“Giving up a part of yourself?” Rory said with a shudder. “Sounds dreadful.”
“Yeah,” Freya said, with a shrug. “It stings. I’m not gonna lie, but as a maker, well, the money helps soften the blow so…”
The elevator stopped.
“So what are you giving up to the blade then, to enchant Rory’s polearm?” Marshall asked.
The doors slid open, and Freya walked out of the elevator without a glance backward. “Oh, honey, nothing. I gave my piece of me to this long ago. To that luckstone. Stay sharp.”
Rory readied her weapon and followed the craftswoman, Marshall close behind.
Rory’s head roiled with a mix of emotions. It was both surreal and exciting to her reality-show junkie mind to be entering so familiar a location as The Baroness’s luxury apartment, but the fact that they were there with hostile intent clouded those happy feelings. Still, something about what Freya had said bothered Rory.
“What did you mean back in the elevator, that you ‘gave yourself to the luckstone’?” she whispered.
Freya only shushed her, calling for further silence as they continued to sneak their way through the eerily quiet apartment. Despite the fact that there were no signs of anyone there, she led them along with caution until their path entered a massive master bedroom and then into an equally massive walk-in closet. Down the center of the room-sized space were waist-high shelves with drawers covered in every variety of purse imaginable. Along every wall a technicolor rainbow of clothing hung from hangers.
“It’s like being in a store,” Rory said.
Marshall laughed. “So… we came here to trash a closet?”
Freya shook her head and pointed to the center unit of the closet. At the end of the clutter of purses stood a hideous twist of carved rock. A lone blue gem shone brightly from its setting at the top of the man-made crag.
“The luckstone,” Rory said.
“We just need to pry it free,” Freya said. “Then I can slot it into your blade.”
“What’s this?” a woman’s voice spoke up from behind them.
Rory jumped, her heart racing.
“Another group of zealous autograph seekers, I see,” the voice said with a hint of bemusement to the words.
Rory turned. Despite her game face, it was hard to contain her surge of excitement.
It was The Baroness herself! The high profile semi-celebrity was quite different from her HD television persona: her hair too unnaturally black, her smooth skin pulled far too tightly over her near-skeletal frame. Her over-the-top makeup twisted her into a plastic faced doll that looked uncannily in her thirties, despite her wrinkled hands betraying an age nearly at least twice that number.
Rory swung her polearm into position in front of her, assuming a defensive stance despite the strange struggle between fangirling and preparing for a fight.
“We’re not here for your signature, Isabella,” Freya said, the last to turn around.
One of The Baroness’s over-manicured eyebrows rose. The rest of her Botoxed face remained motionless.
“Hello, Freya.” The Baroness looked Freya up and down before then shifting her dark-circled eyes to Rory. “And who is this little blue-haired moppet? Your new lover?”
Marshall scoffed. “She wishes,” he said as his face reddened.
The woman’s eyes switched to him. “Well, surely this scruffy little man isn’t your type now, is he?”
Rory glanced at Freya. “‘New lover?’” she repeated. “Implying that you’re her old one?”
“Oh sweet little pet,” The Baroness said. “She didn’t tell you…?”
Freya gave a sheepish grin then turned back to The Baroness. “I’m afraid that I haven’t been entirely straight with you two: this is more than just an object recovery mission for me.”
Rory shot Marshall a withering look. “This anniversary of ours keeps getting better and better,” she said.
Marshall managed a half smile. “Happy six-month-iversary…?” he said in an unsure whisper.
“Don’t worry about all this, anniversary girl,” Freya assured her. “I’ll keep my part of the bargain. Believe me, this won’t take long.”
A low impatient growl rose from The Baroness. “What won’t take long?” she demanded.
Freya pointed to the luckstone mounted in the hideous piece of art, raising her voice. “You didn’t think I’d catch seeing that on TV? A constant reminder of us? You think I’d just ignore that and let you keep it after flaunting it like that?”
