Chapter II: The Bookshop Attack

Raymond Stantz had already decided that today was going to be a good day.

The sweet, musty scent of the bookshop wrapped around him lovingly as he stepped in and shut the door. He enjoyed going through his opening duties alone, feeling the presence of all the knowledge around him. Janine normally showed up close to ten-thirty, smelling like coffee and cigarettes. It was a delicious combination on her, though Ray would never admit aloud to thinking that. It also overrode the soft, natural smell of the bookshop itself, and so he breathed deeply and slowly, savoring what he could get now.

He hustled around the shop, straightening books on shelves, making sure some of the talismans on the counter hung just so, and checked his lighting. Some of the bulbs had been flickering for the past few days, something he and Egon had concluded came from wiring issues and not ghosts sneaking around the place. He chuckled to himself, wondering if he could hire the Ghostbusters to clean up his own shop. Wouldn't that be a laugh? How would the payments work? Could he use the haunting to drum up business, perhaps? He played through several scenarios in his head as he counted his bank and checked the paper roll in the cash register. Each scenario became a little more enthusiastic and grandstanding than the last, and he finally had to stop and shake his head, chuckling at the creativity of the human imagination. Moving to the back of the shop, he took a look at the incense burners and selection, and shook his head for the fourth day in a row. Nothing held a candle, pardon the pun, to the smell of old books. When you walked into Ray's Occult Books, you knew the kind of place it was immediately, and ideally it was a place you wanted to be in. He loved that about his shop.

He took one more moment to look around, a small, satisfied smile on his face. There truly was so much in this little corner of New York City. The secrets practically hummed in the pages of the books, creating their own little supernatural winds that whistled around and played with his hair and the sheer curtains that fluttered over the doorway to the backroom. The theories and facts presented in each tome opened up more than new worlds. There were innerspaces and vast galaxies and different levels of dimension and time. He knew he couldn't read everything in the bookshop within his lifetime, and he certainly couldn't remember it all, but it still made him sigh in awe at the sheer power contained here in his shop.

His mismatched eyes (one brown, one green, a mutation he'd come to love despite being mocked for it in primary school) alighted on a dark corner of the bookshop, and a small furrow crossed his brow. He moved over to the corner, putting off balancing his books for another ten minutes. No one was even walking on St. Mark's street yet. He wouldn't have customers until possibly after the lunch hour, and Janine would arrive in about ten minutes. That gave him time to look at the strange book sitting in the corner.

Ray hadn't been as thorough with the dusting of this corner as he should have been. He picked the small book up and lightly blew the dust off of it, taking a moment to notice the swirls that appeared in the air as the particles met the daylight filtering through the windows. A small smile curled his lips as he returned his attention to the leather-bound tome in his hands. It was finely made, only four by six inches, the leather showing only a bit of wear and the edges of the pages mildly stiff with age. There were a few pages missing from the back of the book, torn out who knew when, but otherwise it was in beautiful condition. When his deft fingers unwound the strap and drew open the book, the sweet smell of the hoof glue binding the pages filled the air. As they always did once the book was open, Ray's eyes focused on the ink swirling across the pages.

And like so many other times he had opened this book, his eyes could make no sense of what they saw.

The book was a bit of a legend. Supposedly a hundred years ago, it had been a readable book, perhaps something as simple as the ledger of a general store, or as intriguing as a book of codes by Civil War soldiers. For reasons unknown, it had been wrapped in leather and thrown into a fire with a bunch of other discarded items. When the embers had finally cooled, the book had been sitting on the ash, its protective wrap burnt to a crisp, but the cover and pages untouched. Inside the book, the ink on the pages had gone from coherent words to meaningless swirls, locking away any knowledge and secrets the book may have had. The story was that anyone who could decipher the book would be not only forever protected from fire, but have control over the flames as well.

Ray had been exhilarated to receive the book in a shipment one day. It had come with a note, the owner saying he was throwing it in for free because he simply did not want it anymore. Ray had thought that reasoning a bit strange, given the legend of the book, but he had not questioned the owner. Instead, he'd placed the book on his shelves for a few months, inviting people to read it, saying they could have it for free if they could decipher it. Many had tried. Some had lied, saying they could read it, but when pushed they folded, and Ray sent them away with disapproval. He and Egon had spent many nights trying to decipher the book themselves, comparing writing samples throughout history. Nothing had come up a match. The only clue they had was the English writing on the front of the book, a line that stated: "You have a job to do." It didn't seem like a funny saying on the front of a notebook, meant to inspire the user every time they looked at it. It felt like a command to Ray, an order that he, try as he could, simply could not follow.

