The unearthly guards dumped Ray back into the cell, casually tossing Egon
in after him. Ray lay where he'd fallen for some minutes before finding the
strength to roll over and examine his surroundings. Red trickled from a
split lip, courtesy of Ali's little parting tap. Down the corridor, he
could hear Peter bellowing and fighting, but the sound was soon muffled
then lost.
"Peter." Ray moaned softly, then turned his attention to the second of his partners, who was even now beginning to regain consciousness. "Egon?"
No answer. Spengler lay on his stomach, face turned into the dirty floor, unmoving and silent. Ray pulled himself to his friend's side, carefully turning the man over onto his back. "Egon, can you hear me?"
A low groan was the only reply, but any sign of life was better than none at all. Ray lifted the blond head in his one good hand and settled it against his knee out of the dirt. As an afterthought, he straightened his friend's glasses, settling the red rims more firmly on the man's long nose.
Spengler groaned again at the movement, and opened his eyes, blinking up at his colleague with a puzzled air. "What...?"
"Take it easy. You're safe now." Ray patted the blond hair once, not taking his eyes from Egon's. "I ... thought you were dead," he whispered, more to himself than the other.
Spengler blinked again, this time as memory flooded back. "P-Peter?" he panted, lifting his head and looking around. "Is he....?"
"They took him." Again using only his good hand, Ray helped the blond to sit up, bracing him with an arm around the lean shoulders. "Are you okay?
The older man nodded, forcing himself more erect. "I seem to be relatively undamaged," he said, purposely quoting something he heard in an old Star Trek episode. "Are you?"
"Me?" Stantz looked away. "I wasn't the one who got dragged away to be tortured, or..." He paused, swallowing. "...or the one who almost died here a minute ago. Yeah, I'm just terrific."
Egon took a deep breath, holding it until the oxygen rich blood had wiped away some of the cobwebs misting his brain. He leaned back, allowing Ray to support some of his weight until the younger man began to sag as well. "Use the wall," he ordered, sliding back and pulling the other with him. "Or we'll end up flat on our faces."
Once safely ensconced against solid rock, both men leaned their heads back, eyes closed against the imagined horror they were sure was taking place in the next chamber. It was Egon who finally broke the minutes -- eons? -- long silence by clearing his throat. "Raymond?"
"Hmmm?"
"I...."
The older man trailed off uncertainly, something so unprecedented in the assured scientist that Ray cracked open one eye at once. "What is it?"
The blond head lifted away from the wall and turned to give his companion a long look. "You saved my life," he said at last. "Thank you."
Ray turned his face away, preferring to stare at the barred door rather than those piercing blue eyes so close to his own. "Forget it."
Egon's eyes narrowed; that single terse phrase had been more plea than acknowledgement. Sympathy softened the harsh angles of his face -- sympathy and gratitude. "I'll forget it," the physicist offered softly, "when you can."
He received a single, startled glance and a far too casual shrug. "At least you're alive," Ray commented defensively, as though expecting censure. Again the innocent door became the recipient of a hard stare. "Peter might not be."
The physicist scratched his cheek thoughtfully, nails rasping on the unshaven skin. "If all they wanted was to kill us, I doubt our mysterious captors would have waited until now to do so."
"But what could they want?" Ray demanded, making to smash his left fist into his right and thinking better of it at the last minute. "What could they possibly want from us?"
***
"Samhaine," Peck said persuasively, finger-combing his neatly trimmed beard, "is surely not worth what you're about to suffer, is he? He bent at the waist to peer more closely at Peter, who was now sitting on a second upended crate secured by skeletal hands.
Peter pulled desperately away from his captors, but their grip was too strong. With his arms twisted behind him and held at the wrist, and his ankles likewise secured, he had no choice but to stiffen his spine and meet that smug face with a cocky smirk of his own. "On the open market, I doubt he'd bring in more than a couple of bucks," he said, "but I'd sure hate to break up the set."
"Set?" Peck asked puzzledly.
"Samhaine, Lourdaine, a couple of other -aine's...."
"You have Lourdaine as well?" Peck frankly gawked at that, startled out of his customary poise. "That's why my time-space experiments failed! I didn't even realize he'd disappeared from the Triune." He made a disgusted noise. "Another example of how weak my techniques have grown since losing my patron."
