Inside his head, that is where he was and only was. He could think, but he could not control his actions on the outside.

Ray could not believe that a witch was controlling him; by Nurse Melinda Grovers no less!

He hoped his friends could find a way to save him from this. And be it soon because, right now, he was making out with a half-naked Ms. Grovers.

Why was she doing this? How could anyone force another person unto this, whether it be spell cast or not?

How do they not realize or understand this fictional love was not the true love they were searching for? Oh, how he longed to be back in Victoria's arms! To feel her body against his. To taste her mouth. To feel her true love.

Please hurry, Egon, Pete, Winston. Please don't let Grovers control me for any longer than a day. Then to the love of his life, he thought, I love you, Victoria.

Because it was useless to try and fight the control Melinda's spell had on him, Ray put himself into a daydream where it was Victoria pushing him onto the bed and doing things to him instead. His arms were around her lower back, ever so slightly stroking the small of her back. Ray began to hear Victoria's voice. He fell further into the daydream to where it felt unquestionably as if his girlfriend was indeed there.

Though Ray imagined Victoria's voice, he heard the witch speak, and he hoped he could not and would not be able to reply with an unwanted answer, but instead, respond with his own after hearing what she said. "You'll be mine wholly, soon enough, Ray. As days go by, the spell will take full effect, and you'll love me for real," Melinda put her hands all over his chest and kissed him. "You'll no longer love that so-called girlfriend of yours. She'll just be a forgotten past, a mistake." His body's response was a deeper kiss which made Ray, on the inside, want to puke.

What he wanted to say aloud but was not permitted to was, I'll never be yours full-heartedly, even if the spell took full effect. My friends and girlfriend will never give up on getting me back.


Venkman and Spengler got back to the Ecto, where Zeddemore still waited. Before Winston could ask what was going on with Ray, Egon beat him to it by saying, "we need to get to the library and see if they have any spellbooks on hand."

"Spellbooks?" Winston asked, confused as he got into the backseat.

"Yeah. Apparently, Nurse Grovers is an evil witch," Peter answered, getting into the driver's seat.

"Damn! I knew something was off about her."

"We all may have noticed something off about her, but we didn't expect her to be this far off," Egon said

"You got that right," Winston agreed. "I've never met a witch before."

"I have met some good Wiccans," Egon responded.

"When was this?" Peter asked.

"It was before I met you and Ray. I was curious about what they do in their practices, so I was able to sit on the sidelines and watch them work."

"Oh." Venkman nodded his head slowly as he turned to look out the windshield. He wanted to ask more about that but decided against it. Was Ms. Grovers once a good witch, or has she always been this way?

Peter was worried about Ray, and he knew the others were too. He hoped they would be able to save him.

"So, what did Grovers do to Ray?" Winston asked.

Pete told him the story.

"Shouldn't we tell Victoria?"

"I'm going to call HQ when we get to the library," Peter answered.


Janine was on her break while Victoria continued to answer the calls. They weren't coming in as much today, so Victoria read a book to pass the time.

Noon came around the corner, and something inside her made her feel an unexpected anxiousness. Her heart even decided to skip a few beats, and she could not quite pinpoint why she had this strange feeling about Ray. Victoria sat the book down and placed a hand over her heart. She took deep breaths.

The phone rang, making her heart pound with fright other than worry. She took a couple more deep breaths, saw that it was a private line, then answered the phone by only saying, "Hello?"

"Hey, Victoria, it's Pete. We've run into a bit of a snag and are at the New York Public Library to see if we can fix the problem."

"You're finally going after that librarian ghost?"

"No. I wish that was what we were doing if it were under better circumstances."

"Is Ray okay?" The question just flew out of her mouth without warning.

There was a surprise in Peter's voice to Victoria's question. "It is about Ray…"

"What happened?" Victoria asked adamantly. "Is he alive?"

"Easy," Venkman calmed her. "He is alive." He proceeded to tell her what went on.

"What? You can't be serious. Witches are real? And she's got my boyfriend under some love spell?"

"I know, it's a lot to take in. Hell, I can barely believe it myself. But what I witnessed…." Venkman paused and decided to stay positive, "We're going to do everything we can to get him back." There was a voice in the background. "Egon is calling me over. Don't you worry."

