“Despicable creatures, vultures: without a doubt the most disgusting birds ever. I suppose they served their purpose, but did they have to be so greasy and ugly? Couldn't we have cute fuzzy rabbits that cleaned up roadkill instead?”

“Gaea?” Leo shook his head. “Isn’t that Mother Nature? She’s supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and dear and rabbits doing her laundry.”“Leo, that’s Snow White,” Piper said.”

“I could hear hopefulness in her voice, but also doubt. She was waiting for me to admit the obvious: I’d forgotten. I was toast. I was boyfriend roadkill.”

“So you've got no name?" I asked. "They couldn't think of one ugly enough?"The creature snarled, stepping over the unconscious policeman."Set animal is too hard to say," I decided. "I'll call you Leroy."Apparently, Leroy didn't like his name. He lunged.”

“Fortunately, we did most of our athletic stuff inside, so we didn't have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of boot-camp hippie children.”

“I stared at the river far below. "Why did you park us on the mountain? Why not closer?"Bast shrugged, as if this hadn't occurred to her. "Cats like to get as high up as possible. In case we have to pounce on something.""Great," I said. "So if we have to pounce, we're all set.”

“You have a humming dodo bird," I said stupidly.”