Masks: Chapter 2
A/N:
Watch out for typos.
I'll fix the madness... I promise. As soon as I can. When it goes away, this longwinded A/N will go away too. But I can't slow down to do it just yet. So until then... please try to read your way *around* the errors in this chapter if you can, and listen for the story between the lines, rather than in the grind of the mechanical problems.
Yours,
C.
Alex is never going to speak to Justin again- that's what she tells herself. God, he's such a jerk. She doesn't know why she bothers with him. She's not even going to let him host the fundraiser. Nope, no way, forget it. She'll just have to figure something else out for the venue... Yeah, and something will come along. It always does. She will not, absolutely will not, ask Justin for help with this. Or, for that matter, with anything else. Ever again.
Two days later, she goes to Wiz-Tec to look for him. They need to talk about the catering, and the DJ, and the costume he's going to be wearing to the Masquerade.
(Some things never change.)
(It's just a dance they like to do.)
It's about eleven at night when Alex walks into Wiz-Tech, through the door this time. Sure, magic is more convenient. But even Alex knows that sometimes a subtle entrance is more effective than a dramatic one. Especially if she wants Justin to be relaxed... and she wants him relaxed. At ease. Open to manipulation. She just has a feeling that he's going to be a stubborn ass about the whole costume thing.
Besides, she's on friendly terms will all the doors anyway. Almost all the main doorways at Wiz-Tech are charmed, magical, and essentially alive. They've been alive for what must be hundreds of years, and Alex sometimes wonders what it would take to put them back to sleep again, or if it could even be done. They've gotten to know her pretty well, the doors, over the nine months of so since Justin became headmaster. Because to be honest, she comes here a lot. Usually in the middle of the night.
But she prefers it that way. This is, admittedly, partly because she knows Justin will be here; The thought of him here all alone, hemmed in by dark old walls and the phantom echo of spent magic hurts her in a way she wouldn't want to have to talk about. But it's not just that. There's also the fact that she prefers not to cross paths with any of the other faculty members, thanks. Alex doesn't like the way they look at her.
Oh, they have to be civil, of course... they answer to Justin now, and he wouldn't put up with his underlings being outright mean to Alex. But she feels their barely-concealed dislike prickling along her skin like legs of insects crawling over her. She knows what they think of her, can almost hear them : Why it's Alex Russo, the infamous Wizard who nearly brought about the end of the Wizard World... twice. Alex Russo, Rulebreaker. Troublemaker. Undisciplined. Alex Russo, who only won her family's Wizard Competition because her older, obviously more talented brother has a heart of gold - and thank goodness he retained his powers, what a waste that would have been! And, of course: Alex Russo, whose most recent fame is a lack of discernment in love, who will date anything magical with a pulse and two legs - well, if you could call it dating!
(If you could call it love.)
No thanks. She'll just deal with Justin, thanks all the same.
She goes hunting for Justin in his Headmaster's Office: he's not there. She checks the faculty lounge, a small tight room that always whiffs faintly of stale magic and old-people feet- but he's not in there, either. Huh.
Frustrated, Alex makes her way toward the school's cafeteria, although it's unlikely even Justin would be desperate enough to eat in that hellhole... She wonders, fleetingly, if he's gone to the 'Rock without her. There's an unexpected pang in the area of her ribcage that comes with that thought.
She thinks he's still here, though. She just has a feeling.
Behind the cafeteria counter, a lone Ogre stirs at an evil-looking pinkish entre, something pocked with gelatinous bits and what could very well be some kind of worms. Or maybe noodles. It's hard to tell the difference, which is one of the reasons Alex isn't sorry. As she approaches, the attendant glances up, first with boredom and then with alarm. His voice is thick and deep. "Heyy, wait, I know you! You're Alex Russo, you can't come in here! You're not-"
"Okay, it's alright, take it easy," Alex soothes, holding up both palms to show she's not armed, or anything. "I'm just looking for my brother. Justin Russo?"
