On the Vernal equinox, shortly before the boy's fifth birthday, his mother took him to a place they'd never been before. The boy squirmed with curiosity, trying to pull out of his mother's firm grasp and explore, but she didn't share his interest. This area was nothing like their neighborhood with its brownstones snugged up against one another like a secure wall surrounding a castle to keep strangers away.

This place, all dark alleys and curved archways leading down endless corridors, sent a rush of fear down to Ruta's bones. She shivered, very aware of her son's eagerness. He sniffed the air as if he could smell something tantalizing before she tugged him closer against her wool coat.

After climbing what seemed like hundreds of stone steps up to a small, dank room stacked with books, they came into the presence of an old Wise One. She was hunched over her books, wearing a dress of red and blue and wrapped in purple shawls.

"I have to know…" Ruta said nervously, her fingers gripping her son's shoulder for a moment before she pushed him forward.

He was not afraid, and pride swelled inside Ruta. Her oldest son. Her little man. Unique right from the day he was born, early by a full month and with a cawl over his head. She already knew that he would be as different from the one that now grew inside her as if they'd been conceived by two other parents.

Her son lifted his chin, looking straight into the Wise One's startlingly blue eyes. Ruta watched cautiously, sensing why her son was drawn to the woman. She smelled of peppermint and cloves, and there was something marvelous in the way she smiled down at him.

The Wise One passed a tremulous hand over the child. Muttering in a low, elegant voice with her wrinkled lids closed, she nodded gravely. "He has the Gift."

It was just as the boy's mother had expected. Although she had not acquired the abilities, the Gift was strong in her family. It was just very unusual for it to show up in a boy. With a heavy heart, she agreed to the marking.

When the Wise One's apprentice brought the needle down on the child's palm, he cried out. Burying his head in his mother's generous bosom, he refused to watch the pentagram form. But Ruta couldn't look away. The silvery ink glowed against his young skin, a sigil of great portent.

As he grew, the mark all but faded. By the time he had reached adulthood, the young man could barely distinguish the pentagram from the creases and folds in his palm. Maybe it had simply merged with his lifeline, becoming one and the same thing.

Except when the power welled up inside him. Then the pentagram radiated from within, focusing his magic into a usable force.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Doesn't look like much, does it?" Hutch peered up at the dilapidated building with a frown. The dark clouds flitting across the moon made it difficult to distinguish anything out of the ordinary, and most of the street lights on this side of Main were burned out.

"Maybe some bum died in the back?" Starsky ventured up the front stairs, trying to simultaneously watch for rotted boards and possible attack. An anonymous caller had reported a dead body in the condemned apartment building where many stoned addicts often crashed. "Could be just some joker wants to get us out here on a stormy night to mess with us."

"Weird." Hutch stood to one side of the busted front door, peering in. Shadows merged into darkness, a black on black brocade embroidered with cobwebs. "It's so quiet. Usually there's half a dozen homeless people camped out in the buildings around here."

"Creepy is more the word." Starsky shivered. Neither of them had pulled their weapons yet, but he wanted to. His left hand pricked, and he wiggled his fingers to relieve the pins and needles sensation. It had been so long since he had done anything more than simple magic that it took a minute to realize why the skin on his palm was tingling. There was some elemental force inside the building that called to him.

Pushing ahead of Hutch, Starsky walked inside, guided more by his Gift than investigative process. He passed the first floor apartments, going straight up the stairs to the second floor and then the third.

"Starsk?" Hutch asked quietly, but he didn't question any further. He must have guessed that this was something more than a mundane investigation.

"This ain't right, Hutch." Starsky held up his left hand, palm extended outward and an eerie metallic gleam shone off of his palm.

"That's never happened before," Hutch said, his hair glinting in the silver light.

"Feels like I put my hand straight down on a hot iron." Starsky clenched his jaw, fighting the pain. The Gift had never hurt before. "There's some weird-ass magic going on here."

"You're the one who always said you weren't that good at much more than simple spells and incantations." Hutch stood shoulder to shoulder with Starsky.

