Original prompt from evilqueenslaugh: "What if Holtz was possessed by a ghost that wants to harm the team, but Holtz's will is stronger and can't hurt the girls (especially Erin) because she's so loyal to them"
So, what I wrote came out a bit different from what the prompt was probably hoping for since I realized I couldn't tell a story about Holtz overpowering possession to protect her friends without addressing the fact that when Abby was put in the same position, she couldn't. Still, I hope the story I came up with captures the spirit (no pun intended) of the original prompt and I would love to see someone write a story from Erin or Holtz's point of view on a similar theme. (And yes, although this fic is Abby's POV, I included some Holtzbert fluff too.)
"Well, we're still about fifteen minutes out, so Patty, why don't you give us a breakdown of the location's history so we have a better idea what we're up against when we get to the house?" Abby said, her voice only jarring slightly as Holtzmann took a hill on the highway a bit faster than her passengers—and the state's speed limit—would have preferred. She would have to have a word with the enthusiastic engineer about the shock absorbers on their new Ecto-1 Mark 2, as it was tentatively dubbed.
They were about three-quarters of the way to their most recent haunted location. In the initial weeks following the averted apocalypse, the team had gotten a huge number of calls for everything from creaking pipes to disembodied voices to outright fake claims from people who actually wanted an autograph and a picture. A handful had turned out to be actual cases they could help with, but in general the excitement had finally worn down and things had thankfully slowed enough to allow them to upgrade their gear and get to know each other a bit better as a team.
The call they were responding to today, though, was the strongest case made so far. The homeowner had been putting up with the blight on his property for years and finally saw a way to solve his problem. The Ghostbusters were happy and excited at the chance for a real challenge, even if he lived pretty far out on the edge of town.
"All right, so the sightings at this dude's house have been documented for years, with lots of separate eyewitnesses," Patty said from the backseat, glad for the distraction from holding tight to the handle on her door. "Apparently he bought the house intending to run it as a bed and breakfast, but too many weird things kept happening. Guests wouldn't stay the whole night, talking about stuff being thrown at them, somebody attacking them in bed. Maids were constantly getting harassed, seeing dark figures creeping around them, evil voices saying nasty things."
"Sounds like a fun weekend," Holtzmann commented.
"But most of the aggression and violent activity happened to the women that went there," Patty continued.
"That knocks a star off the rating."
"Anyway," Patty said a bit louder, giving Holtzmann a look, "the owner had to close down and has tried living there just as a private home since. He said he hasn't had as many things happen when it's just him, but any time he brings a girl home, things get ugly."
"Too be fair, that might not be just a ghost problem," Abby pointed out.
"Do we know anything about why it might be haunted to begin with?" Erin asked.
"I hadn't heard much about it before, since I've read more about downtown, but I know some of the properties out that way used to belong to the rich, who could afford to actually have some land around their homes they weren't using for anything. So I looked into previous owners of the house and found out the last owner before our current guy lost the house because he went to jail for killing his wife. And the five other women they found in the basement."
Erin wrinkled her nose but Abby was starting to get a dark little thrill of excitement. Murder, bodies buried in the building, many witnesses over years? This definitely sounded like the real deal.
"You think one of the victims is taking out her anger on the living?" Erin mused.
"Maybe, but my stronger bet's on the murderous husband himself, dude named Cyrus. Turns out he died in prison only a few months before the first activity at the house was reported."
"Ha!" Abby laughed. "I think we've got our ghost! Nice work, Patty!"
The car turned sharply and any further celebration was cut off as Erin nearly slid into Patty.
"Seatbelts save lives, ladies," Holtzmann called back to them.
"We are wearing our seatbelts!" Erin snapped back, scooting back to her half of the bench seat. "So we're going into a house that's most likely possessed by a resentful murderer with a thing for attacking women?"
"Yeah, I was about as thrilled as you are," Patty agreed.
"Hey, all the more reason it should be us bringing him down," Abby said, hoping to get them in the right mood. "In the name of all the women he killed and buried there. It's cosmic justice."
As they got closer, the house loomed at the top of a hill, looking notably darker and more neglected than the previous houses they had passed, although some of the damage looked fresh.
"Yep, not a setting out of Psycho at all," Patty muttered, shaking her head.
There were no cars at the house and the windows were all dark, adding to the deserted look. The client had left a set of keys with them, clearly relieved for a break from the property's threats as he opted to stay at a friend's place while the Ghostbusters did what they needed to do.
Holtzmann pulled the car up in the wide driveway beside the house, swinging out her door as the others climbed out and sauntering back to the trunk to slide out their proton packs. "If you take a look at your gear, you'll notice a few upgrades since our last outing. Overall power capacity is a smidge higher than before, so keep that in mind in terms of kickback. I've done a few little tweaks to your sidearms to make sure they're operating at peak efficiency, nothing that should affect how you use them, just a bit of extra pizzazz. Now, since we're dealing with a full-on poltergeist and we're probably going to have some psychokinetically-launched projectiles coming our way, I was going to rig up some electromagnetic energy shields for everyone."
They leaned forward, excited.
"Unfortunately," Holtzmann continued, "there wasn't time to get those stabilized or, well, functioning at all before we had to go, so I found some passable alternatives."
She handed Erin a trash can lid proudly.
"Great, that's, um, very thoughtful, Holtzmann," Erin said with a halfhearted grin.
Holtz just beamed and winked back, distributing more lids to the rest of them.
"Why does yours have a design painted on it and mine just has a piece of what I hope is old lettuce stuck to it?" Patty asked.
"I didn't know your family crests," Holtzmann said evenly.
