The young Ghostbusters skipped their classes that day. Luckily Egon was good friends with a couple of their teachers so he could smooth things over for them. Eduardo's reason was different than he rest of them, tho; rather than doing research or working on the proton guns, he slept all day. For once, no one gave him flack for it.
By evening, Roland and Garrett were satisfied that they had modified the beams to safely contain a living creature. Roland installed a cage in the back of the Ecto-1. When it was time to go, they would have to help Garrett into the back seat & fold up his chair. He would take Eduardo's seat.
Meanwhile, Kylie had found an entry on stopping lycanthropy . It stated that, unlike popular fiction depicted, silver did not harm a werewolf. Instead, it explained, contact with it locked them into their animal form, while contact with wolfsbane made them human. The two combined, however, such as a silver dagger laced with wolfsbane oil, would leave a wound that wouldn't fully heal and poison the beast. The result was the human and wolf sides warring to be in control, and, if the poor being survived the struggle, a nasty scar.
Of course, the Ghostbusters wouldn't use such a thing, but Egon was afraid Hunter might.
By late evening, they were ready to leave, Janine included. Eduardo was still out cold when they left...
***
Harold stood in the park, right where the werewolf had ambushed him. His own pack of wolves was milling about his legs. Each wore the silver collars he's put around their necks when he'd caught them. They all had a vacant look in their eyes.
"Soon, my pets, soon it will be feeding time..."
***
Ohhhhh boy, here we go again with the strange dreams... Eduardo thought. Like the night before, he had awakened to find himself in the body of a canis lupis. He hadn't been alarmed the first time because he thought he was deaming. He wasn't so sure this time. Funny, I don't feel like eating anyone.
He looked at the clock. 10:27 pm. The others were out werewolf hunting. The joker in him couldn't help but laugh at the irony of the situation-- them leaving to find what was right under their noses. He should have been relieved. If he was the werewolf, if he was here and they were gone, then both he and they were safe from each other.
But he couldn't shake the bad vibes he'd gotten from Harry. There was something the man was hiding, and it wasn't in regards to the werewolf. Something about how he acted towards Kylie. Eduardo tried to tell himself it was just jealousy, but he couldn't shake the feeling she was in danger. He had to find her.
He made his way down the stairs, finding it difficult to descend on all fours, but managing. The door out would be a bigger issue--
Except that the garage door was open.
Janine was usually the one to close it after they left in the Ecto-1. She must have gone with them, to take his place. It was rare that she helped with the actual ghostbusting, but she'd proven herself in the field before. They probably thought they could use all the help they could get...
A few people actually gaped to see a wolf lope down the streets of New York, not knowing it was hot on the trail of the Ecto-1.
***
It wasn't long before the Ghostbusters came across Harold. He was just sitting on a park bench, alone.
"I thought you were gonna go bag a big bad werewolf!" Garrett stated, somehow accusingly.
"I am," the dapper gent replied calmy. "In my experience, stay in one place long enough and the prey will come to you."
Kylie's intuition was going nuts. Part of her trusted Harold unquestioningly. Another, deeper part was screaming that something was desparately wrong. But which part should she listen to?
Harold patted the seat next to him. "Sit, my dear. It would have been better if you'd stayed away, but I confess that I am happy you did come."
Garrett kept looking around, like a shell-shocked soldier expecting to be hit any moment. "Aren't you afraid?!? That werewolf tore you to peices last time, and you still don't even have a weapon!"
"Don't I, now? Appearances can be deceiving, my boy."
There was a low growling from behind them. And in front of them. And to the left. To the right. Glowing eyes burst forth from he darkness, beyond the trees, followed by snarling wolves. They were surrounded!
When they were settled & on their way, Garret decided it was time for explanations. "Ok, so what was all that goin' on back there? Harry was a ghost?"
Egon answered almost absently. "Harold Hunter was the Hunter, the man who killed the Garou Matriarch. He loved hunting werewolves so much that he continued to do it, even after death. When all the werewolves were gone, he used the talisman to make more. Am I right?" He directed the question to the werewolves in the back.
Garrett kept to himself the remark that came to mind, that he felt like he was in a Scooby-doo rerun.
One of the Garou nodded. "Yeah, but he not manage to kill us all off, or even catch all of us, until recen'ly." Louis Garou's voice was soft, and had a cajun lilt to it. "We fo' are de last. I escape, an' take de talisman wit' me. Den I run into dis pretty p'tite, here." He motioned to Kylie, who until then only had eyes for the wounded man in her arms.
