Alain and George stood by the cliff face, staring up. "You're sure he's gonna come down here," George asked.

"He's near the edge, right above us. If he's going to jump off, this is as good a place as any."

George was carrying the Uzi again. They hadn't slept on the second ring, only taking an hour and change to get some food and let their muscles rest. They needed to sleep, or at least George did, but they weren't going to be caught napping when Kurt came down with Vinnie.

They continued to stare up expectantly as Alain extended his senses upward, keeping a lock on Kurt's heartbeat that served as their homing beacon.

"He's moving," Alain said. "He's coming down."

"Where," George asked, peering up at the empty sky.

"Right here."

---

Kurt lay on his back as he fell, staring up at the edge of the cliff, waiting for Vinnie to notice that he was gone and come leaping after him, but there was no Vinnie so far. Whatever he was doing was taking a while.

Kurt tried to will himself to relax, but he couldn't. Until he was out of this place, until he was safe at home in his apartment with a shotgun under the bed and a stake under his pillow he wasn't going to be able to relax, constantly looking over his shoulder, waiting for Vinnie to catch up with him.

It wasn't until he was so far from the top that he wouldn't be able to spot the speck of Vinnie diving after him that he dared to look down. Below him he saw two figures looking up, waiting for him.

"Shit," he cursed. "Shit!"

Spreading his arms out to his sides he tried to angle his descent, sweeping to the right, but the fall was slow and his horizontal movement was similarly laggard, the entities under him merely walking along, tracking him as he fell. The temptation to give up, to just lay flat and fall into their arms was strong. He was tired; tired of fighting, tired of struggling, tired of being scared. But he couldn't let himself be caught now. After what he'd been through, he couldn't let it all have been in vain. Twisting, he steered himself into a standing position, falling feet-first toward the ring's floor, his knees bent, his hands clenched into fists. They wouldn't take him without a fight.

Hitting the ground he took the impact and leapt up, fists in front of him, turning to take on the welcoming party. Before he could act, one of them had their arms around him from behind, pinning his arms against his sides as his attacker whirled him around and set him down in front of the other...

"You," Kurt yelled, trying to kick out at George. "I should have known you were involved."

"Whoa, whoa," George cautioned, stepping back, his left hand up and open, the right hand pointing the Uzi in the air. "We're the good guys."

Alain let go of Kurt and stepped back. Though Kurt direly wanted to lash out and hit the guy in front of him, his previous fight with Vinnie led him to believe it might not be such a bright idea to go picking another fight until he was sure what he was getting into. "You were there... when I was pushed here..." Kurt was confused as to the exact sequence of events, but he remembered George quite clearly and the statements, albeit fuzzy, came out in an accusative tone.

Alain spoke up from behind Kurt. "If you'd listened to George and got out when he told you, you'd be a little cold, but you'd still be in New York. Without us... you'd be dead now."

Bits of pieces of the previous night came back to him. George untying him, telling him to get out. It was hazy, but he could remember that much. "What's your name," Kurt asked, turning to Alain. Alain told him, sounding it out like "Uh-lawn."

Kurt looked him over. Though not as bulky as George, the man seemed to pack a decent amount of muscle on his frame. He looked to be about Kurt's age, a few years younger than George. His black hair was short, but reasonably stylish. Not a guy you'd want to meet in dark alley, but he seemed to be trying to convey friendliness at the moment.

"And you're both vampires?"

"I am," Alain said. "George isn't." Alain looked up at the ring edge above them. "We have to get moving."

Kurt looked up too. He couldn't see Vinnie, but he knew Vinnie would be coming after him eventually. "Yeah," he said, looking back at Alain.

"George," Alain said, "you take point. I'll take flank. Kurt's in the middle."

George moved into formation, raising the Uzi and holding it at the ready. "Gotcha."

"Hold it," Kurt said, waving a hand and shaking his head as he stepped out of formation. "You guys go that way. I'll take off on my own."

"What," George asked.

"You were there when I was pushed here. Now you're here. And you," he said, turning and pointing at Alain, "are a vampire. Do the math."

