The phone jangled insistently, a raucous summons that rose above the steady
city sounds to shatter the night. With a low curse Winston abandoned the
lavatory, buttoning his pajamas as he moved. He staggered into the
bunkroom and snapped on the overhead light, brushing a hovering Slimer
curtly aside. "Four-thirty," he growled, padding to the phone while
vigorously scrubbing his eyes with one hand. "Not even dawn and....
Whadda'ya want? ... Hello?" He listened a moment, then slammed the
receiver down with a snarl.
"W-Winston."
"Lousy crank calls at...." Zeddemore turned, his words trailing off at first sight of the still horizontal Egon Spengler and the reason for the utter horror which creased the physicist's angular features.
Now waking up to find your best friend lying in your arms isn't necessarily an unpleasant thing. Oh, it may be a bit of a surprise and he'd better have a very good reason for being there, but it needn't cause more than a minor stir in your morning if handled right.
But wake up to find your best friend not only lying in your arms but also quietly bleeding his life out onto your linen, and all bets are off. This Egon found out the hard way. He had awakened at the first ring of the phone, lazy and comfortable and unwilling to bestir himself. Slowly he became aware first of a warm weight pinning his left arm to the bed, and second that he was holding someone very tightly against his side. "Doesn't feel like Janine," he'd muttered, instinctively snuggling closer. It was at that moment Winston switched on the light and Spengler got his first look at the auburn hair tickling his chin; puzzled if unalarmed, he lifted his head, blinking myopically at the visitor, craning to see the other's face. "Who? Ray?"
There was something sticky soaking into the arm draped across Ray's chest; Egon frowned and released the younger man, lifting it for a closer inspection. Even without his glasses he could tell it was viscous and red. Blood.
Egon's eyes went wide, horror freezing him where he lay. "W-Winston?
"Ray?" Slimer wailed, taking one look at the unconscious Ghostbuster and zooming around the ceiling like a green bat. "Ray's dead!"
Breaking his trance, Winston crossed the intervening space in three strides, banging his shin painfully against the nightstand in his haste. "What happened?" he demanded, managing to hand Spengler his glasses while hopping on one foot.
"I ... I don't know." Egon carefully donned his glasses, grimacing at the scarlet drops which rolled off the silk sleeve of his nightshirt as he moved. He touched his mouth, then examined his fingers suspiciously. "I-I didn't...?"
"'Course you didn't," Winston snapped, levering his arm under Ray's shoulders. "It looks like he was put here after you were asleep." He lifted the limp form, waiting until Spengler had extricated himself before laying the engineer gently down again and wrapping his fingers around Ray's wrist. "Cold, clammy skin ... racing pulse. Shock. Call an ambulance, Egon. Fast."
"Shock!" Slimer echoed, coming to light on the footboard. "Ray's dying! Yucky red."
"Blood loss?" Egon asked, striving valiantly to recover his aplomb while silently agreeing with Slimer's evaluation. Zeddemore nodded. "Bad?"
"Bad as I've ever seen." He exchanged a worried look with the blond before turning his attention back to Stantz. "Slimer, go fetch the first aid kit out of the bathroom; I'll see what I can do to stop him losing any more blood."
"What there is of it," Egon murmured, picking up the phone.
While Egon dialed, Winston collected pillows from three of the beds, shoving them under Ray's knees, thus bringing his legs higher than his heart. Slimer was back in seconds bearing a white and red tin in both hands. Winston cleaned the slime off on the sheets then opened the lid and extracted a roll of gauze. This he pressed against Ray's throat, holding it firmly but gently in place. These ministration produced the barest tinge of color in Ray's face but little beyond that -- the young man's breathing came in even shallower gasps, and his lips were still blue. "Egon?" Winston called, interrupting the other's rapid-fire speech into the phone.
Spengler placed his hand over the receiver to shoot his comrade a frightened look. "What is it?"
Zeddemore met that look grimly. "Tell them to hurry," he said quietly. "I don't think Ray's got much longer to live."
***
It was evening.
How he knew this Peter was unable to explain, but there was something inside of him, some internal clock that reminded him as if with gentle chimes that the sun had set and he should be about.
"To hunt," the Q'utah prodded. "To feed. To experience life."
"Someone else's life," Peter snapped, nerves strung tight as wires.
"It becomes our's," the beings replied with growing urgency. "It is enough."
Peter gritted his teeth, feeling two of them cutting into his lower lip. "Why not tell me what you did with Ray this morning? It obviously wasn't blood you were after, so why run the vampire scam?"
