The humans were going to be useless; he had known that from the first--but then, humans usually were. With an exasperated snort, the huge, green demon sprawled back in his chair and pondered the situation long and carefully. Had it been a mistake to involve humans in the first place? He was used to the female--she had done his bidding for years now, though she had no knowledge of it. She believed that she controlled him, that she had summoned him up, confined him in a pentagram, and now could call him whenever she wished. It had amused him to play along, to give her more and more line, knowing one day she would presume too far and then he would have her completely. Besides, she presented him with a window to the humans' dimension and that was not to be ignored. Demons who passed into that world were just slightly conspicuous--and sometimes they were in jeopardy. He didn't mean to risk himself like that.

The demon gave a snort of rage. Humans! They were at the back of all his problems, at least four certain humans were. He pushed the thought of his soon-to-be prey away and contemplated the male who worked with the female. It was amusing when he thought of it, for the male believed that he was in charge of everything. He had gone to the woman and hired her--but how easy it had been to put her name in his way. She had managed it herself; in fact she was rather subtle and had been useful to the demon, a use he might have continued to manipulate were it not that her appetites got in the way. Sometimes when he wanted her she was so caught up in them that she didn't feel his summons, and that angered him. He could, of course, have controlled her completely, but he had been reluctant to do that yet, not while she might be of benefit to him. Now she was being beneficial, and little did she know that when the task was finished, so would she be. He chortled to himself, sending several lesser nether entities scurrying for cover.

The male was all ego and bluster, motivated by human revenge, a shallow instrument that needed resolution right now. Unlike the more powerful demons who were prepared to wait, to plan and scheme, until the moment was right, this human male had let his obsession push him toward the edge of sanity. Look at him scurrying around gloating down in the dungeons, not even sure where he was. The female didn't know, either. Both of them thought it was a place midway between the demon's realm and their own, a holding area where she could come with the strength of her powers. He snorted with amusement. No human's powers could bring them into this region--but humans had come, uninvited, invaded his territory and taken what was his. That would never happen again. Until his revenge was complete, he was prepared to open the portal for the woman, to allow her to believe she did it on her own, to use her. When she was no longer useful, he would discard her.

"The human female is nearly ready to use the gateway, your Evilness."

He barely spared a glance for the lackey who reported to him, a very minor demon, scarcely worthy to occupy the same room, though he enjoyed the title. 'Your Evilness.' Yes, it suited him. The demon was vain as well as patient and vengeful.

Gesturing at a mirror portal that hung in the air near his throne, he sneered down at the under-demon. "Think you that I do not know that. Nothing happens in my realm without my knowledge." Not strictly true, but he preferred his lackeys to believe his eye was everywhere. Concentrating on his entire realm at once was draining, even for a being of his power, but they needn't know that. He saw trolls and fauns glancing at each other nervously at the edges of the room, considering their little sins, wondering if he knew about them. He let them worry.

"I have monitored the female," he said, eyeing the screen where the fair haired woman in her flowing gown made mystical passes in the air. She blocked the view of what she was doing, but the demon knew. Yes, this was going to be perfect. "I am ready," he said. "When she desires the panel, I shall open it, sending them all back to the human realm--until the next time."

"Yes, your Evilness." The sub-demon bowed away, never turning his back on his superior. Good. Let him cringe. Let them all cringe. Soon his revenge would be complete and that would show them all that no one could cross him with impunity. Soon he would destroy those men whom he hated above all others--The Ghostbusters.

Officer Jerry Zywicki was just finishing his shift with a last run through Central Park when he saw the man asleep on the park bench, curled up like a child trying to keep warm and wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. With a sigh, Jerry pulled over. The odds were that anyone who crashed on a park bench was one of the city's multitude of homeless, one who had been rolled by a fellow bum for the clothes on his back and the remains of a bottle of sterno, but he might have been a more or less law-abiding citizen who had been mugged and dumped here. In either case, Jerry would have to investigate. He got out of the car, putting on his hand and sliding his nightstick into place, and approaching cautiously. Sometimes things like this were a setup.

This time, it was exactly what it looked like. The tangled, too-long hair that hung in the vagrant's face had looked white in the glare from the nearest streetlight but up close it proved to be Nordic blond, tangled and dirty as if it had not seen a comb for several days. Jerry aimed a flashlight at the man's face and hesitated, frowning because he looked vaguely familiar. Maybe there was a want out on him. The resemblance wouldn't come to him, so he bent over the sleeping man, pausing when he observed the technicolor bruise on his forehead just above his left temple. Maybe he was a mugging victim after all.

"Hey, come on, pal, wake up," urged Jerry, prodding him carefully. He didn't think this guy was going to come up swinging but it was better to be prepared just in case.

The sleeping man awoke and stared at Jerry nearsightedly with dazed blue eyes. There was a strange emptiness in the look that warned the officer this could become more complicated than he had thought at first. There was nothing normal in the injured man's expression.

The man on the bench proved it. He sat up clumsily like a person whose motor functions are operating below normal, pulled his knees against his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He said in a garbled, childlike voice, "P'licem'n." Instantly his eyes darkened with horror and he struggled to continue, but no words emerged. His eyes glistened with terror and tears.

Jerry's heart sank. Either this guy wasn't running on all cylinders because of the head injury or he was mentally retarded. The slack mouth and the eyes that gazed at him vaguely indicated the latter, and the cop felt a surge of anger that someone would do this to a handicapped person.

"Yes, I'm a policeman," he said in his most reassuring tones. "Would you like me to take you home now?"

The man's eyes flashed, just once, then he nodded vehemently, the blond hair sliding down on his forehead. With an impatient--and awkward--hand he shoved it back, frowning as if it felt wrong. "Home," he said with considerable urgency. The effort to convey his need was palpable and Jerry realized how frightening it must have been for him to be lost in a place as vast and dangerous as Central Park.

"Do you know where you live?" he prodded in the same soft voice, encouraging the man to speak. "Can you give your address?"

The face scrunched up in a perfectly terrible attempt at concentration and after some thought, triumph lit his eyes. "Firehall," he announced with satisfaction.

"Firehall?" echoed Jerry. Well, yeah, kids dream of becoming firemen and what was this if not a great big kid? "You're not really a fireman, are you?" he asked gently.

Scorn etched itself on the dull-eyed face. "Not fireman," he corrected as if Jerry were a fool not to know that. Another paroxysm of thought twisted his features, then he produced the word triumphantly. "Ghost-buster."

"Yeah, right, friend," Jerry began, only to fall silent, frowning. Wait a minute... Wasn't there a missing persons report out on one of the Ghostbusters? Hadn't been seen for three days or something like that? Which one had it been? Spengler, he thought. The blond one. Yeah, right. Take away the glasses he always wore, tangle his hair, and he'd look just like this character.

Oh, shit! Jerry schooled his features to careful neutrality, unwilling to upset the blond man. What could have happened to him to turn him like this? A ghost of some kind? Possession? Or, much worse, was it the result of the head injury that had produced that spectacular bruise? Jerry had always heard Egon Spengler was a genius but this man didn't have the IQ of a five year old.

"Egon?" he ventured, testing his theory.

The man's eyes blazed, but he bobbed his head up and down like an obedient schoolboy. "Me Egon," he admitted, poking one finger against the middle of his chest for confirmation. Then his face twisted with misery and he began to cry. "Want Peter," he whimpered. "Take me to Peter now."

"Well, buddy, I think I'd better take you to the hospital first. You've got a big, bad bump on your head and I bet it hurts. We'll let the nice doctors and nurses fix you up and I'll make sure Peter comes there to meet you, and your other friends too. How does that sound? Will you come with me?"

Egon lifted his eyes and narrowed them as he considered the officer. Then he knuckled away the tears and rose obediently to his feet like a good child, holding out his hand the way a trusting toddler will do to an adult. Shaking his head, Jerry took it and led the man back to the squad car, helping him into the back seat, one hand on the top of his head. Egon climbed in with all the clumsiness of a puppy and curled up on the seat, falling asleep before Jerry's startled eyes. That wasn't good, was it? People with head injuries shouldn't sleep. Of course from the color of the bruise, the injury that had caused it was several days old. It wouldn't hurt him to sleep a little. Jerry put the siren on and set off as fast as he could for the nearest hospital, reaching out for the radio. He'd better call this one in right away.

Peter Venkman slammed his fist into the wall and turned away from it, his feet tracing a path toward the other side of the waiting room. Egon had been gone for three days without word, and now, in the wee hours of the morning, a telephone call had summoned them to the hospital. Ray, who had been sick with worry over Egon's unaccustomed absence, had leaped at the news. A hospital might mean injuries but at least Egon was alive. Peter wasn't as optimistic as Ray, but that was his nature, to play the cynic. Winston came along, prepared to back either of them no matter what the crisis, his face full of concern. At least Egon was found and the four of them could go on from here, whatever it took.

The crisis had started innocently enough. Egon had returned from a physics luncheon at Columbia University with a beautiful woman on his arm. Peter, who had been pestering Janine for the fun of it and fending off Slimer when the little ghost had tried to get into the act, looked up with interest as the pair approached the desk, her hand clutching Egon's arm, his hand resting on hers possessively. The woman in question was petite beside Egon's lanky form, as blonde as he was but with eyes that were unexpectedly dark in such a fair-skinned face. She had a cool, poised air, that of a woman who has long known herself capable of turning heads wherever she went so she no longer had to factor that into the equation unless she chose to do so. Quite a self-possessed young woman, probably somewhere in her late twenties, she stared around the fire house with fascinated interest as if she hoped to see ghosts and goblins by the score. When her eyes lit on Slimer, they narrowed fractionally, her lips pursed, then she shook her head lightly and relaxed, allowing Egon to lead her up to the desk.

Janine had watched their approach with remarkably little enthusiasm. Her mouth had tightened and it stayed that way, and her eyes narrowed with suspicion and veiled hostility toward the stranger. She had long been in love with Egon, and if her interest were not quite returned, at least Egon didn't date very often and had never before been inconsiderate enough to parade another woman before the secretary.

"Egon, my man," Peter greeted his colleague, his face alive with amusement. "Did you have a good lunch? How was the dessert?"

Egon's eyes twinkled responsively. "Everything was fine, thank you, Peter. I'd like you and Janine to meet Cynara Storm. This is Peter Venkman, one of my colleagues, and Janine Melnitz, our receptionist."

Slimer made an irritated throat-clearing sound and Egon added, "And Slimer, too. We use him for research into the properties of ghosts and their varying capabilities." Slimer peered at the woman who stared levelly back then he decided to abandon the subject. He pulled out one of Janine's desk drawers and vanished into it, drawing it shut behind him. Egon's companion seemed pleased to see him go.

"And this, of course, is our headquarters," Egon went on, gesturing expansively at the garage area where Ecto-1 was parked, at Janine's reception desk, and the stairs to one side that led up to the second floor.

"Fascinating, Egon," breathed the blonde in tones that just missed sounding gushy, gazing with interest at the converted hearse before turning to her audience. Egon preened himself under her approval.

