by Sarah Kuhn
“Let’s get back to worrying about Aveda,” I interrupted. “She’s the one who was in the thick of battle and all?”
He frowned, looking like he wanted to say something else. Instead he abruptly switched topics. “Letta Wilcox is in the foyer. She’s waiting for you to tell her what the portal means for the future of her bakery.”
“Shit.” I glanced at my watch for the umpteenth time. “I need to be here when Aveda’s done. Otherwise her rage cycle will loop back up to the top again. And that’ll keep her working out ’til at least three a.m.”
“I can talk to Letta.” Lucy scrambled to her feet, her pixie-ish features taking on an enthusiastic cast.
“Hey.” I hopped up and jutted an arm out, blocking her. “Stick to the script. No trolling for dates.”
Her eyes widened with unconvincing innocence. “I would never . . .”
“Right. You think I haven’t noticed the big, flirty eyes whenever we stop by Cake My Day for a communal cookie? Which you then don’t eat?”
“She’s a redhead,” Lucy said, as if that was a perfectly acceptable defense.
“Can we save this round of slumber party gossip for non-work hours?” Nate said.
“Can you save your man-bitchery for no time ever?” I shot back.
“I will be perfectly professional,” Lucy said. “Remind me: what is ‘the script’?”
I pasted a soothing smile on my face and clasped my hands in front of me, going into my well-rehearsed act.
“So your place of business has been selected by the Otherworld as a demon portal site,” I droned. “Really it’s nothing to worry about. I realize your first reaction might be complete and total panic, but I ask you to remember the facts . . .”
I held my hands out in the manner of a children’s show host about to impart a Very Important (and Super Calming) Lesson.
“Yes, the very first Otherworld portal—the one from eight years ago—made a total mess of San Francisco and, yes, the demons who came through were of a distinctly humanoid variety and may have been part of an invasion attempt, at least according to our most respected demonology scholars. But those demons died pretty much immediately upon entering our world, and we haven’t seen anything like them since. The demons who have come through every subsequent, way-less-crazy portal are very different—not at all humanoid and usually take the form of the first thing they see, albeit with the added bonus of fangs and/or claws. And while they’re still totally dangerous, they aren’t smart enough to organize any invasion-level plans. Plus Aveda Jupiter always takes ’em down.”
I paused here for another reassuring smile. I sometimes threw in a hand pat at this juncture, but decided Lucy would improvise her own touchy-feelies.
“And?” Nate prompted.
“And . . . sometimes, the demons will bring a distinctive-looking token with them when they slip through: a piece of stone with gibberish scribbled on it.”
“Not gibberish!” Nate protested. “Possible messages from the Otherworld.”
“Gibberish,” I said. “Gibberish that’s never given us any actual useful information. If you happen to spot one of these, please collect it and send it to Aveda Jupiter, Inc. so our resident annoying scientist can log it in one of his many spreadsheets.”
“I’m assuming I can switch up the wording a bit,” Lucy murmured.
I studiously avoided Nate’s thunderous gaze, winding up to my big finish.
“It is unlikely that your portal will reopen: once the thing closes, it seems to be a done deal. That said, the fact that you played host to a real, live Otherworld portal often means your establishment will become a sought-after tourist attraction, much like that drag bar on Turk that weathered a vicious attack from demonic high heels, so . . . congratulations! Should you have any further problems, feel free to call, email, or tweet us here at Aveda Jupiter, Inc. and we will be happy to perform any necessary acts of superheroism.”
“‘Congratulations’?” muttered Nate. “Really?”
“It’s an ironic ‘congratulations,’” I said. “Breaks the ice.”
“That is the most illogical thing I’ve ever—”
“Because your grasp of human relations is so amazingly—”
“Guys.” Lucy waved her arms, her lacy sleeves flapping like excitable snowflakes. “I got it. I—”
“Eviiiie.” The wail came from deep within the gym, the cry of an animal stranded in the desert with no food or water or high-end moisturizer.
That wail was the final stage of The Aveda Jupiter Tantrum.