"Vampires cause fear," one told him with a chuckle. "We could have lengthened your nails instead of your teeth but there is no fear in that. Fear tastes best."
"Dying opens the pathways of the mind," another added. "A slow death allows us time to savor the feed."
"We say a man's life passes before his eyes when he dies," Peter murmured, touching the new fangs with his forefinger. He shuddered at the remembered feeling of them slicing through the exposed flesh, could taste again the coppery salt of Ray's blood filling his mouth. He spat involuntarily and wiped his mouth on one crud infested sleeve. They hadn't needed blood at all -- even now Peter's stomach churned at the remembrance of the sticky fluid filling his mouth. Ray had bled his life away for Peter's sustenance, yet it had ended up all on the living room carpet. All for their enjoyment.
"Time to hunt," echoed urgently inside his own skull. "Time to feed."
Peter's leg twitched as a prelude to standing. Forcibly he controlled it, fighting off the Q'utah's bid by exerting his iron will to the utmost. "Not this time, bunkies," he snarled, wrapping his arms around his pulled up knees. "We're staying right here until morning. I'm not hurting anyone else."
He concentrated on breathing. In. Out. In. You can almost get used to the sewer smell if you're exposed to it long enough. Almost. Peter's nostrils flared testing this hypothesis, an explosive sneeze the only result. Definitely worse than a catbox; the stench was overpowering. Rodents and insects scampered across his body at will; he'd tried to brush them away at first, but sunrise had brought with it a curious lassitude that numbed even the disgusted horror of the vermin. He was huddled on a cement shelf above the water level and six feet underground -- Appropriate, he thought dryly -- safe from the dreaded sunlight that baked the tarmac overhead.
He'd slept fitfully all day, nightmares inhabiting both sleeping and waking time. The Q'utah, fortunately, had grown passive save for a background pressure against his skull. He knew they were there but his consciousness was inviolate ... he hoped ... and his actions, for the moment, were his own.
Finding some measure of solace in that thought despite the fact that his body was screaming at him for care, he dug out the apple he'd stuffed into his pocket that morning. It was seeping juice and shriveled but Peter was so hungry he couldn't have cared less. Nibbling at it around his fangs, he devoured the fruit inside of a minute flat. It sat in the pit of his stomach like lead, filling the void there but not salving his hunger one iota. His body may have required food but the Q'utah -- and Peter -- required far more.
Nausea at least temporarily assuaged, Peter allowed himself to drift, replaying the occurrences of the dawn in his mind. For a brief second he was again Ray Stantz, enthusiastic and boyish and trusting. How can anyone be that eternally cheerful after living with those people for ten years? But the winter sunlight was warm on his face and there was a gentleness in his heart for the small life entrusted to his care. Maybe farm life isn't quite as bad as I thought, Peter conceded but only to himself. The gentleness extended and grew, and Peter again felt it directed towards himself, and was both humbled and touched at the depth of devotion the younger man felt for him. For me, Peter thought, having to swallow a lump in his throat. I always knew how much the kid cared, but it's not the same as feeling it like this. He started to relax, letting Ray's warmth wash over him, admitting the reverse to be also true: he cared for Ray every bit as much -- more -- than if they'd actually been born brothers. Blood brothers now, he thought bitterly, letting Ray's affection soothe away his pain. Wish I could have felt Egon like that. Right now I need him even worse than Ray.
The mental reflecting pool rippled and he was again himself, standing stiff legged and rejuvenated, holding the limp body of his young friend in his arms. His heart wrenched with anguish, his hands were saturated with blood.
With a bang the vision ended. Peter jerked bolt upright, sick with worry for Ray and filled with revulsion at himself. Dried blood crackled in his clothing as he huddled smaller against the damp chill. Was Ray ... gone? He remembered Winston's voice on the phone, clinging to the memory of that strong baritone and drawing what comfort he could from its mellow tones. Winston was security -- a strong wall at his back. He'd've known what to do to help Ray. And if Winston was awake then Egon was too. They could not have helped but notice Ray -- Egon certainly couldn't! Peter had hung up reluctantly on Winston's angry demand for identification, then ducked into the nearest manhole. The last thing he'd heard before vanishing into the veritable bowels of the earth was the frantic wailing of a siren heading toward the garage. Had it been in time to save Ray? Or had Stantz succumbed to the brutalities of the night and become what Egon's prediction had named him: an animated corpse, bereft of life?
