Night falls, crystal clear with a bright full moon. Just the temperature for standing outside with your head tilted to the sky. Ursa Major stands before you now and seems to offer the sea-breeze as your personal gift. You smell sand and salt water and hot-buttered popcorn, and you know you'll remember this one night for as long as you live.

Into the silence comes the faintest strain of music. You don't notice it at first, and when you do, you wonder how you ever could have missed it.

It is timed to the beat of your heart and the pace of your breath. It's the warmth of your lips, and the kiss is just as soft. It surrounds you, seduces you.

     desire

It makes promises and tells lies, and it doesn't matter which is which. If indeed there is a difference.

     loneliness

The music feels as though it belongs to the night. To this night.

     longing

It should belong to you.

     desire

You throw your arms wide and invite it into your soul.

     loneliness

It was the right choice. All of nature agrees. The moon becomes that much more full. The stars shine that much brighter.

     longing

The music is that much more personal.

     desire

All that's missing are the lyrics, an absence that demands to be filled. You wait for them to start, wait for them to tell you your name, to answer your prayers.

     loneliness

You wait for the words that will add depth to the promises . . .

     longing

. . . truth to the lies.

     desire

You wait.

     hunger

And then the music stops.

     longing

You notice too that the moon has disappeared and the stars have fallen from the sky. There is nothing.

     desire

Nothing but darkness and the rushing of air, as though someone were racing towards you. Or you towards them. An offer is made, a chance to experience the music again. You accept. There really was no choice.

     hunger

You feel the embrace. It crushes you, takes your heat for itself and offers nothing in return. Your blood sings, but not for you.

     hunger

You taste fear and wonder why. There is nothing to fear. Can't you hear the music? It silences your heartbeat and stills your breathing, and is worth every second.

     hunger

Then you're falling to the ground for what will be the last time. The breeze steals what remains of your heat; the sea steals what remains of your blood. You stare with unblinking eyes as one darkness lifts and is replaced with another. Ursa Major stands before you again. You smell sand and salt water and hot-buttered popcorn. And it occurs to you that this really was a beautiful night.

Chapter 1

The sound burst open around them, as if the Sliders crossed some invisible boundary while crossing from the town to the boardwalk. It pounded through them at a volume better felt than heard, and made any attempt at talk moot. Cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air, along with the smells of popcorn, over-cooked hot dogs, cotton candy, and body odor from a crowd too large for the space provided. The bulk of whom appeared to be gathered at the far end of the boardwalk, around an elevated stage where a band played. The source of the music, if one could call it that. Still, the boardwalk swarmed with people drifting from food stand to game stall and back.

The four Sliders pushed their way through the crowd with some difficulty, and acquired more than a few nasty stares and gestures in return. Their destination was a strand of flashing neon signs some distance away that advertised hotels; the first they had seen of any such temporary lodging. What they saw of the town on their way through it consisted of block after block of closed shops, empty streets, and unlit homes. It had been a welcome relief to see that the desolation wasn't universal.

It was well past dark now, and everyone was feeling the effects of a long day. But they couldn't help getting caught up in the surrounding excitement and activity. The volume alone would have been enough to wake the dead, especially as the Sliders drew near the stage. The hotel lights beckoned, but curiosity about what had everyone so excited won out over the need to establish their base.

Not that they had much choice. The crowd seemed to function as an entity independent of those who comprised it, drawing in the stray passerby and trapping them in place, adding the new voices to the old in a mob roar. The Sliders drew as close as they dared, doing their level best not to get drawn beyond the fringe. They failed, and soon became as those around them.

The masses stamped and cheered to the music. An impromptu mosh pit was in full gear near the stage. Wade counted at least six stage divers and seriously considered joining their ranks, but for being too far away from the stage. The songs were fast paced with a lot of bass and involved the lead singer bellowing into her microphone at odd intervals. Any pretense at rhyme or reason took a back seat to volume.

Singing ability aside, the lead singer was obviously talented. A voluptuous blonde, she pranced around the stage in high-heels, tight jean shorts and a red bra. Her blonde hair was piled high on her head, from which the occasional tendril escaped to frame her face. The rest of the equally talented band dressed, as it were, in a similar style.

They were beautiful, loud and showmen to the core.

For the band known as Bathory, the night was just beginning.

****

As the small hours of the morning advanced, the crowds began to disperse. The band packed up and slipped away without so much as an encore, much to the annoyance of the remaining people. Cries for more followed their departure, and continued long after the band was surely out of hearing range.

"Hotel time," Quinn announced wearily, his legs trembling as he fought to keep from falling asleep right then and there. He wasn't the oldest of the Sliders -- that honor now went to Rembrandt -- but he was the reason the four of them were stuck traveling randomly across parallel worlds. That weight made him feel old, as did the realization that he had once again failed to get them home as promised. Tonight, the adrenaline and mob sentiment had sapped all but his last reserve of energy, and he truely wished he still had someone to look for strength as the others looked to him.

As he was coming to expect, the immediate response came from Maggie, a Slider now for only a matter of weeks, but so used to being in a position of power that she was the self-declared second in command. "That's going to be a challenge," she responded with a wide sweep of her arm that took in the variety of hotels lining the strip, all of which flashed no vacancy signs.

Quinn followed the sweep with his eyes, and wondered if they should have found a room as soon as they arrived, or if they had only put off the inevitable. Again. He looked back at the young woman and found her lips pressed in a grim line, her blue eyes narrowed as she discovered and discarded alternatives. Unfortunately, all her years of military training hadn't prepared her for dealing with parallel worlds or the spontaneous, frequently insane, decisions inevitably required. In an irony he knew he'd appreciate more after a good night's sleep, Quinn realized that the military had made Maggie too naive about the ways of the worlds.

"Ask for the presidential suite," Rembrandt suggested. He sounded just as weary as Quinn; more so. "Even when they're booked, they hold rooms back for celebrities."

"Do you really think you're a celebrity on this world," Maggie asked, arms akimbo and tone indicating that she didn't believe he could be famous on any world. She knew of his fifteen minutes of fame as an R&B singer on his home world, but she hadn't known Rembrandt when he still believed he had a chance at a revival; hadn't been to the worlds where that revival had been successful, or the worlds were the fifteen minutes had never ended.

"Maybe. Maybe not," Rembrandt replied, ignoring the attitude. "The rooms are still there for the taking. But you hafta know to ask about them."

"I'll go," Wade said, to no one in particular. Which was just like her. With the addition of Maggie to the group, Wade had started to fade into the background. But she was the true second in command now, the only one who knew Quinn from "before", and the one most likely to do what it took to get things done, regardless of whether permission had been asked or granted. She caught Quinn's eye, and the two of them turned to enter the nearest hotel, leaving Maggie and Rembrandt to argue it out.

The hotel was lush, overdone in red velvet and gold gilding. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling and heavy tapestries adorned the walls. The lobby furniture was antique in style, but ageless in quality. Immaculate. The kind of furniture meant to be admired rather than used. Except that one chair nearest an unused fire place was occupied by someone reading a newspaper, feet propped on a gleaming wooden coffee-table. Only his legs and feet were visible, but Quinn and Wade couldn't help but to be intimidated by this someone who was so secure with his place that he wasn't afraid to touch anything.

The desk-manager, a handsome twenty-something dressed in a starched red uniform with gold braid, promptly ignored them. He appeared to be deep in conversation with a young woman who looked vaguely familiar. But with all the people they'd met on slides, that could mean anything. She was dressed in a motley piece-meal of clothing, all of it showing signs of extreme wear. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders, held back from her face by barrettes.

"-- get in trouble," the manager was saying. His face was mottled, his eyes piercing. He looked like he desperately wanted to be somewhere else.

The girl shook her head, blonde hair flying. "It's not for long."

"You know your kind aren't welcome here."

She leaned across the marble desk, almost touching noses with him and whispered something that didn't reach Quinn and Wade's ears. The manager's face drained of colour; he jerked back.

"But I won't," she concluded, returning to her former position.

Quinn cleared his throat then, to alert the manager to their presence. The girl whipped around . . . and stopped. She was older than Quinn first assessed, probably his age. She had liquid blue eyes and a rosebud mouth, and was absolutely stunning. Her gaze locked on his, held it for a long moment. Then she offered a shy smile.

"How rude of me," she said, "to keep you waiting like this."

"It's okay," Quinn apologized. "I shouldn't have interrupted." He took a step forward and offered his hand. It was trembling. "Quinn Mallory."

She caught his fingers for an instant. "Beth."

"You're the lead singer for the band that was playing tonight," Wade announced, suddenly placing why the girl looked so familiar.

Beth nodded once in affirmation. "Just something to occupy the nights. They do drag on so."

"You were fantastic," Quinn said. At that moment, as far as his memory of the night went, they had been fantastic.

"You caught the show?"

"Almost all of it. We just arrived in town."

"Oh? We're playing again tomorrow night. Why don't you come back stage and meet the rest of the band before we go on." She smiled again; a wide, guileless smile that destroyed any free-will Quinn had left.

Behind him, Wade audibly sighed.

"Your girlfriend's invited too," Beth continued, as though oblivious to the effect she was having on him.

"Who?" He half-turned, saw Wade, and blushed. "She's not my girlfriend."

Wade shot Quinn a scathing look that he never even noticed. She was tempted to introduce herself as his wife. Or better yet, introduce Maggie as his wife and let her kick Beth's butt. Then both of them would suffer.

"Have you found a place to stay yet?" Beth inquired. "I need to know where I can send the passes."

"N-no," Quinn stammered. "All the hotels are booked."

Beth looked thoughtful, then turned on the manager with a suddenness that made him visibly gulp. He had been hovering around the desk throughout the conversation, shuffling papers, typing at the computer, and otherwise pretending to be busy. "Marco," she commanded, "Give them my suite."

"Miss?" He looked ready to jump out of his skin, and his jerky movements indicated that given enough time he might just figure out how to do that.

"I just had a change of plans."

"Yes, Miss."

"He's a good kid," she said as Marco scurried into the office to make arrangements for the rooms. "A little too stuck on the rules, sometimes." She refocused on Quinn, a look of smug finality on her face. "But rules were meant to be broken, weren't they?"

By this time, Quinn would have agreed with anything she said, and he did.

"But I really should be going. I will see you tomorrow night." She didn't wait for an answer.

Wade watched Beth go with burning hatred. She recognised her type and knew what would happen to Quinn. And when they slid out, Wade would be left to pick up the pieces until Quinn fell in love with the next one.