And that was my cue.
ZITASTROPHE!
Aveda Jupiter Conquers Cupcakes . . . but Falls to Face Volcano!
by Maisy Kane, Bay Bridge Kiss Editrix
Bonjour, ’Friscans! Your pal Maisy was first on the scene today when Aveda Jupiter dispatched the dastardly demons gracing the latest Otherworld portal. The little bastards took on cupcake form this time and I nearly fell into a diabetic coma from the sugar shock of it all! (Kidding! Diabetes is no laughing matter—get yourself tested!) Even though A. Jupes had things well in hand, I must express a smidge of concern for her health. Girl seems to have developed a monster blemish on her face—and at exactly the wrong moment, what with the big ol’ party happening tonight!
As my readers may recall, Mayor Mendoza is set to present everyone’s fave superheroine with the key to the city—an honor her fans have been clamoring for forever! They’re already lined up around the block, eagerly awaiting the ceremony and fan meet-and-greet, wherein A. Jupes will sign autographs and be her usual fabulous self . . . or as fabulous as she can be, considering that crazy-ass zit! (A, honey, call me! I can recommend an ace skin care regimen.) My sources say we’ll also be getting appearances from a pair of San Francisco’s finest local celebs: Tommy Lemon (Mr. Big Time Movie Star) and Stu Singh (The Gutter’s beloved old codger of a piano player). And of course, your pal Maisy will be on the scene to document the most thrilling goings-on and face volcano eruptions! (Kidding! But seriously, A, invest in some decent blush.)
Shasta’s Corner! Shasta (Maisy’s bestie) here. Don’t forget: all organic lace bras are 50 percent off at Pussy Queen this week. Come on down and prepare to get down. (Editrix’s Note: Shast, that “joke” is as fresh as a pair of granny panties. Not kidding.)
CHAPTER THREE
THIS IS GONNA be a bitch to clean up.
Yes, fine, I’ll admit it: My first thought upon entering the gym was not very assistant-y.
It was a total mess, though. As I’d predicted, two loyal boxing bag soldiers had fallen to Aveda’s merciless blows. One was still hanging from the ceiling by its ropes, determined to stay at least sort of upright. Unfortunately a hole had been punched clean through the middle. The other had been knocked free from its moorings and was deflating on the floor in a sad pile of black vinyl.
Weights, jump ropes, and Aveda’s fabulous boots were scattered all over the sweaty mats that covered the floor. I allowed myself a mournful look at the boots, which were now smeared with a sticky mix of frosting, blood, and the sand that had once served as the boxing bags’ filling. Definitely not salvageable. Not even if I gave them the most meticulous of hand-washings.
Sand had also gotten all over the floor. It crunched under my feet as I made my way over to Aveda. She was sprawled against the far wall, glaring steadily at the bag with the hole in it. As if the sheer power of her glare would somehow make the zit vanish and render her whole and awesome again.
I tried to summon the words to tell her she was still awesome, zit be damned. To remind her of her bravery and city-saving mojo and the fact that she was strong enough to punch a hole through an entire boxing bag.
But none of that would register until we’d fixed the zit problem. For Aveda Jupiter, anything less than perfection at all times and in all areas was bullshit. And it was my job to fix the bullshit.<
br />
“It’s . . . still . . . there,” she growled, pointing to the zit. “I have to go to that party tonight. What am I going to do?”
I knelt down next to her and studied the zit, doing my best to hide my dismay. It had grown brighter and more toxic-looking over the past hour, meaning she’d picked at it.
“Okay,” I said, reaching into the depths of my hoodie pocket. “We’re gonna full-coverage foundation this bitch.” I pulled out a makeup compact and dangled it in front of her, as if trying to hypnotize a cranky cat with yarn. “This stuff is like magic.”
“Right.” Nate hulked his way into the gym. “And clogs the pores to such a degree that you will continue to develop skin imperfections in the same area for years to come.”