No. Peter refused to accept that. Didn't the very fact that he so craved a return to the young man prove that Ray was still alive?
"We hunger."
"You hunger, too, boy."
Hunger. Peter huddled farther back in his alcove, and licked his lips. He was ravenous -- worse than before. Not only physically but ... empty. The hunger ached and consumed and Peter knew within his soul that the only relief lay in the half-dead form of his dearest friend. Peter wanted.
"No," he whispered, unfolding from his ball and standing. "Ray is my friend."
"You need only taste," a voice whispered persuasively. "Touch and taste."
"He wants you to come," another prodded, sending enough fire through Peter's veins to stagger him. "He waits. Dreams of your coming."
"Go to him and we shall relate to you the Qutah."
Weakened and confused by the assault, Peter again drowsed, waking to find himself stumbling down a back alley in a section of town he didn't recognize, his mind filled with alien images and knowledge that filled him with dejection.
"How did I get here?" he asked, unable to process so much information at once. "Where am I?"
"The hunt is on!" The Q'utah talked all at once, babbling their pleasure at the concept. The cacophony was mind-numbing, Peter's psionics increasing with the parasites' excitement. His mind expanded, encompassing his surroundings. He sensed the young couple behind the nearest wall, experienced their joy at welcoming their first child into the world. The next building housed a man who had just murdered a child. Peter flinched away from his perverted pleasures, though the Q'utah reached out eagerly.
"Him!" they crowed even as Peter regained enough control to turn and flee. He walked for a long time, from alley to busy street, his hunger growing into a consuming madness. Red spots swirled before his eyes and he must have blacked out, for the next thing he knew he was in another featureless alley, with a young woman in a short skirt backed up against the wall. Her eyes were glazing over as Ray's had when Peter's teeth had descended on the young man's unprotected throat. She wouldn't feel a thing ... until it was time for the fear spice to be added.
He recoiled, hesitated, and neared the unresisting woman again, brushing his fingers along her cheek. She was young, vibrant, full of life, and her energies crooned to him sweetly of desire and gaiety. He opened his mouth, fascinated by the little smile that touched the woman's lips, disgusted by what he was doing. I'm going to kill her, he thought with horror. He stopped, weighing alternatives, then made his decision, carefully and deliberately. Sorry, lady, but it's you or Ray and I don't want to hurt Ray again. In the background of his thoughts the Q'utah cheered him on ... then went silent. Peter's lips touched soft, white skin ... and froze.
"I can't take you," he said wonderingly, backing away. The woman made a soft little sound of protest as he withdrew, blinking her way out of her entrancement. "The Q'utah can't use you. Why?"
"Why ... uh ... what?" she answered, becoming fully aware. "Who are you? What happened?" She got her first good look at Peter, her mouth becoming a large "O" of astonishment. "Who--?"
Peter ignored her, glad she hadn't started to scream. He might have started to scream had he found himself being accosted by a wild-eyed, grime- and-blood encrusted man who smelled of the sewers. For the Q'utah the woman ceased to exist. They grumbled to themselves, forcing Peter's legs to carry them to safety. "Why couldn't I take her?" Peter asked aloud, ignoring the strange look this got him from a passing muscleman in a flannel shirt.
The low mumbling ceased, growing into clear speech. "This is all the boy's fault," one growled in the back of his thoughts. "We should have made sure to have finished him off. Now we are bound."
The boy? Did they mean Ray? "What are you talking about?" Peter slowed his stride now that the woman had been left far behind. "What does this have to do with Ray?"
"The boy has bound us," the Q'utah returned angrily. "It is a blood oath even we cannot break."
"We must return to him now," another put in, no less furious at this turn of events. "We are bound."
Blood oath? Peter bit his lip, concentrating furiously on this cryptic statement. Vaguely the memories drifted back to the pre-dawn hours. Blood oath. He remembered a promise Ray had coerced from him in his moment of madness.
"Promise me, Peter," Ray's voice begged from far away. "Promise that you'll always come back to me for blood rather than touch anyone else."
Peter had sworn even as he'd drawn first blood. A blood oath. The combination must have been binding on such interdimensional creatures even as Stantz had suspected. Peter admired the younger man's cool-headedness. A neat trap, kid, he applauded, bringing his hands together twice.
Come back to me. Back to Ray. If he was still alive.
Clarified, the pull grew directional. Peter was no longer drawn to personalities along the way. His steps turned of their own accord to the west, some sixth sense telling him that that was the direction Ray Stantz lay. The pull was strong, the temptation great. Ray's touch, Ray's warmth filling his veins, Ray's past flashing behind his closed lids, Ray's....
