TAP

Plop.

It was a soft sound, so soft he could barely hear it over the ringing in his ears. Liquid striking like; a drip, a droplet in a pool that left behind only the soft whispered sound of its splash.

Plop.

It came again, separated from the first splat by a few seconds of vivid and painful silence, and then again, in a steadying drip falling like rain upon a roof.

Roof… where am I? He blinked dazed eyes, staring upwards into dimness. The surface far above seemed distant, barely glimpsed, rough and irregular with the texture of hewn stone. Faint flickering light touched the chamber, as if unseen candles flamed from hidden niches. Vaguely, despite the humid, fetid warmth surrounding him, he felt a cooling breeze against his skin that brought his flesh to goosebumps; and below him, a hard, uneven surface seemed to draw more heat from his body.

He heard other sounds then, as quiet and muffled as the drip-drip-drip that echoed around him. The rapid shuffle of pattering feet – like children’s feet, small and swift – approached him, and voices hissed in a rapid and unintelligible susurration.

Frantically, he flicked his eyes around at the sound, trying to locate the threat. At first he saw nothing; then, suddenly, there were images as faint as the uneven light, their outlines picked out in a reddish glow, as if near-transparent figures were illuminated by a demonic light from within. They were converging on him, surrounding the bier on which he lay, and instinctively he tried to move away from their approach.

That was when he realized he couldn’t move.

As panic welled in him, a ghostlike hand came out and closed tightly around his bare shoulder. A burst of pain suddenly and unexpectedly sizzled through him in a bright arc, and he cried out harshly against its bite.

He heard them giggle at his cry, murmurs of excitement flowing through them. “Yesssss,” the one that held him hissed. “Good….”

Something sharp raked him across his pectoral muscle and he shivered with reaction. He could feel the heat of welling blood across his skin, then little demon hands dipping into the hot trail, smearing red over his chest. He could only stare in horror as their near-invisible fingertips – made more visible, he realized, by the crimson delineating their shapes – moved toward their barely-seen faces and then dipped into tiny, pursed mouths, where small tongues licked and lapped away the red.

He shuddered. They were… Oh, God, they were tasting him.

“Sweeeeet….” Another round of giggles, then suddenly there was a blur of motion around him. More hands caught at him, digging in nails sharp as claws, holding him down, manipulating his immobile body into position, splaying and pinning his arms.

Out of the corner of his eye, as others worked around him, he glimpsed flashes of something smooth and golden like brass, the sheen of old dark glass, the glow of hammered metal receptacles. The creatures that held him captive were arranging something, taking care to set up whatever artifacts they manipulated into proper position. He had no idea what they meant to do, but he knew it would not be good.

His tongue flickered futilely, nervously, over his lips, too dry to moisten them; his mouth moved, but he could not find any words. Yet even had he been able to shout, he knew that he would not have been heard by those he needed.

Guys, Peter Venkman begged inside, where are you?

And… where am I?

Three hours previously…

“Peter!” An irritated voice snapping directly into his ear – repeatedly, at that – finally succeeded in pulling Peter Venkman from the depths of his sleep. “You must get up immediately!”

“Mmm.” Peter rolled over, hugging his pillow to himself, and tried to burrow deeper into the warmth of the blankets of his four-poster bed. “Five minutes more, ‘kay, Steffie?”

“No! Peter, we have an urgent call and you must get up right now.” A hand shook him briskly, and the voice repeated his name, this time with even more choler.

Oh, hell, it was Spengs and not his latest girlfriend, Peter’s mind at last resolved, and he knew he couldn’t get away with one more second, let alone five minutes, of sack time. Reluctantly he lifted his head from its barricade of blankets, and stared up at Egon through a curtain of disarrayed brown hair. “Why? What’s going on?” He blinked, yawned and stretched simultaneously with sitting up, and then stared around. “It’s too early for a bust. If Janine scheduled something for this godawful hour, on a weekend, I swear I’ll kill her.”

Even as he spoke, he realized it couldn’t be anything scheduled. Ray and Winston were already suited up and ready to go, and, bleary as he was, Peter caught the unusual look on Ray’s face. “What’s up, Tex?”

Ray’s normally cheerful expression had vanished behind lines of concern, and worry was bright in the brown eyes. “We have to go to Russell Turner’s apartment. He called me about six-thirty to say that something happened last night – well, really early this morning – and asked if I could come by right away and try to figure it out. He couldn’t really tell me what happened - at least, he wasn’t making much sense – but from what he said, I thought that maybe we should all go to check it out.”

“Russell Turner?” It took a few seconds for the name to sink in to Peter’s brain as he climbed unwillingly out from beneath the warm bedcovers. It was always too damn cold in the bunkroom in the morning anyway, he thought – another good reason to wait until a reasonable hour to arise. “He’s that role-playing geek who’s been bugging you for ‘technical assistance’ with ghoulies and ghosties, right?”

“He’s not a ‘role-playing geek’, Peter – he’s a college student and a game designer.” Even as troubled as he was, Ray’s defense of Turner came out automatically. Peter realized he’d spoken up in such a manner because in college Ray had certainly played his share of Dungeons and Dragons, and hated it when the “geek” moniker had been slapped on him.

“Wanna-be game designer,” Winston corrected uncharitably. Peter noticed that Zed hadn’t even had a chance to shave yet this morning. “And not a very good one, judging by that demo he insisted on showing us when he and his buddies came over a couple of weeks ago.”

“That’s why he’s been talking to me – he knew it was missing something and wanted my advice.” Ray shook his head. “I didn’t like the direction he was going with it, and I told him so. I have a feeling that he didn’t listen to me.” The brown eyes turned downcast. “And he got into trouble.”

Peter nodded as he began to dig through drawers in search of clean clothing. “Okay, so I’m up to speed. But do I have time for a shave and a shower before we go?”

“If you must, Peter, and don’t dawdle,” Egon instructed imperiously, still eyeballing him as if he expected Peter to slither back into bed if given half the chance.

“God, Egon, you sound like my mother,” Peter complained, rubbing his face hard in resignation. “Give me ten, okay? And,” he added over his shoulder as he vanished into their bathroom, “a cup of coffee.”

It was 8:15 when Winston pulled Ecto into a No Parking zone outside a shabby apartment building in Morningside Heights, known for catering to students at neighboring CCNY. Peter yawned and drained the last swallow of his coffee, then straightened up from his drowsing slouch in the back seat. He leaned over the stack of books and equipment Ray had arranged in the space between them, staring with idle curiosity at the pile, then at Ray. “What are you messing around with?”

Ray shrugged, closing the musty book that rested on his lap and replacing it on the pile. “I was just seeing if we could get a clue about what’s going on, but I’m not even sure what references I should be checking out.”

“There’s nothing active on the PKE meter, nor measurable residuals,” Egon added from the front seat, his tone definitely disappointed by their absence. Peter, grinning, craned forward and slung a friendly arm around Egon’s neck.

“You know, Spengs,” he said dryly in answer to the broad glare he received in return, “you don’t have to sound that sorry that you’re not picking up a Class Eight.”

“I’m with you, Pete,” Winston nodded as he took Ecto’s keys out of the ignition. “Man, it’s too early to have to deal with anything above a Class Three.” He and Peter exchanged sympathetic grins; both of them had been out on the town the night before with their respective girlfriends, and Peter had a feeling that Winston hadn’t beaten him back to the firehall by more than a half-hour at best.

“Knowing what we are facing in advance would make it easier,” Egon replied archly, fiddling again with the PKE meter in his meter as if to coax a reading out of it.

“I think we’ll just have to wait until we get up there,” Ray said resignedly, as all four piled out of Ecto and began unloading their equipment.

Peter settled himself into his pack, flexing his shoulders before pulling the straps into place and buckling the belt at his waist. “You’ve got to have some kind of clue, Ray,” he prodded. “I mean, the way he was using you as a sounding board….”

“He and his buddies have been working on a new game,” Ray began to explain as he donned his own gear. “The name they came up with for it is ‘Demons and Darkness’.”

Winston made an involuntary face at the grim title. “That doesn’t sound like the happiest subject matter he could have picked.”

“He thought maybe he could come up with something that could give traditional D & D a run for its money. He was looking for something a little more… real.”

“Ouch.” Peter’s brows arched in dark humor. “That could be a little too real. I take it he’s never gone mano a mano with a real demon, huh?”

“Let’s hope,” Ray murmured, turning his eyes upward toward the apartment building, as if searching the grimy windows for any signs of mayhem within.

“Whoa, wait a minute!” The light dawned in Peter’s brain. “You mean you think….” “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Ray nodded, a rueful little grin barely curling around the edges of his mouth.

“Oh man,” Winston groaned. “I shoulda driven with Claudia up to Vermont to see the fall foliage after all. She almost talked me into it last night.”

Peter cuffed him on the shoulder as they started to climb the narrow stairs from the street level to the apartment building’s entrance, which was conspicuously absent of any doorman. “Hey, and miss being up at the crack of dawn to put the fear of God into a bunch of college kids messing around with twelve-sided dice and cockamamie fake spells? C’mon Zed, you can’t buy entertainment like this.”

Egon, ignoring the banter, still had the PKE meter out, and he gave a consoling bob to his head. “Nothing yet, Ray. Had they actually managed to conjure a demon, there would certainly be residuals – ” The meter suddenly gave a faint beep as the group crossed into the foyer, and Ray and Egon both stopped in their tracks, peering at the display. Egon frowned, peering closely, sliding his glasses into place on the bridge of his nose. “No…” he breathed after a moment’s consideration, “there might have been something… but I’m not sure what. Certainly not a demon. And there is nothing there now.”

“We’d better go on up.” Ray hadn’t sounded that resigned, that quietly distressed, in a long time, and Peter felt himself getting worried, fearing that Stantz was trying to book himself a one-way ticket on the Guilt Express. “We can probably tell a lot more once we’ve talked to him, plus we can get readings in the apartment.”

They squeezed into the cramped and creaking old elevator at the end of the hall, which was just barely large enough for the four men and their bulky packs to fit into. “How’d you get hitched up with this guy, Ray?” Winston asked, as he wormed a hand around Egon and the corner he’d had to wedge himself into, trying to find the floor button. “And where to?”

“Third floor.” Ray sighed. “He came to that seminar I took part in a couple of months ago, part of CCNY’s extension program. Afterwards, he asked if he could buy me a cup of coffee and pick my brains about things like spells and magic and mysticism for his game. I wish I hadn’t talked to him. I think I gave him too many ideas – I warned him, but –”

“You can’t be responsible for other people’s stupidity, Ray,” Peter interjected. “No matter what you might have said to him, he’s probably the kind of kid that just won’t listen.”

“As you were, Peter,” Egon voice slid in mildly, his focus still seemingly entirely on the PKE meter and its settings.

“Live and learn, Spengs.” He grinned despite himself as the elevator doors reluctantly shuddered open onto a decrepit inner hallway. “It took you and Stantz both a couple of years to knock some sense into me – a lot more than a few coffee breaks and phone calls, that’s for sure.” Then he stared upward at the cobwebby ceiling, the chipped light fixtures and fading paint, and sighed. “This is gonna be a freebie, isn’t it, Tex?”

Ray straightened his shoulders and said very quietly, “Russell asked only me to come. I’m the one who asked the rest of you.”

“Ah.” Peter nodded his head in understanding. He reached out and gave a light tap with his knuckles to the back of Ray’s head. “Then I’ll make sure to send you the bill, pal. Now what did we decide to charge this year for a basic consultation? Winston, you remember?”

“Hmm,” Winston played along, considering, “I think it was something like five hundred dollars. But,” he added helpfully, “applicable to the charges for capture and containment if it came to that.”

Ray smiled a little, looking back over his shoulder at his two friends, knowing full well what they were doing. “You can take it out of my paycheck, Peter. In installments.” He consulted the slip of paper in his hand for verification as he stepped in front of a door painted a faded beige that matched the rest of the decrepit housing. The security peephole was missing, leaving an empty hole that looked eerily like a gaping eye socket.

Ray sharply rapped on the door, and with a harsh squeal of unoiled hinges, it was thrown open almost before he had withdrawn his knuckles. “Oh, man, Doctor Stantz, thanks for coming.” Blood-shot eyes glanced over at the three figures behind Ray in the doorway. “Oh…. You brought your friends?” He shifted with discomfort and looked for a moment as if he was going to close the door and lock everyone outside.

“I thought I better since we don’t know what we’re dealing with, Russell.” It was hard for Ray to look that stern, but the grimness around his mouth took away the usual warmth from his eyes. “Now can we come in?”

Russell swallowed and nodded, then tossed his head in invitation, turning. “Place is a mess.” He mumbled an apology as the Ghostbusters trailed him in. “Sorry about that, but, I wasn’t expecting anyone to come over before I had a chance to pick up. My buddies and I… we were gaming last night, you know….”

Peter assessed the young man before them; he could not have been more than twenty, and he looked unkempt as he wavered on his feet. The smell of beer was strong around him. “Great, he’s wasted,” Peter said under his breath. “We’ll probably find we’re dealing with D.T.’s and pink elephants.”

Egon, similarly sotto voce, replied, “I think not, Peter. I am reading very faint residuals. Unfortunately, I’m unable to make sense of them as of yet. I’ll need to study them a bit….” Peter recognized the expression as Egon glazed off into a typical PKE meter trance, completely absorbed in the readings his favorite toy was displaying.

“Um, Doctor Stantz, if you wanna sit down….” Russell looked around the apartment for a suitable surface that wasn’t covered with dirty clothing, towels, piles of books, or any of the other detritus that tended to collect in a bachelor student’s first housing away from home and mom. He finally grabbed and tipped a folding chair currently serving as a repository for newspapers and junk mail, sending the papers to the cluttered floor as he reeled it over towards Ray.

“No, it’s okay. I think I’ll stand.” Ray’s eyes took in the crowded, chaotic ambience of the student’s apartment, finally lighting on a tall, brick-and-boards bookcase against one wall. The collection was eclectic and, under normal circumstances, might have been right up Ray’s alley – two shelves’ worth of science fiction, fantasy and horror paperbacks; a generous stack of comic books and even some manga; and several years of sequential issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. But it was the middle shelf that drew Ray directly over, where aged books with worn leather covers were arranged according to the topics lettered on their cracked and bent spines. Within the carefully catalogued arrangement, however, were obvious gaps where, judging by the lack of dust on the shelving, references had been very recently removed. Ray’s eyes tracked elsewhere then, around the apartment, until he spotted the missing books haphazardly stacked on a card table set in a pitiful excuse for what a realtor would call a “dining nook”. It looked as if a game of some sort had been in progress. He regarded everything for a few moments, carefully considering what he saw, then shook his head and turned back to the college student.

Russell was already fidgeting under the occultist’s reproachful, almost disappointed gaze. “Yeah, I know, Doctor Stantz,” he muttered, abashed, rubbing at his bleary eyes. “We screwed up, didn’t we? – Flip and Randy and Mitch and me.”

Ray was very contained, very concerned, his voice soft and unaccusing, but certainly firm. “I told all of you to stay away from anything that you even suspected might be real, and not to hesitate to call me if you thought you might be coming too close. Why didn’t you?”

“We were just messing around, honest; we didn’t know – “

“How can you plead ignorance when I told you?” Ray’s voice was rising, not in anger but in genuine dismay and distress. “This isn’t something you can just play around with. You’re a sociology major, aren’t you? You don’t have the background in occultism or parapsychology that we do. And,” he held out one hand preemptively when it looked as if Russell was about to protest, “I don’t care how much you’ve read or how many role-playing games you’ve taken part in. It’s different, and it takes years of training and knowledge to really understand what everything means and how it works.”

“Yeah, you’ve gotta be the right age group to play with these kinds of toys,” Peter said archly, under his breath. He cast his own assessing glance around the apartment. God, how many six-packs had these kids killed last night? There were empty beer cans everywhere, some of them stacked in a sloppy pyramid in the corner that looked like it was about to tip over at any second. Shrugging off his pack – he was betting that it would be a while before they got down to any kind of “business” – he plunked himself down on one of the apartment’s battered chairs. He thought of his own college days and for a moment almost felt absurdly at home in his current surroundings; in fact, he was pretty sure the frat house had had a Dumpster-diver armchair remarkably similar to the one he was lolling on right now. He grinned up at Winston, who had similarly shed his own pack and was looking – in vain, as it turned out – for a place stable and tidy enough to sit. Peter took pity on him and patted the overstuffed arm of the chair, inviting him to perch on it while they all waited.

Egon looked up from his meter and spoke quietly. “Mister…Turner? I think it would be wise if you told us exactly what led you to call us this morning.”

Ray added, “And you should probably get your friends over here to talk to us too, in case you forget something.”

Russell dropped his eyes, his head drooping. “That’s the problem. They’re gone. They just… vanished. In the middle of the night.”

“Literally?” Ray’s eyes widened, and the other three Ghostbusters snapped to similar attention.

“Well, no. I didn’t see them go, except….” Russell visibly, obviously shook himself as if in denial of an unwanted recollection. “But… they weren’t here. One minute they were, the next…” He shrugged. “We were running the game and trying a lot of new stuff, right? And we got some of the books out. I really don’t know what happened, or what went wrong, but… the guys….” His voice momentarily quavered, making him sound very young, scared, and worried. Winston broke in. “Did they possibly sneak out?”

“I thought maybe Flipper did. It was about twelve-thirty and he got up to go take a leak, he said. But he didn’t come back. After about fifteen minutes I went to look for him – I thought maybe he’d passed out in the john, or on the couch, but I didn’t find him anywhere in here. And… I hadn’t heard the front door open. You heard how the hinges squeal.”

“Did you have music on?” Winston continued, in an utterly pragmatic vein. The others might not consider a completely mundane solution to the problem – well, maybe Pete would, he conceded – but he certainly could. “Or the TV?”

“Yeah, but not that loud.”

“You still could have missed him going out,” Winston continued.

“I know, and that’s what I thought. So we figured, ‘Screw him, man,” and we just kept playing.”

“And drinking beer,” Peter reminded pointedly. “You get a good buzz on and you can misconstrue a lot of things.” His stomach suddenly growled, reminding him that he’d missed breakfast. “God, I’m starving,” he complained to no one in particular. “We better stop for a McMuffin or something on the way back to the firehall before I pass out from hunger.”

Russell went on, ignoring the interruption. “Things kinda broke up around three, and we were just hangin’ out then. Randy went into the kitchen after a little bit… but he didn’t come back.” His eyes were wide and sincere. “Doctor Stantz, there’s no way he could have gotten out of the kitchen!”

Egon, meter momentarily quiescent in his hand, asked quietly, “And what about your last friend?”

“We were getting a little spooked… but we thought maybe the two of them were playing a joke. Mitch was going to go home, but you know, he was a little too wasted and we both just sort of fell asleep on the couch waiting for Flip and Randy to jump out and say ‘Boo.’” He rubbed at his eyes. “I kinda woke up just as the sun was coming up, because I thought I heard something funny. It was really quiet – the TV was off and the tapes ran out – and it was like a pop… or a sizzle… but not really.” He gave up fumbling for the right word and pressed on. “I looked around, over toward the hallway, and I swear, I saw Mitch for a second, and then all of a sudden he wasn’t there anymore! It’s like he fell or got sucked into something, except there wasn’t anything there that he could have fallen into, or been sucked into…. Oh, man, I just can’t even explain it! I’m sorry.” His breath hitched and for a moment he looked as if he were going to cry. “But they’re all gone now, and I don’t know what happened, and I figured I’d better call you, Doctor Stantz, before… before something sucked me in too.”

There was now sympathy in Ray’s eyes. Trust him, Peter thought, to overlook the fact that this kid and his buddies messed up bigtime, and go right for wanting to help. “I think I need to take a look at the books you were using last night, Russell,” the occultist quietly requested.

“Yeah,” Russell muttered hoarsely, “I thought you might. C’mon over.” He led Ray to the card table, Egon trailing behind with his meter newly activated, and all three of them pulled up the teetering folding metal chairs that ringed it, removing their proton packs before they took their seats. Both, however, kept the packs nearby, ready if they suddenly were to become urgently needed.

Ray virtually blanched as he looked at the titles, stirring his fingers through the collection, lifting covers to read the information on their frontispieces. “Russell, where did you get these books?”

He shrugged. “A lot of places. We spent a lot of weekends digging through used bookstores for stuff we could use. I think we even got one or two from garage sales. A couple are borrowed. And this one – “ he picked up a fat, musty book bound in stained black leather – “Flip brought over just last week. He didn’t really say where he got it – I was kinda afraid that maybe he boosted it from a library or something, since it looks like it’s pretty valuable. And it has everything in it too.”

“May I see it?” Ray’s voice was very quiet as he took it – very cautiously – from the student’s hand. A sudden, uninterpretable, very un-Ray-Stantzish look flared in his eyes as he thumbed the faded gilt edges of the heavy tome. Peter, watching him curiously, wondered just what the hell was up. Then the light faded and there was just heavy concern and regret once again as Ray weighed the occult evidence before him. “Did you use all these books?”

The young man hesitated before answering, as if wondering whether any sort of lie would serve, before finally capitulating to the truth. “Well… yeah, kind of. We were just trying out whatever sounded good. But we made some stuff up, too,” he added earnestly.

“I fear that is only going to make our interpretation of and any possible resolutions to this situation all the more difficult,” Egon mused, eyes not leaving the meter’s gauges. His quick fingers manipulated the dials, altering the specifications before he began to take readings from the occult books themselves. The meter steadfastly failed to react.

Ray continued the questioning. “How many spells do you think you invoked altogether?”

“Doctor Stantz,” Russell admitted heavily, “we spoke one after almost every roll of the dice. I had this book –“ he pointed to a heavy book on which the title Darkdwellings and Frightfulle Journies was deeply inscribed in its ornate cover – “Randy the Scheintote Grimoire, Mitch this Wiccan spells manual, and Flip the one he brought over.”

“L’ Livre Noir - that’s quite a rare volume,” Egon commented mildly. He pulled a small notepad out of one of the pockets of his jumpsuit and rapidly sketched out a chart. In the little boxes, he began making concise, precise notations of the results of his PKE tests. “Raymond, don’t you have that same edition at at home?"

He nodded. “Part of my collection. I do what I can to keep it hidden away because it’s too dangerous to play with.”

“Man!” Russell, elbows propped on the battered tabletop, dropped his face into his hands. “I don’t believe this. Shit like this isn’t really supposed to happen!”

Ray’s mouth pinched for a moment, as if he kept reaction inside. Instead, he leaned over Egon’s notations and asked, “What are the readings like?

Egon shook his head. “There is still nothing clear enough for me to make a reasonable extrapolation as to the cause of the disappearances. I’ve checked both positive and negative valences, and while there is a wide range of unusual readings, none of them corroborate directly with anything I have stored in the meter’s memory.”

“God, Egon.” Peter flung himself up out of the armchair. “It’s barely after nine in the morning and you’re already talking like you ate a dictionary for breakfast. Zed, you up to a little project while those two play with their toys and read each other scary stories?”

Winston snickered mildly and straightened, stretching. “Sure. As long as it isn’t illegal. What’s on your mind?”

“Well, here’s my thought,” he answered dryly. “Not that they could be hiding, and not that there were normally secret passages in nineteen-thirties apartment complexes, but you never know. I think you and I need to poke around and see if there’s a hidden closet or hallway or something.”

“Excellent idea, Peter. Although,” Egon reminded him, blue eyes flicking up over the top of the red frames of his glasses, “you can’t discount the readings.”

“They’re pretty faint, Egon,” Ray threw in. “There’s a possibility that the spells themselves could have left the equivalent of mild residuals and that’s what we’re reading.”

Russell raised his face to meet Peter’s, and glared at him, eye to eye. “If you’re trying to say that they’re hiding from me, you’re wrong.”

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not,” he shrugged, mentally brushing off the student’s pseudo-intimidating glower. “One of ‘em might have found a place to hide, and now they’ve decided to mess with you, Rusty, old pal.”

“But my buddies wouldn’t do that,” he sulked.

“Ha. I was in college once. Ask those two what we used to pull on each other.” He grinned with memory. “Hey, Ray, remember when we got Egon to climb into an industrial clothes dryer and closed him in?”

A flicker of a smile touched Ray’s too-sober face. “For our ‘experiment’ in static electricity.”

“You said you would never speak of that incident again.” Egon refused to look up and acknowledge either the satisfied smirk on Peter’s face, or the interrogative gleam that was lighting Winston’s eyes.

“Who needs to? We have pictures. Shoulda seen what the dryer did to his hair…” He gave a fond yank to the blond tail trailing down the nape of Spengler’s neck as he passed by, heading for the hallway that led into the apartment’s kitchen. “This looks good compared to that.”

“Doctor Venkman….” came the warning growl. Peter, laughing, skittered away before Egon could take any defensive action, and waved at Winston to follow him.

“Ugh, this place reeks!” Winston grimaced as he paused in the kitchen doorway and took a quick look around. Dirty dishes were stacked high on the counter, overflowing trash bags were piled in the corner, and the recycling bin was full of more beer cans and bottles. “Didn’t that boy’s mama teach him anything about keeping house?” He shook his head. “It looks almost as bad as our kitchen when it’s your week on K.P., Pete.”

“Hey,” he defended automatically, absently regarding old, stained wallpaper that had probably been new sometime in the Eisenhower administration. “I never let it get anywhere near this bad – “

“Only because we don’t let you get away with it.” Winston paced to the nominal center of the small, oblong room, sweeping his eyes along the walls, frowning as if wondering where, how, and perhaps even why to begin.

Peter walked past him, toward the sink, then rapidly veered away. “Whew! We better not let Egon see that - I bet there’s all kinds of new and interesting mold forms growing in there.” He turned back to Winston and gestured inquisitively. “So, Zed, how do we go about finding our hidden corridors and forgotten rooms?”

“What are you asking me for?”

“The great mystery reader? Come on, if any of us would know, it would be you, the way you eat those things up.”