"Professor Russo's probably in the lab," offers a small voice, behind her. Alex turns to look for its owner.
"...Melvis?"
"Yeah," smiles the boy, face half-hidden by a stack of books and papers at a corner table. Melvis, small but certainly not as small as she remembers him, is one of Justin's former delinquents. Alex is honestly a bit surprised to find him here at Wiz-Tech, where, well, where the good students usually belong. Of course, he did have a good teacher. Justin's one of the best.
(Not that she'd admit it to his face, of course.)
After she tells him how good it is to see him (really, it is), finds out when he'll be graduating (next year...? Wow. Guess time really does fly), Alex gets directions that will her to the chemistry lab. She resists the urge to ruffle his hair and pinch his cheeks, and prowls off to find her brother.
They were good directions. She finds him right where Melvis said he would be, rattling around in in a big old room toward the back of this wing of the building.
The room that seems to be evenly divided between laboratory and classroom. The part of the room that's a lab is all science-y, papered the tall shelves lined with jars of nightmare things in drifting in formaldehyde, the walls papered with maps and posters of elemental spells, counters crammed with complicated-looking gizmos that Justin probably knows the names of. There are several workstation islands with the kind of black rubbery tops that won't be injured by chemical spills or dissecting knives. There are drains in the floor. The classroom side, with the regular desks, is less interesting, except for the fact that it's draped with scaffolding and there are painters' ladders standing here and there.
Justin's back is to her, as he stands at one of the workstations measuring something from a curved glass jug into a squat black cauldron. He can't see her from there, so he startles her more than a little by announcing casually: "The answer is still no, Alex."
"Wha- hey! How did you know it was me! She stamps her foot, and the heel of her shoe clicks against the floor as neatly if she were wearing tap shoes.
"Because," Justin says, turning with the hint of a smirk on face, "Of that. None of my chemistry students wear heels, Alex.:
"Or spend all night at school like dorks," she mutters, pretending to examine her nails. She waves a hand at the scaffolding. "What's with the under-construction stuff?"
"That side is getting a new paint job and some general touching up - they do it once every hundred years or so." He turns back to his task, squinting at the deep blue liquid he's slowly emptying into the cauldron. "And it's still no. I might have let you talk me into asking the school board to host your Benefit here- and I must be crazy for doing it, by the way- but I am not... repeat not... wearing... a halloween costume," he growls, stoppering the curved glass bottle and putting it away on a shelf. "It's... undignified."
Alex says nothing, not yet. She just sidles up to him gingerly, to get a better look at what he's doing. The cauldron, though smallish, looks remarkably heavy. The dull metal that it's made of, so black it's nearly blue, refuses to reflect the light; it almost seems, almost, to suck it in. Trippy, she thinks, peering in. A thick indigo liquid swirls in the cauldron's belly, glistening.
"It's magic-resistant," Justin says softly, following her gaze. "The cauldron, not the spell."
Alex frowns. "That's a spell?"
"Sure is. Or rather, it's a magical element. Magical elements both contain and comprise spells," he explains, sinking comfortably into his know-it-all mode. "It's important for students to learn how they work before they encounter them in the real world."
Alex looks at him, blankly. "Why?"
"Because with magic, anything can happen." He sighs at Alex. "Look, if you're going to stand around making fun of me, you could at least make yourself useful. Get me that yellow vial over there, will you? The little one."
Not normally one to take orders, she figures she'd better humor him if she's going to get him into a costume in time for the party. Following his gaze, Alex extracts a small glass vial full of a sparkling, sunshine-colored liquid from a nearby cabinet, lifting it toward the light to see it better. "Hey, this one's pretty. Is it a spell too?" She tips it one way and then the other, watching it sparkle in the light. When Justin sees what she's doing, he stops messing with the cauldron and grabs her wrist, steadying it.
"Alex!" he yelps. "Be careful!"
She frowns. "What's the deal?"
