"I've got a bad feeling about this."

P.K.E. meter held out before him, Egon Spengler glanced up from the readings that had raised the antennae of the detection device and made it beep wildly so he could observe the phenomenon that had summoned the Ghostbusters from New York on an autumn morning. Before the four men spread out a vast carnival, complete with carousels, Ferris wheels, a tilt-a-whirl, bumper cars, all the usual rides, with games of skill and chance lining the midway in colorful booths draped with flags. It looked exactly like a typical carnival except for two things: it was totally deserted, and it had not been there the night before. When the town of Hubbard awakened to find the carnival set up on the site of the local fairgrounds they had been astonished, doubtful, and finally uneasy. No one had heard it arrive, there was no evidence of trailer trucks to haul equipment, and no carney folks manned the booths and rides. When curious townsfolk ventured onto the grounds, music played and equipment started to operate, even though none but the locals were present. When his constituents fled the grounds in panic, an alarmed mayor put in a frantic call to the Ghostbusters since no one in the town had a better idea of whom to call. The team of paranormal investigators and eliminators had driven up to Hubbard after an early breakfast. It was only an hour north of the city.

"A bad feeling?" Peter Venkman turned from his knowing contemplation of the midway to stare at his friend. Usually it wasn't Egon who made such doom and gloom pronouncements at the start of a bust. He was far more inclined to be technical, to spout esoteric words and theories, and to scoff at anything as vague as a 'feeling'. "Is that a scientific diagnosis, Spengs, old buddy?" Peter teased, lifting any eyebrow that invited Egon to share his humor. "Where's that enquiring mind of yours?"

"It's got a bad feeling," Egon returned. He shook his head in perplexity. "Peter, I'm getting extremely peculiar readings from this place. The carnival itself is giving off Class 9 readings, very much of the same magnitude as that the carriage and horse we encountered two years ago that entrapped Simon Quegg's spirit for a century when all he wanted to do was to get home. If we venture inside the carnival, there is a possibility we could be trapped there for all time."

"Let's pass on that part," Winston Zeddemore muttered without a shred of enthusiasm. He rubbed the back of his neck. "I know what Egon means about a bad feeling. I've got it, too. I think we're being watched."

"The locals didn't get trapped when they went in this morning," Ray Stantz reminded them excitedly, edging closer to the border of the phenomenon, ready to race onto the grounds the second they decided to go. He got such a thrill out of being a Ghostbuster that it was all the team could do to restrain him on dangerous busts. "Why should we be trapped? I think it's really neat. I always loved carnivals and fairs when I was a kid."

"Thus speaks the man who wound up trapped in Quegg's buggy for a day. You wouldn't love carneys so much if you'd worked them in the summers when you were in school," Peter said darkly. "My dad loved working a place like this. It gave him all kinds of chances to scam the rubes. All I know is, this isn't a normal carnival. First of all, somebody has to haul the equipment from place to place. It doesn't just pop up out of thin air unless it's paranormal. Nobody just puts it up and walks off like this. It doesn't make sense. And then, there's no animals." He hesitated, cocking his head at Egon, who had taken the call since Peter had still been asleep when it came through. Only mayors--and physicists--got up at the crack of dawn. Certainly, under ideal circumstances, Peter Venkman didn't. This was far from a perfect world. "At least, did the mayor mention any when he called?"

"No," Egon replied. "My readings show no living beings within the carnival, although that is not conclusive. Human biorhythm readings might not be able to pass through such a powerful Class 9 field unless they are very near the edges of the psi construct. I'll have to test again for people once we're inside. But this is definitely a paranormal phenomenon. It could be dangerous. We have to determine how to remove the threat."

Ray drew his particle thrower and aimed it before him, ready to blast the first ghost he saw. "Let's go."

Automatically, Peter grabbed the strap of his proton pack. "Whoa! Hold it, Tex. I seem to remember our packs and throwers aren't strong enough to take on a Class 9 without a little extra help and I'm not sure our ghost traps could hold all that anyway." He gestured vaguely at the entire carnival. I don't want to get in there and find I bought a permanent ticket."

"Could that happen?" Winston asked Egon doubtfully, eyeing the rides and midway booths without the slightest shred of enthusiasm.

"Yes," Egon replied. That was Spengler for you, no sugar coating. "However, as it did not entrap the people of Hubbard, it may not trap us. We should be able to use our throwers to blast our way free, if it comes to that, even if our weapons aren't powerful enough to destroy it."

"But we've gotta find out where it came from and why it's here," insisted Ray, working free of Peter's restraining grip. "Wow, isn't it a great manifestation? It reminds me of the Brighton Incident of 1920. A carnival appeared there, too, right on the Pier, and people were supposedly trapped in it. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was there at the time and investigated it."

"Doing a Sherlock Holmes?" Winston, the mystery fan, was fascinated. "He'd have to be good at that."

"No, he was into spiritualism, too, Ray remembered. "It was really trendy back then and he was fascinated. He'd have loved something like this."

"He was also extremely gullible about the paranormal," Egon put in, turning from his brooding frown at the carnival. "He believed because he wanted to believe, not because of valid scientific proofs. I would not place great value in his eye-witness report, Ray."

"What did he witness, though?" asked Peter. "If this is the same kind of thing, at least we'd know what to expect."

"He said he saw a beast--you know, a Beauty and the Beast type of creature, and it wanted to steal his body."

"And how many pints of ale had he drunk before he headed in there?" asked Winston practically.

Peter shot a wary glance at the carnival. "If there's a beast in there who wants my body, it better be female and a dead ringer for Kim Basinger."

"Let's go and see," Ray urged and stepped over the invisible divider onto the carnival grounds. After that first moment, when nothing untoward happened, Winston went after him, and Peter followed. Egon came last, such an expression of greater-than-normal reluctance on his face that it worried the psychologist. It wasn't Egon who was usually given to such premonitions. Why was he this time?

"They are coming, just as I foretold."

The speaker was an older man with an elegant brush of white hair pulled back from his face and curling against the back of his neck. His mien was aristocratic, and his clothing resembled garb from a Society for Creative Anachronism event; a tunic edged with silver over tight black leggings, a draped robe of black velvet settled across his shoulders trimmed with ermine and held in place across his chest by an ornate silver chain. Tall and slender, his face might have been considered aesthetic but for a grim determination and intensity of purpose that lurked obsessively in the depths of his cool, blue eyes.

His companion was obviously his servant, both in his less expensive homespun garb and in the deference of his manner. A younger man of possibly forty, he hovered at his master's side as they watched the giant reflecting mirror that displayed an image of the four Ghostbusters entering the carnival grounds. Within the glass, the four travelers were surrounded by a field of mist that traveled with them as they walked, revealing the four men and blurring the rides behind them, never losing focus on the 'prey'.

"They possess weapons," the servant pointed out, gesturing at the proton packs the Ghostbusters wore and the particle throwers they gripped expectantly. "I don't like the way they look."

The older man waved a careless, beringed hand in unconcerned dismissa?. "Pooh! What do weapons matter to me. I will remove them before they come to me."

"Which of them will you choose?"

The misty image narrowed in, sharpening on Egon Spengler. "This one. His very being radiates intelligence, curiosity. He will be the greatest challenge because he values his mind so highly, but that will make him all the more worth the taking."

"But for it to work, he must go into the Funhouse," the servant pointed out. "They have equipment that warns them of danger. Supposing they won't go in?"

The aristocrat's face hardened. "I tell you they will," he said, and turned back to the image, regarding Egon Spengler with a fierce and desperate hunger.

"Wow, this is great! I haven't seen a carnival this complete since I was ten years old!" Eyes wide with wonder, Ray tried to see everything at once. "I remember a carnival came to Morrisville when I was a kid and my parents took me. We had the best time. I ate cotton candy and enough hot dogs to make me sick, and they let me go on all the rides."

Ray didn't often reminisce about his childhood. Peter cast a quick eye at the youngest member of the team, grinning fondly. "I know it from the other side," he admitted. "My dad had an in with a carney owner, and the last two summers before I went to Columbia he got me a job there so I could earn money for college. Dad thought I was crazy to go to try for a degree, but he was proud of me for planning it and it was one way he could help." He'd never quite realized that before, so accustomed was he to his con man father's small betrayals and letdowns. He glanced around the familiar scene almost with affection.

"I don't remember going to a carnival until Janine took me to the one that had the Ghostbusters roller coaster," Egon contributed, glancing uneasily in the direction of this carnival's roller coaster. "The readings I detected there were nothing like this."

"No, but that was because it was on haunted ground where there'd been that carnival disaster years before," Winston reminded him. "This is a different thing entirely, isn't it? What kind of readings are you getting now, homeboy?"

"I've adjusted the force of the Class 9 readings to see what else I can pick up," Egon replied. "I'm not actually detecting any ghosts, but there is a strange energy field permeating the entire area."

"Gosh, Egon, remember how Simon Quegg was trapped? Do you think this carnival could be trapping someone else? Are you getting any Class 3 readings? I'm not." Ray tucked his thrower under his arm and frowned over his own meter, his forehead wrinkling. "Wow, that is a weird reading, isn't it? It's got some Class 7 shading."

"Class 7!" Peter exploded, casting an unhappy glance over his shoulder at the mention of that level of ghostly activity. "You mean there are demons here?"

"No, there are no Class 7 entities present," Egon reassured him hastily. "However, I would not be surprised if a demon, or several demons, had created this manifestation and, as such, left their fingerprints on it for us to detect."

"So how could a Class 7 create a Class 9?" argued Winston. "Wouldn't that be impossible?"

"No more so than it is for humans to create a containment unit," Egon replied. "Several demons, working together, could design an area intended to hold prisoners. Possibly it takes its appearance from his surroundings. This is the local fairground. Of course I need far more information to formulate a proper theory."

"Well, all I know," said Winston emphatically, "is that I don't like it. It's quiet--too quiet."

Peter grimaced in wry amusement. "You've been just dying to say that, haven't you, Zed?"

"Don't mention dying."

Until that moment the only sound in the carnival had been the Ghostbusters' voices and the soft brush of the wind, but suddenly music began, calliope music, coming out of the very air around them, so faintly at first that they hesitated, uncertain if it were real or their imagination, then it built. As they tensed and automatically stepped closer together, the rides turned on one by one, lights springing up around the twin circles of the giant Ferris wheel, the painted horses on the carousel rising up and down as the merry-go-round came to life.

"Somebody's here," Peter said ominously. He frowned. "You think it could be a big joke, a trick to lure us in and make us look bad?" The suggestion was purely whistling in the dark, although there were people out there who liked to try to fool the Ghostbusters with fake ghosts to discredit them.

