She was always there, had been there all autumn just out of the corner of his eye, silent and placid but determined, her feet planted flatly as if defying anyone from roadie to cop to bodyguard to shift her from her position as near her idol as possible. Eddie had noticed her the third city into the tour; her rather square face uplifted as he sang, a rapt expression turning plainness into a form of beauty as she drank in the music. It was that constant, near-unblinking stare that had caught Eddie's attention, for whom singing was as much a sacrament as a celebration of a gift he couldn't shut up inside. The fact that all the other people came and paid money to hear him was secondary to the necessity of lifting his perfect voice in song which made him all the more appealing to his fans, and even made their parents pause to listen as if they'd realized this time they were hearing more than music. Eddie would have sung his heart out for an audience of blue-haired old ladies in a dinner theater if he couldn't have the concert stage and thousands of screaming fans. His aloofness from them was never perceived as distance or superiority. It was simply Eddie Plummer, part of his appeal. If he smiled inadvertently at one of his coterie of followers who came from show to show, she would be in heaven for months, but Eddie never led anyone on. He cared about his fans, but in a surprised, impersonal way as if each time he came on stage and felt their love for him and heard the roar of approval burst from fifteen-thousand throats, he was startled into realizing his music was, in fact, a dialog.

He made the effort, of course, was polite to his fans, sanctioned fan clubs and merchandise for them, posed for pictures after concerts, signed autographs, all the usual, but he'd learned early on it was safer not to get too close to the fans, not because there wasn't something warm and vital that bound them together but because even amid the outpouring of love there were dangers. Last fall a male groupie had followed Whitney, his wife and singing partner, meaning no harm but so constantly there, so excessive in his showering of gifts upon the blonde soprano that all three of them had begun to be uneasy. Jackson MacKensie, the third member of the group, had realized the man was trouble and he'd been unobtrusively edged out. Fortunately he had been simply persistent, no great threat.

Eddie wasn't so certain about the girl who hovered at the edge of the stage through each performance on the rest of the tour. She never approached Eddie or the others. She never caused trouble. But she was always there, and always alone, with the other fans but never of them, as rapt as Eddie, as if the screaming fans were not even there as if she and Eddie were alone even in the heart of the crowd. Her single-mindedness was as totally intense as his own, and perhaps that was what had made him notice her in the first place, as if the two of them were filled in a strange cone of silence. For two concerts in a row, he found himself singing directly to her.

When she was there again in Fargo, Rapid City, Omaha, and Kansas City, still alone, still intent, he began to worry. She looked about fifteen, and most fifteen-year-olds shouldn't wander the country following their favorite bands, certainly not without the presence of some adult. It was autumn; school had begun a month earlier, and while it was not unnatural to have audiences filled with teenagers every night of the tour, some of them even coming to more than one show, it didn't feel right to have this one there alone, all over the country. He thought he'd first noticed her as far back as Portland, the third city on the tour. He'd assumed she was local and failed to think about it, but now he found himself looking for her, uneasy about her continued presence.

"She's out there again," he had told Whitney once; they were in Chicago that night. "That teenager. The same one."

"Where?" Whitney asked, peering through the curtain gap, the backstage lights gleaming against her fair hair. "You've mentioned her but I've never seen her, at least I never noticed her particularly."

"You have to have seen her, love. She's always there, always so caught up in the music it would take a bomb to move her. That's why I noticed her as if her stare could turn me to stone or something."

Whitney shook her head as she let the curtain drop into place and picked up her microphone while Eddie did a final tuning of his guitar. When the curtains had swept open, she was there, not screaming and clapping like all the others, just standing, watching, eyes fixed inexorably on Eddie as if she could memorize him and recreate him in her soul.

Her eyes never left him that whole last concert. When it was over, he asked Jackson and Whitney, and both of them looked at him blankly. They had simply failed to notice her.

Eddie wasn't sure what he thought about that. Chicago was the last city in the tour and they were heading home in the morning, back to New York, then up the Hudson to Segue, their newly de-haunted mansion, and to Cy, their baby son, who was nine months old. The hardest part of the tour for Whitney had been leaving Cy behind, but they'd decided they didn't want him part of the chaos of backstage confusion, the disrupted hours, the disturbances and dangers of strange people around him. He'd be safe at Segue with his nanny and with Eddie's devoted secretary, Nina Corey, to watch him. Nina adored Cy, was likely to spoil him rotten, but was sensible enough to guard her most motherly instincts well. At the thought of Cy, Eddie and Whitney put the triumph of the tour behind them and began planning for the reunion with their son....

Until that night at the hotel when Eddie had happened to glance out the window for no good reason he could recall and saw the girl from the tour standing on the street below, half-hidden in a swirl of mist, her eyes lifted to the very room where Eddie stood. The neon glow from the entrance of a bar across the street touched the mist around her with reds and blues, casting an azure glow against the countenance that could stir to unexpected beauty with the music Eddie offered. Now she seemed almost lit from within as she stood there, patient, waiting.

"Shit," muttered Eddie. "She's there. Come here, love, and see her."

"What? Your groupie?" Whitney edged in beside him and looked down at the street in alarm. "I don't see anyone who looks like the girl you've described," she said after a moment of staring. "Just those people going into the bar."

Startled, Eddie turned from his contemplation of his wife's flawless beauty as she stood at his side and looked down at the street once more. The teenager stood in the heart of the mist, her eyes uplifted, then fog swirled around her like a cloak and she was gone as if someone had flipped a switch and shut her off. Whitney frowned, her brow wrinkling in perplexity. "There's no one there. Your imagination is running away with you, Eddie."

"You didn't see her?" He stared at her in disbelief.

She shook her head. "There was no one out there. Are you sure you haven't gotten so obsessed with this particular girl you're seeing her where she never was? Or maybe you're just tired. It's been a long six weeks and we're both frantic to get home to Cy."

"I saw her," Eddie insisted, knowing in his bones he'd seen the girl. But if Whitney hadn't seen her... What did it mean? Confused, he looked down at the street again, but the pavement where she had stood was empty, the fog swept away by a sudden rush of traffic. Had he imagined it? He couldn't be sure. He only knew he couldn't let it go.

"I hate it," insisted Ray Stantz hotly, glowering at the TV screen as if it had offended him. "I think it's terrible! I'd never do that, not in a million years. You'd think I was some kind of coward or something." The occultist's brow wrinkled with the strength of his frown.

"Come on, Ray, you knew about this already," Peter Venkman reminded him, digging his hand into the bowl of popcorn that sat on the table in front of them and taking a big mouthful. His next words were a little blurred as he munched, which made Egon Spengler wince. "If we hadn't been so busy this summer you would have seen it before," Peter pointed out. "Even then it would've been too late to do anything about it, so go with the flow, Tex."

"I wish I had see it this summer. Maybe I could have had them print a retraction or something. I never thought it would be like that." Ray made a stabbing gesture at the TV screen. "It's--it's defamation of character, that's what it is."

"Nonsense, Ray," Egon put in, looking up from the weighty tome that had absorbed his attention all evening. The blond physicist had not been watching the movie, only glancing up at the pertinent moment, and Peter was sure he'd seen Egon smile. Winston Zeddemore, the fourth Ghostbuster, had surely chuckled. Only Ray sat here looking betrayed and upset, but then Ray was the 'victim' of the piece. "It's intended to be humorous," the physicist explained. It's not meant to mock us."

"Humorous at my expense," wailed Ray. "I thought it'd be great, a chance to sort of, kind of, almost be in the Casper movie. I always loved the Casper cartoons when I was a kid."

"Yeah, if you were a kid last weekend," Winston pointed out. "I saw you watching one of them then."

"Well, yeah, but those are good cartoons," Ray defended himself automatically, looking slightly embarrassed but not enough to yield his point. "I thought it'd be so great that there'd be a live-action Casper movie, and when I heard Danny was gonna do the cameo and play me, I thought it was really swell. I didn't know they were gonna make me panic and run away from three ghosts I could take out with one thrower and a trap," he objected hotly. "It'll make the Ghostbusters look bad. How could Dan Aykroyd have done that to us?"

"I don't think he did," Peter said, realizing Ray was genuinely upset and needed to be calmed down. It was a tempest in a teapot as far as he was concerned but Ray had taken it the wrong way. "It was supposed to be funny, Ray, and we did sign for permission for him to play you again. Nobody's going to believe we couldn't have busted those three ghosts, not when we took out Gozer, Samhaine, the Bogeyman. We're the best. But if they'd let you do your thing--or let Aykroyd do our thing in the movie, well, there wouldn't have been any movie. Besides, the studio paid us, even if it wasn't very much. It's too late to take it back now the movie's out on video, isn't it?"

"I guess so," Ray admitted reluctantly, putting up a hand to scratch his head as he thought about it. "But I still don't like it. It isn't fair. Why did they have to make me be the one who ran away? I wouldn't. You guys know I wouldn't."

"No. Show you a new demon and you'll run toward it, homeboy," Winston retorted, reaching over to disarray the occultist's hair affectionately. "Come on, Ray, nobody's gonna see that and think the Ghostbusters can't do the job. Besides, like Peter said, they paid us."

The four men were gathered before the TV on the second floor of Ghostbuster Central, with no scheduled busting jobs awaiting them for the evening, none of them planning to go out on a date. It was one of those peaceful times when they could hang out and relax together, and they'd started the evening by watching the movie Casper, which had just come out on video tape, because Dan Aykroyd had an unbilled cameo in which he'd played Ray Stantz. Ray had not had a chance to see the movie when it was in the theaters and had really looked forward to the film; until he'd realized the Ray in the movie had chosen not to face the ghosts in Whipstaff Manor. It would have taken far more than the three obnoxious ghosts to keep the real Ray Stantz from any job, and he had taken it badly, even though the other three had been amused. Peter wondered how he'd felt if it had been Bill Murray charging out of the house insisting they call someone else for the job. He didn't think he'd mind as much as Ray did; Murray would have made it funny and Peter would have enjoyed it. But that reminded him of another situation.

"Yeah, and I think we should get Taco John's to pay us, too," Peter said darkly, brooding at the screen. "Have you heard that 'Buck-busters' commercial?"

"Very likely they paid Ray Parker Jr. for the use of his song," Egon pointed out. "We're not mentioned in the ad, but I believe people who hear it and see it will be reminded of us."

"More jobs that way," Peter conceded, pleased with the thought. He stretched comfortably. "Man, I hope we don't have to go out again this evening. It's too cold out there, it's nice and warm in here, and the spud's off pestering some other poor schmucks and not trailing slime through the popcorn. Except for Ray's planned revenge on Casper, I'd say things are going really great, wouldn't you?"

Winston leaned over suddenly and clapped his hand over Peter's mouth. "Hey, Pete, don't. Talking like that is a reminder to fate that it's let us alone long enough."

"You believe that?" Peter asked skeptically, though he cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder before he straightened up and pretended nonchalance.

"Theoretically it is possible, Peter," Egon said, jamming a bookmark in his book and looking up at the others. "Fate as a personified entity may well exist. How often have you made a remark about how well things were going only to have the circumstances change abruptly immediately afterward as if you'd reminded a powerful force a situation had gone on peacefully for too long?"

"Hey, yeah," agreed Ray, intrigued enough to forget the 'indignity' that Casper had perpetrated upon him. "You comment it's been a great winter without any ice storms and the next morning you wake up to find it's been sleeting for hours. Or you're gloating because your favorite team has had a great winning streak and they lose the very next day. Gosh, do you think it's some kind of phenomenon that's been undocumented up till now?"

"I don't think I like the sound of it," Peter said, discovering he was more than a little uneasy at having called attention to something that might be powerful and capricious--possibly malicious. "In other words, if this is real, I shouldn't have said it was nice in here and the spud wasn't dive bombing the popcorn?"

"Well, actually, Peter--" Egon began, his eyes full of the same kind of amusement he'd displayed when Dan Aykroyd had fled Whipstaff Manor.

The front doorbell rang downstairs.

All four Ghostbusters eyed each other uneasily, Egon's amusement slipping away in an instant. "Uh-huh," said Winston, uncomfortable with the timing. "You blew it, Pete. You said it was nice here. Now we're gonna pay."

"Hey, come on, it could be something good," Ray insisted, bouncing up and starting for the stairs. "It could mean we won the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes or Peter's dad decided to stop in for a visit."

"I don't know how good that would be," said Peter quickly, before someone else had a chance to say it in his place. He knew he couldn't quite trust his con man father but it sometimes hurt a little to have the guys admit they didn't trust him either. As a result, Peter liked to get comments like that in first and save himself the pain of hearing them from his friends, even though they hurt in a different way when he had to admit it. "If he showed up, it would probably mean he was in trouble and we'd have to bail him out." He started to get up to go after Ray, then he realized that to do so would be to give credence to the mysterious and malign fate Egon had been attempting to personify, and he wasn't about to do that. It could be a simple job, after all, and even a tough job wasn't the result of malicious fate. It was what they got paid for, after all, and all four men loved busting, even when it was a tough job.

Ray returned a few minutes later trailed by none other than Eddie Plummer, Egon's rock star cousin, a tall, blond man who closely resembled the physicist. Since Peter had been a major fan of Eddie's even before he'd known of the relationship both Egon and Eddie had kept quiet about, he was delighted to see their guest and bounded to his feet, grinning. Fate hadn't proven so malicious this time. Maybe Eddie had stopped by to give them concert tickets, front row center, for his next New York concert. He'd done that once or twice before and all the Ghostbusters enjoyed his singing enough to look forward to such treats.

"Eddie," Egon exclaimed in delight and hurried to greet his cousin, offering his hand. They shook hands and Eddie gave Egon a slap on the back. "Is the tour over then?" Egon asked.

"We got into town this morning. Whitney went right up to Segue to be with Cy."

Peter grinned. "And how is the youngest member of the Spengler clan?" he asked, remembering how delighted he'd been when baby Cyrus was born and he'd actually looked just like Baby Egon, from the time Egon had been reversed in age down to babyhood himself by a time ghost. Egon had long tried to pretend that episode had never happened, but when Peter had produced from a secret hiding place one of the photos the guys had taken of him as a baby and displayed it to carefully to Eddie and Whitney so Egon couldn't snatch it from him, they'd been stunned at the resemblance--and fascinated to realize the picture was none other than Egon and taken only a few years earlier.

"He looks more like me every day," Eddie replied, grinning.

"Spike hair and sunglasses too?" teased Peter, gesturing at the shades Eddie wore perched in his hair. He'd once said they were his good luck sunglasses and always wore them, especially when he was performing, though never to shield his vivid blue eyes.

"Well, what hair he's got is kind of spiky, or it was when we took off on the tour," Eddie confirmed with a grin. "I've told Whitney whatever we do, we make sure he doesn't wear it like his godfather here." He gestured at Egon's unusual flip of hair with a grin.

"I'll have you know my hair--" Egon began with some heat.

"Is unique in the annals of the human race," Peter told him, giving Egon a nudge in the side with his elbow. "Come on in and sit down, Eddie, and have some popcorn. It's great. I should know. I made it myself and Slimer hasn't been around to ruin it. You don't have any more haunted statues or ghosts for us to bust, do you?" He meant the words as a joke, believing the singer had simply dropped by while in town to say hello to his cousin. When Eddie's face grew grave, Peter found himself tensing. Who said fate didn't know when to strike? Peter had the wary idea it was about to pounce on them with clawed feet.

"Well, there is something I wanted to talk to you four about," Eddie admitted almost reluctantly. He let Egon usher him over to the couch, and sat there, long legs stretched before him under the coffee table, reaching up to dislodge his sunglasses long enough to rake slender fingers through his fair hair. "Whitney thinks it's my imagination and Jackson thinks I've been working too hard, but I noticed it at the beginning of the tour before I had time to get tired, so I don't think that's it. I think it's--well, I think it might be a ghost," he admitted in a rush, replacing the sunglasses and looking around at the four men expectantly.

"Hey, Egon," Peter said thoughtfully, remembering a brainstorming session he'd had with the physicist a couple of days earlier. "Remember when you were talking about some people being a magnet for trouble where ghosts are concerned?"

"You mean the fact that we do have a great deal of repeat business, and some of it is repeat to the person, not to the location?" Egon asked. "I'd begun to track that; Ray mentioned that we'd gone to one man's place three separate times, and he'd moved after each visit, yet he still had ghosts, no matter where he went. We've begun to wonder if some people simply--"

"Have a magnetic personality," Peter put in. "There's documented evidence of a link between ghosts and magnetism, after all. I'm not a parapsychologist for nothing."

"That's a different kind of magnetism, Peter," Egon said in a tone guaranteed to reproach Peter for the frivolity. "But there could well be a factor we haven't as yet come to comprehend that makes certain people targets for the spirit world while others go their whole lives without ever seeing a ghost. There are New Yorkers who didn't see Gozer, even on TV, yet some people are always calling in to report ghosts. Eddie would appear to be one of the latter group, what with the entity he accidentally freed from the statue and the two ghosts up at Segue last year."

"Yeah, or it could be just bad luck," Winston pointed out. "Being in the wrong place at the wrong time or saying how nice it was not to have seen any ghosts lately, and then one showing up. We were talking about luck, sort of, tonight. Calling attention to fate and then having it rebound on you. You better tell us what's going on this time, Eddie, and we'll see if we can help you."

"I hope you can. I suspect Whitney thinks I'm just stressed out from the tour, but singing never stresses me. I love the tours, even if this one wasn't quite as exciting as usual, but I think that's because this is the first time I've ever had a son at home that I was anxious to return to, so I couldn't concentrate as much as usual. Still, once each show started, I was caught up in it, just like always. I wasn't thinking about ghosts either. It never occurred to me until last night that the groupie might be something more than an ordinary teenaged girl." He looked up at his cousin, who was in the process of drawing up a chair so he could sit down. Peter had already flung himself down on the other end of the couch from Eddie, and Ray had eased in between. Winston didn't hesitate to shift the popcorn and sit down on the coffee table facing them all. He held out the bowl to Eddie, who took a handful absently and munched with no real awareness of what he was eating.

"So what have you seen?" Peter prompted expectantly. "I sure hope it isn't a banshee. We ran into one, once, and she was a rock star too. She wanted to use her powers on the whole country during a live performance on TV. We stopped her just in time."

"As I remember, she nearly stopped you, Pete," Winston reminded him, an amused look on his face.

"That's beside the point," said Peter hastily, anxious to change the subject. It wasn't his fault the banshee had used her powers on him, after all and turned him into an obsessed groupie himself. "Come on, Eddie, give. What have you got?"

He swallowed the popcorn. "That's just it, I don't know. I kept seeing her all through the tour, always in the front row, always watching me with total obsession. I thought she was just another fan, a die-hard groupie, but she looks around fifteen, and that's really too young to be wandering around the country on her own, unless, of course, her parents are groupies too, but she was never with adults."

"Kids do that," Peter reminded him. "Avoid hanging out in public with their folks. My dad hauled me to Woodstock when I was about that age, and you can bet I didn't hang out with my dad there. Spent the whole time trying to convince girls I was older than I looked." He grinned reminiscently. "If this kid is with her folks, she probably wouldn't want to seem to be with them and, for all you know, she might be a runaway. There are a lot more young kids on the street than you'd think."

"I thought of that, and I finally decided that was what was going on--until last night."

"What happened last night?" asked Ray eagerly. He always loved it when they got a new case, and their previous ghostly experiences with Eddie had interested him both times.

Eddie described the girl he'd seen out the hotel window, and how Whitney had failed to see her, even while Eddie still could. "Last night in the fog she looked--strange," he said, his eyes shadowed with the memory of the incident, "as if she wasn't--well, wasn't quite human, somehow. Like maybe she was a part of the fog. And I wondered if she was a ghost, you know, a girl who'd been a fan of mine and died and now she follows me around and goes to all my concerts."

"Gosh, that's sad," breathed Ray, a distressed look upon his usually good-natured face. "I sure hate to bust that kind of ghost. Maybe we can talk to her and help her disperse peacefully. I bet if you sang to her, Eddie, you could get to her."

"Maybe," admitted the singer doubtfully. "But somehow that feels, well, too easy. In a way, I don't feel sad when I see her. I almost feel...threatened." He ducked his head as if embarrassed at the admission, then looked up again, waiting for reaction.

Egon rose and went over to the desk, returning with a P.K.E. meter. Activating the detection device, he aimed it at Eddie and frowned when nothing happened. "No residuals. Did this girl ever touch you? Shake your hand, get an autograph?"

"That's funny. No, she never did," Eddie mused. "Usually fans that obsessive are first in line for any opportunities to have face to face contact; they get autographs, drag along friends with cameras so they can pose for pictures with me, try to find out my hotel room number or slip me their phone numbers or just out and out try a proposition, even in front of Whitney. But this one never tried."

"She probably wouldn't, if she's a ghost," Ray pointed out. "Have you seen her in New York since you got back?"

"No. There were things to wind down, a meeting about our concert next weekend, Malcolm had Whitney and me lined up for some publicity photos, and that took most of the afternoon. I sent her up to Segue to be with Cy, and told her I wanted to stop in and see you first, Egon. She wondered about it, but I'm not sure she put two and two together about the ghost groupie. I didn't want to worry her in case it was just overreaction."

"So what do you want us to do, Eddie?" Peter asked, adding hopefully, "Come to your next concert with our packs and throwers? We'd have to sit in the front row, of course, if that's where she usually is."

"Peter!" Egon chided.

"You guys are always welcome at any of our concerts," Eddie reminded them. "You only have to say the word and I'd get you tickets. But that's not it. If she's haunting me, I didn't want to lead her back to Segue. I can't endanger my son. Whitney and I are used to this kind of thing, not as much as you guys, but more than a lot of people. I had planned to go up later tonight if you four thought it would be safe; I'd have my P.K.E. meter there and could take readings and make sure I hadn't been followed."

"Let's make sure you haven't been followed here," Egon said practically and rose, heading for the nearest window. He pulled back the curtain and looked down at the street that ran beside Ghostbuster Central. "Hmmm," he said, his body tensing like a pointer on the scent of a game bird.

That drew the other Ghostbusters and Eddie to that window and the next one. Peter, leaning over Ray's shoulder, looked down at the street below, stiffening as he saw the figure standing there, surrounded in mist. From here he couldn't see her features clearly but the slight figure did look like a teenaged girl.

"Wow," breathed Ray, eyes rounding. "Was she misty like that at your concerts, Eddie?"

"I never really noticed that kind of dry ice effect until last night, when I saw her outside my hotel room," the singer admitted. "I wonder if she's been lurking outside all our hotels on the tour."

Peter glanced at Egon, who had raised his ubiquitous meter and was calmly taking a reading. "We can all see her," he said. "Funny Whitney couldn't. She can see ghosts; she did at Segue and she saw Jaren'h when he broke out of the statue."

"Not all ghosts are visible, Peter," Ray reminded him. "We've been exposed to so many ghosts and had so much ectoplasm on us that I think we can see ghosts the average person can't see. Even if she's only visible to Eddie, we'd probably see her too, just as a by-product of the job. Egon and I ran some tests on it once and proved that we could usually see ghosts, even when they didn't appear to other--"

"This is interesting, Ray," Egon cut into Ray's hasty explanation. "I'd have expected a class three reading from the ghost, but what I'm getting is much more powerful. It's at least a class seven, and it--"

He broke off as the ghost suddenly swirled the mist around her the way Zorro might have swirled his cloak, and disappeared into it, vanishing without a trace.

"There it goes, it's getting away, Egon," cried Peter urgently, casting a nervous glance at the room behind him in case it had teleported there when it disappeared.

"Yes, it's gone," Egon confirmed as the meter's antennae lowered slowly and the shrill beeping began to fade and lower in tone. "I suspect it became aware of us watching it and taking readings and chose to depart."

"It?" echoed Eddie. "It was a girl."

"It was more powerful than I expected," the physicist explained. "Ghosts who were once living people are class three or four, but this was a class seven."

"And that's bad?" Eddie asked uneasily. He hadn't liked it when he thought it was the ghost of a teenaged fan, but from the look on his face as he turned away from the window, at least that would have been within his comprehension. "What does it mean? What's a class seven?"

"Often they're demons," Egon informed him, checking the meter a final time before turning it off, "and other powerful entities."

"You mean Eddie's got a demon groupie?" Peter asked, shaking his head. "Isn't that kind of weird?"

"I never heard of a demon who responded to music," Egon replied.

"Jaren'h did, remember, when we were trying to bust him in the subway," Winston recalled. "He stopped and listened to Eddie sing until Eddie could play the right chord on his guitar and imprison him in the statue again. He thought the music was beautiful. Why shouldn't this one?"

"But she looks like a little girl," Eddie objected. "She's no more than a child."

"A lot of demons can shapeshift," Ray replied. "They're pretty powerful. If she liked your singing and wanted to hear more, she could hardly show up at your concerts looking like a demon. It would put a stop to the performance immediately and all the fans would run screaming. She might not care about the other fans but she wouldn't want the concert to stop."

"She? You mean there are female demons?" Eddie asked, stunned by the concept.

"Sure, why not? One of them even tried to chase Peter once," Ray replied with a mischievous grin. "You should have seen him run."

"Women, sure," Peter said. "They can chase me as much as their little hearts desire, but I don't want lady demons coming after me, thank you. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in the Netherworld as some scaly lady's love slave." The other Ghostbusters laughed.

"I hope that's not one of my options," Eddie replied without a shred of enthusiasm. "Do you think she's gone for now?"

"Yes, and she hasn't harmed you to date," Egon reminded him, making a couple of minute adjustments on the meter. "I believe we might take that as a good sign."

"Then you think it would be safe to go up to Segue?" Eddie asked hopefully. "I really want to see Cy. I bet he's grown like a weed in the last six weeks."

"She's never approached you or endangered you until now," Ray said thoughtfully. "She likes your singing. I bet she wouldn't hurt you--after all if she did she couldn't listen to you any more."

"That's not what worries me," Eddie said quickly with a nervous glance out the window as if he expected her to return at any minute. "Now that you tell me what she really is, what if she likes my singing so much she wants to take me back to the Netherworld and be her pet canary? I don't think being a bird in a gilded cage is right up there in the list of my favorite career options. Peter didn't like the idea, and neither do I. That road up to Segue sounds awfully lonely to me right now, and the last thing I want to do is lead a demon to Whitney and Cy. Can I bunk here tonight, guys? Maybe it will make more sense in the morning. After all, I never saw her in the daytime, only at night."

"Demons can come out in the daytime," Winston pointed out. "We captured Arzun in daylight, after all, and a few of the other ones. You only saw her at your concerts. You weren't looking for her the rest of the time."

"Thanks, Winston. That really helps," Eddie murmured and headed off to the phone to call Whitney and explain what was going on.

"I wish we could find out what demon it is," Ray said while Eddie was busy. "We only saw her in human form from a distance. Do you think we could make anything out of the readings you took, Egon?"

"I doubt it. Although I've tried to make updates and work out correlations with the Tobin computer program, identifying a demon in Tobin's without seeing it isn't that easy. There were no P.K.E. meters when it was first compiled and pinning down the exact frequency of an entity and comparing it with other factors in the Guide has never been totally successful. Our input on the computer version has enabled us to list readings for known demons, such as Tolay in the Netherworld, but to identify a totally unknown demon that way without visual identification would be difficult. We might come up with five or six possibilities or it might be an entity that isn't listed in Tobin at all."

"We better check, though," said Ray, heading for the spiral stairs that led to the third floor. In a few minutes they were in the lab, Ray at the computer and the other three looking through various books such as Who's Who and What's That, and the Spates Catalogue. "I'll cross-reference for any entities with an interest in music," Ray volunteered.

"A good idea, Ray." Egon didn't glance up from the book he was studying.

Peter took down the Roylance Guide and began to flip pages, uncertain of what he was seeking, because they didn't even know for sure the girl spirit was an actual demon. There were other class seven entities that weren't demons, technically speaking. The domoviet at Ray's aunt's house had been class sevens, and they weren't demons, simply household spirits. This ghost could be completely harmless, no more than a pest the way any being with an obsessive crush on another could be. Peter remembered the time a fourteen year old girl had developed a crush on him after she'd seen him on TV on one of their most spectacular busts. She'd taken to sending him cards and candy and hanging around outside the firehouse in hopes of seeing him when the guys were called out on a bust. She was intense and persistent but she was completely harmless, and eventually she fell hard for the teenaged character on seaQuest and departed with a note of apology. Peter had been both relieved and a little resentful at being upstaged by a kid.

The problem was, they couldn't assume the ghost was harmless. If she liked Eddie's singing so much, she might decide she wanted him to sing for her alone. Powerful entities could indulge themselves like that, especially if the Ghostbusters weren't around to stop them. Talk about your fatal attraction with a difference. Peter edged over to the window and tried to peer down at the street without moving the curtains. If she was down there she'd turned invisible.

"Do you see anything, Peter?" Egon asked without looking up from his book.

"Nada, zip, zilch," he reported. "Want me to take a reading?"

"Good idea." Egon passed him a meter and Peter turned it on. He got a faint stirring of the antennae although the readings were too indistinct to indicate a current presence.

"Just fading residuals," Peter called. He let the curtain slide into place as he handed back the meter. "I don't like this, Egon. If Eddie was still on tour, I wouldn't feel so bad about it, but now that the tour's over and she's still hanging around, it doesn't sound good."

"What doesn't sound good?" Eddie asked as he walked into the lab, having finished his phone call.

Winston explained quickly. "We think you'd better stick close to us while we check this out," he concluded.

"Yeah, I think so too. Whitney wanted to come to New York, but I think she'll be safe at Segue, with Graves and Nina to look after her. "It doesn't want her, anyway. It wants me. I won't risk my wife and son on this. I told her to stay there."

"I think that was a wise choice," Egon replied. "I've been considering our options, and I've come to the conclusion that the best alternative might be to lure it here, now, while we're ready, so we can bust it."

Eddie frowned as if he were recalling the intensity on the entity's face as she watched him sing. "Can't we try telling her to go away, first?" he asked. He'd always been decent to his fans, but Peter considered this response to be taking decency to unwarranted extremes.

"Assuming she'd listen what's to stop her coming back when you least want her?" he asked.

"Peter's right," said Ray. "We can try to find out what she wants, but I have a sneaky feeling what she wants is to take you home with her and make you sing for her. Think about it, Eddie. You were never alone on the tour, except probably in the bathroom. You had bodyguards and the people at the stops, police escorts, roadies, the staff at the various concert halls, the hotel people, Whitney at night. The entity might be powerful enough to take you away right in the middle of that, but it would be a whole lot easier to wait until she could get you alone. You're lucky she didn't grab you while you were ringing our doorbell."

"The cab driver waited and saw me in. I don't think he was so much making sure I was safe as he was watching me so he could tell his wife all about it," Eddie admitted, frowning slightly as he recalled the incident. "He had me give him an autograph and got on the radio to his dispatcher and did the, 'You'll never guess who I got in my cab,' routine. I wasn't alone out there either--and the doorman at Malcolm's office building got me the cab."

"Then we'll have to be sure you aren't alone until this is resolved," Egon said simply. "I refuse to contemplate explaining to Uncle Cyrus that I let a demon make off with his only son."

"I think we should try to talk to her," Ray said suddenly, looking up from the computer screen. "You know, find out what she wants. Maybe she'd be happy with a CD player and a bunch of Eddie's albums."

"When she could have the original?" Peter asked skeptically, although he knew a confrontation with the demon--or whatever--wasn't out of line.

"How do we get her attention?" Eddie asked.

"You could sing," was Winston's suggestion. "I bet she'd come if Eddie sang, right, guys?"

"She might, but let's make sure we're ready for her, then," Peter said quickly. "Let's get our packs and throwers, okay?"

The others concurred, so they spent a few moments suiting up and donning their packs. Eddie didn't wear one, although he had done it once before and knew how to use the equipment. Instead he positioned himself in the center of the lab, and at a nod from Egon, began to sing.

Peter was instantly caught up in the song Eddie had chosen, not one of his current hits but an old ballad, one that let his melodious barbitone voice soar and fill the high-ceilinged room with pure music. Unaccompanied by so much as a guitar, he didn't need backup. Peter found himself holding his breath, in the presence of sheer talent. Eddie could pound out the typical loud, screaming lyrics if he chose, but when he did the quieter numbers, the ones that allowed him to push his range to the limits and let the warmth of his voice fill a room, he was at his best. Peter had to shake himself to remember to grip his thrower in preparation for the ghost's appearance.

She didn't come, at least not to the lab. As the song ended, the five of them looked at each other speculatively as if they'd expected a show, complete with the requisite fireworks, and were disappointed to find themselves in the midst of normalcy. For a moment no one spoke, then Egon made an impatient gesture and strode to the window. "She's out there," he announced, glancing at his cousin. "She's back."

"But not coming in?" Eddie frowned as he considered the possibilities of that fact, after he'd all but invited her to make herself at home. "Maybe she really doesn't mean to harm me."

"Or maybe she's afraid of the throwers," Peter said knowingly, glancing past Egon at the figure that stood beneath the streetlight, its light casting a glow through the mist that surrounded her. "She's got to know what this place is. She'd be crazy to come in here. We'd only blast her."

"We'd talk to her first and find out what she wants," Ray objected.

"She doesn't know that," Winston told him. "She only knows this is Ghostbuster headquarters. Ghosts don't usually drop in for tea, not if they want to leave when they're through."

"Then we should go down to her," Egon decided, winning startled looks from his teammates and his cousin.

"Whoa, where does it say we have to do that?" Winston objected, catching Egon's arm as he started for the door.

"Egon's right, we should negotiate, find out what she wants," Ray said enthusiastically. "I'll go. I'll carry a white flag."

"The white flag is a good idea, but I should be the one to go," Egon remarked. "I'm Eddie's cousin and the spirit may well see the resemblance and negotiate with me while she might not speak to the rest of you."

"Yeah, and she might decide to use your head for a bowling ball," Peter said, grabbing Egon's other arm to restrain him. "Come on, think. I know it's a challenge and exciting and all that, but one of these days Winston and I are gonna teach you and Ray that you can't go running off half cocked just because there's a new ghost out there."

"Yeah, and what we need right now is a plan," Winston confirmed, his fingers still curled around Egon's wrist.

"Give the man a cigar," Peter lauded. "He's right, Egon. You're supposed to be the great brain here. I know Ray wants to make friends with half the ghosts we meet, but we don't know Miss Groupie out there is up to anything good. We've gotta think it through before we line up like tenpins for her to mow down."

"I am thinking, Peter, and what I'm thinking is that Eddie can't go through the rest of his life with a demon trailing him. Eddie's my cousin. If it were your father in danger, you'd be the one to go. I don't see the difference. I'll go, I'll try to find out what she wants, and the rest of you can stand in the windows with your particle throwers aimed at the demon. If she tries anything or gets violent, you can blast her. If she's willing to listen to reason, at least I'll find out what she wants."

"Okay, but we're not gonna hang out the windows, big fella," Peter told him in fierce determination. "That's too far for a clean shot. If you're gonna go out there and face her, we're going out there with you. "We'll stand back a little but we'll spread out so we'll have a clear shot. We'll be there to back you, and that's final. Only way we'll let you do it."

"Peter's quite right," Eddie agreed, casting a quick, nervous glance out the window and then turning to study his cousin's resolute face. "We can't hope to trade on the business of being kin the way we did when Jaren'h believed you were one of my followers because he sensed the relationship. This one seems to care about music, not blood kindred. She won't listen to you just because we're cousins. You're taking a major chance and I don't like people taking my risks for me."

"So listen up, Egon," Winston told him, favoring Eddie with an approving look. "No crazy chances. If she won't deal, we blast her, and that's that. Eddie's safe and so are Whitney and the baby, and that's the end of the problem."

Ray looked a little upset about the blasting part, probably because she looked so young--were there teenaged demons? Peter wondered--but if she made a move to hurt Egon, Ray would be in there blasting with the rest of them. He nodded reluctantly, but Peter knew his reluctance wasn't because he wouldn't back Egon. He'd once complained that he could have formed a 'meaningful relationship' with a ghost he'd tried to befriend. Never mind it had turned out to be the ghost of Harry Houdini. Only Ray would try to make friends with a ghost. Look at Slimer, after all. It had been Ray who had first insisted Slimer live with them at the firehouse. Not that Peter cared overmuch for that idea a lot of the time.

"Okay, Egon," Peter said reluctantly. "But if you get trashed because you wouldn't listen to your buddies, I'm gonna be real upset."

Egon favored him with a reassuring smile before he turned away from the window and headed for the lab door. "Don't worry, Peter. I don't mean to take foolish chances, only to find out what she wants from Eddie--and with luck who she is so we can research her."

"What do you want me to do, guys?" Eddie asked, falling into step as they hurried down the stairs.

"Sing, Trilby, sing," said Peter with a broad grin. He was always up for a private Eddie Plummer concert.

"Peter's right," Egon agreed, sounding amused, although there was a thread running through his voice that suggested he'd guessed Peter's more selfish motive, even if it was the logical next step. "It's evidently the singing that draws her. Sing, now. Don't stop while we're talking unless one of us signals for you to stop. And if we tell you to run--"

"Go like a bat out of hell," Peter encouraged.

"Got it," Eddie said and plunged into song as if it were as natural for him as breathing.

When they left the firehouse and went around the corner, the demon was standing right where they'd seen her before, under the streetlight, waist deep in a drifting patch of mist that seemed even more abnormal at that range. Up close she looked more than ever like a teenager, clad in the standard uniform of jeans, topped with a tee shirt and leather bomber jacket. The shirt had a picture of Eddie emblazoned across it, with the other two band members in the background. Only her eyes didn't match the general image she'd obviously intended to convey. Peter had seen hard eyes on younger girls than this one seemed to be, eyes that were empty of hope, devoid of innocence. It was inevitable in a city the size of this one. He'd even worked with some of them at the free clinic where he did volunteer counseling one Sunday afternoon a month. But there was more than cold emptiness in these eyes. There was a knowledge far greater than anything Peter had ever seen in a human expression before. It was mostly concealed by a newer, more normal aspect that somehow lightened the other one every time she looked at the singer, but it peered through the façade in spite of her interest in her idol. She gazed at Eddie, enraptured, her squarish chin lifted as she watched him. She wasn't pretty, precisely, but something had illuminated her face as she listened to Eddie's singing, and it gave her a kind of quasi-beauty, as if her inner joy had made her come alive. She looked alive, too, except for the swirling fog that appeared to drift right through her slender frame. Her eyes were for Eddie alone as he sang, never mind that across the street behind her windows had opened and people had appeared as they realized what they were hearing wasn't a radio but a live performance. Peter heard someone cry out that it was Eddie Plummer, someone else scorn the idea, then a third voice insist the first one was right, but he doubted Eddie had heard the sounds of his public stirring as he sang, nor noticed the taxi that cut around their gathering, the driver yelling something profane at them for standing in the street.

The Ghostbusters positioned themselves in a long line, two of them on either side of Eddie, and her eyes shifted slightly and knowledgeably as if she was aware of them but didn't care, because at once her attention locked itself on the singer again. Egon glanced sideways at Peter and said in an undertone, "I'll try to speak to her, Peter. If she shows any sign of breaking for Eddie, blast her."

"Or if she goes for you," Peter added, positive this wasn't the best plan they'd ever had. Blasting her now while she wasn't guarding against them made more sense than letting his oldest friend paint a target on his chest. "Listen, Spengs, you won't do Eddie any good if you get toasted to a cinder here, and I can tell you right out, I won't like it much either."

Egon's smile flashed out in an attempt to be reassuring, although Peter wasn't reassured. "I hardly intend to be blasted, Peter. I'm only going to talk to her, after all, to try to find out what she wants." He added in an undertone, "I'm not certain the throwers will be completely effective in any case."

"Now you tell us," groaned Peter. This whole mess was getting worse by the minute.

"Surely talking won't hurt. I've got the atomic destabilizer, after all," Egon pointed out, gesturing at his modified thrower.

"Yeah, I remember that thing. You were only going to blast Arzun with it when your molecules got scrambled and you turned into a ghost," Peter reminded him. "Watch yourself, okay?"

"The destabilizer works well now," Egon reminded him. But the physicist must have heard the ferocity in Peter's voice because he nodded, pausing a moment to allow Venkman to see the reassurance in his eyes, then he took a step closer to the entity and announced, "I want to talk to you."

