Heroine Complex (9 page)

“As I already explained—” Scott began.

“We need to look at this from every possible angle,” Nate interrupted. “To collect more data, to—”

“No.” My voice was clear and firm. “
We
don't need to do anything.
I
trust him.” I inclined my head toward Scott. “And this is the perfect answer for both me and Aveda. End of story.”

Scott nodded, his eyes unreadable. “Then I'll get started,” he said, standing and striding out of the room.

“Wonderful!” Aveda clapped her greasy hands together. “I'm glad you decided not to be a stick-in-the-mud about this, Evie. See, Little Sis: she's not always a stick-in-the-mud.”

I realized Aveda was grinning at a spot beyond my shoulder. I turned to see Bea standing in the doorway. Well, Bea trying to back away from the doorway.

“Beatrice, what are you doing here? ‘Here' not being anywhere near school?” I said.

She gave me an insolent look. “It's an in-service day.”

“Right.” I narrowed my eyes. “In-service.”

Ignoring me, she crossed over to Aveda's bed and plopped herself down, snagging a fry.

“So, Evie,” she said, feigning nonchalance, “I hear you've become an overnight master of superheroic disguise. But I guess that wasn't worth mentioning to me, huh? Can't trust your frakballs crazy Little Sis with important info like that.”

Goddammit. There hadn't been a good moment to relate my adventures to her last night. And I'd planned on getting out of further adventuring until the whole spell thing came up. But if I tried to explain this convoluted bit of waffling, she'd never believe me. For her, it was always easier to believe I was trying to make her life difficult.

“Anyway,” Aveda said, glossing over the sudden tension in the room, “tonight's gonna be a blast for you, Evelyn.”

“Tonight?” I mentally scanned my to-do list bulletin board. What was on Aveda's schedule for tonight?

“Aveda,” said Nate, “under the circumstances, considering that you aren't . . . you, I think we should—”

“No cancelling.” Aveda gave him a cool look. “League of Social Betterment Through Bettering Oneself events are crucial to the Aveda Jupiter image. And it'll be fun for Evie. She gets to wear an amazing dress.”

League . . . dress . . . Oh, right.

“The benefit,” I said, the event finally coming into focus in my mental calendar. “Aveda, I can't. Bea and I have plans tonight.”

I tried to meet Bea's eyes, hoping this would get her to cut me some slack. Instead she shot me a full Tanaka Glare.

“Not a problem,” Aveda said. “I can take care of Beatrice. She and I will have this place all to ourselves. She already did a great job fetching me breakfast.” She waved a fry around. “Since I don't have to wear that dress tonight, I can indulge a little, right?”

“Hanging out with Aveda sounds good to me,” said Bea.

“But—” I started to protest.

“Stop right there.” Aveda held up a hand. “Aveda Jupiter must attend the benefit. And people.” She frowned at her now-empty fast food bag, then picked it up and waved it around like a grease-soaked flag of surrender. “Someone get me more of these.”

I had forgotten about the dress.

It was an odd thing to forget. While Aveda claimed League of Social Betterment Through Bettering Oneself events were crucial to her image, they also tended to be packed with self-congratulatory types. This brought out her competitive edge even more than usual. And that meant her dress had to be the best.

Aveda usually loved nothing more than shopping for beautiful clothes, but her demonbusting/promotional appearance schedule had been more packed than usual lately, so the task had fallen to me. I'd dedicated myself to the quest for the perfect dress, scouring vintage shops and the internet and even the ninety-nine cent bin at Goodwill. I'd finally found just the thing at an out-of-the-way estate sale in San Leandro: a daring gown that had once graced the body of some eccentric old lady whose overflowing mansion of possessions clearly belonged on
Hoarders
.

As I admired my pre-glamoured self in the mirror, I had to admit: the dress was pretty great, a confection of glittery beads sprinkled over pearly tulle, like a swirl of Cake My Day's sparkly icing. The tulle wrapped itself around my body like a second skin and plunged low in the front. I wouldn't wear anything like this of my own volition, ever—but I was literally not myself.

I was incredibly, irrefutably, uncharacteristically
hot
.

Or I would be, once I put the glamour token to use. Because I'd be at the benefit for longer than three hours,
Scott had given me an extra one. At some point I'd have to slip off to the bathroom to refresh my Aveda-ness.

In the meantime, I needed to figure out the buttons. The gown fastened up the back in a series of tiny pearl beads that started at the tailbone and snaked up my spine. No matter how much I bent my body into various twisty positions, there was no way I could reach them all.

I contorted my torso, my fingers scrabbling at the minuscule buttons and the even more minuscule loops they were supposed to fit into. I tried turning my head, but that just made my neck cramp. After a few moments of attempting to twist myself into a button-reaching position, I gave up. I was getting sweaty, and sweat, as Aveda would be quick to remind me, definitely didn't go with this dress. I stretched my right arm around to my back so I could hold the dress semi-closed. Then I slithered over to the doorway, each small step reminding me that the hip-hugging skirt restricted movement in a way that bordered on painful.

Between this and the corset, I was starting to wonder if all Aveda's outfits were so cumbersome.

I needed . . . well, I needed me. A version of Assistant Me to help Aveda Me into these binding clothes.

I made it to the doorway and peered into the hall. I'd opted to change in one of the vacant upstairs bedrooms. Because Aveda currently couldn't do stairs, this ensured me a moment of peace to collect myself. But I hadn't counted on the buttons issue.

I looked left, looked right, hoping Lucy or even Bea would magically spring out of the woodwork.

Nothing. Silence. Well, silence interrupted by the swish of tulle rubbing together as I adjusted my grip, trying to keep the back of the dress closed. Then I heard something else: a heavy footfall connecting with the stairs.

