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been nowhere in sight. We’d had to wait for the coast guard to rescue us.
    So I was on my own—like always.
    That’s why I wear a vest crammed full of emergency supplies. Saving a bleeding superhero from freezing to death wasn’t the sort of emergency I usually handled, but if I could strong-arm Bigtime’s wealthiest citizens into behaving, however badly, I could figure out some way to get Talon to my loft.
    I unbuttoned my coat and patted the pockets on my vest, going through a mental inventory of everything stuffed inside. Nail polish. Tissues. Bobby pins. Hairspray. Breath mints. Garbage bag—
    Garbage bag—that might work.
    I unzipped the appropriate pocket and pulled out a large, black, plastic bag—one of several I carried around in case somebody at one of my events made an enormous mess. They also were good to give to folks like Peter Potter when they’d had a few too many.  
    I looked at Talon’s long torso. Good thing it was a heavy-duty, supersized bag, because he wasn’t a small man. I unrolled the bag on the snow next to him and tied two knots in the end. Then, I got down on my knees and pushed and strained and heaved, rolling him onto the bag, face-up.  
    During my shoving, a silver flash drive slipped out of a slot on Talon’s belt. I picked it up. The gizmo looked like your typical flash drive—except for the letter T embossed on the glossy surface. I wondered if the T stood for Talon or something else. No writing or labels were stuck on it to tell me what information it contained, but I slipped the drive into my coat pocket. I’d give it back to Talon later, when we were both warm and conscious. I also plucked his grappling hook gun out of the snow, unbuckled him and the gun from the zip line, and slid the weapon back into the holster on his leg.
    The superhero’s shoulder wound had stopped bleeding, probably because he’d been lying in the cold snow for several minutes. Talon’s leather costume looked fairly thick and weatherproof. I hoped it would keep him warm enough until I got him to my loft.
    Once I had Talon more or less arranged on the bag, I brought the edges up and tied it around him. By the time I finished knotting the plastic together, the superhero resembled a mummy swathed in one big, shiny, black bandage.  
    Talon didn’t move or stir during the ordeal. I was glad he couldn’t see me like this, grunting, sweating, and flailing in the snow. I wasn’t naturally graceful anyway, not like Piper, but I was being clumsier than usual. My normal awkward self and then some. Not that Talon could see me anyway with the gas Bandit had sprayed him with. Or that he’d ever noticed me before. Few people did.
    Then again, I’d never really been up close and personal with a superhero either. It wasn’t like I was one of the folks in the Slaves for Superhero Sex group. SSS was one of the city’s more infamous organizations, filled with people who did extremely stupid things like handcuff themselves to railroad tracks in hopes of being saved by a hero or even a villain—and showing their gratitude with their bodies afterward. But I couldn’t scoff too much at the group. The members had been smart enough to hire me to plan their Valentine’s Day dance this year.
    Once I had Talon wrapped up, I grabbed the two knots I’d tied at the end of the bag, using them as handles. I turned toward the front of the alley, my back to Talon, took a step forward—and almost yanked my arms off.
    The bag didn’t come with me, didn’t budge an inch. I was lucky the plastic hadn’t ripped. But, this was the plan I’d come up with, so I tried again. Still, the bag didn’t move.  
    I tried again. Nothing.
    Finally, I hunkered down, dug my boots into the snow, and surged forward with a fierce growl that would have drowned out Yeti Girl. This time, the bag moved—five whole inches. Well, it was five inches closer to my building.
           “You’re heavy, you know that?” I groused.
    Talon