Cape High Christmas: A Side Story (Cape High Series) (24 page)

"Hi!" I say, waving a hand furiously. "We've come to party!"

"Any friend of Rochester's is a friend of ours," the bass player says, getting up and holding out a hand. I shake it, trying not to grip too tightly. I don't want to hurt his hand! "How would you ladies like to hear us warm up? Buford, make the ladies some drinks!" he calls to the man cleaning glasses. "What's your pleasure, pretty ladies?" he asks us.

"Anything is fine," Doris says before I can. "In fact just a beer would be fine, right, Skye?" she asks me.

"I dunno, I've never had alcohol before," I say innocently. The entire room other than Ariel turns and stares at me. "What's it taste like?"

"How'd you find such an innocent one, Rochester?" Sam asks after a second of silence.

Rochester hesitates, thinking long and hard. "I'm thinkin," he says after a long moment, "that there ain't no point in tryin' t'get her drunk, but you can if y'want," he says after a second.

"Rochester, we're supposed to keep--" Doris says.

"Ariel's floatin', Skye's feet ain't touchin' the ground, and I would trust these gents with my life," Rochester sums up with a little smile. "Gentlemen, these three are--"

"We already know, son," the bass player says. "I am Clovis James, ma' petites, and we are the Sundown Blues Boys. That ornery coot on the drums is Sam, the pianist is Charlie, and our horn man goes by Beau. A pleasure to meet Rochester's fellow super heroes--"

"Villains," Rochester corrects him.

"Villains?" Clovis repeats, looking confused.

"These three are the boss's 'Deadly Darlin's'," Rochester says.

"We're the Femme Fatales!" I declare, giving him a sharp look. "NOT the Deadly Darlings!"

"I don't know, Femme Fatale's pretty overdone," Doris says. "And all that new talk about feminism makes me think we'd irritate a lot of people by calling ourselves Deadly Darlin's." She doesn't sound as if she thinks that's a bad thing.

"Deadly Darlin's and Femme Fatales mean roughly the same thing, right?" Rocco says.

"Now, I've always seen a femme fatale as more..." Clovis starts out, only to get a sharp look from Rochester, "cold-blooded," he says, not missing a beat. "Personally, I think Deadly Darlin's would be an amazin' band name."

"Why does the 'ing' sound keep changing?" Ariel asks.

"Because they're southern," Doris says.

"Aren't we southern, too? I made an X," Ariel says. "So we're the Deadly Darlin's."

"I like the deadly part, but 'darlin's' is NOT powerful!" I declare. "I'm powerful! I'm the most powerful super villain in the WORLD!"

"Of course you are," Rochester says.

"She is?" Sam asks with a look of unbelief.

"I am!" I say, giving him a dark look.

"She is," Doris agrees in a dry tone. "She's not the most evil, or bloodthirsty, or violent, or even ... well, villainous, but she's probably the most powerful."

"Then it be an ironic name," Sam says, starting to grin. "Like us old folk calling ourselves boys."

I blink. "I like ironic!" I decide.

"Then we're the Deadly Darlin's," Doris says. "You're Skystep, I'm Jersey Devil, and Ariel is..." she looks at Ariel, blankly. "What do we call Ariel?"

"Raindance!" I decide.

"Okay, Raindance," Doris says when Ariel smiles and shrugs. "Now, are we taking a break or what? Someone mentioned drinks, right?" she asks, heading for the bar.

"It fits them, doesn't it?" I hear Clovis whisper to Rochester.

"Like a freakin' glove," Rochester whispers back. I give them a dirty look, but before I can say anything Doris shoves a bottle into my hand.

"Your very first beer," she says, tapping her beer to mine and handing Ariel a third. "Also, you have free reign to yell at Century every time he leaves off the 'deadly' and calls one of us darlin'," she adds with a cheerfully evil grin.

"But it's our name," Ariel says.

"WE can call ourselves darlin', but him saying it is too sexist not to take advantage of it," Doris says.

"So--so the NAME is a TRAP?" I ask, my eyes widening excitedly. "Best name ever!"

"Only if he forgets the 'deadly' part, though," Doris admits, drinking her beer.

***

"This is it?" Dollface asks as she and Ruckus approach the little bar. "Where Century's favorite plays? It's a bit... small." A strong wind blows and Dollface reaches up, patting her pinned up black hair to make sure it doesn't mess it up too much. "And I dressed up for this," she complains, motioning down to the retro red and white dress she's wearing. Her polka dot wedges are so high that she's almost as tall as Ruckus is.

