by Julie Kenner
These Boots Were
Made For
STOMPING
Julie Kenner
Jade Lee
Marianne Mancusi
CONTENTS
Cover Page
A Step in the Right Direction
by Julie Kenner
Dedication
Venerate Council of Protectors
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Kung Fu Shoes!
by Jade Lee
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Karma Kitty Goes to Comic Con
by Marianne Mancusi
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Praise
Copyright
BY JULIE KENNER
A Step in the Right Direction
To Catherine & Isabella,
my two little supergirls.
VENERATE COUNCIL OF PROTECTORS
1-800-555-HERO
Protecting Mortals Is Our Business!
URGENT COMMUNIQUÉ
FOR COUNCIL USE ONLY
Eyes Only
Nikko
Protector First Class (Probationary status)
Current location: Classified
Acknowledgment requested
Nikko:
Council Intelligence reports that adverse activity is currently being undertaken in the New York area by mortal Council archenemy Rex Ruthless, in part through the use of recently pilfered patented Council technology allowing the user to dis-and reintegrate at will locally, as well as teleport to certain preselected destinations in either an integrated or disintegrated state.
As you are aware, all tools, devices, inventions and other paraphernalia invented and/or acquired by Protectors (including but not limited to those Protectors with the particular power of inventive ability) remains Council property, and any Protector found to have facilitated the removal of such technology to Outcast or non-Protector entities will be severely reprimanded.
Your immediate assistance with regard to the capture of Ruthless (and his cohorts, to the extent discover-able) as well as the return of said technology, is hereby requested, and you are required to report to the Manhattan Field Office immediately for further briefing and instruction.
Form 89-C(2)(a), on file with the Mortal-Protector Liaison Office (MLO), indicates that you have already been issued the following Council-controlled items (to the extent such list is incorrect, please immediately submit Form 29-B(2)(a) in triplicate with all necessary corrections):
Propulsion cloak, model E-10 (expert model);
and
standard issue cellular phone (speed dial included) with full Web access, direct communication to Council headquarters, laser pulse capability, and Always-On Deception Detector® with text-message result display
Upon your arrival at the Manhattan Field Office, you will be issued a Mission Essentials Kit, including all standard mission equipment. To the extent such equipment is utilized during the course of your mission, please file in triplicate (by no later than the fifteenth day of the first month after completion of your mission) Form 827A(4)(b) with the MLO. Return all unused equipment to Council headquarters.
We look forward to your prompt arrival at the Field Office. Excuses for late arrivals will not be tolerated.
As a side note with regard to your partic ular circumstances, please be reminded that you remain on probation for previous indiscretions. Additional lapses in judgment requiring intervention from MLO specialists will not be tolerated.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, and have a great day!
Sincerely,
Phelonium Prigg
Phelonium Prigg
Assistant to Zephron, High Elder
PP:jbk
CHAPTER ONE
“Come on, Ruthless,” whispered Nikko, peering down at the street through his Council-issued binocs from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. “Come on, you scum-sucker. Show yourself.”
Three months. Three long, dull, hideous months he’d been forced into this assignment. Dragged away from his Colorado mountain retreat and shoved into the bright lights and endless noise of the big city he’d been forced out of five years ago. And why? To catch Rex Ruthless: a conniving madman that no one else could manage to get their hands on, a madman who’d just about managed to piece together complicated technology capable of actually shrinking New York City—Manhattan and all the other boroughs—to an infinitesimal fraction of its actual size. So small, in fact, that the landmass would fit inside a snow globe. Which, naturally, was exactly where Ruthless intended to stick the island if the Powers That Be didn’t meet his demands.
Not that any of those Powers yet knew about the threat. It had only been through Nikko’s long-standing underworld contacts that he’d learned what Ruthless was up to. More, he’d learned that Ruthless still needed one more component before his contraption was operational.
Nikko’s original mission to retrieve the stolen Council equipment had immediately been upgraded, and now he was in charge of stopping Ruthless altogether by whatever means necessary. And, of course, that meant preventing Ruthless from getting his hands on that final component.
What that component was, though—about that, Nikko had no clue. His sources could say only that it focused energy, but considering that the Learning Annex courses advertised the same, although in a more metaphysical sense, the clue was hardly earth-shattering.
Equally troubling was the fact that, though Ruthless was purely mortal, he was enough of an inventor that he could hold his own in a fight. Worse, he’d recently stolen a device invented by little Davie Murphy, a prepubescent Halfling genius. The device, about the size of a billfold, let Ruthless disintegrate and reintegrate things at will, and also teleport himself to a preselected destination. A pretty cool invention when you got right down to it, though there were those in the Council who dissed the thing simply because it was invented by a Halfling—and a child at that. Personally, Nikko didn’t care. So what if a Halfling had one mortal parent? They still had Protector blood, were still descended from the Greek and Roman gods (who, of course, weren’t really mythological beings at all, though mortals from Homer to Edith Hamilton had done a great job weaving a fabulous cover story).
