The young woman picking her way daintily across the garage area of Ghostbuster Central amid the buckets of water Ray and Winston were using to wash Ecto-1 seemed as out of place as a lily in a rubbish heap. She was neatly made with a small, elfin face and heaps of corn-yellow hair. Spotting Peter who was pretending to mind Janine's desk while the Ghostbusters' secretary took her lunch break, the newcomer smiled diffidently, revealing dimples hiding in her rosy cheeks. She was stylishly dressed in a heather-colored business suit and elegant spike heels that added to the uncertainty of her steps, and her white silk blouse had a Peter Pan collar. She couldn't be a day over twenty-five, but in spite of the reserve, which might be a result of entering a haunt of ghosts and spirits, she didn't hesitate for a second. When Winston started to toss his sponge into the bucket and then pulled his shot to keep from splashing her, she favored him with a gamine grin and quickened her pace. Reaching the desk, she came to an expectant halt in front of Peter, who jumped to his feet.

"Welcome to Ghostbuster Central. How can the Ghostbusters help you?" He beamed at her. Egon had once told him his smile around an attractive woman made him appear fatuous, but he disagreed. When Egon noticed the female of the species he wasn't much better. Most guys weren't.

"I do hope you can." She sounded like she feared no solution was possible. Her eyes darted around the high-ceilinged room with fascination and a certain wariness, expecting ghosts to circle around in plain sight. "It's a strange problem. I know you bust ghosts, but I don't know if you do other...other things."

"We do a lot of things, as long as it's connected with the paranormal," Peter explained. "Come and sit down and tell me all about it." He dragged up Janine's chair and offered it to her, parking himself on the desk beside the computer. "I'm Dr. Peter Venkman, the character with the lethal sponge is Winston Zeddemore, and, over there, soaking wet, is Dr. Ray Stantz. Ray lets his enthusiasm get the better of him sometimes and, just between you and me, I think they were having a water fight. Boys will be boys, you know."

Winston would have lobbed the dripping sponge enthusiastically in Peter's direction but he could hardly do it in front of a client; his expression proved he'd find a way to retaliate later. Ray just looked sheepish, and waved at their new client.

She lifted a hand in return. "I'm Jackie McFarland. The reason I've come is because -- I think my boyfriend is possessed."

"Wow!" Ray dripped his way over to join them. Pulling the sweatshirt he'd donned for the car washing away from his stomach, he wrung out as much of it has he could grab. "I'd better go change. But -- what makes you think he's possessed?" Abandoning the sweatshirt as hopeless, he pulled it off and tossed it in the general direction of his locker where it landed with a little splat. The tee shirt he wore under it was only damp in spots. "That's better," he said, ignoring his saturated jeans. He could hardly remove them in front of their client. It would be bad for business.

"Is your boyfriend suddenly acting different?" Peter prompted as Winston shed his own sopping sweatshirt and joined them.

"Well, it's hard to explain." Her mouth pursed in thought. "I've known him for nearly nine months. We didn't start dating right away, though I'd see him at the office once in awhile, and I could tell he liked me, but he was really shy. Almost excruciatingly shy. I can't remember the last time I met a guy who was as shy as that -- I think it was in middle school. I finally asked him out, and I could see he wanted to go, but he was hesitant about it. Then his boss encouraged him, and we started seeing each other."

The possessed boyfriend was obviously not from the Venkman School of Dating. Maybe Peter could offer lessons on the side, make a little extra money. "So when did you notice anything odd about him?"

"Right away, but that was good," Jackie replied. "I mean, I think he came from some little Podunk place because he was so naive I couldn't believe it. I even wondered if he wasn't mildly retarded, simply because he was so culturally -- different. But he's smart, you can tell. Then I actually started to wonder if maybe he had been raised by wolves. I know it's not what you usually think when you meet someone on a date, but I couldn't think of anything else to explain it. He didn't know things that everybody knew, that everybody takes for granted. You know, pop culture things. He had never heard of the Beatles, and he says he never watched TV when he was a kid. He doesn't know songs everybody knows, not even simple things like Pop Goes the Weasel. He'd never heard of the Grand Canyon or the Olympics. He didn't even know how to read at first, if you can believe it. So even though he wasn't talking about it, I finally decided he must have been raised in one of those weird religious cults you read about, that have a remote commune and limited contact with the outside world. He can read now, of course, and I've seen him with the most esoteric books, and we talk about them, and he's not retarded at all. He's very bright. But he doesn't know things everybody else takes for granted. I said somebody looked like a hippie once, and he didn't have a clue what that meant."

She frowned. "I just want you to get the picture. Here's this wonderfully kind man, and he's developing a sense of humor and learning all the time, but he's so innocent, such a stranger in a strange land. He -- " Her face crimsoned and she dropped her eyes. "He hasn't even tried to sleep with me, and the first time I kissed him, he was really embarrassed. That's what made me think of the weird religious cult. They might have vows of celibacy. He's not gay -- I asked him. I had to explain what it meant, if you can buy that." She hesitated, raising her eyes to find Peter, Ray, and Winston listening sympathetically, surprised at her outpouring. "I -- well, I wouldn't tell people this ordinarily, but you've got to understand how strange it is. We were..." Her voice trailed off to a dead halt and she looked decidedly embarrassed as though it would take only one wrong word for her to change her mind and flee the building. Peter had an idea what was coming, and understood why she paused. She had probably steeled herself to seek out the Ghostbusters and planned what she was going to say when she got here but, when confronted by three unknown males who were hanging on her every word, she just couldn't go on. She'd probably decided it would be like telling things to her doctor but discovered it didn't feel like that at all. Whatever she meant to say apparently involved her sex life and her relations with the boyfriend. Maybe she could do it better without the whole audience.

So Peter held up his hand. "Jackie? Can you wait a minute? These two guys are staring to turn blue from hanging out in their wet clothes. Why don't I send them up to change. You can tell me your story and I'll pass it on when they're dry. Is that okay with you?"

Ray opened his mouth to protest; he'd been too fascinated by the story to realize how embarrassed Jackie had grown. Winston elbowed him surreptitiously.

"I don't know about you, Ray, but I don't want to wind up with pneumonia. I squish when I move. Come on, homeboy, let's get dry. Pete can fill us in later."

Corralling Ray, he hauled the younger Ghostbuster up the stairs. He had been right. He did squish when he moved, and so did Ray. They left wet footprints and a trail of water all the way up to the second floor.

"That's what you get for playing when you're supposed to be working," Peter said avuncularly, aware of the fact that Ray and Winston, if they heard him, would be hot for revenge and would probably come back later and empty the buckets over his head. His words made Jackie smile, as he'd hoped they would. The smile might even make the dousing worth it.

He smiled back. "I got the feeling you didn't need a big audience. Just think of me as your friendly neighborhood psychologist." When she looked doubtful, he added, "It's true. I've got a degree and everything. Doctor Venkman. Maybe I don't have a practice, but I do know my stuff." When she still hesitated, he prodded very gently, "I get the feeling what you're about to tell me is what made you decide to come here in the first place. If your guy is acting weird enough that you think he's possessed, we have to know about it or we can't help him. I can discuss it professionally with the guys. We're not going to snicker behind your back. My word on it."

Her face was vivid red and she'd lowered her eyes. "I thought I could just come in here and tell you all, but when all three of you were waiting, watching me, I just lost my nerve."

"Perfectly understandable. So did your guy do something nasty when you were together?" Peter hoped the guy wasn't just another jerk who got so carried away he didn't care if his bed partner got hurt. Somebody like that wasn't usually possessed, but it might feel good to take a thrower to him anyway.

"Not what you're thinking," she said hastily. "He didn't hurt me, if that's what you mean, or even come close to hurting me. But, well, we were, um, kissing the other day, about a week and a half ago." The guys' row of lockers must have developed an uncanny fascination, the way she stared at them. "We were at my apartment. And I thought if he was so shy maybe I'd have to take the initiative, and I started...coming on to him, you know what I mean." She risked one quick glance, then decided to inspect Janine's computer, her hands squeezing each other tightly.

Peter nodded quickly, taking pity on her embarrassment before she felt a need to elaborate. "It's okay, I know."

She hesitated for a long time, swallowed hard, then took the plunge. "Well, I could tell he liked what I was doing," she said, avoiding his eyes. Her hands twisted in her lap. "Because he -- reacted. And for a few minutes, he let me.... Well, anyway, all of a sudden, he grabbed my hands and said we'd better not. And then he said something really strange. He said he didn't think it would be safe to mate." She crinkled her brow in patent disbelief, on slightly safer ground. The embarrassment receded but didn't entirely go away. "That's what he said, 'to mate'. I never heard anybody say that about making love before. He wanted to be with me, but...safe? He said he might lose control and hurt me." She lifted her eyes and gazed at Peter imploringly. "That made me nervous, so I asked him if he had ever done that with a woman before -- lost control and maybe been too violent. He said he hadn't. He said he'd never been with a woman before. He's a virgin. So I asked him why he thought he would hurt me if he'd never done anything violent before, and he said he thought the spirit in him would be too strong to hold back."

"Are you sure this guy isn't so naive and different because he's been in a mental institution for years?" Peter suggested gently. This story was weird. He couldn't imagine a guy like that -- yet there was a sense of familiarity about her words as if he'd heard of someone like this before. Could he have come upon a case study like this in a psychology classes back at Columbia?

She saw that he looked as sympathetic as he sounded, and relaxed slightly. "I thought about that, believe me." She hesitated. "I mean, I really like him and I'm comfortable with him, and it's been fun to see how quickly he learns things. We've spent whole evenings watching Nick at Nite so he could catch up on old sitcoms and things like that. He'd never even seen Star Wars. But anyway, when he started talking about the spirit in him and mating and stuff, I got scared, and I thought like you did. So I asked him if he had ever been diagnosed as mentally ill. He said no. He wouldn't lie to me. I don't think he realizes there's such a thing as lying, even though he has to know the concept exists. I thought maybe he wouldn't understand what I was saying, so I pushed and asked about his background -- and he started to cry. He said he should have known it wouldn't work and that he was sorry if he'd hurt me, and that he'd go away because he loved me and he didn't want me to suffer or to risk my life. He said that. 'Risk my life.' And he broke up with me and I haven't seen him since."

Peter had already figured out this was one weird dude she was talking about. He just couldn't figure out why he sounded so familiar. Even the name Jackie was familiar, but he couldn't quite make the connection. Some guy who acted like he had no concept of the latter half of the 20th Century. He wasn't a foreigner or Jackie would have mentioned it. Maybe he was a different kind of foreigner -- like Mork from Ork, or My Favorite Martian.

That was when an idea hit him, one that explained everything. "Jackie," he asked quietly, "is your boyfriend named Mel?"

She whipped around to stare at him, mouth dropping open. "You know him?" she breathed, tensing in her chair as if she meant to jump up and flee. "Is he a ghost?"

"No, he's not a ghost," Peter replied, hesitating to say more. "You mean Eddie's buddy, right?" he prodded, to confirm his suspicion.

Jackie's eyebrows lifted. "You know Mel and Eddie both?"

Peter grinned. "You didn't do your homework, Jackie. Eddie is Egon's cousin -- I'd better call him in on this. Egon!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs in the direction of the stairs causing Jackie to wince. "Well, it works," he explained to her more quietly before raising his voice once more. "Egon, get down here right away."

Mel was definitely not possessed -- but neither was he human. In his natural form, Melchazat was a huge, blue demon from the Netherworld who stood eight feet tall. Encountering Egon's rock star cousin, Eddie Plummer there during one of the guys' weirder cases, Mel had decided he owed his allegiance to Eddie and had returned with him to the human realm, where he had chosen to stay. ⁽¹⁾ Capable of shape-shifting and maintaining human form indefinitely, Mel had taken a job as a roadie for Eddie's band. Eddie had acquired an identity for him with papers and everything -- Peter had never wanted to enquire too closely about that -- and ever since then, Mel 'Smith' had been learning about humanity, trying to fit in. Peter vaguely Mel mentioning a 'Jackie' a few months ago, when the demon had spent Christmas with the Ghostbusters. ⁽²⁾ Eddie's father, Egon's Uncle Cyrus, hadn't been quite prepared to have a demon come to Ohio for the holidays. Knowing Uncle Cyrus, Peter doubted he ever would.

Jackie had come to realize there was something very different about her boyfriend and had hunted around for a solution. That she'd settled on the Ghostbusters wasn't coincidence at all. There was no one else for her to call except for the characters in the white coats who came around with strait jackets. The Ghostbusters didn't have the right to tell her the truth about Mel's real identity. That was his choice, if he wanted to make it. But something would have to be done. Egon would know where to find Eddie, and Eddie would put them in touch with Mel.

And any minute now, Jackie, who seemed to be a quick thinker, would realize they'd guessed Mel's identity on the strength of her possession story and would demand more information. Her brow had furrowed as she thought about it. She was stubborn and determined enough to decide to come here, and she wasn't likely to back off.

When Egon hurried down the stairs with a hastily changed and dried Ray and Winston hard on his heels, Jackie's mouth rounded into an 'O' of surprise at the sight of the physicist. "You do look like Eddie," she burst out. "I've seen you on TV before, but I never made the connection until now."

"How do you know Eddie?" On several occasions, Egon had encountered one of his cousin's groupies who had figured out they were related, and he had learned to be wary. Once, six teenagers screaming, "Eddie! Eddie!" had chased him for three blocks on Fifth Avenue, suspecting he was Plummer in disguise before the frantic physicist had managed to flag down a cab and escape. Now he took a wary step backward until she answered and relieved his mind.

"I work for Malcolm Wyatt, his manager. I'm his executive assistant," she explained. "That's how I met Mel. He came in with Eddie, and we started talking."

"She's Mel's girlfriend, Jackie McFarland," Peter introduced them. "Remember, Mel mentioned her when he was here for Christmas."

"I remember the name Jackie." Egon relaxed. "How do you do, Ms. McFarland? What brings you to Ghostbuster Central?"

"Mel!" cried Ray, eyes widening in astonished realization. "Jackie, you were talking about Mel, uh, Smith?" He fumbled for Mel's official last name. "We all know him. Gosh...."

Winston's brow crinkled as he put together the facts and probably guessed what Jackie had said to Peter when they were alone. He nodded once.

"Oh." Egon pondered that. "Hmm. I see." He stared down at Jackie, his glasses sliding obligingly down to offer him the best angle of vision. Pushing at them absently, Egon offered another, "Hmm."

Janine arrived back from lunch then, pausing when she saw everybody gathered around her desk. "Hey, guys. Peter, if you've messed with my computer, I'm going to sacrifice all your Playboys to the fire god."

"Word of honor, Janine, I never touched it. Besides, we've got a client." He nodded at Jackie, who managed a doubtful smile. "Jackie, this is Janine Melnitz, our secretary -- sorry, Janine, I meant 'executive assistant'. Janine honey, can you get Jackie a cup of coffee? We have to discuss an element of her case."

As a general rule, Janine didn't fetch coffee for the guys, but she could usually be persuaded to do it for her clients, especially if Peter asked her nicely. She paused long enough to stow her purse in a desk drawer and switch her Nikes for a pair of flats, then she grinned reassuringly at the young woman. "These clowns are a little rough around the edges, but they're decent guys, even Dr. Venkman, though it pains me to say it. I'll get you some coffee. You'd think they'd have the decency to offer it even when I'm not here. Men!" She flounced off.

"Conference, Egon," Peter said, bouncing up off the desk and taking him by the shoulder. "Jackie, would you mind waiting here with Janine for a few minutes? We need to talk."

"I knew there was something weird about Mel," she said, but she allowed Peter to seat her in his office, her mouth puckering with worry.

When Janine appeared with two steaming cups of coffee, she passed one to Jackie and plopped down beside her, prepared to stretch out her lunch break with a little girl talk. Waving the guys off with one hand, she turned to their client. "So what brings you down here? Got a ghost? At least they didn't introduce you to Slimer."

As Jackie echoed, "Slimer?" doubtfully, the guys withdrew hastily up to the second floor dining room for a conference. Peter plopped down opposite Egon. Ray and Winston took their usual chairs.

"The thing is, guys, we really don't have the right to tell her the truth about Mel," Peter said. "I think Mel needs to work it out for himself. She came because she thinks he's possessed. He told her he was afraid the spirit inside would make him hurt her if they made love." He gave Egon the gist of her conversation in a few quick words.

Winston frowned, pondering the situation. "She wouldn't have a clue he was a demon. Not the first thing I'd think if a date started acting weird."

"That isn't our secret to tell," Egon confirmed. "But she came to us in good faith. We should do something."

"Demon matchmakers, that's us," Peter replied with a grin. "She's a nice girl. I think most girls would have just given up on him by now."

"You like Mel, don't you, Peter?" Ray asked.

Peter hesitated before answering. "Mel's okay. Different as all get out, but fine if you like big, blue guys." He did like Mel, though they were too different to be real buddies. "Hey, I betcha he was afraid he'd lose control of his shapeshifting if he and Jackie made love. Talk about tough love."

"Really, Peter, that's hardly your concern." Egon sounded stern but the momentary glaze in his eyes told him he'd been unable to avoid picturing the scenario. Ray's cheeks reddened slightly at the thought.

"She told me he'd backed off. I bet that's why."

"Eddie did say that Mel nearly lost control of his shapeshifting once when he became very angry," Egon recollected. "It's possible strong emotion can weaken the ability. Fascinating."

"Not so fascinating for Jackie if she's having a little nookie and her boyfriend starts bursting out of his clothes like the Incredible Hulk."

Ray's eyes nearly popped from his head at that suggestion. "Gosh, yeah."

Peter chuckled. "So what do we do? I mean we can't tell her about Mel. Like Egon said, it's not our secret."

"We need to talk to Mel himself," Egon suggested.

Peter grinned. "Maybe we should take readings of him while he's with Jackie."

"Come on, Pete, we can't do that -- " Winston protested, frowning, although Egon looked predictably fascinated about a new subject for research.

"No, that'd be tacky," Peter defended his suggestion, but he feared it might be the only real solution. If Mel was afraid he'd revert in the height of passion, they needed to talk to him about it. Peter considered himself an expert in affairs of the heart, but this was waaaaay outside his area of expertise. The thought of discussing the birds and the bees with a demon didn't rank right up there on his list of fun things to do, though he'd bet good money the guys would delegate the task to him.

"Pete's right, we probably better talk to him," Winston said. "That girl down there cares about him. We can't give her a nice, neat solution like she hoped for. But we can try."

"Is Eddie up at Segue, Egon?" Peter asked, referring to the rock star's mid-Victorian mansion up the Hudson.

"Yes, I believe he's between tours. The band was doing some recording; I had lunch with him one day last week when he was in town. But I think he's at Segue now, and I believe Mel is probably there, too."

"So, can you wangle us an invitation up there?" Peter prodded hopefully. He'd always thought it was a kick to mingle with the famous, and anyway, he liked Eddie and his wife, singer Whitney Stone. Staying at a mansion that boasted servants, even a butler, was always a kick.

"I believe I can," Egon replied. "I'll telephone Eddie now."

"Mel isn't possessed," Peter told Jackie when the four of them trooped downstairs. "At least if he is, we don't know about it. So we're going to go and see him and take our equipment. Egon's calling to make arrangements now."

She eyed him narrowly. "There's more about him, I can tell. But you're not willing to let me know about it. If it's bad, I wish you'd tell me."

"Listen to them," Janine put in. "They know what they're talking about. I've met Mel and he's a decent guy, but the Ghostbusters better check with him first."

Ray edged up beside Peter. "Mel's really nice, Ms. McFarland. Honestly. But he is different. I think he should be the one to explain to you why that is, not us. It's not our story to tell. But we'll go up to Segue and see if there's anything we can do to help."

She hesitated, clutching her handbag too tightly. "I admit, I'd rather hear it from him. But if it's really bad, I want somebody to tell me. I...really do care about him. And it's not just because he's so different. It's because, well, because I feel so comfortable with him. And when we're talking, he just seems like the only one. But when he started talking about being afraid he'd hurt me, I got really scared. If he's been in a cult, there are ways to deprogram him. I don't think that's what you guys do, but maybe I could find someone who could. Just promise me someone will tell me."

"We'll talk to Mel about it and see what we can do," Winston promised. "One way or another, someone will tell you what's going on. I hope it will be Mel himself."

Peter knew Mel had been afraid to tell Jackie the truth -- he'd admitted as much at Christmas -- and he had considered it a reasonable fear. Most women wouldn't welcome the knowledge that they had been dating a shape-shifting demon. Jackie said she'd half believed Mel had been raised by wolves. She'd been speaking facetiously but, in a way, a wolf pack might have been better than growing up in the Netherworld. Come to think of it, did demons grow up, or did they spring into being fully formed? Mel had been in the service of a female demon who had probably been the Eddie's one and only Netherworld groupie before he had met Eddie and transferred his allegiance. If there were male and female demons, maybe there were baby demons, too. Peter decided he didn't want to think about it.

"I hope so, too," she said. "I just wish he would trust me."

"I think he trusts you, Jackie," Peter soothed. "It might be himself he doesn't trust. You'll understand better next time you see him."

*****

Visiting Segue in April was a treat. It had been a nasty, cold winter, and spring had come rather late. But it was here now and the thought of fresh air away from the bustle of the city appealed to all of them, especially Peter, who loved New York even when it was at its worst. The Ghostbusters had stayed at the estate once before, summoned to bust a troublesome ghost in the old mansion's attic and had instead helped it to reunite with an old love and both of them to disperse peacefully. Peter, who was a sucker for being waited on by servants, was full of anticipation until Egon reminded him that Eddie's 'servants' didn't hesitate to speak for themselves and wouldn't necessarily wait on Peter without putting him in his place. Remembering Eddie's butler and secretary, Peter's face fell. Egon was right. He usually was.

Ray couldn't help smiling as the others started to tease Peter. With Winston at the wheel and Ray in the 'shotgun' position beside him, he let Egon squash Venkman's pretensions. Egon did it better than anybody. Ray was just looking forward to the trip. He really liked Whitney, Eddie's wife; they were both into old science fiction and horror movies and had enjoyed some wonderful discussions in the past. And he loved Segue. Old houses appealed to him. Sure, they'd dealt with the ghost problem at Segue, but who was to say there weren't other ghosts, possible in a house that was 125 years old?

Winston pulled the antique hearse to a stop in front of the mid-Victorian mansion and the four men piled out. The weather had stopped cooperating with them as Ecto turned into the driveway, and banked clouds suggested rain in the not too distant future. Even as they stood stretching from the drive, distant thunder gave a sullen mutter of disapproval, like a catcall from the audience.

Peter cocked his head and pondered the hovering clouds. "Was that a value judgment?"

"If not, it was certainly a suggestion to hurry." Egon strode to the back of Ecto and opened the door, taking out his overnight bag. The others quickly followed his example and hurried up to the doorway that opened out of the four-story-high tower at the front of the red-brick house. Segue sat in a small park overlooking the Hudson. It had been built, Peter remembered, in 1865, right at the end of the Civil War.

The door opened at their ring, and the butler, Tommy Graves appeared. He had foregone livery and was wearing blue jeans and a purple tee shirt from Eddie's last tour with a line drawing of the three members of the band being pulled up into a spaceship by a mysterious beam of light. 'The Planetary Tour', it read in futuristic letters. "Ah. You're here." Two ghostly experiences had removed his need to put on a butler act for them. He peered past them at the darkening sky as if he recognized it from long experience. "I think you've brought another storm. Better come on in." He eyed them with mild disapproval, eyebrows arching. "No proton packs?"

"They're in the car," Ray explained. "We didn't think we'd need them, but we brought them just in case. If a ghost shows up, we can always get them. Only Eddie hasn't mentioned any ghosts."

"Egon brought his meter, though," Peter volunteered. "He never goes anywhere without it, not even to the bathroom."

Ray chuckled at the idea of Egon using the meter in the bathroom, to make sure it was safe from water elementals and other aquatic spirits before he ventured inside. Consciously playing to his audience, Egon took a reading of Tommy, who tried to seem spooky and succeeded in appearing amused. He'd come a long way since the guys had first known him.

"Well? Am I...haunted?" He put a hint of Peter Lorre into his voice, a habit when playing the formal butler. Tommy's sense of humor was wicked.

"Not unless you're possessed by Mr. Moto," Winston teased.

Tommy made a wry face and grabbed for their overnight bags just as thunder rumbled nearer at hand. "In," he said. "Eddie won't want you drenched -- bad for the carpet."

They crowded into the house just as the first drops of rain began to fall. Eddie arrived in a rush, the punctilious host, his blond hair spiky as usual. Seeing him was like viewing at a punk-rock Egon, except that here, in his sanctuary, Eddie had on blue jeans and a tee shirt that was devoid of logos or designs. He never merchandised himself. "Guys. Hi. Good to see you." With a nod at Tommy to shut the door, he clapped Egon companionably on the shoulder. The two of them side by side were always surprising, especially to those who had not made the connection before. The resemblance was far stronger when they were together, even if Eddie didn't wear glasses. "Maybe you can check out this weird weather we've been having," suggested the singer, gesturing at the door, where raindrops fat enough to explode against the glass clumped down like hail. "It's the most spooky thing going around here."

"Gee." Ray hung back to peer out the glass panels that framed the door just as a tremendous flash of lightning stabbed through the clouds. The thunder that echoed it two seconds later made the house shake as it creaked and slammed into a massive explosion of sound, complete with a whole battalion of rumbling aftershocks. The rain thinned to sheets of water, whipped by the wind.

Egon raised the meter immediately. It reacted, if faintly, the antennae stirring slightly, but not enough to indicate a ghost in the room.

"Ghost storms?" Peter asked uneasily, eyeing the meter with disfavor. "This is not good, is it, Egon?"

"Not good at all," Egon replied, ignoring the teasing note in Peter's voice. "The storm is simply a storm, of course, but it does possess a paranormal fingerprint, a faint shading of psi. It's as if it were coaxed here on purpose, to this very location."

"Paranormal fingerprints, Egon?" Peter objected. "Come on, that's too weird for me."

Eddie's jaw dropped. The singer had only been joking about the bad weather. "You mean we really do have haunted weather?"

"It's too soon to tell," Egon admitted dryly, although he wasn't worried. Ray didn't remember many haunted storms, but they didn't run for meters every time it thundered. Who was to say there weren't readings to be taken every time there was a storm?Maybe it went with that ozone feeling in the air. Wouldn't it be great! "It's already fading," Egon concluded reluctantly, lowering the meter, without putting it away. "We'll take readings while we're here and see if we can understand what's causing it. Have the storms done any damage?"

"No, none at all. It just seemed like there have been more of them in the past few weeks." Eddie shrugged it off, no longer interested, although Ray meant to theorize with Egon about it later. "Come on in and get settled in your rooms. You're in time for lunch. Whitney's looking forward to seeing you, and Mel's so excited I'm surprised he hasn't been camped at the foot of the driveway."

As if summoned by the words, Mel thundered down the stairs, screeching to a halt directly in front of Peter. He, too, wore jeans and a tee shirt, but his bore the Ghostbuster logo, probably donned in honor of the guests. Tall and muscular, Mel resembled a bouncer instead of a demon. Blond and fair, he was vaguely reminiscent of both Eddie and Egon in appearance, with a long, thin, bony face, but bigger. The large economy size, Ray thought fleetingly. Grabbing up the brown haired Ghostbuster, Mel smothered him in a massive embrace that left Peter wheezing for breath when he was deposited on the floor. Drawing surreptitious breaths, he settled his shirt and his hair.

Mel repeated the process for the other three Ghostbusters, nearly knocking the meter from Egon's hand. When he set Egon down, the physicist had to straighten his glasses.

"Good to see you," Mel exulted, beaming at them. "No ghosts here, though."

At those words, Peter turned a curious eye upon him but Eddie spoke easily. "There doesn't need to be, Mel. The guys are just here on a visit."

"No proton packs?" The demon sounded even more disappointed than Tommy Graves.

"They're in the car," explained Winston. "We don't like to leave home without 'em."

"I'll fetch them in once the rain stops," volunteered Tommy. "Course I could let Peter bring his own in -- "

Peter howled in protest.

"Raising a fuss, dear?" Nina Corey, Eddie's secretary appeared in the doorway to the main salon. "I should have expected that." She cocked her greying head at Peter and grinned. He grinned back. All

of them liked Nina, she was a neat lady. Ray said hi to her with delight.

Whitney followed her, favoring them all with smiles. Marriage and motherhood agreed with the blonde soprano. She was even more luminously beautiful than she had when Ray had first met her and nearly fallen in love with her. "Let's get you all settled in." She paused to greet each of them and squeeze their hands. Here in her own place, she was casual and domestic in a sweater patterned in emerald and royal blue over a full length denim skirt. The glamor that never left her was muted, but her eyes shone with contentment. Joining Eddie, she slid into the welcoming circle of his arm and beamed at her guests. "You're just in time for lunch."

She gestured them toward the stairs, leading the way up like a good hostess. Mel started to follow then caught himself. Instead he went over to the main front door, opened it, and peered out at the last drops of rain, a frown on his face.

They were given the same rooms they'd had the last time, classy-high ceilinged chambers that spoke of elegance from a past age. Peter loved the place. After he opened his suitcase and rooted around in it for a clean shirt, he wandered across the hall to Egon's room and plopped himself down on the physicist's bed while Spengler neatly disposed of his weekend clothes in drawers and closet. "You get the gold star for tidiness," he remarked. "We're only going to be here overnight. Why worry?"

"Really, Peter, I see no point in allowing my clothes to wrinkle in the suitcase. I assume you let yours lie?" He shook his head. "I don't have to assume. I know."

Peter grinned, making an imaginary chalk mark in the air to score a point for Egon. The physicist was always after him to tidy up at home. Why should here be any different? "So is this storm thing a big deal, Spengs?" he asked. Misdirection was always good, especially if it was a direction his friend would want to go.

Egon paused a moment, considering, then closed a drawer. "I haven't made a habit of testing weather, Peter. Perhaps there is a ghostly element in many storms. For it to focus here, on Segue, however, concerns me."

"But Eddie said it hasn't done any damage." The last thing Peter wanted was to run around in a thunderstorm, getting drenched while he competed with the lightning. There were other things that were much more fun, like sitting with his feet up while servants brought him cold drinks and munchies, and made his bed in the morning.

"No, but its presence here, in the same place as Mel, concerns me."

Peter stared. He hadn't really considered that, although Mel's tone had rung up a small flag. "You think it has to do with Mel being a demon?" he blurted. "Mel said there weren't any ghosts here, remember?"

"And that bothered you." Egon always noticed things like Peter's reaction. He was one of the most observant men Peter had ever met -- except when busy in the lab, and then he wouldn't have noticed a marching band practicing in the bedroom across the hall.

"Yeah, kinda." He shrugged. "I spent a lot of time with Mel at Christmas," he explained, struggling to put into words a concept that was still too vague to fully grasp. "It felt like a...distraction, you know, leading us away from the subject. First he said there weren't any ghosts, even though nobody had asked, and then he asked about our packs."

"You can't expect his conversation to be entirely 'normal'." Egon removed his shaving kit from his case and vanished momentarily into the attached bathroom to put it on the counter. When he reappeared, his expression was thoughtful. "Mel is still learning about the human race, Peter. He tries very hard, but he doesn't always track, as evidenced by Jackie's story. The two things you mentioned are...well, they appear simply casual conversation to me. At least as casual as Mel knows how to make it."

"Yeah, but he avoided our eyes when he asked about the packs," Peter said. "I got a kind of uneasy feeling. Trust me on this, Egon. I think he knows more about the storms than he's saying."

"You don't believe he is causing them?" Egon reached for the P.K.E. meter he had left on the bedside table and turned it on. It didn't react at all. Making an adjustment, he evoked a faint beeping.

"Ghost?" Peter asked.

"No, just Mel's presence. He isn't on this floor but he is in the house. I'll attempt to take his readings if another storm strikes."

"You think it could be like poltergeist energy?" Peter queried, intrigued. "You know, demon angst."

Egon's eyes focused on Peter with surprise and delight. "Taking his frustrations out on the weather, do you mean? What an intriguing theory. I've not encountered such a possibility before."

Peter beamed. He loved impressing Egon. "Yeah, I'm a brilliant guy." He leaned his elbow against the footboard of the bed. "We don't know everything there is to know about demons, though. Maybe it's an involuntary thing. It's not like he's been getting anywhere with Jackie, after all."

Egon stared at him. "Don't tell me. You're speaking of sexual frustration?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I'm just tossing out theories. I got the feeling Mel wasn't being up front with us. He was glad to see us, but maybe he was keeping secrets. The only other thing weird that we know about was that spooky storm of yours." He gestured at the window, where sunlight sparkled amid the budding trees and left a pattern on the grass. "Vanished without a trace. The weather's temperamental -- or somebody else is."

Egon turned off the meter but he didn't put it down. "I don't detect a correlation, but Mel didn't appear until the storm had nearly faded away. I still had the meter on and could pick up nothing unusual about him, no changed readings. I've taken many readings of Mel and there was nothing to suggest he was producing the storm."

"It was just a thought." Peter let the idea slide away, mildly disappointed. It might have been fun to study the possibilities.

"It's well to be warned of possible threat," Egon replied. "If there are other storms, I'll have to take more readings, including some of Mel directly. Shall we go down now?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna get Mel alone in awhile," Peter decided. "Maybe he needs to hear my patented 'birds and the bees' lecture."

"I shall avoid that like the plague," Egon retorted, his eyes twinkling. "Although why you should need to have patented such a lecture is beyond me."

"Come on, Spengs, I give it to the kids at that free clinic where I put in volunteer time."

"Thank goodness. I was afraid you gave it to your dates."

Peter exploded into laughter. "Egon, if she has to be told, she's too young for me." They went out side by side and ran into Ray in the hallway and Winston just emerging from his room. "Guess you guys don't want to miss a Segue special lunch," he said.

"It's not like you're avoiding it either, Pete," Winston kidded him as they started down the stairs.

Lunch was a strange meal. It wasn't that the food wasn't excellent or the company wasn't interesting. Peter enjoyed both Eddie and Whitney, and he got a real kick out of Nina Corey, Eddie's secretary and a woman who could hold her own against Peter with one hand tied behind her back. He liked his women feisty. Not that Nina was 'his' woman, or ever likely to be, but she was still great.

Tommy served the meal; he brought in the food, anyway, but when he'd distributed it, he took his place at the table. Proof he was one of the 'family' at Segue. He'd been a lot stiffer last time Peter was up here. Of course he'd strapped on a proton pack since then and helped against the demon Astarine. Mostly, it was Eddie, who had made him his friend, rather than just the butler.

Mel was the one who made the meal seem strange and it wasn't simply that one of the assembled company was a demon from the Netherworld. Mel had thrown himself into life on Earth with a childlike sense of wonder, so awed and excited that he sometimes almost made Ray seem grave and staid by comparison. But not today. He ate quietly, offering only a few words here and there to the conversation. Since he had no reason to know that the guys had talked to Jackie, he couldn't be afraid they were going to read him the riot act about his girlfriend or make any embarrassing comments. He'd been genuinely glad to see the Ghostbusters, too. That rib-crushing hug had proved it. But he'd instantly become secretive, and the mood had carried over.

Peter noticed Nina Corey watching the demon as he struggled to display proper human table manners. It wasn't a fancy meal, but there were salad forks, and Mel picked up the right one, casting a quick, sidelong glance at the grey-haired woman, who nodded approvingly. Beaming in delight at his right move, Mel seemed normal, but then he grew serious. All his attention returned to his food.

"...our next tour," Whitney was saying to Ray. "There are some great comic book stores there. I thought if I got a chance I could hunt for that Captain Steel issue Slimer ate last month for you."

"Wow, that would be great, Whitney. Are you sure it's not too much trouble?" Peter remembered Ray's reaction to the comic book eating. It was the first time Peter had needed to restrain Ray from blasting Slimer and not the other way around. He'd been heartbroken over the loss of the rare issue, and Slimer had hid for days, ducking out of sight whenever he saw Ray coming. Ray had forgiven him, of course. He always forgave Slimer. "He can't help it," was one of his favorite defenses. Peter wasn't nearly as inclined to be so forgiving, not when the spud had destroyed his favorite sweater.

"Uncle Cyrus phoned last week," Egon was telling his cousin. "He must have babbled for ten minutes about the last pictures Whitney sent him of Cy. Mom says he's mellowed out remarkably."

Peter was glad of that. He still didn't trust Egon's uncle and had never quite rid himself of the worry that Cyrus Spengler would show up one fine day and remind Egon of another promise he'd forgotten and try to drag him back to Spengler Labs. Peter and the older scientist simply didn't get along. It would be good news if the old bird was really chilling out.

"I wouldn't have thought it of him," Eddie replied, grinning widely. "But being a grandfather really did the trick. When we were in Cleveland on our last tour, he actually came to the concert. He still hates rock and roll, but he came anyway." Eddie beamed. "He hadn't warned us but he got a seat in the front row for himself and your mother. Aunt Katherine was having the time of her life. Dad was stiff, but I saw him nudging the girl sitting beside him and telling her that I was his son."

Peter couldn't help grinning. He knew Egon had phoned his mother and urged him to prod Cyrus Spengler into attending the concert. Until now, he hadn't known it had worked. The idea of stuffy old Cyrus sitting front row center at a rock concert boggled Peter's mind. He loved it.

Nina Corey was telling Winston about a quilt she had made for baby Cy. "And I know your mother would like to try the pattern for your brother's new baby. I'll give it to you to take with you."

"Hey, thanks, Nina. My mom loves quilting. She keeps hoping I'll take one of her quilts but the last thing I want to do is let Slimer near one. He mostly curls up on Peter's pillow, but the first time you have something you want him to keep away from, he goes right for it."

You called that one right, Peter thought wryly. He had a quilt his mom had made, but it was in storage and he only took it out once in awhile to air it out, with containment unit threats against the spud if he even looked at it.

"Would you like me to discuss it with him?" the middle-aged woman offered. "Slimer would listen to me. He and I had quite a nice little conversation the last time I came by. No, Mel, smaller bites, please. Remember you're eating in human form."

"Sorry, Nina." Mel hung his head, quickly swallowing. "It just tastes so good."

"I know it does, dear, but remember what happened when you ate all those pizzas, and how sick you felt. You can't go switching back and forth just to avoid heartburn. It's upsetting to the other diners."

"I bet," Peter threw in, grinning. He pictured Mel and Jackie in the Russian Tea Room, and the reaction of everyone to a sudden hulk-out. That might be fun.

It was such a conventional meal. Peter shook his head, thinking how much his own mom would have enjoyed Nina. He didn't join in the conversation very much. Instead, he watched Mel without seeming to watch him, switching over into psychologist mode. The demon was excited to have company, and he chatted and babbled in his usual style -- for a few minutes each time. Then he'd catch himself. It couldn't be that he was working on his table manners because Nina only had to remind him once. No, there was a darker gleam in his eyes. Usually his face was open and friendly, readable to anyone with a shred of sense. Like Ray, he wasn't given to secrets. But that brooding mien came and went, often in a flash. It never went very far, either, not even when he was excited.

He was talking to Ray about Captain Steel. "Got a good collection, too," he said. He'd read some of Ray's comics at the firehall at Christmas and become hooked. "Not as many as you but getting bigger. I like Captain Steel."

"Do you have the British Christmas Special?" Ray asked excitedly. "That's really hard to get."

"Saw it listed on the Internet," Mel replied. "Ordered it right away."

"Yes, we have discovered the World Wide Web," Eddie put in with a grin.

"Wow, you have a computer, Mel?" cried Ray.

Mel grinned, revealing a great deal of white teeth. "Eddie's computer. Lets me use it. Send lots of e-mail." Abruptly, his enthusiasm faded and, for a moment, he seemed very sad. Peter watched him while pretending to drink his lemonade. Maybe Mel had e-mailed Jackie and had now stopped. But Peter doubted the wary glance the demon cast over his shoulder had anything to do with his lost girlfriend down in the city. Peter knew what it felt like to break up with someone he cared about -- it had happened more than he wanted it to and it was never fun. That wasn't a wistful gleam in Mel's eyes. It was a decidedly uneasy one, as if he expected trouble.

Mel gulped down the rest of his lemonade.

"Drink slowly, dear," put in Nina in a conditioned response.

For a second, Mel's fingers tightened around the glass, and Peter, who was watching carefully, noticed for a second a flash of blue around his knuckles, although he didn't mutate. Was it as simple as that? Was Mel afraid he'd lose control of his shapeshifting in the grip of strong emotion? He'd claimed he could hold the human form indefinitely. Egon had even theorized that if he held it long enough it would take a conscious effort to revert to his natural form. With Mel's happy cooperation, he had run a lot of his tests at Christmas, electrodes and that colander headpiece gizmo he and Ray had dreamed up. Egon was happiest when he had someone to run tests on, and Peter had watched the physicist with a fond grin as he had played mad scientist. He'd concluded that the human form was a stable transformation. He'd even theorized that, given enough time, it might become permanent.

Maybe Mel didn't want it to become permanent. No matter how much he liked the human world, he really was a big, blue demon. It was his essential nature. From all his attempts to make his dad go straight, Peter was pretty sure a person's essential nature couldn't be changed. You could change the surface part, but you couldn't change what made you what you were. You could change behavior but all the pretty behavior in the world couldn't make a man any less a jerk if that's what he was inside. There were times when Peter wondered about himself. He'd have turned out much more like his surface persona if he hadn't met Egon and Ray in college. He'd have been just like his dad.

Egon, of course, had sternly put that worry to rest when Peter had worked up the courage to voice it. "Nonsense, Peter. The man we know was always there inside. You grew up with your father's example and, in the nature of sons, you wanted to emulate your father. So you took it up on the surface. But you couldn't take it up inside because that's not what you are. I may not trust your father, Peter, but I trust you with my life, my safety, and my very soul. Your father has a very flexible conscience, but yours has considerable ethics."

That particular conversation had taken place shortly after his father had unleashed the Hob on New York, and Peter had been warmly grateful for it. "Yeah, Egon, my conscience is six foot three with weird blond hair and glasses."

Egon had given him a stern frown belied by a twinkle in his blue eyes and wandered off to work on one of his endless scientific gadgets, leaving Peter to grin after him in happy relief. Okay, so he'd never really been comfortable with his father's lifestyle, but he'd believed in a lot of the surface parts. He had a pretty good handle on all that now, even if he'd never gotten over his love of adulation from the public.

So what was Mel's essential nature? Peter would have said it was warmhearted and kind, and overflowing with loyalty. His devotion to Eddie had never once wavered. He adored the people he considered his friends. Peter had known at Christmas that he'd fallen for Jackie in a big way. He'd been afraid to tell her what he was -- but she'd known who he was and loved that person. Could Mel revert in the heat of anger or passion? Was that what all this was about? Or was there more?

After dinner, Peter edged Mel out from the herd and guided him toward the terrace at the back of the house. "Come on, Mel, I haven't had a good look at the grounds. Why not give me the ten dollar tour?"

"Other guys come too?" Mel asked uneasily, hanging back as if he didn't want to encourage a tete-a-tete.

"Egon wants to take readings in the attic and make sure that ghost Eddie had before you came to live here is really gone," Peter explained. "He really gets off on playing with his meter. I keep trying to tell him it's not decent in public...."

Mel grinned doubtfully as if he knew Peter had tried to be funny but he didn't quite understand how. "Ray -- Ray come too?"

"I think Whitney has a new horror movie she taped to show him," Peter put in. "You'd think the kid had seen them all. He's dragged the rest of us down to watch them with him. Other night, it was one called The Raven, with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre -- and Jack Nicholson as a mere kid." That one had actually been fun. "Tommy would have loved it."

"Winston?" Aha. Mel was trying to avoid being alone with Peter. Something was going down here. Was he just embarrassed about Jackie?

"He's getting that quilt pattern. Come on, I just want to see the grounds. I don't get much of a chance to hang out on a rich person's estate. Indulge me."

"Well, okay." Mel turned into a tour guide, reciting history of vases and urns as they passed them and naming the artists who had painted the pictures on the walls as they headed for the back of the house. "...and that one's a Turner, and that's a Constable. Not a police guy, the artist's name."

"Ease up. I'm not into the museum gig," Peter restrained him. "Egon and Winston dig that stuff, not me. Egon says I'm a philistine."

"I thought that was a bunch of people in the Bible," Mel said doubtfully. "Nina had me read the Bible. She has a big, big reading list. Things she says I really need to know if I'm gonna stay here all my life. There's so much to learn." The wistful note rang through his words but he heard it and reined it in.

All his life? Hmm. Peter hadn't thought of that before. How long did demons live? Was Mel afraid of doing a Duncan MacLeod from that Highlander TV series and remaining young and ageless while Jackie went through normal human aging? If he could alter his shape, why couldn't he fake getting older along with her? Were demons immortal? Did they live for hundreds and millions of years? Peter had never considered that before. Some of the demons listed in Tobin's Spirit Guide had been around for millennia, or so the book claimed.

"So how long would that be?" Peter asked carefully. "Billions and billions of years?"

Mel shook his head so vehemently his blond mane flopped about, failing, of course, to recognize Peter's Carl Sagan impression. "Human form, human lifespan. They said -- " His voice broke off abruptly. "Human bodies wear out."

"But it's just an overlay, isn't it? The way you look?"

"Egon says it's molecular conversion," Mel corrected, poking himself in the chest. "Can change back, but this is real. Human form, only lasts as long as human life."

"You mean if you stay in this form, you give up on being immortal even if you're still a demon?" Peter hadn't expected that. Maybe that was why Mel didn't want to make a commitment to Jackie. He'd be giving up years and centuries and millennia he'd have had otherwise. But that wasn't what he'd told the secretary. He'd said he might lose control and hurt her. He'd frightened her pretty badly. Had that been on purpose, to make her back off? Most women would be uneasy if they thought their boyfriends could get violent.

"Can you change involuntarily?" Peter prompted as they reached the terrace and stopped there, leaning on the balustrade. The storm had vanished completely, and the sky was blue with puffy little cloud pillows here and there. One directly overhead cast them into temporary shadow, but the day was warm, the trees alive with buds. No trace of lingering storm clouds on the horizon. Good. Peter didn't want to be rained on, especially by a paranormal storm.

Off to the left the grounds spread out around a slight curve in the river, but to the right, the valley cut in close and the ground dropped away to the distant Hudson. Eyeing the drop uncomfortably, Peter turned his back on it and glanced expectantly at the demon.

"You mean if I don't want to?" Mel frowned, expecting a trick question. "Maybe."

"When?"

"Don't know. Haven't yet." Mel avoided his eyes. Gazing up at the tall, blond demon, Peter shook his head. When he'd taken human form, Mel had chosen to resemble Eddie a good deal, although he was bigger, sturdier, with slightly thicker features. In resembling Eddie, he resembled Egon, a linebacker Egon without the subtlety Peter had come to expect in the physicist's face. Mel hadn't learned subtlety yet; maybe he never would. But the fact that he tried for it in the narrowed eyes made Peter suspicious.

"Hey, would you burst out of your clothes like the Hulk?" Mel would understand the reference. He loved comic books.

The demon looked intrigued. "Did once when I scared a groupie," he admitted. "Guy was bugging Eddie and Whitney, and I scared him off. Should have seen him run."

Peter had to chuckle at the image, wondering why they hadn't gotten any calls about the incident or why there had been nothing in the newspapers. Maybe it had been in another part of the country, on tour. People in San Francisco and Fargo weren't likely to call the Ghostbusters, and some rock-concert attendees heightened the experience with the drug of choice and might have convinced themselves what they'd seen had been chemically induced.

Not that the team wasn't busy enough in the Tri-State area, busting all the ghosts that wandered through the walls between worlds that had been thinned when Gozer came through. Egon and Ray had once speculated about whether the area would return to normal and they'd find themselves out of a job, but had realized that as long as ghosts popped over on a regular basis, the walls would never completely strengthen on their own. It gave the team job security.

