"The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind,

The answer is blowing in the wind..."

Cammie's voice broke and she stopped singing. The thin, little thread of sound hadn't disturbed most of the others in the room. They were sitting in their little corners, huddled in their chairs, lost in their little minds, faces empty, eyes hollow. When she spoke to them, some of them would answer, but others just sat there. It was one of the bad days, the days after it happened, the days when they barely had the strength to put food in their mouths or go to the bathroom. Tomorrow would be a better day. It wouldn't be till the next day that the man would come back. Every three days, he came back. Sometimes, in between, the others came and then it was worse for them all, but usually it was just the lone man, the one with the hard jaw and the cold eyes. No one guarded them, none but the great dog that prowled around outside the house. Sometimes, at night, Cammie heard it baying and knew it sounded dangerous enough to frighten the others. Where could they go? How could they go without strength, without energy? Cammie was scared.

At first, it had seemed like a dream, a crazy, wonderful dream. Freedom, music, anything they wanted. New clothes, no rules, no parents, nobody telling them when it was time to go to bed. Nobody caring if she went off with Jeff. It was a party, a big, wonderful party. Never mind that a part of her couldn't help wondering why she was here, why she was partying, even why she and Jeff got off alone in a bedroom and they were going to do it--and then they just...didn't. That was crazy. One minute she and Jeff were kissing and the next, she was here with all these other kids, sitting like zombies, and nobody even talked to her when she tried to find out what was happening.

Cammie looked at the weary, blank faces of her fellow prisoners. Prisoner? Yes, they were prisoners. They were a prisoner of the hard-faced lone man and of the others. The others weren't hard faced. They were pretty and once they had been something more, but now they were the enemy. Did everybody feel the anger Cammie felt? Did they simply sit there like zombies because they lacked the strength to show it?

"Not long now," the woman had said last time. "It won't be long before it's over." Sometimes she seemed kind, but she wasn't, really. There was a hardness in her eyes that matched that of the lone man. Cammie knew that. No one who was kind would do this to people. No one who was kind would steal kids' souls away.

A shudder of panic ran through her. Was that it? Was it their souls? Cammie had been taught in catechism class when she was little that everybody had a soul. That the devil fought with God over it and that it was your soul that went to heaven or hell when you died. She'd considered that mythology, the kind of line fed to kids to trick them into being good. Cammie's god didn't manipulate them and make them be good by threatening punishment. That wasn't what being good was, anyway. Being good was doing the right thing because it was right, not because you'd be punished if you didn't. If you did it just for punishment, then you weren't good, you were just running scared. Being good meant doing the right thing because it went against a person's dignity not to. What was the point of a free will if you couldn't choose, choose to behave with human dignity? What was the point of a brain if you couldn't reason out a code of ethics and live by it?

If she had a soul, if she had a spirit, then it was her duty to live right, not do the wrong thing because it was easier or gave more instant gratification. She hadn't slept with Jeff, even when she knew most of her friends weren't virgins any longer. She hadn't taken drugs, not even when they were easy to get at school and at parties. Some of them called her a goodie two shoes, some of them made fun of her, but she didn't care.

And then something was inside her, pushing at her, and she and Jeff were running away, and she couldn't understand why. She could imagine her mom's terrified face when Cammie didn't come home, but it didn't help, it couldn't stop the frantic impulse. She ran and ran and Jeff ran with her, and then they were here, knocking on the door, and the lone man was there, and he was smiling and nice and welcoming them to freedom. Only it wasn't freedom. It was anarchy, teenaged anarchy. Nobody cared what she and Jeff did, if they stayed up all night. There were drugs available, but Cammie didn't remember taking them. There was beer and cigarettes and hard liquor, and all the bedrooms had condoms in the drawers. The whole house was theirs and they were encouraged to do everything that appealed to them--until the compulsion inside them pushed them into a bedroom and it was going to happen. The rational, practical, ethical part of Cammie was screaming but the rest of her didn't care. She hadn't been pushed to this level over the drugs and liquor. She'd been able to choose...

But it didn't happen. All at once, something was grabbing her, something she couldn't see, grabbing her body, her mind, her spirit, her heart, and pulling herself out of herself until there was only a shell left behind and she was fainting, and Jeff was fainting, too, and they were sprawled limp and unable to move, unable to think....

And then she was here, with the zombies and she was one, too. What was going on? Why? And why didn't they care? Some of them had come after she did. But they didn't care, either. Why was she the only one that cared?

"Hey," she said. Her voice was small and faint. One or two of them turned dulled eyes in her direction. "Hey, what is this? Why are we here? Don't you care?"

No one answered. Maybe there wasn't an answer.

"The answer is blowing in the wind...."

"'Doom's Electric Moccasin,'" Peter read aloud in an eerie and portentous voice, startling Egon out of the physics text he had been reading. Lost in an essay about the possibilities of converting ectoplasmic energy to a more solid, useful form, Egon had nearly decided the author was an utter crackpot who wanted to capitalize on the Ghostbusters' popularity in New York when Venkman flopped down on the couch next to Egon and dropped his feet in the physicist's lap. Spengler jumped.

"You read Emily Dickinson, Peter?" He arched a sardonic eyebrow at the brown-haired man who lay sprawled in an inert lump, clutching a folded newspaper against his chest, eyes closed. Knowing Peter's propensity for the fine art of doing nothing at all, he could easily have fallen asleep in the two seconds before Egon spoke.

At the question, one eyelid lifted just enough for Peter to regard his friend though a narrowed eye. "Emily Dickinson, Egon? Get with the program here. Who is she, anyway?"

"The author of your quote, I believe. Honestly, Peter, did you think to perplex me? I assure you, I am up to the challenge."

Peter's other eyelid inched its way up. Centimetered? If one measurement could be a verb, why not another? Amused at the thought, Egon regarded the supine man expectantly.

"I didn't quote anything," the psychologist defended himself self-righteously as if the being caught quoting poetry would forever condemn him to geekdom. "I was gonna tell you about Eddie before we started this mysterious foray into literary land."

"What does my cousin Eddie have to do with Emily Dickinson?" All right, Peter had perplexed him, but Peter was good at that, and he had likely done it on purpose.

"Nada, zip, zilch. At least I'd bet good money on it." Peter grinned contentedly. He was having fun. "In case you've been lost in the land of higher physics for the past three months, Doom's Electric Moccasin is the one of the hottest new rock groups. They're touring with the Eddie Plummer Band as the opening act right now and, tomorrow, they show up here in the Big Apple. Something came by messenger for you just now that looks like it could be concert tickets. Janine's got it down on her desk, and she said I should come up and tell you. Or maybe she said she was gonna come up and tell you. I wasn't really listening. Did she come up?"

"No, she's on her break now." Egon knew the time without checking it, and he also knew that Janine usually went down the block to that little café for her breaks, where she often compared notes with another secretary who worked around the corner. Once, while sitting unnoticed in a back booth, Egon had listened to Janine. She had started out with describing to her friend how utterly sexy she found him and why in intimate detail--an observation that made him crouch lower in the booth in hopes of not being spotted; it would have embarrassed them both. Then she had proceeded to the horrible working conditions under which she was forced to labor. Being slimed, putting up with Peter when he was obnoxious--ninety per cent of the time, to hear her tell it--struggling to get Egon's attention, facing the odd demon, all figured in her list of complaints, not to mention long, hard hours, and low pay. Since every person Egon knew complained about the latter, he could safely ignore that part. He had relayed her complaints to Peter in a bit of idle conversation and had seen a spark of unholy glee fill the green eyes. The very next morning, two dozen roses arrived for Janine, Egon's signature expertly forged on the card. Venkman had a very nasty habit of doing that. Egon wished Peter wouldn't do that. At the moment, he and Janine were rather at outs and he didn't need Peter to complicate matters.

Peter didn't dispute Egon's certainty of Janine's schedule. "Want me to sneak down and snatch it?" he offered, but without much enthusiasm. "She catches me, she'll rend me limb from limb for tampering with your mail, but we could always say that you picked it up yourself." He passed over the newspaper to Egon. "I did bring you this. There's a write-up about Eddie in there. I thought you might want a copy before Ray grabs it to recycle it. We've gotta watch that kid. He's so hooked on recycling these days he recycles things I haven't even finished with yet."

"I can wait." Egon took the paper that Peter had folded open to the article on Eddie. The colored picture centered on him on stage with his wife and female vocalist Whitney to one side and their drummer and bass Jackson MacKensie on the other. Eddie was playing his old guitar, the one he used to sing ballads like his mega-hit Leftover Souls, and Whitney had a mandolin. The article told of their current tour, with a list of the cities visited, concluding that it would finish up in New York on Saturday night with a concert at Madison Square Garden that had been sold out for months. It would be pleasant if the mysterious envelope contained tickets after all. Peter would love it. He adored going to rock concerts, especially when they had complimentary tickets that put him in the front row, where he could mug for the cameras. Of all the Ghostbusters, Peter was the glory hound.

The article mentioned the opening act band, a hot new group who had been traveling with them since Chicago when the original opening act had to pull out when their lead singer had undergone an emergency appendectomy. A New York based group, Doom's Electric Moccasin had happened to be free to fill in for the last half of the tour.

"Odd for a rock group to choose its name from an Emily Dickinson poem," Egon murmured. He rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully.

"Maybe it was a coincidence? After all, it's a great name for a rock group," Peter offered somnolently. Having slept in, eaten a big lunch, and gone through the business mail, he was obviously ready to fortify himself with an afternoon nap. Egon found it interesting that he had forgotten to claim total ignorance of the poet.

"It seems an unlikely coincidence." Such a peculiar phrase was not one that would leap to mind, at least not to Egon's orderly mind. Maybe someone like Peter would be inclined to accept it as a coincidence. Egon didn't. He wasn't sure that rock stars were the type to read poetry from the Nineteenth Century, but then his own cousin was an unlikely rock star; most of them did not possess doctorates in physics and a predilection for the occult. The paranormal often drew in the Spenglers, although Egon's father and Eddie's, Egon's uncle Cyrus, had not matched the trend. While Eddie didn't seek out mysterious happenings, they chose periodically to seek him out. A mere six months earlier, the intercession of a demon involved with Eddie had trapped Peter in the Netherworld. ⁽¹⁾ Before that, a demon groupie had pursued Egon's cousin. ⁽²⁾ He had even bought a haunted house. ⁽³⁾

"Well, whatever," Peter muttered. He took the paper back and read out the list of cities on the tour. "Wow, the high points of Western Civilization. Milwaukee. Indianapolis. Dayton. Cleveland. Pittsburgh."

"I'm from Cleveland, Peter," Egon reminded him dryly.

Peter's eyes sparkled wickedly. "Proves my point." He clutched at his chest. "I'm not sure I can live with the excitement. I spent a year in Dayton one day."

"You spent thirty-six hours there; we all did," Egon replied, remembering the bust that had summoned them to Ohio a year or two ago. The ghost had been uninteresting but, since it only manifested at a certain time of night, it had required them to wait until it appeared before they could bust it.

"Yeah, and you had every bit as much fun as I did." He drew the paper closer and squinting at it, then held it out slightly further away. Vanity was Peter's middle name; he would never consider reading glasses. If he ever did, he would don them in secret, Egon was certain of it.

"When does Eddie arrive in town?" Egon asked. He had always been fond of his younger cousin, and he knew Peter and the others would be glad to see him as well even though the arrival of Eddie tended to lead to paranormal adventures.

"Maybe even today. They played in Philly last night, I think it said." Peter's voice faded; he was definitely on the verge of falling asleep. The paper sagged against his chest.

Egon pushed the supine man's feet out of his lap, winning a protesting, "Hey!" from Peter, and an aggrieved look. "Little Petey Venkman wants a nap."

"You can't have one, Pete!" Winston Zeddemore caroled from the top of the stairs. The African American Ghostbuster must have been minding Janine's phone while she was on break. He and Ray had been downstairs working on Ecto-1, the team's converted hearse when Peter had come upstairs to bug Egon. "Just got a call. They want us at Bloomingdale's. A ghost is running amok in the dress department."

"The dress department?" Peter perked up, actually opening both eyes wide. "Lots of lady witnesses? I better go comb my hair."

Winston and Egon dragged him unmercifully to his feet. "You'll have to do like you are, Peter," Egon insisted, and Winston nodded in agreement and gestured down the stairs behind him.

"Ray's already warming up Ecto-1."

Peter's eyebrows shot up. "You're gonna let Ray drive? Come on, Winston, have mercy on an innocent man. It's cold out there. The roads could be slippery."

"Not in October, Peter. It needs to be at least near freezing for the roads to be slippery," Egon pointed out.

"Well, I think it's cold," Peter complained. "It was forty degrees when I got up this morning. And that means it might have been freezing when you did," he pointed out, proud of his reasoning, as he raked his fingers through his hair to settle it into place.

Egon squashed down a smile as they started down the stairs.

"Well, that wasn't fun," Peter complained as Winston backed Ecto-1 into the garage after their bust. "You said it wouldn't be cold," he continued, determined to voice his grievance.

Winston gave a sputter of laughter. "It's always cold in a meat locker, Pete. It's not Egon's fault the ghost thought it was fun ducking in and out between those slabs of beef." They had received a second call after they finished up at Bloomingdale's and wound up at a meat locker where a nasty Class 5 had led them on a merry chase amid the slabs of beef.

"My nose is frostbitten," Peter objected, rubbing it cautiously. "And Ray looks like he needs a heating pad in the next ten seconds." He surveyed the occultist who sat beside him in the rear seat. Winston had chosen to drive home from the second bust because Ray was still shivering. The ghost had flung a side of beef at him and it had pinned Stantz down for a good five minutes while the other three fought the determined specter. When they finally sucked the ghost into a trap and rushed to peel the steak dinner waiting to happen off their buddy, Ray was quivering with cold, his breath escaping in small, white puffs. They'd half-led, half-carried him out of the vast, icy chamber, wrapped him in a blanket, and warmed him up with a cup of coffee they'd begged off their employer, but the deep cold still lingered. Peter had pointed out a time and temperature sign on the way to the bust that insisted it was now thirty-eight degrees outside. Okay, so it was October, but it was late October, and they sometimes got an unexpected snowfall earlier than this. It would be Halloween in three days and the trick-or-treaters would probably have to wear parkas under their costumes if this kept up.

Egon climbed out of the car and opened Stantz's door for him. "Are you all right, Ray? You do look rather chilled."

Ray jumped out, rubbing his upper arms. "I'm okay. I just want another cup of really hot coffee and--hey, Eddie!" he cried, forgetting the chill and darting over to the desk where Egon's cousin stood talking to Janine Melnitz.

The tall, blond rock star didn't really look like Egon unless you were looking for it and then it was easy to see the similar face shapes, noses, chins, and blue eyes. On the surface, they were rendered different mostly by their hairstyles. Eddie wore his spiky, a pair of sunglasses perched in the blond spikes. His attitude and posture were more casual than Egon's, and he wouldn't be caught dead in suspenders. Even his face was more open than Egon's, whose expression revealed his feelings only to his friends who knew him well. Eddie's expressions were more mercurial. He only looked remote when he was singing, as if the process were a communion between himself and music but, even then, his joy in singing shone forth. It was almost as if Eddie had looked at his stern, rigid father and designed himself to be an opposite. Younger than Egon, he had found support from the physicist when he was in high school and college, when everyone else thought he should continue his science training. Eddie had continued it. He had even taught for a year or two at Ohio State before his muse became too much for him.

At the sight of Egon, Eddie smiled, but Peter saw a note of concern in his face that he hadn't expected. Egon must have noticed it too; he knew Eddie best; but Peter didn't think Ray and Winston had picked up on it, at least not yet.

"Hey, Eddie," Peter greeted. "Give us a minute to take care of Ray. He got 'beefed' on our job and he needs a hot shower." Turning to the abashed Stantz, he said firmly, "Up there! Now! Hot shower. We don't want a Ghostbuster with pneumonia. And blue isn't your best color."

"Aw, Peter, I'm okay."

"Peter's right, Ray," Egon urged, gesturing toward the stairs. "Go ahead. You should warm up. Eddie will still be here when you get back."

The singer nodded. "I will be. Go on, Ray."

"Well, okay then." Like a child fearing he was about to be deprived of a treat, Ray trailed up the stairs, looking back at them as if he wanted to say, 'Don't start without me.'

Janine eyed Egon up and down to make sure he hadn't suffered any ill effects from the bust, did a less intense scan of Peter and Winston, then nodded, satisfied. "Eddie sent tickets for tomorrow's concert, Egon. Enough for all of you and your dates." She cast a meaningful look at Egon. He hesitated, pinned by four pairs of eyes.

Peter hid a grin as the physicist said hastily, "I hope you will attend with me, Janine?" You'd think it would get easier for Egon after all this time, but there was always that moment of hesitation. Peter was half convinced his friend would do better with Janine if he didn't have to perform in front of his buddies, but it was too much fun to watch his doubtful steps each time for him to back off. Janine's problem was that Egon was your typical absent-minded scientist. He didn't intend to forget her or neglect her, but he genuinely loved his work so much he got caught up in it to the exclusion of all else. Peter had to nudge him out of his lab-itis from time to time to make sure he ate and slept. He and Janine had formed a conspiracy to steer her into Egon's path or Egon into hers simply to allow their relationship to progress. At this rate, Egon would reach the commitment stage somewhere far into the next millennium. Peter wasn't sure if Janine would ever reconcile to playing second fiddle to Ghostbusting or weird science. But then, a lot of women had to do that to their husband's jobs. It would give her good practice if they ever got married.

On the other hand, Peter suspected the two of them had had an argument or disagreement during the summer. They still got along, but there had been no evidence of actual dating since that time. They'd been very friendly before that, especially around Christmas, but not lately. Hmmm. Peter was sure it had started with the time Egon had become so caught up in his work that he had accidentally stood Janine up for an important date. Peter had always made a point of reminding him of things like that, but he hadn't been home that day. He knew they'd argued about it, and he suspected, although he hadn't been present, that the argument had gotten very much out of hand. Maybe it was time for Pete Venkman, matchmaker extraordinaire, to step in and redeem the situation.

"You bet I'm going," Janine replied, but her eyes warmed. She looked like she was ready to make up if Egon was. Peter angled a gaze at Egon and decided that Spengler wasn't quite sure yet. On the other hand, Egon didn't let his friends see his feelings for Janine; he considered them private and probably feared that they'd tease him. They would, of course, but in a good-hearted way. Peter wondered if she'd really let him have it.

"Eddie, what's wrong?" Egon said, his date made. Getting that difficult moment out of the way always took effort. Peter decided he'd sit Egon down one day and teach him the mysteries of dating, Venkman style. The idea of Egon trying to imitate Romeo Venkman around the fair sex -- especially Janine -- nearly made him crack up, but he restrained himself. Knowing Egon, he would be able to guess without hesitation what Peter found funny and he would retaliate. Egon was good at reading Peter's expressions and reactions--sometimes better than Peter could read his own.

Eddie grimaced. "I'm not sure if it's really a problem or if I'm reading something into it that doesn't belong. Mel says there's something, but he doesn't know what. Chan says he's right, but he can't put his finger on it, either, and he says he can't tell as much as Mel can. We got into town last night. Whitney and I are at the penthouse, and Jackson's here, too, because we've got tomorrow night's gig at Madison Square Garden." Chan was really Chandarl, another demon like Melchazat, who had been recruited from the Netherworld by Jackson MacKensie, the drummer in Eddie's band. Like Mel, Chan had become a roadie with the Eddie Plummer Band. Peter hadn't seen him since that long-ago night he, Jackson, and Mel's soon to be wife Jackie had been rescued from the Netherworld, but Mel had come by to visit a couple of times and he'd said Chan had become a roadie for the band, too. If the two demons sensed trouble, then there was probably trouble, although they might be confused because of their unfamiliarity with life on Earth. Not that Chan was a demon any longer. He'd decided to assume permanent human form.

"Come on upstairs and we can sit down," Winston urged. "After running around that meat locker, I could do with some hot coffee myself."

"I'll bring it," Janine volunteered. "Even for you, Dr. Venkman." Peter hid a grin, knowing the real reason Janine had volunteered was because she didn't want to miss anything. If she brought their coffee, probably no one would notice if she stayed.

She started up the stairs and Egon paused only long enough to fetch his P.K.E. meter from Ecto-1 and to pass it over Eddie. It didn't react at all. Okay, one problem out of the way. Peter grinned. "Guess you're not haunted or possessed, Eddie."

"Well, I didn't think I was," Plummer responded with a quick grin, allowing Egon to gesture him toward the stairs. The grin faded so quickly Peter felt a niggle of unease. Eddie's problem might not even be paranormal. Just because he was one of those people who seemed to attract supernatural happenings didn't mean he had today. But that didn't mean he didn't have a genuine problem.

There was a brief hiatus while and Janine vanished into the kitchen, returning with mugs on a tray and the pot from their Mr. Coffee machine. Winston took it from her as soon as she reappeared and set it on the coffee table and they all disposed themselves on the sofa and chairs while he passed out the cups. Eddie's face held a brooding expression that even the few moments of casual chatter didn't lighten. He hadn't brought his wife, Whitney, with him. Did that simply mean she had other plans, or that he wanted to keep her out of the problem, whatever it was?

They were just ready to start when Ray charged down the stairs, a towel in his hand, clad in sweats and his bunny slippers. Peter had to grin. The sight of a grown man in that particular footwear always won a smile from him. Ray didn't care that people might think it odd. He marched to a drummer no one else had ever heard and enjoyed every second of his own weird music. Toweling his hair energetically, he hurried toward them. "Did I miss anything?"

Peter grinned. "Not a thing, Tex. We've just been discussing the latest Captain Steel news."

"You wouldn't know Captain Steel news from Remington Steele news, Peter," he replied, giving Venkman a poke in the side that Peter arched his back to avoid. "Len Wolfman gives me advance copies of the comics, half the time. He even talked it over with me when he brought in the Ghostly Menace to replace Dr. Destructo."

"I hope this Ghostly Menace isn't going to get out of the comic book and start terrorizing the Big Apple," Winston said with a mock shudder.

Ray's eyes lit with excitement. "Gee. Wouldn't it be great if he did?" He took the coffee cup Winston held out and took a big swallow before he sat down next to Peter.

Setting aside his coffee cup, Egon called them to order. "Ray, Eddie has a problem he's come to us about."

Stantz's face lit up. "Wow! What is it? Haunted speakers? Music ghosts?"

"Down, boy," Peter muttered with a grin. "Go on, Eddie, tell us."

"Last night, before the concert in Philadelphia, we had a visitor backstage, a local detective. He said he'd heard from another cop, from Dayton. We performed there, too, a couple of weeks ago, working our way east since Chicago. Anyway, the Dayton cop had been investigating a missing persons report. Two teenagers disappeared from our concert there. They were seen to arrive by friends, but they didn't make it home that night. They were apparently considered reliable by their parents and were barely sixteen. Both were good students and weren't the type to run away."

"Could someone have slipped them drugs at the concert?" Winston asked gravely. "I know you don't do drugs, Eddie, but I'm sure some of the audience does."

Eddie grimaced. "Probably. It's hard to stop that kind of thing. Evidently neither of these kids had ever touched drugs before. Even their friends said so, and while they could have been lying, the Dayton cop didn't think they were. They haven't appeared yet. While they could be runaways, the Dayton cop says it goes against everything anyone knew about them."

"So he called this Philly cop?" Peter asked.

"Well, he called the next stop on our itinerary to see if there'd been any disappearances there," Eddie replied. "Cleveland. The weird thing is, two similar kids went missing there, and two more disappeared in Pittsburgh. All of them were like the first pair, decent kids. Each time, it was a boy and a girl, a couple, and all of them were fifteen or older. A distinct pattern. So the Dayton guy was convinced something weird was going on. He backtracked to Milwaukee and found another couple of missing kids. Every time, they're smart kids who aren't the type to run away and from what they've been able to tell in such a short time, kids from good homes, whose friends don't report any problems with families that might drive them to it. And it's always just two. It's like there's something weird going on, like there's a specific purpose. We did Philly last night and I'm half afraid somebody's going to call us about missing kids there, too."

"I hate to say it," Peter put in, "but don't kids go missing all the time? Maybe rock concerts are the kind of place it happens. I know you don't have anything to do with it. Anybody who knows you can tell that. But you mix sex, drugs, and rock and roll and you've got a recipe for trouble."

"And Peter should know," Egon said sotto voce. "He was a party animal when I first met him."

"And still am," Peter proclaimed. "But it wasn't drugs with me back then. It was beer at weekend keggers. There was stuff around. I didn't mess with it but some of the other frat guys did. Anyway, somebody could be following your tour, Eddie, and singling out kids to kidnap. Wouldn't need to have anything to do with you. I know all the bands have followers who travel all over the country to see their idols. Nice to have that kind of money. You even had a demon groupie following you around once."

Eddie shuddered reminiscently. "I don't even want to think about that."

"When she was attending your concerts, you noticed her particularly," Egon reminded the baritone. "Whitney and Jackson couldn't see her, only you could. Has there been anything like that this time? Anyone in the audience that particularly got your attention?"

The blond head shook vehemently, nearly unseating the shades perched in his hair. "No. After we saw the cop, I made a point to notice last night. There wasn't anything in particular I could pick up on. It seemed normal to me. A good audience. Whit and Jackson said the same. I asked the other band if anything odd went down that they noticed and they said they hadn't seen anything strange either."

"You don't usually travel with an opening act, do you, Eddie?" asked Ray. "Could the problem be someone out to get them and nothing to do with you?"

"Well, the detective said he was going to talk to them, too. We didn't hear anything from him after the concert, but he's got Malcolm's number and can call us if anything happened last night that we don't know about." He frowned. "Poor old Malcolm. I don't think he figured on trouble when he took us on."

"It might be politic for us to take readings at your concert tomorrow," Egon decided. "If Mel sensed something, it's possible that whatever is wrong has a paranormal basis. I'll bring a P.K.E. meter and take readings at various times through the evening."

"That'll sure make Janine's night," Peter said to Egon in an undertone, and Egon nudged him with his elbow.

"I'll bring a meter, too," Ray decided. "If Mel says there's something, then we should be able to pick it up. We can set the meters differently. Wow, music ghosts! We'll get 'em."

"Down, Tex," Peter urged. "We don't know if it's ghosts or not yet. Sometimes Mel can sense people's auras, remember. Kids are missing. It's up to us to figure out what's going down. If it's just some pervert following the tour from city to city, then we won't pick up anything and the cops can handle it, but if we get readings, then we'll know something's happening. The last thing we want to do is face another demon groupie. Nasty stuff. Nasty."

"Eddie, I hate to even suggest this," Winston said gravely, depositing his coffee cup on the table with a little click. "But Mel and Chan are demons. Well, Chan's a former demon, and maybe he can revert, even if he says he can't. We know they're good guys, especially compared to that Astarine who had the hots for you, but they still came from the Netherworld. Do you think there's anything beyond their control that might come out without them knowing it?"

"No," said Eddie vehemently. "I know Mel," he said. "He's honest and honorable, a sweet guy. He'd never hurt anybody. Just because he didn't start out like the rest of us doesn't mean he reverts to type when the moon is full and starts snatching kids. We'd notice, after all. We all fly back together between cities."

Peter had the sudden, horrific image of broken bodies concealed near the concert halls and arenas. He didn't want to take thought that any further, but it was possible. Kids disappeared, sometimes returning horribly changed, sometimes not returning at all. Runaways fled from lousy homes and wound up working the streets, their spirits broken. Once a month Peter put in time at a free clinic and he'd dealt with a few kids like that, kids with hollow, dead eyes. People often wrote Peter off as a frivolous, fun-loving guy without a serious thought in his head, but they hadn't seen him after the clinic visits. They didn't know he'd taken part in the big brother program. He knew the kind of problems kids faced because his own childhood had sometimes been pretty crummy. Not as bad as the problems a lot of kids faced, but he'd contemplated running away. The thought of the look on his mom's face had stopped him from going through with it. None of it was ever her fault and Peter couldn't do that to her. And it wouldn't have been as if his pop would have cared--or even known about it half the time. Kids from decent homes could run away and no one who knew them casually would ever suspect the reason why. But they didn't usually do it in pairs like this, two at a time from a series of cities, right at the concerts. That meant a pattern.

"We'll take some readings of them, anyway," Peter decided. "Eddie, I know how loyal you are to your people, but we can't take chances with kids' lives."

"Weird that it was always a couple," Ray mused, his face grave and thoughtful. "I wonder if that means anything."

"Noah's ark," Peter offered facetiously. "They marched in the animals two by two."

"I thought that was a line from a song, Pete," Winston kidded.

"I will configure several meters to read different fields," Egon decided abruptly. "Set for conventional P.K. or negative valences, or even for abnormal biorhythms."

"Hey, yeah," enthused Ray. "Gosh, it's great. Egon and I have been working on a special meter that picks up living biorhythms outside normal human parameters."

"Okay, Ray, I'll bite," Peter challenged. "What are you hoping to detect? Little green men?"

"Possession," Egon replied. "Psychopaths. Possibly even werewolves."

"You'll be a hit at Halloween, Spengs," Peter replied. It was a good idea but usually what the guys encountered didn't fall into those categories. The possession part could be detected by adjusting a normal meter, but it might be interesting to see what they could find at the concert. "A little too much free time on your hands? Is this what you do when I'm sleeping in?"

"Oh, well, if I'm to fill that vast time, I'll certainly need to occupy myself constructively," Egon responded, straight-faced.

Peter nudged him with his elbow. "Seriously, Egon, what do you think we're up against?"

"If not for the report of Mel and Chandarl, I would assume we have a human perpetrator, kidnaping children from the concert, possibly for deviant purposes. However, if the possibility of paranormal intervention exists, we will need to be very cautious. We'll take our proton packs and particle throwers with us."

"Wear them at the concert?" Winston asked dubiously. "That's gonna thrill our dates all right."

"Dates?" Peter perked up. "The concert's tomorrow. We'd better phone our girlfriends right away."

"You can keep your proton packs backstage," Eddie offered. "That way you can take readings back there before the concert starts, checking us all out, all the roadies, the other band, everybody. Mel can watch them for you. You don't really believe Mel is behind this, do you?"

Peter shook his head. "Not unless it's some weird demon thing; the demon equivalent of Pon Farr, or something."

"Demons in heat?" Winston, the Trek fan, countered. "I don't think I like that."

"Couldn't be, it's couples who are missing," Peter objected, although he was half afraid a mad demon might not be particular. He didn't think it was that, though. It was something else, something that hadn't occurred to any of them yet. If it was ghost-related, Egon would figure it out. He always did.

"It could be anything," proclaimed Ray grandiosely. He looked a lot better than he had at the meat locker; his color was normal again and he hadn't shivered once since he came downstairs. Of course the end result of toweling his hair so vigorously had left it standing in spikes like Eddie's.

"Oh, great," Peter complained, reaching out to tug at Ray's disordered locks. "You like it tough, don't you, kiddo?"

"If it weren't for all those missing kids, it would really be fun," Ray admitted, ducking away and smoothing down his hair.

"Well, come early tomorrow night," Eddie decided. You can come backstage and bring your dates if you like. I'll put your names on the list."

Peter beamed. If that wouldn't impress Jennifer, nothing would. She was notoriously resistant to the Venkman charm. He could hardly wait to phone her.

"So, what do you think it could be, Egon?" Peter asked that afternoon when he encountered the physicist performing adjustments to the abnormal biorhythm meter, a cumbersome adaptation of their standard meter, perhaps a third again as big and heavier, too, from the way Egon lifted it to make adjustments in its mysterious innards.

"Difficult to say at this point," Egon replied. "If it has a paranormal base, one of our specifically configured meters should be able to detect something. It could simply be ghosts, but it could be something worse. The fact that all the disappearances at night could indicate the presence of the undead."

Peter's eyebrows shot up. "Vampire groupies? Come on, Egon, don't tell me Count Drac is finding his dinner at Eddie's concerts."

"It's merely one possibility," Egon replied, snapping the casing into place. "There are a vast number of paranormal entities who might kidnap people or take away children. On the other hand, teenagers do run away from home, Peter. Normal, happy kids could also be given drugs at a rock concert and forget common sense. That someone perceives them as happy doesn't necessarily mean that they really are, or that all is well at home."

"No shit, Sherlock," Peter muttered, then wished the words unspoken when Egon turned a mildly inquiring eye in his direction. Trust Egon to pick up on a casual response from Peter and read more into it.

"You were never a runaway, Peter." It wasn't a question, but it still demanded an answer.

Peter shrugged. "No, I never pulled that gig. At the last minute, I could never do it to my mom. She worked so hard to give me everything she possibly could and to make it good for me. Sometimes she had two jobs. Once she even had three. Meant she wasn't there a lot but even when I was little, I knew she was doing that for me. When she was there, she was the greatest mom in the universe. I couldn't have done that to her, no matter how bad..." He didn't want to go there. Even now, he didn't like those memories.

"Your father," Egon said gently. He didn't push it. If Peter chose to change the subject entirely, he would allow it, but he was also prepared to listen.

Peter nodded. "This may freak you out, Spengs, but I got great grades in high school. Honor roll stuff. The other smart kids never could dig it that I outdid them, but I knew, even back then, that it was my ticket out, away from everything Dad was and the kind of future he had to offer. Yeah, I partied a lot, but when mom was working and I was home, I cracked the books. I knew by then I wasn't gonna be another con man. Wasn't gonna put myself in a position where I'd treat my own kids the way he treated me." He got up abruptly and started pacing the lab.

Egon was silent a moment, then he said, "You wanted to run away?" There was nothing at all judgmental in his voice, in spite of the fact that his own father had been one of those ultra-ethical types who hadn't at first had a shred of respect for Peter Venkman.

"Dad got arrested for a scam he was running," Peter admitted. "I was on the football team; heck, I was even class president. My junior year. I was on a real roll. But then Pop wound up in the slammer, and everybody found out about it. Next thing you know, they found a reason to kick me off the team, and even my best buds wouldn't hang with me any more. I was still getting the grades but now the teachers looked at me like I must have stolen the tests."

"You would never have done so," Egon replied vehemently. "You had innumerable opportunities to cheat off my class papers at Columbia and never once did. You even put in the time in the boring classes you hated; I'm not sure you retained any of that past the tests but you did learn it. How could anyone assume--"

"Like father, like son, Egon." He shrugged. "You're the first person I ever met who didn't tar me with Dad's brush. Anyway, Mom decided we'd move so I could go to a new school. But I'd had it pretty decent at the old one before Dad wrecked it. I didn't want to start all over. So I decided I was gonna take off. I was as tall then as I am now and I figured people would believe I was eighteen instead of sixteen. I was sure I could get a job. I had it all planned out, when I was gonna leave, the whole bit. Then, the night before, Mom came home from work and I'd never seen her look so tired. She didn't know I was in the kitchen getting something out of the fridge and the light was off in there. She stopped just inside the door and let her purse and the groceries slide to the floor." He shuddered. Reliving this was hell. "God, Egon, she didn't know I was watching. She put her hands over her face and whispered, 'Charlie, Charlie, how could you do this to us?' And then she started to cry. I never saw her really cry like that, like her whole life had been ripped apart, like she didn't have any hope, like there was nothing left to live for. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to come out and comfort her, but I was afraid she wouldn't want me to see, so I just kind of lurked out there and hoped she wouldn't come in and find me. Course I couldn't run away after that. I couldn't hurt her like Pop had. For a few years after that, I really hated him. Even when I found out he'd got together some money and helped to pay off what my scholarships wouldn't cover at Columbia."

Egon was silent a moment, then he took a step forward and put his hands on Peter's shoulders. "Peter, you have just proven how different from your father you really are," he said. "You have never run out on your responsibilities."

Peter hesitated, although Egon's words were balm to his soul. "The thing is, there's a lot of him in me," he admitted. "The urge to fast talk people, the way I love money, the way I take the easy way out..."

"Nonsense," Egon snapped angrily. "You are a good man, Peter Venkman. Don't think for a moment I confuse your deliberate surface persona with the man under the surface. You have the kindest heart I have ever seen."

"Ray," Peter offered to disprove Egon's words.

"No. Ray does have a kind heart and he would never hurt anyone, but that is his intrinsic nature, and he is a humble soul. You might have greedy impulses but they shatter in the face of someone in need. Kindness is part of Ray's essential nature, but you overcome your baser instincts. We sometimes pretend you go all out for yourself, but that's a game, what you half expect us to think. But never doubt that we can see past your façade, Peter. And I think your love of money is not because of your father's genes but your father's behavior. When one learns to do without, money becomes more valuable. Don't say that I can't understand this because we were somewhat well to do when I was growing up. I can understand it because I know you so well. Half of your surface persona is a seeking for security. You know that yourself, very well. The other is that it is in your nature to be a showman. Perhaps you did inherit that from your father, but you never inherited his larcenous tendencies. Your father let you and your mother down, but you have never let us down. Never, Peter. You go out of your way to protect us on a bust. You do financial acrobatics so I can have expensive new equipment. And you are the most loyal friend I have ever known. I'm very sorry these missing children reminded you of a low point in your childhood, but I assure you that none of us will ever run out on you or let you down."

God, he was getting all misty-eyed here. Peter grinned shakily at Egon and then whirled to stare out the window at the late October afternoon. "Thanks, Egon," he managed around the gummy lump in his throat. "Anyway," he added hastily, "just because a kid is a good kid doesn't mean he won't run away." He turned back from the window and offered a quick grin.

Egon picked up on his current mood without effort. Somewhere along the line, the stuffy physics student Peter had first encountered in college had turned into the most understanding friend he'd ever had, and then he met Ray, and finally Egon, who were two more guys he could trust to the death. No way would Peter ever run away from this gig.

"The other meters need adjusting as well, Peter." Egon's voice was determined. "I think it's time for you to put in some work on them."

Because it was expected of him, he groaned. "Work? Egon, you know work and I aren't on speaking terms this week." It would never do to let Egon see the blazing smile that spread across his face, so he stomped it down and whirled. "But you know me, a martyr to the cause. Let me at it."

Egon passed him a meter. Probably an extra he didn't care if Peter messed up. Complaining heartily, Peter snatched it up and popped open the case, but he couldn't hold back the grin that blossomed. Egon returned it, then he led Peter over to the table and they sat down side by side. "Now here is what I want you to do," the blond man began.

"So, who are you gonna take to the concert?" Winston set aside the phone with a smug grin. "Keisha's going nuts over it. You'd think I'd asked her to the coronation ball or something. I've got a sneaky feeling she has the hots for Jackson and the idea of meeting him is gonna upstage me something fierce."

Ray hesitated, feeling the color rise in his face. "I haven't called anybody yet."

"Come on, Ray, you had a date last weekend. Can't you call her?"

"Well, I'm gonna. Kelly's great. She's Len Wolfman's assistant, does coloring on the comics. It's just..."

"Just what? I thought your really liked her."

"I do like her." Ray frowned. "She's really nice, and I think she likes me, too."

"Come on, Ray, you asked her out before. Don't tell me you're shy about it."

"She doesn't like rock music," Ray burst out. "We talked about music and she likes all that New Age stuff and Celtic music. Enya and Patrick Ball. Clannad. She doesn't like loud music, and I know that Doom's Electric Moccasin is pretty loud."

Winston shook his head in mock disgust. "Ray, it isn't the music she'll accept the date for. It's you. Have a little confidence in yourself. She likes you, she went out with you before. Even if it's not her music, she's gonna be impressed that you can get her backstage. All her girlfriends will die of envy. Besides, what's this humble number? Come on, m'man, you're a Ghostbuster and a heck of a great guy. Think she'll say no? Not on a bet." He grabbed Ray and dragged him over to the phone. "Call her. Now."

Peter and Winston seemed to have unlimited confidence when dealing with the opposite sex. When he'd called Jennifer, his newest lady friend, Peter had come away from the phone full of self-confident delight. "Got her wrapped around my little finger," he proclaimed. "I hope we don't have to rush off and bust right after the concert. I have more interesting plans."

"You have a job to do," Egon reminded him and Peter's face fell. Ray knew Peter wouldn't hesitate if there was trouble at the concert, but he must have had a big, romantic evening planned.

Shyer around the ladies, Ray was never quite sure what to say in the early stages of a relationship. He'd had another girlfriend right before Kelly and she had dumped him pretty hard for a jet setter type, and Ray had been reluctant to ask Kelly out at first. Put a proton pack on his back and a nasty demon in front of him and he was fearless, but the fair sex was far more intimidating. You'd think a guy in his early thirties would know how to handle women by now. It wasn't fair. Even Egon, who was probably more clueless than Ray, didn't have to worry about it because he had Janine, who would make the date if Egon didn't think of it. Ray assumed that when Spengler was alone with Janine he was much more comfortable with her than he was when he had to perform in front of Peter. Even if he and Janine were going through a rocky patch right now, she was still here and she'd agreed to go to the concert with him. If he hadn't asked her, she would have asked him.

Maybe that was the problem. Alone with Kelly, Ray could probably handle it. He'd known her for six months, after all, and had taken her out a couple of times. The first time had just been coffee after his breakup with Lenore, and she'd listened and been sympathetic, and had practically invited him out for their second date. But he'd never taken her out when the guys were there, too. He'd never even introduced her to the guys. Peter often brought his dates by the firehall, probably trying to impress them. Winston's current girlfriends occasionally stopped by. But Ray hadn't been comfortable asking Kelly over. Now he was going to have to be suave and confident in front of Peter and the others. They'd known how hurt he'd been over Lenore. They'd probably be watching him to make sure he was okay.

"Call now, or I'll do it for you," Winston threatened, and Ray couldn't have that. He dialed her work number quickly. She answered on the first ring.

"Wolfman Studios."

"Kelly?"

"Ray." She sounded glad. "Ray, Len says to come by one day next week. He wants to run something by you, something about the Ghostly Menace and what he might be able to do. He said he'll have to start paying you as a consultant, but he's got a great idea and wants to see if it will fly."

"Really? Gosh, that's great. I'd love to tell him about ghosts." Conscious of Winston at his shoulder nodding encouragingly, he plunged on, "Kelly, are you free tomorrow night? I've got tickets for the Eddie Plummer concert and we can go backstage. I know it's not the kind of music you like , but..."

"I'd love to," she cut in before he could wallow off into awkward half sentences.

"You would? I know it's not the kind of music you like, but it'll be great. Eddie's a swell guy and he said we could all bring our dates. You'll get to meet the other Ghostbusters, too."

"Finally," Kelly replied, a laugh in her voice. "I was starting to wonder if you were ashamed of me."

"Oh, golly, no, of course I'm not. So, it's okay then? That's so great." He caught Winston's eye and gave him a quick thumbs' up sign.

Satisfied, Winston moved away, heading for the stairs to the first floor and leaving Ray in sole possession of the second. Relaxed at last, he plopped down at the desk and told Kelly all about Eddie's visit.

Armed to the teeth with proton packs and throwers, even the atomic destabilizer, but clad in street clothes, the Ghostbusters and their dates headed backstage at the concert, where a tough looking guy with muscles like Mr. Universe's checked them off on a list and admitted them to the hallowed precincts. Egon, Janine hanging on his arm, carried a P.K.E. meter and the bouncer eyed it warily. "We were told you'd have your equipment," he admitted. "Do you think there's a ghost here?"

