When the massive body landed on Al, it practically flattened him into a paste. Involuntarily, he threw his arms up, and his fingers closed around the hard, pointed horns on its head. He felt the cigar squishing in his grip. Worse, the horns radiated heat, searing his hands. Gritting his teeth, he stiffened his elbows and squeezed hard, forcing the huge head back. The teeth snapped shut bare inches from his throat. They rolled back and forth, struggling for control. Dripping foam splattered on his cheek like acid. Distantly, he could hear himself screaming.

The Devil Dog dug at him with razor-like claws, plowing long furrows down his body. Afraid it would disembowel him, Al tried to arch his stomach away, then brought up his knees, jabbing at the beast's belly. His arms were weakening. Its savage growls took on a triumphant pitch.

In a desperate, last ditch effort, Al released one horn. As the hell hound lunged down at his throat, he drove the flattened but still-lit cigar into its left eye.

Its screech drowned out his as the eye sizzled, bubbling around the cigar with a stench like burning sausage. Yelping, the Devil Dog rolled off Al, pawing frantically at the cooking remains of its eye.

(Roll over. Get up on your hands and knees. Never mind how much it hurts--you don't have much time. You have to run away, because now that thing's really gonna be mad.)

Some part of his mind was still rational, but it was hard to concentrate on it, and harder to obey it.

His lungs were still working, because he took a shuddering breath as he levered himself to his feet, but something inside was broken. Every breath stabbed him quick and hard in the left side. Dumbo the Elephant Dog probably snapped a couple of his ribs when it used him for a trampoline.

(Check him out. Even though it's scary, you have to be sure he's still out of it.)

Judging from the red-and-yellow ichor dripping down its muzzle as it clawed at the remains of the stogie, the Devil Dog was going to be a little slow on the uptake. Good.

One hand supporting his ribs, Al hobbled away. Progress was slow, but he'd build up speed once he got his breath back. His throat felt raw.

"Are--are you all right? Where did it hurt you? I was so scared!"

How could he ever have mistaken her for Beth? His Beth would've been scared and confused by all this, but she was a romantic at heart, and she'd have tackled it like a fantasy novel, Knights vs. Dragons. Hell, Bethie would've straddled that mutt's shoulders and belted it on the head with both fists until it let him go.

"Where were you?" he croaked.

"What?" Mary jiggled his left elbow, and he had to bite back a curse when it fired pain torpedoes up his side. "Al, what if that was poison it was drooling?"

Now, there was a cheerful thought. His cheek felt burnt--did heat destroy poison? Moving a little faster, he glanced down at his tattered shirt and the eight bloody gouges running down to his thighs. Dio mio! That was close. Instead of his belly, he should've been worrying about the family jewels.

The ghost fretted, "If it comes after us, you'll never be able to get away."

"What are you, Little Mary Sunshine?" he snapped, but he lengthened his stride again. "Tell me something useful. What can we use to stop it?" She just looked at him, open-mouthed. "For werewolves you use silver; for vampires, garlic; for Devil Dogs--?"

"I--I don't know."

"Don't they give you an initiation when you die? Classes? A guide book?"

Mary looked utterly blank. Just his luck; not only was his blind date dead, she was ditzy to boot.

Timidly, she reached for his left arm again. He twisted away. "Not there! The other side."

"Oh. Of course. Sorry."

Maybe when you're dead, you get out of the habit of thinking about bodies. Too bad he couldn't forget about the pain--every step reminded him that his body would like to lie down in a soft hospital bed surrounded by attentive, buxom nurses in crisp white uniforms about one size too small.

This was even worse than that acid trip he took in the early Seventies. At least that trip involved lots of weird music and more colors than the 88 Crayola pack. All he got here was masses of fluffy white, marked here and there behind him with specks of blood.

Oh, well. The good news was that he could no longer hear or see the howling Devil Dog.

