SINS OF THE FATHERS

Originally printed in By My Side

"The green room," said the Ghostbusters' client. "People have actually disappeared from there. My mother claims she's felt a presence there."

The tug he gave at his vest endangered the straining buttons. Peter Venkman couldn't help wondering why Ezra Collins didn't break down and buy the next size up--or maybe the size after that. Vanity. Had to be. It glittered out of the man's beady little eyes and matched the smug twist to his thin-lipped mouth.

Of course, Collins' vanity didn't matter, as long as his check was good. Collins Hall gleamed with furniture polish, and Egon had remarked that the Van Gogh over the fireplace in the grand salon was real. Never mind Spengler had never studied art appreciation; he knew something about everything under the sun anyway. Peter was inclined to believe him.

The smell of money could be subtle, ostentatious, or overblown. Here, it was subtle. The glimpse they'd had of Elspeth Collins before her son had whisked the Ghostbusters away to examine the rest of the house showed her to be a ramrod-straight, elegant lady whose dress was deceptively simple. People in the Donald Trump crowd probably went to the same dress designer. Maybe Peter could sneak in a major rate increase for busting the Collins family ghost. After all, they'd had to drive all the way up here, a whole hour away from New York. He could throw in mileage....

By all accounts, the ghost was probably a Class 3, one of the Collins ancestors; the family had lived here since the Revolutionary War, so there was bound to be a disgruntled spirit or two lurking about the sprawling mansion. Class 3's weren't that difficult to bust, and the month had been wildly busy; it was nearly Halloween, and, at that time of year, the Ghostbusters often found themselves running in six directions at once. They didn't like to split the team, but there was no way to keep up otherwise, so this morning Peter and Egon had driven up in Ecto-1, while Ray and Winston had taken a series of small jobs in Manhattan. They'd borrowed Janine's car. The secretary had agreed to lend it on the condition that Winston did all the driving. She'd ridden with Ray a time or two and knew that he made New York cabbies resemble panicked little old ladies when he climbed behind the wheel.

"The readings are very faint," Egon told Mr. Collins with a hint of disapproval. "Just residuals. Enough to indicate that there is a ghost, but not that it is present currently. Perhaps it appears only at certain types of day. A fixed repeater."

"Whatever that is." Collins didn't appear to like them at all. Peter had the feeling that asking the Ghostbusters to come was a last resort option, something the banker had considered only when all other possibilities had failed. Certainly his eyes had narrowed and his mouth had curled when he opened the door to them. "Only two? I thought there were four of you," he said when he realized Peter had picked up on his distaste.

"We can send for Ray and Winston, should it become necessary," Egon offered before Peter could say anything. Typical Egon. He always seemed to know when Peter was ready to jump in with a smartass remark--and when to head it off. Peter reined in his temper--and his wisecrack--and let Egon take the lead.

Egon produced his P.K.E. meter--guy never left home without one--and took readings at a variety of settings. His face didn't light with intrigue. Unless the ghosts knew the Ghostbusters were coming and had taken off for Hoboken for the duration, it didn't look like it would be a difficult bust.

They saw the old lady only long enough for her son to announce, "These are the Ghostbusters, Mother," and for her to say, "How do you do," before Collins guided them away.

"Her heart is bad," their client continued. "I'd as soon she endure no frights. Please, bust it as quickly as you can."

The problem, Peter quickly realized, was that it was impossible to bust a ghost that didn't manifest. Egon's readings were inconclusive, and Collins' stories about mysterious disappearances were as vague as old legends usually were. Until they came to the green room.

Collins flung wide the door. "My Uncle Rupert was last seen in this room."

Egon led the way inside with Peter hot on his heels. Green. Definitely green. The lower half of the walls was paneled in a dark wood, but the upper half was papered in forest green. The ceiling was painted the same color and all the furniture--big, heavy upholstered chairs, a sofa, a love seat--wore a matching fabric. Throw pillows in contrasting shades lay here and there on the chairs, and the lampshades were all green, too.

"Hey, the color of money," Peter said brightly.

Collins cast him a look so brimming with scorn and resentment that Peter secretly resolved to bug the guy every chance he got. "Well, it is," he muttered to Egon.

"Peter," said Egon gently. He didn't make it a reproof; Peter's comment had not been particularly offensive. It was simply a warning. The client had no tolerance for flippancy. Egon continued before Peter could persist. "When did your uncle disappear?"

"In 1942. I was five. I can't really remember him."

"And he was never seen again?" Peter started to get interested. The old guy had probably slipped away on purpose. Did people take off to avoid the draft back in World War II? He moseyed over to the window and looked out, only to draw back involuntarily. Collins Hall was built on a bluff high above the Hudson River, and this particular room directly overlooked the river. At the sight of the abrupt drop, Peter's skin crawled and he averted his eyes. Unless Rupert had done a swan dive into the river so far below, he hadn't gone out that way. "Anybody else ever vanish in here?" he prompted.

"There are legends of other disappearances that go back over a hundred years. Some of the maids don't like to come in here. They say they feel uneasy in this room."

The meter didn't share their uneasiness. It lay dormant in Egon's hand. "Perhaps a cyclical occurrence," the physicist mused. He ignored Peter's reaction to the drop beyond the window. Peter knew Egon understood it, just as he knew he could overcome his acrophobia should any of his friends need him. The ghost wasn't out there hovering above the Hudson anyway, so it shouldn't matter today.

"If you can't bust it, you're useless to me," Collins said tightly.

"I didn't say we couldn't bust it," Egon replied. "But we surely can't bust it if it isn't even here. We will need to take additional readings. Peter, do you have the magnetometer?"

"Which one is that, Egon?" Peter teased. Collins shot him a frown so full of scorn and contempt that Venkman produced the correct device and activated it as deftly as possible.

In certain cases, the magnetometer did a better job than the P.K.E. meter, but usually they went with the standard device first because it was specific to the type of readings ghosts produced. Refined in the team's more than seven years of busting until it could detect just about every paranormal variant the team was likely to encounter, it was Egon's 'weapon' of choice, and he always carried one, even when he took Janine out for the evening. Wouldn't do to endure a haunted date. Peter smiled.

The standard magnetometer had been modified by Egon and Ray, too. There wasn't a thing about paranormal detection equipment that they didn't know better than any other parapsychologist going. Smartest two guys Peter knew. Egon might flaunt it a little--some would call him vain--but Peter knew that Egon really was as smart as he claimed. Ray didn't claim it; Ray's was a humble nature. But he was brilliant, too.

Winston was as smart as they come, as well. Okay, so he didn't have a higher degree in the field, but he had the combat experience and the common sense that made it all come together, and he'd picked up a bachelor's degree in parapsychology in night school since he joined the team.

As for Peter, he had a fast mouth--and a fast brain. Egon had asked him once, years ago, why Peter didn't want people to realize how intelligent he was. Once he got done smirking over Egon's admission of his smarts, he had explained more seriously, "Pop always told me, never let the marks realize how smart you are."

"But you're not a con man, Peter."

"Maybe not, but why give up the edge?"

Egon had understood, perhaps better than Peter did himself. "I have long realized that my intellect would cut me off from a large percentage of the population," he said. "I value my mind--some would say I value it excessively--and I have never understood the need for popularity."

'Need' for popularity. There he had it. Peter knew, deep down inside where it didn't show, that his lifestyle was halfway geared to winning friends. But he also knew those kind of friends didn't matter. Maybe they were a validation that Peter meant something, but they weren't the true measure of his worth. Egon was, and Ray, and when Winston had come along, he was, too. That they were his friends could make him forget his image at the drop of a hat. He didn't have to fake it with them just to be himself.

He'd spread his hands. "What can I say? I'm just everybody's sweetheart."

Egon had made a face at him. Then he had said very solemnly, "You do know it is not necessary with me."

The instinctive urge to go for cover hadn't surprised him, but what had was the automatic relaxation of that urge. He hadn't been used to trust in those days, but he had already learned to trust Egon. He'd fought down the big, sloppy grin that wanted to spread all the way across his face and said instead, "Thanks." Egon had expected no more.

Men like Collins brought out the worst side of Peter's nature. Worse, men like Collins made him feel tarred with the same brush as his father. So he was a glib fast-talker. So he could spin a tale when provoked. He shouldn't resent that attitude in strangers when he'd brought it on himself. Yet he found himself really uncomfortable with this client.

"I'm not getting anything, Egon," he admitted.

Collins narrowed his eyes. "Are you certain you know how to use it?"

"Of course he does." Egon's voice had a whiplash crack to it. He added, "We plan to take multiple readings in this room since you claim it is the nexus of the disappearance. It will take time." He nodded expectantly at the doorway.

Collins balked at being ejected from his own spooky room, but Egon's posture didn't suggest yielding. The banker muttered something about his time being valuable and stalked away.

"Guy's got lousy taste," Peter muttered when the door whispered shut behind him. He'd have half expected Collins to bang it, but maybe the guy felt subtlety would be better--or maybe he just didn't want his servants to realize he'd been tossed out. Peter shook his head reproachfully. "Think of it. He doesn't like me."

"If you will provoke people, Peter...."

"Hey, he was provoked before he let us in. That guy's got an attitude. If he hates us so much, why even call us?" He shook his head. "No, he doesn't think much of the Ghostbusters, but I'm the one he hates."

"Perhaps you're imagining...." Egon's voice trailed off. "No, I honestly believe you're right."

"Course I'm right." Peter glanced around. "There really isn't a ghost here?" He couldn't think of any reason for Collins to have it in for him. He'd never met the guy before. To be disliked automatically, at first sight, didn't feel especially good, but it wasn't as if he cared about Collins' opinion.

Egon's eyes measured him thoughtfully, then he pulled his attention back to the meter. "The readings are rather peculiar. Nothing to indicate a current ghost, but a vague fuzzing of the readout screen, as if something were nearby--but blocked. Adjust the frequency of the magnetometer."

Peter twiddled the dial. He still wasn't getting anything, but the device's needle quivered. He couldn't resist it. In an imitation of Egon's pedantic tone, he said, "Hmmmm."

"Give me that." Egon snatched it out of his grip and made further adjustments, his long fingers working with extreme dexterity. "As I thought."

"Something blocking us?" Peter asked.

"So it would appear. This is strange." He passed the magnetometer back and went around the room, P.K.E. meter held aloft and aimed directly at the walls. Peter went in the opposite direction with the magnetometer, mirroring Egon's gestures instinctively. He didn't detect so much as a quiver.

The fireplace interested him. It was huge, the mantle shelf adorned with a riot of carved figures, including a couple of bare-breasted ladies with flowing hair who wouldn't have been out of place as the figureheads on the prows of ships. Peter put up an involuntary finger to touch one of the carved breasts.

Behind him, the P.K.E. meter squealed into activity. A groan and rumble reverberated through the room and vibrated the soles of Peter's feet, Egon blurted out a startled cry, and then the meter cut off as if it had been crushed flat, along with Egon's cry, "Pet--" Peter whirled, dropped the magnetometer onto the overstuffed sofa, and yanked out his particle thrower.

