These Boots Were Made for Stomping (7 page)

“Yeah,” she said softly. “I do.” She stood up, then reached out her hand. “Like I said: I want to learn from the best. Teach
me?”

He hesitated, then stood up. “I’m not sure who’s doing the teaching here,” he said. “But I think we can definitely go nail
a few bad guys together.” He pulled some sort of cloak out of the backpack he’d been carrying. He swooped it over his shoulders,
then pulled her close, enveloping her in his strong arms. “You don’t have a propulsion cloak issued to you?”

“Um, no,” she said, debating whether now was the time for her confession. She looked up at the sky, remembered the way it
felt to fly with him, and decided to wait a little longer. Right then, she wanted the thrill of flying with him, and the kick
of doing good, of stepping into the shoes—literally—of the superhero life she’d fantasized about for so long.

“You should talk to the Council about that,” he said. “Sometimes I think they do a piss-poor job of walking Halflings through
procedure.”

“Mmm,” she said, but fortunately, he didn’t mind her relative nonanswer.

“The invisibility feature is acting up, so we may not be able to— Hang on. Never mind. It’s still working.”

She looked down, then gasped to realize that she couldn’t see her feet, her hands, any of her.

“What the . . . ?”

“Hold on,” he said, his smile as bright as his eyes. And then, suddenly, they were flying, their bodies transparent against
the deep blue sky, and the streets of Brooklyn spread out beneath them like a diorama.

“So, what do you do?” she asked. “Fly around looking for good deeds?”

He chuckled. “I’m usually handed specific assignments,” he said, reminding her that he was on assignment right then, which
meant that soon he’d have to leave her and this lovely, sensual interlude would come to a halt. “But, yeah. Since Protectors
swear an oath to protect mortals, we have to step in if we see anything untoward going on.”

“Right,” she said. “The oath. That’s exactly what the Silver Streak lives by.” She peered down at the street, a morbid part
of her hoping for a mugging or robbery. Or a juicy carjacking.

Nada
.

In the end, they rescued a cat from a tree in stereo typical fashion, then helped a woman get her jammed front door open.

“Not exactly a superhero morning,” she said to Nikko as she leaned against a maple near the woman’s front door. “I never thought
I’d be bummed not to see someone being mugged or harassed,” she added with a laugh.

“You can’t have everything,” Nikko said, his dimple showing. “Besides, you—”

But he was cut off by a shrill scream as a teenager raced by, a purse banging against him as he sprinted away from a woman
screaming bloody murder.

The dimple deepened into a full-fledged smile. “Go get ’em,” he urged.

Lydia didn’t wait for him to tell her twice, but took off after the thief, her shoes moving her at a speed she would have
thought impossible yesterday. More than that, she no longer feared for her own balance.
She
was in control now. Her feet might have called the shots at first, but now it was all Lydia . . . and it felt wonderful.

In no time at all, she caught up to the guy, getting in front of him and halting him with a flat hand against his chest. “I’ll
take that,” she said, snagging the purse back. Around them, passersby hurried over, including a beat cop. And Nikko and the
victim were jogging toward her, Nikko doing his best to look very, very mortal.

“Who the hell are you?” the thief asked her.

She lifted her chin. “The Pink Streak,” she said, then bit back a laugh. Okay, so maybe she understood where Nikko was coming
from. Having
that
moniker stick would be no fun at all.

She passed the thief off to the officer, accepted the victim’s profound thanks, then linked her arm in Nikko’s and took off
walking back the way she’d come.

“So how’d I do, coach?”

“High marks across the board. Speed. Agility. You got your target. You delivered him to the authorities. You were calm, controlled,
and very assertive.” A slow grin spread across his face. “All qualities I like in a woman.”

“Is that a fact?” She took a step forward, her eyes on his and the air between them thick with electricity. “If assertive
turns you on, then you should love this. Take me home,” she said, clutching his collar and pulling him down so that she could
whisper the rest of her invitation in the kind of language her mother had definitely not taught her.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think that’s a suggestion I can definitely get behind.”

They took the old-fashioned way home, snuggled together in the backseat of a taxi, with roaming hands and nuzzling lips. So
much, in fact, that she caught the driver peeping at them once in the rearview mirror.

But whereas old Lydia might have blushed furiously and sunk to the floorboards, this Lydia simply grinned and suggested he
subscribe to cable.

Nikko rolled his eyes and pulled her close. “Newlyweds,” he said, apparently more inclined to be polite.

At least, she assumed he was only being polite. Surely he wasn’t thinking along those lines. Was he?