Egon's eyes moved busily as he examined the rides. "It won't be a joke, Peter. Jokes don't register Class 9 on a meter."

As more of the rides came on, the four men studied their surroundings for any signs of life or motion. Apart from the equipment, nothing moved. It was as if the carnival could run by itself, unaided by human--or spirit--intervention.

"I am getting something now." Egon twisted the dials on his meter. "It's not ectoplasmic. It's a biorhythm reading. Within the construct, I can detect what I could not from the outside."

"You mean it's somebody alive in here," Ray blurted, astonished. "Are you sure? Simon Quegg was a ghost, after all. Somebody from the town who got left behind? Or somebody that comes with the place? How could somebody be here?"

"I am definitely alive."

The four men whirled to confront the speaker, a tall, elegantly robed man with luxuriant, snowy-white hair gracefully arranged. At the sight of the guy, Peter felt a shiver run down his back. How had he managed to sneak up on them without warning like that?

"Welcome to my carnival," the new arrival purred smoothly. "I am Marcus Apollonius. Ah," he added to Ray, who had frowned suddenly and snapped his fingers, "you know my name?"

"Well, I know about the famous Apollonius, Apollonius of Tyana. He was a holy man and magician back in the first century A.D."

"I am his descendant," announced their 'host', although Peter suspected that was probably a spurious claim. How could anybody trace his ancestry back for almost two thousand years? "You, too, know the name," Apollonius nodded at Egon.

"Yes, I have come upon it in my research."

"Excellent. I am here to grant you pleasure. I run this place for no other purpose. I belong to the ages."

You've also got a pretty decent patter, Peter thought skeptically. He knew a con man when he saw him, and this guy was running a huge con. To the initiated, it stood out a mile. He shot a warning look at his buddies. Don't trust him, guys. He's lying through his teeth.

Apollonius gestured expansively at their surroundings. "Come, there are endless pleasures to be explored. Enjoy yourselves."

A burst of fiendish laughter rang out, and they spun to see a vast building with a painted design of ghosts and mystical beings, stars and planets. "Wow!" Ray's face lit up with childlike delight. "It's a funhouse. I really love funhouses. Come on, guys, let's go in. This is great!"

"This is dangerous, Ray," Peter reminded him. He didn't trust this Apollonius character an inch and he could tell Egon didn't think much of him either. Winston was dubious on general principles, but the wariness in Egon's eyes was a more informed suspicion.

Peter nudged the physicist with his elbow. "What are you getting, Egon?"

Spengler raised troubled eyes from the screen. "I can't quite define it, Peter, but it definitely seems...eerie."

"Amazing, Egon. I'm not used to such advanced technological terminology from you."

The blond's eyes twinkled briefly in appreciation then grew serious. "Apollonius is human, Peter, but something influences his readings, and it isn't anything I've ever seen before. I believe it is a phenomenon the meter is not designed to interpret."

"Hey, where did that dude go?" Winston frowned, perplexed. They all stared. Apollonius had vanished as silently as he had arrived.

"Ladies and gentlemen, step right up. Ah, there are no ladies. Then, come this way, good sirs."

A carnival barker mounted the stage platform in front of the funhouse, dressed like a circus ringmaster with a tall hat and lots of gold braid on his emerald green suit. Ray hurried toward him without hesitation, his eyes lighting up. That was Ray, just a big kid. Peter sped after him, determined to keep an eye on him if they went in. Egon was already suspicious and Winston didn't trust anything he saw here, but Ray was entirely capable of being sucked right in if he thought it would be fun or exciting. Peter wasn't sure exactly what they might be sucked into but he didn't want to tread blindly toward his doom.

"Unbelievable thrills and chills," cried the barker, gesturing with what looked like a magic wand from a children's fairy tale, topped with a big yellow star. "Challenges for your senses, a glimpse of eternity. Secrets of the universe unfolding for your edification."

"This guy knows how to run a con," Peter muttered in an aside to Winston, who nodded in ready agreement.

The barker focused a knowing eye upon his heckler. "Don't be a skeptic, Dr. Venkman. You know much of such places as this. You have lived and worked in a carnival not far removed from this one. Ah, but you left such days behind when, as a soul in search of self, you found true friendship."

A thrill of unease passed through Peter. That was a lot more information than he wanted a stranger to possess about him. "You know who I am?" If this character realized how much his friends meant to him, that meant he could manipulate Peter by threatening them. He knew way too much. That either meant the team had been lured here on purpose--or this character could read minds. Neither option found favor with Peter.

"I know all of you. Dr. Spengler." He waved the wand in Egon's direction. "A brilliant scientist, you dream of intellectual puzzles, yet you are warmed by the loyalty of friends."

Egon blinked in surprise at being so categorized and applied himself to his meter in a positive frenzy of taking readings.

"Dr. Stantz. The joy and excitement of a childlike spirit, the courage of a lion, who, too, has found a place for himself with the Ghostbusters. And Winston Zeddemore, the one who tethers all of you to reality. Though you came late, you offer them such solid support, they would weaken without it."

"I don't like this, Spengs," Peter muttered to Egon in an undertone. "He's threatening us--and he knows just how."

"You all seek truth," the barker told them, gesturing with his wand as if to encompass the secrets of the ages.

"What truth?" demanded Winston, annoyed. "Show us a ghost and we bust it. That's the only truth we seek here."

"Then what you seek lies within. Follow me." He pulled back a curtain and vanished behind it with a final pass of the wand.

"What do we do? Go after him?" Peter asked with rampant skepticism. "I don't trust that guy, or that Apollonius character either. This is all a big setup."

"They do appear to be maneuvering us toward the funhouse," Egon concurred, frowning over his meter. "However, I am picking up human biorhythms from inside. The answers are in there. Unless we find out what is going on here, we won't be able to stop it."

Peter grinned. "Boy did they peg you, Spengs. They set you up with one heck of an intellectual puzzle and you're gonna run with it. I think we'd have to hogtie Ray up keep him out of there. That leaves Winston and me to pick up the pieces."

"It is what they're paying us for, Peter." Beaming excitedly, Ray vanished behind the curtain. "Come on," his voice wafted out to them.

"Slow down, Ray, or I'm gonna have to feed your Mr. Stay Puft doll to the Containment Unit." Peter hurried after him, thrower gripped in both hands, conscious of Egon and Winston hard on his heels. They found themselves in a plain entry hall with a dark passage leading away straight in front of them. Behind them, the curtain rustled then stilled. Before he could react to a possible threat, Peter felt his thrower grow insubstantial in his hands. One minute he had a tight grip on his weapon, the next his hands were clutching empty air, the weight of the proton pack vanishing from his back before he could stop it. When he looked around wildly, he saw the other three had also been denuded of packs and throwers, although Egon and Ray still held their P.K.E. meters. Neither device reacted with anything other than faint beeping. Everyone exclaimed in chorus, trying to spot a presence.

"Well, that didn't work," Peter complained. "I don't know about you guys, but any enthusiasm I had for funhouses just vanished completely. Let's get out of here." He yanked the curtain back, prepared to storm outside.

A solid wall greeted him.

Furious and disbelieving, Peter pushed at it with both hands, palms flat against the surface. It was as solid as old Gibralter. It figured. He must have been crazy to have come in here. Every instinct had screamed against it and he knew Winston had felt the same way. Even Egon had been suspicious from the beginning. Yet the four of them had walked right in. "Are we idiots or what?" Peter wondered. "Let me get this straight. We've been royally set up and now we're trapped without our equipment, right?"

"So it would appear, Peter." Egon adjusted the dials of his meter, not so much to take readings but in an attempt to protect it from going the way of his weapons.

"I thought so. Can we go home now?"

"We have to go through the funhouse to get out." Ray's enthusiasm hadn't dampened; if anything, he looked more eager than before. "It's the only way. Let's go through it. I bet this place'll be great."

Winston shrugged. "Wrong, homeboy. There's a lot of things I'd call what happened, but 'great' isn't one of them. I've gotta say, we've been dealt a crummy hand this time around, but we don't need packs and throwers to win out. Look how we did at Heck House. The most haunted house on record and we busted it without any equipment. We can handle it as long as we stick togeth--whoa! Wait for us, Ray." He grimaced at Peter. "That boy never listens."

With a muttered curse of frustration, Peter lunged down the dark passage after Stantz, the other two in hot pursuit. The minute they were inside the corridor, a door sealed behind them and they found themselves in a vast, echoing room so full of shadows they could only see a couple of feet ahead of them. Peter took a quick step after Ray, abruptly coming face to face with a glowing skull that grinned at him right at eye level. He let out a startled yelp before he realized it was suspended on a near-invisible cord. A second later, a skeleton glowered at him from his left, and something cold and damp brushed across his face like the touch of a spectral hand.

"Wow, it's a haunted house," Ray cried from up ahead. "Look at all the neat stuff. This is really neat isn't it, guys?!"

"It's only a fake haunted house," Egon chided, but there was a doubtful edge in his voice as though he believed speaking it aloud would summon the real thing. "Anyone can tell these artifacts are nothing but props."

Carefully the Ghostbusters felt their way across the eerie room. Skulls, full skeletons, spiders, Frankenstein monsters, evil demons, all jumped out at them or leered at them from the shadows. Creepy laughter and ominous noises rang out around them while moans started low and soft and built to unearthly shrieks. Although it wasn't as scary as the real thing, it created an unnerving atmosphere. Peter didn't like it.

"Is this the best you can do?" he challenged, pushing away a slavering vampire in disgust.

Winston caught his wrist, shaking his head solemnly. "I wouldn't, Pete. Somebody out there might take you up on it."

"Good point," Peter agreed. "Yaaah!"

"What's wrong, Peter?" Egon asked in alarm.

"I just got a face full of cobwebs. This place sucks!"

"Hey, look at this. I'm through, and here's a giant slide," called Ray. The other three hurried to join him and saw the slide, wide enough for two adults to sit side by side on it, descending steeply into the darkness of a lower level. "Let's go." Flinging himself onto the polished wood surface, Ray vanished into the shadows with a joyful whoop.

Peter followed him down, half afraid Stantz would have disappeared by the time he reached the bottom, but Ray was waiting, his face alight from the fun of the experience. Egon came next, and Peter bit back a laugh because old Spengs looked like he was having nearly as much fun as Ray. He jumped up quickly, noticed Peter eyeing him knowingly, and said, "I never used a slide before."