"You really think you're going to be safer on your own than with us," Alain asked.

"You bet your..." Kurt was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder from behind. He turned and found himself face-to-face with Alain. "What the..." He looked back over his shoulder at where Alain had just been a split second earlier.

"I," Alain said, "am one of the less dangerous things you'll encounter in Hell." Alain pulled a pistol from his belt and placed it in Kurt's hand. "If this'll make you feel safer."

Kurt hefted the pistol, feeling its weight. "How do I know this thing is loaded?"

Alain pointed at a tree about 20 feet away. "Shoot it. Just remember to flick off the safety."

Kurt looked at the gun. He had no idea where the safety was. He'd never even fired a gun before. But he wasn't about to say so. "Just flip that with your thumb," Alain said, pointing at a small lever on the side.

"I know where the safety is," Kurt said angrily. Flipping it, he turned, took aim at the tree and fired... hitting another tree, a bit left of it, about twenty feet farther away. To add to his embarrassment, the force of the recoil took him by surprise, nearly throwing the gun out of his hand. He could tell George and Alain were trying not to laugh at him.

Kurt knew when to admit defeat. "Okay," he said, handing the gun back to Alain. "We stick together."

---

Vinnie stood facing the bar. With his left hand, he applied pressure to the back of Mick's neck, pressing Mick's face against the bar's surface. In his other hand, he held a telephone receiver.

"So what do I do now?"

The voice on the other end of the line was so scratchy it made Vinnie's ear itch. "Wait where you are. We'll send a pick-up team."

"But what about the punk?"

"He is not your concern. The pick-up team should arrive in approximately 90 minutes. Be ready to leave then."

"I wanna..."

"90 minutes," the voice said. There was a click and the line went dead.

He put down the receiver, then tightened his grip on Mick's neck and shoved him back over the bar, Mick tumbling to the floor behind it. Vinnie turned his back to the bar, leaning against it, supported on his elbows, as he looked around the room.

Lil's hacked-up body was in the chair, roughly pieced together and slowly melting back into a whole. She winked at Vinnie and wiggled her tongue, following it with a come-hither nod that was more like a convulsive jerk. Vinnie shuddered. Then again, he did have 90 minutes to kill.

"Bartender," he shouted. "You got anything stronger than beer back there?"

---

They followed the edge of the ring wall for a mile before cutting inward, making random course adjustments, trying not to give Vinnie or any other pursuers a straight path to follow. During the walk, Kurt told Alain and George the story of what had happened to him since being thrown through the portal.

The third ring was a forest of more of those VapoRub trees, but in a less precise pattern and less uniform in their sizes, VapoRub ferns and brambles providing random ground cover. Volcanos, about 150 meters high and 300 meters wide, poked up out of the forest at regular intervals, demons ringing their edges and throwing things inside, their hoots of glee mixing with the screams of the damned. Nearing one of the volcanoes, George halted. "You two stay here," he said in a quiet voice. "I'm gonna do some recon."

"George," Alain called after him, his voice quiet but harsh. It was too late, though. George was gone.

Taking shelter under a tree, Alain put his pack down. "You might as well get some sack time," he said to Kurt. "I'll stand watch."

Sitting down, setting his own pack aside, Kurt was still uneasy about falling asleep around these guys. So far they'd done nothing suspicious, but he couldn't trust them completely. Where they'd been, where they were. Normal, decent people weren't to be found in these places; not voluntarily anyway. Taking the rolled sleeping mat Alain handed him, he placed it under his head and lay down, trying to keep his eyes open and be on alert.

Within sixty seconds, he was asleep.

---

A white light pierced his eyelids, waking him. Kurt opened them slowly, finding he was laying on a street in the middle of a city. He stood up, rubbing his eyes, and looked around. The city was empty, not a single person in sight. The buildings rose up around him, most seven or eight stories tall, all in white concrete with gleaming mirrored windows. There were no signs on any of them and the bottom floors sat empty, their interiors devoid of furniture or fixtures. The trees in front of them, spaced evenly along the sidewalk were green, thankfully, but no birds sang in them, no bees buzzed around the flowers at their bases.