She left Quinn standing at the desk and headed outside to inform the others that they'd found a room. Passing the man in the chair again, she noted curiously that his newspaper was upside down. She was about to comment on it when he lowered it look at her over the top. Sunglasses covered his eyes and she got the impression that she didn't want to know what they hid. His lips tightened into something that might have been a smile. He raised the paper again and started whistling something tuneless.

Wade shook her head and kept going.

"This is unbelievable!" She announced to Maggie and Rembrandt, when she caught up with them outside the hotel. "We're in there for like two minutes and some girl throws herself at him. Correction: he throws himself at *her*."

"So, do we have a room or what?" Maggie asked.

"Yes we have a room," Wade snapped, "Her's. Can you imagine the nerve?"

"Woah, calm down, sweetheart," Rembrandt consoled, wrapping his arm across her shoulders. "She's letting us have her room? Right? It sounds to me like she's doing us a big favor, whoever she is."

"*She* is the lead singer for the band we had to listen to tonight. You know, the one with the big--"

"Voice?" Rembrandt said.

Wade cupped her hands out in the air in front of her chest. "It's not her voice he was paying attention to."

Maggie's eyes narrowed at Wade's gesture. "What is your problem?"

"My problem? You didn't see the way he was looking at her. It was, like, one second nothing but politeness -- the next, he's drooling on her--"

"Voice?" Rembrandt supplied again. The girls ignored him.

"So he thinks she's pretty. This can't be the first time he's looked at a girl twice."

"It was like she cast a spell on him. I mean, it was that quick."

"Magic, Wade?" Maggie took a half-step closer to Wade, looking down on her with the couple of inches she had over the other woman. "I thought you were old enough to know better."

The more petite woman glared back. "Yeah, and what makes you the expert on this world? You think you've got it all figured out after a couple of hours?"

"Um girls," Rembrandt said, tightening his grip on Wade's shoulder and pulling her away from Maggie. "You know, it's been a long time since we got a chance to just relax. It's late; we're all feeling a little beat . . ."

"You don't believe me either?"

"I didn't say that," he said, looking pointedly at Maggie who had a smug smile on her face. "I'm just happy that we're not gonna hafta be pulling up a piece of the beach. I like a roof over my head at night. Especially on an unknown world."

"I can sleep anywhere," Maggie said, referring to her military training which she had turned into a career.

"I'm sure you have," Wade shot back. "Hey, watch where you're going," she directed to a group of drunken revelers, one of whom had just walked into her and tried to keep going. Only Rembrandt's quick reflexes kept her from being dragged down. His arm still around her shoulder, he twisted his own body and pulled her to the side.

At that, one of the guys looked up from his determined focus on the ground, and wolf-whistled at Maggie, followed by a lewd invitation. Another man seconded the invitation, and invited Wade along. The female among their party took offense and cut into them with a barrage of angry, incoherent accusations about their ancestry and personal habits.

The second man loudly agreed with the accusations and got sucker-punched by the fourth party-goer. The fight was engaged. And the Sliders found themselves right in the middle.

Maggie dropped one of the men with a low kick, but found herself on the defensive against the first whose contribution to the fray involved pinching her butt and winking at her.

The conflict, as they are want to do, became the new focus for what remained of the crowd. They gathered around and provided encouragement in the form of catcalls and heckles. A young boy nearest the argument made his contribution with his repeated, belated, urging to "Fight! Fight!"

The fight exploded into a brawl as others from the audience took sides, or joined just for the thrill of it. Rembrandt extracted himself to the sidelines as soon as possible, but still had to contend with people who didn't realise he wasn't part of it. Maggie also withdrew, but a gleam in her eyes gave away her true feelings on the matter.

The woman ended up pressed against one of the picture windows framing the lobby doors, bawling. She had punched one of her own party, received a punch in return and decided that fighting wasn't for her. A loud red mark high on her cheekbone promised to develop into a garish bruise.

Wade never emerged.

By the time the cops arrived and began separating people, it was clear that she wasn't going to.

She was gone, along with two of the drunken louts who had started the fight in the first place.

Chapter 2

Quinn is standing on the beach, unaware of how he came to be there, but not surprised. It seems right, somehow. It's night time; the sand and sea are cast of shadows and muted neons. The air is humid and heavy, as if to spite those who need to breathe it. He feels the weight of the night pressing down on him; the sense that there's something else he should be doing, if he could only remember what.

Down the beach, he sees the others clustered in a group, silhouettes against the horizon. They are waiting for him, talking in hushed tones about some grave matter. Their backs are turned to him. He smiles at them fondly; at the friends they are and the family they represent. He will get them home; that much he has promised. Still, he can't help but wonder if the home they'll find is the one for which they've been searching.

"Thirty seconds," someone says, their voice drifting above the others.

It's time to Slide. That's what this is all about. Quinn frowns and checks his watch, surprised at how close he cut it and positive that he couldn't have calculated that wrong. A blank watch face stares back at him, the hands absent. One part of his mind registers the absence, another supplies the time. The disparity doesn't seem at all odd. Why should it?

If he doesn't hurry . . . But they're so far away; he's not sure he'll be able to reach them. If he misses the Slide . . . He can't worry about that now. There'll be time later, on the next world, when the next crisis -- there's always a crisis -- has passed. Always later. Waves lap at his ankles and bare-feet; he feels his feet sink into the coarse sand.

"We thought you were going to Slide without us." Wade is standing directly in front of Quinn now, her cropped reddish locks ruffling in the breeze. She reaches up and runs a finger down his jawline. "But you came back."

"Just like he said he would," Professor Arturo adds. He is standing straight and proud, a smug grinlette on his face. His tailored suit is unmarred, despite the wind and the water. Yet, he too is standing barefoot in the sand.

"He said," Rembrandt echoes, frowning. But for the flashes of his eyes and teeth, and the occasional movement of his hands, he is invisible against the night; his dark skin a camouflage. He passes a folded piece of paper to the Professor, who tucks it into his vest pocket without a word.

Wade playfully slaps Rembrandt's arm. "Not you, too."

"Hey, girl," he says, pulling away in mock defense. He never stops smiling.

"Fifteen seconds."

"What's going on?" Quinn asks.

The Sliders turn as a unit to stare at Quinn, their expressions caught between shock and disbelief; the echoes of their bickering quickly drowned by the voice of the ocean.

"It's time to Slide," Rembrandt answers first. He glances once at Wade, almost as if afraid of how much he should say. "We're going without you."

Quinn's thoughts race ahead of his speech; a million questions pile up, waiting to be asked -- but only an inarticulate stammer escapes his lips. He's right here; the window hasn't opened yet. His friends would never leave him behind unless they had absolutely no choice. Just as he would never leave any of them behind. How can they talk of something so calmly to his face? "But . . . Why?" he finally manages.

"Because, my dear boy --" Arturo holds out the timer. The numbers flash, counting first up then down. Zero is nowhere in range, and never will be at this rate. Still, Quinn knows the vortex will open soon and his friends will slide without him unless he prevents it. He reaches for the timer and grasps only an empty female hand. With a coy tilt to her head, Maggie smiles at him. "-- you promised."

Quinn knits his eyebrows and stares first at Maggie and then at Rembrandt and Wade, trying to decipher what they are talking about. They return his gaze, their faces neutral. "I promised?" he echoes blankly.

"Who will take your place when you die?" Maggie responds, by way of an answer.

"I will." A second Quinn steps up on Quinn's right, their shoulders almost touching.

"No, I will," another Quinn says, stepping up on the left.

"Do you really think you can get rid of me that easily?" This from a fourth Quinn, who appears behind the other three Sliders.

"I'll do what I have to do," Wade answers. She spins around and punches the fourth Quinn in his chest. The impact drives him to his knees; he claws helplessly at something that protrudes from his chest. As if in slow motion, he finishes collapsing to the beach. He stares at the sky with wide open eyes, his mouth curving into a slow smile. Then he's gone.

"Five seconds."

"You see," Maggie says, pressing herself close to Quinn and whispering in his ear, "We all have to die sometime."

She reaches up to touch his face.

****

The light touch of fingernails trailing along his jawline pulled Quinn from sleep. He lay in silence for a long moment, eyes still closed. The touch had been wrong for Wade or Maggie; the caress too gentle. Too . . . something else. Something he was afraid would go away if he looked. The bed creaked as the person sitting beside him shifted and he felt her draw closer, leaning over him. She smelled of the ocean air, of the outdoors; a windblown scent that teased his memory.

Quinn cracked his eyelids enough to see through the haze of lashes, and found himself nose to nose with the girl from the hotel. Her eyes looked silver in the moonlight that filtered through the partially draped bedside window, luminous; the rest of her face cast in shadow.

"Did you miss me?" she inquired. Her breath tickled his face. "I missed you."

His body twisted beneath her, as if to slip from her grasp and escape. This was very wrong, and he knew it, but he really couldn't bring himself to care.

"Shhh." She caressed his jaw again, the touch sending shivers down his spine, then kissed him -- just the barest touching of lips. He toyed with the idea of resisting, and found that the thought alone took too much effort. His hands were already reaching for her, to pull her into a real embrace.

"You came back," she whispered, punctuating the words with more light kisses across his face. "Just like you promised."

Her lips started down his neck; he tilted his head back with a sigh of pleasure.

"Now I'll keep my promise," she added.

The next kiss stung, like a jellyfish or bee sting. He jerked away out of reflex, his eyes flying open.

He was lying on his back on the bed, alone, the covers tangled around his limbs. Quinn sat up slowly, disoriented. Moonlight shown on an otherwise uninhabited room, lending an illusion of life to the heavy wooden bureau, nightstand and straight-backed chair that comprised the furniture. Forms that a childhood of being afraid of the dark had taught him to ignore. The form he sought wasn't present: the young woman he could swear had been more than just a dream. The sheets at the edge of the bed were cool to the touch, however, and he could sense nothing to indicate that she'd ever been there.

He raised a hand to his throat and touched the spot where she had bitten. It felt unmarred, if a little tender; his fingers came away clean. Slipping from bed, he poked around the room, touching the furniture, walls and carpet, trying to convince himself that he was awake now but hadn't been before. Her visit felt so real. It seemed wrong somehow to be having those kind of dreams about a woman he had only just met. Yet the alternative was even more out of character. He argued with himself for awhile before realizing that there wasn't enough evidence to answer the question one way or the other.

Finally, he checked the window, found it secure, and crawled back into bed. All memory of the dream and the visit slipped from his mind as he fell back to sleep.

