Archive of Our Own

Peter had his feet up on his desk, as he usually did, when the call came in. The remains of his sandwich were scattered across the wrapper at his elbow; he'd debated setting them in the out-box as a joke, but he suspected that would end with them staying there for days - Janine was dead set against throwing out his trash for him, and he'd forget until it started to fossilize.

Slimer swooped out of the corner and stuffed the remains of the sub into his mouth, wrapper and all. He veered off before Peter could say anything. Peter debated chasing after him to chastise the Spud, and decided against it. On the one hand, it wasn't a good idea to let him get away with stealing food; on the other hand, if he'd bothered to drop it in the wastepaper basket, it would have been well within Ray's rules, and it was trash pretty much either way.

The alarm sounded, jolting his attention back to business. He kicked his feet off the desk and bounced over the railing to the reception area. "What's the scoop, Janine?" he asked, as Ray jogged over from where he'd been unhooking the spare pack from the speed recharger and Winston slid down the pole to join them.

"Hold on." She held up one finger as she finished writing something on a half-legal-sized pad; another swoosh at the firepole announced Egon's belated arrival. "You guys know where Kildeer is?"

"Yeah, it's about two hours away if city traffic isn't too bad," Ray nodded. "We have a bust out there?"

"Actually, just outside of the town," Janine finished. She tore the sheet off the pad and handed it to Winston. "Anyone recognize the name 'Mortimer Cartwright'?"

"Wait, yeah, I think I do." Peter looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Didn't he just recently make a big donation to NYU? It was in the paper a couple of weeks ago."

"That sounds right." She planted one elbow on the desk and leaned her head against her hand. "Apparently he had a mansion built out there a little over a decade ago - he spends half his time in an apartment in the city, and the other half out there. Quiet, I guess. Anyway, he says that when he and his driver went up to the house yesterday, they discovered that a ghost had taken up residence on his second floor, left ectoplasm all over everything, and every time they tried to get in, it chased them out. They went back out there this morning, and now there are three of them. Maybe more." She twirled a pen in her other hand, trying to look nonchalant, but Peter recognized the signs of real worry at the corners of her eyes.

"So he wants us to meet him at the house?" Winston squinted at the paper.

"No, he wants you to meet him in Kildeer so he can describe the situation in detail. He was a little antsy about giving his private address out over the phone. I dunno who he thinks would be tapping our line." She shrugged. "But he wants you to come out today. I went ahead and said yes; you don't have anything on the schedule for the rest of the day, and we haven't had too many emergency calls lately."

"Normally, I'd prefer to have a day's notice for out-of-town calls, at a minimum." Egon adjusted his glasses; Janine wilted slightly. "But I agree - we've had only two calls in the past three days, and it sounds as if this problem is increasing in severity over time. We should investigate as soon as possible."

"Let me make sure the packs in Ecto are still at full charge." Ray sprinted back across the garage.

Winston frowned. "He said three, but maybe more? How many more?"

Janine's worry became a little more visible. "He wasn't sure. He said they saw three, but it sounded like there were more." She glanced at the directions in Winston's hand. "Also, apparently at least one can throw fire from its hands. Green flames, he said."

"Ooh, important safety tip, there. Thanks for mentioning that early on." Peter caught himself before digging in any further. "Anything else we should know?"

She shook her head. "He said he'd brief you when you got there. I figured he'd describe the whole thing."

Winston nodded. "Let me get some extra traps, just in case." He jogged off in the direction of the basement stairs.

"I hate out-of-town calls. Even the day ones." Peter stretched. "But we do need the money. And I bet I can ding Cartwright for extras. Maybe I can charge by the room." He turned towards Ecto, where Ray was sliding the equipment rack back into place, looking satisfied.

Janine stood up from behind her desk. "Guys, be careful. I know the client was holding back, because he said so, and I'm a little scared he might have left something out you might need." She wrapped her arms around herself, holding her elbows.

Winston bustled past with an armful of traps. Ray bounced by in the other direction. "I'm going to grab some supplies from the workshop; I'll be right back." He disappeared down the stairs.

Egon shook his head. "We'll be careful, Janine. If it's something we can't handle without the heavy equipment, we'll return for it instead of rushing in foolishly." He shot Peter a warning glance. Peter shrugged; he hadn't been rushing in on their last bust, he'd been trying to flush the Class Two out, but Egon didn't seem to recognize the difference.

"Please, look out for each other." Janine rose up on her tiptoes and quickly pecked Egon on the jaw before he could step back. Color rose in both their cheeks. "I keep worrying that Ecto's gonna come back from one of these trips short a man."

"Janine, I swear, we've got each other's backs all the way," Peter protested, slipping into his usual spot in the back seat. As Egon climbed into Ecto, he smirked at the scientist; the taller man blushed harder, and turned to face the window.

Ray arrived with an extra pouch hooked on his belt. "Okay, I think I've got everything." He climbed into the back with Peter. "Let's go!"

---

Mortimer Cartwright had requested that the Ghostbusters meet him at Kildeer's only cafe. The parking lot, tiny as it was, was almost deserted when Ecto pulled in; a lone pickup truck, coated in thick, dark mud, stood a lonely watch in the space farthest from the door.

"Looks like we beat our client here," Winston noted, pulling the old ambulance into a space he could easily back out of.

Ray nodded. "Unless he owns the cafe. We're not that late, are we?"

Peter glanced at his watch, and replied "No, we're five minutes later than the time we originally named, and Janine told him to allow fifteen minutes for unexpected traffic delays." He opened the rear driver's side door. "And it's an hour and five minutes past our usual dinnertime; I'm starved."

"It's not as if we really have set mealtimes, Peter," Egon chided gently as he climbed out of the car. "The nature of our work precludes keeping a regular schedule."

"Which bugs the heck out of you, I know," Peter grinned. "I remember how you were in college."

"A happy and well-organized state of affairs, which did not survive a single fortnight after making your acquaintance," Egon jabbed back, a faint shadow of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Winston glanced at Ray, who shrugged. "By the time I met them, things were pretty much the way they are now, except we had different reasons for staying up until all hours of the night."

"When Egon and I both took Dr. Harth's Intro to Parapsych class, you could have set your watch by Egon's habits. In fact, I did, a couple of times," Peter elaborated. "Up at 7 am, breakfast at 7:30, lunch at 11:45, dinner at 7:00, in bed at 11 pm. No variation whatsoever."

Egon sighed. "As usual, Peter overstates the case. It was not at all uncommon to find me still in the lab at eleven, or occasionally lost in a book. But he is correct that I was very much a creature of habit and routine. It was one of the parts of my father's influence that I neither thank nor curse him for; it was just the way things were." He shot Peter a shaded look, but his eyes twinkled. "I . . . adapted to a more freeform view of scheduling quite quickly, as I recall."

"I wouldn't try to argue your memory versus mine," Peter conceded. "Now, how about a bite to eat?" He tugged the door open; bright light and the strains of an Elvis song poured into the darkening parking lot.

The diner was done up in faux-'50s style, complete with chrome accents and a checkerboard countertop, which delighted Ray and made Egon and Winston roll their eyes. It was empty except for the cook and one server, a teenaged boy with red hair and broad shoulders. Ray asked about their client.

"Mr. Cartwright? No, he's a regular, but he hasn't been in today." The waiter scratched behind his ear with the tip of his pencil. "But if he said he'd meet you here, feel free to take a table and order, and I'll just take care of him when he arrives."

Egon sat down at a booth with a well-worn Formica tabletop and began glancing over the menu, frowning at the typical diner fare. Ray and Peter glanced over theirs and put them down almost immediately. Winston took a little longer, hunting for something that might actually have some flavor.

They were almost done eating - Egon had finally settled on a basket of fried mushrooms, to Peter's enthusiastic protests and a chorus of gagging noises - when a tall man who looked like he might once have played professional football bustled in. He was wearing a navy blue suit that looked expensive and, given that it fit him, had almost certainly been custom-tailored. Without even looking around, he made a beeline for their table.

Peter pushed his chair back and stood. "Mr. Cartwright?" he asked, extending one hand.

The fellow shook his head. "His bodyguard. Name's Carl. He sent me to come talk to you guys." Carl grabbed a chair from an adjacent table and sank into it, dwarfing it. "Joe - that's Morrie's driver, you haven't met him - is taking him to the hospital in Delhi."

"Is he okay?" blurted Ray.

The bodyguard waved a hand the size of a dinner plate dismissively. "He'll be fine. Sprained an ankle really badly, got bruised up, and maybe a dislocated hip, but nothing broken and no bleeding."

"What happened?" Winston asked, cutting to the chase before Ray could burst in again.

"Not sure, honestly." Carl rubbed at his temples, scowling. "We were trying to go back inside to get some papers for Morrie's broker, and then all of a sudden the shrubbery attacked us. Dragged us right off the back porch. That's how he hurt his ankle, falling into the planter. I was stuck doing hand-to-hand with an oleander, and Morrie got tossed into the privet hedge and I had to haul him back out. Joe saw the whole thing from the car and ran to get some pruning shears, and we all got out of there okay. But I ain't going back until you guys take care of this little issue."

He looked up. "I'm supposed to spend the night at the motel on 5th Street. When you guys are done, meet me there - I'll pay you for your time. I hope you get these bastards." His impressive brow lowered. "Takes a coward to ambush a guy like that. They didn't even come out and face us. I'd'a thought that being dead, you'd grow a little spine."

"Some ghosts are afraid of humans and will use their abilities to keep us away from them," offered Ray.

Carl shook his head sharply. "This wasn't scaredy-cat fear, just cowardice. Contempt, maybe, too. They don't like us. Called me a brute, and called Morrie ugly. Said we wouldn't do. Didn't say for what, though."

"What did they look like?" asked Egon.

"Tall," said Carl, looking upwards as if he were searching for the memory on the ceiling. "Basically human-like, but - pointy. Pointed ears, pointed noses, pointed fingers." Egon frowned at that, pulling the small copy of Tobin's from his pocket and flipping through it.

"Well, we'll take care of everything. Just leave it to us," Peter assured the bodyguard. "What's the best way to get there from here?"

"Really only one way. Take Old Farm Road towards the river out of town until you cross Wild Onion Creek, and then take the next left. The driveway to Morrie's place is the first right after that, with the big iron gate. It's not locked. We might've even left it open; we were in a hurry." Winston wrote Carl's directions down on a napkin and thanked him.

Carl rose to his feet. "Good luck. I hope you nail those bastards to the wall," he muttered, lumbering towards the door and out into the warm autumn night.

Peter nibbled on a cold French fry. "So, we're going to have to watch out for angry foliage? Good to know."

"His description is reminding me of something," mused Egon, "but it can't be the Sidhe. They're not ectoplasmic; they're living beings, just not ones fully in phase with our dimension."

"And his description over the phone was definitely ghostly - or at least, Janine mentioned there was slime involved, and I can't imagine fairies leaving goop around the place," Peter noted.

Ray shrugged. "Maybe the ghosts read too much Tolkien and thought it'd be fun to look like elves?"

"Perhaps," Egon rumbled. He looked at the book as though it had displeased him.

---

"Looks calm enough," Winston noted as Ecto carefully nosed down the mansion's long and winding driveway through park-like woods. The gates had been left open, as Carl had mentioned they might; Ray had suggested that they close them on their way in, but Peter and Winston both vetoed that - if they had to make a quick getaway and come back with more specialized equipment, the last thing they needed was to have to stop and open a heavy wrought-iron gate.

"Everything we've heard so far suggests that the specters only manifest in the house itself, and perhaps the garden," Egon pointed out.

Ray piped up, "Speaking of which, we probably ought to park far enough away from the plantings around the house that they can't snag Ecto or her tires."

"Yeah, good thinking, Ray." Winston pulled up in a gravel patch next to the tennis court. Peter climbed out, looked around, and whistled. "Nice. Look, there's a swimming pool around the side, too. Cartwright must be a pretty active guy."

"Or at least he likes to look like he is," Winston suggested, tugging the equipment rack from the back of Ecto and slipping his arms into his pack's straps.

"Either way, it's an impressive spread," Peter pointed out. "Ghostbusting's good for the fame, but I'll admit, I could use a little more fortune. I want a place like this."

"No, you don't," Egon chided. "You'd never use half of the amenities, and you wouldn't want to either perform the necessary upkeep yourself or pay the exorbitant amount it would cost to hire maintenance workers. You can barely manage two employees, and Louis isn't even full-time."

"We can barely afford two employees," Peter grumbled, fastening the belt on his pack and checking the lights on his traps.

"Are we going in the front or the back?" Ray asked, studying the mansion. An eerie azure light flickered in one of the upstairs windows, like a candle flame made of moonlight.

"They tried going in the back last time and got thrown to the oleanders," Winston pointed out.

"But we don't know if the front is unlocked," Ray countered.

Peter shrugged. "Either one of us could take care of that in about a minute, unless he's got some fancy electronic lock."

"I suppose that's true," Ray mused. "Okay, front then?"

"Sounds good to me. Remember, until we know what we're dealing with, no one's back is uncovered and no one goes off alone," Peter coached the team. "Probably not even then. Egon, you got anything yet?"

The antennae on the PKE meter fluttered like butterfly wings; the gadget was warbling at a pitch that made Winston's fillings hurt. Egon thumbed one of the side knobs. "I'm reading multiple entities, positive valence - we won't need the destabilizer. At least three on the ground floor, and a cluster on the second - they're too close together for me to make them out, but no less than four, probably five or six." He frowned. "And one energy source that isn't ectoplasmic. It might be an artifact of some sort."

"Good thing we brought extra traps," observed Peter. Egon nodded and continued, "I'm having trouble pinpointing their classifications. Their ectoplasmic vibratory rates suggest that they're Class Fours, near the top of the classification. But their PKE valences look more like Class Six or even Seven." The physicist pursed his lips. "They could be very dangerous."

"Egon, we face down things that could be very dangerous every day. It's what we do." Peter smoothed his hair down and flashed his colleague a cocky grin. "The question is, are they dangerous?"

"I think Carl already answered that question," Winston pointed out. Peter's grin lost a bit of its luster.

"I doubt I can get anything else useful at this distance," Egon concluded.

Ray hit the power switch on his thrower, and the particle accelerator thrummed to life. "Then let's see what we're dealing with!"

They crept up the front walkway, staying well away from the carefully manicured peonies and ligustrums on either side. The shrubs rustled and shook, despite the lack of a breeze, but they made no sudden moves, and neither did the Ghostbusters.

The four men piled onto the broad front porch, framed by white columns. Egon and Winston hit their switches. Peter tapped the doorknob with the tip of the thrower. Nothing.

He tried the door. Locked.

"Cover me," he instructed, and reached into his belt pouch for the lockpicks he'd started carrying since that time Ray'd been trapped behind a locked door with a fractured ankle and an angry Class Six. He dropped to one knee and started feeling for tumblers. This was one of the few skills he'd picked up from Charlie's associates that he used regularly enough to keep in practice.

Poke. Wiggle. Click.