Eyes sparkling at the sight of Egon on the brink of falling head over heels in love, Peter edged a step closer to Janine and dropped a hand on her shoulder. He wasn't sure if the gesture was meant as comfort or restraint, and the tension in the muscles beneath his hand didn't help him decide, but either might be necessary. "Did you meet Egon at the physics luncheon?" he asked the blonde woman hastily before the redhead could put her in her two cents worth. Janine's face looked like a storm about to happen.

Cynara nodded. "Yes, though I'm afraid I was there under false pretenses. I'm not a physicist. In fact I went in hopes of meeting Egon. My brother escorted me there and he is a physicist. I'm a research writer for Ghost magazine and I wanted to do an interview with the Ghostbusters."

"Did you say 'interview'?" Peter asked, perking up. He felt Janine's shoulder relax fractionally beneath his hand as if she could deal with reporters more easily than with would-be girlfriends, though Peter suspected this might well be both. "I'm the man for you. I handle all the P.R. for the Ghostbusters. A cover story about us should be just what Ghost needs. Why don't you step into my office and I'll tell you all about me, er, us." He tried to wave her toward the gate and his office that was divided from Janine's by a row of filing cabinets.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Venkman," the woman replied, her eyes passing over and dismissing him as if he barely existed. "But Egon and I have made plans for the afternoon. He wanted to show me Ghostbuster Central before we went out." She turned to Egon. "I'd love to see the containment unit. It must have taken a very brilliant man to conceive of such a plan for disposing of ghosts."

Egon led her to the stairs. "Actually, Ray and I built the containment until together," he said as they started down. "We make an excellent team. I handle the theoretical end and Ray... "

"Reporter my foot," snorted Janine inelegantly once they were out of earshot. "That woman is a groupie if I ever saw one. Gushing all over Egon--and Egon buying it. Men! I don't know what they're good for but common sense has nothing to do with it."

"Yeah, and she's a groupie with bad taste," Peter agreed, unwilling to touch the latter half of Janine's remarks. He knew when to keep quiet and when to stick his nose in, and that was something he wasn't quite ready to risk. "She doesn't know a class act when she sees it."

"Nasty lady," Slimer burbled, emerging from the desk drawer and glancing around nervously to make sure Cynara had really gone.

"Why nasty, Spud?" Peter asked in surprise. She hadn't looked nasty to him--far from it--but sometimes Slimer's ghostly abilities noticed things the guys might miss.

Slimer only shrugged unhelpfully and drifted away upstairs. Probably he'd taken offense because Cynara hadn't seemed to like him. It was hard to tell with the spud.

Egon gave Cynara Storm the grand tour and returned with her half an hour later. Janine had been muttering dark and uncomplimentary things about the blonde under her breath, obviously in complete agreement with Slimer's opinion, but Peter hadn't bought into it until Egon and Cynara came down the stairs together, the two fair heads close together. Peter bounced up off the edge of Janine's desk to meet them.

"We're going out," Egon explained vaguely, a dazed look in his eyes. He'd toppled over the edge into 'true love' as Peter often did, and the psychologist was prepared to rib him unmercifully about it. This was going to be fun. Before he could open his mouth, Cynara's brown eyes stabbed him, making him feel like a butterfly on a pin. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times but there was something in the hard-edged glare she gave him that measured him and found him wanting, something that kept him from speaking. No joking words emerged. Nothing came out at all. Gulping uneasily, Peter suddenly decided Slimer must be more perceptive than he'd thought.

The look in the woman's eyes vanished immediately and Cynara said everything polite and charming as Egon bore her away.

"No better than she ought to be," Janine muttered as the door closed behind them. "I wouldn't trust her with a nickel, let alone with Egon."

"I know what you mean," Peter replied. "But Egon's a big boy now, Janine. He can take care of himself." He only hoped his reassurance didn't sound as much like famous last words as he thought it did. Something about the look in Cynara's eyes had bugged him, but when he started to say so, he caught himself, blinked in surprise, and found he couldn't vocalize it, so he let it go.

That was the last time they'd seen Egon or heard of him, until tonight. As Peter paced, he couldn't help remembering that cold look the woman had given him, wondering if it had been more than a warning not to interfere. They had tried to contact her when Egon had not returned in the morning. At first the absent physicist had been the butt of some ribald humor initiated by Peter and appreciated by Winston. Even Ray grinned at some of Peter's more choice remarks. When the time came for their first scheduled bust of the day and he was still not home, though, they started to worry. Egon might well stay out all night but he wouldn't miss a job that could endanger the other three without him. The guys trooped down to Janine's desk and Peter put through a call to Ghost headquarters to find out if Cynara were absent, too. That was when they first realized something serious was wrong. No one named Cynara Storm worked for the magazine, he was told by the managing editor. No one named Cynara Storm or any similar name had ever worked for the magazine, and when Peter described her with a wealth of detail, he was informed that no one matching her description had ever been seen there.

"I'd remember someone like that," the managing editor replied positively. "She would have started my heart going in the morning even without my coffee. Sorry. It sounds like you ran afoul of a groupie who was using our name to get close to you. But an interview might be a good idea. Any chance of setting up an appointment with one of our real reporters?"

"Let me get back to you on that," Peter said and hung up, turning to convey the conversation to his friends. "I don't know who she is but she isn't a reporter," he announced.

"I knew she was a groupie," Janine grumbled darkly. "When Egon finds out he'll be... " Her voice trailed off. "He should be here right now. He's never missed a bust. You guys have to drag him out when he's caught up in one of his experiments but... "

Peter opened his mouth to suggest Egon might be caught up in a different kind of experiment right now but the redhead flashed him a warning look and he closed his mouth without speaking. Egon had an extremely long attention span. Give him something that interested him and he might not surface for days. "Call if he comes home while we're gone, Janine," Peter instructed as he headed for the car.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Right after I dismember him."

"He wouldn't have missed this bust," insisted Ray as they climbed into Ecto-1. "I know he wouldn't. You don't think that woman was some kind of crook, do you, Peter? Maybe she kidnapped Egon."

"For what, our vast bank account?" Peter replied. "Come on, kiddo, you know we barely make ends meet half the time. She wouldn't get anything out of us." He pulled the door shut behind him.

"Maybe that's not what she wants, Pete," objected Winston as he backed the converted hearse out onto the street. "Maybe she's, well, not a ghost or Egon would have known. He took a P.K.E. reading of her yesterday, just to show her how the equipment worked. I was recharging packs in the lab when they came in. She thought being tested was funny. Egon said she had a sort of psi residue but she claimed it was because her job as a reporter exposed her to ghosts and haunted houses a lot, and there wasn't enough of it to make him doubt her. He agreed it would cause just that kind of reading and let it go."

"But she isn't a reporter," Ray objected worriedly. "If she's only a groupie she shouldn't have given a reading at all. So it's suspicious if there's a residual reading, isn't it, Peter?"

"With a capital 'S'," he admitted. "When we get back from the bust we're gonna track her down. She said she was at that luncheon yesterday with her brother. We can start there."

It proved another dead end. When they returned from the bust to find Egon still wasn't back, Peter headed for Janine's desk and snatched the telephone receiver. A check with Columbia turned up her brother, one Richard Storm, a Columbia alumnus and currently an employee of a private lab in Albany, and talked to him by phone.

"Yes, I took Cynara to the dinner," he admitted. "I hadn't seen her for almost six years when she called three days ago and asked if she could come with me. Jenny, my wife, wasn't be able to go because she's eight months pregnant and isn't feeling well, and I thought it might be nice to see Cynnie again. It wasn't. When she was growing up she used to be a plain little thing, but she pulled in the men even in high school. Once she graduated, she started coming across with the glamour routine. New hair style, make up, the right clothes, all that kind of thing. She went blonde. She was that way for the dinner, all fancied up, hair dyed, the whole bit, not that she wasn't bad enough before. The minute she ran into Dr. Spengler I might not have existed. I felt sorry for him, Dr. Venkman. Cynnie's a black widow spider. She goes through men fast, uses them up, and passes on. If your friend fell for her, he'll wind up dumped before very long."

"The dumping isn't what worries me," Peter explained. "Egon can handle that. What bothers us is that he's missing busts and he never does that."

"He will if he's tied up with Cynnie," Richard replied fatalistically. "She's got some kind of power over men. I never could see it, but I'm her brother and she never bothered with me. Why waste the energy? Sister or not, I never much liked Cynnie. She's a heartless little minx."

"Okay, so she's got Egon wrapped around her little finger and they're getting in some serious nookie somewhere," Peter said, holding up a warning hand to Janine, who looked about to explode. "But we need Egon for the job. Give us her number and we'll try and break the spell long enough to pry him away for a day's work."

"Wish I could, Dr. Venkman, but I have no idea where Cynnie lives. She doesn't give out her address even to the family and her phone's unlisted or something. She doesn't even send Christmas cards. I think she's somewhere over on Central Park West but that's not much help to you."

It wasn't. When Egon still hadn't returned the next morning and the guys debated long and hard about turning in a missing persons report. If he were just indulging in a few days of rapture it didn't seem fair to drag in the police, and Egon was certain to resent it, but Peter had grown uneasy while Richard Storm talked and it didn't take much imagination to stretch 'a power over men' from a cut-rate 'fatal attraction' into an actual physical power that would account for the reaction of the P.K.E. meter and enable her to control men through a factor a lot stronger than sex appeal. Though Storm himself had sounded normal, who was to say his sister didn't dabble in the black arts and her determined set at Egon didn't have an ulterior motive. After all, he was the most brilliant of the Ghostbusters, the one who most often came up with clever, technical solutions to get them out of trouble. Removing him from the equation, even temporarily, gave ghosts a real advantage. Not that Ray wasn't brilliant and inventive; he was. It was just that they needed Egon, too. They could manage for a few days but if it proved longer... Peter frowned as he realized that subconsciously he was afraid of a much longer disappearance, maybe even a permanent one. He didn't mention that to the others but because of it, he didn't hesitate to take the next step.

They notified the police, and while the officer they talked to was inclined to be skeptical when he learned how and when Egon had last been seen, he did put out an APB on the missing physicist. Once that had been achieved, Ray had set one of their P.K.E. meters to Egon's biorhythms and they had headed for Central Park West trying to pick up his readings, cruising up and down streets in that general area, testing the apartment buildings they passed. Nothing emerged. No trace of Egon.

The three men and Janine had spent the third day in a state of barely controlled panic. No matter how involved Egon might have been with Cynara Storm, he would never have stayed out of touch this long of his own volition. Egon might become absent minded, even a little thoughtless, when he was caught up in a new research project but he would never have deliberately worried his friends. He had chided Peter sternly only a month earlier for failing to report in when Peter had last fallen in love and let the job slide a little. He would hardly do the same thing, and not only because it would give Peter an unparalleled opportunity to score against him. He would certainly never upset Ray like this. The anxiety that shadowed the occultist's eyes bothered Peter. If this proved to be no more than a fling, he'd take great pleasure in ramming Egon's teeth down his throat.

Yet he knew it was more than that. He remembered that sudden cold look Cynara had flung at him as if tossing down the gauntlet. Had he decided not to speak or had something in her look made him unable to speak? He tried to talk to Ray about it on the third night of Egon's absence, though he didn't want to worry the occultist any more than he already was. Ray knew a lot more about the powers of the occult than Peter did, though Peter had a pretty good idea what kind of twisted plots the human mind could invent.

