These Boots Were Made For Stomping

by Julie Kenner

  “He’s mortal,” Zephron confirmed, his piercing gaze aimed right at Nikko’s face. “But I’m sorry to tell you that you’re not too far from the mark.”

  “What are you—Oh.” Nikko pondered the suggestion, running through all the ramifications and not liking how they added up. Not liking it at all. “You’re saying he has help? From an Outcast?”

  “Not an Outcast,” Zephron said, his expression infinitely sad. “From someone within the Council.”

  “Mother of Zeus!” Nikko said, rising to his feet. “Who? I swear I’ll nail the bastard to the wall.”

  Zephron chuckled, indicating with his hand that Nikko should sit down again. “Your loyalty is to be commended,” he said. “Especially considering you’ve made it no secret that you aren’t exactly a Council cheerleader these days.”

  Nikko shrugged. The truth was, he loved his Colorado retreat. But lately he’d missed the action, the sense of being involved in something big. Something important.

  And, yes, there was another factor working on him, too, pushing him to abandon his reclusiveness, to make amends for past mistakes and fight his way back into action: as much as he hated to admit it, he was lonely. He missed his Protector friends. And he damn sure missed Protector women. Sure, there were girls in Colorado, but he’d found none he could really talk to. Not that he’d had a great dating record among his own kind, but at least they shared a common ground.

  If anything, the one thing hanging out alone in his beautiful Colorado retreat had taught him, it was that the place was significantly less beautiful without someone to share it with.

  All interesting ruminations, he supposed, but hardly of concern to Zephron at the moment. Nikko took a breath and met the elder’s eyes. “I’m a Protector, plain and simple,” he finally said. “It was my decision that got me in trouble, and it’s going to be my hard work that gets me out of it. If I can get out of it. If Ruthless has inside help—”

  “The help has been located, apprehended, and appropriately punished,” Zephron said, his expression hard. “Of that, I assure you.”

  “Good,” Nikko said.

  “I agree,” Zephon replied. “But it is good in more ways than one,” he said, tossing Nikko a significant look.

  Nikko caught it with a grin. “You have information,” he said.

  “Two pieces of intelligence, actually. Used properly, both should serve you well. Act recklessly, however, and the window of opportunity will not only slam shut, it will be painted and nailed closed.”

  “Got it,” Nikko said, feeling more than a little chastened.

  Zephron laughed. “I would give the same speech to anyone. Perhaps you are too touchy about your current situation, and that touchiness is your Achilles’ heel? Achilles is, I believe, an ancestor?”

  “Very far removed,” Nikko said. More directly, Nikko was descended from Nike, the goddess of victory, though lately he’d felt less than victorious on all counts. If Zephron had an “in,” Nikko was all over it.

  “The difficulty lies in locating Ruthless’s lair,” Zephron reiterated. “As you know, we have stumbled at every turn, which drove our frustration level exceptionally high, especially prior to learning that he obtained the assistance of one of our own.”

  “Yeah,” Nikko agreed. “That burns.”

  “Indeed. At any rate, the information we now have sheds light on the problem. His lair, you see, is mobile. More, he has devised a system whereby he never travels directly there. Instead, he disintegrates, then that disembodied form reintegrates at the current location. Tracking him, you see, often ends in nothing more than a wild-goose chase.”

  “That one I was beginning to learn the hard way,” Nikko admitted.

  His recent failure had been the direct result of a faulty invisibility module coupled with Ruthless’s stolen escape tactic and a mole who had revealed to Ruthless that he was being watched. All in all, a losing situation. Nikko had known it at the time, of course, but he’d decided to take the risk. Who knew when he’d get another solid lead on Ruthless’s whereabouts? It just hadn’t ended well.

  “I screwed up, and I know it. And I’m glad to hear there’s a bit of good news hidden somewhere in this mess. Anytime you want to share it, you feel free.”

  “Patience,” Zephron said, his eyes twinkling as he held up a finger. “It is our belief that Ruthless is becoming desperate to locate the final component of the shrinking device he is constructing. So desperate, in fact, that he will soon be resorting to drastic measures.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as threatening to kill a Protector if his terms aren’t meant.”