Sam would be coming after him any time now, and Al wasn't really certain how he felt about that. Worrying about the kid already had him worn to a frazzle. Sam was so naive, a born do-gooder who refused to take no for an answer and was too pigheaded to give up. Letting him wander alone and unarmed into the gunsights of a Senate Committee would've been like feeding a newborn kitten to sharks. Ever since he stubbornly insisted on taking that first leap when he damn well knew it was dangerous, he kept getting himself kidnapped, beat up, shot, strangled, knifed...the list was endless. God alone knew what kind of trouble he'd get into in this creepy place. Without helpful advice from Al, he'd probably try to pet the Devil Dog instead of running. Not that he usually listened when Al gave him perfectly good advice.

"I gotta rest for awhile," he told Mary.

She tugged him forward. "Oh, but we can't stop. The Devil Dog will find us. Or something worse."

"What could be worse?" Mary promptly opened her mouth. "No, don't tell me. Isn't there some way out of this hole?"

"Only if there's a power failure." She frowned prettily. "But...it may be too late."

"Too late?"

"Time passes so differently here, you know. Really, you could be dead already, out there." She gestured vaguely. "That would explain how the Ghostbusters could keep you here, don't you think?"

It actually froze him in place for a moment, then he shook his head and started walking again. "Nope. I'm not dead."

Mary was unconvinced. "Think about it, Al. Maybe this is Hell, our punishment for our past misdeeds, for interfering in other people's lives."

"I'm not going to Hell. Purgatory, maybe, but that won't be so bad. I'll probably run into some of my ex-wives and old pals there."

She gave him a thin-lipped scrutiny. "You're trying to tell me you've never done anything wrong? You?"

"I've done some things wrong, but not evil. I dumped bombs on 'Nam, but they more than paid me back, so I figure we're even. My divorces were mostly mutual, or my wives' ideas, except for Maxine, and she forgave me--it was just a misunderstanding. I never hurt anybody to get myself ahead. I was pro-Civil Rights. I work for environmental protection groups--what we've done to the oceans is a real crime. Lately, I spend most of my time helping Sam fix up people's mistakes." He started to shrug, but stopped when his cuts all complained at once. Too bad; an Italian shouldn't have to talk without body language. "The only harm I ever did was screwing up my own life, and that's my problem, nobody else's. The Devil'd be real disappointed in me."

For some reason, Mary seemed distinctly peeved. Who understands women? Sharon, his second wife--or was it his fourth?--had wanted to think of him as an outlaw, a real hell-raiser, then turned around and got furious when he went drinking with the guys; while Ruthie, his third wife, wanted him to be an upright citizen, a real mentsch, even though she married the hell-raiser. Go figure.

Al squinted down at his shuffling feet and wished he had another cigar. How long did he have to walk to be safe from the Devil Dog? The whole thing was weird. The trap that Ghostbuster nozzle had slid down the deck was a little square box, but from the inside, it didn't seem to have any end.

He was getting real tired of feeling like a lone aspirin rattling around in a bottle stuffed with cotton.

"Oh, no!" Mary practically leaped into his arms, which might have been pleasant under other circumstances--like if she was alive, for starters. "Something's out there. Something's coming!"

Oh, boy.

Al followed her alarmed gaze to his left. At first he couldn't see anything but white; then the bleached haze thinned. Someone was standing there, veiled in the haze: a girl, shorter than he was, heavyset, with masses of brunette curls. She was sobbing.

"Wh-why'd you leave me, Bertie? Why?"

No. No, it wasn't. It couldn't be. No way. He squinted, but her face was obscured, either by the haze or by the mist welling up in his own eyes.

"You said you wouldn't leave me `lone in that place, Bertie. You promised."

He choked, "Trudy...?"

It took every ounce of willpower in Murray Bozinsky's wiry frame to keep him from thudding both clenched fists down on his computer, or just hurling it right through the empty monitor screen. Always before in his life, whatever problems he had could be dealt with by--or at least sublimated through--his beloved computers. When he was the youngest and geekiest kid on the M.I.T. campus, thoroughly baffled by social niceties and terrified at the thought of actually speaking to female students years older than he was, at least he knew he was the best hacker they had. The other guys even came to him for advice when their programs crashed, or got him to help them with pranks by invading the campus computer systems. Then, when his career in the corporate world crashed, he earned a place with Nick and Cody because his computer wizardry made investigating cases so much easier. Having the two best friends a man could wish for made his life practically complete, and it was all due to his computer skills.

