At the main desk I stood in line, behind a dusty and travel-weary hunchback who leaned against a wheeled coffin that bore decals and stickers from faraway cities. “Just a little longer!” he whispered through a crack in the sarcophagus. One member of the hotel staff smiled ingratiatingly at a rather vexed customer. “Sorry about your luggage. As you observe, our regular crew of corpambulist servants has gone on strike. We must be patient with the replacements.”

As the line crept forward, I read announcements, noting that the pre-dawn Die-Chi class had been canceled and tonight’s buffet would feature Brain Drain Special and that “no vine will be served”…

…when, abruptly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and sharp pressure between two of my ribs.

“Don’t make a move,” growled a gravelly voice, close behind my left ear. “I have a stake-shooter that’s aimed straight at your heart.”

“I’m… I’m not moving,” I managed to murmur, with a suddenly dry mouth.

“Good. Now turn left, slowly. Start walking toward that exit. Keep it natural.”

I did as I was told, making sure that none of my movements were jerky or sudden. Though I did wonder. On this world, if you shot a normal-alive person in the heart and killed him, would the same stake-propelling method work later, when he was undead?

I must be really tired, I realized, for my thoughts to wander so. I had been battered, knocked unconscious (three times), harried, threatened… and now worse might be in the offing.

Yet, as my captor propelled me forward with pointy jabs, I couldn’t help suddenly noticing a pair of hotel workers in drab bellboy uniforms, pushing an overloaded luggage cart nearby. They appeared clumsy and inexperienced. They also seemed to be glancing my way. In fact, one of them even jerked her head a little, as if to draw my eye.

Sully?

I barely recognized the recently-deceased young zombie who had befriended and protected me in the Cal’mari graveyard, the evening of that haunting cemetery serenade. Now she wore coats of heavy makeup that seemed aimed at making her look more hideously post-mortem, rather than less. Nearby, helping with the cart, was a male figure who – missing one eye and part of his cranium – seemed quite scabrous and at home in the role as a strike-breaking undead luggage handler.

Moulder?

Sully seemed about to say something. She mouthed a couple of words…

…but the man or creature behind me gave a hard push and I stumbled forward, into the portal he indicated, an exit that would take me out of an emporium of blood-sucking monsters, toward some place that would, presumably, be far worse.

9.

“Keep moving,” said the guy jabbing a stake into my back.