Unwanted Guests (Real Ghostbusters) - Part 1 of 3
Title: Unwanted Guests (Part 1 of 3)
Author: omorka
Fandom: The Real Ghostbusters
Pairing/character: Ensemble, but focal Peter/Egon/Ray
Rating: FRAO/NC-17
Word Count: ~25000 total
Kink: Threesome, hurt/comfort, possession
Notes/Warnings: Slash, M/M/M threesome, oral sex, frottage, a non-con-ish moment, minor transformation/body horror, occult content. Thanks to my beta, peoriapeoria, who took this on at the last minute; all remaining typos and continuity errors are mine, not hers. Standard disclaimer: I don't own the boys.
Summary: The 'Busters respond to an out-of-town call - unusual phantoms have invaded a wealthy man's private mansion. In dealing with the problem, Peter, Egon, and Ray call up a few unresolved issues from their own pasts.
Artist: ms_ellery, who did a lovely cover and wallpapers, also on short notice - huzzah!
Peter had his feet up on his desk, as he usually did, when the call came in. The remains of his sandwich were scattered across the wrapper at his elbow; he'd debated setting them in the out-box as a joke, but he suspected that would end with them staying there for days - Janine was dead set against throwing out his trash for him, and he'd forget until it started to fossilize.
Slimer swooped out of the corner and stuffed the remains of the sub into his mouth, wrapper and all. He veered off before Peter could say anything. Peter debated chasing after him to chastise the Spud, and decided against it. On the one hand, it wasn't a good idea to let him get away with stealing food; on the other hand, if he'd bothered to drop it in the wastepaper basket, it would have been well within Ray's rules, and it was trash pretty much either way.
The alarm sounded, jolting his attention back to business. He kicked his feet off the desk and bounced over the railing to the reception area. "What's the scoop, Janine?" he asked, as Ray jogged over from where he'd been unhooking the spare pack from the speed recharger and Winston slid down the pole to join them.
"Hold on." She held up one finger as she finished writing something on a half-legal-sized pad; another swoosh at the firepole announced Egon's belated arrival. "You guys know where Kildeer is?"
"Yeah, it's about two hours away if city traffic isn't too bad," Ray nodded. "We have a bust out there?"
"Actually, just outside of the town," Janine finished. She tore the sheet off the pad and handed it to Winston. "Anyone recognize the name 'Mortimer Cartwright'?"
"Wait, yeah, I think I do." Peter looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Didn't he just recently make a big donation to NYU? It was in the paper a couple of weeks ago."
"That sounds right." She planted one elbow on the desk and leaned her head against her hand. "Apparently he had a mansion built out there a little over a decade ago - he spends half his time in an apartment in the city, and the other half out there. Quiet, I guess. Anyway, he says that when he and his driver went up to the house yesterday, they discovered that a ghost had taken up residence on his second floor, left ectoplasm all over everything, and every time they tried to get in, it chased them out. They went back out there this morning, and now there are three of them. Maybe more." She twirled a pen in her other hand, trying to look nonchalant, but Peter recognized the signs of real worry at the corners of her eyes.
"So he wants us to meet him at the house?" Winston squinted at the paper.
"No, he wants you to meet him in Kildeer so he can describe the situation in detail. He was a little antsy about giving his private address out over the phone. I dunno who he thinks would be tapping our line." She shrugged. "But he wants you to come out today. I went ahead and said yes; you don't have anything on the schedule for the rest of the day, and we haven't had too many emergency calls lately."
"Normally, I'd prefer to have a day's notice for out-of-town calls, at a minimum." Egon adjusted his glasses; Janine wilted slightly. "But I agree - we've had only two calls in the past three days, and it sounds as if this problem is increasing in severity over time. We should investigate as soon as possible."
"Let me make sure the packs in Ecto are still at full charge." Ray sprinted back across the garage.
Winston frowned. "He said three, but maybe more? How many more?"
Janine's worry became a little more visible. "He wasn't sure. He said they saw three, but it sounded like there were more." She glanced at the directions in Winston's hand. "Also, apparently at least one can throw fire from its hands. Green flames, he said."
"Ooh, important safety tip, there. Thanks for mentioning that early on." Peter caught himself before digging in any further. "Anything else we should know?"
She shook her head. "He said he'd brief you when you got there. I figured he'd describe the whole thing."
Winston nodded. "Let me get some extra traps, just in case." He jogged off in the direction of the basement stairs.
"I hate out-of-town calls. Even the day ones." Peter stretched. "But we do need the money. And I bet I can ding Cartwright for extras. Maybe I can charge by the room." He turned towards Ecto, where Ray was sliding the equipment rack back into place, looking satisfied.
Janine stood up from behind her desk. "Guys, be careful. I know the client was holding back, because he said so, and I'm a little scared he might have left something out you might need." She wrapped her arms around herself, holding her elbows.
Winston bustled past with an armful of traps. Ray bounced by in the other direction. "I'm going to grab some supplies from the workshop; I'll be right back." He disappeared down the stairs.
Egon shook his head. "We'll be careful, Janine. If it's something we can't handle without the heavy equipment, we'll return for it instead of rushing in foolishly." He shot Peter a warning glance. Peter shrugged; he hadn't been rushing in on their last bust, he'd been trying to flush the Class Two out, but Egon didn't seem to recognize the difference.
"Please, look out for each other." Janine rose up on her tiptoes and quickly pecked Egon on the jaw before he could step back. Color rose in both their cheeks. "I keep worrying that Ecto's gonna come back from one of these trips short a man."
"Janine, I swear, we've got each other's backs all the way," Peter protested, slipping into his usual spot in the back seat. As Egon climbed into Ecto, he smirked at the scientist; the taller man blushed harder, and turned to face the window.
Ray arrived with an extra pouch hooked on his belt. "Okay, I think I've got everything." He climbed into the back with Peter. "Let's go!"
---
Mortimer Cartwright had requested that the Ghostbusters meet him at Kildeer's only cafe. The parking lot, tiny as it was, was almost deserted when Ecto pulled in; a lone pickup truck, coated in thick, dark mud, stood a lonely watch in the space farthest from the door.
"Looks like we beat our client here," Winston noted, pulling the old ambulance into a space he could easily back out of.
Ray nodded. "Unless he owns the cafe. We're not that late, are we?"
Peter glanced at his watch, and replied "No, we're five minutes later than the time we originally named, and Janine told him to allow fifteen minutes for unexpected traffic delays." He opened the rear driver's side door. "And it's an hour and five minutes past our usual dinnertime; I'm starved."
"It's not as if we really have set mealtimes, Peter," Egon chided gently as he climbed out of the car. "The nature of our work precludes keeping a regular schedule."
"Which bugs the heck out of you, I know," Peter grinned. "I remember how you were in college."
"A happy and well-organized state of affairs, which did not survive a single fortnight after making your acquaintance," Egon jabbed back, a faint shadow of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Winston glanced at Ray, who shrugged. "By the time I met them, things were pretty much the way they are now, except we had different reasons for staying up until all hours of the night."
"When Egon and I both took Dr. Harth's Intro to Parapsych class, you could have set your watch by Egon's habits. In fact, I did, a couple of times," Peter elaborated. "Up at 7 am, breakfast at 7:30, lunch at 11:45, dinner at 7:00, in bed at 11 pm. No variation whatsoever."
Egon sighed. "As usual, Peter overstates the case. It was not at all uncommon to find me still in the lab at eleven, or occasionally lost in a book. But he is correct that I was very much a creature of habit and routine. It was one of the parts of my father's influence that I neither thank nor curse him for; it was just the way things were." He shot Peter a shaded look, but his eyes twinkled. "I . . . adapted to a more freeform view of scheduling quite quickly, as I recall."
"I wouldn't try to argue your memory versus mine," Peter conceded. "Now, how about a bite to eat?" He tugged the door open; bright light and the strains of an Elvis song poured into the darkening parking lot.
The diner was done up in faux-'50s style, complete with chrome accents and a checkerboard countertop, which delighted Ray and made Egon and Winston roll their eyes. It was empty except for the cook and one server, a teenaged boy with red hair and broad shoulders. Ray asked about their client.
"Mr. Cartwright? No, he's a regular, but he hasn't been in today." The waiter scratched behind his ear with the tip of his pencil. "But if he said he'd meet you here, feel free to take a table and order, and I'll just take care of him when he arrives."
Egon sat down at a booth with a well-worn Formica tabletop and began glancing over the menu, frowning at the typical diner fare. Ray and Peter glanced over theirs and put them down almost immediately. Winston took a little longer, hunting for something that might actually have some flavor.
They were almost done eating - Egon had finally settled on a basket of fried mushrooms, to Peter's enthusiastic protests and a chorus of gagging noises - when a tall man who looked like he might once have played professional football bustled in. He was wearing a navy blue suit that looked expensive and, given that it fit him, had almost certainly been custom-tailored. Without even looking around, he made a beeline for their table.
Peter pushed his chair back and stood. "Mr. Cartwright?" he asked, extending one hand.
The fellow shook his head. "His bodyguard. Name's Carl. He sent me to come talk to you guys." Carl grabbed a chair from an adjacent table and sank into it, dwarfing it. "Joe - that's Morrie's driver, you haven't met him - is taking him to the hospital in Delhi."
"Is he okay?" blurted Ray.
The bodyguard waved a hand the size of a dinner plate dismissively. "He'll be fine. Sprained an ankle really badly, got bruised up, and maybe a dislocated hip, but nothing broken and no bleeding."
"What happened?" Winston asked, cutting to the chase before Ray could burst in again.
"Not sure, honestly." Carl rubbed at his temples, scowling. "We were trying to go back inside to get some papers for Morrie's broker, and then all of a sudden the shrubbery attacked us. Dragged us right off the back porch. That's how he hurt his ankle, falling into the planter. I was stuck doing hand-to-hand with an oleander, and Morrie got tossed into the privet hedge and I had to haul him back out. Joe saw the whole thing from the car and ran to get some pruning shears, and we all got out of there okay. But I ain't going back until you guys take care of this little issue."
He looked up. "I'm supposed to spend the night at the motel on 5th Street. When you guys are done, meet me there - I'll pay you for your time. I hope you get these bastards." His impressive brow lowered. "Takes a coward to ambush a guy like that. They didn't even come out and face us. I'd'a thought that being dead, you'd grow a little spine."
"Some ghosts are afraid of humans and will use their abilities to keep us away from them," offered Ray.