****

"You're safe now."

The voice interrupted Wade's sleep and pulled her reluctantly awake. She opened her eyes. A man dressed in black slacks and a billowing black shirt stood over her. His black hair was slicked back from his long featured face, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.

"Safe," he repeated. His voice was soft, deep and faintly accented: the kind of voice that would make a recitation of the phone book enjoyable listening. Had it not been for the fact that Wade had no idea who he was, she'd have found it quite easy to make such a request.

That would have to wait. She sat up, held a hand to her head to stop the throbbing. She was sitting on a cot in either a small room or a large closet. A bare electric bulb hung overhead; the cot and a large steamer trunk at its foot the only furnishings. There were no windows and the only door was blocked by the man.

Don't panic, she thought. It's not what you think.

The back of her neck stung, her head felt foggy. She suspected she'd been drugged. She, Rembrandt and Maggie were heading back into the hotel; there was that fight, and someone grabbed her arm and yanked her down and then . . . an injection? She wasn't sure. A sharp pain in the back of her neck. Couldn't keep her eyes open. Two people held her down, but she didn't fight them. She was too tired. Couldn't see their faces; they told her to relax. Sounded like a good idea.

"You'll be safe now," one of them said. A voice different from the ones repeating those words now.

"Am I a prisoner?" Wade asked, fighting to keep her voice normal, not to let the panic show.

The man straightened, the barest tightening of muscles in his upper body. "Of course not." He smiled, closemouthed, lips stretched almost to non-existence. It wasn't very reassuring. "You're my guest."

It is what you think.

Wade blinked at him, half-expecting him now to reveal in detail his diabolical plan to conquer the world. Did these guys all memorize the same script?

He much have read her expression because he flashed another tight smile. "My apologies. That was not a good choice of words. I'm Dr. David Morgan. You are in my house. You are free to leave any time you want. Although I do recommend waiting until sunrise."

"You're the guy from the hotel," she said. The sunglasses, the unfriendly smile, the upside down newspaper.

"I am," he answered with a slight lifting of his chin. "Merely doing routine surveillance until you walked in. You surprised me. I do not surprise easily. I did not expect to find someone with your . . . potential."

She blinked again. He had definitely memorized some creepy horror film script. The accent was probably fake too. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"On the contrary," he replied. "We can always use someone like you. Especially now."

For what? she thought, wondering if now was a good time to mention that she wouldn't qualify as a virgin sacrifice. "Are my friends here, too?" she asked instead.

"Your . . . friends?"

"I was traveling with three others." She gave a brief description, hitting an awkward moment when she almost included the Professor instead of Maggie. Professor Arturo, who had been the fourth member of the original group of Sliders, and who recently sacrificed his life so she, Quinn and Rembrandt could escape a dying world. That's when they had met Maggie, and shortly afterwards, decided to take her with them. It hadn't been an easy transition.

He shook his head and replied, "I'm afraid I'm not very good with faces. I'll find out." With that, he walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.

Wade made no effort to follow him or to try to escape. There was too much she didn't know, like if any of the other Sliders needed rescuing. Besides, David didn't seem all that bad, if one could get past the affections. A little formal and dark; the sort who hadn't yet realised that he was too old to do Gothic. He wasn't the kind of person she'd want to meet in a dark alley, or a well lit one. Or a hallway. She might run into him again as she tried to leave. She wasn't at all confident that she could leave unmolested, and now was not the time to put it to the test. Her head still pounded; she doubted she could stand up for more than a few seconds at a time.

And what was with his outfit? Black was definitely not his colour. He seemed to have a thing for dark colors and dim lighting. It strained her eyes to focus in any one direction for too long. The door to the room she occupied opened into a larger room that looked to be a study. It too was rather stark. Mahogany bookcases lined every wall, each packed solid with thick books. A matching desk and black leather chair occupied a place on the far wall. Everything looked very utilitarian; no knick-knacks or other decorative items. Not even a carpet or chandelier. Nor could she see any windows in that room either, or any other exit.

David returned a few moments later, coming into the doorway suddenly enough that she started. She figured that whatever door he used must be on the same wall as the room she was in. "I have been informed," he said, "that one of your *friends* is Dead. I don't know about the other two." He didn't seem particularly saddened about either the news or his messenger status; he spoke as though he delivered this kind of news every day.

Dead? Who was dead?

David was shaking his head. "It's a shame, really, that your friend had to Die so soon after arriving here."

"Who?" She finally ordered her thoughts enough to ask.

"The one you were with in the hotel. I told you, I'm not very good with faces."

"Quinn," she whispered.

"Yes, I believe that is his name."

"Did you kill him?" Wade pulled her legs up under her on the cot, pulling into herself. She wanted . . . she didn't know what she wanted. To be with Rembrandt and Maggie maybe. To be with Rembrandt and the Professor. To have someone console her, offer sympathy and understanding. Not to be stuck in this barren room with a man her father's age whom she wouldn't trust farther than she could throw. But she couldn't leave. Well, she could, but she didn't know where to go. She didn't even know where she was. And she didn't know what to do once she got wherever she'd go.

"Of course not," he replied. "What do you take me for? Never mind. I forget you're new to Santa Isabella." Kneading his hands together, he continued in a softer tone. "That's why we rescued you, because he's Dead. Wouldn't want you ending up that way."

Well, no. But dead?

"How did he die," she managed to choke out.

Her question seemed to amuse him; his thin smile flashed across his lips again. Wade wished he'd remove his sunglasses so she could read his eyes. Maybe he was lying. Maybe Quinn wasn't really dead and this was all an elaborate joke. A very sadistic joke.

"There's a lot you don't know about Santa Isabella," David said, as if that was an appropriate response.

"I'll read the guide book later," Wade snapped. "Tell me how he died."

"You won't believe it."

Enough. Wade was off the cot a second later. She slammed David into the wall, hissed in his face, "Try me." He didn't react with so much as a muscle twitch; that irritating smile remained on his face.

"Are you quite done?" He gently removed her hands from his shoulders, pushed her away and straightened up. "It was Beth."

"Beth?" she echoed, not sure if David was providing the name of Quinn's killer or the means by which it was accomplished. Not that either would have surprised her.

"We need your help," he continued.

"So you kidnaped me? Did it ever occur to you that you could have *asked*," she retorted. "Why all of this?" she gestured around the room, but the sweep included the fight and the kidnaping and his inexcusable manner of asking for help'.

"We had to know. Your friends aren't safe. One of them is already Dead, and the others might be. But you . . . you have potential. We had to get you away from their influence."

"You panicked," she said, seeing him in a new light. But there had to be more to it than that. It was too well planned, too smoothly executed. And too intricate. As if they'd been expecting resistance from her and interference from the other Sliders. She absently rubbed the sore spot on the back of her neck, fingers finding what felt like a mosquito bite. They'd somehow known where the Sliders were going to be. Known well in advance what they were going to do.

"She can't be allowed to destroy any more lives," David continued. He was beginning to sound desperate, not in tone but in the speed of his words. He was speaking faster now. "Beth is responsible for Quinn's Death. And she'll go after the rest of your friends soon if she hasn't already."

The silence grew long as Wade tried to make some sense out what David was telling her. Quinn was dead, and Beth had killed him, or distracted him long enough for someone else to kill him. Why? She vocalized that last question.

David met it with more hand kneading. "She preys on the young: attractive youths. Either sex. Some she kills outright. Some . . . you don't want to know."

"Which one was Quinn?"

A lengthy silence passed before David replied. "The second."

Well, there was one way to figure out what was going on. "What do you want me to do?" she asked.

Chapter 3

Sleep evaded Rembrandt despite the dull pressure behind his eyes that suggested the situation should be otherwise. He could hear Quinn's soft snores coming from the direction of the couch, and Maggie's from one of the beds. Wade's sleep-noises were conspicuously missing. For once it was the absence of sound rather than the presence that kept him from sleeping.

Eventually, he stopped trying. Throwing on some clothes, he went to work off some nervous energy with an exploration of the hotel.

The decor throughout was consistent in its tastelessness. Individually each piece of art, each painting, chandelier, doorknob and flush handle bespoke wealth and culture. Together they looked as though the decorator had taken every measure to prove that this place was the Ritz, with no regard for period or style. Red velvet and gold gilding proved to be common themes, but that was about the only style each floor shared. It looked like a tornado had swept through the local art museum, depositing everything here, and no one had had a chance to pick up yet. The copious amounts of dust Rembrandt found on the tops of picture frames lent credence to that theory.

In the strange half-light of the hallway, some of the paintings seemed to change dependent on his distance from them. They would appear to depict one thing from twenty feet away, and something else from five feet away. He spent some time playing with that, stepping up and back down the hallways. In most cases the difference was simply whether he focused on the light or the shadow in each piece, but sometimes it seemed that was too easy an answer.

One painting startled him completely. From a distance it looked like an abstract design of colors. Peering at it closer, he found the Professor peering back at him. He yelped, checked over his shoulder, and looked again. It was the Professor. A rather stylized portrait of him staring intently at something over Rembrandt's left shoulder. It was also the only painting yet that had been dusted recently. There was no artist's signature, but a small plaque beneath the painting confirmed what Rembrandt already knew: Maximilian Arturo. It didn't say what he had done to warrant an expensive painting in an expensive hotel.

The tour ended at the hotel bar: a dark and foreboding place tended by a dark and foreboding hulk of a man with a territorial nervousness about his movements. It was no wonder the place was vacant. The man met Rembrandt's attempts at conversation with cold silence, and removed himself to the other end of the bar at first opportunity.

Beer in hand, and a bowl of chips within reach, Rembrandt began a studious inspection of the empty space in front of him. Each time he blinked, he saw the Professor's painting inside his eyelids. Forcing it from his mind was a task easier said than done, but at least it kept him occupied. So he pretended. Don't think of the fight earlier in the evening. Don't try to pinpoint the exact moment he had last seen Wade. Don't think of the elephant.

"Are you worried about your missing friend?"

Rembrandt jumped, nearly spilling the beer. Twisting on his stool, he identified the interrupter straddling the stool next to his as the desk manager. Marco. A quick glance at the name tag confirmed that. "What of it?" he asked.

Marco shrugged. "She's okay, you know. It's Mallory you should be worried about."

"Is this some VIP service I've never heard about?"

"No, I . . ." Marco leveled a glance around the nearly empty bar, noted the bartender still busy doing something at the other end, and lowered his voice. "I know where she is."