"Hello," Kurt shouted, his voice echoing along the corridor of buildings.

"Hello yourself," a voice said behind him.

Kurt whirled to face the owner of the voice. A hundred feet away, leaning lackadaisically against one of the buildings stood a man in a brown sports coat and slacks, sporting a white turtleneck. As he approached, Kurt could see that he was in his fifties, thinning brown hair on top of his head, and he had the beginnings of a drinker's nose, slightly bulbous.

"Where am I," Kurt asked.

"Ever heard of nowhere," the man asked, stopping a few feet away.

"Yeah."

The man put his hands in his pants pockets. "That's where you are."

Kurt made a tsk'ing sound, scrunching up his face. "Nowhere's a concept, not a place."

"Yeah," the man said, smiling. "That's what you used to think about Hell, wasn't it?"

The man pulled one hand out of his pocket and started walking toward the sidewalk, motioning for Kurt to follow him. Kurt did, watching him warily, taking a seat on the sidewalk a few feet from where the man sat down. "Everyone ends up here eventually," the man said, waving his hand around in an arc. "Some people come here a lot. Ever heard of a guy who runs everywhere but gets nowhere?"

"Uh huh."

"This is where he ends up, most times in the middle. But as soon as he realizes that he's nowhere, he knows where he is. Then he's somewhere and he's not here anymore."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Not supposed to," the man said, putting a finger on his temple. "In the mind, location is always subjective. Like Disneyland. If you're of the right mind, you really are at the 'Happiest Place On Earth.' If, on the other hand, you're a miserable son of a bitch... you're not."

"So what does that have to do with me?"

"Nothing... and everything."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The man stood, but Kurt remained seated, looking up at him. "That's the secret of eternity, Kurt. Everything is full of nothing. Nothing is full of everything."

"I don't understand."

"You're not supposed to... for now. Think about it too much and you'll just get..."

"Nowhere," Kurt said, finishing his sentence.

The man pointed at Kurt, winking. "You're catching on."

"So how do I get somewhere?"

The man reached down and put a hand on Kurt's shoulder. "Just wake up, Kurt." He began shaking him lightly. "Wake up."

---

Kurt woke to find Alain standing over him. "George hasn't come back yet," Alain said. "I'm getting worried."

Kurt sat up and rubbed his eyes as Alain backed away. "How long have I been asleep?"

"About three hours."

Despite the short rest, Kurt felt refreshed, though hungry. Standing, he threw his pack over one shoulder. "You want to go find him?"

"Yup." Alain grabbed the mat Kurt had been using as a pillow, secured it to his own pack, and put the pack on. Wordlessly, Alain started off into the trees.

"I'll stay right here in case he comes back," Kurt called after him.

Alain kept walking. "If Vinnie finds you, tell him I said hello."

If Alain was trying to scare Kurt into following along, it worked. Alain and George may have been unknown quantities, but they were benign so far. Vinnie was a malignant growth.

As they walked, Kurt slipped off his pack, opening it and digging out a handful of peanuts. "Want some," he asked Alain.

Alain put out his hand and Kurt dropped the peanuts into it, then got another handful for himself and ate them. Chewing, he reached in and pulled out one of the bottles of mineral water. He unscrewed the cap as Alain tossed a few peanuts into his mouth and chewed... something was wrong here. Kurt stopped dead in his tracks and swallowed.

"You eat," he said to Alain, accusatively.

Alain continued walking. "Of course I eat. You'd prefer I drank your blood?"

Kurt took a swig from his bottle of water and capped it, then caught up with Alain. "I just thought vampires have to drink blood."

"'Have to' is a subjective term," Alain said.

"Like 'The Happiest Place on Earth'?"

That stopped Alain dead in his tracks. He turned back and looked at Kurt with bewilderment, then shook his head and let it go. "Do you 'have to' smoke those cancer sticks in your backpack?"