"Got it," he announced, tucking the picks back into their pouch and securing it in its clip. He thumbed his power switch, feeling the vibration of the positron accelerator kick in reassuringly. "Ready, guys?"

"Ready," the other three chorused, throwers up. Egon glanced down at the PKE meter. "They're moving," the physicist noted. "They may know we're here."

"Then stay alert, guys. Let's go!" Peter turned the knob and pushed the door in carefully with his boot. He darted in, eyes sweeping the front room; the others followed and spread out into a semi-circle, covering the room.

The door slammed shut behind them. All of them but Ray jumped; that was a classic opening move on the ghosts' part, but it was still effective, Peter reflected as he tried to convince his heart to get out of his throat and back in his chest.

Egon shoved his glasses back into place and squinted at the meter. "New manifestations, multiple ones, Class One, across the whole first floor - "

He was interrupted by a silvery, transparent sapling sprouting abruptly from the floor in front of them. Buds appeared, leaves unfolded, and the sapling surged soundlessly upwards. It was followed by another, and another, and another. In a matter of minutes, the room was filled with a silent spectral forest, swaying lightly, as if in a gentle breeze they couldn't feel.

"Are these - " started Peter.

"Rowan trees," murmured Ray. "Or the ghosts of them, anyway."

"All across the first floor," Egon confirmed. He prodded one with the tip of his thrower. It passed through with some resistance, and the tree thrashed as if it were suddenly in the midst of a storm; when he drew his thrower back, the end was covered with a film of light, glittering ectoplasm. The tree immediately stopped its writhing and went back to the slow, gentle sway. Egon fired a burst of protons; the tree lost its cohesion and dissolved into an ectoplasmic mist that billowed and then sank to the floor.

"So we can get rid of them if we want," Winston noted. "Good to know."

Egon's mouth was wry. "That was at full power and point blank range. We'd drain the packs if we did that to all of them."

"And that might not be a great idea, anyway," warned Ray. "Look!" He pointed at the floor, where the mist was condensing into tufts of ethereal grass and strange, delicate-looking silver ferns.

Winston leaned between two of the slender trees. "So are these under the control of the other ghosts?"

"Hey, yeah," Ray broke in, "Are you getting anything more on them?"

"Not much." Egon raised the meter to eye level. "The spectral forest is blocking most other readings on this level. It looks as if it covers . . . " He peered at the screen, as if bringing it closer to his eyes would make the image resolve. " . . . The whole first floor, except for one room at the back."

Peter shook his head. "Ray, do you have your meter with you?"

"Right here, Peter." Ray unzipped one chest pocket and plucked the device out one-handed, then bit gently on the antennae to pull them out and activate the meter. "Yeah, I can tell there are two fairly powerful entities elsewhere on this floor, and that they're more or less in that direction," he said, gesturing with his thrower, "but I can't even make out what class they are with all the interference from the tulgey wood here."

"Are they together?" Peter asked, edging between two ghostly trunks towards the doorway.

"No," replied Egon and Ray in chorus. Ray continued, "One of them is maybe two rooms away, I'd guess. The other one's closer to the back of the house."

Peter nodded. "We don't want to warn the ones upstairs that we're here, if they don't already know and we can help it. If we take on the closer one as a group, then the one in back can go for reinforcements."

"So we split up?" Winston asked, as he sidled up to the side door of the room and took a quick peek.

Peter nodded. "And I want someone with a meter in both groups, so we have advance warning if the cavalry start showing up. Be ready to regroup if we get outnumbered."

"Or if they're tougher than we think," agreed Winston.

Peter smirked. "They're elves, Winston. How tough can they be? Ray, c'mon, you and I can take the one in the back; you two nab the closer one." He threw Egon a thumbs-up as they snuck out their respective doors.

---

Winston and Egon crept through what had been designed as a library but had shelves more full of knickknacks than books. Slender silver saplings brushed delicate branches against the collected vases and figurines.

Winston glanced at some of the few books on the shelves. They looked like they'd been bought as a set - or as books-by-the-foot. "Something tells me that our client's not a big reader."

"Or he has a study upstairs, with the real books." Egon was bent over the PKE meter. "The specter we're looking for should be in the next room."

Winston backed up next to the doorway, then carefully leaned over and looked through. Much of the room, which looked like a sitting room - it was full of very expensive couches and overstuffed chairs, with several small low tables and a big fireplace - was obscured by gently swaying leaflets, but a gently glowing figure was visible, perched on the arm of the sofa.

Unlike the trees, this specter was golden, especially its hair and eyes. Standing, it would have been tall enough to look down at the top of Egon's head, and it was thinner than he was, as if someone had taken an ectomorphic human figure and gently stretched it vertically. Its hair was loose and tumbled in waves to its waist. Its ears were long and delicately pointed, and its eyes were huge, almond-shaped, and glowing like molten metal.

It didn't seem to notice Winston; it seemed to be watching something on the branches of one of the ghost-trees. He ducked back out of the door frame and turned to Egon. "Yup, it's there. We're going to have some trouble getting a clear shot with the trees in the way."

Egon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps a pincer maneuver would be our best chance of catching it quietly."

"Sounds better than just going in blasting. You go left, I'll go right. One, two -"

They broke for the door, Winston first, and darted to either side. The figure turned towards them, an expression of utter distaste curving across its features.

"Mortals," it muttered, its upper lip curling. It raised one hand, which began to glow green.

Winston reached a position behind a wing-backed chair and let off a proton stream. His aim was good; it struck the specter right in the center of its chest.

It screamed. Not the usual yowlings and screeches that all ghosts made when they were caught; this sounded exactly like a human woman screaming. The ghost's face crumpled in anguish as it clutched where its heart would be if it were living.

Both of the Ghostbusters were so startled that Egon's shot went wide, barely grazing the spirit, and Winston's finger slipped from the firing button. The last time he'd fired a weapon and heard that sound in return - no, he didn't need to think about that. He brought the thrower back up.

The specter, released from the stream, made a grab for the phantasmal trunk in front of it, and slid up it, like a firepole in reverse. It passed silently through the ceiling, leaving a shimmering golden film on the surface.

"Oh, nuts," grumbled Egon. "Winston, it's gone to get reinforcements. We need to -"

The trees trembled, as if an earthquake had passed - and then their limbs began flailing. One of them caught Egon in the solar plexus and flung him against the wall; another slammed into the wing-back chair and threw it into Winston.

Winston's head cracked against the edge of the brickwork around the fireplace as the chair landed on top of him. The last thing he saw before his vision went out was a group of four or five of the golden specters sliding back down the trees.

---

Ray and Peter snuck down the main hallway of the mansion. It was painted bright white, well-lit, and decorated with plaster sculptures and potted plants. A grand spiral staircase swooped around the center of the hall, framing a long chandelier.

"You know, if it weren't for the ghost trees, this place wouldn't look haunted at all," Peter observed with a grin.

Ray rolled his eyes. "It wasn't until two days ago. Now, ssshhh."

Peter turned back to Ray, whispering "Did you guys have a theory on where these ghosts came from?"

Shaking his head, Ray answered "No, but we didn't have much information to go on. I was thinking they might be forest spirits, but this house has been here for at least a decade, guessing from the wear on the paint outside. They shouldn't just now be getting stirred up unless something happened recently."

By now, they were at the end of the hall, with three doors - one in front and one to each side - to choose from. Ray glanced at the meter, then pointed at the one on the left. Peter nodded silently, then gestured for Ray to stand behind him. He waited a beat, then kicked the door open and charged in, thrower in front of him like a spear. Ray followed on his heels.

This was a dining room, with a huge table of some deep red wood and a dozen matched chairs. A single golden figure, easily a full head taller than Peter with a braid of golden hair reaching to its thighs, whirled around as they charged in. Peter took two steps to the right, to get out of Ray's way, and fired.

The specter continued its spin and let it take it out of the path of the proton stream, which toasted the two-day-old flower arrangement quietly wilting behind it. Peter cursed and corrected his aim, just as Ray let off his first blast -

- And the air was shattered by a human scream. Ray stopped firing, startled. The specter finished its turn by curling an arm around one of the phantom rowans and spiraled upwards, passing through the ceiling and disappearing.

"Was that - that can't have been Egon, that was too high," gasped Ray.

Peter shook his head. "Either they've got a female hostage, or that was one of the ghosts. Either way, though, the guys could be in trouble; we've got to -"

He was cut off by the ghostly tree next to him quavering and then swinging a branch at his head. He ducked, and then rolled under the table; Ray followed on his hands and knees. The branches thudded dully on the tabletop; other trees knocked the chairs away and began sweeping towards them. Fortunately, they stayed rooted in place.

"Okay, why is this working?" Peter asked. "I mean, they're ectoplasmic; can't they just reach through the table?"

Ray pondered that for a minute. "Maybe they can't reach through wood. Just like most ghosts can't reach through flesh; otherwise, they'd be able to put a hand through our chests and then squeeze our hearts until they stopped beating."

Peter shuddered. "Ray, never say that out loud again. I don't want some Class Seven getting any funny ideas." He looked around. "So how do we get out of here?"

Ray bit his lower lip, then glanced at the meter still in his left hand. "The room without any trees in it is the next room that way," he said, pointing to their right. "Maybe we can zap the couple that are between us and the door and make a break for it."

"Okay. Full stream, short bursts. Ready?" The throwers whined as they changed power levels. Two streams lanced out from beneath the table and struck the pair of slender shrubs that blocked the exit; the two trees rippled and then dissolved into soft silver mist. The two Ghostbusters scrambled on all fours to the end of the table and scuttled into the next room, just as three golden figures dropped through the ceiling and onto the table.

Peter flung the door shut and faced Ray. "Well, now what?"

"I'd back away from the door, myself," Ray answered as a flash of green-gold light blazed around the edge of the door, followed by a curl of smoke.

---

Egon was dragged roughly to his feet. A voice somewhere above him, light and musical, said "This one might do. Bring him upstairs."

He tried to protest, but he couldn't quite get the word out. "Nnnnnn . . ."

Arms curled around his from both sides, and lifted him into the air. For a moment, he was afraid that they would forget that he was material and couldn't pass through the ceiling as they could, but they glided into the hallway and up the central spiral staircase. They carried him past several open doorways - he was still too dizzy to count how many - and then stopped in front of a pair of double doors. The tops of the ghostly trees, silver leaflets now interspersed with tiny glass-like flowers, swayed and swirled just beneath his feet.

One of his captors laid a hand on the door. "My lord, we have captured one of them. Would you like to look at him?"

"I have seen him already," said a voice like silk velvet. "Yes, I think this one might well do. Bring him in to me."

The specter holding his right arm pushed the door open. This was a bedroom, richly appointed, with a canopy bed and a cherry-wood wardrobe. One of the ghosts, taller than the others and with eyes that glowed like blue ice in the sun, was seated on an overstuffed chair draped with gold silk braid. Egon wondered faintly where they'd gotten the braid from; it wasn't sewn to the chair.

The seated specter rose and drifted over to them. He slid a hand under Egon's chin and raised it until Egon was looking him directly in the eyes, leaving a thin film of cold ectoplasm on his skin. Egon knew what Peter would do in this position - he'd spit in the specter's eye - but Egon couldn't work up the saliva; his mouth was dry.

He settled for spitting words instead. "What do you want?"

"Your world," responded the specter. "Eventually. For the moment, though, your body will have to be sufficient."

Egon was suddenly fully awake. He jerked his limbs away from his captors, but they held tight, merely following him. "What?"

The specter ignored him. "Yes, he is strong enough in body as well as mind. I am pleased." He smiled at the ghost who had knocked. "Kevarel, my faithful lieutenant, if you can capture him alive, you may have the brown-haired one. He is also fair enough of face and strong enough of shoulder to be host for one of us."

The specter holding him bowed without letting go. "I am most honored, my lord."

The taller ghost gestured dismissively. "I am generous. Unfortunately, the short fat one and the dark-skinned one are completely unsuitable. Kill them and dispose of their bodies where their unsightly visages will not disturb me. Leave this one here."

Egon recoiled. He wasn't sure which was worse - their threatening to kill two of his closest friends, or their repugnant reasons for rejecting them in the first place.

"Yes, my lord." The ghosts dropped Egon to the floor, on his back; before he could push himself upright and scramble away, the thrashing trees beneath him secured his arms and legs, binding him tightly to the floor. The two soldier-spirits backed out the door, closing it as they went. Their leader turned to him, smiling, as he planted one translucent foot on either side of Egon's waist.

"You should feel honored, Egon Spengler," the specter purred.

"How do you know my name?" the physicist returned, eyes flashing.

The specter laughed. "I can hear the surface thoughts of any being in my forest as easily as I can hear their voices. Probing deeper into your soul is but a moment's more work." The specter knelt over him, in a most unsettling position, and gazed into Egon's eyes. Sure enough, he felt a pressure at the edge of his mind. He shut his eyes and frantically pushed back.

His captor laughed, a distressingly musical sound. "A feisty one. When I subvert your spirit, you will make an excellent addition to myself."

Egon drew away as much as he could. "Who are you?" he asked, hoping to buy time for the others to fight their way up here.

"It won't work. Even now, your dusky-skinned bodyguard is dying, and the other noble and your fat friar of a druid are trapped, soon to be captured." The specter trailed a ghostly hand down the front of Egon's uniform, his fingers deftly probing, although for what, Egon couldn't tell. They left a glittering golden trail on the fabric. "But you will know who I am soon enough. You may call me the Elvenking."

"But you're a ghost, not an elf," Egon objected.

The specter chuckled. "Not as clever as I'd thought, although perhaps the blow to the head is affecting you still." His fingers found the zipper pull on Egon's uniform and brought it down. "No matter. I can heal that, too." Crackling green-gold energy danced from the Elvenking's fingers and sank into Egon's skin, and the pain in his skull and shoulder subsided.

"Now, about the business at hand." The specter leaned down, his legs extended next to Egon's, practically lying on top of him. "You are lonely, Egon Spengler. You are one of Nature's true nobles, and yet your world does not recognize you. In fact," he continued in that light, musical voice, "much of it rejects you, even claims your work is fraudulent." Egon felt the cold touch of ectoplasm seeping through his clothes as the specter pressed against him. The force against his mind grew stronger. "You need the power to prove your point, to demonstrate the strength of the ectoplasmic world to your colleagues. I can give you that power."

"More, I can end your loneliness," purred the specter, his face hovering barely an inch over Egon's. "You flounder with four inferior intellects, erroneously perceiving you to be an equal, even a potential partner in romance." The Elvenking's laughter was like a choir of bells. "Join with me of your own will, and I will give you everything you desire. I will pleasure your body however you wish, with whomever you might choose." A frisson of erotic energy ran through Egon's skin; the specter shifted his position, reinforcing the supernatural stimulation with physical friction. Egon felt himself becoming aroused against his will. "But even alone, you will always be with me, with an intellect who can understand you." His ghostly lips brushed Egon's. "Join with me, Egon."

Egon tensed, pressing himself back against the floor. "I'd rather die."