She looked up at his geture, eyes wide. "That was you?"
He nodded. "He must 'ave seen us collide, seen you pick up my bag, an' follow you." He looked at her, a blatant stare of open curiosity. "You have de glow of de witch about you, in yo' aura."
No one noticed Kylie twitch at that, her secret stated as if it were common knowledge. She was too upset to give it much thought tho, not even to hope that her friends didn't realize how close to the truth the remark was.
"Hunter hunt witches during de inquisition, t'reaten to expose dem if dey not obey 'im. He practice on dem and become a master of de mental manipulation. He have dem teach 'im 'bout herbs, and use dat knowlege to drug 'is victims. He neva resist de pretty face, such a prize! He pro'lly 'tink gettin' you wit de talisman an extra bonus!"
Kylie buried her face in Eduardo's neck, ashamed. She'd fallen under the evil man's spell-- no wonder she'd felt so foggy all the time-- and failed to see the man for what he was! She didn't look up as Loius finished his story.
"Hunter tell us dat he knows de p'tite mus' have de talisman, dat he will take it an' her too. He decide de ot'er Ghos'busders migh' make good loup garou, werewolves. He sense dat one o' you a'ready is." He gestured to Eduardo's still form.
Egon remarked, "Yes, I should have realized that he would be."
Roland took his eyes off the road for a moment to give the man a perplexed look. "How? And why?"
"The tooth is set in silver. Eduardo pricked his finger with it." As if that explained t.
"AND???" Garrett prompted.
Janine elaborated. "He did it during a full moon. According to the legend, the Garou Matriarch could grant others her power by biting them while wearing silver druing a full moon."
"Um... I thought he did that on the day before the full moon, and in the middle of the afternoon..." Roland pointed out.
"To de loup garou, de day before and de day after is good enuff, non?"
"Oh, well then..." Garrett muttered. Then he finally put together what they were saying. "Waitaminute-- you're saying Eddy here was one of the wolves last night?!?" They all just looked at him, as if he had suddenly revealed to them that the sky was blue. He thought of another question, hoping it wouldn't make him look any more dense than he felt. "So why is he hurt, then? I mean, don't you guys have like super-healing like Wolverine?"
Kylie's voice was so soft, everyone but the werefolk had to strain to hear her. "He was hit by Hunter's rapier while trying to save me."
"Soooooo... what does that mean? Why hasn't he healed yet?"
Loius offered, "De rapier, it be made of silver an' laced wit' de wolfsbane. Dat be a bad combo to de Garou, non?" He might have been discussing the weather, the way he said it.
Garret would have popped him one, had he not been too mortified by the implication behind the words to move. The Ghostbusters all remembered what Egon had told them about that duo.
Kylie began to sob again, her face pressed against Eduardo's chest.
"Hey..." his voice came weakly. He ran a hand through her hair. "Are you all right, chica?"
"Eduardo?!?" She looked him in the face, eyes wide with shock and red with crying. She smiled and laughed faintly, not quite believing what she was seeing. She touched his face to reassure herself that he was alive, that she wasn't dreaming.
Roland pulled over to see the miracle, turning off the siren. The Ghostbusters all expressed their relief with soft words and gentle squeezes of his arm-- the good one-- their eyes wet with tears of joy, even Garrett.
"How?" Janine asked Egon in a whisper. He just shook his head in reply, baffled himself.
The Garou, with their superior senses, had heard Janine's question. The seemed baffled themselves, but only in that the Ghostbusters seemed surprised. "Is dat what all de hurry was about? You t'ought he migh' still die?" Louis gave them a curious look. "But he was betta' b'fo' we even git in de ca'!"
It took them all a moment to figure out what he'd said. Janine was the first. "What do you mean, he was already better? How did you know? How did he fight the poison?"
It was clear by the glances they exchanged that the Garou thought them more than a bit odd. Louis spoke patiently, as if trying to answer an errant child who kept asking why. "Well, he wasn' bouncing back an' forth between man an' wolf by den, was he? An he was still alive, so he had to have been rid of de poison. De struggle don' stop till de poison is is stopped or yo' dead!"
"But how was the poison stopped?" Roland pressed.
Louis smiled. "De Moon-blessed tears o' de witch, dey be powerful proof agains' poison, non? Her magic heal him."
Sure enough, when they looked at his shoulder, they saw that the wound was healed over, a white scar in its place. Well, if her teammates didn't know she was a witch before, they surely knew now. Yet all she saw in their expressions was relief that she had been able to save their friend's life. A friend she herself was overjoyed at having been able to save. Her happiness at that wiped away all her fears.