Ray's life.
Ray was still alive. That was something. But as the Q'utah's chosen target, how long would he remain that way?
***
"W-Winston."
"Lousy crank calls at...." Zeddemore turned, his words trailing off at first sight of the still horizontal Egon Spengler and the reason for the utter horror which creased the physicist's angular features.
Now waking up to find your best friend lying in your arms isn't necessarily an unpleasant thing. Oh, it may be a bit of a surprise and he'd better have a very good reason for being there, but it needn't cause more than a minor stir in your morning if handled right.
But wake up to find your best friend not only lying in your arms but also quietly bleeding his life out onto your linen, and all bets are off. This Egon found out the hard way. He had awakened at the first ring of the phone, lazy and comfortable and unwilling to bestir himself. Slowly he became aware first of a warm weight pinning his left arm to the bed, and second that he was holding someone very tightly against his side. "Doesn't feel like Janine," he'd muttered, instinctively snuggling closer. It was at that moment Winston switched on the light and Spengler got his first look at the auburn hair tickling his chin; puzzled if unalarmed, he lifted his head, blinking myopically at the visitor, craning to see the other's face. "Who? Ray?"
There was something sticky soaking into the arm draped across Ray's chest; Egon frowned and released the younger man, lifting it for a closer inspection. Even without his glasses he could tell it was viscous and red. Blood.
Egon's eyes went wide, horror freezing him where he lay. "W-Winston?
"Ray?" Slimer wailed, taking one look at the unconscious Ghostbuster and zooming around the ceiling like a green bat. "Ray's dead!"
Breaking his trance, Winston crossed the intervening space in three strides, banging his shin painfully against the nightstand in his haste. "What happened?" he demanded, managing to hand Spengler his glasses while hopping on one foot.
"I ... I don't know." Egon carefully donned his glasses, grimacing at the scarlet drops which rolled off the silk sleeve of his nightshirt as he moved. He touched his mouth, then examined his fingers suspiciously. "I-I didn't...?"
"'Course you didn't," Winston snapped, levering his arm under Ray's shoulders. "It looks like he was put here after you were asleep." He lifted the limp form, waiting until Spengler had extricated himself before laying the engineer gently down again and wrapping his fingers around Ray's wrist. "Cold, clammy skin ... racing pulse. Shock. Call an ambulance, Egon. Fast."
"Shock!" Slimer echoed, coming to light on the footboard. "Ray's dying! Yucky red."
"Blood loss?" Egon asked, striving valiantly to recover his aplomb while silently agreeing with Slimer's evaluation. Zeddemore nodded. "Bad?"
"Bad as I've ever seen." He exchanged a worried look with the blond before turning his attention back to Stantz. "Slimer, go fetch the first aid kit out of the bathroom; I'll see what I can do to stop him losing any more blood."
"What there is of it," Egon murmured, picking up the phone.
While Egon dialed, Winston collected pillows from three of the beds, shoving them under Ray's knees, thus bringing his legs higher than his heart. Slimer was back in seconds bearing a white and red tin in both hands. Winston cleaned the slime off on the sheets then opened the lid and extracted a roll of gauze. This he pressed against Ray's throat, holding it firmly but gently in place. These ministration produced the barest tinge of color in Ray's face but little beyond that -- the young man's breathing came in even shallower gasps, and his lips were still blue. "Egon?" Winston called, interrupting the other's rapid-fire speech into the phone.
Spengler placed his hand over the receiver to shoot his comrade a frightened look. "What is it?"
Zeddemore met that look grimly. "Tell them to hurry," he said quietly. "I don't think Ray's got much longer to live."
***
It was evening.
How he knew this Peter was unable to explain, but there was something inside of him, some internal clock that reminded him as if with gentle chimes that the sun had set and he should be about.
"To hunt," the Q'utah prodded. "To feed. To experience life."
"Someone else's life," Peter snapped, nerves strung tight as wires.
"It becomes our's," the beings replied with growing urgency. "It is enough."
Peter gritted his teeth, feeling two of them cutting into his lower lip. "Why not tell me what you did with Ray this morning? It obviously wasn't blood you were after, so why run the vampire scam?"
"Vampires cause fear," one told him with a chuckle. "We could have lengthened your nails instead of your teeth but there is no fear in that. Fear tastes best."
"Dying opens the pathways of the mind," another added. "A slow death allows us time to savor the feed."