In the instant it had taken him to turn, the room had stilled--and Egon had vanished.

"Egon!" The protesting cry filled the silence. "Egon, where are you? It's not nice to fool Doctor Venkman." He plunged across the room, nearly tripped over a green-upholstered ottoman in the process, and fetched up against the opposite wall. Nothing there but a row of built-in bookshelves.

Well, bookshelves could hide secret panels, couldn't they? There had been one like that when they'd investigated the Macabre house a few years ago--not that far from here, now that he thought of it--and it had opened in response to sound waves. Peter hadn't heard anything but their breathing and faint chirps from the meter the whole time. So it couldn't be sound waves. Had Egon pushed a button on the wall? Leaned against something he shouldn't? Stepped in the wrong place? Peter ran frantic hands over the shelves, shifted books, tromped on the floor. Nothing.

Rupert Collins had disappeared from this very room in 1942. That had been fifty years ago. He'd disappeared, and he'd never come back.

But Rupert Collins hadn't been possessed of a proton pack and particle thrower. Peter would blast the walls down, if he had to, to get to Egon.

"EGON!" He held his breath, listening. If Egon were just on the other side of the wall, he would shout back. He didn't.

"I'm an idiot," Peter mumbled. He should never have turned his back on Egon, not in a room that ate people up and never spit them out again.

Peter wasn't sure which of two bookshelves Egon had been standing before when he'd vanished. They'd been crazy not to be more careful. So the detection gear hadn't shown anything. In a place where weird things happened, he should have known better than to trust that their investigation wouldn't provoke a long-dormant spirit.

Peter pulled out his own P.K.E. meter and turned it on. This time, the residuals were stronger. Whatever had opened to suck Egon in had possessed a definite ghost. Class 3. The ghost of a human being. A nasty one, too, if it enjoyed gobbling up Ghostbusters.

No, erase that. Don't even think of gobbling up. Peter didn't want to give the ghost any ideas.

Okay, he might figure out the way to open up the panel in the next ten seconds, or Egon might be able to open it from the inside. The meter's sound had indicated a ghostly presence, but it hadn't gone into wild overload the way it would if a dimensional cross-rip had opened and sucked Egon into another dimension. The magnetometer would have fried in Peter's hand if it had. So no dimensional gateway. Just something like a secret panel, with the ghost on the other side.

Peter snapped his fingers, then he adjusted his P.K.E. meter to read Egon's biorhythms. That would be the surest way to tell if Egon were just on the other side of the wall.

The meter lay like a dead thing in his grip.

Not so sure, then. Maybe the walls were lead-lined, although he couldn't think of any reason for that. Not that biorhythm readings had much of a range, especially since they were not the meter's primary function, only a convenience dreamed up by Egon and Ray. Put too much wall in between and they might not read someone only a few feet away. Maybe a stairway down into underground caverns. The meter might be great enough to be patented, but it couldn't read through solid stone.

Peter started yanking books off the shelves. If there were a way to open the panel, he'd find it or know the reason why. Blasting through the wall might work--but if Egon were right on the other side the cure would be worse than the disease. No, he had to get in there, find Egon, because if Egon were intact and thinking, he'd have discovered a way out by now.

The ominous sense of oppression that Peter had felt subliminally from the moment of their arrival suddenly burst into full-fledged paranoia. All the clues he'd scarcely noticed crystallized. There was more going on here than a momentary separation of the team. The way Collins had looked at him had to mean something. Maybe the guy wanted revenge for some imagined slight. Maybe he was just nuts. But this was his turf and he had the upper hand, even if Peter's thrower made for a great equalizer. He couldn't start neutronizing clients on mere suspicion, though, even if Egon's disappearance served as a confirmation. So he glanced around the room. There was a telephone on a side table. Perfect. He scooped it up and punched in the number of Ghostbuster Central.

Janine answered on the third ring. "Ghostbusters, whaddya want?"

Someday, when he wasn't in the middle of a crisis, he'd have to do something about the secretary's phone manner.

"Janine, honey, let me talk to Ray or Winston."

Suspicion stabbed through her voice. She knew him far too well. "What's wrong?"

"Did I say anything was wrong?"

"You didn't have to. It's Egon, isn't it? Is he hurt? If you don't tell me, I'm gonna have to kill you."

"I think he's trapped in a secret panel, but I've got no reason to think he's hurt." He didn't want to get into all his suspicions. If the phone was monitored, he had to say it fast enough to get action; he could be cut off at any minute. Janine would be able to tell from the tone of his voice how uneasy he was.

"Hah." He could hear her gum cracking as she registered what he'd said. "You're at that place up on the Hudson, aren't you? Want Ray and Winston to head up there?"

Did he? This could still be just a minor inconvenience, but he had a bad feeling; he'd had one since Collins answered the door and regarded Peter with all the enthusiasm one grants to the black beetles that scurry out from under rocks. What if this really was a set-up? He didn't know why it should be one, but there were people out there who felt that what the Ghostbusters did was a violation of their beliefs. More than once, they'd been called on a bust that was a deliberate hoax, the intention of the caller to make the Ghostbusters look bad. Fortunately, they'd been quick enough on their toes to avoid being caught up in those scams. This could be another, but locking Egon away in a wall was above and beyond the rules. He could be hurt in there.

"I think you better send them," he told Janine. "I can always call them on the cell phone and tell them not to come if Egon gets out on his own. Make sure Winston brings it." Peter loved having a cell phone and in general he liked to carry it with him, but Ray had needed it this morning. Maybe they ought to buy a few more of them, one for everybody. Next thing he knew, Janine would want a car phone and expect the guys to pay for it since they used her car every so often. Or she could write it off as a business expense on her taxes.

Peter pushed all that frivolous nonsense away. None of that mattered, not when Egon might be in trouble. "Tell the guys to come armed for bear," he said. "And you run a quick check on this Ezra Collins, find out if there's any dirt on him, and then call the guys and tell them. I think we've been set up." When she exclaimed, he added firmly, "You can't come. If we all disappear, you've got to send in the Marines."

Janine was a feisty lady. When the chips were down, she knew just what to do. She didn't take the time to demand explanations, not when Egon might be in jeopardy. "Look out for him, Doctor V," she urged. "And I'll have Ray and Winston on their way in five minutes or they're fired."

Peter hung up confident that Janine would do everything she could to help even if she had to stay at the office instead of rushing to the rescue with Winston and Ray.

At least an hour before they got here. Peter had no intention of calling Collins. If he knew there was a secret panel in the room, he should have mentioned it when he told them about his uncle's disappearance. So either he didn't know and the ghost had done it or he did know and was withholding useful information on purpose. Peter didn't need him interfering. If he couldn't get the panel open, then he'd grab Collins and drag him here at the point of a thrower and make him open it and let Egon out. Nobody messed with Peter's friends.

Shifting all the books off the shelves didn't reveal a trigger to open the panel. Peter ran frantic fingers over each shelf, tried to lift them out or up or move them in and out. Nothing. They were firmly built into place. He could see no marks in the floor to indicate that the whole shelf had swung out in an arc. The floor was done in narrow strips of wood, highly polished with a rich grain Peter's mom would have loved. There was a Turkish carpet (almost entirely green) in the center of the room, but the floor beneath Peter's feet was bare.

He squinted at it, then he frowned. There was a line, very faint, right along the dividing space between two of the boards, as if dust that had settled in the joins had been disturbed. Even as he realized what he was seeing, one end of the floor lowered neatly away beneath his feet and pitched him down into darkness. He yelled and tried to jump clear, but it was already too late.

The descent wasn't a sheer drop, not a fall down into a bottomless abyss. Instead he found himself sliding down a ramp at an angle of about forty-five degrees. For the first second, as he let out a panicked screech, there was light from above, then, as soon as he was low enough, the floor closed soundlessly above him, and he slid down, down, down, into the deepest darkness he could ever remember.

He windmilled his arms and tried to brace his feet, but he couldn't get a purchase. The ramp felt like polished wood, as slippery as the floor in the green room. His left hand caught against a projection on the wall, but it provided no more than a momentary check in his fall, accompanied by a surge of pain through that wrist before he swooped onward, yelling all the way. The slide seemed endless, but he must have skidded no more than a floor or two when he came to an abrupt stop, flung up against an inanimate heap that didn't respond when the psychologist cannoned into it.

Groping hands touched a face, glasses. "Egon!" Stunned and sore, his wrist throbbing, he shifted his weight off his friend. "Come on, Egon, talk to me." Egon didn't answer. Suddenly cold, Peter touched his neck to feel for a pulse. "Don't you do this to me," he muttered.

At first, he didn't have the right place, then he shifted his questing fingers, and there it was, beating away against his fingertips. Peter closed his eyes. "Egon," he breathed.

But that wasn't helping. Egon must have hit his head. Who knew what else he'd done? Peter suspected his left wrist was wrenched at the very least, possibly sprained. Egon might have sustained other injuries. He could be bleeding.

Peter fumbled for the penlight that he carried in his pocket. That it was his left pocket caused a lot of sucked-in breath and gnawing of his lower lip to pull it out, then he had it and flipped the switch. Egon sprang into his sight in the narrow beam of light, sprawled bonelessly against a rough stone wall, propped awkwardly against his proton pack, eyes shut, mouth a little ajar, glasses askew on his face.

Peter's stomach knotted up at the sight of him. "God, Egon, don't do this," he muttered under his breath. "You be all right, you hear me." Automatically, he straightened the glasses with a thrusting forefinger. How many times had he driven Egon nuts with it? That made this moment so much more poignant.

Okay, Peter, enough with the sentiment. Check him out. The flashlight propped on a jagged protrusion on the rock--had Egon hit his head against that?--Peter examined his friend the best he could. It might be risky to work his proton pack off in case he had a spinal injury. He didn't want to move him unless he absolutely had to. Although they had both simply slid down a ramp--there it was, rising up behind him into darkness--Egon could have hit his head, an arm, a leg, the way Peter had caught his wrist. Spengler could have fractures, a concussion.

At least he didn't appear to be bleeding. All the Ghostbusters had taken first-aid classes and kept them current, so Peter soon realized that Egon had no obvious fractures. His pulse felt steady enough, and he wasn't cold and clammy. How long had it been since he fell? Five minutes? Being unconscious that long was a bad sign. While Peter checked arms and legs, he murmured, "Come on, Egon, come on, Egon," like a mantra, urging his friend to awaken.

No jutting broken bones, just a slight lump on his forehead. Let him only be knocked out. Although Peter knew that wasn't the safest possibility. It was so easy to get brain damage from a blow to the head. One little thing that didn't even seem serious, and a person's mind could be forever affected. Egon's mind....

Peter squeezed his eyes tightly shut. God, no, anything but that. Egon was so brilliant they probably needed special IQ tests to measure his intellect. That was how his friend defined himself, by his mind. To have him open his eyes and regard Peter unknowingly, without the special interaction they shared....

