Realizing that they were going to continue their feathery attack on the glass until they killed themselves or she answered, Velma sighed deeply and opened the balcony doors. Much to her relief, the pigeons did not immediately flood the room. Instead, a single bird flapped inside—not a member of the attacking flock, she noted, which meant it wasn’t bleeding on the floor—with an envelope clasped in its beak. It landed on the back of a chair, fluffing out its feathers in a bid for attention.
“If this explodes, you’re going to be one sorry fucking excuse for a miniature Thanksgiving turkey,” Velma cautioned the pigeon, and took the envelope. Almost as an afterthought, she added, “And don’t crap on the furniture.”
The pigeon cooed, sounding almost offended.
“Same to you,” said Velma, opening the envelope. Inside, there was a single sheet of paper. She unfolded it.
Ornate calligraphic letters read: LOOK DOWN.
“I’m walking into a trap,” she said, sing-song, and walked out onto the balcony. Putting her hands carefully against the ledge, she leaned forward, looking down toward street level . . .
. . . and screamed.
*
The valet at the downtown Portland Embassy Suites had been working for the hotel chain long enough to know that it was never appropriate to comment on the vehicles which paying customers, or their guests, chose to drive. Stretch limos, Harley-Davidsons, and dissolving Toyotas, their money spent the same, and the owners of the stranger cars were often among the best tippers.
Still, he’d never been faced with a coach-and-four before. Especially not a coach-and-four where the “coach” portion appeared to have been crafted from an unnaturally over-sized pumpkin. He was eying the contraption warily, praying he wouldn’t be asked to park it, when a brown-haired, brown-skinned woman in cargo pants and a black tank top came racing out the hotel doors at a truly indecorous speed, arms thrust straight up into the air.
“PRINCESS!” she shrieked.
Was it a battle cry? An invocation? Some sort of personal name? He was willing to bet on the last, as the owner of the coach popped out the door as soon as the brunette appeared, shrieking back, just as loudly, “VEL!”
The coach’s owner wasn’t altogether what he’d been expecting. Oh, the peaches-and-cream complexion went nicely with the enchanted coach motif, as did the enormous blue eyes and the flaxen yellow hair. Still, he was willing to wager that most women who answered to “Princess” and drove around in giant mutant pumpkins didn’t wear sleeveless black T-shirts with “NASTY EVER AFTER” written across the front. Her breasts were doing an excellent job of distorting the letters, but they were still legible.
The second woman to pop out of the coach was even less expected: white-haired, blue-skinned, faintly glowing, and wearing a sparkly red miniskirt with a shirt that read “THE NICE LIST IS FOR LOSERS.” “What am I, chopped liver?” she demanded, planting glowing hands on sparkling hips and grinning at the blonde and the brunette, who were caught in an enthusiastic embrace.
The valet, who was starting to feel like he’d fallen into the world’s strangest lesbian porn film, really wished he had some popcorn.
“You guys!” The brunette extricated herself from the blonde and flung herself at the glowing girl. “What are you doing here? How are you here? I just got here!”
“You showed up on Mom’s mirror every time you used your powers, you goof,” said the glowing girl, giving the brunette a tight hug. “When she saw you hit Oregon, she finally clued me in on where to find you, since that blew your secret identity but good. National news, not good for anonymity.”
“She called me about five minutes after you got knocked over the state line,” confirmed the blonde. “And I said that maybe you’d been meaning to call us for the last few years, and just hadn’t gotten around to it. So maybe we ought to come and give you a chance to apologize.”
“Over breakfast, naturally,” said the glowing girl. “Princess is paying.”
“Naturally,” said the blonde, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like Santa Claus believes in money. Come on, you freeloaders. The crepes are calling.” Grabbing a girl by each arm, she towed them back to the coach and pushed them inside. They didn’t resist.
