Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards for they are subtle and quick to anger.

                                                                                                                        Tolkien: Lord of the Rings

            I will hold on.

            I will get through.

            I will not die

            Away from you.

            I don't know how,

            I don't know when,

            But I will see

            My home again.

            Hold on till then--

            Oh, wait for me!

            I will be free

            and home again...

                                    The Scarlet Pimpernel: Home Again

Once upon a time, there was an arrogant scion of a wealthy family who lived on an island fortress, its towers of glass and steel so high they pierced the sky. All his life the young man had known only wealth and pleasure. He had many friends who valued him, alas, for his fortune and position, but he also had one loyal friend who came from a poor family, and who idolized him.

One day, the poor friend sought his aid, not for money but to help him with a grievous problem, for he was under an evil curse not entirely of his own making, and he was not quite strong enough to face it alone. The rich young man denied him because it was the night of the Grand Ball and he could not spare the time. Without his aid, the friend ventured into a dangerous situation and died.

But even poor young men have families, and the poor young man's beloved uncle was a powerful sorcerer. Summoned to the city of towers, he learned of the wealthy young man's betrayal.

So he came to the wealthy young man and cursed him with an elaborate series of spells, and everyone but his own servants forgot his very existence.

And the years passed with none to mourn the wealthy young man, for his casual friends soon found others with money to claim them and his family never mentioned him again. He grew embittered and angry, and he had no hope.

Until one day, someone challenged the spell....

"And stay in bed," Winston Zeddemore instructed firmly, folding his arms across his chest as he frowned down at his supine comrade. "No sneaking off to the lab or I'm gonna be real pissed off. Peter will be home by six at the latest and he'll read you the riot act if he catches you working when you're supposed to be resting."

"Yeah, and I'll be mad at you too," Ray Stantz agreed sternly. "I know you want to finish up that modification for the ghost traps--I think it'd be cool, too, if we didn't have to attach them to the cables. We'd have a lot wider range to throw them out under ghosts if the miniature power grids worked on them. But Winston and I will be back from the con on Sunday afternoon and I can help you with it then. You'll probably feel a lot better."

"It's only the flu, Ray," Egon Spengler said rather hoarsely. The physicist was in bed at the other Ghostbusters's insistence, although he had propped himself up with pillows and furnished himself with a notebook, three physics tomes, his laptop computer, a calculator, and several number 2 pencils. True, he was weaker than he was prepared to admit and had a tendency to feel, as Peter had so eloquently phrased it, woozy as the dickens, when he got out of bed for a periodic trip to the bathroom, but he should be able to work quite well where he was, resting periodically and taking his medication at appropriate intervals. He appreciated his friends' concern, but he did not believe his health in serious jeopardy. People did not die of the flu in the nineteen-nineties, not unless they totally foolishly ignored medical advice or were unlucky enough to be alone with a worsening condition. He would only be alone for a few hours, and it was not actual solitude, for Janine Melnitz, eager to fuss over him, was only two floors down at her desk. "I plan to stay in bed."

"Why not?" Winston asked with a grin. "You have half the lab in there with you so there's no reason to head across the hall. Just remember, Janine's going to come up and check on you every fifteen minutes, and you know how she gets." Zeddemore gestured to the pitcher of water, the pills, the thermos containing orange juice, the heating pad, the thermometer on the bedside table. All those had been their secretary's contributions to Egon's wellbeing. In addition she came to check on him regularly, more than a little inclined to fuss. Spengler did indeed know how she got. He'd had to endure her concern at every slight illness or minor injury over the past ten years. If Egon didn't stay in bed, the fussing was certain to increase, and all of them knew it. Janine's ardent affection would cow a lesser man than Egon Spengler.

"Yeah, Egon," Ray said with an amused grin. "Besides," the team's occult expert added more seriously, "this is a pretty nasty version of the flu. Sometimes it goes into pneumonia, they say. So you keep taking those pills Dr. Labraccio prescribed and stay in bed. Peter can watch you over the weekend. He even canceled his date tonight to do it--and hasn't even complained about it. He should be home from the TV studio before dark. I just wish Winston and I didn't have to go away for the weekend."

"Yes, Mommy," Egon said with a wry grin. "I'll be fine, guys. There's really no need to fuss over me."

"Janine has her orders," Zeddemore stated firmly, exchanging a wicked smirk with Ray. "At the first sign you're any worse, she'll whip up your mom's magic cure-all and force-feed it to you. I set up the blender for her already."

Egon was certain he blanched. His mother's all-purpose remedy was one of the most foul-tasting concoctions known to man, and she and Janine had conspired against him more than once when he was under the weather.

"And if she says she'll do it, she'll do it," Ray concluded. "Maybe we shouldn't go to the con. It's not like it's in Manhattan, after all."

"Boston's not that far, Ray," Zeddemore reminded him. "And you are the fan guest of honor."

Ray's face lit up at the reminder. He loved going to science fiction conventions and had been thrilled at the invitation to be a guest at this one. "Yeah, isn't it neat? I can hardly wait. Stay in bed, Egon, and I mean it. Let Peter take care of you. You'll be fine."

When the two of them had departed to catch their shuttle flight, Egon set aside his calculator and relaxed against his pillows. Ghostbuster Central felt rather empty without them, but he suspected such thinking was due to the draining nature of his virus and not any sudden desire for solicitude from his teammates. Egon was perhaps the most independent of the team and could work quite happily on his own for hours and days when he was caught up in a project, although he was glad of his buddies' presence when they were with him. Working for hours and days wasn't in the cards now, though. Promising not to go to the lab had been no hardship. He doubted his rubbery legs would support him that far or hold him up once he arrived. Instead he would simply lie in his bed and rest. Take a nap. Peter, who was the guest on a local afternoon talk show, should be returning, gloating over his success, in time for dinner, and would regale Egon with his glory for hours. He loved doing talk shows, and the publicity was good for the business. Maybe by then Egon would feel well enough to leave his bed and eat or to spend a quiet evening stretched out on the couch in front of the television set. For once, Peter, comfort hound that he was, could wait on someone else for a change. Smiling, Egon shut off the laptop, then settled himself more comfortably against his pillows. In moments he was sleeping.

"Who did you say you were?" Janine Melnitz asked suspiciously into the telephone, settling her glasses on her nose with her free hand. Mysterious strangers who asked for Egon personally instead of requesting the services of the team were to be screened carefully. Egon was her own particular responsibility and she meant to protect him while he was sick, whether he wanted to be protected or not.

"Professor Austin Shelby," said the voice on the other end of the line. He sounded like a man in his fifties, possibly even older, and the name was vaguely familiar as if she had heard it in passing a long time ago. "As I said, I'm calling for Egon Spengler."

"Egon is sleeping," the red-haired woman explained protectively. She had just been up to check on him and he'd been fast asleep. Remembering the heat of his face under her light touch, and the way his eyelashes had lain against his cheek, she smiled. "He has the flu. Dr. Venkman will be back by six if you want to talk to a Ghostbuster. We're not taking any new jobs until Monday, not even emergencies."

"No, this is a personal call," Shelby replied, offering an explanation into her waiting silence. "I was Egon's undergraduate advisor at Columbia. I've recently moved back to New York after ten years at Stanford. I'm calling because I owe Egon an apology. When he got into Ghostbusting, I thought he'd sold out to a profitable scam and I told him so in no uncertain terms--far too mercilessly. I've recently done research and talked to people on the subject, and I've read Egon's textbook on ectoplasmic physics and I realize I was in error, limited by a narrow-minded perspective, just as he claimed. I owe Egon a considerable apology and I'd like to tell him so to his face. At our last meeting I was extremely vituperative, and I was totally unfair. I must tell Egon that."

"He'll be really glad to hear it," Janine said quickly, guessing without much doubt that the encounter with Shelby was one Egon had not shared with anyone, not even Peter. The psychologist had a knack for realizing when such things had happened and for worming the truth out of people, but he would have respected Egon's boundaries. She wouldn't be surprised if he didn't have an idea about what had happened, though. "But I can't wake him up. He needs his rest. I'll have to tell him to call you when he wakes up."

"I understand. Don't disturb him of course, if he's ill. But tell him to come to see me. I'd like to apologize to his face."

"You bet I will," Janine said, smiling delightedly at the thought of Egon's reaction. "He'll come as soon as he's well." She vaguely remembered references to a Dr. Shelby and suspected Egon had been badly hurt by a mentor's scorn. The worst insult he could imagine was to be called a bad scientist. "How can he reach you?"

Slimer popped up through the floor and dove at her as she grabbed her pencil to jot down the phone number. Tucking the phone against her ear and holding it in place with her shoulder, she batted at the little green ghost with her free hand as she wrote. "Beat it, Slimer, I'm busy. Okay, what did you say?"

"Six-twenty-seven Briarwood," said the voice in her ear just as the team's ghostly mascot dive-bombed her, wrapping an affectionate arm around her shoulders and giving her a sloppy smooch on her free ear.

Distracted by the ghost when she didn't really have a free hand to fend him off Janine wrote '672 Briarwood' on her notepad then stabbed at Slimer with her pencil, causing him to mutter a disappointed 'aw' and retreat just far enough to be out of range of her deadly weapon. "Take off, Slimer. I mean it. Got it, Dr. Shelby. Phone number?"

"It won't be installed until tomorrow," Shelby said doubtfully, probably wondering about her threats to the spud. "I've just moved in. He can drop by. I'll be home for the next two days unpacking, and after that, if he's still not well enough, I'll call back and leave my new number. Or I can come to see him there, but I would prefer to talk to him alone. I believe it would be easier for both of us."

"Right, I'll tell him."

After she'd hung up, driven off Slimer more thoroughly, and cleaned up from the sliming--if it weren't for the fringe benefits, like the blond physicist upstairs, the annoyances of this job would have driven her away long ago--she hurried up the stairs to the third floor and into the bedroom.

Egon lay sleeping, his face slightly flushed, his glasses perched precariously on the tip of his nose. He appeared so young and vulnerable Janine's heart clenched up. Tiptoeing quietly up to his bed, she removed the glasses, folded them, and set them on the table where he would find them when he awakened, then she laid her hand on his forehead. The fever was less. Good, he was resting, he was recovering. He needed the sleep too much for her to disturb him, even with good news. She bent and dropped a butterfly kiss on the tip of his nose, knowing it wouldn't rouse him from the fathoms-deep sleep. Then she took the pencil from behind her ear and wrote quickly on the sheet where she had jotted down the street address, "Your old advisor, Professor Shelby, called and wants to eat crow. He knows now that you're a responsible scientist and says he would like to apologize face to face. He's just moved into town. Address above. No phone yet but will have one in a day or two. I'm so happy for you." She signed her name with a flourish, then she propped the note against his glasses and stood gazing down at him with open affection for a long time before she tiptoed away.

Egon awoke half an hour later feeling cautiously better. He knew, as he lay there stretching comfortably against the pillows, that he was not yet entirely well. He was weak as water, but he believed the worst of the flu had burned itself out. Content simply to lie quietly for a time, he allowed his mind to drift to the trap problem, delighted to discover he could think clearly again. Several modifications occurred to him and he pondered them, working out various solutions in his mind, opening his notebook to scrawl a couple of hasty formulae. Finally, prompted by a call of nature, he sat up slowly, relieved to find the motion was only mildly enervating and didn't make him dizzy.

That was when he discovered Janine's note and picked it up curiously. As he read it, a surge of sheer delight ran through his frame. Shelby, coming around after all these years. It had hurt, and hurt badly, to hear his advisor had believed he would abandon science in favor of dishonest practices, but the older man had not believed in Ghostbusting and had all but thrown Egon from his office.

Egon still remembered that last encounter vividly, both men angry, hurt, and saying things they would later regret, Shelby insisting that he had never been so disappointed in a student in his life. "You were the most gifted physicist I ever trained. You could have done anything. Now you throw it away! I've been concerned for months now over this parapsychology project. Too much influence from that Venkman. He's nothing but a scam artist."

"You don't know Peter. Don't presume to judge him," Egon had snarled, furious. Peter wasn't the issue, but that didn't mean Shelby had the right to fault him. "Peter is not a scam artist. He's--"

"You're throwing everything away," Shelby had cut in. "You're wasting your brain on pseudo-science. I can't believe you seriously mean to continue in such foolishness. I wash my hands of you. Get out of my office. Now!" He had actually pointed at the door like a character in a Victorian melodrama, his face tight with wrath and betrayal.

"I thought you'd trust my judgment," Egon had begun in a low voice. "You know I've done my research. I've always been thorough and meticulous. I know what I'm doing is valid. I can prove--"

"You can prove nothing. Go away. I'm sorry I wasted effort on you." He folded his arms against his chest as he turned his back on the younger man.

Egon had been given no choice but to leave; he could hardly deck his professor and it was beneath his dignity to plead for an extension of the audience. Hurt and betrayed himself, he had stormed out of the office in carefully-induced high dudgeon and buried himself in establishing a lab to his satisfaction in their new headquarters. He had never told Peter or Ray the full story of Shelby's repudiation, simply that Shelby had not approved of their plans to open a business dedicated to the trapping and containing of ghosts. Ray had been sympathetic and full of 'we'll show him,' comments, and Peter had regarded Egon knowingly but had chosen to say nothing, although Egon had suspected at the time that he had understood all too well what Egon felt about the incident.

Even when the business had become a success, even after the team of paranormal investigators and eliminators had defeated Gozer, the Sumerian demi-god who had threatened Manhattan, when Egon had telephoned Shelby in hopes of vindication, the older man had not returned any of his calls. Egon had finally given up. There had been nothing further to do.

That Shelby had finally come to see the value of Egon's job meant so much to the physicist he felt a surge of joy run through him, as good if not better than the medications Greg Labraccio had prescribed to treat the symptoms of his virus. He'd go see Shelby at once. He was well enough for that. After all, he'd be sitting down in the taxi the whole way.

Buoyed up by his adrenaline rush, he made it all the way to the bathroom without needing to stop and rest. The quick shower felt wonderful, and once he had shaved and returned to the bedroom, he was only mildly worn out. Sitting down to put on his shoes and socks helped. As a precaution, he took the regular dose of his medication and drank a glass of orange juice from the thermos Janine had left him. Then, clad in a suit and tie, he ventured downstairs clinging to the rail of the spiral staircase to the second floor, prepared to battle with Janine over his right to go. Crossing the second floor did not unduly drain him. He was definitely on the mend.

Not realizing the secretary had popped in to check on him only moments before he had awakened, he was surprised to find her desk empty and the answering machine on the phone, but it was two-thirty. She was probably on her afternoon break. Sometimes she took it on the second floor in front of the TV although she hadn't been there today, sometimes she went to the cafe down the block.

Egon decided her absence was a reprieve; it had been meant. She would have been sure to object to his plan to visit Shelby, insisting he should wait at least a day until he was better. But Egon could not bear to wait. The older man had been important to him when he was a student. Egon had always respected him for his intellect, his scholarship, his support of his students. Seeing Shelby and the proof that Shelby had come to respect Egon in return mattered more than his temporary weakness. He scribbled Janine a note, then he went out onto the street and flagged down a passing cab.

When Egon gave him the address, the cabby grumbled something about it being all the way up to The Cloisters, but Egon didn't care. He was too excited about the upcoming meeting, and too shaky not to be glad of the opportunity to sit down for the long trip north. The first ten minutes were spent recovering from the strenuous exertion of coming downstairs, slowing his breathing, feeling the thump of his heart returning to normal. But his mind was not on his physical state as he leaned against the leather seat, elbow against the window's edge, his hand supporting his head. He planned what he would say the whole way north.

Although not a vindictive man, a part of him would enjoy the sight of his former advisor eating crow. But that was only one small part. The rest of him was simply relieved that after so long, he would be justified in his mentor's eyes, accepted.

The cabby's, "You sure this is the place, Jack?" woke him from a near doze. Suddenly he realized he was exhausted from the trip even if he'd had nothing to do but sit. He'd probably been wrong to come today, because he was still shaky, and damp with perspiration. Even riding in the cab had stressed him, and only now did he realize it. Perhaps the virus had impaired his judgment. But he knew seeing Shelby would revitalize him. He could rest at the physicist's apartment before he called a cab to return home, or perhaps Peter or Janine could pick him up in Ecto-1 where he could stretch out in the back seat and sleep.

"Six seventy-two Briarwood?" Egon asked.

"Doesn't look like the place is even lived in," the cab driver objected, scratching his head. "Still, you're a Ghostbuster, aren't you, Jack? I saw you on TV a few times, and my kid's got a poster of the four of you. Just the kind of place you'd want to visit."

"My friend just moved in," Egon explained with a hasty glance at what appeared to be a huge, run-down mansion. "He doesn't even have the phone in yet." Egon reached for his wallet. Standing up took more effort than he wanted to think about, but he climbed out of the cab, mopping his face while he waited for his change, then tucking his wallet in his hip pocket. He didn't manage it very well. Odd how shaky and unsteady he felt.

"Well, talk about your classic fixer-upper," the cabby muttered and peeled away, leaving Egon standing unsteadily on the curb. The rest of the short street was given over to apartment buildings, but this house had never been converted to flats. An iron gate hung slightly ajar on rusted hinges, opening into a huge courtyard, with the house surrounding it on three sides as two wings came forward to abut the street. The structure was four stories high with arches and tall towers soaring as high as the ten story apartments on either side of it, creating a down-at-the-heels Disney fantasy castle effect. Once a formal garden with rose bushes and neat flower beds, the courtyard had been permitted to run wild with vines covering the brick walls and even intruding onto the gates themselves. The flagstone path that led across it to the front door was overgrown with weeds and grime, left untended for years. Shelby would have a real job making the house and grounds even remotely presentable.

Lifting his eyes to the building itself, Egon saw dirty windows that revealed nothing behind them, like blank eyes on the grey stone facade. Curious, he pulled out Janine's note and compared the jotted address to the number. He could see the elaborate 6-7-2 above the arch of the double front door, although the 2 had come undone at the top and hung in a tipsy fashion nearly upside down. Shelby must have gotten a rare bargain on the place.

His knees barely holding him up with the return of the virus's symptoms, Egon crossed the courtyard and struggled up the five steps to the front door, pulling himself up hand over hand by the filthy railing. He wasn't well enough to be here. This was foolish. But it was too late to return now. He'd come this far. Shelby would have to see him home.

Pressing the doorbell proved to him one thing. It was broken. No chime of sound rang inside, nothing happened at all. He knocked; hopefully Shelby would have a couch where he could stretch out until he felt stronger. Weary and aching, he leaned against the door for support.

It swung open at his touch, revealing a dusty, deserted entry hall, and nearly pitching him into it.

Clutching the door frame, Egon stepped into the entry out of the sun. "Professor Shelby?" he called, but his voice echoed hollowly through a dust-laden stillness, not even awakening echoes. Overhead, a Tiffany chandelier hung suspended in a mesh of cobwebs. The staircase that rose opposite the front door curved in a vast horseshoe in two directions, reuniting at a second floor balcony. No one was in sight. The house felt empty. Or did it? Were there subliminal voices?

"Someone is here."

"Is he the one?"

"Watch him. Watch him."

"Why is he here?"

"Look at him. He is an intruder."

"Why is he here?"

Or had he imagined them. He was certain he had heard nothing but the pounding of his blood in his veins. Perhaps he was delirious. Perhaps he was dreaming.

This was absurd. Had Janine made a mistake on the address? The empty house felt almost haunted, as if it were holding its breath, as if the half-imagined voices were spirits, long-dead inhabitants of the run-down castle. From the darkly paneled walls, paintings by the Old Masters created a brooding presence, so badly in need of restoration that the shadowy figures contained within the dusty gilt frames might not have been touched since the days of Rembrandt himself. An open doorway beneath the stairs was a menacing square of darkness. In Egon's confused mental state he imagined fanciful shapes bunching there just out of sight, waiting to spring upon him and rend him limb from limb. The house held its breath.

"Professor Shelby?" Egon called again, far more doubtfully than before, automatically lowering his voice half afraid a louder noise would disturb the echoes. Reaching into his inner pocket, he took out his ever-present P.K.E. meter and activated the ghost detection device. At once it stirred to life, quivering in reaction to a multitude of entities. The house was haunted after all--maybe that was why Shelby had come around, since it was hard to doubt the evidence of one's own eyes--but the readings were far from typical, not conventional ghosts. Egon frowned, squinting at the screen that blurred and sharpened before his eyes. Not ghosts? Physical entities? He couldn't see clearly. He was growing dizzy, confused. Was he imagining spirits, eyes upon him? Or were there shadows bunching in all the corners of the hallway, waiting for the moment when he became too weak to fight off their attack?

A sweep of movement faster than a man could run startled him, and the outer door slammed shut, sealing him inside. Whirling shakily, a hand on the newel post to balance himself, Egon found himself facing a tall, cloaked figure, a hood shading but not entirely concealing his savage features. Instead of a standard human face, a muzzle like a wolf's protruded from the hood, lips drawn back to reveal sharp, savage fangs. Eyes gleamed an unlikely blue in the hood's shadows, round like an animal's, although the creature walked upright like a man. Egon's meter went crazy, but the valence was negative. Whatever this creature was, it was physical, not a specter or spook. It was alive and breathing; Egon could hear the harsh rasp of its breath.

"What are you doing here?" it growled at him, the voice rough and grating. Maybe its vocal cords had not been designed for human speech or perhaps it spoke aloud very rarely.

"I'm looking for Professor Shelby," Egon responded, his voice wobbling, his hand tightening on the newel post to keep him on his feet. The room had begun a stately dance around him, revolving slowly, twisting his stomach, confusing him. He didn't know if the man-beast was real or if the being were a figment of delirium. But the meter had reacted. The creature must be real.

"He is come," whispered the subliminal voices. "Maybe he is the one. Treat him gently, master."

"Do not hurt him."

"He is ill."

"There is no one here by that name," the creature growled. "You lie! You have invaded my domain and now you are my prisoner. You will never be free again." He lunged at Egon, grabbing him by the upper arms and shaking him lightly, in spite of the echoes' warnings to the contrary. Egon felt his wallet fall from his pocket and land with a plop on the dusty floor. He didn't think the creature noticed.

The abrupt motion was too much for Egon's depleted physical state. He sagged into a near faint, unable to support himself any longer. If the entity should suddenly let go, he would collapse on the dirty floor, unable to rise again, unable to defend himself.

"You fear me," snarled the beast, a hoarse animal pleasure threading through the savage thrum of his voice. "So be it."

"He may be the one," the subliminal voices chorused.

"Do not hurt him, Master."

"I will not hurt him," growled the entity. "But he perhaps he will serve a purpose here."

Slinging Egon over his shoulder like a dead weight, the beast raced up the stairs, reverting to all fours, although he had been standing upright a moment earlier. The meter slid from Egon's nerveless fingers and clunked down on the landing. "You will regret interfering with me," the harsh voice breathed in Egon's ear. The threat was the last thing he remembered as he sank down and down into the well of darkness.

Peter Venkman strolled into Ghostbuster Central around five-thirty feeling extremely pleased with himself. Although the talk show he'd guested on was a local program, sometimes the best interviews won time on the national news, and this afternoon Peter had been at the top of his form. He'd been witty, clever, holding the audience in the palm of his hand. Jessica Taylor, the hostess, had fallen for him; he had seen it in her eyes. A little effort and she would have been his for the evening, for the night. It would have been so easy.

But Egon was sick and the other two members of the team were up in Boston for that Science Fiction convention. Abandoning the promising romance without a qualm, although it would grow in the telling like a fish story, Peter took the subway home, preening himself whenever he was recognized, happily granting a couple of autographs to a few of his fans. He was on top of the world. A celebrity, the world at his feet. He had the greatest job in the world, and the three best friends known to man. Nothing could ruin his good mood. Egon was probably feeling a lot better by now. He'd love to hear about Peter's interview, and he knew just when to squash Peter's pretensions. Venkman knew he had a tendency to ego, just a tiny little one, but it was there. It wouldn't do to become too smug. The ladies might not like it. Egon was good at stopping him when he needed stopping. After all, what was a guy's best buddy for?

Although it was past her quitting time, Janine was waiting at her desk when Peter let himself into the converted firehall. The minute she saw the psychologist she launched herself at him like a rocket, grabbing his arm and shaking it to be certain she had his attention. "Peter, he's gone. Egon's gone."

Peter's heart dropped into his feet. "Gone? What the heck do you mean, gone?" he demanded. Gone might mean he'd popped out to buy a new tool for his lab, but it also had darker meanings, too. She was scaring him. "Where is he?"

"I don't know," she wailed, clutching him. "It's all my fault."

"What'd you do, come on to him too strong?" Peter asked, hoping the ire that question was sure to rouse in her would cut through her panic and make her think. He could irritate Janine with the best of them and this was probably the perfect time to do it.

His plan worked. She walloped him on the chest with her fist. "Stop it. He was asleep when I checked on him around 2:30. He looked good, like he was improving, so I went down to the coffee shop for my break. I was only gone about fifteen--okay, twenty-five minutes. I knew I couldn't stay longer because I've been checking him every half hour. But when I returned and went up there, he was gone. He'd taken a shower, and his nightshirt was hanging on the hook on the bathroom door. And the note was gone, too." She pushed at her glasses in a gesture she'd probably caught from Egon, whose red-rimmed spectacles had a tendency to slide, and stared up at Peter, fear in her blue eyes.

"Whoa, hold on, back up, old girl. What note?" Peter demanded. "If Egon had felt better, he might have gone out, but he surely wouldn't have done it without telling Janine, would he? He wouldn't sneak away, not unless he was confused because of the virus and didn't know what he was doing.

"Professor Shelby called and wanted to apologize to Egon--" Janine began.

"Shelby!" Peter stiffened, remembered anger flooding him, although he hadn't thought of the physics prof for years. "That jerk! When we left Columbia to start the business, he really got on Egon's case. Egon never would talk about it but I knew it bugged him. I think the creep really dumped on him. I tried to talk to Shelby without telling Egon right around the time we bought the firehouse and he said Egon was a bad scientist and had let him down. I can just imagine what he'd told Egon. I always used to think it might be fun to let a ghost loose in his apartment so he'd need to call us, but then he transferred out to California."

"He's here again. He moved back just recently. And now he's willing to apologize to Egon. He wanted Egon to come over." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Peter's story had obviously failed to endear Shelby to her.

"Did you call him to see if Egon was there?" Peter demanded. The thought of an apology from his former advisor might be reason enough to drag Egon out of a sickbed. But Egon was too sick to be smart. What if he'd arrived there and passed out? What if he'd passed out on the way? Surely he wouldn't have tried to take the subway.

"I can't, he won't have a phone until tomorrow," Janine wailed. "I've been waiting for you to come home and go after him. And to be near the phone in case I got a call."

"Then I'd better go fetch him home," Peter decided without a moment's hesitation. "What's the address, Janine, honey?"

Janine puckered up her nose in an attempt to remember, then snapped her fingers triumphantly. "Six twenty-seven Briarwood. I looked it up because I'd never heard of it before. It's way up by the Cloisters. Just a short little street. I'm coming with you. I'm really worried about him, Peter. I almost went after him myself, but then I thought maybe Shelby would call or something, so I waited."

"You'd better stay here," Peter decided. "Shelby might bring him back himself, and if he does or if Egon shows up on his own, you can call me, okay? I'd hate for him to come home and find nobody here, not if he's feeling worse." He paused then added, "You can even have overtime."

She hesitated, then nodded reluctantly, worried enough about Egon not to jump on the overtime offer. "Okay. But bring him home, Peter, because I don't think he was well enough to go. I shouldn't have left the note but I thought it would make him happy."

"It did," Peter told him. "I know it did, Janine. But if he's given himself a relapse, I'm going to make him real unhappy." He opened the door of Ecto and climbed in.

"Hurry, Peter," she encouraged. "I'll call you on the mobile phone if I hear anything at all." She stood watching him back out of the garage, lifting one hand in a forlorn little wave.

Hurry, Peter, Venkman thought to himself as he fought his way through rush-hour traffic. He took the West Side Expressway and Henry Hudson Parkway, siren blaring all the way to clear the traffic from his path. "Egon, you'd better be okay, or I'm gonna tie you down with a strait jacket next time we have to leave you alone. You aren't fit to be out without a keeper!" He let himself imagine all sorts of terrible things; Egon passing out in the cab, or even in the street in front of Shelby's place, Egon in a hospital, only if he was in the hospital, why hadn't anybody phoned headquarters and alerted Janine? If Egon was simply sitting reminiscing with Shelby over old times, Peter meant to brain him, and Janine would probably want a shot at him too.

He cut the siren before he reached Briarwood in case Shelby had been up to funny business, or in case the message had been a phony in an attempt to lure Egon into trouble. The Ghostbusters' enemies were usually ectoplasmic, but a ghost was capable of making a telephone call. Peter still remembered the crisis when Slimer had discovered 900 numbers and had run up their phone bill one month before Ray could stop him. It might have been a trap. Such things didn't happen often, but once or twice over the years they'd been lured into trouble by vengeful ghosts. Usually they faced it as a team. In good health, Egon would be up to anything, but he'd hardly been able to make it to the bathroom when Peter had departed for his interview. He didn't have a proton pack either. All four of them rested in their rack behind Peter.

Six twenty-seven Briarwood proved to be a fairly modern apartment building in decent condition. The street was composed of rows of them except for one run-down old mansion that would have given Ray a big thrill because it was spooky enough to be Dracula's choice of New York abode. Peter couldn't care less about haunted houses, not when Egon might be in trouble, but there was a parking place right in front of it. He squeezed Ecto into the tight space with the skill of long practice and jogged down the block to the correct address, glad to be even that close, the way parking was in the City. "You better be here, Egon," he muttered under his breath as he went up the steps to Shelby's apartment. There was the professor's name on the list beside the buzzers--apartment 4B. Peter pushed the buzzer.

After a few seconds, Shelby's voice came over the speaker. "Who is it?" Peter wouldn't have known his voice out of context, but now, expecting it, he recognized the older man's rumbly bass.

"Peter Venkman. Is Egon still here?"

There was a startled pause. "No, he's not here, Venkman. Your secretary said he was ill, and I didn't expect him until tomorrow. What makes you think he's here?"

"Because he's gone and the note with your address is gone too," Peter explained, making no attempt to disguise his worry. "Buzz me in, I'm coming up there."

Shelby did, and Peter pushed open the door and glanced around for an elevator.

In the ten years since he'd last seen the physicist, Shelby's hair had gone from a deep brown to grey, a slate color that added an element of dignity and class to the man, making him able to pass for an elder statesman. Well over six feet tall and solidly built, his was a commanding presence that had always intimidated undergraduates and probably still did. The crows' feet at the corners of his eyes had deepened and multiplied, and a collection of new lines made a washboard of his forehead. The man was still as intimidating as hell and his eyes still narrowed in the old way at the sight of Peter, peering at the Ghostbuster over the top of a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses. Sternly Peter repressed his ready temper. His past history with Egon's advisor didn't matter now, not when Egon was in trouble and needed help.

"Venkman," Shelby greeted. At least he didn't sound quite like he'd encountered a rotten fish in his path the way he had always done at Columbia when forced to encounter Peter at faculty meetings and in Egon's office. He girded himself for the effort and spoke hastily, afraid he would fail if he didn't rush the job. "I must say I believe I owe you an apology too. I had always considered you nothing but a con artist. Yet I just watched you on a talk show and I have to say I was impressed. You know your subject and you present it well. A little too much of a showman for my taste, but then my taste is hardly your motivating factor. I've read some of your published works in academic journals and even in Psychology Today. I'd like to acknowledge you as a legitimate scientist."

Peter felt vindicated, but he pushed that aside and said flippantly. "See a ghost, did you, prof?"

"As a matter of fact, I did, but that's not the issue here."

"No. Egon is." Where the hell was he? Peter's stomach tightened with worry. "Janine--our secretary--thinks he found the note she'd left him about your call and came here, even if he's not well enough to be out of bed yet. He would have wanted to see you--heck, he'd have jumped at the chance--and the flu's probably influenced his judgment. Or he might have felt better and figured he could handle it. So he never showed up?"

"Would you like to search the apartment?" Shelby said dryly. But Peter could see in the depths of his eyes regret for the way he'd treated Egon and a legitimate worry that his former student was in trouble.

Peter knew he didn't have to search. He could read people pretty well, and Shelby's apology had been bona fide. He'd wanted to make peace with Egon, and now he was genuinely concerned for him.

Peter shook his head. "No, what worries me is that he might have passed out in a cab on the way here. Only if that happened, why didn't somebody from he hospital call us?"

"People don't just disappear," Shelby began.

"In New York? They disappear all the time," Peter replied grimly, imagining one horrible scenario after another. "Look, doc, it's been real, but I've gotta find Egon." He started for the door.

"Will you let me know he's all right?" Shelby asked.

"Yeah, we'll tell you," Peter agreed.

"Venkman."

Peter halted in the doorway.

"You know I never liked you."

"Yeah, tell me a new one, Doc." Peter was impatient to be gone.

"Well, I must say that in your worry for Egon, I've seen a whole new side of you. You've grown into a man I can respect. The best of luck to you. Find him." He offered his hand to Peter.

Venkman took it without the hesitation he would once have felt. "I will," he promised as if he were swearing an oath on it in a court of law. "I will."

"Where are you, Egon?" Peter muttered as he walked slowly toward Ecto, glancing up and down the street in hopes of spotting a clue to Egon's disappearance. "You didn't make it this far. Where did you go?"

"Talking to yourself, mister?"

He glanced down and found two boys around ten or eleven years old sitting on the curb beside a fire hydrant, one black one white. They were dressed near-identically in cut off blue jeans, Nikes, and shirts with Michael Jordan's picture on them, although one shirt was blue and one green and the Bulls' star was posed differently on each. It was the blond boy who had spoken.

"He's a Ghostbuster, Thomas," the black boy said. "Just like the other one. You here for the haunted house too, Peter?"

For once, Peter didn't thrill to the proof that his name was a household word. "You saw another Ghostbuster?" he demanded eagerly.

"Yeah, the one with the funny blond hair, Egon," said Thomas. "We thought he was checking out the haunted house. He went right in." He gestured expansively in the direction of the abandoned structure.

"What's in there?" Peter asked, turning to study the moldering mansion through narrowed eyes. Had Egon been distracted by the old place, or had the meter he took with him everywhere given him unexpected readings that were strong enough to distract him from the much-anticipated reunion? He might investigate under those conditions, even without a thrower. And if he had passed out in a deserted house it would explain why no one had called headquarters about him.

"Don't know," said the black boy with a shrug a Frenchman would have envied, sublime unconcern upon his face. "Never been in. It's too weird in there for us."

He and the blond kid, Thomas, bounced to their feet and started down the block. "It's haunted," the blond called over his shoulder. "If you come and bust it, we want to know."

"Egon, what are you doing checking out rattletrap houses when you're supposed to be in bed?" Peter demanded under his breath. "Nobody's paying you for this." Without a second's hesitation, he went around to the back of Ecto, removed a proton pack, and slid his arms through the straps, setting it on his back and fastening the buckle across his stomach. It felt funny over the suit he'd worn on the talk show, but he didn't hesitate. Egon may have entered the house and passed out, but he might have encountered ghosts, and all four packs had hung untouched in their rack before Peter took his own. Egon had not gone armed to his meeting with Professor Shelby. Which would leave him helpless and weak against any paranormal threat he might find lurking within.

On the front steps Peter discovered the first clue to Egon's mysterious disappearance. A slip of paper lay there innocently enough, but Peter picked it up, recognizing Janine's writing, and skimmed it hastily. "Six seventy-two!" he blurted. Janine must have accidentally transposed the numbers when she jotted down the address. Egon had come here, expecting Shelby, when anybody who wasn't feverish would have been able to tell in an instant that the place was deserted and ought to be condemned. Last year.

Peter tried the doorknob, and the door swung open with a spooky creaking sound, proof it wasn't lived in. Nobody would put up with a chalk-on-the-blackboard sound like that on a daily basis. He pushed it all the way open and stepped inside, instinctively grabbing his thrower and powering up his proton pack to meet a paranormal threat. "EGON!"

No answer. Peter advanced into the shadowy hall, eyeing the elaborate staircase, the huge, gloomy paintings on the walls. Once this place had screamed money. Now it only whispered of faded glory as it stood decaying on the Upper West Side, luring in Ghostbusters.

Peter found Egon's wallet right away, lying in the middle of the entryway. He scooped it up uneasily, opening it to be sure it was really Egon's. Money and credit cards were intact, so it hadn't been a robbery. But where the heck was Egon? "Spengs! You in here?!"

A shape on the landing caught his attention and he hurried up to pounce on Egon's P.K.E. meter. "Egon, where are you?" he said sotto voce, a knot of alarm tightening behind his belt buckle. Egon wouldn't part with his meter if he had any choice in the matter. Standing there holding his breath, the brown-haired man listened for the faintest sound, then he turned on the meter. At once the antennae quivered with reaction, but the readings were really weird, like none he'd seen before. Peter's brow puckered as he pondered them. Egon might know what he was seeing but all Peter noticed was the persistent residuals and the negative valence. Casting his mind back he remembered the Bogeyman had possessed a negative valence, which meant whatever lingered here wasn't a normal ghost but a physical entity. Vampires and werewolves had negative valences, too, didn't they? All at once Peter felt like he had a huge bulls-eye painted on the middle of his back, or maybe even on his neck. He hated this.

"Another one."

"Maybe he's the one."

The voices barely fluttered the air, so faint he couldn't tell if they were real or the imagination of a worried Ghostbuster. Peter jerked and stared around wildly, not quite sure what he'd heard--or if he'd actually heard anything at all.

"This one isn't dying."

"Dying?" Peter bellowed and ran down the second-floor hall in the direction of the sounds. "Egon," he screamed, horrified at the eerie words. He could see marks in the dust were something--or someone--had been dragged along here. Were those heel marks? The trail led to a narrower flight of stairs and Peter pushed on upward, thrower gripped tightly in nerveless fingers. Up yet another flight to the top floor, Peter continued to follow the disturbances in the dust, grimly determined.

As he reached the top of the last flight of stairs, he heard a low moan.

Peter froze, trying to determine where the sound had come from. To his left, he decided, following it, following his own instincts as if he were connected to his best friend by invisible cords that pulled him closer and closer. They led him to a shadowy room lit only by a dirty skylight high overhead that was clogged with leaves and soot and general city dirt but admitted enough light to reveal a cot shoved against one wall with a figure sprawled restlessly upon it. A chain dangled down from the wall overhead, ending in a shackle that enclosed the unconscious man's wrist and held his arm aloft. As Peter watched, the man moaned again and tried to turn, his motion arrested by the pull of the shackle. But it brought the unconscious face into the light as a beam of dying sunshine reflected off something and slanted through a clear spot in the filthy glass overhead, falling upon him like a spotlight. His eyes were shut and his face was flushed and perspiring, his mouth slightly open. Breathing roughly, a rattle in his chest, the downed man was alive but far from healthy and at the sight of him, the knot in Peter's stomach spasmed tightly.

"Egon!"

His desperate shout didn't rouse his unconscious friend. With a cry of rage, Peter fired at the chain that bound the physicist, severing it, then he dropped his thrower when Egon's arm flopped down loosely, the trailing remnant of the chain hitting him across the cheekbone.

"God, Egon, I'm sorry," Peter cried, plunging across the room to drop beside Egon on the edge of the cot and gather his sick friend up into his arms. Egon's glasses, already knocked crooked by the chain, slid off and dropped to the floor.

"Omigod, Egon, look at you, you're really sick," Peter said, pressing a hand against Spengler's forehead. He was hot and sweating, his body quivering with chill at the same time. He seemed subliminally aware of Peter's presence because his head turned fractionally in the direction of Venkman's voice.

Supporting Egon against his shoulder, Peter bent and retrieved the glasses, settling them carefully on his friend's nose. "Egon, we're gonna blow this popstand," he declared, bowing his forehead against his friend's tangled, matted hair for an instant in a combination of worry and relief. "You're gonna be just fine." He slid his arms under Egon's shoulders and knees and braced his back and legs, preparing to stand with him, although Egon was heavier than he was. That didn't matter. Rescuing Egon from this crazy deathtrap did.

Egon moaned.

"Easy, easy, it's okay," Peter soothed. "It's Peter. I'm here. It's okay, I'm here. I'll get you out of here." He staggered to his feet, his friend's body a dead weight in his arms.

"He is the one. He must be the one."

"Yes, look at him. He is the one."

"Who's there?" Peter demanded hotly, ready to fry the bastard who had chained Egon to the wall, even if it proved to be a gang of drug dealers armed to the teeth or a horde of crazed street people who had taken up residence in the deserted house--or even a collection of ghosts hot for the blood of a Ghostbuster.

No one answered, but he felt presences around him, invisible beings who watched his every movement. Remembering the P.K.E. meter's reaction, he frowned, wondering if ghosts had chained Egon to the wall. That was crazy, but what else could it be? He cast a worried frown over his shoulder, but he still could see nothing.

"We're going, Egon," he said, his voice hard with determination. "Don't you dare die on me. You pull something like that, I'll kill you."

When his voice caught and quivered on the last few words, he told himself it was merely the strain of carrying Egon that did it, but he knew inside, all the way down to his toes how scared he was. Egon was seriously ill. He might die, and Peter couldn't live with that. While he'd been peacocking at the TV studio Egon had lain here in chains, growing worse and worse, and now Peter had a chance to save him. No one could come between Peter and saving Egon. No one. He tightened his grip, gazing down at the lax face that lay against his shoulder, and forced one foot ahead of the other as he crossed the vast room.

With a swirl of a huge, black cape, a towering figure abruptly blocked the doorway, filling it with his vast bulk. "Put him down." The voice was ten times as deep as Shelby's had been, with a faint rumble to it like an echo. It sounded the way a savage beast would sound if one tried to talk, and the image that ran through Peter's head at such a thought chilled him. But he held his ground, unwilling to yield. He had to save Egon. Somehow. In spite of the creature in the door.

"No," said Peter fiercely. "He's my friend and he's sick. I'm taking him out of here if I have to go through ten of you to do it. I won't let him die."

"P-peter?" quivered a faint voice against his shoulder.

Peter jerked then turned his attention to the man he held. Egon's eyes were open and he was blinking up at Peter in a daze. "Get...out of...here," he wheezed, too weak to hold his head up but fueled by the same determination that drove Peter. "Save your...self." His hand fumbled weakly for Peter's arm.