"No," Kurt said as comprehension dawned on him. "You mean blood is an addiction, like cigarettes?"

"Right, only about a hundred times more intense."

"Wow," Kurt said. "I just always thought it was food... something you needed to survive."

Alain stopped and looked back at him. "It's a sort of Catholic thing. It's all about the motivation, the impurity of the act. If you needed it to survive, then there would be some excuse. If you just need it because you're addicted, because it feels good, then each time you kill for it, the act is just that much more wanton, that much more evil. It was designed that way... more evil in the world, more evil on your soul. You understand?"

Kurt nodded.

They walked on a while longer in silence, Kurt drinking another half-liter from his water bottle before putting it back in his pack, both watching for any trace of George. Alain sensed him up ahead, but his location was fuzzy.

"So," Kurt posed the question he'd been wanting to ask, "you're not addicted to blood anymore?"

"Does an alcoholic stop being addicted to alcohol? Does a smoker stop being addicted to tobacco?"

"A friend told me you never stop being a addicted to alcohol. You just stop giving into the urge to drink. You know the next drink could kill you."

"Exactly."

"But drinking blood won't kill you."

"It would kill a part of me I want to keep alive."

"What's that?"

"Whatever's left of my soul."

---

They walked a half-hour without any physical trace of George, going just on Alain's senses, when they heard a howling in the distance... then some gunfire.

"George," Alain said. They turned toward the sound, correcting their course each time a howl hit their ears. Kurt had a fleeting thought of an African-American comedian talking about how white people in horror movies get killed because they go toward the sounds of people getting murdered. He considered that this might be a perfect time to take off on his own, but he didn't want to find the source of the howl alone.

When the howling seemed fairly close, they saw George come running at them, dodging around trees. "Run," he shouted, speeding toward them. Kurt looked at Alain quizzically, but Alain kept looking in George's direction as he came closer. The howl resounded again and Kurt looked back at George, seeing the source of the howling break out of the cover of the trees, following a few yards behind him.

It was a dog... sort of. It had the body of a dog, but three heads bounced in front of it, extending off of a large neck and a broad body. At its shoulder it was as tall as Kurt's navel and the tail behind it seemed to be scaly.

"Run," George shouted again.

Twice was enough for Kurt, who turned and started running back the way he'd come, looking back to see Alain, George, and the dog hot on his heels. Alain caught up with him quickly, placing a hand on his pack, pushing him forward as the beast howled behind them.

At first the push helped speed him up, but as the dog seemed to gain on them, George catching up and passing them, Alain's push became stronger, more urgent. Unfortunately, Kurt couldn't run any faster and the push overbalanced him, sending him stumbling forward, turning as he fell. He hit the ground and skidded stomach-first into a tree, stopping abruptly as his body wrapped around the trunk and the air whuffed out of him. He scrambled, turning to get up, and came face to face to face to face with the dog.

Less than a foot away, all six eyes stared balefully at him, all six ears laying flat back against the heads, the three mouths turned up in snarls, low growls issuing from the wide throat. "Heh-heh," Kurt laughed nervously. The dog wasn't advancing, wasn't snapping, but Kurt expected it to come soon.

Don't show fear, he thought, trying to remember everything he knew about dogs. It's probably as scared of you as you are of it... Yeah, right... Don't look it in the eyes. That's an aggressive behavior. Show it that you're not a threat, but a friend. Slowly, doing his best not to make any sudden moves, Kurt began shrugging off the backpack. He couldn't even look to see if Alain and George had stopped. He wasn't going to look the dog in the eyes, but he didn't want to turn his head either.

As the pack fell to the ground, the dog growled, one of the heads emitting a quick bark. Kurt froze, letting things settle and then slowly pulled the backpack around. As he got the backpack onto his lap, one of the heads closed its lips, cocking its head curiously, though the ears remained set flat against its head. "Good boy," quietly, trying to sound reassuring as he got the pack in front of him, beginning to open the zipper. The sound of the zipper made the curious head snarl again, but it didn't attack.