With all their eyes on him, Eduardo realized something. "Um... where... are my clothes?!?"
By evening, Roland and Garrett were satisfied that they had modified the beams to safely contain a living creature. Roland installed a cage in the back of the Ecto-1. When it was time to go, they would have to help Garrett into the back seat & fold up his chair. He would take Eduardo's seat.
Meanwhile, Kylie had found an entry on stopping lycanthropy . It stated that, unlike popular fiction depicted, silver did not harm a werewolf. Instead, it explained, contact with it locked them into their animal form, while contact with wolfsbane made them human. The two combined, however, such as a silver dagger laced with wolfsbane oil, would leave a wound that wouldn't fully heal and poison the beast. The result was the human and wolf sides warring to be in control, and, if the poor being survived the struggle, a nasty scar.
Of course, the Ghostbusters wouldn't use such a thing, but Egon was afraid Hunter might.
By late evening, they were ready to leave, Janine included. Eduardo was still out cold when they left...
***
Harold stood in the park, right where the werewolf had ambushed him. His own pack of wolves was milling about his legs. Each wore the silver collars he's put around their necks when he'd caught them. They all had a vacant look in their eyes.
"Soon, my pets, soon it will be feeding time..."
***
Ohhhhh boy, here we go again with the strange dreams... Eduardo thought. Like the night before, he had awakened to find himself in the body of a canis lupis. He hadn't been alarmed the first time because he thought he was deaming. He wasn't so sure this time. Funny, I don't feel like eating anyone.
He looked at the clock. 10:27 pm. The others were out werewolf hunting. The joker in him couldn't help but laugh at the irony of the situation-- them leaving to find what was right under their noses. He should have been relieved. If he was the werewolf, if he was here and they were gone, then both he and they were safe from each other.
But he couldn't shake the bad vibes he'd gotten from Harry. There was something the man was hiding, and it wasn't in regards to the werewolf. Something about how he acted towards Kylie. Eduardo tried to tell himself it was just jealousy, but he couldn't shake the feeling she was in danger. He had to find her.
He made his way down the stairs, finding it difficult to descend on all fours, but managing. The door out would be a bigger issue--
Except that the garage door was open.
Janine was usually the one to close it after they left in the Ecto-1. She must have gone with them, to take his place. It was rare that she helped with the actual ghostbusting, but she'd proven herself in the field before. They probably thought they could use all the help they could get...
A few people actually gaped to see a wolf lope down the streets of New York, not knowing it was hot on the trail of the Ecto-1.
***
It wasn't long before the Ghostbusters came across Harold. He was just sitting on a park bench, alone.
"I thought you were gonna go bag a big bad werewolf!" Garrett stated, somehow accusingly.
"I am," the dapper gent replied calmy. "In my experience, stay in one place long enough and the prey will come to you."
Kylie's intuition was going nuts. Part of her trusted Harold unquestioningly. Another, deeper part was screaming that something was desparately wrong. But which part should she listen to?
Harold patted the seat next to him. "Sit, my dear. It would have been better if you'd stayed away, but I confess that I am happy you did come."
Garrett kept looking around, like a shell-shocked soldier expecting to be hit any moment. "Aren't you afraid?!? That werewolf tore you to peices last time, and you still don't even have a weapon!"
"Don't I, now? Appearances can be deceiving, my boy."
There was a low growling from behind them. And in front of them. And to the left. To the right. Glowing eyes burst forth from he darkness, beyond the trees, followed by snarling wolves. They were surrounded!
When they were settled & on their way, Garret decided it was time for explanations. "Ok, so what was all that goin' on back there? Harry was a ghost?"
Egon answered almost absently. "Harold Hunter was the Hunter, the man who killed the Garou Matriarch. He loved hunting werewolves so much that he continued to do it, even after death. When all the werewolves were gone, he used the talisman to make more. Am I right?" He directed the question to the werewolves in the back.
Garrett kept to himself the remark that came to mind, that he felt like he was in a Scooby-doo rerun.
One of the Garou nodded. "Yeah, but he not manage to kill us all off, or even catch all of us, until recen'ly." Louis Garou's voice was soft, and had a cajun lilt to it. "We fo' are de last. I escape, an' take de talisman wit' me. Den I run into dis pretty p'tite, here." He motioned to Kylie, who until then only had eyes for the wounded man in her arms.
She looked up at his geture, eyes wide. "That was you?"