"No way, buddy. We're going, and we're going together." He knelt and lay Egon down at his feet long enough to pull his thrower, aiming it at the shadowy figure in the doorway.

Invisible shapes came out thin air around him and grabbed at him, disarming him in an instant. Something sharp severed the thrower's power cable, unseen fingers clutched the weapon and drew it from Peter's grabbing hand. "Give it back, you son of a bitch," Peter growled, falling silent when the shadow creatures disappeared as if they had never been there, taking his thrower with them. Realizing the guy in the doorway had allies, Peter abandoned the thrower as a bad job and instead gathered Egon up in his arms again, kneeling on the floor and lifting his eyes to the huge creature, or ghost, or whatever it was. "He's sick. I have to take him to a hospital," he pleaded. "He'll die."

"He is my prisoner," the man snarled. "He invaded my territory."

"In case you haven't noticed, Jack, we both did," Peter reminded him, then realized that might not have been the most felicitous thing he could have said. "Let him go," he pleaded. "He can't do anything to hurt you. Don't be a murderer." He pulled Egon tight against his shoulder, realizing Egon's breathing eased when he was not lying flat. "Come on, I think he might have pneumonia. He has to go to the hospital. Let him go and I'll do anything you say. Just give him a chance to live." He meant it with every fiber of his being. He wouldn't hesitate to trade his life for Egon's. It wasn't even something he had to think about.

"You would stay...in his place?" the voice asked skeptically, surprise coloring the savage tones. The shadowy figure stared at Peter in astonishment from within the depths of his concealing hood.

Peter nodded. "He'll die. If that's your deal, I have to."

"Why? No one makes you sacrifice yourself," the stranger persisted, sounding both curious and intrigued. "You are free. Go now and I will not try to stop you."

"Only if I take him with me," Peter said. "He's my friend. He's been my friend for over fifteen years. He was the one who taught me I could even have friends. Don't you get it? What's the point if he dies? I have to save him. I'll stay in his place if that's the only way it works."

"It is. I will keep a prisoner. If not he, it must be you. Do you agree?"

Peter hesitated, then he nodded quickly. "Yeah."

"And you give your word of honor you won't try to escape?"

Peter hesitated. "Why should I do that? It's a prisoner's duty to escape. Didn't you ever see The Great Escape?"

"Why should you do that? Because I will not free him otherwise. Give your word that you will stay in his place and not try to escape and I will free your friend. Fail to give it, and both of you will stay and you will have the privilege of watching him die." Something winced in the voice but it steadied before Peter could do anything but register surprise at the unexpected reaction.

There was a lot more going on here than Peter could make out. "But if I promise, then you'll take him to a hospital?" he persisted, trying to slant the deal to give Egon the best shot he could. "And you won't try to bring him back again when he's better?" He had to cover all the bases. If this was a paranormal deal, everything had to be spelled out. Leave any loopholes and Egon would be no better off than he had been before.

"My...allies will--leave him at the emergency room door. You understand why they cannot go inside," he said, a faint edge of humor momentarily coloring the dark tones. "You have my word of honor this will be done, should you take his place and promise to remain here as long as I wish it. And I will never seek out your friend again. He will be safe from me for all time."

Peter hesitated. It was a terrible request the man asked of him. Egon had been chained in the darkness. Peter imagined the feel of the shackle around his own wrist, imagined a life of imprisonment, denied the companionship of his friends, and it scared the hell out of him. This guy scared him, too. There was something wrong about him, something different. He didn't feel like a drug dealer or criminal. They didn't mess with bargains like this, they'd just blow away anyone who interfered with their deals. And after all, the P.K.E. meter had reacted. The cloaked dude was probably a nasty ghost or entity. Apparently hated Ghostbusters and would take tremendous pleasure in pulling out Peter's toenails one at a time, and torturing him slowly to death. Maybe he was even a demon, striking a bargain with Peter that would end in him losing his very soul.

But Egon's breath rasped hoarsely in his ear and his friend's body radiated heat even through the torn and dusty suit he was wearing. Egon would die, and Peter knew he couldn't live with himself if he let that happen, not if he had the power to change it. "Okay, yeah," he said. "I promise. But if you don't keep your word, I'll make you regret the day you were even born."

"You could not do a worse job of that than has already been done to me," the stranger growled, his head bowed. The shadows around them vibrated strangely.

"If Egon dies..." Peter began, casting an uneasy glance around the room.

"I will give him over to medical science. If they fail, it will not be my doing. You have my oath on that. A blood oath if you will believe it. He pushed back one of the sleeves of his robe, and Peter froze at the sight of a furry hand with talons instead of fingernails, the hand of a beast, even if it had four fingers and an opposable thumb. As Peter watched, he ran his claw across the palm of his other hand until blood sprang up in a beaded line. The palms were much less hairy than the backs, the fur thinner there. Then he knelt, grasped Peter's hand, and did the same to his hand. The slight cut stung, but Peter only stared at it in disbelief as the stranger pressed his bloody palm against Peter's. "Now we have shared blood. I cannot lie to you. I may not always answer you but any words I speak will be true."

"I sure as hell hope you don't have AIDS, buddy," Peter muttered instinctively, yanking his hand away and pulling out a Kleenex from his pocket to dab ineffectually at the blood before he once again encircled Egon with his arms.

The beast-man threw back his head and laughed, the motion causing the hood to fall away from his face. Peter recoiled in shock at the sight of the fanged muzzle, the thick brown hair that spouted all over the savage face, the round animal eyes. Was the guy a werewolf after all? Involuntarily Peter shifted to place himself between Egon and the creature. "What the hell are you?" he burst out.

"I cannot tell you that." The figure drew slightly back in acknowledgment of Peter's disgust and shock. He ducked his head to shield his animal face from Peter's sight to indicate he had expected revulsion but could still be hurt by it, pulling the hood into place to conceal the beastly features. Mentally Peter stored that information for later. He might have to stay here but he didn't mean to make it pleasant or easy for his jailer. Any weapon against him was worth it for what he'd done to Egon.

"No," the beast spoke. "You need not fear AIDS. It has been...far too long since--opportunity has come my way. And I do not use drugs. You and your...friend are the first humans I have spoken to in nearly ten years." His voice might be deep and animal-like, but he was fluent in English and his accent was American, not to mention rather high class. Peter stored that away too. He meant to solve this problem; it might be the only way he could go home. Although when Egon awakened in the hospital, he would remember and tell Ray and Winston and they would come for him. Peter hadn't promised not to be rescued, after all.

Abruptly the creature stood again, sweeping aside the cloak to reveal that, beneath it, he wore faded blue jeans that had been altered to fit the contour of a leg that angled backward like a dog's hind leg, and an ordinary knit shirt that stretched tight across his massive chest. He clapped his hands together and two shapes emerged from thin air, vaguely gargoyle-like with huge leathery wings folded against their shoulders. They stood clad, incongruously as the creature was, in blue jeans, but they wore no shirts for the wings would have gotten in the way. The skin of their chests was blue and tough. Mentally Peter granted himself the pleasure of imagining a proton stream impacting against their flesh, taking them down.

"Do you have a car?" the beast demanded.

Peter opened his mouth to lie and realized the blood-sharing prohibited it. "Yeah, Ecto," he said, though he fought to close his mouth before he gave away the presence of the venerable hearse and the weapons within. His hatred for the entity was growing by leaps and bounds.

"At full dark, you will take Spengler and put him in the Ecto," the beast instructed his minions. "Drive him to the nearest hospital and park the vehicle at the emergency room entrance where it will be quickly found. Return here immediately and do not permit yourselves to be seen." He stretched out an expectant paw to Peter. "The keys?"

Peter hesitated, then he produced them. He couldn't do anything at this stage to delay Egon's freedom.

The gargoyle-things bowed their heads in agreement and bent down, one of them accepting Ecto's keys, the other reaching for Egon.

Instinctively, Peter tightened his grip. "How do I know you'll keep your promise?" he demanded, glaring at the fanged face, his cheek pressed tight against Egon's hair.

"You know," the voice returned, gesturing at Peter's palm. "You know already." And Peter realized he did. The oath was binding in two directions. The beast-man had not lied to him. He could feel the truth of it all the way down to the soles of his feet. Could the entity feel Peter's hatred with the same certainty? Peter hoped so. He blasted it at the beast with all the strength of his mind and he thought the beast flinched. Good.

The last sunbeam faded, leaving the room in deep shadow. Peter straightened slowly, offering Egon to the lead gargoyle, settling him as comfortably as possible in the creature's arms. "Egon, it's okay, they're gonna take you to the hospital," he reassured his friend. "You'll be fine. You better be fine. I'll know if you're not." He stretched out his hand and pushed the tangled hair off the flushed face. Egon's eyes were open and he was staring at Peter with the vague realization that comes sometimes in the middle of delirium.

"Peter," he groaned desperately, his voice as thin as the wind and utterly strengthless. If Peter hadn't been straining to hear him, he would have missed most of it. "Don't. Please, don't. I think I am...dying. Don't...give your life...for me now."

"Egon, I hafta," Peter insisted. "I can't let you die, don't you see? I hafta. It's okay. You'll be all right. They'll fix you up at the hospital, give you antibiotics, oxygen, all that stuff. You'll get well. That's all that matters."

"He is the one," voices whispered in the air around them sounding like a Greek chorus. "He must be the one." Egon started wildly.

"I hear voices, Peter," he faltered as if an awakened, atavistic part of his mind expected angels to carry him away.

"Shh, I know, Spengs. It's okay, they're real. You're not delirious." He cast a quick glance at the skylight. Good, the light was fading fast; they'd take Egon to the doctor soon. "Egon," he said, steadying his voice with an effort. "Tell Ray and Winston I did it for you. Tell them I love them. And tell them I'll come home--if I can."

"You can not," the creature rumbled.

"No, Peter, don't do this, not for me," Egon pleaded, his voice fragile and shaking with the effort to speak. "Don't condemn yourself... I can't ask that of you."

"You're not asking me, I'm doing it because I have to. I can't let you die," Peter pleaded for understanding. "God, Egon, I couldn't live with that. You know I couldn't." He trailed his fingers down Egon's cheek. "I love all you guys," he whispered, knowing he might never have a chance to admit it again. "This is the way it has to be."

"No, Peter. Please." But the gargoyle bunched his shoulders and spread his wings. The other one flew ahead of him and opened the skylight while hovering in midair.

"Goodbye, Egon," Peter said, trying with all his heart to believe this was just for a day or two. Egon would recover in the hospital, and the beast would let him go. "See you on the other si--" No, he couldn't say that. Not when Egon might be dying. "I'll see you again someday," he promised. "Nobody keeps Pete Venkman down."

"Peter, no," Spengler moaned as the creature soared up through the skylight. Resisting the vast strength in the hand that gripped his arm, Peter stood watching until Egon had vanished from sight. Then he slumped, sitting back on his heels, his head bent. He had never felt so alone and miserable in his entire life. Yet he had no regrets. He had done what he'd had to do. He had saved Egon.

"Don't die, Spengs. God, Egon, be okay," he groaned.

"Come," said the beast-man roughly, dragging Peter to his feet with no more effort than Ray would have used to lift his Mr. Stay Puft doll. "I will show you where you are to sleep."

"Not in here with the chains?" Peter asked, surprised. He'd been positive he'd be bolted to the wall the minute Egon was gone.

"You may stay here if you wish it," the beast said with an edge of wry humor in his rumbly voice.

Peter leveled a steely eye at the cot and at the chain in the wall. "Well, no," he said frankly. "I don't." He wasn't sure where he was being taken instead; it might be the basement with the water beetles and the cockroaches. But he couldn't bear to stay in this room where he might have seen Egon for the last time.

"I thought not. Come." He strode from the room with a swirl of his cloak, tugging Peter in his wake. The creature's strides were so long Peter had to run to keep up.

"Hey, slow down," he protested. "We're not trying out for the Olympic track and field team." His 'host' ignored his complaint and didn't slow down.

They hurried down a long corridor to the narrow flight of stairs that had led Peter up to the top floor. On the third floor he turned left down a long passageway adorned with eerie statues that wouldn't have appeared out of place in Dracula's castle, shadowy forms that loomed out of the twilight, making him jump until he realized they were marble and plaster, instead of the near-invisible creatures that served the beast.

"You may travel about this wing of the house," the beast told him. "And in the central portion. But never go into the west wing. That is my private domain. If you go there, you will be very sorry."

Peter ignored the instruction, his mind on other things. "You're not a werewolf, are you, Jack?" Peter asked, remembering the mingling of blood.

"No." The answer was flat, uninformative. But it was true. Peter could tell that from the bloodlink.

"Why do you want a prisoner?" he persisted, determined to have answers. "Why did you lock him up and not me?"

"Why do you ask so many questions?"

"Because I don't want to be at a disadvantage." God, better not encourage him to ask questions. That was the last thing Peter had wanted to admit.

"We dine at eight-thirty," the stranger said, stopping in front of a door and opening it. "I will come for you then. Change your clothes. You are a little dusty. A nice suit. Armani."

"I'm not eating with you," Peter snapped, pretending to ignore the creature's fashion knowledge. Surely he wouldn't be expected to make polite conversation over dinner with the beast that had chained up a sick Egon and now held Peter captive.

"Then you may starve," snarled the beast. He pushed Peter into the room so hard he staggered and fell across a huge four-poster bed much bigger than his own at headquarters. As the memory of his own bed, his own home, his own friends, overwhelmed him, he heard the sound of a key turning in the lock and realized he was shut in.

For a moment, he lay sprawled across the bed, stunned and shaken, unable to think past the fact that he had surrendered his freedom voluntarily. He didn't regret it, not if it made Egon safe, but he was scared, and more alone than he'd ever felt in his entire life, even more than those early Christmases when his father hadn't come home, or the first semester at Columbia when he'd been friendless, trying to bullshit people into thinking he was a class act. That desperate solitude peopled with strangers had ended when he'd met Egon Spengler and come to know him, and Peter had found security and strength in the friendship the young physics student from Ohio had offered him. As the years passed, that friendship had deepened so strongly that Peter had realized many times how incredibly lucky he had been. He hadn't thought to find a new family in college, but he had, first Egon and then Ray. And later, Winston.

Now he had given them up, because he'd had to, because Egon needed medical treatment. He couldn't let Egon die, not even if it meant he'd never see him again. At least Egon would live. And maybe Peter could fast-talk his way out of this place once he knew what was going on, once he figured out the rules of this strange, new game. Besides, those kids had seen him come in here. Even if Egon were unconscious for a day or two, Janine would tell everybody where he'd gone and the police would come. The kids would explain he'd gone into the house, and maybe Janine would realize she'd transposed those numbers. He'd be found. He'd be rescued.

Maybe. The meter had gone off. There was something odd here, beyond the man-beast and the gargoyles. Peter was used to ghosts and strange creatures. But he had been around the paranormal enough to know that this was different. Those kids had never come in here--yet how could kids resist? The door hadn't even been locked, not even after Egon had been captured and the creature might reasonably be on his guard. Maybe there were other prisoners here. Maybe the kids wouldn't dare to mention where he'd come. Maybe the old house could protect itself.

Shivering, Peter removed his useless proton pack; thank goodness it hadn't gone into overload when the particle thrower was cut away. He stacked it in a corner out of the way and went over to the window.

The view from his prison looked down on the courtyard. He could see the street beyond, see that Ecto was gone--they had moved it like they had promised. He hoped they had moved it to a hospital, but he knew the beast meant that. He could feel the truth of that. Why, though? Why make such a bargain? What purpose would it serve?

The street beyond appeared oddly distant and distorted. Was there a curse on the house, a spell that held it in protection? A revulsion that kept the children out? Egon had come in because he'd believed Shelby was here, and because he was probably already confused enough not to realize no one--at least no one normal--could possibly live here. Peter had come desperately seeking Egon. But would anyone else come? Professor Shelby would tell people Egon had not arrived and that Peter had sought him and gone away when he hadn't found him. Ecto wasn't here. But Ecto and Egon were together, and Peter had started out in the converted hearse. Janine would have to know somehow, somewhere, their paths had crossed. She'd figure it out. She was one smart lady.

Peter left the window reluctantly. He could not try to escape. Egon was the bond for his word, Egon's safety and chance at recovery.

With a miserable sigh, Peter flung himself down on the bed and abandoned himself to his misery.

The sudden jangling of the telephone roused Janine from her dark contemplation. She'd been wondering if she should call Winston and Ray up in Boston and ask them to come back. First Egon had disappeared and now Peter. He had plenty of time to phone her, if not from Shelby's phoneless home then from the mobile phone in Ecto. What was going on? Where were they disappearing to? Was Shelby's call a hoax? Had it been a trap? Janine was furious and terrified at the same time. There had been plenty of time for Peter to check out Shelby and call her. It was dark out now. She had to do something. But what?

Jumping at the sound of the phone, Janine snatched up the receiver. "Ghostbuster Central. Peter, is that you?"

"This is the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center," said a brisk female voice. "Dr. Egon Spengler has just been admitted here as a patient and we're trying to find a relative."

"Peter didn't bring him?" Janine asked in astonishment, her heart lurching. Egon in the hospital? He must have grown worse again. But where had he been for so long. Just admitted? What the hell was going on?

"No. He was found in your Ghostbusting vehicle at the door to the emergency room. He was alone in the car."

"I'm Janine Melnitz," Janine said. "Tell me how he is."

"Are you a relative?" the voice asked sternly, clearly unwilling to dispense information to anyone without a legitimate claim.

Janine took a deep breath and said flatly, "I'm his girlfriend. And I'm the only one here. His mother's his only relative and she's in California right now. I don't know why Peter isn't there with him. He and the other guys all have power of attorney to sign for medical care if need be, and so do I. So how is he?"

"The doctor will tell you that when you arrive."

"I'll be there right away," Janine vowed. She hung up and instantly picked up the phone again, calling the hotel in Boston where Ray and Winston were staying. As luck would have it, Winston was in the room when the call came through.

"Oh, Winston," Janine wailed, relieved beyond measure at the sound of a familiar voice. "You and Ray have to come home right away. Everything's wrong."

"Egon?" Winston asked, alarm springing to life in his voice.

"He's in the hospital. They won't tell me how bad it is until I get there but he's admitted. He sneaked out this afternoon to go see an old professor and didn't come back. I sent Peter after him in Ecto as soon as he returned from his interview, and now Egon's turned up at the hospital in Ecto--they found him in it alone outside the ER. And Peter's missing. He ran into Egon somewhere, because otherwise Egon wouldn't have the car. I don't know where he is. And you know he wouldn't leave a sick Egon alone in the car like that."

"You hang in there, lady," Winston urged, reassurance in his tones. "Ray and I will come back there as fast as we can. You better call the police and tell them Peter's missing. And have them check out this old prof while they're at it. Sounds like it was a scam."

"I know. If Egon was sick enough for the hospital to admit him, Peter would be right there. Unless he managed to get Egon out of trouble--and himself in."

"Call the police," Winston repeated. "We'll catch you at the hospital. Which one is it?"

"I'll call them as soon as I talk to Egon." She gave him the hospital name and hung up, grabbing her car keys out of her purse then shoving them in again. She'd probably have to bring Ecto home. She'd better take a cab. Turning on the answering machine, she looked around for Slimer, but the little ghost hadn't been around for awhile. At a time like this, even the spud might have been a comfort, although she couldn't have taken him to the hospital.

She hurried out to flag down a cab.

Talking to Egon proved easier said than done. When Janine finally completed what felt like enough paperwork to complete a novel as thick as War and Peace and was escorted to Egon's room by a nurse, the physicist was clearly unconscious. He was hooked up to oxygen and an IV dripped medication into the back of his hand. Pale and still, he appeared far worse than he had when she had last watched him sleeping. The difference between an ill-but-asleep Egon and the man who lay before her now was starkly vivid. She stopped as if she'd been struck and cried, "Oh, Egon!" before rushing to his side and snatching up his free hand in both of her own. His fingers didn't move in hers.

"It's a bad strain of the influenza virus," a male voice said behind her, and the doctor joined her at Egon's bedside, a guy in his thirties with a long face and big brown eyes rather like Ray's. "Plus he was starting to develop pneumonia--it's been one of the complications from the time this virus made its appearance. We have him on major antibiotics and oxygen, and I think he'll sleep the night through and possibly most of tomorrow. We got him in time, though, and if he follows medical advice and if there are no complications, he should make a complete recovery. I'm Dr. Greavy, incidentally."

Janine's knees nearly buckled, and a moment later she was surprised to find herself sitting in the visitor's chair with no clear memory of how she had ended up there. "You care about him very much," the doctor said quietly.

"I love him," she admitted. But that didn't help right now. "Doctor, was he conscious when he came in? Did he mention Peter?"

"He was delirious, Miss Melnitz. He was rambling, talking of monsters, and begging Peter not to do it. I don't know what it was Peter was doing because he wasn't here to explain. He didn't bring Egon into the hospital. An orderly found him right outside the ER door, semi-conscious in your vehicle. What's worse, and far more alarming, is that there was a shackle around his right wrist. We've removed it, but I hate to think what could have happened to him." His mouth traced a disapproving line. "I don't know what Peter did, but I don't think much of him right now."

Janine stiffened and came up out of the chair like a rocket. "He went to rescue Egon," she insisted hotly, glaring at the man. She didn't believe for a minute Peter would have abandoned Egon outside the hospital; there had to be another explanation. Nobody was allowed to pick on Peter but her anyway. She must have presented a threatening appearance because the man retreated an involuntary half step. "He sure wouldn't have chained him up. I bet he broke him out of wherever he was. Check the chain and see if the thrower melted it."

"Something did," Greavy replied, running a weary hand through his sparse thatch. "I saw it and couldn't help wondering what had done that. Perhaps you're right, but if so, why wasn't Peter with him?"

"If he's not here, he's missing, and maybe Egon's 'monsters' were ghosts, didya ever think of that? If somebody chained up Egon, they might have Peter chained up right now instead. I'm gonna call the police. Something's funny here, and I want an answer." She went over to Egon again and grasped his hand. "Egon, listen to me. You have to tell me where Peter is. And what happened to you. And who chained you. Did they catch Peter while he was rescuing you? We'll find him, I promise. We'll stop them, Egon, whoever they were."

No response. He was too deeply under for that. "I'm calling the police," she repeated to Geary. "Something's haywire. You don't know Peter, but he loves Egon like a brother. He wouldn't hurt him for anything. If Egon's here and he's not, it's because he can't be. They must have grabbed Peter while he was helping Egon escape. He found Egon and he was in trouble--and now Peter is."

Dr. Greavy held up his hands defensively. "Easy, I believe you. And I'm told Egon has been calling for him, worrying about him. That's not an easy rest." He gestured at Egon, and Janine realized with horror he was right. Egon shifted uneasily against the pillow as if he were struggling to wake up--and failing. His right hand was on the other side of the bed, with the IV in it, but Janine could see a faint red mark around his wrist, evidence of the chain that had held him. She was scared to death that whoever had meant Egon so ill had Peter now. Just wait till she got her hands on whoever it was. They'd know the wrath of Melnitz. Nobody messed with either of them but her.

Janine bent and kissed the sleeping man's cheek. "Egon, I'll find Peter," she promised. "It'll be all right. You just get well. You do what the doctor says or I'll fire you! I mean it."

She snatched up the telephone on the bedside table beside Egon and punched in 911.

"But Egon wasn't here," Dr. Shelby insisted, spreading his hands in dismay. "Dr. Venkman came looking for him, but he hadn't been here. I offered to let him search the place and you can do the same if you'd like. I'm worried now. You don't need a warrant." He stood aside to let them enter, rubbing is slate-grey hair in perplexed concern.

"We'd like," Janine concurred, pushing past the two uniformed police officers who had accompanied her to Shelby's apartment. "Egon's in the hospital and he got there in Ecto-1--but Peter drove Ecto here to search for him. So somewhere along the way they ran into each other. And somebody had a chain on Egon's wrist. I want to know where it happened, and this is where both of them were coming. I only have your word you wanted to apologize to Egon. Maybe you wanted to hurt him!"

Shelby's expression was so shocked she was almost inclined to believe him, but then that's what he'd say if he were guilty, after all. Janine wasn't prepared to let him off the hook. "I'd never do that," he proclaimed self-righteously.

"The lady has a point," said the older officer, Macklin. He was a twenty-year veteran with hair as grey as Shelby's, but with a smooth, boyish face that would probably seem far younger than his years until the day he died. "This is all pretty suspicious and you're the one point of contact with both men. There's only your claim that you didn't see Spengler, after all."

"But where's the sense in it?" Shelby asked, opening a door to reveal a bedroom stacked with unpacked and partly unpacked boxes, most of them spilling out either clothes or books. They were too small to hold a man. "I didn't hurt Egon. You say he has the flu and pneumonia, nothing I could have done to him. He's in the hospital. Why in the name of heaven would I keep him here? I don't even own a pair of handcuffs. Or why would I let him go in Ecto and keep Venkman here? It's simply not logical."

"He's right about that," the younger cop, Kowalski, agreed. "And he's letting us check the place without a warrant, Miss Melnitz. I don't think he's got anything to hide."

"But then where's Peter and why did Egon show up in the hospital in Ecto?" Janine challenged him. Shelby's assumption that Egon had been chained by handcuffs might exonerate him. She'd seen the cuff and it was definitely from a shackle rather than standard-issue cuffs. But he might just be clever, trying to throw them off, though she couldn't imagine why he'd done it, not after ten years. The only good thing about the shackle was that it had provided clear-cut proof to the police there had been foul play, and she had been able to file a missing persons' report right away instead of waiting at least twenty-four hours to begin the search.

"The hospital is a good distance from here," Shelby pointed out. He'd learned that much from Janine's gabbled explanation when he'd opened the door. "The Jewish Memorial Hospital is much closer. Maybe Venkman found something that took him down toward Columbia."

"A message spray painted on the side of the building?" Janine asked skeptically, tapping an impatient toe. "Come on, give me a break."

Kowalski and Macklin made a thorough search of the apartment and even trailed down to the basement of the building to check out its storage room. There was no trace of Peter and no evidence that he had ever been there. But Janine knew something was wrong. She had discovered a proton pack was missing from Ecto, and it was the one Peter usually wore. She'd pointed out its absence when the police had come to the hospital. He'd used it to blast the chain that held Egon because it would have been the only tool available to him, and the ruined chain was melted as if it had been hit with a particle stream. That Dr. Venkman might still have the weapon gave Janine the most hope she had for his safety. You'd better be okay, Dr. V, she thought urgently. Because how can I tell Egon I let something happen to you?

"Perhaps a ghost intervened," Shelby offered. "After all, it is what they do for a living."

"Picked him up right off the street and nobody noticed?" Janine cried scornfully.

"We'll ask questions in the neighborhood," Macklin said. "None of these apartment buildings has a doorman, from the look of them. But we'll check."

Janine heaved a sigh as they finished the search of Shelby's apartment without a trace of Peter or any evidence he had ever been there. How could she go to Egon and tell him Peter was missing? It would hurt his recovery, make him sick with worry. Besides, somebody was messing with the Ghostbusters and Egon himself might still be in danger even now.

But questions up and down the street brought her no closer to an answer. No one they encountered had seen anything. If anyone really had, he wasn't admitting it. Janine felt frustration overwhelm her, as the cops dropped her at the hospital. She planned to stay there waiting, guarding Egon until Ray and Winston arrived.

Egon was still unconscious when she reached his doorway, and he didn't stir when she crept in and squeezed his hand. After ten minutes, a nurse came in and gently shooed her out to the waiting room, and she noticed with satisfaction that a uniformed officer had taken up a position outside Egon's door. He wouldn't be much good against the monsters of Egon's delirium, but then maybe they hadn't been monsters created by delirium. Maybe they really had been ghosts, although chains weren't spooks' and specters' usual style.

With a hasty explanation to the policeman Janine raced down to Ecto and grabbed a proton pack and thrower, returning to join the cop in a second chair on the other side of Egon's door. She didn't wear the pack; if she was going to be here for hours, it would be too uncomfortable. But she braced it against the leg of her chair and took out the thrower, laying it across her lap. Should trouble come, she planned to be ready.

Peter watched the police and Janine move up and down the street, stopping at the various apartments, hunting for him. They didn't enter the 'haunted house'. It was almost as if they didn't even see it or didn't consider it worth bothering with. They paused to look then moved on before he could unlock the window to try to open it so he could yell for help. Peter heaved a rueful sigh, feeling even more alone and abandoned than before when Janine climbed into the police car with the two officers and drove away. It had been good to see her. Even though he and the secretary got on each other's nerves and picked on each other like crazy, Peter would have given anything for her to return and find him.

With a second, heavier sigh, he returned to the door. He'd found a sheet of newspaper--last week's Sunday New York Times--on the table beside his bed, and he'd worked it out under the door beneath the keyhole. Not escaping from his prison was different from not escaping from his bedroom, after all. He planned to pop the key out of the lock, knock it onto the paper and draw it beneath the door--people in movies and books managed that all the time. There was a wide enough space for it. With the key, he could control his bedroom. He wanted to explore his prison.

Ten minutes of poking and prodding freed the key and it dropped neatly onto the paper. With aching carefulness, Peter drew the paper toward him, mindful not to move too fast and lose it. He held his breath as it slid neatly under the door, then snatched up the key in triumph. It worked! It had actually worked! "Damn, you're good, Venkman," he praised himself, in need of a morale booster. "The quickness of the hand deceives the eye."

Ten seconds later he let himself out into the dark hall.

The corridor stretched, dim and dusty, off toward the stairs, and statues loomed like living creatures waiting to pounce at intervals along the way, some in niches in the walls, some on marble pedestals. Peter imagined the glow of electricity or even candles in the windows would have made someone curious enough to investigate the house. Now Peter wished for even a candle or a cigarette lighter. He still had the contents of his pockets, but he didn't carry much in his suit pocket. He had his wallet and a handful of change, but he didn't even have the car keys because he'd given them to the gargoyle. No Swiss Army knife, no handy tools, just the fingernail clipper he'd used to work the key loose, and what good was that? Stab the creature with its nail file and he'd probably laugh, right before he clawed Peter to shreds. All he had was a proton pack with no thrower and a ghost trap--well, that might be handy. Quickly he darted back and snatched it off his pack. If Beastie Boy were a ghost, Peter might surprise him with it.

And if the chorus of voices were ghosts, well, they'd at least shut up about him being 'the one'.

The one, what? He paused at the top of the narrow stairs to ponder that. What was he, what did they think he was? "Who am I?" he said aloud. "The one what?"

No one answered him.

"Oh, great, now you're playing clam. You were all gung ho before. Let me tell you, whoever you are, it's not nice to mess with Dr. Venkman."

Silence.

"Well, I didn't want to talk to you either," Peter called.

In spite of his refusal to dine with his jailer, Peter was hungry, so when he reached the ground floor he prowled through dark corridors trying to discover the kitchen. When he finally found it, it was brighter than most of the rooms and corridors he'd passed through. A streetlight just outside illuminated a huge refrigerator, big enough to store supplies for a regiment. When he opened the door, he was surprised to find it worked; the light sprang on and he could feel its coolness drift out to him. This house had electricity.

With great daring, Peter glanced around, spotted the light switch, and flipped it on. The kitchen was completely clean, free of dust, just as his bedroom had been. And the refrigerator held milk with a sale date three days off, packages of ground beef, butter, cheese, eggs, leftovers in Tupperware dishes, everything a normal refrigerator would hold. Triumphant, Peter dug in cupboards for pots and pans and in no time at all, he'd whipped himself up an omelet with chunks of ham and green pepper and onions because it was easy and quick, and he didn't know how long he'd have before he was discovered. Pouring himself a large glass of milk to accompany his meal, and sticking a couple of slices of whole wheat bread in the toaster, he sat down to enjoy his makeshift dinner.

"So. You will not eat with me but you will eat my food."

Peter jumped. He hadn't heard the beast coming. "If you want a dead prisoner, fine, I'll put it back, but don't blame me when I keel over from starvation. I just didn't want to have to look at you while I ate. It'd spoil my appetite."

The beast had shed his cloak as if it no longer mattered if Peter saw him clearly. He stood frowning down at Peter--damn it, he was tall--then he turned and crossed to the window over the sink. "I shall not watch you."

Fair enough, if surprising. Peter applied himself to his meal. "What's in this for you anyway?" he queried around a mouthful of eggs. "You're not a ghost. You said you weren't a werewolf. But you've gotta be something weird because the meter went off."

"And with no complaint from the neighborhood, you thought to 'bust' me for free? Is that it, Dr. Venkman?"

"I didn't come here to bust you, I came in search of Egon. Our secretary made a mistake on the address. He was looking up his old professor who just moved in down the street and he came to the wrong house. Guess they don't teach hospitality in monster school."

"Hospitality when both of you entered without an invitation? Perhaps they don't teach manners in Ghostbusting school either."

"You've got me there," Peter said. He didn't want to smile. He didn't want anything the creature said to be amusing. He preferred to keep his hatred for his captor pure and undiluted, and that was easy. He just had to remember the sight of Egon chained to the bed. All desire to smile vanished, leaving him cold and hard inside, and he glowered at the broad back.

"No. I have you here." The beast gestured comprehensively, including the whole house.

"Don't suppose you want to tell me why you want me, Jack?"

"No." A beat. "And I am not Jack."

"So what do I call you then? Monster-face? The beast that time forgot? And who's your tailor anyway? You can't buy jeans like that off the rack, even if I can see from here you have a designer label."

The beast's shoulders went rigid. "You will call me 'sir'," he said.

"Think I'll leave off names altogether in that case." Peter applied himself to the omelet. "'Sir' is for people I respect, and I don't respect anybody who's into chaining up my friends."

"Why did you stay for him?" the huge manbeast demanded turning his head slightly in Peter's direction.

"Because he was going to die if I didn't," Peter said without hesitation. He didn't want to give the creature answers, but he should have thought that one was obvious.

"And now you are going to be a prisoner and may die here."

"My choice," said Peter, still positive he could have made no other decision. "He's my friend."

"You would risk death...for a friend?"

"Wouldn't anybody?" Peter asked in surprise. He'd have done the same thing for Ray or Winston, after all. And for Janine. "Heck, I've seen people risk their lives, even die, for total strangers. We've nearly bought it, all of us, trying to save the world."

"Instinct," the beast said.

"Yeah, the best part of human nature. Because it is an instinct to save a life. I always liked that."

"But what you chose to do for Dr. Spengler was not instinct. It was a reasoned choice," the beast pointed out, sounding desperate to understand Peter's reasoning.

"Yeah. He's my friend."

A savage growl was the answer. "I do not believe you. I think there is more to it than that. What do you get out of it?"

"I get a chance to save Egon's life," Peter insisted. "God, I love that guy. He's the first friend I ever had and the best. You think I'd take my freedom at the sake of his? I couldn't look myself in the mirror again if I bopped out and left him here."

"I do not understand," the beast said, perplexed.

"Well, hey, Jack, nobody's asking you to. Oh, that's right, sorry, I mean sir," he concluded with the heaviest sarcasm he could produce. "I told you. Egon is my friend and that's the bottom line."

"I understand your words. But I don't understand your actions. You could die yourself. I could kill you as you sit there. I might enjoy it. Aren't you afraid to die? Don't you value yourself more than your friend?"

"Look, Jack, nobody gave you the right to play around with my feelings," Peter snapped. "Back off. Yeah, I want to survive. No, I don't want to die. Nobody does. But sometimes there are things more important."

"More important than survival? More important than your own needs?"

"Yeah. So you never had a buddy, right? You ever have a mom or a sister or a kid? Never cared enough to take a risk for somebody you loved? Then you really are a monster, even if you were a dead ringer for Mel Gibson." He took a swallow of milk, knowing he had to be crazy to keep pushing like this, but unable to stop. He might have to stay here but he didn't have to be a model prisoner. That was no part of the deal. And he didn't have to like this strange jailer of his. The manbeast hadn't bought anything but Peter's presence. If he had to listen to a few home truths, so much the better. Peter was just living for the chance to ride roughshod over him, pay him back for keeping Egon a prisoner as he steadily grew worse and worse. If Egon died....

The beast turned and stalked out of the room without looking back.

"What's the matter, beastie," Peter called after him tantalizingly. "Am I hitting too close to home?" He grabbed the trap he'd forgotten and started to trigger it then, realizing the beast was out of range, he set it down again and picked up his fork.

"He is the one," the voices spoke around him in a sudden, excited chorus. "He is truly the one."

"What one?" Peter yelled, frustrated. "What the heck are you talking about, whoever you are?"

No one answered.

Reluctantly Peter finished eating and stood up. He left the dishes on the table, the frying pan on the stove. No way did he mean to clean up after himself. That wasn't part of the deal. Let the beast find it and clean it himself. Let the invisible Halleluia Chorus materialize and wash the dishes, because Peter sure wouldn't.

Finished eating, he returned to the main hallway and crossed to the front door. Before he could open it and test the limits of his freedom, the beast appeared out of the shadows. "Breaking your promise so soon?"

"You have something against fresh air?" Peter challenged, putting his hand on the knob. The beast swarmed closer, down on all fours, more like an animal than ever. His eyes glowed hot in the darkness.

Peter opened the door. He knew he was pushing his luck, knew he couldn't leave, couldn't risk Egon like that. But neither could he give ground. So he stood in the open doorway and drew long deep breaths of the air of freedom.

"Enough fresh air," snarled his jailer, rising to his hind legs and stretching out an arm across Peter's chest, pushing him into the entry hall. Slamming the door after him, he locked it ostentatiously, turning the button, then slid bolts into place near the top of the door and another at the bottom.

Peter glared at him, seething with impotent rage. Then he flung down the trap at the creature's feet and stomped on the trigger, and waited. Brilliant light limned them both, but beyond that, nothing else happened. The beast tilted his head. "As you see, Dr. Venkman, I am not a ghost," he said wryly. He kicked Peter's foot off the trigger and the trap doors swished shut. For a long moment they stood facing each other, eyes holding each other's, the useless trap between them on the floor. Then the beast turned, dropped down again, and loped away.

"Damn it," muttered Peter savagely, then he shrugged and turned for the staircase, the useless trap tucked under his arm.

He stared this way and that as he headed up the stairs. If he was lucky he could find Egon's P.K.E. meter and take readings with it. Maybe he could figure out what he was up against and how to break out of here, why the trap hadn't worked on his captor.

When he turned on the light in his room it sprang to brightness, revealing a new and clean bedspread in blue and green covering the bed. The meter was sitting in the middle of the patterned spread with Egon's wallet next to it.

Peter stared at the two items in blank disbelief. Who had placed them there? Beastie? The invisible voices? Why? There was no note with them to explain their presence. Peter set the wallet on the bedside table, only then noticing the radio that hadn't been there earlier. He turned it on. Music poured out at him. Grimacing, he dumped the trap on the table next to the wallet. Not much point in hauling it around with him after this.

So the captive was to be treated well. He hadn't been chastised for sneaking out of his room and raiding the refrigerator and had barely been restrained at the door. If he'd broken free and run like crazy, he'd probably have made the safety of the street, but it would have invalidated his promise and endangered Egon. He had the meter again and Egon's wallet. He could listen to the news. But he couldn't leave. Curiously he opened the closet door and found clothes and shoes. A quick check revealed most of them were new, with tags still attached, and they were all his size. Some of them weren't bad at all. But he slammed the door shut on them. The beast couldn't buy him, not even with the finest threads money could buy.

Damn it, a gilded cage was still a cage. It wasn't home.

Turning the radio dial he found a news channel and listened for news of Egon. He didn't have long to wait. Egon was at a hospital, in a poor state but expected to survive. Peter was reported missing. There were no clues to his disappearance. The police must not have released information about the chain around Egon's wrist--either that or the gargoyle thingies had taken it off before leaving him. Winston and Ray, were returning from a trip out of town. There was a strong indication the trouble had been caused by ghosts because no other explanation made sense. One proton pack was missing from Ecto-1. Listeners were urged to report anything that would give clues to the disappearance.

The little boys! Peter remembered them suddenly and realized he still had an out. They'd hear the news. They'd remember. They'd tell their folks. Or would they even notice? Did kids that age pay any attention to the news? And even if they did, would they be in trouble with the beast for doing it? And what would happen when Egon revived? Would he remember what had happened? Would he send a rescue party after Peter? Or would those periods of semi-consciousness fade into confusion? The last thing Peter wanted was to risk Egon's safety after he'd given up his freedom to save him. He would never have left downstairs. That had been a power struggle, pure and simple, and his adversary had known it.

Switching off the radio savagely, he realized he'd never sleep. He was too keyed up for that. So he shed his suit jacket and took off his tie, then he left the room, turning on lights left and right. Surely somebody at the power company noticed, or did the beast's Con Ed bills go elsewhere? Maybe he stole energy from a nearby building. Never mind, Peter hadn't promised to conserve electricity. He'd explore. He'd explore the west wing, the forbidden one, and try to learn what was going on. Maybe there was a mad scientist's laboratory. Maybe the beast was Mr. Hyde to a crazed Dr. Jekyll. But whatever the answer to the puzzle was, it had to be in the west wing.

Peter crept along, passing the staircase that led to the ground floor. Edging along the corridor toward the bend that led to the west wing, he saw light ahead of him, dim and flickering that might have come from candles rather than electricity. Cautiously Peter tiptoed closer.

The west wing was in worse shape than the rest of the house. Wallpaper had been shredded, maybe by the creature's powerful claws. Curtains hung in tatters and the odd statue had been flung from its pedestal to lie in ruins on the floor. He'd been right about the candles; they stood in wall sconces, providing an eerie radiance that made Peter uneasy. The light caught one such wreck, the marble face of a demon leering up in the dancing glow, making Peter jump before he realized it was simply a large fragment of a ruined statue. His host must have a heck of a temper to go through the place tearing it up like that. So why was the kitchen so clean when this part of the house could have been hit by a portable tornado?

Most of the doors he passed were closed, but one stood open, leading into what had once been an elegantly appointed sitting room, even if its splendor had faded. It was cleaner than the rest of the west wing, and it felt lived in.

Opposite the door stood a gigantic stone fireplace, dancing flames producing light and heat without adding a shred of coziness to the atmosphere. Over the mantle hung a huge painting. Like the curtains and wallpaper, the canvas had been shredded, but Peter could see part of a face and one blue eye gazing out of the tatters at him, someone in a suit, a formal portrait, maybe even a graduation picture; the age was about right. Beyond it, on a table, lay a collection of books, some tossed face down in a way that would have upset Ray, who tended to fuss over bent corners of books, even cheap, modern novels like these. Next to them stood a small framed portrait of a young man about eighteen, of an age with the one in the painting. He was not the same man in the tattered portrait though; he was too dark. Although the photo was black and white, Peter could tell his eyes were brown. The frame held no glass and time and moisture had damaged the small photo. It was puckered and carefully smoothed, and a strip of Scotch tape held one corner in place.

