Chapter Eleven

On the royal road to Thebes
I had my luck, I met a lovely monster,
And the story's this: I made the monster me.
-- Stanley Kunitz

The crow had departed, going back to whatever dimension freaky ass birds like it haunted, leaving Peter to tuck away his new acquisitions for later. The guys were still asleep, unaware of his wanderings, and he intended to keep it that way. No sense adding to their worries, right? Left to his own devices once more, Peter changed out of his ruined clothing and tossed the evidence of his adventure in the trash. That task accomplished, he found himself prowling the firehouse in search of something to fill the time until morning.

It was amazing just how long a night was when you didn't sleep, didn't even get tired. He had no desire for a late-night snack or even a lousy glass of water. There were no bodily functions for him to attend to, no reason to stretch out on the four-poster bed when he was denied the surcease of dreams. There was only memory to occupy him and, at the moment, it was poor company. So he drifted from room to room like a silent phantom, seeking a distraction from his morbid thoughts. He avoided the hot spots in the garage--he wasn't looking to get that distracted--and somehow ended up in the basement alongside the containment unit.

He ran a practiced eye over the tell-tales; everything was in the green. His skin prickled as he stood next to the quietly humming unit, the fine hairs on his arms and at the back of his neck lifting. Tentatively, he reached out a hand and flattened his palm against the warm red metal --and was nearly blown across the room by the psychic backlash. When he scrambled to his feet, his grave mask was firmly in place and every heightened sense was on alert. Psychic hairs were metaphorically standing at attention all over his body, right along with the real ones.

"Holy hell," he breathed, flexing his numb and tingling fingers. His nailbeds were black, his skin bloodless and cold. The look in his green eyes wasn't entirely sane--and what looked out through them wasn't entirely Peter Venkman. In fact, right now, it wasn't Peter Venkman at all. "Brothers and sisters, can you feel the power!"

Cautiously, he approached the containment unit again, careful this time not to make physical contact though he held one hand mere millimeters from the metal. He could feel the spirits trapped inside the unit. Feel them calling to him. He flexed his fingers once more, feeling the inhuman strength of them, feeling the darkness writhing at his fingertips. The darkness wanted to come out and play.

A too-wide smile stretched his black-limned mouth. Eyes glittering with dark amusement, he leaned closer to the containment unit and in a lilting voice whispered, "Not now, children. But, if you're good, you might get a treat later."

He didn't have to look through the viewer to know that the spirits inside the unit were howling for his blood--or, at least, the icy black stuff sitting sluggishly in his veins. They could sense his power, sense the faint scent of life clinging to the human soul within him. And they wanted it. Wanted to feast on blood and power and life and undeath. They wanted what he could give them, even if they had to take it by force. They weren't the first; they wouldn't be the last.

He cocked his head slightly, remembering a night three months ago, a night of painragesorrow. A night of death. A night of rebirth.

He touched his temple, where the bullet hole had been; his chest, where the Y-incision had gaped. Every inch of him was whole again-- trauma healed, scars banished by a magic as dark and ancient as death, as timeless as love. Nothing merely mortal could kill this body. Not again. Not as long as they were whole--as long as he was bound to his bird. There were rules, after all. Rules that even his kind obeyed, no matter how they might chafe.

And power like his was definitely not free for the taking. If anyone tried…Well.

His fingers flexed in anticipation and he smiled, a faintly manic gleam in his grave-shadowed eyes. Then they'd see just how much fun playtime could really be.

Slumped over his kitchen table, Frump stared at his case notebook. One hand toyed with a stubby, tooth-marked yellow pencil as he stared at his own cramped handwriting on the page before him. A cold cup of coffee sat forgotten on the table beside him. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his beefy elbows, his eyes were bloodshot and, sometime around three a.m., his temper had taken a sharp left turn at Albuquerque.

Irritated with direction of his own meandering thoughts, Frump scrubbed his free hand over his face and swallowed a yawn. He was getting punch drunk from lack of sleep, but there was the ghost of an idea haunting the back of his mind and he refused to give up and head for bed until the damn thing was out in the open where he could grab it. There had to be something he was missing, something important. Something he could use to send Peter Venkman back to the grave where he belonged.

Even though the apartment was warm enough, Frump shivered as if from a sudden chill. Try as he might, he couldn't forget their confrontation. Like a recurring nightmare, it kept playing over and over in his mind.

The dead Ghostbuster shoving that fucking butcher knife into his own chest. The bloodless wound closing as Frump watched in horrified disbelief. Venkman's face ghastly white and leering with that gallows grin, something dark and wild lurking behind those ice-green eyes.

Reflexively, Frump glanced again at the window, reassuring himself that it was still tightly closed -- and locked. He didn't want any more unexpected pop-ins by obnoxious, reanimated corpses. He wondered sourly if Venkman had dragged himself out of his coffin for the express purpose of making Frump's life miserable. If so, he was doing a damned fine job of it.

Icy talons raked his spine as the reality hit him all over again.

A dead man had stood in this kitchen and threatened him.

Knives didn't work against a dead man; guns were probably little better. Maybe the department should start issuing crucifixes and silver bullets as standard equipment. Or would even that ward off something like the unholy monster Venkman had become? Certainly Frump's badge and the threat of jail time would no longer suffice as deterents. How the fuck was he suppposed to protect himself --protect his city-- from something that wouldn't stay dead? And what was he going to do if it decided to come after him for real?

For the first time in a very long time, Frump was afraid. And that pissed him off.

Bile and hatred rose in his throat, but it was the bile alone that made him bolt for the sink. When he had coughed up the last bitter dregs of his coffee, he rinsed his mouth with tepid, chemical-tasting water from the tap -- and damned Peter Venkman to hell.