"I bet he ran," Peter agreed. "You ought to be a bodyguard for Eddie."

"I am," Mel said simply. "They call me a roadie, but I watch after Eddie, I'll always watch after Eddie." Sorrow ran across his face, there and gone so quickly Peter was almost sure he'd missed it. "Long as I can," he amended.

"Long as you can? What would stop you?"

"Nothing." The word was spoken in an undertone. Mel hung his head. "Long as I can, nobody will hurt Eddie."

"Is somebody trying to?" Okay, so they'd fended off the demon groupie who had plagued Eddie last year. That didn't mean there couldn't be a human one. Look at what had happened to John Lennon, after all. "Come on, Mel, is that it? Is somebody after Eddie?"

Mel shrugged extravagantly. "Don't know. Haven't seen anybody doing it. I'm always on watch. Sometimes, people in the audience have an aura -- Eddie can't see it, Whitney can't see it. Nobody but me can see it. Good or bad aura. But I can see it. When it's a bad aura, I'm always careful, watch that person because a person has to be really evil for a bad aura to show. Ordinary guys who can be a jerk sometimes don't have a major aura."

"I wonder if Egon could test that with a P.K.E. meter," Peter mused thoughtfully.

Mel shook his shaggy head. "No. Only demons -- like you call Class 7's -- can see it. And psychics. A psychic came backstage once." He gave a sheepish grin. "She saw me taking down the equipment with the other roadies, and afterwards she wanted to tell Eddie there was something really weird about me."

"No kidding? She could see your natural form?"

Mel nodded. "Not the actual shape, but the feeling of it. She said it was like a -- an overlay. She said it wasn't bad but it was different and she liked Eddie's music so much she wanted to make sure he wasn't in danger. After she talked to both of us, she said I was good for Eddie and Eddie was good for me, and I needed to stay with him...." His voice trailed off slowly, a distant glaze in his eyes.

"So then, what?" prompted Peter, jogging the demon's arm. "Come on, Mel, what's going on here? You can trust me."

"Nothing," Mel said with a great show of innocence. "She said someday I might have danger for Eddie so I should be careful. I won't have danger for Eddie. They can't make me."

"Who can't make you?" Peter had an uneasy feeling about this conversation. He'd come up here expecting only that Mel would 'hulk out' in times of strong emotion and that maybe he could coach him through it so he and Jackie could get together. Then they'd discovered paranormal thunderstorms and now Mel was implying a worse problem. Peter wasn't sure what it was, but it did not sound good.

"Anybody." Mel turned around to face the river, hands on the railing, shoulders hunched. "Nobody can make me hurt Eddie. Will go away first, before that happens."

"Mel, are you losing control of your shapeshifting?"

The demon turned to him in surprise. "No. Sometimes come close, but mostly okay."

"What about Jackie?"

Mel grabbed him by the shoulders, fingers digging tightly, emotion vividly imprinted on his face at the thought of danger to his erstwhile girlfriend. "Won't ever hurt Jackie either."

Peter wiggled helplessly in the tight grip. "Easy, let's not break Dr. Venkman. How about we extend the 'never hurt' rule to include me, too?"

Mel let go at once, flexing his fingers. "Sorry." Avoiding Peter's eyes he turned away. Peter hunched his shoulders cautiously to make sure nothing was broken or dislocated. Whirling back, Mel patted Peter's shoulders, tugging his shirt into place, and stroking softly as if to soothe the minor pain. He said sadly, "Can't be with Jackie."

"You never told her, did you?" Peter remembered their discussion at Christmas when he'd first learned Mel had a girlfriend. He backed away from Mel and leaned back against the balustrade. "Don't you trust her?"

The blond head bobbed. "More than anything, except Eddie. But if I tell her, I have to go away. Don't want to scare her."

Peter felt sorry for him. "Mel, listen. Jackie came to see us at our headquarters, to hire us. She told us her boyfriend was possessed. That's what she figured out from what you said. Don't you think it would be kinder to her to tell her the truth? If you lose her, what's different from now, except that you were honest with her? And I don't think you'll lose her."

Mel's eyes glittered too brightly. "Yes, I will, Peter," he said sadly. "I'll lose her. Forever."

"Jackie's smart and she's strong, Mel. She loves you. Don't you think she might help you find a way to make it work? If you're not losing control of your shapeshifting -- I mean, I got the feeling you were afraid you'd hulk out at a romantic moment and hurt her."

"Don't know, never tried," Mel said. "But better not." He heaved a sigh. "I couldn't be with her," he said gravely, sounding more mature and more unhappy than Peter had heard before. "It wouldn't be honest and it wouldn't be fair to her, not without telling her, and I can't."

"You do know about what happens between men and women when they're in love?" Maybe it was time to haul out the birds and the bees lecture after all.

"Mating? Seen it on TV. Sex, anyway. Eddie says love is better than just sex. He talked to me about it. I know the difference and I know how to do it." He blushed. "I, uh, never did, but I know what to do. I'm not really human, Peter. I just look that way. Maybe can't give Jackie a baby."

"Is that it?" Peter hadn't expected such a complication. "Who knows? Your body functions as a human body, after all. Maybe you could."

"Yeah. Rosemary's Baby," Mel said broodingly. "Saw that movie on cable."

Peter gave his arm a soothing pat. "You're hardly the devil, buddy. Anyway, not everybody has to have children. I think you owe Jackie the right to make that choice."

But Mel shook his head stubbornly. "Can't. It's safer this way, Peter. I can't explain. There's things about being what I am that have to be private."

Suddenly an icy breeze whipped Peter's hair, disarraying it wildly. He glanced up in surprise and saw that the cloud above them had spawned, and all the little clouds in the sky were dancing around it, coming closer and closer as if they'd decided to gang up on the hapless psychologist. Peter wished for a P.K.E. meter. Was another of those weird storms coming? Maybe they should head for shelter.

The demon looked up, too, his eyes widening. "No," he muttered under his breath, his hands clenching into fists. "I won't. I won't. I won't. Get out of here, Peter. Hurry!"

Before Peter's stunned eyes, the cloud swooped downward in a funnel like a tornado and encircled him in a fierce, driving gale, pounding him with raindrops that stabbed like bee stings. There wasn't time to 'hurry' before he was trapped in swirling darkness. "Mel!" he hollered frantically, struggling to fight his way out of the whirlwind, but it lifted him right up off his feet, over the railing and suspended him for a moment over the drop to the Hudson far below. Peter let out an inarticulate bellow of terror and averted his eyes, throwing up an arm to shield his face.

The cloud thickened around him and, through it, he could hear Mel shouting his name, and crying out, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I can't! I'm sorry, Peter!" Buried in rain and storm, he couldn't find his voice to do more than yell inarticulately in response.

Then, with a roar of a thousand express trains, the miniature tornado carried Peter away, spinning him so rapidly he had to fight against vertigo, helpless against the storm that entrapped him as consciousness faded away. The clouds carried him, compressing into a tighter and tighter ball until they swooped down, plunged into the river, and vanished from sight. He didn't even feel the splash.

"Did you hear yelling?" Trailed by Whitney, Ray emerged from the rec room where they had been watching a video tape of a great movie called The Creature from the Abyss. He found Egon in the corridor before him, his P.K.E. meter in hand, a puzzled and alarmed expression on his face, his glasses perched on the very tip of his nose. As Ray stared, the meter went into overload, squealing with sound that shot up the register until the sound hurt. Outside, something roared like a train and distant yelling appeared to protest it. Winston, bursting into the room, clapped his hands over his ears, and Ray did the same. Whitney cried out, "Cy!" and raced for the stairs to protect her small son. As Egon hastily adjusted the frantically reacting detection device, Eddie and Tommy Graves arrived in the entry-hall at a dead run. Egon raised a startled hand and pushed his glasses into place a second before they would have fallen off completely.

"What's going on?" cried Eddie, turning wildly, staring. "Where's Whitney?"

Ray lifted his hands from ears that still rang. "She went to make sure Cy was okay. She'll be right back. Egon, what the heck was that?"

"It was the opening of a trans-dimensional gate, Ray." Egon frowned, taking a hasty inventory of their company with his eyes. "Where's Peter?"

"Where's Mel?" Tommy asked at the same moment.

"They went off together. If anything went wrong, Mel would protect Peter," Ray insisted. "He'd never hurt any of us, you know that." He hoped he didn't sound as uneasy as he felt. Raising his voice, he bellowed, "Peter!" at the top of his lungs.

No answer.

"I think they went out on the terrace after lunch." Eddie pointed a long finger in that direction just as a thoroughly disheveled Mel staggered into the house, his hair a fierce tangle that made it spikier than Eddie's, his clothing wringing wet as if he'd walked through a carwash. His face was twisted into an expression of abject misery and huge, fat tears leaked from his eyes and trailed down his cheeks. Avoiding their eyes, he came up to Eddie and stopped before him, hanging his head.

Egon launched himself at the demon and grabbed him by the shirt front. "Where's Peter?" Shaking the demon as if he weighed less than Nina Corey, he repeated the question. The meter he'd tucked under his arm dropped to the floor, the beeping subsiding, the lights at the tips of the antennae fading.

Pouncing on it, Ray pointed it toward the terrace. For an instant, the readings strengthened then they faded. While the meters were largely directional, inclined to react more strongly when aimed at a psi phenomenon, this one was dying away fast. The gateway Egon mentioned was closed and the meter could only pick up residuals from the event, not an open passageway. That was bad.

"Where is he?" Egon insisted fiercely. "Where is Peter?" His voice was tight and angry, and the fact that it was a demon he was shaking didn't make him back down one inch.

Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Ray saw Whitney, holding a squirming toddler in her arms, with Nina Corey at her side, the women hesitating on the landing. "Take Cy back upstairs, love," Eddie urged. "I don't know what's wrong, but let's keep him out of it. Nina, go with her. I'll let you know as soon as I find out what happened."

Whitney agreed only to protect her son. "Somebody come up and tell me what's going on when you find out," she said. Accustomed by now to paranormal crises, she tightened her grip around the child and retreated up the stairs. Indomitable as always, Nina went with her. If not for the baby, both women wouldn't have budged an inch, Ray could tell.

When she had vanished, Eddie turned back to his roadie. "Answer him, Mel." An edge of unfamiliar hardness crept into his mellow baritone.

"I'm sorry," Mel wailed. "I can't. I can't. I won't. I'm sorry." He uncurled Egon's fingers from the fabric of his shirt with careful deliberation so as not to hurt them. "The storm took him," he said. "I couldn't stop it. Too strong for me. I tried."

Egon abandoned Mel without a backward glance and, trailed hotly by Ray and Winston, raced for the terrace, snatching the meter from Ray's hand as he ran. They arrived to find a bare stretch of flagstones soaking wet from rain though the sky was mostly blue, a pair of lawn chairs upended, one of them hanging half over the balustrade. Peter wasn't on the terrace. There was no evidence that he had ever been there.

Egon made hasty adjustments on the P.K.E. meter and held it up to take additional readings. It blipped faintly once, and then stopped. The antennae went down.

"What's that, homeboy?" Automatically, Winston plucked the red and white striped chair from the railing and set it right side up. He trailed a toe through a small puddle on the flagstones, then lifted his face. Ray stared up, too. A few cumulus clouds sat like giant cotton balls against the serene blue of the sky. "And where did all this water come from?"

Eddie walked up to his cousin and touched his arm to get his attention. "Another paranormal storm?"

"A miniature one, it seems." Egon reset the meter and pointed it in all directions. The readings were fainter than before, but then residuals would be. "A gateway opened right here, precisely where I'm standing. It was temporary, transitory, created for the moment and I believe it connected to the Netherworld. There isn't usually a gate here. We've taken readings before and never detected one."

"You mean somebody opened one here on purpose?" Ray went to the balustrade and gripped it as he leaned over to peer down the jagged slope to the distant river, his eyes raking the terrain for traces of a fall. "Peter!" he hollered, although he was pretty sure the different reading Egon had taken had been for Venkman's biorhythms. The slope was steep but it was covered with rocks and underbrush. If Peter had been knocked over the edge by the opening of the gateway, he wouldn't have fallen all the way down, would he? Trees and brush would have stopped him much closer to the top, and there would be a trail of broken branches and overturned rocks to mark his progress. There were none.

"I don't believe he fell, Raymond."

Whirling, Ray met Egon's gaze and saw the unhappy confirmation of his own suspicions. "You think he got pulled through the gate, don't you?"

"The readings support that." Egon lifted his eyes to the demon. "Tell me what happened, Mel." It was a command.

Mel hung his head, so pathetic that Eddie clapped him consolingly on the shoulder. "It was the storm," he said. "There was a little cloud over us when we came outside." He gestured wildly up at the sky. "Peter asked questions. Then the cloud got bigger and turned into a tornado. Grabbed Peter and picked him up. He yelled but I couldn't stop it. Took him away, down there." He stabbed a long, thick finger toward the river.

All five humans stared down at the distant water. Ray knew it couldn't have been a natural tornado. They didn't just suddenly materialize out of a clear sky, grab one person, and depart. It was special, created to open the gate and pull Peter through. But why Peter? Why not Mel himself? Staring worriedly down at the river, Ray couldn't fight off his worry. If he were simply down there in the water, they'd be able to detect him with the meter. So he had to have been taken through the gate to the Netherworld. They didn't even know where in the Netherworld he had been taken. How could they ever hope to get him back?

"Do you know why?" Egon persisted. His voice was level, even calm, but Ray knew him too well not to realize how upset he was. He was trying not to alarm Mel so he could get answers, but he was also holding himself stiff and unyielding so he could find the strength to deal with the crisis. Peter might be...might be dead already, but if he wasn't, Egon would stop at nothing to get him back.

The demon sighed abjectly, unable to meet their accusing eyes. "Too many questions," he mumbled. "Asked too much."

"Too much for whom?" Egon didn't back down. He wouldn't. But the hand that gripped the handle of the meter was white-knuckled. Noticing, Winston edged a step closer and dropped a hand on Egon's shoulder. "For you?" Egon persisted. "Peter is your friend. Did you do this to him?"

"No. Wouldn't hurt Peter." Mel sighed. "Can't tell. Can't ever tell. Not now. Not ever."

"If you did tell," Egon began carefully, his eyes lost in thought, "would Peter suffer from it?"

"Hostage," Mel admitted, then gnawed at his bottom lip. He would have taken the word back if he could. Nervously, he shot a glance at the sky, relaxing only slightly when he saw that nothing had changed there.

Egon slid out from under Winston's reassuring grip and grasped Mel's wrist. "You have to explain. A hostage for what, Melchazat? You must answer my question."

Suddenly Ray snapped his fingers in understanding. By using Mel's full name, Egon could compel him to answer honestly. To know a demon's full and proper name gave the one who used it a form of power over him. Egon could not command Mel's actions, not without a pentagram to confine him or any of the other traditional accouterments of demon-summoning. But he could force answers, assuming Mel would answer at all.

"For me." Mel wouldn't meet anyone's eyes. His shoulders quivered and a harsh sob tore at his throat. "Want to stay. Want to be human. Want to be with Jackie. Can't. Can't. Can't."

Eddie slung a comforting arm around the demon's shoulders. "Mel? Listen to me. Has someone from where you came from been getting after you? Threatening you? Threatening my family?"

"Did you break a rule by coming here?" gasped Ray, picking up on the possibility. "Are the other demons out to bring you back? Is that what all this is about?"

The shaggy head wiggled up and down in a feeble attempt at a nod. His hand curled into fists and he hunched his shoulders to shrug off Eddie's comforting arm. "Said they'd hurt somebody I loved," Mel whispered, unable to face them. Abruptly, he gripped the balustrade and bent over it, his fingers tightening and crumbling the stone beneath his grip. "Thought they'd go away if I stopped dating Jackie, and they did. But came back. Storms. Checking up on me. Won't let me be human."

"And you let them take Peter." Egon's words were flat and measured but they ripped through Ray's heart as he heard the pain most of the others wouldn't catch. "You had no right...." He broke off abruptly as his voice caught. "To the Netherworld? Where, exactly? Tell me."

Ray reached out and grasped Egon's wrist, seeking comfort as much as offering it, halting him before he could demand answers. "Mel?" He made his voice as gentle as he could. "Peter's not dead, is he?"

The demon hesitated. The hands that bent the railing were bright blue. "No," he said, then he added with the force of a bomb tossed in their midst, "Not yet."

Peter Venkman roused slowly, conscious at first of nothing but discomfort. He was soaking wet, chilled and shivering, and no matter how much he tried to huddle up into a ball for warmth, it didn't help. A nasty, icy wind whistled through gaps in the stone around him, ruffling his saturated clothing and teasing out goose bumps on his clammy skin.

He didn't know where he was and, at first, he was too miserable to care. Drawing up his knees and wrapping his arms around them, he simply lay on his side, the uncontrollable shivering clicking his teeth together like castanets. He ached everywhere, not from any specific injuries but as if his entire body was a black and blue block of ice.

Only gradually did real awareness come back, enough of it to make him realize just how nasty was his situation. One eyelid lifted cautiously, doing sentry duty, trying to perceive where he was and why he felt so wretched. A vista of stone bars growing up out of a rocky floor and rising to join a stone ceiling to form a natural prison greeted his wary eye, and he closed it immediately in denial. But the shuddering cold didn't abate and, the second time, he opened both eyes and squinted at the barricade that sealed him into the rocky cell.

That was when he remembered the weird tornado and the way it had swirled him up, encircled him, and plunged him down into the heart of the Hudson River. This was no underwater cavern, though. They didn't usually come equipped as jails. Neither would an underwater cave explain the tang of sulphur in the air every time he drew a cautious breath.

"Somehow, Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." Peter's teeth chattered so hard he could scarcely speak, but the hollow, echoing ring of his voice against the stone stirred him and compelled him to sit up, leaving a puddle of rank river water in the small hollow beneath him. Groaning, he tried to stand, only to duck before his head could come into sharp contact with the low ceiling.

Stooped over to avoid poking any new holes in his cranium, he sat down in a dry spot and pulled his shirttail out of his jeans, wringing it out. Water splattered and glistened against the stone.

He didn't seem to be injured. Arms and legs worked, and the general ache that made everything throb was pervasive but not serious, probably brought on by the cold. He was all in one piece and he had his mind. That meant he had to plan. Catch him sitting here waiting for whoever had brought him here to come back? No way. Besides, if he sat here long enough, he'd turn into a block of ice.

The stone bars mocked him. They were too solid to break; even when he kicked them, he only stubbed his toe and spent a minute or two hopping around comically on one foot until the top of his head brushed the low ceiling and he called himself to order. He put wary weight on his foot. Not broken, just sore, and already easing. But there was no way to escape the cell, not unless he went on a crash diet and shrank down to three inches wide. Not an option.

Okay, this was bad. If he didn't get out of these wet things, he'd probably come down with galloping pneumonia in the next ten minutes, but he was a prisoner in a cell without a door, and the last thing he wanted to do was strip when he was already helpless. Crawling up to the bars, he suddenly remembered the time Egon had been imprisoned in Tolay's keep in the Netherworld. This place resembled the cell where they had found the physicist when they'd crossed over to rescue him. Only, from where he was positioned, he couldn't see any other cells, nor could he hear the voices of other prisoners. The light that enabled him to see came from a couple of dancing flambeaux set in metal holders in the corridor outside, on either side of the bars and from others that lined the corridor curving away beyond his angle of vision. The corners of Peter's prison were dark and shadowy, but there was enough flickering light to be sure he was alone.

Alone....

Closing his eyes, Peter concentrated on listening as hard as he could, but he heard nothing to suggest other people, only the wind whistling through narrow slits in the cell and outside in the corridor, making the torch flames dance wildly. The shadows almost felt alive, but that was a natural phenomenon, not an indication of the presence of ghosts.

Okay, if he was alone, that gave him a few minutes. Quickly, Peter stripped to the skin, squeezed the water out of his clothes, and put them back on. No one interrupted, no one came to watch, and he felt marginally better now that water had stopped trickling down his back. But his skin was icy and his clothing hung on him like an wintry shroud. He had to get warm.

Pressing up as tight against the bars as he could, he stretched an arm through and grabbed for the nearest torch. His fingers barely brushed the handle. Not good enough. Try harder, Peter. He flattened himself against the stone, arching his shoulder so hard he came close to dislocating it. There! He had it! Gingerly, he worked the handle free of the holder grid with his fingertips, holding his breath for fear he'd drop it out of reach. Then, with a sigh of relief, he pulled the torch into the cell, holding it aloft to find anything to make a fire.

There was a tangle of cloth in the corner. It wouldn't burn long, but the rude bed beside it had a wooden frame. Yanking away the filthy pallet to use for sleeping when he got desperate, he smashed the frame into as small pieces as he could manage. Stacking it neatly to build a fire, he grabbed for the rags to use as kindling.

The bundle tumbled toward him, spilling out a motley collection of sticks. No, not sticks. A round object bounced against the toes of his shoes and he reached for automatically it only to jerk his hand back as if stung with a horrified, "Yaaaa!" as he recognized it for what it was, a human skull. The bundle of cloth contained a long-abandoned human body, dead so long the flesh had gone from the bones.

Automatically, Peter retreated to the other side of the cell, pressed up against the stone wall. Then he forced himself to move back. Just because this poor schmuck had died here didn't mean Peter was going to. This character hadn't been a Ghostbuster. He didn't have three buddies who knew how to get to the Netherworld and who would move heaven and earth to come to his rescue. He wouldn't die here all alone. He'd be rescued, and probably pretty quick, too. Course the guys would have to trek back to the City to get the gizmo Ray had designed to rescue Egon, but that only meant Peter had to take care of himself till then.

Shivering, he returned to the dead man, and made himself kneel beside the pathetic bundle. "Guess you don't need your clothes anymore, bunky," he said in an undertone. "And I have to say they're not my style, but if I don't get warm, I'm gonna join you, and I've gotta think since we have the same enemies, we're probably on the same side. You're not gonna grudge them to me, are you?"

The skull chose not to speak. Well, that was good. Peter hadn't really wanted an answer. With shaky fingers, he separated out the bones from the rotted fabric, tearing the cloth into long strips and poking them in among the stacked wood of his fire. When he had finished, he arranged the bones neatly in a pile in its corner and set the skull on top of them, then he held the torch up to the wood. The dusty fabric caught at once and flared up so brightly he had to jump back, but it proved enough to ignite the broken slats. After a few minutes, the fire had well and truly caught and heat began to permeate the icy damp of the cell.

Peter slid out of his shirt and held it up over the fire, hoping the heat would dry it out enough to make him comfortable. Warmed by the dancing blaze, he sat as close to it as he could, watching his jeans start to steam. The fire wouldn't last indefinitely. He had to be as dry as possible before it burned itself out. Once he removed the threat of freezing to death or contacting a cold-induced illness, he could think past his comfort to his eventual escape or rescue.

Then would be time enough to try to figure out what had happened and who had brought him here. It had to do with those weird storms -- and Mel knew about them. He hadn't wanted to admit it, but he knew. He'd sounded pretty upset when he was yelling, "I won't," at the clouds. What was it he wouldn't do? Go along with what the storms wanted? Well, he'd blown that one in a big way. Peter was trapped in a nasty, cold, smelly place that felt like the Netherworld, and Mel had done nothing to prevent it. Maybe he couldn't, but he'd known something was about to happen. He'd been cagey from the moment they arrived. An ugly shadow hung over him, and he knew what it was, even if he hadn't told anybody. Maybe he couldn't tell anybody, but that didn't sound right.

When he'd left the Netherworld behind, Mel had sworn allegiance to Eddie. What if he'd broken some weird demon rules by doing so, rules that might have rebounded on him? Back when the guys and Eddie had encountered him, Melchazat had been in the service of the demon Astarine, who had been Eddie's most dangerous groupie. Planning to force the singer into consenting to come with her to her Keep and become her own pet singer, she had ordered her servants to obey Eddie when he arrived, not realizing Eddie might find that a means of contravening her plans of enslaving him. He hadn't come as her reluctant guest but with the Ghostbusters in an attempt to rescue his kidnapped baby son. Unable to find Cy in the Netherworld, he had still taken the time and trouble to be kind to Mel, who had been so charmed by such unnatural (for demons) behavior that he had switched masters on the spot. Eddie didn't consider himself Mel's master, but Mel still did even if he'd stopped saying it out loud.

Had Mel's change of masters brought trouble down on Mel, Eddie, and anybody connected with him? Something had definitely brought major trouble down on Peter, even if he had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He felt the material of his shirt. Still damp. Huddling closer to the fire, Peter let the heat soak into his pores, trying to ignore the icy drafts that teased at his exposed back.

"I don't know where you are, guys, but hurry up," he said under his breath to his absent friends. "Little Petey Venkman doesn't like this."

It had been Winston who had shepherded the group into the house, guiding them to the blue salon, where he pushed Egon and Ray into a pair of sapphire brocade wing chairs side by side, and gestured Eddie and Tommy to the wide, overstuffed sofa. Mel chose not to sit, standing uneasily near the door, his face twisted with massive guilt. Noticing the distressed faces of his teammates and Eddie's brooding regret, Zeddemore realized he'd have to take charge. Let Egon keep taking his readings and trying to make sense of them. They'd need those readings later, when they had a plan to retrieve Peter. Because they were going to retrieve him and that was the bottom line!

Whitney appeared in the doorway alone; she must have left Cy with Nina. Noticing her, Tommy got up and slipped out of the room in the direction of the stairs to help stand guard over his boss's son. "Coffee?" Whitney offered as if she knew she were throwing them a palliative. When there was nothing else to do in a crisis, she had fallen back on good manners.

"Sounds fine, love." Eddie's voice was dispirited. "Thank you." Whitney dropped a quick kiss on the crown of his head, and retreated.

Winston drew a deep, steadying breath. "Okay, listen up, guys. Mel, we need answers. Where would they take Peter? Someplace like the Netherworld? Oh, man...."

Mel nodded, fumbling for words that wouldn't come. He plopped down gracelessly on the piano bench with such force Winston half expected it to shatter from the impact. "I...think so." He bowed his head over his clasped hands. The blue of his natural form had faded, but his knuckles were white with the tightness of his grip. "I -- can't talk about it. When I try, nothing comes out. But I think I can...answer questions. I'll try." He drew in a shuddering sigh that made his whole frame quiver and leaned back inadvertently to a jangle of piano keys before he straightened up hastily.

"Back to Astarine's keep?" Eddie rose and started to pace the room in a long-legged, impatient stride, his face taut with concentration. "Where he came from in the first place? But why go there? She's gone, you guys trapped her. She couldn't have gotten free and wanted him back, not when you've got her locked up in the containment unit. So who's doing it? And why?"

Egon bounced up to his feet, even his hair crackling with suppressed energy. "Mel was not her only servant." He gestured with his meter in the general direction of the terrace. "There must have been other rock demons under her control. We don't really know how the chain of command works or what rules they have to follow. It's entirely possible another demon inherited them and feels he must have Mel back, too, as part of her retinue. Is that it, Mel?"

The big demon glanced up for an instant, his eyes huge and glistening with tears. "Yes." He struggled to explain more but the words just wouldn't come. Then he burst out in a desperate babble, "Don't want to go. Want to stay here. They can't hurt the people here. Against the rules, because Eddie is my master now, not Astarine. People in this house are Eddie's 'retinue'. Safe."

"But we're not," Winston exclaimed, snapping his fingers in realization. "Because we're not technically more than guests. We're friends of Eddie's but not part of the 'retinue', is that it, Mel?"

Mel nodded jerkily, avoiding his eyes.

"What about other people?" Eddie put in, stilling his pacing when he fetched up in front of Mel. Taking the demon's arm to get his attention he persisted, "Jackson? Does he count too?" Jackson MacKensie was the drummer in Eddie's band and, while he was a frequent guest at Segue and Eddie's closest friend, he didn't live there. He had an apartment in Manhattan and another in his home town of Chicago, if Winston could remember right. The Ghostbusters had never spent much time with Jackson; he hadn't usually been around during a crisis. They'd met him and Winston liked him, but had never really had a conversation with him about anything but music. "He'd be a part of the retinue, wouldn't he?"

Mel frowned. "Don't know. Not here all the time. Maybe, maybe not."

"I should give him a call, let him know he could be in trouble," Eddie fussed. "And I'm going to send the cook home. I don't think she'd be in danger, but more likely she would be if she were here."

Ray jumped up excitedly as if he'd been adding sums in his head and coming up with lots of answers. "Is that why you asked if we had our proton packs with us, Mel? You thought we'd need them because we wouldn't be on the protected list?"

"Didn't know." Mel's shoulders lifted in a massive shrug. "Thought I'd have a warning first. Proton packs would help. Better to be safe."

"Is that an official rule? Do they have to warn you?" Egon got up, too, activated meter in his hand, and began to pace up and down the room, pointing it in different directions every few moments.

Whitney appeared in the doorway, pushing a cart before her, complete with a pot of coffee and a number of cups. She'd evidently heard at least part of the conversation and her eyes were huge with wonder. "Demons have rules?"

"Oh, yes, definitely," Egon told her. He stopped his restless prowling near the windows that looked out over the river, but faced the room instead. "A contract with a demon will adhere completely to the exact letter of the law, but they'd try to make it so obscure the contractee won't realize what he's committing to. One must be extremely careful about deals with demons. If Eddie's 'retinue' is safe, that would probably include only those who actually live in this house, Eddie, Whitney, Cy, and by extension, Tommy and Nina, possibly the cook. Guests to the house would not be held to be anything but temporary adjuncts and would be fair game. Jackson might be protected, as a member of the band, but there would be no guarantee. Mel, you assumed you'd have warning, but you didn't."

"Did," Mel said sadly. "The storm. Storms every time company came, cook and maids, Malcolm last week. Figured cook wasn't safe. Storm today when the Ghostbusters came, too."

"He's right," cried Whitney in astonishment, a coffee cup jerking in her hands. "I didn't make that connection until now. It was always storming when someone arrived and then it would clear up. You mean those were always threats? Did you know it, Mel?"

Melchazat stood up and paced over to the window, gazing out at the sunny afternoon. "Always knew it. But nobody disappeared. Thought I had more time. I didn't want to go back. Wanted to stay here. Love it here. Love Earth. And all my friends." He sounded as if he were crying. "Didn't know they'd take Peter. I tried to stop it but I couldn't get them to see I belong here. I'm sorry." He whirled around, grabbed Egon, who was nearest, in a fierce hug, squeezing him so hard the physicist gasped for air. "I'm sorry." Releasing Egon, he spun back to the window again while Egon caught his breath, adjusting his clothing and hair.

"Aw." Ray darted over and patted Mel sympathetically on the back. "I know you didn't mean for Peter to be taken, Mel. Will you help us get him back?"

Mel was silent so long that Egon's face hardened. His worry for Peter had never diminished, he'd simply shunted it aside to allow himself to function at peak efficiency but, at Mel's refusal to speak, it crowded back into his eyes. Alarm sprang into Ray's face and he grabbed Mel by the arm.

"You won't help us? Peter's your friend, Mel. Remember how good to you he was at Christmas? How can you refuse to help us rescue him?"

Mel faced the room, and it dawned on Winston that, in spite of his bulk, he resembled a trapped animal before a hunter's gun. "Not won't. Can't." He scooped up Ray's hands and squeezed them. "Not allowed to. Egon said there are rules, and he's right. I have to follow them. Just didn't know Peter would pay my debt."

"Mel, listen." Winston edged up and jogged his arm. "Will it stop with Peter?"

Egon rounded on him, his face taut with strain. "You can't seriously mean to let them keep Peter to appease them?"

"Get serious, homeboy, no way," Winston defended himself, knowing they were all under a strain or Egon would have said no such thing. "I just want to know if we should be having this conversation with proton packs on and the atomic destabilizer right at hand. If they plan to keep on snatching people who are 'fair game', I want to be armed and be ready." He dropped a hand on Egon's shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze. "We're gonna get Peter back. You know we are. We got you back when Tolay had you, and we'll do the same for Pete. If we could find you in the Netherworld without any clues to what part you were in, then we can find him, too."

Mel spoke up. "They won't do anything for now. They'll wait to see what I do about it. If I haven't come home by tomorrow at this time, they'll do something else."

"Grab another person? Destroy Segue? What?" Egon persisted.

"Destroy Segue? Eddie, I have to take Cy away from here," Whitney cried, stricken. The color left her face.

"Of course you do, love. If Cy's part of my retinue, he's safe from them. Mel? Is that right?"

Mel nodded. He began to count off on his fingers. "You, Whitney, Cy, Nina, Tommy. Sure of that. Safe from them. They won't take you to the Netherworld."

Well, that was lucky, Winston thought. Without realizing he had done it, Mel had just confirmed Peter's location. Of course the Netherworld was the size of the known universe. If he wasn't at Astarine's keep, they would have no way to find him easily. But then he probably would be, wouldn't he?

"And if they hurt any of us by mistake?" Eddie persisted grimly.

"Won't. Because then I'd get to stay. They'll be careful with you."

"Why do they want you back so much, Mel?" Ray asked sympathetically. "Did you break a rule by coming here?"

Mel pondered that, scratching his hair. It was drying after the mini-rainstorm, but it still stuck up in all directions, like Eddie's habitual 'do' but less organized. "Bent one, maybe. Astarine said for us to serve Eddie. So I did. Eddie was good to me, and Astarine never was. I didn't know what that felt like until Eddie came. But she didn't mean for me to serve Eddie instead of her. She didn't really say so, that's why I could stay here."

"Then what changed?" Egon persisted. Winston could see his mental clock ticking, counting down the minutes since Peter had vanished, the minutes he'd been in jeopardy. Spengler needed complete information before he acted, but it was hard to pull it out of Mel, who might even have a geis upon him, a compulsion not to reveal the truth about this one subject. It seemed that questions could evoke answers, but he couldn't simply volunteer information.

"Borthardian." The name escaped from Mel's lips before he could stop it, but alarm flared in his eyes and he cast a nervous glance over his shoulder, and hunched up tightly, quivering with fear.

"Borthardian? Is that another demon?" Ray was quick with things like that.

Mel's head bobbed fractionally once but he didn't speak.

"Do we have Tobin's Spirit Guide with us, Egon?"

"The pocket version. It's in my suitcase upstairs." He hurried from the room, and no one moved more than a few inches or said anything while he was gone except for Whitney, who poured out the coffee and passed it around. Winston curled his fingers around the cup, grateful for its warmth. Mel took a swallow and shuddered as it went down, not that it tasted bad; it was great coffee.

Setting his cup on the table, Ray patted Mel's arm. "Don't worry, Mel. We'll figure it out. And we'll get Peter back, too, see if we don't." He sounded so determined that Winston was afraid he was riding for a fall. They'd rescued Egon from Tolay's keep, and they should be able to rescue Peter, too. But they couldn't do it without equipment that was back in the city, and by the time someone went there, loaded up everything, and drove back again it would be late evening. Peter would have been stranded for hours. Winston didn't even want to think about what peril he might be in at the moment, and he could tell Ray was forcing his natural optimism to the surface. Winston would be the last one to be a doomsayer, but he couldn't quite work up the belief Ray still held.

Egon returned with the portable computerized version of Tobin already activated. "I found Borthardian," he announced to the room at large. "He's a demon who has been known since the Middle Ages. There's a warning about him because those who go to summon demons, believing they can control the spirits, have always failed to bind him. Borthardian tricks them into believing he is bound over to them, then he either destroys them or takes them back to his realm as slaves."

"And that's bad, right?" Winston scratched his head. "Oh, man, I knew I wasn't gonna like this."

"But Peter didn't try to summon him, and he didn't make any pacts with him," disagreed Ray. He leaned on Egon's arm to read the screen, his brow furrowed as he concentrated. "Peter will know better than to try to make a deal with him, won't he?"

"I hope he will," Egon replied. He keyed in additional information, glowering at the tiny screen. "What alarms me is that Peter was raised by a con man and he believes he can outsmart most people. He might try to work out a deal on his own. According to Tobin, Borthardian has never been defeated in that way."

"Yet." Ray's grin blazed out. "He never met any of the Ghostbusters before. And we've encountered demons before. Look at that time when we had to deal with the chickens disappearing."

"Do I have to?" Winston grimaced. "That wasn't fun. And this is worse because Pete's trapped over there. What's he got to bargain with, anyway?"

Egon slammed the pocket computer against his palm. "We must go after him. That means someone must return to the city for our equipment. The molecular phase amplifier will take us over there. We used it to go to Astarine's Keep before, and will again. It would function better here, where the gate opened than it would if we tried to use it at headquarters because I'd have to make so many configurations to do it at a different location that it would take hours. From here, I'd simply have to set it and ask someone to activate it." He paused, turning hopefully to Mel. "Is there any chance you can transport us there without it?"

Winston waved his hands at Egon to interrupt, frowning. "Uh, bad idea, homeboy. If we use our own equipment then we have a way back. Even if Mel could take us, who's to say he won't wind up having to stay there and serve this Borthardian dude, and then we'd all be trapped. It takes a powerful demon to bring us back, if I remember right. And this Borthardian dude is a lot more powerful than Mel, if Tobin has the full scoop on him, and he might keep us from cashing in our return ticket."

"I can take you there," Mel offered, then his face fell as he did the math in his head. "No, only two. Not powerful enough to take more."

"Two throwers aren't enough to stop a Class 7 demon, Egon." Ray spoke mournfully, his face falling into dejected lines. "We could find Peter, but we might not be able to rescue him."

"The longer we wait, the greater jeopardy we'd find Peter in," Egon replied. "One of us could go after the equipment -- whoever goes could take Whitney and Cy to safety. If they are protected, not only would it remove them from a dangerous environment, it might protect whoever was driving Ecto. They could wait at the firehall with Janine."

"If I know Janine, she'll want to come back with me," Winston disagreed, all too familiar with the secretary's stubbornness. He had already accepted that he was the logical one to go. Ray knew the most about occult subjects and Egon could do more with field modification of equipment than any of them. Besides, Winston could get the most out of Ecto. He knew he'd have to bring Janine back with him. If Egon and Ray hadn't rescued Peter by the time he returned, they'd need more than one person to go into the Netherworld after them. They might even have to take Eddie, who knew how to use a pack and thrower, and who had some personal protection from Borthardian.

"Then you'll go, Winston?" Egon asked, squashing down his impatience.

He nodded. "I'll leave now. Whitney, do you want to come to town and bring Cy?"

She shook her head stubbornly. "If it's true that we won't be harmed, then I won't go unless Eddie does. Is it true, Mel?"

He put his hands on her shoulders and smiled down at her. "I'd let them tear me into tiny pieces before I'd let them hurt you or Cy or Eddie," he vowed. "They can't. Not in the rules."

"But they can try to stop us?" Ray started for the door. "Come on, Egon, let's go get our stuff out of Ecto so Winston can take off."

"I want you to be safe," Eddie insisted, grabbing his wife away from Mel and encircling her in his arms. "I think you should go. Take Nina and Tommy with you."

"No. I have to be with you. I just have to. And I won't entrust Cy to strangers, or leave him with Nina and Tommy, or even with Janine. It's the only way, Eddie."

"I thought I'd put on Peter's pack and go with them," Eddie started but she cut him off with a palm pressed against his lips.

"You can't, dear heart. Mel said he could only take two, and he has to take the two who can do the best there. That's the way it must be. But you can wear Peter's pack while they're gone in case anything happens here." She whirled to face the demon. "Do you think it will, Mel?"

"Don't know. Not to hurt you, but trouble."

"Then we'd best hurry," Egon fell into step with Ray and they went out to collect their equipment from the converted hearse.

Winston doled out the packs, retaining his own in case he encountered trouble on the road, which was a possibility all of them thought of but none of them wanted to mention. Tommy Graves offered to go with him, and Eddie seconded that, but Winston shook his head. "No, you need to stay here and watch Whitney. I don't think they'll pay any attention to me if I'm not even here."

"That's not certain, Winston," Egon argued. He had brought the atomic destabilizer, not because he had specifically deemed it necessary but because, when demons were involved, it was second nature. More often than not, they kept it in Ecto with their regular packs anyway.

"I'll make it," Winston decided. "I don't want Cy to disappear like the last time we messed with Netherworld demons. Give him all the protection he can get."

"Keep a meter activated all the way," Ray cautioned.

Eddie clapped Winston on the shoulder, then slid his arms through the straps of Peter's pack. Egon put on the destabilizer pack, and Ray took his own and settled it on his back. When Winston put Ecto in gear and circled it around the circular drive that fronted the mid-Victorian mansion, they were still standing on the steps that led up to the tower entrance, watching him. Ray lifted a hand in farewell.

"Okay, Zeddemore," Winston said to himself. "Go like a bat out of hell." And don't let anything fall apart before I can get back.

By the time the fire had faded to embers, Peter's shirt was dry except in the seams, and his jeans were, if not yet dry, close enough to it that they'd finish up the job on their own. He was glad the season had been cool enough for him to wear a long-sleeved shirt. If only he'd taken an Eskimo parka out with him onto the terrace.

The fire had removed some of the cold from the cell but, as it died, the nasty breezes that oozed through the slits in the stone began to win the place back to winter. Peter dragged the lumpy pallet closer and sat on it, hoping it wasn't inhabited by its own particular livestock. At least Skeleton Joe over there had died on the floor and not the pallet, not that Peter had the luxury to avoid it even if he'd found the remains curled up there.

Weird that he'd been left alone here. No one had come by to gloat, no hulking demons had sneered at him, no jailers guarded the outside of his cell. The lonely winds howled through the cavernous prison with only the torches burning to indicate that anyone but Peter and the skeleton had ever been here. He'd propped his torch up against a rock, but it wouldn't burn forever. The thought of losing the light from the torches, stranded down here in the bowels of the earth all alone, made his stomach twist sickly. He was abandoned here, that's what it was. He knew it. If he'd been taken away for any reason but to manipulate Mel, somebody would have talked to him already.

Okay, so maybe the demons from the Netherworld lost points if somebody defected. They might want to bring Mel back where he came from, and what better way than to take hostages? Mel had yelled, "I won't." Wouldn't what? Go back? If that were true, then he wouldn't trade himself for Peter. Coldness seeped into the psychologist's veins at the thought of being trapped here forever. If the cold didn't kill him, he'd die of thirst before he could die of hunger. Or maybe the demons would show up any minute and think it was fun to pluck off his arms and legs for sport. He shuddered.

No, don't go there, Peter. Not a good idea.

He hadn't heard anything from outside the cell except the moaning wind that swept through the underground prison. That didn't mean he was alone. Maybe there were other prisoners. Calling for them might alert the bad guys he was awake, but the solitude was getting to him fast. Even a demon might be an improvement over staying here alone. The guys would come, of course they'd come, but probably not for hours. They'd have to go after the equipment and bring it back -- or have Egon and Ray reconfigure everything, and that took time. If they set it up on the terrace, where Peter had disappeared, the currents and eddies of the gateway would resonate and the phase amplifier would bring the guys to his general vicinity. At least that was what Peter had gotten out of Ray's eager explanation and Egon's scientific discourse on its principles. Egon would say his description was scientifically inaccurate but that didn't matter. The guys would come. They'd find him. He knew they would. He just had to hold on till then.

He edged up to the bars. "Hey? Anybody else in here?" Rather than raise his voice and alert the jailers, he called in an undertone.

The voice was so near he flinched involuntarily. "Yeah, man, right beside you. Keep it soft, or they'll show up again, and I've gotta say, there's no way I want to see that head character again."

"Pretty bad, huh?" The voice was human, the language suggesting its owner came from the same world as Peter. From the tone of his voice, he sounded African American.

"Well, if you're into guys who are ten feet tall with horns, then you'll be a happy camper. I've gotta say, what I've seen of stuff like that never thrilled me, and I've seen my share of weird stuff."

"Yeah, I've seen a lot of weird things myself," Peter agreed. "Where are you from?"

"Well, I travel a lot, but Chicago, mostly. I was in Chicago when I got busted and wound up here. One minute I was minding my own business, waiting for my lady to come over, the next there was a big, blue guy in my apartment, bumping his head on my ceiling, and he grabbed me, and all at once, I'm here. Not great."

"I got sucked up in a tornado," Peter explained. "Come to think of it, there was a big, blue guy around when it happened to me, too."

"Yeah? Hey, this is gonna sound weird, but I know one of those blue guys personally. He doesn't usually look like that, but he can. When I saw the one in my apartment, I thought it was him for a second, but it wasn't. It was a stranger."

"You know one?" That was weird. How many guys like Mel were there hanging out on Earth, anyway? "How do you know one, anyway?"

"I'm in a rock band," the other man explained, to Peter's astonishment. "And we've got one who works as a roadie for us."

Peter clapped his hand against his forehead in recognition as the other man's identity dawned on him. "Jackson?" he asked. "Jackson MacKensie?"

"What the hell!? Who are you? How do you know that?"

"I'm Peter Venkman. You're in Eddie's band. I don't think we ever met except that one time backstage for two minutes -- you had already left Segue when we went up there to bust the ghost in the attic -- but something's going on, and it involves Mel. We thought he was just afraid to tell his girlfriend what he was, but it turns out there's something else he's afraid of, and whatever it is, the other demons are taking hostages. Eddie didn't know you'd been grabbed. When did it happen?" He grabbed the stale, smelly pallet and hung it over his shoulders, sitting down on the corner of floor closest to Jackson's cell.

"Last night, according to my watch. I saw them bring you in, but I didn't see your face. I was afraid somebody was going after the band, but you weren't Eddie -- I could see brown hair. I figured I'd better lie low and wait and see what was going on. I could hear you moving around and then you took one of the torches, but for all I knew, you were somebody stuck down here to get around me and win my confidence." He still sounded wary. "You're really Venkman? The Ghostbuster?"

"In the flesh. And I'm not here to win confidences. We're both prisoners." He heaved a depressed sigh. "Have they bothered you or threatened you or any other fun stuff?"

"No, just dumped me here. I wasn't sure what to expect. That character Jaren'h that Eddie accidentally freed from that statue ⁽³⁾ didn't mind trashing people, and I was sure I was about to be eaten." He gave a disparaging chuckle as if to scorn the possibility but, to Peter, it sounded like whistling in the dark. "You say Eddie didn't know I got snatched?"

"Well, not when they grabbed me, he didn't. We'd had lunch and I went out on the terrace to talk to Mel -- we were up at Segue. If your girlfriend showed up and you weren't there, what would she do?"

"Maybe think I got held up with a rehearsal, though we're between gigs right now having a couple of weeks break before we start working on the next tour. I went back to Chicago and I was gonna try to write a new song. Sharonna knows I wouldn't stand her up."

"But you can't go to the police with a missing persons' report when there's no sign of foul play," Peter realized. "At least not till more than twenty-four hours have passed. Or is it forty-eight? But you're in a famous band and they might act faster. Would Sharonna call Eddie?" Telling Eddie wouldn't bring rescue any faster, but it would definitely warn the guys that more was going on here than one disappearance.

"She might, but I think she'd probably wait awhile, check things out, see if my car was gone. She'd check the apartment -- she's got a key." The sound of a foot kicking against the stone echoed to Peter, followed by a muted curse. "I don't want her going in there. What if she winds up here, too?"

"I don't think so," consoled Peter. "Mel doesn't know her, after all. I have a feeling somebody down here is using us to manipulate Mel into coming back where he came from."

"And this is where he came from? Oh, man." Jackson did not sound happy. "You mean this is that Netherworld place Eddie mentioned? Where you guys went when that demon grabbed Cy? This is not great, is it?"

"Well, I can think of a lot of places I'd rather be," Peter concurred. "Like having a root canal. Or on the Titanic." He huddled into the dubious warmth of the pallet. "You as cold as I am?"

"Don't even talk about the cold," Jackson replied. "So what do we do next? You're the Ghostbuster. You have any great ideas?"

"The guys will come for me. I know that. We have a gizmo that lets us pop over here whenever we need to -- luckily we don't need to very often. On a scale of one to ten, this place rates a minus one hundred and thirty."

