March 30, 2025—Hunger City, California

"What happened?"

Isabel's voice was gentle, but her eyes huge. In the three days since the raid, the younger woman had cared for Harriet as she lay on her cot in the rock club's basement. She had until that moment managed not to ask Harriet a single unnecessary question.

"Not sure," Harriet said. "But maybe if you find me another comic book someplace I'll remember. Meanwhile, I'll take a nap. Come back when you've found one."

Isabel frowned and Harriet grinned. She had hardly been able to believe her luck in having a sheepish, obedient Isabel as her caretaker the last few days. It had almost made the adventure among the casks worth it. Especially considering the fact that the bullet had, somehow, missed her nerves. She could still move her arm and fingers some, which meant she could potentially make a full recovery.

"Come on, please, Harriet. I'm going to definitely scream and possibly explode if you don't tell me right now."

Harriet's grin faltered. She bit her lip absently. "A bunch of Draculoids died, and I was very fortunate. Other people died. Wine was spilled. Lots of wine. The end. Now I'm going to go back to sleep, if you'll be so kind as to shut the door when you-"

"What about the flaming man?"

"I liked not talking about this. That part was awesome."

"You know, Aladdin sent a couple of the men over there after we got you, and we took a bunch of that wine."

"Thank God that man has some sense," Harriet replied. "Who knows how important that distillery was to the Hunger City supply. I bet we'll see wine getting more expensive really soon."

There was a knock at the door of Harriet's little basement room below the Second Life, and Aladdin—the sort of manager of the club—poked his head inside. He looked at Harriet. "There's a lady here who wants to see the women who killed five Draculoids. She says she's a fan."

Harriet raised her eyebrows. "What does she look like?"

"I don't know, she looks like some young girl."

"Ask her what she really wants."

"I told her to mind her own business. She said I'd let her in if I've ever been a killjoy."

"And you did. Are you twelve, and a member of a super secret club? Did she have knowledge of the secret handshake?" Aladdin frowned right up to his old puppy dog eyes, and his big mustache seemed to droop under Harriet's admonitions. She rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, I'm just saying I don't want to talk to some random person when I'm still trying to recover. And when what I really want is a nap."

Isabel spoke up. "I'll talk to her," she said. "I'll tell her what you told me."

"An excellent plan," Harriet agreed. "I'll nap." The pair left.

But Harriet did not even doze before the door opened again.

"She says she bets you heard the name Fun Ghoul." Isabel's cheeks were flushed; this strange female apparently intrigued her. Harriet frowned.

"Did you?" Isabel asked.

"Everyone has heard the name Fun Ghoul."

"She means when you were over there," Isabel replied breathlessly, nodding her head at the curtained window that looked out on Avenue X.

"Who is this freaking woman?" Harriet's voice was slightly louder than she'd expected.

"She won't say," Aladdin answered.

"I'll talk to her."

Isabel's face lit up. "Ok!" she said, ducking out into the hallway. Aladdin withdrew, and the younger woman returned a moment later.

The woman who came in behind her was maybe in her late twenties, with hair dyed dark red caught in a thick braid. She wore a The Smiths T-shirt, leather pants, and hand-made burlap lace-up boots, typical city attire for a visiting killjoy. She sat down, after a moment's hesitation, in Isabel's bedside chair, leaving Isabel standing behind her, eyes wide above her pretty, smiling bow mouth.

"I'm Ellen," the woman said. "Thank you for seeing me. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"I'm Harriet. It's fine."

Ellen reached behind her and pulled a small notebook and pen from her pocket. "I want to ask you some questions. I promise to be quick. Thanks again."

"What's this for?"

"Please. I will be quick." The woman's forehead wrinkled in pleading, but her mouth was set in a firm line.

The two looked at each other, but Harriet broke the stare. "Fine." She reached to the bedside table for an Angel and lit it.

Ellen looked relieved. "Thanks," she said. "Ok. Tell me. Do I have this right so far: You saw the six Draculoids go into the building across the street here on Avenue X, and followed them. You killed all of them inside the wine distillery run by Abby Robinson, killjoy name Mana Spark. You got shot in the left shoulder." She ran the words together as if trying to get through them as quickly as possible, her eyes positively crackling with interest as she read from her little notebook. "All right? Anything to add? Any details?"

Harriet nodded and shrugged. She'd heard Isabel and Aladdin talking about Abby as the likely mastermind behind the winery. She was one of those who'd been shot dead by the Draculoids, the former owner of a deli at street level on Avenue X. "I guess Abby ran it," she said.

"She did," Ellen replied. "Who did you think ran it?" He poised her pen.

"I didn't know," Harriet replied slowly.

"Ok." Ellen blinked at her, then opened her mouth again. "Why did you go over there when you saw the Draculoids, if you don't mind my asking? If you do … Um, anyway, did you know there was a distillery there or anything? Did you know some of the people over there …?"

"Who are you?" Harriet asked.

Ellen looked down, setting her pen on her notebook. "I understand you're concerned about volunteering information to someone you don't know, and that you wonder what I'll use it for, and whether I'm with BL/ind," she said eloquently, as if by wrote. "But I'm just curious." She looked up. "You were a killjoy, right? When did you come to Hunger." She paused. "Sorry. That was off-topic. I mean, why go over there?"

"She went over there to save the people in the distillery!" Isabel burst out from behind Ellen.

Harriet's Angel was half gone. She put it to her lips. "Yep," she said around the butt. "That's apparently what I did."

"Apparently?"

"Sure."

"What is apparently?"

"All you're getting." Harriet smiled.

Ellen glared. "Fine," she said. "What happened once you got inside the distillery?"

"I didn't know there was a distillery or whatever over there," Harriet said. "I mean until they blew a hole in the town and we could all see inside it."

"Of course not," Ellen said. There was, perhaps, the ghost of a smirk on her lips. "You're a nun. Why would you know that?"

"Right." Harriet shifted her legs beneath her blanket. "I'm not with Blind."

Harriet shrugged. "I don't know if you are or not. But I have nothing to hide."

The strange woman sighed. "Of course not, and if you did I wouldn't want to expose it. Please. What happened? What did you see? What did you hear? Who was there? What did it smell like?"

Harriet raised her eyebrows. "Got any more questions?"

"Harriet-can I call you Harriet? I'm sorry, if I can't. Anyway-I already know that five Dracs and a bunch of people died, and you got shot. Please just tell me how that happened. Please."

Harriet was almost beginning to believe the woman's claim that she was just curious on her own behalf. "What do you think happened?" she asked. "You seem to know more than I do."

Ellen sighed again, rocking back and forth on the chair. "Look: Did you talk to the Draculoids, or hear them talking to one another or to anyone else? Did you hear any mention of Fun Ghoul, or the names Thomas McQueue or Jenny McQueue? Did you get any indication who the flaming man might have been?" Harriet just looked at the other woman with eyebrows, her Angel dangling from her lips. Ellen sighed. "I heard a bit about what happened from other people," she said. Aha. The woman knew more than she'd let on. "Okay, yeah," Harriet said. "One of the Draculoids acted like he was talking to Fun Ghoul."

Ellen's pen immediately jumped to readiness millimeters above her paper, and her spine stiffened. "In what context?"

Isabel's fingertips were in her mouth in anticipation, her eyes wide. "God, Isabel, calm down," Harriet said. Isabel nodded, but her expression didn't change.

As succinctly as she could, Harriet told Ellen what she had heard and seen. The woman wrote in a strange shorthand, seeming to keep up with Harriet's speech, her face showing concern, then fear, then triumph along with the movement of Harriet's tale.