"If I have to do this unwillingly, I will, and you might well wish yourself dead," murmured the Elvenking, and his eyes flashed with blue fire. His mouth closed on Egon's. Suddenly he couldn't breathe, and the pressure against his mind became a lance of agony.

Egon cried out as the specter sank into his body, his back arching as he struggled against his bonds, and then he went silent and limp. Slowly, the trees uncoiled from his wrists and ankles. When his eyes opened, they glowed pale blue.

---

"Holy crap, these things are annoying!" Peter announced, blasting another specter as it charged the door. As soon as the proton stream touched it, it shrieked and danced backwards.

"Yeah, and the streams aren't containing them at all," observed Ray. "They just seem to find them painful."

"That's part of the annoying bit. I feel like I'm torturing them," Peter complained. "Why don't they just charge in here? They know they outnumber us. They could probably just swarm us, and they have to have thought about that."

"Maybe there's something about the kitchen that's repelling them," Ray mused. "I mean, there's got to be a reason why the ghost trees didn't grow here." He let off a quick burst at a phantom that tried to drop through the ceiling, leaving a scorch mark, and winced as it wailed.

Peter nodded. "Like what? Some rare herb?"

Ray shook his head. "I thought about that. But I doubt there's anything like asafetida in here. And bay laurel and garlic shouldn't do anything to ghosts." Ray glanced around, and picked up a salt shaker. He flung it at the next specter to try coming through the door; the spirit batted it out of the air easily.

Peter zapped the spirit, sending it crying. "Nope, not that either. And I haven't heard any screaming coming from the other room, which probably means Winston and Spengs are in trouble." He allowed himself a brief chuckle. "It's a bad sign when a lack of screaming means someone's in deep -"

"Wait, I think I might have something," Ray said, snapping his fingers. "Remember what happened when Egon poked the first rowan tree?"

"Yeah, it started doing its little dance, but it didn't hit him," Peter answered, discouraging the next specter with a warning shot.

"I don't think it was trying to hit him. I think he was destabilizing it," Ray explained. "Look at these ghosts, Peter. What do they look like?"

"Elves, like we said before," said Peter. "But what - "

"I think they're Sidhe spirits!" Ray looked at the PKE meter. "That would explain why the readings are so strange. They're Class Fours because they're the spirits of dead people, or in this case dead elves, but since they're magical beings and semi-extradimensional, they also read like Class Sevens."

Peter shook his head. "Ray, up until we ran into your aunt's domovoi, I didn't believe in any of the 'fair folk,' and now you're telling me we're fighting basically their royalty?" He strafed the doorway, sending two specters screaming back into the dining room. "This is really bad. The streams aren't actually injuring them at all, and we're eventually going to run out of charge."

Ray didn't answer; he opened a drawer and began rummaging around. "Hey, Peter, you can throw knives, right?"

"Yeah. Picked it up working the carnival those two summers." Peter glanced back at Ray. "Why?"

Ray handed him a table knife. "I know it's not balanced right, but see if you can hit the next one who comes to the door with this."

"Ray, they're not physical," Peter protested, but he set his thrower on the counter and took the knife from Ray. An opportunity immediately presented itself as the tallest specter he'd yet seen stepped into the doorway. It held up one hand and said "Hold; I would speak with you."

"Not until we get our buddies back," replied Peter, and he snapped his wrist. The knife tumbled end over end and struck the phantom elf in the shoulder.

The specter stumbled back a step in shock, gasping. The knife slowly dropped through his translucent form, as if it were sinking through water; the spirit seemed nearly paralyzed, shivering and clenching its hands. Finally, the knife finished its long tumble through him and clattered dully onto the floor, covered in shimmering golden slime; the ghost flailed behind himself and caught one of the rowans, sliding upwards towards the ceiling. He was not replaced in the doorway by another; the four specters in the dining room fell back, waiting.

"What in the heck?" Peter asked, turning back to Ray.

"Cold iron and steel. They can't deal with them, and the kitchen is full of them," Ray answered, waving around. "Oh, this is great! I think I know what we need to do, but we'll need to get outside and then get back in."

"There's an outside door over there," Peter pointed, "but I think it's the one Carl tried to get in through."

"Okay. Find something that's made of iron or steel to use as a weapon. That's what the first tree was reacting to - the steel tubing supporting the ion projector." Ray glanced around and picked up a spatula.

Peter looked up and snagged a frying pan from a hook above the stove. He glanced at Ray. "I'm ready. Can you maybe explain what's going on?"

---

Winston cracked his eyes open, and immediately regretted it. Even the low light of the room stung his retinas. Worse, two of the specters were sitting on the sofa, looking straight at him.

"He stirs," commented the one on the left. "Ugh, such a coarse face, even for a mortal."

The one on the right nodded. "A crime against aesthetics. One wonders how it can stand to look at itself in the mirror."

"Shall we kill him?" The one on the left's voice was high and soft, like wind in the trees. It was really quite disturbing for such a lovely voice to be threatening his life.

"With what? The chair? Beat it to death with the rowans against the bricks? How undignified," sniffed the ghost on the right. "Let Kevarel kill it; he has a proper spear. Until the rowans have borne fruit, we won't even have staves."

Winston tried to pull himself upright - damned if he was going to listen to them call him 'it' like that without a fight - and realized that his legs were still pinned under the wing-back. He tried to wiggle his toes and succeeded; he tried to kick the chair off and failed.

The specter on the left smiled, a beautiful, genuine smile that would light up the heart of a child. "He's in pain, brother," it whispered. "Can you taste it?"

"Oh, indeed." The one on the right sniffed. "I'll not feed on such a beast, though. To absorb such coarseness would be . . . . ugly."

"Stop talking about my friends like that," growled Peter, bursting through the doorway clutching a long-handled frying pan like a mace. He swung it overhand and smacked the specter on the right in the back of the head. The ghost gasped in fright and fell to the floor.

Ray bounded over the doorsill. He had a twig, about a foot and a half long, with the leaves still on it, in one hand, and a sprig of something green with much smaller leaves in the other. He touched one of the rowan trees with both in turn, and the tree faded like a candle flame going out. Another tree tried to sweep him off his feet; he jumped and swatted it with the twig, then the sprig, and it faded, too. "Over here, Peter, it's clear," Ray called, and darted to the next sapling.

Peter dodged another tree and backhanded the other specter in the stomach with the skillet. The elf-ghost froze in place and toppled over, landing on the floor next to Winston. The oldest Ghostbuster grabbed at his belt, unclipped the trap that wasn't pinned by the chair, and tossed it. "Trap out!" He turned his face away, dropped the trigger to the floor, and pressed it hard with the heel of his hand. The inverted pyramid of blinding white light scooped up both specters and the two remaining rowan trees and sucked them in; the two phantoms were too stunned to struggle. The trap snapped shut with a hiss.

"I think that's all of them on this floor," Ray said. Winston noticed that both of the traps hanging off of Ray's pack harness were smoking gently and flashing. Peter had just filled his second, it looked like; orange-yellow vapor still trailed thickly from its doors.

"Good. Winston, are you okay? Where's Egon?" Peter levered the huge chair off of Winston's legs.

"Two of them captured him and took him upstairs. I think I blacked out after that." Winston brought one hand to the bump on the back of his head and winced. Ray scurried over and looked at it. "Ouch, yeah, Winston, you're bleeding."

He looked at his hand. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but yes, his fingers were streaked with blood. "One of the trees tried to throw me and the chair into the fireplace at once."

"Here, you take the full traps out to Ecto and then wait there," instructed Peter as he helped Winston to his feet. "We'll go get Egon."

Winston shook his head. "No way. I'm not going anywhere by myself as long as the plants outside are still being controlled." He stopped, and waited for the room to stop spinning again. "Besides, I have an empty trap still, and neither of you two do."

"He has a point," admitted Ray. "I don't think it's safe for any of us to be on our own yet, and it'll take too long for us all to go out there."

Winston pulled his thrower up by the cord. "I'll be okay. I'll guard the rear and try not to do anything too strenuous."

Ray glanced around. "Here, take the fireplace poker. Better yet, you take the frying pan and let Peter take the poker."

"Nah, I think I've finally gotten used to this," Peter said, swinging the skillet again.

Ray shrugged. "Okay." Turning back to Winston, he continued, "But you'll need an iron or steel weapon. The streams hurt 'em, but they don't stay hurt. Cold iron neutralizes some of their powers."

"What's with the gardening there?" Winston asked, ignoring the fireplace tools for the moment.

Ray looked confused for a second, then his expression cleared. "Oh, these?" He held up the twig and the green thing. "Oak and mistletoe. If I had some holly, it'd be even better, but no one planted any around here. They're two of the Celtic sacred plants that are stronger than rowan."

"Okay, so it's magic stuff. That's all I need to know," Winston stopped Ray, shaking his head slightly. The room spun again; he rubbed at his temples until it behaved itself, then picked up the ash shovel. It was steel, too; it should work if the frying pan did. "Let's go get Egon back."

"Right. You guys stay behind me. Have the trap ready in case we need it," Peter commanded, and they moved single-file into the hallway and up the spiral staircase, trying to be quiet and mostly succeeding.

An eerie blue glow flickered around the first door they crept past. Ray held a finger to his lips and nudged the door open enough to see inside; Peter leaned over him and pressed his face to the crack to get a glimpse himself. Winston hung back, thrower out and eyes alert.

"Okay, by now I've seen enough of them - that's some sort of dimensional portal, isn't it?" Peter whispered.

"I think so," Ray whispered back. "I'd need Egon to be sure. But it sure looks like one."

No one disturbed them. Winston leaned in and mouthed, "How many are there left?"

Ray pointed at the meter, then held up two fingers. Winston nodded; two more showing on the meter, although that was no guarantee that more wouldn't come through the portal, if that was what it was.

The next two rooms were a study and a bedroom, empty except for the tops of a few more ghostly rowan trees waving disconcertingly through the floor. Peter gestured at Ray to take care of them, but Ray shook his head. "The spirits that summoned those can probably tell when I dispel them. We'd be giving ourselves away."

"Assuming they don't already know we're here." Peter agreed to move on.

The fourth room was a bathroom, opulently appointed in marble and gleaming chrome. A spindly ghost-tree danced in the middle of it.

Peter had just placed his ear to the next door, a pair of double doors to be precise, when they were yanked open. He windmilled his arms and managed not to fall forward, then dodged just in time to avoid a phantom spear thrust at his head.

"So, you have found your way to my throne room," boomed Egon's voice from the other end of the bedroom. Peter and Ray looked over and gasped in shock.

An overstuffed armchair in navy blue had been dragged into the center of the room and draped in golden satin braids. One of the phantoms, the one holding the spear, stood guard just inside the door, glaring at them. Behind the guard and off to the side, Egon's uniform was draped over a wooden ladder-backed chair, with his glasses folded and tucked into one of the chest pockets, and his boots and pack tossed carelessly beneath the chair. He was seated on the armchair, gazing regally at them with eyes that glowed with blue starfire.

He'd been changed, physically. His frame, always tall and thin, had been supernaturally elongated. His hair was now shining white-gold, and his usual pipe-curl had relaxed into something closer to a standard pompadour, with the tail in back now trailing over one shoulder. His ears were long and came to delicate points, and his fingers were similarly pointed. He was wearing a simple tunic the color of the first leaves of spring, a fragile green-gold, and a simple golden circlet rested on his head.

His face was little changed, except for the ears and a subtle sharpening of his chin. The expression there, on the other hand, was that of a stranger, cool and regal and utterly uncaring.

He raised an eyebrow at them; the gesture was so deeply Egon's that it nearly broke Ray's heart to see it on that strange face. "So, the mortals have sent a Druid, a Warrior, and a Worker to stop me. It is good to know that some things haven't changed."

Peter and Ray exchanged a glance. Ray turned back. "So you're considering Egon an Outsider? I guess he'd have to be, if you're claiming to be a king."

The Elvenking in Egon's body scowled at them. "What do you mean?"

"And I think you're mistaking which one of us is which," Peter added. "I mean, I'm the most formally educated one after Egon, so that would make me the Druid, wouldn't it?"

Ray nodded in agreement. "And Winston's the one who's had actual war experience, and I grew up on a farm."

The guardian glided between them and the door. "Whether scholar or warrior, your body will make a fine enough host for me. So good a throwing arm will not go to waste, I assure you." He advanced on Peter, spear ready.

Egon, or the thing in Egon's body, waved a hand. "Kill the other two, and you may have him. I grow weary of toying with these mortals."

"Nobody's killing anyone," snarled Peter, and he swung the skillet at the guardian's spear. The specter jumped back, hovering a few inches above the floor. Winston dropped the shovel, raised his thrower, and let the guardian have a stream at three-quarter power; the elf-spirit jerked and screamed, dodging wildly to get out of the blast.

Ray edged forward. "Egon? Egon, are you still in there?" He brandished the oak twig in front of him like a weapon.

The Elvenking smiled. "No, little one, he is not. All that dwells in his breast now is me." One hand glimmered with leaf-green light, and Ray barely ducked in time to avoid the burst of energy flung at him.

"Egon doesn't live there, dummy," Peter called back, advancing on the guardian and taking a wild swing. "Egon, I bet you can hear me. This jackass is doing magic with your body, and I know how you hate that. C'mon, Spengs, fight him off!"

"I tell you, he is no longer here," snarled the Elvenking through Egon's lips. He raised both hands, and energy swirled around them, purple and white.

The guardian broke off from Peter and dove for Ray, instead. Ray reached out with the oak twig and parried, turning the spear aside to miss him by inches. The guardian drew back and thrust again; Ray caught it on the twig a second time, but was thrown off balance.

"Ray!" Winston fired again, but pulled his stream; he couldn't get a clear shot at the guardian without putting Ray in danger. Egon - no, the ghost possessing him, Winston reminded himself - let loose a purple whirlwind, and Winston ducked and rolled to get out of its way as it knocked the doors from their hinges.

The guardian rose as if trying to escape, then whirled and jabbed again. Ray swung with the twig, and connected, but not in time; the spear point missed his chest and grazed his side instead. He cried out and dropped the mistletoe, clutching at his ribs as redness oozed between his fingers.

A look of anguish crossed Egon's features, but was quickly replaced with the Elvenking's cold smile.

Peter spun around and the frying pan came down heavily on the spectral spear. It snapped in two with a crackle of PKE energy, then spun into golden mist and faded like the trees had.

"You are not hurting Ray again," Peter growled, hoisting the skillet again. "And you're sure not getting a piece of me, either." The guardian tried to glide upward, but Peter was faster; the pan struck the specter directly in the face. The guardian dropped to the floor, stunned.

Winston was already behind him; he hit the quick-release on his belt. "Bye, sucker." He stomped the foot pedal and the trap's doors opened; the guardian scrabbled at the floor for purchase futilely, and was sucked away.

Winston left the trap to Peter and charged across the room. "Ray, are you all right?"

Ray pulled his hand away from his side. "It hurts, and it's bleeding, but I think it's pretty shallow. Don't worry about me; worry about Egon."

