As the fire consumed the fallen floorboards and broken furniture in the penthouse on the eleventh floor Egon held onto the edge of the hole for dear life while Peter held desperately onto Egon's arm. Both men were in peril at the hands of the ghost and neither were in a position to confront the ghost and capture it. emergency fire alarms began blaring throughout the hotel and all of those who had been inside the building out into the streets for their lives, leaving Egon and Peter alone with the angry ghost.

"I gotcha' partner!" Peter all but screamed as he forced himself to stay inside the burning room. "Just hold on!"

"Peter!" Egon called out of the crackling of the fire that raged just a few feet below him. "You have to run! Catch Alvis before he has a chance to cause any more harm or hurt anyone else!"

"No way Spengz!" Peter refused to let Egon fall, refused to give up and abandon his friend. "I know you're mad at me right now, hell, I'm mad at myself," Peter's hand tightened around Egon's arm. "but I'm not going anywhere!"

Alvis watched with sick delight as Peter and Egon struggled to escape the blaze. The temperature of the room began to rise and smoke wafted toward the ceiling. "Let's make this more interesting." Alvis snapped his fingers and brought about a new illusion.

Cockroaches began to swarm over Peter's hand, up his shoulder and toward his face. Peter began to whimper in fear as he watch the cockroaches crawl closer and closer to his face. The massive cockroach in the hole below was now engulfed in flame and screeching out in a painfully loud wail.

"Peter!" Egon could see the fear in Peter's face. He was pale, sweaty and trembling violently. "There is nothing there! No cockroaches, it's all an illusion."

"And illusion... Illusion..." Peter repeated to himself as he struggled to keep his grip on Egon's arm. "Not real. Not real."

"That's right! It's all an illusion!"

"Come on!" Peter encouraged as he shut his eyes and began pulling Egon upward. "Climb!"

Egon let Peter pull him up and out of the hole by one arm while he used his other hand to maintain a firm grip. Awkwardly Peter managed to lift Egon out of the hole and back onto the broken floorboards of the penthouse.

"Thanks." Egon panted as he kneeled down on the floor trying to steady his nerves.

"Any time." Peter was sitting back on his hands and staring up at the ceiling. "Let's get Alvis!"

"The trap!" Egon pointed to the lone trap he had brought with him. As Egon reached for the trap Alvis snapped his fingers again and revived the illusion of the Boogieman. "You're. Not. REAL." Egon stated firmly while forcing himself to reach his hand through the illusion's hoof like feet and retrieve the trap.

Alvis was enraged by Egon's strong, resilient mind and lost his patience. "You shall be the first to burn!" Using a wave psychokinetic energy Alvis lifted a burning board from the hole and held it high into the air. As Egon stood up with the trap in his hands Alvis launched the flaming projectile directly at the physicist.

"EGON!" Peter saw the incoming board and pushed Egon down and out of the way. The trap fell from Egon's hands and bounced down into the hole with a heavy 'thud'.

Unable to move quickly enough to escape the incoming board himself Peter was struck in the chest and knocked backward and down into the burning hold in the floor.

"PETER?!" Egon watched in abject horror as his friend fell and disappeared into the fire. Falling to his knees Egon crawled over to the edge of the hole and peered down at his motionless friend laying in a heap on the pile of mangled, smoldering debris. Peter's head was laying dangerously close to the fallen metal trap. "No..."

"Foolish man." Alvis sneered as he hovered over the hole. "If he had obeyed then he would've been spared such a fate. I gave him my word."

Egon glared helplessly at the ghost. "You're a liar and a murderer, any word you give is utterly worthless."

Alvis pointed his finger at Egon as his eyes flashed red. "Perhaps you'd wish to join him?"

Surrounded by smoke and flame Peter was roused by the tremendous heat and choking smoke. Looking up with one eye through the dense smoke he could barely see the ghost hovered directly above him, or see Egon kneeling by the hole defenselessly.

"Egon..." Peter tried to get up but he couldn't move. The burning board was still laying across his chest, fortunately the fire had all but burned itself out leaving only smoldering timber. "I have... to..."

As he moved his head Peter felt the sharp corner of the trap graze against his face.

Trailing the black cable connected to the rear of the trap Peter could see that the trigger was resting just a few inches from his boot. Lifting his foot he placed his heel above the trap and gave a smug glance up at Alvis. "Hey Alvis!"

The ghost looked down at Peter and snarled angrily. "You live!?"

"Shut up!" Peter smashed his boot down on the trigger and turned his face as the trap's door opened and began absorbing Alvis in bright white ionized light.

"NO." Alvis was pulled easily down into the trap, disappearing through the hole in the floor and imprisoned in the metal trap.

"Peter!" Egon looked down at his friend and called out. "You're alive!"

The twelfth floor began to buckle under Egon's weight as the fire ate through the already weakened level.

"Egon... You need to-"

"No, I'm not leaving!" Egon studied the interior wreckage of the hole and found a way, a dangerous and unreliable way, to climb down to where Peter was laying. "Just hang on!"

"I'm not-" Peter coughed once before finishing his comment. "I'm not going anywhere."

Egon made his way down the makeshift ladder, the damaged and weakened wooden boards snapping almost as soon as Egon applied his weight to the structure. Smoke filled the air choked his breaths and blinded his sight. The roar of the fire was almost deafening as Egon's boots planted on the eleventh floor.

"Peter!" Rushing over to his fallen friend Egon threw aside the fallen boards that had landed on top of Peter's body and put his hand on Peter's chest. There was no movement. "No... Not like this."

Putting his hands under Peter's arms Egon began dragging him from the center of the hole and away from the flames toward the locked door. Laying Peter down one last time Egon planted a firm kick on the door and forced the lock to break and opened the door with a loud slam as it burst open into the hallway. The fire had damaged the door frame and weakened the hinges enough to allow Egon to break down the door.

"Come on..." Egon resumed dragging Peter out of the burning room and into the corridor of the hotel. He began coughing deeply as he struggled to breathe through the smoke and overcome the intense heat of the fire. "Almost there..."

The sound of heavy boots stomped down the corridor from the opposite end as responding firefighters began checking the floors for any un-evacuated hotel guests. "There. Two possible victims." One of the firefighters reported in his radio professionally and calmly.

"We're going to be okay Peter." Egon told his friend as he stopped dragging Peter and laid him down. It was then Egon could see how pale Peter was, and how still his entire body had become. "Peter?" Pressing his ear to Peter's chest Egon felt his own heart skip a beat.

Two firefighters approached the two Ghostbusters. One knelt down beside Peter as Egon scooped his friend up into his arms and held him tightly against his chest.

"Sir! We're going to get you both out of here!"

Egon only nodded with tears welling up in his eyes. "It might be too late for him..."

...to be continued...