"Triune?" Peter echoed hollowly. "There's three of them? Uh-oh."
Ali watched this exchange with an amused grin, alternately tossing then catching a wicked looking commando knife by its hilt. It sailed high into the air, sparkling where the light touched its metal blade, then dropping earthward to be caught securely in a massive chocolate hand. "I used ta be the best cutter in Brooklyn Heights," he told Peter, flicking the blade again.
"It's so nice to meet a man who takes pride in his work," Peter commented acidly, eyes drawn involuntarily to the blade.
Ali grinned again and pinched his cheek. "Told you we'd rumble my way, cutie."
"Cutie?!" Peter regarded the six foot, three inch black Hercules with disbelief. "Cutie?"
"Just a little term I picked up in the pen, kiddo," the negro replied, dropping the knife onto a small side table set up next to the make-shift chairs. The table held several objects ranging from assorted blades and knives to more obscure objects Peter had no name for and even less desire to experience.
Peck reseated himself on his own crate, continually combing his beard and mustache in a gesture the psychologist was beginning to detest. "I'm asking you again, Mr. Venkman: will you release Samhaine?"
Peter tugged one final time at his captive wrists then gave up and affected a casual air. "How do you get old Pumpkin Puss to cooperate, anyway?" he asked, stalling. "He's not exactly a people person, if you know what I mean."
Peck smiled indulgently. "Samhaine is more than simply the originator of Halloween," he said, tapping the psychologist familiarly on the thigh. "He is one of the Ancient Ones and is more than willing to cooperate with man -- provided the proper recompense is made, of course."
"R-recompense?"
"Slaves, Mr. Venkman," Peck intoned. "Human slaves ... and lives. The facilities in Arkham are not quite so theatrical as this."
Jaw dropping again, Peter could only gape. "But that's murder!"
Peck widened his smile. "Why so it is," he chuckled. "And that makes me a murderer many times over. But what are a few pitiful lives compared to the power I can access in Goizim's plane?"
"You...!" Peter broke off and frowned as a new thought presented itself. "Were you the one who drugged us?"
The other's blue eyes widened. "You figured that out? You're full of surprises today. But, yes, I doctored your food supply." He smoothed the red material again, pursing his lips at a wrinkle in the cheap material. "I should have stuck with a business suit. At any rate, Mrs. Venkman, as a team the four of you were far too difficult to capture with my reduced resources. I've watched you for months now, even set up several of your so- called busts myself to create an opportunity. Unfortunately, that opportunity never materialized and I was forced to resort to more direct means." He sighed. "It really is a good thing you decided to give in now; this house was the last card up my sleeve." He lifted his full robes to demonstrate. "Normally, I would have never risked bringing suspicion to my own door."
"Drug wears off fast, doesn't it?" Peter asked, professionally interested despite himself.
"Necessarily." The former member of the Environmental Protection Agency seemed perfectly willing to discuss the matter. "I could hardly expect you to be malleable enough to agree to any of my demands if you're drugged into a state of permanent aggression, could I?"
"Heaven forbid," Peter growled. "Hey, if you were already in our headquarters, why didn't you just release Samhaine yourself instead of going through all of this? Those 'abilities' of yours..."
"...are not sufficient to overcome your security systems. The laser scan ID was quite beyond me, I fear." Blue eyes gleamed cruelly in the artificial light. "Besides, we had a score to settle, and you know what they say about revenge being a better dish served cold." He fished inside an old black bag at his feet, pulling out a vial filled with a dull reddish powder. "I have spent my entire life studying the ancient tomes, experimenting with substances forbidden by humanity a thousand years ago."
"Yeah, and look where it go you," his prisoner quipped irrepressibly.
"You got a problem with that?" Ali asked from his position behind Peter's seat.
"Problem? Uh, no." Venkman swallowed nervously, his eyes never leaving the vial. "I'm not going to like that, am I?"
Peck uncapped the vial. "As a psychologist, I'm sure you'll be fascinated. As you're undoubtedly aware, there are some chemicals which free the mind from conscious control, making it more pliant and open to suggestion." He shook out a pinch, holding it delicately in the palm of his hand. "Don't fear, this is only a demonstration dose." He blew it gently into Peter's face, murmuring, "You're in hell, Dr. Venkman."
And Peter screamed.