"If this is a joke, it ain't funny," Rembrandt growled. He took a swig of his beer and immediately wished he hadn't. It was warm and flat.

"You want another one?" Marco asked.

"I'm fine." Rembrandt thumped the bottle down. "What do you know about Wade?"

Marco hesitated then said, "You're going to need another one." He motioned the bartender over, placed the order then firmly told him to take a break. The bartender didn't argue. "What do you know about Santa Isabella?" Marco began conversationally as soon as they were alone.

Rembrandt blinked at the change of topic, but decided he'd learn more if he went along with it. Marco seemed like one of those people who had to build up to what they wanted to say. Trying to force him would only make it ultimately take longer. "Not much. Ghost town, busy boardwalk, lousy music. Did I miss anything?"

"How about the town's reputation?"

Rembrandt shook his head.

Marco gave a dry laugh. "Where are you from? I thought everyone knew about St. Izzy. It's one of the hottest tourist attractions in the world, you know."

"Not for the music, I hope." It was meant in jest, but Marco couldn't hide his reaction. He looked away, but not before Rembrandt caught a sudden sharpness in his eyes that meant he'd hit on something. "You got to be kidding."

"The music is part of it. A bigger part than most people know." Marco continued his inspection of the floor. "Santa Isabella is the only place in the world where murder isn't entirely illegal."

There was a long pause then. Rembrandt took advantage of it to down half the bottle. He didn't taste a drop of it. The beer landed hard on his stomach, and he suddenly wished he'd thought to get a few more. "What are you saying? That I could kill anyone I wanted and not get in trouble?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what, *exactly*?"

"The laws are pretty blurry, but the only ones allowed to actually commit murder are certain residents of St. Izzy. *Long time* residents." Marco looked straight at Rembrandt then, sending shivers down Remmy's spine. "I could kill you and no one would say anything."

The cold feeling spread as Rembrandt began imagining horrible ways in which any of this could apply to Wade. He reached for the bottle again, found it empty. Drank the warm beer instead. It was gone long before Rembrandt ran out of need for it. "So, what? People come here to get murdered?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"People come here to get murdered," Marco repeated, rather nonchalantly. He propped one elbow on the bar, cupping his chin in his hand. "Or to not get murdered, as the case is."

"Why?"

"It's sort of a challenge; a badge of honor: I survived Santa Isabella."

A feeling of the absurd settled over Rembrandt, and he began to laugh. The combination of too little sleep and too much stress intensified it until it wasn't long before he was wiping tears from his eyes. "Now I know you're pulling my leg. This is just some joke you and Lurch there," he gestured in the direction he'd last seen the bartender go, "play on the tourists. Spread some story about how dangerous this town is, sell a few T-shirts."

Marco wasn't laughing.

"The one thing I don't get is what Wade has to do with any of this. Is she in on the joke?" He had a sudden image of Wade's double wearing a large t-shirt with I survived Santa Isabella and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' emblazoned across it. "The fight was all a setup, wasn't it? But you didn't know you would capture the wrong Wade."

"The fight was a setup," Marco confirmed as if that was the only part of the hysteria he'd heard.

That caught Rembrandt up; he choked on his own laughter, cleared his throat loudly. "What?"

"Maybe I'm not going about this the right way."

"Why don't you skip to the important stuff," Rembrandt suggested.

"This town has some bizarre customs," Marco began, holding up a hand to silence Rembrandt. "Hear me out . . . ." He took a deep breath. "The Vyrkolakas here don't have to provide Choice." His eyes bored into Rembrandt's as though begging him to believe something unbelievable, or unthinkable.

"Okay, man. Whatever you say." Rembrandt answered.

"You have to believe me," Marco insisted, leaning forward on the stool.

Rembrandt shook his head and started to stand up. "Hey, if I knew what you were talking about . . ."

"How can I prove it to you? The Vyr are evil; they lure victims to them with their music." The urgency was real, but it still sounded like Marco had spent too much time sniffing glue. "Mallory is going to be taken by them. Tomorrow night. None of you are safe."

"What about Wade?"

"Except her." Marco shot another look around the bar. It was still empty except for the two of them. "I can't tell you where she is. Just trust that she's safe. I'm to tell you that she'll come here tomorrow night if she's able." Another deep breath. "It's too late for me, but not for you. It has to end."

"Fine, fine," Rembrandt soothed, using a tone like one would use with a small child. This guy was definitely on something. It was impossible to know how reliable his information was, or even what it was. Picking anything useful out of the nonsense was a chore unto itself.

"You're not *listening* to me!" Marco slammed his fist into the bar, shattering the marble surface. "It has to end."

"I hear you. It has to end. What do you expect me to do about it?"

"Just keep Mallory away from Beth. He'll be safe during the day, but don't let him meet with her tomorrow night."

"What does Beth have to do with this? She your ex-girlfriend or something?"

Marco was standing next to Rembrandt now, apparently unfazed by driving his hand through a marble counter-top. "Just keep him away," he hissed into Remmy's ear.

Then he was gone.

Rembrandt walked to the door, scanned the lobby, but found no trace of him. It was as though Marco had just vanished.

Chapter 4

Wade received her second major shock of the slide upon walking into the kitchen the next morning. Like most of the house, it was Spartan and spotless, containing only the minimal to make it functional. Light was provided by yet another of the bare-bulbs in the ceiling. A small window high over the sink was the first she'd seen of any external portals in this house.

She smelled eggs and bacon. The bacon, in fact, being the scent she followed to find the kitchen. True to his word, David made no outward attempt to keep Wade prisoner. But he also didn't provide any direction on the layout of the home. A home that clearly wasn't designed for simplicity, despite what the style of decoration suggested. Doors opened onto blank walls or staircases, rooms nested within rooms, hallways zigged and zagged every which way. She had found the bathroom by sheer luck, and the kitchen only by following her nose and ignoring her common sense.

A man was sitting at the kitchen table reading a newspaper, the remains of a hearty breakfast scattered in front of him. It wasn't David Morgan. What she could see of this man was entirely the wrong shape. On top of which, there was something too familiar about him.

"Hello?" Wade called softly. She stood just inside the doorway, painfully aware that she still had no idea where she was or why, if this person could provide any answers or if he was part of the problem -- whatever that was. David had been recalcitrant about why he needed her help and soon ceased providing any information at all. She suspected that the questions she asked where ones that anyone else in her position would already know the answers to.

The paper lowered and she was greeted with intelligent, seeking brown eyes set in a face she never expected to see again.

"Professor," she gasped, feeling herself pale. It was him. His double, rather, but so like him that it took conscious effort to realise that he wasn't her Professor. Effort she couldn't bring herself to make. For the longest moment she stared at him, willing him to recognize her. But those eyes held only a bland politeness.

"You must be Miss Welles," Arturo answered, standing up. "Dr. Morgan said to expect you. It's a pleasure." He added a slight bow to the last. "I'm Dr. Maximilian Arturo."

"I-I know," she stammered.

"You're familiar with my work then. Good. Come in, come in," he said, guiding her to the table and all but pushing her into a chair. Reclaiming his own, he folded the paper and set it aside. "I assume Dr. Morgan has apprised you of the situation."

Wade shook her head mutely, then managed to add, "He said to wait till morning."

Arturo didn't seem surprised. "Dr. Morgan's paranoia is famous in our circles, but it is not unfounded. You are here now, though. I think he would find that sufficient proof of your good-will."

"Excuse me," Wade said, "but do you know why I am here?"

"Did he tell you nothing?"

"Just that my friend Quinn is dead and he needs my help with something."

"Did he say deceased' or Dead'?" Arturo asked, drawing some distinction between the words that Wade didn't understand.

"Is there a difference?"

"Quite," he responded. "Perhaps if you told me everything that has happened recently."

Wade began filling him in on the events of the past twenty-four hours -- carefully editing out how she and the others arrived in town. In the course of the recitation, she slipped from her chair and began pacing the small kitchen. Arturo stopped her when she mentioned Beth, made her relate in detail everything that was said and done in the few minutes of their meeting, before encouraging her to help herself to the teapot hissing on the stove and finish the story.

". . . and then David, Dr. Morgan, said to get some sleep and to save my questions for the morning." She returned to her chair and took a sip of tea, burning her tongue in the process.

Arturo nodded, stroked his beard. "Dr. Morgan is also guilty of being an alarmist," he said. "Your friend, Mr. Mallory?, is most likely still quite among the living. For now."

Wade breathed a short-lived sigh of relief. "What do you mean?"

"Tell me, Miss Welles," he continued. "What do you know about the Vyrkolakas?"

She tested the word, trying to figure out where she'd heard it before, then came up with "Vampires?"

"That is the term used for them in some European countries, but not a popular one. I'm surprised you're familiar with it."

"But vampires aren't real," she protested.

"Come now? Surely you don't believe that myth? It's no more than a popular fantasy spread by some of the less reputable tabloids. The Vyr are quite real, I assure you, and a necessary evil. But even necessary evils need restrictions."

"Professor," she said, leaning forward in her chair, "Perhaps this would go easier if you pretended that I'm not from this world and told me everything, from the beginning."

He made a return trip to the teapot first and spent the next several minutes sweetening his tea properly.

"It's simple ecology," he said, when he finally set his cup down. "Every animal is preyed on by another higher up on the food chain. This helps control population density and quality. The Vyr are to humans what lions are to gazelle. But the situation isn't identical. Gazelle don't prey on lions in return, but humans not only can, but must, prey on Vyrkolakas."

"But what's to stop one group from wiping out the other?"

"Nothing. Except that each group requires the other to exist."

Wade didn't understand how humans needed vampires to exist, but she didn't express her ignorance on the subject. It was apparently a fact of life on this world that everyone knew but no one would be able to explain. She nodded instead and kept her face blank as she asked, "Where do I fit into this?"

"As yet, you don't." He sipped his tea. "In time, Dr. Morgan and I believe you'll make a fine Hunter."

"And that would be . . . ?"

"You were right to inquire about why one group doesn't drive the other to extinction. There are far more humans than Vyr, by a factor of almost ten-thousand to one. It would be very easy for humans to destroy Vyr if they desired. They almost have on many occasions throughout history. What stops them isn't kindness, but tradition. And now law."

"Hunters are humans who are allowed to hunt the vampires," Wade supplied, the pieces falling into place.

"Yes. But Hunters are born, not made. And they're more rare than Vyrkolakas."

"And I'm a Hunter."

"You have the potential to be one."