She licked her lips and leaned up against him, but turned her head to face out the window, afraid her thoughts would show
on her face. Could a person know after only one night? Because Lydia thought she did. He was her fantasy come true, and when
he walked into her life it was like he’d walked into a hole in her heart and filled her utterly.

Her mind was still meandering when they reached her apartment, but his soft kisses and sultry suggestions of a quick shower
got her mind back on track. She gave him a quick kiss, then bent over to pull off her shoes. They were off, and she was working
the button on her jeans when she heard the
bing bing
of his cell phone that apparently wasn’t actually a cell phone.

He pulled it from deep in a pocket and flipped it open, then pushed a button or two. She wasn’t really paying attention, but
something changed—the air in the room seemed to grow colder and she couldn’t help but shiver. She looked up, distracted from
the act of undressing, and found him staring at her. His already familiar face seemed harsh. Harder than she’d seen it, and
she shuddered a bit, not from lust this time, but from a deep, cold dread.

“Nikko?” she asked, fearing the worst. “What’s wrong.”

“Text message,” he said, with a steely edge to his voice. He held the phone up for her to see. The screen was too far away,
though, and so she shook her head, an icy chill coursing through her.

“I’m not sure I—”

“Cut the crap, Lydia,” he said. “Tell me the truth and tell me now. Who in Hades are you, and how long have you been working
for Ruthless?”

“What?”

She was staring at him, her mouth gaping open, her expression of surprise so sincere that he almost believed it. Almost, but
not quite.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see through your ruse earlier. A Protector? Honestly, I’ve been out of the game too long.”

Not that that was a legitimate excuse. The truth was, he didn’t see that she was conning him because he didn’t want to. He
was lonely and tired of living for the mission, and when a beautiful girl appeared out of nowhere and seemed to be as attracted
to him as he was to her, he fell hard and fast.

Oldest story in the book. He wasn’t pathetic. He was just a typical male.

He looked at her, seeing the confusion in her eyes along with the hurt. He took a step toward her, and then stopped.
Watch it, Nikko
. She was a good one. After all, didn’t Ruthless only recruit the best? Wasn’t that why he’d so far been untouchable?

He forced himself to stop, to harden his heart. Because no matter how much he wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her
that it was all a big misunderstanding, that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t a Protector, and she’d flat-out lied to him.

“Dammit, Nikko, talk to me!”

“You lied to me,” he said.

Her brow furrowed as she looked from the phone to his face and back again. “No, I swear, I didn’t lie.”

“Do you know what this is?” he asked, thrusting the phone closer to her face.

“A phone?”

“And a lie detector. It’s automatic. Analyzes every sound it picks up. Not immediately, unfortunately. But it sends a signal
to Council headquarters, and a text message is returned almost instantaneously. I missed the earlier message,” he said. “I
was a little distracted at the time, I guess.” And about
that
he was truly kicking himself, even though the distraction had been oh, so very sweet.

No.
Best not to think that way. Not sweet. Devious.

“And this time?” she asked.

“This time, there were two messages: one with an update on my mission, the other reporting on the veracity of your earlier
statements. When you said you were a—”

“Protector,” she finished, looking at her toes. “I know. I’m sorry. But I wasn’t lying. I swear.”

“The phone says otherwise.”

“I didn’t understand.” She looked up at him, tears clinging to her lashes. “I was protecting, and so I thought—” She broke
off and brushed a tear from her eye, pretty much ripping him apart from the inside in the process. “It’s all about the shoes,
okay? I got the shoes and then suddenly I was in the thick of it, protecting that girl. And then when I heard you, I rushed
in, too. And it’s not like I really knew what I was doing, but I figured, well, maybe you had ordered shoes, too, and maybe
you could tell me what the deal was. That’s all. I swear. Do you understand? Do you believe me?”

“Shoes?” he asked, his head starting to spin.

“These shoes,” she said, pointing to the boots sitting on the floor beside her. “I bought them over this Web site, and there’s
this shoe goddess, and—”

“Shoe goddess?”

She blinked. “I guess that sounds a little crazy, huh?”

He shook his head, just slightly. “Not as much as you might think.” Considering Protectors were descended from the Greek gods,
it really wasn’t that unbelieveable at all.

