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Story Notes: Sentences in single italic marks are thoughts. Words in // // are spoken telepathically. AU for Buffy after Graduation, AU for the Magnificent Seven after Love and Honor The converted firehouse that is both home and business for the four men known as the Ghostbusters is strangely silent for just past noon. It had been an easy bust that morning, and the four men were now taking the time to catch up on household duties. A bell chimes at the computer and the familiar voice saying ‘You have Mail.” Can be heard over the sound of Peter Venkman cursing at the computer. “If you did not wait until the last moment to type up your paper, you would not make so many typing errors.” Egon says smugly, as only somebody who has got his paper typed, proofread, and ready for mailing can be. “Which account is the recipient? Our corporate account or our individual accounts?” “I still say putting up the web page was a mistake. Look at how many false alarms we’ve gotten, not to mention crank e-mails.” Peter says, gratefully putting away his work and clicking on the new mail folder. “And look at how many paying jobs we have received since putting up the website, homeboy.” Winston says smugly from his perch on the couch. “Is this what you were looking for Ray?” he says, holding a small wrench over the shoulder of the shoulder of the youngest Ghostbuster. Ray is sitting cross-legged on the floor, performing the monthly maintenance check on the team’s proton packs. “It’s our corporate account guys, and it looks like it’s been carbon copied to our personal accounts too.” Peter says, his fingers clicking across the keyboard with the precision a concert pianist would envy. TO: GHOSTBUSTERS@GHOST.COM CC: PETERV@GHOST.COM RAYST@GHOST.COM WINSTONZ@GHOST.COM SPENGLER@GHOST.COM Subject: Strange Lights in a ghost town Gentlemen, I and some friends of mine own a perfectly preserved Ghost Town called Four Corners. It has come to our attention that there have been strange lights reported in the vicinity. Hearing this, I undertook the task of driving out there and spent the night to try to observe these manifestations. I was found wandering the desert three days later with no memory of what had happened to me. Doctors could find nothing wrong with me to explain my disorientation and lack of memory. Would you be willing to come out to Four Corners and investigate this phenomenon? I would be willing to pay handsomely to find out what had happened that night, just for my peace of mind if nothing else. Please contact me when you receive this missive so that we might be able to discuss payment for your services. Sincerely, Ezra P. Standish “Interesting, what information do you have on this place, Four Corners?” “Located an hour from Denver.” Peter says, opening a search engine. “It’s the only privately owned Ghost Town in existence. It was abandoned over a hundred years ago after the deaths of the seven peacekeepers that had patrolled the town. Legend says that the last peacekeeper called down a curse on the town that drove all the townspeople out. It’s perfectly preserved, down to food left on tables by the townspeople as they fled the town.” “Any information on why they fled the town?” “Oh wow, this is great. I’ve heard about this place.” Ray says from his spot on the floor. “The townspeople claimed they had been forced out of town by the ghosts of their former lawmen who were enraged they had been killed in an ambush that was led by a townsperson. One report, “Ray looks up from the book in his lap, “claims that one of the men, the sheriff it says here, set fire to the jail. The flames refused to die out for over a week, yet caused no damage to the jail or adjacent property. The man responsible for the ambush was tried by the town and found guilty of causing their deaths, but it didn’t appease the ghosts. Legend says that the town lynched him and his ghost supposedly is kept prisoner by the lawmen. The manifestations settled down after the townspeople fled, but has flared up briefly over the years.” “Peter, please e-mail Mr. Standish and tell him we accept his job. Fax him a copy of our standard contract for his signature and arrange for a retainer.” “On it Spengs, sounds like the lawmen were mighty pissed to find themselves dead, and let the town they protected know it. But to manifest over a hundred years later? If that is indeed what got Mr. Standish?” “There have been legends of spirits powerful enough to keep others from trespassing on their property. Winston, make sure that all our gear is in proper working order, I have a feeling that this is not going to be a easy job.” “I don’t suppose it’s going to be possible for me to talk them into dispersing peacefully, is it?” Peter says, looking up at Egon with hooded eyes. “Peter, what is it?” “I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling about this. Something’s not right. I’m missing something here, something about the legend doesn’t ring right.” Peter mutters as he turns his attention back to the computer. TO: EZPSTANDISH@FOURCORNERS.NET FROM: GHOSTBUSTERS@GHOST.COM Subject: Your message. I’ve talked it over with my partners, and we have agreed to come out to Four Corners and investigate your little town. We normally charge one thousand, five hundred dollars as a retainer fee. Please give me a fax number and I will send out our standard business agreement for your signature and we will call you to make arrangements for payment and travel. Sincerely, Dr. Peter Venkman, Ghostbuster “Is there anything known about the owners of the property?” “According to the property tax records, the property is owned by seven men, a Chris Larabee, Josiah Sanchez, Nathan Jackson, John Dunne, Vincent Tanner, Buck Wilmington, and our client, Ezra Standish. The seven men live in Denver, where they are employed as ATF agents. The seven men have been a team for just over four years, they acquired the property through unknown means a little over three years ago.” “They acquired the property through unknown means three years ago?” “Seems the state government was going to take the property and turn it into a development when suddenly these seven men came forward with deeds to the property. The state fussed, but the seven were able to show that they had title to the property and they, or somebody acting in their behalf, had been paying the taxes on it for the past fifty years. Hmm, interesting.” “What is it, ‘Gon? I know that look. You’ve found something weird, haven’t you?” “I found a copy of the deeds the owners filed three years ago. According to this, one of the men, Mr. Dunne obtained the land twenty years before he was born.” “What?????” “That got your attention, did it Tex?” Peter grins at Ray. “All right Egon, what’s going on there? And what do you mean, Mr. Dunne got the land before he was born?” “According to bank records, an account was set up in the name of JD Dunne to pay property taxes on the land he owns in Four Corners forty-nine years ago. The names of the other six men are on the account. The deeds were all filed with the court the same day, but a search of Mr. Dunne’s records show a home birth twenty-one years ago today.” “Well, ‘Gon, that’s simple. It was his father that opened the account, wasn’t it?” Peter’s voice trails off as Egon shakes his head. “I wish it were that simple, Peter, but Mr. Dunne’s records list his father as unknown. According to this, he was a home birth, as was the other six gentlemen. Another interesting fact, there are no birth records for any of their parents. It’s as though they never existed before their children were born.” “Are you telling us these men just appeared from nowhere, homeboy? That’s a little hard to believe.” “No, there are plenty of records for each men. School records, vaccinations, medical records, and so on, but still, this is unsettling.” “Okay ‘Gon, let’s take them one at a time. Starting with our client.” “Ezra P. Standish, middle name unknown. Supposedly born July 4, 1975, to Maude Standish in Virginia. Spent most of his life traveling with his mother, who has been married five times although none of these men could have been his father. Graduated at sixteen with honors and enrolled at Yale where he graduated with honors with a dual major of Psychology and Business. He worked with the Atlanta police department before joining the FBI. Four years ago, he was transferred to the Denver branch of the ATF, under the command of Mr. Christopher Larabee.” “Doesn’t Hammerhead from our psych classes teach at Yale? Wonder if he had Standish for any classes?” “Hammerhead?” Winston asks in disbelief. “Dr. Philip James. He got the nickname Hammerhead in school from a prank he pulled while very, very intoxicated.” “Isn’t he the guy who climbed up the water tower naked and was ringing the bells with his head?” “That’s the guy. He was a fraternity brother of mine.” Peter says smugly, “Who’s next ‘Gon?” “Christopher Larabee, son of Marcus Larabee and his wife, Anna, both deceased. He entered the military at the age of eighteen and was a navy seal for ten years before leaving the service. He was a homicide detective in Denver when his wife and young son were killed in a car bomb while Mr. Larabee was in Mexico extraditing a prisoner with his partner Buck Wilmington. He left the police department after the death of his family and joined the ATF. Four years ago he was tapped to lead a special team of agents and his former partner was the first person chosen for the team.” “His former partner?” “Buck Wilmington, father unknown, Mother deceased. He remained with the Denver police department after Larabee’s family died and was the first person to join Larabee’s team.” “Standish, Larabee, and Wilmington,” Winston asks, ticking the names off on his fingers, “who’s next?” “Josiah Sanchez, parents deceased. His next of kin is a younger sister Hannah. A former anthropologist and profiler, he was working with the Kansas City police department along with Nathan Jackson. Both men’s work came to Larabee’s attention and he offered them places with his team.” “And Jackson?” “Wait a second, I know this guy.” “You sure, Winston?” “Yeah, I met him over in ‘Nam. He was the closest thing to a preacher there was out there and he counseled the younger boys. I remember him talking about his family. His father used to be a preacher, but Josiah refused to follow in his dad’s footsteps. He said he had too many problems with the church over their viewpoints and that it really tore his father apart when Josiah refused to follow his dad into the ministry. Damn near killed Josiah when he got the letter that his father had died while we were still over there. Seems they had said some pretty harsh things to each other before Josiah left and never got the chance to apologize to each other.” “Okay, who’s up next, ‘Gon? We have Standish, Larabee, Sanchez, and Wilmington.” Egon starts to speak, then is interrupted by the chiming of the computer signaling the arrival of new mail. Peter turns his attention back to the computer and begins to read the message aloud for the others. TO: GHOSTBUSTERS@GHOST.COM FROM: EZPSTANDISH@FOURCORNERS.NET SUBJECT: RE: your message Gentlemen, here is the number where you can send your document for my signature. I am authorizing my bank to wire five thousand dollars to you by the end of the day if you can give me an account number for them to deposit it into for travel expenses and retainer. Please let me know when you will be arriving and I will have somebody there to pick you up and bring you to Four Corners. Sincerely, Ezra P. Standish “Okay, what are we planning on taking with us?” Winston asks briskly as he picks up the phone. “And will we be driving or taking Ecto-3?” “It is too far to drive, and I fear time is of the essence Winston. Please tell the airport to have Ecto-3 ready for take-off tomorrow morning and have a flight plan filed for Denver. I want to get there before dark so we have time to set up our equipment. I doubt that Four Corners has electricity, so we will need to bring some portable generators with us.” “Make a list of what we need to bring Egon, and we can start getting it together. Meanwhile, let’s get back to our client and his friends. Who’s next?” “Nathan Jackson, parents deceased. Worked with the Kansas City police department in the forensics unit. His work got Larabee’s attention and he brought them both to Denver to join the newly formed team.” “That leaves Tanner and Dunne.” “Correct, Vin Tanner, father unknown. His mother died when he was five and he spent eight years in the foster care system before running from an abusive foster home. He spent the rest of his teenage years on the street and joined the army right out of high school. He ended up in a Ranger unit as a sniper. He received a college degree in Criminal Justice while in the service and was diagnosed as dyslexic. Upon leaving the service, he became a U.S. Marshal and came to Larabee’s attention during a case both agencies worked on. Larabee immediately had Tanner transferred to his team.” “And Mr. Dunne?” “John David Dunne, more commonly known as JD. Father unknown, mother deceased. He graduated school at the age of sixteen and went on to college where he received a degree in criminal justice and ended up joining the Boston Police department. He came to the attention of the ATF and transferred shortly after the death of his mother.” “Are they all former police officers?” “Everybody but Mr. Tanner has a background in local law enforcement before joining the team,” Egon says as the fax machine and computer chime simultaneously. Less than a minute later, the telephone rings as well. “That was the bank, five thousand dollars was transferred to our account from a bank in Denver.” Ray says, hanging up the phone. “The airport just sent us a copy of our flight plan,” Winston says from the fax machine. We can leave as soon as Ecto-3 is loaded in the morning and as soon as we can get Petey’s butt out of bed. The flight will take about five hours, so we’d better get a hotel room in Denver and go out to Four Corners early in the morning.” “I’ll e-mail Mr. Standish back tonight and let him know when we plan on arriving.” The next morning arrives much too early for Peter Venkman’s comfort. He is dragged out of bed by the others, stood under a cold shower, dressed in clean clothes, and shoved into the back of Ecto-1 without ever having once opened his eyes or made a noise that vaguely resembles human speech. “Think Petey will sleep all the way to Denver?” Winston asks, grinning over his shoulder at the snoring lump in the backseat. “Not for a lack of trying, anyway.” Egon says, pushing his glasses back up on his nose with one hand as he checks Peter’s seatbelt with the other. Peter shifts in his seat, ending up sleeping against the window for the ride to the airport. Arriving at the airport, they head for the hanger where Ectos 2 and 3 are kept. A mechanic grins and waves them on as Ecto-3’s loading door opens for Winston to drive up into the belly of the airplane. Mechanics quickly tie Ecto-1 down as Winston turns around in his seat to watch the show. “Peter, come on, we’re at the airport and you need to get out of the car. Peter, you really need to wake up. You can’t stay in the car.” Egon unfastens Peter’s seatbelt and pulls him away from the window, slapping his face lightly to wake him up. “Go way Egon, it’s still dark out.” “That’s because you haven’t opened your eyes yet, Peter. We need to move, you cannot stay in the car during take-off.” “Come on homeboy, time to get your butt moving. You can go back to sleep after we get in the cockpit.” Peter mutters something that would be very rude if it had been understandable and opens his eyes, seeing the dark belly of the airplane around him. “Jeez guys, what time is it?” “It is after ten, we had a little trouble getting you out of bed this morning.” “Well, let’s get this show on the road then. The sooner we get airborne the sooner we get the hell back on the ground.” “You don’t like my flying, Petey?” Winston asks, throwing one arm over Peter’s shoulders as they head for the staircase leading up to the cabin of the airplane. “It’s not flying that bothers me, it’s the take-off and landings.” Peter grumbles as he settles into the first row of seats in the cabin. He looks out the window as the plane begins to taxi down the runway and closes his eyes as they take to the air. Once they level out Peter rushes to the bathroom and can be heard being violently ill. Ten minutes later, the door opens and a very pale Peter Venkman leans against the doorframe. Egon and Ray immediately help him back to his seat where he closes his eyes, counts to ten in a number of languages, and takes a deep shuddering breath. “Sorry guys, I thought I was finally over it, but I lost it when we took off.” “No Peter, I am the one who should be saying sorry. It is way too soon for you to be flying again after the accident. I shouldn’t have insisted on flying to Denver.” “It’s a little far to drive, ‘Gon. I’ll be fine. Just give me a little time.” “How’s Petey doing?” Winston asks as Ray steps into the cockpit. “About as well as can be expected, he had his eyes closed the entire time we were taking off, and threw up the minute we leveled out. Egon’s with him right now.” Five hours later, they are circling the airport when the tower relays a message to them. “Mr. Dunne will meet us at the hangar and will direct us to a hotel. We leave for Four Corners early tomorrow morning.” Winston relays to the others. “Sounds good to me, Winston. You can get a nap while we talk to Mr. Dunne about what’s going on out there.” A young man is waiting for them at the hanger doors as Ecto-1 emerges from the belly of the plane. Peter opens one door and the kid slides into the seat next to him. Giving quick directions to the hotel, the car makes its way to the hotel. “Can you tell us what we might expect to find out there, Mr. Dunne?” Egon asks as the four men gather around the table in the outer room of the suite. They had ordered from room service and Winston had quickly eaten before heading to bed. “It all started a couple of weeks ago. Four Corners borders on Chris’ ranch, he noticed strange lights in the sky coming from that direction so he rode out that direction the next free day we had. He found nothing wrong, but still noticed the lights at night. Since they only appeared at night, we decided to spend the night in out there. It wasn’t the first time we had spent time out there, we usually spend a couple of days out there at least once a month. But the next morning, Ezra was nowhere to be found. We immediately started looking and found him three days later, wandering the desert. We got in contact with you when Ezra couldn’t remember what had happened to him.” “Is there anything unusual about Four Corners? I’ve read a little about it in some of the occult journals. According to some of them, it’s supposed to be haunted by the spirits of the lawmen who were killed. Could they be behind the lights you saw?” “No gentlemen, I can say with all certainty that the ghosts that inhabit the town are not behind this.” JD says, grinning. “We’ll be ready to leave tomorrow morning at nine, Agent Dunne. Can you draw us a map to Four Corners?” “I can do better than that, Dr. Spengler, I’ll meet you here at nine and drive out to Four Corners with you.” “Thank you, Agent Dunne. Will the others be there as well?” “Yep, we’re all be meeting you there.” JD says as he leaves the hotel room. Standing outside the closed door, he calmly adjusts his bowler hat over one eye and gives the gunfighter dressed all in black and the tall figure dressed in buckskin with a sawed-off rifle a familiar two-fingered salute before all three men disappear from view. Winston is yawning into his morning cup of coffee when there is a knock at the hotel room door. Walking to the door, Winston recognizes the young man from yesterday and opens the door, waving him into the room. “Good morning Mr. Zeddemore, are the others awake?” A muted yell from the bedroom has JD standing up, reaching for his gun. Winston smirks, recognizing the bellow. “They are now.” He says, grinning and holding the pot up to his guest. “No, none for me thanks. What was that, anyway?” “Egon waking Venkman up.” “I take it this has happened before?” “Oh yeah, Venkman never wants to get up in the morning.” JD looks up as the bedroom door opens and Ray walks out smirking. “How’d you wake him up this time, homeboy? ”Dumped the ice bucket down his pants.” “Good morning Agent Dunne.” Egon says, exiting the bedroom as the shower turns on. “What are our plans for today.” “That depends on whether you want to come back to the hotel tonight or plan on spending the night in Four Corners.” “Since you say that the ghost town is normal during the day, we should spend at least one night there.” “Okay, the others will meet us in Four Corners. If we arrive before noon, it will give you at least eight hours of sunlight to set up your equipment.” ‘And the sooner this is over, the sooner the boys will wake up. I don’t care about the damn prophecy, Hellmouth, or anything else. I want our children to wake up.’ And with that thought, JD closes his eyes and concentrates, calling up the image of his brother. //Nathan, we’re on our way, or we will be as soon as Peter gets some breakfast. He’s even worse to wake up in the morning than Ezra. How are the boys? // //They’re still asleep.’ Nathan replies, looking across the room of the clinic to the seven men asleep in their beds, as they had been for the last two weeks. // Nathan gets up from the chair he had been sitting in, crossing the room to stand between the first two beds. Buck Wilmington is asleep in the first bed; only the steady rise and fall of his chest letting the casual observer know he’s still alive. ‘Never thought I’d miss Buck’s snoring.’ Nathan turns his attention to the bed on his other side. The young man sleeping under the covers looks almost exactly like the brother he’d just been talking to. A slightly different haircut, a few more pounds on his thin frame, and they could be identical twins. “One thing never changes. JD never could keep weight on. Damn kid eats like a bird, both of them.” “Cussing out our youngest again, brother?” Nathan looks up as a shadowy figure flows through the closed door, reforming on the other side. “Nope, just wondering if JD is ever going to be able to keep weight on.” “Not a chance, brother, not a chance. What do you want me to do first?” “I’ve got water warming on the stove for their baths, ‘Siah. If you want to get clean bedding from the closet, we’ll get them washed and their bedding changed before Ez brings up their lunches.” Less than an hour later, all seven ATF agents are washed, lying in clean bedding, and Josiah looks up from brushing Ezra’s thick hair when the door opens and Ezra and Buck walk in, carrying trays with food for the children. Putting the tray down, Ezra comes over and, taking the brush from Josiah’s hand, begins fussing over his ‘son’s’ hair. “Really Josiah, just because you don’t care about your appearance, that’s no reason to brutalize my child’s appearance. We Standish’s must keep up our appearance, after all. Come on love, open your eyes, it’s time to eat.” Ezra’s eyes open on the bed, but the green eyes are cloudy. Always staring straight ahead, he allows himself to be sat up, fed, and laid back down in the bed. His ‘father’ stands over the bed, stroking his hair. “Go back to sleep son, it will all be over soon, one way or the other.” A whistle can be heard from the roof and Vin lowers himself through the open window, shutting it behind himself at Nathan’s glare. “Dammit, I’ve told you to use the door, I don’t want the boys to get a chill.” “Don’t see how, you got them all bundled up like mummies.” “They on their way?” “Three miles out.” Vin says, collapsing the telescope and putting it in the pocket of his bearskin coat. JD grins as he sees Vin crawl through the open Clinic window, imaging the glare the tracker is getting from Nathan. “How much further to Four Corners?” “A little less than three miles. You can see the town the minute we get over this hill.” “Winston, stop the car when we reach the top. I want to see what the town looks like before we get there.” Ecto-1 stops at the top of the hill and all five men pile out of the car. Three of the men stretch their legs after the long car ride while the fourth Ghostbuster turns his attention to the town below. “Oh wow, Four Corners looks just like the pictures. You’d swear that it was still the nineteenth century, not the twenty-first. How much work did you have to do to restore it?” Ray asks, bouncing as he takes the binoculars from Winston. “None, it’s been very well-preserved. I hope you gentlemen don’t mind, I have a stop to make before we get into town.” “Where are we going?” “The graveyard.” “Cool.” JD grins, ‘Was I ever this young?’ he asks himself, looking at the youngest Ghostbusters with ancient eyes. //Hell yes, you were greener than grass, as white as milk, and as tender as a baby’s bottom when you first came into town. You still are. // Buck hoots. //Shut up Buck // //See you in a couple of minutes, kid. And remember, I don’t like roses on my grave. // //Bite me, Buck. // //Later, kid, later. // The hearse pulls in front of the carefully tended graveyard. “Have there been any disturbances reported in the graveyard?” Egon asks, raising an eyebrow as his PKE meter begins buzzing in the back of the car. He’d set it on standby mode, to alert him at the first sign of paranormal activity, so he’d have a complete chronicle of all paranormal activity as they approached the Ghost town. “Not this one, but we have seen lights in the graveyard up there.” JD points up the road to another plot of land. “You have two graveyards in Four Corners?” “This is a private plot.” JD says, getting out of the car and pulling a bag from the back. “We take turns coming out to this one at least once a week, the other one gets a visit every other month or so.” “What is so special about this plot?” Egon asks, getting out of the car and pulling his PKE meter from the back of the car. The wands extend and the device starts beeping excitedly. ‘You mean besides the fact that this is where we’re buried? Nothing much.’ “This is the final burial place of the town’s protectors. We refused to allow them to be buried beside the others. The town didn’t protect them in life, we wouldn’t allow them to be protected by them in death.” “Allow them to be protected by them in death?” “A lot of the disturbances in Four Corners seem to be directed at the old cemetery. This one has never been touched.” “What’s up, ‘Gon?” “I’m getting some very strange readings here. You say this cemetery has never been touched?” “Never has.” “I wonder what readings I might get from the other cemetery?” “Residual readings?” Peter asks, looking over Egon’s shoulder. “No, whatever it is, it is very active here.” JD ignores them momentarily as he opens his bag, pulling out several small objects out and placing them on the carefully kept graves. A new black bandana is draped over Chris’s cross, a toy train and flowers placed on the two beside his. “Egon, look.” Ray says, grabbing his arm and pointing at the graves. “What is it, Raymond?” “The names, look at the names.” Egon Spengler looks at the closest grave and blinks, the name on the grave is that of the man riding with them. Walking carefully around the kneeling man, he looks at the other graves finding familiar names on all but two of them. “Mr. Dunne? Are you ready to go?” Egon asks as JD stands up, dusting his knees off and touching his fingers to his lips and reverently touches each name on the headstones. “Yes Dr. Spengler, I’m ready. I can come back later. You said something about wanting to visit the other graveyard?” “If it’s not too much trouble. I would like to see what readings I get from the other site.” JD heads up the road towards the other graveyard, following the four men. Catching up, he unlocks the gate and allows them inside, handing Winston the lock. “You not coming in?” “No, I refuse to step inside that place unless I have to. Lock the gate behind you when you’re ready to leave. I’ll be down in the other cemetery.” “Something’s strange, ‘Gon. I don’t like it all, the way he reacts to this graveyard. Look at this one compared to the other one.” “The grass needs mowing here, the markers could use some work, and the place generally looks neglected.” Peter says, looking around the overgrown graveyard. “This place gives me the creeps, no wonder he doesn’t want to be around here.” “The readings are different here, but just as strong.” The four Ghostbusters lock up behind themselves and walk back down to the car, finding their host leaning against the stonewall of the cemetery. Getting back in the car, the four Ghostbusters look around as they roll into the town of Four Corners. “You can park your car down by the livery stable.” JD says, pointing towards a building at the other end of town. A door on the second floor of a building opens, and a tall figure dressed in black steps out onto the landing. “Chris, these are the Ghostbusters. Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, Winston Zeddemore, and Peter Venkman. “Gentlemen, thank you for coming to Four Corners.” “Shit, get down.” JD yells, pushing Winston and Ray down to the ground, covering them with his body as a bright flash of light races through town. He sees Chris do the same for Egon and Peter as the energy flashes through the spot where the four Ghostbusters had been standing. Egon immediately pulls out his PKE meter, aiming it at the direction the energy blast had taken. “Well that was a new one.” Ezra says sarcastically, opening the saloon doors. “Care to come inside Gentlemen, or do you wish to stay outside on the ground?” “Ez, hush or I’ll shoot you myself.” Buck says, holding out a hand and pulling JD to his feet before pulling the younger man into a bear hug. “How in heaven did you know that was going to happen?” “I have no idea.” “Has that ever happened before?” Egon asks, slowly moving around the car, PKE meter beeping away. “No.” the man introduced as Chris says, eyes narrowing as he looks over the town. “Things are getting worse here. It’s a good thing we called you in when we did.” Ray opens the back door of Ecto-1, pulling out their bags and equipment. Grabbing an armful, Winston follows Chris and the dark haired tracker towards the hotel. Peter shuts the livery doors behind Ecto, watching in amusement as Egon wanders the street, busily taking readings of his surroundings. JD, who’s making sure he doesn’t walk into anything, is trailing him. “Yo, ‘Gon. Put down the meter for a minute. The others are at the hotel. I want to hear what’s going on.” “What? Oh yes Peter, certainly. Just one more reading.” Egon mumbles, never looking up from his meter. Peter smirks at JD and grabs Egon by the elbow, dragging him down the street towards the hotel. Winston grins from the window. “Peter’s on his way with Egon and JD.” He announces to Ray. “He still taking readings?” “Yep.” The door opens and Peter comes in, a frowning Egon following right behind him. The reason for Egon’s displeasure becomes apparent when they see Peter holding the PKE meter just out of his reach. “Story now, more readings later.” “Yes of course, Peter, I want to hear their story too. But really, there was no need to grab the meter from my hand.” “ ‘Gon, you nearly took a tumble into a horse trough because you weren’t watching where you were going.” Peter says patiently, grinning at the expression on Egon’s face. “Getting a face full of water wouldn’t have done either you or the meter much good.” “Okay, let’s start out with the basics. We all haven’t been fully introduced. I’m Chris Larabee, this is Vin Tanner (the long-haired man dressed in jeans and a blue flannel shirt), Josiah Sanchez (the tall man dressed in black slacks and an open necked shirt), Buck Wilmington (the tall man dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that had grabbed JD in a bear hug), and Ezra Standish. Nathan is working in the clinic right now, you’ll be meeting him later.” “Mr. Standish, can you tell us a little more about what happened to you?” “Like I said in my letter, I was coming back from Chris’s ranch one night when I noticed strange lights coming from this vicinity. Since I had the next few days off, I came out the following night. I don’t remember anything after that, just looking up to find myself on the back of Josiah’s horse and the others dismounting at Chris’s ranch.” “You can’t imagine how relieved I was when Ezra asked us what was happening. Those were the first words we had heard since we found him.” “Knew it was too good to last.” Buck mutters, wincing as JD swats him on the arm. “Be serious Buck. This is important business.” “I know it is kid, but you gotta admit the look on Josiah’s face when Ezra asked him what had happened was pretty funny. He looked like he had been hit upside the head with a board.” “I thought that the angels were singing when I found Ezra wandering. I knew my prayers had been heard when Ezra spoke.” “And the doctors could find nothing wrong with you to indicate what had happened?” “Not a thing. I was slightly dehydrated, and they kept me overnight in the hospital for observation, but other than that, nothing.” Ezra says, lying through his teeth. //Brother, you could charm the birds out of the trees. // //I hate lying to them, but I don’t think they could handle the entire truth right now. // //The fact that we’re ghosts who called the Ghostbusters. The fact that Four Corners is sitting over an interdimensional gateway that must be protected or closed, or the fact that we’re not ATF agents, the children are, and the children are currently in Nathan’s clinic in a coma? // “JD?” “Yes Ray?” “Is it possible to get a tour of the town? I’d like to see the Sheriff’s Office.” “You want to see the Sheriff’s Office? Why?” “I brought along a book on haunted ghost towns, and a chapter in it deals with the legend of the Four Corners Sheriff’s Office.” “There’s a legend about the Sheriff’s Office?” “You don’t know about it? Legend has it that the Ghosts of the town’s protectors were furious over their deaths at the hands of a townsperson. The Sheriff’s ghost supposedly set fire to the jail with the prisoner in it and it burned for over a week without any damage to the jail or any surrounding property.” The Ghostbusters are surprised at the reaction this statement brings. JD Dunne turns bright red as Buck Wilmington shakes one finger in his face, while Ezra and Vin howl with laughter. Meanwhile, Chris shakes his head. “Well, at least it wasn’t that damn dynamite this time.” “Sure Ray, I’ll show you the Sheriff’s office. But I can tell you the story’s a bunch of hooey. The office has never burned; it’s built out of six-inch thick concrete blocks. The only things in there made of wood are the bunks, the desk, and the chairs. And they sure wouldn’t haven’t burned for over a week.” “I am going to take readings of the town. Winston, can you get the generator running before dark? We will need power for the equipment, as well as a couple electric lights.” “Sure Egon, it shouldn’t take more than a couple hours.” “Wow, I would love to be able to spend a couple days in a place like this. Wouldn’t that be neat, Peter. Spending a week roughing it without cell phones, noise pollution, automobiles . . .” “Running water, flush toilets, electricity, central heating…” Peter says sardonically, rolling his eyes at his friend’s exuberance “You may like it, Ray, but give me a hotel with all the amenities any day.” The four Ghostbusters exit the hotel, Winston heading for the livery and Ecto, Peter and Egon taking readings, while Ray follows JD towards the jail. Ray stops in his tracks as he sees the soot covering the whitewashed walls. JD looks in the direction the other man is staring and rolls his eyes. “They’re from the lights that nearly nailed us earlier. I’ve been cleaning them off the walls every morning since the lights first started showing up.” JD grabs a small pail, dunks it in the horse trough, and wipes the marks off the wall. Pulling a set of keys from his pocket, JD opens the door with a screech of protest from the hinges. Ray stands in the middle of the room, trying to take in everything at once, while JD walks to the desk, pulls a bottle of oil from one of the drawers and oils the hinges. Ray walks over to the wall, touching the yellowed wanted poster in awe as JD settles behind the desk. It’s just like the book described it, wanted posters on the wall opposite the door as you come in, an empty gun cabinet under it for their rifles. A locked drawer underneath is where the ammunition would have been kept. “Oh wow, this is just how the book described it.” “So what does the book say happened anyway?” JD asks, leaning back in the chair. “According to the book,” Ray says, pulling up a chair and sitting down, “The sheriff’s ghost was enraged because the peacekeepers were betrayed and set fire to the jail with the prisoner inside. The jail was supposed to have burned a week straight, burned so hot it was impossible to go near it, then the flames just disappeared as quickly as they appeared. When the fire finally died, the townspeople entered to find everything untouched inside, except for the prisoner who had snow-white hair and never said a word about what had happened during the fire. The traveling judge for the area arrived in town a month after the ambush; he was tried, convicted of their murders by masterminding the assault, and hung from the gallows outside by an angry mob of townsfolk who were being driven out of Four Corners by the angry ghosts of the peacekeepers. A separate legend claims that some of the townsfolk happened to see lights in the jail windows, looked through the window, and saw the ghosts of the murdered peacekeepers laughing at the prisoner in his cell surrounded by ghost fire as he begged for mercy. The legend also says the jail is covered in soot from the fire, and no matter how often it was cleaned off, the soot always returned.” “Damn good story, but I’ve never heard anything about it before now,” ‘and I was there.’ “The book claims it found old pictures that were supposed to be taken after the ambush.” Ray says, opening the book to a spot and handing it across the desk to JD. “That’s not the Seven,” JD says, pointing to a picture of dead bodies that had been mistakenly identified as some of the peacekeepers. “They’re members of the gang that attacked u . . .the town.” JD corrects himself automatically. “We’ve turned the old Newspaper office into a mini-museum if you’d like to see the history of the town.” “Neat, it’s not often you get so see a Ghost town so well preserved, let alone a history of the town.” Meanwhile, Peter and Egon are busy taking readings throughout the village. They pause outside the jail, watching Ray talking with JD hands waving as he talks, grin and continue on. Egon heads back to the hotel as soon as Winston radios he has electricity set up in one room, immediately turning on the computer so he can compare the various readings he’s gotten from the town. Ray enters the old newspaper office and stops in his tracks. He walks over to the first display case and stares at a yellowed newspaper. “Every newspaper from the first issue printed until the last one before the town was abandoned is displayed here.” JD says, lounging in the doorway. “In addition, they’ve all been put on microfilm, we’ve got a set here and the Denver Library has a set in their old history files. The paper was printed every week from the time Mary started the paper to a week before the townspeople left. We found the diary she kept when we were putting everything together last summer.” “Is it here?” “Right over here.” Ray rushes across the wall, staring at a yellow bound journal sitting in the middle of a display case. He stops, staring at a penny dreadful novel in the next case. Seven men are shown on horses, and he stares at the man beside him then back at the novel in disbelief. “That’s the peacekeepers for Four Corners?” “Yep, the nickname the Magnificent Seven was coined by a two bit author named Jock Steele and it stuck.” JD says, pretending to ignore the look of shock on Ray’s face as he realizes that five of the other six men on the cover look exactly like the men he met earlier today, except for the still missing Nathan who he suspects will look like the seventh man in the picture. An hour later the four Ghostbusters are settled in their hotel room waiting for the sun to go down and the paranormal activity to start while Ray tells the others what he found earlier in the museum. “Did the journal say anything about what supposedly drove the townspeople off, Ray?” Egon asks, pushing up his glasses as he eats one of the MRE’s they had brought in their supplies. “According to the newspaper publisher’s notes,” Ray says, looking at the shorthand notes he took in the museum. “The town water supply had dried up, forcing townsfolk to send wagons to a river ten miles away daily for water. Most of the surrounding farmers had been wiped out by the gang that ambushed the seven, the few that were left was wiped out by a tornado that came through the area, a tornado that hopped right over the town. The drought that had been plaguing the area was the final straw for the farmers, they left the area in droves. A smallpox epidemic broke out a day after the lynching, a quarter of the town’s population died in that epidemic. The final blow was the railroad’s decision not to build a stop at the town.” “That doesn’t sound like anything that could be blamed on the peacekeeper’s ghosts. Sounds more like coincidence to me, and the townsfolk’s guilty consciences blamed it on vengeful ghosts.” “That’s what she thought, and said in her journal.” Ray says, “But then it started getting worse. According to her, all the events could be explained scientifically and she thought that the others were just jumping at shadows. But then there was stuff she couldn’t explain, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, it couldn’t be explained away by science. She mentions it in her journal, desperately trying to find a scientific explanation. The journal stops in the middle of a word.” “What kind of stuff?” “The trouble started immediately after the bodies of the seven where buried. Their coffins were repeatedly dug up after burial, until the second graveyard was prepared just for them. Then the day after the last burial, two new graves were beside them. The crosses say ‘Adam Larabee’ and ‘Sarah Larabee’. They were Chris Larabee’s wife and young son, who had died in a fire a couple years before the seven started working together. Mary and her father in law Judge Orin Travis immediately made a trip out to the burned out remains of Chris’s ranch. The graves there had been dug up.” Chris, who had been listening quietly outside the hotel room smiles, and holds out his hand to a dark haired young woman. A young boy, as dark as his mother, wraps himself around his dad’s leg. “What next?” “According to Mary, lights began to appear in the middle of the night. They flashed through town every night for two weeks . . .” “Like the lights that have been reported for the last two weeks?” “Do you think there’s a connection, Egon?” “Possible, I’ll know more after I get some readings tonight. Does the journal say when the lights first started appearing?” “Yes, Mary says that they first appeared the night of the ambush, which according to her journal, is a week from tomorrow.” “Does the fact the anniversary of the ambush is coming up have anything to do with the lights appearing now?” “It very well could be, Winston. Ray, how many years will it have been?” “It will be a hundred and twenty-five years next week. Does that have anything to do with it, Egon?” “It could be, there are phenomenon out there that appear and disappear on a certain schedule. The legend of Brigadoon comes immediately to mind, the fabled city that’s supposed to appear every 200 years.” “There’s something else you should know, I don’t know how important it is but I have the feeling it means something.” “What is it, Raymond?” “Well, not only do our clients have the same names as the seven peacekeepers of Four Corners, they look exactly like them too.” “You’re kidding me Homeboy, right?” “Nope, I saw an old novel in the newspaper office. It’s not just a slight resemblance, they look exactly like the seven peacekeepers.” “Reincarnation? Past life memory?” “Possible, I’ll have to think about it after this situation. According to the local weather forecast, dusk will be in an hour.” “How do we want to handle this, do another sweep of town just after dark to see if any of the readings have changed.” “Exactly Peter, then we’ll find a place to watch and see if the lights appear again tonight. Hopefully the sensors we’ve place around town will pick something up.” “I vote for the jail.” “You just want to see if that legend’s true and the ghosts of the peacekeepers are going to appear.” Peter says, reaching over and ruffling Ray’s hair. “Hey Peter, if we have time, do you think we can perform a séance with Lady Jasmine after we get home and see if we can summon one of the peacekeeper’s ghosts to find out what really happened? If the lights and other disturbances around the town doesn’t turn out to be them?” “You’re not going to let it go until you find out one way or the other what happened, are you?” “Nope, maybe I’ll write a book debunking the legend if I find out what really happened. JD says the Denver library has a copy of all the town papers on microfilm, I’ll see if I can get a copy of the papers concerning the ambush and its aftermath for my research.” “Sounds like there might be a paper in there for a psych journal. The effects of a guilty conscience on the population resulting in mass hysteria and the fleeing of the town because they thought a curse had been laid upon the town.” “Damn Petey, sounds like both you and Ray are both going to be doing some writing when we get home.” Egon stands up and walks to the window, watching as their clients settle in the saloon across the street. Ezra’s behind the counter like he’s done it before sliding glasses down the bar to the others. Chris and Vin settle at a table in the front of the saloon watching the sun duck behind the hotel as it begins to set. Meanwhile, Buck and JD are lighting kerosene lamps while the missing Nathan eats at the bar. “Wonder how they keep everything fresh without refrigeration?” Winston asks absentmindedly as he stands and stretches before pulling his pack on and walking out the front door. “I asked JD about that since he says they spend a lot of time in Four Corners when they can get away from work, and he said they have a icehouse behind the saloon they use to keep meat and vegetables fresh. They do their cooking on an old wood cook stove in the saloon’s kitchen. I asked why they didn’t use a generator for electricity and they said they didn’t need it, Four Corners has never had electricity, and they like being able to get away from the hustle and bustle of modern electricity. JD also said that Ecto’s the only car they’ve had in town. Unless you know the hidden road that we took, it’s almost impossible to find the town unless you know where to find it.” Ray watches in disbelief as Josiah walks to the pump behind the saloon and calmly begins to draw water. “Ray, I thought you said the town’s water supply had dried up, and everybody had to truck in water from the river?” Peter asks, watching as Josiah brings the water to the back of the saloon. Ezra takes the water with a smile and places it on the stove to heat so they can wash dishes. “I did. But they had been experiencing droughts for a couple of years previously. The water table could very well have dipped below the level of the pipes and once the region got some rain, the water level could have risen again so they could use the well.” “And the townsfolk, still feeling guilty about the deaths, could have blamed the well drying up on the curse, and not the water level falling.” “Where do they get the ice for the icehouse? Do they bring it in along with their food?” “JD told me they usually come out once after winter’s started with their horses and cut ice from the river. It usually takes them a couple days to gather enough ice for the following year.” “That is so neat, I would love to be able to see something like that.” “Maybe if everything turns out okay,” ‘and the children wake up’ “You can