Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots Read online

“. . . place like home,” she whispered, and started forward into the darkness. Almost as an afterthought, she raised one hand, and beckoned. She didn’t even look around as the immortalized heroes and villains stepped down from their pedestals and followed her.

  The door slammed shut behind the last of them. There was a long moment of silence, all of Halloween seeming to hold its breath.

  Then the screaming started.

  *

  Velveteen walked down the winding pathway alone, three glowing jack-o-lanterns cradled in her arms. The Patriotism Palace was already starting to dissolve behind her, fading back into the raw stuff of Halloween like it had never existed at all. The next day, the men and women from Marketing would be baffled by the sudden, unpredicted down-tick in the sales figures for the Big Three. They’d never quite recover their market share after that unexplained Halloween loss, and Marketing would eventually come to blame it on the unprecedented star power of two of their newest heroes, Action Dude and Sparkle Bright.

  None of that mattered on that misty Halloween night that had already stayed long past its welcome. All that mattered then was one exhausted child heroine, trying hard not to think about the stuffing that leaked from one of the tears in her costume as she walked down, down, down to the end of the path.

  Scaredy Cat and Hailey were standing exactly where she’d left them. That was no surprise. Neither was the sudden brightness in the air around Hailey, the suggestion of her own private lighting crew, while Scaredy was surrounded by an equally subtle darkness. Things were returning to normal. Halloween normal. Whatever that might mean.

  She focused first on Hailey. “Your last name is Ween, isn’t it?” she asked. “That’s how they caught you.”

  “Hailey Ween, and I was born on October thirty-first,” said Hailey, nodding as she held out her hands. “Give them to me. They’re supposed to be mine.”

  “Promise that you’ll send me home,” Velveteen responded, hugging the jack-o-lanterns tighter. “Then you can have them.”

  “What’s to stop me from breaking my word?”

  “He said you were the good guy.”

  The look Hailey gave Scaredy Cat was weary, but it was also amused. “He never gets tired of using that against me. Velveteen. . .” She looked back toward the battered junior hero, and said, “We could use you. We’ve been short-handed since Trick and Treat ran out. The heroes would never have been able to get that much of a hold if we hadn’t been abandoned that way. You belong here. You have to feel it. I know I did.”

  “I just want to go home,” Velveteen said. “Please. I want to see my friends, and do my homework, and be able to take my costume off.” She was embarrassed to realize that tears were welling up in her eyes. She couldn’t wipe them away with her arms full of pumpkins. “I want to be more than just a mask. I want to go home.”

  “All right,” said Hailey, and held out her arms. “I promise you can go home. Now please, give them to me.”

  Carefully, so as not to drop them, Velveteen transferred the glowing jack-o-lanterns into Hailey’s arms. They stayed there for a moment, glow increasing in intensity, before they exploded—not into pumpkin guts and goo, as she would have expected, but into a wild swirl of autumn leaves, glitter, and bats that flapped their leathery wings frantically as they climbed up into the sky. Hailey laughed and clapped her hands, delighted. Even Scaredy Cat cracked a smile.

  “Safe!” Hailey crowed. “Safe and sound and it’s all candy apples and construction paper cats for another turn of seasons.” Her smile was almost broad enough to enter jack-o-lantern territory as she looked back down, toward Velveteen. “Now. What are we going to do about you?”

  “Um. . . send me home?” said Velveteen.

  “Well, yes,” said Hailey, looking surprised. “I promised. It’s just that you’ve been here for almost two weeks.”

  “What?” Velveteen stared at her. “But—”

  “Can’t rewind her,” said Scaredy Cat. “Do that, she doesn’t remember not to let you call her back. She’ll have to go as-is.”

  “But—”

  “You’re right,” said Hailey, sounding regretful. “All right, Vel. Take a deep breath.”