"You think she actually controlled you, Peter?" Ray demanded, his eyes widening in excitement. "Wow! This might explain those P.K.E. readings Egon got from her. I wish I'd paid more attention when Egon was running those tests."

"What do you mean, Ray? Explain those readings how?" Winston asked, a frown upon his usually good-humored face. The three men were sitting around the TV screen on the second floor and though a picture flickered there, none of them could have told a questioner what the program was about or even its name.

Peter leaned closer. "Yes, tell us, oh wise one. What kind of a person could do something like that?"

"Well, a spell caster of some kind," Ray replied as if it should be completely obvious.

Before he could expound on his theory the telephone rang and the three men made a concerted dive for it. Peter grabbed the receiver first and cried, "Egon?"

"This is Cynara Storm," said a familiar, if totally unexpected, voice. "I'm looking for Egon. We had a date tonight but he's two hours late. I thought perhaps he had a bust and hadn't had a chance to call me. I hope nothing's happened to him."

Peter's mouth dropped open and he clapped his hand over the mouthpiece. "It's her," he burst out excitedly, if ungrammatically. "Cynara. She says she had a date with Egon tonight and where is he?"

Winston grabbed the phone from Peter. "Miss Storm, Egon's not here tonight. We haven't seen him since the two of you went out together. We thought he was with you." He held the receiver so Peter could lean in and listen too rather than head for the nearest extension.

"But it's been three days," she replied in surprise--or well-feigned surprise. "You mean--staying with me? I'm sorry, but I don't operate that way, certainly not on the first date. No, Egon left around eleven that night. He said he had an early morning bust and couldn't stay longer. I didn't expect to hear from him until tonight but-- Wait a minute!" Alarm filled her voice. Peter's eyes narrowed suspiciously, sure he could hear contrivance and calculation in the worry. "You mean he's missing?"

Peter didn't buy it for one minute. He turned the receiver toward him. "Yes, he's missing, Miss I-work-for-Ghost-magazine. You lied to us about that. Maybe you're lying now. What makes you think we'll buy anything you say?"

"I needn't take your accusations," she said coldly, her voice full of offended dignity. "If I'm lying now, why bother to phone you? I'd just ignore you altogether if Egon were with me, wouldn't I? Did you think of that, Dr. Venkman? Egon knows all about my real work and he wasn't offended with me." The temperature seemed to drop a good twenty degrees as she spat out her defense, such as it was. "I'll call again to find out about Egon." The receiver clicked into place.

"What did she say?" Ray demanded urgently. When they had filled him in the three of them looked at each other with growing suspicion.

"If we hadn't called the magazine, she would have come off smelling like a rose," Peter said through clenched teeth. "She didn't bank on that. She made Egon vanish, then called us, all innocent, to cover her trail, so we wouldn't suspect her. Said if Egon were with her, she wouldn't have called."

"Well, she wouldn't," Ray agreed reasonably. "Maybe she pretended to work for the magazine so Egon would notice her and then she told him the truth later."

"Yeah, fine, if Egon were here, homeboy," Winston reminded him. "No, she's lying. She had it all planned what to say, no matter how we challenged her. She's good. Figured she'd call and pretend she hadn't seen Egon at all, and if we hadn't checked, we'd buy it and run around in a panic and never suspect her."

But I do suspect her," cried Peter, slamming a fist down on the back of the couch in frustration. "She made him disappear. It was all planned in advance, contacting the brother she hadn't talked to in years, singling out Egon at that banquet, the whole schmear. I know a con when I see one and this is. Where is he? Why did she want him?"

"And why did she make the P.K.E. meter register?" asked Ray. "Do you think she's involved with ghosts? Maybe some ghosts wanted to get us, you know, get revenge." His eyes widened in alarm.

"Just on Egon?" Winston asked, shaking his head. "If somebody's got it in for him, they'd have it in for us, too. And who's Cynara? We never did anything to her. I'd remember if we'd got on her case, wouldn't you? So why pick on Egon?"

"Maybe he's just the first," Peter replied. He didn't like that idea either. It could very well be true, and it would explain why Cynara had taken the risk of calling Headquarters, possibly in hopes of luring in a second victim.

"So what do we do now?" Winston asked, turning automatically to Peter.

Peter gestured at the darkened window. "Tomorrow morning first thing we divide up this city between us and go looking for him. Right now we tell the police everything we know about Cynara Storm. Maybe she's pulled this kind of scam before. She probably has a rap sheet as long as my arm." He grabbed the telephone and started punching numbers.

The phone call that finally summoned them to the hospital came in the wee hours of the morning, and the four men tensed as they were startled awake. Phone calls at that time of night were never of the 'you have won a trip to Tahiti' variety. They were usually more in the nature of, 'great uncle Fred just died.' The three of them jerked upright in their beds and stared at each other blurrily before they dove for the telephone. Winston was first. "Hello. Ghostbusters. . . Yes. He is! You do . . ! How is he?" A long silence while the other two clamored at him for information, then he said grimly, "We'll be right there," and hung up.

"What did they say?" cried Ray. "Is it Egon?"

"He's at St. Francis Hospital," Winston replied grimly. "Some cop just found him in Central Park. He's evidently been hit over the head and mugged. They said there was a head injury. We've got to get over there right away."

Peter's stomach settled around the soles of his feet. Head injuries were tricky things. He remembered a college buddy of his who had fallen and bumped his head in the shower and the next thing anybody knew the man was having frequent grand mal seizures. Once he'd studied a test subject in college who'd sustained a head injury and as a result had a memory that lasted no more than a day. This might mean nothing more than that Egon had been temporarily stunned and he hoped so. The three of them flung their clothes on, and pausing only long enough to order Slimer to wait at the fire hall since hospitals were never glad to see him, they hurried to the hospital, Ecto's siren blaring.

Since then it had been a case of hurry up and wait. There was no news. When they arrived a nurse told them Egon was being examined, and someone else took down information about Egon's medical history and insurance. Since then, there had been nothing at all. Outside, the sun was rising but none of the three Ghostbusters greeted it with enthusiasm. They drank endless cups of coffee and avoided conversation because talking about it might mean admitting how bad it could turn out to be.

"I hate this," Ray said abruptly in a small voice. He had withdrawn to a corner, looking paler than usual, and Peter suddenly remembered Ray's parents had died in a car accident and how he must have waited just like this to hear about them. It had been the worst possible news then. Now-- Well, a simple bump on the head shouldn't take this long, should it?

Before Peter or Winston could respond to Ray's misery, a grave-faced doctor appeared and walked into the room. He waved Peter toward a chair but the psychologist stayed defiantly on his feet as if that could alter the bad news he sensed he was about to hear and Winston jumped up to stand beside him.

"I'm Dr. Laughton," the medico introduced himself. He was a portly man in his middle fifties with tufts of grey hair around a gleaming bald dome. His eyes glinted like currants in a pudding as he looked at each of them in turn. "I've been examining your friend Dr. Spengler," he said. "He's sustained a head trauma. From the X-rays and other tests I've run, I'd be inclined to say it was not a serious blow, possibly serious enough to render him temporarily unconscious but no more. There's no concussion, no fractures, no evidence of swelling or pressure to the brain. However, head injuries are peculiar things and often there are unexpected side effects."

Peter didn't like where this was going. "Suppose you just spell it out for us, Doctor," he demanded, tight-lipped. "What's wrong with Egon?"

"We've run a series of tests to determine that there has been no other trauma, no kind of CVA or anything of that type. It's not possible to rule out emotional shock at this stage, either, and perhaps that's most likely in the circumstances. Your friend is conscious, gentlemen. His heart is sound, his blood pressure and temperature are normal. Everything is normal, except for one thing."

"What one thing?" Winston demanded, exasperated with the delay. "You mean amnesia, something like that?"

Laughton shook his head. "No. That could be understood much more easily than this. I've spoken with your friend at length, gentlemen, and it appears he has the mental ability of, perhaps, a three year old child. He knows his name and yours and can recite his address, in much the manner of a child who has been drilled to remember it, but emotionally, intellectually, even in his motor responses, he presents as a very young child."

Ray's face went white. "You mean some kind of--of brain damage, doctor?" he asked, stricken. "But Egon's a genius! You mean he...is it--is it... permanent?"

"I don't even know why it's occurred," Laughton replied. "That's why I suggest the possibility of emotional trauma. Given the nature of your work, perhaps it's even the result of an encounter with a ghost." From the tone of his voice he considered this solution a frivolous one, scarcely worth mentioning. "He wants to see Dr. Venkman," concluded the doctor. "I said he could see all of you and he became very upset and insisted no one be allowed in but Peter."

Peter thought that was probably for the best. If Egon wasn't operating on full thrusters too many of them might confuse and upset him. If this proved an emotional trauma, a shock of that nature, Peter was best equipped to figure it out and help Egon deal with it. The doctor was too stiff to deal with one of his usual quips so Peter grew serious. He said stiffly to the doctor, "One of my doctorates is in psychology. That might be useful if you're speaking of an emotional trauma, possibly a regression to a time well before whatever threatened him took place. If that's the case, I might be able to work with him on it. He trusts me." The effort it took to sound professional was colossal. He wanted to slam his fists against the walls again, harder this time, maybe break something, but that wouldn't do Egon any good and it might make the doctor reluctant to allow his involvement. This couldn't happen, not to Egon, not to the one who valued his intellect the most. What would the rest of them do if it proved to be permanent?

Peter felt the weight of responsibility upon his shoulders as the doctor led him to Egon's room. He was reluctant to cross the threshold and see Egon as he was now. He was most comfortable dealing with crises with a flip response, a smart comeback, something that allowed him to protect himself from pain or the appearance of pain, but he was damned sure it wouldn't work this time.

Egon was sitting up in bed clad in a hospital gown, his hair combed neatly into an unfamiliar style, his hands knotting the sheet over and over. There was a big bruise on his forehead. When he sensed a movement in the doorway he lifted his head and squinted nearsightedly at Peter. He'd lost his glasses and at that distance he couldn't recognize the blurred figure who had entered, yet he must have felt a sense of familiarity, because he faltered in a squeaky little voice, "Peter?"

"Yo, Egon," greeted Peter, trying to sound both casual and reassuring though the words nearly stuck in his throat. "What kind of trouble have you got yourself into this time?"

His question provoked a momentary gleam in Egon's eyes, a flash of appreciation for the words--Peter wanted to think it was appreciation, anyway--but it faded immediately and Egon's bottom lip wobbled. "Peter?" he pleaded like a frightened, desperate child and stretched out his arms as if to seek comfort and protection from the big, bad, scary world. Peter's stomach twisted violently. He could feel the color leave his face.

He crossed the room in one jump, gathering Egon in and holding him tightly against his chest, feeling the slender shoulders quiver beneath his stroking hands as Egon cried. That shook him more than anything that could have happened, that Egon would break down and cry so readily and so openly. Egon was the one who was always in control, who could handle anything, the one the rest of them turned to in a crisis.

It seemed he could handle anything but this. If anything of Egon was left inside, he'd know what he'd lost and it would shake the entire foundation of his existence. Peter soothed him with quiet words and gentle touches, the way he would a scared child, though it took every ounce of willpower he could muster to keep from losing it entirely himself.