"Your family crest includes a cat stabbing a ghost?" Erin asked as she and Abby examined the heraldic pattern with their heads cocked.
"It does now." Holtzmann struck a dramatic pose with her shield in front of her, proton wand raised like a sword. "I recommend using your shields liberally. The rest of your weapons are only helpful as long as you're conscious to use them."
"Okay, guys, let's go scope things out," Abby said, booting up the PKE meter.
The main foyer of the house was open enough to allow the team to fan out in a reasonably defensible formation. Despite the beauty of the marble pillars, large fireplace, and well-decorated living room, there was just enough evidence things were awry: a broken window, a lamp knocked over, even a houseplant that looked like it had been burned.
"Yeah, this place definitely would not be my choice for a honeymoon," Patty said.
"Patty, where did they say the worst of the hauntings were happening?" Abby asked.
"Guest bedrooms mostly, which unfortunately means upstairs."
Right. Staircases meant close quarters, going up single-file. Very hard to use the proton packs in that arrangement. Still, no way around it. Abby took the lead, sweeping with the PKE meter, Erin and Patty behind her, Holtz bringing up the rear, swinging her proton wand around in case anything decided to follow them.
They made it to the second floor without incident. So far the house had been quiet, but the signs of paranormal activity continued. Furniture was upended here and there. A set of scratches scraped their way around a doorframe and along the wallpaper down the hall.
They split up to check each room, giving themselves more space to engage if they had to. Abby picked a door that turned out to lead into one of the guestrooms. The new owner had clearly tried to renovate it and make it nice, but the ghost had made an effort to destroy his investment. Pillows were shredded, knick-knacks thrown and shattered. The closet door creaked, making Abby jump, but she realized it was just moving in the breeze of another broken window pane. This guy's heating and air conditioning bill was going to be through the roof.
In her hand, the PKE meter began spinning faster, its antennae widening.
"Guys?"
Abby's arm shot up as she turned toward the voice, bringing her shield up automatically.
In the hallway, Holtzmann nodded at her. "Good instincts, Abby. Got something you should see."
Relaxing, Abby followed her back to the second guestroom, Erin and Patty on their heels.
"I think he knows we're here," Holtz said, stepping aside so they could see the back wall of the room.
Over the bed, green slime was oozing out of the wall to form large, dripping letters spelling, "Bitches die".
"Yep, I'm thinking that's not part of the new owner's décor," Abby agreed, "though that would explain some of his problem keeping customers."
"You know, it would be nice to get through at least one week without being called 'bitches'," Erin said, wrinkling her nose at the letters.
Suddenly the ectoplasm exploded outward from the wall, spraying toward Erin. She ducked back, slime splashing on her hair and arm, but the bulk was blocked as Holtzmann had lunged forward, covering Erin with her painted trash can lid.
"This would be a time to start using those shields," she said as Erin wiped her eyes clear.
The PKE meter was spinning wildly now. Abby dropped it, aiming her proton wand at where a blue-green energy was rising off the slime and coalescing.
"All right, you having fun ruining the nice linens and carpeting these people have put in here?" Patty called. "This stuff isn't cheap. I'll bet it didn't look half this good when you were living here. What kind of way is this to say thank you?"
The fog formed up into a very tall, broad-shouldered male figure, eyes glowing demon red. "Mine!" it bellowed.
"Light him up!" Abby ordered.
All four unleashed proton streams on the ghost. He roared with rage and picture frames tore loose from the wall, whipping toward them like spinning blades. While they deflected the projectiles, the ghost was able to break free and dive through the floor, leaving a puddle of slime behind.
"Aw, that's into the padding and everything, I'm telling you," Patty lamented. "He's gonna have to redo this whole place."
"Come on!" Abby called, racing back to the stairway and heading down.
The ghost was nowhere to be seen downstairs. Abby inched into the main room cautiously, leading with her proton wand. The others spread out around her.
"Cyrus, you gonna hide or you going to come out and face us?" Abby said to the apparently empty room.
A deep, growling sound echoed from the kitchen.
"This isn't your house anymore, Cyrus," Erin said, moving toward the sound. "You're going back to Hell for all those women you killed."
There was a clatter of metal and suddenly an armload of cutlery flew at Erin, sticking in the wall around her. Fortunately she was faster with the shield this time and it held against the blades.
A rumbling rippled across the room and a poker from the fireplace flew at Abby.
"Shoot!" she cursed, managing to smack it out of the way as she dodged sideways.
Now projectiles were flying from all angles. Holtzmann ducked a toaster as Patty braced against a lamp that smashed on her shield. Abby backed into a corner so she could protect her back, keeping her shield up and peering along her proton wand.
But the ghost was at least slightly clever. He threw things without actually manifesting anywhere visibly. There was no target to aim for, no single enemy to focus on.
"We can't do this for long!" Erin called over the din. "He's got us pinned down!"
"Hang on, I've got an idea to draw him out!" Patty said, she reached out and grabbed Holtzmann's sleeve. "Hey, come on!"
Holtz followed Patty out into the middle of the room, standing back-to-back so they covered each other from the projectiles.
"Hey, Cyrus!" Patty called. "If you're the kind of dude I think you are, you should really hate this. A black woman and a lesbian are here to kick you out of your house!"
Holtzmann caught on right away. "We all have college degrees and we're unmarried after thirty," she said in a spooky voice.
"Okay, that sounds less empowering than the others," Erin muttered.
"It's okay, Erin, just...don't worry about it," Abby soothed.
Empowering or not, they were definitely starting to get a reaction from the ghost. An intense wind picked up, swirling around Patty and Holtzmann.
"Guys, you okay?" Abby asked.
"Uh, so far," Patty answered. "Show yourself, ghost!"
