“Both humans and undead alike are in danger, Cal,” he moaned. “And frankly your theory of it being a one-time thing is quite wrong.”

He was really working my last nerve, but he was right. I stubbed out the smoke and got up. I thought I’d at least hit the morgue and see what the coroner had to say.

I left the house and got in the Nova. Mo’Lock didn’t come along. He joined the others in the search.

I arrived at the LA city morgue just short of eleven p.m. The place was a ghost town. I didn’t see anybody except for a few cars in the lot. The front door was locked, so I tried the buzzer and waved at the security camera. Hopefully she’d let me in.

After a minute, just before I was going to walk away, the door buzzed and I went inside. The upper hall was empty except for a security guard who didn’t bother to even look up. The examination and storage rooms were downstairs. I took the elevator one floor down to the basement.

The hall outside the elevator was dark but I could hear music coming from the right. I followed the sound to a lit door and pushed it open. Inside the large room, every one of the five examination tables had a body from the motel on it, and the rest lay on shelves lining the walls. It was like bunk beds for the dead.

In the middle of the room Dr. Monica Lynch was dancing around to Al Green’s “Tired of Being Alone” and working on a body. She had a lab coat and a face mask on and a bone saw in her hand. She saw me and, incredibly, she smiled.

“Come in, come in,” she said. “You’re just in time. I’m going to cut into one now.”

I stepped around the tables and met her in the middle. She signaled for me to stay back and then started up the saw. She lowered it slowly to the chest, and as soon as the blade touched the surface, gelatinous matter flew everywhere.

“Dammit!” she said and pulled the saw back. “Back to the scalpel.”

She put the saw away and turned to me. I was pulling a slab of slime from my hair.

“Any info yet?” I asked as I shook the slop from my hand.

“Lots,” she said. “For starters, I think I figured out what the layer of matter is composed of. It’s ninety percent seawater.”

“Seawater?”

“That’s right. And each of the bodies is the same. Organs and flesh turned to this gelatinous matter. And the bones are definitely gone. Oddly, the arteries and nervous system are still intact.”

“Blood?”

“Gone.”