The physicist checked his readings. "There is not one here presently," he admitted.

Peter slung his arm around the bouncer's shoulders. "But hey, why risk it?" he demanded. "Egon's got an emotional bond with that thing. Not my idea of kicks, but as long as he and Janine can live with it..."

Janine kicked Peter in the shins, fortunately lightly because her shoes had rather pointed toes. He pretended to wince and hopped about on one foot long enough to win the sympathy vote, if he'd been about to get it. Winston snickered and Ray exchanged a grin with Kelly. Where had he been hiding her? wondered Peter; she was gorgeous with masses of golden hair and wide-set blue eyes.

"You do ask for it, Peter," Egon began in his most reproachful voice when Mel appeared at the end of the busy passage and waved to them. "This way, guys!" he bellowed loudly enough to make everybody turn. Some guy carrying a gigantic amp nearly walked into the wall but he caught himself and plunged on, grinning, his Afro nearly as big as the amp. Peter realized he was Chandarl, the demon-turned-human that Jackson MacKensie had brought back from the Netherworld. Unable to wave, he nodded at them, smiled, and vanished in the direction of the stage while Egon waved the non-responsive P.K.E. meter in his direction. Peter caught Jennifer's arm and steered her toward the dressing rooms, delighted when she beamed at him.

"Oh, you're here," Eddie said unnecessarily, sounding just like Egon, when Mel led the team and their dates into the dressing room he shared with Whitney. Although the other band would perform first, the couple was already dressed for their performances, each clad in brown leggings that were laced to the knee with the straps of elaborate sandals, wearing thigh-length overtunics in off darker brown over white silk shirts with flowing sleeves, the kind that were sure to trail in one's food when eating. Jackson MacKensie was there too, similarly dressed but for the tunic he still held in his hand. The three of them wore matching headbands with a painted eye in the center of the forehead.

Egon promptly took readings of the trio. The meter didn't even stir. Hastily he gestured for the other three to do the same with the meters they carried. Kelly's eyes widened as they checked out the singers and the dressing room.

Enveloped in the folds of the tunic as he pulled it over his head, Jackson asked, "Well, are we haunted?"

"Not a blip." Ray sounded disappointed.

"You want them to be haunted?" asked Keisha, Winston's date. Another gorgeous one, Peter thought. But then, why not? The Ghostbusters deserved the best. Look at Janine, even, all dolled up in a green number that brought out the color of her eyes. She had done old Spengs proud tonight and he seemed to know it because he looked perfectly comfortable to have her hanging on his arm. Might not be long before they had a reconciliation. Peter beamed paternally at them.

"I'm just as glad we're not," Eddie replied. "Introduce us to your ladies, guys. Janine I know, of course." He sounded vaguely remote, but then the concert would start soon and he was probably thinking of the music.

Ray performed the introductions, beaming proudly when he said Kelly's name. The three band members played up nicely so that even Jennifer came down from her lofty heights and looked delighted. Peter felt his grin stretching from ear to ear.

"Janine," Egon said, tapping the secretary on the shoulder. "Would you escort the other ladies to their seats. We're going to make a quick sweep backstage before we join you."

"Of course, Egon." She squeezed his arm then let go and saw about detaching the others. If the team found anything backstage that required work, she knew she'd have to arrange to get the dates home. It might be harder to make her depart, Peter realized, but they hadn't brought a fifth proton pack. She might be sweet talked into departing if she thought it would free up Egon for his job. From the way the meters hung uselessly in their hands, though, Peter had the idea the missing kids had vanished from far more prosaic reasons. He hated that.

Once the women had departed, Kelly and Keisha looking back over their shoulders, Egon turned to Eddie. "I'm honestly not detecting anything unusual, and we configured all these meters differently in hopes of meeting any contingency. Of course we'll keep them active during the concert but right now there's nothing."

"I'll introduce you quickly to the other band, and then Mel can escort you around backstage," Eddie decided. "Come on."

The other band consisted of three people, too, two men and a woman. They had backup instrumentalists, Eddie explained, but they were more into the vocals than the instrumental part. He knocked on a door and a blond guy nearly as fair as Eddie and Egon opened it. Probably in his late twenties he had the kind of eyes that looked deeper than the surface, eyes older than his years, eyes with pupils slightly dilated. Peter wondered if he did drugs and, if so, if Eddie knew. Eddie was pretty straitlaced and wouldn't approve. Not that he went around preaching about it, but drugs weren't his thing.

The blond guy wore a patchwork outfit in many colors starting with tawny and shading into purple that reminded Peter vaguely of a fairy tale, although he couldn't remember which one. There were little mirrors sewn into his clothes between the patches so that he glittered when he moved. Out there on stage, the lighting would play it up like crazy. Egon took an automatic reading of him and got zilch.

"Eddie, man." The guy's voice had a thread running through it that made Peter wonder if he had it in for Eddie. He didn't like the guy much. "These the Ghostbusters, huh? Man, I don't want to think we've got any ghosts backstage. You'd think if there were spooks at the Garden, somebody would have complained by now."

"Oh, we just bring our stuff whenever we go out in public," Peter said dismissively. "You never know when somebody might have a haunted guitar or something."

"This is Derek North," Eddie introduced and named the Ghostbusters in turn. "I know you guys hit the stage in a few minutes but can you bring the others out for a second."

"Sure, no prob." Derek's voice was mellow and unconcerned. "Hey, babe?"

A woman appeared and took her place at Derek's side. She was probably the same age as he was and she was staggeringly beautiful, the kind of woman who stopped Peter dead in his tracks if he saw her on the street. Her hair was as white as ice and her face was as cold and distant. No dilated pupils here. Her eyes were so knowing Peter was afraid she knew what his underwear looked like--and what he looked like under it. It was not a pleasant sensation. Then the pale blue eyes moved on to study Egon, who suddenly gulped and ran his fingers around the inside of his collar. She ignored Winston entirely, and it wasn't until later that it even dawned on Peter that she had dismissed him out of bigotry. Egon and Winston both told him later it was a good thing he hadn't realized. He had a tendency to get pretty scathing with idiots who didn't recognize Winston's worth. She let her eyes touch Ray for a second, then she dismissed him, too. It was so obviously a dismissal that Ray's face fell.

Derek slid his arm around her shoulders and Peter couldn't tell if he meant it in a proprietary manner or to reproach her for her blatant rudeness. "This is Madeline DuSud," he introduced her. "These are the Ghostbusters, Maddie."

"Charmed." Her voice was British, posh British, and it made it all too clear that she wasn't charmed a bit. The mirrors on her patchwork costume glittered sharply, reflecting back fragments of the Ghostbusters' faces.

A second man appeared, dressed as they were. He was blond as well, just as aloof as Maddie, and just as knowing about the eyes, but he gave an easy grin at the sight of the Ghostbusters. "Hey, it's the spook chasers." He didn't seem to be high on anything but, in spite of the grin, he didn't look as if he enjoyed the disturbance so soon before a performance.

"This is Michael Westin," Derek said in the tones of one making polite introductions at a party. "If we're not haunted and our dressing room is not haunted, we really must prepare. We go on stage in less than fifteen minutes and we need to be in the correct frame of mind."

Eddie glanced at the Ghostbusters who had identical non-reactions from the meters they held. Egon nodded. The door closed instantly, shutting off the other band.

"Hey, real charmers," Peter muttered under his breath.

"They are kind of strange," Eddie agreed. "But they sing like angels. We don't always travel with another band; the fans are paying to see us and it doesn't seem fair. But Moccasin is pretty hot themselves. And their music isn't incompatible with ours. They do a lot of folk-type stuff, too. They attract a lot of the same type audience we do."

Eddie left them to Mel, then, and the demon groupie showed them over the backstage area, including a peep at the stage itself, set up for the Moccasin band, with an eerie backdrop that looked like a haunted castle, probably designed for the fact that it was only two days till Halloween. Opening lighting was already set, creating a pleasantly spooky atmosphere and, as the Ghostbusters took readings on the set, a couple of guys started billowing smoke--or the mist from dry ice--out onto the stage. "Five minutes," one of them told Mel.

"Got it. Anything, guys?"

"Nothing whatsoever," Egon responded.

Ignoring the distractions of smoke and readings, Peter went over to the center of the curtain and opened it enough to stick his head out and survey the audience. Some of them shrieked excitedly when they saw him, then lost interest when they realized he wasn't a musician. Without his jumpsuit, Peter couldn't whip himself out and take a bow and be sure of recognition. If he'd been in uniform, he'd have flung the curtains back far enough to take a bow, but not in plainclothes, even with the thrower on.

"Peter! Hey, Peter!"

The voice was young and came from the second row where a brown haired kid in glasses had jumped to his feet and started waving wildly. It took a second, but Peter recognized him. It was Kenny Fenderman, a kid he'd befriended about six years back when he'd marched into headquarters in a makeshift Ghostbuster uniform and proton pack and proclaimed he wanted to be a Ghostbuster. Peter had made the mistake of giving him a very dangerous piece of equipment that had risked ending Kenny's life, but, in the end, the Ghostbusters, with Kenny on their side, had defeated a nasty ghost. Peter had stayed in touch with Kenny after that, especially when he found out the boy's dad had taken off on him and his mom and had headed for the hills with his secretary. He knew all too well what it was like for a kid without a dad around.

Kenny had his act together now, and in the last year or two, Peter hadn't seen as much of him. Fitting in with his peers, Kenny hadn't really needed Peter any longer, and that was cool, but they still called each other occasionally, and Peter made himself available when possible if there was a father-son event Kenny wanted to go to. He'd met Estelle, the boy's mother, and thought she was a gutsy lady who made the best of her circumstances.

Kenny must be sixteen now. He preferred being called Ken these days, and he had started dating. When the rest of the Ghostbusters had heard that, they'd warned Kenny not to listen to Peter's advice, but Ken was old enough to understand their teasing. He had a date beside him now. Peter had met her once; her name was Diane. She waved, too.

Peter grinned and hollered, "Hey, Ken! Diane!" just before Winston and Mel grabbed him and yanked him away to clear the stage for the advent of the musicians.

He leaned close to Mel. "Hey, guy, you and Chandarl keep your eyes open during the concert. Eddie said you thought something weird was going down. See if you can tell where it came from. Okay?"

"Will do, Peter," Mel answered as he steered them off the stage.

After that, it was a hasty shuffle back to Eddie's dressing room where their proton packs were locked up under the determined guardianship of Mel, and the Ghostbusters were led to their seats. Peter dropped down beside Jennifer, still clutching his P.K.E. meter and grinned at her.

"Why do I have the feeling you have an ulterior motive for being here?" she whispered in his ear.

"Being with you at a concert is enough," he told her soulfully.

She gave his arm a swat. One of the things he liked about Jennifer was that he couldn't quite impress her, at least that he couldn't impress her easily. But when he did...

Before he could answer, the curtain swept open to allow the billowing of mist. A great burst of fake lightning was followed by the rumble of thunder, and then, in the center of the stage as if they'd materialized there, Doom's Electric Moccasin stepped out of the smoke to the screams and thunderous applause of the crowd. Peter eyed them measuringly. Eddie said they could sing, and they were obviously showmen, but he was close enough to see their faces. As they positioned themselves and Derek took up a guitar and Michael a--what was that thing? a balalaika?--they eyed the audience steadily, the diamond mirrors on their clothing reflecting multicolored light in all directions.

Madeline spoke huskily into the microphone. "Welcome. Welcome to you all." She smiled seductively, enhancing the ice queen beauty, then she began to sing in an achingly pure soprano. She sang Greensleeves. The band had a new rendition of it with an extra verse or two with new words, but the old melody was as haunting as ever, and her voice was as pure as crystal. The audience went silent as if someone had flipped a switch. She did the first song alone, accompanied by the balalaika with the melody line mimicked by the guitar an octave lower and so perfectly in tune with her singing that it was as if she produced the sound as well as the words. A neat trick.

Peter ran a glance down his row. Egon was staring at the band in breathless fascination. Kelly's blue eyes were huge and her body was swaying in tune to the beat. Ray looked bored and yawned as Peter watched him. Winston and Keisha were listening with what seemed to be technical approval as if they appreciated the showmanship but found little to touch them in the music. Janine looked as bored as Ray did, only the presence of Egon at her side making the experience worthwhile. Jennifer appeared fascinated.

As for himself, Peter thought it was a good performance and he liked the song--all the more because his mom had sung it to him at bedtime when he was very young--but he didn't like the singers. There was something off-putting about them. He didn't like the way they'd treated Winston and Ray, and the fact that they had wonderful voices didn't begin to make up for it.

He ventured a glimpse at his P.K.E. meter. Nothing. It must be as bored as Ray and Janine. Casting a curious eye around the audience, he realized it was pretty easy to pick out the people who had come here purely for Eddie and those who must like both bands or just Moccasin. Kenny and his date were enjoying it like crazy but a couple who sat beside them didn't seem impressed. Yet there were enough people in the crowd who were having a good time that it wasn't obvious that, here and there, members of the audience weren't getting anything out of the music.

Ray sneaked glances at his meter from time to time, then leaned over Janine to stare at Egon's. That made the physicist jump, startled out of his music appreciation, and check it himself. Ray caught Peter's eye and shook his head. They weren't getting anything paranormal at all.

Peter heaved a silent sigh. He'd halfway hoped that whatever was going down was something they could fix, either that or a simple coincidence. He didn't think it was, though. He was afraid his fear of a pervert or two following the tour might be the correct one. When the concert ended, he and the guys had better strap on their packs and mingle with the crowd.

For the rest of the numbers, the two guys joined in, North a tenor and Westin singing baritone. Eddie was right; they did sing like angels, especially when they did a number called Fantasy Home. The chorus continually urged the listeners to 'come away to the land of dreams.' Peter figured it wouldn't be long before he'd be nodding away in that place himself. He thought the song was sappy. Even Ray, who had been born a dreamer, didn't seem to care for the tune or the lyrics. Winston yawned, on the verge of dreamland himself. Keisha shifted restlessly. Kelly mouthed the words along with the singers and Egon, the least likely man Peter knew to buy into fantasy, appeared to find it fascinating.

Curious, Peter quickly adjusted his meter and turned it to Egon's biorhythms, studying the physicist. Nothing abnormal there that he could detect. Egon was just enjoying the music. Funny, when it was as far from opera and that classical stuff he got into as it was possible to be. In a way, it reminded Peter of a lot of those Seventies songs with mystical lyrics that turned out to be cloaked songs about the drug culture. Maybe the band passed out crack cocaine to the kiddies after the show and that explained where the disappearing kids had gone.

Moccasin finished up to wild applause, and a quick scan of the audience proved that even the most enraptured teens were back to normal now, waiting for Eddie to appear.

In the interval, while the set was changed, Peter wandered over to Kenny. "Hey, Ken, did you like it?"

"It was all right," he said. Oh yeah, he was definitely at the age where it wasn't 'in' to rave over things. No one could be more artificially blasé than a teenager.

"I thought it was nice," Diane admitted. "Didn't you, Dr. Venkman?"

"Not bad. They're great singers. If I had a voice like that, nobody could have held me back." He looked down at Kenny. "Hey, give me a call tomorrow afternoon, won't you? Are there are lot of kids here from your school?"

"There are a few," Kenny admitted. "It was kind of hard to get tickets, but some of us managed it. We're all going out for pizza afterward."

"Sounds cool." A distant shout of, "Peter!" distracted him. "Hey, gotta go. Hang in there." He started off then pulled back, waving a delaying hand at his team. "Kenny, listen, there might be something going down in the crowd tonight. Kids have been disappearing from rock concerts. We don't know if it's some ghost thing or maybe even a pedophile working the crowd. So stick with your friends after the concert, okay? Both of you. If anybody tries to talk to you and you don't know him, take off or call for security, or make a scene, okay?"

Ken's eyes widened and Diane looked alarmed, but both of them nodded solemnly.

"That's why you're here." A trace of the old hero worship lit the boy's eyes. "You're here to stop them."

"If it's a supernatural thing, we are," Peter admitted. "Gotta go. Be careful, okay?"

It was Winston who had called him, gesturing him over to a huddle of the other three Ghostbusters. "Hey, man, we all took readings during the performance. There's not a shred of anything weird, at least nothing we can pick up on. Only thing weird I can see is what the thrill is. They almost put me to sleep, man."

"Me too," Ray admitted. "Kelly liked it, but I didn't. Egon did, though, didn't you, Egon?"

"I admit there was something rather compelling about them," the physicist replied, a faint smile lingering on his mouth as he remembered their performance.

"Yeah, and you had me wondering, Spengs," Peter said. "I took a reading of you during the concert when you were kind of drifting away out there. I hate to say it but you're--gasp--normal!"

"Never fear, Peter. No one could ever say that about you," countered Egon. "Did you find the concert compelling?"

"In a way," Peter replied. "I like their sound, but I didn't like them when we met them, so I kinda held back. They just didn't do it for me."

"They were pretty distant, weren't they?" asked Ray. "I didn't think they were friendly at all, but I thought it was probably because they were trying to get in the mood before they started singing."

"They were smug bigots," Peter said frankly. "People like that piss me off. They could have been the best singers in the history of the world and I wouldn't have bought into anything they did. They stood up there all holier than thou as if we were peasants or something, and half the people here soaked it up. Not my gig."

"Bigots?" Egon echoed, startled and rather guilty that he'd enjoyed himself. The lingering remnants of his pleasure faded away. "However, they do not appear to be paranormal in any way."

"Unless it's something the meter wasn't designed to detect," argued Ray.

Peter exchanged a wary look with Winston. "You could say that about anything," he muttered. "I don't like weird things going down that we can't figure out."

"It's probably coincidence or some bad dudes in the crowd," offered Winston.

"Not when Mel said something was weird," Peter reminded them. "I took readings of the crowd, too. Not individual biorhythms or anything, just to see if anybody out there was a demon or something. I didn't pick up a problem there either."

"The most logical explanation for the disappearances has to be criminal," Egon decided. "We'll take the same readings during Eddie's concert and see what we come up with."

Eddie's part of the show was everything Egon had expected it to be. His younger cousin revered music and it showed in every song he sang. Whitney's incredible soprano wove in and out of the melody line and Jackson's mellow tenor added richness but it was Eddie, pouring out his soul because he had to have music on any terms that stopped it from being ordinary. Egon, used to his cousin's marvelous voice from the moment it had broken and he'd formed a band in his garage, had always appreciated it, even when the songs themselves were not to his particular taste.

Watching Eddie's band perform proved that they were actually better musicians than Doom's Electric Moccasin, capable with their instruments far beyond technical precision. Anyone who practiced could play the notes (well, perhaps not Peter...), but not anyone could make the words and music come to life so compellingly. Egon knew he was prejudiced but he was very proud of his cousin.

The meter lay activated in his lap and he checked it periodically but it never so much as beeped. Before the concert, he had filtered Mel's readings out on his meter and Peter's while Ray had done the same for his own and Winston's, so that the presence of a demon backstage would not contaminate the results. He got nothing at all out of the ordinary, and it looked as if none of the others did, either.

Janine was enjoying herself tremendously. Egon favored her with a smile when she wasn't looking, glad she was enjoying herself. He had been afraid the evening would be uncomfortable since it was the first 'date' he'd had with her since the separation, but it hadn't been. He'd missed a date with her that time, an important one, totally caught up in a project in his lab. When Janine had arrived midway through the evening, she had been, not unpardonably, put out, and had complained bitterly. Egon, who had once or twice missed or been late for a date because of being caught up in his work, had apologized abjectly. An attempt to explain by mentioning that he could easily forget to eat or take out the garbage when obsessed with his work had not been a wise choice. Janine had reacted hotly to being compared with garbage, which Egon had never intended. The discussion had gone from bad to worse and ended up with her insistence that if he wasn't ready to remember her even when it mattered that there was no chance of a future together. Egon, in the wrong and knowing it, had tried to apologize, but he could not promise he would not forget again in future. If he had to rely on Peter to remind him of dates, it didn't guarantee successful reminders. Peter was good about it when he was home, but he was often out of an evening. Winston and Ray could serve as alarm clocks too, but Egon knew that Janine wanted to be remembered for her own sake. He honestly did try, but all his life he had allowed himself to become caught up in his research. It was a part of his nature. He was sorry, and he would try to change, but he couldn't guarantee it every single time. Janine took that wrong, too, putting Egon in the position of defending himself, and he had, most unwisely, accused her of coming between him and his work. Janine had backed up a step or two -- she'd been wearing the same outfit she wore tonight -- and said that if he believed that, there wasn't much chance for them. She had gone away, head held high. Egon had called after her but she hadn't turned.

He had never said anything to the guys, other than that he and Janine had had a disagreement, but he had seen the speculation in Peter's eyes.

Now, Janine was on his arm, and Egon didn't know if they could return to their old relationship or not. He would have to go carefully. At least she looked pleased to be here with him.

Everyone was having a good time. Winston and his lady had perked up and Ray had stopped yawning. When Eddie did his trademark piece, Leftover Souls, he did it without accompaniment other than the very faint sound of Whitney and Jackson humming along in harmony, and it was breathtaking. In the end, the band was called back for two encores.

The Ghostbusters went backstage with their dates after the concert to retrieve their proton packs. Both bands had gathered in Eddie and Whitney's dressing room because it was the biggest and they were sipping champagne. In street clothes, Doom's Electric Moccasin were still striking but not quite so aloof.

Madeline slipped up to Peter, hooked her arm through his and said, "Sorry we weren't very friendly before. We never are before a performance--there's just too much on our minds, and Derek never got over having stage fright. Did you find your haunted whatsis out there?"

"Not a thing," Peter said, pretending disappointment. Egon suspected he'd have liked to lay a full trap before her like Sir Walter Raleigh spreading his coat. But he pulled back from her and caught Jennifer's arm. Very smart, Peter. Jennifer took him back but eyed him doubtfully for a moment. She would make him work for it. Good. Peter enjoyed the chase as much as he liked the capture and Egon had never felt it did Peter good if anyone allowed him to become complacent.

"There weren't any ghosts at all," Ray spoke up eagerly, beaming at the singer.

Madeline let her eyes touch him for a bored instant, then she made a shrugging gesture and moved on. His shoulders sagged and his face revealed hurt for an instant before he called his expression to order. Behind the crestfallen Ray, Peter's hands tightened up into fists and his mouth formed the word, 'bitch,' although he didn't say it out loud. Janine took a hasty step after Madeline as if she wanted to have hot words with the lady, but Egon tightened his grip on her arm. It wouldn't do any good.

"I'm glad there weren't any," Whitney Stone said hastily, giving Ray a greeting hug. "Hi, Ray. I hardly got to talk to you before. They're right, we're usually not very sociable before we perform." She let him go and turned to a small chest of drawers. "I've got a new comic book for you. I picked it up in London two months ago but we haven't seen you since then."

Peter's expression conferred sainthood on Whitney before he turned to say something to Derek North. Moccasin's lead singer responded with casual politeness, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. He had a distant look on his face. Maybe he didn't like it that Madeline had revealed his stage fright, although Egon thought it might be more. He couldn't read the man's face, but his eyes were brooding.

Mel crowded into the room; even in his human form he was big enough that he filled most rooms he entered unless they were huge. The high-ceilinged areas at the Firehall held him well. Edging up to Peter, Mel tugged at his sleeve. Peter turned and regarded him questioningly, then he spoke to Jennifer in an undertone and followed Mel out of the room. Interesting. Ever since Christmas, the demon roadie seemed to prefer Peter out of all the Ghostbusters. Peter was never sure how to take it, but he looked like a man who had been singled out by a huge, shaggy, orange dog that was determined to follow him home. It was almost the same look he pasted on when Slimer decided to favor him with hugs and kisses after a tough bust.

Eddie witnessed their departure and turned to lift an eyebrow at Egon, who returned the arched brow to indicate he didn't know, either. Deep in a discussion of the comic book Whitney had produced, Ray didn't pay any attention, but Winston noticed. Muttering an excuse to Jackson MacKensie, he followed Peter from the room. Egon lifted his meter and took a reading. Nothing. Or perhaps... For just a second Egon had the distinct feeling the meter was on the edge of reacting. It nearly did. Egon had worked with P.K.E. meters so often that, of all the team, he knew them best. The needle quivered so faintly as to be subliminal.

"What's that you've got there?" Derek North asked brightly at Egon's shoulder.

The moment passed, the needle stilled, and the faintest edge of psi disappeared from the air. "My P.K.E. meter," Egon responded. "It detects ghosts. As you can see, there are none here."

"Talk about a guy married to his work," murmured Derek. He gave Egon a comradely pat on the arm, leaned in for a second to study the small screen, then he shrugged, losing interest, and moved on.

At Egon's side, Janine muttered, "Married to his work," under her breath, adding even more quietly, "Boy, did he call that one." Her grievance still held, then. Before he could respond, Peter was back, sending Egon urgent signals with his eyes.

"Just a moment, Janine," Egon said, knowing the timing for his departure could have been much, much better. He gave her hand a quick, apologetic squeeze and followed Peter outside. Mel and the former demon, Chandarl, stood waiting, their faces wearing identical expressions of concern.

"What is it?" Egon asked when they were safely out of earshot of anyone else in the room. People were passing in the corridor, other roadies, a few fans, but none of them paid any attention except to glance at Egon as if to make sure he wasn't really Eddie with a different haircut.

"Tell him, Mel," Peter urged. He looked worried, really upset.

"I usually watch the crowd leave," Mel explained. "Ever since I started working for Eddie, I figured that there were groupies out there who might be dangerous, so I usually check out the people who are going away to see if I can tell if any of them will try to sneak backstage or if any of them have bad auras. Chan can't see auras any more since he turned human, but he can kind of still feel them."

"Did you see any? Did you sense anything?" Egon realized it might have been beneficial to watch the departing crowd, although the audience had not stirred the meters.

"I felt something," Chan replied. He scratched his afro-ed head. "So I told Mel, and he said he could see an aura, but it was very faint."

"What kind of aura?" Egon demanded. Beside him, Peter stood gravely, radiating tension.

"A weird one," Mel replied. The big, blond demon made a gesture toward the nearly empty Garden, where a few janitor types were starting to clean up the debris that remained. "Not evil, but kind of...smothered."

"Possessed?" Egon asked hastily.

Both roadies shook their heads. "Not possessed," Mel replied. "Not quite influenced, either. It's hard to explain. There was a boy and a girl, but they weren't ghosts or anything on your classification schedule. They were human, but they were controlled humans. Not drugs, nothing like that. But something was hanging over them. I came for Peter right away and Chan watched them but they got in a taxi with another couple and took off. The other couple didn't have auras, just normal teenagers."

"It happened," Peter growled. "We were here, we had all our equipment and it still happened." His hands curled up into fists.

"You don't know that, Peter," Egon replied. "Those teens might have even been doing drugs."

Mel and Chandarl shook vehement heads. "Not drugs," Mel said. "There's a difference. We don't get auras from that. I can't sense someone who's spaced out, but I can usually tell when I see them because I've seen people at Eddie's gigs who do drugs." He shook his head sorrowfully. "Hate that. This wasn't drugs. Not sure how to explain."

"Do you think this is what you felt the other times?" asked Egon, determined to gain as much information as possible.

Mel hesitated. "Maybe. Last time was just a feeling. I didn't think much of it then, since it wasn't evil or anything, not until the police came the other night."

"Can you describe the kids for a police sketch artist?" Peter asked more practically. "If it turns out any kids do disappear, we can at least tell if the ones that seemed odd are the ones who are missing. What was it, like they were zombied out?"

Mel shook his head. "No, I didn't see them from the front, so I don't know what they looked like. They were talking to the other couple pretty normally, but there was something hanging over them, ready to happen."

Peter's eyes brooded. "As if they'd been marked," he ground out.

"That's it," Mel cried, delighted with the phrase. "That's exactly what it feels like. They've been marked. It's like whatever happened to them hasn't kicked in yet."

"Now that is interesting," Egon mused, twiddling his meter's dial, hoping to make an adjustment that would give him more information.

"Interesting? Two other kids might be about to take off for Never Never Land and you think it's interesting?" Peter caught his burgeoning temper. "Sorry, Egon. I know it's not your fault."

The physicist had understood Peter's quick anger too well to fault him for it. Peter always identified with kids in trouble. After his revelation about that miserable moment in his teen years, Egon had a better understanding, although he'd always known that Peter's dad had worked very hard to give Peter a less-than-happy childhood. The sad part was that Charlie Venkman's intentions had probably been good; it was his nature that was defective. The fault was in his stars.

But Peter's comment triggered a spark of an idea in Egon. "Never Never Land, Peter?" he echoed.

Peter's head came up and his eyes pinned Egon. "You think this is a Peter Pan gig, Spengs?"

"I'm not certain. The most obvious answer is usually the right one, that teens are being taken for unpleasant purposes, criminal purposes. But the fact that Mel could sense an aura over two of them indicates that whatever the reason, the control is somehow paranormal. That our meters didn't detect it proves only that we're not geared to measure every single type of psi. We geared them to detect ghosts after theorizing and postulating what ghostly energy would be like, and we've never needed to move far from that one area since."

"Well, whatever the case, we can have Eddie call that cop back."

"And tell him what, Peter? That Mel sensed an aura our equipment could not detect? You and I know Mel and understand his abilities. A detective in another city would never understand that, let alone believe it, and it might make him suspect Mel, which we would never intend him to do."

"But we've gotta say something, because it might not be too late to save those kids," Peter insisted. "Come on, Egon. You're the great brain. Think of something."

"I'll tell what I felt," Mel volunteered instantly. "Finding those kids is more important than keeping my secret."

"We need a local police officer," Egon replied promptly. "Someone who will understand the possibility of a paranormal source to the disappearances. They can interface with the Dayton cop and the one from Philadelphia. In the meantime, I want to spend some time with Tobin and see if there have been mass disappearances of children or teens reported in the past."

"You mean paranormal disappearances?" Peter grinned. "Well, there was the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Didn't he make off with kids? What did he want them for, anyway?"

"You think this could be a latter-day Pied Piper?" Egon frowned. "Children are not vanishing en masse. Just several at a time. But there may be previous incidents."

"Yeah, and it still might be a crime and not something weird," Peter argued. "Mel, I know you saw an aura, but how about some kind of precog? Could you have sensed that maybe they were in trouble?"

Egon eyed Peter with respect; it was an excellent question. But Mel shook his head. "No, I can't do that. It takes a lot more powerful demon than me to see the future. This was something else, only I don't know what. I haven't come up against it before. This was something else, like they were influenced."

"Hypnotized?" Peter theorized. Another good idea. He was really working hard to solve this one. The odds were the teenagers weren't disappearing to security and happiness; they were going into trouble.

Ray and Winston came out of the dressing room then and Egon explained what Mel had told them. They were silent a minute, then Ray said, "What about a subliminal command? Something in the music?"

Another excellent suggestion. "Eddie wouldn't be a part of that," Egon disagreed.

Winston snapped his fingers. "Wouldn't have to be Eddie. It might be the other band or something that's accidental."

"Somebody's accidentally making teenagers disappear?" Peter shook his head. "No, this is on purpose. Doesn't even have to be either band, though I kind of like the idea. They're not exactly sweethearts. But it could be someone who sets up the equipment. Mel, do they have any suspicious roadies?"

The blond demon pursed his lips, lost in thought. "No, just normal guys. Mac--he's one of ours--says that the other roadies seem like they're okay although they're not very friendly. Not stiff, either, they just stick together. Doom's Electric Moccasin is a new group; they've been around less than a year. Probably after this they won't need to travel with a more established group." He cast a glance at his wristwatch.

"Eager to get home to Jackie?" Peter asked, noting the gesture.

Mel beamed. "Always. She could have come tonight but she doesn't usually. Knows I'll be busy." He hesitated. "If you want me to tell a local cop what I sensed, I will. Eddie wouldn't like it that something like this was happening at his concert."

And Mel would do anything for Eddie. In spite of his recent domestic bliss with Jackie, he still considered Eddie his master and adored him, almost literally. He would reveal his identity if he thought it would help Eddie, and then deal with the consequences.

"That would go over great with somebody like Frump," Peter said with a grin.

"Frump's not the only police officer we know," Ray reminded them. "That nice Detective Burke might help, you know, the guy who helped us out when we had the run-in with the serial killer." ⁽⁴⁾

"Thanks, Ray, I needed to remember that," groused Peter, who had been a prisoner of the serial killer for more than a day before his friends had tracked him down and freed him. "Burke was a decent guy, though. Think he might listen?"

"We really have very little to tell him," Egon reminded them all. "I suggest we research the various possibilities in our reference books and see if we can find similar occurrences."

"That won't help those kids tonight," Peter argued.

"We don't know who those kids were," Egon reminded him.

Peter's voice rose to a screech. "So we wait till tomorrow to see who's missing?"

Ray took hold of Peter's wrists and spoke reasonably. "Peter, we don't know anyone's going to be missing. We don't know there's anything paranormal going on at all. We might be messing on police turf. I hate it that kids are disappearing, but there might not be anything we can do about it. I want to help them just as much as you do, but I don't know if we can. I know we can't do anything without more information, though."

"Listen to Ray, homeboy," Winston urged. "Come on, Pete, I know this gets to you."

"Kenny was here," Peter reminded them. "With a girlfriend and some of their friends. He might be the one in trouble."

"The odds--" Egon began.

"Never tell me the odds," Peter snapped. "Egon, Kenny's like those kids who disappeared; he's smart and he's a decent kid. Doesn't get in trouble, doesn't do drugs. He could be the one."

"Did you warn him there was danger?" Egon asked reasonably. Peter in this frame of mind wasn't prone to heed the voice of reason. He'd made the disappearances personal.

"Of course I warned him. Told him to stick with his friends, even said it might be a pedophile. I wanted him scared enough not to go off by himself. I'll call in the morning and make sure he's okay." He heaved a frustrated sigh. "This one really gets to me. Not just because it could bounce back on Eddie, although that's a part of it. I hate it when kids are in trouble. Kids deserve to be happy and carefree when they're growing up. They should be safe. I know they're not, these days, even the good kids. But it shouldn't even be just the 'good' kids who're safe. They deserve it, all of 'em." He caught himself and grimaced. "Anyway, we've gotta do something."

Kids deserve to be happy and carefree when they're growing up. Oh, Peter... Egon made himself focus apart from that because he'd just realized Peter had made this his holy crusade. He hadn't been happy and carefree when he was a child. Since Ray's childhood had been less than perfect and Egon's hadn't been filled with warmth, he could understand a little of that, and knew that Ray could, too. Ray didn't say much about his own bad times, any more than Peter did, though he didn't overcompensate over them, either. Still, Peter couldn't save the whole world and he was smart enough to know that or he'd break his heart every minute of every day and still never do enough. But maybe this was something he could do. This side of Peter didn't show itself to the world very often, but Egon had long known the crusader that was buried deeply inside his oldest friend. Peter donated time at free clinics, he did anti-drug commercials. When he'd realized how lonely Mrs. Faversham was he'd adopted her as a pseudo grandmother and had dinner with her one Sunday a month, sometimes calling her in between to touch base. He'd played big brother to Kenny for nearly six years. People who didn't know Peter well never saw that side of him, but Egon admired his friend and, when Peter was being his most irksome, Egon would sometimes remember the look on his face when he'd gone back to have tea with Mrs. Faversham that first time. Peter was genuinely interested in people and fascinated by their behavior and he had a kind heart.

"We will do something, Peter," Egon confirmed. He saw Peter's eyes lift to meet his and knew he'd made a commitment. "The first thing we'll do is research. We've done all we can here, and our meters haven't given us any clues. If you want us to call Detective Burke, or even Frump, we will."

"Oh, yeah, call Frump. Right there at the top of my list of fun things to do." Peter grinned crookedly, the tension trailing out of him. "Come on, guys, can we go home now?"

The telephone woke Winston. All of them had stayed up late after they got home, checking out various source material like Tobin's Spirit Guide, The Spates Catalog and other reference books, determined to find similar instances of disappearances. There were episodes in history. Egon said that Peter had mentioned the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and that sounded interesting, although there had been no previous bargain to allow the children to disappear. No one had offered to rid the cities of the rats and then come back to lead the kids away. So it wasn't an exact parallel, but the Pied Piper had lured kids away with music, hadn't he? Playing a pipe that made the children of Hamelin jump up and follow him. Winston didn't know if it were a myth or an actual true story and he wasn't sure he wanted to know but, if it were true, it had happened hundreds of years ago. Unless the talent passed down from generation to generation, it wouldn't have anything to do with now.

Ray discovered a series of missing children in Fourteenth Century France and another in Transylvania. The very location of the second disappearance suggested vampires, and the meters would have picked up the undead, so they could probably rule that one out. The French one was not very well documented and Ray planned to do more research on it. Peter had not been able to settle to any given book. He paced the lab uneasily.

None of them had wound up seeing their dates home, except for Ray dropping off Kelly, who lived practically on the way. Janine hopped a cab out to Brooklyn, a look on her face that suggested she would not be a happy camper when she arrived for work in the morning. Keisha, who was pretty easygoing, had kissed Winston goodnight and grabbed a cab, and the imperious Jennifer had given Peter a peck on the cheek and taken off. He'd scarcely noticed. That romance might well be history.

They'd finally fallen into bed around two a.m. Winston, a relatively light sleeper, had heard Janine poke her head in the door to check on them somewhere around eight and disappear again. He dropped off to sleep again afterwards. This morning, they could all emulate Peter.

When the phone rang beside his bed, he grabbed for the receiver and fumbled it into his hand. The bedroom phone was the guys' private line; they gave the number out to their friends and it was unlisted. When they went to bed, they coded the business line over to it, and Janine would uncode the business number when she arrived in the morning so the guys wouldn't be disturbed by work calls if they were up in the night and needed to sleep in. So, expecting a personal call, Winston just said, "Winston Zeddemore," into the phone instead of the business reply.

"May I speak to Peter, please." The woman sounded distraught, on the edge of tears, and her voice was shaking. Not Jennifer. Winston couldn't imagine that cool, self-possessed woman ever sounding like this and, besides, this woman sounded older.

"Just a minute, I'll haul him out." He set the receiver down and went over to shake Peter by the shoulder. The call had awakened Egon, who sat up, hair sticking out in all directions, sliding his glasses on. Peter groaned and tried to pull the covers over his head, but Winston yanked them away. "Come on, Pete, somebody needs you on the phone. Sounds urgent."

One baleful green eye emerged from beneath the pillow and regarded Winston without enthusiasm. "It's the middle of the night," he groused.

"It's nine a.m. Come on, Pete, the lady's really upset. Asked for you by name."

Peter hesitated, then he pushed himself up, knuckling his eyes to rub the sleep away. "Who is it?" he asked, the hint of alarm creeping into his voice.

"Don't know. She didn't say."

Peter went over and grabbed the receiver, plopping down on Winston's bed. "This is Peter Venkman."

There was a momentary silence, then Peter's eyes widened in horror and he muttered, "Shit, shit, shit!" under his breath. "When?" he asked.

A long pause. "Did you check with..." Peter's eyes came around and focused on Egon, and Winston saw the desperation in them. Whatever this was, it was bad. Peter's dad?

Ray sat up, rubbing his eyes, and turned to stare at Peter in alarm.

"Calm down, Mrs. Fenderman," Peter soothed, gripping the phone white-knuckled. "We know something's going on. We don't know what, but we'll figure it out. We'll get him back. Can you get me a list of the kids he went for pizza with?"

Winston's stomach knotted up. Peter's little buddy, Kenny. His last name was Fenderman, wasn't it? But Peter had warned him to be careful at the concert. Even though Pete had insisted last night that Kenny fit the pattern, none of them had believed that, out of all the kids at the concert, the one who would disappear would be the one Peter knew. What were the odds of that? On the other hand, Kenny had been right in the second row, close to the stage. Not that Winston knew what difference that would make but he thought it possible. They didn't know what had happened, how the missing kids had been singled out. But Mel had said the kids with the aura had been with another couple. Had they been a plant? Friends Kenny knew already? Had he disappeared right there? Not if he'd really gone for pizza, he hadn't. That made it even more complicated than they'd imagined.

Peter gestured wildly for a notepad and Egon presented him with one. Listening carefully, Peter scribbled down names and telephone numbers. When he was finished, he said, "No, we don't know what's happening. A couple of kids have been disappearing at each concert and we got called in on the off chance there was something paranormal about it.... No, we don't know it was anything paranormal. We don't know anything for sure yet. Yes, the police are involved. Did you talk to them? You did? Okay, who..." He wrote again. Then he spent five minutes soothing the distraught woman, his voice gentle, his eyes anguished. Egon dropped down beside him on the bed but didn't speak or touch him while Peter was talking. It was easy to see that Peter was deep in blaming himself for what had happened to Kenny, and Egon would understand. He might appear hip deep in his weird science half the time but he could understand where Peter was coming from even at a time like that. Peter knew it, too. When he was bugged about something, he'd often go and plant himself in Egon's line of vision in the lab and wait, and it took remarkably little time for the physicist to notice.

When Peter hung up, Egon didn't offer platitudes. He didn't even remind Peter that he had warned Kenny the night before. He was just there for him, waiting for Peter to speak.

"I warned him, Egon," Peter said in a low voice. "I warned him, guys."

"You did all you could," Ray burst out, jumping up and staring at Peter. "We all did. We couldn't find anything."

Peter's eyes lifted to Ray's earnest face. "I could have run him home." He shook himself. "I've got the name of the cop who's handling this end. Usually they have to wait to take a missing persons' report, but because of the other disappearances they listened right away. I guess the Dayton cop phoned here to alert the local police. I told Kenny's mom we'd talk to the guy. I'm gonna go have my shower. We can't waste time in bed." He stalked off grimly in the direction of the bathroom without a shred of regret for his lost sleep.

"Oh dear," Egon said inadequately when the door closed behind him.

"Gosh, yeah," agreed Ray. "I think Peter would have felt bad no matter who it was, but it's so much worse that it's Kenny. I hate to see him looking like that."

"We'll get him back," Winston proclaimed, then he caught himself. They had no guarantees retrieving the missing kids was even possible. The victims might be murdered on the spot. The kidnappers might have such a thoroughly efficient system that they'd been snatching kids at concerts for years and no one had noticed until now. Winston knew teens disappeared every day, younger kids too, and some of them were never seen again or came back forever changed with dead eyes. "We'll give it our best shot, anyway," he added lamely.

"The thing that disturbs me is the aura Mel claimed to see," Egon responded. "He surveyed the audience before the concert and didn't see it. So, if we assume a paranormal vector, it had to have happened during the concert. I wish we had a recording of the performance. Why didn't I think of that at the time? I know they check people for recording devices at major concerts, but Eddie would have let us bring something in. It could be something in the music, a subliminal instruction. You said that last night, Ray."

"A subliminal command wouldn't cause an aura, would it?" Winston wondered. Automatically he began to make his bed.

"It might if it produced a trance state," Ray argued. He hesitated. "But Peter talked to Kenny after Doom's Electric Moccasin's performance and before Eddie's. I just know Eddie wouldn't have done it, or any of his band. I thought maybe it was those other singers. I didn't like them."

"Yeah, they were jerks," Winston agreed instantly.