“Okay….” He thought for a moment. “Look around to see if anything’s been disturbed that shouldn’t be – moved away from where it belongs.”

“Like we could tell in this place…” Peter shook his head. “You know, I think we’ve seen haunted houses abandoned for decades that were in better shape than this.”

Winston laughed despite himself, nodding, then swept a finger across the top of a cupboard. “All this dust might actually help. Check to see if it’s been brushed away anyplace, or if there are fingerprints in it. And… examine the walls – look at the joinings, the seams of any panels, to see how clean they are. If they’ve been recently moved back and forth, there won’t be any debris in the seams. And then… well, I guess there’s always the good, old-fashioned, knocking-on-the-walls to hear if something’s hollow behind the boards.”

Peter gave him a brief round of applause. “Excellent, Holmes. I bow before your superior intellect and deductive abilities. Now, you can take care of the kitchen –

“You have no idea how much I appreciate you leaving me to this room, Doctor Venkman,” Winston said heavily, looking at him under lowered brows.

“– while I check the hallway. C’mon, this room’s too small for both of us to crawl and climb around in.” Peter gave him an affable, evasive grin and bobbed through the doorway into the cramped corridor leading back to the living room.

The continuing conversation from the other room kept him company while he bent to his examination of the small area. There wasn’t too much to look at, he had to admit, just faded faux wood paneling badly nailed along one side of the six-foot corridor. He saw what Winston meant about the seams; they were filled with so much gunk and house dust he could have told from twenty feet away that no one had ever slid those pieces of laminated plyboard away to reveal a Gothic hidey-hole.

From the other room, Egon spoke up, obviously questioning Ray. “Am I correct in interpreting these residuals as a combination of positive and negative PKE? Is that even possible?”

A moment’s contemplative silence, then Ray answered, “Well, anything’s possible, just not very likely. I’ve never heard of an entity that could combine both types…. Gosh, I wish we’d brought the laptop – we could run a comparison between known entities and their energy types, with these readings and see if we come up with anything.”

The opposite wall of the short corridor was obviously nothing but painted drywall; in fact, Peter could still see the seam of the drywall tape when some long-ago remodel of the space had sectioned off the hallway. The wall now served as a proud display space for an impressive collection of stolen street signs. He was pretty damn sure there couldn’t be anything behind it, but still gave it a sharp rap. He snickered when the living room conversation abruptly broke off at the unexpected sound as if they were listening for some paranormal cause; then as they realized what – and who – it was, the conversation resumed, without so much as an acknowledgement that they’d even been momentarily duped by him.

“Hmm…” Egon sounded as if he’d just made a connection. “There seems to be some slight similarity between the reading we briefly detected downstairs, and a standard valence for extra-dimensional activity. It’s not enough for a clear correlation, but it does appear to exist.”

“Let me take a look at it…. Wow, I’ve never seen an alpha spike like that!”

Winston called out from the kitchen. “It’s all clear in here, Pete. And you?”

“Same.” Peter straightened up from the momentary crouch he’d assumed to take a closer look at the purloined street signs. Sure enough, the kid had both Mott and Pell; Peter wondered if the Ghostbusters’ visit would give him enough leverage to barter them off Russell when they were done. “Looks like we aren’t dealing with any demented architects after all – ”

Something suddenly felt funny. In the air… he couldn’t pinpoint it; a strange pressure or pulsation, beyond the level of normal sensation. Tilting his head half in wonderment, half in curiosity, he started to backpedal in instinctive protective reaction, ready to call out to the others. A stultifying wave of wet heat suddenly enveloped him and arrested his motion, capping the cry before it left his lips.

There was a roar from… somewhere. At the edge of his hearing, he heard a familiar sound – the PKE meter, shrilling an alarm. Before him, the vista of New York street signs warped then blurred then faded away entirely, to be replaced by sparks of red and black and shimmering yellow that began to swirl like a vortex. And then he was falling – no, being sucked – into the whirling colors before him. He heard a shout behind him – Winston’s voice – and perhaps something skimmed his ankle, but it was too late as something seemed to slam shut behind him, sealing him off from the apartment, his friends, even – he knew – his own universe and dimension.

The fall, the heat, the chaos of spinning colors sucked away his breath and sent him tumbling into even deeper blackness. Wow, he thought before his mind finally slid away, was I ever off-base about that hidden room thing…

“Aw, shit!” Winston barked. “Pete!”

Winston had just turned and headed toward the short hallway when the view before him seemed somehow to rend itself between reality, the present, the here and now, and something that… wasn’t. Peter was before the split, frozen or immobilized, and in that suspended instant it seemed to engulf him, devouring and enveloping him in its transformative power, drawing him into its elsewhere existence.

Automatically, Winston lunged for him. Arms outstretched as he sprang across the cheap linoleum, his fingers very nearly closed around Peter’s right boot, but the leather slid out and away from his grasp as the form that was his friend was fully drawn into another reality with a slam almost as palpable as that of a real door closing.

Winston pounded his fists against the floor and said, “Damn!”

His meter nearly singing in its pulses of high energy, Egon bolted into the hallway, eyes wide with shock and face already paling, Ray hard on his heels. “Winston, what –” he began, but the look on the physicist’s face showed that he already knew.

“Man, he vanished, just went right through.” Winston looked rattled as he climbed back to his feet, staring at the now completely normal environs of the hallway. “ I grabbed at him and almost caught his ankle but it just pulled him right in.”

“You see?” Russell’s voice went almost shrill with vindication. “I wasn’t bullshitting you. It did happen!”

“And now it’s got Peter.” Ray’s voice was quiet, brown eyes wide.

Egon damped the flare of concern burning behind his own eyes, turning stiff and staid and contained. He dropped his gaze to the now-quieted PKE meter, still clutched in his hands, and regarded the readings for a long, silent moment. “I have a fix on the emanations,” he at last announced in a studiously level voice. “They coincide with the residuals I was reading previously. And I believe….” He abruptly cut off his words and turned away, long strides returning him to the card table where he and Ray had been working with both the occult books and their own calculations. Egon picked up the tablet again, regarding what he had written before with deep concentration and jotting down still more fresh notations from the meter.

“Oh man, what do we do now?” Winston was shaking his head, still obviously stunned at the turn of events.

“We figure out which spell they set in motion,” Ray replied firmly. “But it’s not going to be easy – those four books alone have several hundred they could have activated by mistake, not to mention something they might have randomly triggered when they thought they were making things up. Winston, did you see anything that might help us figure it out?” Ray’s voice was blatantly hopeful, almost begging.

Winston hated to disappoint him. “No, just Pete, being drawn in to…something. God, I can’t even really describe it, just sort of a rippled place in midair. But…” His brow furrowed. “There was this… smell… just for a moment. Barely there, and then it was gone….”

“Could you tell what it was?”

“Yeah. I could.” Winston’s expression went even grimmer. “It smelled sort of like a battlefield. Like… blood.”

Peter was falling, from how high or far he didn’t know, nor for how long. Finally, after a confused span of immeasurable time, he suddenly landed hard on his hip on a solid, unyielding surface, and yelped in surprise and pain at the impact. He rolled a few feet, tumbling until an abrupt collision with what seemed to be an equally solid wall brought his motion to a bone-jarring halt.

The sudden transition from apartment to void to – where? – left him confused, but still he tried to brace himself against the unknown with instinct gained from his years of ‘busting. But, before he’d managed to gain his feet, or his eyesight had adjusted to the dim reddish glow surrounding him, something that he could not quite see assaulted him. But he could feel it – or more accurately, them – as they attacked him with all the force and vigor of fully corporeal entities. Small, ethereal hands slapped at him, pressing, grasping, their sharp nails digging in as they dragged him to his feet. He couldn’t tell if there was intellect behind their actions or if it was strictly instinct that sent the invisible hands to striking him. Not that it mattered, because they had him but good.

They pinned his struggling limbs, immobilizing him through sheer numbers and determination that outdid his own wiry twisting and heaving, then hefted him upwards. He tried to yell in protest, but something clamped over his mouth and instantly silenced him. Ephemeral claws nicked toward his eyes and he flinched back, squeezing his lids tightly shut for a moment as an atavistic, visceral fear of being blinded shuddered through him. A high-pitched tittering rippled through the creatures surrounding him, as if they were delighted at what they were doing to him.

A shimmering shape separated itself from the sea of barely-visible entities and circled around him. It was little more than an outline of a humanoid figure, small and lithe, and it moved very, very quickly. Peter, straining against the imprisoning hands, twisted his head around to follow its motion. The creature was like nothing he’d ever seen or even heard of – it was nearly transparent, almost like a hollow vessel of blown glass into which someone had poured a reddish glaze, all that gave it any definition.

He could feel it staring at him, coldly calculating; then suddenly, it shot out a taloned hand, fastening its long, thin fingers in Peter’s hair, and yanked his head sharply back.

“Hey!” he choked out around the hands that had trapped his mouth. One of the little claws swiped across his lip, opening a small, stinging cut as obvious punishment for his transgression. He felt a bead of blood collect in the line of his compressed lips, and, even worse, watched the feral little eyes light up at the sight of it.

The world – whatever, wherever this world was – was upside down to him. He was staring eye to eye with the hollowed orbs of the entity that had yanked his head back, finding glee and coldness in their red glare. He did his best to glare back, to project defiance, not fear, attitude, not surrender… but it was a hell of a thing to manage when they had him trapped and they knew it… and liked it.

The entity stretched out a finger, placing the tip of a sharpened claw to Peter’s forehead. A bright, wild arc of pain shot through Peter’s body at the touch, like an electric shock but somehow worse, sending him flailing against the restraining grips with a shriek of anguish. It kept on and on, building despite how he tried to twist away from the touch, pull himself out of their pinioning grip, until finally he surrendered to the pain and everything slipped away once again into blackness.

And when he awakened again, he was immobilized on the bier.

Egon’s self-abridged, photocopied binder of selected references from Tobin’s Spirit Guide was open on their workspace, but he was paying it no attention as he double-checked a long line of figures on the notepad. He had been resolutely calculating and taking readings during the fifteen minutes since Peter had vanished into whatever alternate dimensional portal had been awakened by whichever spell the gamers had cast. At last he announced, “I believe I’ve managed to sort out and make sense of all the readings I took before. They were the half-lives, as it were, of residuals caused by previous openings of an extra-dimensional gateway. It appears to be a cycling phenomenon, and by calculating the decay rate of the previous residuals, it appears to have a repetition factor of two hours, fifty-six minutes.”

“So you’re saying that it’ll open up again…” Winston glanced at his watch, “at about noon or so?”

“Almost certainly,” he nodded. “Although the exact time will be closer to eleven fifty-three a.m.”

“That’s too long… and maybe too late!” Ray blurted, bending back from where he had been hovering over Egon’s shoulder, to cross-check the physicist’s calculations. “We don’t know what they’re up against – what Peter’s up against – in whatever dimension they’ve entered.”

“And you think that I’m not aware of that?” The blue eyes sparked again, bright with worry, before he regained his stiff restraint. “If there is any way we can expedite the reopening of the portal, force it somehow, we’ll do so… but right now, we don’t even know the whereabouts of this dimension.”

“It’s not the Netherworld, is it?” Winston put in. He shuddered inside at the thought of that dimension in which so many ectoplasmic entities and enemies, in various spirit and demonic forms, dwelled. His few ventures there had not been of the comforting type and he had no strong desire to return anytime soon, though he had a feeling that wherever they might have to go to rescue Peter, not to mention the abducted gamers, would be just as unpleasant.

Egon and Ray shook their heads in unison. “No,” Ray answered him, “the readings don’t match what we have on file. And even if it was, by the time we could get back to Ghostbuster Central and set up the gateway to do a scan for Peter’s biorhythms, it would already be a couple of hours. And the scan… who knows how long that would take? So we’re not gaining anything by even trying it.” His voice went wistful. “I wish we could.”

Resigned, Ray sat again and picked up the heavy, leather-bound tome. “Let’s get on with this then. The only way we can do anything is narrowing down as close as possible what we’re dealing with. We’ll each take a book – Russell, you’ll work with me, to see if anything looks familiar to you.”

“Winston mentioned detecting that peculiar odor, as of blood, or battle, or something similar,” Egon reasoned. “I recommend that we initially concentrate our search on that theme. We can cross-reference anything that looks likely in the Tobin’s guide.” He picked up the Scheintote Grimoire, its German text certainly not a hindrance to his comprehension of its contents.

Ray handed over the Wiccan manual to Winston, his voice almost apologetic. “Winston, it’s not real likely that you’ll find anything in here, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Not a problem, m’man.” He set himself to studying the archaic pages, brow furrowing with concentration as he skimmed the text in its stylized earlier form of English.

Russell sat himself down in the wobbly chair next to Ray, his expression petulant as if he’d been asked to work with the teacher as punishment. He regarded the heavy tome at Ray’s elbow with an expression of distaste. “Why are we going through this one?”

“Because it’s the one that would do the most damage. And,” Ray added almost as a reluctant afterthought, “I’m afraid that’s what we’re dealing with.”

Damage. They meant him damage, he knew. Their bustling preparations about him did not bode well for his future. He swallowed dryly, his eyes flicking around – the only motion other than breathing his current state seemed to allow – and watched their near-invisible assemblage prepare in obvious ritual. His skin prickled as the thought of human sacrifice suddenly skittered through his mind, and resolutely pushed it away. It’s not as bad as all that, really, there’s no way anybody – any thing – would sacrifice Doctor Venkman. I’m too good-looking, too famous….

He doubted the odd little entities had any idea of his fame, or would have even cared if they did.

He realized he was naked, stripped to his skin save for one sock that dangled half off his foot. He tried to wiggle his toes to displace it, but even that slight motion was denied him. How ludicrous, he couldn’t help thinking. No shirt, no shoes, no service… but they leave me an old gym sock? He tried to find some humor in it, anything to take his mind off the possibilities of their intentions, but the severity of the situation left his usual witticisms sadly lacking. And he’d been around Ray’s occult theories long enough to know that rituals and nudity went hand in hand, even if Peter couldn’t exactly see the hands in question.

Those spectral hands pinning his arms suddenly tightened brutally at his wrists, bracing him securely. More nails dug into his biceps as their thin strong digits squeezed tight as wire around his upper arms; he could almost feel his veins pop. And it hurt, oh, how it hurt! He bit back a gasp, not wanting to let them guess at any more vulnerabilities.

As if wielded by ghosts – God, I wish they were only ghosts! – a thin, hollow extrusion of copper tubing rose into the air, gleaming in the sparks of supernatural light. One end of the foot-long tube was sharpened to a fine point, while the other flared out slightly like the lip of an old-fashioned pitcher. The tubing had an oddly graceful yet sinister arc to it, as if evil aesthetics had somehow gone into its design. He found himself catching his breath, watching it warily as it descended toward his person….toward his right arm.

A finger swept over the inner crook of his elbow, feeling, probing as if for an invisible line within his skin. Then there was a quick poke, a pinch almost, and the finger drew away.

Peter shuddered. He recognized the sensation… just like what a phlebotomist did before drawing blood, finding the vein and marking it, to make it easier to locate when they were ready with their needles and syringes….

Oh God. They were going to –

The ritual needle dropped sharply, shifting to the horizontal, and pierced surely into the vein of his arm, driving inexorably along its line and burying itself inside of him.

He shouted “No!” and tried to squirm, but even the most frantic commands of his brain were unable to activate the nerves and synapses that powered his body’s motions. The needle slid in unerringly, inches deep, and when it was satisfactorily positioned, it was quite carefully tweaked just past where it had entered his skin, curving downward, off the side of his arm, pointed toward a waiting receptacle of dark glass held in a cradle of hammered brass.

His breathing quickened and he desperately tried to control himself before he hyperventilated. They were already lifting another copper needle and heading to his left with it, intent clear. Too quickly they’d repeated the procedure on his other arm; oddly, it didn’t hurt as much, but that was no reassurance, as he clinically put it down to the shock of what was happening to him.

The tubes were warming against his skin, where they arched across the curve of his forearm and bent down. Just like blood in the plastic tubing when you donate… He shivered, chastising himself. Petey, why the hell do you keep thinking stuff like that? It’s not gonna help your nerves any.

A new sound impinged itself on his consciousness, one that joined the subtle tickle of drips and drops that had been a demented background music to the ritual. It was just a small trickle, like a thimbleful of liquid poured slowly into a metal cup, trailing off into soft sullen drips for a moment, then the flow beginning anew, over and over.

And he knew.

That dripping sound he’d been hearing was blood. And his own had now been added to its chorus.

Egon shook his head, abandoning the Scheintote Grimoire and taking up the arcane early Victoriana within the creatively-named Darkdwellings instead. Winston looked up from the text he was still scrutinizing, a wry look on his face, and queried, “Find anything?”

“No, nothing very likely, nothing very useful. Nothing that matches what little we know about the…circumstances. I did find one invocation for use in battle, but I would call it more benevolent than malevolent in intent, as it called for success without extreme casualties. And it did not utilize gateways.” He sighed. “And you?” “Some to do with cycles of the moon, fertility, things like that… but I don’t think those would qualify either. What these kids called up wasn’t anything good. It’s like I can feel it.” Egon nodded with complete understanding, then flipped to the index of the manual and, using the tip of a long finger as a guide, rapidly perused his ways through the contents. Ray was deeply immersed in L’ Livre Noir, while Russell twitched and jiggled nervously at his side. Ray had put him to other work of a sort, free-associating on paper what he could remember of their gaming evening. He hadn’t come up with much, but at least it had kept him quietly sullen and out of the way while the three Ghostbusters worked.

“Here,” he said brusquely, shoving the sheaf of lined paper in Ray’s direction. There were nearly as many doodles on the page as there were sentences. “This is all I can remember, honest. Some were in English, but a lot weren’t. It didn’t matter though, because Randy’s a language major and Mitch has done a lot of acting. They just read on through whatever sounded good, even if they didn’t understand it all. And I don’t remember anyone saying anything about battles or blood or fights. Or even… other dimensions.”

“So it was probably in something other than English,” Ray nodded, “or you would have picked up on it.” He shifted abruptly. “What time is it, Winston?”

“Almost eleven. Another hour, is all.”

“As long as the gateway cycles again.” Egon removed his glasses to rub at his eyes, the expression in them distant with almost-hidden despair.

Ray tried to sound reassuring. “It’ll probably keep opening at those pre-determined intervals to… seek out what –

“ – or who – “ Winston added grimly.

“Yes, who, it needs to complete what it’s been summoned to do. That’s what usually happens with this kind of invocation – it keeps going until it reaches its own critical mass.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Winston’s voice was very quiet.

“Well, we have less than another hour to wait….” Ray’s voice trailed off. “We’ll face that if we need to, when we need to. Right now… gosh, we still don’t have a thing to go on!” His voice rose with concern and frustration. “Where Peter and the rest of them are, what they’re going through, what we’re going to find when we get there….”

“We’ll just go in as armed and ready as we can,” Winston reassured. “I’ll coordinate, take point. Pete’s not the only one who can lead this team.”

“And we appreciate that fact, Winston.” Egon’s lips moved into a brief, grateful smile.

Russell suddenly spoke up. “You know, this looks kinda familiar….” He bent over the double-page spread of a dramatic illustration in the book Ray was examining. “We got a kick out of this. It looked just so… so over the top, you know? I think I remember Flip snatching the book up and doing like this recitation from it, like he was center stage.” He turned the page to the text that went with it and started reading in a low voice, stumbling over the foreign pronunciation.

“Don’t say it out loud, don’t even mouth it!” Ray moved with uncommon speed to yank the book right out of his hands.

“Didn’t you learn anything?” Winston snapped as well. Russell looked from one to the other, seemingly about to speak, then wisely shut up and sat back down.

Ray paled as he took in the stark details of the woodcut. In it, a massive man-shape marched over hills that ran with stylized rills of blood. In each of its huge, taloned hands struggled several defeated warriors, their mouths open wide in horrible screams. The demon was in the process of rending the head from one of its victims, about to tear at it with vicious fangs. “It’s a Berserker demon, ” he finally announced, after a long, silent appraisal of the image and its accompanying text. ‘Xanthürigen’, it says. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of it before – at least not under that name. Egon, help me with the translation.”

“It’s certainly an obscure reference,” Egon commented, frowning as he skimmed briskly over the archaic, flowing text. “Not much is known of him. Even this book posits the likelihood that this demon’s existence is just myth.”

Winston shook his head, muttering more to himself than to anyone else in the room, “’Myth’, from a book about how to call up all sorts of other nether-nasties and slimy goopers.” More loudly he said, “Give us the scoop, Egon. If this is the badass we’re going to have to tackle to get Pete back – “

“And my pals, too,” Russell interrupted pointedly. The others ignored him.

“– then the more information we have, the better.”

Egon translated freely and, no doubt, accurately, pausing periodically to push his glasses up more firmly on the bridge of his nose, whether or not they actually required it at the moment. “’Xanthürigen, scourge of the Holy Roman Empire. He rampages in time of battle and chaos, brought forth by a general’s plea.’”

“A role-playing game could fit the battle scenario closely enough,” Ray murmured, nodding faintly as a frown of either dismay or concentration cut a line between his brows.

“’In return for bringing defeat upon the enemy, he asks as payment…’” Egon’s deep voice faltered for a moment. “’…sacrifices from among the petitioner’s army, so that he may be drawn forth by the righteous sanctity of their blood.’”

“Damn,” Winston bit out, turning away from the other two as they continued to contemplate the book. “Russell, looks like you and your buddies hit the jackpot in a big way. In a big, bad way if you know what I mean.”

“Oh shit.” The student’s face had crumpled and his irritated, defensive, and irresponsible façade vanished at the bad news, tears welling in the tired, bloodshot eyes. He rubbed a concealing hand over them and muttered, “It’s already too late, isn’t it? We did some crap from that stupid book that Flipper brought over and they’re probably already dead.”

“Now don’t jump to conclusions, Russell.” Ray was obviously forcing a smile as he placed a comforting hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Peter’s over there too, and he never gives up. He knows we’ll be coming to get him – get them – as soon as we can. And he’s probably taking care of them right now, massing their own little army against Xanthürigen.”

“If nothing else,” Winston agreed, “he’ll probably talk the damn thing to death. Our Pete’s got a mouth on him that’s deadlier than our packs sometimes.”

Russell sniffled and then wiped the back of his hand over his nose, and nodded. “Yeah, Flip does too. He’s always smarting off and getting himself into trouble. But he can usually get himself back out.” He looked at them, beseeching with wet eyes, and asked, “You really think they’re gonna be all right?”

Ray and Egon did not reply, the look in their eyes too far distant with concern to allow them to dissemble. Winston spoke for all of them, a scant moment too late for anyone’s comfort, he knew. “Yeah, of course. But we’ve gotta get ready for when we go in after them. Make sure the packs are fully charged, maybe figure out the best way to take it down….”

Technical talk seemed to bring the other two immediately back to the here-and-now. “Indeed, Winston,” Egon replied distantly. “Xanthürigen will most certainly be at least a Class Seven demon so we’ll need to utilize all available power.”

“And we’ll bring Peter’s pack along with us too, because we’re going to need all the manpower we can get,” Ray joined in.

Winston automatically started a cross-check of his own equipment, knowing already that it would be fully charged, ready to take down almost anything that could be thrown in the team’s path. But as he fiddled with the thrower, he bent to hide the look in his eyes as he wondered if the joshing in the kitchen was going to be the last time he ever saw Peter Venkman alive.

“So.”

Peter spoke up quietly, into the luminescent isolation. He was alone now, or at least he thought. He couldn’t be quite sure. Once the… bleeding had started, the creatures had retreated, shuffling away in a rapid skitter on their tiny, unseen feet.

At least blood was not pouring from him; there was some sort of magic, some control, on how it left his body. Probably, he tried to reason, part of the ritual. If the guys came quick – hell, if the guys come at all, dammit – maybe he wouldn’t be bled out like some sacrificial lamb.

Literally.

“Hope you bring some orange juice and cookies for me, guys,” he said under his breath, feeling the increasing speed of his heart, the hastening of his breath, as his body began to attempt to compensate for the lessening fluids flowing through his veins. “Maybe you could borrow some from that Red Cross center on Second. There’s a couple cute nurses there….”

He couldn’t deny that he was getting colder, despite the cloying warmth of the chamber around him. Small shivers were twitching through his muscles, and his fingers were aching from a circulatory chill. He very experimentally tried to flex them, and found that if he kept the motion very small, very gradual, the force that immobilized him did seem to have some give to it. Not, however, he thought wryly when it took him a full minute to close his fingers into fists and then open them back up, that it was going to do him one lick of good.

He turned his focus outward, trying not to feel the increasing cold, or the deep, deep pain in his arms from the impaled ritual needles, or the way his heart was tripping in his chest. He knew his breathing wasn’t right, either, but it seemed to be outside his control. If he tried to slow it down, or deepen it, it just made him dizzy. Better maybe to pant a little like his body was trying to tell him to….

Funny how he could listen to the splashes of his blood as the droplets streamed into the receptacles, judge by their changing tone just how quickly the ritual goblets were filling. “Doppler effect?” he muttered, frowning. Or, if not that, something similar. “And you thought I didn’t pay attention in the physical sciences, Spengs, ” he whispered. “If I wasn’t getting so light-headed, I could tell you exactly what it is.”

Egon. Saying his friend’s name made Peter’s heart do something entirely separate from the increasing effects of blood loss. Spengs had to figure something out, to get him out of here, wherever here was. And Ray. If anyone knew occult, it was Ray, and he’d dope out just what the hell kind of spell those irresponsible kids had activated. And Winston… well, no one better get in his way when he came pounding in here with a thrower – those little invisible things didn’t stand a chance…

He started suddenly. Had he drifted? Not good. It was hitting him bad now. He’d have to make a very conscious effort to hold it together.