***
"How long have they had him?" Ray asked yet again. He paced the cell with long, nervous strides, his bare feet making little slapping sounds on the rough stones. "What could they be doing to him?"
"I don't know," Egon replied patiently. "There's no good speculating without data, anyway."
Ray told him pithily what he could do with his data.
Egon blinked. "I don't believe I've ever heard you use language like that before."
"I ... don't think I ever have." A slow flush burned in Ray's cheeks. "I'm sorry."
"I don't think it's anatomically possible anyway," the blond returned, winning a smile. He patted a spot on the floor at his side. "Come on, sit down. If you burn yourself out now, you won't be any use to us later."
Reluctantly, the engineer obeyed, settling back against the cold wall. "You sound like my mother," he complained, laying his broken hand carefully across his lap. "She used to say the exact same thing whenever I got excited about anything. It never helps, you know."
"I know." Egon began to draw in the dust again. The floor was by now criss- crossed with dozens of numbers and formulae.
Ray watched absently, his mind automatically converting his partner's theory into its logical application. "If that's an ion destabilizer you're working on," he said after several minutes, "it won't work."
Egon looked up, startled out of his concentration. "Why won't it work?"
"Because of that." Stantz pointed to the second of a long string of equations next to Egon's left foot. "Channelling enough power to get that effect is going to melt any type of construction material we have. You'd end up plasmatizing your focussing agent before the target disintegrated."
"Rats." Spengler abandoned his doodles and settled back against the wall, sliding over until he could lean against Ray's cold shoulder. "So," he said when the silence had stretched long enough to become oppressive, "I sound like your mother, do I?"
"Not really." Ray pulled his knees up to his chin and wrapped one arm around them, careful to neither jar his broken hand nor lose contact with Egon. "Just something she used to say a long time ago. I wish you could have met her," he added inconsequentially. "She was a nice lady."
"I wish I had as well." The physicist leaned his head back on the stone, automatically adjusting his glasses to allow for the new angle. "Was she anything like your Aunt Lois?"
"Naw. Lois was Dad's aunt." Stantz smiled gently, for a single instant transported away from their filthy cell to happier, sunnier climes. "Mom was little and pretty and smart. Dad made her take care of all the bills and stuff so that when they were killed...." He broke off. "I-I wonder if I'll get to see them again, after...."
"I don't want to hear it," Egon interrupted in a flat, hard voice. "I will not accept that there is no way out. I.... What was that?!"
"Peter! That was Peter's scream!" Stantz was on his feet in a flash and pressing his face against the barred door in a vain attempt to see farther down the corridor. "Peter? PETER!" His yell didn't even echo in the cramped confines of the underground tunnel. It filled the room and then was gone, swallowed by the unyielding stone. "PETER!" he yelled again with no more response. "What are they doing to him?" he sobbed in an agony of frustration.
Egon laid a hand on his friend's shoulder, and there was no way to tell who was trembling harder. "I don't know," he said grimly, "but I've got a feeling we're going to find out."
***
Fifteen meters due up, Winston had concluded his search of the house and was now sprawled dispiritedly on the living room couch rethinking his options. The PKE meter he carried gave him the same readings Egon hd gotten earlier, i.e., an even distribution of parapsychic energies, but lacking any specific focus. As this meant nothing to the non-scientist, he'd sadly restowed the meter and cast about for another line of investigation, coming up blank.
"Where could they be, Slimer?" he asked the faintly glowing mass hovering just overhead. He held up one brown skinned hand, ticking off the points one by one. "Ecto's outside, so they must have been here, yet the house is intact; no burn marks anywhere. Obviously, they never had a chance or reason to fire off their throwers."
Slimer held up his own hand, following suit. "Onnne ... twooo...."
Winston blew his cheeks out in a sigh. "There has to be a clue here somewhere," he decided, getting to his feet. "I'm going to search the house again until I find it." He trudged for the stairs leading towards the second floor. "You coming?"
Whining softly and flitting about the room like a puff of green smoke, the green nether-entity shook his nubbin of a head. "Kitchen," he announced hopefully. "Hungry."
The Ghostbuster smiled. "Guess this is the longest you've ever gone without food, isn't it, little buddy? Okay, you search the fridge and if you see anything suspicious, yell."
"Okay, Winstonnn!" Slimer agreed happily, disappearing down a hall.