"They sang beautifully," Egon murmured. "However, they were rather unpleasant in person." He looked as if he were remembering the way Madeline had snubbed Ray after the concert and the uneasy sense that they were prejudiced against Winston. "I admit, I would enjoy it if they proved to be the villains of the piece. People haven't disappeared from Eddie's concerts before that we know of. It seems as if these disappearances started right after Moccasin joined the tour. We need to find out if there were reported disappearances when the original group was present. I believe Moccasin joined them in Chicago. I'll telephone Eddie and find out what other cities were included in their tour."

"I'll give that cop a call," Winston said, snatching up Peter's notes. "At least it's not Frump. I'm not sure Pete would be up to his sarcasm this morning."

"Ask Eddie if they have a tape of last night's concert they can message over here," Ray urged Egon. "I'll play it through on that fancy sound system of Peter's and see if I can find anything weird about it. If that doesn't work, I know a guy who does special effects for movies and I bet he'd run it through for us, you know, dropping out various sounds, playing it at different speeds."

"An excellent plan, Ray." Egon snatched the telephone and put a call through to his cousin while Ray busied himself making his bed and getting out clean clothes. They had a lot to do.

"Now, let's get this straight," Detective John Easter asked. He had arrived promptly at ten a.m. and was shown up to the lab by Janine, who seemed to find the tall, blond detective 'cute', if the way she looked at him were any indication. Of course she had a penchant for tall blond guys with glasses. Easter might be the physical type that attracted her, although he more no more than superficial resemblance to Egon, hair as fair, eyes as blue, with a long, thin face that bore the marks of a clever man. His eyes would miss nothing. Ordinarily Peter would have found a way to let Janine know he'd picked up on her reaction but today he wasn't in the mood for the usual games.

The detective strode into the lab impatiently, pulling in his trenchcoat around him as if afraid of contamination--or slime. Upper lip curling in distaste, he listened to the introductions the secretary made but didn't offer to shake hands. Mouth pursed, his eyes slid across the combination of esoteric, scientific equipment, computer, weird gizmos, petri dishes, and ghost detection equipment spread out on the tables, and he might as well have muttered, "Crackpots," out loud. Peter had a gut dislike of the guy, just like he'd had with Walter Peck. This was a hard man. He wouldn't be sympathetic at all. He'd probably made Kenny's mom feel worse than ever.

"You know the boy who disappeared last night? You were at the concert--why?" Easter had especially penetrating eyes that were busy memorizing the 'suspicious' contents of the lab and assessing the four Ghostbusters. He wasn't the type of guy who could be misled. He made Peter feel like all his nasty little secrets were spelled out on his forehead in glowing neon letters.

"I'm Eddie Plummer's cousin," Egon explained hastily before Peter could speak. "He came here yesterday. He'd been approached by a detective in Philadelphia who reported that there had been other disappearances. Apparently a diligent officer in Dayton had done some tracking and found out there was a pattern."

"Possibly," conceded Easter, not backing down. "But I don't see what makes it the Ghostbusters' business. You guys aren't cops. You aren't even Crimebusters any longer."

"I've been experimenting with a new meter that we hope to use to detect abnormal biorhythms," Egon explained. Peter saw the detective's face close away from what must sound like New Age claptrap to him. "In theory, it would react to those who don't quite fit the acceptable human norm. I admit, it didn't detect anything last night. But that's not why. Eddie has a roadie who may be...a bit psychic. In spite of your skepticism, Detective Easter, such things do exist. He didn't understand it any more than you do, but he felt there was something wrong that shaded in our direction. Eddie gave us tickets to the concert and we went there with various detection devices."

"And did you pick up this paranormal shading?" Easter asked. He expected a big 'no' from the guys. Any other answer would have convinced him they were lying. Peter restrained his temper with what must be a visible effort because Winston cast him a hasty, warning glance.

Egon shook his head. "No, we detected nothing."

"Did that maybe suggest to you that you were after the wrong thing? That maybe a ring of criminals who snatch kids possibly for kiddie porn films wouldn't exactly set off your P.K.E. meters?" The sarcasm in his voice was as thick as Turkish coffee.

Peter erupted like a volcano. "Listen, Easter, I know that kid who disappeared last night. I've known him for years. He's a good kid, not the type to run away, and I warned him at the intermission that there could be trouble."

"He didn't listen." Easter studied Peter, and the psychologist realized he was trying to judge whether or not Peter was the type of man who would take advantage of an existing crime spree to pull anything himself. It was all he could do not to deck the guy, but that wouldn't help Kenny or any of those other kids, either. He reined himself in with a colossal effort, helped by Egon's hand that dropped abruptly on his shoulder.

"Peter," muttered the physicist under his breath. Frustrated, Peter took a deep breath in a futile attempt to induce calm.

"Maybe he didn't have a choice," he said quickly. "When did you hear about what was going on with the tour, Detective? You're Johnny on the Spot today. First thing in the morning, you show up at our door."

"Yesterday," Easter admitted. "A call came through from Dayton. We had undercover agents in the crowd last night, trained detectives at all the exits, as well as circulating through the crowd."

"And you didn't find anything, either." Ray wore the pugnacious look of a man determined to defend his friend. "Detective, our equipment's designed to read ghosts. It isn't necessarily geared to read weird entities who might lure people away or even nasty people who can maybe hypnotize kids. I can give you a list of paranormal entities who might steal children. Some of them would make our meters react, but I don't think all of them would. Some of them can even pass as human." Easter's face twisted and Ray added hastily, "I bet you don't believe in any of that, but we really do know about such stuff. We've seen a lot of rotten things. There's an entity called a Grundel who befriends little kids and eventually they wind up turning into grundels themselves and stealing more kids. There's lots more. We caught a grundel once. There's a ghost in India that grabs young men and holds them captives till they are old. It's called a churel. And then, fairies used to take human babies and replace them with changelings. Well, that might be a myth, but there are weird things that happen."

"No, we didn't find anything either," Easter confessed. His face was hardened against Ray's words.

Peter eyed him narrowly until the blond detective turned and stared at him. Janine might think he was cute but Peter saw him as cold and stubborn and about as willing to listen to reason as the Empire State Building. "You're a New Yorker, right?" he asked. The guy sounded like one.

"All my life? So?" His face tightened.

"So, you're used to us," Peter pointed out. "You see us on TV all the time; you might have even seen a bust or two. You were around when we took out Gozer. Yet you come here acting like we're crackpots. Classic case of denial. Only an idiot denies what's right in front of his face. Guess you've got a little problem. I'm a psychologist, I know what I'm talking about."

Easter's mouth tightened. "What I believe about the occult isn't at issue here, Dr. Venkman. Kids are disappearing. Your own equipment didn't find anything in spite of your talk of grundels and what have you. I assume you could detect a grundel?"

Ray nodded, shooting an apologetic glance at the other three as if afraid of shooting down their validity. "Well, yeah."

"Therefore, the odds are we have a serial criminal--kidnapper, killer, who has taken it upon himself to seek his victims at rock concerts where teens might conceivably be high on something and less resistant than normal. In spite of your psychic roadie--and I've gotta say I doubt he's as much psychic as tripped out on coke or whatever's the drug of choice on the concert circuit--we've got a human criminal here. If you had readings, I'd listen but you don't. Get me some and maybe I'll change my mind. Bottom line, gentlemen, you've got squat. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make myself useful by interviewing the bands." He turned to go and Janine, who had listened in silence from her chair next to Egon, jumped up and offered to see him out.

Fuming, Peter watched them go. "That guy takes Frump lessons," he grumbled just loud enough for Easter to hear him. "Try to help a guy and what do you get? Wonder if I could find out where he lives and send Slimer to go through his underwear drawer." He liked that idea--a lot.

Egon was seething, too, although he did it much more quietly than Peter did. His eyes glittered and his mouth was tight. Automatically, he picked up a P.K.E. meter and studied it in great disappointment as if it had betrayed him the night before. Ray didn't look angry, just a little hurt.

"Why didn't he believe us?" he demanded, eyes wide with regret.

"Probably because we've got nothing to go on," offered Winston. "I don't like the guy, but you've gotta admit we really didn't pick up anything last night."

"We do have something," Egon replied very thoughtfully. "I hadn't considered it before but think, guys. Peter, didn't Kenny's mother say he had gone for pizza with his friends after the concert? He didn't disappear directly from the concert, did he?"

"Do we know that?" Peter asked. "He was going to go out for pizza; his mom knew who his buddies were. Are we sure he just didn't show up there, either? Let me at that list." He grabbed it and dialed the first number. It was Sunday, not a school day, so he had a better chance to get an answer. A minute later, a young voice replied.

"Is this Dave Salazar?" Peter asked.

"Yeah, who's this?"

"I'm Peter Venkman, one of the Ghostbusters."

There was a startled pause then the voice said doubtfully, "Who is this, really?"

"I really am Peter Venkman. Come on, you know that your buddy Ken and I were friends. Did you know Ken was missing?"

"Oh, yeah." Another pause and grimness crept into his voice. "His mom called earlier. I saw you talking to him last night at the concert. He said you warned him that there might be trouble. I've been kind of...worrying about it ever since."

"Dave, she said Kenny and Diane went out for pizza with the rest of the gang last night. Is that right? He didn't take off right after the concert?"

"No, they came," the boy admitted in the reluctant tones kids that age used when they had to talk about their peers to grown-ups. The us-vs.-them attitude was strong in his voice, but his concern for his friend won out and he continued. "They didn't stay very long, but they came. They were kind of arguing--and Kenny and Diane never argue. They were...acting kind of weird. We thought they were just having a fight; we didn't know they were planning to take off." He hesitated and Peter could almost see his face scrunched up with concentration as he tried to make sense of the experience. "It's kind of crazy, y'know, Dr. Venkman. I mean Kenny's a straight arrow type. Gets good grades--on purpose. Works hard. He wants to go into science at a lab someplace so he cracks the books even on weekends so he can get a scholarship. He's not a grind, not all the time, but he's not the kind of guy to take off like this, not on purpose. You get so you know." The floodgates were opened. Peter wondered if Kenny hadn't mentioned him to his school friends and that was why Dave was willing to open up, or if he was just so worried about his buddy that the first person on Kenny's side who came along would get an earful.

"Kenny didn't do drugs, did he, Dave?" Dave wasn't holding anything back, at least not yet. "I mean, I never got that feeling from him, but I haven't seen as much of him since he's been in high school. I might not know."

"He never did. I don't think Diane ever did, either; I don't know her as well as I know old Ken, so I can't say for sure with her, but I don't think so. Just because we're teenagers doesn't mean we're all druggies, Dr. Venkman. None of us in the gang mess with anything like that. And hey, don't freak because I said 'gang'. It's not that kind of a gang, it's just a bunch of us who hang together. We don't sneak guns into school or have wild parties."

"Easy, easy. I believe you," Peter soothed. "It's just that Ken's not the type to worry his mom like this."

"I know that," the boy proclaimed fervently. "That's what's got me scared. I mean, his mom was crying when she called. And I know old Ken really goes out of his way to make sure she's okay. He'll even check in with her sometimes when we're out for the evening. I think it's because his dad took off the way he did. He wouldn't want his mom to think he'd run out on her, too. Only, last night..." His voice trailed off.

"Last night?" prompted Peter gently. He could sense the guys crowding around, waiting to hear what he had to say. Poor old Kenny. It reminded Peter of the way he'd been around his own mom when he was Kenny's age.

"Last night Ken wasn't himself. He was acting kind of spaced." Dave continued in a rush, "I even wondered if somebody hadn't slipped him something at the concert, and I knew he'd hate that. I kinda looked for the signs, you know? I didn't see anything obvious. His pupils were normal, anyway and he didn't have any of the other signs. Just that he was kind of...not there."

"Like he was spaced?" Peter asked.

"Like he was listening to something the rest of us couldn't hear," Dave admitted, sounding surprised at that flight of fancy. "Like he was only there because he said he would--Ken didn't let his buddies down--but he really wanted to be somewhere else, and he wanted it so bad he couldn't think of anything else."

Peter frowned. This sounded pretty bad. "Was Diane like that, too?"

"Yeah, she was. You know, Dr. Venkman, those two, it's weird. They're really a couple, not just dating. But I don't think they're even...uh..."

"Sleeping together?" Peter finished when Dave's voice trailed off.

"Uh, yeah. I mean, guys our age aren't usually innocent, Dr. Venkman." He affected a man-of-the-world tone that didn't quite take. "But Kenny and Diane, it wasn't like that. They were just...together. That's why it was so weird last night when they were arguing."

"What was their fight about, could you tell?"

"No, just that she kept saying it was time to go. She said it over and over like a zombie." Peter registered the word, but he didn't interrupt. "And he kept saying, 'we're going, you know we're going, but we...shouldn't.' Like he had to fight to resist. It was kind of weird, Dr. Venkman. When it was going down, I thought maybe she was supposed to be home early and he didn't want to go. We were all out later than usual," he added, impressed in spite of himself, "because the concert was such a big deal and those of us who had tickets were doing it up right and since it was a weekend night our folks all agreed, especially since we were going in a group. But Diane's folks are strict. I thought maybe Kenny thought she was being a party pooper, but now that he's missing, I don't know. It could mean they planned to take off--only that's not the way Kenny is. He wouldn't have done that. It never occurred to me it was anything about what you'd said to him, that there was danger for kids there, not until now. It's just weird. He and Diane left before the rest of us. He wasn't arguing anymore. He looked like he was glad to go. It was just so strange."

"It sounds like it. I don't think Ken would run away, either," Peter agreed. "I've known him for six years, although I haven't seen him as much the last two. But I don't think he'd take off on purpose."

"But he's gone," Dave insisted. "My folks found out he's missing and I'm grounded. I didn't do anything, but they're scared. Some reporter got the word that kids were disappearing after rock concerts and it was in the Sun. My mom reads the Sun from cover to cover. She freaked." He hesitated. "Dr. Venkman, why are you calling me? Is it a ghost? Did Kenny get snatched by a ghost? How'd you even know something was wrong? We saw you there with your meters and Ken told us what they were. Did you find out anything?"

"We didn't get any readings," Peter admitted reluctantly. "And we don't know what happened yet. Eddie thought there might be something paranormal and he got tickets for us to check it out."

"Eddie Plummer? You know him?" So much for being the famous Peter Venkman. He'd just been eclipsed by a rock star.

"He's Egon's cousin. We've known him for a couple of years. Dave, listen, talk to your buddies, okay, the others who were there with you having pizza. See if they noticed anything odd. Call me back, here at headquarters if they did." He gave the number.

"Will the cops talk to me?"

"Probably. Tell them everything you can." Peter promised Dave that the Ghostbusters were on the job and would find Kenny if there was anything remotely paranormal about it. Neither of them seemed reassured by his words.

With a sigh, Peter finished the conversation and hung up. "Guys, he says Kenny and his date were acting weird and they were talking about going someplace. He even said Diane was acting like a zombie about it. What does it mean, Egon? Mind control?" Even as he asked the question, he got a sudden image of Egon sitting there during the first part of the concert, caught up in it, just as Ray's date had been. Had the mind control touched Egon, too? He had the strongest mind Peter knew. Why would he be affected when the other Ghostbusters weren't? He obviously hadn't been compelled to disappear. "You were pretty much zoned out when Moccasin was playing."

"I assure you I was not under mind control, Peter," Egon replied. "Obviously, I have not disappeared, nor have I felt any remote compulsion to do so."

"Obviously, you aren't a kid any more," Peter replied, winning a grimace from his oldest friend. He grabbed Egon by the shoulders. "Egon, maybe whatever causes this hits certain types."

"No, that can't be right, Peter," Ray argued. "Because Kelly was all caught up in it, too. And she's not like Egon at all. She's a lot more like me, and I was bored."

"Well, she's blonde like Egon," Winston pointed out. "The band all had blond hair. Maybe they go for it."

Peter scrunched up his brow, thinking back the concert. He'd already exonerated Eddie and his group in his mind, so he wanted to concentrate on Doom's Electric Moccasin, even if Kenny hadn't appeared strange at intermission. "Kenny's got brown hair," he reminded them. "I don't think I was affected by any mind control, So, it can't just be that they like blonds. But I didn't feel any compulsion. I liked the music okay; they were pretty good, although they aren't as polished as Eddie's band yet. But Ray really didn't like it and neither did Winston. And it wasn't crummy enough to hate."

"I didn't hate it," Winston remarked. "I didn't like the band very much, the people, I mean. They were jerks. But when the music was going, I really felt put off. I don't think it was because they were obvious bigots. It was like the music was pushing me away."

"Hey, me too," agreed Ray. "It was even kind of weird because a part of me would have liked to like it. Peter's right, they're not bad musicians, and the songs themselves were kind of neat, especially that Fantasy Home song. It made me want to find a place like that, but then I kind of felt like I wasn't welcome there. It was strange." He shook his head so hard his hair tossed. "I didn't even realize it until now."

Egon held up an arresting hand. "Wait. Before we describe our reactions any further, I think we should write them down separately so that we won't influence each other. It will be easier for us to be objective. If we're encountering a paranormal event of a type that we haven't experienced before, the more data we gather at the beginning, the easier it will be to form a hypothesis. After we've done that, I have some theories of my own I'd like to offer for discussion."

"Why do you always sound like we're back in school at times like this?" Peter asked with a wry grin. Sometimes, Dr. Einstein, you make our job feel like--work!"

"It is work, Peter. It's what they pay us for. When we encounter a questionable phenomenon, proper documentation is essential and you know it. We learned that back in Professor Polgetta's Parapsychology 101 at Columbia." He went over to the cabinet and produced four blank legal pads, passing them out. "All right. Not just Moccasin, but anything unusual you might have felt from the audience or during Eddie's performance." He waved them to the table.

Peter sat down with his notepad and pen and glanced over at Ray, who was next to him. "No cheating, Tex," he cautioned with a quick grin.

Ray stuck out his tongue at him. "You're no fun, Peter."

"Are you kidding? I always do my homework in class, teach." He frowned and applied himself to his writing.

"Legibly, Peter," Egon chided him without a glance at Peter's writing. You couldn't pull anything over on old Spengs.

"Come on, Egon, I've seen your notes. A doctor's prescription has nothing on them."

Egon made a face at him, then he collected his scattered dignity and started jotting notes with painfully neat precision, and with numbers. Typical Egon. Winston flung himself down on the couch, curled up in a corner and started to write, notepad braced against his knees.

Silence filled the lab for maybe fifteen minutes, then Peter tossed aside his pen. "Got it."

The others were finishing up, too. Egon collected their notepadss and studied them one at a time, muttering an intrigued, "Hmmm," every few minutes. Rolling his eyes at Ray, Peter started echoing it with a few 'hmms' of his own, causing Egon to lay the pads down side by side and favor Peter with a stern glare.

"This is serious, Peter."

At once, Peter's silliness dissipated. Okay, so he couldn't break the mood and, with Ken and the other kids missing, he didn't really want to. "Do you know what's going down, O Great One?" he asked.

Egon didn't dispute the appellation. "Not precisely, but the separate and distinct reactions indicate that something was, even if we cannot yet define it. My own reactions puzzle me for I was drawn strongly to the music, yet it is not my usual style or taste. On the other hand, I do like folk rock in moderation and I enjoy Eddie's talent. Even Janine said I was caught up in it, yet I wasn't conscious of being obsessed. I remember spending some time figuring out their chording, even when I was listening intently. But I also felt a...strange communion with the music. Yet I did not like the performers on a personal level. I thought them insensitive and rude and entirely too full of their own worth. It was more apparent after the concert, although they were obviously more relaxed when it was over and very 'up'."

"That's what I thought," Winston agreed. "That they were on a high from the way their performance went. Obviously Eddie was the favorite of the two groups, but when Moccasin was going at it, they really had the audience--or most of them. They didn't have me, but then it's hard to like somebody's music when you think they're jerks. What got me was that, before they saw me, when we first met them, I was kind of interested. Then I got that cold look and it was just killed stone dead."

Peter hated the way they'd reacted to Winston but he'd learned that Zeddemore didn't appreciate it if he went ballistic and came down on the bigots, so he held his peace. "With me it was different," he said. "I didn't really feel any mystic pull. With that Madeline, it was just hormones with me, and I squashed 'em down without any trouble when I got a good look at her attitude. She wasn't coming onto me for anything weird or paranormal either. I think she just liked my looks." He held up his hands when the guys opened their mouths to scoff. "No, come on, guys, I'm not being vain. I'm saying, I wasn't drawn like Egon or repelled like you two, just a kind of normal man/woman thing that didn't pan out."

"Gee, Peter, maybe you're just insensitive," Ray kidded.

Clutching his heart, Peter pretended great distress. "Wounded to the quick!" he mourned, checking out the guys with one eye to see if he was winning any sympathy. He wasn't.

Ray nudged him with his elbow and grinned to show he didn't really mean it. "I wasn't drawn either," he said. "Not at all. I mean, I was gonna be polite and all that and kind of keep my eyes open because we don't know those guys, and we know Eddie and his band pretty well. Only then I felt kind of, well, pushed away. Like I wasn't good enough, y'know." A faint wistful edge crept into his voice and Peter had to stomp down an urge to go and find Doom's Electric Moccasin and introduce them to their doom. Ray wasn't insecure the way he'd been when they first met him in college; he had plenty of self-confidence, but every once in awhile he came upon someone who provoked the old feelings. Maddie had looked at him like she might have regarded a beetle scuttling around the baseboards, and Ray had known it. She could have been the most beautiful woman in the world but, after that, Peter wouldn't have cared. People who trashed his friends became Peter's new enemies. He hoped they could prove Moccasin was up to something so he and his friends could take them down hard. Then they could solve this quicker and get going on finding Kenny and the others.

"They're not good enough for you, Raymond," Egon said quickly before Peter could explode.

"You called that one on the money, homeboy," Winston agreed. "For me, I didn't care what they thought. People like that, their opinions aren't worth bothering about. They're pond scum, Ray, and pond scum doesn't matter in the real world. I know what I'm worth, and I know what you're worth, and we've both got that band beat, believe me." He clapped Ray reassuringly on the shoulder.

"What I got from the audience," Peter said quickly, moving along before Ray could take the time to dwell on it, "was that some of them were really into it, even more than kids at a concert usually are. Wish I'd noticed Kenny in particular then but I didn't. Some of 'em were sitting there like they were--I don't know--tied to the band with invisible strings."

"I thought it was more like magnetism," Ray blurted out. "Like they were being pulled but there was something they were getting back. I don't know. It wasn't something I even conceptualized. Egon, could the band have been actually drawing energy from the audience?"

"Fascinating," Egon muttered. "Now there is an interesting possibility, although none in the audience seemed depleted of energy. They were quite raucous during Eddie's performance, just as they were during Moccasin's. If energy was taken, it might have been from the audience as a collective whole, so that no one person would be specifically affected."

"Dave said Diane acted like a zombie," Peter reminded them. "So maybe whatever they did focused on her and Kenny and the rest was just residuals. Like feedback or something."

Winston pushed himself up from the couch and paced around the room. "Why, though? I mean, what's the attraction? Why those two out of all the people there? And how did they get to them, if that's what was even happening? And if they were sucking energy out of kids, why wouldn't that register on the meters?"

"Might depend on the type of energy involved," offered Ray. "Maybe Madeline's a succubus and one or both of the guys are incubuses."

That sounded bad. Peter wasn't sure exactly how succubuses and incubuses worked but he was pretty sure that sex was involved. Sex with minors was rape no matter how you stacked it. And even if the kids seemed willing, that didn't make it right because the compulsion would be enforced.

"Not possible, Ray," Egon argued. He didn't look as if he cared for the idea either. Settling his sliding glasses into place with an impatient forefinger, he frowned and continued, "A succubus or an incubus is in actual fact a demon, and demons are almost always Class 7's. We'd have been able to detect that the moment we encountered them since we had a meter set that way."

"Can't a demon mask his readings?" Winston asked. "They knew we were coming, after all. I hate it when it's demons."

"Hmm, it might be possible for a demon to mask his readings during possession of a human, at least for a time," Egon agreed, his face grave and thoughtful. "But we'd still have detected the edges of something before the concert. And if they were using their powers during the concert, they would have been unable to hide it completely. Should they have refrained during this one concert, Kenny wouldn't be missing." He cast a quick, apologetic glance at Peter, sorry to remind him of the missing boy.

It wasn't as if Peter had forgotten, not for one minute, not when he was listening to nasty theories. He was glad Egon said it couldn't be a succubus and incubus. The thought of Kenny in their power made him feel sick in the pit of his stomach. Course that didn't mean whatever had happened wasn't worse. He wanted to rush out there and do something. The only problem was that he didn't know where to rush and what to do when he got there.

"Yeah, that's right," agreed Ray, disappointed, from his seat at the table. "Okay, I know that whoever did this might be just a nasty crook and might have chosen Kenny and followed him after the concert, waiting for him to be alone, or at least alone with Diane. But that wouldn't account for the way their friend said they acted while they were having their pizza. No, I don't think it's a human criminal, or at least not a normal human. I think we'd have picked it up if they somehow hypnotized Kenny and Diane during the concert, wouldn't we?"

Peter frowned. He had learned hypnosis as a treatment technique when he was working on his psychology degree and he used it once in awhile under very controlled conditions. Once, while he was using it on a client traumatized by a ghost, with her permission, Egon had taken careful readings to see if there were any elements of psi present. He hadn't actually picked up anything from Peter, and the slight altering if the subject's biorhythms simply indicated she was in a trace state.

"Not actually," Egon replied. "Because I'd have to be monitoring specific individuals; such a change would be minuscule and lost in the overall readings we got during the concert. There were simply too many people to monitor for individual fluctuations of their biorhythms."

"Besides," Peter added, "There's always some poor schmuck in the audience that gets hypnotized along with the one intended. My uncle Alf went to a nightclub hypnotist's performance and they called subjects from the audience. Uncle Alf didn't go, but the next thing you know, he was barking like a chicken out there in the audience. Aunt Grace said the hypnotist told them there were always some who would go under the spell without it being intended--and I learned that, too, when I was being taught how to do it. And Egon here isn't one of them. I have to put everything I've got into it to get Egon to put on a lampshade and dance around the room in his shorts."

Egon narrowed his eyes to be certain Peter was kidding. The few times he'd experimented on Egon with the physicist's permission he'd found it almost impossible to get old Spengs to go under. There had been a mighty temptation to pull a stunt like that but he'd never done it, because Egon trusted him. There were limits to their teasing, and demeaning him while under mental control was well outside them.

"So we're not talking hypnosis," Winston replied, pondering the problem. "Something random in their sodas? Drugs?"

"Kenny wouldn't take it on purpose, but the random thing wouldn't guarantee it was always a couple or always the same type of kid," Peter argued. This was really weird. How did they get to the right kids each time?

"True, and not everyone is responsive to drugs in the same way," Egon argued. He shuffled through their descriptions of the concert as if he'd missed something the first time through. "I'm not sure how they could be targeted. Whoever is doing this, whether it's Moccasin or something we haven't thought of, they must have a means of selecting victims."

"Maybe they can read their vibes somehow. Maybe they're psychic," offered Ray.

"No, not possible," Egon shot down that theory. "You remember, Ray, we've tested a few psychics, and there were always variable spikings in the brain readings to indicate a use of their powers. I keyed those kind of possible readings into the generic biorhythms long ago and, before the concert, I boosted that function on the abnormal psi meter. No evidence of that kind of psi."

"Well, it's gotta be something," argued Winston. "Vampires? After all, they're sometimes able to control people."

"No, we tested for the undead," Egon reminded him. "Besides, unless it's just an attack for blood, vampires need to be invited in. They can be invited unknowingly, of course, and perhaps the presence of their potential victims at a concert would be considered an invitation on a technicality. However, the meter readings gave no indication that we were dealing with the undead."

"I guess not," Ray said thoughtfully, then he snapped his fingers excitedly. "Hey, guys, you've heard of psychic vampires haven't you?"

"I thought Egon just said we were monitoring for vampires," Peter objected then he caught himself. "No, not for psychic vampires. I thought they snuck around during the waning moon and when they bit people they drew out their life force." When they looked at him in surprise, he said carelessly, "Well, I read it somewhere. They can draw energy out of people. Maybe they'd need a steady diet of it."

Ray nodded vehemently. He whirled and pounced on Tobin's Spirit Guide, flinging it open and rifling through the pages. "Yeah, because it says right here that psychic vampires are really human beings, alive and everything, but they have something in their body chemistry that lets them suck energy out of people. They don't have to bite them and I guess these days they really don't. They just can pull away life energy. Sometimes it drains them, sometimes not, depending on the person and how much is taken."

"Is this anything like the 'night hag' syndrome?" Egon inquired. "A person awakens in the night with a sense of pressure on his chest and a sense of paralysis?"

"Well, that's one kind of psychic attack," Ray replied. "There are a lot of different kinds of psi attacks. Sometimes the attacker will deplete an aura. Sometimes they just make people feel tired or down, isn't that right, Peter?"

Peter cast his mind back to his studies of parapsychology. "It's mostly theoretical, though, Ray. We never configured meters to pick up on anything like that--unless Egon did and never told us about it. He's got a real meter complex."

"Honestly, Peter," Egon grumbled. "No, I haven't set meters for something that may be only theoretical. Were it a serious problem, we'd have reports of it all over the city and we've never had anything that could have been this. If we had, I'd have postulated a theory about the type of energy involved and tried to detect it."

"Yeah, it's not like they're holding conventions in Manhattan," Peter confirmed. "Or even that they go around draining total strangers. Even if they did, somebody passed out in an alley would be considered a street person or wino. But they say that sometimes in a relationship a psychic vampire can batten on somebody and just drain them. They're getting a real high out of the relationship but the victim just feels worse and worse, depressed, sometimes even suicidal. But there are people who can give off this psychic energy that the psi vampires gobble down. Sometimes they balance out and it works, sometimes it doesn't, and you've got a victim. Odds are they wouldn't even know what was happening; they might wind up treated for clinical depression or maybe even anemia." He frowned. "So what you're saying, Ray, is that maybe somebody in the band is a psi vampire and when they find kids in the audience who are these 'givers' they sneak-recruit them?"

"I guess that's what I'm saying," the occultist agreed, a little surprised to have it so clarified. He cast a speculative glance at Egon to see if the physicist knew a reason why this theory wouldn't work either. Egon's face was thoughtful and he didn't speak, so Ray continued more slowly, "I used to know a lot about the subject but I haven't done anything with it for years. We're dealing with people's normal body chemistries, so I'm not sure that we could even detect an energy transfer especially in a place like that where everybody's energy was bouncing off the ceiling. We'd have had to focus on it specifically and even then it might be tough to pick up. It's kind of like normal body electricity, I bet. But the thing is, it's a fringe kind of deal. We've never been able to detect it with our equipment. Actually I don't remember that we ever tried."

Egon shook his head. "No. I don't believe we even discussed it. Such readings would be narrower and more refined than standard P.K. energy, I would theorize. I could configure a meter on what I'd expect to find of such a thing, but there are no guarantees this isn't anything but a wild theory. It might possibly explain why certain types are disappearing. Perhaps such types are more likely to be givers of such energy."

"Smart kids," Peter said, tracing back his thoughts, then shooting up out of his chair, alarmed. "Egon, you were probably the smartest one there, and you were really hooked on their music. Do you think those jerk musicians or whoever were feeding on you?" He supposed it didn't have to be the musicians, after all. It could be someone following the tour, a member of the audience. It could be one of the backstage people. It didn't have to be the singers, even if Peter had thought they were pond scum.

At the question, Egon reached for the nearest P.K.E. meter and took a quick reading of himself both under the meter's normal settings and at the biorhythm levels. "Interesting. I did not feel depleted even during the concert. Some of the louder music did give me a slight headache but it went away during the intermission. I felt no compulsion whatever to disappear and no trace of depression or anxiety, other than a normal concern that someone might vanish. I'm also detecting nothing unusual at present."

"We get around that band again, we'll find you a tether," Peter said firmly. Maybe they were way off base here, but he didn't like the thought of taking chances. He caught Egon's eyes. "You sure, big guy? Think about it. Do you feel in any way different, in any way compelled?"

"No, Peter. I don't. I didn't last night. But if even if someone in the band is a psychic vampire, there was a huge crowd last night. At best they would take a fraction of energy from anyone who fit the criteria, not enough to be obvious. They could have bled energy off half the audience and the worst anyone would notice is that they were more tired than usual, which would be normal after the show anyway."

Ray waved a hand wildly. "Hey, hey, maybe they can get by on a tour because they can bleed off what they need from the whole audience and not even be noticed. But in between tours, when they're not performing, they'd still have to feed, wouldn't they? Maybe they grab a couple of kids from each place, kids with a high level of the energy they like best, and keep them in reserve somewhere. Locked up, maybe."

"How do they do it, though?" Peter asked, vastly uneasy with the entire theory. If they couldn't test for it, and the police didn't have anything to go on, how could they even prove it was happening? How could they be sure their theories had anything going for them at all? "I mean, Kenny wouldn't take off voluntarily. He didn't get up close and personal with any of the band that we know about. He was warned. So what made him do it. How are they luring people and how do they know who to lure? And how do we know this isn't just crazy speculation?"

"Because, at this point, it fits what we know," Egon responded in a calming voice as if he'd sensed Peter's alarm. "Additional information may render this theory unlikely, but right now it makes sense."

Ray snapped his fingers again bouncing up on his toes. "I know. Maybe it's that aura Mel said he saw. Maybe it would be bright as a beacon to the vampire. Like a real vampire sensing nice fresh blood."

"You do realize," Egon continued as if Ray hadn't spoken, "that Peter is right and this is entirely hypothetical. We have nothing to base this on except wild speculation. I'll have to work on configuring a meter. If Ray and Winston don't have any of this giver energy, it would explain why the band weren't interested. As for Peter, I suspect he's right and his momentary interaction with Madeline was simple physical attraction, quickly fading on both parts. I must admit I have never felt anything that I could define as this psi giver thing. If any of us would possess such an attribute, I would guess it to be Ray."

"Gosh, Egon," breathed the auburn-haired man excitedly. "Do you think maybe? This is really great."

"This is not great, Tex," Peter insisted, for once irritated with Ray's enthusiasm. "Kenny's missing and so are all those other kids and who knows what these creeps are going to do to them--or maybe have done already. This might be a good theory but it's not proven fact. Even if it's right, those kids could be drained, maybe even to the death and we couldn't detect it. And remember, we don't know how to stop it."

Ray's face fell. "Gee, that's true. But we can solve it. We'll find the kids, Peter. I just know we will."

"I suspect the basic energy level in the room was too high for us to detect anything like what we've theorized," Egon offered quickly. "But a psi vampire doesn't account for the disappearances in and of itself. Those kids weren't the type to run away. They probably weren't drugged; somebody would have noticed before now. They were brainwashed or influenced, but how?"

"Subliminal stuff in the music," Ray theorized, undaunted. "That's why we're getting the recording of the concert, to see if we can pick up anything like that. I think it just has to be."

"And I think there was some kind of personal taste going down," Winston reminded them. He sprawled out on the couch again, his face grim. Peter was usually a couch-sprawler but he had too much tense energy to relax. "Not just any kids, but kids who met their own choices of what was good looking, or acceptable. Betcha, if it's the band behind it, all the kids who are missing are white. Probably attractive, too. Moccasin was pretty selective on who they were decent to when we met them. Good looking kids like Kenny and Diane. And that would mean the band or whoever should be able to see them from the stage. Kenny was in the second row. Because I don't buy it that, if this psychic vampire thing is real, that there'd be only two givers in the whole audience and that they'd just happen to be dating each other. No, they're choosing just two, arbitrarily, and that means they'd have to be visible from the stage."

Ray looked a little saddened, as if he realized that Winston's words halfway implied that he hadn't been found acceptable, either. Maybe they liked their victims thinner than Ray, or taller, or with a different colored hair. "They're choosing kids," Peter said. "They're not interested in adults, except that maybe they can suck a little energy out of them during the concert."

Ray lifted his eyes to Peter, fully aware of the point Peter was trying to make and the reason for it. He smiled vaguely.

"But what are they doing with the kids?" Winston persisted, grabbing up a throw pillow and pounding it with his fist as if he'd like to do the same to the band. "If they were just draining them after the concert, they'd show up again when the energy came back, wouldn't they? Or when the band was done with them?"

"Assume we're correct about the reason for what's happened, I'd assume so," Egon replied. "But we are operating only on an unproven hypothesis and--" The sound of footsteps on the spiral stairs made him fall silent, and Ray abandoned the pages of Tobin to see who was coming.

It proved to be Eddie Plummer himself, accompanied by his wife, Whitney and trailed by Janine, who had ushered them upstairs. "Egon, Eddie and Whitney are here," she said unnecessarily. "And there's a bust scheduled for noon, so don't forget." She hesitated, curious enough to want to stay, and Egon nodded at her to indicate she was welcome to do so. She made a gesture to indicate she'd get coffee and vanished.

"Did you find out anything?" Eddie asked, holding out a reel-to-reel tape container to Ray. "That's from last night. You said you wanted to go over it so we dropped it by." When Ray took it, he flopped into a chair and pulled Whitney down beside him. "A cop named Easter came to see us first thing this morning. He said two more kids disappeared last night, and he's pretty suspicious of us. But I swear, guys, the last thing any of us would ever do would be to hurt kids. We're musicians. We're not criminals. We don't lure them away with promises of unlimited music, drugs, and freedom."

"They know that, love," Whitney reassured him. "Tell them what you were telling me. They need to know."

Eddie took a deep breath and plunged into his explanation. "I've been talking to the roadies, all our backstage people. Mel's been watching since Philadelphia and he says he's seen some weird auras. Now you have to know Mel to get it. He sees them a lot of the time, and he watches for it, because sometimes it could be a nutcase groupie who might try something weird at a concert or after. Just because somebody's a groupie doesn't mean he wants to watch and admire from afar. Look at that Hinckley guy that shot John Lennon. And that demon who was after me. So Mel watches out for weirdness. He did say the aura he saw last night wasn't malicious. And he thought maybe somebody did something to them rather then them doing anything to somebody else."

"That would tie in," Egon said thoughtfully. "Eddie, have you ever had a headache when Moccasin was performing?"

His cousin stared at him, eyes narrowing. Removing the sunglasses perched in his hair, he ran his fingers through it, then set them into place again. Whitney edged closer to him and touched his arm.

"I seem to remember the first couple of nights they were on the tour with us, I did, but then it stopped."

Peter got it. Eddie and Egon were related and might be affected the same by psychic vampires. But Eddie was a public figure, part of the tour, and it might be too obvious if the headaches had continued. The other band might have stopped drawing from Eddie on purpose. Peter shook his head. He could see why Egon kept insisting this was all theoretical. At the rate they were going, they could find excuses for everything to point to the other band, and they didn't have one iota of proof.

"Tell him what you're thinking, Egon," Peter suggested. "See if it flies."

So Egon related their hypotheses while the two fair-haired singers listened. Whitney's face was mobile and flexible and her emotions darted across it in alarm as Ray pitched in and added theories here and there. Eddie's mouth drew tight in a grim line. "You mean they're snatching kids to feed on when they don't have performances lined up?" he concluded.

"It's one possibility," Peter confirmed. "It might be ten miles wide of the mark. But nothing that's happened has shot it down yet. Do you know where the band members live?"

"So you can go there and take readings?"

"So we can check to see if the missing kids are there," Winston said firmly.

"Well, Derek has an old family place; it's on Staten Island, I think. He's got money, other than what he makes with the band. Inherited a property there. He's got a place in town, too. I think the others have apartments here, but I couldn't swear it. They're in town now, though," he added. "Didn't Jackson say they had a publicity appearance tomorrow, Whitney, and they just decided to hang around till then?"

She nodded. "I think so. Derek said something to him about it. I'm glad the tour is over. They never treated Jackson very well. It was subtle, nothing you could really put your finger on, but I'm pretty sure it was there. He doesn't like them, but we had a contract. Thank goodness it's over. It's the first time I hated a tour. I'm going up to Segue this afternoon to be with Cy, but Eddie says he'll stay over another day and see if you can figure anything out."

"Do you know where we might find Moccasin today?" Ray asked. "We can head over there and take new readings, see if any of this can be detected?"

Janine came in with coffee cups before either musician could answer and passed them around. When she got it for company, she got it for the Ghostbusters, too, and Peter always loved to let her know that he'd noticed, since it wasn't her usual thing. He took the cup from the tray and sniffed it carefully.

"Oh, don't worry, Dr. V. It's not poisoned," she kidded him.

"You never can tell. I mean I've got all my fans, and then there's you, Janine. A guy has to be careful."

"Believe it." She took her own cup and sat down near Egon on the one free chair.

Eddie sipped his coffee, watching the liquid swirl in his cup. "One thing I know about Moccasin, they're really tight," he said thoughtfully. "It's not the same as the four of you, but it's as intense. They sort of exclude everybody who isn't them. Not to say they don't date; I've seen them with dates a couple of times. Tall, good-looking blonde types for the guys, and Maddie seems to go for guys like Peter or guys as fair as her. But it never seems serious. Even when they're with dates, they're more with each other than they are their partners. One of them will start to say something and another will finish. You'll probably find them at Derek's apartment. It's biggest." He rattled off an address on the Upper West Side. Peter frowned. That sounded awfully familiar.

"Hey, guys," he said uneasily. "Recognize it?"

"Should we?" Ray began, when Egon frowned.

"Yes, Peter, I do. Dana Barrett lived in that building. Of course it's been reconstructed and I've taken periodic readings of the place when I was in the neighborhood. It's been nearly psi-null since the defeat of Gozer."

"Gozer?" Eddie lifted an eyebrow at his wife. "You mean whatever this thing is could be imposed on them somehow? Possession?"

"No, we can detect possession," Ray said, bouncing up. "We can't always detect influence. Maybe something's starting to leak through from the other side. When did you test it last, Egon?"

"Let me see. I believe it was in May. Lately I've run my tests twice a year. However, there have been no substantial gains in the ambient energy levels of the city that can't be explained by the nearness of Halloween. Should the gate we closed there open again, we'd have as much business as we did the last time, and the readings would be screaming for attention. I think it behooves us to run tests, though. Minor leakage might well affect residents."

Peter frowned, too caught up in memories to call Egon for using a word like 'behooves'. Dana Barrett was the woman he considered the great love of his life, gone now, safely married to somebody else. He hadn't been back to that building since he and Dana had broken up but he'd been on Central Park West a few times and had always taken a hard look at it when he passed. Since the explosion, it had undergone a major renovation and all the designs and gargoyles and other adornments were gone. If Peter's eyes occasionally rose to the penthouse level when he passed and his recollection of the Dana days trickled back, it was only an old memory. Sometimes he missed her, but he went for long months without even remembering her.

Had the leakage Egon talked about made Dana susceptible to psi? Maybe she had drawn down those paranormal events simply because of where she'd lived? Ray had called it the corner penthouse of spook central. Odds were Derek North was the penthouse type, especially with all that bread. Maybe whatever they'd shut away was oozing back and cranking up his psi energy. He explained his reasoning to Egon, who pondered it.

"Interesting theory, Dr. Venkman. We'll definitely need to take readings."

"What about this Staten Island place?" asked Winston quickly with a sidelong glance at Peter to see how he was taking the reminder of Dana. He deposited his coffee cup on the table. "Is it remote? A likely place to take the kids they snatch, assuming they snatch them?"

