The halls of the Sundown Sacramento were quiet and still in the deep hours of the night. A predator moved invisibly down the corridor, feet sliding soundlessly over flat, patterned carpeting. Coming to a door at the end of the hall the Beast stopped to listen at the door, preternaturally enhanced auditory senses perceive nothing but the steady breathing of one person fast asleep inside.

The Shape reaches into its pocket, withdrawing a Keycard with which it can access any room in the Hotel that it has claimed as its favorite hunting ground. As it slides the card into the slot, withdrawing it quickly, it appears briefly - a giant grotesque mass of musculature and gray skin - before it opens the door and slips into the room, disappearing into the darkness of the room even as it gently eases the door closed.

Sunken eyes imbued with dread powers of the Undead allow the stalking hunter to see with perfect clarity in the pitch black room. As quickly as it had appeared it vanishes again, cloaked by the Night itself. The creeping thing crosses the room silently, until it stands over the bed where a woman with red hair - and a distinct beauty mark on the right side of her face - lay sleeping. With sinister care and gentleness the creature leans in, pulling the covers away from the sleeping woman's neck...

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A few nights later Arnold Culler flips through the Sacramento Bee and finds a snippet regarding the Sundown Sacramento in an article reviewing some of the Hotels in the city. After skimming over the writer's critique of the decor and accommodations one part in particular struck him as interesting.


"...Maybe it was the exquisite beds at the Sundown, but I had some of the best sleep of my life on the night I stayed there..."


Arnold smiles as he reads it. Not because of the statement itself, but because of the small photo of the article's writer placed below the headline - and the distinct beauty mark on the right side of her face.