After a few minutes, a woman in a trenchcoat approaches her. She studies the wings for a moment, before saying hesitantly, "That...isn't a costume, is it?"

"No."

"Are you lost? Do you need help?"

"So much lost, but maybe cannot helping. Know how fix door going nice bar?"

"I. Do not even know what that means."

"...Don't grammar so good."

"You know what, I know someone who's good at helping random people. Will your parents kill me if I bring you to a nightclub?"

Blink. "No."

"Awesome. Luckily it's only a few minutes' walk from here; I don't know if your parents have told you not to get into cars with strangers but it's a bad idea and you shouldn't do it."

"Don't like cars."

The cars are weird-looking, at any rate. And don't smell quite as overwhelmingly bad. They still look like they would be cramped for a winged person.

No doubt. Soon enough, they come across a largish building (though much shorter than many of the others) with the words "Monster Mash" written across the front in glowing letters.

Okay then. Pen reads the words, and continues following the person.

"Yes."

"Where are they?"

"The Eyrie. Samaria."

"Samaria like in the Middle East, or...?"

"No, is world."

"...World like a planet or world like a universe?"

"Both. Also continent. And country."

"Okay. How did you get here?"

"Door. Is breaking! Supposed going home but here."

"Some kind of transdimensional portal...? We shouldn't be clogging up the doorway. Do you want to come back to my office so we can discuss this without being in anyone's way?"

"Okay."

The Countess leads Pen across what appears to be a dance floor, past a bar, and through a door on the other side of the room. This door opens out to a fairly normal hallway, and a few doors down there is a door with the name Gloria Scott written on it, and "The Countess" surrounded by doodles of bats written on a piece of paper and taped underneath.

"Bats!" observes Pen.

"Oh, yes, that was some of my employees trying to be funny," Gloria says, smiling fondly.

"Why is funny?"

"Ah...well, I'm a vampire, and there's a popular misconception that vampires turn into bats," Gloria says. "That's where the 'Countess' bit comes from, too--there's a tie in popular culture between the idea of vampires and the rank of Count."

"I don't thinking either kind vampires do turn bats."

"...My kind of vampire does not turn into bats either. What kinds of vampire are you familiar with?"

"Is Sunshine kind and Aurum kind."

"We have thirteen kinds of vampire here, but they're arranged in classes--it's not an arbitrary system, it's objectively better to be a higher class than a lower one."

"That a lot kinds."

"Most of them aren't very easy to distinguish--a seven is a little bit stronger and faster and so on than an eight, but not by a huge amount."

Nod nod. "Think only one kind vampires each Sunshine and Aurum, but, Aurum have half vampires and more hybrid kinds."

"...There are dhampirs, here, but they're vanishingly rare and don't come in fractions."

"Why no fractions?"

"...You create a vampire, basically, by being one of the kinds of vampire that can reproduce and feeding someone your blood. If you do this to a pregnant woman, instead of her being turned the fetus becomes a dhampir."

"Then what if baby growing up having kids?"

"Not all dhampirs are fertile. If they are, a male dhampir will sire human children and a female dhampir will bear dhampir children."

"Oh. Huh. Different Aurum."

"Apparently. What, can vampires have children there?"

"Not girl ones. Boy vampires. Or, magic."

"That seems strange. I'm guessing that kind of vampirism has some sort of genetic component? Ours doesn't."

"Think so. Not all sure, mostly remembering bedtime stories."

"Alright then. So, you said a door broke to send you here? What kind of door?"

"Here is locked, look like house door I guess. Other side bar door. Supposed going home but not."

"What's the bar door?"

"Door that eat regular doors for going nice bar."

"So there's some kind of transdimensional bar that replaces other doors with its own? Sounds like a sweet gig if you can swing it."

"Yeah. But not getting doors whenever wanting unless a Jarvis, or Shell Bell. Usually going by Jane! But no Jane this world, checked."