"I've never been there," Eddie replied. "Never invited. I know it's called Four Quarters--"

"Gee, you'd think they could have just called it Dollar," Peter put in with a grin.

"Or 'The Whole Shebang,'" offered Ray.

"Maybe it just has quarters for four people," was Winston's offering.

Egon made a stern gesture, although the corners of his mouth quirked. "Gentlemen, if I could call you to order..."

Eddie grimaced, hiding a smile. "I'd bet it's set on grounds the way Segue is. Derek's rolling in money. I can get an address; one of his roadies quit midway through the tour and I know how to reach the guy. He might know. I don't think he was crazy about Moccasin. Or Malcolm might find out from the band's manager. I'll call it in."

Whitney slid into the circle of her husband's arm. "What will happen next?"

Egon grabbed up a meter and popped open its casing, holding out an automatic hand to Ray for a screwdriver. "I'll reconfigure this meter to detect the kind of energy we're talking about. Based on what little we know of psychic vampires, I can postulate the type of energy in question and set the meter to read it. Of course we won't know for certain till we test it. Peter and I can go over to the apartment building and take readings--"

"Who, wait a minute, hold it," Peter sputtered. "Come on, Egon, you just might be Numero Uno on their dessert menu. Maybe Ray should do it."

"From outside, Peter," argued Egon, too interested in the possible readings to want to hear it second hand. "I don't wish to be drained, believe me. If I display any evidence of it, you can whip me into Ecto and get me out of there. Then we'd know we were on the right track."

"Don't sound so excited about it," Peter chastised him. "Zombie Egon wouldn't be nearly as much fun to tease."

"Getting anything, Spengs?" Peter asked a couple of hours later. The team's scheduled bust had proven simply and quick--two Class 2s who did nothing worse than lob pieces of china at the team, easily busted--the china, as well as the ghosts. Ecto-1 was parked in a no-parking space in front of Derek North's--formerly Dana Barrett's--apartment building. Outside the newly refurbished structure, a canopy in vivid red sheltered a liveried doorman, who stared at them doubtfully. When they didn't leave the converted hearse, the man shook his head, shrugged, and turned to open the door for a pudgy matron with two elaborately manicured standard poodles on leashes the same shade as the canopy. Even though the place looked different, Peter half expected Dana to emerge with her cello case and look about for a taxi.

Dropping off Ray to check out the audio tape for subliminal messages and Winston to try to track down the location of The Four Quarters, Peter had driven Egon north again to the apartment while the physicist worked on the meter. He had a couple of other detection gizmos with him: the magnetometer, a newly configured one that he said detected unusual electrical charges and that was dangerous to turn on during a thunderstorm--Peter had checked out the sky that stretched out blue and bland overhead to make sure it wouldn't summon lightning. Okay, so there were clouds banking to the west, but they didn't look like thunder clouds so they should be safe--at least from the magnetometer. An additional meter was attuned to the readings he'd detected from Derek North the night before. There was no point in taking readings if the singers weren't even there. Well, there was, of course. Egon insisted that standard readings of the structure might indicate an external source of the problem.

"Not yet," Egon replied to Peter's question. "Well, other than the faint reading from North that proves he's home. I can't read the other band members, though, so he may be alone. Let me try the general tests first. It's entirely possible that the building itself exerts an influence on North or other tenants." He picked up one gadget after another, including the magnetometer (it didn't call down lightning) and took detailed readings, jotting down his findings in a small notebook. "Nothing obvious," he said. "There has always been a faint, lingering psi residue here. Anyplace where so much psychic turbulence existed doesn't simply shrug it away. I've measured it each time. It dropped lower and lower for a time then it bottomed out. It hasn't grown since then, but neither has it diminished further. It doesn't even register on a standard P.K.E. meter unless I adjust it for top gain."

Peter snatched up one of the four meters that lay on the seat between him and Egon. Before they set out, Egon had configured them all different and stuck bits of masking tape on each one, writing its setting on the tape. Grabbing the one configured for Egon's biorhythms, Peter had just activated it when the screen fuzzed before his eyes. That was weird. He glanced sideways at Egon to see what was going on, but Egon looked unharmed and untouched, unaware of any changes. The fuzzing went away.

"Hey, Egon, did you just feel something weird?" he asked quickly.

"Define 'weird', Peter?" Egon asked in perfectly normal tones.

The antennae of the meter shifted but didn't lift. "This," Peter proclaimed, shoving the faintly active meter in Spengler's face. "What's it mean, big guy?"

"How very odd," Egon remarked, removing it deftly from Peter's hand and doing something to the dials. The antennae moved again, raising slowly but steadily.

"Come on, Spengs, what is it?" Peter prodded. "This is weirding me out." He caught up his own meter, the one set for his own biorhythms. It just lay there in his hand, kicking back and taking the day off.

Egon's voice was fascinated. "I am conscious of a strange sensation."

Peter's heart sank. "What kind of strange sensation? Come on, this isn't good. We're hanging around Gozer's old stomping ground and the guy up there might have kidnapped a dozen kids or more. Ray says he's a psi vampire. He could be sucking out--" He squinted at Egon, whose face had grown pale. "Egon? Egon? Come on, guy, you're scaring me here."

The physicist turned his head very slowly toward Peter. A strange emptiness had replaced the gleam of intellect that usually shone in his eyes. "I feel strange," he murmured. He sagged back against the seat, his fingers struggling feebly to adjust the dials of the meter. "I feel..."

"That's it, we're outta here." Peter flung aside his meter and cranked the key, throwing Ecto into gear. Peeling out in front of an indignant taxi, he ignored the squeal of brakes, the blaring of horns and a few profane yells as he cut through traffic to put as much distance as possible between Egon and Dana's old building. North couldn't do his number across town, could he? The meter Egon held squealed with overload and so did the other meter, the one that had been set at high gain to pick up the unearthly readings from the building itself.

"Egon? Come on, Spengs, snap out of it here." He risked a quick, sidelong glance at his slumping friend. Egon's pallor was worse and he was breathing heavily. All at once, he slid sideways toward Peter, his head against the psychologist's shoulder.

"P-peter?" he mumbled in a faint whisper. "I--I think I...am going to...pass out..." The last word trailed off into gibberish and his body went completely limp.

"No, come on, Egon, don't do this to Uncle Peter." He flipped on the siren with an impatient hand, gratified when cars and taxis responded promptly. Driving a heavily armed 1959 Cadillac hearse that could probably barrel through a brick wall with minimum damage except to the wall tended to produce respect in other drivers. Conscious of the need to put as much distance between Egon and Derek North as possible, Peter went flat out, swirling through the Park, the heel of his hand hard on the horn when someone refused to give ground. He thought he sideswiped no more than five cars, but he didn't even care. The only thing that mattered was Egon, getting him to safety. Did the energy replenish itself when a psychic vampire attacked? How long did it take? Did anything else go, too--like the mind? Whoever was behind the kids' disappearance--and it was a damned good bet it was Doom's Electric Moccasin, or at least Derek North--singled out intelligent kids. Were they draining energy in general, or were they draining intellect?

The thought of Egon focusing uncomprehending blue eyes at him and never bouncing back made Peter sick to the heart.

He got an arm around Egon's shoulders to steady him and keep him from being flung about and set his direction toward the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital where the team's doctor, Greg Labraccio did afternoon calls.

"Come on, Egon, talk to me," he urged desperately. "Don't do this to me. It's not nice to scare Dr. Venkman. You're gonna be okay. You're away from him. I'm gonna go introduce his face to my fist as soon as you're okay. First he got Kenny, and now he did this to you. He's not getting away with it. Come on, Egon, talk to me.... Hey! Get over. Move it!" he bellowed at a stubborn taxi that wouldn't give ground. Desperate, he went right up on the curb and passed it on the sidewalk. That would probably get cops after him, but who cared? He squealed into the intersection, dived down a side street, and went flat out toward the hospital, his arm tight around his unconscious friend.

Egon's breathing evened out and sounded more regular but he was still lax and unresponsive to Peter's demands for a reply when he screeched Ecto to a stop in front of the emergency room door and cut the siren. A couple of orderlies emerged in response to the siren and Peter yelled, "Over here, quick!" and made himself get out of the way to let them work.

"Okay, Peter, let's go over what happened to him," Greg Labraccio urged half an hour later. Egon, lying in a cubicle in the ER was coming around, awareness returning to his eyes, and Peter ignored the question long enough to bend over Egon, seeking out intelligence in the confused gaze. It had been the longest thirty minutes he could remember. Egon had looked so pale and slack as he lay there, passive and unaware under the tests. What if he never came back? What if he came back a vegetable? What if he came back changed but alert enough to know what had happened to him? Those thoughts had turned the endless wait into a nightmare. Even the promise from Ray and Winston to get there as soon as possible didn't reassure him. They wouldn't be able to do anything but sit with him and they were too far away to arrive in time to companion Peter though the waiting period. Peter had installed himself in a chair in the corner of the cubicle and waited while the doctor ran his tests and performed a thorough examination of the unconscious physicist.

When Egon moved, shifted against the bed, and muttered faintly, Peter had abandoned his chair without a backward look and rushed to Egon's side. The open eyes tracked Peter's movements. He could see him, anyway. Did he know him? Was he still Egon inside? Peter couldn't tell. Egon might only register movement. He might not understand. Peter had to know, right now. He couldn't wait long enough to go over his story one more time with Labraccio.

"Just a sec," he said to the doctor, then asked urgently, "Egon?"

"My head aches," Egon groaned, raising his hands to massage his temples. At least he could talk and make sense. Peter's hope poked its head out of its shelter and took a vary glance around.

"Do you know who I am?" Venkman asked quickly. He scooped up one of Egon's hands and squeezed it in both of his own.

"Peter." Relief and amusement sparkled in the blue of his eyes. "Thank you."

"Yeah, I know, people always thank me for being so wonderful," Peter kidded, relief pounding through his body while hope did a little celebration dance in his mind. Egon was still in there, his brain still intact.

He proved it by grimacing. "I meant thank you for removing me from the danger zone," Egon replied. He tried to sit up and sagged. "Not a good idea," he murmured. Peter grabbed him and hugged him hard before he eased him down against the pillow. Egon wasn't gone; he was going to be fine. But watching him just lie there while Greg ran his tests had been one of the worst experiences of Peter's life.

"Stay there and don't try to move yet," he instructed sternly. "You're not Superman or Captain Steel. Wait till Greg says you can sit up, okay?"

"Okay," Egon confirmed. He put out his hand automatically and Peter grabbed it again, uncertain which of them the touch was meant to comfort. He wasn't sure how much Egon remembered of what had happened to him, but it had to be crummy, feeling his strength and will trickling away. Egon would loathe that. Peter hated it on Egon's behalf as much as he did on his own.

"Egon, look at me." That was Greg, horning in with a stethoscope. "I've been taking your readings for the past half hour since Peter brought you here yelling for me. They're all to hell in directions that don't match but they're stabilizing. I've got you on an IV. I want to stabilize your electrolytes. Peter showed me a recording of weird P.K.E. readings. Good thing he brought you here. Most of the other doctors in the city wouldn't have a clue."

"But you do?" Egon asked.

"Well, no, not really, but at least I understand a little more than my colleagues would." He stood back from the bed. "You're reacting as if you hadn't slept for three days. Sleep deprivation can cause weird reactions. It's as if you have slept without the REM sleep stage, yet you've only been out about forty-five minutes."

"Will I be all right?" Egon asked, and Peter, who knew him so well, could hear the concern in his voice that Greg might miss. He tightened his grip on Egon's hand. It's okay, Egon, I'm right here.

"Yes, after a good night's rest and plenty of fluids, you should be." He paused to allow the two men their moment of relief then continued, "Peter told me about the psychic vampires. I've heard of the concept. It sounds like you got a concentrated dose of it, but, if it exists, it evidently requires proximity. Yet, something exists because something drained your energy. You four Ghostbusters certainly have expanded my world-view since the day I first encountered you."

Peter relaxed. "The thing is, though, Derek North is dangerous to you, Egon. We might have to bench you on this one."

"No." Egon shook his head, wincing at the motion. "Well, that was stupid," he muttered to himself. "No, Peter. I think that the building may have enhanced him. In fact he may simply be a conduit to the closed gateway rather than an active seeker of energy. It's possible we're encountering a return of Gozer, and that he is drawing energy through Derek North."

"Oh, now, wait a minute, nobody said we had to take on Gozer again," Peter complained, squashing down the panic in his stomach. They'd barely survived the last encounter. They'd forced Gozer back through the doorway into its own realm, nearly drowned in marshmallow cream, and blew up part of a building. One step right or left for any of them and he might have been impaled or exploded or knocked right off the edge of the building. Not a good experience.

"We may not have to, Peter. The theory may be wrong or it may be another entity from that realm. But I think we should be prepared. I have several new possibilities now that I want to work on immediately."

"No," chorused Peter and Labraccio as one. The curly haired doctor said, "You aren't really up to it, Egon. I want to keep you here on the IV for a few more hours in any case."

"There's already a link to Gozer in our dimension," Egon protested. "Although we closed the doorway to Gozer's realm, he had assumed the form of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. When Gozer was returned where he belonged, the marshmallow man came apart."

"All over us," Peter pointed out, grimacing. Despite the movie version of that incident, he'd been as bathed in the stuff as the other three. Bill Murray had lucked out, being the star. It had taken forever to get that nasty guck out of his hair.

"Then, where did you get that Stay Puft guy you have in your containment unit?" Greg asked, momentarily distracted. He played with the stethoscope that hung around his neck as he waited for a reply. "I always wondered that."

"So did we at first," Egon replied. "The thing is, the marshmallow creme had been imbued with the energy of a demi-god. When it took that form, it created the substance physically and inhabited it. It couldn't simply be flushed down the sewers with a fire hose, even if it hadn't been a pollutant. Our uniforms were so permeated it with it that they once almost came alive and nearly destroyed us. Even at the scene, we realized the remnants could be dangerous. We drew the energy off it in every trap we had with us and put it into the containment unit as soon as we rebuilt it. Once in there, it reassembled in the form it had held when Gozer inhabited it. It even possessed a consciousness, although its personality did not match that of Gozer. It was even occasionally benevolent. Because of its mass, we have been unable to do consistent studies on it outside the unit."

Peter sat there squeezing Egon's hand and holding back a grin. Listen to him. He could spout out this kind of stuff without effort on a good day. That he could do it now proved that his mind was intact. He might be sleepy and drained, but he was still Egon and that was the most important thing.

"I need to speak to Raymond immediately," Egon continued without pause. "This may be far more urgent than several missing children." When Peter might have drawn back, hurt that Egon could ignore Kenny's danger, he tightened his grip around Peter's fingers and didn't let him pull free. "Peter, I know you are concerned for Kenny Fenderman and the other missing teens, as are we all. But I think this might be part of a larger picture. I assumed before that the children might simply be kidnapped to feed the band energy in the hiatus between concerts. Now, I find myself wondering if the location of North's apartment might indicate something far more inimical, not just to those children but to the entire world."

"I hate it when he talks like that," Peter muttered to Greg, but he understood it. "Ray and Winston are coming," he said. "I called them when we first got here."

"Good. I'll have instruction from Ray. I won't have to stay here, will I, Greg?"

"No, not overnight. You've already come back nearly to normal. Your mind is not affected, simply your energy. I'm sure the guys will make sure you sleep tonight."

"Believe it," Peter vowed. "Egon, I knew going up there was a mistake. I should have taken Ray."

"Actually, Peter, Ray might possibly be a target, too, if not of the band, of whatever draws the energy off them." He frowned. "I'm theorizing ahead of data, but I do have a new theory."

"Goodie, and I can't wait to hear it, but I'm gonna. Egon, you take this time, now, while Greg's pumping his IV into you and you sleep. You need it. When Ray gets here, we can go over things or you can when we take you home. You didn't see how you looked when I was driving you here. You scared me."

Egon's eyes lifted and met Peter's. He studied him for a long moment, and understanding filled his expression as he realized how worried Peter had been. "Very well," he agreed. "Until Greg is ready to discharge me. But you must tell Ray, Peter. About the building, about what I've said. Promise, Peter."

Venkman clutched Egon's hand in both of his own. "You got it," he agreed before he let go.

"He really will be all right," Greg told him as the two men left Egon in his cubicle, his breathing already deepening into the steadiness of sleep. "He'll be tired for a day or two, but that might be good because it will enable him to catch catnaps." He patted Peter on the shoulder. "I know it freaked you out, but it wasn't permanent."

"If I hadn't gotten him away from there..." Peter began.

"We don't know what would have happened, and it does you no good to imagine the worst," the doctor insisted urgently. He pulled off the latex gloves he'd been wearing and disposed of them in a container, then he raked his hands through his tangled curls. Peter had the idea he did that each time he took off the gloves. It would certainly explain his hair's state of permanent disarray.

"We do have to imagine the worst," Peter said. "Because we haven't solved this yet. Egon's not going to sit tamely at home while the rest of us go off to battle the unspeakable horror. It's not the way he is. Maybe Ray can dream up a gizmo to shield him, but we need to know what the worst could be before we face it again. I'm serious here. Bottom line, Greg. Could it have killed him?"

Labraccio hesitated, his face twisting as he ran his test results over again in his mind. He'd come to consider the Ghostbusters his personal friends as well as his patients since that time he'd treated Egon for a concussion that the rest of them, Egon included, had assumed was an attack on his brain by a scientist-hating ghost. ⁽⁵⁾ Peter had the idea he didn't want to answer the question.

"All right, Peter. Yes, he could have died. If you hadn't removed him from the location when you did, he might have been drained to the death, although we don't know that was the intention. I realize it was a psi attack, but it drained him physically. The human body has only so much energy to give. I'm not sure he would have been drained to the death; it would have been a foolish and obvious mistake. In fact, I think it was just that. If this North person doesn't want to give away his whole show, draining Egon was stupid. But if this Gozer element is true, then maybe North has no control over it. Or else, the plan is so close to completion that it doesn't matter if you Ghostbusters realize something is wrong."

Peter felt cold. He didn't like the sound of that one little bit. "Tomorrow's Halloween," he reminded the physician. "Ray says that's when the walls between the worlds are thinnest and nasty things can cross over. Halloween's one of our busiest times of year--but it hasn't been that busy this year. A lot of little jobs but not nearly as many as we had before Gozer came. I've got a feeling we've got major trouble hanging over us just waiting to happen. If there's only one day to go before whatever this is goes ballistic, then it might not matter if it called attention to itself with Egon. That might mean it's too late to stop it."

"You just made my day," the doctor groaned. "This can't be real. Walls between worlds and things coming through? You've no idea how good you've made me feel."

"Yeah, but now we know something is coming down," Peter reminded him. "That means we have to stop it." Stop it? How could they stop it when they didn't understand what it was? How could they face it as a team when it could suck not only energy but life out of Egon? They needed Egon; he was their idea man and he had some theories that might solve it, but if they took him into the battle, he could die. If they didn't take him into it, the whole world could die. Oh, man, this sucks, Peter thought miserably. This really, really sucks.

"Can you stop it?" Greg asked.

Peter met his gaze head on. "I don't know."

"Gosh, this is so weird." Ray took another reading of Egon, who was stretched out on the couch in the lab. He looked pale and tired and there were shadows under his eyes, but he was conscious and alert. Ray could imagine how Janine would have reacted if she had seen him looking like this but she wasn't there. She'd come in this morning because of everything that was going down, but she had some family shindig tonight and she'd departed soon after Egon and Peter had headed for Derek North's place, after inflicting a promise from Ray to keep her posted. He hadn't called her when they heard about Egon because the urgency of Peter's phone call had put it entirely out of his mind.

When they'd arrived at the hospital and found him looking so drained, Ray was horrified, and shocked all over again at the tension that radiated through Peter like a taut bowstring. It must have been awful for Peter to see it happening and have no way to stop it, and not to know if there was any cure for it. Thank goodness Egon was okay. But the story he'd told, the theory about Gozer--that sounded really bad. Maybe Ray should call Janine. If Egon was laid up, they might need her to put on a proton pack. He'd have to see what they decided to do. Janine would get on his case so bad on Monday morning if he didn't call. If there even was a Monday morning...

"What do you get, Ray?" Egon asked around a gigantic yawn. Greg had said he'd be tired the rest of the day and that he needed to go to bed early tonight and sleep in tomorrow morning, but Egon insisted that he had to work.

"Work? Then work flat on your back," Peter said tightly and steered him over to the lab couch. "We'll run around and be your gofers and do tests but you lay there and just use the great brain." Peter had been given a bad scare and he always got overprotective when that happened.

Winston agreed. "Yeah, you listen to him, homeboy. Tell us about it, and then let us work on it. We all just love making Pete work. I'd pay good money to see that."

"Work!" complained Venkman automatically, but he didn't protest any more than that, dragging up a chair backwards and resting his chin on the arms he folded across the seatback while Egon explained about Dana Barrett's building, the energy readings that trickled through from the other side, and the fact that Derek North's place of residence may have provoked a mild case of psychic vampirism into a full-blown possession and triggered the entire crisis.

"He may well be controlled," Egon replied. "He may cooperate voluntarily or he may not even realize how fully he's been drawn in. Or he may simply be an involuntary conduit. If he possesses the ability to draw off psychic energy, he might be exactly what Gozer, or whatever is waiting on the other side, wants."

"Dinner," Peter proclaimed dramatically.

"Or, simply, enough energy to force the doorway open again," Egon corrected. "The energy at the structure had bottomed out. But when the suction began, I could feel it rising again."

"Yeah, and the meters we had with us went crazy," Peter said. "It's not bottomed out now. It's rising again. I didn't have a chance to take readings--I had to get Egon away from there--but I could tell from the way all those meters were screeching at me."

"You mean whatever is on the other side is making them kidnap kids to feed itself and get enough strength to cross over?" Ray's eyes widened. "That's not very nice."

"It wants intelligent kids," Egon replied. "Which is alarming in its own right. Always good kids. Which indicates to me that perhaps whatever it is wants people who do not contaminate their system with drugs."

"Or sex and rock and roll?" Peter asked quickly, a wicked gleam in his eyes.

"Well, not the rock and roll, or they wouldn't be at the concerts," said Ray with a quick grin.

"So you're saying that maybe sex drains away the kind of energy the Goze wants?" Peter asked, looking surprised that his frivolous remark might actually have merit. "Egon, my man, Whatsit on the other side had the hots for you. Are you sure this abstinence gig is a good thing?"

"I'm not abstinent, Peter," Egon responded immediately, a tinge of pink touching his cheekbones. "I'm simply not as sexually active as you are."

"So, how long has it been?" Peter asked sternly, leaning back and folding his arms across his chest. When the movement nearly threw him out of the chair, he jumped up as if he'd planned to do so all along, his eyes twinkling. He looked ready to drag Egon to Janine's apartment and lock them together in the bedroom, if that was what it took to protect his friend. Of course Janine would do anything to help Egon.... Ray hid a grin. What a way for Janine and Egon to make up from that fight they'd had or whatever had put some distance between them a couple of months ago.

"That, Peter, you will never know," Egon replied. Ray wondered if that might be the truth of it. But then, he wasn't as sexually active as Peter was, either--at least as Peter was always hinting he was--and he hadn't been taken. It was just a theory, anyway.

Peter grinned knowingly to imply that he could guess all the details of Egon's sex life just by looking at him, then he eased off and tossed Egon a throw pillow to put behind his head. Egon fielded it neatly and nodded a thanks, deliberately ignoring Peter's grin.

"Hey, Ray," Peter said, turning and letting Egon off the hook, at least for the moment, "anything on the tape of the concert?"

"I went through it with the equipment we had and I didn't come up with anything," he admitted. "But then we're really not set up for that. I can make parts of the sound drop out and focus on certain parts but I don't have the ability to do it thoroughly. So I sent it off to my friend Rollie Tyler. He says he'll squeeze it in this afternoon and get back to me."

"That the Aussie SFX guy?" Peter asked, dropping onto his chair again, and Ray nodded.

"Rollie's worked with the police before. He can handle stuff like that. He's got a friend with NYPD. If he finds anything out, he'll tell us, but he can report it, too. He'd have credibility."

"Can we get back to the gateway at the apartment building?" Egon interrupted, breaking off in the middle to yawn gapingly. "Ray, I have a feeling that something on the other side wants to cross over to our side. We didn't completely destroy the gateway when we defeated Gozer; we simply blocked it."

"But you said as long as we took readings while the reconstruction was going on we could be sure it wasn't opened again," Ray argued. He knew simple construction wasn't enough to open a dimensional gateway; it didn't have physical ties to either world. The building co-existed with the gate, but in a separate plane that the physical structure didn't touch.

"That's true. But neither could the construction block the gate. Whether Gozer is on the other side anxious to return to our world or another entity is, my theory is that when Derek North moved into the apartment and proved to be a psychic vampire--which we incidentally still have no proof of, by the way--the entity decided to use him."

"No proof," exploded Peter, jumping to his feet. "What do you mean, no proof? You passed out, Egon. What more proof do you need?"

"I know something drained my energy and I know it happened in front of Derek North's apartment. Whether he is the one at fault or if the others were present and one of them was the guilty party or if the entity on the other side controls them we have no way of knowing without further information."

"Well, you're not going over there to get it," Peter insisted. "A couple of those little incidents in a row might just suck your brain out through your eyeballs."

Winston grimaced. "Thanks, Pete. We could all do without that mental picture."

"I mean it," Peter insisted defiantly. "Okay, so we need to trek up there again but you're staying here, Spengs, and that's final. Ray and I will go."

"I could go, too, homeboy," Winston volunteered. "Might take three of us."

"If we go up there, we could be walking into a trap," Peter pointed out. "If three of us go, that leaves Egon to solve it on his own and he can't, if he's going to keep keeling over. Ray can play nice with the other kiddies and he can use a meter with the best of them. And you," he said, poking Winston in the arm, "can sit on Dr. Einstein here and keep him from doing anything crazy."

"Really, Peter, I have no plans to do anything crazy," Egon defended himself. He looked as if the wildest thing he meant to do was catch a few zzzs. He smothered another yawn.

Ray darted across the hall to the bedroom and returned with a blanket which he spread over the physicist. "Egon, you take a nap. We'll just go and meet with North and take readings on site. Winston, you can take calls if Rollie has anything for us and see if you can find out anything more about that Four Quarters place on Staten Island. We could all run out there when we get back and see if they're stashing the missing kids there. Egon, too. He can sleep on the way."

"Nobody ever tucks me in," complained Peter, donning an expression of mock wistfulness.

Egon opened one eye and studied him consideringly. "We can't, Peter. It's not in our job description."

Derek North opened the door on the second knock and, to do him justice, he didn't appear surprised at the sight of two uniformed Ghostbusters on his doorstep wearing proton packs and carrying P.K.E. meters. The doorman had probably phoned to let him know they were coming up, giving him time to prepare his society face. Today, the singer looked tired and grumpy as if he were not only not a morning person but not even an afternoon one. Clad in black pants and a wide-sleeved shirt in vivid blue silk, he presented a façade of weary dissipation, but there was no guilt in his eyes, only a dreary fatigue. "You might as well come in," he said and stood aside to allow them to enter. "You're not the only ones."

The cryptic nature of that comment was revealed by the sight of Detective Easter, seated on a sofa striped in cream and cherry, a cup of coffee on the end table beside him and a notepad in his hand. He nodded at them, eyes narrowing, one brow lifting. "Venkman. Stantz."

"Hey, Detective Easter," cried Ray. "What are you doing here?"

Surreptitiously, Peter nudged Ray with his elbow.

"My job," the detective replied. "As you remember, I'm investigating the continuing disappearances from the tour that was just completed. He had a weary look that matched North's, and his eyes were hard and unfriendly. He made Frump look as jolly as Santa Claus by comparison.

"We've already established that I haven't concealed them here," North said brightly. "Coffee, gentlemen?" He cast a hasty glance at his Rolex watch. "Eddie tells me you suspect a paranormal explanation for the disappearances." Without waiting for an answer, he crossed to the wet bar near the balcony doors and reached for the coffee pot.

"Maybe," Ray conceded warily, accepting the cup and saucer the singer passed him. Peter had made him agree not to mention what had happened to Egon unless it was really warranted. They didn't want to give away everything they knew. He sniffed the coffee surreptitiously and took a careful sip. Peter waited for his reaction, but the coffee seemed safe enough. North could hardly drug them in front of a cop.

"Look, I know about that roadie, Mel," Derek proclaimed, waving a languid hand at a second striped sofa. "Sit down, if those packs on your backs will let you." He poured out a second cup and passed it to Peter, who deposited it untouched on a glass-topped end table. Peter and Ray perched on the edges of chairs, unwilling to remove their proton packs.

"Roadie?" Easter asked suspiciously.

"Yeah, the one that's really a demon. You ask me, we don't need to look any further for what's going on."

"Mel wouldn't hurt a fly," cried Ray, outraged. "Anyway, if there was trouble, we'd have known before now. This isn't his first tour, after all." Easter wasn't writing it down. Derek might have said something to him about it already.

"And who's to say that kids haven't gone missing all along and nobody made the connection?" challenged North. "I don't know how it is that I and my friends have become the villains of the piece. I'm sorry about it. I've allowed the detective to search my apartment for any signs of evidence."

Peter glanced around the place, not so much to look for evidence but to see if he could find any resemblance to the apartment where Dana Barrett had once lived. The decor was so different that it hadn't seemed the same; the art deco look was gone throughout the building. Louis Tully hadn't moved back here after the explosion; he'd gone somewhere else. Now, as Peter stared, he realized the layout of the room was the same, modified to remove the mysterious stairs that had led up to the rooftop and the gateway to Gozer's realm.

"Can we look in your fridge for terror dogs?" he asked brightly.

The question threw North off his stride. "Huh?"

Easter focused on Peter. "You might want to explain that, Venkman."

"Sure. How do you think we knew Gozer was coming? My old girlfriend used to live in this apartment and Zuul took up residence in her refrigerator. We brought all our little toys with us to make sure it wasn't time for the Goze's new tour."

"This apartment?" North looked surprised, but Peter had the idea he had known something about it, even if not for whatever had happened to Egon a little while ago. "I assure you, there's nothing in my refrigerator except food and drink. Come and check if you must."

The kitchen was laid out differently than Dana had it, but the refrigerator sat in near the same place, a huge white number that held no terror dogs, flames, or ancient temples, just a variety of trendy and expensive chow: tofu, yoghurt, hors d'oeuvres on a tray covered with waxed paper, and a quantity of alcoholic beverages. The meter in Ray's hand as he checked it out didn't so much as flicker. Peter hadn't found readings when he'd checked out Dana's apartment, either, and that hadn't meant anything in the long run. Gozer had still arrived.

"Course the fun and games came and went," Peter said. "Maybe we ought to camp outside for a few days and make sure you're safe up here."

"I think I can protect myself in my own apartment. There's no need for Ghostbusters on the premises." The words held a thread of steel, a clearly indicated threat. Easter, propping up the door frame with his broad shoulders heard it and looked bored. He was here, but he didn't look like he would listen to anything the Ghostbusters had to say. He hadn't paid any attention to North's slander about Mel, either. That was probably a good thing.

"We'd better make sure," Ray offered ingenuously. "I can go around and take readings. Detective Easter says you've got nothing to hide."

"That doesn't mean you have the right to go through my apartment," North replied. "Bad enough that you're here to begin with. I let you take your readings and you didn't find anything. I really don't like this. I'm expecting guests this evening, and I really need to rest. I'll give you five minutes, and that's only because I don't like the idea of trouble that I can't handle. But I think if you want to solve the mystery of the missing kids, you need go no further than that roadie."

"I'll talk to him," Easter offered. "But if you don't mind, I'll stay for the fun and games." He stuffed the notebook in his pocket and stood there looking amused. Did that mean his mind wasn't as closed as Peter had suspected? Or simply that he didn't trust the Ghostbusters, either?

Ray changed meters, detaching the one he'd fastened to his belt, and activated the new one, aiming it at Derek North. He'd explained that this meter was the one that had been configured to detect unnatural electrical activity in the body or to detect any kind of psi shielding. The abnormal P.K. device. "I've got North's readings from last night before the concert recorded and we can compare them," he'd told Peter in the car.

The meter didn't do a number. Disappointed, Peter watched the antennae. No blinking and beeping. No wild reaction. But the screen did something brief, a sudden blurring and fuzzing, a grid pattern with a lot of faint activity. Spotting it, Ray twisted the dial to full power and the antennae jerked once, the lights at their tips glowing dimly before the reading stopped altogether. "Wow, Peter," breathed the occultist. "Did you see that?"

"See what, Ray? It looked like it hiccuped."

"Am I...possessed?" North asked dramatically, sharing an amused glance with the cop, who might have been amused, annoyed, or mentally on another planet from all the reaction on his face.

"We don't know," Ray replied. "But there's something. It could even be an overlay from living here." At least he wasn't babbling about psychic vampires. Peter had preached discretion all the way north from the firehall. "Have you ever felt like you were possessed?" He gazed at the taller man earnestly, nothing in his face but a desire to help. That was Ray. He'd find an excuse for the devil himself. Peter didn't think North was a good guy under the influence. Maybe he was a bad guy under the influence. He wondered if anybody had disappeared from earlier Moccasin performances. This Easter clown didn't look all that concerned about it. If he hadn't been here, Peter would have enjoyed slamming North up against the wall and demanding to know what he'd done to Egon, but even he wasn't stupid enough to pull that in front of a cop. Maybe they could go down with him and tell him about Egon without North listening.

Derek shook his head, practically willing them toward the door in his need to get them out of his apartment. "No, I've never felt possessed, I assure you. I haven't seen any ghouls or ghosties and there haven't been any--what did you call them?-terror dogs tap dancing through my fridge."

Easter removed his glasses and polished the lenses with a handkerchief. "Are you done here? I do have an investigation to complete."

"Almost," Ray proclaimed, "Mr. North, have you ever felt as if something had taken control of your life?"

"Yeah. Two Ghostbusters who are hanging out bugging me." His eyes lingered on them with scorn. "I'm not the bad guy here. I'm just a singer in a rock and roll band."

"The Moody Blues said that first," Peter put in smoothly. "And better."

North's jaw clenched. He took a deep breath. "Venkman, you and your chubby boy scout pal aren't welcome here. I am not possessed, I am not haunted, and I am not killing children. As you can see, I am cooperating with a police investigation. It's my belief you made that little gizmo go off to create a diversion and cover for that Mel demon."

Peter swallowed his rage. He was just about to reply when the main door opened and Madeline DuSud appeared. She stopped abruptly at the sight of Peter and Ray, tucking her key into a small purse and sliding out of a fake fur coat. Clad in a form fitting emerald green jumpsuit that did amazing things for her form, she struck a mild pose, her eyes lingering on Peter's face.

"Dr. Venkman," she said in evident delight, a seductive gleam in her eyes. She ignored Ray entirely. "Is something wrong?"

"Other than your eyesight?" Peter countered. "There are two of us here."

"Oh." Her eyes brushed Ray so quickly and casually as to be insulting. "Dr. Uh...." Unable to produce the name, she nodded at Ray the way she might a stranger in an elevator. "Derek, get me a drink. I'm perishing. J--"

"This is Detective Easter, Maddie," Derek introduced hastily with a quick gesture at the detective. "He's investigating the missing kiddies." He must have guessed what she'd meant to say and decided to squash it.

A series of complicated emotions ran across her face for an instant, then she stretched out a polite, impersonal hand to the detective. "How do you do." He rated higher than Ray did with her, but she didn't look particularly friendly.

"Miss DuSud," he returned. "I've been talking to everyone involved with the concert. What I need to know is if you have noticed anything unusual on the tour."

"In a minute, darling," she said casually. "Derek, where's my drink?" When the singer returned to the wet bar, she oozed over to Peter and put a predatory hand on his forearm. It took all his willpower not to shake it free. Ray put up the meter and took a reading of her.

"This apartment is where Gozer broke through into New York," Peter told her just to see her reaction.

"Oh. Really? I was only in high school then. I didn't pay any attention." Her hand slid up his arm toward his shoulder. He didn't feel anything remotely like suction or the drawing away of his energy. The mood she was projecting wasn't paranormal, merely seductive, but Peter wasn't interested. He remembered Egon sagging against his shoulder in the car, his face drained of color, his body drained of energy, and he took a step backward, pulling his arm away from her.

For an instant, her eyes lit with challenge and she almost followed him, but Derek stuck a drink in her hand, his eyes narrowing as he glanced at Peter. "Your gin and tonic," he said. "Behave, Maddie. The Ghostbusters think I am to blame for the missing kids, just because I live in the wrong place. I guess it must be a slow time for busting. Pity."

Her laugh rang out artificially. "When does Michael arrive?" she asked, glancing around the apartment as if she expected to find the third member of the group hiding behind a sofa.

"He was here, but he left again. He won't be back until tonight."

She pouted. "I really wanted to see him." Ignoring Peter now, she oozed up to Derek and leaned comfortably against him. "How long does all this have to go on," she said, waving her fingers at Peter and Ray.

"The detective does have to interview you," Derek said, amusement in his eyes. He tried to share it with Peter, who didn't exactly want to share anything with the guy, unless it was energy from his proton pack, and he didn't think he'd better try that.

"Oh. All right, detective. Take me away." She stretched out her arms for handcuffs. When he only looked at her, she put her hand on his arm the way she'd done Peter's. Eyeing the psychologist over the woman's head, Easter took a step backward and fetched his notebook out of his pocket.

"Come on, Peter, we're done here," urged Ray, his face blank of expression, but his eyes worried.

"Get anything?"

Ray shrugged, grabbing Peter's arm and yanking him toward the door. The detective stood in between the two singers, watching them go with implacable eyes. Maddie looked amused and Derek North grim. None of them said a word when Peter and Ray left.

The minute the door closed, Peter leaned in and pressed his ear against it. The faint mutter of voices rewarded him but he couldn't make out what was being said.

"Anything?" Ray asked.

Peter shook his head.

It wasn't until they moved down the hall away from the apartment that Ray said anything else. Peter, suspecting his silence was due to the way he'd been treated in the apartment, would have liked to go back and deck a few people, but when Ray finally spoke, it wasn't about that. "Peter, we've got a new problem," he said urgently.

"What problem, Tex?" he asked as they got into the elevator. They had it on their own so they could brainstorm without winning weird looks from the other tenants. A problem? Goodie. They needed more things to go wrong now about as badly as the city needed a major ice storm.

Ray gazed at Peter, alarm in his eyes. "That detective, Easter. He's one of them."

Peter stared at him in surprise. Ray didn't get that kind of thing wrong. "Whoa, back up a minute. One of who? The band?"

"No, the psi vampires. I got the exact same readings from him as I got from North and Madeline and I got it using the meter that we configured specially to pick up on that kind of thing. It didn't show much; they weren't drawing energy and it needed to be right in the same room to get anything at all. Besides, didn't you catch it? When Madeline came in, she started to call him by name. Derek didn't want her to so he cut her off and introduced the detective to her. But she knew him already. I could tell. She started to say 'John'. That was his first name, remember? What's more, his readings and Derek's were about the same, like they weren't especially hungry, but hers--she was ready to feed. I didn't like it when she touched you. I was afraid she'd drain you right there. But I don't think Derek would have let her, even if you'd been the type they evidently like. He was heading over there before you moved, like he was gonna stop her."

"So what's it mean?" Peter asked, adjusting his thinking hastily. Was Easter even a real detective? If so, had he volunteered to cover the missing kids case to make sure nobody found out about him?

"I think it means Easter was there when Egon was attacked. That he and North did it together and that's why Egon was drained so fast. If they were feeding most of it into the other dimension, they probably did a double whammy on Egon and that's why he reacted so hard. I could get faint readings of the gateway, Peter. It's closed tight from the other side, but I could read it. And it's a lot stronger than we thought it was. Not ready to open quite yet, but close." He gazed at Peter with wide, worried eyes. "This is really bad."

The elevator stopped on Eighteen and an elderly lady got in, using a walker. Ray reached forward to help her and won a sweet smile. "What a nice young man," she said. "Would you hit fifteen for me, please?"

Ray jabbed the button, and the three of them rode in silence for the requisite floors. At once Ray assisted the old lady out and she beamed at him before the doors closed.

"Okay, we've got major trouble," Peter said as soon as it was safe to talk again. "We don't even know now that there weren't any kids there, because Easter might have lied to us. They could have them all stuck in the back bedrooms. We didn't search the place, just the kitchen."

"They weren't there. I would have picked up a lot of biorhythms on the meter if there had been more people hidden there. I think they're probably at Four Quarters, Peter. We'll have to go out there tonight and get them free before we do anything about the gateway. And I don't think it'll be easy." He muttered a muted curse. "I should have figured out about the detective earlier."

"How? You didn't take readings when he showed up at the firehouse. What gave him away?"

"His name, Peter. I noticed it last night. North. DuSud. Westin. Three directions. 'DuSud' is French for 'south'. And then another really blond guy shows up and his name is Easter and we find him hanging out with Derek. Sure he had his notebook out when we got there, but they probably knew from the doorman we were coming up so they made it look good. I wonder if he's really a cop or if he wasn't just at our place to make sure we hadn't figured anything out."

"He had a badge, Ray." Not the greatest argument, but this was bad if a cop had in an on what was going on.

Stantz dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "You can get badges in boxes of Cheerios. Who really looks at them? They wave a badge and everybody just thinks it's okay. We expected a cop and we got one."

"Okay, I'll buy that. We can even check with the police to see if he's legit or if he's a fake. I hope he is. That might protect Mel. But anyway, what's with this direction thing? Does it mean anything?"

"You mean anything occult or paranormal?" Ray's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure. The house is called Four Quarters. I've heard of the phrase, the Wind's Four Quarters and here they are with direction names. It might just be an affectation on their part--the singers could have all changed their names; Eddie changed his, after all--or it might be a part of their ritual. You know, if they're a kind of coven. They'd each take a direction to perform it, one standing to the east, one to the west, that kind of thing. The names might have been chosen to fit, or Derek's might already have been North and the house just part of his family. Or he may come from a family who has done this psychic attack thing down through the generations. The readings prove there is something going on there. And I think they're going to open the gate tomorrow night, for Halloween." The elevator deposited them on the ground floor and they slid out of the elevator, winning stares from a woman with two little kids, who gazed up at the Ghostbusters with wide, hero-worshiping eyes. The doorman turned to stare at them and held the door open for them to step outside, closing it with himself still inside.

The minute they stepped away from the building, Peter realized why. The wind had picked up and the air stung with cold. The clouds he'd seen hanging in the west had suddenly charged up to cover the whole sky. It felt more like late December than the day before Halloween.

"You really are a Pollyanna, Ray." Peter glowered up at the looming building and the brooding clouds that blocked the top floors of the taller buildings south of the Park. The wind carried with it the faintest taste of snow. "I didn't really want to do a repeat of Gozer. Can we stop it?"

"We stopped it before, we can stop it again," Ray replied with more confidence than he probably felt. More than Peter felt, anyway. "We know our job better now; we have better equipment, all the modifications Egon and I have made since then. We have the atomic destabilizer that we can use on a really powerful entity. We can even plan ahead of time what to choose if we have to choose the form of the destructor."