Curious, Peter advanced into the room and picked it up.

"NO!" The shout was the most savage sound he'd heard yet from the beast. It was beside him in an instant, moving in that curious stride that was probably a result of sometimes running on four feet. Snatching the photo from Peter's hand, he snarled, "You were forbidden to come here." Then a huge paw swung at him and backhanded Peter against the side of the head.

He dropped like a stone.

"Janine!"

Rousing from a doze, the secretary automatically jerked up the thrower, while the cop beside her sprang to his feet, his hand going for his gun. Then Janine recognized Ray's voice and sighed in relief, because she could finally share the burden she had carried for hours. Holstering the thrower she flung herself into first Ray's arms and then Winston's. They held her and talked reassuringly while she babbled about shackles and medieval torture and how sick Egon was.

When she finally ran down, they started in with their questions. What did she mean about torture and shackles? How was Egon? Had there been any word of Peter? There were no answers, at least none that could reassure them, except that Egon was slowly starting to improve and that he would be all right.

"We need to go up to Shelby's street and check around," Ray cried, then lowered his voice for fear of disturbing nearby patients. He glanced at the open door beside her. "Can we see Egon first?"

"Sshhh," cautioned a nurse passing by.

Ray nodded, abashed, lowering his voice. "Sorry. We're just worried about Egon."

"You may peek in, if you don't disturb his rest," she said, softening as she smiled at Ray.

The three of them crowded into the room and stood at the foot of Egon's bed, watching him sleep. He wasn't as flushed and uncomfortable as he had been earlier, and the doctor had told Janine he was responding well to the treatment. But the three of them involuntarily bunched closer together as they watched him. Egon was rarely sick beyond the occasional cold, so to see him this ill upset them all. Knowing he might be worse than he might have been because of whatever had been done to him before Peter had rescued him angered them all. Ray's mouth drew into a taut line at the sight of him. He was probably picturing Egon with the shackle fastened to his wrist. Janine's jaw tightened as she considered it. Someone was going to pay for this. She'd make sure of that.

Abruptly Winston slung his arms around their shoulders and guided them from the room. "He's getting what he needs," he said when they had regrouped in a waiting room down the hall. "At least the doc says he'll be okay. So we have to trust that and leave him to it, let him rest. We have to go after Pete. Waking up to find him here would probably be the best medicine Egon could have."

Ray nodded. "We can't wait much longer. Who knows what's happening to Peter." Ray's abundant imagination was clearly telling him all sorts of horrible things. Nice guys didn't bother with shackles.

"Where, though?" Janine asked. "Short of searching every building on the street, how can we find him? And the police were thorough. I was with them. I know. I made sure they didn't miss a thing. We went into everyplace, talked to people. Nobody's seen Peter, except for Dr. Shelby, and he said Peter left again. He sure wasn't in the Professor's place."

"Yeah but you didn't have a P.K.E. meter set to Peter's specific biorhythms," Ray cried, snapping his fingers at the thought of the obvious solution. "I can do that." He and Winston hadn't taken time to change before they left the con, and Ray was wearing jeans and a tee shirt with a picture of Darth Vader on it, a Ghostbusters button, and a con badge with a ribbon attached that said, 'Fan Guest of Honor'. Winston had on a tee shirt with a Next Generation Logo, a button with a picture of Counselor Troi, and his con membership badge. They didn't look like Ghostbusters, except for their identical expressions of grim determination.

"It's midnight, Ray," Janine reminded him, touching his arm to try to calm him down.

"I know, Janine. But if I don't do at least one pass through the neighborhood, I won't be able to sleep a wink. Peter could be chained there just like Egon was, and if he's anywhere along the street, we'll be able to take readings and find him. We can't leave him like that." His eyes were dark and somber, and Janine realized he was afraid Peter was already dead, but he didn't want to say so. Usually optimistic, Ray often chose the most positive view of any situation, but there didn't seem to be much that was positive about this one.

"You called that right, homeboy," Winston said, grimly determined. "Nobody treats one of the team like that and gets away with it. Is Ecto still here, Janine?"

She nodded. "Packs and all. Peter must have a pack because one's missing and I saw the chain. It could have been hit with a particle stream." She gestured toward the one on the chair in front of Egon's room. "I took that one just in case what happened to Egon was paranormal and followed him here, but so far nothing's happened. It better not, but I'll be ready." She folded her arms across her chest.

"Then you stay here and watch out for Egon, Janine," Winston said, his hand reassuringly on her shoulder. "Ray and I will set a meter to detect Peter and take a run up there. If we pick him up on the meter, we'll haul him out of there or know the reason why. If we don't detect anything, we'll just have to wait until Egon wakes up and tells us where it all happened. Has to be right there, though. How else would Peter have found him? He probably wasn't going by biorhythms."

"The doctor thinks Egon will probably wake up in the morning," Janine told them. She cast a wistful glance down the hall toward Egon's room where the young cop had resumed his place and sat idly flipping through a recent issue of Sports Illustrated. "But I'm going to stay here tonight. If Egon wakes up before morning, I'll be here, and he won't be alone. And he can tell me what he knows."

"Did they try to wake him up?" Ray asked.

"He's been unconscious the whole time," Janine said reluctantly. "I tried to talk to him while I waited for you. He muttered something about Peter, saying he didn't want Peter to do something. But he wasn't really awake. Whatever it is, it's bothering him--a lot. I think Peter took a major risk for him, and Egon didn't want him to." Her worry for Egon had gradually settled down to a normal concern anyone would feel for someone she cared about who was so ill, but her fear for Peter had grown to the point where she didn't even try to deny she was alarmed for his sake. She'd have to pretend she hadn't made a fuss when Peter came back or he'd never let her live it down, but for now, she was scared and it didn't matter if Winston and Ray knew it. They were scared too.

"Peter would," Ray said quietly. "He'd have done anything to save Egon. Or any of us." He squared his shoulders. "Just like we'll do anything to save Peter. We'll find him, Janine. Come on, Winston, let's go."

Janine passed over Ecto's keys and explained where the vehicle was parked. "Come back and tell me what happened," she urged. "And then you two go to the firehall and get some sleep."

"Sleep? We can't sleep with Peter missing," Ray objected, horrified, as if she had suggested he do a naked tap dance down Fifth Avenue.

"You can't rescue him if you pass out from exhaustion either. Go on. Look for him." She leaned into the hug Ray gave her, and smiled up at Winston as he bent to kiss her forehead. When they hurried away Janine trailed over to flop into the chair beside the cop. He offered her his magazine and she took it automatically without even glancing at it. Finally something was being done.

"This is crazy, you know that," Winston said as he pulled Ecto onto the short stretch of Briarwood Street. It was all but deserted, only a cab moving toward them and passing them before it turned the corner and vanished into the night. Cars lined the curbs but no people were visible. Lights shone at a few of the windows of the apartment buildings but that mostly Briarwood Street slept.

"We have to, Winston." Ray lifted his eyes briefly from the meter, fine-tuning it to make sure it would operate at top gain. "If Peter's here, in trouble, we can't wait till morning."

"I know that. I mean what the heck could have happened? Egon goes to see his old prof. Peter goes after him in Ecto. He shows up here and sees the Prof. Egon hadn't been there. And within a couple hours, Egon's at the hospital with a chain on his wrist and he's in Ecto. Peter's gone. Where did they even find each other? What happened? What did Peter do that Egon didn't want him to?"

"Took too big a risk?" Ray hazarded. He pondered the meter's screen. "I'm not detecting anything. No readings at all. Nothing. Not even from that spooky old house." He pointed down the block from Shelby's apartment.

"A place like that would be right up your alley, Ray, but I can't see Egon being distracted by it when he's going to see that Shelby dude, not after what you told me about him on the shuttle flight home. Egon would be all gung ho to resolve the old argument. He didn't have a thrower and he felt pretty crummy, probably getting worse in the cab all the way over here. He must have or he wouldn't be so sick now. So he probably wouldn't even have glanced at the run-down place. We don't automatically check out abandoned houses anyway."

"I know," agreed Ray. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the professor's apartment building. "Shelby was really mean to him when we started the business. Egon wouldn't be thinking of haunted houses, even if this one's really cool, not when he had a chance to resolve that." He held up the meter that lay quiescent in his hand. "Besides, I'm not picking up any readings from there. It's just a rundown old place, not haunted at all." He switched the meter to standard readings, and frowned as nothing happened. "If Egon had detected ghosts, he might have checked it out, but he wasn't feeling well and he had something important he had to do. He'd have waited, told us about it and we might have come to check it out when he felt better. Peter wouldn't have bothered with it unless he saw Egon in the doorway."

"No readings? No biorhythms?" Winston asked.

"Not a flicker. Nowhere along the street. The meter didn't give so much as a beep at Shelby's place and we know Peter was there."

"But shouldn't there have been something?"

Ray shook his head. "No, biorhythm residuals don't last very long at all, probably not more than half an hour. Peter was there too long ago for us to get anything."

"Could something be blocking your readings?" asked Winston practically, making an illegal u-turn at the end of the street and proceeding back the way they had come at about two miles an hour.

"Well, that can happen any time, especially with biorhythms. Remember when we ran that test with the enhanced meter to find Peter when he deliberately hid from us. And he was wrapped up in that space blanket of Egon's and we didn't find him. He was on the roof of the firehouse and we could hardly pick up anything. It was all fuzzy too like an accumulation of readings just because he'd been there so often. This time he'd only been here once. That wouldn't be enough."

"Anything this time?" Winston asked hopefully.

"I'm just not getting anything." Ray heaved a huge sigh. Peter could be right here on this street and we might not know it, not if something is blocking him."

"So what do we do?" He pulled Ecto to a stop near Shelby's apartment.

"I wish I knew, Winston," said Ray sadly. "I wish I knew."

Peter revived from the beast's blow when he landed on the four-poster bed, and lay there listening to the feet that thudded away down the hall. "Never go there again," snarled the deep rumbling voice as the beast departed.

"First chance I have," Peter muttered under his breath, clutching his aching head. "You better believe it, jerkface." He meant it, too. No way would he put up with ground rules like that. It hadn't been in the original contract. He'd only promised not to try to escape; anything else was arbitrary and fair game. "I'll make you regret the day you ever messed with the Ghostbusters, especially this one."

But it was a minor revolt, and Peter knew it. The thought of being stranded here forever left a cold ache in his heart. What really scared him was that being rescued, leaving here, which should happen within the next twenty-four hours if he knew his guys, might endanger Egon. If he didn't live up to his end of the bargain, even if it was a bargain made under duress, did that mean Egon was fair game? If so, Peter knew he didn't dare risk rocking the boat. Once Egon was well again and on his feet, it would be different, and of course if the guys could come in here and clean up this place, that would work, too. But Beastie was not a traditional ghost. He was physical and the trap hadn't worked on him. That made it harder, but not impossible. They'd busted the Bogeyman, after all, and he'd been physical, even if they'd had to use the atomic destabilizer first. They'd trapped that Sandman. They could do it. He was just afraid that in his panicked need to save Egon, Peter might have overlooked something important, another way out.

His head ached too much for him to risk another confrontation tonight. Sighing unhappily, he got up, turned on the light, and investigated the contents of a huge chest of drawers. Pajamas, socks, and underwear filled the top two drawers and the bottom ones held shirts. Not bad stuff either, he decided, remembering the things in the closet. Beastie Boy had good taste. None of this stuff was cheap, either. But then maybe he'd sent his little tame gargoyles out to fetch it--without benefit of Visa or Master Card. Materialize in a store, snatch the top of the line fashions, pop out again. "I like it," Peter said aloud.

He found a pair of red and white striped pajamas that reminded him of his pajamas back home--home. It hurt to think of home right now. Shaking his head, he took them out and undressed quickly, hating the thought that the Beast might come in while he was changing. When he was ready, he crawled into bed. The sheets were soft, linen and they were clean. "The condemned man ate a hearty meal," Peter said aloud, then wished the words unspoken for fear of giving his captor ideas. He wasn't sure why the clothes and bedding were so expensive. Maybe old Jack was lonely and wanted a buddy. He had a pretty funny way of selecting one, though. And why chain Egon when Peter was locked up in a fancy room, living in the lap of luxury. Okay, so his jailer might be one of the Fortune Five Hundred. But Peter would have foregone every possible luxury to be able to go home again.

The thought of Egon hardened Peter's resolve. He wasn't tempted by the cutting edge wardrobe, not when Egon was sick and needed him. What he needed was a way to haul ass out of here that didn't break his promise, that didn't invalidate the deal. Because the thought of staying here even one day was driving him crazy.

The pain in his head had eased and he doubted he'd been out long enough to indicate he could have sustained a concussion. His vision was normal, his mind was clear. He could think. But trying to come up with a way to trick the beast into letting him go produced no clever ideas. In the process of figuring out a solution, he drifted into a restless and uneasy sleep.

Morning produced no new revelations. Peter awoke, rested and comfortable from a night spent on a topnotch mattress, the headache gone entirely. But the unfamiliar room, the absence of his friends, the concern for Egon, who might not be well in spite of the hospital trip, and the fear he might not be able to escape made him feel like pulling the blankets over his head and losing himself in sleep. But the dreams that had troubled him, dreams of being trapped alone for ever without his friends, were so grim and unwelcoming that he forced himself up to spare himself any more of them.

He'd discovered a modern bathroom attached to his bedroom and he made use of it for a shave and a long shower. Clean and as refreshed as possible in such a situation, and even grateful for the new toothbrush still in its packaging, he went out and investigated the wardrobe. The clothes he'd worn yesterday were gone, either removed for cleaning or taken away to force him to accept the garb provided by his jailer. His wallet lay beside Egon's on the table, along with his pocket change. Whoever had crept in while he slept had only bee interested in the clothes. Irritated yet again at the fact of being under the control of a hostile entity, he chose the simplest garments he could find, jeans and a plain blue tee shirt, and dressed. Then he ventured downstairs to the kitchen premises. He met no one on the way.

Beastie Boy's invisible servants had cleaned up his mess from the night before. Peter somehow preferred that to thinking the creature had done it himself. A loaf of bread and butter were laid out, toast in the toaster, and a frying pan waited in case he chose to have bacon or eggs. A cupboard door stood open to reveal a wide array of cereal, and there was orange juice in the refrigerator, and oranges, bananas and peaches in case he wanted fresh fruit. Everything looked wonderful but the sight was enough to make him want to skip breakfast. The cage was made better by the minute, but Peter didn't want to live in a cage.

He chose to breakfast on toast, orange juice and a banana, muttering to himself about the absence of pancakes. Just speaking the words produced a near-invisible swirl in the air, and abruptly a griddle sat on the stove and a bowl of pancake batter materialized in front of him, ready to cook. Maple syrup and several other flavors appeared on a tray in the middle of the table.

"I don't suppose I could rent you when I go home," Peter said under his breath.

"This is your home now," said the beast, stalking into the room in a swirl of cloak. He drew up a chair and sat opposite Peter. "Good morning."

"Not much good about it," Peter complained. "You bribed me into giving up my freedom. How am I even gonna know Egon's okay?"

"Why, I have a 'magic mirror' that reflects the outer world," the beast said with a suddenly-wicked grin. Humor sparkled in his eyes, and for an instant, Peter saw a glimpse of something human there.

"Yeah, right. Well, if you want to play 'Beauty and the Beast' games with me, forget it. I saw the movie--and the musical and you can't con me. Magic mirrors? Give me a break."

"I'm sorry I can't produce the necessary fantasy elements to satisfy your imagination. My 'magic mirror' is called television," admitted the beast wryly. He peeled a banana and devoured it in two quick bites without bothering to chew. His teeth were enormous. "How do you think I entertain myself here? I can hardly go out for dinner at a restaurant or take a date dancing. Your absence has made the news, and your friends have put up a reward for information leading to your 'rescue'."

"Rescue? That means Egon's still out of it or they'd know where I am." Worry pulsed through him. "If...if Egon doesn't make it, our deal's off."

"According to the newsman, he is expected to make a full recovery. Consider this. He was very ill, only marginally aware of his surroundings. He may never completely remember what happened here. Or he may assume it was a nightmare produced by illness."

Peter closed his eyes in sheer relief at the thought of Egon's recovery, although he opened them immediately. It could be a lie, if the blond bond would let the beast lie, but if he was allowed to watch television for himself he could verify it. Egon might not remember very well, but he wouldn't automatically assume a bizarre creature was part of a dream. He'd been a Ghostbuster too long to doubt such a happening could be real.

"You know," said Peter, slowly peeling his own banana, "this does sorta match that Beauty and the Beast legend, up to a point. So are you transformed because you were such a jerk? Don't think I'm gonna fall in love with you and redeem you, either. Now if you were a female beast..."

"You make jokes about things you don't understand," snarled the beast, his paws clenching into fists. "I will not tolerate speculation."

"You mean you won't tolerate speculation out loud," Peter said. "Because I might be stuck here for the time being, but no way do you tell me what to think."

"You are my prisoner, you are here at my whim. You are unhappy? Maybe you'd rather have the chains. I will tolerate no insolence from you."

"Have you ever got the wrong prisoner," Peter returned, trying to appear cocky and unafraid. "Insolence is my middle name." He met the beast's eyes head on. They were a vivid blue. "Here's the bottom line, Jack. I hate you. I hate being here. But I wasn't about to let Egon die so I'm stuck here for now. But I don't have to like it, and I don't have to kiss your feet. That wasn't part of our deal. If you don't like it, you can toss me out on the street. I'm not gonna make it easy for you. And if you renege on the deal, I've got a way to deal with you."

"Your ghost trap failed last night," the creature remarked, unworried. "Or if you mean your proton pack, I had my servants remove it last night."

"They had no right," Peter snapped half out of his chair. Then he caught himself and said down again. "It didn't work anyway." He whirled away to hide the disappointment on his face, slamming two pieces of toast into the toaster. "Okay, so you're bigger than I am, and stronger, and you can slap me around if you feel testy. And you have monsters waiting on you hand and foot. But at least I had a life, and if I never find my way back to it, it won't stop being true that I have friends who care what happens to me. I wouldn't trade that for fifty run-down mansions and all the clothes and food you can steal."

"Steal! Steal! You accuse me of theft!" He slammed his fists down on the table, knocking over Peter's glass of orange juice and making his toast pop up early. "I pay my way."

"Yeah, right, with Monster Card," Peter retorted, pushing the button on the toaster again. "Everything in that room up there is in my size and the price tags are still on them. So how'd you do that? Waltz over to Bloomies and run up a tab last night after hours?"

"It's none of your business."

"Okay, one more question," Peter said, uncertain how far he could press his luck. "Why?"

"Why?"

"Why do you want me here? Why do I rate the red carpet treatment while you gave Egon chains in the attic? That's crazy."

"Perhaps you suit my purposes better than Egon did. He was merely a trespasser. I would have let him go at..."

"Let him go?" Peter screeched, whirling from the toaster to glare at his captor. "You weren't gonna let him go, or you wouldn't be making bargains with me."

"A sick man would serve no purpose. He would only die. You, however, did not come here to trespass. You came looking for a friend. You are healthy and fit, and I was able to compel you to stay here."

"Trick me, you mean," Peter snapped. "This really sucks. I'm here. I have to stay for Egon's sake. But that's it. I won't play your game, and I won't bow down to you. But if you're holding me here for a reason, tell me what it is. You've probably got the wrong guy anyway."

"No," said the beast thoughtfully. "I do not believe I do."

While Peter pondered that, his toast popped up. Snatching the slices of bread, he spread butter and then peanut butter on them and began to eat. Although the delightful aroma teased him, he didn't enjoy the food; it was dry in his mouth. Sometime between the spilling of his orange juice and now, a new glass had appeared in front of him. He sipped it. "So tell me what it is I'm supposed to do?" he asked.

"I cannot do that. If I do, I will defeat the purpose. You think I want to play these games?" the beast asked, suddenly earnest. "I want something out of it." Aha, thought Peter. That blood bond thing didn't last. If he can keep secrets from me today, I can keep them from him.

"I kinda figured that much," he said, hiding his realization. "Most people don't pull major manipulations like this without expecting something. You want a ransom? Sorry, but I'm not rich. Sure we rake in the bucks busting ghosts, but our equipment costs a fortune to build and maintain and our power bills would be enough to run a small third-world country for a year. I don't know where the guys are coming up with this reward. We just don't have it." He was tickled to death that they'd offer, but he didn't mean them to waste their personal savings on him, not when he'd figure out a way to fast talk the beast and win his freedom before very long.

"I am wealthy," the beast replied. "I do not need your pitiful money."

"Well, la-di-dah," Peter retorted. "Typical rich snob. Listen up, Jack, you can't buy me. I'm not for sale. My friends are not for sale. So don't think you can weasel anything out of us. If you don't want money, what do you want? My charming personality? Yeah, right!"

"You annoy me," the beast growled.

"Yeah, well, you piss the hell out of me, Jack," Peter snapped. "Throwing your weight around, manipulating people--it's always gotta be your way, doesn't it? Okay, so you could be a refugee from that old Beauty and the Beast TV series and you probably can't take a stroll down Fifth Avenue without people stopping to stare. Big deal. Life's tough all over. It's all about you, isn't it? Everything you do, so you can have it your way. Well, it doesn't work like that. Sure you've got money and invisible servants and a place that's a heck of a lot cleaner and in better repair than it was yesterday." That made him stop and think. "Okay, so yesterday was probably an illusion, to make anybody who wandered in here think it was deserted until they were trapped and it was too late. Or did you figure you better clean because you had company?"

"You irritate me."

"Good. I'm sure trying to."

His fists clenched and Peter grabbed his orange juice before it could be tipped over like the first glass had. Surprisingly enough, his action made the beast smile. Peter wasn't sure he was keen on that smile, with all those nasty teeth. The banana had gone down in two bites. Maybe Beastie Boy was carnivorous. Maybe he was cannibalistic. Peter shivered involuntarily, and the smile broadened.

Annoyed at himself for flinching, Peter pulled himself together. "Okay, what did those voices mean, I'm the one?"

"You ask too many questions."

"Well, you're not volunteering anything. How the heck am I gonna learn anything if I don't?"

"Tell me about your friends," said the beast surprisingly. "Egon I have met, but of course he was not at the top of his form. We've already established that you'd sacrifice anything for him."

"Yeah, so?"

"Tell me about Ray."

"You leave Ray out of this," Peter urged in sudden panic, his appetite deserting him completely. He set aside the last piece of toast uneaten. "If you even think of hurting Ray, all bets are off."

"No, you don't understand. I have given my word, my blood oath. Your friends are safe from me, unless you break parole. I know you're trying to find a loophole, but I didn't leave one. It was very clear cut." He traced an idle claw through the spilled orange juice on the table.

"Even if you were gonna let Egon go anyway?"

"Even then. Because the bargain was not conditional upon what I might or might not have done if you had not come here. Only on what both of us agreed to do. Tell me about Ray."

"No," said Peter.

"You miss him."

"Hell, yes, I miss him," Peter exploded. "I miss all of them, and that's never gonna change. So don't think I'll ever be your good buddy. You might have made a deal so you could have company here in your exile or whatever it is, and I have to be here for now. But that doesn't mean I like it, or that I'll ever like you. My friends don't use me for their whims. They back me when I need them, just like I back them."

"Patently," said the beast.

"Egon was sick," Peter burst out. "He might have been dying. What else could I have done? Let him die? Do you think I could have lived with myself if I'd done that? Dead's final. There aren't any second chances."

"Enough." The clawed fists slammed against the table, making Peter's cold piece of toast jump several inches into the air. He turned his face away from Peter's surprised stare.

"You asked," Peter reminded him. "You wanted to know. Don't blame me if you don't like the answers."

The beast stood up abruptly, then he turned, pulling his cape around him as if it could make him invisible, and bounded from the room on all fours. Peter stared after him in disbelief. He couldn't have seen what he thought he'd seen in the beast's eyes. Pain. Sheer, unadulterated pain, as if Peter's words had stabbed him like a knife.

"This is good," chorused the invisible voices. Peter was starting to grow used to them; he didn't jump. "The wizard was right. He learns."

"Wizard?" Peter demanded blankly. "What wizard?"

The voices did not answer his question, but one voice separated from the others and said brightly, "Do you want your pancakes now?"

There were noises around him, unfamiliar sounds and smells, a whole feeling of difference. Egon opened his eyes and stared up at a white ceiling that was lower than the one he was used to in the firehall bunkroom and tried to reason out where he was. Something lay across his face, his upper lip, and he raised his hand to investigate only to stop when he realized an IV needle had been inserted into the back of his right hand. His other hand quickly discovered he was on oxygen. This was a hospital.

"What am I doing here?" he asked aloud, and his voice sounded weak, even to him. "I--I was going to see Professor Shelby...."

That didn't help. He had no memory of encountering his former advisor. He could vaguely picture himself in a taxi, feeling gradually worse as it wended its way north. Had he passed out in the cab? Had the cabby brought him to a hospital?

But if so, why did he feel such a strange uneasiness about Peter?

"Peter?" he called, raising his voice. If he was in the hospital, the guys were sure to be close at hand, if not actually in the room with him.

A motion at the door made him glance up hopefully--he had to know that Peter was all right--and he saw a uniformed policeman standing there. "Dr. Spengler?" the man said. "Don't try to get up. I'll call the nurse."

She arrived in moments, trailed by Winston and Ray, with the cop behind them, a fact that frightened Egon. He must have been unconscious several days; his friends were home from Boston. No, perhaps they'd been summoned home when he had become worse. He stared past them for Peter, alarmed because Venkman wasn't with them. He had known something was wrong, even if he couldn't explain it. Perhaps that was why the officer was here. If only he could think...

"Gosh, Egon, you're awake," Ray said with overwhelming relief.

Winston dropped a hand on Stantz's shoulder to hold him back for the examination, but Ray was all but bouncing around the room in his eagerness to greet the physicist.

"Easy, easy," the nurse said, making a stern gesture at his friends. She was about twenty five and no taller than Janine, but Egon had no doubt she could restrain both men if she chose to do so in spite of her slender frame and the wide, innocent eyes. "We don't want to upset Dr. Spengler." She checked the IV, pulled over the blood pressure cuff and wrapped it around his arm. "Don't talk yet, I want to take your temperature," she said, and did so. He could see Ray and Winston behind her, obviously brimming with questions, shadows under their eyes. His reviving hadn't eased them much. So he had been right. Something was wrong with Peter. Something had happened to him. Something bad. He could feel it, feel a deep twist of coldness in the pit of his stomach, but he couldn't bring anything into focus except for a vague and fuzzy image of Peter's face looming over him, his eyes alive with worry.

"Five minutes," the nurse said as she went out to the alcove to fill in her data on Egon's chart. "No longer, or Dr. Greavy will have my head."

"Guys," Egon said urgently before either of them could speak. Talking was an effort; his chest felt sore and tight, and his voice was hoarse. Simply being awake exhausted him. "Has something happened to Peter?"

"Oh, gosh, Egon, you don't remember?" cried Ray. He lunged at the physicist and gave Egon an awkward hug, trying not to jar Egon or lift him up. Egon managed to raise the hand without the IV and pat Ray on the shoulder, but it was hard to find comfort for his friends when he needed it so badly himself. His weakness and confusion was affecting his self-control, but that couldn't matter, not now.

His stomach knotted. He didn't understand why yet, but he could tell it was bad. "I...I feel that Peter is in great danger, but I can't bring the images to mind. I remember....pleading with him not to...not to do something for me, but I can't...." He closed his eyes, struggling to think. "There was a creature, a physical entity. He...chained me to a wall." Pulling out even that amount of memory was like wading through freshly poured concrete.

"We know," Winston said, a harder edge in his voice than Egon could recall hearing in a long time. "We think Peter melted the chain with his thrower to blast you loose. It's just, we don't know where it happened or why he wasn't with you when they found you."

"Found me?" Egon asked doubtfully. He knew he lacked the strength to prolong this conversation but he had to prolong it. This was important. Peter needed him to remember.

"Yeah, in Ecto, in front of the ER door here," Winston explained. "Somebody brought you to the hospital, but if it was Pete, he'd have stayed here with you."

He couldn't. Egon didn't know how he knew that, but he did. Something had prevented Peter from coming with him, something he couldn't remember. His brain was stuffed with cotton wool.

"Can you tell us where you went?" Ray prodded softly, backing up a step but refusing to yield his place at Egon's side. "We know you never made it to Dr. Shelby's. Did you?" he asked suspiciously. He would have loved to blame Shelby for what had happened to Egon. Although he had never known all the details of Shelby's repudiation of Egon, he'd grasped enough to resent the man on Egon's behalf. It wasn't like Ray to hold a grudge, but as much as possible, he held one against Egon's old advisor.

"I...don't remember doing so. Everything is fuzzy. I can't think." He shifted uncomfortably on his bed. "What is wrong with me?"

"Your flu went into pneumonia," Winston explained. "You'll be fine in a few days. Everything will make sense when you start feeling better. But Peter's missing and you had to have run into him, Egon. I don't want to push when you're obviously feeling as low as the floor of a taxicab, but we've gotta find Peter."

"He had to stay. That was the bargain," Egon said involuntarily, although he didn't understand what he was saying. It was there in his mind, but it was too foggy to clarify. Breathing hurt, and he couldn't quite catch his breath. His head pounded.

"Bargain?" echoed Ray in alarm, his eyes growing huge as he tried to make sense of Egon's words.

"I am trying, Raymond, but I...it won't come clear. He...bargained for my freedom."

"Yeah, but where, Egon?" Ray persisted. "Do you know where?" Sensing Egon's alarm, he reached out and rested his hand on the physicist's arm, squeezing gently.

"Shelby's house." That was vaguely clear. He'd arrived, hadn't he? He'd gone in... "But he wasn't there...."

"We searched Shelby's apartment," Ray said. "Last night around midnight we went over there with a meter set to Peter's biorhythms and checked the whole street and even a few blocks around. We couldn't detect anything. Today we went over there as soon as we got up, before we came here, and Shelby let us in. We checked his whole place, and there wasn't anything, no weird readings, nothing to indicate Peter had ever been there. And we looked, Egon. We looked everywhere. I used a P.K.E. meter but there was nothing. Peter wasn't there."

"I can't remember..." Egon struggled to sit up. Fear flooded him. Peter was in trouble and only he could save him. But his mind wouldn't cooperate. Had he been brainwashed to forget, or was it only this stupid weakness? Winston and Ray eased him down against the pillow.

"It's okay. You'll remember soon," Ray soothed him hastily, but he shared a really worried expression with Winston. Peter's safety might depend on Egon's memory, and it was presently non-functional. He was certain Peter was in great jeopardy. He could remember an earnest argument when he had pleaded with Peter not to...not to...to do something, knowing Peter had made an agreement, giving up everything, to save his life. He could feel his anguish, see the misery and desperation in Peter's eyes, but it was vague and misty. He couldn't think. Had Peter offered his life to save Egon. Was Peter dead?

"Damn it! I can't think."

"It's all right, Egon. You're getting better. You'll remember," Winston reassured him.

"No, it's not all right. Peter could be dying right now, and because I can't remember...."

"Hey, hey, hey. Easy, easy." Dr. Greavy, or at least a doctor, breezed into the room, a thirtysomething type with a long, rather equine face, and wide-set brown eyes. A stern frown made a pucker between his bushy eyebrows. "None of this. You're not to upset him, gentlemen, or I'll have to send you out. He's not well enough yet to put up with all this stress, and I'd prefer to limit visitors to one at a time."

"We didn't mean to upset him, Doctor," Winston assured the physician hastily. "But he wants to find Peter as much as we do. Is there anything you can do to help him remember what happened?"

"No, not at this stage. He's too weak to stand intensive questioning yet."

"What about hypnosis?" suggested Egon. It was too difficult to think, too hard to come up with solutions. But he knew, deep down inside, that Peter was in grave jeopardy and he had gotten that way to save Egon. He could remember their urgent exchange, but he could not, no matter how hard he tried, recall what had prompted it. He could see the panic and desolation in Peter's eyes and feel his own utter despair at the solution Peter had produced, but he could not remember details yet.

"No," said the doctor. "You're not ready."

"But Peter could die while I lie here in perfect safety."

"Would Peter want you to jeopardize your own health?" The doctor frowned. "We weren't introduced last night. "I'm Mike Greavy. I've spoken with your own doctor, Dr. Labraccio, and he'll stop by later. From what I understand or what everyone has guessed, you got into bad trouble yesterday while you were really quite ill. Peter rescued you. He did that because he wanted you to be safe. Do you want to negate his efforts by giving yourself a relapse?"

"No, but neither do I want my oldest friend to die," Egon insisted.

"We have no reason to believe he is in danger of dying." He corralled Winston and Ray, gestured toward the door at the cop, and shooed the three of them out of the room. "Now," he said, closing the door and turning to Egon. "Let's have a look at you. You can best help Peter by following instructions and recovering as quickly as possible. Your friends will continue to search for him, and the police are on the case. Every possible thing that can be done is being done."

"But Peter is still missing," Egon said wearily. His voice faded even as he spoke.

"I'd change that if I could, but I can't and neither can you. Right now you need to rest and regain your strength. Give me your word you will do that and I will let your friends visit you again in an hour."

Egon bowed his head in surrender. But it felt like, in doing so, he had betrayed Peter.

The house was huge around him, but not as huge as the emptiness in the pit of his stomach. Peter declined pancakes, gave up on breakfast, and wandered out to explore his prison. He paused by the front door and tested the circumstances by opening it, half expecting the beast to make a sudden appearance as he had done last night, and drag Peter inside. When that didn't happen, he even ventured cautiously onto the front steps but he couldn't bring himself to flee across the courtyard to safety. It wasn't even the thought of chains in the attic that bothered him. It was the knowledge that the gargoyle creatures could go invisibly to the hospital as soon as it was dark and bring Egon here again. They might even be able to snatch him without anybody knowing it the way they'd produced griddle, pancake batter, and maple syrup, even if Winston and Ray were guarding him with throwers. And they'd have no reason to do that, unless the remnant of the chain on Egon's wrist had put them on their guard. For all Peter knew, the gargoyles had removed the chain before taking him in. His friends might have no warning but his own absence and the mystery of Egon appearing in Ecto-1.

Dragging in deep breaths of freedom, Peter stood there for nearly half an hour, his whole body poised to dash across the courtyard and out to the safety of the street. But Egon had appeared so frail when the gargoyles had taken him away. To risk his friend's life so selfishly was something Peter could not bring himself to do, although he ached to sprint for freedom. He wasn't sure if a promise made under duress was a fair one, but he knew he couldn't break this promise.

"It's for you, Spengs," he said in a tight whisper, and closed his eyes, gripping the rusted railing so tightly his fingers hurt. Then he gathered his energy to keep enduring, pushed himself away from it, and re-entered the house. At once the weight of his dungeon settled on his shoulders, bowing them down with unhappiness.

"You test me," said the beast behind him.

"Hey. I'm surprised you didn't grab me in and flog me for daring to go outside," Peter retorted, jumping at the unexpected sound. He hadn't heard his enemy's approach.

"You remained on the steps."

"So that's the limit?" Peter resolved to go to the bottom next time and take a step into the courtyard, just to prove he could.

"You continue to test me. You may not leave my property and you may not attempt to attract attention from the courtyard. Come, I will show you what I have prepared for you."

Peter's first instinct was to tell the beast to go to hell. It took considerable effort to bite his lip and hold his tongue. It wasn't that he meant to placate his jailer. That had no part of Peter's restraint. But he knew he had to learn as much as he could, figure out why he was a prisoner here, why the beast wanted him. And the best way to do that was to know his enemy. As long as he made it perfectly clear his hatred was unabated, he could hang out with Beastie Boy for awhile.

"What, some nice whips and chains? Anybody ever tell you that you have a sadistic nature?"

"No," said the beast with amusement. "No one did." Probably no one ever dared. But then, no one else he might have held here had been a Ghostbuster, at least no one but Egon, and Egon had been in no state to fling insults around.

"So anybody ever point out you were a jerk?"

That won him no answer beyond a tightening of the creature's muscles. "Aha," Peter cried. "I knew it. Who? Your neighbors? Your parents? Your buddies? Anybody that ever met you? Come to think of it, you don't have buddies, do you?"

"And why do you say that?" demanded the beast in a tight voice. He swirled his cloak, Peter suspected mostly for effect, and settled the hood so that shadows fell upon his face.

"Because anybody who had friends would know why I stayed here in Egon's place," Peter said with absolute certainty. "And you still don't have a clue. Anyway, if you ever had parents, they probably disowned you. I sure would."

"No, they forgot me," the beast said involuntarily. For a second, his head was turned toward Peter and the glint of unexpected brightness in his eyes was visible, then the beast swirled away. "Come," he snarled as coldly as possible and started for the stairs, not once pausing to determine if Peter meant to follow or not.

Peter did. The thought that the beast had vulnerabilities had given him hope. He didn't mean to give up for a minute. Maybe if he could understand such reactions it would be his ticket out of here. So he plunged up the stairs after the tall figure. "I don't blame 'em," he called out. "I'd give anything if I could forget you. What'd you do that was so tacky anyway? Toss 'em out of your cave? Hey, is that it? Are you one of those mole people who live deep under the city. Winston read a book about them once, and it said there's whole communities down there, with mayors and everything. Homeless people and criminals and drug users, and nutcases. Who's to say there isn't a whole colony of hairy folks down on the bottom levels who were so fed up with you they threw you out."

"You have an amazing imagination," the beast retorted, sounding much closer to normal. "I know there are homeless scum down there, but I've never been, no further than the subways, anyway."

"Hey, do you ride on top of them like Vincent?"

The beast shook his head. "Of course not. You think the people below live like that? A gentle peaceful life? No way. They probably eat rats--and each other."

"Oho, a bit of a snob, are we? Scum? Homeless scum? At least they didn't chain up a sick man." All Peter's rage came boiling to the surface. "You're a real bastard, Jack. You're working on a crazy agenda with your little invisible Greek chorus, and it doesn't matter to you that Egon might have died. You don't have one faint spark of humanity in you--oops, sorry, I forgot. You're not human, are you? Guess you don't have to be humane, then."

The beast man flinched and Peter was glad of it. He had to score points against the enemy any way he could. Never mind that one moment of utter vulnerability in the beast's eyes when Peter had mentioned his parents and friends. Forget that. The beast had dug himself into the hole that trapped him--assuming he was even trapped. And that reminded Peter of something.

"Hey, who's this wizard dude?"

Reaching the landing, the beast whirled and grasped Peter by the upper arms, lifting him right up off the stairs. "Who told you of the wizard?" he snarled, fangs glistening in the morning sunlight that angled through the stained glass window over the front door, highlighting his face in molten reds, blues, and greens.

"Your invisible buddies talk to themselves a lot. I listen. It's not like I'm eavesdropping; they do it right in front of me. So who's the wizard, Jack? What'd he do, put a curse on you, to make you like this?"

"You believe in wizards?" his adversary demanded, forcing amusement into his face. He deposited Peter on the landing, and Venkman willed himself not to rub his upper arms, where the grasping fingers had probably left bruises. Peter was just lucky he hadn't dug his claws into the unprotected flesh.

"I believe in ghosts and demons and trolls, why not wizards," Peter said, shifting his shoulders surreptitiously to make sure nothing was broken. "I'm a Ghostbuster. Takes a lot to bug me. Not even a physical entity with fur and teeth. We can still zap and trap you, you know. Even if the trap didn't work last night, Egon designed a gizmo that will turn you ectoplasmic long enough to do the job and you can bet Ray and Winston will do it as soon as they track me down. By now, they're probably just itching to."

"They will not track you down."

"Wanna bet? They won't quit. They're my friends."

"They will tire of the hunt eventually. They cannot, er, take readings of this house."

"Oh yeah? I hate to break it to you, but I found Egon's meter and I took readings. If I can, why can't they? You're just lying to me to keep me off balance."

"No. The 'wizard' erected a barrier around the house. It not only keeps your friends from taking readings unless they are inside, although that was not the intention of the barrier, but it blunts the curiosity of those outside, the city meter readers, the health inspectors, even the neighborhood children. They speculate but they do not come in here."

"And here I thought that was just your nasty rep in the neighborhood," Peter said quickly, unwilling to reveal his dismay. He'd been so convinced Ray and Winston would show up today, meters set to detect his biorhythms the way they'd done for Janine that time she had been held prisoner in the subway. He'd be home before dinner; he'd made himself believe that. But now he couldn't help wondering if the barrier might even blunt Ray's curiosity at the sight of a spectacular 'haunted house'. Peter himself wouldn't have bothered with the place if the two little boys hadn't mentioned Egon. It would never have occurred to him that Egon would have come here otherwise.

"No one disturbs me," the beast said with a show of complacency, starting down the corridor to the right.

"Not even the power company? Give me a break." Peter had to jog to keep up with him.

"The bills go to a post office box. I pay them. Why would there be a problem?"

"You think you have all the answers, don't you?" Peter demanded belligerently of his retreating back.

"Well, yes, I do. It's the truth." He turned and smiled smugly at Peter.

"So who's this wizard dude?" Peter persisted, trotting to keep up. "Hey, did he really put a spell on you, too? Not just a barrier around your house but something that made you grow fur all over and fangs. Why, grandma, what big teeth you have! Hey, I bet you bugged him. Irritated him. After all, you irritate me. Betcha if I was a wizard I'd have turned you into something a lot worse."

"Worse? Worse? You assume the degree of alteration matters?" The response was involuntary, stifled before it could go further, but Peter smiled because he had realized what the intimidating presence had concealed until now, the fact that his jailer was a prisoner too. He couldn't pop over to the Russian Tea Room for dinner with a date. He couldn't buy tickets for CATS. He couldn't even stroll down Fifth Avenue except maybe on Halloween. Peter felt no sympathy for the beast, not after what he'd done to Egon, but it dawned on him there weren't many advantages of having an acute case of hairiness.

"Alteration? You mean you started out human, like me?" He caught himself and made the automatic correction. "No, you were never like me. You were a helluva lot more selfish than me at my absolute worst. I can see you now, a real 'me first' kinda guy."

"Like the rest of the world," the beast replied.

