Magno Girl stared across the windswept roof. Her lips shimmered in the moonlight like a pair of neon-coated caterpillars. From the depths of Manhattan below came a scream of agony—someone was getting the esophagus torn from his throat or whatever.

I said, "Mags, do you think you'll ever get bored with me?"

She glanced in my direction. Her black hair, streaked with savage shades of red and crimson, billowed in the ozone-autumn breeze. She said, "Ron, I hear somebody getting killed down there."

"He can get killed without you. He's dead already."

"Yeah, but I can still catch the guy responsible. I can overwhelm him with the Gaze of the Guilt, and make him feel a deeper kind of pain."

She turned and leapt from the roof, her powerful body snapping like a switchblade as she dove into the death-black valley of bricks, glass, and steel. I briefly envied her ability to fly, and then took the stairs to the street. I hopped on my chopper and rode to the liquor store. I saw Magno Girl again the next day.

The morning sky was vomiting its sunshine through the grimy window of my East Village apartment. My groggy, whiskey-wounded head stared from behind a pile of covers. And there was Magno Girl, standing in my bedroom like a semi-vegetarian angel whose lips had never touched pastrami.

She said, "So, can I assume you came home and poured yourself a few drinks?"

I said, "Yeah, and you can assume that I swallowed them, too. I can't believe you don't want any endorsement deals. I can't believe you don't want an Internet fan club. And I can't believe you refused a slice of Lombardi's coal-oven pizza."

She rolled her eyes. She said, "Ron, I'm not interested in advertising insipid soft-drinks, and I'm rarely enthused about your environmentally destructive dinner plans—I only want to save the world. I've learned that the Barrister of Incomparable Commerce is planning some evil scheme. I plan to stop him, but my special powers might not be enough. Now, are you going to help me, or what?"

I sat up on the bed and admired the curves of Magnolia's stunning body. Then I reached for a beer and grinned.

"Sure, baby, let's do it."

We went down to the diner for breakfast. She had a lot to tell me.