  “Hang on for a—”

  Hailey raised her hand to her lips and blew, sending a cloud of orange and green glitter puffing into the air. Velveteen breathed in automatically, and choked as the glitter filled her mouth and got into her eyes, forcing them into a series of stinging blinks. She bent forward, coughing. It got harder to breath, and she finally had to sit down, struggling to get her balance back.

  “Over here!” shouted a familiar voice.

  Velveteen’s head snapped up, coughs tapering off as she looked frantically around the dark wood where she was sitting. All alone. No signs of Halloween to be seen anywhere. One hand went quickly up to pat the crown of her head, and she almost started giggling as she realized that her bunny ears were gone. No costume here. No wounds that leaked stuffing. Halloween was over.

  Somehow, it still managed to be an even greater relief when Action Dude came flying out of the trees ahead, surrounded by the pale orange glow of his powers, with Sparkle Bright riding a rainbow right behind him. They both slammed into Velveteen, and then all three of them were laughing and clinging to each other. Then Velveteen realized she was sobbing, and so was Sparks, and Action Dude, and—

  The rest of the search team found them by following the fireworks Sparkle Bright was creating overhead. They had a little time to calm the kids before Marketing arrived, and the debriefing began.

  During the interrogation that followed, Velveteen found herself thinking, more than once, that maybe she should have stayed in Halloween after all.

  *

  The next night, Velveteen crawled into her own bed, the sheets smoothed by her own teddy bears, and closed her eyes. Marketing had been mercilessly thorough, but in the end, they couldn’t prove that she’d done anything at all. She wasn’t a teleporter. So her disappearance, whether it was to Autumn Land or into a supervillain’s clutches, couldn’t have been her own fault. She’d be under evaluation for a while, but for the moment, the worst was over.

  She was home.

  *

  “You really think she’ll come to us eventually?”

  “Us, or one of the others. She’d do well in Winter, I think. Not too shabby in Spring, either, if the Bunny wanted to get himself some help. She’ll come to the seasons eventually. She doesn’t have a choice.”

  “She’s so young.”

  “She’s older than you were, Hailey.”

  “They stay young longer these days, even while they’re trying to put aside their childish things as early as they can. It’s something in the water, I guess.”

  “She’s going to be fine. Girls like her, they’re always fine. Or they’re monster-meat, but those’re the risks you gotta take. She’d be taking them if she was here, too.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “Pumpkin Queen can’t keep the throne forever. One of these days, she’ll need to hand over the Holiday—hand over keeping me from breaking it all down to hear the pretty smashing noises—to you, and you’ll need to give your part to somebody new. Take her now, it won’t be her. Gotta give her time to get used to the idea.”

  “Are you supposed to be helping me?”

  “What can I say? This year, I decided your trick would be getting a treat.”

  “Thank you.” Hailey leaned forward, blowing out the scrying candle. The Great Pumpkin’s eyes went dark as the last of the long Halloween’s magic began to fade away. “It was a good Halloween, wasn’t it, Scaredy?”

  “They’re all good Halloweens,” he said.

  Trick or treat.

  VELVETEEN

  vs.

  The Ordinary Day

  VELMA WOKE SLOWLY, RESISTING THE process every inch of the way. Her sleeping mind argued that there were extremely valid reasons not to regain consciousness. If she was being entirely honest with herself, she’d have
to admit that waking up rarely led to anything pleasant, and hadn’t for years. Waking up usually just provided additional proof that the world was trying to make her as miserable as possible. From the day Sparks had attacked her in the training facility locker room to the minute she was flung across the Oregon state border and—

  Wait. An emergency conference of the various parts of Velma’s semi-aware mind was called to abrupt order, with each individual fragment presenting their recollections of the past few days. The sheer improbability of it all was pointed out by one of the more logical pieces, and just as immediately dismissed; as the mind of a super-powered child star and disgruntled media drop-out, Velma’s brain had long since learned that probability wasn’t a reliable benchmark for whether or not something actually happened.

