Halloween--1973

Darkness, holding the Christmassy scent of pines, with billions of stars spread out overhead. Damita put her hands on the stone rail of the balustrade and drew fresh, crisp air into her smoke-punished lungs. The party was a glorious success, but the smell of tobacco was so thick in the great hall that she was glad to escape it briefly, up here where she felt as if she stood on top of the world.

The tower stabbed into the night, three flights of curving staircase leading up inside the stone spire into the western Pennsylvania night to open onto a circular balcony that surveyed the surrounding terrain. Below her, hills rose in evergreen-clad folds to the distant horizon far beyond the remote house. Lights dotted the darkness at infrequent intervals, giving distant glimpses of moving headlights on the highway, ten miles from here. Whoever had built the medieval caprice Paul had renamed Dameron Castle had possessed quirks of an odd whimsy. Damita was fascinated by the place, all the more so when she learned a nineteenth century robber baron, vastly wealthy from furs and railroad holdings, had purchased himself a castle in Germany and brought it home with him, hiring a regular army of builders, carpenters, and laborers to restore the edifice to its former glory in a remote valley where only invited guests and the odd hiker or hunter could ever see it.

Over the decades, the robber baron's family had fallen upon hard times, and the Crash of 1929 had finished them. The house had stood abandoned until a gangster who had made a fortune in bootlegged liquor during prohibition found it and snatched it up off the market. He retreated there when life became too risky, but the last time he didn't retreat quickly enough and died face down in his own blood in the lobby of a bank he'd tried to rob in Newark, New Jersey.

After that, the estate passed to his daughter, who had gone so legitimate as to marry a police commissioner. She didn't want the house, had no need for it, and had allowed one of Roosevelt's projects to billet men in it when cutting down trees to aid the war effort in the early forties. Damita didn't know exactly what the wood had been used for, but she didn't think many trees could have been cut. The ones surrounding the house were ancient, part of the primeval forest.

The police commissioner's son, an artist by desire, though his paintings never sold, lived there struggling to find his art and someone foolish enough or lacking enough taste to buy it until the late fifties. He then put the castle on the market, where it had remained until Paul bought it two years earlier. Much of last year had been spent in restorations, and only this past summer had Paul and Damita come to stay for any length of time. Damita liked the house; it tickled her fancy, all the more because Paul had given her free rein in the decorating. She'd had such fun maintaining the atmosphere of the sixteenth century structure while permitting such modern anachronisms as central heating, electricity throughout the building, as well as a phone line, run in for miles and miles at humongous expense. For convenience, their Upper East Side penthouse in Manhattan had Dameron Castle beat to flinders. But for atmosphere, this was the place Damita loved best. She and Paul could come here to escape--and she felt like it was hers, the more because she'd planned it with him, every step of the way.

It had been such fun showing the castle to Paul's friends. An elegant and witty lot of people, they admitted her to their circle out of love for Paul and let her stay for her own sake. They approved universally of her decor, and the only fault they had to find with Dameron Castle was the remoteness of the place. When Paul spoke carelessly of clearing an area for a helipad, or possibly putting one in the center of the circular driveway in front of the house it was hailed as a clever idea. Damita knew he would never do it, though. He came here to cleanse his soul, not to make himself accessible to hangers-on. Should any of his friends arrive uninvited they would be welcomed, because Paul could be gregarious among those he knew and trusted. But if none but Max were visiting, he would be content.

Max ...

Damita would have preferred to escape from the party solely because she wanted to, because she needed a breath of fresh air. Why had she even agreed to this meeting? She had told him over and over it would have no earthly good; she would never betray her husband. She loved Paul all the way to the depth of her being, down to a bedrock level nothing could ever shake free. It was as if her feet had rooted and sunk forever down into the endless foundation of their marriage.

Love wasn't usually so wonderful. When she thought back to her college relationships and the brief fling she'd had with one of the other decorators that the firm where she'd been working when she'd met Paul, those times had been so casual, so superficial, so meaningless. Something in Paul had struck responsive sparks in her, and now, after four years of a marriage that was dazzling not only in their understanding but in the joy in which they patched up their occasionally fiery quarrels, she could still scarcely believe her good fortune. There were levels of relationships: casual friendships, brief affairs, best friends, love of family. But none of them touched her as much as being with Paul did. Have an affair? As soon contemplate living on the moon.

But Max was Paul's best friend. She didn't want to hurt him. Although she had not spoken to Paul about Max's importuning in detail, she was sure he knew. He knew what went on in her head just by looking at her. Just as she could tell how he felt when life went wrong or right.

Did Paul know of this meeting? Did he know she wanted to tell Max finally and in private that a relationship with him would never work? Did she know she had only agreed to meet Max because she realized he was serious, had really fallen for her, because she had suddenly understood it was more than just a game? Max deserved letting down in private, gently, kindly. He was too good a friend to Paul for her to do it any other way.

But had Michael overheard them planning the tryst? He was so earnest, so devoted to Paul. Damita knew he loved her, too, but she also believed it was a calf-love, a youthful passion that didn't require her to love him back, only to be nice to him, casually kind, never encouraging him, but never squashing him for it either. But he also worshiped Paul, who had plucked him out of the cluster of groupies that held court around celebrities, and had drawn him into the inner circle. Michael had become a major-domo cum handyman, a personal assistant, an ever-present bodyguard. He coordinated Paul's schedules, saw to his packing before a tour, clipped reviews, kept Paul abreast of other opera singers and what they were up to.

In fact, she had no idea if Michael had any life apart from Paul. Did he date? Have hobbies? She knew he was well-informed about opera and classical music and could hold his own when Paul and Max got talking on the eternal subject of music. He was younger than Paul and Max by about five years, and so much more unformed. But he was so self-effacing, so quick to turn himself into background furniture that she never felt she really knew him.

Max, on the other hand, had been born sophisticated, so sublimely certain of his own worth when he sat down at the keyboard that for him to deny it would be an outright lie. He had been a child prodigy, and only Paul, the singing prodigy who happened to live next door when he was growing up, had ever been able to understand him. Max's vanity was not offensive--it was too large and flamboyant for that. Damita rather enjoyed it. Or she had before Max had decided to fall in love with her.

Michael in love with her was not a problem. He was content to worship from afar. But would he become outraged that someone else chose to try to worship closer at hand? Would he have rushed to tell Paul about this meeting? Would he come to confront her himself? She hoped not. Neither alternative would do any of them any good.

Damita glanced at her wristwatch, an elegant little piece of jewelry with two halves of a golden heart that closed over the face when not in use, a gift from Paul on their first Christmas together. Pressing the button that opened it, she glanced at the time. It was 12:15 a.m. Halloween. The witching hour?

She shivered. Although it was not a cold night, she felt the chill through the thin material of her flapper costume and the light cape she had thrown over her shoulders before she came up the tower. She wished for Paul's warm costume cloak to wrap around her shoulders, for warmth, a talisman to protect herself from the upcoming interview. She didn't want to crush Max, or to offend him. His pride was of a touchy sort, different from Michael's youthful defiance, but no less vulnerable to wounding. She would have to choose her words with care.

The door creaked open behind her. Without turning, Damita said over her shoulder, "I don't know why you wanted me to meet you up here. There's no earthly use--"

He came at her in a rush, a dark figure, shadowy in the night, the only distinguishing thing the cloak that swung from his shoulders.

"No, don't," she gasped, stunned at the stampeding approach. Then arms grabbed her, holding her cruelly tight and a hard fist struck the side of her face, dazing her. She couldn't even turn to see who stood there but a glimpse out of the corner of her eye let her see a hooded shape.

Hooded? Stunned with disbelief, she felt herself lifted, right up over the balustrade. Stars spiraled around her in a dizzying cascade, and then she was falling, without an accusation. Without even a word of censure. Without a cry of anger.

A hooded cloak? Paul's cloak had been hooded. Had Max's? Had Michael's? Oh, god, oh, god. This was impossible. It was a nightmare. If only she could awaken....

As the ground rushed towards her, she felt her heart pound in hopeless terror, filling her with the greatest despair she had ever known. Then the crash -- bones cracked and crumbled, once perfect skin spattered with blood; as pain exploded through her body in the seconds before she died, Damita cried, "Noooooo!"

October--1993

Peter Venkman opened his eyes and instantly closed them again as a kaleidoscope of pain spiraled through his pounding head. Trying again more cautiously, he squinted dizzily at the chaos around him and a face appeared in the middle of his blurred vision, sharpening into Egon. The physicist's glasses hung half off, one earpiece in place, the other end dangling. Putting up an impatient hand, he shoved them into place, wincing. There was a raw, scraped place on his left cheek, and his bottom lip was bleeding as if he had bit it.

"Peter?" The worry in his voice was stark as if he had been repeating Peter's name in hopes of evoking a response for some time. Holding up a hand, he waved it before Peter's eyes to make sure he was tracking. "Peter, can you hear me?"

"Yeah ..." He was dazed and achy, but there were no sharp pains; even the thudding behind his eyes had settled into a manageable discomfort. He was a little confused but even that was easing. Memory was slowly returning. "What ... happened?"

There was a sudden movement behind Egon; Winston, his handkerchief pressed against his forehead and dotted with blood, loomed into sight. Dropping a hand on Egon's shoulder, he said, "The pilot's okay, Egon. He has a broken wrist and a lot of contusions and cuts, but he's clear-headed. He doesn't think we're in danger of the fuel tanks blowing up or anything, but he wants us out of here. Yo, Pete, you're awake? Way to go, m'man." He grinned in relief.

"Pilot?" Peter felt his memory returning in a shaken rush. The small Lear Jet that had flown them out of Toronto was owned by the Danelli Corporation, a firm of stockbrokers who had summoned the Ghostbusters to Canada to bust a persistent Class 4 repeater in their corporate headquarters. The job successfully finished, the four Ghostbusters had been on their way home to New York when disaster struck.

Peter had been dozing, his seat reclined, when he felt a sudden lurch and jerk, and heard cries of alarm. Bolting upright when Egon shook him awake, he had blinked at the physicist dazedly. "What the heck's going on?"

Spengler's face was pale and alarmed. "Peter, fasten your seatbelt," he had shouted in Peter's ear. "Do it now! Quickly, Peter."

Venkman, who had loosened it to sleep more comfortably, had just enough time to yank it tight and push the button to bring his seat to the full upright position before the crash. He felt them hit the ground, bounce, hit again, then jerk wildly as the landing gear buckled. The impetus of their rough landing made them slide, on and on, trees crashing around them. Yells and cries of alarm from his teammates filled the cabin, with the shaken voice of the flight attendent calling at them to hang on.

Jolted backward and forward in his seat, Peter was helpless to prevent the disaster, helpless to save his friends. He could only grip the armrest with a white-knuckled right hand and Egon's wrist with his left as the seat in front of them broke free of its bolts and slid sideways before their eyes. Peter didn't want to watch, but he couldn't stop.

Behind him and to the left, Ray let out a yelp, and Winston screeched, "Look out!" There was a colossal lurch as the left wing ripped free, spiraling the little jet around, whipping them back and forth in their seats. Peter was grateful their seat belts held and that the plane didn't flip upside down. Time slowed down; they must have been crashing through the trees for hours, not seconds. Would it never end?

"I want my money back!" he called to the flight attendant.

