Egon stepped away from the edge of the building, too stunned to react. All feeling drained from him in that one instance as sheer intellectual instinct took over. Turning back toward Victoria, he noticed a brief flicker go through her eyes. It was the same flicker he had seen in her eyes at the hospital after she had snapped at him. The same flicker she would get when they were children and she had accidentally broken some invention of his.
Guilt. Guilt that was squelched down by Groden with nauseating swiftness, but guilt nonetheless. This meant that it wasn't too late. The merge hadn't been completed yet, and Victoria was still in there. Most importantly, it meant that that they still had a chance of separating the two.
Without so much as a word, Egon turned his proton pack to full power.
"Fool," Groden spat. "You haven't even learned your lesson yet have you? You are so filled with rage that you plan on killing your own flesh and blood to get to me?"
"Actually, no," Egon commented calmly, sliding his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. "Admittedly, I haven't felt quite myself since that incident with your brother, but I'm feeling much better now. In fact, I must say that for the first time in over a week, my head is totally clear. I simply know what I need to do now, and I plan on doing it."
The proton pack hummed loudly, sending a blast of whitish-green light forth. The beam hit Groden full in the chest, sending her reeling backwards into a metal air vent. A piece of the vent broke off, flying toward Winston. He ducked just in time to avoid it tearing into his throat, though it left a cut on his left cheek.
A deep, guttural growl issued from Victoria's mouth.
"You dare!" she seethed, pushing against the vent to stand up straight. She tried stepping forward; only to find that trying to move with the beam surrounding her was like trying to walk through a tornado. She wasn't completely immobilized, but she also didn't have free movement.
"Hey, gangrenous!" Winston yelled, adding his beam to Egon's. "Eat protons!"
It was enough. Hitting her from the side, Victoria's body stopped in mid-movement. Her face contorted with anger as she tried to break free of the particle beams holding her. She screamed in pain and frustration.
"Egon!" Winston screamed over the noise. "Quick! Use your do-hicky thing before it's too late!"
"I can't," Egon called back. "If I stop my beam, we might lose her. We need to keep at least two beams on her! Ray, can you …?"
"I'm on it!" Aiming haphazardly, his proton gun wedged firmly between his torso and his injured arm, Ray nudged his pack up to full power. The whitish-green beam erupted from it, hitting the roof and sending chunks of concrete and dust flying up in all directions.
"Hey, watch what you're doing, will you?" cried Winston, trying to duck, yet again, without losing his beam.
"Oops. Sorry," Ray shouted, using his left hand to re-adjust his aim. Finally it was in position with the other two beams.
As soon as Egon felt it was safe, with the other two beams secured firmly on his cousin's body, he quickly shut his own beam off and reached for the device he had carried up the four flights of stairs with him. It still had some of the markings of Victoria's earlier project on it, but most had been lost when Egon combined it with his ecto de-amplifier. What was now sitting on the ground before him no longer resembled a cross between a castle and a TV. Instead it looked more like an old-fashioned film camera with a foot peddle.
Egon opened one of the side panels, flicking switches and pressing buttons. The device started shaking and buzzing. Turning on last knob, he stepped back.
"Cut the beams … Now!"
Ray and Winston turned off the beams as soon as a blast of bright blue light shot out of the de-amplifier/compressor, enveloping Victoria from head to foot. Egon pulled down his goggles so that it was easier to watch the transformation he hoped would take place. He needed to be able to see everything because it had to be timed just right or they risked losing the ghost and killing Victoria.
Victoria's body began to twist in agony. Her scream doubled in on itself and everything within the blue light took on a colorless caste. To the remaining ghostbusters it was like watching a late night black and white TV program during a lightning storm. Victoria's body shifted and doubled and tripled and merged over and over again until finally a grey wisp of smoke began to stream out of every pore and orifice of her body.
"This is it!" Egon yelled, turning up the de-amplifier/compressor. The smoke thickened around Victoria, coalescing into a more solid form as it did so, and beginning to move on its own, while her body finally started taking on a more normal looking appearance. Her face and body flushed out, the veins shrinking back to hide once more under the more natural tone of skin while the claws disappeared from the ends of her hands.