Carl shook his head sharply. "This wasn't scaredy-cat fear, just cowardice. Contempt, maybe, too. They don't like us. Called me a brute, and called Morrie ugly. Said we wouldn't do. Didn't say for what, though."
"What did they look like?" asked Egon.
"Tall," said Carl, looking upwards as if he were searching for the memory on the ceiling. "Basically human-like, but - pointy. Pointed ears, pointed noses, pointed fingers." Egon frowned at that, pulling the small copy of Tobin's from his pocket and flipping through it.
"Well, we'll take care of everything. Just leave it to us," Peter assured the bodyguard. "What's the best way to get there from here?"
"Really only one way. Take Old Farm Road towards the river out of town until you cross Wild Onion Creek, and then take the next left. The driveway to Morrie's place is the first right after that, with the big iron gate. It's not locked. We might've even left it open; we were in a hurry." Winston wrote Carl's directions down on a napkin and thanked him.
Carl rose to his feet. "Good luck. I hope you nail those bastards to the wall," he muttered, lumbering towards the door and out into the warm autumn night.
Peter nibbled on a cold French fry. "So, we're going to have to watch out for angry foliage? Good to know."
"His description is reminding me of something," mused Egon, "but it can't be the Sidhe. They're not ectoplasmic; they're living beings, just not ones fully in phase with our dimension."
"And his description over the phone was definitely ghostly - or at least, Janine mentioned there was slime involved, and I can't imagine fairies leaving goop around the place," Peter noted.
Ray shrugged. "Maybe the ghosts read too much Tolkien and thought it'd be fun to look like elves?"
"Perhaps," Egon rumbled. He looked at the book as though it had displeased him.
---
"Looks calm enough," Winston noted as Ecto carefully nosed down the mansion's long and winding driveway through park-like woods. The gates had been left open, as Carl had mentioned they might; Ray had suggested that they close them on their way in, but Peter and Winston both vetoed that - if they had to make a quick getaway and come back with more specialized equipment, the last thing they needed was to have to stop and open a heavy wrought-iron gate.
"Everything we've heard so far suggests that the specters only manifest in the house itself, and perhaps the garden," Egon pointed out.
Ray piped up, "Speaking of which, we probably ought to park far enough away from the plantings around the house that they can't snag Ecto or her tires."
"Yeah, good thinking, Ray." Winston pulled up in a gravel patch next to the tennis court. Peter climbed out, looked around, and whistled. "Nice. Look, there's a swimming pool around the side, too. Cartwright must be a pretty active guy."
"Or at least he likes to look like he is," Winston suggested, tugging the equipment rack from the back of Ecto and slipping his arms into his pack's straps.
"Either way, it's an impressive spread," Peter pointed out. "Ghostbusting's good for the fame, but I'll admit, I could use a little more fortune. I want a place like this."
"No, you don't," Egon chided. "You'd never use half of the amenities, and you wouldn't want to either perform the necessary upkeep yourself or pay the exorbitant amount it would cost to hire maintenance workers. You can barely manage two employees, and Louis isn't even full-time."
"We can barely afford two employees," Peter grumbled, fastening the belt on his pack and checking the lights on his traps.
"Are we going in the front or the back?" Ray asked, studying the mansion. An eerie azure light flickered in one of the upstairs windows, like a candle flame made of moonlight.
"They tried going in the back last time and got thrown to the oleanders," Winston pointed out.
"But we don't know if the front is unlocked," Ray countered.
Peter shrugged. "Either one of us could take care of that in about a minute, unless he's got some fancy electronic lock."
"I suppose that's true," Ray mused. "Okay, front then?"
"Sounds good to me. Remember, until we know what we're dealing with, no one's back is uncovered and no one goes off alone," Peter coached the team. "Probably not even then. Egon, you got anything yet?"
The antennae on the PKE meter fluttered like butterfly wings; the gadget was warbling at a pitch that made Winston's fillings hurt. Egon thumbed one of the side knobs. "I'm reading multiple entities, positive valence - we won't need the destabilizer. At least three on the ground floor, and a cluster on the second - they're too close together for me to make them out, but no less than four, probably five or six." He frowned. "And one energy source that isn't ectoplasmic. It might be an artifact of some sort."
"Good thing we brought extra traps," observed Peter. Egon nodded and continued, "I'm having trouble pinpointing their classifications. Their ectoplasmic vibratory rates suggest that they're Class Fours, near the top of the classification. But their PKE valences look more like Class Six or even Seven." The physicist pursed his lips. "They could be very dangerous."
"Egon, we face down things that could be very dangerous every day. It's what we do." Peter smoothed his hair down and flashed his colleague a cocky grin. "The question is, are they dangerous?"
"I think Carl already answered that question," Winston pointed out. Peter's grin lost a bit of its luster.
"I doubt I can get anything else useful at this distance," Egon concluded.
Ray hit the power switch on his thrower, and the particle accelerator thrummed to life. "Then let's see what we're dealing with!"
They crept up the front walkway, staying well away from the carefully manicured peonies and ligustrums on either side. The shrubs rustled and shook, despite the lack of a breeze, but they made no sudden moves, and neither did the Ghostbusters.
The four men piled onto the broad front porch, framed by white columns. Egon and Winston hit their switches. Peter tapped the doorknob with the tip of the thrower. Nothing.
He tried the door. Locked.
"Cover me," he instructed, and reached into his belt pouch for the lockpicks he'd started carrying since that time Ray'd been trapped behind a locked door with a fractured ankle and an angry Class Six. He dropped to one knee and started feeling for tumblers. This was one of the few skills he'd picked up from Charlie's associates that he used regularly enough to keep in practice.
Poke. Wiggle. Click.
"Got it," he announced, tucking the picks back into their pouch and securing it in its clip. He thumbed his power switch, feeling the vibration of the positron accelerator kick in reassuringly. "Ready, guys?"
"Ready," the other three chorused, throwers up. Egon glanced down at the PKE meter. "They're moving," the physicist noted. "They may know we're here."
"Then stay alert, guys. Let's go!" Peter turned the knob and pushed the door in carefully with his boot. He darted in, eyes sweeping the front room; the others followed and spread out into a semi-circle, covering the room.
The door slammed shut behind them. All of them but Ray jumped; that was a classic opening move on the ghosts' part, but it was still effective, Peter reflected as he tried to convince his heart to get out of his throat and back in his chest.
Egon shoved his glasses back into place and squinted at the meter. "New manifestations, multiple ones, Class One, across the whole first floor - "
He was interrupted by a silvery, transparent sapling sprouting abruptly from the floor in front of them. Buds appeared, leaves unfolded, and the sapling surged soundlessly upwards. It was followed by another, and another, and another. In a matter of minutes, the room was filled with a silent spectral forest, swaying lightly, as if in a gentle breeze they couldn't feel.
"Are these - " started Peter.
"Rowan trees," murmured Ray. "Or the ghosts of them, anyway."
"All across the first floor," Egon confirmed. He prodded one with the tip of his thrower. It passed through with some resistance, and the tree thrashed as if it were suddenly in the midst of a storm; when he drew his thrower back, the end was covered with a film of light, glittering ectoplasm. The tree immediately stopped its writhing and went back to the slow, gentle sway. Egon fired a burst of protons; the tree lost its cohesion and dissolved into an ectoplasmic mist that billowed and then sank to the floor.
"So we can get rid of them if we want," Winston noted. "Good to know."
Egon's mouth was wry. "That was at full power and point blank range. We'd drain the packs if we did that to all of them."
"And that might not be a great idea, anyway," warned Ray. "Look!" He pointed at the floor, where the mist was condensing into tufts of ethereal grass and strange, delicate-looking silver ferns.
Winston leaned between two of the slender trees. "So are these under the control of the other ghosts?"
"Hey, yeah," Ray broke in, "Are you getting anything more on them?"
"Not much." Egon raised the meter to eye level. "The spectral forest is blocking most other readings on this level. It looks as if it covers . . . " He peered at the screen, as if bringing it closer to his eyes would make the image resolve. " . . . The whole first floor, except for one room at the back."
Peter shook his head. "Ray, do you have your meter with you?"
"Right here, Peter." Ray unzipped one chest pocket and plucked the device out one-handed, then bit gently on the antennae to pull them out and activate the meter. "Yeah, I can tell there are two fairly powerful entities elsewhere on this floor, and that they're more or less in that direction," he said, gesturing with his thrower, "but I can't even make out what class they are with all the interference from the tulgey wood here."
"Are they together?" Peter asked, edging between two ghostly trunks towards the doorway.
"No," replied Egon and Ray in chorus. Ray continued, "One of them is maybe two rooms away, I'd guess. The other one's closer to the back of the house."
Peter nodded. "We don't want to warn the ones upstairs that we're here, if they don't already know and we can help it. If we take on the closer one as a group, then the one in back can go for reinforcements."
"So we split up?" Winston asked, as he sidled up to the side door of the room and took a quick peek.
Peter nodded. "And I want someone with a meter in both groups, so we have advance warning if the cavalry start showing up. Be ready to regroup if we get outnumbered."
"Or if they're tougher than we think," agreed Winston.
Peter smirked. "They're elves, Winston. How tough can they be? Ray, c'mon, you and I can take the one in the back; you two nab the closer one." He threw Egon a thumbs-up as they snuck out their respective doors.
---
Winston and Egon crept through what had been designed as a library but had shelves more full of knickknacks than books. Slender silver saplings brushed delicate branches against the collected vases and figurines.
Winston glanced at some of the few books on the shelves. They looked like they'd been bought as a set - or as books-by-the-foot. "Something tells me that our client's not a big reader."
"Or he has a study upstairs, with the real books." Egon was bent over the PKE meter. "The specter we're looking for should be in the next room."
Winston backed up next to the doorway, then carefully leaned over and looked through. Much of the room, which looked like a sitting room - it was full of very expensive couches and overstuffed chairs, with several small low tables and a big fireplace - was obscured by gently swaying leaflets, but a gently glowing figure was visible, perched on the arm of the sofa.
Unlike the trees, this specter was golden, especially its hair and eyes. Standing, it would have been tall enough to look down at the top of Egon's head, and it was thinner than he was, as if someone had taken an ectomorphic human figure and gently stretched it vertically. Its hair was loose and tumbled in waves to its waist. Its ears were long and delicately pointed, and its eyes were huge, almond-shaped, and glowing like molten metal.