At first, she paid no attention to him at all, the way humans might regard a persistent fly that hovered just outside of range. Her eyes were locked on Eddie, who was singing for all he was worth in spite of the people who had begun to assemble on the other side of the street and a few cars that had slowed and then stopped when the drivers recognized him. The look on her face was full of rapture, and when Peter glanced at Eddie he saw the singer was doing what he sometimes did at concerts, not as a ploy to manipulate his audience but because it focused his attention. He was singing directly to her as if she were the only one here. On the stage, Eddie could manage to convey that impression to the entire audience, but now all that concentrated charisma was focused directly at the spirit in a blast as powerful and intense as a proton stream. Egon could have jumped in front of her and waved a hand before her eyes and she would never have noticed.

Instead, he waved a hand at Eddie, once, quickly, behind his back, and Eddie stopped singing, letting the last word fade away slowly. The ghost shivered with rapture as if coming out of a trance, and suddenly she was looking directly at Egon, who stood not five feet in front of her, all the concentrated emotion turning from delight to anger as if she perceived him as a threat. Peter leveled his thrower at her, his thumb hovering expectantly over the power switch, ready to fire in an instant, aware without looking sideways that Ray and Winston were equally prepared. "Be careful, Egon," he muttered under his breath. "Mikey doesn't like you."

The ghost or demon, still holding the human form, focused on Egon from close up, and her eyes widened in astonishment. They flicked back to Eddie, then focused on Egon again. "Who?" she demanded, and Peter realized if Eddie had ever heard her speak before he would have known she was no teen groupie. There was an odd reverberation in her voice as if she were speaking with echoes, as if there was a chorus in her head. The tone ranged from soprano to bass, as if the demon's voice was breaking with a vengeance. Maybe in the spirit world, even female demons' voices broke at whatever passed for puberty among them.

"What do you want with Eddie?" Egon asked her levelly. He didn't give any ground at the unexpected voice. Maybe he had expected it.

"Beauty," the demon murmured, her voice like a sigh, if sighs could boom and thunder. Eddie's fans across the street shrank back against the building, vanishing into the shadows as if darkness alone could protect them, but they didn't go away entirely. Peter could see a flash of movement there and knew they were watching, each person holding his breath as they realized they were up against something more than human, something potentially dangerous.

"Sing again," murmured the voice, looking past Egon to his cousin, her eyes drifting from one tall, blond man to the other and back again. "Sing always."

"Eddie can't sing always," Egon explained in gentle tones. "He's human. He must rest. If he sings constantly he will burn out his voice, and I don't think you want that. Right now, his tour has finished. He's resting between concerts."

"Sing again," the demon said, a little more impatiently. Her eyes shifted from Eddie to Egon. "You sing." It was not a request but an order. Peter stiffened, expecting trouble. "You are not Eddie, but you are so much like him. He belongs to the woman, the woman with the white blonde hair."

"Yes, she is his wife," Egon replied. "He loves her." He didn't mention Cy, and Peter thought that was just as well; he wasn't even sure bringing Whitney into this was a good idea.

"Do you have a wife?" the demon asked Egon abruptly, as if she were considering her options, trying to decide if she were willing to settle for second best.

Peter opened his mouth to answer for Spengler, to make up a story and claim Egon did, because his instincts urged that kind of an answer, but before he could speak, Egon shook his head automatically, denying it. "No," he said.

What happened next occurred so rapidly there wouldn't have been time to fire the throwers even if it had been safe to do so. With an abrupt gesture, the demon's arm came up and swirled the mist to her as if closing a door around her. It billowed wide, encased Egon, and yanked him toward her off his feet, making him stumble and nearly fall, dropping his P.K.E. meter as he fought to regain his balance, windmilling his arms. The mist came up behind him even as Peter blurted a screeched, "Egon!" Then it thickened around him and the demon just as Winston let off a quick burst of proton power at the entity. The mist repelled it, as if it was really a force field, bouncing it back at Winston and forcing him to fling himself flat on the pavement with a cry of alarm. Then, as Ray yelled at Winston to cease firing for fear of hitting Egon, and the black man sprang to his feet, the mist thinned, stretched out, dwindled down to spotty patches, leaving nothing behind but the street. Of Egon and the entity there was not a trace.

Peter and Eddie screamed the physicist's name in perfect unison, and all four of them thundered to the place where he had last stood. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it," Peter groaned, feeling his stomach tighten with rage and worry. "I knew he was gonna get into major trouble, but would he listen to me? No! Egon, you answer me right now or I'm gonna take your copy of Tobin's Spirit Guide and feed it to a shredder!" Nothing happened, nothing moved but the people across the street, emerging uneasily from their concealment, buzzing with excitement, a few scattered words reaching the Ghostbusters.

"Where is he?" Eddie asked, his face stricken, as Ray took hasty P.K.E. readings. The singer poked his hands around in midair as if Egon were still present, simply invisible, and ran his foot over the place where the female entity had stood, prodding the concrete with his toe.

"I don't know," Ray replied fretfully. "The mist cloaked some kind of dimensional gateway. I'm getting readings from it. I think she just hid in it before, but this time she opened it up--and took Egon through. It was pretty powerful. See." He held up the meter to reveal it still reacting more loudly than it would if the demon had simply gone away.

Peter stood rigid as a stone, staring at the place where Egon had vanished, then he jumped ahead, pounced, and came up holding the P.K.E. meter Egon had dropped. The hand grip was still warm from Egon's clasp. Peter shivered and shut the device down, stowing it in his pocket to leave his hands free. "Damn it, Egon," he muttered under his breath. "Don't do this to us."

"Bottom line, Ray," said Winston urgently. "How do we get him back?"

Peter turned to Ray expectantly, still shocked by the suddenness of Egon's disappearance. Before Ray could answer, Eddie positioned himself in the center of the ghost's space, opened his mouth, and began to sing. Peter gulped and bit back a hasty comment, realizing if anything could lure the spirit back it would be Eddie's music. The crowd edged closer, caught up in the melody in spite of the shock of Egon's abrupt disappearance, although they didn't quite have the nerve to cross the street.

Nothing else happened.

Peter looked around in the futile hope the demon and Egon had merely shifted down the block. Nothing. He said with forced brightness, "I bet she brings him right back when she finds out he can't sing."

"Egon can sing," Ray objected without looking up from his busy meter as if Peter had somehow insulted their friend.

"Yeah, in the shower," Winston pointed out. "He's no Eddie. Most people aren't. Come on, Ray. The reason she didn't snatch Eddie was because he was already taken--he's married to Whitney. She was prepared to listen from afar. But then she saw Egon, and you know how much they look alike."

"Looking alike doesn't mean Egon can sing like Eddie," Peter said. "She's gonna be disappointed. She'll dump him back here any minute now." He looked around, not believing it for a minute. When she found out Egon could sing no better than any ordinary mortal, she might be angry and believe she had been tricked. An angry demon was nothing to mess with. She might not hurt Egon, but there was no guarantee she'd return him either. The psychologist turned to Ray, who was staring in concern at the place where Egon had vanished. "Okay, Ray. You're the expert on crossing into other dimensions. You whipped up a gadget that took us right over after Egon when he was shifted into the Netherworld. You even knew right away it was the Netherworld. What have you got this time, you boy genius you?"

Ray came alert immediately and bent his auburn head over the P.K.E. meter once more. By this time the people across the street had decided the weird events were over, at least for the moment, and had ventured close enough to the singer to confirm what their ears had told them, that he was, in fact Eddie Plummer. The more bold of them encircled him and started asking for autographs.

"Hey, hey, folks, break it up," Winston said, wading into the group like a bouncer at an exclusive club. "Eddie would like nothing more than to sign autographs, but we're in the middle of a crisis here. Egon's missing, and if you look close at Eddie, you'll realize he and Egon are related. Give the guy a break, will you?" As if to prove his point, he shifted his thrower in his hand. He would never use it on innocent people, but they took the point and withdrew across the street again.

Peter joined Ray and braced his elbow against the shorter man's shoulder, staring down at the meter with him while Ray twisted dials, then passed the device to Peter while he whipped out a pocket calculator and entered figures into it. His mouth was drawn tight in concentration as he worked. When he looked up, he was concerned but there was a slightly more positive look to his face than there had been before.

"You know something, don't you?" Peter encouraged him, causing Eddie and Winston to crowd closer expectantly.

"Well, yeah," Ray admitted. "It looks like she took him to the Netherworld. I think she really is a demon and now that I've got all these new readings and the gateway readings and all, I might even be able to identify her."

"And we can go over there after Egon?" Peter persisted, wanting to have it clear in his mind. When Egon had been shifted before, they'd known he was all right, just...somewhere else. This time there was a lot more urgency to the rescue. "Because once she gets him singing, she's not gonna be very happy." He didn't look very happy himself.

"Maybe she'll like his singing," Ray ventured doubtfully, his shoulders slumping.

"Maybe she wants more than that," Peter said in an attempt to raise Ray's spirits. "Maybe she figures Egon can't sing but it's in the genes or something and she wants him to help her make a baby Egon to grow up to be like Eddie."

"Egon would never--" Ray began hotly.

"Not if he had a choice," Peter said, a wicked gleam in his eye. He doubted the demon had any such intentions but if it distracted Ray from the really nasty things she might choose to do to him when she heard him sing, that was what mattered. Peter could deal with the things his imagination suggested might happen to Egon, but it was Ray who would make it possible for them to go after the blond and for that he needed to think clearly. "But who knows. She'll give him some mystic Netherworld love potion and turn him into her love slave. We'd better hurry and get him back before he has to face a fate worse than death."

"And I'm coming with you," Eddie insisted. "Egon's my cousin and he's missing because of me. I know how to use a thrower and a P.K.E. meter. Besides," he added more lightly, "You wouldn't leave me alone with them." His arm swept out, encompassing the groupies across the street. "You could call Janine and have her come in to operate the equipment."

"He does have a point," Peter concurred. He wouldn't take a total amateur into the Netherworld, but Eddie knew how to use a P.K.E. meter and had worn a thrower before. He even possessed a degree in physics although he'd given up science for music some years back. Peter's rule of thumb in situations like this was: would it help Egon to have him along? He decided it would. Enough said. Besides, Janine had a right to know what had happened. It was only fair their secretary be told right away.

So as soon as they entered the building Peter dialed Janine's number. He hated the thought of the news he had to give her, but Janine would insist on being told; she loved Egon too. But telling her wasn't an option this time. The phone rang and rang, and Janine didn't answer.

"We can try again later," Peter decided as he replaced the receiver in its cradle. "Until then we'll have to work out another way to get there."

They retreated to the lab where Ray at once hauled out the molecular phase amplifier while Winston went to the computer and set to work with Ray's new readings, checking out the Tobin program again. Winston was pretty good with computers. He entered the new information and asked the program to check the determined parameters against existing demons, something Egon would have gotten around to as new readings had been taken. He explained to Eddie and Peter what he was doing as he sat back to see what the computer would dig up for them. "Anything that fits what we already know should come up in a minute or two," he said. "It might be a long list."

"I hope you put in that the demon's female and likes music," Peter said.

"Goes without saying m'man," Winston replied. He was tense with anticipation, but his worry for Egon didn't interfere with what needed to be done. At times like this, Winston's Vietnam experience stood him in good stead. When a situation was going really bad, you still had to carry on and do what needed to be done, or matters only got worse.

The computer didn't let them down. It produced a list of three names right away. Winston crowed with triumph and gestured Peter and Eddie over. "We've got three possibilities," he said. "Not so bad as you'd think."

"We might have more," Peter said. "Because not every entity's in Tobin's after all. But this is good. It gives us more of an idea what we're up against. Let's see that list."

Winston printed out three copies of the list. He didn't disturb Ray, who had ventured outside again to take more readings and returned immediately to bend over the molecular phase amplifier. Peter took his copy of the list and read it with interest, trying not to think of what might be happening to Egon at this very minute. If he didn't conceptualize it, it wouldn't happen. It was like that fate thing they'd been thinking about--was it only an hour or so ago? Better to think of the demons on the list. He read the first name aloud.

"Astarine."

"Sounds like a kid's pony," muttered Eddie without looking up from his own sheet.

Peter, whose childhood had included nothing so affluent as his own pony, had to take Eddie's word for that. "Abagar," he said, reading the second name. "Sounds like some kind of medicine. Athaliaroth. Even worse. I can barely pronounce it. So these are the Netherworld's music lovers?"

"They're female demons," Winston put in. He'd hauled over Tobin's Spirit Guide and was paging through it. "They all live in the Netherworld and they all are into music."

"And do we get the 'B' list next?" Peter persisted.

"A lot of demons' names start with A," said Ray without looking up. "There was Arzun, after all, and there's Astaroth and Agaliarept, and a bunch of others. I've heard of Athaliaroth. I don't think that's who we've got. She's pretty powerful and pretty egotistical and I can't see her caught up in Eddie's music like that. She wouldn't have hesitated because Eddie was married, either."

"So we've got someone who's cruising the singles scene?" Peter asked. "What about our other contenders. Abagar and, what was the other one's name?"

"Astarine," Eddie reminded him.

"I'd put money on that one," Winston said, turning a page. "Because it says she presents herself as a young girl sometimes to deceive mortals. Oh man," he added in considerable dismay.

"I don't like the sound of that, Winston," Peter chided him. "What did you find?"

"It says she assumes the appearance of a human to lure mortals away and they are never seen again."

"Well, Egon's gonna be seen again if we have to go into the Netherworld and drag him out by the hair," Peter insisted, bracing his feet as he stood there, full of determination.

"It's my fault," said the singer, his face reflecting his unhappiness. "I'll offer to go in Egon's place."

"No you won't," said Ray without looking up. "Not when you've got a wife and baby. We can't ask that of you." He looked like he wanted to ask it, and Peter wanted to ask it, too, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it, even for Egon. Eddie hadn't chosen to have a demon fall for his music. He was as much an innocent victim as Egon, maybe even more so because Egon had known what he was letting himself in for, and Eddie hadn't even guessed the entity was other than a human teen until last night. Under normal circumstances Peter would have happily considered trading anyone for Egon, even an icon like Eddie, but what held him back had nothing to do with his desire to rescue his oldest friend. It had to do with the way Egon himself would react to the thought of sacrificing his cousin to a demon in order to guarantee Egon's return.

"Yeah," Peter said, hoping his reluctance to decline Eddie's offer didn't show up in his voice as much as he thought it did. "We're Ghostbusters. This is the kind of thing we signed up for. We don't turn the general public over to ghosts and demons even when--"

"Even when it's Egon's life on the line," Eddie said sadly. "Believe me, Peter, I know how close you guys are to Egon, and I appreciate what you're saying. I'm kicking myself for coming here and I still think I should make the offer. If nothing else it would lure her back here, because by now she's probably found out Egon can't sing."

Peter heaved a near-inaudible sigh, remembering only that morning how he'd passed the bathroom and heard Egon singing in the shower, his bass voice raised in joyful if not entirely melodious song. The four of them sometimes sang together, but even though Peter pretended he had a great voice, he knew he didn't. Egon's was a little better than his, but it was an amateur voice and, of the four of them, only Winston could really be considered a decent singer, even though he couldn't come close to Eddie's abilities.

"No, we can't switch you for Egon," Ray said, as if he, too, were regretful about it although he couldn't put someone at risk who wasn't up to it either. "Besides, don't forget Egon's wearing his pack and he probably knows more about the Netherworld than any human except maybe that old guy Hieronymous we met over there last time. Egon might be able to get himself home without trouble."

As if to prove it, the lab began to fill with mist. But when it cleared away, only the entity stood there, looking small and determined in her teenaged persona. Of Egon Spengler there was no trace.

Egon had expected a confrontation when he went face to face with the entity, but he hadn't expected what did happen. The mist came around him suddenly, thickening so fast that he couldn't even see her as he struggled against the grip of a powerful arm. No longer did it feel he'd been grabbed by a teenaged girl. There were huge, hard scales under his digging fingers as he tried to undo her grip. He couldn't manage to pry one gigantic finger away before the mist cleared and he found himself in a strange room that looked as if it had been carved from solid rock, a high, arched ceiling like that of a gothic cathedral vanishing into shadows high above his head. Passageways led off the main chamber in several different directions, gaping openings lit with flaming torches mounted in sconces along the walls. He didn't recognize this particular location but the whole feel of the place, the cold, thin air with the smell he couldn't define but would never forget, told him he was once again in the Netherworld.

The being who held him now more closely resembled a traditional demon, at least a demon of the female persuasion. She was faintly blue, close to seven feet tall, with a bush of thick black hair springing from her head and cascading in waves down nearly to her waist between the great wings that had sprung into being between her shoulder blades. Her face was very human, and not unlike that of the groupie Eddie had seen except to age until it might, were it not for the blue cast to her flesh and the horns that curved up from her temples, have resembled that of a woman in her mid-thirties. He could tell from her eyes that she had been around a lot longer than that. Those beings who lived extended livespans that made them nearly immortal all took on a look that Egon would have recognized even if its wearer appeared a normal human being. It was an expression of someone who has seen vast vistas, known silences longer than the human lifespan, someone whose perspective has shifted and whose purposes might not easily be grasped by ordinary, ephemeral human beings. Egon had seen that selfsame look in the eyes of Tolay when the great demon had imprisoned him in his keep, behind the malicious rage in the demon's face. He saw it now in the face of the demon who grasped his wrist so tightly with gigantic fingers he knew there would be bruises where each finger dug in.

As if she realized the grip hurt him, she let him go, and Egon automatically took a step backward, looking around. He didn't reach for his thrower; the longer he ignored it, the longer she might do the same, and he might well need it later. Carefully he tried not to conceptualize the thought of a weapon on his back, bursting into speech immediately in hopes of distracting her from it.

"Why have you brought me here?"

She smiled, looking down at him in the way one studies a box of chocolates before making a selection, trying to decide which one had a caramel center and which a cream. Then she reached down and fluffed his hair. Her hand was as big as a platter and the gesture, although not intended as a blow, rocked Egon back on his heels and made his neck ache.

"I could not have the other one," she said regretfully. "Not and have him whole, body and soul."

Egon didn't like the sound of that. "Why not? Because he's married? Though marriage may be a legal institution, one I have not attained, it does not mean I am free."

She considered that, and suddenly he felt an odd tickle inside his head as if she were taking his thoughts to examine. At once he tried to block her off, to insert a mental barricade, structuring his thoughts and concentrating with all his strength on the periodic table, going through the list of elements and reciting everything he knew about them. It was something he could do without much in the way of conscious effort, but when he dwelt on it, it blocked out other thoughts. Whether it would stand up to the probings of a demon was another matter.

She muttered something under her breath and grasped Egon's wrist, dragging him across the vast, echoing room and leading him into a smaller antechamber, where banked candles burned before a giant poster of Eddie that had been sealed in a transparent substance rather like plastic and mounted on the wall. Near it, incongruous in this place, was a tape player of the variety generally called 'ghetto blasters'. Pushing a button on it, she smiled when Eddie's recorded voice began to sing his most famous hit, Leftover Souls. A demon with a crush on a singer was a bizarre phenomenon, but Egon was very careful to say nothing to mock her obsession. He knew if his hair was changed and his glasses removed he and Eddie might well be taken for brothers, almost twins. Eddie's spiky hair, his more casual body language and his whole persona came across as very different from Egon's aspect, the flip of his hair and the round, red glasses, so that people who didn't know there was a connection rarely saw it. Even Peter hadn't picked up on it, and he knew Egon better than anyone. Yet the demon had seen it at a glance. Of course she had also seen Eddie and Egon standing virtually side by side.

"You are his kin," she said now as if she would brook no denial.

"Yes, we're first cousins," Egon replied levelly.

"Then you shall stay here with me, sing for me, and be him for me," she said. "If I cannot have him, I will have you instead. And don't think your foolish attempt to block my probe was successful. I saw there is no one permanent in your life. There is the woman with the red hair and you care for her deeply but not quite in the way that Eddie cares for Whitney, not yet. There are your friends, of course, and you also care for them very deeply, as if they were kin, even more than you care for your blood kin, for Eddie, but that is different, for they cannot give you what I can."

Egon elected not to ask what she meant; he was positive he would not like the answer. He said instead, "You've chosen to overlook one very important factor."

"And that is?" Scorn touched her face as if she doubted he could say anything that would make her alter her decision.

"I can't sing."

"You can sing. I saw it in your mind, you and your friends performing at a school."

"That was something Peter dreamed up. He thinks he can sing. He's wrong but we only tell him so when he tries it. I can sing to a degree, but not like Eddie, only as an amateur." He gestured at the poster on the stone wall. "I'm sure you believe no one sings like Eddie."

"Sing now. I will hear you and I will judge. His blood is in you; there will be something in common. And if you cannot sing well enough to soothe me, I will mate with you and your son will sing for me; perhaps the power passes through the generations."

Egon was careful not to let his utter distaste for the idea show on his face. Offending the lady would most likely only get him killed and leave no one for her to imprison but Eddie himself. Egon didn't want to risk his cousin's life, but he could never mate with this huge creature; the thought was repellant and she was repugnant to him.

"Sing!" she insisted. "Sing Leftover Souls."

"Eddie's part is a baritone part, and I sing bass," Egon explained, but he saw no alternative. He began to sing.

After only a few bars, she put up her hand. "Stop. Stop. It is not unpleasant, but it is not Eddie. His whole soul is musical. Your soul is given to science, and it is not the same. It is hardly worth stealing you, because I could sing as well myself. I must have Eddie."

"No. He belongs to Whitney, and to all his fans, not just to you." He knew that argument was specious, for obsessive collectors didn't care about such things, only about owning what they cherished, even if they could not display what they had obtained illegally. With the demon it was a little different, because she could show off her captive to her fellow demons, who would certainly understand the possession of a human slave.

"I care nothing for that," she spat. "You cannot replace him. Your voice is average. It is, as I said, not unpleasant, but neither is it remarkable. It does not move me."

"A child of mine would most likely inherit a voice like mine, rather than Eddie's. He may get his singing talent from his mother's side of the family, because no other Spengler can sing as well as he does."

"An interesting point. Of course it is more than music that draws me to him, and you have the look of him." She eyed him intently and Egon was alarmed to see an element of lust in her eyes. "Take off your glasses."

Egon did. There was no point in arguing about it. He folded them carefully and put them into his jumpsuit's breast pocket then stood squinting up at her. He couldn't read her expression as well without his glasses, and that was a disadvantage but he was reluctant to move closer to her.

Very gently she rearranged his hair, stirring it, muttering to herself when it tended to spring back into place, finally forcing it to a new style, running her fingers through it, and twirling a lock around the talon on one thick finger. "Remove that," she said, pointing to his jumpsuit.

Egon didn't like this at all. If he took off the jumpsuit he'd have to remove his pack first, and she'd be sure to notice it, remark upon it, and take it. "Why?" he demanded.

"Because Eddie does not wear such things." She smiled suddenly; even without his glasses Egon could see the smile and the pointed fangs that filled her mouth. With her teeth and claws, she could shred the jumpsuit and leave him without it. Better to cooperate, up to a point. Or was this the time to attack. He stepped a little away from her, trying to look as if he had done it for privacy. She let him go--what harm was there in it?--she was between him and the entry to the alcove, and there was nowhere for him to run.

Egon put his hand to the strap that fastened his proton pack across his stomach, watching her out of the corner of his eye to see if she was paying close attention to him. Instead she was listening to the music, her eyes on Eddie's poster, but she was also in the middle of the doorway arch, completely blocking his escape route.

There was nothing for it. Egon grabbed the thrower and fired, knowing he had a better chance, since he was wearing the atomic destabilizer, than he would have with a standard thrower. It would be easier with at least one other proton pack to back him and help him force her destabilized form into the trap, but he was here alone and couldn't risk waiting.

The beam struck her full in the chest at maximum power, destabilizing her physical form and turning her, at least for the moment, into an ectoplasmic state that would be easier to contain. He whipped out the ghost trap on his pack and flung it toward her one handed, a difficult process since she fought the stream, bucking and pitching against the power of the destabilizer. Light flickered and danced around them and the air rang with the sound of her angry bellows. If she had allies, they would come quickly.

The destabilizer beam alone wasn't enough to hold her. Still in her altered form, she broke free of the energy stream and zipped high, toward the ceiling of the main room. Egon followed her out of Eddie's shrine, reeling in the trap behind him automatically and returning it to his pack while he looked around for an escape tunnel, somewhere she wouldn't follow him. He knew the guys would figure out where he was eventually; Ray's readings would identify the Netherworld and it would not be difficult for the other three to come in after him and bring him out, as they had done when Tolay had snatched him.

Noticing a narrow gap in the stone, one that wasn't lit with flaming torches, he ducked into it quickly, hurrying down the cramped tunnel that was too small to admit her in her present shape. Snatching a small flashlight from his belt, he turned it on and shone it before him. Retreating into a dead end would only buy him time until the guys showed up, but Ray wouldn't need as much time as he had before; he knew how to manage the equipment. It wouldn't be long before rescue came; he had only to stall.

"You think they will find you here?" The words echoed around him and he knew she had managed to read his mind without giving herself away this time. "They will not find you here because you will not be here." Suddenly he felt himself yanked to a stop as if he had been gripped with invisible hands. He shot backward from the tunnel like a cork from a bottle and landed hard on his backside in the middle of the huge central chamber. Already resuming her physical solidity, the demon stood above him, denuding him of his pack in one swift movement. "I should have done this immediately," she said aloud. "But I thought it would amuse you to plot against me, to believe you still had hope." The pack and modified thrower drifted away to float into Eddie's shrine, and the demon bent over Egon, doing what he'd imagined before as if she had taken that idea from his mind as well, shredding his jumpsuit into long, tattered strips and yanking them away. Free of it, Egon wore his streetclothes, a shirt and pants held up by suspenders, and his boots.

He made a quick grab for the falling pieces of his blue jumpsuit, trying to retrieve his glasses, but she did something that made them pop out of the falling fabric and drift over to her. "You are far prettier without them," she told him.

"Being 'pretty' has never been a particular goal of mine, but I prefer to see clearly," Egon replied, stretching out an expectant hand toward her. "Give them to me."

"And if I don't? What will you do then? Blast me without your weapon? I know of you Ghostbusters. All of us here know of you and your three allies. Should I squash you like a bug none of my fellow demons would care. But I will not do that," she added quickly as Egon composed his features and faced her without a display of the fear he couldn't help feeling. "You are pretty, to my way of thinking, and you are of Eddie's blood. I do not wish to kill you. No, I have a better plan."

"What is it about Eddie that interests you?" Egon asked, more to keep her talking than anything.

"The beauty of him," she said at once, her voice softening. "The beauty of the music, the pure, esthetic joy on his face when he sings. To see that selfsame look on your face I would dare much, since you are now mine. But time is passing and your friends may be more clever than I believe them. I do not want them to find you." She reached down with a taloned hand and gathered up the shreds of his jumpsuit, wadding them up into a ball and tucking them into a pouch she wore on a strap over one arm, the 'purse' she had carried when in her human groupie form. "Come, pretty one," she said, drawing him to her with the same power that had levitated his proton pack away from him, and fit him into the curve of her arm. Bending over him, she trailed her fingers down his cheek, claws withdrawn just enough to keep from wounding him seriously, but one talon drew blood on his forehead just below his scalp line. Amused, she raised a scrap of fabric and pressed it against the slight wound. "Hold that in place," she said and guided his hand to keep it there. Then, before he realized what she meant, she called fog to her, swirled it around her like a villain in a bad melodrama and suddenly they were somewhere else.

Without his glasses, Egon could not make much of his new prison, but it looked like a dusty, abandoned room in a building, a basement, an inner room in a warehouse, without windows. Light came in from a partially open door on the opposite wall, but it was filtered and diffused as if it came from a low-watt bulb around a corner.

The demon gestured, produced a length of chain and wrapped it around Egon's ankle, securing it to a pipe that protruded from the wall. She tugged the chain a few times to make certain it was secure, then she drew back to the opposite side of the room. "I find a certain amusement in the location of this prison," she said. Snatching the cloth from the cut on his forehead, she vanished into her cloud of mist, leaving him trapped and alone, unable to see his prison clearly.

Egon raised his voice and called for help.

His voice echoed through the room in a hollow way that suggested he was underground. No one came.

"Where is he?" Peter cried, launching himself at the demon only to jerk to a stop when Winston and Ray each grabbed an arm to keep him from doing something he'd regret. "Where's Egon?"

The girl looked at him scornfully with her old eyes. "You think it would be that easy? Harm me and you will never know. He told me you could come after him into the Netherworld. So I didn't leave him there but somewhere else, a place only I know. I have come to offer you a choice."

"What kind of choice?" Winston demanded suspiciously. He cast an alarmed look at Ray, who was busy taking readings. "Ray? Can you find Egon?"

"Not if he's not in the Netherworld," Ray replied. "There's not enough of a reading to determine where he is instead; I can't read a gateway from simple residuals. There are all kinds of alternate worlds like the Netherworld, and demons can cross into a lot of them. She's definitely a demon."

"I am the demon Astarine," the 'groupie' informed them. "And I am not such a fool as the ones you usually bust. I have made a plan. First, take this." She held out something to Peter, who recognized Egon's glasses and snatched them from her hand.

"What have you done to him?" he demanded hotly, his fingers curling protectively around the spectacles. "If you've hurt him--"

"You will do precisely what?" she asked with great scorn. "You cannot harm me for I alone know where to find him. If you kill me, he will never come home." She reached into her purse. It was incongruous to picture a demon with a purse, but in her human form it seemed to belong. This time she took out a scrap of cloth the color of Egon's jumpsuit and flung it at Ray, who nearly dropped the P.K.E. meter in his attempt to catch it. When his fingers clutched it, he gasped, eyes widening in horror.

"It's part of Egon's jumpsuit," he said, his eyes seeking Peter's. "It's got blood on it."

Peter lunged, snatched it from Ray's hand, and frowned. "Not very much blood," he said, casting an accusing glance at the demon as if to challenge her, to prove she was simply manipulating them with evidence of a slight wound. "What did you do to him?"

In answer, she displayed one hand, letting it shift to a more demon-like appearance, revealing strong, curving fingers, each tipped with two-inch claws. She curled her hand, the light catching the talons, then she let them melt away into a teenager's hand again.

Peter would have gone for her, but Winston caught his arm and held him although Peter struggled fiercely against the grip. "Don't, man," Winston cautioned. "It's what she wants, to make us crazy, to push us. She'll only trash you and that won't help Egon." Reluctantly Peter subsided, even though it would take very little to make him go for her.

Eddie surged closer. "What do you want?" he asked simply.

"You," she said. "I will give you twenty-four hours to make the decision. In that time I will not kill Egon. I will not necessarily leave him alone, but I will make certain he lives. In that time you must decide if you will come to stay with me, to sing for me, to bring beauty into my life. If you agree, your cousin will go free. If you refuse, I will take him in your place. He cannot sing like you but he has your blood and your spirit and I could come to enjoy him. I would prefer not to take second best, but I will do so, and you will go back to Whitney and the child you have all been so careful not to mention, knowing your cousin will be my slave for the rest of his life. He is a proud and stubborn man; he may fight me, he may even die. That will be on your head, and when he is gone, I can always come after the babe. He is more likely to have your gift, your son and Whitney's. I can take him while he is still young enough to mold. This is what may happen if you say no. Egon will stay with me, and when he dies, I will have your boy. But if you come with me, I will revere you and honor you and all who hear you will find beauty in your voice."

Eddie stared at her, stricken. "That's not much of a choice. My son and my cousin for me. If I let you take me with you right now, could you could give me your word, a word I can trust, that you'll return Egon and that you will never attempt to harm Cy?"

"Wait a minute, Eddie." Peter pulled free of Winston's grip and grabbed for Eddie before the demon could reply. "Don't make any promises yet. First of all, you can't trust her to keep her word. People who make this kind of deal aren't exactly full of honor. Second, she gave you twenty-four hours. Use it. Let us use it. She's stacked the deck pretty good, but that doesn't mean we have to let her win. Take the time. Consider every angle. She respects you enough for that."

Eddie looked doubtful, as if to delay was to endanger his small son immediately. His face, so like Egon's, wore the agony of the choice he would be forced to make, a bargain he would yield to because he had no option he could live with, but one that would end by destroying his soul. Peter hoped he never had to see that look on Egon's face, or on any other person's. He stretched out his hand and clapped Eddie on the shoulder. "I know she's got you in a double bind," he said, "But don't write us off so easily. And you." He spun around and faced the demon Astarine, his face full of fire and ice. "Think what you're bargaining for. You want Eddie, but you'd be caging a bird, and caged birds don't sing as clearly as when they're free. Eddie sings because the music has to come out, but do you think it will come out as pure and strong if you trick him, manipulate him, strip him of his freedom, and take him away from everything he loves?" He felt rather than saw Eddie flinch beside him and was conscious of Ray coming up beside the singer and patting his arm. It wasn't real consolation, but at least it was a human touch, something Astarine meant to steal from Eddie for all time.

"I will shower him with gifts," Astarine insisted coldly, glaring at Peter. "I will make him a prince of the Netherworld, granting his every wish."

"Yeah, his every wish except the most important ones," Peter claimed with scorn. "His wife. His son. His freedom."

"I will bring them to him."

"Threaten that and I won't go," Eddie said fiercely. He turned to face the Ghostbusters, his eyes full of sorrow and regret. "Guys, I'm sorry, but I can't buy Egon's freedom with Whitney and Cy's. I just can't."

"I know, Eddie," Ray said sadly. "Don't worry. We'll stop her."

"You think you can?" huffed the demon, her lip curling contemptuously.

"We can blast her right now," Ray said, yanking his thrower free and aiming it at the demon, adjusting it quickly. His whole body radiated pain, knowing that to blast Astarine might condemn Egon to a lifetime imprisonment in a far dimension where they could never find him. If they did it, they'd save Eddie, Whitney and their child, but Egon might be lost forever.

Might, Peter thought. Egon might be lost. But if they didn't blast her, three people would be lost, and the world would lose the talent, the gift of song that was Eddie. It was an impossible choice, especially when Egon was so valuable to Peter and the others that the thought of choosing to lose him in another dimension hurt all the way to the soul, but it was the choice Egon himself would make. Peter knew he couldn't free Egon at the cost of his honor, his friends' honor, and the lives of other people who mattered to the physicist. He grabbed for his thrower and leveled it at Astarine, his heart breaking as he pushed the trigger and the proton stream lanced out at the smirking demon.

Mist surrounded her, bouncing the streams back at the Ghostbusters, forcing them to power down. She vanished into the mist, her words echoing through it as it dispersed. "Twenty-four hours," she said, the threat resounding through the lab. "Make your choice." One of the windows shattered as the energy beam caught it, glass exploding outward, another stream ran across the ceiling leaving a charred streak behind it, and then there was only silence, a heavy, leaden quiet, as they stood looking at each other. Peter heaved a sigh that shook him down to his boots and murmured a heartfelt oath.

Shaking with reaction, Eddie collapsed into the nearest chair, his hands raking through his hair. "I'll have to go with her," he said, his face bleak and full of despair. "I can't risk Whitney and Cy and allow Egon to be imprisoned in my place."

"You can't go," Ray said in a small, despairing voice. "She won't keep her word. She isn't capable of it."

"Maybe Pete can get to her," Winston offered, his expression revealing how little faith he had in the idea. "Pete can fast talk with the best of 'em. She might not be honorable, but she's got emotions, and Peter isn't a psychologist for nothing. What do you think, Peter? Can you get to her? Because I think there's a part of her that can be reached."

"Yeah, whichever part is least resistant to a thrower," Peter said glumly. "You want me to psychoanalyse her, Zed? It'd be like trying to reason with a tsunami right before it hits the beach. Sure, we can blast her, if we're quick and do it when she's not expecting it, but if she's got one second's warning she can put up her forcefield and bounce the streams right back at us. And if we trap her, we lose Egon forever."

Ray drew a shaky breath. "It's what Egon would tell us to do, Peter. And I think we're all, well, underestimating him."

"He's hurt, he's nearly blind without his glasses and he's stuck in another dimension where we can't follow him because we don't know where it is," Peter said, depressed at the little list he'd just compiled. "No matter what happens, I don't think she's gonna give him back."

"She will," Eddie persisted, his face very white. "I'll insist on it. I'll insist on having Egon home before I go with her." His heart was breaking as he said the words, but he wasn't capable of buying his freedom at the cost of his cousin's life or his son's any more than Egon would have bought his own life at that price.

"She's got one advantage," Winston said, slamming his fists down on the table top in frustration. "The rest of us have our limits, our ethics. When you don't have any ethics, you've got an edge over people who do."

"I won't believe that," cried Ray stubbornly. "I won't look at ethics as a disadvantage, no matter what you say. We've got twenty-four hours. If we can't figure out how to blast Astarine in that time or how to make her change her mind on this deal, then we don't deserve to be called Ghostbusters. We need to find out more about Astarine, and we need to check out the Netherworld because we've only got her word Egon isn't there. We can't all go, though, since we can't reach Janine to come in and operate the device, and even if we could, taking Eddie there is probably a stupid idea. Two of us will go and the other will stay with Eddie, because we have to keep guard on him." His mouth traced a tight line across his usually-goodnatured face. "This is war. She can't manipulate us like this."

"I'm with Ray," Winston agreed. "But I don't think she's beyond manipulation either. Because there's a part of her that loves beauty. She might be utterly self-centered but something in her drew her to Eddie, and we still might be able to reach that part of her."

"Yeah, but she's crazy, Winston," Peter argued. "Crazy and powerful and used to getting her way where humans are concerned. The only reason we're getting even this much of a deal is because she likes Eddie."

"She's got a funny way of showing it," Eddie muttered unhappily, his shoulders drooping. "There's no way I can win in her deal."

"No, but she always believed she'd possess you so she thinks this is being fair. She can manipulate everything about you but your feelings, so she sets up a deal to make it look like you've got a choice. Okay, so it's not a good choice any way you slice it, but she can convince herself she was generous to you and feel good about herself. Even demons need to do that, I bet. I tried to get her to see that it wouldn't be the same if you were here prisoner--because she can't make you sing. Well, there are ways she can convince you pretty good, but we won't go into those right now because they're nasty ways. But she can't make you sing with your heart in it. I didn't want to push too hard because I was afraid she'd decide she could take Cy, raise him so he didn't know anything different and let him sing for her. She's a demon. She's gonna be around a hundred years from now; she can afford to wait. So I toned down that kind of argument."

What little color that was left in Eddie's face fled it in fright. "Cy! I've gotta call Whitney and make sure he's all right."

"Easy, easy," Peter said, his hand descending on the singer's shoulder. "Call her and you'll only scare her. We've got twenty-four hours. Astarine has to stick to that or the deal's null and void, right, Ray?"

"Right," agreed the occultist, his nose buried in Tobin. "Demons have to stick to the letter of the contract they offer or it's nullified. They try to be tricky, use words that conceal the true purpose, but in this case, the one thing that's clear is that she gave you a day. She can't grab you until that day's up, she can't hurt Egon, wherever he is, or your family either."

"She already did," Peter reminded him, glancing over at the bloodstained scrap of cloth that lay on the table not far from Winston's hand.

At the reminder, Zeddemore picked it up and squinted at it thoughtfully. He was taut and angry, ready to battle anyone who stood in the way of rescuing Egon, so Peter was willing to accept his judgment when he said, "I think this is just from a scratch or cut. Look at it; it's like Egon used this to wipe the blood away. The cloth's not saturated. And it's only in the middle. Egon might have a few scrapes but I bet he's in one piece and thinking."

"Planning for how to get away or what to do when we come after him," Ray said sturdily. "I just know he is. She said he wasn't dead; I think I'd know if he was dead. The world would be different if Egon were never coming back. I'm sure he's okay. She said she wouldn't kill him for twenty-four hours. She was direct about that. You know, I bet part of what she likes about Eddie is his looks. And Egon looks just like him."

Eddie's mouth fell open in horror. "You mean she's lusting after me?" he blurted out, appalled and disgusted.

"Hey," said Peter quickly, "a lot of your fans do, and don't tell me you don't know it. A lot of my fans lust after me after all. There's perks in being famous."

"Peter!" chided Winston, but Peter smiled faintly because he'd made Eddie's tensed shoulders ease slightly with the comment. Just that way did Egon's tensions eased with teasing from Peter. The psychologist wondered momentarily if they could convince Astarine she had the wrong cousin, but there wasn't much hope in that if she'd already heard Egon sing, even if they could explain away the hair.

