It all hit me in fast succession, leaving me with what felt like the worst ice-cream headache ever. “Oh, man.”

Sam Haven took his ghostly hand away from my head. “Yeah, that looks like it really hurts. But soak that shit up quick. I need you motivated. This is a job for the living. And since you’re the guy with all the connections between worlds, you got the job. Congratulations. That’s getting to be a habit with you. All us dead Hunters have nicknamed you Short Straw. Believe it or not, we mean it in the nicest way possible.”

I was still being overwhelmed with information, and as it came grinding to an end, I realized with a shock that my brother was in danger. “The Nachtmar’s got Mosh!”

“Among others. It’s spreading out into Vegas, looking for minds to raid. So you need to hurry up and waste it before it’s too late.”

“How—”

Sam pointed up like I had seconds before.

“God will smite him?”

Sam laughed at me. “I was pointing at the roof. Get to the chopper. Power’s out. You up to twenty flights of stairs?”

My wife was up there. Damn right I could take the stairs. “Ankle’s buggered, but I can do it.”

“Ace-wrap that fucker and walk it off,” Sam ordered like any good SEAL would. “This casino is drifting in dreamland, but you can still fly out. You’ll need to piss the monster off good so it’ll chase after you, but knowing you, that shouldn’t be a problem. Mordechai pulled some strings and will have what you need waiting. He’s sort of your guardian angel. Turns out there’s a lot invested in you, Z, so when it comes to meddling in your particular business, we get a little more leeway. You’ll find backup on the way. Me and the boys need to go waste some demons. We’ll hold them off as long as we can. Tell Milo I said hi, and I’m really honored he named his kid after me. That was mighty cool of him.”

I could see through Sam. “Wait—”

But then Sam Haven simply vanished as if he’d never even been there at all.

My radio had only been turned back on for a few seconds when I received, “Was that Sam?” from Julie. “I mean, visibility is garbage and the wind keeps moving the fog around, and it took me a while to find you in all the debris, but…Sam?”

“Yeah.” I was limping along as fast as possible, Abomination in hand, just waiting for something to pop out of the fog. “It was Sam.”

“But Sam’s gone.”

“We got reinforcements.”

There was a pause as Julie took a deep breath. “I thought I’d lost you for a minute there. I…”

“Me too.”