"And you came through the door to someone else's world--our world--by mistake. Alright. I know no one who works here has found this place, since this is specifically the place where weird stuff even by our standards accumulates, but maybe there's something else. If you saw the house again, would you recognize it? I might be able to talk to the owner to see if they can help."

"Could find house but door not there now. Gone, closed. Meaning whoever find bar from there? See if getting many doors?"

"Right. I don't know for sure if the person who owns the house is the person who gets doors, but it seems like a reasonable place to start."

Nod nod. "I show?"

"Sure. I'll let Bonnie know I'm leaving so she can cover for me if need be."

"Okay. ...Am Peninnah. Pen."

"Hello, Pen. I think you saw my name on the door, but if you didn't, it's Gloria. Gloria Scott."

"Hi."

"Okay." Pen holds hands.

Gloria leads Pen back out into the brisk autumn night, evaluates the population of the sidewalks, and loosens her grip so it's Pen's choice whether to keep holding hands or not. "Do you remember which way it was?" she asks.

"Yes." Pen stops holding hands. "Can fly?" she asks hopefully.

"Can you carry me?"

"Yeah! ...Unless you heavier than looking."

"Not as far as I know. Sure, then, I don't see why not. Do I need to do anything?"

Gloria does not wiggle! She is quite impressed.

And Pen gets them up over the houses and flies her a few blocks and then sets her down outside of a particular house. "There," she says, pointing at the front door.

"So, she say when finding again? And hold door for me?"

"She doesn't know when she'll find a door again, but she'll hold it when she does," Gloria assures her.

"Okay. What if taking long time?"

"Then we try to see if there's anyone else who finds doors, I suppose," Gloria says.

"Yeah but where I go."

"Oh! You can stay with my wife and I, I think the pullout bed in the sofa should be wide enough for your wings."

"Okay."

"If I park you in my office until the club closes, can you entertain yourself? I have some books that aren't age-inappropriate, but they're aimed at people older than you."

"Is loud for singing," Pen points out. "What kind books?"

"Probably no one would hear you over the music in the club," Gloria points out. It was rather loud. "Some mystery novels, a vampire romance I was reading for the lulz, a bunch of science fiction."

"Is too loud for hear self."

"Oh, you meant the club music was too loud, not that your singing was too loud, my bad. But yeah, I have some books, or there's a Wal-Mart a little ways away where I could pick something up."

"Could try books but maybe not like if not for people who eight."

"Better stop off at the Wal-Mart then. If you pick me up and get into the air can you take directions?"

"Yeah."

Pen waits outside, for a value of "waits" that means "flies around, landing on cars in the parking lot, in an aerial game of The Floor Is Lava".

"I got the things! We can go back to the club now," she says, brandishing the bag with her purchases.

"Okay." Pen scoops her up off the parking lot lava and flies her back to the club.

Gloria deposits Pen in her office with the books and the toy and permission to shoot suction cup arrows at the one wall but not the others, please.

"Okay. Thank you!"

Pen is napping in the office under a blanket of her own wings. There are suction cup arrows stuck to the wall, and one of the books is not in the pile with the others anymore.

Gloria will pick the suction cups off the wall, and gather the books together, and put the books and the toy in a bag and pick up Pen to take her home, trying not to wake her.

Pen yawns and shifts in Gloria's arms but doesn't wake up.

Zzzzzz.

If Pen wakes up much before sunset, she'll find Gloria and Klaudia still asleep.

Pen wakes up at about two in the afternoon. And wants breakfast. Can she get breakfast without waking anyone?

There is, inconveniently enough, very little solid food in the apartment, but there is a bowl of fruit on one of the counters, presumably for guests.

Pen eats some fruit, and then looks for her stack of books.

The books are in the bag Gloria put them in as they were leaving the club, set beside the sofabed.

Pen reads a book. Then she looks around for other things to do.

There are other books on various shelves, but they are not intended for eight-year-olds. There are some reasonably blank walls she can probably get away with shooting arrows at.