"Thanks for that vote of confidence, Cassandra." Starsky took a deep breath. The burning was getting stronger, and he had no idea what it signified. He felt compelled to walk up to apartment 303 and lay his hand on the wooden door. Unlike many of the other apartments, this one had a sturdy door that was tightly locked.

"Cassandra foretold the future, I'm just telling it like it is," Hutch said, but there was a definite edge to the words. He was obviously feeling the strange otherworldliness of the place, too.

Starsky gasped, shuddering. There something unseeable and foreign on the other side of the door. His hand hurt so badly that it was difficult to speak. "This wood is n-new."

"Get back!" Hutch jerked Starsky away, dumping him on his butt in the dark hallway.

Starsky screamed as he lost contact with the portal, the pentagram rising out of his skin like a branded welt. The silvery light dimmed and sputtered, casting wavering shadows on the narrow hallway. He was now certain that the door was an entrance into another world, some place not here and now. He'd felt the uneasy shift in between the two worlds, like a rift. He'd been sure that if he reached far enough, right through the Hawthorn wood panel, he'd touch the stream of time itself.

"This could be a trap!" Hutch pulled his gun. "Starsk? What the hell is going on?"

Starsky panted, cradling his searing palm in his right hand. He had to—no, he was compelled to touch the door again, risk whatever was beyond the portal. This was his job, the reason he and Hutch had paired so long ago. The police department didn't like to have to acknowledge that magic existed, but faced with evil-doers, vampires and dark mages threatening the citizens of Bay City, they had had no choice. Starsky was one of the few wizards employed by the department. More often than not, the crimes he encountered were when magical forces clashed with the every day. Dead bodies with fang marks on the neck, cursed lovers and the occasional simple illusion were all that he usually had to deal with. Elementary, my dear Watson.

This door, constructed with a wood that gave psychic protection, was on a whole different level. The pentagram etched into his flesh, which wasn't even visible nine-tenths of the time, proved that.

"This isn't anything I've ever encountered before, Hutch." He took another breath to gain a certain level of control over the pain in his hand, and stood up. "This place is a threshold into somewhere else."

"Where?" Hutch touched the door with the tips of his fingers, still standing to one side in case bullets ripped through the wood. "It's just a door."

"No, it isn't." Starsky placed his hand on the door again, and suddenly, the pain level dropped dramatically when he closed his eyes and channeled into the Gift. The blood of his ancestors sang in his ears, filling him up with power. It was like being plugged into an amazing, unending source of energy that only Starsky had access to. "The wood is Hawthorn, which has magical properties—and the lock is made of pure steel."

"Most locks are, Starsk."

"Most locks aren't meant to keep out fairies and other beings from the Seelie court." Starsky exhaled, extending his senses. "Now, shut up and keep watch."

"For what? Prancing pixies?" Hutch asked, sounding frustrated.

Starsky trusted him to protect them from visible bad guys while he dealt with the paranormal. Murmuring spells learned at the Wise One's knee, spells that bent the natural world to his bidding, Starsky flexed his left hand and pushed against the door. The seemingly solid wood yielded like gelatin and his fingers reached into cool, damp air. It felt exactly the same as the here that he was presently in, and at the same time, completely different. He knew without a doubt that he had touched the future.

He thrust his arm through the door right up to the elbow.

"Starsky!" Hutch grabbed hold of his waist just as Starsky stepped through the wood.

"Hutch!" Starsky cried. There was a nauseating swoop and some sort of bounce as if they'd been whisked across an endless void, and then they were through, standing directly in front of 850 Main Street again.

"What just happened?" Hutch looked up at the front of the building. Elegant streetlights flooded the area with yellow light. The once ruined building was beautifully restored, painted a neutral beige with darker tan molding and chocolate brown Victorian style accents. A banner over the front door read "The Lofts on Main, inner city living for twenty-first century life. Condos starting at $510."

"Hutch, where's my car?" Starsky had parked the Torino at the curb, not ten feet from where he was standing now, but there was no bright red car with a wide white racing stripe anywhere nearby. Instead, several unfamiliar cars lined the curb, all styles and makes he'd never seen. A cluster of newspaper boxes stood where there had not been any only minutes before. The front page of the Bay City Chronicle had a picture of a recognizable, strong-jawed man standing before a crowd, giving a speech. Starsky stared at the date on the newspaper with astonishment.

