With Ray's help Dana was able to carry Egon into the firehouse and off the sidewalk. The tall, lanky scientist was weak and tired from his painful, lonely excursion. The small blood stain on his chest was all Dana needed to see to know that her friend was in serious trouble. Working together the two managed to carry Egon across the garage and up the wide staircase into the rec room on the second floor.

"Here," Ray took a firm hold on Egon's arm and wrapped it around his shoulders while Dana kept her firm grip on his first arm. "we need to get him upstairs. Lay him on the billiard table. It's the best we have for now." Ray instructed Dana to help him lay Egon down on the green felt of the billiard table in the rec room in lieu of a proper diagnostics table or bed.

Before laying him down Dana slipped the brown jacket from Egon's shoulders while Ray awkwardly but carefully set him down on the table. Lifting his legs up and over the edge Egon was able to lay flat on his back. The damaged fabric surrounding the blood stain on Egon's chest was charred and still smoldering with a faint tuft of smoke from the ethereal lightning strike. The smell of ozone and iron was heavy in the air. Egon himself was conscious but unaware of what was happening around him. Every so often Egon would mutter the word "kismet" between panting coughs as he still struggled to catch his breath.

Reacting to the situation in a calm collected manner Ray pressed his fingers to Egon's neck for a brief pulse check, then used a small flashlight to check his pupils. "Dana, there's an emergency medical kit in Egon's lab." Ray clicked off the light and put his hands on Egon's shoulders to keep his injured friend from moving around too much. "It's on the bottom shelf of the bookcase on the far wall."

Moving quickly without hesitation Dana made her way quickly down the stairs and into the basement lab as she began looking for the kit inside the cluttered room.

"Egon? Egon!" Ray put his hands on the sides on Egon's face in an attempt to make his friend look at him and focus. "What the hell happened? What did this? Where did you go? When did this happen?" It was then Ray noticed that Egon wasn't wearing his glasses. "How'd you find your way back here?" He patted Egon's face to try and make him focus. "Egon you have to tell us what happened! Speak to us!"

"Found it." Dana carried in the kit, which was contained in a large rectangular plastic case marked with a red cross symbol on its lid, and set it at the end of the billiard table near Egon's legs. "What can I do to help?"

Ray snapped open the latches on the kit and began rummaging around inside. "Keep him still. We don't know what happened to him and I don't want to chance him exasperating his condition."

Dana put a hand on Egon's arm and felt how much his entire body was trembling from pain. "He's shaking so much." Unfastening the the sleeve of Egon's shirt Dana rolled the material up to his bicep and exposed his arm. She softly rested her hand on his arm and looked at Ray. "He feels like he's burning up!"

Ray stopped looking through the kit and pressed the back of his hand against the side of Egon's neck. "You're right. Whatever happened to him must've put him in a type of thermal shock. His body is still having an adverse reaction to the source of the injury."

Without a word Dana walked into the connected kitchen and put a clean cloth under the faucet. Wringing out the excess cool water she returned to Egon and smoothed the compress over his forehead. "I hope we can help him."

"We will." Ray reassured her as he pulled out a traditional stethoscope from the kit and hung it around his neck. "We just have to be smart about it. First, we need to figure out what caused this kind of wound. It looks like an electrical discharge, but I've never seen an electrical blast that was so focused on a single area without some kind of lightning rod to hone in on. Something else was at play here, I can feel it."

"You mean this couldn't be from an accident or something natural?" Dana asked as she gently held down Egon's shoulders as his body randomly spasmed on the table.

"Afraid not." Ray reluctantly confirmed. "If anything this was the work of something supernatural."

"K-kismet." Egon stammered from his dazed state. "Kismet..."

Dana had never heard the term before. "What is 'kismet'? He keeps saying that."

From the top of the stairway of the rec room came the response. "'Kismet' is another term for apocalypse. Obscure but just as threatening." Peter had finally arrived at the firehouse. Tossing off his tweed coat he made his way into the rec room and leaned over Egon with wide concerned eyes. "What happened here?"

"Peter!" Dana was so relieved to see him. "We don't know what happened to Egon. He just stumbled in off the sidewalk."

Ray looked at the newly arrived scientist with actual fear in his eyes. "We don't know what did this, or where he was when it happened."

"Oh, great." Peter dryly retorted as he picked up Egon's exposed arm and counted the injured man's pulse. "The entire city is going to be swallowed up in a ghost-storm and the brains of our outfit just got fried!"

Ray shook his head as he turned his full attention from Egon to Peter. "I'm not sure how to help him. Peter, you have medical training, what do you think?"

Peter put Egon's arm back down on the table slowly. "I think he needs to see a real doctor."

Egon's hand suddenly reached up from the table and grabbed onto Peter's arm and held tight. "No. No doctor... No... hospital." His gaze was still unfocused as he stared blankly at the ceiling, but at least now they knew he was still conscious and somewhat coherent.

Peter gently loosened Egon's grip from his arm and replaced his arm on the table. "Okay 'Spenz'. No hospital." He gave Ray and Dana an inquisitive look. "But can you tell us why?"

Egon didn't respond to the question, he was unable to speak through his coughs or lack of breath.