Egon was Peter's oldest friend, and best. Although Ray and Winston were the greatest buddies known to man, there had always been something just a little bit extra when it came to Egon. Maybe it was because it was with Egon that Peter had learned it was possible to trust another human being to the fullest, maybe it was because they'd been so unexpectedly good for each other when they'd met back in their undergraduate days at Columbia, or maybe it was one of those kindred spirits things that happened so rarely, but Egon was Peter's touchstone. Because of Egon, Peter had learned there could be safety and trust in friendship. Because of Egon, Peter had discovered that the part of him he'd been reluctant to show the world, the part that wanted so desperately to rise above what his father had tried to make him into, was right after all. He was a better human being for knowing Egon. He had the greatest life he could possibly imagine. If he'd never met Egon, never had the chance to learn those lessons, never understood how fulfilling trusting a friend and being trusted in return could be, he'd probably be, if not actually shady, maybe sleazy and shallow, pursuing money and spurious popularity.

God, Venkman, you're getting maudlin here. He tried to push the dark thoughts away. Egon would wake up any second now. Peter knew he would. He'd open his eyes and look up at Peter, and the light of awareness, intellect, and friendship would shine out of them.

"Is he dead?"

Peter's head jerked up. He hadn't expected anybody to come upon them here. Had Collins noticed they were missing? Was there another way out of this underground room? Except that it was a woman's voice, too young to be Elspeth Collins.

The woman stood across the chamber, in front of an arched, ribbed doorway, set in the solid rock. Peter could see the ribbing clearly through her because she was transparent, trailing wispy robes that flowed and drifted as if in a breeze. Her face was pale and beautiful in an eerie way, and she held aloft a branched candlestick with flames that danced and flickered but gave off no light. Yet something more than Peter's penlight illuminated the stone gargoyles that sat on fat pillars on either side of the door, wings spread as if they meant to shed their stone coating and burst into flight at any second.

So she was what had set off Egon's meter when the trapdoor fell open beneath his feet. Had she caused this, opened the trapdoor? Injured Egon?

"No," Peter spat. "He's not dead." He scrambled awkwardly around to place himself between the ghost and his teammate. "Did you bring us here?" His good hand fumbled for his thrower. He'd bust this babe and get them out of here. Class 3's could be handled by one Ghostbuster alone.

"No," she replied. "I came as you did." The hand that didn't hold the candlestick gestured at her ghostly form. "I fell--and died. Trapped here alone. I became...as you see me. There are...others." She gestured at the closed door, and Peter imagined a horde of restless, angry spirits lurking on the other side.

"And nobody figured out there was a trapdoor in the floor?" Peter persisted.

"Oh yes," she replied ominously, her face twisted with bitterness. "They knew. This place, this dank cavern, is in the nature of an oubliette."

Peter vaguely remembered hearing that word before, but he couldn't bring its meaning to mind. "Oubliette? What's that when it's at home?"

"A secret dungeon, Peter, with an opening in the ceiling," said a faint voice at his back.

"EGON!" Peter forgot the ghost entirely and whirled. "You're awake!" Awake and spouting facts. Peter felt relief whoosh through him, and he gripped Egon's shoulders only to gasp and jerk his left hand free, cradling his wrist.

"And you are injured." Egon half sat up and braced himself with one hand to the wall. The motion made him catch his bottom lip between his teeth and lean sideways against the wall, his head against the stone. "Sorry," he said tightly. "Dizzy."

"If you will use your head to land on...." Peter slid his good arm around Egon's shoulders and positioned him carefully so that both of them were leaning against the wall--well, against their packs. With Miss Transparency of 1992 drifting over there by the door, he didn't intend either one of them to be without the tools of their trade. "Better?"

"Yes. The dizziness was momentary. What have you done?"

"Banged up my wrist. No biggie." He dismissed it. "You okay? Sure?"

Egon massaged his forehead. "I appear to be clear-headed, but I do have a headache. The floor gave way beneath my feet," he concluded resentfully. "The same for you?"

"Yeah. I thought maybe we had a revolving bookcase like at the Macabre house. I didn't know the floor was going to give way." When Egon nodded, he went on, "But the lady says Collins knew about it. Makes me think we've been set up."

"Set up?" A wrinkle popped up between Egon's brows. Then he backtracked. "Lady?"

"Well, transparent lady," Peter said. "Your meter went crazy when the trapdoor opened, Spengs, and she's the reason why." He flung out his hand--that hurt--and pointed at the candlestick ghost. She hovered several inches above the floor, the transparent skirts of her long gown drifting in a wind that only she could feel.

Egon's brow knitted when Peter winced, but his eyes shifted and he stared at her. "Hello, Ma'am. Peter says you claim our incarceration here is deliberate?"

Encouraged, she drifted closer. Peter noticed she was beautiful; heck of a waste. Bitterness and resentment seethed in her eyes. Easy to tell what had turned her into a ghost; there was a lot of hate inside. She held the branched candlestick aloft as if to cast a better light than the thin beam of Peter's penlight. Maybe it took an act of will on her part, but the chamber suddenly seemed brighter and Peter could see that he and Egon had landed in a small room, almost as big as the green room above, its stone walls hewn from solid rock. Only the paneled ramp that Peter and Egon had slid down, the stone gargoyles on their pillars, and the door that wouldn't have been out of place in a medieval church gave evidence that the cavern was not entirely natural.

"I do not hear all that passes above," she said. "But I saw when Ezra found this place, when he discovered the skeleton of his uncle Rupert lying at the foot of the ramp and my own, here, by the doorway. The fall did not kill Rupert, but he fractured his leg and was unable to crawl up the ramp to freedom. Even if he had, the room above seals itself and there is no means of opening the trapdoor from below. And I was uninjured, trapped, to die of thirst and starvation--and bitterness."

Peter felt a wave of sympathy for the ghost--he couldn't imagine a worse way to die, trapped and all alone. "Great," Peter muttered. "Egon, we're stuck in the tenth level of hell."

"Hardly, Peter. We have sustained no fractures, and there is a door there. Another way out, perhaps. Even if not, we are both wearing proton packs. I am convinced our particle throwers will blast through the trapdoor."

"Hey, yeah, thanks, Egon. I always knew designing weapons of mass destruction was gonna do us good one day. I like it." He turned back to the ghost. "So, I'm Peter and this is Egon. And you are?"

"Claudia Collins, the first wife of Zachariah Collins. The wife he claimed deserted him, the wife he incarcerated here in this underground prison so he could be free to marry Lily Watson."

"He locked you away to die?" Peter stared at her, horrified.

"He sealed me in this prison, and as he did, he bragged of what he meant to do."

"Sweet guy. Hope you haunted him."

She shook her head. "No. For I cannot leave this place. I am bound here, where I died."

Egon surveyed what he could see of their prison. Peter knew what he was thinking. The meters couldn't read through all this stone, but the trapdoor, overhead, must be lined with a substance that would prevent clear readings. When Ray and Winston came, they'd figure it out, somehow, even if their biorhythm readings weren't strong enough for detection. Ray was good at things like that, and Winston would never give up. No matter what weird story Collins tried to foist on them, they wouldn't buy it, not for a second.

"So, how did Rupert wind up here?" she asked.

"He was the elder son," Claudia told them. "His brother coveted what he would inherit. Rupert had no children, but Thomas already had Ezra. Rupert was always wild and adventurous, and Thomas, his brother, made it look as if he had run away, perhaps to join the army, for there was a war at the time, or perhaps even to flee to avoid being called up for military service. None ever suspected that he died here below the house, as I did."

"Is his ghost hanging around, too?" Peter craned his neck to see past her. All they needed was a fleet of murdered ghosts, hanging around with revenge in mind.

"No. When Ezra found this place three weeks ago and opened the panel above, he ceased to be bound and he fled. I could not go with him. My death ties me to this place. We thought the moving of my bones might have freed me, but it did not. Rupert and I wonder if perhaps it is my hate that ties me here." Her eyes glittered with her loathing for the man who had sealed her away to die. "For Rupert, it may not have been too late. Perhaps Thomas still lived, an old man. Rupert came to me, took my hands, and apologized, and then he was gone. And I have been alone since then."

"So Ezra didn't report finding your bodies?" Peter persisted. He'd had a bad feeling about Collins all along. It hadn't been quite this bad, but he didn't have any trouble believing the guy would conceal the bodies. Thomas had been his father. He might be alive today, although he wasn't hanging around the house with Elspeth. Probably dead, then, or in a nursing home. Maybe Ezra didn't want the family to look bad. But, if so, why even bother with the Ghostbusters? They were too famous to disappear without a major hue and cry.

"No. He moved the skeletons at night, and I think he buried them on the property. I don't know. I just assumed that."

"So, why are we here?" Egon asked. "I must assume that the trapdoor can be triggered, that merely standing on it is not enough to open it. Therefore, what happened to Peter and me must have been a malicious--and deliberate--attack."

Peter whipped his head around to stare at Egon. "You're saying he dumped us in the oubliette on purpose, Spengs? That's crazy. Isn't it?" Even as he asked the question, he realized that, while it might be crazy, it had to be true. Collins had hired them, steered them to the green room, told them about Rupert's disappearance and implied there had been more. The Collins family had to be a few cows short of a herd if they got rid of inconvenient wives and relatives by dumping them in a secret room and leaving them there. That kind of stuff had gone out of date with the Middle Ages.

"There is no other explanation," Egon replied. "We were summoned here on purpose. If Ezra Collins realized what his father had done, surely he would wish to conceal it. Even fifty years later, the tabloids would be on it in a heartbeat. However, causing us to vanish here was a mistake. Ray and Winston will leave no stone unturned in searching for us and, should they disappear, too, Janine will send the entire New York Police Department to our rescue."

"True." Peter's mouth traced a tight line. They had to get out of here and warn Ray and Winston, somehow. If only he'd brought the cell phone with him--assuming a signal could get through whatever lined the trapdoor.

"Do you know why Ezra trapped us here?" Egon asked Claudia. He massaged his forehead.

Peter didn't like that. He had to get Egon out of here right away and take him to an emergency room.

"He muttered to himself as he planned," Claudia replied. The ectoplasmic candles glowed brightly enough to illuminate the entire room. "He said he wanted revenge for the harm done to his mother."

Peter and Egon stared at her and then at each other. "But we didn't harm his mother," Peter objected. "I'd never harm a little old lady."

"He wouldn't," Egon agreed. "And neither would I. Neither of us have ever been here before. Did he say how we harmed his mother?"

"Had to be a mistake," Peter insisted. He couldn't remember ever encountering a member of the Collins family before. The team didn't even use Collins' bank, and they'd never busted a ghost there. If his mother had been at the site of a public bust, she might have been frightened, but there was no way to control something like that. "Come on, Claudia. Is there anything to suggest that maybe Ezra's gone round the bend? That he's a space cadet?"