Egon made a sound beside him, halfway between a laugh and a sob. "Peter, we didn't have to pay for this," he choked out.

"You mean we got all this for free," Peter screeched. A particularly hard jar nearly yanked him free of the seat belt, then the overhead luggage bin burst open, Winston's tote bag crashed down on Peter's head in an explosion of pain that took him into blackness, and that had been the last thing he remembered until he saw Egon waving his hand like a maniac to wake him up.

"We're down?" He glanced around wildly, realizing one of his team was still unaccounted for, and he struggled to turn around to look for him. "Ray? Where are you? Are you hurt?"

"I'm okay, Peter," called a more distant voice, his words belied by an edge of pain running through them. "I'm just sorta trapped in my seat, though. The seats in front of you and Egon came loose and hit the ones ahead of Winston and me and jammed them. Can you guys help?"

Winston had been in the aisle seat. He must have been able to wiggle free, for he volunteered, "Coming right up." Pausing only long enough to check if his scalp cut was still bleeding, Zeddemore discovered it had stopped, so he dropped the handkerchief and waded away down the aisle through the loosened seats and scattered personal luggage.

Peter struggled to go after him, but Egon held him down, a hand flat against his chest to keep him from moving.

"Easy, Peter, I want to make sure you're still all right before you try to get up. You could have a concussion." He was obviously as worried about Ray as Peter was, but he was trying to be rational--he was good at it, maybe too good. He'd need some downtime when this was all over. All of them would. This was not an experience Peter would want to put in his memoirs.

Peter still felt woozy enough that the hand on his chest kept him down, not quite ready for any strenuous movements, but he raised his voice. "You sure you're okay, Ray?"

"Yeah. The seat ahead of me was knocked loose and it's got my foot caught in the foot rest, but it's not broken or anything, "Ray reassured him. "I can wiggle my toes. I just need somebody to pry it off, is all. What about you? Egon said you were knocked out."

"I'm okay," Peter called back. "Just woozy for a minute. Hang in there, Tex, we'll get you out."

The flight attendant joined Egon, returning from the cockpit. "Is he hurt?" Her name was Susan Lee and Peter had found her riot of red-gold curls and her lazy, triangular smile attractive, but she was all business now. Her neat navy suit was rumpled, the hem of her skirt torn, and she had sustained a shallow scrape on her right cheek that was bleeding sluggishly. She hadn't noticed it yet or didn't consider it important.

"I'm okay," Peter said, struggling to sit up. "Just a headache." He might malinger in front of the guys and enjoy it, but this was a crisis. "Is anybody hurt?"

"Your friend's not hurt, just trapped, but Derek--the pilot--has broken his wrist," she replied, trying to sound reassuring. "Is your vision clear? Are you dizzy?"

"Yes. No." He grinned at her lifted eyebrow. "Clear. Not dizzy," he clarified. "Spengs, you okay?" Reaching up, he caught Egon's wrist and squeezed it in sheer relief. They might have died but his buddies were all intact. Peter decided he'd see the man was put up for an award for piloting above and beyond the call of duty.

"I confess to being somewhat shaken," Egon replied, wincing under the grip. Peter let go at once and examined Spengler's wrist. There were reddened marks where Peter had grabbed him during the crash. They'd darken into bruises later. "Oops, sorry, Spengs."

Egon regarded them, too. "I am unhurt other than minor aches and pains. I believe Ray dislocated his left thumb in addition to being temporarily pinned, and Winston cut his head, but we are all remarkably fortunate. Can you stand, Peter?"

"I can make it." He had to; Ray needed help, and then they had to get off the aircraft. Staying on a downed plane wasn't the wisest thing they could do either, not when there was even the slightest danger of an explosion. "Egon, we better haul our proton packs out of here. Even if the pilot says the plane isn't going to explode, I know I'd feel a lot better if--"

A bolt of brilliant lightning flared, so intense that it filled the dimly lit interior of the plane with a stark, white glow, revealing a small cut on Egon's left ear. "Yikes," Peter breathed as thunder exploded around them like an artillery volley, hard on the heels of the lightning. Way too close. He felt like a target, as if the cosmos was flinging down thunderbolts at them. This was not fun.

"That's why we crashed," Egon explained when the sound had faded enough to make hearing possible. "Lightning struck us and shorted out something in the plane's electrical system. The pilot deserves a medal for bringing us down so well, considering the condition of the plane and what appears to be very rugged terrain. And you're right about the packs. Let's get them while Winston hauls that seat off Ray's foot."

"Unless he needs us to do it. We should free Ray first." He raised his voice. "Hang in there, Tex."

"Winston's getting it off," Ray called back. "You okay, Peter? You scared us."

"He's the one who's trapped and I scared you guys?" he echoed.

"You were unconscious, Peter," Egon said with mild reproach. Knowing Egon, he had been deeply worried, but he also had continued to function in the crisis. He always did. It was one of the reasons he was so good at Ghostbusting.

"I wasn't out very long, was I?" He felt clear-headed and the pain in his head was physical and external, at the point of impact. He was pretty sure he'd be sore for a few days, but would be fine. His stomach was not queasy and moving didn't do more than make him ache from the bruises he'd sustained in the landing, so he didn't think he was concussed. Ray was probably in more pain with his dislocated thumbthan he was. He said so. "Come on, Spengs, I'm fine."

"You were out only a minute or two," Egon conceded. "In fact, we were all somewhat shaken in the crash. All right, Peter, you can getup, but let me know immediately if you feel unwell."

"I'll let the whole world know," Peter said extravagantly, knowing such a comment would relax his friends. "If I feel crummy, everybody's gonna know about it."

Egon gave him a crooked smile and held out his hand. Peter grasped it; and, with Egon's support, Peter hauled himself upright, bending slightly to avoid banging his head again on the open luggage bin above him. He felt battered and shaken but, other than a fleeting woozy moment when he first moved, he still wasn't dizzy.

Susan edged past them and opened the outside door, revealing a drenched and sodden landscape, illuminated immediately by a new flare of lightning. "The landing gear buckled on impact," she said unnecessarily as they saw the forest floor rising away from them, but just a couple of feet below the opening. She paused while thunder rumbled overheard, then added, "You can just step right out."

"Where are we?" Winston asked, wrestling awkwardly with the seat that held Ray pinned, unable to get a decent purchase. Egon moved to help him. Peter trailed behind, rubbing his forehead, relieved to see Ray's alert eyes fall upon him and a grin light Stantz's face. He gave Ray a hasty thumbs' up gesture.

"Western Pennsylvania," replied the pilot, emerging from the cockpit, cradling his right wrist. "I wasn't able to get off an emergency signal but I'd been talking to the Pittsburgh tower only minutes earlier. I'd come a little south to avoid the storm but it moved right along with me. They had us on radar; they'll notice where we dropped out of sight."

He fell silent as lightning and almost simultaneous thunder made speech impossible for a moment, so violent it practically rattled Peter's teeth. Ray flinched.

"We have to get our proton packs out of here," Egon said, yanking at the seat in tandem with Winston. "It can't be left on the plane. Should lightning strike and the plane explode we'd take out a considerable amount of the surrounding area, ourselves with it, if the packs detonated. We have to move them a distance from the plane."

"They're stored in the luggage area in the back," the pilot told them, nodding in that direction, where a door had burst open. "I'll check it out. I think there's a lot of damage back there."

"You'll need some help," Peter volunteered. "You can't do much with that wrist and there isn't room for me to get in there and fight with the seat that's got the drop on Ray."

"You're right, I can't. But I want everyone out of here first. Haul your friend loose, then I'll have Susan splint my wrist and we'll come back for your proton packs."

Suddenly rain drummed violently on the plane's roof, nearly as noisy as the barrage of thunder they'd withstood. "We're gonna drown out there," Peter remarked, knowing a saturating downpour was the last thing any of them needed. Although none of the injuries were serious, shock was still possible, and when coupled with exposure, they could all be in serious jeopardy. He watched Ray test his foot against the inch of leeway Winston and Egon had provided and shake his head.

"Not yet. My heel catches every time. Can you give me another inch?"

"You got it, homeboy." Winston nodded to Egon and they heaved away together, straining against the seat.

Peter turned back to the pilot. "Are we near any towns?" he queried hopefully.

"No, but I did see lights just before we hit. I'd say a quarter mile in that direction." He nodded to his left. "They may have heard us come down."

"They would have probably thought it was just more thunder," Winston muttered. He and Egon struggled to lever up the pair of seats to free Ray. The occultist was trying to help, pushing with his right hand, and didn't seem hurt besides a tiny cut on he point of his chin and the way he favored his left hand. Peter grinned at him encouragingly.

"What kind of lights?" Egon asked, gesturing Peter to take his place with the seat and working his way down the aisle to the door to the luggage bay.

"Probably an isolated house," the pilot said as Peter slid in beside Winston. "Not enough lights to be a small town. We're going to have to make for it. They may have a telephone or a car to take us to civilization. I don't know how soon we can expect search and rescue flights in this storm."

Seeing Egon vanish into the dark of the luggage bay, Peter nodded at his remaining teammate and yanked at Winston's direction. It made his head hurt but not badly enough to stop. The two of them struggled for a moment, then the seat holding Ray down came loose, almost pitching them backwards. Ray yelped, then scrambled backward, yanking his foot out of the tangle of the footrest. Susan moved to help him pull free and Peter and Winston lowered the seat again as soon as his foot was loose. Ray flexed his foot and jumped up easily, putting his weight on it cautiously at first, then with a grin to show it was all right. But he bumped his left hand against the seat as he moved into the aisle and the color drained from his face.

"Ray?" Peter jumped for him and caught him, an arm around his shoulders. "What is it, guy? You're hurt. Show me."

"My thumb," Ray breathed, shivering, his face stark white. He bit down hard on his bottom lip.

Gently, Peter lifted his wrist to check it. The thumb was clearly dislocated. Peter thought he could pop it in again; Ray would need at least some use of his hand to get to shelter. But it would hurt like crazy in the process. "Winston?" he asked. "Look at it. I think he dislocated it. Easy, Ray. Sit down while we get the packs out. That okay?" he asked the pilot.

"I think we'd have gone up by now if we were going to, but let's make this quick," the man said from the doorway to the luggage compartment. "I don't feel right with all of us still in here."

"I can pop it back for you," Winston offered. "I did it before once, a buddy in Nam, so I do know what I'm doing. But a doctor will have to x-ray it when we're back to civilization to make sure you're okay." He clapped Ray reassuringly on the shoulder. "Ray, m'man, it's gonna hurt."

"It hurts now," Ray said, lifting trusting eyes to Winston. "I'd rather you did it."

"Okay," Winston said. He displaced Peter, who moved to Ray's other side put his arm around Ray's shoulders again.

"When are you going--ow!" The thumb slid into place with an audible pop that made Peter feel queasy, then Ray sagged against him in a near faint.

"Ray!" Peter cried, and Egon, a pack in his hand, emerged from the luggage bay to investigate. Seeing what had happened, he lay the pack in the nearest seat and retreated again.

"Thought it was better quick," Winston said. "You okay, Ray?"

Ray lifted his head. His color was already returning. "Gosh, that hurt." He held up his hand and moved it cautiously. "It's sore as blazes but it feels a lot better."

