“Oh, you just haven’t given it a chance.” The ace stepped forward, one arm crooked as he rotated to slide it into Olena’s and lead her away.

Marcus slipped in front of Olena, the flat of his palm halting Bugsy. “Are you kidding me? She’s with me, and not to be rude, but you look like a shrinking dead man walking.”

Jonathan scowled. “Fucking Talas. Lost half my wasps there.” His gaze shifted from Olena to Marcus and back again, seemingly calculating the wisdom of continuing down this track. A green wasp crawled out of his ear and hung upside down on his earlobe, cleaning itself. “All right, whatever. We’re here on business anyway.”

A commotion came from back at the gate. A figure hovering in midair floated over the guards toward Marcus. Just behind him jogged a burly man clutching something to his chest. They came toward Marcus with the soldiers in tow.

“Bugsy, what the fuck?” the floating man said. He was olive-skinned, Asian-looking. He carried himself with a strange mixture of floating tranquility and nervous-eyed agitation. “Why’d you swarm and fly away like that? Scared the hell out of me.”

“Everything scares the hell out of you,” Bugsy said, about as snidely as Marcus had ever heard a person address another. “Meet the Lama. Not to be confused with the Llama.” Gesturing toward the burly man huffing up to them, he added, “And my butler here is Tinker, maker of clever, useless machines.”

“Bugsy!” the burly man called in an accent Marcus recognized straightaway. Australian. “What were you thinking? You forgot your clothes, mate.”

“That’s what I have you for.” The emaciated ace snatched the bundle from him and began slipping himself into the comically oversized garments. “Comrades, let me introduce you to one Marcus Morgan. Aka the Infamous Black Tongue. Denizen of the sewers of Jokertown, keeper of Father Squid’s underground crypts. A vigilante of considerable repute, illegal gladiatorial fighter. And all-around bad boy.”

Olena wove an arm through Marcus’s. “He knows you!” she said. “Even the bad boy part.”

“Of course I know him,” Bugsy said, cranking at the belt of the trousers that, thankfully, hid the swarming blur of his crotch. “Been writing features about him for ACES! magazine. He’s good copy.”

Marcus narrowed his eyes. “What have you written about me?”

Tinker grinned. “Probably better you don’t know.”

Bugsy didn’t dispute it. He smiled lasciviously at Olena. “And you are?”

“Not interested,” Olena answered. “And my name is Olena.”

Tinker grinned again. “I like her. She’s got you right sussed, Bugsy.”

“You were in that horror, weren’t you?” Lama asked Marcus. “Talas, I mean.”

Marcus nodded.

“Us too,” Bugsy said. “On the first team of aces the Committee sent in.”

“Yeah?” Marcus couldn’t help but show his eagerness. “What happened? Did you fix things?”

The wasp on Bugsy’s ear dropped off. He caught it in a fist and popped it into his mouth. “Not exactly. Barely lived to tell about it, is more like it. Come on. We’ve got things to talk about then. You’ll need to be debriefed. See if you know anything we don’t. Let’s get you inside.”