Finally Egon's tears eased away to occasional gulping and Peter said quietly, "Egon, I'm gonna let go now. I'm not going away, though. I'm gonna be right here, I promise. I want to talk to you. Okay, buddy?"

"O-okay," Egon muttered. He allowed Peter to slacken his grip, but his fingers encircled Peter's wrist and held on, and Peter reached out with his foot to drag the visitor's chair close enough to sit down without breaking Egon's grip. Only when he was seated did he allow himself to look into Egon's face.

Tears had left tracks down the blond's cheeks and his eyelids were puffy and red, but that was nothing compared to the desolate, lost look in the usually-assured blue eyes. Peter dug into his pocket and produced a handkerchief, offering it to Egon, who looked at it blankly for a minute, then took it and scrubbed at his face and blew his nose. So he understood its purpose. That was a start.

Next Peter took out a spare pair of glasses and gave them to Egon. They had decided that he might have broken his glasses if he'd been attacked and had brought his spare pair just in case. Egon's face brightened and he grabbed them clumsily and tried to open them. His mouth traced a stubborn and frustrated line as he fumbled the attempt and nearly dropped them.

"Here, big guy, let me." Peter settled the glasses on Egon's face and slid them into place with his forefinger. He'd done that a few times when Egon's glasses slipped, enjoying the fact that it had always bugged the hell out of the blond man. This time the gesture hurt. Peter had hoped the glasses would give him a more normal appearance but they didn't. Now, Egon looked like a child who has put on his daddy's glasses. Yet relief flashed briefly in his eyes and he looked directly at Peter.

"Thanks," he managed awkwardly.

"We thought you might need them," Peter said, uncomfortable with the sheer gratitude in the tone.

Egon's brow furrowed with an attempt at thought. "Peter," he managed. "Don't... Don't let Ray... come in here. I... don't want... him to see... " His voice trailed off and he made a clumsy gesture toward himself.

"Nobody comes in here unless you want them, Egon," Peter agreed. "But Ray might be able to help. Don't shut him out. I know he'll want to figure this out and get you back to normal. Did she do this to you? Cynara?"

Egon closed his eyes and turned his head away as if to avoid the question entirely. When he looked back, there were spots of red on each cheek. "Don't want... talk about... " he blurted. One eyebrow quirked so much in the old way that normally Peter would have taken it as a concession that Peter's wider experience in the ways of women might have spared him the trouble Cynara had caused Egon, but in the next moment, any sense of familiarity had vanished. Peter frowned. How much of Egon's memory was intact? How much of his reactions now were mere conditioned response and habit. Even if his mind were affected, he might have a lot of memory intact, though he couldn't process it normally. He might be able to respond to Peter's conversation in a fairly normal way and still be permanently brain damaged. Could he tell them what had happened to him? Could it be a kind of psi interference, since the doctor didn't think it was physical?

"Egon, buddy, I think we need to run some tests on you," he started.

"No, don't wanna... " Egon whined, sounding just like a child who's been instructed to eat his vegetables. "Too many already."

Peter grinned. "Yeah, they do put you through the wringer, don't they?" He had to keep looking and sounding normal for Egon or he would fall apart himself and that would be bad for both of them. "I didn't mean that. I meant P.K.E. readings, the kind of stuff we do."

Again that bright gleam in Egon's eyes, approval for Peter's words, or so it appeared. It was momentary, but Peter narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. Maybe Egon could understand him better than he could convey. If so, maybe he could write what he couldn't say.

"We'll run tests," he said. "We'll take you home and run tests." He'd get Egon discharged. Medical science had done all it could. Now it was time for the Ghostbusters to step in. Peter would accept responsibility, though it was one that scared him badly. Taking risks with Egon's life and sanity were not right up there at the top of Venkman's list of fun things to do. First of all, though, he'd try his theory.

Whipping out a notebook from one pocket and a pen from another he held them out to Egon. "Listen to me, pal. If you're yourself in there, maybe you can tell us about it on paper. How about it, buddy? Want to give it a try?"

Egon's eyes brightened and he reached for the pencil and paper. Bending over them industriously he clutched the pencil awkwardly in his fist and started writing, his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth with the effort. It came slowly, like rolling a ball uphill, but words came. Then, abruptly, he groaned and flung the notebook at Peter in frustration and disgust. Venkman fielded it in midair and looked at it. In a clumsy scrawl completely unlike Egon's usual neat notes, the words trailed off the edge of the page, the same things over and over. "Help me, help me, help me, help me, help me... "

Peter bit his bottom lip so hard he tasted blood. Shit! This wasn't working, and it didn't prove anything. He lifted his eyes to Egon and saw the physicist watching him anxiously. When he saw Peter's expression he heaved a very adult sigh and moaned, "Wanna go home. Take me home, Peter. Wanna go home!"

"You got it, pal," he said. "We'll take you home." He wasn't sure it was the right decision, not in Egon's current state, but if the trauma were not physical, being at home in familiar surroundings might do the job better than staying here with strangers. Peter knew he was a good psychologist--it had helped them out on the job more than once--but his background was more theoretical than practical and this was a responsibility that frightened him badly. Yet there was Egon pleading to come home. "I have to go talk to the doctor," he said. "Will you be all right if I leave for a few minutes?"

"Don't want Peter to go," Egon insisted, but his head bobbed up and down as if in approval. Peter dropped his hand on Egon's shoulder and squeezed.

"Hang in there, Egon," he soothed. "I'll only be a few minutes. We're not gonna leave you here without us, I promise you that."

"Promise?" insisted Egon desperately.

"Yeah, Egon. You ever know me to break a promise to you?" Peter asked.

Egon considered that then his face broke into a delighted smile. "No," he agreed obediently. "Count on Peter... when the . .. when the chips are down." He produced a triumphant expression at completing the sentence.

Peter's eyes stung but he fought down the tears. "See you remember that," he said with deliberate sternness and went in search of the doctor.

As soon as he was out of Egon's room, his facade crumpled and he turned abruptly the wrong way and went around the corner away from Winston and Ray. He needed a minute to get his act together or he'd scare the shit out of them.

The deserted corridor was welcome. Heaving a sigh that went all the way to his feet, Peter leaned toward the wall, resting his forearm against it and hiding his face in the crook of his arm. His other hand clenched into a fist and rose to pound against the wall with savage fury. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

"Are you all right?"

Peter jerked his head up, slapping control across his face like a mask and blinking furiously to fight the incipient tears. The questioner was a tray-pushing hospital volunteer in a uniform like a candy striper's, a woman with mouse brown hair pulled back tightly from a pinched face and huge round glasses that gave her an owl-like appearance. She looked vaguely familiar but Peter was too shaken to pursue the resemblance or even to wonder if she would be good looking without her glasses.

"Yeah," he snapped, unhappy with the intrusion, "I'm just dandy. Back off, lady. I don't have time for this."

The corners of her mouth twitched but she repressed whatever expression she had meant to display. "I'm sorry I bothered you," she said in a neutral voice and pushed her cart past him toward the end of the corridor. Peter glared after her, outraged that she had dared to disturb him, and frustrated that she had interrupted his raging against fate. He couldn't recall the anger now, and without it he felt limp and weak and lacking in energy, unable to decide what to do next.

He knuckled his eyes fiercely for a minute, then he stiffened his shoulders and straightened his spine. He had a few questions for the doctor, and then it would be time to talk to Ray and Winston.

"You mean he... really is brain damaged?" Ray faltered when Peter finished speaking. Peter had been afraid he would take it badly and he had, his face white, his eyes shadowed. "That's awful." As if he realized the inadequacy of his words, he made a curt gesture with one hand as if to push them away and his teeth caught his bottom lip and gnawed it miserably.

"I don't think so." Peter rested a reassuring hand on Ray's shoulder and squeezed; the muscles under his clutching fingers were tight like wire.

Several times in the course of his conversation with the physicist Peter had felt the old Egon wasn't gone for good, when the psychologist had been able to provoke a flash response, but he'd been unable to bring his wry intelligence to the surface for more than a second or two. Peter hadn't told Ray and Winston the way Egon had clung to him and sobbed. He hated to remember it and he knew that Egon, in his right mind, would prefer that Peter keep it to himself and never mention it again, but the memory of the clinging child that had once been his brilliant friend was a constant pain. "I don't think it's physical damage," he said. "I'm not even sure it's really regression. I had him write for me, and I don't think a child would have written this." He displayed the notebook, regretting it the minute he'd lifted it for them to see because he knew how Ray would react to the frantic plea but knowing he had to do it. If what had happened to Egon was the result of a spell or curse, Ray was best equipped to figure it out. Between the two of them, they could deal with Egon better than the doctors could.

Ray bent his auburn head over the page, then his face whitened and he bit his lip harder than before. "Oh, Peter... " he breathed, breaking off to collect himself. "He's so scared," he whispered. "We've got to help him."

"Yeah," agreed Winston grimly. "This is bad, guys. What do you think, Pete?"

"I told Egon we'd take him home," Peter confessed. "I talked to Dr. Laughton about it just now and he wasn't crazy about the idea. He says Egon isn't competent to make the decision to go home the way he is now. I reminded him that we'd all signed those legal papers so we could handle this kind of stuff." It had mostly been to deal with such unlikely problems as possession that they had made arrangements to grant each other permission to make such decisions in a crisis, and they'd never used it before. "I took the doc back to the room and did a P.K.E reading. It didn't act like it did when there's a ghost around. I don't think he's possessed, though you could tell better than I could, Ray, but the needle fluttered a little. Somebody did something to him; something weird is going on with Egon," Peter insisted. "I want you to check it, Ray. If it's a spell, maybe you can figure out how to lift it. If the spell produced a regression mentally, I can work with it with you. I don't do a lot of that kind of work but I know what to do. Between us we'll bring Egon back." He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. What they were about to do was crazy, but the doctor had admitted there was nothing more he could do here except run further tests, and the tests already given had proven inconclusive. There were still results due back, but Egon could be returned to the hospital if necessary and in the meantime he'd be in a safe and familiar environment with his friends around him. It wouldn't do any good to come across too negative at the beginning, though Peter was half-afraid of hoping at all. He knew he was prone to take the darker view while Ray was the optimist. Peter had learned that believing the worst meant that you didn't have to fear as many crushing disappointments; but he owed Egon more than that. He'd have to keep everybody's spirits up while they worked to find the solution to Egon's problem.

"So we can take him out of here?" Winston asked expectantly. His eyes were knowing as he looked at Peter, reading all too well what Peter had just endured.

"Yeah, but we have to bring him in every few days for tests, until further notice and monitor him for any signs of physical trauma," Peter explained. "With a head injury, even a mild one, there can be delayed effects. Egon wasn't unconscious when he was found and his injury is several days old, so that danger is remote, but the doctor still feels his condition could be physical in origin and he wants to test it regularly."

"So we can take Egon home?" Ray asked in a small voice. Peter realized he wasn't looking forward to seeing Egon so changed, and it would be even harder in familiar surroundings. Egon had struggled to express concern about Janine just now when I took the doctor in. He wasn't ready to see her and short of phoning and telling her not to come in to work, or sending her home if she was already at headquarters, there was no way to prevent her seeing him.