Peter finished hooking the trap to his harness with his off-hand and turned to his possessed friend. "Okay, Egon, I know you're in there. I saw you when that asshole got Ray. You can fight this guy, I know you can."

The Elvenking smiled. "You won't fire your lightning at me. You fear too much to hurt your friend."

"Any chance we can use the Watt gambit?" Peter asked over his shoulder, still edging closer to Egon.

Ray shook his head. "We don't have a clear reading of this specter. I could back-calculate its energy frequencies from a reading of Egon now, since we know what his usual electrometabolic readings are, but it would take a while."

"Then we'll have to do this the hard way." Peter's eyebrows drew together. "Egon. Listen to me. You can fight him. We're here for you."

The Elvenking's sneer faltered for a second. Then it returned. "He cannot. No mortal could."

Ray drew himself up and fumbled on the floor for the mistletoe. "Winston, could you go get me some salt and a clean knife from the kitchen? No, wait, you don't need to go back down the stairs if you don't have to; can you get some water from the bathroom there, and I'll go get the rest?"

"Seriously? You're going to do a straight-up exorcism?" He knew Ray knew how to do that, but he'd never actually seen the team's occultist perform one. Winston didn't think he liked the idea.

"If that's what it takes. I'll be back in a sec; Peter, do you think you can hold him?"

"No problem. I'll tackle him if I have to; as long as he stays in Egon, he's physical." Peter took another step forward, still clutching the handle of the frying pan like a baseball bat.

"Great. Hold these," Ray said, pressing the oak and mistletoe into Winston's hands as he bounced out the door.

For a moment, Egon's features smoothed into something like their normal state. He held up both hands. "Peter, you wouldn't hurt me, would you?"

Peter scowled. "Egon, not in a million years, and he knows that. You, on the other hand - for hurting him, I'd gladly see you rot in Hell. But, since we haven't been there in a while, the containment unit will have to do." His eyes softened. "Egon, I'm here, Ray's going to get some of his schtick, it's going to be okay." The being who was half Egon and half Elvenking glanced at the skillet and seemed to shrink back.

Winston hesitated. "Peter -"

"Go get Ray's water. I can hold him, and I want this over as soon as possible." Peter's emerald eyes met the glowing ice that didn't belong, could never belong, to his friend.

Winston gave Peter a dubious look, but he left. Immediately the Elvenking smiled, a terrible, twisted thing, and flung out both hands. Red-gold fire poured from them at Peter's midsection.

Peter flung himself to the floor; the flames passed over his head, singeing the back of his uniform as he shielded himself with the frying pan. As soon as the heat passed, he yanked himself back to his feet again. "Look, you bastard, I realize you don't know when you're beat, but - "

Egon - that was Egon, he was sure of it - was staring at his hands in utter horror. For an instant, the blue starlight faded from his eyes, and they met Peter's in relief. Then the Elvenking shook him, and the long face took on a calculating grin. "Well played," he purred.

Peter grimaced, and swung the frying pan so it caught him along the forearm, not hard enough to break anything - hopefully not enough to even bruise; Egon wasn't as delicate as he often looked. The Elvenking cried out in surprise, and clutched at his wrist. "Why - how - "

"I know what would happen to Egon if he thought he'd hurt me. I'm not letting you get your jollies that way. And if Ray explained this right," he continued, smacking him in the other arm with the skillet, "I imagine the steel can't actually hurt you while you're in a human body, but it should still fritz out your magic."

Winston hustled back into the room, holding a crystal vase full of water. "Pete, we're gonna have to restrain him while Ray draws the circle, you know that, right?"

Peter obviously hadn't thought about that. "Uh, yeah. Fortunately," he recovered, "he was kind enough to provide for the eventuality." He reached behind him with his off hand and snagged one of the satin braids from the armchair.

For the first time, the Elvenking looked like he might actually be frightened. He bolted towards the door; Winston blocked him expertly, and Peter went in for the tackle. All three of them went down in a heap.

"Okay, I got - oh, looks like you've started without me," chirped Ray, stopping in the doorway. "Can you guys get him into the chair?"

"I will not submit to this indignity," the Elvenking shouted, although honestly if that had been Egon speaking, it might not have sounded much different.

"You lost that choice when you decided to mess with our buddy," growled Winston, scooping Egon's legs up in a tight grip.

Peter hauled Egon up by the shoulders. "Ray, move the stuff off the other chair." Ray swept Egon's uniform onto the floor, then rolled it into a bundle and stuck it on top of the proton pack. Peter wrestled the Elvenking, writhing like a medusa, into the smaller chair and twisted his arms behind him.

They quickly realized they'd miscalculated; between the short lengths and the slipperiness of the satin, it took all the braid they had to tie Egon's legs to the chair.

"And it doesn't look like our client's kinky enough to have any extra rope," Ray reported from under the bed.

Peter shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I'll hold his arms while you do your hoodoo." He pinned Egon's wrists against the back of the chair.

"Sounds fine to me; having another person inside the circle shouldn't hurt anything. Give Winston the frying pan; I'll have a steel knife if he tries any funny spellwork." Ray dropped a pinch of salt into the vase full of water and stirred it with the mistletoe, mumbling "Creature of Water, of sea and sky, blood of the body, tear of eye, Healer of wounds, o gentle cure, let this space of ours be pure." He began sprinkling the salt water around the room, starting from the center and working outwards.

The Elvenking hissed as the droplets splashed onto him, and squirmed. Peter yanked at his wrists a bit. "Cut that out. You don't want to go through with this, you know what you can do."

"I will not give him back to you. Ever." The Elvenking tried to spit in Peter's face. Peter dodged, and it got him in the shoulder instead; he bit back a response.

Ray fumbled in one of his belt pouches and pulled out a tealight candle, a tiny brass incense burner, a cone of incense, and his old cigarette lighter. Setting the candle down, he lit the incense and dropped it carefully in the censer, whispering to it, "Creature of Air, of smoke and tree, breeze of the morning, wind so free, Free our minds of fear and hatred, let this place we stand be sacred." He paced a slow circle counter-clockwise around the room, wafting the smoke - it smelled like cedar and cinnamon and something else Peter couldn't quite place - into the corners. The Elvenking cringed again as Ray passed him; somehow Ray seemed taller, and the possessed man shorter, than before.

The occultist set the incense burner down and lit the candle. "Creature of fire, of light, be with us; purifier bright, be with us, Brighten our hearts, though they be lowly, make this place of ours be holy," he murmured, and the candle flame reflected in his amber eyes seemed to make them glow.

Winston shivered. Ray was his buddy, a fellow shade-tree mechanic, an engineer and gadgeteer; all those things about him were comforting and homely. He was a geek, a voracious reader of fantasy and science fiction, a comic-book collector; those things all made him seem harmless and childlike, even innocent. But he was also an occultist, a researcher into powers and beings Winston couldn't imagine and didn't want to. This was a side of Ray that was decidedly not childlike or innocent, and despite the fact that he knew Ray would never use it to hurt anyone or even for simple selfish reasons, the fact that he did it at all scared Winston half to death.

But if it got Egon back without them having to blast him with the throwers . . . he had to admit it seemed like a decent trade-off. And it looked like the spook in Egon's body was almost as scared as he was. That was a good sign, right?

Ray picked up the box of salt he'd brought from the kitchen and began pouring it in a circular path around Peter and Egon. "Creature of Earth, of sea and rock, crack the wall, open the lock, Make us steadfast, make us strong; this space is clear - here ends my song." He stood up, the circle complete. "The circle is cast; we stand between worlds."

"What would a mortal like you know about being between worlds?" snarled the Elvenking, straining against Peter's grasp.

"If Egon didn't have a better grip on his memories, you'd probably know better than to ask that by now," Ray said, smiling. "Now that you know I'm serious, will you get out of him on your own, or am I going to have to make it hard on you?"

"You can't have him back. I won't let you," the elf spat. Peter recoiled slightly, but caught himself; Winston flinched in sympathy.

Ray's eyelids lowered slightly. "That's what they all say." He raised the knife, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply; something in the room seemed to vibrate, like a plucked harp-string. When he opened his eyes again, they were dark, dilated, but full of every reflection in the room - the candle, the wall lamps, the light of the Elvenking's eyes all glistened in his. He lowered the knife and began to trace patterns in the air - four pentacles, each slightly different.

The Elvenking cringed. "I am not of your world. Your elements have no hold over me," he protested, but he turned his face - Egon's face - away.

"You're in a mortal body," Ray reminded. "Until you relinquish that hold, this world's substance can affect you." He traced another sigil. "By the power of Gaia, of the Earth, I command you - leave him."

"No," whispered the elf-ghost, squeezing his eyes shut. "No. Never."

Ray poured out another handful of salt, and sprinkled it over Egon. The elven spirit hissed as if it hurt. "By the salt of the Earth and the Sea, I command you - leave him!"

Peter leaned forward and whispered in Egon's ear, "Come on, big guy, Ray's got him on the run, fight him!"

"N-no," protested the Elvenking. Egon's shoulders were shaking.

Ray plucked the mistletoe out of the vase and shook it over Egon's body, splattering him with droplets. "By the water of the Sea and Sky, I command you - leave him!" Ray's voice seemed deeper than normal, his shadow longer.

"I w-won't," the thing in Egon's body whined. He strained against Peter's hold, as if it were hurting him.

"By the fire of the Sun and the Depths, I command you - " Ray held the candle in one hand; the other brushed Egon's chest, and the Elvenking flinched from the touch. "Leave. Him." The free hand trailed upwards, one finger tracing Egon's jawline, and the thing in his body whined and tried to worm away, directly into Peter's arm; it flinched again, trying to curl up away from both of them.

Ray looked Peter directly in the eye, and an unspoken word passed between the two of them. Peter glanced back at Winston, raised an eyebrow, and mouthed "Sorry about this." Winston blinked in surprise.

Ray set the candle down carefully and kneeled in front of the bound figure. He spread his hands, wide and thick-fingered, over Egon's thighs. "Egon, please, come back, we need you."

Peter leaned forward, letting Egon's hair brush the front of his uniform. "We need you, Egon. Both of us. We always have."

"We love you, Egon," Ray murmured, his voice so low and thick it was almost a whisper. "I told you once, remember?" He leaned farther in; the elf-spirit recoiled, shrinking back into the chair as if Ray were on fire. "It's still true, Egon, every word of it." His hands glided up to Egon's sides in a half-embrace.

"I told you more than once," chuckled Peter, leaning all the way over the back of the chair. "Remember, Egon? Remember the couch in the library basement? God, we were so young and stupid, and everything I couldn't say . . . " He broke off, bent around the chair, and pressed a kiss to Egon's lips. The Elvenking flailed, frantically trying to push him away -

- But when he opened Egon's mouth, what came out was "P-peter . . . "

Ray pushed himself up until he was almost in Egon's lap, and met those ice-gleaming eyes with his own, liquid, amber, and sparkling. His voice was husky, but his tone was unmistakable: "By the power of mortal love and lust, I command you - leave him."

The Elvenking threw Egon's head back against Peter's shoulder and wailed. Their friend's body quaked, trembled, shuddered - and then Egon was surrounded by a swirling golden mist as the specter poured through his skin, still wailing.

Winston didn't bother firing. He sprinted across the room, snatched one of the two empty traps from Egon's pack, and stomped on the switch. The elf-ghost didn't even have time to take its own form back; it spiraled into the pyramid of light, keening its agony.

Egon went limp between Ray and Peter; as the last of the golden fog was tugged away, his features seemed to pull back - his ears lost their points, his spine shrank a few inches, and his hair shortened back to a tousled, curly mess streaked with ectoplasm. The leaf-green tunic dissolved and followed the ghost that had created it. The trap snapped shut.

"Egon?" Peter asked, one hand curling under Egon's jaw. "You okay, big guy?"

A moan tumbled from Egon's lips, and he shifted slightly under Ray's weight. Then his eyes flickered open. "I - ah - " He flushed bright red.

"Oops!" Ray sat back on his heels. "Uh, Winston, could you toss Egon's clothes back over here?"

---

Egon edged out of the bathroom, his face throughly scrubbed, the zipper on his jumpsuit pulled up to his chin, one hand pressed against the wall for balance. He reached for his pack, still unsteady on his feet.

Peter went to lay a hand on his wrist, thought better of it at the last second, and grabbed the strap on the pack instead. "Hold on there, big guy. You're not stable enough for an extra fifty pounds on your back yet."

Egon straightened his glasses. "Ray has a spear-wound and Winston took a blow to the head that broke skin." He glanced aside, not meeting anyone's eyes. "You're not making any attempt to stop them from carrying their throwers."

Peter's mouth skewed. "Yeah, I'm not exactly thrilled about either of them packing protons at the moment, either." His lip curled into a grim shadow of a grin. "But I figured if I tried to stop all of you, you'd accuse me of being a glory hog again."

"You got it," chuckled Winston.

Ray opened the window and dumped the remains of the incense out. "Besides, this is barely a scratch." He tapped the edge of the bandage Winston had carefully applied. "And right now we need you working on a different problem. There's an open interdimensional gate two rooms over."

"What?" Egon's head came up so quickly he knocked his glasses askew again; he pushed them back up his nose with one finger before Peter could do it for him.

"Just a small one." Ray brushed his feet through the circle of salt on the floor, scattering the grains in all directions. A mess of salt the client would blame on the ghosts; a circle was evidence of ritual, and would freak the mundanes out. "But it's one of the reasons why our readings have been so weird."

"Of course," Egon exclaimed. "Extradimensional energy would make them all read as Class Sevens. That must be the artifact I read from outside." His voice was steadier now. "Which room is it in?"

"Two doors down," Peter answered, pointing. Egon nodded and headed down the hallway; Peter shouldered Egon's pack and grinned at Ray. "Nice distraction technique there."

Ray poured the water out of the window after the ash. "It wasn't 100% distraction. We do need to take care of that before anything else comes through, and Egon's better with gates than I am. Even magical ones, which I suspect this one is."

"I can't believe you two knuckleheads are letting him wander off on his own like this," Winston grumbled, heading back into the hallway.

"Oops, yeah, you've got a point there." Peter looked around the room. "I think the rest of this is yours, Tex. Need any help with the clean-up?"

"Nah, I've got it. Go keep an eye on Egon." Ray tucked the last of the tools into his belt pouch and closed the window.

When Peter made it down the hall, Egon was already standing with PKE meter in hand, observing the vortex as if it were a particularly troublesome lab specimen. Winston had his thrower aimed towards the slowly pulsing well of energy, but his eyes were pinned to Egon.

"These readings are highly unusual," the physicist commented. "This is no pocket dimension on the other side, nor is it the Netherworld."

"The court of the Unseelie Sidhe?" Peter offered, aiming his own thrower at the swirl of purple lightning and blue sparks.

Egon's mouth twitched into a grin. "Careful, Peter. Keep talking like that, and we'll have to conclude you actually did the reading."