Of course, being a full-blooded Protector—complete with all the standard powers like speed, strength and agility, and even individualized powers like his own ability to melt weapons—didn’t make life all sunshine and roses. Nikko had learned that the hard way after his one tiny little mistake had left him ostracized, censured, and essentially abandoned to his Colorado cabin. The Venerate Council of Protectors—the ruling body for all with Protector blood—had doled out the punishment, and Nikko had accepted it. Now, they’d called him back, ostensibly to give him a second chance at becoming an active member of the Protector community again. Nikko, however, was certain there was an ulterior motive. Like, maybe, the fact that Ruthless’s shrinking device might be considered a weapon. And, if so, then Nikko might be able to use his powers to melt it.
He doubted that the definition of “weapon” applied, though. More than that, since the thing wasn’t finished, it was still technically harmless. Which meant his particular power was use
less against it. And that meant he was stuck in a regular mission, trying to track down a bad guy who was trying to acquire a bit of contraband. He felt like a cop participating in a sting. Or at least what he assumed a cop would feel like. Nikko tended to watch a lot of police dramas in his Colorado retreat.
At first he’d been excited about the assignment. But after months of chasing bogus leads, he was just plain frustrated. It was bad enough that he didn’t have solid information. What made it worse was that with the stolen teleportation device, Ruthless could bounce all over creation, and unless Nikko’s information was beyond solid, catching him was next to impossible.
So far, Nikko’s intelligence was decidedly mushy.
And each and every day that passed, Nikko cursed the unknown idiot who hadn’t protected Davie’s teleportation invention with the care it deserved, probably assuming that a half mortal, half Protector kid couldn’t invent anything either useful or dangerous.
What was that old saying about never assuming anything?
Not that Nikko could waste time with might-have-beens, he thought as he focused the binocs on the sidewalk below; Davie’s device had been stolen long before he’d been sucked into the game. Now he needed to find Ruthless’s lair, destroy or secure Ruthless’s technology, and then secure the man himself. All of which was made a heck of a lot harder by the villain’s fascination with dis-and reintegrating himself all over the city.
Not to mention the fact that Nikko couldn’t simply grab the man. No, that would be too easy. Instead, the Council had made clear (and he had to reluctantly agree that the mandate made sense) that the shrinking device was the first priority. Because while Ruthless might be the brains of his operation, he had a lot of automaton followers, any of whom would be happy to step up to the plate, flip a switch, and win one for the Gipper.
All of it boiled down to one simple reality: Nikko was stuck in New York until he got a lead on the location of Ruthless’s lair, and so instead of being a quick in-and-out mission, this assignment had turned into a scavenger hunt. And that, frankly, was making him even grumpier than the constant stares and finger-pointings on those days when he bothered to walk down the city streets rather than traveling by stealthed propulsion cloak.
You would think he’d be used to it by now, every time some nine-year-old pointed and squealed, “Wow! Look! That guy looks just like the Silver Streak!” Nikko wanted to rewind his life by five years, two months and fourteen days. Before he’d made the mistake of jumping off this very observation deck.
On that fateful day Reed Mystory (a pen name if ever Nikko heard one) had seen him and found comic book inspiration . . . in Nikko. The truly annoying mortal Reed had taken what he’d seen, including Nikko’s appearance, right down to the battle scar that ran across his left eyebrow and caused it to permanently quirk up, and turned it all—looks and powers—into an instantly popular comic book character. And that wildly popular first issue had not only immortalized Nikko in ways other than the standard Protector longevity but also directly resulted in Nikko getting put on probationary status.
Because, while a Protector leaping off a tall building without an invisibility cloak in front of a crowd of mortals might be overlooked so long as the Mortal-Protector Liaison Office could concoct a reasonable cover story, if one of the crowd members happened to be a comic book writer . . .
Unfortunately for Nikko, the Council frowned on that kind of publicity. As he’d heard innumerable times during his many administrative hearings, the role of the MLO was to cover up Protector activity, a task made exponentially more difficult when every corner newsstand was essentially advertising Protector exploits.
He really hadn’t stood a chance.
And now that two movies had come out to huge box office success, he figured he’d lost whatever chance he might have had for appeal.
In truth, he didn’t much mind. He’d been happy to leave the city. Happy to have the chance to relax. He’d been on the go for years, bringing down some of the baddest of the bad. And three months ago he’d been this close to figuring out not only how to fly-fish but also why mortals bothered. Then the Council called him back in for this sorry assignment.
Sometimes, he thought, life really wasn’t fair.
Right now, though, it turned a tiny bit fairer. Because who should step into his field of vision but the man himself, Rex Ruthless, surrounded by a flock of cronies, practically genuflecting before him.