"In your whole life? Egon, did it ever occur to you that you had a deprived childhood? Stick with me, big guy. There's a lot I can teach you."

"That," said Egon as Winston slid down with a whoop to join them, "is precisely what I am afraid of." He raised his meter and took a fresh reading. "The biorhythm readings are nearer." As he spoke, a distant gong sounded, making him and Peter eye each other uneasily. "What do you think that was?" the physicist asked.

Winston braced himself for trouble, casting an uneasy look over his shoulder. "Don't ask me. I just know I don't like the sound of it."

"Gosh, guys, this way!" Ray plunged ahead again. "It's a hall of mirrors. Come and find me. Wow!"

Peter hastened after him, screeching to a stop with Egon and Winston hard on his heels. Stretching out before them was a veritable maze of mirrors, spreading in a series of angles across a huge room, or else creating the illusion of a gigantic space by the multitude of reflections that bounced back on each other. Half expecting to see distorted visions of himself--tall and lanky, short and three feet wide--Peter froze at the sight of Ray trapped inside a mirror, only his face and hands visible, but misty and fading even as he watched.

"Great illusion," Peter ventured doubtfully. At least, I hope it's only an illusion. "Egon?"

"It's no illusion, Peter." Egon's voice was grim as he lifted his eyes from the P.K.E. meter. "I'm detecting those odd readings again and they match the ones I got from Apollonius. Somehow, he is engineering this. Ray, can you hear us?"

"Help me, guys." The voice was faint and it faded still more as he spoke. Peter lunged for the mirror, brought up short against its solid surface, his fingers scrabbling against the glass. "Help...me...." The frantic voice faded away entirely, and Ray's image disappeared with it. All Peter could see in the glass was his own reflection and that of Egon and Winston on either side of him.

"Ray!" the three remaining Ghostbusters cried in unison, but when Peter whirled hopefully toward Egon, the physicist shook his head. "I'm not reading him any longer, Peter," he said in dismay. "I don't know where he is."

"Ah, so it begins." Apollonius smiled a smug and satisfied smile. "We have Dr. Stantz. Now to separate the rest of them. It will be easy for them to part now. They will not mean to, but they will find it logical to separate, and that will serve my purpose." He waved his hands in an esoteric pass at his own glass's view of the hall of mirrors. A trio of mirrors swung out from the wall, and swung back, each one closing around one of the team and taking him with it.

Peter picked himself up from a tangle on the floor, holding out a hand to Egon to haul him to his feet. "I can't say I liked the transition," the psychologist complained. "Not very smooth. They need to oil their machinery or something. You okay, Egon?"

"I'm fine, Peter, but I don't like this. I'm still not detecting Ray's readings. He's obviously not here. Where are we?" He studied the room, frowning at the several doors that led from it, all neatly labeled with signs designed to tempt and intrigue the funhouse visitors. One had a huge question mark painting upon it. Another announced in esoteric lettering, 'The Hall of Mysteries'. Ray couldn't have resisted a place like that on a bet, although he'd sounded like being trapped in the mirror had hurt him, while for Peter, it had simply been a brief transition from reflecting chamber to here. The third door said simply, 'This way out.'

"And more to the point," Peter added, when a thorough scan of the room didn't reveal any other occupants, "where's Winston?" If he and Egon had come to the same place, why hadn't Winston and Ray? He could only hope Winston had ended up where Ray had and could help him out. Ray had sounded like he needed it.

Egon's mouth drew a taut line. "I don't like this. I have been uneasy since we first saw the carnival. We should have maintained a more professional demeanor, taken more thorough readings before venturing inside. How could we have taken such an unconscionable risk without sufficient information?"

"Good point and, next time, we will but, right now, our buddies might need us." Peter frowned at the three doors. "I don't like it, Egon, because I think we should stick together, but Ray sounded like he was in pain when he was trapped in the mirror. We'd have a better chance of finding him if we split up."

"We don't have our proton packs and particle throwers, Peter."

"I know. But Ray might be dying, and who's to say what trouble Winston could be in? We have to find them. That's our first priority. Once we're all together again, then we'll take this place down so hard it bounces."

Egon's face held distress. "I don't like it. I believe this place is trying to separate us, and we'd be playing right into their hands. It feels wrong to separate, although I know we must. We have to find our friends. Which way will you go?"

Peter gestured at the sign that read 'The Hall of Mysteries.' "If I know Ray, he couldn't let that one pass. I'll go there."

"Then I'll go this way," Egon pointed to the exit door. "I don't trust it. It could be a trick. But I think this is the way Winston might go. Five minutes, Peter, then, if we haven't found them, we will regroup here."

"Be careful, Egon." Peter dropped a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I don't want to have to come after you, too."

"Nor I you." They stood for a long second, eyes locked, then Peter turned abruptly and reached for the doorknob. Egon squared his shoulders as he started for the exit.

Apollonius smiled in satisfaction, rubbing his hands together. "Ah, yes, it is working. I knew it would. Now, Egon Spengler, you will come to me and I will finally be free."

As soon as Peter entered the room, the door slammed shut behind him with a bang. He hesitated, reaching out to see if it would open from this side, but before he could touch the knob, he heard a faint, distant, lonely moaning. It sounded like Ray.

The door had opened on a long, rounded tube that Peter recognized in a second from his previous carney experience. The minute he started into it, it would begin to revolve, throwing him off balance. He had never liked going through them, but Ray was at the other end. Peter could hear faint whimpering like an injured puppy. Ray was hurt. Peter would have climbed down a sheer cliff in a snowstorm to rescue him. This was easier.

By the time he had worked his way through the revolving tunnel, he had revised his opinion about its ease. He'd been tossed off balance at least six times and he ached all over from the wild landings as he was banged about. His very bruises would develop their own crop of bruises soon and then they'd have babies. But when he staggered free, nothing was broken and he could stand up.

Then he saw Ray, and his minor lacerations faded to insignificance.

Huddled in a tight ball, Ray quivered and shook, fierce tremors racking his body. When Peter flung himself down at his friend's side in alarm, Ray didn't rouse or notice, not even when Venkman gripped his shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly.

"Ray, come on, Ray, don't do this. It's not nice to scare Uncle Peter." Shaking the younger man gently, he pulled him up into a sitting position, wrapping his arms around him tightly. The psychologist could feel the cold of Stantz's chilled body through his jumpsuit. Ray kept shivering.

"God, Ray, what did he do to you?" He ran his hands up and down Ray's arms in an attempt to warm him. After a minute, Ray curled closer to Peter, his body involuntarily seeking the warmth Peter represented.

"Easy there, I've got you. It's okay, Ray. It's okay." He chanted reassurances like a mantra, and Ray tensed, his head cocked, listening. "That's it," Peter crooned. "You're safe. You're warming up. You'll be okay. You better be okay."

"P-peter?" Ray eased out of the tight ball, shifting his head against Peter's shoulder. "I...wh-where am I?"

"Still in that creep's funhouse. Funhouse? I don't know who this is fun for, but it sure isn't us. Winston's disappeared too. You scared the heck out of us."

"What h-happened?" The quivering still sounded in Ray's voice but it was easing.

"You went into the hall of mirrors and the next thing we knew, we could only see part of you, trapped inside one of them. You faded away until you were gone altogether. Then the mirrors grabbed the rest of us. Egon and I wound up together and we figured we had to find you and Winston fast so we split up. After this, nobody's going off on his own and that's the bottom line." He gave Ray's arms a few more hard rubs, although he could see his friend visibly warming, the tension draining from his body, his taut muscles loosening. "Where did you go?"

"I don't know. I can't remember much of it, but it was snowing there. Lots of snow and ice and a horrible wind. It was like being at the North Pole, with glaciers and deep drifts. I could feel myself freezing solid and nobody answered when I called for help." He shuddered at the memory. "Was it real?"

"I think it might have been just an illusion," Peter said quickly, suspecting Ray would find that easier to face than the thought of being stranded in an Arctic wilderness. "The cold was probably real, but the rest of it--well, there's no snow anywhere around, Ray, and you're not wet or anything, like it had melted. If they can create illusions, then I know I hate this place. Do you think you can get up now?"

Ray staggered to his feet with Peter's help, welcoming the arm Peter slid around his shoulders as he found his balance. "I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life before. "

"Well, it's not going to happen again, Tex. Come on, let's go get the others, and then we'll warm up this place--with our throwers!"

Egon felt a surge of uneasiness as he stepped into the exit passageway. He realized immediately it could not lead to an exit after all, especially after the door sealed behind him, refusing to allow him to return and find Peter. "Rats," he muttered, shaking the doorknob in frustration, then he squared his shoulders and turned to see what lay ahead. There was an ominous feel to the hall that stretched before him, mysterious and threatening. From the moment he had first seen the carnival, Egon had known it was a bad place, that something about it was extremely wrong, that danger lurked, a danger that might touch upon him personally. He wasn't certain how he knew, but simply being here made a knot form in the pit of his stomach.

It had been wrong to leave Peter. Had the funhouse or the presence that lurked here influenced him and Peter to believe there would be safety in separation? Now that he had separated, he could see far too clearly what a mistake it had been. They should have stayed together, especially since the funhouse wanted them to be apart.

The tunnel led him into a room with no visible walls, fog creeping along the floor like a dry-ice movie illusion, and a multitude of candles of all sizes and shapes, each standing on its own individual candle holder, many taller than a man, the shortest at the height of a table. The flames danced and flickered in the drafts that created eddies in the fog but failed to illuminate the distant corners. Anything might lurk there just out of sight, waiting to attack.

"I'll give him that," Egon muttered under his breath. "He knows how to create a great atmosphere.

"Thank you." Apollonius materialized from nowhere and approached with a grand sweep of his cloak, troubling the fog. If he had worn a mustache like the villain of a classic melodrama, he would have twirled it menacingly.

"What do you want?" Egon demanded, aiming the P.K.E. meter at the man. The readings were human--and not. Something about them suggested what he saw was not the real man, if indeed he were a man at all, but an illusion.

"Egon Spengler." The answer was short.

"I am Egon Spengler. What do you want?"

"You."

"Me?" This was definitely not good. He had been herded carefully away from his friends. Now he realized that had been the intention all along. Perhaps that was why he had felt such an ominous sense of foreboding at the sight of the carnival. He must have been marked from the very beginning.

"Yes. You. For you are perfect." Apollonius beamed in sheer wicked delight.

"Dare I ask for what?"

Apollonius chuckled. "Oh, you may ask." He tilted his head, pondering, and Egon realized he might be induced to talk, to revel in his wisdom and cleverness. If Spengler could stall long enough, the others might find him and, if not, he might be able to overpower Apollonius and flee.