"Yeah, and I've gotta say the food sucks."

"You got food?" Peter asked wistfully.

"I got a bowl of something for breakfast. I don't know what gruel is, that stuff they gave Oliver Twist at the orphanage, but I'm willing to bet that was what they gave me for breakfast."

Peter made a wry face. "Rats. And me on a low-gruel diet."

With a sputter of laughter, Jackson continued. "And that's all. No dinner last night, no lunch today, just gruel."

"So they want to keep us alive -- but make sure we don't enjoy it." Gruel was okay because it was a thousand times better than gruel-and-thumbscrews. "I've been thinking they might want Mel back," Peter offered. "Like maybe he broke some obscure demonic rule by living with the humans. And maybe Mel didn't want to go. I know I sure wouldn't. How you gonna keep him down in the Netherworld after he's seen Times Square?"

"Yeah, but Mel would do anything for Eddie," Jackson argued. "If he thought Eddie was at risk, he'd give it all up in a minute. He'd die for Eddie -- assuming demons can die. Can they?"

"Well, they can be destroyed or trapped." Weird. Mel would react to a threat against Eddie in a second. So why hadn't the bad demons tried that route first? It would have been the easiest way to get Mel to do what they wanted and make him suffer at the same time? "I just don't get it. If they want Mel back, you're right, all they'd have to do is threaten Eddie, and Mel would come back here in a heartbeat. It'd break his heart but I know he'd rather see Eddie safe even if it meant he had to give it all up. He gave up his girlfriend right before all this happened. I thought he was just afraid she'd find out he was a demon or that he'd hulk out when they were having some nookie and he didn't want to scare her." Jackson gave a snort of laughter at the image that evoked. "But now, I bet he was getting her out of the way because he knew what was going down. They want him back -- and maybe for some reason Eddie's safe."

"If Eddie's his master -- never liked that 'master' thing, even if I know it means something different to Mel than it does to me -- if Eddie's his master, maybe they can't go after Eddie. Maybe he's off limits. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, let alone the best friend I ever had."

"Yeah." Peter appreciated the sentiment. When Egon had been trapped in the Netherworld, the other three of them had agreed to set their equipment to return them with Egon or not at all. They didn't intend to come back without him. Sounded like Jackson would understand that. "The Ghostbusters aren't safe, then, not unless Egon is because he's Eddie's cousin. The guys'll come after me. I don't know for sure where we are, but I'd bet good money we're in the dungeons under Astarine's Keep -- she was the demon who went after Eddie last year."

"But you guys zapped and trapped her, didn't you?" Jackson asked hopefully.

"She's still in the containment unit. But who's to say she didn't have buddies who are out for revenge, or that her other servants aren't pissed off at us -- or at Mel for getting away?"

"Yeah. Nice thought." He heaved a sigh. "All I ever wanted was to be a musician. Now I'm dealing with spooky entities that burst out of statues, and haunted attics and the Netherworld."

"The guys will get you back to Sharonna," Peter promised. He knew they'd come to rescue him, he knew it all the way down to the soles of his feet. He just didn't know if they would come in time.

As Ray and Egon pulled their jumpsuits on and adjusted their packs, a telephone rang in a nearby room, and Tommy jumped up to answer it. Egon turned hopefully and watched him. Perhaps Peter had escaped and was calling to let them know. He couldn't entirely believe it, but if it was possible....

Tommy returned quickly and Egon could tell from the way his brow crinkled and his chin set that he wasn't bearing good news. "Eddie. I think we've got more troubles. That was Jackson's girlfriend Sharonna on the phone asking for you."

The singer jumped to his feet. "Jackson! But he's in Chicago."

"Not anymore."

Eddie vanished in the direction of the phone, alarm darkening his eyes, and was gone for nearly ten minutes while Tommy glowered at all of them impartially, Mel hung his head guiltily, and Whitney hesitated, torn between going after her husband and playing hostess. When the singer returned, he appeared shaken, his hair more disarrayed than usual, lines around his mouth. "Jackson's disappeared," he explained in a voice that landed with a dull thud at his feet. "Sharonna went to see him last night; they were going to have dinner at his place. When she arrived, he wasn't there, and she thought he'd run out on an errand or was just late. After he didn't come, she searched the apartment and found his wallet in the bedroom, and his keys, and his car was still in the underground parking garage. She called the police, and while it looks suspicious, there was no evidence of foul play, no trace of a break-in or robbery. She said there was money lying on the table and it wasn't touched."

He drew a quick breath and continued urgently, "She knows a little bit about our experiences with the supernatural and she got worried. The police are running checks, mostly because he was gone without his keys, money and car, and because he's famous, but they haven't found anything. The doorman saw him go into the building and saw Sharonna go up not half an hour later. There's a separate elevator to the underground garage and he would have had to cross the lobby to get to it. The doorman did go out to the street a few times, once to help a woman out of a cab and another time to flag down a cab for a tenant, but he doesn't think he was gone long enough to have missed Jackson because the basement elevator is slow." Eddie began to pace. "Sharonna covered all the bases. It's remotely possible the guy missed him, but she doesn't think so and, even so, he would have taken his car if he'd gone down there. Apparently the doorman is a fan of our band."

"So what could have happened?" Whitney asked, although she was too intelligent not to suspect a connection between his disappearance and Peter's. Paler than usual, she caught up with Eddie in his pacing and took his arm, halting him. Her fingers squeezed reassuringly.

Although Eddie put his hand over hers in a gesture of great tenderness, he didn't seem remotely reassured. "I don't know, love. But I'm afraid it's part of the same thing as Peter's disappearance. It has to be. God, I've known Jackson for years, even longer than I've known you, Whit." She wrapped an arm around his waist.

Eddie gnawed his bottom lip while he considered then his voice hardened slightly. "Mel, you have to tell us now." He straightened, a rueful but determined expression on his face. "Do you still consider me your master?" It was a title he'd never accepted and refused to trade on, but lives were at stake and he had to. Egon, who had known him since he was born, could sense how much it bothered him to resort to such a tactic, but he had to approve of it, if it would save Peter's life.

Mel nodded vehemently. "Always. Know you don't like me to say it, but you are." His face was full of such distress and shame that he couldn't quite meet Eddie's eyes. For such a tall figure, he was curiously shrunken.

Eddie sucked in his breath, cast an uneasy glance at Egon, then turned back to the demon. "Then I -- god, this is ridiculous, but I have to. Mel, I command you to tell me what this is about." His fingers tightened involuntarily around Whitney's and she flinched but didn't pull away.

Mel stood frozen for an endless moment. Then he bowed his head. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and Egon could hear the stark devastation in his voice. Eddie flinched from it but stood his ground.

At last, Mel lifted his head, focusing on none of them. "Borthardian is distant kin to Astarine. He now controls her domain. Everything she possessed had to come to him, all her slaves, all her possessions, all her holdings. She had never recorded that I had changed masters -- and she never accepted it anyway. She believed me dead, but none at the keep knew that. If she had been given time to pass that information before her entrapment, I wouldn't have mattered. But Borthardian would probably have wanted me back anyway. He despises humans. He uses them and destroys them and manipulates them. He's evil. What people usually imagine when they think of a demon."

"So his self-respect is riding on getting you back?" Ray ventured. His eyes were wide and sympathetic, but he, too, refused to give ground. Egon could tell how worried about Peter he was, even if he was fascinated by the story.

"Yes. One of the others came and told me two weeks ago. Knew something was wrong because of the storms but didn't know what, till then. I...broke up with Jackie next time I saw her." He shivered. "Didn't want to, but had to make her safe." Egon noticed how seldom Mel used the first person. He left it off at least half the time. Did that mean he considered himself less than a human being? Egon could understand Mel's desire to remain here instead of suffering enslavement to a demon, but he had no right to risk Peter's life, or Jackson MacKensie's, no right to take his freedom at the expense of someone else.

"I doubt Borthardian would consider Jackie safe because of that," he ventured.

The color drained from Mel's face. Ray made a distressed, sympathetic sound, but Eddie held his ground and Tommy frowned harder, arms folded against his chest.

"Have to go back," Mel murmured. "Have to go, get Peter back, and Jackson, and save Jackie." He turned away from the circle of eyes and ran his hand across his face. His shoulders quivered once as if he were fighting against tears. "Knew it wouldn't last."

"Aw -- Egon, isn't there any way to stop Borthardian?" Ray asked. "Fix it so we can get Peter back and Jackson, if that's where he is, and make sure nobody else gets taken? And let Mel stay here?"

Egon realized he was furiously angry at Mel. "He let them take Peter, Ray. He prolonged his existence here at the expense of Peter's freedom, his safety, perhaps even his life."

The demon flinched as if Egon had pelted him with stones. "Sorry, Egon." He turned and stared Egon in the face and the physicist could see his mortification and penitence. He'd fought hard to stay where he was happy but it had backfired. "Take you to get Peter. Stay in his place."

"You can't do that," Whitney cried. "There has to be a way to stop this Borthardian, trap him and rescue everybody, Mel included. It's not fair to send him back to such a terrible place."

"It's not fair for him to expect Peter to pay his debts," Egon persisted, unwilling -- unable -- to yield.

"I don't think he knew Peter would be taken, Egon." Ray edged up to stare at him with wide, earnest eyes. "He didn't tell Borthardian to take Peter in his place, or Jackson either, and he tried to protect Jackie. I think he hoped we could stop Borthardian. We have to get Peter back. And we have to find a way to let Mel stay here where he wants to. There has to be a means to make a deal."

Egon considered Ray's words. He didn't want to bargain when the life of his oldest friend was involved, but it felt wrong, even cruel, to throw Mel's life away simply because he came from the Netherworld and wanted a better life. Peter would complain like mad about being stuck in the Netherworld, and he was probably waiting breathlessly for rescue, but he wouldn't want to hurt Mel, either, if it could be avoided.

"I'm simply concerned for Peter," he said. "We must go after him. I don't know how to persuade Borthardian to free you, Mel, but there may be a way. Trapping him might simply bring in yet another demon who would claim you, too."

"I bet we can work it out," volunteered Ray. "I've read a ton of occult books. I know a lot of things about dealing with demons. But we can't wait longer. They might be...hurting Peter."

"Or Jackson," put in Eddie. He detached himself from his wife and strode over to Egon. "I'd come with you if there was a way to go."

"I know you would. But Mel can only take two, and Ray and I are the best chance Peter has, and Jackson, if he's there. We can't wait any longer. We must go now."

"God, Egon, I never thought it would come to this," Eddie said.

"Neither did we when we came up here. We only thought Mel was having women problems and Peter wanted to help. Mel, can you take us there now?"

The demon nodded. With resignation, he started to remove his clothing, folding up his shirt as he shed it. "Have to change back," he said. "Can't do it in human form."

Whitney averted his eyes to give him his privacy, and Ray fiddled with his thrower, making sure it was set at maximum gain. Egon shook his cousin's hand and let go, preparing himself for the trans-dimensional journey.

When Mel was naked, he closed his eyes for a second and shifted effortlessly into his natural form, huge, blue, towering, with shoulders too wide to pass through the doorway without turning sideways. "Ready?" He started toward Ray and Egon. Then he paused, whirled, and advanced on Eddie, reaching out a hamlike hand and clasping the singer's shoulder. "Might not come back," he said sadly. "This was the best life I could ever imagine. If I don't come back, want to hear you sing one last time, remember it as the last sound I ever heard in this world."

Eddie's face crumpled. "Oh, god, Mel...." He grabbed up the hand in both of his own. "I'm sorry I had to do that, order you to tell me."

"No, that was right. Please. Sing for me one last time."

Whitney edged up beside her husband and slid her arm around him once more. With a nod, Eddie opened his mouth and began to sing his most famous song, Leftover Souls. Whitney came in on the second bar, taking the harmony while Eddie's mellow baritone soared into the melody line. He sounded slightly hoarse as if he were struggling not to cry, but even like that, the purity of his voice caught at Egon and plucked at his heart. He pulled out his P.K.E. meter and activated it in preparation for the transition to the Netherworld, but he couldn't help listening to Eddie's song.

A blazing smile lit Mel's face in spite of the tears that threatened to spill over. He reached out and curled one hand around Egon's arm and the other around Ray's. With the music soaring around them like a benediction, Egon watched the salon darken and give way to a moment of stygian blackness before it suddenly burst into radiant light so brilliant he had to squeeze his eyes shut tightly behind his glasses. Eddie's voice soared, pure, beautiful, and aching with misery, then it faded away to be replaced by the desolate wail of the wind.

Peter jerked awake from an uneasy doze, leaning up against the rock wall of his cell. The pallet didn't really keep him warm, especially in a place with its own natural air conditioning, and he awoke shivering, his jaw aching because he'd struggled to keep his teeth from chattering. What had awakened him? Something Jackson had said?

"Jackson?" he began only to fall silent as he heard the tramp of many feet. "Uh-oh," he muttered. "Company's coming."

"Yeah, I hear it." MacKensie's voice was uneasy. "And I can bet good money I'm not gonna like it."

"What a rude guest," thundered a voice from the passageway. Peter leaned against the bars of his cell to see the speaker -- and promptly wished he hadn't.

It was a demon, and a big one, as big and broad and threatening as Tolay had been when they'd seen him in his keep. The only good thing about the newcomer was that he wasn't Tolay, but Peter couldn't be sure that was an advantage. Tolay had seemed a creature of impulse, not exactly a great thinker, a guy who ran around knocking holes in the walls in the underpinnings of his own keep. He'd never figured out how to come after the Ghostbusters for revenge, either. Sure he'd been pissed off and chased them, but in mental gymnastics, Peter would have given him a one or a two. No perfect tens for him. This character might have more going on in his upper storey.

"Oh, great, he's the biggest one yet," groaned Jackson in an undertone. Peter hoped the demon hadn't heard that; it wouldn't do to add anything to the ego Peter could already sense in him. Possessed of a comfortable ego of his own, the psychologist could easily recognize the condition in others and it rarely endeared the possessor to him. Nobody liked to see one's own faults in somebody else. Not, of course, that the Venkman ego was a fault.

The demon was tall, broad, and elegant, like a smooth, movie version of Satan, rather human in his facial features, if human faces could ever be so big. The horns were elegant, starting at the temples and curving up over the forehead and then outward, the tips as sharp as razors. He could gore somebody like el toro in a bull ring with a mere toss of his head. Glowing yellow eyes rounder than a human's, with slitted pupils like a cat's, regarded his prisoners with satisfaction, and a smug smile lifted the corners of his narrow lips. The nose was elegant and sculptured like the ones on classical statues Egon admired at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the chin was pointed and extremely firm.

The rest of him was less human. Clad in only a loincloth, his body was scaled in multi-faceted shades of purple with jagged ridges along arms and legs that could probably slash a guy to ribbons. He played for the obvious, with cloven hooves and a forked tail, his legs jointed like a goat's or like some demented artist's concept of Pan. The sensual gleam in his eyes added to the Pan image and Peter got the idea he played it up and enjoyed every second of it. But that didn't mean he wasn't one smart Class 7.

"Easy with this guy, Jackson," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "He's not somebody you want to mess with."

"Very astute, Dr. Venkman." Hard to imagine a voice that could shake the ground beneath him and purr at the same time, but this dude could do it.

"You know my name?" he asked.

"Naturally. I also know your occupation, and I must say it is not a welcome one in this realm. I, of course, need not fear you for, without your specialized equipment, you're just another human. You might know more about my kind than the average human, but I've always said a being is only as good as his tools."

"Well, okay, so we define ourselves as tool-makers." Two could play at this game. "But intellect just might count for something."

"Shall we compare IQ's?"

"So what do I call you?" Peter countered. "Brainiac?"

The demon smiled. Not good. Lots of big, pointed teeth filled his mouth, really predatory teeth. Peter had to struggle not to shudder. Why did he always run into things that could dine on a Ghostbuster or two for breakfast?

"You will call me Borthardian," the demon replied. "This is my domain."

"Well, then, sorry for trespassing, and I'll just be on my way."

Borthardian threw back his head and laughed, the sound ringing unpleasantly off the stone walls. "You amuse me, little human. You will go nowhere."

"Can't blame a guy for trying, can you? So why did you invite me and Jackson here for a visit?"

"You assume it is only for a visit? Yes, you may leave here, but you may leave in the way your former cellmate departed." He gestured into the cell at the tidy little pile of bones in the corner. Peter squelched a shiver. This was one guy it didn't do to give ground to.

"I don't think I can be here that long," he objected. "I've got library books due and a date on Saturday night."

"What cellmate?" hissed Jackson in an undertone.

"One that's been on a real crash diet," Peter explained hastily. "I call him 'Bones', though he doesn't look a thing like Dr. McCoy."

"Why am I here?" Jackson didn't sound scared but then he'd grown up on the mean streets of Chicago. He was probably intimidated but he'd learned as a kid that it didn't pay to let fear show.

"Why are you both here? The term 'hostage' comes to mind." Borthardian took out a knife that was as long as Peter's arm and began to clean his fingernails with it. Peter gulped as he realized they were sharp and pointed enough to serve as talons. They could rip a guy's heart out of his chest with no trouble at all and hold it, still beating, in his hand. Mom always said my imagination would get me in trouble, he thought ruefully. Let's not think about things like that. Might give a demon ideas.

"Hostages? Why?" demanded Jackson coolly.

"Because I mean to get my way. True, I could simply take what I want but that won't give me the satisfaction I wish. I will make him obey me, make him choose to do so. Only then will I feel satisfaction. And I will make him do it by showing him what happens to those who dare defy me."

"Demons always talk like characters in 'B' movies," Peter told Jackson instructively out of the side of his mouth. "What he really wants to do is play power games."

Borthardian's eyes narrowed, glowing more brightly yellow than before. "It's not a joke, Dr. Venkman, and so I will prove it to you. I don't expect you to wag your mouth and think you're clever. Who is your closest friend?"

The question was so abrupt it surprised Peter and he opened his mouth to answer before he caught himself and pressed his lips together tightly. No way would he give Egon or Ray or Winston away to this big, scaly dude.

A curious suction tugged at his head, making his hair stand on end as if he'd poked his finger in the nearest light socket. He yelped. The sensation faded as if it had never happened, but Borthardian lowered one taloned finger, recently manicured, and grinned fiendishly. "Don't think you can keep secrets from me, mortal. I can read your thoughts. Egon? You thought of him first. That tells me much. Watch."

He spun his finger around in a tiny circle and a cloud of grey mist materialized in the passage outside the cell. Abruptly Egon appeared in its center, suited up in his blue jumpsuit and armed with his proton pack -- from the thrower, it looked like he was wearing the atomic destabilizer on his back. He held a P.K.E. meter in his hand and he was speaking to someone who did not appear in the mist, the sound of his voice carried away on the wind so the psychologist couldn't make out the actual words. Peter instantly realized he was seeing a full-sized image of Egon, not Egon himself; the physicist hadn't been transported here like Peter had, or he would react to his new surroundings. Instead he kept walking, the mist creating the illusion that he was standing in one place even as he moved.

"Egon!" Peter stretched out an involuntary hand toward the image, glad to see his friend again, then he yanked it back, realizing the gesture had betrayed him. "You better not do anything to him," he threatened.

"Or what, Dr. Venkman? You'll stamp your foot and swear at me? You have no other options. Don't think your friend will ever find you even if he is nearby. He may not even survive."

The demon quirked his finger.

Egon screamed and fell down, the sound tearing through Peter.

"No!" Peter reached out through the bars, grabbing desperately for the demon. "Let him go! Don't hurt him. Tell me what you want."

Borthardian clapped his hands together like a child who has just been given a present. "Oh, this is fun." Egon writhed on the ground, moaning, his arms and legs jerking, marionette-fashion. His glasses fell away, his hair tangled in the dust of the stony ground, and tears of agony sprang to his eyes. Peter's heart jumped at the sight and his hands clenched into fists.

"Fun! You son of a bitch, leave him alone."

"No. Because you aren't the one who needs to see my power. Like your suffering friend, you are simply one more bargaining chip."

"You're killing him! If I could get my hands on you -- "

"You would die, Dr. Venkman. Would you die for him?"

Peter nodded energetically. "Let him go and I'll take his place." It wasn't an easy thing to offer, but he meant it. Egon didn't even understand what was happening. Peter couldn't let it continue.

"It might be an illusion, Peter," Jackson called from the other cell.

"You think I can take that chance?"

Ray moved into the mist, bending over Egon in horror, trying to still his motion. "Egon, Egon, what's wrong?" He put one hand on Egon's shoulder to hold him down while the other stroked the tousled hair back from his forehead. "Gosh, Egon, what's happening to you?" He pulled out a P.K.E. meter and passed it over the physicist. It pinged.

Beyond him, a huge, blue demon knelt at Egon's other side, his face stricken. "Stop it," he shouted at the top of his lungs. It was Mel in his natural state, holding Egon's glasses in one massive hand. His face was twisted with a pain that wasn't physical as he gazed down at the convulsing Egon. Then he lifted his great head and stared into the middle distance as if seeking the source of the pain. "Stop it!"

Borthardian waved a careless hand, dispelling the image. "That will do for now," he said as the mist faded. Peter stared into it as long as it lingered, watching Egon twitch and jerk in pain. When the mist was gone, Peter whirled back to the demon. "Did you stop it?" he yelled. "Or did you just stop letting me see it?"

"That you will never know, Dr. Venkman. You have seen my power. You know I will follow through with what I claim. I rarely allow myself to give my word, but when I do, it is good. What you saw was real. My oath on that."

"Egon never did anything to you," Peter snarled, boiling with rage. "He never hurt you. You just hurt him because you could. You're not even worth contempt. You're lower than pond scum."

The demon yawned ostentatiously, flashing all those predatory teeth. "Do you feel better now?"

Peter grabbed the bars, his fingers squeezing them the way he'd like to squeeze the demon's neck until the entity's eyes stood out from his head and his breath stopped. "Better?! You bastard, if you did anything to Egon that can't be fixed, your days are numbered -- and that's a promise from Dr. Venkman."

Borthardian shuddered elaborately, his mouth quirking with amusement. "I'm soooo scared."

"You're nothing but a big bully," Jackson spat. "Peter's right. You're the lowest thing I've ever seen."

"Don't you fear me, street kid? Think you're big stuff now that you are famous? I could end that. I could wave my hand and smash your fingers so badly you'd never hold a drumstick again. I could wiggle my fingers and destroy your singing voice. Don't doubt it. Egon would tell you I was a very powerful Class 7 demon. I am one of the most powerful demons you will ever encounter. And I have wasted far too much time on you already." Sneering at the two prisoners, he waved his hand in their direction.

It felt like a fist slamming into Peter's stomach in a fierce sucker punch. He sat down abruptly on the stony floor, gasping for breath, conscious of Jackson's wheezes from the next cell. Doubled over, panting, Peter fought desperately for control. Egon....

He didn't even know where Egon was. The brief glimpse of the stony ground beneath his tortured body suggested he might be in the Netherworld, although there hadn't been time for the guys to race back to the city for the molecular phase amplifier and the transport bracelets. Peter hadn't noticed a bracelet on his friend's wrist. Did that mean the image wasn't real? Or that Egon had figured out another way to arrive here, maybe with Mel's help?

"God, Egon, you better be....all right," Peter breathed. "You hear me? You better be all right." For a moment, he hid his head in his hands then, afraid Borthardian was watching and would take such a gesture for one of despair, he raised his face and glared out of the cell defiantly.

"I didn't see any wounds," Jackson called, his breathing steadying. "It was either an illusion....or just some weird psi pain. I bet it stopped when the image did."

"Hope so," Peter agreed. His whole body tingled with rage. To think that Borthardian had done that simply because Egon was Peter's oldest friend.... He'd taken that knowledge right out of Peter's mind, just sucked it free and used it against Peter. Egon hadn't even known what had hit him. "I want to tear him into little, tiny pieces and feed them to a Cuisinart."

"I don't blame you. I'd like to help. Do you think he'll hurt Eddie next because Eddie's my best fr -- "

"I wouldn't," Peter cut in sharply. "Don't give him any more ammunition against us and our friends. Try not to even think of them." That was a lot easier said than done. The guys were so much a part of his existence that their images permeated everything. His life, his work, his friendship. They trusted him, they cared about him, and they were walking into a trap. He hadn't seen Winston in the image Borthardian had shown him and Jackson. Did that mean Winston was already trapped elsewhere? Or that he was free?

He pushed the thoughts of the guys away with great reluctance, afraid his very thoughts might endanger them. "I'm gonna get Borthardian," he vowed; it was a sacred oath. "I don't know how yet, but I'm gonna get him. Nobody messes with my buddies and gets away with it. Nobody."

As their vision cleared, Egon, Ray, and Melchazat found themselves in the Netherworld, under a lowering sky. It was daylight, but a gloomy daylight, far darker and more brooding than the last time the team had visited here. Ray shivered involuntarily, his grip tightening on his thrower. "Wow, that was a great transition," he cried, finding his voice after a startled second. "Beam me up, Scotty."

Mel grinned briefly, the smile startling in his demon face. "Didn't hurt?"

"Of course not," Egon replied. "You brought us here very smoothly. Where exactly are we, Mel?" He turned, surveying the twisted landscape, the shards of stone that stuck up jaggedly like fangs, the distant mountains that lanced the clouds, their tops invisible. Lightning ran across the face of the shadows, searing slashes as vivid as thrower fire. Following it almost simultaneously, tumultuous thunder battered their eardrums in a tearing explosion of sound, then rumbled away to mutter sullenly, the echoes bouncing off the distant peaks.

"Someplace nasty," Ray put in. His ears were still ringing.

"The Netherworld," Egon confirmed, eyes on his meter's screen. "The readings match those you took last time, although I theorize we are a considerable distance from Tolay's keep."

Ray rotated slowly, studying the terrain, jerking to a stop when he noticed a distant spire, sculpted rather than natural, halfway between a fantasy castle and a jagged peak. "Well, that's good, anyway." He stopped his spiral, staring at the jutting prominence. "Egon, I think that's a building."

"It is. It's Astarine's keep," Mel confirmed with a dismayed shudder. "I know it well. I served here for many centuries." Suddenly, home in the Netherworld, his speech had changed again. Maybe the threat of Borthardian had affected him back on Earth, diminished him. Or maybe, in his natural form, he was suddenly surer of his own identity. That could wait, though. It had to.

"Is Peter there?" Ray prodded hopefully, aiming his meter at the distant tower. The antennae jumped, their tips blinking. Class 7, Ray thought, but far away.

"It would be the most logical place. We must go there. Borthardian will be there, so we must approach surreptitiously."

He was coming on with the language. Maybe, in his natural form, he could fight off the control Borthardian must have tried to exert over him to force him to return.

"Do you know a secret way in that Borthardian won't know?" Egon asked, then caught himself, frowning. "Is it safe to speak his name openly? It won't alert him to our presence?"

Mel pondered that, gazing down at them. "A part of him will know we are here already but it won't be a conscious part of him. If he is busy with another task, he won't even think of it for a time. Astarine could focus on her schemes and plans so intently we had freedom at such times."

"Why are you suddenly so articulate?" Egon demanded. "You were far less so at Segue. Yet I don't remember you as such when we first brought you to the firehall."

Mel hesitated. "Borthardian has been trying to get me back for some time. It was a battle of wills. He controls the rock demons who served Astarine. He tried first to dominate me, to diminish me. He couldn't harm my will, but as long as I retained human form, he could weaken me. Now that I am in my own shape, I can speak as myself once more."

"He was trying to take away your identity, wasn't he?" Ray asked sympathetically. "Trying to make you back into Melchazat, a slave, instead of Mel, a person in his own right."

The demon nodded in ready agreement. "He can't do that when I'm in my own form," he explained. "But he can still exert control over me. You must be careful. He might be able to make me hurt you. If he tries to do anything to harm the two of you, I'll try to warn you, if I can."

"We'll rely on the meters to warn us of such actions," Egon replied, clearly unwilling to risk trusting Mel, no matter how well-intentioned he was. "Ray, set your meter for Peter's biorhythms while I continue to monitor for paranormal entities."

Ray reset the meter, boosting its gain to maximum and pointing it in front of him as he made another complete circle. The meter didn't react, but a faint fuzz touched the screen when he aimed it at the keep, enough to indicate that there might be a human or humans present, but not enough to identify the human as Peter. Before he could speak, lightning seared the sky and another thunderclap shook the ground beneath his feet. "Gosh, what a storm," he gasped when the sound had faded enough for his speech to be audible.

"Demon-storm," Mel volunteered unhappily, eyes rolling as he studied the sky. "Borthardian makes it."

"To drive us away?" demanded Egon. "The meter went crazy during the thunder, far more so than it did at Segue during the original storm that greeted us."

Mel pondered that. "Demons do that sometimes when they're mad. He's -- asserting his domination over Astarine's realm, I think. Or maybe trying to get to Peter, you know, to intimidate him."

"It'll take more than a storm to intimidate Peter," Ray proclaimed in defense of his friend. "Egon, I'm getting really faint readings from the keep."

Spengler whirled to stare at him, and Ray saw hope flare in his eyes. "Peter?"

Ray boosted the dials, offering Egon a heartening grin. "Too far away to tell. It just might be a bunch of distant humans. But it does prove that someone human is in that direction. We'd have to get a lot closer to tell if it's Peter or not. Biorhythms just don't come across well on the meters."

"Then we must go immediately." Egon started to stride in that direction, then he halted. "Mel, will he sense your coming?"

"Might," Mel conceded. "But there'll be others of my kind there, and I don't know that he can separate us out unless he's concentrating on it specifically. I think he does know we're here, though. That's why he's making the storm."

"Then let's go." Egon set off determinedly in the direction of the keep, his meter held out before him to test for demons. Although the meter readings were strongest in that direction, they would detect danger coming from other directions, too, and Ray was glad of it. He fell into step behind Egon, eager to rescue Peter. They'd have to fight demons to do it, and they only had two throwers, but they had Mel too, and he was on their side.

Thunder clashed again, fainter this time as if the storm was fading. Ray felt no urge to clap his hands over his ears. Instead he surveyed the jagged, broken terrain, watching out for threats like terror dogs, who lurked in the Netherworld ready to jump on hapless visitors, or for other rock demons like Mel, who could be driven away by the throwers -- unless Borthardian forced them to stay.

Egon stopped dead.

"Did you pick up some -- " Ray began, but before he could finish the sentence, Egon screamed and collapsed to the ground, moaning in incredible anguish. As Ray stared in openmouthed disbelief, Spengler jerked and twisted on the ground as if in the throes of a grand mal seizure. The cries that burst from his mouth were full of the most terrible pain Ray had ever heard. His body arched, jerked, went taut, quivered with reaction. In one of his wild jerks, his glasses went flying but Mel caught them before they could smash on the stony ground. Eyes full of pain and tears, Egon was blind to everything around him, even his hovering friend.

Ray flung himself down at the physicist's side and struggled to restrain him. "Egon, Egon, what's wrong?" Dropping one hand on Egon's shoulder in a futile attempt to still the spasms, he ran the other across Egon's forehead to test for fever. "Gosh, Egon, what's happening?" His only answers were moans and cries of sheer agony.

Borthardian! This had to be the demon's fault. Ray grabbed his P.K.E. meter, dialed it back to the normal setting and passed it over Egon's writhing form. There wasn't a major reading, but he was picking up a paranormal overlay, a diffused reading of psi that wasn't natural for a human.

Mel knelt opposite him, one huge hand holding Egon steady, the physicist's glasses cradled gently in his other one. "Stop it!" he bellowed and, for one crazy second, Ray believed he meant for Egon to stop jerking and twitching. Then Mel lifted his head to the sky and screamed the words at the top of his lungs. He wasn't cursing a malign fate, he was responding to a deliberate attack. It really was Borthardian, getting at them, trying to drive them away, to prevent them from reaching the keep. Did that mean he feared them, or was this simply a display of his power, that he could cause such exquisite anguish without even being there? How could they ever hope to stop him?

Ray gazed down at the scrunched-up face of his friend. Egon's breathing rasped harshly from his open mouth, his face was flushed with pain. The demon was killing him! Ray had to do something, but he didn't know what. "Mel?" he began desperately, lifting his hand from Egon's forehead and grasping the nearest blue wrist. "You've got to...."

Before he could finish speaking, Egon stilled, the paroxysms and convulsions diminishing to shaky little twitches that gradually faded, his cries stilling to be replaced with gasps and breathless panting. Even that eventually eased, and suddenly Egon stared up at Ray with total awareness in his eyes. Immediately, Mel bent and fitted his glasses into place.

"Gosh, Egon, are you all right?" Ray grasped up his wrist and felt for his pulse. It was rapid, but quickly slowing to normal. "What happened?"

"I...don't know." Egon's voice was shaky and dazed. "It was the most incredible pain I've ever felt. I...had no idea such a degree of agony was possible. Every nerve ending came alive. It was...not pleasant." He sat up cautiously, muscles relaxing when the movement added no new pain. "I'll be stiff from the force of the spasms, but I am unhurt."

Ray slung a fussy arm around his friend's shoulder. "No, Egon, be careful. It could come back."

"Thank you, Raymond, I needed that." But in spite of the dryness of his voice, Egon leaned into the circle of Ray's arm, uncharacteristically shaken. He pulled off his glasses and scrubbed at his eyes with his other hand, wiping away the tears caused by pain, then he put the glasses on. "My enthusiasm for this place is now nonexistent," he admitted. "But we must go on."

"Are you sure you can?"

"The same thing might have already happened to Peter. We must go on, Ray."

"Peter!" Ray hadn't forgotten their missing friend, but the attack upon Egon had been so shocking that it had pushed their mission into the back of Ray's mind. "Mel, do you think the demon is doing that to Peter too?"

Mel considered it, scratching his broad forehead. "No. At least I don't think so. They say he enjoys -- demoralizing his prisoners, so he is sure to do something...."

Egon stiffened, his mouth drawing into a taut and angry line. Scrambling up, he allowed a penitent Mel to haul him to his feet then stood, testing his balance. "I'm fine, Ray."

"But it could happen again. I want to rescue Peter, but I don't want you to die."

"I won't die. I'm perfectly fine. It was...most unpleasant, but it was almost an illusion of pain rather than real pain. Pain without a physical cause, in other words. It is survivable."

"Not if it pushes your blood pressure up so high you have a stroke," Ray argued, grasping Egon's arm to steady him, although he didn't appear to need it. There was a tightness around his mouth but it was that of determination rather than any lingering pain. Ray whirled and confronted their companion. "Mel, is there any way you can tell if it's going to happen again?"

"No," admitted the demon ruefully. "Couldn't this time. Borthardian would wait until we were comfortable again if he did it. Might not. Because if he did this to influence Peter, he's already shown

Peter what he's capable of."

"You mean he might have made Peter watch?" Ray stared at Egon in horror.

Egon frowned. He'd obviously considered that already. "If it was simply to make a point, then the point is made. Peter knows Borthardian can hurt us and that, if he chose to do so, he could prevent Peter's rescue. Would such an attack drain Borthardian, Mel?"

The blue demon's face lit up. "So far away, yes, especially if he had to maintain the illusion for Peter, showing him what was happening. Borthardian is powerful but he's engaged in a power struggle. His strength has limits."

"What kind of power struggle?" As he walked, Ray watched Egon to be sure he was all right, but they needed all the information they could get.

"Astarine's servants might not want to serve him, any more than I want to," Mel admitted. "Borthardian is more powerful than they are, so he can control them, but they will test him at first, seeing what freedom they'll have, what they can get away with. My kind doesn't automatically serve just because the demon is stronger. We like to be able to give loyalty. That's why I serve Eddie. Of course Astarine conditioned me to obey her but I'm not stupid, guys. I can obey without giving my loyalty. But Eddie...." He heaved a sudden wistful sigh. "I love Eddie. He was the first one in my entire life who was kind to me. And he's that way to everybody around him. You've seen how much Whitney loves him. And Jackson would do anything for him. Nina and Tommy -- they think of him as part of their family and that's how he treats them. He treats me like that too. Eddie is a very good man. He deserves loyalty, even if he couldn't sing a note."

Egon smiled at the praise for his cousin. "My uncle could never see that," he admitted. "Not for a long time. He and my father had conventional expectations. They wanted us to be scientists, to work at Spengler Labs, even before my uncle built the new facility, and I already knew when I was growing up, that I didn't want to do that. I did, of course, want to be a scientist, but my interests always diverged from my father's. Eddie liked physics, but music is a part of his essential nature. I don't think he'd be the same man without it."

"Music is what gives him his soul," Mel said surprisingly. He gave a faint snuffle, like a child. "Hope I can hear him sing again."

"We're gonna do everything we can to make sure you will," Ray cried. "This demon has no right to take Peter and try to bring you back here against your will."

"Will he hurt Peter?" Egon asked. He hadn't wanted to ask that question.

"No, not right away. Peter's a hostage, and Jackson, too, if he's here." Mel trudged wearily in the direction of the keep, avoiding their eyes. He wasn't keeping secrets, Ray realized. He was ashamed of the way he'd kept his secret until innocents had been endangered.

"Will he take more hostages?" Egon wanted to know. He strode toward the distant tower in spite of the fact that he had been writhing on the ground only a few moments earlier. Ray vowed to watch him and make certain he was really all right.

"Don't know." Mel pondered that as he walked, shortening his far-longer stride to theirs, although Egon was already nearly running and Ray almost had to sprint to keep up. "Might." His face darkened. "I like Peter and I like Jackson -- and when he took Jackson, he hurt Eddie. Eddie and Jackson are like you guys are, brothers. I think Borthardian could tell I like Peter a lot. He'd take Eddie if he could, but he can't." Suddenly he burst out in a rush, "I'm afraid he'll take Jackie."

"That's why you broke up with her, isn't it?" Ray asked sympathetically.

"I had to." Another sigh, so massive it shook his entire frame. "I love Jackie," he said. "Was even gonna risk telling her what I was. Because I...really want to be with her. Would it be...bad of me to...to mate with her?"

"Oh, gee." Ray wasn't sure of the answer to that. If only Peter was here. He could probably handle it better. "You wouldn't -- revert to this form in the middle of...being with her?"

Mel appeared utterly flabbergasted. "That would hurt Jackie, scare her. No, I never would."

"But you told her you were afraid of that," Egon intervened.

Mel averted his eyes. If he could have done it with his blue skin, he would have blushed hotly. "I was afraid Borthardian would know. Did she tell you...?"

"She was very discreet," Egon offered hastily. "But she was afraid you were possessed and she came to us. That's really why we came up to Segue. Peter was going to talk to you about it." His lips twitched in a sternly-repressed smile, probably at the thought of Peter as a sex counselor. Ray hid his own smile. Peter would have loved the job.

Would have? Oh, gosh, I'm thinking of Peter in the past tense. He's not dead. He can't be dead. Mel would tell us if he was dead.

"Wouldn't have been fair," Mel admitted after a slightly awkward silence, "to be with her unless she knew about me. I was afraid Borthardian would win and take me back anyway, and it would have been harder if Jackie was really my mate. She wouldn't have understood."

"But you want to be with Jackie?" Ray asked sympathetically.

"More than anything. But I never dared to...do anything about it. She just thought I was shy, and maybe I was. I never did anything like that before. Rock demons don't."

"Peter would say you lead deprived lives," Egon's voice was dry but Ray could hear the strain in it at the reminder of Peter.

"Didn't know it then," Mel said. "I didn't know anything about humans or about love. I don't want to stay here. I'd rather not exist at all than stay here, knowing what I'd be missing." He stared out across the desolate terrain, his face etched with misery. "It's not fair."

Ray felt a surge of sympathy for him. It really wasn't. What did it matter to Borthardian if he had one less demon than Astarine had. No, he had more already because he must have servants of his own to begin with.

"Demons like Borthardian don't care about what is fair," Egon replied. "But we do. If it is humanly possible, we'll rescue Peter and Jackson, and we'll free you for good, so you can stay where you want to be."

"Thanks," Mel replied, but his face was full of doubt. It might not be possible, none of it might be possible. They might all die here. Peter could be dead already, although he probably wasn't, not if the torture of Egon had been to show Peter Borthardian's power. Winston was coming but it would be hours yet before they could expect him. Egon could be attacked again at any second, or Ray could. How could they ever hope to defeat Borthardian with only two throwers, and one of them the destabilizer? Powerful class sevens usually took all four, or three and the destabilizer. Meanwhile, Borthardian was calmly stacking the deck against them. To prove it, the storm came back, black, churning clouds covering any glow of daylight from the sky, and rain began to fall, a hard driving downpour that soaked them to the skin in minutes. Egon took off his glasses in disgust, tucking them into his pocket for safety. None of them could see more than a few feet ahead of them anyway.

"This is bad, isn't it?" Ray asked, raising his voice to be heard above the beating of the thunder.

"Very bad," agreed Egon and followed the meter's reading toward Borthardian's keep, his mouth twisted in lines of grim determination.

It had been a very bad day. Yesterday, when she had gone to the Ghostbusters about Mel, Jackie had hoped for a quick solution, a few tests with the Ghostbusters' equipment to prove she was mistaken. But the four paranormal eliminators had known something she hadn't, a secret they had refused to tell her. She hoped they knew the secret because of Dr. Spengler's relationship to Eddie Plummer, but she was afraid they knew it because of their job. What could it be? Was he a vampire? He couldn't be a ghost. Ghosts weren't physical enough to touch. But vampires only came out at night and she'd often gone out with Mel in the daytime.

A werewolf then? They came out in the daytime and were fine except when the moon was full.

That was crazy. She didn't believe in vampires and werewolves. She scarcely believed in ghosts, though it was hard not to give the possibility some credence when living in a city where the Ghostbusters trapped them with regularity. In a way, it was better to entertain such quirky fancies than to believe Mel had broken up with her because he didn't love her any longer.

She rode the subway home from Malcolm's office, glad to get away, grateful to find a seat on the D Train in rush hour. Her boss must realize Mel had broken up with her because he'd been so annoyingly avuncular and sympathetic for the past week. She liked Malcolm, enjoyed seeing the rock stars he managed when they came into the office. Some of her friends really envied her the job, and she loved it. But it hadn't been a rock star who had won her heart. It had been a weird and quirky guy unlike no man she had ever known. He was gentle and kind, and he could be funny, and his mind worked unlike that of anyone she'd ever known. She loved his childlike excitement. He was definitely a stranger to New York, still learning it. Most of the time he was at Eddie Plummer's mansion up the Hudson, or on tour with the band, but sometimes he came down to the city either in his old rattletrap Mustang or on the train, just to be with her. They loved going to movies, skating at Rockefeller Center, exploring the city's weirder byways. Mel was different, but in all the time they had been together, she had never once been bored.

Lately, Mel had grown stranger. His speech had altered, for one thing. He'd started talking in a weird, choppy way, hardly ever referring to himself as 'I'. Maybe he really had been in a mental institution, even though the Ghostbusters had assured her that wasn't the case. Maybe he was having a nervous breakdown. But that didn't really feel right.

Trudging up the steps to her Brooklyn apartment building, she stopped dead at the sight of a familiar figure waiting by the doorway. "Mel!" They'd done it! The Ghostbusters had done it! They'd convinced Mel to come back, to tell her the truth. Elated, she rushed up the stairs to meet him, to feel his arms close around her....

This was wrong. She didn't know what the difference was, but the familiar figure was not so familiar up close. The face was identical to Mel's in every feature, but not in expression. Mel had never glared at her with such hard, cold intent before, his arms had never gripped her so tightly it hurt. Was this the spirit in him, the one he was afraid would break free? Fear pulsed through her. "Mel, let me go," she gasped breathlessly.

He tightened the grip. "No can do, babe." The voice was not Mel's, not even close, deep and rumbling and malicious, as if it held an evil echo. "I can use you, and I'm going to. I don't care if I hurt you, either, so if you have a shred of sense, and I doubt it, you'll stand very still and you won't try to fight me."

"You aren't Mel!" she cried. The eyes weren't even human. She gazed up into them in dawning horror. They were slitted cat's eyes, yellow and glowing. Was this the secret Mel couldn't share, that he was some evil monster who could shunt the cruel and malicious side of his nature aside? No! Mel was good and kind. This was someone who resembled him, but it couldn't be Mel. Oh, god, could it?

"I'm glad you could see that. No, Miss Innocent Jackie, I'm not your precious Mel. I took his form long enough to get you into my possession, and now, you will come with me."

"No I won't. I'll scream!"

"Scream away," he said and laughed long and hard. As she opened her mouth to cry for help, he shifted, mutated, grew into a vast, purple-scaled being that towered over her, one vast hand big enough to nearly encircle her waist. He smiled a fanged smile down at her, the horns that pointed out from his forehead glittering in the late afternoon sunshine. Dimly she heard the squeal of brakes and the crash of metal on metal as the unexpected sight of a monstrous demon in Brooklyn caused at least one car accident. Then Brooklyn went away to be replaced by a vast, echoing, stone chamber dimly lit by flickering torches, where blue entities eight feet tall bowed and kowtowed nervously before the creature who held her.

"A-are you the Devil?" she faltered, unable to believe this was real and not a waking nightmare.

"I am Borthardian, the ruler of this realm. And you are now my hostage." He chuckled and gestured at the groveling beings before him. "You see those blue creatures? Your precious Mel is one of them in his natural state. Even such inferior demons as they can assume the form of a human when it suits them. He was tempted to your world by the one called Eddie. I cannot take that one, for certain rules even such as I must obey protect him, but you, my dear child, are fair game, the perfect tool to return your precious Melchazat to me. I will have him back, and have him back willingly, too. These other hostages only aroused his guilt and shame. But you -- for you he will renounce his dreams of humanity, and will stay with me, if only to keep you safe." He laughed, the sound full of crawling malevolence that made her shiver. "As for you -- you will stay here as my slave, to make certain he does not have second thoughts."

"Mel won't let you hurt me. He loves me," she cried defiantly, trying to kick him in the shins. But the Nikes she wore for her subway trip home weren't hard enough to harm the scaled monster, or even to irritate him very much. He simply held her out at arms' length and smiled at her.

"Yes, he does love you. Which is why you are the perfect hostage." He tossed her toward one of the other blue creatures, who caught her neatly after a heart-stopping moment. "Throw her in the cell with Venkman," he said. "Put them all in together. Let them offer each other their limited comfort, and share their worst fears and imaginings." He strode across the room and flung himself into a huge stone throne, gesturing disgustedly at her. "Away. Humans bore me."

The blue creature hauled her off, slung over one arm.

"Is Mel...really like you?" she ventured as they left the throne room.

"Silence!" It glanced uneasily over its shoulder.

She lowered her voice. "I mean, is this what he normally looks like?" It had to be a weird trick. It had to be.

The being walked along without answering, ducking into a narrow, descending passage. Then it spoke, its voice deeper than human, but not so rumbling as the bigger demon. "You know Melchazat?"

"Do you?"

"Once, he was my friend. I am Chandarl. But he chose to accept a new master, the one Astarine worshiped, the human Eddie. Melchazat renounced our world and went away to yours. I am told he assumed human form."

Oh, god, it was true, then. Was that why Mel had never told her the truth, fearing her revulsion, fearing she would finish their relationship? Could she love a blue creature like the one who carried her? Could Mel really be like that? It wasn't true. It couldn't be.

"What is it like?" Chandarl asked, an edge of wistfulness creeping into his voice. "Your world? Is it like here?"

"No!" Shivering, she tried to curl herself up into a small ball. To her astonishment, Chandarl put her down, took off the cape he wore, and draped it around her shoulders, tying it under her chin.

"For Melchazat," he informed her surprisingly. "Because he was my friend. "Is your world a good one?"

"Not all of it," she said. "But we're alive. We're human. We laugh and love. We might make mistakes, but we care. We have blue skies and music and sunshine. Mel loves me."

Chandarl rocked back on his heels, staring at her. "You are his mate?"

"He spoke of mates, too," she breathed. "Is that all it is to you, mating, rutting like animals? Don't you know about love?"

