The demons were always there. The demons, and shadows, laughter, blades, emptiness. He had learned to ride it out, let it slip by him and over him and through him without touching him, without him heeding it. Sometimes he screamed and sometimes he giggled but he ignored his own voice as he ignored the rest. Except for the emptiness, the blessing of the void. That came too rarely, but when it did he rested in the lull. Sometimes his eyes would remain open and he would catch glimpses of white walls, doors and cots, fragments of the real, waking world.
He had lived there once. Not long ago. And everything had been going so well. He had known what to do and had done it and it had been right, true. Real. The wonder of science, so marvelous in its simplicity, so enthralling in its complexity. Enlightenment, understanding, and his mastery acknowledged.
He couldn't have known it would go so wrong. He had planned the experiment with all his reason, with all his genius. Always his plans went as they were designed, his tests yielded the results he predicted. It had begun well enough, but then they hadn't followed his predictions. How had he not accounted for those variables? Human beings were only animals, only organisms, subject to the same rules as any physical entities. He had thought he knew them, but he had miscalculated, an unwarrantable error of judgment that he had failed to rectify.
Then she had come, an angel from the depths of hell, and thrust him down to her darkness. Now he was here. She had gone but he was here, with the shadows yet still alone. Empty the room, empty his life, empty his mind.
Always alone.
And then he was not.
He stared up at the great figure, arching horns touching the ceiling despite its stooped carriage, clawed hands crossed over its massive muscled chest. He could see it, hear its rasping breaths, smell the faint stench of sulfur exuding from the leathery skin. If he extended his hand he could have touched that rough hide.
This one was real. He knew it. Unlike any of the others, this one was real. In the dusk of dreams it had come, and when he opened his eyes it still was there, standing before him. His senses for once informed him truly. It had come, to this place, to this room, for him.
He wasn't afraid.
"You could be of use to me," it intoned, so low as to be inaudible, so deep his heart quivered in his chest. "You nearly destroyed them. My enemies."
He knew who was accused; who else would be not the prey but the adversary of a demon? His eyes glowed gray fire at the memory of them, and he hissed, "My enemies."
"Your enemies. Yes. Ours." The mouth of the creature was not made for smiling. Its fangs cut into its grinning lips. "Our enemies. I nearly destroyed them as well. Together..." It hunkered lower, twisting its hideous face closer to the man's. He didn't flinch, not at the proximity of the scarlet eyes or the fetid hot breath blasting over him. "We will not fail. If you are willing."
"I am." He had been waiting, so long, an eternity, or maybe only a day. Maybe an eternal day. It was never quite night in this place, where the lights in the corridor always gleamed. He had been waiting and when he was able he had been thinking, planning, as he always had done. He knew more now. His plans would not fail again. "I am."
"Then join me."
A talon passed before his eyes, a scaled hand pressing to his forehead, and then there was nothing, the quietest, gentlest emptiness he had yet experienced. A sleep without dreams, as he had craved for so long, and as the claws wrapped around and lifted his helpless body, he knew he had chosen rightly.
"Another day, another dollar." Peter Venkman grabbed a handful of ghost traps, still smoking, out of Ecto-1 and marched toward the basement. "Another nine noxious goopers for the containment unit. So whose turn is it to put 'em in?"
"Yours," Winston said, retrieving the remaining traps. "Definitely yours. I think."
"Nuh-uh, it's Ray's," Peter denied.
"No, gotta be Winston's," Ray put in, lugging three of their proton packs to the locker.
Peter stopped before he reached the basement steps. "It's you, Tex, I'm sure of it."
"It's Winston's turn," Ray said obstinately, dropping the packs in a heap at his feet.
"I did it last time," Winston protested, also halting and attempting to fold his arms, no mean feat considering the five traps tangled around them. "Pete's supposed to do it."
"It's a Wednesday. I do dishes. No traps."
"Didn't we work out a schedule for this, too?" Ray wondered. "That's why it's Winston."
"It's Pete!"
"It's Ray!"
"Winston Winston Winston!"
Green eyes glared at brown glaring at hazel glaring at green again. Then all three pairs turned hopefully to their silent member.
Behind round-framed glasses, blue eyes rolled. "It's not going to work," Egon said. "You may bicker as childishly as you please. I am taking a shower." The physicist unsuccessfully pushed back the mass of ectoplasm-soaked hair falling over his glasses. It was a rare event for him to be the only one of the team slimed and he was not enjoying it, but his condition did grant certain privileges. "I would advise that you transfer the ghosts to the unit before the traps fail and you must recapture them. Given your present argument, I would estimate a forty percent chance of you coming to an agreement before then."
Winston frowned doubtfully at his burden. "Uh, how long before the traps fail?"
"Approximately eleven days," Egon said, and stomped for the stairs, the dignity of his exit marred by the soft squelching of his boots.
He had mounted the first step when the phone trilled. "I'll get it!" three voices volunteered, followed by a mass stampede.
Egon raised his eyes to the ceiling again and continued upwards as Ray picked up the phone with a cheerful, "Hello, Ghostbusters Central!" The physicist didn't have to look to know that Ray was thumbing his nose at his teammates as he whispered, "I'll handle this, you guys go put those ghosts away!" He raised his voice to address the caller, "Dr. Stantz speaking, how may I help you?"
"Ray, I'm gonna--" Peter began.
Then stopped. "Ray?"
Egon paused at the top of the stairs, unconsciously holding his breath at the sudden thread of worry in the psychologist's tone.
"Ray?" Peter repeated, softer but no less troubled.
Wooden chair legs scraped against the floor as Ray sat down abruptly. Impatiently shoving his slimed hair out of his eyes again, Egon headed back downstairs. Ray responded, "Yes...okay...I see. Thanks." No hint of tears in his tone, but it was too flat for Ray's voice, all the post-bust energy drained away. "Thank you for letting us know. Yes, please do. Thank you."
By the time Egon made it down his teammate was hanging up. As the physicist approached the desk Winston asked, "What's up, homeboy?"
Ray glanced to him, to Peter, to Egon. Then to Peter again, but when Peter met his gaze with equal parts curiosity and concern he dropped his head. Concentrating on the placidly rotating shapes of the desktop's screensaver, Ray drew a deep breath and said, "That was Brighton Institution."
"Where?" Winston asked, forehead wrinkling as he recalled the name but couldn't place it. Egon took a moment to identify it himself, then stiffened, his attention flying to Peter.
The psychologist's recognition had been immediate, given away by his minute shudder. Egon dropped a hand on his arm and felt the tension vibrating his friend like electricity through a wire. His voice was cool, though. "So what'd Kenny's keepers have to say?"
To those who didn't know Venkman, that easy tone would have betrayed nothing. All three of his teammates heard the inaudible strain as clearly as a shout. Winston reached around Ray to close a hand around Peter's shoulder, his face set but old anger flaring in his eyes. Ray dropped his eyes back to the computer monitor, misery evident in every line of his posture. "Last night, Ken Smith--Ulster--disappeared."
"What?" Peter jerked back, then braced himself against the desk. "Okay, Ray, run that by us again." This time he couldn't quite erase the tremor from his voice.
Ray's shoulders lifted and fell in a helpless shrug. "There isn't anything, really." He stared up at Peter. "Ulster was in his room when the midnight watch checked. When the six o'clock watch came around he wasn't. Everything was in the room except for him; nothing was out of place. It doesn't look like he broke out. He just was gone."
"Jesus," Winston breathed, and it wasn't clear if it were an oath or a prayer.
"Someone released him." Egon barely recognized his own voice. "His colleagues or his employers must have decided they required his skills despite his...condition." There was no other logical explanation. "It would be an easy matter for them to retrieve him."
"It should be all right." Though Ray's eternal optimism sounded blunted, doubtful. "They'll take him somewhere else, put him on a different project. They won't want us involved again. It's too public, we're too well-known. That's why they were so upset with him before." They wouldn't want their cover blown by Ulster attempting to get at them again. Yes, that was reasonable. "Right, Peter?"
"I hope so." There was doubt in Venkman's eyes but the words were sincere, though softly spoken with the intensity of a life behind them. A man hanging on the edge of a cliff, with every energy focused on that single grip. "God, I hope so."
The rest of the week passed normally, as far as 'normal' may be applied to those who make a living dealing with the supernatural. Spring always was a top season for busting and the daily ghosts were many and varied.
As were Peter's nightmares. On the fourth night he gave up when he rolled over and saw Egon's bed empty. Going downstairs, he found the physicist already pouring the hot chocolate. Peter took his mug and settled on the kitchen stool. "Boil enough milk there? I'm not that thirsty."
"Scald, not boil," Egon corrected. "The milk should have already been sufficiently pasteurized."
"Yeah, and if we come down with botulism or mad cow's disease, we always can sue."
Egon set his own steaming cup on the table and pulled up a chair. "So."
"So," Peter echoed.
"Your dream?"
"Subtle, Spengs. And here I'm supposed to be the psychologist."
"Oh, I thought you only played one on TV."
Peter snorted into his cocoa. "Yeah, they auditioned thousands but I got the part. Amazing what sleeping with the producers will get you." He lowered his cup, licked the milk mustache off his upper lip. "It wasn't anything, Egon. Barely counted as a nightmare."
"Good, then we can just go back to bed," Winston said from the doorway.
"Not without the cocoa," Ray objected, heading to the stove to pour their shares. "Here, Winston, want any marshmallows in it?"
Peter quirked an eyebrow as his teammate shook his head. "You sure, Zed?" he wheedled. "They're Stay-Puft."
"Just give me the drink," Winston growled, swiping his unembellished cocoa from Ray and nursing it mock-sullenly as he and Ray seated themselves around the table.
Once settled, Ray broke the quiet, his round face serious. "How bad are they, Peter?"
Peter planted his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands. "Jeez, guess privacy was just a passing fad. Can't a guy sleep in peace?"
"Think that's the issue, Pete," murmured Winston.
Peter lifted his head to regard them with a hint of guilt. "Have I been that loud?"
"No," Ray said. "You haven't been shouting or anything. It's just...we know. I woke up last night and heard you turning over, trying to get back to sleep."
"And you've been napping more than usual during the day," Winston put in.
"Which implies you have been sleeping less than easily," Egon concluded.
The regard Peter aimed at them now was more dubious than guilty. "Did you guys plan this tonight? Set your alarm clocks or something?" He cast a suspicious glance at the now-emptied pot of milk. "Don't we have a bust tomorrow morning?"
"We didn't have to plan anything," replied Egon. "And yes, we have a bust. It would be in our best interest for us to sleep--for us all to sleep. As a psychologist you cannot deny--"
"Yakking about it can help. Yeah, yeah." Peter shook his head. "Swear you all think you're psychologists by osmosis. Okay, docs. I was a little rattled by that call, like we all were. I'm still mad as hell about it. They practically let him walk out the door, and they're not going to find him again. And people will pay for it--if Ulster's back in business, we know what that means.
"But we also know he wasn't working alone. His colleague went up in smoke months ago, and ten will get you one she went right back to the experiment racket. We gave the police and the FBI a handle on that whole damned circle, and the good guys might have luck closing them down yet. Meanwhile, they have Kenny--brain scrambled unless they fixed him, which you guys thought fairly unlikely. But either way, they're not going to risk touching us again. Odds are we're safer now than if he had broken out on his own.
"So that just leaves us to deal with ourselves. And my subconscious isn't cooperating as you've picked up, but it's been worse. It could be worse." He looked around the table at his three teammates, a long, steady stare at each, as if he were counting or memorizing their faces, though he knew their features by heart. "My dream barely counts as a nightmare; I don't even remember it. Just bits, the standard drill, I was running and big things with nasty sharp pointy teeth were running after me. You'd think we get enough of that during the day, but apparently my imagination hasn't tired of the novelty. I'll try to run a little quieter."
"Don't run," Ray told him earnestly. "Just imagine up a thrower and us next to you. We bust them all day; we can bust them at night, too."
Peter smiled, not sarcastic or preening, just the amused grin he got when no one was around to see it except his teammates. "I'll try to think happy thoughts."
"You do that, Peter Pan," Winston said, saluting him with his mug before polishing off the final swallows of hot chocolate. "Now we better sleep, or I'll be too tired to drive tomorrow."
"Putting Ray behind the wheel?" Peter pushed back the stool to usher Winston to the door. "Go on, get to bed now!" He ducked Ray's swat. At the doorway he stood by while Ray and Winston continued ahead, then pulled Egon aside once he had turned off the kitchen light. "Just a sec, Spengs."
"Yes?"
"I want to make sure..." Peter lowered his voice further, though the others were already on the stairs. "I've seen you watching your meter lately, Egon. The PKE readings of those Class Twos today couldn't have been that fascinating. And I know the settings you've got it on. Picking up any interesting biorhythms?"
"No." Egon met his gaze steadily across the darkness. "Not the one I have been scanning for. Nor has Ray."
"Him too? Missed that." Peter cocked his head. "You two don't know anything we don't, do you?"
"Peter, I'd have told you if I had found anything. Anything at all that might pose a threat, even a theory or a hunch. You know I would." His tone was dead serious. "I have detected no trace of Ulster's presence anywhere we've gone, and I do not believe he will return. That is not an excuse not to be careful. There are some things that the probability is not important; only the threat is. If there's any chance of danger--"
Peter clasped his shoulder. "Got it, big guy. Had it already." His teeth flashed white in the shadows. "I'm not about to risk any of you guys." And if that worry cost him a little sleep, he wasn't going to complain about it. Too much, anyway.