But she shot arrows last night. And was not very good at it. Hmmm. What else is there in here?

There is packaged red liquid in the fridge that, if Pen properly understands how vampires work, she can probably identify as blood. Also some other beverages. There is a television. There is a coffee table shoved off to the side to make room for the sofabed with a half-full sketchbook on it.

Pen doesn't recognize the TV, but she knows what a sketchbook is. She looks at the pictures in it.

Many of them are of a dark-haired woman. In the ones with color, it becomes apparent she has green eyes. She is consistently drawn flatteringly. There are also sketches of a handful of other people; a woman with wavy dark hair that curls over one eye, usually drawn in a suit; a stouter woman with short straight hair; a slender woman with short blonde hair, with and without a similarly blonde man a few inches taller than her, a darker skinned woman sometimes depicted in what Pen probably won't recognize as Egyptian clothing.

Pen looks at all of the pictures. When she gets to a blank page she hunts for a pencil.

There is a pencil on the floor just under the coffee table.

Good! Pen picks it up and draws things. Stick figure angels and lopsided Janegems and the space plant.

Klaudia will be awake at about seven o'clock, if Pen's still occupied by then.

Pen by that time has gone back to reading.

"Mm-hm."

"How long have you been awake?"

"Dunno, hours probably."

"Have you eaten? We don't exactly keep a lot of solid food around."

"Had fruit. Hungry again though."

"We've got some protein shakes for emergencies if you're hungry enough you'd rather not wait for takeout. Do they have Chinese food or pizza in your universe, because those are the only two takeout numbers I've got memorized."

"Dunno. Don't think having. What takeout?"

"I call a restaurant and tell them what food you want, and they deliver it and I pay for it when it gets here. Do you have any allergies or religious dietary restrictions?"

"No."

"Do you want a shake while we wait for the food to arrive?" she asks, picking up her cell and dialing the pizza place.

"What is shake?"

"A protein shake is a beverage with a wide variety of nutrients in it for when people don't have time to properly eat something. Yes, hello," she says into the phone. "I'd like a small supreme and an order of breadsticks, please." She rattles off the address. "Alright. Thank you. You have a nice day too." She hangs up.

"Umm, no shake, but banana." She takes a banana.

"Alright. I don't actually remember how long the food should take to get here; it's been years since I've ordered take out. Have you been entertaining yourself alright since you woke up?"

"Read books, drew things."

"...Drew things where?"

"In drawing book."

Klaudia glances at Gloria's sketchbook. "Gloria probably won't mind, but for future reference, you should ask before drawing on other peoples' things."

"...Is for drawing. Did not draw on wall."

"Yes, but it still belonged to someone else. It probably is fine, but other people might be unhappy about that kind of thing."

Grumble.

"Is okay. World all different times anyhow especially when no Jane."

"Don't know how long being here."

"Better to end up taking more time off work than necessary than to leave a small child unsupervised for weeks at a time. Anyway, we can afford it; Klaudia's father is rich and terrible at expressing his affection in ways other than money."

Blink. "Okay."

"Why saying costume?"

"Not saying costume, exactly, but letting people assume it. People can be remarkably oblivious to strange things going on around them, and forcing them not to be oblivious ends up wasting a lot of time on things like screaming and calming people down and convincing them that they're not hallucinating, dreaming or the subject of a strange prank."

"This world having vampires," Pen points out. "Are secrets?"

"Not secret exactly, but not well known either. No one's going to jump on you for telling someone, but we try to be reasonably discreet."

"Oh." Sigh. "Angel costume, okay. But doing flying last night..."

"There's a difference between flying at night, in the dark, when people who are likely to make a fuss can just assume they're hearing or seeing a vulture or something, and in a brightly lit grocery store."

"Am not vulture," says Pen indignantly.

"Of course you're not. I only mentioned it as an example of a large bird someone might mistake you for--it could as easily be an eagle, people like eagles, they might think of that first."