  After the comparisons had been drawn and the continuity had been reviewed, the reality of the situation was simply too insane to ignore. She’d made it; she was in Oregon, where the state’s Governor had inexplicably declared that she was a fully licensed and authorized superheroine, not subject to the supervillainy statutes. She was never going to have to go back to California. Which was probably a good thing, since she was almost certainly considered a criminal under California superhero law. She was in Oregon. She was finally, after years of running from her parents, her contemporaries, and her own past, finally free.

  Velma opened her eyes, shocked into wakefulness by the sudden realization that she was really, genuinely, and unquestionably free, outside the reach of everyone she’d been running away from for her entire adult life.

  And she had absolutely no idea whatsoever of what she was going to do with herself.

  *

  The representative from Marketing was well into. . . Aaron risked a sideways glance at the clock on the wall. The representative from Marketing was well into the thirteenth hour of his rant. He had turned a sort of scary shade of purple, and kept waving his arms around like that would somehow miraculously make everyone else understand the gravity of the situation. Aaron understood perfectly well. He understood that the representative from Marketing was on his way to screaming himself into a heart attack.

  He was trying to remember his long-forgotten CPR course when he noticed the sudden silence, and looked up to find the rest of The Super Patriots, West Coast Division, staring in his direction. Aaron reddened. “Uh. . .” he said, finally. “Did I miss something? Sorry. Didn’t sleep much.”

  “I was simply wondering, Action Dude, whether the subject mentioned anything about claiming sanctuary in Oregon when you encountered her before,” said the representative from Marketing. His voice was smooth as buttered snakes, which probably meant he was getting ready to do some serious damage. Years of dealing with the Marketing Department had left Aaron way too aware of the signs of impending doom. “After all, you were her closest confidant before she decided to abandon the path of righteousness.”

  “Uh,” said Aaron, for the second time in as many minutes. “Not really. Mostly she just said, y’know, she wasn’t going to come back. And that I should go away. She was pretty firm on that whole ‘you should go away’ point, really.”

  “Did she, by any chance, make threats? Suggest that things might go poorly if you failed to agree to her wishes?”

  The rest of the team, looked intently in his direction, waiting for his answer. All his training told him to say that yes, she’d threatened him; yes, he’d been afraid of what would happen if he failed to do as he was told; yes, she was definitely enough of a threat to justify petitioning the Superhuman Affairs Commission for a special order of extradition from the state where she’d gone to ground. All he had to do was say the word, and her short sanctuary would end.

  But he remembered her in the Chevron parking lot; remembered how run-down she’d looked, how beaten. How beautiful. God, he had the prettiest women in and out of the hero world ready to hang off his arm at the snap of his fingers, and his heart skipped a beat for a sweaty, sunburned brunette in cheap Old Navy cargo pants. “If you ever loved me, don’t.” That was what she’d said to him. If you ever loved me, don’t. And he’d loved her for so long that he really had no idea how to stop.

  “No, sir,” he said, with perfect honesty. His expression was as guileless as he could make it. He had a lot of practice at looking guileless. Vel used to say Marketing had no idea how smart he really was, and he was more than happy to play off their ignorance whenever he could. “She said she was done with the whole superhero thing. I think she just had some bad luck getting to Oregon. That’s all.”

  The representative from Marketing glared at him through narrowed eyes, clearly displeased with his answer. “Are you sure she made no threats against you?”

  Aaron scoffed. “I can make origami out of steel plates. She can bring stuffed bunny rabbits to life. What was she going to do, hold the North Pole for ransom?” He was quoting her again. He couldn’t help it. “Besides, Santa likes her, and Jackie Frost used to be like, her best friend or something. He’d probably offer her a job or something.” Velma in green velvet, making the teddy bears dance around the workshop before they went out into the world. He could picture it. He could even picture her happy there, outside the reach of the Marketing Department forever.

  Maybe then she’d forgive him. Maybe then she’d take him back.

  The representative from Marketing continued to glare, but there was nothing he could say. You didn’t accuse the protectors of truth, justice, and the freedoms of Man of lying; it simply wasn’t done. Not unless you were absolutely certain that there were no cameras anywhere in the vicinity.

