Mending Shards
A/N: Airwolf belongs to Bellisario and Universal, the Real Ghostbusters to Columbia/DIC. Airwolf is AU (moved ahead about twenty years).
~*~*~*~*~
"So what's your problem, Mr. Wolfe?" Janine's Brooklyn accent cut through Peter Venkman's pleasant haze of daydream; Tahiti beaches and scantily-dressed fire-dancers vanished, replaced by the reality of his sore wrist, cluttered office and someone else's low, painful sob.
He was up and at the doorway before the second sob. The rest of the team was out three-manning a simple Class Two, giving him the afternoon to nurse his sprained wrist, but never let it be said that Dr. Venkman ignored a woman in distress-
Stopped dead in the doorway, slashed by a cold blue gaze. Whoa. Somebody's not happy to be here.
Half-dark glasses returned to the Ghostbusters' secretary; the blue-eyed man gestured the fragile blonde with him into the more comfortable of their customers' chairs. His blonde companion sank into beige cushions, a silent tear glistening down her cheek. "I'm not certain you can, Ms. Melnitz. This has nothing to do with ghosts." His left hand spread gracefully, upper-class contrast to his casual jeans and blue jacket; Peter noted how it drew attention away from the rosewood cane, even as Janine sat up in friendly interest at this evidence of manners. "But experts in psychic wounds are few and far between."
The blonde's eyes closed. "It won't bring her back...."
"No. It won't." Some of the chill lifted from Wolfe's gaze; winter dawn, next to the blizzard that had assaulted Peter. "But we have to think about you, now."
Silence. Another silvery tear, tracing skin and bone.
"Penelope-" Wolfe's briefcase rang. "Excuse me a moment, Ms. Melnitz." He undid the combination on the case, took out something just a bit bulkier than the average cell phone. "Yes?" He leaned his cane against Janine's desk, took out a slim folder. Laid it before the secretary with a genteel nod. "Really. How thoughtless of him. Yes. Soon." He switched off his phone, bit back a curse. "I have to go."
At last, Penelope reacted, huddling on herself in the chair. "No, please-"
"I have to." Silk over steel. "I'll be back when I can. Or Marella will."
"Marella can't keep-" Penelope bit her lip. "It won't be quiet."
"Penelope." Wolfe's voice was still patience, just beginning to fray at the edges as he re-locked his suitcase. "This is New York."
"Not outside noise." The blonde's fragile face turned mule-stubborn. "Sir, everyone in the office knows...."
Knows what? Peter lifted brown brows, curious. Outside noise? As opposed to what?
And sir? Why'd this guy rate a sir?
Wolfe took a deep breath, let it out in strained forbearance. Glanced at the green-eyed psychologist. "Dr. Venkman. Among that folder's more pertinent contents are a nondisclosure contract and a check for one day of your standard rates. Further payment we'll arrange as necessary. If I don't leave now, we may have far worse to worry about than... noise."
"Didn't catch your name," Peter pointed out. Carefully casual; the things that didn't add up about this guy could've filled one of Egon's notebooks.
The man hesitated on the threshold. "Michael. Michael Wolfe."
And he was gone.
~*~*~*~*~
"Rebecca's dead." Penelope Courtland hugged navy-skirted knees to her chest on the bench in Egon's lab, curled on herself like a child waiting for the Bogeyman. "My sister - it hurts. I can't make it... stop hurting."
"You want some coffee, sweetie?" Janine wrapped a spare blanket around the blonde, giving one thin shoulder a gentle squeeze.
"No." A violent head-shake tossed gold locks over blanket fuzz. "Makes it... hurt worse."
"While caffeine is quite useful in cases of psychic over-extension, it is generally contraindicated in cases of psychic injury." Dr. Egon Spengler made one last notation, handed his results over to Ray. "Allow me to be frank, Ms. Courtland. You are suffering from a deep aural wound. As is only to be expected when one loses a partner in an empathic link. Given that you have survived to this point, your prognosis is good." The physicist's voice was steady, still caught in calculations rather than emotional realities.
"Frank would be, she's lucky to be here," Peter murmured to Winston. The two of them were holding up a wall at the other end of the lab, out of the way of Egon's latest glowy thingamajig. "Empaths tend to go down when their partner does. Like a wizard losing a familiar. No matter how weak the link is."