He'd done it. What the Wise One had told him was impossible. He'd traveled through time.

"Somehow, Dorothy, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," Hutch said in a hushed tone, swiveling around to take in the quiet city block that was totally unlike the one they'd just left. "Where the hell are we?"

The former druggie flophouses were handsome apartment buildings interspersed with a few small businesses. One storefront advertised organic produce and another was some kind of café.

"I think when the hell are we is more to the point." Starsky flicked his finger at the newspaper box, using the first spell he'd every learned—how to bring an object to him. In this case, the newspaper, which jumped quite abruptly from the box into his hand. "Two thousand and eight, Hutch."

"What?" Hutch grabbed the Chronicle, the paper shaking when he tried to smooth the front page. "Starsky, we're almost thirty years in the future."

"And that actor from that Sally Field movie we saw is the governor!"

"Sybil?" Hutch scanned the newspaper as if he couldn't believe what his eyes were telling him.

"Schwarzenegger. Stay Hungry." Starsky took a slow, cleansing breath, letting out all the doubt he harbored. Magic had always been strong with him, that was something he'd never questioned. But Starsky's strength was in the small-fry stuff. This was the real thing, the big time. They'd defied psychics, and every other natural law—not to mention a few magical ones he'd learned as a child, and traveled in time. The very essence of Bay City felt different. Looked and smelled different. "Hey, no smog."

"California elected a guy who can't speak English for governor?" Hutch said out loud.

"He must have gotten a handle on the accent after twenty-eight years." Starsky stiffened, looking down the street toward the small retail section of the block. A silver-gray car was just turning the corner and heading straight for them. "Hutch, I think we've got company."

Hutch rolled the paper into a tube and tucked into his jacket pocket, standing to Starsky's left. "You're the expert here, magic man, what do you suggest?"

"You lay off sexy bedroom nicknames, cream puff, and do what we do best, investigate." Starsky closed his left hand into a loose fist, hiding the sigil in his palm. It no longer burned like fire and the thick welt had flattened out into an ordinary looking tattoo. It still tingled slightly and was far more visible than usual.

Three men got out of the silver car. They were clearly detectives, although there wasn't any outward sign to suggest that. Starsky just knew, as surely as he knew that he shared their profession. The driver had a gut like Dobey's, a thick mustache and so little hair on his head that the overhead streetlights gleamed in his bald pate. The other two were younger; a tall, skinny black man who reminded Starsky of Huggy with his tipped eyes and loose-limbed walk, and a good-looking, brown haired guy in his mid-thirties who wore two earrings in his left ear and a hearing aid. At least, Starsky thought it was a hearing aid, but the man seemed to be listening to something only he could hear and replying to that. Either the police force had started hiring schizophrenics in the future or the device was some space-aged communicator.

"You two." The beer-bellied driver approached, holding out his badge. "You the transfers that Central was sending over?"

It was a gold detective badge all right, and looked so similar to the one that Starsky carried in his pocket that he had no second thoughts about flashing his own. Hutch held his out for the benefit of the other two detectives.

"Ken Hutchinson and David Starsky," Hutch said, stuffing his wallet into the pocket of his jeans. "We're not so clear on why we were sent over specifically."

That was the understatement of the year.

"Can you bring us up to speed?" Starsky asked.

"Ain't you the so-called experts on Frank Stryker's gang?" the black man asked. "Hannibal Brown at your service." He knocked fists with his partner. "This here's my main hombre, Mike Dennehy. He's the brains and I am the style." Dennehy nodded but didn't speak.

"Joe Montenegro." The driver held out his hand and shook first Hutch's, then Starsky's.

"Hey." Starsky inclined his head, checking out the three men from his own future. Brown had to be related to Huggy. Everything about him was a carbon copy of the bartender, from his flamboyant clothing style—a shocking purple and blue striped t-shirt worn with a blue suit, to his speech. Wouldn't Huggy be stunned to find out that he had a kid who'd gone into law enforcement!

"You didn't get the fax we sent over?" Montenegro shook his head. "Typical. That fucking thing never works right. For all I know, I faxed the Stryker file to Estonia."