What had pulled him up? Oh. Them. He heard them now, again, their little shuffling feet, moving in his direction, their insubstantial shadow forms surrounding him. The one that appeared most distinct – surely the being which had assaulted him at the first; some sort of leader, perhaps? – took the now-filled goblet from its pedestal at Peter’s right. The creature held it high, cupped in both hands, chanting a melodious sort of invocation that was answered in kind by the high, echoing voices in the rest of the shadows. Then it brought the goblet down, lifted it to its mouth… and drank.

Peter thought he’d be sick at the sight. Instead, he closed his eyes and looked away. But he couldn’t not listen to the sounds, the swallows, the giggles and cries of delight; the clicking of their demon-nails against the metal as they passed the goblet around, drinking it as if they all shared a glass of the finest wine. He heard when they replaced it, when the hollow dripping began to refill it, even as they took the goblet that received the flow from his left, sanctified it with their unwholesome spell, and drained it as well.

All sound stopped again, and he dared to open his eyes. Were they gone? No, they were still clustered around him, staring hungrily at him, as if trying to calculate how much longer they would have to wait for another infusion. His brain registered how much more substantial they appeared now; their translucent reddish figures were like animated vessels filled with his blood. They regarded him for another moment, then, satisfied for now, sidled away deep into the chamber’s darkness.

“Hey!” he called weakly after them. He managed to lift his head a fraction. “Cocktail party’s over already? Come back. Don’t you….” He paused to catch his breath, give his brain a moment to clear the chilly mists that were wrapping around his thoughts. “Don’t you even want to know what blood type I am?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He jumped at the thin, all-too-human voice that came far from his left. “Who are you?” he called back.

“Who are you?” Whoever was speaking was having a hell of a time forcing words out of a throat that was probably much drier than Peter’s was. If that was possible. The voice went on feebly. “I thought it would be Russell. He’s… supposed to be next.”

“No.” Peter swallowed. “I crashed this party instead of him. Lucky me, huh?” By degrees, he tilted his woozy head ever so slightly in the direction of the sound. There was another bier, several feet from him, and on it was a similarly naked, identically restrained young man. Peter flinched in instant empathy, and even as bad off as he was himself, tried to put some encouragement and hope in his voice. “What’s your name, buddy?”

“Mitch,” he responded weakly. It looked as if it took every last bit of his strength to get those few words out. “Mitch Michaels.”

One of the kids. Big surprise. Last one taken, as Peter recalled. He lifted his head a bit more, and rapidly scanned the chamber more with the motion of his eyes than anything else. It wasn’t a big room that they were being held in, like a cavern hewn of rough stone that glowed in places with its own dim light. He brought his gaze down a bit, looking for more biers, but found none. “So what about your friends?” he asked. “Where are they? ‘Flipper’ and, what’s his name?”

“Randy.” Mitch sighed weakly, as if he barely had the strength to draw that breath. From the almost transparent pallor of his bled-out skin, Peter was surprised the young man could talk at all. “They’re dead.”

Shit. “You sure?”

Mitch swallowed and nodded feebly, his eyes drifting and flickering. “On the… ground.” Peter shifted again, slightly edging to one side, tensing periodically as if he expected the invisible restraints to suddenly tighten again if he dared to move too much and rebound him back against the stone bier. He looked down, then swore softly and closed his eyes, lolling back on the platform.

Two bodies were sprawled bonelessly on the expanse of rough rock floor between the two sacrificial platforms, drained and now neglected as having served their purpose. Their skin was more bluish than white, mottled and scraped in places, but without the attendant bruising one would expect from the way they’d obviously been tossed and knocked around. Huh, you have to have blood in you to bruise, Peter thought almost hysterically. He gulped soundlessly, telling himself he was trying not to freak the kid.

The kid was freaked enough, rambling on in a breathless, pinched voice. “This…place in the wall at Russell’s… it just sorta opened up and sucked me in, and then these things… they were all over me and I couldn’t see them! I passed out, and when I woke up, I was like this. And Randy was… where you are. He was about gone… like I am now.” He choked out a sob. “Oh God, we were only playing! What are these things?!”

“’S’okay, Mitch.” He lowered his voice automatically, doing his level best to soothe away the trauma. For a moment he could almost forget his own situation. “My pals are back at Russell’s and they’re gonna get us out, okay? So just hang on. Keep calm.” He forced his lips into a cocky smile. “Look at me, buddy. Do I look scared?”

Mitch slitted open his eyes and cast his gaze across the room. The faintest grin lit his mouth. “Yeah, you do.”

“Okay, so I lied. Just don’t give up, all right? They’ll get us out of here.”

Mitch’s eyes lost their momentary luster. “Right. Like, who’s your pals? The Ghostbusters maybe?”

“No ‘maybe’.” This time he grinned for real, despite himself. “You got it. I’m Doctor Venkman, but I’ll let you call me Peter.”

“Shit. You mean those dudes caught a Ghostbuster?” Mitch didn’t sound very consoled by the knowledge of who his partner in bondage was. “Just how screwed is that?”

Pretty screwed, Peter allowed the thought internally, but didn’t let it exit his mouth. “Listen, the Ghostbusters don’t let anyone mess with any of us. All for one and one for all. That Three Musketeers stuff. They’ll come. I promise.”

And Peter knew they would. He just hoped they’d come in time.

“We’ve got about fifteen minutes still,” Ray said to everyone but no one in particular as they worked and waited in the apartment. Every piece of specialized equipment already packed in Ecto had been brought upstairs, tested, adjusted, and added to the traveling arsenal they planned to take with them. Had there been enough time for the trip, they would have retrieved even more from the firehall – the atomic destabilizer, Netherworld retrieval bracelets that they might have been able to readjust to expedite their return from the unknown alternate dimension to their own, extra traps to take care of excess nasties that they fully expected to encounter on the Other Side of the apartment wall when the gateway opened.

Russell was back into the beer, sipping at a cold one from the fridge while he sat brooding on the edge of his sofa. After the third time the big black guy had snapped at him to stop sniveling and get out of the way if Russell wasn’t going to try to do something productive, he’d just given up and retreated to the relative safety of the other side of the room. It wasn’t fair, the way they were treating him. He and his pals hadn’t meant all this shit to happen. And he wished those three Ghostbusters knew just how sick he was over what had accidentally happened to his friends.

Ray had spent part of the time making phone calls to friends in the occult world who might have been more knowledgeable than he as to any legends surrounding the demonic invocation. Even his most reliable, erudite sources conceded defeat when it came to adding to the myth. No one knew any more than he did – in fact, most knew less or nothing at all – but a few threw in theories based on other legends and studies that they were familiar with. The demon would be corporeal… or perhaps he would be ectoplasmic. Xanthürigen would surround himself with minions… or maybe he would work alone. He required only one sacrifice as payment for his manifestation… unless he preferred up to ten.

In other words, for all intents and purposes, they were going in blind and winging it for all they were worth.

Egon and Winston, low-voiced, were discussing their armaments, Egon cross-checking and explaining the theory behind the power boosts that he and Ray – in his moments not on the telephone – had wired into the packs using what they had with them. “We’ve modified the maximum power setting to send out an oscillating instead of direct proton stream, but with such a rapid sine wave that the end effect to any entities we use them against will appear the same as if we had used unmodified full power. However – “

“There’s always a ‘however’ with you, Egon,” Winston said wryly, then gestured him to continue.

“The use of such an oscillating energy field will most likely burn the packs out prematurely, or perhaps even destroy them. But if all goes as expected and the gateway continues its pattern of cycling, we will not be in the alternate dimension long enough for it to matter. It’s a short-term solution.”

“What are we going to do if that gateway doesn’t open back up and spit us back out?” If the thought had occurred to him, Winston figured, it must have occurred to the other two, and he sure as hell hoped they’d come up with an alternate escape plan.

“It probably will.” Ray rejoined them, shoulders sagging, the customary bounce to his step still missing from his demeanor. “It does depend on the kind of dimension, but I’d bet that it’s a staging zone for the demon’s full manifestation. Collins’ Encyclopedia of Extradimensionality had a whole volume on what they call ‘conjure spaces’. They exist while they’re needed, then de-manifest when their purpose is fulfilled.”

Egon nodded, then picked up the theorem. “This alternate dimension has at least moments of congruity with our own, and it’s likely that at the instant of dissolution the barriers between the two will shift long enough for us to remove ourselves from one to the other.”

“That’s a pretty big ‘likely’ for us to be counting on,” Winston continued. “Are you sure we should all be going in there?”

Ray turned flashing eyes to him. “It’s for Peter. You don’t want to go in for him?”

“Raymond –“ Egon countered, his voice less than steady with his own concern, but still empathetic.

“That’s not what I mean, homeboy. What if that dimension doesn’t squirt us back out at the end of the game? Shouldn’t we leave one of you smart guys out here? To figure out a way to get the rest of us back if it doesn’t?”

“It’s neither practical nor possible, Winston,” Egon said gravely. “We’ve considered it, but…”

Ray broke in. “It’s simple math – you know that two of us can’t possibly take out a Class Seven Berserker demon, no matter how much we’ve adjusted our equipment to compensate. And we don’t know if Peter…” Ray hesitated a moment, and swallowed, “will be able to help us. We can hope he is, and that Russell’s friends might be able to too, but…. I’m being realistic.”

“If we find ourselves temporarily trapped in the alternate dimension,” Egon continued mildly, “we will simply find a return solution while over there. And if not…” The blue eyes behind the glasses were far too bright for a moment, “at least we four will be together.”

In silence that bespoke absolute agreement between the team, they stood together for a long moment, each caught within his own thoughts, yet knowing without a doubt that they were shared with his friends. Ray finally broke their contemplative aura. “I think we should get geared up. I mean, just in case the calculations are off and it opens early.”

“They won’t be, but…I don’t disagree with your idea.” Egon nodded, shoulders stiff with control as he caught up his pack and slid the straps into place. He precisely adjusted a PKE meter, then placed it carefully in his breast pocket. Winston, eyes sober and sympathetic as he passed by Egon to pick up his own pack, gave the physicist a consoling pat on the forearm as if to assure him – and perhaps even himself – that it would all turn out okay.

And they waited.

Mitch was dead. Peter’d heard him breathe what had to be his last not five minutes before. He wasn’t doing so hot himself, especially after the last time they’d started their damn Happy Hour again and gone through the ritual. The miserable little things were almost opaque now, filled with essence of Venkman and then some.

“Closing the bar already, pals?” he mumbled, very woozy, as they skittered away again. A minute later he heard an awful, sickening thump that he knew without opening his glazing eyes was Mitch’s body hitting the floor to join his friends’ corpses. “You don’t treat your bartenders very well… oh wait, sorry, you were just throwing away the bottle, right? You guys really suck as hosts, you know…? Huh. No pun intended, honest.”

One of the little maroon-hued figures paused as if listening to him, cocking the rounded head as if at attention, then pattered back to his side. Hollow eyes stared into his, mocking, teasing. Peter, deciding the time was too late for any more flip distractions, wondered at its purpose and whispered distractedly, “Why are you doing this?”

He heard a voice in his head in answer, as thin and high and skitterish as their cries of delight at his bondage and blood-letting. We use thee to bring Him – he who drains the battlements dry, drinking of blood as both payment and reward.

“What are you?”

We are his servants who prepare His essence. Entities of blood. We are Him and He is us.

“You know… I really hate riddles.” He made a mild, scrunched face of annoyance at the word games. “So what’s ‘He’?”

Xanthürigen.

“Oh, that’s helpful,” he breathed. “A name only Ray and Egon could love.” His head rolled loosely to one side as a shudder wracked his body. “C’mon guys, get with the program and come to the party. And bring a blanket. Peter’s cold.”

A nail scratched at him, leaving a trail in its wake like tiny electric sparks that made his muscles quiver in protest. The entity had opened him again, like it had at the start, this time across his belly. Peter felt a warm trickle slide across his skin and start to puddle in his navel.

“Don’t do that…” he moaned as a demon tongue lapped at him. The world was tilting, taking him with it.

Thou be very sweet. Mature, unlike those others. Like… good wine. The titter it uttered at the proclamation echoed shrilly through the chamber, humming in his ears. Thy blood essence will bring Him extra strength. Thou should feel great honor.

The claw tapped at his forehead again, driving another shock through him that sent his heart lurching as if it had been commanded to pump out more “sweetness”, but mercifully, consciousness left him again and he slid into darkness.

Less than five minutes.

They’d formed a chain to ensure that if one went through, all would go with him. Ray was at the lead of their line, thrower already pulled and balanced in his right hand, his pack activated and humming with constrained power; the straps of Peter’s pack were firmly wrapped around his left forearm, the pack itself still resting on the floor. Egon was half-behind him, his own pack armed, thrower clenched in his right fist. His left arm, crooked at the elbow, was buckled into the waist strap of Ray’s pack. Winston, behind Egon, was identically armed, identically bound, and equally ready.

They had warned Russell to stay well back; and if he had been any further from where they waited in the narrow hallway, he would have been outside the apartment. Beer hadn’t improved his sulky, troubled attitude any, nor had their other instructions to him: that, if the Ghostbusters had not returned from the alternate dimension at plus three hours, fifteen minutes from their departure, he was to vacate the apartment and then contact Janine Melnitz, who would know how to secure it for the time being, and then take up whatever necessary “vigil” might be required to await their overdue return home.

If they ever returned.

And Russell was still just young and self-centered enough to not realize that if the Ghostbusting team did not come back, it meant far worse than just the loss of his own three buddies as well as a supernatural eviction from his apartment.

Ray chewed absently on a knuckle as he stared at nothing in particular, genuinely amazed at how quickly his heart could beat, when he was just standing there, doing nothing. Egon stared at the PKE meter protruding from his breast pocket, almost cross-eyed behind his glasses as he tried to bring it into focus so close. He knew very well he wasn’t relying on readings, but it was a comfort to look at it and listen for its signal. Winston stared at his watch, but only because he’d taken on timekeeping as his responsibility, for it gave him something to do that kept him from feeling totally impotent in those last few minutes while they waited.

“Time, Winston?” Ray asked quietly. It only felt like they’d been waiting a half-hour already, Ray told himself; it was probably both the weight of the pack on his back, and the one that dragged at his left arm, that made it feel that way.

“Less than a minute, homeboy, if Egon calculated right.”

The physicist’s answer was clipped and far too brusque. “Of course I calculated correctly, not to mention that I triple-checked the figures and had Ray vet them as – “

And then the PKE meter started to bleat.

Like the splitting of an etheric seam, the wall before them somehow lost solidity at its center, shearing in two different directions as if along a sliding fault line. At its nexus, it seemed to swirl, the whirlpool shot through with hot, wet reds and yellows that were swallowed by lightless black. A hot stench roiled out, the air thick and unwholesome like detritus rotting in a greenhouse.

Ray didn’t hesitate, plunging forward even before the vortex began to pull at him, towing the other two with his motion. But they were moving with him, lunging into the swirling space as it sucked them in and onward.

For some reason, as Ray tumbled and spun almost weightlessly within the dimensional pathway, he remembered Peter’s words to all of them when they had faced Gozer: “See you on the Other Side”. Even though this was not the exact dimensional destination Peter had been alluding to when they’d thought that confrontation would spell their end, Ray couldn’t help thinking, “We’re on our way for you, Peter.” Then he momentarily closed his eyes against a brief spell of vertigo, and braced himself for whatever they were going to find on this Other Side of the gateway.

Slipping, sliding, into cold and darkness. Peter was so cold. His heart raced, veins pulsing like thin, twanged threads inside his body. Breathing hurt. He couldn’t get enough air, no matter how fast he panted. Although, shallow didn’t hurt so much. But the bruises – they hurt. And the cuts too, because the damn little things liked to tickle at him when they came by to… drink.

Everything that he was, ached. He drifted on icy waves, tossed in a chilling ocean of thoughts and darkness. He couldn’t remember if the blood entities had come by once more, or twice, since the one had deigned to explain to him what their purpose was. All he knew was that he was bleeding to death.

He shivered violently, from head to toe, and moaned involuntarily. He hated being cold, much more than he hated being too hot. You could always take off your clothes if you got too warm. “Hey, you got it all wrong,” he murmured distractedly to no one. “Layers, shouldn’t I be wearing layers?” Even that one sock was gone now, too.

Blood is power. He knew that much from listening to Ray go on about all sorts of occult and demon things. He bet that whatever was going to be conjured from his life essence, and from that of those poor unlucky school kids, would make a helluva show. He sure hoped the guys could take it out before it did too much damage to anyone else…

It was becoming so hard to stay focused, to keep his eyes open. He kept wanting to fall asleep, even though he usually tossed and turned on cold nights when he didn’t have enough blankets and the furnace wasn’t working right. He wondered if the entities were drinking his thoughts, even his soul too, with all their infusions. Maybe that was why he felt like his mind was so far away…

Hey, something was warming him, just a little bit. Hot wetness that was far too thin for blood was trickling from the corners of his closed eyes – when had he closed them? - sliding down his temples, soaking into his hair. Crybaby. But once he’d started, he couldn’t stop, weeping silently, alone.

Well, hell, Venkman, if you’re dying, aren’t you worth a tear or two, even if they’re your own?

Finally, when the effort became too great, he stopped trying to hold on, and slid away.

“Ouch!”

“Ray, you’re on my leg –“

“Winston, if you let go of me I won’t be on your leg – “

“My glasses –“

“Here.”

“Thank you, Winston.” They had not exactly risen to the occasion in the first tangled moments of their unexpected impact with hard stone in a dimly lit and fetid cavern, but within ten seconds they had untangled themselves, gained their feet, and coordinated themselves into a protective flank with the wall of the cavern at their back, and their weapons pointed outward.

They were just in time for a swarm of reddish beings, roughly humanoid yet… wrong… to rush at them in a rapid patter of dozens of small feet. “Goopers at high noon!” Winston shouted, his fingers the first to hit the activation control on his thrower. Proton energy spat out, driving the shrilling creatures back from them, but only for a moment as they re-massed and ebbed toward them again in a concerted attack. Then Ray and Egon were firing into the melee as well, trying to pin even one member of the rapid, writhing horde that surged forward like a red tide.

“Egon, we need readings!” Ray called out, firing wildly at the wicked little figures. He’d never seen anything ground-borne that could move that fast and evade the proton streams like that. They weren’t deflecting it, were they? Or were they, God help them, immune?

Egon let his thrower drop and grabbed the meter instead, resetting its controls. The proton blasts tossed bright ribbons of color that refracted throughout the cavern, the random rainbow arcs making it next to impossible for him to accurately interpret the readings in the chaotic alternations between dimness and borealis.

At last, with a brisk, disbelieving shake of his head, he announced over the battle noise, “These make no sense! These reading show that they are ectoplasmic, but there appears to be a corporeal overlay as well. And I cannot judge their class, although… cumulatively it appears to be Seven.”

“We’ll worry about that later!” Ray shouted back, almost breathless with stress. What were these things?

“Push ‘em back! Confine ‘em!” Winston was shouting quasi-military maneuvers. “Let’s try to drive ‘em to the west wall!” West, of course, being a relative concept in the alternate dimension, but the other two knew which direction he meant. “We can’t let ‘em get behind us! – Ray, stay beside me, facing front; Egon, get to our back and guard, but move with us!” The other two slipped automatically into position, trusting Winston’s battle instincts implicitly.

Egon peered around at the alternate vista his change of position allowed him, getting his first good look at their surroundings. Normally he would have been intrigued by it, eager to take hours’ worth of readings to determine its composition, its origin, its very purpose in the triggered ritual, but now, under such dire conditions, there was not a shred of curiosity left in him. The PKE reader would be recording automatically, of course, and later, much later, he’d settle down to decipher its findings, but now…

Spatters of chaotic light from their proton streams illuminated more than the reddish luminescence, revealing in harsh lightning-flashes of clarity more of their enclosed terrain. His eyes darted back and forth, scanning for danger, even as he tried to make sure he was not separated from the other two. As long as he could still feel his pack bumping against either Winston’s or Ray’s, he was close enough to both guard them and not get lost himself. So far, though he watched vigorously for their encroachment, none of the mysterious entities had attempted to circle their flank. The streams, he fretted, certainly were not scaring them much, and they almost instinctively avoided them. Did they share a hive mentality?

A sustained burst of proton power lit the close room like the flare of a supernova, and for the first time Egon picked out details. The light bounced off objects of quirked and hammered metal that surrounded two small hillocks that seemed to rise from the stone floor. Sacrificial biers? he pondered. One was empty, but a figure – a human figure – seemed to be splayed upon the other. Egon’s glasses were a bit fogged from the heat and humidity, and he futilely wiped at one lens with a fingertip; surely that couldn’t be what he was seeing….

“Oh dear God, Peter!” Egon’s shout was raw with emotion. He started to step forward, unintentionally breaking ranks, then with a shudder drew himself back into formation.

Winston’s voice was tight in reply. “What’ve you got, Egon?” He shifted slightly and dared a look in the same direction. “Oh, shit! Ray!” Winston’s mind immediately started recalculating their battle plan. “You take the front; I’ve got to cover Egon.”

“What happened to Peter?” Ray controlled himself, struggling to stay focused on the swarming, rushing entities instead of what was happening at his back. He wanted to look; he didn’t dare to look; he was scared to look. Egon’s ragged tone had just about scared the pants off him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Winston pivot in a one-eighty, felt their packs bang against each other as the team reconfigured.

Neither answered him. Winston just snapped, “Egon, go! Get him off of there!”

Egon broke from their flank, running toward the bier. Immediately the entities raised their collective voices into an outraged shrilling at the new threat. Several broke from the massed gathering and pelted on a course designed to intercept him before he could reach his goal. Winston showed no mercy, cranking the particle thrower to high and scorching the air between the darting entities and Egon’s path. The creatures tumbled back, hissing and screeching, then rushed forward again, clawing the thick air in fury as the proton energy struck them and drove them away.

“Peter!” Egon shouted desperately as he gained his friend’s side. Venkman was too still, his skin so white, but his chest rose and fell minutely with rapid, panting breaths. They were not too late. Egon reached out and gripped Peter’s forearm to haul him bodily off the bier. For a moment there was a hesitation, as if something bound him to the rough stone surface that was prohibiting any movement, and Egon got a firmer hold and pulled harder. Then with a sudden jarring shift Peter slid free of any invisible bonds, and kinetic momentum almost sent him tumbling from the platform. Egon moved quickly to gather him up, cradling the limp form against his chest and bracing as he lifted him.

He looked around almost frantically; now that he had Peter, where could he take him that offered protection against the entities, the proton streams, the backlash of battle that still raged? Ah – there was a slight projection in the closest cavern wall, forming a small niche, and he stumbled for it, almost staggering under the combined weights of the pack at his back and the body he carried. He tripped over rough stone as he entered it and started to fall, but managed to catch himself, turning his body so that he and not Peter rebounded against the hewn stone. At least the pack took the worst of the hit, he thought as he slid down to the floor, panting and breathless, Peter still in his arms. There. Safe.

For the moment.

“Shit, this isn’t working!” Winston shouted in frustration. Two throwers weren’t worth jack against these things, and he knew it. What was worse, it looked like they knew it too. “Ray, get your back to the wall!” he commanded. “The best we can do is hold them off for now, and keep them from Egon and Pete.” If Pete’s still alive, he thought grimly. Damn, he’d looked all but dead stretched out on that platform. Thank God Ray hadn’t seen him like that; bad enough that Egon had….

From the milling swarm, one entity suddenly burst out toward them. It was larger than the rest, with hollow, blazing eyes that stared into his with a feral purpose. Winston instantly pulled his proton stream back from its general sweep, and when it lunged at him, he zapped it dead on in its nasty little chest.

Like a soap bubble bursting, it popped out of existence at the impact. Whatever exterior structure had held it together had either been disintegrated by the direct hit… or it had chosen to discorporate at the strike. A bright sluice of red poured down from where it had been, puddling on the stone floor, then rapidly re-integrated into a rounded roiling mass like mercury that streaked away on extruded tentacles toward the farthest corner of the cavern, and disappeared.

They were all vanishing now, in the space of two heartbeats, the outer structure releasing the inner liquid core, pouring it down and racing away into the distance as the first entity had. Winston swallowed, staring, and asked, “What the hell? Is that some kind of surrender? Is it over?”

Ray, pale-faced and wide-eyed, shook his head. “No, it’s not over. I think they’re regrouping, in… alternate form.” He holstered his thrower and, with shaking hands, pulled his own PKE meter from his pocket and tried to adjust it. “I’m still reading them, just in a dispersed pattern. They’ll be back, I’m sure.”

“Damn! We gotta figure out what to do before they come back. But right now…. Let’s go see to Pete.” He turned toward the niche he’d seen Egon wisely vanish into during the heat of battle.

Ray froze where he stood. “I… I need to reconnoiter,” he stammered, looking down. “See what’s out here, in case….”

He didn’t want to know. Not yet. Winston put out a gentle hand and rested it on his shoulder. “Watch your back, buddy. Then come on over.” He lowered his voice. “It’ll be okay, Ray. Pete’s a fighter, you know.”

“But how could anyone fight those things?” he whispered in return, eyes round and distant, and turned away.

At a jog, Winston gained the hiding space in moments, hollering out, “Egon, what’s the word?” as he came around the corner.

Egon had thrown his pack to the ground, and had already stripped off his teal jumpsuit and covered Peter’s lax form with it like a blanket. Egon was kneeling beside him, cradling a pallid, blood-streaked arm in both large hands, and staring hopelessly at his friend. “Oh, God,” Winston muttered, shocked, as he hastily shrugged off his own equipment and dropped it to the stone floor, “what did they do to him?”

“They have bled him… tapped him like…” Egon shuddered. Winston didn’t think he’d ever seen the physicist so alarmed. “The… drains are still in him, deep – I can’t get them out.”

“Let me.” Winston knelt, probing above the wicked length of tubing that protruded from the bend of Peter’s right arm. Its twin, he noticed grimly, still stuck out from the left. “I can feel it… it’s in there a good three, four inches. You have to pull it out along the path it entered, keep it straight….” He braced his left hand atop the path, then with his right drew it out slowly and steadily. Its copper surface was streaked with blood, and he heard Egon beside him choke back a gagging sound. Winston instantly detached himself from the immediacy of the situation as much as he could, pretending that it was a stranger he had to help rather than one of the closest friends he’d ever had.

