Page 34 of All Out of Flux
I turned my face to the sky and groaned, the cold droplets of rain on my cheeks not quite enough to douse my anger. The wet clap of skin on skin meant that Max felt the same, slapping himself in the forehead.
“Of course it was you,” Max growled. “Who else would go through all the effort of hiring us to procure something and then just steal it back?”
“What’s the fucking point, even?” I wiped away the rain from my forehead, pulling on the dripping tangles and snarls of my hair. “What are you trying to prove? Let me guess. Something to do with me and my dragons, am I right?”
The Masque clasped the statuette in both hands, the top half of his mask lifting slightly as the bottom half of his face broke into a tauntingly perfect smile.
“Putting in a request for a nondescript statuette was only the first step. I knew that the trail would lead you to GustavoBrillante one way or another. The man wouldn’t dream of hurting his dear, sweet nephew — not in any debilitating sense, at least. Knowing your skills, I knew you would complete your mission successfully. I’d only hoped that the danger Gustavo put you in would have been enough to goad you into using your dragons, Mr. Alcantara.”
I raised the middle finger of one hand, then the index finger of the other, pointing at his face, wishing I could punch straight through his mask. “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that? We could have gotten into some real shit back there. The Quartz Spider is still at large.”
“Wait,” Max said. “Is that what this has all been about? Distracting us with this stupid little side quest of yours so that we wouldn’t be prepared when the Quartz Spider inevitably tried to blindside us?”
The Masque chuckled. “Guilty as charged. Your encounter with Gustavo was a smaller, if somewhat unsuccessful test. But being forced to face a time mage? I was so sure you would call the dragons out.”
I threw my arms out just in time to restrain Max as he lunged for the Masque.
“You put us in danger. You put Leon in danger. I should knock your head off. Show yourself, you coward. Show me your face so I can dream about killing you with my bare hands.”
This time the Masque’s smile was purely humorless. For a moment he stood there, a grinning tiger. Then he waved one hand across his face, dismissing his mask. It crumbled into powder, dissolving in the rain.
“But you wouldn’t hurt an innocent shopkeeper, would you?” asked the slight man from Habibi, the one with the glasses and the waistcoat and the pocket watch.
“Just?” Max said, his muscles slackening, the fight going out of him. “It was you all along? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“You betrayed us, you fucking twink. Is that even your real face, or just one of your secret identities? Pick a different one. This one sucks.”
The Masque flinched, this boy named Just. The bob of the lump in his throat as he swallowed, the twitch in his eyebrows — this was the real him, all right. A Masque revealing his true face? There he was gloating about exposing us to Tío Gustavo and the time mage when he was the real danger all along. He didn’t care that we knew what he truly looked like because one way or another, this was going to end tonight. Whether with us dead or arrested, who could really say?
“I knew it was worth making you suffer,” Just said, pointedly ignoring my mockery. “To string you along on that wild goose chase. And now the statuette has brought you here to me. This thing is worthless otherwise.”
“Hard disagree,” I said, rolling up my sleeves. “It’ll be perfect for breaking your teeth in.”
Just — the Masque — this weirdo with his hidden agendas and alter egos, he threw his head back and laughed. “That’s right. Let the anger take over you. Let it flow through your blood. Open all the channels in your body. Let the dragons come screaming through.”
It was my turn to ignore him. I couldn’t roast him with Tiamat’s fire, but I was still perfectly capable of roasting him in other ways.
“What kind of a goofy-ass name is Just, anyway? If it’s short for Justin, why not just say you’re Justin?”
His mouth tightened, his lips forming a flat, angry line. Aha. Another soft spot.
“So it’s not Justin, then?” Max said, adding fuel to the fire. He muttered a single word under his breath — “Penetrate” — then separated his hands to reveal a wicked pair of crystalline daggers.
“If you must know,” the Masque shouted, going red in the face, “it’s short for Justice.”
And we were so ready for the big boss fight, too. Max and I doubled over in laughter. He slapped his thigh. I clutched my stomach, pointing, laughing even harder when the Masque stamped his foot in annoyance.
“What kind of a name is Justice?” I said, wiping away my tears. “What happens if you go up through the court system? Could you ever become Justice Justice? Chief Justice — ”
“Stop!” Max choked out. “It’s too stupid, don’t say it.”
“That was what my family wanted for me,” Justice shouted. “We come from a long line of enforcers, and — and I think it’s a perfectly appropriate first name.”
“For anyone else but you,” I said, forcing myself to straighten back up. “You come from a long line of narcs and snitches.”
That did it. Just’s lips drew back, his teeth as bright as the mask he’d dismissed.
“What I come from is a dynasty of illusionists. The images I can conjure would blow your mind. And they have, in fact.”