"Are you ready?"
He barely spared a glance at the massive being looming over him. "You're blocking my light."
"Are you ready?" repeated the demon, placing a clawed hand on the smooth metal counter to either side of him, trapping him between the table and the demon's gray-green bulk.
The doctor squirmed around to face his oppressor, still holding the glass flask he had been measuring from carefully before the interruption. "I'm nearly ready."
"So you have said for days," the demon snarled, dipping so close its fangs nearly brushed the man's nose.
"Speed must be sacrificed for accuracy," he said. "These facilities are adequate." In truth he had no idea where the demon had found such a lab, fully-stocked, with instrumentation more advanced than any he had ever had access to before. "But this takes time. I don't want any mistakes; nor do you."
"No," agreed the demon. "But perhaps you think to prolong your time here. Perhaps you are enjoying too well the freedom I grant you from the madness. Or perhaps your heart is not truly dedicated to vengeance."
At that the doctor swung back the flask and smashed it against the demon's horny brow. Acid splashed in the scarlet eyes. The demon howled and flung itself away, clawing at its sockets.
"You are a fool," the man rasped, tossing aside the broken glass spout. "My heart doesn't matter. Only my mind, and that's dedicated to the plan, to only the plan. There's nothing else worthy of my attention. Certainly not your petty concerns."
Staggering against the opposite lab counter, the demon reached ebon talons toward him. Black ichor dripped like tears from its injured orbs, their pure red now streaked with olive veins. Its snarl was so distorted by rage as to hardly be comprehensible. "I could rend your limbs from your body, I could pierce your skull and devour your so-valued brain--"
"But it wouldn't serve you then," he spat contemptuously. "And if you rend my limbs I'll make nothing else with them. I work for your interests as well as my own--your interests are my own. And mine are yours. Let me do my work. It'll be ready soon."
"How soon?" The demon's claws opened and closed spasmodically, but made no grab for him. It seemed to be fighting with its snakelike tongue to form the question without malice. "When do we begin?"
"Patience," he admonished, going to the cabinets lining the walls to retrieve another measure of the acid. "The longer we wait, the more assured our chances become. Let them lower their guard. Then we initiate the plan. Gradually. There's no need to rush."
"How do we begin?"
He shook his head. They had discussed this more times than he cared to recall, and yet still the demon insisted on repetition, affirmation, verification. The worst bureaucracies were less dense than this too-powerful creature, even if the plan was its design as much as the doctor's. "I've told you, we must be cautious. Slow." As slow as the demon's approximation of a mind. "We bring them down one at a time, before they realize they are struck at all."
He had already chosen the first to fall. He had underestimated the man before, misjudged his intelligence and his loyalty. Not again. He would be first, unable to interfere with what followed. The rest would be simpler with him out of the way. And once he was...then would be a time for the heart as well as the mind. He waited for it patiently, but with great anticipation all the same. The conception of the plan was thought, all mind and logic. Its execution would be joy, however, a pleasure shared with this demon.
No matter how irritating working with the creature might be, the rewards were more than worth it.
"I am ready for a vacation." Heedless of the ectoplasm coating him, Peter collapsed onto the couch with a small, slimy splash, shut his eyes, and put his hands behind his head. "Right now, I say we board up the windows, unplug the phone, and split town. New Zealand's great this time of year."
Ray dropped down beside him with a long exhalation and another soggy squish. "We can't. We've got two busts tomorrow, and three the day after--"
"And the calls keep coming." Egon sat gingerly on the edge of the recliner, trying unsuccessfully to wipe slime off his glasses with an equally damp sleeve. "Perhaps now was not the most opportune time for Janine to take her vacation."
"I told you to tell her that," Peter said, eyes still closed. "I promised her two weeks off months ago. I couldn't go back on my word, but you could've convinced her."
"She had purchased tickets already," Egon said hastily. "I don't believe I could have easily changed her mind." Nor had he wished to try. While Peter had on occasion accused him of walking into traffic and off roofs for the sake of accurate readings, the physicist did possess some instincts of self-preservation.
"The Barbados must be almost as nice as New Zealand," Peter mused. "We've got enough money to last us through the summer; let's dump the busts and join her."
"If we cancel all our busts now," Egon remarked, "we would have to go as far as New Zealand at least to escape the wrath of our clients."
"Yeah, bet the mayor wouldn't be too happy. Isn't City Hall scheduled tomorrow?"
The phone rang. Peter opened one eye. "Not me."
"Not me," Egon said instantly.
Ray didn't volunteer one way or another. Peter nudged him in the ribs. "Hey Tex, that'd be yours."
Ray blinked and sat up. "Huh? What?" He rubbed his eyes. "Sorry, I must've dozed off--is someone getting the phone?"
"We're thinking you're just the man for that job--" Peter started to say, when the ringing quit. "Or not."
He was leaning back when Winston shouted downstairs, "How's tomorrow for a bust?"
"Anytime after four should be all right," Egon called back.
In a minute Winston hollered, "We're taking care of a ghost in Queens at half past four tomorrow, somebody write it down."
"Hey, Zed, I thought you had the shower," Peter shouted.
"I DO!" Winston shouted back. "I'm gonna finish now. And if you guys don't pick up the phone next time I'll lock myself in there until tomorrow morning's bust!"
"The eight o'clock one?" Peter shivered at the thought. Ghosts, goblins, demigods, no sweat. Getting up at unholy hours in the morning was a whole other ballpark. "Isn't this a bit excessive? We've been going like this for a month, and this week, geesh! What happened to those boring dry spells? Is there some bicentennial ghost convention going on in New York we should know about?"
Ray blinked rapidly to keep his eyes open. "Hey, I wonder--I don't know of anything but I could check. There have been an awful lot lately."
"But nothing powerful," Egon pointed out. "Excepting the airport gremlin last week and the dueling elementals in Central Park, most of these busts have been a piece of cake."
"Is that a colloquialism?" Peter opened both eyes.
"Easy as falling off a log," Spengler said smugly.
"And an optimistic one at that!"
"No problemo," Egon offered as the capper.
"Better check your calendar fast, Ray," Peter advised. "Spengs is sounding cheerful. Armageddon must be upon us."
"I'll go--" A colossal yawn interrupted whatever else Ray might have said.
"To bed," Peter completed for him, pushing himself off the couch and giving his teammate a hand up. "Me too. I'm bushed. But I want my shower first. Slimer leaves enough of this stuff on my pillow as it is." He tried to run his fingers through his sodden hair and grimaced. "I hate drying slime. Is there anything worse than drying slime? If Winston's still hogging the shower, who's up for battering down the bathroom door?"
"I'll get a ram," Egon proposed.
Egon left the adjusted PKE meter downstairs that night, the first time he had done so in a month, since the call from Brighton Institution. It didn't matter. Even if he had brought it to the bunkroom as he had been doing, it would have registered nothing.
Peter changed his tune after the City Hall bust. "There is something worse than drying slime," he announced conversationally. "Sticky, smelly slime is worse than drying slime any day. I want this gunk off me now!" He stomped the trap pedal with more force than necessary, slamming the doors over the light and the gibbering spook caught within it. "Is that the last of 'em?"
"I hope so," Winston said. "We do any more damage and we'll be paying fines straight into next year." He glanced up at the black ash stains marring the marble pillars--still shiny, but now with ectoplasm more than polish. "Better make the bill for this one small."
"Oh, there's no bill," Peter said breezily. "This was a civil service to the city." At Winston's startled expression he winked. "You can't charge volunteers for the clean-up, after all. And we got the ghosts. Right?"
The last was addressed to Egon, approaching with PKE meter in hand. "I believe so," the physicist said, "though at least two fled before we captured them. But the building is clean." He looked up at the columns. "Supernaturally, anyway."
"That's good." Ray trudged over, dragging a pair of traps behind him. "Do we have time to go home before the next bust?"
Peter checked his watch. "We could swing by and drop these guys off, yeah." He inspected his teammate. "You look beat, Ray."
"I'm just--" He yawned. "Just tired."
"After this bust? Now there's a shocker."
Winston groaned. "If Ray's tired, I should be dead. I thought you were the Energizer bunny, homeboy."
"Guess my batteries ran out on the eighteenth set of stairs," Ray replied with a weary grin. "And this ectoplasm is awfully slippery."
"You're lucky," Peter told him. "Sticky's worse than slippery, believe me." He attempted to rub the gooey substance off his hands, found his own slimed uniform didn't do the trick and borrowed Egon's sleeve.
The physicist adjusted his glasses and grimaced at the orange ectoplasm now staining his jumpsuit. "Why thank you, Peter."
"Don't mention it. Shall we, gentlemen?" He gestured toward the door.
An hour later they were back at work in a supermarket in Queens, facing down a horned beast with twice Slimer's appetite and a face only a mother warthog could love. And she would be hard-pressed, at that. "Look out!" Peter screeched, and dove behind a convenient soup can display as the creature charged him and Winston, cloven hooves clattering on the tiled floor.
Zeddemore took refuge under an empty shelf, emerging after it passed rubbing his head and swearing. He gave Peter a thumbs up in response to his hasty, "You okay?" and they hurried after their target, Peter muttering, "Hope Ray and Egon are being careful. I can just see the headlines: Ghostbuster Gored by Grotesque Grocery Gnu."
"Isn't the 'G' in 'gnu' silent?"
Rounding the corner they almost crashed into Ray, leaning against a frozen foods case, the florescent lights giving his face a greenish pallor. Peter skidded to a halt. "Hey, you okay? Did it run you down?"
"No..." Ray shook his head, straightening with a slight effort. "I'm fine, I just was a little woozy. Egon went that way after it." He drew a breath and gestured with his thrower, forcing some enthusiasm into his battle cry, "Come on, let's get it!"
They charged down the aisle three abreast. Before they reached the end they heard the beast snarl, a decidedly non-herbivorous sound. And it had been prowling the poultry section. This was no ordinary gnu. Peter prepared his thrower as he ran, hoping that Egon had managed to evade those pounding hooves. Where had the physicist gotten to--
His unspoken question was answered by Egon's shout. "Toro! Toro! Over here, you sorry excuse for a bovine!"
"Dammit, Spengs!" Peter cried, leaping for the end of the aisle just as the monster barreled past. The three of them sprang out in time to see Egon, square in the path of the sharp horns, whip back a blue tarp and stamp on a trap pedal. The trap's flare caught the beast mid-gallop, swallowing it up and drawing it down.
Removing his foot from the pedal, Egon tossed the plastic tarp over his shoulder with a matador's flourish and arched an eyebrow at them. "That, as they say, is that."
"Shouldn't that be a red cape?" Winston inquired, pointing at the turquoise tarp.
"I used what was available." Egon shrugged and spread the plastic weave back over the frozen fish stand he had appropriated it from. "Besides, bulls are colorblind; the motion is what draws their attention."
"Yeah, or maybe just stupidity," Peter put in. "You about gave us all heart attacks."
"My intent--Ray?" He had spotted his auburn-haired teammate, standing behind Winston and Peter, waver, then slump. Egon lunged forward in time to catch Ray as he crumpled, carefully lowering him to the floor with a worried look at his other teammates. "He told me he wasn't feeling well--"
"Damn, knew he looked off." Peter crouched beside them and shook Ray's shoulder. "Come on, Ray, this floor's too dirty to sleep on."
Ray's eyes blinked open and he struggled to sit up, Egon assisting. "What happened?"
"That's our question," Peter informed him lightly. "Egon played bullfighter with the ghost gnu and then you keeled over."
"I saw Egon catch it. And then I just got dizzy...gosh, guys, sorry, I didn't--"
"Doesn't matter, 'long as you're okay, Ray," Winston told him. "Did you get hit on the head or anything? Here, follow my finger." He checked for the basic signs of concussion while Ray denied any injury. "Looks like your head's all right."
"Relatively," amended Peter. "This is Ray we're talking about."
"I'm tired," Ray said. "That's all."
He swayed when he stood and Peter slung a supporting arm around his shoulders. "We could all use a nap, but pick a better place for it next time, okay? Let's get you home and in bed. You're probably coming down with something."
"Probably," Ray admitted. "My stomach's a little upset. We're done for the day, right?"
"All done," Winston concurred with heartfelt relief.
"The entity has been apprehended," Egon assured him.
"This place is spook-free," Peter announced. "Isn't it great?" At his teammates' querying looks, he grinned wickedly. "Well, you know what they say. No gnus is good news!"
The bedroom was dark when he jerked awake, though a line of gray around the edges of the window shade signaled the approaching dawn. Sitting up, Peter drew up his legs and looped his arms around his knees, concentrating on the sound of his breathing, his pulse thudding in his ears. Consciously he slowed his exhalations, breathed the air instead of gulping it.
Something flickered at the edge of his vision and he spun, the blankets twisting around him. Nothing in the corner of the room. Just shadows. Like his dreams, only shadows, nothing real. He tried to grasp the content of the nightmare but meaning slid away, leaving him with only the terror, followed by irritation. He didn't have time for this; he needed his full eight hours the way they had been pushing of late. It wasn't even five AM. Even farmers wouldn't be up yet. No one in this timezone should be up yet, unless they hadn't gone to bed in the first place.