He flung down the first copper needle, then rapidly withdrew and similarly discarded the second. The deep punctures seeped sluggish blood and he quickly pressed his fingers against them to stop any further bleeding. “Egon, get the first aid kit off my belt. We need to wrap him up.”

Egon’s fingers worked at the fastenings, taking an inordinate amount of time to undo a simple buckle or two. Winston could hear the physicist’s harsh, anxious breathing almost in his ear as he fumbled to release the kit. It finally clattered metallically to the ground when the straps were undone; Egon made a faint sound of self-disgust as he snatched it up and popped it open. “Here’s some gauze,” he managed as he shoved a fistful in Winston’s direction.

Winston briskly wiped his hands on his jumpsuit, thinking momentarily about infection risk and then, mentally shrugging it off – you sure as hell didn’t have to treat for infection if the victim died – snugly bandaged the seeping wounds at the bends of Peter’s arms. He did a hasty check of the rest of Peter’s body, folding back the blanketing jumpsuit to give him a look at the damage done to legs and torso, then pronounced, “He’s really cut up – there’s a couple good ones on his chest and stomach that he’ll need stitches for – but they’ve pretty much clotted up and stopped bleeding. Question is, how much did he lose?” He felt for the pulse in Peter’s neck, finding it far too rapid and thready. And Winston didn’t like the way he was breathing at all, fast and shallow and panting; in ‘Nam, he’d seen guys with vitals like these die right in front of him.

“Well?” Egon whispered cautiously, masked hope in his voice.

“This isn’t good, Egon. He’s probably lost almost half the blood in his body.”

“How can you tell?”

“Well, if he’d lost any more, he’d be dead already.” With his fingertips, he urgently tapped Peter’s clammy cheeks, the left side first, then the right, almost shouting at him, “Pete! Pete! Can you hear me? Wake up, buddy! C’mon, wake up!”

No response. Winston went for a harsher test, digging his thumb into the flesh just under Peter’s collarbone, trying to force a response through pain. Peter made a small, barely audible moan, and trembled, trying to shift away, but gave no other signs of consciousness and immediately lapsed back into complete stillness when the pressure eased.

Winston shook his head again. “He’s in shock. Way deep – he’s not very responsive to pain, and that’s a really bad sign. Let’s get him into your jumpsuit – that’ll keep him warmer – and then get his legs up.” It took their combined and coordinated efforts to wrestle him into the coverall; Peter’s limbs were so slack that manipulating them into pantlegs and sleeves was like trying to dress an oversized and ungainly ragdoll. Finally Egon just braced him in place, lifting and moving him when necessary, while Winston coaxed the fabric up over the clammy arms and legs that kept catching at the material. When they’d finished, and had resettled Peter onto the uneven stone floor, Egon paused a second, lips compressed worriedly, then carefully pulled the zipper all the way up under Peter’s chin, hoping to help hold in his body heat.

“Now let’s move him into the corner,” Winston was instructing, as if he was working from an emergency first aid manual, “and brace him against the wall. Yeah, that’s good, Egon. I’m gonna put his legs up now – slide him a little closer….” He grabbed Peter’s ankles, swinging his legs up until they were almost vertical, then propped them against the opposite wall. “There. Can’t get them much higher than his head than that. It’ll help him a little, at least. Buy us some time until we can get out of here.” He paused to wipe sweat from his forehead. “If it wasn’t so warm in here he’d probably be gone already. And speaking of warm…” He stripped off his own jumpsuit and further blanketed Peter with it. “If those things – or something like ‘em – come back, I can fight ‘em in my civvies as well as I could in my ‘suit.”

Egon looked stricken, those eyes flashing too brightly behind his glasses, as he bent beside Peter’s still form, impotently fussing over him. “He can’t be comfortable - he needs a pillow, and some socks.”

“Well, he needs more than that, Egon,” Winston said gently, dropping a hand onto the physicist’s shoulder, “but yeah, that’ll help. You wanna give him your own stinky socks?”

“My socks are not ‘stinky’,” Egon haughtily defended, as he began to unlace his boots. “They were freshly laundered just last night and I have worn them for only a few hours today. And before you make a comment on my boots, they were fully resoled and repaired just last week, so you cannot accuse them of being unfresh either.” He pulled off socks that were almost blindingly white, then stood and carefully eased them over Peter’s bare feet.

Winston chuckled despite himself; at least the rambling conversation was keeping Egon’s mind off the direness of Peter’s condition. He surreptitiously placed his fingers at the side of Peter’s neck, feeling the carotid pulse; to his dismay, he found it faster, fainter, and the beleaguered heart was beginning to skip random beats. He pinched Peter’s earlobe, as hard as he dared, but didn’t get even a faint protest from him.

Egon sat down again, shoving his feet back into his boots while at the same time unfastening his button-down shirt. He shrugged out of it, leaving himself in a thin white undershirt that looked almost parochial in its old-fashioned modesty, and meticulously folded the shirt into a thin pillow. With tenderness borne of many years of friendship, he carefully lifted Peter’s head, slid the makeshift pillow into place, and then resettled him, pausing to smooth the damp, disarranged hair back from the pale brow. Egon paused an extra moment, letting the back of his hand rest on Peter’s forehead as if testing it. A sigh that was nearly inaudible over Peter’s shallow, rapid panting escaped him, and he turned to Winston with a darkly hopeless look in his eyes.

“We might be too late after all, isn’t that so, Winston?”

“I’m hoping not, Egon, but just because we’ve stopped the bleeding and we’ve got him with his feet up doesn’t mean he’s gonna pull through. I’m really afraid we’re gonna need more than first aid to get Peter out of this –“

“They’re dead.” Ray, voice flat, spoke from directly behind them, and they turned to see him standing, shoulders sagging, at the bend of the wall that sheltered them. He swallowed. “Russell’s friends. I found them. They’re all dead.” Ray had obviously been crying, his face flushed and eyes red, round cheeks still damp where he had unsuccessfully tried to wipe away all the tears.

“Aw, shit,” Winston muttered, looking down.

Egon merely turned his eyes away for a moment, his gaze sliding assessively over Peter, before turning back to Ray. “I… am sorry, Raymond. That is terrible.”

Ray dimly nodded, his own eyes fixed on the back wall. “How’s Peter?” he managed.

“He’s still with us, m’man, but he’s been a lot better. But….” Winston cleared his throat, giving himself another second to decide whether or not to hit them with the bad news. “I think his system’s shutting down. He lost an awful lot of blood and there’s just not enough left in him to keep him going. If we have to stay here another….” He stole a glance at his watch; had they only been in this nightmare thirty minutes? – “two and a half hours, he’s not gonna make it.”

“Are you sure?” Egon blurted, eyes widening. Unconsciously he dropped his hand to Peter’s shoulder and squeezed it.

“No, I’m not sure – I’m not sure about anything, dammit. But the longer we’re in here the worse things are gonna get for him.”

“I’ve got some water.” Ray slid a small canteen off his belt. “Will that help?”

“No, he’s too out of it to swallow – he’d choke. And only water wouldn’t help much anyway.” Winston shook his head. “I’d just about kill for a bag of Ringer’s lactate right now.”

Ray dumped his pack next to the other two units, then shucked off his own jumpsuit as Egon and Winston had already done, handing it over to Winston to add to the layers blanketing Peter. Ray still kept his eyes anywhere but on the quiet form carefully arranged in the corner, as if doing so allowed him to stay in denial of the severity of the situation. Instead, he dropped down onto the stone floor a few feet from Egon, and suggested, “Maybe we can figure out a way to make the gateway open up sooner. We don’t have much to go on or to work with, but –”

Egon cut him off, voice tense. “As if we were able to figure that out while we were on the other side of it. If you’ll recall, we spent some time attempting then to do so, but failed.”

“But we’ve got more data now, and – ”

“Garbage in, garbage out,” Egon fired back. His fisted hands were shaking a little, knuckles white. “Even adding to what we had then will not – ”

Winston broke in, dismayed at their escalating squabble. “Settle down, you two. Get a grip. Work on something, or don’t work on something. Arguing doesn’t make it any better.” He shifted closer to Peter, feeling almost obsessive-compulsively for the fading pulse at his compatriot’s throat.

Egon blinked as if he’d suddenly been snapped back to himself, and spoke contritely. “You are right, Winston. I’m sorry. Raymond… yes, let’s see if there is anything we can do. Let us check the dimensional parameters and see if there is anything we can do to affect their cyclic oscillations….” He slid closer to his friend, hand held out toward him almost in apology; Ray gave him a faint smile, putting out his own arm to encircle Egon for a moment in a hug, in complete acceptance of the other’s unspoken gesture. Heads bent together over Egon’s meter, they began a quiet yet fervent brainstorming session to see if there was anything they had possibly overlooked before, or anything new that might help them now.

Winston picked through the first aid kit they’d carried in, shaking his head. Useless, useless, useless, he thought with dismay. They’d crossed the line past where bandages and painkillers could do a lick of good. But, hell, there had to be something they could do for Pete. He wasn’t going to sit there helplessly, watching one of the best friends he’d ever had slip away from blood loss.

He stopped concentrating on what they didn’t have, and instead on what they did. What did Peter need more than anything else? – fluids. Balanced fluids, not just the cup or two of water Ray had in that Boy Scout canteen of his, but saline, or glucose, or…

Blood. Blood like what Peter had lost. That they had. Their own blood. If even one of them were compatible…

“Ray! Egon!” he barked, the solution suddenly crystal clear in his head. “Get over here!” They scrambled so fast, their faces so full of alarm that Winston realized he’d scared them into thinking that the worst had happened with his tone of voice.

“He’s not – he didn’t -?” Ray stammered, looking for a moment as if he were going to pass out.

“No.” Words poured urgently out of him. “But listen, if we can get some blood into him we can save him, or at least buy enough time to get him to people who can. We just have to figure out how.”

Egon, white-faced, shook his head. “I don’t understand – ”

“Come on, smart guy, if you and Ray can build all this ‘busting equipment – “ he gestured widely at the packs and throwers abandoned a few yards away on the stone floor – “you can for sure help me get a couple pints into him.”

“You’re not talking about an auto-transfusion, are you? What’s left in those…cups they were bleeding him into?” Ray’s brows rose in alarm.

Winston rapidly shook his head at the thought. “No, it’s probably clotting already. We all know our own blood types, right? Do either of you know Peter’s?”

“I believe it is A… but I cannot be sure.” Egon was very quiet, obviously already weighing options.

“I know I’m AB,” Ray chimed in. “If Peter’s Type A, that won’t work, will it?”

“No. And I’m B – that definitely won’t go with his type if he’s A. Egon?”

The physicist was nodding slowly. “I am Type O. The universal donor.” He swallowed, grazing Peter’s form with solemn eyes. “I’m frequently called upon by the blood bank to donate when local supplies are low. We shall take mine.”

“Not so fast – there’s a way to test in the field.” Winston was wracking his brain; he’d read something not too long ago in one of his mysteries. Dorothy Sayers? Dick Francis? Did “who” matter? “We can’t take a chance that we’re automatically right, because if we put the wrong type in him, he’s worse off than if we left him alone.” He fished through the first-aid kit, finding a small lancet, then dumped everything else out of the kit into an easily-accessible pile. “Ray, give me your canteen. I need a little bit of water.” He poured a small amount onto a piece of gauze and used it to wipe clean the inside surface of the metal box. “Now, I’ll need a drop of blood, from each of us.” He found an antibacterial wipe in the pile and quickly swabbed it over the ball of his thumb. “If I’m getting a chance to play Mad Doctor, I guess I get to go first.” He poked himself sharply with the lancet, then squeezed the welling drop onto the metal surface, in the upper left corner.

Egon had already snatched up another swab and cleaned off his own thumb, holding it out like a sacrificial offering. Winston wiped off the lancet then briskly jabbed Egon and dripped the sample into the center of the box. Ray followed in turn, Winston careful to place Ray’s droplet equally far from the other two. He then turned to Peter, taking up his limp, flaccid hand.

“God, I hate to do this to him,” he muttered. “He doesn’t even have this to spare….” Winston made himself not think about it as he sent the tip of the lancet home into the ball of Peter’s thumb, then meticulously squeezed out three drops, one next to each of the other three Ghostbusters’ donations. “Anyone got a toothpick? No?” He improvised again, finding a packaged tongue depressor in the leftovers from the kit. He snapped it in half, then peeled off a few long slivers from the split wood. Carefully he dragged each sliver in turn through the samples, mixing the drop that was Peter’s blood into each of the other three’s.

“We have to give it about five, ten minutes,” he explained to the others. “Anything that’s not going to be compatible will clump right up. Or,” he hedged, “so I’ve read.” He hoped that whichever author in whose work he had read the half-remembered field technique was a stickler in his or her research; then again, Winston had always appreciated accuracy in the fiction he read so he figured the odds were in his favor – and please God, Peter’s as well – that any book he’d chosen would have fit that criteria. “Time it, will you, Ray?”

“Sure.” Ray nodded, absently massaging the sore spot on his thumb. At least, Winston thought with relief, he wasn’t sucking at it; that would have looked too pathetic, considering how miserable and guilt-stricken Ray looked already. “But,” he asked quietly, “how are we going to get it into Peter?”

“Good question. We’ve got a needle.” He picked up one of the hollow tubes that had been in Peter’s arm, siphoning out his lifeblood. “Two, in fact. Do we have any tubing? Anything you can cannibalize from the equipment?”

Egon rapidly shook his head. “Absolutely nothing that would be suitable. All the tubing is not only too rigid, but too wide in diameter as well. I doubt we could compensate for the difference in size between the needle and the tubing.”

So much for transfusing the blood from one of them directly into Pete, which had been his first thought. “Well, we’ll just have to fake it another way.” What could they use to hold the donation before transfusing it?

There was a small plastic bag in the first aid kit that looked as if it could hold about a pint at a time, with plenty of room to spare. Good. And some surgical tape. Yes! – they could do this. Winston poured another small amount of water over the copper needle, wiping its outer surface clean, then trickled another stream into it to make sure it was not clogged. Water stained red dripped from its point; Winston made a face and poured a little more through, drop by drop, until it ran clear.

“It’s been five minutes,” Ray suddenly spoke up quietly. As one, they all bent over the metal box, staring at the samples. Two were clumping up, exactly as Winston had said, but the third, the one in the middle…. Clean. Egon nodded, rocking back on his heels and closing his eyes for a moment.

“Looks like you were right, Egon,” Winston admitted. “You’re a go. I just wish more than just one of us was compatible, because this isn’t going to be like giving a pint at the Red Cross. You up to this?”

“Need you ask?” There was no malice in the tone, only the simplest of truths. Egon was staring at Peter again, at the harsh rise and fall of his chest under the improvised blanket of folded jumpsuits, at the bleached face so stark against the spill of dark hair.

Winston pierced the copper needle through the plastic bag, sliding it through to three-quarters of its length, then steadied the makeshift apparatus and held it out arranged exactly how he needed it. “Ray,” he commanded, “take that surgical tape and wrap it good around where the needle comes out of the bag. Like that – now, go down a couple inches… then reverse, back up to the top of the needle.” Ray did exactly as instructed, compressing the bottom of the plastic bag against the needle; by the time he was done, it almost resembled a type of funnel. “We don’t want anything to leak – we can’t afford to waste it.”

Egon looked oddly pragmatic, as if he’d already given the matter extreme thought and only needed confirmation of his theorem. “Winston, how do you wish to transfer my blood into the bag?”

“Well, we could use the other needle if I could get it into one of your veins… but I’m not sure the flow would be fast enough. It’s warm in here and it doesn’t take long for clotting to start, so by the time we filled the bag half could already be going bad. And it’s not like we can let Pete wait very long anyway.” Winston gave Egon a very long look, one that was answered wordlessly in complete understanding.

“I promise you, I can do whatever is necessary. Are we ready to begin?”

“As soon as I get the business end of this thing into Pete…” he gestured vaguely with the improvised blood-bag, “Yeah.” It wasn’t going to be a moment too soon, Winston had to admit, checking his “patient”. Peter was having more trouble breathing, drawing quicker, harsher breaths at an irregular rate. Winston could see the pulse fluttering through the veins at his throat, fast and wavering. He pulled his eyes away, to Peter’s right arm, rolling up the jumpsuit sleeve.

He had to dismiss the first – and of course what should have been the easiest - option immediately out of hand. “It’s not worth even trying the veins in his arms. There’s too much swelling and a lot of bruising. It’s gonna be hard enough getting this needle into any vein without obstacles like that.”

“Have you ever done anything like this before?” Ray asked in a whisper. He appeared almost transfixed, as if his willing focus could force it to happen successfully.

Winston gave him a wry grin, hiding his anxiety at the question. “Well, you know what they say; there’s always a first time for everything,” he replied as lightly as he dared. Hell, he knew in theory, but in practice?

So if the arms were out, where next? He briefly felt at Peter’s neck, but the idea of trying to get the needle into those veins made his own blood run cold. There was no margin for error, and he had an awful fear that puncturing the wrong thing – or even the right thing but in the wrong way – might deprive blood to Peter’s brain, or even cause a stroke. So that left…

“Bring his legs down.” Ray leaped up to comply, and everyone shifted around Peter’s body as they stretched him out in the confined niche. “Someone got a knife to rip open those pants?” Winston went on.

“I do.” Ray pulled out his Swiss Army knife, and bent, deftly ripping through the right pant leg. “I’m sorry about your jumpsuit, Egon,” he murmured absently. “But I tried to rip it along the inseam, so maybe the tailor can fix it later.” Egon gave no sign that he had even heard, crouching beside Peter, staring at him while almost subconsciously rubbing at his own left wrist.

Winston folded back the fabric and, beyond relieved, nodded at what he saw. “Look at those veins - I’m never going to tease him about working his quads again.” Strong lines of blue stood atop the well-defined muscles of Peter’s thighs, and Winston probed along their delineation, feeling for the pulse he knew would be the femoral artery. Once he found that, he’d have the right vein, right next to it….

And he had it, a vital beat under his fingertips, halfway up Peter’s thigh, slightly to the inside. He swallowed and took a deep breath, keeping the shallow throb centered under his steady touch. “Well, what do you say, guys? – here goes.”

There were only a few antiseptic swabs left; Winston liberally mopped the area he’d chosen, then wiped the sharp tip of the copper needle. The fingers of his left hand braced against Peter’s thigh, and with his right hand he manipulated the needle, piercing through the skin at a shallow angle, heading for where he felt as well as saw the vein. Halfway in, he caught the resistance of muscle, however, and knew he’d failed the first time; too shallow or too deep, he wasn’t sure, but he had missed.

Damn.

He backed the needle out, leaving a wellspring of blood in his wake. “C’mon, c’mon,” he urged himself, under his breath, and tried again.

This time, it slid smoothly, as if along an open path, and Winston stayed with that angle, pressing it in firmly, holding it with his left hand atop the juncture of needle with flesh. “Got it,” he whispered at last, almost reverently, as he realized that, until that very moment, he’d doubted he would be able to do it after all.

“Here’s some more tape, Winston.” Ray was helpfully holding out a fresh strip to him. “For the needle – to keep it in place, you know.”

“Good thinking, Ray,” Winston breathed, nodding his approval. He carefully anchored the copper tubing where it pierced into Peter’s thigh, then, catching Egon’s eye, gave him a slight nod. “Your turn, pal. Go for it.”

Egon shifted in as close as possible, carefully situating himself with knees drawn up to his chest. “Raymond, would you please hand me a swab? And the lancet, please?”

Ray complied, then went white with sudden realization. “You’re not going to –“

“Ray,” Winston said sharply, “I need your help here. Hold the top of the bag. We’ll need you to keep it open.” Winston slid his own hands down to cup around the bottom of it, the part that would fill with blood. Ray, swaying as he stood, obediently moved to Peter’s other side, reaching over to take the top of the plastic bag and extend his fingers around it, holding it up with the “mouth” of it wide.

Egon’s eyes were blank as he slowly moved the swab over the inside of his left wrist; then, finished, he felt at it with the fingers of his right hand until he found his pulsepoint. He caught up the lancet and, with one swift slash, sliced himself open. Blood welled instantly from the deep cut, but he rapidly moved to position himself, bracing his arm above the bag to let the strong flow pour into it.

No one spoke; there was nothing to say, and there were no sounds save Peter’s harsh breathing, and the subtle whisper of pouring, pooling liquid. The bag was filling quickly, perhaps a cup within less than two minutes, nearly a pint in ninety seconds more.

Winston’s voice was harsh in their silence. “That’s enough for now, Egon. Give me a minute….” With the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, Egon encircled his wrist just above the gash, squeezing tightly to block off the blood flow. His face had already gone abnormally pale, and there was a thin bead of perspiration on his upper lip and at his hairline, but the look on his face was grimly determined.

Winston folded his hands around the filled part of the bag, locking his fingers around it, and, like a heartbeat, slowly began to pulse the blood down into the needle, into Peter’s body. He kept the compressions rhythmic, steady, consciously mimicking the natural beat of a human heart as he forced it in. Not too fast, for he did not want to overwhelm Peter’s already compromised system by a sudden influx of fluid, but quickly enough that he didn’t feel he was wasting any time getting the job done. In perhaps another two minutes, the bag was emptied, and he turned to Egon to ask, “Can you do it again?

“Of course.” Egon released his tight hold on himself, balancing his wrist over the transfusion bag again. The flow had slowed a bit, as if the pause had given his body time to start the process of coagulation, but it was still steady enough that within another five minutes the bag was filled. Winston carefully pulsed the second infusion into Peter’s body, wondering if it was only his imagination, or if Pete really was breathing a little easier, looking a little better….

As the bag emptied, Egon leaned forward yet again to offer another donation, but Winston shook his head. “I think that’s enough –“

“No. A bit more. I can spare it.” His shaky appearance belied his insistence; he was sweating profusely and even his lips had gone white in the drawn face.

Winston was firm. “No. We can’t have two of you down. We’ll get some of that water into you and you’ll bounce back pretty quick – “

“But – ”

“Stop it, Egon – I’m not gonna do it. You gave him at least two pints, maybe more – there wasn’t any way to measure it accurately.”

“He’s right,” Ray spoke up. Gingerly he pulled his hands away from the transfusion bag and automatically went to Egon. “You’ve helped Peter all you can. See? – he’s looking better.” A smile flickered across Ray’s open face, for just a moment. “I think you saved him.”

“We,” Egon whispered, dropping his forehead onto his bent knees. “Thank you, Winston.”

“No problem, m’man. But I’m gonna make you call me Doctor Zeddemore from now on.” He chuckled, shaking his head; he couldn’t believe it had actually worked. “Ray, think you could take care of Egon while I finish up with Pete here?”

With brisk efficiency they each tended to their respective charges, Ray tightly binding Egon’s wrist with the last of the gauze, while Winston, saying a silent prayer that he would never again have to pull anything else sharp out of – or, even worse, put anything sharp back into - Peter Venkman, withdrew the copper needle from the femoral vein. He resisted the temptation to fling it with the rest of the improvised transfusion apparatus across the cavern; God forbid that they’d need to use it again, but this situation was so unpredictable, so far out of their control, that he wasn’t counting on anything.

“Do you want to lie down, Egon?” Ray asked gently as he finished, fastening the end of the gauze with a few spare strips of tape. A seep of blood had reddened the bandage, but it did not seem to be spreading any further. “And this isn’t hurting you, is it? – it’s not too tight or anything?”

“I am fine, Ray.” Egon lifted his forehead from where it had rested on his knees, blinking behind his lenses and taking a few deep breaths, before settling it back down. He couldn’t recall the last time he had felt this dizzy. But worth it, oh, how it had been worth it…. “Or at least I will be once we get back and I can have something cool to drink.”

Winston improvised a pressure bandage around Peter’s thigh, pulled the split pant leg back into place as well as blanketing him again with the other two discarded jumpsuits, and then resituated him into the corner as he had been before, legs elevated. The difference in Peter now as opposed to before they had taken their drastic measures to save him was nothing short of remarkable; the pulse beneath Winston’s touch had steadied and strengthened, and his breaths came much easier. The almost cyanotic tone that had crept into his fingertips and lips had vanished, though his pallor was still extreme, and he seemed to be trembling on the edge of regaining awareness, restlessly shifting once or twice as if in discomfort before sinking back against the stone floor.

Winston came around to where Egon slumped in total enervation, and slid his fingers against the physicist’s throat to check his pulse as well. A little fast, but not dangerously so, and Winston suspected its acceleration was as much from the gravity of their situation as the unorthodox blood donation. “I think you’ll live too, Egon. Now slide over next to Pete and lean back against the wall – you need some rest, and I want you where I can keep my eyes on both of you. And you need to drink some water.”

He shook his head dismissively even as he moved into place, Ray helping him shift. “Save it for Peter.”

“Don’t you play martyr now,” Winston growled back, unamused. “Because if those things come back, we’re going to need you up and able to handle a thrower. I think Ray and I just got lucky we blasted them away the way we did, when we did it.”

“And I don’t like the readings I got when I checked this place out,” Ray added. “When you feel a little better, I want you to take a look at them with me. Something’s happening and we’ve got to figure it out and be ready.”

Egon sighed, resigned. “I suppose you are right. But I will only take the minimum proportion required to restore my body’s electrolytes.” He suddenly tilted his head to one side, considering. “Do we have anything with sugar? – a mint, or some hard candy?”

“Umm….” Ray seemed almost embarrassed as he dug into the front pocket of his pants and pulled out three sugar packets. “How about the real thing?”

Winston grinned despite himself. “Why in hell are you carrying something like that around, Ray?”

Ray flushed. “For my coffee. I always take a couple extra from the diner in case I don’t make it sweet enough before I go.” He added defensively, “There’s no such thing as too much sugar in coffee.”