Her beautifully arched eyebrows lifted in brief perplexity at the terms that must be unfamiliar to her. "Do you mean, is he mad? Perhaps. Perhaps there is a strain of madness that runs through the Collins line, that they would kill so wantonly for gain or revenge. Even when I fell down here a hundred and more years ago, such a crime would be horribly medieval."

"Does Ezra know you're down here?" Peter asked quickly.

"No, for I would not appear to a Collins. I was fool enough to marry one, but the blood of the Collins family does not run in my veins and I hate them, even though I legally bore the name. Had I the freedom of the house above, I should haunt them, but when Ezra came, I merely waited and watched. He does not know of me. Why do you ask this?"

"Just figuring it out," Peter said. He wasn't sure why he'd wanted to know. "But he's got to have some idea. Maybe he could see Rupert. Our meters picked up something. If they hadn't gotten any readings, we could have said whatever bothered him was his imagination or an old house settling and left before he could stick us down here."

"Rupert sometimes played tricks upon him," Claudia admitted. "He must have felt safe about it."

"But why did he think we had harmed his mother?" Egon persisted. "It would take more than the delusion of madness to lead him to such an erroneous assumption."

Claudia pondered the question. "He said, 'the sins of the father shall be visited upon the son.' I was not sure if that were a quote directly from the Bible or whether he was parodying a parable. 'The sins of the father,' he said. And then he murmured to himself in tones of great satisfaction, 'Venkman will pay.'"

Peter's jaw dropped. "Me? But I never...." he began, only to suck in an appalled breath. "My dad?" God, it only needed that. Had Charlie Venkman scammed Ezra's mother? Had Ezra discovered it and plotted revenge? He'd examined the trapdoor only three weeks ago. If Charlie had pulled one of his scams and ripped off Elspeth Collins, he might have made good his escape. Ezra must be a take-the-law-into-his-own-hands kind of guy, just like his old man. He had a lot of room to talk when it came to fathers.

Peter sneaked a sideways glance at Egon, who was watching him levelly. Egon was hurt. He could have died, and all because of Peter's father. He'd known about Charlie's con man proclivities almost from the beginning, and never once in all the years they'd known each other had he held Charlie's nature against Peter. But now he was trapped in a stone cavern where two previous victims had died. Peter trusted Egon utterly. Egon wouldn't turn on him.

But wouldn't he have the right?

Peter turned cautiously to Egon. "God, Egon, I'm sorry."

At the exact moment he spoke, Egon said, "I'm sorry, Peter," as if he could read every thought Peter had.

Peter stared at his friend in the eerie, ectoplasmic glow of the candlesticks. Egon looked battered and sore, and pain glittered in his eyes, but they also shone with utter sincerity. "You're sorry?"

"I know how hard your father makes things for you at times," Egon replied.

"Yeah, you should. He's made it tough for all of us more than once. It's not fair. You shouldn't have to pay my debts."

"They're hardly your debts, Peter. They're his, and you shouldn't have to pay them, either."

That hurt, although Egon had intended no hurt. It wasn't his words that hurt but the truth of them. Peter dropped his gaze and would have pulled his arm away from around Egon's shoulders, but Egon reached up instinctively and grasped his sound wrist to prevent him from moving. "None of us have ever blamed you for your father, Peter. If you trust us, you must know that."

"If I trust you.... God, Egon...." He gestured painfully with his sprained wrist. "That's the one certain thing in my whole life. But it cuts both ways. You and Ray and Winston trust me, too--and this is what comes of it."

"Nonsense, Peter. As soon blame you for a traffic light turning red." His grip didn't loosen. "You are not your father. My concern is for you and how he affects you, not for anything he might have done. I may not trust your father, but I do trust you. I know what he does hurts you, but right now the important thing is not to fix blame but to find a way out of this place and make certain Collins pays for what he's done."

"Yeah, and my dad will have to pay, too."

"You can't always bail him out, Peter." He smiled gently. "I know how often you do."

"Yeah, well, no more," Peter growled. Egon's absolution, even if he didn't call it that, meant more than Peter could say, but it didn't resolve the main problem, that he and Egon might die down here and that it would never have happened if not for Charlie Venkman.

"Yes," Egon insisted. "You'll be mad at him for a while, but you won't turn against him forever. It's not in your nature to do that. I'm not hurt, not really. We'll find a way out of here, and even if we can't do it on our own, Ray and Winston will find us."

"Yeah, I phoned 'em when you did your disappearing act. They're on their way here now."

Egon's eyes lit with approval. "Well done, Peter."

"Yeah, but if Collins--"

"No. You can't imagine that Winston and Ray won't come prepared for danger or treachery. You and I didn't expect it until I fell, and then you took precautions before you looked for me. There may be a way out of here through that door, or we may be able to blast our way into the green room with our throwers."

"Yeah, but we won't be able to prove Collins set me up," Peter argued. "He's bound to have a story planned, and he's rich. People will probably listen to him. And I'm not busting Claudia. She's a victim here, just like we are."

"We might be able to free her," Egon replied, although he cast a doubtful look at the spirit's bitter face. "We'll deal with that when the time comes. Ma'am?"

"Yes?" The ghost had hovered unobtrusively beside them and listened without speaking as they talked.

"Where does that door lead?"

"Into a series of tunnels," she replied. "Rupert said they lead down to the river. A cave in the bluff."

"Then we can get out that way," said Egon with satisfaction. "Perhaps we will have time to circle around and reach the main driveway before Winston and Ray arrive."

Claudia pointed at the door. "It is locked."

Peter jerked his chin up to indicate his proton pack. "I've got a handy little lock pick here."

"I'll do it, Peter," Egon replied. "With your wrist, you might not be able to hold a thrower securely enough. Before we act, I should strap it up."

"It's not that bad," Peter denied, although the thought of using it was not a happy one. "You up to using the thrower?"

"My headache is fading," Egon replied. Peter wasn't sure if it really was or not, but Egon's eyes were clear, the pupils equal and reactive. Peter had checked that every so often as they talked. He'd better be okay. Charlie had a lot to answer for. Wouldn't the guys get tired of cleaning up Charlie's messes eventually?

No. He pushed that rogue thought aside. They weren't cleaning up Charlie's messes. They were helping Peter. They trusted him enough to do that, and that meant he couldn't let them down for one instant by fearing they'd become fed up. They might be fed up with his father, but that was because they...cared about Peter. God, he was lucky.

Except for the downside. If Egon really had a concussion, roaming around in dank tunnels wouldn't exactly prove a miracle cure.

Egon collected himself, then he sat up cautiously out of the circle of Peter's arm and investigated his pockets for something he could use to bandage Peter's wrist.

Peter stretched out his arm obediently. His wrist was already puffy and swollen, the skin tight. It hurt like blazes, but when Egon commanded him to move his fingers, he did it cautiously. It throbbed, but not in the way it would grate if any bones had been broken.

Egon probed the skin with fingers both cautious and gentle, then he turned to the ghost. "Ma'am, if you would help me...."

"Yes. What am I to do?"

Peter realized that their mutual enmity for the Collins family had made Claudia an ally.

A wicked twinkle glinted in Egon's eyes behind the red-rimmed glasses. "I want you to hold hands with Peter."

Peter fought down a smile. "Egon, you're a real buddy. You're encouraging a little nookie?"

"I'm making up for the fact that we lack an ice pack," Egon replied, and once Claudia had set aside her ghostly candlestick, directed the spirit how to grip Peter's wrist. The icy chill of ectoplasm felt wonderful on the taut skin.

"Thanks, babe," Peter told her fervently. "But, Spengs, if you sign Slimer up for this kind of treatment when we get home, I'm going to have to hurt you."

Egon arched an amused eyebrow at Peter before he stood up--a little too cautiously--and caught his balance with a hand against the wall. Ignoring the ghost who soothed his wrist, Peter watched his friend. After the first moment, Egon regained his equilibrium, but there'd been a second when he'd been unsteady. As soon as they got out of this place, they would head straight for the nearest hospital. Bringing Collins to justice would have to wait. Once Egon received the treatment he needed, Peter intended to come back here and introduce his sound fist to the point of Collins' chin.

Egon approached the huge, ribbed door carefully. "I wish I had my meter," he said regretfully. "Is it broken, Peter?"

"Well, it didn't sound off when Claudia appeared," Peter said. "Mine was sitting on the bookshelf up there and is probably still there. If Collins doesn't move it, maybe Ray and Winston will find it. They'll sure find all the books I threw off the shelves." He looked around for Egon's meter. There it was, up against the stone wall, half-buried in the books that had made the descent with Peter. It didn't look broken. Egon had probably shielded it all the way down. Peter corralled it with his sound hand and activated it. It beeped reassuringly. "Your prayers are answered, Doctor Einstein," he said.

Egon took it, delight in his eyes. At once, his long fingers adjusted the detection device. He took a reading of Claudia, who came across, from the sound and action of the antennae to be the Class 3 she appeared. Then Egon prowled around and examined their prison. From the lack of meter response, the stone gargoyles were simply statues. Egon looked mildly disappointed. The team had once encountered a stone chimera that had originally been a man and that could come to life in times of need, but that would not happen here. These little guys were far removed from the urban legend that gargoyles flew nightly in the skies over New York.

The ribbed door produced a few faint blips, though. Egon's eyebrows lifted. Peter watched his friend play while the icy ectoplasm eased his wrist, and he couldn't help a fond smile at the sight of Egon doing what he loved. Although neither of them was in the ideal condition for a major bust, Peter hoped Egon's readings were enough to be interesting. Ray liked the big, dangerous busts best, but Egon favored the complicated, confusing ones, so he could bring order out of chaos. Winston liked ones he could control, and Peter preferred the ones that paid best, as long as no one got hurt. Come to think of it, that was probably the bottom line for all of them. They'd been busting for more than seven years now, and they'd learned to work as a team on the busts, watching each other's backs, in tune with each other's thought processes, aware of what to expect from each other.

Look at Egon now. As he ran the meter over the outline of the door, he was smiling a little to himself, enjoying the readings, having a ball. Yet Peter knew he had partitioned his mind, that part of him was still considering Peter's reaction to the suggestion that this whole crisis had begun with one of Charlie Venkman's scams. He'd pretty much made it impossible for Peter to whine about what his father had done; for him to do so was to imply a lack of trust in his buddies. But it wasn't that. Never that. It was regret, maybe guilt, and a slow, growing anger at his father for living a lifestyle that set Peter up for fall after fall. You'd think, after all these years of knowing what his father was, Peter would be able to shut it off so it wouldn't bug him so much.

It wasn't fair to love somebody you couldn't trust. It was stupid to keep hoping that, one day, his father would transform into someone Peter could respect. God, he was a grown man, in his mid-thirties. This was crazy. He shouldn't care so much. It shouldn't hurt so much.

Egon turned from the door and caught his eye. "When we get out of here," he said, "I'll help you deal with your father's problem in any way I can."

"Reading my mind, Spengs?"

"No, your expression." Egon smiled. "We don't know exactly what happened. The Collinses are hardly bankrupt. Your father is not in jail."

"You sure of that?"