“Stop! Helping!” I sang out, popping the compact open and dabbing makeup on Aveda’s cheek. I might be able to get a glamour for her later, a bit of actual magic that would further conceal the blotch and enhance her overall look, but this would have to do for now. Slowly but surely the zit faded underneath a hefty layer of Skin Tone #67 until it was nothing more than a barely visible spot. Aveda’s shoulders relaxed, her expression turning peaceful under my ministrations.
Now we were safely into the aftermath of The Aveda Jupiter Tantrum: that moment of serenity before she whiplashed back to imperious mode, conveniently forgetting that an obstacle had dared cross her path in the first place. I felt my own shoulders relax as she leaned into me like a toddler getting food swabbed from her face.
Naturally, Nate had to interrupt our nice moment.
“What,” he growled, “is that?”
“What?” My eyes swept over Aveda’s face. “Do you see another zit?”
“No.” He brushed stray sand out of the way and lowered himself to the floor next to Aveda’s feet. “That.”
I turned to where he was gesturing, prepared to roll my eyes at whatever minor source of irritation he’d managed to pinpoint.
Instead my eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets.
Aveda’s left ankle was . . . well. It barely looked like an ankle at this point. It had swollen into an angry, mottled sphere that looked ready to rise up, detach itself, and club the rest of her leg to death.
“Did she fall at the bakery?” Nate demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Of course not!” I snapped. “She never falls—wait, did you fall?”
I swiveled back to Aveda. She was holding one of her hands up, trying to use her telekinesis to levitate the compact away from me. Telekinesis was her actual superpower, but it was so weak she could barely do anything with it. We downplayed it in all our press materials and she rarely showed it off in public. Her ass-kicking abilities, as she’d be quick to remind you, came from hard work, intense physical training, and an obsessive willingness to avoid carbs.
The compact twitched between my fingers, but didn’t move further. I handed it to her.
“I didn’t fall.” She examined her concealed zit in the compact’s mirror. “Well. Not at the bakery.”
Her voice was disinterested, as if Nate and I were discussing something unrelated to her. “I might have slipped while I was practicing a jump-kick combination.”
She gestured vaguely at the sand-covered floor.
“But it’s no big deal. I just need to rest for a minute.” She shut the compact and met my eyes. Her gaze was regal, fully restored to pre-Tantrum imperiousness.
I remembered what Lucy had said about her muscles being “cooked.” Apparently she had finally pushed them too far.
“But . . . but . . .” I sputtered, gesturing to her ankle. Nate probed the blob with his fingertips. “Aren’t you in pain?”
In an instant, the imperiousness turned to steel.
“Aveda Jupiter does not feel pain.”
I couldn’t think of a good comeback. Over the years Aveda had trained and honed and sculpted her body into a perfect weapon, impervious to heat and cold and all manner of demon attack. I was convinced she had also figured out how to block her sweat glands, since perspiration never seemed to grace her brow.
That was why something like a zit was so monumental. Her body had found a way to disobey her.
It seemed like she had always been this way, commanding and unbreakable. It was easy to forget that before she was Aveda Jupiter, she was little Annie Chang—that when we first met, we were nothing more than a pair of perfectly average five-year-olds growing up in the East Bay suburbs. We’d initially come together over the fact that we were the only Asian Americans in Mrs. Miller’s kindergarten class and our parents sent in food for afternoon snack that the other kids deemed “weird.” In Annie/Aveda’s case, it was her mom’s handmade soup dumplings, pockets of boiling hot meaty yumminess our classmates rudely shunned for scalding their tiny little mouths. They made fun of Aveda for days, claiming she had tried to “burn their faces off.” A week later my dad took it upon himself to craft spam musubi. Personally I found it to be the perfect comfort food, the spam-nori-rice combination salty and savory and hearty in a way that spoke directly to my soul.
My classmates did not agree.
No one would touch the musubi on the basis that the spam looked pink and fleshy enough to be “human meat” and also “seaweed, ew.” I could still remember my face getting hot, the start of tears burning behind my eyes, as the rest of the kids started up a chant of “Hu-man meat! Hu-man meat!” The spam glistened in the light, all sweaty from sitting out for so long.