Another visit to the teapot, a refill for both of them. Wade cleared the table and used the time to think things through, while Arturo played with the sugar again.

"Are you a Hunter?" she asked.

"I was, once. The media destroyed it for me. They made my face too famous."

"And Dr. Morgan?"

He tipped his head in affirmation. "But he too can no longer do any real hunting."

"What if I said no?"

"That's your decision, Miss Welles. We can't coerce you into joining the fight."

"If I said yes?"

"Then we will begin your training immediately. You must realise that your friends are in greater danger than you can imagine if Beth has singled them out. She is the matriarch of the Vyrkolakas in this area, and a very dangerous woman. The rules mean nothing to her."

Wade lapsed into thought again. Reminding her about the other Sliders had been a desperate card to play, but it was working. She had, after all, agreed to join the fight without knowing anything about it because she thought Quinn had died. Dead, she corrected herself, not deceased. Morgan was talking about Quinn being made into a vampire, not about Quinn being killed. She shivered and clutched the teacup tighter in her hands, finding strength in the warmth that seeped through the ceramic.

She had spent the night caught between nightmares, in each one learning the news of Quinn's death differently. In some she hadn't been too late to stop it, in others she was the direct cause of it. Each seemed as real as the next. When she finally awoke, it was with the hope that it wasn't too late.

And now it wasn't.

Looking up to voice her agreement, she found Arturo studying her with a cocked eyebrow.

"I see you've reached a decision." He placed a hand on hers to stop her from speaking. "There's one thing I want to know first. *Are* you from this world?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, looking away.

He began ticking points off on his fingers. "One, you seemed to know me before we met. I assumed that meant you were familiar with my work. But someone who knows of me would also know of Hunters and Vyrkolakas. Two, you told me to make my explanations as if you weren't from this world. An unusual request, made more so your actual ignorance on the subject. Three, you have repeatedly referred to me as Professor throughout this conversation. A title I don't have. People generally call me Arturo or Doctor. Close friends and family know me as Max. Four, you expressed disbelief in the Vyr. Again, unusual but not unheard of. Some less educated people, especially in large cities, have taken the tabloid ramblings to heart. But you strike me as a very intelligent young woman. An uneducated person wouldn't have knowledge of the word vampire'.

"I can only conclude that your ignorance is not from denial, but from actual naivete. A condition that could only exist if you were raised in a very isolated environment, or on a different world."

"You're right," she said, the words tumbling from her mouth without any thought to whether or not this secret should be revealed, "I am from a different world. A different *earth*."

"That is most fascinating," Arturo answered. "I would be interested to hear everything about it."

"Well," she said, taking a small sip from her teacup. "On my world, vampires are strictly a matter of fiction."

Arturo straightened up in his chair at that. "Then we have our work cut out for us." He stood up. "And we only have until sunset."

Chapter 5

"Hey, Q-ball," Rembrandt called that afternoon. They were walking through town, doing a little necessary shopping and trying to find a handle on Wade. "What does Vyrkolakas' mean?" He stumbled over the word, misplacing the accent.

Quinn appeared at his side. "It's Greek. Translates as Vampire. Why?"

Remmy shook his head. "Just something I heard." In the light of day, his whole early-morning conversation with Marco seemed ridiculous instead of terrifying. He felt embarrassed that for even a moment he'd believed a word of it. He blamed his anxiety about Wade's disappearance for making him so gullible to someone obviously deranged. Despite Marco's dire predictions, he wasn't about to mention it to Quinn. Nor had he seen any reason to mention the Professor's picture. So the Professor had a double on this world? The knowledge couldn't possibly help them.

"Guys," Maggie called from up ahead, "You might want to see this."

Distraction accepted, the two jogged down the street, rounded a corner, and found themselves face-to-face with a mob of people picketing the courthouse. Three people stood abreast on the stairs, blocking the door; a large banner strung out between them bore red painted words: Right To Life. Below those words, in smaller letters, was stenciled: Pro-Choice. Others marched around the courtyard, waving signs with slogans including "Human Rights, Human Lives", "Take Back the Night", "Life is for the Living" and its variation "Life for the Living, Death for the Dead." Numerous other ones weren't nearly so polite.

"What do you think?" Maggie asked, looking from Quinn to Rembrandt and back.

They both shook their heads, as much in amazement and wonder as in questioning. "They have enough different groups picketing," Quinn said.

A woman with a large bruise high on her cheekbone ran up to them, waving a newspaper in their faces. The boldfaced headline proclaimed: Judge. Jury. Executioner?

"They kill us and we're the one's who are penalized," she yelled. "Join the fight. The only good Vyr is ashes. Burn them all!"

Quinn grabbed the paper from her hands, held it still for them all to see. Beneath the headline was printed rows and rows of pictures of people, each one stamped diagonally with DECEASED. Below each picture was a date. Quinn flipped the pages, revealing four pages in all of pictures, and no date more than a month old. "All these people died in the last month?" he asked at last. A closer look at the pictures revealed mostly teenagers and young-adults, a few kids, a few older people. The median age looked to be about twenty, and the majority of the dead were male.

The woman nodded vehemently. "All before their time. And who knows who will die tonight." She poked her finger into Quinn's chest. "It might be you. Or you, or you," she added, pointing to Rembrandt and Maggie in turn. "And you'll have no choice."

"The threat of the Vyrkolakas must be stopped," she added, turning and shaking her fist at the gathering. They rattled and waved their signs back in a hearty response. Spotting another potential ear, the woman ran off, producing another newspaper from somewhere and waving it like a battle flag.

"Think she's on to something?" Rembrandt asked, again remembering his conversation with Marco. He wasn't yet ready to believe in vampires, but something had killed all those people.

"Vampires?" Maggie scoffed. She crumpled the newspaper up, threw it to the ground.

"Maggie's right," Quinn said, glancing once again at the crowd as they walked away. "Vampires are just a superstitious peoples' way of dealing with mysterious death. A brick falls on your head, it's obvious what killed you. Cancer, heart-attack, stroke -- it's not always so obvious. Especially if you don't know to look for something internal instead of external. But you're dead, so *something* had to be responsible, right? How about someone? Find a person who's already dead, blame them -- they can hardly defend themselves -- then kill them all over again. It can't hurt. It can't help either, but it provides an answer to why'. Even if it's the wrong answer."

"There's probably an epidemic," Maggie suggested. The crowd was almost out of hearing range now.

"You could be right. Maybe Vyr' or Vyrkolakas' is the name of a disease. Smallpox was often called the cow disease on our world, maybe they have something here called the vampire disease."

"Great, just great," Rembrandt said sarcastically. "So what're the symptoms: changing into a bat, speaking in a bad foreign accent."

"Cheer up. We're not from this world, remember. There's no guarantee we can catch it." Maggie drew a deep breath of the autumn air. "Look there's a newsstand. They should have an almanac or something to tell us about this world."

"There's no guarantee we can't," Remmy said, but she was out of range before the sentence finished leaving his mouth.

****

"Our job as Hunters is to offer death to those Vyr tired of living, and to destroy those who have found their own refuge in insanity."

Wade listened intently to Arturo's lecture. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the room she'd identified earlier as a study. The lecture was quite a show. Arturo traveled the walls, yanking out one book after another, sometimes quoting passages or reading fly-leaves, other times just waving the book around for a few seconds before replacing it on the shelf. She vowed to get a closer look at those books later, if she had the time. She had never seen so much vampire lore compiled into one place.

"What you must not forget, Miss Welles, is that the Vyr are not intrinsically evil. They run the range just like humans do. A Vyr assisted death is perfectly legal almost everywhere in the world, provided that certain criteria are followed. It's the ones who disregard that criteria who cause all the trouble, for other Vyr as well as for humans."

****

The three arrived back at the hotel just as sunset began to touch the sky. Packages ladened their arms, containing food, perishables and assorted dry goods needed for the next three weeks. Funds were almost exhausted; soon they'd have to find jobs, but for right now basic needs were taken care of and they could focus higher.

Casual conversation throughout the day touched often on Beth's generosity. It was rare that they lived in luxury, usually quite the opposite. Quinn was most enthusiastic in his talk of her, the others less so since they'd never met her. He promised to rectify that at the soonest possible time . . . after tonight. By the time they finished unpacking, the picket was all but forgotten and Rembrandt and Maggie were beginning to develop a hatred for a certain band that would be playing on the boardwalk that night and especially a certain blonde-haired lead singer. If they never heard another word about her, it would be too soon.

Fortunately, Quinn's pass awaited him at the front desk. Maggie and Rembrandt ushered him out the door with promises to catch up with him later -- promises they had no intention of keeping. Rembrandt, for one, wanted to track down Marco. As often as Quinn's thoughts turned to Beth, Rembrandt's turned to Marco and his revelation that he knew where Wade was. The rest of the conversation nagged at him, but couldn't gain any real attention given its implausibility. He still hadn't mentioned any of it to the others. No sense in raising their hopes.

No sooner was Quinn gone than Maggie suggested that Rembrandt go off and do whatever it is he wanted to do. With a curt reminder of her rank and career on her home world, Maggie assured him she'd be okay by herself and stood there with her arms crossed until he left.

****

As it turned out, the passes were a redundancy. Beth awaited Quinn at the stage door. Her hair hung loose; she was otherwise undressed for the show.

"You made it." She slipped an arm through his. "You are ever so late. The band goes on soon and I do want you to meet the girls first." Leaning close to him, she whispered, "They won't be quite so presentable afterwards," and lead him backstage. If she noticed that Wade wasn't there, she didn't say anything.

The backstage area was a mess of battered furniture, music and sound equipment in various stages of repair and assorted garbage. The place had a dank, musty smell despite the open doors. A cat had made its home in one corner nursing a litter of kittens. Quinn couldn't help but wonder if the place also had a family or two of rats.

One wall was lined with a long dressing table, its surface covered in makeup and lingerie. Taped across a huge expanse of the mirror was the Right-to-Life newsletter. Several of the photos were outlined in thick black marker. Beth followed his gaze as he tried to work out why she'd display something so morbid. "Those are our conquests," she stated. "The ones in black are mine."

"Your conquests?"

"Every band needs groupies. Ours are *never* disappointed." She winked broadly at him then, and Quinn breathed a sigh of relief. She was teasing. The mirror was probably broken, or maybe she was a member of the Lifers. He didn't think he'd seen her at the rally today, but the crowd had been quite large.

The broken mirror theory soon went out the window. The pages weren't taped together evenly, and a short-haired red-head sat on the table, using the mirror that peeked through to aid in applying more kohl to her already heavily made-up eyes.