Egon hesitated, and Peter knew what he wanted to avoid saying, so he said it himself. "Yeah, you're probably right. He hasn't hit me up for bail money in a long time. So he's probably out there scamming somebody else." He wondered how much money it would take this time, and reluctantly abandoned the thought of using some of his savings to splurge on a new car. After all, he didn't really need a car in the city, and there was always Ecto or the mischievous delight of wheedling Janine's car away from her.

He changed the subject abruptly. "So, what are you picking up, Spengs?"

"Residuals, evidently Class 5. Hmmm. Ma'am, have there been other entities down here?"

"No." She frowned. "Not in this room. But I believe there have been...energies I do not understand. The pillars were here when I fell. Someone used this room in the past. It is very old, possibly older than the house above it."

Egon's eyes glazed with interest. "A long history of dark rituals can create an essence of ghostly energy. It's possible dark rites took place here long ago. Enough of them and the energy could almost 'come alive', the way our old uniforms did after we battled Gozer. I wonder if someone still uses the tunnels, even if this door is locked. Did Rupert ever mention anyone out there?"

Claudia's stroking fingers stilled against Peter's wrist. "Rupert was not always communicative. He seemed to know things he did not share. This doorway has always appeared to be the gateway to more than just a tunnel. Why create statues like this and hide them away? Why bother with such an elaborate door? I have been bound to this room, but Rupert was not. He did tell me when I asked where the tunnels went, but I did not think to ask him for more information."

"You said there were others," Peter reminded her. He nodded at the door. "Before you rejoined the world of the living, Egon, she said there were others."

"I have not seen them, but I sense them, just beyond the door. It may be that I was not the first to die here. Yet when I fell, there were no bodies in this room. Rupert came later, and he was not bound as I was."

"Evidently whatever you sense cannot come through the door, either," Egon replied.

"So wait a minute." Peter waved his good hand for attention. "Does this mean that when you blast the door, a bunch of furious Class 5's are going to show up and attack us?"

"None attacked Rupert," Claudia admitted.

"Yeah, but Rupert was your drifting, chain-clanking ghost. Maybe they couldn't. We're alive--and really hoping to stay that way." He felt sorry for Claudia, stuck down here with nothing but stone gargoyles for company for a huge chunk of a hundred years. Rupert evidently hadn't provided her with tons of happy companionship, either, if he wandered at will and kept his mouth shut about what he saw. It was probably just as well he'd taken off for parts unknown. He sounded like the kind of ghost Peter loved to bust. If they busted Claudia, it would only be so that she would have the companionship of other ghosts in the containment unit.

If all those Class 5's didn't bust them first.

Peter frowned. "Hey, Spengs?"

Egon lowered the meter and turned. "Yes, Peter?"

"Before you open the door, I think you better strap my wrist up, at least enough for me to hold a thrower."

"I believe you are right." Egon frowned. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't want you to use your wrist in case there may be small fractures we can't determine, but I would rather you used it than both of us went down."

"Will your weapons fend off dangerous beings?" Claudia asked.

Peter looked up and met Egon's eyes. "Depends," he said.

"On?"

"On the number of entities and their nature," Egon replied. He didn't break the look. "According to these readings, which are, admittedly, vague, there could be as many as five of them. We have two traps, which means that we would have to catch two in one trap and three in the other, unless they flee at the sight of us."

Peter didn't like the odds at all. He was sure Egon had at least a mild concussion, and all the adrenaline in the world wouldn't be enough to counter that or Peter's pain in using his wrist. "Maybe they won't be hostile," he said, but he saw in Egon's face the unlikelihood of that. They couldn't count on the ghosts to be your Casper the Friendly Ghost types, not if they'd been drawn here by dark rites. This was not good.

"We could always wait for Winston and Ray to get here," Egon offered.

"And risk them being injured in a fall down here?"

"They should be prepared for trouble."

Peter nodded at his wrist. "So was I. I didn't expect the floor to drop out from under me." He grinned faintly. "Ray might. How many times has he watched the Star Wars trilogy? He might remember that scene in Jabba's palace."

"If all four of us were to disappear, there would be a considerable hue and cry." Egon frowned. "You don't believe they'll bring Janine?"

"I told her not to come. I said if we all disappeared, she had to call in a rescue party. You know Janine. She'll alert everybody from the Mayor's Office to the State Troopers to come to our rescue." He grinned. "You've got a good one there, Egon--and if you ever tell her I said so, I'll have to neutronize your mold and spore experiments."

"Not the fungi?" Egon said lightly. He didn't admit anything with regard to Janine, but then he never did. Peter didn't expect him to; it would have taken all the fun out of the teasing. Instead, he came over and reclaimed Peter's wrist from Claudia. It felt fractionally better from the ectoplasmic 'cold pack' but not enough for Peter to think he could patent a slime cure and rake in the bucks.

Egon produced a small ace bandage roll from one of his pockets. You could always count on Egon to come up with just the right thing out of them, just like Doctor Who. With his handkerchief--he always carried a real one, not Kleenex--he mopped away the remnants of ectoplasm. For a guy with big hands, he was careful and gentle. Peter gnawed his bottom lip and held back the wisecracks until the bandage was in place. Easier not to yell if his mouth was shut. When Egon had finished, a thoroughly professional dressing encased Peter's wrist and the support felt great.

"Thank you, Doctor Kildare," Peter said. He was sure there were teeth marks in his bottom lip. Egon, of course, pretended not to notice, nor would he have thought any less of Peter if he had screeched in pain. "Now let me be that other guy, who was it, Ben Casey? and check you out." He caught Egon's chin with his good hand and tilted his head to catch the yellow beam from his penlight. Egon squinted automatically, but not enough to suggest major trauma. His pupils behaved just the way good pupils should. Peter gave them an approving 'A' for their effort.

"Head ache?" he prompted.

"Yes." Egon didn't conceal injuries from the team--unless he thought the team needed him intact. Even then, he didn't deny he was hurt, he simply did what needed to be done without fuss. You could always count on Egon.

"I don't think you've got a bad concussion," Peter said. "But I think you do have one. Stomach queasy?"

"Must you remind me?"

Peter let go of Egon's chin and clapped him on the shoulder instead. "So here's the bottom line, Egon. Do we risk the door and the nasties on the other side in hopes we can get out somehow and warn Ray and Winston before they get here, or do we sit here tamely and wait for rescue?"

"Or do we go up the ramp and blast our way out of here?" Egon replied.

"Yeah, I kind of like that option," Peter responded. "Except that if we go in blasting, who's to say the guy won't have a gun. Remember, he's got his mom up there and she's elderly and he says her heart isn't good." He frowned. "If Claudia's right and my dad scammed her already, I don't want to be the Venkman to give her a coronary."

"You're certain there is no way to open the trap door from this side?" Egon asked Claudia. He didn't even hesitate to bow to Peter's argument.

"None that I could find when I was sealed away in here," she admitted.

Peter frowned. Would Collins even expect them to come back? Would he think of their throwers? Was he still in the house? Had he gone out and moved Ecto-1 so that, when rescue came, he could claim Peter and Egon had left? Yeah, he'd probably do that. He had enough prestige that he could carry it off. He might not even realize that Peter had put in a call for backup to the rest of the team.

Maybe they ought to try the trapdoor first and face the ghosts afterward. Collins was sure to keep his mother well away from the green room--unless, of course, she was in on it. They needed to do something, though. He didn't want to wait tamely for rescue, not when Collins had to be loony tunes--and it must be hereditary. Peter was a psychologist and he knew all the appropriate terminology, but he liked to be colorful about it. He'd had a bad feeling about the guy from the first. Had it been his cloaked maliciousness that had alerted Peter, or had it been the fact of his mania? Peter didn't automatically offer clients off-the-cuff diagnoses. Maybe he ought to try.

He'd expected a ghost, and he'd expected a pompous business type like Collins to resent the fact and perhaps to be somewhat embarrassed about it. Now that he knew Collins had found the bodies and not reported them, he knew the guy would do all he could to cover up what had happened. He'd definitely move Ecto. When Ray and Winston arrived, he'd claim that Egon and Peter had found no ghost and departed. The readings were so vague in the upper house that they might even believe it--or they would if not for Peter's phone call. So they wouldn't go tamely away. They'd never give up on Peter and Egon, not for one second.

He raised his watch and checked the time. Way too soon for Ray and Winston to arrive. It wasn't as if they had Ecto with its siren to cut through traffic. Nobody ever got out of the way of a pink Volkswagen Beetle.

"Peter should have called back by now." Ray Stantz leaned forward in his seat as if by doing so he could urge Janine's ancient VW to set a new land speed record. Maybe Janine had been right to insist that Winston drive. He was just surprised that she hadn't insisted on coming along, not with Egon missing. He only wished they could go faster.

The whole thing was weird. It sounded like Egon had only been gone a few minutes when Peter had phoned. They'd had longer separations than that on busts without inducing panic attacks, and Peter was the least likely of the team to panic. Janine had said he'd sounded really uneasy and asked her to run a background check on their client, so even if Peter hadn't claimed Collins was responsible, he must have an inkling that the man could be involved. Ray wished they'd done as Peter once suggested at a staff meeting; procured temporary 'no ghost' signs to attach to the doors of Janine's car, and purchased a siren, to turn it into a 'mini-Ecto'. It would have been so great. They hadn't done it because Janine had put her foot down the instant she'd heard of the plan.

"No way. You guys are not turning my car into the newest entry in a demolition derby."

Of course none of them had imagined this kind of crisis occurring. Human malice was not what they usually faced when summoned out to bust a ghost. Still, they didn't know for sure that it was human malice, even if Peter had asked to have Collins checked out.

"Or we should have heard from Janine," Winston replied to Ray. "You have a bad feeling about this?"

Ray bobbed his head. "I sure do. Something's wrong. If Peter suspected Mr. Collins, then he had a reason for it, even if it wasn't obvious. Maybe he didn't even know why he felt bad about Mr. Collins, but whatever happened must have made it look bad. How could Egon disappear, anyway? Did Janine say?"

Winston shook his head. "Just that Pete thought Egon was trapped in a secret panel. Maybe it's like the time we found that panel at the Macabre house, the one that opened by sound waves."

"And that paranatural creature was behind it," Ray remembered. His face lit up. "That was great."

"That was not great. That thing almost dragged me down in the pit with it. If Pete hadn't been quick enough to grab me, I hate to think what would have happened. Bottom line, Ray, it took all four of us to overload that thing with thrower energy. And besides, that Macabre kid was the one who summoned it. I don't think that's what's going on up here."

"Well, it would've been neat." Ray brushed aside his disappointment. It wouldn't have been neat for Egon, if Peter couldn't get to him in time. Ray's body language urged still more speed.

The cell phone rang. Ray snatched it up, and hit the button before he pressed it to his ear. "Peter?"

"It's Janine. Ray, I've got bad news."

His heart lurched. "You mean Peter called again?" No, Janine didn't sound like she'd heard the worst about Egon. She sounded worried and irritated all at once, and that was weird.