"I'll put a support bandage on it when I've finished with Derek's wrist," offered Susan in the background.

"I'm okay," Ray said, straightening up completely.

Peter gave him another squeeze and released him. "Ray, I gotta go help Egon get the packs out. Let this pretty lady do her thing for you."

"Okay." Ray smiled up at Susan. "Thanks, guys."

"Egon?" Peter called from the doorway, peering into the dimly-lit luggage compartment.

"The packs aren't damaged," Egon said, relieved. He passed the one he'd already brought out to Peter. "I've been digging them out. Put it on. It will be easier to carry that way."

Peter took it, realizing it was his own, and he slipped his arms through the shoulder straps. The pack seemed far heavier than usual and pressed unpleasantly against bruises he hadn't noticed before, but it was bearable. "These things gain weight whenever we're sore, have you noticed that, Egon?"

"I have indeed. Frequently." Egon passed Ray's pack to Peter, vanished inside once more only to emerge wearing his own and carrying Winston's. Noticing what they were doing, Zeddemore came down the aisle and took his own from Egon, putting it on immediately. Ray hurried to join them, although Susan hadn't bandaged him yet. He looked better already, his coloring closer to normal. There were lines of pain on his face but Peter suspected they all had them.

"I brought the ghost we trapped in Toronto, too," Egon commented. "I'll just carry the full trap on my pack. It should be fine; it didn't open on impact."

"Thank goodness for that," called Winston. "Last thing I want to do right now is bust a ghost."

"Is the pilot okay?" Peter asked, gesturing at the man, who sat on the armrest of one of the seats letting Susan work a splint onto his wrist.

"He's bruised and he's got a cut shin besides the wrist, but he can walk if we have to go find that house," Ray said, putting on his pack, a process rendered difficult by his injured thumb. "We all can; isn't it great." He winced, biting his bottom lip, as he tried to buckle on the pack. Peter helped him secure the strap across his stomach.

"Gosh, you scared us, Peter," said Ray, curling his good hand around his injured wrist to keep from bumping his thumb again, although it wouldn't be so painful now that it was back in place. "You got whacked on the head with a suitcase. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Ask me that when I'm out of here." He clapped Ray on the shoulder. "Egon says I was only out a few minutes, right? I haven't got a concussion. Is there something to bandage your hand before we trek on out of here?"

"I have the first aid kit," Susan volunteered. She finished with the wrist brace and put a sling around the pilot's neck, helping him to work his arm through it.

"Thanks, Suz." From the smile they shared, Peter realized with mild regret that there was an interest between them. The lovely Susan was taken. Figures! The good ones always were.

"Quick first aid, then out of here," instructed the pilot.

Outside, the rain still beat down savagely. Peter suspected it was the only reason they hadn't been thrust outside immediately. The plane might still explode, but it wasn't so likely now. At least Peter hoped not.

"Doctor Stantz?" Susan opened the kit again and turned to Ray. "Let's see your hand."

"It hurts like blazes, but we can't stay here and wait for a search and rescue party, not in a storm like this," Ray said, holding out his hand to her. "Derek's lights weren't that far away. Hopefully they'll have a phone."

"I've got a cell phone," Susan offered. "It's in that case over there." She let go of Ray's hand to gesture.

"Is that the case that tried to beat up Peter?" Winston asked. His forehead was still bleeding sluggishly.

"No, Zed, yours is the vicious piece of luggage that attacked me," Peter corrected with a wry grin. He scooped up Susan's case when she pointed it out and passed it over. She opened the case and took out the telephone.

The cell phone didn't work. Whether their location was too remote or the device had been damaged by the crash, when she tried to call, nothing happened. She checked the device, tried again, then shook her head.

"Maybe the batteries are dead," said Derek Massey. "Or maybe the storm's affecting -- " He fell silent at another massive explosion of thunder.

Susan took advantage of the distraction to carefully immobilize Ray's thumb. He winced and bit his bottom lip but the pain was obviously less than it had been before Winston's rough and ready treatment. Peter clasped his shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.

"Hang in there, Super Stantz. You'll be fine," he urged as the thunder died away.

"We should at least take our carry-on luggage," Susan suggested, gesturing at the overhead bins, many of them open, and at the tote bags tossed out into the aisle. "Dry clothes, possible medications, other things we might need. We don't know what we'll find when we get there. It may not have enough supplies for us to get dry otherwise."

"That's right, everybody." Derek warned. The splint had helped him restore control, though he must still be in a lot of pain. "Gather up your things as best you can."

"I'll get your bag, Doctor Stantz," Susan volunteered. The cut on her cheek had stopped bleeding. Peter decided it was slight enough that it wouldn't scar.

"Ray," he corrected. "I can take it in my good hand. I'm okay."

Derek nodded in approval, making sure everyone had what they needed but that no one was overburdened. Grabbing Ray's overnight bag,Winston said, "Ready," and Peter took the case Egon passed him, catching the physicist's questioning eye and grinning to let him know it wasn't a burden.

"I'll get your bag, homeboy," he offered. Turning to Derek, he nodded. "Ready," he said again.

"Then, let's move." Derek stepped out into the rain, his face falling as the cold wetness hit him. "Yuck!" he said succinctly. "This is not very nice. Sorry, everybody. This isn't the way Danelli usually treats its customers."

"You don't have to be sorry. You got us down in one piece, and you get the gold star for that," Peter told him. It was Derek's skill as much as luck that had prevented the crash from turning into a major tragedy. They could easily have all died. Yet everyone was on his feet and mobile, if not one hundred per cent well. Peter was ready to confer sainthood on Massey for saving him and his buddies.

"It's getting dark," Egon remarked as he jumped down and turned to steady Peter. Reluctantly, Venkman stepped into the rain. It was nasty, cold and persistent, and he felt it slide down his neck inside his shirt, chilling him in moments. On the other hand, he decided, Derek should have tried for a landing at a five star hotel. This was not going to be fun.

"I hate this," he said, but softly. He didn't want to discourage the others, especially since some of them were hurt.

"It's only three-thirty," objected Egon, eyeing the low-hanging clouds with disfavor. He ran his hands through soaking wet hair to push it out of his face. Peter hid a grin at the sight of his elaborate 'do trailing down in disarrayed wet strands in front of his eyes. "It's too early to be dark yet."

Peter grimaced at the forest gloom that surrounded them. "Tell that to the storm."

It was a sorry procession that made its way through the downpour, grateful for the marginal shelter they found beneath the towering pines that surrounded them. Everyone was soaked in the first moments. Peter had his doubts about their luggage staying dry; he hoped that they'd find plenty of warm blankets in the house Derek had seen. Hot showers would be a wonderful treat. And he wouldn't say no to a huge fireplace with a roaring fire, a cup of hot cocoa, and fluffy slippers for his icy feet.

The land was steep and hilly and full of trees. Naturally the way to the lights Derek had seen was mostly uphill. Peter's head still ached, and the harder they had to climb the more it bothered him. He knew he hadn't sustained any serious damage; he'd been concussed a couple of times and this didn't feel nearly as bad as that. He was just sore. And when he saw Derek, grimly enduring the pain of his broken wrist as he led the way, a huge flashlight in his good hand, and Ray, biting his lip at the pain in his thumb to keep from complaining, Peter decided to keep his mouth shut about his headache.

It was still light enough to see, if barely. The lowering clouds, the beating rain, and the lateness of the afternoon all combined to make the day seem like night. It was a good thing the month was only October. Peter hated to think what the agonizing journey would have been like if the weather had been any colder. Not that he wasn't cold. A chill had settled deep into his bones, and the sodden condition of his sports jacket and shirt only added to his misery. Maybe they were high enough to get snow in October. That would be far worse than this nasty, persistent rain.

Egon kept pace with him, just as Winston did Ray. Peter noticed Susan, who had little difficulty keeping pace, hovered closely at Derek's side. Luckily for her, she had on sensible flat shoes and not spike heels. She didn't complain either. Peter doubted she was the complaining type.

"Where are we, anyway?" he asked, because it was constitutionally incapable of keeping silent for any length of time. "Looks like something out of a nasty fairy tale. All these dark trees ... I bet we're gonna find Sleeping Beauty's castle any minute now."

"I'm not sure," Susan replied. "Try 'forest at dusk'." "You and I could never date," Peter told her with a wry grin. "Not if this is your idea of a good time."

Her eyes twinkled. "We'll have to see," she said in the tones of one making a major concession. "I'm not sure I could live with the ghosts anyway." Peter's grin grew wider. Good for her. She was helping to keep their spirits up.

"Someone's coming," called Ray. "I see something--a light through the trees."

They all turned in the direction he was pointing, staring, as a light approached them through the gloom beneath the pines, resolving itself into a petite woman in a black raincape with a red silk lining. She stood in the shelter of a tall tree, one hand resting lightly against its trunk, the other holding aloft an old-fashioned lantern.

In the growing dusk, her face was a white oval against the darkness, her eyes a deep, warm brown. Peter's heart quickened at the sight of the elegant face, the smooth line of cheek and brow, the sensual lips, the sleek hair. She was a totally unexpected vision in the middle of the woods.

He plunged forward eagerly to meet her. "I'm Peter Venkman. We had a plane crash. Did you hear it?"

"I heard a sound," she replied, her voice low and throaty. "You appear--the worse for wear. If you go in that direction--" She took her hand from the tree trunk and pointed through the trees-- "you will find shelter in five minutes." As she spoke, the wind wailed through the trees and a light appeared, distant and intermittent, sometimes blocked by swaying branches, sometimes clearly visible. "That is Dameron Castle," she added. "There will be heat and warmth for you there."

"Great," Peter cried enthusiastically. It looked like he got a castle after all. He caught up her hand to thank her, feeling the icy chill of her rain-soaked fingers against his own. "You're frozen," he discovered. "You shouldn't be out in a storm like this. Is that where you live?"

Her head moved from side to side in faint denial. Gently she withdrew her fingers from his.

"I can see the lights, Peter," Egon said behind him. "Let's go."

Peter gestured for the woman to fall in with them but she shook her head again. "I am not ... welcome there," she said in a near whisper. "But you will find shelter there from the storm."

As if on cue, lightning blared into vivid life, illuminating a darkening bruise on the woman's left temple. Her hand came up, pulling the hood around her face more tightly, making Peter wonder if he had only seen shadows.

"We need to get Derek and Ray into shelter," Egon said in Ray's ear. "And Winston's lost more blood than I like from that cut on his head. Besides, I don't like you out here either, Peter. You were unconscious."

"Thanks, Miss," Ray told the woman. "You really helped us. Better get home quick. You're soaking wet."

"Come on," urged Susan. "I think Derek's going into shock."

They turned obediently and started down the slope toward the light. But as they started walking Peter turned, chin on his shoulder to stare back at the woman who had pointed out their direction. He felt strangely drawn to her, and the thought of her disappearing into the gathering dusk so that Peter would never see her again seemed a terrible loss.

She had vanished into the trees. Not even a glow from her lantern remained.

"Weird," Peter muttered in disappointment, but he was too wet and miserable to wonder at her sudden disappearance. "Come on, guys," he urged, checking to make sure everybody was managing. "Let's haul ass down there where it's warm and dry."