She swung around when Beth and Quinn entered, the kohl pencil forgotten. In a graceful movement that bespoke years of dance training, she rose and closed the distance to them. "Beth," she acknowledged. "You're late."

"I had good reason," Beth replied, leaning into Quinn.

The red-head noticed Quinn then, as though she had been granted permission to do so. A cursory sweep with her eyes ended in a slow circuit of him, all the while clicking her tongue in approval. "Show off," she said to Beth, circling him again. "How ever am I to compete with this?" She traced a line with her finger from his shoulder to his stomach, touched his lips when she finished, then her own.

Quinn shifted uncomfortably.

"He's not for play," Beth admonished. "I think I'm going to hang onto this one."

The red-head stopped clicking and caught Beth's eye. Something passed between them, and the red-head turned away, her interest erased, the mood destroyed. "I'll get Maureen," she said, leaving.

"That was Carmilla," Beth explained. "She's . . . well, you'll have plenty of time to get to know her later."

"What was she talking about?" Quinn asked.

"Nothing important," Beth demurred. "Just some friendly competition between the girls and I." Her eyes darted to the mirror for an instant.

Further explanation was spared by the return of Carmilla. At her side walked Maureen, a lithe young woman who redefined the term legs'. She was dressed in a black tube that only barely covered her assets. From one hand swung a green glass wine bottle.

Beth took the wine bottle from Maureen, handling it like a valuable artifact rather than a beverage. "You'll join us in a drink, Quinn Mallory," she said.

It wasn't a question.

Chapter 6

Lurch was once again on duty at the bar, but he disappeared the moment Rembrandt entered. The bar was different tonight, more friendly. Most of the tables were occupied, a comfortable hum filled the air along with the scent of fried foods and hard liquor. As promised, Wade awaited Rembrandt. An empty glass sat in front of her and a partially shredded napkin sat on her lap. She slipped off the stool, the napkin falling to the floor, and met Rembrandt in a casual hug.

"Are you okay?" he asked, pushing her to arms' length, more glad than he could show that she appeared to be perfectly fine.

She nodded. "Where's Quinn? And Maggie?"

"Maggie's still up in the suite, I think. Quinn's out with Beth."

"You let him go? But Marco . . . ." She stopped and looked around. None of the people were paying them the least bit of attention. "Come on," she said, walking out the door.

"Where are we going?" He hurried after her.

"To find Marco."

"Now slow down." He grabbed her arm, pulled her to a stop beside him. They stood just outside the hotel door, away from prying eyes but still enough distance from the noise of the boardwalk to talk. "Marco gave me the warning but, girl, there's something wrong with his head. He was babbling all kinds of nonsense."

"What else did he tell you?"

He related the conversation to the best of his memory, once again mispronouncing Vyrkolakas'. Wade stood with growing sympathy in her eyes as she placed herself in his shoes. It was also no wonder Marco had made such a lousy Hunter.

"Okay, Remmy," she said at last, tone as soft as she could make it. "I can see why you wouldn't believe him. It wasn't much different for me, except that I had a better teacher. The Professor."

It took him a second. "You met this world's Professor? Here? What's he like?"

"A lot like ours. Too intelligent for his own good. Pompous. Always the skeptic. But there're different things to be skeptical about on this world. You know this Arturo doesn't believe in not believing in vampires." She grinned up at him.

"Doesn't believe . . . You saying there's vampires on this world? Now you're talking nonsense."

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too. But it's true. And that," she started walking again, "is why we have to find Marco."

****

You'll join us in a drink, Quinn Mallory.

The words echoed through his mind, the tone and cadence setting off internal alarms that made him cringe. He'd fallen for Beth hard; hadn't thought to question anything about her. It was almost like she'd bespelled him. Maybe she had. He couldn't explain his sudden enamoration any other way.

But now, with a little distance, he wondered what had happened. Beth's beauty was unquestionable, but there was also an ugly side to her of which he only caught the barest glimpses. He wouldn't have recognised them at all if he'd been a normal kind of guy. Someone without his experiences.

She'd presented him with that wine bottle and extended an invitation that wasn't mean to be rejected, and he froze. Everything else she'd said, all the coy looks and the double meanings, all the things he'd seen that didn't quite make sense, snapped into focus. He saw the way Carmilla and Maureen were looking at him, with respective expressions of smug self-satisfaction and schooled boredom. He saw a light in Beth's eyes that didn't look friendly; saw the bunching of her muscles and a slight shift of posture that gave the impression of a cat getting ready to pounce.

He saw the newspaper taped across the mirror. Just some friendly competition between the girls and I. She had said, as though talking about a game of pick-up basketball.

Friendly competition to do what? he asked himself. Those people were all dead.

The green glass glinted in the back-stage lighting. He reached for it, raised the bottle to his lips and carefully blocked the opening with his tongue before tilting it back. The little he tasted was unmistakable: copper and salt. Blood, thinned with something that also covered the smell. He fought down a wave of revulsion.

Lowering the bottle, he tried to smile and wasn't at all sure if he succeeded. The three women fell on him, caught him up in something like a group hug that included kisses and hearty congratulations.

"A beautiful start to a beautiful night," Beth proclaimed, wrapping her arms around him again. "You'll like the night."

"Beth, we have to go on now," Carmilla interrupted, drawing away first.

"Oh, very well," Beth answered. She peeled herself off Quinn. "You'll want to go back to my suite," she said, looking right into his eyes. "Wait for us to come get you. Take a nap or something." She gave him a push in the direction of the exit, turned and headed onto stage without any other good-bye. Carmilla followed, stooping to retrieve a guitar from the floor as she went.

Maureen lingered until they were out of sight, then pulled herself up to whisper in his ear. "I saw. Don't let her know you didn't drink." She nodded once, as though confirming something to herself, then slipped away.

Having nothing better to do, Quinn poked around the backstage area for a bit, finding nothing more than the expected. The bottle of blood had disappeared with the girls. The newspaper on the mirror revealed nothing he didn't already know. Whatever other secrets they were hiding, the answers wouldn't be found here.

He glanced once at the cat, saw that it had fallen asleep, and decided not to disturb her. On-stage, he heard the band start up into the same raucous number that last night seemed exciting and this night seemed only loud.

*You'll join us in a drink, Quinn Mallory.*

Her words followed him all the way back to the hotel. With each step Beth's hold on him decreased and he saw her ugly side more clearly. Those otherwise innocuous words took on sinister proportions with abundant hidden meanings. The distance allowed perspective, but it wasn't perspective he particularly wanted. Especially because he now felt compelled to explain her, and he couldn't.

At least, not in a way he was willing to believe.

****

They found Marco on the beach, barefoot. He stood facing the ocean, arms clasped behind his back. Waves washed up around his feet, soaking the legs of his uniform.

"She hunts tonight," he said, voice muffled by the roar of the ocean. "First blood must be drawn."

Wade stopped a few paces behind him, restraining Rembrandt from continuing forward with a hand on his arm.

"Where's Quinn?" she asked.

A long moment passed before Marco answered, causing Wade to wonder if he'd heard the question.

"Her blood flows in his veins now as it flows in mine," came the response at last.

"She turned him into a vampire," Wade translated for Rembrandt.

Rembrandt didn't look quite ready to believe, but he didn't argue. His mind was still reeling from everything he'd learned in the last fifteen minutes.

The sounds of the boardwalk drifted over them, carrying the first tentative notes of Beth's band.

"The music begins." Marco's words sounded strangled, as though it took great effort to make them. He turned to Wade and Rembrandt, the residual light from the boardwalk and moon creating strange shadows on his face. Not a human face. His eyes glowed with a silver luminance, his features cut harsh lines. "When the music stops," he lisped around incisors now too large for his mouth, "she hunts."

"Where does Beth hunt?"

"Anywhere. The beach. The boardwalk. Usually the hotels." He shook his head in frustration. "I can't tell you more. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Marco." She approached him slowly. "I think I know where she'll hunt tonight." She had something in her hand now that caught the light as her arms swung. Marco's face grew beatific when he saw it. "You can go now." She placed one hand on his shoulder and swung the other upwards in a sharp arc. It ended in resistance. Marco convulsed; fell to his knees, then flat on his face into the sand. Waves washed against his body until it disintegrated to ash, then transported the ash to sea.

Wade observed the whole process, a matter of only a few minutes. She turned and walked back to Rembrandt who had also watched the process and now was stuck trying to believe what he'd seen.

"He really was a vampire?"

Wade nodded.

"What did you do to him?"

"Put a railroad spike through his heart," she answered. She was staring down at her hands.

"I thought it had to be a wooden stake or garlic or holy water or something like that."

"Only in fiction. They're not demons." She glanced back at the place Marco's body had fallen, now indistinguishable from any other portion of the beach. "They're just different," she whispered.

Rembrandt contemplated that a moment. "You did what you had to do," he said, pulling her close.

Wade accepted the hug because it was the only thing that allowed her to stay standing. Her knees shook, legs felt as substantial as the music, and her heart fluttered out of control. She was looking at herself from a distance and the person she saw had blood on her hands. She'd killed. Not in self-defense or the defense of others. She'd just walked up to Marco and killed him. Cold blood. True, that was what he wanted, but . . .

She responded to something Rembrandt said without hearing it.

His arm tightened around her. "Where's Beth hunting tonight?" he asked, the words seeming to come from his mouth so slowly as to be unrelated to one another.

"I don't know," she said, sure that she was repeating herself. "I lied." Chapter 7

"Maggie, you're still here?"

Maggie looked up from the magazine she wasn't reading with an annoyed scowl. "What did you expect?"

Quinn closed the suite door behind him and looked around the main room, as though expecting to find the others hiding in the corners. "I dunno. Thought maybe you and Remmy would do something."

"Rembrandt had his own plans," she said, setting the magazine aside. "He didn't tell me what they were. You're back early."

"Yeah." He retrieved a small container of orange juice from the bar refrigerator and downed it without taking a breath. Anything to wash the taste of blood out of his mouth. It worked, but he remembered with a sigh that he didn't like orange juice.

"She decide she didn't like you after all?" Her tone was joking, but Quinn could read something more serious beneath it.

In search of something to wash the taste of the juice from his mouth, he selected a beer, discarded it, and settled on a bottle of Evian, bringing a second with him as he joined Maggie on the couch. "Just the opposite, I think," he said, handing Maggie the other bottle.

"What do you mean?"