Like the wise men they were, Ray and Winston slept on. Ray had gotten well over his eight hours by now; he had dozed off during the ride back from the bust and barely woken for dinner before crawling into bed. Definitely sick; illness was about the only thing that would slow Ray down. The most grueling busts only energized him for more, normally. He even managed mornings without coffee. Peter suspected his body was a natural producer of caffeine.
He realized then that the adjacent bed was vacant, though Egon had retired at the same time as the rest of them. The light was on in the lab, Peter observed, slipping out of bed and padding across the hall on bare feet. The physicist was busy at his computer, typing figures into the machine and scribbling the results onto a yellow pad.
"We do have a printer, you know," Peter remarked directly behind him.
Egon jumped, his glasses almost flying from his nose. He pushed them back in place as he resettled himself with a brief glare at his friend. "Peter. I didn't hear you come in."
"No, really? Aren't I always quiet as a mouse?" Peter grinned, pulled over one of the lab stools and perched on it. "Whatcha doing?"
"I might ask the same," Egon returned with a significant look over the red frames. "Are you aware of the time?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you aware of the concept of pod people?"
Peter groaned theatrically. "Show a little initiative and everyone accuses you of being an evil clone." He shifted in his seat. "Okay, I had a couple bad dreams. Par for the course. I don't even remember what, but it was a little dark in the bedroom for a moment there." Egon nodded understandingly; with that sympathy he shrugged off the last of his unease. "So what about you?"
Egon interpreted the underlying question without difficulty and shook his head. "No dreams. I simply awoke early."
"'Early' means after dawn. This is still 'late.' You had trouble falling asleep, too," Peter commented. As Egon usually was the first to drop off, his tossing and turning had been noticeable. "Something bugging you?"
"Not that I'm aware." Egon tapped long fingers on the edge of the desk. "Last night I was thinking this over. I'm correlating our recent busts by location and level of spectral activity. Your complaint about the unusual abundance of busts lately was not unfounded; if there's a reason for the increase it'd be best to find it as soon as possible. I've been wanting to take a closer look but there simply hasn't been time. I imagine that's what's bothering me. And since I was awake there was no reason not to take the opportunity to investigate it."
"Since you love the smell of number-crunching in the morning. Sometimes I don't know about you, Spengs." Standing, Peter stretched like a cat, arching his back, then propped his elbows on his friend's shoulders and examined the columns of digits on the screen. "Any interesting patterns?"
"Not yet." Egon rubbed the base of his neck. "It may very well be random chance. We have had even busier periods before."
"But it doesn't hurt to be careful. Or paranoid," and he lightly rapped a knuckle on Egon's blond cranium. "Pod people indeed. I'm gonna suspect you of being an alien duplicate if you keep stealing my lines."
"You hardly have a monopoly on verbal wit on this team."
"I know. Comedians, all of you. Just don't start doing it front of the women." He covered a yawn with the back of a hand. "Think I'm ready to turn back in for a couple more hours. You coming?"
"I'm not sleepy," Egon said. "And as today promises to be as busy as yesterday, I might as well continue this research while I can. On the off-chance my paranoia is with cause," with a wry glance at his friend.
"Okay, but don't make a habit of it. Even brainiacs need their Z's. We don't want you coming down with whatever Ray's got."
Egon looked at him again. "He is all right?"
"Sleeping like a rock when I woke up. It's just a cold, I hope. Last thing we need right now is to have to close because of the flu. The mayor would probably sue us for negligence."
"And you're all right?" Egon asked.
The question had nothing to do with his physical health. "Yeah, I'm fine," Peter assured him. "Thanks. I'll get back to bed and leave you alone."
A glint of amusement lit in Egon's eyes. "You have four hours until this morning's bust, and I imagine Ray and Winston will want you rouse you early to make sure you're awake for it. I wonder what are the chances they'll believe you already were awake, even if I told them?"
Peter made a face. "Thanks a lot, Spengs. You're a real pal."
"Sleep well, Peter."
This was better than television. Not that he had ever been one for watching TV or movies, even when he had been able. Newspapers gave adequate coverage of significant current events, and the mix of advertisements and trite emotionalism that constituted the rest of the airwaves had never been worth his time. Fiction might have its place, but not in his world. He had too much respect for truth.
He might have been more tempted if television had been like this.
He had carefully examined the mirror several times when the demon wasn't present. It was taller than him and wide as his outstretched arms, the frame of some heavy dark wood carved with deep parallel gashes, like the tree had been mauled by a knife-clawed tiger. But it was an ordinary mirror, the glass backed with black, offering a clear reflection of the light hitting it. It stood in the back of the lab, and he hadn't understood why it was there at first.
Then the demon had shown him, passing one great hand over the smooth surface while mumbling some arcane phrase. The mirror's glass had clouded over--not condensation, but as if smoke were filling in the room it reflected. And when that bizarre obscurity faded, the mirror displayed their prey. It would show them at work, capturing ghosts, or in their base of operations, the old firehall. Wherever and whenever the demon directed it would go. The image was silent, but the doctor found if he focused on them when they spoke he could make out the words, distant whispers not in his ears but deeper. Together they observed the team going about their business. Together they watched the implementation of the plan, and its first effects.
"They don't suspect a thing," he purred. It would be too late when they did, much too late.
"No." The demon's eyes were scarlet slits. "If there is even anything to suspect. I see no proof that we have done anything at all."
"It's there," he said. "You must appreciate the subtlety." If the brute even had the faculties to do so.
"I have been patient," the demon growled. "I waited until you were ready. But I expect results, human. It has been almost a week since we began and I have yet to be gratified."
"There will be results." He watched them on the screen, battling a flock of sprites. Only three where yesterday four had fought. It thrilled him, a rising satisfaction as the pieces fell into place. But the demon was too simplistic to delight in such exact manipulations. No matter. "You'll see obvious reactions soon." Obvious even to its blunt mind. "Should we step them up a bit? The lethality of the dosages is only an issue of fine-tuning. The next one could be fatal, if we so choose." It would be interesting to see how soon they caught on after one of them died.
But his cohort shook its head ponderously. "No. Appealing as that might be." Its wet worm-tongue lashed over its cobalt lips. "Let them live. In death their souls escape us. Alive we feed on their pain, as long as it will last. As long as they are no longer a threat to me or any of my kind."
The doctor doubted the demon felt much kinship to most of the creatures they captured, but he nodded all the same. "They won't be a problem for any ghosts for much longer. The only ones they'll endanger is themselves." Not that they would believe that. Even in a mostly-silent mirror, the trust that each of them depended on was evident in every gesture, every exchange. That it could be shaken, that the foundation of the team and their very selves could be knocked out from under them, they would not believe. Not until it was too late for them to ever regain their footing.
He smiled, and knew the insanity glowing in the demon's eyes was no match for that in his own grin.
"I'm better," Ray insisted the next day. "Maybe it was just a twenty-four hour bug. I can 'bust today. I'm feeling okay."
Crossing his arms, Winston eyed him skeptically. "Just okay? Not great?"
Ray's gaze dropped to the breakfast tray his teammate had brought him, passing over the untouched toast and melon and lingering on the empty glass of orange juice. "Okay, my stomach still feels a little funny. But I'm barely tired anymore."
"After sleeping all day yesterday, you shouldn't be." Winston looked wistfully to his own bed, wishing he could call in sick himself. But their schedule remained busy as ever and he wasn't ill. Just a bit sick of busting. It was exciting work, important work, and he wouldn't have been happy doing anything else, but there were times a regular nine-to-five job sounded very appealing. A free weekend would be nice.
None of them were getting a break, though, so he didn't have any right to one. And Ray, who did have a right to more time off, was of course arguing himself out of it. Not for the first time Winston wondered how it had happened that his three best friends were lunatics. Because they made him look normal? "Look, Pete's right; if you're sick, we don't want you to get any worse. This morning's bust is going to be easy stuff from the sound of it. Why don't you stay in for now, and if you're still feeling all right later you can come on the afternoon one."
"All right, all right," Ray grumpily agreed. "You don't have to treat me like a five year old. If I'm feeling worse again I'll wait until tomorrow."
"That sound good, Pete?" Winston asked their teammate, who had returned from the shower to grab his hairbrush.
Peter stopped grooming mid-stroke and blinked at them. Winston could see him mentally playing back the last bit of conversation. "Uh, yeah. Ray, what's this cold doing to your head? You're actually sounding sensible. Like me. If I were sick--"
"If you sneeze you won't bust for a week," Winston said.
"And you make us stay home to pamper you, too," Ray teased.
"Well, we shouldn't inflict contagions on the innocent people of New York." Peter affected his best martyr's attitude. "Who knows what kind of awful ghost-virus I might get, considering how much the little buggers slime me?"
The words were right but the tone was off, too mechanical, like he was reading from a script. Winston eyed him askance. "Don't tell me you are getting something."
"I'm fine." And that answer came way too quickly. "We better get moving if we want to make the bust on time. I'm going to go check on the packs."
Winston glanced at Ray after the psychologist left. He was gazing at the door with a furrowed brow--no, he hadn't been fooled either. "If you're feeling up to it, try to drag Egon out of the lab," Winston said. "I'll go help Pete with the packs." Ray nodded and climbed out of bed as Winston headed downstairs.
As promised Peter was verifying the power levels of the proton packs, studying the readouts with a focused diligence at odds with his usually lazy demeanor. Venkman protectiveness on overdrive. Something was definitely bothering him. The psychologist had a tendency to deal with his own problems by concentrating on his friends.
He put aside one pack and Winston picked it up. "This one ready?" When Peter nodded Winston loaded it into Ecto-1, then checked for the traps. They had forgotten them a couple times in the past; it was embarrassing even when there wasn't a reporter to witness the mistake. When he was done Peter was finishing the last pack; he pushed it toward his teammate and rocked back on his heels, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Sure you're okay?" Winston asked him.
Peter's head jerked around at the soft query; then he unbent his legs and stood. "Yeah. Pretty much."
"I'm used to Egon being in the lab when the alarm clock rings, but this morning you were up before me, too," Winston commented. "I can count the number of times that's happened on one hand." He examined his friend with a critical eye, noting the slight drawn darkness under his eyes. More than just the exhaustion they all were feeling by now. "Nightmares again?"
He expected another denial, but Peter exhaled a long shivery breath and answered. "Yeah. Just the past few nights. I must be working too hard." He didn't bother with his usual griping smirk. "Mind if I unload, Zed?"
"You know I don't, man."
"I'd tell Ray, but...don't want to give him another argument to come busting. Holding him back when he's under the weather is hard enough as it is."
"No kidding." Winston grinned. "We're gonna have to tie that boy down for his own good. What about Egon?" Egon was usually Peter's chosen candidate for dumping the heavy stuff. That was more habit than anything; of the four, they had known each other the longest. And Egon was the first person Peter had opened to, way back in college.
But now Peter shook his head, rapidly. A nightmare he didn't want to talk about with Ray, and wouldn't tell Egon...
Winston closed his eyes briefly, silently swore an oath he couldn't say aloud for fear of burning his lips. He gripped Peter's shoulder and its tense set under the brown jumpsuit gave him all the confirmation he needed. "Ulster again."
"I was back at the warehouse." Peter didn't shrug off his hand, but he didn't turn toward Winston, still facing the wall. "Or in the room--that chair. Don't really remember it myself, when I'm awake, but in my dreams it's damn clear. Sometimes Ulster's there; or I'm alone and I can't move...or I'll be in the warehouse. Egon'll be there, or you, or Ray, or all of you--I won't be able to see you but I'll know you're there. And I'll have the gun, or a knife, and there will be all the demons and the bugs and everything else. But I won't know what ones to hit, because if they're not what I see--I can't fight them, it's like I'm tied up again. They'll attack me and I can't do a goddamn thing, and if I do..." He swallowed. "It's better not to fight back. A lot better." The side of his mouth quirked up in a futile smile. "Odd twist on your basic fear of impotency neurosis."
"How long--"
"Have I been having these fun little escapades? Only the past few nights, like I said." Peter's attempt at a casual shrug was a dismal failure. "And I don't remember much, just flashes. Keep waking up in a cold sweat all through the night, though. Not a recommended sleeping pattern, if you were thinking of trying it."
"I'll pass." Winston shuddered. "Peter...you tell me if this keeps up, you hear? Egon and Ray already know you've been dreaming bad; we don't need to tell them what about yet. But it's no good for you and if it gets worse--"
"If it gets any worse I'll look for help. Trust me on this one, Winston." His smile was bleak but sincere. Then Peter drew himself up and shrugged off the weight bowing his shoulders--or maybe just masked it; even after all these years Winston couldn't always tell. "Now is that Dr. Frankenstein on the stairs, actually coming down from the lab? Why, it must be time for a bust!"
"Hooray," Winston groaned.
Despite Winston's assurances about the morning bust, it was well into the afternoon when Ecto-1's distinctive sirens returned. Ray was waiting downstairs when they pulled into the firehall, his proton pack already on his back. "Come on, we're late," he cried, climbing into Ecto's backseat before his teammates could disembark. "Mr. Doyle has called twice already. What took you guys so long? I thought it was supposed to be an easy bust!"