It didn't seem to notice Winston; it seemed to be watching something on the branches of one of the ghost-trees. He ducked back out of the door frame and turned to Egon. "Yup, it's there. We're going to have some trouble getting a clear shot with the trees in the way."
Egon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps a pincer maneuver would be our best chance of catching it quietly."
"Sounds better than just going in blasting. You go left, I'll go right. One, two -"
They broke for the door, Winston first, and darted to either side. The figure turned towards them, an expression of utter distaste curving across its features.
"Mortals," it muttered, its upper lip curling. It raised one hand, which began to glow green.
Winston reached a position behind a wing-backed chair and let off a proton stream. His aim was good; it struck the specter right in the center of its chest.
It screamed. Not the usual yowlings and screeches that all ghosts made when they were caught; this sounded exactly like a human woman screaming. The ghost's face crumpled in anguish as it clutched where its heart would be if it were living.
Both of the Ghostbusters were so startled that Egon's shot went wide, barely grazing the spirit, and Winston's finger slipped from the firing button. The last time he'd fired a weapon and heard that sound in return - no, he didn't need to think about that. He brought the thrower back up.
The specter, released from the stream, made a grab for the phantasmal trunk in front of it, and slid up it, like a firepole in reverse. It passed silently through the ceiling, leaving a shimmering golden film on the surface.
"Oh, nuts," grumbled Egon. "Winston, it's gone to get reinforcements. We need to -"
The trees trembled, as if an earthquake had passed - and then their limbs began flailing. One of them caught Egon in the solar plexus and flung him against the wall; another slammed into the wing-back chair and threw it into Winston.
Winston's head cracked against the edge of the brickwork around the fireplace as the chair landed on top of him. The last thing he saw before his vision went out was a group of four or five of the golden specters sliding back down the trees.
---
Ray and Peter snuck down the main hallway of the mansion. It was painted bright white, well-lit, and decorated with plaster sculptures and potted plants. A grand spiral staircase swooped around the center of the hall, framing a long chandelier.
"You know, if it weren't for the ghost trees, this place wouldn't look haunted at all," Peter observed with a grin.
Ray rolled his eyes. "It wasn't until two days ago. Now, ssshhh."
Peter turned back to Ray, whispering "Did you guys have a theory on where these ghosts came from?"
Shaking his head, Ray answered "No, but we didn't have much information to go on. I was thinking they might be forest spirits, but this house has been here for at least a decade, guessing from the wear on the paint outside. They shouldn't just now be getting stirred up unless something happened recently."
By now, they were at the end of the hall, with three doors - one in front and one to each side - to choose from. Ray glanced at the meter, then pointed at the one on the left. Peter nodded silently, then gestured for Ray to stand behind him. He waited a beat, then kicked the door open and charged in, thrower in front of him like a spear. Ray followed on his heels.
This was a dining room, with a huge table of some deep red wood and a dozen matched chairs. A single golden figure, easily a full head taller than Peter with a braid of golden hair reaching to its thighs, whirled around as they charged in. Peter took two steps to the right, to get out of Ray's way, and fired.
The specter continued its spin and let it take it out of the path of the proton stream, which toasted the two-day-old flower arrangement quietly wilting behind it. Peter cursed and corrected his aim, just as Ray let off his first blast -
- And the air was shattered by a human scream. Ray stopped firing, startled. The specter finished its turn by curling an arm around one of the phantom rowans and spiraled upwards, passing through the ceiling and disappearing.
"Was that - that can't have been Egon, that was too high," gasped Ray.
Peter shook his head. "Either they've got a female hostage, or that was one of the ghosts. Either way, though, the guys could be in trouble; we've got to -"
He was cut off by the ghostly tree next to him quavering and then swinging a branch at his head. He ducked, and then rolled under the table; Ray followed on his hands and knees. The branches thudded dully on the tabletop; other trees knocked the chairs away and began sweeping towards them. Fortunately, they stayed rooted in place.
"Okay, why is this working?" Peter asked. "I mean, they're ectoplasmic; can't they just reach through the table?"
Ray pondered that for a minute. "Maybe they can't reach through wood. Just like most ghosts can't reach through flesh; otherwise, they'd be able to put a hand through our chests and then squeeze our hearts until they stopped beating."
Peter shuddered. "Ray, never say that out loud again. I don't want some Class Seven getting any funny ideas." He looked around. "So how do we get out of here?"
Ray bit his lower lip, then glanced at the meter still in his left hand. "The room without any trees in it is the next room that way," he said, pointing to their right. "Maybe we can zap the couple that are between us and the door and make a break for it."
"Okay. Full stream, short bursts. Ready?" The throwers whined as they changed power levels. Two streams lanced out from beneath the table and struck the pair of slender shrubs that blocked the exit; the two trees rippled and then dissolved into soft silver mist. The two Ghostbusters scrambled on all fours to the end of the table and scuttled into the next room, just as three golden figures dropped through the ceiling and onto the table.
Peter flung the door shut and faced Ray. "Well, now what?"
"I'd back away from the door, myself," Ray answered as a flash of green-gold light blazed around the edge of the door, followed by a curl of smoke.
---
Egon was dragged roughly to his feet. A voice somewhere above him, light and musical, said "This one might do. Bring him upstairs."
He tried to protest, but he couldn't quite get the word out. "Nnnnnn . . ."
Arms curled around his from both sides, and lifted him into the air. For a moment, he was afraid that they would forget that he was material and couldn't pass through the ceiling as they could, but they glided into the hallway and up the central spiral staircase. They carried him past several open doorways - he was still too dizzy to count how many - and then stopped in front of a pair of double doors. The tops of the ghostly trees, silver leaflets now interspersed with tiny glass-like flowers, swayed and swirled just beneath his feet.
One of his captors laid a hand on the door. "My lord, we have captured one of them. Would you like to look at him?"
"I have seen him already," said a voice like silk velvet. "Yes, I think this one might well do. Bring him in to me."
The specter holding his right arm pushed the door open. This was a bedroom, richly appointed, with a canopy bed and a cherry-wood wardrobe. One of the ghosts, taller than the others and with eyes that glowed like blue ice in the sun, was seated on an overstuffed chair draped with gold silk braid. Egon wondered faintly where they'd gotten the braid from; it wasn't sewn to the chair.
The seated specter rose and drifted over to them. He slid a hand under Egon's chin and raised it until Egon was looking him directly in the eyes, leaving a thin film of cold ectoplasm on his skin. Egon knew what Peter would do in this position - he'd spit in the specter's eye - but Egon couldn't work up the saliva; his mouth was dry.
He settled for spitting words instead. "What do you want?"
"Your world," responded the specter. "Eventually. For the moment, though, your body will have to be sufficient."
Egon was suddenly fully awake. He jerked his limbs away from his captors, but they held tight, merely following him. "What?"
The specter ignored him. "Yes, he is strong enough in body as well as mind. I am pleased." He smiled at the ghost who had knocked. "Kevarel, my faithful lieutenant, if you can capture him alive, you may have the brown-haired one. He is also fair enough of face and strong enough of shoulder to be host for one of us."
The specter holding him bowed without letting go. "I am most honored, my lord."
The taller ghost gestured dismissively. "I am generous. Unfortunately, the short fat one and the dark-skinned one are completely unsuitable. Kill them and dispose of their bodies where their unsightly visages will not disturb me. Leave this one here."
Egon recoiled. He wasn't sure which was worse - their threatening to kill two of his closest friends, or their repugnant reasons for rejecting them in the first place.
"Yes, my lord." The ghosts dropped Egon to the floor, on his back; before he could push himself upright and scramble away, the thrashing trees beneath him secured his arms and legs, binding him tightly to the floor. The two soldier-spirits backed out the door, closing it as they went. Their leader turned to him, smiling, as he planted one translucent foot on either side of Egon's waist.
"You should feel honored, Egon Spengler," the specter purred.
"How do you know my name?" the physicist returned, eyes flashing.
The specter laughed. "I can hear the surface thoughts of any being in my forest as easily as I can hear their voices. Probing deeper into your soul is but a moment's more work." The specter knelt over him, in a most unsettling position, and gazed into Egon's eyes. Sure enough, he felt a pressure at the edge of his mind. He shut his eyes and frantically pushed back.
His captor laughed, a distressingly musical sound. "A feisty one. When I subvert your spirit, you will make an excellent addition to myself."
Egon drew away as much as he could. "Who are you?" he asked, hoping to buy time for the others to fight their way up here.
"It won't work. Even now, your dusky-skinned bodyguard is dying, and the other noble and your fat friar of a druid are trapped, soon to be captured." The specter trailed a ghostly hand down the front of Egon's uniform, his fingers deftly probing, although for what, Egon couldn't tell. They left a glittering golden trail on the fabric. "But you will know who I am soon enough. You may call me the Elvenking."
"But you're a ghost, not an elf," Egon objected.
The specter chuckled. "Not as clever as I'd thought, although perhaps the blow to the head is affecting you still." His fingers found the zipper pull on Egon's uniform and brought it down. "No matter. I can heal that, too." Crackling green-gold energy danced from the Elvenking's fingers and sank into Egon's skin, and the pain in his skull and shoulder subsided.
"Now, about the business at hand." The specter leaned down, his legs extended next to Egon's, practically lying on top of him. "You are lonely, Egon Spengler. You are one of Nature's true nobles, and yet your world does not recognize you. In fact," he continued in that light, musical voice, "much of it rejects you, even claims your work is fraudulent." Egon felt the cold touch of ectoplasm seeping through his clothes as the specter pressed against him. The force against his mind grew stronger. "You need the power to prove your point, to demonstrate the strength of the ectoplasmic world to your colleagues. I can give you that power."
"More, I can end your loneliness," purred the specter, his face hovering barely an inch over Egon's. "You flounder with four inferior intellects, erroneously perceiving you to be an equal, even a potential partner in romance." The Elvenking's laughter was like a choir of bells. "Join with me of your own will, and I will give you everything you desire. I will pleasure your body however you wish, with whomever you might choose." A frisson of erotic energy ran through Egon's skin; the specter shifted his position, reinforcing the supernatural stimulation with physical friction. Egon felt himself becoming aroused against his will. "But even alone, you will always be with me, with an intellect who can understand you." His ghostly lips brushed Egon's. "Join with me, Egon."
Egon tensed, pressing himself back against the floor. "I'd rather die."
"If I have to do this unwillingly, I will, and you might well wish yourself dead," murmured the Elvenking, and his eyes flashed with blue fire. His mouth closed on Egon's. Suddenly he couldn't breathe, and the pressure against his mind became a lance of agony.