And then little Annie/Aveda pushed her way to the front. Her pigtails, usually perfectly symmetrical, were askew and her eyes were lit with something I now recognized as a potent brew of rage and bravado.
“Human meat looks absolutely delicious to me!” she’d screamed.
And then she’d proceeded to gobble down every single freaking spam musubi while the rest of the class watched. She was like a tiny child version of the Tasmanian Devil crossed with Pac-Man. In the midst of her cramming snacks into her mouth, she’d looked over and given me a nod: This is for you, okay? I’m doing this for you. Because I remember what it was like when they made fun of me.
All the attention and the whispering from the other kids had transferred over to her, the assembled five-year-olds switching easily from mocking me to regarding her with a mix of shock, fear, and “dang, that girl is crazy” awe.
I’d hovered around and rubbed her back when she’d thrown it all up in the bathroom right after. It was the first time she’d saved me. The first time I’d comforted her afterward. It bonded us for life.
We were inseparable after that, which meant we were also together that fateful night so many years later. We’d both just turned eighteen—our birthdays were within a week of each other, but we always had our joint celebration on hers—and were in the process of getting drunk on cheap wine from Mrs. Chang’s secret stash. I’d anticipated passing out on the shag carpet of Aveda/Annie’s bedroom mid-tipsy-giggle.
I did not anticipate an earthquake that sloshed our crappy wine all over the carpet and opened up that first big portal to the evil alternate dimension known as the Otherworld. Or that said portal would result in a bunch of San Franciscans getting superpowers.
Demonologists later hypothesized that the powers had been somehow transferred to humans from the demon corpses found around the portal wreckage, and while superpowers from badass demons sounded way cool in theory, the vast majority of the powers turned out to be pretty unimpressive. Like barista Dave down at the Sunny Side Café could subtly alter the temperature of a room if he thought about it hard enough, but all that really meant was he never had to pay for air conditioning. Or, you know, local vintage boutique owner Shruti Dhaliwal found she had the ability to grow her hair as long as she wanted on cue—which enhanced her unique signature style, but wasn’t exactly world-saving.
The actual number of superpowered San Franciscans was fairly low—less than a t
housand—but that didn’t stop certain wild-eyed individuals from trying to claim they had suddenly gained powers whenever a new portal opened up. These claims were always disproved, chalked up to wishful thinking or flat-out fabrication. The smaller portals, it seemed, just didn’t have the same juice.
Aveda’s power was just as weak as the rest, yet where others saw party tricks, she saw an opportunity to finally pursue her true calling: protecting the people of our fair city. She’d been quick to loudly and firmly establish herself as the city’s sole hero.
That’s right: she’d basically called dibs.
A couple other wannabe heroes tried to challenge her, most notably our old junior-high acquaintance Mercedes McClain, who’d been gifted with a sort of human GPS ability. But Aveda trained harder and longer and was always first on the scene whenever a new portal opened up. Plus she had better outfits. The public loved her immediately.
With protecting San Francisco off the table, others blessed with superpowers took a variety of paths, but none of them involved fighting the supernatural. Mercedes, for instance, relocated to Los Angeles, refashioned herself as Magnificent Mercedes, and used her human GPS ability to foil carjackers and put an end to dangerous high-speed chases. My friend Scott Cameron’s power enabled him to access and manipulate bits of Otherworld magic, so he made a decent living selling spell-casting services online—usually to people looking to ensnare their crush of choice with a love token. (I liked to refer to him as “the Sorcerer Supreme” after Marvel Comics’ magic-wielding Doctor Strange, which he thought was funny even though he didn’t get the reference.)
And as for me . . . well. The less said about me, the better.
“Nathaniel, get me a bandage,” Aveda said, snapping her fingers. “I should start prepping for the party.”
“You’re going to need some kind of crutch,” I began.
Nate snatched a towel from the gym’s rack, folded it into a neat square, and slid it under Aveda’s ankle. “She’s not going anywhere,” he said. “This looks like a severe sprain.”