He nodded. "He must 'ave seen us collide, seen you pick up my bag, an' follow you." He looked at her, a blatant stare of open curiosity. "You have de glow of de witch about you, in yo' aura."
No one noticed Kylie twitch at that, her secret stated as if it were common knowledge. She was too upset to give it much thought tho, not even to hope that her friends didn't realize how close to the truth the remark was.
"Hunter hunt witches during de inquisition, t'reaten to expose dem if dey not obey 'im. He practice on dem and become a master of de mental manipulation. He have dem teach 'im 'bout herbs, and use dat knowlege to drug 'is victims. He neva resist de pretty face, such a prize! He pro'lly 'tink gettin' you wit de talisman an extra bonus!"
Kylie buried her face in Eduardo's neck, ashamed. She'd fallen under the evil man's spell-- no wonder she'd felt so foggy all the time-- and failed to see the man for what he was! She didn't look up as Loius finished his story.
"Hunter tell us dat he knows de p'tite mus' have de talisman, dat he will take it an' her too. He decide de ot'er Ghos'busders migh' make good loup garou, werewolves. He sense dat one o' you a'ready is." He gestured to Eduardo's still form.
Egon remarked, "Yes, I should have realized that he would be."
Roland took his eyes off the road for a moment to give the man a perplexed look. "How? And why?"
"The tooth is set in silver. Eduardo pricked his finger with it." As if that explained t.
"AND???" Garrett prompted.
Janine elaborated. "He did it during a full moon. According to the legend, the Garou Matriarch could grant others her power by biting them while wearing silver druing a full moon."
"Um... I thought he did that on the day before the full moon, and in the middle of the afternoon..." Roland pointed out.
"To de loup garou, de day before and de day after is good enuff, non?"
"Oh, well then..." Garrett muttered. Then he finally put together what they were saying. "Waitaminute-- you're saying Eddy here was one of the wolves last night?!?" They all just looked at him, as if he had suddenly revealed to them that the sky was blue. He thought of another question, hoping it wouldn't make him look any more dense than he felt. "So why is he hurt, then? I mean, don't you guys have like super-healing like Wolverine?"
Kylie's voice was so soft, everyone but the werefolk had to strain to hear her. "He was hit by Hunter's rapier while trying to save me."
"Soooooo... what does that mean? Why hasn't he healed yet?"
Loius offered, "De rapier, it be made of silver an' laced wit' de wolfsbane. Dat be a bad combo to de Garou, non?" He might have been discussing the weather, the way he said it.
Garret would have popped him one, had he not been too mortified by the implication behind the words to move. The Ghostbusters all remembered what Egon had told them about that duo.
Kylie began to sob again, her face pressed against Eduardo's chest.
"Hey..." his voice came weakly. He ran a hand through her hair. "Are you all right, chica?"
"Eduardo?!?" She looked him in the face, eyes wide with shock and red with crying. She smiled and laughed faintly, not quite believing what she was seeing. She touched his face to reassure herself that he was alive, that she wasn't dreaming.
Roland pulled over to see the miracle, turning off the siren. The Ghostbusters all expressed their relief with soft words and gentle squeezes of his arm-- the good one-- their eyes wet with tears of joy, even Garrett.
"How?" Janine asked Egon in a whisper. He just shook his head in reply, baffled himself.
The Garou, with their superior senses, had heard Janine's question. The seemed baffled themselves, but only in that the Ghostbusters seemed surprised. "Is dat what all de hurry was about? You t'ought he migh' still die?" Louis gave them a curious look. "But he was betta' b'fo' we even git in de ca'!"
It took them all a moment to figure out what he'd said. Janine was the first. "What do you mean, he was already better? How did you know? How did he fight the poison?"
It was clear by the glances they exchanged that the Garou thought them more than a bit odd. Louis spoke patiently, as if trying to answer an errant child who kept asking why. "Well, he wasn' bouncing back an' forth between man an' wolf by den, was he? An he was still alive, so he had to have been rid of de poison. De struggle don' stop till de poison is is stopped or yo' dead!"
"But how was the poison stopped?" Roland pressed.
Louis smiled. "De Moon-blessed tears o' de witch, dey be powerful proof agains' poison, non? Her magic heal him."
Sure enough, when they looked at his shoulder, they saw that the wound was healed over, a white scar in its place. Well, if her teammates didn't know she was a witch before, they surely knew now. Yet all she saw in their expressions was relief that she had been able to save their friend's life. A friend she herself was overjoyed at having been able to save. Her happiness at that wiped away all her fears.
With all their eyes on him, Eduardo realized something. "Um... where... are my clothes?!?"