"Yeah," Peter agreed, clapping Ray on the shoulder. "We can take him home."

They paused at the door to Egon's room and Ray hung back, looking small and un-bouncy. The doctor had said clothing had been found for Egon--he'd been brought to the hospital in just his underwear--and the nurse emerged from the room as they walked down the hall. "He's dressed and ready for you," she said. She'd probably had to dress him. Egon must have hated that.

As she walked across the hall to fetch the customary wheelchair, Ray stood rigid. "Peter, I can't... " he began, looking miserable. "I don't think I can handle it--and he'd hate that. I...

"Hey, hey, hey," Peter cut in, taking Ray's upper arms in his hands and looking his friend full in the face. "This is for Egon, Ray. If it's this tough for us, it's a thousand times worse for him. We've gotta go in there and play it cool, let him know we're handling it and we're gonna find a way to reverse it. We can't give up before we start. I ought to know what I'm talking about here. I'm a scientist, remember?" He made himself wink at Ray. "Besides I know you can handle this. You handled Gozer, didn't you? You handled being trapped inside Nexa. You handled that little redhead at the Hayden Planetarium last week."

Ray's cheeks flamed. "I just talked to her, Peter," he said uncomfortably, then he pulled himself together and squared his shoulders. "I'm okay. It's for Egon." He walked past Peter into the room.

The hospital had found clothing for Egon that fit relatively well, though the pants were both too baggy and too short so that he looked like he did all his shopping at clothing give-aways for the homeless. He was sitting nervously on the edge of his bed, his face blank and dull, but when they walked in, he looked up, saw them, and he avoided their eyes. "Egon go home now?" he asked in the childlike voice he'd used with Peter.

For one horrified moment, Ray froze, his jaw tightening, his eyes glittering in shock as he realized Peter had not been exaggerating Egon's condition. He looked like he wanted to run away but he didn't. Instead he moved forward so quickly that only Peter who had been looking for it noticed the slight check in his forward momentum, and reached out to clasp both of Egon's hands. Egon clung to him tightly and said Ray's name in a hesitant, broken voice that made Winston flinch. Ray never faltered. His hands tightened around Egon's as he gave a comforting squeeze, then he said in that gentle voice that might even soothe a vicious ghost, "Egon, we've come to take you home."

Peter couldn't remember being prouder of Ray Stantz.

"Wanna go home," Egon agreed, his head bobbing up and down. "Go now."

"Oh, man," breathed Winston under his breath, calling his appalled expression to order, then he stepped forward bracingly. "Egon, my man," he greeted, slapping him gently on the shoulder. "You're the best man I know for getting in weird messes. But Ray and Pete are gonna straighten you out. Count on it."

"Yeah, Egon," agreed Ray. His voice was steady with an effort; to Peter, who knew him well and was looking for it, he appeared deeply shocked, though he was fighting not to show it, and he made himself grin. "We can get out the Big Book of Spells and see if we can find the answer in there. Peter says he took a P.K.E reading, but I want to do it myself when we get home. There are all kinds of things to try, and I can make up a list. Spells and curses and even possessions... " Ray was in full cry now, his enthusiasm creeping back, and Peter wasn't sure if it were the real thing or if Ray had manufactured it and put it on to make Egon feel better. He continued in the same eager tones, "You know how Peter is about anything technical."

"Yeah," Egon agreed in that same childish voice. "Peter silly." He giggled.

Ray pulled the physicist to his feet, casting one unnerved glance in Peter's direction. The expression in his brown eyes said, "Help," in great big letters. So it was a front, after all, partly normal Ray Stantz, partly a facade to make Egon feel more comfortable. This would not be easy.

Once they were in Ecto-1 heading back toward the firehouse, Peter decided it was time to get down to business. Egon had greeted the converted hearse with childlike fascination and had asked for the siren the way a child might. Winston had simply replied, "You got it," and switched it on. At least it cleared their way through traffic.

"Egon," said Peter in a serious voice, distracting the physicist from the clasped hands he'd been twisting uneasily in his lap. "We're gonna have a little game now."

"Egon likes games," the blond announced and Peter felt his stomach twist at the realization that in some ways Egon sounded like Slimer now.

"Yeah, well, you'll like this one even better, pal," he continued, taking a couple of quick deep breaths to try to calm himself for the task. "It's called the truth. I'm gonna ask you some questions and all you have to do is answer them with a yes or a no. You up to it, pal?" He and Egon were sitting in the back seat of Ecto with Winston at the wheel and Ray hanging over the front seat to watch Egon. At Peter's suggestion, he nodded.

"That's a great idea, Peter. I bet you can figure out all kinds of things."

"Yeah, it was rather brilliant," Peter agreed but his voice sounded flat, devoid of his usual cocky humor. Egon lifted one eyebrow at him in much the old way and Peter allowed himself the luxury of hope. They could get Egon back the way he was. They had to.

"Ask questions," Egon managed with some effort. Peter couldn't help wondering if the curse or whatever it was had certain limitations that would prevent him from giving away enough to be helpful.

"Okay, here's the first one," Peter said. "Do you understand what I'm trying to do."

"Uh huh," Egon replied, nodding vigorously. Peter wasn't sure if he did or not but it was a good start.

"I want to find out how much you're retaining," he said. "It's going to be difficult to measure the intellect when you're presenting something entirely different but there are certain complex procedures that will give us the most accurate determination." Ordinarily when spouting a sentence like that he would have glanced at Egon out of the corner of his eye to gauge his reaction to his showing off, but now he only concluded with, "Does that make sense?"

"Yep," said Egon, gazing at Peter with the blank stare of a half-wit. "Makes sense."

"Do you think it really does, Peter?" Ray asked hopefully.

"We'll go with it anyway," Peter returned. "Egon, do you remember what happened to you?"

The blond chewed on his bottom lip, lowering his eyes. Two spots of red appeared on his cheeks and he mumbled, "Mmhm."

"Was it Cynara?" Peter prompted. If Egon had been normal this part might be fun, but now it was just hard work. "Had her way with you, did she? Her brother says she's got power over men. Is that it, big guy? If Janine finds out, you're gonna be in hot water."

"Peter!" said Egon sharply in such normal tones that all three of them stared at him in dawning hope, but then he continued, "Bad lady mean," in a voice that wobbled toward tears and Peter's lurching heart took up residence in the pit of his stomach.

"Did she hurt you, Egon?" Peter asked much more gently. He thought the teasing had worked, up to a point. Egon had obviously gone off with Cynara and they had been more than friendly, but what had happened then? One word answers weren't going to solve it because they could guess until they were blue in the face and still not hit on the right answer.

He hesitated, maybe trying to figure out how to answer that with yes or no or maybe because he didn't want to remember the events that had taken place since he left with Cynara on his arm. Then his head bobbed up and down. "Hurt Egon," he agreed and touched the bruised place on his forehead. "Bad man hit Egon," he finished, wincing when his finger poked the injury harder than he'd meant to. Tears sprang into his eyes, and Ray whitened and slid around to sit facing forward for a few minutes before he collected himself and turned back.

Peter felt rage steal into his soul. He didn't know who the 'bad man' was but it was even odds that Cynara had set it up, either working for him or bringing him to provide the violence she might not be physically capable of. If Cynara were here right now, he wouldn't answer for the consequences, especially if he had a thrower handy. Okay, so she wasn't a ghost, but nobody hurt his friends and got away with it. He didn't want to continue the questioning because it was obviously distressing Egon, but they had to know. Stomping down his fury, he made his voice calm and soothing, a good psychologist's voice when dealing with an upset and traumatized patient. Peter's psychology was more theoretical than practical but he was a lot better grounded in his field than he let people think. If he scared Egon he wouldn't get very far with him. He chose to believe that the old Egon was still here, intellect impaired, trapped in a superficial shell of confusion that presented itself as if he were a small child. Perhaps Cynara had wanted to prevent a ready solution.

Which led to another question. Why had she done it? Kicks? He didn't remember her; he was certain he hadn't seen her before she'd shown up the other day on Egon's arm, and neither Ray nor Winston had recognized her either. The Ghostbusters had managed to make some enemies in their time but to the best of Peter's knowledge Cynara Storm wasn't one of them. The bad man Egon had mentioned could well have been behind it. He needed more information and needed it quick. If somebody had it in for the Ghostbusters, they wouldn't stop with Egon, but even more important they might know how to reverse the process.

"Egon, listen to me," he said quietly, draping his arm around Egon's quivering shoulders. "It's okay. We're gonna fix everything, and I'm gonna fix her, probably with a thrower, and whoever her nasty pal is, too. Right now we've gotta find out what we're up against. Did she tell you why she was doing whatever it was she did?"

Egon leaned close into the circle of Peter's arm as if he thought he was safe there. He nodded. "Said. . . said--revenge," he announced with considerable triumph as if bringing out the big word proved that there was something of his identity left. "Mad at us. Nasty."

"I thought so," Winston muttered. "Nobody does something like this just for kicks." He corrected himself. "Well, some people do, but this was a setup from the first, her staging a meeting with Egon and luring him off."

"What can you tell us about the bad guy working with her?" Peter asked before he could stop himself and try to phrase it more simply.

Egon opened his mouth to speak and struggled to produce even the simplest sounds. "P-p-p- " he tried, his eyes darkening with frustration as he strove to force the word out.

"Maybe it's really a curse and he can't tell us," Ray said when tears of strain filled Egon's eyes. "Is that it, Egon? Do you know who it was?"

Egon nodded, scrunching his face into a terrible grimace with the effort of trying to speak. The fierce determination of his struggle did more to convince Peter that Egon's intellect was intact, if inaccessible, than anything so far.

"Do we know him?" he prodded gently.

Another nod. His lips pursed in an attempt to come up with the name that started with 'p' but no sound emerged.

"We don't like him, do we, m'man?" Winston asked gently.

A fierce shake of the head nearly sent Egon's glasses flying. They slid down toward the end of his nose and he pushed them into place automatically, the gesture so familiar and so normal that it made Peter think for a minute that everything would be fine.

"P?" he said thoughtfully. "Not Peter. No one named Peter could do anything so terrible. Paul? Patrick? Perry? Percival?" Egon shook his head in exasperation, glaring at them all the way a child would when he considers his parents incredibly stupid for not guessing the obvious. Peter frowned. Maybe it was a ghost he was talking about. "Poltergeist?" he hazarded.

"No!" Egon heard his impatience and hung his head again, helpless in the face of whatever blocked him. It might well be wishful thinking, but Peter was more and more convinced that Egon was all right inside where it mattered. Even so, would it do him any good if whatever had been done to him could not be reversed? How could he bust ghosts in this state? How could he solve the complex problems he alone could understand, solutions which often saved their lives? If they couldn't bring him back, what then? Some would argue for institutionalization but Peter would fight tooth and claw to prevent that, even if it meant taking care of Egon for the rest of his life, and he was sure the others would agree, though Egon's family would have to have a say. They'd have to contact them if this didn't clear up soon, but Peter didn't look forward to it.

"Okay, we'll come back to that later," he said before Egon could become even more upset.

"Home, Peter," Egon insisted in that stubborn voice children use when they're tired and miserable and don't know how to get their way except through sheer persistence.

