"Dad, this is third time this year," announced an irate female voice. "It's not good for Danny for you to keep pulling him out of school."

"Ah, come on, Jazz," the boy in question called from across the hotel room. "It's not like I'm behind on my homework."

Jazz harrumphed and turned to face her brother. "That's not the point. You're missing out on a critical point in your social development."

Danny rolled his eyes at his would-be psychiatrist of a sister. She was convinced that she knew better than everyone else. Unfortunately, she was nearly always right, as well.

"Now, Jazz," their father said patronizingly. "Getting invited to the Paranormal Society's annual Ghost Hunters' Convention is a once in a lifetime opportunity."

"You mean once a year…" Jazz muttered, but Jack continued as though she hadn't spoken.

Danny didn't pay much attention, choosing to stare out the glass door that led to the balcony instead. Somewhere out there was a dark mass of land where he had learned the true meaning of the word "nightmare". Although, logically, he couldn't see it from here, his brain had convinced him that he could. There was the beach, with its wrecked Spanish galleon, where he thought he had lost his family for good. Beyond that, the walls of the Carnate Institute for the Alienated, where he had faced the creator of that nightmare. He repressed a shudder and turned his attention to the interior of the room.

It was a decent enough suite the Society had boarded them in, even if it did smell like moth balls. Two rooms, three beds, cable, Pay-per-View…and best of all, no Lancer or Dash for a whole two days.

"All right, kids," said Maddie as she finished whatever she had been doing. "Hurry up and get dressed so we can make it to dinner."

The two kids went back to their room, and Danny let Jazz have the bathroom first. He had a very uneasy feeling here, almost as though his ghost sense was going off, even though it wasn't. He wandered around the room for a bit and found himself staring out at the Atlantic again. With a sigh, he turned and threw himself onto the bed. It was just that place; it was too close for comfort. But it wasn't as though Silver could escape…

Could she?

The convention hall was easily the largest Danny had ever seen, and it was populated by all manner of self-titled spirit mediums. There was a time when he had not believed in psychic abilities, but he seen first hand that they were real. Silver had been psychic. He cowered slightly, worried that at any moment someone would notice that he was half ghost.

Jazz patted his shoulder comfortingly and whispered, "Relax. These people are all charlatans."

"But what if they're not?" he whispered back. He jumped as their conversation was boisterously interrupted.

"You must be the Fentons!" announced a man who appeared to be in his late fifties. He held out his hand as he approached, and Jack shook it.

"Yep!" he answered happily. "I'm Jack; this is my wife, Maddie."

"Nice to meet you," she said a bit more sedately than her husband.

"And this is Jazz and Danny," Jack went on, indicating his children in turn.

"Edward Johnson," the man introduced himself. "Call me Ed."

"Oh, you run the Society!" Maddie interjected. "Thank you so much for inviting us…"

Danny shuffled around a bit then, with a glance at Jazz, slowly wandered off. He glanced in mild interest at the varying styles. It was a fascinating sight, even for someone who didn't really care about clothes. The fashions ranged from normal suits and ties to formalwear from other countries. Then, there were the mediums, who to a one of them, dressed as flamboyantly as possible. A few of them eyed him suspiciously as he meandered nervously past, but no one challenged him. Maybe Jazz was right…

A flash of white caught his eye. Back home, it had been several nerve-wracking days before he stopped seeing that out of the corner of his eye. Its presence now, in this proximity to that hated place, brought back his terrified reaction. He turned quickly to catch it again, but it was only someone's outfit. He jerked around again as a second flash crossed the corner of his eyes; his breath caught as he heard a clattering noise that proved to belong to someone's jewelry.

He glanced around to see that Jazz had wandered off as well, then decided to get out of the crowd. Things had just started to become normal again, and now this. Next thing, he'd start hallucinating again. A secluded corner by a window finally provided respite from the psychosomatic sightings. He shifted his gaze from the ocean to the street below.

There was a rottweiler down there, barking frantically at something. A bum ambled by behind it, and it didn't even turn. Apparently, something had it pretty spooked. Danny raised his eyes and gasped. He turned quickly, but there was nothing behind him. His eyes flitted around frantically, looking for the woman in a white dress and chains, not caring that people were giving him strange looks. With an apprehensive sigh that might have been part whine, he turned back to the window.

For just a split second, she was there, her icy eyes boring into his own. He cried out and stumbled backwards, then turned and fled. It wasn't real; it couldn't be! Silver couldn't possibly be here. There was no way off the island.

Unless his parents were right, and it had just been a dream caused by evil ghost energy. Danny had been somewhat skeptical of that until Jazz pointed out that being half ghost probably made him sensitive to such things.

But she had been there…on the beach…next to the wrecked ship…

It was a good, reasonable excuse his family had provided, but he couldn't believe it. Even if they had only been trapped on the island for a few hours, even if it had been a dream, Silver was a real person.