Quinn looked around the room and noted how different it was from the rest of the hotel. The decor had been toned down to something almost tasteful. Mirrors covered one entire wall and a glass door leading to a balcony covered another. The furniture was sparse but comfortable. The place looked like a display case and felt like an aquarium. "I think she wants me to stay with her forever."

"You care to be more specific?"

"I'm not sure I can be," he answered. "Still haven't figured it all out."

Maggie sipped the water and settled back, giving Quinn some time to get his thoughts in order. "Should I guess?" she asked when the silence grew too long.

"We've been to so many worlds," he said, "some of them nearly identical to home and others as different as imaginable. This world has aspects of both."

"You figured all that out in one day?" she asked him sarcastically.

He cocked his head in response to her tone. "This world," he continued. "I haven't been myself since we got here. Then we met Beth and she did something to me --"

"Testosterone?"

"That too," he agreed with a slight blush. "But, I know I've been . . . single-minded."

"You're *usually* single-minded, Quinn." She stood up and walked over to the glass door. "But normally it's about getting us safely off the world. This time, it was like you forgot we existed."

"I think I did. For the first time, you, Remmy . . . even Wade, meant nothing to me." He stood up too and started pacing, the unopened water bottle still clenched in his hand. "I mean, you were there and I could see you and talk to you, but all I could think about was Beth."

"So what changed?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," he answered.

"Let me know when you do," Maggie replied, "because Wade is still missing."

"There's been no word on her?" Quinn asked, somewhat surprised. He couldn't figure why she'd been kidnapped in the first place. His memories of the last twenty-four hours were vague, but it still struck him that Wade hadn't been a random target. There should at least be a ransom note or something by now.

"I think Rembrandt might know something. But we didn't get much chance to talk today, what with us all sleeping late, spending the afternoon shopping, and you skipping out on us as soon as we returned . . . ."

"Sorry about that."

"Uh-huh. Listen, I think I'm going to go outside for a bit." She wasn't ready yet to mention how worried about him she'd been, especially when he'd gone off that evening to meet with a virtual stranger. She worried about Wade too, despite not being on the best of terms with her.

"Are you okay?" Quinn came up behind her and stood close enough that she could feel his body heat.

"It just occurred to me how little I've had to do with this slide."

"I'd rather be bored than caught up in a life-threatening adventure," Quinn countered.

"Not me," Maggie said. Her reflection in the door grimaced. "All my training would go to waste. Yet here we are and all the exciting stuff is happening to you guys."

"Believe me. I'd trade places with you if I could." He retreated; his reflection grew larger then faded to nothingness. "You want something to eat?" The refrigerator door opened and shut again, followed by the crinkle of a plastic wrapped food-item being opened.

"Maybe when I come back in," Maggie replied. She opened the door and stepped outside.

****

Maggie stood on the balcony, hands resting on the railing, looking out over the beach. She couldn't hear the waves crashing over the volume of the band, but she could well imagine it.

She let their relentless assault batter at her personal defenses the way it battered at the beach. Despite the visage she showed the others, she was anything but an emotional rock. They mourned the loss of their Professor; she mourned the loss of everything she'd ever held dear. First her husband died, then her world. She was betrayed at the deepest level by Colonel Rickman, a man she'd once positioned on a very high pedestal. In pursuit of vengeance for that betrayal, she abandoned the last vestiges of her former life: not once, but twice.

There wasn't a single person in existence who could understand what she'd done. Or why. Even the other Sliders knew only a sliver of the truth, and comprehended even less.

She traveled with them, but she wasn't one of them -- and sometimes that truth hurt more than anything. But she couldn't let them see it. Trust was slow to develop in the best of times, and her ability to trust had all but died with her world.

In his own way, even the precious Professor was to blame. If he hadn't died, she wouldn't be taking his place. Maggie had no doubts that she'd be much more welcome if she'd been an addition rather than a substitution. And if he hadn't died, she'd probably not be sliding.

Quinn was pretty much oblivious to the group tensions; he had enough to worry about. He was the kind who made everyone else's problems his own, then couldn't understand why he always carried the world on his shoulders. Rembrandt was fairly neutral towards the whole thing, his loyalty and feelings shifting with the wind. Wade was openly hostile most of the time, and reluctantly ambivalent the rest.

Now Wade was missing, presumed dead. It seemed that this town had an alarming number of people go missing each year, and they always showed up dead if that newspaper she'd seen earlier told the truth.

Inch by inch, Maggie allowed her guard down, until tears glistened in her eyes. She felt the touch of the breeze and lifted her face to catch it. Clouds streaked the sky in their own relentless assault on the moon.

She noticed that the music had changed. No longer the heavy beat, it was now a haunting, soft melody that threatened to rip the tears from her eyes.

She let it wash over her, wash away her fears and failures. Let it carry her burden, and be the companion she always wanted and never had. Let herself stop being Captain Maggie Beckett, Slider and become just a woman. It was a blissful retreat. To be allowed to wear the face she saw every morning in the mirror, rather than the face she showed the world. To let down the shields and barriers and to be someone who needed protecting instead of being the protector.

And then the music stopped.

It took long minutes for her to recognize the change.

Sooner or later, she became aware of the presence of another on the balcony. She blinked away the tears and turned.

It wasn't Quinn standing in the dim light as she'd expected, but Beth. A different Beth than she'd been lead to expect. Different too than the one she'd seen on stage. This was no doll. Nor someone hiding behind tight clothes and heavy-makeup. She was dressed for the stage still, but seemed ignorant of her body and careless of her beauty.

What are you doing here? Maggie thought it but couldn't say it. The words were right there, but their expression was totally out of reach. She struggled against this loss of control, and then found that she didn't care.

Darkness settled around the two women like a cocoon, insulated them from the rest of the world. The balcony seemed to slip out of existence, taking with it the boardwalk and the hotel suite. Quinn, Rembrandt, Wade, even Sliding: none of it existed here. Beth and Maggie were all that mattered. If she'd been able, she'd have realised that this is what Quinn had been feeling since first meeting Beth.

The two women stood in gossamer silence, feeling the seconds tick by.

Beth broke it first. With a cocky tilt to her head she asked, "Can't you hear the music?"

Maggie nodded, but couldn't coordinate her brain and mouth enough to express what she thought of it. She didn't have to: the expression on her face said more than any words. The music had touched her heart in a way that nothing recently had touched, and she never wanted it to stop.

The answer was exactly the one Beth wanted. Her face transformed, taking on severe lines and a preternatural beauty. Her eyes glowed silver, like a cat's. She smiled and Maggie understood that she should be afraid.

But even that was outside her control.

In a movement faster than the human brain can process, Beth launched herself at Maggie and tore out her throat.

Chapter 8

Quinn heard the scream.

He was in the back bedroom of the three-room suite surveying the bookshelf for something worth reading. The shelves were nearly bare; the few books appeared to be romances and erotica. Nothing he was in the mood for, and certainly nothing that would give him any hard facts about this world. Recalling that Maggie had bought an almanac earlier, he had just turned to search for it when it happened.

His head shot up; he strained his ears, but heard nothing more. The clock read 11:34 pm.

It took him almost ten seconds to identify where it came from. He counted. The interior lights reflected off the glass doors and mirrors, making it impossible to see outside; the sound seemed to come from every direction at once. He checked the hall, found only peace. If anyone else on this floor had heard the scream, there was no indication.

When he finally yanked open the sliding glass door, it was to be greeted with the sight of Beth crouched over a fallen figure.

She was bent forward, her face buried in Maggie's neck. Quinn heard a sound he could only identify later as lapping. Beth was drinking Maggie's blood.

Maggie's profile was to him, her face caught in shadow. Her body didn't move; her eyes were frozen open. One of the two bulbs that lit the porch was shattered. The other provided enough luminance to highlight the gore. The balcony was splattered in blood. A track crossed the glass as though the glass itself had been injured. And a puddle was forming beneath her, spreading out across the cement floor.

Quinn opened his mouth to call Maggie's name, and promptly had the breath slammed out of him. He hit the floor and looked up to see Maureen sitting on his chest, her hands pinning his arms to the floor.

"You can't help her now," she said. "Don't get involved."

He shook his head, still too shocked to speak.

Maggie's death scene had burned itself into his memory. It was all he could see. For one instant he'd even thought Maureen was Maggie, and he'd let himself believe he was wrong about what he thought he'd seen out there. An instant later, he realised he wasn't wrong; the situation had just spiraled completely out of control.

Maureen was speaking again, her words tight and controlled. He used them as a guide and borrowed the control, let it be the key by which he could lock down his natural responses. It worked, but not fast enough. She leaned forward, pressing her weight into his. "-- only reason I don't kill you is because she'd take it out of my hide. Do you understand?"

He caught an inhuman light in her eyes, a spark of controlled fury. No doubt that she would rip his throat out the instant it pleased her. If she was anything like Beth . . . . His lips formed the word no' even while he was still processing her words. The light flashed, her eyes narrowed. She smelled of sweat.

"To have you, she must first isolate you. I don't want you. Beth was mine first and I intend to keep it that way. In this, we are temporary allies. No more. Do you understand?"

The final piece clicked into place and he nodded. Maureen rolled off his chest and helped him to his feet, dragging him into the next room in the process. It wasn't the room he'd been in before, but the other bedroom. He noted the almanac sitting in the middle of the bed next to a jacket Maggie had been wearing when they arrived.

"You will not mention this," Maureen told him. "Beth thinks you are Vyr now. Let her. Tonight I am to take you hunting while Beth and Milla wait here for your other friends. You will come with me. But I think we will not go very far."

He nodded again, beginning to feel a bit like a dancing puppet. "Then what?" He was finding it hard to concentrate on her. Only by letting his attention shift could he keep it focused. The bed was neatly made, like Maggie always did. A remnant of her military training, perhaps. The corners were square and straight.

"Then, I think we'll figure out a solution that will benefit us both." She glared at him as if daring him to argue, then disappeared. The air that rushed in to fill her vacuum smelled of blood; he gagged on it.

Then he remembered who's blood it was and he almost threw up. He collapsed on the bed instead, grabbing Maggie's jacket like a lifeline. He'd failed again: first the Professor, now Maggie.

Why had he let her go outside alone? He knew this town had a horrendously high murder rate. He knew Beth wasn't what she seemed. He should have known that there was a connection between the two. He *should* have been able to see it. The newspaper was all the proof he needed, and he hadn't been willing to accept it. Why hadn't he been able to see it?