Peter leaned against the wall jauntily. "Well, I did read my Bonewits, back when he was the only other researcher working on this stuff. But mostly Ray was explaining how he knew to go for the oak and mistletoe." Something flickered in the miniature maelstrom. He blinked and frowned at it.

Egon reached towards the gate with one hand. Peter refrained from bolting towards him, and the scientist drew back after a second. "It has a temporal field as well as an interdimensional one. This is very dangerous."

"You can feel a time-distortion field?" Winston asked, surprised.

Egon shrugged. "Perhaps the Elvenking left a little of his own ability in me when he was . . . searching my memories." He shuddered slightly at the suggestion.

"I'd blame Bogey rather than big, golden, and too pretty to believe," Ray offered as he stepped in. "You were exposed to some serious gate magic at a pretty young age." A realization flickered across Ray's face; his eyes widened, then narrowed as the gate pulsed weakly.

"There is some merit to that suggestion," Egon mused, fiddling with a dial on the side of the meter. "At any rate, these readings suggest that the gate is in a state of flux. In order to close it, we will need to either destabilize it completely, or force it to remain in one state long enough to collapse the waveform."

"Just tell us what to do, big guy," Peter said, thrower still in hand.

Egon nodded. "Everyone reset for a frequency of 3000 milliRhines, half power. Be ready to cut off on my mark." The physicist retrieved his own thrower from Peter, turned the dial precisely three-quarters of a rotation, and aimed it carefully. "Ready?"

"Ready," chorused the other three.

"Fire," ordered Egon, and four proton streams danced across the surface of the blue and purple sphere. It throbbed and rippled slightly. After a slow count of twelve, Egon raised one hand; as he signaled, the streams stopped as one. He studied the meter again.

"Excellent. We appear to have stabilized it. I should be able to determine the frequency to close it momentarily." Egon fished in his pocket for a calculator and began tapping in numbers.

"Do you hear something?" Winston asked, one ear cocked.

The others fell silent. A female voice was shouting, far in the distance.

" . . . Immense sacrifices made to open the mortal realms to us! My father suffered ostracism, exile, and finally the flesh-death to bring the riches of a magically unspoiled world to us," the voice cried. "You may turn your back on his sacrifices, you ungrateful fools, but I will follow in his footsteps, even to the stars and back!"

"Uh-oh," murmured Ray. He hurried out of the room again.

"Is it just me, or does it sound like the Elvenking had a little pointy-eared princess waiting in the wings?" asked Peter.

Another voice was speaking: "Ilelana, your father's dreams were just that - dreams. You have never been to the mortal realms; I have. They are magically unspoiled, yes, but they teem with cold iron and coal-smoke. The mortals tame lightning and use it for puppet-shows; they burn forests and choke the streams with the ashes. Even if you could fight them all with magic, you do not want to rule there."

"Even so, I will go," the female voice insisted. "They are foolish with their power, as we have been with ours. I would as soon live where the magic runs clear and the water runs muddy than the other way around!" A noise rose up behind her voice, as if a crowd were shouting.

Ray jogged back into the room, carrying the oak twig and mistletoe again, Peter's frying pan tucked under one arm. "More trouble?"

"Maybe more than we thought." The center of the vortex began to clear. Two silhouettes were visible, one in ornate armor, the other in a flowing robe. The figure in the robe spoke again. "Your army is very impressive, child, but they are none of them seasoned warriors. You may slay many mortals, but they are not fools; they will adapt and drive you back." It stepped back, and raised a scroll in one hand. "By the power vested in me by the Autumn Court of the Seelie Sidhe, I hereby forbid you from - "

A hail of arrows struck the figure and the scroll; it collapsed, midsentence.

"You have no authority to forbid me anything," growled the figure in armor to the body. "My warriors! The portal opens!"

A roar went up. Peter did some quick estimations based on the football and baseball stadiums he'd been in. "Ten thousand, at least."

"I'd estimate approximately thirty thousand, if the portal isn't damping the noise too severely." Egon took another reading and typed faster on the calculator. "Ray, set your thrower to 500 milliRhines, full power."

"Got it." Ray took out a multi-tool and began lowering the frequency on his thrower.

"Winston, stay where you are. Peter, change to 1500 miiliRhines." Egon stuck the calculator back in his pocket and pulled out a screwdriver of his own.

The crowd noise got louder. Peter was sure he could hear swords banging against shields. "Uh, do we want to be here when that thing opens all the way?" The figure in the center was beginning to gain detail - female, with long golden hair reaching almost to her knees, and an ethereal beauty marred only by a sword nearly as large as she was.

"No." Egon finished adjusting his thrower. "So we will make sure it does not. Fire in three-second pulses, one at a time, lowest frequency to highest; I'll count off. Ray, you start."

Ray fired for three seconds, then shut off as Peter took over, then Winston, then Egon, then Ray again. The edges of the vortex began to ripple, then to flap like a flag.

"What manner of sorcery is this?" screamed the voice from the other side of the gate. Sparks of green energy began flying through. "Mortals? Father? Father!"

"Can we go any faster?" Peter whined. Egon shook his head and took over from Winston. The vortex wobbled and became elliptical instead of round.

"If you have harmed my father's shade, I swear, I will hunt you to the ends of eternity!" The tip of a sword slashed through the thin line of blue energy at the center of the vortex.

"Yeah, about that," Peter shouted back, as he took his turn firing. "See, he tried to mess with us, so we had to lock him up. Sorry about that."

"You will die, mortal scum!" she shrieked, slashing wildly at the vortex. Egon fired. "Everyone, now, three-second burst and then stop! Don't cross the streams!"

The vortex spun, flattened to a two-dimensional disc between the beams, flared and winked out of existence. The tip of the sword clattered to the floor.

"Nice going, Egon!" Winston cheered. Egon adjusted his glasses and smiled weakly.

Ray patted Egon on the back. "Let's get the rest of our stuff back into Ecto, swing by the motel to give Carl our bill, and head back home."

"Sounds good to me," Peter agreed, scooping up the fragment of bronze from the floor.

---

The road rolled by underneath them in the dark. Peter debated opening his eyes for the fourteenth time.

The silence in the car was palpable. Winston was focused on the highway with a keenness that might have been appropriate had they been driving on a back road in a blizzard with one headlight out. Egon had folded inward, his face blank but his eyes alive with something that might have been embarrassment. Ray was shifting his weight every few moments, vibrating with nervousness.

Ray fidgeted hard enough to shake the car. Peter found himself with his eyes open involuntarily. He sighed; he wasn't about to get to sleep, either. "Hey, Ray, cool it with the hyperactivity. Ecto can't take much more of this."

"Sorry, Peter. I didn't mean to wake you up." Peter was pretty sure Ray knew he hadn't actually been asleep. Ray stretched, and continued, "But don't worry about Ecto; she's tougher than she looks."

The uncomfortable silence curled back through the car like smoke, and Peter had just leaned his head back to pretend to return to his nap when Ray spoke up again. "Hey, Winston, you okay?"

"Sure, Ray. Just tired." Winston feigned stifling a yawn. "We're going to be getting in awfully late."

"Do you want me to take a turn at the wheel?" Ray offered. Winston shook his head. Peter was still unsure about giving driving duty to someone who'd had a bleeding scalp wound earlier in the evening, but Winston insisted he was fine.

The silence was just creeping back again when Ray swallowed hard and cleared his throat. "Um, Winston, I think I owe you an apology."

Winston looked apprehensive. "For what, m'man?"

"I know you're really not comfortable with magic," Ray said, a little softer. "I mean, I know you know I do this sort of thing, and it's sort of a live-and-let-live thing between us. But I didn't see a way out of the situation without using it." He paused, and glanced sideways at Egon's reflection in the rear-view mirror. "I knew the ghosts were using it, and for me, it was sort of fighting fire with fire. And at the time I started with it, it was just me and Peter, and he doesn't mind so much, so I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry for dragging you into it." He twisted his right hand in the palm of his left and looked sideways at Winston.

Winston didn't look at Ray, but he reached across with one hand and patted him lightly on the knee. "It's okay, man. I've gone back and forth about how okay I am with it, honestly. Some days, I guess the old habits just come down hard." He allowed himself a small grin. "I mean, my grandma is half Puerto Rican, and her sisters all did things like read cards. That's not real magic, not like the stuff you do, but it's not like I'm a stranger to it. But at the same time, Dad doesn't approve of them, either."

"I didn't know your dad was annoyed about that, too," Peter piped up. Egon shifted slightly at the sound, although he had to have known that Peter couldn't have fallen asleep again that fast.

"Yeah, for all that Mama's the really devout one, Dad's worldview is pretty strictly Baptist." Winston's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "He deals with what we do by pretending it's not real, even though he knows better. I'm sure if I asked him, he'd say that Slimer's either a collective hallucination or a damned soul."

"I'm not completely convinced that he's wrong about that last," joked Peter, but for all that his own mother had identified as Catholic, he'd never really picked it up.

Winston snorted. "Anyway, when the whole thing with the Undying One happened, I had to really think about what I believed." He chuckled dryly. "I mean, I didn't feel damned or anything. And I really couldn't just decide that hadn't happened."

Ray grimaced. "It hadn't even occurred to me that you'd worry about that."

"I didn't for very long." A road sign flashed by, letting them know they were only an hour from the outskirts of the city. Winston paused to read it, then went on, "I won't tell you I'm totally okay with it all, because I'm not. Not yet. It still creeps me out a little bit when you talk about it. And when you're actually doing it, the serious stuff - not the mistletoe part, that was fine, but the salt and the circle and the chanting - I hate to admit it, but sometimes you do get a bit scary for me."

"Me?" Ray sounded small, somehow. "Not just the magic?"

"They're not separate things, Ray." Winston made a turn onto a tollway on-ramp. "At least, they weren't for me, that time. It's not like there's you and then there's the magic, like a proton pack. You can't just take it off. It's part of you, just like your engineering degree and your courage and your comic-book trivia." Ecto changed over into the middle lane of the highway, and Winston finally took his eyes away from the road long enough to look directly at Ray. "So yeah, Ray. You. But it doesn't make us any less friends. I mean, Peter's slick talk and prophetic dreams both scare me silly sometimes, too, and he's not losing any sleep over it."

"What, me worry?" Peter grinned, then let his face grow serious. "Yeah, and that's two halves of the whole with you and the magic thing, Ray. The fast-talking is half natural talent and half practiced skill." He ran his fingers through his hair and glanced at Egon again, waiting for the physicist to burst his bubble. Nothing. Damn. "The dreams are completely out of my control; they're a part of me that feels foreign, even to me."

"I still think you could do something about that, with training," Ray mused.

Peter shrugged. "We never did get it to work on demand, back in college. I'll admit, I haven't tried much since. We've always been too busy when it acted up. But my point here is that with you, the magic is both of those at once - something that was always part of you, and something that required a fair amount of study."

Ray nodded. "Yeah, you're right. But that means I could have just walked away from it, instead of studying, so if it's really, um, well, sinful, I guess, then half of it's still on me, right?"

Egon finally stirred. "Ray, that's utter nonsense and you know it."

"Huh?" Ray jumped at Egon's voice.

The physicist uncoiled slightly. "Your occult expertise has saved our lives on more than one occasion, not just tonight. You couldn't study it so deeply and not attempt to put at least the basic principles into practice."

"That's not true, Egon, and you know that better than anyone," Ray answered softly.

Egon bristled and didn't respond. Peter thought about it for a moment, and then responded for him. "What do you mean by that, Ray?"

"Egon knows as much as I do about the theory of magic and general occultism, probably more." Ray gave Peter a curious backwards look; Peter shot him a tiny shrug that meant humor me. Ray nodded slightly. "He's certainly done all the reading I have, and some in languages I can't even pronounce. I'd be lying if I said I knew for sure that Egon's never tried out as much as a simple spell out of all of it, but I've never seen him use it."

Ray took a deep breath and twisted around in his seat to face Egon. "I guess I owe you an apology, too, Egon. I mean, I know how you feel about your magician ancestors. If I could have figured out a way to rescue you without using it, I would have, but - "

"That's quite enough, Ray," Egon rumbled. Ray flinched back into his seat, and Egon sighed. "I'm sorry. That came out harsher than I intended. I'm not at all offended either by your practice of the magical arts in general or by this particular instance." His voice dropped. "I'm quite grateful that you managed to remove and trap the Elvenking, no matter how you did it."

"You're welcome, Egon." Ray was flustered again. "I just - I know - "

"You know the things my father always said about magic and the occult, because I heard them so many times about my own peculiar interests that I internalized them and parrot them back like a programmed automaton," Egon said flatly. "Ray, I wouldn't have been interested in telekinesis and ghosts when we met if I didn't at least recognize the legitimacy of various forms of occult practice. I may find it embarrassing on a personal level, but I recognize that that's a conditioned response on my part."

Egon paused. "It's not just Father, of course. It's Uncle Cyrus and Grandfather and everyone else on that side of the family. They think they've purged the Spenglers of any trace of our occult history; my own interests were a refulgence of rank superstition, from their perspective, and they did their best to wring it out of me." His voice was rising slightly. "It was easier to learn to mock it with them, to consign Zedekiah and his dabbling to family legend and dismiss it, than to fight for the idea that I might be entitled to something other than the power of Science by birth." His eyes darted to the reflections on Ecto's window-glass, and he calmed down again. "It was too easy to see myself as a wizard. The Bogeyman's appearance just made things more complicated - here was the proof that my wildest dreams were real, but they were nightmares." He shook his head sharply, as if to clear it.

"So you blamed all occult stuff for him?" Ray asked, carefully. Peter realized that the two of them had been dancing around this ever since Ray had found out about Egon's history with the Bogeyman. Not the conversation about long-repressed issues he'd expected to be having tonight, but if it needed to happen, he was glad to facilitate.

"Not exactly. It brought home how dangerous it was. One the one hand, I was told by the people I most respected and trusted that it didn't exist and wasn't important; on the other hand, my firsthand experience told me it did exist and was the most terrifying thing that had ever happened to me. And underneath all that was sheer curious fascination." Egon sank half an inch back into the bench seat, eyes slightly unfocused. "What if I took it up, learned it, and was no more successful than Zedekiah? Worse - what if I became a magus, was competent at it, and grew corrupted by the power?"

"Yeah, I gotcha," murmured Winston.

"Corrupted? How?" Ray just sounded baffled.

Egon shook his head again. "Ray, you've seen how I become in the lab when I'm near a breakthrough. I can be almost monomaniacal. I am capable of crafting experiments for the sake of knowledge, without consideration for the practical side-effects, that are nearly disastrous." A flicker of shame crossed his features and settled near his eyes. "Imagine my doing the same with spellwork."

Ray opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again in thought. Finally he asked, "Do you worry about me doing that?"

"No," chorused the other three men. Egon continued, "You might misjudge the effects of your occult work in your enthusiasm, Ray, but I trust you to at least consider them. You don't push buttons merely to see what will happen if you think there is significant risk; I do."