"No more Mr. Stay Puft," Peter proclaimed vehemently. "Do you know how hard it is to get that stuff out of your hair?"

"We can think of something little and harmless," Ray cried enthusiastically. "Something sweet."

Peter felt a sense of deepest foreboding. "Something you loved from your childhood? Something that could never, ever harm us? Come on, Ray, give me a break. Whatever you think of, it will be as big as a high rise and be out to kill us."

"Dopey Dog," Ray mused, using his fingers to check off his possibilities. "Posey, the little girl from Murray the Mantis."

"I don't know about you, Ray, but the last thing I want is a twenty storey Dopey Dog chasing us through Manhattan. If we're gonna do this right, let's do it in style. Michelle Pfeiffer."

"Come on, Peter, I don't think you could blast Michelle Pfeiffer, could you?" He took out his keys and unlocked the driver's side door of Ecto, flipping the keys over the roof to Peter, who snagged them deftly in one hand and opened his own door.

"I could if she was trying to kill me," Peter replied positively, sliding into the car and slamming the door to keep the cold out. "Besides, you could never blast Dopey Dog, even if he was shooting lightning bolts at us. Remember how hard it was to get you to blast the Easter Bunny, that time we had to fight the Sandman."

"You said it wasn't the Easter Bunny," cried Ray as he got in opposite Peter. He grinned. "Okay, you're right. I don't think I could blast Dopey dog. But we can find a nice one," Ray argued. "How about Casper the Ghost. He was never violent. He liked people and he was the 'friendly ghost', remember?"

"He wouldn't be if Gozer possessed him." Peter gave him the keys. "Come on, Ray. I might as well pick the hula girl from my lamp. Whatever it is, it'll be big and mean and it will want to kill us."

"Even if we pick something that's very, very good," Ray argued.

"Sure, Ray, we could even pick you, only then we'd have to blast you and I'm not sure that would be fun."

"Well, I'll think of something," Ray decided. " Besides, we don't know it's Gozer, after all. It could be some other entity. Gozer didn't need to feed on energy to break through." He started the car and put it into gear, glancing over his shoulder to see if the way was clear before he pulled out into traffic. "We'd better get home. I think we need to make a run out to Four Quarters and see if the kids are there. Do you have Kenny's readings on a meter anywhere?"

"Egon does," Peter said. "He took them after we busted that ghost with the E.A.E. that Egon designed, remember?" Was Kenny okay? Was he drained like Egon had been? Was he chained up in the cellar of the Four Quarters waiting for Peter to rescue him--or for whatever wanted to come through Gozer's gate so it could suck away his energy? "We've gotta get those kids back," Peter said tightly. "Can we go home now?"

"Well, I checked with the police department," Winston said when Peter and Ray arrived back at the firehall from their trip to Central Park West. He met them on the second floor because Egon was still napping in the lab and Zeddemore figured the physicist might as well get as much sleep as he could before all hell broke loose. He had an idea none of them were likely to get an early night. "When we got your call on the mobile, I rang Frump. I know he doesn't like us much, but I figured he'd have a fit if there was somebody out there pretending to be a cop. Easter's a cop, all right, but I got the feeling Frump didn't like him and doesn't trust him. Frump wouldn't go into any details, though, and he said the guy's put in for a couple of days vacation so he shouldn't be working the case. He's checking things out to see if a call came from that policeman in Dayton and if Easter intercepted it. I had to tell him the whole thing. He's not happy. But he did check it out, and there really is an investigation going. They did have a police presence at the concert last night like Easter said--but Easter's not assigned to the case."

"Oh, great. When Frump is not happy, it's not fun for us," Peter complained with a great grimace. He hadn't liked Frump from day one. "Is he coming over?"

Winston grinned. "I don't think he wants to see us any more than we want to see him. He'll call if he finds out anything. And he says he's going to run background checks on Doom's Electric Moccasin. One thing about old Frump, I think he hates rock and roll even more than he hates us. Course he'll run them on Eddie's band, too." He frowned. "Think that will cause any trouble with those fake ID's Mel and Chandarl have?"

"Did he believe you about Moccasin?" asked Ray eagerly. "Gosh, Winston, I got some definite readings."

"That's what you said, homeboy. Don't know if he believed me or not, but once he finds out there really is a pattern with the missing kids, he won't ignore it. He said the Dayton cop called it in, and he thought somebody might be assigned to it but they might not have figured out if anyone was missing from last night so soon; anyway, if Easter got the call about Kenny, he didn't report it to anybody."

Ray nodded eagerly. "So either he's been a crooked cop all along or he's been doing his job so he'd have an in when the time came. Right now, with all this hanging over us, he could go around and see what we suspect and maybe lull Kenny's mom and Diane's folks, and make us think something official was going on. Besides, while the band can draw energy off their audiences, he'd be snooping around the city, finding places where they can get more. And he's official, so he can even arrest people who get in his way." He made a face.

"Oh, you're back." Egon paused on the spiral stairs then hurried the rest of the way down. He was steady on his feet and he didn't look as tired as he had earlier, but none of them would believe he was at the top of his form, not with those bags big enough for a two week vacation under his eyes. "Did you find anything?"

Ray went off in a tumble of words, telling Egon everything that had happened at Derek North's place while Winston pitched in that Easter was probably a crooked cop and definitely in league with the band. Peter didn't bother with that. He went to meet Egon and studied him thoroughly. Of course he'd been the one to see Spengler pass out and was probably still inclined to fuss.

"You okay?" he asked. The tone of his voice defied Egon to soothe him.

Egon nodded. "Fine, Peter. Perhaps somewhat weary," he corrected when Peter regarded him implacably. "But much better. What are our plans now?"

"Well, we're going to head out to that Staten Island place to see if the kids are there," Peter decided. "You up for that, big guy?"

"Of course I am. If the teenagers are there, I would assume the place will be guarded. It will need all four of us. And Winston relayed that you said yourself that North was planning on being at home this evening; the others were there except for Westin, who was expected. I should be safe, even if we can't come up with a method of protecting me from the energy drain."

"I'll think of something," Ray decided eagerly. "We better eat first, though. You need your strength, Egon. Maybe I can work out plans for a protection field while we eat. I'll run upstairs and see if I can get started while you guys fix dinner." He headed for the third floor.

"Can we safely assume that the target date for opening the gateway is Halloween?" Egon asked as Winston led the way to the kitchen. Although it was slightly early to eat, they decided they had better start fixing something now. That would give them time to plan what equipment to take on the trip to Staten Island. "The city's ambient energy readings are high, as would be normal at this time of year, but the amount of ghosts we've been busting is smaller than usual. That does alarm me."

"Oh, good, Egon's alarmed," Peter muttered with a sideways glance at Winston to share the mood. "Come on, Spengs, why does it alarm you?"

"Ghosts would be sensitive to the approach of a major entity such as a powerful demon or demi-god. While the season would draw ghosts, the threat of such an attack might make them lie low and forego their usual seasonal hauntings."

"They didn't forego their hauntings when Gozer came," Winston reminded him. "What aren't you telling us, homeboy?" He didn't like the distinction. Give him a straightforward ghost to bust and he was fine, but these big, fancy ones with tricky natures weren't nearly as much fun.

"We can theorize that the intended entity is an energy absorber," Egon replied. He was caught up in it, fascinated, and it showed. "If it can draw energy from people, it might draw it from ghosts as well. You remember that when Mee-Krah came through, a specter that could absorb ghostly energy, the spirits preferred the thought of the containment rather than being drained by Mee-Krah. This time, I suspect the normal seasonal ghosts aren't the main target, but they could be one, so they are keeping a low profile." He saw the look in Peter's eyes and added, "It's only a theory, of course."

"So something nasty's coming, and it can drain you, Egon, and it's bad enough to scare ghosts?" Peter frowned. "I don't like this. Is it too late to head for Cleveland?"

"Far too late," Egon confirmed.

"Why is it we always have to be the ones to save the world? Couldn't they get somebody else once in awhile?" Peter demanded. "How come we never get the Medal of Honor or big, big rewards for all this? Come to think of it, who's paying us?"

"Eddie is, Peter," Egon reminded him.

"Come on," Peter wheedled, "let's hit the mayor up for it, too. It's a threat to the whole city, after all."

Winston shook his head vehemently. "Uh-uh, no way. Do you know what's going to happen if we go in and tell the mayor that Gozer might be coming back? He's gonna say we didn't do our job the first time. We won't get paid. We'll probably get arrested, if we don't get killed before they can do it."

"Killed!" Peter echoed, aghast. "Egon, he said 'killed'. You know there's a fine to be paid when anybody mentions 'killed' before a bust. That settles it, Zed. You get to make dinner." He trailed out of the kitchen in mock dudgeon.

"He's really worried about Kenny," Egon said, watching him go. "He's afraid those kids are going to die. Let him blow off a little steam, Winston. I'll go and talk to him."

"And I'll make dinner," Winston muttered. "Great."

Egon found Peter in his office, where he was looking through a scrapbook that usually rested on the table behind his desk. He had it open to a full page shot of him and Kenny when the boy was about twelve, at a boy scout dinner for the troop and their dads. In the picture, Kenny was in full uniform with his merit badge sash full of badges and Peter, grinning like a kid himself, had his arm around the boy's shoulder. Kenny's face was lifted to Peter and full of hero worship.

Without looking up, Peter said, "All day, Egon, I've been thinking about Kenny. Then you got trashed and I just forgot about him."

"You didn't forget," Egon said quickly, realizing that Peter was feeling very bad about it. "You simply prioritized. You couldn't help Kenny at that moment; you didn't know where he was and still don't. But you could help me--and did. I suspect if you hadn't removed me from the scene, I would have died."

That was a mistake. Color drained from Peter's face. Egon said hastily, "But you knew what to do and did it. I'm fine, Peter."

A silence, then Peter spoke again, his voice hesitant, and suddenly far more serious than usual. "I don't know how to stop it from happening again. I don't know how to rescue Kenny."

"Quite often, we go on a bust without a clue what to do, Peter. But when the time comes, we do what needs doing, just as you did when you removed me from danger and took me to Greg. Stopping it wasn't your immediate priority. Gaining information has been what we've done all day. Even if Kenny is out at Four Quarters, we didn't have enough information to go there directly."

"He's just a kid, Egon, a kid who thinks I can do anything. I warned him but it wasn't good enough." He finally lifted his eyes and they were full of pain and guilt. "Maybe if it were adults who were getting snatched I wouldn't take it quite so hard, but it was Kenny. And then it was you."

"I survived it, Peter. We don't know that anyone is dead or beyond hope. How many times have we gone into something believing we might die? When we had to deal with the curse Jeremy Whittington unleashed? When we went down into the subway to face that open gate? Even when we faced Gozer? We'll confront what comes, Peter, good or bad, and we'll deal with it together."

Somehow, that was right. Peter grinned. It was a pale imitation of his usual grin, but it was no less genuine. "As a team," he said.

"Precisely. Remember, Peter, that's what makes us strong."

Naturally, Peter found a flaw in the argument. "But they can suck energy out of you."

Egon nodded. "They can and have. It may be possible for Ray and me to find a way of preventing that in future, but that doesn't mean I won't be needed at Four Quarters or on Central Park West. We may have to call in Janine, or possibly recruit Eddie, who has worn a thrower in the past. We will stop this, Peter, whatever it is, even if it's Gozer. We defeated Gozer once and we can do it again."

"Just so long as old Goze doesn't have allies this time." Peter slammed the scrapbook shut. "I hate this," he muttered. "I really hate it, Egon. It's not right for them to use kids. Let them come after me instead. I'm used to it."

Egon thought of all the people who didn't know Peter very well, who thought of him as a frivolous womanizer with a smart mouth or a relatively honest con man a lot like his dad. They never got to see the man behind the mask, the man who cared so deeply for his friends that he would risk his life, even his soul, to protect the innocent. He couldn't imagine a more loyal friend than Peter Venkman. He might say so but Peter wasn't ready to hear it. He was bursting with the urge to rush out and do something, preferably with lots of strenuous activity to burn off his inner rage. He'd feel better when they actually started. Peter had never been a wait-and-plan type of man.

As he stood there, clutching the scrapbook against his chest, Egon smiled at him. "Peter, I am very glad you are my friend."

Warmth touched Peter's eyes. "Egon, I--"

"We'll do this together," Egon told him, reaching out to clap him on the shoulder. "We didn't understand the threat last night. We didn't know Kenny would meet the parameters of the band's need--or Gozer's. I'm not sure it is Gozer, though. I suspect it's not, since ghosts didn't hide before the coming of Gozer. That is something we'll need to wait and see. Tomorrow is Halloween, though. If the children are actually at Four Quarters, we must free them before Halloween, and that means tonight."

Peter set aside the scrapbook and grabbed Egon's wrists. "Spengs, listen," he said with sudden urgency. "There's something we have to think about." He had pulled his worry about Kenny inside so it wouldn't get in the way of what he had to do. His worry for Egon would place him at Egon's side when they went to Staten Island and he'd watch him as he always watched his team on a dangerous bust. Egon had no doubt that Peter would back them all.

"What do we have to think about?" he asked.

"Halloween. We're all talking like it's tomorrow, but Halloween actually starts tonight--at midnight. We might have less time than we think we do."

"What's your name?" Cammie had almost given up talking to the others, but she couldn't entirely stop. She could feel something in the air, something building up to a terrible climax and she was terrified, but the terror was muted by her lack of energy. She couldn't get up and run; she would collapse after two steps. But she could still think and, as long as she could think, her mind wouldn't entirely let her yield.

The boy next to her was new. He had brown hair and wide eyes and he'd come with that blonde girl who was sitting drowsing against his shoulder on the other end of the big old couch. Jeff was somewhere over across the room; she'd lost track of him when the man they called Michael arrived and they were taken away one at a time. When she was led back, limp and weak, Jeff was somewhere else and didn't matter when the stranger sat beside her, but now, Cammie was coming out of it.

"What's your name?" she repeated.

The boy turned his head a little and she saw at once that he was like she was, a little more alert than the others. Hope blossomed inside her. "Kenny," he admitted. "Ken."

"I'm Cammie. Do you...understand?"

He hesitated, face scrunching up in concentration; it was harder for all of them to think, so hard that some couldn't do it any longer. Then his face cleared a little. "Peter said something at the concert..."

"I was at a concert in Dayton... I think it's been a couple of weeks. Jeff and I..." She lifted a languid hand and waved it vaguely in Jeff's direction. "Something...made us come here. I've tried to think. I don't know why. Didn't want to run away with Jeff. Not...ready yet. But we...came here. Hitchhiked part of the way. It was like...we just had to be here. And then they came."

"They?" asked Kenny. He'd just come, just had his first session. He probably couldn't reason very much. "You mean...the band? Michael...did something. Put his hands on my head and I just...keeled over." Faint worry touched the back of his eyes. "Peter said maybe a...pedophile..."

Cammie shook her head. "No, it's not that. They pretend they want us to have sex but they don't, really. They stop us. They take something out of us, energy, I don't know. I don't know why, either, but I know it's bad."

He listened with acute concentration. "Coming," he blurted out. "Michael said...it's coming tonight. Late. After midnight."

"Did he say what?" she wasn't sure she was strong enough to hear the answer.

Kenny didn't reply right away. It took time for him to process his thoughts while he was still half asleep. No one else seemed disposed to talk and the girl beside Kenny only watched them with muted fear in her eyes. "Not coming for us," he finally said. "We only...bring it here. I think it's a ghost."

She stared at him, so startled that awareness swept through her mind, making her more alert than she had been for two weeks. "They don't want us for us," she realized. "Do they?"

Kenny shook his head. "No...just for what we can give. They use our energy, or whatever it is they take, to bring it over. Like Gozer." His eyes were huge. He was younger than she was, probably sixteen at best, maybe only fifteen. Cammie was seventeen. In her right mind she was smart, but she couldn't think normally.

"Gozer?" She couldn't remember what that was. It sounded only vaguely familiar.

"Sumerian," Kenny explained, producing the word with conscious triumph. "Demi-god. Came through a dimensional gateway. Ghostbusters stopped it. Peter and the rest of them will come for us." He sounded like he really believed it. Then his face fell. "Hope they get here in time. Michael said...gate would open..."

That sounded crazy to Cammie, but on the other hand, she was on Staten Island and she'd been made to come here somehow, and a rock band came and fed off her. Maybe it wasn't crazy.

"Will it...eat us?" she ventured.

Kenny frowned. "I don't think it would...care about us, once it was here."

Cammie stiffened her spine. "Then we have to get away." She wasn't sure she had the strength to walk across the room, but she knew if she just sat here, she would die. Even if Kenny's monster didn't eat her, the band couldn't let them live and tell the world what had been done. They had to get out, one of them, anyway, and find a phone and call for help. "Can you walk?" she asked.

"I...I don't know." He struggled to push himself to his feet only to sag back again.

"This was your first time, wasn't it? They always take more the first time. I'll go." She wasn't sure how they were guarded, but they must be. Nobody minded if they staggered off to the bathrooms or even crawled. There was a bathroom right outside the door on the other side of the room, close enough for them to use. Every now and then, one of the kids made his difficult way there and came back exhausted to fall asleep. Nobody stopped them. Okay, she could walk that far. And then, maybe, she could walk a little further.

"Be careful," he said, fumbling for her hand. "If you find a phone..."

"I will."

"Then call 555-BUST. That's the Ghostbusters. They're the ones we need. They'll help us. Ask for Peter. He knows me."

Ghostbusters? Okay. She pushed herself up and started the endless journey across the room to the door. 555-BUST. All she needed was a telephone.

All she needed was the strength to get to it.

Putting one foot in front of the other, she forced herself to move and keep moving.

"Phone, Ray!" Winston hollered.

Ray looked up from his work. Since dinner, he'd been trying to design something that could be configured the way they'd configured their Crimebusters equipment, a trap to throw out that would erect a force field around Egon at the first sign he was under psychic attack. It wasn't hard to figure out how to do it; Ray was pretty sure how to modify a trap to do exactly what he needed. What was difficult was making sure the field would be stable yet would allow Egon to talk and react through it. He might have to stop moving to stay within the field, though, and that could prove difficult. If only he could pick up the trap and run with it, but picking up the trap, even while it was open, disrupted the field every time. Still, if the other guys were there, they could protect him, couldn't they?

He set aside his screwdriver, passed the trap to Egon, and went to the nearest phone. "Ray," he said into it.

"Rollie." The familiar Australian voice was grave and alarmed. "What the heck is this tape anyway? I never heard anything like this in my life and there's something going down I can't detect, but I think it's bad, mate."

The grim note in the special effects expert's voice alarmed Ray and he lifted a worried eyebrow at the other three Ghostbusters. Peter shot him a questioning look, Winston frowned, and Egon, busy on the trap, might not have looked up but Ray knew he was listening. "Bad? How? Did you find a subliminal message?"

Rollie drew a deep breath and plunged in. "I went over every track on the tape and there's only one song with a hidden message. It's called Fantasy Home. It's just full of heavy-duty subliminal messages. Once I picked that up, I did a focus and the main message is to go to a place out on Staten Island. There's an address and directions." He relayed the address, and it matched the one they had for the Four Quarters estate. More proof, although Ray didn't know if the police would accept that, especially with the crooked cop, Easter, involved. Would Frump listen? Rollie cut through his thoughts. "The address comes through maybe ten times. Underneath it all is this constantly repeated message about freedom and pleasure and how good it's going to be. Really insidious stuff. About how no adults can tell you what to do and you can do whatever you want and have anything you want right when you want it. It's promising the moon. But I've got a bad feeling that's not what it's really offering."

"I don't think so, either," Ray said grimly. "I think they're luring kids to the place on Staten Island. There are a lot of missing kids, more than a dozen anyway, that we know about. We're going over there to see in about half an hour when we've got our equipment ready, especially now that we know that's definitely where the kids are sent. What do you mean, something's going down that you can't detect?"

"Because even knowing it's a subliminal lure, I can feel the urge myself. It's...this is gonna sound crazy, mate--well, maybe not to you, but it does to me--it's as if there's some powerful hypnotic force in it, something that will latch onto a kid and make him obey. Not just sumliminals but something spooky, paranormal, whatever you call it. As if it's specifically targeted. I'm not the target and I'm not a kid so it doesn't make me want to rush over to Staten Island at least not enough to listen and act on it. But it's bad. I'm not sure whoever this is aimed for could hope to resist it. I've recorded the subliminals on separate tracks and I can testify about it if you need me to."

"We might. Thanks, Rollie. That's what we weren't sure about, figuring how the kids got to the right place. We had that address as a possible and this confirms it. So we'll head out there anyway."

"You can't tell me what this is all about?" Tyler asked. "I could come up with some SFX for you if you need it."

Although the Australian couldn't see him, Ray shook his head. "No, not now. I think it's going to be too dangerous for people who aren't trained. Crooks you can probably handle, but I don't think you can rig something to take out a Sumerian demi-god."

There was a stunned pause on the other end of the line. "Not in this lifetime. But if you need me, you call anyway, Ray."

"Thanks, Rollie. But it's something we have to fix, the Ghostbusters, I mean. Hold onto those tapes for me. And, if all hell breaks loose and we disappear without a trace, give them to that detective friend of yours and tell him about Doom's Electric Moccasin luring in kids, okay?"

"Will do. But you listen, mate. It sounds like what you're going to do will be dangerous. Take care."

"I will," Ray promised. "We all will. We have to." He said goodbye to Rollie and turned to see the others all staring at him. Egon had the trap in front of him and he'd been working on it while Ray talked, but Peter and Winston were just standing there. "It's real," Ray said quickly. "Rollie found a lot of subliminals on the tape. The kids're being sent to Staten Island. We were right."

"What's this 'disappear without a trace' thing, Ray?" Peter said with mock sternness, grimacing. "I'm not up for that. I'm too gorgeous to die."

"Then we'll just have to hope your incredible good looks can protect you, Pete," Winston said with a twinkle. "We'll put you in the front lines and that can defend the lot of us."

Peter made a face at him. Just then, the buzzer rang at the front door.

"Eddie," Egon said and started for the stairs. "I'll go let him in."

Peter fell into step with him. "Not alone, you won't. They've got you targeted." He scooped up the lab's proton pack as he passed and settled it determinedly on his shoulders, falling in as Egon's rear guard. The physicist turned and looked at Peter for a quick moment, then he smiled and nodded before he set off for the stairs.

"Pete's overdoing this protective routine," said Winston as their footsteps faded.

Ray shook his head. "Maybe, but Egon shouldn't be alone until we get this over with. We know they can drain him. What we don't know is whether they can make him do things against his will."

"Oh, man, hard to imagine anybody making Egon do things against his will."

Ray smiled fleetingly. "Well, Peter can sometimes, but it's usually a good thing. If he doesn't push, Egon can spend too much time here in the lab. He enjoys it, but all of us need to get out and do other things. We have to when we live at the same place where we work. Peter keeps Egon from overdoing. I don't know if Ghostbusters can get burnout. I never did."

"Well, you wouldn't," Winston returned, rumpling Ray's hair. "And Egon loves it in the lab."

"Sure he does. But not even Egon can go two days without sleep, and he might if Peter didn't haul him out of here sometimes. I'm glad Peter went down with him. He has a need to protect us, even more than you do."

Winston lifted surprised eyes. "You know about that, huh?"

"I picked up on it the first time one of us got hurt after you joined the team." He sat down in front of the meter and popped out a component, frowning at it. "You learned that in Vietnam, didn't you?"

For a long moment, Zeddemore was silent, then he nodded. "Guys get close in war," he admitted. "You learn to watch each other's backs. When I joined up here, it just carried over because this is a kind of war, too. It's usually a lot safer than military combat, but it has its moments. Keeping the three of you alive and in one piece is a big job. All of us picked up on that, not just me."

"I know." Ray grinned. He liked that part, that he had friends who would back him against things like Gozer and Samhaine, just as he'd back them. "But, with Peter, I think it's even more than that. You should have seen him when I first knew him at Columbia. I was sort of shy and didn't think too much of myself. I knew I was smart but I didn't know if that was enough. Everybody back in Morrisville thought I was a weirdo."

"Small town mentality," Winston said hastily. "High school mentality, too. Once you get to college, you find out none of that matters, that it's probably a good thing to be different."

"I know. I figured that out after I met Egon and Peter. But it took awhile to get past being kind of...diffident. Once when some guys were giving me a rough time, Peter jumped all over them, punched them out, and nearly got in trouble for it. Egon said later that Peter needs to be needed more than almost anything else. That's why he can always forgive his dad when Charlie gets us into trouble, because he knows his dad needs him. I'm kind of surprised he wasn't the one of us who was the psychic giver, not Egon."

"Winston grinned. "Maybe ordinarily he would be, but this situation seems to be set up to draw from people who are, uh, abstinent. And Pete's just not."

Ray couldn't hold back a delighted laugh. "It's like all those virgins who got sacrificed to dragons. There was always a quick cure, a way to be safe from them. Peter sure believes in that cure, doesn't he?"

"I always kind of thought Egon and Janine..."

Ray was spared the necessity of theorizing when they heard footsteps on the stairs, and Egon led the way into the lab, followed by Eddie, Mel, and Peter, the singer and demon shedding their coats. "I'm coming too," the demon announced with a huge grin. "Might need me. I can shift form and freak out the bad guys. Jackie heard about those missing kids and she said she knew I had to go." He smiled fondly at the mention of his new wife.

"I couldn't have kept him out of it," Eddie said. "After all, we wouldn't have known anything like this was happening if it weren't for Mel. I figured it was going to be bad, and maybe you'd need somebody else who has worn a proton pack."

A new voice from the doorway cut in, "Two other people who have worn proton packs. They looked past Eddie to see Janine standing there, already wearing her jumpsuit.

"I thought you had a family get together tonight, Big J," Peter said, eyeing her warily. The stubborn expression on her face wasn't one he'd normally try to cross. Even Peter couldn't stand up against Janine when she looked like that.

"I heard what happened to Egon today," she said. "Some of you are going to be fried for not telling me about it when it happened." Her eyes moved up and down Egon's lanky frame, checking for obvious injuries. The physicist's cheeks reddened.

"Who told you, Janine?" he asked. "It wasn't that we wanted to conceal it from you, it was simply that I recovered completely and there was no need to call you away from your family party."

"I called her," Winston admitted. "The more I hear about this, the more I think we need to go in armed for bear. This is going to be nasty and you're susceptible, Egon. Ray's trap idea might not protect you completely."

Egon shot an unreadable glance at Winston, then he turned to Janine. "I really am all right."

"You look exhausted," she protested. Clasping his hand in both of hers, she added, "If this might happen to you again, I'm going. Remember, this band didn't affect me at all last night. I didn't get any of that weird stuff that was going down. So you need me and don't say otherwise, Egon Spengler." It looked like she was all too ready to end their fight.

Peter's eyes filled with mischief and Ray had an idea what he might be about to say, which would probably be a bad idea. "You can come, Janine," he cut in quickly before Peter suggested that a little 'nookie' might protect Egon from the battle to come. That kind of outrageous proposal would make Janine really steamed, not to mention embarrassing the heck out of Egon.

Egon looked past Janine to Peter and apparently read his mind, or at least the hint of a leer in his face. "You are debauched, Peter," he murmured under his breath, winning a surprised, "Say what?" from Janine.

"I can't be," Peter protested, grinning. "I don't even know what it means." He added wickedly, "Interesting that Janine wasn't affected, isn't it?" Sometimes Peter just went just that extra step too far.

It took maybe three seconds for Egon to pick up on Peter's innuendo. Ray caught it right away but only because he and Winston had been talking about it before the others came upstairs.

Egon's mouth fell open and he regarded Janine through startled eyes. She stared at him blankly. "All right, what's going on?"

"Nothing," said the physicist hastily, turning abruptly to the table and snatching up the modified trap, his expression unreadable. "Peter is just being...Peter."

"It might be nothing," Winston realized. "Eddie had headaches."

That made everybody stare at him. "Your logic is?" Egon asked tightly. Janine, who still didn't have a clue what they were talking about, stared at them as if she knew she was going to be mad at all of them in the next five seconds.

"Eddie's married," Winston explained as if it were glaringly obvious.

The singer frowned glancing from Peter to Egon to Winston. "Now I'm confused."

"I think confusion's good for the soul," Peter interjected quickly, putting as many people as possible between himself and Janine.

Ray realized it wasn't fair not to explain to her, although she would be furious. Worse, Egon would be hurt if it turned out that Janine had been seeing somebody else since their fight. Ray didn't think she had anyway. "We figured the band were psychic vampires," he explained. "They draw energy from people during concerts. But the kids who were taken were not the usual runaway, drug type kids. The odds are that they were virgins, although we can't prove it. Peter wasn't affected at all. Egon was, though. And since Peter obviously isn't--" He couldn't bring himself to add Janine's total lack of reaction to the band but he didn't need to.

Janine didn't take more than that to put it all together. She whirled on Peter, ready to slap him hard across the face. "How dare you--"

"Easy, Janine," Peter soothed, backing away, his hands raised to fend her off. He started talking very fast. "Listen, everybody, bottom line. The band doesn't care if people are virgins or not. It's the entity coming through from Gozer's realm who cares. The band can take energy from anybody and they do it on their own personal taste, who they consider good looking. They seem to go for blondes. But the ones they capture for whatever's going down have to be virgins. Maybe. It's all theory, anyway. And then, there's the theory about psychic givers, who are naturals to feed people like the band. It can't all be about sex. It's all just talk anyway. Egon was over there near the gateway so it has to be more than one of the band sucking away his energy, right? Egon, help me out here. I'm too young to die."

Egon shook his head sternly. For once, he was prepared to let Peter stew in his own juice.

Janine stopped advancing. "Only the good die young, Venkman," she growled. "Besides, I want you to live a long, long life, so I can make you pay for what you were suggesting about me every single day for the rest of it."

Peter looked her right in the eye and he didn't give an inch. "Come on, Janine, that's not really the bottom line. What is, is that those kids are missing and that after midnight, it'll be Halloween and whatever wants to come through will. And then those kids'll be toast. Okay, I went too far there. You can be mad at me later. After Kenny and the others are safe and we've stopped Gozer or his twin brother from coming over here and making mincemeat of New York. We have to get over to Staten Island and pull those kids out of there before that happens. Okay?"

There was a long pause, then Janine nodded once. But her expression said that Peter would pay, even if it was later, rather than sooner. Ray felt kind of bad about it because he and Winston had been talking about it before they'd come upstairs, but he wasn't about to mention that. He had enough to worry about without the wrath of Janine.

As for Egon, he was staring at her doubtfully. If she saw that look, even Egon would be in trouble even if Peter's nonsense had provoked it. If Egon and Janine hadn't been dating for awhile, her personal life was her own business. From Janine's expression, Ray doubted she'd been dating anyone seriously since her break-up with Egon anyway and he knew that, in her position, he'd be furious. So he said quickly, "I think the trap's nearly ready. We should go right away. It's already dark and we have to get over to Staten Island and pull those kids out before midnight."

"Even worse, it's starting to snow," Eddie put in with a gesture at the dark windows. "The roads are just wet, but it could get worse. It's cold enough."

"Then, one more test on the trap, and we'll go," Ray decided. He glanced over at an unrepentant Peter and realized that, if nothing else, the fun and games had broken the tension. Peter might not have intended it that way, but he was good at capitalizing on opportunity when it came his way.

"As long as you promise not to rush into trouble, Spengs," Peter insisted. "Eddie, you might be a target, too. Hey, Mel?"

The blond demon turned to face him. "What, Peter?"

"You can sense when this is coming down, can't you?"

He scrunched his face up in a fierce attempt at concentration. "Think so. I knew there was something going on but I couldn't tell what. But I remember how it felt."

"Good. If you get even a touch of that tonight, you tell somebody right away. Because I don't think we're going to get a whole lot of second chances."

Eddie was right, it was snowing, thick, fat flakes drifting down to create puffy white ghosts out of parked cars and mailboxes. While the streets were wet, the sidewalks were already turning slushy. Ecto's windshield wipers dashed the snow aside, where it stuck at the edges of the blades' reach. It was nearly seven p.m. when they set out for the Staten Island Ferry, loaded for bear with all the equipment necessary to arm seven people, four of thems Ghostbusters and one of them a demon. Janine had reminded them that they might need transportation for the children and, at the very least, blankets, because the ones who had disappeared earlier wouldn't even have coats. Freeing the kids wouldn't be enough, and they'd never all fit into Ecto-1. They'd packed in a stack of blankets, but they'd have to call for rides for the kids, if they got them free.

Of course if they told the police where they were going ahead of time, they might be forbidden to go. Peter grimaced. Especially if they told Frump. Winston suggested they use the mobile phone in Ecto and call for police backup when they got there; that would grant time to free the children and still have the police waiting when they came out with the missing kids. At least they'd have police protection at the end and the children could be taken to an official shelter where they would be cared for until their parents could be notified. Peter was up for that.

The ferry they caught just before it was about to depart deposited them in St. George at almost seven-thirty, and Ray fussed for a minute about their trip back. "The last car ferry leaves at ten, doesn't it? What if we need to get back to the city after that?"

"If worse comes to worst and we have to return before seven a.m, we can take a passenger ferry back," Egon replied logically.

"And leave all our equipment?" mourned Ray. "We're sure to need it."

"There are seven of us to carry it," Winston reminded them from behind the wheel. "It's snowing harder." They all stared at the thicker flakes. Away from Manhattan, the streets were a bit more snowpacked but not bad enough to cause trouble, at least not yet. If the snow kept falling, they might be stranded on the island overnight. It might still be one of New York's boroughs, but it was not where Peter wanted to spend the night in a snowstorm. Whoever arranged the ferry schedule didn't have midnight dimensional gateways in mind. Bad planning. He'd have to talk to the Transit Authority about it later.

"Carry it?" Peter's protest was a matter of form. "Do you know how heavy some of this stuff is?" He heard the brittle note in his voice and tried to cover it up but he could tell from the others' expressions that he'd failed miserably. He was tense and worried, not so much about the upcoming bust, if that was what it turned out to be, but about the missing kids, especially Kenny, and about the risk Egon might face. Usually, when they went into danger, one of them wasn't already marked as a target. What about Eddie? He'd suffered those headaches on the first few concerts and they were going to a remote location where no eager fans would watch his every move. How could they save the kids and still protect two of their party? Would the trap's protective field hold both Egon and Eddie?

"There are kids at stake, Dr. Venkman," Janine reminded him. Her voice still held an annoyed edge when she talked to him. She'd muttered things about sexual harassment for the first part of the journey whenever she thought Peter was listening. Okay, so maybe he'd gone too far, but he wasn't going to take it back. Egon and Janine would get nowhere if somebody didn't shake the pot a little. Maybe afterwards, they'd thank him for it--right about the time they brained him. Anyway, she was rubbing it in.

Peter turned and pinned her in an irritated stare. It was easier to be irritated than to let his real feelings out. "Yeah, and one of 'em's Kenny."

Janine grimaced and bowed her head, as close as she might come to taking it back. She was still annoyed with him but now, reluctant sympathy crept in, too.

Peter hadn't said anything to Kenny's mom about the planned rescue. He didn't want to raise false hopes, but he'd told they were working on the problem, though. At least she'd know the Ghostbusters were doing something. She'd talked to Easter earlier, but not for hours. Peter thought he'd better not say anything about the turncoat detective to her. She had enough to worry about without a new complication.

A hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed gently before letting go. Peter turned and grinned at Egon who offered him a sympathetic smile. Ray chipped in. "We'll find them, Peter. I know we will. We'll get them out."

"I'll change back if we have to carry a bunch of them," Mel insisted. "Carry four."

Yeah, at eight feet tall, Mel could probably manage that with another one riding on his back.

Peter grinned. With allies like these, how could they fail? "Hey," he said brightly, "I just realized. We're going to a rich man's estate. Do you think they'll have a butler? I love it when they have butlers."

"No, you don't," Winston countered with a snicker. "Tommy gets the better of you every single time."

Eddie chuckled involuntarily and so did Mel. Eddie's butler was by no means typical of the breed. Not only was he inclined to give Peter a hard time, grinning all the way, but he also knew martial arts. "Oh, sure, Zed. I cross him and the next thing I know, he'll be yelling, 'Hi-yah!' and drop kicking me halfway to Albany."

"Not quite so far, Peter," Egon replied. "It's aerodynamically impossible. Your trajectory would far more readily deposit you in the middle of the Hudson River."

"Oh, thanks, Egon. I keep you around for these little insights."

Egon poked him in the ribcage, but Peter found a genuine smile for him anyway.

It was very dark and snowing hard when Winston pulled Ecto-1 up just short of the gateway to the Four Quarters estate. "I won't stop directly in front of the gate in case they've got cameras mounted there," he said, dousing the lights and letting them take a look at their destination. The neighborhood had been here a long time, a rambling street and huge, elegant houses that spoke of old money set deep behind high walls. Some houses here and there were illuminated with floodlights and visible high on their hills through the falling snow, others had vanished into the night, not to reappear until morning. Whoever lived there probably qualified to go on lists of New York's richest families. Look at them, sitting back there, smug and complacent, letting their money talk for them. Peter had always envied the rich and famous. But the house that waited, invisible through the thickening snow behind the tall, brick gateposts was a rich man's house, too, and it held darker secrets. Money sometimes bought things no one should ever spend it on. Derek and the band could be partying at Cancun, instead they were holding kids prisoner. Peter decided it was time to make them judiciously share their wealth with a fleet of defense attorneys.

The gates were ten feet high, ten feet wide, and set with thick, iron bars like a prison, each bar topped with a pointed spear that looked like it had been designed to hold a severed head. Peter shuddered. This was not the time to imagine severed heads. Sloping up the hill, the driveway that vanished into the snow suggested that, like its fellows, the house was set on a hill. There were recent tire tracks in the snow and new flakes had only begun to disrupt the crispness of their pattern. That looked bad. Set in one of the brick posts on either end was a metal plaque that read, "Four Quarters. Private," in elaborate script. A little recess at one side of the gate held a faintly illuminated keyboard, recessed under an awning to shield it from the weather. To get in, one had to call for admission or know a key code. Okay, so much for the easy way.

Peter's eyes slid along the brick wall that enclosed the estate and he complained mournfully, "I never was that great at climbing walls."

"The snow will leave traces of where we go, too," Winston said thoughtfully. "We can't even try here. There's a streetlight." He stabbed a gloved finger at it, nearly opposite the gate. "How about down that way. Egon, can you get anything from here?"

The minute they'd stopped, Egon had produced his P.K.E. meter and now he was caressing it like a lover, evoking the most sensitive readings. Peter glanced from Egon to Janine and back again. Most women didn't have to face that kind of competition. Maybe that's why they'd had their fight. "I get a general fuzz when I attempt biorhythm readings," the physicist announced. "It's giving me multiple readings but they are very faint as if they were far away, or quite weak."

Peter felt his mouth draw into a tight line. "Can you tell how far away?" he asked.

"No. I've set the meter to react directionally, so it should lead us directly to the children, if that is who I'm reading, but the meter isn't programmed to give specific range, at least not with biorhythm readings."

"What about any other kind of readings?" Janine asked. "Ghosts or demons or whatever?" Her eyes lingered on Egon, never doubting for a second that he could produce answers one way or another. He was concentrating too hard to notice.

Ray held up a second meter. "No, this one's a standard meter and it's quiet. Whatever is up there isn't a ghost. The gate's back in Manhattan, remember?" He broke off in surprise, then cried, "Hey, guys, do you think they'll try to move the kids into the city so they'll be there for the gate?"

"Wouldn't it be easier to move the gate here?" Mel asked, winning startled looks from the Ghostbusters. "They can't take the kids into Derek's apartment. Doorman would notice."

"Hmmm," Egon mused, fascinated with the possibility. He exchanged a speculative look with Ray, whose face was full of excitement at the possibility. Okay, not only would Peter have to make sure Egon didn't go rushing in and get drained, he had to make sure Ray didn't charge in to look for a portable gate. With a sigh, he caught Winston's eye and they shared a commiserating glance. They knew whose job it would be to pick up the pieces if they couldn't stop the two mad scientists.

"Hey, now, moving gates isn't fair," Peter complained. "Can they really do that, Mel?"

"If the entity is powerful enough, he can shift it within reasonable distances," Mel admitted. "Astarine could do that. Saw her do it a couple of times. Borthardian could, too. Remember when he was sending all those storms to Segue? And that gate that snatched Peter?"

"Thanks. I needed to remember that," Peter muttered wryly.

"Sorry," said Mel with a quick grin. He scrunched up his face in concentration. "I can feel something up there. Something nasty. Not a ghost, though, and not a gate, at least not yet. They'd probably have to summon it. Just...something bad."

"Our own living, breathing P.K.E. meter," Peter said with a quick grin at the demon in human form. "Can whatever it is tell you're here, big guy?"

Mel concentrated, then he grinned easily. "Not looking."

"Well, then, we won't give them cause to look." Winston backed the car down the street until he was out of the range of the streetlight and turned it off. Snow at once began to collect on the windows. "Wonder if the wall is rigged with an alarm?"

"Just full of good ideas tonight," Peter told him. He got out of Ecto into the snow, making sure his gloves were pulled on tight and settling his knit cap to cover his ears. A winter wonderland in October. Ray looked ready to start lobbing snowballs or constructing Frosty. At least they would have cover as they trekked up to the house.

"This wall is old," Eddie mused, stopping at a place where an overhanging tree had grown so big that one of its branches had buckled the bricks and created a gap about four feet up. Someone had cleared away the fallen bricks and a new pile of them lay covered with a tarp nearby, their job undone.

Ray shifted a corner of the tarp, displacing a shower of snow, to check it out. "This is our way in," he said. "It's narrow and we have to climb, but not as much as we would anywhere else. I'll go first and you can pass the packs in to me."

"This'll look good if anybody drives by," Peter protested, scrubbing show off his face with the back of his glove. "Cat burglars don't usually carry half the city in when they do their B & E."

"Then, let's hurry, Peter. We won't be able to disguise Ecto, either and it'll take time for the snow to cover it enough to hide what it is." Ray reached up, caught the overhanging branch, and scrambled up into the gap.

"I thought I'd park it down that side street over there," said Winston, pointing. He waited till Ray climbed through the gap, a hand out to steady him if he fell, then he turned to help unload the packs. "Mel won't fit through that," he remarked.

"Don't have to," said Mel complacently. "I'll change over and then I can levitate across the wall. You need me in my true form tonight."

"A friendly demon. Everybody needs one." Peter grinned as he took his pack from Winston and handed it through the wall to Ray. "Have to say, though, this looks waaaay too much like 'will you step into my parlor' than I want it to. There might not be any ghosts up there now, but they could have guard dogs, triggered alarms, laser weapons, all that fun stuff."

"A good point, Peter," Egon conceded, pulling the zipper of his parka more tightly against his neck before he climbed up and through the broken place in the wall. His glasses already were wet from the snow. Maybe when this was all over, Peter could convince him to design himself a pair with mini-windshield wipers.

Peter followed him in, accepting his pack from Ray as he reached the other side. Finished with the packs, Mel kicked off his shoes, pulled off his shocks, and shifted shape easily, soaring up over the fence and down again. Eddie tossed his footwear into the back of Ecto. Peter boggled at him in the dark because his clothes stayed in place except for the arms and legs which shortened, making him look like someone wearing an outfit three sizes too small.