“Well, anyway, the shoes are supposed to give you your heart’s desire, and, well, I wanted self-confidence, you know? And
I guess Shoestra flipped that on its ear and made me totally kick-ass, but the truth is,” she continued, her words coming
machine-gun fast, “I like it. It feels right. And I’m sorry if you don’t believe me, but I didn’t lie to you, and I only want—”

“Wait.” He held up a hand, exhausted from simply watching her. “Let’s take it back a notch. You’re trying to tell me you’re
mortal?
I’ve seen you in action, Lydia.”

But he believed her. He really did. For one thing, his bullshit meter wasn’t going off at all. For another, the text feature
on his phone wasn’t blipping. It should be analyzing all this, and nothing was coming back saying that she lied.

Which either meant she was telling the truth, or it meant that the response time for the Auto-Detect feature was running slow
again.

Nikko was willing to bet on the truth. Lydia, he thought, was something he was more than willing to gamble on.

She, however, didn’t know that yet, and as he watched, she put her hands on her hips and cocked her head, looking absolutely
adorable. “Yes, I’m mortal. I told you. It’s the shoes,” she said. “You’ve seen the shoes in action.” She drew in a shaky
breath, then looked down at the ground. “I’m not like you. I’m not strong. I’m not really a superhero. It’s all about the
shoes. Without them, I’m a complete loser.”

“No, you’re not.”

She looked up at him, her expression sad and a little hopeful. But then it changed. Her eyes widening and filling with terror.

He took a step toward her. “Lyd—?”

“Exactly, my dear,” answered a new voice, the words underscored by the crash of glass. “The shoes really are the center of
it all, and I realized as much when I saw you in that alley. A fortuitous moment, to be sure.” He held out his hand. “And
if you don’t mind,” said Rex Ruthless, “I’ll be taking them now.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Her shoes?

The ubervillain who’d pulled a U.S.S.
Enterprise
transporter trick in the alley right before her eyes—not to mention flipping her in midair—needed her
shoes?

Lydia had no idea why someone who seemed to ooze powers of his own would want women’s shoes that upped your kick-ass factor,
but she did know one thing: there was no way in hell she was letting him have them.

Those thoughts passed through her head in nanoseconds, and before she even had time to register that she
had
thought, she was rushing forward to shove her feet into her shoes, tripping over her toes in a tangle of limbs and jeans to
get to them before he did.

Because he was trying!

Mere seconds after he’d spoken, he was lunging toward her shoes, with Nikko leaping on top of him. They rolled over, a mishmash
of arms and legs, and then—suddenly—Nikko froze, his eyes wide with surprise.

“What did you do to him?” Lydia screamed, managing to tie the last lace and secure the boots firmly to her feet.

“It’s amazing the little tricks one can manage when one has access to Council prototypes,” Ruthless said, smiling thinly as
he held up a small cylindrical silver contraption. “It won’t keep him frozen forever—and sadly I can’t repeat the freeze once
it wears off naturally—but it should be plenty of time to get those shoes and head back to my laboratory.”

“You’re insane,” she said. “Why on earth do you want a pair of women’s shoes?”

“My dear, your shoes are the component I’ve been searching for. The only known component of shoeidium. Very rare, and very
fortunate I was in that alley to see your shoes in action. Now I have the final piece in my Miniaturizing Machine.”

“Your
what?”

His smile was pure ice. “I think you heard me.”

Yeah,
she thought. She was pretty sure she had. “What exactly are you planning to miniaturize?”

“Why, New York City, of course. Small enough to fit in a snow globe on my desk. The ultimate Christmas present to myself,
don’t you think?” He held out a hand and waggled his fingers. “Now be a good girl and pass me those shoes.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. She might not be a real superhero like Nikko, but there was no way she was letting this thug
carry out his evil plot—no matter how ridiculously comic book it might sound. And with that determination firmly in mind,
she turned and started to run in the other direction.

It was a ruse, though, and when he sprinted after her, she stopped cold, then whipped around, letting those fabulous feet
do their thing.

The cylinder flew out of his hand, and his head went back with a
thwack
so loud Lydia was sure his neck must have snapped. Unfortunately, though, his head was still firmly attached.

“You bi—”

“Want more?” she asked, then punched him in the nose, surprising herself, and making her toes tingle with pride in her shoes.

“Little fool,” he hissed, his voice wet and gurgly through his bloody nose. “I need only the shoes. Give them to me and you
will live out your life as you are, and not smaller than a flea.”

“I’m thinking no,” she said, even as the air fizzled again. As she turned instinctively toward the new arrival who had teleported
inside her apartment, Mr. Evil Genius, with whom she had yet to be properly introduced, dove for his little silver tube. Immediately
she launched herself with an amazing
Matrix
-like kick that she’d seen only in the movies, but it was too late. He zapped her mid-leap, and she froze, her legs in an
awkward, painful position as she started her frozen descent.