"It was," Winston began sourly.
Only for Peter to cut him off with a short tempered snap, "If the absent-minded professor here had been watching the ghost instead of his meter--"
"If you had warned me sooner I would have anticipated its dive," Egon returned with equal heat. "I was only momentarily distracted--"
"If 'momentarily' means ten minutes spacing out, yeah, momentarily." Peter threw the vehicle into reverse and backed them into the street, cutting the corner as he accelerated. "We would've had it right when we walked in if you hadn't--"
"I certainly did not intentionally prolong the bust. I also wanted to wash off this slime before the next bust. You have no reason to complain--"
"Guys," Ray said, leaning forward to interrupt the two in the front seats.
"If that spook had taken Winston's and my head off the way it wanted to, we would've had plenty of reason to complain," Peter shot back, ignoring him.
"That is an exaggeration," said Egon coldly. "It was malicious perhaps, but hardly powerful enough to harm you, unlike the class five that assaulted me--"
"Forget it, homeboy," Winston murmured next to Ray. "They've been going like this the whole way back." He frowned at his teammates. "Pete's got reason to be mad, but Egon's not helping things any. It'd be better if either of them could at least pretend to be a rational adult."
He purposely raised his voice on the final comment. Egon and Peter both turned back to glare at him, but their sniping subsided into an annoyed silence, finally broken by Peter asking too cheerfully, "So you're feeling up to speed, Ray?"
"Yeah, I guess--I'm fine," he assured them hastily, when all three of his teammates looked to him. Taking a breath he gave it his best effort, "This next bust should be fun, from Mr. Doyle's description at least two full-torso apparitions are haunting his offices. They've probably been there for a while but they just started causing trouble last week, maybe we can figure out why. They're scaring his employees, though, so we have to capture them. I wonder if they're two separate entities or a paired manifestation--"
"He's feeling better," Peter said in a stage whisper, and the tension in Ecto dropped to acceptable levels.
Ray grinned. "It'll be fun," he repeated, and meant it. Busts usually could be; it was all in how you looked at them.
After Peter demonstrated his parallel parking skills on the crowded street, they marched into the building of their assignment. Their client, Doyle, shook their hands eagerly and ushered them to his offices, remaining in the hall while they entered single-file.
No sooner had Ray walked through the door when a cerulean specter swooped down from the ceiling like a giant, fat seagull and crashed straight through him, dousing him liberally in matching blue slime. Before any of them could grab their throwers the ghost had vanished through the wall. Ray sputtered and wiped the mask of ectoplasm off his face, blinking it out of his eyes.
Peter slapped him on the proton pack, smirking. "Fun, huh? Aren't you glad to be back at work?"
Ray flicked drips of slime from his fingers, unhooked his thrower, and said firmly, "Yes!"
Peter's eyebrows went up. "Obviously this is some strange new definition of 'glad'--"
"I am registering two class four spirits in the next room," Egon announced.
"Forget the slime, guys," Winston cried. "We've got ghosts to bust!"
Half an hour later Ray was beginning to feel more in tune with Peter's sentiments, especially after two more slimings from the wall-eyed, gap-toothed entities. Apparently they had some metamorphic properties, because the second and third servings of ectoplasm were a pale mauve. The pink and blue slime mixed to coat him in a translucent, oily rainbow; he knew his slime-spiked hair looked like an auburn hedgehog nesting on his head; and after thirty minutes of running from office to office and vaulting desks, he was tired to the bone. When the trap finally slammed shut on the second class four, he couldn't even marshal a hooray. Instead he sank gratefully into the closest swivel chair, resting his eyes for a moment while Peter cheered their victory and collected the trap.
The next thing Ray knew Winston was shaking him. "Hey, Ray, we got the check, time to go home."
"What? Oh." Slowly understanding, Ray pushed himself up, and was dismayed when the chair rolled out from under him. He would have fallen if Winston hadn't grabbed his elbow. Gratefully Ray leaned on his teammate as they walked out of the offices. He wasn't sure if he could have found the door on his own, considering the way the room was lazily spinning around.
They were outside on the sidewalk and his pack was slid off his back. Then he was in Ecto-1's backseat, leaning against Peter, who put an arm over his shoulders. A warm hand pressed against his forehead and Egon's deep voice murmured reassuringly, "He doesn't have a fever."
"I'm not sick, I'm just tired." Ray wasn't sure if he actually pronounced that, but he must have gotten the gist across because Winston said, "He probably just exhausted himself. He was doing all right on the bust, so it can't be too bad."
"I hope not," he heard Peter answer, the words resonating through the shoulder Ray leaned again. The seat rumbled as the engine started and Peter's arm tightened around him briefly. "You better not be infecting me, Ray. You're getting enough slime on me as it is."
"Sorry," he mumbled, and felt as much as heard Peter's small chuckle.
"You're forgiven, Tex, just this once. Invalid's privilege."
"Not an invalid," he tried to protest, but before he could say it he was asleep.
With Ray dozing, Winston involved in maneuvers through rush hour traffic, and Egon brooding, the ride back was a fair sight quieter than the drive to the bust. Peter didn't interrupt the silence, but he pondered it and the former disturbance. Arguing with the guys was one thing, but they didn't outright fight much, and Egon didn't get into spats with any of them often. Even after this bust he was still in a lousy temper; Peter read that in the rigidity of the physicist's carriage as easily as anyone could have heard it in his snappish tone earlier.
When they pulled into the firehall Peter reached forward to tap Egon's shoulder. "Spengs?"
"Yes?" Egon replied stiffly.
"Why don't you go take a shower while Winston and I take care the day's catch. Get that goo off you."
Egon relaxed slightly. "You're all slimed as well," he pointed out.
"Yeah, I remember, trust me." He shrugged the shoulder Ray wasn't using as a pillow. "Ray's not awake to care and we'll survive." Winston nodded agreement. Peter hesitated, then took the plunge, "One thing, Egon, maybe you should take a sample before you wash the ectoplasm down the drain."
"What do you mean?" Egon's voice flattened again as he got the implication.
Winston understood as well, making no motion to exit after turning off the ignition. Peter also stayed put, in part because of Ray and in part to watch Egon's reaction. "Scan the slime on you for psychoactive properties. We've run across mood slimes before, and if there's more around we should know about it."
Before Egon could respond Winston put in, "He's right, m'man. You don't usually go off like you did this afternoon. That's more Pete's thing."
"Thanks a lot, Zed," Peter groaned, though with sincerity behind the sarcasm.
Egon tensed, then closed his eyes with the effort to put aside his irritation. He succeeded, sighing as he acknowledged, "You have a point. I'll check for any unusual properties in the ectoplasm, after I shower. And Winston, I apologize for my...irrationality earlier."
"So do I," Peter put in quickly, not to be outdone. "Even if it is 'my thing.' You're lucky I don't want to disturb Ray or I'd give you more examples of it."
"Don't worry, we've seen plenty already," Winston assured him. "Now let's get Ray and those ghosts to bed and to the unit."
"Please keep straight which goes where," Egon deadpanned. "I don't believe Ray would appreciate waking up in containment."
"You better hurry up and test that slime," Peter shot back, "before it does something worse to your sense of humor."
"Anything?" Peter inquired from the doorway of the lab.
"No. Nothing." Egon shoved the PKE meter away with unnecessary force. "The slime is the utterly normal byproduct of physical contact with a class five spectral entity. There is nothing unusual in its psychokinetic energy signature. Other than its color it is identical to what Slimer produces." Elbows planted on the table, he tossed his glasses down next to the meter and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. "It has no psychoactive properties."
"It was just a thought." Peter pushed aside the meter to seat himself on the counter's edge. "Ray's tucked away, sound asleep, and we're all cleaned up and much less oozy. Feel better?"
"Somewhat." Egon rubbed his temples.
"Have a headache?"
The physicist nodded.
"Damn, you're probably getting this cold, too. Is that why you lost it at me today?"
"I...don't know," Egon admitted. "The headache didn't develop until after the first bust. I've noticed no other symptoms, except decreased concentration." He paused. "I--you were right, Peter. The mistakes made on that bust were all mine. I should have been more attentive."
Normally Peter might have been inclined to gloat at that admittance. Now he only shrugged. "Not a big deal, Egon. I shouldn't have blown up at you, either. No one got hurt, after all. We're all stressed, and you're only human. You're allowed to screw up."
Replacing his glasses on his nose, Egon arched a pale eyebrow at the psychologist. "You grant me permission to do so?"
"Given the circumstances, I authorize it," Peter said magnanimously, and dodged the pencil Egon threw at him. After returning the missile to its cup, he slid up onto the table again and leaned back on his arms. "Been meaning to ask, Spengs. Have anything to report from your project the other morning?"
"Correlating the busts? Not anything definite, no." Egon headed to the computer. "I was hoping to discuss the possibilities with Ray tonight."
"Better make that tomorrow," Winston corrected, joining them from the bedroom. "I just checked on him. He's out like a light."
"So what do you have?" Peter asked the physicist.
"Only untested possibilities. A large amount of the busts lately are ghosts that have been present for some time, but have become only recently active."
"Like this afternoon's," Winston said.
"Yes. It may only be coincidence, but I'm considering the possibility that something's influencing them. Most likely a strong entity recently arrived in the vicinity."
"You're saying a demon's come to town?" demanded Peter with a touch of outrage. That was the kind of thing the Ghostbusters were supposed to be on top of.
"Possibly. Or a demigod, or another type of powerful being. I've done some preliminary scans but have found nothing conclusive. If it were a demon from the Netherworld, for instance, to enter this world it would have needed either to make a gate or be brought by some sort of summoning ritual. I've detected no sign of that, but if the entry were some distance away, or some time ago, no trace might remain. And New York's average PKE levels are high enough to mask the signal of such a being unless it's practically on top of us."
Which is why things like Zuul, Watt, and Tolay's brother Arzun could consistently get the drop on them. Peter shook his head in frustration. "One of these days, Egon, you and Ray are gonna have to whip up some kind of early warning device, so we aren't always slammed out of the blue like this."
"We have tried," Egon snapped. "It's a little harder to devise and build a sensitive, resilient, localized PKE surge detection apparatus than it is to program the VCR. If you had any grasp of the technical--"
"Hey, Egon, m'man." Winston spread his hands in an appeal for peace. "Pete wasn't blaming you or Ray or your gizmos, he was just blowing off steam."
"Yeah, I'm just whining like always, Egon," Peter confirmed, taken aback the physicist's reaction. "You gotta ignore me; we've got other things to worry about--if there is a demon in New York, or a demigod or whatever, it doesn't matter how it got here. We need to figure out where it is and what to do about it. And you're the best man for that job I know, you and Ray." He gave Egon's shoulder a little shake to loosen the rigidity. "So, you mad genius, got any ideas?"
"Maybe." Eyes fixed on the computer screen, Egon heaved a sigh. "I'll give it more thought." Breaking his gaze on the monitor, he turned his head to look up at them, reached up to clasp Peter's wrist for an instant. "I appreciate your trust. I do realize it is there."
Peter nodded, accepting the statement as the apology intended. "Hey, no one on this team is going to let us down. We all know that. We all do our best, and our best is damn good." He yawned and stretched. "And right now, I'm going to warm up some leftovers and then do the best sleeping I can do."
"With you there, Pete," Winston agreed, yawning even wider.
"Good night," Egon said. "I'm going to study the problem now, while I have the opportunity."
"Just don't forget to go to bed," Peter told him, not entirely joking.
Leaving the physicist at the computer, they descended to the kitchen in search of an approximation of a meal. As they rummaged through the remains in the refrigerator, Winston remarked, "We better take a plate up to him or he won't remember to eat, either."
"Yeah," Peter agreed. "Think these are still good?" He shook a plastic container and frowned at the rattle. Not a sound effect one would expect from mashed potatoes. "We should bring something to Ray, too."
"He's asleep, and he hasn't been eating anyway."
"He and Spengs neither, I know. Damn, it better not be the flu." Peter picked up an unopened can of soup. "Now how'd this get in the fridge? Egon must've put the groceries away last time. Feel like chicken tonight?"
"Sure. You think Egon's getting sick, too?" Winston considered this as he took out a pot. "He hasn't been sleeping like Ray. It would explain why he snapped like that, though. Egon's usually a lot more patient with you. Always has impressed me."
"It's an acquired skill," Peter replied haughtily, then admitted, "He's had plenty of practice." He opened a cabinet over the counter and discovered two more cans. "Here we go. Best known cures for the common cold, chicken soup and a full night's sleep."
"Sounds great," Winston said. "Just don't remind me of tomorrow's busts."
"Too late, you just reminded yourself." Peter took out the can opener and set to work with it. "We'll have to keep an eye on Egon tomorrow, Zed. He's not the only one who's been distracted; we're all getting tired. We need everyone we can on these jobs, and Egon wouldn't admit he was sick if the whole cast of ER diagnosed him with the plague, but if he's coming down with what Ray has..."
Their job could be hazardous at the best of times. It always required alertness and fast reflexes, and after such a busy month none of them were working at peak performance. The cost of an accident was too high to risk. Especially if there were some dangerous, powerful being loose in the city, they needed to be careful, watching out for each other like always. "Got it, Pete," Winston replied.
"Have to keep an eye on..."
