Her name was Miss Vendetta Threats, and there was a reason why. She had a past so long it stretched into the future and half of what happened hadn't even, yet.

Women like her don't come along often, but when they do they come on strong.

She hailed from River City and was going to be trouble, this was certain. She and her all-trombone brassballs brass band traveled with a cymbal-clapping monkey on Ritalin, and they played the circuit like worn 78's.

And now she had brought her bus to town, maybe to stay awhile, she said.

She'd come looking for Johnny Thorn. Had some bidness with his sorry seff, she said to the monkey. "Mmm hmm, honey.... You got a Thorn in yo side, mus' needs pluck that suckah out." Thought she'd polish up the black leather jumpsuit (the patent leather lightweight for summerwear), and look Johnny on up.... her almond eyes narrowed as she flicked a long silvertipped finger at the edge of her neatly marcelled do.... A half-smile, tinged with hints of horrors to come, turned the corners of her mouth up until the angled planes of her cafe-au-lait face just caught the neon glowing outside the bus window....