The house did indeed resemble a castle in a fairy tale. Closely woven about by vines, its tall spires rose up above the pines that surrounded it like stabbing fingers pointing to the sky, the center one rising higher than any of the others. Lightning flashed, illuminating the worn, grey stone, the mock drawbridge that led up to the main entrance, and the deeply recessed, leaded windows. In the Pennsylvania twilight, it was the most incongruous sight Peter could imagine. Not Sleeping Beauty's castle after all. This one might belong to the Wicked Witch.

"Did we take a wrong turn at Fantasyland?" he asked.

"Wow!" breathed Ray. "It really looks like a haunted house. Isn't it great!"

"Then it's a good thing we've got our packs, m'man," Winston replied. He sounded tired and drained, as if the bloodloss from his scalp cut and the trek through the sodden forest had exhausted him. Ray's mouth was twisted with lines of pain, and Egon, who had given a hand to Peter down the slope, looked tired too. Peter's head throbbed; he'd been trying unsuccessfully to ignore it for some time. After all, Derek was plodding along in spite of his injured wrist, and Susan hadn't lagged. Far be it for Peter to give up.

"Quickly, everyone," Egon urged, shepherding them toward the drawbridge. "At least the lights are on." It was a sign of his fatigue that he hadn't produced a P.K.E. meter after Ray's remark about haunting and taken readings of the castle. His hand at Peter's elbow, he guided him across the drawbridge.

Peter glanced down at the mock moat that had been dug out beneath the bridge. He wouldn't be surprised to learn a troll had taken residence there. He giggled weakly, knowing he was on his last legs.

Searching around for a doorbell, Ray discovered a chain that hung beside the door. He pulled it and they heard a distant, muted bonging sound inside. Delighted with the 'doorbell', Ray began to pull it again, but before he could do so, the door swung open and a man stood facing them.

He was probably in his late forties, a man with black hair as yet untouched by grey that lay smoothly against his head like a cap. Deepset brown eyes regarded them from beneath a barricade of heavy brows. The elegant Roman nose would have been right at home on a classical statue, and the thin but mobile lips gave the appearance of sneering without actually doing so. He was close to Peter's own heightof 5'11," so Venkman found himself eye to eye with the stranger.

Uncomfortable with the unremitting stare, Peter said, "Hi, we're the Ghostbusters."

"I... see." The man's eyes passed over each of them, taking in the proton packs that were incongruous against the team's street clothes, his gaze lingering momentarily on Susan whose riotous red-gold curls had been plastered against her head, lifting a startled eyebrow at the sight of Egon, as if he halfway recognized him. Finally, he pasted a conventional expression on his face and stepped back. "You're very wet. Come in. Although I must admit I have no need of the services of the Ghostbusters."

"We were in a plane crash just over the hill," Ray explained. "I guess you didn't hear us come down. Have you got a phone? Derek broke his wrist in the crash. We need a doctor."

The stranger eyed each of them in turn, sizing up their minor injuries to determine if they were manageable. Egon stared at their host wide-eyed as if he recognized him in return, and the discovery impressed him but he said nothing. Peter couldn't help wondering if they had met before. Mutual recognition hinted at a mystery in the middle of nowhere.

"I regret that the telephone is out of order because of the storm," the man announced. "I tested it ten minutes ago in an attempt to call my agent. However, you must get warm and dry. I shall have coffee and hot soup prepared. I see you have some luggage. If your clothing is wet or inadequate, you must let me know and I will find replacements until your own is dry." He pulled a cord near the door; after a moment a second man appeared from the back regions of the house. He was in his early to middle forties, but extremely fit as if he worked out. His hair was fair, concealing the grey that might have hidden in it, and his face was almost boyish, an appearance belied by the shrewd expression in his ice-blue eyes. Something about the deference in his posture suggested he was employed by the first man.

"Michael, we have 'guests'," the first man said, the slightest edge of sarcasm lingering about the final word. "It seems there has been a nearby plane crash. No doubt the thickness of the walls drowned out the sound of it, or else we mistook it for thunder. Show them upstairs to the free rooms in the west wing and find them dry clothes. I believe there should be sufficient hot water for showers. When you have done that, tell cook to prepare a meal, and then stoke up the fire in the great hall." He gestured toward a curving flight of stairs that vanished upward into darkness. In spite of the storm and lack of telephone, the castle still had electricity. Peter guessed they must have a portable generator.

"Thank you," Susan told him in heartfelt tones, emphasized by the chattering of her teeth.

"I will have the first aid kit ready on your return," their host said, his lips curving into a near smile at her. "My name, incidentally, is Paul Dameron and this is my home." Egon nodded as if he had recognized the name. "We can continue the introductions when you return." He vanished into a room off the hall.

Peter hummed the Twilight Zone theme under his breath as they started up the stairs, winning a disapproving nudge from Egon and a sudden frown from Susan. As they climbed, they could hear music coming from the second floor, a piano accompanied by singing, muted by a closed door. It sounded professional -- a tape, a television program? Vaguely familiar, too. Another mystery -- if this continued, they'd be knee-deep in the things.

"Let's get dry first," Ray urged as Michael gestured them down a corridor in the opposite direction from the music. "Come on."

An hour later, Peter felt human again. The hot shower, brief as it was, had restored warmth to his bones and had eased the thudding in his head. His room had a small private bathroom; this place reeked of money. For a long minute after he'd lathered up he had stood letting the water cascade upon his sodden hair, trickling down his taut shoulders, until his muscles relaxed and the pain lessened. Then he'd toweled dry on a huge, fluffy towel that smelled of cedar and put on a combination of clean underwear and socks from his own suitcase, an Irish fisherman's jersey from the collection Michael had provided, and a pair of his own jeans. Toweling his hair as dry as he could make it without a hair blower, he pulled on a pair of floppy, hard-soled slippers that were a size too big for him. Warm once more, he opened the hall door and stepped out of his bedroom. He could still hear the music faintly, impassioned arpeggios, thundering cords, pauses interspersed by voices too far away to make out words or to tell how many people might be there.

Egon emerged from his own room as Peter passed it. He, too, wore borrowed clothes, but the blue sweater he had put on was too short in the sleeves by a good inch or two, making him seem as if his arms had suddenly grown. In the absence of hair dryers, his blond flip had been abandoned, hair swept to one side, though Peter could imagine it springing into its normal state as it dried; it always did. A bruise was starting to darken on the point of his chin to match the one on his cheekbone.

"You look better, Peter." He eyed Peter consideringly. "How does your head feel now?"

"Better," Peter admitted. "I've decided I'm gonna live. Any way we can sue that thunderstorm?" He grinned. "I bet you'll have to pry us all out of bed in the morning. We'll stiffen up." It was not a pleasant prospect. Egon winced in confirmation.

"No lie," Winston said, joining them from a room across the hall. The cut at his scalp line was raw and red but it wasn't bleeding. "Man, I feel like I was beaten with clubs. I can tell you I won't be in a mad rush to get on a plane for awhile after this. Where's Ray?"

"Here I am." Ray had rolled up the sleeves of his sweater three times, and resembled a little boy trying to wear grown-up clothes. He had left off the support bandage, probably because he couldn't put it on one-handed, but he'd brought it with him, rolled up in his good hand. There was a scraped mark on his left cheek. "Gosh, this place is neat, isn't it?" he asked, gesturing with the bandage at the long hall, the ribbed doors, the dark paneling. "We're sure lucky it was so close."

"You know that guy, don't you, Egon?" Peter asked as they started for the stairs. "Dameron. You recognized him. Is he famous?" It wasn't fair for people to be famous if he didn't recognize them. He was supposed to have an in with celebrities, but this guy rang no bells with him.

"Yes, Peter, he is very famous," Egon confirmed. "He is a world-renowned opera singer, a very famous baritone, perhaps almost in the same league as Robert Merrill or Sherrill Milnes." Peter only vaguely recognized the names, but then opera was not high on his list of fun things to do.

"Oh," he said. "Opera," and grimaced. No wonder he hadn't recognized Paul Dameron.

"Yeah, I thought he sounded familiar," Winston concurred. "Lucky for you, Egon. Maybe you can talk opera with him."

"But he recognized you, too, Egon, or thought he did," Peter pointed out, eyeing Egon with teasing suspicion. "Have you been lurking around stage doors collecting autographs or something, you opera buff, you?"

"No," said Egon so hastily Peter suspected he may have done exactly that a time or two. He avoided Peter's eyes as if to delay confirmation of the question. "I have never met Mister Dameron before tonight, nor seen him, except across the footlights. There is no reason on earth why he should recognize me, unless he has seen me on television. But then he would have seen all of us."

"Looks like we've got a mystery then." Winston grinned. "Maybe he's a Ghostbuster groupie or something. I suppose even opera stars can be. That diva we met awhile back acted like she was, for awhile."

"No way," Peter objected, grimacing at the memory of that incident. "If he was, he'd have recognized me. I'm the one who's always on TV, not you guys."

"Glory hound," Ray teased him, but without malice.

Before the guys could enlarge on this theme, Susan and Derek came out of a room together. "I want to use Mister Dameron's first aid kit," the flight attendant said, her hand on Derek's good arm. "Then I'm going to put Derek to bed. He's in a lot of pain, and I'm not qualified to set his wrist."

"I'm okay, Suz," Derek replied, but the lines on his face and the rigidity of his muscles belied his brave words. "Don't worry about it. That guy, Michael, can immobilize it until we can get out of here."

"We'll find out if there's a hospital nearby," Egon reassured the duo. "I'm sure Mister Dameron has a car." He led the way down the stairs and into the room where their host had vanished earlier. The others trailed him, Susan at Derek's side to give him a hand if he needed it.

The room was huge, a vast bowl of a space with a high, vaulted ceiling and a fireplace along the outer wall big enough to roast an entire ox. Dameron stood before it, prodding at the blazing logs with a poker, one foot braced against the log carrier. The room held a huge trestle table lined with ladderback chairs, comfortable, overstuffed chairs positioned at intervals along the walls, and huge, built-in bookshelves on either side of the gigantic fireplace. Peter saw Ray eyeing the books with fascination. Winston, too, was intrigued. He always had a book at hand when he was lazing around the firehouse.

Then Peter spotted the portrait that hung over the mantle and he looked no further, his mouth dropping open in surprise. He walked over to the fireplace, staring, conscious of the others bunching at his back. Their surprise was as intense as his own. The woman who stood posed against the backdrop of this very fireplace wore no

scarlet-lined cape, and her deep auburn hair was not slicked back but fell instead, straight and unbound, nearly to her waist. She wore a simple green gown with an empire waist, and affected no jewelry except for small silver studs in her ears. Her wide brown eyes gazed out of the painting as if with wonder at all life had to offer. Maybe she wasn't classically beautiful but her personality shone out of her face, giving it a more special appeal than flawless beauty would.

It was the woman they'd seen in the forest. Why was the picture here if she wasn't welcome? Peter asked himself. Why would it be acceptable when she wasn't?

"It's her!" blurted Ray, gazing up at the woman in equally wide-eyed wonder. "The woman we met in the woods. She was so pretty. Does she live here, Mister Dameron?"

"You ... saw her?" Dameron's eyes narrowed in fast-blooming suspicion. "That is impossible." His mouth drew into a tight line; he glared them as if they had suddenly become unwelcome invaders.