"No, I asked around about Collins. My cousin Irving works at his main bank. He didn't want to tell me what was going on, but he did." She sounded utterly satisfied; Ray wondered what she'd had to threaten. "Irving's one of the officers of the bank, and he happened to know. Apparently Mrs. Collins' elderly mother fell victim of a scam artist and he got her to invest in some bad shares to the tune of about ten thousand dollars."

"But why--" Ray began, then his voice chopped off. "Oh, gosh, you mean it was Peter's dad who scammed her?"

In the background, Winston muttered, "Say what?"

"I think so. I couldn't get a lot out of Irving, and he didn't know the con artist's name, but it happened about a month ago. Irving said Collins got cold and nasty--well, he says Collins is always cold and nasty but he got worse and was acting really devious, and he had a few people come to see him who weren't there about bank business. Irving thought one of them was a physicist."

"A physicist?" Ray echoed in astonishment. "What would he want with a physicist?"

Winston fairly radiated impatience, but he didn't interrupt.

"Irving didn't have a clue, but I do. Egon and Peter had their throwers, but maybe a physicist would know how to neutralize them?" Ray didn't think she was sure. Maybe the physicist had nothing to do with what was wrong, but it was something outside the man's usual pattern.

"Is there a warrant out for Mr. Venkman's arrest?" asked Ray. He'd have to think about the physicist.

"No. I asked Irving and he said he heard Mr. Collins talking to someone on the phone and he said, 'I'll handle it in my way. I won't have my mother's vulnerability made public,' or something like that. Irving says that nobody at the bank dares cross the guy because he's really a 'vengeance is mine' kind of guy."

"You mean he wouldn't call the police about Mr. Venkman? He'd take it out on Peter?"

Winston muttered, "Shit," and his foot went down harder on the gas pedal.

"And Egon," Janine said resentfully. "Ray, you and Winston be careful. This Collins sounds unreal."

"You can't think he'd actually kill Peter--and Egon just for being with him?"

Janine was silent a minute. Then she said, "Ray, I'm scared he would. Irving was so strange on the phone."

"People just don't do things like that." Ray had no trouble conceiving of evil; they dealt with demons and other spiteful specters on a fairly regular basis. But the malicious evil of humans always perplexed him. He knew it existed but he could never really understand that a human being could will evil to his fellow beings. Peter, who didn't quickly warm to new people until he was sure they were trustworthy, probably had a better handle on such behavior than Ray did. But he would have had no way of knowing that Collins was out to get him. Unless it quickly became obvious, he and Egon would expect the threat to be paranormal.

Only Peter hadn't. Ray grinned faintly. Peter had sent for him and Winston, which proved that he was thinking and alert. Way to go, Peter.

"Oh yeah, people do," Janine contradicted him. "They do it all the time. Want me to call the police?"

Ray wanted her to, but--

"Think they'd believe us? We don't know that's what happened, do we? We're just theorizing. Frump would probably laugh his head off." He chewed on his bottom lip. Would he? The detective had made it plain on more than one occasion that he really couldn't stand the Ghostbusters, Peter in particular, but then Peter knew that and bugged the man. Frump might not like Peter's attitude and he might hate the concept of ghosts, but he'd seen that what they did was real on more than one occasion. Like all good cops, he really hated crime. Maybe he'd think that no one but him had the right to get on the Ghostbusters' case.

On the other hand, if Peter and Egon were in trouble, a bunch of cops beating at the door might push Collins into taking action he might not have taken otherwise. Maybe they'd better wait. It was all hearsay anyway. The physicist Collins had spoken to might have been helping to devise some ultra-safe bank vault. Irving might have the greatest imagination since Walt Disney. "No, Janine, not yet," he said. "We'll phone when we get there and let you know. If we don't check in every ten minutes after that, then you call the state troopers and tell them everything. See if you can find out anything and I'll call on the private line so I won't run into a busy signal."

"I will. I'll see if I can track down Peter's father, although I bet he's somewhere safe on the West Coast right now. Ray...."

That hesitation in her voice was rare. Janine wasn't really a worrier, although Ray didn't usually see her waiting back at headquarters when the team was out on a very dangerous bust, so he couldn't know how she fussed when they weren't there. "We'll get 'em back," he vowed. "We'll haul the guys out of there. I promise." And he hoped it was a promise he could keep.

"Titanium," said Egon in tones of great disgust.

Peter pressed up behind him on the ramp. After about a story's height, the walls had narrowed in around it, funneling the ramp like a chute, and that had helped Peter's acrophobia a little. It had also been the part of the descent that had caused him to sprain his wrist. He held the penlight with his good hand so Egon could aim precisely at the inside of the trapdoor. Egon had braced himself to fire then stopped and run the meter over the doorway. After that, he'd traced it with his fingers, and then he had holstered the thrower.

"Titanium? What the heck, Egon, blast it."

"Titanium will resist the throwers, Peter. It will take a considerable time to cut our way through this door, and as soon as we begin, I am certain Collins will know it. He could be waiting on the other side with a weapon."

"You mean he set us up? Lined that with titanium so we couldn't zap our way out of here?"

"Evidently. This looks newly done. It may well explain why the readings I detected in the green room were so faint. As you can see, the trapdoor opens into this narrow tunnel cut out of the stone. If the door had simply been wood, I should have read Claudia far more strongly, the way I can read the Class 5's through the ribbed door downstairs."

"You mean we can't blast our way out of here?"

"There is no lock on this side of the trapdoor or we could simply blast that. I suspect Collins had it rebuilt to open with a remote trigger device, and that the controls are on the other side of this titanium slab."

Peter glowered at the panel. "So, that mean he had to know when we were standing on the right place?" he asked. "A remote camera to the green room?"

"Evidently. Either that or a pressure sensitivity that operated when one stood in precisely the correct spot."

"Then, if he could trip the trigger, why get you first, if I'm the one he wants?"

"Perhaps because I stood in the right place first and he assumed you would search for me on the exact spot?"

Peter's stomach knotted up. "If he's got a camera in there and was watching us, then he knows I sent for Ray and Winston. They'll be walking right into a trap."

"Precisely my reaction, Peter." Egon's mouth was tight and his eyes were hard behind the round-rimmed glasses.

"Can we cut through this titanium stuff before they get here?" Peter demanded.

"Not before then, no."

They stared at each other in realization. "It'll have to be the ghosts, then," Peter decided. "If Collins expects Winston and Ray, he's probably ready to set them up, too, 'cause a lie won't fool them for a second, not with us missing. They won't walk away, even if he moved Ecto." One more thing to thank his dad for, putting Ray and Winston into jeopardy. Peter grimaced.

Egon saw the look and Peter was sure he understood it, but Egon didn't do more than reach out and grip Peter's arm for a second before he nodded down the ramp. "Then it behooves us to hurry," he said. Peter was glad he didn't offer a reproach, but then Egon never would. His concern was for Ray and Winston, and for Peter because he was feeling bad about the way his dad's scheme had backfired on the team. Those who thought Egon unemotional didn't know him very well. Peter grinned faintly.

They found Claudia waiting at the foot of the ramp. "Your tools did not work?"

Egon explained simply. "So we'll try the doorway. We don't wish to put you in jeopardy. Can you become invisible?"

"They would still sense me, but they will not harm me. They did not harm Rupert."

"You sure?" Peter asked. Claudia had been kind to them, at least as kind as she could be. Just because she'd been the one to suggest that Peter's father was involved was no reason to 'shoot the messenger'. Besides, he really felt for her, all those years down here alone. For Peter, that would have really been hell.

The ghost's face filled with resolution. "You must do as you must."

"Then, quickly, Peter." Egon raised his thrower. Peter tucked the penlight into his pack strap and quickly drew his own proton rifle. He gripped it tightly in his right hand, using the left only to balance it but even that felt like stabbing his wrist with hot pokers. This would not be fun.

Egon's stream shot out in a tight, fine flow and sizzled the lock.

"Dead-eye Spengler! He shoots, he scores. Give the man a stuffed bunny."

Momentary amusement lit Egon's face as he bent to adjust his thrower back to normal power. "We're not at a carnival, Peter." Egon gripped the iron handle and yanked hard. The door creaked open.

It was almost anticlimactic not to be mobbed by a horde of Class 5's in the tunnel beyond the doorway. The meter in Egon's breast pocket intensified its beeping, but nothing else happened. Claudia shivered. "I do not think I can go with you to light the way," she confessed. "Would that I could."

"That's okay, babe. You helped us all you could," Peter told her. "Thanks. We were glad to find you."

She edged up to the a dark tunnel. It looked nasty in there. "I have never left this room." Bracing herself, she tried to step through the opening, but fell back. "I cannot. I am sorry. Perhaps you could take my candlestick." She shivered. Without it, she might have to exist in darkness.

"No," Egon replied. "It is an extension of your manifestation. It would not light for us. But thank you for the offer. It was kindly made."

Peter pursed his lips. As Egon would say, 'Hmmm.' "Claudia, try again."

She hesitated, then she leaned forward. This time, she stepped into the tunnel as if nothing blocked her. Eyes wide, she rounded on Peter. "How did you know?"

"Yes, Peter. What changed?" Egon asked.

"The offer was enough," Peter said. "When she tried to give us the light, it was a generous thing to do. She was thinking of us and not how much she hated her husband for trapping her. She looked past that."

"Of course." Egon beamed at Peter.

"Lucky guess," said Peter in his most flippant tones.

The corners of Egon's mouth turned up knowingly. "As you say, Peter. Let's move. We don't want Ray and Winston to walk into trouble." He stepped into the tunnel after Claudia. "This moves parallel with the cliff face," he said.

Peter couldn't have proven that. He was a little turned around. Egon always knew which way he was facing, even in the dark, and under water. The tunnel descended, too. If Claudia was right, it led down toward the river. He had to say she was right. It felt damp and muggy, and lichens grew on the walls. Not his idea of a great vacation spot.

Peter jumped in right behind Egon. No way would he let his friend face a second of this on his own.

They made it to the first bend in the tunnel, Claudia's ectoplasmic radiance illuminating the rocky floor and chiseled walls, before they ran into their first ghosts.

The passage opened up into a narrow room, a chamber with a small, round wooden table set directly in its center. A low mound of something covered with a dusty velvet cloth sat on the table. A bookshelf held tattered and moldy volumes sagging crookedly on broken bindings, interspersed with jars with peeling labels and dusty contents. Another pair of stone gargoyles guarded the entrance, lips pulled back to reveal pointed fangs. Ray would have loved the place.

Peter didn't. It was more than the sight of two drifting grey entities with the fanged mouths and the long arms that ended in taloned fingers hovering in lazy spirals above the table that set him off. Something about the room reeked of nasty rituals that the faded, broken pentagram painted on the floor confirmed. Witchcraft, the dark kind, not Wicca, had taken place here. Something occult, anyway.

