Red Hood held out his now uncovered hand as if to ask for a hand shake. Danny floated a bit closer and reached out with his own gloved finger. He poked into the back of the guy’s hand.
“Dude, what if you’re contagious?”
“Can ghosts get sick?” Nightwing asked.
“There are ghost diseases, yeah.” Danny answered, still poking at Red Hood’s hand. “No ghost antibiotics, though. You just have to tough it out.”
“No.” Danny said. “You have something easier to fix.”
Danny floated back so that he was eye level with the two taller heroes. He folded his arms across his chest and looked at Red Hood.
“So, like. Is there a private place we could chat?”
“Private?” Nightwing asked. “Why? It isn’t fatal, is it?”
“Uh no? It's just personal. What’s it called Hippo? The doctor thing.”
“Are you talking about HIPAA?” Red Hood asked, sounding confused.
“That’s it!” Danny snapped a finger and pointed at Red Hood. “It’s personal medical info. We are on a rooftop in the middle of the biggest city I’ve ever been in. Do you want to go somewhere private?”
“I uh... No, here is fine.”
"Okay.” Danny said. “Cool then. So, these Lazarus Pits? I’ve never seen one, but I have heard of them from other older ghosts. Except we don’t call them that. They’re relatively common in the zone, but the locations are secret, you have to know someone who knows someone ya know?”
“What?” Red Hood managed to look absolutely flabbergasted even with the full faced motorcycle helmet covering his head.
“Ghosts can’t eat human food, right? I mean we can, but we don’t taste anything. We don’t have the physical parts to digest human food and enjoy it like we did when we were alive.” Danny explained. “It’s the same thing for things like alcohol and drugs and things. So, a lot of adult ghosts still want to get drunk even though they’re dead. I died before 21 so I wouldn’t know, but like, there’s a desire for it.”
“What does this have to do with the Lazarus Pits?”
"Well, in order to make something we can taste, it has to be made with ectoplasm. Alcohol is not as easy to make as other stuff for ghosts. Alcohol is made using fermentation, right? Well ectoplasm doesn’t really. Do that. I mean ectoplasm is either inert or charged with emotional energy, if it gets charged enough it will form a ghost or spirit or something. It’s basically impossible to like, make ectoplasm ferment without risking your alcohol becoming the ghost of wines past.” Danny said, throwing a joke on the end there. Nightwing gave him a smile while Red Hood managed to glare at him through the full red facemask.
“There are ghosts who have figured out how to force ectoplasm to ferment. They basically invented ghost yeast, a sourdough starter of horror if you will. It takes centuries for ectoplasm to get good enough to be considered drinkable alcohol. So, what an enterprising barkeeping ghost will do is find like, an abandoned cave or something, fill it with ectoplasm dump the ghost yeast in there and leave it alone for like a thousand years to ripen. Then they’ll come back, bottle it up and sell it in the zone.” Danny continued.
"Are you telling me Red Hood is ghost drunk?” Nightwing asked.
“I’m saying he has a yeast infection.”