Leaving seemed like a good idea, especially since Lucky heard people coming. Lots of them. Promethean blasted a hole into the ceiling and flew up to check it out. We'd found a weapons store. With a window, albeit a small, dim window. Guards flooded the room below us and started firing wildly up at us. Promethean found a box of grenades and dumped it down the hole, sending the tong members scattering for safety—none of the pins had been pulled, of course, but they didn't know that.
     I headed for the window. In short order we were all out. Promethean hung back for a moment and fired a plasma blast into the armory, setting off a series of spectacular explosions.
     We were in Chinatown. It was early afternoon. Scott kept hold of the prisoner and called Winters.
    "Where have you been? We just had a golem try and eliminate Louis Farrakhan!"
     At that point I simply lost it; I had to stop in midair and regain some control before semi-hysterical laughter could send me careering into the side of a building; I didn't even hear Lucky complaining about the bumpy ride. Giddy with narrowly-escaped death and the sheer weirdness of it all, we headed for the station.
     We handed the prisoner over to the nearest uniformed officer, warning them to keep a close eye on him and oh by the way he could probably use some medical attention. Then we trooped into Winters' office. She pulled out a newspaper.
     "Do you have any bandaids?" Lucky asked.
     "Do you have any coffee?"
     "Over there, there." She showed us the front page—thankfully photoless, it nevertheless had a prominent article about our defeat of the previous day, along with the headline, "Clay Killer Eludes Promethean." Lovely. Lucky snarled to herself about ungrateful, asinine, who did they think they....
     "Don't take it personally," I suggested wearily.
     Hans inquired about the golem and its attempt on Mr. Farrakhan.
     "He was at a Nation of Islam meeting, going off on his whole fire and brimstone thing, and this golem just came through—big huge white clay thing, someone told me what is was later—and killed two of his bodyguards. He got away, but the thing vanished like," she snapped her fingers. "Got outside and sprinted off, I swear it was doing ninety until it threw itself down into the sewers. We've got two other corpses from this thing the other night, in addition to the ones that you ran into," she told Hans.
     "OK, so how many dead people do we have here?" I asked.
     She counted on her fingers. "The three people who were trying to burn down the temple last night. Two Palestinian merchants—I don't know, they broke into their house, battered the snot out of them and left. Two bodyguards."
     "What about the rabbi?" Hans asked. What rabbi? the rest of us wondered.
     "This is just in last night," she retorted sharply.
     "Ah."
     Collective contemplation of that stark fact.
     "This is just last night," she repeated. "I'm not mad at you, 'cause I know you've been following up on this, it's just—everything blew up at once. What happened in Chinatown?"
     "They came to save my sorry ass," Lucky growled. "And then we all got jumped by—"
     "Why don't we attempt to give our reports in some sort of coherent order?" I interrupted, unwilling to let her work herself any further into this state; ever since we'd gotten free of the traps she'd seemed as if she was on the edge of blowing up. She'd just get into a fight with Winters, and we don't need that.
     "At least the numbers are even now that we've captured—" Hans started to say.
     "You know, I'm in no mood to be criticized right now, Needle, so you might want to shut up," she muttered.
     I tapped my fingertips lightly on Winters' desk. "OK, I guess I'll go first then." Trying to keep a grip on my own temper, fuse considerably shorted by the events of the past twenty-four hours. Hoping that a little time to herself might give her a chance to get a hold of herself again.
     "You do that."
     "Excuse me," Scott asked Winters. "Could I use your computer for a second?"
     "Sure."
     He started looking for an ID match on the man we had captured. He works for the local tong, was thought dead back in February—the day after we destroyed Fimbulwinter's island— along with a handful of others. He used to take care of their antiquities, did some fencing, magical supplies. He had never been known to possess any powers of measurable strength.
     I gave my report in a concise, precise fashion, careful to represent Lucky accurately—that is to say, well. She really had done a good job. I don't think she was listening, though.

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