  “Cold.”

  “Indeed,” Zephron said. “Though not entirely unexpected. There is a reason, after all, that he is the bad guy and we are not.”

  “Fair enough,” Nikko remarked, leaning back in his chair and kicking his feet up on Zephron’s desk. The corner of the Elder’s mouth turned down, but he didn’t say anything. Nikko hid a grin. Years ago, he’d been among Zephron’s favorites. Nice to know some things hadn’t changed.

  “It occurs to me,” the Elder continued, “that we can use this desperation to our advantage by handing him a Protector. A victim whom he can use as a bargaining chip—or, at least, a victim that he believes can be used as such. Someone he will take back to his lair, seemingly conquered. And once there—”

  “He can storm the castle and take the place down from the inside,” Nikko finished.

  “That is the idea,” Zephron said. “We can equip you with a tracking device that is undetectable prior to activation. We will set the device so that the process of reintegration activates it. Once you are in the lair, the signal will be transmitted, and we can be there almost instantaneously.”

  “Great plan unless he kills me in transit,” Nikko said.

  “We shall hope that doesn’t happen.”

  “Yeah,” Nikko said. “We shall.”

  “You are in agreement, then?”

  Nikko nodded. “It’s the best lead so far. But how do I get captured if I can’t get close to him?”

  “Simple,” Zephron said with a smile. “You will be in the right place at the right time. And, of course, you’re going to have to lose a fight. Can you do that?”

  “It’ll be tough,” Nikko said, deadpan. “But I think I can manage.”

  On Tuesday, Lydia talked herself out of wearing the new outfit Amy had put together for her. The shoes were supposed to arrive at her office on Wednesday morning by priority shipment, and so she held off, wanting to wow the folks on the fifth floor with her keen fashion sense. Or, rather, Amy’s keen fashion sense.

  At ten of six, though, Lydia was wishing she’d tried the outfit after all. For that matter, she was wishing she had the shoes. Forget the goddess factor, at that point she would have been happy with a placebo effect. Anything to help her stand up to Darla and her cronies, all of whom had heard that she’d been given a second chance by Mr. Stout.

  “Poor Lydia,” Darla had said. “Maybe next time you’ll get your work in on time. And don’t forget about the eight a.m. meeting tomorrow. After turning in your work late, I can’t see Mr. Stout keeping you on if you blow off a meeting, too.” She pressed her fingertips to her lips and made kiss-kiss noises. “Just trying to be helpful, Lydia,” she added, her white teeth gleaming like wet sugar.

  Bitch.

  But Lydia had only stood there, seething, knowing damn well that she’d turned her work in early, but too chicken to tell Darla to take a flying leap. More than that, she’d actually arranged the details for tomorrow’s meeting, so it was hardly likely she’d miss it. But Darla couldn’t miss an opportunity to stick in the knife and turn.

  “You’re a wimp,” Lydia told herself as she marched down the crowded city sidewalk to catch the train to her tiny apartment. One of a thousand girls trying to make it in Gotham, Metropolis, the Big Bad City.

  And then—in case she thought the day couldn’t get any worse—she stumbled on a sub
way grate and the heel on her ancient black pump snapped. She fell forward, skinning her knee and eliciting the kind of curse words that she always swore to her mother she didn’t know.

  Naturally, she hadn’t thought to shove a pair of flip-flops into her tote bag, and so she had to stumble home on one good shoe, her face burning as construction workers, commuters, and other pedestrians turned to watch her, a few snickering about her predicament. Since that got old quickly, she took a shortcut down an alley, where a few scary guys in leather jackets, pants and lots of tattoos ogled her, making colorful (though completely unappealing) suggestions as to ways they could entertain her sexually. Ick. And rather unnerving, too.

  She hurried on, head down, as the shouted comments got bolder and more graphic. She clenched her fists, wishing she had the courage to stand up to them, but knowing she’d be stupid to do so even if she were ballsy enough. Those guys were scum, and they wouldn’t exactly back off if she decided to stick up for herself. More than likely, they’d decide to make her their girlfriend. All of them. In turn.