The doctor smiled. Behind him he heard the demon's harsh breathing, its words a guttural growl in his ear. "They know."
"They don't have the slightest idea," he corrected impatiently. "They only guess that something with your power might be in the vicinity. Spengler's found nothing conclusive, certainly nothing they can trace to either of us."
"They'll find it," snarled the creature. "They're cunning."
"They're intelligent, perhaps," he conceded. "But not suspicious enough. And their scientists have been compromised as it is." He gestured to the mirror. "Look."
Spengler was in the lab, pacing back and forth, one hand pressed to his forehead. With an irritated shake of the head he flung himself down before the computer and stabbed a few keys, only to rise and circle the lab again, muttering to himself. When with his friends he was making a deliberate effort to reign himself in, and for the sake of duty he tried his best to sleep and eat and focus on his work, but that control was slowly eroding.
He wouldn't crack yet, the doctor doubted. He knew Spengler too well to think he would succumb easily. But he wasn't much more of an asset than Stantz at this point, and he'd be a hindrance soon enough. The others were keeping their tempers now but already they were losing patience with their colleague's distracted state.
"What of the others?" demanded the demon.
The doctor jumped, rankled by how easily his thoughts had been tracked. "They don't have the knowledge or the logic to understand," he spat.
"They are thinking clearly," the demon said. He tapped a claw against the mirror, and the image swirled and shifted to show the black Ghostbuster climbing into bed. "This one goes untouched, since they captured my minion chosen for him. Should we not remedy that oversight?"
"We don't need to bother." The doctor tore himself away from the fascination of the mirror and returned to his lab table, examining the neatly labeled vials. "Zeddemore isn't a scientist; he never even attended college. He won't be in a position to find us, let alone stop us. I'd say it was a fortuitous coincidence that the spirit you assigned to him was caught so quick. It taught the others to be more careful. Besides, if he remains unaffected, his teammates will be that much less suspicious that anyone is targeting them."
Scarlet eyes dimmed as the demon pondered that suggestion. "Reasonable," it admitted at last. "You are a cunning man, Doctor."
Its tone was that of a hunter praising a favored hound. The man's lip curled. "I'm glad you appreciate it," he purred, even as his hand went to one of the vials. He snatched it back hastily, though the demon hadn't turned from the mirror. Not yet. Not until he had refined and tested it further, and not until this was finished and over with.
Not so much longer now. Already he could taste the bittersweet achievement of an experiment's successfully completion. There would always be more, of course, but none so keenly enjoyable as this.
Spengler was on the mirror again, the others uninteresting when asleep. The blond physicist seated himself once more before the computer and clenched his fists at his side, taking deep, measured breaths in an attempt to calm his jangling nerves. The doctor focused on the movement of his lips, and the other scientist's self-addressed whisper sounded in his ears. "Think, Spengler. Concentrate. The guys are counting on you. Why would the spectral signatures be virtually unchanged? How powerful or how close would the hypothetical entity have to be?"
He continued to question himself about his science, and the doctor stopped listening, returning his attention to his drugs. He carefully measured the doses for tomorrow. Only an incremental increase, but it would make a world of difference. Tomorrow even the demon would see the results. And after that...
Smiling, the doctor glanced at Spengler's image one more time. "They'll be watching out for you," he told his former colleague. "But you should watch them. Especially your precious Dr. Venkman. I would watch him closely." He raised a slim vial of lavender liquid to the mirror in a parody of a toast. "Very closely, Dr. Spengler."
It should have been an easy bust. After postponing it for the past week's busts, they finally squeezed it into the next morning's schedule. One class four specter haunting the halls of an exercise gym, slamming locker doors and rattling weights. No problem. Hell, it could've been fun, if only the managers hadn't cleared out the patrons before the Ghostbusters arrived. Peter wouldn't have minded a few young athletic females in tight spandex. None were in sight, though, only his two teammates stalking alongside him.
Ray had barely roused when they left. Sick or not, Peter envied him his repose. His own night had been restless at best--he hadn't slept more than an hour at a time. The content of his dreams was less important than the disturbing, gut-twisting apprehension they awoke him with.
And every time Peter had opened his eyes Egon's bed was empty. Regardless of his promise, the physicist hadn't made slept after all. Yet he didn't look tired now, striding along with his head down but alert to every creak in the silent gymnasium. Maybe he'd be okay. Winston was a watchful shadow next to the physicist, and Peter marched at his other side. If Egon noticed his friends were flanking him he didn't remark upon it, focusing on his meter.
In the corner of Peter's eye a shape flickered. The Ghostbuster spun, jerking up his thrower. "I saw it." Instantly his teammates were ready beside him, aiming their own weapons as he scanned the motionless equipment. No sign of the gooper now.
Egon lifted the meter from his belt again. "I am definitely registering its presence," he murmured. "But the signal is too faint to localize. Perhaps we should split up."
No. The protest almost left his lips before he could stop it. Peter shook his head, irritated with the sudden flash of paranoia. A class four hardly posed a threat to any of them, and the place was too big for them to cover effectively if they stayed in tight formation. He tried to put a finger on his unease, but there was no reason for that momentary panic, logical or otherwise. "All right. You guys cover the main exercise room and I'll take the lockers. If you see it call me on the walkies."
Winston and Egon nodded and continued on as Peter retreated to the entrance. Pushing open the door to the locker room, he was met by a darkness so deep it sucked all light into its depths and reached out for more. Jumping back, he grabbed his thrower automatically, then gritted his teeth and shipped it. A quick glance behind assured him that his antics had gone unnoticed by his teammates on the opposite side of the gym.
"All right, the Boogieman's safe in containment, Venkman." He took a step toward the blackness and felt it pulse against him like a breathing, living thing. "Let's not add nyctophobia to the list." One foot on the threshold, then the other, and he was standing in the doorway, the frosted skylights behind him casting his long, hazy shadow on the tile floor. Two more steps and he felt along the wall until he located the lightswitch, flipping it up with a suppressed sigh of relief. The florescents fluttered to life, bathing gray-green lockers in gray-green luminance.
A form darted by, visible only in his peripheral vision. He turned, but saw nothing except the rows of closed lockers and the wooden bench down the center. His rubber soled boots squeaked on the smooth tile as he paced to the bank of showers along the far wall. No sign of the ghost--
An icy draft brushed him as something dark and angular flitted past. When Peter twisted around it vanished, and he snatched his walkie. "Guys, I think it's here."
"No," Egon corrected, "we're approaching it. I was about to alert you."
"You've got it?"
"I believe--"
"Egon, duck!" Winston's shout interrupted the report, followed by the crackle of air ionized by a proton stream. Adrenaline pounding an uneven tempo in his ears, Peter abandoned the locker room, crashing into the main gym at a dead run and narrowly avoiding a treadmill. Through the forest of weight frames and barbells he spotted his teammates at the other end of the hall, their streams blinding lightning through the cast-iron branches. Within the beams a shrouded form fought and wailed, thrashing at the threads of energy. Fumbling for the trap on his belt, Peter dashed toward them.
Then the blackness rose up before his teammates and the ghost, the darkness fled before now taking form and strength, stretching up toward the ceiling. Inky wings arched over the skylights to blot out the sun; blank glowing eyes fixed on him, pinning his soul like a butterfly to a mat.
Peter screeched and fell back, and the demon reached out for him, huge talons gaping wide, undeterred by the proton streams burning behind its fathomless shadow.
The streams. The guys. Gasping, Peter skidded to a halt and planted his boots on the wooden floor, leaning forward as if braced against a hurricane wind. His hands were shaking but he raised his thrower and fired at the monster's giant form.
A brilliance like an open trap flared and dulled again. The demon didn't react, not to the light or the stream, still extending its hideous claws. He couldn't see Egon and Winston, maybe cornered, maybe crushed beneath that deadly grip. "Leave them alone, you sonuvabitch!" he screamed, and without letting the thrower waver he cranked up the energy, blasting a full-power stream directly between the gleaming eyes.
Distantly he heard an explosion of shattering glass, and a voice shouted his name. Two voices. "Peter!" "Pete!" Egon and Winston, still alive under the monster. He could have sobbed with relief.
And it was gone.
Cutting off the stream, Peter blinked, his eyes watering from the glare. No trace of the demon, and the terror its presence had engendered vanished with it. Where its shadow had loomed the wall was blackened with ash, wisps of smoke trailing up from the scorched plaster. In the center of the char a broken window frame sparkled, shards of half-melted glass wrapped around the twisted metal.
"What the hell was that, Pete?" Winston angrily demanded, rising from his crouch over a steaming trap.
"Peter," Egon began simultaneously, just as furious, "how could you be so careless? We already had the ghost! We almost lost it because of your--"
He only registered the words on a surface level, their meaning refusing to make sense in the face of what he had seen, in the face of Egon's wrath. He barely noticed Winston silencing Egon with a sharp nudge, and had to struggle to understand his teammate's question, all the anger mysteriously bled from his tone. "Pete, what happened? What were you doing?"
"You...you didn't see the demon?" His voice sounded strangled to his own ears, a vicious struggle to force it from his vocal chords.
"There was no demon." Egon was utterly calm. Cool. Dead. A stranger would have mistaken that mechanical statement as emotionless, or if they were more insightful, as cold rage. Peter, who knew every one of his friend's moods, read it as what it truly was. Fear. "There was no demon," the scientist repeated. "Only the ghost."
"On the meter..." He tried to gesture to it, his hand a wooden block at the end of his wrist. "Maybe you couldn't see it..."
"The meter registered nothing," Egon told him.
And they had seen nothing.
Winston took a step toward him, then another. Egon was frozen to the floor, riveted by Peter's stare, as he himself had been bound by the demon. No demon. There was no demon. There had been nothing at all.
Clumsily he undid the straps of his proton pack with numb fingers, shrugging it off his back to let it crash to the polished floorboards. At his side, Winston picked up the pack and slung it over his own shoulder before reaching out to him.
Peter wound his fingers around his teammate's wrist, gripping too tightly but he couldn't relax his white knuckles. "Get me out of here," he whispered, not sure the words left his pinched throat, though Winston nodded. "Get me out of here now." Before his eyes could trick him any further. Before his mind could betray him again.
He felt Winston's hand clasp his forearm, saw the dread etched on Egon's white face, and Peter shivered, with a cold so deep inside no fire could reach it. Before I betray you.
Ray was half awake when the guys returned. Hearing Ecto outside, he struggled against the impossible weight pressing down on him to open his eyes and sit up. He hated being sick. It would be bad enough if he had a sore throat or a stomachache, but this fuzzy feeling in his head, like his brain had been taken out and his skull stuffed with cotton instead...that was worse. He couldn't think, he couldn't even read, he just slept, while the guys were busting. He should be envious, and guilty that he wasn't helping them, even if they were the ones insisting he stayed home, but he was too tired to feel much of anything. With a sigh he leaned back again, his heavy head sinking into the feather pillow.
He heard the door of the bunkroom open and thought it might be one of his friends come to check on him, but no footsteps approached. Rolling over, by the sunlight filtering through the shaded window he saw Peter sitting on his bed, facing the door with his back to Ray, his head canted down.
Everything about his posture was so blindingly wrong that Ray snapped wide awake, fought back the tides of sleep and sat up. "Peter?"
Peter turned enough that Ray could see his profile, silhouetted against the doorway. "Ray. Sorry, did I wake you up?"
"No, I was awake already." He rubbed his eyes. "What happened? The bust..." It trickled into his muffled consciousness that his other two teammates were absent, and they wouldn't leave Peter alone, not when he sounded like that. "Where's Egon and Winston? What--"
"They're downstairs," Peter assured him hastily. "Putting the ghost away. They weren't hurt." His eyes darkened. "Thank God they weren't." The last was barely a whisper.
"Peter?" Winston stood in the doorway, Egon behind him. "Don't do that--we thought you were still downstairs with us, m'man." He looked over, caught Ray's eyes and smiled, but even in the dimness his teammate could see the expression was forced. "You back in the land of the living, Ray?"
"Kind of." Ray stared hard at his three friends. "What'd I miss?" he demanded, pushing aside his blankets. "Was it a bad ghost? Was the bust really hard?"
"It was an easy ghost," Peter said in a monotone. "It would've been a damn easy bust if Dr. Venkman hadn't taken pot shots at a demon that wasn't there."
"Peter..." Egon never said his name like that, so deep and sudden it almost was a sob.
Ray didn't get it at first, and then Winston said quietly, emphatically, "Pete, you know it wasn't like that."
And Ray understood, surged to his feet and made it to the other bed to wrap his arms around Peter, not giving him a chance to avoid the hug. Ray felt him shivering, tiny ceaseless tremors racking his shoulders. He put his arms around Ray and rubbed his back, said, "It's okay, Tex," but they both knew Ray wasn't the one who needed the comfort. Peter drew back too soon, pushing himself away with a long shuddering exhalation. He ran his fingers through his hair and made a good attempt at meeting their eyes. "Okay. All right. We knew this could happen."
"What did happen?" Ray asked. He wasn't a psychologist, but he knew repression wasn't a good solution. Peter could handle best what he could talk about. "What'd you see?"