"She directed us to the house," Susan said quickly. "She had a lantern and a cloak. She said she couldn't come with us, but she pointed out the lights."

Something weird was going down. Dameron froze, his eyes shuttering, as unrevealing as pebbles, and his hands closed tightly into fists, the knuckles whitening.

"Do you know her?" Winston asked practically.

"She ... was my wife." His mouth twisted on the last word; for an instant his eyes blazed though Peter couldn't tell if it was with pain or anger -- or hatred?

"Was?" Susan prompted in a very small voice. No wonder she wasn't welcome here if they were divorced, Peter thought.

"She -- died. Twenty years ago this very month," Dameron admitted. "Therefore, you could not have seen her. It is impossible."

Susan flinched from the pitiless tone but Peter was made of sterner stuff. "We see ghosts all the time," he reminded the opera star gently. "Usually they don't seem quite as real and solid as she did, but --"

"You're lying." Dameron didn't shout. His voice was soft and quiet, and all the more intense because they had to work to hear him. "Damita is not a ghost." He added even more quietly, "I will not permit it." Had they not already been straining for his words, they would have missed the last bit altogether. Peter couldn't tell from the man's expressionless face if the hot passion in those words was a threat or the pain of a desperate and unhappy man.

Susan stepped into the breach, desperately searching for company manners. "Damita? What an unusual name."

"She was named after an actress of the thirties, Lily Damita, who was once married to Errol Flynn," Dameron explained as if he could hardly bother to continue the conversation. "Damita was her middle name but she never went by Lily."

The arrival of Michael bearing a tray containing cups and a coffee pot, followed by a plump, greying woman with a second tray gave Dameron an excuse to change the subject and he grasped it gladly.

"Coffee, and soup," he said. "Thank you, Mrs. Potter. I'll take that." He relieved the woman of her tray, deposited the bowls it held on the trestle table, and opened the steaming pot, allowing savory aromas to permeate the great hall. Peter's mouth watered. "Sit down, sir," he added to Derek. "Michael will examine your wrist. You will find he has a deft touch."

"We should take him to a doctor," Winston insinuated practically, while Mrs. Potter ladled soup into a bowl for him. "Is there a town close by with a hospital?"

"If there is, it will not serve us tonight," Dameron replied, pouring coffee into the cups. "Michael tried to drive into town earlier this afternoon to pick up a package of sheet music and returned unsuccessfully. He got back shortly before your arrival. It appears lightning struck a tree, which fell across the road. Tomorrow, when the rain stops and it's light, he can go out with a chain saw and clear it away, but since none of you appear to have sustained dangerous or life-threatening injuries, I won't ask him to work in this weather."

Murmurs of agreement filled the silence as his erstwhile visitors savored the steaming warmth. "The tree was huge; it will take some hours to clear it away. One of Dameron Castle's greatest charms for me has always been its defiant isolation. Only in such a crisis as this does the isolation work against us. I suspect the tree also took down the telephone line. Fortunately for us, we have our own generator here. We have our own heat and electricity. None of us will suffer except for our injured man. Suppose you introduce yourselves now."

Susan performed the introductions quickly, explaining about the plane crash and its cause.

"And all survived?" Mrs. Potter asked hopefully. Peter saw an expression of motherly concern in her eyes.

"All survived," he confirmd with satisfaction. He sipped his soup. "Mrs. Potter, you're a marvel. This is the best soup I ever tasted."

Her cheeks reddened at the compliment. "I'll be preparing a full meal in several hours," she promised. "I think you could all use it."

"You've made my day."

Dameron nodded at her. "Thank you, Mrs. Potter, you can go now." She headed back to the kitchen, smiling at Peter. Their host turned his attention to his assistant. "Michael?"

"It seems to be a simple fracture," Michael replied, glancing up. He had Derek's wrist before him on the table, the injured man sitting at one of the chairs, white faced. "I think I can set it, Paul. If you're willing to risk me doing it?" he continued to Derek. "I have set a fracture or two in my time, when I was in the service, in Nam. I know what I'm doing."

"Mister Massey? Is that acceptable to you or would you rather wait for competent medical personnel?" Dameron asked. The bitterness that had sprung into his eyes at the mention of his late wife hadn't faded, but he'd managed to control himself. His voice was conventionally polite.

"If he can set it, I'd rather he did it," Derek replied. "I'll be seeing a doctor tomorrow, evidently, and if it's wrong they can take care of it then. But I don't think I'll be able to sleep unless he does it."

"I'll help," Susan volunteered, drifting over. But Peter saw her cast a quick glance over her shoulder at Dameron as she did. Was she falling for him? Peter knew that look. He'd seen it a time or two on the faces of his own girlfriends. She was fascinated by Dameron in spite of herself; he doubted it was a very good idea in this instance.

Derek noticed too; his eyes narrowed though he didn't say anything. He probably wasn't tracking very well because of his wrist.

Peter glanced up at the portrait of Damita Dameron, then noticed her husband's eyes were on her picture too. Carrying the soup that Mrs. Potter had ladled up for him, he edged closer to the man and said with careful sympathy, "How did she die?"

"She took her own life, Doctor Venkman," Dameron replied with cold abruptness, avoiding Peter's eyes. "She is no concern of yours."

"Only that she may have saved our lives," Peter replied, but he didn't push any harder than that. Instead he addressed himself to his soup, taking his bowl over to join Ray, who had plopped down at the table and applied himself to his meal. He wasn't having any problem eating anyway. Good thing it had been his left thumb.

"You okay, Ray? How's the thumb?"

"Still kinda sore, but not so bad, Peter." He glanced up at the picture, showing he'd been following the conversation, and lowered his voice. "She must've been a ghost, Peter. We couldn't have imagined her."

"No, we didn't imagine her, Tex." Peter took another spoonful of soup. "She was real. Remember, I touched her. She was cold as ice. I thought it was because of the rain, but then I wasn't exactly at the top of my form. Now that I know, her being that cold makes sense. If she killed herself, that might be why she's a ghost."

He didn't want Dameron to overhear him. The man was touchy and sensitive on the subject, and Peter still didn't have a handle on him. He wasn't even sure why the guy lived way out here, probably in between his opera gigs. People didn't just hide away on their estates like this, even if they were rich -- and Dameron sure must be rich. Did opera stars make big bucks? Ordinarily Peter liked hanging out with rich people and celebrities, but he'd make an exception in Dameron's case. The man gave him the creeps. A part of him felt an urge to distance himself from him; he didn't know why, but he felt nervous and uneasy around the man, yet drawn to him at the same time. Peter didn't like weird feelings like that.

"Hey, yeah," Ray said, moderating his normal enthusiasm for the job with a sideways glance at their host, hinting that it was better drop the subject until they could talk about it in private.

Winston sat opposite them, his face lined with fatigue. "You okay, Winston?" Peter asked. "You looked better after we took out Gozer."

"Man, I'm beat." Winston yawned, then buried his nose in his coffee cup. The heat must have helped to ease his aches and pains. Peter knew the hot soup had lessened his.

"Most likely the bloodloss," Egon replied, sitting beside him. "I think you should finish eating and have an early night. I'm going to recommend that for Derek as well." He cast a speculative glance at Ray.

"I'm okay, Egon," Ray said hastily. "My thumb hardly hurts at all now."

Egon's eyes lingered on Peter. "I don't believe you have a concussion, Peter, but you were unconscious. I am less than comfortable with letting you sleep unsupervised."

"Hey, you mean you're gonna watch me get my beauty sleep?" Peter groaned. "Egon, I'm okay. Really." It wasn't the kind of situation he could milk. Egon really did act concerned, and now Ray was studying him in alarm. This was not good. All of them needed fussing over, not just him.

"It would be sensible, Peter."

"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna sack out yet. I don't get to see that many castles, and I'm gonna take advantage. Not to mention Mrs. Potter's dinner later. We've got servants to wait on us, after all -- guess that lets you guys off the hook."

Egon relaxed slightly -- as Peter had meant him to -- but not entirely. "It would be sensible to rest, Peter."

"Sure, it'd be sensible for all of us to rest," Peter agreed. "But I think we're all too wound up to sack out quite yet. We won't do anything strenuous, believe me. Give us a couple of hours to start believing we really survived and then I'll crash." He winced. "'Crash' being a really lousy choice of words here."

"It certainly is," Egon replied with mock reproach. "I do plan to wake you several times in the night to be sure, Peter. But for now ... "

"It would be rude as all heck to give in before Mrs. Potter's dinner. If all her stuff tastes as good as this soup, we'd be doing ourselves out of a treat."

"I still want to get Derek to bed," Susan remarked, joining the conversation. Peter had avoided watching the setting of his wrist, but he'd been aware of it out of the corner of his eye and he could tell Derek was pretty wasted. The manservant had just finished adjusting a much more professional splint on the pilot's wrist.

"I'm okay, Suz," Derek replied unconvincingly. He wouldn't have fooled a blind and deaf man that he was in good health.

"You should rest," Michael said. "In even a mild injury like this, shock is a real possibility, especially since you were cold and wet, and we want to prevent that. I don't think you'll go into shock now but there's no point in exertion. Finish your soup, and I'll help you up to bed. Like Doctor Venkman, we'll monitor you through the night."

"You can hardly do that and expect to go out and use a chainsaw on the tree in the morning," Derek objected, struggling not to yawn.

"I'll do it," Susan volunteered. "I'll check on you, Derek. I'm not hurt, after all, and I know what to watch for -- I've had first aid training. I don't think you'll go into shock, Derek. You'll be warm and comfortable and you've just had hot food, and we can prop your feet up once you're lying down, just in case. I think you might have been on the verge of it when we came here, but you do look better." She tilted her head and studied him consideringly. "Not all that much better."

"You'll do," Paul Dameron said, joining the conversation. "Michael was a medic in Vietnam. He knows what he is doing."

"Let's check out the rest of you," Michael volunteered. He busied himself putting a butterfly bandage on Winston's forehead, checking out the slight cut on Egon's ear and sticking a band-aid on it, examining Ray's thumb, manipulating it carefully and feeling the joint. There was some bruising around it and Ray winced.

"Sorry, Ray. Just want to make sure it's properly in place. Ordinarily I'd have urged a dislocation, even a minor one like this, to be done at the hospital," Michael said. "But it's already done and it feels right. I'll wrap up your hand more thoroughly before you go to bed so you won't disturb it in the night. As for now, try not to use it if you can avoid it."

"I'm okay," Ray said without hesitation. "It's just kinda tender. Peter dislocated his shoulder once on a bust. So I know how to behave with this. A shoulder's a lot worse."

"And I hear you were bopped on the head," Michael said, turning to Peter.

"Yeah. Winston's suitcase took a sudden dislike to me." He grimaced. "I've got a headache, but I've had worse after doing the monthly billings. And I've had a concussion before and this doesn't feel the same."

"He really was out only a minute," Egon said. "No more than two. Just enough time for the rest of us to see what had happened and for Winston to go check Derek. He was alert when he roused, too."

"Your pupils are normal and reactive. I think you're just sore, buddy," Michael told him. "But I still think we'll pop in on you through the night. Any queasiness from eating?"

Peter shook his head. "No. With soup that good, I'd probably ignore it if there were."