"Where's that?" Starsky asked out of the side of his mouth to Hutch. Hutch just shrugged.

"Nick Star is supposed to be working his way up Stryker's ladder of success." Montenegro reached inside his jacket and adjusted the fit of his shoulder holster.

"Star's new in BC, been here a couple of months," Brown explained, dropping a casual arm around Dennehy's shoulder. "But dealio is he's a purveyor of illegal pharmaceuticals from the Big Apple come to grace our fair city with his new brand of yay."

"Yay?" Hutch shook his head.

"I like to keep up with the latest," Brown boasted and his partner rolled his eyes. "AKA wacky dust, Florida snow, a Belushi cocktail, Bolivian marching powder, California corn flakes, crack—

"Coke." Starsky caught the new slang. He twirled his finger around in mock celebration. "Yay."

Montenegro lumbered up the steps that Starsky and Hutch had traversed shortly before, but the wooden risers didn't creak and there was an intercom buzzer beside the front door. "Bay City Police!" he announced when a sleepy voice answered his hail. "We're looking for Nick Star."

"At this hour?" The voice no longer sounded sleepy. The door unlatched with a discordant buzz and all five detectives trooped into the lobby.

The floor was covered with a beautiful, green-veined marble that matched the soft mint shade on the walls. Starsky had an unsettled churning in his belly from the moment they walked out of the chilly late night air. He fully expected his hand to hurt again, but the pentagram didn't even give him so much as a twinge.

"Always wanted to see what they done to this place," Brown commented. "Nice color—like mint chip ice cream. When I was coming up, my daddy had a bar 'bout two blocks over, and this street was a dive."

Hutch inhaled suddenly and met Starsky's eyes. "Huggy's kid?" he mouthed.

"Wait, stop!" A little man with stubby arms and legs came charging out of a door at the end of the lobby, holding a bathrobe together at the waist. It was more than obvious that he must have been sleeping in the nude.

"You the manager?" Montenegro said, barely concealing a crude laugh. He held his badge up above the man's head and then very deliberately lowered it to his eye level which was about even with Montenegro's belt buckle.

"You got a warrant?" the little man asked belligerently, finally succeeding in closing his robe. He put a jaunty bow in the silk tie.

"We do." Dennehy spoke for the first time, producing a folded piece of paper.

"All signed and official-like, allowing us free access to Star's crib," Brown said with a shit-eating grin.

"He hasn't been home for about a week." The manager read the document silently, his lips moving as he sounded out the legalese.

"Nobody has seen him, including us. Hasn't been to any of his usual haunts. They're always in the last place we look." Montenegro started up the staircase. "Now you going to produce a key or do I have to blow the fucking lock off with my service revolver?"

"No shooting! You'll wake up the tenants." The little man made a face and stomped back into his apartment to get the keys. "Why d'you always come at this time of night?"

"Seemed real neighborly, don't you two think?" Brown laughed, glancing at Starsky and Hutch, his eyes bright with devilment.

"Nice and legal," Hutch said evenly, the furrow between his eyebrows a deep gulley and his jaw was carved from granite.

Starsky could read the tension in his body loud and clear. Hutch was uneasy, and he felt exactly the same way. How was it that they'd responded to a tip twenty-eight years in the past to the same building, on the same night as these detectives? What was it that linked the five of them?

Dennehy scanned the row of mailboxes. "Seven condos—two to a floor, plus the little guy's on the ground floor. His name is Po."

Starsky tried not to stare when Dennehy pulled out a small rectangle device like a tricorder from Star Trek and tapped it a few times with a small wand-shaped thing. It pinged a couple of times and Starsky could just make out a screen of written information before the detective tapped it with his wand again and the words disappeared.

"Logged in all the names with LaShondra," Dennehy said to his partner.

"Hey, Po, get a move on!" Brown called out just as the dwarf came out, now wearing a pair of pants under his robe. "You didn't have to get all fly for me, player."

"This is a respectable building, leave the other tenants alone," Po said, the keys jangling in his hand.

Starsky let the other men proceed him on the stairs, hanging back a moment with Hutch. "You get the feeling we're going up to 303?"