come back again this winter and watch us cut ice.” Chris says, coming up behind the Ghostbusters. “Can I? That would be so neat. I’ve always wanted to live like this for a while. Peter though, he hates roughing it.” “Damn straight, I’ve gotten used to my creature comforts.” Peter says, ruffling Ray’s hair, “I like getting up, turning on the light, having running water when I want it, heat at the turn of a knob, being able to cook without having to use wood or coal, and being able to listen to the radio or watch television.” “We have a solar operated radio, a day in the sun usually charges the battery for about ten hours of play. As for the other things? If you’ve never had it, you usually don’t know what you’re missing.” Chris says, shrugging. Ray exits the hotel, stopping to take a deep breath. “Smell that air, Peter. It’s clean air, you can’t get that in New York.” “I’m a city boy, Ray,” Peter says; mock complaining, “All this clean air is going to kill me. I can’t live without exhaust fumes, blaring car horns, and urban sprawl.” Ray and Peter head off in opposite directions, PKE meters in their hands as they take readings. They meet up outside the hotel an hour later and dump their readings into the computer, which begins to compare the readings from earlier today. “The program’s going to take a couple hours to run.” Egon says, turning away from the computer at Ray’s shout. “Guys, I’ve got something coming in from the south side. Let’s get outside and see what’s going on.” The four Ghostbusters exit the hotel at a run, passing Chris who’s sitting outside the door. The legs of the chair hit the porch with a thump as he quickly stands up. The slight glow in the distance tells him what had caused the sudden exit. Egon holds his PKE meter out, getting readings as the glow comes closer while Ray, Peter, and Winston power up their packs. “Incoming.” Chris yells to the others. The other six men run from the Saloon as the lights come over the hill and speed through town. The lights flash through town for over an hour before disappearing as quickly as they appear. “Was there anything different about the lights than there was before?” Egon asks, heading back to the hotel room to dump his readings into the computer. “Yeah, they only lasted for a couple of minutes before, they lasted, what an hour tonight?” JD asks, looking at his wristwatch. “And they’ve never flashed back and forth through town before. They usually flew through town and vanished.” Vin adds. “So the display we witnessed upon arriving earlier today is what normally occurs?” “Yeah, except for the fact it was the middle of the day when they appeared, that was what we normally see at night.” Chris says, picking his hat up off the porch and putting it back on his head. “Are these the same lights you witnessed Mr. Larabee, that brought you to Four Corners to investigate?” “No, those lights were in the sky, not ground level and they stayed in place, they didn’t move like these did.” “And when did the moving lights first appear?” The seven look at each other. “About a week ago?” JD hazards a guess. “Yeah, a week to ten days.” Vin agrees. Ray drops his proton pack in the corner of the room before stretching and yawning. “Egon, do you need me to stay up and help you look over the data?” “No Raymond, why don’t you get some sleep? I do suggest that at least one of us be awake in case something happens. I’ll take first watch while the data runs.” “Okay Homeboy, wake me in four hours for the next watch.” “I can’t believe I’m so tired, it’s only ten o’clock.” Ray says, yawning as he settles into bed. “I told you all that clean living was bad for you, Ray.” Peter says teasingly, “See, I grew up on carbon monoxide and fast food, and I’m wide awake and feeling good. But get some clean air in you, and you’re out like a light.” Ray’s response is a muffled snore. The next morning Ray looks up from his spot on the hotel porch when Vin comes past with a horse and wagon. “Want to come with me, Ray? I’m going to the river to catch some fish for a cookout tonight.” “Cool, we really don’t have anything to do. The sensors are all set to catch anything that might happen. Winston, I’m going to the river with Mr. Tanner to catch some fish for a cookout tonight.” “Take your proton pack and a radio with you.” Winston orders, “Since there’s no interference out here, we’ll be able to contact you if anything happens here. And if something happens out there, I want you to get his skinny white ass straight back here,” Winston tells Vin, “He’s got a curiosity bump a mile wide and takes too many chances. He’s the kind who’d be trying to pet the nice kitty while the lion was busy eating him.” “You’ve got it.” Vin says, “We should be back in a couple of hours. Nathan and Chris are picking greens to cook the fish in tonight.” Ray clambers into the wagon with a helping hand from Vin. “Hold on,” Nathan calls from the door of the Clinic. “Put some of this on or you’ll burn to a crisp before you get back.” Nathan walks down the stairs with a jar of salve that he, Vin, and Nathan slather on every inch of flesh not covered by clothing. Nathan then grabs a wide brimmed cowboy hat and slaps it on Ray’s head. “There, now you’re ready to go.” He says, watching as the wagon goes down the street. “How do you plan on keeping the fish fresh until you’re ready to cook them?” “I’ve got a washtub in the back. We’ll just pop them in water until we get back to clean them.” “Where are your fishing poles?” “I don’t use poles. I catch the fish by hand.” “Cool, I’ve never seen anybody catch a fish by hand. I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen anybody do it.” “I had a friend teach me when I was younger. I have a fishing spear I’ve used too, but if you’re as accident prone as JD it’s safer to leave it here.” “Probably,” Ray says, blushing, “Peter calls me an accident looking for a place to happen sometimes.” “Ahh, you’re just young.” Vin says calmly, “You don’t look before you leap, that’s all. You don’t mean to get into trouble, it just happens, and no matter how much your friends complain they’re always going to bail you out.” They arrive at the river twenty minutes later and lift the tub from the back of the wagon. Walking to the river, Vin rolls up his jeans and, handing his boots to Ray, wades into the water. “What do you want me to do?” “I’ll throw the fish onto the bank. Dump them into the tub before they flop back into the water.” Vin says, bending down and, with a quick movement, tosses a fish towards the bank. “Cool!!” Ray says, quickly walking over to grab the fish. He drops it into the tub. An hour later, the tub is full. “Are we going to be able to eat all those?” “Trust me, they won’t go to waste. What we don’t fry tonight we’ll put on ice, stick them in a barrel of brine, or salt for this winter. Take your boots off and come in, I’ll show you how to fish barehanded.” “So you guys really are self-sufficient. You don’t find it too much trouble to spend time out here during the winter?” “Nah, as long as we can keep warm and fed, we’re pretty good. We don’t have to get out unless we want to. We stock up on supplies during the spring and summer, we have a huge garden that we can in the fall and there’s a couple local farmers who are glad to sell us cattle they’ve butchered.” “Really? Don’t you ever get lonely out here?” Ray scrambles to his feet, pulling off his boots and rolling up the legs of his jumpsuit. He walks into the water and Vin shows him how he does it. “This is as close to heaven as we’re probably ever going to get.” Vin says seriously, his eyes darkening. “We’ve got a radio to listen to when we need some noise, Ezra’s got a library of books in the old schoolhouse. I wouldn’t want to live any other way, and if it wasn’t for the job, we’d probably live out here year-round.” “This is so cool.” Ray says as they walk to the bank. The tub of fish is placed in the back of the wagon and they make their way back to town. Meanwhile, Peter and Egon find Chris and Buck working in the garden. “Gentlemen, have you seen Ray?” “Yeah,” Buck says, tilting his hat back so he can look up at the blond Ghostbuster. “Vin was gonna take him to the river to catch fish for tonight’s cookout.” “Cookout?” “We figured you must be tired of those MREs.” Chris says as he checks on the corn they planted. He fills the wicker basket with corn, thankful that Sarah had gotten her wish and planted triple what they would have normally planted, and walks it to the wagon they’d pulled beside the garden. He grabs another basket and starts picking tomatoes. “Gentlemen, you didn’t have to put yourself to so much trouble.” “Ahh, it’s not trouble at all. We usually do this once a month or so, and it’s just as easy to cook for four more people as it is to cook for us.” “Did Ray take a radio with him?” “And his Proton Pack. Winston insisted, just in case something came up.” “And where is Winston?” “Ezra found out they had a mutual love of books, so Ezra took him to look at the library we made of the old schoolhouse.” “We won’t see either of them for hours then.” Peter says grinning. “I just hope he doesn’t end up too sunburned.” “Nathan slathered him with a salve he makes that keeps us from burning.” Chris says, putting the last basket of food in the wagon. “That, and the hat Nathan put on him, should keep him from being hurt.” “Thanks, Ray doesn’t think about stuff like sunburns until it’s too late.” Peter says, “You’d think the first time he got burned he’d remember to use sunscreen but he never does.” Nathan looks up from the herbs he’s dicing as Buck and Chris begin to bring the garden stuff inside. “You just take that right back outside and clean it in the trough.” He orders, waving the knife in the air. “I don’t need to be picking dirt out of my food if I can help it.” “Where’s JD? I thought he was going to help?” Buck says, placing the basket back on his shoulder with a grunt. “He’s busy bringing up a barrel of flour to coat the fish.” Josiah says from the other side of the kitchen. “He’ll be here in a couple of minutes. Is that all the fresh tomatoes?” “Yep, and there’ll be just as many tomorrow.” Buck says, dropping the basket of freshly washed tomatoes with a thud. “I suppose we’re going to have to start canning them.” “If we want any to eat this winter, yeah.” JD says, coming in with a barrel over one shoulder. “The storeroom’s getting mighty bare. And we can’t count on the children to bring in supplies.” “You know, this was a lot easier when we were still ghosts and didn’t have to eat.” “Would you rather give up the children and a chance at our salvations?” Chris asks dryly, having heard Buck complaining about this before. “Hell no, Chris, the kids were the best thing to happen to us.” “Then quit your bitching and start peeling potatoes. We want to get this finished before Vin returns with a load of fish.” JD says, swatting him with a wooden spoon. Vin pulls up behind the saloon; smirking at the sour look Buck gives the tub of fish he helps pull off the wagon. “You timed this, didn’t you? Waited until we just got all the garden stuff taken care of then you pull in with a load of fish.” “Good haul, Vin.” Chris says, coming out to look. “We’ll have plenty for the cookout tonight and any that doesn’t get eat in a couple of days we’ll smoke for this winter. How’s the river stocked?” “The river is loaded. I think we can get three or four loads to save for winter, even with the ones we take to eat now.” “How do you prepare your fish for winter? I grew up on farm, but my foster family brought food in the winter.” “We’ve got a smokehouse out in the woods we use to smoke some of the meat.” Josiah says, picking up a fish to demonstrate with. “We’d cut the fish into fillets and fill the smokehouse with as many trays as it can hold. We then use small chips of green wood and smoke the wood for three days. Then the wood is placed in barrels and put in the warehouse until we need it. We usually smoke fish, a couple hams the local farmers are butchering, and our homemade sausage. We also put the fish in a brine solution if we have enough barrels, or we preserve them in salt.” Josiah drops the fish back into the tub and dries his hands on the towel tucked into his pants. “Doesn’t it take a lot of time to put up your own food?” “Not really,” Buck says, shrugging his shoulder, “we usually spread it out if we can. Like with these fish, we’ll eat some of them now, we’ll smoke some of them in a couple of days, and we’ll salt the rest of them. It’s only when the garden all comes in at the same time that things get hectic. We’re all canning, pickling, or drying from sunup to sundown until it’s all taken care of. Then we get to relax and enjoy the reward for all our hard work this winter. Like right now, we’ve got tomatoes ripening on the vines now until the end of the season. We’ll be making all sorts of stuff with them until we run out of canning jars, then we’ll end up sun-drying the rest of them and grinding them up to use in stews.” “And after the tomatoes it will be the pickles.” Nathan says, looking over Buck’s shoulder. “Ahh, those are easy. Bring out the barrels of brine we saved from last year and pop them in. Let them sit for a couple months and bang, there you go, pickles.” “This fascinating, what do you do with your other garden stuff?” “The peppers we dry down in the root cellar, along with the onions and garlic. The cellar’s cold and dry, so we can keep peas, beans, apples, potatoes, and corn down there until we need it. What we do need and can’t grow ourselves, such as spices, flour, rice, etc. we buy in bulk and store in the shed out back.” “Is there anything I can do to help?” Nathan smiles, waving Ray’s offer away. “You already helped Vin with the fish. Go have some fun until the cookout.” Ray walks back to the hotel, finding Winston curled in a chair in the lobby. Ray brushes a hand over the richly upholstered fabric, wondering again at the cost of making it a hundred years ago when everything was done by hand, and the added cost of bringing it out west from San Francisco. “Don’t look like hundred year old furniture, does it?” Winston asks, looking up from the book. “Nope, it looks like it was built yesterday. Something half this well preserved would go for thousands of dollars at any antique store.” “Have a nice day?” “Yeah, Mr. Tanner showed me how to catch fish with my bare hands. We brought a huge tub of fish back with us. Mr. Tanner said that what they don’t eat in a couple days they’ll either smoke, salt, or preserve in brine for this winter. They also said that they’ll make a couple more trips to get more fish and they buy butchered cattle from nearby farmers. They’re really into stocking enough food for an entire winter.” “Wonder why? It’s not like they spend the entire winter here. It would be different if they lived here year-round, but they have jobs in Denver.” Winston asks, looking up from his book. “But you should see the library they got in the old schoolhouse. I swear, they must have a couple thousand books there.” “Well, it only makes sense. There’s no electricity here, so they don’t have television to keep them occupied.” Ray shrugs. “Yeah, but they come out here for vacations, to get away from everything. Why would they want to have something to keep them occupied?” “Mr. Tanner said they’d live out here year-round if it wasn’t for their jobs. Maybe they plan on retiring here?” Ray says, his eyes glowing with excitement. “I know I would.” “You would.” Ray looks up as Peter and Egon enter the hotel. Peter’s scratching at his arm, and Ray sees a rash starting to break out. “Do you want me to go see if Nathan has anything to help with that rash?” Winston asks, putting down the book after marking his place with a piece of paper. “Nathan brews medicines from the local plants, he might have something for that.” “Would you please, Winston? I don’t know what Peter got into, but it appears he’s allergic to it.” “Maybe he’s allergic to clean air?” Ray asks, smiling as he remembers Peter’s complaints from the night before. “Ha, ha, ha, Ray, very funny. Owww, don’t make me laugh, please?” Peter complains. “Nathan, are you in here?” Winston asks, opening the Clinic door and peering into the room. He sees a table in the middle of the first room and a door leading to another room. Nathan comes from the other room, shutting the door quickly before Winston can see what’s inside. “Winston, what’s the matter?” “Petey seems to have gotten into something he’s allergic to. Do you have anything to help the itching and rash?” “I know just what he got into,” Nathan says, walking to another door and pulling a couple items from the shelves. “JD’s allergic to the same thing so I keep this on hand. He has to soak in these herbs for as long as possible, then apply the salve to the rash after he gets out.” “Petey boy’s going to hate that, he hates cold water.” Winston smirks. “Ahh, we can fix that.” Nathan says, walking over to the window. “Buck” he calls out. “Yeah Nate?” Buck asks from the boardwalk below. “Peter got into the same stuff JD’s allergic to. Can you start a fire in the bathhouse so Peter can get a hot bath?” “Sure thing.” “You know, if I were a mean man,” Winston says, smirking, “I’d tell Petey he had to sit in cold water, just to see the look on his face when I told him we had water heating for him to take a hot bath.” “Good news,” Winston says, walking into the hotel. “Nathan’s got some stuff to take care of that. He’s got some herbs you need to soak in, so he’s got Buck lighting a fire in the bathhouse so you can get a hot bath, and some salve to put on the rash after you get out.” “You mean I can get a hot bath?” Peter asks, looking like he’s seen Nirvana. “Yes, Peter, you can get a hot bath.” Egon says sighing as they head for the bathhouse. Entering the building, they see ten old bathtubs, a stack of thick towels, and JD dumping pails of water into the tub on the stove. “The water should be warm enough for you in about ten minutes.” JD says, “There’s enough water for all of you if you want to get a bath.” “We’ve got different clothes here, but we didn’t bring them with us.” “Peter’s going to have to change clothes, otherwise the rash will come right back, so you might as well go get them.” Nathan says, coming in and dumping a handful of crushed herbs into the water. “Let these soak a couple minutes before you get in, the water will be warm enough by then.” Ray heads back to the hotel for their clean clothes. He returns to the bathhouse to find Peter up to his neck in steaming water while Winston and Egon scrub themselves in the other tubs. “Give me your clothes and I’ll start them soaking.” Josiah says as Ray slips into the tub.” “Egon, did you get a chance to look at the readings today?” Peter asks after they return to the hotel. The herbs had stopped the itching right away, and the salve Nathan had given him to use has a cooling effect that makes him feel almost human again. “Not yet, Peter, why?” “I thought I saw signs of a surge this morning when I checked the sensors.” Egon turns to the computer and calls up the recordings. “You’re right, look here Peter. There was a slightly higher energy level this morning and it’s slowly growing. Winston, when we go to the cookout, please keep a PKE meter on alert so we get a warning if the energy levels rise any more.” “It’s not like Gozer again, is it Egon?” Ray asks, “Didn’t we get these kinds of readings he appeared?” “The readings were similar, yes.” Egon says, pushing his glasses back with one hand. “We will need to keep an eye on them in case a rip is forming. Judging from the levels right now, I’d say we have about a week before the levels reach the critical stage.” “A week? Like the anniversary of the ambush?” Ray asks, remembering what they had been talking about last night. Egon blinks; the timing couldn’t be a coincidence. “Indeed.” JD knocks on the door, grinning at Ray. “You guys ready to eat now?” “I’m always ready to eat,” Peter says, grinning, “As the guys can and will tell you.” “Yes, Peter loves three things, eating, sleeping, and busting ghosts.” “Not true,” Peter pretends to whine, “I like teasing Janine and threatening to neutronize the spud too.” “Ahh yes, correction, Peter loves to eat, sleep, bust ghosts, tease our receptionist, and threatening our mascot Slimer too.” Egon says deadpan. “My mistake.” “You mean Slimer actually exists?” JD asks, looking over at Ray. “Yes, he’s a souvenir from our first actual case. He was haunting a New York hotel, scaring the guests. We busted him, and when the containment unit was shut down and all the ghosts escaped, he decided to stick around. He loves Peter, sleeps on his pillow whenever he can, gives him ectoplasmic kisses, and steals his food.” “Ectoplasmic kisses?” Chris asks, raising an eyebrow as they approach the burning pit at the back of the hotel. Buck’s busy laying wood for a fire while Josiah brings the food out. Nathan lights the kindling in the corner and the fire crackles to life. “What Ray means is the little bugger slimes me whenever he can.” Peter says sourly. “Sounds painful.” “Only to my wardrobe. I usually end up getting slimed at least once a week, either by Slimer or on one of our busts. At least it hasn’t happened yet, knock on wood.” He says grinning as he reaches over and raps his knuckles on Ray’s head. “Peter, cut it out.” Ray laughs, swatting Peter’s hand away. Peter takes the plate of corn on the cob, potato salad, and blackened fish from Josiah. He sees the others beginning to eat and digs in. He’s laying on his back, watching the fire die down to coals a couple hours later as Nathan puts bundles of fish wrapped in greens to bake in the coals. Potatoes are placed beside the fish, and corn, still in the husks is added to the coals. Buck and Josiah are covering the coals with a layer of wet leaves, a tarp, and then dirt to slowly cook for a number of hours when the PKE meter on Winston’s belt begins to shriek. “Hey guys, heads up.” Winston says, grabbing the PKE meter and holding it up to see what triggered the alarm, “We’ve got something coming in hot and heavy.” “That’s not a normal storm, is it Mr. Larabee?” Egon asks, looking up as the sky darkens menacingly. “No, it’s not.” Chris says, grabbing Egon’s arm and leading him into the nearest building. “Everybody inside, now.” “Hotel or the saloon?” “The hotel, we can shut the doors. Vin, Ezra, grab the lanterns in case whatever that is knocks out the line to the generator.” “What about the children?” “Damn, is there any way you can get the readings from your sensors without being in the hotel?” Chris asks, looking at the hotel and then back at the clinic. “Yes, I’ve set up a relay so the readings come to my PDA.” “Come on then,” Chris says, leading the way to the Clinic. “It’s time you found out what’s really going on and why it’s so urgent that whatever is going on stops.” Egon enters the dimly lit room and stops in his tracks as Chris walks across the room to where seven beds are set against the far wall. He can tell they’re occupied, but that’s all he can see in the dim light until Chris sets one of the lamps on a table beside two of the beds and he sees the man lying in the bed is identical to the man standing over the bed. Ray turns to look at JD and suddenly remembers a couple of times when he’d said something, then quickly corrected himself. He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but now . . . “You don’t just have the same names as the Peacekeepers of Four Corners, do you? And it’s not a coincidence you look exactly like the people in the novel. You are the Magnificent Seven, aren’t you?” “Ray, are you feeling okay? Sure you weren’t out in the sun too long? ‘Cause that sounds outlandish, even for you.” Peter says, entering the room with Nathan and Buck. He stops, staring at the scene in front of him. “ Umm, Never mind.” Peter blinks and rubs his eyes, but he still sees duplicates of the men they had just been sitting around eating and swapping tall tales with less than ten minutes ago. “Aren’t you?” Ray asks JD again, then blinks as the modern clothes the seven men had been wearing are transformed into copies of the outfits he had seen on the novel’s cover. “Yes Ray, we are.” JD says calmly. “Ray, you remember the reaction you got when you first told us about the legend of the sheriff