"You and Ray Stantz recognized my name," the older man reminded him, his voice rich with meaning.

"You mean your ancestor? Yes, I have heard much of him in my research. There are some who compare him to Jesus Christ, but others claim he was the servant of demons and devils, doing their bidding, receiving his powers in return for serving them."

"That is a lie!" the white-haired man spat, drawing himself up angrily. "A lie! I am Apollonius of Tyana, I am the original. I was cursed to wander in limbo for all time."

"Then the legends are true? You challenged the gods?" Egon asked in fascination. If this were actually the original Apollonius under a curse, it might explain his strange readings. Such things were possible, although they did not happen often, at least in modern times. Egon had seen too much since he had become a Ghostbuster to doubt the possibility, although it could be a clever scam.

"Not the gods," Apollonius countered angrily. "The spirits of evil. I meant to vanquish them and end their evil tyranny. I fought them for three days and three nights, holding my own against them. At last, the furies of the Netherworld vanquished me. I thought myself strong enough to hold out but, in the end, they were too strong for me, too many. They damned me to be trapped for all eternity. But over the centuries, I have expanded my powers. I am now ready to go back and challenge them anew!" His voice rang with iconoclastic fervor.

"Then why bother with us, with this carnival? Why not simply go and do it?"

Apollonius's eyes hardened. "Where can I go like this?" Before Egon could question the unlikely response, the white haired man gestured to dispel the illusion that shaped his face, then he lifted his head and stared defiantly at Egon.

Gone was the aristocratic elegance of feature. In its place existed a tormented visage, covered with coarse black hair. Fangs spouted from the snoutlike mouth and the very body twisted into a beastly pose, shoulders hunched forward, leg joints bent in different directions. His fingers spouted claws. "I have been a prisoner of my face and body for far too long. But now, I can go back--as you."

Before the physicist could fully assimilate the threatening words, Apollonius swirled his cloak and jumped forward, transparent and menacing, to merge with Spengler's body. Egon could feel the icy chill as the spirit form slid into him, twisting him painfully, pushing at his mind, fighting to overcome him. Screaming as he fought for control, Spengler battled to retain his identity. Apollonius oozed in, insidious as the fog, forcing the physicist deeper and deeper into the most remote corners of his mind. He was helpless to resist, helpless to fend off the psi attack and halt the possession. The dark intensity of Apollonius' mind, honed by the power of the centuries, drove his own before it until only a faint spark of Egon-ness remained in the deepest corner, and even that was fading fast.

Apollonius lifted Egon's head and a triumphant smile twisted the blond man's features into an expression they had never worn before.

"Now he is mine, and I am free!"

Cast out of the mirror, Winston found himself alone in a weird room with a black and white checkerboard pattern on floor, walls, and ceiling, its chilliness interrupted by a 1970's design of beanbag chairs, lava lamps, neon wall decorations, and plastic parson's tables in a variety of bright, primary colors. "Pete would say this is not a good fashion statement," Winston muttered, then caught himself. "Pete? Egon? You in here? Ray? Anybody?"

No answer. The house of mirrors had spit him out alone. This was bad. He hadn't trusted this place from the beginning, and now it had sent him to a different place than his buddies.

Okay, that meant he needed to find the guys quickly. Behind him, a solid wall blocked retreat, but the checkerboard room extended out in front of him, blending into a hallway of the same design with distorted angles and corners, and unexpected rises and drops in the floor. Venturing cautiously along the passage, Winston watched his step, his combat-honed senses alert for threat. It was clear as a bell that something in the funhouse had set out to separate the guys, maybe that Apollonius dude. Winston hadn't trusted him from the first. There was something too creepy about him, an aura both smug and threatening. He hadn't meant the guys well, and he'd arranged to lure them in here so he could do whatever nasty scheme he'd dreamed up. Stranded, isolated, without his pack, Winston was still one of the least helpless men going. As he passed it he grabbed up a pole lamp, shedding the lampshade and bulb, and hefting the pole as a weapon. Anybody who thought he could cross Winston Zeddemore would have another think coming.

Suddenly the hall in front of him vanished as a wall crashed down between him and the way out, sealing him in. He whirled to see what happened behind him just as a second wall slid down, enclosing him in a narrow cubicle.

As he watched in horror, a cloud of gas seeped into the room under the edge of one of the new walls.

This just isn't your day, Zeddemore. Raising his lamp pole, Winston started slamming it against the wall beside him as the gas rose higher and higher. He had to break his way out of his checkerboard prison before it was too late.

"Egon! Winston!" Peter yelled at the top of his lungs. Beside him, Ray shouted too, but no one answered. The room where he had found Ray led out into a series of corridors but they had found no doors in any of them. They were being steered in one direction, but Peter was pretty sure it wasn't the way he wanted to go.

It wouldn't be quite so bad if they were still armed. Peter knew Egon and Winston could hold their own when they had proton packs on their backs. But that creepy Apollonius guy had his own agenda and it wasn't to make things easy for the Ghostbusters. Peter was pretty sure they were in big trouble. Look at the way Ray had been when Peter had found him. Okay, no permanent damage, but he'd been immobilized and who was to say what might have happened if Peter hadn't gotten there first. It was all too easy to imagine Egon and Winston in a similar state of need, manipulated by the owner of this crazy carney. He and Ray had to get find them fast. The four of them together could handle any crisis.

"Where do you think they are?" Ray paused to check his P.K.E. meter, frowning, then he looked up grinning in anticipation. "Peter, I'm getting a faint biorhythm reading in that direction." He nodded toward the corridor ahead of them. "It's Winston!"

"Come on!" Triumphantly, the two men raced down the passage. It just felt wrong for the four of them to be separated. Peter couldn't repress the uneasiness that had crept through him after he and Egon had parted. It had seemed so logical for them to split up and broaden the search but it had no sooner had it been irreversible than he had realized he'd screwed up big time. Once they had Winston back, the three of them could retrieve Egon and blow this popstand.

"It's getting stronger," Ray panted, slowing his pace and holding up his hand for silence. "Peter! Listen!" he breathed.

Skidding to a stop beside the occultist, Peter heard a fierce thumping that didn't take long to locate. "It's right there. Somebody's pounding on that wall." He pointed at the panel that shook visibly with each new impact. "Winston!"

A muffled, "Peter?" responded urgently. "All right! You're just in time. Get me out of here. I'm trapped and there's gas coming in."

Peter looked around for a tool he could use to force his way in, but just then something long and hard burst through the wall in an explosion of plasterboard and withdrew again. It looked like the base of a lamp. Ducking the lethal lighting, Peter yelled triumphantly and grabbed a piece of the wall around the opening, with Ray crowding in beside him to grasp the other side. Between the two of them yanking and Winston thrusting his body against the weakened wall, it came down with a crash and Winston exploded outward in a shower of plaster dust, cannoning into Peter and knocking them both to the floor.

"Winston!" Peter untangled himself from his newly freed comrade and gave him a fierce hug of relief. "You scared us, good buddy. This place is out to get us."

"You guys gave me a scare," Winston replied, pounding Peter on the back before he released him and turned to slap the occultist on the shoulder. "Hey, Ray, are you okay? You looked weird in that mirror." He gripped Stantz's shoulder and looked him up and down to make sure he was intact.

"It felt weird," Ray admitted. "But Peter said it was probably just an illusion. I'm fine. I think we've got trouble now, though. Look." He pointed at the tiny room Winston had left so abruptly. Gas poured out of the opening, flowing in their direction in a great, billowing cloud. "When in doubt--run!" he yelled.

"You called that right," agreed Winston, falling into step with the other two.

"Let's get Egon and then we are out of here," Peter confirmed and they raced down the corridor. He hoped Egon wasn't in the process of being gassed, although he suspected Apollonius would have something different for each of them.

"Wait a minute," Winston argued as they reached a four-way junction in the passage. "I think I see another way out. We don't know where Egon is." He pointed to a huge ceiling vent. "How about this, guys? I take the high road and you take the low road. If we don't find Egon right away, we meet back here."

"I think I've been down this road already," Peter said uneasily. "That's how Egon and I got separated." He raised his voice. "EGON!"

They held their breaths listening. No answer.

"You two stick together," Winston decided, dragging a table over to stand on, and hauling himself up on it. He grabbed the ventilator grill, forcing his fingers through the openings to yank it down. "Heads' up, guys." Peter and Ray ducked as the metal grid crashed to the floor just beyond them.

"I hope somebody doesn't hear that and come to investigate," cried Ray, gazing down the crossroads of corridors.

"Watch your back, Winston," Peter warned him, then he grabbed Ray's arm. "Come on, Tex, let's go." If only he could shake the uneasy feeling he had that Egon was in trouble. Ray had been nearly frozen and Winston nearly gassed to death. Peter hated to even think what might be in store for Egon. If only they had their throwers.

Winston wiggled his way into the passage. "See you with Egon. Ten minutes, guys," and vanished into the air vent. Peter watched him go with a sense of futility, a suspicion this had happened before and happened wrong, yet he could find no words to argue the need to go in different directions.

"You know," Peter said, gazing up at the opening where his friend had vanished, "that's too much of a cliche to be real. Finding air vents in real life is about as common as cars blowing up in crashes."

"TV reality," Ray said with a grin. "Nothing about this place is real. Maybe that gas wasn't even strong enough to knock us out. Come on. Sometimes illusion gets to be too much."

"Anything about Egon on the meter?" Peter asked, frowning at the hallways. They had three choices of which way to go.

Ray squinted at the screen. "Not much, but there's a faint reading down there." He stabbed a finger at the central passageway.

"Then that's where we're going. I have a really, really bad feeling about this." We're being got at, he thought, but the concept slid away from him before he could voice it aloud.

Ray nodded. "Yeah, I think we're in a lot of trouble." For once he didn't add, 'isn't it great.' Maybe the memory of his icy visit had warned him their spooky host was playing hardball.

"What do you think about this Apollonius guy, anyway?" Peter asked as they walked.

"Well, his so-called ancestor was either a saint or a major bad guy," Ray replied, "depending on who you talked to. Some say he was sort of like a second coming; he could work miracles and there were signs and portents at his birth. That didn't go over really well with the Christian religion back then. Some guy called, what was it...Heirocles, I think, wrote up Apollonius--the one this guy is supposedly descended from--around the time of Diocletian."

"And who's this Diocletian when he's at home?"