He tried to sound simultaneously sympathetic, determined, and unafraid; and Peter smiled, though it didn't touch his eyes. "I saw a demon. A big black spook with glowing eyes and bat wings, straight out of Fantasia. I should've known it wasn't...it just looked real. It felt real. It scared the hell out of me. We've seen a lot worse, but I was so frightened I couldn't think straight."
"That is...in keeping with what you experienced before." Egon sounded as if every word were being dragged from his throat with iron chains. "The emotional reactions..."
"I know." Peter didn't look at him. "But I should've realized--it felt wrong, it was so sudden. Didn't make sense for it to just come out of nowhere like that. If I'd thought about it before I slagged the window..."
"It's all right, Pete," said Winston. "I talked to the manager, and he's so thrilled the spook's gone that he didn't even think about charging us for it."
"That's not the point." Peter shoved himself to his feet, turning away. "If one of you guys had been between me and that wall--" He interrupted himself with a harsh swallow.
"Are you sure...are you sure it wasn't there?" asked Ray. He had to fight back a yawn to say it, his mind churning against the sluggishness. "Egon thinks there's a demon around. Maybe..."
"I detected nothing on the PKE meter," Egon said slowly.
"Maybe it was in Peter's head because it put itself there," Ray replied. "Did you check--for a weird signal, or some kind of psychic interference?"
"I didn't." Egon stared at Peter, looking ill himself. "I should have. Why didn't I check? A telepathic signal would have faded by now, but we've encountered mind-altering entities before--"
"Don't, Spengs." Peter cut him off with a sharp wave. "We don't--"
"It's possible, though," Winston said. "And it might explain..." Peter's gaze met his. A silent, instant message passed between them; then Winston went on, "why you've been having those nightmares lately."
"Nightmares?" Egon started. "Peter, why didn't--"
"I didn't think they were important, okay?" Peter dropped his head. "I thought it was stress. I'm not the only with trouble sleeping." He shot a sharp look at Egon.
"We're all stressed, yeah," Winston agreed. "But you dream about other stuff usually, right? And this is totally out of the blue, and we know there's a good chance something major is going down in the city. It's a big coincidence that after a year of nothing you'd flashback at the worst possible time."
This time there was the smallest emerald spark in Peter's eyes to match his smile. "I think they call it Murphy's Law, Zed."
"But it is," Ray said seriously. "Maybe it's not a coincidence at all." If there was a demon messing with the ghosts in New York, and with Peter... He had to think. It was so hard, just sitting up was an effort; his whole body felt like it was filled with wet cement and he wanted just to curl up and go to sleep, but he had to think.
The phone rang. Winston grabbed it off Peter's nightstand. After listening for a moment, he said, "I'm sorry, we're on a temporary leave at the moment. Try us again in a couple of days." He hung up before the prospective client could scream more than two oaths and looked at his teammates. "No busts. Not until we figure this thing out."
Peter nodded, a flash of relief tightening his face like pain. Egon assented, "That would be best."
"We better figure it out quick, then," Ray said. "Before our clients really get mad."
"If there is anything to figure out."
Ray didn't know if Peter meant to say that out loud or not, but he heard it, and so did Winston. "There's something," he said. "Maybe it's some demon, or maybe it's what we're afraid it is, but either way, it's a problem we'll find a way to fix. And you know it. Giving up ain't your style, Pete."
Ray nodded adamantly, and Peter looked between them with the barest hint of amusement. "I'll try to stay in character," he said.
The doctor only blinked when the demon roared, and just stepped back when it overturned a lab table with one kick of an immense, clawed foot; but when it lifted a talon over the main counter to dash all the bottles to the floor, he raised his hand and thundered, "Stop!"
Out of sheer surprise if nothing else the creature obeyed, its chest swelling to even greater dimensions as it drew in air for a truly impressive bellow. Before it released it the doctor snapped, "Cease this temper tantrum immediately! I don't work with children and brutes." He subjected his cohort to an icy gray glare, not flinching when it was returned in boiling scarlet.
"Our work might as well be finished," hissed the demon. "Laying siege to our foes in their own home will be too costly a battle. And once they understand--"
"They haven't won yet."
"No? We cannot give them your potions so easily when they stay nested there. And you heard them. They will not emerge until they have a way to defeat us."
"They weren't scheduled to receive much more of my 'potions' as it is," the doctor said. "And they're hardly home free yet. The effects of these drugs are cumulative." When the demon favored him with an inquiring stare he sighed. "The chemicals and their effects build in their systems. True, they'll eventually recover. But now--look at Stantz. And you saw Venkman. Neither of them have been dosed in over twelve hours; has it helped them? Venkman now is primed for another--"
"We can hardly walk in and give it to him!" the demon howled.
"Don't bother. Bring him to you. You think they'll stand by that agreement? They're heroes. They have responsibilities. Stir up a big enough disturbance and they're come out for it. And if they leave anyone behind we could send your minion to him."
"No." The demon's objection was firm but no longer enraged. "I will not risk any of my servants. But a disturbance, yes." It flexed its talons. "Yes, I can do that."
"Why not risk it? It'll be easy. One more dose--"
"No," snarled the demon. "We will deal with them all when I demand it. Your poisons are already prepared, and my servants know their duty to me." It bared its hideous fangs. "Watch the mirror, Doctor. You may enjoy this." Gesturing at the glass, it summoned the clouds within its depths, then scraped one claw down the shimmering surface. The doctor winced at the screech as the demon rent the image in two, then watched as the creature stepped into the darkness between and was gone. The mirror swirled and cleared, no scratch marring its clear reflection.
Having seen this trick of travel before, the doctor ignored it. There were other, more important matters to attend. Regardless of the demon's plans, he had his own schedule. The doctor had observed enough of the team to know that Stantz would almost certainly be left behind. His friends were worried for him, with good reason. But not if the demon wouldn't continue with the program.
He was no servant of the creature, sworn to do its bidding. Nor was he a prisoner; he left the lab regularly for meals and rest. The demon was too much of a coward to finish what they had begun. So be it. Humming a baritone aria, the doctor examined his flasks, selected several and measured their contents into tiny vials, which he stowed in his coat pocket along with a couple of plastic-wrapped hypodermics. Then he turned off the lights, cast one final glance at the still mirror, and walked out the door.
If you want something done right...
Though he gamely offered suggestions and encouragement, by the time Egon finished the scans Ray had dozed off on the threadbare lab couch, his head angled awkwardly against the sagging back. After detaching himself from the headset and sensors, Peter crossed over to him, wondering if it would be worth the effort to send him back to bed. He settled for waking Ray enough to get him to lie down before he got a permanent crick in his neck.
"Nothing." Egon's bass growl cut through Ray's soft snores. Peter patted his sleeping friend's shoulder and rejoined the physicist at the computer. Egon's teeth were clenched as he glared at the screen. "There's nothing that might explain any of this."
Peter sighed. "We knew there might not be. And I feel fine now, Egon. I don't think I'm under the influenced of any big bad demon lord." He clamped his fingers around the back of Egon's chair. "We don't have any proof that I was, either."
Egon jerked like he'd been pricked with a needle, twisting around to look Peter in the eye. He stood abruptly, as if suddenly fearing the chair would collapse under him, his hands restless at his sides. "Peter...I'm sorry, I--"
"Spengs, this isn't your fault."
Egon slipped past and threw himself into pacing in front of the main table. Peter watched him stride back and forth, only advancing a couple of steps before pivoting on his heel and heading in the opposite direction. "It wasn't your fault before," the psychologist said. "It isn't now, whether or not you can detect anything. Whether or not there's anything to detect."
Egon quit his caged tiger impersonation. "No," he agreed. "That wasn't my fault. But my accusation during the bust today--that was unconscionable. I know you, Peter, well enough to know that you don't make errors of that nature, not without damn good reason. And well enough that I should have been aware of your nightmares--"
"When I wasn't telling you about them? When you aren't even in the bedroom at night anymore?" Peter threw up his hands. "Geeze, Egon, yeah. You're a major failure on the psychic network. Better turn in your union card."
"That failure doesn't concern me," Egon whispered. "Failing you does."
"You don't need to worry about that," Peter replied instantly. "You never will." He sucked in another draught of air through his teeth. "Me, though...I should've told you about the nightmares. I mentioned it to Winston, but I should've told all of you. Warned you. I was hoping this wouldn't happen, really hoping. But if I'd..." He couldn't get any further; he couldn't even put the thought into words.
He didn't need to. "You wouldn't have," Egon denied with unapproachable certainty. "You didn't hurt us, and you wouldn't have."
"You didn't see it, Egon. You don't know--it was real. To me, it was totally real. I couldn't see you guys, I thought--you don't know what it's like."
"No," Egon said, "but I was there last year, in that warehouse. I knew you wouldn't harm me then, and you didn't. And this wasn't as bad as that."
No, it wasn't. Nowhere near. The warehouse, Ulster's testing grounds, didn't exist in his memory, only in his dreams, but those dark fragments--nothing had been real then. That Egon had survived at all was a miracle that the physicist refused to acknowledge as such. But his eyes were shadowed all the same, blue darkening at what he himself recalled all too vividly. Peter wasn't the only one with nightmares from that.
Before Egon could turn aside, Peter grabbed him and pulled him into a hard hug, just as he had been tackled by Ray earlier. "We made it, Egon," he reminded. "We're okay." Knock on wood.
Egon's arms looped around him and squeezed, hesitantly, as if almost afraid to test the proposition. "I hope--" he began, then frowned. "Is that the phone again?"
Peter cocked his head. "Sounds like. I should go give Zed a hand answering them, if you're done testing me. Bet no one in the city's happy with us right now, and he shouldn't have to bear the heat alone." He caught the physicist's arm. "Egon. Right now, I feel fine, like I said. If that changes, I'll let you know. But--" He swallowed. "If I don't realize--keep an eye on me. Make sure--"
"I will not allow you to be hurt," Egon said firmly, fully aware that this was not the request Peter was making. And Peter nodded, knowing that Egon understood all the same, and sustained by the faith in his teammates that he could not have in himself.
"Damn." Winston dropped the receiver back on the hook and stared at the phone. "Damn it."
Shoving back the chair, he headed up to the lab, taking the stairs two at a time. He nearly bumped into Peter at the doorway, about to exit. "Hey, Zed, was just going to--"
"We have a problem."
Egon glanced up from the computer, saw his teammate's grim face and straightened with a frown. Peter raised his eyebrows. "Yeah?"
Winston rubbed a hand over his close-shaved skull. "Just got a call from the police. There's something big going down at the docks on the east side. They need us."
"We said no busts," Peter stated neutrally, at odds with the charge of emotion that flickered through his eyes.
"It's a demon," Winston told him. "Maybe more than one. It's big and it's powerful and it has thirty men trapped in a warehouse. The police aren't equipped to deal with this. Bullets aren't worth a damn against a demon, and it flipped a cruiser when they tried to corral it."
"If it's that powerful," Egon remarked, "it may in fact be the being we have suspected as the source of our problems." He picked up his PKE meter and strode to the door. "Winston, you and I will go investigate, and do what we can."
"No..." Winston threw a glance at Peter, but the psychologist's mouth was clamped shut, letting his teammate carry the argument as they went down the spiral stairs. "Egon, we can't hold a demon with just one stream, and someone needs to wield the destabilizer. And there might be something else with the demon, they weren't too clear what, but if it's not alone--we don't want to do this solo."
"We don't have much choice." Egon didn't look to Peter once, striding to the lockers to collect the necessary equipment. "The two of us will have to be enough."
"It'll take us apart," Winston protested.
"Then it'll be a short bust!" Egon snapped. "Our options are limited."
"I know." Winston planted his hands on Ecto-1's hood as if to draw patience from its sturdy frame. It never did any good to fight with Egon, not when he was on as short a fuse as he had been lately, and especially not when he was right. Which he usually was, always a liability when working with geniuses. Limited options, hell, they didn't have any. Thirty people in danger wasn't a bust they could turn down, and he didn't want to go it just the two of them, but there was no way he would ask that of Peter. The flashback before didn't worry Winston, not anywhere near as much as the unnatural dread behind his friend's shuttered eyes. He watched now them from the corner of the garage, not volunteering anything. Peter mute was a bad sign. Winston exhaled and headed to the locker for his jumpsuit. "Okay, we better get over there, see what we're up against--"
"I'll come." Ray's weary voice drew their attention to the stairs. Red hair tangled and round face pale against his brightly striped pajamas, he was barely on his feet, gripping the banister for balance. "Just let me get dressed."
Coming to life, Peter guided him over to Janine's chair and gently pushed him into it. "Think you should sit this one out, Ray."
Ray shook his head and tried to rise again. "We've gotta help those men, and if this is the demon that's been doing everything else--Winston and Egon can't bust it by themselves--"
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, homeboy," remarked Winston wryly.
"He's right." Peter looked at none of them, his gaze fixed on a point between his head and the wall, one hand at his side curled into a fist so tight the nails dug into the flesh of his palm. "I'll go." His eyes flickered to Egon and away again just as fast. "Better have one meter set to watch me and make sure nothing changes. I'll wait to fire until one of you does. And if I start feeling off I'll call it quits. If I can."
"Peter..." Having spoken simultaneously, Egon and Ray looked at each other when he heeded neither of them, Egon's jaw clenched and his brow furrowed, Ray's face drawn and his heavy-lidded eyes dark brown with concern and fatigue.
"You sure, Pete?" Winston asked.