  “This isn’t over,” he said, teeth gritted hard enough to endanger his expensive camera-ready dentistry. “You are all dismissed.”

  *

  The case of Whippoorwill vs. the State of New Hampshire was a groundbreaking piece of superheroic legislation, not only because Whippoorwill refused to divulge her secret identity during the proceedings. “If I lose, I’ll serve time as a civilian,” she said, “but if I win, I refuse to put my family in danger because somebody thought it would be fun to challenge my credentials.” No one had a viable objection to her position. The mask stayed on until the jury’s verdict was returned.

  At the time, New Hampshire’s laws against superhuman activity were among the strictest in the nation. Whippoorwill, as a licensed superheroine for the state of Maine, had been patrolling a portion of her territory when a storm-based supervillain attacked her, blowing her over the state line. As her trespass had not been intentional, her legal team argued, she was not violating state law when she flew back to her state of residence. As she was in New Hampshire at the time, replied the prosecution, she could damn well have taken a taxi.

  During the eighteen-month trial, Whippoorwill’s heroing license was suspended, and she was grounded—a short-term punishment she took to with what the prosecution called “unholy glee.” Once it became clear that the trial was going to extend past a year, she proudly announced her impending pregnancy. A grounded superheroine was, after all, a safe superheroine, fully capable of taking her prenatal vitamins without worrying about accidental irradiation.

  In the end, the verdict was returned in favor of Whippoor-will, stating that any licensed hero was bound by the laws specific to their state of license, providing their trespass had been accidental, against their will, or during the course of active pursuit of a known supervillain. Whippoorwill thanked them kindly, reclaimed her heroing license, and returned to Maine, where, government records indicate, she gave birth to a healthy, hollow-boned baby girl with an initial wingspan more than twice the length of her body.

  The state of New Hampshire petitioned to have the ruling overturned, but were denied—a decision which some believe was influenced by the unexplained, anonymous donations made to the fund sponsoring the anti-hero legal team. It was noted that The Super Patriots, Inc. was paying an unusual amount of attention to a state with no superhumans to speak of . . . and more, that licensed members of the only nationally r
ecognized superhuman organization were immune to state-specific restrictions. In a world where all states outlawed superhumans, only The Super Patriots, Inc. would control the hero population.

  Whippoorwill retired from active hero duty after more than twenty years on the job, finally revealing her secret identity as Elise Michaels, a mild-mannered ornithologist whose powers had been granted to her by the spirit of the great Raven, first among the psychopomps. Her daughter, who also goes by the name “Whippoorwill,” has now been protecting the state of Maine for almost eight years. Neither of them has ever applied for membership to The Super Patriots, Inc., nor expressed any interest in seeking a place outside the state of Maine.

  As of this report, all types of superhuman activity are legal in the state of New Hampshire, and several of the state’s own superhumans have applied for membership to The Super Patriots, Inc. at one time or another.

  And so it goes.

  *

  The first thing Velma did, once she had determined that she was alone in the spacious hotel suite, was take a long, hot shower—the first really good shower she’d had in longer than she cared to think about.

  When she turned the water up as high as it would go, it was actually loud enough to drown out the sound of her sobbing.

  She was making coffee in the suite’s small but serviceable kitchen, wrapped in the plush white robe she’d found in the bathroom, when there was a knock at the balcony door. That was odd. The oddity was only enhanced by the fact that the evacuation plan on the wall indicated that her room was on the tenth floor. “If I have to fight a massive superhero battle before I have coffee, somebody’s going to die today,” she muttered, and walked toward the sound.

  The knocking proved to be, not a person, but a dozen pigeons slamming themselves against the glass in a measured rhythm that managed to mimic a person knocking quite nicely. Velma stopped, blinking at the pigeons. The pigeons continued to body-slam the glass. “What. The. Fuck?”

  The pigeons kept slamming.