"We're heading home, remember?" Peter reminded him. "I want to go on with the questions. Do you remember what I said before about seeing what you remember?"

Egon gazed at him blankly, causing Peter's heart to hit his stomach with the force of a blow. "Don't remember," Egon mumbled, sheer panic in his eyes. "Big words?" he hazarded. "Im-important?"

"Nothing we can't come back to," Peter said quickly, exchanging one telling glance with Ray, who gnawed his bottom lip. Even if Egon had moments of lucidity, they might be just that, moments, brief illuminations in the darkness. Just when Peter was convinced Egon was all right inside, he turned around and gave them all reason to doubt it. If their equipment didn't help out, they might never know. They might keep trying over and over and proving nothing.

Egon's bottom lip jutted out. "Wanna go home!" he cried in a near-hysterical shout. "Wanna go HOME!"

"Yeah. I hear you, man," Winston said quickly, hearing, as Peter did, the threat of a tantrum in the frantic voice. "It's okay, big guy. We are home. See?" Winston pulled Ecto to a stop in front of the fire hall as the automatic door opener went into action.

Egon drew a deep breath, one hoarse sob breaking out before he could muffle it. He hung his head and shivered. "Home," he whispered, his hand clutching Peter's arm as if it were his last link with sanity. "Egon home now."

Janine was already at her desk, probably believing the guys had gone on an early bust, but when Ecto pulled in and she saw that there were four men in it, she jumped to her feet and raced forward just as Peter helped Egon out. He wished he'd been able to warn her about Egon but there hadn't really been a chance to do so. This could be awkward and, worse, it would probably upset Egon. Yet there was no real way to shield him from the encounter.

"Egon!" Thrilled to see him apparently safe, Janine flung herself into his arms and hugged him fiercely before he could pull away, planting her lips upon his in a welcoming kiss that was guaranteed to raise the temperature of any normal man. Peter eyed Egon doubtfully, not quite sure how he'd react to such a greeting in his present state and wondering if he should intervene, but to his surprise, Egon's arms closed around the red haired woman and he returned the kiss with far more enthusiasm than Peter had ever seen him display before. When he finally released her, she looked dazed and delighted and her breathing was rapid. "Oh, Egon," she breathed, gazing up into his face.

Even in her stunned euphoria, it didn't take her long to notice that something was wrong. "That's a bad bruise, Egon," she said doubtfully. "What happened to you?" Her voice sank into a near whisper as the confused expression in Egon's blue eyes caught her attention. "Are you all right? What did that tin-plated bitch do to you?"

Egon's jaw clenched tightly as he struggled to say the right thing, but instead he blurted out, "Bad lady hurt Egon," in the most childish voice yet. Despair tightened his mouth and he turned away quickly, averting his eyes before he could see the stark horror that turned Janine's face white.

Ray leaped forward and took Egon by the arm, saying quietly, "Come on, Egon, let's go up to the lab. We've got a lot of work to do. I've made a list of tests to run, and you can help me with them. Would you like that?"

Egon bobbed his head obediently, still avoiding Janine's distress, and let Ray and Winston fall in on either side of him, guiding him toward the stairs, steering his clumsy feet. Janine watched them, her mouth hanging open in appalled disbelief, then, before Peter could turn and follow, she snatched his sleeve with a determined grip.

"Oh no you don't, Dr. Venkman. I want to talk to you," she demanded fiercely.

Realizing it wouldn't be fair to her to walk off without an explanation, Peter gestured at Ray to keep going. "Go on, Ray. This is one lady not even I dare to cross."

"You'd better not if you know what's good for you," Janine replied, folding her arms across her chest and glaring at him with a brief show of defiance, then she turned to watch the slow procession up the stairs, her eyes never leaving Egon until he and the others were out of sight. Peter could sense Egon's cringing awareness as if the touch of her gaze prickled all up and down his back.

The minute they vanished, she whirled on Peter and stabbed an accusing finger against the middle of his chest. "All right, Peter, I want an explanation and I want it right now. What's wrong with Egon?"

"We don't know... " Peter began.

She cut him off, shaking her head so fiercely her hair bounced in time with the motion. "Oh no. You're not putting me off like that. Something's wrong with him and they wouldn't let him out of the hospital so soon if it was something they could fix."

"Come and sit down, Janine," Peter said, abruptly so weary he could barely stand. He led her over to her desk and propped himself on the edge of it when she sat down, her hands lying on the blotter, tightly clenched into fists.

"Tell me what's wrong with him," she repeated. "I have a right to know."

"We all have a right to know," he replied. For once, nothing flippant came to him, and he looked at her solemnly, the two of them sharing their concern for the man both of them loved. "The thing is, we don't know what happened to him. The bitch did something to him. It was all a setup from the start. We got that out of him. She and some man. Egon knows who he is but he can't say it. Ray thinks it might be a curse or spell, and there's something on the P.K.E. meter. We're going to run tests on him and find out."

"And put it right?" she insisted. "You can fix it, can't you?"

"We'll fix it or my name's not Peter Venkman." He leaned forward, tipping her face up with a fingertip beneath her chin. "I don't think it's as bad as it looks, Janine. I think he's still the same Egon inside. He just can't let it out." He hoped she wouldn't call him on it and make him admit he didn't really believe anything of the sort. For the rest of them he had to appear to believe it, but inside, Peter's hope was shielded behind high walls. He was afraid they would try everything they could and still fail. Usually able to fend off gloom and despair with a smartass remark, he found nothing to say now. "We'll fix it," he insisted with such force that Janine blinked at him then reached out and patted his arm with unusual sympathy.

"He can let it out a little," she disagreed. "Sure he sounds like a little kid, and looks like he's got some kind of--of brain damage, but nobody who wasn't normal inside could have kissed me like that. When--when Egon's all right again, I'm gonna remind him of it."

Interesting. "Maybe he did it on purpose," Peter said thoughtfully, brightening a little.

"It sure wasn't an accident." Her voice rose in exasperation at his words, anger flooding across her face.

"No, easy, old girl, don't go ballistic on me. I didn't mean that. I meant maybe he was trying to show us that he's still himself. Apparently there's some constraints on him. He can't tell the name of whoever did it to him with the bitch." Peter refused to name her. He wouldn't give her that much importance, though when he found her, she would wish she'd never been born.

Janine's voice softened. "That was some kiss," she admitted. "It didn't feel like--like the way he talked afterwards. It felt... " She closed her lips abruptly over the description. "You better go up there. He needs you."

Peter pushed himself upright again, heaved a vast sigh, and started toward the stairs. "Point me in her direction and she's gonna fry!"

"I'll hand you your thrower and trigger the trap open," Janine agreed. "Nobody messes with Egon and gets away with it."

They separated in perfect agreement.

Peter found Egon in the lab, electrodes already attached to his temples while Ray bounced around making further connections and twiddling dials on a gizmo Peter had never paid much attention to. "What's that thingy?" he asked, dragging up a chair and collapsing into it.

"You never pay attention." Ray's gripe almost sounded normal. Having a task to do probably helped a lot, and Peter wished he knew enough about the techie side of the business to pitch in and help. He gestured for Ray to continue.

It's something I designed to measure Slimer's intelligence," Stantz explained. "Remember when I wanted to set up a computer system that would allow him to communicate more clearly, and type in his answers? I did some modifications and took the bugs out of it, and now it's supposed to register people's thoughts, not word for word but in general. I've tested it on Slimer the other day."

"Yeah, and all he was thinking about was dinner," said Winston with a grin. "Oh yeah, and sliming your pillow, Pete."

"Where is the spud?" asked Peter, glancing around as if he'd overlooked their resident spook. "He better not touch my pillow or he'll be ghost hash and some other ghost can think about having him for dinner."

Egon grinned happily at the exchange, and Peter caught Ray's eye and nodded. It would be a lot easier for Egon if they could behave as naturally as possible instead of letting their fear for him dominate all their conversation.

"I don't know where he is," Ray replied promptly. "Isn't this the time he usually makes the rounds of the neighborhood dumpsters looking for food."

"I thought he did that all the time," Winston replied. "He comes home smelling like it often enough."

"Well, he's not here. That's the first step to making this a better day," said Peter. He leaned forward and checked the leads of Ray's electrodes. "Hey, big guy," he said to Egon. "Wear these often and they'll become the hottest new look. What're you gonna do, Ray? Bring the monster to life?"

"Aw, Peter," Ray began, catching himself and adding quickly, "If you ever studied my reports, you'd know what this was all about."

"Peter? Study?" Winston pretended horror. "Come on, Ray. If he did that, the sky would probably fall."

"Just call me Chicken Little," Peter said with a wry grin, remembering some conversations he'd had with Ray that had probably led to part of his work with the device. "I know exactly what this gizmo is. It's an electrical impulse enhancer." He liked to pretend he didn't understand any of the gadgets Ray and Egon worked on so enthusiastically, but Peter had always been a quick study and he was better than anyone suspected with machines. He'd had to be to keep that old clunker running that he drove in high school. Everybody who was anybody drove a car, and Peter, with his limited funds, couldn't afford something new and glistening, so he settled for picking up a battered classic and turning it into a work of art. The efforts he'd made to do that had taught him a lot of lessons that were useful now, but he didn't advertise it because once he did he'd be put to work when it was so much more fun to lie about on the nearest couch with a bowl of popcorn while the other three applied the elbow grease. The sight of Egon sitting in the middle of one of the experiments, not because he wanted to try it on himself but because he needed it made Peter forget his earlier attempts to get out of work. "It picks up on the brain activity and gives a reading that's sort of like an EEG but instead of reporting there is brain activity, it measures the potential intelligence quotient without resorting to standardized testing. Egon says it's not as accurate as some of the tests out but since it doesn't need to be adjusted for different cultural and background variables, it gives a pretty good general indication if we're dealing with a genius or another Slimer."

All three of them looked at him in blank surprise, then Egon's eyes twinkled and he struggled to speak. The words that came out startled Peter and stung hot warmth into his eyes. "Giving yourself away," Egon said, the effort to convey his message almost palpable.

"No, Egon," he replied automatically. "I'm just putting myself in the running for the Nobel Prize. I'm not stupid."

"Nobody said you were ever stupid, Peter," said Ray quickly, grinning at Peter's mini-lecture and Egon's response to it. "Besides, a Ph.D in psychology ought to mean that this is right up your alley."

"Yeah, and when you patent the thing, don't forget I helped you design it," Peter retorted. "I want those royalties. It might be enough to put down a deposit on that Lamborghini I've been wanting."

"You and what millionaire," joshed Winston. "Does this machine really measure intelligence?"

"It should," Egon said in near normal tones, and when they looked at him in surprise, he gulped into silence and struggled to go on. Unfortunately, after his apparent understanding of the device, his next remark made it sound a fluke. He touched the leads and giggled. "Egon look funny!"

Ray filled in for him quickly. "Mainly I wanted to test the intelligence of ghosts, so there's going to be a variation in the flux when it's used on a human. I tested it on myself and I got a reading that was accurate within five points of my real IQ."

"Higher or lower?" Peter asked promptly.