So gradually, as if he was pulling it across one tooth at a time, Kurt opened the pack halfway. He reached in, taking painstaking care not to move too quickly, and took hold of the bag of peanuts inside, pulling it out. "See," he said as the bag crested the opening, causing all three heads to growl in unison. "Yum-yums."

He got the bag out and moved his hand forward, half closing his eyes, waiting for one of the heads to bite it, but they didn't and he turned the bag over, spilling the peanuts onto the ground.

One of the heads lunged forward and Kurt dropped the bag, jerking his hand back, holding it against his chest as he closed his eyes and cringed in terror. He heard some snarling sounds, then the crunching noises of the peanuts being eaten, and then felt the breath of one of the heads against his face as he heard the three heads sniff at various parts of his body. Its breath smelled awful, like rotten meat with a slight under-scent of peanuts. Kurt waited for the bite, feeling the breath of the other two heads arrive at his face, one on each cheek. They had his head surrounded on three sides and he pressed his head back against the tree, expecting at any moment that each mouth would begin tearing at his face.

Three tongues licked his face in unison. Slowly, he opened his eyes. The head in front of him was licking him, its ears no longer flat against its head, but relaxed. Kurt reached up and tentatively patted it. It responded by licking him again.

"Looks like you've made a new friend," he heard Alain's voice say, approaching.

All three heads snapped around in Alain's direction, growling. "No," Kurt said, scratching the middle head. "Friend. Friend."

The middle head looked at him as the other two continued to growl. "Friend," Kurt repeated. The other two heads stopped growling and looked at him, cocking questioningly. Kurt stopped scratching the middle head and reached out with both hands to scratch the other heads. The eyes on the two heads closed and the mouths opened, the tongues shaking as the heads panted happily and the snake-like tail wagged.

When Kurt had played with friends' dogs, he'd said stupid things to them like "you're a good dog, yes," or "what a big puppy," talking in baby talk and patronizing tones. With this monster, as dog-like as it acted, none of that felt appropriate. "Good boy," he said, his tone as normal as if he'd been saying it to Alain. The dog responded, though, the middle head nuzzling his chest as he scratched the other two.

In the distance a high pitched whistle blew. All three heads snapped up, looking in its direction, then looked at Kurt, low whines escaping their mouths. "It's okay," Kurt said, nodding his head in approval. "Go."

The left head darted in, licking his cheek, and then the animal took off running, following the repeated whistle, barking and howling like... like a beast of Hell.

Kurt let himself fall back against the tree, going limp as all the tension bled out of him. "Whoa," George said, breathing a sigh of relief. "That was a big rub on Buddha's belly. What was that thing?"

"Cerberus," Alain said, walking forward and crouching next to Kurt. "Dante's Inferno, third ring, where the gluttonous lay beneath a hail storm, of stones I believe, while Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hell barks and rips them limb from limb... You okay, Kurt?"

"Yeah," Kurt said, inhaling a deep breath and exhaling slowly. "Probably need a change of underwear, though."

"Hail," George asked.

"Yes," Alain said. "I guess it's not so far from a storm with those demons throwing rocks at them."

"They're not rocks," George said, reaching into one of the voluminous pockets on his cargo pants and pulling out a round object about the size of his fist. "I found one near the base of one of the volcanoes before that thing... E Pluribus or whatever you called it... came running down the side and started chasing me. They're heavy, but they're not rocks."

He handed the object to Alain who stood and inspected it, sniffing it then breaking it apart and sniffing inside. "Hah," Alain said, chuckling. "Stale dinner rolls." He tossed a half to Kurt so he could inspect it. "Makes sense."

---

Reaching the edge without further events, having taken a few hours to let Alain and George get some sleep, Kurt looked back at the volcanoes, hearing Cerberus howling and barking again as he ran from one to another. He wondered how much real dog was in that beast, whether there really was a "good boy" under all that snarl and scales. It was a futile thought however. He would probably never know and continued wondering would get him nowhere. Not wanting to go nowhere again, he jumped.