"Sure, everybody has their selfish moments," Peter said, switching abruptly to psychologist mode. It would help him keep his temper and it would probably bug old Jack. "But most of us control them. We can all do petty things, but we hope we don't do enough of them to bring us down to the level of the animals. And we've got motivation to keep us on track, the people we love."

"Love..." The beast hesitated, then he growled, a deep, swelling roar that Peter could feel in the soles of his feet. "Look here," he said, and swung open a door. He didn't like the conversation and he meant to end it by producing a distraction.

Peter peered in, halfway expecting a flogging block and a huge whip, maybe complete with a masked jailer to wield it. What he hadn't expected was a well-equipped exercise room with various weights and work-out equipment from a Stairmaster to a treadmill. A door on the far side wall was labeled 'sauna'.

Peter didn't enjoy working out--he was a little too lazy--but he did it regularly. He liked to look as good as possible, although he wasn't into the really musclebound Schwarzenegger style. Besides, his job required fitness. Running around Manhattan wearing a fifty pound pack took effort, and it didn't do to be doubled over catching his breath when a ghost dive-bombed him or a demon lurked nearby. He wasn't as young as he'd been when they founded the business and he knew if he didn't keep in shape, he'd have to be hiring younger guys to do the grunt work. So Peter worked out. Winston, who was a lot more into that thing that he was, enjoyed it, but Egon regarded a good workout as a form of medieval torture and only did it because Peter bugged him about it and it was easier to give in than to endure it. Besides, he understood the value of fitness on a job like theirs.

"You may use this room at your leisure," the beast told him.

"You can believe it." It would pass the time and it wouldn't do to let himself go, not with a four-hundred pound monster lurking around. Peter wished he'd listened to Ray a couple of years ago when he'd suggested it would be fun to learn karate. He might have done it if there had been additional hours in the day, but it was a discipline as well as a way of kicking ass, and Peter knew he didn't have the right kind of mind to submit to that much discipline and to pay the dues required to do it right. But it would have been satisfying as hell to flip the beast.

"Come," said the beast. "I will show you more."

"Yeah, show the poor bird his gilded cage," Peter spat. "I'm here because of Egon. I'm not for sale, and none of this is gonna make me think kindly of you. Is that how you make friends? Buy them? Forget it. Maybe I won't use the weight room after all." He knew he would, only to keep himself in shape and ready for the moment when he could leave here. When Egon was better, he'd figure out a way to free Peter, and he'd be well enough to defend himself in the process. People couldn't be held like this. It was the nineteen-nineties and slavery was illegal in America.

"It's your choice," said the beast, but his voice was weary. "You hate me, don't you?"

"Yes," said Peter as frankly as he could. "You nearly killed my friend. You locked him in shackles. You're keeping me here against my will."

"You chose to be here, remember?"

"Because you stacked the deck, Jack."

"My name is not Jack."

"So what is it?" Peter didn't really care. The creature was 'beast' in Peter's mind and likely to stay that way.

"Not for you to know."

"Then you can be Jack if I even take the trouble to call you anything. You're not worth having a name. You're beneath contempt." He knew it was crazy to keep pushing, but he couldn't stop himself. His smart mouth was his only real weapon against this creature, and he intended to employ it nonstop.

"Yet I control you." The beast pulled the weight-room door shut again and stood confronting Peter in the hall.

"You don't control my mind." Suddenly he remembered a television program, a scene in which one of the main characters had talked of being a prisoner for years in Vietnam, and he realized the truth in a blinding revelation. "I'm free here," he said, tapping his forehead as the TV guy had done. "Because I choose it. I might have to stay here for now, but I've got my friends--they're my family--and that won't stop being true even if I never go home. I can think what I like--and I can hate you. So just because I'm here now doesn't mean my spirit isn't free."

"We shall see how you feel after a week, a month, a year. Trapped in this hateful house, unable to join in the life going on around you. You can watch it all on television but you will only be a spectator, not a participant. You can live in luxury but never be free to walk out the door. My servants guard you at all times, and you cannot see them. If you go to far you will be forcibly returned, and if you push me too far, I have other shackles to use in place of the one you destroyed."

"Feel good to threaten me?" Peter challenged. "Does it make you feel like a big, strong man? You're really brave, getting others to do your dirty work, picking on a man who's kept his word, even to scum like you." But he realized the picture the beast painted was not only intended to demoralize him. It was a quick glimpse of what the creature's own life was like. And if, like the Beast in the fairy tale, he'd been human once upon a time, his life was even rougher than Peter's present captivity. At least Peter had friends who wouldn't abandon him. He knew that. He knew they'd do everything they could to rescue him. If only the fact of their non-appearance didn't mean Egon was dead.... Peter shivered, any sympathy he might have felt for his adversary slipping away.

The beast snarled at him. "Look at me with all the contempt you wish. It won't change anything."

"No, and your telling me not to do it won't change how I feel," Peter returned. God, he hated this. He had to get out of here, get away from the beast's presence or he was going to push too hard and wind up with another cuff to the side of his head. But that would mean giving up and he didn't give up. "So were you really human once? At least in the genetic sense of the word?"

The beast didn't answer him. He watched Peter thoughtfully, a flash in the depths of his eyes suggesting pain and frustration, but he masked it an instant later. "I will leave you now," he said and sped away, dropping to all fours.

"Yeah, well, whatever changed you over, you deserved it!" Peter hollered after him.

The beast froze in mid-stride. Then he straightened up like a man, whirled around, and came back to Peter. "You can't say that to me," he rumbled ominously. "You have no right--"

"You're a little late," Peter said, rocking on the balls of his feet, braced to duck the furious entity's blows. "I already did."

For a moment, they held the eye contact, the blue eyes hot with temper and the green ones cool and stubborn, unwilling to yield, unwilling to show the fear that churned in the pit of his stomach. A great clawed hand rose, poised to strike, and Peter stood his ground, bolstering himself for the force of the blow. For Egon, he thought defiantly, the reflection endowing him with strength and courage, and held his position. "Give it your best shot, Jack."

The issue hung unresolved for a long moment, then the beast lowered his hand slowly as if he had surprised even himself. "You fear me," he breathed. "Yet you stand your ground. Why?"

"Because I don't quit," Peter insisted. He wanted to make that clear right away. "And because I made a bargain, even if it was with a creep like you. One thing I learned from Egon when I first met him is that it's important to keep your word. Even when it's tough." Egon had always stood by him, even when it might have been to his benefit not to, when he defended Peter to Dr. Shelby at Columbia, for instance, when Peter's surface persona made uptight old farts like Shelby believe Peter was a con man like his father. Egon had never withheld his loyalty. If he could do that, even in the beginning when Peter wasn't sure he'd deserved it, then Venkman could keep his word now even if he wound up being punched out for it.

"What do you get out of it?" the beast asked. He still projected fury but the worst of the heat had drained from his eyes.

"Get out of what?" Peter echoed.

"Your deal? Your friendship with Egon?"

"That's Dr. Spengler to you, Jack," Peter insisted. "What do I get out of it? More than you can possibly understand. I get somebody who would storm hell for me. I get somebody to laugh with and kid with, and hang with, somebody I can trust all the way to the wire and beyond, somebody I can stand with and face death with side by side. Somebody I'd die for and who would die for me. God, are you really so pathetic you don't know what I'm talking about?"

"He has money, I believe," the beast inserted smugly.

"Money?" Peter's jaw dropped. He had simply never thought of that, not even when he'd been alone against the world and didn't know Egon well enough to care. "I love money as much as the next guy, but you think I want money from Egon? You're crazy. I wouldn't care if he didn't have a cent and I had to pay all his bills for him. Or Ray or Winston either. It's not about money. Sure I want to rake in the big bucks, drive a Maserati, things like that, and maybe I could make that much if I went into a fancy private practice as a psychologist and maybe not, but I wouldn't give up busting. And it's not just the kick and the fame either. It's the guys. I may not have a Greek chorus who does my housework and steals things from Bloomie's for me, but I've got the guys."

"Not any longer," the beast said.

Peter jerked, That hurt more than being gut-punched. "Wanna bet?" he cried, trying not to sound as frantic as he felt. "They'll figure it out and charge to the rescue like the cavalry riding over the hill. I know they will. They'll do it so your stupid bargain won't hold. And then you can go back to hanging out watching your 'magic mirror' like a kid with his nose pressed up against the window of a candy store."

The beast walked away. This time, he didn't return.

Peter stood there in the hallway for, pondering what that had all been about. Sure it was a struggle for dominance. Venkman had known from the first that he had to hold his own against the beast or be sucked under. But why was the beast so fascinated about his buddies? Because he didn't have any? Because it was a subtle way to rub it in to Peter what he'd given up? Because he was just a jerk, seeing what buttons to push? Or because the beast was like a kid at a candy store window? He couldn't go out and have a life. Whatever had transformed him had made it necessary for him to hide himself from the world's prying eyes. If he ventured out, he'd probably be captured and eventually wind up in a secret lab somewhere, slated for dissection.

Peter didn't feel a shred of sympathy for him.

Slowly he moved along the hallway, opening doors and sticking his head into the various rooms. He wondered about the other wing and going back there, but it didn't seem a good time to provoke his adversary. Instead he concentrated on the rooms up here in the safer wing.

He found a TV set in a room that had been done up as a rec room, with a stereo set and a collection of tapes and CDs, the television, a pool table, shelves and shelves of books, ranging from current best sellers to mysteries, science fiction, action-adventure novels, and a great deal of non-fiction. Travel books were cheek by jowl with weighty science tomes like the kind Egon favored. Peter pulled down a couple of the thicker volumes and saw they were recent textbooks on genetics.

Was the beast a mutant then? With the mention of wizards Peter had speculated he'd been placed under a curse or a spell to turn him into the creature that Peter saw. Was it an actual change, genuinely physical, or was it an illusion that was visible to all, even the beast himself. Or had the wizard known a spell to shift his shape? Such things were possible, Peter knew. Once a sorceress had turned Ray into a raven. But that had been physical. Was this? Were those designer jeans really modified to fit the different angle in the leg joint? Or were they normal designer jeans that looked modified? Peter opted for the former, simply because of the readings he'd taken with Egon's meter. It had read physical entities, although that could have meant the gargoyles. No, he decided, remembering the textbooks he held, the change was real, and he'd bet good money Old Beastie had made the gargoyles bring him the books in hopes of finding a method of reversing the process.

He'd have done better, Peter decided, to find a spell book or a grimoire.

Stuffing the books on the shelves, Peter wandered over and turned on the TV to a local news channel, hoping to find out what the guys were up to. He had to listen to a debate on parking, a story about a recent subway mugger, and assorted bits and pieces of utter boredom, before his picture flashed on the screen.

"Dr. Peter Venkman of the Ghostbusters is still missing as of this report," the anchor informed the audience. Searches for him have expanded throughout the Upper West Side. The hunt for the location where Dr. Egon Spengler was chained up still remains a mystery. Dr. Spengler is still hospitalized but is expected to make a complete recovery. Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Dr. Venkman or about what happened to Dr. Spengler should be reported to the police immediately. And now a word from our live anchor at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, David Prescott. David?"

"I'm here with Dr. Raymond Stantz of the Ghostbusters," 'David' replied, and the camera pulled back to reveal Ray, wearing his Ghostbusters coveralls, although not a proton pack. Ray gazed earnestly at the camera.

"Peter, if you're watching this, we're searching for you," he said, his voice intense. "We won't give up. We'll find you. Egon can't remember very much yet, but he will. He's gonna be just fine. He's better already than he was when he first woke up. So hang in there and if there's any way you can send a message to us, do. We're really worried about you."

Winston materialized behind Ray, dropping a hand on the younger man's shoulders. "You called that right," he said. "We'll find you, Pete, and that's a promise."

The reporter spoke then and the camera narrowed in on him again but Peter strained to see past him to his two friends. If Ray said Egon would be all right, he would be, and knowing he was still somewhat disoriented explained why a rescue party hadn't come beating on the door. He was lucky Egon could remember anything at all about what happened last night.

"I'm right here, Ray," he said to the TV screen. "Don't leave it too long, will you?" He reached out and brushed his fingers against the screen where he had a glimpse of Ray's sand-colored sleeve behind the reporter.

"Touching." The beast's voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"Back off, Jack," Peter snapped, angrier than ever because his feelings were being scorned, because he'd been spied on.

"What do you get out of all that emotion?" the beast demanded. "You're still here, and they're out there in the world. Doesn't do you any good in the long run, does it?"

"Even if they never find me, it does more good than you can imagine," Peter insisted. "At least I know what I'm missing. You never had it, did you? Even if I'm the captive, you're the one I pity."

A hand jerked up, poised to strike. "I have no need of your pity," snapped the beast. "Waste it on those maudlin fools who believe in it, not on me."

"Touchy, aren't we? Missing out on something, aren't you? And it bugs the hell out of you, so you have to mock it. I'm a psychologist, Jack. I know that's a quick answer, and I don't have a real handle on you yet, but I can tell when somebody's overreacting, and you are."

"I am very tired of you."

"Good. Then let me walk out the front door."

"If I become too tired of you, there are always more chains in my attic."

"Did you chain everybody who ever wandered in here?" Peter asked. "Are there rooms up there with skeletons chained to the walls?"

Amusement spread across the furry face. "Does your imagination often run away with you? Of course not. I turn them loose--suitably confused so that they don't remember coming here."

Peter hesitated a split second, then he lunged at the beast, grabbed him by the front of his Izod shirt and tried to shake him. It was as effective as shaking the Statue of Liberty. "Did you mess with Egon's mind?" he shouted in a furious rage.

The beast encircled Peter's wrists and yanked his hands free. "Did I? Perhaps."

Peter lunged again, hands closing into fists. "You son of a bitch. That's the worst thing you could do to Egon. That wasn't part of our deal! You had no right to mess with his mind. You don't know how much he'd hate that."

His jailer stared at Peter in surprise, his eyes widening with stunned realization. "You mean that, don't you?" he asked.

"Mean what?" That was hardly the reaction Peter had expected from the creature.

"That you're mad because I did something that would disturb Egon. Not because it means you won't have instant rescue."

Peter's stomach twisted. He hadn't really even thought of that except in a discouraged, distant way. But Egon valued his intellect so much that to interfere with it was to hit him where he lived. Peter didn't say so. He didn't want to give the monster ideas.

"You don't mess with Egon's mind," he insisted hotly. "You leave him alone. Besides, Egon's so smart that your 'suitably confused' isn't gonna stop him very long."

"You really are more worried about him than you are about yourself?" the beast asked in a quiet voice.

"That's the whole point, fuzz face," Peter said with withering scorn. "Why do you think I'm here, after all? Are you really that dense? You cheat and you fight dirty, and I don't trust you for a second. Now you pull this number. But until Egon's on his feet and able to stand his ground, I've gotta live with it."

"Remember that," snarled the beast and walked away leaving Peter standing there staring after him blankly. Now what had that been about?

"He truly is the one," the voices began again.

"Lay off," Peter told them, fed up with the whole thing. "Being 'the one' hasn't done me one shred of good, and if that jerk boss of yours has messed with Egon's mind, he's gonna pay."

A shape nearly became visible in front of him. Peter could see it as a strange disturbance, a vibration in the air, and he squinted at it in an attempt to bring it into focus. "He did not do what you accuse him of," the voices chorused. "It is part of the spell."

Peter wasn't sure he believed it but he wouldn't pass up a chance to learn all he could. "You mean the wizard put a spell on everything, not just him and the house? Cause it to appear dusty and abandoned to somebody who wanders in and then turn them loose so they don't really remember being here?"

"That is a part of it." He was only hearing one voice now, and instead of sounding hollow and eerie like a spirit voice, it sounded tired, weighted down by years and trouble. The shape intensified, growing almost manlike. If Peter concentrated, he could faintly see a lined face with a shock of greying hair.

"What's the other part?" he demanded.

"To tell you would be to invalidate anything you might do." The foggy outline sighed, an utterly human sound. "And as your loyalties are to Egon, mine are to him."

"Then I question your taste, buster," Peter spat. "He chained Egon to a wall when he was sick. You think I'm gonna forgive him for that?"

"I know it would be difficult. But try to understand. Think what might happen to him if anyone saw him and remembered."

Peter grinned. "You mean they'd cut him up to see what makes him tick. I kinda like that idea." He wasn't sure he really did. The beast might be the biggest creep this side of the Nazis, but Peter had talked to him. Lock him up, sure, but not cut him open. Egon was going to be all right. Peter wouldn't mind if the beast thought they were going to dissect him for awhile though. Let him have a taste of his own medicine.

"No, you don't," said the quivering air.

"Well, maybe I wouldn't want anybody cut up. But I've seen a lot of weird things in my time and I've trapped worse than your buddy. Only difference I can see between him and a nasty ghost is that he's alive. He's messing with people's minds--or letting it happen, anyway--and that's about as low as you can stoop. Not to mention he practices slavery--which has been illegal in this country for a long time. Give him a taste of his own medicine. The world doesn't revolve around him."

Another sigh. "So I have told him many times."

"So tell him again, and tell him to leave Egon's mind alone when you're reading him the riot act. Where does he get off thinking he can mess with anybody he likes?"

"He is...rather selfish."

"Yeah right, and Hitler was a little bit egotistical, right? You've got a great way of understatement."

"If you had not met your three Ghostbuster friends, might you not have considered yourself the center of the universe?" asked the voice that came out of midair. The quiver dissipated leaving Peter standing there alone in the corridor, realizing the truth of the entity's words. People were selfish when they didn't realize there was anything better. If you loved somebody, a friend, family, a wife or lover, you stopped thinking about yourself so much. Peter had been pretty much a jerk when he met Egon. He'd just about given up believing he could ever trust anybody or to expect anyone to trust him in return. His father's lesson to suspect everybody and use everybody before they used you might have come to dominate his life. But then he'd met Egon and realized there were people in the world he could trust. People in the world he could laugh with. People in the world who would stand at his side even against demons and monsters. Ray, too, and eventually Winston, had reinforced Peter's good fortune. He'd storm hell for his buddies. He'd been stuck here for that very reason and he knew that even if Egon didn't remember everything, he'd figure it out. Nobody dumped out of here before could have been as smart as Egon. He'd reason it out. He had to.

So why was Peter really here? To teach the beast how to think about other people? Peter knew he was hardly the most unselfish person in the universe. He was too fond of his own comfort for that. But the one thing that could break past his desire for the good life was a threat to his friends. Okay, maybe that was enough. If he reach the creepy monster that held him, maybe he could convince him to let Peter go. He could wheel and deal with the best of them. If he cozied up to the beast, maybe he could trick him into lowering his guard so Peter could escape.

He strode off down the hall to the west wing, in search of the beast.

"I'm still not detecting anything," Ray said wearily. They'd visited Egon again at ten o'clock, relieved to see him healthier than he had when he'd first awakened, but finding him no less disoriented about what had happened to him. His mind was clear again and he was able to think, but he simply couldn't remember the details of what had happened to him. He must have been so sick then that he genuinely hadn't been aware of what had happened. If he couldn't remember because he'd mostly been unconscious, he might never be able to tell what had happened to Peter. What really upset Ray was that Egon knew that and even blamed himself for his lapse. It was vivid in his shocked blue eyes.

"Peter is in danger, and it is my fault," he'd said.

"No way, homeboy," Winston had insisted, grabbing Egon's wrist and giving it a quick squeeze before letting go. "It's not your fault you're sick, and that's what's causing this. Besides, we're heading out to search for him again. Ray spent a lot of time boosting a meter for enhanced biorhythm readings this morning. We'll start on Shelby's street and spread out in widening circles, checking not only for Peter's readings but for ghosts. If anything weird happened out there, we're gonna be the first to know about it. And Janine will be back to stay with you this afternoon. She sat up with you all night and we made her go home and get some sleep before she came back. We'll watch out for you and Ray and I will go after Peter."

Egon reached out and touched Ray's arm. His grip was weaker than usual, but he still clung tightly. "Find him, Raymond," he said. "I can't be with you when you're searching, but find him. I don't consciously remember but I feel that something terrible has happened. Find him, Winston."

"We will, Egon." Ray had hated to see Egon so upset. He was sure the physicist knew, deep inside, exactly what had happened to Peter, and if he couldn't remember it, his subconscious could. That meant he might recall at any time but, until he did, he would suffer agonies over the attempt to recall. Ray wasn't sure Peter was even alive, but he had to be. If he'd died, surely Ray would know. He'd have felt it. They all would. Besides, Egon didn't believe Peter was dead. He hadn't been dissembling to soothe Ray. He believed Peter was alive and in trouble, so whatever had happened to Peter hadn't been fatal, at least it hadn't seemed that way to Egon at the time.

"We sure will," Winston had agreed.

"He's alive, Egon," Ray had said, giving Egon's hand a pat before detaching it. "You know he's alive. Just remember that. If he's alive we can find him. We brought you back from the Netherworld that time, didn't we? We're Ghostbusters. We'll get the job done."

Egon had smiled faintly. "Thank you, Ray," he said quietly. Dr. Greavy had come in to check him out then and had shooed the other two away. "Go out and find Peter," he said. "That would help Egon's recovery more than anything else I can think of." He followed them out the door. "All the antibiotics in the world can't boost Egon's spirits. Whatever it is he's blocking or can't remember is eating at him. Oh, he'll recover," he added hastily, spotting their alarmed faces. "But it would be easier if he knew Peter was safe."

Spurred by that statement, they went out as if departing on a holy crusade, to rescue Peter.

But it was easier said than done. They went from the Cloisters all the way down to Columbia and back again, trying to find evidence of Peter's presence. Nothing. They checked in with the police who had been investigating dozens of tips from the general public, all of whom claimed they had seen Peter, and in such widely divergent places it was unlikely any of the stories were true. Each story had to be checked, though. The chain Egon had been wearing when he turned up at the hospital suggested Peter was a captive of a crazed sadist, and Ray didn't even like to think about Peter lying there in chains waiting desperately for his friends to rescue him. How Egon had reached the hospital in Ecto puzzled him. If Peter had driven him there, where had he gone?

"I'm still getting nothing," Ray repeated, his voice shooting up in frustration. "Nothing, Winston. We've gotta find him. Where can he be?"

"He's somewhere, and you know it. He's alive, and we're gonna find him. I don't think he's even very far away."

"Then why can't we pick up any readings?" Ray cried, resisting the urge to fling the P.K.E. meter out the window of Ecto in disgust.

"Maybe something's blocking them. Remember that time Peter hid from us as a test of the meters. He wrapped himself up in that space blanket and it blocked the readings. He was right there at headquarters and we couldn't find him. Maybe he's somewhere now that blocks them. Strong energy fields could. Or a lot of ghosts. Or a huge crowd of people."

"But we haven't been around huge crowds of people," Ray objected. "And there have only been normal ghost readings, the ambient energy level we usually see when Egon takes his morning readings of the city. We've had a couple of flickers as we searched but they were only the odd class three, nothing powerful enough to hurt Peter."

"Could the readings be blocked...deliberately?" Winston asked, his face scrunched up in a frown as he concentrated.

"Deliberately? You mean on purpose to keep us from finding Peter?" Ray was shocked. "I never thought of that, but I should've. Somebody has it in for us. Maybe they'd be able to block the readings."

"Sure, like every jerk in Manhattan knows how to do that. Unless Peter was snatched by ghosts, how would they even think of it." He pulled up at a red light.

"Shelby might think of it," Ray said in a small voice. "He's a brilliant physicist, remember? Maybe he's had it in for Egon all these years. Maybe he really didn't want to apologize to him."

"So he calls him and tells Janine all about it and then when Egon goes to his place, he chains him up? Brilliant physicists aren't that stupid. Unless he thought himself so smart it was a double bluff. He thought he could cover his tracks and no one would suspect him because he'd made public contact with Egon." Ray knew Winston read a lot of mysteries, occasionally with megalomaniac super-villains who held the rest of the world in contempt.

Shelby had never felt like that to Ray. Sure he was brilliant but he lacked imagination except with regard to physics. He wasn't even interested in much besides his chosen field, like Egon's father had been. Gosh, that was probably why Shelby's repudiation had hurt him at Columbia. Because in a way Shelby had reminded Egon of his own father, who hadn't approved of Ghostbusting either. Egon's father was dead now, and to have Shelby attempt a reconciliation had probably meant even more to Egon because he couldn't have one with his own father. Not that Egon's dad had ever turned on him, but he'd been mildly disapproving all along, his attitude carrying over to Egon's Uncle Cyrus. Cyrus had finally come around. Now it must have appeared that Shelby had. No wonder Egon had left his sickbed to hurry to the reunion.

"If Shelby did this, I'm gonna break his face," Ray snapped. Usually the most accepting and friendly of the Ghostbusters, his good humor vanished when his friends were threatened.

"It's just a theory, Ray. But Egon did say he had reached Shelby's place. He said he went in. And Shelby says he didn't." The light changed and he started forward again.

Ray frowned, trying to remember. "Egon said he went in and Shelby wasn't there. But you can't just walk into somebody's apartment, not in Manhattan. Everybody locks their doors and has extra chains on them."

"Will you step into my parlor?" Winston muttered under his breath. "Unless Shelby was baiting a trap for him." He hit the brakes to avoid a taxi that cut in front of him, muttering a mild curse under his breath, then drove on.

"Come on, let's go over there," Ray cried, and Winston made an illegal U-turn to the accompaniment of squealing brakes and blaring horns, and started north again.

Shelby was home, dealing with a telephone man when the two Ghostbusters pounded on his door. He let them into his apartment; he'd unpacked a few more boxes since yesterday; books filled most of the shelves of two huge bookcases in the living room. The phone guy in his coverall, was doing something with a screwdriver--probably adding another phone jack. When the two men entered, he stared up in surprise, too interested in the arrival of Ghostbusters to continue with his work. Sitting back on his heels, he prepared to watch the show.

"Where's Peter?" Ray demanded, going right to the heart of the matter.

Shelby's face darkened. "As I explained yesterday, Venkman came here searching for Egon. Egon wasn't here. He went away again and I have not seen him since. I didn't bother to watch out the window to see what he did once he'd gone. I was concerned about Egon, of course, but I assumed he must have realized he was not well enough to continue the journey and had returned home, and that perhaps he had passed Venkman en route. When the police showed up, I knew my theory was incorrect, but that doesn't invalidate what I said and did, or what I saw. Venkman came here. Egon wasn't here. He left. I have seen neither of them since then."

"We've been taking readings to try to find Peter," Ray explained, holding up a meter. "These devices usually detect psycho-kinetic energy, but they can be modified to read human biorhythms. It's not a strong reading and it doesn't linger. We took readings outside here last night and didn't get anything."

"Because Venkman isn't here," the grey-haired man snapped, his patience wearing thin. "The police searched the place very thoroughly, I assure you. Your secretary was here, as stubborn as you are. She went away satisfied. Why are you here? You should be out there trying to find Venkman, assuming you'd want to find him in the first place."

Enraged, Ray lunged for the professor, but Winston grabbed him around the shoulders and restrained him. The telephone man looked as enraptured as a person enjoying a good play. "Easy, Ray," soothed Winston. "He's a fool, and ignorant, to boot." The black man faced Shelby levelly. "We haven't found readings of Peter anywhere. We've been all through this neighborhood countless times."

"Then evidently he is not in this neighborhood," Shelby said, eyeing the glowering Ray warily.

"One thing that can keep us from taking readings is something that could block them," Winston continued. "And short of a few flukes which don't seem to be in effect here, blocking readings is usually deliberate. Which leads us to wonder just who might have the intellect and the training to understand that and figure out a way to block them. And you're a physicist. Egon was coming here. Last time you talked to him you gave him hell. That's a lot bigger coincidence than I like."

"Your reasoning is specious," Shelby said, tight-lipped. He stood at bay, glaring at them. "I can understand why you might choose to find it attractive but the bottom line is this. I came around to Egon's reasoning. I wanted to apologize because it was the honorable thing to do. I have been concerned for him myself, and even for Venkman, although I have never liked him. He is not here. I did not capture him and send him elsewhere. I am willing for the sake of argument to submit to a polygraph test."

"Sure, and you're logical and intelligent enough to confound one," Winston replied. He looked the professor right in the eye. "I don't know how it is, but I believe you. Surely you see why we would suspect you, though."

Shelby frowned, but maybe he was too honest to deny it. "I do. I don't like it, and I didn't care for Venkman's attitude last night, but I realize he was worried about Egon. I also realize I am the one link you have to locate Venkman; Egon set out to come here, and Venkman actually did. I heard on the news about your Ghostbusting vehicle, how Venkman had it and then Egon did, so obviously they made contact somewhere. As to what happened after that, I could not even hazard a guess, but your job is dangerous. Perhaps they met nearby, even in front of my apartment, and encountered a ghost en route to your office."

"Yeah, right and the ghost let Peter deliver Egon to the hospital before making off with him?" Ray scoffed. This was crazy. Shelby had to have something to do with it. He couldn't simply be the catalyst that had brought the two men together at the right time in the wrong place.

"I don't know the answer, Dr. Stantz," Shelby replied. He was still angry at their accusations but he had restrained himself. The telephone man still had not resumed his work. His head went back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match, a shock of straw-colored hair sticking out under the edges of his cap.

"But there is one, and it must have something to do with you," Ray replied. "Or at least the place. Have you met any of the other tenants?"

"In New York, Ray?" Winston asked, quirking an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Well, Egon said he went into the apartment. Maybe he went into the wrong one, one floor up or down. Maybe there was somebody there who was dealing drugs or something and couldn't let Egon walk out with what he'd seen."

"You have a fanciful imagination, Dr. Stantz. But then you always did. I assure you, the police went to every apartment in this building. A total stranger, er, gave me hell for it at the mailboxes this morning. He told me in far greater detail than I wanted to hear how the police had interrupted him just before he'd been able to 'score' with his girlfriend, and how she had gone home in disgust when the police came. Believe me, this building has been examined in great detail. Come. You can search my apartment. But let this be the end of it. Little did I dream I would be forced to endure so much when I tried to reconcile with Egon."

"Yeah, well, at least nobody chained you up and kidnapped a friend of yours," Ray told him.

Shelby had the grace to appear ashamed.

His place proved clean and Ray could find nothing capable of jamming detection equipment. He and Winston went to every apartment in Shelby's building, too, although most people didn't answer, probably at work on a weekday. Those who did answer were intrigued and let the Ghostbusters in, including one middle-aged woman who was considerably friendlier than Ray would handle. His face was hot when they managed to free themselves from her and hurry down the stairs.

"Now I could buy her getting her hands on Pete," Winston said, grinning, as they stepped out onto the stoop. "All over him, in fact."

Ray, who had been groped as they went out the door, knew he was blushing. "Yeah, and she might be into chains, too, even if I didn't see any. But I don't think she'd know how to block readings or even think to do it."

"She's just lonely, Ray."

Stantz grimaced. "Yeah, but even Peter wouldn't be that desperate. And she wouldn't chain up a sick man."

"No, you called that one right. So what next?"

"I don't know. Take a peek at that run-down house?"

"I don't think Egon would have felt well enough to check it out," Winston said as they crossed the street and reached the iron gate.

"No, and I bet nobody's been in there for a good fifteen years," Winston replied. "Look at that courtyard. Those roses should've been cut back years ago. It would break my Mama's heart to see a garden like that gone to rack and ruin."

Ray held up the meter and took a reading. "There are no readings and there's no interference to the meter either. There's nothing at all. If Peter was in there, we'd be able to pick him up." Ordinarily he would have been fascinated by the turreted house, but ordinarily Egon wasn't hospitalized and Peter wasn't missing. He stared up at the house, trying to detect motion in any of the windows, but there was nothing. The windows were pretty dirty but he could see drapes hanging in a room to the left of the front door. If anyone had moved inside, he'd have been able to see it. But when he turned the meter to detect generic biorhythms, it didn't react to that either. If street people had taken over the place, they might have grabbed Egon or Peter, although he didn't think they'd have bothered to chain Egon. But the meter didn't respond. The gate hung in its rusty hinges and didn't appear to have moved for ten years.

"Cool old house," Winston said. "Too bad it's been allowed to fall apart like this. When I worked construction we did a few renovation jobs. My dad loved that kind of thing as a sideline. He'd get a kick out of this place, even if the architect was demented. Take a gander at those towers."

Ray heaved a sigh, the fanciful towers not nearly as interesting to him as the search was. "Come on, we've got to keep hunting," he said. "Peter's out there somewhere." He glanced at the apartment building they'd left. "You think Shelby was leveling with us?"

Winston nodded. "Yeah, much as it pains me to admit it, he was telling the truth. Unless he's totally crooked, and I think that would show in his eyes. Pretty hard to present a normal appearance when you're a cold-blooded killer. He was worried about Egon and even about Pete, although he doesn't like him."

"No, Peter used to give him a rough time when we were at Columbia," Ray replied. "He acts that way around self-important people with narrow minds."

"No lie," Winston replied, and they turned their backs on the old house and started for Ecto.

"No! Don't go! Here I am!" Peter waved wildly at the departing figures of his friends. He'd been unable to believe it when he had glanced out a second floor window and saw Ray and Winston standing before the gate. They'd found him! He'd be free in minutes. Waving wildly he struggled to open the window to he could call to them. It didn't budge, so he raised his voice.

"Ray! Winston! Guys, I'm up here!"

Ray messed with his meter and took a reading, but they didn't respond to the shout. Peter could hear their voices, not well enough to make out what they were saying, but clearly enough that they should have been able to hear him yelling. But they didn't. Once Winston's eyes fell directly on him, but they moved on a second later, his face unchanging. Impossible as it seemed, they could neither see nor hear him.

He yanked at the window once again and it shot open obligingly Gripping the sill for balance, Peter leaned out. "Ray! Winston! I'm right here! Guys, please! You've gotta hear me. Look at me, guys!"

But they turned and walked away.

Peter stood frozen, his heart tight in his chest, until they climbed into Ecto and drove slowly down the street. He didn't pull back into the room until the converted hearse vanished around a corner. Then he did withdraw inside, standing there shaking with shocked reaction. They couldn't see him. The wizard's spell must have blocked him from them as long as they were outside the gate. If only they'd come into the courtyard...

"Oh, god, guys," Peter moaned, despair hitting him like a tsunami and upending him. He slid down the wall and sat leaning against it, his knees drawn up against his chest. The spell might even prevent him from walking out the front door, down the stairs, across the courtyard. It had let him go outside, but he hadn't left the steps. Maybe he couldn't.

Until that instant he'd believed he would be rescued. He couldn't break his word for fear of endangering Egon, but if the guys came for him it would be different, he'd be free and it would be okay. But the guys had come--and gone again, leaving Peter still here. He had never felt so alone and isolated in his entire life. His eyes burned with unshed tears and his chest tightened up. Wrapping his arms around his knees, he put his head down on them and sat huddled there, lost and abandoned, feeling like the world had ended. It was true. He was stuck here. There was really no way home.

Seeing Ray and Winston had felt so good, even if they couldn't see him or hear him. Surely they'd return. They'd figure it out, they'd find him. But he knew they wouldn't. Egon's memory had been tampered with, and he wouldn't have answers for them.

The two little boys! Peter's head shot up as he remembered them. They'd hear the news, they'd tell. They'd say they'd seen Egon and Peter go into the haunted house. Once Ray and Winston knew that, not even lack of readings could keep them out.

"You here for the haunted house too, Peter?"

He looked around wildly, seeing nothing, but recognizing the familiar voice.

"Never been in. It's too weird in there for us."

Peter's stomach knotted. The children, that's what they'd said, those were their very voices. He'd been lured in, expertly drawn into the web of deceit on purpose, tricked into coming in so he could make a deal for Egon's life. Egon may have come here by mistake because Janine had written the address wrong, but Peter wouldn't have checked out the house without the added incentive of the two children. It hadn't dawned on him they might be ghosts. He hadn't been taking readings then; he hadn't had a meter until he'd come inside and found Egon's meter on the stairs. It seemed Beastie Boy's Greek chorus could materialize fully if need be, and do it outside the house. He would never have believed the Nike-shod kids on the curb were anything but what they seemed. Now the quoting voices sounded hollow and eerie, part of the general spookiness of the beast's castle. He had been set up. He'd fallen for it.

But he'd saved Egon.

Or had he? Maybe even the television program was an illusion. Maybe it was all a con and Egon was still chained in the attic....

Peter jumped up and ran like mad for the stairs, taking them three at a time. He burst into the attic room where he had found Egon the evening before and skidded to a stop. No Egon. No one at all, only the broken chain dangling from the wall to prove he had ever been here, only the faint indentation on the pillow that lay upon the cot, where Egon's head had rested.

"He is truly in the hospital," said the voice who had spoken to him earlier, the one who resembled a middle-aged man.

"You lured me in here," Peter accused him, whirling to face another enemy. "You tricked me."

"True, Peter." This time the form had almost fully materialized. Peter could see his features, a lined face, filled with a weary, tolerant endurance. "Not I but two of us. Egon was not the one. He was too ill to do what was necessary. He would have been taken to a hospital after dark. But then you came hunting for him. You came in, determined to find him--and you were willing to stay for his sake."

"You keep acting like that's a big deal," Peter said, shaking his head. His desolate loneliness had not abated, and he would have felt really good if he could have slammed his fist against this guy's square jaw, but he had a pretty fair idea his hand would pass right through the illusion if he tried.

"It is a big deal. We learn by example."

Peter fastened on that right away. "So that's what I'm here for? Nobody else who came here and was sent away in a state of confusion ever qualified? I'm here so he can watch you put me through my paces and squirm nicely? So he can enjoy seeing me worry about my buddy? I hate to break it to you, but that clown doesn't have a clue. He's never gonna get it. None of you do, not if you think forcing me to stay here against my will is gonna change anything."

"Then walk out the door, Dr. Venkman. Peter. The protection field is not a force field. You passed through it coming in."

He was strongly tempted to do just that, but he caught himself after two hasty strides toward the door. No, that would invalidate his deal and jeopardize Egon. He couldn't do it. "Sure and the next thing I knew Egon would be chained up again. Forget it. You're not gonna trick me."

The lined face saddened. "We do not control the illusion, Peter," he said, avoiding Peter's eyes. "And it was only fair to remind you that the 'children' you saw outside could not lead to your rescue."

"We? How many of you are there?" At least three, Peter figured. The two kids and the two gargoyles might even be the same, if they were capable of shape-shifting. Maybe even more. The chorus, at full strength, sounded like more than three.

"Not many."

"Don't suppose you want to tell me your name?"

The ghostly form hesitated. "Sheffield," he admitted. "I am Walter Sheffield. I am his valet."

"La di dah," Peter scoffed. "A valet? Give me a break. What do you do, resew his jeans? Iron his cloaks? Is there a spooky, transparent butler, too? Are you a ghost?"

"No," said Sheffield wryly. "I am not a ghost."

"Well, I hate to break it to you but you're transparent. Somebody reverse your molecules?"

"Come down from here," Sheffield urged. "You ate no lunch. Let me prepare a meal for you."

"Not hungry," Peter insisted. He wasn't, either. His stomach felt hollow but it wasn't from hunger, or at least not from the hunger for food. He was hungry for the companionship he felt every day, that he might never feel again, unless he could think of a way out of this stupid trap. He was hungry for the sight of Winston and Ray again, standing outside the gate staring up at the house but not seeing him, hungry for the sight of Egon. If he tried to eat, he would probably be sick.

"Come, I'll fix something light," Sheffield promised, gesturing toward the door. "I know you saw your friends and they did not see you. That must have been truly painful. I, too, have longed for the sight of a loved face. At least your friends remember you."

Peter lunged for the shadowy figure and tried to grab him. "My friends better not get mind-wiped and forget me. That happens and the deal is null and void, buster. I mean it." His hands passed right through Sheffield's shoulders and he drew them back in despair.

"No. That will not happen," Sheffield said hastily. "I give my word on that. My word is good. They are not part of the spell." He moved toward the doorway, and Peter followed him automatically into the hall. He didn't want to be led, but Sheffield didn't irritate him as much as his master did and at least he was providing a few answers.

"So tell me about this spell, then. Your boss, Mister Beast, crossed a wizard, right? And the wizard put a curse on him--and it even cursed his servants? Yeah, right?" He glanced up and down the corridor to see if old Jack was eavesdropping on the conversation but the beast must be elsewhere. He was nowhere in sight.

"Not all of them," Sheffield replied. "Only those present at the time."

"The time of what?" When Sheffield didn't respond Peter shrugged and persisted. "And some of 'em have wings, right?"

"Only when necessary." He waved Peter toward the narrow staircase.

"So you aren't all gargoyles?" Peter asked, moving reluctantly, pausing along the way to open a door here or there. He had to make sure Egon really wasn't here. But each room proved deserted, evidently untouched for years. Several were furnished with beds and chests of drawers, with photographs on nightstands or mantles. Later on Peter might return and see what he could learn about them. "I've heard about gargoyles as an urban legend but maybe it was just some of you, gliding around stealing clothes and food for Beastie Boy." He slammed the last door behind him as they reached the stairs.

"We do not steal. We leave money in return," Sheffield replied huffily. "Tax included."

"That makes it okay, then?" Peter shook his head. "Look, just tell me why? Tell me how I happen to be 'the one' when you let all the others go. Tell me what's going on."

"No. I have told more than I should already. The rest of it you must figure out for yourself."

"And if I work it out? Can I go home?"

Sheffield was silent along time. Peter nodded. "Right. Okay, I got it. No promises, no deals. Thanks for nothing, Sheffield. Bug off now and leave me alone." He stormed down the stairs without checking to see if Sheffield was following him. The valet could do it invisibly if he wanted to. For all he knew, someone was spying on him all the time anyway.

Anger pulsed through Peter, and without hesitation, he stormed over to the west wing. If the deck was so stacked against him, then he didn't have to play by any rules except one. He had to keep his bargain to stay here. But nothing else had been part of the original deal. Beastie had forbidden him the west wing, but not during their bargain, so that made it fair game.

Jack was obviously elsewhere. When Peter entered the room with the shredded painting, no one was there. Peter went closer and tried to make out the face that peered crazily out of the tattered fragments. He pushed a few of them up into place. The young man was handsome, but arrogant. The very tilt of his blond head suggested he considered himself better than anyone else. Even in paint, Peter could recognize the Armani suit for what it was, and the Rolex watch on the wrist. This guy came from the upper crust. He looked like he had everything money could buy.