Egon cried out as the specter sank into his body, his back arching as he struggled against his bonds, and then he went silent and limp. Slowly, the trees uncoiled from his wrists and ankles. When his eyes opened, they glowed pale blue.
---
"Holy crap, these things are annoying!" Peter announced, blasting another specter as it charged the door. As soon as the proton stream touched it, it shrieked and danced backwards.
"Yeah, and the streams aren't containing them at all," observed Ray. "They just seem to find them painful."
"That's part of the annoying bit. I feel like I'm torturing them," Peter complained. "Why don't they just charge in here? They know they outnumber us. They could probably just swarm us, and they have to have thought about that."
"Maybe there's something about the kitchen that's repelling them," Ray mused. "I mean, there's got to be a reason why the ghost trees didn't grow here." He let off a quick burst at a phantom that tried to drop through the ceiling, leaving a scorch mark, and winced as it wailed.
Peter nodded. "Like what? Some rare herb?"
Ray shook his head. "I thought about that. But I doubt there's anything like asafetida in here. And bay laurel and garlic shouldn't do anything to ghosts." Ray glanced around, and picked up a salt shaker. He flung it at the next specter to try coming through the door; the spirit batted it out of the air easily.
Peter zapped the spirit, sending it crying. "Nope, not that either. And I haven't heard any screaming coming from the other room, which probably means Winston and Spengs are in trouble." He allowed himself a brief chuckle. "It's a bad sign when a lack of screaming means someone's in deep -"
"Wait, I think I might have something," Ray said, snapping his fingers. "Remember what happened when Egon poked the first rowan tree?"
"Yeah, it started doing its little dance, but it didn't hit him," Peter answered, discouraging the next specter with a warning shot.
"I don't think it was trying to hit him. I think he was destabilizing it," Ray explained. "Look at these ghosts, Peter. What do they look like?"
"Elves, like we said before," said Peter. "But what - "
"I think they're Sidhe spirits!" Ray looked at the PKE meter. "That would explain why the readings are so strange. They're Class Fours because they're the spirits of dead people, or in this case dead elves, but since they're magical beings and semi-extradimensional, they also read like Class Sevens."
Peter shook his head. "Ray, up until we ran into your aunt's domovoi, I didn't believe in any of the 'fair folk,' and now you're telling me we're fighting basically their royalty?" He strafed the doorway, sending two specters screaming back into the dining room. "This is really bad. The streams aren't actually injuring them at all, and we're eventually going to run out of charge."
Ray didn't answer; he opened a drawer and began rummaging around. "Hey, Peter, you can throw knives, right?"
"Yeah. Picked it up working the carnival those two summers." Peter glanced back at Ray. "Why?"
Ray handed him a table knife. "I know it's not balanced right, but see if you can hit the next one who comes to the door with this."
"Ray, they're not physical," Peter protested, but he set his thrower on the counter and took the knife from Ray. An opportunity immediately presented itself as the tallest specter he'd yet seen stepped into the doorway. It held up one hand and said "Hold; I would speak with you."
"Not until we get our buddies back," replied Peter, and he snapped his wrist. The knife tumbled end over end and struck the phantom elf in the shoulder.
The specter stumbled back a step in shock, gasping. The knife slowly dropped through his translucent form, as if it were sinking through water; the spirit seemed nearly paralyzed, shivering and clenching its hands. Finally, the knife finished its long tumble through him and clattered dully onto the floor, covered in shimmering golden slime; the ghost flailed behind himself and caught one of the rowans, sliding upwards towards the ceiling. He was not replaced in the doorway by another; the four specters in the dining room fell back, waiting.
"What in the heck?" Peter asked, turning back to Ray.
"Cold iron and steel. They can't deal with them, and the kitchen is full of them," Ray answered, waving around. "Oh, this is great! I think I know what we need to do, but we'll need to get outside and then get back in."
"There's an outside door over there," Peter pointed, "but I think it's the one Carl tried to get in through."
"Okay. Find something that's made of iron or steel to use as a weapon. That's what the first tree was reacting to - the steel tubing supporting the ion projector." Ray glanced around and picked up a spatula.
Peter looked up and snagged a frying pan from a hook above the stove. He glanced at Ray. "I'm ready. Can you maybe explain what's going on?"
---
Winston cracked his eyes open, and immediately regretted it. Even the low light of the room stung his retinas. Worse, two of the specters were sitting on the sofa, looking straight at him.
"He stirs," commented the one on the left. "Ugh, such a coarse face, even for a mortal."
The one on the right nodded. "A crime against aesthetics. One wonders how it can stand to look at itself in the mirror."
"Shall we kill him?" The one on the left's voice was high and soft, like wind in the trees. It was really quite disturbing for such a lovely voice to be threatening his life.
"With what? The chair? Beat it to death with the rowans against the bricks? How undignified," sniffed the ghost on the right. "Let Kevarel kill it; he has a proper spear. Until the rowans have borne fruit, we won't even have staves."
Winston tried to pull himself upright - damned if he was going to listen to them call him 'it' like that without a fight - and realized that his legs were still pinned under the wing-back. He tried to wiggle his toes and succeeded; he tried to kick the chair off and failed.
The specter on the left smiled, a beautiful, genuine smile that would light up the heart of a child. "He's in pain, brother," it whispered. "Can you taste it?"
"Oh, indeed." The one on the right sniffed. "I'll not feed on such a beast, though. To absorb such coarseness would be . . . . ugly."
"Stop talking about my friends like that," growled Peter, bursting through the doorway clutching a long-handled frying pan like a mace. He swung it overhand and smacked the specter on the right in the back of the head. The ghost gasped in fright and fell to the floor.
Ray bounded over the doorsill. He had a twig, about a foot and a half long, with the leaves still on it, in one hand, and a sprig of something green with much smaller leaves in the other. He touched one of the rowan trees with both in turn, and the tree faded like a candle flame going out. Another tree tried to sweep him off his feet; he jumped and swatted it with the twig, then the sprig, and it faded, too. "Over here, Peter, it's clear," Ray called, and darted to the next sapling.
Peter dodged another tree and backhanded the other specter in the stomach with the skillet. The elf-ghost froze in place and toppled over, landing on the floor next to Winston. The oldest Ghostbuster grabbed at his belt, unclipped the trap that wasn't pinned by the chair, and tossed it. "Trap out!" He turned his face away, dropped the trigger to the floor, and pressed it hard with the heel of his hand. The inverted pyramid of blinding white light scooped up both specters and the two remaining rowan trees and sucked them in; the two phantoms were too stunned to struggle. The trap snapped shut with a hiss.
"I think that's all of them on this floor," Ray said. Winston noticed that both of the traps hanging off of Ray's pack harness were smoking gently and flashing. Peter had just filled his second, it looked like; orange-yellow vapor still trailed thickly from its doors.
"Good. Winston, are you okay? Where's Egon?" Peter levered the huge chair off of Winston's legs.
"Two of them captured him and took him upstairs. I think I blacked out after that." Winston brought one hand to the bump on the back of his head and winced. Ray scurried over and looked at it. "Ouch, yeah, Winston, you're bleeding."
He looked at his hand. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but yes, his fingers were streaked with blood. "One of the trees tried to throw me and the chair into the fireplace at once."
"Here, you take the full traps out to Ecto and then wait there," instructed Peter as he helped Winston to his feet. "We'll go get Egon."
Winston shook his head. "No way. I'm not going anywhere by myself as long as the plants outside are still being controlled." He stopped, and waited for the room to stop spinning again. "Besides, I have an empty trap still, and neither of you two do."
"He has a point," admitted Ray. "I don't think it's safe for any of us to be on our own yet, and it'll take too long for us all to go out there."
Winston pulled his thrower up by the cord. "I'll be okay. I'll guard the rear and try not to do anything too strenuous."
Ray glanced around. "Here, take the fireplace poker. Better yet, you take the frying pan and let Peter take the poker."
"Nah, I think I've finally gotten used to this," Peter said, swinging the skillet again.
Ray shrugged. "Okay." Turning back to Winston, he continued, "But you'll need an iron or steel weapon. The streams hurt 'em, but they don't stay hurt. Cold iron neutralizes some of their powers."
"What's with the gardening there?" Winston asked, ignoring the fireplace tools for the moment.
Ray looked confused for a second, then his expression cleared. "Oh, these?" He held up the twig and the green thing. "Oak and mistletoe. If I had some holly, it'd be even better, but no one planted any around here. They're two of the Celtic sacred plants that are stronger than rowan."
"Okay, so it's magic stuff. That's all I need to know," Winston stopped Ray, shaking his head slightly. The room spun again; he rubbed at his temples until it behaved itself, then picked up the ash shovel. It was steel, too; it should work if the frying pan did. "Let's go get Egon back."
"Right. You guys stay behind me. Have the trap ready in case we need it," Peter commanded, and they moved single-file into the hallway and up the spiral staircase, trying to be quiet and mostly succeeding.
An eerie blue glow flickered around the first door they crept past. Ray held a finger to his lips and nudged the door open enough to see inside; Peter leaned over him and pressed his face to the crack to get a glimpse himself. Winston hung back, thrower out and eyes alert.
"Okay, by now I've seen enough of them - that's some sort of dimensional portal, isn't it?" Peter whispered.
"I think so," Ray whispered back. "I'd need Egon to be sure. But it sure looks like one."
No one disturbed them. Winston leaned in and mouthed, "How many are there left?"
Ray pointed at the meter, then held up two fingers. Winston nodded; two more showing on the meter, although that was no guarantee that more wouldn't come through the portal, if that was what it was.
The next two rooms were a study and a bedroom, empty except for the tops of a few more ghostly rowan trees waving disconcertingly through the floor. Peter gestured at Ray to take care of them, but Ray shook his head. "The spirits that summoned those can probably tell when I dispel them. We'd be giving ourselves away."
"Assuming they don't already know we're here." Peter agreed to move on.
The fourth room was a bathroom, opulently appointed in marble and gleaming chrome. A spindly ghost-tree danced in the middle of it.
Peter had just placed his ear to the next door, a pair of double doors to be precise, when they were yanked open. He windmilled his arms and managed not to fall forward, then dodged just in time to avoid a phantom spear thrust at his head.
"So, you have found your way to my throne room," boomed Egon's voice from the other end of the bedroom. Peter and Ray looked over and gasped in shock.