Clomp. Clomp, clomp!

Unless she was flinging her entire tiny body quite forcefully against the stairs, definitely not Lucy.

Clomp, clomp.

And despite her noisy state of teenage rebellion, probably not Bea, either.

Clomp!

Scott?

No, of course not
, I thought as the large, scowly figure emerged at the top of the stairs.
It would have to be
him
.

Given my current state of near immobility, I couldn't afford to be picky.

“Nate!” I waved to him from the doorway. “Can you help me with . . . wow. What are you wearing?”

Like me, Nate had a uniform of sorts: black, black, and more black. The idea that he owned clothing in other shades was completely foreign, yet here he was in a beautifully cut charcoal gray suit. The jacket hung nicely off his broad shoulders, softening his thuggish appearance and giving the shock of dark hair falling onto his forehead a rakish cast (as opposed to its usual cast, which translated to “I do not own a hairbrush”). For a second, I could almost see the off-kilter attractiveness that Lucy was always going on about.

I mean, almost. Let's not get crazy. This was still
Nate
we were talking about.

“A suit,” he said.

I cocked an eyebrow, indicating he needed to elaborate.

“I'm . . . escorting you,” he relented, shoving a hand through his hair and taking it back to hairbrush-needed land. “Aveda decided you could use some extra security. In addition to Lucy.”

“So she's forcing you to leave your lab for the night?”

He met my gaze. “I volunteered.”

He
volunteered
? I tried to keep the shock from registering on my face. Nate never went anywhere. He was a total hermit. The only instance I could recall of him actually standing outside was the day he'd shown up on Aveda's doorstep two years ago. I'd mistaken him for a
bodyguard hopeful (Lucy had snagged that position several days earlier), but as he'd been quick to inform me, he was the illustrious Nathaniel Jones, the renowned physician and demonology scholar whose paper on the science of superheroism had caught Aveda's attention earlier that year. Given his unique combination of talents, she'd simply had to have him on staff. I'd known about all this, of course, but I hadn't known what Nathaniel Jones looked like; unlike other famed demonology scholars, he shunned public appearances and lectures and his photograph never appeared alongside his published papers. I suppose all of this contributed to some kind of self-aggrandizing air of mystery. I mostly just found it aggravating, especially since his need to stay indoors meant he always conveniently “forgot” when it was his turn to do simple household errands. You know, all that “get groceries” type of minutiae that might seem beneath his notice, but was key to keeping HQ up and running.

“Okay, then,” I said. “Your first escort duty is to help me with these buttons.”

I shuffled back into the bedroom without waiting for his response. After a moment of silence, he clomped in after me.

I stood in front of the mirror and gestured awkwardly toward my back with my free hand. “I can't reach.”

He took the back of the dress from me hesitantly, contemplating the buttons.

“I'm not sure . . .” he said, his gruff tone wavering. “Perhaps Lucy would be better at . . .”

“It's not that hard,” I interrupted, irritation pricking my sweaty skin. “Aren't you always dissecting demons and stuff? Compared to that, this should be a piece of cake.”

He adjusted his grip on the tulle. “First you might want to . . .” He gestured at something.

“I might want to what?” I tapped my foot, my
impatience rising. That
nyah
quality crept into my voice. He always seemed to bring the
nyah
out.

“Your, um . . . bra. Is showing.”

He ducked his head, focusing on the buttons.

“Oh.”

My cheeks flushed as I glanced down at my chest, which was encased in hot pink lace. While my T-shirt/jeans uniform was pretty basic, I liked to make my own fun via neon underwear. After setting the library on fire, brightly colored unmentionables were about the biggest thrill I could handle. They were cute, they did not induce anxiety, and no one ever saw them except me.

Well.
Usually
no one except me.

Anyway Nate was right. A faint pink outline was visible through the thin material of the dress. I might as well have pasted a flashing SEE BOOBS HERE sign over my chest.

“Thanks,” I said, pulling the front of the dress against me. I unhooked the bra with my other hand and tossed it on the floor. “I guess I can go braless with this dress, right? It doesn't leave much to the imagination anyway.”

I twisted back and forth, trying to determine if there was visible nipple. It was borderline. The effect of my bigger-than-Aveda's breasts would be softened by the glamour, though.

Nate suddenly seemed even more preoccupied with staring at the buttons.

“Hold still,” he said, some of that signature gruffness creeping back into his voice.

I forced myself to stop moving and he started doing up the buttons. My foot tapped again and I hastily stilled it, trying to remain immobile while he worked.

“I pulled some of my recent analyses for you,” he said abruptly. “Regarding common factors in the last two months of demon attacks.”

“Uh . . . what?”

While I understood the medical doctor
keep-Aveda-healthy side of Nate's job, the demonology scholar part seemed as gibberish-riddled as his precious portal stones. In addition to dissecting whatever demon specimens came our way, he was always running various technobabble-y tests with names like “multiple regression analysis” and “structural equation modeling,” claiming this would help him discover links between the portals. As far as I could tell, the only link he'd come up with so far was that the portals appeared in totally random fashion and produced scary, hungry demon swarms. Which I could've told you without the fancy tests, since I was always there on the scene.

“You mentioned observing oddities in regard to the Aveda statue demons last night,” he said. “I thought looking at my recent data might give you further insight. Perhaps you'll see a connection.”

I shivered, remembering the statues advancing on me and Bea. “Last night you didn't seem to think I was clear on what I saw.”

“It's not that I don't believe you,” he said. “But you were describing your impressions of the event, and impressions are not exact data. Additionally, because you were in a heightened state, your thoughts were a bit . . . muddled. I am merely trying to eliminate various possibilities to get a better idea of what you deemed out of the ordinary.”