Zeddemore watched the little ghost go with a spark of amusement lighting his face. Then he hefted his proton rifle, drew the PKE meter out again and began to search the house for the second time that day.
***
"Peter." Ray moaned softly, then turned his attention to the second of his partners, who was even now beginning to regain consciousness. "Egon?"
No answer. Spengler lay on his stomach, face turned into the dirty floor, unmoving and silent. Ray pulled himself to his friend's side, carefully turning the man over onto his back. "Egon, can you hear me?"
A low groan was the only reply, but any sign of life was better than none at all. Ray lifted the blond head in his one good hand and settled it against his knee out of the dirt. As an afterthought, he straightened his friend's glasses, settling the red rims more firmly on the man's long nose.
Spengler groaned again at the movement, and opened his eyes, blinking up at his colleague with a puzzled air. "What...?"
"Take it easy. You're safe now." Ray patted the blond hair once, not taking his eyes from Egon's. "I ... thought you were dead," he whispered, more to himself than the other.
Spengler blinked again, this time as memory flooded back. "P-Peter?" he panted, lifting his head and looking around. "Is he....?"
"They took him." Again using only his good hand, Ray helped the blond to sit up, bracing him with an arm around the lean shoulders. "Are you okay?
The older man nodded, forcing himself more erect. "I seem to be relatively undamaged," he said, purposely quoting something he heard in an old Star Trek episode. "Are you?"
"Me?" Stantz looked away. "I wasn't the one who got dragged away to be tortured, or..." He paused, swallowing. "...or the one who almost died here a minute ago. Yeah, I'm just terrific."
Egon took a deep breath, holding it until the oxygen rich blood had wiped away some of the cobwebs misting his brain. He leaned back, allowing Ray to support some of his weight until the younger man began to sag as well. "Use the wall," he ordered, sliding back and pulling the other with him. "Or we'll end up flat on our faces."
Once safely ensconced against solid rock, both men leaned their heads back, eyes closed against the imagined horror they were sure was taking place in the next chamber. It was Egon who finally broke the minutes -- eons? -- long silence by clearing his throat. "Raymond?"
"Hmmm?"
"I...."
The older man trailed off uncertainly, something so unprecedented in the assured scientist that Ray cracked open one eye at once. "What is it?"
The blond head lifted away from the wall and turned to give his companion a long look. "You saved my life," he said at last. "Thank you."
Ray turned his face away, preferring to stare at the barred door rather than those piercing blue eyes so close to his own. "Forget it."
Egon's eyes narrowed; that single terse phrase had been more plea than acknowledgement. Sympathy softened the harsh angles of his face -- sympathy and gratitude. "I'll forget it," the physicist offered softly, "when you can."
He received a single, startled glance and a far too casual shrug. "At least you're alive," Ray commented defensively, as though expecting censure. Again the innocent door became the recipient of a hard stare. "Peter might not be."
The physicist scratched his cheek thoughtfully, nails rasping on the unshaven skin. "If all they wanted was to kill us, I doubt our mysterious captors would have waited until now to do so."
"But what could they want?" Ray demanded, making to smash his left fist into his right and thinking better of it at the last minute. "What could they possibly want from us?"
***
"Samhaine," Peck said persuasively, finger-combing his neatly trimmed beard, "is surely not worth what you're about to suffer, is he? He bent at the waist to peer more closely at Peter, who was now sitting on a second upended crate secured by skeletal hands.
Peter pulled desperately away from his captors, but their grip was too strong. With his arms twisted behind him and held at the wrist, and his ankles likewise secured, he had no choice but to stiffen his spine and meet that smug face with a cocky smirk of his own. "On the open market, I doubt he'd bring in more than a couple of bucks," he said, "but I'd sure hate to break up the set."
"Set?" Peck asked puzzledly.
"Samhaine, Lourdaine, a couple of other -aine's...."
"You have Lourdaine as well?" Peck frankly gawked at that, startled out of his customary poise. "That's why my time-space experiments failed! I didn't even realize he'd disappeared from the Triune." He made a disgusted noise. "Another example of how weak my techniques have grown since losing my patron."
"Triune?" Peter echoed hollowly. "There's three of them? Uh-oh."