"Okay, bottom line time," Peter said. "We've gotta work this out. If Ray's right and she'll hold off for twenty-four hours, then we've got time to check out the Netherworld. If we go in down there in the street, we should come out not too far from where she took Egon, right, Ray?"

"Right," agreed Ray, his enthusiasm returning the way it always did when he had a plan. "We would have found Egon a lot quicker the other time if Tolay hadn't moved him. Because the Netherworld's the size of the known universe and we found him and got him out of Tolay's keep in under an hour. If a demon opens a gate, the resonances of that linger and when we use the amplifier we ride the same currents. We'd go straight to where she took him. That's what we've got to do. I'll boost a P.K.E. meter set to Egon's biorhythms and we'll be able to tell if he's in the immediate vicinity."

"Will it tell if he's in the Netherworld at all?" Eddie asked doubtfully.

"No," Ray replied. "It wouldn't have that strong a range even if Egon were a class eleven mega-specter. But it'll tell us if he's anywhere in the immediate area, and we can take an hour to hunt around and extend the range. I'll have to go because I know the way the meter works best and I'll need somebody with me because going over there might alert her if she's still there. But I don't want all three of us to go because that would leave Eddie unprotected and the last thing we can do is risk him over there."

"I'm ready to go. Just give me a pack and thrower," Eddie insisted, looking as determined as ever Egon did. "Let's try calling Janine again. If she was out on a date she might be back by now."

"You can't, pal," Peter told him, clapping his hand on Eddie's shoulder. "You go and you're making it easy for Astarine, and the last thing I want to do for that bitch is make anything easy for her. She took Egon, and she's threatening your baby. She doesn't get any help from us."

"Peter, you stay with Eddie," Ray decided.

Peter didn't want to. Egon was over there somewhere, trapped and possibly injured, certainly limited by his myopia without his glasses. He'd hated being prisoner over there before and Peter remembered the bad dreams he'd had for weeks after his return. The thought of Egon in danger made Peter ready to charge in and take out anyone in his path. And the thought of Ray and Winston risking the same danger without him to back them bothered him too. He knew if anything happened to them and he wasn't there to help them, he'd feel it for the rest of his life, even if that was an illogical response. One of them had to stay with Eddie, and Peter suspected Ray thought his temper was too precarious to risk him over there. But he hated it. Egon was his oldest friend, the first real friend he'd ever had in his life, and never mind the logic but he needed to help find him.

"Come on, Pete," Winston urged as if he knew the inner struggle Peter was waging. "You'd go off half cocked over there and you know it. Besides we can't risk leaving Eddie alone. Even if she made a bargain we might be tempting her too much if we did that."

"I still think I should come," Eddie said stubbornly. "I can use a thrower. Egon's my cousin. I want to help. If we can't find Janine, you can use Slimer to trigger the device and send us over, can't you?"

Peter wasn't about to argue that the Ghostbusters were closer to Egon than his family was, even if he knew it for a fact. Egon did have a strong sense of family, strong enough to have included Peter, Ray and Winston in that definition, but he'd expect the other three Ghostbusters to look after his cousin. Peter heaved a sigh. He'd have to play this Egon's way, even if he hated it.

"Looks like we're the rear guard," he said to Eddie. "You bet you'll be wearing a pack the whole time. Get accustomed to aching shoulders because the things are heavy and you're not used to them."

Eddie was already wearing the pack and the brief twinkle in his eyes made it clear to all of them that he'd discovered this interesting fact on his own.

Ray set up the device. "You can send us over, Peter. I've set the bracelets for a one-hour recall, but this time I'll arrange it that we can come back without Egon if we don't find him because she said he wasn't in the Netherworld. Not that I believe her automatically, but if it's true, we'd be stranded over there and that wouldn't help anybody." He picked up a tiny screwdriver and began to make minute adjustments in the first bracelet.

They set up the transfer device on the street, and Ray and Winston stood before it, each of them with an extra bracelet in his pocket. Peter took his position at the amplifier, grinned at Ray and Winston even though it took an effort, and said with forced brightness, "One of you guys ought to say, 'Beam us up, Scotty'."

"Go for it, Peter," urged Ray, drawing his thrower and gripping it in one hand, the already-activated P.K.E. meter in the other, and Winston, proton rifle aimed and ready, nodded in confirmation.

Peter pushed the button and a burst of energy in a conic projection engulfed his two remaining friends, made them transparent, then took them away. Eddie's fans from before, who had spilled out of the buildings again at the first sight of them, edged closer, but Eddie held up a hand to stop them.

"Not tonight," he told the people. "We're in the middle of a crisis. I'm sorry." Such was the force of his personality that they withdrew immediately, although they didn't completely go away.

Peter stood in place a moment longer, staring at the spot where Ray and Winston had vanished, the same place where, only a short time earlier, Egon had disappeared. In spite of the presence of Eddie and the determined fans across the street, he felt incredibly alone.

Ray gulped as he looked at his surroundings. The chamber where he and Winston stood back to back was huge, vast, and echoing, as if someone had blasted out the interior of a mountain. Ray had seen a place like this in Spain once, a cathedral carved from the living rock. The room in which the two Ghostbusters had arrived when projected into the Netherworld was even bigger than that place, and the ominous shadows that filled each corner seemed loaded, as if strange and malevolent creatures lurked there. Although the P.K.E. meter only gave off residuals, Ray had the feeling they were being watched.

Lit by flaring torches, the cavern was evidently empty. The residuals that were the strongest matched those of Astarine. Ray checked them quickly then filtered them out, rapidly twisting the dials to bring up Egon's readings. If he had been here at all there should be a faint echo of his biorhythms; there hadn't been enough time for them to fade entirely. Sure enough, the meter reacted.

"Egon was here," cried Ray eagerly, then his face fell. "Only he's not here now. These readings don't indicate an actual presence; they're too faint."

"Well, she did say she moved him. She could have yanked him five miles down the road."

"Or ten thousand," Ray reminded the taller man. He turned the meter slowly in a circle, revolving in place, to see if the readings were stronger in any given direction, stopping when he detected a faint change. "In there," he said, pointing at an archway that opened into a smaller room ablaze with light. Charging over, Ray screeched to a stop in the doorway, eyes widening as he saw the poster of Eddie, the banked candles. "I don't like the look of this," he muttered.

Winston came up behind him, his attention still on the main room, risking one quick glance into the shrine. "You got it, homeboy," he agreed, a worried frown on his face as he positioned himself like a sentinel in the doorway. "Talk about 'fatal attraction'. I don't like the way it looks either. She's not gonna deal. She wants Eddie and she isn't used to being thwarted." He jerked his thumb at the activated meter in Ray's hand. "So what do you think? Egon still around?"

"He's not in the meter's range," Ray confirmed, twisting the dials slightly in an attempt to fine-tune his setting. "But that doesn't mean he isn't nearby. Look!" He stopped, pointing. There under the edge of the 'altar' lay Egon's proton pack, but it was no longer a functioning tool. The cable that connected the destabilizer had been severed as if with one of her claws, and the device had been dangerously battered. An attempt to use it might cause it to explode.

"I hope Egon wasn't wearing that when--" Winston chopped off his words. "Oh, man, even if he was still here, he'd be unarmed."

"We'll have to take it back with us when we go," Ray decided. "And drain it of power. It's dangerous like that. Right now I think we need to move out, you know, go in widening circles until we run out of time. That way, we'll have a better chance of finding Egon. We really ought to split up."

"No way, Ray. Not in the Netherworld. We're a real target here for every ghost, specter and demon in the place. The only way we stand a chance is if we stick together."

"But Egon's alone," Ray protested. "He doesn't even have his glasses, let aloen his pack and thrower. And Astarine's crazy. Look at this place." He swept his arm in a circle to encompass the poster and candles. "I don't think she'll make a deal either. I think what she'll do is just take Eddie when the time is up."

"And Egon?" Winston asked, alarmed.

"Well, she might bring him back, if she thought it would get Eddie to stay with her voluntarily."

"Man, if I had a wife like Whitney at home and a new baby there's no way I'd stay voluntarily," Winston returned. He scanned the ceiling as if he expected winged beings to erupt from the darkness and soar down to attack them. "Only way he'd do it voluntarily is if he could guarantee they'd be safe, and I know I sure wouldn't trust the lady to keep her word."

"The only way we can make sure she keeps her word is to trap her," Ray said. "But to do that we have to do it by surprise before she can open her dimensional gateway. That's what worries me. When a powerful being like her comes through, the gate doesn't entirely close. That's probably why we've had such a busy fall; either she's been back and forth a lot, or she just stayed here. She hasn't been in New York, though, or we would have been able to pick up on something going wrong. All we got was a slight elevation in ambient energy levels and a few calls from places we never had calls from before, like that time we went out and busted those three class fives in Fargo last month."

"Eddie played in Fargo," said Winston as if to confirm Ray's point. "Come on, guy, we've got a lot of ground to cover and not very much time to cover it in." Ray fell into step with him and they headed across the huge stone chamber toward the widest opening, both of them hoping it was the exit and not just the door to a demon's privy. "I hate this place," Winston muttered, never lowering his guard as the two men began their search.

Egon shouted periodically but no one responded to his calls. Wherever he was, it appeared to be deserted. The room was mostly empty and what little remained looked like rubbish, a bucket only a few feet away had a hole in the bottom, and a broom with a broken handle leaned crookedly in the nearest corner as if it had been abandoned by a witch. Objects on the far side of the room might have been packing crates but they were too blurry to be certain. They could be anything; by squinting hard, Egon could vaguely see what looked like lettering on the side of the nearest one but he didn't have a hope of reading it.

The stretch of hallway revealed by the half-opened door was somewhat cleaner than this room; at least nothing was stacked along the walls; no irregular shapes interrupted the straight lines of the passage. Discovering he was developing a headache from squinting, Egon relaxed, the room blurring around him. He wished he'd listened to Peter last month when the psychologist had suggested he get contact lenses. Peter's argument was that he 'wouldn't be able to fight off the babes' if they saw Egon's 'baby blues'. It wasn't a convincing argument as Egon's whole raison d'être wasn't scoring with women, and, as he'd told Peter, contacts could be a problem in a job like theirs. Peter had disagreed, reminding Egon that contacts had come on a lot from the time Egon had tried them in college and found the wind periodically blew dust into his eyes and caused excruciating pain. There wasn't time on a bust to stop and retrieve a lost contact lens either. But now he wished for them because to be unable to see any better than he could right now was a decided handicap in a crisis.

Occasionally he heard faint and distant sounds, one, a steady, if intermittent, rumble could well be the noise of a distant subway train. If so, it might mean the demon had returned him to New York, a place the guys would never think to look for him. If he knew his friends, two of them were probably in the Netherworld right at that moment seeking traces of him while the third member of the team guarded Eddie. Egon hoped they wouldn't let the singer offer himself in exchange for Egon. All that would do would be delay the inevitable because Egon didn't mean to sacrifice his cousin to save his life. Astarine might someday see past her obsession with Eddie, but by then years could have passed, and who was to say she wouldn't find a new object upon whom to lavish her obsession? The only solution Egon could imagine was to capture the demon and incarcerate her in the containment unit where she would be prevented from harming anyone else.

He shouted again, paused to listen. Had that been a distant sound? A door opening and closing? "Is someone there?" he yelled at the top of his lungs, straightening himself and rising to his feet. His position was not enviable. He might well be summoning someone who might be as big a threat to Egon as the demon, a gang, a drug dealer, a criminal of some sort who wouldn't like Egon's invasion of his turf. She had said she found the location of his prison amusing, Egon remembered. That could mean she had chosen a place no safer than the Netherworld.

Shadows lurched into the hallway, stretching across the room until they lay across his feet. Egon braced himself as a figure stood silhouetted in the doorway, clutching something in one hand that looked vaguely like a plunger, no doubt grabbed up as the first thing that came to hand when searching for a weapon. Although the light bulb in the hall was not very bright, it gave off enough light for Egon to see the gleam of red hair and a blurred but familiar outline in a green skirt and yellow blouse. "Egon?" the voice asked doubtfully, then Janine Melnitz screeched, "Omigod, Egon," and launched herself at him. The source of the demon's amusement was made clear. This must be the basement of Janine's building.

She dropped the plunger as she came up to him and stopped, gazing at him in openmouthed disbelief. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. "You look a mess; no glasses and your head's been bleeding. Are you hurt, Egon?"

"No, just trapped. It's a very long story, Janine, but do you think you could get the chain off?"

She looked down at his leg, her mouth falling open. "Who did this?" she demanded hotly, her face aflame with resentment on his behalf. "Who hurt you?"

"A demon," Egon replied. "Where are we, Janine?"

"This is the sub-basement of my building. I was one floor up doing my laundry when I thought I heard yelling. I wasn't sure I wanted to check it out; it could've been a trap. But then I thought it sounded familiar so I came anyway."

"Complete with a weapon," Egon said with a smile. He should have known Janine would rush into danger if she thought someone needed help, but she was a New Yorker and not foolish enough to charge into battle completely empty-handed. He felt a surge of fondness for her wash through him as he relaxed. She could call the guys. "Janine, never mind the chain, that's not as important as telling the other Ghostbusters where I am. They can whip over here and blast me free. I know she means to use me against Eddie."

"Eddie? Plummer?" Janine hazarded. "What does a demon want with Eddie?"

"As near as I can tell, she's in love with him," Egon replied.

"Well, at least the lady has good taste." The secretary knelt at his feet and checked out the chain. "I can't get this free, Egon. Come on, sit down. Let me look at your forehead. It bled a lot."

"It isn't serious," Egon reassured her. "Just a scalp cut. Call the guys, Janine."

"I hate to leave you here alone," she remarked, still fingering the chain, her head bent over it as if she could find a weakness in it just by gazing at it. "Come on, Egon, sit down." She caught his wrist and tugged and he succumbed, sitting carefully cross-legged before her. "A few minutes won't matter," she continued, her fingers tracing a gentle path across his forehead, lightly probing the edges of the slight cut. It was chilly in the sub-basement; her fingertips felt cold against his skin. "You could've been killed. Are you sure you'll be okay if I leave you here?"

"It won't take that long," he pointed out.

"So what if she comes back when I'm gone?"

"If she's going to come back, I'd rather she did it when you were gone," Egon said frankly. "She must have taken knowledge of you out of my head; I suppose that's why she brought me here, though she would have no way of knowing you'd be in the basement."

"You knew this was my laundry night, Egon. If she could read things about me in your mind, why not that?" She made him sit down, then busied herself checking his pulse. When she looked up, she pushed her glasses into place with decision as if ready to act. "I don't want to leave you here. Let me see if I can find a crowbar in one of the other rooms."

"That might be best. But be careful, Janine."

"You're the one that needs to be careful, Egon." She shivered slightly; her arms were bare, and Egon reached out and ran his hands up and down from her elbows to her shoulders and back in a quick attempt to warm her. Impulsively she came into his arms, hugged him hard and rested her head against his shoulder, her body light and pliant against him, then she lifted her face and brushed her mouth across his in a light, butterfly kiss, her eyes closed, all her feelings visible in her face. Even her lips were cold. Reluctantly she lifted her head and drew back, smiling at him. As she hurried off to find a tool, he could see that she was shivering in the dank chill of the cellar.

"Get a coat for yourself," he called after her. "I can wait long enough for that."

"It's okay, Egon, it'll only take a few minutes." She vanished into a blur at the end of the hallway, the shadows trailing her around the corner and, in her absence, Egon felt very much alone. But now he had hope. He'd been found and it wouldn't be long before he'd be home so he and the others could plan the defeat of the demon.

The scream that ripped its way down the hall was all too familiar. "Janine!" he cried, erupting to his feet so violently the tug of the chain pitched him forward. He fell flat on his face, landing hard enough to knock the breath from his body. As he fought against the pull of the chain and struggled painfully to suck breath into his body, he heard her scream again, this time the piercing sound breaking off into a series of whimpering moans of sheer agony. Egon ripped at the chain, grasping it in both hands and using his other foot to push against the wall in a frantic attempt to free himself and get to the woman. It refused to give.

"Egon! Oh, God, Egon, help me!" Her voice broke midway through the cry, the last words fading, echoing into a series of horrible gurgling sounds that his mind matched with unspeakable actions. He ripped at the laces of his boot, yanking it free and trying to force his foot through the loop of the chain in his desperation to get to Janine.

"You needn't hurry."

Egon whipped around, his mouth falling open in despair as he saw the demon in the doorway. She was in her schoolgirl form, but her hands were reddened with blood. As he watched in horrified desolation, she wiped them clean on a yellow scrap of fabric the same color as Janine's blouse then tossed the stained cloth away.

"I told you my choice of prison was amusing. I haven't had so much fun in years." She laughed uproariously.

"What… Have… You… Done… To… Janine." He bit off each word, his voice as cold as absolute zero, his eyes burning into the demon like blue fire.

"I killed her," she said simply. "She was in the way. I thought it amusing to leave you here, so close to help but so far. When the help actually came, though, I had to rethink my plan. Oh, don't expect rescue. This is New York. If anyone heard her death screams, they'll stay safely huddled in their apartments. Someone might call 911, but I wouldn't count on it. Besides, I've shifted the body. They might find you but if that happens so be it. Eddie will come to me voluntarily. It will be either that or I will have his son. It might even be better to let them free you so you can tell them what I am capable of." She smiled, came closer to Egon, and bent to press her lips against his. He yanked back in automatic revulsion at the icy touch of her mouth.

"Don't be so quick to reject me," she purred. "What have you left now? Janine is dead."

"No!" He didn't want to believe it. She was lying. She had to be lying. Janine had never been part of the deal. Surely she couldn't think she could kill someone Egon loved and still expect him to go with her into the Netherworld to stay--unless it was a meant as a lesson. Next time he resisted her, it could be Peter or Ray or Winston who died. Egon began to realize what Eddie might well choose to do if the Ghostbusters couldn't stop Astarine.

"You'll never find her body," the demon said with a smile, her hard, old eyes burning into Egon's. She slid a taloned hand across Egon's cheek, down his chest to rest just over his heart. "I didn't know you had it in you to care so deeply," she said. "I'm sorry I'll likely be forced to give you back." She gathered mist to her in sweeping gestures the way a mother might gather her children, then, with a quick gesture she whirled open the doorway to the Netherworld and swirled through. The fog thinned and faded behind her, spreading out on the air and vanishing.

"Janine?"

Nothing. He repeated it louder, screamed her name. There was nothing, no moan, no whimper, no distant voices on their way to check out the screams, no siren to mark the arrival of the police. There was only an empty cellar where Egon shivered alone in the cold and damp, waiting for a voice he knew would never answer him again. "Janine," Egon breathed, his voice breaking, barely above a whisper. Although he'd never actually told the secretary how much he cared for her, he had always known she was a part of him, a part he couldn't bear to lose. Dropping his head in his hands, he groaned, "Oh, god, Janine," and closed his eyes against the scalding sting of his tears.

Eddie Plummer sat in a chair drawn up at the table in the third-floor lab at Ghostbuster Central, his chin resting miserably in his hands as he watched Peter stalk up and down, up and down the room. The brown-haired man was wound so tight it would take the slightest brush to send him spinning out of control like a runaway top. From the taut line of Venkman's mouth, Eddie knew better than to ask one of the singularly foolish questions that kept popping into his head. "When will they be back?" "Do you think they'll find Egon?" Peter would answer him. He'd answered every other stupid question Eddie had framed since the two men had come back to the lab to wait out the hour, gritting out the words with barely contained impatience that only thinly masked his worry. Although he'd let his irascibility show he hadn't blasted Eddie with hot words, even if he all too clearly wanted to. Eddie knew the only reason Peter was holding his temper was because the sacrifice Eddie might be called upon to make was as grave as the loss the Ghostbusters might be facing. They were family, the four of them, close as brothers, maybe even closer. Eddie had always liked Egon when he was growing up, but Egon was a few years his senior, and they hadn't hung out together. Instead Egon had gone away to college and come back with two buddies who looked to be a remarkably permanent part of his life. Then when they'd started busting ghosts, Winston had come along and joined the group, fitting in as neatly as a jigsaw puzzle piece in its assigned place. Eddie wasn't the only one in danger of losing the family he loved and relied upon.

"I'm going to have to do it," he said aloud now. "I can't do anything that would put Whitney and Cy at risk. They're the only thing that mean enough to me to give up music." Peter's mouth tightened and Eddie added quickly, "Family, I mean. I can't let her keep Egon, either. I know what you'd like to do, Peter. You'd like to hand me over to her on a silver platter. Don't lie, I can see it on your face."

"Okay, yeah, I would like to," Peter agreed with reluctant honesty. "Doesn't mean I'd do it, though. We'd all like to be able to make the selfish choices, but when it comes right down to it, we hope we can't. I'd trade myself for Egon in a minute and so would Ray or Winston, but we don't have that option. She doesn't want us. Instead we've gotta figure out how to stop her because I don't want to become the target of every teenaged girl in America. And how do you think Egon would feel if we swapped you for him?"

"I know Egon," Eddie said. "He wouldn't let you do it--or trade yourself either. That's not his way. Egon's an ethical man to the max. He'll keep his word even when doing it rips him apart."

"Tell me," muttered Peter. "Your dad tried to collect on an old promise of Egon's once. Meant he'd have to give up Ghostbusting and work at Spengler labs. He did it. He hated every second of it, but he went, even though it was tearing him up inside. We worked a way out of it, convinced your dad Egon was needed here too badly for us to part with him."

"Convinced my dad to change his mind?" Eddie asked, wide eyed. "I never heard about all this. I know Egon came back to the lab once but he didn't stay very long; I heard he'd come to work on a special project."

"It wasn't so much convincing your dad to change his mind," Peter said, dropping into a chair opposite Eddie and adopting a similar, chin-in-hands position. "It was convincing your dad that Egon belonged here--with us. And that's sort of like convincing somebody the sun rises in the east." He meant it with every fiber of his being, and Eddie realized that Peter considered Egon a part of him, a part of his life, a part of his very essence, in the same way Eddie considered music essential. All the Ghostbusters did. Maybe it was because what they faced together every day was more than death, maybe it was because that same jigsaw puzzle melded them all together. Egon had said something like that once when talking to Eddie about his place with the Ghostbusters.

"You know the symbol for yin and yang?" he had queried. "The circle with the wavy line through it that meshes completely? Two disparate but equal pieces melding together in a unified and perfect whole? With us, it's as if a second wavy line bisected the circle, dividing it into four equal but different parts. It's hard to explain to outsiders but it works. It's the kind of teamwork you must feel when you, Whitney, and Jackson harmonize perfectly." By putting it into musical terminology, Egon had made clear to Eddie the terms of his present family of choice and Eddie had always respected that. He didn't really know the other three Ghostbusters well, although they'd encountered each other a few times, even in times of crisis. But he knew how much they valued his cousin.

Slimer came squirting into the lab then, through one of the outside windows, and he dove for Peter, coming to a stop just in front of the psychologist, who held up his right hand as a deterrent and said, "Back off, Spud."

Slimer's yellow eyes widened. "Peter mad," he breathed, edging a little away as if he'd had cause to feel the force of Venkman's temper on more than one occasion. Then his huge mouth dropped open and he added, "Peter sad and worried." He wasn't easy to understand, and Eddie had never been comfortable around him, but he knew the Ghostbusters valued the little guy, even Peter, who often protested he couldn't stand the spud. Eddie was surprised to see how perceptive Slimer could be about Peter's emotions.

"Yeah, Slimer, we've got trouble," Peter explained. "There's a demon--"

At the very mention of the word, Slimer shrieked, dove for Peter and flung his arms around the psychologist's neck. "Helphelphelp," he wailed.

"It's not here now, spud," Peter groaned, pushing the green ghost away impatiently. "It took Egon away because it wants Eddie." Slimer let Peter push him off, spinning around in midair until he was facing the singer. "Hi, Eddie," the ghost greeted. "Sing Slimer a pretty song?" he prodded hopefully.

"Hi, Slimer, not now," Eddie replied.

"Slimer sing along."

"All the more reason not to sing," Peter muttered. "Look, Spud, we've got major trouble here. The demon's gonna come back and she says she'll trade Egon for Eddie, and if Eddie doesn't go, she'll make off with Eddie's baby."

"Oh, no, bad demon," Slimer wailed. He reached out and patted Eddie consolingly on the shoulder, then he backed away. "Hungry," he announced. "Gotta have goodies."

"Clean out the fridge, Spud, be my guest," Peter urged, gesturing him away. When Slimer had gone, crying ecstatically, "Food! Food! Food!" Peter straightened up scrubbed the slime from his face and rose to his feet to begin pacing once more. He favored Eddie with a shrug. "What can I say? The spud's not a great thinker. Even when the chips are down, he's got his own agenda." He started pacing again.

"Peter?"

The psychologist made an interrogative sound, his feet covering the floor in rapid, distance-devouring strides that led him to the door and back again, over and over. Although he turned a portion of his listening to Eddie, the singer knew his main thoughts were focused on Egon, his friends now risking their lives for him in the Netherworld, and a solution to a problem that seemed beyond solution.

"There has to be some way to blast the demon," Eddie claimed stubbornly. "You guys took on Gozer and other nasties that were a whole lot tougher than a class seven. I know you have. Egon keeps me up to date on your busts. You've faced a lot of entities worse than this one."

"Yeah, we can do it. We can probably get off a shot next time we see her," Peter agreed. "But the problem isn't that, even if it'll be tricky and need good timing and a first-class distraction. The problem is Egon. Those other goopers didn't have quite the same bargaining power. If she comes back without him, well, there's the whole known universe to search for him in. The odds are we'd never get him back, even if he's alive. He might be locked up somewhere he couldn't escape from, and he'd die of thirst and starvation if we trapped her. That's a lousy way to die." He stopped his pacing across from Eddie, slamming one fist against the table in furious rage. "I'm not gonna play the game that way." He was silent a moment while Eddie tried frantically to think of something reassuring to say that wasn't just one more useless platitude, then Peter shook his head abruptly. "One way or another, though, we stop her. We always knew the job could cost us more than we were willing to pay. So far, we've been lucky. We've cheated death more times than I can count. I'd do anything to get Egon back..." His voice trailed off. "Anything but turn over innocent people, no matter how much I want to."

"Look, Peter, there's something you haven't considered. It isn't your decision to make. It's mine. I'm a celebrity. That means I gave up some of my right to a private life and it also means I'm in a position to attract kooks and weirdos and people who could trash me without a second thought. I get up there on stage and some maniac in the crowd could blow me away like John Lennon. In this day and age, I have to think about that, even though most of the time it doesn't apply. I knew, once I started getting famous, that it had a downside. For the most part it's great; it's not even the crowds, money or fame, or the awards or anything. It's because I have to sing. You said caged birds didn't sing, but I'd sing even then because it's something inside me that's always pushing to get out. But I chose to be in the public eye. I made a deliberate choice. I won't let that choice hurt the people I love, and that includes Egon as well as Whitney and the baby. If there's no other alternative, I'll go with her, and that's the bottom line. It's not your responsibility, it's my decision." It was a decision he hated but it might be the only one possible.

Peter looked at him long and hard. "If it comes to that, it means we screwed up big," he admitted. "We'll take her down before we'll let her take you or the kid."

"Even if it means never seeing Egon again?" Eddie asked.

Peter was silent a long time, the look on his face that of a man who has fallen flat in front of a gravestone and discovered a familiar name carved upon it. "Yes," he said, but Eddie could see in his eyes that he'd always hate himself if he had to make that choice. He could live with it if he had to, more easily than he could live with sacrificing the innocent, but he would never be the same man again.

"I won't let you do that," Eddie said. He knew how much Egon valued this man. Eddie didn't plan to be the one who destroyed him.

"You think you can stop me?" For a moment they stood there--Eddie didn't remember standing up but he was on his feet--eye to eye across the table, Peter's palms flat on its surface, his mouth hard and rigid.

"If I have to," Eddie said.

Peter hesitated, then abruptly the anger went out of him. He collapsed into the chair as if he'd suddenly become boneless and sprawled back, all emotion sliding away from his face the way water twirls down a drain. "God, I hate this," he said with open misery.

"You'll be better when Ray and Winston get back," Eddie reassured him, adding quickly before Peter could point out they might not be able to return, "I don't think I ever knew you before."

"Yeah, tell me," Peter agreed so quickly the thought must have been lurking in his mind all along. Grateful of an opportunity to discuss something other than the crisis he spoke quickly. "It was the fame, you know. I thought it was a kick, having one of the world's most popular singers hang out here once in awhile, and I loved being able to tell my dates I'd stayed up at Segue that time we helped those two ghosts disperse peacefully. But I guess I never looked past that to the person underneath."

"That's the trouble with being famous," Eddie agreed quickly. "People don't. I bet the same thing happens to you and the other guys. You're a Ghostbuster before you're Peter, at least to strangers. It wasn't just you who didn't think past the image. I'm glad I have now, even though a part of me wants back the way it was before."

"Yeah, but you can't buy innocence back," Peter said with unexpected gravity. Under the frivolous, mouthy surface, and past the man who was worried sick about his oldest friend was someone else, a very thoughtful man who had a good grip on how people's minds work. "Once it's gone, it's gone forever. You can't be like the girl who said, 'I liked being a virgin better'." Both men grinned faintly, then Peter heaved a sigh so deep it lifted his whole body. "I'd be a jerk today if I'd never met Egon," he said. "Anything I know about trusting people and being worthy of being trusted myself I got from him, because he persisted; he stuck around even when I gave him a bad time and insulted him and thought he was just another geek. He hung in there and proved I could trust him, and showed me he trusted me, and it turned everything around. Now maybe he's dead, and even if he isn't I might never see him again. And I have to be the one to make the decision about whether we can get him back. I have to make a decision that is 99 per cent guaranteed to insure we don't get him back." He dashed a hand across his eyes as if to brush away tears but Eddie couldn't see any tears in his eyes. Peter was holding himself together too tightly for tears. When everything was over, if they failed, then he might cry, but probably not, because it would be an indulgence he wouldn't allow himself, wouldn't believe he deserved.

"Come on, Peter, have some faith in yourself," Eddie said softly. "Because unless Egon's here, I'm not going. If we can't find a way to blast her in the heat of all that, then none of us have enough smarts to put our pants on right way around."

Peter grinned wryly. "I can tell you're Egon's cousin," he said. "You're as stubbornly reasonable as he is." He heard himself refer to Egon in the present tense and the smile broadened out into something genuine. "The thing is," he admitted, "I'm no good at being alone. Never was, never will be. Strand me on a desert island by myself and I'd be nutty as a fruitcake in about three days. The guys keep me on an even keel. You're right. I'll be okay when Ray and Winston get back." He looked at his watch. "And we're coming up on the time. We'd better head down there to meet them in case they have any nasty goopers hot on their heels."

Given a task to perform, Peter pulled himself together with amazing rapidity, strapped on his pack and headed for the door, pausing there to wait for Eddie to put on the heavy portable nuclear accelerator.

"I can't believe you guys run up flights of steps in these things," the singer complained.

"I can't believe you stand on stage and sing for three hours every night," Peter returned, and the two men, suddenly friends, hurried down the stairs to meet the other two Ghostbusters.

"Look out, there's another one behind you," warned Winston, ducking and firing past Ray at the terror dog that raced toward him, baying wildly. "He'll alert every ghost and gooper in the area and next thing you know we'll be hip deep in demons. Man, this sucks."

Ray spun around and fired, hitting the roaring beast full in the face. It stopped as if it had run into a wall and with a series of high pitched yelps like a puppy that had just had an unexpected encounter with a porcupine, and raced away madly down the slope.

"Nice shooting, Ray," lauded Winston, pausing with his hands resting on his bent knees, sucking in great gulps of air. "Man, I hate this place. Remind me next time I volunteer to come here that it's time to have my head examined."

Ray took another P.K.E. reading. "No Egon anywhere around here, not even residuals," he said mournfully. "We're running out of time. We're not gonna find him, Winston."

"Only proves she wasn't bullshitting us when she said he wasn't in the Netherworld," Winston replied. Straightening up he spotted a small knoll not far away and headed for it, forcing his tired feet to climb the slight incline. From the top he scanned the nearby landscape, the spires of rock so black they seemed to absorb all colors and lights the way a black hole did, dusty, bare ground that spit dirt into the air at each passing gust of wind. Ray's face was dirty with dark circles around his eyes just from being out here, and Winston could taste dirt and dust with every breath he took. He spat in disgust. "Gaah! I gave up eating dirt before I went to kindergarten."

"Yeah, it tastes nasty, doesn't it?" Ray pushed up his sleeve and looked at the timer on his bracelet. "Only two more minutes. We're not gonna find Egon, are we?"

"Not here, anyway. And we're not gonna make it back to get his pack either, so it's a good thing it doesn't work. Look, Ray, is there any way you could build a homing signal into the phase amplifier and feed Egon's biorhythms into it?"

"Probably," said Ray, intrigued at the idea. "Only problem is, it'd probably take a week to do it. And we've got less than a day."

"We've got nearly twenty-two hours," Winston argued. "Man, I feel like that guy in Escape from New York, what's his name, Snake Plissken, the one who had to haul the President out of the prison they'd made in Manhattan, or else there'd be this tiny nuclear explosion in his neck. Only this time, it's not our necks on the chopping block. It's Egon's--and Eddie's."

"She said Egon was alive," Ray reminded him. "We have to believe that or we'll never get anywhere." He took a final reading then shut down the meter and put it in his pocket. Somewhere close by, a terror dog howled, long and low and mournfully, the sound immediately echoed by a second on directly opposite the two of them. Ray's eyes came up to meet Winston's and he saw the younger man draw resolution from an inner core that never seemed to run dry. Curling his fingers around the handle of his thrower, Ray braced himself. "We'll make a stand here," he said. "One minute."

"Ever notice how fast a minute goes when you don't want something to happen and how slow it goes when you do?" Winston demanded, then with a yell of, "Yee-hah!" he fired at the terror dog that surged up the knoll toward their position.

Ray fired in the other direction and the two of them spent the next few seconds taking aim at the five terror dogs that materialized at the foot of the slope. Gathering there in a savage pack, the huge blue canines shook their horned heads and bellowed, then they came at the two Ghostbusters in a concerted rush.

"See you on the other side, Winston," Ray called as he fired a wide dispersal beam directly into their midst.

New York came around them so quickly Winston was barely able to power down in time to keep from taking a chunk out of the wall of Ghostbuster Central. Peter and Eddie, who had come out to meet them, let out panicked yells and flung themselves flat as Ray's beam passed over their heads and hit a streetlight, the bulb exploding in a shower of glass. Ray yanked his finger from the firing button and cast an abashed look at the two men who rose warily to their feet, dusting themselves off.

"Sorry."

"No problem-o," Peter assured him, pouncing with glee and grabbing Ray to drape a welcoming arm around his shoulders. "Looks like you cut it fine, guys."

"You got that right," agreed Winston, giving Peter an enthusiastic clap to the shoulder. "Man, I hate that place." He could see the strain on Venkman's face and realized how hard it had been to be the one to wait behind in safety while his friends were in danger. "I take it Astarine didn't put in an appearance," he said.

"Not a trace of her. No Egon?" The very casualness of the question proved to Winston how important it was.

"He wasn't over there," said Ray. "He'd been there. His pack was still there, all battered up, and we meant to bring it back, but then we ran into these terror dogs and never got back for it. Gee, it was kind of spooky over there. We wound up in this huge place carved inside a mountain and there was a shrine to Eddie, you know, like they have with statues of saints and stuff in Catholic churches. A giant poster of Eddie and candles burning in front of it."

Winston saw Eddie shiver at the very idea. "Man, I knew she was crazy, but I never thought a demon would go to such lengths as that."

"She took Egon," Peter reminded him flatly. "And she's blackmailing you by threatening your baby. I don't think there's any lengths she wouldn't go to." He glanced sideways at Ray in time to see the occultist's face reflect back unhappiness at Peter's words, and quickly he rumpled Ray's hair. "Come on, let's head inside and have something hot to drink. You any good at making coffee, Eddie, or is that something you have peons for?"

"I have peons for everything," Eddie teased him quickly, "But I make a damn fine cup of coffee." The two of them had apparently become quite comfortable with each other in the past hour. "Just so long as I don't have to put up with the spud in the kitchen."

"Gee, Eddie, you go in the kitchen and start making anything and you have to put up with Slimer," Ray informed him. "It goes with the territory. You know, I think we should get some sleep instead."

"Sleep?" Peter echoed in shock as if Ray had suggested some strange perversion. "With Egon missing?"

"We're gonna have to take her on tomorrow night in order to get Egon back," Ray reminded him. "I think we'd do it better if we were rested. We need to make plans, too, but we'll make them better if our heads are clear."

From the look on Peter's face, the odds were he wouldn't sleep very well, not with Egon trapped out there somewhere beyond the edges of rescue. Winston wasn't sure how well he'd sleep himself, but Ray was right. They were all pretty stressed and they needed rest if they were going to be clear-headed tomorrow when it counted. "What we might want to do is take turns with somebody standing guard," he suggested and saw Peter's face relax slightly at the suggestion. Ray, too, brightened. That was good. Winston knew all of them were pretty bummed at the way things were going, especially when the demon had figured out how to shield herself from their proton streams and had availed herself of primary blackmail material. Wherever Egon was, she might be with him, and in spite of some of their earlier suggestions, Winston didn't think she'd be cosying up to him for breeding purposes. She wouldn't be making him comfortable at all. The best they could hope was that she'd leave him totally alone. Even imprisonment was better than some of the games she might choose to play with him. Remembering the blood on the scrap of Egon's jumpsuit, Winston couldn't help wondering just how closely Astarine would stick to the letter of the agreement. 'Alive' didn't have to mean 'healthy', after all. Winston hoped Peter and Ray wouldn't think of that.

Janine Melnitz had enjoyed a quiet evening, watching TV while her clothes did their number in the washing machine, venturing down a couple of times to get the dried clothes and put the new load in the washer. It was her night to use the machines and she was in the process of washing out her fall and winter clothes, and making sure all her summer things were clean before she stored them away for the season, so she had been in and out all evening. TV was boring so she'd immersed herself in a new mystery, one that held her attention so well that when it was time to go downstairs again she nearly forgot the time.

Old Mr. Gruber was in the lobby when she got off the elevator and headed for the stairs to the basement. He liked to hang out there and play at being the doorman; he was lonely with his wife in the nursing home, and as long as he'd lived in the building, he knew everybody who was there now and everyone who'd moved out in the last five years. He was also the biggest gossip Janine had ever met, the one who had told her about Mrs. Candy in 4A sleeping with Mr. Yassarian in 3D while Mr. Candy was overseas on business. Janine had spotted Mrs. Candy sneaking down to the third floor on the back stairs only last week and had to admit Mr. Gruber was probably right on the money there.

He was the last person she wanted to see tonight, though. All she wanted was to grab that last load out of the drier and rush back to her book to find out who had murdered the golf pro at the country club. It had to be the swimming instructor, the one with the excessive biceps. Janine had hated him from the very first. Just so it wasn't the tall, blond chemist, the one she had pictured as looking exactly like a certain tall, blond physicist of her acquaintance.

"Oh, Ms. Melnitz, I'm glad to see you," Gruber exclaimed, his weathered face lighting up as he got a good look at her. His eyes, under bushy white eyebrows, twinkled at her with the affection he reserved for all his neighbors that he liked. "You work for the Ghostbusters, don't you?" At the question, she reassessed the twinkle in his eyes. He was about to ask her for a favor. She knew it.

"What's the matter, Mr. G? You got a haunted apartment?" Janine asked warily. Gruber was sure to see if he couldn't get a cut-rate bust simply because he lived in her building. Still, he probably meant well. She gave him an expectant look.

"No, I heard weird noises in the basement. Shrieking and moaning, you know the kind of thing." He shuddered elaborately. "Scary stuff. I'm glad Helen wasn't here to hear it, or that lady on two, you know, the one with the blue hair. She'd probably keel over with a coronary at the sound. I think we should get your bosses over here to check it out right away. I was just listening to see if it was repeated."