"Wait for it to finish forming," Egon called out about the roar of the machine and Victoria's and Groden's echoing cries.
Ray let his proton gun drop to the ground so he could get to the trap that lay next to him. He fumbled around for it, but it was no use. His right arm hung uselessly at his side and every time he tried to grasp the trap in his good hand, pain shot viciously through his entire right side, from the waist up. Finally he gave up and took to just nudging the infernal contraption out in front of him so that it was within Winston's reach. Even that was painful, but not nearly as painful as his previous attempts to grab it himself.
"Winston! The trap!"
Winston nodded in understanding and slipped over, grabbing the trap. With a single, long swing he slid the trap into position and waited. It didn't take long before the smoke was almost completely solid, and the face of Groden, broke forth on it.
"Now!" Egon shouted.
Winston brought his hands down full-force onto the traps button, ignoring his own bit of pain as his injured hand throbbed in protest. Light leapt up from the trap, adding to the light from the de-amplifier and bathing the entire block in blinding brilliance.
Winston, Ray and Egon each held up an arm to help shield their eyes from the light. Luckily it only lasted for a second or two. It died down and the trap light blinked.
"We got him," Winston breathed in relief.
The trio of ghostbusters looked up to find Victoria, her head bowed down, her body slouched and swaying in the breeze, ready to fall over at a moment's notice from her brain. A stumbled step on her part showed them that she was still fully conscious, though how aware of the situation she was had yet to be determined.
"Victoria?" Egon asked as he took a timid step forward. His cousin held her hand up to her head and slowly began looking around, her face a mask of confusion.
Egon breathed a sigh of relief as he started to walk toward her. The less she remembered the better as far as he was concerned. She looked over at him as he came closer and her expression changed from that of confusion to one of total horror. All color drained from her face.
"Oh … God …." She quickly clasped her hands to her mouth and stumbled backwards. Egon stopped, his brow furrowed once again in worry.
'Damn,' he thought
"Victoria?" Egon spoke softly in as calm a voice as he could muster, all things considered. "It's going to be okay."
Victoria's eyes fell over the spot where Peter had been thrown from the building and made a choking noise as tears spelled from her eyes. She shook uncontrollably, looking first at Winston, then Ray and finally back at Egon again.
Egon reached out a hand to her only to have her push it away. She turned and ran for the stairs, pausing only to look down at Ray as she passed him.
"Victoria," Ray started, reaching out to her as well, but she fled before he could say another word. Egon stood in muted silence as he watched her disappear down the stairs.
"Peter!" he exclaimed, suddenly remembering their friend. "Winston, stay here with Ray. And call 911!"
Without another word, the blonde raced down the stairs to his best friend's side.
"Do you have your phone?" Winston asked. Ray nodded numbly.
"Right here." Wincing in pain, he reached into his pocket with his left hand and pulled out his cell phone.
Ray handed it to and looked away as the fourth member of their group made the necessary phone call. When he was done he looked at Ray.
"You don't think …," he started to say, but his friend stopped him with a look.
"He's alive," Ray said defiantly, though the look of worry on his face showed that he wasn't entirely convinced by his own words. Still, he continued on. "He's alive, and he'll be fine. He has to be…."
"Yeah," nodded Winston in the same uneasy conviction. "Yeah, he'll be fine…."
For all intents and purposes Egon flew down the stairs, his feet barely touching the ground, in his rush to get to Peter. The illusion of the hotel as it had been so many years ago had faded into nothingness, leaving only the bare reality of a deserted, decaying theater behind. Meanwhile, the vision of his friend, the first best friend he had ever had, one of the few best friends he had ever had, lying on the street below, his body broken and bleeding, sent Egon's mind reeling so that he did not even notice that the illusion had been dropped.
This was not supposed to happen. It was never supposed to happen. They were professionals. Sure there were risks involved. That was true of any job. Somehow though, they had always managed to slide in just under the radar of such risk. Now they had had two brushes with it in less than two weeks.