"If we go anywhere else in this building, I'd be even more surprised." Hutch raised a blond eyebrow. "I didn't think anything could catch me off-guard after fighting vampires and shape-shifting demons with you."

"Ah, c'mon." Starsky trailed his hand across the small of Hutch's back when he passed him on the second floor landing. "They must have much weirder stuff in the twenty-first century than vampires."

"Us. We don't belong here." Hutch looked up to the third floor. They could hear Po's keys jingling as he inserted one into the lock on 303. "Stryker's empire must have grown since the late seventies. We have no idea what is going on here and we're supposed to be the experts. Right now, all that comes to mind is the forgery and dealing drugs out of the Velvet Slide."

"Yeah," Starsky said shortly. The tempest in his belly had developed into a full-blown typhoon. They'd only tangled with Stryker a few times, but one of those times was more than memorable. It had involved family. He raced up the last flight, arriving just as Po shoved the door open.

The distinctive smell hit them all like a stink bomb exploding.

"At least one body." Montenegro sniffed, drawing his gun. He stood to the left of the door, sweeping the area before stepping over the threshold, his thick mustache scrunching like a caterpillar trying to escape.

"Stay back, Po." Dennehy barred the little man from the apartment as Brown and Montenegro advanced cautiously, weapons at the ready. He tapped the hearing aid in his left ear and said, "Dispatch, we're at the location. Send CSI, we have a possible DB."

"I got a bad feeling about this," Brown said.

Starsky would have laughed at the Star Wars quote still in use so many decades after the original movie, but he had exactly the same feeling. He and Hutch drew their guns in tandem and Starsky let go Hutch inside first.

He paused long enough to run a hand over the outside of the door, feeling for runes, protective spells, anything like the door had had back in '78. There was nothing. It was not even constructed from Hawthorn, and there was no anti-fairy lock guarding the entry. Just an ordinary door.

There was a thick pool of blood in the hall leading to the bedrooms, and the smell of decomposition permeated the walls. Red splashes and splatters showed that the victim must have been shot only a few feet from his front door and had run back down the hall to the master suite.

"Arterial spray," Dennehy said, coming in last. He pointed to a wide arching of gore that looked like the tail of a comet painted in red against a blue wallpapered sky. "From the trajectory of the spray, the victim was probably shorter than you, Starsky, but not by much."

Hutch looked over at Starsky and then away, his face grim. "Nick Star? Could be . . ."

"It isn't," Starsky cut him off and stepped around a large crimson splotch on the cream colored carpet.

The body was in the back, half hidden in the closet, with his shoeless feet sticking out and his head covered by a tumble of clothing. He must have grabbed the hanging shirts and jackets just as the final bullet hit, dragging them down with him when he fell.

"Monty, wait 'til CSI gets here," Dennehy called as his superior bent down to uncover the victim's face. "Can't contaminate the scene any more than five sets of footprints already have."

Hutch caught hold of Starsky's arm. "Things are a lot different here," he said. Starsky knew was he was trying to tell him. It wasn't just the way the detectives operated that was different. If that was Nick Star—AKA Nicholas Marvin Starsky, his future self was as unknown to them as the identity of his murderer.

Starsky shook him off with an irrational snarl, anger and fear warring inside him. "So what're we supposed to do? Just wait?"

"You willing to fuck up the forensic evidence and incur the unholy wrath of DA Dobey?" Montenegro shrugged like he didn't give a shit. "Be my guest, but I ain't gonna help out." He backtracked to the living room of the apartment. "I need some air, breathing in decomp can't be healthy."

The others followed although Starsky itched to push the clothes in the closet back so he could take a good hard look at the body. Not Nick—it couldn't be. He had no idea what his younger brother would be doing twenty-eight years from 1980 but he had the sick feeling he was going to find out.

Hutch took Starsky's arm when he almost planted his foot right in the largest of the blood droplets decorating the carpet. "Be careful," Hutch whispered in his ear. "If that is Nick, we need to figure out what's going on."

It's not Nick was on Starsky's tongue, but he couldn't prove it. The feet were about the same size as his own—and therefore, Nicky's. They wore the same shoe size. Other than that, how would he know? Would he even look the same? Nick would be 58, probably paunchy like their Uncle Shlomo had been.