So, eventually, he had taken the book from its lighted display in his front counter, and tucked it into a corner of his shop. He had started to understand why the other owner gave it up. It brought little other than frustration. But understanding did not mean sharing the compulsion. Ray was a Ghostbuster, and a student of parapsychology and xenoarchaeology. This kind of mystery was precisely what he loved and what he lived for.

The quiet jingle of the door brought his eyes up. Janine came striding in, that sensual scent following her around. She flipped the sign to "Open", as it was ten-thirty, and fixed her bright eyes on him, the overly-reddened bob swinging purposefully around her face. "Good morning, Doctor Stantz."

"Ray!" Ray quickly amended. "Remember? Egon, Ray, Winston, and Doctor Venkman, since Peter's going to be uptight about that." He flashed her a winning smile and he saw the edges of her lips start to pull up in response. Great! Janine had a beautiful smile and a sense of humor drier than Antarctica, (the world's biggest desert, by definition). She was inscrutable, too. He could never completely tell if she was loving every second of her life and just being a Vulcan about it, or if she truly was unhappy at something. There weren't many people Raymond Stantz had trouble reading, but admittedly, she was one of them.

"So, ah...let's see, we were putting together an order for incense yesterday. Shall we go back to that?" Ray put the book down, reluctantly letting go of it and turning to face the real world of work before him.

"I'd rather do my sneezing after lunch," Janine replied. "How about we open the new shipments? It'll be like Christmas morning." A little spark in her eye belied her customary flat tone.

Ray agreed eagerly. He loved seeing what new wonders had crossed the threshold of his shop. "All right. Let's see what Santa brought us!"

**o0o**

Peter all but strutted down St. Mark's, a mischievous smile on his lips and an impish twinkle in his eye. He had the whole day planned out. A quick stop by Ray's to drop off the bomb of a hot girl being interested in him, and a slow stroll through The Pet Shack before continuing on to Ghostbusters Headquarters and the day's business.

Peter had taken to stopping by The Pet Shack to say hi to the cats up for adoption whenever they came around, even though it meant taking verbal abuse from a grumpy but smart old parrot. Kevin, the store owner, had been trying for months to rid himself of the bird, which had taken to devoting its life to two tasks: opening cages and picking up many of New York's favorite insults. It never hesitated to hurl them at Peter or anyone else who got too close. Peter had learned to ignore the barrage when he went in, letting the fluffy innocence of the cats take over. He wasn't planning on ever picking one up: he and Dana had enough with Oscar. But there was something incredibly soothing about the jeweled eyes and soft meows, something that helped Peter put things into perspective. He was a little addicted, he supposed.

He had a lot to think about lately, anyway. Between Dana, Oscar, and the nightmares that hadn't stopped for days, he felt pulled in all directions and wanted nothing more than to hide from the world, which was one thing he couldn't do. Also, the ghosts these days were picking up a sense of humor. There had been a class-four full-torso apparition pretending to be various people in the Museum of Natural History, and a silly little class-five full-roaming vapor that had set up shop in Ripley's Believe It or Not! Today was pretty much nothing but a free repeater at, of all places, the New York Police Department. Peter was not looking forward to that one; he hated the looks they always got. Plus he was convinced Ray had broken a couple of speed limits and parking rules and he was never sure when the police were going to come down on them for it.

The ghosts had gotten a little stranger too. Peter had started to notice that proton beams didn't have the same effect on all of them. Some of them got out of the beam while Egon was setting the trap. Some ignored it altogether. He knew Egon and Ray had started working on new ways to trap ghosts to keep up with the changing times and the demand, but he couldn't help but wonder why the ghosts seemed to be getting both smarter and stronger. It was something he figured he would bring up the next time he saw Ray...which would be in about two minutes.

The rumble of a truck started up behind him as he neared the bookshop. He didn't quite remember seeing a truck as he walked down the avenue, and he turned to glance at it, just to make sure his mind wasn't playing tricks on him.

It wasn't. There was a truck with a large trailer easing slowly down the road. Tied onto the trailer was a large wagon, the design of which Peter immediately recognized. His heart leaped into his throat and he stopped moving, staring.

