And then I found myself in the reflection of fictional friends, and I understood. I could change the world simply by helping others, by being their friend. It wasn’t a cop-out. It wasn’t weak. It was necessary and important, and it was mine.
Our world is in a time of great uncertainly and crisis. We are going to need heroes now more than ever—and those heroes are going to need great friends at their sides.
If you’re a hero, come and find us. If you’re a friend, come and join us. You’ll know us by our red glasses and pink stretch pants. By our smarts and our sass. You’ll know us by our shoulders, which have been leaned on, cried on, and probably bitten or shot or held tight by a pair of scrabbling claws. You’ll know us by our library cards, our trick of showing up at just the right moment, and our Nazi-punching skills.
Mostly you’ll know us by our unfailing, unwavering loyalty to our heroes, and to everything that is right and good in the world.
There’s a little wonder in all of us. So often, it shines the brightest when we’re in that quiet, all-important role called friend.
SOME ENCHANTED EVENING
ANTON STROUT
OUT OF THE WAY, TOURIST.”
Aurora “Rory” Torres’s dance bag slammed into the idiot dumb enough to stand directly outside the doors of Lincoln Center’s Beaumont Theatre. All she craved was her couch and the sweet oblivion of junk TV. No thoughts of dance rehearsals or the leg numbing ache of complex repetition. Resting and going full on lady-sloth was blissful agenda enough for tonight.
But no. There had to be this jerk blocking her way. After her day of trying to master a hardcore mashup of hip-hop and Bhagā, this guy should count himself lucky she didn’t clear her path by pulling out her collapsible polearm hidden in the art tube strapped across her back. She hated feeling even a hint of stereotypical Latina fieriness about it, but checked herself and instead shouldered past him in a huff.
“Is that any way to treat your former roomie?” the figure called out. “Or should I say current boyfriend…?”
Rory spun and pushed her long blue bangs away from her glasses, a mix of excitement and confusion washing over her. “Marsh?”
Marshall Blackmoore’s blue eyes met hers from under his shaggy mop of dark hair. Just seeing his nerdy cool self helped kill some of the fatigue she felt.
Illustration by M. WAYNE MILLER
“I mean, I guess I’m still technically your roomie.” he said. “More of a roomie with benefits now, really.” His mile-a-minute pace barraged her as it so often did, catching her off guard. Marshall fussed nervously with the straps of the overstuffed shoulder satchel he always carried with him.
Rory checked the time on her phone. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought you had secret gargoyle liaison business to attend to.”
“That was actually a cover,” Marshall said with the most sheepish of grins. “More of a lie, really. But one of those good relationship sort of lies. I mean, without those, how else am I supposed to surprise you, right?”
Rory eyed him warily, then wrinkled her nose.
“You know I hate surprises,” she said. “Surprises in my line of derring-do can get me killed.”
Marshall pointed to the posters on the side of the theater. “You’re not going to die dancing,” he reminded her. He eyed the Lincoln Center crowd drifting past them in the plaza and lowered his voice. “Kicking supernatural ass is only a part-time profession for you. When you’re not playing guardian to our master Spellmason.”
“Leave Alexandra out of this,” Rory said. She fought to shake off her post-rehearsal gruffness and craned her head around the courtyard outside the dance school. “My point still stands. So what’s the surprise?”
Marshall smiled, his eyes lit with excitement.
“If I told you it would ruin the fun. Come with me.”
Marshall held his hand out to her, and she took it in hers, warming at his grip as he led her off east across the plaza towards the intersection of Broadway and Columbus Avenue.
Despite her weariness, Rory submitted to the tug of his hand. Learning to be with Marshall as more than a friend felt like a constant exercise in practicing patience with herself. Whether that was just a couples thing overall or a warning sign of impending relationship failure, she wasn’t sure.
“At least give me a clue,” she pleaded.
Marshall pondered it for a moment before speaking.
“You’ve seen Lord of the Rings,” he said.