Part 2 | Part 3
Cover image wallpapers: 1024x768 1280x1024
Author: omorka
Fandom: The Real Ghostbusters
Pairing/character: Ensemble, but focal Peter/Egon/Ray
Rating: FRAO/NC-17
Word Count: ~25000 total
Kink: Threesome, hurt/comfort, possession
Notes/Warnings: Slash, M/M/M threesome, oral sex, frottage, a non-con-ish moment, minor transformation/body horror, occult content. Thanks to my beta, peoriapeoria, who took this on at the last minute; all remaining typos and continuity errors are mine, not hers. Standard disclaimer: I don't own the boys.
Summary: The 'Busters respond to an out-of-town call - unusual phantoms have invaded a wealthy man's private mansion. In dealing with the problem, Peter, Egon, and Ray call up a few unresolved issues from their own pasts.
Artist: ms_ellery, who did a lovely cover and wallpapers, also on short notice - huzzah!
Peter had his feet up on his desk, as he usually did, when the call came in. The remains of his sandwich were scattered across the wrapper at his elbow; he'd debated setting them in the out-box as a joke, but he suspected that would end with them staying there for days - Janine was dead set against throwing out his trash for him, and he'd forget until it started to fossilize.
Slimer swooped out of the corner and stuffed the remains of the sub into his mouth, wrapper and all. He veered off before Peter could say anything. Peter debated chasing after him to chastise the Spud, and decided against it. On the one hand, it wasn't a good idea to let him get away with stealing food; on the other hand, if he'd bothered to drop it in the wastepaper basket, it would have been well within Ray's rules, and it was trash pretty much either way.
The alarm sounded, jolting his attention back to business. He kicked his feet off the desk and bounced over the railing to the reception area. "What's the scoop, Janine?" he asked, as Ray jogged over from where he'd been unhooking the spare pack from the speed recharger and Winston slid down the pole to join them.
"Hold on." She held up one finger as she finished writing something on a half-legal-sized pad; another swoosh at the firepole announced Egon's belated arrival. "You guys know where Kildeer is?"
"Yeah, it's about two hours away if city traffic isn't too bad," Ray nodded. "We have a bust out there?"
"Actually, just outside of the town," Janine finished. She tore the sheet off the pad and handed it to Winston. "Anyone recognize the name 'Mortimer Cartwright'?"
"Wait, yeah, I think I do." Peter looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Didn't he just recently make a big donation to NYU? It was in the paper a couple of weeks ago."
"That sounds right." She planted one elbow on the desk and leaned her head against her hand. "Apparently he had a mansion built out there a little over a decade ago - he spends half his time in an apartment in the city, and the other half out there. Quiet, I guess. Anyway, he says that when he and his driver went up to the house yesterday, they discovered that a ghost had taken up residence on his second floor, left ectoplasm all over everything, and every time they tried to get in, it chased them out. They went back out there this morning, and now there are three of them. Maybe more." She twirled a pen in her other hand, trying to look nonchalant, but Peter recognized the signs of real worry at the corners of her eyes.
"So he wants us to meet him at the house?" Winston squinted at the paper.
"No, he wants you to meet him in Kildeer so he can describe the situation in detail. He was a little antsy about giving his private address out over the phone. I dunno who he thinks would be tapping our line." She shrugged. "But he wants you to come out today. I went ahead and said yes; you don't have anything on the schedule for the rest of the day, and we haven't had too many emergency calls lately."
"Normally, I'd prefer to have a day's notice for out-of-town calls, at a minimum." Egon adjusted his glasses; Janine wilted slightly. "But I agree - we've had only two calls in the past three days, and it sounds as if this problem is increasing in severity over time. We should investigate as soon as possible."
"Let me make sure the packs in Ecto are still at full charge." Ray sprinted back across the garage.
Winston frowned. "He said three, but maybe more? How many more?"
Janine's worry became a little more visible. "He wasn't sure. He said they saw three, but it sounded like there were more." She glanced at the directions in Winston's hand. "Also, apparently at least one can throw fire from its hands. Green flames, he said."
"Ooh, important safety tip, there. Thanks for mentioning that early on." Peter caught himself before digging in any further. "Anything else we should know?"
She shook her head. "He said he'd brief you when you got there. I figured he'd describe the whole thing."
Winston nodded. "Let me get some extra traps, just in case." He jogged off in the direction of the basement stairs.
"I hate out-of-town calls. Even the day ones." Peter stretched. "But we do need the money. And I bet I can ding Cartwright for extras. Maybe I can charge by the room." He turned towards Ecto, where Ray was sliding the equipment rack back into place, looking satisfied.
Janine stood up from behind her desk. "Guys, be careful. I know the client was holding back, because he said so, and I'm a little scared he might have left something out you might need." She wrapped her arms around herself, holding her elbows.
Winston bustled past with an armful of traps. Ray bounced by in the other direction. "I'm going to grab some supplies from the workshop; I'll be right back." He disappeared down the stairs.
Egon shook his head. "We'll be careful, Janine. If it's something we can't handle without the heavy equipment, we'll return for it instead of rushing in foolishly." He shot Peter a warning glance. Peter shrugged; he hadn't been rushing in on their last bust, he'd been trying to flush the Class Two out, but Egon didn't seem to recognize the difference.
"Please, look out for each other." Janine rose up on her tiptoes and quickly pecked Egon on the jaw before he could step back. Color rose in both their cheeks. "I keep worrying that Ecto's gonna come back from one of these trips short a man."
"Janine, I swear, we've got each other's backs all the way," Peter protested, slipping into his usual spot in the back seat. As Egon climbed into Ecto, he smirked at the scientist; the taller man blushed harder, and turned to face the window.
Ray arrived with an extra pouch hooked on his belt. "Okay, I think I've got everything." He climbed into the back with Peter. "Let's go!"
---
Mortimer Cartwright had requested that the Ghostbusters meet him at Kildeer's only cafe. The parking lot, tiny as it was, was almost deserted when Ecto pulled in; a lone pickup truck, coated in thick, dark mud, stood a lonely watch in the space farthest from the door.
"Looks like we beat our client here," Winston noted, pulling the old ambulance into a space he could easily back out of.
Ray nodded. "Unless he owns the cafe. We're not that late, are we?"
Peter glanced at his watch, and replied "No, we're five minutes later than the time we originally named, and Janine told him to allow fifteen minutes for unexpected traffic delays." He opened the rear driver's side door. "And it's an hour and five minutes past our usual dinnertime; I'm starved."
"It's not as if we really have set mealtimes, Peter," Egon chided gently as he climbed out of the car. "The nature of our work precludes keeping a regular schedule."
"Which bugs the heck out of you, I know," Peter grinned. "I remember how you were in college."
"A happy and well-organized state of affairs, which did not survive a single fortnight after making your acquaintance," Egon jabbed back, a faint shadow of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Winston glanced at Ray, who shrugged. "By the time I met them, things were pretty much the way they are now, except we had different reasons for staying up until all hours of the night."
"When Egon and I both took Dr. Harth's Intro to Parapsych class, you could have set your watch by Egon's habits. In fact, I did, a couple of times," Peter elaborated. "Up at 7 am, breakfast at 7:30, lunch at 11:45, dinner at 7:00, in bed at 11 pm. No variation whatsoever."
Egon sighed. "As usual, Peter overstates the case. It was not at all uncommon to find me still in the lab at eleven, or occasionally lost in a book. But he is correct that I was very much a creature of habit and routine. It was one of the parts of my father's influence that I neither thank nor curse him for; it was just the way things were." He shot Peter a shaded look, but his eyes twinkled. "I . . . adapted to a more freeform view of scheduling quite quickly, as I recall."
"I wouldn't try to argue your memory versus mine," Peter conceded. "Now, how about a bite to eat?" He tugged the door open; bright light and the strains of an Elvis song poured into the darkening parking lot.
The diner was done up in faux-'50s style, complete with chrome accents and a checkerboard countertop, which delighted Ray and made Egon and Winston roll their eyes. It was empty except for the cook and one server, a teenaged boy with red hair and broad shoulders. Ray asked about their client.
"Mr. Cartwright? No, he's a regular, but he hasn't been in today." The waiter scratched behind his ear with the tip of his pencil. "But if he said he'd meet you here, feel free to take a table and order, and I'll just take care of him when he arrives."
Egon sat down at a booth with a well-worn Formica tabletop and began glancing over the menu, frowning at the typical diner fare. Ray and Peter glanced over theirs and put them down almost immediately. Winston took a little longer, hunting for something that might actually have some flavor.
They were almost done eating - Egon had finally settled on a basket of fried mushrooms, to Peter's enthusiastic protests and a chorus of gagging noises - when a tall man who looked like he might once have played professional football bustled in. He was wearing a navy blue suit that looked expensive and, given that it fit him, had almost certainly been custom-tailored. Without even looking around, he made a beeline for their table.
Peter pushed his chair back and stood. "Mr. Cartwright?" he asked, extending one hand.
The fellow shook his head. "His bodyguard. Name's Carl. He sent me to come talk to you guys." Carl grabbed a chair from an adjacent table and sank into it, dwarfing it. "Joe - that's Morrie's driver, you haven't met him - is taking him to the hospital in Delhi."
"Is he okay?" blurted Ray.
The bodyguard waved a hand the size of a dinner plate dismissively. "He'll be fine. Sprained an ankle really badly, got bruised up, and maybe a dislocated hip, but nothing broken and no bleeding."
"What happened?" Winston asked, cutting to the chase before Ray could burst in again.
"Not sure, honestly." Carl rubbed at his temples, scowling. "We were trying to go back inside to get some papers for Morrie's broker, and then all of a sudden the shrubbery attacked us. Dragged us right off the back porch. That's how he hurt his ankle, falling into the planter. I was stuck doing hand-to-hand with an oleander, and Morrie got tossed into the privet hedge and I had to haul him back out. Joe saw the whole thing from the car and ran to get some pruning shears, and we all got out of there okay. But I ain't going back until you guys take care of this little issue."
He looked up. "I'm supposed to spend the night at the motel on 5th Street. When you guys are done, meet me there - I'll pay you for your time. I hope you get these bastards." His impressive brow lowered. "Takes a coward to ambush a guy like that. They didn't even come out and face us. I'd'a thought that being dead, you'd grow a little spine."
"Some ghosts are afraid of humans and will use their abilities to keep us away from them," offered Ray.