Janine wasn't sure about calling in the guys. It was late enough that Peter would be sure to complain and whine and blame her for it, threatening to make her pay for the bust, because it was certain Mr. Gruber wasn't about to, and the owner of the building was a tightwad who had to be prodded to replace a light bulb in the stairwell or fix a drippy sink. Seeing Egon out of office hours wouldn't be worth the grief Venkman was sure to dump on her and the problems she might have with the landlord over it. But on the other hand, she didn't want a bunch of shrieking, moaning spirits disturbing her sleep, either.

"I'll check it out myself," she said, reaching over and picking up the wooden staff that sat in the corner of the lobby near the mailboxes. Mr. Gruber had put it there in case anybody needed to fend off thugs who had broken into the building. 'Thugs' was his choice of words, but Janine wasn't above using the weapon if the need should arise, even against ghosts. Her job had made her more blasé about the spirit world than most people.

She saw the old man nod his shaggy, white head as she picked up the staff and headed for the stairs. "I was down there earlier doing my laundry and I have to pick up my last load anyway. I didn't see any ghosts when I was down there before," she explained. "But just to make sure everything's fine--if I'm not back in half an hour, call 555-BUST, okay? Or 911." Shrieks and moans sounded like ghosts, but it could also be a more human menace. Janine was enough of a city woman to consider all the possibilities.

"You got it, Ms. Melnitz," the old man promised and checked his wrist watch obediently.

Janine went down the stairs warily, uncertain if there was any danger or not, her hand curled tightly around the stick. At least it was a better weapon than the plunger she had seen earlier in the laundry room. Pausing outside the door, she stood listening, but everything was quiet.

Or was it? She poked her head around the corner, realizing her clothes were dry; at least the dryer had shut off. No one was in the room, even though something, she couldn't tell what, had changed. Frowning, she ran her eyes around the room, looking for wet footprints on the floor, sniffing for the odor of tobacco. Whatever had altered didn't readily register with her, but it was something new.

The sense of presence wasn't strong but it was distinct enough for her to believe in it. Still gripping her weapon she crept over to the door that led down to the sub-basement where the storage cubicles for the apartments were located, heavy-duty wire cages where people kept old trunks and odds and ends that didn't fit into the apartments' limited storage space. Janine kept her suitcases down here and came down only when she was planning a trip. She didn't like the feel of the sub-basement, a musty, damp place complete with a healthy roach population, even though the super put down bug poison regularly. There were a couple of other rooms down there where apartment equipment was kept, but Janine had never been in any of those rooms before and wasn't particularly keen about making tonight the first time.

The feeling someone was there was palpable when she opened the door and peered down the stairs. What was more, the light was on. Ghosts didn't need lights, did they? Convinced the presence was human and, therefore, none of her business, Janine almost turned around and went upstairs again, but then she heard a faint, weary sound that might have been a sigh or the last remnants of tired weeping. Her nephew Victor had sounded like that when he was three, fighting unhappily against going to sleep because he was convinced the grown-ups were going to do something exciting the minute his eyes closed. She didn't think a child could be down there, but it might even be an animal, an injured dog. It sounded like someone who needed help, though.

Still carrying the stick--an injured dog was likely to defend itself viciously--she tiptoed down the steps, making as little noise as possible. The sound she'd heard before was not repeated, but she was sure someone was there.

The storage units were full of shadows, bulky and mysterious items faintly limned by the dubious glow from a forty watt bulb. Anyone could be concealed there, but she ran her eyes along the locks and saw secured padlocks on every door. If someone was in one of the cages, he had sealed himself in. That left the two rooms at the end of the hall.

Janine was not superstitious but the thought of walking past those mysterious cages didn't appeal to her. Padlocks didn't keep out ghosts. Yet she'd worked for the Ghostbusters for years and had come to have a feel for a ghostly presence. This didn't seem ghostlike.

"Come on, Melnitz, don't be an idiot. Your laundry's wrinkling," she told herself and marched down the hall, held erect, stick braced in a fighting position like she'd once seen in a ninja movie. Anybody tried to jump her, she'd bash him over the head and ask questions later.

The first room was completely empty, well, empty but for a quick, darting movement in the corner. "It's a mouse," she reassured herself under her breath. "It's too small to be a rat." Although she didn't convince herself, she knew rats didn't wail, shriek and moan. Mr. Gruber wouldn't want to call the Ghostbusters because there were rats in the basement. Squaring her shoulders, she edged past and poked her head into the last room.

A huddled figure sat curled up against the far wall, a chain around his ankle, his face hidden in his hands. As he sat there totally unaware of her, she could see his shoulders quivering slightly, either with cold, reaction, or tears, possibly a combination of the three. Anybody chained in the sub-basement with the rats had a right to be miserable. Shifting sideways to edge her shadow off the unresponsive figure she suddenly gasped at the sight of the tangled fair hair and the suspenders that curved over the slender shoulders. She mouthed his name in utter disbelief. "Egon?" It couldn't be. Why would Egon be chained up in her cellar? There was no logic in it. It had to be her imagination. Blinking furiously she put up the hand that wasn't grasping the staff and rubbed her eyes. He hadn't disappeared.

"Egon?" she repeated, this time audibly. "Egon, is that you?"

At the question, the man jerked as if he'd been whacked with a Toyota, his whole body flinching away from the sound. With agonizing slowness he lifted his head, peeling away his fingers one by one as if the sight about to meet his eyes was too terrible to behold. The face was devoid of expression, eyes huge and blank without the shield of his glasses, but it was definitely Egon. His face was wet as if he had wept but he wasn't crying now. Instead he looked at her and what little color left in his face drained away so dramatically she could see it go even in the dimness of the room. His lips moved as he tried to frame a word, her name. Then, abruptly and unexpectedly, he jerked back against the wall as if he could burrow into it to get away from her.

"Egon?" Dropping the staff, she raced to his side and knelt beside him on the cold and dirty floor, her hands grasping his. They were cold and clammy, suggesting he had been here for several hours at least. He watched her dumbly, unable to focus on her clearly without the glasses, his eyes narrowed, not in suspicion but simply in a squint to bring her face into clarity.

"J-janine?" he faltered.

"Yes, it's me. Egon, what happened to you? What are you doing here?"

He tried to pull away from her. "You're the demon, aren't you?" he asked, not in resentment and anger but in helpless resignation.

"Demon? I'm not a demon. I'm Janine Melnitz, and you better know me, even without your glasses, Egon Spengler. Does this feel like a demon?" Desperate to prove herself, she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him full on the mouth.

There was a stunned moment of silence, then, abruptly his arms came around her so tightly she could hardly breathe and he deepened the kiss with an intensity she had never expected, or felt from him before. When he finally raised his mouth from hers he pulled her tight against his chest and held her, his body shaking with a combination of cold and reaction. Eyes glistening too brightly with unshed tears, he said confusingly, "Her lips were cold."

That didn't make a whole lot of sense to Janine, but she hugged him tight, hoping to warm him with the only thing she had, the heat of her body. "You've been kissing my double down here?" she asked, trying to keep the worry she felt from showing.

"Evidently." She could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to think. "She looked like you. I thought she was you."

"Are you kidding? When I kiss you, you know you've been kissed, buster," she told him, struggling to make her voice light in an attempt to ease him. "Egon, are you hurt? You've got blood all over your face." She pulled back far enough to touch the cut, no longer bleeding, not even very serious, but alarming because of the blood that covered his forehead and the one side of his face. A tear had trickled down his other cheek and her fingers brushed it away.

"She said that too," he murmured. "But her hands were cold. Yours are warm."

"Course they are. I'm alive. And I haven't been sitting down here in this rat-infested icebox. You mean there really was someone down here who looked just like me and who was kissing you?"

"I thought it was you," Egon admitted wearily as if he were at the utter end of his rope. "I--don't know if you're really you or if this is more of the demon's tricks."

"Egon," said Janine suddenly, seeing the dread in the back of his blurred, blue eyes. "What happened to the other me?"

He turned his face away, and a deep shudder ran through his entire body. As if reciting a lesson he said, "She offered to go for a crowbar to break the chain. I heard her screaming my name, calling for help, and then--sounds, horrible sounds, as if she was being killed. Then the demon came and told me you were dead."

Janine stared at him, shocked beyond belief that a demon had used her to torture Egon like that. She wrapped her arms around him again and held him tightly. "And this time you thought I was the demon?"

"She can shapeshift," Egon said, his face buried in her shoulder.

"Then she shapeshifted before. You said she felt cold when she touched you? That's because she was the demon. I'm not a demon, I'm Janine, and I'm alive. She must have brought you here so she could play mind games on you, but she isn't here now. I'm real, Egon. How can I convince you?" She put her hand on his cheek and turned his face back to her. Leaning close so they were only inches apart, she said, "Look into my eyes and tell me I'm not Janine Melnitz."

Egon stared at her intently. Then, abruptly, relief brought life quivering into his eyes. "Janine! Thank god, it is you. She didn't look at me, not like this. Her eyes never quite met mine. When I looked at the demon I saw something in her eyes, something very old and cold, as if she'd been around for aeons. I don't think she could hide it, even in another form. I saw it in the groupie's eyes, but I don't see it in yours, Janine."

"No, because I'm not a demon." She kissed him again, lightly this time, then she jumped up. I've got something to break this stupid chain. Don't move."

"No. Don't go. That's what--what the other one did. The demon could be out there now, lying in wait for you."

"Then she'll be sorry she messed with Melnitz," Janine retorted, grabbing up Mr. Gruber's staff. It was old and sturdy, and it would make a great lever. As she picked it up, she could feel Egon's eyes on her, and when she turned he was watching her although he couldn't see her clearly. She returned to his side and let him examine the staff. "I know it's wood and the chain is metal, but that wall's pretty old. I think I can do it."

He slid along the wall as far as he could to pull the chain tight, and Janine worked the staff between it and the wall. "It might hurt, Egon," she said.

"Do it. I have to tell the guys I'm alive. She wants to trade me for Eddie, and if he won't agree, she'll take the baby in his place."

"Eddie Plummer? He's in town?" Janine tested the staff, levering it this way and that to see what would work best. Then, abruptly she put weight on it and twisted. Egon blurted out a cry of pain as if her actions had made the chain dig into his ankle, but before she could yank the staff free in dismay, the wall exploded brittle chunks of plaster at her and the chain came free. Egon fell over sideways as it broke but caught himself immediately. Janine flung herself down beside him again and helped him straighten up. "Are you hurt?"

"I suspect only bruised." He climbed to his feet and took a cautious step or two, and although he limped, he could put weight on his foot. When she slid in beside him and wrapped an arm around his waist for balance, he leaned against her, his arm draped over her shoulders. She put her other hand flat against his chest to help hold him upright and led him from his dim and chilly prison.

The two flights of steps were difficult but not impossible. Egon wasn't really hurt, she realized, simply cold and shaken, possibly in shock from the clammy feel of his skin. She had to warm him up right away, wrap him in blankets, heat up that chicken soup she'd made yesterday, make him take it. Cliché or not, it would help.

Egon moved at her side automatically as if he were going into a kind of trance. She realized he was spent, at the end of his strength, his emotions in tatters. It took a lot to push Egon over the edge but to force him to listen to her supposed death in a very messy, violent way while he struggled helplessly to free himself might have a lot to do with it. Being chained didn't help either. It took very little in the way of captivity to demoralize a person, and he'd lost a good bit of blood, even though the injury was not a serious one. Cold, shock and even a slight bloodloss could reduce a strong man to a weakened state in a short time. When Janine came face to face with the demon, it would be the demon who would be sorry, for bringing Egon to this.

Mr. Gruber, hovering in the lobby more out of curiosity than anything, jumped to meet them, helped her guide Egon to the elevator, and rode with her up to her apartment where they all but carried him inside. Dismissing the man, Janine left Egon on the couch curled under the afghan her grandmother had crocheted for her long enough to put the soup on the stove and bring back the first aid kit. While the soup heated, gradually filling the apartment with a pleasant, reassuring odor, she cleaned the cut on Egon's forehead, discovering it was small enough to cover with two band-aids. She didn't think it even needed stitches. She couldn't get the chain off but it was loose around his ankle and the joint wasn't swollen. It was sensitive to pressure, bruised, but nothing appeared to be broken.

Egon bore the process so docilely Janine couldn't help worrying about him, and he ate the soup obediently, but as the warmth permeated his system, some color came back to his face and she could see him pulling himself together, slowly becoming his usual self again. When he abruptly put down the soup spoon and made a grab for her telephone to call the guys, she knew he was on the road to recovery, and with a smile she took the empty bowl away then returned to sit at his side, content when he put his arm around her as he talked.

Peter had chosen to take the first watch. He was bone weary and admitted it when Winston challenged him, but he was also too wired to sleep and he knew he would only lie awake tossing and turning if he tried to rest now. With Eddie bedded down in Egon's bed and Slimer drifting up and down over Ray's, the bedroom wore an air of normalcy that was nearly painful. Peter retreated to the lab so he wouldn't have to endure it, and turned on a P.K.E. meter. All the meters they used regularly had been adjusted to filter out Slimer's frequency so he wouldn't corrupt the readings, especially when they measured ectoplasmic output around the firehouse. Any readings Peter got would therefore be other entities, and he wanted all the warning he could get if anything but Slimer showed up, if the demon reappeared. Of course she could pop in unexpectedly from the Netherworld or another dimension, but if she popped into the bedroom while Peter was in the lab it would give him enough warning to rush in with his thrower at ready and just maybe sneak up on her. He would relish sneaking up on her and blasting her with full streams. It would be great!

In spite of the meter he needed to reassure himself so he tiptoed over to look into the bedroom. Peter had been afraid Ray wouldn't sleep, maybe even blaming himself for his failure to find Egon in the Netherworld, but Ray hadn't done that. Although he was worried about Egon, as they all were, he had sensibly put his blame where it belonged, on Astarine. Ray was sleeping now, if restlessly, shifting position every now and then, but without rousing into wakefulness.

Beyond him, Winston was snoring, and across the way in Egon's bed, Eddie lay with such rigid stillness Peter knew he was awake. He didn't think it would be kind to speak to him, though. Let him try to sleep even if his thoughts were tangled and unhappy. Peter edged backward out of the bedroom, knowing Eddie would get up and follow him if he chose to. Otherwise he'd prefer to pretend sleep.

"Where are you, Egon?" Peter demanded looking around Egon's familiar sanctuary. How often had Peter aroused in the night for a glass of water or a bathroom stop to find Egon in here working away at some new project with a big name and a mysterious purpose? If only he were here right now. "We're gonna get you back or my name's not Peter Venkman," he insisted.

The telephone rang. Peter jumped, startled by the unexpectedness of the sound, then he lunged for it before it could ring again and awaken Ray or Winston. "Ghostbuster Central. Do you have any idea what time it is?" he challenged.

"It's one thirty-seven, Peter," said Egon in his normal rational tones, "and I'm free of the demon."

"EGON!" Peter screeched triumphantly, elation and relief pumping through his veins. "Where are you? Are you okay? She showed us blood..."

"Just a cut, Peter. I'm fine, now. She did a few interesting.... well, to put it simply, she learned how to push my buttons. But I'm fine, I'm at Janine's, and she's going to bring me home now."

"We tried to call her earlier," Peter explained. "We were gonna tell her you were missing and have her trigger the whatsit that sends us to the other dimension. But she wasn't home."

"Probably in the laundry room," Egon replied. "She found me in her sub-basement, where the demon imprisoned me."

"She imprisoned you at Janine's?" Peter echoed, wondering at such an unlikely prison. "We'll come and get you," decided, grinning in delight as the other three, summoned by his exuberant greeting, gathered around him asking a question a minute.

"No. I want Janine at headquarters where she'll be safe," Egon said firmly. "Astarine knows where she lives."

Janine must have snatched the phone or leaned in close enough to speak too. "The demon bitch made Egon think she'd murdered me. When you blast her, I want to help."

"Is he really okay, Janine?"

"He's okay now, or he will be when you guys get this chain off his ankle."

"Chain?" echoed Peter. "Egon? You sure you don't want us to zip over there and ride shotgun on your trip home?"

"I'm only in Brooklyn. At this time of night it shouldn't take me long to get home." He was silent for a minute. "I'm really fine, Peter," he insisted, his deep voice full of reassurance, and the sound of that made the world fall into place for Peter. The demon was still free and still wanted Eddie, but now she had no bargaining tool. When she came back, the Ghostbusters would face her as a team, and that was what mattered. Grinning, Peter relinquished the phone to an excited Ray and leaned back comfortably against Winston as the occultist pelted Egon with eager and relieved questions. The Ghostbusters could do anything, as long as they were together.

The reunion was a joyous one. Ray had pulled Ecto up far enough to allow Janine's Volkswagen Beetle to fit in behind it, and she had barely turned off the ignition when the other three Ghostbusters pounced, all but dragging Egon from the car. He looked a little pale and the band-aid on his forehead reminded them he'd been hurt even as it reassured them the wound wasn't serious. It took more than band-aids to cover dangerous injuries.

Peter gave Egon a hug that was meant to reassure himself of Egon's survival as well as to welcome him home, squeezing his returning friend with vast relief, then reluctantly stood back for Ray, Winston and Eddie to greet the physicist similarly, only pausing long enough to pass Egon his glasses that he'd brought downstairs for him. It had shocked him to be given the glasses before, as if it was a sign that Egon was dead, but now he could return them. Gratefully the physicist settled them on his nose and pushed them into place in a gesture that was so natural it finally convinced Peter this part of the ordeal was really over. Egon smiled in relief at being able to see clearly again then reeled as Ray launched himself at the physicist and nearly tipped him sideways with the strength of his welcoming hug.

Janine didn't move far from Egon's side, and Peter realized she'd seen him through the worst of the crisis. Although Egon's feelings for their secretary were not for discussion Peter had a pretty good idea they ran a lot more deeply than even Egon realized or was yet willing to admit. For the demon to simulate Janine's death must have hit Egon pretty hard, a realization that was proven by the way Egon looked around for Janine and pulled her into the circle when Eddie released him. Janine didn't react in a proprietary way, either, or show any indication of complacency about the hand Egon reached out to her as they went up the stairs. Instead her eyes held shadows and Peter realized she'd seen Egon through a pretty rough time. She described Egon's rescue in low tones, and when Peter heard how the demon had used her shapeshifter ability to put Egon through major hell, his body went taut with furious resentment. Astarine was going to pay and that was all there was to that.

"Gosh, that's awful," breathed Ray, shocked that anyone, even a demon, would do anything so cruel. Ray had trouble with human cruelty but usually accepted the fact that ghosts and demons didn't follow the same rules of ethics that motivated good people. This was evidently beyond the conduct even Ray expected from them, though, and he reached out and clapped Egon on the shoulder. "It's okay," he said with gentle reassurance. "You're all right and so is Janine. Now that we know, we can watch for that."

"It's even easier than you think, Raymond," Egon replied. He'd found his equilibrium pretty fast, but he was home again and everyone was still safe. "I realized afterwards that the false Janine was cold to the touch."

"Yeah, she even kissed him, and he couldn't tell the difference," Janine griped, but she glanced sideways at Egon to see how he took her words.

"I was able to tell the difference as soon as you kissed me," Egon pointed out.

"Aha, now it all comes out," Peter said, falling into the old patterns with relish; it would be the best thing for Egon. "Here we were, worrying about you, but you took time out for a little nookie. I'd never have thought it of you, Spengs."

Egon smiled at him. "Simply because you wish you'd been in my place...." he began.

"You better not wish that, Dr. V," Janine told him narrowly. "Although, come to think of it, chaining you down might have something to say for it."

"No, it doesn't." Egon was suddenly serious, looking down at his ankle, where the chain still dragged. Peter saw the grimness of unhappy memories flash for a minute in his eyes.

"Egon's right," he told Janine, allowing the physicist to have a moment of privacy while Peter distracted everyone else. "Besides, I'd rather have a kiss any day." He puckered up in Janine's direction. She gave him a swat on the arm.

Spying Ray's wide-eyed shock as he stared at the chain, Peter reached out and caught his arm, shaking his head quickly. Ray subsided even if his eyes were full of questions.

Once up in the lab, Peter took out his thrower and used it with great panache to cut the chain free, scorning Winston's warnings not to hit Egon in the process. "Hey, I can pick a lock with this baby. You think I can't pull this off? Anyway, those are Egon's old boots. Time he got a new pair if I happen to singe them."

"You'd better not singe them," Egon replied, relaxed again. "They may be old but they're comfortable just as they are. I don't think they'd be nearly as comfortable with holes burned in them, nor would my ankle."

Peter finished his task, powered down and knelt quickly to pull the chain away. "See, not a trace of a singe mark. Am I good or what?" He passed the chain to Winston and rose quickly muttering to the black man, "Lose the chain, quick."

"Got it," Winston replied sotto voce and vanished. Peter could hear him hurrying away down the stairs.

"Okay, Egon, any major fractures we ought to know about?" Peter asked, watching him expectantly.

"No. Minor bruises is more likely. I'm not hurt, Peter." Egon looked him right in the eye to convince him of that, allowing his gaze to move on to Ray who hovered at his side. "Really, guys. If anything, I'll likely catch a cold from spending time in the sub-basement of Janine's building." He seemed warm and comfortable now. "Eddie. How are you holding up?"

"Now that she doesn't have you any more I feel a lot better," Eddie agreed. "But I know she'll still show up, whether she knows you're free or not. The thing is, she'll still want me and she can threaten me with Cy and Whitney."

"Did you talk to Whitney?" Egon asked.

"I called her before we went to bed. I told her exactly what was going on and what kind of danger there was. She put Tommy on the phone"--Tommy was their butler-cum-bodyguard at Segue--"and I warned him. He's got my P.K.E. meter and the thrower you guys left with me last time and he's prepared to stand guard over Cy come hell or high water."

Peter remembered the rock-solid determination he'd felt in the lugubrious man and relaxed a little. If anyone could protect Cy, it was Tommy Graves.

"Is it true a demon can't go on holy ground?" Eddie asked.

"I've heard that rumor too, but I can't guarantee it," Ray replied. "Because if so, I'd send Whitney and Cy to a church for the duration, or a convent or something. But I wouldn't put it past Astarine to put on the teenage persona and get herself invited in. No matter what you are, you can usually go in if you're invited. It works that way for vampires, after all, and a lot of other spirits. Astarine isn't above tricking her way in and we shouldn't endanger other people. We've got to find a way to stop her."

"Yeah, and it'll be a lot easier now we won't have to worry about stranding Egon in the 8th dimension," Winston remarked, returning. "But we're all tired. We've got most of tomorrow to work out a plan. I think we need some shuteye. We can still take turns watching, and you'd better stay here tonight, Janine, just in case."

"Yeah, I've got a double bed," Peter offered her, winning a poisonous, if slightly amused, look from the secretary. "You can bunk with me."

"Not if you were the only man left in the universe," Janine retorted, tousling his hair with a combination of irritation and affection.

"Eddie's been sleeping in your bed," Peter told Egon. "So somebody can bunk with me, as long as it's not Slimer, and Janine can have the camp bed. How about we make the bunkroom coed for one night, just so Janine won't be out there alone? And make sure your packs are right beside your beds in case we get a night visitor. Because I'm pretty sure Astarine has a few more tricks left up her sleeve."

Janine retreated to the bathroom to change into her nightwear and Egon quickly shed his clothes to put on his nightshirt, the process revealing a few scrapes and bruises. Peter, Ray and Winston prowled around him as if inspecting damaged merchandise, and Eddie sat on the edge of Egon's bed regarding each small mark with dismay.

"All this is because of me," he said.

"Hey, hey, no guilt trips allowed on this train," Peter told him. He would have liked to assign blame too, but he knew where to assign it; on the demon. "Where else are you gonna come when you've got demon problems? I've seen Egon look worse than this after we've dragged him out to shoot hoops."

Eddie's eyes widened as if he had trouble imagining Egon shooting baskets with his buddies; Peter could have told him it was hard enough getting him to wear the necessary tennies and sweats let alone play one on one with the other three. Egon didn't mind watching the occasional sporting event, but he'd never been athletically minded.

"We do more than just bust ghosts," Winston told him. "Level with us, Egon. You really are okay? No suspicious symptoms or anything."

"I'm not foolish enough to endanger my health out of a macho urge to appear indestructible or stupid enough to deny anything is wrong when something clearly is," Egon returned, looking knowingly at Peter as if both of these crimes had been committed by Venkman in the past. The psychologist spread his hands, trying not to look guilty, the corners of his mouth turned up.

"Hey. I've got a reputation to maintain."

"And half the brain God gave a goose," Winston added. "Okay, Egon, you look like something Slimer dragged in."

"Slimer didn't drag Egon in," the little ghost proclaimed in his familiar garbled voice, appearing in the doorway. "Egon! Egon's back!" He flung skinny arms around the physicist's neck and planted a dozen sloppy, wet kisses all over his face. Egon cringed, pushing him away.

"Really, Slimer, I value your affection but would value it far more from a greater distance."

The ghost eyed him blankly then turned to Ray for translation.

"He means back off or he'll blast you," Peter cut in before Ray could phrase it more politely.

Slimer stuck out his tongue at Peter, gave him a very loud raspberry that ended by scattering slime in all directions and retreated to hover at Ray's side, winning groans of disgust from everyone.

"Everybody decent in there?" Janine called, and Egon hurried to put on his nightshirt before assuring her it was all right.

They ended up with Egon squeezing in beside Peter in the double bed and Janine curling up on the foldaway bed near the round table in front of the main window. Winston took first watch, sitting cross-legged on his bed, proton pack on his back, thrower firmly gripped in his hands.

This time, Peter went to sleep almost immediately, reassured and comforted by the deep, even breathing from the other half of the bed. No matter what happened tomorrow, at least the team was intact again.

Ray awoke early, glancing around the room. It was Eddie's watch, and the singer was seated at the table playing a quiet game of solitaire to keep himself awake. As he watched the blond man lay out the cards, Ray could tell how nervous he was, taut and waiting for trouble. Like Winston the night before, and each of them in their turn (they'd spared Egon a watch, although Janine had insisted on taking one) he was wearing a proton pack, the particle thrower lying in easy reach of his hand. He glanced over at Egon while Ray watched, and gave a faint and possessive smile. Ray followed his look and saw Egon curled up and burrowed into the covers, his hair tangled in all directions, sleeping with a kind of fierce intensity that Ray couldn't bear to disturb; Egon needed it badly after his experience of the previous day. Beside him Peter lay flat on his back snoring softly, one outflung arm dangling over the edge of the bed closest to the door, the other tucked under his cheek, his face turned toward Egon as if he'd needed reassurance of Egon's safety and freedom, even in sleep. Amazing how innocent Peter could look asleep--when he tried to fake the look it never quite came off.

Ray found himself smiling too.

"It's kind of a gloomy day," Eddie said softly. His words made Janine lift her head and look at him dazedly, one hand creeping up to the table beside her to snag her glasses and perch them on the tip of her nose. She yawned and stretched like a cat, then she eased out of the bed, grabbing up the overnight bag she'd brought with her and headed for the bathroom, soft on bare feet.

Ray edged up too, reluctant to disturb the sleepers. Beside him, Winston looked like it would take the last trump to shake him from his slumber. With a cavernous yawn, Ray headed for the front window to gaze out at the street below. Lowering clouds made it seem barely dawn in spite of the clock beside his bed reading 8:37 a.m.

As he looked out the window, Ray blinked stupidly at the sight that met his stunned eyes. Instead of the buildings across the street and a rumble of hurrying traffic below trying to catch the tail end of rush hour, Ray's vision revealed nothing but a desolate, scarred landscape, hemmed in by distant crags that traced a broken, vicious line across the sullen sky. Thunder muttered in the middle distance, spitting out the sound the way a boxer spits out broken teeth after a particularly vicious punch. This close to the window, Ray could feel a chill in the moaning wind that curled around the elderly firehall like a cat around its owner's leg. Fog curled too, but instead of creeping on little cat feet, it stormed up like an elephant, so thick the ground was blotted out, emerging here and there from the nearly palpable mist and vanishing again. The fog hovered near the ground without blocking off the more distant landscape, but right around the base of the structure it was thickest as if Ray could reach down with his hands and snatch it apart like wads of cotton. Through the soft moaning of the wind Ray could hear another sound, distant but gaining in volume as it approached, the baying of terror dogs.

"Omigosh, we're in the Netherworld!" he blurted in total disbelief. "The whole building and everything."

Peter popped upright with all the force of a jack-in-the-box, gaping at Ray, tousled and unshaven, his mouth hanging open in total disbelief. The abruptness of his movement caused even Egon's heavy slumber to ease its grip and the physicist blinked and opened his eyes. "Say what?" blurted Winston, bouncing out of bed and padding over to stand beside Ray. "Yikes," he said, his mouth twisting wryly as he realized how much of an understatement that was.

"What do you mean, the Netherworld, Ray?" Peter pushed himself up with an effort--he'd never been a morning person, and when morning brought this kind of rude shock he probably wanted to pull the covers over his head and go back to sleep again. "We can't be in the Netherworld," he concluded reasonably as if Ray had made a mistake. "We're in Lower Manhattan."

Egon caught up his glasses in one quick motion as he went to the window nearest him and shoved them into place, then he turned to Venkman, who had forced himself to his feet and was engaged in stretching, his arms high above his head. "He's right, Peter. Somehow, in the night, we made a slight detour."

"Yeah, we left reality behind," Peter remarked, pushing in beside him, his mouth twisting in dismay. "This is not a view that's gonna grow on me. Okay, Egon, you boy genius you, any idea how we're gonna get home again?"

"This isn't the first time the firehall made an unscheduled visit to another realm," Egon reminded him. "Janine and I arrived that way in the Land of Lost Objects."

"I never liked that place," Peter said quickly. "I'm still not sure we didn't dream it up. And I wish we'd dreamed this place up," he added. "Did Astarine really do this? I didn't know demons had that kind of power."

"We're obviously here, so it happened," Egon replied. "I'll need to take readings and see what's going on. I assume she discovered I was missing from the place she'd left me and decided to take matters into her own hands."

"Does this mean we can't get home?" Eddie asked reluctantly as if he didn't want to hear the answer.

Ray picked up the telephone, held the receiver to his ear, and shook his head as only silence greeted him. Jiggling the button didn't produce a dial tone. It was what he'd expected but it was still disappointing. "It's dead," he said.

"Otherwise it would have given a whole new meaning to the term 'long distance'," Peter piped up. He cast one dark glance at the window then gestured to the phone. "Besides, we're the Ghostbusters. The concept of 'who you gonna call' was dreamed up for people who needed us. When the Ghostbusters are in trouble, who do we call?"

"The Equalizer?" Winston offered with a crooked grin.

"Yeah, right. Going after ghosts with a gun is not my first choice," Peter complained. "I take it Janine's in the bathroom. I think the first order of business is to get dressed. I don't know about you guys but I don't want to parade around in my undies in front of assorted ghouls, demons and other nasties."

"Gosh, no," agreed Ray fervently. "I'll feel a lot better with my proton pack, so we can take 'em on when they show up. Let 'em come. We'll beat 'em."

"I hate to break it to you, Ray, but I think they are coming," Winston told him, jerking his thumb toward the window. "That sounds like our little canine friends of yesterday--and I think they've got friends."

"It sounds like they're having a convention in our front yard," Peter quipped. "Have we got any terror dog repellent we could spray on 'em? And how soon will it be before they figure out how to get in?"

Janine came in, fully dressed, and found them staring out the windows. "What's going on, a parade?" she asked, but there was an uneasy note to her voice as if she knew she wouldn't care for the answer. Going over beside Egon, she touched his shoulder and he slid sideways enough for her to edge in between him and Peter so she could check out what they were all looking at. Her shoulders stiffened immediately and Egon put his hands on them and gripped her reassuringly. He seemed a lot more physically demonstrative to Janine than he had before the demon had made him listen to what he'd assumed was her death.

Janine leaned back against him automatically. "What happened to New York?" she demanded. "I don't get paid mileage, guys, so how will I get home?"

"You got us," Peter replied, "but I'd bet big bucks it's our little groupie playing a new game with us. She might not have come in and snatched Eddie, but it's gonna be pretty hard for him to get home until we can figure out how to pick up headquarters and zip through a trans-dimensional portal. Is that gizmo of yours going to be any good to us, Ray?"

"I don't know. What do you think, Egon?"

The two scientists looked at each other thoughtfully, already coming up with various ideas that they could bounce off each other. Ray knew the device was set to move an object apart from itself, not to move something as big as the firehouse. Besides, if Astarine was powerful enough to shift Central without waking any of them up or letting the one on guard notice, she'd just pick up the old building and take it back again. The Ghostbusters might be able to barricade themselves inside but without power, they couldn't recharge their packs.

"The containment unit," Ray burst out in dismay. "What's keeping it running? I sure hope it is running."

Without hesitation the four Ghostbusters thudded for the stairs, galloping down, the metal spiral steps icy beneath Ray's bare feet. The second floor looked much like normal except for being dimly lit under such a lowering sky. As they passed a light switch, Peter gave it a flick with his hand and nothing happened.

"This does not look good," the psychologist muttered.

"You got that right," Winston responded. "At least the containment unit hasn't blown up yet."

"Maybe Astarine is keeping it going, because she doesn't want to deal with all those ghosts," offered Ray. "What do you think, Egon?"

"I'm not sure, yet. We need more information."

As they went down the basement stairs, they descended into darkness, but leaving the door open let dim shadows emerge from the blackness. Egon fumbled his way across the room and a moment later light sprang out from a flashlight the guys kept in the lab in case of emergencies. Egon went over to the containment unit, Ray hot on his heels, and the two of them checked it.

"This is weird, Ray," Egon remarked.

"Define weird, and does that mean we're going to blow up any time in the next sixty seconds?" Peter asked warily, poised on the steps as if he meant to run like hell at the slightest provocation.

"If so, I think I'd rather face those blue dogs with the horns," Eddie said wryly. "Maybe I could sing to them. You know about music soothing the savage beast?"

"Savage breast," Egon corrected automatically.

"Savage breast?" echoed Peter. "Can I be first in line? I'm really good at that kind of soothing, even without music."

"Honestly, Peter," Egon groaned without looking up from the power readings beneath his hands. "Can't you keep your mind on the crisis?"

"Not when you're talking about breasts, Egon," Peter replied honestly. "Especially savage ones. I'm getting a really interesting mental picture here." He collected himself, shoving away the tantalizing thought--Ray found it a hard one to ignore, too, now that Peter had bludgeoned them with it. "What's the deal with the containment unit? Is it going? About to blow? What?"

"It's actually powered up and the protection grid is functioning normally as if it were getting regular electricity," the physicist replied, exchanging a perplexed look with Ray. "And it isn't the backup generator either," he added with a gesture at the device in the corner.

"How is that possible?" Eddie demanded. "Somebody sneak an illegal line into the Netherworld or what?"

"Whatever the case, I'm sure glad of it," Winston said. He shivered. "I don't know about the rest of you but my feet are freezing. Janine's the only one dressed. I think the rest of us should get our clothes on and maybe have some breakfast if we can get the stove to work here, and then sit down and figure out what's going on."

"I'll buy that," Peter concurred, his arms wrapped around his chest to stop shivering. "I know it's fall back home, but it feels like it's nearly winter here. Or is that just because we don't have any heat going?"

"Whatever it is, we'll know more after I've run a series of tests," Egon replied. "I wouldn't say no to breakfast, but we'll need to eat and work at the same time. I don't know how up you are on your physics, Eddie, but you might be useful."

"I still check the journals when I get a chance," admitted the rock singer as they trooped up the stairs again. "But there's so much going on I don't keep as current as I'd like, especially since Cy was born. Being famous didn't stop Whitney from making me take my share of two a.m. feedings." He grinned ruefully at the memory but Ray could tell he hadn't minded the awakenings in the night any more than he'd minded changing diapers, at least not very much. And Cy would be lucky in the ones who sang him to sleep.

The thought of Eddie being forced to go voluntarily with Astarine to save Cy and Whitney made Ray mad, all the more so because their present location made it likely the Ghostbusters and Janine had just become additional bargaining tools. Eddie would be sure to agree to her terms if part of the deal was to return the four men and Janine to New York, and Ray didn't like the idea of being part of the manipulation. He'd rather be part of the solution. It would be terrible if Eddie had to give up everything because the Ghostbusters couldn't solve the problem. There had to be a way of working it out, and he was determined to find it. He stumped up the stairs after Eddie, his face set in stubborn lines. If they couldn't find their own way out of here, they didn't deserve to be called Ghostbusters.

After washing and shaving hastily--there was still water in the pipes but no one bothered with a full shower, uncertain of the source of the water and whether it was harmful to them--the men threw on their clothes and returned to the ground floor, proton packs on all their backs, even Janine's, to see what happened if they tried to go outside. Egon had his P.K.E. meter in hand, and when Ray flung open the small door set inside the bigger one, it began beeping wildly.

The view from the front door wasn't particularly enlightening. It was nothing but fog, huge, thick banks of it, billowing and churning around the venerable building and occasionally, through it, the shrouded glimpse of a rock spire, shredding its way through the murk. There was no sound but the sighing of a lonely wind, woven through with the distant howls of terror dogs. None of the beasts were visible, but with the thickness of the fog, they could be lurking close at hand and the team would never know it until one of the entities lunged for an unprotected throat.

Peter stared out into the fog bank and didn't like it. No more Manhattan, no more days at the beach, no more beer and pizza, unless they could find a way to reverse the process. He wanted to slam the door, but Egon stood there, meter in one hand, his other hand holding the doorway, and Peter didn't quite want to yank it away from him.

"So what are you picking up, big guy?" he asked, giving Egon's arm a nudge.

"Actually very little, Peter," Egon replied. "Astarine is present, very close at hand, but other than that, I'm reading only ambient energy right now, no more than I'd pick up if we were still in New York. So either we've been brought to a remote section of the Netherworld far from other demons--"

"Which makes a lot of sense when you think about it," Ray put in, his eyes busy as he tried to penetrate the foggy barrier around the building.

"Precisely," agreed Egon, twisting a dial, "or we are still in New York."

"Yeah, right, Egon. That looks exactly like Chinatown to me," Winston disagreed, jerking his thumb in the direction of the fogbank.

"Well, it could be an illusion," Ray argued. "The only way to tell for sure is to walk out there."

"I'm not prepared to do that, at least not yet," Egon replied. "It might actually be easier for her to create an illusion of the Netherworld than to bring us here, firehall and all, and the fact that we still have water and power for the containment unit might prove that."

"You mean we jump through the fog and we're back where we belong?" Peter asked hopefully.

"Either that or the terror dogs rip us to pieces," replied Ray in such reasonable tones that Peter stared at him in disbelief.

"Just a little fountain of joy this morning, aren't you, Tex?" he asked. "Okay, Egon, what do we do? Remember, the phone's out."

"Is it? Or is that an illusion, too?"

"It's pretty easy to rip out a phone cord," Winston said. "Let's check everything. I think the refrigerator was still running when we came by. I'm sure I heard it chugging away the way it does. You can't yank out the electricity that selectively."

"The lights didn't come on anywhere," Janine pointed out, gesturing at the ceiling light fixtures that were still dark. "Or would that be part of the spell?"

"A spell that makes lights burn out?" hazarded Eddie. "Maybe she snuck in here and unscrewed all the bulbs."

"We had activated meters in the bedroom and the lab," Egon reminded him. "They would have gone off if she'd gotten close enough to trigger them."

"And we didn't try to turn lights on up there," Peter replied.

"I had a light on in the bathroom when I was getting dressed," Janine corrected. "I turned it on and didn't think anything of it."

"Maybe that's when we shifted," said Ray. "Right when you were coming out of the bathroom--only you were still in there when we first looked out the windows."

"So maybe we're still where we belong and some of our power lines are broken or the bulbs are shot," Peter said. "Maybe she could make them burn out without coming inside. But that doesn't explain how we've still got selective power. We'll have to check and see what works and what doesn't."

"Good point, Pete," Winston agreed. "There might be a clue in it."

"The only way to tell for certain might be to go out there," Ray said, pointing out the door. He looked like he was ready to plunge out right now and only the fact that Winston and Egon were between him and the door was restraining him. Leaning between them, he poked his arm out the door. It didn't vanish or anything, although the mist was so thick his fingertips were slightly blurred, but the whole attempt was crazy.