The wagon was beautiful, antique, almost breathtaking in its simplicity. It might have been a gypsy wagon in another life, boxy but with round corners, painted a deep red that had dulled with age. Its Bohemian design was accentuated by small, intricate swirlings and purple trim. A door sat in the middle of one of the sides, a curtain blocking the window. Four large, gold, spoked wheels held the wagon up off of the trailer. More colorful curtains fell from the faded, purple rooftop, fluttering seductively, glimpses of the words: "Fortune Teller" brushed in bright gold peeking through the fabric. But Peter couldn't really focus on them. He was in the past, standing on the wet ground, smelling the oil of the funnel cakes, and hearing the other barkers around him howling their duties, be it for candy or games or a desire to see the death defying stunts taking place every hour, on the hour. And he heard the panicked whinnying of a horse driven mad...

He turned away, trying to shake off the memory, and the sense of familiarity (have I seen that wagon before?), and noticed something odd in the window of Ray's Occult Books. Does he have a fan going in there? It looked like pieces of paper were flying around. He picked up the pace to peer in the window, and his eyes widened. What the...?!

Janine was in the air, flying from side to side, mouth open in a scream that wasn't making it past the glass windows. The shop around her was already almost eighty percent destroyed. Adrenaline pounding through his veins, Peter shoved open the door and leaped in, pushing it firmly shut behind him.

Janine was grabbing frantically at the walls, the shelves, anything, it seemed, to stop her from being thrown to the other side. Her skirt kept flipping up too high to be appropriate and her screams blended with the unearthly roar filling the room. Under the cacophony of flicking paper, thudding books, and tinkling crystal, Peter heard Ray shouting something unintelligible. Please don't let him be possessed...

"Peter! Get the trap!"

Not possessed. Ray's head poked out from the back room, his hair sticking up every which way, his shirt pressed firmly to his body from the pressure. Peter could feel it too; his ears wanted to pop.

"The trap!" Ray was pointing frantically at the front counter. "Get it!" He went back to shouting something Peter couldn't understand, and Janine's gyrations in the air slowed. Whatever he was saying was having an effect, but Peter knew it wasn't half as much as it should be. He ducked his head and dove for the trap, rolling on the ground a bit like a Special Forces soldier, coming up right next to the counter. He started to grin as he looked to see if anyone had seen his little move, but from the looks of it, it was going to have to be a story he told later over beer.

He got a hold of the trap, pulling it out and then pushing it firmly into the center of the shop below Janine. "Janine, shut your eyes!" he yelled as loud as he could, and then, hoping she'd heard him, activated the trap.

The trap hissed and the thing in the air howled, reaching almost a fever pitch. Janine screamed again, in fear or pain, Peter couldn't tell, and the swoosh of the trap took over all noise. A loud thump shook the floor, and then the louder sound of silence filled the air.

Peter opened his eyes.

Janine was scrambling to get up. The trap sat on the floor, peaceful, serene...and empty. There was no flashing light, no electric aftersurge. The trap was silent, and held absolutely nothing within.

Oh God, where did the ghost go?

"Did you get it?" Ray asked, coming quickly out of the back room. Peter stood up slowly, staring at the trap even as he moved to offer his hand to the incensed Janine. She ignored him. Ray quickly began to brush her off and she slapped his hands away, her face red with the indignities of the past few minutes.

Ray's face fell as he saw the trap. "Oh no. Where did it go?"

"I don't know," Peter confessed. "I sent the trap in, activated it. We all heard it. It pulled something in. It wouldn't have closed otherwise, right?"

"Well no..." Ray rubbed the back of his neck. "It'll close if there's nothing to bring in."

"Well something was throwing our secretary around like a basketball!" Peter snapped.

"Yes, and something wasn't affected by the trap. At all." Ray's eyes were locked on the trap, his expression growing more worried by the moment.

"Have you noticed, Ray," Peter began, starting to pick up a book or two that had hit the floor, "that the ghosts seem to be evading our little trap more often than not these days?" Three books later he realized he just had no idea where to put any of them, and let them all fall to the floor again.

"Well it makes sense," Ray replied. "We've been in business for...about a year and a half, once you add in everything. Ghosts and spectres aren't always brainless creatures. Some of them are intelligent. They're all mostly comprised of the same molecular compounds, and we made these proton packs and traps on nothing but the theories of what those compounds are. If ghosts can adapt to our technology or learn about the weaknesses in our tools...weaknesses we might not even know about yet...then yes. It's completely possible they can learn to avoid us entirely."