"No. Mating I know about. Sex. The humans in this realm do that. Did you mate with Melchazat?"

She shook her head. "No. Anyway, what business is it of yours?" This was insane. She must have passed out on the subway. It had to be a dream. It had to be.

"I wish I could see your world." Longing filled Chandarl's eyes. "Did Melchazat like it?"

She felt tears spring to her eyes. "He loved it. Every bit of it. It excited him. He learned how to read, he had his own car, we went to movies, we talked. Everything was new to him. He said it was like a miracle. Sometimes he was so happy. I think it was when he wouldn't let himself remember where he came from. Maybe he always feared he would have to come back."

For a moment, a wistful gleam flashed on the blue demon's face. Then he banished it. "Come, I must put you in the cell. But -- I would come back and talk to you of your world when I can steal away. May I?"

She suspected his offer was the only speck of kindness she would find in such a cold, desolate place. He wasn't Mel, but there was an edge of Mel's eagerness in the plea. Maybe even Skid Row was better than here, wherever here was. "Yes." If she was trapped here forever, she would need all the friends she could get. But, oh, it couldn't be real.

Scooping up a torch from a wall sconce, Chandarl guided her into a dark tunnel that sloped downward so steeply she had to mind her footing with great care. The demon held her arm, but his grip was not tight and cruel the way Borthardian's had been. He steadied her. Maybe if he had been Mel's friend, there was kindness in him, as there was in Mel. She hoped so. If so, maybe he could be persuaded to help her escape.

"Why should Mel have to come back?" she asked.

"Because he was Astarine's. Now that she is gone, Borthardian inherits her realm and all that is a part of it. Melchazat is a part of it, even though he fled to the human realm. If Borthardian doesn't get him back, he will lose face, and major demons don't like that."

"This is insane. Major demons, human realms? What is this place? It can't be real."

"It is called the Netherworld, and it is very real. You might call it hell, but that is just one name for it. I am told humans have twisted the concept into this place into a punishment for wickedness, but this place has always existed. Yes, lost souls often end here, but it is not the hell of your religious books. Humans do not burn here in eternal torment."

"But humans live here?"

"Some humans do. I have seen them, I have even talked to them. Melchazat and I were always interested in humans, though they live such puny lives."

"Puny?"

"So quickly lived and ended. We exist for centuries, millennia."

"Mel, too?" she gasped. This was so much to believe, too much. She could only keep talking, stunned and disbelieving. Maybe this was all a dream, a nightmare.

"In human form? If the change became permanent, he would live only a human span, I think. But it was not permanent. It was a shapeshift, Borthardian said."

"You mean all the time, when we were together, when he kissed me, he really looked like you?" It was too much to take in. She couldn't deal with it. She just couldn't.

"We can become human, forever. But it is so great a sacrifice for us, to give up so many centuries, that none will do it. I have never heard of a demon choosing to be human forever."

"If Mel changed, would Borthardian let him go?"

Chandarl stared at her in surprise, stopping dead in the passageway to ponder the question. Then he shook his head. "No, he would kill him. Melchazat only survives because he has retained his own identity. Once he made such a change, it would be permanent, and Borthardian would not tolerate it." He saw her shock and patted her kindly on the shoulder. "Come. I must put you in the cell and return to Borthardian. I do serve him, even if your kind interests me. I will not betray him to help you."

She had believed she expected that, but the finality of his words plunged her into depression. For a moment, she had believed she had found a friend. If he were Mel's friend, maybe he would help her for Mel's sake. But his words had killed that hope dead. Mel was kind, so it was understandable that his friend would be kind, too. But because Mel had departed didn't mean others of his kind would want the same thing.

She only knew she didn't mean to give up. If she were to be used as a tool against Mel, then she had to find a way to help him. She wasn't sure if she could accept the concept of Mel as a demon assuming human form, although it did explain everything that had seemed so odd about him.

Chandarl didn't give her time to ponder it. He plunged down the tunnel again, tugging her along with him, until it opened out into a wider passage. She could just see stone bars off to one side, a cell, a second one beyond it. "This is where you must stay," the demon told her. Waving his hand, he made the bars shift with an odd, creaking, grating sound, into a wider opening, then he tossed her through. "I will bring food later," he promised. A black man appeared beside him as from nowhere, and the demon pushed him into the cell, too, before adjusting the bars with one more wave of his hand. Without a backward glance, he hurried into the tunnel the way he had come.

Jackie shivered, pulling the cloak around her shoulders more tightly and turned to survey her prison.

Peter had been half dozing against the wall, huddled tightly into the stale, comfortless pallet, when he heard approaching footsteps. A rock demon, as big as Mel in his natural state, guided a cloaked figure into the passage outside the cells. Waving his hand, he made the bars draw back to open a narrow space that was just wide enough for a human to fit through and shoved the person in the cloak through. Peter tried to lunge to his feet, but he had to untangle himself first, and before he could do so, Jackson fell through the opening after the newcomer, clutching a thin blanket, and the bars sprang into place again with a groan of protesting stone. The demon promised food then whirled and departed.

"What the heck is going on here?" Peter demanded, staring.

The cloak went down and a familiar elfin face surrounded by a tangle of corn-yellow hair lifted to meet his. "Peter!" cried Jackie McFarland and flung herself into his arms, sobbing.

"Easy, easy," he soothed, stroking her hair, holding her close against the fear he could feel overwhelming her. "Jackie, it's all right. You're safe for now." As safe as anybody could be in the Netherworld, anyway. "What are you doing here?"

She quivered and shook against him but his words calmed her enough to struggle for control. Fighting back her tears, she nestled against his shoulder. "A horrible demon named Borthardian brought me here. Oh, Peter, he says Mel is a demon, too. Is he?" Drawing back just far enough to gaze up into his face, she waited expectantly.

"Well, yeah, he is," Peter admitted, knowing he couldn't lie to her any longer. The time for delay was past. "Only he's a good demon, who wants to be human and live in our world. He thought he could, too, until this Borthardian turkey decided he had to have Mel come back here in order to save face."

"And he brought us here as hostages to make Mel agree," Jackson put in, touching her arm with careful gentleness to avoid startling her. "Do you remember me, Jackie?"

Even though she wasn't thinking clearly yet, recognition filtered into her eyes. "You're Jackson MacKensie, aren't you?"

He nodded. "I've seen you at Malcolm's office. Don't worry. We won't let them get to you. Peter and I will protect you."

"I think they can do whatever they want," she said. As if admitting it, facing the possibility, calmed her, she straightened up, tugging the cloak more tightly against the drafty cell. "No wonder you didn't want to tell me about Mel when I came to your office."

"It wasn't that we didn't want to," Peter explained. "We just thought the truth would come better from him. It was his place to fill you in, but he'd always felt uncomfortable about explaining it to you. We went up to Segue to talk to him about it, but when I started talking to him, I guess old Borthy thought I was prying and he brought me here. Nasty guy. Nasty. He trashed Egon." For a moment he struggled with his anger and worry. "I was afraid he might bring you here but there wasn't anything I could do about it." He caught up Jackie's hands and gave squeezed them comfortingly. "Mel does love you," he said. "He was afraid to tell you the truth. He was working up to it but, lately, I think most of his hesitation was because he was afraid old Scales would consider you fair game. When Mel figured out he was probably gonna be yanked back here against his will, he decided he'd better break up with you. He was trying to protect you." He grinned at her as reassuringly as possible, even though he had no genuine reassurances for her. "Believe me, I'm an expert in affairs of the heart, and I know he's crazy about you. It's not enough, not the way things are going down, but he loves you."

"But if he's really a demon...." Her voice trailed off. She wasn't ready to finish that sentence yet. "What will Borthardian do to me?"

"I don't think he'll hurt you," Peter said. "But I think he'll threaten to hurt you, to make Mel choose to stay here voluntarily." This was definitely not the time to tell her what had happened to Egon.

"Choose to stay here?" Her eyes widened in horror. "He couldn't, could he?"

Jackson nodded solemnly. "If the choice was between leaving and having you die, I know he'd choose to stay here. I'd do it if he had my lady."

"Yeah, and we have to make sure he doesn't actually make that choice," Peter realized. "Because as soon as he says it, that's the bottom line. But Ray and Egon will know that and they'll warn him." He studied the cell, searching for amenities to offer her that just weren't there. "Come on and sit down on my rock. Did that big blue guy who brought you here mention food?"

Jackie started to sit on the small boulder then flinched as she noticed the skull and bones on the other side of the cell. Shrinking away from them, she hid her face in her hands.

"Come on, Jackie, don't be rude to my cellmate," Peter teased. "Old Bones is a decent guy. He doesn't fight me over the gruel and he lets me have all the bedding to myself."

She gave a sputter of nervous laughter. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be such a wreck, but -- but all this is new to me. I -- there's so much going on...."

"I know. I'm used to ghosts and demons and stuff, and I don't like it much either. And Jackson hates it here. The Plaza it's not. It's not even a Motel 6."

"What was it that demon said about food?" Jackson echoed Peter's earlier question. He had his priorities straight.

"Yes, he said he'd bring it. He was nice to me," she admitted.

"Sucker for a pretty face," Peter kidded her. "On the other hand, maybe you're their pin-up girl."

The idea made her shudder. That looked bad for Mel, but after all, she'd just found out the truth. It would take time for it to sink in. He changed his tone. "At least we'll get food out of it. We've been here for hours and Jackson's been here even longer and all he got was a bowl of gruel. What the heck is gruel anyway?"

"It's like cut-rate oatmeal, watered down, with about as much taste as stale cardboard," Jackson explained. "At least I hope those little lumps were oatmeal."

Peter grimaced. "Let's hope that blue guy brings us a better selection for dinner. Oatmeal's okay for breakfast, but I wouldn't say no to a big juicy steak and baked potato."

"Well, for steaks, they'd need cows here," Jackson began.

Peter jumped for him and slapped his hand over the drummer's mouth. "Let's not go on with that thought. It isn't my favorite, I can tell you, not when they'd probably feed us terror dog filets." He nodded down at Jackie, and MacKensie's eyes sharpened in realization.

"But maybe they'd have real steaks, imported just for us," he corrected hastily.

"Somebody's coming," Peter warned, gesturing for silence. Jackie jumped to her feet and the three of them turned in unison to face the newcomer.

It was another rock demon, maybe the same one for all Peter knew, but Jackie shook her head. "That's not the one who brought me," she said in an undertone.

The blue entity sat down cross-legged in front of the cell so he wouldn't have to bend to see them. "At least we don't all look alike to you," he told her.

"Which one are you?" she asked politely as if she'd met him at a cocktail party. Peter could sense her stress but she was struggling to hold onto her self-control, and he liked her for it. Curling his fingers around hers, he gave her hand a squeeze of encouragement.

"I am Dugross," the demon introduced himself. Peter could see he had a slightly crooked smile and a narrower brow with a tuft of black hair between his horns that jutted up like a topnotch. "You will tell me about the human realm." It was a request, but it was also almost a command.

"Why should we?" Peter challenged stubbornly. Giving information to the bad guys wasn't right up there in his list of smart things to do.

The demon bared his teeth in what must have been meant for a smile but didn't reassure any of them. Too many teeth. Too sharp, too pointed. "Chandarl told me what the female said. It interested me. I like music, and he said there was music there. We heard the music of the Eddie when Astarine was here and we liked it, some of us. Music is rare there, isn't it?"

"No, there's always music," Jackson explained. "Any radio can play music, and sometimes there are street musicians and people can go to concerts or just sing. Our world is full of music. Some is good and some isn't so good, but I can't imagine even one day going by when I don't hear music. They even play it in the background on TV shows and movies."

Dugross heaved a wistful sigh that lifted his massive shoulders. "Anyone can listen?" he asked hopefully.

"Well, if you show up in your true form, you'll probably scare the musicians," Peter pointed out. "Most people aren't used to blue folks. Call it a flaw in character, but that's the way we are."

"We frighten you." For a moment, Dugross sounded pleased at the thought, but then he controlled his features and tried to appear pleasant. It didn't take, but it was a good sign. "Tell us what a typical day is like for you."

"'Us'?" Peter echoed. This didn't sound good.

Dugross gestured. Blue faces peeked out of the shadows, all of them decidedly hungry. Controlling the shiver that ran through him, Peter narrowed his eyes. These guys were hung up on finding out about life in the Big Apple. Well, maybe he could understand that. If this place was the alternative, even a homeless shelter had more going for it. Better not to alienate these clowns. If he could get them to be a little more sympathetic, maybe they'd get better treatment, blankets to keep them warm, hot food. He might even con one of them into freeing them.

So he settled back with his pallet and grinned. "Well, the guys get up early, but I sleep in. It's nice and warm and cozy and by the time I'm up, there's hot coffee going, and a great breakfast. Ray or Winston usually fix a pretty decent spread. So then I get up and have a nice, hot shower. You like music? Well, anybody sounds good when he sings in the shower. Winston has his radio on a lot, so we get lots of music. Ray likes cartoons, and they always have music playing in the background. You know about television?"

Blank faces stared back.

So they lived in a state of deprivation. Peter would enjoy making them envious of his world. "Oh, good," he said, and plunged into a lengthy discussion of the joys of the tube. He could see their faces fill with wistful incomprehension, and kept on talking. Once he got started, the guys always said it was hard to stop him.

"And anyone can watch this television?" came a voice out of the shadows.

"Oh, yeah, if you own a set. And if you don't, you can hang out at stores where they're sold and watch for awhile or go to a bar where they have one playing. And then there's movies, like TV, only bigger. A whole wall with a picture on it, people talking, music all the time, sometimes even singing and dancing. And the theater. I bet you'd like that. Go to a musical." He nudged the musician. "Sing for them, Jackson."

MacKensie threw him a you-must-be-kidding glance, but when Peter nodded encouragingly, he opened his mouth and sang Amazing Grace in a pure, mellow tenor. All around them came sighs of demon rapture. Even Jackie lost some of her tension as the music poured out. It was the first pleasant moment since Peter had arrived.

Abruptly, the demons scattered. Peter heard a soft, scurrying sound in the shadows, and then they were gone. Dugross leaped to his feet, gazing around wildly, too late to run as Borthardian strode into the tunnel. He didn't stoop down to put himself at the humans' level. Instead he bellowed a harsh command in a language Peter had never heard before and the rock demon cringed and muttered a justification in the same tongue. Annoyed, Borthardian waved a huge hand at him. Face twisted with pain, Dugross slunk away, head bowed.

"No singing," Borthardian commanded. "Any more singing and I will take away your voice. Don't think I couldn't do it, either. He made a hasty hand gesture and Jackson gulped, gasped, and clawed at his throat. A harsh croak emerged, the sound so ugly that stark panic flashed in MacKensie's eyes.

Borthardian released him and he gasped for breath. "I...won't sing," he gasped, relief flashing in his voice when he realized he sounded like himself. That harsh crow of grating noise had frightened him more than anything else that had happened to him.

"I could destroy your hands, too, so remember that, drummer." Borthardian's smirk twisted his ugly face.

Jackson met his gaze with defiance, and Peter poked him in the side to warn him not to take a stand now. There would be better times later. Sure to be. MacKensie bowed his head as if in compliance and didn't speak.

"Better. Astarine was far too lenient with her slaves. I am not lenient. And you are not even slaves. You are prisoners." He turned to go.

"Uh, your excellency?" Peter called, collecting his nerve to call attention to himself although he would rather huddle up in a corner of the cell and hope the demon overlooked him entirely. "What about Egon? Is he okay now?" He had to know. He didn't even want to think about what Borthardian would threaten to destroy of his, but that didn't matter. He couldn't wait any longer to find out.

"Egon? Oh, the blond one?" Borthardian yawned impatiently, exposing all those nasty teeth. "He died. I sometimes forget how fragile you humans are."

A giant invisible hand clutched Peter's heart. "He can't be dead," Venkman yelled as the purple entity walked away. "You're lying! I know you're lying!"

"His heart gave out from the pain," Borthardian replied, voice full of unconcern and boredom. Lifting a hand, he snapped his fingers, vanishing without a trace.

Peter sat down abruptly on the rocky floor and didn't even notice how it jarred.

"He's lying," Jackson said hastily. "Come on, Pete, you know he's lying. He's trying to demoralize us."

Trying? Succeeding. Peter shuddered. Egon couldn't be gone just like that? His heart was strong. Pain like that wouldn't be enough to kill him. Borthardian had to be lying. He'd want his prisoners to suffer, to feel as miserable and hopeless as possible. This was so far beyond bad Peter couldn't even think it. His stomach twisted up so tightly he was afraid he'd throw up. It wasn't true. He couldn't even bear imagining life without Egon in it, and to die so pointlessly....

Rage took over, a fury so intense he could almost feel the blood charging through his veins. He'd get Borthardian for this, he'd take him down, he'd destroy him so thoroughly there wouldn't even be a memory of him left! Jumping to his feet, Peter lunged for the bars that imprisoned them, half-certain he could plow right through them on the strength of his hatred for the demon. Raising his voice, he yelled so fiercely the words tore at his throat, "I'm gonna trap you. I'm gonna zap you so hard all your molecules will scatter. You're toast, do you hear me. Toast!"

The burst of blind rage wasn't nearly enough to sustain him. Unable to cling to his wrath in the face of his overwhelming desolation, he stood hanging onto the bars, his fingers clutching the stone so tightly the rough surface dug into the palms of his hands. Bowing his head, he leaned his forehead against one of the bars and closed his eyes, the prison bars the only thing holding him up. "You're alive, Egon," he breathed. "I know you are. Don't you dare leave me alone like this!"

Jackie edged in beside him and slid her arm around his waist while MacKensie uncurled his hands from the bars and led him over to the boulder. They sat him down and draped his pallet around his shoulders, but their concern and the reassuring words they offered couldn't begin to fill the emptiness in his heart. If Egon was gone forever....

Peter threw his head back and yelled at the top of his lungs, "Eeeeegonnnnn!"

Winston screeched Ecto-1 to a reckless halt in the garage of Ecto. It wasn't a neat parking job, but he didn't care. He'd run the siren all the way down to the city, and not even the state troopers had tried to stop him. Shaving nearly half an hour off the time he'd projected, he had a lot of work to do and no time to do it in. When he bounded out of the car, Janine came around her desk and hurried to meet him, her heels clicking on the concrete floor.

She dropped her hand on his arm, alarm flaring on her face at the sight of his tight-lipped urgency. "What's wrong, Winston? Where are the others? Are they in trouble? Is Egon -- "

"Nobody's hurt, girlfriend, at least not that I know of," he explained hastily. "But Peter got zapped over into the Netherworld and I need that gizmo of Egon's so we can go after him and bring him back." He grabbed his proton pack and slung it over his shoulder before he started for the stairs. "Come on, I'll explain on the way."

"I thought you were going up to Segue so Peter could play matchmaker," Janine objected. "Not for anything like this. What went wrong?"

Winston explained as quickly as he could. By the time he had finished, the two of them had reached the lab.

"So this Borthardian character wants to have Mel back," she said, face wrinkled into a frown. "And he took Dr. V to try to get Mel to do what he wants? You'd think he'd have taken Eddie, or Mel's girlfriend."

Winston dug into the equipment, hauling out what he needed. "He can't take Eddie. The people who live at Segue are out of bounds." He snapped his fingers. "That reminds me. You call Jackie and warn her to be on her toes. Maybe she should come over here and keep you company."

"Oh, no." Janine tapped her toe impatiently against the floor. "I'll call and warn her, but I'm going with you. Who's going to help save Peter? I can wear a pack. You can have Eddie trigger the button to send us over there, but I'm coming too. Peter's in trouble and I know Egon and Ray are in trouble, too. You need everybody you can get. Can't we set up the molecular phase amplifier here and go over to join them right now?"

"Egon said it wouldn't take us to the right place, because the gateway opened there, not here. The Netherworld's too big for us to take a chance we'd hit the wrong spot. We had to hunt for Egon for a long time when we went over there the first time, and at least he'd been transported in the same city. Segue's just too far away. Even assuming there are corresponding places between here and there, we don't have any guarantees."

"Last time you used that gizmo you went right to Astarine's Keep," Janine reminded him as he worked. "Wouldn't you again? Nobody's messed with the settings or anything, as far as I know unless you popped over a time or two and nobody told me about it." Her accusing glare said that nobody had better have done any such thing.

"No, we haven't used it since then. Last time, though, Ray was here to configure the equipment. They said it would work best if we took it up there. But you're right, last time, it took us right there. We could take a quick peek on the other side and see how close we could get. It wouldn't take more than ten minutes to set it up. I'll do it -- if we can get there sooner, I'm all for it. You call Jackie and warn her while I get ready." He wasn't sure what they could do to protect Jackie -- even with the other Ghostbusters nearby, they hadn't been able to prevent Peter from being taken. Of course they had been given no warning when Peter was snatched. Now they knew.

Janine raced to the phone and called a number. He heard her muttering, "Pick up," but got no answer. "Rats. She isn't at her office any more." Grabbing the phone directory she flipped through it. "She's not listed in Manhattan."

"I think she lives in Brooklyn," Winston muttered without stopping his work. After a minute, Janine dialed a second time. And waited.

"Jackie? This is Janine Melnitz, the Ghostbusters' secretary. Call Ghostbuster Central as soon as you get home. It's 555-BUST. This is urgent." Dropping the receiver in the cradle, she turned to Winston. "Just the answering machine. Are you ready?"

"Yeah, but only one of us can go." Winston shoved transport bracelets into his pockets. He wasn't sure how many he'd need, but he took all they had, eight, so far. Egon had reasoned that they might need more than one apiece and it never did to run short in a crisis. "And it better be me." He put on his proton pack and fastened one of the bracelets around his wrist. "Man, I'm glad Ray and Egon designed that auto-recall, so we don't have to wait a specified time to come back."

"You can't go over there all alone, Winston. Something nasty could grab you for a snack and we'd never know what happened. You couldn't help Dr. Venkman that way."

"Somebody has to trigger this thing," he reminded her.

They stared at each other in realization, then Janine stuck two fingers into her mouth and emitted a shrill, piercing whistle. "Slimer! Front and center!" She opened a locker and took out the jumpsuit she kept at headquarters.

"You've gotta be kidding!"

"Slimer actually likes Dr. Venkman. All he has to do is push a button. We'll come back automatically. What's the harm?" She slid her legs into the jumpsuit and pulled it on over her skirt and blouse, zipping it up with determination, then she kicked off her shoes and reached for her boots.

Winston had to admit she had an excellent point. If they could get to the Netherworld faster to help Egon and rescue Peter, it didn't matter who pushed the button; the spud could do it just fine, since he didn't have to follow up with any further actions to bring them back. Of course, if Slimer wasn't home....

With a squishy pop of sound, Slimer oozed up through the floor and hung in front of them, babbling happily and chortling to himself. He threw a sketchy salute that sent ectoplasm flying in all directions. "Aye, aye, Janine!"

"Slimer, we need help," Winston said, grabbing the little ghost's wrist and dragging him over to the device, while he wiped slime from his forehead with the other hand. "We have to go over to the Netherworld -- "

With a panicked shriek, the green spirit squirted out of Winston's grasp and shot up to the ceiling, where he hovered, quivering. "Slimer not go there," he burbled.

"You don't have to go. We're going," Janine told him sternly finishing with the boots and fetching the spare proton pack that was always kept in the lab. "All you have to do is push the button. Get down here right now or I'll revoke your dinner privileges -- for an entire month." She put the pack on and fastened the buckle across her stomach.

The threat daunted him, but he hesitated nervously. "Slimer not go?"

"No, you stay here, Spud," Winston reassured him, squashing down his impatience. Slimer operated at his own speed and if he pushed too hard, the little ghost might take off, leaving them with no means of transition. "You just have to send us over there. Remember? Like Janine did when we went to rescue Egon. Come on, Slimer, Peter needs help right away. He's a prisoner over there and we have to help him."

Slowly, the ghost sank down to eye level. "Petaw in trouble?" he ventured, eyes wide with alarm. "Slimer help." Rethinking the offer, he concluded, "Not go to Netherworld."

"It's okay, Spud. All you have to do is push this button." He pointed at it. "When I tell you to, you push it and it will send Janine and me over. Then you can stay here and watch after headquarters for us," Winston assured him, patting the ghost on the head. When Slimer wasn't watching, he wiped his hand on the leg of his jumpsuit. "We've got bracelets and they'll bring us back when we push a button over there."

"Okey dokey, Winston," Slimer agreed, zipping over to the device and sniffing at it suspiciously, ready to flee if it did anything unnatural. "Just say when."

"Wait a second." Zeddemore pulled Janine over to join him, grabbing up a P.K.E. meter from the table and setting it to read Peter's biorhythms. Ever since the Crime Lord had kidnapped Janine and they'd used her biorhythms to track her down, Egon had configured those readings for each of them into every meters. The range wasn't great, but at least they'd be able to tell if they were in the ball park. "Okay, Slimer, go."

Obediently, the little green ghost pressed his finger down on the button and an arc of glowing light shot out to envelop them. When the glow faded, Winston and Janine were in the Netherworld.

Janine blinked, her fingers tightening on the handle of her thrower, frowning at the desolate landscape that spread out before them. "You didn't tell me I'd need a coat," she objected. "What a fixer-upper."

"Yeah, it's not exactly on the top ten list for vacation getaways." He surveyed the terrain. It was gloomy, rocky, and barren, the wind howling in between spires of jagged rocks and boulders big enough to flatten Ecto-1. Rising at their back, a serrated range of mountains shot up endlessly into the churning sky, where thunder muttered sullenly and lightning sizzled like sparks from a short-circuit in an electrical outlet. Either a big storm was building or this was the remains of a bad one that they'd been lucky enough to miss.

Off to the left, a grove of scraggly trees grew only few feet taller than Winston, their leaves spiky and sharp enough to slash unwary flesh. Beyond them, heading away from the mountains, the land rose steeply into a jagged ridge of ground that blocked their view of what lay beyond it. In that direction, when Winston activated the P.K.E. meter, a faint beeping sounded from the detection device.

"Is it Peter?" Janine asked, leaning against his arm to study the screen.

He squinted at the readings in the murky light. They seemed right but they were faint enough that it wasn't possible to be entirely certain. "I think so. Come on, girlfriend." He took her arm and pulled her along with him, detouring around the ominous copse and choosing the easiest path up the slope. "No, hold back. Don't stand outlined against the sky. You don't want anybody to see you" Dropping to his hands and knees, he crawled the last few feet and, lying flat, peered over the edge of the ridge, conscious of Janine wiggling into place beside him.

Below them, down the endless slope of a rising foothill, lay the tall spires of Astarine's Keep. They were too far away to see details of the beings that milled around the gateway, but close enough to see they were big and blue. Rock demons, on guard against invaders, formed a double row up the ramp that led to the distant opening.

"Whoa, they're waiting for us," Winston muttered in dismay. "Two of us won't get past that army." He arched up long enough to pull the field glasses from his belt and held them up to his eyes. Ten of the demons. Wonderful. "We'll have to find another way in. The only good thing is, they don't seem to know we're here."

Working his way backward far enough that he could sit up without exposing his profile above the lip of the ridge, Winston aimed the meter in that direction. "It really is Peter," he exulted. "He's about at maximum range, and this meter's at top gain. The reading's so fuzzy I think he's underground. Tolay's dungeon was under the keep, but we were lucky there. We found Hieronymous and he showed us a secret way in. I don't think we'll do that well here, but if we can work our way around and slide down the slope over to the east -- " He gestured, frowning. "Well, I think it's east. If it's late afternoon here, then it's probably west."

"Won't they see us?" she asked warily. "What about Egon and Ray? They'll expect you to come from Eddie's."

"Doesn't matter where we came from, as long as we're here and can meet up with them. Let me check." He turned the dials on the meter, punching up Egon's biorhythms. Nothing.

"I just know Egon's in trouble," Janine blurted in alarm, clutching Winston's arm. "You don't think Mel turned them in, do you?"

Winston hadn't even given that option a thought, but maybe Mel had been forced to surrender his friends. Maybe they'd already been caught -- only, if so, why didn't their readings show up down there with Peter? He set the meter for Ray but he wasn't within meter range either. "Not if he could help it," he answered Janine's question. "For all I know, they're over on the other side of the keep." He waved his hand in that direction. "We can barely read Peter in there. We'd never be able to pick up anybody across those foothills."

"Then we better get down and see if we can get Peter out of there," Janine decided. "I wonder if I can convince him to give me a raise for this?" Her worry for Egon shone in her eyes, but she was too tough to give up simply because they couldn't detect him yet. She let Winston haul her to her feet and the two of them started back down the slope so they could work their way over to better cover without being spotted. Turning off the meter, he stuck it into the front of his jumpsuit for safety. When they neared the keep, they'd take more readings.

"We're not getting any closer, are we?" Ray stopped walking and scratched his head. "Look at that. The keep isn't any nearer and we've been walking for over an hour."

"I believe you are correct, Ray." Egon took another reading. He'd been taking them all along, and they would seem to strengthen, then fade. The keep was always in front of them, and sometimes they appeared to gain on it, but other times a rocky ridge would impose itself between them and their destination and, when they moved past it, the keep would be more remote. Walking had eased the stiffness in Spengler's joints that had lingered after the demon-inflicted bout of pain, but the unpleasant tightness hadn't entirely gone away. He'd likely be sore for days, but the thought of stopping to rest would never have occurred to him. They had to reach the keep and rescue Peter. That was the bottom line and, as long as he could walk at all, Egon meant to continue. He knew Ray felt the same.

"You think Borthardian is doing it, moving the keep?" Ray's eyes widened. "Wow, he must be powerful."

Mel raised his hand like a grade-school student offering an answer in class. "More likely he's moving us," he ventured. "He's powerful enough to do that. He knows we're here. He could be playing with us, keeping us from getting closer in order to prove how powerful he is."

"Rats," muttered Egon. Would he and Ray be able to make better progress without Mel? Did the demon draw attention to them like a flare? How could they help Peter if they couldn't even get to him?

"Is there any way you can levitate us directly there?" Ray asked hopefully. "We've gotta get to the keep and rescue Peter. This isn't doing us any good."

"I could try," Mel offered doubtfully. "When I brought us here, I meant to bring us closer to the keep on a sheltered side where we wouldn't be noticed right away. But I wound up far away. Think he's trying to make it as hard for us as he can."

Ray sat down on a rocky ledge and squinted at the distant fortress. "But he wants you there, doesn't he?" he persisted."Gosh, he might have put a spell of repulsion on the place to keep us out. How are we ever gonna rescue Peter?"

"Surely he would want Mel there," Egon disagreed. "He wouldn't waste energy on a spell when it would be easier for him to shift us. There must be a way around it. We got there easily when we were searching for Cy, when Astarine kidnapped him."

Mel stared at the keep, eyes huge and miserable. It couldn't be enjoyable to see the place that had once been his prison and might well become so again. "I'll try," he volunteered. Grabbing each man's wrist, he closed his eyes. "We'll go now."

The desolate scene blacked out and Egon felt a weird sensation of motion although, without vision to accompany it, it was hard to tell how fast they were moving or in what direction. Suddenly they jerked sideways as if they had rebounded off a solid surface, and they crashed to the ground in a tumble of arms and legs. Vision returned slowly, revealing a different section of the Netherworld, steeper and even more rocky. The P.K.E. meter squirted from Egon's hands at the force of the fall and he scrambled after it on his hands and knees, snatching it before Ray's startled cry made him lift his head to survey the terrain more fully.

They had moved, all right. Now the keep was off to their left, and far below them. They lay sprawled on a ledge high up on the face of a stark and jagged mountain. Below them, the ground dropped dizzyingly away in one vast plunge to a slope of foothills that lifted from the distant plain. The precipice was too steep to descend without mountaineering equipment or, at the very least, long ropes.

"Well, that didn't work," Egon muttered in disgust, drawing back from the edge. The drop was far higher than the one off the World Trade Center. "It's obvious now. Borthardian is keeping us away. Now, how to deal with that problem?" He pursed his lips and wrinkled his brow as he considered.

"Knows I'm here," Mel said remorsefully. "I'm keeping you from Peter. He's trying to prove to me how he can control me. Maybe if I just said I'd stay -- "

"No," hollered Ray, bouncing to his feet and waving his arms wildly to abort the words. "Mel, listen to me. You can't say that. Once you've said it, that's final. You'd be bound. He's playing by his rules, and they're nasty rules, but the only way to win is for us not to break them or even buy into them. I know you think you might have to stay, but don't give up yet. We still have some options, but once you give up and promise to stay here, then it's all over. And you don't even know if he'd let his hostages go if you did it. Don't risk yourself -- and Peter -- until we have more information."

"He's right, Mel," Egon replied. "So far Borthardian hasn't done much to us. Once you agree to his terms, there's nothing more to be said."

Mel shifted uncomfortably, staring at the distant keep. "But he took Peter away, and probably Jackson, too, and he hurt you." He patted Egon on the top of his head. "Don't want him to hurt anybody else, not for me. I'd rather be stuck here forever than have somebody die for me." Misery filled his eyes, but it was backed by determination.

"Don't you see, Mel?" Ray proclaimed earnestly, beaming at the demon, "that's why you have to hold on as long as you can. You're just proved you're worth saving. Giving up would be the easy way out for all of us, but you deserve better than that."

"I'm not hurt, either," Egon reminded Mel. "It wasn't pleasant, and I'd prefer not to repeat the experience, but I don't think we should give up until we exhaust every option. Perhaps we can configure a meter to project a protection field around us so Borthardian will be unable to see us. If we did it right, he might believe we had given up and gone home or that you had sent us back."

Mel gestured wildly. "If we go home, he'd kill Peter. Borthardian would think I'd chosen to defy him. He'd have no reason to keep Peter alive if I left."

Ray's eyes widened in horrified realization. "He's right, Egon. We could disappear and he'd just thing we're sneaky, but we can't let him think we've given up and gone home."

"Then we'll simply shield ourselves from him. If we do that, we might be able to get closer to the keep." He sat cross-legged in the dust and pulled tools from his pocket, opening the casing of the P.K.E. meter. "If I connect this temporarily to your pack for additional energy, Ray, I think I can create a force field around us long enough for Mel to transport us down to the lower levels. I don't want to use my own because it's the destabilizer and we might need that more than a standard thrower. If it worked, we'd be inside the range of Borthardian's blockage and, if we're lucky, he won't realize it immediately."

"Might work," Mel lauded, beaming at Egon. "He wouldn't pay attention to anything already inside the perimeter. He'd think we're still out there, trying to get in."

Ray stood behind Egon, peering over his shoulder. "Wow, Egon, that's a great idea. I didn't know you knew how to design force fields."

"I never have, other than the protection field we designed around the containment unit, and that's not a conventional force field," Egon conceded. "When Dr. Destructo blocked us from entering our headquarters with a force field, I considered the possibility of designing one of our own. That one wasn't scientifically accurate and didn't work according to the laws of conventional physics. Len Wolfman simply created a comic book force field, using technobabble, and designed a device to take it down. Once we were no longer dealing with comic book characters like Captain Steel and Dr. Destructo, I couldn't use any of that equipment, although the device Wolfman designed was left behind at the firehall when we returned Captain Steel to him so he could re-enter the comic book."

Ray's eyes widened and he snapped his fingers in realization. "Gosh, I forgot about that. But it wouldn't have worked anymore, would it?"

"It 'worked,' as you put it for nearly a week," Egon replied, "long enough for me to take it apart and study its components to determine if there was anything inside there that might actually work. Very little proved useful, but there was enough for me to formulate a theory. Once I adapted its principles to fit within the parameters of ectoplasmic physics, it was simple to design a field that would work within the boundaries of conventional physics. There was rarely time to work on it, and in the end, I put it aside, knowing that, one day, I might enjoy designing it. I can remember enough to create an adaptation."

"Do you need me to help?" Ray volunteered excitedly.

"Not yet, but I will before I'm done. Scan for Peter again, or at least for human biorhythms. We aren't close enough to the keep to determine if the readings we picked up are actually his and I would very much like to establish his presence."

"Okay." Ray edged over to the cliff and lay flat on his stomach in front of it, holding out his meter to check for what he could. When the detection device beeped sharply, Egon nearly dropped his screwdriver. He hadn't expected such a strong reaction.

"It's not Peter," Ray said in disappointment. "But it's a human reading. No, it's two human readings. Down there." He jerked his thumb down toward the bottom of the vast precipice. "Let me check. It's -- oh, gee, Egon, you're not gonna believe this. It's Winston and Janine."

Janine? Here? "It can't be!" Egon insisted sharply. He hadn't meant their secretary to risk herself in this place. "It's too soon. Winston wouldn't have had time to return to Segue yet."

"He must have tried to activate back at headquarters just to see if he could," Ray decided, fine-tuning the meter. "It might have brought him here because that's where we came the last time we used the molecular phase amplifier."

Egon slapped his forehead. "That's so simple I'm disgusted I didn't realize it. Of course we had no way of knowing we would come here, but it was prudent for Winston to attempt it. Had he arrived at the wrong location, he could have always taken the device to Eddie's." Egon joined Ray at the cliff edge and Mel flopped down beside him, staring over the drop at the bunched foothills below. The distance was too great and the lighting too dim to see movement on the lower slopes. Evening was closing in. They had to get down there before full dark.

"I've got it!" exulted Ray, grabbing his walkie talkie off his belt and activating it. "Winston! Janine! Do you read me? It's Ray. Do you read me?" He crossed his fingers and held his breath as though he believed such actions would win him a quicker response.

"Ray?" Winston's filtered voice echoed from the device. "Oh, man, it's good to hear your voice. Where are you, homeboy?"

"We're right above you. You're as clear as anything in our readings. We can't get down to you because the demon is blocking us. We're afraid Borthardian knows where Mel is and won't let him bring us closer." Quickly, he explained their futile attempts to reach Astarine's Keep.

"Got you on the meter," Winston exulted. "We couldn't a minute ago. Did you just take a big location jump or were you shielded before?"

"Mel transferred us to where we are now, high up on a mountain," Egon explained. "However, you seem to be within range of us. Are you able to detect Peter?"

"Egon, we're reading him," Janine intervened excitedly. "We picked him up. He's down there in that awful place. He's alive."

For a moment, Egon closed his eyes in relief. His readings might have indicated a small group of human prisoners, possibly Jackson MacKensie, or slaves of the demon. Now that he knew Peter was alive, it was all the more imperative to get down to him.

"Egon's working on a way to shift us down to you," Ray said excitedly. "Give us a few minutes. Janine, have you got a pack and thrower?"

"You bet I do. We're gonna get Dr. V back, Egon, and teach this two-bit demon a lesson in the process." He heard the encouragement in her voice and smiled faintly.

"Then I must finish designing the force field," he decided. "I hope we can be with you soon."

"We'll scout around," Winston said. "Because there are a bunch of those big, blue guys guarding the main entrance, and there's no Hieronymous here to sneak us into the dungeons the back way."

"Hurry, Egon," Janine encouraged.

"We'll be with you as soon as possible."

Chandarl kept his word and brought food to the prisoners in the dungeon. It was about as far from filet mignon as it was possible to get, but it was tastier, said Jackson, than the gruel he had been given for breakfast. A thin stew, it was laden with small chunks of 'mystery meat' and bigger chunks of greyish tubers that tasted vaguely like potatoes. Only the need to keep up his strength so he'd be ready to take out Borthardian enabled Peter to force the meal down. Even then, his stomach wasn't sure it would cooperate. He swallowed some of the water the demon had toted in a big pail, ladling it up with a scoop that the three of them had to share.

"This place is no five star restaurant," he grumbled, but it was a halfhearted grumble. Keeping up his spirits was difficult, and only the determination to revenge himself on Borthardian and rescue Jackie and MacKensie kept him going.

"Not even one star." MacKensie spooned up another mouthful and chewed reluctantly. "I just keep saying, 'it's better than breakfast. It's better than breakfast.'"

"Then I hope I'm out of here before the wake-up call," Peter muttered. Out of here to a world without Egon in it. Unless Borthardian had lied. It was like the demon to have faked him out. That's what demons did. They equivocated and schemed and deceived. It would have amused Borthardian to demoralize his prisoners. Peter could have believed that more easily if he hadn't seen Egon thrashing in the dust, screaming in agony. Egon wasn't a noisy sufferer, as a rule. He might yell when he was startled, but a pain strong enough to force those tortured sounds from his mouth had to have been extreme. Guys their age could die of heart attacks, even guys as fit as the four of them. Borthardian's claim could be true. Peter had a sudden mental image of a stricken Ray kneeling beside Egon's body with only Mel for company, and he closed his eyes, his fingers tightening on the handle of the ladle.

Jackie touched his hand, startling him as she knelt at his side. "Don't believe him," she offered. "He wants us to be upset and miserable. You know he does."

"She's right," MacKensie jumped in. "I've been thinking about it, and I believe it was a lie. He didn't offer the information until you asked. If he'd really killed Egon, he would have rubbed your nose in it the minute he appeared so he could revel in watching you suffer. Causing the pain didn't mean anything to him so he forgot all about it. When you asked, he saw that he could trash you and he threw it in."

That made so much sense Peter instinctively distrusted the reasoning. Accepting it because it was what he wanted to hear wouldn't help in the long run. "I appreciate it, people," he said. "But we don't know. Unless...." He caught the eye of Chandarl, who hovered on the other side of the bars watching them. "Do you know?"

The demon shook his head. "He doesn't tell us things like that. Either could be true. He might tell his own demons -- he brought a couple with him when he came here, and they're not very friendly with the rest of us. If I asked them, they'd tell him I asked, and that wouldn't help because he wouldn't allow me to tell you. He controls us."

"Not entirely," Jackie put in. She still sounded nervous at addressing a demon. Peter suspected that every time she saw one of the rock demons, she did a double-take, thinking of the 'man' she loved. Had her love for Mel survived the shock of her imprisonment? Peter wasn't sure. It was too soon to tell if any of them would even survive. Peter might see Egon sooner than he expected -- on the other side.

"What do you mean, not entirely?" the musician asked, turning to stare at her.

She ventured a faint smile, glancing nervously at Chandarl. "All those demons, hovering around, listening to you sing. Don't you see? Maybe Borthardian can make them do things, but he can't control the way they feel."

"I don't know about you guys, but making demons feel good about themselves isn't exactly my first priority," Peter griped. He put the ladle back and picked up his stew bowl, although he had no appetite.

"If Borthardian can't control their thoughts, maybe they could find out about Egon," Jackie persisted stubbornly. "I honestly think he just said what he knew would hurt you most. That doesn't make it true."

God, he wanted to believe her. If he did, and Borthardian had meant it, the hope would die so fast it would tear him up. Not that he didn't feel an ache of misery already. Life without Egon... No, don't think about it, Peter, he told himself. Figure out how to get out of here. Maybe Jackie had a good idea.

Peter pushed himself to his feet. It was hard to find the energy to do that; the threat of Egon's death loomed over everything else. Still, protecting Jackie and MacKensie was his responsibility. He was the only Ghostbuster here. So Peter came face to face with the blue demon, who sat cross-legged watching them. "Hey, bunky, do you guys really want to serve Old Scales? Or are you just stuck with it?"

"It is the nature of my kind to serve the more powerful demons," Chandarl admitted. "They can control us, make us do their bidding, but if we serve them, then they protect us from other powerful beings who would harm us."

"That's all you get out of it? Protection?"

Chandarl spread his huge hands in resignation. "It's a lot when you have to face beings like Tolay and other really powerful demons."

"You can't just gang up and protect yourself? My buddies and I are a team. When we have to face a nasty gooper, we work together." Together? Without Egon? Once he was free, he could mourn for Egon, and avenge him. The grief might be premature -- god, let it be premature -- but it flowed through him like a raging torrent. He collected himself sternly. Sorry, Egon. I'll have to do this first. It doesn't mean I don't care.... Egon would know that, of course. He always understood Peter better than anyone else did, even the sympathetic Ray and the practical Winston.

"Everybody would have to agree to that," Chandarl said. "We're not exactly what you'd call nice guys or team players. We're too used to jumping when a major demon snaps his fingers."

It was a good thought, anyway. Peter sat down in front of the bars. "What are you doing here anyway? You brought us our food. Does he want you to stay and spy on us?"

"He will ask what you talked about," Chandarl admitted. "And I will tell him. I have to."

So escape plans were out of the picture, at least while one of the blue characters lurked. Peter suspected more of them waited in the darkness beyond the torches' circle of light. Recruitment speeches probably wouldn't go over well either. Unless they were prepared to stare at each other in silence, a non-productive undertaking if ever there was one, they'd have to talk about things that didn't really matter. If it was boring enough, the demons might give up and go away. Chandarl seemed disposed to be friendly, and Peter wanted to take advantage of that. But what could he get out of the rock demon? If he persisted about Egon, Borthardian would know. Should Jackson be right that Egon was alive after all, talking about it would only make the head demon decide to make his word good. Egon couldn't be mentioned. We won't forget you, big fella, Peter thought sadly.

"Then how about life in the Big Apple?" he offered. "I've gotta say even the crummiest parts of the city have this beat. I'd take Skid Row over this."

"Is it always so cold here?" Jackie shivered in the cloak the demon had given her. It was big enough to shelter two people. She'd urged Jackson closer and the two of them sat side by side, wrapped in its warmth. There was even room for Peter. She motioned for him to join them, and he slid in beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist and settling the edge of the cloak over his shoulders.

"Is it warmer where you live?" the demon countered.

"The weather changes," she said. "Sometimes it's far colder than this, with snow and ice, but once we go into our homes or buildings, they're warm and we're comfortable. I can look out the window at a snowstorm and be perfectly happy. My apartment building is really old and it's got fireplaces in most of the apartments. I can curl up on a cold day, sipping hot apple cider, and watch the fire while I listen to classical music. Mel always liked that. We'd cuddle on the couch and just talk and listen to music." Her voice faltered for a moment, remembering what Mel really looked like.

But Chandarl stared at her, his eyes huge and wistful. "You were happy, doing that?"

"Yes. Mel was always kind to me, and funny, and we laughed a lot. He had so much to learn about the world. Now I know why. But he loved it. He could read any book he wanted, watch films, learn about things, laugh over some of our sillier customs."

The demon's eyes widened, glowing vivid yellow. "Read books? Mel can read?"

"He had to learn once he came, but he learned. We just finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird together. We'd read it out loud to each other."

"Egon reads out loud, too," Peter said involuntarily. "Only he reads formulas and stuff about mold. He'd probably like that corner of the cell back there. It sure smells moldy enough." He swallowed hard. "Winston's into mysteries. He always figures out 'whodunit' before he gets to the end of the book, and he likes us to know it. He usually goes over all the clues when it hits him and makes us listen. Ray likes comic books. You'd think he was a little kid, the way he collects them. He reads parts of them to us out loud. I've gotta say I'm not much into comics, but Ray has fun with 'em."

"He's the eager one," Jackson remembered. "We got talking backstage that time. He was telling me what your job was like. I've gotta say, I thought it would be the last thing I'd ever want to do, but he was so excited about it."

"Yeah, it's a great world because there are people like Ray in it," Peter said, closing his eyes, letting the warmth of shared body heat and his memories ease his chilled heart. "I think being Ray means that every day is your birthday. He never meets a stranger. They're all just friends he hasn't gotten around to talking to yet. It's hard to imagine him turning out like that, after he lost his folks when he was little and never really had a good time in his hometown. Ray's unique, and some of those small town folks are waaaay too conventional."

"Mel likes him," Jackie put in, as if she sensed that Peter's memories of his friends were needed. "He talks about you guys a lot. How you let him stay with you at Christmas. I was away for Christmas. My sister had a new baby, and we went to visit her in Baltimore. I was glad when I heard he'd been with you for the holidays."

"What's Christmas?" asked Chandarl. Lost in his reminiscences, Peter had almost forgotten the demon's presence.

"Greatest day of the year," Jackson put in. "It's a human holiday for a big part of the planet, a religious holiday. Do you know about religion, Chandarl?"