"Well, higher, but... "

"Test me next," Peter offered with an outrageous grin. "Then I can tell everybody that I'm the gorgeous and brilliant Dr. Venkman, not to mention famous."

"Not to mention egotistical," Winston put in, elbowing Peter in the ribs. "Go on, Ray. Ignore Mr. Ego over here."

Ray smiled at Peter. "Okay. I think it's really neat. Wait until you see it! I tested it on Slimer too."

"If you tell me his IQ is five points higher I'll really start to wonder how good this gizmo is," Peter said. He kept sneaking glances at Egon as they bantered and was relieved to see a faint smile curl the physicist's lips and some of the tension go out of his shoulders. Even if they couldn't do anything for Egon right away, bringing him home had been the right thing to do. He might gradually relax enough to allow Peter and the others to help him.

"Ghosts measure differently, Peter," Ray chided. "It depends on the class, too. Some of your Class 3s and 4s who were real people before would probably register much as they did in life. Some ghosts are very smart."

"And some aren't," concluded Peter. "Especially ones who haunt the neighborhood trash bins."

"Egon," Ray said, leaning forward to be at eye level with the blond. "I'm going to turn it on now. It shouldn't hurt you. You probably won't even notice it's on. I've got your readings from last week here when I tested both of us and I'll run a comparison. There's a ten point margin for error, and we have to take into consideration that you've had a head injury and there may even be some swelling yet that could affect the readings. You understand it well enough to know all about it anyway." He flipped a switch, reaching out with his other hand to rest it on Egon's shoulder. Peter edged his chair forward, looking at the monitor, where measurements were drawn in a bar across the top and down the left side of the screen in a graph pattern.

As they watched, a jiggly line started at the left side, up and down in a series of points and valleys all the way across the screen. Ray fiddled with the dials and the line steadied, evened out, and settled into place midway down the screen. Ray's face lost some of its determined enthusiasm, and Egon's eyes filled with horror and doubt. It seemed he could read the results, even understand them, and he didn't like what he was seeing.

"What's wrong?" Winston demanded, peering at the screen, then turning to stare at Ray, who had drawn back, his mouth open, his eyes full of guilt and misery.

"Those readings," Ray said unhappily. "They would register as very bright--for any three year old who took the test. I mean for an adult with the IQ of a child. Well, you know what I mean."

Egon flinched, then he reached up with a sudden display of violence and ripped the electrodes free. His teeth worked his bottom lip and he struggled not to cry. Impulsive, good-hearted Ray leaned forward without hesitation and put his arms around Egon, but the blond pulled back. "No!" he shouted, sounding for all the world like a toddler who is refusing to eat his vegetables. "Bad machine! Bad!"

"I'll say," Peter agreed. This wasn't working. It might be that it was too soon, or it might mean that Ray's readings were right on target. Afraid that they were, Peter squared his shoulders and said, "Okay, that didn't work. I don't know about you guys but before we try the next bit of fun and games I recommend we eat. How about you, Egon? Are you hungry?"

"Egon want pizza," the physicist insisted as if he'd already forgotten the less than promising test results. That might confirm them but Peter wasn't sure yet. Ray stood straightening the torn-away cables, his face full of distress, and avoided Egon's eye.

Peter leaned his elbow against Ray's shoulder. "Come on, Dr. Stantz, let's go pick up a pizza. How about it, Egon? Anchovies."

Egon grimaced. "Ugh. No anchovies."

"At least he remembers that," Winston said under his breath. "Even if it is awfully early for pizza."

"Hey," said Peter brightly. "It's never too early for pizza. We'll call it pizza brunch." He didn't think memory was the problem but it wouldn't do much good to say so in front of Egon. "Can you hang in here, Winston?" he asked. "We'll just run out to that place down the street and bring back pizza for everybody, even the spud. They're always open." He added to Egon in an aside, "It's the only way we can keep him from eating our share," and was delighted to win a grin of agreement from the blond man. It was such a limited response when he was used to so much more that he grabbed Ray by the wrist and dragged him out of the room in a hurry.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Ray said miserably, "I'm sorry, Peter. I know I did the test right. I didn't mean... "

"Not one word of apology, Stantz," Peter said sternly, quick to squelch any blame Ray might have assigned himself. They didn't need that right now. "We've only just started. I thought we oughta haul ass out of there before Egon had a chance to get frustrated. No matter how smart he might be inside, he's stuck with the surface readings right now and your average three year old has the attention span of--"

"Of you when we're cleaning the firehouse?" Ray asked with a tentative grin. "I know, Peter. It just hurts to see him like that. Ordinarily he'd be right on top of everything, teasing you, full of enthusiasm for the test, and now he seems... he seems shrunken somehow, so much less than himself. I hate seeing him like that."

"I know, Ray but don't give up. There are some positive signs here."

"What signs?" asked Ray hopefully, gazing wide-eyed at Peter.

"Well, he knew what the test results meant--and he understood them. Think of that, Ray. He understood them and they made him mad. If the real Egon's stuck in there, he'd be frustrated as hell. There's not a lot of ways he could show it except by getting mad."

"Yeah, but a kid will get mad like that, too," Ray disagreed as they reached the ground floor. "And so do you."

"I guess I know how to take that." Peter grinned, caught Ray in an arm lock and rumpled his hair. "I charge extra when there are insults to my intellect. Remember that."

Ray's eyes had brightened when Peter let him go. He just needed a little encouragement. So did they all.

"How's it going?" asked Janine, looking up from her desk as they approached, her eyes narrowing at their horseplay. "You haven't had time to do anything yet. You're not just giving up, are you?"

"We're gonna get Egon a pizza," Peter said brightly, gesturing in the proper direction as he headed for Ecto.

"Bribing him with food?" the secretary asked, a skeptical frown puckering her brow. "Don't talk down to him, Peter," she insisted. "He'd hate that."

"She's right," Ray agreed. "We can't do that. But we have to take it easy too, Janine. Egon might still be smart inside but he's got the emotional responses of a three year old right now. We have to make sure we don't scare him and we keep him comfortable until we know what we're doing. I've got all kinds of ideas."

"Yeah, a grown man throwing a temper tantrum is not a pretty sight," Peter reminded her as he opened the passenger door.

Janine glared at him. "Don't push it."

"He likes it when I push it," Peter reminded her. His voice grew serious. "If I stop, I'm not sure I can start again, so give me space, Janine." He looked at her seriously, and her eyes fell.

"I know. I'm sorry."

Peter hesitated, then he gathered his wits about him and grinned with false brightness. "Come on, Ray. Forward march. Somewhere out there is a pizza with Egon's name on it. Pizza busters to the rescue."

"Right," agreed Ray and climbed behind the wheel of Ecto.

The pizza seemed to help. As he ate, very messily, Egon relaxed slightly. He must have been very hungry, which made Peter wonder if whoever had held him prisoner had bothered to feed him or whether it was just the natural manners of a toddler. "Nice, Egon," Peter teased as he watched the physicist shove food into his mouth with all the enthusiasm and finesse Slimer displayed when given a treat. "Miss Manners is not going to like you."

Egon stuck his tongue out at Peter. Since he had a mouthful of pepperoni pizza at the time, it was not a pretty sight. Slimer, who had drifted in at the first trace of food, looked at Egon doubtfully, his own pizza temporarily untouched. He glanced from Egon to Peter and back again, confused at the transformation. "Egon different!" he announced in a piercing voice that made the blond man look at him in dismay. His bottom lip quivered and big tears filled his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. Ray winced and Peter braced himself against the pain of the sight and nudged Slimer surreptitiously.

"I don't know, Spud," he said. "I never thought Egon's table manners were the best."

Egon's tears stopped and he favored Peter with a completely normal glare. Slimer backed off and applied himself to his meal, but his eyes kept turning in Egon's direction, and he didn't eat with his usual gusto. He knew something was wrong and it frightened him. Peter sighed. He could see he would have to take the little ghost aside later and explain to him what was going on, not that he would understand it. On the other hand, maybe he would. Slimer was a ghost, after all, and you never knew what he might understand when it involved the spirit world. Of course they didn't know if it did involve the spirit world, but there was a chance of it. Cynara didn't really have anything against the Ghostbusters that they knew of. She was in league with someone else, and those most likely to have it in for the Ghostbusters were ghosts. Maybe some ghosts had ganged up on them, using Cynara to implement their plans. After all, she'd had that psi residue. It made a kind of sense, and Peter vowed they'd check it out. First, though, he'd see if Slimer knew anything. Things were pretty bad when he needed the spud's help, but it was for Egon and he meant to leave no stone unturned.

So when the meal was finished, he left Ray heading back to the third floor lab with Egon and Winston to work on another esoteric device, his voice full of eager optimism as he described the planned tests, and started to gather up the glasses and pizza boxes to take them into the kitchen. "Come on, Spud," he urged. "Dishwashing duty."

Slimer babbled something that sounded like, "Do I hafta?"

"Yeah, Spud, you hafta, if you ever want to eat pizza again. You got me?"

That terrible threat made its point with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but that was the kind of reasoning Slimer understood best. The ghost shivered, bobbing his head up and down in ready agreement. "Slimer help Peter," he offered.

When the others were out of sight, Peter piled glasses and flatware in the sink and ran water over them. "Okay, Spud, it's time for the $64,000 question. You're a ghost. Can you sense anything to do with nasty ghosts about Egon?"

Slimer pondered that. Being a great thinker, he did it with a lot of frowns and fists pounding his forehead and sound effects. Then he shivered extravagantly. "Nasty," he informed Peter. "Something nasty."

"Yeah, Slimer, I thought so. What kind of something nasty? A ghost?"

Slimer considered that, then he shook his head. "Not ghost," he decided after much effort. "Something all over Egon."

"You mean like a spell, Spud?" asked Peter.

"Uh huh. Uh huh. Spell over Egon. Nasty spell." Slimer shivered extravagantly, causing green ectoplasm to fly about, some of it hitting Peter. He let out a yell of protest.

"I swear, Slimer, one of these days I'm gonna blast you, just see if I don't."

"Slimer can see something different about Egon?" Ray asked, staring at the little ghost with wide eyes.

"Yeah, a great thinker he ain't." Winston glanced over at Egon. Ray had given him a jigsaw puzzle to try to work, a fairly simple one that he'd bought because it was one of the Ghostbusters ones that Peter had authorized as a money maker, part of a line of Ghostbusters toys. Egon was concentrating on it intently, picking up pieces and tracing the edges with questing fingers. The bright colors seemed to attract him, and a few minutes earlier he had let out an exultant cry and held up a piece with his picture on it. "Egon!" he had announced, pointing, then he had groaned and flung the piece aside. If Egon's mind was intact, he must be thoroughly disgusted with his surface behavior, and the fact that he periodically displayed such disgust was one of the more hopeful signs in the entire mess. Ray seemed to take it as such, and he let it show, which gave Egon a boost and seemed to calm him down when he was on the edge of flying out of control again.

"What do you mean, Peter?" Ray said eagerly now, his eyes bright with expectation. "Not just the way Egon's acting because Slimer would be sure to notice that."

"He says it's something nasty but not really a ghost," Peter explained. "Why don't you have a talk with him. You understand him better than I do when he goes off on one of his spiels. I just thought he might be able to tell if there was anything to do with ghosts."