"Hey, no hulking out? How did you do that?"

Mel grinned, exposing the sharply pointed fangs that went with his transformed appearance. "Specially modified fabric," he said with a grin. "Haven't figured out how to make the pantlegs and sleeves long enough yet. But now, when I want to switch back, I won't pop out with nothing on."

"Good point," Peter said. "They arrest you for things like that."

Eddie scrambled through the gap in the wall, followed by Janine and then Winston, and they donned their proton packs. Peter had always hated having to wear a pack over a winter coat; it was hard to handle the throwers with gloves on, and he sometimes felt like a little kid bundled up in fourteen layers and topped with a snowsuit.

"Shall we waddle up to the house?" he suggested with a grin.

"If you're gonna waddle, Dr. V, I want a camera," Janine muttered under her breath. "That'll look good on the eleven o'clock news."

Peter made a face at her, then he turned to Egon. "You feel any of that weird stuff that hit you on Central Park West?" he asked.

"No, I feel normal," Egon replied. "Evidently they can sense me from a distance, but they haven't done so yet. I don't know if the suction earlier was directed at me personally or at any convenient target. They may have planned to move the gate and done some preliminary work on it, and I got in the way."

"Gosh, I hope that doesn't mean they're draining those poor kids up there now." Drawing his thrower, Ray started up the slope at a run in the direction that produced the strongest reading on his meter. "I'm getting something now, not much but something," he called over his shoulder as the others fell into step. "It's not a ghost, I don't think, just energy, but I bet that's where everything's happening.

"Heads up, guys," Peter cautioned as they followed him toward the house. "Anybody starts to feel weak or dizzy or get a headache, say so--right away. Mel, if you feel anything funny, tell us, too."

Away from the streetlights it was very dark under the trees but the accumulating snow made darker objects like tree trunks and the odd rock stand out against the drifts. The night was very cold for October but the wind wasn't blowing at all; the thick flakes drifted silently down to earth as if they were floating, weightless, almost immune to gravity. When he was a kid, Peter had liked to stand out under this kind of snow and try to catch the flakes in his mouth, under the mistaken impression that since it was cold and white it would taste like vanilla ice cream. None of it ever did, but he had kept hoping, giving up on it about the time he realized nobody got freebies, about the time he realized his dad was always going to let him down. All he'd get if he looked up was a wet face.

He did raise his eyes, not to the sky, but up the slope ahead of him. The house wasn't in sight yet, but it couldn't be that far away. The lots were big but they weren't anything like the grounds Eddie had at Segue, his red-brick mid-Victorian mansion up the Hudson. You couldn't get lost in these grounds, although it might be easier to get turned around at night in a snowstorm. Behind them, a row of intermittent streetlights created glows of brightness through the snow, marking the path of the road. Turning his back on them, he squinted up the slope. Was that another streetlight?

"I think I see a light through the trees," he pointed out.

"It's the house," said Mel, whose night vision was better than the humans'. He stiffened. "Wait. Somebody's coming. Hide."

They melted into the trees, ducking behind the massive tree trunks.

"I've got it," Egon confirmed, lowering his voice to barely above a whisper. "I'm getting readings. Depressed biorhythms, but not as much as the ones in the house. It could be someone escaping."

"It could be a trap," Winston argued. "We can't take chances. Stay down and see."

They waited in the shadows of the great trees, pressed up against the bark, throwers at ready. Too big to hide between a tree in his natural state, Mel found two that were close together and huddled between them. He didn't have a thrower; a proton pack wouldn't fit on his back when he was full sized. But then he was a demon. He had other means of defense.

Peter could hear the approach now, stumbling footsteps, breath whistling out in urgent pants, a gasp of fear. It didn't sound like the rock group charging down to repel invaders or the approach of terror dogs playing night watchman. Grabbing the flashlight that hung on his belt, Peter turned it on and pinned the newcomer in its yellow beam.

It was a girl, a teenager, wearing only street-clothes with something white wrapped around her shoulders that might have been a tablecloth. Hardly warm. Her face was lined with the same exhaustion that had touched Egon's after his run-in with Derek North, and her eyes were hollow with shadows, but her jaw held stubborn determination and the kind of indomitable courage that would make her go on putting one foot in front of the other until she got where she was going. Long, curly brown hair hung damply, starred with snow, the curls corkscrewing in the damp. Wide blue eyes held almost no expression at all.

At first, she didn't really notice the light, then she realized it hurt her eyes and she blinked, raising a hand to shield her face. Delayed thought processes took a second to snap on and then her face crumpled and tears slid down her face. She stood there helpless, at bay, the tablecloth sliding away as she braced herself for a return to captivity.

"It's okay, we're not them," Peter cried, lowering the flashlight so it wouldn't hurt her eyes. "We're here to rescue you." I sound just like Ray doing his Luke Skywalker gig, he thought wryly as he lunged forward and snatched her up in his arms before she could collapse into the nearest snowbank. "It's over. You're safe."

All the starch went out of her and she let herself lie limply in his arms. She didn't even try to fight. She was so drained and weary that she took him completely at face value. "Are you Peter?" she asked in a thin, little voice. "I'm supposed to find Peter."

Realization gushed through him. She couldn't know that unless she'd talked to Kenny, and that meant Kenny was alive, or at least had been alive when this girl had slipped out into the grounds to look for rescue. "You bet I am, sweetie," he told her gently. "I'm Peter Venkman and these are the Ghostbusters. You're safe now."

Mel pulled off his stretchable coat and it shrank down to its normal size. "Here, Peter, she's frozen," he said, tucking around her gently. Her eyes lifted to the blue demon and widened in surprise but she was too far gone to protest. Maybe she'd sensed Mel's good heart, or maybe she lacked the strength to panic.

"We'll get you out of here and then go for the others," Peter promised. Seeing her like this made the fury he felt toward the band bubble up inside him. The entity on the other side of the gate was doing its thing, not a good thing, but nothing personal. The guys would just stop it, like they'd done Gozer. But Doom's Electric Moccasin had set out deliberately to steal kids. They were the ones who had done this, and they were the ones Peter intended to pay for it. Their pet demi-god or whatever could be busted or sent back through the gate if it tried to come through. But Derek North and his cronies were going to prison for a long, long time if Peter had anything to say about it.

"What's your name?" Ray asked the girl in very soft tones. No one could be more soothing than Ray.

She looked past Mel to Ray and a faint smile touched her mouth. "Cammie. I'm Cammie Ryan."

"Are the other kids in there, Cammie? Are they all right?"

"They're mostly weaker than me," she admitted. "They're not hurt, not injured anyway. But they're drained. That's what happens, we get drained. It...doesn't hurt me as much so I came for help. Ken said, find Peter." Her eyes came back to Peter and lingered on him as if he were a god. "Help them," she pleaded. "Get them out of there."

"Honey, we're gonna do just that," he said. "How many of them are there?"

She frowned, thinking about it. "I think there are thirteen more of them besides me. Seven couples. They wanted couples, I think."

"Good girl," Peter encouraged her. "We'll get you back to the car where you can get warm and now that we know for sure, we can call the police in. Will you let Winston take you back to Ecto-1? We can put the heater on in there and warm you up, and he'll use the car phone to call for help."

For a moment, he thought she would cling to him and refuse to let go, but then she nodded trustingly. "You've got to help," she insisted. "Something bad's coming but they don't try to get away. They sit there in the room and they don't even have the strength to talk to each other."

"But you did." He gave her an encouraging smile. "You're the best, Cammie. We'll get your friends out, I promise." He bent his head and kissed her on the forehead. Her mouth curved into a smile and her eyes sparkled. "Take care. I'll come and see you afterwards," he promised. "You did great. Do you want Janine to come and wait with you?"

Cammie hesitated, eyeing Janine doubtfully. They might need the extra thrower later, but Peter wouldn't condemn Cammie to waiting alone in the car, and it took a lot to get past Janine. Besides, it might help the girl to have a woman with her. Janine was no Earth Mother, but she could be protective if she needed to be.

"I will if you want me to," Janine offered to Cammie. Peter could tell she didn't want to do it. She wanted to come on the bust and keep her eyes on Egon, who was known to be susceptible to the band. But she couldn't turn her back on the drained, distraught girl. "It's okay. I'm tough. Nobody will get to you when I'm there. I promise."

"Okay," Cammie said. "I didn't know there were women Ghostbusters, but there should be. Women can do anything."

"Janine certainly can," Egon averred.

The secretary's eyes lit up at that praise but she could do no more than smile in acknowledgment before Winston lifted Cammie out of Peter's arms and said, "Let's go, girlfriend," to Janine.

When Winston had scrambled down the hill with the chilled girl in his arms, Peter raised his face, his jaw tight. "Nobody gets away with that," he ground out. "I'm going up there and I'm gonna zap the first person who tries to come out and stop me."

"No, wait, Peter," Ray cried, catching his arm. "We can't blast them."

"They deserve it, Ray," Peter insisted. "Because you can just bet when the nasty comes through the gate, he won't stop draining those kids until they're dead."

"I know, Peter," Ray persisted. "But we can't kill them. Maybe we can stun them with the throwers, but we have to find out what we can from them first. It isn't just the kids, it's what might come through the gate. We need to know about it, and we need to know as soon as possible."

"Someone came here, right before we did," Eddie added. "Did you see the tracks in the snow?"

Peter nodded. "So the whole band might be here. Egon, you better tell us the second you feel anything. Throw that trap down right away because if all four of them concentrate on you, I think you'd go beddie bye in a hurry."

"I should prefer to avoid a repeat performance," Spengler said drily, raising his meter and aiming it at the house. "There has been no alarm over Cammie's disappearance. And these readings haven't changed. Whatever is going on up there right now, the other teens aren't being drained at the moment."

Ray twisted a dial on his meter. "At least not yet. But I'm getting diffuse energy buildups here. Something's getting ready to happen."

"We've gotta sneak those kids out of there before anything happens," Eddie burst out. "Guys, I've gotta help with that. Some of those kids came specifically to see me and my band. I want them out of there."

"We all do," Peter insisted. "Mel, can you find the house and look inside without them knowing?"

"I can block myself so they can't see me," the demon agreed. "But if their whatever-it-is has started to come through the gate and they're linked with it, it will know, I think. I don't know what it is, and I can't sense it yet. But I can sense the kind of power you need to open a gate. It's not very strong and it's focused back in the city. But it's there and I think it's coming this way."

"The entity or the gate?" demanded Egon.

Mel shrugged his massive shoulders. "Both."

"Then they are shifting the gate," Ray gasped. "Mel, go and see what's up there. We need to find out right away."

Mel stalked up the hill in such huge strides that the Ghostbusters would have had to run to keep up with him. They watched him out of sight, then they shifted into the shadows of the trees. "I want to wait for Winston so we'll know if he got through to the police or not," Egon decided. He took several readings, comparing them with the ones Ray had. "We need to find out what's going on at the house, but I'll monitor it from here. As long as the biorhythm readings don't weaken, we can wait."

"Oh, no, you can't." The voice behind them was familiar and very unpleasant. John Easter, cold and nasty as only he could be. As Peter whirled to face it, he heard Egon and Eddie gasp in shock. Egon reached for the modified trap but his hand fumbled it and he sagged and collapsed face down in the snow before he could unseat it from its rack on the thrower. Eddie followed him down, gasping. Peter yanked out his thrower, ready to make mincemeat out of the band.

Ray tried to fire his thrower but something huge and black leaped at him out of the trees and bore him to the ground. It had emerged closer to Ray than Peter, and that was probably why Stantz had been made the first target.

Peter hesitated, trying to take aim at the beast. "Guys," he called, his stomach knotting up in panic, as he finished his turn, to find the band lined up in a row, clad in full-length black cloaks with hoods. There were four of them and the fourth was slightly taller and broader and had a hand that emerged from the cloak holding a gun. Yep, definitely Easter, the sleaze. Peter could just see their shadowy faces in the concealment of the hoods. The four of them stood with implacable eyes. No, the woman, Madeline was eyeing the downed man with an avid hunger, her eyes glistening with avidity

"What have you done to my friends?" Peter cried hotly, ready to lunge in and take them down with his bare hands if that was what it took. The gun never wavered, though. He wouldn't help any of them if he got shot. "If any of them die, you're gonna go down so hard you'll bounce. I guarantee it. If Egon's dead..." He couldn't be dead. He was just out of it, like the kids were, like he'd been before, wasn't he? It couldn't be cumulative, could it? "Egon?" he faltered. "Ray?"

"Drop you weapon, Venkman," Easter insisted. The gun aimed at him, then it shifted and pointed at the downed Egon. They might want to drain him later; they might not want him shot, but Peter couldn't take the chance. He holstered his thrower and shrugged, but the glare he aimed at the band was nearly as lethal as a proton stream.

"Down, Brutus," commanded Derek North in a bored voice and the massive shape that had pinned Ray to the ground shifted and revealed itself to be something midway between a normal Doberman Pinscher and a terror dog. It was as black as the blackest night and its pelt gleamed with an inner light. Eyes that glowed yellow in the darkness eyed Peter hungrily as it sat next to Ray, tongue dangling as it panted. The occultist was awake, eyes wide and alarmed as he stared over at Egon, but he didn't make any sudden moves.

"I'm not hurt, Peter," he said, but there was a thread of pain running through his voice. Peter hoped it was from his hard landing and not from those huge fangs, but he couldn't see any obvious blood. Given the chance, Ray could probably make friends with Terror Dog Jr. but Pete didn't think he'd get that chance.

"Don't get up, Stantz," the lead singer cautioned. "I have told Brutus he may not devour you but his conditioning might overcome my command if you struggle." He eyed Peter, who had frozen in place. "I would forget you have your particle thrower, Dr. Venkman. Maddie is voracious and she would taste your friend Egon's energy again. Too much of it will kill him, you know."

Peter could see that Egon was breathing, but the face that was half turned toward Peter was blank and unrevealing, eyes tightly closed. Eddie, too, lay motionless. He could hear their breathing, but the look of merciless hunger on Maddie's face, like a vampire scenting human blood, convinced him that Derek meant what he said. He had to stall. Mel was out there, and Mel was a match for all four of them. Winston, too, would soon be returning, and he was armed. Could Brutus sense them? Would he give warning, baying loudly at the slightest approach?

"You've already lost," Peter insisted, hoping his voice sounded firmer than he thought it did. "The cops know about this. Not just you, Easter. We told Inspector Frump. He knows us. We told him to send in the Marines. And we've got a tape of your subliminal messages where you'll never find it, and if anything happens to us, it goes to the police. You think we just waltzed in here without back-up? No way, José."

"I'm still hungry, Derek," Madeline purred. "We have to give so much of it away. I want a little more." She pushed past her teammates and knelt in the snow at Egon's side, putting out her hand to touch his face.

"No!" yelled Peter, lunging for her to yank her away from his friend. "Leave him alone, bitch!"

Brutus howled like the dead and sprang up slavering, ready to lunge at Peter, but Peter didn't care. He wouldn't let this cheap little tramp kill Egon. Fingers fumbling for his thrower he planted himself at Egon's side and grabbed for her with his other hand to pull her away.

He felt the pain before he heard the gun fire, a hot flash of agony, searing across his side, making him stagger and suck in a sharp breath. It was like flames, like getting zapped with a thrower at full streams, and at once he felt cold everywhere but the place the bullet had hit, cold and hot at once, his scalp tightening as a disjointed, woozy sensation flooded his body, starting in his side and welling outward like ripples in a pond.

"Damn it, Johnny, no shooting," Derek yelled furiously, but Peter didn't hear Easter's response.

Ray's horrified, "Peter!" rang in his ears, echoing endlessly as he pitched forward, collapsing half on top of Egon, his breath going out in a whoosh as his ribcage slammed into the physicist's proton pack. Egon didn't stir as Peter fell on him and that sent a distant tickle of worry through his remaining consciousness but, by the time he was all the way down, he had disappeared into a deep, dark, bottomless pit, from which there was no escape....

"Did you hear that?" Winston jerked to attention as he hung up the receiver of Ecto's mobile phone, straining for further noises. "It sounded like a shot."

Hard on the heels of the crack of sound came Ray's distant and agonized scream, "Peter!" and the horrible baying of a massive dog, a weird, atavistic howl that could turn one's blood to water.

Cammie, fast asleep in the back of Ecto, safely bundled in blankets, didn't stir, but Janine's eyes met Winston's and they stared at each other in horror. "They're caught, aren't they?" she said tightly, eyes huge.

"We don't know that," Winston muttered stubbornly. "Could've been a car backfiring." He didn't convince even himself. "Okay, they might be caught, girlfriend. And I hope that was a warning shot. They've got Mel with them, remember? He was already in his natural form. I don't think bullets will stop him." He tried to squelch the growing certainty that Ray's cry meant that Peter had just stopped a bullet. His fingers closed around the thrower he didn't even remember drawing.

Janine pulled her thrower, too, her expression grim. "What do we do? Come on, let's go."

Tucking the thrower under his arm, Winston put his hand on her shoulders and gazed down into her eyes. "No way, Janine. Sorry, but you have to stay with Cammie. If anybody comes, you have to drive Ecto out of here and go for help." When she drew exasperated breath, ready to demand her right to come along, he said quietly, "I know it's not what you want. You're a brave lady and you want to charge in to the rescue. I know you care about Egon, about all of us. But we came here to rescue the kids and we can't desert the only one we've got so far. You know that. It's not as satisfying as rushing off to rescue Egon, but it's what he'd expect you to do."

Quivering with frustration, she gnawed her bottom lip. "I hate that," she muttered.

"I know you do, but your job is to hold the fort. It's what you do every day. If I need you to help me, I'll come for you, I promise you that." He gestured. "Take Ecto down to the end of that street and park it around the corner. They may come looking and I don't want either of you to be an easy target. I don't think they will, though. I think they've got too much going down to worry about cars until this night is over."

"But they'll notice you aren't there."

"Come on, Janine, you saw the way they looked at me at the concert. To them, I'm pond scum, and who notices when pond scum isn't there?" He gritted his teeth. "Right now, I'm glad of it. It gives me a free hand."

To his astonishment, she reached up and hugged him around the neck, her thrower bopping him lightly on the back of the head. She shifted its position and came up on tiptoes to kiss him full on the mouth. When she let go, she said sternly, "You take care of yourself, too. When it comes to charging to the rescue, you probably belong in the Guinness Book of World Records. Be careful, Winston."

"You called that right," he confirmed, squaring his shoulders. "Because my three best friends' lives are at stake. I'll find out what's going on or know the reason why. And, don't forget, they've got their throwers. They may have already captured the bad guys." He saw and ignored the skepticism in her eyes. She remembered Ray's shout, too. But she pretended she didn't, her head coming up.

On that hopeful note, he dashed across the street and wiggled his way through the gap in the fence. When he glanced back, he saw Janine lift her hand and wave at him, her face wistful and worried, then she got into Ecto-1 and drove it down the side street and around the corner.

Thrower in hand, Winston started up the hill, working his way from cover to cover. It wouldn't do him any good to be captured too quickly. In order to help his friends, he had to stay free. Hang in there, guys, he thought fiercely. Be okay, Pete. All of you. I'll get there as fast as I can.

Ray found himself and Peter forced into a bathroom. He'd been dragged to his feet, stripped of his proton pack and thrower, and gestured up the hill. When he hung back, protesting, pointing to Peter, Egon, and Eddie, they had allowed him to take Peter in a fireman's carry, once his pack was gone, and haul him up the hill. He didn't see what happened behind him with Egon and the singer and he couldn't turn to look because John Easter came right behind him, the gun leveled at Peter's head. "Try anything and I let out what little brains he's got," he said coldly, and Ray believed him. Easter's voice proved that he didn't have one shred of concern for either one of them. Ray couldn't help Egon right now, but they were letting him help Peter. He had to get Peter into shelter and treat his wound before he attempted escape. Until then, it was better to let them think he was cowed and helpless.

The band and the cop didn't think much of him. They'd called him a chubby boy scout. Okay, so he had a few extra pounds. He had been a boy scout. That wasn't an insult in itself, but they'd made it one. Ray meant to make it a virtue. Boy scouts were inventive and clever and they were prepared for trouble. So would he be. Once he took care of Peter, then he could show them what a boy scout and a Ghostbuster could do. Easter was behind him. He couldn't see the pugnacious expression that spread across Ray's face.

He heard no sounds behind him other than Easter plodding through the snow. What was going on with Egon? Was he dead? Were the band members draining him to the death? Had he been turned over to that mini-terror dog? Don't, Ray, he told himself sternly. Don't imagine it. DO something about it. He'd bandage Peter then he'd break out of wherever they put him and rescue the others. Mel was out there somewhere, at liberty, and Winston and Janine were free, too. The situation might be bad, but it wasn't hopeless.

If only Peter didn't hang so limply against his shoulder. "Peter?" he tried once. No answer. Okay, it was just too soon. He'd wait. Peter was a dead weight, but Ray was stronger than people expected. He ran for blocks in a heavy proton pack three days out of every five. He charged up flights of steps with its weight on his back, pursuing demons and specters. He could do this, too. Besides, nothing on earth would induce him to abandon Peter.

The house loomed out of the darkness above him, and he faltered at the sight. It stood, grim and menacing, a huge, stone block of a place with turrets at the corners like a medieval fortress. It looked like the kind of place where people vanished without a trace every other day and were never heard from again. But Cammie had escaped from there. Weak and helpless as she was, she had walked right out and no one had stopped her. The band might have been looking for her when they found part of the team, but she had gotten away. That meant he and Peter could. Egon and Eddie might be down for the count; Egon had been zapped badly that afternoon and it might even take him longer to bounce back this time. But that didn't mean Ray wouldn't find them and free them, too. He had an idea that the band meant to use the two Spenglers to replace Cammie in their ritual. Surely that meant they'd be safe, at least until after midnight. The band might have sucked out only enough energy to knock them out so they couldn't get away.

"Don't stand there like a dolt," Easter snarled. "Go. Get in there, now." He gestured Ray to a flight of wide steps that led up to a stone terrace that ran across the front of the house. The snow had been cleared from the steps earlier, but it was still falling and already beginning to cover up the traces of the earlier shoveling. Beneath his feet, the stones were slippery; the temperature was dropping, forming treacherous ice. Careful not to trip and drop Peter, Ray planted his feet carefully and gained the front door, a huge, ribbed portal of ancient oak.

Juggling the gun in one hand, Easter manhandled it open and guided Ray inside.

Stantz found himself in a vast entry hall, paneled in a dark wood, that rose two stories high, a giant chandelier dangling overhead glittering with crystals that reflected the light from five bulbs contained within. The place was blazing with light, but that wasn't reassuring. Escaping prisoners loved the shadows best.

He didn't see anyone waiting, no servants, no evil henchmen, no ghosts or entities like the Hound of the Baskervilles out there. Across from him to his left was a wide staircase that rose smoothly to a landing, then divided with two separate stairs to the second floor. A suit of armor stood on the landing. Opposite the stairs, was a set of double doors, standing ajar, and Ray could sense a presence in there even without a P.K.E. meter. The entity? The rest of the band? A passage led beyond it down a hallway where another suit of armor stood. A huge urn, shoulder high on a man, sat to the right of the staircase. Nowhere in the entire hall did Ray see anything that might serve as a weapon.

"Over there," urged Easter, gesturing to a closed door just across the hall, next to the double doors. As he passed, Ray looked in, then he froze.

Sprawled on chairs and sofas all through the room were the missing teens. If Ray had expected help from them, he abandoned the idea on the spot. The kids were pale and weary looking, vast shadows on their faces, huge bags under their eyes. They looked like poster children for hunger, refugee kids from a war zone. Cammie had looked like that, too, only not quite as bad. Of this lot, the only ones that didn't look half starved and too weak to move was Kenny Fenderman, who sat on a couch opposite the door, his arm around his girlfriend Diane. Kenny's head came up when Ray moved into sight and, for the first instant, his face lit with relief. Then, he realized who Ray was carrying slung over his shoulder and what little color there was in his face drained away.

"Peter!" he cried, pushing himself gamely to his feet, and charging unsteadily across the room.

Easter leveled the gun at him and he skidded to an awkward stop, grabbing the back of a wing chair to keep himself upright. Shock made his eyes huge.

"No, Kenny!" Ray cried desperately. "Don't."

Frightened but determined, Kenny held his position, trembling with fatigue and fear. "Is...is Peter dead?" he ventured, his eyes desperate and too bright.

"No," Ray cried. He wouldn't have Peter dead. Besides, he could hear him breathing. Peter was tough. He'd be all right. He had to be. "He's not dead. He's just a little hurt. Are you okay? What about these kids?"

"I didn't bring you here for a chat," Easter snarled. "Get over there, into the bathroom." He nodded at the nearby door.

Ray shot Kenny a warning with his eyes and the boy bowed his head fractionally, picking up on the signal. Kenny had always been brave and determined. He bowed his head and Ray, who knew him, could tell that his cowed demeanor was a fraud. Easter, however, smirked and jammed the gun into Ray's back. "In there, now. And don't try to come out. Brutus will be loose in the hall, and he has a taste for human flesh."

Ray saw fear in the faces of those kids who were alert enough to understand but it was a muted fear. They were too spent and passive for the real meaning of the words to register. Ray was pretty sure Brutus had been commanded to leave the kids alone. He hadn't even bitten Ray when he had knocked him down. Brutus might be the least of his problems.

The door opened on a well appointed bathroom, twice as big as the bathroom back at the firehouse. There was a giant tub on claw feet, a platform sink, and a floor-to-ceiling cabinet opposite the door. Whoever had been in here last hadn't bothered to flush the toilet, but that didn't matter. Ray lay Peter down gently on the fleecy pink rug, whirling when he heard the door close behind him and a key turn in a lock. Automatically, his eyes searched out a window and he heaved a sigh when he saw it, well over his head, one foot square. No one could have fit through it, even if it hadn't had bars on the outside.

Okay, he had to help Peter. Drawing Peter's limp body up in a sitting position, he fumbled open his coat then drew back in alarm. There was a lot of blood on the side of his jumpsuit, blood the parka had concealed until now. Letting Peter lie against his chest, Ray worked his arms free of the coat's sleeves, then braced him up long enough to unzip his jumpsuit all the way down. Drawing Peter's arms free of it and pulling it down to his hips, he allowed Peter to lie down again. Ray put his hand on Peter's forehead; it was clammy and wet but that might be from the snow. Snatching down a couple of towels from the rack, Ray realized they were dirty from a lot of use. The kids. Jumping up, he popped open the cabinet. Good. Clean towels, washcloths. A few bathroom supplies, including a bottle of peroxide and another of alcohol. Well, at least he could clean Peter's wound.

He pulled up Peter's bloodied sweatshirt to expose the injury, then he sagged back on his heels. It looked like a long slice, running upward along his side toward the ribcage. He could actually see the bullet, partly imbedded under a flap of skin, and realized the strap of his proton pack must somehow have stopped it. Easter had not had a clear shot; he'd been aiming to avoid Madeline and still hit Peter, and he'd succeeded in grazing him instead. Peter had lost a lot of blood, but if he could be bandaged and kept warm, he might survive this night.

If any of them did...

Ray pressed a folded towel over the injury then jumped up to run the hot water tap, flushing the toilet on the way. When the water ran almost too hot to put his hand beneath it, he saturated a washcloth and wrung it out, wincing at the heat. Then he began to bathe the wound. Very carefully, he tried to see if he could get hold of the bullet itself and, to his astonishment and relief, it popped into his hand. The heavy parka, the jumpsuit and the pack strap had prevented a more serious wound. Freeing the bullet caused more bleeding, but Ray pressed the makeshift pad over the injury to stop it. It didn't bleed hard or long. When he risked lifting the pad, there was hardly any bleeding.

Sitting back on his heels, Ray cleaned the wound carefully with soap and water, and then with alcohol. Peter didn't move during the entire process. A hasty exploration of the cabinet provided a small first aid kit; it wasn't great, but it was so much better than Ray had expected that he heaved a vast sigh of relief. Making sure the wound was thoroughly disinfected, he jerked his hands back when Peter flinched and muttered something under his breath that sounded like, "That stings."

"It has to, Peter," he soothed, his voice earnest. "Let me get you bandaged up. Don't try to move yet, okay?" No answer, but Peter lay unmoving while Ray laid several gauze pads over the wound and taped them neatly into place. He didn't want to leave Peter in the bloody sweatshirt, but keeping him warm was all-important. He could so easily go into shock. Glancing around for something to use to prop his feet up, he was forced to use the wastebasket, tipped on its side and cushioned with a stack of towels. He then covered Peter with his own coat, tucking him in the way he would if he were putting a child to bed.

When he lifted his eyes to Peter's face, he saw his friend was awake and watching him.

"Peter!"

"Hi, Ray." His voice was thin and strengthless, but his eyes were focused. Ray doubted he had the strength to move yet and he didn't want to upset him and make him try.

"Peter, you've lost a lot of blood, so just stay there. Let me know if you're not warm enough."

"I'm boiling," Peter protested. He wasn't quite tracking yet. Any second now he'd realize they were the only ones here and start worrying about Egon, and Ray was doing enough of that for both of them. Until now, he hadn't had a chance to think about what might be happening to Egon, except in passing. If only Mel could come to Egon's rescue.

Peter lay in silence for a few minutes, and Ray put his hand on his forehead. He didn't feel clammy any more although his hair was wet from the snow. They'd all had hats on earlier, but Peter's had fallen off somewhere along the trip to the house and Ray hadn't noticed it.

Okay, what to do next? He wanted to go for Egon, but Peter wasn't fit to be left alone. Staying here and waiting for Easter, who had not hesitated to shoot Peter before, seemed like a stupid idea. Ray glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that it was only 9:35. He thought it should have been later.

"Ray?" Peter's vague voice cut through his reverie.

"Yes, Peter?"

"What happened to me?"

"Easter shot you," Ray explained, taking his hand from Peter's forehead and putting it on his shoulder to keep him down. "But it's only a flesh wound. Really. It's just a long one and you lost some blood. That's why you feel weak and woozy. The bullet's out. Don't try to move yet. We'll have to get out of here, but you need to feel better first." He jumped up and rinsed out the glass that sat on the sink using the scalding water again to get it clean, then he gradually ran the water cold in the glass so the abrupt temperature change wouldn't shatter it. When it was full, he returned to Peter. "Drink this. You need to replace fluids." He set the glass aside and slid his arm under Peter's shoulders, propping up his head enough to drink without spilling it down his chin.

Peter gulped about half the glass, then he sagged back. Setting the glass aside, Ray made him comfortable.

"Ray?" This time, the tone of his voice made Stantz stiffen. Here it came. He looked a question, wishing it could have waited until Peter was a little stronger.

"Where's Egon?"

"They only brought you and me to the house, Peter. I don't know where he is yet."

Peter pondered that for maybe ten seconds, then he struggled to sit up. "They zapped him again, didn't they? Used that double whammy draining thing? Ray? Is he...dead?" His fingers clutched at Ray's sleeve.

"He was breathing when they took us away. I could see his chest moving and I could hear him. Really, Peter. You know I'd never lie to you."

Peter's eyes narrowed. "No, but you might hold back for my own good. I know you, Ray. Tell me. Bottom line. Do you think he's dead?" The green eyes pinned Ray in a desperate stare and his fingers tightened in the sleeve of Ray's jumpsuit.

"I think he's alive," Ray insisted stanchly. He did think that. He just didn't believe it would stay that way. Peter's eyes demanded more and he continued, "I think, since Cammie got away, they're going to use Egon and Eddie when the entity comes through. Or maybe not Eddie if the entity needs virgins. Not that Egon is one," he corrected hastily. "But they seem to like him for it. If he and Janine haven't been...together for awhile, maybe it's been long enough for what they need."

Peter bit his bottom lip hard, his eyes hollow with helpless worry. "Ray, never mind about me. Go and get Egon." He lowered his voice as if he suspected someone was eavesdropping on them on the other side of the door. "Find Winston, find Mel. Get Egon free. It doesn't matter what happens to me if Egon's okay."

Ray eased Peter down again--he was so weak from the blood loss it took very little effort. "Peter, please," he begged. "Don't make me choose between you and Egon. I don't know if I can."

Peter didn't try to sit up again, but he locked his eyes with Ray's and spoke in a low, intense, compelling voice. "I'm not asking you to choose, Ray. I'm choosing. If you don't save him, Egon's gonna die. You can leave me here and I might die, but it's not a sure bet with me. I won't die of this." He made a feeble gesture at his side. "Right now, Egon needs you more than I do. You have to get him away from them. I won't let you stay here with me just because I'm down for a little while. Go and help him, Ray. Please." His hand fumbled for Ray's and he clutched it urgently. Ray didn't feel comforted by Peter's assumption of responsibility. He knew it was a responsibility he shared, no matter how Peter tried to reassure him.

"I can't, Peter. I want to, but I can't. We're locked in here. And Brutus is out in the hall."

"Then pick the lock. I know you can. And if anybody can make friends with Brutus, you can. You always did have weird pets, remember?" He struggled again to sit up, but Ray's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Don't, Peter. You'll go into shock and even if your wound doesn't kill you, that could." He looked his friend in the eye and gave in. "All right. I'll try. I promise. But I want you to promise that you won't try anything on your own unless you have to. I'm okay, after all. I'm not hurt and I can handle things."

"You sure, Ray?" Peter asked. "Fido didn't take a bite out of you?"

Ray shook his head. "No, just shook me up a little, I'm fine. I can do this." He hesitated, then he waved his hand at the locked door. "Right out there, on the other side of the door, is a big room and all the kids are in there. Kenny's in there and he saw me and knew me. He's drained but he was able to get up. The other kids all look worse off than him. He's not as good as Cammie, but he's holding on. I don't think anybody's guarding the kids right now." Ray thought hard. "So here's the deal and I mean it, Peter. I'll go and look for Egon. After awhile, if you feel strong enough, you try to go in there with the kids but I want you to promise you'll wait till you can do it without keeling over. Can you do that?"

Peter's eyes ached with worry for Egon, and for Ray who was about to go into danger without back-up, but he nodded faintly, his damp hair dragging in the fuzzy, pink rug. "Wish I had a thrower..." he said wearily. The helpless frustration in his voice was very close to anger, not at Ray but at his own inability to do anything.

"I know. I wish I did, too, but I bet I can find something to use for a weapon once I'm out of here." He dug in his pockets. He hadn't been searched. Easter must have thought the particle throwers were the only weapons the guys had. Ray found his Swiss Army knife right away and checked out the blades. One of them was nice and thin and might work on the old fashioned lock on the bathroom door. In another pocket he found one of those high energy bars that the team sometimes ate when they knew they were facing a strenuous bust, and he peeled aside the wrapper and pressed it into Peter's hand. "Instant energy," he said.

Peter grimaced but he took a bite, chewing without enthusiasm.

Ray applied the knife to the keyhole, his tongue stuck into the correct corner of his cheek to aid in concentration. It took him ten seconds to pick the lock.

When he looked over at Peter, the psychologist had clasped his hands and held them over his head triumphantly like Rocky to salute Ray's success. "Go get 'em, Tex," he urged.

Ray hurried back to Peter, leaned down, and gave him an encouraging hug. "You be careful, Peter," he said. "Don't try anything you're not up for. Promise?"

Peter's eyebrows lifted. He was trying to lift just one, the way Spock--and Egon--could, but he'd never been able to make it. He was still too pale, but there was a little more color in his face. "This, coming from Daredevil Stantz? Give me a break, Ray. You watch yourself out there, okay?"

"I promise, Peter." Of course he did. Egon's life might depend on it.

Then he thought of something. "Peter, you'll have to lock the door when I go. It'll be that deadbolt rather than the keyhole lock, but if they try the door and it doesn't open, then they might not come in and notice I'm missing."

"Good thinking," Peter agreed.

"So I'll move you over to the door; that way you won't have to try to get up yet. Okay?"

Peter nodded, and Ray bent down and grabbed the edges of the fuzzy, pink rug. Dragging it across the tiles proved easier than he thought it would, but Peter's lips compressed and he struggled not to let the pain show. Ray flinched but he kept moving, knowing what he was doing would protect Peter. Once the rug was in place by the door, Peter's feet were elevated, and he had a new glass of water, Ray produced a determined grin. "I'll be back--with Egon."

Peter watched him until the door closed between them, his eyes full of worry. Ray gave him a thumbs' up sign and pulled the door shut. After a few seconds, he heard Peter turn the bolt and he relaxed, although the thought of leaving Peter, injured and helpless, alone and at the mercy of their enemies didn't sit well at all. They couldn't get in with a key now, but if they realized Peter had sealed the door against them, they might break the door down. On the other hand, he and Peter were an inconvenience to Moccasin, but Egon was directly in their line of fire. Peter had been right to insist he break free to look for the physicist. He wished he had his P.K.E. meter but he'd dropped it when Brutus tackled him. He wished he had a thrower. He wished there had been a way to hide Peter somewhere else so the band couldn't find him.

Ray turned to investigate the hall. Better not go past the kids. One of them might inadvertently give him away. Listening beside the double doors, he heard muted voices, not many, just a few, Kenny's rising above them. "I know they caught Peter and Ray, but Ray probably let himself be caught because Peter's hurt. They'll get us out of here. I know they will."

Ray nodded fervently. You bet I will, Kenny, he said, and started down the passage that led away from the front door, holding his breath in case someone might hear him coming. Brutus was nowhere in sight but he might not be lurking nearby, waiting to pounce.

Where are you, Egon? Ray thought frantically as he stalked the kitchen premises looking for something to use as a weapon. You better be alive. I can't go back and tell Peter I didn't rescue you.

Egon wasn't far away, but he wasn't up to daring yet. Instead he was flat on his back, staring up at a bland and unfamiliar ceiling while his cousin Eddie chafed his cheeks and his hands in an effort to rouse him.

"Come on, Egon, you're gonna be fine. Whoa, what a number they pulled on us! I feel like I've been on a five-day bender."

Egon focused his attention on his cousin, collecting fragments of consciousness and drawing them to him with an effort. "Are you able to get up?" he asked practically.

"Yeah, but I'd just as soon sit here for a little while first and get my strength back. Whatever they did to us, you took it worse."

"It's what they did to me earlier in the day," Egon replied. "It felt the same only it came on much faster this time, perhaps because I was closer. They didn't take as much, either. I didn't have a chance to use the trap."

"And this is what they want those kids for, to take their life energy away?" Eddie's face was grim and tight. "No way. We have to stop them, Egon. Come on, try to sit up." Egon knew Eddie well enough to see his eyes were dark with blame. He hadn't known what was going on and he'd come to the Ghostbusters the minute he'd had a suspicion something was wrong, but those children had come to his concert and Eddie was one of the people who accepted responsibility in life. Egon's mother had always said that there were only two types of people in the world, those who took responsibility and accepted it, and those who avoided it. Eddie was definitely one of the former.

"It's possible they want us to replace Cammie," Egon mused. A few minutes, that's all he needed to find his feet again. "I'm not sure they'd want you for that. We theorize the entity prefers virgins."

Eddie's eyebrow shot up. "Come on, Egon, you're not a virgin."

"No," Egon replied. "But I suspect it has been longer for me than for you."

"I thought you and Janine..."

Egon felt his cheeks redden. "No, actually we haven't been dating lately. We were doing a lot of it around Christmas, and even in April when we had the problems with that demon trying to bring Mel back to the Netherworld. We had a...disagreement back in August. It's probably been two months since..." He didn't want to explain the fight to Eddie, who would probably remind him that all relationships had their ups and downs. It didn't matter now, though. The thought that she might be in danger alarmed him. He was very worried about her.

Eddie took pity on him. "That still doesn't make you a virgin. If the entity is that picky, he might not want either one of us." He frowned. "Yet, here we are."

"The band isn't so particular," Egon pointed out. He looked around the small room where they were evidently incarcerated. It looked very old, the walls made of stone, the ceiling of rough plaster. There was an arch to the wall to the left and the window beyond Eddie had a screen over it but evidently no glass for snow had trickled in and piled up around the screen. The stone structure provided shelter for them but it was not warm and only their coats protected them from the snowy night. Light came from a small, unshaded bulb set over the door, a ribbed, arched portal that looked like it would take more than two men to push open. "Where are we?"

"I think it's a part of the cellars," Eddie explained. "I roused when they were bringing us here and I didn't let them know I was awake. We went around beside a huge house that looks like a medieval fortress, and the ground slopes abruptly behind the house. This must be the American equivalent of the dungeons."

New alarm filled Egon as he realized the two of them were alone in the room. Adrenaline gave him a burst of energy. "Where are Peter and Ray?"

"They must have been taken somewhere else. They weren't with us on the way here."

Egon's muscles tightened. He and Eddie were evidently donors for the band, but Ray and Peter hadn't tempted the musicians. They weren't needed for what was about to happen. That meant that, to the band and Easter, they were expendable. They could already be dead. He forced that thought away. He could not assume that. He had to believe there was a way to escape, to join up with his friends again. "Winston and Mel weren't with us when we were caught," he remembered. "They might be able to free us. Do we have our proton packs?"

Eddie shook his head. "Not a hope of that. You do have a P.K.E. meter, though. I checked to see." He held it up.

Egon pushed himself up on his elbows and allowed Eddie to help him sit up. The singer was right and so was he; they hadn't been fully drained. His energy was returning faster than it had the first time, even without benefit of Greg Labraccio and a transfusion. Taking up the meter, he checked it. Standard settings. That would work. He turned it on.

It beeped and blared loudly, and he disabled the sound function with flying fingers, exchanging a worried glance with Eddie, who made an unhappy face.

"I hate to ask, but what does that mean?"

"It means the gateway is nearby. They must have found a way to shift it. Either that or the shift was already in progress when they apprehended us. What time is it?"

Eddie glanced at his watch. "A little after ten," he realized. "We've got what, two hours?"

"Before Halloween, yes," Egon replied. "If they must wait for the feast of Samhaine, then we have two hours to find a solution to the problem, escape from here, and reunite with Peter, Ray, Winston, and Mel. Unfortunately, I'm not sure my legs will support me yet."

"No, I don't know if I can walk out of here yet, either. But Mel's free. I know he can get us out of here."

Egon nodded, remembering that Mel had departed just before the band and Easter had arrived. Had the band seen him go? Heard the remaining team mention him? Winston and Janine were safe, too, unless they had returned and walked into a trap. Of course the band knew who were Ghostbusters and who were not, and they'd realize Winston was missing. They might suspect Mel was here but they probably wouldn't know about Janine. He pushed from his mind the concern that would distract him and focused instead on the P.K.E. meter. He needed as much information as he could get.

Eddie was silent a long moment, then he frowned and said, "One other thing, Egon..."

Lifting his eyes, the physicist saw that his cousin was regarding him with great regret as if he had something to say that he knew wouldn't go down easily. "What is it?"

"This." Egon pointed to the edge of Egon's blue parka. "It's blood. It's not yours. That was the first thing I checked when I woke up and saw it. "

Egon felt a pulse of coldness run through him, and the back of his neck prickled. "Peter or Ray is hurt."

"It might not mean that," Eddie replied. "But I'm afraid it does."

"Then there is no time to waste. We must free ourselves immediately." Pushing himself up to his knees, Egon knelt there, swaying while the stone chamber revolved around him. "Oops," he said.