Zeddemore gave him a wary look, re-checking that they were out of casual earshot. "What, they just die?"
"Sometimes," Peter nodded. "Psychoneuroimmunology. Mind affects the body." Part of medical science he'd looked into long before they'd become Ghostbusters; curious, from a psychological standpoint, why some deathly ill patients might get better, while others who should have recovered - didn't. "If the psychic shock doesn't kill them, the aural damage and depression knocks down their immune system so much they can get taken out by the next flu."
"But she looks good," Winston pointed out.
"Somebody's been looking after her," the psychologist agreed. "Making sure she eats, sleeps, doesn't wander into traffic...."
The dark Ghostbuster cast him a suspicious glance. "Gets all the way through Manhattan without being munched on?"
Oh, yeah. When an injured clairvoyant should've been the metaphysical equivalent of "FRESH EATS HERE". Peter crossed his arms, winced. "I think we should have a little talk with Mr. Wolfe."
Especially given that bombshell of a folder he'd dropped in Janine's lap. Which was long on raw data, and very, very skimpy on details. It had when Penelope had first reported Rebecca's death, how long she'd been ill, the fact that they, whoever "they" were, believed Rebecca had been killed by some sort of possessing entity-
But not a shred of who or what or where.
All of which was giving the son of a con man one very bad feeling.
"Thing is, it looks like whatever - killed - your sister used the link as a carrier wave," Ray said earnestly. "It went through her to hit you."
"There are definite non-human frequencies caught in your aura." A blond brow rose, almost brushing the physicist's improbable curl of hair.
"That's why it hurts so much," Ray agreed. "If we can clear those out, well...." The redheaded occultist hesitated, unwilling to cause any more pain.
"If we can clear them out, it's still going to hurt," Peter stepped into the breach. "And it's going to hurt for a long time. Losing people always does." He took her cold hand, gave her his best confident smile. "But you had the guts to get this far. You can do it."
"We will, of course, need the details of your treatment to this point," Egon stated.
Penelope blinked at him, lost. "Treatment?"
"What your friends have been doing to help you out," Winston put in. "You know, just the basics. Talking about it, getting away from people?"
Penelope nodded; flinched as Egon ran a PKE meter close to her hair. "When they - knew something was really wrong...." She licked bitten lips. "Mr. Wolfe and Marella - Marella's my real boss, she works for him - they brought me to Hawke's cabin."
"Hawke?" Peter asked mildly. Something about her eyes, as she'd said the name.... She's hiding something. What did this guy do?
A shadow of a shrug. "They say they're not friends, but... when Mr. Wolfe just needs to get away from - the office, he goes up there." Pale fingers laced together, twisted. "I'd never been there before. It's nice. So quiet. No voices."
"A psychic null spot?" Ray all but bounced in place. "I mean, theoretically they can exist, but I didn't think anybody could live there."
"No," Penelope shook her head. "It's not - dead. Just quiet. Just the lake, and the forest, and the mountains...."
"And a Class Six with friendly intentions," Egon added.
Winston's head jerked toward the physicist. "Say what?"
Egon waved his meter. "The readings are quite clear. Ms. Courtland shows definite traces of the protective influence of a Class Six non-human incorporeal entity."
"The guy who brought her in was solid, Egon," Peter pointed out.
"I'm certain he was. Yet the aural traces are unmistakable." Egon tapped up red glasses, regarded their patient. "Are you a practitioner of the occult, Ms. Courtland?"
Some shreds of sanity gathered in Penelope's gaze; active thought, weakening the grip of pain. "I - no. I meditate, a little, to keep the visions under control... but that's all." She drew in a shaky breath, more puzzled than afraid. "Why?"
"Is Mr. Hawke? Or Mr. Wolfe?"
"He's a data analyst." Penelope glanced up at Ray, eyes pleading. "Why would we need magic?"
Right. A data analyst who knew just when to push the right buttons with a certain naïve occultist, so he wouldn't notice what she hadn't said about Hawke. And I'm Mata Hari, Peter thought wryly.
But Dr. Venkman knew enough to know when he wasn't going to get more answers.
Not yet.
~*~*~*~*~
"So... what's up, Spengs?"
Peter kept his voice low as the physicist dug into a closet full of long-sealed boxes, conscious of Ms. Courtland watching with avid interest.
"I know it was located somewhere within this vicinity...."
