This wasn't Erik's first trip through a door that didn't lead where he'd expected, but it was the first time he'd been attacked (since he supposed the mob who'd tried to drape him in feather boas and Mardi Gras beads on New Year's Eve in Las Vegas didn't technically count). The creature had looked human, but... rotted, somehow, as if wasted by some disease that had devoured it from the inside.

Then it had tried to bite him, and Erik had done the only rational thing he could think of: stripped a nearby road sign off its post and used it to cut off the creature's head.

Now he was trying to make his way back to the building containing the door that had brought him here, but kept getting sidetracked by more of the monsters. Cutting off their heads seemed the most effective way of dispatching them; he'd divided his impromptu weapon into two angular blades and was walking warily with one in each hand. He couldn't have been more surprised to round the corner of a building and find Bella talking in hushed tones with a blonde woman he didn't recognize.

"You need to get out of here," Erik said without preamble. "Which way to the door?"