Books started flying off of a nearby shelf.
"Oh hell no! You do not use literature against me!" Patty snapped. Her proton stream leapt out past the projectiles, but only hit the wall, leaving a scorch mark.
"Wonder if he'll take any of the repair costs out of our fee," Erin commented, tracking around the room for the source of the wind.
Holtzmann palmed a proton grenade as she blocked a globe that bounced off her shield. "Heads up. Fire in the hole."
She tossed the device in the air and a burst of red energy blasted through the room. Abby knew intellectually that it was only supposed to be dangerous to ghosts, but she still thought they probably ought to start wearing radiation dose meters on their gear.
The wind died, a few books dropping harmlessly out of thin air.
"Is that it?" Patty asked, starting to relax.
More slime dripped down from the ceiling. Suddenly a chair launched itself at Patty. She managed to deflect it with her shield, but the impact threw her off-balance and she didn't see the ghost appear from the ectoplasm stain and swoop at her.
"Patty!" Holtzmann yelled, diving toward her just ahead of the ghost.
Holtz may have been notably smaller than Patty, but her velocity and the element of surprise made up for her lack of mass. She knocked Patty off her feet, taking them both down in a heap behind the couch with the ghost right on their tail.
"Holtz? Patty?" Erin called, peering around the furniture. "You okay?"
"I'm good," Patty said, untangling from Holtzmann and getting back up. "Thanks, baby. Did you see where he went?"
"No, I lost him after he followed you two down," Abby said, scanning the room.
"Holtzmann?" she heard Erin ask, quieter.
Abby realized suddenly that Holtzmann hadn't popped back up after tackling Patty. Looking back, worried, she saw Holtz still crouched on the floor, head down.
"Holtzy? Baby, did you hurt yourself?" Patty began to bend down beside her, concerned.
A laugh started coming from Holtzmann's throat that sent a chill up Abby's spine. As weird as some of Holtz's laughs were, she'd never heard that one before.
"Okay, this is no time for jokes, Holtz," Erin said, but with a nervous tone.
The blonde unfolded herself, straightening to her feet slowly with an odd smoothness. And Abby knew instantly that was not Holtzmann.
"Women never can take a joke," Holtzmann's voice said, low and unrecognizably gruff.
"Aw, man," Patty groaned.
Abby and Erin had their proton wands aimed instantly. "Oh, real brave, Cyrus," Abby snapped. "Hiding inside a tiny little woman?"
"I was actually aiming for the big one," the ghost said, opening and closing Holtzmann's hands as he settled into control. "She could've done a lot more damage."
"Yeah? How 'bout you let Holtzy go and see that firsthand?" Patty challenged.
"Erin?" Abby murmured while the ghost was still getting its bearings. "She's still got the trap. Think you can get to it?"
"I'll try." Erin quietly drifted back and began sidling closer to Holtzmann.
"All right, Cyrus, you want to play cute?" Abby said louder. "Let's see how you do against a Patty exorcism."
"You think that's a good idea?" Patty frowned. "I feel like I could break her just hugging her."
"Well, we need to do something. Think you can do half power or something?"
"Okay." Patty started taking off her rings. "Sorry about this, Holtzy. I'll pay for any fillings I knock out."
"Go ahead." The ghost looked up with a sneer that looked revoltingly foreign on Holtzmann's face. "You kill this body I'll just possess you next."
"Nobody's killing anybody," Abby said, seeing Erin getting close. "Last chance to get out on your own, Cyrus. Then it gets ugly."
"Make me," he snarled.
Suddenly, Holtzmann's proton wand snapped up, pointing at Erin, whose fingers were barely hooked on the ghost trap. "Uh-uh-uh. Back out front unless you want a hole in that pretty face."
Damn. Erin raised her hands, stepping back a bit. Abby's hand tightened on her proton wand but she wasn't sure what to do. She didn't dare risk shooting. Unless the ghost left Holtzmann's body, they were a bit stuck.
Holtzmann's arm reached back, freeing the trap from the bottom of her pack and holding it up to look at it. "You're after this, huh?" he said, pushing up Holtz's goggles.
"Cyrus, whatever you do, don't open that and look directly into it," Abby said in a serious voice. Please be that stupid. Please be that stupid…
He cocked Holtzmann's head at her, considering, then shrugged. "Okay."
Holtzmann's eyes sharpened and her arm swung suddenly, bolstered with ghostly strength. The trap crashed against a stone pillar, smashing into bent pieces that scattered on the ground.
Well, that just made things a whole lot harder.
"Oh, man," Patty groaned. "You are so lucky Holtz can't see what's happening, 'cause she'd kill you for hurting her baby!"
The ghost in Holtzmann just laughed, flexing her arm appreciatively. "What do you know? Little girl's got more muscle than I thought." Holtz's other hand ran up her side, apparently taking in her figure under her jumpsuit. "Maybe after I kill the rest of you, I'll keep this one around for a bit and have some fun."
"Oh hell no," Patty growled.
"Get out of her," Erin ordered. In all the years Abby had known her, she had never heard quite that level of cold fury in her voice, even when dealing with bullies in school. Her eyes were hard and her jaw tight.
"Or what?" Holtzmann snarled, face contorting with the ghost's rage. "You willing to take the shot?" He threw her arms wide, standing right in front of Erin's weapon. "You got the balls?"
"What would happen if we did use our packs on this bastard?" Patty asked, finger twitching near her trigger.
Abby pulled her thoughts together, pushing aside the increasing wrongness of the situation. "Well, they are nuclear lasers, so they might get him out, but probably by killing Holtz in the process."