The Baroness gave a chuckle that dripped with the Devil in it. “Aren’t you being a little dramatic, darling?”
“Not by half,” Freya said. To Rory’s eye, the craftswoman was getting good and worked up with no signs of relenting. “That thing symbolized what you meant to me. That thing meant us. You broke my heart, and for what? To marry some old British billionaire for a chance at fame? You know how much it sucked turning on the TV to see a constant reminder of that? On national television for all to see? And how the hell do you still look thirty, and since when were you into men, anyway?”
The Baroness waved Freya’s words away. “Don’t be so judgmental. We love who we love.”
Rory felt Marshall’s hand slip into hers, pulling her back towards him. “Maybe we should wait by the elevator,” he suggested.
Freya remained focused only on The Baroness. “The only thing you love is yourself, Isabella, and fame. I gave you the luckstone to better our fortune. You used it to secure all this from that poor old man you married.”
The Baroness folded her bony arms across her chest and smirked, the smooth skin of her face unmoving. “Is that what this intrusion is about? You’re upset that perhaps I preferred him to you?”
“Well?” Freya asked. “Was he worth it? This man who made you The Baroness?”
The Baroness shrugged, but a crooked smile crept across her face. “Well, he’s dead these past two years or so, and I got to keep all the trappings, so you tell me.”
“Yeah, we should probably definitely go,” Marshall whispered to Rory. “I’ll get you earrings or a nice glaive-guisarme cozy…”
“Nobody is going anywhere,” The Baroness shouted. “Not until you meet my husband, anyway.”
Rory cocked her head. “Excuse me, Baroness, but didn’t you just say he was dead?”
“Correct,” The Baroness said. “Feeble as he was in life, you’ll find him far more formidable in death. Oh Reggie….”
A great rumbling arose in the walk-in closet. The collection of purses tumbled off the long shelving unit in the center of the room, a great stone slab revealing itself as it slid to one side.
“Oh crap,” Marshall said.
Rory fell in beside him. “What is it?”
“This isn’t just a closet… it’s a barrow.”
Rory cocked her head at him. “A barrow…?”
Marshal sighed. “Like in The Lord of the Rings. Right after Frodo and Sam flee the Shire?”
The great slab of stone reached its tipping point, and one end slid with a thunderous thud to the floor.
“I might have been asleep,” she admitted.
“Really?” Marshall looked genuinely hurt, and Rory’s heart twinged.
“Do you really want to get into this now?” Rory asked.
“Fine,” he said, the pointed at the center of the room. “But I think we’re about to meet The Baroness’s Reggie. This is a crypt.”
Leathery skin stretched taut over the bony hands that rose from the tomb at the center of the room. The lengthy yellowed nails on the fingers that now gripped the edge of the coffin reminded Rory of corn chips as it pulled itself up into sight. The creature’s silver hair had grown long since the creature’s death, cascading over its shoulders in wispy tendrils, followed by the rest of the creature’s withered figure, its suit hanging off its skeletal frame.
Its dead sunken eyes glowed with an eldritch fire as it looked past them to the one who had summoned him.
; A hollow British voice moaned softly from its sunken-in chest. “What is it, dearie?” the Reggie creature asked.
“Dispatch these intruders, won’t you?” There was casual dismissal in The Baroness’s voice. “That’s a good chap.”
“Now we’re talking,” Rory said, whirling her polearm in an arc around her to face the creature. “Just give me something unnatural to fight and we’re all good. This I can handle!”
“Coming, my love,” the Reggie creature said as it started to climb from its not-so-final resting place.
Marshall leaned into her. “Careful,” he said. Already he had shoved his hand into his satchel and was thumbing through one of his notebooks. “I think that thing might be a wight.”
“Great,” Rory said. “So basically I’m fighting ‘The Real House Wights of New York City’…?”
Marshall gave a groan that was not unlike that of the shambling creature. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” He tapped at a page in his notebook. “Um, Ror? You might want to watch your step. These undead mofos can be nasty.”