But now his two best friends in the whole world were in trouble, and there was nothing he could do. His computer might as well have been an abacus, for all the good it was doing him.

Shuddering, Murray rubbed his aching eyes, shoving his knuckles hard against the closed eyelids until pulsing white and purple cursors were left behind.

"You really should get some sleep, Dr. Bozinsky," Ray Stantz said reasonably, glancing up from the equations he and Egon were working on.

"I got a couple hours when you guys were using my mainframe," he mumbled. "Did it do any good? Have you figured out what's wrong with Cody?"

"Well, no. Not exactly."

"The case so far is not progressing as the ordinary possession would," Egon rumbled. "According to Lukowski's Density and Etheric Stamina of Paranormal Possessions, it seems possible that--"

That distracted Ray from Murray's problems. "But wasn't that paper contradicted by Bahmer's Theory of Multiphasic Personality Overlay in the Supernatural Stratum? It seems to me--"

What was the use of sitting here, praying that Cody would use one of his credit cards, so that his location could be traced? Even if it happened, by the time they got to wherever he'd used the card, Cody would be long gone.

Murray kicked back his swivel chair and stumbled to the porthole, resting his forehead against the cool glass. There were beautiful women already lounging on the deck of the CONTESSA, catching the early morning sunshine, but he stared right through them.

(Where is Nick?)

At some point in the night, he'd wrestled with the fear that maybe, possessed or not, Cody knew something important about Nick. Even though the Ghostbusters all agreed that demonic personalities got a kick out of scaring people with lies about life-and-death situations, he had to consider that this time it might be true, some kind of precognitive foreknowledge of a disaster, perhaps. He'd spent forever, alternately on the modem and then on the phone, going through dozens of transfers from one officer to another, and all sorts of confusion, before finally getting hold of Colonel Groomes. That's when the nightmare really began.

Colonel Groomes said Nick was sent home yesterday.

Murray scrubbed at his face again. This time the heels of his hands came away wet.

If Nick was sent home yesterday, where was he? Nick wouldn't just go off and party; he got really paranoid when he was on his duty weekends because he said Murray and Cody always took crazy cases behind his back. He'd have checked in with them first.

What would it hurt to take Cody's warnings seriously? He could take the jimmy and try to find the spot `near here' that Cody had wanted to go to. If he used a map, and followed Nick's probable course--

"Ahoy the RIPTIDE."

"Ahoy yourself!" Peter Venkman hollered back, somehow making it sound like an obscene suggestion.

"Can we come aboard? We need help."

"Sure. It's no skin off my nose; it's not my boat."

"No!" Murray ran for the door, hardly even noticing when he rammed his hip against a table edge. "We can't take any cases, not now!"

It was no use. Two strangers had already boarded: a young man, and a truly beautiful red-haired woman. He had to forcibly wrench his eyes away from her, even put one hand up to shade them as if the sun were bothering him, before he could make himself sound firm.

"I'm sorry, Riptide Investigations isn't accepting any work right now."

"That's all right. We didn't come for Riptide Investigations, actually; we need the Ghostbusters." The young man grinned. "You wouldn't believe how hard it was to track you guys down. My name's Ryan Dallion, and this is Micki Foster."

Venkman seemed torn between continuing to eyeball the CONTESSA, and switching his attention to Ms. Foster. Doctors Stantz and Spengler hadn't bothered to leave their equations. That left Winston Zedmore to say, "I'm sorry, but we're here on vacation."

The redhead clasped her hands close to her bosom. "Oh, please. You must help us."

Venkman abandoned the CONTESSA, clearly preparing to cast off for sea, for the woman at hand. "Come on, Winston. What would it hurt to listen?"

He was rewarded with a grateful smile from the redhead. Her companion explained, "We need you to come immediately and de-ghost our house. Money's no object."

"Well, it's a real object with me. Number one, in fact."

