Dancing with Werewolves

"I've heard of voodoo dolls, but not that fancy name for the body parts used."

"Science fiction, of course, has eagerly embraced the concept of simulacra as artificial creatures intended to impersonate a human being. Although imperfect imitations, they're based on idealized forms of humans. The authors imagine that such creatures wish to become human or replace their human model. Hence such literary immortals as Pinocchio and Commander Data from Star Trek."

"I've heard of those guys too. But I thought Data was an android?"

"Time and usage have blurred the meaning of 'android,' but technically an android is an anthropomorphic robot-mechanical. Broadly de

"Right," I said, although as far as I knew he could be wrong.

"Then there is the simulacrum that is a copy of a copy, a thing so…dissipated…in relation to the original that it can stand on its own. Consider the cartoon character of Betty Boop."

"The baby-voiced twenties flapper with the huge eyes and the spit curls…boop-boop-a-doop?"

"The cartoon was based on a singer named Helen Kane, but Kane grabbed her share of glory by imitating another singer, A

"You're saying the resurrection or animation, whatever you want to call it, of film images here in Las Vegas is that last type. They have a life that their originals never did."

"No one but I would say so, but, yes, I think they do, Miss Street, or could. A lot of soul went into creating those on-screen characters. Souls never die. No one knows precisely how CinSims are created-perhaps by pure science implemented by a touch of magic. The Mille

"It's nothing to me if a rich old fart decides to live on in one of the Sunset Cities as a well-preserved shadow of himself. I might try it myself some day. But the CinSims are far more than the crude animatrons of the late twentieth century! They are a synthesis of two delicate forms: film and the actor's art of breathing life into fictional characters. That's why I deplore their careless use to enrich greedy pockets. If you find anything to tie the Inferno and Christophe to the murder victims in the park, I will broadcast it to the world and bring the bastard down. And I will acquire his stable of CinSims with a view to freeing them, or at least employing them in ma

Wow. Ric was out to break the zombie-slave trade. Nightwine wanted to liberate the CinSims. I was working with both of them. What did that make me? Supergirl?

I thanked Nightwine for his information and warning, and then was forced to give him a rear-view departure that produced a giant sigh. What an old lech! Luckily he seemed chained to his desk and his wall of audio-visual surveillance equipment.

Godfrey opened the doors and escorted me back downstairs, steering me into a…broom closet at the bottom.

"The master does not oversee scullery rooms," he said. "He has an aversion to objects of domestic drudgery."

I tried not to sneeze from scents of lemon oil and dust while Godfrey pressed a business card into my hand in the semi-dark.

"Since you will be snooping around the most dangerous hotel in Las Vegas, I suggest you go in the guise of a CinSymbiant."

"A silver-screen revenant like you?"

"No, no. Cinema Symbiants are perfectly human fans of CinSims like myself. They dress to imitate us, that being the sincerest form of flattery. This card is for Deja-Vous, a vintage shop that accommodates CinSymbiants. There will be oodles of them at the Inferno, so you will fit right in and won't be molested. Christophe also owns Deja-Vous. In addition, you should introduce yourself to my, er, cousin, who is quite a fixture at the hotel's main bar, the Inferno. You can't miss him. He's my spitting image."

"Godfrey! I can't ever imagine you spitting, not even in an image. You are not only a handsome devil, but you are a doll!" I squeezed his hand as I took the card for Deja-Vous. His flesh was solid but on the chilly side. Oh, well, cold hands, warm heart. I wouldn’t think about the zombie underpi

We nipped back into the stairwell and into the brightly lit kitchen, where di

Chapter Twenty-Two

My own mother wouldn’t have known me when I arrived at the Inferno at 9:00 pm.

Not that I'd ever had a mother to know me, or to not know me.

The hotel-casino was a bat-winged swoop of opaque black glass towering fifty stories or so. It was ringed with moats of fire and ice, with holographic figures writhing in them like the naked babes in the opening credits to an old James Bond movie. I always tried not to look at the naked and the dead if I didn't have to. Something about both states was u

I was fairly self-conscious when I turned Dolly over to the valet parking chap: he was a symphony of milk chocolate skin wearing a pleated white ancient Egyptian kilt, shoulder-spa

Who was I to snicker at the underdressed help?

The last I'd seen of myself in the Deja-Vous mirror, my baby blues were hidden behind gray contact lenses. My hair and skin had been deemed black and white enough already for the silver screen. The dress du jour was a floor-length black velvet thirties gown with a giant pair of rhinestone clips on the shoulder. The severe neckline cut across my collarbones but draped well below my waist in backless splendor. I wore white satin pumps and carried a silver fox stole that I was assured had died for our sins eighty years ago, way before the animal rights enlightenment, so why waste it? My hair had been drawn back and coiled into a thick figure eight at the nape of my neck, giving me a Spanish air that I sure wished Ric was here to see. Olé!

Lots of lone women like me were ankling into the Inferno in various cinematic get-ups swiped from the birth of film around 1900 to fifties' science fiction thrillers. I'd never been a groupie before. It was u

My palms were a tad damp on the soft velvet bag that matched the dress. The duds were due back at Deja-Vous in the morning, so I desperately didn't want to get sweaty fingerprints on the vintage silk-velvet that went for hundreds of dollars a yard now. That was the trouble: I knew how rare and costly vintage clothing was, and we all shouldn't be traipsing around in this stuff like giggly prom queens…because my partners in crime pouring into the Inferno were definitely gigglers from ages eight to eighty-four. We fa