Rory nodded with a heavy sigh. “After you threatened to double my half of the rent if I didn’t, remember?”
“Well, in it, they’ve got swords that magically glow when orcs are near and rings that make people invisible. Don’t you ever wonder who made all that stuff in the first place?”
“Elves or some such crap like that?” she asked as she followed him down the plaza steps to street level. “They’re the same ones that make cookies in a tree, right?”
Marshall rolled his eyes. “There’s a world of difference between Keebler elves and Tolkien ones, hon.”
“Sorry,” she said and stopped in her tracks on the sidewalk. “But how is any of that a clue?”
Marshall raised his arms and spread them wide. “Happy six-month-iversary!” he shouted.
Rory couldn’t help but stare as a sinking sensation hit her stomach. “Is… that a thing? For reals?”
Marshall crinkled up his face, but his arms remained raised. “I hope so, otherwise this was a huge waste.”
Rory simply stared at him as he stood there, statuesque. “What is?”
“This,” he said and gestured to a boxy vehicle parked at the curb directly behind him. Painted on its side was a giant taco shell stuffed with what looked like pierogis and kielbasa.
“Who in their right mind would want Pole-Mex food truck?” Rory asked.
“Exactly the point,” Marshall said. “Step right up.”
Rory sighed as her fatigue creeped back into her. “Marsh, you’re not making sense, and you know how I get when things don’t make sense to me.”
Marshall’s eyes went to the art tube strapped across Rory’s back, no doubt imagining her assembling the three collapsible parts of her polearm within. “You get all slashy slashy?”
Rory gave a slow, purposeful nod.
“Fine, fine,” he said with what Rory took as a mock pout. “Some six-month-iversary this is!”
A chuckle came from the truck where an older Rosie the Riveter looking blond leaned against the rail of the pick-up window. She looked down at the two of them then nodded in Rory’s direction.
“This the one?” she asked in a voice with more Brooklyn in it than Manhattan.
Judging by the thick smokiness in the woman’s tone, Rory guessed her to be in her late forties or possibly early fifties.
Marshall nodded. “This is the six-month-iversary girl!”
Rory squeezed his hand. Hard. “You have got to stop saying that.”
“Sorry,” he said, then turned his attention back to the woman in the truck. “Yes, this is the one.”
The woman looked Rory up and down before giving her a smirk.
“Come around to the back,” the woman said and shuttered the service window.
“Come on,” Marshall said, his voice practically vibrating.
With an excited jerk on Rory’s arm, he led her to the rear of the truck and into the back.
Once he escorted her inside, one thing became immediately clear to Rory.
“This isn’t a food truck,” she said, stating what was now obvious to her own eyes.
The cramped space looked far more like a workshop on wheels. Vices, clamps, and an anvil built into one of the counters filled the space, along with bins of assorted metal bars and other bits of unidentifiable mechanisms that Rory couldn’t begin to guess the purposes of.
“This is Freya,” Marshall said. “My gift to you. I thought your polearm might need an upgrade, and well, she’s a maker. You know, like those Tolk
ien elves.”
The woman cocked her head at Marshall quizzically.
“You could have just got me a piece of jewelry from the mall,” Rory said to him.
“Think of me as a traveling mall,” Freya said. “Except what I create helps augments weapons by enchanting them.”
Rory’s hands moved defensively to the strap of her polearm carrying case. “And you work out of a food truck…?”
Freya nodded. “In my line of arcane work, it pays to be mobile,” she said. “If you’re on the go, it’s harder for anyone to track you down or rip you off. Some of my more demanding militaristic clientele tends to be a bit more…aggressive.”
“I’ll bet,” Rory said. “Weapons freaks, no doubt. Insecure, looking to compensate for what they lack downstairs, right? Effing men.”
Freya shrugged. “Actually, the women are the worst. Sick of the status quo, I think.” She stepped to one of the workbenches and leaned against it with one muscled arm, gesturing towards Rory with the other. “You have your weapon on you, yes?”