"No, but I've enormously underestimated the risk of pushing a particular button dozens of times," Ray objected. "If you think that you'd be a danger doing that with magic, then I'm a danger, too, and you ought to be trying to stop me."

"Ray, I trust you with my life, both in the lab and otherwise," Egon replied vehemently. "I can't imagine you becoming corrupted the same way."

"You're pretty incorruptible yourself, big guy," Peter pointed out. "You and Ray might reject temptation for different reasons, but you're both fundamentally pretty good people."

"Unlike you, you mean?" Winston grinned. "Fat chance. We've seen the big teddy bear underneath the con-man exterior."

"What makes you think it isn't the other way around?" Peter's grin grew wolfish. "Anyway, Egon, the fact that you've worried about it automatically means it's less likely. Not a zero percent chance, but nothing we do comes with guarantees."

Egon studied Peter's face, then Ray's. "You sound like you think I should start practicing."

Peter shrugged. "Think about what would have happened if the elves had wanted short and energetic instead of tall and elegant."

Egon frowned. "I could have modified the Watt technique to separate Ray from the Elvenking, but - it might have taken longer than we had, assuming the gate would have opened at the same time without our interference."

"And we'd still have been dealing with the ghost trees, or wasting pack charge right and left zapping them," Winston added. "Would we still have had enough power in the cells to close the portal?"

"I see," Egon said, nodding slowly. "There is a fair bit of merit to having more than one of us with practical as well as theoretical knowledge."

"And my talents aren't the right ones," Peter added unnecessarily.

"And I've still got a long way to go before I can get comfortable with doing that myself," Winston followed.

Egon met Peter's gaze carefully. "Do you really think I wouldn't become obsessed?"

"No more than you already are," Peter replied.

Egon was silent, eyes turned down, for a moment. "Yes," he finally said. "Ray, do you think you could - teach me?"

"Everything I know," Ray beamed. "Shouldn't take you more than a few months."

"A lifetime of research on your part will take significantly longer than that," Egon chided, but a small smile crept across his face.

Peter relaxed. That wasn't the only source of tension in the car, but enough was broken that he wasn't too worried. He listened to Ray and Winston banter about the line between mystery and fantasy as he finally fell asleep.

Egon wasn't participating, he noticed as he dropped off. But then, neither was he, so he could hardly judge.

---

It was that uncomfortable stretch between midnight and the crack of dawn when Ecto finally arrived at the firehouse doors; the streets were, while not empty, quiet. Peter found himself gently shaken awake, Ray murmuring, "C'mon, Peter, your bed'll be a lot more comfortable."

"Traps first," Peter yawned, climbing out of the back seat with only minor difficulty. His feet ached in his boots, but if he unlaced them, he might trip over them; not smooth at all. And padding around the metal grid floor of the basement in his stocking feet would hurt in an entirely different way. He picked up the shop cloth with the bronze fragment from Ecto's floor and set it on Janine's desk. A souvenir, from one warrior woman to another.

"Sure thing," Winston agreed, handing him two with blinking lights. They clumped heavily down the stairs and lined up to dispose of their quarry. Egon held only one trap, but Peter was pretty sure he knew who was in it; he suspected that Winston had handed him the lieutenant who had threatened to do the same to him.

The containment unit cycled seven times, and the deep thrumming that filled the basement dropped a quarter of a tone. Egon and Ray exchanged a glance that Peter recognized from their early days of running the business.

Peter cleared his throat. "Getting crowded in there again?"

Ray nodded slowly. "We've been talking about ways of expanding the capacity of the unit, but so far all the ones we've come up with would require shutting the grid down."

"Couldn't we just build a second unit?" Winston asked, parking the used trap cartridges in the recharge unit. Peter felt a fleeting streak of guilt and ambled over to help with the last two.

"Where would we put it?" Ray shrugged, hanging the trigger mechanisms on the wall hooks to wait for new cartridges.

Egon rubbed his chin. "I have a few potential ideas for boosting capacity that might not require a power shutdown. The math works out, but I'll need to test them to see if they're feasible with the actual equipment we have installed." He headed back upstairs, eyes turned upwards towards his thoughts - and, Peter noticed, away from the others.

Winston and Peter finished with the last cartridge. "Well, Egon may have the mental energy to spend time in the lab after tonight, but I don't," Winston announced. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to bed."

"I think I should probably eat something first," Ray mused.

"Yeah, I think I'm with Ray, there," Peter agreed. "It's been seven or eight hours since we had a meal, and he did some pretty serious work."

"We all did," Ray protested, but Winston gave him a small grin and patted him on the shoulder. "No, Pete's right - you probably do need to keep your energy up. I'll see you guys in the morning, okay?" He checked the recharge grid and then followed Egon.

Ray waited until Winston had cleared the doorway and then glanced back at Peter. "Uh, how badly do we need to talk?"

"Depends. How okay are you really, and how tired are you?" Peter glanced around. There wasn't a good place to hold a conversation down here.

"I'm fine; this really was just a scratch. It just stings, now. Emotionally, I'm a little churned up, but I bet you're worse." Ray rubbed at his eyes. "And I'm tired, but I'm not sleepy. Doing magic wires me up more than it tires me out."

"Yeah, I'll believe that." Peter tried to do an honest self-evaluation; looking into parts of himself that he usually kept bottled up was always difficult, but the situation sort of demanded it. "I got a couple of hours of sleep on the way, so I think I'm okay there. I'm not sure I'm ready to really discuss the emotional situation, but the longer we put it off the harder it's going to be to talk about." He shifted uncomfortably; his feet still hurt. "If you're not up for it, we can wait, but -"

"No, no, I think we should do it now before one of us chickens out again." That was unusually harsh language from Ray, but he didn't look angry, just weary.

"Kitchen?" offered Peter. If they were going to need to feed Ray anyway, it was the least conspicuous place.

"Sure, but let me leave a note for Janine first. If we're going to be up until dawn hashing all this out, she needs to know to let us sleep in unless there's an emergency." Ray climbed back to the first floor, Peter following more slowly. He wasn't looking forward to this; even with his best friends, it was difficult dredging through emotional silt.

Ray was already scribbling on one of Janine's notepads as Peter dragged himself off the basement stairs. Slimer had fallen asleep in his office instead of in the bunkroom, he noticed; the little green ghost was floating aimlessly near the door to the downstairs washroom and burbling. He wondered, not for the first time, why a Class Five would need to sleep at all. Maybe it was just a habit he'd picked up from watching the guests at the hotel?

They stopped at the lockers to remove their boots, and tiptoed up the stairs. Faint light spilled down the spiral staircase from the direction of the lab; the bunkroom was dark. They crept into the kitchen in their stocking feet, and Ray poked around in the cabinet while Peter poured a glass of orange juice for himself and a soda for Ray.

"Are you raiding Egon's stash again?" Ray asked, as he sat down with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, neatly sliced into two triangles.

"I think he can spare a cola or two after tonight." Peter pushed his hair back and settled both elbows on the table. "Besides, he won't notice unless we run out." He poked through the bowl of fruit on the table; Slimer had eaten all the bananas again. Peter picked up an apple and munched on it, more to give himself an excuse not to talk for a moment than because he was really hungry.

"Fair enough." Ray spent the next few minutes stuffing the sandwich in his mouth while Peter finished the apple, trailing his fingers through the drops of condensation from the two glasses on the table. The silence grew more uncomfortable by the second.

Finally, Ray swallowed the last bite of honey wheat and grape jelly and washed it down. "Okay. So. You and Egon. Me and Egon. Uh, you and me."

"Yeah." Peter gazed out the window at the streetlights. Saying it had been easy when it had been necessary, when it might have been his last chance to say it to Egon. Here, in safe (well, as safe as their lives ever got) and familiar circumstances, it suddenly seemed impossible and ridiculous again.

Ray cleared his throat. "How much did we actually end up explaining . . . then?"

"I'm not sure. I was amazingly smashed at the time. Even for me, even for then." Peter rubbed his eyes. He'd been a few weeks from graduating from Columbia; Egon was already in grad school over at MIT, but he still visited most weekends. How they'd convinced Egon to go to the fraternity party, he still wasn't sure. He remembered Egon being hit on by a particularly persistent Barnard girl, and realizing that his jealousy wasn't going in the appropriate direction. They'd left before Egon totally freaked out, stumbling back to his and Ray's off-campus apartment; they'd veered across campus, none of them able to walk straight, hanging off of each other.

They'd piled into the apartment, laughing at one of Egon's physics jokes; it must have been a fairly simple one, at least by Egon's standards, for Peter to have gotten it. Those blue eyes flashing, those pale cheeks rosy with drink and merriment and the last chill of spring in the air - and suddenly they were kissing, and not like brothers, either, and Ray's hands were on their backs and he was egging them on . . . .

Egon had stopped it before it went too far, but it had obviously been an effort. They'd talked, Peter knew, but he couldn't remember what about, exactly. Whether he'd explained how he felt. Whether Egon had explained anything. Whether Ray had said much at all. When they all woke up in the morning - Egon on the fold-out cot, Ray on the sofa, Peter sideways in his own bed - none of them had had the stones to say any more.

He and Egon had had two near-misses before that, too. Once, a few months after they'd first met, they'd been hunting for a particular book in the library stacks that had gotten mis-shelved, and Peter had tumbled off the ladder while goofing around. He'd expected Egon to scold him; instead, he scooped Peter up in his arms like a child, and carried him over to a battered couch by a study carrell. Peter hadn't let go, and dragged Egon onto the couch with him; the older student had let him, had held him close until the pain subsided enough for him to walk, and Peter had kissed him then, too - a chaste peck on the cheek, but it had promised so much more. Egon had blushed, and asked him how his ankle was doing.

Later, just before Egon graduated, Peter had gotten very, very drunk - why did alcohol figure so prominently in these stories? - and broken into Egon's apartment to talk to him. He'd been determined to tell him how he really felt, and he thought he had - but he'd woken up on Egon's couch, not in his bed, and Egon had gently promised him that he'd forgotten everything Peter had said the night before. He'd chickened out again and failed to press the issue.

Then there was the incident with the drill . . . but even then, Peter hadn't managed to say exactly what it was he was afraid of. Not just of losing a bosom buddy; of losing someone he - oh, there it was, there was the word he was trying too hard to avoid - loved.

And here was Ray, who had always looked at him and at Egon with the same hero-worship in his eyes. They were the first two people to ever take him seriously after his parents had died. Hell, they were the only two people to take him seriously, until some miracle gave them Janine and Winston. It had taken a long time for Peter to realize that Ray's hero-worship wasn't just Platonic. He still wasn't sure how he felt about that.

Well, okay, it flattered his ego, sure. Ray believed in him, in a way that even Egon didn't always. With Egon, he was always a little scared that something he did, something he said, would lead Egon to the logical conclusion that Peter wasn't worth bothering with after all. He knew better, but something deep in him still felt that way. Ray, though - Ray's love was unconditional. Peter could do and say anything he wanted to Ray, and too often did, and Ray would still forgive him, would still care just as much.

But - being the object of Ray's libido? Was he okay with that?

Did it matter?

It was real, whether he was okay with it or not. He remembered the warmth of Ray's hand on his back, the light in his eyes and the heat in his face, as Peter and Egon had come up for air that night.

"Peter?" Ray's voice had a hint of a quaver. "What are you thinking?"

"I was trying to remember." That hallway, the taste of Egon's mouth, the smell of Ray's breath, long fingers and stouter ones holding him between them. "What did you say?" Egon's hands were the ones he'd yearned for. That was the part of the memory he'd played over and over. But Ray's touch had been there, too, warm and supporting and all too easy to leave in the background.

It had felt . . . good. Not world-shattering, like the feel of Egon's lips had been. But still good.

"I don't remember everything." Ray's eyes followed the streaks where the droplets on the table had dried. "I know I told you both that I loved you. I think I said that I thought you'd be happy together, whether that future included me or not." He folded his hands. "That's still true. I know you love each other, even if neither of you feels like you can do anything about it. I don't know if either of you love me. I don't think you ever said."

"I do. I just don't know if I love you like that." Another memory of long, thin hands at his ribs and broad, strong ones on his back. Something stirred in the pit of his stomach. "I don't - Ray, you'd let me use you, let me hurt you if I wanted."

"If you needed." Ray's voice was soft, accepting.

"How can I risk that?" Peter pleaded. "I haven't had a relationship last more than four months in my life, and that was Dana."

Ray shook his head. "Peter, that's not true. You have two relationships that have lasted for a dozen years." He glanced upwards, towards the lab. "You just haven't slept with either of us yet."

Something about that 'yet' made Peter feel warmer. Still, he protested, "If I tried it with Egon and it didn't work out, what would happen to the business?" His voice lowered slightly. "If I tried it with you and it didn't work out, what would it do to you?" The thought of Ray in that sort of pain curled into a cold ball in his gut.

"Peter, I don't break so easily." Ray laid one hand on Peter's arm. The touch was solid, steady, warm; it felt . . . good. "Can't you trust me to want what I want, for myself?"

"I - " Peter had trouble trusting anyone, for anything. But Ray - yes, he could trust him to know what he wanted. Maybe not what he needed, though. He looked up and met Ray's gaze, steady amber gleaming in the kitchen's dingy light. "Yeah. I can."

"Peter." For the first time in a very long time, an old insecurity flickered across Ray's face. Peter stopped himself from flinching; the last time he'd seen that was when the EPA had threatened to sue them for the containment breach, when some bureaucrat had taken Peck's word over theirs despite the evidence of the eyes of every person on the island. That was Ray not trusting himself. Ray closed his eyes and searched the insides of his eyelids for the right words.

When he opened them again, he looked older, somehow. "Peter, I know you know what it feels like to want Egon. I don't think you understand how much he wants you, too. I've seen him looking at you when you weren't watching. There's - electricity, between the two of you. And I'm drawn to it like a magnet."

He swallowed, then took a sip from the soda. "If I don't get to be part of that, then that's okay. I've survived by just being near it for a long time, and I'll survive for a lot longer. But - I look a lot more innocent than I am, Peter. Yeah, I'm your first and biggest fan, and Egon's, too. But it's always been more than that, Peter." He put his hands out, palms up and open. "I've been burning for you, Peter, for both of you, since I met you." It was Peter's turn to swallow; something about so blunt a confession chipped away at his resistance. Ray finished, "I love you, and I love Egon. And I love you and Egon together, all the potential of the two of you."

Ray turned his palms back to the table and half-stood. "I wouldn't dream of taking Egon away from you, Peter, even if somehow he wants me, too. I won't, and I can't. If you two are, then you are. The question is, are we two plus one, and that's just the way it is, or can we be three?" He swallowed again, hard. "I'll be fine either way. I just need to know the math."

Something smoldered in the depths of Ray's eyes - need, and a rawness that Peter recognized in himself. He felt his body responding. Perhaps it was wiser than he was. He hoped so.

Peter pushed himself to his feet and edged around the table. "C'mere, Ray." The younger Ghostbuster pulled himself out of his chair and threw himself at Peter with a tiny cry, his arms curling around him hard enough to knock the wind out of a bear.