setting the jail on fire?” JD asks the younger man. Ray nods, his eyes wide. JD smiles at the youngest Ghostbuster and opens his coat, revealing a star on the inside lining. “I knew the jail never burned because I was there. I am the Sheriff, Ray.” “Oh wow, that is so cool.” JD smiles at the exuberant response. “Can I talk to you later? I would love to find out what really happened to the prisoner?” “So was it you who called us, or them?” Winston asks, pointing to the forms in the beds. “We called you, Gentlemen.” Josiah says, his voice rumbling as Egon begins to call up the sensors data on his PDA. “The children have been in a coma for the last two weeks, ever since the lights first started appearing.” “Do you know what’s going on?” “Yes, we’ve been acting as Guardians for the town ever since we were . . . killed,” Ezra says with a shudder as Josiah wraps an arm around him. “What are you guarding?” Egon asks, putting down the PDA as he looks at the seven men. He reaches out to touch Buck, blinking in surprise when his hand touches solid flesh. His hand twitches over the PKE meter, and, smiling, Buck allows himself to be scanned. At Chris’s nod, everybody allows himself to be scanned. Egon looks at the figures on the beds, and at a nod from Chris, scans them too. Egon looks up as two ghosts join the men in the room, walking over to Chris and wrapping their arms around him. “Fascinating.” Egon says, staring at his PKE meter. “What is it, Egon?” Ray asks, getting up to look at the readings with Egon. “I am getting a bunch of different readings. Our friends here,” Egon says, pointing to the seven peacekeepers, “seem to be both living and dead. I’m getting normal human readings, yet they’re overlaid with a class seven energy signature. While the seven men in the beds, whom I believe you said are your children have the same readings, but they seem to be muted. This could be because they’re currently unconscious while Mrs. Larabee and her son,” Egon looks up and smiles at Sarah’s nod, “display normal class three signatures.” “Do you have any supernatural abilities since your deaths?” Egon asks, looking up and then blinking as Ezra vanishes from in front of him, reappearing in the other room, sitting at the table. Ray crows in amazement at the sight while Egon raises an eyebrow and scans him again. “Showoff,” Buck says fondly, walking through the table in the middle of the other room. He reaches out and claps Ezra on the shoulder, nearly knocking the other man off the chair. “Mr. Wilmington, do you happen to know the saying about the pot calling the kettle black?” Ezra asks, smirking. “You’ve seen us change clothes instantly,” Ezra says, “And we also can speak to each other telepathically.” “Really?” “Yes,” JD says, “I contacted Nathan back here in Four Corners while Peter was in the shower, and I was in contact with Buck when we stopped at the graveyard.” “Boys, behave, Dr. Spengler asked us a question.” Chris says. “He wants to know what we’ve been guarding for over a hundred years.” “Dr. Spengler, have you ever heard of Hellmouths?” Ezra asks, leaning back in the chair. “Yes, there’s supposed to be one somewhere in California. A small town called Sunnydale if I remember correctly.” Egon says, remembering reading something on the subject a while ago. “They’re supposed to be portals to other dimensions.” “Indeed.” Ezra says, “There is a Hellmouth, or something very similar to a Hellmouth according to everything I’ve read, nearby and we’ve been charged with keeping it from opening.” “Can I ask how and why you were charged with this duty?” “I don’t know why we were chosen, but I can tell you what we’ve managed to figure out over the years.” Ezra says, closing his eyes and beginning to rub his temples. Josiah walks over to him and begins rubbing his shoulders and neck. Smiling, Ezra reaches back and lays his hand over Josiah’s. “Vin lived with the Comanches for a couple of years when he was younger,” JD says, “One day the Shaman of the local tribe had a vision during a dream quest. He saw a great evil coming through that would destroy the world if it weren’t stopped. Unfortunately, the only way to stop the Hellmouth from opening was the death of the local defenders. Only the deaths of a hero would close the gate until the next time it was due to open, but the deaths had to be from betrayal, not self-sacrifice.” “And the ambush met the criteria?” Egon says, realizing what is coming next. “We didn’t know it at the time, but a damn fool kid getting drunk and wanting to make a name for himself by killing somebody fit the definition. He was angry because his father had been killed during a bank robbery, he ended up hating all lawmen because of that, and he decided to kill every lawman he could get his hands on. He called in his father’s old gang to start with us. Damn Kid didn’t realize the gang would probably kill him too. He distracted Buck and Josiah while they were out patrolling the night before, otherwise we would have seen the light from their fire. We’d have investigated and stopped them before they got to town. They caught us with our pants down and sixteen people were killed that day, the seven of us, four innocent townspeople, and five of the gang members. The surviving gang members escaped and were later captured by a posse that tracked them down.” “And this was enough to close the Hellmouth?” “Yes, since our deaths happened just as the Hellmouth was opening, it was closed. But, the Shaman’s vision also said that it was going to reopen again so we had to stick around to make sure it didn’t happen. We’ve kept in touch with the descendants of the Shaman over the years, read everything we could find on Hellmouths, and learned that this one appears to appear in cycles. One of the descendants of the Shaman had a vision about fifty years ago, saying that when the Hellmouth appeared again, it could be closed forever and we would be free. And as a reward for our service, we were changed from normal ghosts to what we are now.” “Can I ask why you and your son weren’t changed also, Mrs. Larabee?” “Call me Sarah, Mr. Venkman.” Sarah smiles, reaching down to run her hand through Adam’s hair. “You don’t need to hide, silly. They’re not going to hurt you.” She smiles down at her son, who looks up at her. “Really momma?” “Really Adam, you and Sarah don’t need to hide anymore.” Chris says, “And as for why they didn’t change when we did, all I can think of is because they weren’t killed in the ambush they weren’t changed like the rest of us.” “Can you tell us when you were first aware of the change?” “We’d been out for a ride of the area when Sarah said she heard something coming from the cemetery. We immediately headed over there, and found the ground over our graves boiling. When it finally stopped, there were seven babies lying naked, crying, on the ground. Sarah immediately reached for them but her hands moved right through them. She sent Adam to go for some of the tribe that was farming nearby while we kept watch. The babies kept crying and instinctively, we reached for them; to our astonishment, we found we were solid. We immediately brought them back to town, to be greeted by members of the local tribe. They’d had a vision of what was happening, and brought us supplies for the babies. We found that we were human again and needed to eat and sleep. Luckily it was spring so we were able to start gardens for the winter from seeds they brought us, put in supplies of coal for heat, and buy supplies for the babies. The tribe also told us that the land was in danger of being taken by the state . . .” “Which is when you showed up with deeds and proof that you’d been paying taxes on the land?” Egon asked, remembering what they had found before flying to Denver. “Yes, we made sure the land was officially ours, the local tribes had been quietly buying up land around Four Corners so the Hellmouth would be protected, and opened an account in all our names that the taxes could be paid from automatically. Money goes into the account from the tribe’s farming and casino for whatever we need we can’t get from the land and we proceeded to raise the children here in Four Corners. Four years ago, the Shaman had another vision saying the children had to leave Four Corners for Denver, and we created false records for them. Three years ago, the state of Colorado tried to take the land again through eminent domain. We stopped them again and we’re currently in the process of getting the town declared a historical site so the state government can’t touch it.” “Which explains the discrepancies we found in the records,” Ray says grinning, “We’d noticed that you all were supposedly home births, which isn’t common in this day and age, and your parents didn’t seem to exist until the birth of their sons.” “We couldn’t hack into hospital records, too many things could have gone wrong.” Ezra says, shrugging. “If they’re recorded as home births, all you need is a birth certificate from the county courthouse, and those are easy enough to fake.” “Wait a second, if they all appeared the same day, why aren’t they the same age?” “I think it’s because they stopped aging when they reached the ages we were when we died.” Ezra says, standing up and walking over to the beds. “I’ve been doing some reading, as Winston can attest to by the contents of the library, and I believe the children are us. Is it possible to create a clone magically?” “Of course, that’s why the readings are the same. They are you.” Ray says, pulling up the readings on the PDA as Egon stares out the window at the black sky. “We can detect the differences between parent and child with the PKE meters, and the differences between identical twins. But all the reading are identical for all of you, they would have to have been created from you. Whatever created them probably used the DNA left in your bodies and created them, which is why they were found on your graves and why the dirt appeared to be boiling. Did it look like some of the ground had disappeared?” “Yes, it looked like the ground above the graves had dropped a couple of inches.” Josiah asks, closing his eyes as he remembers that day.” “Whatever created them probably used the energy from the earth to make them.” Egon says, turning from the window. “Raymond, can you access your address book from the PDA and send e-mail?” “Yeah Egon, I update it once a week. All my current e-mail addresses should be in there. Who do you want me to e-mail?” “Rupert Giles if you can reach him, or Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. Those are the two names I hear most often associated with the California Hellmouth.” “Yeah,” Ray says, looking up his address book, “they’re both in here. Do you want to send the message?” Egon nods and takes the PDA, quickly composing a message and then looks up. “Is it possible to send an e-mail from here, or do we have to go back to Denver?” “The boys work from here on their vacations.” Chris says, “you can send a message from your PDA.” “You sound like you’ve had experience doing this?” “Ez used little Ez’s PDA to send the e-mail message that got you here. We’ve been keeping an eye on you, hoping you would be able to help us, after you defeated Gozer in New York.” Egon smiles and hits send, sending the message for help to two e-mail addresses. “Giles, you’ve got an e-mail marked urgent, with a receipt requested.” Xander Harris says as he looks up from the computer. “The subject line says ‘Possible Hellmouth activity in Colorado?’ Xander moves as Rupert Giles drops the books he had been shelving and races across the room to the computer. He drops into the vacated seat and immediately opens the message. “Do you think it’s real, Giles?” he asks, he’s never seen the older man looking so upset. “Yes Xander, I’m almost positive it’s real.” Giles says, quickly composing a return message and sending it off. He reaches up, removes his glasses and polishes them before looking over at the young man standing beside him. “The Council has heard rumors of a Hellmouth in the States like Dr. Spengler described. The Council felt it was just that, rumors, but some of the younger Watchers started investigating the sightings and managed to start a file on it. I know Wesley has a copy of all the research, we were talking one night about it and he told me he had been updating it. And I’ve met Dr. Spengler at a paranormal conference, he’s a prominent parapsychologist, despite his choice in professions, and he’s not the type to make mountains out of molehills.” “Despite his choice in profession?” “Yes, he founded a business after he got kicked out of Columbia. You might have heard of them, they call themselves the Ghostbusters.” “You mean I might get to meet the Ghostbusters?” Xander asks, his eyes wide. “Cool, I wanted to go to New York when I was younger to see if I could catch them in action. Then I found out about the Hellmouth and watching ghosts get caught didn’t seem all that much fun, not when I was busy trying to stay alive.” “Do you want me to call LA for you?” Xander asks, shaking himself out of his funk. “No need Xander, I see he sent the same message to Wesley. We’ll be getting a call from him soon. Keep the cordless phone on you, I expect him to call as soon as he gets the message. I’ll be looking through my books.” Giles says, standing up and heading for the bookcases. Xander looks over at the stacks of books they had been putting away when he’d taken a break to check the beeping computer and, sticking the cordless phone in his pocket, grabs a stack and starts putting them away. “Giles, does this mean we might be going back to the States?” Xander asks as Giles comes back to the table with an armload of books. “Possibly, especially if this is a Hellmouth. The Sunnydale Hellmouth was damaged, but it’s been theorized that a Hellmouth could be drained of its powers, closing it forever. Why, do you miss America?” “No, I can get anything I need over here.” Xander says, shaking his head in denial. “I was just thinking that I’d never left California before Graduation and now I’m living in Jolly Old England.” Xander affects an English accent. “Pip, pip, and Cheerio. Rawther.” Giles can’t help laughing. “Xander, that’s a horrible accent. I promise you, if we do travel to Denver, we’ll try to get in some sightseeing after we take care of the Hellmouth.” The phone in Xander’s pocket rings and he turns it on with a grin. “Hello Wesley,” he says, grabbing a book and putting it on the shelf. “Turning psychic in your old age, Xander?” Wesley asks in the Hyperion Hotel office. Cordelia, hearing the name Xander, makes a mad grab for the phone. “Here, say hello to Cordelia before you give the phone to Rupert or we won’t have any peace from her.” He smiles, handing the phone to the young woman. “Xander, how are you doing?” Cordelia asks her old boyfriend. “Do you know what’s going on? Wes just sat down at the computer, read his e-mail and grabbed the phone from me.” “Yeah Cordy, I do. Giles got an e-mail from somebody he knows who says they’ve found a Hellmouth outside of Denver.” “Damn, I was afraid it was something like that. Can you put us on speakerphone on your end?” Cordelia switches the phone on her end and minute later Giles and Xander’s voices are heard in the office. “Hello Wesley, I told Xander you’d be calling the minute you got the message.” “Do you think it really is the Hellmouth from the legends?” “All the facts fit. You’re going to Denver, right?” “Of course! You?” “Just as soon as I can make the travel arrangements for myself and Xander. I promised him we could do some sightseeing after dealing with the Hellmouth, he’d never left California before we left Sunnydale.” “Who is Dr. Spengler, the name sounds familiar?” Angel asks, reading the e-mail over Wesley’s shoulder. “You might know of his profession more readily, Angel. He’s one of the members of a paranormal company based in New York. They call themselves the Ghostbusters.” “Oh jeez, you mean they’re real?” Spike asks, rolling his eyes. “I thought they were about as real as Ms. Cleo and her psychic network.” “They’re real, yes.” Wesley says, “Giles and I had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught them in action. It was rather intense, one of them nearly got taken out by a fledgling during the fracas but a hockey stick to the head distracted him long enough for Giles to stake him. I don’t think any of them even noticed how close they had been to being attacked by a vampire. Or at least I didn’t until I got a note from them later thanking us for the assist.” “Did you send them everything you had on that legendary Hellmouth?” Giles asks, looking up as Xander waves an itinerary in front of his face. He hands over his credit card and Xander buys the tickets. “I don’t have it on a computer, otherwise I would have. I’ll bring it with me tomorrow.” “We’ll be leaving in a couple of hours and arrive at 8 tomorrow morning in Denver.” Giles says, “We’ll sleep on the plane. Xander just sent an e-mail telling them when we’d be arriving and they said somebody would be picking us up.” “Okay, Cordy just got me a flight arriving in Denver at seven.” Wesley says, “I’ll let you go so you can pack what you need and I’ll see you in the morning.” “Xander,” Cordy orders before Wesley hangs up. “Yeah Cordy?” “Think you can come see me before you go back to England? I know it would be hard, being this close to Sunnydale, but I’d like to see you and I think Joyce would too.” “Where is Joyce now?” “She left Sunnydale after the funerals.” Cordy says softly, “She said she couldn’t stand being on the Hellmouth anymore. She’s opened a Gallery a couple blocks from us.” Back in Four Corners Egon looks at the PDA as the e-mails from Wesley and Giles confirming their arrivals in Denver reach his inbox. “They’ll be arriving tomorrow, Winston, with all the information they have on a legendary Hellmouth. They’ve also got an idea on how to close the Hellmouth permanently by draining its energy.” “Who am I picking up?” “Remember the two gentlemen at the last paranormal conference we attended? They clobbered a fledgling vampire who was about to attack you with a hockey stick, distracting him long enough to stake him.” “Oh yeah, I remember them now. What do they do, anyway? They didn’t seem to fit in with the other people attending the conference. I got the idea they thought half of them were flakes. Of course, I thought half of them were flakes too, so they were in good company.” Winston grins, remembering the two stuffy British men in tweed who’d been caught in the crossfire of a class five attack on the conference. The younger man had swung a mean hockey stick. “They were involved in training the Slayer who died during that Ascension last year. Giles returned to England with a young protégé of his while Mr. Wyndham-Pryce moved to Los Angeles.” “Damn, that was a pretty nasty fight. From what I heard, over a hundred people died, most of them teenagers who were attending graduation.” “Yes, including his Slayer and most of her friends. From what I read, they stopped the Ascension by blowing up the High School.” “What teenager hasn’t wanted to blow their school up?” Peter says, “But I’ve never heard of anybody actually doing it.” “The town mayor had turned himself into a hundred foot tall snake demon, Peter,” Egon says, rolling his eyes, “They blew up the school to destroy him. Unfortunately, the Sunnydale Hellmouth was right under the school, they were lucky it didn’t open again in the explosion.” “If Mr. Giles knows of a way to permanently close Hellmouths, why didn’t he close his?” JD asks, not understanding. “The Sunnydale Hellmouth has been damaged and is unstable. All they can do is try to keep it from opening and destroying everything.” “And since our Hellmouth, if it is a Hellmouth, is stable, appearing and disappearing at regular intervals, it is possible that it easily could be drained.” “Exactly.” Egon smiles. “Hey guys, it looks like it’s calming down out there.” Ray calls from the window. He’s got a PKE meter in his hand, staring at the readouts. “All the sensor readings are rapidly approaching normal.” Chris walks through the door, standing outside a minute before allowing the others to come out. “Ozone,” Peter says, sniffing the air. “Did anybody see any lightning?” “No, but the sensors would have detected it if there was any.” Egon says, heading for the computers. “It also could be energy build-up from the Hellmouth.” “Egon, what time are the flights coming in?” “Mr. Giles flight is coming in at 8:30 in the Virgin Airs terminal. Give them a half-hour to go through customs. Mr. Wyndham-Pryce’s United flight gets in at 8:15.” “Okay, I’ll pick him up first, pick the other two up when they clear customs, and head back here. Anything you want me to pick up while I’m in Denver?” “I’ll get a list together before you leave.” Egon says, pulling up the sensor data. “Ask Peter and Ray if they need anything.” “Sure thing. Would you believe it’s only 5:30? That storm/whatever only lasted an hour. It felt like forever.” Winston looks out the window to see JD and Buck brushing sand off the tarp and pulling the food from the coals. Nathan takes the food and heads back to the Clinic. “I’ll stop at the grocery store on the way back and get in a load of food. No need for them to be feeding another three mouths for as long as it takes us to fix this. And I don’t plan on leaving until we do fix this. Call Janine when you get to town and tell her not to schedule any cases for the next two weeks.” “You okay, Petey?” Winston asks as he comes into the room and stares out the window. Peter looks over, his eyes haunted. “They must have been going through hell all this time.” Peter says, staring at nothing. “They’ve been tied to this place for a hundred and twenty-five years until they finally got a chance at salvation and now their children are lying there unconscious and they can’t do a thing about it.” “No, but we can.” Egon says, putting his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “And we won’t stop until the Hellmouth is closed permanently and the kids are awake.” Peter blinks as his sight begins to cloud over. Egon, recognizing the signs of a psychic episode, leads him to a chair. Peter begins to smile broadly as he sees a different Four Corners, lightly dusted from a recent snowfall. The inside doors of the saloon are shut against the weather, but he can see inside and finds a pot of fish chowder cooking slowly on the stove as the doors upstairs open and a yawning Ezra Standish, who he immediately recognizes as the man currently unconscious in the clinic stumbles down the stairs, heading for the bar and two men currently wrestling in front of it. “Why are the two of you disturbing me at this ungodly hour of the morning?” He asks through a huge yawn as he steps over them on his way to the coffee pot. Another door opens upstairs and Ezra Sr. comes down the stairs, scowling at the clock over the bar. Little Ez rolls his eyes and calmly points at Buck and JD. “We were wondering if you wanted to join the rest of us on a ride later today. We’re going to find a Christmas tree for the Saloon while Vin and his dad go to the river and get a last batch of fish before the river freezes.” The door across the room opens and a small figure throws itself across the room, landing on the middle of the pile. “Whoof, you’re getting heavy there Adam,” Buck says, picking up the young boy and holding him over his head. “Daddy says to tell you two to quit your damn fussing, you’re worse than your fathers ever could be, leave Ez and his dad alone they’ve got a lot of baking to do before we go pick up the others at the airport tomorrow, and get your asses outside before he shoots you.” Adam says, grinning. He blinks, finding himself back in the hotel room, with Egon and Vin standing over him. “Can you tell us what you saw?” Vin asks quietly when he sees Peter is awake again. “Four Corners, about five, six months from now.” Peter says, blinking as he remembers the vivid images from the vision. “Buck and JD were wrestling in the saloon, Ez and his father came downstairs wondering why they were, and I quote, ‘disturbing them at such an ungodly hour of the morning?’ Buck and JD asked if they wanted to join them on a ride later to find a Christmas tree for the Saloon while you and your son went to get another load of fish from the river before it froze over. Adam came into the room with a message from his dad, telling JD and Buck to quit bothering Ez and his dad, they had a lot of baking to do, they were worse than their fathers had ever thought to be, and to get their asses outside before he shot them.” “Oh yeah, that’s definitely a message from the Cowboy.” Vin smirks, “I can almost see him sitting outside glaring at the boys. Get JD and Buck together when they’re not working, and they just love to fuss, fight, and bedevil each other. Just like their fathers. If everybody wasn’t so damn worried right now about the Hellmouth and the kids, Buck and JD would be bugging each other just like you and Ray do. Thanks for letting me know everything’s going to turn out okay.” Whistling, Vin leaves the hotel to spread the news of Peter’s vision to the others. “Buck, grab JD, Chris, and Josiah will you? I’ve got something everybody needs to hear.” He says, heading for the Clinic. Nathan and Ezra are there like he thought they’d be and he grins, dropping into his usual chair and leaning back on two legs. “What are you grinning about?” Nathan asks, looking up from washing JD’s face after feeding him. “Peter has visions just like James does.” Vin says, “I walked into him having one in the hotel, he saw four corners about six months from now.” “And?” “Buck and JD were fussing and fighting in the Saloon until they woke Ez and Little Ez up, wanting to know if they wanted to join the others looking for a Christmas tree. Me and Vin were off getting a last batch of fish before the river froze, and Chris sent Adam in with a message telling JD and Buck to leave Ez and Little Ez alone, they had a lot of baking to do that day, they were worse than their fathers had ever thought of being, and to get their asses outside before he shot them.” The rest of the seven smile at the news. Winston wakes up at five the next morning, grinning at Ray who hands him a cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. “You and Petey give Egon your list of stuff you wanted when I was in town?” He asks, looking over at the snoring blanket covered lump that is Venkman in the mornings. “Yeah, we gave him our lists last night before I got Peter to go to bed. You hear about the vision he had?” “Yeah, good news. Sounds like once the Hellmouth is closed, the kids will wake up okay.” “Yeah, I filled your thermos with coffee, took Ecto-1 out of the stable and turned her around so she’s heading out, and I thought you could stop for breakfast at that café about an hour out of Denver.” “Sounds good to me.” Winston says, standing up, stretching, and pulling on his clothes. He takes the flashlight and thermos from Ray with a grin and climbs behind the wheel, quietly leaving Four Corners so he doesn’t wake anybody else up. Once he pulls over the top of the hill, he turns the radio on low for noise and pours himself a cup of coffee. An hour later, he pulls into the café they had passed on the way in; already open for business despite the fact it’s only a little past six in the morning. “Good morning sir, can I take your order?” The waitress behind the counter asks as he takes a seat. “Yeah, give me the farmers breakfast special.” Winston says, looking quickly at the menu, “with scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausage, a glass of orange juice, and toast.” “Certainly Sir, is there anything else I can help you with?” “Can you tell me when the supermarket will be open?” “Not for a couple hours sir.” “I’ll stop in on the way back, then.” “Have you moved into the area recently?” The waitress asks, putting his food in front of him. “No, I’m staying nearby to help to help somebody out.” Winston says, looking up as everybody in the restaurant straightens up. He’s just beginning to wonder if he’s in trouble when a middle-aged Indian male, black hair just beginning to show some gray, and a younger man enter the restaurant. “It’s okay, everybody.” The older man says, smiling at Winston, “The guardians called him and his partners in to help the children.” Everybody in the restaurant relaxes and begins to smile. “How are they doing?” the younger man asks, sliding into the seat beside Winston. “The kids are still unconscious, but my partner had a vision yesterday showing everything back to normal in six months.” “That’s good, why are you headed to Denver this early in the morning?” “We’ve got a couple experts on Hellmouths arriving in about an hour. Oh, that reminds me I need to call the office in New York and tell our receptionist not to make any appointments until further notice.” “Here, use my phone.” The older man says, handing it over. “Oh, I’m James, the current Shaman of the tribe, and this is Chanu.” “It’s long distance, man, I can’t put that kind of charge on your phone.” “Ahh, the tribe has three Casinos in Colorado alone that will pay for it. Besides, you are helping the Guardians and the tribe is honor bound to give you any assistance necessary.” Winston dials headquarters, leaving a message for Janine on the answering machine, and hands the phone back. Winston finishes his meal and accepts a refilled thermos of coffee for the road when the Waitress waves off his attempt to pay. “The meals on the house, anything for those who are helping the Guardians.” The waitress says smiling. “Will you give Vin a message for me?” Chanu asks, following Winston out of the café. “Please tell him I’m glad it’s nearly over, and I did teach his son that stunt.” Chanu gives Winston an evil smirk, one he recognizes instantly, having seen it on his brothers and sisters numerous times, the look that says ‘I finally got the bastard back’. “Tell him, payback’s a bitch and revenge is a dish best served cold.” “I take it he knows what stunt you’re talking about?” “Ohh, yeah.” Chanu smiles, “He knows exactly what I’m talking about.” Winston gets behind the wheel again, and arrives at the airport a half-hour before the flight from LA is due. He grabs the signs from the back seat Ray had made last night and checking the boards to find what gate the plane’s arriving at, stops to buy the paper. Twenty minutes later they announce the flight from LA is arriving and Winston stands up, holding the sign up so Wesley will see it when he gets off. He’s shocked when he sees the man walking over. Gone is the tweed jacket, replaced by a leather knee length black duster over jeans and a white shirt. Only the glasses are the same as he remembers. “Hello Mr. Zeddemore, it’s nice to see you again.” Wesley shakes his hand firmly. “When are Xander and Giles due in?” “Their flight arrives in ten minutes,” Winston says, looking at his watch, “By the time your luggage arrives, they should be getting through Customs.” “Actually,” Wesley says, “I only have these two carry-on bags. I normally ride a motorcycle, I’ve learned to pack everything I need in as small a bag as possible.” “I never would have figured you for a motorcycle.” Winston says, shaking his head. “Last time I saw you, you were wearing Tweed and, if you’ll pardon the expression, had a stick so far up your ass it made your backbone look like it was made of macaroni. What happened?” “I grew up.” Wesley says, shrugging, “I met the Slayer and her friends and realized that a proper British gentleman wouldn’t be able to help her, so I started changing. I loosened up, got rid of all the tweed, and started to learn how to fight. After she was killed,” Wesley closes his eyes, and hangs his head remembering the brave young girl he had worked with so briefly, “I joined a couple of other people helping out people in LA. We currently run a detective Agency called Angel Investigations.” “And Mr. Giles?” “He moved back to England, there was nothing left in Sunnydale for him after the Slayer died, taking with him one of the Slayer’s friends who survived the battle. Another friend, who hadn’t been injured in the fight, moved to LA after the battle and currently works for us as a receptionist. Giles and Xander do research for a number of people, including the Agency and the Council.” They walk to the customs area, finding Xander waiting for Giles to finish up the paperwork. “Xander!!!” “Hey Wesley, good to see you again.” Xander says, getting to his feet and limping towards the other man. Winston sees his leg is encased in a heavy brace and he’s leaning heavily on a cane as he grabs the older man in a fierce hug. “How are you feeling Xander?” “Tired, it was a damn long flight.” Xander says as Giles walks over, pushing a cart with their bags. “Hello Wesley, Mr. Zeddemore, good to see you again.” “Good to see you again, Mr. Giles. I hope you two can help us out here.” “I’ll be glad to help.” Giles says, patting a bag, “I spent most of the time before our flight looking stuff up in our books. Thank goodness Xander took care of packing our clothes, otherwise I’d be wearing this outfit,” pointing down at a pair of sensible shoes, tan pants, and a white shirt, “for the next two weeks.” Winston helps Xander put the bags in the back of Ecto-1 as Giles and Wesley go over the files Wesley brought with him, including some new information he’d found last night in some new books he’d recently gotten. “Guys, I have a couple stops to make before we head for Four Corners.” Winston, says, looking back in the rear-view mirror, “I’ve got a list of stuff the guys asked me to pick up for them in Denver. And we’re going to be stopping for lunch and a load of groceries about halfway to Four Corners.” “Is Four Corners a real Ghost town?” Xander asks, perking up. He’d been airsick most of the flight from England, despite the medication he’d taken, and he’s beginning to get interested in his surroundings. “Real live ghost town, complete with no running water, no indoor plumbing, no electricity except for what we get using our solar-powered generator, and no telephones.” Winston says, grinning at the younger man. He reminds him of Ray, the same type of energetic eagerness, and he hopes to never see the devastated look in Ray’s eyes he’s seen in Xander’s eyes when he’d first laid eyes on Wesley at the airport. Winston quickly runs in and gets the stuff on the list, including three 24-roll packages of toilet paper and soap for Peter, and they leave Denver behind them an hour later. Wesley, Giles, and Xander stop at a local second hand store, buying old clothes to wear in Four Corners. “Last stop for running water and a flush toilet.” Winston says, pulling up in front of the café two hours later. “We’re going to be eating lunch here and getting a load of groceries to take with us.” Xander immediately heads for the bathroom, joining the others at a table a couple minutes later. He’d finally felt like eating again after the long flight, and Giles smiles to see him acting like a teenager again. “Ahh, it’s good to see a young man enjoying his food.” The waitress smiles and pinches Xander’s cheek, “And would any of you be interested in dessert as well?” “No thank you, I’m stuffed.” Xander says, “I think I’ve eaten more today than I have the last week. I didn’t think I would ever be hungry again after that flight.” “I’m sorry, Xander, I’d forgotten just how badly you react to air travel.” “That’s okay, G-man, so did I. And it’s not like my parents would have ever taken me anywhere that meant more than five minutes driving, let alone flying anywhere.” “Hopefully the weather won’t be as bad coming back as it was flying in.” “If it is, I might take the stewardesses up on the tiny liquor bottles they kept offering us.” “Xander!!!” “Just kidding, G-man. With my family history, booze is the last thing I’m going to be relying on to keep me from urping all over the place.” “Sir, the Grocery store has your order boxed up and in your vehicle. We’ve also filled your gas tank and checked all the fluids.” “Guys, you ready?” Winston asks, getting up from the table. “Yes please, I’d like to be able to find out a little more about the Hellmouth.” Wesley says, getting up and heading for the bathroom before they leave. “We’ve had legends of a Hellmouth that appeared and disappeared, but most of the council considered it just that, a legend.” Two hours later, Winston arrives in Four Corners. Xander’s the first one out of the car and he stands staring at his surroundings, slowly turning around to take in everything. “Xander, come help us carry stuff in. You can gawk later.” Giles says, nudging Xander when the younger man stays in place for a couple minutes. “I’ve been here before.” Xander breathes, his voice barely above a whisper. “I know this place. I used to play over there,” he says pointing over to the Clarion building, “While I was waiting for ma to finish work.” Chris had come up to help unload the car when he hears the barely audible words. He stops and stares at the young man, recognizing him instantly. “Billy???” “Mr. Larabee!!” Xander turns around, and moving as fast as his leg will carry him, throws himself into Chris’s arms. “Who’s Billy?” Giles, Wesley, and Winston ask in unison. “Billy Travis was the son of Mary Travis, the owner of the Clarion.” JD says, coming up with Vin and Buck. “She was a pistol, tall, blond, and had a temper that would rival Chris’s. I think she was sweet on Chris, and I think Chris liked her, but they got along like oil and water. They fought constantly. She was a widow, her husband left her the newspaper when he was shot investigating a story, and she sent her son Billy, who was around Adam’s age, to live with his grandparents. Billy came to visit her one time and ended up staying. Chris kinda looked after him like a second son.” “Fascinating, a past life memory. It must have been triggered by the sight of Four Corners.” Egon says, watching as Xander shakes his head clear of the clouds and begins grabbing stuff to take inside. “Or it might have been exposure to the Hellmouth.” Giles says, “Especially if Xander, or Billy rather, were here when the Hellmouth was active earlier. Xander spent his entire life on the California Hellmouth and has been affected by it.” “Oh Vin,” Winston says, grabbing a package of toilet paper and throwing it at Peter, snickering when it bounced off his head, “I have a message for you from Chanu?” Winston stares at Vin, who’s suddenly gone white as a sheet. “Did I say something wrong?” “Please tell me what this Chanu looked like?” Vin asks, blinking as Winston recounts his encounter at the restaurant. “What did he have to say?” “He says he’s glad it’s nearly over, and you’re right, he did teach your son that stunt. Something about payback being a bitch and revenge being a dish best served cold.” Buck and JD, hearing the second message, fall down laughing hysterically. “Care to share the joke?” “Chanu was my blood brother, he died nearly a hundred years ago.” Vin says, rolling his eyes at his laughing brothers, “As for what he’s getting even with me for, he was the Chief’s heir and would need a wife to bear him a son. He’d had a wife once, but she was killed by her father for being pregnant with a half-Indian baby, and he didn’t want to get married again. I knew he would need an heir, and I knew the perfect woman to be the baby’s mama, so I went to his father and suggested it. Before Chanu knew it, he and Singing Stone were married and nine months later she bore him twin sons.” “So, he’s getting even for you going behind his back and marrying him off like that?” “That, and while he liked Singing Stone, and she liked him, and gave him a huge family of children, they got along like Chris and Mary and were constantly fighting. I made the mistake one day of saying in his hearing that watching him and Singing Stone going at it made me glad I wasn’t planning on getting married, and . . .” “And he decided that he was going to get even?” Winston grins. Vin nods. “Yeah, that explains the look on his face when he gave me the message. That ‘I’ve finally got the bastard’ look I’ve seen on my brothers and sisters faces when they’re playing a trick on another sibling.” The others enter the Hotel, finding Egon going over the information Wesley brought with him while Xander puts their stuff away. “Fascinating, I wonder why the Council never bothered to see if this was possible.” “That’s because the Council, for the most part, are hide-bound idiots.” Giles says dryly. “They would rather focus their attention on the Slayer instead of investigating other paranormal occurrences.” JD looks up as Xander sits down, beginning to loosen the brace. “Can you tell us what a Slayer is for those of us who are out of the loop?” “The Slayer is a young girl whose job it is to destroy vampires and demons. They have enhanced strength, speed, healing, the ability to sense vampires, and the knowledge of all weapons and fighting styles. The Council controls the Slayers, sending them out to fight vampires under the direction of their Watchers, field agents of the Council whose job it is to train the Slayer. Slayers under the Council’s thumb generally are under the total control of their Watcher and have no life outside of fighting. There can only be one Slayer at a time, when one is killed in battle, another is called to take her place. Giles and Wesley were both Watchers, but unlike most of the assholes on the Council, they actually cared for Buffy, allowed others to fight with her, and allowed her to have a normal life until she was killed last year when the Mayor of our town became a 100 foot tall demon and tried to kill everybody during our graduation. Did I miss anything important?” Xander asks tiredly. “Headache?” Giles asks, reaching into his bag for a prescription bottle and offering Xander a pill. “Yeah, a bad one.” Xander says, taking the pill and washing it down with a bottle of pop. “Sorry about that everybody, it was a long plane ride, I didn’t get much sleep because I was too busy being airsick, and my leg is killing me.” “Why don’t you try to get some sleep Xander?” Giles asks, helping the younger man up and leading him to a bed. “A couple hours sleep should help the headache.” “Thanks, Giles.” Xander says, his eyes already closing as Giles pulls a light blanket over him. Peter watches the younger man sleep for a moment before turning his attention back to Giles. “The kid’s hurting in there, and it’s not just his leg or a headache.” He says. Winston nods his head, remembering the look in Xander’s eyes when he’d greeted Wesley at the airport. “I’m afraid not,” Giles says, taking off his glasses to polish the lenses, “Xander has been battling a huge case of survivor’s guilt every since Graduation last year. He was injured early in the fight when a wall collapsed on his leg; I stayed with him and Cordelia to get them to safety. The others were killed during the battle. He blames himself for their deaths, feeling that if he had been there, things might have been different. I feel though, that if he had been there, he would have been one of those killed. The fact that he wasn’t able to attend Willow and Buffy’s funerals because he was still in the hospital is part of his pain. Going to England with me has helped a little, but I’m afraid coming to another Hellmouth has brought it all back for him.” “Want me to talk with him? I’m a psychologist as well as a Ghostbuster, I’ve helped a few people deal with some tough stuff in their lives.” “I can help too,” Winston says, “I’m a Vietnam vet, I’ve seen a few cases of Survivor’s Guilt over the years.” “I can help as well,” Josiah rumbles, “I was a priest for a number of years until I could no longer turn the other cheek. I can’t allow any living animal to suffer pain when I can ease it.” “Josiah, have you ever left Four Corners in the last 30 years? I knew a guy in Vietnam who looked a lot like you, he helped counsel a lot of the kids out there.” “I’m afraid not, brother Winston, but the man you knew must have been a good man for you to remember him so fondly.” “Thank you Gentlemen, I think of Xander as a son and seeing him in this much pain is rather hard for me to take.” “What about his parents?” “His parents are abusive alcoholics and never bothered to contact him since he left the hospital. Indeed, they packed up his belongings and put them on the curb the first night when the hospital didn’t believe he’d survive his injuries. A couple friends of ours found them before something happened to them and I had them shipped to England with my belongings. He lived with me until we could get him to England on a work visa.” “That reminds me, I heard from Oz this morning before I got on the plane.” Wesley says, pulling a letter from his pocket. “According to his letter, he’s been in Tibet and just found out what happened. The letter took about a month to get to me, and he said he’d be leaving for the States about a month after that.” “Thank you Wesley, I believe Xander will be glad to hear from Oz again.” Giles takes the letter and places it on the nightstand beside Xander so he’ll see it the minute he’s awake. “Was what Xander said the truth, the Council would rather send children to their deaths than investigate other phenomena? And you two were Watchers?” “Yes, Xander was correct. When the Council first started training Slayers, the average age of a Slayer was eight years old and if the lasted a month, it was a miracle. Gradually, the age of Chosen Slayers started to edge up and now, Slayers are usually in their mid-teens when Chosen. Buffy was 15 when she was Chosen; she was the longest living Slayer in history, dying just after her 18th birthday. Most Slayers were immediately taken from their families when they were chosen, Buffy refused to leave her mother, and when she became my Slayer after moving to the Hellmouth, I allowed her to have as normal a life as possible.” “When she became your Slayer?” Josiah asks, “I take it then that you weren’t the first one to train her?” “No, her first Watcher was a man named Merrick, who found her just after she had been Chosen. He started her training and was killed by a Master Vampire named Lothos. Buffy later killed Lothos and after burning down the school gym that was filled with vampires, she was expelled from School and the Council pulled strings to get her and her mother to Sunnydale. I met her the first day of School when she came to the Library after hearing of a body found drained of blood and stuffed in a locker. She didn’t want anything to do with being a Slayer after leaving Los Angeles, but she found out that, as trite as it sounds, being the Slayer wasn’t just a job, but rather a destiny.” “I take it this is not normally how it’s done.” Peter says dryly, leaning his head in his hand. “What, allow the Slayer to actually think for themselves and not be perfect little soldiers? Oh no, of course they can’t do that. I was considered a Rogue Watcher because I allowed Buffy to have friends and a life, imagine the horror if they knew the Slayer actually allowed other people to work with her.” Giles says, dropping briefly into Ripper mode. “Wesley was sent to the California Hellmouth to take over Buffy’s instruction when I was fired by the Council, he was the tantamount caricature of a Watcher, stick up his ass, no sense of humor, and quoting the Council every step of the way. Until his first day on the Hellmouth anyway, then he started to think for himself.” “Can you tell me a little about how you think a Hellmouth can be closed by draining it?” “According to some of our oldest books,” Wesley says, pulling a photocopy out of his briefcase, “A Hellmouth is a pool of energy. If that energy is breached, the Hellmouth opened as it were, the veils between the dimensions would be destroyed and Hell would literally come to earth. The Sunnydale Hellmouth, being so damaged, continually drew demons and vampires to it like a moth to a flame. Now your Hellmouth, since it’s stable, the energy feeding it can be diverted, and once it’s diverted, the Hellmouth basically goes Poof, to quote Xander.” “How do you plan on draining the Hellmouth?” “I believe, that since the seven of you and the children are tied to the Hellmouth, you will be able to touch that energy. If you can find something to store the energy for your use . . .” “Like the Magic series by Mercedes Lackey, when they create Heartstones?” JD asks, breaking in excitedly. Giles looks completely lost, but Wesley nods his head. “Exactly. The Heartstone would contain the pure energy, and allow it to be tapped