Winston helped lift a box out of an awkward corner. "What was, m'man?"
Egon stopped mid-search. "I believe I've seen that Class Six's readings before."
Down, Peter told the sudden lurch in his nerves. Bad subconscious. No donut. "And you didn't think this was worth mentioning because...?"
"It wasn't in a harmful context - ah." A hand popped up, brandishing a tied folder. "Ms. Courtland. Have you ever encountered a Dr. Jane Bethancourt?"
The blonde hesitated a split second too long. "I don't think so."
Egon might have missed the lie, Peter wasn't sure. "In any case, Peter, you should recall the name."
"Um...."
"The AI specialist?" Ray plucked the folder from Egon's grip. Frowned at the hand-lettered label.
Tulpa/tupilak/ship spirit, ran the scribbled cursive, in strange, silvery ink. Peter frowned. Familiar terms. And they had nothing to do with computer programming.
"That's a weird combination," Ray said, shaking his head in puzzlement as he headed for a bookshelf. "I mean, they've got some basic similarities, but why anyone would be looking at them together...."
"Much less a computer science expert." Egon agreed, dusting off his knees as he rose. He reclaimed his folder, opened to the first pages. "These appear to be preliminary notes for program design."
Penelope went subtly stiff. "They are?"
"Very preliminary," Egon waved it off. "Possibly a sketch of a database? Though why one would have these terms interrelated with high technology... hmm."
"I think you lost Pete," Winston said wryly, exchanging a glance with the psychologist. "I know you lost me."
"Sailing ships used to be the highest, most advanced technology around," Ray pointed out, pulling down texts. He opened a worn page, pointed to an illustration of a ghostly form intertwined with a wooden hull. "You had whole groups of skilled crafters working on each ship. Put that many people working toward one common goal, and you end up with a mass gathering of PKE. Name it properly, and you've got a ship spirit."
"Nice folks," Peter winked at their unsettled patient. "We've met a few. They like New York Harbor."
"Now I know they're crazy," Penelope muttered.
Ow. "What's wrong with New York?"
She raised a blonde brow. "It's not California."
"Point."
"Tulpas are a bit more problematic," Egon noted.
"Yeah, aren't they Tibetan?" Peter tried to quell a feeling of unease. Tulpas had to do with psychics, and illusion, and some of the really nasty tricks a determined person could pull with enough PKE to back them up.
"Originally," the physicist agreed. "Though with the modern spread of information, they've been created in many other locations. Witches, especially, have taken up the technique. With rather more lasting success as groups than solitary monks, from the available evidence."
"Tulpa?" Penelope asked pointedly.
"A concentrated thought form," Egon informed her. "A mass, patterned gathering of PKE. It has free will, but no true physical existence. Still, it can appear to observers, apparently by telepathic projection of an image. Covens will create them to protect a person or place. A certain 'Green Lady' who watches over seals and animal rights activists on a particular stretch of Irish coast, the 'Man in the Trench Coat' who follows Russian Embassy personnel near Langley...."
Peter mentally rolled his eyes. A spook's spook. Go figure.
Egon had paused, mid-thought. "Curious. There is a baseline similarity."
"Patterned PKE?" Winston guessed.
"One embodied, one not," Egon agreed. "Though why anyone would be investigating those in relation to tupilek...."
Penelope skipped her glance from one Ghostbuster to another, settled on Peter.
"Ah, yeah." The parapsychologist shivered. Those critters he remembered. "Tupilek are killers."
"They're... not nice," Ray allowed.
"Almost the darkest kind of witchcraft you find north of the Arctic Circle," Peter went on. "Somebody gets a hate on for somebody else, and they know the right technique, they go out and build one of these... things." Magical constructs, in a myriad of demonic forms, built of seaweed and bone and hate. Slipped into the sea with a whispered curse, sent to stalk and find and kill.
His shoulders still had one long claw mark from the one they'd met in the shape of a glowing-eyed polar bear. Egon had as much as said that scar would never fade.
"But it's dumb," Ray protested. "It's like Russian Roulette with magic. Send a tupilak after somebody who has more powerful magic than you do, and they can send it back after you."