"You realize that we're likely to get into a brawl, don't you?" Ruckus asks, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with Voltdrain's symbol on the front. "We're not coming to meet boys." She still isn't sure why Century teamed her up with Dollface--they're almost exactly opposite. The only things they have in common are their skin color and the fact they have powers. But maybe when this goes wrong (like it's BOUND to) he'll just have to split them up and give them new partners! If she's REALLY lucky, she'll be able to talk him into letting her work with Voltdrain!

"You have no sense of style," Dollface tells her, looking over Ruckus's outfit with a judgmental expression.

"You have no COMMON sense," Ruckus says. "You're wearing heels to a bar fight!"

"He didn't SAY we were supposed to fight," Dollface says. "We're just here to meet our future nemesis... nemesi? What's the plural for nemesis, anyway?" she asks, frowning.

"Nemeses," Ruckus says, idly. "It's nemeses. You're a super hero, Dolly, you should at least know that much. But there are three of them and only two of us, so you had BETTER bring your A-game, regardless of whether it's a fight or not."

"Did you see that press release for Hypersonic Rainbow?" Dollface asks. "She's so adorable. Isn't she supposed to be coming to our branch? Think we could get her as our third?"

"A hyperactive speedster?" Ruckus asks, suddenly interested. "That's not actually a bad idea," she admits. "She's still really young, though--she's one of the Cape High kids, right?"

"Yeah, but she's working! Of course her uniform will need to be changed." They step into the bar and everyone turns to look at them.

"Bar's still closed, chères," the bartender calls to them. "We'll be opening soon, though."

"How soon?" Ruckus asks.

"Let them stay,  Buford," one of the men say. "It's almost opening time. A few more pretty faces doesn't hurt anything, no?"

The youngest in the band heads forward, holding out a hand to them. Ruckus looks into the silver eyes of Century's psychic and wonders if she can get away with not touching him somehow. Before she can say anything, though, Dollface takes the offered hand. Ruckus almost lets out a curse as Rochester's eyes gleam faintly.

"A pleasure t'meetcha, Dollface," he says with a little bow over her hand. Dollface stares at him in stunned silence, a blush creeping over her cheeks.

"How did you--" she starts out. Ruckus reaches over, pulling her hand out of his.

"Don't touch the psychometric," she says silently.

"But he's so cute!" Dollface replies, equally silently. A positively wicked grin crosses Rochester's face at that.

"Ooooh!" Skye shouts happily from the table, where she's got a massive glass full of unnaturally pink liquid in her hands. "You can't call random ladies doll face, either!" she declares.

"You caught on quick to that one, eh, chère?" the drummer says to her. She grins at him.

"Cheers!" she says, waving the massive cup in his direction and then chugging it down.

"You'd best be layin' off that, Skye," Rochester says, turning back to the most dangerous villain around. "Your big brother would kill me if you actually got drunk."

"I'm a full grown woman!" Skye declares. "Gimme another, Buford!"

"You just HAD to introduce her to the frufru drinks," the long haired woman says to the pale one.

"I liked the colors," the pale one says.

"My name is--" Dollface starts out.

"Dolly," Ruckus supplies before she can go on. "Her name is Dolly. Isn't that right, Dolly?" she says pointedly to her partner.

"That's right, you can call me Dolly," Dollface says, sitting on one of the tables and crossing her legs to show off her long, perfectly shaped calves. "So, what's your name, Mr. Handsome?" she asks Rochester with a flutter of her eyelashes.

***

This stuff is SO GOOD! I wave the massive cup in the air, planning on going for a refill, only to blink as I hear one of the two girls call Rochester "Mr. Handsome." Does he get girls flirting with him a lot? I look up as more people come in. The bar is rapidly filling up and the band moves to the stage, warming up. Ariel comes over, sitting on the table next to me.

"It's crowded," she says, and I can feel her tension. "What do we do in a crowd this big?"

I hesitate, wondering the same thing. I'm not even surprised when Doris sits with us, so we're all back to back on the little round table. It suddenly doesn't seem like such a great idea to go out where we're surrounded by norms. And Rochester is flirting with some stranger, so it's just us three in a crowd of strangers--and we can't even rob them.

"We are the Deadly Darlin's!" I say in a bolstering tone. "We can deal with anything! We can sure as heck learn to party like a norm!"

That Dolly lady's friend saunters over to us, sitting on one of the chairs that belong to our table. "Are you three okay?" she asks quietly.

"We're perfectly fine," Doris says. "We just need another drink."