"Not so fast, Peter. If they went to all the trouble of tracking us down out here, and they're willing to throw lots of money at us, what does that tell us?"

Quickly, Venkman said, "We're on vacation! No way am I going to tackle a Class 7 entity on my vacation. I didn't come to California to get slimed."

Ms. Foster cocked her head, looking puzzled. "I'm sorry. A classy what?"

Dallion brushed that aside. "It's not like we went really out of our way to find you; we live not far from here. It's just that Micki heard you were in King Harbor in a gossip-columnist's radio show, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to clean out the spook."

Zedmore eyed him dubiously. "What sort of things does this ghost do?"

"Oh, the usual." Dallion shrugged. "Weird noises late at night. Sobbing in the bedrooms. Ghostly figures drifting down the stairs. You know."

"That's all?"

"It doesn't seem malicious, or dangerous, or anything. It's just nerve-wracking," Micki assured him. "Besides, the ghost seems unhappy. It would be a kindness to put it to rest."

"Doesn't sound bad, Winston. We could handle it in a couple of minutes." Venkman leered at Micki. "Besides, I can't say no. You know how I love redheads."

Skeptically, Winston said, "Janine's a redhead."

"Oh. Right. Well, okay, I hate redheads, but I'm willing to make an exception in Ms. Foster's case. Let's do it."

"Not so fast, Peter. Exactly where is this house, Mr. Dallion?"

"Well, that's a problem." He seemed embarrassed. "You wouldn't happen to have access to a helicopter or something, would you? Because it's out in the middle of nowhere, pretty much hidden by some trees."

Murray said, "No. No helicopters."

He shrugged. "We only bought the house a week ago, and we're not real familiar with the area, so it might take a little while to get there. The sooner we leave, the better."

"How far away is it?"

"About thirty-five miles southeast of here."

Murray scowled at the deck. What was going on here? Was it just coincidence that these strangers happened to come after the Ghostbusters, here on the RIPTIDE, and want to visit a spot quite near here? Could there possibly be some connection to Cody's strange behavior?

"I don't trust these people, guys. You can't just--"

"Please." Ms. Foster's voice trembled. "You don't know how scary this whole thing is."

He never could refuse a pretty woman anything. Or an unattractive woman, for that matter. Resolutely, he turned his back on her. "There's something not right about--"

She slipped in front of him, and he saw tears sparkling on her cheeks before he could shut her out by closing his own eyes. "It's a matter of life and death. Really."

"Then it's settled. Winston, you get our equipment, and I'll take care of our clients."

Murray protested, "You can't leave! We have to find Cody!"

"No problem-o. The two of us can handle a measly little Class 2 spook, and you three Great Brains can deal with the Cody situation." Venkman crooked his elbow at the redhead. "Shall we go?"

She withdrew a few inches, with a polite smile. "Actually, I'd rather stay here. The ghost really frightens me."

"Oh. Hold on a minute." Peter threw open the door to Murray's cabin. "Ray, Winston needs you to help clear out a Class 2 spectre in a haunted house near here. Egon and I'll hold down the fort here while you're gone."

"What? But, Peter, we're in the middle of--"

"No buts. You can't turn down a client, that would be really unprofessional. Hurry up, they're waiting for you."

It was true. Winston had two proton packs, particle rifles, and traps already piled on the deck. Looking dazed, Ray let his partner drag to the pile.

"Is this stuff safe?" Ryan asked.

"Of course it's safe."

He nudged one of the traps with his foot. "These things are empty, right? I mean, you empty them out after every catch, right?"

"These are empty. We're very careful about that, aren't we, Peter?"

Venkman pursed his lips and tried to whistle, developing a sudden interest in the horizon. His companion stiffened.

"Peter, you did empty your trap before we left New York, didn't you?"

"Sure. Probably. I mean, I meant to."

"Peter, we just used that trap, and we're not sure exactly what we caught--and now you're telling me it was already occupied?"

"We'll talk about it when you guys get back, okay? Our client's in a hurry. Bye, now."