"Why don't you bring us up to speed on Frank Stryker while we wait?" Dennehy asked politely, intelligent eyes assessing them. He leaned against the living room wall.

Brown perched on the squared off edge of a chocolate velvet sofa, the sleeve of his blue suit just brushing Dennehy's black jeans. It could have looked causal to some, but Starsky recognized the maneuver. He'd used it himself on numerous occasions. A way to touch his partner and lover without appearing to.

"We've mostly in the….history end of things these days," Hutch said after a slight pause that proved he was selecting his words carefully. "We work cold cases, wrapping up unfinished stuff from the late '70s, back in Stryker's hey-day."

"Like we need to know that," Montenegro groused. "What's relevant here is that Nick Star has been moving Ecstasy, Roofies and God knows what else for the last month or so, and Stryker's people welcomed him into my burg like the prodigal son."

"They even pulled out a fatted pig for Star," Brown cackled. "Old Mosby got capped days after Star showed up in BC. The Golden one ended up with the lion's share of Mosby's business."

"You can prove that Star was dealing?" Hutch asked. Starsky could feel Hutch's blue eyes boring into him, teasing out the darkest shadows of his fears.

"We have a witness all ready. Ms. DA Dobey has been holed up in her chambers for days with the guy, getting all the goods," Montenegro answered. "That's the only reason we got a warrant in the first place."

Nick was dealing drugs again. Starsky swallowed down his pain, reminding himself that this wasn't his time. If he found out how Nick died in 2008, could he take that knowledge back with him to his own timeline and warn Nick? Keep him away from whatever wrong path he'd followed? He'd had little enough success with that after the whole Stryker mess in 1978; there were no guarantees that Nick would listen to any crazy talk about what could possibly happen in the future.

"Frank Stryker was indicted in 1978 on charges of forgery, drug dealing and murder of a Fed," Starsky said finally, a bitter taste in the back of his throat. "He owned a restaurant called the Velvet Slide across town from here. A Nick Starsky worked briefly with him but went back East after only a couple of days."

"To avoid gettin' caught up in all the Fed soup?" Brown asked with a wry smile.

"No doubt." Hutch glanced at Starsky but didn't say more.

Starsky didn't let himself react to Hutch's concern. Couldn't let himself.

"Stryker's been out of prison for a while now and is back to his ol'tricks," Brown added.

"Starsky, huh?" Montenegro sucked on the end of his mustache. "Any relation?"

"You could say that." Starsky shrugged as nonchalantly as possible. "Lotsa Starskys in New York."

"I'll bet." Montenegro raised his eyebrow and tugged on his wet 'stache. "I could use some coffee, this looks to be a long night. Brown?"

"No problemo, my brother. I need to stretch my legs," Brown drawled, sounding exactly like his old man. "Player, you want something?" he addressed Dennehy, standing up.

"You know what I like." Dennehy pulled out a couple of dollars.

"Mocha chocolate latte with a dash of cinnamon on top," Brown hummed to the tune of Lady Marmalade, suggestively plucking the money from his partner's hand and leaving Starsky with no question of their relationship.

"Gentlemen?" Brown looked over at Starsky and Hutch while collecting even more money from Montenegro.

How much did a couple of cups of coffee run in 2008?

"Two," Starsky ordered, praying that the cash in his pocket wouldn't raise questions. The money Brown held looked pretty much the same as 20th century greenbacks except that the five had a suspiciously pinkish tint to it. "How much you need?"

"Depends if you're a purist or want some of the more complicated caffeinated beverages," Brown said. "I, myself, enjoy a vanilla frappacino with chocolate curls on top during a stakeout, when the day is slow and the action even slower. For a high profile case on a cold night like tonight, I am leaning toward a double shot of espresso, from the organic Sumatra-Peruvian blend."

"You'll be up 'til dawn," Dennehy said dryly.

The three members of the lab crew tromped in just then, carrying far more equipment and cameras than Starsky ever remembered seeing at a crime scene in his bailiwick. Montenegro grimaced, complaining about the wait to a petite Asian girl wearing a white coverall, and led them all down the hall. Comments about the blood spatter pattern and particulate transfer filtered back in their wake.