"We say a man's life passes before his eyes when he dies," Peter murmured, touching the new fangs with his forefinger. He shuddered at the remembered feeling of them slicing through the exposed flesh, could taste again the coppery salt of Ray's blood filling his mouth. He spat involuntarily and wiped his mouth on one crud infested sleeve. They hadn't needed blood at all -- even now Peter's stomach churned at the remembrance of the sticky fluid filling his mouth. Ray had bled his life away for Peter's sustenance, yet it had ended up all on the living room carpet. All for their enjoyment.
"Time to hunt," echoed urgently inside his own skull. "Time to feed."
Peter's leg twitched as a prelude to standing. Forcibly he controlled it, fighting off the Q'utah's bid by exerting his iron will to the utmost. "Not this time, bunkies," he snarled, wrapping his arms around his pulled up knees. "We're staying right here until morning. I'm not hurting anyone else."
He concentrated on breathing. In. Out. In. You can almost get used to the sewer smell if you're exposed to it long enough. Almost. Peter's nostrils flared testing this hypothesis, an explosive sneeze the only result. Definitely worse than a catbox; the stench was overpowering. Rodents and insects scampered across his body at will; he'd tried to brush them away at first, but sunrise had brought with it a curious lassitude that numbed even the disgusted horror of the vermin. He was huddled on a cement shelf above the water level and six feet underground -- Appropriate, he thought dryly -- safe from the dreaded sunlight that baked the tarmac overhead.
He'd slept fitfully all day, nightmares inhabiting both sleeping and waking time. The Q'utah, fortunately, had grown passive save for a background pressure against his skull. He knew they were there but his consciousness was inviolate ... he hoped ... and his actions, for the moment, were his own.
Finding some measure of solace in that thought despite the fact that his body was screaming at him for care, he dug out the apple he'd stuffed into his pocket that morning. It was seeping juice and shriveled but Peter was so hungry he couldn't have cared less. Nibbling at it around his fangs, he devoured the fruit inside of a minute flat. It sat in the pit of his stomach like lead, filling the void there but not salving his hunger one iota. His body may have required food but the Q'utah -- and Peter -- required far more.
Nausea at least temporarily assuaged, Peter allowed himself to drift, replaying the occurrences of the dawn in his mind. For a brief second he was again Ray Stantz, enthusiastic and boyish and trusting. How can anyone be that eternally cheerful after living with those people for ten years? But the winter sunlight was warm on his face and there was a gentleness in his heart for the small life entrusted to his care. Maybe farm life isn't quite as bad as I thought, Peter conceded but only to himself. The gentleness extended and grew, and Peter again felt it directed towards himself, and was both humbled and touched at the depth of devotion the younger man felt for him. For me, Peter thought, having to swallow a lump in his throat. I always knew how much the kid cared, but it's not the same as feeling it like this. He started to relax, letting Ray's warmth wash over him, admitting the reverse to be also true: he cared for Ray every bit as much -- more -- than if they'd actually been born brothers. Blood brothers now, he thought bitterly, letting Ray's affection soothe away his pain. Wish I could have felt Egon like that. Right now I need him even worse than Ray.
The mental reflecting pool rippled and he was again himself, standing stiff legged and rejuvenated, holding the limp body of his young friend in his arms. His heart wrenched with anguish, his hands were saturated with blood.
With a bang the vision ended. Peter jerked bolt upright, sick with worry for Ray and filled with revulsion at himself. Dried blood crackled in his clothing as he huddled smaller against the damp chill. Was Ray ... gone? He remembered Winston's voice on the phone, clinging to the memory of that strong baritone and drawing what comfort he could from its mellow tones. Winston was security -- a strong wall at his back. He'd've known what to do to help Ray. And if Winston was awake then Egon was too. They could not have helped but notice Ray -- Egon certainly couldn't! Peter had hung up reluctantly on Winston's angry demand for identification, then ducked into the nearest manhole. The last thing he'd heard before vanishing into the veritable bowels of the earth was the frantic wailing of a siren heading toward the garage. Had it been in time to save Ray? Or had Stantz succumbed to the brutalities of the night and become what Egon's prediction had named him: an animated corpse, bereft of life?
No. Peter refused to accept that. Didn't the very fact that he so craved a return to the young man prove that Ray was still alive?
"We hunger."
"You hunger, too, boy."