by the seven of you and your children. Once the energy is transferred into a suitable container, both Wesley and I will lay a series of protective spells on the area. You would still be tied to the land, but you’d be able to come and go as you please.” “I’ve always wanted to see Paris,” Ezra says, eyes glowing, “Maybe in February, when the weather outside is the worst.” “Why do you believe that we’re tied to the Hellmouth?” JD asks, he’d been wondering about that. They seem so sure of that. “It’s easy enough to explain how the children are tied to the Hellmouth. They were created by the energies of it, that’s why they’re in a coma right now, the Hellmouth is becoming active, that’s why the lights started appearing, and are appearing more frequently as the day it’s scheduled to open comes closer . . .” “Like a puppy will whine, move, and kick before it wakes up?” “Exactly. As for how we can tell you are tied to the Hellmouth, your deaths closed it the last time, that’s how you became the Guardians of the land. And since the seven of you are so closely linked to Four Corners, the Hellmouth’s energies are keeping everything preserved. That’s why the . . .” “The tornado,” Ray says excitedly, “Mary writes in her journal that the tornado skipped right over the town.” “Exactly, and Peter? You’ve been affected by the Hellmouth yourself, correct?” Giles says, looking at the dark-haired Ghostbuster. “Yeah, I’ve been having more visions since I arrived in town. And not just visions of the future, I walked into the schoolhouse earlier to return Winston’s book and see if there was anything I wanted to read, and I had a vision the minute I entered the room.” “Tell us what you saw?” Vin asks. Peter looks at him and begins laughing. “It was horrible,” he says through his chuckles. “Ezra was standing at the blackboard writing something, and the kids were sitting across the room in a row of student desks. Buck was on one end, JD was on the other end, and Buck was leaning back with a slingshot trying to hit JD with what looked like a tiny pebble. He leaned back too far and the chair fell over with a loud crash. Josiah sighed while Nathan and Vin laughed and Chris gave him his best version of the Larabee glare, JD stuck his tongue out at him, Ezra pinched the bridge of his nose and started counting to ten in French after telling Buck to sit back up and pay attention. You were there too, laughing in the corner?” “Another typical day trying to teach the children.” Ezra says, rolling his eyes. “Do you know of a way to make sure that we’re not bothered by either the state trying to take the land or people wanting to buy the land to develop it?” JD asks, getting back to something he’d been thinking about for a while. ”We were thinking of having this declared a historical landmark, but there’s too much paperwork and no way to document the history of the area.” “I can think of a couple ideas,” Xander says, limping back into the room. Giles immediately gets to his feet and helps the younger man to a seat. Peter and Josiah both see how he clings to Giles before turning his attention back to the others. “There’s a booming industry out there for ‘working vacations’, where people take time off to work on sailing ships, go to dude ranches and help rustle cattle, etc. I can imagine there’s probably quite a few people out there who would love to spend the night in a Ghost town, followed by a tour the next day before they left. You could furnish dinner when they arrived and breakfast the following day, but you’d have to be licensed by the state and there’d be all sorts of stuff to go through to make the state happy. If you really want to make sure the land is left alone, I think I can help you.” Xander says, waving the letter in his hand. “How?” “Oz is a hacker, I guarantee he can hack into all the databases to show that the area is on the Superfund Database as a hazardous waste site, one that couldn’t be cleaned without a lot of work and money. Any developer looking at the land would find that and run away as fast as possible. And the state wouldn’t touch it either.” Xander says, smirking. “Won’t the government come after us to clean up the site?” “They won’t come after you because the Superfund won’t know you exist. The file he’ll create won’t actually be linked to anything official.” Xander smirks, “Oz showed me how it’s done once, using my school records as an example. They showed me as an exchange student from Sweden arriving in Sunnydale for my junior year. The school even sent Oz’s family a packet of information as my host family until we removed it from the system.” “Would your friend Oz do it without asking too many questions?” Peter asks. “Oz is a werewolf,” Xander says, “he knows what it’s like to keep a secret from others. He’s also from Sunnydale, the knows how dangerous a Hellmouth can be and will want to keep it protected.” “Your friend sounds like an interesting young man, I’d love to meet him.” Peter says grinning, “How did he become a werewolf?” Xander grins even wider if possible. “He got bit by his cousin, who was two years old at the time. He didn’t know he was a werewolf until the next full moon. When we were in school, Oz used to lock himself in Giles Book cage until he left school just before our senior year to travel. He’d found information saying it was possible to control the transformations.” “Your friend is most definitely an interesting young man,” Josiah smiles, “I would be honored to meet him.” “You remind me of him a lot,” Xander says, looking at Josiah’s kind eyes, “He was the most calm, easygoing man I know. Everything rolled off him like water off a duck’s back. He didn’t speak a lot, unlike me who babbles constantly,” Peter grins at that remark. “No, really?” he says, grinning to take the sting out of his words. “Oh yeah, Oz is the ultimate zen type personality. If somebody dropped a nuke in his lap, he’d just blink and say ‘cool’.” Xander smiles. “Definitely sounds like you, Josiah.” Chris says, smiling. “Yeah, but he has his wilder side, he’s just low-key about it. He dyes his hair constantly, last time I saw him, it was a dark purple. And he played guitar in a local rock band, ‘The Dingoes at my baby. And he’s a good man to have at your back. Once he starts something, he works a hundred percent at it until it’s done.” “Oz intends to come to work for Angel Investigations when he returns to the states.” Wesley says, making a note on his PDA, “I’ll tell him what’s going on and see if he can start it immediately.” Something starts beeping from the room where the Ghostbusters set up their equipment and Egon immediately gets up to investigate. Xander gets up, leaning on the cane, and begins to walk over to the window. “Anything important?” “I had a program running that would extrapolate when the next occurrence would happen. According to the program, after entering all the data I had at the time, we should be getting another display of lights later tonight around sunset.” Peter turns the camp stove on low, setting a kettle on top. He’s busy cutting meat for a stew when he looks up to find Xander’s pulled a stool over and is busy chopping vegetables. “You look like you’ve had a lot of experience doing that.” Peter says, turning the meat as it cooks. “I had a lot of jobs as a short order cook during high school. One of the cooks took me under his wing and taught me a lot about cooking. Good thing too, nobody else in my family knew what the kitchen was used for except as a place to keep the beer cold. If I wanted to eat, I had to cook it myself, not to mention buy what groceries I could afford on my meager salary on top of whatever I needed in the way of school clothes.” Giles closes his eyes, remembering all those times he’d seen Xander wearing old clothes and listening to the girls blather on about a new dress for the dance. “I had wondered why you never seemed to have anything new to wear, Xander. You could have said something, I would have gladly helped you out with school clothes.” “I didn’t dare bring any new clothes into the house Giles, my parents would have scented them out like sharks scent blood on the water and took them to sell for their precious booze. The only new clothes I dared buy was underwear and socks, and that’s only when the old ones were too full of holes to wear anymore. It was enough that you fed me most of the time, if it wasn’t for you and Mrs. Summers, I would have been a lot worse off.” Giles shakes his head sadly, wondering how he had missed what the boy was going through. What else had he hidden behind that goofy smile he always wore? “You ever think about doing something more than having a dead-end job?” Peter asks, trying to draw the young man out. “Growing up on the Hellmouth, you never looked past the next day.” Xander says, shrugging his shoulders. “Out of the 250 kids who started school the same year I did, less than 200 survived to graduate from High School, and of those, only 110 survived the actual graduation.” “My god, what happened?” Josiah asks, crossing himself as he realizes how many people must have died that day. “The Hellmouth happened,” Xander says sadly, “Vampires happened, Demons happened. Sunnydale had the highest fatality rate in the state, and the cops didn’t do a thing about it. People vanished and everybody ignored what was going on in front of them. I was one of them, until my sophomore year of high school. That’s when Buffy moved to Sunnydale and my eyes were opened to what was really happening around me.” “And now that you’re off the Hellmouth?” “I’m doing something I never thought I’d be doing, considering how much trouble I had in High School.” Xander says, while Giles nods vigorously, “I’ve thought about going to college, but since I’m in Britain on a Work Visa, I can’t work and attend University at the same time. I’m still officially a US citizen though, so I could return to the US and attend college in the States, but what school would accept me with my grades?” He says shrugging as Peter pours water into the kettle and he adds the vegetables to cook slowly. “I talked to a college recruiter at school once, and he said with my grades, the only way I would be able to get in would be if somebody would give me a recommendation.” “Well,” Peter says grinning as he looks around the room, “I don’t think we have any lack of people here who wouldn’t be more than happy to give you that recommendation, not to mention talking to the dean of admissions themselves.” Xander looks up in astonishment as everybody in the room nods. “And one of the perks of being a world famous personality is that when you give somebody a recommendation, people tend to sit up and take notice.” “Giles, Wesley, can I ask you guys a favor?” “Sure Xander, of course. Whatever you need.” The two men say in unison. “You guys might want to reconsider that. I need to go back to Sunnydale after this is over.” He says calmly. Giles blinks and closes his eyes, finally realizing why Xander has seemed out of sorts since a letter had arrived by special delivery before they left. “The letter from the states?” “My parents finally succeeded in drinking themselves to death.” Xander says, “I have to come back to settle the estate.” “Of course we’ll help.” Giles says, reaching over and holding his hand to Xander’s face. Xander quietly flinches, but smiles and rubs his face against Giles hand like a cat. Only the seven Peacekeepers hear Giles quietly muttered ‘If your bastard parents weren’t already dead, I would kill them myself for hurting you like this.’ Xander levers himself to his feet, grunting at a twinge in his leg as he heads out of the room for the outhouse out back. Ten minutes later, limping even more heavily, he comes back into the room. Giles immediately hands him the leg brace he’s taken off earlier, and with a sigh, he puts it back on. “Do you wear the brace all the time?” Ray asks, helping to fasten the Velcro fasteners. “No, only when I’ve been on my feet a lot, or like today when I’ve been in one position for a long time and wasn’t able to move around. Thank god Virgin air has seats that transform into beds, flying coach would have been murder on my leg.” Xander says, propping his leg up on a stool with an audible sigh. “Well, we don’t have anything to do tonight, so you can get a good night’s sleep.” Giles says, handing him a bowl of stew along with two thick slices of homemade bread. “I had a thought earlier,” Xander says, putting the empty bowl aside with a sigh. “Do we know where the Hellmouth is actually located here? Can it still be drained if we don’t know the actual location?” “I had thought of that, and yes, we can.” Egon says, lighting a couple lamps as the sun begins to go down. “And if I understand the theory correct, yes. It would be akin water from a flooded basement, we may not know where the water is coming in from, but we can see the water and remove it.” “Exactly, and both Wesley and I can see the water, or in this case energy. We can touch it, and like bailing that flooded basement, we can move the energy and fix the leak.” “Do you need to make any special preparations?” “None. Once we have decided what is going to contain the energy, all we have to do is wait until the Hellmouth is beginning to open, and drain the energy.” “What would we need to contain the energy?” “It can be anything actually, it’s just something to focus on when you’re moving the energy. Ideally, it would be something that can’t be easily destroyed, though once the energy was flowing around it, the energy then could protect it.” “I don’t understand?” “Let me get this one, Giles. You wouldn’t want to make the focus for the energy something that can be destroyed easily, like a piece of paper, cloth, or even this table. But if it’s something like stone or metal, something that isn’t easily damaged, it would ideally stand for years.” Xander says, holding up his hands in demonstration. “Like a building?” “No, that might get torn down or burnt. It doesn’t matter how big the item is, as long as it’s durable. A good-sized stone used as a paperweight, for example would be perfect. Something that ‘s not permanently tied to the land would be perfect, this way it can go with you if you’re forced to leave. According to everything I’ve heard, you still have a week to decide on what you want it to be. “How about the blacksmith’s anvil? It can stand up to anything and, if we need to move suddenly, it’s easy enough to move.” “That sounds perfect. We can look it over tomorrow for faults that might make it unusable, but it sounds like you’ve found the perfect item to use.” Xander looks up as lights begin to appear outside the window. The Ghostbusters grab their gear and head outside, Xander moving as quickly as possible behind them. He stands in the doorway, watching the lights travel through town. This time though, the lights stop in front of the hotel, swirling around Xander, and disappear. “Xander, are you okay?” Peter asks, grabbing the boy by the shoulder and shaking him lightly until his eyes focused on him. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Xander says, as Egon scans him with the PKE meter. “What was that? The lights just surrounded you and then disappeared.” “I’m not sure, but I think it was the Hellmouth saying hello.” The next morning Xander is sleeping in when the Ghostbusters, Giles, and Wesley have a discussion about the previous night’s events. “You said that Xander has been tainted by the Sunnydale Hellmouth?” “Yes, he grew up on the Hellmouth, until moving to England last year. Since the Sunnydale Hellmouth was damaged, it sent energy out continually and it’s changed him over the years.” “How did it change him?” “Xander refers to himself as a ‘demon magnet’ and it’s pretty much the truth. He’s been the ‘object of affection’ of two female demons that wanted to mate with him and then kill him, one was an Inca mummy who pretended to be an exchange student and killed three boys with Xander her next intended victim and a giant preying mantis who pretended to be the French teacher who wanted him to fertilize her eggs and intended to kill him afterwards.” “Damn, Petey, he’s as good as you are at attracting weird women.” Winston grins, remembering a few of Peter’s dates that turned out to be less than expected. “All the women after you were human though, they weren’t wrapped too tightly, but they were human.” “Anything else?” Egon asks, pulling up the readings they’d taken on Xander after the lights incident. “He has been possessed twice, the first time he was on a field trip to the local zoo and ended up possessed by a hyena spirit along with four other boys. The four boys ended up attacking the High School Principal in his office, killing him and eating him. I was able to free Xander and the others, but I wasn’t able to completely free Xander of the Hyena. Instead, I cast a spell that traps the Hyena in his subconscious. The second time was when an old acquaintance of mine opened a costume shop and cast a spell on Halloween that transformed everybody into the costume they were wearing. Xander was wearing a set of army fatigues and became a soldier. Once the spell was broken, everything returned to normal but Xander retained the memories of the soldier the fatigues had belonged to.” “Is that all?” Peter blinks. “No, magic goes funny around him. It either backfires on the caster or it mutates. One time, he was the victim of a love spell that backfired. Another time, he set fire to a book just by touching it. He also has been exposed to chemicals by the coach of the Sunnydale High swim team, who wanted his team to win at all costs. He began to mutate, but a complete blood transfusion removed the residue of the chemicals from his body and he recovered fully.” Giles looks up and smiles at Ray blinking in shock at everything Xander’s gone through in the last few years. “Damn Petey, I thought you were a trouble magnet. The kid’s nearly as bad as you are at getting into trouble.” Chris looks up from cleaning one of the rifles in the jail when a yowl reverberates through the room. Looking over at the cell, he grins when he sees a huge black cat, she’d easily reach his waist standing and probably weighs a couple hundred pounds, settle on the bunk. “Wondered when you were going to show back up, Peso.” He grunts, turning his attention back to the rifle. Five minutes later, the Ghostbusters, followed by Giles, Wesley, and a yawning Xander race into the room. Chris merely grins and points at the purring cat. “Say hello to Peso, we named her after Vin’s horse because they’re both ornery critters when the mood hits them. She showed up about the same time the children did and protects them, when she feels like it anyway.” “Cool, a Hellcat.” Xander says, putting his hand through the bars. Peso looks at the newcomer, decides he’s harmless, he smells like the Hellmouth, and allows him to pet her. She begins purring and Xander, before the others even know he’s moving, walks into the cell and rubs his face against her fur. Moving quickly, she pins him down with a huge paw and begins to wash his face. The giggling Xander allows her to wash his face before she turns him loose. “Like I said, she protects the kids, when she feels like it. She’s always here when the kids are here, so her showing up like this means the kids are going to wake up pretty soon.” Peter suddenly begins snickering, his eyes unfocused. As his vision clouds, he sees a small boy, barely able to walk toddling after the big cat, her big tail held in his chubby grasp. When she lies down on the boardwalk to enjoy the sun, he curls up against her and, plopping his thumb in his mouth, goes to sleep to the amusement of the grownups watching the scene. The clicking of a camera makes her open one eye to glare at the offending adult, how dare he presume to disturb her nap, but she decides she’d have to get up to eat him and closes her eye instead. Peter blinks to see the jail form around him again, Chris grinning from the desk. “What did you see, JD trying to ride her when he was two?” “One of the kids, barely old enough to walk, following her around using her tail as a leash. She lay down on the boardwalk outside the hotel for a nap in the sun, and he curled up on top of her, stuck his thumb in his mouth, and went to sleep too. I didn’t see which adult was present, but somebody was laughing and took a picture. She opened one eye, decided it would be too much of a bother to have to get up and eat him, and went back to sleep.” “That would have been little Ez, that was his favorite spot to take a nap. Ever since he was a baby, he’s been her favorite. Ezzie had colic terrible; we’d all take turns walking the floors with him while Ez tried to get some sleep. One night, we put him down on the bed along with JD and Buck jr. when Peso popped in, wrapped herself around all three of the babies and they instantly stopped crying.” “Can we see the anvil you were talking about last night?” “Sure thing, follow me.” Chris says, putting the cleaned rifle back in the gun case and leads the way to the Smithy. He shows them the huge anvil and Wesley, looking at it with his magic sight, agrees that it would be perfect. “Solid iron, at least two hundred pounds, it’s made to be used and abused. It can’t be damaged easily, and you can even keep using it as it was intended.” He says, seeing the signs of frequent use in the tools. “Whoever made these, intended them to last.” “Back in the old days, things had to be made to last.” Chris says, leading the others out of the Smithy. He passes the Saloon and Peter, seeing Ezra shuffling cards at a table, breaks off from the group and joins him at the table. “Can I join you?” Peter asks, standing beside the table. “Certainly, care for something to drink?” Ezra asks, looking up as his hands continue to shuffle the cards. “I’m fine,” Peter says, patting the water bottle he’d just refilled from the water trough outside. “You know, this brings back memories.” He says, watching Ezra’s hands shuffling. “My dad spent hours trying to teach himself crooked poker hands. He never succeeded. Should have stuck to cheating people out of their money by selling phony certificates or selling them fake stuff. That he’s actually good at.” “Ahh, another victim of parents with ambitions to wealth. And your mother?” “Mom was a saint, she put up with us always having to move when the authorities were after dad. We finally settled down after Dad left us, she made sure I kept my grades up, got after school jobs if I wanted something, and made sure didn’t follow my dad into his life of crime. She died just after I got accepted into Columbia, my only regret is she didn’t get the chance to see me graduate or start the Ghostbusters.” “I have no doubt your mother is currently smiling as she watches you from wherever she is. And your father?” “Still trying to scam people. He shows up every now and then to try to get me involved in one of his harebrained schemes, thinks it’s my duty as a son. He wanted me to leave the others at the beginning, but now he feels that having his son as one of the Ghostbusters lends him credibility. I haven’t seen him since Ray got hurt in one of his scams. He should be showing up anytime when we get back, begging for another chance.” “You still love him, even after he’s hurt you with his actions.” Ezra says, recognizing the signs. “Even though there’s times you can’t stand him, and would dearly love to grab him by the collar and shake him until his teeth rattle, you still love him. You’ve found a new family with your comrades and you resent him for trying to disrupt it with his schemes.” “Sounds like you’re very familiar with that happening.” Peter says, pulling the cap on his water bottle and taking a drink. “Quite,” Ezra says, gold tooth flashing in the light. “In my case however, it was my mother and, unlike you, I wasn’t fortunate enough to have a second parent to try and protect me from the consequences.” “Tell me what happened?” “Mothah went through men like a hot knife through buttah.” Ezra says, his accent thickening as he begins to remember. “She had married five men before I left in my early teens, each more rich than the previous one. The men of course, were enchanted by my mother, but didn’t appreciate having a stepson messing up the works. “I was shuffled from relative to relative, treated like baggage