"These elements… look, they can never be combined directly… that's what the diluting solution is for, it weakens the base compound, and then..." But Alex starts to get that blank she gets whenever Justin tries to teach her anything important.
Sensing she's only a syllable or two from away checking out completely, he tries again. "Look, these two things? The blue stuff in the cauldron and the yellow spellmix catalyst in your hand? They're too closely related in the table of magical elements… uh, how can I say this in layman's terms… they're too strong together, and at the same time too unstable. Together. Separately, they're fine. But if they were combined without any kind of filter or dilution to mask the more intense qualities of both, the result would be unpredictable."
Alex turns the vial of catalyst, the thing that looks like captured light, from one side to the other, watching it sparkle. She's listening, but, not that much. "Volatile, Alex," her brother insists, peering into her face to make sure she's listening. "Catastrophic, maybe."
Alex rolls her eyes. God, he can be so dramatic. "Okay, okay, I get it. Thanks for the small words. Can we just get on with it, Bill Nye? I have other things to do after we get this whole convincing-you-to-wear-a-costume issue behind us, y'know."
Justin grimaces knowingly. Other things to do. A date. In the middle of the night. Naturally. "Anyone I know?"
Alex's face stays blank; she doesn't want to get into it. "Doubt , should I just pour this thingy here into-" with extravagant gestures, she holds the beaker over the black mouth of the cauldron, as if she's going to tip it in.
"ALEX!" Justin screeches, seizing her wrist. "I need to strain that through the filter first!"
She giggles. "Just kidding… sorry. Come on. Let's do this thing."
With Alex's "help", the measuring and re-measuring (safety first!) takes longer than it should (way, way longer), giving Alex a chance to give her brother a going-over several more times while they work on it.
"It's a masquerade, Justin... a costume ball, ever hear of it? Everyone will wearing a costume!"
"No."
"Look, I'll go shopping with you. I get off work early tomorrow and-"
"No, Alex!"
His little sister bites her lower lip (no lipstick this time unless she's bitten it off), a small frown creasing the place between her eyes, and Justin's heart clenches.
They're in the final steps of preparing a chemical-magical mixture for the next day's lesson, now. Justin is about to transfer the contents of the cauldron into a large vat, passing it through some sort of chemical filter on the way. The fat little cauldron is just as heavy as it looks, and Justin is more than a little gratified to watch Alex pretend not to be impressed when he lifts it with ease. At least she's been pressed into service while they argue, currently holding the spellmix catalyst until he needs it.
"Please, Justin?"
Be strong, he counsels himself, but when she tips her head just enough so that she can peer up at him through her thick lashes, Justin thinks uneasily of the big dark eyes he's seen on certain wild creatures in the forest that stretches away from the boundaries of the school. Justin thinks of being watched through leaves, by eyes as motionless as the shadows between the trees.
Justin looks away. "No. I've already told you. There's no way I'm wearing a costume."
She's silent for a beat or two, then he feels her light touch on his arm. Sliding down along the sleeve of his lab coat. Burning into the gap between his sleeve and the thick rubber glove that protects his hand. He feels himself tense, feels himself getting agitated. Why won't she take 'no' for an answer? She's so… difficult!
"Please?"
"Alex, I already told you, it's-."
He's about to say the word 'impossible', or something else that means the same thing, when his sister's fingers slip under his glove, into his palm. Her fingers brush his immediately-sweaty skin (he has big glands), stroking, like she wants to hold hands with him. Professor Russo is holding the volatile chemical so he can't, not that he would anyway, but the sudden touch startles him so badly that he flinches (they don't hold hands, they don't do that!) and jerks away, pulling hard to the right, taking the cauldron with him.
...Right into Alex, who sidesteps with her usual scary-fast feline grace.
The glass beaker she's holding isn't so lucky.
…Neither of them, though, is quick enough to prevent what happens next. As the beaker in Alex's grip meets the thick metal whatever magic-resistant (or magic containing) element the cauldron is made of, there's a high, sweet ringing that seems to hang above their heads, hovering…
…and it shatters.