"Whatever's the house brand," Hutch said. "Coffee is coffee, right? Starsky takes two sugars."

Brown fixed him with a disbelieving expression. "You must be one of those who boycott Starbucks out of principle," he laughed. "Four dollars for the two of you. Add a Washington, and I'll throw in a couple of those fine pumpkin muffins at less than cost."

"Deal." Starsky dug a five out of his pocket and handed it over to Brown.

"Nice ink, there, Star-sky," Brown commented, not meaning the money.

"Uh—thanks." Starsky flattened his palm, not accustomed to the pentagram being quite so visible. Usually, the sigil barely showed among the lines of his hands, like an old scar that he could feel—more like sense—when he needed the magic, but otherwise not noticeable to others.

"It looks freshly done," Hutch said in wonderment.

"You get any flak from the brass when you came on the force?" Brown asked. "Had to keep all my tats away from public view, if you catch my drift. Only certain—friends are allowed to see them."

Starsky didn't miss the slight smile on Dennehy's face, or the look of understanding in his eyes when he saw the star inside a circle etched on Starsky's hand. "You're got the Gift."

"How did you…?" Instinctively, Starsky closed his fist, protecting the outward sign of his power. He couldn't get used to people seeing the tattoo at all, much less recognizing its significance.

"My aunt, my mother and my sister." Dennehy touched his hand with one finger and Starsky loosened his clench, letting the man gently trace the circle. "Aunt Laurn was the strongest practitioner. It's much rarer in men, isn't it? I didn't get any."

"You got magic in you, believe me," Brown said. "And yo' sister didn't have no pentagram inked on her hand. She did have a nice Chinese character, of which I will not translate for those with delicate sensibilities, on the small of her back."

"Han," Dennehy said sharply and then smiled to soften the criticism. "That's my sister you're talking about. The tattoo is put on as a child and then fades."

"So why's his so shiny?" Brown leaned against his partner.

"Good question." Starsky stared down at his own hand. The marking no longer burned as it had done twenty-eight years and one hour in the past, but the way the symbol seemed to almost glow—not as brightly as it had in the dim hallway—but far brighter than any day since it was drawn into his skin was disturbing. "Something about this is…"

"Hinky," Brown finished.

"Brown, you still here?" Montenegro stomped into the living room. "I had my mouth all ready for some coffee and you're all standing around like a gaggle of fucking girls talking about Paris' latest tattoo and how many piercings you got."

"Going out the door now, boss." Brown disappeared as if he too had a bit of magic.

"Do you feel something…" Dennehy asked carefully. "This is going to sound very Star Warsian, but a disruption in the force?"

"No, Obi Wan, I don't," Starsky answered in kind, mostly serious, but giving the subject a light touch, just glad that movie references were always a common link between generations. "But the fact that Hutch and me know about Stryker—and possibly Nick Star, ain't just a coincidence."

"No, you were transferred over because you knew about this case," Montenegro grumped. "So let's get some fucking investigating going on here, ladies. Check out the computer, see if the guy had a Blackberry or a cell lying around."

"Computer's over here." Dennehy had gravitated to a small flat, black square no thicker than a couple of file folders.

"Ain't enough room in that whole desk for a comp…" Starsky started. He stopped abruptly when Hutch elbowed him in his ribs as Dennehy opened the black square to reveal a TV type monitor and a keyboard.

"I'll—uh, check out the kitchen," Starsky muttered, fascinated. Dennehy typed out some letters and boxes of information popped up on the monitor. Just like the transistor radio Starsky had owned a few years back, computers had gotten much smaller in the new century. "I'm no good with technology."

Hutch stood watching Dennehy's fingers fly over the keys, unlocking vast amounts of data far, far faster than Minnie's old machine could ever have done.

"Hutch?" Starsky encouraged.

"I'll join you," Hutch said, still looking over his shoulder when Dennehy pulled up a short movie, complete with sound. "Amazing."

"Hey!" Montenegro yelled before they could walk away. "You sporting latex?"

"Huh?" Starsky gaped at the more than personal question. The relationship he had with Hutch wasn't usually so transparent to outsiders. In this society, were gay partnerships de-rigueur?