Rory looked over to Marshall as she stepped back. “Nasty? Nasty how?”
“Like it might try to suck the life out of you by touch nasty.”
“Awesome,” Rory said, deflating a little. “Good thing I’m using a polearm then.” As the creature attempted to step out of its coffin, she lunged forward with the polearm, dragging the blade across its chest.
The tie of the Reggie creature’s suit fell away. The cloth of both its shirt and coat tore open but the blade itself left not a mark on the skin beneath it.
Rory swore under her breath. “I can’t cut it.”
“Don’t worry about that. Focus,” Freya shouted. “Just get the luckstone out of that ‘headstone.’ If I can slot it into your weapon, you should be able to take that abomination down.”
“Don’t talk about my Reginald like that!” The Baroness snarled.
Marshall stepped to Rory’s side. “I’ll work on removing the gemstone,” he said. Already he was rifling through his messenger bag again. “You just keep that thing at bay.”
Rory nodded. “I might not be able to kill it outright, but I can definitely keep it occupied.”
Without another word, Rory strode toward the creature, keeping the length of her polearm between her and it.
The creature looked down at its suit, its bony fingers reaching for what remained of its tie. “Cor, that was my favorite,” it said. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”
“Yeah, well, maybe if you weren’t trying to kill us…”
The Reggie creature let out a loud rattle of breath that terrified Rory until she realized it was a sigh.
“But killing you is my duty now, innit?” he said. The wight stepped free of the coffin and shuffled toward her. “The mistress calls, and I do what she says, don’t I? Don’t really get a choice in it, do I? I mean, sorry I have to kill you and your friends. Hearing your voices has been rather refreshing from having to listen to what comes out of my ex-wife’s mouth most of the time.”
The Reggie creature’s attitude brought a smile to Rory’s face.
“I almost hate to have to kill you,” she said.
“Please don’t take offense, miss,” the creature said, the glare in its dead eyes becoming far more sinister as it snarled at her. A bony finger pointed to her polearm. “But I don’t think that pointed stick of yours is going to do the job.”
“We’ll see about that,” Rory said. She spun the polearm away from the wight itself and instead swung the dull end of it low against the back of the creature’s legs. It struck right behind its knees, unbalancing the Reggie creature and causing it to fall in a swirl of long gray hair and flailing limbs.
Rory chanced a glance over at Marshall, who stood by the hideous statue. “Any luck with that luckstone, Marsh?”
Marshall held up the Leatherman’s tool he always carried, its plier grips extended. “Not yet,” he said. “The gem is in there pretty damned solidly.”
“Then try something else, Boy Scout,” she shouted as she continued to keep the Reggie creature at bay. “You’re the one who’s always prepared!”
“Usually,” he said. Marshall flipped the tool shut and dropped it back into his messenger bag. “I just didn’t think I’d be reenacting the cover of the original Player’s Handbook tonight.”
“Leave that gem alone!” The Baroness screeched and charged from the doorway into the walk-in closet.
Freya grabbed for her, but the plastic-faced woman was far more agile than she first appeared. The Baroness darted back from Freya while her hands quickly flew through a series of intricate arcane gestures. With one final rush of motion, The Baroness extended her hands and a sharp gust of wind caught Freya, flinging her up against one of the walls of the closet.
The Baroness sneered and closed in on her pinned ex-lover. “You poor deluded thing. For all you can craft, for all you can make, you really don’t understand true power, do you?”
“I knew the power of what we had,” Freya said. “I loved you with everything that I had to give!”
“No, apparently, you didn’t,” The Baroness said. “Don’t act like yours was a selfless love, and don’t act like you’re surprised when I threw you to the curb for greener pastures. Your attention and fawning over me… you know how quickly that became unbearable?”
“Because I gave attention to the woman I loved?” Freya laughed out in disbelief. “I did what I did because—and this is a crazy thought, Isabella—I genuinely cared for you.”
“That selfless routine was old when we were together, Freya,” The Baroness said with a shake of her head. “And let’s be honest—everything you did was simply to make yourself feel good.”
