The north-east corner of Seventh and B is fenced off, and most people know better than to enter. But every now and then some damn fool does, which is where I come in.

The victim this time was a boy of fifteen. Handsome in the robust way all teenaged orcs are, but afflicted by the splotchy look of the recently dead. He stared at me with a hunger that gave a noisome light to his eyes, while his one time friend babbled to one of my men. Teenaged boys of all species egged each other on, but I'd thought orcs simply had too much sense for stunts like this.

So there we were, keeping one of the hungry dead warded in downtown San Diego's very own patch of Dead Land, while grilling the suspect in his murder. And the priest assigned to return said corpse to life was down in the South Bay, stuck in traffic.

It's at times like this when I wonder about our virulent antipathy for rendering the undead true dead, then raising the safely still body, when it can't do you harm of its own accord.