It felt comfortable. It felt like coming home.

Something warm and crackling unfolded in Peter's chest; not the caged lightning that he felt when he touched Egon - more like a campfire, a promise of safety and warmth in the middle of something dark and wild. He held Ray tighter, and wondered how he could have been so blind to what had been right in front of him.

"Three, Ray." Peter brushed his cheek against Ray's hair, somehow both bristly and soft. "The three of us, or none at all."

"Oh, Peter," Ray sighed, almost sobbed, against the taller man's chest.

They stayed like that for a long minute, arms around each other, just taking comfort in the other's strength. Finally, Ray drew a deep breath and looked up. "Do we talk to Egon now or later?"

Peter carefully let go of Ray and stuck his head out of the kitchen doorway. Light still filtered dimly down from the lab. "The longer we wait, the worse the wall he's going to build around it. Let's see if we can at least lose him a few bricks."

---

The screwdriver in Egon's fingers spun aimlessly against a connection already tightened. He sighed and brushed the drooping ends of the pipecurl out of his eyes. His body was tired, almost exhausted, but he knew perfectly well what would happen if he tried to sleep in his current condition. Jolting his friends awake with his nightmares seemed both undignified and ungrateful; staring at the ceiling for hours with his mind racing would leave him worse off than the nightmares, although the others might sleep better.

Light, familiar footsteps fell behind him; the lab door sighed gently on its hinges as two bodies edged through the doorway. He knew without looking who they were, and he suspected he knew why they were here. His cheeks burned with sudden embarrassment, and he twirled the screwdriver again, trying to look busy.

As if that would put off Peter. "Hey, Egon," the warm tenor voice crooned behind him, "Ray and I wanted to check in with you. How are you doing?"

For a moment, Egon considered outright lying, but Peter almost always saw right through that, and lying to Ray seemed almost cruel. He set the screwdriver down carefully. "Physically, I'm fine, Peter. There don't seem to be any lingering aftereffects of my temporary transformation." That wasn't what Peter was asking about, and he knew that. He took another deep breath before continuing, "Mentally, I haven't noticed any significant impairment, but my ability to concentrate on one thing at a time has been somewhat disrupted."

Peter nodded slowly. "I suspect getting some sleep will help with that."

"You are probably correct." Egon reached over and switched off the soldering iron. The best possible outcome at this point would be Peter's ordering him to bed. Suddenly, staring at the ceiling didn't seem like such a bad idea.

He felt rather than saw his friends exchange a glance. "He's gone full introvert on us, Ray," Peter commented matter-of-factly. "It's worse than I thought."

Egon straightened the tools on the lab bench and turned to face them. "I'm sorry, Peter," he said, not quite looking at either of them. "It isn't my intention to shut you out."

"Then why'd you run away from us down there?" Ray asked, the accusation in his voice gentled by his obvious concern.

Egon glanced away, his eyes catching the streetlights from the windows. "I . . . wanted to get as far away from the Elvenking as possible. It wasn't about you."

Peter raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

Egon sank into the rolling desk chair, his knees askew. "Yes, Peter. And since you will stand there and keep asking until I tell you, I am feeling deeply inadequate for not being strong enough to keep him from . . . possessing me."

Peter and Ray exchanged a second silent glance that passed several meanings back and forth. Peter, at least, seemed surprised. Egon closed his eyes and leaned forwards, elbows on his knees, hands at his temples. "I'm supposed to have a first-rate intellect, and I can't even keep a dead Unseelie out of my own mind and body."

Two hands touched his back gently, one broad and steady, the other strong and reassuring. "Spengs," Peter murmured softly, "do you really think I'm that weak-minded for being Watt's host that one time?"

"Or worse, my being Vigo's," Ray added from the other side.

"No, of course not." Egon sat up and glared at each of them in turn. "Watt was a Class Seven near the top of its scale, a major demon with an army behind it. No mortal could have stood up to that sort of a psychic assault. And Vigo was one of the most powerful known sorcerers when he was alive."

"And this guy was apparently Unseelie royalty when he was alive, and a sorcerer to boot," chided Peter. "Who knows how old he was? I'll bet he was ancient when Vigo was in whatever they used for diapers back in the Dark Ages."

Egon started to protest, and then realized that anything he said would require a logical inconsistency. His jaw worked silently for a moment. "You don't think I've demonstrated a fatal weakness?"

"Only if you think we have, too," Ray shrugged. "When a spirit that buff decides they want your body, there's not a whole lot you can do."

"No matter how hard you fight it," Peter said in what was close to a whisper.

"But you expected me to be able to," Egon objected. "You kept urging me to fight him."

"I hoped." Peter's gaze turned downwards. "I figured if anyone could, it would be you, Spengs. And . . . I know when I was fighting, even if it wasn't getting me my body back, it was distracting Watt. I think it helped, even if it wasn't enough on its own. Same with the Fairy Fuhrer - he had his hands full dealing with you; he couldn't deal with that and Ray's spell, too."

Egon's eyes unfocused. "What did it . . . feel like, for you?"

Peter blinked slowly. "You mean, when Watt took up residence in my skull?" He waited as Egon nodded. "Damn crappy." Ray gave him a warning look, and he sighed and perched on the arm of the old ragged sofa. "There was almost no warning. She grabbed me physically, and then she wasn't physical anymore, and then I wasn't me anymore, I was overwhelmed and thrown into a corner of myself. She had my body, she had my memories, and she damn near had my mind. It took me until she got to the basement to get my, I guess it was my soul, together enough to even try to fight back." His gaze fell to his feet as his voice grew tighter. "And then I lost. I tried, and she beat me back so thoroughly I almost couldn't think anymore." He shifted his weight. "I don't want to say that I know what it feels like to be raped, to have your body used that way violently by a stranger, but everything I've read about that and everything I remember from this makes it sound like the experiences aren't completely different, either." His tone softened again at the very end, and Egon felt Peter's eyes on him, offering empathy that he wasn't yet prepared to take.

"If Watt was stranger rape, then Vigo was date rape with roofies," broke in Ray, and his voice was uncharacteristically bitter. "He'd softened me up first, gotten a little bit into my head, made me miss things at the museum and then drive like a suicidal maniac later."

"Not that we could tell the difference," Peter joked, but it was a reflex; his eyes were serious and concerned.

"He didn't really want me, you know. I was Plan C, after Oscar and Janosz. I didn't know that until afterwards, though. There was a certain amount of - seduction, I guess. He tempted me, offered to share his occult knowledge and power with me if I took him willingly. I turned him down - it wasn't really all that tempting. I'm not sure I could handle more than I already know if it was all at once like that." Ray wandered over to the other end of the sofa and sat down heavily. "And then he forced his way into my head and stuffed me into my own subconscious. Peter, at least you could get it together to struggle; I don't think I ever did."

"You didn't have time," Egon protested. "Winston realized what had happened instantly; by the time you might have recovered enough from the shock to fight him off, you were coated in positive mood slime and he was forced to vacate you."

"True," Ray agreed warily, "but the point here is that I didn't realize what was going on in time, even in the early stages before he invaded my body and mind."

Egon looked carefully at each of them. They'd debriefed on both events after they'd happened, of course, but neither one had been particularly eager to discuss it afterwards. That Ray had still been floating on the positive electromagnetheric slime had probably softened the blow somewhat, but they both had been in the place he now found himself. Slowly, as if the motion was painful, he stood up from the desk chair, walked the few paces over to the sofa, and settled himself in the middle. Peter slid from the arm onto the last cushion, and waited, face turned towards Egon expectantly.

"This was closer to Ray's experience than yours, I believe," Egon began. "The Elvenking attempted to convince me to join him willingly. Similarly, he offered me power, as well as the ability to prove my theories to the scientific community at large."

"You told him to go to hell." It wasn't a question; Peter didn't doubt him for an instant.

"Of course. Then he changed tactics, and offered me . . . " Egon's throat went dry, and he fidgeted for a second as he found his voice again. "Physical pleasure."

"He really did try to seduce you, then," Ray murmured.

"Yes." Egon swallowed around the lump in his throat, adam's-apple bobbing. "I confess that he produced something of a - physical reaction."

Peter leaned in slightly. "That doesn't mean you were interested, big guy. That's just friction."

"I know." Shame curled up Egon's spine and threatened to trickle out of his eyes. "I thought I was steeled for the assault. I thought the mental techniques we'd developed would - but they didn't help. When he realized that I wouldn't yield willingly, he just - took me." He shuddered. "Wholly. Completely. My body wasn't mine. My mind - the core of me was intact, but he could read my surface memories like a newspaper." He realized his eyes were shut, and forced them open. "When he tried to hurt you, Peter -"

"He didn't. I ducked, remember?" Peter reached for Egon's shoulder, then visibly thought better of it. "And I wouldn't have blamed it on you, Spengs, any more than you blamed me for almost opening the containment unit."

"I know it's the same thing, Peter, but it doesn't feel that way." Egon brushed one hand across his own chest. "I don't - no matter how complex my life has been, no matter what dangers I've faced, I've never felt - violated like this. I'm not all that attached to this body, most of the time. You've chided me more than once for living in my head." Egon's fingers traced the belt loops of his own uniform. "If it had just been physical, perhaps I could rise above it. But - he was in my mind as well. I don't - I feel unsafe in myself, somehow." He looked back and forth, to the two concerned faces giving him their undivided attention, one round and ruddy and infinitely accepting, the other long and pale and uncharacteristically open.

Peter nodded very slowly. "Is there anything we can do to make you feel safer?"

Egon adjusted his glasses. "You . . . remember what you did to bring me back, to drive the Elvenking out?"

"Yeah," breathed Ray. "I'm sorry about that, Egon, but I didn't know what else to do, and I was pretty sure it would work against him, especially since he'd expressed such distaste for me."

"Ray, you have absolutely nothing to apologize for," Egon interrupted, trying to sound stern. He suspected he'd failed at that. Two long, slender hands reached out, clasping his friends' tightly. "It was absolutely the correct thing to do. It was . . . what I needed." He swallowed again, and the words tumbled from his throat in a rush. "You were what I needed. Both of you. As you are now." He tugged at their hands.

Peter slid across the threadbare cushion towards him, slipping one strong arm around Egon's shoulders, the other hand still tight in Egon's grip. "Are you sure, big guy? I mean, not that I want to try and talk you out of it, but - we've both offered before, and you turned us down. What's changed?" Ray scooted over on the other side and wrapped his free arm around Egon's waist, silent and expectant.

"I didn't think I'd be good for you, Peter," Egon murmured, trying to lean into both of them at once and mostly settling further into the couch. "You had an endless stream of young women throwing themselves at you, and a reputation to maintain. My desires for you had no place in the world you were building, and you only seemed to express any desire for me when you were inebriated, or hurt, or otherwise incapacitated. I . . . mistrust anything that is only true when you're not quite in charge of your senses."

"Egon, with the amount of deflection I do, anything that I only say when I'm out of my head is probably more true than anything I say when I'm sober." The space between them disappeared, and Peter's head was on his left shoulder. "I could only say it drunk because that was when my guard was down, when that reputation I was maintaining was less important than what I really wanted. Not that I'm not into women, but I'm more into you."

"And Ray," Egon continued, embarrassed that he'd made the younger man second again, "I just didn't fully understand what you were saying. I suppose I thought it was all just hero-worship on your part, a sort of Platonic crush. I thought - I'm so sorry, Ray, I thought you'd outgrow it."

Ray chuckled. "It might have been that sort of Platonic crush, Egon, if there were a Platonic bone in my body." He snuggled up to Egon, both arms around him now. "I'm more of an Epicurean." His body was warm and soft under the uniform, a contrast to Peter's sculpted frame. "I'm rather into pleasure in all its forms, in moderation." He raised his head, his chin brushing Egon's right shoulder. "It was pretty much love at first sight with both of you."

"I understand that now." Egon's arms curled around his friends and tried to draw them closer. Ray shifted, and turned to slide his left thigh into Egon's lap; Peter caught on and twined his right leg around Egon's, reaching over and brushing Ray's calf with his other foot.

"So, now what?" Peter was half in Egon's lap, now, too. "I mean, not that I'm pushing for us to do anything in particular." The flush rising in his face made a liar of him, but his voice was still casual.

"Cuddling's nice," murmured Ray from somewhere behind Egon's ear. "I'm in favor of it."

"Indeed," Egon half-whispered. "Just the physical contact with both of you is reassuring." His skin seemed to buzz lightly where Peter and Ray were touching him, as if some trace of the magic from before were still passing between them.

"Should help ground you in your body again," Ray agreed.

Egon turned towards Peter and swept the side of his nose lightly against the brunet's cheek. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his scientific awareness catalogued the signs of growing arousal, both his and his partners'. "I note that skin-to-skin contact seems to be having a greater effect."

Peter's eyebrows rose, and his lips slid into a crooked grin. "You know, we could probably increase the amount of skin involved, if it would help."

"More surface area to . . . experiment with . . . might be pleasant." Egon leaned into Peter and caught his mouth against his in something more than a brush but less than a kiss. Peter shifted and kissed him, hard, open-mouthed. Memories of the last time flooded Egon - Peter's scent, the faint mildew of that old apartment, the feel of Ray's hand on his back.

The purr of a zipper tugged him back into the present as Peter pressed his forehead against Egon's and panted for air. Ray squirmed, and cloth shuffled against cloth, then against skin. A jumpsuit hit the floor as Peter leaned in for another kiss, slower and softer, their lips sliding against each other gently. Egon teased Peter's lips apart with his tongue, nipped at him lightly, felt him sigh as his hands drifted down his sides.

A thicker hand slid between them, catching at Peter's zipper tab and easing it down to his groin. "Thanks, Ray," Peter whispered, as the redhead pulled his uniform from his shoulders and pushed it down his arms. Peter reached up and back, tracing Ray's jawline with one hand. "Damn, you're shameless, aren't you?"

"Yup. Never saw much point in it. Why?" There was a thump as Ray sat at their feet, tugging off Egon's boots, then yanking Peter's jumpsuit the rest of the way off.

"No reason." Peter smirked. "You're just undressing me for someone else, that's all. For another man, more to the point." He shifted his hips to let the collar of the uniform slide under his rump. "Not that I'm complaining, mind." There was a visible bulge in his jeans, now, as he leaned in to tangle his hands in Egon's hair; their mouths met again, sweet and slow.

There was a flurry of movement in Egon's peripheral vision, then Ray slid next to him again, naked. "Would it help if I said I've wanted to do that for years?" he asked, grinning maniacally.

"Switch," Peter murmured, letting go of Egon's mouth with a sigh and pulling himself to his feet.

"Always have been," Ray smiled, leaning in to peck his way down Egon's jaw. Peter swatted him lightly on the behind and muttered "smartass," then finished standing, making sure Egon could see him behind Ray. He winked, and reached into the waistband of his jeans to untuck his t-shirt, peeling the light fabric up and away from his torso slowly. Egon stifled a moan as Ray began working his way down his neck, his lips thick and eager on his skin. Peter took that as encouragement and turned around, looking back over his shoulder as he unbuttoned his jeans and slid them slowly down his legs.