Grabbing him, Peter slung an arm around his neck, turning it into a loose chokehold, to restrain him. He knew Ray; the occultist frequently raced into danger without stopping to check the odds. "Not without a whole lot more information, kiddo. Because you might go out there and not get back, and we've already been through losing one of us on this case. I'm not risking anybody else." His jaw tightened at the memory of Egon's disappearance. No way would he take chances with Ray, too. "If we go out, we'll all go out together, but maybe we should wait and see what kind of a deal Astarine offers us this time."

"Well, okay," said Ray, disappointed. "It was cold out there, and kind of damp. It felt really nasty." He rubbed his hand against the front of his jumpsuit to dry and warm it.

"It is late October," Eddie reminded him. "It's supposed to be cold out there in the mornings. Do you think Astarine will make another attempt to deal? Bringing us here wasn't part of her original bargain after all."

"No, but Egon got away. She might feel she needed a better bargaining chip to tilt the scales so you'd feel you had to go with her," Peter reminded him. Eddie's mouth tightened and Peter could see grim uncertainty in the back of his eyes. He realized the singer had never abandoned his plan to turn himself over to Astarine when the time was up. Egon might be safe, at least for the moment, but the threat still hung over baby Cy. In his place, Peter would have done the same thing--except that Eddie still had four aces in his hand, the four Ghostbusters. Letting go of Ray, Peter gave Plummer's shoulder a comforting squeeze.

"I vote we see if we can work out a way to stop her when she comes," was Winston's suggestion. "Come on, guys, we're Ghostbusters. Are we saying one obsessed demon is smarter than all of us put together? I don't know if I can hold my head up on the street if I just keep reacting to things she does instead of turning the tables on her. Sure I want to know if Manhattan's on the other side of the fog, but even if it is, she's still loose. Come on, guys, so she uses the fog as a shield or whatever, but there's gotta be a way to stop her."

"Winston's right," agreed Ray eagerly. "I bet we can come up with a great plan that won't require the throwers at all."

"Yeah, but it'll have to be pretty sneaky," Peter said, backing away from the door as Egon closed it and locked it. "Because she's quick. She sees us go for our throwers and the shield is up, as if she only has to think it into place. So how do we trigger it that we can trap her without reaching for our weapons?"

"Hmmm," said Egon thoughtfully, his face already abstracted.

"Think about it over breakfast," Janine urged him, taking his arm and guiding him toward the stairs. "Come on, Egon, you had a lousy day yesterday and I don't think she remembered to feed you. One bowl of chicken soup isn't enough to keep you going in a crisis."

"I am actually quite hungry," Egon admitted, tucking her arm through his. "All right, a quick breakfast first, then I want to run some tests. I wonder if the computer is still working."

"Better not try it, you might fry its innards," Winston cautioned, leading the way up to the second floor.

"If we're in the Netherworld, nothing will happen," Egon said practically. "If we're actually in New York and power is not interrupted the computer will run."

"Well, you hope it will," said Ray as they reached the kitchen and began opening cupboards. The stove was a gas one, and Peter eyed it uneasily. There was no gas smell to indicate the remnants of separating the stove from its power supply, but he still had a bad feeling and couldn't help bracing himself when Janine turned on the front burner. A steady flame sprang up without trouble.

"That does it," she said. "I think maybe we are still in New York. After we eat, maybe we can send somebody out to see." Folding her arms across her chest, she said, "But food first. I don't know about you guys but if there's any chance you're going to run into terror dogs out there--I mean, maybe she didn't bring the firehall to the Netherworld. Maybe she brought part of the Netherworld to New York."

"Now there's a nasty thought," Peter remarked as he scooped up eggs and balanced them in the crook of his arm while Winston got out a frying pan and added a little grease--well, fat-free whatever, thought Peter, who tried to eat healthy even though he missed the taste of eggs cooked in unhealthy, but delicious, bacon fat. Showing off, Peter broke the eggs open one-handed. "Just like that guy in that old spy movie we saw on the late show the other night," he remarked. "Michael Caine was in it."

"The Ipcress File," Ray reminded him. He must know the details of every movie ever made; he watched enough of them. Peter would have been happy with a good John Wayne western himself. Cracking the last of the eggs, he grabbed up a spoon and began to stir them slowly.

"Whatever. Is anybody making toast?"

"I am," Eddie explained. "The toaster works, but the overhead light doesn't."

"Could be the bulb," said Winston, "cause we've got the refrigerator light and the one in the oven still works. It's just the ones we need to make it bright in here that are off. Weird, huh?" He dragged up a chair and stood on it, checking out the bulb. In a moment, light filled the kitchen. "It was just loose," Winston replied. "Like she sneaked in here and unscrewed it just enough to it wouldn't come on. I wonder if they're all like that."

"Then we are still in New York," returned Eddie. "At least if we can get to it."

"You hope," Winston said. "That fog looked nasty, man."

Janine peered over Peter's shoulder, frowning suspiciously at the eggs. "I'm not burning them," he insisted with a grin. "I can cook, Melnitz. Besides if I asked you to do it, you'd accuse me of being a sexist or complain it's not in your job description."

"Well, it's not." She glowered at him a moment, a little resentful at having Peter defuse her arguments before she could offer them. "Egon, if we're really in New York and we can see the Netherworld because she dragged a little bit of it here, then can we go out into the city or will we wind up in some kind of buffer zone?"

"That's a good question, Janine," Egon replied, accepting the piece of toast Eddie passed him and spreading butter on it. "I think after breakfast we'll have to send a team out. I suggest we rope ourselves together like mountaineers for the process and then we'll have a way to pull ourselves back if it doesn't work."

They made a hasty breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, coffee and orange juice, complete with a lot of theories that went nowhere interspersed with periods of rather bleak silence as they contemplated the possibilities. Astarine was obviously prepared to play hardball. Faking a painful and bloody death for Janine to torture Egon proved how relentless she could be, although she could well have done the deed to the real Janine. Egon knew that as well as anyone, and Peter saw him watching the secretary from time to time. A little deadly peril can help clarify a person's feelings better than anything else. Maybe when this was over, Egon would spend more time with Janine. Peter would have to egg him on and make sure he started taking her on real dates instead of the casual encounters Egon insisted were anything but.

Threatening to kidnap a baby was a pretty nasty thing to do, too. Peter hated the thought of the demon hurting any child, let alone Eddie's kid who looked so much like Egon. Astarine would have to go through him and the other Ghostbusters to get Cy, but the point was, she could go around. She could strand the team here, wherever here was, cut them off from the outside world, because even if they were in Manhattan as the lightbulb indicated it looked like they'd have to go through a zone of fog-infested no-man's-land just to get to the street. The demon could be up at Segue right now, helping herself to better bargaining tools in the form of Eddie's wife, son, secretary, butler and anyone else who happened to be there. Peter hated that. He could understand Ray's fierce need to pierce the fog and see if reality did lie beyond it in spite of the view from their bedroom windows. Astarine used the fog for several purposes, both as a shield and a gateway. A step in one direction might put Peter out in the middle of Lower Manhattan, a turn in another might land him on the front steps of Tolay's Keep. He only hoped Egon and Ray could tell from their use of the meters and other detection gear exactly where they were and what the consequences of leaving Central might be.

"I still don't think this is a very wise idea."

Whitney Stone looked at Nina Corey, Eddie's uncompromisingly middle-aged secretary, who sat behind the wheel of her late model Buick, wending her way between the cabs and other traffic of the Big Apple. Since Nina complained frequently about life in the city and was never happier when she could stay at Segue out of the mainstream, she was doing it very well and without protest, at least not about the traffic. The grey-haired woman clearly had her own opinions of Whitney's mission.

"Maybe it's not wise," said Tommy Graves from his seat beside the driver. His stolid features were tight with concentration, and his chin wore the same kind of stubborn look Whitney remembered in her own father, the kind of look that said, 'Cross me if you dare.' In this case, Tommy's frown was not intended for either Whitney or Nina but for the demon that threatened the focal person in all their lives, Eddie Plummer. "But if Eddie needs us, the last thing I'm gonna do is stay back at Segue. That demon tries to interfere with any of you and she'll be reeling."

Nina reached out a quick hand and patted Tommy's arm. "I don't think martial arts are much use against demons, dear," she told him.

Tommy's mouth tightened, but Whitney suspected it was more because he disliked being called 'dear' than because he believed her to be impugning his abilities. "If it weren't for all that mess with the ghost in the attic back home, I'd wonder about all this," he said. "Ghost groupies?"

"Demon groupies," Nina said. She slammed on the brakes to avoid a truck that had suddenly backed out of an alley without looking, then turned around to shake her fist at the cabby behind her who had leaned heavily on his horn. Her face instantly resumed its controlled expression and she added, "It's not inconceivable a demon would fall for Eddie. Millions of human females have. Why not a demon female too?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Tommy said. "I'm not arguing it. But I think bringing Whitney and Cy along isn't very smart."

Whitney looked down at her son, sleeping peacefully strapped into his car seat. His face wore an expression of fierce concentration as if his dreams were intense or as if he knew he had to catch up on his sleep now because there might not be time later. Cy had not greeted her as a stranger after her six weeks absence but had lit up with a huge baby smile and murmured, "Mama." He was just starting to say his first words, and the sound of that had touched Whitney all the way to her heart. Naturally Eddie's son would be perfect; Whitney would have given him points on that alone, but he was such a darling baby, so affectionate and funny and good humored, so ready to smile and laugh when she played with him, so warm against her heart. The thought of an entity from another dimension threatening her child roused Whitney's martial spirit to battle-readiness. Her husband and her son were in jeopardy. Where else would she be but here?

"I couldn't leave Cy with the nanny," she said reasonably, the fire that burned in her struggling to ring in her voice. "What if I'd come back to find him gone? No, Tommy. You've got that proton pack, and you can fight. I'd back Nina against most demons, and when that demon faces me she's doing something only a fool would do, come between a mother and her child. I couldn't leave Cy behind. And I can't leave him somewhere along the way, not even with people I could trust. I know it's risky, but I can't think of a single option that isn't. Waiting at Segue to be snatched is just plain stupid, and I won't do it. I'd rather be with Eddie, with the Ghostbusters to watch us, no matter what happens."

"Stubborn," Nina said instructively to Tommy.

"I've noticed." He found a smile, turning around to give Whitney an encouraging look. "The Ghostbusters should know what to do," he told her, his voice unexpectedly gentle. He had a sensitive side he didn't show to most people but he was utterly mushy around Cy. "Eddie's in the right place."

"What really scares me," admitted Whitney, shivering a little, "is that Eddie saw her out the hotel window our last night in Chicago. He said she was standing right out there--and I couldn't see her. What if she comes for Cy and I don't see her then either? What if I turn my back for one minute and when I look again, Cy's gone?" She shivered. "There are so many people out there who envy me my life. Times like right now, fame's not much of a shield."

"You listen to me, Whitney," Nina said, her voice practical and encouraging at the same time. "Trust Eddie and trust the Ghostbusters, and if it comes right down to it, trust me and Tommy because we won't let you down either. I'd like to see a demon try to stand up against the pair of us."

Whitney would prefer not to see it, but before she could say so, Nina gave a sharp, wordless exclamation and slammed on the brakes. "Oh lord," she breathed, the words whistling out through her teeth.

"Shit," Tommy burst out. "Shit, shit, shit!"

Her hand still resting on her baby's stomach Whitney leaned forward and looked where they were looking, then she sagged back in her seat, despair welling through her like a flood.

Ghostbuster Central was gone!

Nina drew the car up to the only empty spot she could find, in front of a fire hydrant, and turned it off. She and Tommy exchanged a considering look, then they turned and glanced back at Whitney, but the singer was already unsnapping her seatbelt and reaching for the door handle. "Watch Cy," she called over her shoulder as she burst from the vehicle and ran wildly down the block toward the crowd that had gathered around the empty space where the vanished building had once stood. She was aware of the pounding of the pavement beneath her feet and the babble of speculative conversation that followed her as she passed. Swirling and churning, mist curled thickly around the corner lot, potent with the smell of times long gone, cold iron and brimstone; sulphur anyway. It made Whitney think of devils and demons, giving her a pretty good idea who was responsible for the vanishing. Stopping at a police barricade she gripped the top railing for balance, feeling the color drain out of her face as she looked. No one seemed to recognize her; she hadn't stopped to put on sunglasses and cover her hair as she usually did when she went out unattended in New York. But this time, the center of attention was a huge excavated hole in the ground where once an old, converted firehouse had stood. It was gone, the Ghostbusters with it, and with them her husband. Shocked to the core, Whitney closed her eyes in bleak despair.

"Oh, god, Eddie," she moaned, wishing her knees didn't feel so weak. "Where are you?"

"Stand back, miss. We don't know what might happen next." The sudden voice startled her back to awareness and she raised her head--it seemed to weigh a ton--to look for the speaker. It was a police officer, one of New York's finest, a ruddy-cheeked, middle aged man so Irish looking he might have been wearin' of the green instead of clad in a familiar blue uniform, strands of coarse rust-colored hair poking out behind his ears under the edges of his hat. He took a second look at her, eyes narrowing behind his reflective sunglasses as if he'd realized she was someone of note, even if he hadn't pinned her down completely. "You're one of those singers, aren't you?" he asked, surprised to see a celebrity in the midst of the curiosity seekers and sightseers. "I'm sure I saw you on one of my son's album covers."

"My husband was in there," Whitney said vaguely, stretching out her hand toward the seething fog and ignoring his question as unimportant. What did it matter now that she had her own claim to fame? Without Eddie, what did anything matter? Being famous wouldn't save him; it wouldn't protect Cy. "What happened?" she asked in a reluctant voice, half afraid of the answer she might get. "It didn't...blow up?"

"No, it's just gone. I've worked this neighborhood a long time and they've had their share of explosions; the one when that giant marshmallow character stomped through town was the worst. This time; one minute it was there and the next minute there was just a hole in the ground. There were three accidents when it happened, drivers so shocked they weren't paying attention and ran right into the cars in front of them. There wasn't any explosion, no fire, nothing weird. Just one minute there was a three story building there and the next there was all that fog and a big hole in the ground. You say your husband was in there?"

"Yes, he's Egon's cousin--you know, Egon Spengler, one of the Ghostbusters. He stayed there last night. I was supposed to meet him there."

Nina and Tommy found her then, Nina wearing Cy's baby snuggler against her chest, one arm helping to support the child's weight. Cy was awake and alert, fascinated by all the people and motion, and when he saw Whitney, he cried, "Mama!" and tried to stretch out a little hand to her. Whitney's eyes stung.

"What the hell happened?" Tommy demanded of the police officer. "Where's the Ghostbusters' building?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe some kind of a weird spell. No, don't go in there," he said, grabbing Tommy by the arm. Tommy could have flipped him effortlessly, but he restrained himself with the inner control that was so much a part of him.

"What about that weird fog?" he asked. "Anybody know where that came from?"

"Maybe it drifted through from wherever the Ghostbusters' building went," Nina offered. "You know, from another dimension. Someone had to open up a way to get through there. Maybe the fog sneaked through. It doesn't seem to be dispersing. I wish we had a way to test it and see if there's anything unnatural about it."

The officer turned to her with respect. "That's the first practical suggestion I've heard all morning," he said. "I'm not sure who we'd get; somebody from Columbia?"

"A parapsychologist," Whitney suggested. "The Ghostbusters have all sorts of equipment; some of the devices are in common use among parapsychologists. Is this on the news? There are bound to be some experts in the crowd. Check and see."

"You got it, lady." He started to turn, then turned back. "I know who you are," he announced as if he'd solved a complex riddle. "You're Whitney Stone. Eddie Plummer's wife."

She nodded. "Yes. And Eddie's in there. Your son will never forgive you if you don't help get him back."

The police officer pushed through the crowd to join two of his fellows. They conferred for a few minutes, glancing over at Whitney every few minutes. She turned back to the building, extending one hand to see if she could reach the fog without crossing the barricade.

"I wouldn't go over there," said Tommy, catching her arm and pulling it back. "That fog isn't natural. I never saw fog like that; it's too solid. It doesn't act right. There isn't any fog anywhere else; I didn't even notice any at Segue down along the river. I think it means something. You don't think that demon could change shape and spread herself thin enough to look like fog?"

"Now there's a nasty thought." Nina curled her arms around Cy. "I think we should stand back a little, in case Tommy's right. I don't want the demon to be able to sense your baby."

Whitney looked at the small, fascinated face and knew Nina was right. Although she longed to plunge into the mist and yank Eddie back from whatever evil place the demon had taken him and the Ghostbusters, she couldn't do that. She didn't have the training, equipment, or experience, and Cy was her own personal responsibility. She would have to trust to the Ghostbusters to bring Eddie back to her. Her job was to protect Eddie's baby, and the best way she could do that was to avoid calling attention to herself in this particular crisis. Looking around, she saw a small coffee shop down the street. "We'll wait there," she decided. "There's nothing else to do."

"I could try to walk into the fog," offered Tommy, his whole body braced to face whatever was in there. He was Eddie's friend as well as his employee and Whitney knew he would stand beside Eddie up to the jaws of death, as Jackson would have done if he hadn't stayed behind in Chicago to visit his family. If necessary, Whitney knew and consoled herself with the thought, she could probably raise an army of Eddie's fans to storm the Other Side to bring him back. Maybe she would have to do that, but not yet, not until people knew more, not until she discovered what she would be asking them to face.

"Not yet, Tommy," she said, giving his arm an affectionate pat. "It won't do Eddie any good for us to lose you, too."

"You don't know where you'd be going or what you'd be up against," Nina pointed out. "Wait. Let the police bring in experts. Maybe then we'll know. Until then, Whitney's right, hard as it is. We wait."

Egon frowned, twisted the dial on the P.K.E. meter, and checked the readings again. They weren't at all what he had expected, yet they were the only possible readings if his theory was accurate. The findings he got from all the detection equipment proved it. Although there were very strong readings that matched those of the demon, they centered in the thick and churning fog that didn't dissolve but clung to the firehall like a stale smell.

Egon got up, strode to the window very quickly, and looked out again. The others watched him except for Peter, who got up and followed him, fetching up hard against his back when Egon stopped. Withdrawing a few inches, Peter rubbed his nose and looked at Egon accusingly as if he'd deliberately created a living wall for Peter to walk into. The look passed immediately and Peter gave him a knowing grin.

"You've got something, don't you, big fellow?"

Egon hesitated, looking Peter right in the eye then moving past him to the others. Ray was grinning as if he already knew what Egon was going to say, Winston and Eddie wore identical expectant expressions and Janine was watching Egon as if she had never doubted for a moment that he would solve the problem. He felt a momentary surge of fondness for her, all the stronger because he'd believed for an interminable hour that she had died horribly in trying to rescue him. He'd never quite let himself explore the very real feelings he'd had for Janine, and there wasn't time to do so now, but he knew he wouldn't hold her at the same distance he sometimes had before when all this was over. Life was too short to waste it, and he'd been kicked hard in the pants with what he might have lost. Had Janine vanished from his life, something very important would have gone. He spared a moment to bestow upon her a warm smile, and her eyes glowed at the sight of it.

All she said, though, was, "Go on, Egon, what did you find?" and waited knowingly, content in her belief that he would solve it all.

"All right." Catching a momentary flicker of amused knowledge in Peter's face, Egon shot him a quelling look that faded when he saw that Peter wasn't trying to tease or give him a hard time. Peter probably knew better than anybody what he was feeling, but there was only understanding and acceptance under the smile. It was hardly time to push the issue. "I've studied the readings at great length," he said instead.

"Yeah, for nearly half an hour," complained Peter as if he had to keep his hand in somehow. "And if you don't think it's boring watching you sit there and play comparison with the P.K.E. meter, magnetometer, spectrameter, and all the other meters, then you've got another think coming."

"You could have taken readings, too, Peter. No one was stopping you," Ray piped up, grinning. "Go on, Egon, tell them."

"You know about this too, do you?" Winston asked him.

"Well, it's pretty obvious."

"Some of us need the obvious spelled out," Eddie put in. "Come on, Egon, I'm a singer, not a Ghostbuster. What's the big news?"

"First of all, we're not in the Netherworld," Egon replied.

Peter leaned sideways to peer out the window over Egon's shoulder. "Well, Manhattan's sure changed," he offered pointedly.

"No, Manhattan is the same as usual. I took readings; remember, Peter, we've been in the Netherworld before. Ray took extensive readings when you guys were looking for me the time Tolay captured me. When we got back, he wrote everything down that he could remember. He took more readings last night. I've studied all those readings and they match exactly what you'd expect over there; demons, lots of ghosts, various entities, all jumbled together. Even if we had landed in an area relatively free of paranormal entities, there'd still be residuals, and the entire ambient energy levels would be different."

"I knew we'd get to ambient energy levels before very long," Peter said in an aside to the others. "I think the big guy here just loves to say things like that."

"It's essential we measure such levels on a regular basis, Peter. How else will we know when a dimensional cross-rip is about to open and ghosts pour through in hordes?"

Peter grimaced. "I'll pass on the hordes. Come on, Egon, make your point."

"You should learn to control your impatience, Peter." Egon hesitated just long enough to irritate the irrepressible psychologist, then plunged on. "The ambient energy levels I've been taking are slightly corrupted by the presence of a demon at close range, most likely concealed in the fog, but I've adapted the equipment to momentarily filter that out. When I do it, I get readings that are so close to the ones I took automatically yesterday morning--with one exception--that it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are still in Manhattan, and more so, still in the same section of Manhattan. That is, of course, why we still have power, why the lights work now that we've screwed them in again, and why the containment unit is functioning normally. Moreover, when I adjust the meter to detect biorhythm readings, filtering out all our own, I get the normal jumbled pattern I get when boosting the equipment and measuring the city. There are millions of humans out there, something we wouldn't expect to find in the Netherworld. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are still in Manhattan. Unfortunately--"

"I knew there was a catch in this somewhere," Peter mourned.

"Well, it's not really a catch, it's more like a glitch," said Ray, holding up his calculator as if to prove his words. "I think what she probably did was put a thin circle of the Netherworld around the firehouse, just enough so we could look into it, as if we were in the middle of a doorway but not enough to endanger the power cables, gas lines, and all that stuff. If we go outside, we've got a fifty-fifty chance of walking into Mott Street."

"And the other chance is we'd be walking into some demon's lair." Winston slapped his hand against his forehead. "Man, I knew I wasn't gonna like this. To think I told my dad I didn't want to do construction because I didn't like the work--thought it might be dangerous."

"You love being a Ghostbuster," Peter told him with certain knowledge. "Even when it's more dangerous than construction work. So what do we do, Egon? Can we use the traps to create some kind of feedback loop and suck in the Netherworld part."

"Hmm." Egon was fascinated. That kind of possibility hadn't occurred to him in this situation. But as he reasoned it through he knew that was because a single trap didn't have enough power to manage what Peter had suggested. Peter's knowledge of physics was hands on and sketchy at best, what he'd picked up from constant association with Egon for the better part of twenty years. Sometimes he came up with brilliant bits of insight, at other times his unrestrained ideas could well lead to universal destruction. While there was a chance they could set up a string of traps around the firehall, in every window, slaved to one control, and open them at once, thus pulling in the demon and knocking away her barrier, there was another chance it would suck the Netherworld into New York, another example of the Selbert Theory, that nether-energy could flow in only one direction at a time. Right now the demon was maintaining a precarious balance; if they interfered they'd do one of two things; pull New York into the Netherworld, and after it the rest of America and then the world, or pull the other dimension into New York, the way they'd nearly done when they'd gone through Strazinski's magic cabinet and then tried to get home.

"No, Peter, that wouldn't work," Egon replied. "It would either put our world in the Netherworld or the Netherworld in our world."

"And that's not right up there on my list of fun things to do," Peter concurred, abandoning his 'brilliant' scheme with regret. "But it was still a wonderful idea, right, Egon?"

"Possibly," Egon said with restraint. It didn't do to encourage Peter in that frame of mind. "However, we could set up a string of ghost traps, slaved to one control and use them if necessary, to trap the demon. Enough traps would counter the inability to use throwers because she'd see us begin and shield herself. If we could figure out a way to trigger the traps without seeming to threaten her, she could well be caught in the trap's flow of power before she realized what was happening and put up the shield."

"That would be great, Egon," enthused Ray. "I'll get started on the traps right now; we can put them all around the room, concealed." He glanced at the window. "You don't think she's listening right now, do you?"

Egon held up the meter and studied it. "No. The readings are too diffuse for that. If anything, she's concentrating every inch of her being on maintaining the illusion or holding open the gateway just enough to deceive us. You set up the traps, Ray. Eddie, help him. I know you're up on our equipment enough to do that. Winston, bring us more traps."

"Got it," agreed Winston and galloped away toward the stairs.

"What do you want me to do, Egon?" asked Janine. Usually when she asked a question like that it had a faint, seductive edge in it carrying with it the suggestion that there was nothing she wouldn't do for him, even if it was a little kinky. While Egon cared for Janine, that particular tone had always irritated him in a subliminal way. She didn't sound like that now; she was too busy considering the present crisis. Egon realized if he had ever allowed himself to look past his work she mightn't have had to bludgeon him with her attention and they could have gotten on closer terms long ago. This wasn't the moment to consider it, of course, but once this was over, he determined to take Janine out, even if it was for Peter's favorite choice, dinner and dancing.

"You and Peter come with me," he said to her now. "I want to test the barrier at the front door again."

"Are you going to try to go out?" asked Ray, setting aside his screwdriver long enough to study Egon with interest. He would have liked to volunteer to come along, to try to walk through the fog into New York, but he was best qualified to rig the traps and conceal them, and he knew it.

"We might," Egon decided. "I still like the idea of roping us together for the possibility. We can pull someone back if necessary."

"Translate 'someone' to read 'Dr. Venkman'," Peter announced, pasting on a look of noble sacrifice. "Why is it when it's likely to be big and mean and out for blood it's Little Petey Venkman whose neck is on the chopping block?"

"It's what you're best at, Peter," Janine told him, giving him a pat of fake consolation on the arm.

"I'm the one in charge of your future raises, remember, Janine?" the psychologist reminded her, nudging her with his elbow as they headed for the stairs. "So mind when you mock Dr. Venkman."

"I don't like it out there," Peter moaned as he stared into the mist. It seemed thickest near the door as if Astarine had concentrated it there on purpose. "You're saying this fogbank might actually be our little groupie? That if I walk out there, I'll be walking through her body? Egon, I don't think this is your best idea ever."

Egon tightened the knot around his waist. "I'll be right behind you, Peter. And Janine's at this end." He gestured at the secretary who was engaged in tying the other end of the rope around the closest firepole, after having first looped it around Ecto-1's bumper. "If we're trapped out there and she can't pull us back, she'll drive Ecto forward, right up against her desk. That ought to give us enough leeway to be yanked back."

"Good point, Egon," Peter agreed. "I don't say I think it's one of your better plans, but at least it's short, simple. I almost like it. Take note of the 'almost'. If I get eaten by a terror dog out there, you can carve it on my gravestone. 'He almost made it.' Got that?"

"I'll be right behind you," Egon said again. "I'm not trying to sacrifice you, Peter. I honestly believe you'll pass through the mist and find yourself on the street, probably surrounded by a crowd if this illusion goes two ways."

"A crowd?" Peter perked up and took a moment to settle the brown thatch of his hair to his complete satisfaction. Demons in the Netherworld didn't rate the full Venkman perfection, but a gathered crowd to check out why Ghostbuster Central had vanished might well include reporters. With cameras. Peter had to look his best for them. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Nothing wrong with his ego," Janine remarked. She put her arms around Egon's waist. "Be careful, Egon. You too, Dr. V."

"I may be only an afterthought, but at least you remembered me, Janine. Be still, my beating heart." Pulling out his thrower, Peter positioned it carefully as if he were Bruce Willis in Die Hard--that would look really good on film as he emerged from the fog--and walked out the door.

He couldn't tell if the ground beneath his feet were packed earth or concrete; the fog was so thick he couldn't even tell he had feet based on visual perception alone. Nice. Turning his head to look over his shoulder, he couldn't even make out the firehouse any more, and he was only one step into the pea soup. He'd been right all along. He didn't like it.

"Egon? Are you there? I can't see you any more."

No answer. Silence lay around him, as heavy as a foot of snow, and the haze that hung before his eyes was so opaque it was like staring into endless nothingness as if the world ended right in front of him. Peter shivered, cold to the very bone. His teeth began to chatter and he could feel goose bumps rise on his arms. "Can I go back for my coat, ma?" he said whimsically. "You were right. It's too cold for a jacket." His voice didn't even echo, it merely fell dead at his feet as if sound itself had different properties here. The thought of taking another step, of going deeper into the nothingness was so chilling he almost bolted backward, although he could see nothing there either. The rope around his waist extended a mere inch from its knot before it, too, disappeared. Peter raised his arms before him and waved them, but he couldn't see them at all. It was as if they'd been cut off just past his elbows, only a faint suggestion of motion in the thickness of the mist beyond to suggest they were still there. Peter lowered them, his thrower stabbing into the fog and disappearing there. Now he could see his hands, but not very clearly. The tip of the thrower was completely blocked from his sight. If anything came at him out of the cloud it would tear him apart before he had time to react and fire at it.

He prodded the ground with his foot; it was level, nothing to trip him. Shivering in the chilly air, he forced himself to edge forward another few inches. The experience was like sensory deprivation, except that he could see his chest and the blur of his hands. Below that, his body seemed to disappear about waist-level, not where he'd want to be chopped apart. He could hear his own breathing, too, a harsh, rasping, panicky sound, and he could feel his heart thudding in his chest. He'd never thought he could reach a state of dread so quickly.

"Egon?" he appealed hopefully, pitching his voice very low. Egon could have been two feet from him and Peter would have been unable to see him, but surely Egon could hear him. Why didn't he answer? Prying one hand off the thrower, Peter reached around behind him and fumbled for the rope. Tugging on it, he froze as he realized it didn't move, as if it had been trapped in the closing door. Peter wondered if he'd turned the wrong way somehow, condemning himself to wander endlessly in a narrow band of nothing for the rest of his life.

Shuddering with cold and nervous anxiety, he let go of the rope and took one more step, realizing that the rope didn't hold him back. He could move, but he couldn't tell if he was moving in a straight line or a circle, or if the ground shifted with every step, leaving him running the Red Queen's race.

"One step forward, two steps back," Peter muttered to himself and jumped straight ahead, forcing himself to react when every nerve in his body urged him to wrap himself up in a ball and give up. That wasn't Peter's way. Biting his bottom lip, he made himself slide one foot out in front of him. It was the hardest thing he had ever done. Every inch of his body ached with misery, with the certain knowledge he'd never get out of this place, that he was doomed to wander sightlessly, noiselessly, through the mist, that he would never see his friends again. His eyes stung with sudden tears, and he didn't know if they were a product of the overwhelming aloneness that pulsed through his body as if to teach him he would never see another living human being again or whether it was simply the acrid sting of the curling white curtain that imprisoned him. His shoulders hunched in and he quivered. If he kept on walking and nothing happened....

Hands reached in through the fog and grabbed him, and even as he opened his mouth to blurt out a horrified, "Yaaaa!" he realized they were warm and human, even if slightly chilled by the thickness of the fogbank. They were also too small to be Egon's hands. Janine?

He could barely find the strength to move but the touch of another human being galvanized him, enabling him to try again. Stumbling another two steps at the urging of the 'disembodied' hands, Peter felt the fog lessen around him and shapes emerge from the white blanket of mist. One more tug from his rescuer, then there were other hands pulling him, too and he pitched forward directly into the arms of Whitney Stone.

For a moment he was too shocked by the experience of the fog to do more than cling to her with all his strength, his thrower digging into her back, taking comfort, reassurance and security from the presence of another human being, then he collected himself with such ease he realized the panic had been artificially induced, a product of the mist. Free of it, Peter was himself again, although he suspected he'd remember it for awhile in dreams. He gave Whitney a final hug--hey, what could he say, he liked hugging pretty girls, and Whitney was one of the most beautiful women he knew.

"Peter?" From the tone of her voice she'd been repeating his name all along. "Are you all right? Is Ghostbuster Central really in there? Is--is Eddie safe?"

Whitney's urgent questions completed the transition back to reality. Peter caught himself, straightened and loosened his deathgrip on her. "Nasty fog," he murmured. "Nasty." Then, looking around, he saw a crowd of people, nearly all of them strangers, a few of them folks he'd seen in the neighborhood who lived nearby, a few cops. There was a barricade around Ghostbuster Central. Wrong! Around a huge, hollow nothing place where once the firehouse had stood. Maybe Egon was wrong. Maybe it really was in another dimension and he'd crossed through some kind of neutral zone to return to New York. "Eddie's okay," he said. "And headquarters is probably really right there, you just can't see it. Egon says--"

Egon! Peter spun around, grasped the rope in both hands, and tugged on it with all his strength. A moment later Egon stumbled out of the fog and stood dazedly blinking, his glasses so fogged over he couldn't see. His mouth hung slightly ajar and he looked too shocked to react. Maybe he didn't even know he was out yet.

"Egon! You're okay!" Peter lunged, grabbed him around the neck and hugged him fiercely, relieved they were both safe. Egon was shivering and felt every bit as cold and shaken as Peter had. He returned the embrace with a kind of desperation that tightened his grip until Peter could no longer catch his breath, then eased his hold as the last remnants of the fog's power faded. Peter could feel him collecting himself, gathering his strength at the knowledge he was out of the fog, free of its influence, and he let go the minute he could tell Egon was okay, thinking, and ready to take on life on his own.

The physicist whipped off his glasses and polished them hastily with a handkerchief, squinting at the people who surrounded him and the buildings that rose up around them both. "We are in New York." The utter satisfaction in his voice still held emotional resonances from the fog, but Peter could hear the control gaining strength. He put his glasses on again and turned to stare at the fog.

"Got it in one, you boy genius you," Peter said. He dropped his hand on Egon's shoulders and squeezed with a final reassurance. "But you know, we've gotta go back in there." The very idea of it made his toes curl, but Ray and Winston were still in there, not to mention Janine and Eddie.

Egon's face lost color at the thought. "The sensations of permanent and utter solitude are a product of the mist, no doubt engineered by the demon," he announced, and then as if he'd heard what he was describing, he shot a very penetrating look at Peter, knowing all too well that such complete aloneness had always been one of Peter's bugaboos. "Are you all right, Peter?" he asked much more quietly. Only Whitney, who stood right beside them, could have heard the question.

"Well, on a scale of one to ten, I'd give the experience a minus twenty-five, but I'm okay now. I know it was the mist and not me. I didn't like it in there, but it's not real, is it?"

"I should say the whole experience is nothing more than a powerful illusion. Put in place, it will hold until dissolved, and would affect both sides of the barrier it creates." He stared at the place where Ghostbuster Central should stand and his face lit up with fascination. "Incredible."

"Egon?" Whitney took his arm. "Where is Eddie?"

"Yeah, and where's your building, Spengler?" That was a cop, who looked as Irish as the Clancy Brothers, his reflective glasses giving Peter a momentary image of Egon and Whitney at a distorted angle. The officer pushed past Eddie's secretary, Miss Corey, and the butler, Graves, both of whom must have come with Whitney. Miss Corey had the baby, Cy, with her. Peter didn't think that was a very good idea. Dangerous. Much too dangerous.

"Technically, Ghostbuster Central is where it has always been, Officer," Egon informed the cop. "It's right there." He waved his hand at the hollow place. "I should have known it was still present when I realized the protection grid was firmly in place and the containment unit functioning normally."

"Okay, if your containment grid's okay and the building's right there, why can't we see it?" the policeman asked, adjusting his sunglasses much the way Egon always adjusted his own sliding spectacles, prodding them into place with his forefinger.

"Because, as near as I can tell one of two things has happened," Egon began, assuming a pedantic tone that was so natural and right for him that Peter realized Egon had come through the fog undamaged. "Either the building has been cloaked in a two-way spell that prevents us from seeing New York or New York from seeing us, or a fractional boundary of the Netherworld has encircled the building. From the experience of crossing through the fog, I should be inclined to say it's the latter, though the look of the area from this side tends more toward the former.

"Was the fog unpleasant?" Miss Corey asked practically. "You both appeared uncharacteristically shaken when you emerged. We could see Peter before he could see us, if only as misty figure. He didn't seem to have direction. Somebody yelled and pointed and we saw him, and he was hesitating, turning a little to one side as if he couldn't find his way out. Whitney yelled and lunged for him before anybody else could react."

At the thought that he might have turned sideways and wandered indefinitely in the horror of the fog Peter could feel the color draining from his face. Egon slid his hand reassuringly around Peter's wrist, looking none too comfortable with the idea himself.

"All of us are alive and well and Central appears to have electric and gas power, which is what convinced us to risk transition through the fog," Egon replied. "If we don't go back soon, Janine will drag us back."

"I don't know if she can," Peter objected. "I tried to pull on the rope and it was like pulling on the World Trade Center. Nothing moved. Though once I got out, I could pull you after me."

"Perhaps she can't pull us back, but that doesn't mean we can't move," Egon said.

Peter looked down at the rope that still encircled his waist and his hands went toward it as if to untie it, then he forced his hands away. He knew they had to go back, because Ray, Winston and Janine deserved reassurance the fog hadn't eaten them, and because Eddie needed all the protection he could get.

"Officer," Peter said quickly, "a demon caused this. It's a female demon and her one desire is to take Eddie Plummer back with her to wherever she lives and keep him there forever."

"A groupie?" the cop asked, elevating one eyebrow like Mr. Spock. "All this chaos is about a groupie?"

"A groupie with super powers," Egon corrected. "She's threatened Eddie, she kidnapped me and held me as a hostage until I was rescued, and she did this to the firehall, effectively trapping us inside. She's said she wants Eddie to return with her and if he doesn't agree voluntarily, she'll take his son." He nodded at the child who lay sleeping in the tote around Miss Corey's neck. "This child needs constant protection. I don't want the demon to realize he is here. Eddie would go in an instant to save his son, but we're hoping to prevent anyone going. We simply need time. You have men here to deal with what appears to be a major disturbance, the total disappearance of a building. Please, use those men to offer Cy and Whitney protection. Peter and I must return to headquarters and relay the information we've discovered."

"And confront the lady that caused all this," Peter added. "We know this is some kind of illusion. I thought maybe if we could come through and know it for what it was it would break down, but it hasn't." He cast a baleful glare at the fogbank that churned and seethed around what would be the lower story of the old firehouse, assuming they could have seen the firehouse.

"I thought it might, as well," Egon replied. "Perhaps if we fired at it, at an angle so as not to hit anyone inside.... Hmmm." He stowed the thrower he'd been holding all this time and whipped out his P.K.E. meter and a pocket calculator, taking hasty readings.

"He must have been born holding one of those things," Graves muttered in an undertone, assuming the slight hint of Peter Lorre his voice took on from time to time for effect.

"How painful for his mother," said Miss Corey, deadpan. Peter glanced at her quickly, grinning when Egon spared them all a somewhat-impatient look. On the whole the psychologist approved of Miss Corey, all the more so because he had never been able to impress her easily or pull anything over on her, and she never listened to his bullshit, but sometimes he caught her hiding a smile when he came up with a particularly good line.

"So what do you think, Egon?" Peter asked, casting a glance over his shoulder at the TV cameras that were fixed on him and Egon, then back to the physicist. "Can we do it?"

"It's certainly worth a try. I want you to watch the angle I fire at. If this is merely an illusion, it should shatter. Set your beam at wide angle dispersion, medium power, but do not fire directly at where the building should be."

"Got it." Peter made quick adjustments to his proton rifle and leveled it, at Egon's instruction, in the other direction, both of them firing at about a ninety degree angle from each other. The beams should brush the corners of the altered zone but not strike the building concealed within it. Anything was better than going through that mist again. Peter braced his shoulders against the faint shudder the memory of it evoked.

"Officer, have everybody move away from the angle of the street," Egon directed, an instruction that was unnecessary because the people on the street side of the building had seen Peter pointing his thrower in their direction and had begun to retreat hastily from the line of fire without prompting from the law. The policeman worked the crowd anyway, gesturing the people back and yelling at them to get a move on. Peter watched them, and the minute they were clear, he said, "Okay, Egon."

"Then fire on my mark," the physicist replied, adjusting his grip on his particle thrower. One. Two. Three. Mark."