He slammed his way through the front door and raced around to the rear of the building. His thoughts going through his head nearly as fast as his feet were going along the ground.
He had joked about Peter's death. A pang of guilt ripped through his heart. It had been a joke, that's all. It didn't mean anything. It was just an innocent comment, that's all. And yet ….
It didn't matter what he saw up there on the roof. He knew Peter was not dead. Peter couldn't be dead. They had been through too much together. From the first day they had met in college, when fate had made them roommates all the way to them becoming business partners. True, Egon hadn't cared for Peter at first. He had found him to be lazy, unruly and egotistical. The fact that every other sentence to come out of Peter's mouth had been an insult of some sort had also not endeared the scientist to him.
Of course it hadn't taken long for Egon to realize that those insults weren't actually insults at all, but Peter's wry sense of humor. A defense mechanism to keep the world from getting too close to him. It had been that realization that had made living with the man so much easier. Hadn't Egon been doing the same thing, keeping the world away, with his endless hours of hiding his nose in books?
It started when Peter decided to use his roommate as the subject for a psychology paper. After having the would-be parapsychologist hovering over him for almost three months, writing down every little thing Egon did, said, eat and drank; it was hard not to be infected by Peter's personality and vice-versa. Egon loosened up a bit and begun cracking his own monotone, sardonic jokes and insults while Peter actually started to mellow out enough to get some semi-serious studying done at the university. Still, he tended to skate along with a grade point average just high enough to keep his scholarships going.
It was sad really, considering that Peter was almost a certified genius himself. He had gotten into school because he had aced the SATs, the ACTs and the ASVAB in high school. He had even, on a dare or a lark, Egon was never sure which, taken the LSATs and passed those with flying colors. Though his grade point average had been almost constant C's. Egon remembered thinking at the time that Peter could be truly great, if he just applied himself more and took some pride in his work.
But he was great, wasn't he? Peter may not be the most reliable person in the world, and he definitely wasn't the most serious, but he was still great. His greatness shown everyday in the way he made the others smile when they were sad, or made them direct their anger at him instead of each other, thus preventing more than one serious fight that might otherwise have broken the Ghostbusters up. It was psychology at its most basic. Peter knew how the human mind worked. He also knew how to read people and thus, how to bring out the best or the worst in them as the situation called for.
The way he charmed everyone around him was almost awe-inspiring. He was always there to listen when you had a problem, bringing a refreshing look on almost any situation. He made sense, even when the world didn't. Most of all he was always there to crack a smile or to crack a joke or to crack ….
His head …. So much blood ….
Egon stopped in mid-step as he rounded the final corner. There lay Peter Venkman, unmoving. His eyes were closed, his head lolled to the side as blood continued to seep from the back. His skin had gone pale and his ankle was mangled and bloated as well as a severe shade of purplish blue. The sight turned Egon's stomach, threatening to over flow his mouth with the taste of bile.
Still, Egon stepped forward. This time his movements were slower, giving him time to steel himself against what he now viewed as the inevitable.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. They were never supposed to die. He was never supposed to die.
Egon collapsed next to his friend and gently reached out to touch his chest. His breath suddenly caught in his throat, threatening to choke him. His chest heaved with emotion. It rose and fell, almost in sync with the labored breathing of his oldest and dearest friend.
There was still breath in those lungs and life in that body. Peter Venkman was still alive. At least for the moment. It was enough to make a grown man cry. And that was exactly what Egon Spangler found himself doing.
A/N: Okay, you didn't honestly think I was going to kill him, right? This is Peter Venkman we are talking about (and my personal favorite of all the Ghostbusters). I may torture him now and again, but I would never kill him. LOL
Anyway, the good guys have beaten the bad guy but this is not the end yet. There are still a few more chapters. Broken pieces that need to be picked up and fixed. Also, just so everyone is aware, I will be making some corrections to past chapters, that I had missed the first time around. Don't know when I will get the chance to do that, but I will. I don't plan on making any big changes, but thought I would warn people all the same.
Ormandria