Montenegro tossed over four rubbery gloves with a grunt. "Next time, bring your own."

"Thanks," Hutch said, deftly catching the protection and stuffing his hands into one pair.

"What are we doin' here, Hutch?" Starsky asked desperately when they'd reached the sanctity of a gleaming chrome and black kitchen. It didn't appear that Star had done any cooking in the opulent room. Vegas showgirls wearing marabou and silver lame would have looked right at home dancing on the black marble countertops. There was an fancy hand mixer, a pasta maker and a blender all lined up next to a range that was big enough for a large restaurant.

"Investigating the murder of Nick Star," Hutch said sensibly.

"But why did we come?" Starsky struggled to pull on the latex gloves before opening the fridge. There was nothing on the shining white shelves except a brand of beer he'd never heard of, Samuel Adams. He had the overwhelming desire to toss back a cold brew; anything to clear his head. This all felt completely wrong. And not just because it very well could be Nicky lying there under a bunch of expensive clothes. "Whadda we know that'll help a murder case twenty-eight years in the future?"

"I can only think that it's your link to your brother." Hutch ducked down, peering into the cabinet under the sink.

"Dennehy is right, the Gift doesn't usually hit guys." Starsky poked a finger into the ice cubes, a common place to hide diamonds, but all he got was a cold finger. "I was the—what do you call it? Not anatomy."

"Anomaly."

"Yeah. Nicky had no magic. My mom didn't have any, either, 'cept that she was sensitive. She could sense it in other people. I'd put Dennehy in that category, too." Starsky slammed the refrigerator door, seeing a dark version of himself reflected in the sleek black doors. "So, that still doesn't explain why we'd get pulled into the future to discover my bro—that body in there."

"So that you have a chance to change something in the past?" Hutch asked softly. He stood next to Starsky, gazing at their reflections, touching his partner from the shoulder all the way down to the hip.

Starsky resisted the urge to lean into Hutch. Not in public, not even in this possibly more permissive society. That was just not their way. This perfect alignment was how they reconnected without any overly demonstrative gestures. He could feel the warmth of Hutch filling him up, through the sleeves of their leather jackets and the thick fabric of their jeans. Strange how similarly they'd dressed on the long ago morning, and that the clothes of 1980 didn't look so very different than those of 2008.

"I've never heard of anyone jumping through time like this—not nearly thirty years. Even going back a couple of minutes needs some kind of spell to boost the power," Starsky said, pressing his hand just once on Hutch's belly before moving away. "This kind of magic is just completely out of my league. And why this?" He displayed his palm again, the tattoo evident but quiescent, not giving him any hint of what had happened. "That Hawthorn door was the portal, but how did it get there?"

"Didn't you say that there are a couple of portals placed through the city—over ley lines, for travel to other areas?" Hutch glanced out the door, but Montenegro and Dennehy were crouched over the computer, talking intently. Montenegro nodded once and went back down the hallway toward the bedroom.

"Yeah, if you know where to look for them. And they generally connect to other realms—they're not like some kinda mass transit to go between California and New York. That building…" Starsky faltered and pointed downward. "This building, ain't over a ley line. And this isn't fairy world. It's our BC, only—"

"Not," Hutch finished. "And our method of investigation seems outmoded."

"Where do you think we are?"

"Starsk, did you miss the big banner out front?" Hutch stared at him, comprehension dawning. "Oh, you mean, where the older us are?"

"And you're always correcting my grammar," Starsky teased. "It's a really bad idea to cross your own life line." He prowled the kitchen restlessly, touching the shiny appliances. At least he could recognize what all of them were. There didn't appear to be any droids for doing housework yet. "A paradoxal contradiction. We can't be two places at one time."

"I'd be sixty-three years old," Hutch said in wonderment.

"Old man." Starsky smiled faintly, imagining Hutch with silvery hair and a pair of reading glasses..

"Hey, who's birthday is in March!" Hutch raised that finger of his. "I would hope we're not on the force anymore. Retired, maybe?"

"Sitting on the porch, watching the sea…" Starsky laughed.

"Monty!" Dennehy's voice called excitedly. "Starsky, Hutchinson, come in here."