Rory stiffened at the mention of it, even under what appeared to be friendly circumstances.
Marshall stepped behind her, reassurance in his voice. “Let me help you with that.”
Reluctantly, Rory undid the quick release of the art tube and Marshall slid it off her back.
“Freya and I met because I carry some of her wares at Roll for Initiative,” he said. “I told her about you when I was trying to come up with six-monthi—umm, anniversary ideas, and well, it turns out she asked to meet you first.”
Freya nodded. “I prefer to know who I’m dealing with. This city is crazy, what with gargoyles and the like being the norm these days. Can’t be too careful with whom I’m equipping.”
Marshall handed the tube to Freya, who undid the end and slid the three pieces of the polearm free. The maker ignored the two shaft pieces and set straight about examining the bladed section.
“Ah, the glaive-guisarme,” she said, then gave Rory a look. “A bold choice for the streets of New York City.”
Rory shrugged. “What can I say? I tried my first one out of necessity in a museum and the thing just danced in my hands. After that, I needed one of my own.”
Freya gave a wicked smile. “I bet you make a nasty dance partner.”
Rory looked to Marshall, feeling some of the tension run out of her. “I’m beginning to like her,” she said.
“I’m glad,” he said, “because my deposit’s nonrefundable.”
Freya opened one of the cabinets on the wall of the truck. She sorted through a pile of long bundles of cloth, then pulled one free to lay out on the workbench.
“Here it is,” she said, unfolding the material. “Fresh from my forging yesterday.”
A long thin blade similar to the action end of Rory’s polearm lay against the cloth, the precision metalwork pristine with swirls of delicate symbols set into the steel itself. An empty circular slot sat just above where the blade’s socket attachment was, and Freya took no time in twisting the new piece onto one of the wooden shafts Rory still held in her hand.
Rory’s eyes lit up. “This…is for me?! It’s gorgeous. It’s magic?”
Freya shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not yet, anyway.” She tapped her forefinger against the empty slot on the base of the blade itself. “I can augment the blade for you, no problem. It’s the enchantment that’s still needs doing, and that’s going to cost you more than just money. I’m going to need you to help me obtain the right components for it.”
“Can’t just head to Home Depot for them, eh?” Rory asked.
Freya shook her head. “Not for something like this,” she said. “We need to recover something very unique to enchant this blade, and there might be a little bit of a fight in getting it.”
Rory looked at the abundance of weapons in various states of finish that lined the walls of the truck. “You’re an arsenal on wheels. Why not just get it yourself?”
“I’m a craftswoman, not a fighter,” Freya said. “That’s where you come in. You help me get what we need, and I’ll help you with your weapon.” She looked to Marshall. “Who knows? If it goes well, I might even knock a few bucks off the traditional payment method.”
Rory turned to Marshall, unable to hide a newfound excitement that had all but pushed away her earlier fatigue. “You got me a weapon and a fight?”
Marshall nodded.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “They don’t really make a Hallmark card to reciprocate that.”
Words failing her, Rory flew into a hug, which Marshall returned with equal vigor. They stood in their embrace for a long moment before Freya cleared her throat.
“Enough of that, you two,” she said and headed off to an opening that led to the cabin of the truck. “Better buckle up.”
“Wait…we’re doing this now?!” Rory asked. “What? Where?”
Freya looked back over her shoulder through the edge of her gray-blond hair. “You ever watch The Luxury Ladies of New York City?” she asked.
Rory’s eyes lit up. “I love that show! That’s what I was going to catch up with on my DVR tonight before this surprise abduction!”
“Oh,” Freya said with a disappointed tone in her voice, then settled down at the wheel. “Too bad then.”