when I did live with them, and would routinely put up with having my name changed to suit my new stepfather and then leaving in the middle of the night when mother took off with his money and other possessions. When we were not with a new mark, mother and I made our money at the gambling tables.” “I bet you and your mother were terrors at the tables.” “Mother has been thrown out of three casinos in Monte Carlo, told never to return after she had been caught cheating. I, however, since we never appeared to be together and they could never catch me cheating, was allowed to stay.” “You don’t have to cheat. I bet the others used to accuse you of it until they realized that you’re just that good a player.” “Quite, I rather enjoyed gambling on the riverboats. I ended up owning one of them, having won it in a game of chance with the owner. I allowed him to buy it back after an unproductive year. The boat was later sunk during the war.” “What finally got out of that life?” “I grew up, and Mother could no longer use me as a cute child in her scams. I struck out on my own, and after the war, started my way west. I finally ended up in Four Corners, and the rest is, as they say, history.” “Did you ever see your mother again?” “Yes, she has shown up in Four Corners over the years trying to get me involved with her scams again. Like your father, she could not believe that I would choose working for a living over one of her scams.” “Well, you know what they say, you can’t choose your parents, but you can choose your friends. And I’d say we’re lucky we have friends who will back us up, no matter what.” Ezra smiles, gets behind the bar, and returns to the table with a dark bottle and pours two glasses. “To family.” He says, raising his glass in a toast. Peter grins, touches the glass with his own, and slowly takes a drink. He smiles, realizing the bottle contains nothing stronger than water. “So, you ever think of, once you’re free of the Hellmouth, going back to Monte Carlo or even Las Vegas and trying your luck in the casinos.” Peter asks, already knowing the answer. “No, I’ve left that life behind me. I think I would like to travel, but after that I plan on returning to Four Corners. I don’t plan on becoming a gentleman farmer, getting dirty is not in my makeup, but I thought I’d like to turn my hand to writing.” “You ever come up with something, I’ve got a line on a publisher if you’d like to get it looked at.” “I’ll keep that in mind, Dr. Venkman. Join me in a hand?” “I thought you said you don’t play anymore?” Peter says, grinning. “Only with my family and friends.” “What is a hellcat anyway?” Egon asks after watching Peter enter the Saloon and begin talking to Ezra. “We’ve had experience with Hell Hounds, but not Hellcats.” “A Hellcat is a highly intelligent supernatural creature. They’re very protective of people they’ve bonded with, and like the higher level, more intelligent Hellhounds, can be trained. Nobody can order them to do something they don’t want to do . . .” “Is there such a thing as a Hellhorse? You’re describing that nag of Vin’s, Peso, to a tee.” “ ‘Ey now, Cowboy. My horse is not a demon, he’s just particular in the company he likes to keep.” Vin says, walking into the jail to avoid disturbing the others. That poor kid Xander is jumpy as it is, and Vin, remembering Billy, wonders what hell that kid must have gone through growing up on an active Hellmouth. “Oh no, Hellhounds, Hellcats, and Hellhorses, yes they do exist, are definitely not demons. They’re anything but, if we were talking about angels, I’d put them in the category of archangels.” “Can they understand English?” “Oh yes, they understand English. They just choose what they want to understand. And like any living thing, if they don’t want to do something, no amount of nagging, pleading, threatening, etc. will make them do it.” “Definitely sounds like Peso, both the cat and the horse.” Chris mutters, remembering Vin’s horse who was as stubborn as a mule with anybody else, but came when Vin whistled, rubbed on him like a cat for attention, and if he didn’t get it fast enough or was just in a piss-poor mood would bite anything in reach, human and animal. “Wait, you mean there’s more than one type of Hellhound?” Egon asks. “Let me guess, you’ve dealt with the ones who are, if you’ll pardon the expression ‘dog soldiers’. They don’t think for themselves, they just do as they are told, and nothing will get in their way between them and their intended target.” Giles says. “Exactly.” “Jasper,” Giles says, throwing back his head, and suddenly what looks like an Irish wolfhound is sitting in Xander’s lap. “Whoof, off Jaspie, you’re too heavy to sit on my lap. Yes, yes, I love you too.” Xander says as a long tongue licks him. Jasper flows to his feet and walks over to Giles, allowing the man to rub his ears. “This Gentlemen, is a Hellhound. His name is Jasper, he’s been protecting me since I was five years old and a member of the Council tried to kidnap me. Jasper saved me from him and has been watching over me ever since. He’s protective of Xander because I’m protective of Xander, and our friends.” “He’s also a damn good judge of character.” Xander says, smirking, “He hates most of the assholes on the Council, jumped on one of them when they came to bitch Giles out after Buffy was killed.” Jasper stiffens and turns towards the door as Peter and Ezra come in, still talking. He leaps on the Ghostbuster, ending up sitting on his lap wagging his huge tail as he licks Peter’s face from collarbone to hairline. “Whaugh.” Peter mumbles under the tonguebath. “Where did you come from?” “Sorry about that Peter.” Egon says, smirking as he helps his friend to his feet. “Giles was telling me the differences between the Hellhounds or Devil Dogs if you will that we’ve fought before and the other breeds.” “Whoa, hold on Egon. Are you telling me this is a Hellhound?” “Yup,” Egon grins as Jasper transforms, “this is a Hellhound. And unlike the ones we’ve fought, they are loyal, intelligent, and, according to Xander, an excellent judge of character.” Jasper barks once and vanishes. “Hmm wonder if I could sic one on Peck?” Peter smirks as he brushes himself off. “Peter, what were you thinking?” Winston asks, hands on his hips. “You want to poison some poor Hellhound? Even them Devil Dogs wouldn’t eat him.” “I take it this guy’s a real jerk?” “Uh, huh, he was with the government and shut down the containment unit, freeing all the ghosts in New York we’d captured. He got fired and blames us and has had it in for us ever since.” “Sounds like Snyder.” Xander says. “Rather.” Wesley and Giles agree. “Who’s Snyder?” “The Sunnydale High School Principal, not the one who got eaten by the boys possessed by the Hyena spirits, but rather the Vice-Principal under him. After Principal Flutey was killed, he was given the job, and as the saying goes ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’. He hated the students and went out of his way to make trouble for them. He ended up being eaten by the Mayor after the transformed into a 100-foot long snake demon.” “Hope the damn bastard got indigestion.” Xander mumbles under his breath. “You said the Council showed up and started bitching Giles out?” Vin asks, leaning against the bars of the cell as Peso lays her head in Xander’s lap, allowing the teenager to pet her. “Yeah, the Council’s upset because they don’t have a Slayer under their control right now. See, Buffy had drowned a couple years ago, but I was able to revive her with CPR. She was only dead a couple seconds, but it was long enough for a new Slayer to be called. A couple months later, we found somebody had appeared on the Hellmouth. It turned out to be Kendra, the new Slayer. The Council hadn’t bothered to tell us a new Slayer had been called, which was a surprise since Buffy was still an Active Slayer. Once everybody figured out that there was two Slayers at once, which didn’t seem possible at the time, Kendra started moving across the country leaving the Hellmouth to Buffy.” “So there are two Slayers, Buffy and this Kendra?” Peter asks, listening to the story. “No, Kendra ended up being killed about a year ago. It’s a long story, but the short version is one of our team is Angel, a 200 year old vampire with a soul. A Gypsy clan cursed him and they gave him a soul. He’s spent the last hundred years or so trying to make amends for all the lives he’s ended. Anyway, we didn’t know it at the time, but the curse had a clause and if at any time he stopped brooding about what he’d done, if he were ever happy, the soul would be gone and the demon would be released.” “What happened?” “He was the Slayer’s boyfriend and they ended up having sex on her birthday. Well, that qualified and poof goes Mr. Broody, hello Mr. Homicidal Maniac. He torments Buffy, ends up killing one of our teachers who it turns out was a member of that tribe and had been sent to Sunnydale to make sure Angel the curse wasn’t broken and calls in demons to help destroy us. Two of his Childer were in town at the time and attacked us in the School Library, which we had used as a base of operations and Training room for Buffy. Kendra had come back to Sunnydale and ended up being killed in the attack.” “What happened after that?” “My best friend Willow was briefly in a coma from the attack, when she recovered, she found a spell to restore Angel’s soul. Angel was trying to open a gate to Hell, I knew Willow was trying to cast the spell to restore his soul, but I didn’t like Angel at the time and told Buffy to kick his ass. He ended up being trapped in the portal to Hell just as Willow cast the spell and gave him back his Soul. So, he ended up trapped in Hell for a couple centuries before somehow showing back up in Sunnydale later that year.” “Buffy ended up running away after that, and the Sunnydale gang spent the summer patrolling while she was away. She returned just after school started again and about a month later, a new Slayer named Faith showed up. Unfortunately, Faith later turned bad, helped the Mayor bring the Ascension around, and poisoned Angel so he couldn’t help us. The only cure for the poison was drinking a Slayer’s blood so Buffy, who still liked Angel even though they’d broken up, allowed him to drink from her.” “And Buffy died during the Ascension, but a new Slayer wasn’t called?” “Right, because though she still was a Slayer, she wasn’t the active one anymore. That’s Faith, who’s still alive but in a coma thanks to Buffy kicking her ass. She’s currently in a Watcher controlled hospital, and they’re bitching because they don’t have a Slayer to control anymore.” “That Council sounds like a bunch of, if you’ll pardon the expression, assholes.” Everybody else in the room nods in agreement. “Yeah, asshole definitely fits their attitude. The Council and Faith deserve each other.” Peso begins purring loudly and reaches up with one dinner-plate sized paw to pat Xander’s face. “Well gentlemen, I was wondering if you were ready for lunch.” Josiah says, entering the Jail. “Let me up Peso,” Xander says, rubbing her head, “I’ve got to go eat.” Peso purrs, sits up, and disappears in midair, reappearing at the foot of Ezra’s bed in the Clinic. Xander rubs his stomach after lunch is over, getting to his feet to walk outside. Standing in front of the hotel, he takes a deep breath of clean air and taking the satellite phone Wesley had loaned him, dials the number from the letter in his hand. “Chester, Oldham, and Perry, attorneys at law.” “Yes, may I talk to Mr. James, please?” “Who may I say is calling please, and in what regards?” “My name is Alexander Harris, and it’s in regards to a letter he sent me about my parent’s estate.” “Please hold.” The secretary says, and buzzes the junior partner. “Yes, Sandra?” “Mr. Alexander Harris is on line one sir, he says it’s in regards to a letter you sent him about his parents estate.” Alex James pulls the file from the organizer on his desk and opens it as he takes the call. “Good afternoon, Mr. Harris, thank you for contacting me so soon. I know you currently live in England, but I need to talk to you about your parents’ estate. How soon do you think you can come to the States?” “I’m currently in Colorado on business right now, Mr. James.” The young voice on the other end of the line says, and with a pang he sees that according to the records the heir is barely nineteen. “But I won’t be able to come to California for a couple of weeks.” “That’s quite okay with me, Mr. Harris, would the tenth of July be okay for you to come in and sign some papers?” “Yes, I believe I can make it in then.” Xander says, and after exchanging some information, hangs up the phone. Sighing, he looks up at the clear blue sky and thinks ‘well, at least that’s done.’ “How long do we have to wait until the Hellmouth opens?” Wesley asks after they gather around the Ghostbusters instruments. “A week from today.” Ray says, “According to our readings, the Hellmouth will start opening sometime around noon. Are there any preparations we’re going to have to make for draining the Hellmouth?” “Iron is frequently used in rituals, so nothing has to be done with the anvil before the energy transfer.” Wesley says, “We won’t be using our personal energies, just directing the Hellmouth’s energy. To put it layman’s terms, it will be like pouring Niagara Falls through a funnel. It’s going to take all our attention to transfer the energy, so please don’t touch us until we tell you it’s over or we collapse. You should be able to track the transfer of energy on your sensors, so you can use those to keep track of our progress.” “Okay, I had a question.” Winston says, looking at the others. “The disturbances we’ve been experiencing. You compared it to a puppy kicking in his sleep before waking up. Now is the kicking going to be increasing the sooner we get to the Hellmouth’s opening, or is it going to be hit and miss, some days worse than others?” “Definitely hit and miss. With our sensors we can keep track of the energy levels. The worse has been the sudden storm that happened the day we sent out the e-mails and the energy levels dropped dramatically after that.” Egon says, bringing up the sensor recordings. Making a graph of the results, you can see the ups and downs of the phenomena. Xander comes into the room, handing the satellite phone over to Wesley with a quick nod of thanks. “I got hold of the lawyer, Giles. I have an appointment to see him the tenth.” “We’ll catch an overnight flight to Sunnydale the night before, Xander.” Wesley says, sending a note to Angel on his PDA. “I’ll have Angel or Spike come pick us up so we don’t have to stay in Sunnydale after dark. If you have to stay in Sunnydale more than the one day, we’ll drive back and forth from LA.” “Is it really that dangerous after dark? I would like to be able to see the differences in readings between a stable Hellmouth and the one you’ve described.” Egon says, looking up. “I’ll make a deal with you. Do you have an extra PKE meter you can let us borrow? We’ll take the meter with us to Sunnydale and take readings both during the day; we might even take a swing around the remains of the old High School and take a reading from right next to the Hellmouth as well as readings at night. Then we’ll fed-ex it back to you. Or, one of you can come with us, but we’ve got some ground rules for you that will not be broken if you do come with us. One, you will stay with one of us at all times. Two, we will find a hotel or motel room and at least an hour before sunset; we head there with a supply of food for dinner and lock ourselves in. Three, we stay locked inside until at least an hour after sunrise the next morning. And four, even if it’s daylight out, do not invite anybody into the room. If they need an invite, they’re most likely a vampire.” “It is that dangerous on the Hellmouth?” Ray asks, blinking. The others had said that it was dangerous yes, but he hadn’t expected it to be that dangerous. “Oh yes, it was safer when Buffy and Faith were patrolling every night, but without a Slayer on the Hellmouth, I would not want to be out after dark.” Wesley says, nodding his head vigorously. “Angel Investigations lives and works in LA and we keep an eye on the Hellmouth’s activity. Compared to the readings before the Ascension, activity on the Hellmouth has increased over three hundred percent. I’m sure the next Slayer will immediately be sent to Sunnydale to deal with the situation.” “If it’s that bad,” Josiah asks, “Then why do people still live there? I’d expect them to leave in flocks, like they did after the Hellmouth here started acting up after it was closed.” “Selective blindness.” Xander says sourly, “They see what they want to see and ignore everything else. Or they blame it on street gangs hopped up on drugs. The police are corrupt, they don’t do anything about the deaths and disappearances.” “How many deaths are we talking about?” “Sunnydale has twelve cemeteries.” Xander says, “That should give you a good idea of just how bad it is. We used to average fifty unsolved homicides a year, and that’ not including the missing people who were taken by vampires and turned.” “That reminds me of something I was wondering about.” Ray says, looking at the others. “Before we arrived, I was reading the legends about the town and how the inhabitants had been driven out by what was supposed to be the ghosts of the slain peacekeepers. He smiles at JD and continues. “Now, I’ve found out that at least one of the items that supposedly happened is pure fiction, and after reading Mary’s journal I can see that some of it was a combination of nature and guilty consciences for not revealing to you that the boy had been mouthing off while drunk that he was going to bring in the gang that attacked the town and so felt they had a hand in killing you. But I was wondering if the Hellmouth, stable as it is, was putting out energy that heightened the guilty consciences and led to everybody taking off leaving everything behind. And, I was wondering, who kept digging up your graves until they created the second graveyard?” “Yes, even as stable as it is, the Hellmouth would still be putting off energy. This could very well have heightened the guilty consciences and led to the max exodus.” Egon says, “I assume the difference in energy the Hellmouth puts out would depend on whether it is stable like the one here or unstable like the one in California.” Giles, Wesley, and Xander nod vigorously. “As for our graves, I cannot tell you that.” Josiah says, shrugging his shoulders. “We cannot remember what happened. It could very well have been the Hellmouth. We were hurt that the townspeople hadn’t bothered to say anything to one of us, even if it was just a drunk rambling. The Hellmouth could have taken that hurt, just as it took the townspeople guilty consciences and moved our bodies until the townspeople buried us in the new cemetery. All we can remember is waking up after the townspeople had left, finding everybody gone, and we realized we were ghosts. Sarah and Adam joined us shortly thereafter.” “But how did you know the Hellmouth had chosen you as its guardians?” Xander asks. “The local tribe had passed the story down as legend. One day, one of the children got lost while exploring and Vin found her. Vin couldn’t touch her of course, but he was able to lead her to the hunting parties searching for her. Once the grownups realized who we were, the Chief and Shaman of the tribe rode into town to talk with us. They told us what they knew, and we started to keep contact with the tribe.” “Hmm, I wonder if the Hellmouth might not be aware on a subconscious level and, using the link with you as the Guardians, be aware of it’s impending opening and what we intend to do?” “Well, I think I can answer that question.” Xander says, getting up, “Can everybody follow me? I need to be outside to do this.” “Do what?” Egon asks, grabbing a PKE meter as he follows Xander outside. Xander walks out to the middle of the street, sits down and closes his eyes. A minute later, they open again and everybody takes a step backwards. His brown eyes had been replaced by pure black. Egon immediately begins scanning him. “Hello Gentlemen, I understand you wanted to speak with me?” The entity in Xander’s body smiles indulgently at them, reaching over to cup JD’s cheek in his hand. “May I ask who I’m speaking with?” “Rupert, Rupert, Rupert, I thought you would have figured it out by now.” Xander, or rather the entity currently inhabiting him, chides him gently with a reproving finger waved in his direction and a gentle smile, “I’m the Hellmouth.” “Is Xander aware of any of this?” Giles asks, sitting down in front of Xander when the Hellmouth waves for everybody to be seated. “Well of course, he’s been aware ever since you first arrived in Four Corners. I’ve been waiting for his arrival so I could talk to you face to face if you will. My children,” he says, smiling at the seven peacekeepers, “are in constant contact with me, but it’s on a subconscious level.” “So you are aware of our plans to, to put it delicately, destroy you?” Egon asks. “To quote that delightful young girl Cordelia I’ve seen in Alex’s memories: Well, Duh!!! As If!!! Of course I’m aware of your plans, and you won’t actually be destroying me. You’ll just be taking me from one form and putting me in another. You don’t destroy the water when the river freezes and you cut ice for the icehouse, do you?” Xander asks, turning to look at Chris. “No, we just take the water from one spot and put it in another. And as the ice is used up, it returns to the ground when we dump water out after washing or take a leak.” “Exactly. Josiah, can I ask a favor of you?” “Certainly.” The big man rumbles. “I’ve seen you do metalwork before. If I have the supplies brought in, would you be able to make a bracelet with this design on it?” The Hellmouth takes a notebook and pen from his pocket and draws a picture of a thick bracelet with a wavy design etched in the middle. “With this, Alex, or whoever is wearing the bracelet at the time, will be able to access my energy from anywhere in the world. And it will mark Xander as mine, so he will be protected from harmful effects of any energy leakage he might experience while on the Hellmouth. Rupert, Wesley, I also would like you to work with Alex on strengthening his shields. Growing up in Sunnydale, his natural abilities were distorted by the tainted energy the Hellmouth put out. I’ve been slowly removing the taint, but it will leave him open to any further exposure.” “Can I ask, why are you helping Xander like this? And why are you so different than the other Hellmouths we’ve encountered?” “I think Alex might be able to answer the first question better.” And with a blink of an eye, literally in this case, Xander’s chocolate brown eyes are looking back at them. “Xander, are you okay?” “Well of course I am, G-man.” Xander says, blinking and pulling a water bottle from his pocket. Opening the bottle and beginning to drink, he tries to think of a comparison he can make that will allow the others to know how he feels. Looking at Chris, he suddenly gets the answer to his quandary. “Chris, think back to when Adam had just been born. You’re holding him in your arms, Sarah’s laying in bed, exhausted, hair sticking to her face from sweat yet she’s never looked better, she’s probably smiling ear to ear as she looks at you holding the baby. How do you feel?” “Like the luckiest man alive.” Chris says, looking over at Sarah, who nods in agreement. “The minute I first laid eyes on Adam, I knew I was truly blessed. I’d do anything to protect him.” “Adam?” Adam looks up at Xander, eyes wide. “In the middle of the night, if you’re scared because you’ve had a bad dream or there’s a bad storm, who do you go to for comfort?” “Ma and Pa.” He says quietly. “So what you’re saying is, the Hellmouth considers you its child, just like it considers the others its children.” “Right, the Hellmouth recognized me the minute I arrived in town. When the lights flew around me, he realized how badly my gifts had been twisted by the tainted energy put out by the Sunnydale Hellmouth, and spent the night removing the taint and starting to straighten out my gifts.” “Xander, what gifts are we talking about?” “Well, first of all I’m a pure mage.” Giles and Wesley