Conscious of the interested crowd behind him, and the TV cameras behind the barricade, Peter had been unable to resist striking a pose in hopes of making up for the demoralized image he must have presented when Whitney yanked him free of the fog. His thrower sizzled to life at the same moment as Egon's, and the streams shot out, widening into a conic projection, sparkling and glittering, hissing when it met the fog. Listening to the snap, crackle and pop of sound Peter imagined a huge commercial for a certain breakfast cereal.

The mist made hissing sounds in return as if it was trying to resist the power from the portable nuclear accelerators. At first, Peter didn't think this scheme of Egon's was going to work; because, if anything, the fog thickened until it looked solid enough for someone to grab chunks of it in his hands.

Then, abruptly it melted away as if the sunlight had warmed it, as if a giant eraser had reached down from the sky and swooped it clear. For a moment, the very air flickered, potent with power, then, intermittently, in bursts and sparks, they got brief glimpses of portions of the firehouse.

"Keep firing," Egon urged. "Don't stop for a moment, Peter. Have you got a trap?"

"Course I've got a trap," Peter yelled back. "I'm a Ghostbuster. It's what I do."

"Then throw it out," Egon directed, doing it with his own trap. "Throw it in the direction you've been firing. Keep pouring on the power. That's right." Peter's trap landed with a thud.

"All right," Egon directed. "Steady... Steady... NOW!"

He and Peter stomped on the trigger pedals in unison and both traps opened, light and power pouring forth. At once the remains of the fog was swept toward the small devices as, beyond them, the rest of the converted firehouse emerged from its concealment. As the traps closed over the tatters of fog and two Ghostbusters powered down, Ghostbuster Central once again became completely visible, and in the doorway Janine stood staring. Her vision of New York must have returned as sporadically, but now she could see. With a glad cry of, "EGON!" she raced madly across the intervening space and flung herself into the physicist's arms. He caught her and hugged her. Peter stood aside to give them the moment, undoing the rope from around his waist. As Janine freed Egon and smiled up at him happily, the physicist untied his own rope, a somewhat discomfited look upon his face. Janine had always been able to evoke a response of some type from Egon, which is why Peter had always suspected they'd one day have a future together. He still wasn't sure exactly what kind of future it was going to be.

A moment later the others emerged and hurried to meet them, Ray leading the way, staring around in sheer delight. "Wow! You guys did it! That's great! You broke through! What did you do? Just blast it?"

"Seemed to work," Peter said. "Egon took readings and said we could."

"The power levels necessary to maintain the illusion were precariously based. I theorized they would last until damped or unless something challenged them. Peter and I passing through it was not enough to challenge it--"

"It challenged us," Peter corrected, vastly relieved he never had to go into that fog again. "But it's gone."

"Well, is the demon gone?" Winston asked practically.

Eddie had spotted Whitney by this time, and now stood, his arms tight around her. "You shouldn't have come, love," he told her softly. "It's far too dangerous."

"But it's gone," she objected. "Peter and Egon destroyed it, trapped it."

"I'm sorry, Whitney, but the demon is still at liberty. We only trapped energy, not even conscious energy. This was in effect, a spell," the physicist replied. "A working of power."

"Wow," said Ray. "A major working, too. Entities as powerful as demons have abilities we haven't completely documented. They can create illusions so vivid no one can tell them from the real thing. Last night the demon assumed the appearance of Janine so fully that Egon was momentarily deceived."

"You know something," Winston said abruptly, his eyes darkening in alarm, "in a way I forgot about that. It makes me think of something. How do we know all of us are really us?"

"I can tell, even without the meters, which would have reacted to her presence," Egon said immediately. "The demon could assume the appearance of anyone, and all that would be needed would be a moment of separation, when that person would be whisked away and Astarine substituted in his or her place. But she couldn't conceal the look in her eyes, a look of ancient evil. When she assumed Janine's form, she never quite met my eyes. Peter, you and I were separated in the fog. Look at me."

Peter met Egon's eyes without hesitation. He knew he was himself, and Egon sounded so natural Peter would have been hard pressed to believe it wasn't really him. They stared into each other's eyes and Peter felt himself relax. He would have known if it wasn't Egon looking back at him; they had too much of a history for a demon to have fooled him even for a moment. There was none of the 'old soul' stuff peeping out of Egon's eyes, only the familiar essence of his oldest friend.

The physicist heaved a sigh of relief. "You're still Peter," he said. "Ray?"

The occultist bounced up eagerly and lifted his face to the taller man. "I haven't been alone; well maybe I have, when I was sleeping or shaving or something. But I'm not a demon, Egon."

"No, you're not, Raymond. I don't think we'll have to deal with posses--"

Peter clapped his hand over Egon's mouth. "I wouldn't, big guy. Don't give her any ideas."

"Good point, Peter," agreed Ray. "Winston, you and Eddie are next."

Winston passed the test, of course, and then Eddie stepped into place. Peter realized the best trick the demon could have pulled would have been to grab Eddie already at a moment when no one was expecting it and substitute herself for him. Except for Egon, the others didn't really know Eddie well enough to notice minute errors, although Peter had come to know him a little better the night before while Ray and Winston were searching for Egon in the Netherworld. So Peter held his breath when Egon stared at Eddie, looking for whatever it was he'd seen in the demon's eyes. Peter hoped Egon was right, that the look would show up, even if Astarine assumed human form. Remembering Egon saying the false Janine had been cold to the touch, Peter edged over to stand between Ray and Winston, slinging an arm around each man's shoulders, sliding his hand to the back of each neck, giving them a comfortable squeeze. Warm, human flesh greeted his touch.

"Another thing to remember," he said instructively. "The fake Janine was cold. I'm not sure a demon could manage to match human body heat, so there'd be an unnatural feeling."

The people who had pushed closest in the crowd began to edge back from the barricade, drawing fastidiously away from those closest to them.

At that point, the Irish cop became all business. "All right, everybody, that's it. The building's back and everything's normal. Go on about your business!" He gestured at them and the other cops joined in, trying to chivvy the crowd away.

That left the field to the reporters, who started calling to the Ghostbusters to grant interviews.

"Take care of it, Peter," Egon said with a gesture in that direction.

Peter edged over to meet the press. "Hi, folks. Right now we're in the middle of a crisis. We'll answer questions when we've made the demon go beddie-bye, not until then. Hey, Cynthia," he greeted the UBN reporter, Cynthia Crawford. "Long time no see. Hi, Jack. Barry. Steve." He shook a few hands, answered a few quick questions and in general tried to give the impression that the Ghostbusters were accessible to the press, even though they actually weren't. "Nothing's going to happen right now, at least we hope it won't."

"Come on, Pete, you've got Eddie Plummer and Whitney Stone over there," one of the reporters reminded him. "This is big news."

"It's big news when Eddie Plummer so much as blows his nose," commented someone in the back of the crowd. "Did Eddie come to you for help with a ghost?"

"He's related to Spengler," someone else reminded the others. "Venkman, give. What's the deal?"

"The deal is that we've got demon problems, and the demon can shift form. For all I know, one of you might be the demon."

At that, the reporters began to spread out, casting nervous glances at the people on either side of them just as the earlier crowd had. Peter grinned irrepressibly. "We'll get back to you when we have more information, folks. Toodles." He waved at them and hurried back to the others, who were standing in front of Central, loosely guarded by the Irish cop. Most of the crowd had gone away by now, and one of the cars that had been rear-ended when the building seemed to disappear was in the process of being hooked up to a tow-truck. Slowly things were returning to normal.

Eddie stood with his arm around his wife's shoulders, arguing with her in low tones. "You shouldn't have come. More than anything, I want you and Cy safe."

"Well, I want you alive and here," she said, "not somewhere on the other side forced to play footsie with a demon. I'm not an old fashioned woman you can shut out of your life when it's dangerous, Eddie Plummer. I'm your wife. I'm not leaving. And as for Cy, where else can he be so well protected as right here with the Ghostbusters?"

Peter heard the words as she spoke them and in a way it was as if time had slowed down. The guys had been talking about tempting fate last night, and Whitney's words were nothing else but that. Instinctively Peter reached for his thrower, but he was already too late. The Irish cop shed the sunglasses and his eyes were glowing vivid yellow, hot and angry. "Since you won't bargain with me," he spat, his body stretching, altering and changing before their eyes, "I will be forced to take matters into my own hands." At the end of the speech, Astarine stood there before them, taller than she had been in any of her human appearances, winged and scaled, but with a face that was human, icily beautiful, and terrible in that beauty. There was nothing of the teenager about her now. She was a full-fledged agent of power.

"Omigosh, it's the cop!" cried Ray, sweeping out his thrower in an instinctive gesture, but even then it was too late. Astarine wrapped her arms around Nina Corey, bearing the secretary aloft, and taking with her the small child she wore in the baby-tote that hung around her neck.

Whitney screamed, the sound a slash of tearing pain, and grabbed for the demon so quickly she seemed to blur in the motion. She actually managed to grab one of Astarine's feet as its wings clawed a path up into the sky, and, still holding on, the singer started rising with her. Graves, who had been standing on Nina's other side, and Winston, next to him, both grabbed for the demon's other foot, and Winston caught it, but his grip wasn't enough to hold on and he dropped back to the ground, grabbing automatically for his thrower.

"NO!" bawled Eddie, desperation lending him strength. His arms went around Whitney's waist to hold her, to try to hold back the demon, while Ray and Peter got off a quick burst, both of them aiming instinctively for the wings while the demon was still low enough for them to catch Nina and the baby without endangering them. There was no way to get a clear shot but they had to try.

The mist swirled between the demon and the proton streams, and Whitney and Eddie tumbled to the pavement as a vast, invisible door between dimensions closed between Astarine and her pursuers. She disappeared into the Netherworld taking with her Nina Corey and Eddie's small son. Whitney collapsed into Eddie's arms, weeping.

Ten minutes later they had dumped the energy trapped by Peter and Egon in the containment unit and were assembled in the lab, all but Whitney, who lay curled up shivering on Peter's bed. She had insisted on being part of their planning session, but she couldn't stop shivering, so in the end Peter and Janine had taken her into the bedroom and fetched her an electric blanket, then after a hasty conference, Janine had vanished downstairs and Peter had allowed Eddie to come in.

"Astarine is cold," Peter explained to a worried Eddie. "Whitney had a tight grip on her; some of that must've rubbed off. She'll need to warm up. And she's bound to be in shock. We all are, but it's worse for you and Whitney."

Eddie sat beside her on the bed, brushing the hair back gently from her face. Love? It's all right. We're going to get Cy back, I promise you. Nina will look after him. I'd bet money on her; if anyone can stand up against a demon it's our Miss Corey."

"I shouldn't have brought him," Whitney said in an undertone. "I was so sure we could all protect him. I was so sure--and so wrong. Oh, god, Eddie, can you ever forgive me?"

He gathered her up into his arms, blanket and all. "Forgive you? Dear heart, there's nothing to forgive. None of this is your fault, or mine. It's tearing me up to have Cy in her power, but she won't hurt him. I know that. She won't dare hurt him, and I'll get him back for you if I have to go in his place."

Whitney wrapped her arms around her husband, clinging like an octopus. "No. I won't lose you too. You can't. The Ghostbusters will get Cy back for us and you'll stay here. Promise. You have to promise. I can't lose both of you. I can't."

"Sshh, easy, easy, love," he crooned, the words nearly a song of reassurance. "She won't keep Cy. Not if I have to tear apart two universes to make her give him back. She won't keep him. I promise. I never broke a promise to you, now, did I?"

The fair head moved back and forth against his shoulder.

Janine returned from downstairs bearing a cup of hot tea; and Eddie made Whitney swallow it. When she had finished, she leaned back against her husband's shoulder and said in a cold little voice, "At least a part of me is warm."

"Whitney, sweetie, I had Janine put a sleeping pill in there," Peter said, dropping a hand on the woman's head. "You had a shock, and now you've got to sleep to get back your equilibrium. The rest of us have a job to do. We know how to get to Astarine's keep in the Netherworld. Ray and Winston went over there when Egon got snatched. We're going to get your baby back, I promise you."

"And I'm going with them," Eddie said with such fierce determination Peter would have hesitated to say him nay. "Tommy and Janine will stay here with you and look after you, and we'll bring back Cy and Nina, you'll see."

"Yeah, because remember," Janine put in quickly, "Astarine hasn't really hurt anybody--well, she's done a little emotional trashing, but she coulda done a heck of a lot worse. Egon's got a little cut but it took two band-aids to fix it. Most of what the lady's done is just hot air and illusion. And now we're gonna play hardball, right, Peter?"

"You called it right on the money, Janine honey. We'll bring her down so hard she'll bounce, and that's a promise. We'll get Cy back. Right now, though, you're gonna sleep for a little while because you need it. You've been brave and tough and did everything you could. Now it's our turn."

Whitney managed a shaky smile and allowed Eddie to lower her to the bed again. "I'll stay here with her until she's asleep," Eddie said. "I'll come over there in a minute." He sat down on the edge of the bed and began to stroke his wife's hair. His face was full of stress and worry, but he was being as strong as he could. "You guys can do it, can't you?"

"You bet we can," Peter promised. "We're gonna get Cy back, and Miss Corey too, and that's a promise from Dr. Venkman."

He retreated to the lab where the others were gathered, Janine tagging behind to leave the couple with their privacy. Once in the lab, she slid into place beside Egon on the couch as Ray asked:

"How is she?"

"Pretty shaken up," Peter said. "Seeing her own baby stolen like that; that'd be rough on anybody. And I think touching the demon didn't help. Okay, Egon, what do we do next? You've got an answer, haven't you?"

"Several possibilities," Egon replied. "Because she didn't hide me in the Netherworld, but here. I don't think she'll hide Cy and Nina in Janine's sub-basement, though. That would be far too easy. She might choose to face us on her own turf, in her own keep, where she can stack the odds against us, and we'll have to check it out. But she could hide them anywhere, in any dimension."

"Hey. Astarine made a major blunder," Peter said quickly in an attempt to ease from Egon's face the weight of his responsibilities in the crisis. "He took Miss Corey too. That lady's as tough as a battleship. I wouldn't want her mad at me."

That made Ray smile faintly, but Egon held back his response with an effort. Peter could read it all too clearly. Redoubtable as Miss Corey was, she was a middle-aged human woman, calm and competent in her own milieu, but wildly out of place up against an enemy with powers far greater than human. Astarine could squash her like a bug and probably would if Nina got too mouthy. Like Janine, she could hold her own and wouldn't lose her cool, on even human terms. But she was still limited by her mortality. What worried Peter was the knowledge that she would push. He was pretty sure Astarine wouldn't dream of hurting Cy--he was a potential Eddie, the child of two singers, who might well be raised to love Astarine and to sing for her; he was young enough that she could mold him to her taste and bind him with ties of affection. Her love of music would protect the child, at least until the twenty-four hours were up, but would never protect Miss Corey. Peter knew they had to hurry.

"So what do we do?" Peter asked. "That shield she uses is really the same kind of stuff we met in the fog, isn't it? Something to do with a gate? Can you use it when she's already on the other side? Do you think it would be easier to blast her over there?"

"No, because she can switch back and forth easily and we can only go when the bracelets activate," Ray replied. "Remember, without the boost from the machine, humans can't cross over to the Netherworld on their own. I wish we could lure her here, now that I've got all the traps set up." He gestured them all closer. "I had to set it up so she wouldn't know what we were doing," he explained. "Can you see the traps?"

Peter looked around the room. Aside from one lying carelessly on the table and the ones on Ray's and Winston's packs, he didn't see any. "Not a clue. Where are they, Tex?"

"I'm not going to say, in case she's listening. But some are hidden in plain sight and some are hidden completely out of sight. Now this is what we do if she comes back." He went around and whispered the information to each person, telling Peter when it was his turn, "All you have to do is lean your hand against the corner of the table, the one nearest the door. So whatever you do, don't lean on the table or sit on it or anything like you usually do, until we've got her right here in this room."

Peter looked in that direction. The table stood on top of a throw rug that hadn't been there before, but Peter couldn't see any bulge beneath it. Maybe it was a pressure plate, geared to accept the weight of the table but susceptible to anything stronger. "Got it," he said.

At that moment, Slimer whizzed through the window and flung himself upon Peter, hugging him tightly and covering his face with disgusting kisses. "Guys back, building back," he babbled. "Slimer saw nasty stuff in the way." Shivering elaborately, he managed to coat Peter with slime, causing the psychologist to erupt violently in several directions in an attempt to dislodge himself. At the last minute he remembered not to bump into the table, and sidestepped quickly, forcing Slimer free and pushing him hard in Ray's direction.

"Could you sense the disruption, Slimer?" Egon asked, interested, as Ray gave Slimer a fond pat before taking out the bracelets to be used in conjunction with the molecular phase amplifier.

Slimer nodded violently. "Slimer sense it, smell it, see it. Nasty fog, bad place, Netherworld, all around firehouse. Badbadbad, Slimer not come home, couldn't get through."

"You mean you really couldn't pass through the barrier, Slimer, or simply that it was unpleasant and you didn't want to try?" asked Egon, whipping up the meter and studying the ghost, quickly adjusting the device to allow for his readings.

"Nasty. Slimer not try. Scared. Bad place."

"Well, that doesn't tell us much," Ray said in disappointment. "Slimer should be able to go into the Netherworld whenever he wants to. He's a nether entity after all. Can you do that, Slimer? Do you think you could go over there and see if you could find Eddie's baby?"

"Baby?" Slimer looked interested. "Slimer likes babies. Loved Baby Egon."

The physicist's cheeks reddened ever so slightly. "Stick to the subject, Slimer."

"Gee, Egon, the spud even helped change your diapers," Peter said with a wicked glint in his eyes.

"Peter!" Egon glanced sideways at Janine, who was struggling not to grin, then turned back to Slimer. "You remember Eddie's baby, Cy, don't you, Slimer?"

"Uh huh, uh huh," confirmed the green ghost, nodding vehemently. "Slimer remember good."

"Then we need your help," Egon continued. "We're going over to the Netherworld as soon as Ray has the bracelets ready. We're going to look for Cy and the lady who was taken with him, Miss Corey. You don't know her, but she's a human lady with grey hair and she should be with the baby. We want you to come with us into the Netherworld and when we get there, if we don't find Cy and Miss Corey right where we arrive, we want you to check around and look for them. Do you think you can find them if they're in the Netherworld? Remember, you can fly very fast the way you did the time I sent you from Russia to fetch equipment I needed in a hurry."

Slimer nodded, but nervously. "Bad ghosts, demons, there?" he asked in a voice that shook.

Ray took over. "Yes, Slimer, but you can run from them. All you have to do is tell us if you can find the baby and the lady. Their lives are depending on you. Can you do it?"

Slimer nodded. He cast a hangdog look at Peter. "Slimer wants pizza."

"When we get back, you can have all the pizza you can eat, Spud," Peter promised, probably unwisely. "But right now, we have a job to do. Is it a deal?"

Slimer nodded and flung his arms around Peter's neck. Since the psychologist had just finished scrubbing off the worst of the mess from last time, he let out a yell of sheer disgust and swore colorfully, making the others smile.

"Okay, everybody's got a pack?" Winston asked as Ray distributed the bracelets. The presence of Eddie on this journey to the Netherworld was something none of the Ghostbusters considered sensible, but Eddie had the right to go, and the right, if all else failed, to make a bargain on behalf of his son. The four Ghostbusters had agreed to his presence, although with serious reservations. Now they gathered on the street outside, where Astarine had vanished with Nina Corey and the baby, Janine and Tommy Graves standing one on either side of the molecular phase amplifier. Tommy's face was heavy with disapproval of his boss's presence on this dangerous journey.

Although the police barricades were gone, there were still a few reporters lurking as if they knew something was about to go down. With Cynthia Crawford in the front of their ranks they hovered a few yards away, the cameras trained on the four Ghostbusters and Eddie while some of the press flung questions at the unresponsive dimension-hopping team.

Eddie adjusted his pack on his back. "I'm ready," he said, his mouth drawn tight with determination. For once he wasn't playing to the crowd, any more than Peter was. He'd shed the sunglasses he usually wore perched in his hair as one less distraction, but Peter had seen him shove them into the pocket of Egon's spare jumpsuit that he was wearing and hoped they continued to be 'good luck glasses' from that position. He was so caught up in what they were about to attempt that nothing could distract him from it, and the only thing that kept him from being entirely single-minded about it was his concern for Whitney who was still sleeping upstairs. He'd made Graves promise to return to guard her as soon as they'd been sent through.

Slimer hovered at Ray's side. He didn't need a bracelet, but the force of the beam would project him into the Netherworld without difficulty, sweeping him along on the same stream that carried the guys. The eddies and currents of the space and time continuum would guide them to the right place, the same way it had led them to Egon's general vicinity when the others had come in to rescue him from Tolay before. Slimer looked uneasy, and he'd tucked one hand under the left shoulder strap of Ray's pack for additional tactile support as if afraid he'd be sent somewhere far away and never see the guys again.

"We'll have an hour," Ray informed them, touching his bracelet. "And we should go directly to Astarine's keep. I've got a spare bracelet in my pocket and I gave the other one to Egon. Even if we're separated, if Cy and Nina are touching, they'll come back together, since he's so small and she's not a very big woman. The bracelet will be strong enough for both of them, but we'll put the second one on Cy just to be sure."

"All right, Janine, now," Egon said, taking his thrower into one hand and his P.K.E. meter in the other.

The redheaded woman reached for the trigger. "Be careful guys," she said. Her eyes sought out Egon's and she gave him an encouraging smile as she pushed the button.

Peter didn't like the Netherworld. He never had and he never would, and this time was no exception.

They materialized in a vast stone chamber that had been carved out of the living rock, a huge heavy place with all the weight of mountains and earth poised over their heads. Peter shivered at the feel of the place, the cold, clammy atmosphere of the room, the faint rustling noises here and there which suggested mysterious and dangerous beings lurking in the shadows in deep pockets where the walls met the floor and in the cavernous reaches of the vaulted ceiling far overhead. Slimer gave a faint shriek and wrapped his arms around Ray's neck, peering around the echoing chamber as if he knew he was about to be devoured, a thought which offered Peter no comfort. His only reassurance was that at least here he could see the danger coming, unlike the nasty fog he'd waded through earlier. Even if the danger here was bound to be greater, that had been worse. This time, Peter wouldn't have to face it alone.

Instinctively the five men banded together, forming a circle facing outward, prepared to take on anything that came at them. Egon's meter was already active, as the physicist bent his blond head over the screen. "Hmm," he said.

"I don't like it when you say that on a bust, Egon," Winston told him. His gaze roamed the room, quartering it systematically, wary for trouble. At times such as this, Winston's combat training and experience stood him in good stead. Without it, there had been a few times when they might have lost one of the team.

"We aren't alone in here," Egon said, "but there are no humans in the immediate vicinity, other than ourselves. Astarine brought Cy and Nina here but the readings are so faint I almost feel I'm imagining them. She didn't stay here with them not even as long as a minute. Slimer, check the rest of the structure. Look for underground dungeons, any traces of people. Come right back here and report if you find anything. Even if you don't, return and I'll have further instructions for you."

"Okey dokey, Egon," Slimer replied, throwing a salute that would have been snappy if the little ghost hadn't been trembling in fear about his assigned task. He vanished into the shadows opposite Winston.

"This is where you guys were before?" Peter asked, eyeing the place with a notable lack of enthusiasm.

Ray nodded. "Astarine has a shrine over there, with a big poster of Eddie and candles burning in front of it."

"Somehow," Eddie said darkly, a shiver running through his slender frame, "I'm not especially flattered."

In the darkness midway between the 'shrine' and the place where Slimer had disappeared, something moved, something heavy and lumbering but faster than they would have guessed because an instant later a huge blue rock demon padded into the chamber and stopped dead at the sight of them.

"I knew it, I knew it," wailed Peter, jerking his thrower aloft, but before he could fire, the creature spotted Eddie. Instead of attacking them or calling for backup, he fell to his knees and salaamed, his forehead against the floor.

"Spare me, oh great one," he breathed in a voice that pounded in the five men's ears like rocks colliding with each other in a landslide. "Do not harm this unworthy servant."

The Ghostbusters exchanged startled glances, then Eddie picked up the ball and ran with it. "I will not harm you if you answer my questions," he said, letting his voice flow until he was almost singing. If his music could win over one demon, maybe it could be used against this one, too.

"That's a faun, a rock demon," Ray gabbled in Eddie's ear. "The major demons usually use them as servants. It's even money this one works for Astarine."

"Astarine told us the great one would be coming and we must worship him and obey him as we do her," the rock demon said quickly. "Master. How may this humble one give you pleasure?"

Eddie gaped at the creature who still knelt, not daring to raise its huge, horned head, then he shot questioning looks at Peter, who nodded quickly and gestured for Eddie to approach the huge beast.

"Go for it. You can't lose anything; this one tries to hurt you and he'll be vaporized by the groupie. Pretend this is an opera. Sing to him."

Eddie approached the entity, the Ghostbusters right behind him, all five of them holding the throwers on the rock demon. "Did Astarine come here with a human woman and child?" he sang, pouring all his emotions into the tone of the words.

The faun jerked at the sound, risked lifting his head enough to look at Eddie, and he moaned as if the music did something to him. Whether it gave him pleasure or pain was hard to tell; Peter wasn't up on the expressions of this kind of being. The music did affect him, though, because he bowed again immediately, his nodding head stirring the dust of the stone floor. "She came, she brought them. Then she took them away again instantly. They were only here for seconds. She said you would come soon."

"That explains why the meter doesn't register more than the faintest flicker," Egon murmured under his breath. "She kept me here some time, long enough to allow Ray to detect confirmable residuals."

"She was right, I am here," Eddie sang. "Where did she go? I seek her. Tell me."

"Master, destroy me for I cannot answer you. I do not know where she went, for she did not tell me. This one is unworthy, not fit to serve you, for I have failed you."

Eddie did something Peter wouldn't have done on a bet. He reached out and touched the huge blue shoulder. "You have not failed me," he sang. "I spare you, because you could not give me information you did not have. But you must seek them for me. You are now my servant, and you will do my bidding."

"Yes, master." The huge being lifted his head, grabbed Eddie's hand and pressed his lips to it. Eddie forced himself to stand straight and tall and receive the homage without gagging and jerking away. Peter had a pretty good idea that by sparing the entity's life--or existence, or whatever--he had bound it to him for all time; the creature would now obey him over Astarine, something the boss lady demon wouldn't care for when she found out. Peter had a sudden mental picture of the rock demon trailing Eddie around at his concerts, a bodyguard no fan would dare to cross, and he had to bite back a smile of amusement. As if he sensed it, or had followed Peter's train of thought, Egon gave him a quick nudge.

"You will seek the child for me," Eddie sang, getting into the spirit of conversing in this unusual way. Half the time he was on the verge of making music anyway, but now he was doing it consciously, his voice brimming with drama and intensity. "And bring him to me. You can find me, wherever I am?"

"Yes, Master, now that you have deigned to touch me with the music and with your hand. I am your slave." There was a strange rapture in the beast's eyes; the music didn't hurt him, except with the kind of glorious pain people welcomed and cherished. That type of beauty was worth enduring pain. Strange to think it would work on beasts like this. Stranger still to find honor in one of them. Astarine had made a mistake, hopefully a major one.

Of course Astarine was so much more powerful than this entity she could crush him like a bug when she found out he had switched allegiances. Holding back that thought, Peter watched Eddie. This had become his show.

"What is your name?" Eddie sang to the rock demon.

"Master, I am called Melchazat," the being returned.

"Then go, Melchazat."

It turned immediately; no lingering goodbyes for rock demons; and vanished down the shadow-filled tunnel, the sound of its heavy footfalls gradually fading away into the silence.

"I think you've got a knack for opera, Eddie," Winston said, grinning.

"Yeah, and if that monster comes out of this intact, I think you've got a new roadie," Peter added with a huge smile.

Eddie's face fell. "You mean it would want to come with me?" he asked in ludicrous dismay.

"It's your slave," Ray pointed out. "Astarine screwed up. She was so sure she'd have you here she made it pretty clear none of her team would hurt you, no matter what. I bet the only other command she gave was that none of them were to let you leave. But you got to that one. You were kind to him. I'm sure she wasn't. She's pretty obsessive and utterly self-centered."

"But I don't want a slave," Eddie wailed. "I have enough on my plate already. All I ever wanted to do was sing."

"Well, that's life for you, nice and complicated," Peter pointed out. "You just wind up taking on more and more obligations as you go, first the band, then Whitney and now Cy, and all the fans who would probably die for you. Somehow I think you might be stuck with old Melchazat, whether you want him or not."

"He won't fit on a seat on a plane, not even in first class," Eddie said absurdly, then gave a burst of nervous laughter. "Oh, god, guys, we're never going to find Cy, are we?"

"We'll find him," Ray insisted, his whole face set in lines of stubborn determination. "If he's here we'll find him and if he's not here, then we'll find him somewhere else. We didn't think we'd find Egon before, and Janine found him without even looking."

"Yeah, and that makes me think of something," Peter said. "Astarine might have a lot of complicated plans and threats against us, but in the long run, she's not that good at what she does. She screwed up by telling the demons too soon to obey Eddie's every whim. She made the fog around headquarters nasty as it could be, but it wasn't impenetrable. She hid Egon in a place she thought amusing, because she could manipulate him there, but she didn't allow for the obvious consequences, that Janine might find him because it really was her laundry night. She had Egon and didn't hurt him other than a few cuts and bruises. She hasn't hurt any of us, and she hasn't taken Eddie when she could have just grabbed him at any point of the tour when he wasn't even on guard."

"That's right," agreed Ray, fascinated. "I think you've got a good point, Peter."

"Where are you going with it?" Egon persisted, but from the look in his eyes, Peter realized he already knew.

"I don't think she can keep Eddie unless he agrees to it. Unless he says okay and consents to stay with her. I think everything she's done has been to make sure he'll submit voluntarily."

"But she took Egon, and that wasn't voluntary. And she's got my kid," Eddie protested, the pure pain in the eyes that were so like Egon's making Peter want to grab Astarine and throttle her right where she stood.

"True, but she didn't keep Egon in the Netherworld," Peter reminded him. "Maybe she can't. I thought she was just being sneaky before, hiding Egon somewhere we'd never think to look for him, but now I think she did it because she had no choice. Egon hadn't agreed to go with her so she couldn't keep him here. Cy's too young to make an informed choice for all she talks about keeping him and raising him to be a part of this world the way the Indians used to do with the settlers' children they'd steal back in the last century. Some of those kids, when they were found, wanted to stay, and I bet she knows that. So she's been scaring you with what could happen, in order to make you agree."

"Yeah, but I'd be agreeing under pressure," objected Eddie.

"She's a demon. She doesn't have to play fair. All she has to do is get you to agree to stay with her even if she manipulates you to it. But don't you see? She hasn't hurt anybody, and she can't hurt Cy because if she did, you'd never agree to do anything she asked. When the spud comes back we'll know for sure but I'd bet good money she's brought Cy here only long enough so we'd be able to tell she'd come to the Netherworld, and she's got him hidden somewhere else."

"Probably in New York," Winston agreed. "She took the knowledge about Janine's building and laundry night out of Egon's mind; it's the kind of useless clutter all of us have in our minds, nothing we'd protect, something she could just lift from the surface. So she could take something she got from Egon's mind and use it to choose a new hiding place--or she has Nina Corey, and might take something from her mind to use for a hiding place. All that matters is that Nina can't get out on her own and call us to say she and Cy are okay. What do you bet that's true?"

"It's my son's life we're risking on it," Eddie replied. "Because there are a lot of places where he could hide Nina and Cy that no one would ever find them. It doesn't have to be New York. Before Nina came to work for me, she was working in Boston, and she's from Minneapolis originally, and has lived in Paris and Stockholm. Astarine could have snatched something about any of those places from her mind and hidden her and Cy there."

"Yeah, it's kind of hard for us to take biorhythm readings and pick up somebody in Sweden," Peter agreed. "But don't you see? They're probably in our world and just because we don't know where doesn't mean somebody won't stumble on them five minutes from now. So let's look around and see if we can pick up any clues here. And remember this. Just because she hasn't hurt anybody doesn't mean she won't. We know she won't hurt Eddie or Cy, and I don't think she'll kill anybody because she'd be afraid Eddie wouldn't agree if that happened, but the rest of us are fair game. Maybe not Egon, but Winston, Ray and me." He frowned. "I don't think I like this picture."

"No, but it gives us the most hope we've had so far," Egon agreed. "You're right, otherwise she's pretty ineffectual for all she's done to us. We had some bad moments; when I thought I was listening to Janine being butchered...." His voice trailed off and he shivered, adding quickly, "And the fog...."

Peter shivered, too, as if it was as catching as yawning. "Yeah, emotional trauma doesn't seem to be outside her rules at all, and that's a nasty thought, too." He started for the nearest apparent tunnel. "Come on, guys. We've got almost an hour. Even if Cy and Nina aren't here, we might find something we can use against Her Groupiness. Let's spread out."

"Teams," said Ray. You and Eddie come with me, Peter, and Egon and Winston will go the other way. Because Egon looks so much like Eddie and that way, at first glance, we'll have an Eddie in both teams. I know you can't do it without your glasses, Egon, but would you mind if we messed up your hair?" Ray was really getting into the spirit of things but then none of them had expected minor demons to obey Eddie's commands.

Clearly Egon didn't relish the thought, but he said, "Since it's for a good cause...." and allowed Ray and Peter to tousle his hair thoroughly, easing it into as near an approximation as they could make it of Eddie's spiky do. As if to add a parallel, Eddie whipped out his sunglasses, neatly popped out the darkened lenses and returned them to his pocket, settling the empty frames into place. Although they were black, not red, and more rectangular than Egon's round ones, the two men looked enough like each other they would have been easily confused at a distance, both clad in identical blue jumpsuits. If the rock demons were ordered not to hurt Eddie, the sight of either man would give his band a momentary advantage.

"Be careful, guys," Peter called. "I don't want to have to train a whole new team when this is over." He tried to sound frivolous but he could still remember the isolation he'd felt during those moments in the fog. He didn't want to let Egon and Winston out of his sight, but Eddie was counting on him, so he squared his shoulders and set off down a tunnel after Ray, who plunged ahead eagerly as if he would find something magical and delightful just around the next bend.

"Why are you doing this?" Nina Corey demanded. After the first startled moments of being borne aloft, she hadn't been afraid, at least not for herself. She had been in many tough situations in her life and had come out of most of them without even ruffling her hair. This might be a lot different from those situations, a whole new level of difference she hadn't counted on, even though she had experienced the ghosts at Segue last year, but that didn't mean she couldn't face it with the same equanimity with which she dealt with life's quirks as a general rule. This time was different, though. This time she had the responsibility for Eddie's child, and for Cy she felt a cold, tight fear curling through her stomach, although it was not her way to let it show.

The demon had taken her and the still-sleeping baby to a huge rocky chamber that didn't remotely feel like it was on earth. The unfamiliar, cold tang to the air smelled like what she imagined hell would smell like if she had believed in a hell other than what people sometimes lived on earth, cold iron, sulphur and brimstone, a chill in the air that felt unnatural and strange. She remembered reading once in a science fiction book that every planet had its own odor, and she knew from her travels that different cities had smells that were not found elsewhere, but this was so different as to give credence to the SF theory. She might actually be in the Netherworld, whatever that was. Amazing to think such a thing could be real.

They didn't stay in the Netherworld long either, just enough time, apparently for the demon to recharge her dimension-hopping batteries, because the next moment they were back in New York. At least back on Earth. Nina took a deep, reassuring breath of the pollutants that made up the air of any large city and closed her eyes for an instant in relief. Cy stirred, made a few whiney sounds that told her he was starting to get hungry and his diapers were wet. She had changed him in the restroom at the diner and he'd had a bottle there, but enough time had passed for him to want both again. She patted him reassuringly the way Whitney did. Cy knew Nina well enough to be comfortable in her presence and he eased back into sleep, but it was a restless sleep, not as deep as before, and she knew he would be waking soon. The secretary still had her purse, the long strap over her head, the bag tucked under her arm as she had done for safety in the crowd in front of the vanished building, but she didn't have Cy's bottles or clean diapers in there. Whitney had put Cy's bag back in the car when she'd returned from the coffee shop to investigate the state of the vanished building.

The room where Astarine brought them was not large, nor was it very bright, although it had a window that allowed daylight to filter through its streaked, dirty, cracked pane. The air was crisp here, typical autumn weather, with thin sunshine, just like the weather when she had been taken. "Where are we?"

"Your prison," Astarine said flatly. She went over and tested the door; it swung open with a squeak to reveal a dirty, littered hall. Closing the door again, she pointed her finger at the lock and sent forth a blaze of blue fire like a comic book superhero. When she tried to open the door again, it didn't work; she had fused the lock.

Nina edged toward the window, only to draw back when she realized they were high, at least ten stories up, without a ledge or another building near enough to reach even if she had been foolhardy enough to try to jump.

Realizing the demon meant to simply blink away, Nina reached out and put her hand on the demon's arm, causing the beautiful and terrible face to turn toward her, the eyes hard and impatient. That was when Nina asked, "Why are you doing this?"

At the question, the demon woman hesitated. "For Eddie," she said as if the answer was so reasonable as to be self-evident. "Because from the moment I first heard him sing, I had to have him. He is for me, he is the only one."

"You love him?" Nina asked, trying not to let her disbelief and skepticism show on her face or in her tone.

"I want him. That may be different, but it is no less strong. I have never heard such a thing as his...his communion with music. I must have it around me always. I went, each day on the tour, content to listen, to be there each night when he sang. Then the tour ended and I knew it would be a long time until the next tour, until he could sing for me each night and I couldn't bear it. He will come to me; he must, now that I have taken his son."

"You think he'll bargain with someone who stole his child?" Nina asked in disbelief. "You don't understand human motivations at all."

The demon made an impatient gesture, but not quickly enough to hide the pain on her face. "What do you mean by that?" she asked. "You will tell me or I will make you suffer as I made them suffer in the fog."

Nina Corey was a practical woman. She would well recall the fierce, tight look of distress etched upon Peter Venkman's shaken face when Whitney had drawn him from the churning mist, and she knew whatever had happened in there must have been terrible to have so unnerved a person with such a strong sense of self-confidence as the team's psychologist. Yet by the time Egon had come stumbling out, equally shaken, Peter had been in complete control again, able to reassure Egon until his reaction faded. It had not been a good experience for either man, but neither had it been life-threatening or capable of creating permanent emotional damage. "I've suffered before," she said calmly. "I may well suffer again, even if not at your hands. What I meant was simply that love cannot be forced or inflicted. Sometimes it comes unsought, like it did when you heard Eddie sing, but that's not real love, woman. That's infatuation, and it passes. You've done all this for something as transient as a crush. No human being would have made that same mistake, at least no sane, well-adjusted one."

"I don't care what you think of me," snarled the demon. "I may not be sane or well-adjusted for a human, but don't forget I am not a human. If I want something I take it. So I will take Eddie and he will sing for me. He will live far longer than he would in your world and his every comfort will be seen to. No matter how you scoff, you are the one sealed in this abandoned building, and I am the one who is free to go to Eddie and take him with me."

"You haven't done it yet," she said. "He was standing right there but you snatched me. I know you did it to have Cy, but how much simpler it would have been for you to have shifted position when we still thought you were a policeman and just made off with Eddie. Yet you didn't. I don't think you're stupid, precisely, but you could have taken him and didn't. I find this interesting." She tilted her head a little to one side and regarded the cold, sculptured face, the endless depths of the knowing eyes, the angry curl of the mouth. "I don't believe you didn't think of it. Egon said he could tell by looking into someone's eyes whether he was you in disguise but in spite of the sun glasses, he didn't think to check you. You were home free, and you blew it. Or did you?" Nina's eyes narrowed as she reached a conclusion Peter was reaching at the same time in the Netherworld. "You can't just take him! You can't even just take us. That's why we're back in New York, isn't it? Because there are rules you are bound to follow?" She smiled. "I love it. Demon rules. And I'll tell you another. If you harm one hair on this baby's head and Eddie finds out about it, he might go with you but he will never sing one note for you and he will never stop trying to destroy you. You're not human so you don't understand us, and you never will. You can't win. Give it up right now. Go back to attending Eddie's concerts because that and tapes are the only way you'll ever hear him sing."

"I could burn this building around you," snarled Astarine. "I could take away the baby just in time and let you burn, let your skin slowly blacken, let you feel the agony before you die."