Holtzmann's eyebrows raised. "Oh, so these things will kill you. Thanks." The proton wand in Holtz's hand swung and its beam erupted out, missing Patty by inches.
"Scatter! Get cover!" Abby yelled, diving behind a knocked-over table as the beam swept her way.
Not good. Not good. Not good. A ghost had access to their weapons, plus whatever extras Holtzmann had built into her own pack. A garbage can lid wasn't going to do much good against that. And as long as they couldn't get close to her, Abby wasn't sure how to get the ghost out of Holtzmann without hurting her. Not that they had a trap anymore even if they could.
As Abby crawled out the other side of the table, mind racing for ideas, she looked up and saw Holtz's proton wand aimed directly at her. Her heart seemed to stop, barely able to see past it to the malice-filled blue eyes behind the weapon. Everything focused down on the barrel. She couldn't move, couldn't bring up her own weapon or shield, couldn't even breathe. Holtzmann's fingers were already closing on the trigger.
And abruptly her arm jerked up, the proton stream blazing harmlessly to the side. Cyrus growled fiercely, turning instead toward Erin, who was dodging from one side of a doorway to the other. As Abby sucked in a shaky breath, vision clearing, she saw Holtzmann's arm spasm again, twisting the stream away from Erin.
"Arrrgh! Dammit!" the ghost roared, glaring at the proton wand.
Stunned realization rose in Abby's mind. "She's fighting him. Holtz is fighting him."
"Can people do that?" Patty asked nearby.
Apparently Holtzmann could, Abby thought. Despite her intrigue and relief, a sick feeling settled heavily in her stomach.
"Holtzy!" Patty bellowed, making even Cyrus jump. "Keep fighting him, baby! You got this!"
"We're going to help you, Holtz," Erin called, leaning around the marble pillar the ghost trap had been smashed on. "Just hang on."
Holtzmann's eyes flashed a furious expression the woman would never have directed at any of her friends and her wand slashed over Erin's head. Although it missed her, the beam severed the pillar, causing it to topple backward toward the retreating physicist.
"Erin!" Abby yelled, flinching as the pillar cracked heavily against the floor.
Her heart relaxed when she saw Erin dusting herself off beside the massive stone, pushing a fragment of ceiling aside and coughing on the dust.
Cyrus laughed darkly. "That's right, girlie, I can hurt your friends without aiming right at them. You wanna keep fighting me, we can see what happens when we bring down this whole room," he said, aiming the proton wand at the ceiling.
"Holtz, I'm all right," Erin called, getting back to her feet. "Don't give up, we'll figure this out."
The ghost smirked at her. "Don't waste your time. Your friend's smart enough to get that she's not gonna win. She's quit fighting and is just singing to herself in there." Cyrus gestured at Holtzmann's head with her proton wand, making Abby cringe.
Not that it was any less upsetting to think about the image of Holtz cowering in the back of her mind, singing to distract herself from the fact that her body was being used to hurt the people she loved.
"All right, this has gone on way too long," Patty said, rolling up her sleeve. "One way or another, it's Power of Patty time."
Cyrus turned, firing her direction. This time, the beam sizzled across her sleeve, close enough to possibly burn her arm under the fabric. Patty grabbed the nearest cover she could find, shield up.
"Okay, Holtz can't protect us anymore. We need some serious options here," Abby yelled, then ducked quickly so the next stream missed her. She thought she smelled singed hair though.
The beam swung Erin's direction, but sputtered out before it got to her, Holtzmann's hand going to her head as Cyrus snarled in frustration. "Shut up! Ugh! Of all things, you have to sing Abba?!"
Abby's eyebrow arched with bittersweet affection. At least Holtzmann hadn't lost her ability to irritate the right people.
"Holtz, you 'Mamma Mia' that ghost until he can't take anymore!" Patty called.
"Hey, if I have to kill all of you to the tune of 'Dancing Queen', then I'll deal with it," Cyrus growled, psychokinetically summoning up some bottles from the kitchen.
"'Dancing Queen'?" Erin asked. Abby glanced over to see her brow furrow as her mind worked through something. As Abby was currently coming up with zero ideas, that was a welcome sight.
"What is it?"
"Holtz was dancing to that song recently," Erin said, eyes focusing again. "In her lab. She was working on… Hang on."
She turned, patting at one side of her proton pack, then the other. A hidden compartment Abby didn't recognize opened, depositing a device the size of a flashlight into Erin's hand. "This."
Cyrus suddenly was focused completely on her, expression wild. "No!"
The wind started whipping through the room again.
"I think you found something he doesn't like!" Patty said over the din.
"What is it?" Abby asked.
Erin looked up, a defiant grin curving her lips. "Something for dealing with particularly stubborn ghosts."
Cyrus roared, Holtzmann's face distorting almost demonically as she lunged toward Erin.
With Cyrus distracted, Patty was able to leap in and grab Holtzmann from the back, restraining her arms behind her. Still, Holtzmann managed to continue stalking forward another step, dragging Patty behind her.
"Dang, girl," Patty grunted. "Erin, hope you know what you're doing with that thing."
"Well, it's untested, so I'm just going to trust Holtzmann knew what she was doing." She pressed the button on the side and the end glowed and sparked red with the same plasma discharge as their proton wands.
Erin crouched slightly in front of the ghost seething through Holtzmann's face. "I'll kill you!" Cyrus raged. "I'll kill all of you and then this bitch too—"
"Sorry, Holtz," Erin said gently, then jabbed the device against Holtzmann's stomach.
The ghost bellowed in pain and fury, a blue glow of spectral ether extending across Holtzmann's skin. Patty managed to keep her grip, but her eyes were huge. Erin's were locked on Holtzmann's face, pain in her own features.