"He was one of the Emperors of Rome, sometime around the year 300 A.D. Anyway, this Heirocles claimed that Apollonius was an exorcist and a worker of miracles and that pissed off the early Christian church in the worst way. They started claiming Apollonius was in league with demons and evil spirits and got his power from them."

"Sounds like a lot of PR stuff," Peter said. "Image manipulation. Looks like the Apollonius faction didn't measure up in the long run. I never heard of him."

"No, most people probably haven't. But he did a lot of good back then, except that it almost sounds like he was too good to live. He wouldn't eat meat or wear anything made from animals--his shoes were even made from bark. He wouldn't let them sacrifice meat in the temples. And he gave most of his money to the poor. But maybe he did run into the evil spirits and get into trouble."

"Yeah, but this one isn't the original," Peter reminded him. "It's his descendant." The idea of giving away his money boggled the mind.

"I don't know," Ray objected, scratching his head. "I kinda got the feeling that just maybe he was lying when he said that. At the time I thought he was faking a relationship with somebody out of history to sound important, but maybe he really is the original. That guy was sure quick to get the name in, after all. I mean, a con man wouldn't see any point in claiming to be descended from somebody most people today never heard of."

"Good point, Ray. So, if this guy is the original, he'd be what, two-thousand years old? Okay, so he isn't exactly on the right side of forty, but he doesn't have nearly enough wrinkles to have hit the big two-oh-oh-oh."

Ray rubbed his head thoughtfully. "I don't remember when he was born, but it was probably around the beginning of the Christian era."

"Okay, so knock off twenty or thirty years. He must use a super face cream and work out at all the right gyms. Bottom line, Ray, if this character is the original, what does that mean to us? What would he want us for? Did he set up this funhouse to lure us here? Us, the Ghostbusters, I mean? Or would anybody have done? He didn't grab anybody from the town."

"I don't know." Ray checked the meter quickly. "I don't think it was to lure us specifically, but maybe it was to lure somebody. Maybe it has to be a certain type of person, and maybe the people from Hubbard left before they could get to that point. I can't help wondering if this has anything to do with the carnival Conan Doyle investigated. Maybe he only pops out every so often."

"Well, that was what, 1920? Seventy years ago?"

"It could be. He could have come more often and we just didn't hear about it," argued Ray. "Gosh, what if he needs to appear and capture people to replenish his youth?"

"You mean he's got this great painting up in his attic that gets older and older?" Peter shook his head. "No, you mean every time the carnival comes to town, there's some old guy afterwards who used to be young and gorgeous? Or some corpse that looks like an Egyptian mummy?" Not Egon. He didn't even want to think of Egon being Apollonius' designated victim.

"Gosh," breathed Ray. "It could be." His eyes were wide with unhappy speculation.

Peter raised his voice and bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Egon!"

Ray caught his arm, although he couldn't hide the worry he shared. "Peter, we don't know. That's just one theory. It could be anything. It could even--"

A sudden grinding, twisting noise rumbled through the passage like the breaking of great cogs in a wheel. Peter and Ray stopped dead and stared at each other uneasily.

"What the heck was that?" Peter demanded. If it had anything to do with Egon....

"Greetings, gentle sirs." The barker appeared before them, doffing his tall hat and giving them a showy bow. He was too good at this sneaking up on people number to make Peter happy. "And apologies. The equipment is experiencing a malfunction. If you will follow me, I will show you to the exit now."

"Not so fast, bunky," objected Peter, planting his feet and grabbing the guy's arm to restrain him. It felt solid, like a normal human arm, but Peter was pretty sure he was not a normal human. "Not without our friends. Where are Egon and Winston?"

"I have just shown them out," the barker replied hastily, an expression of great sincerity on his face that Peter didn't trust an inch. "I found your Mr. Zeddemore crawling through the air vents. Not at all a safe place. I reunited him with Dr. Spengler. They are waiting for you outside, and your equipment is there as well. It was not safe for you to enjoy the funhouse wearing it. There are many delicate pieces of equipment inside and any of them could be damaged by the injudicious use of particle throwers, so we removed it for safety. Come quickly, for your time here is nearly at an end."

Peter didn't like the way he put that. He cast a doubtful glance at Ray, only partly reassured by the mention of Winston in the air vent. Had there even been time for him to exit the building, unless he'd been moved outside the same way the throwers had vanished? The thought of the particle throwers did reassure him. If they were really waiting, at least he and Ray would be armed and could deal with Apollonius and the barker, even the Class 9 framework of the carnival.

Ray quirked an eyebrow and mouthed, 'go with it.' Peter nodded. They could always blast their way in again if the barker was lying.

"Okay, show us the way out. But Egon and Winston better be waiting for us and they better be intact. If you've done anything to our friends, we'll be back!"

"And you'll be sorry," Ray added pugnaciously.

"Don't worry, gentlemen." He shook his head in disappointment. "Such suspicions, when all we wished was to show you a pleasant day at the carnival. This way, if you please?"

Exchanging doubtful glances, Ray and Peter followed the barker down the shadowy hallway toward the exit, afraid this was only one more trick.

Winston crawled through the air duct as quickly as he could, watching for openings to investigate and listening for any sounds that might indicate the presence of Egon. Why did he have such a bad feeling about separating from the guys? Did something in the funhouse have the ability to affect their minds, to make them take risks they wouldn't normally take? Was it actively trying to separate them? If so, coming in here was a bad move. Heading through the duct without a weapon ranked right up there in the list of stupid things to do but, somehow, he couldn't make himself turn and hurry back to join the others. If it was an enforced compulsion, it was a mild enough one. It didn't stop him from searching for Egon or planning to reunite with his friends. But it took him away from them at a time when they should have stuck together.

Knowing that didn't make him turn around and go back though.

Ahead of him, flickering light shone up into the vent from an opening in its floor. Slowing his pace, Winston approached silently, alert for any sound. As he listened, he heard someone speaking, an grim, ominous voice that should have sounded familiar yet didn't. The short hairs at the back of his neck stirred uneasily.

"Now I am free!" the speaker exulted. "At last, at last, I can leave my prison and seek my revenge."

"Egon?" Winston blurted, smothering the sound as soon as he said it. That didn't sound like Egon, that hollow, resonating voice filled with an dark overtones. Why had he even thought it might be his friend? Wiggling closer, he peered down through the grid. Below him, Egon preened before a huge mirror, his image illuminated by the dancing flicker of candle-light. Too absorbed in his reflection, he had failed to hear Winston speak his name. As the African American watched, the blond put up a hand and touched his cheek, stroking it in wonderment. He struck a dramatic pose and laughed aloud with a sheer joy that made Winston's stomach muscles clench because there was a hollow, ringing tone to his voice that did not sound remotely like Egon. This might look like Egon, and it might even be Egon's body, but something major was wrong.

A creaking, groaning, metallic rumble groaned through the building and, to Winston's horror, the floor of the duct beneath him gave way in a clattering of rubble, dropping him abruptly into the room at Egon's feet.

Bruised and winded, he could only struggle to draw breath as Spengler turned and gazed at him--out of a stranger's eyes. The form, the clothes, the face, all were Egon, but the intellect that regarded him was no longer his friend.

"What have you done with Egon?" Winston wheezed, his breath returning painfully. He rubbed a bruised elbow with an absent hand, unable to stop staring at his transformed teammate.

"I am Egon." Now the voice was normal, devoid of echoes, but the tone was not. There was an edge of malicious triumph in it that Winston had never heard in Egon's voice before, and hoped he never would again. This was bad.

"No, you're not. That might be his body, but you're sure not Egon. Who are you? Apollonius? Well, listen up, buster, because we're the Ghostbusters, and we're not going to let you get away with it."

"Oh, but I think you will." The echoing note returned and Egon--or Apollonius, or whoever it was--snatched up a statue from a table beside the mirror and brought it down on Winston's skull before he realized what was happening, taking light and consciousness with it.

'Egon' laughed triumphantly and tossed the statue aside before he looked around for rope to bind his prisoner.

"Here you will remain, unable to fight me, until it is too late."

"We made it. We're out," Ray cried in relief as the barker ushered them from the building by a side door just beside the main entry and closed it hastily behind them. "Look, Peter, there are our packs, just like he said."

They found themselves standing outside the funhouse near the curtain that had led them in. Lined up in a row in front of a target shooting booth across from the funhouse, their proton packs lay waiting for them, all four of them. At least from where the two men stood, they looked intact. Egon and Winston were nowhere in sight--it had been a trick after all. Okay, time to go back in, this time armed and readyPeter started toward the proton packs when the curtain swished back and Egon emerged, intact and on his feet. Peter's heart leaped in relief. He'd had a really bad feeling about the physicist since they'd split up to search for the others. Seeing him emerge under his own steam turned the world right side up again.

"Egon!" Peter and Ray lunged for him, slapping him on the back. "You scared us, big guy," Peter said. "Don't take off like that again. From now on, we stick together. Is it a deal? No more of this going off on our own, right?"

"Yes, but that's over now, Peter." Egon replied complacently without meeting his eyes. "I'll get Winston, he's not far. Then the three of you can go into town and wait for me there." The wrongness of his answer and his very manner was as obvious as a neon sign.

Peter's bad feeling slammed back into his chest. What the heck did that mean? Egon didn't sound right, somehow. If that Apollonius character had done something to him, he'd eat protons before the day was out.

"Huh?" Ray gaped at Spengler in surprise. "What do you mean, go into town? We're not leaving you here. Anyway, that barker guy said you and Winston were already out--and you came out after us, and Winston's not here. Something's wrong."

"On our way out, perhaps," Egon replied. "I know where he is. I'll get him, but then I must go back in."

"Like fun you will," Peter argued. "None of us separate again. That's what this place wants, so we won't give it what it wants. We'll all go in for Winston together, with our packs this time."

There was an unnatural gleam in the physicist's eyes that Peter didn't like. He'd known Egon for nearly fifteen years and he was sure he had seen every expression that had ever crossed his face. What looked back at him now was not a consciousness that recognized or even acknowledged all those years of friendship. Instead there was impatience, a determination to have Peter and Ray gone, and a deeper purpose, more ominous, that made Peter's skin crawl. They were in big trouble.

Egon turned an expression of sincerity upon the psychologist. It wasn't convincing. "Peter, Apollonius has promised me to reveal to me the secret of the ages. I must go back. That much knowledge can never be shunned. It will mean so much, to learn it, to bring that knowledge to the world. This is what I have always dreamed of. I can no more walk away from that than I could close all books and never read another."