"Ghosts at twelve o'clock," Peter yelled, a second before the entities dive-bombed them. He jerked up his thrower and he and Egon fired as one. The throwers had a nasty kick to them that the guys had learned to handle after a few busts. But to control them required a firm two-handed grip. The pain Peter had been ignoring stabbed through his wrist so fiercely he nearly dropped the thrower. Only a frantic clenching of his jaw and a desperate tightening of his right hand kept the proton rifle from erupting wildly from his grip. He could do this. He had to. Egon wasn't exactly a candidate for the Perfect Health Award, either. There were lines around his eyes and bags under them, and running around blasting ghosts--any strenuous activity--was probably the worst possible thing for his probable concussion. Yet his particle stream hit the first ghost right on the money. Peter's wobbled, but he caught the second ghost right after Egon got his. Probably the entities hadn't expected attack. After all, if they hung around down here all the time, they might never have heard of the Ghostbusters.

Claudia gave a panicked screech, but she didn't run. Peter couldn't turn around to look, but the light didn't retreat. If anything, it brightened. Once she'd found the strength to look past her hatred and bitterness, Claudia was proving a real trouper. No way would Peter ever bust her, not when she stood there watching their backs. He knew if he turned around, he'd see the candlestick upheld to make it as easy for Peter and Egon as possible.

Once they realized they were caught, the ghosts went crazy, writhing and twisting and yanking at the pull that imprisoned them. They squalled and shrieked like damned souls--and that was an ugly image. Peter tried to shove it out of his head. Instead he thought of Winston and Ray, driving unknowing into danger, and of Egon, fighting for his life when his head had to want to explode. Yeah, Peter's wrist hurt, but adrenaline was a great thing. He could do this. He had to.

"Look out, Egon, it's gonna move."

"I see it, Peter. Can you handle it?"

"I hafta," he said simply. Bottom line.

Egon accepted his word without hesitation. He worked hard on the ghost he'd captured in the stream, forcing it lower and lower with great concentration. The utter trust in Peter his action required made Peter's heart soar as he played his own ghost. It was like deep sea fishing, with a huge marlin on the line, working it nearer and nearer the boat. Not that Peter did a lot of deep sea fishing, but once, when he was a boy, his dad had shown up on one of his periodic I'm-a-good-father excursions and taken Peter off for a two-week vacation to Florida. By then, Peter was old enough to suspect his father's motives, and he'd been right. Charlie had hoped that the presence of a twelve-year-old boy would lull the marks, and it had, but there had still been that one perfectly innocent fishing trip to remember. One of the few really good memories of his dad, although the resultant scam had soured it. Still, when he was playing in a dangerous ghost, Peter sometimes remembered that fishing trip, because the charter boat part hadn't been necessary for Charlie's scam and he and his dad had loved every second of it.

Egon braced himself, whipped out his trap, and flung it under his ghost. His foot found the trigger pedal and keyed open the trap. The fierce intensity of its light dimmed Claudia's ectoplasmic glow, and Peter squinted and cocked his head to avoid staring into the open trap. The ghost let out a screech that stabbed like hot needles through Peter's eardrums. Claudia gave a matching scream from the other side. Great. Good thing Egon had taught him how to sign. He'd probably need it.

Egon's ghost zipped neatly into the trap like a base runner sliding, home and the brilliant light of the trap died as its imprisoning doors slammed shut over the captured entity.

Peter started to reach for his own trap and came up against a new complication. His left wrist couldn't handle it.

"I'll do it, Peter," Egon said but when he tried to circle around, the ghost jerked in the stream and dived directly into the physicist's path. Worse, Peter suddenly remembered there were supposed to be three more ghosts somewhere in the tunnels. Once they trapped these two, their traps would be full. Shit.

"What about the other three?" he yelled. "We won't have any more traps."

Egon said something that was probably extremely profane in a language Peter didn't recognize. Probably Sumerian or ancient Greek.

"Might I help?" Claudia ventured timidly.

Egon drew his mouth tight and he let his eyes scan the room with a hasty and measuring expression. "Yes," he told the ghost. "Move that cloth, please." He nodded at the table. "Peter, I'll take over the ghost for you. Hold it steady, please."

Peter struggled to maintain his grip. A second later, Egon's stream joined his own and the ghost gave a soprano wail and tried to buck free. It didn't succeed, but the pull on Peter's bad wrist eased.

Claudia set the candlestick on the table and grasped the moldy velvet cloth. When she yanked at it, it tore and parted enough to reveal a crystal ball. Or was it? Its substance was cloudy rather than clear and it glowed inside. Maybe a reflection from Claudia's ghostly candles....

"Yes," said Egon triumphantly. "Peter, pick up the crystal ball."

Peter shut down his thrower reluctantly and waited long enough to make sure Egon had the ghost pinned before he holstered the weapon and grabbed for the crystal ball.

It was unexpectedly heavy, and he nearly dropped it. He used his left hand only for balance and took the full weight in his right. "Is this anything like that crystal we used to suck in that witch that time up in Massachusetts?" he asked.

"Precisely, Peter." He paused pedantically. "Well, perhaps not precisely, but I believe the principle is the same." His eyes never left the ghost.

Peter followed the look and saw the Class 5 notice the crystal ball for the first time. It cringed and tried frantically to swim free of the stream.

Inside the ball, writhing shapes churned wildly. Peter nearly fumbled it. "Egon, Egon, there's something in here," he yelped.

"Don't drop it, Peter. If it breaks, they will escape."

"They?" Peter shivered and squinted at the ball. He could see faces gazing out at him, hot, angry faces with big teeth, a lot like the ghost that bucked so savagely at the end of Egon's stream. There were three of them in there. With any luck at all, these were the other three ghosts that Egon had detected. It was about time they'd had some decent luck. "They can't get out of there, can they?" Peter demanded.

"Not unless the crystal shatters or a ritual allows it. Since we do not know the precise ritual, shattering the crystal is their only hope of escape."

The ghost in Egon's stream stilled utterly. Then, all at once, it went berserk and dove for Peter in a savage rush. Egon yelled a wordless warning and twisted the dial on the thrower handle. "Duck, Peter!" he cried.

Peter went flat on the floor, arms outstretched to keep from dropping the crystal. Pain shot through his wrist and his breath went out in a whoosh, but he rolled over onto his back, propped awkwardly like an upended turtle against his pack, and yanked the crystal against his stomach to protect it. The entity in the stream missed him by almost a foot.

"Peter!"

Nearly winded, Peter could barely manage to wheeze out, "Okay!"

"You had better be." Egon's voice was stern.

"'s okay," he panted. "Just gimme...a minute, so I can...teach my lungs...how to breathe again."

"Not long, Peter," Egon said tightly, and Peter could hear the strain and fatigue in his voice. Then it sharpened. "NO! Claudia, don't touch it."

The ghost yanked back transparent fingers from the crystal. "I thought to help," she said meekly.

"It would have sucked you in, trapped you with them," Egon warned her. "I can hold the ghost a moment more."

Peter heard the weary quaver in his bass tones, and he caught a painful breath. Another. Then he sat up carefully and raised the crystal over his head, balancing it carefully on his fingertips. "Okay, Egon?"

"Yes. It must be held by a living being for it to work. Ray talked to me about the entrapment powers of crystals after we returned from Massachusetts. I will guide the spirit as near as I can."

"Yeah, don't tell me, Spengs, just do it. It's not like he can't understand every word we say."

"Oh." Egon would have smacked his forehead with an abashed hand if he'd had one free. "Of course. I'm sorry, Peter."

"Don't be sorry, just do it. It's okay."

He caught Egon's eye, winked. Egon's face lightened, and he narrowed his beam as carefully as he could. Slowly, slowly, he lowered it, directing the ghost toward the crystal Peter held aloft. Peter didn't like playing with magic, but if it worked, he was all for it. He only hoped that whoever had magicked the crystal had known what he was doing.

"Peter, I can't let the stream touch the crystal," Egon cautioned. "When I release, you must thrust the crystal toward the entity as quickly as you can. When I say the, er, magic word, raise the crystal."

Peter hesitated. Egon didn't want to give it away to the listening entity, but the magic word--aha. "Gotcha," he cried in sheer delight. "Go for it, big guy. I'm with you."

Egon manipulated the stream with exquisite precision, his muscles bunched tight to control it. The line of pain between his eyes intensified and Peter sucked in breath to himself. Any second now. Steady.... Steady....

"Peter--please."

The thrower shut down and Peter lunged upward with the crystal in almost perfect unison. The ghost would never expect that to be the magic word. It would have expected something mystical. The ghost shrieked, started to break free--a second too late. Golden light nearly as bright as the trap's power field surged between Peter's fingers, lancing out in beams that highlighted the dust motes in the room and almost gave them solidity. The instant the crystal and the ghost touched, a sound like a giant bell reverberated through the room, so loud and echoing that it made Peter rock back and nearly drop the crystal ball. He had to squeeze his eyes shut as tightly as he could and wish he could do the same with his ears. In the distance, over the endless bonging of the crystal, he heard Egon yell his name.

Then the crystal sucked back the glowing light and took the ghost with it, and silence dropped on them with the force of a ten-ton weight. Abruptly, the crystal weighed more than Peter could hold. His arms gave way and spilled it into his lap. Any harder and he'd have to start singing soprano. He let out a wail of protest and forced it upward.

Egon plucked it from his shaky grip and restored it to the table before he knelt at Peter's side. "Are you hurt?"

"Am I hurt? Am I hurt? Did you see where that thing landed?" he wheezed. "What kind of crazy question is that, Egon?"

Humor replaced the fear in Egon's eyes. "Can you get up?"

"Oh, yeah. Just don't ask me to do anything strenuous for the next week, and I'll be fine."

Egon grasped his good wrist and pulled him upright. Okay, so he really wasn't hurt, but he could have been. He found a grin for Egon. "I know you love this magic stuff, Spengs. It's so scientific."

Egon made a face. "It lacks logic. Ray insists it's simply principles we haven't yet understood, but I'm not sure I can accept that reasoning. Yet, we saw it work."

"Loved your magic word," Peter added with a quick grin.

"I knew the ghost would not expect something so simple." Egon had also known he would get it, Peter realized. The ghosts couldn't have hoped to compete with any of the Ghostbusters, not when they understood each other so well.

"So what do we do with the crystal?" Peter glanced over at it. It was mounted on a silver stand composed of dolphins in a circle, each with the tail of the one before it in its mouth. Cannibal dolphins? Peter shuddered. The stand gave off bad vibes. The whole room did.

"For now, we leave it, Peter, although we will have to return for it so we can seal it away in the containment unit. Now that we've provoked them, the entities would be dangerous if freed. Collins must know this room is here, even if he doesn't use it or completely understand its function. If nothing else, the table will one day crumple and that would shatter the crystal and free the entities."

Claudia snatched up her candlestick as if she feared its ghostly weight would fracture the ancient wood. "You were both brave," she said. "It is good to know...." Her voice trailed off sadly.

Peter went over to her and gazed at her encouragingly. "To know what, sweetheart?"