The new arrival caught her, thank goodness, before she landed in a stiff, painful heap. Not that the thug had her best interest
at heart. No, he only wanted her shoes.

“Get them off her feet,” Ruthless said with a quick glance toward the still-frozen Nikko. “And hurry. Time is working against
us.”

In her head, she screamed out her protests, but in her frozen state, no sound came out. Not good, and she felt her heart race
inside the frozen statue of herself, the tempo increasing as the thug squatted down and started fiddling with her footwear.

Unable to bend her head to look down, she couldn’t tell what was going on, but soon enough, she realized that there was a
problem.

“Ain’t workin’,” the thug said. In front of her, the big boss’s face turned an interesting shade of puce.

“Give me those shoes,” he said, pointing the silver cylinder in her face. “Why can he not remove your shoes?”

He pressed a button and all of a sudden, her mouth opened and she drew in a long gulp of air, realizing with a start how shallow
her breathing had been when she was frozen.

“WHY?”
he demanded, his face shifting from puce to bright red as he bellowed the question.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Lydia answered.

“Want me to cut her feet off?” the thug asked.

“Yes—”

“What?”

“No, wait,” he amended. “The shoes are obviously linked to her. What if that somehow saps her power? No, we’ll take her back
with us. Once we are safely in the lair we can surely find a way to remove them. Even if, like Dorothy, the only way the shoes
come off is if the owner is a dead little girl.”

Lydia opened her mouth—not at all sure what she was going to say, but determined to give a verbal tongue-lashing even though
she couldn’t manage a physical one.

It didn’t matter. Out came the little silver cylinder and—
phbt!
—her mouth was frozen again. Talk about irritating.

At least this time she was frozen facing Nikko. That, however, was hardly a consolation, considering they were both in deep
doo-doo. Being able to see the gorgeous man who now didn’t trust her wasn’t exactly a reason to cheer.

Except . . .

Except there was something about his eyes. About the way they watched her, almost as if they were imploring. She focused harder,
or, at least, she
thought
about focusing harder, because the truth was that as stuck as she was, she couldn’t really do anything. Not even blink.

Nikko blinked.

Mentally, she gaped.

He’d
blinked
. But . . . but . . .

But he couldn’t. Could he?

And that’s when she remembered: the freeze ray eventually wore off. And yet there he was, still frozen stiff like a statue.

Why?

Not that she had time to ponder that mystery. The boss and his lackey had sidled up next to her.

“Get her between us,” the boss said. “I want us each to have an arm, just in case she comes out of it after transit. Those
damn legs are lethal.”

You bet your ass they are,
she thought, mentally spitting the words at him.

He pulled another device out of his pocket, the silver cylinder having disappeared. This contraption—a small, red box—had
a tiny antenna on top. He let go of Lydia’s arm just long enough to flip a switch, and then, if she could, she would have
screamed. Because her body seemed to be dissolving from the inside out.

Beside her, the bad guys seemed fuzzy, too, as if they were also dissolving into points of light.

And just at the moment she realized what was happening to them, something hard and fast slammed into her. “Surprise,” Nikko
whispered in her ear, his arms and legs linked tightly to hers.

And though Lydia couldn’t manage the actual movement, inside her head she smiled.

“Well, lookie-lookie,” Ruthless said, his voice sounding foggy and faraway to Nikko’s half unthawed ears. “We got ourselves
a stowaway.”

Nikko blinked, his body feeling discombobulated, apart from itself, and though he desperately wanted to look around for Lydia,
he found he couldn’t quite make the neurons fire properly to do that.
Teleport lag
. He’d heard about it; now, apparently, he was experiencing it. And from what he could tell, Ruthless had already adjusted.

Not exactly the way to win the advantage, he thought, wondering if his brilliant plan to enter the lair was turning out to
be not so brilliant after all.

“What should we do with ’im?” Ruthless’s flunkie questioned, giving Nikko a poke in the shoulder. Nikko immediately lashed
back, then winced in pain. The freeze ray had worn off, but he was still bound tight, and he’d just strained the heck out
of his arm by trying to thrust his way out of a pair of Council-issued Outcast binders—cuffs strong enough to hold renegade
superheroes at the peak of their power.

“Want me to kill him?” the flunkie continued, sounding perfectly thrilled by that idea.

“It’s tempting,” Ruthless said. “But no. If the shoes are drained of their energy when the girl dies, we may need a hostage.”