Ali watched this exchange with an amused grin, alternately tossing then catching a wicked looking commando knife by its hilt. It sailed high into the air, sparkling where the light touched its metal blade, then dropping earthward to be caught securely in a massive chocolate hand. "I used ta be the best cutter in Brooklyn Heights," he told Peter, flicking the blade again.
"It's so nice to meet a man who takes pride in his work," Peter commented acidly, eyes drawn involuntarily to the blade.
Ali grinned again and pinched his cheek. "Told you we'd rumble my way, cutie."
"Cutie?!" Peter regarded the six foot, three inch black Hercules with disbelief. "Cutie?"
"Just a little term I picked up in the pen, kiddo," the negro replied, dropping the knife onto a small side table set up next to the make-shift chairs. The table held several objects ranging from assorted blades and knives to more obscure objects Peter had no name for and even less desire to experience.
Peck reseated himself on his own crate, continually combing his beard and mustache in a gesture the psychologist was beginning to detest. "I'm asking you again, Mr. Venkman: will you release Samhaine?"
Peter tugged one final time at his captive wrists then gave up and affected a casual air. "How do you get old Pumpkin Puss to cooperate, anyway?" he asked, stalling. "He's not exactly a people person, if you know what I mean."
Peck smiled indulgently. "Samhaine is more than simply the originator of Halloween," he said, tapping the psychologist familiarly on the thigh. "He is one of the Ancient Ones and is more than willing to cooperate with man -- provided the proper recompense is made, of course."
"R-recompense?"
"Slaves, Mr. Venkman," Peck intoned. "Human slaves ... and lives. The facilities in Arkham are not quite so theatrical as this."
Jaw dropping again, Peter could only gape. "But that's murder!"
Peck widened his smile. "Why so it is," he chuckled. "And that makes me a murderer many times over. But what are a few pitiful lives compared to the power I can access in Goizim's plane?"
"You...!" Peter broke off and frowned as a new thought presented itself. "Were you the one who drugged us?"
The other's blue eyes widened. "You figured that out? You're full of surprises today. But, yes, I doctored your food supply." He smoothed the red material again, pursing his lips at a wrinkle in the cheap material. "I should have stuck with a business suit. At any rate, Mrs. Venkman, as a team the four of you were far too difficult to capture with my reduced resources. I've watched you for months now, even set up several of your so- called busts myself to create an opportunity. Unfortunately, that opportunity never materialized and I was forced to resort to more direct means." He sighed. "It really is a good thing you decided to give in now; this house was the last card up my sleeve." He lifted his full robes to demonstrate. "Normally, I would have never risked bringing suspicion to my own door."
"Drug wears off fast, doesn't it?" Peter asked, professionally interested despite himself.
"Necessarily." The former member of the Environmental Protection Agency seemed perfectly willing to discuss the matter. "I could hardly expect you to be malleable enough to agree to any of my demands if you're drugged into a state of permanent aggression, could I?"
"Heaven forbid," Peter growled. "Hey, if you were already in our headquarters, why didn't you just release Samhaine yourself instead of going through all of this? Those 'abilities' of yours..."
"...are not sufficient to overcome your security systems. The laser scan ID was quite beyond me, I fear." Blue eyes gleamed cruelly in the artificial light. "Besides, we had a score to settle, and you know what they say about revenge being a better dish served cold." He fished inside an old black bag at his feet, pulling out a vial filled with a dull reddish powder. "I have spent my entire life studying the ancient tomes, experimenting with substances forbidden by humanity a thousand years ago."
"Yeah, and look where it go you," his prisoner quipped irrepressibly.
"You got a problem with that?" Ali asked from his position behind Peter's seat.
"Problem? Uh, no." Venkman swallowed nervously, his eyes never leaving the vial. "I'm not going to like that, am I?"
Peck uncapped the vial. "As a psychologist, I'm sure you'll be fascinated. As you're undoubtedly aware, there are some chemicals which free the mind from conscious control, making it more pliant and open to suggestion." He shook out a pinch, holding it delicately in the palm of his hand. "Don't fear, this is only a demonstration dose." He blew it gently into Peter's face, murmuring, "You're in hell, Dr. Venkman."
And Peter screamed.
***
"How long have they had him?" Ray asked yet again. He paced the cell with long, nervous strides, his bare feet making little slapping sounds on the rough stones. "What could they be doing to him?"