The ether was steadily sucked into the arcing red energy of the device, draining away. Abby's heart ached as the screaming turned back into Holtzmann's own voice, agonized and very human.
Then the last of the blue energy disappeared and the device shut itself off. Erin pulled it away, the red glow fading and an "occupancy" light turning green on its side.
Holtzmann slumped unconscious, saved from hitting the floor by Patty's secure grip on her arms. Patty sat carefully, adjusting so Holtzmann's head and shoulders could rest in her lap. "Holtzy?"
Abby felt like a spell had broken. She hadn't even realized how frozen she had felt, but as the atmosphere in the room returned to normal, her fingers tingled and she realized how tightly she had been clutching her proton wand, unused. Releasing a shuddery breath, she approached carefully, looking down at Holtzmann.
"Is she okay?" Erin asked.
"She's breathing," Patty confirmed, sighing. "Beyond that, I don't know."
"Well, we just ripped a ghost out of her. That's probably not great on the brain, or body," Abby said, trying to think analytically so she could put off dealing with the emotional fallout of what had just happened.
"Kev was out for a while when Rowan left him. Just 'cause you were conscious right away afterward doesn't mean that's what's normal for everyone."
Abby really didn't want to think about her own possession experience at that moment. "Erin, what is that thing?" she nodded to the device.
"Holtz called it a spectral Taser," she said, looking at it clutched awkwardly in her hand. "I was working upstairs by her lab when she was building it. That's why I remembered the song. I didn't think she'd actually finished it, though, much less included it in our packs."
"Usually she'd have had us try it out if it was going to be deployed." Abby examined the side of her own proton pack, but found no compartment, with or without new equipment. So unless Patty had one too, only Erin had gotten one…
"Hey, I know there's not a lot of precedence for stuff like this," Patty interrupted, looking up from the floor, "but how long do you think we should wait for her to wake up before we take her to a hospital?"
"Five more minutes," Holtzmann slurred, shifting slightly and wrapping an arm around Patty's waist. "This is really cozy."
Erin crouched down beside her. "Holtz? Are you okay?"
Holtzmann dragged her eyes partway open, squinting, as she brought one hand up to rub her forehead. "Feel like I've got a hangover and missed the fun part, but all things considered, not bad."
Abby felt the last of her adrenaline fade away. That sounded like the Holtz they knew and loved. Erin sighed in relief, her hand squeezing Holtzmann's arm gently.
"You're good, though? No more ghosts in your head?" Patty asked.
"No dudes inside me, just how I like it," Holtz quipped, making Patty roll her eyes. She started to sit up and immediately began tilting to one side, the others catching and steadying her. "Whoo. Okay, maybe should stay down for a bit."
"Yeah, I'm not really in a rush to show the owner how much damage happened catching that guy anyway," Patty said, looking around.
Now Holtzmann's eyes brightened and focused. "Is the Taser holding him? It worked?"
"As far as I can tell," Erin said, glancing at the device.
Holtzmann gestured for her to give it to her and pulled her glasses out so she could examine it. "Appears to be holding stable despite being a smaller containment unit. Power source probably won't hold out more than a few hours, but hey, it's a start." She held the Taser aloft victoriously. "We caught a poltergeist! Whoo!"
The others gave slightly more shaken versions of her excitement. The room around them was in tatters. Psychokinetically-thrown projectiles were embedded in walls and scattered across the floor. Ectoplasm dripped from the ceiling. Normally, Abby would have been eager to bag samples and document the energy levels, but right now she just felt a bit sick and emotionally drained.
Holtz was still in celebration mode, though, despite everything. "Nice work, everyone, handling a nasty case of possession. And gotta hand it to Erin for catching the message I was trying to get through."
"Well, it's just lucky it was a song I happened to remember hearing out of all the ones you listen to," Erin said, sounding slightly compromised herself.
Holtzmann snorted. "Please, there was no way you weren't watching me dance to that one. I was giving you my A-level moves." She winked smugly.
Erin looked down but it didn't hide the fact that she blushed. Through her own troubled thoughts, Abby found herself wondering when Erin had actually started responding to Holtz's flirting.
"Still," Erin asserted, getting back on topic, "we need a clearer system to be able to communicate with each other if stuff like this happens. We can't count on all of us being able to figure out song cues for each other while resisting corporeal transferal."
"Is it just kind of assumed now that we're all going to get possessed at some point? 'Cause I'm just saying that's a job hazard I'm not particularly cool with," Patty commented.
"Don't worry, Patty," Holtz said, reaching up awkwardly to pat her on the cheek before Patty steered her hand away. "Now that we've seen the spectral Taser works, we can get ghosts out faster."
"Yeah, no offense, but I don't particularly want somebody Tasing me to get to a ghost either," Patty argued.
"I'll make some adjustments to reduce the amount of side effects from the nuclear exorcism," Holtz said casually, as if those words weren't deeply unsettling in and of themselves. "Just glad we field tested it on me before we had to use it on any of you guys. It'll be less intense by the time I make a full set."
"Great," Patty muttered.
"While we're at it, I think we should start having all of us carry ghost traps rather than just relying on one," Abby added, trying to keep her mind focused on the job.
"Good point." Suddenly Holtzmann's eyes flew wide with horror. "Oh no. Where is it?"
"What?"
She scrambled out of Patty's lap, half-crawling across the floor.
"Holtz?" Erin called, concerned.
"Oh no," Holtz moaned, coming to a stop kneeling over the debris of the smashed ghost trap. "I'm so sorry, baby," she said, gently picking up some of the pieces. "That wasn't Mommy. It's gonna be okay. I'll fix you. Make you even stronger than before. Just hang on, it'll be okay."