“So we’re really gonna off her, then?”

“Eh. I’m not going to go out of my way, but if she’s killed in the machine . . . well, what can you do?”

They carried their conversation out while walking, discussing the details of their plan to hook the shoes up to the contraption—with
Lydia still in them—as they exited the room. All the while, Nikko seethed and struggled, and planned his revenge.

Because nobody—
nobody
—was hurting his Lydia.

And he really needed to save New York, too.

Fortunately for New York, Lydia, and the whole free world, the grogginess from the teleportation lag wore off quickly. Not
enough for Nikko to get across the room before the door slammed shut behind Ruthless, but still fast.

The downside, of course, was that he was locked in a small room, his body pressed against a concrete pillar, his wrists bound
tight behind him with Protector-rated cuffs, and Lydia in danger on the far side of that door.

The good news was that the tracker embedded in his skin should have been activated during teleportation, which meant that
the full weight of the Council ought to descend on this place any moment.

Then again, he’d been here for a few minutes already, and as far as he could tell, an epic battle wasn’t taking place beyond
those doors. Either the tracker had malfunctioned, or Ruthless’s lair was somehow shielded. Either way, there was no way for
him to remedy the situation with both hands tied behind his back.

Time to do something about that . . . if he could.

He looked around the room, but it was completely empty: not a single piece of furniture, not a single rivet on a wall. Simply
the concrete post he was tied to, his arms thrust behind him, and his wrists bound.

The post, however, was somewhat narrow, and if he shifted a bit . . .

Yes
. He could still feel it. They’d left his phone in his back pocket. All he had to do was scoot around to the left and see
if he could—

Got it!

The problem, of course, was what to do with it now that he had it. Finding the buttons by feel only, he tried the communication
feature first, but as he suspected, the room was shielded. The level of shielding suggested by the high-pitched response emitted
from his device told Nikko that there’d be no help from the Council unless he could figure out a way to poke a hole in Ruthless’s
defense. And
that
, unfortunately, was a very dicey proposition without knowing the layout.

Which meant that his first priority was to find Lydia and stop the completion of the device, then get her the hell out of
there. He would stay behind and try to jam whatever interference device Ruthless had installed.

In the meantime, without communication, the phone was useful only as a weapon, and he was currently running short on ammo,
with only two laser powerpacks embedded in the device. He could use one to take out the column he was bound to, but that seemed
a bit reckless considering he couldn’t get a good look at the column to judge its density.

Better to aim the laser straight for his bonds. He might blow his hands off, true; but if luck was on his side, he’d simply
blow open the binders. And at the moment, Nikko didn’t see another option. Time was ticking down. Lydia was in danger. And
as she’d pointed out with such insight, he was all about saving mortals.

He smiled, realizing how well she’d put his own thoughts into words, and how she’d justified and validated his decisions,
even if the Council had disagreed.

Yes, she was a mortal. But she was a superhero, too. As much as he was. And right then, he was determined to save her.

He fumbled, trying to get the device in place, and almost dropping it in the process. Then he got the dangerous end lined
up with the binders, tugged his other wrist as far away as humanly (well, as
Protectorly
) as possible, took a deep breath, and pressed the trigger.

A burst of heat, and he winced as pain shot across his wrists, as vibrant as a white-hot flame. But his fingers still wiggled
and, more important, he could move them in front of him and look at them.

He was free!

“You’ve still got it, buddy,” he said to himself, ignoring his aching wrist as he tightened his grip on the device and headed
for the door. He said a silent plea to Zeus that it would be unlocked, because he really didn’t want to waste his last laser
charge busting out.

Fortunately, luck was on his side, and he found himself in a long hallway. He skulked down it, darting into a supply closet
and pulling on a white lab coat. Not the best of disguises, but it would have to do. And, it turned out, not a bad choice.
Because when he got to the end of the hall and stepped into the cavernous space accented by a centerpiece jumble of wires,
cables, tubes and pulleys, he saw that the only other people in the room were clad as he was—as out-of-place dental hygienists
or CSI wannabes.

In fact, he realized as he circled the room, the only one not in a lab coat was Lydia. She was in the center of the machine,
highlighted from the front by a shaft of light that came from the single glass panel in the otherwise thick, metal-domed room.
The light cast odd shadows on her face, making her looked scared and frightened. Not that he blamed her.

He grabbed a clipboard from a nearby table and walked toward her, head high and with purpose in his step. He used the attached
pen to bang a rhythm as he walked.