"Which assumes that it pursues its given target in the first place, and does not hunt its creator immediately." Egon tapped his glasses up speculatively. "Intriguing. There is a point of congruence after all. It is rare... but like tulpas and ship spirits, tupilek are patterned creations of PKE. One could say, programmed PKE. All originally given specific purpose, who can occasionally develop free will and act on their own." Blue eyes frowned in a moment's spatial calculation; he began reassembling the closet's jumble of boxes. "I was mistaken. There would indeed be good reason for an artificial intelligence expert to investigate such matters."
Penelope looked at them, shook her head in disbelief. "I always thought wizards didn't like computers."
"She's right," Winston pointed out, propping up a particularly recalcitrant box while Ray and Egon eased the closet door shut. "All those electrons getting shoved around inside, the whole anti-magic worldview that comes with?"
"It does make it hard for them to work with high tech," Ray agreed. "But we can make them work together. Why couldn't a real wizardess?"
Peter rescued the folder before it could get slammed back into the closet. "And you think Bethancourt was a real wizardess?"
"I don't know; I never got the chance to meet her," Ray said sadly. "Egon did, when she visited Columbia."
"Once," Egon noted. "At the time, we had difficulty enough pursuing the idea of supernatural entities. The subject of wizardry never came up."
"But she wrote nice letters," Ray added.
Wrote? "So Dr. Bethancourt gave you these papers?"
"They arrived through the mail. But yes, she did send them." Egon's normally-calm countenance was dark. "Shortly before she died... under rather unusual circumstances." He looked at Courtland, a shadow of old hurt in blue eyes.
Penelope was the first to drop her gaze. "I wasn't there," she admitted, voice thick. "I didn't see what happened. I was... lucky."
Egon's eyes narrowed behind clear lenses. "When I inquired, I was given to understand it was an accident."
"That's what... someone tried to tell me about Rebecca," Penelope said thickly. "Mr. Wolfe found out what really happened. He didn't... didn't let them get away with the lie. They just think they did." She swallowed back tears, looked down.
"Data analyst, huh?" Winston crossed his arms. "Just what kind of data does Mr. Wolfe analyze?"
"You were in the armed forces, Mr. Zeddemore." Faint color had come back to her cheeks. "What do you think?"
Yeah, that's what I thought, Peter winced. Now he knew why his nerves had been acting up. Con men had nothing on these guys. And he'd better make sure it stayed that way. "Ms. Courtland. You can tell your boss that all of this stays under the nondisclosure agreement. We're not going to talk."
"If the circumstances of Dr. Bethancourt's death were falsified-" the physicist began.
"Egon. We're not going to talk." Don't push on this one, Spengs. He glanced toward Ray. You do not want to know what these people can do. And neither do I.
"Got that right," Winston muttered, eyes flicking toward the youngest Ghostbuster. "'Course, you knew that, Miss, or you wouldn't have said word one. Am I right?"
"Penelope." Ray leaned in close, oblivious to his friends' concern. "What really happened to Dr. Bethancourt?"
Courtland closed her eyes, drew in a long, steadying breath. "Like I said, I wasn't there," she said frankly. "But where I work, they know I can see things. Sometimes. I came - I came to help find survivors. There weren't many."
"Survivors?" Peter tried to keep his voice level. Oh, this really didn't sound good.
"Marella had a broken back," Penelope went on in a low whisper, as if she hadn't heard. "They almost didn't get her to the hospital, we didn't know if she'd make it, if she'd be paralyzed... Ar- Mr. Wolfe's heart stopped, right in the medevac chopper. They brought him back, said he was too stubborn to die." She blinked away tears, glanced up. "And they were the lucky ones."
Silently, Winston offered a tissue.
She took it; wiped away salt water, twisted soft paper in her hands. "We lost - so many people that day," she said, voice broken with old hate. "That bastard. If Moffet wasn't already dead-" She shivered with rage, burst into a fresh wave of tears.
Peter moved in with a soothing hand, murmured meaningless sounds as she cried into his shoulder. Man, how long has she kept this bottled up? Intelligence agent, Dr. Venkman; not like they look up shrinks on purpose. No wonder whatever hit her hit so hard. Egon and Ray's research showed hate could actually fissure the aura, leave cracks dark power could exploit.
That's right, lady. Just cry. Just cry.
Sobs finally slowed, turned to raw, painful gulps. "It wasn't an earthquake, Dr. Spengler," Penelope finally managed. "Moffet - blew up the tower." Pale hands clenched into fists, pressed against her temples. "That murdering bastard used us to get what he wanted, and then-" She shook her head fiercely. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry...."