"Yes. Worshiping gods."

"Well, we've only got one," Jackie said. "At least in the culture I grew up in. And Christmas is the celebration of his birth as a human. There are parties and presents. We can't give actual presents to God, but we give them to each other in honor of the day. There's special music just for Christmas. I wish I could sing it for you. Mel gave me this for Christmas." She pulled a chain out from inside her blouse and held up the heart-shaped gold charm. "I wear it always."

Chandarl stared at her. "Did people give Melchazat presents?"

Peter nodded. "Winston and I got him a Game Boy -- a little gizmo so he could play computer-type games. Egon got him a microscope. Old Spengs had his first microscope when he was three years old." When Chandarl stared at him blankly, Peter explained, "Uh, it's a thing you look through and you can see things too small to see with the naked eye. Like molecules and stuff." Egon would never have let him get away with that definition. "Ray got him Treasure Island. That's a book about a boy who had a run-in with pirates."

Chandarl's eyes gleamed in disbelief. "Real pirates?"

"It's just a story somebody made up," Jackie explained. "But it's an exciting adventure. My brothers liked it when they were children."

"There are books just for children?" Chandarl was exactly like a big blue kid with his nose pressed up against the toy store window. "We tell stories sometimes. We make them up. They aren't like your stories. No warm places with fires, no music, no gifts. But I like stories."

"Shall I tell you a story?" Jackie volunteered.

The demon gave a bounce, an actual, excited bounce. Mutterings sounded in the shadows and a few more demons edged closer. "Tell us all a story," he urged.

"Okay. Let's see." She tapped her forehead with her index finger, deciding, then her face lit up. "Mel loves this one. I think it's just what the doctor ordered. 'A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...."

"Way to go," Peter approved softly, and for the next hour, he and Jackie and MacKensie told the Star Wars saga to the enthralled demons. Wookiees, stormtroopers, X-Wing fighters, Ewoks, Sith Lords, all blended together with the heroes of the rebellion, and the demons listened, spellbound, gradually forming an eager semi-circle around the cell. "I always thought I was the Han Solo type," Peter bragged, striking a cocky pose. "Dashing hero who gets the girl."

Jackson made a rude noise, and Peter reached around Jackie to give him a poke in the ribs. "You sound like Egon," he chided, then fell silent, remembering the stern tones Egon could adopt to depress Peter's pretensions -- and Borthardian's claim that Egon was dead, a claim that had never been far from Peter's thoughts.

"Maybe you're more like Lando," MacKensie persisted. "The con man type."

"Nope, I'm not like Lando. I would never have turned Han over to Vader. Risk one of my buddies like that? No way!"

"Yeah, but he had the Cloud City to protect and he couldn't risk that for one man, even his friend -- and he made up for that when he realized Vader wasn't the type to keep his word." The demons hung on their every word, fascinated, not even seeming to breathe. Maybe rock demons didn't have to. Mel hadn't when he was faking death at Astarine's hands, after all.

There must be two dozen of them watching now, none of them interrupting, even with questions. They looked like a group of kids at story time -- if you could discount the horns and the vivid blue of their skin.

"So which one is Egon like?" Jackie asked quickly, catching Peter's hand and giving it a surreptitious squeeze.

"Hmmm." Hearing himself sounding just like Egon as he pondered it, Peter called himself to order. "Yoda," he decided, imagining Egon's snort of amusement at the comparison. "Egon's always knowing the answers and just coming out with them. I could hear him saying, 'Do or do not. There is no try.' And Ray has to be Luke Skywalker. At least before he got all serious with his Jedi stuff. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Ray hadn't bulls-eyed womp rats in his T-16, whatever a T-16 is."

"It wouldn't surprise me if this place wasn't full of womp rats," agreed Jackson, grimacing at the possibility.

"Let's not talk about rats, not even the Star Wars kind," Jackie cut in hastily, suppressing a shudder. "Not unless I can be Princess Leia."

Peter tilted his head and surveyed her thoughtfully. "Just trying to picture you with those weird buns on the sides of your head."

Jackie grinned, pushing away her empty stew bowl.

With an answering smile Peter picked it up and displayed it to his audience. In an imitation of Yoda that made the two humans crack up, he demanded, "'How you get so big, eating food of this kind?'"

"Good question," MacKensie countered. "Which one did you say was Yoda?"

"Too bad I can't borrow the Death Star and turn that beam loose on Borthardian," Peter said, relishing the image that thought called to mind. Chandarl, Dugross, and their pals shifted uneasily and cast wary glances over their shoulders at the mention of their scaly master. Maybe it would be better not to bring him up. Hearing his name might actually summon him, and nobody wanted that. "Star Wars is a movie," Peter continued hastily to change the subject. "You can rent it and watch it on your own TV, but sometimes it's in a theater and then the picture is across a whole wall." He frowned at his surroundings, so lacking in amenities. "Course you characters don't have TV. I bet there's no cable here. Maybe you could pick up a giant satellite dish."

MacKensie grimaced. "I bet the cable reception is terrible here. Just think. No TV. No CD players. No music."

"No days at the beach. No beach, even," Peter lamented. "No girls in skimpy bathing suits. No street vendors selling pretzels. No Armani jackets. No stores where you can buy them."

"Stores?" one of the demons asked.

Peter tugged at his corner of the cape. "Stores? Places where you buy things? That doesn't ring a bell? You demons lead really deprived lives." He fell into an enraptured discussion of conspicuous consumption, watching the fiends' faces change from total incomprehension to wistful envy. "And then there's credit cards," he added. "If you don't have enough money and you still want something desperately, you can buy it on credit. That means you get it now and pay for it later. It's great -- well, until the bills come...."

"Enough!" The savage bellow echoed through the chamber, hurting Peter's ears. Those demons on the edges of the circle melted frantically into the shadows. Peter could hear them scuttling away, probably hoping like mad they hadn't been identified. Borthardian loomed over those who couldn't escape and favored them with a baleful glare. "I see my orders are being thwarted, and there is a place for those who do that. It is called non-existence." He snapped his fingers and one of the demons on the outskirts of the circle vanished in a pillar of fire, screaming in agony. His writhing torment only lasted a few seconds but it was enough for the other demons to fling themselves subserviently to the ground at Borthardian's feet and for the three humans to shrink back, huddled together, Jackie's face pressed into Peter's shoulder. He had no weapons, nothing to use to defeat the master demon, nothing but his wits.

"I guess you want a bunch of unthinking slaves," he called, forcing his voice to steady. "What good are they, anyway?"

Borthardian held up his hand at Peter, fingers ready to snap. "What do you mean?" The question was ominous, threatening. It was all too clear to Venkman that if he said the wrong thing, he'd be a second crispy critter.

"I mean, you're trying to get Mel back but you'll never get back what he's giving his current master, even if he obeys your every command." No need to explain that the last thing Eddie would ever do was consider Mel his servant.

"And what is that?" Now Borthardian was amused. It galled Peter to see that cocksure smirk on the demon's face.

"Respect," Peter said. "A desire to work for you, to please you."

"My fauns have a desire to please me," Borthardian countered smugly, total confidence on his face and in his voice. "And what does respect matter when I have their obedience?"

Peter gestured at the prostrate demons -- the ones that hadn't had time to run away. "Yeah, sure, I can see how obedient they are. Anybody can."

"Don't push your luck, little man. I can destroy you in an instant." The kowtowing demons crooned regretfully at the threat, causing Borthardian to glare down at them. "And I will, should you suborn my slaves." The nearest of them kissed Borthardian's feet in an agony of subjugation. Preening himself, Borthardian edged the cloven hooves out of range.

"I never suborned them, whatever that is," Peter defended himself. Pushing aside the cloak, he jumped up and faced Borthardian. "I just talked to them. Betcha you never tell them bedtime stories or give one of them the day off, or bring in doughnuts for a staff meeting. Nope, just a bit of the lash and zapping anybody who gets in your way. You must run through a lot of slaves that way. No wonder you need the ones Astarine left behind."

"Silence!" Borthardian twitched a finger at Peter and the air left his lungs in an abrupt rush. Feeling gut-punched, he fell down. For a few moments, he lay there, rubbing his stomach and gasping for breath, then he managed to control his breathing and push himself to his feet. MacKensie helped him. Beside the musician, Jackie stood, her face pale by torchlight, her fingers pressed against her mouth.

"That hurts," Peter accused. "Anybody ever tell you that you're not exactly a nice guy?" And I'd love to zap you with fourteen throwers all at once and turn you into a bunch of separate atoms, all heading away from each other at the speed of light. Crossing the streams would be good, too.

"Did none tell you that you are an annoying little man with a mouth far bigger than the rest of you?"

"My reputation precedes me," Peter challenged. He refused to back down. If he gave ground to this being who might have killed his best friend, he wouldn't be able to live with himself -- even if it made Borthardian mad enough to zap him, too.

"Your reputation will be your death. I will not allow you to amuse my slaves with your tales of your world." He waved a hand. Chandarl called out an abortive warning then sank back helplessly as the demon shot fire at Peter. He felt it hit his chest and explode in a burst of agony. Reeling backward, he crashed against the far wall, sliding numbly down the rough stone to land in a heap beside Old Bones. It wasn't a pillar of fire after all. It felt more like the backlash he'd experienced when, once, he'd come too close to a thrower's proton stream on a bust. Conscious but groggy, he struggled to speak, uncertain if he'd just been neutronized. Whoa! He felt woozy.

"Hey, guy," he fumbled out through numb lips. "Anybody ever tell you power corrupts?"

"Peter, shut up," hissed MacKensie urgently, waving his arm in a warning gesture. "He'll vaporize you if you keep it up."

"Are you hurt?" Jackie scrambled free of the enveloping cloak and hurried to his side. The hand that grabbed Peter's was the only thing warm in the entire universe. She peered up at the demon, a hint of defiance in the curl of her mouth, then turned back to Peter as if Borthardian was so far beneath contempt that she would not waste her energy acknowledging his existence. She had spirit, but this was still too new to her. He couldn't let her call down demon fire on herself, so he squeezed her hand to let her know he was still here.

"Nah, just trashed a little." Peter peered down at the front of his shirt, expecting to find a charred hole and scorch marks on his chest, but there were only a few singes on the fabric. Peter had done that himself once, when Egon had suggested it might be nice to iron their uniforms and look tidy and presentable on busts. One try was enough. Egon had dropped the subject after he saw Peter standing there with iron-shaped designs on the fabric. Egon.... He would have loved to close his eyes and sink down into the peaceful darkness of unconsciousness, a place free of memories, but he clung to awareness with all his strength. "'Cause he can kill me or disintegrate me, but it's too late. The damage is already done."

"Don't mock me," Borthardian threatened, looming ominously.

Pushing himself up on one elbow, Peter struggled to ignore his swimming head. "I don't have to mock you, Scaly-face. You've already lost."

"I think not," Borthardian replied. He glanced at the abject demons who lay prone at his feet, scarcely daring to raise their heads. "As you see, they fear me and will obey my commands. They might wish for what you tell them, but they know they can never have it."

Determined to mask his fear, Peter stood his ground -- or lay his ground, whatever. "Yeah, right. We already gave them something stronger than fear. But then, you'll have to find that out for yourself." He smirked at the towering being, hoping the thud of his racing heart wasn't as audible to Borthardian as he suspected it was.

"Out of here!" stormed the master demon, waving his hands at his minions, and they stampeded for the exits without risking a glance backward. Only Chandarl dared his wrath, hesitating in the doorway to cast one quick, intent glance at Peter and the others, then he, too, slunk away.

"You see? I have already won." Borthardian exulted, then he raised a hand and made a few esoteric passes with it, disappearing in a puff of smoke like a stage magician.

Hastily, Jackson MacKensie unbuttoned Peter's shirt to examine his chest for traces of burns. He pulled the shirt free. "Are you nuts!? He could have zapped us all."

Peter craned his neck to make sure he wasn't fried. There were only a few faint reddened areas, only first degree burns. They stung but they didn't even need band-aids. Great. He wasn't marked up. He'd still be outstanding in his bathing suit when summer came. He poked the biggest burn and winced, but it wasn't bad. If only his head didn't throb so much. "No, he wouldn't have zapped us yet, not in front of his troops. They like us. He just wanted to discredit me. If he could do that, he'd have won, so I had to stand up to him. That's what you do with bullies."

Jackie put her hand on Peter's forehead to feel for fever. "What did we give them that was stronger than fear?" she demanded, her voice quivering. "A bunch of stories? Maybe they envy us our lives but they can hardly go to live in New York."

"Nope, they don't give out green cards to demons," Peter agreed. In spite of the lassitude that slipped through his veins, his grin broadened. "What did we give them? The one thing that has the power to fight fear -- an idea." Dizzy and weakened by the attack, he managed a muted, reassuring smile for her before he let himself slide down into the mercy of unconsciousness.

"There's a problem," Mel said.

Lifting his head from his work on the P.K.E. meter, Egon frowned, balancing the device on his knees. "What problem?" He shivered. The break in his concentration had called his attention to the darkening sky and the icy wail of the wind that snatched at his hair and sent advance scouts swirling under his collar and down his back.

"If I go with you when you transfer, Borthardian will know it, and he'll take it out on you." The demon's shoulders slumped and the corners of his mouth turned down. "I can't help you."

"We're not afraid," cried Ray, taking the screwdriver Egon passed him and replacing it with a slightly smaller one. "We can take him on. We've trapped demons before."

"Maybe not this one. Because he's expecting you." Mel plopped down beside them in the dust, sitting cross-legged in front of Egon. The cold didn't appear to bother him as much as it did Egon and Ray. He was used to conditions like this. As if to prove that supposition, thunder battered the peaks overhead and Mel didn't even jump.

"Yes, he's expecting us, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't go," Egon replied. "I refuse to leave Peter, or any other prisoner, in captivity there. As long as I can move at all, I plan to continue."

"Yeah," Ray confirmed pugnaciously. He glanced skyward, then ducked his head as a damp and persistent mist spread through the air, not quite heavy enough to be called rain, but too heavy to simply be lowering clouds.

Egon could feel the dampness on his skin and the way it beaded in his hair. Soon, it would begin to saturate his clothing. Leaning over the meter, he made the final connections and tightened them. "So what do you suggest?" he asked, exchanging screwdrivers with Ray. "If you can't propel us through the field, we have no way to move."

"You go ahead. I can propel you without going with you, if I can use the field for additional energy. It would seem like I sent you back to the human realm. He wouldn't expect you. He'd just know you weren't with me any longer and I'd still be here, so he wouldn't feel an urge to kill his hostages.."

"Does he know we're the Ghostbusters?" Ray turned up the collar of his jumpsuit and hunched his shoulders, edging around to put his back to the wind.

"Don't know. Peter wasn't in uniform, but he's seen us -- he can see things far away. He won't do it all the time. He probably felt it when I arrived, so he might know."

"So he'd know how far we were when he was figuring out how to keep us away?" asked Ray through chattering teeth. "Egon, let's find shelter long enough for you to finish."

"I am finished." Egon tightened the last screw that held the casing in place. "All I need now is to connect it to your proton pack and activate it and that will take moments. Mel, if you stay here alone, won't you be a better target for him?" Obediently, Ray shrugged himself out of his pack and passed it over. Egon began work on it, loosening the cable.

The demon flung himself to his feet and stood at Egon's back, blocking the worst of the heavy mist, allowing Egon to rub dampened fingers on the front of his jumpsuit and continue. "I'll give you a chance to get closer. You've only got two throwers, and I don't know if that would stop him, especially since one of them isn't available. I'll try to steer you down lower. If you could team up with Winston and Janine, you'd have two more throwers to work with."

"I just wish we didn't have to leave you here," Ray said wistfully. "It feels like we're running out on you." He held up his hand to shield his eyes from the thickening moisture in the air, brilliant lightning illuminating his face. The thunder that followed seemed to last forever.

Mel patted him on the shoulder and spoke when the rumbles died. "It was my idea, Ray. It's the safest way. I might be able to do some things on my own, and there are a couple others like me who might help me."

Hunched over to shelter the connection, Egon completed his work. "I'm ready. If you're sure, I do believe it might be the best plan. Borthardian may even allow you closer if we're not with you. I doubt he fears us. Powerful demons rarely do, to their disadvantage. Whatever you do, don't tell Borthardian that you will obey him. Stall as long as you possibly can."

"Yeah, don't make a bargain with him," agreed Ray. "Not even if he says it's to save our lives. We can take care of ourselves. If you wind up working for him again, this has all been for nothing. We're gonna figure out how to make it right, so you can stay where you want to."

Mel nodded. "I promise. But I won't let him hurt you, either."

Egon knew Ray was recalling the time Astarine had blasted Mel and they'd feared him destroyed. He'd survived that time and, hopefully, would survive this time as well. Ray jumped up and flung his arms around the demon. "Be careful, Mel."

"You too, Ray. And Egon. And get Peter out of there."

Ray turned to Egon. "What do we do?"

Egon rose, meter in hand. Gesturing for Ray to lift his pack, the physicist instructed him to power it up. When Ray did, he turned a dial on the meter and the two devices began to hum. The air hissed and sizzled, causing Egon to nod in satisfaction as a bubble of shiny light enveloped him and Ray, blocking out the persistent drizzle. He could see Mel through the field, staring at them, wide-eyed.

"Are you ready, Raymond?"

The occultist nodded, grinning wildly at the sight of their protection field.

"Then I'll activate the locator." He pushed a button. "As soon as it lights up -- " he gestured to the screen -- "you can shift us, Mel."

"Got it," the demon agreed, bracing himself. This time he would have to use his power without touching them. Egon hoped touching the field would work as well.

Mel put both hands against the glittery nothingness of the force wall, closed his eyes to concentrate on calling up power, and shoved.

For an instant, nothing happened then, with a swoosh, they shot into the air as if dribbled by a giant Michael Jordan, and bounced over the lip of the precipice. Involuntarily, Egon let out a yell, and Ray gasped, "Wow!"

The transition was nearly instantaneous. When he felt the bubble subside to the ground and saw solid stone beneath his feet, Egon glanced around to make sure their position was safe. The 'ride' had been an incredible sensation. A pity it required demon-energy to make the physical transition work. There could be multiple applications otherwise. If he could find a substitute power source....

Not ten feet away, Winston and Janine stood bunched together under an overhanging rock wall, his arm around her shoulders, their mouths dropping open in perfect synchronization at the sight of their friends materializing out of thin air.

"We're here." Abandoning his theorizing for a more appropriate moment, Egon turned off the meter, nodding for Ray to power the thrower down. The field popped like a children's soap bubble and a stinging rain drove against their faces.

"Hey, guys." Winston lunged at them and slapped them on the shoulders in enthusiastic welcome. "You two are a sight for sore eyes." Pulling spare bracelets out of his pocket, he slipped one onto each man's wrist. "Great teleport effect! You really know how to make an entrance. I've got the molecular phase amplifier set up for automatic recall, no limit on the number of travelers. We can go home as soon as we've grabbed Peter. Come on back into shelter and we'll plan what to do next."

"We think he's got Jackson MacKensie, too," Ray piped up. "Eddie got a call after you left, Winston, saying he was missing."

"Then we'll pull him out, too."

Janine raced into Egon's arms and hugged him tightly, but Winston pulled her free and drew them all into a sheltered overhang where the rain didn't strike them. "Where's Mel?" he demanded, glancing around. "Wouldn't he fit in the field?"

"He thought if he tried to come we'd be blocked," Ray offered, settling the recall bracelet more comfortably on his wrist. "So we had to come on our own. He just provided the oomph, the way he brought us here in the first place." Quickly, he explained Mel's reasoning. "Are you still picking up Peter's readings? Is he still in the keep?"

Egon had already begun to disconnect meter from proton pack, but at the question he lifted his head. Hastily, Winston activated the meter he'd brought with him and peered at the screen. "Oh, man," he groaned, his shoulders slumping.

Everything stilled in Egon and it was left for Ray to plunge toward Winston and pluck the meter from his hand. Screwdriver poised over the casing of his own meter, Egon said, "What's wrong?" His voice sounded uninflected as if he'd done no more than ask for someone to pass the salt. But his breath caught in his lungs while he waited.

Janine hovered beside Egon, her eyes huge. Whatever she saw in Egon's face made her hold back the words that trembled on her lips. She didn't even touch him. But she planted her feet beside him and stood at his side waiting for an answer. Egon suspected it would take an avalanche to move her from his side. Later, he might remember and be grateful, but now he only observed clinically, focused in on one thing.

"Peter's reading seems...weakened," Winston replied and nodded at Ray for more answers.

Stantz frowned down at the detection device. "Oh, gosh, it does, Egon. Like his whole system has been messed with. It's not that he's suddenly further away. The reading's consistent with the distance down there." He lifted stricken eyes, waving a hand blindly in the direction of the distant keep. "It's -- something's happened to him." His eyes widened. "You don't think Borthardian is torturing him?"

That was a concept Egon had hoped would remain forever unexplored. "Show me the readings."

Ray held the meter up in front of him. Because of the dimness of the fading light, it was fortunate the meter's screen was illuminated. Egon had seen a similar reading once before. When was it? He pondered a second and then nodded. "He was grazed by a particle stream once and I took readings of him while he was unconscious. This is similar. It seems to be strengthening now." Might that be wishful thinking? He glowered at the readings, holding his breath for even the most minute change. Yes! They were improving.

"I bet Borthardian doesn't have any packs and throwers down there," Janine denied hastily, freed from her constraint by the possibility of an improvement. "Could he just be asleep?"

Egon hook his head, removing his glasses and polishing the dampened lenses with a handkerchief from an inner pocket. "No, sleeping wouldn't alter the readings like this. It's entirely possible he pestered Borthardian enough to win an attack from the demon. Peter never does know when to shut up." He touched the screen with one long finger. "The readings are stronger than the time he suffered that graze and they are strengthening."

"Maybe Borthardian shot fire at him," Ray offered as he reconnected the power cable to his proton pack, working expertly and automatically, sparing only fleeting glances at the work his hands knew so well. "Peter would duck. He might have caught a backlash. Or he might have been trying to protect somebody else. He'd do that. I just know he'll be okay." The reassurance in his voice was meant to convince Ray as well as the others of Peter's survival. By nature, Egon was not an optimist; neither was he a pessimist. He considered himself somewhere in the middle, a rational man who didn't let emotion cloud and clutter his judgment. When his oldest friend was injured, a prisoner of a powerful demon, it was hard to find comfort in encouragement or even in rationality. Only improved readings or the sight of a living Peter Venkman, on his feet and mouthy as ever, would reassure him. His fingers worked busily, removing the casing of his meter to readjust it, but his eyes darted to the other meter's screen every few seconds, willing the display to keep on improving.

"Have you found a way down to the keep?" Egon had one purpose right now, and that was rescuing Peter. Once the team was intact, then he would worry about Mel's fate and how to deal with Borthardian. "Screwdriver, Ray."

Ray passed it over. "Gosh, Egon, we've got to get down there as fast as we can. There are a couple of other people with Peter in the keep. Did you bring enough bracelets for all three?"

Winston patted his pockets. "I brought all we had. I think there's an easy way over there." He waved his hand at the distant angle of slope where a series of ridges might serve as switchbacks, easing the angle of the descent as well as concealing them from watchers down below. "We have to come up on the place from an angle. There are a bunch of demons guarding the main entrance."

"Just like at Tolay's Keep," Ray remembered, gung ho to rush down to Peter's rescue. "We'll have to find the back door."

"And hope it isn't guarded," Egon replied as he finished readjusting the meter and replaced the cover. "Too much use of the throwers might alert Borthardian to our presence, if he doesn't already know."

"Do you think he knows?" Janine asked uneasily, edging closer to Egon. In the fading light, her face was whiter than usual.

"Oh, he knows," Ray replied hastily. "He attacked Egon already."

"What!" Janine grabbed Egon's arm, gazing up at him to search for gaping wounds she'd missed the first time around. "Oh, Egon, are you hurt?"

"I'm fine, Janine." The last screw in place, he passed the tool back to Ray who replaced it in the tiny kit he carried and pocketed it. "It wasn't a permanent injury, just a brief sensation of pain, and it quickly passed. Mel thought Borthardian was showing us he knew he were here. I wasn't really hurt. I suspect it was merely an illusion of pain." He caught Ray's eye in warning. No point in describing the incident further. It would only upset Janine.

Winston squinted at him thoughtfully. "You sure, homeboy?"

"Yes, Winston. I'm fine. I suspect Borthardian used Mel as a beacon to locate us. That was another reason Mel wanted us to come ahead. Without him, we might be able to move unnoticed, and it is possible he'd believe Mel returned us to our own world. I'm ready. Shall we go for Peter?"

"Let's move it," Zeddemore confirmed. "This way, gents -- and lady. And watch your step. One wrong one could take you down a lot faster than you like."

"We'll remember," Ray muttered wryly, starting out in the direction Winston pointed. "Come on, everybody. Let's go get Peter."

Peter woke up naturally as if he were in his own bed in the firehouse, and he lay there, warm and relatively comfortable, imagining opening his eyes to the familiar bunkroom and the sight of his three buddies moving around on their morning chores. Pretty soon, Egon would wrestle the covers away, forcing Peter to face the day, threatening him with early busts and extra chores. Peter smiled as he remembered mornings. Getting up wasn't nearly so bad as he liked to claim it was, not with the guys there.

Uneasiness grew in his stomach as his memory trickled back. He couldn't hear the guys puttering around; he could feel no sense of their presence. The bed wasn't as soft and comfortable as his four-poster and the air smelled different, nasty, with a hint of sulphur and brimstone.

Borthardian's dungeon! Egon! Peter remembered the image of the firehouse and the guys with a fierce, desperate longing. Egon couldn't be dead. MacKensie's reasoning had to be right, that the big, purple demon had said so to get at Peter. With a sigh, he opened his eyes to the cell. No, he wasn't home after all. Egon wasn't here. Egon might never be there again. Peter shuddered. He was lying on the pallet with the cloak spread over him and, beside him, Jackie sat leaning against MacKensie, who had put his arm around her shoulders, his thin blanket pulled over them. They looked cold and uncomfortable, but Jackie was dozing, her head against his arm while MacKensie watched the passage like a sentinel.

Peter shivered at the memory of being zapped. He felt fairly good -- at least physically -- not even aware of any injury until he thought of it, and then only a faint soreness in the light burns he had to concentrate on to experience. Must have been the cut-rate zap. He shifted carefully. When no stabbing pain or dizziness -- only a mild soreness across his shoulder blades from impact with the wall -- rewarded his effort, he decided he might as well try to get up. Maybe the three of them could figure a way out of this crummy place and go hunting for Egon and Ray.

"Peter?" At the first movement, the musician noticed him. "Feel better?"

"Oh yeah. Not that I liked the experience -- it wasn't great -- but I'm in one piece. You can have the cloak back. I bet you're ready to turn into an icicle." He pushed his misery aside for the moment. It might be premature but, even if it wasn't, it wouldn't help them now.

Hearing their voices, Jackie started awake, staring around wildly as she got her bearings, and knuckling her eyes like a sleepy child. "Oh, god, I hoped it was all a dream," she said around a gaping yawn.

"You mean a nightmare," Peter corrected. "No, sweetie, it's real." He sat up cautiously, waiting for pain and dizziness to set in, but they didn't. "Come on, kiddies, crowd in. Let's all get warm."

They settled themselves on the pallet, one on either side of him, and Jackson spread the cloak over their shoulders to fend off the drafts that whistled up through the cracks in the cell floor and walls. Maybe they should try to take turns sleeping. It wouldn't do them any good to exhaust themselves. "How long was my beauty sleep?" he asked. His watch must have stopped when Borthardian zapped him.

"A couple of hours," Jackson replied. "But toward the end there, I think you were just asleep, not unconscious. We didn't want to wake you until we had to, because you're the one who knows the most about this place, so you needed your rest. We were going to check with you periodically in case you had a concussion."

"Yeah, I know the place. I just wish I didn't." He was pretty sure he didn't have a concussion; his shoulders had taken the force of the impact when he hit the wall. "I've been here before, but at least I was armed last time, and I had Ray and Winston with me." He peered out at the dark tunnel. Torches still burned in their sconces in the passageway, but there was no movement in the shadows, no sense of presence. He'd know if demons lurked out there. Being a Ghostbuster had given him a sixth sense about such things. They were alone.

"I'm glad you're all right," Jackie said. "We've been worried. Nobody's been near us the whole time. I think Borthardian really scared his servants."

"You bet he did. Power and threats always work as motivators." He grimaced. "But I bet they'll be back. Think what it must be like to live here all the time. We can give them Star Wars and Saturday morning TV, and the ten cent tours of the Pyramids and the Grand Canyon. It's gotta have this place beat."

"They really don't know anything we know, do they?" Jackie pushed her hair back from her face. "This is why Mel didn't understand any of the things I take for granted. He'd never heard them before, because he really came from here?" She'd known before, but now it was finally sinking in.

"He really did," Peter confirmed, tightening the arm around her shoulders for a comforting squeeze. Time to fill her in on Mel's background a little more thoroughly. "We came here with Eddie to try to find Cy, when he was missing. The last owner of this prime real estate was a female demon called Astarine. Mel worked for her, but she'd told all her servants to obey Eddie, because she meant to bring him here to live. She was a groupie. They come from everywhere any more. In order for him to be trapped here, Eddie had to consent to come voluntarily, and she cheated by stealing his baby. When we ran into Mel while we were searching for little Cy, he was bound to do what Eddie said, but you know Eddie. He's a decent guy, and it didn't matter to him that Mel was eight feet tall with blue skin and horns. He treated Mel decently, the way he treats everybody. Mel said later nobody had ever been kind to him before. He would have walked through fire for Eddie and he still will, I think. He asked to come back to our world with us, and we let him, once we found out he could shapeshift and appear human. Egon said once that, for all intents and purposes, he was human, just not permanently. He could do anything humans could do, eat, get sick, need a haircut, make love." He quirked an eyebrow at her. If she meant to run screaming in revulsion the next time she saw Mel, Peter wanted to know it ahead of time. He didn't have a solution for the problem of this pair of star-crossed lovers, but he'd had his own relationship problems, although none of them on a par with this. Maybe he could help.

Jackie blushed vividly and stared down at her hands, her hair swinging out to conceal her face. "I -- never expected this. I knew he was different, but not this different. I-I don't know what to do."

"He's a great guy." Jackson quirked a questioning eyebrow at Peter over Jackie's bent head. "I've known him since he came over, and I've talked to him a lot, on tours. He asked me a lot of questions about racial prejudice. He doesn't understand it in the least, but he picked up on its existence. I think the bad parts of life in our world still surprise him, but he told me once that even with all the violence and drugs and hate we have to face all the time, there's still so much that's good here that he never wanted to go back."

"And now he has to?" Jackie shivered. "I...I just can't get over it. I thought he was shy, or raised by a weird cult, and I loved watching him learn. But he's not human." She shivered, her hands clenched in her lap, her eyes lowered. "I never thought I was a bigot. I mean, I always blamed other people for prejudice, not thought about it for myself. It would never occur to me to treat somebody badly because of his race or religion or sexual orientation or whatever. I just never could understand some people's need to do that."

"You don't have it in you to treat anyone badly," Jackson told her. "Believe me, I've been through enough of it in my time that I can tell when somebody's phony about it or trying on some fake liberal attitude so they can feel smug about their 'tolerance'. But you've got a problem nobody had to face before."

"Well, I won't say 'nobody'," Peter corrected. "Scary thought but some demons can mate with humans. Ray says it's happened from time to time over the centuries." He squelched the automatic shudder at the thought but he saw Jackson grimace. "Course that was like the demon taking over and forcing himself on somebody. Mel wouldn't do that."

"I know. And when I wanted him to, he stopped me." Suddenly she raised wide, blue eyes to Peter. "He thought I'd be afraid of him or hate him if I knew, didn't he? That's why he wouldn't...be with me?"

Peter nodded reluctantly. "And the thing is, I don't know how to take it, myself. I like Mel. He's a decent guy. He means well, he's kind-hearted, and everybody who knows him likes him. But I've had to bust a lot of demons and blast some that look just like Mel. My job gives me a built-in doubt, not of Mel himself, but of demons in general. Jackie, he went out of his way to protect you. He might wind up stuck here forever, if we can't stop Borthardian or convince him Mel doesn't belong here. But if he doesn't, if we can take him home with us, then you have a pretty tough decision." He grinned. "Believe me, I've been dumped my share of times, and it wasn't fun. But it wasn't because of my essential nature. Nobody ever said, 'You're a human being, go away.' So be as fair as you can when you choose what you want."

Tears flooded her eyes. "I know. I -- I love him. I know I love him. But I -- right now I don't know what to think. I...wish he'd told me." One tear spilled over and trailed miserably down her cheek. "But he was afraid to tell me. He didn't trust me, and I think he must have been right." A second tear left a wet smear down her other cheek. "Oh, Peter, what am I going to do?"

He tightened his arm around her shoulders again and gave her a squeeze. "First of all, don't make a snap judgment. Not that you can while we're enjoying the hospitality of Chez Borthardian. I've seen doghouses better than this place."

She gave a sputter of laughter that didn't stop the tears. "He's kind and funny and smart and he loves me. He's never once hurt me. But if I'm afraid of him...."

"Are you afraid of him?" Peter asked gently. "Are you afraid of Chandarl?"

"No, but..."

"I'm glad you don't fear me." Chandarl edged up to the cell. "I've been listening for a few minutes. I know humans tend to be afraid of us. I can appear human, if you'd be more comfortable." He closed his eyes and his features blurred. Shrinking down to human size, he assumed a complexion to match Jackson's, a bushy Afro hairdo and a face as purely sculptured as a Nubian statue. Of course he was all-too-obviously male because he was stark naked. Demons didn't have a thing for haberdashery. "Is this better?"

Jackie averted her eyes, blushing hotly.

"Uh, guy, no matter how you do it down here in Demonland, humans don't go around exposing the family jewels," Peter pointed out. "Got any clothes?"

Chandarl whirled away, and returned quickly, sliding into an outfit vaguely like a Roman toga that left muscular arms and legs bare. "Satisfactory?" He waved the bars wide enough apart to pass through and slid into the cell, closing them behind him with a second gesture. Sitting cross-legged in front of them, he arranged the skirt of his toga modestly.

"Well, it'll do, though you'd probably stop traffic on Fifth Avenue," Jackson retorted. "The hairdo is kind of retro though."

"I like it. I once saw a human with hair like this and wished for some like it of my own." He patted his 'do' in fascination.

"Won't Borthardian get ticked off at you for hanging out here?" asked Peter, casting a quick glance into the passage to make sure Old Purple Scales wasn't lurking.

"He's busy. Melchazat must have sent your friends back to your world. He is alone and Borthardian is watching him, trying to decide how best to force him back to where he belongs."

"He belongs where he wants to live," Jackie cried hotly.

"Does he, indeed?" Chandarl tapped a fingernail against his teeth. Peter realized he'd left them sharp and pointed instead of assuming the more human canines, incisors, and molars. The effect was disconcerting. Pointing a long, brown finger at Jackie exposed the talons he'd also retained. "You, human woman, want no part of him now. Maybe he won't want to stay there. You talked of your world and how wonderful it is, but your world hates my kind."

"Mostly our world doesn't even believe in your kind," Peter said quickly, settling his edge of the cape more comfortably around his shoulders. "I do because I've been around, seen the Netherworld a couple of times before, and I face ghosts and spirits every day. But your man on the street doesn't even think about people like you. If anybody asked, they'd say they don't believe or that demons were just in the bible or in horror movies."

"What he's trying to explain is that Jackie's had a shock," MacKensie cut in. "She never doubted for a minute that Mel was human. Sure, he should have told her, but right now she's in major culture shock. She's not nearly as used to this as Peter is."

The talon clicked against the fangs. "Humans always side together against us. I bet those horror movies make us the 'bad guys'."

"Sometimes. But humans are the 'bad guys' far more than demons ever are." Jackson grimaced. "For a long time, you'd see a black man in a film and he'd be a drug dealer or comic relief or a servant. They even used to do comedy routines where white dudes would paint their faces black and make a joke of us. Nobody ever claimed humans were perfect, and I know some brothers who are just as down on whites as the worst kind of whites are on us. People are afraid of what's different. That's the worst of our nature. Or they feel inferior and need to make somebody else lower than they are. Don't tell me demons don't do that." Chandarl hesitated, his face thoughtful.

"Nobody's perfect," Peter said. "I've seen a few of our clients get funny around Winston because of the race thing and I'd like to deck 'em for it, but he won't let me. He says he knows who he is and feels good about himself and he doesn't want me to blow up at somebody who's just too stupid to take all people as individuals."

"Human people, though," persisted Chandarl.

"That's mostly what we have to deal with," Peter admitted. "Okay, yeah, if Mel walked down Broadway in his normal form, everybody would freak or, at best, they'd think it was hype for a horror film. Ray says he always feels sorry for the monsters in those films because most of the time they weren't really evil until people started stalking them with guns and bazookas and the whole Japanese army. They were just out of place or different. A crummy commentary on human nature. Usually, when I think of nasty demons, I think of ones like your scaly boss. That's the kind the guys and I have to bust when they show up and start trashing Times Square or Macy's. Mel wouldn't trash anything. But most people just don't know the difference."

"I...wasn't afraid of you when we were telling the stories and Jackson was singing," Jackie admitted. "But Mel lied to me. He didn't trust me. And even if a part of me thinks he was right not to, another part is hurt."

"He could change forever," Chandarl offered. He cocked his head and waited expectantly for her response.

Her head came up and she stared at Chandarl. "You mean to be human forever?"

"No, to be human for as long as a human lives," the demon corrected. "Not even our kind lives forever, but we live far longer than you do. Mel would have to give up what is nearly eternity to stay with you in permanent human form. I got the feeling he thought your world was worth it. Listening to you talk, a lot of my friends think it might be worth it. Even if we didn't go to live there, we feel bad about Borthardian now. Astarine was harsh and selfish but we didn't know any better then, and she took our servitude for granted and didn't have to play power games with us or hurt any of us. Since Mel went away, since you came and talked to us, we know there is a better way."

The prisoners had troubled Chandarl's existence and that of his friends. Nothing would be the same for any of them now, even if they were stuck here kowtowing to the big purple jerk for the next few millennia. Old Scaly would probably fry the three of them for stirring up a palace revolt.

Jackie stared up at him. "Are you in trouble?"

"Probably. But it was worth it. Just hearing about a place like your world helped. I'm glad it is not perfect. When we have to stay here, facing Borthardian's bad temper, we can console ourselves over that. Tell me more about your lives."

MacKensie started to describe a concert tour for the Eddie Plummer band, relating the last tour with a city-by-city commentary, and Chandarl leaned closer, elbow on his knee, chin on his hand, and listened. Although Jackson was careful not to sing, he managed to create a feel for the songs they'd sung anyway, flinging about musical terms and pausing long enough to explain them. Enraptured, Chandarl watched his face as he spoke, clearly caught up in the tale. Jackson kept bringing Mel into the narrative, explaining what Mel did for a living, how he traveled with the band.

"He has music every day?" Chandarl asked wistfully.

"Yes, because even when we're not on tour, you can't stop Eddie from singing any more than you could stop him from breathing. But any human can have music every day. Even people without enough money to have stereos and CDs or TV can have music just by singing. Most of them don't have voices like Eddie's, but they can still make music. For me, it's tough to imagine a world without music in it. The thought of not singing just boggles my mind."

Chandarl sighed wistfully. "I think that would make up for everything that was wrong with your world. Even your wrongs make our rights look bad. I do not know if I can live as I have any longer. There would never again be contentment."

"But if he just goes around zapping you like he did that other one -- " Peter began.

"Synfyl? The one you saw destroyed?" Pain flashed across Chandarl's face. "I served Borthardian because I had no choice, but now I hate him. I would stop him if I could. Synfyl was my friend."

"That's rough, guy," Peter sympathized. Then something the demon had said earlier registered with him and he stiffened, sucking in a startled breath, his heart pumping with excitement. "Hey, back up. I've got to ask you a question. You said before that Mel had sent my friends back to my world. Friends. Plural. He told us before that Egon was dead. So what's the deal?"

Chandarl frowned. "We all knew there were two with him. I never saw them. I don't know what he did with them except that he attacked one of them with the power of his mind, causing excruciating pain. But Borthardian didn't explain, just that Mel was now alone and that he would let him come closer. He'd been blocking him and your friends off before, to display his power."

The fledgling hope that had quivered in Peter stilled its wings. No answers yet. Borthardian might even have meant that Mel had sent Ray home with Egon's body. If they couldn't get any closer to the keep no matter how hard they tried, Mel might have thought it better to try on his own, although Peter couldn't imagine Ray giving up and going home.

Now that he was really alone in the Netherworld, Peter felt the weight of grief and loneliness settle on his shoulders like a ten ton cape. Ray had left him here. He knew Ray had probably been given no choice in the matter, and he might have simply gone back for Winston. Peter wasn't sure why Winston hadn't been there in the first place, unless he'd simply been out of sight in the vision Borthardian had granted. Maybe Ray and Winston were the friends the master demon had meant instead of Egon and Ray.

Jackie leaned her head against Peter's shoulder. The fear she felt for Mel stood out starkly on her face, but the arm that tightened around Peter's waist encompassed all her sympathy.

MacKensie was more practical. "Chandarl, you're a decent guy like Mel. I'll take you back to Earth with me, if you like. Find you a job with the band. You could hang out with Mel, if this works out. All you'd have to do is get us out of here. I give you my word I'd give you a job over there and help you get established. Is it a deal?" He meant every word of it, Peter could tell.

The black demon's face blazed with eager joy. "A home in your world?" Then his eyes fell. "Borthardian would only threaten me like he threatens Mel."

"So why not team everybody up and take him down?" Peter asked. He'd wondered that all along. "There are a lot more of you than there is of him. Sure, he's powerful, but you've got the numbers."

Chandarl shook his head ruefully. "It wouldn't work. Some other demon would inherit from him and we'd be passed along with the keep. Or they'd destroy us all for daring to attack a higher being."

"So trash the inventory so the other demon wouldn't know who belonged here," Peter suggested.

That made Chandarl laugh, but it was a sad laugh. "Until Mel went and then Borthardian came, I did not know how much of a slave I was. It never occurred to me to question my place. I think I question more than any of the others. Mel and I were always the most independent. The others -- they gather in sad little groups and talk wistfully of your world. They sing bits of songs in tiny voices, watching over their shoulders. They are discontented, but they lack the spirit to rebel. They won't fight Borthardian."

"Will you?" Peter challenged.

"I would if it would serve anything. But all it will mean is that I die and you with me."

That option wasn't right up there in Peter's top ten. He puckered up his face in a thoughtful frown, trying to work out a solution. "Does old Borthy know how unsettled the other demons are?" he prodded.

"I think so. He knows far more than he will ever admit he knows. He might be biding his time, watching to see if it's just a phase that will stop when you're dead -- or gone," he corrected hastily.

"No, you meant dead," Peter replied. "Good, we'll wind up crispy critters, like your buddy Synfyl. Come on, Chandarl. At least level with us?"

"He might keep the female alive to use as threat against Melchazat," Chandarl admitted, averting his eyes. Beside him, Peter felt Jackie quiver with shock and terror and MacKensie's muscles tighten.

"But the rest of us were always expendable, right?" The musician's voice was harsh. "Okay, so there are no rules. Let's get your buddies in here. Maybe one or two at a time."

Peter quirked an eyebrow at him, realizing Jackson's thoughts were running on parallel tracks to his own. "That's it," he confirmed. "Bring them back. We'll tell them all about Earth, about birthday parties, and Christmas, and the expression on a little kid's face when somebody gives him a puppy, and how it feels to have your best buddies at your side, to the death if necessary. We'll give them the best of Earth and give them so much of it they'll never be happy here again. If we're gonna buy the big one, I want to go out ruining Borthardian's existence, too."

So, not a palace revolt, after all. No violence. Just wearing away from within. Discontent Old Scaly's poor slaves until they ruined his every moment of existence wanting what they couldn't have. Talking about it. Driving him nuts. If he zapped them all, he'd have no servants. He'd probably zap some of them, but that wouldn't be a victory. It would simply be a pyrotechnic defeat. He'd be the laughingstock of the Netherworld. Peter grinned.

"They can hear you," Chandarl admitted. "I've been relaying this to all of them. I've got the most -- uh, nerve, of the bunch. I decided I'd come down here and let them see everything we talked about. They're all listening."

They'd heard Jackson's offer to Chandarl to come back with him, too. Next thing Peter knew, the whole bunch of them would transport to earth and wander around in human form, probably stark naked, and not have a clue.

"What do you want to hear?" Jackson asked. He turned to grin at Peter. Yep, he wanted the same thing Peter did. Maybe it wouldn't be as satisfying as sending Old Scaly's molecules racing in all directions at the speed of light, but it would frustrate and aggravate him, and maybe it would defeat him in the end. Peter smothered a faint grin. Whatever worked was good enough for him -- at least for now. And if Egon was really gone....

Chandarl clapped his hands together ecstatically like a child. "Tell me everything."

"Well, that wasn't much fun," Ray groaned, shivering. The trip down the hill had been both easier and harder than he'd expected. The light had gone and in the dimness of twilight, it was easier to move without disturbing the demons who stood guard outside Astarine's Keep. But the spitting rain slicked the stones beneath their feet, and every one of the group had fallen at least once. Winston had torn out the left knee of his jumpsuit and the jeans beneath it and opened a nasty scrape on his knee. The hasty bandage that they'd put together would keep it clean and as dry as anything could be in the saturated landscape, but his walking had stiffened and he had to be helped over some of the rough patches.

Egon had skidded on a muddy patch that was indistinguishable from the bare rock and knocked his glasses off. The lenses hadn't broken, but the left sidepiece had snapped, and now it was held together with a thin strip of duct tape, giving him a geekish appearance. When a loose rock had tumbled out from under Janine's boot, she had put out a hand to break her fall and twisted her wrist. It didn't seem to be sprained, but Egon had bound it up anyway with a piece of cloth torn from his shirt.

As for Ray, he had tripped, skated down a steep slope and landed hard against a rock. He didn't think his ribs were broken but he knew his ribcage must be black and blue. It didn't feel nice, but it didn't hold him back and it didn't hurt to breathe.

At least, they'd reached the bottom of the last slope before full dark. With the lowering clouds, the intermittent pattering rain and the nasty wind that had picked up, vision was almost impossible, but the keep loomed over them, flickering light gleaming in the arched windows like a beacon. They found a gully that ran in the right direction, out of the line of sight of the main doorway, and used intermittent flashlight bursts to illuminate their path. If a sentinel saw the faint glow along the gully's sides, no one came to investigate.

"Too bad we couldn't have just used your teleport ball to bounce down here," Winston muttered, leaning against the wall of the gorge to ease his knee.

"It would have been impossible," Egon replied. They'd stopped to catch their break, the Keep looming impossibly high above their heads, a thin trickle of odoriferous water wetting the soles of their boots. It might be a run-off from the keep, and if so, it might be their ticket inside. "The reason the force field worked is because it could draw energy from Borthardian's barricade, and because I could use your biorhythms and Janine's as a destination. But without Mel to move us, we would have had to walk through the protection barrier, taking the field with us."

"Could you use Peter's for direction?" Janine asked hopefully, even though she must realize it was impossible without Mel. She had her wrist cradled across her chest, supporting it with her other hand. Ray wished they could send her back to safety, but she refused to go. She claimed she had as much right to rescue Peter as they did, adding, "But if you ever tell him I said that, I'll deny it." Egon had watched her all down the slope, lending an unobtrusive hand whenever necessary. Janine was feisty and stubborn and she'd kept up with no trouble at all.

"If I had a way to tie into the demon's energy and use it in place of Mel's, perhaps," Egon replied. He bent his head over the P.K.E. meter. "At least Peter's readings have strengthened. He's very close now. I don't have to boost power to max gain to detect him."