“No wonder you’re always bouncing off the walls, Ray.” Winston shook his head. It didn’t matter where the sugar came from or in what form; he’d figured out what Egon wanted it for. A little sugar dissolved in the water would be invaluable in bringing not only the physicist’s, but also Peter’s, systems closer to normal. Winston dosed the canteen with all three packets, shook it to stir it into the water, then virtually shoved the mouth of the canteen against Egon’s lips. The physicist started at the gesture, then pulled back to mutter, “I believe I can handle this myself”, and took it from Winston’s hands. He took a few sips before stubbornly handing it back, with a gesture in Peter’s direction.

Winston took the hint and bent over their fallen member. “Pete?” He again smacked his fingertips against Peter’s cheeks, trying to rouse him, but this time there was an almost immediate reaction. Peter’s head rolled away from the stinging smack, and he made a mild face as if annoyed. Winston persisted, raising his voice. “Hey Pete, c’mon, buddy, wake up. We need you to drink something, okay? Think you can handle that?”

Peter made a faint sound, half assent, half moan.

Good, good. “Wanna open your eyes? Show me you’re with us?” The sound this time was negative, and for a moment he seemed to slide a little further away.

Winston dropped his voice in concern, addressing the other two; Ray was almost on top of him, leaning over and watching Peter with desperate hope in his eyes. “He’s still a little too out of it – I’m not sure he can even swallow yet. Either of you have a handkerchief?”

“Of course.” Egon handed over his, already immaculately folded where it had been tidily tucked in the pocket of his trousers.

Winston unfolded the hankie and dipped a corner in the sugar water until it was saturated and dripping. Gently, he slid a finger along Peter’s dry lips, forcing them slightly apart; Peter hissed, stubbornly shaking his head, and tried to pull back in uncomfortable retreat. “C’mon, Pete,” Winston soothed, “cooperate just a little, will you?” He quickly tucked the dripping corner of the cloth into Peter’s mouth. “Can you suck on that? It’s good stuff, Pete, and you need it. C’mon, it’ll make you feel better.”

Peter’s lips at last pursed around it in subconscious obedience; perhaps a deeply buried, primal instinct had been brought closer to the surface by a nearness to death, and now drove him. Once he’d started, it was as if he wanted to draw all the moisture out of it, almost desperate to drink it in. Winston removed the cloth after a minute, dipped it again, replaced it, and Peter drank those droplets feebly, then made a sound and a faint hand gesture as if asking for more. Winston obeyed, several times, until as if finally satisfied, Peter sank back in a relaxed state, shaking his head when Winston asked him if he wanted any more.

“I’m gonna let him rest now,” he said in answer to Egon and Ray’s unspoken query. “And give him a few more minutes to let the sugar in that water hit him. C’mon, you two,” he remonstrated when they still stared wide-eyed, “get that look off your faces. He’s going to be all right.”

At those words, Egon dropped his head, but not before both Winston and Ray saw sudden tears – of relief, of pain, of personal exhaustion, they couldn’t tell – welling up and starting to spill. Egon reached up under his glasses to rub at his eyes, and brought his other hand down to cup against Peter’s cheek, drawing him closer, holding him. The other two wisely retreated, giving Egon a modicum of privacy in the emotional moment; Egon so rarely lost his control, his dignity, and was so loathe to be seen without his sentiments in tight rein that they couldn’t stand contributing to his discomfiture. “Wanna take a little break and fill me in on those readings, homeboy?” Winston asked Ray in a low voice, dropping an arm around his shoulders. Ray nodded, and, trying not to look at his two friends, managed to pull his attention away from them.

Less than a minute later, Peter violently twitched from head to toe, shuddering, and his eyes flew open, darting around the cavern. There was panic in his face as he struggled against the last memories he’d had, of wicked things that had attacked and were trying to drain him dry. “Hey!” His voice was a harsh croak. “What? Where’d you go – “

“Shh, Peter, stay still.”

“Spengs?!” Spengs’ voice. They’d found him, come to save him like he knew they would…. He turned his head into the warm, welcome hand that cupped his face, dizzy with relief, but started when he saw white bandages stained with blood at the wrist. Wide eyes tracked past the wrist, up the arm, finding Egon’s worried face looming over him. Egon belonged to the bloodied arm…. Those damn little things must have done something to Spengs. God, had he been injured while coming to save him?

“You’re hurt,” he babbled, trying to sit up. He heard movement around him, then other strong hands were holding him down. He didn’t care and tried to thrash against them, kicking and squirming. “Egon, you’re hurt! You got hurt!” He looked around for the other two, and met dark eyes staring into his with compassion and concern. “Zed, Zed!” he blurted, blind with relief that someone else was there to help. “Something’s the matter with Egon!”

“I know, Pete. But he’s gonna be okay. You just stay right here with him and watch him, all right?”

Peter relaxed infinitesimally, mumbling, “Sure will….” and shifted closer to Egon.

Ray’s voice suddenly spoke up. Oh, good, Ray was there too…. “And you have to stay quiet too, Peter, so you don’t disturb him.”

“Count on it.” Peter nodded. That was a mistake, for it called a pounding headache to attention, front and center. “Ow…” he complained.

The warm hand – Spengs’ hand, the hand with the bloody wrist, Egon’s hurt - gently stroked over his cheek, and Egon’s voice asked in a low, comforting rumble, “What is wrong, Peter?”

Thoughts were tumbling away; suddenly there was nothing there except how bad he felt. “My head hurts… this ground’s too hard. Spengs… pillow…?” Peter gestured so helplessly, the look in his eyes so pleading, that Egon gently lifted his head up to rest it in his lap.

“This won’t hurt him, will it, to raise his head a bit?” he worriedly queried Winston.

Winston had certainly not expected Peter to come flying out of the depths of shock he’d been in ready to fight a battle... but then again, Pete never did give up, did he? “No, his legs are still higher. Anything that makes him comfortable and keeps him calm, we’ll try it.”

Egon nodded, stroking Peter’s hair, trying to steady him. The psychologist was shaking and restless, his eyes flickering erratically over his surroundings as if he hadn’t a clue what was going on. “Peter?” Spengler questioned gently, bending close, “do you know where you are?”

Peter stared up at him for a moment, looking puzzled, then his gaze sharpened fractionally. “Egon… do you know where we are?”

“Hmm, point taken,” the physicist considered. While his question had not exactly been rhetorical, knowing Peter, he had been expecting an answer ranging anywhere from “safe”, to “with you guys”, to “up shit creek”. “Ray believes that we have been drawn into a temporary dimensional ‘pocket’, so to speak….”

“’Drawn’?” Peter’s voice was wobbly. “More like ‘sucked’. Just like a vacuum cleaner.” His thoughts were obviously darting away again; Egon didn’t think he’d ever seen him so scattered, unable to hold on to a tangent for more than a few seconds. “Scared me. Scared you too, huh? – ‘cause you sure lookscared.”

Egon thought to himself that if he looked scared, it was certainly not due to being transitioned unexpectedly into an alternate dimension, but instead he replied quietly, “I would say that this has been an alarming experience, yes.” While he spoke, Peter reached up as if to consolingly pat Egon’s cheek, but the sight of a teal sleeve on his arm distracted him and he stared at it, utterly fascinated, then completely confused by its presence. “This isn’t right. That’s your suit, Egon, not mine. Wait a minute….” He looked genuinely alarmed. “I’m Peter, right?” “Yes, you are,” Egon reassured with a wry smile. “Peter Venkman.” “Doctor Peter Venkman,” he put in triumphantly, grinning faintly, as if he’d remembered the punchline to an oft-told joke.

Winston leaned over and murmured to Ray, “You can bet he’d never forget that.”

“For a second, I was afraid I was you, Spengs.” He sputtered with weak humor. “Especially ‘cause everything looks a little fuzzy around the edges, you know? Your glasses… let me try your glasses.” He fumbled them off Egon’s face, almost dropping them, then shifted them off-kilter onto his own. “How do you wear these things?” he breathed in dizzy astonishment, blinking through them. “It looks worse with them on than off.”

Egon gently reclaimed his glasses and settled them back on the bridge of his nose, looking down with fondness at his dazed and rattled friend. “Perhaps if you were myopic, as I am, Peter, they would help you see more clearly. But for now, I think you need to rest, and that will do more to fix your vision than anything else.” He placed a warm hand on Peter’s shoulder, pressing him down slightly.

“Okay.” He shifted a little, gasping once or twice in discomfort that seemed to, at least, do nothing more than confuse him as to how it had happened, before he settled himself more comfortably, head rolling to one side on Egon’s thigh. “‘m thirsty,” he mumbled. “Something to drink?”

Egon reached for the damp, folded handkerchief they had used to get the sugar water into him before. “Would you like to suck on the cloth again?”

Peter’s eyes narrowed, and there was a flash of annoyance in them. “You suck on it,” he muttered. “I asked for a drink.”

Ray snorted, then rapidly turned away, hand over his mouth, to hide his grin and help smother any further outbursts. Winston guffawed outright. Egon flushed in chagrin even as he reached for the canteen and lifted it to Peter’s mouth. “Peter,” he said under his breath, “I know you are not deliberately trying to make me regret my choice to open a vein in order to save your life, but you are giving me cause to reflect on whether I would do something similar at a later time.” The expression of affection in his face and the quiet amusement in his tone completely belied his words.

Peter swallowed, but made a face. “Soda’s flat,” he complained. He brought up a shaking hand to push away the canteen and wipe at his mouth. “And warm.”

“It’s not soda, it’s sugar water,” Winston explained patiently. He decided this was as good a time as any to take Peter’s pulse again; still too fast, but better than before, and staying consistent and steady.

“Rather have a Coke… or lemonade… or orange juice.” He shot Egon a plaintive look, then sighed, sinking back limply against Spengler’s thigh. “Fresh-squeezed orange juice.”

“We promise you, plenty of that,” Ray chimed in. There was still a dark, haunted edge behind his eyes that had eased only slightly with Peter’s revival; far too obviously, Ray’s mind was still on the other three victims who had not survived.

“With vodka,” Peter then put in. “Let’s have a party, huh? With an open bar….” His voice suddenly faltered as recall shivered through him in a frigid burst. “Oh God… last party I was at, I was the drink….” He turned his face to one side and squeezed his eyes shut as he began to shudder with quiet sobs.

“Oh hell, why’d he have to think about that?” Winston said to himself, shaking his head. Even worse, it was confirmation to him – and no doubt to the other two Ghostbusters – of just what the little entities had been doing with the blood they’d drained from Peter and the three college students.

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Peter choked out petulantly, already starting to gag at the back of his throat. “I feel sick….”

“Don’t.” Winston urgently shifted forward, catching Peter by the shoulders and trying to steady him. “Hang on to yourself, Pete.” To the others he said quietly, “He starts to heave, he’s really gonna screw up his body chemistry. Losing what water we got into him won’t do him any good at all.”

Egon spontaneously dropped a hand to Peter’s abdomen, and began to rub it in a slow, gentle, circular motion. “Deep breaths, Peter,” he urged. “Does this feel better?”

“Yeah…” He struggled to obey, to pull himself together, breathing slowly and deeply at Spengler’s direction, and relaxing under the soothing caress. Finally, he managed to open his eyes again, slanting his gaze up at Egon. “Think you’re my mom, Spengs?” He sighed again and swallowed. “Just about kill for a soda cracker… never had breakfast today, you know?” He reached up and encircled Egon’s bare forearm with a cold hand, holding on to his friend as if bracing himself with the reassurance of Egon’s presence. “Hey,” he frowned, squeezing, “where’s your shirt?”

“It was under your head. Now I think you are lying on it.”

“Take it back… don’t want you to get cold. It’s cold in here, isn’t it?” The other three exchanged looks; it had to be at least eighty degrees, and humid to boot, in the cavern. Peter rambled on. “Spengs, did you… did you do something to yourself?” He ran a trembling finger along the strip of bandages encircling Egon’s wrist, frowning as if he was trying to make sense of it.

“Don’t worry about it, Peter – it’s not important.” He fixed his evasive gaze on the opposite wall of the niche.

“Bad place for it,” he persisted. “Wow… did you bleed a lot?”

“There was… enough. Shall we not speak about it, please?” There was a tense, hidden edge to Egon’s voice, and his eyes glistened for a moment.

“What’d I say?” Peter’s own eyes widened at the uncommon look in Egon’s. “I’m sorry,” he finally said in a miserably small voice. “I’m sorry, really.” He suddenly flopped over, onto his side, his propped legs thudding to the stone floor; but if it hurt him at all he paid no notice. “Spengs, I’m really sorry….” He shifted, thrashing, then flung awkward arms around Egon’s waist. Any further words of self-recrimination were swallowed as he started to hiccup.

“Shh, Peter.” Egon slid his massaging hand upward, to the back of Peter’s neck, rubbing until the spasms subsided. “What are you sorry for?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted brokenly, burrowing his face into Egon’s thigh and closing his eyes. In a few moments, his breathing evened out and his agitated motions ceased, the tension and pain sliding away from his face.

“Gee, is he okay?” Ray’s face was drawn and white, and he chewed at his lower lip. “Shouldn’t we move him? – put his legs back up?”

Winston checked him over quickly and then said, “He’s just all done in. Here, let’s let him sleep for now, and if his vitals stay steady, I won’t move him.” He raised an inquiring brow. “You okay like this, Egon?”

“I think I can manage,” he answered dryly, the fingers of one hand still absently circling at the nape of Peter’s neck. “Ray, perhaps we should take advantage of the quiet to check the readings again.”

“Sure.” He scooted over from where he’d been crouched, hovering, and sat down on Egon’s opposite side, bringing both PKE meters with him. “I’ve picked up what might be overlapping residuals, but they’re not like anything I’ve seen before.”

Egon pushed his glasses into place and considered them as well, frowning. “Nor I. Let me dial out the parameters of this dimension and perhaps they will make more sense….” He forced his fingers to work steadily at the gauges, fine-tuning the meter’s receptors, then synchronizing Ray’s to read the same. The results were, if anything, even more confusing.

Winston watched them work on their esoteric calculations for a few minutes, then announced, “I’m gonna take a look around.” He donned his pack and strode off in a private reconnoiter to examine the cavern. Since Ray, he figured, had been operating on autopilot when he’d checked it out, he’d better take a look of his own and make sure nothing important, either now or for later, had been overlooked.

Egon carefully perused the screen of his meter, talking half to himself. “There is a clear resemblance to the type of readings a single Class Seven would produce. However – “

Ray broke in, “They’re like a weak Class Seven. And Class Sevens aren’t weak.”

“I know.” Egon frowned as a thought struck him. “Or… perhaps this is the reading of an incomplete Seven.”

Ray grimaced. “I don’t like the way that sounds, but gosh, it might make sense. All those… things together, it’s as if they add up to a demon.”

“Let me check something else.” Egon’s vision fuzzed for a moment as he tried to focus more closely on the meter. He paused to rub at his eyes, then briefly rested his head again on his knees.

Ray’s arm instantly draped over his shoulders, supporting him. “Are you really okay, Egon?”

“More tired than I would like to admit, and unfortunately, Peter is not the only one who missed breakfast this morning. But another sip of water would help. Has our connoisseur of fine beverages left me anything in the canteen?” He settled his hand lightly on Peter’s head for a moment, automatically pushing one damp lock of hair back behind Peter’s ear.

Ray picked it up and gave it a shake. “Yeah, but not much – probably just a little backwash.”

“Then I’ll leave him some of mine,” Egon commented wryly, daring a swallow before putting his head down again and letting his eyes close for just a moment.

“You know….” Ray’s voice dropped to a whisper as he squeezed the physicist more tightly. “Egon, what you did - I couldn’t have done that.”

“Of course you could have. We all do what we must at any given moment, and you’re no exception. Sometimes…” He turned his head slightly, looking up at Ray out of the corner of one eye, and smiled. “I feel you would remove your heart, if you could, and give it to one of us.”

Peter suddenly started up, eyes wild, and blurted, “Who removed their heart? Guys?”

“No one, Peter. It was just a figure of speech,” Ray soothed, reaching over to pat his forehead. Bittersweet amusement curled his lips, along with the thought that he and the others better watch what they were saying, for good or ill, since Peter was obviously cognizant enough to hear things, even if he was not mentally present enough to quite understand them.

“Ray? Spengs?” he persisted, trying to push himself up out of Egon’s lap. “They didn’t do anything to you, did they? Or Winston? Where’s Zed?”

“No, Peter,” Egon reassured, “we are all fine. And Winston will be back in a moment. Now go back to sleep.”

“Unh… okay….” He relaxed and drifted off again, head heavy against Egon’s thigh, the fingers of one hand tightly twisted in Egon’s white undershirt as either anchor or protection, or perhaps both.

Ray and Egon exchanged a wordless glance of pathos and understanding, then went back to their calculations. “Have we…” Ray began, thinking out loud. “Have we checked for a negative valence?”

“For corporeal manifestations? No, I have not. Let me adjust mine while you keep yours the same.” Egon quickly recalibrated, then started in astonishment at the readings. “I believe I detect a pattern.”

Ray breathed, “Wow, look at that. They’re the exact opposite of each other. This is great!”

“Two halves making a whole,” Egon agreed, “one ectoplasmic, one corporeal. This is certainly a first for us.”

“See this?” Ray’s finger traced over the screen on his meter, then slid over to the corresponding display on Egon’s. “There’s a coalescing in the patterns. It’s like the two waves, positive and negative, are merging. I wonder how long it’s going to take before they come together, and what will happen when they do.”

“We have both been recording all paranormal activity since we arrived here, correct?”

“I haven’t turned off my meter,” Ray concurred.

“Then I may be able to used our stored readings to measure their convergence rates.”

“And if you check for a Doppler-like shift….”

“Doppler….” They would have thought Peter was repeating the word in his sleep, but he rolled his head slightly and looked up at Ray, brow knit with the effort of his concentration. “Is it Doppler? You know, the way the sound changes when liquid fills a cup… how it gets higher each time? Drip drip drip?” He shivered.

Ray reached over and rearranged the folded jumpsuits more cozily over him. “Not in the context in which we’re using it, Peter. Why?”

“Because… because….” He looked up helplessly at Ray, as if he’d forgotten the importance in mid-thought, or perhaps because he could not bring himself to fully explain why.

“We’ll talk about it later, Peter, honest,” Ray soothed, bending briefly to stroke his hand over Peter’s forehead. Peter’s eyes flickered at the gesture, and for a moment he looked as if he were going to try to express himself, but instead, at last, he merely settled back down with a tired sigh.

Egon’s body had tensed at Peter’s latest feeble outburst, but he did not allow himself to react other than with a slight compression of his lips, and a stolen glance at how bonelessly Peter sprawled across him. Ray caught the look and leaned in to ask, “You want me to hold on to him for a while? He’s got to be getting a little heavy.”

“I doubt you could pry him loose,” Egon answered, distracting himself more deeply with the meter. “He is where he wants to be right now – ‘watching me’ as you and Winston suggested.” Ray let it go, feeling that Peter was also where Egon wanted him to be; instead, he watched the calculations the physicist was laboriously working, and throwing in suggestions as they came to him.

They hit a dead end before any solid conclusions could be reached. “This… burst… interferes with the oscillation pattern.” Egon shook his head in disappointment. “I suspect it occurred when the creatures dispersed at Winston’s direct hit, and there are not enough subsequent readings to establish the new pattern. But I do believe… they are coming back.”

“Or, if not ‘them’,” Ray said darkly, “something is.”

Something did, then, but it was Winston, grim-faced, rejoining them. “I tell you, I’ve never seen anything like this, and never hope to again. Those poor kids…” He shook his head and tried to block the tableau of tumbled bodies from his memory. “Hey, I found Pete’s pack at the base of the far wall, so I figure that’s right where we came in. Think it’ll be where we go back out? If so, we’d better make some plans ‘cause it’s about eight feet up, and it’ll be interesting to get our boy back through it.”

“There’s no guarantee that the gateway will open in the same location, but since its location in Russell’s apartment was consistent, that means it probably is here too,” Ray analyzed quickly. “We’ll move over there when it gets a little closer to the time – “

One of the meters chirped, and for a moment everyone froze. Egon stared at it, then raised his eyes to the other two. “I set it to detect fluctuations in the convergence ratio greater than a fixed percentage. The positive and negative waves, so to speak, have moved much closer together. And it has occurred much more rapidly than I had presumed it would.”

“‘Critical mass’,” Ray mouthed, bowing his head, brown eyes fixed on the rough floor.

“This is sounding less good all the time,” Winston commented bleakly. “Better tell me what you figured out.” Ray pulled himself back to attention and quickly filled him in on their theories and extrapolations.

Winston’s eyes were sharp as he digested all their new data and tried to pick a workable plan of action, nodding to himself as he factored in each piece of bad news – and it sure seemed all bad – the occultist dealt out. “You know,” he commented with as much neutrality as he could muster once Ray had finished his unintentionally pessimistic wrap-up, “if they’re corporeal… we can’t trap ‘em. We don’t have the destabilizer with us.”

“I am aware of that,” Egon said regretfully. “We may only be able to hold them off, with the boosted packs.”

Ray, forcing his customary optimism, suggested, “If we’re lucky, the gateway will open up again before they re-manifest.”

“This hasn’t exactly been anyone’s lucky day,” Winston said under his breath. “I think we’d better plan for the worst and be ready when those little bastards come back.”

“I don’t want ‘em to come back,” Peter muttered, stirring to shift more closely against Egon. “They’re really rotten hosts.”

He was shivering more, and when Winston took his pulse, it had accelerated. “Time to get those legs up again, homeboy,” he said firmly.

Peter swore at him without much conviction as Winston shifted him back into his previous position; then, when it became clear that the curse words weren’t working, he plaintively petitioned Egon to intervene. “Spengs, why’s Zed messing with me? Tell him to stop! I can’t… I can’t take care of you like this.”

“That’s all right, Peter,” Egon reassured, sliding Peter’s head off his thigh, settling him against the folded shirt yet again. “I think I’m doing well enough on my own now.”

Green eyes filled with the tears of sudden realization. “It’s not you… it’s me, isn’t it?” he whispered. “Something’s wrong with me?”

Egon swallowed, then reached out and with his fingertips gently wiped away the wetness that had spilled over onto Venkman’s drawn cheeks. “Yes, Peter, but we promise you, you will be all right. We – I – will make sure you will be.”

“You better,” he said faintly, forcing a feeble, trusting smile, “or I’ll mess up your hair again. Don’t forget the dryer.”

“The dryer?” Egon looked genuinely perplexed for a moment; then remembrance dawned. “Ah, yes, the science experiment in college. Peter, do you recall my retribution?”

The expression in Peter’s eyes went deliberately vague. “Umm…” he hedged.

Winston grinned despite himself, both in admiration of Egon’s distracting techniques which he so rarely utilized, and the idea that the serious physicist had, years before, apparently successfully repaid a Venkman prank. “What did you do, Egon?”

Egon allowed a tight smile of his own. “It was a few days later. Peter and Raymond discovered that there are all manners of harmless vegetables dyes which one can clandestinely place in soap in order to tint the skin a most unsuitable hue for days on end.”

“Ray was green.” Peter grinned hazily at the memory before his eyes fluttered shut. “But y’know… I thought I looked pretty good in blue… sorta like a Celtic warrior.”

“Well, ‘McVenkman’, you kick back a little bit longer.” Winston clapped him on the shoulder. “The rest of us, we’d better get armed and ready.”

Ray swung his pack up from where he’d dropped it on the floor, sliding the shoulder straps into place. “How much longer?"

The meter chirped again, softly as it had a few minutes before, but Egon momentarily ignored it as he slowly got to his feet, testing his strength and balance. Excellent. He seemed steady enough. “More than an hour for the gateway,” he began, reaching carefully for his armaments, “but I suspect much less than that until –“

The PKE meter suddenly brayed, spat smoke, and exploded into hundreds of hot, tiny pieces that pelted them like b.b.’s from a misfired gun.

With an ear-splitting roar, a massive figure burst into existence in the space before them, coalescing at light-speed. It bore only the most distant resemblance to the dozens of minions that had haunted the space before, but it was definitely a member of the same family: red-hued, long-limbed with sharply-taloned hands, and hollow eyes that bore coldly into their own. What before had been many, was now obviously one, with all their strength, their power, and, judging by how quickly it moved, their agility.

Winston had his thrower pulled and activated almost instantly, the proton stream lashing out defensively in the very moment the demon lunged forward with a howl. Ray was quick to follow, adding more particle energy against the assault. The twin beams thrust the demon back against the far wall, but in an instant it was pressing forward again, fighting against the energy they flung at it.

The sudden ruckus jarred Peter back into full wakefulness. “What!” he shouted, bolting up, panic in the green eyes that were suddenly sharp – far too sharp – with fear.

“Stay down!” Egon shouted at him. He had found himself at a wretched disadvantage, the pack hanging off him by one strap; he shoved his other arm into place but mentally said “to hell with it” as far as the waist strap went. No time. The straps of his pack bit into his nearly-bare shoulders, and the pack mechanisms chafed at his back; he’d never given much thought to how much protection his jumpsuit afforded him. He quickly shifted, trying to settle its weight more comfortably, less distractingly, but gave up and pulled his thrower to add its power to their counterattack.

“My pack, my pack…where’s my pack?” Peter was insisting, his voice rising, as proton energy sizzled around him. He rolled onto hands and knees, then somehow managed to push as far upright to his knees alone. “Where? Did you bring – ” His strength and minimal balance gave, and he toppled forward, landing hard on his stomach against the hard stone floor, the breath driven out of him.

“Guard him, Egon!” Winston shouted a command. “Or at least keep him out the way!” He cranked his own stream up to the maximum, and with the dimmest hope that a blow like before might send the monster packing, blasted it dead in the chest. No such luck. The entity bellowed, leaping upwards in a great arc, and clawed its way forward against the power of the triple streams that assaulted it.