So why get on a wizard's case? Most people didn't believe in wizards, of course, but Peter had encountered one or two in his Ghostbusting. They weren't common; these days, most people didn't believe the way they'd done in a simpler age. They shunned magic and replaced it with technology, and technology thrived. The two were almost mutually exclusive, but not quite. Belief was still possible, and magic was nothing but a form of science that tapped into energies hardly anyone understood. Ray said part of it was a power in the unused parts of the human brain, and Egon said much of it was illusion and the belief of innocent victims. That was why a voodoo curse worked, after all, because the victim knew it had been placed on him and believed it would kill him. But in a way that made Ray's answer even more right, because the victim's own mind found the power to end his life. Winston tended to think it was mostly nonsense, but he didn't doubt someone could come along and do weird things, because he'd seen it done.

As for Peter, he was a greater skeptic than a lot of people because he knew a good con job could look real and feel real. He'd seen his dad snow people more times than he could count. But in between a scam and a genuine spell was a lot of room for the lies, the half truths, the simple illusions, the stage magicians, the actual practitioners. It was like anything else the general public thought was a hoax. Most of it really was. But there might be something genuine concealed in the phony. And whatever had happened here had certainly done a major number. Peter had seen it working, not only in the beast's savage muzzle and hairy body, the near-invisible servants, but in Ray and Winston standing on the other side of a fence unable to see or hear him when he was yelling his head off to attract their attention. No, this was real.

And it could be broken.

Peter grinned faintly. That was why he was 'the one'. It was because, somehow, he had the power to break the spell and return everything to normal. There was a way out after all, but it was a hard one. They'd kept him when they'd let all the others go. The beast had made a deal with him to keep him in exchange for Egon. It was not just a bargain, it was a test. If Peter agreed, he was bound, but if he didn't agree, he would be worthless. So why? Because he knew how to watch after his friend? It had to be more than that. That was too easy, too obvious. Wizards were devious--what was that quote. "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards because they are subtle and quick to anger." Yeah, this one sure was, if he'd curse not only a jerky guy but his servants too. They probably hadn't done anything but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Old Sheffield had said as much, that only those present at the time had been cursed.

Peter glanced up at the portrait one last time, then let the dangling strips of canvas fall again. Was this Beastie Boy in his human incarnation? Had he clawed it because the sight of his normal self was too painful to endure? And what had he done to drive a wizard to such a terrible revenge. Peter suspected the wizard had a quirky imagination and had fastened on a Beauty and the Beast style revenge because he'd remembered the legend. If so, that meant the beast had to accomplish something to be free, something Peter could help with. Could he humanize the monster who had chained up his best friend? Did he even want to bother? If it was the only way out of here, he'd have to try, but that wouldn't help in the long run. The beast had to win love, didn't he? Wasn't that the rule. Unless he was gay, he wasn't going to fall in love with a male captive, and Peter was aggressively heterosexual. Maybe it wasn't sexual love that was necessary. Just love. What was it Egon had once said. Agape. A Greek term for a type of love; non-sexual but as deep. Peter loved his buddies although he didn't go around talking about it. Guys didn't, not unless the chips were really down. He'd said as much to Egon when he made the deal but that was because he thought he might never see him again. Yeah, he loved them, but they were his friends. They weren't savage monsters who chained sick men to walls and forced friends to sacrifice themselves for each other. This guy didn't have it in him to care. He didn't have one shred of empathy.

If the guy in the picture was really Jack, he he'd probably always had everything he ever wanted. The best clothes, the best of everything. Probably drove a Jag. And he still had money. He wasn't hurting for that. The TV over in the rec room had a thirty-five inch screen if it was an inch. And what about all that work-out equipment? He could still buy everything he wanted.

Except the freedom to go out into the city and interact with other people.

Sternly Peter squelched his sympathy. It was the only thing he had in common with the beast, but the beast deserved it.

Noticing the other picture, the framed eight by ten on the table, Peter picked it up again and studied it with interest. This guy wasn't wearing an Armani suit. His was definitely off the rack. His haircut was probably of the five buck variety. But he had a good face. No older than the guy in the expensive painting, his eyes held character, warmth, and humor as if he considered life a giant banquet waiting to be tasted and savored. He looked like somebody Peter would like to know.

"You will put that down immediately," the beast said.

Peter only obeyed because the deep rumble in the creature's voice vibrated the entire room. Placing the photograph carefully on the table, he pulled his hands away from it and spread them out to show he meant no harm. "Who is he?" he asked in a softer voice than he'd allowed himself so far.

"He is not your concern."

"Sure he is, Jack. Isn't he part of the reason I'm here?" It was a shot in the dark, but it was a pretty good one because the beast flinched as if Peter had struck him.

"He is dead."

Peter had halfway expected that, but he felt a slight pang that all that youthful joy in living had been snuffed out. The world needed people like that. "When?" he said.

"Nearly ten years ago." The beast picked up the picture and stowed it away in a drawer, then he turned his back on Peter and went over to the window, where he stood, great hands grasping the window frame on either side of him, his head bent.

"You want to tell me how?" Peter persisted. Maybe he was coming close, although he doubted it would really be so easy. He couldn't fast talk his way out of this mess simply by digging into the creature's pain.

"From drugs," said the beast in the completely flat voice he might have used if he were reading the telephone book.

Peter hadn't expected it. The guy in the picture didn't seem the type. He said so.

"He was not the type," agreed the beast. "And even if he had been, he had no money to obtain such things. It was done to him against his knowledge. A party, pills passed around, coke available to anybody. He didn't quite realize what he was doing, and by the time he did, it was too late. He was addicted."

"You mean somebody got him started using?" Peter asked. "You?"

"No, that is one thing I never did," the beast replied. "I tried a little coke, everybody did."

"Not true," Peter replied. He'd never tried it himself. He didn't like the thought of putting weird substances into his body. Back in college when a lot of people he knew used grass, he'd tried it once or twice, but it hadn't been that great and then he'd seen somebody die of a drug overdose. It had not been a pretty sight. He could still recall the twisted face, the life sliding out of the eyes. He'd never even considered taking anything since then. He didn't even like to take prescription medication, not even his hay fever pills. "You went to the wrong parties," he said.

"They were good parties, all the right people were there."

"Sounds to me like they were all the wrong people," Peter corrected. "Hooking an innocent kid isn't something the 'right' people would even think of doing."

"He was too stupid to know what he was getting himself into," snarled the beast.

"But you knew. You and your coke and anything else money could buy. You knew. Did you think it was funny? Did you get a charge out of corrupting the innocent?"

"Maybe I was sick of him being holier than thou," the beast snapped, spinning around and glaring at Peter with hot blue eyes. "Always prattling about how I should give it up. Maybe I was tired of that."

"So he tried to help you and you repaid him by him get hooked on the stuff? Even if you didn't give it to him personally, you could have stopped it. They were your parties, not his. You were the one who knew what was going down." He shook his head in disbelief. "No wonder you didn't understand why I stayed here for Egon," Peter said. "You're pathetic. Beneath contempt."

"You have no right to judge me!"

"Who has more right? Did you see him die? I know it isn't a pretty sight."

"He didn't die of an overdose," the beast replied, turning away again. "Go away now. Leave me. You were forbidden this wing. I could carry you out. I could chain you like I did your friend."

"Tough. It wasn't part of our bargain that I stay out of here. You stuck that on later, and it doesn't count. Come on, Jack. How did he die? You're gonna have to tell me, you know. You can't keep it a secret. I'll ask Sheffield or the clowns you had out there pretending to be kids. One of 'em will tell me eventually."

"I could knock you out again and lock you in your room."

"I got out before, I will again. And if you take the key, I'll kick the door down."

"You enjoy taking your life in your hands."

Peter nodded. "I do that for a living. I've stood alone against worse than you'll ever be, monsters as tall as a high-rise, even demons from the Netherworld. I took on Nexa all by myself to save the guys, and Nexa was one of the Old Ones--like Cthulhu. You think you're tough? If you have to depend on punching me out to make your point, then you're not only a jerk, you're stupid. I'm not afraid of you."

The beast threw back his head and roared, the sound bouncing off the walls and light fixtures. Peter had to struggle not to clap his hands over his ears to drown it out. But he didn't. Standing his ground in front of a fanged monster who didn't hesitate to smash things and rip the wallpaper from the walls in his rage was probably crazy, but once Peter gave in he'd have to keep on doing it. He'd rather be a punching bag for old Jack than do that. Not that being a punching bag held much appeal either. But he wasn't afraid of Jack, not in the way he'd feared some of the ghosts they'd faced; like that nasty thing in Russia, or Gozer.

He pointed to the painting. "Is that you?"

"My father had it painted when I graduated from Groton."

Groton? Yep, Peter had been right. Plenty of money there. Seemed like the old saw was right. Money sure hadn't brought the beast any happiness.

"What was your friend's name?" he asked, pointing at the drawer where the photo now reposed.

"Mike Kelly." The answer came automatically, He must have realized the only way to shut Peter up was to render him unconscious. Maybe his invisible servants were whispering to him to go ahead and tell the story after all. He had to, Peter suspected. He simply didn't want to admit it.

"And just how did Mike die?" Peter asked. He meant to have an answer to that question before this encounter ended or go down fighting. Striking a pugnacious pose, he caught Beastie's eyes with his own and held them.

"He telephoned me," said the beast as if describing an old television show that he had watched out of boredom. "He wanted a fix. I told him no. He wanted to come over, but we were having a party. My sister's coming-out party. I didn't want Mike to show up and make a scene. Besides, he'd been in love with Julia for two years and she liked him in return and might have fallen more seriously. But he didn't have any money, and my father would never have let anything come of it. I told Mike I was busy. He said he was desperate. He was bitter, angry. He hated needing the drugs. He'd told me so. But he didn't have the will to resist. They were too strong for him. I--remember thinking of him with scorn and contempt."

"So what happened?" Peter persisted quietly. He was pretty sure the answer was going to be a nasty one. He could feel the beast's pain from across the room.

"He tried to rob a liquor store. The owner had a gun under the counter. He'd been robbed before. He shot Mike in the chest at close range with a twelve-gauge shotgun. He died instantly."

Peter winced. That was not a pretty story. "So you killed your best friend," he said. "That's about as low as it gets." The thought of doing such a thing to any of his friends, setting him up like that and ignoring the consequences was incomprehensible to Peter. And the thought of learning one of them had died so messily was one he couldn't stand to dwell upon.

"The liquor store owner killed him," snarled the beast as if it was something he'd insisted upon over and over for nearly ten years. His eyes avoided Peter's but Venkman saw a flash of bottomless pain in them.

"No. He just pulled the trigger. You killed him and you know you killed him. Or else why have his picture here where you have to see it every day."

"It won't go away," said the beast. "I put it away. And it's back. I threw it away, and it was back. I smashed it once. And it was back." He slammed his fist into the wall beside the window, cracking the plaster. "It won't go away."

"No, not as long as you tell yourself it wasn't your fault," Peter said. "Think about it. Obviously this all has to do with him. I don't know how but it does. I don't much care what happens to you, but I do care about my friends and I want out of here. I don't owe you anything, but I owe you more than you ever gave Mike." He eyed the beast with mingled pity and contempt. "I'd owe anybody that, even pond scum like you."

"High and mighty, aren't you? Mr. Perfect. Trying to make me believe you never did anything beneath contempt. I don't believe it."

"I never said I was perfect," Peter insisted. "I only said I wouldn't sell out my friends. Yeah, I've done things I'm not proud of. And my friends know about them just like I know about their petty little screw-ups. Nobody's a saint--and a good thing, too. I bet a saint would be pretty dull. But we all have obligations." He grimaced. "I learned a lot of that from Egon. When I met him, I was probably a lot like you. My old man is a con artist. He taught me, everybody's out to use you, so use everybody first. Don't trust anybody or you'll regret it. Never give a sucker an even break. I figured what mattered is, have everybody like you, but don't worry about liking them in return. Grab the money and run." He shook his head. "Egon wasn't like that. He had me puzzled at first. But I wanted to know him. And then I wanted to have his respect. Because a part of me never quite bought the story my old man was selling, only I thought I had to. Meeting Egon and coming to know him was really a relief."

"So you sold out to the suckers."

"No. I was lucky. I found somebody to watch my back, somebody I can trust, no matter how bad I screw up. Course they'll tell me when I screw up, and they won't let me make a total ass of myself or get away with being a jerk. Good thing, too. Because it's in all of us. Well, maybe not in Egon or Ray or Winston..." He knew they could screw up too, because no one was perfect. But they never screwed up their teamwork.

"I'm tired of this, and I'm tired of you," insisted the beast.

"Nobody likes home truths," Peter said. "Too bad. But if it comes to that, I've had about as much of you as I can take, too. I'm not going to hang around you for awhile." He gestured over at Mike's picture, which was once again sitting on the table. "Think about Mike for awhile. He wasn't a bad guy. He had a weakness and you didn't help him. Okay. So you screwed up. Try dealing with it, accepting it, and going on from there."

"I don't need a shrink telling me what to do."

"I think you do, unless this is permanent, and if it was, you wouldn't need 'the one'." Peter started for the door.

The beast growled, deep in his chest, but he didn't make any attempt to stop him.

Egon awoke from another nap sometime in the middle of the afternoon--he could tell it was afternoon from the angle of the sun in his window. He was clearheaded, although still weak, and his chest wasn't as tight and achy as before. He still had both the oxygen and the IV. Alone in his room, he groped for the remote that controlled the bed elevation and raised it so he was sitting up slightly. That felt better. When he gazed out into the corridor he could see the edge of a blue-clad leg sitting there and he knew he still had police protection. Peter wasn't here, and neither were the guys.

Egon concentrated, trying to remember what had happened to him. It was growing clearer. Janine had left him a message from Dr. Shelby, he had felt marginally better and had gone rushing off, clearly a foolish maneuver brought on by his eagerness to reconcile with his advisor and by his lack of judgment caused by the virus. He'd reached the professor's house and gone inside. He'd heard strange voices. After that nothing was very clear for a long time, not until Peter's arrival. He could vaguely recall Peter bargaining for Egon's freedom. Had there been a strange entity there, a physical entity? Egon had taken readings but he was still fuzzy on what he had discovered. He could not recall seeing Professor Shelby, though, and Ray had said they'd examined every room his house and found no trace of Peter.

So what did that mean? He and Peter had met, and the one thing they had in common was Shelby's address. Had they met on the street outside? No, Egon had been attacked inside Shelby's house. He remembered going inside. He remembered a creature threatening him. The creature had denied Shelby was present. He could remember that, see the beast and the way it sometimes stood erect and sometimes dropped to all fours for speed of movement.

He remembered Peter offering himself for Egon's freedom, giving himself up so Egon could go free and be taken to a hospital. He remembered Peter's anguished face as he promised he would not try to escape and the way Peter's words had struck through to his soul. Peter was a prisoner, a prisoner of a paranormal being. He might be in the Netherworld right now.

But the guys said Peter had met with Shelby, that Shelby had claimed Egon had never come. Where was Shelby when Egon had arrived at his house? And where did he go when Peter encountered the creature, found Egon in chains, and negotiated for his freedom? Ray and Winston seemed convinced Shelby was innocent, but how could he be?

Unless he, too, was a slave of the creature. Unless he'd stood aside to allow Egon to be taken, then lied to Peter about it. That explained a great many things. He had to tell someone right away. He had to tell Ray to adjust for a negative valance on the P.K.E. meter, although it would give such a reading without a special adjustment.

If Shelby had been in cahoots with the creature, it explained much. Peter might well not be at the moldering old house after all. He might have been removed to another location by the same creatures who had taken Egon away through the skylight. He could vaguely remember that, seeing Peter growing smaller and smaller below him until the world faded away and Egon had lost consciousness entirely.

But that meant Peter could be anywhere.

Could Shelby actually be the creature? Could he transform back and forth? No, because if so, why summon Egon in the first place. Exposing himself to the Ghostbusters would be dangerous. The creature itself was in control, perhaps determined to revenge himself on the Ghostbusters. But if so, why free Egon? What purpose did it serve to hold only one Ghostbuster?

Unless it had a purpose that needed distraction. Winston and Ray had done nothing today but visit Egon and search for Peter. Elsewhere in the city, paranormal manifestations could be taking place with no one to defend against them. Egon had been very ill, possibly dying. He would not make nearly as good a hostage as Peter, in the peak of health. Still, Janine had been at headquarters all morning and had reported no emergency calls.

Egon reached for the telephone on the bedside stand. He had to call headquarters, relay his concerns to Janine, call the guys in the mobile phone and tell them.

The mobile phone rang and rang untended. It didn't have an answering machine. That meant the guys had left Ecto in their search for Peter. He hoped they were all right but had no guarantees of it. So he punched in the number for the firehall.

He got the answering machine.

Isolated, trapped by his weakness, he sagged against the pillows. He was much better than he had been when he had collapsed but he doubted he could make it as far as the door. Yet he had to tell someone his theories.

"Officer!"

The policeman came in. He was young, probably not very long out of the academy, with a baby face and a bristling mop of short red hair, with an attendant crop of freckles all over his face. Tall and gangling, his hands and feet seemed too big for his body. His eyebrows were bushy and sharply arched giving him a perpetual air of surprise.

"Did you want something, Dr. Spengler?" he asked, eyes wide with an expression Egon recognized as hero worship. The young man was a Ghostbusters fan. "I'm patrolman Doug Larabee."

"I've come up with several theories that perhaps should be investigated," he said and detailed them for the young man, who whipped out a notebook and scribbled industriously. The more Egon spoke, the wider his eyes grew, and when he had finished jotting down the theories, Larabee lifted his head, nodding eagerly. "I know that Shelby guy has to be in on it somehow. There's no other explanation," he said. "I just figured he had to have allies. I didn't think that maybe it was ghost allies, but I should've. I'm gonna call this in and tell my sarge. I think we need to do more than search his house. I bet Dr. Venkman was moved right after you were. I wonder why he did it." He heaved his shoulders up in a shrug. He didn't concern himself with reasons only with what might have happened. Egon had a sudden mental image of Joe Friday saying, "Only the facts," although Doug Larabee's eager excitement was about as far from Jack Webb's lugubrious solemnity as Egon could imagine.

"You don't have to prove why, although the motive would help prove his guilt, if indeed he is guilty," Egon replied.

"I'll go call it in," Larabee volunteered and took off. Egon wondered why he hadn't used the phone right here in the room, but he didn't have to know Larabee's motives either.

The young man had been gone for no longer than two minutes when a tall man in a dark suit poked his head around the corner of the door and then walked into the room. His hair was grey as slate and he stood well over six feet tall, and so broad he gave the illusion of filling the doorway. Although his face was more lined than Egon had remembered it and the hair now grey, Spengler recognized his former mentor immediately. Grasping for the bed remote, he raised the head of the bed a bit higher as he said, "Dr. Shelby."

"Egon. My god, look at you. You look terrible, my boy."

"Where's Peter?" Egon said shortly, ignoring the concern in his advisor's face and voice that sounded quite genuine. "What is that creature I saw in your house, and what has it done with Peter?"

"Creature?" Shelby's eyes widened in shock. "What creature? I know of no creature. My dear Egon, such a creature can only be a product of your delirium. You were unconscious when you arrived here. Who knows what terrible things you imagined."

It could have been a clever bluff, but Egon had known Shelby well in his undergraduate days; the man had taken his advisor duties very seriously and, encouraged by Egon's intellect, had spent a great deal of time with him, nurturing him, guiding him through various physics crises. Egon had sometimes believed Shelby had been grateful to him as one of the few people who could actually understand what he had to say. As for himself, he'd been thrilled to find himself pushed so hard, challenged so thoroughly. Of all his professors, he had known Shelby the best. He often gone to his home, had met Shelby's wife Jean, his daughter Natalie, who had been a teenager at the time. Five years ago, Jean had died. A colleague from Columbia had told Egon about it and in spite of the way they had parted, Egon had sent Shelby a sympathy card. He had received no response and had let the matter go.

All this meant he had once known very well how to read the man's face. He could find no trace of dissembling in it now. If Shelby was attempting a deception, he had learned duplicity well in the ten years since Egon had last seen him. Dishonor had not been in his nature then; unless his wife's death had changed him utterly, it would not be a part of his nature now. Egon believed him.

"Professor Shelby. Were you home all yesterday afternoon?" he asked.

"Except for a brief time when I went to the market, yes," Shelby replied. "I'm told you claim you walked in, found me away from home, and found a--a ghost in my place. First of all, I locked the door when I left. I remember using a key when I arrived home. Of course the ghost unlocked it, eh?" He caught himself and had the grace to look abashed. "I'm sorry. The sarcasm was unconscionable."

Egon waited. Talking tired him, and he wanted to hear Shelby's story. A part of him yearned for a reconciliation with the man who had shunned him ten years earlier, while another portion had no energy to spare for anything but Peter's disappearance.

Shelby frowned. "I called you to apologize to you," he said. "I--I didn't learn you were right through research and reasoning, I...saw a ghost of my own." His eyes dropped, then he lifted them and met Egon's eyes. "It was...Jean's ghost, my wife's. I'd become hard, unyielding, possibly self-destructive after her death. I avoided my colleagues, buried myself in my work, ignored Natalie--you remember, my daughter--and her husband. Not even my first grandson could break through the walls I built around myself. I had begun to alienate my fellow professors. Students avoided my classes. All I could feel was my own pain." The words came haltingly, and he forced them out. "I had begun to drink too much. One night, Natalie wanted me to come for a party. I told her to leave me alone. I said I never wanted to see her again. Natalie, who had never hurt me. I hung up the phone and went on a fit of rage, tearing pictures from the walls, throwing things, smashing the china. I was scaring even myself, Egon, but I couldn't stop it. Then suddenly, Jean said, 'Stop it at once, you old fool.' It was her voice as clear as yours is now. I turned around, terrified, shaking all over, and there she was, as real as life, wearing her favorite green dress the one we'd buried her in. She was...transparent; I could see the edge of the couch right through her. I remember noting that with a kind of cold, clinical analysis. I said, 'Hallucination.' And she smiled at me and said, 'No, ghost.'"

He started to pace around the room, up and down the space beside Egon's bed. "I wasn't sure what to do, what to say, but she didn't wait. She told me what a fool I was, and that she didn't want my love for her to destroy me. She told me all she wanted was for me to start to live again. She gave me a stiff little lecture, just like she used to do when she was alive, and I knew she was...was really a ghost, because my imagination could not have conjured up some of the things she said. She told me she didn't plan to haunt me, that she had not been condemned to wander the earth by anything unfinished in life. She had loved me and Natalie, her life had been good. But she couldn't bear for me to destroy myself so she had come. I tell you, Egon, I was shocked. I'd always been the most complete of skeptics. I thought ghosts were old legends, figments of the imagination, 'weather balloons' if you will. Primitive man's explanation for phenomena he could not understand, modern man's images at the bottom of a bottle or as the result of drugs. I didn't expect a ghost to reason with me. Then she touched me, and her hand was not solid, but it was cold and it left a slight residue behind. Ectoplasm, you call it. I tried to study it after she'd gone. It was physical proof; she had left it with me because she knew I had always been a skeptic." He shook his head, the grey hair bouncing at his vehemence. "Egon, I believed she was real. I knew she was real. It changed everything. I pulled myself together, never touched another drop of liquor, straightened up at Stanford. But I researched your work. I read your textbook on ectoplasmic physics and studied your cases in the newspapers. Suddenly everything was different."

"The world is a far stranger place than we believe," Egon said. "Even more than we are capable of believing. Yet there are New Yorkers who have actually seen ghosts who still do not believe in them. We perform an essential service, but to the vast majority of people in the world, we are what you claimed we were. Crackpots." He shook his head, hesitating to catch his breath before he continued. "In actual fact, there are many people who are afraid to believe. Peter says they don't want their world view to expand. They believe themselves safe and comfortable, in control of the universe. Once they open their minds, they are no longer safe and comfortable any longer, and they surrender control."

"True. I agree. I am no longer comfortable with the universe. I have much to learn. It is an exhilarating feeling. I feel young again, free. I decided to leave Stanford. I'll be teaching a semester at Columbia and then I'm going to Europe, Oxford. I want to know so much more." He caught himself. "But you didn't want to hear of my transformation, except that it means I should be groveling to you. I treated you unfairly, even cruelly. I have no justification, but I needed to explain."

"I understood, even then," Egon said. "I was sorry you couldn't understand and open your mind, and it mattered to me more because of the respect I'd always felt for you, but I did understand. My own father and uncle were much the same, just perhaps not so...final."

"I beg you to accept my apology, Egon. I've been a fool, and I treated you so unkindly I can hardly bear to think of it." He gazed at Egon, a pleading expression in his eyes, and the younger man could see no shred of dissembling there. This was from the heart, from the soul.

"Of course I forgive you," he said.

Shelby collapsed into the chair as if his determination had been the only thing holding him up. "What a relief, my boy," he said. "What a blessed relief." He grabbed Egon's hand and pumped it energetically. When he freed it, Egon flexed his fingers surreptitiously to be certain none of them were broken.

"Now, of course, we must find Venkman," Shelby said. "I have to admit he was a pleasant surprise to me when he came to see me. I'd always considered him to be a complete charlatan, a snake-oil salesman. He came across that way."

"And sometimes still does," Egon admitted, worry for Peter washing through him. If his theories about Shelby were wrong, and he was ninety-nine per cent certain they were, it put him right back at square one. He had no explanation for what had happened in Shelby's house. "But that was never the real Peter. Just as you never looked past the conventional view of ghosts, you were never able to see past Peter's surface persona to the real man."

"I think I got a glimpse of the real man last night," Shelby admitted. "He was worried sick about you. I hardly knew him. I told him so."

"And that was the real Peter, a man who cares deeply about his friends. I may not have remembered everything that happened to me yesterday but the one thing I do remember is that I was being held prisoner--I don't know where, I thought it was your house, but it couldn't have been--and Peter came. There was a creature, a ghost. He agreed to let me go if Peter would stay in his place. Peter agreed without hesitation. The creature made him promise not to try to escape, and in return he would have his minions take me to the hospital. Peter agreed completely. I honestly believe the reason he isn't here is because he is afraid if he tried to leave, they would come after me and incarcerate me again."

Shelby paled. "My god, no wonder the police have been hounding me, if you believed me involved in something like that."

"I don't believe you involved in it," Egon reminded him. "Even now, my memories are not entirely clear, but that is. I remember the pain and desperation on Peter's face. He would have done anything to save me even if he might die in the process. That is the kind of man Peter is. Right now, he is a prisoner for my sake. I can't leave this bed and hunt for him yet, but my friends will find him." He stretched out his hand and touched the P.K.E. meter that lay beside the telephone on the stand. "This is an activated P.K.E. meter. Had you been in contact with ghosts it would have given a reading. I didn't have it there to test you, as I did not know you were coming. But it has proven that you have not recently been around any ghosts."

"If I had one of those for the duration, I could leave it activated and if anyone else in the neighborhood was involved, I'd be able to tell."

"It can be set to cover a full city block," Egon replied. "We frequently start out with it set for that range, then we fine-tune it as we come closer. Ray left that one there in case whoever took Peter returned for me. When I talk to the guys, I'll arrange for them to leave a meter with you. You're a physicist. You should be able to understand the principles involved."

"Yes, in fact I do. I read up on your materials and equipment. Fascinating reading, Egon, my boy. I've even studied the specs of these, your ghost traps, and your proton packs. You have a number of patents in your name, you and Dr. Stantz."

"Yes, we had to patent them. Once someone tried to steal elements of our equipment, and we've had to be careful. The P.K.E. meters are often used by parapsychologists these days. We haven't granted anyone the right to use proton packs at this point. We'd once talked franchises, but the equipment is very dangerous and the insurance might be crippling at first. We'd also have to do training, and we are very busy already. It may come to that." He cut himself off. "But that doesn't matter now. We'll get a meter to you. I still don't understand what happened, why I remember meeting Peter in your house, but it is entirely possible I was made to think that as a protection for the entities that captured me."

"You think the ghosts are planning an action, either against you and Venkman personally or against the city?"

"I have no option but to believe that."

"Here now, what's this?" The voice from the doorway was that of his nurse, Susan. She was six feet tall, slender as a model, and incredibly beautiful. She also had the stubbornness of a bulldog. "You're tiring Dr. Spengler. Visitors are limited to five minutes at a time."

"He's trying to help me find Peter," Egon told her.

"Then let him talk to Ray and Winston about it when they arrive. I won't have people tiring you. You need your rest, and you are still very weak."

Egon knew that was true. He ached with fatigue, and his mind was already starting to fuzz around the edges. "I'm sorry, Dr. Shelby, but she's right."

"I can see it myself. I'm an idiot to keep you talking like this. Rest well, Egon, and I will talk to your colleagues when they arrive to visit you." He gave Egon's shoulder a gruffly affectionate pat and strode from the room.

Peter sat in the window seat in the main living room of the beast's house and let his eyes linger on the sky. It was drawing near to sunset, the end of his first full day of captivity, and he had been drawn here to watch the outside world. He had seen Ecto-1 no less than three times as it crawled past at five miles an hour, but it never stopped. Once Ray had been driving and once Winston. The distant glimpses of his friends had sustained Peter through the afternoon as he gazed longingly at a world he could not enter, not until Egon was well. And could he even go then? He had promised; he'd done it for Egon's sake. What was to say they wouldn't wreak a horrible revenge on Egon if Peter tried anything. The creatures were invisible. They could grab him before anyone even realized they were there, at least as long as no one was taking readings.

Peter had found a computer in mid-afternoon, in a room laid out like an office. Although he wasn't a computer expert like the other guys, Peter knew enough to realize the system had a modem and was connected to a telephone line. Pouncing on it with delight, Peter had powered up and looked it over. To his astonishment, the beast had America On Line. Ray had that, and Peter had used it once or twice with Ray right there. It needed a password. Or did it? If he signed on with a flash session, it would choose the password set for it already. Wouldn't it? Peter tried. The system wouldn't go. It said no flash sessions were set. Frustration drove Peter nuts and he putzed around with it, trying to set up a flash session. The problem was simple. If the beast used his system that way, he had suspected Peter might try something. He'd simply deleted the passwords. He could put them in again in seconds when he needed them, but without them, Peter could do nothing.

Fuming with impotent frustration, he tried a variety of passwords, including 'Mike', 'Kelly', 'beast', 'Julia', and a couple of other things that occurred to him. Naturally none of them took, and he was further restricted in that the screen name 'REA' might not be the only one. Ray, Winston, or Egon might have known how to break into the system, but Peter simply didn't know enough. He was sure he could should be able to log into the system himself, even as a guest. He tried that, using Ray's screen name, but was stopped when he realized that, if he'd ever known Ray's password, he'd forgotten it.

Finally he gave upon America On Line and checked out the rest of the Beast's programs. He was running Windows 3.1 and had Word 2.0. Peter went into File Manager and investigated his files. He couldn't find anything personal anywhere. Probably saved all the personal stuff on floppy disks. If there were any, they were locked away, not here. He did find a program on the stock market, and a variety of games. Normally Peter might have enjoyed trying one of the games, but he couldn't settle to it. Not when he was trapped here. He had shut off the computer in frustration and wandered away.

Sitting in the window seat, he gazed longingly out at the street, watching people and vehicles pass by, knowing he couldn't call out to any of them, not if he couldn't be seen by his friends. He sat there brooding, in no favorable state of mind.

"You did not eat lunch. You must have dinner."

"Not hungry," Peter said without turning. He didn't want to look at the beast.

"Did you enjoy my computer?"

"No," said Peter sourly. "Computers don't like me."

He heard the beast come up behind him. "I could not let you send your friends a message about the wrong address. They will reason it out eventually and will come here, but they will not find you when they do. I have been prepared for invasion for some time. My servants protect me."

"Sure, because otherwise you'll probably kill them," Peter snapped. "Not that they'll enjoy an exactly rosy future as it is. You took them down with you, didn't you? Never mind they might have had wives and kids. Didn't anybody ever look for them? I can understand why no one came after you. You'd be no loss. But they couldn't have all been jerks. Sheffield seems like a decent guy."

"I did not control that," the beast snarled.

"Maybe not, but you didn't exactly protest. Too used to servants taking care of you? Did your valet go to Groton with you? Waiting on you hand and foot--listen, I like that as much as the next guy...when I'm hurt or sick. But the rest of the time, who needs it? You just take it for granted that these characters are here for you. Are they bound by whatever the wizard did?"

"They were here at the time."

"Funny neighborhood for a poor little rich kid," Peter observed.

"The house had been in the family forever," 'Jack' said. "My uncle Leland lived here for years. When he died, Dad gave it to me."

"So he didn't have to see your face at the breakfast table every day, is that it?"

"I was nineteen, almost twenty. I wanted a place of my own."

"A place of your own? A place daddy gave you? Another free ride? And did he pay your servants, too? How come nobody ever noticed you were a beast? Or does your great rich family know and avoid you?" Peter sneered.

"They don't remember me," the beast said. "Not even Julia. It's like I never existed. It's part of the spell, a kind of forgetfulness. If they remember it's in a distant way, they have pictures, but it doesn't matter. They see them and don't see them, the way people don't see the carpet they walk on. The spell...pushes their minds away from me. Just like the house does. If you had not come in, you would have given it no additional thought."

"The guys have looked at it a couple of times," Peter reminded him.

"But they haven't come in."

"You know, this spell is a pretty complicated one," Peter said thoughtfully, one arm wrapped around his knee, the other foot hanging down to the floor. Outside, the light began to fade and a few streetlights came on. "Not only did it turn you and your servants into ghosties, it made your whole family forget about you, and it keeps most of the curious out of the house and doesn't let people notice the lights are on. What keeps it going?"

"It just runs until it is fulfilled," the beast admitted.

Peter turned his head and regarded the creature, who was sitting on the back of the couch, his clawed feet on the cushions. This room, so close to the front door, really was dusty and abandoned, a deception for the curious who might wander in. "Runs until it is fulfilled, huh? Interesting. So who did this to you? A wizard, sure. But why? What did you do to bug a wizard? You should know better than that. Wizards have hasty tempers. Only an idiot would cross one."

"Give me a break," the beast groaned. "I was nineteen years old. I didn't believe in wizards. I didn't believe in anything I couldn't see or touch. I had no idea anything like that could even exist." His voice rang with reproach.

"And now you do," Peter said. "Yeah, I forgot how narrow the world is for people your age. You think you're open-minded and that everybody older is an idiot, but it doesn't work that way. Narrow-minded is narrow-minded, whatever the age. Nobody expects wizards, kid. But it takes something major for one to be this pissed off."

"Have you ever met a wizard?" the beast asked.

"Once or twice," Peter said. "They're not exactly real thick on the ground in Manhattan. Takes belief, and most people believe in machines these days, not magic. What did you do to piss this one off?"

The beast turned his head away. "He was...Mike's uncle."

"Bingo." Suddenly everything made sense. "So he knew the whole story. And I bet Mike was his favorite nephew."

"He was."

Peter thought about it. "So this whole spell number was meant to teach you a lesson. Or was it just to punish you? No, it was a lesson, or the guys wouldn't be going on about 'the one'." He swung around in the window seat, dropping both feet on the floor and turning his back on the darkening sky. "Haven't learned it, have you? What you did to Egon was every bit as bad as what you did to Mike. You didn't care about his survival any more than you did Mike's. You used Egon. You knew he wasn't your precious 'one' because he wouldn't be much good to anybody dead. So you used him as bait. Egon didn't die, but what you did was no better. I haven't got a chance here--at the rate you're going it will be well into the next millennium before you learn anything, if then. I'm just glad I could free Egon from you before you killed him too."

The beast's temper exploded and he lunged at Peter, swinging a huge, hairy fist. Peter ducked and it barely grazed his head, although the force of it was enough to knock him to the floor. He lay there a second, his head ringing, then he braced himself and sprang to his feet, ducking around the beast but never turning his back on him. The transformed being turned with him, his eyes still hot with rage, although it eased as he watched Peter move. Maybe he could read the defiance and contempt on Peter's face.

"Nobody ever talked back to you before, did they?" he flung at the creature. "Always had your own way, always had it easy. You didn't have a clue what to do when it got tough."

To his surprise, the anger drained away entirely and the beast said sadly, "No, I didn't. I still don't."

It might have been the most honest thing he had ever said to Peter. At those words, Peter dropped his spread hands and simply gaped at him. "So did you ever think of just trying?" he asked. "Or was it enough to go your own selfish way. You still have money. You've got your computer, your exercise room, all your gadgets and luxuries, a valet, servants to do your bidding."

"But I'm not free," said the beast.

"Life is tough and then you die. Hey, you ever watch that Beauty and the Beast show a few years ago? He couldn't go out in public either, well, not very often. On Halloween, to a costume party, to Catherine's place. But he made the best of it."

"He had a family down below," the beast said.

"And in case you'd overlooked it, you have one here, even if they are servants. After all you've been through together, if you don't care about them, you're never gonna learn a thing. You did this to them and you're still taking them for granted." He shook his head. "Maybe there's just not enough in you to ever change. But it's a shame they wound up stuck here with you."

"Don't you think I hate that?" groaned the beast, whirling away from Peter in a cloud of black cloaked anguish. "Sheffield worked for me since I was twelve years old. He used to sneak me cookies when I was being punished for something. He helped me make a kite."

"And he's still trying to help you," Peter said. "I don't know if I'd be that generous if somebody took away ten years of my life. I know how I feel about you--but he doesn't feel that way. I don't get it."

"He doesn't deserve this," the beast groaned, head in his hands. "None of them do."

Peter nearly smiled. Maybe there was a heart inside the beast after all. He still didn't feel much sympathy for him, but it was hard to learn a lesson when you were surrounded with bitterness, when you were a prisoner in your own body.

"Is there any way you can let them go?" Peter asked quietly.

The shaggy head came up, the muzzle swung in Peter's direction. "I couldn't stand it alone."

"Okay," said Peter flatly, although he understood that particular plaint better than he wanted to admit. Being alone was his own pet horror, being without the guys. Only he'd found the strength to bargain for Egon's freedom. It hurt. Everything hurt without his friends, trapped here. But the beast didn't care. If he didn't care about the man who had smuggled him cookies and helped him build a kite he sure wasn't about to care about 'the one', except in the hopes that he could use him. "Look, I'm gonna go scrounge up something to eat. "You deal with your problems. I just ran out of patience."

"I can't let them go," the beast called after him, loping along at Peter's side as he started for the kitchen.

"Did you ever try?"

"No."

"Do they have families?" Peter persisted.

"Sheffield doesn't. Well, he has a daughter in England, but he hadn't seen her for years anyway. Mrs. Callander had a husband, but he died three years ago."

"Mrs. Callander?" Peter lifted an eyebrow. "You've got a woman here?"

"Two. There's Mrs. Callander, who is my housekeeper, and Jenny, the maid."

"You didn't let Mrs. Callander go to her husband when he was dying? You kept her away from him for seven years?"

"I can't let them go," the beast said. "Don't you understand? I tried then. When her husband was sick, I tried. I told her she could go. I told her she was free." A sound like a sob tore through the alien throat. "She said she always knew that, she knew I hadn't kept her here on purpose, and she went, but she went invisible and she couldn't make him see her. She can only be visible here, and then only with concentration. How do you think I felt when she returned and told me he was dead."

"I don't know. How did you react?" Peter asked. He felt more like a conventional psychologist than he had for years and was grateful for the time he put in once a month at the free clinic to keep his hand in. Helping the guys through rough patches was a lot easier because he knew where they were coming from. He didn't with the beast, who was a mass of contradictions like most people, and a stranger. "You felt upset? You felt like a jerk?" Offering possible interpretations was a good counselling technique because it could evoke responses. "No, you're off base," or "yes, that's it exactly."

This time he was on the money. "I felt like pond scum," the beast admitted. "Mrs. Callander was closer to me than my own mother. She was the one who bandaged my knees when I skinned them. Mother was always out with the society ladies. Father was at the office doing whatever CEO's do. He never had time for me. A little more for Julia; she was 'daddy's girl'. But none for me. I was expected to do well and go into the business because that's what the Alexanders always did."

"The Alexanders?" Peter echoed in astonishment, memory clicking. "You mean Julia Alexander Kellogg is your sister?" He stopped dead in the kitchen door, staring up at the beast in disbelief. There was no resemblance, of course, except, maybe in the blue of their eyes.

"You know Ju?"

"We go to some of the same parties. I don't know her, only to say hello to. Her sister-in-law, Maisie Kellogg, though... I'd like to get to know her better."

"Maisie?" The beast's head came up. "Is she still single?" He held his breath, waiting for the answer, although he could have found that information in the society pages of the newspaper, if he had dared to read them and see.

Aha, thought Peter, catching the spark of interest that was so quickly suppressed. "Still single," Peter said. He frowned. Julia Kellogg had once had a brother--what had ever happened to him? No one seemed to know. There wasn't much speculation, come to think of it, but then there wouldn't be. People sometimes mentioned him in passing. He'd gone on an expedition to the Amazon Basin. He was living permanently in Cancun. He had a villa in the South of France. He had joined the French Foreign Legion. But there had never been a lot of interest or speculation about his departure. Peter couldn't even remember his first name.

Pretty scary to think a person could be erased so easily. Would he be erased now that he had been sucked into the spell? No, of course not, not when his buddies were cruising the street, trying to find him. It was the house that was almost erased, not Peter. His friends would come for him and then he could go home. He wasn't erased. He was all over the news.

He wandered over to the refrigerator and peered inside, then paused when he realized the oven was on. Investigating, he found a pot of lasagna cooking, the timer revealing five more minutes to go. A bowl of lettuce for salad had been placed in the refrigerator, with cherry tomatoes, chunks of ham, slices of cheese. The table was set for two, with a loaf of bread, the uncut variety, a big bread knife laid across the platter. Sparkling wine glasses adorned the table and the best china had been placed in readiness for the meal.

"Whoa," Peter said, although he was impressed. "Candlelight and roses. Not quite the mood I want to create."

"Not a rose in sight," said Alexander with a hint of humor, the first real humor he'd displayed. "This was typical at home. They do it for me about once a week since the transformation. I think they're afraid I'll forget which fork to use if they don't."

"Any danger of that?" Peter cocked his head at him and waited expectantly for the reply.

"Losing my humanity? Far too much." He frowned. "Sheffield always says that the more primitive the setting the greater need for refinement. That it is far too easy to fall victim to our baser natures. And it's true. I--caught myself baying at the moon once," he admitted, not daring to meet Peter's eyes.

"Bet the neighbors loved that."