Well, maybe Egon would get excited about a deal like that, assuming he was gullible enough to buy such a crazy offer. After all, why should old Apollonius cut him that kind of a deal? Nobody offered anything that precious without expecting an equally hefty payment in return. But Egon didn't seem to have considered that, and he was too intelligent a man not to. He didn't look excited, either, simply impatient for them to be gone, determined to put an end to the incident, to write off Peter, Ray, and Winston as if all their years together meant nothing. This wasn't even a goodbye.

Because, impossible as it seemed, this was not Egon.

Peter froze, gazing at his best friend in horrified disbelief. It was Egon's body, he was sure of that. It was too real to be an illusion. But what controlled it was not his friend. Possession was something Peter knew from past experience, horrible experience, when the demon Watt had taken him over and controlled his actions. Peter had been trapped inside his mind, a defenseless witness to everything that happened, yet powerless to prevent it. Even now, several years later, a reminder of the Watt incident could evoke a chill down his spine. Being helpless like that, losing all control, had terrified him.

Now it had happened to Egon, and Peter knew from the long history he had with Spengler that his worst nightmare would be the fact that his mind was no longer under his own control. For Egon, whose sense of identity was all tied up with his intellect and with his control of his mind and thoughts, this was the worst possible event that could ever happen. Was Egon even aware of the world around him? Had his consciousness been shoved out into the body of Apollonius, the way it had when his soul had been trapped in the netherworld and his body controlled by a demon? Or was he, like Peter, frantically screaming for help inside a body that no longer responded, desperately trying to reason with a mind that failed to obey him.

"I must go back," Egon said, not even stubbornly, but as if it were a foregone conclusion. "Just go. I will...join you later."

Spengler's face was not designed for deceit. Ray gasped as the obvious lie curled his mouth. He had no intention of joining them. If he walked away now, this was the last they would ever see of him. "Peter...." Ray breathed warningly.

"GO!"

"Egon!" cried Peter, halfway to freaking out at the sudden hollow, ringing quality of Egon's voice. Last he heard, normal human vocal cords didn't do that. "Either that's a major cold or you've got company in there."

"Omigosh, he's possessed!" Ray blurted, his face stricken. "Gosh, Peter, this is awful." He aimed his meter at the physicist. "It's Apollonius. I knew he had to be the original. Egon's readings are there, too. It's really his body. But Apollonius has taken him over."

"I am the original," 'Egon' insisted. "You think you petty humans with your Ghostbuster toys can hope to stop me? For centuries I have honed my powers. I can defeat you puny mortals as easily as I can snap my fingers."

"You bet we can stop you, and we'll get Egon back, see if we don't!" cried Ray.

"Egon." Peter took a step closer and grasped the physicist's arms. "Egon, listen to me. Listen to my voice. Follow it back to me. Follow it out. You can fight him, big guy. I know you can. You're stronger than he ever was, you're smarter. You can beat him."

"No," snarled Apollonius, batting at Peter's hands.

Peter tightened his grip. "I won't listen to you. I'll only listen to Egon. Come on, Spengs, I know you're in there. I know you can hear me. Fight him. This guy's no demon like Watt. You can beat him. I know you can." He turned his head quickly to Ray and muttered out of the corner of his mouth, "Get the packs."

"Gosh, yeah, we can draw Apollonius off him. I've got his biorhythms and Egon's and we can set one pack for...." He darted away before he could complete the explanation in case it made sense to Apollonius. He might be able to read Egon's mind. He might already know how the guys had freed Peter from Watt's possession, what they meant to do now.

It seemed that, if he couldn't read the physicist's mind, he had a vast streak of self-protection. "I told you to leave me alone! You will not defy me." Fire glowed at his fingertips and exploded outward, slamming into the center of Peter's chest in a fierce burst of energy. Propelled by the force of the impact, he reeled backward and landed hard against the stand where Barker had stood to summon them to the funhouse. He hadn't been scorched or sizzled, just repelled. Momentarily groggy, he blinked up at Egon, then a movement at the edge of his vision caught his eye.

A glance in that direction revealed a new danger. Beyond him, the target shooting booth had come to life. As Peter stared in horror, the line of rifles swiveled around in a circle and trained themselves on the occultist.

"Ray, duck!" Peter screeched at the top of his lungs, lunging up to dive at him in a flying tackle.

He was too far away. He fell short by a good two feet, but Ray obeyed the warning instinctively, flinging himself flat on his stomach as the bullets traced a passage over his head and dug splinters out of the stand in front of the funhouse. Wiggling backward with Ray, Peter pulled him down into the shelter of the stand, and looked up at Egon, who had imperiously witnessed the attack upon them with no shred of concern or remorse on his face.

"Fools!" he intoned in that weird, intensified voice that echoed so oddly. "Begone!"

"No way," Peter yelled. "We're not leaving. Egon, we're gonna help you. Hold onto that. Fight him."

"There is no Egon." A cold blue gaze pinned Peter. "There. Is. No. Egon."

"I don't believe that. Egon's too strong for a creep like you to stop him. Egon, listen to me. Look at me. You know me. It's Peter. You're my oldest friend in the world. I'm not gonna give up and let this joker take you over. Look at me, Egon. Look at me."

Egon obeyed, and for an instant, Peter saw something he knew in the stark panic that ran across his face. "P-peter...."

"Yahoo, it's Egon. I knew you could do it. Listen to me. Hang on. It's gonna be okay. Ray and I will get rid of him, I promise. But you can do it. You can fight him. Hold on, you'll be okay. I promise you, Egon. Just listen to my voice."

Then the hands came up and flame shot forth again. Peter ducked, dragging Ray back with him, realizing with a sudden moment of triumph that Ray had managed to put on his pack before he came under fire. He couldn't just blast Egon because one stream alone couldn't remove possession, it took two set at very exact frequencies to draw the invading spirit forth, but it was a start.

"Egon is no longer here," spat Apollonius. "I will destroy you."

"Peter, Apollonius is winning." Ray's horrified whisper stunned Peter. "Egon's biorhythms are fading and Apollonius' are growing more powerful. We've got to get him back right away--but I think he's too weak for us to use the throwers."

"Egon is gone," Apollonius proclaimed triumphantly and swirled his cape, pulling aside the curtain and vanishing into the funhouse.

"We've got to get him back, Peter." Ray risked standing up, ready to duck. Without Apollonius to manipulate them, the target weapons didn't fire at them. "And we can't wait any longer or it will be too late. We can't let Apollonius win."

"But if the throwers aren't enough...." Peter wiggled across the dusty ground beneath the level of the rifles' aim just in case and snatched up his proton pack, scuttling back to join Stantz. "Then what are we going to do?" he asked as he slid his shoulders through the pack's straps.

"I don't know, Peter, but we have to try." He jumped up and ran for the curtain, Peter hot on his heels.

"We'll get him back, Ray. We have to. I promised him we would."

Winston regained consciousness so completely and abruptly he didn't think he could have been out very long. Blinking, he surveyed the room with the vast mirror that was now his prison. For the first second, the movement of his head made him dizzy, but it passed quickly. Craning his neck, he investigated the room with his eyes. Egon--or whoever Egon had become--was gone. He was alone.

He was also tied securely into a chair, ropes binding his wrists, securing them to its arms, and his ankles, securing his feet to the legs. The knots were tight and firm, leaving him no play. Working free wouldn't be easy.

Something troubled the surface of the mirror and he tried to edge the chair closer to see what it was. To his astonishment, he saw an image of Peter and Ray, outside the funhouse, confronting Egon. Peter was speaking earnestly while Egon listened, a contemptuous expression on his face. He had to be possessed, either that or Apollonius was able to simulate his form. From Peter's anguished expression, he was trying to get through to Egon and having no luck at all. Ray hovered behind Peter, partly shielded by the stand where Barker had stood to lure them in. He was wearing his proton pack, but he looked alarmed at the readings he was taking with the P.K.E. meter..

Abruptly Egon turned and entered the funhouse, the vision disappearing along with him. The mirror clouded, then cleared, reflecting Winston's strained, tired, and worried face. At least he couldn't see any blood from where he'd been bopped on the head. He had to get out of here.

Okay, if he couldn't handle the knots, he'd have to break the chair. Cautiously, he tried to rock it back and forth to see how sturdy it was. Could he feel any give? Yes, there was a little. He could do this. He had to. The guys needed him.

Rocking harder and harder, he barely had time to brace himself before the chair tipped over on its side and crashed to the floor, taking him with it.

For an instant, he blacked out again, but he roused right away and went to work on the chair, unwilling to take even a minute to collect himself. One of the arms had been loosened by the fall, and he yanked at it with all his strength. When it broke free of the chair seat with a splintering sound, he worked his hand down carefully until the rope slid over the broken fragment, freeing his right arm. No longer tight, the binding could be worked off his wrist entirely, but he only did it because it was in his way. With one hand free, it was an easy task to go to unfasten the other.

"Hang in there, guys," he muttered under his breath as he untied the rope around his ankles. "I'm coming."

"They are returning to the funhouse," Apollonius told Barker angrily as he joined him in the passageway. "They would not depart."

"What do you want me to do?" asked his servant.

"They will not yield him easily, I know this. I feel it from what I can see of Spengler in my mind. The bond of friendship that exists between them all is too strong for the other three to give up and go away. I had hoped to deceive them long enough to force them away but they could tell in an instant I was not Spengler." He made an impatient gesture. "No matter. Where I plan to go, they will not be able to follow." He smiled, Egon's lips curling unfamiliarly. "Let them come. Do not interfere with them. I will await them in the Candle Room. There I will defeat them. I held off the forces of evil for three days and three nights. What have I to fear of two humans?"

"They have their weapons. Shall I remove them?"

"No, for they will not dare to blast their precious Egon. Let them grow overconfident. It will make it easier for me to defeat them."

"What of the other one, master?"

"Leave him bound. I will deal with him when these two are vanquished. Egon Spengler is mine. That is all that matters." With a swirl of the black velvet cloak, he stalked triumphantly down the corridor to await the final confrontation.

Peter led the way into the funhouse, relieved to find that the door did not seal behind them this time. Maybe it was a sign of Apollonius' overconfidence, but he didn't even consider that. Fueled by grim determination, he charged through the dangling array of ghosts and skeletons in the outer room, sweeping them angrily from his path, and went down the slide with Ray right behind him. This time, Ray didn't find the funhouse exciting. He looked as fiercely decisive as Peter. "Maybe I can figure out how to set the throwers to counter Egon's readings being so weak," he said as they slid. "Because I can pinpoint his readings to the tiniest percentage. If we lowered the force of one stream and boosted the other...." He grabbed the hand Peter stretched out to pull him to his feet and they charged into the maze of mirrors.