As the coach began pulling out of the hotel driveway—without, the valet noted, any sign of a driver—the blonde leaned out of the window, blew him a kiss, and flipped a large gold coin in his direction. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” she called. The glowing girl leaned out the window behind her, waving frantically. Then they were gone, leaving the valet to stare down at the coin in his hand.
“How am I supposed to spend this at all?” he asked.
*
“Oh my Claus, will you look at your hair.” Jackie Frost—daughter of the Snow Queen and Jack Frost, and current best candidate to inherit the Winter Country when her parents either died or stepped down, something that thankfully showed no signs of happening any time soon—tweaked a lock of Velma’s hair between her fingers, wrinkling her nose. “Newsflash, sweetie: the rabbit code name doesn’t mean you need to nail a dead bunny to your head.”
“Stop it,” said Velma, laughing as she swatted Jackie’s hand away. “I’ve been on the run from the Marketing Department. That leaves very little time for hair care.”
“There’s always time for hair care,” said Jackie, sounding affronted.
The Princess just laughed. “Will you listen to the pair of you? Disney, but you’re like shaking cats in a sack.” Here, among friends, her natural Alabama accent came straight to the front, drowning every syllable in honey. “You should’ve come back years ago, Vel. I’ve been dealing with Jackie here all on my own.”
“I’m her penance,” Jackie confessed.
Velma raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
“Fabulousness,” deadpanned the Princess.
The sound of laughter followed the enchanted pumpkin down the street and into the heart of Portland.
*
Six crepes, three espressos, and a plate of waffles with sliced strawberries later, Velma was feeling better than she’d felt in years. Jackie and the Princess had kept up a constant stream of merry chatter all the way through breakfast, filling her in on all the gossip she’d missed during her time away from the superhuman community. She leaned back in her chair, resisting the urge to undo the button on her pants, and listened as Jackie spun a completely improbable story involving Leading Lady, Dotty Gale, and a bachelorette party gone entirely out of control. The three of them were making enough noise to wake the dead, but no one had said a thing about it. The Princess was, after all, the sweetheart of America’s youth, and if she wanted to hang out in their restaurant joking with her friends, the publicity it gained them would be well worth any immediate business they happened to lose.
Not that they were losing much. The place had been almost empty when they arrived, but now it was packed. Only the fact that the Princess had thoughtfully reserved the surrounding tables was preventing them from being seated at the heart of a mob. Flashes kept going off from a discrete distance, and Velma realized, through her digestive haze, that she was automatically turning her chin to keep her face in the best possible light. Some skills, it seemed, never went away. No matter how much you might wish that they would.
Jackie’s story finished, and neither of them seemed inclined to launch into another. Velma felt the sudden urge to begin telling them about Isley, or the coffee shop, or . . . well, or anything that would keep things from going serious on her. It had been so long since she’d had friends that she wasn’t entirely sure what to do, but she was certain that she didn’t want things to turn serious.
“Vel . . .” said Jackie, much more quietly than she’d been speaking a moment before.
Too late. “Yeah?” asked Velma, wishing she had a piece of toast to crumble, or a napkin to shred, or, well, just about anything.
Jackie and the Princess exchanged a glance. Finally, the Princess said, “We were just wondering, now tha
t you’re here, in Oregon, and licensed and everything, well. What are your plans? What are you going to do after this?”
“I can’t leave the state,” Velma said, looking frantically around for a waiter. For the first time since their arrival, the staff seemed to have deserted them. “The Super Patriots would have me under arrest the second I crossed a border.”
“Untrue,” said Jackie. “You’re welcome at the North Pole any time. Santa would be thrilled to see you again. He’s really missed you.”
“I noticed.” Every Christmas since she’d left The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, she’d gone to sleep on Christmas Eve in a dingy, undecorated apartment, and woken up to tinsel, tree, and piles of presents. There were years when selling the things that Santa gave her was all that let her keep eating. She’d never seen the Big Guy herself on those Christmas mornings, but she’d been leaving him thank you notes since the first year. “Guess I never dropped off the nice list.”