The blue eyes sparkled. "If they'd heard it." Perhaps the house protected him from such actions, too, shielding him from the neighbors, the way it had shielded Peter from the guys.

Peter understood what Sheffield had meant. Once in awhile he and the guys prepared a fancy meal, maybe not with extra salad forks, but with all the trimmings and even dressed up for the occasion, sometimes with dates, sometimes not. It was a kick. But Sheffield hadn't even meant that. Everyone possessed a baser nature, but most people rose above it most of the time. It would be all too easy for Peter to be selfish and self-indulgent, and sometimes he caught himself being more of a jerk than he really felt comfortable with. But then he had a reason not to let it take over. He was part of a family. They weren't a blood family but they were his kin all the same, and he owed them for the loyalty and friendship he received in return. Besides, they never hesitated to point it out when Peter got above himself.

Where were they right now? Egon was still in the hospital, while Ray and Winston continued searching for him. They were his family and they hadn't given up on him for a second. But here was Junior Alexander with a furry face and parents who hadn't exactly been warm and loving even before he grew a muzzle and fangs. Could people learn honor and self-respect without a decent example to follow? Would Peter have learned it if he hadn't met Egon? He thought he might have learned a little; a part of him had always rejected his father's values, although he loved the old con man. One of the reasons he had kept this promise, although it had been made under duress, was because his father had broken so many to him while he was growing up and he'd long ago vowed he would never do the same. But would he have learned enough that he would willingly stand with the guys, staring death in the face, to save the world?

Sheffield materialized, more nearly solid than he had yet appeared, wearing elegant black livery, and he gestured the two of them to the table. "Sit down while I prepare your salads."

"I wish I could get you out of here, Sheffield," Alexander said, harking back to the discussion that had touched on Mrs. Callander's husband's death.

"Now, Master Ross," the older man chided with mock-sternness. "You know we've been through all that. You can't. We're here for the duration, all of us."

"But I've stolen years of your lives, all of you. Mrs. Callander, and Fred, and little Jenny, and Thomas. It's not right. Peter's been getting on my case about it. He thinks I'm pond scum."

"He's not exactly wrong," said the old man but with a fond, paternal smile that removed some of the sting from the words. "But you've grown a bit." He dished up the salad with an expert hand, evidently solid enough to manipulate the utensils without difficulty.

"Not enough, or you wouldn't still be here." Ross scraped his chair back preparing to stalk out of the room, but at the last minute didn't.

"Enough that you have controlled your anger far better than you did at first. Enough that you told Peter about young Mr. Kelly and about the wizard."

"He made me. He's a kind of wizard himself. He makes me mad and hates me and still makes me talk."

Peter looked down at the salad bowl as Sheffield produced a series of bottles of salad dressing. Nodding at the blue cheese, he realized it wasn't true. He no longer hated Ross Alexander, at least not with the fierce, angry passion of the night before. He had to admit he wasn't fond of the guy and never would be, especially after what he'd done to Egon. But if ever a guy had problems, it was Ross Alexander. Even if he'd brought them on himself by his selfish arrogance and intolerance, he was paying an extremely high price for letting down a friend.

Peter grimaced. He'd deserve as much himself if he'd let Egon down.

But he'd known Egon for well over fifteen years. He'd known Egon's unshakable integrity, his dry and subtle humor, his tremendous loyalty, his courage, his willingness to stand at the mouth of hell to guard the world.

But that wasn't an answer either, because a friend was a friend, whether he was brave enough to risk his life or not. A friend was someone you called a friend, someone you accepted as a friend, not someone who had to prove his worth. You didn't rationalize friendships, you lived them. Either you made a commitment or you used people. That was the bottom line. Peter didn't want to be self-righteous and smug because he knew how lucky he'd been. Not everyone was lucky enough to have the breaks he did. Ross might have been raised in the lap of luxury but it sounded like he hadn't had the opportunities, or that he'd missed the chances that came his way. How much of good luck was timing, and how much did a person make for himself? Peter didn't know.

But Mike Kelly had felt a commitment, so there must have been a bond between the two of them. Mike had been a decent guy who got in trouble and was weak or didn't have the help and support he needed to get himself out of it. But he had considered Ross his friend.

"I believe he also makes you think," Sheffield said, cutting through Peter's ponderings. "And that is good. As I have long tried to tell you, there is more to life than buying what you want. I know you crave more. I know it is hard for you, Master Ross. But listen to Peter. He's a smart man and a psychologist."

"Who hates my guts."

"Well, let's say strongly detests," Peter cut in. "I may be 'the one', whatever that is, but I can't make you into a normal, decent human being. Only you can do that."

"Morals with my meal," Ross snapped. He played with his salad fork.

"Well, then, you can let me go. Isn't that what I'm here for?"

"Eat your salad, gentlemen. And try this wine. I think you'll find it palatable."

Peter's appetite was not very strong. The hollow loneliness that tightened in the pit of his stomach hadn't gone away. But he was interested in the problem in front of him now. Could he possibly humanize Ross Alexander, turn him into a caring human being? Is that what the spell needed? He wasn't entirely incapable of it, because he obviously felt affection for Sheffield. But it wasn't an equal affection. Sheffield was his servant, and Ross Alexander had been raised to thing of servants as slightly more important than the furniture. Such affection might he bestowed on his pet dog if he'd had one. Sheffield and Mrs. Callander and the others were servants to him before they were people. He might be trying, but he had a long way to go. And it was harder for him than it had been for Belle in the Disney movie a few years ago. Her beast had been attracted to her. It gave him a motive, more of one than simply transforming. But that Beast had been given a time limit. Had Ross? And what would happen if the time ran out and Peter hadn't done what he was here to do? Would he be free automatically? Or would he be imprisoned forever as one of Ross's invisible servants.

The wine was good but it might have been vinegar to Peter. He ate; he knew he had to keep up his strength. But he didn't enjoy it.

Ross didn't either. He had to endure a stranger watching his beastly table manners. Peter suspected he usually gobbled the food down, slurping up soup, muzzle down on the plate to eat his meat, rather than forcing his taloned paws to manipulate a salad fork and a butter knife. Under Peter's curious eye, he was forced to struggle with proper table manners, and Sheffield's beaming approval couldn't quite make up for the awkwardness of the meal.

Peter didn't try to introduce any additional 'morals'. He'd said enough for now. He'd given Ross something to think about. He couldn't tell the beast how to think, how to feel. He could only hope that the misery he'd seen in Alexander's eyes over Mike Kelly's photograph and the tawdry little story of the other boy's death could provoke him into examining himself and discovering he was wanting.

But when Sheffield and a near-transparent Mrs. Callander cleared away the plates, Peter said, "Hey, you have a phone here, don't you?"

"Not for you to use," Ross returned instantly.

"I made a bargain," Peter reminded him tiredly. "I just want one thing. I want to hear Egon's voice. I'll know if he's recovering if I can hear him."

Ross looked dubious, even though Sheffield nodded encouragingly. "How do I know you won't tell him where you are?" he demanded.

"Because, unlike you, I keep my word," Peter said. "Egon's still sick. They said on the news he was doing 'as well as could be expected' and I don't like the sound of that. I just want to tell him I'm alive and to make sure he's recovering. Two minutes. Is that too much to ask?"

"Do it, Master Ross," Sheffield urged.

Ross considered him thoughtfully, the pondering expression oddly unfamiliar on the hairy snout. Then he gave a curt nod and loped away on all fours. When he returned, he had a telephone with him. Sheffield took it and plugged it into a phone jack, handing the receiver to Peter. The push-buttons were there, so Peter called information for the hospital number then called quickly, asking to be connected to Egon's room. A moment later he could hear the phone ringing.

Peter felt his scalp tighten in anticipation, then he phone was picked up and Egon's familiar bass voice, hoarser than usual but far stronger than it had been the last time Peter had heard it said, "Hello."

"Egon, you sound great!" Peter cried.

"Peter!" Overwhelming relief flooded his tones. "You're all right."

"Yeah, but I'm still stuck for now, Egon. I just wanted you to know I was okay, and I'm working like mad on a way of finding my way home."

"Where are you, Peter?" Egon demanded frantically. "I know Shelby didn't imprison you, but I don't understand."

"No, Shelby didn't have anything to do with it." Peter couldn't explain about the mixed up-address; that would invalidate his promise. But he could give Egon a chance to make it up with the older professor.

"Are you hurt?" He could hear eager and urgent voices in the background and recognized Ray, Winston, and Janine clamoring for information.

"No, I'm fine. Tell them I'm not hurt or anything. I just can't leave right now. But it's okay. I saw Ray and Winston--" A warning growl from Ross warned him not to pursue that particular subject. "And everything's cool. Nobody's hurt me and there's plenty of food and books and a TV and everything."

"Peter, you gave up your freedom for me." Egon's voice was weighted down with the responsibility for Peter's imprisonment. Peter was scared it would affect his recovery.

"Yeah, and you'd have done the same for me, big guy," he reminded Spengler quickly, his fingers tightening involuntarily on the receiver. "All of you would--I know that. It's just the way it worked out, especially since you were sick. Are you okay, Egon? How are you doing?"

"I'm still on oxygen, Peter, and antibiotics, but they feel I'm making appropriate progress."

"That's what counts. I'm stuck here now, Egon, but I won't be gone forever. And that's a promise from Doctor Venkman."

Ross took the phone out of his hand and replaced it in the cradle, and Peter cried out in protest. Talking to Egon had meant so much to him, he couldn't bear to have it end so soon. Automatically he grabbed for the receiver again, then heaved a sigh and pulled his hand away, squaring his shoulders as he faced his jailer.

"Enough," said Ross, but in a gentler voice than he'd used so far. "You heard his voice and he heard yours. I trust you are satisfied."

Peter wasn't satisfied. Hearing Egon's voice had made him realize how much he missed him and Ray and Winston. He would have given a million dollars if he'd had it simply to know he could go home and sleep in his own bed tonight with his friends around him, to have his life back. I want to go home.

He watched Sheffield unplug the phone, then Ross tucked it under his arm and went up the stairs, not quite as fast on two legs as he was on four, and disappeared along the corridor. Peter knew the phone would disappear, so well hidden he'd be unable to locate it. Since he'd called once, he'd bet money a wire tap would be placed on the phone lines at the hospital and at the firehouse. Ross would never dare to let him call a second time.

Turning around, Peter bowed his head and stood in the middle of the room as if he didn't know which way to turn, trying not to think of how desperately homesick he was.

Sheffield firmed up and gave his shoulder a comforting pat. "He isn't all bad," he said. "I think he will release you from your promise, and soon."

"Couldn't be soon enough for me," Peter said wearily and went over to the window seat again. If he couldn't be free, at least he could observe the world he'd left behind. Sheffield stood watching him for what felt a long time but was in reality only a few seconds. Then he dematerialized, the shimmer in the air heading up the stairs before it, too, disappeared from sight.

Peter turned and pressed his nose against the window, gazing hopelessly out at the dark street.

"Was it Peter? Was he okay?" Ray cried eagerly as Egon hung up the phone.

"Yeah, m'man, what did he say?"

"Oh, Egon, I knew he was all right. When is he coming home?" Janine asked, perching on the edge of the bed and squeezing Egon's hand.

He relayed the conversation hastily, holding up a hand for silence when the others would have interrupted. Janine let go long enough for him to do so, then clasped his fingers in hers. They listened to him in a combination of relief and distress, and when Egon explained that Peter said he had to stay where he was, Ray's face fell.

"But he has to come home," he insisted in a small, desperate voice. "We need him." Hearing his worry, Winston clapped him comfortingly on the shoulder.

"I know, Ray," Egon replied. "He did, however, manage to give us one clue. He said he saw you and Winston, presumably from the window of the place where he was held captive."

Winston groaned in dismay. "Egon, we've been all over the Upper West Side, last night and all day today. Do you know how many streets we've driven down? Even if we eliminated all the ones we didn't, who's to say he might not have looked down an alley or over a rooftop and seen us from a street we didn't use."

"I know, but it does indicate that Peter is being held in the general area where he disappeared, not across the river in New Jersey, for example," Egon theorized. It helped to concentrate on the problem as a problem. Then he didn't have to remember the look in Peter's eyes when he had surrendered his freedom for Egon. He didn't have to face the guilt he knew was pointless but couldn't be avoided. Peter was in trouble because he'd cared about Egon, and that was the bottom line. Knowing he couldn't do anything to retrieve him hurt.

"Then if we were close enough for him to see us," Ray said, frowning, "why didn't the meters pick him up? We were taking readings the whole time, not only on Briarwood, but everywhere we went."

"The readings must be blocked," Winston reminded him. "We talked about that last night."

"But then how can we ever find him?" cried Ray in sheer distress. "We've got to rescue him. How did he sound, Egon? Like he was hurt and not telling you?"

"No, he said he wasn't injured and he wouldn't have lied at a time like that," Egon replied. "He didn't sound injured. But he sounded...very lonely." It's not forever, Peter, he thought and hoped it was true.

Ray's face fell. "Peter hates to be alone."

"I am aware of that, Ray. I knew that last night, when he was promising not to escape."

"He did it for you, Egon."

"That doesn't make me feel any better. I am grateful he values me, but I would never have asked him to throw his life away for me. I would reverse it if I could."

"That would take away what he did for you. And I know Dr. V. You didn't have to ask him," consoled Janine. "I know I get on his case all the time, but I don't mean it, not really. I know he'd jump in front of a speeding train for any of you guys in a heartbeat. He'd be happier doing that than having one of you hurt or in trouble, or dead, in his place."

Ray winced at the word, 'dead'. "Peter's alive, Janine. He just called. He's not dead."

"I know, Ray. I'm just saying that, for all his smart mouth and the way he rides me and won't give me a raise, I know how lucky the three of you are to have him. Only if anybody ever tells him I said that, he's dead meat." She freed Egon's hand with one of hers and reached out to pat Ray on the arm. "This is just crazy. People don't make deals like that in this day and age."

"It's a ghost, Janine. Ghosts might," Ray reminded her.

"It was a physical entity," Egon corrected. "Not an actual ghost. I had negative valance readings. I remember that quite clearly as I went up the stairs."

"Oh, man, and the Bogeyman had a negative valance," groaned Winston, slapping his forehead with his hand. "This is heavy duty bad, isn't it? I bet it was a long-standing plan."

Egon frowned. "No, I don't believe so. I think it was spontaneous. Because the entity wouldn't have known ahead of time that Dr. Shelby would call me."

"I can't believe you made up with that guy, Egon," Winston said. "Not when it was at his place that all this happened."

"I don't know that it was," Egon reminded him. "The room with the skylight could have been elsewhere."

"Yeah, since I didn't see a skylight at Shelby's place," Ray replied. "That's what we need to go. Try to find nearby places with skylights. We can go up first thing in the morning with Ecto-2, fly over the area. If we see any skylights, that's where we can investigate first." Relieved to have an idea, Ray caught Janine's hand and squeezed it before he let it go.

"That's brilliant, Ray," Egon praised him. "Oh dear."

They all turned to the door to find one of the night nurses standing there disapprovingly. "Visiting hours were over five minutes ago. You'll have to leave now. Dr. Spengler has had far too much excitement for one day. He needs to rest."

"I'm all right, guys," Egon reassured them as she waved them toward the doorway. "Really. I'll be even better in the morning. I'm responding to the antibiotics, after all."

"Yes, and you'll respond even better if you rest properly," the nurse said. She was older than Susan, the afternoon nurse, with a few streaks of grey in her sleek dark hair. "We must also consider your bath," she told Egon.

Janine's face grew crafty, then disappointed. She probably would have liked to stay and assist but realized she didn't have a ghost of a chance to be allowed to. Egon felt his face grow hot with embarrassment. "Good-bye, guys," he called. "Call me at once if you learn anything."

"We'll take Ecto-2 up at first light," Ray promised. "And we'll call the minute we have news." He ducked around the nurse and hurried back to the bed, bending down to grip Egon's shoulder and squeeze it. "We'll find him. I just know we will."

"And I'll be here the minute visiting hours start," Janine called over the shoulder of the nurse.

Then they were gone and the nurse turned to Egon, a purposeful expression on her face. His heart sank into his shoes.

Wherever you are, Peter, I'm glad you called, he thought as she prepared to give him his bath. And I would change places with you in a second, even if I weren't about to have a bath. Peter would probably enjoy every second of being bathed by an attractive woman. But Egon could only remember the lost, wistful sound of Peter's voice and the way it had risen at the end as he realized he was about to lose contact again. If he were strong enough to walk as far as the elevator, Egon knew he would go out tomorrow questing for Peter himself, but he couldn't do that. It would negate Peter's sacrifice. So he resigned himself to a delay, determined to recover as quickly as possible. Once he was out of the hospital, Peter would not be so strongly bound. A healthy Egon could defend himself. Together they would capture the entity that had imprisoned Peter. Did Peter even owe honor to someone capable of taking people hostage against their will?

Yet Egon knew Peter would not break the promise, not as long as he believed to do so would endanger one of his friends.

He gave himself over to the sponge bath, his mind far away.

"If something's blocking the readings," Ray said to Winston as they climbed to the third floor at Ghostbuster Central after saying goodbye to Janine for the night, "then we've gotta find a way to cut through it." His eyes moved around the hallway, the empty lab, the deserted bedroom. "Boy, it feels weird here without Egon or Peter."

"Egon will be home soon and at least we know Pete's okay," Winston reminded him, although he didn't sound any happier than Ray felt. He flipped on the light switch in the bedroom and went over to kick off his shoes. "You come up with any ideas about the readings?"

"I'm not sure," Ray said. "We keep a lot of notes like that on the database. I want to go through it. It could be something physical, but I don't think it is."

Winston turned around and stared at Ray, his eyes widening. "I hope you aren't gonna say you think ghosts have found a way to block our readings?" he said.

"Egon could take readings," Ray reminded him. "If he could, and if we passed wherever Peter's being held close enough for him to see us, then we should have detected readings not only of him but of this physical entity that's holding him. If we didn't pick up either, then it's not a minor thing that's just blocking Peter. It's more complicated than that."

"Like what?"

"An energy field," Ray suggested, then he frowned. Heading over to the computer, he sat down and booted it up. "Only an energy field should give its own readings and the only readings like that we picked up were normal ones, things we'd expect, electrical power, security systems, the kind of thing that fuzz a meter slightly if we don't adjust them out. Even if someone had placed a force field around Peter, we'd have been able to tell it was there, like the time Doctor Destructo kept us out of headquarters with one when he tried to break into the containment unit."

"So if it's not an accidental, freak thing, and it's not normal security, what is it?" Winston asked.

Ray loaded the database. "That's it, I don't know. I don't think a curse or spell could block our readings--but maybe, if it was designed to hide things, it might block our interpretation of what we were reading."

"You mean the meters might have gone off and we didn't notice?" Winston lifted a skeptical brow. Pacing up and down the lab, he insisted, "That's crazy, Ray. Isn't it?"

"Well, it would have to be a pretty big, comprehensive spell, designed to protect itself completely," Ray replied. "But Egon was able to take readings. That's what I can't figure out."

"He was already inside," Winston began, then shook his head. "No...."

"Maybe," Ray replied, scrunching up his forehead in a considering frown. "But we were inside Shelby's place and picked up nothing. I know Egon believes the guy, and he doesn't have a skylight anyplace in his apartment." He started to scroll down through the pages of data, looking for answers. Nothing worked.

"If Shelby's innocent, it didn't happen in his apartment," Winston reminded him. He stopped his pacing and came to peer over Ray's shoulder at the screen. "Anything?"

"Nothing quite like what we've been getting. I've been checking spells and shielding. And there's nothing quite like this. We know that spells can work, but it isn't something we come up against very often."

"Real magicians are out of fashion," Winston agreed, smiling crookedly. "Nowadays people think of David Copperfield when they talk about a magician."

Ray nodded, continuing to scroll through the text, pondering what he saw. "There are a few, and I even know one; he lives on the Upper East Side, Jonathan Dark."

"Dark? Sounds like a stage name."

"It might be," Ray replied. "He's one of the good guys, though. He doesn't mess with things that could get him in trouble. Why don't I call him?"

"Good idea, homeboy. I don't like the idea of a spell that can keep us from taking readings."

"It's not so bad as a ghost finding out how to block the meters," Ray reminded him. "Except it means we might not be able to find Peter." Before he could think too much about that, he went to the phone. Winston dropped into the chair in front of the computer and started checking the database.

Jonathan Dark was home and answered the telephone on the second ring. "Dark."

"Jonathan, it's Ray Stantz."

"Hey, Ray. How's the ghost biz?" He sounded a lot younger than his actual years. Ray knew the wizard was in his late forties, but you couldn't tell it on the phone. Dark was one of the most compassionate men Ray knew, loyal to his friends, an honorable man who would no more misuse his powers than he would kill someone.

"Actually it's a mess," Ray said. "Peter's missing and we can't find him."

"Yeah, I saw it on the news. A rough deal." Dark's voice was sympathetic. "You calling for reinforcements? Not sure what I could do for you, guy, but I'll give it my best shot."

"I just want to ask a question."

"Shoot."

"Is there any way a wizard could design a spell that would block out our P.K.E. meters--or at least make us think we weren't finding anything?"

The wizard didn't answer immediately as if he were considering a lot of options, then he said in a thoughtful voice, "I'm not sure. There's something called a spell of forgetfulness. It makes people tend to forget easily. Not routine daily life things, but specific things the wizard wouldn't want remembered. For instance, if he wants to go somewhere he shouldn't, he can put the spell over himself and people might physically see him but they wouldn't remark on it and later on they wouldn't remember that he'd even been there. You want an enemy to disappear? You find a way to confine him, then you make him fade out of his family's memories. His picture might still be on the mantle and the people would see it, but they wouldn't really quite notice he wasn't around any longer, or at least they wouldn't think about it. If anyone asked, which probably wouldn't happen often, they'd say vaguely, "Oh, he's away right now." Gradually the memory of him would thin until it would take specific triggers to recall it at all. If a spell like that was all-encompassing, your meters might be going off like crazy and you just wouldn't notice. The thing about a spell of forgetfulness is that it doesn't really interfere with anything else. It doesn't make you go into a daze while driving in rush hour traffic, or forget to pay attention when crossing the street. It would have a very specific target, a person, a thing--park your car in a no-parking zone and place a spell of forgetfulness on it and you don't wind up with a ticket, things like that."

"Wow," breathed Ray, enraptured. Then he frowned. "No, that wouldn't work. Egon took readings and he got something, all right. It's just that we can't. And nobody's put a spell of forgetfulness over Peter. We remember him. We know he's missing and we want to save him. We've checked everywhere for him."

"If he's in a house with a spell of forgetfulness over it, you wouldn't forget him particularly, but you wouldn't especially notice the building itself. You might see it and even remark upon it, but you wouldn't think about going in to look for him. Even if he were standing in an open doorway waving and yelling at you, you wouldn't see him or hear him."

"Gosh, I had no idea anybody could do anything like that," Ray breathed. "It's kinda scary and kinda neat. But why would anybody do something like that to a house?" He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and said quickly, "A spell of forgetfulness, tell you in a minute," to Winston. The African American spiraled the chair to face Ray and waited.

"To a house, I don't know, unless it was to block someone inside," said Dark in his ear. "If Peter was snatched by a nasty wizard, he might have done that. It would then be possible the spell was not in place when Egon entered the scene. A lot of wizards have bad tempers. Casting spells drains a person. Makes you vulnerable, edgy, and defensive. I wouldn't say that to just anybody, Ray, so don't spread it around."

"Golly, no, I won't say a thing," Ray vowed. "You think Peter is being held prisoner by a wizard?" he asked uneasily, sharing a concerned gaze with Winston.

"One option. Another is that he stumbled onto someone else who was under a wizard's curse. If he was actually in the house, he should be able to take readings; it would only be when he stepped outside that he couldn't do it any longer. If he was within the spell, it wouldn't exist for him the way it would for someone outside."

"But that's crazy. What would stop the cursed person from going outside, walking right out of the spell?"

"From what I hear, Peter can't step outside but it isn't caused by the spell; he made a promise and he'll keep it, because if he breaks it, he'd endanger your friend Egon's life. The spell isn't holding him, worry about Egon is."

"Gosh, yeah," said Ray. "That's just what he would do, and Egon said Peter did promise he wouldn't try to escape. But you're saying he's a prisoner of somebody who's already a prisoner himself? I think it makes more sense that a wizard has Peter and is covering up."

"It's the simplest answer, but when you deal with wizards, the simplest answer isn't the most logical one. There could be two spells in place." He chuckled. "I could actually turn someone into a toad, Ray. Well, not actually a toad, but I could create a toad overlay on someone, so that everyone saw him as a toad. And he could be stepped on and killed as a toad. Believe me, it isn't something I would do. I like to think about it when I'm pissed off, like at the IRS guy who just did an audit, the creep, but I've always thought wizards shouldn't do things in a fit of pique--actually no one should."

"I can believe it," Ray agreed. "There'd be toads all over Manhattan."

"Toads?" echoed Winston in disbelief. He had long since stopped paying any attention to the computer screen and was frankly staring at Ray, listening to the one-sided conversation for all he was worth, trying to make sense of it.

"So if you were really out to trash somebody, you could shapeshift them, sorta?" Ray theorized. "And then you could put a spell of forgetfulness on the person. If he was a toad or a troll or something really bizarre, he couldn't go out in public. So the spell would keep him confined at home or at least prevent anybody coming to find him. Yeah, I can see that. And if Egon could take readings within the spell, then maybe that makes sense. Even if it was just a nasty wizard who caught him in the act. No!" Ray cried excitedly, remembering. "Egon got specific readings. A physical entity. A wizard doesn't give off readings unless he's actually casting a spell. Remember when I ran all those tests on you?"

"Vividly," agreed Jonathan Dark in a dry voice. It had taken four or five hours, and Ray had been far more caught up in the experience than Jonathan had. "A physical entity? Hmm. That would indicate someone had been attacked by a spell, since I don't think your ghosts give off such readings."

"No, but vampires and werewolves do, only really specialized. We have to adjust the meters specifically to read them. Sometimes the readings are strong enough or close enough to give a negative reading without adjustments." The Bogeyman had been like that. "If Egon was in the house and if someone had been transformed, that's exactly the kind of reading the meter would reflect. Gosh, it does sound like what you're talking about."

"It does to me."

"Are there any wizards in New York powerful enough to do something like that?" asked Ray excitedly. Maybe they were finally on their way to tracking Peter down.

"Hmm, let me think. I could, but I assure you I didn't. I don't operate that way. I've never had an enemy I hated enough to do something like that to. In essence, it would be to make him dead to his family and friends and condemn him to a living hell. No, I don't have it in me to hate like that. Although if someone hurt Meghan or Allison..." He pulled his thoughts away from the contemplation of danger to his daughter or his wife. "Let's see. There are a couple of people, no more than two, and one of them would never do it. He's essentially shunned such power and doesn't meddle with people at all. The other, well, let's just say I wouldn't want to cross him, but this is too subtle for him. He's the type of guy who would strike his enemy down with a lightning bolt. Fortunately he is too egotistical to believe anyone could ever endanger him and he doesn't meddle in the ways of mundanes."

"But maybe I could talk to him."

"No, Ray. I won't even tell you his name. I'll ask a few discreet questions, but you stay away from him. There are people simply too dangerous to meddle with. The other man is named Riker."

"Chet Riker? With an occult bookstore on West 4th Street? I know him already. No, he wouldn't do anything like this. Come on, Jonathan, we need to break the spell."

"No. Don't even try, Ray. Peter isn't under a spell. He's just hidden by one. Instead of messing with someone else's magic, the best thing to do is to find the location of the spell and walk in physically and bring him out. Only that's not as easy as you'd think."

"Not if a vengeful wizard is there," Ray agreed.

"Or a physical entity that's big enough or nasty enough to hurt Peter if you try to free him."

Ray's heart thumped at that. Peter was already trapped, possibly by just such an entity. He had insisted he wasn't hurt, but Ray knew his Peter. He'd say that if he had two broken legs if he thought lying would be for the guys' own good. "But I'm not sure how to set a meter to detect a spell. Or even if it would work with this spell of forgetfulness in place."

"It might work if you were set at the actual frequency that would detect it, but since I don't know what frequency that would be or how to convert what I do into something your devices could detect, I'm not sure what to tell you. I know I use energy. But I don't know if it could be detected. You weren't getting much of that when you ran all those endless tests on me. You were getting my own physical readings."

"Yeah, your biorhythms, I remember, spiking whenever you used your power. But once you'd done a spell, I couldn't pick up anything, just your biorhythms returning to normal. We always see that weird spiking when psi powers are used but we can't always detect the power itself. Could you tell if a spell was in place, even if it was a spell of forgetfulness?" asked Ray.

"Possibly. Maybe with more certainty than you, but simply because I know about such things does not make me immune from their effects."

"Couldn't you put a wizardly shield over yourself?" Ray persisted, desperate for anything that might help Peter. He was not bound by a promise, and Peter, as far as he knew had not promised he would not be rescued.

"I'm not sure anything like that would work. Tell you what, Ray. Tomorrow I'll go over and drive down that street where Egon was going. It's not that far from here. I'll circle around through the neighborhood. If I go before I head to the office, I can phone you and tell you if I picked up anything, any abnormalities."

"I'll give you the number of Ecto-1's mobile phone," Ray agreed and did. He would have liked to rush over tonight with Jonathan in Ecto and see if they could find Peter. But he knew a little about spell-casting, although he wasn't a practitioner himself. All those tests he'd taken had taught him a bit. It took time and energy to prepare, and Jonathan would do a better job after a good night's sleep. So he thanked the wizard, said good-bye, and hung up. "He's going to try to help us."

"What was all that about turning people into toads and spells of forgetfulness?" asked Winston edgily. "Man, I don't like the sound of any of that."

"Neither do I," agreed Ray. "But at least nobody's turned Peter into a toad. Toads can't talk on the telephone, remember." He hesitated then said with forced cheer, "In a way it's kind of neat," and explained about the possibilities of meters blocked by spells, and what might cause them, relaying everything Jonathan had told him except for the weakness spell-casting imposed, although Winston knew that already. Alice Derleth from Miskatonic University had said as much when the team had been trying to stop Cthulhu.

"You mean some poor schmuck might be trapped over there somewhere?" Zeddemore caught himself. "No, he's not a poor schmuck. He chained Egon up and is holding Peter prisoner."

"Maybe he's a prisoner himself," Ray said more quietly. "Maybe he's lonely."

"Yeah, well, so is Pete, for home."

"I know, Winston," Ray said sadly, his sympathy for a potential wizard's victim ebbing. "We need Peter home again." He spun around and displaced Winston at the computer again. "I'm gonna go through everything in the database and see what I can come up with. Why don't you try to sleep. You'll be flying Ecto-2 in the morning."

"You need to rest, too, Ray."

Stantz hesitated, his hand on the mouse. Then he raised his eyes to Winston and said worriedly, "I'm not sure I can. I keep picturing Peter held captive by a nasty entity, chained up like Egon was."

"I know. That bugs me, too. But you need your rest for tomorrow. It's the best thing you can do to help Peter."

"But what if he's trapped forever?"

"Listen, Ray, he's not trapped forever," Winston said sternly, grabbing Ray by the shoulders and giving him a slight shake. "Both Egon and Peter wound up in the same place, wherever it is. Egon said he just walked right in."

"But he didn't," Ray objected. "Not if Shelby's telling the truth, not unless his apartment is haunted and Egon was grabbed when he was at the market and taken somewhere else. And if his apartment's haunted, we didn't detect any readings."

"True. But Egon is free. So Peter will be, too. We just have to go over there and check tomorrow morning."

"Peter's not in the apartment anyway, he's somewhere with a skylight," Ray remembered. "Gosh, Winston, I'm worried about him."

"We all are, Ray. We all are." He gave Ray's shoulders an affectionate squeeze and let him go. "Play with your computer but I want your word you'll go to bed in a reasonable time." When Ray opened his mouth to object, Winston held up his hand to silence him. "Your word, Ray."

Ray hesitated, then he nodded. "Okay. But I don't have to like it."

"None of us like it," Winston replied. He gave Ray a weary smile and wandered off in the direction of the bedroom.

Peter stared unseeingly at the television screen. He'd been trying to watch a program in the hopes of distracting himself from his situation, but he couldn't concentrate, no matter how hard he tried. His thoughts were a jumble, surrounded with a giant longing for home. Here he was, unhurt, physically able to walk out the door and leave this place, but he didn't dare. If he broke his promise it wouldn't be he who suffered the consequences. It would be Egon. Peter would cheerfully face his own consequences but he would not endanger his friends.

A part of him refused to believe he was trapped here forever. It sounded like he might end it all if he could help Ross discover humanity inside himself. Not that it would be easy. That son of wealth and privilege had always had it easy, until this happened. He might have risen to the occasion but instead he had sunk helplessly into bitterness and anger. Sheffield might think he had improved, but Peter wasn't so sure.

His own hostility fluctuated throughout the day. The intense, simple-minded hatred he'd felt from the first had been tempered into a lesser anger, one that could flare up at the memory of the dazed, semi-conscious Egon, his wrist chained to the wall and then ebb again when he saw misery in the beast's eyes. Even Alexander's assurance that Egon would have been released after dark didn't endear him to Peter. Egon could well have died while waiting for night to fall. He hadn't, and now he was free and recovering, although why he hadn't said anything to the guys about where Peter was remained a mystery. Of course he'd had the wrong address. He'd believed he really had come into Shelby's house. No one must have realized that yet. Egon might say, 'Shelby's place' and mean this house, while Ray would say the same thing and mean the apartment building. But eventually Egon would catch on that something was wrong. He'd figure it out.

The canned laugh track on the syndicated sitcom brayed out, making Peter lift his eyes to the screen before they unfocused again. So how to reach Ross? He'd pushed hard all day, and Ross was truly interested in the possibility. He'd struggled to understand Peter's sacrifice for Egon. Maybe he didn't understand it yet, but at least he grasped the possibility that there was something to understand. He'd seen Peter worry about Egon all day and had understood enough to offer the telephone for that brief call. Maybe he really was learning.

But it wasn't fast enough. He still seemed to hold poor Mike Kelly in contempt, although that could well have been a defense mechanism. Contempt was safer than the pain he would feel if he admitted friendship to someone who had died in his own blood in a sleazy liquor store he'd tried to rob. If he admitted he'd let his friend down, could he live with it? Peter had done a few tacky things in his life, although nothing that bad, and it had been hard to admit them, even to Egon, who knew him through and through. It was much easier to become defensive, to pretend it didn't matter. But that never worked in the long run, not without giving up one's humanity. He'd learned that from the guys. He hadn't wanted to do anything contemptuous at first because it was such a kick to have the respect of someone like Egon, and because he couldn't stand to see the disappointment he could imagine in Ray's eyes. But the better he knew them, the more he learned how solid were their values, the more he wanted to be like that, too. He never entirely shed his surface façade--everyone needed defense mechanisms--but the inner man grew from knowing his friends.

Ross Alexander had killed his one best friend. He didn't have anyone to keep him honest any longer, except for the people he had dragged down with him. He had never considered them equals anyway, although Peter suspected he had grown fond of them over the long, lonely years. It would be that or live in desolate isolation, and human beings were not meant to survive that way.

"So what do I do?" Peter said aloud. "I can't befriend the guy. It would be a lie. I don't like him. I don't think much of him. Sure he was dealt a lousy hand and he's paying for what he did--in spades. But what am I supposed to do about it?"

"You are the one," voices chanted out of thin air.

"The one? Yeah, right. A mystical savior to put everything right? Come on, I'm a Ghostbuster. Okay, so I'm a psychologist too and I can understand this guy, more than I want to. Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe I can see all my own worst faults magnified in him ten times over. Not that I ever had the breaks to be a spoiled rich kid, but I had it in me to be a me-first kind of guy. I still do. I have to fight it and sometimes I don't win." It was easier to bare his soul to the invisible voices than it would be to almost anyone. Egon already knew, of course, and Peter could talk to him like this if he had to, although he didn't often, just in times of crisis. Egon knew anyway.

"But you have a safety net," one of the voices said. It sounded female, Mrs. Callander, probably. "You have your friends. They remind you if you step over the line. No one ever reminded Master Ross."

"They thought it was amusing that he didn't care about anybody but himself, and maybe the family name. They thought ruthlessness was a survival characteristic." That was Sheffield. Peter was growing used to him by now.

"Never mind how selfish and shallow he was, just as long as he'd make a good CEO someday?" Peter said. Another burst from the laugh track rang through the room and he grabbed the remote in irritation and muted the sound.

"He never knew anything else," Mrs. Callander said. "Except with his sister, Julia. She was the only one who ever really mattered to him. She was his one ally. And she loved Mike Kelly."

"You mean he was jealous?" Peter demanded, his voice shooting up in surprise. "That his sister preferred someone else's company to him? That Mike wanted to be with Julia more than with Ross? You mean this was his revenge?"

Sheffield materialized almost completely, still clad in black livery. He appeared nearly solid but for a shimmer around the edges. "I don't believe it was ever that specific, Peter. That may have been a factor, I don't know. Perhaps he thought they were betraying him."

Peter tried to imagine becoming upset enough to kill Egon if he decided to marry Janine, and shook his head. It was impossible. But if Ross had never been thwarted before, if he'd always believed he could have whatever he wanted, he might have reacted badly to what he'd perceived as their turning against him. He'd already insisted his father wouldn't have let Julia marry Mike. Whether that was true or not, he wanted to believe it.

"Sounds like a few years of therapy wouldn't have gone amiss," Peter said.

"You have no right to judge me."

Ross Alexander crouched in the doorway on all fours, poised to spring on Peter and rend him limb from limb. His eyes were a hot, angry blue, with a greater pain behind them than Peter remembered seeing there before.

"Yes, I do. It's why I'm here," he said, feeling the servants pop out, although Sheffield lingered longer than the others had, pausing to call:

"Try to control your temper, Master Ross," before he became a fading shimmer in the air.

"Yeah, listen to the guy," Peter urged pacifically. He struggled to his feet, accidentally hitting the mute button and bringing back the sound he'd blocked before. The television laughed uproariously. He and Ross glanced at it involuntarily before facing each other again.

"They're right, aren't they?" Peter said over the inanity of the laughtrack. "Either you didn't think Mike was good enough for your sister or you didn't want to sacrifice your friend to her. Nice guy, aren't you?"

"Julia isn't part of this."

"No, it was all you. Look, you can't change what happened. All you have to do is understand it. You had a sister who loved you and a friend who did. And you pushed them both away like that, and thought it was funny to destroy Mike. It's not the greatest record in the world, but that doesn't mean you have to stay that way. I was a real jerk before I met Egon. I was out for what I could get, all set to take the money and run. But money wouldn't have stood with me against Gozer or Samhaine. And Egon did."

He suddenly remembered Egon bursting onto the rooftop right after the guys had trapped the Halloween spirit, gasping that he'd run up all the way. He'd done what he could then raced to support his friends. The four of them had stood together against great evil, and every time, their strength had come from their togetherness, their teamwork. More than once Peter had stood beside them, believing they would die, and even though he'd been scared stiff, he'd also been proud to stand at their side against another threat to the world. He didn't even believe death would separate them. "See you on the other side," was a common remark at such an intense time. He didn't think death itself was powerful enough to end a friendship like the one he shared with the guys, his brothers in all but blood.

So he started talking, recalling incidents when they'd watched each other's backs, the time the other three had gone into the Netherworld to bring Egon home, their equipment configured to return all four of them or none at all. He told about the time Nexa had swallowed his buddies, how he'd dredged up everything he'd ever learned about science, physics, engineering, from Ray and Egon, and cobbled together a microwave emitter to take down the beast from the ocean's floor, going out alone in a small boat to face a creature as big as a high rise. He wasn't bragging, although he liked to brag. He had to make Ross see that there were things worth dying for.

He told about the time he'd stupidly been trapped in the cabinet of Calimari and how the guys had moved heaven and earth to find a way to rescue him, and the joy and relief he'd seen on their faces when he was finally freed by the ghost of Harry Houdini. They'd rescued him from the Valkyries too, rushing to save him even if he'd been smug and insufferable about the Diva beforehand.

"And they even put up with my dad," he admitted, his voice torn between pride and frustration. "They don't trust him, except maybe Ray because he'll trust just about anybody, until he's proven wrong. He always takes the risk and the funny thing is, most of the time he's right." He grinned fondly. "Egon doesn't trust my pop at all, but he always goes along when we have to rescue him from the latest mess he's gotten himself into, some wild paranormal scam. Pop makes me crazy but he keeps coming around, keeps leading me and my buddies into trouble. God, that's rough. It scares me. What if he gets one of them hurt--or worse? I can't ask them to take those risks for him, but Egon said once that I didn't have to ask. They weren't doing it for Dad but for me, because he was my dad. They said they wouldn't turn their backs on me because my dad was a con man, because I wasn't him, I was their friend."

He remembered a time, shortly after the team had returned from Mexico where they'd rescued Charlie Venkman and Ray from the coatl. Fed up with his dad, Peter had refused to take part in the scheme, even when Ray had eagerly gone along to play Indiana Jones in the jungle. They'd nearly been killed, and the rest of the team had raced to the rescue. Peter's dad hadn't learned a thing from the crisis except to claim he could always trust Peter. And Peter, who couldn't help believing he'd let down his dad and Ray by not going in the first place, was feeling pretty bad when the team returned to New York. Egon had noticed, of course. Egon always did. He corralled Peter for a midnight hot cocoa session and made him talk about it. He'd learned as much psychology from Peter as Peter had learned physics from Egon, and in the process, the two of them had learned to know each other to the depths of their souls.

Peter talked and talked to Ross, scarcely aware of the ending of the sitcom and the asinine laughtrack, failing to notice the police show that replaced it. He was onto a subject that really mattered to him, and he rambled on and on about the other three Ghostbusters, unaware of the longing for home that shone in his eyes as he recalled incident after incident.

And Ross Alexander listened. Gradually he advanced into the room and sat at the opposite end of the couch from Peter, his eyes never leaving the Ghostbuster as he told one story after another. Some of them were simple adventures, zapping and trapping ghosts, others spoke of more complicated threats; the world destruction Jeremy Whittingdon had nearly unleashed, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Always the team met the challenges with humor, courage, and the knowledge that they stood together.

Now Peter stood alone.