"To know that people can care for the well-being of those they love. Perhaps I chose my husband ill. But for all these lonely decades, I have been so bitter. I could only hate. Until you came and I saw that there can still be love between friends."

Peter wasn't even embarrassed. Yeah, he loved his friends, although he didn't go around talking about it. Guys simply didn't. But he had to now, because Claudia didn't deserve what had happened to her. She deserved to go free, to disperse peacefully. So he took hold of the cold wrists with both hands, ignoring the pain in his wrist, and looked her in the eye. "You bet there can be, sweetheart. I'd do anything for the guys and they would for me. That's the way it's supposed to be when you care about somebody. You got a real lemon." Talk about understatement. "But that doesn't mean the whole world is like that. It never was, not even when Zachariah pulled his nasty trick on you. I can sympathize with your hating him. But you've gotta try to feel sorry for him instead. He's like his descendant, I guess. Something's missing inside him. Believe me, I know what that's like. There's something missing in my dad, too, although he's not really a bad guy. He just doesn't always get it." Behind Peter, Egon moved closer and put a supportive hand on his shoulder. "I'm a lot luckier than you were," Peter continued. Just knowing Egon was there made this easier. "Because my dad does love me, even if he screws up or gets me--and my friends--into trouble without even thinking about it."

"In a way, that would be harder," Claudia said thoughtfully. "Because I think you mean to say that Zachariah's evil intent frees me from any obligation to him."

"Right on the money," Peter told her. "You owe him nothing. And you owe yourself not to let his evil touch you in the wrong way. Long as you don't fall into his trap and hate, you don't have to stay here. Like when you came into the tunnel with us. It was because you weren't busy hating Zachariah. You were thinking about us." Suddenly he felt a grin spreading across his face. "You know what, sweetie? I think you're free already. Aren't you?"

She gazed at him, wide-eyed. "Oh, yes. Oh, Peter, thank you."

"You did it yourself," he told her. "Every bit of it. Helping us like you did, and never once thinking there was anything in it for you. Heck, maybe that's a lesson we could all stand to learn."

"Peter is right," Egon rumbled. "You are free, ma'am."

"If that means I can go, I know it now. But I won't leave you in the darkness. I will take you out of these caverns first." Her chin came up. "I will not do as Zachariah did. Come. If you are finished with the ghosts, I will guide the way." Candelabra aloft, she crossed the room toward a new tunnel that Peter hadn't noticed before. He started after her.

Egon put both his hands on Peter's shoulders to halt him. His eyes were full of approval. "You did that well, Peter. I was proud of you."

Peter ducked his head. "Yeah, well... She deserves better, Egon."

"Indeed she does. And now, she has earned it."

They fell into step with each other and followed her into the tunnel.

"But when I run into Pop, I'm gonna shake him till he rattles."

Egon gave a sputter of laughter. "Perhaps I will help you, Peter."

"Heck, you get first dibs. Now let's get out of this place and find Ray and Winston."

"That's weird," Winston muttered as he pulled into the driveway of Collins Hall. The place was old, really old, probably dating back to the Revolutionary War or earlier. Evidence of remodeling was apparent to him, a builder's son, but it had been clever remodeling that didn't destroy the Tudor style of the place. That roof was new, and Winston realized it must have cost a fortune to update that kind of tile. Maybe not a cool million, but close. The mercenary side of Peter's heart must have beat with anticipation at the sight of the Hall.

"What's weird?" Ray's eyes were wide with fascination. "Gosh, it looks too...tidy to be haunted, doesn't it?"

"Where's Ecto?"

Ray's jaw dropped. "It isn't here. Peter would have called if everything was okay. I know he would. He wouldn't have made us drive up here if everything was all right." He frowned. "The cell phone's working." They'd telephoned Janine just before they turned into the long, sloping driveway.

"Maybe the mobile phone in Ecto is out." Winston knew he sounded doubtful. Peter never would have forgotten to phone--unless maybe Egon had been hurt and Peter had rushed him to the nearest hospital. Nah, because once arrived, he'd have time to call while Egon was being examined.

"Maybe Collins made them park at the back--you know, like sending servants around so they didn't have to use the main door." Ray gestured at the house's imposing stone facade. "I've read about that kind of thing. And a few clients even had us do that before."

"Yeah," said Winston darkly. "Or maybe he locked them up in there and drove the car away so we wouldn't find it." If so, he wouldn't mind rearranging Collins' face. The jerk better not have hurt his buddies. Even if Peter's dad had scammed the guy's mother, that was no excuse for taking it out on Pete--and on Egon simply for being with him. Maybe that was all imagination. Collins would have to be crazy to think he could get away with a scheme like that. But Winston couldn't help the uneasy feeling that shuddered through him as he braked in front of the wide stone stairs that led up to the front door.

"Let's go see." Ray was out of the car almost before it stopped moving. When Winston got out, they went to the front of the car to get their proton packs out of Janine's tiny trunk, and put them on before they headed up to the front door.

Collins himself answered it. Winston had never seen their client before, but he was willing to bet a servant wouldn't wear a pricy suit like that one. The vest was too tight, but that was probably vanity.

The man's fleshy face registered astonishment, but it looked highly contrived. "Doctor Venkman didn't reach you?" he asked blankly.

"No, was he trying to?" asked Ray. "He called us and said Egon was in trouble."

"And so he was. But we got him out of it. He was slightly injured, nothing to alarm you, gentlemen, I assure you, but he was momentarily unconscious. Doctor Venkman took him into town to the hospital for X-rays. He said he would phone you and have you meet him there. He didn't call?"

Winston had a moment of doubt. The guy was so plausible, and it was possible that Peter had tried to call a few times and just managed to time them to match the check-in calls with Janine. But the curl of the man's lip was impossibly smug and there was a self-righteous glitter in his eyes that his bland expression couldn't entirely mask. But how to call him on it? Challenge him directly, and if he were telling the truth, they'd look like idiots.

If it were a lie, Peter and Egon were in deep shit, and Winston had never run out on a buddy in his entire life. He was opening his mouth to say so when Ray plunged in. You couldn't tell with Ray. He was a lot more prepared than Winston to take people on faith. Sometimes, he even gave ghosts the benefit of the doubt. Now he gazed at Collins with every indication of sincerity.

"That's great that Egon's not badly hurt. But I bet that means they didn't have time to bust the ghost for you. I think Winston and I better take readings to make sure it's safe here for you and your mother." He regarded Collins with such sincerity that, for a second, Winston was almost fooled. Then he had to hide a smile. Full points for Ray. If Collins was guilty, he had to let them in or prove to them that he was covering up. Even if he claimed Peter and Egon had busted the ghost, which Winston doubted--heck, he even doubted there had been one--he couldn't say no to a quick check without creating suspicion.

"You had better come in," he said. The eyes weren't gloating now. They were irritated, but the smile on the man's face was placating. Winston couldn't see any scheming there. Either the guy was what he said he was or he honestly meant them to take quick readings and go. What got Winston was that, unless his story was a total fabrication, he had to suspect that Peter had called them. He couldn't be sure that Peter and Egon hadn't been carrying a cell phone. Either he'd failed to stop Peter's call or he'd simply assumed that Peter had made one. Maybe he'd goofed and forgotten a phone in the room where Egon had vanished. Now he was playing a cool game, but Winston didn't trust the guy an inch.

Ray whipped out a P.K.E. meter and took readings as they stepped into the entry hall, a dark-paneled area with an elegant staircase curving around to lead up to a second-floor landing. The paintings on the wall looked genuine, even to Winston's untutored eye.

Ray didn't give them so much as a glance. Instead he twiddled the meter's controls and frowned. "No biorhythms for either of them," he said to Winston.

So they weren't here? Of course, biorhythm readings didn't linger, at least not strongly enough for meters to detect. They weren't what the P.K.E. meters were designed to register and the function was of limited use at the best of times.

Collins hovered, frowning. "No ghosts?" he demanded.

Ray adjusted the device and pondered it. "No, only faint residual readings. There have been ghosts here, but there aren't any now."

"Of course not. Doctor Venkman trapped one."

The guy had an answer for everything. Winston felt a niggle of doubt. Collins continued. "The hospital is in Barton, the Barton Community Medical Center. It's small, but adequate for slight injuries. You can use the phone to call there."

The doubt grew. Was this guy really on the up and up? Winston caught Ray's gaze and arched an eyebrow at him. Ray frowned and shook his head fractionally. "Let me track these readings to their source, first. Sometimes a second ghost will mask itself by hiding near a more powerful one. I'd hate to go away without making sure you were really safe here."

"What's that you say?"

The new voice surprised them all, and they turned to find a tall woman of advanced years standing in a doorway. She had a cane of ebony wood in one gnarled hand, but she didn't put much if any weight on it. Her hair was drawn back in an elegant knot, and the suit she wore whispered money. If this was the lady Charlie Venkman had scammed, Winston planned to have fierce words with the old con man next time he saw him.

"These are the other two Ghostbusters, Mother," Collins told her. "They've simply come to make certain the ghost is gone."

"It's not as if the ghost ever troubled us, is it, Ezra." The woman regarded her son through narrowed eyes, then she turned to Winston and Ray. Her scrutiny made Winston feel like a deer caught in the headlights. "The two gentlemen here before? I assume that the dark-haired man was Doctor Venkman?"

"Yeah, that would be Pete," Winston agreed. "And the other was Egon Spengler."

She dismissed Egon with a wave of her hand. "Ezra, since you leave nothing to chance, I assume you engineered this debacle with the ludicrous notion of avenging me."

Ray's mouth hung open wide enough for a small bird to fly right in. Winston nudged him to keep him from blurting out his astonishment.

"Debacle?" Collins went to his mother in two abrupt strides and took her by the arm. "Mother, this needn't concern you. Please, you're exerting yourself."

"And shouldn't I? Do you imagine I mean to dwindle and die because I'm elderly? I'm fitter than you are. Look at you, a heart attack waiting to happen. Nonsense. If you've followed the family tradition, then I must admit what I should have done all along. I covered for your father these many years, and that was my great crime. I will not cover for you. Surely a little harmless larceny is a milder crime than deliberate murder. If I was fool enough to fall for the lies of a plausible rogue, more fool me. But I will not allow my son to commit murder. If you have murdered those men, I shall denounce you. And the servants will do as I say."

Winston's thrower sprang into his hand and he adjusted the power down in one quick dial before he aimed it dead center at the middle of Collins' chest. "If you killed our friends, you are going down so far you'll never get back."

Ray drew his own. "Yeah. You better give them back or you'll be sorry." Worry laced a voice full of fierce determination. "Mrs. Collins, Peter would be really upset if he knew what his father did. He's been trying to live his father down all his life. Gee, I hope it wasn't too much money."

"None I couldn't spare and, since I am wiser for the experience, I have asked my son not to press charges and reveal to the world my gullibility. I should have known Ezra's bad blood would tell. Unlike your Doctor Venkman, Ezra has never tried to live his father down. Instead, he learned