I tried, he wasn't home. I left a message. Time passed. I took another nap, finally got a shower.
     The emergency alarms went off. I picked up the phone.
     "Get down here! We're in the 87th Street lockup! You've got to get down here now! We've got the guy you pulled in, they're breaking through the doors! They're—" A crash silenced his voice.
     We moved out with all the speed we could muster. I dialed Chandler's place midflight.
     "Hello?"
     "Is Lucky available?"
     "She's still meditating, what's up?"
     "87th Street precinct, the people who kicked our asses last night are breaking their leader out of jail."
     "I'll wake her up."
     Scott redlined the hovercycle, I pushed myself to close to my top speed and Hans hung back a little so we could discuss tactics en route. I was assigned to either Monster or the woman in grey who had almost killed Scott, whichever turned out to be closer. Scott would attack No-Name, in hopes that he would prove immune to mind-control. Hans targeted Flame.
     When we got there they were in retreat, carrying their semi-conscious comrade away. Even as we watched, he started waking up further, began to fly under his own power. And glow, and resume his much taller, illusory form. All were flying but for Monster, who moved in huge leaps from building to building.
     I went after Monster, but he was jumping around too erratically for me to get a good lock; I veered dangerously, trying to redirect my momentum and come back around for another try. Promethean hurled himself forward through the air, his plasma envelope bursting to life around him as he drove straight for Flame-face. Who saw him coming, and doubled his speed for a half second, and then dropped back, a neat little maneuver I'd like to be able to copy someday. These people are much better at flying than any of us.
     Below us, Lucky roared up into the battle scene. Without a pause she climbed up onto the nearest building, where Monster was preparing for another leap. He saw her and crouched, smiling, headed toward her. She slammed the staff down against the roof directly in front of him, sent him crashing into the apartment below and followed with a vengeful gleam in her eye. Scott set his cycle to hover and launched himself in a silver stream against No-Name.
     "No! Master!" Flame shouted in horror as No-Name reeled in mid-air, blood streaming from his face. Scott coiled himself on the rooftop, fifteen feet or so below, then dove aside from Grey's attack before she could reduce his energy again.
     I took painstaking aim at her, determined not to miss again. She felt oddly absent and cold to my senses. She also wasn't casting a shadow, I noted.
     Flame turned his attention back to Promethean, who dodged aside from his deadly glance. No-Name regained his composure and shouted encouragement to his troops. The illusionist, apparently fully awake now, took one look around the scene and accelerated away at amazing speed, passing Promethean closely enough to partially blind him for a few moments. Promethean let him go. No-Name didn't seem pleased by this desertion.
     "What—hey—Chang Yen, stop screwing around, just kill her!"
     Kill who?
    "Duck!" Scott practically screamed at me, pointed with a liquid limb. "She's behind you!"
     I spun a sharp circle and dropped a few feet. For just an instant, I could see her. Only see her; she was right at the edge of my own aura and I couldn't feel her at all, which scared me about as much as anything has over the past two days. She was a void. She was also holding a sword, which sliced neatly through where I had just been. Promethean fired off a plasma blast at her; it engulfed her position, and when it cleared she was gone. Vanished, but not dead. Where the hell had she come from?
     Scott wasted no time, launched a second powerful attack against the mind-controller; Wu Tang collapsed to the ground with a number of bones broken. The others of the enemy cried out in pain as one.
     That was enough to warn me, she was there again, swinging a vicious blow that barely missed me as I flung myself backwards—not at my most graceful, but at least she missed.
     "What the hell are you?"
     "Chang Yen. I am the ghost who would live." She was gone again, and I stared at the space where she had been—had there been someone there, a moment ago?
     She absorbs everything. Even memories of her existence.

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