Shivering, I turned to see two humanoids watching me. One leaned against a tall funerary monument, managing to look wryly dapper, despite missing an ear, an eye, and nearly half his scalp. The other one sat atop the same marble shrine, swinging her legs while regarding me with an amused expression on her waxy, overly made-up face. Above them both, a stone figure – both heroic and exaggeratedly masculine – stood frozen in the act of offering sage counsel, chiding with an outstretched finger.

Probably warning future generations never to stand still long enough to let birds roost on your head, I thought. Or so mused the part of me still capable of detached observation. Symptoms of incipient hysteria were evident. I was starting not to give a damn.

“I don’t think so, Moulder,” the woman answered her companion with a wry smirk. She slid off her perch to land beside him, and pointed at me. “He smells much too fresh. Besides, ever see Besh and his bunch leave their meat in such good shape?”

“Moulder” winced and touched the missing side of his face.

“Well, maybe it wasn’t Besh that left it here. Some of the other Lik’em bands are still living by the Old Code. Or maybe the Nomorts dumped him, after draining him.”

The female shook her head as she sauntered toward me. Her gait was strange, at once both graceful and somehow impaired – as if she were a dancer, struggling to disguise a progressive neurological disease. Underneath that casual pose, I thought I caught an attitude of intense concentration. She dropped to one knee next to me and reached out toward my neck. I flinched, and her fingers stopped short, then withdrew. She tilted her head, looking at me from both sides… and I caught a pungent, sweet scent, like a ten-times normal dose of tangy perfume.

“He’s not been sipped by Nomorts, either. He’s warm.” She rocked back on her haunches. “And I sense a normal pulse.”

“Ho, yes?” Moulder shambled closer, and I saw that one of his arms hung nearly useless at his side. He gave off a reek that made me quail back, breathing only through my mouth.

“You’re right, Sully,” he muttered, crouching over me. “Lookit him pant like a scared puppy!” Moulder guffawed so hard that something came loose from his mouth, flying past my left ear. A tooth, I suspected unhappily. “So, you’re still Standard, eh? Still among the true-living? Well enjoy it! For a while.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. It seemed time that I took matters in hand. But as I was about to speak, I heard something I liked even less. A rumbling vibration that seemed to come from below my mortuarial platform. There was a scraping clatter, followed by a bang which jarred the stone from underneath.