"What about you, Ms. Lee?" Dameron asked, his deep voice startling her and making her jump. She lifted her eyes from the brace on Derek's wrist, a hint of color tingeing her cheeks. Peter knew the signs. She was attracted like mad. Pity it couldn't have been him, but then brooding types with fame and money were like candle flames to all the female moths of the world. Peter was famous, but he wasn't rich, and the guys would ride him unmercifully if he tried to come across as brooding. Heathcliff Venkman wouldn't have a prayer at the firehouse.

"I'm not hurt," she said quietly. "But I'll take Derek upstairs now. Do you have any painkillers?"

"Ibuprofin," Michael responded, producing a bottle and offering it. Still staring at Paul Dameron, Susan didn't notice for a minute, then the flush deepened and she bent her head over the bottle to hide her face. Her hair had fluffed out as it dried into a series of deep waves.

Curious to see if the attraction was mutual, Peter glanced over at Dameron and saw him eyeing Susan with a small smile curling the corners of his mouth. Was he into this, too? Peter knew the other three hadn't noticed. They weren't as fascinated with the female of the species as he was, although they felt as much interest in a pretty woman as the next man. But Peter considered himself an expert on the ladies. He wished he could tell Susan to forget it. He was sure she would be making a major mistake.

As if she knew that, she shook out two pills into Derek's palm and took the glass of water Michael offered. When he had taken the pills, Susan went upstairs with him. Peter was the only one of his team who noticed the gaze she cast over her shoulder as she went, but when he glanced at Dameron to see if it was reciprocated, he discovered that it was. Michael noticed that, too, frowning slightly and shaking his head.

Dameron rose from his chair. "If you will excuse me, I must return to my other guests. We have been enjoying a musical interlude upstairs. I told them I would see to your wants, but you seem comfortable now. If you should need me, send Michael after me."

He left the room, leaving Michael to describe the amenities. Anyone who wished could go to bed, but if the Ghostbusters chose to stay up, there was a television set in the room directly across the hall. TV reception was poor here in the hills, and Dameron Castle was too remote for cable.

"He's not here enough to want a satellite dish," Michael concluded. "When he's not on tour, he usually stays in Manhattan where he has an apartment. But there are a collection of video tapes you might enjoy."

Ray brightened at the sound of that.

"I've seen Mister Dameron perform at the Met on more than one occasion," Egon told Michael. "Meeting one of the world's leading baritones is a fascinating opportunity. I hope I'll be able to discuss the opera with him during our sojourn here. His expertise in Wagner and Verdi -- "

"Sojourn?" Peter teased, unwilling to get Egon get away with a pricey word like that and at the same time forestalling the lecture on Wagner which was probably the same one Peter had been forced to listen to as they waited for the curtain to rise when Egon had dragged him to see Ride of the Valkyries. "Maybe I'd better warn Dameron he has a groupie."

Egon appeared as flustered as Susan had earlier. "I am hardly a groupie, Peter," he retorted.

"Not much! This from the guy who wanted to bust ghosts at the opera in a tux." Egon's cheeks actually reddened as Peter grinned at his embarrassment.

"I'll notify Paul you're an aficionado," Michael said. "He has some tapes you might enjoy listening to. And perhaps you might join them when they have finished their rehearsals. They are working on plans for a PBS special."

"Excellent," Egon responded, as enthusiastic as Ray. Peter was interested in spite of himself. He wasn't fond of opera, but the thrill of fame did fascinate him. He wondered who the other musicians were and if the Ghostbusters would get to meet them too. Maybe he had heard of them, although he wouldn't bet on it.

"I'd like to have a go at some reading," Winston suggested. "I noticed earlier there was a fine mystery collection here." He gestured at the shelves to the right of the fireplace.

"Come on, Peter," Ray urged. "Let's go check out the video tapes. I wonder if he has the Star Wars Trilogy."

"And how many times have you seen that already, Ray? Six hundred and twenty three times? Each?"

"Not that many." Ray smiled.

"I'll see you're summoned for dinner," Michael said and led Egon out of the room.

Paul Dameron did have the Star Wars trilogy. After hanging around a bit to make sure Ray was okay, Peter left him happily cheering on Luke Skywalker and went out to snoop a bit. He couldn't help it. He was still so wired from the afternoon's events that the idea of sitting passively -- or actively like Ray, who bounced up and down and called encouragement to the characters on the screen -- and watching movies made him feel twitchy. He had to be doing something.

Besides, there were strange undercurrents here. If it weren't for the trauma of the crash, which had shifted everybody into a survivor mode, the guys would be thinking about the ghost of Damita Dameron and what she was doing lurking around the woods. Dameron's reaction to their story had been weird; Peter would bet good money he hadn't known her spirit was out there. True, a suicide could well return as a ghost. But that meant the lady was wandering around out in the cold with a lot of problems left unresolved. And it was hard to imagine someone whose eyes had held such wide-eyed wonder deciding to end her life. It would be like Ray contemplating it, and Peter couldn't remotely imagine him ever attempting a thing like that.

So he went in search of Egon. He found Winston first, happily buried in a thick book called Milk and Honey, which seemed a weird name for a mystery, but which Winston said was very good. He was propped up in one of the fat chairs near the fireplace, one leg draped over the arm of the chair, a cup of steaming coffee on a small table beside him, perfectly content with his surroundings.

When Peter asked him about the ghost, he declared, "She's not hurting us, Pete. Let her alone. We don't have to bust every ghost we meet."

"I didn't want to bust her," Peter defended himself. "I want to figure it out. Come on, Zed, you're the mystery buff. Something weird is going on, you know it is."

Winston shrugged, clearly anxious to return to his fictional mystery. "Dameron took us in and fed us. Sure he acted a little weird. We told him his wife's ghost was out there frolicking in the trees. Betcha he knows that already but the last thing he wants is for anybody to bust her. And if he didn't know it, we just gave him a pretty nasty shock. Give the guy time to assimilate it before you try anything."

"Yeah, I guess." But that answer didn't entirely satisfy Peter, so he continued his search and found Egon in a room at the rear of the house, lying back in a recliner, earphones firmly over his ears. Eyes closed, he moved gently in rhythm with the music only he could hear. He looked happy. Involuntarily Peter grinned, enjoying the sight of such contentment and peace on his best friend's face. Egon's hair had gradually curled up into his normal style -- but the scrape on his cheek must be sore. It hadn't warranted a dressing; Michael had dabbed it with alcohol, no more. Unaware of a single ache or pain, Egon was completely lost in the music. Better yet, he was alive and well. Peter would have loved to charge over and give him a big bearhug.

Suddenly Peter remembered Ray, bouncing excitedly in front of the TV screen, Winston, sprawled in the chair absorbed in his book, and now Egon, with his music. They were all caught up in their pleasures -- but if not for fate and the skill of Derek Massey as a pilot, Peter might never have seen such sights again. Reaction caught up with him in a stampeding rush and made him shiver, great, racking spasms that hurt worse than his headache did. He eased back a step or two, out of Egon's line of sight and fought the crash's aftereffects.

They're okay, Peter told himself. They're all okay. It's all right, you idiot. It didn't happen.

But his inner voice argued, Still, it was so close... God, it was so close and there was nothing any of us could do ... He hated that, the helplessness, the random unfairness of it. The lack of control ...

Then he heard Winston's voice in his mind, in a familiar quote. "Close only counts with hand grenades and class 11 mega-specters." It was all right. They had made it. They were safe and well. They'd come through another crisis in one piece.

Gradually the shaking stopped. He was fine. They were all fine, even if they were trapped for awhile in this gothic monstrosity of a house with a melancholy Mister Rochester of a host. The worst thing that would probably happen to them now would be going out to help with the chain saw on the downed tree in the morning.

Peter hesitated, reluctant to disturb his friend when he was so content. As if he sensed Peter's momentary reaction, Egon gazed up abruptly, his eyes pinning Peter in an all-too-knowing stare. That was Egon for you. When he concentrated, he could read his friends as easily as he could read ancient Sumerian.

"Reaction catching up with you, Peter?" he asked.

Peter nodded reluctantly, casting a wry grin at his friend. "Yeah, kinda. God, Egon, we were lucky."

The blond man nodded, removing the earphones. "I have realized that, Peter. What troubles you the most?" He quirked an eyebrow, and Peter realized he could say exactly what was on his mind, like he always could, and expect only understanding.

"Being helpless," Peter said involuntarily. "We go up against a nasty gooper, we've got our skills, your brains, my fast mouth, Winston's combat training, and Ray's enthusiasm, plus four portable nuclear accelerators. We can take charge. But something like this -- " He shook his head. "There's nothing you can do. And it was worse for you, wasn't it, big guy?"

"Why do you say that?" Egon asked, but not as if he had any doubt of the response, or of Peter's understanding in return.

"Because I was out of it for a minute. You knew, the whole way down. I was asleep, missed part of it, then blacked out. But you rode it all the way."

Egon looked as if he wanted to shiver, too. "I am all right, Peter. I made myself consider that, during the march here. Presently, you and I will be able to behave like Ray and Winston and simply feel relief."

"I feel that already," Peter said. "Just watching the three of you helped. You should've seen you sitting there, lost in that opera stuff. No Valkyries, I hope?"

"No, this is Bonaparte, an opera written especially for Paul Dameron. Not a Valkyrie in sight." He picked up the earphones again, prepared to put them on and start up the music again confident, as well he should be, that Peter was on the road to relaxing.

Peter wanted to let him get back to the tape. But he realized he had to tell someone about his general uneasiness that had been growing since they walked across the moat and into Dameron Castle, and Egon was the best one to talk to when he was bugged. Whether the mood had been enhanced by their brush with death or whether it was real he wasn't quite sure yet, but none of the other three seemed to feel it.

"Yo, Spengs?"

"What is it, Peter?"

"Egon, we've gotta talk about the ghost."

With a sigh, Egon put the earphones aside again. "Peter, while it is true we are Ghostbusters and our job is to bust ghosts, it is not our job to bust harmless ghosts no one want removed. Damita Dameron's ghost guided us here. Surely you don't want to zap and trap her."

"No way," Peter agreed. "That'd be a lousy reward for pointing out the way here. I think she needs help, Egon. I just want to figure out what's going on."

"We don't know that anything is going on. Damita Dameron died tragically, and now she is a ghost, whether her husband will admit it or not. She may be bound here -- "

"She said she wasn't welcome here at the house," Peter reminded him. "And she said we'd find warmth here."

"Physical warmth, Peter. If she did indeed take her own life, she may be restricted in some way. You know the afterlife sometimes imposes penalties, or that the spirit imposes its own. She may be bound here, but bound in sight of the house, unable to come closer."

"Or if her husband won't see her ghost, maybe she can't come here," Peter argued. "Egon, it's a ghost. It's what we do. Not that we should bust her, but we should find out about her. She helped us. Why don't we try to help her?"

"She didn't ask us for help," Egon replied. "And I should not like you to trouble Mister Dameron about her."

Peter had figured that much already. He wasn't sure about asking Michael either; he seemed loyal to his employer. But there was Mrs. Potter. Peter didn't think he was being chauvinistic when he believed most women enjoyed gossip. So did most men, if it came to that, in a different way. Besides, it would be no hardship to venture into the kitchen of a woman who could make soup like hers. "I won't, Egon. But I've gotta do something. I just have to."

"Is it because she was such a beautiful woman?" Egon asked.