"I think it's great!" exulted Ray. "Won't he be surprised when we pop in and rescue him?"

"Before you grow too eager, Raymond, you should know that the hostages are not alone. There is a demon with them. My readings show three humans, Peter and two others. I do not know Jackson MacKensie's biorhythms, and the other pattern is strange to me, too. But the fourth presence is at the same level as Mel's readings. It's not Mel, but it is one of his kind, possibly a guard, watching them to prevent escape."

Ray rubbed his aching ribs. "We can stop one guard without any trouble, I know we can. It's not even Borthardian."

"Then let's move out," urged Winston. I have a sneaky feeling this trench is the outlet for the keep's sewer system. It sure reeks like it. If there's an opening, we could sneak in that way."

"Can you imagine Peter's reaction if we told him we had to crawl through the sewers?" Ray asked, grinning.

Janine gave a snort of wicked laughter. "It's not like he won't be able to tell the minute he sees us. By then we'll be used to the smell, but he won't."

Egon laughed out loud, then smothered the sound hastily. He adjusted his meter and took a reading of their surroundings. "Let's move."

The next bend they rounded brought them up against the wall of the keep. About ten feet up the wall, a square opening big enough to hold Ecto-1 opened into the rock structure. It was almost totally dark, a faint glow far inside the only proof that it was not merely a hollowed-out space in the rock.

"Oh, good, we get to be mountain goats," groaned Winston. "Too bad I didn't bring a rope."

He'd already bemoaned that fact on the climb down the last foothill, and Egon shrugged it off. "Peter is in there. We'll find a way up to the opening. There are no demons present and I can't detect any psi barriers to block us off." He strode impatiently up to the edge of the fortress and risked a quick flash of his torch. The yellow beam revealed a rough, eroded surface to the left of the opening, and a ridge that ran across the surface about two feet lower than the gaping square. The closer to the trickle of water, the smoother the stone. But if they could reach the ledge, they could work their way over to it and climb in.

"Easy." Ray holstered his thrower and tucked his P.K.E. meter into the front of his jumpsuit. "I'll go first."

It might have been easy in daylight and dry weather. In the nasty, wet night, it was like climbing a glass pinnacle. The holds were good holds, but they were slick enough to make balance risky and precarious. At least, if they fell, they probably wouldn't be killed, but they might break a bone or two.

"Be very careful, Ray," Egon called, starting up behind him.

"It's kinda slippery," he admitted without turning away from the stone face in front of him. "So hold on tight. Think we could make hand and footholds with our throwers, Egon?"

"If we wanted every demon and spirit in this part of the Netherworld to know we're here," Egon responded breathlessly. His boot slid against the rock and he muttered an uncharacteristic profanity before he caught his balance.

The ledge was perfect. Not only was it wide enough to support them safely but it sloped upward and outward from the stone, so Ray could edge along in safety, feeling for protruding roots and edges of stone for handholds. The closer he moved to the lip of the drop, the slicker it became, and the more the air reeked of unmentionable things. Ray didn't even want to guess what he could smell. It made Slimer's return from the neighborhood dumpsters seem fragrant by comparison.

"Steady, Ray," Egon cautioned as Ray boosted himself up into the opening. Water ran in a sunken channel down the middle of the conduit, and, once away from the lip of the drop, the sides of the carved tunnel were dry. Grateful to be out of the biting rain, Ray turned around and reached out a hand to help Egon up. Janine came next, offering her good hand to Egon and scrambling up neatly when he pulled. He urged her into the tunnel and Ray drew her into dryness before helping Egon to haul Winston to join them.

They retreated ten feet into the passage and Egon said, "Wait." Staring into the darkness they could see a faint suggestion of light far ahead.

"We're in!" enthused Winston, slapping Egon on the back. "Where's Peter from here?"

"About two hundred feet straight ahead of us," Egon replied, and Ray could hear the relief in his voice. "Borthardian is not with him, but the other demon still is. We must be very careful."

Snapping on his flashlight, Ray ran its beam along the tunnel. A skeleton of a small, horned animal unlike any Earth creature loomed out of the blackness, and Ray moved the light over it hastily. The air was thick and unpleasant, and he tried to breathe through his mouth to block off the horrible smells.

"Oh, Egon, you bring me to the nicest places," Janine cooed with a faint smile.

The physicist returned it. "I shall try to do better next time. Shall we move out?"

"I wonder where Mel is," Ray said wistfully as he fell into step behind Egon. "Gosh, I hope we can save him, too."

"I'll go along with that," agreed Winston, pausing momentarily to rub his knee. He was limping worse than he had been before the climb, but it didn't slow him down. He wouldn't give ground. None of them would.

"We're coming, Peter," Ray promised softly, under his breath. "We're coming."

Mel found himself in a position that he knew no one would envy. Not ten minutes after seeing Ray and Egon safely away, he felt himself snatched up by the power of a fierce demon. The world went black around him and the next thing he knew, he was in a room carved out of the living rock, not a cell in Astarine's Keep but one of the upper rooms where those of his kind were not encouraged to go. The door was spelled to hold him in place; he could gaze out into the passage but he could not pass beneath the lintel. Pressing an exploratory hand against a solid nothing, he yanked it back, his breath hissing out in pain. "Hot!"

Ray and Egon had insisted he hold out, that he not make promises to Borthardian, but it would be hard not to if the demon used Peter and Jackson against him. He might torture them until Mel promised to serve the master demon, and Mel couldn't allow that to happen. He had never met Borthardian face to face, didn't know what powers he had, although he could strike out and hurt someone at a great distance. Did he know that Ray and Egon were approaching the keep, or had he destroyed them already? Mel was sure they'd be safer apart from him. The demon had probably stalled them off as long as he had to make the humans realize their task was impossible. He may not know they were the Ghostbusters, but he might not have cared if he had.

If he considered humans beneath his notice, he might underestimate Egon and Ray, and that would be good, but he wasn't stupid enough to underestimate them so thoroughly that he took no precautions. The keep was surely guarded and someone must be watching the dungeons to keep rescuers out. If Borthardian could hurt Egon so badly from a great distance, he could kill him up close. Mel loved the Ghostbusters and didn't want them hurt. If he could save Peter and Jackson MacKensie, he would do it in an instant. But how could he save anyone, trapped in a windowless room?

"Go through the walls, of course," he said, shaking his head at his stupidity. Jackie always told him how smart he was, and maybe he was intelligent and could learn. But now he had to be as smart as he'd ever been before. Soon Borthardian would come and confront him. But maybe he could do more harm before then?

He had just approached the nearest wall when a sound in the passage outside stopped him and he shifted hastily back to the middle of the room, relaxing when he recognized the new arrival.

"Dugross!"

"Melchazat. I'm sorry you're back."

Mel grinned. "What a friend."

"I mean, I'm sorry he caught you," his old companion corrected. "We've been hearing wonderful stories of your new world. Every one of us wants to go there and live there. Chan wants to be human. You know how impulsive he can be."

"I want to go back," Mel admitted. "When I went with Eddie, I wasn't technically in violation of Astarine's rules. She told us to obey Eddie the way we did her."

"Just not instead of her," the other demon replied, scratching his tuft of black hair. "At least that's what Borthardian claims. Astarine never revoked her command about Eddie, but Borthardian said he didn't give any of her servants to Eddie. He can't hurt Eddie as long as you claim Eddie as master. What is Eddie like?"

"You've heard his music," Mel reminded him, "when she used to play it here. That's what he's like. When you close your eyes and feel that joy because of the music, that's Eddie. And he's my friend. I serve him and I always will, but he says I'm not a servant. I just work for him. There's a difference, because a servant here can't quit. But if I went to Eddie and said I wanted to go away and work somewhere else, I could, and he wouldn't even be mad at me for it. I won't, though."

"Human masters don't bind you? That's what it sounded like Peter was saying when he and MacKensie talked about this world. And Jackie -- "

Mel froze. "Jackie! She's not here?"

"She is here. Borthardian brought her. She is very much afraid but the others are kind to her. She is -- beautiful, in a human way. We all like her. And she loves you but she is afraid."

"Afraid of me?" He'd feared that himself. It was why he had been unable to tell her the truth, because she might turn away from him with revulsion, and it would all be over.

"Afraid of what you are." He reached through the guardian field as if it wasn't there and clapped Mel on the shoulder. The field hadn't meant to keep him in or out so it didn't affect him. "She won't stay that way. Peter says she just needs time to adjust."

"I'd be human for her," Mel blurted out. "I'd change forever, so I couldn't change back."

"Not yet. If you do it now, Borthardian will kill you. But he'd kill her first and make you watch. He's not a good master. He's not even an indifferent one like Astarine was. But then we didn't know any better with her, and now we do. I want to walk down Fifth Avenue. I want to hear music whenever I feel like it. I want to have a bowl of ice cream or a pizza. I want to be able to go where I want when I want to go, without anyone disintegrating me." He shivered, pulling his hand back through the field. "Borthardian zapped Synfyl. He's gone forever."

Mel groaned miserably. "I liked Synfyl. He didn't have much of a sense of humor but he wasn't a bad demon. Maybe he never accomplished much, but he wasn't cruel or evil. That wasn't right." He ground his teeth together angrily. "We have to stop Borthardian, Dug. We have to."

"I know. But if we fight him, he will kill us all." Suddenly he grinned. "There might be better ways." He snapped his fingers and several more rock demons crept down the corridor, hovering surreptitiously outside the door to Mel's prison, greeting him, calling him by name.

"Tell them about your life over there," Dugross urged. "Tell them what you do on a typical day. A good day."

Mel greeted his old friends by name. "They're all good days," he explained reminiscently, thinking of his time on earth with sheer longing. "Every day is a good day."

"Tell us," demanded Cosmer, a tall, ugly demon with a prominent nose and crooked horns. "Tell us about New York."

"Well, I mostly live at Segue," Mel began. "That's a great big house on the Hudson River. It's mid-Victorian. That's the name of the style of architecture. It's got red bricks and a big, square tower. I live there with Eddie and Whitney, his wife, and their little baby, Cy, who's a year and a half old. He's just learning how to walk, and I'll help teach him. He calls me Unc' Mel. Sometimes I can hold him and he'll go to sleep in my arms. He trusts me. He doesn't worry about me being a demon. I'm just 'Unc' Mel' to him. And then there's Nina. She's the lady who taught me how to read books."

"You can read!" A shiver of rapture went through his audience in a wave. "They let you read over there?"

"Anybody can learn to read. Children learn it in school. They can learn anything, the whole history of their world, how to read and write, how to speak different languages, how to drive cars, how to build things and fix things. There's so much to learn. Everybody has television, and there are programs, funny ones and sad ones and serious ones and music, all the time. And the news, so you can learn about everything. I've learned so much. I'm sorry, but I couldn't live here again after all that. It would be like having the whole Netherworld and being told you had to stay in one room with no windows, forever."

"Tell us an Earth story," prompted a demon in the background. "We know Star Wars now. Tell a different one."

"There's so much to explain," Mel said, helpless to describe it all. "But there's one everybody knows. It's a Christmas movie. It's called It's a Wonderful Life, and it's about a man who didn't realize how much he had until it was almost too late." He sighed. "Like me." Collecting himself, he began the Christmas story, adding little bits of information when his audience couldn't follow him. The demons edged closer and closer, passing through the barrier into the cell and sitting in front of him in a semi-circle, and Mel talked, even though his heart was breaking and he was terrified for Jackie, trapped in this terrible place. He should find Borthardian and tell him he would do whatever he said if only Jackie was free. But he couldn't do it yet. Borthardian wouldn't free Jackie, even then. The only way out of this was to defeat Borthardian, and Mel didn't have the power to destroy him in battle. He had only one weapon to use against the master demon, and it was the one he was using now. Life on Earth. A better life. Freedom and music. If only it would work.

Borthardian snapped his fingers impatiently. After almost ten minutes, one demon crept into the throne room and prostrated himself in front of the big demon. "Master?"

"Where were you?" snarled the purple, scaled being, glaring down at his servant in outrage. "You have made me wait."

"Coffee break," offered the prone being, hardly daring speak.

"Coffee break!!!" Fury darkened the scaled cheeks, and the thin lips pulled back to expose deadly fangs. "How dare you!"

"Master, humans have coffee breaks? Are we so much less than they are?" Cautiously the rock demon raised his head and risked a peek at his master.

"We are so much more than puny humans. We need none of their empty customs here." He frowned still further. Nilkrain had always been properly respectful. What vile poison had the humans spread through his slaves? He would destroy them, squash them utterly. "What is a coffee break?"

"It is -- a period of rest and relaxation, master, in the midst of the work day, so that the workers can return to their jobs refreshed and then work harder afterward."

Borthardian pondered that. It sounded like a trick, another devious human trick. In order to understand the human threat, it might be necessary to learn more about them before he vaporized them. "Are you refreshed, Nilkrain? Are you ready to serve me better than before?"

The scorn in his voice should have made the servant's body shrivel in blind fear and panic, but it didn't. Instead the blue being rose to his knees and nodded eagerly. "Yes, Master."

Hmmm. It was sure to be a human trick, but Borthardian wanted to learn more. He did not consider himself bound by his rages the way Tolay was. He considered himself subtle and devious. He had seen the humans begin to corrupt his slaves, but he had waited, biding his time. Far better to demoralize those who waited on him after they had allowed themselves to grow foolishly fond of the human prisoners. When Borthardian cast fire at his prisoners, incinerating them in three blazing pillars, when they died in terrible, screaming agony, then the rock demons would understand the full breadth of his power and the limits of their own.

"What else do the humans tell you?" Borthardian asked, letting a show of interest creep into his voice.

"Human workers only work eight hours per day. They have time off for lunch. They're paid for their work, and they use the money to buy things for their enjoyment."

"They lie to you. They must also use the money for food and shelter, for the clothing they wear, for other things that are free to you. Do you pay me rent? Do you buy your own food? Do you pay for light and water? No. But humans do."

Nilkrain hesitated doubtfully. "But, Master," he ventured faintly, "those things do not take all their salaries. They have money left over for pleasure and entertainment."

"What pleasure? What entertainment? Human pleasure and entertainment? You are not a human. Do you imagine what humans enjoy will comfort you?"

"It satisfies Melchazat," Nilkrain ventured. "I know he is here now, but he has told us wondrous things."

"Then it is time he spoke no more." This was becoming very annoying. Borthardian glowered at the prostrate demon, brooding over the unkindness of fate. After all, he only wanted what was rightfully his: the subservience of his minions, the respect of his peers, a quiet life of terrorism and intimidation, not to mention a possession or two every few decades to keep his hand in. Undermining his authority like this required-no, demanded -- retaliation. How best to do it? To discredit the source and punish at the same time.... He could even rely on a proven technique. Already, he knew precisely how to hurt his main enemy, his main human enemy. He would enjoy it. Best of all, it would demoralize the rock demons at the same time, displaying the humans' greatest vulnerability.

With a sneer at Nilkrain, Borthardian lifted his hand and crooked a finger. Nilkrain must suffer too. He could not go unpunished for his defiance, or the next thing the master demon knew, the fauns would do something ludicrous and defiant, like forming a union. He had to crush them, stomp down their defiance completely, and destroy the source of the threat at the same time. And he knew precisely how to do it.

Then, he would deal with Melchazat.

He snapped his fingers impatiently, smiling at the results of his will. This would be fun.

Peter had been chatting to Chandarl, encouraged by Jackson MacKensie, who seemed to like the friendly entity, when Borthardian materialized in front of the cells in a campy and dramatic puff of smoke and a thunderclap, like a monster from a horror film. He held a bloodstained human form slung over one arm. Face full of ominous amusement, grinning nastily to bare his fangs, the scaled entity waved the bars open with his free hand, then tossed the body into the cell where it lay sprawled, limp and helpless, directly in front of the Ghostbuster. It made a faint, whimpering sound of great pain.

"A present for you, Dr. Venkman," Borthardian announced, eyes glittering smugly. "To reward you for the educating of my slaves." Stabbing a taloned finger at the writhing being, he threw back his head and laughed before he sealed the bars in place. Sparing only one ominous, baleful glance at Chandarl, he vanished in a final puff of smoke. Chandarl shuddered but didn't slip away after him.

Peter jumped when the body landed at his feet, then he tensed as he played back the demon's words. Naked and bleeding, the victim lay moaning helplessly, the marks of the lashes clearly exposed, but the blond hair was too familiar, the way it twisted in the front, the way a tail trailed down the bloodied neck to the lacerated shoulders. Peter froze for an instant, completely unable to move, to think. "Egon?" he ventured, desperate to be proven wrong. His stomach twisting in impotent rage and sudden panic, he gently turned the man onto his side so he could see the face, the face he knew as well as he knew his own. "Oh, god, it's Egon!"

Shock at the horribly mutilated back held him helpless for all of two seconds, then he lifted frantic eyes to Chandarl. "Bandages," he pleaded. "Bring bandages. I have to take care of him." Without waiting to for an answer, he bent over the quivering form he held, one hand against the scraped cheek. "Egon, talk to me. Come on, Spengs. I thought you were dead."

It seemed Egon wasn't dead after all; Borthardian had lied, though he must have imprisoned the physicist -- and Ray too? -- after he had cut Peter's vision of the other two Ghostbusters. All this time, they must have already been prisoners, held elsewhere. Egon looked so bad. The way he was breathing.... The mutilated back.... Maybe Borthardian hadn't been wrong. Maybe he'd just been premaature.

What of Ray? Was he hurt like this, too? Locked away somewhere? The next tool for the Class 7 to use against Peter?

"Damn it!" Peter muttered savagely. He couldn't help Ray right now, but Egon needed him. "Come on, Spengs, it's me."

Blue eyes dragged open as though weighted with lead and gaped up blankly at Peter without a shred of recognition. It was like gazing into the tortured face of a stranger. Peter shivered, an icy tendril of panic sliding into his veins. If Borthardian had stripped away his friend's memory....

"Egon, don't you know me? It's Peter. I've got you. You're safe now." Safe? Yeah, right, none of them were safe. "Please, Egon...."

Jackie's hand fell gently on Peter's arm. "Let me help. We have to stop the bleeding first of all. That's the most important thing. We can deal with the rest later."

"At least he's alive." MacKensie took the strips of cloth that had, moments before, been part of Chandarl's toga. "God, he looks like Eddie, doesn't he. For a minute I thought...." Pushing aside that bit of futility, he edged in close. "Let me see, Peter. Maybe it's worse than it looks." He mopped gently at the lacerated back with a piece of toga. Egon's breath hissed fiercely between his teeth.

"Water," offered Chandarl, kneeling on the other side of the wounded man. "You must clean the wounds. I know of infection. It doesn't affect us, but it does humans." He passed over a bucket, some water sloshing over the rim to wet the knees of Peter's jeans as he knelt at Egon's side. Peter doubted the bucket of water could possibly be clean, but it was all Egon had. Ducking several strips of toga in the bucket, he began to bathe his friend's torn shoulders.

Egon screamed.

Jerking his hands away, Peter gnawed his bottom lip before forcing himself to resume his work. "Egon, I'm sorry. I hafta," he groaned. "We need to clean you up. I'm being careful." Each time the flesh flinched beneath his gentle fingers, it was as if a lash struck Peter, too.

The pain-filled face gazed up at him blankly, nothing in the eyes but the agony he felt, not even an accusation for the pain. Peter wasn't even sure Egon knew who was trying to help him. "Egon, you've gotta remember," he breathed, one hand gripping the shoulder. At least his friend was alive, and Peter

would move heaven and earth to make sure he stayed that way. "It's Peter. I won't let him get you again. I promise." I mean it. He'll have to go through me to get to you. "How did Borthardian get you?"

Egon gave no answer but breathless whimpers of pain. Uncomprehending eyes gazed blankly at Peter's face, not even one faint glimmer of recognition illuminating them. Whatever made him Egon was gone, torn away, or else driven so deeply into hiding it couldn't emerge. "Egon, can you hear me? Egon, answer me!"

"He isn't aware of anything but the pain," Jackie said softly.

A ghastly thought insinuated itself into Peter's head and twisted tight, tighter. "You don't think Borthardian -- took his mind away?" he asked, so sick it was all he could do not to throw up. Egon would rather be dead than mindless. If the core of personality, the soul, that which made him Egon had been removed it would explain the hollow stare that lingered on Peter without a shred of understanding.

"I don't think he's fully conscious," MacKensie said hastily, working at a deep laceration. Hands that could make drums sing proved incredibly deft and gentle as he cleaned the torn flesh. "I don't think he can see past the pain yet. Don't make it worse than it has to be. I know it's bad, but people have survived worse than this before. Egon's strong. He'll make it."

"If I could just get him to realize he isn't alone...." As Jackie, MacKensie, and Chandarl took over cleaning the damaged back, Peter assigned himself the task of reassuring his friend. "Egon, listen to me. It's Peter. I'm here with you now. I know it hurts, I know it's bad, but it'll get better from now on. I'll stop him. I'll blast him into a million pieces. Just let me help you, Egon."

He cupped the pale face in his hands and gazed down into Egon's eyes, searching for a spark of consciousness, any recognition at all, any evidence Egon still lived in there. Even if his friend couldn't react, maybe he could see Peter. "Egon, listen. It's gonna be okay. Ray and Winston will get here any minute, I know they will." Unless he's got Ray, too. "We'll take you home and fix you up, and it'll be over. I promise you." Nothing. Not the slightest hint of response. Oh, god, this is hard. "Egon, listen to me. You're the best friend I have ever had. You're the one who taught me it was okay to trust people. I'd be as bad as my dad now. I wouldn't even have a life if not for you. I'd do anything to help you." There were tears of panic and rage on his face but they didn't matter. Only getting through to Egon was important. Watching him twist helplessly under the gentle ministrations tore Peter apart.

"Egon, listen to me." The light in the blue eyes was fading. He tried, once, to see, brow puckering as he squinted up at the man who held onto him and talked to him. Peter leaned closer, knowing he would be fuzzy at a distance to Egon without his glasses. For an instant, there was awareness in the eyes. Not recognition, but consciousness. He squinted dazedly at Peter and his lips moved as he struggled faintly to form words. Peter listened but the sounds were meaningless babble. He couldn't identify one word in the rasp of harsh, desperate breathing.

"I don't think he -- " Jackie began, her voice full of tears, but Jackson made a hasty movement Peter scarcely noticed out of the corner of his eye and she fell silent. I don't think he's going to make it, Peter's mind filled in the missing words and his whole body tightened. This was impossible. It couldn't be happening. It wasn't real.

Leaning still closer, he regarded Egon from about eight inches away. "Focus on me, Egon. I love you," he said, the words torn from him in the depth of his extreme need. "I won't let you go."

In that final instant, joy flashed in the blue eyes. The lips moved awkwardly, shaping the word 'love' as if they had never tasted it before. An awed, humble, and totally un-Egonlike expression ran across his face. And then, he died.

Peter saw the eyes lose awareness, saw the vision fade, heard the last tortured breath shudder out. The battered body stilled, freed from the pain. He knew what it meant and he understood it, and a part of that knowledge made him bend his head and brush his lips across the dead man's forehead in a final salute. Then he threw back his head and howled a wild, protesting, "No!" to the unresponsive universe, the sound torn from the depths of his being, from the primal pain that nothing had ever touched so deeply before. "Egon!"

Even then, he wouldn't cede Egon to death. "Quick, help me," he insisted to the others. Positioning Egon on his lacerated back, Peter bent his head and started to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation, desperation lending him strength. After a shaken pause in which Jackson muttered a few sad and obscene words under his breath and Jackie caught her breath in a sob, the musician bent to help, giving external cardiac massage with the skill of someone who has been through CPR training.

Peter wasn't sure how long they labored over the unresponsive body, but it was long enough that Jackie was weeping overtly, and Jackson caught Peter's shoulder and pulled him back. Peter fought him with all his strength, but Jackson was bigger and had grown up in a tougher school than Peter had. He pulled him away and shook his head. "Don't, Peter," he said, still gripping his shoulder. "Let him go. He's gone."

"No!" Peter was winded from trying to breathe for Egon. He met the drummer's eyes and flinched away from the knowledge he could see there. There was nothing more to do. Even though he ached to resume the CPR, it was obvious that it wouldn't work. It was too late, and Egon was gone.

Gathering up the shell that had once been his oldest friend, Peter closed the empty eyes, then hugged him up against his chest, rocking gently. It couldn't end like this. But it had ended. There was nothing left for Peter to do but hold vigil, to sit here holding Egon, to prove he had not died alone. His tears slid soundlessly into the tangled, dusty hair.

"Oh, Peter, I'm so sorry," Jackie whispered, her hand touching his hair. She sounded stricken, miserable, even guilty. He scarcely noticed her tone but some automatic response made him offer hasty absolution.

"It wasn't your fault. It was the demon," he gasped, struggling in vain to steady his voice. One harsh sob broke out and he bit his lips together tightly. It wasn't that he didn't mean to mourn Egon. But he couldn't bear to give Borthardian the satisfaction of witnessing his grief. Egon would understand. Egon would.... He hid his face in the blond hair. An arm came around his shoulders in an attempt at consolation.

"He can do to me what he must," Chandarl snarled in the background. "I will never serve him again."

"He knew you were in here," the musician pointed out to the blue demon, the voice nearly in Peter's ear. He was the one holding on, patting his back. "He'll take it out on you."

"I don't care. I'd rather be dead than serve him." Defiance rang in Chandarl's voice. "I'll go with you if I can and I'll change into a human permanently. But first, I'll help you escape from here."

"All of us," Peter ground out harshly. "I won't leave Egon here."

"I will carry him for you," Chandarl volunteered. He must have heard the implacable note in Peter's voice and realized Peter's will would stand against beings more powerful than Borthardian. Jumping to his feet, he shot fire from his hands, shattering the bars in a fierce, echoing explosion. "Come on. We must hurry. Someone will hear that."

"Won't he know?" Jackie ventured shakily.

"He may know, but he won't have an easy time of it. Dugross is with us and so are others. They will shield us if they can. Come."

Peter lifted a ravaged face, then he reached out for the cloak they'd abandoned when Egon had been thrown into the cell. Wrapping it gently around his friend's body, he pushed himself to his feet, clutching Egon to his chest. He didn't seem as heavy as Peter had expected. 'He's not heavy, he's my brother.' The old quote stabbed through his memory, and it was all he could do not to throw back his head and howl out his pain. But that would have to wait. He was responsible for MacKensie, for Jackie, even, in a way, for Chandarl. He had to get them out of here. He had to take Egon home. He wouldn't leave him here. Until all that happened, it was important to remain in control.

So he sucked his pain deep, deep inside then, still clutching the body, he stepped over the fragments of prison bars on the road to freedom.

He had taken two steps, still clutching his precious burden when he heard a stunned cry from Jackie and a blurted, "Son of a bitch!" from MacKensie. Borthardian. It had to be.

Peter lifted his head and stared into the worried eyes of Egon Spengler, who emerged from a narrow tunnel, clad in his Ghostbuster jumpsuit, P.K.E. meter in one hand and particle thrower in the other. Just behind him, Ray and Winston stood, one at each shoulder, with Janine, all geared up in her own pink coverall, hovering in the background. They eyed Chandarl with suspicion but hesitated for a second. Maybe they thought he was Mel. Egon appeared alarmed; all of them were breathing quickly as if they had been running.

For once, Peter's mind simply stopped working. His jaw fell open and he blinked hard, staring at the vision of Egon, alive and in one piece, although smelling rather strongly of sewage. Then he gaped down at the lax face against his shoulder. Two Egons. It was too much for him to comprehend. He staggered.

Chandarl plucked the body from his arms before he could drop it, and deposited it on the stone floor of the tunnel under the shocked eyes of the Ghostbusters and Janine. Peter made an abortive gesture of protest, then he turned frantically to stare at the living Egon.

"Who's that, Peter?" Ray asked uneasily, eyes huge. He aimed his thrower at Chandarl, but didn't fire. "We were in the keep's sewage system when we heard you yelling Egon's name and we got here as fast as we could. Are you okay?"

"Egon," Peter breathed, dazed and shaken. "Egon's dead, Ray. I couldn't...." His voice trailed off and he gaped at the living version. "Are...are you really...Egon?" He stretched out a hand that shook quite violently and pressed it flat against the blond man's chest. After a second, Peter could feel the heart beating steadily there. Alive!

"I assure you, Peter, I'm not dead," Egon said. It was his own voice, his own face, and there was recognition, awareness, understanding, in the eyes that held Peter's. "Ray has been with me the whole time. We are real. Perhaps the demon created an illusion. But I am real, I am alive, and we must leave here immediately."

"He really is Egon, homeboy," Winston put in when Peter hesitated, afraid to risk hoping, believing. He swallowed hard.

"And I've gotta confirm that, Dr. V." Janine's voice was curiously gentle, for all she tried to produce her usual wisecracking tones when addressing Peter. "If anybody would know who Egon is, I would. Believe it."

"It's all right, Peter." Ray patted his shoulder gently, his eyes wide with shock and sympathy. "Demons can do stuff like that. He probably just made somebody look like Egon. Demons can shapeshift, and really powerful demons can shapeshift other beings. He was probably trying to demoralize you...." His voice trailed off and he stared anxiously into Peter's face. "Are you okay?"

Peter concentrated on the beat of Egon's heart thumping away against his palm. Real. It had to be real. There was too much evidence for him not to be Egon. The other one had never recognized him, not for an instant. He had stared at Peter unknowing because he hadn't known him, but this one did. The old, familiar light in his eyes was meant for Peter alone. No demon could fake that. Egon put his hands on Peter's shoulders and tightened his grip.

With a choked-off sob, Peter fell into his embrace, wrapped his arms around the living Egon, and clung to him with all his strength. He was shocked and spent, pushed too far beyond the edge to absorb anything beyond Egon's survival. Conscious of Winston and Ray crowding close to console him, and even Janine patting his arm, Peter soaked in the blessed relief of Egon's presence, his survival. This experience was going to give him nightmares, but Egon was alive!

"He told me a long time ago you were dead," he babbled. "He showed us a vision of you getting zapped and then he said you died of it."

"He did, er, zap me," Egon admitted quickly, "And I admit it was painful, Peter, but the pain stopped as soon as the experience did. If you witnessed that, he must have been trying to show you how powerful he was, using me to make his point. He must have believed you were a threat to him." A warm, living hand stroked the back of his neck. "There will be time for complete explanations later, but right now we should get out of here. I am alive, and all of us will stay that way if we remove immediately to a safer location."

Reluctantly, Peter detached himself and dashed a hand across his eyes. He could hardly stop grinning at Egon's survival.

"Yeah, gosh, we have to," agreed Ray, finally noticed the others, and his mouth dropped open. "Jackie! We didn't know you were here. This is awful!"

"You all right, Jackson?" Winston asked the musician. "Your girlfriend called Eddie when you disappeared, and everybody's been worried about you."

"We're all okay, physically," MacKensie replied. "But they sure did a number on Pete. And I don't know who that dead guy is, but Borthardian had him lashed and threw him in here to die. He looks just like you, Egon -- oh, god, it can't be Eddie, can it?" He flung himself down beside the body and pulled the cloak away, staring at the lax face.

Ray dropped down on his knees beside him, staring in horrified fascination. "He does resemble you, Egon. No wonder Peter...." Activating his P.K.E. meter, he passed it over the sprawled form. "But his biorhythms are nothing like yours and they don't match Eddie's either. They're fading fast, but they're weird. I never saw anything like them. I don't think he was really human."

At that, Chandarl pushed Ray away and grasped the dead man's wrist, encircling it easily with huge, blue fingers. "I am Chandarl. I serve Jackson MacKensie, not Borthardian," he announced.

"Gee, Whitney's gonna be jealous she doesn't have her own demon," Peter muttered. "Only one in the group without one." He couldn't quite muster his usual spirit, but it was a start. "You know him, Chan?"

Chandarl squinted at the dead body. "He has been changed. He is human now, but he was not always human. I think he is...Nilkrain. He was...defiant. He meant to stand up to Borthardian." He closed his eyes and bent his head over his dead comrade. "All he wanted was a coffee break. He meant to take one and then tell Borthardian what he had done."

"A coffee break?" echoed Janine in disbelief. "He got this for taking a coffee break?"

"See what a great boss I am, Janine," Peter said with forced lightness. "You take too long a break and all I do is complain a little."

She made a face at him. "No, you complain a lot."

"We learned so much about being human," Chandarl said. "Peter and his friends gave us a new life. We wanted it more than we feared Borthardian. We still do. He will never have it easy with us. He will kill us all like he killed Synfyl and now Nilkrain. And that will be better for us than staying here, knowing what we know of freedom and happiness."

"Here, Peter." Egon slid a bracelet onto his wrist. "We're taking everyone home. Now."

Peter couldn't help grinning. That stern, determined note was so typical of Egon. When he sounded like that, it would take a bulldozer to get past him. Peter loved it. He was still shaky, and the memory of Egon dying in his arms still hurt, even if it hadn't been real. Spengler had better get used to Peter dogging his every move for the next few days to make sure he was safe.

Egon bestowed on Peter a completely reassuring, understanding smile. He knew how Peter felt and he'd never, not ever, let him down. They held the gaze for several more seconds, and Peter felt a new surge of relief. If all that trust and understanding had gone from his life....

Egon turned to the demon. "What of you?" he asked Chandarl.

"Now I become human forever," the demon replied as Winston passed bracelets to MacKensie and Jackie. Closing his eyes, Chandarl reverted to the form he'd held before, complete with Afro. A shudder of exquisite agony passed through the muscular frame, then he braced himself and raised his head, his face alight with a dazzling smile. "It is done. I cannot go back. All of me that was demon is gone forever." He shivered. "And I am very cold."

"You'll be warm in a minute," Winston promised, passing him the bracelet. "We've got clothes for you back home. This will bring us all to Ghostbuster Central. Put that on. Okay, everybody ready?"

"No!" Jackie cried, stricken, gazing around wildly. "What about Mel? Where is he? Is he here? He was with you before. We saw him." She gazed desperately at Egon and Ray.

"He made us separate to give us a chance to get here. I don't know where he is right now. We'll have to come back for him," Ray said. "First we have to get you home."

She planted her feet firmly on the stone floor, yanking the bracelet off her wrist. "I won't go without Mel," she cried. "I won't!"

"Mel is our friend, too, Jackie," Ray told her. "We don't want to leave him here. But we'll have a lot better chance of finding him and bringing him home if we don't have to protect you while we're doing it."

"He's right, honey," Peter told her. He caught up both her hands and squeezed them. "You've seen how Borthardian can use our feelings -- and our friends -- against us. He can use you against Mel, trick him into promising to stay here forever, and once Mel says the words, it's final. If you're not here, Borthardian doesn't have that much leverage. You can't stay here and wait. I know you love Mel, but you can help him most by going home."

She gazed up into his eyes. Then, to his astonishment, she grabbed his face, yanked him down to her level, and kissed him full on the mouth. "Bless you," she said. "If I didn't love Mel already, you'd be in big trouble."

Then she turned to the others, sliding her bracelet onto her wrist. "All right. I'm ready. But you must find him. You have to find him."

Peter preened himself, throwing a smug grin at his friends. Okay, so maybe it didn't take as well as usual, because not one of them called him on it. He rubbed his eyes again, embarrassed.

"To get home," Egon explained in his most pedantic tones, "all you must do is press the recall button on the bracelet." He pointed to the one on his own. "Show them, Peter."

The expectation was so obvious in his voice that Peter did it. He would have done anything for Egon just then; get up at six in the morning, clean up after one of the physicist's smelly experiments, listen to twenty-dollar words. "Beam me up, Scotty!" he cried and pushed the recall button.

When the lab at Ghostbuster Central came around him and Slimer dive-bombed him, ecstatically shrieking his name, Peter fended him off, holding his breath, watching the others materialized in twos and threes, until Egon was there, alive, safe, and home.

Slimer zipped over to hug Ray, then backed away, squeezing his thumb and forefinger over his nose. "Ray smell baaaad," He complained.

"No lie, we all do," Winston agreed. "Dibs on the shower."

Egon strode over to the molecular phase amplifier and began to examine it. "Go ahead. I must check this out and make certain it will function adequately to take us after Mel. Ray, you go next." Winston wiggled out of his proton pack and deposited on the table before he vanished in the direction of the bedroom, unzipping his foul-smelling jumpsuit. The others removed their packs, and Ray stripped off his jumpsuit, too.

"Man, I wasn't sure I'd see this place again," Peter muttered. "This has not been a good day. In fact of all the days I've ever had...." Noticing Egon calmly removing his bracelet and taking readings of everyone, he grinned. "On the other hand, the last little bit was great."

"What should I do now?" asked MacKensie.

"You go call Eddie and reassure him we're back. Let him know we're going to go after Mel," Egon suggested, gesturing at the lab telephone. "Once everybody is cleaned up, we'll have a quick meal, and then we'll go back."

"Back?" Peter groaned.

"Yes, Peter. Back. We have to rescue Mel. And I suspect we have to deal with the demon in a more permanent way. Otherwise, he might seek us out for revenge. It sounds like you, Jackson, and Miss McFarland subverted his work force. He won't forgive you for that. If we can free those other demons, it will be a good thing, and we will also ensure ourselves rid of Borthardian's threat."

"So what do you want me to do now, Egon?" Peter asked.

"You might try finding Chandarl some clothes," Egon instructed. He must have noticed Janine sneaking a peek at the demon's unclad form.

"Why is it I always have to be the one to get clothes for naked demons?" Peter demanded. It felt good to complain to Egon. "Oh well, come on," he instructed the former demon, guiding him in the direction of the bedroom. "You're about Winston's size. We can raid his closet while he's in the shower, and he'll never notice until it's too late."

Winston took a final swallow of his coffee and pushed back from the table, clean, warm, and replete, his knee cleaned up and bandaged, feeling much better. Across from him, Egon munched on a sandwich, and Ray, finished with his meal, had taken out a calculator, busily adding up a column of mysterious figures that none but he and Egon would understand. It wasn't that much past their usual dinner time. Although it felt as if they had been in the Netherworld for days, Peter hadn't been missing more than seven hours. Glancing at his watch, Winston noticed it was not much past eight-thirty.

Egon had urged Janine to go home, but she had refused, planting her feet stubbornly and casting him an accusing glance. "I'm not going until you're back from rescuing Mel," she insisted. She appeared rather rumpled from wearing her jumpsuit over her clothes and totally pugnacious. Egon blinked at her in surprise.

"Of course you aren't." He couldn't eject her now, not after she had risked herself in the Netherworld for his sake. Instead, he had examined her wrist and replaced the makeshift dressing with an ace bandage. He didn't think it was sprained, and Janine had no trouble using her hand as she ate.

Jackson MacKensie had polished off a big meal; he'd been over there longer and had been fed worse. He'd cleaned his plate in record time, somewhat reassured from his telephone call to Eddie. There had been no problems up at Segue. Someone was always with Cy to make sure he was not fair game, although even Chandarl insisted he was safe according to some peculiar rules that Borthardian was forced to obey.

Jackie had no appetite. From what Winston could tell, she was still thinking of Mel, trying to reconcile her knowledge of the 'man' she knew with the image of all those blue demons who had gathered outside their cell, hungry for stories of life in the human world. Her cogitating was as indigestible as the food she pushed around on her plate. Janine had loaned her a clean blouse out of the stock of clothing she kept at headquarters for use after a bad sliming or when she had evening plans that made it difficult for her to return to Brooklyn first. The Ghostbusters' secretary was taller than Jackie, so the sleeves of the blouse were slightly too long and she had rolled the cuffs up, creating an image of a child in grown-up clothing, but the considerations on her grave face would never have appeared on the face of a child.

As for Peter, he was already wearing his jumpsuit in preparation for the return trip, but he didn't seem especially eager to return to the Netherworld. His eyes kept darting over to Egon in a need for reassurance that the physicist was really alive. Seeing Peter clinging to the mutilated body he held, his face ravaged with tears and grief, had shocked them all. It took a tremendous crisis to drive Peter beyond the cover of flippancy. The 'death' of a friend ranked right up there in the worst possible things to imagine in his world.

Winston enjoyed the thought of giving that dude Borthardian what was coming to him, as soon as possible. He wasn't the type who would sit happily in the Netherworld and do nothing like Tolay had. He'd come after them for sure. Look what he had done to Mel: the storms, the threats, the attempt at control, kidnapping humans to serve his nasty purposes. The Ghostbusters had to stop this one. Freeing rock demons from slavery wasn't Winston's main purpose in life, not that he liked the idea of slavery in any form. Chandarl, who had thrilled to each bite of his first human meal, proved that some demons deserved better than they got.

Egon glanced up from his sandwich and watched Peter for a moment as he played with his food. "Aren't you hungry, Peter?"

"Sure, Egon. This is better than the mystery meat we had over there. Scaly's chef will never have his own TV show. I just want to get back over there and make sure that demon gets what's coming to him."

"He is a powerful demon," Egon reminded him gravely, casting a worried, sidelong glance at Ray. "We must have a strategy. I hope you will be able to help us," he added, turning to Chandarl.

Clad in jeans and a tee shirt, Chandarl appeared rather Seventies in the Afro he wore with such pride. "I'll do anything I can," he vowed. "But I think I should warn you that Borthardian already knows what I have done. I can feel him, even from here. Not like I could when I was still a demon, but I can feel him waiting. He wants me to."

Ray lowered the calculator and stared at Chandarl. "Feel him doing what?" he asked suspiciously. "He was getting at Mel, even twisting the way he talked. It was like he was trying to syphon out his intellect or personality. He didn't take it, but he jumbled Mel's language."

"He hasn't done that to me yet," Chandarl admitted. "Maybe it's harder for him to manipulate me from a distance because I'm human now. There is a great deal I do not know about this world, and I want to learn it. I think I was always more...sophisticated than Melchazat. I have been here before. Sometimes, Astarine would send me here to spy things out for her, so I have learned more than most of my kind. She used to play music for all of us, from Eddie Plummer's band. Borthardian is much less interested in this world. He would never have bothered with it at all if Mel hadn't come back here with Eddie. Now, he considers humans his personal enemies. You have to stop him."

"So what do we do, Egon?" Peter asked, hopeful of a chance at major destruction. "Go in and cross the streams?" It took a lot to make Peter so vindictive.

"That would work," Egon replied thoughtfully. "We do know he's not as powerful as he would like us to assume."

"Okay, I'll bite, Spengs," Peter challenged. "How do we know that? ESP?"

"Once Mel separated from Ray and me, Borthardian didn't track us. It could be that he was otherwise occupied, but he set up the fake Egon at a time when it could be almost immediately disproved. Yes, it put you through a few bad moments, Peter -- "

Peter stared at Egon as if he had suddenly lost his mind. "A few bad moments! A few bad moments?! What's the deal here, Egon, are you trying out for the Understatement Olympics? Maybe it didn't last very long, but change places with me for a second in your mind, okay?"

"I -- oh." Egon frowned, but the expression was self-directed. "I see what you mean. I'm sorry. But what I meant is that for Borthardian to be unbeatable, he would have stopped us from finding you when we did and prevented us from offering you immediate reassurance. He would never have let us reach his keep in the first place. I suspect he gets carried away with his rages and annoyances and tries to be too clever. Had he been too powerful to defeat, he would simply have grabbed Mel, and he would never have let Chandarl get away."

"Okay, so he's overconfident instead of omnipotent," Ray said hastily with a wary glance at the prickly Peter. "But we still have to have a plan because that doesn't make him any less powerful in a confrontation. We can always cross the streams, but we have to make sure whatever we do will get Mel back instead of trapping him there forever."

"I want to come with you." It was the first time Jackie had spoken during the entire meal. Bracing herself for the confrontation, she put on an air of dogged persistence.

Peter patted her hand. "You can't come. We'll have enough to do without protecting you, too. He'd go for you first. Last time, he didn't know how Mel would react, but if you come back on purpose, he'll know he can use you against Mel. If he could pull that number with that poor schmuck demon and make him look like Egon, he can hurt you, too, just to get Mel to surrender, or create an image of your dead body to break him." Egon tensed at Peter's choice of words and reached out an involuntary hand, pulling it back quickly before Peter noticed. "We don't want that," Venkman continued. "Once he makes Mel agree to serve him, everything we've gone through has been for nothing." He scooped up her hand and squeezed it. "Don't you see? We have to keep you safe."

"How safe am I here without you four and your equipment to protect me?" she challenged.

"This isn't the first place demons like to come," Ray pointed out. "Besides, we have a protection field we can activate around the containment unit. We don't run it all the time because it uses too much power, but we put it on when we think there might be an invasion of headquarters. It won't take ten minutes to modify it so that it can enclose you, too."

"Not to be a doomsayer, guys," Jackson piped up, "but what happens if it all goes wrong over there and you don't come back? Will she be trapped in your basement forever?"

"Of course not," Egon replied. "Ray can jury-rig a duplicate set of controls for her to shut down from within if we fail to return. I think you should wait there, too, Jackson."

Peter mouthed the words 'fail to return' without enthusiasm. "Nice, Egon. You're such a pollyanna."

"And Chandarl should wait there, too," added Ray. He turned to the former demon and continued earnestly, "You're even more vulnerable to Borthardian than Mel is. You don't have any way to fight him off. We'll make sure you're safe when we leave."

"If we fail, you'll all just have to take your chances," Winston put in. "I don't think we're gonna fail, though. When you think about it, the guy's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He's impulsive and quick tempered and Peter was able to push all his buttons without even leaving his cell."

"Yeah, that's what I do," Peter added with a grin. He still didn't quite sound like his usual self, but he was coming back. Winston didn't even want to think of how he'd felt watching the false Egon die. He tried to picture how he would feel if saw one of the guys die like that. Not good. Peter would be so hot for revenge when he returned to the Netherworld, he might get carried away. Egon needed to calm him down before they left.

The telephone rang. The four Ghostbusters eyed each other measuringly. It could be anyone calling: a client, a relative, a friend, but in the heart of the crisis, they were all uneasy.

Egon went to answer it. "Ghostbuster Central, I'm sorry but -- Eddie!"

Jackson jumped to his feet. "Is he okay?"

"You're where? How did you get there so quickly? But..." Egon was silent a long time, listening. "Hmmm. I do see your point. I don't like it, but I see it." He glanced at his watch. "Another hour?"

"What is it?" Ray prompted, jumping up and hurrying over to Egon. "Is there a problem at Segue?"

Egon motioned him to silence, listening, a play of expressions on his face as his cousin talked to him. "I believe that may be true, but you can't expect me to like it..... Very well, if you hurry. I feel uncomfortable leaving this matter unresolved as long as we have..... Yes, Jackson is fine..... Peter? No, it was...not a good experience." He quirked an eyebrow in Venkman's direction as if to say, 'more understatement.' Peter grinned, and Winston knew he liked the fact that a famous rock star was worried about him, but it didn't hide the way he watched Egon. Zeddemore hoped he wouldn't be so overprotective of Spengler in the Netherworld that he didn't watch his own back.

Finishing the conversation, Egon returned to the table, trailing Ray behind him like a one-man procession. "That was Eddie," he explained unnecessarily. "He's at Laguardia."

"How the heck did he get there so fast?" Peter asked, eyes narrowing. "Levitation?"

"His next door neighbor is a wealthy man who possesses his own helicopter," Egon explained. "The moment he talked to Jackson, Eddie went to the neighbor who flew him down here. He's going to grab a cab and get here as fast as he can."

"And why, pray tell?" Peter demanded warily.

"Because he's coming with us into the Netherworld," Egon explained, resuming his seat and picking up his coffee cup.

"What!" cried MacKensie, his eyes narrowing. "That's crazy! Eddie will be a bigger target than Jackie, because Mel serves him, am I right?"

"No, it doesn't work like that," Ray put in. He hadn't bothered to sit down. "Because Mel serves him, he's against the rules to use as a target."

"Wait a minute!" Peter waved his hands. "That was fine while he just sat up there at Segue and didn't jump into the game. Once he shows up in the Netherworld, he'd be expected to defend his 'property', wouldn't he? Ray? Doesn't it work like that?"