"I don't know," Egon replied patiently. "There's no good speculating without data, anyway."
Ray told him pithily what he could do with his data.
Egon blinked. "I don't believe I've ever heard you use language like that before."
"I ... don't think I ever have." A slow flush burned in Ray's cheeks. "I'm sorry."
"I don't think it's anatomically possible anyway," the blond returned, winning a smile. He patted a spot on the floor at his side. "Come on, sit down. If you burn yourself out now, you won't be any use to us later."
Reluctantly, the engineer obeyed, settling back against the cold wall. "You sound like my mother," he complained, laying his broken hand carefully across his lap. "She used to say the exact same thing whenever I got excited about anything. It never helps, you know."
"I know." Egon began to draw in the dust again. The floor was by now criss- crossed with dozens of numbers and formulae.
Ray watched absently, his mind automatically converting his partner's theory into its logical application. "If that's an ion destabilizer you're working on," he said after several minutes, "it won't work."
Egon looked up, startled out of his concentration. "Why won't it work?"
"Because of that." Stantz pointed to the second of a long string of equations next to Egon's left foot. "Channelling enough power to get that effect is going to melt any type of construction material we have. You'd end up plasmatizing your focussing agent before the target disintegrated."
"Rats." Spengler abandoned his doodles and settled back against the wall, sliding over until he could lean against Ray's cold shoulder. "So," he said when the silence had stretched long enough to become oppressive, "I sound like your mother, do I?"
"Not really." Ray pulled his knees up to his chin and wrapped one arm around them, careful to neither jar his broken hand nor lose contact with Egon. "Just something she used to say a long time ago. I wish you could have met her," he added inconsequentially. "She was a nice lady."
"I wish I had as well." The physicist leaned his head back on the stone, automatically adjusting his glasses to allow for the new angle. "Was she anything like your Aunt Lois?"
"Naw. Lois was Dad's aunt." Stantz smiled gently, for a single instant transported away from their filthy cell to happier, sunnier climes. "Mom was little and pretty and smart. Dad made her take care of all the bills and stuff so that when they were killed...." He broke off. "I-I wonder if I'll get to see them again, after...."
"I don't want to hear it," Egon interrupted in a flat, hard voice. "I will not accept that there is no way out. I.... What was that?!"
"Peter! That was Peter's scream!" Stantz was on his feet in a flash and pressing his face against the barred door in a vain attempt to see farther down the corridor. "Peter? PETER!" His yell didn't even echo in the cramped confines of the underground tunnel. It filled the room and then was gone, swallowed by the unyielding stone. "PETER!" he yelled again with no more response. "What are they doing to him?" he sobbed in an agony of frustration.
Egon laid a hand on his friend's shoulder, and there was no way to tell who was trembling harder. "I don't know," he said grimly, "but I've got a feeling we're going to find out."
***
Fifteen meters due up, Winston had concluded his search of the house and was now sprawled dispiritedly on the living room couch rethinking his options. The PKE meter he carried gave him the same readings Egon hd gotten earlier, i.e., an even distribution of parapsychic energies, but lacking any specific focus. As this meant nothing to the non-scientist, he'd sadly restowed the meter and cast about for another line of investigation, coming up blank.
"Where could they be, Slimer?" he asked the faintly glowing mass hovering just overhead. He held up one brown skinned hand, ticking off the points one by one. "Ecto's outside, so they must have been here, yet the house is intact; no burn marks anywhere. Obviously, they never had a chance or reason to fire off their throwers."
Slimer held up his own hand, following suit. "Onnne ... twooo...."
Winston blew his cheeks out in a sigh. "There has to be a clue here somewhere," he decided, getting to his feet. "I'm going to search the house again until I find it." He trudged for the stairs leading towards the second floor. "You coming?"
Whining softly and flitting about the room like a puff of green smoke, the green nether-entity shook his nubbin of a head. "Kitchen," he announced hopefully. "Hungry."
The Ghostbuster smiled. "Guess this is the longest you've ever gone without food, isn't it, little buddy? Okay, you search the fridge and if you see anything suspicious, yell."
"Okay, Winstonnn!" Slimer agreed happily, disappearing down a hall.
Zeddemore watched the little ghost go with a spark of amusement lighting his face. Then he hefted his proton rifle, drew the PKE meter out again and began to search the house for the second time that day.
***