Hunger. Peter huddled farther back in his alcove, and licked his lips. He was ravenous -- worse than before. Not only physically but ... empty. The hunger ached and consumed and Peter knew within his soul that the only relief lay in the half-dead form of his dearest friend. Peter wanted.
"No," he whispered, unfolding from his ball and standing. "Ray is my friend."
"You need only taste," a voice whispered persuasively. "Touch and taste."
"He wants you to come," another prodded, sending enough fire through Peter's veins to stagger him. "He waits. Dreams of your coming."
"Go to him and we shall relate to you the Qutah."
Weakened and confused by the assault, Peter again drowsed, waking to find himself stumbling down a back alley in a section of town he didn't recognize, his mind filled with alien images and knowledge that filled him with dejection.
"How did I get here?" he asked, unable to process so much information at once. "Where am I?"
"The hunt is on!" The Q'utah talked all at once, babbling their pleasure at the concept. The cacophony was mind-numbing, Peter's psionics increasing with the parasites' excitement. His mind expanded, encompassing his surroundings. He sensed the young couple behind the nearest wall, experienced their joy at welcoming their first child into the world. The next building housed a man who had just murdered a child. Peter flinched away from his perverted pleasures, though the Q'utah reached out eagerly.
"Him!" they crowed even as Peter regained enough control to turn and flee. He walked for a long time, from alley to busy street, his hunger growing into a consuming madness. Red spots swirled before his eyes and he must have blacked out, for the next thing he knew he was in another featureless alley, with a young woman in a short skirt backed up against the wall. Her eyes were glazing over as Ray's had when Peter's teeth had descended on the young man's unprotected throat. She wouldn't feel a thing ... until it was time for the fear spice to be added.
He recoiled, hesitated, and neared the unresisting woman again, brushing his fingers along her cheek. She was young, vibrant, full of life, and her energies crooned to him sweetly of desire and gaiety. He opened his mouth, fascinated by the little smile that touched the woman's lips, disgusted by what he was doing. I'm going to kill her, he thought with horror. He stopped, weighing alternatives, then made his decision, carefully and deliberately. Sorry, lady, but it's you or Ray and I don't want to hurt Ray again. In the background of his thoughts the Q'utah cheered him on ... then went silent. Peter's lips touched soft, white skin ... and froze.
"I can't take you," he said wonderingly, backing away. The woman made a soft little sound of protest as he withdrew, blinking her way out of her entrancement. "The Q'utah can't use you. Why?"
"Why ... uh ... what?" she answered, becoming fully aware. "Who are you? What happened?" She got her first good look at Peter, her mouth becoming a large "O" of astonishment. "Who--?"
Peter ignored her, glad she hadn't started to scream. He might have started to scream had he found himself being accosted by a wild-eyed, grime- and-blood encrusted man who smelled of the sewers. For the Q'utah the woman ceased to exist. They grumbled to themselves, forcing Peter's legs to carry them to safety. "Why couldn't I take her?" Peter asked aloud, ignoring the strange look this got him from a passing muscleman in a flannel shirt.
The low mumbling ceased, growing into clear speech. "This is all the boy's fault," one growled in the back of his thoughts. "We should have made sure to have finished him off. Now we are bound."
The boy? Did they mean Ray? "What are you talking about?" Peter slowed his stride now that the woman had been left far behind. "What does this have to do with Ray?"
"The boy has bound us," the Q'utah returned angrily. "It is a blood oath even we cannot break."
"We must return to him now," another put in, no less furious at this turn of events. "We are bound."
Blood oath? Peter bit his lip, concentrating furiously on this cryptic statement. Vaguely the memories drifted back to the pre-dawn hours. Blood oath. He remembered a promise Ray had coerced from him in his moment of madness.
"Promise me, Peter," Ray's voice begged from far away. "Promise that you'll always come back to me for blood rather than touch anyone else."
Peter had sworn even as he'd drawn first blood. A blood oath. The combination must have been binding on such interdimensional creatures even as Stantz had suspected. Peter admired the younger man's cool-headedness. A neat trap, kid, he applauded, bringing his hands together twice.
Come back to me. Back to Ray. If he was still alive.
Clarified, the pull grew directional. Peter was no longer drawn to personalities along the way. His steps turned of their own accord to the west, some sixth sense telling him that that was the direction Ray Stantz lay. The pull was strong, the temptation great. Ray's touch, Ray's warmth filling his veins, Ray's past flashing behind his closed lids, Ray's....
Ray's life.
Ray was still alive. That was something. But as the Q'utah's chosen target, how long would he remain that way?
***