Ray's eyes widened. "Gee, it could. Borthardian might expect Eddie to fight him for Mel's freedom. Eddie's a great guy but he's a singer. He wouldn't know how. Sure, he's done well when we've encountered trouble before, and he knew just what to do when we fought Jaren'h but that was a residual possession thing. I don't think he's up to confronting a demon like Borthardian."

"He'd have us with him," Egon reminded Ray, a wrinkle puckering his brow. His glasses slid down toward the tip of his nose, and Peter reached across the table and pushed them into place with his forefinger. Although he lifted an eyebrow at Peter, Egon didn't resettle them himself the way he usually did.

"But wouldn't we be disqualified from fighting if Eddie came?" Ray persisted. "I'm not sure what the rules are in a contest like that."

Chandarl held up a hand like a schoolboy vying for the attention of his teacher. "I know," he said. "Maybe I can't help you with demon powers any longer, but I can tell you what I know."

Winning the undivided attention of everyone else at the table, Chandarl grinned. "In a way, you all have the right to be there and to fight for Melchazat. Peter, in particular, and Egon, to a lesser degree, have rights that cannot be denied because Borthardian has injured them. Yes, the injuries were ephemeral."

"Gee, Egon," Peter said in a hasty aside. "He reads the same dictionary you do."

"Transitory, Peter," Egon returned, grinning.

Peter scowled, muttering about psychological aftereffects, but he gestured for Chandarl to continue.

"Since you were there, in a sense, at Eddie's behest, and because Melchazat is your friend, you have the right to return, but you must let Eddie direct the battle to come. If he were not here, you could fight in his place, but if he goes, he becomes the one in charge and you must first fight with his weapons."

"His weapons?" Jackson asked uneasily, a puzzled frown wrinkling his brow. "Listen, guys, if Eddie goes, I go."

"No," said Peter, without turning.

"Yes. Peter, listen to me. Eddie is my Egon. Do you get me? I've known him ten years. He's my brother, just like Egon is yours."

"You are also a target to be used against him," Egon pointed out. "Don't make his work harder. I know how difficult it will be to remain here when he is in danger. When Peter was taken into the Netherworld, we had one thought -- to get to him."

Peter grinned, but he still wasn't quite up to full strength. He didn't try to milk the moment.

"I know you feel the same about Eddie," Egon continued. "While I believe he must come, I also believe anyone else would only endanger the mission."

"I don't want to be the group's naysayer," put in Winston. "But we don't even know if Mel is still there, or if he hasn't been tricked into serving Borthardian."

Ray shook his head vehemently. "We told him no matter what happened, he couldn't say anything like that. We have to hope he's holding out. He may not even have encountered Borthardian yet. We'll get ready, modify the force field, and take off once Eddie gets here." He smiled reassuringly at Jackie. "We'll bring him back."

Melchazat had considerable doubt of that fact. So far, Borthardian had left him alone, but that condition probably wouldn't continue. Mel's former teammates gathered around his cell, some of them popping in to chat, some just hovering at the door to listen as Mel reminisced. He was surprised to hear how fascinated they were to hear about his new life. Wide-eyed, agog with wonder, they listened to his every word.

It was Dugross who told him the worst news of all, that Jackie was here. But it was Cosmer who came back after a summons down to the throne room, struggling to hide an amused smirk.

"What happened?" Mel demanded.

Cosmer beamed with pure delight. "The prisoners got away."

"All of them? Jackie? She's safe?"

Cosmer slid between the bars, rubbing his protruding nose. "All of them. It was nasty, though. Borthardian became angry at Nilkrain and used him to try to hurt the humans."

"What did he do? Are they all right?"

To Mel's horror, Cosmer described the transformation into a reflection of Egon Spengler and lashing of Nilkrain, the deception of tossing the dying body into the cell, Peter's reaction. Once 'Egon' had died, Borthardian had shut off his vision of events, chortling to himself, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "He was going to bring Peter up here to talk to you," Cosmer added. "Threaten him with the human called Ray next if he didn't tell you to swear allegiance to Borthardian. But when he went down there to gloat, they were gone, all of them, all but the body of Nilkrain, lying abandoned in the tunnel. The cell bars were blasted open from inside. And Chandarl is gone completely. He turned into a human. He made a permanent change and went back with them to their world."

"Chandarl is fully human?" Mel stared at the taller demon. "I never did that. I just took human form. Is Borthardian going after Chandarl now?"

"No."

"Why not?" demanded Dugross. He jumped up from the bench where he'd been sitting. "He's tried to move the universe to get Melchazat back."

"Because Melchazat is still really one of us."

Mel stared at his friends in disbelief. "If I had made a permanent transformation, I could have stayed?"

Dugross rubbed his tuft of black hair. "Possibly. Because then you wouldn't be one of us. He might have tried to kill you instead, but he wouldn't have insisted you return."

"He says he's washed his hands of Chan," Cosmer added. "I heard him saying so. He had a bunch of us in the throne room and he was bellowing away that Chandarl's fate was worse than the death Borthardian could give him. He started telling horrible stories about people in the human world starving to death, being shot and killed by strangers, and dying of horrible, painful, lingering diseases. Everybody got nervous." He caught Mel by the arm. "Does that really happen?"

Mel sighed. "Yes, it can. But it doesn't always and a great many people never face any of that. I never said the human realm was perfect. But compared to here it is wonderful."

"Then why didn't you change like Chan did?" prodded Dugross.

He considered it. "Never felt right," he finally admitted. "I am what I am. I can change my appearance but I can't change what I am inside, and what I am inside is a demon. The humans would call me a good demon, even though some of them would fear or hate me if they knew the truth. But as long as I was Melchazat inside where it mattered, I could be Mel the 'human' on the outside and live among them. I might make silly mistakes in my ignorance, but I am learning all the time. I will not surrender what I am, and what I am is Eddie's demon, Mel, who wants to live with humans. I will never serve Borthardian, and if he tries to impose servitude on me, I will stand against him, even if I die." He closed his eyes, remembering the warmth of Jackie's kiss, the rich flow of Eddie's singing, the companionship of the other roadies, the challenge of books. If that was all gone, denied to him from now on, at least he'd had it for a time. He'd had people care enough to try to save him from his fate, even if the larger part of Egon and Ray's motivation had been to save Peter. They'd also wanted to save him, and Mel was grateful. Jackie had feared for him, worried about him enough to go to the Ghostbusters, although she didn't know the truth.

She knew now, though. Peter had been forced to tell her. Mel knew she'd been afraid, but if they were face to face again, he would tell her everything, how he felt, what he believed. If she could not love him as he was inside, he would be very sad, but he would go on. He would do whatever was necessary to survive -- except swear allegiance to Borthardian.

"He'll destroy you," Dugross worried. "You know he will. He's furious now. He could come up here any minute and destroy you."

"Then he'll have to try," Mel decided. "There is nothing he can say that will make me change my mind."

"Oh, but there is," Borthardian purred, popping into the cell in a puff of smoke, but minus his usual sound effects. "Serve me -- or I will destroy the entire human realm. Everyone and everything you cared about, gone in an instant."

"How?" Mel demanded. "You aren't that powerful. You are no more powerful than Astarine, and she couldn't do it."

"She could, but she went about it wrong. Shall I tell you how I will do it?" He rubbed his hands together in fiendish delight. "I will go to a place called NORAD and I shall take over there. I will set events in motion that will cause a global thermonuclear war. Do you know what that is?"

Mel's jaw dropped and he stared at the purple demon in horror. "You'll start a nuclear war?" he gasped, shocked beyond belief. He hadn't believed anyone could do anything so wicked as that.

"Yes, I shall do it. Not everyone will die, of course, but those that live will linger in pitiful existence until the 'nuclear winter' slowly kills them off. I shall make New York City a prime target. Your beloved Jackie will die instantly, vaporized in a second of blinding agony. Why should I expend all my powers in an effort to destroy a universe of humans when I can make them destroy themselves? It will be far more amusing that way."

"What's global thermonuclear war?" Cosmer ventured in a small voice, huddling into a corner of the cell as if he had realized the magnitude of Borthardian's threat although he didn't yet understand it.

"Beg of me that you will never understand," Borthardian snapped, impatiently waving him and Dugross from the cell with a careless flip of his hand. He turned back to Mel, gazing down upon him from his superior height. "All right, Melchazat. I am giving you a choice and time to contemplate that choice. Choose to save your puny existence with humans and I will destroy all humans. Choose to serve me, and I will treat humans no differently than I have done in the past. I will even spare your precious Jackie. You will never again see her, but she will be safe and alive. You spin wondrous tales of the human realm, but you will spin tales of a memory soon. If people there are so good and kind," he sneered, his face contorting at the use of such a description, "and some of that rubbed off on you, contaminated you, then consider how selfish you would be to defy me -- and know the death of humanity is your fault."

Mel shivered. The cell suddenly felt as cold as life would be without Jackie, without Eddie, without music. How could he snatch at happiness if the end result would be to kill everything he loved?

Ray had said he must make no promises. Once the words were spoken, they could not be unsaid. But to save Jackie and Eddie -- Mel gave a vast, shuddering sigh. There was no hope for him. He was doomed. Yet Borthardian had said one thing that gave him a sliver of hope. 'I am giving you a choice and time to contemplate that choice.'

"I need time to think," he whispered, bowing his head so Borthardian could not see the faint, fragile spark of encouragement in his eyes.

"You shall have two hours. No more. No less. In two hours as humans count time, I will return. You will at that time bow your forehead to the floor and say, "I am yours forever." If you do not say that, I will start the chain of events that will destroy humanity. I will even cast you back there, trapped permanently in the human form you so pitifully copy. You will no longer have demon strength to save yourself from the coming holocaust. Now I leave you here alone to think of it. When I return, you will choose. I have had enough of your tales, corrupting my slaves. When they hear the threat I have made you, they will not come back, they will no longer wish to be human, to live with humans."

"They will," Mel said. "They'll just fear to admit it. They will never serve you out of love."

"LOVE!" roared Borthardian in a bellow that shook the very walls of the keep. "Do you think I crave puny, human love? I want them to serve me because they know I will crush them from existence if they defy me. I want them to grovel before me in abject fear. That is the only way to rule."

Mel finally raised his eyes, gazing up at Borthardian with pity. "No, that is merely one way to rule, and not the best way. I serve Eddie by choice, because he is good kind and because his soul is full of music. If I must serve you -- and I do not yet concede that -- I will do it out of hatred, not fear, and I will never stop trying to destroy you." He firmed up his shoulders and faced the menacing entity. Although he was afraid, he refused to give ground. If he did, every story he and the humans had told today were for nothing. He was Frodo on the way to Mordor, Luke refusing to go over to the Dark Side with his father, Roland at Roncesvalles. If he had to choose between two fates that were impossible, he would elect for a heroic death instead of either option. "If you kill me, I will die knowing I have defeated you in the only small way left to me. And the other demons who serve you know of a wider world. Once that knowledge is given, it can't be taken away. It's too late, Borthardian. You don't know it yet, but you have already lost."

When the giant fist slammed into his face and knocked him hard against the wall, he rode it and lay gazing up at Borthardian, refusing to allow anything but defiance on his face. For Eddie, he thought desperately. For Jackie. For everyone I love. Then he went down into the darkness knowing he had won, even if the prize was too bitter to swallow.

"You know this is crazy, don't you?" Jackson told Eddie as the singer joined them on the third floor of Ghostbuster Central, wearing a proton pack. He shed it as soon as he reached the top of the stairs. Egon had brought him upstairs as he and Ray had finished their work on the protective field that was supposed to keep demons out. As Eddie greeted his singing partner, Egon sat down and began to work on his P.K.E. meter while Ray trekked over to the device that would send them back to Borthardian's keep. Janine edged over to sit on the arm of Egon's chair, her face whiter than usual and not from the pain of her injured wrist. Jackie saw the tension on the faces of everyone before her. Peter watched Egon with lingering protectiveness -- Jackie suspected it had taken strong willpower to keep him from following Egon to the basement to work -- although she thought that need would fade when the battle was over, or after a few busts from which Egon emerged unscathed. Egon glanced over at him, and Jackie realized he had already checked on Peter just as he walked into the room and that this was just a quick confirmation that Venkman was all right.

Ray was gung ho, ready to rush off blasting, as if there could be no greater joy or excitement in the world than the job that would have terrified Jackie. She was already unnerved and had been ever since she had been stolen from her apartment and imprisoned in a place that, until today, she had not believed existed. How could the Ghostbusters live like this, knowing what was just one step over on the other side? How could they go about their normal lives knowing that a barrier too flimsy for safety was all that guarded the world from hordes of angry demons or creatures too terrible to imagine? All her certainties had been cast down and she was floundering.

Egon's face was grave. He had cast more than one worried glance at Peter when the psychologist wasn't watching, and now he was studying his cousin, who was a rock star, a rock star, and not a Ghostbuster, and who intended to venture over through the portal into a crisis too nasty to contemplate. Eddie was afraid. He appeared thoroughly unhappy, but his mouth was tight with determination. Until now, Eddie had been a pleasant, affable man who didn't put on airs and who was always friendly when he dropped by Malcolm's office, a man Mel thought the world of. Now he had become far more to her. Side by side, he and Egon looked more alike than they did apart, but Egon didn't seem afraid. He was concerned, though, as if he knew the task was monumental and dangerous.

Winston Zeddemore had rapidly proved to be one of the most sensible, reliable guys Jackie had ever met. He asked all the questions that the more scientific types hadn't considered, like, "What do we do if he tries to blast us before we find Mel?" and "So what happens if crossing the streams doesn't work?" Both answers had come from Peter, who seemed to be planning a mile a minute. Winston might be the team's military strategist -- Mel had said that once, that Winston had served in Vietnam and had taught the guys how to do more than run around blasting everything in sight -- but Peter was the team leader. It wasn't that he did Winston's job better than Winston did. His job was different. It was like being the captain of a football team instead of the coach.

What Jackie liked about the Ghostbusters was that the blending of all their different skills presented such a united whole. They hadn't even needed to plan much aloud. Once the basics of their strategy was set, they each did their part without prompting. They had worked together so long that, in the line of duty, they were almost telepathic together. Mel had said that, too. "I like them, Jackie. I like seeing friends together. I had friends where I came from, and I miss them, but we weren't like the Ghostbusters, or like Eddie and Whitney or Eddie and Jackson. I wish we could have been." That was the most he'd ever talked about his background. Now she wondered if he'd meant Chandarl and Dugross and the other demons. Weird. She turned her head to consider Mel's oldest friend in the room.

Chandarl was mostly silent, speaking only when one of the Ghostbusters questioned him about Borthardian's Keep. He seemed sad and lost, hanging close to Jackson, eyes wide as he took in every detail of the Ghostbusters' headquarters. Once, in passing, Ray had guided him over to the stereo system, and conferred with the former demon; then he'd put a few CDs into the machine and started them. The sound of orchestral music, Mozart and Bach, cascaded out, fainter now that they had come upstairs, but present. Every so often, Chandarl would tilt his head to listen, shivering with a rapture that had been forbidden where he had come from.

Eddie grinned at MacKensie. "I know it's crazy, brother," he said, clasping the other man's wrist in a firm grip. "But it's something I have to do. Mel wouldn't be in such trouble if not for me. According to his set of rules, I'm his master. Now you know this master/servant gig doesn't fly with me. Mel works for me, but I pay him for it. He stays because he wants to, and he would even if I didn't pay him, but I don't work that way."

"No, you just took him into your family like the whole ménage up at Segue," Jackson replied, smiling in understanding and resignation. "I know how you operate, bro. That's why you're going, because he's family."

Eddie clapped him on the shoulder. "Because I have to go, Jackie Mack." The nickname won a flash of white teeth from MacKensie. "Because that's the way this game goes down. According to Netherworld rules, I'm responsible for Mel, so I have to go. Don't think it doesn't tear me up, leaving Whitney and Cy behind. The expression on her face when I got into the helicopter...." His voice trailed off and Jackson gripped his shoulder in return and squeezed. "But I have to do it. If I don't come back, you watch after them for me, won't you?"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Peter Venkman sprang into their midst, waggling a chiding finger at Eddie. "None of this stuff about not coming back. We're the Ghostbusters. We always come back. The four of us -- " he gestured at his teammate -- "actually had to go to Hell once, crossed the River Styx, the whole nine yards. I kid you not. But we're back. If we can do that, we can sure come back from the Netherworld."

Jackie shivered, shaken again from the rest of her fading complacency. "I thought that's where we were before," she breathed.

Janine grinned at her. "No, not quite. These four clowns might be big trouble for secretaries, but believe in them. They can handle it. I know they can, even Dr. Venkman can."

"She loves me." Peter clasped his hands on his chest and batted his eyes at the room at large. "Be still my heart."

She made a face at him, but Jackie could see in her eyes that she loved all her bosses, not just Egon, the one she was actually in love with.

Egon turned to Janine then and put both his hands on her shoulders. She gazed at him with her heart in her eyes. "Janine." He cleared his throat and started over. "Janine, we've finished the force field around the containment unit. It encompasses the entire basement level now. Humans can pass through it at will in either direction, but it will stop Borthardian or any other ghost. I activated it before we came upstairs. When you finish sending us over, I want you to go downstairs immediately and shelter there. Take coffee or books if you like. You won't need to push the recall button to bring us back."

"Slimer could push it, and Janine could go down now with Jackson, Chandarl and Jackie," Ray offered, determined to protect those who had to remain behind. He glanced over his shoulder and frowned. "Where is Slimer anyway? I haven't seen him since he polished off the leftovers from dinner."

"Need you ask, Ray? He usually hangs out at that Chinese restaurant down the block around this time," Peter pointed out. He reached for his proton pack and shrugged it on, his face tight with determination, too tense to kid about Slimer.

"I should come, too," Chandarl offered. "I know my way around the keep."

Egon got up and accepted his proton pack from Peter, putting it on then retrieving his meter. "You are also totally vulnerable to Borthardian, far more than before," Egon reminded him without turning from the meter's screen. "In human form you have no defense against him. I've set my meter to Mel's reading and we should be able to go right to him. In spite of all the fuss, I rather doubt Borthardian has remembered to instruct his demons not to obey Eddie. Would it have occurred to him, Chandarl?"

The former demon grinned, displaying a mouth full of blinding white teeth. "No, he never did. That doesn't mean they'd obey Eddie if he told them to attack Borthardian, but if he asks them not to mention your presence, they probably won't."

"But he'll know, won't he?" Peter nudged Egon with his elbow.

"Oh, yeah, he'll know," Ray said eagerly as he fastened the strap of his proton pack across his stomach.

"Thanks, homeboy," Winston muttered darkly, passing a pack to Eddie, who donned it hastily. "I really wanted to hear that."

"But that means we can beat him quicker," Ray insisted. "We won't have to wait."

As an idea struck, Peter snapped his fingers and spun to face Chandarl. "Hey, buddy, any little secret tips to help us out?"

"You already know he is devious and has a quick temper," Chandarl reminded him. "Also, he can shift people to different locations without warning. He might well separate you so you couldn't 'cross the streams'." Coming from him, the term sounded awkward as if he wasn't sure he had it right. "He can hurt you the way he did Egon, by causing pain from a distance. But I think he'll want to confront you publicly, all of you together, so he can put on a good show for the other demons. Their loyalty has been disrupted." He grinned. "Some of it has been destroyed. He slaughtered two of us, and those two had friends. Besides the longing for the human realm there is a very real hatred of him that you might be able to use. I think he'd take you to his throne room and confront you in front of everybody. If he could squash you while they watch, he could regain all the control he's lost."

"Great," exulted Ray. "Because if we're together we have the best chance of stopping him. We've beat major demons before. Egon, you've got the atomic destabilizer, don't you?"

The physicist nodded, gesturing at his pack. "I'll try to use it first, then the rest of you can cross the streams. Our best chance is simply to zap and trap him and put him safely in the containment unit."

"This is one it will feel good to take down," Peter said with great feeling.

Ray nodded. "I just hope Mel's okay. I told him not to promise to serve Borthardian, but we can't guess what he's up against. We have to hurry. I'm not sure how long he can hold out."

Jackie's heart tightened. "You mean he might promise to stay there to protect us?"

"He might have to," Peter said. "And if he did, then we really have to trap Borthardian because there'd be no other way to get him back."

"Would someone inherit his power and demand Mel's presence?" Egon asked Chandarl as he moved into position in front of the device that would send them back to the Netherworld.

"Someone might inherit, but they might not be such a nitpicker," Chandarl replied. "Not all the major demons over there are as bad as Borthardian. Some of them wouldn't even care as long as the ones who were left did what they were supposed to." He heaved a sigh. "I wish I could go with you. I know I'll be here now for the rest of my life, but there wasn't time to say goodbye."

"What's worth saying goodbye to over there?" Peter challenged, uncomprehending.

Chandarl lowered his eyes and contemplated the floor. "My friends," he said.

"Oh." Sympathy and understanding blossomed on Peter's face. "Gotcha. We'll tell them goodbye for you," he promised. "Won't we, guys?"

"We sure will," vowed Ray. "Come on, guys, we've gotta go now. Mel's in trouble, I know he is." He took his place beside Egon.

"And I've adapted the meter to detect him instantly," Egon replied. "I believe he will know when we arrive. I hope he will."

Janine edged in and wrapped her arms around Egon's waist. "You be careful over there," she insisted and stood on tiptoes to kiss him. He held her close for a moment, then lifted her arms free and moved her backward. Watching the four Ghostbusters and Eddie Plummer assume a position in front of the gizmo, Jackie stood next to MacKensie and Chandarl, one of them on either side of her while Janine went to the device.

Jackie gazed at Peter. "Bring him back," she said.

Peter's eyes came to rest on her face and he lifted one eyebrow questioningly. Jackie knew what the question meant. Could she accept Mel now, knowing what he truly was? It was a question she wouldn't be able to answer until she saw him again, but she knew it would break her heart if the team was unable to rescue him. Mel wasn't what she had thought him, but he was still kind and funny and eager for life, and he loved her. Chandarl had once been like him but had chosen to become human forever. Mel could do that.

Yet, in all the months he'd lived in the human realm, Mel hadn't. Jackie didn't know quite yet how she felt about that, but she did know she hadn't stopped caring. The thought of Mel dying over there like the one who had been made to resemble Egon or the one Borthardian had incinerated made her ache inside. She remembered sitting with Mel, laughing as they read aloud to each other, and the shy tenderness of his kisses, and she was very frightened that nothing would be the same, no matter what happened. "Just bring him back," she insisted.

"We will," Ray promised.

"Now, Janine," Egon instructed, gesturing to her. She pushed a button on the device and a glowing field of light shot out, expanding as it moved toward them. Enveloping them, it blurred their edges for a moment, then it made them disappear altogether.

As she turned the machine off, Janine bit her bottom lip. "Be careful, guys," she said under her breath. "Be careful, Egon." Then she straightened and became all business, turning away abruptly from the place where they had stood. "Come on," she said urgently. "I better get you down to the protection field right away." Waving her arms to direct them toward the stairs, she heaved an almost inaudible sigh, and Jackie realized how hard it must be for her when the Ghostbusters went off on a dangerous mission, leaving her behind.

Moving along with the other three who had a stake in this particular bust, Jackie shivered and thought longingly of Mel. Nothing had been right since he left. Could she take him back, knowing what she now knew? And if she didn't, would anything ever be right again?

The Ghostbusters and Eddie materialized inside the keep, in the room where Egon, Ray, and Winston had arrived the last time, when they were searching for Cy. It was a vast place, hewn from the living rock, shadowy and echoing, the only light coming from flaming torches at widely spaced intervals, casting large areas into the room into a gloom so deep that entities as big as Mel in his natural form could have lurked there unmoving, waiting for a chance to pounce. Suppressing an involuntary shudder, Egon raised his P.K.E. meter and turned in a slow circle, watching the readings on the screen. The others bunched closely together, particle throwers at ready, waiting for the results. Tension sizzled in the air.

When he turned to the right, Egon remembered that there had once been a shrine to Eddie in an alcove there. He pointed in that direction. "I want to see what has happened to that place," he said, glancing up from the meter. Demons were all around them, demons of Mel's classification, but none seemed as close as the huge chamber. Borthardian was further away, higher up in the keep, somewhere far above their heads. If he knew they had arrived, he didn't feel an instant need to confront them.

Peter led the way across the stony floor, his knuckles white as he grasped the thrower. Trust Peter to lead the way into danger. Ray tended to bounce ahead out of eagerness for the job, and Egon to do it when he grew too fascinated in the readings to wait but, today Peter moved ahead purposefully, his mouth drawn in a grim line. "This way to the Eddie Plummer fan club headquarters," he said lightly, but Egon could read the tension in him. "Membership only two terror dogs a year, domesticated -- optional." He vanished into the alcove, plucking his flashlight off his belt and shining it ahead of him to light his way, then he stopped so abruptly that Egon collided with him.

Peter jumped. "Geez, Spengs, watch where you're going."

Egon didn't reply because he'd seen what Peter had already noticed. Eddie's shrine was in chaos. The huge poster of him that had hung on one wall was still partially attached, but it hung in tatters as if a taloned hand had lashed out at it in blind fury. A long strip still hung there, revealing a swatch of spiky, blond hair, one blue eye and the corner of the singer's mouth. Eddie winced at the sight of it, perhaps imagining his fate if the destroyer of his poster should see him.

Ray kicked aside a couple of misshapen candles that had melted into odd lumps and lay sprawled around the floor like the corpses of a dream. The 'altar' stone was smashed in half, stone chips lying in amid the broken candles. "Boy, somebody was pissed," the occultist remarked.

"Borthardian?" Eddie ventured, putting out a hand to touch one trailing streamer of his poster.

"Probably, unless Astarine did it in a fit of pique because you wouldn't play her game," offered Peter. "She wasn't very friendly when she showed up to confront us that last time. I hated that fog she used." He shivered in remembrance, and Egon frowned, recalling how strongly the utter isolation induced by the fog had affected the psychologist. He'd been through it too, and found it totally unpleasant.

"I concur," he said aloud. "But that was Astarine's trick."

"Then shut up about it, Egon," Winston warned. "Don't give Borthardian any ideas."

"You called that, Winston." Peter made himself smile to mask his uneasiness. "That purple dude is nasty."

"Gosh, I just realized Egon and I haven't even seen him," cried Ray. "Winston either."

"I don't want to see him." Eddie let the torn scrap of poster slide through his fingers, jerking his hand back and wiping it uneasily on the front of the jumpsuit he had borrowed from Egon. "I don't even want to be here. Egon, where's Mel, can you tell?"

"Yes. He's above us somewhere." Egon consulted the meter again, detecting the familiar grid pattern. "And I think Borthardian is with him."

"Oh, goodie," Peter groaned. "I knew this would be fun."

"So what next, Egon?" Eddie asked, shifting closer to his cousin. "I must say I'm not certain what my part in all this is. I know that Borthardian isn't supposed to be able to harm me, but I'm not sure if that will work here as well as it did at Segue."

Ray's eyes widened in dismay. "Gee, it might not. You're on his turf now, invading his territory. He might take that as a personal attack and confront you."

"And do what? Have a magical duel? I'd lose." Eddie shivered. "I want to help Mel, but tell me what to do, guys."

"First time you see a big, scaly, purple guy, you blast for all you're worth," quipped Peter. "Come on, Ray, isn't there a trick way out of this in the rule book?"

"Mel has to choose who to serve," Ray said, frowning. "Borthardian knows that. If he chooses to serve Eddie, then Borthardian must let him -- but he will take revenge."

"I don't think I like this revenge part," muttered Winston, edging over to peer out into the larger chamber, on guard against a sneak attack.

Peter made a face. "What kind of revenge, Tex?"

"A threat. 'Choose me or I blast your girlfriend'. 'Serve me or I will destroy Manhattan.' That kind of thing."

"Hey, I like Manhattan," Peter objected. "Manhattan's just sitting there minding its own business. That's not fair."

Egon lifted an eyebrow at the psychologist. "Surely you don't expect a demon to play fair, Peter?"

"No, Spengs, I expect him to pop in and start throwing fire from his fingertips any second now. We better track him down before he squishes all my old girlfriends." Reattaching the flashlight to his belt, he led the way from the ruined shrine out into the main chamber.

Half a dozen rock demons waited for them, not far from the tunnel opening, standing in a semi-circle that would prevent them from moving deeper into the main room.

"Oh, boy." Peter jerked to a stop, then he took a wary step closer to the blue entities, spreading his hands pacifically without letting go of the thrower. "Hey, guys, we're collecting for Goodwill. Got any used demons you'd like to hand over?"

Egon moved up beside him. "Try not to make them angry, Peter."

"I think they're angry already," Venkman pointed out, waving his hand in their direction. "Course it's kinda hard to tell...."

To Egon's astonishment, Eddie threaded his way between the two Ghostbusters and moved toward the demons who stared at him in disbelief. "I am Eddie Plummer," he announced, his voice drifting into song. The vast throne room had wonderful acoustics. The pure baritone voice soared, reverberating off the high ceiling.

"Oh, great, Eddie's gonna sing opera." Peter reached out to haul him back to safety, but Egon had understood what was happening, and he caught Peter's arm to restrain him.

"No, Peter. Wait. Cover him."

The thrower snapped up and took aim. "I can do that."

Two of the demons moved closer to Eddie, staring at him in disbelief. The nearest had a black topknot that made him seem almost comical, but Egon didn't feel particularly like laughing as the towering being advanced on his cousin. "You are Eddie?" he ventured, squinting down at him.

"I am here. I have come for Melchazat," Eddie sang, standing tall, eye to chest with the speaker. "Astarine commanded all of you to obey me as you did her. I have come to invoke that pledge." His voice rang out, rich and angelic, filling the entire chamber. The demons beamed blissfully as Mel had done when first he met Eddie.

"Music has charms to soothe the savage beast all right," Peter said in Egon's ear. "And don't correct me the way you usually do when I say that. Those are savage beasts and I think it's working."

"Master, we would serve you," the demon gabbled hastily, sketching a hasty obeisance, bowing down so low he nearly brushed the floor with the tips of his horns. "But we are not powerful, and Borthardian is. Tell us what to do."

Eddie kept on singing. It seemed to be de rigeur for him when in the Netherworld, not that he could easily restrain himself elsewhere. "I know who you are. You are Dugross. Melchazat has talked of you and of his other friends."

Dugross quivered with rapture. "The great Eddie knows my name."

Peter leaned over and whispered audibly in Ray's ear, "Boy, is this ever gonna go to his head."

Egon nudged him with his elbow. "Sssh, Peter."

Eddie waved the bowing demons to their feet, and they ventured up uneasily. "I know many of your names." The mellow baritone flowed out, filling the cold, hard emptiness with a transitory warmth. Egon could see its effects as the demons shivered in joy. Music must be desperately scarce here. On the other hand, Egon had heard Mel singing Christmas carols when he had come to the firehall for the holidays, and he had to admit it was not a sound he would listen to, given any choice in the matter. He was nearly as bad at it as Slimer.

"But now," Eddie crooned, "tell me where to find Melchazat?"

Dugross dropped to his knees in the dust. "It is very bad. Borthardian has given him a choice. He may continue to serve you. But if he does, Borthardian will destroy your world in a terrible way."

"Wrong," muttered Winston. "We'd stop him."

Dugross shook his head, his topknot flying. "You cannot stop a global nuclear war."

"What?" Startled into speaking rather than singing, Eddie whirled to face Egon. "He can do that? Egon, what am I going to do?"

"We need information." Egon advanced on the kneeling demon. "Tell me quickly the exact nature of the threat."

Dugross did, while Egon, the other Ghostbusters, and Eddie listened in horror. Not only must Mel face an impossible choice, he must choose Borthardian, because if he did not, everything he valued would be destroyed. Egon was at first leery of the possibility of beginning a global thermonuclear war, but Dugross spoke of NORAD. While Egon was not certain precisely what he meant to do if he went out to Cheyenne Mountain, the fact that the demon knew where to initiate such an action proved that the threat was genuine. Mel would believe it without question. Egon doubted entering NORAD and initiating a launch would be as easy as Borthardian thought it would, but it might not be impossible either, especially since he could shapeshift.

"Well, now, this isn't nice at all," Peter muttered. "I told you I didn't like Borthardian. I didn't think he could ever do anything worse than what he did to me when I thought you were dead, Egon, but this -- We have to stop him!"

"Gosh, yeah." Ray's eyes were huge. "I don't think he could do it, but even if there's one chance in ten thousand that he could, we have to. Can you take us to him?"

The room exploded into a massive thunderclap of sound that rang from one end of the chamber to the other, bouncing off the walls and rattling away into fading echoes. A few stalactites fell from the ceiling overhead and slammed down like daggers, shattering on the granite floor, one of them barely missing Winston, who jumped three feet sideways without seeming to move at all. Smoke and fire billowed out of the center of the room, forcing everyone to scramble hastily backward. Already moving, Winston went down on one knee before he caught himself and jumped to his feet. When the fog and flames cleared, the master demon stood before them.

Egon didn't like the sight of him. Huge and purple, he glared down at his audience with a yellow and malevolent glare, thin lips pulled back to reveal a row of knifelike fangs, each one longer than Egon's hand.

Instantly, five throwers lined up on him. The demons who had hovered behind Dugross tried to vanish into invisibility in the nearer shadows, mewling in fright. To Egon's astonishment, Dugross and two other demons stood their ground, placing themselves at the Ghostbusters' side.

Egon fired without hesitation, hoping the destabilizer would do its work and make the entity easier to trap. It would have been a forlorn hope under the best of circumstances. Borthardian simply slid sideways out of the stream, making gestures at himself with his fingertips. The physicist realized he was undoing the effects of the weapon with quick strokes the way a human would brush dust from his clothes. Watching the readings stabilize, Egon felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach that told him this would be far harder than he had expected. A being as massive as Borthardian, and one with so much of the physical in his makeup, would be too strong for the streams unless they could score a simultaneous direct hit.

Eddie cleared his throat and lifted his voice in song. "Help us," he sang to the other demons. "Help us to stop him and I will free all of you to live as you choose."

"You think they care for that?" snarled Borthardian, poking one huge finger at Eddie's chest. The singer arched his body backward hastily to avoid the glistening black talon that missed him so closely it snagged on his shirt and tore a long swatch of fabric free.

"I care for that," Dugross admitted in a desperate defiance. He put his arm around Eddie's shoulders and drew him back out of range. "I will serve him, and I will not serve you. Service must be earned. You are not worthy."

"Silence!" Carelessly, Borthardian snapped his fingers and Dugross fell down, screaming in the same agony Egon had felt when the demon had attacked him from a distance. The memory of that pain was vivid in his head; he knew exactly how the hapless demon felt as he writhed on the stone floor.

"No!" sang Eddie desperately. "You have no right. They would have been yours had you been fair to them, but you were not. You were cruel, demanding power. Coming after Melchazat was a mistake, too."

"Melchazat will elect to serve me," spat Borthardian. "And I waste my time with you. You, maker of music, have one weapon against me, and only one. I will not tolerate it." He made an esoteric pass with his hand. When Eddie opened his mouth, a hoarse, harsh croaking sound emerged, like an angry frog. "Egon!" he cried, the color draining from his face at the utter ugliness of the sound that spilled from his mouth. "Egon, help me!"

"Yikes," gasped Peter, clapping his hands involuntarily over his ears. Ray grimaced, and the approaching demons fell back, stunned at the voice that had been so beautiful and now was broken and ugly. Whatever Borthardian had done to him had made his voice the most repulsive sound Egon had ever heard, and Eddie knew it. He tried to sing but began to cough and choke at the first effort. "Help me!" he gasped, and even that breathless plea made the demons recoil from him in horror.

The master demon laughed once, amusement and boredom laced in his voice. "You will never sing again."

"But I have to sing." Eddie saw the appalled faces of his listeners and he pressed his lips tightly together. Egon saw in his face the pain he had seen on Peter's when he had held in his arms the body he had believed to be Egon. Borthardian had just stripped away his cousin's soul. As he watched, tears flooded Eddie's eyes. Staring up at Egon, he shook his head, then he lowered his face into his hands to muffle the sound of his desperate weeping. Borthardian had just done the one thing in the entire world that had the power to destroy Eddie Plummer.

"It's not permanent," cried Ray urgently, patting the singer's shoulder. "Eddie, it's all right. We'll fix it." Eddie hunched his shoulders to dislodge the attempt at comfort.

"And precisely how will you do that?" Stepping over the spasming body of Dugross, Borthardian smiled, fangs glistening with saliva. "I go now to hear Melchazat's pledge. You cannot stop me. You are too weak to stop me."

Dugross exploded into furious motion. Although the endless agony still twisted his face, he grabbed the thrower that had erupted from Eddie's hands and, kneeling beside the singer, powered up and fired in one swift motion. "NO!" he cried. "You can't destroy music! I won't let you!"

"Quick, guys, cross the streams," Peter yelled, catching on. He hit the firing button on his weapon, and Ray gave an excited shout and joined him. As Winston moved closer, Peter's stream and Ray's melded and lashed out at the demon. They had moved so fast that Borthardian barely had time to try to brush off the first particle beam before the thicker and more powerful one hit.

Egon moved in closer, too, mentally trying to process the possibilities of adding the energy from the atomic destabilizer to the conventional proton beams. He didn't know if it would help, but he was certain it would not do harm, except to the demon.

Suddenly gouts of flames shot out from all over the chamber as the rock demons rallied behind Dugross and the Ghostbusters and joined in the attack, shooting fire from their fingertips, working in perfect unison. While Eddie sat dazed and unaware of the battle going on over his head, Egon and Winston joined their streams to those of the others and Dugross, realizing what they were doing, edged in to join them, waving his hand at his companion demons to direct the fire that laced from their fingertips.

Not even Borthardian could hold out against the crossing of the streams, especially when every rock demon in the room added his own psi power to the attack. Lashing out with bursts of pale fire that would ordinarily have bounced off the scaled form, the rock demons charged closer. Thanks to the work of the atomic destabilizer in the combined beams, they gouged chunks out of his scaled flesh, causing him to twist and scream in desperate agony, flailing his arms wildly, shooting his own fire in random shafts of energy that dug chunks out of the walls and ceiling and sent them crashing down.

Suddenly another blue demon darted into the chamber, unfastened Eddie's proton pack with careful fingers and stripped it off him, leaving the pack to Dugross. "Egon!" Peter called in warning, nodding his head at the sight.

The action was not meant to cause harm. Cradling the stricken singer in his arms the way a mother would carry an infant child, the demon retreated to the shadows at the far side of the chamber, shielding Eddie from the energy fire and from the cascades of rock shards with his own body. Egon glanced that way just long enough to be certain his cousin was protected, then he returned his attention to the battle.

Dugross shrank himself down to human size so he could stand in line with the Ghostbusters, maintaining his fire with the ease of an old pro -- demons were evidently strong enough to resist the kick of the particle throwers. "What happens next?" he asked, shrugging one arm through the strap of Eddie's shoulder and wearing it like a shoulder bag as he fired.

"Next we zap this guy into the bottom pit of hell," Peter snarled.

"I like it," Dugross returned. He cast a practiced eye up at his former master. "No one will serve him now, whatever happens."

Egon wished he could hold the P.K.E. meter and continue the fight at the same time. He wanted a reading of Borthardian. Although the force of the crossed streams was having an effect, it was slow, and that gave Borthardian time to thrash around, trying to stomp on them and drive them apart. Before he could do so, a whole line of rock demons edged in between him and the Ghostbusters, ducking low so the linked beam of energy could still strike him at mid-chest. They shot fire at his legs and feet, making him dodge away, practically pulling the crossed streams after him.

He swung massive fists toward the ceiling up above, knocking loose stone chips big enough to flatten a sumo wrestler. One of them grazed Winston's left shoulder, making that hand fall away from the thrower and nearly jerking his beam out of the power surge. Instantly a demon knelt beside him and steadied his good hand, to enable him to maintain fire.

"Winston!" Peter and Ray yelled in concert.

"I'm okay, it's not broken," Winston called back, his voice sharp with pain.

"This puppy just won't lie down," Peter complained. "Egon, what do we do now?"

"Throw out a trap," Egon replied. Suddenly, he shook his head. "No, throw out all the traps!"

Mel's friends did the work for them, snatching the traps off their packs as if they knew without being told what each of the Ghostbusters' tools were.

"No! NO!" Borthardian's voice rose, as loud as the thunder that had announced his presence. "Destroy me, entrap me, and your singer will never sing again. He will never dare to speak again, because people will flee from him in horror at the ugliness of his voice."

"Wanna bet!" Peter challenged. "We don't like you, and there's nothing you can do that we can't undo."

"Don't challenge him, Peter," Egon warned in an undertone. "You'll only make him mad."

Peter grimaced. "He is mad, Egon. But I'm mad at him, and I'm gonna take him down. He made me think you were dead! He zapped you when you were trying to get here. He held Jackie prisoner. He threatened to blow up the world. We've gotta stop this guy."

"We will, Peter." He pondered the struggling demon. "Now!"

All five traps popped open, bathing the chamber in brilliant white light. Borthardian shrieked and flung his arms up to shield his eyes from the blinding glare. More rocks poured down from the ceiling, some of them falling right through him. The destabilizer was working! Just a few minutes more. Just a few minutes....

Suddenly the shriek faded down to a fine, thin wire of sound that lashed out at everyone in the room, then, with a billow of fire and smoke, Borthardian turned into a cloud and tore into five pieces, each of them zipping into one of the waiting traps. "Stop firing!" Egon yelled and the hum of the streams died, Dugross powering down a beat behind the others. As the last of the demon's essence slid into the traps, the lids closed over him and a vast silence swept through the chamber, broken only by the steady rumble of the ceiling overhead and the groan of pain from Winston as he staggered, clutching at his shoulder.

Everybody scrambled for the traps, and Ray scooped up Winston's as well as his own, slinging his own on his pack and tucking the second one under his arm. Egon cast an alarmed eye up into the darkness, flinching when a small chunk of stone came rushing down at him, making him jump sideways and nearly fall as he eluded it.

"Quick, the ceiling's collapsing," yelped Peter and grabbed at the injured Winston, steering him toward the nearest tunnel entrance, head turned back to make sure Egon and Ray were following. Everybody raced after him, the demons shooing the humans before them. Egon got one quick glimpse of the demon who held Eddie, too far away on the other side of the tunnel to join them safely. He ducked into a different tunnel, raising one hand to wave in Egon's direction in reassurance. Two of his compadres lingered, firing yellow power from their fingertips at the collapsing roof in an attempt to mend it before it all came down -- but it was too late for that. With a vast roar, the entire keep collapsed around them, stones exploding outward in all directions, then there was nothing but the rattle and crash of the chamber's doom.

"Run!" screeched Ray, his voice shooting up nearly into the soprano range in his urgency.

Egon bellowed above the thundering rumble of the rockfall. "No, hit the recall! There's no time. Eddie! Hit the recall!" He knew his cousin couldn't hear him from the opposite tunnel. "Eddie!"

Peter slammed his thumb against the button on Winston's bracelet, and watched him disappear. Lifting his eyes he saw Ray vanish, then he spun around to make sure Egon was safe. Dust billowed into the tunnel after him and the rattle of huge stones grew closer.

"Tell Eddie!" Egon roared at the nearest demon.

"Egon, come on!" Peter jumped for him and slammed him up against the side of the tunnel as a huge boulder like the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark came thundering down the passage and tried to squash them flat. Egon could feel the wind of its passage, and Peter flinched as it grazed his arched shoulder, but he didn't let go. His fingers fumbled for Egon's bracelet, but Egon shouted, "Eddie!" and tried to push Peter away the second the boulder had passed.

There was no more time. He saw the horrified realization and regret in Peter's face as he pushed Egon's button and then his own. They popped out of the tunnel one second before the rest of the roof would have come down on their heads.

Peter shivered, lifting his head with delicate caution, feeling a spray of dust and fine chips of rock shower from his hair as he moved. His upper arm felt like it had been skinned by the boulder, but at least it hadn't turned them into roadkill. Egon was safe, shielded by Peter's own body, and he levered himself up and offered a hand to the physicist to pull him to his feet, even as his eyes did a hasty inventory. There was Ray, fussing over Winston, who sat slumped against the wall, his face twisted with pain, his feet stretched out in front of him next to the collection of traps. Maybe his shoulder wasn't broken, but it was definitely out of place. Compared to the sight of that, Peter knew he'd been lucky.

Egon erupted upward with a shout. "Eddie!" His voice held utter desperation. "Peter, we must go back. Eddie's still over there."

"They went out the other tunnel," Ray ventured, easing Winston's arm carefully out of the pack's strap. "We'll have to go back for him. Don't move, Winston. Your shoulder is dislocated."

"No lie," Winston muttered tightly.

"All the tunnels were coming down," Egon argued, reaching for the molecular phase amplifier to reset it. "We don't have any time."

"Egon, we don't have time." Peter dumped Winston's ghost trap on the floor beside the others. "We can't go back there. The whole keep was falling down. There's nowhere to go any more."

"But we have to rescue Eddie." Egon's face was stricken. "How can I ever tell Uncle Cyrus that I left him over there?"

Winston shifted warily, biting his bottom lip. "Hey, Egon, remember there was a demon helping him? He'd have taken Eddie out of there. Those demons can go right through walls and stuff, can't they?"

"Easy, Winston, don't try to move," Ray soothed. "We'd better call the paramedics for your shoulder. And there's blood on your sleeve, Peter. How bad is it?"

"Just a scrape." Peter could hardly make a fuss over his own minor injury when Eddie was trapped in the Netherworld, his beautiful voice destroyed by the demon. Even if he came home, if the demon who had carried him out of the collapsing chamber managed to bring him here, he wouldn't be the same. "I'm okay, Ray. Call 911 for Winston, though. He needs that shoulder put back." Leaving Winston to Ray to fuss over, he turned back to Egon and reached out to catch him by the arms. "Egon, listen to me. We can go back over there for him once the keep has time to settle. Or he can push his own bracelet button and get home that way. He doesn't need Scotty to beam him up. He can operate it himself."

"But Mel's still over there, and Eddie...." Egon frowned. "Music is such a part of him, I'm not sure he'd want to come back without it. I must go after him, convince him to come home."

Footsteps on the stairs made all of them tense. Peter glanced past Egon to see who was coming, automatically drawing his thrower. When he realized it was MacKensie, Jackie, and Chandarl, with Janine in hot pursuit, calling a warning that it might not be safe yet to leave the protection field, he holstered it.

"I heard you calling Eddie's name," the musician exclaimed, hurrying into the lab. He stared around wildly for his friend.

The red-haired woman hurried to Egon's side, catching his arm and checking him over to make sure he was intact. At the sight of his expression, she cast a hasty questioning glance at Peter. "I tried to stop them, Egon. Is it safe to be up here? Did you get the demon? What's wrong? You look -- "

"You bet we did, Janine," Peter answered hastily for the physicist when Egon only stared at her blankly. "In five different traps, too. I'm gonna slam dunk him into the containment unit. Dibs on being the one to do it."

"Where's Eddie?" demanded Jackson MacKensie, standing in the middle of the lab, hands on hips, a glitter in his eyes that wasn't precisely accusing but that made his worry blaze out like a beacon. Egon winced.

"Where's Mel?" Jackie demanded in a much quieter voice. "Couldn't you get him back?" She crept closer and caught at Peter's sleeve. He had nothing to offer her except the knowledge that they'd have to keep trying.

"Winston, you're hurt," Janine realized, her eyes widening in shock. "And you're bleeding, Dr. V." After eyeing Ray thoroughly to make sure he didn't have any hidden wounds, she frowned from Egon to Jackson and back again, adding up totals in her head and coming to an understanding of the problem. She mouthed at Peter, "Is Eddie dead?"