"Not yet. Just rest. Our strength is coming back. I'll see if I can figure out the lock. They didn't zap me as badly." He shuffled over to the door, holding onto the wall, and Egon suspected he couldn't have made it if he'd had to walk straight across. While he circled the chamber, Egon studied it for other doorways or possible means of escape. The screened window had bars on the other side of it, bars that would yield in an instant to the particle streams from a thrower but which weren't as likely to give under the bare-handed attacks of two weakened human beings. A flight of stairs went up in one corner, but the door at the top looked as solid as the outdoor one. It might not be locked. Probably it led up into the house.

Egon straightened up, bracing himself against the wall, and adjusted the meter to detect human biorhythms. It reacted when he tested for Peter, causing him to close his eyes in relief. Peter was alive. He wasn't even very far away. However, his reading was weaker than normal, not just the fading that would be caused by distance. Egon realized the blood on his coat must be Peter's.

"What have you done, Peter?" he said under his breath.

"What'd you say?" called Eddie, nearly at the door.

"I'm getting biorhythms from Peter," Egon replied. "Let me test for Ray." He made the necessary adjustments and the meter reacted even more strongly. Ray was closer than Peter was, and he was unhurt. Even more interesting, he was moving. "I think Ray is free," Egon mused. "If he has a meter, I might be able to overload it with this one and let him use the reaction to track us."

"Will it do that?"

"If I can match the frequency he's using and reverse the polarity, his meter will go into overload. We tried setting two meters similarly and reversing the polarity of one to track a physical entity once. Both meters shorted out. He'll know to shut it down if it starts to react, and he'll know I'm the one doing it."

Egon popped the casing of his meter and used a screwdriver from a pocket kit he carried in his jumpsuit to make the necessary interior adjustments. When he had finished, he closed the casing and adjusted the dials. The meter squealed faintly.

"Is that from Ray?" asked Eddie, curious.

Egon shook his head. "No, I think it's an actual physical entity. We can detect them with the standard meters but they have a negative valence and unless they're very strong, we have to be fairly close to detect them. The way the meter is set, it will pick up actual physical entities. This isn't the threat we expect to come through the gate, though. It's not powerful enough. It may be a guardian spirit for the house, a genius loci. Let me see if I can get a feedback reaction from Ray." He tried various meter settings, but nothing happened except for the faint flicker from the entity that must be in the house or grounds. All Egon could tell of it was that it was probably Class 5 at best, and that it moved very rapidly. Perhaps they should have brought Slimer with them on the bust. The little ghost might have helped them.

Eddie's unsteady steps had brought him to the door while Egon tested the meter, and now he grasped the handle and tried to open it. Egon could tell from his expression that he was having no luck. "It's locked," he said. "This is crazy. Whitney will ream me for walking into danger like this." His eyes hollowed and Egon could see the fear flash through them at the thought that he might never see his wife and son again.

Although the singer had brought them into this case and had volunteered to come along, Egon could not help remembering that Eddie was his cousin, younger than he was, and relatively experienced in the realms of the paranormal. Although he couldn't have denied his right to come along, Egon couldn't help wishing that he had stayed behind where it was safe. The thought of explaining to Whitney and to Uncle Cyrus that he'd allowed Eddie to die was not a pleasant one.

Worse, Peter was hurt, and the band knew they were there. They might realize any time soon that Winston hadn't been with them at the time of their capture, and they definitely knew that Mel was a demon so they might be prepared for him. None of that helped Peter.

Using the wall for balance, Egon pushed himself to his feet and started for the flight of stone stairs. "We must find Ray and Peter," he insisted. "We don't have much time."

Instead of arguing that Egon wasn't up to it yet, Eddie wobbled his way across the broad expanse of stone floor to Egon's side and took his arm. Holding each other up, they climbed the stairs.

Just as they reached the top, the door swung open and Michael Westin and John Easter confronted them, Easter holding the gun. The crooked cop's face was grim and expressionless, but amusement lit Westin's eyes.

"Ah. We didn't even have to go and get you," he said with a sarcastic smile. "You, Eddie. We don't really need you, but you can come and watch your cousin surrender his life for the god."

"It's funny, Mike," Eddie returned, his voice harsh. "I would have thought a little tin god like you wouldn't bother to worship any other gods."

"Ah, but you don't know the power I'll enjoy when the Hungry One comes through the gateway. He will rule the earth and the four of us will be the four winds that blow through his empire, controlling it for him."

Egon and Eddie exchanged doubtful looks. The Hungry One? That does not sound good. Spengler spoke up. "I've encountered people like you before and I always wondered at your utter stupidity," he remarked. "The Cthulhu cult, for instance. They want to summon up Cthulhu from the depths, thinking they will be spared as his followers, but primal gods are as inclined to devour worshipers as to grant them benefits. Not only that, they change the world. Your little band won't matter any more. The perks that go with it will disappear. You think he'll feed you endless energy, but he'll only do it when and if it suits him. You don't have any hope of surviving in the long run. Once your Hungry One comes through, he won't need you, and you'll be expendable."

"Little do you know," Easter snarled. "The world will be ours. People like you are only so much fodder for him. But for us, fame, glory, money. Anything we want. So we have to do a little worshiping, but people do that every Sunday without meaning it and what does it hurt?" He gestured them out of the cellar into a broad hallway paneled in dark wood, set here and there with oil paintings of the Hudson River School, all badly in need of cleaning. The nearest looked like a Durand. Egon registered his surroundings automatically, then dismissed everything that wasn't important.

Easter continued coolly, "I want you where I can watch you, Spengler. You aren't ideal, but one of the children slipped away into the grounds. She will be found before midnight but, in case she is not, you will have to do in her place. That means we must prepare you, as we will prepare all the children." He gestured at the P.K.E. meter that Egon still held and Westin snatched it out of his hand and slammed it against the doorframe. Egon winced at the rattle of internal components and the shattering of the screen. With as much remorse, they would shatter the Ghostbusters.

"Step this way, gentlemen," Easter urged, falsely polite. He waved them along the corridor. "No dawdling now. The stage must be set and the gate prepared before midnight. I'm sorry if this rushes you, but that's the way it must be."

Egon's knees still trembled with fatigue, but he managed to shuffle along the passage, a hand against the wall for support, conscious of Eddie's only slightly steadier footsteps at his side. The rock star grabbed his arm to support him, although he could have done with a hand himself.

When they emerged from the passage into a great hall, they stopped Egon and Eddie long enough for Michael to step over and turn the knob of a closed door. A voice inside called, "Beat it, I'm trying to sleep in here! Am I gonna have to come out there and slap you silly?"

Peter. Egon's knees weakened still further in sheer relief. Peter sounded as cocky as usual but Egon could detect a weakness in his voice that the bluster intended to cover.

"Come on, let us out, I want to take Peter to the doctor," called Ray's voice--only it wasn't Ray, it was Peter, doing an excellent imitation of the occultist. Only someone who didn't know the Ghostbusters would be misled, but Westin and Easter were fooled-. Egon's meter had suggested Ray was on the move; but then why had he left an obviously injured Peter to face the band on his own? The door appeared to be locked; had Peter relocked it on the inside to maintain the illusion? His imitation of Ray's voice suggested it. Well done, guys, Egon lauded them mentally.

"You'll have to wait," Easter growled. "Neither of you matters in the overall scheme of things."

"I matter to me," Peter snapped.

"Leave them," Easter told Westin. "They can wait. In here, Spengler."

"You too, Eddie," Westin urged. "Move it."

Egon opened his mouth to speak, to reassure Peter that he was alive, but the gun was aimed at the middle of Eddie's chest and Easter's look defied Egon to speak. Regretfully he let the reassurance slip away. Peter would have heard his name and Eddie's mentioned. At least he knew they were alive.

The cousins took two steps toward the open doors then stopped dead at the sight of the gathered children who filled the room. A quick count proved there were thirteen of them, seven boys and six girls. Derek North was with them, distributing trays of food and the lethargic teens were trying to eat. Clad in a long, black robe, North looked up at their arrival and an expression of distaste darted across his face so quickly Egon wasn't sure he had seen it.

"We're nearly ready," he offered. "Spengler had better have a tray, too."

"Not me?" Eddie said brightly. "You're quite a host, Derek. Remind me to skip your parties in future."

"You won't need food," Easter snarled. "We won't want you. This one, Spengler, should be all right. Not as good as the girl would have been, but bearable."

"What makes me more acceptable than Eddie?" Egon demanded, afraid either state would jeopardize them."

"Frankly, Spengler, it's because as near as we can sense it's been at least a month if not longer since you've had sexual relations," North explained when neither of the other captors seemed disposed to speak. "It's something we can tell. Your two friends don't qualify. You know what we do?"

"I know you appear to be psychic vampires," Egon returned. "We're not ignorant of your abilities." He knew his face had reddened. "And why would that matter?"

"Because the god prefers the pure," Michael offered. "We don't know why, but that's the way it is. So the ones we need for the sacrifice must be virgins. You'll do if necessary, but it won't be quite the same." He smirked. "You may die."

"For me, I'm not that particular," Derek replied hastily, shooting Michael a stern glance, a host annoyed at one of his guests who offended another. "I would be satisfied with the group energy we gain from concerts. But the others wanted more. It was Maddie who found a means of harnessing a permanent supply for us."

"Because you live in an apartment building full of psychic turbulence," Egon suggested, his eyes busy checking out the children. As they ate, color came back to their faces and they straightened up to listen. He wondered if the revitalization was because they'd been starved until now or because there was an energy source concealed in the food. Vitamins? Uppers? Kenny was watching Egon with interest and knowledge, trying to convey a message with his eyes, jerking his head in the direction of the locked room. Egon met his eyes and lowered one eyelid in a wink to convey his understanding.

"We didn't realize it at the time, but it's the place where Gozer came through," North continued. "Maddie was visiting one time and she could feel it, all the energy left from there. She's always been our most..."

"Voracious?" Egon suggested.

"Sensitive," Westin corrected impatiently. "Why bother to tell him all this, Der?"

North grinned wryly. "Mostly to kill time. Besides, of all of them, he will appreciate it and have the most informed knowledge when the time comes."

"And he'll have more to fear," Easter murmured, content. "You're a devious man, Derek."

"Maddie knew something was pushing at the other side of the gate," Derek continued idly, his eyes meeting Egon's and holding them. "She could feel it. So she used her hunger and tried to feed off it. That didn't happen. What did was a communication."

"You were able to speak to it through a sealed gate?" Egon asked in surprise. He wasn't entirely sure why North was telling him all this. Killing time, as he'd suggested? A desire to brag? The man had been smug and arrogant from the beginning, ill-disposed to accept any but his own kind into his circle of acceptance. Unless he really was so cocksure that he wanted to revel in his brilliance, he must have another motive. And where was Madeline? Egon didn't trust her at all.

"Not communicate as you know it," the lead singer continued, "but a mental communion. Maddie was fascinated. She'd always insisted that we were different, created for a higher purpose. Once we found each other and knew we weren't alone, she gloried in it. When we formed the band and started making a name for ourselves, she was the one who pushed to use our abilities as we sang. We drew energy from the collective soul of the audience and at the same time, we gave them something back, the belief that we were wonderful. Those who were receptive liked our concerts most. That was always how we singled out our victims. We could tell as we watched the audience. At first it was just a concert thing, no carry over. Then Maddie started communicating with the Hungry One, and everything changed."

"The Hungry One wants energy from virgin spirits?" Eddie ventured. "Why?"

"To cross over," Derek offered. "Without that energy, he cannot cross the void and open the gate. With it, he can break through into our world."

"And then what?" Egon scoffed. "Don't you understand that you will be destroying all you know and love. Do you think anything will be the same once this happens?"

Derek's eyes darkened. "You don't understand," he insisted. "If you could see the whole picture, you would be dazzled. I'm glad we won't need to use Eddie, though. I won't be a part of destroying his music."

"Thank you--I think." Eddie caught Egon's eye and lifted a brow. He looked deeply puzzled. Egon was rather puzzled himself. Unless the band was desperate for the steady supply of psychic energy that the Hungry One would provide, he didn't understand why they were doing this. Perhaps the Hungry One had compelled them; perhaps they were out of control, but the hardness in Westin's eyes and the deliberate cruelty in Easter's face belied the theory. North, elegant and arrogant, was not the type to surrender anything to a higher power. He would prefer to be worshiped rather than to worship. And Madeline? Egon was not comfortable with her type but he recognized it. Instant gratification. Me first. What Peter might have eventually become if he hadn't possessed such a great heart. Maddie had no heart that Egon could see.

"Sit and eat," North urged Egon, passing him the tray that must have been brought for the missing Cammie. If someone was searching for her, the band must have allies, unless Madeline was doing it alone, which seemed unlikely. Be careful, Winston. Janine.

North divested him and Eddie of their coats, tossed them aside, and pushed him toward the sofa where Kenny sat munching a large meal with little enthusiasm for the food. Already, his eyes seemed brighter. There was definitely something more to his meal than the obvious. Egon hated the idea of eating food that might be doctored with illegal drugs, but the energy provided might be needed in the crisis, and he doubted he'd be allowed to decline. Easter was entirely capable of making him eat at gunpoint. Given the choice of an energy enhancer or a bullet, Egon's option was all too clear. He picked up his fork and start eating.

As he ate, North and Westin moved aside to the doorway, where they conversed in low tones. Then, North crossed to a second doorway opposite the entry hall and pulled the double doors wide. The room behind it was lit with candles, banks and banks of them, the dancing light nearly hypnotic as it glanced off arched, stained-glass windows. Egon suspected the room had been designed as a chapel since there were rows of pews within, but no conventional religion would be evoked in there tonight. A white pattern had been chalked on the floor in front of the altar, a circle with markings along its circumference, curious little esoteric symbols or sigils that he couldn't read from this angle but that would set off alarms in Ray if he could see it. In his various occult researches Ray had put in far more time studying such sigils and patterns than Egon had. Outside the circumference of the circle were four smaller rings that were positioned at the exact compass points. The four directions. North. DuSud, Easter. Westin. Were the names coincidence, or had they been changed long ago to represent the directions? The four winds? The world's four quarters--thus the name of the house. They surely hadn't known about the Hungry One when the band formed. A struggling musician wouldn't be able to afford a penthouse apartment. No, as Eddie had said, Derek represented old money; this house, other property. He might have had the apartment since the building was rebuilt. Were the other names coincidence or choice? Did it even matter?

"Quit stalling and eat," growled Easter, doing his macho number with the gun.

"Derek, we will need to begin soon," Westin said in an undertone, gesturing into the candlelit room. "Maddie needs to be here." He checked his wristwatch.

"She will come when she's ready," Derek replied.

"What's all this about?" one of the boys asked suddenly, pushing his tray aside and trying hard to look defiant and unafraid. He was unkempt, his fair hair tangled and unwashed, but his eyes were clear.

"This is about you doing what you're told," Easter snapped, leveling the gun at the boy, who stared at it in disbelief and sagged back in his seat.

"No hassles, man," he offered in a much smaller voice, holding up his hands in protest. Easter laughed. He enjoyed cruelty, tyrannizing people.

Westin vanished into the chapel and returned with two black robes like Derek's. He slid his arms into one of them and set the other one on a table near Easter. Time was running out.

Egon ate slowly, realizing there was definitely a nutrient in the food. His strength was returning. Wouldn't the demi-god notice he was devouring false energy when he sought the strength to open the gate? Egon thought it wiser not to say so. If something so simple could make it fail, he had no intention of warning the band.

"What's going to happen to us, Egon?" Kenny asked in a whisper.

Easter heard him and chuckled maliciously. "You'll find out soon enough," he replied. "Now shut up. I don't want to hurt anybody, but I will if I have to. Just ask Dr. Spengler what happened to his friend Venkman. Or check out that blood in the hall in case he doesn't know."

"Peter's alive," Egon reminded him. "I just heard his voice."

"And did it sound normal, Dr. Spengler?" Easter beamed smugly. "No, it sounded weak--because I shot him."

Kenny cringed, but Egon forced his face to remain impassive although his insides were doing peculiar things that would seem to defy the laws of science. His scalp felt tight and cold, and his heart jumped right up into his throat. Hearts couldn't do that, but Egon's managed it. He glared at Easter with a look that would have withered him if he'd had the power to do so.

Madeline DuSud came slinking into the room in an outfit that Cher would have loved to wear for her next concert or Academy Awards performance, something wine-red and beaded with large gaps in between beads and fabric to expose her slender body and white skin. Half the rejuvenated boys came close to having their eyes pop out of their heads at the sight of her. Here and there, netting stretched across the gaps, an exotic black tracery of tissue spun like the web of a spider. Her fair hair was piled atop her head and several long strands escaped from it to trail down her bare shoulders. The gown was slit from ankle to hip on the left side, revealing a shapely leg in hose that matched the webwork in the gown. Slung over her shoulders and pushed back to reveal the full effect of her costume was a black cloak like the men's, hers lined in red silk the same shade as the dress. Peter's eyes would have popped like the high school boys' at such a vision.

"Am I late?" she asked casually, trailing across the room, strewing hearts behind her. She stopped in front of Eddie, ran a caressing, red-taloned hand across his cheek, over his mouth and down his chin to his chest. Eddie did not look at all gratified at her attentions, especially when the hand kept on going down. He shot a desperate glance at Egon and bit his bottom lip.

She stopped at his belt buckle. "No time, alas. Pity. I should be your type, Eddie dearest. I look a lot like your wife."

"You may be blonde but that's where it stops," Eddie spat furiously. "Don't even mention Whitney in the same breath as yourself."

Madeline moved away from him contemptuously, although the hunger still lingered in her eyes. Drifting over to the chapel door, she smiled avidly. "Soon, it will happen soon."

"What will happen?" Kenny whispered for Egon alone.

"They mean to open a dimensional gateway," Egon explained, setting aside his tray. "They want to pull an entity through from the other side. They mean to use all of us to do it."

The gun leveled itself at Egon, aiming directly between his eyes, then Easter shook his head regretfully. "No, I can't kill you." The gun swung around and pointed to Eddie's chest. "I need you for the ritual, Spengler, but I don't need Plummer. You attempt to sabotage what will happen and I will kill your cousin before your eyes."

Egon stilled. The teens shivered, terrified now that they were alert enough to understand. If they all ran at once... No. Egon dismissed that idea. Some of them, if not all, would certainly be killed. Winston, Janine, and Mel were still out there and Ray was not a prisoner. There was still hope. So he shook his head at Kenny, then lowered his eyes in apparent compliance--and because he didn't want them to see the calculation in his eyes.

It was time to stall.

Winston climbed the snow-covered hill, using the falling snow and the darkness of the trees for concealment. He had learned stealth in Vietnam, but this was a different jungle, dark and cold, but no less threatening. He might be the only one at liberty, other than Janine, who had to stay with that poor kid in Ecto and protect her. That meant it was up to Winston to haul his friends out of trouble. The shot worried him. Were they short one Ghostbuster now? Was Peter down? He didn't even want to think of that.

He was about to dart between bushes from cover to cover when he stopped, eyes on the ground. There, before him was a trail of footprints, but they weren't the prints of his fellow Ghostbusters. They weren't even the tracks of a human being. Enormous paw prints led the way up the hill, the distance between them implying a creature of great size. When he put his own foot down beside the tracks, they were nearly the size of his own boot prints.

He let out a low whistle. "'Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound,'" he quoted under his breath. "Okay, so this just keeps getting more and more interesting." He had heard the creature's baying, but he hadn't realized it would be this big. A thrower could stop most vicious animals if necessary, but something so enormous might not even be natural. He couldn't remember seeing terror dog footprints but they were huge. Their feet might be bigger than these, but not by much.

Winston held up the P.K.E. meter he carried and took a reading. It pinged and lights blinked. The creature either was not nearby or it wasn't paranormal. Not necessarily reassuring either way.

"Come on, Zeddemore," Winston encouraged and set off to follow the footprints.

They led him straight to the place where he had left his friends. Many footprints trampled the small clearing, the dog's bounding around like an eager puppy. Sprawled marks on the ground indicated his friends had been down, and one of the spots showed a few dark spots against the snow. Dropping to one knee, Winston sheltered the light of his flashlight and turned it on the markings. They glistened darkly red in the momentary flash of light. Blood.

So there was a chance that one of them had been shot, but he couldn't tell which one from this; maybe in broad daylight he could measure the patterns in the snow but he couldn't do it now. He'd have to assume one of them was hurt, probably Peter because of Ray's shout, and might be unable to help. If he'd been dead, he'd probably have been left, at least until after the gateway opened. So his wounded friend was alive. Probably. There wasn't much blood here. It might mean the wound was slight...

Still activated, the meter went into overload and a terrible baying sound rang in his ears, turning his muscles to water. That was no living animal; no regular dog any smaller than an elephant could make a sound so terrible. Still on one knee, Winston didn't have time to jump to his feet before the creature was on him, but his hands were tight on his thrower and he fired as the beast took him down. Glowing eyes shone evilly over his head and huge fangs snapped as they went for his throat. It nipped at his shoulder and clamped down on it, but it was blocked by the strap of his pack and the heaviness of the coat he wore over his jumpsuit. He'd be bruised there tomorrow but the fangs of the demon dog didn't break his skin.

The proton stream caught the beast in mid-chest and flung him backward off Winston, who scrambled up and fired again. The hum of the thrower rang through the night, echoed by the ferocious baying of the beast as it charged for him a second time. Winston hit it with a full stream, driving it backward and pinning it in his beam. It fell silent but the sound didn't break off in mid-howl. Winston hoped that would sound less suspicious to anyone who might be listening at the top of the hill.

Writhing furiously in the grip of the proton stream, the snarling creature fought to get to Winston, eyes glittering unnaturally. It was like no living animal Winston had ever seen, part Doberman, part demon. Bracing the thrower one handed, he whipped the trap off his pack and threw it out under the beast, stomping it open with his knee. He almost lost his balance in the process but he managed to stay right side up.

Knowing eyes watched him the whole time it took to suck the creature in. Winston couldn't repress an uneasy shiver at the conscious awareness it displayed. When the doors closed over the creature, sealing it in, Winston dropped the thrower in the snow and mopped his forehead. "Oh, man," he groaned, raising one hand to feel his shoulder and make sure nothing was broken.

Something even bigger than the dog grabbed him hard from behind and yanked him right off the ground, a massive hand covering his mouth to prevent his involuntary cry of alarm. Trapped! He felt his thrower cable bumping against his legs as his captor dragged him back into the trees.

"Shhh!" cautioned a rumbling, yet familiar, voice in his ear. "We've got to hide." The hand went away and Winston was deposited on his feet. Mel bent down from his full demon height, retrieved Winston's proton rifle, and put it into his hands. "Are you hurt?"

"He tried to bite me but didn't break the skin," Winston said quickly, holstering his thrower and massaging his shoulder. Nothing broken, but it was tender to the touch. "Oh, man, am I glad to see you. Where are the guys?"

"Caught," Mel explained miserably. "Came too late. I heard shooting, saw them after. Peter got shot." His eyes were huge with worry. "Ray carried him up to the house, but he was breathing, I could tell."

"Not Pete," Winston groaned. His guess had been right, but that didn't make him happy about it. "Shit! What about the others?"

Mel's face became a furious mask. Winston had never seen such hatred on the friendly demon's face. For the first time, the full powers of his demonic wrath were apparent. "Eddie and Egon got...zapped," he admitted. "Band drew out their energy. I knew they were bad, but they hurt Eddie." He lowered his eyes, unable to meet Winston's gaze. "Waited for you because, otherwise, I would have killed them." His voice grew small. "Eddie says killing is wrong."

Winston felt a surge of sympathy. Mel might be a good person but he possessed the instincts he had been bred to. He wasn't usually compelled to use them; he had a good life and friends and, until tonight, he had wished no human ill. Although Eddie was Mel's friend first and employer second, Mel tended to regard the singer as his master and to protect him at all costs, brimming over with devoted adoration. That he had waited for Winston against his savage instincts said more for his true nature than anything Winston had seen so far.

He reached up and patted a massive blue forearm. "Easy, Mel. It's okay. We're gonna get them back, Eddie too. You did right to wait. Eddie will be proud of you." He hesitated. "You didn't happen to see what they did with the guys' proton packs, did you?"

Mel nodded. "Storage shed. Locked but I can break the lock and get us in." He beamed. "Only one ghost hound and you got him already. No night watchmen. And all the band are at the house with the children. I looked in the windows and saw them."

"Mel, you're doing great. Let's get to those packs. I want to move them right up to the house so that any of the guys I can let free can have them right away."

"The bad band wants to take Egon's energy to bring the entity through the gate," Mel said. "I heard them say so. They don't think he's quite right. They want the girl back, but they aren't really looking. The ghost hound was looking but only on the grounds and, when you came back, it stalked you instead. They can use Egon and not Eddie. The thing on the other side wants people who...haven't had sex lately," he concluded, lowering his head again. New to such experiences, Mel couldn't quite manage to mention the subject without sounding like a junior high boy snickering with friends in the bathroom as they passed around a copy of the National Geographic to view primitive tribal women's breasts.

Well, Egon and Janine had definitely cooled off lately. Winston wasn't sure if they'd had a fight or if Egon just needed to be prodded to get out of the lab. Maybe he'd remind Peter when this was over that it was time to start working on Egon again, sending Janine flowers with the physicist's signature forged on the card.

Peter was hurt. He might be dead.

Winston sucked in a stabilizing breath. "I wish we could figure out exactly what's going to happen. Do you understand this energy drain thing?"

Mel nodded. "It's kind of psychic. I don't understand it all the way, but it's the part of the human mind that can do ESP and all that stuff. Most people don't use it, but the energy is there. The band can use it."

"You mean we've all got it and don't know it?"

Mel frowned. "Some know it more than others do. Some need more of it, too. The band needs it. They can pull it out of a person, and the bad part is, when they do, they take away normal energy, too. Makes people waaaaay tired, like they ran a marathon, or didn't sleep for a week. Bad. Demons can sense it when it happens, humans just pass out."

"You can sense when somebody tries to do it to you?" Winston asked, astonished.

The horned head bobbed. "Can stop it, too. I just put up a shield in my head and it bounces off. They can't draw my energy."

"Whoa! I don't suppose you can teach me how to do it in one easy lesson?" Winston asked hopefully.

Mel shook his head with regret. "Only demons can do it. Class 7's," he corrected. "Sometimes lower ghosts. Slimer could do it if somebody showed him how but he probably wouldn't think of it on his own."

"But we can't send a psychic-gram to Egon and teach him how to shield against it?" Winston wanted to know. "Sort of like that trap Ray designed only all in the mind." There had to be a way around this, and such a useful facility sounded just the ticket.

Mel nodded. "I can't teach it," he said regretfully, then he brightened and started toward the house, grabbing Winston by the upper arm and towing him along with him so fast that Zeddemore had to run to keep up. "Can extend it."

"Extend it? How?"

"With a mindlink." Mel chuckled. "We used to play at mindlinks back at Astarine's keep, Chan and Dugross and I, and some of the others. We'd project pictures into each other's minds and try to keep the other one from guessing it was a projection. It was fun."

"Oh yeah, I can see it would be a laugh a minute. How could it work here?"

Mel drew Winston into the shelter of the trees, pointing off to one side to indicate the shed where the proton packs must be stored. "I'll link with Eddie's mind," he said. "I never did it before, but I know how. I can put up a block in his mind. Maybe I could do it with Egon, but I don't know him as well. But if Eddie could touch Egon, I could extend it."

"What about the kids?"

Mel grinned. "Can't do them all, not without touch."

"But if they could all link up, say, hand to hand, then you could put up a shield for all of them?"

Mel thought about it. "Maybe all of them. It'd be hard work to do so many. But I think I could. I just need to make contact first. That's gonna be tough. Eddie won't expect it and he might think it's the entity instead of me. All humans can close away things like that without realizing they can do it, mostly because they never believe it's anything but their imaginations. But I'll do it. Let's get the packs and then hurry. It's getting late and the gate is firming up. It's all here now, moved from the place in town. They just have to do their ritual and open it."

"If we can keep whatever it is from coming into our dimension, then we've got a good chance to destroy the gate," Winston said with a grin. If only he could be sure about Peter. That was the only thing that worried him.

Yeah, right. Something as big as a high rise was about to pop over into his dimension, his friends were prisoners of someone who could suck them dry, and a bunch of helpless kids were about to be sacrificed. The only thing that worried him? Winston groaned. This wouldn't be remotely fun.

Longing for a P.K.E. meter, Ray armed himself in the kitchen premises with a butcher knife and a hammer, which he tucked into his belt. Not much help against evil from another dimension but pretty affective against unarmed humans. He'd show them Ray Stantz wasn't a man to mess with. Nobody hurt Ray's friends and got away with it. He didn't like the thought of hurting somebody, but the band had hurt those kids, and they'd hurt Peter. The stakes were too high to go unarmed.

Tiptoeing up the stairs, he had to duck into an empty room when he heard footsteps approaching. A peek around the corner of the door revealed Madeline DuSud prancing down the corridor in a red dress that would have been right at home on a saloon girl. So much of the essential Madeline showed through the gaps in her costume that Ray averted his eyes, only to look again to find out where she was going. If she were aware of him at all, she gave no sign of it. She might find him too boring to talk to, but she wouldn't ignore him at a time like this.

When she vanished down the stairs, Ray heaved a sigh of relief, then performed a systematic search of all the bedrooms. No Egon, no Eddie, and no indication that they had ever been here. He was about to give up and return to the ground floor when he rounded a corridor and saw the glimmer of dancing light ahead of him.

He crept forward and found himself in what might have passed for the choir loft if the house had been a church. Below him was a chapel, although all elements of Christianity had been eradicated except for the pictures in the stained glass windows that depicted Christ, the Virgin Mary, and a series of saints and apostles. Much harder to replace specially shaped windows than to make other changes in the chapel, although someone had painted over two of them with black paint. No crucifix hung above the altar and parallel bare spots on the two side walls indicated places where panels depicting the Stations of the Cross might once have hung. Votive candles near the altar were alight, casting red and blue shadows across the room. Everywhere else, huge candelabra had been placed, full of candles, all of them lighted.

This looked bad. Ray edged up to the balcony rail and peered downward. Someone had chalked in a design on the floor in front of the altar, a ritual circle marked with smaller attendant circles for the performers of the rite to stand. If Ray hadn't lost his sense of direction, they were marked at the four compass points. Some of the marks on the floor were familiar to him from his occult studies, and they weren't good at all. This looked really nasty. The circle was intended to enclose the entity from the other side, much as a pentagram might, but it was stronger than a pentagram. In the places where the four summoners would stand were the tools of magic, unlit candles, a vast book on a lectern between South and East, already opened to a page and bookmarked with a scarlet ribbon. Directly below Ray, doors opened into the room and more conventional lighting traced a path across the stone floor. Two more lines had been drawn on either side of the door, tracing their way up the aisle to the circle in between the South and East positions. They led right to the children who waited helplessly in that room.

Madeline walked into the chapel, lifting what there was of her long skirts to keep them from brushing in the chalk. Was it midnight yet? Ray shot a hasty glance at his watch. No, it wasn't, not yet, but it was after eleven-thirty, and the ritual itself might start before midnight, preparatory to opening the gateway on the stroke of twelve.

As for the gate itself, it appeared to be positioned directly within the circle. Ray couldn't see it because it hadn't manifested physically yet, but he could feel something, an uncomfortable itchy sensation as if the very air thrummed with power. The team had been exposed to powerful magic and p.k. energy often enough that they had a vague feel for major workings, not everywhere, but usually when they were right on top of them. Even without a P.K.E. meter, Ray could tell that something was ready to happen here; he just couldn't pick up the details. This was where the gate would open.

Below him, the woman surveyed the result and smiled. "Very nice, Michael," she said under her breath. "This will do."

Westin entered behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She leaned back against him, turning her face for his kiss. Ray had thought her Derek's girlfriend, but maybe she wasn't particular. He didn't like her and hadn't even before she had ignored him so rudely after the concert and at Derek's apartment. There was something unpleasant, uncomfortable, about her that made his flesh crawl.

The two musicians moved apart hastily as footsteps sounded in the doorway and Derek came in. He strode forward to meet them, frowning. Had he seen the kiss?

"John wants to move the kids in here," he said flatly. "Are we ready?"

The other two looked at their wristwatches, then Michael nodded. "It will be easier to control them in a room with one door," he decided. "Once the ritual begins, they won't be able to leave. They'll be compelled. But there'll be a few vulnerable moments. We can lock the door and start quickly. Go check to see that Venkman and Stantz are still locked in. No one's been paying attention since we brought Spengler upstairs."

Ray's breath caught. They had Egon and were ready for the ritual. He'd have to do something, but all he had was the knife and hammer. How could he stop four magical practitioners, one with a gun, with just that? But he couldn't let Egon go down, either. Hoping Peter hadn't ventured out yet and the lock would deceive them, Ray held his breath, waiting. He even crossed his fingers. But Derek went and returned quickly. "Venkman's being mouthy," he said, "but he doesn't sound strong enough to break the door down. He'll keep."

"What about the other one, Stantz? He's not hurt."

"He asked me to get a doctor for Venkman," Derek answered. "Sounded pretty worried."

What was this? A lie? A trick? Could Derek North be on their side. Ray didn't think so. Could Peter be imitating his voice to preserve the illusion? He could probably do it, for a few words, at least to strangers. Way to go, Peter. Ray grinned. Peter was also capable of pretending he was worse off than he really was to give himself the edge. If only that part was fake, too. Be careful if you come out, Ray urged the absent Peter. This is about to get nasty.

"Oh yeah, right, you're really concerned about Venkman," scoffed Maddie. "Leave him for me. I might have some fun with him when this is over. It's not like we're going to let them go, after all."

Derek's mouth tightened but he didn't respond.

Leaving Derek in possession of his family chapel, Westin and Madeline vanished beneath Ray, his arm around her shoulders. "All right, move into the chapel," came Easter's voice, cold and forbidding, the kind of voice that someone already cowed and frightened would obey without question. After a few minutes, Ray heard scuffling footsteps and Maddie came into the room with Egon on her arm. The physicist was moving ably under his own steam. He looked pale, but he didn't seem unsteady on his feet. Madeline ushered him into the front pew beside the South position and said, "Sit there. Remember what will happen to your cousin if you fail to cooperate."

Oh, gosh, they had a threat to make Egon do what they wanted. No matter that Eddie had brought them into all of this. He was still a civilian, someone Egon would feel bound to protect, even if the singer hadn't been his cousin and his friend. Ray gnawed on his bottom lip, thinking furiously. Could he find a way to counter the ritual from up here? He couldn't let them use Egon in the rite. Once he'd guessed what was to happen, Ray had suspected that the children would be expendable. Until the entity crossed over, the band had to be careful, but once it was here, such things probably wouldn't matter. The creature waiting to cross over could drain the children--and Egon--unto death, and there would be nothing to do about it, not in the changed world the musicians wished to create. Ray knew a lot about occult rituals, but he never practiced them. He had never wanted the kind of dark power that went with such things. Could his knowledge allow him to speak a counterspell? He tried furiously to think of all the spells he could remember, seeking the right one.

Westin led the teenagers into the room, issuing them into pews, filling up the side opposite Egon. None of them were allowed to walk down the main aisle. That probably meant that the band didn't want to break the circle. Which meant the circle was necessary for their rite. If Ray could get in there and break it... If only he had a thrower.

There were three of the kids in the row with Egon, who was furthest from the circle; Kenny was next to him, Ray noticed. Four were in the row opposite him and three on either side of the aisle in the row directly behind. The shuffling around had positioned Egon at the end away from the altar, which was probably smart because the teenage energy that would be to the entity's taste would be different from Egon's.

Westin went back and got Eddie, who looked pale and angry, his mouth drawn in a tight line. He jerked his arm away from Michael's as if the touch contaminated him and edged in beside Egon. Michael frowned and said something to him in an undertone and Eddie grimaced and edged back to the far aisle so there was a slight but distinct space between him and Spengler. The physicist turned and gave the singer a quick, reassuring look. Eddie stared at him as if he'd lost his mind.

Egon presumed to study the entire room, his eyes moving slowly so that when he lifted his head to the choir loft, it didn't seem like anything more than a casual scan. But when his eyes met Ray's, awareness flashed in them. He knew Ray was here!

Ray raised his knife and hammer hastily to show Egon how limited he was. Egon let himself look a question, probably about Peter. Ray nodded then shrugged. Egon had to look away then or make the band suspect. But that moment of contact had encouraged Ray. He had to stop this.

But how? They'd checked Peter once. Would they check him again? Maybe it was time to get down there and let him out. The two of them could find Winston and stop things before they got out of hand.

Deliberately, he edged backward into the darkened upper hall, hurrying back down the corridor to the stairs.

Okay, enough of this. Peter had faked Ray's voice twice now. How many times were they going to come and rattle the door? He'd had it. It was time to venture outside.

The first time he'd been bothered he'd heard someone say, "In here, Spengler," and someone else add, "You, too, Eddie." He hoped like crazy that meant that Egon was out there listening, near enough to hear his voice. Egon would have known in a second that the Ray-voice was really Peter. Egon was alive but, if they were moving him, things were happening. Peter had waited as long as he could after that, dragging himself up to drink some more water in the hope that replacing fluids would give him some energy back. He knew he wasn't badly hurt; he'd just bled a lot before Ray could bandage him. That meant he wasn't up to duking it out with any of the band, but there had to be something he could do, even without his thrower. Pete Venkman was down but not out. Not when Egon needed him.

After the second door check, Peter glanced at his watch and saw that the hour was fast approaching midnight. That had to mean it was nearly time for the rock group's planned fun and games. He had better get into position. With luck, they'd be too busy to pay attention to him and they'd forget the spot checks. Ray was out there somewhere; if he'd been caught, they'd have brought him back here, wouldn't they? Refusing to consider that they might have killed him outright, he reminded himself that he hadn't heard a shot. He'd heard a dog baying far away, outside somewhere, but it had stopped. Maybe Winston or Mel had figured out how to leash the Hound of the Baskervilles. He just hoped it hadn't been the other way around. But Winston was armed, and Mel was more than a match for Fido any day of the week.

Peter pulled himself to his feet, using the doorknob a lot more than he liked. He felt cold and sweaty, about as energetic as a spent battery but, once he was up, he could stay up. Think about Egon, Peter insisted. They're gonna sacrifice him. Get out there and stop them.

His little pep talk helped boost his adrenalin level enough for him to open the door and peek out into the hall. No one was out there, but he could hear a lot of movement in the room just past them, shuffling feet. They weren't coming his direction but he ducked back, listening, to be sure. When he realized they were going deeper into the room he ventured out, hand against the wall for support, and glanced around the corner of the double doors. Easter, gun in hand, was motioning the kids into another room full of candles. It looked like a chapel. There was Kenny, moving under his own steam and looking at lot better than Peter had expected. All the kids did, much peppier than Cammie. Had the band given them energy back to make the ritual worked? Popped them some uppers? Performed a magic spell?

Nobody glanced in his direction so he slid around the corner of the door and ducked down behind a convenient wing chair, glancing around for anything he could use as a weapon or a distraction. He didn't know where Ray was but, when he leaned out a little and looked past Easter and the kids, he got a glimpse of the back of Egon's head.

Peter closed his eyes in sheer relief. They weren't out of the woods by any means, not yet, but Egon was alive. He was sitting up. That meant he was alert and thinking. With Ray at liberty and Egon awake, they weren't down and out yet. But what could he do to help? He might work up the energy to tackle Easter but he'd lose that fight. No, he had to do something else. Something better. Come on, Venkman, think, he instructed himself.

Ray must be free; he couldn't see the auburn head amid the collection of teens. There was Eddie, though, just sitting down beside Egon, the familiar spiky hair jutting up, devoid of his customary sunglasses. Okay, that was two of the party accounted for; three counting himself. The odds were that Winston had asked Janine to wait with Cammie, maybe even to drive her to the nearest hospital. That left Winston and Mel, probably outside, and Ray, probably inside. Okay, those were good odds. Winston would still have his proton pack, too. Peter wasn't sure where his own had gone; he only knew he didn't have it. Probably just as well, the way his side throbbed. The very thought of a strap pressing anywhere near his wound made him shudder, although he'd do it in a heartbeat if it meant freeing his friends.

A faint tapping near at hand caught his attention and his head came up, expecting trouble or, with luck, Ray. Instead he tracked the sound to the nearest window, a huge, deeply recessed one with a pointed top. Edging around the corner of the chair to see, Peter felt his lips curling in a smile when he saw Winston peering into the room, Mel hard behind him in all his blue, horned glory. Winston beamed at the sight of Peter and made a gesture toward the front door.

Nodding, Peter worked his way backward until he was out of the room, into the entry hall. He'd have to cross in front of the double doors, but if he circled around to the far side of the hall, maybe no one would notice him. The sight of Winston and the knowledge of Egon's survival and urgent need had revitalized him and he did it with only an occasional pause to lean against the wall and rest. When he crossed the space revealed by the door, he ducked behind a suit of armor and no one called out an alarm. Five seconds later he had dragged open the main door and greeted Winston, who flung his arms around him in a relieved hug before he slipped in beside him and closed the door.

"Mel?" Peter asked, glancing past him.

"Got his own job to do. Where's Ray?"

"Somewhere loose in the house. I've been locked in the bathroom. Well, Ray picked the lock and I shut it after him. They don't know he got away."

"You look like hell, good buddy. Mel said you got shot..."

Peter touched his side cautiously. It was sore as blazes. "No biggie. Just a graze."

"You don't look like it was just a graze."

With a shrug, Peter dismissed the concern. After this was all over, he planned to enjoy his convalescence for every second he could stretch it out, but this wasn't the time to complain. "Lost a lot of blood. I'm woozy but not so bad. I can wear a pack, only I don't know where mine is."

Winston opened the door again long enough to fetch several packs and stack them under a table with a long cloth that draped to the floor. He got Peter's out for him but set it on the table instead of helping Venkman into it. "What's going on in there?" he asked.

"I think they're gonna try to open the gateway. We've gotta stop 'em, Winston." He reached for the pack.

"Not yet." Winston caught Peter's wrist. "Mel's got a plan, and if it works, we'll need to go in and mop up. I think it'll protect the kids best, and Egon, too." He dragged Peter into the shadows by the stairs. "We talked and I figured out this gate has something to do with energy. Louis Tully always said he didn't remember much of what happened when the gate opened before. Did Dana?"

Peter grimaced. He'd forgotten about all that. "Oh, yeah. Apparently this gatekeeper/keymaster business popped the gate open with a little nookie. Sexual energy. She wasn't very happy about it. She'd been avoiding Louis ever since she moved into the place and then she got thrown together with him. She was glad she couldn't live there any longer once it was over. Why?"

"Because Mel says when we closed the gate before, when we forced Gozer through we did something like reversing the polarity. That's not what it is, but you get what I mean? Now, the energy needed to pop open the door has to be the reverse kind. That's why they got the kids they did, Mel thinks. And he's afraid they'll use Egon to fill in, but Egon's not a virgin, even if he hasn't been...well, very active lately. Mel thinks Egon might not quite work with the gate and that'll screw things up. It doesn't mean the entity won't come through, but it'll be harder--and it might kill Egon. Or it might...twist him into something he was never meant to be."