Ray, grim-faced, was sweating, the particle thrower bucking in both hands as the demon struggled against the bursts of energy. It had been a long time since they’d had to fight anything that strong, that fierce and stubborn; and them down one man as well. And Egon, while doing his best, was obviously having trouble controlling his aim, his stream only licking off the edges of the creature’s limbs, as easily deflected by them as a fall of water. Ray didn’t know how long they could sustain their effort; either their strength, or their packs, would fail before too long, and then…. He couldn’t let himself think about it, but still, the image of Russell’s friends sprawled dead on the floor blazed vividly in his mind, now joined by the bodies of Peter, and Winston, and Egon… and his own.

The demon surged forward, fighting. “Shit,” Winston muttered under his breath as all three were forced to retreat a step or two, “we shoulda got out of this area before – he’s got us pinned.” The niche felt too enclosed, almost claustrophobic now, the stone walls too near their backs. “Even if the gateway opened we couldn’t get around him to get to it.” He shook his head, despairing every tactical error he had made that left them so damn helpless.

Words as archaic as the demon itself suddenly bellowed in their heads, a mixture of high shrilling voices reverberating within a deep bass that seemed to echo in their brains. I am Xanthürigen! Who be thee, that have interrupted my creation?

The reply fell out of Winston’s mouth without conscious thought. “We’re the guys who came to kick your butt back to where you belong!” Hell, if he was going to coordinate this fight instead of Pete, he might as well smart off like their usual leader did.

It is I who belong here. It is thee that has invaded that realm which I possess.

“You came when you weren’t wanted!” Ray shouted. “Go back!”

Ah, but I have been called to battle. So long, so long it has been, since I have marched unto the febrile fields of death. I expect – I demand – the glory and reward that is my due. “There’s no battle out there,” Ray insisted, his eyes flashing determination. “There’s nothing for you. Now go before we blast you out of here!”

Ephemeral laughter skittered around the edges of their brains. Thou believest that thy armaments cause damage unto my being? If thou couldst, thou wouldst yet have thrust me back. No, I do not leave until I am sated, until all I desire has been sacrificed unto me. “No!” Ray’s face was set with stubbornness. “You’ve already killed enough – those students. We’re not going to let you kill anything else!”

Children, foolish children, thus to call me forth when there is naught to serve. And thee, so impudent, to interrupt my invocation before my strength is fullest. But…. The large head tilted, considering, the hollow eyes somehow contemplative. I will drink from thee. With pleasure I will take thy life forces and thus use them to strengthen myself, to become stronger, strong enough to leave this space whereby I am by ritual a-born.

“That,” Egon said firmly, but with obvious strain in his voice, “will not be allowed.” He thumbed the power to maximum strength at wide dispersion, and let a sharp blast rake over the demon’s body. The creature roared again, snarling and clawing, and backed away from the assault, hovering at the edge of their range.

“I think we’ve at least pushed him into a standoff for now,” Winston muttered, still firing in the demon’s direction and blocking any advance. “These streams aren’t exactly tickling him.”

“Hold him back,” Egon returned quietly, “while I take some readings.” He sidled to where he and Ray had been working, retrieving Ray’s PKE meter, and playing on instinct, tuned it to read positive and negative valances. The antennae swung, quivering, and the meter protested in small chirps and trills that sounded almost like distress. “As I feared,” Egon at last announced, shaking his head. “Xanthürigen’s composition is somehow both ectoplasmic and corporeal. Most likely the exo-structure manifests itself as ectoplasmic, while the…” he hesitated a moment, as if loathe to say it, “blood component has retained its prior physical aspects.”

“And so you’re saying we can’t trap it,” Winston finished.

“Most likely, no, but perhaps using a trap would disrupt its structure….”

“Then what do you say? – let’s press him and throw one out. I don’t think there’s much to lose. Ray?”

Ray was chewing at his lower lip, the look in his eyes deep and distant with thought, but he quickly snapped to himself at Winston’s query. “I think so. It’s worth a try at least. Egon, Winston and I will cover and you toss. Ready? Go!”

They charged forward, two particle streams flaring as the trap slid out beneath and between the streams. Xanthürigen lunged at their attack, and as he hurtled toward them, Egon stomped the pedal and sent the white light shooting upward to envelop the entity. Xanthürigen shrieked and struggled within the blazing light for long seconds, his outer surface rippling and elongating as if around a solid core, as the proton streams fixed him in its center. But then with a howl of purest rage, he wrenched free from the suction of the trap, almost rebounding off the low ceiling of the cavern with his effort. He landed upright, roaring with fury, and swiped at the trap, catching it in his talons and flinging it across to the far side of the cavern. It shattered on impact into as many pieces, maybe more, as Egon’s PKE meter had when the demon had burst into the conjure space.

“Goddamn, all we did was make him more pissed,” Winston groaned. And then Xanthürigen charged, and Winston’s tone changed entirely. “Hit him with the max and just keep him back!” he barked. “Maybe we can hold him off.”

“For another hour?” Ray called back incredulously. “The packs might hold but we won’t. There’s got to be another way.”

“I believe we are in what is known as a standoff,” Egon added dryly. The demon pressed forward against their beams, fighting as hard as they fought him, matching their determination with boundless anger.

Egon braced his back against the cavern wall, shaking and enervated, unsure of how long he could keep up his effort. His wrist throbbed, and he could feel fresh wetness seeping into the bandage. An unexpected weight suddenly settled against his legs, and he cast a quick glance downward to see Peter, propped there, leaning against him and looking up at him with huge, desperate eyes. “Let me help, let me help….” he breathed.

“No, Peter,” he returned, dropping his hand to briefly smooth the damp hair back from the pale face. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“Nothing you’ll let me do,” he countered, lips twitching upward in a faint, forced grin. “Remember who said no… n’ better not call me ‘lazy’ when we get back home.” His eyes stopped tracking for a moment, then he pulled himself back with an obvious effort, watching the pitched battle in wordless distress.

Xanthürigen suddenly struggled free of the proton streams, lunging forward even as Ray and Winston frantically whipped their throwers in another direction to attempt to rein him in. Egon’s dulled reflexes left his adjustments a split-second behind the others, and the demon took advantage of the weakened flank to launch his attack in that direction. Taloned fingers flashed out, clawing and grasping, the long forefingers pointing directly at Egon’s brow.

“Spengs, watch it!” Peter lurched up and pulled at Egon’s forearm, yanking him down. One razor-sharp fingernail rent against Egon’s shoulder, almost tearing through the strap of the pack, and sent sparks of pain rippling through him. Egon managed to get his thrower up and pumped a hard stream directly into the demon’s glowering face, buying enough time for Ray and Winston to circle around and drive it back and away again.

“That’s how….” Peter was panting again, and his eyelids fluttered. “That’s how they knock you out… don’t let ‘m….” He sagged against Egon’s leg, white-faced and trembling, his words coming with difficulty. “Told you... told you I’d watch you….”

The demon’s hollow eyes flicked downwards, and an expression of unspeakable delight roiled over the twisted features. Ah, he of such sweetness still lives? But… not for much longer. His strength and courage will add much to my animus. Demon hands raised as if in invocation, palms thrust outward. See how I draw it from his form – ere have we readied him and now I may merely call his life force unto me.

Peter let out a horrible wail as the bandages at his elbows and around his thigh began to redden, fresh rivulets trickling out from under the wrappings. Egon went white and dropped to one knee beside him, clutching at him desperately, pressing his fingers hard against where the blood leaked to try to belay the dark magic that drew it outward.

“Stop it!” Ray was screaming. “Stop it now! We won’t let you do this! We can’t let you!”

And who are thee, to stop me? Demon laughter scraped inside their heads again. I shall use thee for the last of the power I seek. I shall rend thy heads from thy bodies and drink as from a fount. Then forth from my lot shall I burst unto thy world to take my entitlement.

“No.” Ray was stubborn with fury. Proton energy pumped from his thrower in oscillating waves, pounding at the demon. “You won’t.”

Ah, but I must. The words were a mocking hiss. Thus by ritual have I been summoned, thus by ritual am I bound.

“Then… then you’ll be unbound!” A fierce light of sudden comprehension came into Ray’s normally placid eyes. “Winston, hold him back as long as you can!” He holstered his own thrower and quickly dug into his pocket, withdrawing his Swiss Army knife again, and in one smooth stroke he slid the blade along the palm of his left hand, opening the flesh.

As if the one proton stream left against him did not even exist, Xanthürigen lunged forward to attack. Ray straightened and stared, fearless, planting himself firmly in the demon’s path, and thrust his bleeding palm upward, at the creature. “By blood ye were summoned… by blood ye shall be banished!” he called, matching his words to the archaic dialect. “By strength of my blood I command ye back unto thy home!”

Xanthürigen howled and stumbled, staggering back. I refute thee!

“And I thee!” Ray countered firmly. Blood streamed down his forearm, dripping off his elbow, splashing on the cavern floor. “Which be stronger, me or thee?”

“Goddamn, he’s winging it,” Winston breathed, his particle stream still pounding against the stumbling demon. Louder he encouraged, “Go, Ray, you can do it! Send the bastard back!”

Xanthürigen visibly gathered himself, eyes lit from within by cold, stark fury. I! My strength is far greater than thine!

Ray’s voice echoed in the cavern, brave and strong. “Nay, for I reside of the world thee seeks to pillage. I send thee back as unwanted, uninvited!”

No! The demon suddenly thrust out his hands again, towards Peter, stealing blood-strength from him. Peter howled and kicked out reflexively, back arching. Egon clutched him tightly, trying to brace him against the demon’s attack, despairing.

Winston suddenly knew what he had to do, and powered down the thrower. “Two of us, Ray! Two are stronger than one.” Winston cut his own palm and firmly clasped it against Ray’s, their hands thrusting skyward as if in triumph. “Two are stronger than him!”

“We band together to defeat thee!” Ray announced, eyes ablaze. “Thy will is no match unto ours.”

Peter abruptly silenced and crumpled, his eyes rolling back in their sockets until only the whites showed behind his flickering lids. Egon shook him, frantic, and shouted his name, terrified that the last assault had taken him. But Peter’s head suddenly snapped up, a groan escaping his lips, and he burrowed into Egon’s grasp. “… hurts hurts hurts…” he moaned, shuddering so violently it was almost convulsive.

“It will be over soon, I promise,” Egon whispered into his ear, praying that it would indeed be so. He stole a glance at the raging demon as it paced and threatened and tried to counter Ray’s invocation with refutations of its own. Merely fighting Ray’s impromptu spell-casting, Egon guessed, was occupying all of its strength and concentration, leaving it unable for the moment to go on the attack. But it was still dangerous, still powerful… still present.

“Egon, get over here!” Winston shouted, over the demon’s roar and Ray’s rising chant. “With Pete!”

He sensed instinctively why Winston called them over. If the power of two was holding the demon back, the power of four might be enough to banish it. Arms around Peter’s waist, he stood, pulling him up with him. Peter stirred, trying to get his legs under him with little success, but making a valiant attempt. “…going home…?” he slurred.

“One can only hope,” Egon said grimly, as he dragged his charge to where Ray and Winston had planted themselves against the demon’s siege.

Ray’s eyes were closed in concentration, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “We refute thee, we banish thee, unto thy own dank and dismal world. Ye are unwelcome wherein we reside. Go back go back go back….”

“Egon, I’ll take him.” Winston stretched out his free arm and Egon bundled Peter into the other man’s grasp. Egon found the knife where Winston had dropped it, on the cavern floor, and moved to open his palm, but hesitated a moment, knowing what he had to do first.

Gently, he took one of Peter’s cold, slack hands into his own, touching the palm lightly with the tip of the knife. “Peter,” he breathed, “I am sorry.”

He barely stirred, braced against Winston’s broad chest as he was, head lolling. “’s’okay, Egon, really… lemme help…” Egon quickly dragged the point across the clammy skin just deep enough to draw a thin line of blood, then turned the knife on himself, in his haste probably cutting more deeply than was necessary, as if in subconscious penance. He fastened his fingers between Peter’s, then thrust their locked hands upwards. Ray and Winston’s hands closed around theirs, forming a tight, irrefutable bond.

As if it were a living being, they could feel their strength, quadrupled, massed and gathering against the demon. The entity howled in impotent fury, in vain trying to cast back the words Ray spoke against him. The very air in the cavern seemed to vibrate around them with the surge of power that battled for dominance in the enclosed chamber.

“We defeat thee, by the power of our mingled blood and conjoined hands,” Ray chanted. Fingers closed more tightly around each other, squeezing in response, in acceptance, of the blood bond they had formed. “We are four and ye be but one.” His voice rose in triumph and his eyes were alight. “Xanthürigen, scourge of no empire, demonic berserker of no land… we send thee back!”

The empty air split. Xanthürigen howled as a maelstrom deeper than what had appeared before swirled before him in eddies of black and red and yellow. Then he was sliding into it, out of existence, drawn back to whichever dark dimension claimed him, and without a further sound, was gone.

The cavern shivered gelatinously around the four Ghostbusters as if the walls were no longer solid. “The space is discorporating!” Egon shouted as their four-way grip relaxed, released, their hands dropping back to their sides. Peter slumped further against Winston, limp in unconsciousness. “We don’t have very much time – perhaps only seconds!”

“Let’s move!” Ray shouted, eyes wide and bright yet still cautious as if he feared the demon’s return. “Over there!” He pointed toward another dimensional split, one that spun in shimmering, opposing shades of white and green and purple high in the cavern wall. “Is that it?”

“Yes, the point of congruity!” Egon called out, nodding in confirmation. “Winston –”

“Help me with Pete.” He interrupted what he knew would be Egon’s query, beckoning the physicist over. They quickly shifted around Peter, one on each side, each slinging an arm over their shoulders and hauling him with them as they moved. Peter made a small noise of protest, as much whine as it was whimper, his toes scraping along the rocky surface as they dragged him.

Ray was already at the gateway, but waiting for them, directing them through. “Peter first… can you get him up there?” The gateway was a good eight feet off the ground. With a grunt, Winston bodily slung Peter over his shoulder and clambered up the shuddering rock. When he was still a foot below it, the power of the gateway took over, drawing Peter upward and out of his grasp, tugging him through to the other side.

Winston drew back before it could suck him away too. “Egon, you go next!” He put out a hand to grasp the physicist’s, helping to haul him upward and then shoving him until Egon somehow tumbled up into the maelstrom’s suction and vanished.

Winston turned and glowered down at their last team member. “Ray, get your butt over here!” he snapped. “I’m not leaving until you’re out of here, and shit, man, we are running out of time!” He thought he could see through the cavern walls, to something black and frightening beyond, and he didn’t want to be around to see what was really out there when the walls came tumbling down.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Ray tossed a last, brief, despairing glance over his shoulder, at the crumpled bodies between the twin biers, then turned his back and stepped forward, planting his boot on a rocky outcropping to boost himself upward. The surface suddenly dissolved beneath him and he started to tumble backwards, but Winston was already reaching down, grabbing a handful of shirt to steady him. “Thanks!” he breathed, heart thudding, as he still scrabbled upward until he was even with Winston.

“After you, m’man.” Winston tried to shove him forward but Ray balked.

“No. Together.”

Winston grinned, understanding. “You got it.” And they dove through, as the walls shivered into nothingness and the gateway slammed shut.

Crash landing.

Egon, on hands and knees exactly as he had fallen, struggled to catch his breath, fighting violent waves of nausea that swept over him. The transition out of the alternate dimension had been much more difficult, more vertiginous and disorienting, than their arrival within, or was it just his diminished physical state that made it seem so much worse?

Oh God – if that were so, then what did it mean to Peter? Egon turned his head quickly – too quickly – to search for his friend, but the motion sent the apartment spinning around him so crazily that he was forced to surrender to the sickness roiling through his gut, and lost the breakfast he hadn’t had. At least puking made him feel marginally less ill and more in control of his equilibrium, so he took a deep breath and pushed himself up to his knees, scanning. Fortunately for the blurred state of his vision – his glasses had, almost predictably, vanished during their final, chaotic transition – he didn’t have far to look.

Peter was a mere few feet from him, sprawled across the apartment’s stained carpet, limp and flaccid. He too had puked up the next-to-nothing in his stomach, a wet puddle beside his open mouth. Even so close, Egon could not see any motion that indicated Peter had survived the transition – not one twitch of muscle, no flicker behind the closed eyelids, nor even the rise and fall of his chest.

Egon lunged over – there spun the room again, but he managed to keep his trajectory straight – and caught Peter by the shoulders, rolling him over onto his back, willing to administer mouth-to-mouth or even full CPR, whichever was needed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the space of the hallway sluice open in a blaze of light, and Ray and Winston slide out of it to land as hard as he had against the floor. He noted dimly that at least they looked no worse for wear for the dimensional transition – if one could somehow overlook all the blood that liberally spattered them as “no worse” – before he turned his attention fully back to the still body under his desperate grasp.

“Peter!” he said urgently, begging, bending close. Quickly he shoved two fingers between Peter’s parted lips, swiping them through the cavity of his mouth, and pulled out a gobbet of choking phlegm from the back of Venkman’s throat. No response. “Peter, please….” Impulsively Egon gave him one good hard shake, and that finally jarred Peter back to the here and now. He gasped and coughed, then puked again, before slumping back miserably against the floor, shivering. But alive… at least he was alive, Egon exulted. His own balance suddenly gave and he almost slid down on top of him. We are certainly a pair, he thought hazily, doubling over and clutching his stomach.

Winston was on his feet almost instantly, taking in their conditions and wasting no time. “I’m calling nine-one-one. Where’s the phone?”

Russell was standing there, across the room, staring expectantly at them, white-faced with shock and anxiety. “Well?” he managed, gulping. “Where are they?”

“Where’s the phone?” Winston repeated, ignoring his question. “Give me the phone! Now!” When no response was forthcoming, he swore to himself and then, following the cord that ran from the jack in the wall, finally dug it out from under a stack of girlie magazines.

Ray gained his own feet and on shaky legs crossed the room toward the student. “Russell, we – ”

“Where are they?” His voice rose in panic. “They’re not back yet… Why didn’t you bring them back?”

“Russell, I’m sorry,” Ray began, putting out his hands to steady the young man. If only someone had been there to steady him, he thought dimly. “But they’re dead –“

“You’re lying!” he spat, interrupting, and launched himself forward, shoving Ray backwards, hard. “You brought your friend back – ” he jabbed a finger at Peter, supine and shaking “– but you didn’t bring mine? What kind of shit is that?”

“Listen to me – there was nothing to bring back!” Ray’s own voice rose, and he was aware he was trembling from delayed reaction. “And we barely got Peter – and ourselves – out of there.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t even try!” The young man was openly sobbing now, in anger, pain and frustration. He hit out at Ray, pounding against his chest with closed fists, and Ray merely stood there, taking it, as if he deserved it. “Goddammit, why didn’t you bring them back?”

Winston, calm and cold in the chaos, grabbed Russell by the shoulder, stopping the assault and turning him away. “Go get them something to drink. Right now. Some milk or juice or soda or something like that.”

“I… ” He looked confused for a moment. “There’s only beer.” He shook his head slowly. “Sorry.”

“Then get them some water. They damn near bled to death for you and your buddies.” He knew he should have kept his mouth shut – the kid was a wreck but trying to hide it behind angry bravado – but Winston couldn’t help himself, not with the images and memories zooming around his brain right now. He shoved him in the direction of the kitchen, an unmistakable command to get out of the room, now. Russell skittered quickly through the narrow hallway into the kitchen, casting his eyes up and around the little corridor as if he were afraid something would come back to snatch him if he let down his guard for a moment.

Winston grabbed a well-worn, pilled crochet afghan from the back of the couch and carefully settled it across both Egon and Peter. Neither of them looked very good, but hell, “alive” was what counted right now, he figured. “You okay, Egon?” he asked, low-voiced, slinging a reassuring arm around the physicist’s shoulder.

Egon nodded vaguely, allowing himself to lean into the embrace for a moment. “I seem to have lost my glasses,” he fretted absently, shaking his head in dismay.

“I see ‘em right over there – let me get ‘em for you.” The spectacles were only a few feet away, and Winston stretched to pluck them from where they’d tumbled to the carpet. Frame and lenses both were liberally spattered with blood, so Winston merely folded them and carefully stowed them in his pants pocket. “They need a little fix, Egon. I’ll give ‘em back to you later.” He affectionately ruffled Egon’s disarranged hair, then bent further over him to check on Peter. “Pete, buddy, you in there?” He peeled back one closed eyelid, and Peter responded to the touch by lifting a hand to feebly bat Winston away, as if he swatted at a fly. “Yeah, you’re home,” he conceded with a small, still-tense chuckle, and gently patted Peter’s cheek as if to make up for the insult.

Russell came back into the living room, a glass of cloudy tap water in his hand and denial bright in his eyes. As he thrust the glass in their general direction, he still asked, “But they will be coming back, right? Even if they’re….” He swallowed, unable to say it, then went on. “They’re not going to stay over there, are they?”

Winston shook his head, taking the glass and handing it to Egon, who drank it down certainly more quickly than he should. “Sorry, m’man, but the answer is still no. It was too late for them before we even got there, and we had our hands full trying to get ourselves out.” He had a quick flash of memory, of how in ‘Nam it had hurt to have to leave the bodies of friends behind, and closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“Oh, man,” Russell moaned, sinking down on the battered couch, “what am I gonna tell their folks? How am I gonna tell ‘em?” The whine segued into full-fledged and miserable crying, as if he were all of five years old instead of twenty, and Winston found himself feeling genuinely sorry for the young man.

Ray stood in the center of the room, silent, numb save for the fiery throb pulsing from the gash at his palm, and ineffably glad to be left alone for the moment. Without conscious thought, he moved toward the table, catching up the book at the center of it, staring at the garish woodcut of the demon Xanthürigen on the old printed page. Suddenly, he flung the heavy tome across the room, pulling his thrower and activating it before he’d even thought about it, and with a harsh blaze of proton energy blasted the book into several billion separate molecules. Not that it would do any good now. If only he’d done that a while ago… a long while ago. Shaking, he finally sank to the floor, hiding his eyes behind his uninjured palm, and wished he could cry.

Sirens wailed in the distance, and Egon welcomed the sound of their approach. Not much longer to wait… He suddenly felt fingers clenching in the fabric of his trousers, the grip twisting to find purchase. Peter had grabbed hold of him, was hauling himself bodily along the floor and pulling himself into Egon’s lap. “Spengs…” The voice was thin with strain. “…we back…?” he managed.

“Yes, Peter,” Egon breathed in relief as he bent to wrap his arms around Peter’s torso. “We are back.”

“…y’okay?”

“Yes. As are you.” He tightened his embrace, as much for his sake, he knew, as for Peter’s. “I’ve got you.”

“No… got you,” he feebly insisted, fastening his arms around Egon’s waist in return, and then went limp.

He pressed his way upward through darkness, dizzy and sick and lightheaded, struggling against enervating waves of inertia that sought to drag him back down. Flashes of pain lit within him like lightning strikes, sharp and bright yet mercifully evanescent. He moaned and tried to twist away from them, but he suddenly realized that his limbs had been immobilized, and the harsh sting of needles, of tubes, invading and assaulting his body had returned.

No! He tried to scream, to struggle, but he was pinned, held motionless by unseen bonds. Trapped again. Where were they? They’d been here, the guys, hadn’t they? Hadn’t they saved him? Fighting furiously, he arched against his bonds and screamed “Egon!”

Hands were at his shoulders again, pressing him down against something that was softer than the bier, yet he still stubbornly thrashed against how they restrained him. These hands were different, though, large and warm and strong with a familiarity to their touch, and they held, soothing, where the others had clawed. A voice followed the touch. “Peter, I’m here!”

Egon? Yes? No? Please?

He bucked again, disbelieving, and the pressure shifted, moving across him. He felt the jut of elbows now against his upper arms to hold him down, those familiar hands moving to cup his cheeks, steadying his head as a cool forehead was pressed to his own.

The voice was soft yet commanding, one he’d come to know intrinsically to heed over the past decade. “Peter, it’s all right. Open your eyes.”

He cautiously obeyed, bracing himself in case the nightmare had not ended…

… and found himself staring into round lenses… round lenses with red frames... round lenses with red frames, with worried – and blessedly familiar – blue eyes behind them.

Egon was repeating quietly, patiently, urgently, “Peter, you’re safe, you’re all right, you’re in the hospital….”

Peter blinked muzzily, swallowed, and shakily managed, “I knew that.” Dammit, he should have known, because it wasn’t hot and humid anymore and the air wasn’t thick with the stench of spilled blood, just that bleachy, too-clean antiseptic smell endemic to every single hospital in Manhattan. And he knew what waking up in a hospital bed felt like, even if this one for some reason was tilted funny so that his legs were higher than his head.

Egon’s eyes lit with relief at the feeble comeback. “Then I apologize for stating the obvious.” He drew back slightly – good thing, Peter thought, since they were both practically going cross-eyed, staring at each other so close – but his steady hands stayed reassuringly to cradle Peter’s face. “I do have a propensity for that, don’t I?”

“Just don’t let it happen again,” Peter remonstrated fondly, and reached to pat his friend in gratitude.

Except his right arm wouldn’t move. Why wouldn’t his arm move? He tried the left – no good either. “Spengs….” He shot an agitated glance at how he was arranged on the damn uncomfortable hospital bed, and found straps holding all four limbs in place at wrists and ankles. The words tumbled out in half-panic. “I’m tied up, I’m tied up, why am I tied up?”

“After the second time you deliberately tore out your intravenous lines, even under sedation, the doctor ordered restraints.” Egon’s mouth compressed with displeasure at the notion. “And when you could not move your arms, you decided that perhaps kicking for all you were worth might help. I’m sorry. We... had no say in it.”

“Egon, undo me. You gotta undo me, now, please!” He tried very hard to keep from hyperventilating. “For God’s sake, Spengs, please get me out of these!”