“Unlike those vipers in Marketing,” snarled the Princess. Velma looked at her in surprise. The Princess shook her head. “Sweetie, you think we don’t know what they did to you? There’s a reason neither of us never went to work for them. And it’s not because we could make more money in the private sector.”
“Right.” Velma sighed. “I’ll get a job, I guess. I can wait tables. I’ve been a barista. If it’s low-paying and doesn’t require a college degree to do, I’m actually pretty good at it. Years of temping have honed me into a mean, lean, filing machine.”
The others stared at her. Jackie was the one to finally say what they were both thinking, asking slowly, “And you’ll be happy doing that for the rest of your life? Pouring coffee and microwaving scones for minimum wage?”
“I’m not trained to do anything else.”
“That’s not true,” said the Princess. “You possess a rare and carefully nurtured skill set that has a lot of applications in your current situation. One that could be used to improve your quality of life, as well as the lives of the people around you.”
Now it was Velma’s turn to stare. “You’re not saying what I think it sounds like you’re saying. If you were saying it, you’d be crazy. You’re not crazy, are you? Please don’t be crazy.”
“I’m saying you could be a superhero, Vel.”
Velma sighed. “That’s what I was afraid you were saying.”
*
Velma’s new costume fit her like a second skin and held her stomach in like the world’s most ambitious pair of control-top pantyhose. Not that she was fat, per se, but she definitely hadn’t been doing the “no carbs shall ever pass these lips” diet recommended for superheroines whose powers didn’t include a hyper-efficient metabolism. It was even in the right colors, chocolate brown and a deep burgundy red. “How did you get one of these made so fast?” she asked, tugging on one of the gloves. “And I haven’t said yes yet. Agreeing to put on the costume and go for one patrol is so not the same as saying yes. You know that, right?”
“As to how we got your costume done so fast, Princess here controls an army of mice. Apparently mice can sew.” Jackie shrugged, making the tiny icicles that ringed her costume’s neckline chime. She looked like she was about to go and compete in Olympic figure skating—even down to the skates. Being able to make your own ice came in handy when she needed to increase her speed of movement.
“They’re very good with button holes,” agreed the Princess. “We know you’re not necessarily back in the business, Vel, but we’ve missed you, and we just want you to be sure you’ve explored all your options.”
“Besides, you pretty much owe the governor one patrol. She did keep you from getting arrested and turned over to the Marketing Department to be their new R-and-D bitch.”
Velma sighed. “Right. Okay. Let’s go fight some crime.”
“Least inspiring battle cry ever,” said Jackie.
They went.
*
Things that are unobtrusive: masked avengers of the night silently lurking on rooftops, using Gothic gargoyles as camouflage as they watch over their chosen cities.
Things that are not unobtrusive: blonde women in pink taffeta riding flying carpets, followed by massive flocks of pigeons, crows, and one profoundly confused escaped parakeet. Glowing blue women traveling by means of anchoring ice slides to rooftops and skating along them, singing off-key Christmas carols all the while. And, of course, screaming brunettes clinging for dear life to the back of the aforementioned flying carpet, occasionally pausing to spew invective that would make a supervillain blush.
“Relax!” called the Princess, pitching her voice to be heard above the rushing of the wind. “It’s just a flying carpet!”
“I DON’T FLY!”
“That’s why the carpet does it for you!”
“I DON’T LIKE THE CARPET!”
“Relax or I’ll start a musical number!”
Velveteen didn’t relax, but she did stop screaming. A small blessing, made bigger when the reduced noise levels let them hear the sirens coming from the streets below.
“Hey, Vel!”
“WHAT?!”
“You know how you said you don’t fly?”
Realization struck Velveteen across the face like a flung flounder cold-cocking a fisherman. “No! No, that’s okay! I like flying! Flying is good! Let’s keep on flying for a little while lo—”
The Doppler Effect distorted her screams into something almost musical as the carpet dropped out of the sky.