"Yes, you probably could. But I'm one of Eddie's people. You'll find he's fiercely loyal. He may be a wonderful singer with tremendous stage presence but there's so much more to him, more that you haven't troubled to learn. You have threatened him, threatened people he loves; his wife, his baby, his cousin. Even me; he loves me too, in a different way. Nothing you can do now will ever make Eddie sing one note for you. You've lost. I mean it. Do what you have to do to me, but nothing will change the fact that you can't have Eddie, and if you take Cy in his place, which I'm not altogether sure you can do, the Ghostbusters will hunt you down, trap and contain you, and that will be the end of the story."

"I won't listen to you another second," snapped the demon. Grabbing mist from the empty air she wrapped herself in it with her usual panache and vanished without a trace.

Nina Corey looked around her prison for a place to make Cy comfortable while she found out how hard it was to take out a wall or pry the hinges off a door, and smiled to herself. "Not bad, Corey," she said, grinning. "Not bad at all."

There appeared to be no trace of humans in the vicinity. Egon and Ray had both tested for biorhythms, but the only readings they'd picked up had been for the other team. They stayed in touch with walkie talkies and relayed any findings. One of the first things Peter had noticed was that the entities of the Netherworld did obey Eddie. They encountered two more rock demons just as they had reached the furthest limit of their search and were turning to return to the keep. The huge entities towered above the small team, hovering menacingly until they got a thorough look at the rock singer. "Master!" they cried.

"I am returning to the Keep," said Eddie, shooting nervous glances at Peter and Ray, who nodded at him encouragingly. "Please see we aren't disturbed, or followed."

"As you command, Master," the demons said in chorus, their deep, gravelly voices ringing out loudly enough to make Peter put his hands over his ears. Eddie raised his voice tunefully and sang, "Thank you. You are dismissed." The two beasts's faces lit up at the sound of the music. Maybe there was rarely music here; if Peter was stuck here he wouldn't feel much like singing himself.

Conscious of the demons' eyes on his back as they headed up the ramp and into the huge keep that was gouged out of the granite mountain, Peter had to force himself not to turn around, relying on the P.K.E. meter in Ray's hand to warn them if the demons changed their minds and attacked.

They met Winston and Egon in the corridor outside the main chamber. Egon shook his head. "I'm sorry, Eddie. We couldn't find a trace of them. We talked to several rock demons, who seemed to mistake me for you. When the meter reported them coming, I took off my glasses, and they appeared fooled."

"Yeah, all humans look alike," said Winston wryly. "How much time we got, Ray? I want to get out of this place. Cy and Miss Corey aren't here; we're wasting time when we could be checking out New York."

"Ten minutes," Ray replied. "We didn't get anything. And from the readings, Astarine hasn't returned. Come on, let's go back to the main chamber. Maybe Eddie's new buddy is back and knows something.

Slimer popped in then, flinging his arm around Ray's neck and quivering with reaction. "Bad place, nasty ghosts chase Slimer, helphelphelp," he groaned.

"You're okay now, Slimer," Ray reassured him, edging free of the grip. "Did you find Cy or Miss Corey?"

Eddie leaned closer expectantly, but Slimer shook his head so hard his whole body rocked back and forth. "Slimer looked all over. No humans close, strange humans further. No baby, no lady with grey hair. Slimer sorry." He hung unhappily in the air.

"It's okay, Slimer, you tried," Eddie reassured him, but he couldn't conceal his disappointment.

Melchazat was waiting for them when they returned to the main room of the keep, causing Slimer to shriek piercingly and dive down the front of Ray's jumpsuit, poking out his face to warn, "Demon! Demon!"

"It's okay, Slimer," Ray encouraged, grimacing as he urged Slimer to emerge. Peter could imagine the cold, nasty feel of slime against his chest; the spud had done such a thing to all of them at one time or another, and it was one of Peter's least favorite experiences. "He's on our side," continued Ray, causing Slimer to look up at him as if he'd lost his mind. Coaxed out, he wrapped an arm around Ray's neck and gaped up at the huge blue creature, his eyes alive with doubt and fear.

The rock demon eyed Slimer with equal doubt, even if unafraid of him, but he instantly confessed his failure. "I encountered one who saw the Mistress return with the ones you seek," he told Eddie, his forehead pressed against the floor at Eddie's feet. "But she left immediately, phasing out the way she does when she crosses into the human realm. I think that is where she went with them. You will go there soon, Master?"

Eddie nodded. "In just a few minutes. I have to find my son."

"Then I will accompany you," Melchazat announced, rising to his feet and smiling complacently down at Eddie.

"Don't you think you'll be a little, um, conspicuous in Manhattan, chum?" Peter asked him, looking up--and up--at the demon. "You really want to do this, Eddie? Have a pet demon following you around back home?"

"What can I do about it?" Eddie asked doubtfully, his eyes wide with dismay as the situation expanded to a crisis well beyond his ability to control. "Maybe he can help if Astarine shows up. The only thing is, I can't have a demon trailing around behind me. I'm mostly in the public eye. You'd get in all kinds of trouble in the human world," he told the demon, the look on his face clearly stating he would be quite happy if the scenario didn't change.

"I need not retain this form," said the fiend quickly, as anxious as a puppy to please and totally failing to understand Eddie's reluctance to accept a demon familiar. "For you, Master, I will look human. I can retain the form indefinitely, and promise you I will not revert in view of other humans, other than those you permit me to show myself to."

"That's...uh...good," Eddie said. "Egon? What should I do?"

"I don't believe you can stop him now," Egon replied, looking faintly amused.

"Wow!" enthused Ray, smiling broadly. "This is great. Maybe we can study him and learn all sorts of useful things. Can you really hold a human shape indefinitely, Melchazat?"

"I will try." Closing his eyes the huge blue demon concentrated, then, with a whoosh of sound, he began to shrink and fade, changing color, his proportions altering subtly. The guys gasped in surprise as he transformed himself. A hint of mist rose around him, tinted blue the way his skin had been, and when it cleared the team found themselves facing what appeared to be an ordinary human male in his middle thirties. Tall and slender like Eddie, he had chosen to have hair the same color but his was coarser, thicker and curlier. His face was broad across the cheekbones with deepset eyes beneath heavy brows that seemed unusually dark for such a fair complexion. With a doubtful smile that revealed white and perfect, yet somehow predatory teeth, he held up his hands and studied fingers that were as long as Eddie's and Egon's but thicker. His arms bulged with muscles as did his naked torso. Naturally, he was unclad; Melchazat had been wearing nothing but his skin when he began the transformation, and probably didn't understand the intricacies of human apparel very well, even though he knew enough of humans to have created for himself a body that was anatomically correct and clearly male. But he knew clothes were necessary, for he looked down at himself in dismay. "This is not right. I must have garb," he said, sounding actually a little embarrassed to be naked as a human in front of other humans. "Wait."

"Still a demon," Slimer muttered disapprovingly, casting a nervous frown at the altered being. "Slimer not like it."

"It's all right, Spud, he won't hurt you," said Ray automatically. Peter considered that an unwarranted assumption. He planned to watch the demon like a hawk.

Vanishing into one of the narrow alcoves Melchazat returned with a piece of cloth and wrapped it around himself like a lavalava, tucking in the end at the waist. He stood clutching it to him, looking at them expectantly. Oddly enough, there was a kind of innocence in his eyes; Egon's demon test probably wouldn't work against him, but then from everything Peter knew about rock demons, which wasn't much, they existed to serve. The fact of being demons didn't necessarily make them evil. It was only in Western culture and Christianity that the concept of demons indicated sheer, unadulterated evil. In other cultures and religions demons could go either way. Ray had done a study of it once, fascinated by the subject. Melchazat might well have done evil at Astarine's bidding but he hadn't wished evil upon his victims; he'd simply done what he existed for. It didn't make Peter like him and he couldn't imagine what Eddie would do with the demon when they returned to Manhattan but maybe Melchazat might be able to tell where Astarine had been in the city and lead them to the place she'd concealed Cy and Nina.

"Okay, Mel, we'll get you something better when we go home," Peter said. "I still think this is a bad idea, but it's your job to look out for Eddie when Astarine comes. Think you're up to it?"

"No," admitted the transformed demon, hanging his head. "She is more powerful than I. But I can warn you of her coming, Master," he told Eddie, all but wagging his tail in his eagerness to please. "I can sense her from far away. These others, the Ghostbusters, they can help to protect you. I will guard you. I can shield you should she cast fire upon you."

"Well, that ought to help," Winston muttered. "How are we doing on time, Ray?"

Ray glanced at the timer on his bracelet. "Thirty seconds. Get ready, guys. We're nearly on our way." Suddenly he snapped his fingers and raced for the shrine, returning with Egon's ruined proton pack which he clutched against his chest. "I don't want to leave this here, even if it won't work."

As they gathered into a tight circle with the altered demon in their midst, they could hear other rock demons approaching, their voices raised in roaring protest, and Peter glanced uneasily over his shoulder. "I think they've figured it out that we're not what they thought we were," he muttered.

"They have sensed my transformation," Melchazat explained. "They know something is wrong."

"Wonderful," groaned Winston. "I knew I wasn't going to like--" Light surrounded them, and when it faded, and they were back in the street in front of Ghostbuster Central.

"...this" Winston concluded, then he grinned broadly. "Yahoo, we're home. I've gotta say every time we try that, I'm afraid something's gonna screw up and keep us over there."

"Everybody here?" Egon asked, glancing around. "Eddie, are you all right?"

His cousin stood blinking at the street scene, a few press cameras rolling, Melchazat in his lavalava beside him, his eyes wide with wonder. "So this is the human realm," the demon murmured. "It is brighter and bigger than I expected."

"What did you do?" called one of the reporters, although none of them ventured any closer. Appearing and disappearing in full view of the cameras was going to make a great story, but none of the press wanted to take an unscheduled trip.

"We went to the Netherworld," Peter called. "Tell you about it later. Right now, we've got a demon to prepare for. I'd suggest you guys move back--about three blocks back."

"You can't silence the press," someone called from the safe obscurity of the crowd.

"I don't want to silence the press. I like the press," Peter replied, grinning for the cameras. "But the demon who's about to show up doesn't like the press, or any humans, and she might decide it's time to silence you--permanently." He winked and turned with the others to enter the firehall while some of the reporters began edging unobtrusively back a little even as they called questions about Eddie and wanted to know who Melchazat was and if he'd been rescued from the demons. Peter couldn't hold back a smile as they went inside.

Janine was waiting with Tommy Graves at her desk where she'd been halfheartedly typing something into the computer but when the door opened and the five men and one demon walked in with Slimer bobbing behind them, the secretary abandoned the computer without a backward look and flung herself at Egon. "Are you guys all right?" she demanded, her arms around the physicist's waist.

Egon hugged her briefly but with more affection than he usually displayed in front of the guys. "We're fine, Janine, but we were unable to find Cy and Nina. They weren't over there."

Tommy reached Eddie's side and clasped his shoulder in a sympathetic grip. "Count on Nina," he told Eddie. "If she and Cy are locked up the way you were, she'll find her own way out and show up. I expect her any minute now."

"Yeah, I know, she's a tough lady, but fighting demons isn't in her job description," Eddie replied. He looked thoroughly miserable. "How's Whitney? Is she still asleep?"

Tommy nodded. "I checked on her five minutes ago. Best thing for her. Maybe Nina will have brought Cy back by the time she wakes up. She just adores Cy, you know how hard this is on her." His hand tightened on Eddie's shoulder for a moment before he let go, as if to let his boss know he understood just how hard this was on Eddie, too. Looking past him he saw Melchazat hovering just behind the singer. "Who's your new friend? Another prisoner of Astarine's?"

Janine had discovered Melchazat by then, too and was regarding him with considerable interest, especially the broad expanse of well-proportioned chest exposed by the rather skimpy garb the altered being was wearing. Since Melchazat had used Eddie as a model when assuming human form, he looked vaguely like Egon, too, his face long and thin, cheekbones prominent without the glasses to disguise their line. But Egon would have to pump iron for a couple of years to have a physique like that. "Egon, that isn't--isn't Cy grown up, is it?" she asked doubtfully, walking around the tall stranger and eyeing him in confusion and some admiration.

"No, he's not," Ray said quickly, "But that's a great guess, Janine. I'd have never thought of that. This is Melchazat. He's Eddie's own personal demon."

"Demon? That's a demon?" Janine asked, eyes widening. "Why did you want another demon, Eddie? I thought we had too much trouble with the one you already had."

"A demon?" Whitney's voice rang out, shrill and angry, from the steps. "You brought a demon back." She rushed up to confront Melchazat, glaring at him angrily. "Where is my baby. You give me my baby back, you monster!" She began to pound her fists against the demon's broad chest. "Give me back my son!"

"Easy, easy, love," Eddie came up behind his wife and slid his arms around her shoulders, his eyes full of worry for her and pride that she would confront a demon without hesitation for the sake of their son. "Mel's a good demon; he's on our side. He's going to help us look for Cy and he can tell us if Astarine is hanging around."

Whitney's fists uncurled and her arms dropped to her sides. "I'm sorry, Eddie," she said, turning into the circle of his arms and leaning against him as if she knew he'd never let her down. "I just can't think straight with Cy missing."

"Neither can I," he said, hugging her tightly, raising one hand to stroke her fair hair. "But we'll get him back," he promised, the kind of promise that is more a vow or an oath. "We'll get him back," he repeated.

"Yeah," agreed Ray hastily. "Because Peter figured it out. The thing is she has to go by a set of rules, Whitney. She wants Eddie but the only way she can keep him is voluntarily. So she can't hurt him and she can't hurt anybody connected to him. She had Egon prisoner and she tormented him and he got a few cuts and bruises but she didn't even keep him in the Netherworld. She hasn't kept Cy there either. He's probably in Manhattan." He touched Whitney's shoulder in quick reassurance. "What do you think, Mel?" he asked. "You saw her with the woman and baby. Did she come back here?"

Melchazat considered it, his head tilted forward as if trying to sniff out the demon's scent. "Yes, she came back here. The woman and child are here, somewhere, in this realm. I cannot track them myself, but I know they came here with her. She is nearby, waiting. I can feel her. If she comes closer I will warn you."

"If she's going to come closer, let's head upstairs," Egon decided. "We'd be near Ray's trap setup. We can call the police and have them start looking for Cy and Nina, too."

"I did that already," Janine said. "Tommy and I decided that since she hid you in my building instead of in her Keep, then probably she'd hide them somewhere nearby, too. We had the phone fixed; she'd just ripped out the line before to convince us we'd been shifted to the Netherworld the way she used her power to unscrew some of the light bulbs. The phone company came out and did a rush job, especially when I told them a demon was about to break through and we needed the best communication we could get to protect the city. So I called the police and filled them in and they're checking as best they can."

"Thanks, Janine," Eddie told her fervently. "Did you hear that, love? The police are already looking for Cy. Why don't you and Janine brew us up a big pot of coffee and bring it up to us."

Eddie's presence had already given Whitney strength. "I'm not going to fall apart again," she said quietly, her chin revealing her stubbornness. "Don't shove the women and children out of the way until the crisis is over. Janine can wear a proton pack; she's done it before. And Tommy's messed with yours. Get everybody ready. I'll make coffee, but when trouble comes I'm going to be with you, Eddie, and that's final."

"She means it," Eddie told the rest of them proudly. Leaving an arm around her shoulders, he started for the stairs. "Mel, this is my wife," he introduced. "Anything you'd do to protect me, you do it for her first."

"As you command, master."

"We better find Mel some clothes, too," Ray remarked. "Because he's going to look awfully funny running around in a makeshift loincloth."

"He doesn't look so bad," objected Janine, casting a sideways look at Egon to see how he would take it.

"I think one of your shirts, Winston," Egon said levelly, avoiding Janine's knowing look. "Perhaps a pair of my trousers. Let's see. Maybe Peter's shoes..."

"I exist to donate shoes to demons," Peter muttered as they climbed the stairs.

Several hours later, nothing more had happened. Normally clad, Melchazat looked far more human than he had before, so much that it was sometimes possible to forget he was really a demon and not just another of Eddie's bodyguards. He appeared to be brighter than they thought, for he was learning all the time. Watching Tommy, who worked for Eddie, engage in byplay with him that was designed to ease his tension, Mel couldn't do the same, but he knew when to stand back and allow it to happen. He studied the four Ghostbusters, too, fascinated by their back-and-forth banter, the way they teased each other to keep their spirits up in the heart of a difficult crisis. Peter could tell that Mel (it was a lot easier to say than his full name and sounded more ordinary) was intrigued by humans and enjoyed being around them. Although he feared the coming of Astarine and knew he might not be able to withstand her rage when she learned he had turned his loyalty from her to Eddie, he was prepared to face that contingency when it happened. Peter didn't know if she could kill him or if she might only banish him back to the Netherworld, but he wanted to sample everything human while he was here.

Coffee didn't appeal to him, but he liked the sandwiches Janine had made and ate five of them. "Just call him Slimer II," Peter had muttered under his breath.

Slimer stuck out his tongue at Peter, casting a doubtful look at the former demon as if expecting him to metamorph into a threatening monster at any minute. Then the little ghost shrugged his shoulders and drifted off, sinking right through the floor muttering, "Foooood," as if the trip to the Netherworld made him require immediate sustenance now that the sandwiches were gone.

"I'll never get used to him doing that," murmured Whitney. She had settled into the armchair with Eddie, nearly sitting on his lap.

Egon had busied himself with the computer, where he was deep in the Tobin's Spirit Guide program. He had the CD-ROM version activated and was perusing a file, his face thoughtful. "Hmm," he said, and so intrigued was his tone he won the instant attention of everyone in the room.

Peter went to stand behind the physicist, resting his hands on Egon's shoulders as he leaned past him. "And whosoever wishes such a pact must first conform to the strictest regulations..." he read aloud. "Doesn't anybody ever say anything in plain English any more?"

"It's explaining about the type of deal Astarine is trying to cut," Egon translated, turning to look up at the psychologist. "You were right, Peter. She can't hurt Eddie. If she wants to keep him with her as anything but a prisoner she has to make him consent to stay. Technically she shouldn't use people he cares about to manipulate him but the letter of the law allows for it, only the spirit of it forbids it. So by sticking entirely to the letter of the law, she can use Eddie's family and people who matter to him against him as long as she doesn't physically hurt them."

"She hurt you, big guy," Peter replied.

"She only made me believe Janine was dead," Egon replied, his mouth tight and eyes dark with memories. Janine's face softened as she watched him.

"I didn't mean that. I don't think it even occurs to her to equate emotional torture as 'hurt'," Peter pointed out, his fingers tightening their grip on Egon's shoulders as he felt them stiffen. "I meant physically." Letting go with one hand he tapped the band-aid on Egon's forehead.

"That's not really hurting either, Peter," Ray replied quickly. "Using blood or a piece of a person seems to be part of their way of dealing. Bringing back a finger or an ear." Peter grimaced at the idea of the demon holding out one of Egon's ears to prove she had him. "She was being careful," Ray continued. "Offering us the proof we needed, but trying not to hurt. A few drops of blood don't violate the spirit of the bargain. It's something Egon wouldn't need treatment for. If she hadn't brought the glasses back and scrap of jumpsuit with the blood, we wouldn't have believed she had him. She wanted to make us panic and do as she said. She's been trying to pull us off balance from the beginning."

"Maybe, but she's not real bright," Winston objected.

"She is obsessed," offered Mel, glad to be able to help. "Endlessly we have been forced to listen to Leftover Souls and other songs. I liked them but not all did. Yet they dared not speak or she would cast them out or scatter their atoms to the winds."

"You've got a good point, Mel," said Peter. "Because when people are obsessed, they're not rational. So you can't really reason with her. She never meant to keep Cy, though. That's the important thing. She said she'd steal him and raise him to love her and want to stay, but she can't. For her to keep him like that, he'd have to agree and he's too little to make the decision. No matter what else she'll threaten, she won't keep Cy."

Whitney put her hands over her face in relief while Eddie's arm tightened around her shoulders.

"The way it works," Ray went on quickly, "is that for her to have you the way she wants you, Eddie, her voluntary companion who will sing for her and obey her every whim, she's got to get you to consent to go. If she makes you consent by killing someone you love or even hurting someone you love, it doesn't count. So a lot of what she's been doing is to keep us off balance and scare us and make us miss the fact that in the long run she hasn't done one shred of permanent damage to anyone. This applies to you, your family and anyone who is part of your group. I don't think she could hurt Jackson MacKensie or Nina or Tommy."

"But she could lock them up somewhere and leave them there," Winston reminded them. "She does have a kind of control. If she locks them up somewhere dangerous, a building about to tumble down or one that's going to be razed, then according to the letter of the law, she isn't the one causing the harm. But the threat is still there and she can use it against you."

"I thought of that kind of problem," Janine said quickly. "Not the part about what she can and can't do to get Eddie to go with her but the possibility she'd put them in a condemned building that might be about to get the wrecking ball. It seemed like her kind of game. The police said they'd get a list of places that were to be razed today or blown up, and they'd check them first while they're looking for Cy and Nina."

"Well done, Janine," Egon praised her, causing her smile to light her whole face.

"Okay, we got that covered," Peter said. "So when Astarine shows up, we can face her down. What happens according to the letter of the law if Eddie flat-out says no?"

"That's when it gets tricky," Egon remarked.

"I hate it when he says 'tricky'," groaned Winston. "Is that when the protection for the rest of us falls apart?"

"More or less," Egon replied. "Eddie will still be safe; she's not allowed to hurt him in revenge. And I don't think she's allowed to harm Whitney or Cy, as Eddie's immediate family. But the most likely thing at that point will be for her to take revenge on Eddie by doing something he won't like."

"You mean like trashing you?" Peter asked. "You're family but not immediate family. Is that the way it works?"

Ray nodded, eyes wide with distress. "So no matter what happens, Eddie, you can't actually come out and say no, at least not until we've got a good chance of catching her. And you can't say yes either because even if we do trash her, you'd still be bound by it."

"You mean I'd have to go to the Netherworld even without her?"

"Yeah, because if you didn't honor that kind of a pact you'd be fair game for other demons, and the Netherworld is full of them." Ray shook his head. "What you want to do is stall, tell her you won't make any decisions until you have Cy back, and Nina too."

"I'd do that anyway," the singer conceded. He tightened his arm around Whitney's shoulders as if he were afraid he was about to lose her, too. "Mel? Do you think she'll show up here?"

"She'll show up," the demon agreed. He started toward the table, and Ray slid in between it and him.

"Come and sit down, Mel. You want more sandwiches." He produced a plate of sandwiches he'd concealed from Slimer earlier and offered them to the demon, who took three. Peter realized he was afraid Mel would trigger the traps by mistake. No, it was more than that. Mel seemed to be part of Eddie's team now, but it could all be an elaborate scheme on the part of Astarine to insert a spy into Ghostbuster Central. Peter had been watching the demon all along for signs of trouble, while Eddie had seemed to take him at face value. Of all the Ghostbusters, Ray was quickest to trust, and he'd seemed to like old Mel. But here he was proving he knew the odds and he was doing it in such a way that Mel didn't suspect him of mistrust.

"Good sandwiches," Mel said around a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly. "Being human is worth it, for this alone."

"Is he really a demon?" Whitney queried in an undertone.

"He really is. In his normal state he's about eight feet tall and bright blue," Eddie told her. From the look on his face he was having almost as much trouble with the concept as Whitney was.

"You know, when I joined the band I never thought I'd be involved with demons, and now I seem to be making a career of it. Oh, Eddie, do you think Cy is really all right?"

"I'm sure he is," said Ray soothingly. "And I bet you anything right now Miss Corey is figuring out how to get out of wherever they're locked up and planning to grab a cab and bring him right here."

Nina Corey would have loved to share Ray's enthusiasm but after spending hours working on the walls and door of her prison, she was rapidly coming to the conclusion that the demon had at least been smart enough to deny her the tools to break through a wall. Although the building in which she was imprisoned was old and fairly flimsy, Nina had decided she was old and flimsy, too, as she looked at her blistered and splintery hands. The broken boards she'd tried to use as levers between the doorknob and the door frame had not worked; they'd slid out of place each time, scraping her fingers, cutting one of them deeply enough for her to need a band-aid from the collection she kept in her capacious purse. Until now she'd never thought of making a crowbar part of its permanent contents, but next time she'd plan to carry a screwdriver, wrench and pliers. Her nail file had been useless, and nothing else she carried would do the job of prying the hinges off the door.

Cy was awake and very annoyed. She'd found one diaper in the bottom of her bag left over from an excursion one day last week and changed him, but there were no bottles so the baby was very hungry and very furious that she'd evidently refused to feed him. Mad at her, he'd screamed for his mama when she'd tried to pick him up and rock him, and finally she'd given up, left him to scream in the filthy armchair that was the only soft and reasonably shielded place in the whole apartment because other than being there for the baby there was nothing else to do. The apartment contained a bathroom, but unfortunately there was no running water. The toilet had been used anyway by someone within the past month and the odor in the room was extremely unpleasant, so Nina had closed the door tightly and tried to ignore it. She'd gone in only once after that to see if the shower curtain rod might be detachable and something she could use as a lever or a weapon. It was too solid to move.

She'd broken out the windows and tried yelling but she was on the tenth floor and if anyone at ground level heard her, they weren't paying attention. The neighborhood didn't look like a good one, but she couldn't tell where she was because other close-crowding buildings blocked her view of anything resembling a landmark. She thought she might be in Harlem, but she wasn't even sure of that. Now that the light had started to go, the apartment was dark, lit only by the dim glow rising from streetlights below, those that weren't broken out. She hoped the fading light would help Cy to sleep, but the baby was too distressed by the unfamiliar surroundings, the crisp October air and his hunger to give in.

Annoyed because she didn't want to let a demon she considered particularly stupid beat her, she finally snatched up one of the kitchen chairs and began slamming it against the wall. Plaster rained down, but Nina wasn't strong enough to make much of a dent in the wall itself. Each time the chair hit, poor little Cy's screams intensified and she knew that not only was he cold and hungry, he was frightened, terrified.

That was when she heard footsteps outside in the hall.

Nina froze. The demon wouldn't bother to walk down the hall; she'd just pop in as she'd done before. This was someone else, someone human, possibly someone who'd heard her yells for help or the pounding on the wall. In this neighborhood, it might well be someone she didn't want to see. Whoever it was had to know she was there, because Cy was still crying, a thin, weary sound that proved he was too tired to stop, too tired to sleep. Retreating from the door, Nina went to him and picked him up, holding him against her breast and murmuring soothing sounds to quiet him. He appeared to welcome the warmth but he kept on crying, his eyes scrunched tightly shut, his little hands clenched into fists.

"Who's in there?" Someone rattled the doorknob. "Man, this thing welded shut!" The voice sounded like a black man, a deep, hard voice of someone who wouldn't easily be crossed or conned. Light shone around the bottom of the door, bright and dancing as if it came from a hand-held flashlight.

"Whatcha mean, welded--" another voice began followed by a startled profanity as the speaker caught a look at the lock. "Never saw nothin' like that!"

"Somebody in there. Some kid screechin' like to bust!" The third voice was no more reassuring than the first two, but its owner was evidently prepared to act rather than exclaiming, because he must have raised his foot and kicked with all his strength. The door swung open in an explosion of splinters and three men pushed at each other in their attempt to be the first one in. Two of them, one white and one black, had guns in their hands, and Nina noticed that while one of them was a .38 like TV cops carried the other weapon looked like what she considered a 'Saturday night special.' Each man also held a flashlight in his other hand, twin beams stabbing at her. The third man, black and burly, the one who had kicked open the door, didn't have either a flashlight or a weapon in his hamlike hand but then maybe he didn't need a weapon. He was probably six foot six and nearly three hundred pounds, but it wasn't so much fat as hard muscle. His eyes were small and deeply set, and were wrinkled at the corners in a million crowsfeet that she hoped were laughter lines. It was he who stepped forward first, his two henchmen flanking him, the white man very short and stocky who gave the impression he was nearly as round as he was tall, the other black man a skinny beanpole who looked like an NBA reject; Mutt and Jeff with their gang leader, Nina thought.

"Well, well, what have we here?" asked the huge man in the middle as she tilted her head down to shield her eyes from the brightness of the flashlights. His voice was a rich, mellow barbitone that managed to hold all sorts of overtones. "Hello, little lady, and what the hell are you doing on our turf?"

Cy began to cry anew in fresh misery as the three men closed in on her, surrounding her in their presence and in light. Nina braced herself and stood her ground.

"This is the longest day I can remember," said Eddie Plummer. He and Whitney were sitting propped by pillows on Peter's bed, eating pizza. The afternoon had dragged on interminably, and Peter had reminded them that Astarine had given them twenty four hours to make their deal. She had told them that in the evening, so unless she had other nasty little surprises to spring upon them, she wouldn't return until after dark. Egon had beguiled away the hours by modifying another thrower to serve as an atomic destabilizer to replace the one he'd lost in the Netherworld. Even though Ray had retrieved it, it was beyond repair in the little time they still had, and Egon had set it aside to deal with later. A destabilizer would be the best weapon to use against the entity so it was essential to finish the modification before Astarine returned if it was possible. Winston helped him, bringing him equipment he needed and running tests on the finished pieces. Ray checked all the traps he'd set up again, after first convincing Peter to take Mel out for a walk.

"Just like he was a dog," Peter had grumbled, but he'd gone, leading the demon through the streets of Lower Manhattan. It had proven slightly more enjoyable than he'd expected because Mel was both ignorant and fascinated by everything he saw, impressed by Peter's knowledge of his world, and thrilled by the eggrolls Peter bought him at the takeout place down the block on their way home. His appetite was phenomenal. Peter considered him as bad as Slimer.

By the time they returned it was getting close enough to dinner time that they could send out for a pizza. Ray had finished his check of the traps, and thought it better to avoid the lab for the moment, though they could shift into the area when Mel sensed the presence of Astarine.

"But what if she just pops in from another dimension. We wouldn't have any advance warning then, would we?" Winston asked.

"Some, but not as much as if she comes physically from within your own world," Mel replied. He shrugged his shoulders, the gesture looking somewhat unnatural as if he were not yet entirely comfortable within his new form. Peter had enjoyed it earlier when Tommy had broken it to him that if he wanted to stay human and keep those muscles he'd outfitted himself with, he'd need to work out. Then Tommy, who was a martial arts expert, had demonstrated some moves for Mel's benefit and the demon was so fascinated it was all they could do to keep him from rushing out to join a dojo for lessons.

The pizza came and they gathered in the bedroom to eat it. As if they'd rung a bell to summon him, Slimer came back, eager for pizza, and hovered pleadingly above the boxes, reminding the guys he'd been promised all the pizza he could eat for coming with them to the Netherworld. Ray, who had made the order, produced a couple of boxes from the bottom and gave them to Slimer. "That's yours, Spud. The rest of them are for us. You'll get more next time we have pizza."

"Aw," said Slimer, and perhaps because Eddie was here and that put the spud on his best behavior or maybe just to make it last longer, he opened his first box and began to eat the pizza one piece at a time. Peter, Egon and Ray congregated at the table, Winston and Tommy sat cross-legged at opposite ends of Winston's bed, and Janine took a couple of pieces and sat down on Egon's bed to eat it.

"A long day? You called that right," Peter said around a mouthful of pepperoni pizza.

"Must you talk with your mouth full?" Egon asked him, raising his eyebrows in disgust.

Peter swallowed. "Well, how else can I talk when I want to?" he asked reasonably. He'd felt the urge to put in his two cents' worth, trying to strive for a mood of lightness because the more time that passed without Cy the more distraught Eddie and Whitney became. The team was relying on Eddie to fast talk the demon, at least long enough for them to lure her to the traps, so Peter thought it best to try to keep the man's spirits up. So far, the police had reported no trace of Cy. Peter wasn't sure they believed a demon had made off with him, but kidnapping was a crime no matter who the perpetrator, and Cy was definitely gone. Several detectives had come by in the middle of the afternoon to get more information and had talked to Whitney for a long time to get a description of Nina Corey, what she was wearing, when she'd last been seen and more. The mention of demons had made the detectives so uncomfortable they'd called it in and shortly thereafter the Ghostbusters' day had been immeasurably brightened by the presence of Inspector Frump in all his huge, bulky glory. Peter had to hand it to Frump. The man could walk a tightrope over his dislike of the Ghostbusters, his hatred of crime, his genuine sympathy for Whitney and Eddie's loss, and his distrust of musicians as a species. But Frump had been around long enough to know the demon wasn't just a tall tale to confuse the issue. Eddie played his trump card by dragging Mel forward and informing the assembled officers that Mel was in fact a demon, too. Eager to do anything that would please Eddie, Mel shape-shifted to his normal appearance while retaining his human size, which caused something of a panic among New York's finest. Frump took it with considerable aplomb, suggested Mel change back to his normal form and apply for a green card at his earliest opportunity, and then led the rest of the officers out. He'd called back twice after that to report no new developments. They let Ray talk to him because Ray didn't have Peter's knack for offending him.

Offended or not, Frump hadn't found Cy, and no one else had either. The group that sat over pizza was not a happy crowd. Whitney only ate because Eddie coaxed her to do so. Even Peter had toned down his smart remarks because he could tell they weren't really helping to lighten the singers' spirits. He might be able to cheer up his buddies in a crisis with kidding remarks but he could hardly do anything short of bringing Cy back that would help the two distraught parents.

"You could avoid talking unless you had something important to say," Egon told him now. "Seriously, Peter, we'll soon have Astarine back and when that happens, we have to make sure we don't waste a move."

"Egon, we've been over it and over it," Peter replied, picking up another piece of pizza and curling the fingers of his other hand around the long strands of cheese that stretched out between it and the rest of the pizza, snapping them and piling the cheese atop his piece, pausing only long enough to lick his fingers. "We know she can't hurt Eddie and she can't force him to join her, that's why she has to either manipulate or trick him into saying he'll go. We also know she can't hurt anybody in the process of getting what she wants.

"Hurt anybody connected with Eddie," Mel put in quietly, chewing as he spoke. The sight was not aesthetically pleasing and Peter winced. He hadn't looked like that, had he, when Egon criticized him for speaking with his mouth full? No, it was because Mel was a demon. Had to be.

"But we're all connected with Eddie," Peter pointed out. "We've been through three different crises together with him, if you count this one. We're connected because Egon's related to him and we're related to Egon, even if not by blood." He glanced at the physicist who was nodding to confirm the 'chosen family' relationship that existed among the four Ghostbusters and by extension Janine. If Eddie was kin to Egon, by extension he was kin to the rest of the team. Peter wasn't sure he really wanted to push his luck on a long shot like that, but it was something to fall back on if they had to.

Eddie nodded. "And that's what I'll tell her, that I've taken the rest of you as kin."

"I'm related to Eddie Plummer," Peter said in great satisfaction. "That's gonna sound soooo good to my dates from now on." He was delighted to see the singer dredge up a faint smile and some of the misery lift momentarily from Whitney's face at his words.

"It also makes you a bargaining chip, Peter," Egon informed him, causing Peter's face to fall dramatically.

"You had to say it, didn't you, Spengs? You're a real 'glass is half empty' kind of guy. If there's a dark way to look at things..."

"But it's true, Peter," Ray burst out. "In a way it's kind of a double-edged sword. Either we're kin to Eddie and sort of protected or we're kin to Eddie and can be used to manipulate him. But she won't hurt us."

"Great!" Peter and Winston chorused as one.

"At least not until the twenty-four hours are up," Ray corrected.

"Ray, Ray, Ray," Peter chided, shaking his finger at the auburn-haired man. "You're supposed to be the team's pollyanna, not our doomsayer. That's usually Egon's job."

"But it's true, Peter. I'm just trying to warn everybody."

"She's coming," cut in Mel, his voice full of tension. "She's coming right now and she's furious." He edged back into the far corner of the room in the old habit of awe for his former mistress, then he collected himself, emerged hastily, and darted to Eddie's side, prepared to stand by the man who had been kind to him. Peter, who hadn't really thought much of old Mel until now, felt a slow respect beginning to emerge for the transformed demon. Of all of them, Mel knew exactly what Astarine could do to harm them, and he realized she would consider him a traitor and an enemy and would most likely attack him first. His loyalty to Eddie wouldn't even be considered excuse for his actions. Yet he didn't hesitate to place himself at risk for Eddie's sake.

Peter dropped the half-eaten piece of pizza back to the platter, chewing frantically and swallowing in such a big gulp it hurt going down. But when fog began to swirl into existence in the center of the bedroom, he was on his feet and ready for it, his thrower in hand.

They'd talked about blasting her the moment she appeared, but decided against it, even if they might well have caught her in a moment of weakness. It was more important they try to get her to bring Cy back. And that was sure to be tricky because she might try to strike a bargain. Eddie would have to watch very carefully how he made his request. It might come to tricking and trapping her before Cy was returned, but only if it was the last possible solution.

The mist thickened, assuming the same cotton-wool solidity it had possessed in the barrier around Central that morning, making Peter shiver as he remembered the agony of isolation he'd felt as he struggled to move one foot after the other in what felt a futile attempt to be free of it. If the fog had spread or come in his direction he didn't know what he would have done, probably jumped and yelled, so he braced himself, resisting his fear of it with all his strength, his teeth catching and working his bottom lip automatically. Sneaking a lightning glance sideways at Egon, he saw something of a similar reaction on the physicist's face, although not as strong as his own. The fog had been nasty and unpleasant for Egon but it hadn't touched upon his pet phobia the way it had for Peter.

Then an object began to solidify in the middle of the cloud, a tall, towering shape, the mist swirling around it in steady circles, drawing in upon the being that resolved itself out of thin air. Winged, scaled, threatening, with a face that would have been beautiful were it attached to a human body and not a demon one, Astarine made an abrupt gesture with her left hand and the fog dispersed, thinning and stretching until it was transparent again, fading until it was entirely gone. In her native shape, Astarine had none of the wide-eyed awe the teenaged image had borne. Astarine the adult demon fixed glowing eyes upon Eddie, eyes that spoke of possessive lust and desire, not necessarily for his body in any sexual context, which was probably just as well, but for what he represented, music, beautiful music. "Eddie," she breathed. Peter had heard the same tones in the fans across the street last night, and in some of the gathered crowd this morning when Ghostbuster Central was invisible beyond the barrier of the fog.

"Where is my son?" Eddie demanded, his voice harsh and cold. "You come to bargain with me, but I will not bargain--I will not even consider a bargain until my son is here, safe and well, and Nina with him. Your pact is supposed to be with me yet you use others to make your dirty work easier. I can't sing for someone I am unable to respect, Astarine. And I respect no one who steals children." Eddie seemed to have grown, standing tall and magnificent, his face full of a hard and determined beauty. Beside him, Whitney gripped his hand, clutching tightly, but with no less resolution in her face. She didn't speak; this was Eddie's hand to play; but her presence itself spoke of a threat Astarine had not considered, the fierce, protective drive of a mother whose child is at risk.

Tommy Graves positioned himself just behind Whitney and a little to the left so he could face the demon past her shoulder; his body braced for a fight, fallen into the taut lines of a martial artist just before battle. There was no fear on his face even if he felt it. He was part of Eddie's entourage and Eddie needed him, that was all he needed to know.

Seeing him move, Melchazat drifted up beside Eddie and stood foursquare and resolute at the singer's right shoulder. If he was afraid, and Peter was certain he was terrified, he didn't let it show on his newly human face, except in the way he sank his teeth into his bottom lip. There was a kind of beauty in his defiance of the demon that elevated him into more than a demon himself.

As for the Ghostbusters and Janine, they formed a semi-circle behind the demon, four regular throwers and a newly-modified atomic destabilizer leveled at the demon groupie's unprotected back, ready to blast her in a moment, each of them compensating the angle of fire so as not to strike Eddie's particular entourage.

"You!" exclaimed Astarine in awful tones, her voice nearly cracking with fury as she looked more closely at Mel and recognized him. "So here is the traitor, the slime beneath my feet. You think I don't know you in that absurd human disguise, Melchazat? I know you and recognize you, and I curse you."

"You told me to serve Eddie," Mel returned, squaring his broad shoulders with an effort, because he was shaking uncontrollably. "So I do. Is it so surprising? You are not the only one who sees the magic within him, who feels the power that drew you. I am his now, and will defend him to the death if I must."