"What the heck does that mean?" Peter demanded, trying to ignore the knot forming in his stomach.

"Mel wouldn't say. He just said what he was gonna try might help. And if it didn't, he'd yell like crazy and we'll have to go in blasting. We got a quick look in there. Breaking the circle might help, if we could get to it."

"So what's Mel got in mind?" Peter asked, glancing toward the double doors. Beyond them a voice rose and sang in a pure soprano, in a language that wasn't English. Maddie. Peter peeked at his watch. It was almost midnight.

Winston grimaced and picked up Peter's pack, helping him slide his arms into it. It weighed a ton. He wasn't sure he could walk across the great hall in it, let alone fight a battle against a demi-god from another dimension.

"You gonna make it?" Zeddemore asked, his face grave and worried.

"I have to. Egon needs me. Those kids in there need me."

Winston accepted that, but Peter knew he would hover protectively close until this was over. You couldn't find a better man than Winston Zeddemore.

"What's Mel planning?" Peter demanded.

Winston leaned closer and whispered an explanation in his ear. Just as he began there was a noise on the stairs, and they looked up to see Ray hurrying down. Peter felt a smile start. Three of them together were more than a match for the band, even if Easter had a gun.

Ray grinned excitedly at Peter and Winston but when he joined them, he said, "It's started. We have to stop it."

"Believe me, Ray, we're gonna," Peter admitted, batting Ray's hands away from his side. "Leave it. Doesn't matter if I'm bleeding all over the place. What's going on in there matters more."

Winston passed Ray a proton pack and guided them toward the double doors.

Eddie Plummer felt like pond scum. Look at Egon sitting there beside him, his face inscrutable. Moccasin and their tame cop wouldn't get a clue of his feelings from his expression, but Eddie knew him better, knew how to read the pain in the depths of Egon's eyes. He wasn't even thinking about himself right now. He was worried about Peter, who was hurt, Ray, who was evidently missing--Eddie hadn't mistaken Peter's imitation of Ray out there for Stantz any more than Egon had. Ray might be at liberty; the band knew no different. He might be safe. But Peter wasn't. And these kids weren't.

Maddie's voice rang in song. She had a beautiful voice, so pure it made Eddie's heart ache to hear it, so full of evil it repulsed even as it drew him. Her face was eager, avid, hungry, twisted. She was beautiful but it was a cold beauty with none of Whitney's special warmth to give it life. She was like an ice sculpture touched with blood, the red of her dress.

Michael joined her in a duet, the words so unfamiliar that Eddie couldn't even guess at the language but, beside him, Egon stiffened. Whatever the language was, he knew it. Worse, he was alarmed by it, his mouth hardening. He leaned fractionally toward Eddie and whispered, "Sumerian. This is a powerful ritual."

Easter waved the gun in front of Egon's eyes and aimed it at Eddie. Egon subsided but Eddie could tell he was thinking very hard.

The two singers moved slowly to their positions around the outside of the circle, still singing. They paused, casting eyes on Derek North, who stood at the back of the room near the double doors. He pushed them nearly closed so that the only light in the room came from the candles. Maddie held out her hand to Derek. For an endless moment, Eddie thought he would refuse to take it, but then he straightened himself up and strode forward, the black cloak billowing out behind him like an attendant thundercloud, his face totally devoid of expression. He stepped into the north circle, glancing down at his feet to make certain he was within its bounds, then he raised his voice in song and his pure tenor blended perfectly with the voices of the other two. Up and down the two pews, the teens fell silent in rapt attention, sucked right into the music. Egon was not quite sucked in, but he was listening, his face contorted as he fought its pull.

Confident the teens wouldn't flee, John Easter stepped into the fourth circle and sang along with them. His voice was deeper, pure bass, not quite as good as those of the band but good enough that he didn't destroy the harmony. He could carry a tune and he was technically perfect with lyrics, harmony, and timing, but no one would ever buy an album recorded by him alone. Eddie realized that he was proficient but not musical, a distinction he'd learned to recognize long ago.

The four singers' faces were engrossed and uplifted, caught in a purpose beyond their control, a ritual they couldn't possibly understand. Eddie felt a frisson of unease dart up and down his spine. Beside him, Egon leaned toward the music, the tension vanishing from his face. He was caught. They'd sucked him in along with the kids. Eddie stiffened. If he got up and tried a disruption, would it even work? It wasn't that he was afraid to risk his life to save the children and his cousin. He would do it in an instant if he thought there was the remotest chance of success. But he didn't want to spend himself only to fail. If he could be sure it would work...

He touched Egon's arm, nudged him, then jerked his hand away as if he'd been thrust aside. Energy had begun to spread through the room, stretching out its invisible coils to suck the sacrifices in. He was running out of time.

//Eddie//.

The voice rang in his head, complete and familiar, so easily accepted that he let it fit into his mind, the sound whispering directly into his brain. His head came up but he didn't see a speaker; the singers were caught in their rapture and the teens and Egon wore vague, astonished expressions as if they were gazing upon a miracle. They had wandered into unreality and stopped, mired in it.

//Eddie, take hold of Egon's hand.//

Okay, so this was a telepathic gig. Why not? Eddie had faced entities confined in statues, ghosts in his attic, demon groupies, entities who had tried to steal his voice. Having another demon speak directly into his mind wasn't so different, but the difference was that this demon was friendly. Even though there was no voice to hear, the mental tones were so familiar that Eddie could identify them without effort. He already knew who spoke to him. Closing his eyes, he concentrated. //Mel?//

//Eddie, Egon is going under. You must take his hand--now!//

The singer stretched out tentatively and gripped his cousin's fingers. The repulsion pushed at him but there was strength surging through him, purposeful strength that would allow him to counter it. Outside his head, the singing rose in a glorious, evil chorus, nearly a chanting that even drew Eddie, although the pull was not strong enough to suck him in. Maddie's voice carried the melody line, a hard, relentless hunger threading through the pure sound. With every syllable she sang, she corrupted music, and Eddie wanted to go to her and clap his hand over her mouth to put an end to her destruction.

Above the singers, a huge, invisible 'something' began to glow, so faintly at first he wasn't sure if it were real or if he were imagining it. As it strengthened, it became unbearable, repelling his eyes just as the energy the singers had evoked had repelled his touch when he has first grabbed for Egon. It was golden and glorious but it was glorious in a way that an immense dark power might be glorious, vigorous, compelling, and wicked, and his mind slid away from it, unwilling to accept its presence into his consciousness. No. He would not yield. He tried to focus on Whitney and Cy, hoping his love for them would block the force of the gate.

But something else was happening in his brain. It was frightening because it was beyond his control, a power pounding through him like a tidal wave, drowning out the very essence of Eddie Plummer and replacing it with a great, growing field of vigor and authority. It was good power, he could tell that; it was strong and sure and compelling, and it flowed through his body, pouring down his arm into the hand that closed around Egon's. At once the fire of repulsion died away and he felt Egon's fingers warm beneath his grip. Egon gasped and shook himself vigorously, his eyes sharpening into awareness.

//Let it flow,// Mel spoke into Eddie's brain. //They cannot complete the circle if you let it flow.//

Okay. That made sense. Eddie had become a vessel, spilling out protection, endlessly replenished by the flood of energy Mel poured into him through the link between their minds. It ran from Eddie into Egon along with the command to link hands. Eddie's hand went out to Kenny's and closed over the boy's fingers. Kenny jumped and struggled faintly for a second, then his eyes flew open and excitement touched them. He slid his hand across the pew and grasped the hand of the girl beside him. An instant later, she lifted her head, her eyes gleaming, and grabbed for the carrot-topped boy beside her. After a struggle that took only a second, he stopped fighting it and put out his hand across the aisle to the girl who sat opposite him. The band, their eyes raised reverentially to the glowing sphere over their heads, didn't seem to notice.

One by one, the children linked hands, each new one drawn into the power that Mel projected until a hand went across the aisle between the second set of pews, and pulled in the last three, one at a time. Linked by the grip, Eddie could feel a new purpose pouring through him, a strength like a wall of glass, like a force field, designed to hold back the suctioning away of energy, to repel its savage draw. Linked as they were, they were protected. They had almost become a gestalt, a composite personality, a unity that could function as one being. He knew it, not from words that Mel might have cast into his mind to explain but with a knowledge that went deeper than words, strengthened by the awareness of other minds touching his own. Some were faint and distant, others clearer.

Egon, at his side, was open to him as he never had before. He could see his cousin's hopes and dreams, his great concern for the injured Peter, his worry over the other two Ghostbusters and Eddie himself, his determination to take this gift that Mel had given them and use it to thrust the wrong kind of energy at the singers and shatter their ritual completely. Egon's responsibility to the world went deep; he was its protector and he would risk anything to save it. He would even risk his friends if need be, and that thought tore him up inside and had done so each time he had been forced to risk their lives to save humanity. Eddie saw image after image of instances when the team had stood as one against a power that might destroy the whole world, saw their unity, saw that Egon looked to Peter for...not absolution but for leave to act each time that happened. The knowledge that Peter stood at his side and supported him unconditionally had always enabled Egon to make those impossible choices. The presence of Ray and Winston gave him strength. But Peter wasn't here now, Peter was hurt. Ray might be captive, and even if Winston were free, he was only one man, outnumbered. Egon felt hobbled by the knowledge that he would be forced to act without Peter's encouragement, without the presence of his three friends. He would still do what needed doing, but he would do it without prior absolution. He didn't doubt Peter would offer it but, without him, without the other Ghostbusters, it was far harder. He had the strength to do what was necessary and he would do it without hesitation because it was necessary but the solitary choice hurt him deep inside.

Feeling like a voyeur, Eddie closed his mind to Egon's inner torment and looked beyond it. The emotions of the teenagers came in such a cluster he couldn't separate anything out among them and he chose not to do so. Some of them were terrified, some were awed, many were resentful, and Kenny, the one closest to Egon, was so alarmingly gung ho to jump into trouble it was almost as if Ray were sitting there. Had Peter been so quick to befriend this boy because he subconsciously saw a hint of Ray's eager idealism in him?

The singing voices cut out as if someone had flipped a switch, then Maddie's voice rose again, this time in a different language. She leaned toward the book that sat on the lectern and sang her words from its elaborately scripted pages. The gate above the circle shimmered, its outlines far more visible than they had been before. With Mel's strength pouring through the gestalt, Eddie could allow his eyes to linger on the portal. Worse, he could glimpse something within it as the 'doors' grew fainter and fainter, becoming transparent rather than swinging open. Mist poured down from the shimmering portal, thick, billowing clouds of murk tinged with lurid green, rolling along the chapel floor and obscuring anything below the level of the seats of the pews.

A green chill upon the heat so ominously did pass... The words of an old poem ran through Eddie's mind. It was the poem from which the band had taken their name, Doom's Electric Moccasin. The mist made him shiver but he squashed down his reaction, or else Mel sent him a reassurance that worked just as well. He could feel Mel, too, as clearly as he could feel Egon, sense Mel's fierce devotion that came far too close to idolatry to allow Eddie to be entirely comfortable with it. Mel was his friend, not his slave, and Mel knew that, but his demon heart was possessed of so much loyalty that nothing could weaken it. The field that flowed through Eddie into the entity's victims was composed of pure and desperate love, maybe the one power that was had ever been strong enough to fight the darkness.

A thought trickled into Eddie's mind, a conscious direction from Egon as if he were feeling his way into this odd, new connection. //Ray. Up above.//

Without loosing Egon's hand, Eddie turned in his seat and looked upward to discover the choir loft. If Ray had been there before the music started, he was gone now. Maybe he'd hurried downstairs when he realized what was happening. He might have stayed long enough to have seen the hand-clasping, and he might have been able to guess its purpose. His head stuffed with a myriad of esoteric facts, Ray would probably understand the ritual better than anyone else.

Craning his neck, Eddie realized the chapel doors had slowly begun to creep open. The light from the outer room had been doused so it wouldn't give away the new arrival. Ray, thought Eddie, wondering what the occultist meant to do. Creep in, concealed by the fog and break the circle? That might do the trick. So far, no real energy had been drawn from the teens. Something in the music had compelled them, maybe an occult subliminal to match what Ray's friend had discovered in the recording of the concert. The music prepared the children to give what was demanded; without Mel's linkage they would have given without hesitation. If the circle was broken before the entity tried, would Mel's plan fall apart? Could the creature suck out the strength of the group and use it to come through?

It was Winston in the doorway. He spotted Eddie staring at him and shook his head hastily, not that Eddie would have made a sound or allowed his expression to alter. He wasn't even sure he could speak with the linkage running through him. Behind Winston he could just make out Peter's head and shoulders, and, on the other side, a purposeful Ray, his face worried as he listened to the singing. Allowing the image to slide through the demon-forged gestalt to Egon, he felt his cousin let go of a burden that had been too heavy to lift, the onus of making his choice without his friends. He didn't turn. Maybe he suspected his joy would radiate through the link and cause a disturbance that would alert the musicians. Kenny caught it, though, and his excitement blazed out. The teens, joined by their hand grips and by Mel's power, glowed with animation and eagerness, an energy that was safe from the band and from the entity that commanded them, an energy that filled the room. If the band sensed it while they prepared, they did not yet realize it was an energy that was blocked from them.

Madeline's voice soared to a piercing height that must have torn at her throat to force it out. Above her, the glowing orb pulsed and shivered. Eddie froze, struggling to quell the panic that ran through him at the sight of the creature from the other side.

It was enormous; the gate would need to expand to fill the room for it to fit through without shifting its size or becoming transparent and oozing through the way Slimer skidded through solid walls and windows. A massive head sat on vast shoulders, its face triangular, broader at the top. The whole entity was grey, a slate grey the color of a November sky, muting into a softer greyness around the face, where glowing red eyes gleamed maliciously. A long, red tongue darted out and licked its leathery lips at the sight of its intended prey. Pure, feral hunger filled its face, but that wasn't the worst thing about it. What was worse was that the eyes, the expression, were intelligent and knowing. It wasn't a ravening beast but a conscious entity that looked anxious to leap through the portal and start devouring right and left. It might not physically eat human beings but when it was done with them, they would be as good as dead. As he stared at the creature, Eddie knew that the suction he'd experienced out there in the clearing was like a puff of air next to the cyclone of the entity's hunger. It wouldn't just eat consciousness and strength, it would suck out awareness, intellect, everything that made a human being who it was. He wasn't sure how he knew that, something that came through the link from Mel, but he realized that Egon had picked up on it, too. His cousin shuddered involuntarily. Just as the demon Borthardian had stripped away Eddie's voice in an attempt to destroy him and found the way to rip the soul from him, this entity could do the same thing to Egon by attacking him in the intellect, the place where the core essence of Egon Spengler resided. And unless they could stop it, it would tear the mind away from him without a final farewell from his friends.

//Hold fast.// Mel's encouragement was more than words, and it poured encouragingly through the link that had wavered at the sight of the great beast. Eddie could feel Egon taking heart at it and, beyond him, Kenny. The mood shifted slightly, but the fear of the beast still lingered in the general linkage.

Westin and Easter took up the singing when Madeline stopped, plunging in so quickly there was no second without music. Eddie glanced at the open doorway where the three Ghostbusters stood, particle throwers in hand. The aisle was narrow, the outstretched hands blocking part of the angle of their shot. If they fired high, above the heads of the 'audience', they might hit the gateway, and they could close it by crossing the streams but, in doing that, they might bring the ceiling down and crush the kids they had come to rescue. When they had closed the gate to this dimension the last time, they had partly blown up a building and nearly died in the process. They had been lucky to survive. If it came down to no other choice, they could do it again this time, assuming it would work with only three streams, but Eddie winced to imagine how they would react if even one child died in the process. He knew how terrible he would feel.

The music soared, lifting to the gateway and making its borders shimmer and start to expand. This was it; they were preparing to open the gate. At any second, they would start to draw energy from the waiting children--and realize they couldn't. Eddie looked at the singers over the heads of Egon and the others in his row and saw Derek North watching him. Derek had always been smug and scornful and Eddie half expected to see contempt in his eyes this time but, instead, he saw stunned realization. Derek knew. He might not understand how it had happened, but his eyes traveled up and down each row, spotting the clasped hands, maybe even sensing that the energy of his victims was blocked to him. Eddie waited for him to shout his discovery aloud. There was no more time.

For one amazing second, Derek closed his eyes and an expression ran across his face that might have been relief. Then he opened them again, looked very hard at Eddie, and lowered one eyelid in a wink. What the hell...

Westin and Easter stopped singing and silence fell. They whirled on Derek, who opened his mouth to sing--and, instead of the next part of the ritual, out poured the lyrics of Eddie's own ballad, Leftover Souls. That it wasn't what the rest of the band and Easter had expected or desired was clear from the shock and subsequent fury on their faces. Overhead, the gateway stopped expanding and hung there quiescent.

"No! Derek, you bastard!" spat Easter, his hand flashing into his pocket to go for his gun.

The gateway quivered and resonated overhead, the beast bellowing. He flung himself against the portal with such fury that the entire building vibrated with it, but he couldn't force his way through. Face twisted in rage, he screamed, "Feed me!" at the top of his lungs and lunged at the portal again. Squashing down a fleeting, involuntary memory of the giant plant in Little Shop of Horrors, Eddie jumped to his feet, opened his mouth, and started to sing in harmony with Derek North. The words were so familiar to him he could have done them asleep. His baritone wound its way around Derek's tenor, their voices soaring up to the vaulted ceiling. He didn't for an instant free Egon's hand. His cousin gazed up at him, understanding and approval filling his face, and he breathed, "Yes."

As the beast's lunges at the gate made the room quiver and vibrate, a chunk of stone crashed down from the choir loft railing and thudded to the ground between the pews and the doorway. Half the people in the link jumped and one boy blurted out a surprised yelp. Dust drifted down from overhead as the furious rumbling continued. Each time the beast threw itself against the closed portal, the fury of the impact shook the old castle so fiercely the floor pitched and rolled beneath Eddie's feet.

Screaming their song against Eddie's and Derek's counterpoint, Maddie and Michael tried to drown them out. Easter's rumbling bass attempted to aid them but he was too busy grabbing the gun to concentrate on the music. Once it was in his hand, he didn't seem to know where to aim it. First it pointed at Derek, then at Eddie.

Egon opened his mouth and sang along with his cousin and North, his voice rising in triumph. He might not have the world's greatest voice but he could carry a tune, and it helped. As soon as he started singing, Easter spun and aimed the gun at him.

A sizzle of brilliant light shot down the aisle and knocked the weapon from the crooked cop's hand. Easter gave a squawk of pain and rage as he jerked his hand back. The gestalt turned as one to the doorway where Peter Venkman, shaking with fatigue, gripped his thrower with trembling hands. The hard line of his mouth proved him determined to fire again if Easter went after it. "Don't try it," he hollered.

"Stop!" Maddie flung both her hands up, palms outward, aiming at the portal and she gathered glorious golden light to toss at the sealed doorways. Energy, pure energy, possibly sucked out of the depths of her own personal reservoir, battered against the transparent gateway. The beast on the other side reared back, stopped its battering ram attack, and reached out taloned hands to accept it.

//Sing! Everybody sing!// Mel's voice rang through the link, and Eddie heard the kids obey, their voices shaky at first, then stronger as they found the will to continue. They were leftover souls, every one of them, struggling against a power that would doom them to the darkness forever if they failed. They could rise above it if they fought for themselves. Look at them sitting there, every one of them pouring his heart into the song. Eddie sang as if he had been invented to give music to this moment, feeling Egon's fingers tighten around his as he expressed his approval.

The mist in the aisle billowed as more and more of it spilled through. It might forge its own opening if it kept on. Suddenly Eddie saw the back of a proton pack break from its surface for a second and vanish into it again like a whale breaching in a stormy sea. It crept closer, closer. In the doorway, Peter and Winston stood side by side, an unmovable barrier, throwers at ready. Easter made an abortive lunge at them only to catch himself, standing furiously in place, his arms windmilling to keep his balance. He wouldn't break the circle.

Derek North dove sideways so abruptly no one realized he meant to do it. In a frantic scramble he darted down the pew behind Eddie and Egon and flung himself into a seat beside the boy who was at the end of the chain of hands. "Please," he panted, grabbing Eddie by the shoulder, his face dead white. "Let me in."

Maddie's face contorted with fury and she flung out her hands at him, fire building for an attack. The boy beside Derek put out his hand and the singer took it. For an instant, the power in the link shivered and danced, then the shield firmed up again, stronger than before. Maddie's wild fire struck the invisible barrier Mel had forged and bounced away again, leaving the group unhurt.

Overhead, the beast rammed the barrier with renewed strength of purpose. Maddie's face went white; she, Michael and Easter staggered. A golden light emerged from each of them and soared up to pour through the invisible barrier. Deprived of the children, the creature on the other side was attacking them, taking their energy instead.

Suddenly the light stopped flowing abruptly, as if it had never existed, and the beast jerked to a halt, peering down. "No, no, no, no, no!" he bellowed.

Ray surged up out of the mist, a dustcloth in his hand. "I broke the circle," he cried eagerly and vanished into the green stuff once more. "I broke the link." It was all Eddie could do not to burst into astonished laughter at the unlikely weapon Ray had used to fight the psi attack.

Ray popped up again, head and shoulders visible above the drifting mist. He sat back on his heels and lifted his eyes to the portal. "Begone," he called out. "I command thee in the name of the Lord Ea!"

With a great roar of fury, the entity jerked backward, glancing over his shoulder as if he expected Ea, whoever that was, to descend on him with mighty force. Wherever Ray was coming from, it was the right place.

"'Evil alu, turn thy breast and depart,'" Ray yelled, obviously quoting. He must have identified the creature. "'O, inhabitant of the ruins, get thee to the ruins--'"

Easter slammed a fist at Stantz with such fury that Ray couldn't avoid it entirely, but he whirled and ducked so that the punch hit the corner of his proton pack instead of his unprotected face. Easter's scream nearly drowned out the sound of the bones that shattered in his hand.

Overhead, the gateway glimmered as the beast rammed against it repeatedly, desperate to break through. "Now," yelled Winston, and he and Peter raised their throwers and fired at it, not crossing the streams, just blasting it to drive the entity back. Easter jumped sideways, fingers curled tightly around his wrist, his face twisted with pain, muttering curses. Michael staggered and fell backward against the edge of the pew, then slid down into the dissipating fog. Hot with hatred, Madeline went for Ray, her hands curled like claws, vivid red nails lashing for his eyes.

The boy at the end of the aisle beside her raised his foot and kicked her hard in the kneecap, astonishment spreading across his face as he realized what he had done. The protective impulse soared through the link so vividly that Eddie barely had time to realize that Mel had urged it before Maddie fell. One nail scored a bloody scrape down Ray's cheek, but she missed his eye. Rocking back on his heels, Ray scrambled sideways, careful not to stand up and block his friends' fire.

The choir loft railing shook loose and came crashing down in chunks, taking out half the back pew. The whole building vibrated unhappily, and suddenly Mel was talking in Eddie's head. As Peter and Winston maintained their fire, the gate lost its transparency and the creature from the other side faded from view. He kept on ramming his massive shoulders against the sealed opening long after they could no longer see him. The floor beneath their feet heaved and bucked.

Ducking down into the remnants of the mist, Ray scrubbed industriously at the chalked circle, erasing the occult sigils as fast as he could, muttering more of the ritual under his breath. Every time one surrendered to the dustcloth, the gate shrank a little more.

"Go, Tex!" Peter exulted. "We're doing it! Hang on, Egon, okay?"

"Certainly, Peter," Egon called back, interrupting his singing long enough to respond, his face full of happiness "How are you?"

Peter narrowed his stream as the gate shrank still smaller. "I"m fine, we're all fine here now, thank you," Peter quoted, a delighted grin on his face. "And I'm really looking forward to the coddling I expect from you guys when we finally get home," he called, a wicked grin on his face. He might look like he could sleep for a week when this was over, but he was conscious, alert, and prepared to go down fighting.

Nothing he could have said would have reassured Egon more. The physicist's relieved joy blazed through the link as he resumed singing. They had finished the first run-through of Leftover Souls and started another one.

"Let's put this puppy to bed," Winston called. "How are you coming, Ray?"

"Nearly done. Watch out for them," he warned, raising a hand to point at Westin. Maddie was down and the kid who had kicked her had his foot firmly planted on her stomach, a smug grin stretching across his face. Easter sat miserably on the raised platform where the altar stood, moaning over his shattered hand, but Westin was free. As they watched, he scrambled sideways and tried to cast fire at the disappearing gateway.

"Watch out!" Egon yelled as the energy Westin had thrown hit the proton streams and bounced back at him, striking him full in the chest. All color left his face and he went down like a stone. Peter staggered for an instant at the power feedback, but he righted himself instantly.

The very walls of the chapel were shaking now although the vibrations caused by the entity had nearly stilled.

"This place is going down and it's gonna squish us like bugs if we don't move," Peter screeched. "Egon, get those kids out of there--now!"

Eddie reached out with his free hand and pulled Egon to his feet, and each of the teens rose in turn, Derek North bringing up the rear. Leading them down the side aisle, Eddie marched before them, still singing, and the rest of them followed him, twisting their way between the pews, ducking as they passed near the tiny, glowing orb that marked the gateway. He heard them singing behind them as he hurried them out past Peter and Winston, who shifted aside to give them room to pass and kept on firing. Egon tried to hang back, but Mel cried urgently into the link, //Don't break the chain until the gate is fully gone,// and Egon resigned himself to moving past his friends and outside.

Mel met them at the front door, in human form again, presumably so as not to scare the teens. He was barefoot but the snow didn't appear to bother him. "Hurry, hurry," he urged aloud, reinforcing it through the link as he guided them down the staircase and out along the driveway. While they had been inside, the snow had stopped falling and the air had grown slightly warmer. Melting snow crunched beneath Eddie's boots. Shivering and gasping, the queue marched out to the other side of the fountain that stood in the curve of the drive and turned to stare back at the stone edifice, their hands still linked.

From the house came the hum of throwers. Egon's every sense was directed at it. The building quivered and shook, the stone walls nearly insubstantial as they rocked. Beneath their feet, the ground was still, but the house danced as if it were trapped in a very localized earthquake.

"Come out of there," Egon muttered under his breath. "Now, Peter. Ray. Winston. Come out of there right now."

Abruptly, the entire building blazed with a burst of golden light so bright it hurt their eyes and the teens bowed their heads to shade their faces. Not one of them let go. The throwers cut out as it dimmed and then faded entirely. For a split second, the night was still enough to hear the wail of a multitude of distant sirens racing toward their location.

Then, with a roar, a clatter, and an ominous rumble, the house fell down. The crenelated towers slid sideways in a pounding roar of collapsing stone, the roof gave in, and fell in on itself.

"Nooooo!" Egon's frantic cry rang through the gestalt, horror and agony tearing at every one of them.

Hastily, Mel detached the link. "Gate's gone," he said, but his words were drowned out by Egon's scream of tormented protest as he flung himself toward the ruined castle, all color gone from his face.

"GUYS!" he bellowed desperately. "Peter! Ray! Winston! Answer me!"

Mel caught him before he could go ten steps. Even in human form, he was stronger than anyone here. Wrapping a muscular arm around Egon's waist, he held the physicist, who writhed in the grip, struggling to be free. "You can't go in there," he said, his voice sympathetic. "Not safe."

Egon's head came up and he glared at Mel from a distance of a foot away. "I don't care if it's safe!" he insisted harshly. "My friends are in there." He tugged impotently at Mel's arm. "Let me go, damn you."

Kenny ventured up to Egon and touched his shoulder. "He'll be okay," he soothed. "Peter will be fine. I know he will. The others will be, too. They're Ghostbusters. They'll make it." He was trying so hard to convince himself that his determination spilled over, but his eyes were afraid.

"A meter!" Egon cried. "I need a P.K.E. meter. I can detect..."

The sirens howled closer, racing up the driveway, drowning out his words. Ecto-1 led them, lights flashing sirens blaring. Derek edged up to him as the wailing of the police cars and ambulances cut out and people in uniforms poured out of them in a horde.

"Egon, the chapel's reinforced," he said. "You can't see it from this side, but it's strong. We can go see..."

Egon went for him, his fingers closing around the singer's throat. He was not thinking, not himself. Only one thought existed in his mind and that was to get to his friends. That Derek had been partly at fault for what had happened to them was stronger in his mind than the fact that Derek's refusal to go through with the ritual may have saved the lives of the teenagers.

Mel pried Egon's fingers loose with no effort at all. "He helped to save us, Egon," he said reproachfully, but there was kindness and sympathy in his voice.

"I couldn't go through with it," Derek admitted, head bowed. "It was such a kick when it was just the music. The energy of a concert was great; it was like we were sharing, they were giving their energy and I was giving the music. It balanced out. It was a real high. But they all wanted more. They carried me along with it and a part of me went along. What did anybody else matter, they were just here for me to use." He shook his head so hard the blond locks tumbled. "When I saw that creature, I knew I couldn't do it. I knew even before that, when John was draining Egon from the apartment earlier. I didn't want to know it, but I did."

Egon barely listened. He was waiting, watching for a moment when he could break free to run. Eddie knew it and stepped up beside him.

"I have to see," Egon insisted. "Eddie, bring them. I have to see," and he ducked under Mel's arm and started running just as the police arrived.

"Egon!" That cry was Janine, pelting up to them as the police raced for the damaged building. "What's happened. Where are the guys?"

Egon didn't stop or answer. He might not even have heard her. Eddie had never seen such a fixed purpose on anyone's face. His friends had stayed in the collapsing building to close the gate. Eddie didn't want to think what would be left of Egon if they were dead.

"The other three Ghostbusters are still in there," Mel explained to the nearest police officers. "We need to get them out."

Janine stopped dead, gasping, her hands coming up to cover her mouth, her eyes enormous behind her glasses.

"These kids don't have coats," Mel pointed out to the officer. "Get them blankets, quick." Then he set off running after Eddie and Egon. The singer could hear Mel's pounding feet behind him and knew that if full demon strength was needed, he would compromise himself in front of the police to burrow into the building to reach the trapped men. Eddie glanced over his shoulder and saw Derek scrambling after them and Janine running, too.

"This way," Derek called, waving his hand. "I can take you right to them."

Wading through the snow as if it wasn't even there, Egon forged on. He had to get the guys out of there, that was all he knew. The gate was destroyed but the cost of it had been too high. Egon had always known the team might have to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect humanity, but he had always assumed that, if that happened, they would face it together, go out together. But here he was, safe and free while his friends...

Derek put on a burst of speed. "Egon, go a little to the left." He flung out a hand to point. "That way."

Still uncertain about Derek North, who might have cut his losses and changed sides because he could tell they were not going to win, Egon nevertheless shifted. The man knew the place, and his three friends were in there, too. Maybe they weren't his friends any longer, but he had a stake in getting them out. "Where?" Egon cried.

They rounded the corner together and stopped at the sight of the jutting corner of the chapel thrusting up through the rubble. Part of it had obviously fallen in but at least a portion of it was intact. Egon stopped dead, staring, then he raised his voice and bellowed, "PETER!" at the top of his lungs. "RAY! WINSTON!"

A rattle of falling stones answered him as a whole section of the wall erupted outward, shards crashing down through the bushes that surrounded the chapel. Egon stood there in the snow, watching the wall fall away. Desolate and lone, he thought, the words of an old poem sliding into his head as it crumbled before him, leaving the ruin that might be his friends' tomb.

"PETER!"

"Geez, don't yell. My head's already ringing from a piece of the ceiling that wanted to become a part of it." Peter Venkman appeared in the hole in the wall, covered with dust, a streak of blood down the side of his face, but on his feet and moving under his own steam. There was movement behind him. Ray, gripped the struggling Madeline in one hand, and Winston, thrower aimed one-handed at a spent, battered Michael, gesturing him toward the opening. Ray was liberally adorned with dust and there were tiny fragments of rock in his hair. One of Winston's arms hung limp at his side and his mouth was tight with pain, but he was doggedly upright. There was no sign of John Easter.

Egon's knees betrayed him and nearly pitched him into the snow. They were alive! His friends were alive after all and the relief was almost too much for him to endure. With a glad cry, he forged his way through the bushes and came face to face with Peter, who leaped down the two feet from the chapel floor and stood swaying before the physicist. Egon put out his hands and gripped Peter by the shoulders, then he pulled him into a fierce embrace. Peter's arms came up around him and he clung for an instant, then he sagged, a dead weight in Egon's arms, eyes closing.

"Peter!" Egon scooped the unconscious man up into his arms, helped by Eddie and Mel. They settled him there, neither one of them dreaming of lifting the load from him. They must have known he wouldn't have allowed it. Peter's weight wasn't a burden. What had Peter himself said the time he'd had to haul Egon out of a burning house when Egon had wrenched his knee and couldn't walk? They'd come staggering out into the night and someone had tried to lift Egon away. Peter's head had come up and he'd grinned all the way across his face.

"He ain't heavy. He's my brother."

Remembering his words now and pleased at their utter rightness, Egon settled his 'brother' into his arms, stepping back to allow the other two out. Ray beamed at Egon in delight and Winston dredged up a weary, pain-filled grin for him. By this time, the police were here and Derek was gabbling out the story of what had happened, pointing to Madeline and Michael and explaining about the missing kids. Officers grabbed the dust-covered musicians and pulled them away. Derek stood gazing after them, another cop at his side.

Mel lifted Winston down from the ruined building and steadied him, his big fingers gently supporting the dragging arm. "Shoulder dislocated?" he asked.

Winston shook his head, face taut with pain. "Collarbone broken," he gritted out. "...be okay once they...get it set." Hardly 'okay', thought Egon, but functional, and that must be what Winston meant. Unlike Peter, he never expected to be fussed over when he was hurt. That didn't mean he wouldn't get his share of concern.

Ray jumped down after him and got Winston's good arm around his shoulders. "I think Peter's okay," he said earnestly, edging up to Egon and gazing at the lax face that had turned against Egon's chest. "A falling chunk of ceiling grazed him but he didn't pass out then. I think it's just everything, being shot, losing blood, getting hit again. Really, Egon," he insisted, sensing Spengler's concern. Winston nodded in agreement.

As if to prove it, Peter muttered something under his breath, shifted in Egon's grip, and lifted his eyelids. A smile ventured out and his eyes blazed in his dusty, bloodstained face. "Hi, Egon," he said wearily. "Guess I rate being waited on hand and foot when we get home, after all."

"Peter," groaned Egon, so close to tears of relief that it was all he could do not to let them fall.

"C'n probably walk if you wanna let me try," Peter said, his eyes seeking out Ray and Winston to confirm their survival. "Zed's trashed, too. The demon's gone now, and everybody's out of there. Can we go home now?"

"What about John?" Derek asked, craning his neck to see past them into the rubble.

"He had an argument with the ceiling," Peter replied as Egon deposited him on the ground and worked a supporting arm around his waist. "The ceiling won." He mouthed the words, "Flatter than a pancake," grimacing in remembrance at the image he'd evoked. His mouth twisted as if he wanted to go off and be sick. "Egon, I don't like it here, and Winston needs to go to the hospital."

"We're going, Peter," Egon reassured him. "Let's get that pack off you and Winston, and then we'll move."

Mel carried both packs, trailing in their wake as they made their unsteady way around the house toward the waiting ambulances. Janine waited there, eyes wide with relief at the sight of them, and she flung herself at them, stopping dead when she was face to face with them, the urge to hug all four of them spelled out on her face. She held back only because they weren't steady enough on their feet to endure it.

"Egon, I'm sorry it took so long to get the police to come," she insisted. "I took Cammie to the hospital and called the cops and they met us there. They listened to Cammie's story and called Frump and that cop in Dayton before they'd do anything. Then, finally they thought they'd get with the program and they called out everybody they could find. And they still got here after it was all over." She made a face at every cop within range.

"They got here in time to make arrests." Winston, voice laced with pain, nodded wincingly in the direction of Maddie and Michael, who were being ushered into the back of a squad car. Derek North stood free, talking earnestly to three plainclothesmen, his head bowed, the smug arrogance that had characterized him vanished without a trace. Egon didn't know how he'd come out of this, but he had been involved with the kidnapping of the teenagers and would likely serve a prison sentence for it. Whether he'd get time off for helping out at the end was another matter. It wasn't as if most judges would understand exactly what it was that he had done. With a sigh, Egon realized he might actually have to speak on the singer's behalf. It looked like it would be a very long night.

Peter was almost a dead weight on his arm. Egon guided him over to Ecto-1, opened the rear hatch and sat him down on it while Ray beckoned to a paramedic, who raced over. In moments, Winston was flat on a gurney, his arm and shoulder immobilized for the trip to the hospital and another paramedic was cleaning the wound on Peter's forehead.

In a flurry of determined motion, Kenny came flying through the snow toward Peter, yelling his name. If anything could have energized the psychologist, it was Kenny. His head came up, his face lit with delighted surprise, and he waved a dismissive hand at the paramedic and jumped to his feet to receive the teenager, who flung his arms around Peter's neck and hugged him hard. Peter held on tight.

"I should have done more than just warn you," he said to the top of the boy's head. "It wasn't enough. I should have driven you home. I should have done something."

Kenny pulled back in surprise and stared up into Peter's face. "You couldn't have," he said. "Whatever they did was already in my head before you even warned me. Even if you'd taken me home, I would have sneaked out and gone anyway. I couldn't have helped it. You guys did it; you got us free. I'm gonna tell all my friends how you saved the day."

The tension flowed out of Peter so fast Egon was half afraid he would collapse with it, but he willed starch into his knees. "You didn't do so bad yourself," he praised. "That singing was just what we needed. And Cammie said you sent her out to get help. We couldn't have done it without you, Kenny."

The boy's face blazed with joy, fading only when a rescue worker draped a blanket around his shoulders and offered him a chance at a phone to call home. "Oh, gosh, my mom," Kenny cried. "Bye, Peter," and raced off in the direction indicated.

Egon put his arm around Peter's waist again. "You need a paramedic, too, Peter," he said sternly, gesturing at the one who was waiting patiently to dress his forehead.

"I know I do." Peter hesitated, looking around the driveway area that was so full of police cars and paramedic vans that it looked like a convention. In a long row, the rescued teens stood draped in blankets and extra firemen's coats, their shoulders bowed with weariness and blank confusion as they waited to use the phone in one of the patrol cars. Now that the crisis was over, they looked shell-shocked, stunned and doubtful. They weren't all as strong as Cammie or as resilient as Kenny.

"I gotta do something about that," Peter said under his breath. He drew several deep breaths as if to force strength into his battered body, then he bent and scooped up a handful of snow, packing it into a snowball. "Just right. I knew it was," he muttered under his breath, then he raised his voice and yelled, "Oh, Ra-ay!"

Ray's head came up, just a second before the snowball splatted against his chest.

For a second, Ray stared down at himself blankly, then a look of unholy glee spread across his face and, with an eager whoop, he bent to snatch at the snow. His snowball barely missed Peter, who ducked, and hit Egon on the shoulder instead.

"Go for it, Spengs," Peter muttered in an undertone. "Just what the doctor ordered."

Egon hesitated, then he understood and bent to collect the makings of his own snowball. It soared through the air back at Ray.

The kids' heads came up as they watched the unlikely sight of the Ghostbusters' snowball fight. Kenny was the first to join in. He grabbed snow of his own and flung it at one of the other kids.

The next minute, every one of the missing children had joined in the fight, shedding their lofty teen dignity in a gleeful descent into childhood. Snow flew through the air and the cops, who must have caught on to Peter's intentions, stood aside, grinning. Ducking the snowballs, the guy with the mobile phone deftly removed one kid at a time to make his call home and then sent him back to join in the snowballing. Mel joined in, too, descending to the child with remarkable ease, and the kids were comfortable with him. They seemed to know and understand him as a result of the link, and when he paused to speak to them, they lit up with delight.

"He's got no shoes on," one of the girls cried, pointing at Mel's feet.

"He doesn't need them, silly," a second girl cried. "Remember?" They must have come to know Mel through the link.

The first girl nodded, completely unafraid of a demon in their midst. She even lobbed a snowball in Mel's direction, her laugh chiming when Mel caught it in midair and flung it back. He was having tremendous fun.

When the snowball fight finally wore down, Peter edged away from Egon. "Be right back," he promised and headed for the kids, making the rounds, pausing briefly to talk to each one, to drop a hand on a shoulder or to squeeze a hand. He didn't take long but when he was done, he stopped beside one of the emergency workers and a few seconds later, several of them moved out to talk to the kids that Peter had singled out as the ones who might need support most. Egon watched him kicking his way through the disrupted snow as he walked back, his head high, his face alight, his shoulders weary but squared, and felt a surge of colossal pride in his friend. When a rescue worker draped a blanket over Peter's shoulder and guided him to the back of one of the EMT vehicles, Peter went with protest, shooting a comical rescue-me grimace in Egon's direction. The physicist arched an eyebrow in return then saw Ray settled on the back hatch of Ecto while a paramedic cleaned the scratch on his cheek and put a couple of band-aids over it. He was grinning, wet with melting snow from the snowball fight, elated about their victory over the Hungry One. Ray had a blessed gift of bouncing back from a crisis once he knew the world was safe and his friends would be all right. At times they all envied him this happy facility. Egon sat beside him and Ray draped an arm over his shoulders.

"Wow, wasn't it great, Egon?" He took a P.K.E. reading of the physicist. "You're fine. Tired, but fine. The kids are okay, too, I've been checking." He waved the meter in their direction, then turned it toward the ruined building, with a slight pause to adjust the dials.

Shocked to realize he hadn't even tried to take readings, Egon realized he was more tired than he had thought he was. He didn't even feel the urge to snatch the meter from Ray and examine the readings. When this was all over, he would emulate Peter and sleep very late.

Peter, Winston, and three of the teens were transported to the nearest hospital by ambulance. The other teens were brought there as well in a bus produced for the occasion and beds were set up for them in a newly remodeled wing that hadn't been opened yet. They had showers and food and then they fell into their beds and slept. Tomorrow their families would start arriving to take them home.

The doctors took a blood sample from Egon to make certain he hadn't been drugged in the food he'd eaten, then he was dismissed to the waiting room, where Janine, Ray, Eddie, and Mel waited for him. Peter was still being checked out. The doctor had felt an x-ray would be beneficial and the dressing on his bullet wound would be changed but they were told by a passing nurse that he would be with them soon.

Eddie vanished to call Whitney and Mel followed to call his wife, Jackie. Egon and Ray sat wearily, leaning against each other's shoulders, while Janine edged in onEgon's other side and settled herself beside him. He put his arms around her and Ray. It was easier that way, and he no longer felt a sense of estrangement from the secretary. He was comfortable here between her and Ray, knowing she didn't expect him to speak of their rift yet.

"You mentioned Ea," he pointed out to Ray. It would have been far too easy to drift to sleep, but he wanted answers, and he wanted to stay awake until he heard about Peter and Winston, although neither of them was seriously injured.

"Yeah, I put a lot of stuff together and since we knew in general where the gate came from, I figured that the thing could have one of the genii. If I was wrong, it wouldn't hurt to try it but I knew I was right when the exorcism ritual seemed to work."

"You mean it was one of those things that come out of a bottle and grant wishes?" Janine asked, her voice rising. She had once had