*
The valet at the downtown Portland Embassy Suites was getting ready for the end of his shift when the pumpkin-slash-carriage made its second appearance, rattling up the driveway, still without any visible means of locomotion. Laughter and the occasional squeal were coming from inside the conveyance. Not for the first time, the valet seriously asked himself whether it might not be time to pursue another line of work.
“—don’t believe we did that!” said the brunette from before, now wearing a velvet-looking body suit, a rabbit-ear headband, and something that looked unnervingly like a tool belt. A bright pink plush bunny rabbit spilled out of the pumpkin after her. It was walking on its own. “It was all wham! Pow! Victory!”
“Totally old-school,” agreed the blue one, who was still glowing, but was wearing a sparkly, spangly, insufficiently street-legal ice skating costume with—were those ice skates? Those were ice skates. Apparently, she traveled with her own personal hockey rink. “They felt the justice of Portland today.”
“Especially the one who pissed himself,” said the blonde, stepping down from the carriage with a marginally more decorous air. She had changed her clothes along with the others, and the cotton candy pink dress she was wearing wouldn’t have looked out of place in a production of Wicked. She even had a tiara.
“Definitely time for a new line of work,” muttered the valet.
The blonde patted the pumpkin-coach-thing lightly on the side as she closed the door, saying, “Okay, sweetie. Thanks for the lift, but it’s time to park for a little bit, if you don’t mind.” The coach was immediately surrounded by a swirl of glitter, which closed in, expanded out, and burst, leaving a novelty-sized pumpkin in its place. “Thank you, dearest,” said the blonde, before picking up the pumpkin and tucking it into her purse. She looked back toward the others. “All done.”
“All right, team!” said Jackie. “To the mini-bar!”
“FOR JUSTICE!” shouted the other two, and followed the blue girl inside.
*
Three hours and several kamikaze runs on the mini-bar later, all three of the girls were pleasantly plastered, lolling around Velveteen’s hotel room and occasionally giggling at each other. Jackie was wearing Velveteen’s rabbit ears; Velveteen was wearing her own uniform top with the Princess’s skirt; the Princess herself was wearing a bathrobe. None of them were entirely clear on when the exchange had happened, but as they weren’t planning to go anywhere unless they ran out of alcohol, it didn’t really seem to matter.
“But why,” declaimed Jackie, “is the rum gone? There’s the real question.”
“Because you drank it,” said Velveteen solemnly. The room dissolved into giggles once again.
When things calmed down—after several more drinks, a pillow fight, and all the candy in the mini-bar—Velveteen was sprawled on the floor with her head on Jackie’s knees, idly directing a small flock of origami birds in formations that flew around the room. “I missed you guys,” she said, yawning. “I really, really did.”
“We missed you, too, Vel,” said the Princess, before finishing her drink. “You hadda . . . hadda . . . it was time to take a break. But this is what you’re good at. This is what you should be doing.”
“Yeah,” agreed Jackie. “Drinking heavily with your friends in a hotel room that somebody else is paying for.”
“Yeah,” said Vel, and yawned.
The others waited until she was fully asleep before sneaking out. The Princess closed the hotel room before humming eight bars of a peppy little song which rendered them both perfectly sober. Jackie gave her a sidelong look.
“Nobody expects a drunken fairy tale princess,” she explained.
They walked to the end of the hall, and were waiting for the elevator when Jackie asked, “So. . . do you think we helped?”
“I don’t think we hurt,” said the Princess. “If she decides to stay civilian, at least she knows that she’s still got friends who care about her. That’s worth a lot.”
“Yeah. It is.”
*
Velveteen woke up alone, with only the empty bottles, bruises, and glittery pools to commemorate the fact that anybody had been there at all. Squinting sleepily, she sat up. “Guys?” No answer. “Guys, did you go back to the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle?” No answer. “I guess so.”
Yawning, she slid off the couch and made her way to the bathroom. She was midway through her shower when she realized, without fanfare, that she’d made up her mind.
Besides. It was really going to get under Marketing’s skin.