"Call the paramedics, Janine," Peter urged her, shaking his head hastily in response to her silent question. "We're gonna be all right and we got the demon but we ran into a major snag over there."

"Where's Eddie?" Jackson lunged at Peter, grabbing him by the upper arms. The pain that slammed through his left shoulder made Peter cry out involuntarily, but he squashed down the sound and the pain, even as Jackson jerked his hands away and stared at the blood on his right palm. He was growing seriously frightened.

Knowing how he'd feel if Egon were the one missing, Peter spoke hastily. "We went one way and he went the other." He pushed away Jackie's hands when she tried to investigate his arm. That could wait. "A demon was helping him. He'll be okay and, once we've regrouped, we'll shuttle on over and bring him back." He didn't say anything about Eddie's voice. That could wait until they'd rescued him. Maybe one of Ray's spell books had an answer for that problem, or maybe the spell wouldn't last once Borthardian was defeated.

"You guys are wrong," Ray cried. He had finished immobilizing Winston's arm and now he burst to his feet, grinning. "It was pretty dim in there and a lot was going on. Maybe you just didn't see. It wasn't just any demon who took Eddie out of there. It was Mel!"

Egon slapped his forehead in disgust. "Of course it was. I should have realized. I saw how much concern he displayed, but I didn't see his face."

"I had a better angle," Ray persisted. "You would have known if we hadn't had to worry about the ceiling coming down on our heads. He waved at us. He was going to rescue Eddie, I know he was. I bet he'll pop in any second now, and everything will be fine."

"Are you sure?" chorused MacKensie and Jackie as if they'd timed it, even down to the identical inflection. Surprised, they smiled at each other, although the smiles were so halfhearted they looked like they'd been flipped on and off like light switches, then turned back to Ray.

"I'm sure," Chandarl put in quickly. He had listened silently to the entire discussion, hanging doubtfully in the background, only approaching when Janine reached for the phone and dialed 911. "If Borthardian was under attack, a serious attack that threatened him, he would have been unable to maintain all his power. Mel's prison would have opened up and freed him. Once you trapped Borthardian, Mel would have no obligations. It would be as if Eddie won the battle between them, since you were Eddie's operatives, at least according to Borthardian's rules."

"Will another demon jump in and try to take over now?" Winston asked. He looked shaky and uncomfortable, and was trying hard not to move more than necessary.

"Not much left to take over," Peter reminded him, recalling the collapsing ruin they had escaped with seconds to spare. "The keep isn't worth keeping any more. It all fell in."

Chandarl smiled. "That sounds good. No one would want it now. My friends will be free. Melchazat can bring Eddie back here safely -- or he may bring him to Eddie's home instead, since he knows that better."

"But he has to bring him here," Ray insisted. "Because we have to help Eddie."

"Help Eddie?" Jackson echoed. "I knew there was something going down. You didn't level with me. What's wrong?"

Ray exchanged a worried glance with Peter, then both of them turned and stared at Egon. The physicist spread his hands. "Tell him," he said. "He has the right to know."

"He is dead." Jackson groaned, slamming his fist down on the table so hard he winced, although the physical reaction was the only sign he felt the pain of the hard blow.

Ray put his hand on the drummer's arm. "No, he's not dead. Everything was going crazy and Borthardian -- did something to him, but he wasn't dead. Mel had him. He was alive. He was conscious and everything. But -- "

"Did what to him?" Jackson pushed himself right up into Egon's face. "He's your cousin. What did Borthardian do to him? Tell me?" He grabbed a handful of blue jumpsuit and shook Spengler hard.

Tearing himself away from Jackie and Janine, who were fussing over the raw, scraped place on his arm, Peter manhandled Jackson away from Spengler. "Come on, back off. It wasn't Egon's fault."

Egon made no attempt to straighten his jumpsuit. He appeared sad and helpless, as though he had made a bad call in an experiment and it had backfired. "I let him come with us, Peter."

"Let him? He had to come. Don't you get it? We couldn't have stopped Borthardian without him. With him there, the other demons helped us. If he hadn't been there, it would've been like when I was in the dungeon. They'd have been interested, but they didn't owe us anything. We couldn't have stopped old Scaly without him."

"It's not a fair trade."

Peter caught Egon by the shoulders. "Listen to me, Egon. It's a crummy deal, yeah. We all know that, even if Mel pops in with Eddie in the next ten seconds. But you've gotta know it beats the Armageddon Borthy had planned for the whole world. And you know Eddie would think so, too."

Jackson had watched and listened to both sides of the conversation, but now he jumped in. "Would you have thought it, Peter, if the body you tried to save in the dungeon had really been Egon?"

That was a low blow, and Peter, who hadn't yet been able to shove that image out of the video screen in his mind, flinched from it. The answer would have been one of the most impossible choices he had ever made, had he been forced to make it. But the answer was there, even if it felt like a form of betrayal. "Egon is part of the rest of the world, too. And so are Ray and Winston and Janine and everybody I love. I'd have had to." It might have destroyed me as well as losing the first and best friend I ever had, but I'd have had to do it. "I'm sorry, Egon."

In the midst of the pain in Egon's eyes was a shining pride. "You would have been right," Egon consoled him. "Even if it would have hurt."

"There you go, another of your wild, crazy understatements," Peter said. "We saved the world again, even if the world won't know anything about it. And nobody's paying us, either." He quirked an eyebrow at Egon, hoping to lighten a mood that was unlightenable. Egon grimaced in return, understanding the intent, even if he was unable to share in it.

Instead, he gestured to Janine and Jackie to finish bandaging Peter's scraped arm, then he turned to Jackson MacKensie. Ignoring the dabbing of antiseptic that made the wound sting, Peter edged closer to Egon, offering him the support he could.

Egon spoke. "Borthardian destroyed Eddie's voice." The words came out slowly and reluctantly, falling into a shocked silence like stones in a pool. Peter caught Ray's eyes urgently.

Ray hurried over, lining himself up next to Egon. "But now that Borthardian's gone we can fix it. There could be a spell to counter it, and maybe Borthardian had to maintain it personally for it to last. It could have even been an illusion. I'll run some tests. Once Mel brings him back...." The flaw in his reasoning brought him to a dead stop. Mel might not bring him. The collapsing keep might have destroyed him or killed Eddie. Borthardian might have drained Mel's abilities. He might not be able to make a trans-dimensional leap any longer. "I know it'll be okay," Ray insisted. Even his much vaunted optimism faltered.

Janine left the bandaging to Jackie without a second's hesitation and slipped her arm around Egon's waist, leaning against him, warning Jackson by her body language that Egon was not to be blamed. He jumped when she touched him, but his arm encircled her shoulders the way a drowning man grabs a life preserver.

"His voice!" Jackson's horrified cry was nearly drowned out by a rumble of muted thunder and a flash of light. Huge, blue, and caked with dust, Melchazat tumbled into the lab, Eddie held sheltered in his arms. The demon was bleeding from many wounds but none of them were serious. They didn't prevent him from landing in a way that made him take the jar of the fall instead of the man he held protected in his arms.

"Eddie!" Egon and Jackson cried. The singer stirred, lifted his head, and stared at them numbly out of hollow, dead eyes. He knew them, recognized them, understood where he was. He simply didn't care.

"Ray," Mel cried urgently, so worried about Eddie he hadn't even registered Jackie's presence other than to take one deep breath of relief that she was safe. "You have to help. You know all the occult stuff. All the things to do. You have to help him." He strode past them all, heading for the bedroom, and they fell in behind him in desperate procession. Depositing Eddie on Peter's bed, Mel stretched out a huge, blue finger and stroked the spiky hair back from his forehead. The sunglasses Eddie usually wore perched in his hair had vanished and the dust was so thick in the blond spikes that it seemed the same color as the chips of rock that lodged there.

Egon sat on the edge of the bed beside his cousin. "Eddie, can you hear me? It's over now. You're safe."

Dazed blue eyes came to rest on Egon's face, refuting his words. For Eddie, it wasn't over. He gazed at Egon a moment longer then, deliberately, he shut his eyes.

Mel turned, stricken, to the Ghostbusters. "Help him."

"God, Eddie, you scared us." Jackson displaced Egon at his friend's side. Peter watched the movements in the drama, his mouth closed tight over a tension-relieving quip that would be so wrong as to be obscene. No smart-mouthed attempt to ease the mood would work now. He had to let Eddie's friend try to help him. Just as he had to help Egon.

Eddie opened his eyes just long enough to see Jackson and reassure himself that he was okay, then he closed them. Rolling over, he presented his back to the watching audience, and huddled there, arms curled tightly across his chest.

Peter turned quickly to study everyone. Mel knelt beside the bed, his hand on Eddie's shoulder. Beyond him, Jackie stood, one hand trailing a strip of gauze from the unfinished bandage on Peter's arm, the other pressed against her mouth. Her entire attention was focused on Mel as if nothing could ever tear it away, noticing the tenderness of his concern for the first human he had ever met, the unconcern for his own injuries. She was seeking the familiar in an unfamiliar form, finding it in the voice that was slightly more resonant in the large, economy size and the gentleness that not even being eight feet tall could refute.

Ray raced back from the lab, a huge book in his hand, urgently flipping pages, seeking a solution to Eddie's problem. Winston sat, still braced against the wall, tensed against the pain of his dislocated shoulder, but he was alert to the crisis. Chandarl, an observer, was distressed, the expression awkward on his face as if he were still learning how to be human, but he hovered near Jackson MacKensie, displaying loyalty to his own human.

Janine hovered near Egon, ready to defend him if Jackson accused him of anything, but Jackson wasn't thinking of anything but Eddie. Neither was Egon.

And any minute now, paramedics would show up to check out Winston and probably haul him off to the hospital to get his shoulder put back into place.

That left it all up to Peter.

He circled around his bed to sit on the edge of Egon's, facing Eddie. He surprised tears in the singer's eyes, hopeless, despairing, soundless tears. Peter knew what he was thinking, what he was feeling, because, today, he had faced a loss of the same magnitude. He had seen Egon die. It had been illusion, but Peter had not known that at the time. He had only known that the soul had been ripped out of him, leaving him destitute. Music was Eddie's soul, and music had been sundered from him. A person didn't bounce back from a devastation like that. Peter had been lucky. He had come face to face with Egon shortly thereafter, realized Borthardian had tricked him.

Tricked him?

Peter leaned closer until he was full in the center of Eddie's line of vision. "So that's it, then? You're just giving up?"

"Peter!" The accusation in Egon's voice lashed Peter like the flick of a whip, but he closed his mind to it. He had to.

"You've got a wife, you've got a baby, and they love you. You've got a friend here," he nodded at Jackson, "who would have fought for the right to come there after you, and you've got a friend in Mel who was willing to die for you over there -- and had to face the choice of serving Borthardian or letting the whole world be destroyed in a nuclear war -- for your sake. And you've got Egon tearing himself over you because he let you come with us. You gonna make him and Mel pay your debts for you? You gonna run out on Whitney and Cy? Guess Mel's been wrong about you all along, hasn't he?"

"You don't understand!" Eddie spat at him, his voice hoarse and rasping. He went into a spasm of coughing, his face twisted with revulsion, but Peter drew a vast breath, letting relief slide through him and welcoming it, because he had been right.

"Get him some water, somebody," he instructed, bouncing up with a huge grin upon his face. "He just ate a lot of dust, and that's bad for a singer."

"Dust!?" countered Eddie, rage twisting his face. "You son of a bitch -- " He launched himself off the bed at Peter, then jerked to a disbelieving stop as he finally heard himself. He froze, dazzled. "It

doesn't sound ugly."

"No, and it won't," Peter exulted, catching Egon's eye and inviting him to share the relief. "Because once Borthardian went into the trap, he had no power over you any more. Or only the power you gave him. You're gonna sing again, Eddie. I guarantee it."

Life and joy spread across the singer's face like the sun in the morning. He whirled around, erupted at Egon and hugged him hard, then grabbed Jackson to repeat the process, and finally Mel, hiding his face against the broad, blue chest. Mel beamed at Peter as he stroked the singer's hair.

"How did you know?" Egon asked the psychologist.

"I didn't know, Spengs," Peter admitted. "I just thought, Borthardian was good at faking it. You said that pain he gave you wasn't real; it was just an illusion of pain. And when I thought you were...dead, that was fake too. Borthardian wasn't around any longer, and Eddie hadn't even tried to talk since he was trapped. He was afraid of what he'd hear so he just didn't try. I thought if I could bug him enough to get mad at me...." He grinned. "Lucky guess."

"I don't think so." Egon shot out a hand and gripped Peter's wrist. "Good deductive reasoning. Thank you, Peter."

Peter beamed at him. "I'll remember you said that next time you tell me I don't pay enough attention to your science lectures at staff meetings."

Wiggling free of Mel's protective hold, Eddie stuck out his hand to Peter. "Last time we went through this Netherworld stuff, I found out there was more to you than met the eye." The dust-induced hoarseness was already fading from his voice. "This time you proved it all over again."

Peter clasped his hand, grinning.

Suddenly, Janine appeared at Eddie's side with a glass of water, holding it out to him. "Oh yes," she said. "There's a lot more to Dr. V than meets the eye. That's why I always have to watch out for him." The warmth in her eyes as she smiled belied her words but Peter didn't call her on it. Why upset a working system?

Freed from Eddie's grip, Mel straightened up, brushing at his arms and legs as if it would wipe away his wounds from the cave-in. Demon injuries weren't quite like human ones -- they didn't last as long and they didn't ooze real blood. Ray called it 'ichor', and Peter had to agree; he looked 'icky', all right. Yet he also seemed hesitant, doubtful. His eyes lingered on Jackie, who had finally put aside the roll of gauze. Staring up at him, dazed, she ventured, "Mel?"

He took a deep breath, although, strictly speaking, demons didn't need to breathe the way humans did. Mel breathed in his human form because he had the substance, not just the appearance, of humanity, but he didn't always do so when he was a demon. "This is what I am, Jackie," he said with a reluctant gesture at himself. "This is why I was afraid to tell you the truth. I'm sorry. Didn't have the nerve."

"The nerve?" she echoed. Her voice was hoarse and untested as if, like Eddie, she were finding the courage to speak. "What was that about a nuclear war?"

Mel hung his head. "He knew how much I wanted to live here, so he said I could choose him or I could come back here -- and he would go to NORAD and cause a nuclear war. I read about NORAD so I thought he could do it. He said if I was so selfish that I would want to be with you and Eddie instead of letting the whole world live, then that was my choice and I could die with you. And I couldn't, Jackie. I couldn't let the world die. Love it too much for that. Love you too much for that."

Eddie made shooing gestures at everyone to remove them from Mel and Jackie's private moment, but no one ventured further than the hall. Like Peter, they were listening for all they were worth.

"What did you do?" Jackie asked him. She wasn't quite able to meet his eyes, but she reached for one of Mel's hands and took it in both her own, exploring it nervously with her fingertips.

"Ray said not to promise, because if I did it was final," Mel admitted. He gazed down at her as if he had seen the promised land. "So I stalled. Knew they'd come, but I didn't know if it would be in time. If it had come down to that last minute, I knew I'd have to serve him so that you would survive and the world would survive."

Peter discovered he had a huge lump in his throat. If the guys realized he was so sentimental.... He pushed that thought away and swallowed hard. He'd have made the same bargain with Borthardian if he'd thought of it, when he'd believed Egon dead. To save his friends, he'd have given them up, although it would have killed everything inside him. If Jackie wanted proof that Mel's essence was 'human', she had it right in front of her, the best part of humanity.

"Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," Winston muttered from the lab, as if he had been reading Peter's mind. Egon glanced from him to Mel and Jackie, then his eyes came to rest on Peter. He would know what Peter had been thinking. He always knew things like that. He didn't speak, but he nodded once, in confirmation. Peter felt as if he'd won the Nobel Prize.

Although Mel towered over her by nearly three feet, Jackie lunged at him with an exasperated sound and hugged as much of him as she could. "I love you!" The words sounded almost like blows as she flung them at him, but it was also as if she had unfurled her banner and no one could make her strike it. Like Eddie, she hid her face in the vast blue expanse of chest, snuggling up to him, satisfied.

"Even like this?" Peter could have told him nothing would have taken away from her feelings, not any more, but Mel was not the woman expert that Peter considered himself. He was learning, but he still had a great deal to discover about life and human relationships.

Jackie's head bobbed. "It's what you are," she said. "I was afraid at first, especially over there, but then I met your friends, and I saw how brave they were, and how they were really a lot like everybody else."

"But I'm a demon," he reminded her. "And I think I have to stay a demon. I can keep human form indefinitely but I think, for me, it's best not to change completely. Could you live with that?"

Jackie hesitated. "I thought I was going to have to live without you," she said. "I'll take you any way I can get you, even if it means you're blue sometimes." She lowered her voice. "Would we have little blue babies?"

He hesitated, and if he'd been in human form, his face would probably be bright red. "I don't know. Maybe Ray can find out. They'd most likely be human who could shapeshift into a demon sometimes -- like me in reverse?"

Ray scratched his head, but he didn't interrupt the conversation.

"Oh well, I think I can live with it." She hugged him harder. "Just be patient with me. I don't want to lose you."

"I was sure I'd have to lose you," he admitted. "But now I'm safe. And I'd never do anything to hurt you."

Peter had to give him that, he meant it. He'd been willing to give up everything for her sake.

Jackie smiled. "Your friend Chandarl is human now. He changed over completely."

"Permanently?" Mel's eyes found Chandarl without hesitation, although he had not been given time to identify his old friend's new body until now. He didn't need explanations, even though Chandarl would have been the only stranger there. He knew.

"Borthardian turned Nilkrain human," Chandarl said. "He made him resemble Egon and had him lashed to near death. Then he put him in the cell with us and let him die in front of Peter. I wouldn't be a demon any longer, after that. I serve Jackson. He says I can be a roadie with you."

Mel's face lit with a wonderful smile.

Downstairs, someone rang for admittance to the firehall.

"Oh, gosh, the paramedics," Janine gasped. "I'll go let them in." She raced away down the stairs.

"And that means you better change your appearance, Mel," cautioned Ray. "I'll get you some clothes." He darted over to Peter's closet since it was the nearest as Mel detached himself from Jackie, closed his eyes, and shrank down to his human form. To Peter's surprise, the wounds on arms, legs, and body dwindled down to healing cuts, then vanished altogether. The transformation didn't make him any cleaner but it healed him from the injuries he'd taken in the cave-in.

"Mel, old friend," Eddie said, clapping a muscular shoulder, "I don't mean this in the wrong way but you really need a shower."

"Pot calling the kettle black," Mel retorted, the teasing full of joy. "Flip you for it?"

"Go first," conceded Eddie. "You don't want to put clean clothes on over all that dirt. And I have to call Whitney right away. She'll be going berserk, waiting to hear from me." He sounded normal. Like Mel, he was transformed, and as he headed for the nearest phone, his voice rang out in song.

He sang the Hallelujah Chorus.

Grabbing a handful of clothes -- they were a set of Peter's sweats, so they were bound to be too short for him -- from Ray, Mel hurried into the bathroom, his cheeks reddened from the presence of Jackie calmly observing him in his state of undress. Peter saw her watching him, also pink but definitely interested. Go for it, kiddies, thought Peter as if conferring a blessing.

The paramedics stopped dead at the sight of the dust-covered Ghostbusters, eying their scratched and battered state in shock. When Eddie returned from reassuring Whitney, even more dusty than they were, the older of the two men asked, "So what's going on here? Cleaning the attic?"

Ray grinned across his whole face. "Cleaning up the Netherworld," he said. "We went over there to rescue somebody."

Doubt and a vivid suspicion his leg was being pulled spread across the man's face. He was young, maybe twenty-two, and probably a lot more conscious of his dignity than his partner, who was a decade older. "That's Eddie Plummer," the younger man insisted accusingly, jutting a finger at the singer. "Why is Eddie Plummer here? That's Jackson MacKensie, too." Peering into the corners of lab as if in search for Whitney Stone, he shook his head. "Nobody's ever going to believe this."

"How's Winston?" Egon asked practically, directing the younger EMT back to his work. "We thought his shoulder was dislocated and felt it better to leave it to the experts."

"That was right," the older man said. He had a lean, weatherbeaten face, lots of laughter lines around his eyes, and the air of a man who found little in life to surprise him. He accepted the presence of two rock stars as calmly as he did the Ghostbusters themselves. "It is dislocated, Marty. We'd better transport him. Smart move to immobilize it like this." Glancing around the room, he noticed the awkward, unfinished bandage on Peter's arm and motioned him over. "What happened to you, buddy?"

"I had a disagreement with a giant boulder. It wanted to squish me flat and I wanted it to miss me. We compromised." Peter stuck out his arm.

"Nasty scrape," Marty said. "We'll clean it up and put a dressing on it, but it isn't serious."

"And that means no act about how you can't use your arm and somebody else will have to take out the trash or do the laundry for you, Pete," Winston muttered, amused.

"Gee, Zed, I thought I'd volunteer to do that for you." It sounded good and, with the best of luck, Ray and Egon would take over those chores for the duration. Peter figured he wasn't even good for a day with his arm, and there was no way he'd try to get any mileage out of his experience in the dungeon. Some things simply weren't fair game.

Egon's eyebrow shot up, the one that enjoyed displaying his skepticism at Peter's virtue. Since he'd never in his life been able to get one eyebrow to go up without the other one trailing in its wake, Peter pasted on an expression of saintly virtue that fooled no one and even made them laugh. When the paramedic cleaned his scraped arm, he played the stoic, refusing to allow so much as a wince. Peter Venkman was a guy who could take it.

Ray agreed to follow Winston to the hospital in Ecto-1 so he could bring him back when his shoulder was in place. They might decide to keep him overnight, especially since it was getting on for midnight, but Winston said he'd rather come home if he could, so Ray trailed down the stairs after him. They couldn't all go, not with the firehall so full of people so, when they were gone, Peter and Egon had hasty showers in the basement bathroom to clean up from their excursion. Egon loaned Eddie some clothes so he could get dressed when he finished his shower, then everybody congregated on the second floor except for Mel who was still in the third floor shower. Peter played 'hostess', making sure everybody had sandwiches and something to drink. When Egon came upstairs from his shower, he busied himself taking fascinated readings of Chandarl.

No sooner had everyone sat down with food and drink than Mel trailed down the spiral stairs in his borrowed clothes, wrists and ankles fully visible, feet tucked into a pair of Winston's slippers. Eddie passed him on the stairs for his turn; at least the clothes he borrowed from Egon would fit him right since the two Spenglers were much of a size.

Peter had dragged up a few extra chairs, and Jackie rose from one of them when she saw Mel. He smiled at her, waved ingenuously, and hurried over to grasp her hands. She led him to the wing chair, made him sit down, and squeezed in beside him, half on his lap. If she was still afraid of his demon persona, she gave no indication of it. She was probably still going to take the lead in their relationship, but Peter hoped Mel wasn't afraid of how it might turn out any longer. Jackie might be disappointed that he hadn't told her the truth, but she understood why. The threat of Borthardian was gone, so Mel could relax. He could even become fully human like Chandarl had, if he chose to.

"I'm going to need to bum a ride from you when you go back to Segue," Mel told Eddie. "I can't go up on the train. I don't even have my wallet."

That startled Chandarl, who gazed around doubtfully like someone who had wandered onto a Broadway stage in the middle of Act I and didn't know his lines. "I don't have a wallet either," he confessed. "What's a wallet? Am I supposed to have one?"

Jackson pulled the billfold from his back pocket and displayed it to the fascinated demon. "See, you keep money in it, and credit cards, and your driver's license. And here's a picture of Sharonna, my lady." Peter craned his neck to see. Old Jackson had excellent taste. Sharonna was tall and lovely with masses of dark hair and huge, expressive eyes. She was a woman who wouldn't take crap from anybody. Her first meeting with MacKensie's pet demon was bound to be impressive.

"We'll pick up some things for you tomorrow," Jackson went on. "Don't worry. I'll show you what you need and teach you how things work. But I think we'll head over to my place now. It's late, and I've gotta say, I'm totally beat. I want to call Sharonna too, let her know I'm okay. I don't want her thinking I stood her up last night. God, was it only last night?"

"Should I come?" Chandarl asked. For an instant, he appeared lost and frightened of a world he didn't begin to understand.

"Sure, you're coming. You're on my team now, remember. We'll get you all fixed up. An identity, a salary, a place of your own. Even a wallet." He grinned and pushed himself to his feet as if the effort of standing drained most of his remaining strength. "Tell Eddie I'll give him a holler in the morning. God, I'm glad he's okay. Come on, Chan."

Mel surged up and hugged his friend with a childlike intensity. Chandarl let go with reluctance, then he squared his shoulders and followed the drummer down the stairs, uneasy but ready to face his new life.

Janine hesitated, deliberating about whether she should stay, but then she shrugged, accepting that the only thing Egon would be doing would be collapsing into bed as soon as everything settled into place. "I'll grab a cab home. Just remember, Dr. V, you owe me overtime for this."

"You bet, Janine." Peter hesitated, realizing there was no help for it and, with a sigh, he dug out his wallet and pulled out cab fare for her. "Here you go, babe. Cab's on me. But this is a one-time deal. Reward for putting up with the Netherworld."

Snatching the bills from his hand before he could change his mind, Janine paused only long enough to embrace Egon fervently. When he thought Peter wasn't watching, Egon bent and planted a kiss on her forehead. The psychologist grinned. He'd ride Egon later over that kiss, but not yet. Egon was still safe in his grace period.

Janine practically levitated down the stairs, her face illuminated with a glowing smile.

"I should go, too," Jackie put in, taking her place at Mel's side. "I am supposed to work in the morning, though I think Malcolm would understand if I called in sick." She put out her hand to the demon. "Come with me."

"But I have to ride with Eddie -- " It was a form protest. He didn't want to disagree. Even without his wallet, he'd find his way to Segue, but he had too much to talk to Jackie about before any more time had passed.

"Eddie probably won't go up till morning," Peter intervened. "And even if he does, we'll get you there somehow."

"I'll take the day off and drive you up myself," Jackie promised. "Come on, Mel. I just want to go home."

They set off, her arm around his waist, his around her shoulders, and went downstairs together. The air of unity about them was so strong Peter couldn't help grinning. That was a couple, if he'd ever seen one.

"Anybody want to place bets about the state of Mel's virginity by morning?" Peter said wickedly to Egon. Glancing around, he realized the others had all departed and just the two of them were left, at least until Eddie came downstairs and Ray and Winston returned from the hospital.

"I never bet on sure things," Egon responded. The ringing of the telephone interrupted him, and he stretched out a long arm to scoop it up. "Ghostbuster Central..... Oh, Ray. How's Winston?"

Peter edged closer so he could hear, Egon tilting the receiver to give him access. "He's okay," Ray said. "They're just finishing up with him now. They'll immobilize his arm and give him a pain prescription, and then I can bring him home. Tell Peter he'll have to fetch and carry for Winston instead of the other way around."

Peter gave a sputter of laughter. "I heard that, Tex," he accused, although he knew he wouldn't object to such duty.

"Well, you were supposed to." With a laugh, Ray said goodbye, and Egon replaced the receiver in the cradle.

"Cocoa, Peter?"

"The perfect end to a day that didn't come close to perfect," Peter agreed. "Well, except when I walked out of that cell and nearly bumped into you. That was the good part."

"And the part where we rescued you from the Netherworld," Egon replied. "Remember, Peter, we didn't know you were alive either. For Borthardian, your function was bait, sufficient to lure Mel into the Netherworld after you. You could have died the minute you arrived over there, and we didn't know any better."

"Not without a fight," Peter denied, although he understood what Egon was saying. It wasn't as bad as seeing his oldest friend die in front of him and be helpless to stop it, but it was bad enough.

"I believe that," Egon replied and started for the kitchen.

Peter fell into step with him, unwilling to remain alone in the rec area, even if Egon was nearby. He could hear movement overhead to suggest that Eddie was nearly done with his shower, his voice raised tunefully above the beat of the water. He was glad for Egon's sake that Eddie was alive and well -- glad for Eddie's too because Peter liked Eddie. But he was gladdest of all that the body he had held in his arms had been a stranger.

When they were seated at the kitchen table, Egon took a slow sip of the rich chocolate liquid and heaved a sigh of deep contentment. Peter tasted his, too, letting it warm his insides as if went down. "On a scale of one to ten, you get an eleven for this, Spengs."

"I'll make a note of that." Egon grinned, then his face grew serious. "Peter, are you all right?"

There was no point in pretending to misunderstand him or even insisting his arm was fine. Egon knew him far too well than that. He'd produced the cocoa precisely because he did know Peter as well as he did. "I'm probably still shaking," Venkman admitted. "I thought he was you, Egon. I mean, once I saw you, I could tell the difference. Not just because you were standing there, but because there's something about you that makes you Egon that he didn't have. Well, no way he could; he wasn't you. I thought maybe Scaly had wiped your brain, and I wanted to tear him apart, but when I saw you, it was so obvious I kept thinking I was an idiot because I didn't know right away it wasn't you." He wasn't sure anyone could have made sense of all that babble but of course Egon did.

The physicist set down his cup and pushed his glasses into place. During Peter's helpless rambling, they had slid lower and lower. "There was no way you could have known. Remember, you were up against a powerful class 7 whose skill at deception was quite high. While Borthardian was not subtle, at least not nearly as subtle as his predecessor, Astarine, he did have the power to manipulate what people saw, or to create a false reality."

"Oh, yeah, Astarine was subtle, all right," Peter said. It was a stall, and both men knew it. Borthardian had been brought down not only by the Ghostbusters' equipment but because the demons who served under him had chosen to serve him no longer and had assisted the team. They had done that because of the way he had treaded Mel, their former companion, and because of their fascination with the human realm. One of these days Peter half expected to discover a tribe of demons posing as humans staggering around Manhattan wreaking havoc out of sheer ignorance.

"Perhaps she had a few more cards to play than Borthardian," Egon conceded. "But the point is, a single, unarmed human cannot hope to stand up against a class 7 entity when his whole purpose is to deceive. I certainly don't blame you for making such a mistake and I am sorry you had to go through what you did."

Peter waved a hand to render that apology unnecessary. "Come on, Spengs, that's not the point."

"No, the point is that you have seen what you believed was my death and it scared you."

Peter was silent a moment, collecting himself. "Boy, you go right for the jugular." His voice shook as he spoke, all those memories crowding in. He had been lucky. Egon still lived and Peter's world was right side up, but he had been given a dramatic display of how thin the dividing line was between smug contentment and total disaster. Right now that boundary was like paper, and he'd walk wary for awhile, expecting repeats, not just Egon, but Ray and Winston, too.

"What can I do to help?" asked Egon. "And don't forget, while Ray, Winston, and I didn't actually see you die, we saw you disappear into the Netherworld. Sometimes, our job makes us imagine things to be worse than they are."

There was the faintest edge of tension in Egon's voice -- and that meant there was a lot more than faint edges of it under the surface. They'd all faced a trauma, even Eddie, who would probably wake up each morning for weeks and test his voice in a cautious whisper before he risked speaking aloud.

Peter wanted nothing more than to fling his arms around Egon and huddle there in the shelter of a protective embrace, the way he had when he was a child and the world seemed vast and scary. Yet he knew the world had always been vast and scary and would never change. Given a choice of holing up in a cave and never letting anyone into his heart again or staying here with his friends, the choice was clear.

His smile blazed out. "I know, but we won, Egon. We're just a force for good in our time." When Egon groaned, he plunged on. "The thing is, love isn't safe and cozy and sheltered. It takes a risk. You either go for it or you risk losing it altogether. If it's not worth the risk, it's not worth having, and my life is worth whatever it takes. I'd rather have you guys and all this -- " He waved his arm to include the firehall, their jobs, and their entire lives -- "than to give it all up so I wouldn't have to get hurt any more. That's the game I played before I met you, and if I went back to it, it would be worse because it would be like saying there'd been no point. And we both know there was." His eyes locked with Egon's and he saw the understanding in his friend's expression. It made him smile. "I'll probably be overprotective for awhile on busts, and maybe you will be, too, but we'll ease back to normal soon enough. We're all here and we're all safe, and that's the bottom line. In the end, we wouldn't be any safer if we gave it up and got safe, cushy, ivory tower jobs. We have to do it. We have to do it together." He sucked in a huge, sustaining breath. "And we have to do it the best we possibly can, because I definitely do not want to go through seeing you die like that again."

"You're a wise man, Dr. Venkman." Egon smiled, an extra warmth in his eyes. "But I am not immortal. None of us are."

"No, but nobody should die like that. I was so glad to see you, Egon, I didn't even care that somebody really did die, just so long as it wasn't you."

"You can't tell me anyone wouldn't be glad a friend lived. I don't know who that was who died, just the name, but of course I am sorry for his death, as I know you are."

"Heck, yeah. What a crummy way to die." Peter fought the involuntary shiver at the memory.

"Borthardian won't kill anyone else," Egon reminded him. "He's safe in the containment unit."

"Yeah, and that helps, Egon." He took a sip of the cocoa, his fingers fitting themselves around his mug to enjoy the warmth. "I'll be okay," he admitted. "We're all gonna be just fine." He gestured toward the ceiling as Eddie's voice suddenly burst into glorious song. "We just know a little better that the world's a risky place." And suddenly he grinned outrageously. "Just think, Egon, we did it again. We saved the world. Are we great, or what?"

Egon favored him with a mock grimace. "I knew it wouldn't be long before you made that point."

"Why shouldn't I make it? We're heroes, Egon."

"And you can't wait to tell your next girlfriend all about it?"

Peter anticipated just such a conversation, but he shook his head. "No, I just want to sit here and be glad we're all alive."

"I second that," Egon agreed and lifted his mug in a toast. Peter clicked his with Egon's and they drank.

That was when Eddie came clattering down the spiral staircase in a pair of Egon's suspendered trousers and a pink shirt. He'd coaxed his hair back into his spiky style, making him resemble an Egon who had been attacked by a lunatic barber. Singing softly to himself, he pulled himself up short at the sight of the two of them sitting at the kitchen table. "Didn't we just lose a whole lot of people?"

Peter explained where everybody was. "I don't think it was anything I said." He pondered it a second, then grinned. "Nah, couldn't have been."

"But where's Mel?" Eddie persisted, peering into the kitchen, half expecting the demon to pop out from behind the refrigerator.

Peter waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Jackie took him home with her."

"That's great! I was worried that it would all fall apart for him when she learned the truth, and he loves her -- I think he loves her almost as much as I love Whitney. It would have broken his heart if she'd dumped him."

Egon rose hastily. "I'll get you some cocoa." He was probably afraid Peter would remind him of that kiss he'd given Janine. Venkman watched him, grinning.

Drawing out Ray's chair, Eddie half collapsed into it, massaging the back of his neck with an idle hand. "Peter, I've got to thank you for kicking some sense into me up there. Guess I'm a coward."

"Yeah, right!" Peter scoffed. "How many times did you volunteer to go into the Netherworld? That takes guts, my friend. You stood up to Borthardian when it counted, after all. And if we're gonna talk about standing up on the stage in front of all those people -- "

"Hah!" Eddie challenged, his spirits lifting. "I know you. You'd love it. You'd thrive on it."

"Okay, yeah, so the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd can give me a high. Cut yourself some slack here. You were in shock, for Pete's sake."

"Because I couldn't imagine anything worse ever happening to me," Eddie burst out. Peter could see shadows lingering in his eyes just at remembering the grotesque sounds that had emerged from his mouth when Borthardian trashed his voice.

"No? What about last year when Astarine grabbed your baby? And what if that demon who died in the cell really had been Egon?" When Eddie went to speak, Peter held up a hand, palm out, to forestall him. "Bad stuff is bad stuff. You live with it or you curl up and die. You wouldn't have curled up for long, even if I hadn't pushed you into wanting to ram my face into the dirt. It's not the way you operate."

"I didn't have to." Eddie's face warmed. "I'm just glad you were there to bug me. Thanks, Peter."

"Thanks for helping us out," Peter countered. "We'd never have made it if you hadn't had a go at corrupting those demons. Teamwork. I really, really love it."

"Demonstrably," Egon remarked, returning from the kitchen with a mug of cocoa for his cousin. When Eddie accepted it, Egon sprawled in the chair, removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. Peter blinked tiredly at the sight of the two of them side by side.

"Whoa, check it out. Egon in stereo."

"I prefer," Eddie said, gurgling a mouthful of cocoa, "to think of it as Eddie in stereo."

Egon resumed his glasses and studied them both. "Fortunately we are spared a far worse fate," he said, and Peter saw the twinkle in his eyes and knew what was coming.

"Peter in stereo," Egon explained when Eddie cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Thanks, Egon. If your best friend can't tell you, who can?"

It was a week later. Winston was able to use his arm, though not yet go on busts because of the weight of a proton pack strap against the injury. Peter's scraped arm had scabbed over already, and all of them still sported a number of multi-color bruises that made clients stare at them doubtfully when they went out on new busts. Eddie, voice intact, life intact, had returned to Segue, phoning from there to report that his ménage was fine. There had been no further weird displays from the Netherworld.

Peter was sitting at his desk idly thumbing through the latest edition of Psychology Today that had just come in the mail and planning the best moment to spring his new article on the guys. He loved having his name in print. This one was an article on belief systems and why contemporary culture rejected belief in paranormal subjects. He'd done a lot of hard work on it, researching it on the Internet and in books he'd borrowed from Ray and Egon without their knowledge. It was all about belief and value systems and the need of modern people to be in control of their environment. Peter had pushed a lot of people's buttons when he wrote it and he expected outraged letters to start pouring in about it any day now. This was going to be fun.

Janine's voice, pregnant with suspicion, suddenly rang out. "Whatever you're doing in there, Dr. V, stop it right now!"

"You can't even see me, Janine," Peter returned grinning. "So how do you know I'm doing anything?" Typical Janine. Sometimes she could read him like a book.

"Because I can always tell when you're gloating."

It was true, she could. Peter smirked in delight and went around the file cabinets to show her the proof of his genius, plopping the article down in front of her and stabbing his finger at his name. 'Dr Peter Venkman, Ph.D.'

Janine read the title aloud, and her eyes narrowed. "'The Bogeyman Will Get You if You Don't Watch Out'? Is this about Egon?"

"No, it's about what people are afraid to admit they believe." Peter grinned. "Because I've met clients who don't want to know there's a ghost in their attic and they really would rather we didn't park Ecto in front of their apartment building because they're afraid their neighbors will think less of them for it."

"Like the schmucks who sell stupid stories about hauntings to the National Register?" Janine asked, getting the point immediately. She was quick. "They don't want to be part of the lunatic fringe?"

"Yep. But at least they call us. The ones that bug me are the ones who know there are no ghosts even when a big one is hovering over them every morning at breakfast going, 'boo,' and stealing their toast. Changes the way the world works, and they don't want that."

"They don't want to expand their consciousness?" She skimmed over the first few lines of the article, pausing to stifle a grin. Peter always started his articles with humor -- it was easier to suck people in that way.

"No, they just don't want to know. Not what's on the other side, or even that there is one. It's a lot safer. Just like it was safer for Jackie before she knew the truth about Mel."

"Oh, yeah, it's a lot safer." Peter shook his head. Illusory safety, that's what it was. "So is crossing your fingers when you skate on thin ice." She gathered up the magazine and made shooing gestures with her hand. "Go back to your office and put your feet up while I read this."

Feeling inordinately pleased -- Janine was a tough critic -- Peter started to do just that, knowing he could count on her to trek the magazine upstairs to show it to Egon in the lab. Egon would read it. He always read Peter's articles. He was a harsh critic, too, but he also never failed to give praise where he believed it was needed. Peter couldn't wait for his opinion on the article.

A week ago, he'd been afraid, for a short time, that he'd lost his best critic.

With a quick frown, Peter pushed that thought aside. He never took the guys for granted, but he was starting to relax around them. They were all unwinding quite nicely. By this time next week, Peter was sure he'd have finished up the nightmares that had started out in spectacular technicolor the very first night. They'd faded away gradually. He didn't remember waking up last night to jerk upright and gaze wildly at the next bed to make sure Egon really was sleeping in it. That the process was the psyche's natural way of dealing with acute stress didn't make it any more pleasant, but he was glad it was easing.

The sound of the outer door opening made him turn back from his office to stare across the garage to see who was coming. When the small door set within the main garage door swung open, Mel issued Jackie into the office. They were laughing, her face lifted to his, in the midst of such an eager conversation that she had to rein herself in to stop as the door swung shut behind them. Letting her hand rest in Mel's bigger one, she tugged him toward the reception area.

Peter retraced his steps and parked his hip on the corner of Janine's desk. "Hey, guys. What's up? Win the lottery?"

"Something like that," Jackie replied, as Mel grinned at Peter, picked him up and hugged him massively, then deposited him on the desk.

"Just a warning, Mel," admonished Peter, cautiously wiggling arms and legs to make sure they were still intact. In his human form, Mel was taller than Egon and far broader. He worked out regularly to keep the human muscles in tone. "Don't do that to Winston. His arm's still healing, okay?"

Janine slid up to the desk, tucking her legs beneath it so it was between her and Mel. "Want me to get the other guys?" she asked.

"I'll take them upstairs, Janine," Peter offered.

"Oh sure, keep the secretary out of the loop," she complained, pushing back the chair. "If you're going upstairs, I'm coming too."

What was with Mel anyway? He seemed almost embarrassed, but he also looked excited. Maybe he had won the lottery. Or maybe he'd just won Jackie. Peter sneaked a surreptitious peek at her ring finger.

Jackie followed the gaze knowingly. "We haven't got it yet," she said.

Peter pasted on a grin of innocent questioning. "Got what?"

"Come on," Mel urged, tugging Jackie toward the stairs. "Are the guys home?"

Peter nodded. "We all are. This way." He plunged ahead of them up the stairs, gesturing them to fall in behind him. Raising his voice, he called, "Guys! Hope you're decent, 'cause we've got company."

"We're getting married," Jackie announced to the assembled Ghostbusters and Janine. "And next to Eddie and Whitney, you're the first to know it."

"No! You're kidding!" Peter pretended to stagger backward in astonishment, slapping his forehead with the back of his hand. "No one would ever have guessed."

Egon poked him with his elbow. "I must confess to no surprise," he told the happy couple. "Eddie phoned last night and said he thought it was in the works. It should prove interesting. Mel, I hope your assumed human physiology is adequate for the necessary blood tests."

"Geez, Spengs, anybody ever tell you what a romantic guy you are?" Peter complained, shaking his head sententiously.

Egon deadpanned, "Yes." He cast a quick, sidelong glance at Janine, and Peter couldn't quite tell if it was to see if she were angry or to make sure she realized he meant her. The redhead folded her arms across her chest but the frown was for Peter, not Egon. Typical. Come to think of it, Janine had told Egon he was romantic once in a taxi on the way to Madison Square Garden, right in front of Peter. The physicist hadn't seemed as comfortable with the statement then as he was right now. Too bad it was ten whole months till Valentine's Day. Peter could have sent Janine roses under Egon's name and watched the results with glee. Oh well, it was never a bad day to send a woman flowers.

"Blood tests should be okay," put in Ray earnestly. "I did some tests on Mel and when he's in this form, his body functions completely as a human body. He has to eat and sleep and go to the bathroom -- well, you know, just like everybody else."

Winston gave the occultist a poke in the stomach. "Thanks, Ray, we all really wanted to hear that."

"We thought about that." Jackie didn't sound complacent, merely content. "So Mel went to that doctor you guys use, Dr. Labraccio, and told him the whole story. Dr. Labraccio says you four have brought so many strange problems to him that having a demon for a patient isn't even unusual. He did a lot of tests. He said if Mel hadn't mentioned you, he'd think he was a fruitcake who believed he was a demon. So Mel shapechanged for him, right there in his office."

"I bet Greg loved that," Peter chuckled.

"No, he was pretty blasé," responded Mel. He had a hard time repressing the grin that wanted to spread across his face. "The nurse jumped ten feet, though. Had to catch her when she fainted." He chortled gleefully when they goggled at them. "Gotcha. She didn't really faint. I shapeshifted when she was out of the room."

"Are you sure you want to marry this clown, Jackie?" Janine demanded. "I think he's got a reprehensible sense of humor."

"Oh, no, Spengs, it's rubbing off. She's learning your vocabulary," Peter muttered in a hasty aside to Egon.

"Why not? She is very intelligent," Egon responded. "Unlike a certain psychologist I know."

Peter's grin spread. "Just wait till you read my latest article."

"I'll look forward to it," Egon admitted. "Shall I get out my red pencil?"

"Only if you don't want to live!" He heard the words and caught himself, remembering, but they had come so naturally that Egon didn't even hesitate to shake his head at Peter in mock reproach.

"Mel," Ray interrupted the byplay, "do you know anything about what happened at Borthardian's keep after we all left? Are you safe here now?"

Mel's head bobbed in confirmation. "Went over there on Saturday for the afternoon," he admitted in the tones of someone who might have taken a quick trip to Jersey. "I talked to Cosmer and Dugross. They said they were hanging around because they thought I'd show up to see how things were and they wanted to fill me in. A couple of the guys got crushed when the keep collapsed but the rest of them got out just fine. You should see it. Just a big pile of rubble now. Cosmer said another demon came by. He checked it out and told Cosmer nobody would want the place. Borthardian doesn't have an heir, I guess. Not that he was really Astarine's. He was just trying to take over because he didn't have a keep of his own. Cosmer and the others are free, and he and Dugross are going to come and visit Earth. Maybe I'll take 'em sightseeing."

"I knew we were gonna get more demons here," Peter complained. "Think I can sell 'em tickets to my own special nightclub tour?"

"Not if you want to live, Peter," Egon countered.

Peter licked his finger, made a chalk mark in the air. "One for you," he conceded, turning back to Mel. "So this means you're really free of the Netherworld? We won't have to go over and bail your tail out again?"

"You bet I am. This time, I can really stay. Can go over if I want to, but no reason to now. Jackie is going to marry me. Sometimes I'll be on the road with Eddie, but sometimes Jackie will come with me and stay up at Segue, or we'll stay at Jackie's apartment."

Peter drew himself up to his full height. "Guess you can say we do good work. Ghostbusting or Matchmaking, that's us."

Jackie actually blushed. "Dr. Labraccio says there is no reason we can't have children if we want them," she admitted in a quiet voice.

"Gonna try," Mel added with such confidence and delight it was clear he had already started trying, was delighted with the process, and meant to continue as often as possible. He put his arm around Jackie's shoulders and she leaned against him in complete confidence and trust.

"Gosh, Mel, have you figured whether your kids will be able to switch into demon form or not?" Ray asked eagerly, already imagining possibilities. "That would be so cool. You'd have to teach them how to behave when they were little imps, so they wouldn't get into trouble, hovering over the Empire State Building or terrorizing the Yankees at a ball game."

"We don't know yet," Jackie admitted, but she didn't seem frightened of the possibilities. "Dr. Labraccio said if -- if I conceived, it would be with the human Mel, not the demon Mel, so our children should be entirely human. He didn't know for sure, of course, because he never had a demon for a patient before but he thinks so. We'll love them whichever way they turn out."

"Wow, this is exciting," Ray cried in delight. It sounded like Mel had finally found his proper place and was sure of keeping it. Peter grinned at Ray and nudged him in the ribs then caught Egon's eye and nodded. They'd all done good.

Winston couldn't help smiling, too. "I like it. We'll all be honorary uncles."

"Not if we have to babysit," Peter protested instantly, winning a confirming nod from Winston. "Bad enough we once had to deal with baby Egon when the time ghost regressed him." The physicist elbowed him, quite hard, but his eyes lit with amusement. Peter ignored the poke, twinkled back at the humor, and plunged on. "No way with this babysitting gig. I don't want to have to change diapers on a baby that can suddenly turn out to be bigger than I am."

1. Obsession, also available from Linda Knights

2. "And a Demon in a Pear Tree -- The Yule Tide 2

3. To Soothe The Savage Ghost, published in Remote Control 6, May, 1996

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