"So you must," she returned, almost without interest, and turned her face back to Eddie, although everyone knew she and her former servant weren't yet finished. "Eddie," she said again, caressing the word with lips and tongue, which made Eddie shudder slightly as if he could feel the caress, foul against his skin. "You think to bargain with me?"

"I want to see my son," Eddie insisted. "I will not consider starting to bargain with you until he is here with me and that is the bottom line. Your pact with me will not allow you to harm him and you know that is true."

"I have not harmed him," Astarine returned haughtily, drawing herself up to her full seven feet of height. "I only put him somewhere safe to keep him, to remind you that you think to bargain with one far more powerful than you. It is not my fault he is there no longer."

"What? What have you done with my child?" Whitney was gone from Eddie's side before he could restrain her although his fingers brushed her sleeve in his attempt. She lunged at the demon, grabbing the edges of the garment she wore bound over her shoulders like a double sash. "Where is my baby?" she cried. "If you've hurt him..."

"Tedious," snarled Astarine and pushed her away with a huge palm against her chest. Whitney cried out as she reeled backward, and Eddie leaped to catch her, putting his arms around her tightly. She didn't cry; her mouth traced a fierce slash of anger across her face and she looked past Astarine to the Ghostbusters as if pleading with them to bust her now.

"Do you mean you don't know where my son is?" Eddie asked in an awful voice, putting Whitney carefully into Tommy's arms and stalking up to Astarine, his face tilted so he could glare at her the better.

"I did not harm your son. I did not touch your son. He is your son; he was safe from me, as safe as anyone could be, safer. If he is gone, perhaps they escaped as your kin did." She gestured behind her at Egon, the direction of the motion unerringly on target although she didn't bother to turn her head to be sure she had pointed to the right place. That made Peter uneasy, suspecting she had senses he didn't understand, or maybe eyes in the back of her head, concealed in the thick, black tangle of her hair.

"So I guess that means you screwed up," Peter put in. "You can't expect Eddie to hand over his soul to you if you haven't fulfilled your part of the deal. You didn't have the right to harm anyone close to Eddie, did you? We know about pacts like this one. We know what you can do and what you can't, and you'd already come pretty close to messing up by cutting Egon the way you did."

"He was not hurt, a scratch," she returned dismissively. She hadn't even bothered to look at Peter. More proof she could 'see' him without needing her eyes? Or just an example of her contempt for humanity?

"I want my son," Eddie persisted. "And I'm going to get him. You claim to be powerful; you've threatened us, you've done things to show off, to prove your power; you've made us think this place had moved, was in another realm. You took Egon away and appeared to him in the form of Janine, and did such a good job of it he was momentarily fooled. But you can't find one baby? Then I'd have to say you set the stage so you could look good but when the chips are down you can't deliver."

"Don't try my wrath, little man," she snarled.

"Yeah, they always use that kind of dialog when they're pissed off," Peter said scornfully. Making her mad wasn't probably the best idea they'd ever had but, if nothing else, it would put her off her guard a little. "Betcha they only get B-movies in the Netherworld, what do you say, Ray?"

"Sounds like it to me," agreed Ray. "Astarine. You have to give Cy back if you expect Eddie to even think about your offer." Each of them was careful not to promise anything about Eddie accepting such an offer if she returned Cy and Nina, and Peter was afraid Astarine would pick up on that. Another reason to keep her angry; he had a quick temper himself and he knew he was never at his clear-thinking best when he was furious with rage.

"I do not know where he is. You push me too far, all of you." She turned to Eddie, glaring down at him. "I will have you sing for me; you will come with me and sing for me for centuries. That is all I have ever wanted. All this would never have happened if you had come with me to begin with."

"He's not coming with you," snarled Mel. "I've seen how you use him but until now I couldn't think about it. He doesn't want to go. He has a life, something I never had, something I never even thought about before. He has the right to choose his life, his friends, his purpose. You denied me and my brother demons any of that, and for that I renounce you completely. You can't take Eddie, even if you twist everything and force him to agree to save the others. I won't let you."

"You? Won't let me?" She laughed, a high and brittle sound that sliced through Peter like a knife. He knew what was coming and there wasn't anything he could do about it, but he tried anyway, powering up and firing, striking her dead center in the middle of the back.

She flinched and bellowed, swirling her hand and enveloping herself in fog that bounced the beam away and reflected it off the ceiling, nearly taking out the light fixture. Ray gestured quickly to shut down the throwers and Peter complied reluctantly. He wanted to blast through the shield she had wrapped around herself and take her out.

Before he could do anything more than lift his thumb from the trigger of his thrower or Egon could attempt to use the destabilizer in an attempt to break through her shields, Astarine called fire from within herself and tossed it back and forth between her hands, a hot, blue bundle of glowing energy. Eddie tried to jump at her, believing she wouldn't hurt him, but Mel grabbed Eddie and all but threw him at Tommy, who grabbed his arm and yanked hard. Eddie fell back against Egon's bed, using the impetus and the bounce of the mattress to push him up again, but he was too late to do anything. The glowing energy exploded against Melchazat's chest, searing the fabric of the shirt he'd borrowed from Winston. The former demon shrieked and before their eyes began to transform back to his original shape, growing so rapidly the clothes he wore ripped from his body the way they did with the Incredible Hulk when he transformed. He staggered back, brushing against Eddie as he collapsed. The singer crashed to the floor and Mel landed on Egon's bed, which didn't prove up to the challenge. The whole frame collapsed in all directions, and Eddie scrambled backward, rolling under Peter's bed just in time to save himself from being buried under one huge blue leg.

"Eddie!" screamed Whitney, ducking flat on the other side of the double bed and peering under it.

"I knew I should have dusted," Peter muttered under his breath, the words automatic. His eyes lingered on the toppled form of the blue demon. Mel wasn't moving; his chest didn't rise and fall to show breathing.

"Oh, no," mourned Ray, eyes huge with distress. "He's dead. She killed him!"

"So I will do to any who cross me," Astarine announced haughtily. "You presume, all you foolish mortals presume, that I match the appearance I assumed to attend Eddie's concerts. I am not like that. I chose that form for one reason alone, to pass unnoticed and unremarked among the crowd. Only Eddie noticed me, to others I was all but invisible, sometimes choosing to be completely invisible to all but Eddie. I am not a child; I have lived thousands of your years."

"Then you've got a great face cream," Peter said. Winston elbowed him hard and gestured at him to cool it, but Peter had realized something must be done. They couldn't stand around here in the bedroom; nothing would happen except that Astarine could take them out one by one. Eddie wasn't hurt; Whitney and Graves were hauling him out from under Peter's bed, dragging with him old candy wrappers and dust bunnies. Leaving the singer to brush himself off, Peter circled around in front of the demon to get her attention, conscious of the other three Ghostbusters moving with him. Janine circled the other way and reached out a hand to touch Mel, her fingers pressing against the side of his neck to feel for a pulse. That she didn't find one was evident from the way she pulled her hand away as if stung and looked up, eyes seeking Egon, to shake her head.

Peter felt rage growing in him. The demon had messed with all of them; she'd threatened Eddie, she'd taken Egon away and forced him to endure the sounds of Janine's horrible death, false though it had been. She'd made Peter and Egon suffer through the fog in an attempt to restore the firehouse to its rightful place, and she had kidnapped a baby and an innocent woman. Now she'd killed someone whose only crime was responding to kindness, and trying to prevent someone he respected and admired from being hurt. Peter didn't have to take that kind of crap and he wasn't going to any longer. From the way Ray's bottom lip jutted out and his brows drew together Peter knew the youngest Ghostbuster was not only upset, he was mad. That meant he would leap into trouble without weighing the consequences. Peter might leap into trouble, too, but he knew the consequences well, and he'd listened hard when Egon had gone over the rules that Astarine was forced to abide by in making the kind of pact she wanted.

Demons went by the rules, even if they'd trick people when they could. Someone selling his soul to the devil might be able to renege if he found a loophole. But Peter didn't want to take that chance. Eddie hadn't agreed to sell his soul to this particular minor demon, not yet, and the Ghostbusters wouldn't let him.

"Listen up, toots," Peter told Astarine, parking himself right in her face, in between her and the door to the hall to give himself a running start, although the thought of actually running, turning away from her and presenting his back as a target for that blue fire made his skin crawl. The pact might protect him, but he knew he couldn't count on it, not entirely.

"You lack respect," the demon told him. "In Eddie I might tolerate it because his voice invites forgiveness, but you cannot sing."

"You know, everybody keeps telling me that. Everybody's a critic," Peter growled. "I can sing. I just don't want to right now. That's not the point. The point is, you've made mistakes. You handled this all wrong. When you used people Eddie cared about, you were bound to make him furious. You didn't try to charm; you just bludgeoned your way in. Well, I know the rules. I know you can't hurt Eddie or his kin, or the people involved with him. You can move us around like pieces on a game board, but you can't hurt us. Now you say you can't give Cy back. Well, that tells me, you're pretty low on the totem pole. Killing Mel blew any chance you had, and we're sick of you." He talked faster and faster, hoping to make her lose her concentration and drop the fog; it wasn't as thick as it had been earlier, if he kept on, she might get angry and forget it altogether. All they needed was one clear shot.

"You make one mistake, little man," she informed him, leaning down toward him and stretching out one taloned finger to trace it lightly down his cheek, the sharp edge tracing a red line that he could feel but not drawing blood. "You assume that you are safe, because you are here. It is your friend, the pretty one, Egon, who is kin to Eddie, who is safe from my revenge because he and Eddie share blood. You don't. You scarcely know him, in spite of the fact that you revel in the fame of others. How pathetic. You think because he knows your name and is polite to you on Egon's behalf that it will save you from my wrath. It will not."

"Peter, look out," Egon said under his breath. He had a screwdriver in his hand and was busy making rapid adjustments to the destabilizer; maybe he'd found her shield's frequency and hoped to be able to penetrate it. For that, he'd need time. "Don't make her angry," Egon continued, raising his eyes and catching Peter's gaze. The message he sent was, 'move fast, keep talking,' and Peter recognized it all too clearly in the look. Ray and Winston had conferred quietly while Egon worked and now Ray was whispering to Janine, who bent her head and did something to the controls of her thrower. So far Astarine had ignored Janine, but Peter didn't trust that to continue.

Eddie had gone to Mel, and now stood, Whitney's arm around his waist, looking down at the demon who had tried to help him. When he turned, the singer's face was full of misery and his eyes glittered with unshed tears.

Peter had endured enough. He began to give ground, a little at a time, making it look as if he was afraid of Astarine and didn't want to show it, and the demon picked up on that right away. She must not be as subtle as she hoped to appear, or maybe she was giving him enough rope to hang himself. Peter backpedaled, slowly at first, then more quickly. "Guys," he called, playing up for all he was worth. "Don't leave me hanging out here to dry."

"You're in our line of fire, Peter, and the throwers don't work against her anyway," Ray replied, drawing a bead on her and trailing along behind the advancing demon, ready to fire even if it did no more than distract her from Peter.

"Don't provoke her," Egon added. "We should have realized she wouldn't count the rest of you as part of Eddie's protected group."

"Easy for you to say, Spengs," Peter called in return, sliding backward into the lab. Just a few more steps.... "You're immune. You got the better end of the deal."

"He is only immune until the twenty-four hours are up," Astarine announced. "Once Eddie has rejected my deal, be he fool enough to do so, none of you, save Eddie himself, whom I will not destroy, are anything but fair game. Think of it, Eddie," she crooned over his shoulder. "That pretty little blonde you hold onto so tightly? She will be the first to die."

"Threats won't make me go with you," Eddie called. "I saw what you did to Mel, and that wasn't fair. You'll only keep destroying people; we're going to stop you."

"How? I am protected." She gestured at her shield, smiling. "No, Eddie. You will come with me by choice; you will rule at my side, you will fill our lives with music. If you do that, I will let Whitney live, I won't harm the Ghostbusters--and I might even bring Melchazat back to life if he amuses you."

Eddie hesitated. Peter could see he was starting to fall for it. He didn't know Eddie as well as Egon did, but he knew him well enough to know that Eddie wouldn't choose for others to suffer on his behalf.

"Don't listen to her," Peter called. "She's lying. She's a demon, that's what she does. She's trying to trick you now. The twenty-four hours aren't up yet, and Cy isn't here. Hold onto that." Two more steps backward. He grimaced at the demon, who saw the look and surged toward him in a flood of fog. She cast out tendrils of it at Peter and he felt them curl around his arms and legs, the cold of isolation trickling through them and causing the lab to blur around him. He shuddered, reaching out a desperate hand to the guys. "She's...doing something," he cried. "Guys, help me." Come on, feet, only two more steps. He forced the left foot backward, then the right one, feeling the room close in around him, sealing him in darkness. Through it he heard her amused laughter and knew she had felt every sting of the terror he'd endured in the fog that morning. She was showing him how much control she still had, how she could put him down in an instant, without really trying.

Peter closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the nothingness she had cast around him. How thick was it? How much of it did she have to spare? If he drew it all in on himself, would it thin her control? Would it destroy him? Dimly, in the background, he could hear the guys screaming his name, but he couldn't respond; when he blurted a pained, "Egon," the sound dropped dead at his feet in a peculiar silence that didn't even hold echoes. The only thing he could feel any more was the presence of the demon near him. Was she close enough?

Peter felt himself huddling into a small, tight ball. Was he on the floor? In the Netherworld? Floating in midair? He didn't know. He only knew he had the demon's concentration locked on him and that was what mattered. He could hold out, even though time stretched and warped, twisting around him and making him feel he'd been here forever, caught in the darkness. There was no way out, no way home. He couldn't even hear the guys any more. He risked a quick look. There was nothing to see.

Squeezing his eyes tightly shut again to block out the emptiness, Peter moaned and struggled to hold on. All the guys needed was a little more time.... If he could just.... If he....

"Peter!" Egon lunged for the psychologist as the mist engulfed his friend. "Ray, quickly. That fog has strange properties, and it was very hard on Peter before."

"Gosh, yeah, he said it was like sensory deprivation." Ray shivered at the sight of the pillar of mist that had swallowed up Peter. Every now and then came a quick flash of brown that indicated Peter's jumpsuit, and they could hear Peter's breathing through the aura around him; it was harsh and rasping, on the thin edge of panic. Of all of them, Peter would hate that kind of trap the worst, which was why Astarine had inflicted it upon him. They heard him call to them but when they responded he gave no indication of hearing.

"Hey, Ray." Winston nudged him, pointing to the demon. She was laughing, ignoring the rest of them, confident in her fog-forcefield. She hadn't even bothered to pay them any attention. But she was standing in the spot to which Peter had led her one agonizing step at a time, in the middle of the circle of traps that Ray had concealed in the lab. Would the power of the traps cut through the field that enclosed her and blocked the throwers? Ray wasn't sure. He glanced sideways at Egon.

The physicist lowered his screwdriver, nodded quickly at Ray, who grinned. While Peter had enraged the demon, they'd taken quick readings and the results were plain to see. Using a thrower wouldn't have been Ray's first choice, but Egon didn't have an ordinary thrower.

"We can't blast her, Ray," Egon said.

"Can we blast the fog that's holding Peter?" demanded Janine. "That's what you guys did before to free the firehall, isn't it?"

Winston circled slowly around the demon, heading for the table. He won a quick look from Astarine, but she could see no weapons or threats in his direction, and seemed content to watch him as he reached the corner of the table and stopped, resting his hand on it lightly.

Eddie chose that moment for his next bit of distraction. "Let Peter go!" he snapped. "Let him go or we don't talk at all!"

"You've made me dubious promises before and never intended to keep them," returned the demon, folding her arms across her chest and glaring down at the singer. "Why should I listen to you this time?"

"This is why," Eddie replied and, at a surreptitious nod from Egon, began to sing. Positioning himself so she had to turn slightly away from Winston, with Egon directly behind her, Eddie opened his mouth and let pure sound emerge, choosing not one of his rock hits but the old ballad, Greensleeves. "Alas, my love, you do me wrong..." Astarine fell silent immediately, the coldly beautiful face immediately easing into softer lines as she listened. Her hands came up, clasping against her chest, and for an instant, her eyes closed. She must have been very confident in her strength and ability to control the others and shield herself because she made no attempt to watch Egon and Ray as they edged closer.

Whitney slid into place at Eddie's side, wrapped an arm around his voice and began to sing the harmony in soprano, leaving Eddie the melody line. The second time through they switched as if they'd rehearsed it, giving the melody to Whitney and the harmony to Eddie, then line by line they traded parts as if they knew each other's minds so well they didn't have to talk and plan it. As a demonstration of their unity, it was first rate, and if it didn't convince the demon that separating Eddie and Whitney was a crime, nothing would.

Egon nodded at Ray, leveled the hastily-modified destabilizer, and pressed the trigger. A crackle of energy, vivid blue and glowing, erupted from the end of the device and struck the fog that encased Astarine.

Winston's arm braced itself to move.

Ray leveled his own thrower at the demon.

The demon screamed, the sound as sharp and bright as a blade, ripping through the music and causing the two singers to fall silent, gaping at her in dismay.

Slowly at first, then in a great rush like the ice melting from a stream and breaking free in a great floe, the fog whipped around, pulsed with a blue to match Egon's stream, then shot out from her in all directions, causing the two singers and Janine to duck as if they expected to be impaled on its shards. Chunks of thicker mist broke away from the barrier that held Peter, and hit the floor with an almost physical force. The brown-haired man became visible a little at a time then abruptly he was standing there, his arms curled around his chest, his face scrunched up in abject misery, his body shaking with the cold.

The beam stabbed through the last remnants of the mist and hit the demon, causing her to screech and flail about, arms waving, bellowing at the top of her lungs. Peter flinched at the sound and collapsed to lie in a little huddle on the floor, his body quivering and quaking with great shudders. Janine and Graves edged around to him and pulled him back against the wall.

That was when Ray fired, aiming for the middle of the demon's back. This time she felt the stream at full power and she began to writhe and twist, caught up in it and in pain from it. Janine leaped to her feet and blasted her, too, and Graves grabbed Peter's thrower and fired it from floor-level, blurting out a surprised cry at the intensity of the power that made his hands jerk and twitch in their attempt to hold the proton beam on target.

Confined in three streams at once, Astarine wailed and moaned, spitting vile curses at her captors. Before she could wrest herself free, Winston suddenly put all his body weight on the arm that leaned against the table. Dazzling light flared into being in a circle around the demon, making most of the people in the room close their eyes frantically against the pain of its fierce brilliance. Ray squinted, angling his head so he could watch the demon without looking directly into any of the traps. Calling out instructions to Janine and Graves, he directed them to force their streams lower and lower, driving the demon down toward the traps. Egon worked frantically on his destabilizer, resetting it, then abruptly he began to fire as well.

The shriek from Astarine broke off in mid rage as the demon twisted, writhed and suddenly appeared to turn to smoke. Her body warped, swirling like the fog she had once controlled, compressing in upon itself, then abruptly flying apart in all directions, the energy zipping into no less than six of the traps. Winston jerked himself away from the table and every trap closed, leaving the air empty of everything but echoes.

"Shut down everybody," Ray cried, holstering his thrower in one quick motion as he, Egon and Winston made a mad dash for Peter.

Egon got there first as Graves bounded to his feet out of their way. Kneeling beside the unconscious man, Egon rested his hand across Peter's forehead then felt quickly at the side of his neck for a pulse. "He's alive," he reassured them all. "I think she made the fog stronger this time, because she knew how much Peter hated it." Curling one hand around Peter's cheek he added, "He's very cold. Janine, if you would get a blanket..."

"Already here, Egon." Janine held it out to him and he and Ray smoothed it over Venkman's still form. Encouragingly, Peter stirred slightly and one clutching hand tugged the blanket into place.

"Can you hear me, Peter?" Ray asked urgently, grasping one of Peter's hands and squeezing it. He did feel cold. Egon had said the demon had felt cold when it assumed Janine's form. "Are you really Peter?" he asked doubtfully.

At the question, Egon peeled back one of Peter's eyelids and looked into the green eye. "Peter?" he said gently. "It's Peter, I'd know," he added to Ray, "though in the heat of the crisis it was indeed possible she'd switch." He pointed a P.K.E. meter at the unconscious man and nodded to himself as the device reacted normally. "Peter, listen to me, you're safe; it's over, she's trapped and you're not alone. Do you hear me? You are not alone."

"Yeah, you've got a big crowd waiting for you to open your baby greens," Winston added, grasping Peter's shoulder and squeezing it reassuringly. "Don't know what she did to you, homeboy, but it's over, and you're safe. You have my word on it."

"Winston's right, Peter," Ray said, clasping Peter's hand with both of his. "Wake up. It's all right."

"Peter? Answer me." Looking up at the others, Egon added, "He's very cold," and lifted him up, blanket and all, the others helping to rest him against Egon's shoulder. The physicist promptly put his arm around Peter's shoulders to support him.

At that, Peter stirred, shifted, and made a faint sound of contentment, turning his face into Egon's chest as if seeking his body warmth. For a moment he held that position, then abruptly he tilted his head back and looked up at Egon, his eyelids at half mast. "Gone?" he asked doubtfully.

"If you mean the fog, it's gone completely, Peter. It won't be back. Or if you mean the demon, she's in no less than six traps," Egon assured him with satisfaction.

Peter considered that a moment, then he heaved a vastly relieved sigh and his arms came up around Egon's neck. "I never want to go through that again," he said as his friends encircled him and wrapped him up in the warmth of their caring. For a moment they held onto him, letting him know he wasn't alone, standing by him as he regained his equilibrium, then they helped him to his feet. Janine edged in then and gave him a kiss on the cheek and Eddie patted his shoulder.

"You did it, Peter," Ray said enthusiastically when he saw that Peter was starting to look like himself again. Although he still clutched the blanket around him, the shivering had nearly stopped and the hollowness was easing from his eyes.

"I did?" Peter stared at him in surprise. "What did I do? I know how brilliant I am but it feels like I was out for the count this time around."

"Yeah, but before that happened you led her to the exactly right spot for us to trap her," Winston informed him. "We could see how hard it was for you to move at the end, but you kept on going anyway until we had her right where we wanted her."

"It was great," agreed Ray. "She fell for it, didn't suspect a thing."

"But how'd you get her in the traps?" Peter asked.

"I wondered that too," Whitney demanded. "Because you couldn't blast her and then all at once you could."

"That was easy," said Ray. "The barrier was like a force field. Once I realized that, I knew we could take it down if we could find the right frequency. But there wasn't any way for me to test it when the building was inside it before, and there was so much going on for Egon when he was outside it that all he did was figure out how to force her to drop it. Outside, around the building it was spread so thin that a simple proton stream could knock it back. But when she had it around her, it was much more concentrated and needed us to use stronger methods to break it down. We took a lot of readings and managed to get the frequency while you were egging her on, Peter, and Egon adjusted the destabilizer to break through it. After that it was easy."

"Yeah, and Uncle Peter had the rough part," responded the psychologist. "I really, really hate that fog."

"It's gone. You won't have to experience it again," Egon told him. He slung his arm around Peter's shoulders; the casual gesture wasn't characteristic of him but he probably knew better than any of the others how Peter had felt in the fog. Ray hated the very idea of it, but it would be worse for Peter.

The psychologist leaned against Egon comfortably, his muscles beginning to relax. "Nice work, guys," he encouraged. "You get the gold star this time."

Whitney looked around the room. "But what about Cy?" she asked in a voice full of uneasiness. "What about my baby."

All the color went out of Eddie's face. "My god, we should have--"

"Hey!" The naked pain in the couple's faces and voices prodded Peter out of his own distress quicker than anything else could have done. "She didn't know where Cy was anyway. Remember? She fed us a lot of bullshit but that much was true. She was too angry about it to be faking. Betcha anything she came along right after Nina sneaked out of wherever she was held, and right now she's on her way here with Cy."

"Why didn't she call?" Eddie asked. "She knows we're going through hell. She'd call."

Winston snagged the nearest telephone and held it up. "Thought so," he said in satisfaction. "The phone's dead again."

"It worked when we got the pizza," Ray reminded him.

"Yeah but it could have gone out right after that," said Janine. "The guy who fixed it said they'd have to come back Monday and do it right but that should get us through the weekend. Either it bought it on its own or it had help. For all we knew, the bitch ripped it out again before she came back here."

Whitney shook her head. "No. She'd looked for Cy before she came here." She burrowed into the circle of Eddie's arms.

That was when they heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, as if the person climbing them were as big as Mel in his natural state. "I don't like the sound of that," Peter said, dropping the blanket as he stepped away from Egon and grabbed for his thrower, reeling in the cable until he had the weapon in his hands. Then, above the plodding steps came a more familiar sound, one intensely welcome. It was the crying of a baby.

"Cy!" Whitney flew for the hall, the others hot on her heels just as the biggest black man Peter had ever seen reached the top of the spiral staircase and turned to offer his hand to Nina Corey, who was holding a wailing baby in her arms. She offered him to Whitney, who snatched him and hugged him tightly, then turned to Eddie, who engulfed them both in a massive embrace, resting his chin against Whitney's hair, his face filled with relief and utter bliss.

"He needs feeding and changing," Nina said. "We tried to call you, but the phone was out, so Steve said he'd get me over here. When we got close there was a funny feeling in the air and we hadn't dared run the siren in case it warned her. So when we pulled up in front we could see proton streams on this floor and then a huge burst of light. When it died down we took a chance and came up. Oh." She gestured at her companion. "This is Steve Kenner; he's an undercover cop. He and two drug dealers found Cy and me locked up in a derelict building that's going to be trashed on Monday. He fast-talked our way out of there, said he was a sucker for babies."

"And when you're my size, people don't fault you for having a sentimental streak," the huge man said with a grin. "This little lady was nearly out of there on her own when we found her; you should have seen how she faced up to us. Not a shred of fear on her face."

Eddie turned his gaze on the police officer and found a dazzling smile for him. "Thank you," he said. "You can't know what this means to me?"

"Can't I? I've got three at home myself. Believe me, I know. Your baby's fine. We stopped long enough to give him a quick bottle on the way but he didn't want to take much of it."

"He'll take one from me," Whitney said. "Janine, come with me and help me heat up one of his bottles."

Eddie let her go as if he were tearing her out of his heart, but then he made himself stand back and look at them both, the life and confidence back in his whole posture. "Never again," he told her. "I swear it, even if I never sing another note. Never again."

"You think I'd stop you singing?" Whitney asked him. Still clutching Cy to her breast she raised one hand and put curved her fingers against Eddie's cheek. "It's over and we're all alive. That's what counts." She let Janine usher her toward the stairs.

"And I'll be moving along too," Steve said, sketching a salute at Nina Corey. "Think kindly of this little lady," he said. "The only other place we stopped was to clean up her hands." He gestured at the band-aids that adorned more than half of her fingers. "She used everything she could find to try to break out of that place and she would have killed us if we'd tried to hurt your baby."

As the cop headed down the stairs again, Eddie went to Nina Corey, clasped her by the shoulders and kissed her full on the mouth, then he put his arms around her and held her tightly, his eyes glistening too brightly. "There aren't words," he said to her. "Thank you isn't good enough, not for you guys either." Freeing Nina, he squared his shoulders, looking so much like Egon it startled Ray, who already knew it. "I just wish--god, I feel bad about Mel."

"You can't take on the pain of the entire world--or should I say the entire pan-dimensional infrastructure, Eddie," Egon told him. He gripped his cousin's upper arms. "You did everything you could and you did it as you should. None of this was ever your fault and I hope you know that."

"I could have kept on teaching physics at Ohio State," Eddie said.

"Yes, and destroyed your soul. It's all right, Eddie. You did what you had to do; there was never a choice. I know it, you know it, even Uncle Cyrus knows it."

"Oh, god, how am I going to tell Dad about this?" Eddie groaned.

"Uncle Cyrus knows our work is valuable," Egon replied. "Just tell him you brought us a case. That's all that matters."

"That and the fact there's a big blue demon on your bed, Egon," Peter said, looking past Eddie into the other room." And I think he's shrinking!"

"Shrinking?" echoed Egon.

Winston's eyes narrowed. "Say what?"

"Maybe he's not dead!" Ray leaned past Peter to try to look.

Eddie didn't hesitate. He raced into the bedroom and screeched to a stop at the wreckage of Egon's bed. As the Ghostbusters fetched up behind him, Graves right behind them, the blue demon groaned, stirred painfully, and faded into something more normally flesh-colored. Egon whipped his P.K.E. meter out as Melchazat mutated into human form once more and tried to sit up, clutching about him the tattered remnants of his borrowed clothes.

"MEL!" Eddie cried exultantly. "You're not dead!"

"No, but it was close," the demon replied. "I saw her cast fire at me and I did the only thing I could. I tried to match the impact with the transition back to a demon. Once it began, even though it was not instantly visible, I was not as vulnerable to her attack." He rubbed his chest where the skin was reddened and blistered. "I hoped she wouldn't notice the transition began a second before impact. I was stunned."

"You weren't breathing," Eddie told him.

"Demons don't breathe the way humans do," Mel replied. "She would have known I was alive if she'd examined me. I hoped you'd keep her too busy to do so. When I came around, I reverted and here I am. Is she destroyed?"

"She's trapped and we'll be feeding her into our containment unit any minute," Peter informed him. "We got her. Well," he added honestly, "the guys did. I was kind of down for the count, too." He was grinning. Ray hid a smile as he realized that Peter had felt nearly as bad about Mel as Eddie had. As if he suspected Ray had glimpsed his sentimental side he added quickly, "So, Eddie, now what? There's no nasty demon groupie after you, but you've still got demon problems. What are you going to do about Mel?"

Eddie hesitated, considering the possibilities, then he grinned. "I'm going to hire him," he said. "I can always use another bodyguard, especially if I'm going to run the risk of paranormal groupies in the future. Most of my bodyguards are pretty good but none of them are eight feet tall and blue in their natural state."

Peter sighed, curled his hands around the cup of hot cider he'd fixed for himself and let the warmth come through the ceramic into his hands. It was somewhere after three a.m. and he'd been sleeping just fine until then, but all of a sudden a kind of mental alarm clock had gone off inside his head and after that he was wide awake. He lay there huddled in his blankets for a good half an hour trying to go back to sleep, but the harder he tried the further sleep retreated.

He knew it had been a dream that had awakened him, and he knew exactly what the dream had been, a dream of thick, penetrating fog curling its icy tendrils around his body, possessing him, filling him, shutting him away from reality. It was a wonder the awakening had not sent him bolting out of bed with a shriek. But from the quiet breathing and faint snores of his three closest friends, they were still asleep, undisturbed by his nightmare, far luckier than he was. He envied them fiercely.

For a long time he listened to their breathing, staring up at the dimly visible ceiling, the light from the streetlight that crept in around the edges of the curtains, savoring any visual stimulus, enjoying the warmth of the nest he'd made in the bed, but eventually that wasn't enough so he'd eased out of bed, tiptoed down the stairs and made for the kitchen. In the absence of Egon and his world-famous hot chocolate, Peter had opted for heating some apple cider and now he sat sipping it slowly, enjoying the feel of hot liquid sliding down his throat and warming him through.

He heard Egon coming before the physicist arrived and knew who it was just from the sound of his footsteps. Peter had been too conscious of every sound in the place for anyone to sneak up on him unawares tonight. When Egon rounded the corner and saw him Peter said, "Cider?" quickly in order to get in the first word.

"Thanks. I'll heat it." Egon vanished into the kitchen and returned shortly with his own steaming cup. "Sorry to take so long," he said quickly when he dropped into the chair opposite Peter. "One or the other of us seems to do the midnight confessions routine with amazing regularity."

Peter grinned. Just having one of his buddies here, awake, to talk to him made all the difference. He wasn't unbearably traumatized by the fog, and he didn't think Egon was unbearably traumatized by the experience in Janine's sub-basement, but he'd lay odds that was why Egon had awakened, if it wasn't a subliminal awareness of Peter's absence from the dormitory that had disturbed his rest.

"Are you all right, Peter?" Egon asked. "Did you have a bad dream?"

"Yeah, more fog," Peter admitted. That he could confess it without shame or embarrassment spoke of his complete trust of Egon as well as his own coming to terms with the trauma. "I'm gonna be fine on this one," he added with quick reassurance. "But I didn't like it. I don't know what it is, but being all alone like that--well, I can't handle it, that's all."

"You are handling it, Peter. You can handle it and did. Knowing what it was like, you risked it again to lure Astarine into the lab. Sometimes I am amazed by your courage."

Peter bowed his head over his cup then looked up again. "It wasn't courage," he said. "I was just steamed off. Taking a baby, for pete's sake, and then trashing Mel, so we thought he was dead. And what she did to you--I wasn't gonna take it any more."

"I know you weren't. I'm just sorry it was so unpleasant."

"Unpleasant? This one of those understatements you practice?"

Egon stretched out his arm and curled his fingers around Peter's wrist. "Ray was saying when we went to bed how lucky we all were that no one was really hurt this time. But there are levels of hurt. Whitney was put through hell over Cy's disappearance and so was Eddie even if he had more to do to keep him busy to face it. I thought I heard Janine die, and that was--well, the rest of us know the odds, Peter. We all know any of us could die on a bust and we live with it because that's all we can do, and because we work constantly to improve the odds in our favor. But people like Eddie, Whitney, Janine, Nina, the baby--they didn't choose this life. They shouldn't have to face it."

"Come on, Egon, think what you're saying," Peter said quickly, before Egon could twist it so far it hurt. "Everybody goes through some kind of nasty crisis in his life. Losing a spouse or even a kid, getting cancer, being hit by a car. People have to live with all those things. Nobody was ever born with guarantees. I knew that pretty early, when I realized my dad wasn't going to be around when I needed him. Took you and Ray to convince me to take risks again and trust people. No, the risks are all there, whether they come from a major demon or just lousy timing, like having a brick fall off a building and brain somebody. You can't go through life blaming yourself because an innocent got hurt, Egon. You can only do everything you can to make the world a safer place in the only way you know how. We do it busting ghosts. Now Astarine won't trash anybody else. Eddie was lucky. He has a cousin who's a Ghostbuster. Suppose Astarine had the hots for Mick Jagger. He might call us but not so quick and it could have gone much worse. Janine's okay. She works for us because she wants to; because she knows a good thing when she sees it." He grinned knowingly at Egon to leave the words open to his interpretation; the job or Egon himself. "Yeah, you thought she was in danger this time but she really wasn't, no more than anybody else. If it got you to take a good hard look at her so you'd see what a good thing you have here, so much the better. True, Eddie and Whitney had a nasty shock but they'll make it, because they love each other and Cy so much that they can count on each other. And you and me, well, we've got each other and the other two who are sacked out upstairs, and we can count on each other no matter how impossible the odds. You know that as well as I do; it's what makes everything worthwhile. We're all gonna make it, Egon. You'll see."

"And sometimes I forget how good you are at your job," Egon said after a moment of quiet reflection.

"Yeah, I do the 'physician, heal thyself' number pretty good if I do say so myself," Peter responded with a crooked little grin. "And remember, the shingle's up for you, any time you need it."

"I know that, Peter. It's one of the things that keeps us going."

"Just like having you show up when I needed to sound off tonight is one of the things that makes it work for me," Peter agreed, the smile spreading until it warmed his eyes. He took a swallow of the cider and sighed contentedly at its warmth. "There's just one thing I can't quite picture, though."

"What's that?" Egon queried, amusement beginning to warm his face as he realized Peter had settled down, relaxing from the tensions of the day.

"Can't you see it, Eddie's next tour, The Eddie Plummer band, and Mel, Eddie's own, personal demon, standing backstage, ready to pounce on any poor, unsuspecting groupie. Betcha he'll never let a groupie near Eddie again as long as he lives."

"Just as long as he doesn't shapeshift to make his point," Egon replied and both men burst out laughing.

It was the following evening and the four Ghostbusters were enjoying the peace of an afternoon free of busts since the telephone was still out and no one had been desperate enough to come to headquarters to recruit the team for a new job. In the aftermath of their last few days it was a blessed relief to sleep in, even if Egon had to sleep in the rollaway bed until he could get to a store and purchase a whole new bed set. Eddie said he'd send one over as soon as he could call in an order, and since Egon had refused to take payment from his cousin for the bust, Peter insisted he accept the bed. "Besides," he'd concluded, "I had to share my bed with you once. That was enough. I can take you snoring over there where you belong, but I sure hate you snoring about three inches from my ear."

"At least I didn't kick you in the stomach," Egon had replied immediately, rising to the challenge. "I nearly lost my dinner when you did that, and you would have enjoyed that even less than the snoring. You're the most restless sleeper I've ever seen. Yes, I'll let Eddie buy me a new bed. Having to share yours is a fate worse than death."

"My dates don't think so," Peter returned hotly, struggling not to avoid a grin.

"Your dates are female," Egon reminded him. "I am not. I didn't find the experience any more pleasant than you did."

"I noticed. None of them ever felt as bony as you when you rolled over." Peter grimaced. "Besides I'm used to space. Bad enough I have to fight off the spud when he wants to sleep on my pillow."

"Sounds like a case of mutual agreement to me," Winston told Ray in an undertone. Ray grinned in reply.

Peter stretched out on the couch, his feet up on the coffee table. "Whatever you guys do, don't tell Egon about that mold show on the Discovery Channel tonight," he said just loudly enough for Egon to hear him. "I don't care what anybody says, I'm watching The Treasure of Sierra Madre and nobody's going to stop me. It's my reward for having to go through that nasty fog not once but twice."

"Good movie, I'll buy it," Winston agreed.

"Hey, me too," Ray concurred. "I like old movies and that one's a classic. What about you, Egon?"

"He's going to go up and sulk about the mold program," Peter retorted. "We don't need no stinking mold shows...."

"I never sulk, Peter," Egon replied with some hauteur, although he couldn't hold back the twinkle of amusement that shone in his eyes. "In actual fact, however, I won't be in this evening."

That won the undivided attention of the other three. Peter, who had started to reach for the channel remote, dropped it into the bowl of popcorn he'd made and Slimer retrieved it, taking most of the popcorn along with him, his big, pink tongue slurping around the channel changer to remove the last traces of butter. Ray retrieved the device and buffed it quickly on his sleeve.

"Won't be in?" Peter asked suspiciously. "Does this explain your unexpected sartorial elegance? The old school tie? The new jacket that you've only worn once? This could be interesting. Come on, Spengs, give."

Egon actually looked uncomfortable, and the faintest hint of redness tinged his cheeks. "I'm going out," he said as if that should clarify all. "To dinner, actually. I'm not in the mood for pizza two nights running."

"We can't call out for it anyway," Ray reminded him. "Unless we can con Peter into picking some up. The phone's still out. Who are you going to dinner with?"

"He's got a date!" Peter burst out, his eyes lighting up. "That's it, isn't it, Egon? You've got a date? You're taking Janine out somewhere, for dinner and dancing. I knew it! I knew it all along! This is great!"

"That means he'll never let you live it down, homeboy," Winston told Egon instructively.

"A date with Janine?" Ray smiled broadly. "Really? I think that's nice, Egon."

Peter looked up at the tall blond man with interest, knowing all too well that Egon had been very upset by the demon's imitation of Janine and the subsequent fake death. He wasn't remotely surprised that Egon had taken a fresh look at the secretary and decided to do something about her when he hadn't done much before. It sometimes took a good hard prod to get Egon to do the right thing when it came to the female of the species. But there was a little spark in the back of Egon's eyes that was slightly too serious. He'd been openly demonstrative with Janine ever since the incident and while Janine had enjoyed it, she'd looked a little worried, too. Peter knew the best thing he could do right now would be to break any possible tension; at the same time he didn't want to discourage Egon from going out with Janine; it would be good for both of them.

So with a wicked look in his eyes Peter turned to Ray and Winston. "You know what this means, don't you, guys?" he asked, laying it on so thickly he could feel Egon bracing himself to retaliate.

"Well, I can think of a couple of things," Winston replied, falling into the teasing with the ease of long practice while Ray waited expectantly, watching Egon. "What do you mean in this case, homeboy?" Winston asked.

"It means," said Peter knowingly, "that it's time for me to give him the big talk, you know the one? The birds and the bees stuff. I think," he added hastily before anyone could interrupt him, "our little boy has finally grown up."

Egon proved the truth of Peter's words by chasing him all over the second floor before he caught him and held him down for Slimer to cover him in ectoplasm.

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