Snort. "Angel costume," she agrees.

"I mean, I dress up as a stereotypical member of my kind and many of my employees do the same, I know from sacrificing dignity in the name of not making a public disturbance."

"Okay."

So they go to the grocery store! What kinds of things does Pen like to eat, it's been a while since Gloria's had solid food but she's had liquefied forms of many things so she can make recommendations if Pen doesn't recognize things.

Pen recognizes a lot of the produce, and likes fruit. She is confused by the packaging but can identify some legumes and grains in the bulk section as good and is amused by "angelhair pasta". She likes eggs and bread and cheese and seems to find the meat selection inadequate but likes poultry and beef.

Gloria will purchase a subset of these things that she remembers how to prepare from when she was human or feels confident in finding recipes online for.

Pen is also entranced by the bakery display of cakes and pastries.

Gloria will buy Pen a pastry! Which one would she like?

Chocolate croissant it is. And cake-baking supplies go in the grocery cart because this isn't actually Gloria's kid so she's allowed to spoil her a little.

Yay!

"Dunno how cake."

"Well, that's what the recipe's for."

"Dunno how recipes."

"Okay. Is there anything in particular you'd like to do right now?"

"Sing?"

Well, there's a repetitive chorus in this one - "You wanting learn harmony?"

"Sure, I'd love to."

So Pen sings for her the harmony part for this song. The song is entirely in Samarian, which Gloria will have to learn by rote, but the song itself is not that hard.

Gloria will probably get a few words wrong the first few times through, but she picks up the song quickly.

And now they can harmonize together! This is the most fun part of singing.

It is! And it does not interfere with baking.

Hooray!

"What do those word mean?" Gloria asks when the song's over. "They're not in any language I recognize."

"Is Samarian song. Mostly knowing Samarian songs and Edori, not as many English."

"Oh, right. It's a bit strange, that you're from another world and speak English, come to think of it. So what was the song about?"

"Is about Jovah bringing ancestors all to Samaria, in hands. Not really happen like so but makes good song."

"Huh. Well, it definitely is a good song. Do you want to learn some songs in English while you're here?"

"Okay!"

"I think most of the sheet music I have is for religious songs..."

"Is okay. Singing those all times anyway."

"It's not a problem that our religions are different?" she checks.

"No-o? Maybe yours even right one, here, some worlds having gods."

"Alright," she says, takes a moment to parse the rest of that sentence, and decides to address that later. If at all. "So the hymnal's over here...I think Amazing Grace would be a good place to start."

"Okay."

So Gloria teaches Pen some hymns. She also remembers she has an internet, and googles sheet music for some more modern songs she likes.

Pen is used to different conventions of sheet music, but she figures out this version reasonably well in short order.

It helps, presumably if Gloria sings along with the notes on the page.

Yes, Pen is also pretty good at learning things by ear.

Then they can sing various songs in English, religious and non-.

...And eat cake, right?

Once it's out of the oven it needs to cool down for a while and then be frosted, but eventually, yes. Of course, only Pen will actually eat cake, although Gloria can sneak tastes of frosting if she's sure to let it dissolve very thoroughly before swallowing.

Pen will help frost it! Untidily, but who's counting.

Meh, it's for eating, not for taking pictures of and putting in a magazine.

And it is delicious for eating.

Not all at once. Gloria's not that irresponsible.

Pen only wants two slices.

Two slices is probably fine. Gloria won't object. And then she gets started on making something that isn't dessert.

That's all right too.

Chicken parm. Parmesan chicken is what she will make.

No complaints here.

She will probably make some mistakes--it's been a while since she did something like this--but it will turn out edible.

And so it is et. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Pen is in the mood for another book, and has some left. She goes and reads one.

"Ooh!"

"You remember the way there or do I need to pull up a map?"

"Think remembering. Probably. ...By flying. Okay flying?"