*What does Vyrkolakas' mean?*

*It's Greek. Translates as Vampire.*

Vampires. Why not? He snorted slightly as all the reasons for why not' flooded back into his brain. Cradling Maggie's jacket to his chest, he began to rock back and forth. Maggie died because he didn't believe in vampires. Now he was supposed to *be* one.

He was supposed to be a vampire?

And he was supposed to go out. Alone. With one who wanted him dead. While two others waited here to kill Wade and Rembrandt.

Wade.

She was still missing. She'd been kidnaped right after they met Beth. Did the vampires get to her already? If they had . . . he couldn't form a reasonable threat because he had no idea what vulnerabilities the vampires here had. Vague threats were enough. He knew he would personally kill each and every one of them if they had killed Wade as well.

Then he remembered that Maureen had said friends'. Maureen thought Wade would be returning soon. She must not know Wade was missing. But did that mean that Beth hadn't gotten around to telling her, or that Beth had nothing to do with Wade's disappearance in the first place.

In which case, where was she? And where was Rembrandt?

****

The rush of air startled Wade and Rembrandt. It was too fast, too short and from entirely the wrong direction to be natural. Wade straightened, schooling her expression into calm, but confident, disinterest despite her churning insides; and locked eyes with the woman, barely old enough to be called such, now standing opposite her.

In a lilting voice that carried a hint of mockery, the woman said, "I know what you are. Do you know what I am?" She was dressed in a black tube thing that looked too tight to ever be removed. Heavy makeup, like grease-paint, adorned her face. As did splashes of something viscous and brownish, one wide streak running up into her hairline as if she'd smeared it while brushing hair out of her face.

"Yes," Wade answered, placing her instantly as the percussionist for the band, even though only having seen her once and from a distance. She also spotted more of the brown splashes down the woman's arms, collarbone and bared shoulders. She knew what it was; she could feel similar splashes on her own body.

"Yes," Rembrandt echoed, stepping flush with Wade as though to create a barrier.

"You, too," Maureen observed. "Doesn't this get interesting."

The three were alone on the beach, isolated by their places in this town's society. The boardwalk, as Wade's limited understanding of town dynamics had it, was neutral territory. Anywhere else was fair game for both Vyr and Hunters. Drifters were few and far between, and she doubted that any would get involved even if they happened along in time. Nor could she blame them. She wouldn't want to be involved if she already weren't.

"You should know that your friend Maggie died tonight," Maureen continued.

"Why should I believe you?" Wade countered. "You're hardly the first person to tell me one of my friends had died, and he was wrong."

"You'd be talking about our mutual . . . acquaintance . . . Dr. Morgan, yes? He really does need to learn to distinguish between has happened' and might happen'. I do know the difference, and I can say it has happened." She touched the streak across her forehead and Wade felt a sinking in her stomach. "Your Quinn . . ." She stopped and eyed Wade, her lips pursed. "He is yours, is he not?"

Wade didn't answer one way or another. She was trying to second guess the direction of this conversation and to prepare herself for whatever bad news this Vyr might dish out next. The first item of bad news still hadn't sunk in, and wouldn't for some time.

"What about Quinn?" Rembrandt interrupted.

"He proved to be much more formidable than Beth knows. Now if only he'd learn to keep his hands off other people's property."

"Where is he?"

Rembrandt and Wade asked the question in unison. The ever present sea breeze picked up, driving the waves into the rocks with even more force. It smelled like it was going to rain.

"At the hotel," Maureen shouted. The wind whipped her hair around her face

"Come on," Wade said, starting off towards the hotels.

Maureen landed in front of them again.

"You don't want to do that," she chided. "Or you'll get yourselves killed too."

"What do you care?" Wade shouted back. "You kill people; that's what you do."

Maureen looked past Wade towards the waterline. Wade didn't have to turn to know what Maureen was looking at, even with the evidence long since washed away.

Seagulls squawked, the waves crashed, and audience noise drifted through it all. The night was hardly silent, but for the three of them, each remembering or pondering a different perspective of the scene on the beach, it might as well have been.

When she looked back, Wade caught an all too familiar light in her eyes. The breeze chose that moment for a temporary calm. "So do you," Maureen reminded her, words carrying over the water.

"It's not the same thing."

"Is it not? We both kill those who long for death. We both seek to weed out the bad seeds before they flower."

"I don't enjoy it!"

"No, there is that," Maureen agreed. "You'll learn to, in time. You'll *have* to learn to."

"No one *has* to learn to enjoy killing," Rembrandt interjected, anger and disbelief evident in his voice.

"You're no innocent," she said, acknowledging him fully for the first time. "How can you speak like one?"

"Because I know there's more to life than death," he answered.

She shook her head, clearly not believing him. "Youth and their roses," she added, speaking to herself. Then she focused her attention back on Wade.

"We're going to make a bargain, you and I," she said, her voice losing the conversational timbre.

Chapter 9

Beth didn't even blink when Maureen offered to take Quinn hunting. She was basking in the afterglow of her recent kill; there wasn't much she did care about right now. She was sprawled bonelessly on the couch, body bloated. Her skin looked puffy and bruised, her lips were stained and swollen. Tendrils of blood drenched hair framed her face. There was nothing beautiful about her right now.

Maureen dragged Quinn out the front door before Beth could change her mind. The mess on the balcony went unremarked upon, for which Quinn was grateful. He didn't need the graphic reminder of his failure.

They caught up with Rembrandt and Wade on the beach. Maureen set Quinn down and turned him to face her. The moon shone full on her face, lighting her still human features with an eerie glow.

"Remember what I said," she reminded him with a painful squeeze of his wrist. Her nails were digging into him and he had no choice but to agree, though he wasn't sure what he was agreeing to.

She released him then with a slight push in the direction of his friends, and took to the air. The sand where she had been standing burst upward in a miniature whirlwind, then pattered back to the ground with a sound much like rain falling.

Quinn turned to find his friends waiting a few feet away. He tried to find the words to explain what happened, couldn't, but saw by their grim expressions that they already knew. It didn't occur to him to wonder how. Wade caught him in a careless hug; Rembrandt rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. They all needed the physical reminder that they weren't alone in their hells.

"Quinn, I'm so sorry," Wade whispered in sympathy. "If I hadn't waited so long . . ."

"There's nothing you could have done. You don't know what we're dealing with. I don't know what we're dealing with."

"I know," Wade argued. "I've learned more about this world than I care to know."

"That ain't the half," chimed in Rembrandt. He was finding it hard to speak. The words that left his mouth were not the ones he meant to say, but somehow they were all he could say. If they were feeble, the others didn't say anything, or even appear to notice.

Quinn scanned the beach, but found no sign of Maureen or any of the others. "I don't like it," he said. "They k- . . . you know . . . and then they let me go without a fight. It was too easy." Too easy? His freedom had been bought with Maggie's life. He'd never forget that.

"We made a deal," Wade replied. "I hope." She couldn't remember agreeing to anything, but Quinn's appearance seemed to signify a pact of some sort. Maureen had no other reason to let him live. Which meant she had to quit this Hunter gig -- assuming it was the kind of job that one could quit -- or she'd be breaking her end of the pact. And she had no illusions about what would happen if she did break it.

"Come on," Rembrandt said, pushing them in the direction of the boardwalk. "Let's say we find someplace safe to talk."

****

Carmilla met Maureen on the balcony. The corpse was gone, but blood still drenched everything. It was beginning to dry in sticky puddles, as Maureen discovered when she accidentally stepped in one.

"He's gone," she said. She flashed a triumphant smile and looked to Carmilla for approval.

"Did you kill him?" Carmilla was standing in the shadow of one corner of the balcony, facing out into the night, but with part of her attention on the supine figure inside. Beth was no threat at the moment. She had turned on the television and was watching it with absent amusement, one hand resting on her distended stomach.

"No," Maureen said, "I made them a little deal. The Hunters shouldn't be a problem anymore."

Carmilla stared at her in shock. The youngest of Beth's Vyr daughters had never been this bold about anything. After a moment, she responded with a bright, "Good girl."

Maureen accepted the compliment with an out-of-character toss of her head. "Of course, I never actually *agreed* to anything . . . ."

"Good girl!" Carmilla repeated. She stepped from the shadows and planted a light kiss in the middle of Maureen's forehead.

"What are we going to tell Beth?" Maureen asked after several minutes of basking in the glow of approval.

"We'll tell her the Hunters got him. It is the truth."

"It is, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is." Carmilla agreed.

"But won't she want revenge?"

The two Vyrkolakas turned to observe Beth through the glass door. She had propped her feet on the armrest of the couch and looked to be asleep. She still wore an aura of danger and power that provided a different kind of beauty to those willing to look beyond her current state.

"I would think so," Carmilla said.

"It'll be like the old days." Maureen let her lips spread into a languid smile of anticipation.

****

Wade led the two remaining Sliders to Dr. Morgan's house. The backdoor was open as though their imminent return was expected. The kitchen was empty. She set the kettle on the stove and quickly found the teapot, cups, tea leaves and strainer, setting them on the table in preparation. This was going to be a long night. Again. She figured none of them would be getting much sleep.

Quinn pulled out the timer, needing concrete proof that they wouldn't be stuck here forever. The number display didn't offer much hope. It showed they'd been on this world for just over 29 hours. They still had a full three weeks remaining. "It's only been a day?" he asked in exasperation.

Rembrandt nodded. "Feels like much longer, I know."

"Probably feels so long because we *weren't* having fun," Wade added, trying to release some of the tension with a little humor. It fell flat.

"Miss Welles? Is that you?" The voice came from down the hall, followed by heavy footsteps. Soon Dr. Maximilian Arturo was standing in the doorway. "I thought I heard . . . ." Quinn and Rembrandt both shot around in their chairs, the legs scraping on the kitchen floor. They stared at him in disbelief. "What?" Arturo asked, staring back at them, askance.

Even Rembrandt, who already knew about the double, acted like their Professor had just walked into the room.

Wade made introductions, necessary only for the Doctor.

"The pleasure is all mine," he said, shaking hands with the Sliders.

The kettle was hissing now. Arturo retrieved it from the burner and poured the boiling water into the pot. "Tell me," he said, "Did we win?"

Wade stared around at the group, her gaze traveling slowly from Quinn to Rembrandt to Arturo and back to Quinn. Not too long ago, the four of them in one room would have been a success, would have meant that all would be well for a little while longer. Taking a deep breath, she dropped her eyes to the table, unable to meet the others' gaze for fear of breaking into tears.

"No," she said softly. "We didn't."

END