A distant noise of a leaf blower greeted me as I stepped back to our reception area, and I grinned at Kring/L, a big, beefy bald man with a walrus moustache, going over flash with a young couple over the distant noise of the leaf blower. Unlike me, he did jinxes-lover's names-so he got work I generally didn't; but he still felt the same way I did about them, and was trying to sell the kids on matching designs rather than something they'd regret in six weeks.

"You think all the leaves would have fallen by now," he said, looking up at me, cocking his head back at the muted whine from the parking lot. He was a great artist, and yet didn't sport a single tattoo. "I thought they did this on Wednesdays."

"That's the beauty of global warming for you," I said. "Blow the leaves around enough with a gas mower, and you get to watch them fall later every year."

He cocked his head at the two kids-they were actually pretty cleancut, kind of preppy, and had stiffened at my crack. I took the hint and shut up. I slipped out the door, then stomped in my big old boots back to the balcony at the end of the stairs. I was willing to bet I'd see a huge-ass SUV in the parking lot-no, two. Why should I expect that they'd ridden together?

My jaw dropped. A black helicopter sat in the back parking lot of the Rogue Unicorn, its blades spinning down slowly from a light whine to near-complete silence.

The leafblower had wings.

8. Secret Agent Man

In shock, I descended the stairs, watching the set of counterrotating, oddly spaced blades slowly come to a stop. The helicopter was simultaneously sweeping and angular, landing gear curving back from its nose in a horseshoe, tail swooping up like a fin, making it look like a giant metal Shamu carved from matte black panels that ate up all the light.