Francisco loped to the wall phone and picked up the receiver.
"Hello? Hello?" A low crackling noise was all he heard. "Hello, if anyone is there, it must be a crappy connection," he said loudly into the phone.
"RETURN ---- MY ---- BOOK!!!" boomed a voice from the phone.
"What?" a surprised Francisco responded. "Who is this?"
Again came the same repsonse. "RETURN -- MY -- BOOK!!!" followed by an almost inaudible mumbling.
Marco, Ric and Josh could tell something was wrong. Francisco was getting paler by the second. "Who is it, Mr. Mendes?" Ric asked.
Holding his hand over the mouthpiece, Francisco filled in the others on what was happening.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Hang up!" Josh shouted.
Francisco Mendes was never intentionally implite. He removed his hand from the mouthpiece. "Listen, man, you've made a mistake. We don't want any trouble,
OK? I'm going to hang up now, and please don't call here a---" Before he could finish, Francisco stopped still.
"I'll be there in 15 minutes. Prepare to pay!" the mysterious voice said. Then the line went dead.
The 4 of them huddled in the living room. All thoughts of what Marco had hoped to share with Franncisco were put aside after francisco explained what had just
happened.
Five minutes passed. Six. Seven. "Then it's agreed," Francisco said, absently scratching his ear where the phone had rested. The other three nodded. "We're going
to reverse what we've done so far and hide the book until we can get rid of whoever that was." He was rubbing the ear with his fingertips now. The skin felt very
dry. FFrancisco thought it a bit odd, not recalling anything like it rom the time he was first 18.
Ric had picked up the book and quickly flipped to the final page. The reversal spell appeared, then grew fuzzy and winked out. "Oh, SH*T!!" he exploded. "It's
not there!"
Marco grabbed the book from him. "It HAS to be!" Did you concentrate fully like you did when you and Josh got the damned thing? But the page remained blank.
He flipped though the pages. They were all blank. "Um, chicos ... I think this is getting very, very bad ...." the book was vibrating in Marco's hands now, and
getting warmer to the touch as well.
He put it on the coffee table. A soft glow pulsed from the ancient leather binding.
"Holy --- What's the matter with ---" Francisco began, causing the others to glance up at him. He was rubbing his ear frantically now. As they watched, like a
scene from a atop-action sequence, the patch of dry scaly skin francisco had been scratching spread, in ever increasing increments, across his face and down his
arm. Small flakes drifted down to the carpet.
"What're those - they look like --- scales!" Josh offered. A greenish tinge began to color Francisco's complexion.
Ric, instinctively, grabbed the book and ran to the bedroom. "Maybe if I get it out of here, it'll stop," he thought. "I just need a minute to focus and I KNOW I can
do this!"
"Who are you guys? Where the hell am I?"
Marco's voice startled Josh into looking away from Francisco's accelerating change. Marco was glassy-eyed.
"Excuse me, por favor. Can you help me? I don't seem to be able to remember ..." His voice drifted off.
"Ric! Ric, get back in here," screamed Josh.
One. Two. Three, four, five, six strong staccato knocks sounded on the front door.