"Should we worry that if anything really happened to one of us, she'd try to rebuild them?" Patty asked.
"Best not to think about it," Erin said, wincing slightly.
OOO
Once the remaining parts of the trap had been gathered up and the house declared free of ghosts, if not massive structural and decorative damage, they loaded back into the car. Since Holtzmann was still woozy, Patty took the driver's seat while Erin piled into the back to make sure Holtz didn't have any bad reactions or side effects on the way home.
The team chatted and joked throughout the trip, Holtzmann insisting on singing along with whatever came on the radio and asking if they had brought any CDs with Abba on them. If any of them noticed Abby was unusually quiet in the passenger seat, they didn't point it out.
Back at the firehouse, Holtz took the spectral Taser upstairs to unload their newest acquisition into the containment unit. Patty and Erin worked on unloading their gear downstairs and debating who had to call and tell the homeowner about the extent of the collateral damage.
Taking advantage of the moment of distraction, Abby made her way silently upstairs to the roof.
The cool air brushed her face as she stepped out, letting the sounds of traffic and pedestrians buffet around her. She didn't want silence right now. She could hear her own thoughts too much in silence. And now that there was nothing else to distract her, those thoughts were going places she didn't particularly want to be exploring.
The pipe of the sink rattling, Rowan's voice before getting smacked in the face with a blast of spectral ether and ectoplasm. Then her next conscious memory being getting smacked in the face literally by Patty, knowing she had been possessed, but if she had been aware of anything that took place in between, it had faded from her memory instantly upon awakening, like the remnants of a dream. Discovering how much had happened when she hurried for her proton pack only to find them all in pieces. Holtzmann rubbing her neck as she moved to start repairs, flinching just slightly when Abby reached out to help…
Abby shook her head, forcing those memories back. She leaned against the ledge around the roof, letting the rough brick press into her arms. She wasn't used to trying to think of anything but ghosts and their work, but for the moment she just wanted to clear her mind. Just listen to the noise, she thought, and focus on breathing. That's all. Nothing deeper.
She wasn't sure how long she had been out there when she heard the door open and close behind her.
"Abby?" Holtzmann asked.
Abby closed her eyes. This was not what she needed at the moment.
"Patty and Erin are going to order up pizza and a movie. Pretend for a while that nothing horrifying happened to us today. You want in?"
"Yeah, I'll be down in a bit," Abby answered, still not turning around. Darn it, her voice sounded a bit rough. She hoped she was the only one who noticed it.
But of course, working together for years had made Holtzmann attuned to Abby's moods and body language. Instead of going back downstairs, her footsteps moved closer. "Are you okay? Cyrus didn't hurt you when he was me, did he?"
Abby huffed a laugh involuntarily. "No, you were amazing. You stopped him." She didn't like how bitter the undertone on that came out.
"Everybody else is okay. I'm okay now. I got to test out my new tech in the field and you and Erin got some new first-hand evidence to analyze about poltergeists and transference. So, which part of it is eating at you?"
"It's nothing, Holtz," Abby said, hoping she'd take the hint and leave her alone for a few minutes.
Instead, she heard a sing-song tone getting closer behind her. "Abby… Talk to me, Abby… I'm gonna keep this up until you do… Open up to your friend and let it out… Just a little talky-talk—"
"All right! Fine!" Abby snapped, turning partway. "You overpowered a ghost possession today!"
"Yeeeahhh," Holtz said carefully, drawing out the word a bit as she tried to gauge Abby's anger.
"So, when I was possessed, I couldn't." Abby felt tears sting at her eyes and turned away from Holtzmann again. "You kept Cyrus from hurting us. You wouldn't even let him shoot in our direction. But I couldn't do anything about Rowan, even when he…" Her throat tried to close up as she remembered Patty's description of catching Holtz, dangling out the window by one hand, because Abby—Rowan had actually let go. "Even when you were going to die."
"That wasn't on you." It was a familiar reassurance. Holtzmann had made it clear over and over since that day that she didn't blame Abby for Rowan's attacks on her, but now those words felt hollow.
"No, but if you could stop Cyrus, I should have been able to protect you."
"There's no guarantee it was the same thing," Holtzmann said seriously. "That was the first possession any of us had experienced. Maybe we know more now and that helped. Rowan was also a bit more sophisticated upstairs than our bad boy today and he'd been planning for that for years. His willpower could have been stronger. Besides…" Her voice sounded slightly more self-conscious than before. "We all know my brain's not wired to the usual schematic. Maybe that made it easier too."
"Maybe," Abby muttered. Self-loathing and doubt weren't things she typically paid any attention to, but today she couldn't shut out the voice in the back of her mind. Or maybe I'm just weak, or stupid, or not able to love you guys as strongly as you apparently do…
"Kevin wasn't able to resist Rowan either," Holtzmann added.
"Yeah, but he's…" Her mother had taught her not to be rude to others just because they didn't have the same intellectual gifts she did, but still… "…Kevin."
"True."
Abby sighed. "It's just, it was hard enough thinking about what almost happened when I believed that there was nothing I could have done to stop it." She glanced back at Holtzmann. "If there was a way I could have kept Rowan from hurting you, I'm sorry I failed you."
She turned back to the city, blinking away the tears that blurred the lights into a smear of color.
She expected Holtzmann to argue, expected her to say something in response to that. And at first she thought the silence was confirming that Holtz finally was resenting her for almost killing her.
But instead she heard Holtzmann's boots walking toward her. The younger woman hopped up onto the wall around the edge of the roof next to Abby. Crossing her legs like a kid, she shifted so she faced out toward the city and leaned forward to peer down at the sidewalk three stories directly below them thoughtfully.