The viscous indigo stuff seems out, drooling into the dark mouth of the cauldron as if it had had that destination in mind all along. It stains Alex's fingers on the way: days from now, she'll still be scrubbing it off. For now, though, she has more important things to worry about. When the bright yellow catalyst meets the ink-blue spell dancing in the cauldron, there's a dazzling, blinding flash- She closes her eyes...
When she opens them, the whole world is on fire. The room is engulfed by flame. Not an ordinary orange-and-yellow but a dazzling, flickering dance of hungry tongues of emerald green fire that licks up the walls and rolls across the floor like waves on some haunted sea, but fast, so fast that there's no time to run. She's stuck, staring, as the flames reach her and roll up her legs. Her vision clouds, transformed green, and Alex shrieks...
There's no pain.
She stops, catching her breath, gasping, trying to understand over the pounding of her heart, the fog in her eyes.
Justin?
Is she shouting or just calling to him from the inside of her head? Sound, like time, has gone funny. Warped. But it makes no difference either way, because as she says his name, he's there.
Alex!
He's there, but she can't reach him. He seems to be a long ways away, although she can see him right next to her. She's on fire, but she's not in pain. The flames feel... cold. No, not even that. They feel like nothing at all, like air rushing of her skin... and there's a rushing in her ears, she can't hear herself... the world looks as though she's seeing it through green glass. Everything feels...
(volatile)
...strange. But she's not burning. She's not burning. Her clothes are fine. Her skin does not sear. Even Justin looks unharmed, green but okay otherwise. As the green flames lick up his shins and silhouette his body in the weird light, he looks different, she thinks. Unreal. Like a storybook character, almost, shining... like a hero from a myth. He looks beautiful, she realizes, with a start...
...with a feeling like something sliding into place inside her head. Or maybe her ribcage. Alex pushes the thought away, hard.
Alex! Justin is shouting, or whispering, or thinking. Alex, look!
She turns just in time to take in the arrested wonder of his gaze, his gaze reflecting her own, to see without wanting to see, that his eyes are as full of her as hers are of him. (Her mind rebels, backing away.) And then she sees what he's pointing at... something is burning after all.
High above them, between the painter's ladders (both of which are untouched), the painters' work-in-progress is slowly and surely being peeled away. Layer by layer, the hungry green flames eat the bright new colors, then they swallow the drywall, gobbling it as if they'd been starving, been waiting for this chance... and instead of the blackened (or greened?) stonework Alex might expect, or even the burned-black of ancient support beams... something emerges from beneath the cleansing flame.
There's something written on the wall. She squints through the blaze, through her confusion and slow-burning fear.
There is no light, what what lives in the Sunne
There is no Sunne, but which is twice begott;
And out of One a Twofold worke doth make
As doth admitt Division none at all
...What the hell?
She can't read make any sense of that.. she doesn't understand. She looks to Justin for help... through the emerald air he's staring it in a fixed way that means he can.
He doesn't answer her unspoken question, though, only begins to shout (or think, or whisper) a spell of his own, into the fire. Alex wants to tell him he doesn't have to, wants to tell him what she can already see, that having done their work the flames are beginning to recede... but she doesn't get the chance. (Not that she could look away anyway, in any case... with the flames framing the words on the wall, the effect is mesmerizing.)
She doesn't get the chance because as he shouts into the storm he reaches for her hand... through what has come to feel like an incredible distance... and as they touch, the flames roll back. Their fierce green tongues shrink, growing shorter and flickering away... and then vanish.
They link hands and the flames go out. Neat, and easy, like flicking a switch. Or snuffing a candle flame.
Brother and sister stand untouched in the undamaged room, holding hands. Neither one can quite breathe, quite move. Nothing in the room has been touched... except the strange writing, high on the wall, between the painters' ladders. Alex is the first to speak, after a long moment in which no one says anything.
"What," she says, "was that?"