Accepting the bag’s contents seemed like it would solidify my position in this bizarre brigade. I hesitated. The thirteen-year-old unsheathed a sword and drove it into the pavement. Alarmed ants scrambled out of the fresh fissure. Jack’s voice crackled from the boom box speaker.

“Gunmar the Black gets stronger every day. More and more trolls, dangerous ones, are disappearing because they’re drawn to do his bidding. Every night minions like these Nullhullers stray farther. They’re in De La Rosa tonight. You want them to be at your house tomorrow? You want kids on your block to start disappearing? You want to know what that’s like?”

Tub made an impatient gesture at the bag. I took a breath, leaned over, and opened it. Inside were two weapons: a dull, pockmarked long-sword and a short, curved cutlass. I held them in either hand, so thrown off by the uneven weight that I wondered if I’d be able to take two steps without pitching over.

“What about me? I don’t get any weapons?” Tub asked.

“No,” Jack replied. “You want to walk home? Walk.”

Tub’s shoulders slumped. He looked hurt.

If Jack cared, you couldn’t tell through that mask. He pulled his sword from the cement and swirled it through the air with such speed that it seemed to become liquid mercury. It caught the yellow streetlights and drew upon the nighttime canvas like holiday sparklers.

“Three rules,” Jack said. “Rule number one: be afraid.”

“No problem,” Tub said. “We’re going to nail that one.”

“Being afraid means being aware. Think of the rabbit.”

The sword drew a simple sketch of a rabbit. It was so graceful and unexpected that I gasped. Then it was gone so quickly that I was left wondering if I had imagined it.

“The rabbit is nothing but vulnerable parts and good meat: throat, belly, thigh. Yet it is hard to catch. It watches and listens, all of the time, because it is afraid. Trolls smell fear and charge it. You can use this to your advantage.”

Again the sword swirled through the sky. This time the golden outline of a bull burned into my retinas long after it had dissipated from the air.

“Just like a toreador in a bullfight. Use their weight or velocity or anger against them. When you do strike, do it hard and do it fast.”

Jack squiggled the blade across the sky and I saw an elegant sketch of a python with a forked tongue and a long tail. I tried to follow the tail to its end but I blinked and the delicate artwork was lost.

“Imagine you’re injecting poison. Attack and retract. Attack and retract.”