Abby's stomach dropped nauseatingly as Holtzmann bent far enough that she was terrifyingly close to being overbalanced.
"Geez, Holtz!" she gasped, grabbing the woman's arm to drag her back from the edge.
Holtzmann turned and grinned widely at her. "See? You saved me."
"This isn't a joke, Holtzmann!" Abby snapped, turning away angrily to try to settle her frayed nerves.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Holtzmann's face fall. The engineer turned on the ledge, letting her legs hang back on the safe side and just sat quietly beside Abby for a few minutes.
"I froze."
Abby looked over, confused. Holtzmann was staring down at her fidgeting hands with a sad, haunted expression on her face.
"When the portal was closing and Rowan grabbed you," she clarified, voice quiet. She untangled one hand to gesture vaguely at herself. "My brain…stopped. I couldn't think, couldn't do anything. All I could process was that my best friend was gone forever and I couldn't stop it, couldn't help you. I shut down."
She drew a slightly unsteady breath, eyebrows arching in a slight bit of humor. "Fortunately, Erin, being the brilliant little mongoose that she is, grabbed the cable immediately and went after you. And Patty snapped me out of it so we could pull you two back out. Once everything was over, then I could build something to try to prevent it happening again. That's why I added the winches to our packs. But if the others hadn't been there when it happened? You'd be gone."
Holtzmann looked at her finally, a faint smile quirking the corner of her mouth. "But they were, so we're all okay."
Abby didn't know what to say. Not that she was sure she could get any words out around the emotions tightening her throat anyway.
Holtzmann shifted, resting her elbows on her knees and holding her hands out, palms up, as if she was holding a few invisible objects. "You know the recipe for nitroglycerin?"
Abby nearly shook her head, thrown by the change in topic. "Uh, yeah. Why? You got some memory loss from the ghost extraction?"
"No, no, no. I'm making a point." She lifted one hand and its imagined contents. "Glycerol by itself – sweet-tasting, decent preservative, works as an antifreeze, not explosive." She raised the other. "Nitric acid – very corrosive; yes, a powerful oxidizer in itself, but nothing on a scale with nitroglycerin. Sulfuric acid – same way. So, the way I see it, you, me, Patty, and Erin," she gestured between them and toward empty spots on the pavement in front of them clearly meant to refer to their friends, "all of us have our abilities. We can each do our own thing and do it well—Patty's the glycerol, by the way—but it's when we work together that we form a truly awesome molecule of ass-kicking, capable of far more than our separate components."
She brought her hands together in front of her as if creating such a molecule. "No one of us can do everything all the time. But together?" She spread her hands outward while making an explosion sound effect and grinned at Abby. "We can do anything."
Abby felt her mood lifting a bit. "Hell yeah we can," she said emotionally, pulling Holtzmann over for a hug. Steadying her voice, she let go and laughed slightly. "Hey. You overpowered a ghost possession today."
"Yeah." Holtzmann laughed slightly, cocking her head back to look up at the emerging stars. "Well, one of us almost dying from that is probably enough."
Suddenly Holtz's head snapped over to look at her, eyes huge. "Trauma!"
"The hell?!" Abby jumped, hand going to her chest.
"That might be it! You and Erin speculated that strong negative emotions could affect spectral ether, allowing ghost formation in the first place. Maybe I have some underlying trauma from almost being killed that gave me the edge when Cyrus possessed me." She beamed widely, delighted. "So you did help save me!"
That thought did the exact opposite of making Abby feel better, but Holtzmann seemed so pleased with her conclusion that she didn't have the heart to argue. "Oh. Good. Okay. Just maybe don't shout things like 'Trauma!' without warning, huh? Especially after you were just possessed recently."
"Fair enough." Holtzmann hopped off the ledge, shoving her hands in her pockets as she started toward the roof door. "Come on, pizza should be here pretty soon and I know you like getting first pick of the slices. Besides, if we stay up here much longer, Erin's probably going to come looking."
Abby followed her, latching onto the chance to change the subject. "So speaking of potentially explosive chemistry, how long has this thing with Erin been going on?"
Holtz gave her a funny look. "What thing?"
"Come on, she's remembering songs from when you've danced for her? You secretly give her all kinds of cool new tech the rest of us haven't heard about?"
"I was working on those for all of you," Holtzmann said defensively. "I just thought of more adjustments to make before I made a full set."
"Okay, but giving a girl your prototype? That's like writing a song or poem for most people."
Holtzmann actually blushed. Oh god, they were both in it deep. "It's not a big deal. She was there when I made it, so I just added it to her pack. She's your friend, Abby. I'm not going to make it weird and hit on her."
"Please!" Abby laughed. "You've been hitting on her since she first showed up!"
"Flirting. It's different."
Abby shook her head, still slightly reeling with how much had happened that day. "Well, if you're really interested in her like that, you have my blessing to give it a shot. Honestly, I think you're starting to win her over too."
"Yeah?" Holtzmann's eyebrow raised. "She say something?"
"No, but there've been clues. And you should've seen how mad she got when Cyrus threatened to do nasty stuff with your body today."
"Really?" Holtzmann grinned. "Maybe she wants to be the only one who gets to do that."
Abby grimaced. "Okay, see, if you two do get together, don't do or say stuff where I have to think about Erin like that. I just…I just can't."
Holtzmann paused on the stairs, giving her an unremorseful smile. "Abby, I love you, but you know I can't promise you something I can't control."
It figured Holtz considered that less controllable than a spirit possession. "All right, but I'm telling you, if Patty has to walk in on you two because you can't be cool, I'm not going to protect you."
"Well, at least I'll die happy."