We all look up as someone taps on the mic. Clovis gives us a brilliant grin. "We are the Sundown Blues Boys," he announces, getting a cheer from the crowd. "And tonight we're celebrating some friends of ours coming to see us. Isn't that right, Darlin's?" he asks us.

"Do we get angry if he calls us that?" Ariel asks.

"I think we'll allow it," Doris says, swinging a leg over the other and leaning back against us. I wave at Clovis, completely forgetting that I felt uncomfortable a second ago, and then, since I can, I blow him a kiss. He laughs, reaching up and pretending to catch it.

"And someone, who will remain nameless, put in a request for you three; this is called 'Darlin'," Rochester says into his own mic before he starts to play. Clovis starts singing and the bar is suddenly full of dancing people.

I hop off the table, grabbing Ariel and Doris's hand and pulling them out onto the dance floor. The music is good, the atmosphere is awesome, and everything's going fine--until Ariel goes perfectly still, a look of shock on her face.

"What?" Doris asks.

"Someone just grabbed my bottom," Ariel says, looking stunned.

"They did what?" I ask. "Who would be that stupid?" I look behind her, seeing a drunk with a beer in one hand and a leer on his face. "Hey! Hey, you!" I say, pushing past Ariel. "Did you just GROPE my friend's butt?"

The man looks at me, taking another swig of his beer. "So what if I did? That's what people come to bars for, isn't it?"

I make a fist, pulling it back, only to blink as someone grabs my wrist. I look at Dolly's friend blankly, wondering why she would stop me. "Let me," she says before punching the guy for me. "From what Century says, you'd kill him," she explains as Rochester rushes to catch the jerk before he slams into Clovis. Clovis keeps singing, shockingly enough, as Rochester tosses the drunk to a large man, who calmly drags him out of the bar.

"Who are you?" I demand.

"Ruckus," she says, tugging her shirt down just enough to show a uniform. "One of your new nemeses."

"Nemeses? Doris, what's a nemeses?" I ask, completely thrown off guard. I don't even notice as a woman approaches Ruckus, grabbing her arm and getting in her face.

"You just hit my man!" the drunk woman says, slurring slightly.

"He just groped my--" Ruckus stops, obviously trying to come up with a word. "Oh forget it," she says as the woman throws a drunken punch at her. She dodges it easily and grabs the woman's wrist, pulling it behind her.

"HEY!" I say. "I'M the one that protects my darlin's behind!" I jump on Ruckus's back, wrapping my legs around her waist.

"Ladies! Ladies!" Clovis says. "We're going to have to toss you out, if you don't behave!"

"Don't attack MY PARTNER!" The last two words seem to echo louder and louder and I turn, watching in shock as that Dolly lady holds both hands out to us--and grows larger.

"What the--" Ruckus says, going still. She doesn't even seem to notice the norm lady smacking her with her purse. I look around, still hanging on her back, and see Rochester, Ariel and Doris, and two other norms that were too close to the fight. We're in--a fake bar? I hop off of Ruckus's back and head to the nearest table, picking up a tiny, plastic tankard. It's empty.

"This. Is. SO COOL!" I say, squealing excitedly. I look up, seeing the roof, and then head up, sticking my head through the roof to see outside. There's Dolly, looking massive and glowing slightly. "Hey, hey, Dolly, did you just make us doll-sized?" I ask her.

She jerks, her eyes widening as she takes an automatic step back. "How did--"

"Relax, relax, I want to keep playing," I assure her. "Is there some automatic way to get out, though? You know, for when we do it for television?" I pull myself all the way out, sitting on the roof of the building--and almost crushing it as I grow to full size again. "Oh, whoops," I say, floating in the air over the tiny dollhouse sized bar. "Guess that answers that question!"

"So--so I really can't--" Dolly says, looking panicked.

"No, Dollface, you can't," I hear a familiar voice say. I turn and glare at Century, not even surprised to see him. He's lounging at one of the tables, dressed like an overpriced cowboy and drinking a beer. "I told Ruckus, didn't I?"

"But I'm not a fighter type--I'm not that strong, or fast! And I CAN'T fight when I'm holding them in the dollhouse!" she says. "That's why you picked a brawler type for my partner, right? I shrink, contain, and toss in some traps and Ruckus does the--"

"That. Sounds. AWESOME!" I say, getting more excited by the moment. "So we'll be in like, a real life mystery house sort of thing? Best nemesis EVER!" I exclaim, throwing myself at her for a hug. She lets out a yelp and I hear a tiny popping sound from behind me.