The conflict in Egon’s eyes vanished at Peter’s rising hysteria. “Doctor Minda will be furious with me, but…. Peter, you must promise not to touch the IV line.” He pointed at the needle set in the back of Peter’s left hand that was connected to the tubing for a glucose drip.

“Oh God, I will, I’ll promise anything.” He couldn’t get enough air in, even all nice and cool and air-conditioned as it was. “I’ll give you anything; I’ll give you my black book – the new one, with all my hot dates – if you’ll just undo me….” He was starting to shake.

Egon’s deliberate motions were spare and brisk as he as reached over to unfasten the bindings at Peter’s left wrist. Then he moved to the foot of the bed, undoing the left ankle, then the right. Peter sagged in relief, drawing a deep breath, as Egon quietly undid the final restraint.

The instant his right arm was released, he reached for the line without even thinking of it, but Egon had anticipated his desperate grab and his long fingers were already curling around Peter’s wrist, firmly holding him back. “Peter. You made a promise.”

He looked down and away, a sheepish half-grin of sheer consternation touching his lips. “Sorry, Spengs. I didn’t even think…. Thanks.” Maybe if he focused on not doing anything stupid…. “Can I sit up? I’m getting real tired of all this ‘legs higher than my head’ shit.”

Egon considered. “I suppose you can, if you feel up to it. It wasn’t forbidden.”

“Good.” He shifted carefully, feeling distant shivers of pain that were probably going to be real doozies once whatever they’d doped him up with wore off, and with Egon’s help, managed to push up until he was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed. There. Much better. Except Egon was still stubbornly hanging on to him “You know, Spengs, you can let go now.”

“I think not,” he answered quietly, concern still etched in his face.

“Oh, c’mon – if you hold onto me much longer, folks will think we’re going steady.” He was trying not to let Egon’s compassionate, yet still immobilizing grip get to him, but even that was moving past what he could handle.

“Peter, I’m not sure it’s wise – “ Egon interrupted himself as a solution obviously came to mind. He pulled Peter’s hand over toward the bed railing; and for a stomach-fluttering second Peter was afraid that Egon was going to strap that arm up again, despite his word. But Egon merely rested Peter’s hand atop the bed railing, and carefully closed his fingers around the cold stainless steel. “Concentrate on holding on to this instead.”

He knew exactly what Egon was doing – that having control over keeping himself still would reduce his anxiety – and gave him a faint grin of sheer gratitude. “Worth a try.” Yeah, he felt better all ready, as long as he could keep his mind off the subtle stab, that little sting from the needle that invaded his left hand.

He cast his gaze around the hospital room; at least he’d awakened in a regular one, not the ICU, which gave him some idea of his condition. The view outside his window seemed night-dark, but considering the autumn season, it could have been anywhere from seven p.m. until five a.m. “How long was I out?”

“Several hours. You likely would have awakened sooner, save you had to be sedated, to allow you to rest. Your sleep was not particularly peaceful, so your doctor thought it wise to remove as much stress as possible from you.”

He nodded distantly, vague memories of panicked half-awakenings tickling at the back of his mind, but he suppressed any conscious thought of them, disinclined to trigger more angst from his psyche right now. It would come out later anyway, he knew, whether or not he wanted it to, so he might as well remain blissfully ignorant for the time being. “Where’s Ray and Winston?” he went on. “Everyone okay?”

“Yes, we’ve all checked out fine. We all required a certain number of sutures for various injuries, but none but you needed to be admitted.”

“Just my luck.” He blew out a harsh breath, shaking his head. “So, did they go home for a while?”

Egon nodded. “They stayed until we all knew you were out of danger, then Ray asked if he might go back to the firehall. He is very distraught.”

“No shit,” Peter muttered, shaking his head. “It wasn’t pretty over there. And I don’t know how I’d be handling it if someone I knew had checked in there permanently.”

Janine’s voice suddenly caroled out from the hallway. “Egon, get the door for me, willya? My hands are full.”

“Ah, so they didn’t abandon you completely to your vigil, huh?” Peter teased, but there was not much heart in his words. He knew there was almost nothing worse than sitting alone beside the bed of one of his buddies, just…waiting. Egon smiled faintly and got up to obey Janine’s imperious command.

She wasn’t kidding that her hands were full; somehow she was managing to juggle four cups with lids, stacked two in each hand. “I just hate that cafeteria, Egon.” She was seething in disproportionate annoyance as he took the cups from her hands and set them on the bedside table. “Can you believe they wouldn’t let me borrow a tray? And the only cocoa they had was that awful powder stuff in the package, but I got it anyway, along with some coffee in case you wanted something hot. But I got us a couple of Cokes too.”

“Great,” Peter spoke up brightly. “I’ll take one of those Cokes. Got a straw?”

“Oh!” She took her gaze away from Egon, obviously surprised at the unexpected interjection. Her face lit with a smile before she realized that she should have exercised more restraint in her reaction, lest anyone think she cared too much about her boss. Instead, she pulled a look of firm yet fond remonstration into place. “Doctor V.! It’s about time. You’ve really been worrying us. Especially Egon.” She darted her physicist a protective look. “When did you wake up?”

“Long enough ago to realize I should be on my third soda by now.” He licked at his dry lips; his tongue caught momentarily on a split, and he wondered just how damaged he looked. Hell, he’d think about it later, when he wasn’t thirsty practically to his toes. “Give.”

Egon slipped straws into both sodas, then handed one to Peter while keeping the second for himself. “Hey!” Janine interjected in token protest. “One of those might have been mine, y’know.” But in implicit surrender she merely picked up the packet of powdered hot chocolate and stirred it into the Styrofoam cup of hot water.

Peter took a long, deep, cold swallow of liquidy, sugary, caffeinated heaven, sighed happily, then barely managed to suppress a burp from the carbonation. “Thanks, Big J.”

“Anything for Mister Manners,” she returned briskly, blowing absently on the hot surface of the cocoa before carefully taking a sip of it.

Egon was sipping quietly at his own soda but watching Peter with careful deliberation. “Are you sure you should be drinking that?” he asked as Peter, tired eyes lit with absolute pleasure, gulped down another huge mouthful of the cold soda.

“Why not, Spengs?” He managed to lift both aching shoulders in a casual shrug. “It’s only ‘sugar water’, right?”

He saw exactly how the words hit home by the change in Egon’s eyes, though nothing else of the physicist – his posture, his expression – betrayed an acknowledgment of his comment. “Ah…” he said at last. “You remember?”

“Oh, yeah. And please tell me I’m not remembering what else I think I remember.” He put the cup down and reached out with his free hand, very gently closing his fingers around the bandage wrapped at Egon’s wrist. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Egon abruptly cleared his throat and turned away from him. “Egon,” Peter persisted, sing-songing, “time to face the music here.”

Janine looked from one to the other, catching the undercurrent in the room. “Ya know,” she said reflectively, “weren’t we supposed to let the doctor know when Sleeping Beauty here woke up? I think I’ll go find the duty nurse.” Her eyes flashed. “And I’ll get myself another Coke while I’m out there.” She gave them one last glance. “Work it out, you two,” she said under her breath as she quietly pulled the door closed behind her.

Peter was still waiting for his answer when Egon very reluctantly turned back. “Well?” the psychologist prompted into the lengthening silence.

“I was thinking about saving your life.”

“At the risk of your own?”

“There was little risk – “

“Says who?”

Egon ignored him and went right on. “And what risk there was I assumed gladly. Peter, if the situation were reversed, and it were within your power to make a difference, however small, in something that would save my life – or at very least, buy enough time that it could be saved – tell me, would you have done any differently?”

Peter’s mouth tightened as he sought a suitable answer that would not let Egon off the hook while at the same time preserving his own right in the future to do anything as reckless as might be necessary. Unfortunately, there did not seem to be one – must be the aftereffects of his sedation, he thought ruefully, that kept his mind and mouth from running with their usual brash efficiency – so he merely answered, “Well, I would have cut myself where it wouldn’t look like I’d tried to end it all. Especially since people are gonna think I’m the one who drove you to it.” He ran his thumb lightly over the snug white bandage. “That’s gonna leave a nasty scar.”

“Not as ‘nasty’ as you might think – both a vascular and a plastic surgeon tended to me in the emergency room. My cut was accurate, I did no permanent damage to myself and it served its purpose.” He met Peter’s eyes. “Thank God.”

Peter looked down, unable to sustain the gaze, and cleared his throat. “Good thing that Spengler Hi-Test of yours did the trick, huh?”

“Not quite.” Egon’s voice went tight. “In addition to the emergency fluids the paramedics forced into you before and during transport, you still needed three more pints of blood – ”

“And how much did you need?” he interrupted.

“That’s not the point –“

“But that’s my question.” Despite how tired and battered he appeared, Peter had enough strength to put on his best no-nonsense, contrarian tone.

“No blood,” Egon finally replied archly. “They made do with approximately one-half liter of saline administered intravenously to compensate for my unorthodox blood donation.”

Venkman’s lips curved in a grin. “And I bet they didn’t even give you cookies and juice.”

“Peter….” The physicist’s voice went very soft. “Please don’t be flippant. We came very close to losing you.”

The weary green eyes sobered. “Yeah, but we didn’t, and when you get right down to it, Egon, that’s all that matters.” He gave a gentle, final squeeze to the bandaged wrist, then carefully unwrapped his fingers, fighting the urge to send that hand flying to the opposite side of his body to yank out the damn needle, and instead picked up the Coke for another long, contemplative sip. “So, can I go home now?” His voice feigned light humor, perhaps a little too blithely, and from the lack of easing in Egon’s etched face at his words, he failed miserably in his attempt to lighten things up.

“No, you’ll have to stay at least overnight, perhaps a bit longer. You’re being monitored for complications.”

“Well, that’s no good.” Peter shifted around, brushing the hospital gown aside to take a personal physical inventory. He thought he looked a lot like a topographical roadmap, what with all those long reddened scratches and blue-purple patches on his limbs and torso. At least, he noticed with relief, only two places – across his chest muscle and then again diving across his belly – had needed stitching, so he probably wouldn’t have much in the way of scarring. There was a huge swelling and dark bruising on the inside of his right thigh, and it hurt like someone had attempted to roto-rooter their way into his veins. And… “Ah, my favorite part of hospitalization, except for sponge baths with ice water – a catheter.” He tried to make light of it but Egon could see the sharp concern behind his eyes. “What gives with this?”

“Your fluid intake and output is being very carefully monitored right now. In fact,” and his gaze flickered with discomfort before he went on, “I should make a note of the cola for the doctor. Would you say that was sixteen ounces?” He reached for a notepad embellished with the hospital’s name at the top, scribbling the details with a convenient pencil.

“Egon….” He couldn’t say which he wanted to do more at that moment, yank the IV or grab what was left of the soda and dump it over Egon’s tousled head.

Egon finally looked up at him, eyes somber. “Your system was shutting down, Peter. The possibility of internal organ damage exists, although we do believe the medical personnel reversed it in time.”

“Just from losing a little blood?”

“That ‘little’ loss nearly destroyed your body. You are not out of danger yet, though we are all much more optimistic than when you were first brought in.”

“So, it’s not as easy as tanking a car back up after it runs out of gas?” He arched his brows in almost exaggerated humor, but there was a harrowing glint of fear lingering in his expression.

“Peter….” Now it was Egon’s turn to respond to what the other was not saying.

“Just tell me….” His voice was very quiet, and the green eyes held no mocking, self-effacing humor now. “Am I gonna need a kidney transplant or something after this?”

“Highly unlikely,” Egon soothed, and now his hand came out again, closing on Peter’s shoulder and squeezing. “They are just taking reasonable precautions. Your vital signs have been more normal every time they’ve been checked. Now, you must know, that once we’re able to take you home, you’ll have to rest and be very quiet for a while, no parties, no imbibing, no late nights….”

“Well, hell, then I’m as good as dead.” Peter managed a real grin and brought up his own hand to clasp it around Egon’s upper arm. “All that stuff that makes life worth living, gone?”

The door opened and a floor nurse entered, tailed by Janine who was carrying the most jumbo soda cup either of them had ever seen. The nurse was soft and plump and very pretty, though not quite young enough for Peter to want to put the full flirtation effort he might for someone about ten years younger and a bit more nubile. Still, since nurse-charming was his favorite hospital pastime – his only pastime whenever he was unlucky enough to be admitted – she still looked like someone he could enjoy teasing and cajoling and flattering. He found her name on a pin above the curve of a generous breast and spoke it with a ready, engaging grin. “Nurse Kerry, where have you been all my life?”

She smiled back. “Waiting for you to wake up, Doctor Venkman. And Doctor Minda – she’s the resident on call – got tired of waiting, so she’s asleep in the lounge. I’ll wake her up and have her come check on you as soon as I’ve done this blood draw.”

The grin fell from his face and he froze. “Don’t think so,” he said very calmly. But there was a syringe in her hand and a look of purpose on her face as she approached his bed. He jerked so violently away from her that he rebounded off the bedrails and flopped back against the mattress, his breathing suddenly coming hard again.

“Doctor Venkman, really,” she soothed, her eyes sympathetic and voice soft and cajoling. “It’s all right, it’s not going to hurt at all –“

“Damn straight it isn’t, because I’m not going to let you stick me with it, no, uh-uh.” He thought how quickly he could get out of bed and out of the room; but first he’d have to pull the other needle, that IV, out, and he instinctively reached for it again. Egon’s reflexes were quicker though, and the long fingers tangled in his pulled his grasping hand away and kept him stilled.

“Don’t gang up on me, please,” he begged, his voice tight as his eyes darted over everyone. “Don’t do this!” Egon, watching him, holding him, looked downright stricken, and Janine, behind the physicist with her hands resting consolingly on his shoulders, fidgeted with discomfort. God, Peter couldn’t remember ever seeing that look in her eyes before; did she actually feel sorry for him? How pitiful was that?

Nurse Kerry at least knew when to give in. “I’ll go get Doctor Minda,” she said quietly, turning from the bedside and taking the threat of the needle momentarily away. He relaxed minutely, feeling sick to his stomach but immensely, intensely relieved.

His relief was short-lived, however, for only a minute or two later, a tall, fifty-ish woman, black hair shot through with silver, and probably Pakistani from her lilting accent, came into the room. “Doctor Venkman, I hear you don’t want to give us a little bit of your blood?” Her expression was set to disarm, but he wasn’t buying it.

“What do you think?” he snapped, fidgeting. “Besides, I already gave at the office.”

“We’ve heard,” she replied dryly. “All in a day’s work.” Her voice softened. “But now you have to let us do our job and take care of you.”

He swallowed, feeling childish and ridiculous. But even so… “I can’t. I’m really sorry, but I just can’t.”

“Of course you can.” Her hands were in the pockets of her white coat and he was sure that was where she was hiding the needle – maybe whole boxes of needles and syringes, his mind irrationally fluttered – that she was going to impale him with. She circled around to the other side of his bed, and when she took one of the hands out of her pocket he involuntarily flinched until he saw that it was empty. There was nothing he wanted to do more than pull the bedclothes over his head and hide, but with Egon holding on to him on one side, and Doctor Needle on the other, her hand settling gently at his wrist, that just wasn’t gonna happen. “Just close your eyes,” she went on, “look away, and I promise you will not even feel it. My specialty is hematology and if I can’t do a simple blood draw without causing you pain, then I’m not much of a doctor, am I?”

Janine spoke up brightly. “C’mon, Doctor V., be a man. My nephew doesn’t act like this when he has to get a shot, and he’s only six. Want me to sing you what his mom sings to him at the doctor’s?” She took a deep breath. “’Whenever I feel afraid, I strike a careless pose, and whistle a happy tune…’” Half of him wanted to smack her, while the other half giggled internally with sheer relief at the absurdity of her with that Brooklyn accent, and, quite frankly, a voice less melodious than his, singing him a song from “The King and I”.

Egon suddenly put his two cents in as well, humor loosening the residual tightness lurking in his voice. “And then perhaps a chorus of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ would help to put things in perspective as well, Peter.”

“Fine, whatever,” he managed, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to relax as Doctor Minda poked and prodded at his arm in a sensation that was nauseatingly familiar as she looked for a good vein. “Take as much as you need, doc, in fact, take it all – anything to shut Melnitz up and keep Spengs, God forbid, from joining in.”

“I’m already done.” He snuck open his eyes, looking around, and to his relief the imagined needles and blood vials had already vanished somewhere – probably back into her pockets – and there was no sign of that invasion other than a small bandage at his wrist. He released a slow, relieved breath as Doctor Minda asked, “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?

He considered. “Better than bugs, worse than heights,” was his final conclusion. “Not that that’s saying much.”

She picked up his chart, scanning and reviewing it, nodding as if she were pleased with what she read. “You seem to be coming along very well, Doctor Venkman, although we’ll see if the new lab work agrees with my assessment. Now, I can have a light dinner sent up for you if you’d like something to eat.”

Wow, how long ago had he figured they could pick up a McMuffin for him on the way back from Russell’s? – it seemed like a month. But, he wasn’t hungry – in fact, the thought of food right now twisted his stomach – and he shook his head, failing to stifle a sudden yawn. “No, I’d just as soon go back to sleep.” He’d only been awake maybe thirty minutes, and already he felt completely done in. He sank back against the pillows, shifting as he tried to resettle himself comfortably. “Egon, fix my blankets, will you?”

“Certainly, Doctor Venkman, as I live to serve you,” Egon deadpanned, though his dry tone did nothing to hide the relief in his face.

Egon let go of him to shift the blankets; and Peter’s hand flew yet again like a returning boomerang back to his left. Doctor Minda caught him this time, and her eyes were not happy. “Doctor Venkman,” she reproached, “I had to replace that line twice previously, under difficult circumstances, and if you tear it out again, I will put in a central line.”

He frowned. “What’s that?”

“You don’t want to know, and I can guarantee you wouldn’t like it. Now, I will ask the nurse to give you something to help you sleep, but I’m afraid we’ll have to restrain you until you’re more in control of your reflexes.”

There was sympathy in her eyes, but it didn’t mean squat, not if he was going to be bound up again. “No.” He might have said it very matter-of-factly, but he meant it as much as if he’d shrieked it as the centerpiece of a string of obscenities. “Please don’t. I mean, hey, I’ll be good, I promise.” He drew his knees up, dug his heels into the mattress and pushed himself back from her until he was against the wall behind the hospital bed. Only when his head bumped – hard – against the monitoring panel did he stop his attempted retreat.

“We’ll take care of it,” Janine suddenly blurted, to everyone’s surprise. “You don’t have to put those… things back on him.” She scurried around to the far side of the bed, dodging around Doctor Minda to get to his side. “Here, Doctor V. Give me your arm. C’mon.” When he was slow to respond, she made a sound of exasperation, then slipped her arm around his, into the well-bandaged crook of his elbow as if he were going to be her escort. “Egon,” she directed, “you get the other side, okay? We’ll stay here tonight. We’ll watch him. Right, Egon?”

Egon could no more find his voice than Peter could. Finally he managed, “Certainly, Janine. I had already planned to stay. This will work out quite well.” Cautiously he made a loop of both arms around Peter’s, asking wordlessly with worried eyes and raised eyebrows if it was all right. Peter managed a faint nod, nearly numb with gratitude.

The doctor smiled at him – at all of them – very quietly. “You have good friends, Doctor Venkman. I’ll leave you to them for the night. Just don’t make any of us sorry that we did, all right?”

“Sure won’t,” he murmured a promise, as she slipped quietly out the door and closed it behind her, leaving the three of them alone. With Egon and Janine there, taking care of him, he was past feeling relieved; he was… secure. He closed his eyes in weariness as he felt and heard the two of them shifting around him, trying to settle themselves comfortably for the night. He wanted to stay awake, to thank them for what they were doing, but it was a losing proposition, and he was out even before Nurse Kerry returned with the sleeping pills Doctor Minda had ordered for him.

Cozy warmth poured into him from both sides. Moving carefully – he didn’t want to wake anyone up - he tilted his head to the right, and found Egon slumped and sleeping in a chair he’d dragged right up next to the hospital bed, both arms still fastened snugly around Peter’s.

To his left, he was almost a little too warm, and he recognized the press of a body against his own. Janine was practically in the bed with him; the side rail was down, the bed was lowered a little, and her upper body was flopped across the mattress, her head on his shoulder. He grinned to himself and wished there was someone who could take a picture of this once-in-a-lifetime bonding moment to torment her with it for eternity.

As if she sensed his stare, her eyes came slowly open and latched immediately onto his gaze. “You listen to me, Doctor V.”, she hissed, her eyes narrowing. “We will never speak of this again, you hear me?”

“Speak of what?” he returned blandly, looking at her with feigned innocence.

Her eyes sparked, then calmed. “You got it. Now go back to sleep before I brain you.”

“Whatever you say, Big J.” Yeah, he realized, as long as he didn’t spill the beans about Janine’s Humanitarian of the Year gesture, he was going to live.

Four days later…

“Hey, Slimer, catch!”

Peter sat in his excuse for an office downstairs at Ghostbuster Central, a bowl of popcorn on his desk and an improvised slingshot made of paperclips, rubber bands and pencils in his grip. Deftly he loaded a kernel into the firing mechanism and then aimed at the ever-rapacious maw of their mascot ghost. Slimer swooped forward as he fired, to greedily snatch it out of mid-air. “Good job, spud!” Peter rewarded himself for his fine aim by gobbling down a fistful of popcorn, then again loaded just one kernel into the slingshot and fired away. Slimer hadn’t quite caught on to the “one for you, a handful for me” drill, and as long as he hadn’t, Peter had figured the bowl was pretty much safe from ghostly green slime raids.

From her desk, Janine called out over the bluesy riffs of the “Greatest Hits” tape playing on his tape deck, “Doctor V., if you’re bored, I have lots of filing you can help me with.”

“Nah, I know how much you enjoy it – I wouldn’t want to take that pleasure away from you.” He stood and stretched, still a little cautious, not wanting to jar anything that didn’t want to be jarred yet. He hadn’t realized that being first a blood demon’s pincushion, and later a hematologist’s, would have left him so tired and weak and achy, not to mention out of commission for a full week, if not longer.

And he was thirsty. All the time. He knew it was purely psychological – in fact, the doctor had kept him in the hospital for an extra day, just to make absolutely sure he was back to normal and suffering no long-term side effects of his unfortunate involuntary blood donation – but hell, he just couldn’t seem to get enough fluids into himself. He poured himself a big glass of water from their cooler, and chugged it down along with a handful of vitamins, antibiotics, and a couple of mild painkillers for good measure.

Slimer, looking disappointed that their popcorn-shoot had ended, burbled over to hover in front of him, gesturing and babbling almost incomprehensibly about the leftovers in the bowl. Peter felt magnanimous enough to concede the snack to him. “Go ahead, spud, you can have the rest of it. I’m done.”

The ghost spread his green ectoplasmic arms wide for a slimy hug, and gurgled, “T’ank yooooo, Petah! Love yooooo!” as he dove forward.

Peter backstepped, wagging a cautious finger of warning at the creature. “Uh-uh, Slimer, you have to play nice with Uncle Peter right now, ‘cause he’s not feeling all that great after being a one-man blood bank for a lot of nasty little ghoulies.” He gave the ghost a grin as he pointed at the trap beside his desk. Just the threat of entrapment kept Slimer in abeyance, like the presence of a rolled-up newspaper reminded a fractious pooch to obey. Slimer had nailed him not five minutes after he’d come home from the hospital on Monday, and the spud had no idea of how close he’d come to being even more of an ex-entity than he already was.

The little ghost’s expression was so downcast, so disappointed, that Peter felt guilty – almost – over the way he’d rejected the spud’s overtures. “Aw, Slimer, I’m sorry. Listen.” His voice dropped conspiratorially and Slimer edged closer, bulbous orange eyes lightening at the attention. “Why don’t you go finish up the popcorn outside, Spud? There’s a great place right next to the fire escape that I guarantee you’re going to love.” Slimer nodded vigorously – Peter dodged the flying globs of ectoplasm – scooped up the bowl, and zipped out the open door.

“Isn’t that where you had me dump all the moldy stuff from the fridge, Doctor V.?” Janine inquired smoothly, grinning to herself.

“Uh-huh,” he smirked. “That should keep the snotball busy for a while, don’t you think?”

“Doctor Venkman,” Janine sniffed, shaking her head, “Ectoplasmic Diplomat.”

Peter settled a hip on the edge of her desk, reaching over to thumb through some of the papers stacked in her in-box. She smacked him with a letter opener and he drew back out of her range. “So,” he asked conversationally, now leaning over to try to read whatever was on her computer monitor, “how long have they been gone again?”

She sighed with barely-concealed impatience, shifting to block his view. “Ten minutes longer than the last time you asked. Which makes it a little over two and a half hours.”

“I wonder what’s keeping them?”

“Doctor V., it sounded like a Class Five fixed repeater with some possible Class Two manifestations. You know how long that can take.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t always take that long.” He put a nonchalant grin on his face. “Must be because I’m not on the job with ‘em.”

“Without you,” she said under her breath, turning back to her computer, “it probably shouldn’t have taken more than half an hour.” He deliberately ignored her and left her desk to pace restlessly around the ground floor of the firehall, absently singing along with the music on his tape deck.

It always unsettled him when the guys went off on busts without him. Especially now, since all of them still had stitches in their left palms from that bizarre demon-banishing ritual he barely remembered, plus Egon had that second set of stitches at his wrist, and yet a third across his shoulder. It was funny – actually, no, it wasn’t funny – how the smallest, slightest things could throw your reflexes off just enough to be dangerous….

And that was just recounting the physical, let alone the mental aftereffects of their extra-dimensional activities. Peter hadn’t heard Ray say more than ten words in a row over the past few days, acting so unlike himself that Peter’s protective instincts had flared up into overdrive and sent him on a mission to resolve whatever demons still poisoned the occultist’s memory. However, since Ray certainly knew that Peter would feel soul- and honor-bound to help, he had gone out of his way to avoid him, visiting the hospital only once over the two days, and, once Peter had returned home, studiously busying himself elsewhere… wherever Peter was not. Ray seemed to have slid away to someplace almost unreachable, locked there by guilt that he was so obviously refusing to work through that it was becoming a self-inflicted punishment.