"It's dark out, flying's fine. If it weren't it would be my job to remember the way."

"Yay! Holding door please?" Pen asks the collective of house-person-and-Gloria. "Real quick." She steps into Milliways.

Presently, another door spontaneously generates to the side of the one the lady is holding for Pen, and a person steps through it, and the extra door vanishes. This person's entire bearing-and-then-some screams I AM SO SUPER MAGIC. "Hi, Pen. You got lost, huh? Who are these people?"

"Made cake!" vouches Pen.

"Well, thanks for looking out for Pen. You ready to go home?" Shell Bell asks Pen. When Pen nods, she disappears. "On behalf of her mom, anything you'd like done with really quite unfair torrents of all-purpose magic as long as you have our attention?"

"...Off the top of my head...there's a particularly nasty man running around who has zero compunctions assaulting people and doing things like changing their species without their consent. We've been trying to track him down and get rid of him for years with no success." She rubs the side of her neck.

"Get rid of him meaning?"

"...I'm getting Glass in for a consult, hang on."

"Sure, no problem."

"I can't say I'm surprised we have a god," says Gloria, who is wearing a cross necklace, "but I will admit to being surprised that you have magic that can tell either way. In a being impressed sense, not a disbelieving sense," she hastens to assure them.

Glass looks at her necklace. "Most worlds that have Christianity actually don't," she says. "Even the one that has crosses that repel local vampires, though I'm gathering that your kind doesn't have that problem. ...And the last time we encountered a plausibly Christian mythos playing out in real life we didn't get along with it. Fair warning."

"It's more convenient at the time when we can just attach new worlds to Downside, but having been attached to Downside before we came along is only dubiously advantageous. The question is whether you have a nice afterlife, and if Downside was dubious the other ones we've found are mysterious or worse. We'll check it out - assuming you don't mind our leaving a node in the world that will sync up its progression of time and allow us to come and go without waiting for Milliways doors."

"Sure, I don't have a problem with it."

Shell Bell steps in and then disappears to do the honors. She's back a moment later.

"Anyway, we're reluctant to kill your problem without sussing out the afterlife, but if all he has is super-speed and super-strength and super-healing he's not interestingly equipped to annoy us or interfere with our nonlethal measures. Can you be more specific about his disagreeable habits?"

"He assaults young women and turns them into vampires of various classes without their consent in a way my therapist has identified as having similar psychological aftereffects as rape."

"If he just stopped being a vampire how much of the problem would that solve?"

"I strongly recommend also putting him into some sort of Witness Protection if you don't want one of his other victims hunting him down. And it's possible that whatever it is that makes him do what he does would then cause him to commit actual rape. It's also theoretically possible he could convince someone else to turn him back into a vampire but it's massively unlikely he could get back to becoming a reproductive vampire. ...Only the top five classes of vampire can create other vampires and most people don't even count the fifth."

"...Devamp him, geas him on the rape tendencies, have a chat with him in which he may decide to stay here and risk retribution or drop him Downside? Downside also works if he won't take the geas, the ground rules will do it."

"Sounds all right. A little involved for one guy, but it wouldn't actually take that long unless we let him monologue."

"Thanks. There's nonzero evidence he has, um, some tendencies that have made me worry about some of my friends."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm a Class One vampire. I don't know why he picked me to turn into a Class One vampire, but that is a significant allocation of resources, and another vampire of my acquaintance who used to know him back before she knew he was terrible thinks he's doing some kind of...experiment...which suggests he has some way of observing me, which means he might be anywhere near my loved ones."

"We'll take care of it. Well, someone will, anyway, who should take point on this world - My and Glass's aura powers mean that we're bouncing around a little more than our alts and someone else should probably take your world under their wing, perhaps literally, maybe Pen's mom."

"It's an Earth. Maybe give it to somebody who knows Earths. Maybe Golden - I'd say Juliet but she's busy with a sheaf. Golden's got a singlet and a competent adult princess plus a Libby to take up the slack at home."