Peter hesitated. "Maybe that's part of it. But -- well, it just feels like I have to. I don't get it. I don't think it's because she was so beautiful, but you know me. I always fall for the damsel in distress. I don't know what's going on, or if anything is. But it just bugs me, y'know. There's this feeling I've got, that I have to go on with this. I didn't even realize how strongly I felt it until I started to talk to you about it."

Egon studied him thoughtfully a minute. "All right, Peter. Would you like me to come with you?"

Peter hesitated, then he remembered the image of Egon relaxed in his chair, all thought but the music faded away. "Nah, you stay here and do your opera thing, Spengs. I'll come back if I run into trouble, okay?"

"If you must," Egon replied, a wicked twinkle in his eyes.

Peter stuck out his tongue at him.

Searching for the kitchen, he opened a couple of doors, and there, in one of the rooms, he found Susan Lee and Paul Dameron. They were seated on opposite ends of a long couch, talking earnestly together. Neither of them even noticed Peter in the doorway. He was starting to wonder if he were invisible. Dameron's face had lost that expression of distant distaste he wore, and something had brought a tinge of color to his cheeks. So there was a flesh and blood man there under the cold, distant performer. Interesting.

As for Susan, she seemed fully absorbed in the conversation. Peter had thought her attractive before, but in this moment he realized she was beautiful. That triangular smile had blossomed and she couldn't respond fast enough to Dameron's words.

Or he to hers. He was talking about something inconsequential, a tour of southern Europe, making it humorous, adding little bits. " ... tiniest elevator I have ever seen. There was barely room for me, two suitcases, and the elevator operator, who proved to be an opera buff. He was babbling excitedly at me in Greek all the way up, and my limit, I'm afraid is 'kali mera'."

"I love Athens," Susan said. "Before I went to work for Danelli, I used to work for TWA. I had the New York-Athens run for about a year. Have you ever been to Cape Sounion?"

"Once. A beautiful spot. And Byron's signature carved into one of the temple pillars."

"It was so smooth from being touched ... " Her fingers moved caressingly as if to stroke the sun-warmed stone in her memory.

Dameron looked as if he would have liked to capture her hand and hold it, but he didn't. He wasn't given to casual affection. But an inner part of him had stirred.

Peter backed out. He wasn't wanted there. A clearer case of love at first sight he'd never seen, and Dameron a good fifteen years older than Susan. It seemed that Derek was history. Poor guy would be in for a rude awakening in the morning. And what of Damita Dameron's ghost, lurking in the forest? How would she react to this new development?

Peter went in search of Mrs. Potter.

"Damita?" The cook frowned, then paused to add a pinch of spice to a dish in the oven. Savory aromas flowed around Peter, making his mouth water. He loved Chicken Cordon Bleu. "I never met her," Mrs. Potter finally admitted, rubbing her hands on her apron. She gave a stir to the contents of a pan on the stove. "I only started working for Paul three years ago. I don't live here all the time, either. Mostly I'm at the New York apartment, even when he's away on tour. But when Paul comes out here, he brings me and Michael. There are local women he hires for the cleaning but this wasn't their day to come."

"I wondered. It seemed an awfully big house for just the three of you."

"Five of us," she said involuntarily. When Peter raised a questioning eyebrow, she said, "Paul has two guests. Maybe he mentioned them. Mister Rafferty is here ..."

"Who's Mister Rafferty, and why is he hiding from us?" Peter remembered Dameron mentioning his guests but he'd forgotten until now.

"He's Max Rafferty, Paul's lifelong friend. He's a world-famous concert pianist." The information meant nothing to Peter. Classical music was not his thing, and while he'd heard of famous composers, the way everyone had, he didn't know much about pianists. He'd heard of Van Cliburn, but that was the only name he could dredge up out of his subconscious. Rock stars now, that was another matter.

"Paul says he doesn't in general perform accompaniment," Mrs. Potter continued, moving over to the sink and beginning to wash up some dishes. Peter automatically picked up a dishtowel. "But this new program they're working on, 'Two Baritones,' it's going to be called, tempted him. That and the fact he's known Paul all his life. They came from the same home town. They're upstairs working away in the conservatory. You really don't have to do that, Doctor Venkman."

"It's okay, I don't mind." Peter picked up a plate and began to dry it industriously. "So that means there's another singer here too?" he persisted, interested in the setup.

"Yes, Mister Plummer." She smiled. "This is the first time I've met him, but he's a very pleasant gentleman. He looks a great deal like Doctor Spengler, as a matter of fact. I noticed it as soon as I saw him."

Peter's jaw dropped in disbelief and he stood holding a plate in astonishment, his task momentarily forgotten. "You're not talking about Eddie Plummer, are you? But he's a rock star. He's not into opera. Why would he be here?" Remembering the plate, he started drying again.

"No, he's not an opera singer, but Paul likes his singing -- and his dedication. He says Mister Plummer has a superb bel canto voice and a great love of music." She put the last pan into the drainer.

"I can't believe Eddie's here," Peter said, picking it up. "The reason he looks like Egon is they're cousins." He wanted to rush off and tell Egon about the presence of Eddie, but there was more he needed to know. "Mrs. Potter, can I ask you a question?"

"Of course, Doctor Venkman." She dried her hands on a dishtowel.

"I don't know if anyone told you, but on the walk here from the plane we were shown the way by a woman none of us had ever seen before. When we arrived, we saw the portrait of Damita Dameron. That's who led us here."

Color drained from the cook's cheeks and she put up an alarmed hand to her mouth. "Damita? Here? That's why you asked if I'd ever met her. Do you mean -- you saw her ghost?" Shaken, she moved over to a chair at the small kitchen table and sat down abruptly.

"We sure did. She looked just like that picture. And she wouldn't come here to the house." He saw the woman's genuine fright and added, "Hey, easy. She didn't hurt us. She won't bother you either. It's all right. Besides, the Ghostbusters are on duty. You're perfectly safe, Mrs. Potter." He went to her and patted her reassuringly on the shoulder.

"I never saw a ghost before," the cook replied, pulling herself together. "I'm not sure I believe in them -- not to doubt your work, of course, but it seems so implausible." Yet her reaction indicated at least an ambivalence about the presence of spirits -- or about this particular one. Peter wondered if she'd seen something before and dismissed it as her imagination.

"Mister Dameron said she took her own life," Peter prodded gently.

Reluctantly, Mrs. Potter nodded. "That's what I heard. Mister Rafferty told me about it. Not a word did I ever hear from Paul, just that his wife was dead and he had never remarried."

"Do you know how she died?" Peter asked. "I'm not being snoopy, but we saw her on our way here. We recognized her picture. We don't always trap and capture ghosts. Sometimes we help them. A ghost of a person usually lingers because they've left something unfinished. There's something they have to do before they can pass on."

"Or they died by violence," the cook put in surprisingly. "I have a secret vice. I read 'true' ghost stories. Hans Holtzer books. Things like that. But I never saw Damita." She jumped up to check the chicken in the oven and turned with cheeks flushed from the heat. "She died here, at this house," the woman whispered. "She jumped from the highest tower."

Peter lifted his eyes involuntarily toward the ceiling. It was difficult to imagine the woman in that picture taking her own life -- she'd seemed so full of joy -- but he didn't know what personal tragedies had led her to such an action. The woman in the woods had been distressed; he'd known that. Yet her death had seemed almost to be a current tragedy to Paul Dameron, in spite of his obvious attraction to Susan Lee. Peter shivered, wondering wildly if maybe she hadn't been given a little push when she took a header off the tower.

That was crazy; there was no reason to think so -- or was there? He didn't comment on his theory. Instead he said, "That's rough. It must have been tough on Dameron."

"It nearly destroyed him," Mrs. Potter explained. She shut the oven door and raised her head, her cheeks flushed from the heat. "I heard he didn't sing for nearly a year after her death. Max Rafferty helped him, stuck with him, encouraged him. Michael did too. And eventually he came out of it and went back to the opera. I'm told everyone was relieved when he started singing. Max composed an opera especially for him, based on Napoleon Bonaparte. Paul sang the part of Napoleon, of course. It's been performed since, but the part is always associated with Paul now. That is, Max did the music. He even worked on the lyrics -- what do they call it? -- the libretto."

Peter had never heard the word 'libretto' before in his life, but if there was one subject he knew next to nothing about, it was the opera. Peter's exposure to that particular art form was a rather unpleasant encounter with a bunch of Valkyries who had tried to take him to Valhalla. Egon probably knew all about Dameron and Max's opera, since that was what he'd said he was listening to just now, maybe even something of Damita Dameron's death, although his interest in opera probably didn't extend to the personal lives of the various singers. He might be an opera fanatic, but he had never been an opera groupie.

Realizing how busy the woman was in the last stages of preparing dinner, Peter thanked her and prepared to go. "I hope you've got plenty of everything. It smells great."

"You're a flatterer." Dimples popped up on her plump cheeks.

"Truth, every bit of it. Word of honor." He sketched a hasty 'x' on his chest. "Cross my heart. If they gave a Nobel Prize for cooking, I bet you'd win it."

He left her blushing and happy, and went in search of Egon, tracking him down where he'd left him, lying back in the chair, earphones over his ears, eyes closed as he enjoyed music Peter couldn't hear. Venkman smiled, bent over the absorbed physicist to pluck the earphones from his ears, and held them just out of Spengler's reach.

"Egon, hey, Egon, you'll never guess who else is here," he cried excitedly.

After one futile attempt to grab the earphones, Egon resigned himself to the inevitable. "I'm certain you mean to tell me," he remarked dryly, measuring the distance to the phones with his eyes so he could grab them the minute Peter forgot he was holding them. "You seem to take great pleasure in interrupting my attempts to listen. Very well, who is it?"

Peter moved the earphones a few inches further away. "A certain baritone you know very well."

"Not Merrill? Milnes?" Egon started to rise, delight shining on his face.

"Egon, I wouldn't know those guys from the guy who does our laundry," Peter said. "And it wouldn't be a big thrill to me to see either one of them. I guess I'm gonna have to tell Eddie you couldn't remember him ..." He started for the door, stopping only because he had run out of headphone cord, and waited.

"Eddie?" Egon shoved his glasses into place, mouth falling open in astonishment. "My cousin Eddie is here?"

"Right here, Egon," said a familiar voice behind Peter. The psychologist whirled, pulling the earphones from their jack and nearly stumbling. Eddie Plummer stood in the doorway, casually dressed in jeans and a sweater, his hair more rumpled than usual, his ever-present sunglasses perched on top of his head. He gave his cousin a huge, delighted grin, adding, "Hi, Peter," and lifting a hand to greet the psychologist.

Egon jumped to his feet and rushed to meet Plummer, who engulfed him in a bearhug. "God, Egon," the singer cried, "Paul told us we had people here who had survived a plane crash, but he didn't tell me you were one of them until just now. We were singing and suddenly he looked at me and said, 'Plummer -- Spengler. Of course. I've been trying to pin down the resemblance.' So when I explained that my last name was really Spengler, he told me you were here."

He gave Egon a few hearty buffets on his back and let him go, fingering the scrape on Egon's cheekbone. "Are you okay? You weren't hurt? Are the others? Peter, what about you? You both look slightly battered." He stepped back and surveyed both men anxiously. "No fair scaring me like that."