Carl shook his head sharply. "This wasn't scaredy-cat fear, just cowardice. Contempt, maybe, too. They don't like us. Called me a brute, and called Morrie ugly. Said we wouldn't do. Didn't say for what, though."
"What did they look like?" asked Egon.
"Tall," said Carl, looking upwards as if he were searching for the memory on the ceiling. "Basically human-like, but - pointy. Pointed ears, pointed noses, pointed fingers." Egon frowned at that, pulling the small copy of Tobin's from his pocket and flipping through it.
"Well, we'll take care of everything. Just leave it to us," Peter assured the bodyguard. "What's the best way to get there from here?"
"Really only one way. Take Old Farm Road towards the river out of town until you cross Wild Onion Creek, and then take the next left. The driveway to Morrie's place is the first right after that, with the big iron gate. It's not locked. We might've even left it open; we were in a hurry." Winston wrote Carl's directions down on a napkin and thanked him.
Carl rose to his feet. "Good luck. I hope you nail those bastards to the wall," he muttered, lumbering towards the door and out into the warm autumn night.
Peter nibbled on a cold French fry. "So, we're going to have to watch out for angry foliage? Good to know."
"His description is reminding me of something," mused Egon, "but it can't be the Sidhe. They're not ectoplasmic; they're living beings, just not ones fully in phase with our dimension."
"And his description over the phone was definitely ghostly - or at least, Janine mentioned there was slime involved, and I can't imagine fairies leaving goop around the place," Peter noted.
Ray shrugged. "Maybe the ghosts read too much Tolkien and thought it'd be fun to look like elves?"
"Perhaps," Egon rumbled. He looked at the book as though it had displeased him.
---
"Looks calm enough," Winston noted as Ecto carefully nosed down the mansion's long and winding driveway through park-like woods. The gates had been left open, as Carl had mentioned they might; Ray had suggested that they close them on their way in, but Peter and Winston both vetoed that - if they had to make a quick getaway and come back with more specialized equipment, the last thing they needed was to have to stop and open a heavy wrought-iron gate.
"Everything we've heard so far suggests that the specters only manifest in the house itself, and perhaps the garden," Egon pointed out.
Ray piped up, "Speaking of which, we probably ought to park far enough away from the plantings around the house that they can't snag Ecto or her tires."
"Yeah, good thinking, Ray." Winston pulled up in a gravel patch next to the tennis court. Peter climbed out, looked around, and whistled. "Nice. Look, there's a swimming pool around the side, too. Cartwright must be a pretty active guy."
"Or at least he likes to look like he is," Winston suggested, tugging the equipment rack from the back of Ecto and slipping his arms into his pack's straps.
"Either way, it's an impressive spread," Peter pointed out. "Ghostbusting's good for the fame, but I'll admit, I could use a little more fortune. I want a place like this."
"No, you don't," Egon chided. "You'd never use half of the amenities, and you wouldn't want to either perform the necessary upkeep yourself or pay the exorbitant amount it would cost to hire maintenance workers. You can barely manage two employees, and Louis isn't even full-time."
"We can barely afford two employees," Peter grumbled, fastening the belt on his pack and checking the lights on his traps.
"Are we going in the front or the back?" Ray asked, studying the mansion. An eerie azure light flickered in one of the upstairs windows, like a candle flame made of moonlight.
"They tried going in the back last time and got thrown to the oleanders," Winston pointed out.
"But we don't know if the front is unlocked," Ray countered.
Peter shrugged. "Either one of us could take care of that in about a minute, unless he's got some fancy electronic lock."
"I suppose that's true," Ray mused. "Okay, front then?"
"Sounds good to me. Remember, until we know what we're dealing with, no one's back is uncovered and no one goes off alone," Peter coached the team. "Probably not even then. Egon, you got anything yet?"
The antennae on the PKE meter fluttered like butterfly wings; the gadget was warbling at a pitch that made Winston's fillings hurt. Egon thumbed one of the side knobs. "I'm reading multiple entities, positive valence - we won't need the destabilizer. At least three on the ground floor, and a cluster on the second - they're too close together for me to make them out, but no less than four, probably five or six." He frowned. "And one energy source that isn't ectoplasmic. It might be an artifact of some sort."
"Good thing we brought extra traps," observed Peter. Egon nodded and continued, "I'm having trouble pinpointing their classifications. Their ectoplasmic vibratory rates suggest that they're Class Fours, near the top of the classification. But their PKE valences look more like Class Six or even Seven." The physicist pursed his lips. "They could be very dangerous."
"Egon, we face down things that could be very dangerous every day. It's what we do." Peter smoothed his hair down and flashed his colleague a cocky grin. "The question is, are they dangerous?"
"I think Carl already answered that question," Winston pointed out. Peter's grin lost a bit of its luster.
"I doubt I can get anything else useful at this distance," Egon concluded.
Ray hit the power switch on his thrower, and the particle accelerator thrummed to life. "Then let's see what we're dealing with!"
They crept up the front walkway, staying well away from the carefully manicured peonies and ligustrums on either side. The shrubs rustled and shook, despite the lack of a breeze, but they made no sudden moves, and neither did the Ghostbusters.
The four men piled onto the broad front porch, framed by white columns. Egon and Winston hit their switches. Peter tapped the doorknob with the tip of the thrower. Nothing.
He tried the door. Locked.
"Cover me," he instructed, and reached into his belt pouch for the lockpicks he'd started carrying since that time Ray'd been trapped behind a locked door with a fractured ankle and an angry Class Six. He dropped to one knee and started feeling for tumblers. This was one of the few skills he'd picked up from Charlie's associates that he used regularly enough to keep in practice.
Poke. Wiggle. Click.
"Got it," he announced, tucking the picks back into their pouch and securing it in its clip. He thumbed his power switch, feeling the vibration of the positron accelerator kick in reassuringly. "Ready, guys?"
"Ready," the other three chorused, throwers up. Egon glanced down at the PKE meter. "They're moving," the physicist noted. "They may know we're here."
"Then stay alert, guys. Let's go!" Peter turned the knob and pushed the door in carefully with his boot. He darted in, eyes sweeping the front room; the others followed and spread out into a semi-circle, covering the room.
The door slammed shut behind them. All of them but Ray jumped; that was a classic opening move on the ghosts' part, but it was still effective, Peter reflected as he tried to convince his heart to get out of his throat and back in his chest.
Egon shoved his glasses back into place and squinted at the meter. "New manifestations, multiple ones, Class One, across the whole first floor - "
He was interrupted by a silvery, transparent sapling sprouting abruptly from the floor in front of them. Buds appeared, leaves unfolded, and the sapling surged soundlessly upwards. It was followed by another, and another, and another. In a matter of minutes, the room was filled with a silent spectral forest, swaying lightly, as if in a gentle breeze they couldn't feel.
"Are these - " started Peter.
"Rowan trees," murmured Ray. "Or the ghosts of them, anyway."
"All across the first floor," Egon confirmed. He prodded one with the tip of his thrower. It passed through with some resistance, and the tree thrashed as if it were suddenly in the midst of a storm; when he drew his thrower back, the end was covered with a film of light, glittering ectoplasm. The tree immediately stopped its writhing and went back to the slow, gentle sway. Egon fired a burst of protons; the tree lost its cohesion and dissolved into an ectoplasmic mist that billowed and then sank to the floor.
"So we can get rid of them if we want," Winston noted. "Good to know."
Egon's mouth was wry. "That was at full power and point blank range. We'd drain the packs if we did that to all of them."
"And that might not be a great idea, anyway," warned Ray. "Look!" He pointed at the floor, where the mist was condensing into tufts of ethereal grass and strange, delicate-looking silver ferns.
Winston leaned between two of the slender trees. "So are these under the control of the other ghosts?"
"Hey, yeah," Ray broke in, "Are you getting anything more on them?"
"Not much." Egon raised the meter to eye level. "The spectral forest is blocking most other readings on this level. It looks as if it covers . . . " He peered at the screen, as if bringing it closer to his eyes would make the image resolve. " . . . The whole first floor, except for one room at the back."
Peter shook his head. "Ray, do you have your meter with you?"
"Right here, Peter." Ray unzipped one chest pocket and plucked the device out one-handed, then bit gently on the antennae to pull them out and activate the meter. "Yeah, I can tell there are two fairly powerful entities elsewhere on this floor, and that they're more or less in that direction," he said, gesturing with his thrower, "but I can't even make out what class they are with all the interference from the tulgey wood here."
"Are they together?" Peter asked, edging between two ghostly trunks towards the doorway.
"No," replied Egon and Ray in chorus. Ray continued, "One of them is maybe two rooms away, I'd guess. The other one's closer to the back of the house."
Peter nodded. "We don't want to warn the ones upstairs that we're here, if they don't already know and we can help it. If we take on the closer one as a group, then the one in back can go for reinforcements."
"So we split up?" Winston asked, as he sidled up to the side door of the room and took a quick peek.
Peter nodded. "And I want someone with a meter in both groups, so we have advance warning if the cavalry start showing up. Be ready to regroup if we get outnumbered."
"Or if they're tougher than we think," agreed Winston.
Peter smirked. "They're elves, Winston. How tough can they be? Ray, c'mon, you and I can take the one in the back; you two nab the closer one." He threw Egon a thumbs-up as they snuck out their respective doors.
---
Winston and Egon crept through what had been designed as a library but had shelves more full of knickknacks than books. Slender silver saplings brushed delicate branches against the collected vases and figurines.
Winston glanced at some of the few books on the shelves. They looked like they'd been bought as a set - or as books-by-the-foot. "Something tells me that our client's not a big reader."
"Or he has a study upstairs, with the real books." Egon was bent over the PKE meter. "The specter we're looking for should be in the next room."
Winston backed up next to the doorway, then carefully leaned over and looked through. Much of the room, which looked like a sitting room - it was full of very expensive couches and overstuffed chairs, with several small low tables and a big fireplace - was obscured by gently swaying leaflets, but a gently glowing figure was visible, perched on the arm of the sofa.
Unlike the trees, this specter was golden, especially its hair and eyes. Standing, it would have been tall enough to look down at the top of Egon's head, and it was thinner than he was, as if someone had taken an ectomorphic human figure and gently stretched it vertically. Its hair was loose and tumbled in waves to its waist. Its ears were long and delicately pointed, and its eyes were huge, almond-shaped, and glowing like molten metal.