"Good reason." Peter looked up at Ray and then Dana. "Now what?"

Ray rubbed the back of his neck anxiously, in the process his fingertips brushed against the stethoscope still dangling around his neck. Taking the device he handed it to Peter and stared at his colleague defiantly. "Now you take charge. Do what you can and we'll help."

Peter refused to accept the stethoscope. "Ray, I'm a doctor of psychiatry, not medicine."

"You're the most qualified of any of us here. You can do this, we know you can." Ray grabbed Peter's hand and put the stethoscope in his forcibly opened palm. "Now do it."

Dana looked down at Egon and into at his unusually glassy and distant eyes. "Please Peter. You have to try."

Sighing and rolling his eyes Peter put the ear pieces of the stethoscope in place and took Ray's spot beside the table. "Alright fine, but don't expect me to drop his pants or get him to turn his head and cough." Running the bell of the stethoscope over Egon's chest Peter listened carefully, unsure of what it is he was supposed to be listening for exactly.

Egon flinched as the cold metal made contact with his unnaturally heated flesh.

"Well Peter?" Ray asked anxiously. "What do you think?"

"I'm not sure." Peter confessed as he stood up straight and removed the stethoscope. "He's alive, he's breathing and his heart is beating. Beating really fast, granted, but aside from the gaping hole in his chest I don't think he's in any real danger for the moment."

Egon began coughing again as he still continued to pant for a full breath.

Ray looked back at the wound and gently lifted a piece of the charred fabric of the ruined shirt away from the injury site. "Look Peter, electrical scorching. First and second degree burns, possible third degree at the center of the strike. We should analyze the injury for any sign of psychokinetic reading."

"Good idea Ray." Peter's tone was a mixture of sarcasm and sincerity. "You check him for any sign of the boogieman, and I'll do something actually useful."

Ray ignored Peter's snide comments and left the rec room for Egon's lab.

"What can I do?" Dana asked sympathetically as she kept one hand on Egon's shoulder in a supportive manner.

Peter rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and looked down at his injured friend. "Get some sterilized basins and wash your hands. I'm going to need a woman's touch for this."

Ray returned to the rec room looking frazzled. "I can't find the PKE meter! Dana, did Egon have it when he came back to the firehouse?"

"I'm not sure." Dana was in the kitchen. After pulling her thick brown hair back in a crude, messy ponytail she began washing her hands. She had to shout over the running water in the sink, as well as the small TV still sitting on the nearby counter. "No, I don't think so."

"Maybe he dropped it when he got hurt?" Peter logically suggested as pulled out several items from the medical kit. "I don't see his glasses anywhere, can't imagine him leaving those behind or misplacing them unless there was a damn good reason." He looked down at Egon as his colleague coughed again. "I say getting struck down by a vengeful ghost is a damn good reason."

"Maybe. Or maybe it got fried in the strike." Ray's tone was heavy with growing doubt. "We need to figure out what happened to Egon before we can even begin to help him."

Dana was back at Peter's side with two clean metallic basins in her hands. "Did you check his coat pockets? He was still wearing it when he ran into me."

"Good idea." Ray retrieved Egon's coat and began checking the pockets. "Got it! Or..." Ray had found the PKE meter but the device was just as scorched and damaged as Egon himself. "what's left of it!"

Peter remained engaged in conversation as he and Dana took care of Egon. "Can it be fixed?"

"I'm not sure." Ray admitted as he examined the heavily damaged meter.

"Well, does it have a previous reading still recorded?"

Using his thumb to clear the smoky smudges away from the display Ray looked at the last reading that the meter had recorded. "Uh, according to the display whatever it was Egon found buried the needle! I haven't seen a reading this high since our last encounter with Vigo the Carpathian! This is incredible!"

"I think Egon would have chosen a different word for it Ray. Now," Peter was almost done taking care of Egon's burn. "can you tell us where this 'incredible' reading was taken?"

"Uh..." Ray gave Peter a despondent look. "No."

"Anything on Egon?"

Ray ran the meter over Egon's chest and watched as the meter struggled but failed to give a reading. "Unknown."

Dana was watching Egon's pain etched face when a flash on the TV screen caught her attention. It was a breaking news story about the storm. "Hey guys, look."

Ray and Peter looked toward the small TV screen and saw a young news reporter standing outside a large building while motioning toward the swirling storm clouds in the sky.

"Hey, turn it up!" Ray told himself as he upped the volume on the small TV's knob. "They're talking about the storm."

"Ten bucks says Egon was there." Peter blatantly wagered.

Dana recognized the building in the background. "That's the Mercado Hotel. I stayed there when I first moved to New York and was apartment hunting."

"What's going on at the Mercado, Ray?" Peter finished cleaning the injury. "Dana, can you hold him up so I can bandage him?"

Ray answered Peter's question without looking away from the TV screen. "Apparently the hotel roof was struck twice by lightning! The entire building was vacated and it doesn't have any power. The police are sectioning off the building and no one is allowed inside."

"Lightning, huh?" Peter gave Dana a smarmy look as he wrapped the white gauze around Egon's chest. "You owe me ten bucks!"

...to be continued...