RORY AND MARSHALL RODE IN forced silence, simply because there wasn’t a choice. Talking wasn’t an option, given Freya’s breakneck pace through the night streets of Manhattan. The back of the truck clanged and jangled with the sound of various weapons and raw materials clashing together as the food-truck-turned-battle-wagon tore up Central Park West. Silence finally fell when Freya laid on the brakes at one of the stop lights, and only then did Rory get a chance to peek her head into the cabin.
“So what’s this got to do with the Luxury Ladies of New York City again?” she asked.
“You’ll see, soon enough.”
Rory slipped into the passenger seat beside the older maker as traffic started moving once again.
“I mean, I love the Luxury Ladies of New York City,” Rory said. “I used to watch all the versions of the show—Beverly Hills, Chicago, Texas—but I had to cut back on them severely. Between my dance stuff, being the guardian of our fair city, plus keeping Clan Belarus alive since Alexandra turned all master Spellmason… well, those take up pretty much most of my time, so now I only have New York as my guilty viewing pleasure.”
“Well then consider today your lucky day,” Freya said. She jerked the wheel with her muscular arms and pulled the truck to the curb before slipping it into park and killing the engine. Freya pointed out the passenger side. “See for yourself.”
Rory took in the sight, one she had seen thousands of times in television credits. The ornate Gothic structure of a towering apartment building rose high above her, and she nostalgically recalled the time she had paid pilgrimage to it in the most fangirlish phase of her life.
“Oh Sweet Christmas,” she said. “We’re going to see The Baroness?!”
“Well, hopefully not, if all goes well,” Freya said. “We just need to secure something she has in her possession: a luckstone. I caught a glimpse of it in one of the background shots on the show. We need to liberate it from her possession. Without notice, if possible.”
Marshall popped his head in from the back of the truck and craned his neck toward the building. “I don’t think we can just waltz right in there,” he said. “The Baroness probably has security, more so thanks to the being a celebrity and all.”
“I know of a discreet way in,” Freya said as she undid her seat belt. “Gather your things.”
“Even my polearm?”
Freya nodded, giving a dark and serious look.
“Especially your polearm.”
With some careful maneuvering, Freya managed to sneak the three of them away from the view of the building’s doormen and down through a back alley to a service elevator of the high rise. Once inside, Freya pulled a hairpin from her graying
blond curl of hair, bent it, then slotted it under the button marked “PH.” Freya gave it a sharp twist, then reached up and pressed the button.
Rory fought to center herself. She removed the sections of her polearm from the art tube as the elevator rose and set about reassembling them, all the while hoping she wouldn’t have to use it.
“So how exactly did The Baroness come by this luckstone we need to retrieve?”
Freya’s eyes stayed on the numbers that lit as the elevator ascended. She shrugged.
“How does any rising society woman like these reality show monstrosities get anything in life? Probably from an ex-lover. The rich and powerful get ahead somehow. Sometimes they get lucky, sometimes they buy their luck—or maybe they do it through ruthless practices.”
Rory gave an uncertain look at the newly fashioned section of her glaive-guisarme. “And this luckstone will improve my weapon how exactly?”
Freya tapped the dull side of the blade. “Right now, you can cut through most mundane things just fine with that blade as is. What you really need is something with a bit more kick, that slices and dices through even the creepiest of crawlies.”
“And you can do that just off the top of your head, on the fly?” Marshall asked as he inventoried the contents of his satchel, pulling out a pair of black leather gloves. “Too bad we didn’t have to scale the building. I’m dying to test these Spider-Man gloves I’ve been crafting for the store.”
Rory gave him a smile. “Always prepared. You’re such a Boy Scout.”
“Hey!” Freya scolded. “Focus, you two.”
Marshall nodded, blushed, and shoved the gloves back into his satchel, pulling a Moleskine notebook free instead.
“Enchanting comes from imbuing an object with power,” Freya said. The elevator slowed as it approached its destination. “Giving something up to it. You have to give it importance, transferring a little piece of yourself over to it. Ask any artist. Don’t they give a little bit of themselves up in their work? Such is the price of creation.”
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