It didn't seem to notice Winston; it seemed to be watching something on the branches of one of the ghost-trees. He ducked back out of the door frame and turned to Egon. "Yup, it's there. We're going to have some trouble getting a clear shot with the trees in the way."
Egon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps a pincer maneuver would be our best chance of catching it quietly."
"Sounds better than just going in blasting. You go left, I'll go right. One, two -"
They broke for the door, Winston first, and darted to either side. The figure turned towards them, an expression of utter distaste curving across its features.
"Mortals," it muttered, its upper lip curling. It raised one hand, which began to glow green.
Winston reached a position behind a wing-backed chair and let off a proton stream. His aim was good; it struck the specter right in the center of its chest.
It screamed. Not the usual yowlings and screeches that all ghosts made when they were caught; this sounded exactly like a human woman screaming. The ghost's face crumpled in anguish as it clutched where its heart would be if it were living.
Both of the Ghostbusters were so startled that Egon's shot went wide, barely grazing the spirit, and Winston's finger slipped from the firing button. The last time he'd fired a weapon and heard that sound in return - no, he didn't need to think about that. He brought the thrower back up.
The specter, released from the stream, made a grab for the phantasmal trunk in front of it, and slid up it, like a firepole in reverse. It passed silently through the ceiling, leaving a shimmering golden film on the surface.
"Oh, nuts," grumbled Egon. "Winston, it's gone to get reinforcements. We need to -"
The trees trembled, as if an earthquake had passed - and then their limbs began flailing. One of them caught Egon in the solar plexus and flung him against the wall; another slammed into the wing-back chair and threw it into Winston.
Winston's head cracked against the edge of the brickwork around the fireplace as the chair landed on top of him. The last thing he saw before his vision went out was a group of four or five of the golden specters sliding back down the trees.
---
Ray and Peter snuck down the main hallway of the mansion. It was painted bright white, well-lit, and decorated with plaster sculptures and potted plants. A grand spiral staircase swooped around the center of the hall, framing a long chandelier.
"You know, if it weren't for the ghost trees, this place wouldn't look haunted at all," Peter observed with a grin.
Ray rolled his eyes. "It wasn't until two days ago. Now, ssshhh."
Peter turned back to Ray, whispering "Did you guys have a theory on where these ghosts came from?"
Shaking his head, Ray answered "No, but we didn't have much information to go on. I was thinking they might be forest spirits, but this house has been here for at least a decade, guessing from the wear on the paint outside. They shouldn't just now be getting stirred up unless something happened recently."
By now, they were at the end of the hall, with three doors - one in front and one to each side - to choose from. Ray glanced at the meter, then pointed at the one on the left. Peter nodded silently, then gestured for Ray to stand behind him. He waited a beat, then kicked the door open and charged in, thrower in front of him like a spear. Ray followed on his heels.
This was a dining room, with a huge table of some deep red wood and a dozen matched chairs. A single golden figure, easily a full head taller than Peter with a braid of golden hair reaching to its thighs, whirled around as they charged in. Peter took two steps to the right, to get out of Ray's way, and fired.
The specter continued its spin and let it take it out of the path of the proton stream, which toasted the two-day-old flower arrangement quietly wilting behind it. Peter cursed and corrected his aim, just as Ray let off his first blast -
- And the air was shattered by a human scream. Ray stopped firing, startled. The specter finished its turn by curling an arm around one of the phantom rowans and spiraled upwards, passing through the ceiling and disappearing.
"Was that - that can't have been Egon, that was too high," gasped Ray.
Peter shook his head. "Either they've got a female hostage, or that was one of the ghosts. Either way, though, the guys could be in trouble; we've got to -"
He was cut off by the ghostly tree next to him quavering and then swinging a branch at his head. He ducked, and then rolled under the table; Ray followed on his hands and knees. The branches thudded dully on the tabletop; other trees knocked the chairs away and began sweeping towards them. Fortunately, they stayed rooted in place.
"Okay, why is this working?" Peter asked. "I mean, they're ectoplasmic; can't they just reach through the table?"
Ray pondered that for a minute. "Maybe they can't reach through wood. Just like most ghosts can't reach through flesh; otherwise, they'd be able to put a hand through our chests and then squeeze our hearts until they stopped beating."
Peter shuddered. "Ray, never say that out loud again. I don't want some Class Seven getting any funny ideas." He looked around. "So how do we get out of here?"
Ray bit his lower lip, then glanced at the meter still in his left hand. "The room without any trees in it is the next room that way," he said, pointing to their right. "Maybe we can zap the couple that are between us and the door and make a break for it."
"Okay. Full stream, short bursts. Ready?" The throwers whined as they changed power levels. Two streams lanced out from beneath the table and struck the pair of slender shrubs that blocked the exit; the two trees rippled and then dissolved into soft silver mist. The two Ghostbusters scrambled on all fours to the end of the table and scuttled into the next room, just as three golden figures dropped through the ceiling and onto the table.
Peter flung the door shut and faced Ray. "Well, now what?"
"I'd back away from the door, myself," Ray answered as a flash of green-gold light blazed around the edge of the door, followed by a curl of smoke.
---
Egon was dragged roughly to his feet. A voice somewhere above him, light and musical, said "This one might do. Bring him upstairs."
He tried to protest, but he couldn't quite get the word out. "Nnnnnn . . ."
Arms curled around his from both sides, and lifted him into the air. For a moment, he was afraid that they would forget that he was material and couldn't pass through the ceiling as they could, but they glided into the hallway and up the central spiral staircase. They carried him past several open doorways - he was still too dizzy to count how many - and then stopped in front of a pair of double doors. The tops of the ghostly trees, silver leaflets now interspersed with tiny glass-like flowers, swayed and swirled just beneath his feet.
One of his captors laid a hand on the door. "My lord, we have captured one of them. Would you like to look at him?"
"I have seen him already," said a voice like silk velvet. "Yes, I think this one might well do. Bring him in to me."
The specter holding his right arm pushed the door open. This was a bedroom, richly appointed, with a canopy bed and a cherry-wood wardrobe. One of the ghosts, taller than the others and with eyes that glowed like blue ice in the sun, was seated on an overstuffed chair draped with gold silk braid. Egon wondered faintly where they'd gotten the braid from; it wasn't sewn to the chair.
The seated specter rose and drifted over to them. He slid a hand under Egon's chin and raised it until Egon was looking him directly in the eyes, leaving a thin film of cold ectoplasm on his skin. Egon knew what Peter would do in this position - he'd spit in the specter's eye - but Egon couldn't work up the saliva; his mouth was dry.
He settled for spitting words instead. "What do you want?"
"Your world," responded the specter. "Eventually. For the moment, though, your body will have to be sufficient."
Egon was suddenly fully awake. He jerked his limbs away from his captors, but they held tight, merely following him. "What?"
The specter ignored him. "Yes, he is strong enough in body as well as mind. I am pleased." He smiled at the ghost who had knocked. "Kevarel, my faithful lieutenant, if you can capture him alive, you may have the brown-haired one. He is also fair enough of face and strong enough of shoulder to be host for one of us."
The specter holding him bowed without letting go. "I am most honored, my lord."
The taller ghost gestured dismissively. "I am generous. Unfortunately, the short fat one and the dark-skinned one are completely unsuitable. Kill them and dispose of their bodies where their unsightly visages will not disturb me. Leave this one here."
Egon recoiled. He wasn't sure which was worse - their threatening to kill two of his closest friends, or their repugnant reasons for rejecting them in the first place.
"Yes, my lord." The ghosts dropped Egon to the floor, on his back; before he could push himself upright and scramble away, the thrashing trees beneath him secured his arms and legs, binding him tightly to the floor. The two soldier-spirits backed out the door, closing it as they went. Their leader turned to him, smiling, as he planted one translucent foot on either side of Egon's waist.
"You should feel honored, Egon Spengler," the specter purred.
"How do you know my name?" the physicist returned, eyes flashing.
The specter laughed. "I can hear the surface thoughts of any being in my forest as easily as I can hear their voices. Probing deeper into your soul is but a moment's more work." The specter knelt over him, in a most unsettling position, and gazed into Egon's eyes. Sure enough, he felt a pressure at the edge of his mind. He shut his eyes and frantically pushed back.
His captor laughed, a distressingly musical sound. "A feisty one. When I subvert your spirit, you will make an excellent addition to myself."
Egon drew away as much as he could. "Who are you?" he asked, hoping to buy time for the others to fight their way up here.
"It won't work. Even now, your dusky-skinned bodyguard is dying, and the other noble and your fat friar of a druid are trapped, soon to be captured." The specter trailed a ghostly hand down the front of Egon's uniform, his fingers deftly probing, although for what, Egon couldn't tell. They left a glittering golden trail on the fabric. "But you will know who I am soon enough. You may call me the Elvenking."
"But you're a ghost, not an elf," Egon objected.
The specter chuckled. "Not as clever as I'd thought, although perhaps the blow to the head is affecting you still." His fingers found the zipper pull on Egon's uniform and brought it down. "No matter. I can heal that, too." Crackling green-gold energy danced from the Elvenking's fingers and sank into Egon's skin, and the pain in his skull and shoulder subsided.
"Now, about the business at hand." The specter leaned down, his legs extended next to Egon's, practically lying on top of him. "You are lonely, Egon Spengler. You are one of Nature's true nobles, and yet your world does not recognize you. In fact," he continued in that light, musical voice, "much of it rejects you, even claims your work is fraudulent." Egon felt the cold touch of ectoplasm seeping through his clothes as the specter pressed against him. The force against his mind grew stronger. "You need the power to prove your point, to demonstrate the strength of the ectoplasmic world to your colleagues. I can give you that power."
"More, I can end your loneliness," purred the specter, his face hovering barely an inch over Egon's. "You flounder with four inferior intellects, erroneously perceiving you to be an equal, even a potential partner in romance." The Elvenking's laughter was like a choir of bells. "Join with me of your own will, and I will give you everything you desire. I will pleasure your body however you wish, with whomever you might choose." A frisson of erotic energy ran through Egon's skin; the specter shifted his position, reinforcing the supernatural stimulation with physical friction. Egon felt himself becoming aroused against his will. "But even alone, you will always be with me, with an intellect who can understand you." His ghostly lips brushed Egon's. "Join with me, Egon."
Egon tensed, pressing himself back against the floor. "I'd rather die."
"If I have to do this unwillingly, I will, and you might well wish yourself dead," murmured the Elvenking, and his eyes flashed with blue fire. His mouth closed on Egon's. Suddenly he couldn't breathe, and the pressure against his mind became a lance of agony.