"Hey, I'm great." Peter was delighted by the question. He'd been thrilled to know Eddie, even casually, but the last time they'd met the singer, they'd been in the middle of a crisis, when a demon groupie had kidnapped Egon. Peter and Eddie had held vigil in the firehall while the other two went to hunt for Egon in the Netherworld. During their seemingly endless wait, Peter and Eddie had become friends, gaining an understanding of each other they might not have had otherwise.

"We're all fine," Egon replied, and hastily catalogued their minor injuries, the brief list an attempt at reassurance. "We were very lucky. Eddie, what brings you here?"

"I'm working on planning a concert with Paul," Eddie replied. "It's going to be interesting, I think. I came here for a long weekend so we could go over some of the preliminaries and try out the music."

"This is wonderful," Egon replied. "It seems ages since we saw you last. Do Ray and Winston know you're here?"

"Not yet. I just found out you had arrived -- well, that it was you and the other Ghostbusters who had shown up. Let's go find them. I want to hear what happened to you. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Fine, now that we're warm and dry," Peter said. "Let me tell you, it's a crummy afternoon out there --well, it's nearly night, but it's still crummy. You should have seen us when we got here, soaked to the skin and miserable." He contrived a pathetic expression, its purpose defeated by the fact that he and Egon looked quite well now, but for a few minor scrapes. "It's a good thing this house was here. Mama Venkman's little boy doesn't like that kind of weather."

There was just time for Eddie to enjoy a delighted reunion with the other two Ghostbusters before Paul Dameron appeared to summon them to dinner. The meal was not held in the great hall but in a smaller, more formal dining room, the table long enough to seat a dozen people. Dinner was laid out formally, with fine crystal, china, and damask napkins, in spite of the guests' informal attire. Perhaps because of that, Dameron had not changed for the evening meal, although Max Rafferty had done so and appeared in an Armani suit and tie. Peter liked the cut of it and wondered where he'd bought it.

He was a tall man, perhaps an inch or two taller than Egon, and his appearance might be called leonine, with a large head and a great bush of shaggy black hair that he affected to appear somewhat tangled like a beatnik poet and tossed back from his forehead in a gesture Peter thought hokey. But he greeted the Ghostbusters with genuine pleasure and interest, although it sounded like the interest of a skeptic.

"I've seen the four of you on television often enough, but I never thought to meet you." His eyes traveled back and forth from Egon to Eddie. "The resemblance is startling, yet I never made the connection before now."

Susan looked too. She hadn't changed out of her jeans and vivid green sweater, but Dameron stood at her side and escorted her to her chair at his right hand as if she'd been formally gowned. He moved toward his own place at the head of the table, gesturing for Rafferty to take the lefthand place then nodded at the table, encouraging the others to sit where they would.

Michael chose the seat at the foot of the table, causing Peter to wonder if he'd misinterpreted the man's position here. People like Dameron didn't usually sit down to eat with the hired help. Maybe Michael was a bodyguard like Eddie's demon roadie, Mel, who had come back with him from the Netherworld. Evidently Eddie hadn't brought Mel along with him. Maybe he thought it would freak out Dameron and Rafferty if his own hired help suddenly turned huge and blue.

"Derek's not coming?" asked Winston with a glance in the direction of the stairs as he sat down in the chair across from Peter.

"I peeked in on him just now," Susan explained as she shook her napkin into her lap. "He was sleeping deeply, so I decided I wouldn't wake him. He'll only be in pain if he wakes up. Let him rest. He can have something later, can't he, Paul?"

"Of course." He became the proper host with ease as Mrs. Potter made her appearance, distributing salad plates. "So how do you all feel?" the singer continued. "Any lingering effects? Anything I can do to make you more comfortable?"

"You've done a great job so far," Winston lauded. "Taking us in like that, feeding us." He gestured at the fresh tossed salad before him. "Giving us a great dinner and shelter for the night. Thanks, man. We all appreciate it."

"I could hardly do any less for a stranded traveler," Dameron replied. "And it seems it's a delightful reunion. Eddie was astonished to hear the four of you were here."

"It's amazing that you know each other," Egon said to Dameron. "I should have thought Eddie's music would not be to your taste."

"Genuine talent should be to anyone's taste," Dameron replied, and Max Rafferty nodded approvingly. Peter found himself thinking more highly of Rafferty than he had a moment before. He remembered Mrs. Potter explaining how supportive Rafferty had been to his friend after Damita's death. Peter could respect anyone who treated his friends so well, even someone with a big ego.

"Paul came backstage at one of my concerts," Eddie related with a grin. "I'd seen him perform at the Met several nights earlier so I knew him immediately. He'd got the idea that it might be intriguing for the two of us to appear together on a program. I admit he probably wants to tempt some of my audience into liking opera, but I was glad of the chance. I've wanted to try expanding my repertoire. If Paul McCartney can write classical music, why can't I sing a bit of opera? Whitney was all for it. Max is writing some new pieces for us. Paul will sing some pieces from Verdi, Puccini, Rossini as well as do a couple of rock duets with me. We're going to do the Napoleon-Marshal Ney duet from Rafferty's Bonaparte. Ney is the other baritone in that opera."

"I went to the opera once," Peter said with a grin. "Egon made me go. I think he's sorry now, aren't you, Spengs?"

"Prodigiously," Egon replied, straight-faced, while Ray and Winston chuckled. Peter made a face at him.

"I heard about that," Dameron replied in some amusement. "Katherine Smallwood -- the diva -- told me part of the story, and I pieced together the rest from other performers. I hadn't quite been willing to accept the story of the Valkyries -- until now."

"Believe it," Winston said. "They tried to haul Pete away. He claimed he was a hero -- in their hearing."

"That would not be my first choice," Max Rafferty said in amusement. Clearly he didn't buy one word of the story but he had assumed an expression of amusement as if he was willing to go along for the ride.

"Hey. Haven't you ever seen a ghost, Rafferty?" Peter challenged. He tended to get huffy with skeptics who didn't know what it was like to come home at the end of a long day, covered in slime, exhausted and aching, after a battle with a class 7 demon or a whole series of free roaming vapors.

"Once," replied the composer. "I was in England. We took a tour of a 'haunted' castle. Not quite as 'haunted' as Borley Rectory, but famous for its spirits -- enough so that they gave guided tours. Precisely to schedule, a misty figure darted down a shadowy hall ahead of us and vanished before we could get close enough to see clearly." He gave an amused shrug. "Being somewhat versed in stagecraft, I could have endeavored to duplicate the effects with a minimum of effort and a simple movie projector."

"A skeptic!" cried Ray, clearly delighted. "We could tell you lots of stories that would make a real believer out of you, Mister Rafferty. Were you in New York when Gozer came?"

Rafferty shook his head. "No, I was in Milan on tour, but I'msorry I missed the show."

"Show? It wasn't a show. We nearly got fricasseed," Winston objected. "Not to mention buried in marshmallow cream." He forked up the last bite of his salad. "I didn't believe in ghosts until I got the Ghostbuster job. It took me less than a day to become a complete believer. No way they could have faked any of it. I kept waiting for them to tell me how they conned everybody -- and then I got slimed."

"We saw a ghost on our way here, too," Ray insisted, sounding a little put out that Rafferty was not inclined to believe him.

The smug grin on the pianist/composer's face was enough to make Peter want to summon up Slimer and convince him to dive bomb him. But Damita's appearance wasn't the ghost story he'd have chosen. He wished he was closer to Ray, so he could nudge him and get him to change the subject.

Dameron flinched. Ray noticed and a rueful expression spread across his face.

"Are you sure being Ghostbusters hasn't made you susceptible to your imaginations?" Rafferty asked.

"They claim to have seen Damita in the forest, Max," Dameron said flatly.

Rafferty's face went white. There must be enough of a believer under his blatant skepticism to make him believe -- and find the belief uncomfortable. "They couldn't have," he proclaimed. "It's impossible. Damita is dead."

Michael didn't say anything, but he was pale as well. When he noticed Peter glancing in his direction, he gave his attention to the salad, calling his expression to order.

"Very little is impossible," Egon replied, prepared to get on his hobby horse. "I am a serious scientist, and can prove the existence of ghosts, using appropriate detection tools and the scientific method. Unfortunately we did not use the P.K.E. meters on the ghost we saw. We were very cold, very wet, and considerably shaken by the crash. It was growing dark because the clouds were so thick. I did not realize we had encountered a ghost at the time."

"Then you probably didn't, although I can't imagine who would beout on a night like this," Rafferty insisted fiercely. "It didn't happen."

"Hey, Jack, I touched her hand. She was icy cold," Peter explained, affronted. He didn't like people calling his friends liars. "Besides she was a dead ringer for the lady in the picture. We didn't have a clue who she was until we saw it."

Dameron flinched again, and Peter realized his phrasing hadn't been exactly felicitous. Felicitous? Now there was a word for Egon.

"She was," Ray put in earnestly. Confirmed skeptics tended to believe Ray when he sounded like that -- or at least to give him the benefit of the doubt. "All of us recognized her."

"What nonsense is this?" Max blurted. "Paul, you can't believe it. It's a scam, and I call it a poor return for your hospitality."

"It's all right, Max." Dameron's face was hard and didn't give away the slightest hint of his feelings, but his eyes were shadowed. "There have been times, over the years, when I've believed I could sense her presence. I've never seen her, but perhaps there can be ... existence after death. Not your false ghost in the English castle, true, but something more than we can know."

"Don't let all the theater superstitions convince you of something that can only be a scam," Rafferty retorted flatly. He grasped his friend by the shoulder. "I hate to see you buy into something like this. It won't do you any good."

"My cousin and his friends are not liars, and they aren't scam artists," Eddie pitched in, frowning. "I have experienced too much of the supernatural myself to doubt it."

"I saw a ghost once," Michael volunteered from his end of the table. He had been so silent that everyone turned to stare at him, and Mrs. Potter, arriving with the Chicken Cordon Bleu, hesitated near the door surprised at the changed atmosphere.

"Come in, Mrs. Potter, it smells delicious." Dameron sounded relaxed and gracious, but Peter could tell he wasn't. He'd been gritting his teeth, muscles tight in his jaw, and his eyes were brooding, the way they had been when the team arrived.

As the woman placed the steaming dish on the table, Michael grinned. "It was in Manhattan, actually. I'd been to pick up a contract for Paul from a producer on West 34th street, and had just come out of the building when a big, wispy -- something or other shot by about an inch in front of my nose. Two minutes later, the four of you came racing after it." He grinned at the Ghostbusters. "I watched the whole bust. Rather exciting, actually. I don't see how it could be faked."

Mrs. Potter distributed their servings, her eyes full of fascination, as Michael spoke. When she had served everyone, she retreated reluctantly, curiosity written across her face.

"The illusion of much of our work can be reproduced on the film screen," Egon answered. "And sometimes in an enclosed setting, such as for a false seance. But to do it outside at random is much harder. Yet there are people who have seen us at work and still doubt us." It was his turn to clench his jaw muscles. "In spite of the scientific evidence, they choose not to believe."

"Heck, big guy, they're afraid to believe," Peter put in. "Not just because ghosts can be scary, but because what they've always known and accepted might not be true any more. It rocks their foundations. They were nice and comfortable