  She swallowed, then hurried faster, her hand in her purse so that maybe—just maybe—they’d think she was armed and leave her alone.

  By the time she hobbled off the train a few blocks from her apartment, Lydia was more or less wishing she’d taken the easy way out and crawled under a rock. She climbed the stairs of the front stoop of her converted brownstone apartment, then slipped the key in the front door. She checked her mail—nothing—then hurried up three flights of stairs to her apartment. There was a box sitting in front of her door, and she looked at it curiously. She wasn’t expecting anything except the shoes, and they weren’t scheduled to arrive at her office until the next morning. Plus, all packages were supposed to be left downstairs.

  The package was indeed about the size of a shoebox, and relatively light. She shook it, then checked out the wrapping. No clues there. The thing was wrapped in brown paper and twine, like an old-fashioned parcel. And although there was a return address, it only listed a PO box in Queens.

  Weird.

  Still, a present was a present, and Lydia wasn’t about to turn away this one. Especially not on a day when she could use a pick-me-up. She took the box into her apartment, peeled off the wrapping, and found an honest-to-goodness shoebox, albeit one covered in shiny gold foil. Taped to the outside was a notecard, and Lydia opened that first.

  We thought you could

  use this early . . .

  With love,

  all of us at Hiheelia

  Okaaaaay.

  That was a little bizarre, because how on earth could they change their courier service like that? Then again, Lydia thought, maybe the policy was to ship early with this little note simply so gullible buyers would believe in all that magical hocus-pocus stuff. Pretty handy PR tool, when you got right down to it.

  Still, she wasn’t inclined to look a gift shoe in the mouth. Especially not a shoe as fabulous as the one she’d picked out online last night.

  Carefully, she opened the box, then peered beneath the gold foil inside. Probably an optical illusion from the way the light hit the wrapping, but when she first glanced into the box, it almost seemed as if the shoes glowed.

  Get a grip, Lydia.

  She was beginning to sound like Amy. And as much as she loved her best friend, Lydia really, really, really didn’t believe that nonsense about a magical Web site that delivered magical shoes that brought you your heart’s desire.

  A nice idea, but she lived in the real world, thank you very much. And in the real world, shoes kept your feet protected, looked hot, and cost a fortune. And that was pretty much that.

  At the moment, it was the looking-hot aspect that interested Lydia the most, and she pulled the top the rest of the way off the box and gasped in excitement as she saw the soft, supple black leather of the ankle-high lace-up boots she’d picked out last night.

  Lydia picked the left one out of the box where it was nestled in tissue paper, the smooth leather cool to her fingers. She kicked off her hideous pumps and slipped the boot on, feeling the way the arch cupped her foot and the leather hugged the shape of her toes.

  It laced up the side, the golden cablelike thread hooking through silver eyelets. She laced the left, then slipped on the right and repeated the procedure. Amy might have her quirks, but she was most definitely a good friend, because while these shoes might not make Lydia want to go out and kick serious butt, they really did make her feel . . . well . . . special.

  She stood up and walked around the apartment, surprised at how comfortable they were, considering the two-inch heels. She did a few little pirouettes, laughed like a loon, then headed to the couch, where she kicked back and watched the Tuesday-night lineup. Maybe not the most exciting night of her life, but at least she was being boring in really cool shoes.

  When the time came to pack it in and get to bed early—so that she could be refreshed and ready for the meeting Darla had so kindly reminded her of—Lydia left the shoes right beside her bed. Ready to slip on the second she woke up.

  The weird thing was, she woke up with the shoes on her feet: a little fact that came to Lydia’s attention when the shrill ringing of the telephone woke her. She leapt out of bed, landing awkwardly on the heels.

  Not that she had time to wonder about her toes’ midnight migration into her shoes; the caller ID identified her office, and she snatched up the phone and uttered a breathless hello.