Peter leaned somewhat casually against the desk, his flashing eyes betraying his irritation. "And this is something we can't stop? Is it something we knew about?"

"It's a logical progression of our work. I just figured we'd deal with it when the time came."

Peter blinked wildly. "When the time came?" He gestured to the lopsided antique clock hanging precariously over Ray's front counter. "I'd say the time was about five minutes ago!"

Ray looked up, spotted the clock, and moved quickly to grab it and guide it gently to the countertop. "I'll talk to Spengler."

"In the meantime," Janine interjected, her accent even thicker now with anger, "I'm getting hazard pay for not only being thrown around, but for the lack of compassion shown by my employers!"

Peter shrugged. "You're up, you're walking, and you're asking for money. You're fine."

Ray glared at him, then softened his gaze. "Are you all right, Janine?"

"Yes, I'm fine, Doctor Stantz," Janine bit off the words. "Thank you for asking." She reached down and picked up the 'CLOSED' sign from under a pile of books. "Should I go put this up?"

Ray looked around at the mess of his shop. A dull look of shock began to take over his face. "Yes."

Janine grabbed a marker from the desk and headed for the door. Peter closed the distance between him and Ray, aware that he needed to keep his friend talking as much as he needed information. Any moment, it was going to hit Ray that his business was destroyed. "So what was that you were saying when I walked in? When you weren't yelling about getting the trap?"

Ray grinned a little. "It's a little trick Spengler and I adapted from something we found in Spates' Catalog. It's an incantation that keeps a ghost from leaving an area, you know, in case our proton packs aren't working. Unfortunately, as you saw, I couldn't stop it from hurting Janine." His face fell. "I need to work on it."

"It wasn't your fault." The words were almost automatic, but Peter had seen that look on his friend's face before. The 'if only I had done better' look. Ray was a dreamer. He was naive, and kind, and would be completely under the thrall of anyone who tried to take advantage of him. Egon wasn't quite as innocent as Ray was, but he was just as prone to being taken advantage of. Peter often thought it was up to him, as the oldest and wisest of the group, to keep Egon and Ray from wandering off the path to look at the pretty flowers. The pretty flowers would chew them up. "Where did today's little surprise come from, anyway?"

"I don't know!" Ray looked towards the back of the shop. "We had just opened a new shipment, maybe one of the books was cursed or something..."

"This was pinned on the window outside," Janine's voice broke into the conversation, and her slim hand thrust a piece of paper between the two men. "It might have been glued, but it came off just fine. I thought you'd want to see it."

Peter looked down at the colorful swirls and comic print. His stomach curled into a tiny ball, even as Ray's eyes widened and he gasped in glee. He snatched the paper from Janine's hand. "A carnival! Here in the city! What a fantastic opportunity!" He looked at Peter, mouth half-open in excitement. "I've got to talk to Spengler! A carnival! I don't remember the last time I've been to one! And we've been dying to try out some of our new gadgets. Carnivals are famous for having ghosts. And funnel cakes, of course!" He headed for the door. "I'll be right back!"

Silence followed Ray's exit. Peter stood there, a mess of emotions. He was happy for Ray's enthusiasm and for the distraction from the shop. He was sick inside from the nightmare and the fact that carnivals seemed to be following him around today. He felt fear gnawing its way into his chest and stomach. They can't go to that place, his mind whimpered. They won't come out.

You're being ridiculous, another part of his brain argued. It was a dream. It was an accident. You saw accidents. You knew they happened. It's part of the business. Part of the job. Not every carnival is going to be the one where Mom and Dad...

"Doctor Venkman?" Janine was touching his arm, her eyes wide and filled with more compassion than Peter thought he had ever seen from her. "Are you all right?"

Peter realized he had been staring, the look of mute horror on his face, and he cleared his throat and ran his hand through his hair. "Ahem. Yeah. Yeah, I'm all right."

"So, you don't like carnivals." Classic Janine, asking a question without asking a question.

Peter looked her in the eye. "Clowns scare me."

He knew she didn't believe him, but it didn't matter. He turned and walked out of the shop, noticing that the 'CLOSED' sign Janine had put up had additional words beneath it written in her unmistakable scrawl.

They read: "due to haunting."