Peter met his teammate's eyes, let him see the fear in his own, and the resolution. "Yeah. If you're sure."
Winston nodded sharply. "Then let's go."
The deciding factor had been Ray, because Peter knew his going was the only way Ray would willingly stay behind. They left him safely ensconced on the couch in the den, watching the news for any bulletins and celphone in hand. Even odds he'd be napping when they got back; he was fighting the good fight against whatever illness had gotten its claws into him, but so far it was a losing battle. If he wasn't showing any improvement by tomorrow they should drag him to the doctor. It wasn't right for Ray to be sleeping his life away; that was supposed to be a Venkman occupation.
Winston rolled his eyes when Peter said as much, and Peter pretended it didn't take the effort it did to say it, ignored the effort it was for Winston to react properly. Egon didn't make the attempt at all, dividing his attention equally between Peter and the meter he had tuned to Peter's biorhythms.
That was no good. With Ecto speeding toward a demon their focus should be on a strategy of attack, on figuring out what it was they were about to face. Much as Peter generally craved the spotlight, it was time to shine it elsewhere, on their job. "If this is the demon that's been setting all these ghosts against us, any idea what we should be expecting?"
"No." Egon saw his frown and relented, testily, never liking to hypothesize on insufficient data. "Possibly a being from the Netherworld, or another such dimension. If so, the destabilizer should allow us to secure it in a trap. If it's a different type of entity we may have to take a different approach. If it does have telepathic projective abilities--" Long fingers clutched the meter convulsively, a desperate grasp for the reassurance of science.
"If this thing plays psychic mind games," Peter said firmly, "you'll pick it up on that gadget." And if it wasn't that--let it be the demon. Or at least let him hold it together until this bust was over. He concentrated on the familiar feel of his thrower's handgrip. Nervous, hell yes, his heart was thumping at twice its normal pace, but not with that irrational fear of this morning. His tension now was justified, and the thought of facing the demon didn't worry him, not any more than it should. He remembered the emotion--if he'd been thinking he would have recognized it this morning, that building, causeless terror. Watch for it, Venkman. You start jumping at shadows, then there's trouble brewing. And tell the guys. That was the most important thing to remember. He could trust Egon and Winston to know what was real and what wasn't.
If only he was certain he'd remember that trust, should the shadows come for him again.
There was almost no one gathered before the police barricade, not an encouraging sign. Audiences for their busts tended to be tenacious; a demon nasty enough to scare people away rather than attract them couldn't be pretty. Neither were the grim expressions of the uniformed officers by the barriers, to a man frowning and with their hands hovering over their belt holsters. Winston parked Ecto between the two cruisers and the three Ghostbusters disembarked and surveyed the scene. Behind the orange sawhorses the blocky, gray warehouse hunched over the dark waters of the bay. Ten feet inside the barricade a police car rested on its roof like a beached turtle, glass from its shattered windows glittering in the long shadows spread by the setting sun. The site had the unsettling calm of a battlefield, after the bodies were carted off but before rain washed away the blood.
Hopefully the impression was only figurative. Winston conversed with the police lieutenant in charge while Egon and Peter readied the equipment, then returned to report, "They haven't seen the demon in about fifteen minutes; it went back into the warehouse and since we were coming they figured they'd let it be. There were thirty-one workers in the building when it showed, and only two managed to slip past it. The others were locked inside, or maybe locked themselves in. They're all unaccounted for."
"Get any descriptions of the beastie?" Peter asked.
Winston shrugged. "Really big, horns, sharp teeth--several cops saw it but they're sketchy on the details. Not a sight they're keen to remember."
Egon had been adjusting his meter. It twittered softly and a little of the tension lining his brow eased. "I'm registering twenty-nine biorhythms in the warehouse, all gathered in one area." Before his teammates could express their relief he pushed up his glasses and continued, frowning, "There are also a pair of Class Seven entities, but these signals are inconsistent with any demon we've encountered. And there are several other readings, including Class Eight--"
A shout in concert from the policemen interrupted his account. Following their pointing fingers, Peter whipped around in time to catch a glimpse of a blob flying toward him like a neon orange bat out of hell. It was upon him and gone again so fast he barely realized he had been hit at all, until he shifted and realized he was sitting on the pavement in a puddle of gooey ectoplasm.
Spotting a rapidly vanishing green dot in the purple sky, he snatched his thrower from his back and took aim, but the stream fell short of its target and the thing faded into invisibility. Peter swore loudly and climbed to his feet, fruitlessly pawing at the goop plastering his hair to his head. A sharp glare aimed at the officers behind the barriers stifled the smirks at his expense. "If that was the spud--" He threw a sticky gob of orange slime to the ground and then blinked at it. "Hey, I thought it was green."
"It was." The mix of anger and consternation in Egon's voice snapped Peter's attention to the physicist. He had managed to maintain both his footing and his grip on the PKE meter, but the instrument, as well as his jumpsuit, hair, and glasses, were all dripping a translucent olive. "The entity that struck you was orange, however. And neither was Slimer, though they were Class Fives. Both are now out of range."
"Hit and run. Is it just me or has that been happening a lot lately?"
"Not to me," Winston remarked, drawing attention to his own pristine, dry condition. His smirk was harder to intimidate away. "Maybe it's your cologne."
"Or maybe even ghosts won't go near yours," Peter shot back. "I swear, that gooper's gotten me before. I'm gonna fry its--"
"The Class Eight residuals are still in evidence." Egon's bass called them back to the task at hand, slime or no slime.
"Residuals," Peter repeated. "So it's no longer around?"
"The Class Eight, no. The Class Sevens, yes." And a Class Seven was nothing to scoff at. Two would be a handful. Ray had been right; he was needed on this bust, justified apprehensions or not.
On the other hand, after that soaking in slime, he was definitely in the mood to kick some ectoplasmic butt. Drawing his thrower, Peter lead the charge into the warehouse to whatever nightmare there awaited them.
Winston had been expecting something nasty. And after so many years on this job, 'nasty' was quite a wide category, including all manner of freakish creatures and monstrosities. Therefore he was pretty much set for anything when they marched into the warehouse.
He sure the hell hadn't been expecting this.
Lunging to the floor as the giant gray tentacle swiped by inches above his head, Winston immediately rolled to his feet and blasted indiscriminately behind him. His wild shot must have scored because something bellowed, a horrendous whistling shriek, and the snake-like limb twisted out of his path. Ducking his head, he plowed forward until he hit the door, shot through it and slammed it shut behind him.
Peter and Egon, already within, joined him in bracing the portal, the flimsy metal shuddering and bending under the assault from the monsters outside it. "What are they?" Winston cried, digging his heels into the thin carpeting, his back against the door. "Cthulu's girlfriends?"
Boots set and head down, Egon's arms were locked straight and his palms pressed to the metal. "I believe," he panted, "they are what ancient mariners termed 'devil fish.'"
"The devil I'll buy," Peter growled, crouched with his shoulder to the door as he awkwardly held the twisting handle in place with both hands. "But these ain't no guppies!"
"No, Peter," Egon agreed. "Devil fish is a vernacular name for the giant octopus."
"Octopus?!" It did explain the tentacles...
"Not true octopi, of course," Egon hastened to reassure them. "These are diabolic aquatic entities akin to Nexa's undines, almost certainly summoned by the demon. They have preternatural as well as physical attributes, and violent dispositions, quite unlike the shy, gentle temperament of the genuine article."
As if the things had heard the slur, the pounding ceased. None of the Ghostbusters changed position, holding their breaths and preparing for the siege to resume any second. When a minute passed and it did not, Winston whispered, "Think they're gone?"
"Unfortunately," Egon murmured back, "devil fish do share the true octopus's distinction as the most intelligent invertebrate--"
A slimy gray arm, like a massive elephant's trunk rimmed with circular ivory suckers, plunged through the wall a foot from the door frame in an explosion of plaster. The three men scrambled back as the limb flailed blindly, curling around the desk in the center of the room and crushing it to splinters before lashing out for a new target. By then they had retreated to the far wall, Peter kicking desperately at the wooden door leading to the adjacent warehouse offices.
"Hello?" a faint voice called in response to his blows. "Who's out there?"
"Ghostbusters, m'man!" Winston shouted, trying to get a bead on the thrashing tentacle. If he didn't sever it on the first shot he was just going to piss it off.
"Great! Is the demon gone?" asked the voice anxiously.
"We're working on it!" Peter hollered, and blasted. Winston fired for the same spot at almost the same time, and outside the offices the monster gave a scream like a locomotive's steam whistle. A seared stump of tentacle yanked out of the hole, leaving behind a long, thick tendril writhing in a pool of black gore.
"We'll have you free shortly," Egon was telling the men behind the door. "You say you are all there? Unlock the door and prepare--" A new gray limb, whole, whipped through the hole, and then another slammed through the wall on the other side of the door. Winston shot at one and Peter aimed for the other, but before their streams could burn through the leathery skin, the arms met in the center over the door, knotted around each other, and yanked backwards.
"Shit!" Peter expertly defined the situation, as the door was ripped, frame and all, from the wall, and five more tentacles joined the two already within. Behind the squirming, serpentine tangle a hard ebony beak snapped, topped by the curving mass of its head, or body, or whatever. Malevolent white eyes the size of dinner plates glared at them with an eerily human-like cunning.
The devil fish didn't take well to proton streams in those glowing eyes, Winston quickly learned, but that didn't mean it slowed it down. On the contrary, it made him the number one target, and all that saved him from being wrapped in the stranglehold of a lightning-fast tentacle was Peter shoving him to the floor at the last second. As Winston scrabbled backward he heard the psychologist call, "Egon, get those men out, while Zed and I make sushi out of this sucker!"
Great, Venkman, now how the hell do we-- but before Winston could ask his teammate, Peter dove forward on his stomach, under the tentacles and heading straight for the beast. No, straight past it--as Winston fired another distracting blast at the devil fish's head, Peter slipped through the gaping hole in the wall. A second later another stream crackled past the monster's ears, or would have had it had such organs. It bellowed and twisted around to face this new irritant, and Winston dashed forward as Peter yelled, "Now!"
Behind him the door burst open and Egon lead a bedraggled crew of men racing for the demolished wall. Winston ducked through with them, unhooking a trap from his belt. As they sprinted for the exit, Egon covering them with well-timed blasts from his thrower, Winston made a break for the monster's enormous bulk resting on the cement floor. Here goes nothing--
He slammed the trap into the wrinkled, pulpy flesh, ignoring the arm that wrapped around him, and with his hand pressed the pedal. The doors flipped open, engulfing the creature in light, and the tentacle, tightening like a belt around his waist, shook free. Its arms whipped about, floundering in uncoordinated rage as it fought the energy trying to confine it, handicapped but it wasn't going down. "The destabilizer!" Winston shouted. "Pete, blast it with--"
He heard Peter scream then, an inarticulate cry that could have been anger or just as easily fear. Damn it, the other one, there were two of these monsters--but if he let go of the trap now this one would be loose. He wasn't sure how he was holding it as it were, but as it was working he wasn't going to ask. To Peter he shouted, "Hang on!" while frantically trying to think up an out to this predicament.
He didn't have to find one; an angel must've been listening to his prayers, because a corona of blue lit around the devil fish and its solidity fluctuated, then failed. The creature bellowed as it was drawn into the depths of trap, helped on its way by the destabilizer Peter had appropriated from Egon.
Winston dropped the trap, grabbed his thrower, and spun in one swift motion, only to see no sign of the second monster.
A rippling energy current flashed overhead and he swung around to follow it to its target, but nothing was there. Whirling again, he spotted Peter, back against the wall by the loading dock, discharging shot after shot into empty space, wide eyes locked on that nothingness as if the Apocalypse were materializing and he was the only man standing between it and the world's end.
"Damn," Winston gasped, almost transfixed himself by the terrified determination in his friend's face. "Pete!" he shouted. "Peter!" The destabilizer jerked in Peter's hands as he heard the call--at least he wasn't that far gone. "It's over!" Winston hollered to him, trying to approach while avoiding accidental destabilization by a stray beam. "We got it! It's over!"
"No!" The force of that shout drove him back a step. "Everywhere--can't see 'em--demon's trick--" Peter's choked gasps were barely articulated, let alone intelligible, but the current of fear running through them was so strong Winston was frightened himself, and more horrified. Even if it was all in his head...
"Peter, you're gonna be all right, man, you're gonna be all right." To fall this far, this fast--it wasn't like this morning. Ray must be right; something was influencing him, anyway. This couldn't just be a flashback, not so sudden and so overwhelming. "Just calm down, you gotta--"
"Gotta stop 'em!" Peter panted, edging along the wall, firing sporadic bursts into the air. His head jerked around as he sought to track the paths of invisible monsters. "Gotta--can't let--"
"Listen to me, Peter!" Winston rapped out. "You're safe, I swear. Nothing's gonna hurt you!"
Oh God, he better buy it. He was heading straight toward the loading dock, and Winston realized the guardrail was gone, the aluminum tubing snapped off at its base. Probably by the emergence of the devil fish; the demon had to have called them up from somewhere. But without the rail nothing blocked the ten foot drop to the murky waters of the bay, and if Peter took the plunge in this condition Winston doubted he'd swim like a fish. More like a stone. "Pete, don't move. I'll help you fight 'em, just stay there."