"Should I be there?"

"No. We'll return to the firehouse once we find what we need."

"O-Okay."

"We won't let this witch win. You can count on that."

The call ended, and Victoria tried to absorb both the feeling she had and what Peter told her about what happened to Ray.

Victoria thought about Ray being under the control of a witch. What was he feeling? What could he feel? She wished she could picture what was going on wherever Ray was, to know what he was going through. She feared for him.


The Ghostbusters made their way to the religious/ritual sections in the library.

"There has to be a spellbook around here somewhere that can counteract the spell Grovers put on Ray," Spengler said, scanning the titles on the bookbindings.

"If only we knew which book to look for," Winston said, searching the third row.

"I'll know it when I see it. It will be very old-looking and have a distinct-looking cover on it," Egon responded.

After four minutes of searching, Peter believed he had found the book they were looking for, fitting Egon's description. "Hey, Egon. I think this may come of interest to you." He held the book in front of his chest, revealing the front cover to him.

Book Domini Impiarum Animarum Volume I.

"Um, what does that say?" Winston asked.

"It says, Book of the Damned Volume 1," Egon answered.

"You can read that language?"

"Latin's not hard. My parents made sure I could read and speak any language."

"That had to of been tough."

Egon shrugged, "I can accumulate a multitude of a lot of things."

"He's our automaton," Peter joked. "If we need info, we just go to him. Saves us time from having to use a computer."

Egon knew this wasn't the time to joke around, but he couldn't help but smile with a slight shrug and answer, "The correct term is Android."

Moving to his next question, Winston asked, "So, are you sure this is the right spellbook we need? I mean, it's called Book of the Damned."

"Usually, when there are volumes, both books will have counteracting spells in case of mind change or if something went wrong." Egon turned his head to Venkman and said, "I would need the other volume as well."

"I didn't see volume two over there," Peter responded.

"Should we keep looking for other spellbooks?" Zeddemore asked.

"These other proclaimed spellbooks are childish in comparison. They're not the real deal. More for wannabe Witches or Wiccans."

"Oh," was all Zeddemore could say.

"Let's go ask the librarian if she has volume two somewhere," Egon suggested.

The three walked quickly to the front desk, where an older woman – who was not the woman they met here a year ago – sat going through the check-in books to have them put away.

"Excuse me," Egon began. "Do you have volume two of this spellbook?"

"Let me check." The woman entered information into her computer, read what came up, then answered, "No, I'm sorry. It was checked out a few years ago, and unfortunately, the person who checked it out gave us a fake number."

Peter spoke quietly to Egon and Winston. "I'm thinking the one who has that particular book is our Ms. Grovers."

"I will have to agree. And that is very bad," Egon said worriedly. "What is the title of that book, if I may ask?" He asked the librarian.

She glanced at her screen and answered, "It's called Spells of your Desire."

"Without the volume part?" Winston asked.

"Grovers may not know that this book is its counterpart," Egon told them. "Which gives us a leg up on our end, and we can fight back."

"I wonder what else she's used that book for?" Peter wondered aloud.

"I'm afraid to find out," Egon answered. Turning back to the librarian, he asked if they could borrow the book as long as they needed for the emergency of stopping the evil witch.

"Because you're the Ghostbusters, I'll allow you to check it out for as long as you need." Then she added with a shrug, "Not many people check those types of books out anyway."


As Winston was driving, Egon's eyes were glued to the pages of the spellbook, searching for a counteracting unlove spell that would reawaken Ray. The incantations in this book were in English.

Egon's eyes landed on a page, and he ordered Winston to go to East 9th street to a Wiccan shop called Enchantments.

Zeddemore turned on the siren, then turned the Ecto sharply to the right, which didn't faze the other two in the car, but the other drivers and pedestrians honked their horns or cursed at them.

Within twenty minutes, they were at Enchantments, the Ecto not so perfectly parallel parked, almost sticking out into the street.

The three rushed in, Egon beelining toward the herbs. Venkman was on his heels. "Tell us what we need, Egon."