Egon cried out as the specter sank into his body, his back arching as he struggled against his bonds, and then he went silent and limp. Slowly, the trees uncoiled from his wrists and ankles. When his eyes opened, they glowed pale blue.
---
"Holy crap, these things are annoying!" Peter announced, blasting another specter as it charged the door. As soon as the proton stream touched it, it shrieked and danced backwards.
"Yeah, and the streams aren't containing them at all," observed Ray. "They just seem to find them painful."
"That's part of the annoying bit. I feel like I'm torturing them," Peter complained. "Why don't they just charge in here? They know they outnumber us. They could probably just swarm us, and they have to have thought about that."
"Maybe there's something about the kitchen that's repelling them," Ray mused. "I mean, there's got to be a reason why the ghost trees didn't grow here." He let off a quick burst at a phantom that tried to drop through the ceiling, leaving a scorch mark, and winced as it wailed.
Peter nodded. "Like what? Some rare herb?"
Ray shook his head. "I thought about that. But I doubt there's anything like asafetida in here. And bay laurel and garlic shouldn't do anything to ghosts." Ray glanced around, and picked up a salt shaker. He flung it at the next specter to try coming through the door; the spirit batted it out of the air easily.
Peter zapped the spirit, sending it crying. "Nope, not that either. And I haven't heard any screaming coming from the other room, which probably means Winston and Spengs are in trouble." He allowed himself a brief chuckle. "It's a bad sign when a lack of screaming means someone's in deep -"
"Wait, I think I might have something," Ray said, snapping his fingers. "Remember what happened when Egon poked the first rowan tree?"
"Yeah, it started doing its little dance, but it didn't hit him," Peter answered, discouraging the next specter with a warning shot.
"I don't think it was trying to hit him. I think he was destabilizing it," Ray explained. "Look at these ghosts, Peter. What do they look like?"
"Elves, like we said before," said Peter. "But what - "
"I think they're Sidhe spirits!" Ray looked at the PKE meter. "That would explain why the readings are so strange. They're Class Fours because they're the spirits of dead people, or in this case dead elves, but since they're magical beings and semi-extradimensional, they also read like Class Sevens."
Peter shook his head. "Ray, up until we ran into your aunt's domovoi, I didn't believe in any of the 'fair folk,' and now you're telling me we're fighting basically their royalty?" He strafed the doorway, sending two specters screaming back into the dining room. "This is really bad. The streams aren't actually injuring them at all, and we're eventually going to run out of charge."
Ray didn't answer; he opened a drawer and began rummaging around. "Hey, Peter, you can throw knives, right?"
"Yeah. Picked it up working the carnival those two summers." Peter glanced back at Ray. "Why?"
Ray handed him a table knife. "I know it's not balanced right, but see if you can hit the next one who comes to the door with this."
"Ray, they're not physical," Peter protested, but he set his thrower on the counter and took the knife from Ray. An opportunity immediately presented itself as the tallest specter he'd yet seen stepped into the doorway. It held up one hand and said "Hold; I would speak with you."
"Not until we get our buddies back," replied Peter, and he snapped his wrist. The knife tumbled end over end and struck the phantom elf in the shoulder.
The specter stumbled back a step in shock, gasping. The knife slowly dropped through his translucent form, as if it were sinking through water; the spirit seemed nearly paralyzed, shivering and clenching its hands. Finally, the knife finished its long tumble through him and clattered dully onto the floor, covered in shimmering golden slime; the ghost flailed behind himself and caught one of the rowans, sliding upwards towards the ceiling. He was not replaced in the doorway by another; the four specters in the dining room fell back, waiting.
"What in the heck?" Peter asked, turning back to Ray.
"Cold iron and steel. They can't deal with them, and the kitchen is full of them," Ray answered, waving around. "Oh, this is great! I think I know what we need to do, but we'll need to get outside and then get back in."
"There's an outside door over there," Peter pointed, "but I think it's the one Carl tried to get in through."
"Okay. Find something that's made of iron or steel to use as a weapon. That's what the first tree was reacting to - the steel tubing supporting the ion projector." Ray glanced around and picked up a spatula.
Peter looked up and snagged a frying pan from a hook above the stove. He glanced at Ray. "I'm ready. Can you maybe explain what's going on?"
---
Winston cracked his eyes open, and immediately regretted it. Even the low light of the room stung his retinas. Worse, two of the specters were sitting on the sofa, looking straight at him.
"He stirs," commented the one on the left. "Ugh, such a coarse face, even for a mortal."
The one on the right nodded. "A crime against aesthetics. One wonders how it can stand to look at itself in the mirror."
"Shall we kill him?" The one on the left's voice was high and soft, like wind in the trees. It was really quite disturbing for such a lovely voice to be threatening his life.
"With what? The chair? Beat it to death with the rowans against the bricks? How undignified," sniffed the ghost on the right. "Let Kevarel kill it; he has a proper spear. Until the rowans have borne fruit, we won't even have staves."
Winston tried to pull himself upright - damned if he was going to listen to them call him 'it' like that without a fight - and realized that his legs were still pinned under the wing-back. He tried to wiggle his toes and succeeded; he tried to kick the chair off and failed.
The specter on the left smiled, a beautiful, genuine smile that would light up the heart of a child. "He's in pain, brother," it whispered. "Can you taste it?"
"Oh, indeed." The one on the right sniffed. "I'll not feed on such a beast, though. To absorb such coarseness would be . . . . ugly."
"Stop talking about my friends like that," growled Peter, bursting through the doorway clutching a long-handled frying pan like a mace. He swung it overhand and smacked the specter on the right in the back of the head. The ghost gasped in fright and fell to the floor.
Ray bounded over the doorsill. He had a twig, about a foot and a half long, with the leaves still on it, in one hand, and a sprig of something green with much smaller leaves in the other. He touched one of the rowan trees with both in turn, and the tree faded like a candle flame going out. Another tree tried to sweep him off his feet; he jumped and swatted it with the twig, then the sprig, and it faded, too. "Over here, Peter, it's clear," Ray called, and darted to the next sapling.
Peter dodged another tree and backhanded the other specter in the stomach with the skillet. The elf-ghost froze in place and toppled over, landing on the floor next to Winston. The oldest Ghostbuster grabbed at his belt, unclipped the trap that wasn't pinned by the chair, and tossed it. "Trap out!" He turned his face away, dropped the trigger to the floor, and pressed it hard with the heel of his hand. The inverted pyramid of blinding white light scooped up both specters and the two remaining rowan trees and sucked them in; the two phantoms were too stunned to struggle. The trap snapped shut with a hiss.
"I think that's all of them on this floor," Ray said. Winston noticed that both of the traps hanging off of Ray's pack harness were smoking gently and flashing. Peter had just filled his second, it looked like; orange-yellow vapor still trailed thickly from its doors.
"Good. Winston, are you okay? Where's Egon?" Peter levered the huge chair off of Winston's legs.
"Two of them captured him and took him upstairs. I think I blacked out after that." Winston brought one hand to the bump on the back of his head and winced. Ray scurried over and looked at it. "Ouch, yeah, Winston, you're bleeding."
He looked at his hand. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but yes, his fingers were streaked with blood. "One of the trees tried to throw me and the chair into the fireplace at once."
"Here, you take the full traps out to Ecto and then wait there," instructed Peter as he helped Winston to his feet. "We'll go get Egon."
Winston shook his head. "No way. I'm not going anywhere by myself as long as the plants outside are still being controlled." He stopped, and waited for the room to stop spinning again. "Besides, I have an empty trap still, and neither of you two do."
"He has a point," admitted Ray. "I don't think it's safe for any of us to be on our own yet, and it'll take too long for us all to go out there."
Winston pulled his thrower up by the cord. "I'll be okay. I'll guard the rear and try not to do anything too strenuous."
Ray glanced around. "Here, take the fireplace poker. Better yet, you take the frying pan and let Peter take the poker."
"Nah, I think I've finally gotten used to this," Peter said, swinging the skillet again.
Ray shrugged. "Okay." Turning back to Winston, he continued, "But you'll need an iron or steel weapon. The streams hurt 'em, but they don't stay hurt. Cold iron neutralizes some of their powers."
"What's with the gardening there?" Winston asked, ignoring the fireplace tools for the moment.
Ray looked confused for a second, then his expression cleared. "Oh, these?" He held up the twig and the green thing. "Oak and mistletoe. If I had some holly, it'd be even better, but no one planted any around here. They're two of the Celtic sacred plants that are stronger than rowan."
"Okay, so it's magic stuff. That's all I need to know," Winston stopped Ray, shaking his head slightly. The room spun again; he rubbed at his temples until it behaved itself, then picked up the ash shovel. It was steel, too; it should work if the frying pan did. "Let's go get Egon back."
"Right. You guys stay behind me. Have the trap ready in case we need it," Peter commanded, and they moved single-file into the hallway and up the spiral staircase, trying to be quiet and mostly succeeding.
An eerie blue glow flickered around the first door they crept past. Ray held a finger to his lips and nudged the door open enough to see inside; Peter leaned over him and pressed his face to the crack to get a glimpse himself. Winston hung back, thrower out and eyes alert.
"Okay, by now I've seen enough of them - that's some sort of dimensional portal, isn't it?" Peter whispered.
"I think so," Ray whispered back. "I'd need Egon to be sure. But it sure looks like one."
No one disturbed them. Winston leaned in and mouthed, "How many are there left?"
Ray pointed at the meter, then held up two fingers. Winston nodded; two more showing on the meter, although that was no guarantee that more wouldn't come through the portal, if that was what it was.
The next two rooms were a study and a bedroom, empty except for the tops of a few more ghostly rowan trees waving disconcertingly through the floor. Peter gestured at Ray to take care of them, but Ray shook his head. "The spirits that summoned those can probably tell when I dispel them. We'd be giving ourselves away."
"Assuming they don't already know we're here." Peter agreed to move on.
The fourth room was a bathroom, opulently appointed in marble and gleaming chrome. A spindly ghost-tree danced in the middle of it.
Peter had just placed his ear to the next door, a pair of double doors to be precise, when they were yanked open. He windmilled his arms and managed not to fall forward, then dodged just in time to avoid a phantom spear thrust at his head.
"So, you have found your way to my throne room," boomed Egon's voice from the other end of the bedroom. Peter and Ray looked over and gasped in shock.
Part 2 | Part 3
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