"Don't trick me!" He had never heard his friend sound so hostile, the shout vibrating with bitter fury, even stronger than the fear. "Not real!" Winston ducked a beam shot over his head with a bare inch to spare. "You're lying--
"This is me, Pete, this is Winston!" he cried, dodging another blast, trying to slip past his guard while Peter advanced another two strides toward the loading dock. "You know I don't lie to you, m'man. Trust me!"
Peter took another step onto the concrete around the dock, only five feet from the drop-off. The destabilizer beam wavered as his hands shook, but he wasn't about to let go of the weapon. "You gotta trust me, Pete," Winston begged, "come over here--you can see 'em better over here."
He stepped toward his friend, and Peter's head whipped around, dark glittering eyes focusing on him for an instant. "You're not Winston," he said clearly, hatred in every syllable. "It's a lie, get outa here, I won't let--" He raised the destabilizer as he backed up, one foot down, then the other, the next, and the last would be over empty space--
Winston mentally crossed his fingers, feinted right, dodged left, and flung himself at Peter. One wild shot almost struck, tingling past his ear as he caught his teammate around the waist and sent them both tumbling, away from the treacherous brink of the loading dock. The destabilizer was knocked from Peter's hands, and before he could grab for it Winston wrestled him to the floor, trying to pin his arms. Winston had the advantage of size but Peter's wiry frame was at least as strong and he fought like a madman, flailing wildly and cursing without words.
"Pete! Come on, please, it's all right, just calm down, you're gonna be okay..." Frantically repeating the mantra of reassurances, he crouched over his friend, grappling to force his wrists to the ground. It would be impossible to hold him for any amount of time, not without hurting him, but if he bolted... Winston was starting to panic when Peter went limp under him, collapsing against the cement floor.
Still gripping his wrists, Winston stared anxiously down at his teammate's white face. Peter's head was tipped back, glassy gaze roving over the ceiling. He drew a long shuddering breath and whispered, barely moving his mouth, "Winston?"
"I've got you, m'man." And not about to let go.
"What's real?"
The absolutely calm dread in that question made Winston's skin crawl. It was in no way rhetorical. "I am," he avowed. "You are, the warehouse is. The calamari from hell were, but we caught one and the other left. Everything else...I don't see anything in here except us, Pete."
Peter panted in short quivering inhalations, fighting the terror raging in his eyes. "Trust you," he mumbled, "can trust you, it's not real..." He screwed his eyes shut and snapped them wide again, as if the darkness behind the lids was worse than whatever he saw with them open. "Where's Egon?"
Right on cue the walkie on Winston's belt sputtered to life. "Winston? Peter? Your assistance is required outside." The physicist's terse bass was ragged, out of breath, and faint cries could be heard over the background static. "Respond if you are able," Egon commanded.
Peter was listening, tensing at Egon's voice but not fighting back. Hoping his momentary frenzy was over, Winston released one of his wrists and seized the walkie. Before he could thumb the button to open the channel, Egon came on again, all pretense of composure snatched from his voice, "Peter! Winston! If you can, help!"
The walkie went dead. Pulling away from his teammate, Peter jerked his head around, staring at the communicator with a different kind of terror. Winston hit the button, shouted, "Egon? Egon!"
Outside, something roared, a high wail that still thundered through the warehouse, rattling the windows. Using the wall to lever himself to his feet, Peter started at the noise, looking to his teammate in desperate entreaty. Winston shook his head, gasped, "That's real!" He recognized the devil fish's bellow. The other one wasn't gone after all. It must have ducked through the loading dock to head outside in pursuit of the escaped men--and Egon. The physicist wouldn't lose his cool unless it was really that bad. "I gotta help him, Pete, don't move, stay right here--"
The other man nodded sharply, once. The fear that flashed across his face was at last an expression Winston recognized, not induced fright but real. The only thing that ever truly scared Peter Venkman, worry for the team, for his friends. He was coming back to himself; at least Winston prayed it was a sign of recovery. No time to secure him; he had to rely on Peter to act for his own good. "Just stay here," he ordered one last time, snatched the destabilizer from the floor, and ran for the exit.
Night had come early, Winston thought, when upon leaving the warehouse he found himself in a pitch black void. Then he realized he could see nothing at all, not the faintest glimmer of lights above or below or to the side. And the Big Apple never slept. It was like going blind.
The monster howled again, and this time he heard other cries echoing it, frightened human voices. He plunged through the blackness toward them, abruptly emerging into pale twilight. Wisps of inky darkness swirled around him, and he looked back to see a huge cloud of deepest black filling the area between the warehouse and the police barricade. Behind the barricade a number of men in work clothes, the rescued victims of the demon attack, mingled with the officers. All eyes were on the black smokescreen. Egon's tall blond form was not among the watchers.
"Egon!" Winston yelled at the top of his lungs, debating whether to grab his thrower or the destabilizer, or go back to the warehouse, or just stick his fingers in his ears and try to wake up. This had to be a nightmare. Things couldn't go this wrong in real life, not so quickly.
The police lieutenant pointed to the cloud, shouting, "Dr. Spengler's in there--it grabbed him! What is it, a giant squid?"
"Close enough," Winston growled. "What--"
"One of my boys saw it coming out of the bay and shot at it, and then it released this smoke," the officer explained. "Dr. Spengler was saying that's normal for these things when threatened, then a tentacle whipped out and he was gone."
And now he was trapped with the devil fish somewhere within that cloud, which was a lot larger than the monster; no way to tell where he was. Winston wished for a split second that they could change places. He'd rather be fish food than out here, alone, and if Egon were him he already would've thought of a solution--
Had to do something. Egon was too damn good to have just been swallowed; he'd have thought of some way to hold it back. He had to be alive in there. Winston didn't have the strength to consider the alternative. Unshipping his thrower he cranked the power down to minimum. At that level it shouldn't hurt Egon, just stun him, but if it stung the creature a bit... Winston swept the stream through the cloud. Halfway across the devil fish shrieked. A plume of darkness swelled into the air above the blackness, pinpointing its location.
He remembered the monster's huge round eyes. Hopefully they weren't any better than a human's at penetrating that cloud. Focusing on his goal, Winston dove into the fog again, charging toward that spray of inky smoke. He knew he was getting close because the darkness thickened, the faintest glimmer of light fading as he neared the center. Funny that he couldn't feel or smell the black; must be magic, not physical. That would explain how it could be so overwhelmingly dark. Then he tripped and almost fell over the tentacle, thick as a telephone pole, suddenly in his path.
Instead of running Winston gripped his equipment and stood his ground. Can't fire, not until he was sure of where the creature actually was, and whether his teammate was in the way. He couldn't see the limb, but he felt it wrap around him, and he twisted so that it encircled his legs and torso but not his arms. Then he was borne into the air. He tightened his hold, the destabilizer in his right hand, the trap in his left. The devil fish must've retreated or the cloud was dissipating; rushing through the darkness he could make out the dim shadow of the tentacle and his destination, the hulking body with its snapping, beaked orifice.
When he glimpsed the eyes, twin moons in the false night, he fired the destabilizer. Energy enveloped the creature's body and it roared, flinging him aside. Expecting the reaction, he quickly rolled to his feet, the destabilizer's beam still trained on the monster, and then he flung the trap out, stomping the pedal when the line went taut.
Jet black whirls twisted down into the light, and with them came the devil fish, screeching all the way. The destabilizer shuddered as its target abruptly vanished, sucked into the trap.
Cutting the beam, Winston took his foot off the trap pedal, then dropped to his knees. "Egon?" he asked, too hoarse to shout. The destabilizer slid from his fingers, clattering to the pavement. His whole right arm was numb where it had hit the asphalt, a warm trickle of blood sticking to the sleeve of his jumpsuit. "Egon?" You better be okay, man, after all that, you damn well better be okay--
"Here, Winston," came a faint rasp, nothing like the physicist's usual implacable bass.
He tried to look for the source but met only thick darkness. "A trap," Winston said, recalling how the cloud had reacted to his own. "Open your trap."
After a moment light flared and the blackness cleared, fading to a dusky mist. Through it he made out Egon sitting a few yards away, next to the hulk of the flipped police car, divested of his proton pack and PKE meter but a trap still hanging on his belt. He blinked at his teammate fuzzily, his glasses absent as well. "Winston? Where is Peter?" the physicist demanded huskily.
Without even bothering to swear, Winston struggled to his feet, abandoning his own pack in his haste, leaving it in a pile with the destabilizer as he sprinted for the warehouse. He banged through the door with a hiss of pain as his injured arm brushed the frame, then stared in dismay at the empty building. "Oh no. No, no--" Still a nightmare. Had to be a nightmare. This was only a bad dream; this could not be happening.
Running for the offices, toward the demolished wall, he saw the open metal door in the wall he had left Peter leaning against. Only a narrow fire exit; he hadn't even noticed it before. A few feet from the door Peter's proton pack was propped against the wall, deliberately placed.
Winston saw no one in sight when he peered outside. It had only been a few minutes; how far could he have gotten? "Peter!" No response. They couldn't be so lucky.
"Winston?"
Egon's rasp paused him on the threshold. Winston turned and jogged back to the main entrance where the physicist stood squinting around at the warehouse. He looked steady on his feet but clearly couldn't see much farther than Winston had in the cloud. Under his collar circular bruises were starting to redden on his throat, the sucker patterns explaining his hoarseness.
"Pete's gone," Winston told him, and without giving Egon a chance to assimilate that he grabbed the taller man's arm and pulled him outside. "Need a PKE meter, we've got to find him," he said, relating what had transpired as they stumbled to Ecto-1. Egon listened in silence while Winston spoke, silently damning Egon for almost getting himself strangled, and Ray for not coming, and Peter for not staying put, and himself for not finding a better way to handle everything. Himself most of all. He couldn't justly blame his friends; none of them had had any choice in their situations. But he had. And he had managed to screw it up but good.
Had to make up for that. If it wasn't too late.
Ray's eyes were closed, but he wasn't asleep. He wasn't entirely awake, either, but he was thinking as hard as he could. The television was a muted drone in his ears; if his teammates were mentioned he would hear it. There had been a brief bulletin shortly after they had left the firehall, reporting that the Ghostbusters were on the job; whatever had occurred since then must not be enough to warrant attention, at least not until the evening news. Peter would probably lament the lack of publicity, but Ray would just as soon it went uncovered. Reporters only got excited if things went wrong.
He hoped everything was going well and that they'd be back soon. He should be out there, even if he was sick, and if anything happened to them because he wasn't there... He hoped Peter was okay, too. He had been so upset by the flashback, but it couldn't have been that terrible, since he had been willing to take another bust. If it had been worse he wouldn't have gone. He wouldn't risk them like that.
Even if he wasn't with them, Ray still could help. Alone in the firehall he brainstormed about the demon Egon hypothesized was behind their recent flood of busts, and maybe the cause of Peter's flashback as well. It was possible. It would need to be a powerful being, though, and they hadn't detected any residuals on Peter indicating he had been psychically touched. Then again, a demon running around the city should be leaving large residuals all over the place, and they hadn't found anything so definite. Unless it was staying put, which wasn't common demon behavior, unless its power was contained somehow...maybe an artifact...
The TV remote slipping from his fingers awoke him. Ray blinked and straightened up on the couch, pushing back the afghan. Couldn't fall asleep. The guys would be back soon and he'd have to do more theorizing with Egon. Retrieving the remote, he put it on the coffee table next to the cordless phone. When they were done the bust they'd probably call. Maybe he could take a short nap until they did.
Before he closed his eyes he heard something over the television. A low creaking--footsteps on the stairs. The bust must have been easier than they expected. Funny, he hadn't heard Ecto pull in. Ray sat up to see over the back of the couch. "Guys?" he asked around a yawn. "How'd it--"
"I hope you don't mind, I let myself in." At that cool baritone Ray leapt up and spun, tripping on the afghan tangled around his legs and falling to his knees on the couch. Half of him didn't recognize the unfamiliar voice, the suppressed amusement running beneath the icy monotone. The other half knew it instantly, and with the sudden precision of a lock being sprung, every recent event made a terrible sense. Before he spotted the figure in the doorway Ray was bracing to lunge at Kenneth Ulster, fatigue canceled by the charge in his blood of equal shares fear and fury.
He didn't make it. Before he could vault the couch the world flashed white fire, his nerves screaming in almost audible agony before falling silent, dropping him limp to the cushions. His eyes remained open; he couldn't even blink, and only the faintest tingle from his limbs assured him that his body remained at all.
"Ah, so it was the right setting. Good." Ulster, a proton pack strapped over his dark jacket, stepped into Ray's line of sight, blocking the television. "I also helped myself to one of these," and he waved the thrower before his eyes. Ray couldn't focus on the wagging muzzle, but behind it Ulster's face was clear, staring down at him. With perfect clarity he made out the smile playing over the scientist's thin lips. "Your secretary was good enough to show me how it works, last year."
Anger crossed his features and vanished so swiftly it barely could be counted. "You know, there were moments, when I was lucid enough to think of it, that I blamed her for everything. If she hadn't caught me--I wanted to punish her for that. But finally I acknowledged she had only done it for the basest of motivations. Pure emotional attachment, for which of you I can't even figure. It didn't matter anyway.
"No