Wide-eyed, Micki Foster turned to Murray as the two Ghostbusters and her friend carried the equipment away. "We're not in any danger, are we?"

"Danger?"

"From this ghost-trap that was already occupied?"

"I--I don't know anything about their equipment, not really," he admitted.

"How could we be in any danger?" scoffed Venkman, his professional pride at stake.

"Well, I'd feel much safer if I knew exactly where this trap was. So I could avoid it."

"No." Murray was too tired to reason it out, but he didn't trust this woman, and he didn't intend to give an inch.

Dr. Venkman, on the other hand, was obviously bent on giving two or three miles. "You have nothing to worry about, my dear. The nasty old trap is in the Boz's cabin, so Egon can play with it."

"Egon?"

"My partner. He takes care of the equipment, and I do the thinking."

"In this cabin?" Deftly, Ms. Foster eased the door open. "Hello. I'm Micki Foster. Your new client." Dr. Spengler grunted but didn't look up, so he was taken by surprise when the woman slid her arm under his. "Please come up on deck, in the sunshine, and explain things to me."

"I can do all the explaining," Venkman protested. "Egon doesn't talk English, he talks mumbo-jumbo jargon."

Egon shoved his glasses back up his nose, trying to sit down at the desk again. "My work. . .it's not finished. . . ."

"I'm sure you'll think much more clearly after you've had a break," Micki said smoothly, leading him to the door.

"I can converse equally well here, while contemplating my algorithms."

She shuddered. "Oh, but it's much too scary here, in the same room as that trap-thing full of ghosts." Carefully, she pulled the door closed and hung her tiny green shoulder-purse from the doorknob, then drew Egon after her. "I do so admire your work, you know. And anything I don't understand, I'm sure Dr. Bozinsky can explain to me."

She turned that dazzling smile on Murray, and he found himself automatically trailing the other three into the sunshine. He always believed the best of people, and his partners were always complaining about his gullibility.

But today he was weary, and cranky, and worried sick, so after a few steps he stopped and thought long and hard.

There was more to this than met the eye....

Listening to the childish sobs in the mist, Al screwed his eyes tightly shut. "It wasn't my fault. I was just a kid when they put you in that asylum. It wasn't my fault."

From somewhere to his right, a man said harshly, "But it was your fault I died in 'Nam, Lieutenant."

The voice didn't sound familiar. "Who are you? Levon? Billy?"

"Your cowardice--your lack of leadership--killed me. But you made sure you came back alive, didn't you?"

"I gave Billy my bowl of rice, but it didn't do any good, he died of dysentery anyway," Al said softly, more to himself than anything else. His voice tightened. "You talk about cowardice, but you haven't got the guts to tell me your name!"

"I'll tell you my name." This time the voice came from behind him. He spun around, scowling. "In fact, I gave it to you. You're my only son, and you've been a failure at everything you ever did. Always running away, always changing careers, because you couldn't succeed at anything."

"Non e vero, Papa."

He couldn't really make out the figure's features, but then, he didn't want to see the expression on his father's face. Inexorably, the voice went on. "I raised you a good Catholic boy, but you got divorced five times. You couldn't even make a marriage work."

"Non sei arrabbiato con me, Papa?" There was no answer. Al made a fist with his right hand, forced himself to relax it when the seared fingers protested. "You're not angry with me, Pop, are you? What's the matter? Cat got your tongue? Or don't you speak Italian? You, born and bred in Abruzzi?" He swung around to smile at Mary. "Or is the problem that you don't speak Italian?"

"I--I don't understand. Al, what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me, sweetie. You're the one who's a lousy actress. For instance, I never introduced myself to you, so how did you know my name? Or how about the way you kept coming up with new ideas to scare me? Or the way you conveniently managed to trip me so I'd turn into instant dog treat?"

"Oh, but, Al--"

"Don't give me that teary-eyed innocent routine," he said scornfully. "I've been lied to, cheated on, and dumped by five wives and God knows how many other women; how could I not know you were trying to con me?"