"We need two rose quartz crystals, a tall pink candle, and one red silk. I'll get the herbs that are required. But we need to go elsewhere to get the other elements to this spell."

"I'll get the crystals," Winston said, turning in a different direction.

That left Peter with getting the silk and candle. "Does it matter the size of the silk?"

"A small-medium one will suffice."

"Got it." He ran toward the candles first.

After buying what they needed at the Wiccan shop, they rushed to a small store to get a red rose and honey before heading back to HQ, where Victoria ran up to them as soon as she saw them get out of their car.

"Did you find anything to help Ray?"

"We did," Egon answered. "You're going to have to say a spell."

"I've never done anything like that before," Victoria told him.

"It's simple," Spengler said. "All you have to do is recite the spell. We'll…I'll handle creating the potion."

"Okay." Victoria's voice shook with nervousness. But she would try her best to get the love of her life back.

"You'll do fine," Peter told her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Egon ran upstairs to get a pan from the kitchen for when it came time to mix the ingredients and a pocket knife for Victoria to carve Ray's name into the candle.


The three Ghostbusters and Victoria were all upstairs in the living area of the firehouse. An hour passed as Victoria practiced the wording of the spell as she paced back and forth nervously. She didn't need to memorize it, but she wanted to ensure she would not stumble or stutter the words, even under nerves.

She was even scared that time was passing by too fast. How much time did Ray have before that witch's spell took full effect? She stopped pacing long enough to face Egon and Peter sitting on the couch.

"Shouldn't we be going to where Ray is right now?"

"We will," Egon answered. "We're trying to figure out a way to get close enough to Ray without Grovers using her telekinesis on us again."

Egon thought for a moment, then picked up the Book of the Damned. "Actually, there might be a spell here that could protect us from her powers."

"Smart move, Egon. I was hoping for something to be in the book for our safety at some point," Peter said. "We get thrown by otherworldly beings a lot and now by a witch. If there's a spell that could protect us from getting thrown on our asses all the damn time, I'm in."

Egon scanned through the content section, flipped through the pages, read what was on the page, then responded, "There's something, but it'll only last three days."

"That'll be plenty of protection against her," Winston said.

"I'm all for having that protection spell last a lifetime," Peter suggested.

"That'll be too risky," Egon told him.

"How?"

"We're not Warlocks, Venkman. We wouldn't be able to handle that much power for too long."

"I doubt Grovers was born a full witch…."

"Which means she's just as vulnerable as we would be. She just has more control over her abilities because she's been at this far longer than we have."

"Maybe one of these days that'll work for you in the long run, Dr. Venkman. But right now, this is about Ray," Victoria told Peter. "We just need to protect ourselves to get him back."

"Alright, this short-term spell is pretty simple," Egon continued. "Because there's four of us, we'll need four objects that represent ourselves."

The four split up to search for something that connected closely to each of them.


Twenty minutes later, the four returned with objects. Victoria had a gold heart necklace Ray gave to her on their second date, Winston had his Swiss army knife, Egon had a petri dish of one of his molds, and Peter had a pair of his favorite shoes.

"Alright," Egon began, "All we have to do is say the spell toward our belongings."

"That's all?" Peter asked. "No ingredients?"

"No."

Venkman raised his brows in wonder. "If only all spells were like this."

"That would deceive the whole purpose of magic. If it were always that simple, everyone would be using magic in all the wrong ways possible."

Egon sat on the ground, "Now, let's get to work. Ray doesn't have too much time." The others joined him in a circle. "Mark the object to be protected with the Guardian Angel Sigil and repeat the incantation." Egon laid the book open in front of them.

Egon sketched the Guardian Angel sigil on the back of his petri dish as he read aloud.

"Gentle Guardian, wise and strong, keep me as I doth belong. Safe within thy charge and care, the current problem to fare. No harm to come or ill to befall, guarded and safe through it all!"

He placed the mold into his jumpsuit's breast pocket.

One at a time, the others did the same, with the exception of Victoria placing the necklace around her neck and Peter changing his shoes.

"Alright, time to put this spell to the test," Venkman said as he pushed himself back to his feet. "You ready, Victoria?" He asked, helping her to her feet.

Once again, her heart pounded through her chest. She gave him a slight nod.