"Peter, are you stripping for him? That's not fair; I can't see," Ray complained, but Egon could feel he was smiling against his skin.

"Oh, okay, if you insist." Peter swept off his boxers in one move and stepped out of them, his pale skin almost glowing in the combination of moonlight and the lab's lamps. He settled back into his place at Egon's left, teasing at the curl of the scientist's ear with his tongue.

Then both their hands were on him, gently pushing the lab coat from his shoulders, unzipping his uniform, unhooking his suspenders, unbuttoning his shirt, his trousers. Peter's hands caressed him, peeled away fabric and cherished the skin beneath. Ray unwrapped him like a birthday present, eagerly tossing the clothing behind them and smiling at what he saw. For a moment, shame bubbled up from somewhere and made Egon want to hide again, but he held it up to the light and it dissolved like a bad dream. Then he was naked, too; they all were, skin against skin, whole and complete.

Well, almost whole. Egon's fingers brushed the bandage at Ray's side. The engineer shook his head. "Don't worry about it. It really is just a scratch; if I'd moved a little faster, he wouldn't even have broken the skin."

Peter left off at Egon's ear. "It looks worse now than it did earlier, Ray. You need to be careful with that." He leaned across Egon's lap, one hand lightly caressing Ray's ribcage, worry and something warmer creasing his brow. Peter edged towards the younger man; Ray eased forwards over Egon's thighs, his hands finding Peter's shoulders and kneading gently.

Peter licked his lips. "No shame, then. For any of us."

"Not unless it's a turn-on for you." Ray's smile was utterly guileless and could have lit city blocks.

Then the two of them were kissing, mouths pressed together, almost devouring each other. Warmth surged through Egon's heart, and somewhere lower. He reached out and ran a hand through their hair, one hand apiece, the left tangling in Peter's unruly locks, the other brushing through Ray's short, soft auburn.

They drew apart, their eyes locked, amber and emerald gazing into each other before turning as one to meet Egon's sapphire. "We," began Ray, "have waited far too long for this." Peter breathed hard, nodding, momentarily speechless for once.

"Agreed," Egon nodded. Peter let go of Ray's shoulders and slid around him; Ray slipped off Egon's lap and onto the floor.

"Ease forward, Spengs," Peter whispered in his ear, and Egon complied as Peter moved behind him. Peter's erection rubbed against him, nestled in the top of the cleft of his buttocks, and Egon groaned. Ray's hands nudged his knees apart.

"Relax, and let us do the work, okay?" Peter's mouth dropped from his ear to his shoulder, tonguing him slowly, as his hands explored the flatness of Egon's belly. Ray shifted from kneeling to sitting between Egon's feet, and one broad, steady hand curled around his erection.

"Ah!" Egon arched his back. It had been a very long time since any hand other than his own had ventured there. Peter held him down. "Easy, big guy. Tell us what feels good, and we'll keep doing it. We'll go slow."

"Everything you're doing feels wonderful," Egon gasped out as Ray's grip on him eased slightly and began moving. Peter kept stroking, his hands following the trail of curling blond up Egon's chest.

"Good," Ray smiled from between his knees. Ray's other hand cradled his testicles gently, the warmth of his palm tricking up through Egon's groin. "Faster, slower, just right?"

"A little faster," Egon answered, his cheeks beginning to flush.

"Lean back a bit," Peter murmured, and twisted forward enough to kiss Egon again, awkward though the angle was. Egon's tongue was teasing Peter's out again when he felt Ray's grip change, and then -

- oh, god -

That was Ray's mouth on him, his mouth and his tongue and his insatiable appetite working down his erection. Egon gasped under Peter's lips; his hands dug for purchase on the sofa cushions, and his hips bucked out of pure instinct.

Peter laughed into his mouth. "Easy, I said. Don't choke him."

" 'Mm fine," Ray mumbled around a mouthful of Egon. He twirled his tongue and added a bit of suction; Egon's toes curled, the joints popping against the wooden floor.

"God, Ray, you look gorgeous doing that." Peter's breathing sped up; he rocked his hips gently against Egon's backside as he kissed his way from Egon's mouth to his collarbone.

"Mmm," Ray answered, too engaged in Egon's cock to answer properly, but his eyes sparkled. The hand not gently massaging Egon's balls curled around the last couple of inches that wouldn't fit in Ray's mouth, pumping gently in rhythm with his jaw and tongue. Something began to build, like charge on a capacitor, at the base of Egon's spine.

"More," he whimpered. Peter smiled against his shoulder, and his hands found Egon's nipples, brushing them gently as Ray sucked at him below. Egon closed his eyes and clenched his hands tighter against the sofa.

"You're about to come, aren't you, Egon?" Peter's voice was low and soft, and his breath was warm and damp, tickling his ear. "I can feel you breathing faster, the tension in your thighs. Ray looks so good there between your legs, I bet he feels good, too, doesn't he?"

"Yes," Egon moaned, letting his head fall back against Peter's broad shoulder, four hands and two mouths working him towards a release he'd been denying himself for years.

"So beautiful, both of you." Peter kissed him again. "Egon, I want to see you come, I want to see what those brilliant blue eyes of yours do when you come, I wanna feel you tense up in my arms, god, please, I wanna see you coming, I wanna hear you - "

"Yes, Peter, hold me, I'm close -"

" - hear you call out, Egon, please, come for me, come on - "

"Mmph," Ray added enthusiastically, his tongue redoubling its efforts.

Egon inhaled sharply and then groaned like a tree about to fall. His back tensed, his hands clenched, and the world seemed to contract to a single point in space-time, somewhere around his second chakra, then explode again outward in a torrent of heat and light, the universe recreating itself in that first contraction.

Then he was present in his body in a way he rarely was, aware of every muscle shaking as his body throbbed, of his own voice howling like an animal, of Ray's hungry mouth still on him, swallowing every drop of semen. Peter's hands were on him, too, his chest, his belly, his cock. That was Real. Ray's hands, his mouth, that was Real. This was the deep magic, the spell written in human flesh and on human hearts that the ghosts from elsewhere never understood.

Egon hadn't understood before, either, though it had saved his life too many times to count. Now, as the ancient rhythm sang in him, he knew it in fullness.

He opened his eyes and fell into Peter's. Peter face blazed with desire and rapt fascination. "So beautiful, god, Egon, I wanna watch you come like that over and over."

"I dearly hope that you will have the opportunity." Egon kissed him gently. "Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Ray."

"My pleasure," Ray answered emphatically, sitting back and wiping his chin with Peter's t-shirt. One hand still played with Egon's softening phallus, working him through the aftershocks.

"Get back up here," Peter ordered; Ray grinned and obeyed, clambering onto the sofa. "After that, I imagine you're pretty close yourself."

"Could be, yeah." Ray's cock was shorter, but thick and uncut. Egon reached over and curled one hand around it, rubbing his thumb against the soft spot just below the head; Ray arched his spine and mewled like a cat.

Peter slithered around Egon until Ray was between them and rubbed his own cock against the roundness of his hip. "Yeah, there we go. C'mon, Ray, I wanna see you come, too." Peter's hand joined Egon's on Ray's erection, their fingers sliding past each other.

"Keep talking, keep touching. You too, Egon, talk to me." Ray's eyes were closed, but he reached out to stroke Peter's cock.

Egon cleared his throat. He didn't think of himself as good at talking at the best of times, but if it was what Ray wanted, he'd try. "You have a very talented tongue, Ray."

"Glad you liked it." Ray beamed, his head tilted back against the sofa; Peter moved his off hand between Ray's heavy thighs.

"Very much." Egon gently pinched Ray's nipple between his thumb and forefinger; Ray shivered deliciously and gave an encouraging moan. "You're lovely, Ray. You look good enough to eat."

"You're hot, is more like it," Peter broke in, picking up his pace on Ray's cock; Egon followed suit. "Delicious. I can't believe I never realized how shameless you were before, Ray. So naughty. How long have you been thinking all these tasty, dirty thoughts about us again?"

Ray moaned and shuddered before he found his voice again. "Since I met you, Peter. Oh, god, Peter, when I realized how much you wanted Egon, I'd imagine the two of you making love together when I jacked off. I'd never come so hard in my life before." A frisson of fresh desire skittered down Egon's spine.

"And now, here we are," Peter added, his voice breathy. "Both of us, here, with you. Egon, c'mere." He leaned over and kissed Egon again, mouths open, tongues twining, playing out their own need but also putting on a show for their younger partner.

"Oh, gods," groaned Ray, his fingers tracing their jaws as they kissed each other, his eyes opened to amber slits below heavy lids. "So gorgeous, so hot, oh, oh, Peter, Egon, please."

"Let me feel you, Ray," Peter urged, and Ray clutched at him as he moaned, panted, and spurted under their twined hands. Egon tightened his grip on Ray's cock and felt him pulsing; something just under his heart vibrated with every throb, echoes of his own orgasm and something else he couldn't name yet. Ray gasped softly and went limp between them, every muscle relaxed.

"Ahh, Peter, Egon, thank you, thank you," Ray panted, sheer ecstasy painted in every line of his face; he trembled laxly as some late aftershock rolled through him.

"No problem." Peter sat back with a grin, eyes glistening, one hand trailing stickily from Ray's penis to his own.

Egon rolled over, trying not to jostle Ray. Balancing the three of them on the sofa was more difficult than he'd imagined. "Peter, would you come here, please? I want to feel your body on mine."

"If you say so," Peter replied, grinning madly as he and Ray switched places. He climbed into Egon's lap, his erection brushing against Egon's half-hardness. "I mean, whatever the post-possession syndrome patient wants."

"That would be all of us, Peter," Ray reminded him, still bonelessly draped next to them. He curled up against Egon's left side and cupped one hand against Peter's ass, groping him lightly.

"Exactly. Whatever we all want." Peter rolled his hips slowly, rhythmically, against Egon's skin, slippery and slightly sticky from sweat, saliva, Ray's come and the traces of Egon's own, and the strands of pre-come trailing from Peter's dick. Egon could feel himself hardening again. Well, it had been a very long time.

Peter noticed. "Up for another round, big guy?" His fingers trailed between them, stroking their cocks together. "Maybe I should ask you to fuck me instead."

"I'd love to, Peter, but I don't think I have the energy for it right now," Egon apologized. He rocked in time with Peter's movements, savoring the feel of them sliding together. Ray hummed contentedly and undulated against them, his own cock still soft.

"That's fine. We've got all the time in the world, now." Peter's legs tightened around Egon's hips, and Egon realized that Peter was holding back; the effort was making him tremble.

"Harder, Peter," he demanded, his voice an earthy rumble.

"Too much harder, and I'll pop before you're ready again," Peter protested.

"As you said, we have plenty of time for that. I want to feel you coming against me," Egon said, his fingers pressing tightly into the small of Peter's back.

"I want to watch you come, too, Peter," Ray added, reaching between Peter's legs and stroking his balls.

Peter inhaled sharply. "If you want it, you got it." He closed his eyes, leaned his head against Egon's shoulder, and picked up his pace. His skin slid against Egon's, hot and wet. Egon closed his eyes, too, and focused his attention on the physical sensations, the slick friction against his renewed erection, Ray's hands finding new places to touch on both of them.

"Oh, god, Ray, do that again. Egon, I'm almost there, I'm so close, fuck, so close, can you feel me?" Peter's hips stuttered, and he thrust himself against Egon with a fierce need that struck hot sparks in Egon's groin.

"Yes, I can feel you, Peter, harder, please." Egon felt his calf muscles beginning to shake with the effort of his own thrusts.

Peter convulsed in his arms. "Ah - coming - god!" he hissed through clenched teeth, and vibrated like a plucked string as warm wetness blossomed between them. "Aah," he gasped again, his hips still grinding against Egon as Ray stroked his back.

Egon held Peter tight and let the last thrust drive him over the edge again. He groaned wordlessly as he came, his cock throbbing against Peter's in the same rhythm. Someone keened in pleasure; that was too high to be his voice - it must be Ray's.

"Oh," sighed someone else. That might have been him. Egon drifted back to normal consciousness and opened his eyes. They were a tangle of arms and legs and musk, and they'd managed to knock one of the sofa cushions onto the floor in their ardor. Their clothes were all over the lab floor. He smiled. It was a mess, but it was a mess for very good reasons.

"Mmm." Peter slid out of Egon's lap. "So now what happens?"

"Shower," answered Ray, matter-of-factly.

"I suspect that Peter is asking a more broad question about how this finally-acknowledged connection is going to affect the rest of our lives," Egon offered.

Peter nodded. "Yeah. I mean, this is great, but it's gonna be a hell of a thing to break to Winston."

"If he didn't have a clue after the ritual, he's less perceptive than I think he is," Ray pointed out. "Assuming we didn't just wake him up, that is. He probably already knows."

"Knowing and being-okay-with are two different things," Peter replied. "And what about Janine?"

"If she wants to join us, I certainly wouldn't mind," Ray grinned.

Egon sat up and stared at him, eyes wide.

Ray looked concerned. "What?" He spread his hands in apology. "I thought you liked her, too."

"I do. I never pursued anything with her because I thought it wasn't fair to her for my heart to be with Peter instead of wholly with her." Egon's lips pursed in thought. "Simply explaining the situation to her in total and allowing her to make an informed choice about it seemed cruel, but . . . " He trailed off, looking at Peter expectantly.

Peter grinned. "Hey, I've been fantasizing about her since she came to work here. I don't think she's all that attracted to me, but if she's cool with us being a thing and still wants to be a part of it, I won't complain."

"It will be difficult to explain." Egon's eyebrows knotted.

"Let's deal with Winston first," Ray agreed. "Shower before that, though."

"Shower and sleep first," Peter yawned. "Suddenly the day's catching up with me."

A burble of green boiled through the floor in front of the sofa. "Guys bwack!" Slimer jabbered happily.

"Uh, yeah, Spud, we made it back in a couple of hours ago." Peter tried to keep his voice level.

Slimer spun around. "Magic? Wray doing magic up hewre?" He sniffed. "Why guys nayked?"

"We'll explain later. Winston's asleep, Slimer; don't wake him up," Ray shushed.

"Ooo, sowry." Slimer dashed off through the lab door towards the bunkroom.

"Well, there went any chance we had of Janine not finding out; we kind of have to tell her now," mused Peter.

Egon chuckled. "I can't imagine that she'd believe whatever Slimer thinks he just saw."

Ray added a giggle. "I don't think Slimer understood, anyway. I'm not sure he's equipped to."

"At least he didn't slime us," Peter sighed. "We're enough of a mess as it is."

"Which of us gets to shower first?" Egon asked.

"Think we could all fit in there?" Ray attempted to look innocent, but his eyes were low and sly, and mischief lurked at the corners of his mouth. The three stumbled from the sofa into the bathroom, stifling laughter, as the first purple of dawn twilight spread across the sky.