The dim figures faded into nothingness in the fog around them. Al watched in fascination as Mary, too, disappeared. Cracks fissured the makeup, and the features crumbled away like sand swept away by a sudden wind. Underneath it all was an older face, twisted with hate until whatever former beauty it might have clung to was gone. Pink swirled over the white sheath dress, which billowed into a taffeta 1950's ingenue's gown. On the chest, a splotch of blood darkened the pink.

"I didn't lie," she said sweetly. "My name is Mary, after all."

"Mary Jo Liese." He grimaced. "I don't get it."

"You killed me! All I wanted was to make you hurt, to see you suffer the way you made me suffer."

"I didn't kill you, lady. You killed your husband with that blood-sucking machine, and then you tried to do it to Marshak and Sam. You even tried to carve up Ryan with a butcher knife." Flushing, she put one hand on her hip and thrust out her jaw, so he speeded up before she could interrupt. "None of us killed you; you tried to crawl out the window and stabbed yourself with the I.V. needle, remember? I think it's called `just desserts' or something."

"Well! If it wasn't for you running back and forth, tattling, they never would've found me! That blood transfuser was mine. You had no business sneaking into my house, spying on me, trying to steal it!"

Geez Louise, the daffy dame actually believed all that guff. She was all puffed up with righteous indignation. Not for the first time, Albert Calavicci marveled at his ability to hook up with the worst possible woman. If he walked into a Vegas hotel staffed by a Bryn Mawr graduate, a former Peace Corps worker, a Red Cross volunteer who raised foster children on the side, and a high school dropout with one or more husbands--all equally lovely women--he'd walk out with the floozy on his arm every time. It never failed, even in the Netherworld.

Her lips quivered as she began to cry. "Vandalizing my home--picking on a defenseless widow--"

Talk about chutzpah! She was only a widow because she vacuumed out all her husband's blood to pour on money and transform ones into hundreds. Ruthlessly, he cut her off in the middle of her self-pitying monologue.

"So your big plan to have me quivering on the ground like a bowlful of Jello didn't work. Now what?"

Mary Jo's eyes narrowed. "Now I hurt you, so your buddy Sam will see what's waiting for him. Then I make him pay for pretending to be that tart, and destroying my plans for my retirement."

Uh-oh. Al bounced on his heels, ready to start sprinting the minute the Devil Dog appeared.

With a smug little smile, Mary Jo plucked something from the bloody splotch on her chest. Her smile broadened as she held up what looked like the needle from the blood transfusion unit that had killed her. He started sweating.

(No fair. She can make whatever she wants outta this fuzz, because she's dead. All I can do is run--and right now I'm not up to doing that so good, either.)

"My Frank never thought much of my pitching, but I've learned a few tricks since then," she cooed, and hurled the needle at him with a delicate underhand throw.

Al ducked, cradling his ribs with his left arm when they protested. The needle made a U-turn and flew back into the ghost's hand.

"See?"

Beaming, she tossed it again. This time, he wasn't quite fast enough, and the needle clipped his right ear before looping back to its owner.

Licking her lips as if she'd just bitten into a Fanny Farmer chocolate, Mary Jo pitched the needle at him again.

Al was already stumbling into a trot, praying he could out-run this the way he'd out-run the Devil Dog. No such luck; he stopped short as the needle slid into the back of his neck. It didn't really hurt--it felt like a mosquito bite, actually--but he yelped as he twisted around, grabbing at it with both hands.

It was making sucking noises.

Even yanking at it with both hands, he had trouble getting the needle out; as it sucked, it seemed to be sinking deeper into his flesh. When he did drag it out, it wriggled in his grip like live bait. Repulsed, he flung it into the fog, as far from Mary Jo as he could, and started running again. Not only was he covered with goosebumps, he was trying not to toss his cookies.

"Oh, you can't leave now--the fun's just beginning!"

Giggling, Mary Jo clapped her hands. Something hummed briefly behind him, and he felt another sting on the back of his neck.

"Oh, boyyy...."

Gooshie, fire up the Accelerator and let me Leap to conclusions.

Tina, shut down the Project and send me to Jane's Fan Fiction page for a hot date with Admiral Calavicci in another story.