“That’s what healthy couples do!” Freya said. “They make each other feel amazing about each other, and get it back in turn. It’s not a foreign concept.”
Given the look of open disdain on The Baroness’ face, Rory couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pain for the old maker.
“Why don’t you back off, Baroness?” Rory said, shouting past the Reggie creature between her and them. “Forgive Freya for being a bit of a romantic optimist there. Geesh.”
The Baroness ignored her, but leaned in closer to Freya. “Here’s a hard truth for you,” she said, lowering her voice. “You were, in fact, nothing but a stepping stone to me. Foolish Freya.”
Between the Reggie creature and the couple’s drama playing out before her, Rory grew more and more exasperated. She chanced a look over at Marshall.
Option after option flew out of his satchel as he struggled to find something, anything, that would help remove the luckstone from the hideous statue.
“Any time now, Boy Scout,” she said, turning her attention back to the threatening creature.
“I’m less a Boy Scout,” Marshall said as he continued rummaging through his messenger bag. “More of a Batman, really.”
“How does that remotely help us now?” Rory asked, honestly perplexed.
Marshall sighed but spoke with patience as he continued his search. “Look, I know I maybe over prepped this whole six-month-iversary thing, but you know I’m a planner. Like Batman. He caught grief for it too, only from the Justice League. Sure, they’re super friends and all, but the League discovered he was keeping dossiers on all of them, on their weaknesses. You know, just in case he ever had to take them down, which he has had to do on several occasions.”
Confused, Rory shouted across the closet. “Marsh, I love you, and I promise you we can discuss all this relationship nonsense later so we don’t become all this crazy like these two, but I kind of need you to get to a point here, okay?”
“That was my point,” he said. “Preparation. Batman prepped to deal with the Justice League, and well, that’s sort of how I am will the gargoyles we work with.” Marshall held up a tube he pulled from within his satchel. “I whipped this up to be used on them if they go rogue, but you know what? It should also help w
ith getting this damn luckstone free from this carving here. Stone is stone, after all.”
With a flick of his wrist, Marshall unstoppered the tube and poured its contents over the gem. The stone surrounding it popped and sizzled like butter hitting a hot pan. The crystal’s glow faded as the stone around it crumbled away, before the gem tumbled free into Marshall’s waiting hand, unharmed.
The Baroness let out such a scream that Marshall almost reflexively dropped the stone, but managed to wrap his hand around it before he could. He turned to throw the gem to the still pinned against the wall Freya, but froze at the sight of the transformation happening in front of him.
The youth and beauty of The Baroness was melting away by the second. Wrinkles rose around her eyes like cracks in the desert, her cheeks sinking in, and her chin all but disappeared into the ever-growing creases and folds of her thickening neck. Gray streaks washed through her once-black hair like cascading waterfalls until the color drained from it completely.
Whatever spell The Baroness held over Freya broke, and the maker dropped back to the floor of the closet.
“I may be a fool,” Freya said as she composed herself, looking The Baroness dead in the deep, hollow sockets of her eyes, “but at least I haven’t been living this vain lie that you’ve become. Had I seen the darkness of your true self, maybe I could have spared myself the hurt. Or better yet, let you get together with this Reggie of yours sooner by leaving. So was I a fool? Absolutely. Love is a wager at best. Its lasting is unlikely, but its potential is so vast, my rational, optimistic mind would rather risk loving than not, even if it fell on so deaf an ear. I’d take that chance. Every time.”
Whether The Baroness heard Freya, Rory wasn’t sure. The former beauty’s eyes stared down at her own body, still transfixed on her own true form.
Freya turned from her to face the back of the closet.
“Mister Blackmoore!” she shouted, raising an open palm.
Marshall snapped out of watching the horror show that The Baroness had become, and threw the stone Freya’s way. The Reggie creature lunged for it, darting past Rory, but his bony form only managed to stumble forward without actually catching it.
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