The phone rang.
    "Revolution."
    "'Dis is Joey. Lucky 'dere?"
    "She's not here now. Can I take a message?"
    "Could I 'ave her phone number, 'den?"
    "We don't have personal numbers. Any message?"
    "Sure. Tell her Joey called. We gotta talk some time."
    "Right. Anything else?"
    "No. Da name's Joey. She gots to call me."
    "Got it."
    I called Lucky and passed on the message. She tried to set up a dinner date for tonight to pay off the bet. I tried to put her off but finally gave in. (Unsurprisingly, the way things turned out, I had to take a rain check.)
    About a minute after I hung up she called me back. There had been a break-in at a Mr. Vincent Guiliani's place—one of the penthouses.
    Uh-huh. The woman must think I'm an idiot. I didn't ask why her pal "Joey" had needed to tell her about this personally.
    Rowes Wharf is only a few minutes' flight away. I waited for the others and we went up as a group. An impeccable servant opened the door and announced us to his employer, a charming man who showed us around and described the robbery. The room had been almost entirely sealed and very well protected, but the ventilation shafts had been open, and the fog had come in through one. Mr. Guiliani's bodyguards had tried to stop it; they were all in various states of minor injury, and bullet holes marred the paneled walls. The fog had solidified, punched through the wall of the safe, and departed with a collection of rare coins, a substantial number of Kruegerrands, and some personal papers—"Letters from my wife," he claimed. Lucky promised we would return his property in 24 hours.
    This bothers me, quite a bit. Superheroes don't give special favors to mob bosses, and where Mr. Guiliani is concerned I have a very strong hunch as to the business he's in. I haven't decided what, if anything, I should say to her about it.
    I did tell him the name of another target, Mr. Aliese, who (surprise) was known to him. After an intense conversation in Italian, Mr. Vincent convinced him to let us stake out his place, on the grounds that if they wanted money (the motive for the first two hits, as far as we could tell) they would go there rather than hit Renaissance or Taurus. Lucky dissented, on a hunch that they would strike a different kind of target each time, and headed for Renaissance; Albert and I visited Aliese and gave him pointers on keeping the gaseous invader out of his home. He wasn't nearly so polished as Vincent, and it was a relief to call Lucky and find that her hunch had strengthened considerably. Betting on her instincts, we headed for Cambridge. Halfway there I gave her another call. Sirens howled and nearly drowned out her emphatic, "Not NOW!" I increased speed, saw the building and headed down. A pale cloud hovered over it, drifting away.
    Dammit.
    Suddenly I was no longer carrying Albert's hundred-plus pounds alone, but an additional three hundred of ice and snow. We dropped like a stone.
    It might well have been Albert's prayers (I think they were prayers, it was French) that saved us, since I have no idea where I found the additional power to pull us out of our fall. We hit the ground much more gently than we might have, shattering the ice so that I was left stunned but standing while my companion kissed the pavement fervently. We had landed around the building's side; lights and sirens added lurid emphasis to the scene. Above were two flying figures, wings strapped to their bodies. One of them turned, swooped down hard and fast and fired a weapon at close range. A contained blizzard enveloped the two of us. At higher altitude, a woman was getting away, carrying a companion.
    Lucky leaned out a top story window and flung her staff, hitting the first flier, who wobbled and crashed in short order. She got the other one on the next pass; the woman dropped her burden and kept going at well over twice my top speed. I flew up into range and caught the falling thief.
    "Are you going to be sensible, or should I drop you?"
    "Uh—please—no don't...."
    The crashed villain had already succumbed to Albert's fleurs de mal illusion and was screaming incoherently, clawing at his skin. But when Albert approached, the insubstantial one (whom we had forgotten about) came up through the ground with an attack that threw the mesmerist 30 feet before both made their escape.

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