“I have so got you,” Nikko whispered, pulling his propulsion cloak out of his mission supply bag. Flying over the streets of Manhattan might be verboten, but he’d convinced the Council that this mission justified the use of one of the experimental propulsion cloaks—the new model with both the invisibility feature and jet propulsion and built-in radar and night vision goggles. All he had to do was get the dang invisibility component working, then swoop down and follow Ruthless to his lair; neither Ruthless nor the folks treading the early morning Manhattan streets would be the wiser.
Since his entire plan hinged on the invisibility feature functioning, naturally it failed.
“Hopping Hades,” he muttered under his breath, even as the elevator leading up to the observation deck dinged. He checked his watch and silently cursed again. The invisibility feature had functioned fine two hours ago when he’d flown up here before the deck’s official opening time. Why had his four-point-three seconds of good luck run out right then, with the public arriving and the cloak malfunctioning? Honestly, you’d think the Fates had it in for him.
He pulled his cloak off and turned it over, hoping he could diagnose the problem before whoever was getting off the elevator noticed him or, worse, before Ruthless slipped into a limousine and Nikko lost track of him. No such luck. Not only was a limo pulling up to the curb right that very minute, but a preadolescent male voice behind Nikko screeched, “Mom! Mom! Look at that guy! It’s the Silver Streak! I know it, Mom! Check out his scar! I know it, I know it!”
“Eddie,” a woman whispered, her soft voice carrying on the wind, “that poor man probably gets compared to that character all the time. Don’t go bothering him. He’s probably sick to death of it.”
“But it is him, Mom! I’m sure of it.”
“Eddie,” she repeated, her voice this time stern.
And though Nikko would have preferred to sit there innocuously, silently proving the mom right, he knew he didn’t have that option. Ruthless was already in the limo, and it was poised to pull away from the curb as soon as traffic cleared. He’d spent three weeks chasing the lead that had allowed him to track Ruthless to this location, and he wasn’t about to lose the villain now. Who knew when he’d have such good intelligence again?
The limo accelerated, its front bumper nudging into traffic. Hopping Hades. He had only seconds to make a decision. Leap off the building and he could follow the limo easily with the propulsion cloak, but with the invisibility feature broken, Eddie would see him flying and undoubtedly spread the word. More than that, the deck was now filling, and some of these folks had video cameras. No hiding his antics from the Council. He’d be plastered all over blogs and YouTube within hours.
Do nothing, though, and Ruthless would get away. For all Nikko knew, the monster was mere hours from finishing his device, which meant that by nightfall, the whole island of Manhattan could be the size of a Saltine.
Honestly, it was a no-brainer, he decided; and he stood up, whipped the cloak around his shoulders, then bent at the knees and shot up into the sky, the power of the cloak thrumming through his body as he twisted to start his descent to the street.
And then, just because he was feeling a little devious, he paused over little Eddie and fired off a single Silver Streak salute to the gaping, gawking child.
If he was going down, he might as well go down big.
CHAPTER TWO
“You’re still here?”
The voice came from above, and Lydia Carmichael tilted her head up, her gaze following a path of comic book pages she’d taped
to the interior wall of her teensy cubicle until she found herself looking into a pair of smugly superior dusky brown eyes.
“If you’d quit wasting all your time reading that trash, you’d get your work done fast enough to get out of here at a normal hour,” Darla Dingbat sniped. Okay, so her name wasn’t actually Dingbat, but if there were justice in the world, it would be.
Lydia opened her mouth to tell Darla to: a) mind her own business, and b) get a freaking clue. It just so happened that Lydia had finished every scrap of work in her cubicle plus reviewed her neighbor Jason’s expense report over three hours ago. She was still in the office for the sole, limited and highly irritating reason that her boss, the infinitely obnoxious Martin Stout, insisted he wanted to talk to her about a cost-benefit analysis she’d turned in before lunch.
He, however, was chatting on the phone in his office, oblivious to the fact that it was well after five and he was wasting her time. And she, Lydia, was sitting in her tiny blue cloth–framed prison cell, seething, her irritation kept at bay only with massive doses of X-Men, Season 8 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a few classic Wonder Womans, and, of course, her entire collection of Silver Streak comics. Because when she was in a really pissy mood, about the only thing that calmed her down was losing herself in the fantasy of . . . well, losing herself in the dark, sexy, slightly bad-boy arms of the Silver Streak, with his sexy scar and his superpowers. In addition to the standard superhero fare, the Silver Streak could melt weapons. In the comics, he was also always melting women’s hearts.
That, of course, really was a fantasy. As much as Lydia might dream of the perfect man—sweet, funny, strong, capable and, yes, a superhero (it was fantasy, after all)—it wasn’t as if she’d ever land such a guy. Even if she tripped over him on the street, she’d probably manage little more than a mumble and a shy attempt at communication. Was it any wonder she liked to lose herself in comic book fantasies where she could be a hero, too? Saving the world even while saving herself at the same time?