"He might," Ray agreed. "Wow, this is neat. It means Slimer might be a lot more receptive to psi effects than we ever gave him credit for." He looked at the little ghost who was hovering complacently at Peter's side, a smug look on his face. "Egon and I can... run a lot of tests as soon as he's better. Come on, Slimer, tell me what you can sense about Egon?"

The physicist raised his head at the sound of his name and squinted at them with curiosity. When they approached him, his eyes flashed for a minute, and he put down the puzzle piece he'd been trying to fit into place. Peter noticed that the puzzle was nearly half done. He was doing a good job of it. Proof of his unimpaired intellect? Or simply a sign that the puzzle could be handled by small children?

Slimer drifted over to Egon and flew in small circles around him, sniffing cautiously as if he feared whatever had happened to Egon would happen to him too if he didn't maintain a comfortable distance. Egon watched him warily, revolving to keep him in view, then blinking dizzily. Peter caught his arm. "No, Egon, just stand still and let the expert do his job," he instructed.

"Peter!" Egon chided in a completely normal voice. It always felt odd when he did that, as if he'd accessed a portion of his mind that was blocked away. Teasing him seemed to bring it out more than anything else, but teasing him required more of an effort than Peter was capable of maintaining for any length of time, not when Egon looked so vulnerable. Yet it did work. He concluded now, "Slimer not expert!"

"Oh yeah!" retorted the little ghost. He stuck out his tongue at Egon who retaliated in kind, then caught himself, clapping both hands over his mouth, a crestfallen look on his face. Ray winced at the sight.

"Come on, Slimer," he said quickly, "What do you see?"

Slimer's brow wrinkled in a parody of deep thought, then he snapped his ectoplasmic fingers and bobbed up and down as if a light bulb had flashed on over his head. "Spell," the ghost announced. "Bad spell."

"I knew it was a spell," Ray exulted. "That's great, Slimer."

"It is?" asked Winston. "Last I heard none of us knew how to take off spells, Ray."

"Yeah, but a spell isn't the same thing as permanent brain damage," Ray insisted, his face alight with relief. "We can find out how to take it off. I've got lots of books on the subject and I've got friends who know a lot about it, too, including a couple of practicing wiccas and a full-blown sorcerer who lives on Long Island. This is kind of like the Benton Harbor manifestation of 1948. There was a man who made some enemies and the next thing everybody knew, he was acting like a chicken."

"Wrong possession, Ray," Peter stepped in. "Egon's been a chicken already. A werechicken anyway."

"Nasty werechicken," Egon agreed, grimacing horribly.

"Well, it's the same type of thing," argued Ray. "Outside influence, I mean. They thought somebody had hypnotized that guy. Hey! Egon! Maybe you've been hypnotized. Peter, can we work on something like that?"

It was a good possibility, but it didn't feel right to Peter. "Yeah, I'll run a few tests," he agreed. "When I really work hard at it, I can hypnotize someone. A lot of it is in the voice and it takes a lot of patience. The only problem is I used to practice on Egon in college and I could never get him to go under. I talked to one of my profs about it and he said some people are a lot more resistant than others. I dragged Egon along next time and the prof couldn't hypnotize him either. Maybe if there was a spell tied into it, somebody might manage it, but I wouldn't put it right up there at the top of our list of possibilities."

It wasn't much help to know it was hypnosis or a spell if they couldn't remove it either, Venkman thought, but he kept the idea to himself, unwilling to rain on Ray's parade. Maybe Ray did know how to take spells off. He knew all kinds of weird things like that and was a lot better at them than he let on, not to mention all the contacts he'd just mentioned. Come to think of it, Janine had taken off that shrinking spell the Ghostmaster's minion had put on them simply by reading another spell out of a book so they might be able to do it themselves. It seemed weird to think that anyone could just open a book and create spells. Maybe if a spell was already in place an amateur could take it off with the right words. If not, Ray's experts just might work. Peter wasn't thrilled with the thought of bringing in outsiders and he knew Egon wouldn't want strangers to see him like this, but if it would cure him Peter would bring in Saddam Hussein. "Okay, Ray," Peter said, "What next? We'll try it on our own first and then go for the outside experts. How many spells do you know? Or do we just open a book and start reading like we did when the Ghostmaster shrank us? We lucked out then. I'm not sure we can be so lucky again."

"We've got five or six spell books in the library," Ray replied. "I try to pick them up when I come across them because you never know when they'll come in useful and I hate to leave them out there where some innocent will find them and get into hot water. Those books are dangerous in the wrong hands. I cross reference some of them into the computer when I've got the time. You never know what we'll find on a bust. Sometimes when it looks like a person is possessed, it could be a spell. I guess our problem will be finding the right spell this time."

"No generic spell removers?" Peter asked hopefully. The two flaws he saw in all of this was the fact that random attempts might do Egon more harm than good, and, even more basic, they were relying on the spud for answers. Slimer might be right, but Peter wouldn't have wanted to trust his own life to the little ghost's suggestion, let alone the life of one of his closest friends. "You sure you know what you'd be doing, Ray?"

"Yeah. I know a lot about it. I won't take unnecessary risks with Egon." He started for the library and soon there were a stack of books on the table with Ray bent over them eagerly, dipping into one book, then another, flipping pages and frowning as he tried to make out esoteric sayings and ancient languages.

"You give that a try. I'm gonna do my thing," Peter replied. "Egon, buddy, while Ray plays wizard, you and me are gonna have a little talk." Peter still wasn't sure it wasn't an emotional trauma that had regressed Egon and he wanted to try working with that before Ray started casting spells or trying to delete them. He might feel around a little and see if he could get a feel for hypnosis, too.

Ray looked up from his books. "What are you gonna do, Peter?"

"A little counselling," Peter said in an aside. "I want to see if I can get anywhere that way. For all we know, Slimer might not understand that kind of thing. How would he react to bipolar disorder, for instance? Some of the possessed people throughout history were probably schizophrenic and the medical skills of the time simply didn't understand it. We all relate to what we know most, and Slimer's a ghost. He's gonna come at it that way. While you see if you can find what you need, I'll play shrink."

"You sure that's smart, Pete?" Winston asked.

"Come on, Winston, I've got a Ph.D. You bet I'm smart." He often mouthed off about his two degrees and was proud of them, though he wasn't above letting people think he'd breezed through college on Egon's coattails. That might have worked up to a point, but Peter defied anyone to get a Ph.D that way. No matter how skilled he was at double-talk, he had to be equally good at convincing people he knew what he was talking about and he'd had to be able to prove it. It wasn't his way to flaunt his intellect but he could use his mind and skills when he had to and this seemed like one of those times. He'd just have to be very careful and recognize his own limitations, willing to stop before he could get in over his head.

So he took Egon down to the TV room and sat with him on the couch, talking to him quietly, monitoring Egon's responses. He wasn't sure he was getting anywhere, but if this was the result of a dramatic emotional trauma, it would take a long time to work to the heart of it. Egon tried to help him, answering questions as long as Peter put them into such simple terms as his present vocabulary would allow. Just when Peter felt they were making progress, though, Egon would revert, either saying something that made Peter suspect he wasn't retaining anything they talked about or whining about demands on his attention span. It felt like one step forward and two steps back. Peter seemed to be getting nowhere fast.

He kept trying, taking time out to distract Egon with various books and TV programs, even music, interspersing it with smartass remarks. Those usually evoked typical-Egon responses, though not at the same level as usual. Egon remembered his normal byplay with Peter. He remembered the equipment and the fire house and all those kind of things. He just didn't seem able to respond to it in an adult way. This was about the worst thing anyone could have done to Egon.

Eventually Ray and Winston came looking for them. Ray cast one bright, hopeful glance in Peter's direction, and the psychologist shook his head minutely. 'Not yet.' Ray's face fell but he forced good cheer into it immediately. "Hey, Egon," he greeted him as if this were simply one more job, interesting and challenging, something they'd all laugh about later. Egon responded to the tone, but Peter was afraid the effort to appear bright and exuberantly normal might be taking a hard toll on the youngest ghostbuster.

"Find spell?" Egon asked eagerly, bouncing to his feet. "Ray find spell?"

"I found a lot of spells, Egon," Ray explained. "I don't want to try them on you, yet, though. I want you to take a look at some of them and see if they sound familiar. Do you think you can do that?" He darted a quick glance sideways at Peter as if to determine if Peter thought he was asking to much.

"Look at spells," Egon agreed and held out his hand to Ray like a child who is willing to be led. Winston, standing behind Ray, bit his bottom lip as Ray clasped the hand and led Egon to the third floor stairs as if the two of them were heading off to the playground for an afternoon on the swings and slides.

"I hate this," Zeddemore muttered in an aside to Peter as Venkman followed the two scientists toward the spiral staircase.

"You think I don't?" Peter heaved a sigh. "What really scares me is what this is gonna do to Ray when it doesn't work."

Winston's hand shot out and caught Peter's wrist. "Whoa! Hold it there, Pete. Did you find out something to make you think it won't work?"

Peter shook his head. "Nothing like that. I think it probably is a spell, though. I'm not getting typical responses on anything I try. There's a sort of otherworldly overlay to it all. I can feel it. I'm not sure that isn't something I picked up working with ghosts. I don't think your average psychologist or shrink would pick up on it. Only good thing is it means we did the right thing bringing him home. Besides, the P.K.E. meter gave a reading, remember? This was just a side thing, really, to get Egon out of there so Ray wouldn't feel so pressured while he was looking. Half the time I think Egon's mind is fine inside and the rest of the time I'm scared to death that he's only got enough left to know what he's lost."

"Shit," muttered Zeddemore. "That's about as bad as it can get, isn't it?"

"For Egon? I can't think of anything worse."

Ray worked with Egon most of the afternoon. They told Janine to hold their calls and spent the time poring over the books that Ray had studied, allowing Egon to look at the spells. He became bored with it quickly, pushing the books away. One book fascinated him, a huge tome labeled Mycraft's Directory of Incantations but Peter half suspected it was because of the ornate cover and the fancy lettering. If Egon could read it, he gave no sign of it, though Ray tested him at reading and he spelled out words laboriously. No matter how much he retained of his intellect, if he couldn't read, he couldn't use it, and finally he slammed the nearest book shut, flung another one against the wall and blundered out of the room, heading across the hall to the bedroom.

"Want me to go after him? Ray volunteered quickly, looking worried and guilty.

"No, I think we've pushed him a little too hard," Peter said. "I'd better go, but give him a minute to pull himself together first. We won't try anything more now. It's nearly dinner time anyway. He'll feel better when he's eaten."

Ray and Winston looked doubtful but they gave in, and Peter braced himself and finally ambled after Egon, not hurrying, making as much noise as he could to warn his friend that he was coming.

He found Egon sitting on his bed, struggling hard against the tears that wanted to fall. Peter stood in the doorway, feeling the same pain in his stomach he'd felt whenever he looked at this ruin of his brilliant friend, then he put his hands on his hips and forced a grin. "Were we boring you?" he asked.

Egon's head came up, eyes flaring with annoyance. He struggled for words, then he said, defiantly, "Yes." Everything about the normal Egon flamed to life in that one word, then his shoulders drooped again. "Scared, Pe