"Now what?" Ray blinked at the myriad of images. "I don't remember what happened last time."

"Do what I do." Peter jumped into the spot he'd stood when the mirror had enclosed him last time and swirled him and Egon through into the other room. "Stand right there."

Ray positioned himself hastily and the mirrors engulfed them, casting them into the room with the many doorways. Peter pointed at the exit sign. "Egon went down there, so that's where we have to go. Come on."

"Yeah," agreed Ray, racing along beside him. "Because I don't think we've got much time."

Peter's first thought when he and Ray burst into the room with the thick mist spreading like a deep carpet across the floor and the banks of endless candles was that Egon looked evil. He had put on Apollonius' velvet robe over his jumpsuit as if to erase one more element of Egon Spengler. When they charged into the chamber, he lifted his head and glared at them imperiously.

"You fools! Use what meager intellect you possess. Walk away. If you stay, you will die."

"If we go, Egon goes with us," Ray insisted fiercely. "You can't have him. He's our friend."

"He has the right to his own body and his own identity," Peter claimed hotly. "I won't let you force him down into a dark corner of his mind where all he can do is watch you helplessly." That made Ray shoot a quick glance of realization at Peter as if he had suddenly remembered Watt and understood the ferocity of Peter's determination.

"I have told you before and I tell you one final time, there remains no consciousness called Egon Spengler. There is only I, and this body is mine forever."

"That's a lie," Peter snarled. "I've been possessed before. I know what it's like and I know you're lying. Egon's in there and he can hear me, no matter how much you deny it. He heard me before and fought you off. He'll do it again. He'll keep doing it until he drives you out because that's the way he is."

"He'll never give up," Ray insisted. "Egon, if you can hear us, we're not giving up on you either."

Peter's voice grew low and intense, the compelling sound one has to work for, a hypnotist's reassuring purr. "Egon, listen to me. I know you can hear me. Follow the sound of my voice. Follow it back out of there. You don't want to stay like this. You can't work in the lab with this dude hanging out doubling your occupancy. You can't sneak off for a little nookie with Janine. You can't fix hot cocoa for those late night snacks. Come on, Egon, listen to me. You've got to come back. We need you. Ray and Winston and I need you. Janine needs you. Even the spud needs you."

Apollonius made an impatient gesture, wiggling his fingertips as if he meant to cast fire again. Peter braced himself on the balls of his feet, ready to dive aside if the old magician attacked him. "If you will not listen to reason, then this place will be your grave," he snarled. "Once I am free of this realm, it will vanish down into the darkness of the nether regions, trapping you there for all eternity in my place."

"You're not tough enough or strong enough to come between the Ghostbusters and one of their own," Peter growled defiantly, but no matter how hard he looked, he could see nothing of Egon in the icy blue eyes that glared so malevolently into his own.

Free. He was free at last. Triumphant, Winston burst from the room where he had been imprisoned and ran full tilt into Barker, who must have been on his way to check up on him. Zeddemore didn't hesitate. Before the other man could realize what he intended, his fist came out and caught the guy a hard blow on the jaw, slamming him against the wall. Sliding down to the floor in a heap, Barker gazed up at him groggily as Winston wiggled his fingers to make sure he hadn't broken them.

"Okay, bottom line, buddy," Winston growled, ignoring his scraped knuckles. "Where's Egon? And don't feed me any mystical mumbo jumbo, either. I know your boss has got him possessed, but we're gonna put a stop to that."

"You don't have enough power to stop him," Barker muttered, wiggling his jaw from side to side and rubbing it ruefully.

"You wanna bet? That guy is one of the best friends I ever had. You can't stop me. If I have to go through you and leave you in pieces behind me, I'm gonna get to Egon."

Barker blinked doubtfully. "I thought none had a stronger compulsion than my master, but the way you sound...."

"Believe it, m'man. Now tell me, before I bash your face in so bad you won't risk looking in another mirror as long as you live. Where is Egon?"

Barker held up both hands defensively. "All right, I'll tell you. I'll show you. But then I won't hang around. He'll take it out on me."

"He isn't here. I am." Winston loomed over him menacingly.

"I said I'd take you."

Winston dragged the defeated man to his feet and kept a tight hold on his arm. "Which way?"

"You will never win," intoned Apollonius, his head raised haughtily. Egon's glasses slid down his nose, startling the ancient man. Peter felt something clench inside him at the sight.

"Yes, we will. Because I know Egon's spirit is fighting you. You'll lose."

"You sure will," Ray proclaimed loyally. "Nobody's will is stronger than Egon's--unless it's Peter's. Between the two of them, you haven't got a chance."

Apollonius struck a dramatic pose and thumped himself on the chest. "I am the greatest magician of the ages." The cloak swirled around his ankles.

"Egon is ten times as smart as you ever were on your best day. If you really could beat him, you wouldn't have to stand around and brag about it." Peter caught Ray's eye and winked. From the quick flicker in the old magician's eyes he realized he had a good point.

"Fight him, Egon," Ray pleaded. "We know you can. We're here for you."

"He's right, Spengs." Peter used the affectionate nickname deliberately. "You're too strong for him. He can't keep it up and he knows it. He's trying to fake us out, but you can do it. Come out of him now. Fight him. Listen to my voice."

"P-peter?" It was Egon, not Apollonius, but his voice was faint and weak. "Peter, where are you? I can't see you."

"You don't have to yet," Peter said hastily, relief singing in his veins at the proof that Egon still existed. "Just listen to me. Follow my voice. You can do it. You can push him out of you. I promise you."

"No! NO!" Apollonius snarled, trying to strike Peter with clenched fists. Peter ducked under them, grabbed Egon around the waist, and held onto him as tightly as he could. The mage struggled to retain possession, fighting, and the two men toppled to the floor. Straddling Egon's body, Peter grasped his wrists and held them above his head to keep Apollonius from shooting fire at him or Ray.

A clatter of footsteps announced an arrival, and Winston yelled, "Guys, I'm free. What's going on? Pete? Egon? What the heck...."

"Tell him, Ray," Peter urged, turning to Apollonius, who was trying with increasingly weaker bucking motions, to throw him off. The physical contact appeared to weaken the mage. Perfect. Peter was on the right track. In the background, Ray gabbled out a hasty explanation.

"Egon, it's me, it's Peter. You can hear me. Listen to me. Fight him, follow my voice." Loosing one wrist, Peter put his palm against Egon's cheek. "You can feel it when I touch you. Hear me."

The bucking motions slowed, then stopped, and Peter grinned exultantly, although he didn't lower his guard in case it was a trick. Cupping Egon's face in his hands, he gazed down into the eyes of his oldest friend. He could see the imperious and desperate glare of the old magician but he could also see a hint of Egon in the gaze.

"Egon, come back. Come back!"

The body sagged, going limp, then it exploded in a paroxysm of rage as Apollonius tried to fight him off one last time.

"I'm not talking to you," Peter told him. "Egon, listen to me."

The mage glared at him. "All I want is Egon. Let me have him and the rest of you are free. I will even grant you wealth and power. But leave me this body--or die."

"No way, Jose." Peter shook his head vehemently. "We don't make deals with our friends' lives. Egon, you've nearly got him. He's desperate. You can dump him any time you want to. Just listen to me. Hear my voice. Come out. Come back." Ray and Winston pressed closer, adding their voices to his. Peter felt a hand gripping his shoulder, offering him strength and support.

"You will regret this!" shouted Apollonius, his voice trailing off into incoherent mutters as he fumbled for words.

Egon's face twisted in a frantic struggle, then his eyes cleared and the coldness departed, leaving them bright with tears. "Peter?" he faltered, blinking up dazedly. "Ray? Winston?"

Suddenly a dark mist emerged from Egon's body, making Peter yelp and jump, but it didn't try to slide into Peter. Instead it bunched and collected in amorphous cloud, gradually oozing free, hovering in midair. Peter saw Egon's face light with colossal relief as the last of it drifted clear.

"Now!" yelled Ray, and the brilliant white glare of an open trap filled the room. With a whoosh, the dark mist that had begun to materialize into the familiar form of Apollonius of Tyana slid into the trap, his mournful wail ringing out.

"No! No! I must be free. I must be freeeee...." The doors clashed shut over the fading moan, trapping Apollonius forever.

"Egon?" Peter demanded hopefully, blinking away the afterimage from the trap's glow and a few tears of sheer relief. The eyes that gazed back at him held a very familiar gleam.

"I am back, Peter." Egon tried to sound matter of fact, but he didn't entirely succeed. His voice quavered, and he began to shiver violently. "He pushed me into a far corner of my mind," he breathed. "I could not control...."

Peter slid off him and pulled him up to a sitting position, wrapping his arms around him tightly. Better not let him develop that particular theme. "You sure could, buddy. He talked a good fight, but when the chips were down, you threw him out of there yourself."

"That's right, Egon." Ray edged in close beside them and gripped Egon's shoulder. "Because I don't think we could have pulled him out of you with the throwers, not without destroying you in the process. He was strong and he'd weakened you too much. He had you too long. We got Watt out of Peter because we could do it right away. By the time we had the throwers back, it was too late to try that on you safely. But you never stopped fighting him. You were way too strong for him."

"You sure were, homeboy," Winston lauded him.

"It felt like centuries." Egon leaned against Peter's shoulder. "How long?"

"Probably an hour," Peter said. "Egon, I know it wasn't great. I've been there, remember. You feel crummy as all get out right now, but you're gonna make it, I promise you. Because none of us would have let him have you. You know that. And you were the one who got rid of him. You took control. Remember that."

Under the barrage of reassurance and support, Egon collected himself. Peter suspected he'd have to be the one to fix the hot chocolate tonight for a midnight session, but he'd do it gladly. For the first time, he was grateful for the experience with Watt, because it meant he could help Egon get through this. Peter knew from personal experience that Egon would be fine, given enough time to distance himself from his memories.

"Guys--can we get out of here?" Egon asked. "I don't think I ever want to see this place again."

"I don't think you're gonna have to, Egon," Ray replied, looking up from the meter in sudden astonishment. "Because it's leaving us."

"Huh? What?" Peter blinked in surprise as the very fabric of the structure melted away, one minute solid, the next transparent, growing thinner and paler until the building that enclosed them was no more solid than the mist in the candle room. As the sunlight of a rural autumn afternoon replaced the shadows of Apollonius' realm, the guys squinted at the sudden brightness. All the carnival rides and booths vanished without a trace. Apollonius was trapped and Barker was gone, too. Either he'd belonged to the realm so completely that he disappeared with it or he had escaped when he realized Apollonius was losing the fight. He was nowhere in sight.