"Golden's probably got the room for an extra project. In your opinion, Gloria, how would locals in your world react to a new kind of vampire?"

"...Most of the world doesn't know that magic and so on exists, but the people who do--and know enough that their reaction isn't to become 'monster hunters' won't have a problem with it once she assures them that she's not going to kill people or make ghouls or whatever."

"Golden can pass for human to people not in the know when it's called for. And doesn't kill people or make ghouls."

"I didn't think she would. I don't think her kind of vampire probably even does ghouls."

"Well, no. She's also against nonconsensual or careless turning in general. Reasons not to go with Golden in particular include factors like 'she's not the friendliest Bell' and stuff like that."

"Ahuh. Okay, I probably won't introduce her to my wife, but I run a moderately successful nightclub--I'm used to people I wouldn't necessarily choose to interact with just on their own merit. Other vampires might be more...touchy. Unfriendly like grouchy or unfriendly like overly dignified?"

"She's not un-friendly exactly, just sort of businesslike. She'll still do Bell-quality work on whatever needs doing, but she probably doesn't want to do lunch or make small talk."

"Oh, that's fine then. Lunch is a bit of an awkward social situation for vampires anyway."

"Everybody in Golden's world is on a synthetic these days."

"I can supplement my diet somewhat with nonblood liquids but mostly I feed on willing donors."

"Anyway, let's get Golden in here, I owe my kids a bedtime story."

"A catalog would probably be helpful," Gloria agrees, "but I have to say there's some appeal in having someone else who doesn't mean alcohol if they say they're going to have a liquid lunch."

"Sure, why not."

Gloria drinks her glass of blue. It is delightful.

[Thank you. Well, that's a load off my mind. Klaudia will be happy to hear it.]

[Your planet will experience a statistically bizarre lack of serious natural disasters. Investigation into how it will be handled if it also experiences an inexplicable extinction of various diseases is pending. Is there any good reason I shouldn't absorb your Internet, leaving its functions unharmed and except as-needed not actively monitored?]

[None that I'm aware of. Thank you for preventing natural disasters.]

[That was Golden. Internet eating in progress.]

[Well, please relay my gratitude. So you're an AI? Is it rude to ask about that?]

[Not rude. I'm not an AI in the classical sense; no one set out to make me. I seem to be a spontaneously generated blob of personhood which has some unclear relationship to an interaction between two telepathic mutations which are respectively communicative and defensive and I happen to be natively good at inhabiting computer systems and capable of extreme cognitive speed and parallelization. The people who had the originating mutations were a Bell, one you haven't met, and Pen's other parent template, but while I occasionally refer to them as my parents I'm not an alt of any of the biological results of the matchup.]

[Huh. That's interesting, if not the strangest case of a person coming to be that I've heard.]

[Am I not?]

[No, I think that one goes to the girl who found out that her parents had a threesome on their honeymoon when she spontaneously developed tengu characteristics. Bonus points for circumstances of discovery, you see.]

[Ah.]

[Apparently she spontaneously generated wings while she was trying to put on her makeup and jabbed herself in the eyelid with her mascara wand.]

[That sounds inconvenient.]

[It was an awkward conversation with her parents, too. Apparently they hadn't realized either--I mean, one night out of an entire honeymoon, it's not obvious. And she mostly looked like her mom.]

[I have a face but I designed it myself, so it doesn't look overwhelmingly like either parent.]

[That makes sense. What does it look like?]

The brainphone does pictures, apparently.

[Cute.]

[Thanks.]

[If you have a point set up in my world there's not much point to my loitering here, right?]

[Not unless you want to take in the scenery or chat with Bar.]

[Not especially. I think I'm going to go home and tell my loved ones the metaphorical woodsman got the metaphorical big bad wolf.]

[Of course.]

[...There's not much point in saying goodbye, is there, considering you're not physically present anyways and I can contact you from my universe.]

[Yup.]