden. "And now we can talk."
"The fuck is going on?"
"We need to take down Frank, today, this afternoon." You point at your face. "He plans to trap me like this. It isn't the worst place in the world, and as this little asshole's older brother, you've no idea how hard it is for me to admit that. But I can't let him get mixed up in this."
"You had something to do with it, I think," Joe says.
"And now I'm trying to fix it. I fucked up earlier today. Or, he outsmarted me. Whatever. You weren't there, you didn't know what he was threatening to do to me." You shudder.
Joe glances down at the mask in your hand. "So you're planning to go out to see him as his own double."
You nod. "Get Lucy undressed while I change out of Robert's shit.
As you change, you fill Joe in on the day's events. "Cocksucker," he mutters. "Oh, he's smart enough when he has to be, God damn it. I hope you're smart enough, too," he adds, as he holds the Frank mask out to you.
You smile grimly as you put it on. It's like being hit in the face with a hammer: If Joe's mask gave you a feeling of lightness and energy, Frank's mask exudes raw strength. You tremble with suppressed power as his form and mind enclose your own, and your cock springs up like a battering ram. You flex and stretch an arm, and snap your teeth hungrily.
"Awesome," you mutter. "I can see why fucking Blackwell likes being here." Joe looks at you in alarm, and you force yourself to shrink and relax. "But it's just until we rescue the real one. Anyway--" You look down at your hands. "I haven't got any of his real power. Just the face."
"You know, it's only a little less creepy having you inside there than having that thing inside it," Joe says, jerking his chin at Lucy. "And how does it help us deal with the real one?"
"You're supposed to be the smart one, haven't you got a plan?" you retort.
"You mean you were counting on me to--?" He squeezes the bridge of his nose and sighs. "We'll have to knock him out. Trap him. Put him inside a mask. A golemized mask. Your brother's?"
"You know," the Will-golem calls from near the door. "My phone's been ringing, and I think it's tall, dark and scary."
Your eyes and Joe's meet. "You haven't answered, have you?"
"Do I look stupid?" Frank's personality almost forces the obvious answer from you, but you bite it back. "We put him under the Prescott mask," you say in a low voice. "It's under Blackwell's control. Is Straussler still MIA?" Joe nods. "Then there'll be very little risk of it running into its master."
"Okay. I'll call Frank," Joe says. "If you're not answering your phone, ten to one he'll order us over to your house to see what's up. That'll be the excuse we need to take Will there back with us."
You try not to think about what will happen when you take the Will-mask off your brother out at Blackwell's.
* * * * *
Joe has predicted Frank's reaction to a tee, and the three of you bundle into the truck and drive back out to the villa; along the way you settle on a plan to ambush Frank. And so, as you dismount from the truck, Joe seems to split into two identical copies of himself, which briefly grin at each other before one of them--the real Joe--trots around back to scale the wall. The Will-golem stares in open amazement, but with Frank's memories you're well-prepared for the "Gemini" illusion, and with a word to the golem lead it and the magical hologram of Joe into the house.
Frank ignores you and glowers at Prescott. "Explain yourself," he says in a voice that is all the scarier for being so quiet.
"Like I told these assholes," he whines in a way that makes you cringe, "Robert wasn't at home, so I couldn't grab him."
"And why didn't you answer your phone?"
"I knew you'd yell at me?"
"Yo, me," you call. "Want me to fetch Lassie?" You cross over to the French window, so that Frank turns his back to the library entrance. Just in time, too, for you catch a brief glimpse of the real Joe flashing past, into the kitchen.
He hesitates, then shakes his head. "No. But since Robert is being a problem, we'll just leave Prescott where he is." He sweeps a glittering spike from the desk, and before you can stop him he drives it deep into your doppelganger's forehead. "Welcome back to your old life."
Your knees weaken: now Robert is trapped as you, and you don't have a mask to put onto Frank. At that moment Joe hollers from the kitchen: "Oh God, mother! Blood! Blood!"
Frank gapes, and with three quick strides is out the room. A moment later you're after him, just catching sight of the Joe-illusion evaporating as you pass. In the kitchen entrance you find Joe smiling grimly over Frank, who is sprawled on the floor. The ruins of a "sleeping web" waft from the edges of the doorway. "Prescott!" he calls over your shoulder. "Get your face in here!"
"Won't do any good," you say. "Frank nailed it in onto Robert." You briefly describe what happened in the library.
Joe groans. "Shit. And we can't get it off, can we?"
"Only the crafter of the nail can remove it." You nudge Frank with your toe. "And I doubt he'll want to do that for us."
"We still have your brother's mask," he says in a strained voice. "We can use that."
"It'll need to be bound, and you and me are both golems. We don't have any essentia to use as an agent."
"Surely Blackwell has an old hairbrush or something around here. For his beard?"
"I don't know if hair comes with an expiration date. You wanna take that kind of risk?"
"I can run back home and get some of mine off my old hairbrush."
"Same deal. And what if some of Frank's is mixed up with yours?"
"I don't let him touch my shit." You give him a skeptical look, and he sighs raggedly. "Well, fuck. I'll just go find someone from school. That'll actually be safer than using Blackwell's. And we got enough knockout stuff, we can keep him sleeping until I get back."
"Or," you say, seizing on a sudden idea. "We can put his head in the stripping sigil and try stripping Blackwell's anima out of the band."
"Dude!" he cries in horror. "That's all kind of fucked up!"
"It's a long-term solution."
"Only as a last resort! A very last resort!"
There are no immediately happy solutions, and after another fifteen minutes of argument you can come up with no others.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author