But he was not really alone, he realized. Ray and Winston had searched unceasingly for him. Egon couldn't search because he couldn't leave his hospital bed, but in spite of the confusion caused by his fever and by the effects of the spell, he was trying to think. No one had written Peter off and no one was going to. He would be home one day. He knew it. And knowing his friends, it would be one day soon.

"You think they'll leave me here?" he demanded.

"No. I think you will honor your promise," Ross said with utter certainty.

"Why do you believe that?" Peter said. "I could have scammed you. I could make a run for it. The guys could haul me out tomorrow morning."

"Because of Egon," Ross said, and he didn't sound like someone who had just come to realize Peter's one weakness.

"Yeah, Egon," Peter said. "God, I wish I could see him, just one last time."

Ross hesitated, then he said unexpectedly, "Perhaps you can."

Peter's heart leaped. "You'd let me go?" he asked, very softly, braced for disappointment. It was probably a trick.

"I can't let you go, Peter," Ross told him, and for the first time he actually sounded like he regretted what he was doing.

"Guess not. And that's why the spell's not going to end. Listen, guy, it isn't me that will break the spell. It's you."

"But if I let you go, what will happen to the others?" Alexander persisted. He ran his taloned fingers through the bushy hair on his head.

"And if you don't, what will? Nothing will change, Ross. Don't you get it?"

"But I need you to free me. No one else has ever done what you have."

"What, driven you nuts?" Peter asked with a crooked grin. He could hear the desperation in the beast's voice and realized that, for the first time, Ross wanted to change. Not that he hadn't wanted to transform before, but he'd wanted a quick fix. He'd been used to quick fixes all his life.

"No," said Ross with complete honesty. "Made me look at myself. You were right all along. I'm pond scum."

"Well," said Peter consideringly, "I won't say you haven't been pond scum--or lower. But you're not pond scum right now. I don't think you'd chain Egon up again if it was all to do over, would you?"

"Part of that was to make sure he didn't wander off and pass out somewhere he would never be found."

"Yeah, and part was because you recognized him and figured someone would come after him."

"I'm as far from perfect as it gets, Peter. All right." He gestured abruptly and the two gargoyles materialized in front of Peter.

"Uh, what are you up to now?" the psychologist asked, uncertain if he could read the unexpected expression in the beast's eyes.

"They will take you to see Egon. They will bring you to his window. You go in, you see him, then you return here."

"Talk to him, too?" Peter asked hopefully.

"Only if you can do so without him stopping you from returning. I know your promise is good. I trust you to keep it, and not entirely because of the consequences if you break it. Your father may break promises, but you suffered through them enough to vow you would never do the same."

Peter realized in surprise that Ross had actually been perceptive enough to get it right. Peter had been trying to live his father down all his adult life.

"Yeah," he said. "I could have sprinted across the courtyard before your servants came after me. You know I could."

"Yes. They watched you. They had orders. If you tried to escape they were to follow you. I wanted to see what you would do. But I didn't want you to know that. You're the kind of man who pushes his luck."

"No, you think?" Peter grinned then it faded into a wistful expression. "You'll really let me see Egon?"

"Yes, you may go now. They will carry you."

Peter bounced to his feet, overjoyed. Even if he had to come back here afterwards, it was worth it. He wouldn't really believe Egon was on the road to recovery until he saw him.

Egon awoke from a feverish dream in which years had passed and Peter had not returned home, in which the other three Ghostbusters had searched unavailing for weeks, months, years, never giving up. Crying out in distress, Egon came awake at the feel of a hand on his forehead and an encouraging voice whispering it had only been a dream. Had he called out in his nightmare and alerted a nurse?

For a few seconds he lay there as the dream's aftereffects loosened their claws and his breathing steadied. He felt completely safe and in no danger and it took a minute to realize it was because the touch of the comforting hand was a familiar one, a reassuring one and the voice was the one he had most wanted to hear, one he wasn't sure he'd ever experience again.

He opened his eyes and gazed, unsurprised, at the blurred shadow of Peter Venkman bending over him as if Egon's own need had conjured him up out of the night. Clad in unfamiliar clothing, Peter seemed completely normal, although if Egon squinted he thought he could see a faint shadow of a bruise on Peter's right cheekbone. He didn't need to squint to see the concern on Peter's face; it simply shone out of him.

"Hi, Egon," Peter said simply. He lifted his hand from Egon's forehead and gripped the physicist's shoulder instead. Then, with a sudden and desperate urgency, he pushed aside the tray table, leaned down and grabbed Egon in a fierce hug, pulling him up carefully so as not to dislodge anything.

"Are you really here?" Egon asked, although the strength in the arms that held him could be no waking dream. He encircled Peter in return. "How dare you throw away your life for me?" he chided, although the affection in his tones far outweighed the reproach.

"Come on, Egon, I'd do it again in a second. What else could I do? And what would you have done if the tables were turned?" Reluctantly he loosened his grip and eased Egon down against the pillow again. Hooking the chair leg with his ankle, he drew it up and plopped down in it. He picked up Egon's glasses from the tray table and settled them in place as if to do so was a privilege. Egon blinked, focusing his attention on Peter's face. A line of light from the hall illuminated his features and saw a combination of relief and despair in the green eyes.

"I believe I owe you my life, Dr. Venkman," Egon said quietly, reaching up to grasp Peter's wrist in a firm clasp.

"And how many times do I owe you mine?"

"Peter, what are you doing here?" Egon demanded. "Are you free?" He didn't believe it; that expression in Peter's eyes didn't allow for it. Peter wasn't free, even if he was here; he considered himself still bound by his promise and he would go away again. How could Egon live with that, knowing it was on his behalf that Peter had surrendered his freedom.

"No, it's a one-shot deal, Spengs," Peter replied with a quick, reassuring gesture. "I got a weekend pass--well, a midnight pass, anyway. But hey, big guy, don't worry. I've got a real handle on the problem now. It won't take long to resolve it. I can get myself out of this." He squared his shoulders, and Egon could feel the mental discipline that allowed him to sound so positive. He knew his Peter far too well not to see how scared and lonely he was.

"Are you certain, Peter?" Egon couldn't quite tell if Peter were being cocky because a part of him really believed he could free himself permanently in a way that would negate his promise or if he wanted to give Egon a reassurance to help him recover. He suspected the latter. Curling his fingers more securely around Peter's wrist, he lifted an expectant eyebrow. Tell me the truth, Peter, he thought.

"Heck, yes, I'm sure. Come on, I'm the best. I can do it. I can't tell you what I have to do but it won't kill me. And once it's done, I can come home. I just don't know quite how long it will take, but at the rate I'm going, I'll be home...." His voice lingered caressingly on the final word. "Home before you know it," he concluded hastily.

"It might not kill you, but it has hurt you," Egon said, freeing Peter's wrist to touch the bruise on his cheek that resembled a streak of dust in the dimly lit room since that side of his face was in shadow. Peter winced slightly but not as if the bruise caused him major pain.

"Just pushing my limits," Peter said. "You know how I get." He grabbed Egon's hand, probably to keep him from poking at the injury, and squeezed it in both of his own. "God, Egon, there are things I could tell you that would make it all clear to you, but I can't."

"Because of a promise that was forced upon you? Do you consider a promise made under duress binding?"

"I consider a promise that would endanger your life by breaking it to be binding," Peter said with complete gravity. "Just like you would. 'Sides, you know me. If I can get away with something, I'll give it a shot--but if I make a promise, I keep it." He lowered his eyes. "My dad never did, and I know what that feels like. I won't do that--not even to him. It's important. I hate the guy, but I won't play my dad's game. I've gotta, Egon. I have to go back."

"No," Egon protested involuntarily, glancing at the door to make sure the officer who still guarded him had heard nothing. He couldn't see the man's leg; perhaps he was at the nearby nurses' station, talking to the nurse with the sleek, black hair. No, it was after eleven now. Someone else would be on shift.

He pushed that aside as irrelevant. "Peter, are you sure?" he asked bringing up the hand with the IV and laying it over Peter's clasped ones. He understood all too well what Peter meant, why he considered himself bound. He'd fought to live his father down all his adult life and wouldn't give ground now, especially when the stakes were Egon's own life. In spite of his frivolous surface persona, Peter Venkman was a very honorable man, and Egon was proud of him.

"That I can get out of this on my own?" Peter hesitated. "I think I have a good shot at it. If I didn't have a shot, I wouldn't be here now. But I had to come and make sure you're all right. How are you really, big guy? And none of that macho crap like you tried to pull after you fell off the World Trade Center. Are you really getting well?" He worked one hand free and lay the back of it against Egon's cheek, probably the way his mother had tested him for fever when he was a child. "You're not as hot as you were last night. You were just burning up. God, you scared me."

"Yes, Peter. I really am on the mend." He turned his head into the touch, savoring it because he knew Peter was planning to leave again. "I feel better all the time. They think I can get up tomorrow, and I will be able to go home in several days."

"You're not bullshitting me to make me feel good?" Peter demanded.

"I never, er, bullshit," Egon replied dryly, a smile curling the corners of his mouth. Both of them needed the usual byplay, although it hurt them, knowing it might be days--or longer--before they would hear it again. Egon was counting on Ray and Winston to find Peter, wherever the creature held him, wherever he'd been taken.

"No, you just use more big words than there are in the unabridged dictionary," Peter said fondly. "You're a 'baffle 'em with brilliance' kinda guy rather than a 'confuse 'em with bullshit' type."

"I leave that particular function to you."

Peter couldn't help grinning, then his amusement faded and he suddenly looked like a lost little boy. "God, Egon, I miss you guys," he breathed in a low, urgent voice. "I know we've gone longer than this without being together, trips and vacations and stuff like that, and I know we don't live in each other's pockets, but we control that."

"And you are controlling this," Egon reminded him, sensing Peter's need for reassurance. "You said it yourself, you could get yourself home and free. I believe that to be true. While I don't fully grasp your situation, if anyone can fast-talk his way out of such a problem, you can."

"Course I can," Peter said, bracing up, his shoulders squaring. He was being brave for Egon, to prevent his worry, and Egon knew it. "You bet I can. Just remember that."

"How did you come here, Peter?" Egon asked, hoping for a clue in the reply, since Peter had been careful until now to say nothing to give away his location or what had really happened.

"A little aerial maneuvering," Peter said, retreating toward the open window. Did something move there, something huge with wings? Egon blinked. He vaguely remembered winged beings yanking him up through an open skylight while Peter shrank below him.

Then abruptly Peter lunged at him and hugged him again. "I've gotta go, Egon," he said as he straightened up and backed toward the window. It was as if he'd reached his limit and knew if he stayed any longer he wouldn't be able to go voluntarily. "Tell Ray and Winston I'm fine. And tell Janine--" He hesitated, then the patented Venkman grin flashed out. "Tell her I said she still can't have a raise."

"Peter," Egon groaned, struggling to still his own smile, knowing Janine would find that more reassuring than any kinder words Venkman might have sent her. He stretched out a hand toward Peter. "I don't know what you have to do, but do it carefully. I know you will do it well, but don't go off half cocked."

"Do I ever do that?" Peter pretended huge outrage.

"Do you ever not?"

Peter smiled briefly in acknowledgment of the hit, then he and climbed up onto the window sill. "See ya, Spengs," he said, and was abruptly gone. Egon had a sense of movement, of wings darker than the night sky and nearly invisible, beating as Peter was lifted out of the room, then the night was silent--and empty--again. The image of Peter's face, deliberately brave, but so lonely, remained in Egon's mind.

"What did you have to promise to obtain this visit, Peter?" he said aloud.

"You say something?" the returning cop poked his head in at the door.

"No," Egon said quietly. He would tell the guys in the morning that Peter had been here, but he knew it was too late to attempt pursuit tonight. He wouldn't endanger Peter by a police chase at midnight. "I must have called out in my sleep."

But as he lay awake in the darkness, hearing the scrape of the chair as the cop sat down again, the movement of nurses and aides along the hall, the faint beep of machinery in a nearby room, he could only see the image of Peter, standing in the darkness, cocky and determined, and longing to be home.

"We'll get you back, Peter," he said under his breath. "And that's my promise to you."

Peter shivered as the gargoyles returned him through the skylight. Unwilling to stay in the room where Egon had been imprisoned, even if the image of a much healthier Egon was now vivid in his memory, he hurried out of the room and down the stairs. It was late, but seeing Egon had left him too keyed up for sleep.

He met Ross Alexander on the stairs and stopped dead facing him. "You don't know how hard that was," he said. "But thanks. It really meant a lot to me."

"You would have been happier if I had let you stay," Ross pointed out.

"True. But I guess you weren't ready for that." He studied the room for any evidence of the invisible chorus, but the air was still. "I'm just glad I was able to see Egon. He really is recovering."

"Most people don't die of pneumonia these days," said the beast.

"Most people who have pneumonia aren't chained up without treatment." Peter brushed that away. "Anyway, he's doing better. Typical Egon, getting on my case the way he does best."

"And you like that?" Ross lifted a quizzical 'eyebrow'. Peter found he was used to the muzzled face, enough to read more subtlety of expression than he had at first.

"Heck yes, I like it. He's my buddy. We always kid each other. Egon has a great sense of humor; real sneaky, you'd never know it if you just met him casually but it's there in his eyes. He'll say something completely deadpan and it'll take a minute to catch it, if you don't know him." He turned away, his hands on the stair rail. "God, I miss him."

"If you ask me, you're too dependent on your friends," Ross pointed out.

"Throwing psych terms at me, are you? I'll just call you Dr. Freud. No, it's not like that. It's because I can't go home. That makes the difference. Besides, wouldn't anybody rather be with their family than somebody who locks them up? Think about it." He glowered at the beast. "I think I've had about as much of you as I can take for the day. I'm going to bed."

Ross stood aside to let him pass. But he trailed along behind. "I thought it was pretty generous of me to let you go see Egon," he said.

Peter whirled and confronted him. "Generous? Generous? To spend five minutes with a buddy and then have to go back to jail? Oh yeah, you're a prince among men--er, beasts, all right. Doing something to score points isn't generous. It's selfish. I'm glad I was able to go, and I don't regret it, but it wasn't generous if that's all you wanted, to get something out of it."

"You got something out of it," Ross accused.

"Yeah, I did. I was able to find out for sure that my oldest friend is really recovering. I got to see him again. I got to reassure him that I'm not dead so he can sleep better. So he can tell Winston and Ray in the morning that I'm doing okay. What did you get? I'll tell you what? Zilch. Zip. Nada. At least not if you were only doing it to trick the curse into ending. It doesn't work that way."

"I keep trying and it doesn't work. Don't I have as much right to want to go home again and see my family as you do? You've been gone just over twenty-four hours. Well, I've been gone ten years, Mr. Smartass. Hell, yes, I'll do anything I can do to find a way home again. And you coming in here and lording over me as if you were the most sanctimonious son of a bitch in creation isn't doing me one damn bit of good."

Peter felt the anger drain out of him because Ross had a hell of a good point. He stomped down the urge to demand sarcastically, 'And just whose fault was that?' and paused for a second, choosing different words. "Okay," he said. "You're right. I was smug." Time to try a new tactic. Maybe he could get through better with a less intolerant approach. "The thing is, I'm lucky. I've got the greatest bunch of buddies I can imagine anybody ever having. I didn't really have a family, not a normal one, when I was growing up. My dad was off scamming, and my mom was usually working two jobs to make ends meet, so I didn't see her nearly enough. Then when I was old enough to understand, she died. By then I'd met Egon and Ray and Winston, though, and they'd turned into a family. Maybe I run scared because I've turned out so lucky that I'm afraid it'll all go away again, and it'll be like it was when my dad let me down for Christmas every year."

He gazed up into Ross's angry and miserable face, seeing past the fangs and muzzle to the depth of despair in the blue eyes. This was a human being who had screwed up badly but who wound up facing a payback beyond anybody's idea of fair. He'd been selfish and let somebody down, but he'd never learned not to be that way. His father might have been rich and important and not a crook, but Peter would bet good money Charlie Venkman loved him far more than the elder Alexander had ever loved Ross. Maybe Ross had sent Peter to the hospital in hopes of conning the spell into believing he'd changed--but there had a time it wouldn't have even occurred to him how much Peter was drawn there or understood it even if Peter had demanded to go.

Ross hesitated. Then he ventured quietly as if he half expected Peter to throw his offer in his face, "Want to go down and have something to drink before bed? A beer, or hot chocolate or something?"

It was an offer of companionship, as much of an offer as Ross could make but the hot chocolate suggestion reminded Peter too much of late night gatherings in the kitchen at the firehouse, periods of real companionship. "Beer sounds good," he said shortly. He didn't really want to drink with Ross, but if he scorned him now, he might undo all the good he'd done so far. Okay, so he was doing just what he'd accused Ross of, a good deed in hope of a return. But he had to start somewhere.

"The Yankees are playing on the West Coast," Ross volunteered as they trekked down the stairs. "We should be able to catch part of it."

"Sounds good to me," Peter said. Baseball was good. Baseball was neutral. He'd watched games with total strangers in sports bars, so he should be able to manage that with a guy he was trying to redeem.

"Egon's a Blue Jays fan," he said, forcing himself to picture the beast as simply another sports fan. "You wouldn't think a guy like Spengs would get into baseball but he does every now and then. Me, I'm for the Yankees all the way. I remember when I was a kid, my dad actually took me to a Yankees game. I think I was in kindergarten or maybe it was the summer before I started. It was 1961--the year Maris broke the home run record. And he hit a home run in that game. It wasn't the big number 61, but it was one of them. Sometimes, even when my dad and I are really pissed off at each other, we can remember that ball game. Dad said to me, 'Remember this moment all your life,' and it kinda stuck with me."

"I wasn't born then," Ross said. "But my dad likes baseball, too. He used to own the Jaguars."

"You're kidding." Peter stared at the beast in surprise. "Winston's a Jags fan. I keep telling him, one day in the dim and distant future, the Jags will actually win a game. He goes anyway. Your dad must have got out while the getting was good."

Ross chuckled as they reached the kitchen, and he flipped on the light. "Yeah, I remember he used to talk about it. There was a haunting going on there, right after he sold the team. I think you guys were called. It was--right before I turned into a beast."

"I remember that," Peter said. "They were playing for my soul. Good thing I didn't know about it until later." He grinned wryly. "I'd have been stuck doing evil's bidding for five hundred years. We thought it was Winston's soul, but he said it was mine. I always thought that was a weird coincidence, but maybe they knew about us Ghostbusters when they decided to play a baseball game." That would have been far worse than being a beast for ten years. He'd come way too close.

Ross took two bottles of beer from the refrigerator and passed one to Peter, unscrewing the lid. Peter didn't recognize the brand, something imported, probably pricey, but it was good. He took a long swallow. "Decent stuff."

"Not bad. Let's head up to the TV room."

Ross acted eager and excited about the middle-of-the-night ball game. Peter felt a little sorry for him; to watch a game with someone else was probably a treat, something Peter took for granted as one of the perks of his life at the firehouse. They turned on the television and found the right channel. The Yankees were winning. It was the bottom of the seventh and they had a five run lead over Oakland. Mattingly was pitching and the announcer was raving that he'd allowed only one hit in the game so far. Peter flopped down on the couch, the bottle held in one hand. He was tired, weary all the way to the soul, but he wasn't sleepy. Focusing on the Yankees helped. He could become caught up in the game and forget, for a while, that he couldn't go home.

"Sometimes, I think I'd give everything I had if I could just head out to Yankee Stadium to see a ball game like everybody else," Ross said, avoiding Peter's eyes.

Peter understood the heartfelt words better than Ross could have expected. The desire to be normal, to be one of the crowd, to be like everyone else had to hit hardest with those who were not normal and never could be. When Peter was growing up, his fondest wish had been to have a dad who came home every night like all the other kids' dads. It had been great when his father actually had come home, but there would be endless months when he didn't. Single-parent families hadn't been as common in the sixties as they were now, and Peter had tended to stand out. He remembered one horrible autumn when the word came that his father was in jail out in Sacramento and, after that, the other kids weren't allowed to play with him. He and his mom had moved soon after that, but Peter had felt a appalling sense of isolation that October that he suspected still influenced him. He understood it, of course, but no matter how good a psychologist he was, he couldn't quite rid himself of all his childhood traumas.

But he'd been lucky. His life had grown better. He'd found friends, a job he loved, and a place for himself in the world. Ross didn't have that yet. True, he might have bad instincts, he might be selfish and desperate, but if a part of him craved normalcy, there was definitely hope for him.

"You ever get out at all?" Peter asked.

"Sometimes really late at night, I'll wear the cloak and go out. I just walk all over. I can hardly take a cab. Telling people I've been at a costume party works only every so often. Halloween is good. I go out on Halloween. Nobody gives me a second look on Halloween. The rest of the time--it's not really worth it."

Not to mention New York had a team of paranormal eliminators who might well be called in if he was spotted. Egon used the atomic destabilizer on physical entities. Ross had set off a P.K.E. meter. No matter how he might protest he was simply a transformed human, they would probably have trapped him if they'd encountered him and never even realized, if they used the throwers as well as the trap that hadn't pulled him in.

"I hear you," Peter said sympathetically.

They were momentarily distracted by the game as the announcer started screaming in excitement. Watching the double play that broke up a chance to score, they found companionship. Peter had to grin, even if it denied the home team more runs. Baseball was a great leveler. Put any two guys together and even if they had nothing else in common they could probably talk baseball.

After that, they concentrated on the game. Maybe Ross felt he'd revealed too much. Peter knew it was easier to deal with the beast if he didn't have to think about what he'd done to Egon. Watching the game gave them a transitory sense of companionship. Peter knew it was but a shadowy reflection of the real thing, but Ross didn't. He thrived under it. "This is great," he said enthusiastically, several times.

They had fun badmouthing Steinbrenner, too, in total agreement that he should stand aside and leave managing to the manager. For about ten minutes they tried to top each other in calling him bad names, only distracted when Craig Nettles made a spectacular catch of a pop foul off the third base line. Ross bounced up and down on the sofa in delight, rocking it and making the very floor quiver. He was smiling, not in itself a pretty sight, but in spite of the muzzle and fangs, and the thick brown hair that covered his face, he was, in that moment, just another guy watching a ball game.

Peter realized abruptly he felt sorry for the other man. And for the first time, he began to genuinely want to help him.

But lying in his bed in a struggle after sleep once the game had ended in a Yankee triumph, he just wanted to go home. He missed the sound of the guys snoring in the other beds, missed the casual little by-play that marked their days. They didn't deal with intensity every day; they didn't have to. Instead they clowned around, teased each other, sometimes irritated each other with petty problems. Ray's cheerful enthusiasm might grate when Peter awoke way too early after a late night. Winston always could pick out the murderer in a TV whodunit and never failed to say so, spoiling the surprise. Or Egon's obsession with his spores, molds, and fungi might bug Peter, just as his delight in being famous sometimes irked the other three. But those things didn't matter in the long run. No group of people could live together without occasional exasperation. It would have been weird and unnatural never to have a gripe about his buddies. But those incidents were part of a larger whole, part of a companionship that held laughter and pleasure, that could rise to fill a crisis and prove to Peter he had someone at his back just as he'd be there for them.

It was the silly little memories that hurt the most now. He could remember Winston, usually the least profane of men, cursing the umpire strongly enough to turn the air blue when they'd watched a Jags game on television last week. Egon had been delighted to serve as a guest lecturer at Columbia on the subject of ectoplasmic physics, and Peter had lost count of the number of times he'd had to listen to old Spengs' speech as he practiced it over and over. Then there was Ray, going on about a new comic book he'd discovered, as excited as a kid with a brand new train set, reading out parts of the improbable plot to his buddies. Watching Ross during the game had made Peter miss those little interactions desperately.

God, Venkman, you're turning into a sentimental idiot, Peter told himself, rolling over and pounding the pillow as if it were an enemy. But he knew he wasn't, not really. It wasn't that he took the guys for granted when everything was normal any more than any person ever did. But life wasn't normal now. He thought there was a good chance he could go home again, but he didn't know it. He'd tried to reassure Egon he'd be home soon but, in spite of Ross's progress, there were no guarantees. Miserably homesick, Peter sat up, bunched the pillow in his hands, and whacked it into shape again. What if I can't break the spell? What am I going to do?

He left the bed and prowled over to the window, almost expecting to see Ecto-1 parked outside. But it wasn't there; the street was dark and deserted with only strange cars parked along its length. Feeling alone and, unfairly, abandoned, Peter crept to bed. He knew the guys wouldn't give up on him. Egon's overwhelming relief at the sight of him proved that. Egon remembered; he remembered most of what had happened. So the beast or the spell hadn't really played total havoc with his memories. He still didn't realize he'd gone into the wrong house, though, and Peter had been unable to tell him. But maybe he'd figure it out on his own. Egon was good at things like that.

But what would happen if Ray and Winston, and probably Janine, came bursting into Alexander's house, throwers at ready? If the spell wasn't broken, they'd try to trap Ross, and Peter couldn't let them do that. In spite of the lousy thing he'd done to Mike Kelly, in spite of his furry muzzle, Ross Alexander was a human being. Peter didn't want to defend him, not after his treatment of Egon, but he knew he would have to. Blasting Ross would free Peter from his promise, but it would relieve him of the burden in all the wrong ways. Rescue wasn't the great option it had seemed at the beginning. He'd always feel like he'd weaseled out of a problem, like he'd accepted his father's situational ethics, like he'd copped out. No, that wasn't the answer. But he had a feeling the guys had figured out a few answers of their own. They might not be here first thing in the morning, but he didn't think it would be much later than that. They'd charge to the rescue, all gung ho, and one glimpse of Ross and they'd start firing.

"Damn it," Peter said aloud. A part of him would relish that, but another part knew he could not allow it to happen.

"I want to go home," he said in a small voice. "I just want to go home."

So does he, his conscience whispered unhelpfully in his mind.

Peter slept very badly that night.

Ray had not slept well either, waking at least once an hour and sitting up to look around the bunkroom. It was weird for both Egon and Peter's beds to be empty. Slimer had been hovering mournfully over Peter's bed most of the times Ray had awakened, but when he opened his eyes just before dawn, the little ghost had curled up on Peter's pillow, hugging it to him in his worry. Gosh, Peter will hate that, Ray thought automatically, then he heaved a sigh. Peter wasn't here to hate it. He might never be here again.

Ray had sent Slimer out the night before to use his ghostly powers to hunt for Peter, but such searches had not been effective in the past and were no more so this time. Just before bedtime, the spud had returned home, distressed and apologetic, wailing that he had been unable to find Peter, head bowed, misery shining out of his yellow eyes. Ray had consoled him with cookies, wishing he and Winston could be so easily appeased.

At dawn, the telephone awoke him from a brief and restless sleep, filled with dreams he couldn't remember, and he shot out of bed like a cork from a bottle, grabbing the receiver. "Peter?" he cried hopefully.

"I'm sorry, Ray, it's Egon." The physicist sounded better today; his breathing was not as labored and strength had returned to the deep voice. There was an edge in it that might have been relief.

"You found him?" cried Ray.

"No, but I've seen him," Egon replied.

"You've seen him? How could you have seen him?" Stantz blurted in disbelief. The thought that Egon had encountered Peter but that Peter was still a prisoner didn't make sense. Winston bobbed up in bed and stared at Ray in eager expectation, his tangled covers and bunched pajama top speaking of a restless night for him, too.

"The winged creatures that took me to the hospital brought him to visit me, shortly after midnight."

Gesturing Winston closer so he could listen too and tilting the receiver slightly, Ray urged Egon to explain the unexpected visit and, as he spoke, Ray's heart sank. Peter still considered himself bound by a promise extracted at a time when he feared Egon would die without it. Even if he believed he could change whatever happened, there were no guarantees. Egon concluded, "I fear he said what he thought would reassure me. He could not promise he would achieve his freedom, although he tried to make me believe he could."

"Was he hurt?" asked Ray in a small voice.

"He was up and walking. He had a bruise on one cheek, but he didn't act alarmed about it." Egon's voice made it clear he was alarmed.

"You mean they hit him?" Winston blurted. "That's it. I'm gonna dig out the atomic destabilizer so I can blast the jerks when we find them."

"It would seem an excellent plan," Egon replied, his voice level and emotionless, although Ray could feel his concern. When Egon sounded like a Vulcan, it usually meant he was really upset and iron control was his means of dealing with it. "Such an action might be Peter's one chance for freedom."

"Gosh, I wish I could've seen him," Ray said wistfully.

"Peter thinks you will, and very soon."

"We've got a plan," Ray explained, describing his call to Jonathan Dark and the wizard's plan to cruise the area, trying to discover evidence of spellcasting, as well as their strategy with Ecto-2, to search for skylights. "Just because there wasn't a skylight in Shelby's apartment doesn't mean there won't be one nearby we can investigate," he proclaimed, rubbing his eyes to complete the wake-up process. It couldn't be much past six a.m.

Slimer drifted over, looking around in blank surprise as if he'd forgotten Peter and Egon were gone, then he snuggled up against Ray, who groaned and pushed him away. "Gross. Now I have to have a shower, Slimer."

"You would anyway, homeboy," Winston reminded him, ducking since his proximity to the receiver had brought him close enough to Ray to be showered with drops of ectoplasm, too. He raised his voice so it would carry. "Great news that Peter has even that much bargaining power, Egon. With any luck, Ray and I will track him down before noon."

"I hope so, guys. What alarms me is that Peter appears to feel bound to the promise."

"He's doing that to protect you, m'man," Winston suggested. "Long as you're sick, he has to stick to it."

"Peter doesn't break promises," Ray put in. He knew Peter must have made his deal out of the urgency of Egon's need, but that didn't mean he'd walk out on it now. What if the guys showed up with the destabilizer and Peter wouldn't let them blast the baddie? No, that couldn't happen. But if the entity who held Peter captive had unbent enough to allow a hospital visit, maybe he wasn't all bad. Maybe the spell was at fault and not him. Of all the Ghostbusters, Ray was the one most likely to give a ghost or creature the benefit of the doubt, but this time, he couldn't quite see it. Egon had been chained up. He'd been sick and still locked away. The entity had forced Peter to give up his freedom simply to ensure Spengler received the medical treatment he so badly needed.

"But we'll find a way to haul him out of there," he insisted.

"Excellent, Ray. I know you will. I wish I could be with you," Egon encouraged him. "Unfortunately, a nurse has just arrived."

"Bath time again?" Winston asked with a quick grin. "Maybe we should send Janine over to help. I know she'd volunteer in a New York minute."

"That is not kind, Winston. Not kind at all." He said good-bye and hung up, leaving Winston and Ray to try to brush the slime from their pajamas.

"Egon sounds a lot better," Ray said with a smile. "Isn't it great that he got to see Peter. I wish I had."

"With any luck, you will soon. Come on, let's get ready and prepare Ecto-2. Your wizard buddy could call at any minute. Maybe we ought to take along Peter's cell phone, just in case. The sooner we start, the better I'll like it." He promptly called Egon back, interrupting whatever the nurse had planned, to remind Egon to call on that phone if he heard anything. When he hung up he reported Egon had sounded pleased at the distraction.

They took turns showering and dressed hastily, pausing only long enough for a simple breakfast. Both men were too eager to start out and resume the search to take the time to sit down to bacon and eggs. Toast and coffee did the trick, the coffee also serving to help complete the wake-up process. Slimer hovered the whole time, asking questions in such an urgent and excited voice that only Ray could understand him, and getting in the way. Much as Ray loved the little ghost, he wasn't in the mood this morning, and wickedly reminded Slimer it was time for his morning garbage run, just to have a moment's peace and quiet. There was no word from Jonathan Dark the whole time.

"Why doesn't he call?" Ray demanded as he and Winston readied Ecto-2 for the day. They had pulled the gyrocopter in front of the firehouse, packs stacked nearby as Ray and Winston ran a few checks, preparatory to taking off. They intended to begin their day's search of skylights in the vicinity of Shelby's apartment building whether they'd heard from Jonathan Dark or not. While any of the top floor apartments in the vicinity could have a skylight, and while it was possible that Egon had misread the floor even in Shelby's building, Ray couldn't help worrying that the spell Jonathan had mentioned the day before would influence him and Winston to prevent them from finding Peter, even if they knew exactly where to search for him.

"It isn't even seven a.m. yet," Winston pointed out. "He might not have even started."

"If he has to be at work at eight, he probably has," Ray said. "I think we should start out now. Maybe we'll even run into Jonathan when we reach the area. Boy, I wish I could think of a way to set the meters so spells wouldn't affect them."

"You really think somebody's been transformed by a wizard, Ray?" Winston asked, shaking his head. "Sounds like a weird plot device out of a fairy tale."

"I know. If Peter wasn't trapped, it would be really exciting. Makes you wonder if the wizard didn't have a fondness for fairy tales and thought one of them would serve his purposes fine. There are all kinds of neat ones where people are transformed by magic. Gosh, just think of the handsome prince who was turned into a toad and only a kiss would restore him."

Winston smirked. "Betcha Pete's not about to kiss a toad."

"No, but remember the time that magician's assistant was hypnotized and was told only being kissed by a toad could break the spell." He chuckled heartily. "I can still see the disgruntled expression on Peter's face after he kissed her and she told him that."

"Would a transformed toad set off the meters?" Winston asked, stifling a hearty guffaw at the memory.

"Sure, if it used to be a person. I wish Egon could remember what he saw there." He donned the atomic destabilizer pack, realizing it was heavier than the standard one. Winston shrugged his shoulders into the strap of his normal proton pack and checked the setting of the thrower before holstering it.

"If your wizard buddy's theory is on the money, we're lucky he can remember any of it at all," said Winston. "Unless he can recall because he was inside, and only people on the outside don't notice what's going on. What do you think?"

"It could be." Ray started to climb into Ecto-2 just as Janine's pink Volkswagen turned the corner and pulled to a stop in a very small parking place just down the street. "Here's Janine," he said unnecessarily. "We'd better wait."

Janine jumped out of the car and hurried to join them. "You're going up," she said unnecessarily.

"We haven't heard from that wizard guy yet," Winston said. "The one who was going to see if he could sense a spell in the area of Shelby's apartment building. But we're going up anyway."

"The entity let Peter visit Egon last night," cried Ray and explained it to Janine, whose eyes narrowed at the thought of Peter being forced to return to captivity.

"We better make sure one of you stays with Egon tonight," the secretary said. "Because what if the ghost or whatever it is decides he wants Egon again too. They didn't have any trouble finding the right room."

"I thought of that," Ray said. "But so did Peter. You can bet if anything like that happened, all bets would be off."

The cell phone in Ray's vest pocket rang, and from inside the firehall, the regular business phone shrilled in unplanned accompaniment. "I'd better answer that," Janine said and raced inside. Ray pulled out the cell phone and activated it. "Hello."

"Raymond, it's Egon again. I've been thinking and I've remembered something you guys have said several times. I didn't make the connection until this very minute, but you and Winston made several references to Shelby's 'apartment'. Did I hear you correctly?"

"Sure, Egon," Ray replied, his forehead puckering in a frown. He couldn't see what Spengler meant. "Why would that make a difference?

"Because Shelby doesn't live in an apartment, Ray. He lives in a huge, old house."

"What?" cried Ray, stunned at Egon's words. "No, he doesn't. We were there, at the apartment, Winston and I, and Janine was there with the police. We saw him there, with all his things half unpacked. It was definitely an apartment in an apartment building. Six twenty-seven Briarwood."

"No, Ray. Six seventy-two," Egon corrected, a thread of excitement running through his voice. "That's what it said on the paper Janine gave me. I checked it quite carefully because it seemed unlikely. The structure looked like an abandoned house, set back from the street, with a courtyard behind an iron gate. Oddly enough, although I have been trying for the past few minutes, I find it quite difficult to focus my thoughts upon the house itself. I've tried to clarify it and even thinking of it requires a conscious effort. I believe such a reaction is something other than a result of my feverish state at the time. I believe something has deliberately interfered with my memories."

"That house!" exploded Ray. "We saw it. We even stood outside but the meter didn't react, so we didn't go in or anything. Gosh, Egon, if you weren't at Shelby's--and you couldn't have been if Janine wrote the address wrong--then maybe Jonathan Dark was right, and there's a spell of forgetfulness on the house. He said there'd be one."

"It does tie in with the near-compulsion not to think about the house," Egon concurred, although he'd never been as willing as Ray to accept the possibility of spells as a working premise.

"Yeah," agreed Ray, growing more excited by the minute. "Egon, I think you're right, and Jonathan Dark is right. Because Winston and I didn't think about it either. If you weren't at Shelby's apartment, that spooky old house was the most logical place on the whole block for Peter to look for you. He'd have figured someone would call if you had passed out in the taxi, somebody from the hospital. He wouldn't have known yet that you didn't have a wallet with you so you might not have been identified. He may have even been lured into the house after you, although we don't know why yet."

"Go and find him, Ray," Egon urged. "I wish I could be with you."

"I wish you could, too. Don't worry, Egon, we'll look for him. If he's in that house, we'll find him. I promise."

"I know you will, Ray. Good luck."

Ray had just returned the cell phone to his pocket when Janine raced out of the firehall to meet them. "Ray, that was a friend of yours on the phone, a guy called Jonathan. He says there's a house at six seventy-two Briarwood that has a weird kind of spell on it. He could sense it the minute he turned onto the street, but he said it would take someone as gifted as he was to sense it. Do you think Egon confused the numbers?"

"Probably," said Winston, who had not heard Egon's end of the conversation. "Egon just told us to go there, too. So we're heading over there now."

"So am I," Janine said. She must have donned her jumpsuit while she talked to Jonathan Dark. "I'll take Ecto-1. There are still a couple of proton packs in the back, so I'll be armed. You guys will get there first even if I run the siren the whole way, but you might need me with you to clean the place up." Her eyes narrowed. "Don't argue with me. You'll need back-up."

"We sure might, lady," Winston told her and passed her Ecto's keys.

Peter wandered downstairs for an early breakfast around seven o'clock, dressed in another of the outfits Ross had provided for him. Somehow he didn't feel quite as strong an urge to be unobtrusive about it today, and he'd donned a classy shirt--Ray would have said it made him look spiffy--in shades of green, and a pair of designer jeans, sliding his feet into Gucci loafers. Although he hadn't slept very long, he was awake again, starting another day of his imprisonment. At home, he could sleep in quite happily, but that was where he belonged. Here he would only lie awake and dwell on his lack of freedom.

Whatever might be needed to break the spell hadn't happened yet, even though Ross Alexander had mellowed considerably during the baseball game. He had behaved in a much more human fashion as they cheered the Yankees on to victory. But then Peter had been treating him nicely, avoiding confrontation. Anyone would behave decently when everything went his way. If the spell was truly intended to be broken like the Beauty and the Beast one, Peter couldn't help wondering how far it had to go. Did he have to proclaim friendship for Ross? If so, could he do it honestly? He still harbored dark feelings over Ross's treatment of Egon. Anger and pity, even the tamer annoyance and sympathy, weren't exactly grounds for friendship. Besides, didn't it have to work two ways? Ross had let Peter go to the hospital because he thought it might be what was needed to end the spell, not because he'd been sympathetic to Peter's worry and his longing for the sight of a friend.

Ross was nowhere around, but Sheffield was in the kitchen, practically solid in his materialization, grey hair neatly combed, not a speck or wrinkle marring the elegant black livery. "Good morning, Peter," he greeted in his almost British voice. "I seem to be much more me today, and I'm not even trying as hard as usual. I do believe the company has given me a needed boost." He gestured Peter into a chair. Two places were set at the table which proved that Ross wasn't down yet. "I wasn't much of a cook before all this began but none of us were. Mrs Callander can cook, but we all learned. We don't have to be solid to do that."

"Do you need to eat?" Peter asked, intrigued. Ross's servants almost seemed to be protonically reversed, the way Egon had been when the atomic destabilizer had backfired on him. Egon's condition had continued to decline and would eventually have killed him, but Sheffield and the others had survived this way for ten years, if it could be called survival. He'd have to have been a pretty tough old bird to have come out of it so sane.

"Oddly, yes. You wouldn't think so when we're invisible half the time, but we do. We can see ourselves and each other, even if we don't appear quite normal. Other people, except for Master Ross, can't see us unless we will it. But you see me clearly this morning, don't you?"

Peter nodded. "Almost solid. I bet if I tried to poke my finger through your chest, it would just bounce off. You think it has anything to do with Junior up there?" He gestured with his thumb in the direction of the west wing.

"Perhaps." His shoulders lifted in a shrug. "It has not been an easy time for any of us," he admitted as he broke eggs into a bowl and stirred them. "We were, rather understandably, bitter about what had happened to us. We had most of us known Master Ross since childhood. He was always a willful child, expecting his own way, but he never did anything enough to deserve what has happened to him, except for his treatment of Mike Kelly. That is not to say he couldn't have done worse; simply he had no opportunity to do anything else so--so cruel and petty. Yet he was always capable of love. He adored his mother, although she was rather distant to him, and he would have cut out his heart for his sister Julia."

"But only on his own terms," Peter corrected, resting his elbows on the table and watching the omelet-making procedure.

"Yes, but he had never learned that other terms might matter," Sheffield replied as he stirred the eggs. "Over the years I have seen improvement. He genuinely feels guilty over what has happened to us. I don't think he has learned everything he needs to do to make himself over, but you have done a lot for him."

"I've bugged the heck out of him, you mean?" Peter asked with a crooked grin, watching Sheffield add chunks of ham, green peppers, and slices of onion to the eggs he had been whipping. His stomach rumbled in appreciation.

"Yes, and challenging him constantly. But that's not all. Your sacrifice to save your friend made him think. He knew people did such things in fiction--over the years I have subtly steered him in the direction of such books in an attempt to make him understand. The Three Musketeers. One for all and all for one. That type of thing. But I don't believe he'd ever seen such a positive declaration of friendship in reality before."

"I wasn't trying to make any declarations, I was trying to save Egon," Peter insisted, slightly embarrassed. "I'd have promised anything to make you let him go to a hospital."

"That's what I mean."

"Then he must have had a heck of a crummy life, in spite of the major bucks," Peter said.

"And how was your life before you made your friends?" Sheffield prodded. He deftly poured the omelet mixture into the frying pan that had been warming in preparation. A pleasant little sizzling sound filled the room.

Peter grimaced. "Okay, yeah, you've got me. But I had my mom, all those years, and she did the best job any mom could do. And my dad tried when he was home, he really did. He just didn't always get it right. He used to take me camping, even if he wasn't the outdoor type. He took me to ball games and played catch with me, when he was around. He just wasn't there very often and he let me down a lot. I used to think I was really unlucky, but I wasn't, was I?"