He sank onto a chair in the mostly empty lobby and dropped his head into his hands. Someone asked if he was okay; he waved the person off, not paying much attention. If Silver was here, she had found some way off the island. Danny found himself praying it was only a hallucination.

"Danny?" Jazz asked, having seen him tear across the room. "Are you okay?"

He looked up, and for just a moment, he saw a silver metal creature with knives for arms and legs standing behind his sister. He managed to restrain the impulse the shove her out of the way and start blasting at it and shook his head. "I keep seeing Silver," he said quietly.

Jazz sat next to him and covered his hand with one of hers. "Danny, Silver wasn't re-"

"Yes, she was!" he interrupted her more forcefully than he meant to. In a quieter tone, he went on. "I thought it was over when we got away, but ever since we got here, I've been seeing her."

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?"

Danny paused, confused, until he realized what she was asking. "No, not here as in Baltimore," he clarified. "Here as in this room. I keep seeing something white running around the edges of my vision, and I saw her reflection in that window. Twice." He didn't mention that the second time, her reflection had overlapped his. He shook his head. "Then, she was standing behind you, just now."

Jazz went quiet for a long time. Finally, she asked, "Are you seeing her right now?" When he shook his head, she gave him a dubious look, but didn't press the issue. "Some bad stuff happened here, five years ago. It was just like what happened on Carnate, and I think Dad said it was about the same time. Maybe it's just the negative ghost energy affecting you again."

He nodded without speaking, his eyes on the silver metal slayer that stood by the elevators. It was a good reason for the hallucinations, if that was all they were. But he knew better.

As the evening wore on, he managed to more or less ignore the images that appeared both before his eyes and in his mind. When dinner was served, he couldn't bring himself to ignore what was on his plate, and begged off eating. His parents exchanged concerned glances, and he spent the better part of twenty minutes trying to convince them that he simply wasn't hungry. It wasn't hard to do considering that the sight of a still-beating heart had caused him to completely lose his appetite.

He finally managed to talk his way into being allowed to go back to his room. As soon as the elevator doors closed, he felt more at ease. Back in his room, he flipped on the TV and threw himself onto his bed. It had been a very trying two hours, to say the least. He was just starting to relax when the phone rang, and startled him into a yelp. "Hello?" he all but demanded.

"Hi, sweetie," his mom's voice came through. "Are you feeling any better?"

"A little," he answered vaguely.

"Good enough to go on a ghost tour with us?"

"Uh…pass…" The last thing he wanted to do on this vacation was hunt ghosts. He got enough of that at home.

Maddie sounded a bit disappointed. "Well, Jazz is coming, but if you really don't want to..." she paused for a moment as though hoping he would change his mind, then sighed. "We'll be back in an hour or two. Don't wait up."

"Sure, Mom. Bye."

He hung up and lay back against the headboard. Although he wasn't actually intending to fall asleep, the sudden stop of the nonstop visions had left him more exhausted than he realized. He didn't even notice when the world went away.

He ran down an endless corridor, neither knowing nor caring how he had come to be there. Behind him, a pack of slavering, human-faced dogs bayed out their lust for his blood. Behind them, a large man with an old fashioned rifle followed at a more leisurely pace.

"My prey can never elude me for long," the man called out in a southern drawl that reminded him of old cowboy movies. "They try to run, but my hounds are relentless. Once they catch a scent, they'll follow it to the ends of the earth."

He glanced back and gave a panicked whine to see that his pursuers were getting closer. He looked forward, and cried out in fear to see the chained woman in his way with two of the gun monsters known as marksmen standing to either side of her. He dropped to the ground, certain that this was the end of him as the creatures took aim and began firing. After a few moments, he looked up to see that they were aiming past him and turned slightly to see the hounds lying in various pieces.

The man stood behind them still, but his rifle was now aimed at Silver. "You'd best not to interfere with me, miss. I have no quarrel with you."

"Oh, no?" Silver asked lightly. "Well, I have one with you, pendejo. The ghost boy is mine." Her eyes flicked down to meet his and she smiled brightly. "Wake up, niño."

Danny tried to stumble to his feet and only succeeded in falling to the floor, where he lay in a heap for several minutes. The initial fear reaction subsided to reveal the deeper, and thankfully fleeting, hatred. Silver had taught him what it meant to truly hate a thing, and that friendly smile had brought it all back.

A game, she had called it as she showed him image after image of his family being tortured and killed in the most horrible ways. A game, she said with that same bright smile, as though it was nothing more than harmless fun. He clenched his fists as the desire to throttle her returned full force.

A male voice caught his attention. He disentangled himself and jumped to his feet, but it was only a newscaster on television. He laughed a little at himself and sat down, not really paying much attention until he realized what the story was. Monsters, mayhem, ghost sightings…his breath caught in his throat. The image they displayed showed a slayer chasing some people while the police tried to shoot it. He recognized those people; he had seen them at the convention…

"Mom and Dad!" he yelled. He jumped into the air at the same time he switched to ghost mode and fled the room. Silver really was here.