Even Winston, whose steadfast stability was something they all relied on, was adversely affected, overly quiet and, oddly, almost secretive. He had not been quite as successful at practicing avoidance as Ray had been; Winston had not only visited Peter twice in the hospital, but had shown up with Ecto, all brightly polished and cleaned and even air-freshened, for heaven’s sake, to take Venkman home. Still… there was nothing that Peter could truly put his finger on, but all instincts were thrumming that there was more going on with those two than a case of post-bust depression, though considering how bad the situation had been, it certainly figured in heavily. Judging by Egon’s pensive expression, and the fact that he almost but not quite seemed ready to say something at odd times, he too seemed to have some suspicions that something was up, but what it was, he was obviously as clueless about it as Peter.

His voice echoed a little in the relative stillness of the ground floor, broken only by the subtle clack of Janine’s fingernails tapping on the keyboard. “’Swear there ain’t no heaven, and I’ll pray there ain’t no hell….’” He suddenly listened to what he was singing along to, and decided that maybe David Clayton Thomas crooning a Laura Nyro song wasn’t the best choice in music he could be making right now. He flipped the tape player’s switch over to “radio”, only to cringe when his music, as tasteless a choice as it might have been, was replaced by Janine’s choice of mellow easy-listening. “Stop messing with my music, Melnitz – “ he began, but interrupted himself when he heard the heavy rev of Ecto’s engine approaching the garage doors.

He was relieved to see their three figures intact behind Ecto’s lightly-misted windows – the autumnal weather had been changeable and a soft, chill rain had been falling since early morning – looking hale and healthy and only minimally slimed. He changed that latter opinion once he got a good look at Winston, who had picked up a purplish layer over much of his body. Peter grinned, letting himself relax as the front doors of the converted ambulance swung open and Winston and Egon clambered out, while Ray, sitting pensively in the back, took a little longer to join them.

Sympathy on his face, Peter tossed Winston a clean shop rag. “Looks like they went for you this time, huh, pal?”

“I knew there was a reason we took you on busts, Pete,” Winston muttered as he ineffectually swiped at his sticky face. “You’re a regular Magnetic North, drawing the goopers away from us.”

Peter snickered, then turned at the rest of his teammates, chastising. “You know, it’s about time you got back here. I was about to send Janine out with an extra meter to track you down.”

Egon removed his glasses, whipped a spotless handkerchief from his pocket and carefully polished away the accumulated dust, rain specks, and the tiniest dabs of lavender ectoplasm from the surface of his lenses. “I hardly think that three hours, including transit time, to trap three assorted entities, is an unreasonable amount of time.”

“Ah, it wasa three-fer like you thought!” he exulted. “Now you didn’t forget to give them the bill, didja, Spengs? The whole bill? No discounts?

“Of course not,” was his tart reply. “In fact, we found your absence efficacious, since our client is what I believe you would describe as ‘nubile’, and I have no doubt that you would have extended her what I have heard you refer to once as a ‘Victoria’s Secret’ Discount”.

He pretended affront, pressing a hand to his chest in protest. “Me? Never!” Then, at Winston’s withering look, he grinned effacingly and admitted, “Well, once or twice.” He trailed the team around Ecto as they unpacked from their bust, hauling out packs and traps to carefully sort and stack in the garage for their proper maintenance and storage procedures. And, during the whole process, he noticed that Ray did not look at him – or anyone else – even once.

“So you guys ready for lunch?” Peter offered as soon as they looked like they were wrapping up the unpacking drill. “You better hurry before Slimer comes back.”

“You fixed us lunch?” Winston asked incredulously as he carefully unzipped his jumpsuit. He peeled it off and left it inside-out as he pitched it into the laundry basket next to their lockers.

Peter spread his arms expansively. “What can I say? I’m just a generous guy.” He caught an expression flickering behind Ray’s eyes before they slid away, and Peter realized he’d made an inadvertent display of the spectacular bruising on the insides of his forearms. The insight came a little too late – whoops, no wearing polo shirts for a couple weeks yet – and he mentally kicked himself. His being a walking billboard constantly reminding Ray of the disaster of four days ago wasn’t the best way to get the occultist to open up. Or… maybe it was, Peter realized suddenly. He hated doing it to Ray, but, since there seemed to be no other way, he was just going to have to confront Stantz, hit him full-on with it.

“One would hope,” Egon commented, shucking his own slime-spattered jumpsuit – at least the chinos and pale rose shirt beneath it had remained tidy – and tucking it in the basket, “that you are not serving us liver and spinach as you threatened, to replace the iron we lost.”

“Hell, no,” Peter said cheerfully. “But I left a couple of those horse-pills on your napkin. If I have to take ‘em, so do you.”

”What’s on the menu then?” Winston fastidiously wiped his hands on a shop rag, then groaned in disgust as he discovered more purple goo spread liberally over the seat of his jeans. “Damn! How’d that happen?” He craned to check out just how complete the destruction was, dismayed to find he was liberally coated all the way to his knees.

“Spooks musta been diving through your pockets again, huh, Zed?” Peter teased.

Winston grunted, batting ineffectually at the streamers stuck to the denim, and surrendered. “Heck, I guess I’ll have to hit the shower before your feast. What is it? – leftover takeout? Buy two get one free pizza?”

“No, soup. Homemade soup.” Peter rubbed his hands together and practically smacked his lips. “Great for a nice wet nippy day like this.”

“Homemade?” Egon arched a brow at him in patent disbelief.

“Okay, so I opened a couple of cans of Chicken Vegetable,” he admitted, “but I threw in some celery and carrots and some extra noodles. Oh, and some three-bean salad for protein, too. Plus I cooked up some grilled cheese sandwiches. They’re in the oven, keeping warm.”

Winston groaned. “Grilled cardboard sandwiches is more like it. You can’t keep stuff holding like that forever, Pete.”

Well, then you should have come back earlier,” he answered easily. “Oh, and there’s juice. Fresh squeezed juice. I made it by hand too.” He caved at their dubious gazes. “Okay, so I used a juicer.”

“Which he sent me out to buy,” Janine said under her breath. “The receipt’s on the corner of your desk. Still.”

“We’ll get to it, Melnitz. Geez, I can barely bend my arm to pick up a pen to write the check.” He deliberately picked up the office-supplies slingshot, swinging it practically in her face. “Hey, why don’t you come on up and have a bite with us?” He winked. “Egon might still need someone to ladle up his soup for him – you know that wrist of his.”

“Peter,” Egon said warningly, even as Janine, with a fresh yet teasing light in her eyes, started for his side, “as I have told you repeatedly, my wrist is fine.”

“Great – so write her the check, will you then? Thanks, Spengs.” He clapped him soundly on the back, then gave him a small shove in the direction of the stairs. “C’mon, let’s all go up and enjoy the moment – it’s not often you get to have one of my special lunches.”

“Why do I get the feeling we’re his ptomaine testers?” Winston asked rhetorically as he started up the stairs, following Janine and Egon.

They were short one. “Coming, Ray?” Peter called softly, over his shoulder, as he brought up the tail of their parade.

“In a minute,” he replied quietly, swinging three full traps that dangled from his hands by their cords. “I want to dump the catch first.”

Peter paused. “Okay. But don’t be too long. I’m not sure how long I can save you a bowl of Venkman’s Special Soup from these ravening hordes.” Ray gave him a distant grin that came nowhere near to touching his eyes as he vanished down the stairs to the basement containment unit.

Winston had paused near the landing, and now he came back down to where Peter stood. “Want me to go down there and give him a hand?”

“No…” Peter considered, “but I want you to come here and talk to me for a minute.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Egon hesitate at the top of the stairs, eyes quizzical; but with an almost-subliminal nod Peter dismissed him.

“C’mon, Pete,” Winston complained, “I need a shower, and I’m hungry….”

Ignoring Zeddemore’s protests and the slime both, Peter slung a friendly arm over Winston’s shoulders and drew him back down the stairs. “So what’s up, Zed?” he began conversationally.

“Don’t know what you mean, Pete.” Winston looked more than just a little cornered – and a lot uncomfortable – and Peter mildly pressed his advantage in the situation.

“C’mon, something’s still on your mind, isn’t it? Hey, I know what it is.” He melodramatically smacked his palm against his forehead. “I forgot to thank you for saving my life, didn’t I? Damn! You pulled off a miracle in there and I - ”

“You thanked me, Pete,” Winston broke in. “A couple dozen times, give or take a few.”

“Good.” The teasing glint melted from his eyes, leaving his expression quiet and somber. “Because, you know, as many times as I tell you, that doesn’t even come close to how grateful I am… or how lucky.”

Winston squeezed Peter’s encircling forearm, looking embarrassed. “We all were, Pete,” he answered, low-voiced.

“Okay then, so what is it? What’s still eating at you and Ray?”

“It’s… nothing.” He shifted uncomfortably, his eyes troubled. “Really.”

“No problems? The bust today was okay?”

“Well, yeah. Just about as routine as they get – except for maybe the color of the slime.” He forced a laugh. “Ray was kinda quiet, but….” He shrugged.

“Nothing you want to talk to Uncle Peter about?”

“Don’t know what you’re – “

”Yeah, you do. C’mon, Zed, let me put this psych degree to work –“

Winston shook his head. “Talk to Ray first, Pete. You gotta talk to him. And then… then maybe you and I can talk.” Abruptly he disengaged himself and headed rapidly toward the stairs, forcing a bounce to his step. “Hope Egon hasn’t used up all the hot water…” he said under his breath as he climbed the risers two at a time, as if he were eager to put as much space between himself and the curious psychologist as quickly as possible.

“Yeah… we’ll talk,” Peter nodded absently, brow furrowed as he stared at the basement steps. Today he was going to get to the bottom of it, no matter what.

Knowing that, at most, it should only have taken a couple of minutes for Ray to empty the traps into the containment unit, Peter managed to wait a full five more before heading down into the basement after him.

He found Ray sitting on the step leading to the containment unit, head dropped into his hands, and the three full traps on the platform, still blinking.

“Hey!” Peter called cheerfully as he approached. “Need some help there, pal?”

Ray’s head popped up, and Peter didn’t know if he was relieved, or dismayed, by the lack of emotion on the occultist’s face. Ray as blank cipher was nothing that Peter had ever been used to, nor anything he wanted to see on a regular basis.

Ray reassembled his blank expression into something vaguely apologetic. “No, I’m sorry, I just needed a break. I’m a little tired.” He started to stand as Peter bounced up onto the platform in one deliberate bound that left him only a little breathless and twinging from the hard landing.

“Take a breather, Tex.” He pressed a firm hand onto Ray’s shoulder, arresting his attempt to get to his feet. “Let me get the traps.”

“No – you don’t have to. I’ll –”

“Least I can do for you guys busting your tails out there while I was home making soup.”

A stricken light flashed behind Ray’s dark eyes. “But you didn’t have a choice – “

Peter overrode him mercilessly. “Look at it this way, Ray – you can tell your grandkids you actually saw Peter Venkman working… and while wounded, too.” Oddly, that remark, specifically intended to provoke a reaction from Ray – any reaction – left the occultist silent and the psychologist without an opening.

Peter sighed almost soundlessly – pulling Ray out of this funk and getting him to talk was not going to be easy – and instead set himself to emptying the traps. Despite how he protested about not understanding their complex equipment, nor liking to work with it on his own, he was more than competent in more than just the basics of maintenance and procedures. He efficiently slid each trap in turn into the lock, discharged its captive entity, and ejected it into the main holding area of the containment grid.

“Got ‘em.” He took a look in the observation port at the newly-arrived entities. “Ugly as they come, weren’t they? And I can see where Winston picked up that lively purple hue. He’s really been slimed with better colors in the past, don’t you think?” No reaction.

“So are you coming upstairs for lunch or not?”

Ray paused, then lowered his head again, shaking it. “I’d really like to be alone for a while, Peter.”

It was his cue. Peter easily dropped down onto the step beside him and slung a companionable arm over Ray’s shoulders. “Maybe Doctor Venkman doesn’t want you to be alone, Ray. Mind telling me where our little Ray of Sunshine’s been these past few days?”

Ray laughed so weakly at the ludicrous nickname that it sounded more like a suppressed sob. “I’m sorry. I’ve been… I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I’ll try harder to lighten up.”

”Ray, I don’t want you to ‘lighten up’. I think we need to talk. You need to talk. What’s on your mind, buddy?” He gave him a gentle, attention-grabbing shake. “You’re not feeling guilty about me, are you? – ‘cause I’m okay. I’m fine. I might need to put you on Nightmare Patrol to give me a smack if I’m having a bad night, but – “

“No. I know you’re okay. But, I’m… sorry about what happened to you.” He pressed his eyes tightly closed. “You don’t know how sorry, Peter. When I saw you in that niche, with Egon and Winston there… I thought you were dead. And you nearly…”

“But I didn’t,” he reassured softly. “And if I can deal with that, you should be able to.”

“I think you’ll have to give me some time.” A faint, ironic smile played over Ray’s broad features. “Gosh, Peter, you’re the one who almost…” he swallowed in place of the word he would not let himself say, “and I’m the one who’s having trouble getting over it.”

”’Cause that’s not the only thing on your mind, Ray.” Peter sat in companionable silence with him for a long minute, mentally willing his pal to speak, to bring it all to the surface, resisting the urge to verbally nudge or query, making himself… just wait.

Finally Ray broke the silence. “The others, Peter… those kids… Russell’s friends.” His voice was heavy. “I knew them too. And they did die.”

This was what he’d known was coming, had been waiting for. “But it wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes it was.” Ray’s eyes were wide and unfocused, as if he looked beyond the walls of the basement to see the dim cavern of the conjure space with its biers and bodies refracted in its unwholesome light. “I never should have…” He shook his head, leaving the sentence unfinished.

“Ray, listen to me. I’m not going to have you blaming yourself over this. You warned them. How many times did you talk with them, did you tell them not to mess with things they didn’t understand? They didn’t listen. That is not your fault. You can’t consider yourself responsible for what happened to those kids.”

“Yes I can.” The words fell from his mouth as if he could no longer keep them penned inside. “It was my book.”

Peter managed an eloquent, “Huh?”

“My book,” Ray went on in a shaking voice. “The spellbook they used to summon Xanthürigen. L’ Livre Noir. It was mine.”

Peter frowned. “You mean you have an edition of it, right?”

“No.” Ray was starting to shake with his confession. “It was my copy, from my reference library. I thought I recognized the inscription on the flyleaf when I saw it at Russell’s apartment, but I couldn’t be sure. So… when we finally got home, I checked where I kept it, and it was gone.”

“How the hell did they get their hands on it?” Peter asked tightly.

Ray shook his head. “I figure one of Russell’s friends – probably Flipper – snuck away and poked around when Russell brought them over a couple of weeks ago to show me their demo. I shouldn’t have kept it – I knew it was dangerous when I found it, but… I thought it would be an invaluable edition to our occult reference library and I didn’t want to destroy it. But I should have locked it up, or hidden it better, or….” His voice trailed away.

“So let me get this straight,” Peter said brusquely. “Some college kids – kids you’ve warned about playing with this kind of stuff – take advantage of your good nature and loot the upstairs when you invite them over. And they steal something dangerous, mess around with it against your advice, and then when it backfires in the worst way on them, you’re to blame?” Peter shook his head. “Ray, Ray, Ray… You have got to stop setting yourself up like that. It’s not good for your heart, or your soul, Tex.”

Ray’s voice was thick. “But, Peter, they died – “

“And it’s awful,” Peter interjected immediately in a gentler tone. “I’m not saying it isn’t. That’s got to be one of the worst things you’ve ever had to be a part of. And I feel sorry for them, Ray, really, I do.” A tight smile traveled across his face. “I watched one of them die, and no two ways about it – it’s a terrifying way to go. But I bet there’s one thing you haven’t thought about. What if we hadn’t stopped it? There would have been a lot more casualties than those three kids.” He gave a theatrical-appearing shudder that had its genesis in more genuine, visceral sensation than he’d like to admit to. “I don’t think our buddy Xanth-whoever would’ve stopped at just raising a little foot stomping mayhem if he made it to our side of that gateway.”

“I did some more research,” Ray admitted. Absently he traced a random pattern with his forefinger across the rough fabric of his jumpsuit where it pulled across one thigh. “It was hard finding much information, but the lore does allege a decimation of a village during the Middle Ages.”

The psychologist’s voice softened. “And New York City’s a pretty big village to sacrifice ten percent to a blood demon, isn’t it?”

Ray allowed a reluctant nod, even as he whispered, “Three’s a big price too.”

“Even just one would have been. Or… four.” As Peter pointed his own index finger at the center of his chest, he could feel Ray’s stocky body contract in a flinch beside him. “It’s called ‘cutting losses’, Ray. And it stinks, but it was a part of this bust. Dammit. There but for the grace of God, and more important, the grace of my friends…. ”

He tried to tighten his grip around Ray’s shoulders, but the younger man pulled away, turning his gaze to the side wall. In a faltering voice, so low that Peter could scarcely hear it, Ray added, “Peter…. we went back for the bodies.”

The revelation blindsided him. “’Scuse me? You did what?”

Ray couldn’t look at him. “Winston and I… that night, after we got back here from the hospital. I couldn’t… I just couldn’t imagine leaving them over there. They were so young! And… their parents. If they didn’t even have bodies to bury….”

“How the hell did the two of you manage to do that?” Peter barely succeeded in keeping the shock and anger out of his voice.

“It wasn’t all that hard, really.” Ray shrugged. “I had all the readings we’d taken of the gateway from Russell’s apartment, plus the baselines from the conjure space that were automatically recorded while we were in there. I correlated all of them in one of Egon’s computer programs until I got its representative algorithm. And then, well, all I had to do was fire up the trans-dimensional portal and scan for it. It didn’t even take a half-hour once I got everything up and running.”

“Ray, you are just too damn smart for your own good.” Peter shook his head and forced himself to continue lightly, “So, while I was tucked up nice and cozy in a hospital bed with my legs practically in the air, you and Winston went out and played in alternate dimensions again. I can’t believe you got him to go along with this.” At least, he thought in sudden wry understanding, this revelation certainly clarified both Zed’s post-bust issues and his reluctance to delve any deeper into them.

“He volunteered.” At Peter’s arched brows, Ray explained, “He said he understood, because he’d had to leave friends behind in Vietnam, and if he could keep anyone else from having to go through that experience, he would. So we called Russell, and he came over, and went in there with us – “

“You what?” He rolled his eyes. “Ray, this just keeps getting better and better.”

“Well,” he defended, “we were pretty sure it wouldn’t be safe for just the two of us to go in, and Russell… He needed this, Peter!” A trace of Ray’s stubbornness, of his spark, was returning in his defense of his actions. “He wanted to bring his friends back too. How do you think he felt, knowing they were dead in another dimension?

Peter returned without a moment’s pause, “And how do you think Egon and I would have felt if you and Winston ended up dead in another dimension because you went back on some cockamamie errand of mercy to retrieve some bodies that weren’t even your responsibility?”

Ray compressed his lips. “That’s not the point.”

Peter forced himself to relax and tempered his tone. “Okay, not fair, it didn’t happen, and I’ll pretend I didn’t say it. But Ray….”

“I know, Peter. I’m sorry. I just had to.” He took a deep breath to finish up the story. “Winston and I went in first, with packs and meters, and we located the bodies. They were practically… right there, where we entered. I guess the readings were able to give us a close-enough focus on the exact locale that constituted the conjure space. We came out and called the coroner’s office and had them send a representative over to witness the retrieval and to receive the bodies.”

“That’s smart, ‘cause how the hell would we have explained ‘Three Bodies in Ghostbuster Central’ otherwise?” The headlines in his head were ugly and he was grateful that Ray’s lack of good judgment and common sense had not extended to the mission’s aftermath.

“I know. But I can’t take credit for it – it was Winston’s idea. Anyway, once someone got here, Winston and I took Russell in. Winston guarded us while we…” he paused to swallow, “you know, brought them out. Flipper, and Randy, and Mitch.” He shuddered. “Mitch, the last one, before you? – I’m not sure anymore if he was dead already when we got there to rescue you. It looked like… he’d moved.” Ray dropped his face into his hands, covering his eyes, and when he raised his gaze a moment later, his cheeks were smeared with wetness.

Peter felt a sudden chill that took him back four days, to the bier, to the flickering humid darkness around him and the feeling of despair. God, what if the kid had been alive after all? It couldn’t merit further consideration and he closed his mind on that concept immediately. “Ray, don’t think about it. It’s not fun to torture yourself with what-ifs and maybes, because you can’t do anything about it.”

“I know, but I still can’t stop thinking about it….” He took a deep breath. “Anyway, by the time we came out, the coroner’s office had called for a police backup, and there was yellow Crime Scene tape all over the lab.” He gave a faint smile. “We barely had it all taken down before Egon came home in the morning after spending all night with you. The coroner took our statement, the police took another statement, and finally, about seven in the morning, everyone left. Russell called his parents, and they drove up from Pennsylvania to pick him up. He’s going to stay with them for a while, he told me.”

“Who told the other kids’ parents?”

“The police, I think. I thought that maybe I should, but… no, I just couldn’t. Their funerals are the day after tomorrow. I’m going to go.”

Peter quirked an inquiring eyebrow. “Is that smart?”

“I don’t know if it is. I just know… I have to.”

Peter slid his arm down, around Ray’s waist, and hugged. “You do what you have to, Tex. We’re here if you need us.”

“Thanks, Peter.” He sighed deeply, his own arm circling Peter. There was an air of relief, of relaxation, even of acceptance, that had been absent in him for the past four days.

“Egon’s figured it out, hasn’t he?” Peter asked after a brief silence.

Ray shrugged. “I think so. He got some readings on the PKE meter he couldn’t figure out when he was cross-checking the baselines. I sort of lied to him when he came to me about them. I hope he won’t be mad at me.”

“Oh, he probably will,” Peter dismissed, “but he’ll get over it. I think it’s time for a session of Doctor Venkman’s True Confessions later on today, don’t you? I’ve got an opening at three o’clock.”

“Okay.” Ray nodded, but he did not look thrilled at the thought of one of Peter’s post-bust trauma dissections. After a long silence, he finally offered either in faint mollification, or more likely to change the subject, “Hey, guess what? We got your pack back when we went in there. I know it really would have hurt the R & D budget to have to replace another one right now.”

“And you think I give a rat’s patootie about the R & D budget? Well, I do,” he quickly backpedaled, “but that’s not what’s important and you know it.” He snugged the arm that encircled Ray’s broad shoulders, pulling him in tighter, closer, in living breathing affirmation of his words. “ We made it again. We beat the odds. All for one and one for all.”

“I know, but I keep thinking how close we all came this time. Russell lost his friends. We could have…. “ His voice shook with intensity before he managed to go on. “Peter, we can lose it all in a heartbeat, just like that, and I can’t stop thinking of that!”

“Yeah, we can, Ray, but we don’t stop doing it. Every time we go out, yeah, one of us might not come back. But we’ve got each other to keep us safe. You got me back, mostly in one piece, and that’s what counts to us.” He held up his left hand, the shallow graze across the palm half-healed. “Nice trick with the banishing ritual – what I remember of it,” he hedged. “We would have been toast if you hadn’t come up with that.” He wiggled his fingers. “We’re all four of us gonna have matching lifelines, you know? And I know Egon and I qualify now, but I’m pretty sure what we did makes us all some kind of blood brothers. Cool, huh? I feel like I’m back in Indian Scouts or something.”

Ray swallowed thickly, then suddenly dropped his head and turned his face into Peter’s shoulder. In stillness, Peter let him release the guilt, the tension, the emotion that had been crushing him over the past four days. Peter himself felt an odd sense of relief as the warm wetness of Ray’s tears dampened his polo shirt.

At last, Ray lifted his head slightly, and mumbled, “I’m sorry, Peter, really.”

Peter fondly ruffled his fingers through Ray’s short red hair. “Say that one more time and I’ll really take that five hundred dollar consulting fee out of your paycheck.”

Ray sputtered a faint laugh, shifting, and wiped at his eyes. “But they were so young….” he said plaintively, still unable – unwilling, perhaps – to completely let go of it all.

“I know,” Peter soothed with another firm hug. “We all were once. Remember us in college? You guys made me honest, and kept me sane in the process. I don’t know how I would have turned out without the two of you.” He laughed without humor at the sudden stark realization. “Actually, I do – I would have turned out like Russell and his buddies. God help them, that was an apartment full of Peter Venkmans. Light on ethics and lacking in common sense. They didn’t have a Ray, or an Egon, to keep them in line.”

“No one should have to learn a lesson that hard,” Ray said quietly, caught in that reflection.

“You’re right, they shouldn’t,” Peter agreed as he started to rise, pulling at Ray to follow him. “And thanks for not making me learn one that way fifteen years ago. Now,” he briskly changed his tone, “come on upstairs and have some lunch, if they’ve left us anything. And then, what do you say, we all take the afternoon off? We’ll pull out those pictures we took of Egon and our ‘experiment’ in static electricity and show ‘em to Winston and Janine. And speaking of Janine,” Peter’s voice dropped conspiratorially, and he bent to whisper in Ray’s ear, “when she’s not around, boy, do I have a story to tell you about her and me, in bed, in the hospital, with Egon right there….”

“Really?” The faintest glimmer of a genuine smile lit Ray’s round features at the thought, and Peter felt hope blossom that everything was going to be okay again, if not now, at least very soon.

“And then, if you could do me a favor?” he added lightly as, arm still around Ray’s waist, he led him toward the stairs leading to the ground floor.

“Anything, Peter,” Ray said somberly, returning his hug as they climbed.

“Great.” His answering smile was bright. “Think one of you science guys could finally tell me what ‘Doppler’ is?”