Winston pointed across the field. "There's our other two packs." They lay in the middle of the grassy expanse, Ecto-1 parked behind them in the fairgrounds lot. "Man, we did it. We busted the carnival. How did we do it, guys?"

Peter shrugged. Unless the presence of Apollonius maintained the illusion and it couldn't exist without him, he didn't have a clue.

"Once we trapped him, the curse that held him was broken," Egon replied, his brow wrinkling. "He was still imprisoned, still cursed, but there was no longer a need for the trappings of a carnival. How odd. I find I know things I don't remember learning. They're fading now, but enough lingers for me to understand. He was banished to a prison he could never escape unless he could possess an unwary stranger and steal his body--but as the centuries passed and he tried many times, he realized was bound to fail. He came to believe the 'evil spirits' who had imprisoned him held freedom endlessly out of his reach. Like Tantalus, who was tormented by the Gods as a punishment, Apollonius was tantalized with the hope of freedom that could never materialize."

"Then you could always have escaped him, Egon," Peter reassured the physicist.

Egon's face was grave. "No, Peter. Because he did possess others before. This place only appeared in the real world when he had built up enough energy to force it to appear, to lure in a new victim. But always before, the victims would elude him, or they would die."

"Die?" Peter exchanged a horrified look with Ray and Winston?

"Yes. The possession always killed them in the end, and then he found himself back in his prison. Sometimes he had weeks of so-called freedom, others only hours. I knew this."

Peter tightened his arm around Egon's shoulder. "So you see, you did win, Egon. Because you were stronger than any of them. You got away. You're not gonna die because you're free!"

"Maybe they didn't have three friends who refused to let them go," Egon replied. He was still shaky, but his confidence was returning. He found a smile for his friends.

"And still won't," Peter said, helping him to his feet. "If it bugs you, you know where to come. Right?"

"Right. Thank you, guys," Egon said fervently as Winston hurried over to scoop up his proton pack and Egon's.

"Then let's blow this popstand." Peter kept one hand on Egon's arm to make sure he was all right. He was glad when Egon stood easily, steady on his feet. He was still too tense, but that would pass. "You know what I think?" he asked, producing a wicked grin. "I think we ought to charge the town double for this bust. No, how about triple. What do you say?"

"Peter!" Egon chided. Maybe he wasn't as quick to jump in as usual, but he'd done it and that was what counted.

"Come on, a little stress pay.... We deserve it. Guys? Come on, guys? Why not?"

As he had hoped, the banter had eased the tension on the physicist's face. Peter meant to stick with him until he worked through it because he knew how tough possession could be. But they'd done it. They were a team and they'd come through again. Not even Class 9 prisons and evil two-thousand-year-old magicians could bring them down.

The four Ghostbusters grinned like idiots all the way to the car.

Two days later, Peter went up to the third floor of headquarters to change his shirt after a major run-in with Slimer, and paused as he reached the top of the spiral staircase. Egon had been working in the lab that afternoon, as he so often did when they didn't have any scheduled busts after lunch. Peter hadn't thought anything of it. Egon had been slightly quieter than usual after his experience in the funhouse, but not so quiet as to give Peter cause for major worry. He'd kept his eye on Egon since they came back, knowing how the physicist was prone to bottle up things that really bothered him. Since Egon's nosedive off the World Trade Center and his insistence afterwards that he was fine when in fact he was suffering from major reaction, Peter had made a special point of watching out for his friend when a bust hit him hard. Aside from a tendency to look over his shoulder a little more often on a job, Egon had seemed fine, but Peter hadn't been entirely convinced, and he'd been waiting and watching, just in case.

Now he frowned, ignoring the demands of his sodden shirt. Egon had pulled out some of the oldest and mustiest of Ray's occult tomes, grimoires, spell-books, and spread them across the lab table. Bent over a huge volume bound in leather with metaled corners, Egon was flipping pages with a desperate intensity, pausing to scribble notes in his pocket notebook. He might simply be caught up in a bit of obscure research, but Peter's eyes narrowed as he considered an alternative. For a long moment, he stood in the doorway, watching his friend, then he strolled casually into the lab.

"That's not the way, Egon."

The physicist's head came up and his pencil went flying. He hadn't even been aware of Peter in the doorway. "Must you sneak up on a person," he said sternly.

"Egon, I wasn't sneaking. I was just walking. Not everybody can block out the entire world as well as you can."

"I was engaged in serious research," Egon retorted. "Did you want something important, or can it wait?"

Peter parked his hip on the edge of the table, shoving away two or three huge books to make room. "Nope, can't wait." He gestured at the books. "Anti-possession research?"

"Anti..." Egon's voice trailed off and he lifted his head, staring up at Peter in astonishment that faded immediately. "I shouldn't even be surprised, should I?"

Peter shook his head. "Come on, Egon. Been there, done that. I know how freaked you were back there in Hubbard. All of us know, in a way. After all, I was possessed twice, once at Ghostworld and once by Watt."

"Ghostworld!" Startled, Egon frowned. "I had totally forgotten that."

"Yeah, and you saved us there, Egon, all three of us and Janine, when Karo Zans got us. That wasn't as bad as Watt somehow. Maybe I was used to it, maybe it just didn't feel as permanent. Or maybe it was because I couldn't remember much of how it felt afterwards. It was sort of like my brain had taken a little vacation."

"That might have been worse," Egon said involuntarily. He closed his huge book with a snap and pushed it away from him.

Peter shook his head. "Wasn't. With Watt, I knew what was going on. I just couldn't help myself. That was the worst, knowing I wasn't strong enough to fight it. That no matter how much I fought, Watt was going to win." He tugged absently at the front of his slimed shirt, holding it out away from the skin of his chest and stomach, but his thoughts were far from the unpleasant sensation of ectoplasm. That could wait.

Egon lifted his head from the book, pain and regret flashing in the blue eyes. "I owe you a serious apology, Peter." He looked down again at the Latin text on the hand-lettered page.

That wasn't what the psychologist had expected. "Apology?" he echoed blankly, only beginning to understand after he'd asked.

"For failing to understand how you felt at the time of Watt's possession. For not doing more to help."

Peter just stared at him. "Come on, Egon, nobody could really get it if they hadn't been there. You knew it had been bad, you just didn't understand exactly what bugged me the most. For me it was the loss of control. A little different for you--it attacked your mental faculties and I can imagine how that would get to you. But you figured out how to rescue me, and then you were just there for me whenever I wanted...not to be alone. Nobody can do more than that. I was glad you didn't know what it was like. I wouldn't wish that on Walter Peck, let alone my best friend. Just having you there for me afterwards made all the difference. When we got zapped at Ghostworld, it was different. Ray and Winston came out of that pretty well, and, with me, the worst part was that it reminded me of Watt. But it's over. You tossed old Apollonius out of you. And you're still Egon. You were too smart for him. The great brain is intact. That's what counts."

Egon shuddered as if Peter's words had granted him permission to remember--and to talk it out. "Apollonius just poured into me, Peter, like water, inexorably flooding me, and I couldn't stop him."

Peter patted the physicist's arm. "Rotten feeling, isn't it?"

"Did anyone ever tell you what a gift you have for understatement."

Peter grinned, then sobered. He tightened his grip in a comforting squeeze before letting go. "Listen, Egon, you beat it. I had to be pulled away from Watt, but you dumped Apollonius on your own. You threw him out. He wasn't as smart as you were, and his will wasn't as strong."

Egon shook his head. "No. I couldn't fight him, Peter. I tried; I tried over and over, and all I could do was feel him laugh at me, assuring me I would fail. But every time he did that, something kept me from giving up. It was you, talking to me, never letting go... I could hear your voice, I could even see you, looking at me so desperately and never once giving up. I knew I had to fight as hard as I could to be worthy of your efforts." He averted his eyes, gripping his hands together to stop their trembling.

Peter dropped his own hand over the clasped ones in a moment of reassurance. "Worthy of my efforts? God, Egon, it was all for you. Because we couldn't let him have you. It was not an option. You never once bought into his lies and gave up. You held on until you could break free. Besides, if you could figure out how to save me from Watt, why is it wrong for you to have a little help from your friends when it's your turn? Apollonius didn't have a clue about us, about the way we work, but that Barker guy had us pegged from the beginning. Remember what he said? That when I was searching for myself, I found true friendship. That you were...warmed by the loyalty of your friends. And Ray had found his place with us and we needed Winston to be a part of us. Apollonius never understood what makes us so strong. It doesn't matter exactly how Apollonius got the boot. What matters is that he did, and why. And the reason is because we're such a great team. That's why Watt couldn't stop me and why Karo Zans couldn't keep the rest of us when you came to rescue us at Ghostworld, and why Apollonius wound up face down in a ghost trap. Because we've got each other to rely on."

He gestured at the littered table top. "Your answer isn't in those musty old books, Egon. It's in Winston, down there working on Ecto for his car show, in Ray, sitting there watching his video tape of Mothra for the twentieth time. Even in old motormouth Venkman. And it's in you. Because you had too much of a good thing going to give it up to Apollonius. Got it?"

Egon began to smile. "For once, Dr. Venkman, you are absolutely correct. Just hearing your voice when I was trapped inside my mind gave me the strength to fight. Hearing Ray in the background egging me on, and knowing Winston would offer his strength too. And more than all that, knowing how much I had to lose if I let go."

Peter felt warmth spread inside, delighted with the respect in Egon's voice when he called him 'Dr. Venkman' but even more delighted with the glow in Egon's eyes that had been absent for the last two days as he tried to work through his crisis. He pushed himself away from the table as Egon stood up, and dropped his hands on the physicist's shoulders. "Remember that," he said with a grin. "Because you're gonna be just fine."

"How could I not, with friends like you?"

Peter would have loved to grab Egon and hug him, but it wouldn't be fair to share the slime that decorated the front of his sweatshirt. Then his grin broadened. Friends shared, didn't they? He pulled Egon in and hugged him hard.

"Oh, gross," Egon groaned as he felt Slimer's sloppy residue penetrate his shirt, even as his arms tightened in momentary affirmation of their friendship and his gratitude to Peter for the talk and for his rescue. Then he broke the hold and made disgusted brushing gestures at the front of his shirt.

"You'll pay for that, Peter."

"Only if you can catch me," Peter taunted, his face alight with warmth and humor, and he fled the lab at a dead run with Egon hot on his heels.