  “Lydia? It’s Joanie,” announced Mr. Stout’s secretary. “Looks like we’ll have an extra ten heads at the meeting this morning. Can you swing by a bakery on your way in and pick up a couple of dozen doughnuts?”

  “Sure,” Lydia said, eyeing the clock and mentally adjusting how fast she had to get out the door. No problem. She could do this.

  She had to take the shoes off to shower, and weirdly, she actually felt a little bit of a letdown as she stripped them off her feet. “I’m coming right back to you,” she assured them, leaving the shoes tucked under the foot of the bed. She felt a little silly talking to her footwear, but since she was alone in her apartment, what did it matter?

  Showered and clean, Lydia slid into the outfit Amy had picked out for her and slipped on her fabulous new boots. A nice little electrical charge zipped through her and—yeah—she felt different. More spunky.

  Pretty damn cool.

  The bakery on the corner was her absolute favorite, so she grabbed two dozen mixed doughnuts even though she would have to schlep the boxes all the way into the city, her business tote slung over one shoulder and two boxes in a Twin’s Bakery bag clutched tight in her other hand. With extreme willpower, she managed to not eat the doughnuts during the train ride, and she was feeling supremely smug by the time she was a single block from the office with seventeen minutes to spare. Oh, yes! No way was she getting any grief from Darla today. This was a major brownie-point day in the making.

  That’s when she heard the scream.

  Lydia froze. Her feet didn’t, though, and suddenly Lydia found herself racing pell-mell into a dark, scary alley, with absolutely no idea what she’d find there. Or, more important, what she’d do once she found it.

  It was the scream that caught Nikko’s attention, and damned if he didn’t try to ignore it.

  The sound had come from the west, at least a couple of blocks over from where he was perched, biding his time until that late that night, when Ruthless was supposed to show up in the alley behind a particularly seedy gentlemen’s club. According to the Council’s new intelligence source—aka, the rat-fink who’d leaked information and technology to Ruthless—Ruthless had received a tip from a psychic (honestly!) that the single source of his still-missing component part would be at the club near the cocktail hour. At the moment, Nikko was insanely early from the anticipated rendezvous, but he didn’t trust the source at all. Better to come early and stay late. Because this was one assignment he wasn’t taking any chances on.

  Still, though . . .

  A woma
n had screamed.

  He shifted a bit on the fire escape, the repaired invisibility cloak weighing heavy on his shoulders. True, people got mugged every day out there in the big, bad world, and Protectors couldn’t be all places at all times. Sometimes, you had to make sacrifices for the greater good. And preventing New York from shrinking to a size he could shove in his pocket would seem to fall into that category.

  Still, though . . .

  A woman had screamed. And that was one thing that Nikko couldn’t ignore, no matter how much he might tell himself he should.

  “Whhhoooooooaaaaaa!”

  Without even thinking about it, Lydia found herself racing into the alley, her discombobulated body aimed straight toward a greasy-haired fiend with wild eyes and a gun pointed right at a teenage girl’s face.

  Lydia tried desperately to head in the other direction. To make her feet turn around and run to find the police. Because only a fool would jump in front of a hopped-up mugger, and although Lydia was a lot of things, she was absolutely not a fool.

  Or, maybe she was. Because even as she screamed, “No, no, noooooooo,” her feet propelled her forward. The mugger looked up, apparently misinterpreting her words as a message for him, rather than a plea to her feet.

  Still, the surprise worked in her favor. The victim ducked, and Lydia’s feet went flying. She kicked out hard, managing to catch the bad guy in the chin and send his head spinning. He tumbled backward, and she gave a shout to the girl: “Run.”

  The girl didn’t waste any time, hightailing it out of there with her school logo–emblazoned backpack smacking against her.

  Great for the girl, not so great for Lydia. Especially considering how the thug had decided to turn his attention on her.

  “You little bitch,” he snarled, clambering to his feet and swinging the gun around at her.

  Lydia opened her mouth, but only a squeak came out. Still, her feet managed to rise to the occasion—literally. One foot snapped up, knocking the gun out of the mugger’s hand even as the rest of her body cringed, wanting nothing more than to crawl under a Dumpster and hide.