Had any of the classic thirties and forties mummy movies featured fashion-conscious mummies in contemporary clothing? No. They were all naked under the wrappings, and this one might be too. The creature lifted a spread-fingered hand to wave me over, hoisting a convivial low-ball glass with the other gloved hand.

A single chick out for the evening in the Sinkhole had a lot to consider.

Was this just a barside come-on or my blind date? Blind he certainly seemed, with those impenetrable glasses and a slit of black for a mouth. How he could sip a drink, I didn't know.

I'd find out soon enough. Besides, of all the unhumans eyeing me hungrily, he looked the least able to bite me. Sitting with him for a while would give me a chance to size up the other customers.

As my eyes adjusted to the low light, the decor became easier to grasp at a glance: what I'd taken for neon tubes were an endless chorus line of luminous skeletons hung with their hipbones at eye height. Some wore tatters of clothing. Some could be still hosting tatters of dried flesh. Tasty.

Yet, with their gaping eyeholes and Jolly Roger grins they seemed a carefree bunch. Their clothing ranged from bandoliers to bandanas and a Hawaiian shirt. The one that wore nothing but a bone necklace looked naked.

Them dry bones also packed a lot of weaponry thrust between ribs and hung from scapulae. I was hoping this was some sort of corny Western bar six-gun guest storage system, but a quick glance at the other patrons assured me that they were all more seriously armed than I was. Chains and shivs and daggers and semiautomatics, oh my.

I decided a mummy in a trench coat couldn't have been packing more than a semiautomatic or a sawed-off shotgun, so I headed for the only friendly face I saw, because it had no expression.

Quicksilver kept at heel all the way to the table while every eye in the place still in sockets shifted to watch us. I wasn't sure whether my dog or I was the bigger attention-getter.

"Grab a seat, doll," the mummy said.

"I'm surprised you can sit. Talk about tightly wrapped," I murmured as I pulled my captain's chair close to the table. Quicksilver stood guard beside me, his head at my shoulder-level.

"I'm not a mummy," the creature said in a flat baritone. "They were even dumber than zombies. Could only travel in that same slow, ineffective lurch. Get them mainlining Red Bull, they'd have had something. As for having mummy sex…You into peeling off Band-Aids forever as foreplay? I didn't think so."

He pulled out a lighter and a cigarette case and soon had a cancer stick twitching between his white-gauze lips. I couldn't help feeling nervous, as if I was watching Dorothy's flammable Scarecrow puffing away.

"Relax, Miss Street," he muttered under his breath and the cover of bluish smoke. "We're the normals here."

I almost recognized the whisper this time, and frowned. "Do I know you?"

He leaned in, extended his free gloved hand and pinched my thigh under the table.

"Ouch!"

Quick growled and snapped, but Cigarette-smoking Man's gloved hand was quicker than a magician's wrist action.

"Oooh," he drawled. "That's my quick-step girl. Glad I saved your, uh, carcass. Can't pinch an inch there. You are one smooth lady."

"What are you doing here?" I asked the Invisible Man, disgusted. Yes, he'd saved me from being torn into shreds by werewolf gangsters, but I'd hoped to meet some real Vegas unreals tonight.

"What am I doing here, doll? Seeing you in private," he smirked through the head wrappings.

We'd first crossed paths at the Inferno, and later the Gehenna, when he was truly invisible. He lived to pinch butt. I guess you can't blame a mad genius scientist who was probably a nerd when he became invisible in a 1933 film of his same name: The Invisible Man. Even the most depraved CinSim groupie, or CinSymb, wouldn't want to get it on with a celebrity you couldn't see.

"How do you manage to get around so much?" I asked. "The other CinSims are chained to their venues."

He paused to catch the eye of a passing half-werewolf waitress, the first obvious female I'd spotted, pointed to his empty glass, then in front of me. "I hope you like Old Fashioneds," he said. "I don't want that cute furry trick hanging around overhearing us while taking our orders."

"I've heard of the drink," I said. The cocktail had been out of fashion for more than half a century, almost as long as the Invisible Man. "You hang at the Inferno. Why was it necessary to meet here?"

He leaned close, whispering. "Christophe is a liberal master and I manage to get out on various missions for him, but this is a private meeting. Just you and me."

Mention of Christophe made me wonder what the silver ball and chain transformed from a lock of his albino hair was now. Aha! The token had subsided into a discreet locket around my neck. When I opened it, I found a tiny mirror version of my current disguise. I bet Snow would get a private kick out of seeing raven-haired me in platinum-blond guise!

Thinking about Snow always scratched my skin like invisible briars. I pushed those thoughts away along with the locket I snapped shut.

"Was following me when I was whisked from the Gehenna to Cicereau's lethal Starlight Lodge one of your assignments for Snow?"

"Not just every dame gets to call him that, you know," the Invisible Man answered, evading the question. "If you weren't alive and were a CinSim he'd have you doing hostess duty at the Inferno in a New York, New York minute for taking such a liberty."

So I thought about Christophe again. I had to. The silver locket on my breastbone stirred at the mention of his name and nickname. It crawled up my forearm to circle cozily around my biceps. What big ears you have, Snow.

All the better to hear you with, Delilah.

What big teeth, I thought, and then couldn't help adding. Bite me!

Wait! Was I issuing a smart quip or a death wish? It was hard to know the difference in this town.

"I don't know whether he's bad or good." The Invisible Man twisted a paper cocktail napkin in a gloved hand. "He-like your boss, Mr. Nightwine-does deal straight with us CinSims, though." I looked up from my alien accessory, surprised.

The fedora was nodding. "Yeah. CinSims know who our friends are. You, lady, are on the 'A List'."

"I-" Was surprised. Touched. Not sure I wanted to be in a category with Snow and Hector Nightwine, but, hey, I'd never had many friends. To be taken for one sounded…kinda cool.

The black leather glove had captured my hand just as the waitress dipped to put two murky orange drinks down before us.

"Have a fun evening, you two," she wished us, showing fangs.

Was her other half vampire? I wondered what kind of tip we could leave her. Blood or money?

And I really couldn't lead the Invisible Man on. He wasn't my type. Not that I have one. But now that Ric and I have been… wow! I do think about things like monogamy. Besides, he was middle-aged, squat and reminded me of Cesar Cicereau, the werewolf mob boss, at least physically. From my recall of his movies, as played by character actor Claude Rains, he was as sexually appealing as a demented toad. And that mad, disembodied laugh… Call me shallow, but a vintage character actor could never rev my melancholy Irish pulses.

Ric. Now we're talking different. There aren't a lot of Latino movie leads for reference, but think early Ricardo Montalban, pre-Wrath of Khan days, but with a lot of that fierce, sexy edge. Wrath of Khan, the Star Trek movie! Wrathman. Wrathbone.

I glanced at the Invisible Man. "Do I call you Dr. Jack Griffin or Claude Rains?"

"Either one. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. Speaking as Dr. Griffin, I am brilliant, but quite mad from being invisible, and speaking as Mr. Rains, after all these decades stuck in the role, I am mad to take on other personas. Claude was claustrophobic and the black velvet suit I had to wear against black velvet to appear invisible for the film didn't help even my sanity. I find myself role-playing all over the map, and you will notice that I crave human contact, even of the rather crude sort. Being a Las Vegas attraction makes us CinSims part of a very exclusive twenty-first century Rat Pack, sometimes all in one package. Some of us can go country or pop. I brought backup." He nodded at a spot along the crowded bar.