Abby groaned. "See, I'm regretting this already."
"Hey, if Patty killed me and I came back as a ghost, maybe I could possess—"
"Holtz, I beg you, please don't finish that thought."
"I'm just saying, maybe some possessions could be fun experiences."
"Okay, this conversation is over."
But Holtzmann's laugh as she hurried over to try to take the recently arrived pizzas that Patty held up out of her reach did warm some of the dark feeling that had lingered in Abby's chest since the day's bust.
"You okay?" Erin asked, walking over to her as Patty shooed Holtzmann to get drinks.
"Yeah." Abby nodded, giving Erin a small smile. "Just another day in the life of paranormal investigators."
"Well, we made it through and we're together, so it wasn't too bad, I guess. Still, I picked out a comedy for tonight."
"Good plan."
They divvyed up the pizza and drinks and made their way over to the lounge area they had set up with a couch, chairs, and a TV. Abby watched Erin settle at one end of the couch, then jump as Holtzmann flopped across the length of it, head in Erin's lap.
"Holtz!"
Holtzmann looked up innocently, her plate dangling precariously from her hand into the open space in front of the sofa. "What? I'm still dizzy from before."
"You jogged up the stairs earlier."
"That was earlier. Come on, I always feel better when I'm with you," she added with a charming grin.
Erin rolled her eyes, but blushed again as she resigned herself to setting her plate on the arm of the couch and Abby shook her head. From the chair on the other side of the room, Patty gave her a look like she knew Abby was to blame for this, but just picked up the remote and started the movie to distract them.
"At least sit up when you're drinking so you don't choke. You already gave me enough new gray hairs today as it is," Patty commented.
"Got a straw. And should I need mouth-to-mouth Erin's already in the ideal position."
"Just watch the movie, Holtz," Erin said tiredly, but not unkindly.
Abby smiled to herself, warming up to the idea of her two oldest friends as a couple. If they could make it work, more power to them. They both certainly deserved some happiness in their lives.
As the movie played, Abby decided she wasn't wrong about Erin returning Holtz's interest, but something else was going on beyond that. She noticed Erin glance down every time Holtzmann shifted unexpectedly or swallowed while laughing and coughed, not returning her focus to the movie until it was clear everything was okay. And it hit Abby that as bad as the events of the day had shaken her, as bad as it was seeing one of her best friends possessed and feeling useless, she couldn't imagine what it must have felt like if Erin really did have feelings for Holtz. She thought about Erin turning an untested weapon on Holtzmann, having to look into her eyes, even knowing it was a murderous spirit looking back through them, and trust that it would work and hurt the ghost without killing her too. And she decided to make time to talk with Erin later and make sure she was holding up okay.
But that could wait. Now was about pizza and an equally cheesy comedy, Patty's whole-hearted laugh and Erin's usually quiet one that became a snort when she tried to hold it in, Kevin wandering in after they had forgotten he was still there and Holtz's amusing and inaccurate attempts to explain the part of the movie he'd missed. Abby soaked it in like the warmth of a fireplace on a cold night. When you dealt with the dead all day, you needed to make sure you fit in time just for life.
By the time the movie wrapped up, Holtzmann had dozed off still stretched out across Erin's lap, one arm hanging to the floor. Although Erin probably could have slipped out from under her without waking her up, she opted to stay and maybe get a nap in herself. Patty warned her to support her head if she was going to sleep sitting up so she didn't mess up her neck, but didn't comment further. Abby just helped arrange a blanket over Holtzmann and hid her smile when she saw Erin's hand settle draped along Holtz's arm.
They told Kevin he could take the rest of the night off and Patty and Abby set to putting the leftover food away before heading to bed.
"Hell of a day," Patty commented.
"Yep. Glad it's over."
"You doing okay?"
Abby blinked, but realized she shouldn't have been surprised Patty had noticed her mood. She was probably the most perceptive of all of them. "Yeah, Holtz and I had a good talk. Helped put my mind at ease."
"Girl's crazier than a bag of cats, but she has some surprisingly sincere moments," Patty agreed. "Glad we got her back safe."
"Me too."
"You really think this possession stuff's going to become a regular thing for us?" Patty asked. "'Cause Erin and I are the only two left who haven't been taken over yet and I'm sure as hell not looking forward to having a dead guy in my head making me do things."
Abby rinsed the last plate and put it in the dishwasher. "I don't know, but if it does happen I promise I'll get it out of you before it makes you do anything bad. I owe you for what you did when Rowan possessed me."
"Hey, that's just a team thing, baby," Patty grinned. "You don't owe me anything. We look out for each other. Don't even try to keep score. We've all saved each other too many times now. Now, I'm gonna go read while we've got some peace and quiet, but you want to talk, you know where to find me."
"Thanks, Patty. You're the best."
"Don't I know it."
She was right, Abby mused as Patty headed to her room. None of them were that used to having others to count on. Sure Abby had had Erin when they were younger, but those days were hardly life or death, no matter how much high school could feel that way. All of them had spent too much of their lives having to go it alone. But they had a team now.
Abby picked up one of the now-bent garbage can lids sitting by the trash thoughtfully. A shield was good, but it could only protect you from one direction at a time. But when you had people to have your back, everyone was safer. The shield wasn't weaker for having to rely on others to cover other angles and nobody blamed people for not being able to watch multiple directions at once.
Setting the lid back down next to the garbage, Abby tried to leave her regrets and guilt with it. She picked up a notebook instead and headed to her room, already organizing her thoughts on what they had learned about spectral transference and poltergeist activity that day before the memories got too hazy. She couldn't do everything, but she could do what she did best so that hopefully the next time something like this happened no one would get hurt at all.