"You were in some ways," Sheffield replied. "Everyone has bad memories. No one has a perfect childhood. I'm not of the school that blames everyone's actions on his childhood environment. His parents didn't love him so he became a criminal, that type of thing. Ross didn't have the best of examples. They weren't dishonorable or petty people, but they neither were they warm and generous."

Peter knew Egon's father hadn't been sensitive and openly affectionate either, but he also knew he'd loved his son, if his way of proving it was to reward what he considered appropriate behavior. Just because the people in the Alexanders' set weren't openly affectionate didn't mean they were bad people. Others came out of the same environment and did well. Ross had not had a conventionally crummy life. He'd just been selfish. He'd screwed up.

"Okay, I can see a lot of what happened to him and why he might have done the things he did," Peter said. "That's the problem with being a psychologist. You can get a handle on why people can be jerks."

"It makes it hard to hate them?"

"Not always," said Peter, who was entirely capable of hate. "But once I really start thinking about it..."

"You give in to the better part of your nature."

"Well, yeah, maybe. Something like that." Odd how uncomfortable he was admitting it. Why did he find it easier to let people think he was insensitive and a jerk than to show off his better feelings? The old protective coloration. He shrugged.

Sheffield did this and that with the omelet, adding a pinch of pepper, a dash of another spice or two. Soon, a delicious aroma permeated the kitchen. A few additional spices were added, subtle bursts of seasoning. "You'll make somebody a wonderful wife one day," Peter lauded, with a gesture at the frying pan.

Sheffield chuckled. "Not my main ambition," he replied. "Peter, you've done a great deal for Master Ross. You've made him think, you've challenged his assumptions, you've held him in utter contempt. And then you began to accept him. I think he's coming to understand what true friendship can be."

"I can't sign on for life as his bosom buddy," Peter said desperately. "A part of me is probably always going to hold what he did to Egon against him. What if I make him like me and then return to my own life? Won't that undo all the good I might have done?"

"Possibly but I don't think so. He will have learned the lesson, and I'm sure he knows he won't see your dust when you go home again. He did to Egon what he did to most who came here. He meant only to hold him until darkness, when he would have been freed--and in his case taken to a hospital." He folded the omelet over in half.

"But when I showed up, he thought it would be more fun to keep somebody? Why was I different?" Peter demanded.

"Because you came after a friend. Most of the other people who wandered in here could never have broken the spell. Some were neighborhood children, others were street people hoping for a place to crash, one was a man who wanted a place to set up a meth lab. Your friend Egon was one of the first to come in here who might have been able to help, except for his illness. When you came to find him, when you offered yourself in his place, it became apparent to all of us that you might well be the one to break the spell. And so we have all hoped."

"But I haven't broken it," Peter disagreed.

"Not yet. But it has been less than forty-eight hours. You are not a saint or a miracle worker, Peter. But in spite of your hot temper, you are an excellent example for Master Ross to follow. He couldn't have lived up to smug perfection. But someone who flies off the handle is someone he could understand. Pass me your plate."

Peter grinned wryly as he held it out for Sheffield to deposit a perfect, fluffy omelet there.

"Go ahead and eat," the valet said. "There's orange juice in that mug, would you like some?"

Peter nodded, and Sheffield poured the pulpy liquid into his glass. "Coffee?"

"You bet. I don't drag myself out of bed this early as a rule. I remember I said to Egon once, 'You mean there's a seven in the morning? I thought it was only in the evening.' I'm not a morning person. The coffee can give me a jump start."

He had just started to eat his omelet, and Sheffield was pouring his coffee when Ross Alexander walked in. He was wearing a white shirt with long, flowing sleeves like a garment found at a Renaissance Faire over another pair of 'designer' jeans, styled to match his mutated form.

"That coffee smells good, Sheffield," he said enthusiastically. "Can you find a cup for me?"

When his valet poured him one, Ross opened the refrigerator. "I think I'd like bacon this morning." He grinned. "One thing about this form; I don't have to worry about fat and cholesterol. I haven't been sick one day since I changed. Perhaps the spell allows for that, knowing I could hardly go to my family doctor or even one of the health clinics." He perched in the chair opposite Peter and ladled sugar into his coffee. One...two...three...four scoops of it. Peter grimaced. He'd grown used to his coffee black and unsweetened and the thought of all that sugar made him cringe. Maybe that was why Ross was so hyper all the time.

The beast was cheerful this morning, but Peter couldn't tell if he were just trying hard or if he'd been put into a better frame of mind by the companionship they'd shared during the baseball game.

"Think of what it saves you in insurance costs," he said. "You'd shudder if you could see what our health coverage rates are."

Sheffield began laying strips of bacon in the pan. Peter counted seven or eight before he lost track. Ross had a lot to keep up. He was a good six or seven inches taller than Peter in his present form, maybe more, and at least twice as broad. His shoulders were huge; the shirt had to be a custom design.

As the delicious aroma of sizzling bacon filled the kitchen, Ross turned to Peter. "I want to apologize to you," he said. "After I went to bed, I couldn't sleep, and I thought about a lot of things. You're right, I was hoping to use you to change myself back to my normal self by being nice to you. Obviously it didn't work."

"Betcha the wizard keyed into a motive, then. You have to want to change for its own sake, not for any benefit to you. You know, being nice just to be nice. And that's really tough. Self-interest's right up there in the list of strong motivators. Believe me, I know. I have to fight it all the time--though don't tell the guys I said so. Don't know if I have the right reasons either, but I don't want 'em to look down on me, y'know."

Ross nodded his shaggy head. "I've been thinking about a lot of things. And there's something I want to ask you. I checked you on the web last night in the middle of the night, downloaded everything I could find. One thing I've picked up on. Egon came from money. Not as much money as the Alexanders, but not too shabby. Was that why you wanted to be his friend when you met him? I know you said not the other night but I can't help wondering."

Peter shook his head. "We've been down this road already. I know you don't believe me, but I never even thought of it. Sure I thought he had money, but what did it matter?" His first impression was that Egon was a geek and a grind, not that he wore expensive clothes. It was only later when they shared a class and realized they laughed at the same things that Peter took a closer look and it dawned on him that externals didn't matter when it came to him and Egon. He'd never once considered the advantages of having a 'rich' friend. When Egon had offered to buy him a plane ticket that one summer when Peter's dad had let him down with money he'd promised if Peter received straight A's for the whole semester, Peter had refused to take it. Sure, he loved money, sure he wanted to make big bucks. But not from his friends. He'd taken the money as a loan and repaid with interest, although he'd bargained like crazy over the amount of the interest. "I'm not feeding you a line. It's true."

His sincerity must have been obvious, because Ross lowered his head over the plate of bacon and fried eggs that Sheffield slid before him. He said without lifting his head, "I always figured people hung around for the money, you know?"

"Even Mike?"

Ross's head wagged from side to side. "No. I never had that feeling about Mike. That's why I didn't understand him. I knew how to take the ones who were interested because of the money. They were a dime a dozen. But Mike--I didn't understand where he was coming from."

"Ever think maybe he just liked you?" Peter prompted. In the background, Sheffield faded slightly, not out of weakness or compulsion but, Peter thought, to be less conspicuous.

"Why? What would have been in it for him?"

"Cool it with the humble number. You didn't think there was anything funny about Julia liking you, after all. She must have found you worthwhile. So why not Mike, too?"

"I pity his taste."

Peter shook his head. This was tough for Ross; it would be tough for most men who weren't especially good about talking about their feelings, or even about recognizing them. Peter knew understood more than most because of his psych background; he'd been encouraged to dig deeper than most people did and to try to analyze feelings. He'd trained the guys to open up after a nasty bust that could leave weirdness floating around their psyches. Well aware of the problems of post traumatic stress disorder, Peter kept his hand in, helping his friends when they'd been through a major on-the-job trauma. Once Winston had even remarked that his girlfriends liked him better since he'd become a Ghostbuster. They claimed he was more sensitive.

"All thanks to me," Peter had claimed.

"Yeah, right, Mr. Sensitivity," Winston had scoffed in return, but Peter could open up a bit with dates, too. There were parts of him he never showed to anyone, although Egon usually understood them, even without words. Everyone had secrets like that. The one thing he was beginning to like about Ross was that he actually went along with Peter's attempts to help him. He really was trying.

"Pity his judgment, maybe," he said. "But you're not a monster."

Ross stretched out a clawed hand. "No?" he said with exquisite bitterness.

"I'm not talking about physically," Peter said. "You're nearly there, I think. Why did you chain Egon up?" He threw the question at him so there'd be no chance to duck it.

"So he wouldn't wander off or harm himself before we could take him to the doctor." When Peter only frowned at him, he continued, "and because I didn't want to be discovered. That's why I sent Fred and Thomas out there appearing like a couple of kids, in case anyone hunted for him. I knew who he was and I figured someone would come eventually."

"Okay," said Peter, still angry but not quite ready to deck Alexander for it. "I'll buy it. I don't like it, but I'm not gonna blast you for it."

"Really?"

"Eat your bacon," Peter told him but without malice.

That was when he heard a familiar engine beating overhead and he stiffened, erupting from his seat. "The guys," he breathed. "That's Ecto-2."

"Your gyrocopter?" Ross cocked his head, turning a great, pointed ear skyward. "They've found you?"

"I think they've got a good idea. Maybe they realized Egon had the address wrong. Or maybe Egon remembered he he'd been hauled out a skylight and the one upstairs is the most likely one. Come on." He raced out of the kitchen and headed for the stairs at a dead run.

"And your promise?" Ross hollered, loping, four-legged, after him.

"I haven't broken it, have I?" Peter cried.

"I don't know."

He stopped where the two curves of the horseshoe met on the great stairway and looked at Ross, who had pulled abreast of him and stood, gripping the railing so tightly his claws sank into the wood. "My dad broke promises to me all the time," he said tightly. "I don't."

"You are asking me to trust you?" Ross breathed, his voice far more human than it had until now.

Peter saw Sheffield watching them from the foot of the stairs. He was almost completely solid, but he stood holding his breath. When Peter's eyes flicked over him, he nodded once in encouragement.

But Peter didn't need the encouragement. "Yeah," he said. "That's what I'm asking you." And he ran on without waiting for an answer. Ross thundered after him. Funny, but that blood oath thing hadn't lasted much past the first night. Maybe it had never been meant to. But this was better, thought Peter as he hurried to see his friends. This gave Ross a chance to try his wings, to see if he'd learned anything.

The skylight in the prison room was well out of reach of Peter's grasp, directly in the center of the room, the glass opaque, so he couldn't see the Ecto-2. He stood gazing up in disappointment.

"Here," Ross encouraged, gesturing at a door that Peter had not noticed before. He plunged over and flung it open, revealing a spiral staircase like the one that led up to the third floor of Ghostbuster Central, only this one was made of wood. Peter charged up into one of the towers, the beast on his heels. "Up two floors, it opens out into a circular balcony around the tower. You can see your friends from there. They can't land on the roof, but they'll know you're here."

"Thanks, buddy," Peter called over his shoulder and ran.

The door that led to the balcony was locked from the inside with a bolt that had rusted from disuse. Peter tugged at it urgently, afraid Ray and Winston would depart if he didn't pop out and reassure them. He wasn't sure how he knew it, but he suddenly realized he wasn't a prisoner any longer. He could help Ross without staying here; he could go home.

And knowing he could go home meant he didn't have to leave yet. He wanted to. He wanted the guys to throw down a rope ladder and lift him skyward to freedom, but it didn't have to happen like that. He was fine. He'd figure out how to break the spell. Maybe Ray could help. He knew a lot more about things like that than any of the rest of the team.

Ross yanked the bolt free and forced open the door by throwing one muscular shoulder against it. The wood shattered but instead of breaking it popped open neatly, the rusted hinges giving a grating wail of protest. Then, with a courtly, old-world gesture, the beast gave a quaint bow and gestured Peter past him. Venkman erupted from the stairwell onto the stone balcony, fetching up against the chest-high railing, flinging up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

Ecto-2 circled around the opposite tower and lurched in midair. Peter waved wildly, knowing he'd been spotted, and Ray, in the passenger seat, waved both arms over his head, then clasped them in a victory sign, like Rocky. Winston stabilized the 'copter and hovered overhead. Even from here, Peter could see the huge grin that spread across his face.

Ross pushed out onto the balcony beside Peter, squinting up under heavy brows to stare at the machine that floated over his house.

At the sight of the 'monster', Winston yelled something, the sound audible though Peter couldn't make out the actual words. Ray reached up automatically and grabbed his thrower--it looked like the atomic destabilizer--aimed, and fired at Ross before Peter even realized what he meant to do. The guys must have believed he'd pursued Peter up here in an attempt to restrain him rather than to show him the way and open the door.

With a savage roar, Ross ducked, yanking Peter down. The blast nearly caught him a glancing blow as they vanished behind the crenelated battlement, landing in a tangled heap. Chips of granite erupted from the wall where the two of them had stood only moments before.

Peter surged up again, waving his arms wildly, ducking when Ray fired at the first sign of movement. Stantz stopped the minute he realized it was Peter, but he gestured wildly, trying to wave Peter to the side so he could have a clear shot. Raising his arms above his head, Peter waved them back and forth to try to stop him.

Ray nodded energetically to reassure Peter he understood. And then, to Peter's disbelief, he shifted the thrower to the left and fired at the battlement. The energy's impact caused the stones to explode outward in a roar and clatter and Ross Alexander to slide over the edge, grabbing the broken stone with one hand as he fell, dangling above the drop in a desperately precarious hold. Two floors down, Peter heard the crackle of breaking glass as the plunging rubble crashed through the skylight.

"NO," screeched Peter and grabbed Ross's wrist, trying to tug him up. "Give me your other hand," he bellowed. "I can't pull you one-handed." Tugging frantically with one hand, he tried to gesture Ray and Winston away with the other one, pointing downward. "You have to land!" he screeched as loudly as possible, hoping they'd be able to hear him over the pounding beat of the gyrocopter's whirling blade. "Land now!" He didn't have time to watch them to see if they did it but the copter's roar didn't diminish. Either they didn't hear him or they chose to disregard the warning. Maybe they were afraid Ross would pull him over the drop and then they could try to rescue him the way Winston had rescued Egon when he fell from the top of the World Trade Center.

Yelling inarticulately, Ross slipped further, and Peter braced his feet against the remnants of the battlements on either side of the gaping hole and leaned backward with all his strength, trying to tug the beast to safety. His body tilted backward at an almost forty-five degree angle, and he struggled to maintain the angle, flexing his knees for balance. Ross was probably twice Peter's weight in his beastly form, and no matter how hard Peter tugged at the fur-covered wrist, he could see Ross's grip start to loosen, his clawed hand scraping across the stone. Peter felt his body start to arch forward, the angle increasing, and he planted his feet more firmly, shivering as the damaged battlement shifted fractionally under the combined weights of Peter and Ross. The seam of his left sleeve pulled out with a ripping sound.

"Give me your other hand, you'll fall," Peter cried urgently. Whether Ray and Winston had understood his message or they were afraid to fire for fear of hurting Peter, they had stopped shooting and Ray had holstered the destabilizer thrower. Ray's eyes were huge as he watched the struggle.

"Be careful, Peter," he screeched, his words faintly audible over the sound of Ecto-2.

"Come on, you've got to help," Peter shouted at the dangling figure. "Dig in with your feet. You've got claws. Use them. You can do it. I'm not gonna let you fall." He hoped he could keep his word. He wouldn't let go, but the strain was beginning to tell. His back and shoulders ached, and he was afraid at any moment, his joints would pop. Ross's hand slid inexorably through his doubled grip, and no matter how he tightened his hold, he couldn't halt that slippage.

Ross lifted his great head and gazed up into Peter's face, his eyes wide with fear. "I'll only pull you over," he said, his voice quiet and earnest. "Let go, Peter. Let me go."

"No!" snapped Peter angrily. "I don't want to weasel out of my promise like that. Give me your other hand, damn it! Do it now." His feet slipped and skidded across the stone and the battlement quivered under the pressure. Much more of this and the rest of the railing would shatter, pitching both of them down two stories to the roof. He could hear Ray yelling for him to duck, to move out of danger.

Then Ross caught himself, jerked--the motion nearly yanked Peter right over his head and out into space, but Peter's borrowed Guccis had caught against a ridge of stone and it held him, although he almost lost his balance completely. Ross's other hand came swinging up, grabbing for Peter's hands.

"Way to go," cried Peter breathlessly, an instant before he realized Ross wasn't trying to strengthen the grip. Instead, he pried Peter's fingers loose from his other wrist, his phenomenal strength aiding him in breaking Venkman's desperate clasp. "Oh, no you don't," Peter cried, shocked and horrified, but his aching fingers were no match for Ross's brawn.

For an endless interval, the two of them stared at each other, eyes locked in a fierce grip. "Damn you," Peter cried. "You can't do this."

"I won't kill you, Peter," Ross said--and let go. Peter collapsed backward against the tower, his head impacting the stone hard enough to hurt but not enough to knock him out or even make him dizzy. He scrambled up and grabbed wildly flat on his stomach, hands reaching over the drop but it was too late.

Peter's agonized, "Nooooooooo!" rang through the air, drowned out by the crash as Ross's falling body hit the skylight, taking down the rest of the glass and vanishing through it into the prison room below. Peter winced at the horrible thud he made on landing.

Lifting his head he saw shock on Ray's face, a perplexed frown on Winston's. He gestured wildly at them to land in the street, then he pushed himself up from his hands and knees and didn't even notice the screaming protest of his overworked back and shoulder muscles. Without waiting to see if Winston followed his advice, he ducked into the stairwell and scrambled down the two flights as fast as he could. Only the fact that a tight spiral staircase was already familiar to him as part of his daily routine enabled him to make it without a bad fall.

Peter stopped in the doorway to the prison room and peeked in very carefully. He knew what he would see there and he didn't want to see it. The servants were all there, each one nearly solid. Sheffield stood near Ross's head as if he didn't dare bend down. Beside him was Mrs. Callander, a solidly built matronly lady with a kindly face that was twisted with anguish. Next to her stood a tiny woman in her late twenties wearing a maid's uniform, the Jenny that had been mentioned. She had a gamine face that was twisted into horror as she gaped down at Ross. Beside her, a man a few years younger, with a thick bush of glossy chestnut hair as long and flowing as a horse's mane, settled his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into it without realizing it. The fifth person was a black man in his forties wearing what Peter would guess was a chauffeur's livery. He didn't know which was Thomas and which was Fred, although if the two children had been mutated versions of these two, Thomas was the white man. Not that it mattered.

They stood aside as Peter advanced into the room, their eyes lifting from the broken body of their employer to register Peter's presence. Sheffield's eyes were wet, and Jenny was weeping openly. The tears glistened on her cheeks to indicate she had suddenly become completely physical again and hadn't yet realized it.

Peter went past them almost at a run and dropped to his knees at the beast's side. He'd started out hating him, but the hate had died, and now, as he reached out for one taloned hand, Peter realized he had known when he'd tried to haul Ross up that his survival mattered. He'd known that even earlier when he'd asked Ross to trust him and Ross had, without hesitation. He didn't have to take Ross into his 'family' and make him a best buddy. He just had to value him in his own way. And so he had. Now that it was too late.

"Ross?" He didn't realize as he called the name that it was the first time he'd given Alexander the dignity that went with being acknowledged by name. He only gripped the paw in both of his hands, the way he'd grasped it on the parapet, and squeezed it tight. "Come on, Ross, you're not gonna make me break my promise, are you?"

He could feel the pulse beating feebly under his fingertips, weak and thready, not at all good. There was blood at the corner of Ross's mouth, staining one of his fangs, a deep, rich red that had to come from a lung. Peter shivered at the sight of it. "You're not gonna die," he insisted desperately. "Come on, there's a spell, remember? You can't die. Never get sick, remember? You're gonna make it."

The beast opened his eyes very slowly and squinted blurrily up at Peter. Then his eyes went past the psychologist and lingered ruefully on each of the transformed servants. "I'm...sorry," he whispered, his voice so soft it was almost subliminal. "I made you live through...ten years of...hell. I had no right..."

Sheffield knelt beside him and dropped his hand on his master's shoulder. "We forgive you," he said gently. "And we love you."

Tears flooded the round blue eyes. He coughed painfully, struggling to raise his free hand to the man who had looked after him so long. He failed, but Sheffield nodded in approval of the effort. Beyond him, Mrs. Callander started to cry, her full bosom shaking with the depth of her grief.

Then Ross's eyes lifted to Peter. "You...taught me what it means to be a frien..." he began, but his voice faded away on the last word. His eyes dimmed, faded, and a rasping breath wheezed out. Peter gave an anguished cry and grabbed him up into an embrace, knowing it was too late to worry about moving someone so gravely injured. He couldn't offer Ross the love his servants could, but he could make sure he didn't die without a human touch. Bending his head over the great, shaggy head, he was saw something wet plop into the fur and realized it was one of his own tears.

Urgent cries of, "Peter! Where are you?" and thudding footsteps heralded the approach of Ray and Winston, who burst into the room, throwers at ready only to skid to a stop at the sight of Peter holding the dying beast in his arms. He lifted a tear-stained face to his friends and tightened his grip. "It's not supposed to be this way," he grated out. "The spell should end. He saved my life. The spell has to end. He can't die like this. He has to transform. He has to die human."

"Oh, gosh, Peter," cried Ray in distress, starting toward the dramatic tableau. Winston grabbed his arm and stopped him as if he could sense how strongly Peter needed to finish this himself.

"You did all you could, Peter," Sheffield told him. The valet's hands rested on Peter's shoulders and they were as solid and warm as those of any normal human being. Peter twisted up a miserable face and looked at him. Sheffield was no longer ensorcelled. None of the servants were.

Abruptly the body he held quivered and a final breath shuddered free. Peter saw the slack face and empty eyes and whispered, "Oh, god, no."

But the quivering didn't cease. As Peter stared in wide-eyed wonder, it intensified, and a strange mist arose around the body, causing it to shimmer into the same transparency that had marked the servants' usual appearance. In the background, Ray gasped excitedly, his P.K.E. meter beeping, nearly squealing with overload.

Peter could still feel Ross's head against his shoulder, but the dead weight had eased. Afraid he would keep on fading until he ceased to exist, Peter tightened the grip, pulling the beast firmly against his shoulder. Jenny stopped crying and started asking perplexed questions and Mrs. Callander said, "What's happening, Walter?"

"I don't know," Sheffield replied.

"The spell?" Peter whispered. "Ray, is it the spell?"

"Something's happening, and I think it's magic," Ray breathed, awestruck. "Look at him, Peter. Look at him now."

Peter did, gazing at the insubstantial something that trembled against his arm. The weight felt less, his burden dissolving in his grip. Then light flared up all around him, so bright Peter blinked involuntarily, opening his eyes to glittering afterimages that dissipated slowly. When they faded, the transparency began to thicken.

"Omigod, he's transforming," blurted Winston, causing the servants to bunch closer and Peter to blink frantically a time or two before he focused on the image. Ross's face had turned against his arm and now as it shimmered into solidity, Peter saw the muzzle had disappeared, along with the fur and fangs. Instead a human face, a young human face, in his late twenties, rested there. The full-sleeved white shirt was marked with blood from Ross's many wounds, but the cuts from the skylight that had marred the beast's face were completely gone. It was a strong face, with a firm chin line, and a slightly aquiline nose, a high, broad forehead brushed with light brown hair that had grown too long and trailed in his eyes. There were more lines than normal in such a young face, but they might serve to give it character. The rather full lips would probably appeal to a woman, maybe even to Maisie Kellogg. But he was so still. A pang twisted Peter's heart. It wasn't fair, not for him to transform now, when it was too late.

Then he felt the quivering stop as the transformation was complete. Even after it had ended, there was still movement, a gentle rise and fall of the body's chest. Breathing. He was breathing! Peter let out a yelp and jammed two fingers into the side of his neck to feel for a pulse. It was there, instantly, sure and strong.

"Omigod, he's alive," Peter crowed. "Ross! Ross, wake up. You're alive. You're back! You're you again."

"It's not kissing toads," said Winston incomprehensibly to Ray. "It's Beauty and the Beast."

"Yeah, but Peter's no beauty," Ray objected, too much fondness in his voice for Peter to take serious offense.

"Buster and the Beast then," Winston muttered.

Ross's eyelids lifted and the familiar blue eyes, only sightly less rounded, gazed up dazedly at Peter. "I'm what?" he asked.

"Look." Peter grabbed up the hand he'd been holding and waved it in Ross's face. "That's you. You're human. You're transformed," he exulted. "The spell is broken, and we're both free."

For a breathless pause, Ross stared blankly at his own hand, then he flexed the fingers. Reaching up, he touched his cheeks and nose, trailed questing fingers over his ears, down to his neck and chest. "Alive?" he asked. "Human?"

Peter nodded, unable to hold back the thousand watt smile. "You're free," he said.

"And so are you." Ross abruptly grabbed Peter around the neck and hugged him like a brother.

"I was always free," Peter reminded him when he let go. "Remember, I told you so at the beginning. I was free in my mind. Besides, I was free in your mind before I went up to the tower. Wasn't I?"

Ross nodded. "I knew I couldn't keep you any longer. The only way it would work was if you wanted to help me."

Peter nodded. "But you scared the hell out of me with that spectacular fall. I thought you'd got it right--too late."

"Gosh, I'm sorry, Peter," apologized Ray. "I thought he was trying to hold onto you, chasing you and pulling you down."

"He's the one who opened the door," Peter said. "We'd just worked it out, sort of. But I don't think we'd have taken the final step if we hadn't heard Ecto-2. It's okay, Ray. You did me a heckuva lot more good than harm."

Ross nodded, sitting up cautiously out of the circle of Peter's arm. "It didn't really quite click, not till he was trying to pull me up when he didn't have a prayer of holding me." He smiled up at Peter. "That's when I knew I had to stop you going over the edge with me."

"So you offered your life for mine," Peter said. "That was a pretty heavy burden you would have left me, buddy." Just as his offer to stay in Egon's place must have been for the physicist? But as Peter had had the right to offer, Ross must have believed his actions were worth it. He hoped Ross could see how he felt about it.

"I didn't mean it to be. I wanted you to know you were free in every way, not just inside your head like you'd said. And to prove I did trust you, without the induced honesty of that temporary blood bond."

"I know you did," Peter told him. "I knew it the whole time on the tower. That's why I had to try to save you. I owed you that."

"You cared," Sheffield said quietly. "And that was the object of the entire exercise. Come on, Master Ross, let's see if you can stand up. I've never liked this room. I think you will be happier downstairs."

"I'm not hurt," Ross said, bounding up with unlimited energy. "And don't you think it's time you dropped that corny 'master' bit. I'm Ross. You work for me, you're not slaves. You're my friends, and tonight, Peter's not the only one who's free. I couldn't have survived without you."

Sheffield folded the young man into a fatherly hug, and Ross caught Peter's eye over the older man's shoulder, then tears spilled over and ran down his face, and he held on for all he was worth.

"Come on, guys," Peter said hastily, bounding up and grabbing Ray and Winston, sliding an arm around each man's neck both to steer them from the room and because it was wonderful to be able to hang an arm about the shoulder of a friend or two. God, it felt good to have everything over, to be free again, to be able to go home. But there was an important stop to be made on the way. "Let's go see Egon. They've got a lot of years to talk about and they don't need an audience."

"Thank you, Peter," Ross called, making Venkman halt in the doorway. The transformed man's sincerity was evident in his face and in his voice.

"Just do it right this time," he said with mock gruffness. "Because remember, we know some of the same people. I'll have my eye on you."

Ross chuckled, the kind of laughter that is far too close to tears of joy, and Peter winked at him and then led his two friends from the room. He made it all the way down to the street before they grabbed him and hugged him in sheer relief, pelting him with a thousand questions.

"Gosh, you scared us, Peter," Ray insisted. "We've been looking and looking for you."

"I know. I saw you a couple of times. I even yelled out the window once. Hope you weren't just ignoring me."

"No way, Pete," Winston defended them although Peter's remark had been facetious. "Let me tell you all about a spell of forgetfulness?"

"Okay, and I've got an even better spell to counter with. Come on, let's have a spelling bee all the way to the hospital."

At that moment, Janine Melnitz drove up in Ecto-1, siren blazing, and screeched to a halt in the middle of the street. Scarcely before the car had halted, she was out of it, racing across the street to fling her arms around the neck of a very startled Peter Venkman. He wasn't used to such a reaction from his secretary, but he wasn't above shamelessly taking full advantage of it. He gathered her in, bent his head, and gave her a great big smooch, full on the mouth.

At once Janine pulled free and stood glaring up at him, hands on her hips.

Peter grinned wickedly. "If I'd'a known I could win a reaction like this from promising you overtime, Melnitz...."

She kicked him in the shin, not quite hard enough to hurt. "Good thing you're okay," she said. "But watch it. I don't want to be the one to tell Egon I had to kill you."

"Don't worry, Big J. I knew it was too good to be true." He clapped a hand melodramatically against his chest. "Didn't know you could be so cruel as to lead a guy on."

"I'll tell him he can transplant your brain into a chicken as soon as I see him," he vowed. "Where were you? In there?" She lifted a shoulder in the direction of the house.

Peter turned and stared at it, his jaw dropping. In place of the moldering old mansion that had stood there yesterday, he saw a place with sparkling windows, a courtyard that was still untidy and neglected but positively swimming with glorious, red roses, and a house that could pull down major bucks if it went on the market. It might need painting and a lot of repairs, but it didn't quite feel haunted any longer.

"I should've known you'd go for the money," Janine proclaimed, looking him up and down. The Gucci shoes were scuffed and his designer jeans were streaked and dusty, while one of the sleeves had torn at the shoulder in his efforts to pull the beast to safety on the battlements. "Guess rich people's clothes don't hold up like your jumpsuits do."

"I loved these shoes," Peter mourned while Ray jumped in to explain to the secretary that the house had been transformed by the resolution of the spell.

"It really was a spell," he said excitedly. "And it was like the Beauty and the Beast one."

"But without the beauty," Janine said, tilting her head to gaze up at Peter. "So tell me, Dr. V, did you have to fall in love with a beast? That's not your usual style, is it?"

"No, I just had to work past hating him for chaining Egon to the wall," Peter said. "Talk about a tough job."

"He's the one who chained Egon to the wall?" Janine cried hotly. "I'm calling the police this minute." Her face darkened and she glared at the house.

"No, wait, Janine," Peter said, grasping her by the shoulders. "It's okay. Let it go."

"He hurt Egon! I'd have thought you'd care about that, too." Her eyes accused him of betrayal.

"You bet your bippy I care about that, Janine," Peter said. The memory of trading his freedom for Egon was still very close to the surface and it must have shown in his eyes because she gazed at him narrowly, then she shut up.

"He was under a curse, Janine," Ray explained. "He couldn't help it. We didn't understand, Winston and I. We saw Peter come bursting out on one of the towers up there with a huge creature right behind him and I was detecting a negative valance on the meters, probably because we were directly over the house so we could read past the curse. I thought it was a physical entity holding him prisoner and I tried to blast him." He ducked his head apologetically. "He fell over the edge, hanging on with one hand, and Peter went nuts trying to haul him up."

"He wasn't chasing me," Peter explained hastily before Ray started in on a guilt number for causing the spectacular fall. "He'd finally decided he had to let me go. I just wanted out of there. When I heard you guys, it was all I could think of." His eyes darkened. "Then he fell, and I knew I had to haul him up."

"But he was bigger than the Brooklyn Bridge," put in Winston. "I thought he'd have Peter over the edge with him and it was a big drop."

"Gosh, Janine, he broke Peter's hold to save him," Ray explained, gesturing upward at the house. "And then he fell--and died. Well, sorta. Because at that minute he transformed. But we all thought he'd died."

Janine eyed Peter knowingly. Avoiding her eyes, he hoped uncomfortably that there were no traces of tears left on his face.

"But he still chained Egon up," the secretary insisted stubbornly, folding her arms across her chest.

"It's a long story, Janine," Peter said. "And I'm still mad at him for that, too, believe me. Nobody hurts my buddies. But he learned. Later on, I might take a swing at him for it." He would relish that moment, feel a surge of genuine satisfaction at the impact of his fist against Ross's stubborn jaw, and he couldn't help grinning wickedly at the very idea.

"Good," Janine replied. "Then I just might let you live."

"Whoa! Wait a minute! Time out," Winston interrupted, holding up his hands, one atop the other in the classic sports signal, to win their attention. "I think we're still looking at a major problem here."

Peter whirled. "What problem, Zed?" The curse was ended. Ross was human again and Peter was free to resume his life. He didn't want to hear problems, not when he felt so good.

"Egon showed up at the ER with the chain intact. Janine called the police. They've been searching for you, too. How're you gonna explain what happened without having them arrest your beastly pal up there?"

Peter froze. That had never occurred to him. Of course the police would have been called. He'd seen a lot of squad cars yesterday while gazing longingly out the window at the rest of the world and figured they were hunting for him. He hadn't realized Egon would still have the shackle on when he was found, but his discovery in Ecto, while Peter had set out in it must have indicated at least the possibility of foul play.

He panicked. "What're we gonna do? I may want to deck old Ross, but I don't want him or the servants arrested. Even if two of them could shapeshift into little kids and gargoyles. So how do we explain what happened?"

"And without making everybody look like idiots?" asked Winston.

"And how does Ross suddenly appear again without a humongous amount of gossip and scandal?" Peter asked. "The spell's ended so people will remember him again. I know this whole thing. The popular press will eat it up. When I think of what Edgar Benedek will write for the National Register...."

"Maybe you should call Benny, Peter," Ray said. "He can write up a fantastic story no one would ever believe. Anything else will seem normal after that."

"But who is this Ross guy anyway?" demanded Janine. "Is he gonna be news?"

"He's Ross Alexander," Peter began.

"The missing heir," said Winston without missing a beat. "Nobody knows what happened to him. That's weird. Nobody much cares either. There isn't any hue and cry. Far as I know, there wasn't even a police investigation. Must have been that forgetfulness spell your buddy said was over the house, Ray. Or part of the one that changed him."

"But the spell's broken, Winston," Peter reminded him. "And you can bet dollars to doughnuts that Ross Alexander is about to become big news. We've gotta have a story and fast, before the next cop drives by and spots me."

The four of them thought furiously. Then Peter started to smile beatifically. "I've got it." He started for the house. "Come on, we have to coach Ross and the team."

"Do you know what he's talking about?" Janine asked, trailing after him.

"When he's riding a wave like this?" Winston asked. "Never have, never will."

"There was no spell," Peter told Ross Alexander and the five servants as they gathered in the main front room of the house. "Never happened. 'Cause soon as we start talking about something like that, seventy-five per cent of the people out there are going to think 'cover up'. And you'll be arrested for what happened to Egon. And anybody else who was ever here will remember and there'll be a major lawsuit for damages and great bodily harm and all that crap. The last thing I want to do is give work to lawyers."

"You make an excellent point, Peter," Sheffield remarked.

"But I did chain up Egon," Ross reminded him. He hadn't changed out of the custom-designed white shirt, which hung all the way to his knees. Probably just as well because he'd had to lose the weird jeans. He'd pushed his cuffs up to the elbows but as he gestured, one of them slid down. "They probably should arrest me." Even his voice was different, still deep but nowhere near the monstrous rumble it had been only half an hour earlier. Sheffield held one of the pairs of slacks from Peter's room but the Ghostbusters had come back before Ross could finish changing.

"Yeah, but that defeats the purpose," Peter said. "Besides which, it makes me look bad. And that won't do. So here's what I propose."

"Be careful," Ray said with a grin. "Peter in this frame of mind can be tricky."

"I'm always tricky," Peter said, smiling broadly at Ray. "It's what I'm best at, right, Tex?" He turned to Ross. "Okay. You and your people weren't even here until the last minute. You've been away--on retreat in Taos, panning for gold in the Rockies, avoiding publicity in a little town in Montana, whatever. That's it. Joe, Montana."

"The quarterback?" Ross asked, perplexed.

"No, out there in Montana, a little town changed its name. Now there's actually a place out there called Joe, Montana. Anywhere, when you make up your story, make sure it's nowhere out of the country because there are passports and airline tickets to explain away. You got fed up with the high life, or even realized you wanted to change when a friend of yours died. So you cut all ties with your old life and disappeared. You've been finding yourself--or else living the high life, somewhere else. Pick a place you've been to, anyway, so you can sound like you know what you're talking about."

"Aspen, then," Ross said. "Or the mountains at least. I can do that. But what about you?"

"Me? Well, Egon wandered into your 'haunted house'; it looked abandoned and maybe he was imagining he was getting readings. He was feverish and could have been wrong. After I saw Shelby I went searching for him and wandered in because if Egon wasn't there, it was the most likely place to try. Egon had been caught by--let's see. Drug dealers. Let them take the rap. Nobody will doubt that one. They had him chained up, and I broke him free because I had on my pack so I could use my thrower and distracted them while he made a run for it. He drove to the hospital and collapsed. But I'm stuck here because one of them cut the power line for the thrower. Give me my pack as proof. Then along comes Ross and Company, returning to the Big Apple this morning, and they find me. And since I only had one guard at the time, he cuts his losses and runs when he's suddenly jumped on by six people. Not great, and you'll have to make sure your stories match. But I think it'll work." He leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head, in an attitude of perfectly smug delight.

"Wow, it's great, Peter. It really works," Ray said.

"It better. Because even if we are Ghostbusters, I don't think anybody's gonna buy a beauty and the beast story from us."

"I like it," Ross said, accepting the jeans from Sheffield and putting them on with a slightly embarrassed glance at Janine. "And after all, what did I know, all this time? I wasn't even here."

"We'll handle it," Sheffield said and went away for a second. He returned with a sheet of paper on which he'd sketched a face. "This can be the man who trapped Peter. We'll all study it so we can give similar descriptions. I'm afraid your friend Dr. Spengler will have to admit to delirium, however."

"I can get around Egon," Peter said, committing the face on the drawing to memory. "Just wait and see."

The physicist smiled at the nurse in pleasure at his progress. Today he was allowed up in a chair, still on oxygen, though the IV was gone, replaced with oral medication. The doctor said he thought he'd discontinue the oxygen that afternoon since Egon had responded so well. In the meantime, Egon sat in the chair, still too weak for major athletics like busting--or walking as far as the nurse's station--but freed for bathroom excursions on his own. The presence of Peter Venkman would surely complete the cure. Where were the guys this morning? He'd heard nothing since the phone call giving Egon the cell phone number and surely that had been hours ago. They'd known exactly where to search, after all. What could be holding them up?

The door, partially ajar, suddenly swung wide and Peter strolled into the room, a grin almost as big as Slimer's splitting his face in spite of his torn and dusty clothing. "Hi, Egon," he said as he'd done in the night, his eyes alight with delight. "I'm back." Spengler could tell at one glance that this wasn't a stolen visit, that Peter was free.

Egon struggled up out of his chair and lunged to meet him, grasping Peter's arms. As if he sensed how shaky his friend's balance was, or because he simply felt a need, Peter grabbed him, and hugged him enthusiastically, having a good go at crushing Egon's ribs. "For good?" Egon demanded, holding on tight. He needed to hear it stated.

"You bet, for good." Peter clung a moment longer, then eased free, helping Egon to the chair and making sure he was settled comfortably before he dropped down on the edge of the bed and continued. "Told you I could do it. Had a little assist from Ray and Winston; it might have taken longer without them coming in blasting, but it worked. I didn't have to kiss any toads, but what's-her-name in Beauty and the Beast has nothing on me."

"The creature was actually transformed?" Egon blurted in astonishment. This is fascinating.

"You bet, a major spell that was broken by yours truly, and you're gonna love it. But first you gotta promise me one thing."

"Anything, Peter," Egon said, then he caught himself. This was Peter after all and Egon knew him far to well to let himself be suckered, even in such a period of happiness and overwhelming relief. "Well, nearly anything," he conceded.

"That's it, be cautious, Spengs. Score one for you. Okay, it's this. It never happened. We were snatched by drug dealers, and I blasted the chain. I covered you while you ran for it. You drove here yourself in Ecto and then passed out. Nobody told you Janine had transposed two numbers on Shelby's address so you simply assumed you'd gone there. But you couldn't remember much of what happened. You didn't see any beast or any weird gargoyles or anything like that. It was all delirium. Deal, big guy?"

Egon met and held Peter's anxious gaze and realized this was important. He thought he even understood most of it, which was excellent considering it was Peter who had proposed it. "Deal, Peter. I presume you will explain."

"A guy's gotta watch out for his buddies," Peter said. "And while I never thought I'd say it about him, old Ross is human after all--and human again, if you get my meaning. Janine and Ray are explaining everything to that cop outside (Winston took Ecto-2 back to the firehouse)." He explained hastily what had happened, as much as he could cram into a quick sentence or two. "But I told the cop I hadda let you know I was free. True, of course. The whole world was devastated when I was missing, I bet, let alone my friends. But I wanted to warn you, too."

"Devastated, Peter? The entire world?" Egon lifted an eyebrow. "I will admit to the condition myself, reluctantly, however, because if I know you, you'll try to capitalize on it for three weeks."

"Just a little healthy downtime," Peter wheedled, enjoying himself mightily. "Because after all, I gave up thirty-six whole hours of personal freedom for you. And why not the entire world? I'm famous, after all."

Egon couldn't help smiling, but he felt a twinge inside because Peter had not known when he made the promise that his sacrifice would be of such a limited duration, or even that he would find himself enjoying parts of it. He could have condemned himself to an eternity of hell. But he'd known that and had still done it, and the fact that he'd broken a spell and had a bit of fun in the process didn't negate the magnitude of what he had been willing to relinquish . Egon felt tremendously humbled, in spite of the knowledge that he would have done the same thing in Peter's place.

He didn't show it, of course, because Peter already knew and understood completely, and he didn't want to embarrass him--or give him a swelled head. But his smile was warm when he said, "I could, possibly, endure thirty-six hours of pampering you. But think of this, Peter. When I come home, you will need to fetch and carry for me."

Peter's face fell so dramatically Egon had to laugh. It was probably his first laugh since he had awakened in the hospital and it made him start coughing painfully, but it was worth it. For the first time since this had begun he wanted to laugh.

Then Peter brightened although he rested a hand on Egon's shoulder until the coughing fit stopped. "For you, Egon? Anything."

And at that very second, as if they'd timed it, Janine, Ray, the uniformed officer, and none other than Peter's least favorite policem