Peter let Ray and Winston take over the soothing, walked over to the firepole opening. "Janine?"
A pop of bubble gum floated up. "Yeah, Dr. V.?"
"How are we doing on hot cocoa?"
He could all but see her shrug. "You're the guy closer to the kitchen."
"And we love you too, Janine." Excuse established, Peter headed upstairs for the kitchen cabinets. He had to think.
A computer scientist looking into tulpas. Who were PKE, pure and simple. Who had to be built out of energy the creator had access to, so they didn't usually get above Class Four. Egon and Ray were pretty confident even a coven couldn't push one beyond low-grade Class Five.
Class Six.
Probably a coincidence. Guardian spirits were out there. Especially in natural environments like Hawke's cabin. And some guardians were pretty high on the supernatural food chain.
Except....
Bethancourt had been a victim of mass murder. Which cut loose lots of PKE, and if she'd already been started on something-
You didn't have to have magic to build a tupilak. All you had to have was know-how.
Oh, for goodness' sakes. Peter grabbed cocoa mix, started a pot of milk warming. Think, Dr. Venkman. If a supercharged tupilak were slaughtering its way across the country, you would have heard about it by now.
~*~*~*~*~
Hairsbreadth by hairsbreadth, Penelope lowered her interwoven hands from in front of her face. First a clear swathe of forehead appeared, then blonde brows, then the tiniest hint of blue eyes-
"Boo!"
"Yaah!" Slimer dove through the table, leaving a green smear in his wake.
"Oh, good going, Spud," Peter grumbled, not even bothering to try to pick up the TV schedule now slimed to the tabletop. It'd been a long night, and then a longer morning, even though everything had gone well. Egon and Ray's mix of electromagnetic and low-level gravity-wave equipment was gradually working the alien intrusion of PKE out of Courtland's aura, and their meters already showed signs of aural recovery.
Now it was afternoon, and they were waiting for Penelope's friend to check in. And - at least in his case - hoping Egon's guess was right, and that simply having a guy who knew a Class Six in the building wasn't a harbinger of Armageddon.
Been there, done that. Not interested in a sequel.
The green ghost popped halfway up through the tabletop, extended about three feet of seriously gross tongue. "Nyah!"
The data analyst giggled, though it quickly trailed off into a shuddering sigh. "Thank you, Dr. Venkman. For being... honest."
"There's a good reason why most cultures have a year of mourning," the psychologist shrugged. "It takes time." But at least now, you'll get a chance to have that time.
"Hey, guys!"
Peter slid down the firepole last, met a coffee-hued woman's amused gaze and Janine's sly grin. "Ma'am. I don't believe we've been introduced?"
"Dr. Marella Duval." The woman in the white flight suit tossed back dark curls, gave him a purely professional curve of lips. Turned a slightly warmer smile on the rest of the Ghostbusters. "And how is our patient? Ms. Melnitz said she wasn't quite ready to travel."
"She's doing great," Ray said earnestly. "A few more days, and she should be fine."
Right. A few more days of bunking Ms. Courtland inside the firehall's protective devices or with Janine; good thing Melnitz wasn't mad at him this week. Yet. "Where's Mr. Wolfe?" Peter asked pointedly.
Marella hesitated; a split-second's silence. "He couldn't come."
A squeak of flesh over polished steel; Penelope stumbled on the first step away from the firepole, steadied herself. "Is Ar- is Mr. Wolfe in trouble?"
"No more so than usual." A snow-white shrug. "I should be going-"
The strident hum of a meter cut her off; Egon arched a blond brow at his scan. "Fascinating. The same Class Six."
"Marella, are you sure he's safe?" Penelope fell in beside the dark woman, eyes wide. "They say there might be something - hanging around Mr. Wolfe-"
"He's safe." Duval's smile flickered, turned wry and bittersweet. "As safe as anyone in our line of work."
"So you know about what's hanging around him." Winston crossed his arms.
"Yes," Duval said softly. "Yes, I do." She glanced away, sighed. "Please don't ask, gentlemen. Mr. Wolfe has to deal with the Pentagon from time to time. They're not very congenial to those who have... unusual experiences."
"Any entity with this level of power should be investigated," Egon stated flatly. "The consequences, should it prove hostile-"
"I'll tell him," Marella said levelly.
With a nod, she was gone.