The body of blackballed prize-fighter Diesel Swanson, who recently died of liver failure, is missing from the Garden Hill Mortuary. The funny thing is that the security camera video shows that he simply got up and walked out. Consequently, the mortician has hired Private Detective Vicki Nelson to investigate. The video also shows a masked figure dressed in black hovering over Swanson’s body and placing something in his mouth just before he sat up. Vicki's vampire partner, Henry Fitzroy, thinks it may be some sort of necromancy. Based on the fact that the figure chose to enter and exit by an unwatched door and avoided showing his or her face to the security cam, Vicki thinks s/he was familiar with the layout of the mortuary, but the only ones working there are the owner, Boris Olonoff, and his son Ivan. The first thing on Vicki's agenda is to interview Diesel's widow about his activities the past few months. Darlene Swanson explains how Diesel pretty much gave up on his career after he was fined by the Boxing Commission and placed on a 10 year ban, so he mostly hung out at a sports bar called The Dome where, for $600 a week and all the booze he could drink, it was his job to play host and schmooze the paying customers. Next stop is at the TPD where Vicki asks Mike Celluci to check police records for any previous reports of bodies missing from mortuaries or graves. Vicki then returns to her office to find that her office manager, Coreen Fennel, has been able to identify the mask worn by the bodysnatcher. It is a mask of Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of the dead, credited with the resurrection of Osiris. After reading the book of Egyptian Funeral Rituals and Resurrection Mythology by William Carmichael, M.A. that Coreen ripped off from the museum, Vicki learns about the seven Egyptian "souls," the most important of which are the ba (the spiritual soul) and the sekhu (the physical remains). Egyptian bodies were mummified because it was believed th...