blink, their jaws dropping at that bit of news. Xander snickers at the pair, they look like they’d been hit in the back of the head with something hard and very thick. “Care to explain that bit of news for the rest of us?” Peter asks, grinning as he waves a hand in the face of the two oblivious men. “A pure mage can use any form of magic, he’s able to tap into any source of energy around him without having to use his own personal energy. This is different from most normal magic users, they have to use their own energy to power their spells.” Ray says, looking at Xander in awe. “This means he’s not limited to any one type of magic among those that are out there. “Exactly, I could use Wicca magic just as easily as I could tap Chaos energy, and unlike Ethan, it wouldn’t affect me. Giles, you awake yet? I got a question for you, and I need a straight answer.” “Yes, Xander?” “Do you know where to find Ethan? I can heal him of his dependence on Chaos magic; do you think he would go for it? I need to know how you feel about him. He was one of your best friends, would he stop using the magic if you asked him to.” “In a heartbeat.” Giles says, “The magic is slowly killing him. It hurts to use the magic, but it hurts more not to.” “I can help him. I can heal him. He’ll still be able to do magic, but he’ll be blocked from the Chaos energy that’s been using him as a conduit.” “Thank you, Xander.” Giles says, realizing how big a gift this is. “What are the other gifts you have?” “I’m a medium . . .” “Which would explain why you’re so open to possession.” Wesley says, mentally kicking himself for something that looks so obvious now. “Right, and the fact that I’m a demon magnet. Since I don’t have any natural shielding, it’s the equivalent of putting out ‘nummy treat’ vibes to any demonic entities around. I’ve got some telepathic, telekinetic, and empathic gifts, but he’s keeping them blocked until I can find a tutor to help train me in using them.” “Fascinating.” Egon says, turning to look at Ray. “That sounds very much like a Golden Child I’ve seen in Ray’s books.” “Would it be possible to talk to the Hellmouth again?” Giles asks, and a second later the Hellmouth shines out of Xander’s eyes. “Yes Rupert?” “Why are you so different than the other Hellmouths?” “I suspect it’s because of my age, in human terms the Sunnydale Hellmouth is a bawling newborn infant while I would be an extremely old man.” “Does this mean, the other Hellmouths might also stabilize?” “Given enough time, it’s possible.” The Hellmouth says, shrugging his shoulders. “Is that also why you appear and disappear?” “Exactly, I’m old enough that I don’t need to be constantly active. Unlike the Hellmouth you’re familiar with, I can keep a reserve of power so I don’t have to expend energy to gain energy.” “If you don’t mind my asking, just how old of an entity are you?” “I predate the age of demons, so I’d have to say I’m billions, trillions of your years old. If not older.” The Hellmouth says, “Your concept of time means nothing to Hellmouths, we simply are.” “Fascinating.” Egon says again, causing Peter to snicker. Xander blinks again and stands up with Giles and Wesley’s help, stretching and wincing, as muscles that had been in one position too long, scream in protest. “I don’t know about you guys, but I could really use something to eat right about now.” Xander says, then blushes as his stomach growls loudly in agreement. “We can take care of that easily enough.” Josiah says with a smile as he leads the way to the Saloon. Ezra and Chris begin bustling back in the kitchen, and soon everybody is eating. “Xander?” Giles asks after the boy finishes chewing the bite of steak he’d just eaten. “Did the Hellmouth tell you if we still needed to wait until next week to transfer the energy?” “Yup,” Xander says, waving the fork in his hand. “Because the Hellmouth won’t open until then. From the information Wesley brought with him that I looked at, the Sunnydale Hellmouth is different from the others. The Sunnydale Hellmouth is damaged, that’s why it’s putting out energy all the time, and since it is damaged, like a secondhand engine put in a new car, it’s more likely to fail.” “Fascinating. The council knows there’s more than one Hellmouth, Buffy was nearly sent to the one in Cleveland but since the Sunnydale Hellmouth was so active, she was sent to Sunnydale instead. Since the Cleveland Hellmouth doesn’t appear to be damaged, it’s quieter and not attracting the attention of those who would want to open it.” “Exactly, they’re lured to Sunnydale instead and quietly disposed of by either Buffy when she was still alive, another active Slayer if one gets sent to Sunnydale, other demons who want no part in opening the Hellmouth, or in some cases, by the Hellmouth itself.” “Huh?” “Think of the Venus Flytrap. It puts out a scent to lure insects to it, which it traps and eats. Same principle.” Xander’s sitting outside the Saloon watching the sunset when the others join him. He grins and waves the others to a seat. “Letting your dinner settle?” Ray grins, he’s eaten a lot of big meals after busts and he recognizes the sign of somebody who doesn’t want to do anything but sit and close their eyes. “That and enjoying the Sunset. You really didn’t want to be out after dark in Sunnydale, and the pollution in England blurs them. It’s nice to be able to sit outside, breath fresh air, and not worrying about anything more than falling asleep and spending the night outside.” “You’ll want to get a good night’s sleep tonight Xander.” Giles says, placing his hand on Xander’s shoulder. “Tomorrow, Wesley and I will start to work with you on your shielding.” Xander smiles as he pushes himself to his feet. Covering his mouth over a huge yawn, he slides under the sheet and drifts into a deep dreamless sleep. Meanwhile in the other room, Ray has taken a big piece of poster board and marking off seven squares, puts an x mark through the first one. “Six days and counting.” Peter says, blinking as he settles down onto the camp cot. “Peter, why ever are you sleeping on that horrible cot?” Egon says, hands on his hips. “When we have all these beds to choose from? Grab a lantern, light it, and crawl into a bed. Your back will thank you for it later.” “Uh, uh, uh, no way ‘gon, I am not getting in one of those beds.” “And again, why ever not?” “Because.” Peter says, the grin on his face belying his words. “Oh yes, the infamous because . . .” Egon says dryly. “And why do you not want to get in a comfortable bed, besides Because.” “Because I’ll never get out of bed tomorrow morning if I get in one of those beds. They’re tooooooooooooo coooommmmmfffffffoooooorrrrrttttttttaaaabbbblllleeeee.” Peter whines, his eyes shining with mischief as Winston and Ray stifle chuckles “And please inform me, that would be different from your normal morning how?” Egon says, lips twitching. “Nope ‘Gon, it’s safer this way. The frame sticking me in the back gets me up bright and early. And hell, the permanent bruise it will leave will be an interesting conversation piece.” “Peter Venkman, stop acting like a child and get your ass in a real bed. I think we can allow you to sleep in at least once.” “Nope, ‘Gon,” Peter says, making a show of yawning elaborately, “it’s too late to find another bed right now. In fact, I think I’m going to go to sleep right now. All this clean living and good food is making me real slee . . . EEP . . . y?” Peter yelps as a hand grabs him by the collar and pulls him off the cot. “Peter William Venkman, get your ass in bed where it belongs.” Egon’s amused voice says as he drags him over to the four-poster bed he’d chosen for his own the first day they’d arrived. “Now go to sleep,” he whispers in his lover’s ear, “I’ll molest you when we get back to the firehouse.” “Promise?” Peter asks in a little boy voice, eyes glittering with amusement. “Promise.” Egon says, kissing him on the nose before blowing the light out. Egon and Peter are awakened the next morning to rain beating against the window across the room. Grabbing his watch from the table, Egon is amazed to see that it’s nearly noon. “Ray, Winston?” He asks, going into the other room. “Morning Egon.” Winston says, looking up from a book. “This is just a normal summer storm the guys say, so we let you sleep in. According to the radio it’s going to last a couple of days, so we’re just sitting here chilling. There are bananas if you want something to eat right now, but lunch should be ready in about an hour. We’ve got potatoes and shish kabobs cooking in the coals and I’ve got a huge meatloaf cooking in the Dutch oven.” He says, nodding to the black kettle hanging over the fire. It’s big enough that it should last a couple days. One thing about having a bunch of brothers and sisters, I learned to cook huge meals from an expert.” “Xander, Giles, and Wesley?” “Giles and Wesley are teaching Xander how to shield himself.” Ray says, looking up from the book he’s reading. “I wonder what it’s like to be linked to the Hellmouth like that.” “You know how you feel when you wear your favorite clothes? They’ve been washed so often they’re butter soft and feel like they’re a part of you?” Xander asks, walking into the room and leaning against the cool glass of the window. “Yeah, I can feel that.” “Then imagine the one person you love the most walks up behind you and wraps their arms around you. That’s what the Hellmouth feels like to me.” “Sounds good.” Ray says, his eyes shining. “Yeah, it’s probably the best feeling in the world.” Xander grins, then blinks as two men on horses, bundled up in slickers against the rain, come down the middle of the street. Heading for the stable, they emerge ten minutes later, and bending down to protect their faces against the rain, walk across the street to the Saloon. Shaking off their slickers and hanging them next to the fire, JD and Buck grin at the others. They’ve got one of the hurricane lamps lit and hanging over the table as Ezra deals a hand of poker. “Feel better?” Chris asks, dryly as Buck shakes water out of his eyes. “Yeah, just like old times. We did a quick tour around town, just enough to get out and let the horses run. They’re a lot happier too.” Egon looks up from the book he’d been looking at when Peter, stretching and yawning, walks into the room. Heading for the door, not quite half-awake, he blinks in surprise when Winston tosses a raincoat at him. He lets the coat fall to the floor and goes outside, but he’s back inside less than a minute later. “Shit, it’s raining out there.” Peter yelps. “Really????” Winston drawls, “Here I thought that’s why I tossed the raincoat at you, homeboy.” “Shit, I was beginning to think it never rained here.” Peter says, looking out the window. “It’s really coming down out there.” “According to the radio,” Winston nods at the radio next to the computer, “This is a typical storm for the area. They expect it to pass through in a couple of days.” “Days?? What are we going to do with ourselves if we’re stuck in the hotel for that long?” “Peter,” Egon says dryly, trying not to grin at his theatrics, “we are not trapped in a vacuum. People lived without television for centuries before it was invented. If you’re bored, go over to the library and find yourself a book to read. These hurricane lamps put out an amazing amount of light, you can easily read with them.” “Maybe I will,” Peter says, looking at the clock. “Damn, I missed breakfast and lunch?” “Yeah, but brunch is in ten minutes.” Winston says, pulling the shish kabobs and potatoes from the grills. “Somebody want to grab the butter and sour cream from the cooler?” Ray opens the cooler and slides the plastic dishes over, still cold from the dry ice Winston purchased in Denver. Peter grabs the raincoat from the floor, and dodging his way through the raindrops, soon returns from the outhouse. Pouring water in the basin, he washes his hands and face and joins the others around the fireplace. Winston passes him two foil-covered packets of food and he digs in. “What do we do with the table scraps?” “Put them in this pail.” Winston says, holding it out. “They’ve got a pile out by the garden for scraps. They turn it into mulch for the garden.” Peter lies down on the carpet, staring into the fireplace as Winston adds a couple pieces of wood to the fire. He blinks at the shadows cast by the fire, and pillowing his head on his arms, decides to take a nap by the fire. “You know what would be perfect right about now?” Ray asks, eyes alight with mischief. “What would that be, Raymond?” “S’mores.” Ray says, pulling the chocolate bars, graham crackers and marshmallows from his stash of supplies. “I haven’t had s’mores since I was six.” Xander says, sitting up from where he’d been lying between Giles and Wesley. “Willow’s mom stopped making them when she decided they weren’t Jewish enough.” “What about your mom?” “My mom, make time to do something with her kid? Please, it would have taken time from her almighty bottle of booze.” Xander snorts. “She didn’t even know how old I was when we got the letter from the school asking why she hadn’t registered me for school. She had a raging fit that day, ranting and raving when the police took her in because I wasn’t in school.” “And what exactly are s’mores?” Wesley asks. “You take a piece of graham cracker, break it in half, then put half a chocolate bar on top of that,” Xander says demonstrating as Ray puts a couple marshmallows on sticks and holds them over the fire until they’re black. “Take a marshmallow and roast it over the fire until it turns black, and it’s still good even if you do end up setting it on fire,” he grins as Peter proceeds to do exactly that. “Scrape the marshmallow onto the chocolate and slap the other halves of the chocolate bar and graham cracker on top of it.” Xander grins at the expressions on the two ex-Watchers faces when they get their first taste of the gooeyness of a s’more and shudder. “They’re campfire treats, little kids love them. And since they’re usually at camp, the parents don’t have to worry about the mess.” Winston says, handing over a tub of wet ones. “Here, clean yourself off with these. You’re going to have to scrub too, the chocolate and marshmallow tends to stick to everything.” “Thank you Winston, I now know what I’ve missed by growing up in England.” Wesley says dryly, scrubbing his hands and face clean. Giles follows suit, watching in amusement as Ray, Peter, and Xander finish off the entire box of graham crackers. Despite Peter’s complaints, the next few days pass in a pleasant haze. Wesley and Giles work on Xander’s shields until they’re as solid as the walls of the jail and stay up without conscious effort. Then Xander drops a bombshell on Wesley and Giles. They wouldn’t be transferring the Hellmouth energy; he would since he had the link to the Hellmouth. They immediately start arguing, until Xander and the Hellmouth say they’ll be watching Xander every step of the way in case it was too much for him. They wake up the morning the Hellmouth is scheduled to open. Xander had joined Giles and Wesley in fasting the day before and, getting up that morning, had smiled as he saw the sun rise. He walks to the bathhouse before the others awake and bathes, then joins the others in the Saloon. Josiah takes his hand, sliding the bracelet the Hellmouth had made for him onto his arm. The morning passes agonizingly slow for everybody concerned except for Xander. Exactly at noon, according to Peter’s watch, Xander takes his position over the anvil and touching it lightly, begins to hum. Giles and Wesley, watching with their magical senses, can see the Hellmouth energy surrounding him. Suddenly the anvil turns from black to a silver color and smiling, Xander grabs the sledgehammer and raps it seven times. The sound of the taps seem to echo through the air until the door to the clinic opens and one by one, seven yawning men, each rubbing sleep from their eyes, stumble down the stairs into the street only to be grabbed by their fathers. “What’s going on?” JD asks his dad as the older man finally lets go of him. Looking at his son, JD pulls him back into his arms for another hug. “You’re awake, thank God, you’re finally awake.” “Who can sleep through Buck’s snoring?” JD grumbles as he sits down at a table in the Saloon. He blinks, just now seeing the unfamiliar faces. “And who are you guys?” “I’m Peter Venkman, these are my partners Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore. We own a business called . . .” “You’re the Ghostbusters.” Chris says, looking from them to his father and back again. “Why are you here?” His hand twitches over where his gun would normally be, until the huge grins on his father’s and uncles faces tell him everything’s okay. “We called them in nearly two weeks ago when you boys wouldn’t wake up and the activity started getting worse.” Josiah rumbles. “We found you unconscious in your beds June 10th, it’s the 2nd of July now.” JD blinks as he slowly counts off just how long he’d actually been asleep. “I’d wondered why we were all in the Clinic,” Nathan says, looking up as a teenager, limping heavily, is pushed into a seat by two older men. “Giles, Wesley, I’m fine.” The boy says, rubbing a hand over his face. “Uh, huh, sure you are. That’s why you can barely walk and your hair is pure white.” “Ahh, I’ll be fine as soon as I get something to eat and sleep for about a day and a half.” Xander says, “The Hellmouth did all the work, I just acted as the conduit.” “And your hair?” “That’s from the energy.” Xander says, grinning. “It’s also why the anvil went from black to silver colored.” “Here,” Nathan says, putting a full plate of food in front of Xander as JD and Buck begin to fill more plates. “Eat and then you can go to bed.” “Who are you?” Nathan asks, looking as the two older men sit on either side of the teenager. Food is put in front of them too, and at a look from his father, they begin to eat. “We were called in by the Ghostbusters. We’re the experts on Hellmouths. Xander closed the Hellmouth permanently by diverting its energy.” “It’s a long story, I’ll tell you after I get these three fed and in their beds at the Hotel.” “That reminds me, I’ve still got one thing I need to do.” Xander says, and standing up, walks over to where Adam and Sarah are standing by Chris sr. Holding his hands over their heads, he closes his eyes and begins to concentrate. Swaying slightly on his feet, two strong arms support him from the back. “What are you doing?” Smiling, Xander doesn’t bother to answer. He simply reaches out and rests one hand on Adam’s head. Everybody stops and stares as they realize what’s happening. Whooping, Chris Jr. picks Adam up as his dad reaches out and touches Sarah’s cheek. “What did you do?” Nathan asks, holding Xander’s wrist to check his pulse. “One last gift from the Hellmouth. I made Adam and Sarah like the rest of you. They’re not ghosts anymore. And now,” Xander stifles a yawn by the simple act of shoving his fist in his mouth, “I think I’m ready to go to bed.” “Thank you, Xander,” Sarah says, touching his face as Nathan carries him across the street to the hotel. He strips down to his underwear and crawls under the covers, asleep as soon as his head touches the pillow. Nathan turns around to find Peter pulling a chair into the room and settling down. “What are you doing?” “Keeping an eye on him. Ray and Winston are bringing back food for the rest of us. Go join the rest of your family in the saloon. You’ve got a lot to celebrate.” “Thank you Peter, you know for a grumpy Ghostbuster, you’re not a half-bad human being.” “Don’t tell the others okay, I need to keep my reputation as a cynical bastard.” Peter grins and waves Nathan off as Egon enters the room. “Well Peter, still sorry that we set up that website?” Peter looks out the window to see the others celebrating in the Saloon. “Nope, not at all.” He says, taking Egon’s hand and kissing it. “I’m even getting used to all this peace and quiet.” Xander slept nearly two days straight, waking up the third morning to the sounds of quiet voices outside his room. He grins as he sits up, Giles and Nathan beside him immediately. He shakes off their hands and rubbing a hand over his face, stands up. “I need to use the outhouse.” He grumbles through a yawn and, rubbing his eyes, takes a step only to have his leg nearly collapse under him. “Not until you can walk without falling.” Giles grins as he links an arm around Xander waist. Nathan takes the other side and they help him outside. He’s then settled into a chair on the boardwalk outside the Saloon while Chris jr. wanders past, talking into his satellite phone. “Thank you, AD Travis.” He says, nodding his head, “Yes, yes, we’ll be ready to come back to the office by the end of the week to clear out our offices. Yes, I know that our absence was unexpected, but we had accumulated leave we were in danger of losing and decided to take it.” He hangs up the phone and closes his eyes. “Yo, Buck.” He yells in the direction of the jail. “Yeah, Chris.” Buck says, coming out into the street. He’s easily told apart from his father by the black jeans, muscle shirt, and the missing mustache. “You ready to leave the ATF? I just got off the phone with AD Travis, he’s retiring and Mathers is taking over the Denver office.” “Fuck yes, I’m not kowtowing to that bastard.” Buck says, heading off to grab his partner in crime, “I’ll go grab JD and have him start the paperwork right now.” He pauses to ruffle Xander’s hair and heads, whistling, into the Saloon. “Yo Ez, you awake yet?” He bellows in the middle of the room. He grins as he hears two grumbling men make their way to the head of the stairs. “I take it you have a good reason for waking me at this ungodly hour?” Ezra says through a yawn as his father looks on in interest. “Yeah, you ready to quit? Chris tells me Travis is retiring and your dear friend Mathers is taking over the Denver office.” “That is indeed a good reason for waking me up. Yes, I believe I am more than ready to retire to a life of leisure.” Ezra purrs as he starts down the stairs. “How soon do we need to clean out our offices?” “Chris told Travis we’d be in by the end of the week. We don’t have any open cases and Chris explained our absence the last couple of weeks as using up vacation time before we lost it. I’m going to go tell the others.” Buck says, heading back to the jail where JD and his dad had been playing checkers. “Thank goodness,” Ezra sr. says, “Bad enough that I risked my life keeping the peace here in Four Corners, there is no reason for you to do so as well.” He looks out the door and sees Xander across the street. “I see Xander is awake, maybe Nathan will be able to quit fussing.” “Doubtful,” Ezra says grinning, “The man is a born mother hen. Especially when somebody is injured.” His father nods in agreement, remembering his own experiences with Nathan’s ‘tender mercies.’ “Yo, JD, Nathan, ‘Siah, I need your attention a second.” Buck says, walking into the jail. JD and his dad look up from the checkerboard, while Josiah and Nathan, who’d been playing chess, look over in interest. “Chris wants to know if we’re ready to quit the ATF. Seems Travis is retiring, and Mathers is taking over the Denver office.” The three ATF agents shudder. “I take it this is not good news.” “Mathers is a bean counter,” JD tells his dad in disgust. “He doesn’t like people who don’t do everything by the book and he insists on having everything documented. He took over the office for a week once, and the paperwork tripled. If he’s going to be in charge of the office, I expect there’s going to be a large turnaround in agents.” “How soon do we need to turn in our resignations?” Nathan asks, turning back to the chessboard. “Chris said we’d be in by the end of the week to clear out our offices and turn in our resignations.” “Everybody know?” “Everybody but Vin, he’s off riding with his dad.” Buck says. “I told Chris you’d start doing the paperwork. “Hell, this will probably be the only paperwork I’ll enjoy filling out for that bastard.” JD grins. A couple hours later, Vin and his dad walk their tired horses down the middle of the street. They wave at Xander’s who’s sitting in front of the hotel, Giles keeping a careful eye on him, as the Ghostbusters begin to pack up their equipment. “Tanner, get that flea-bitten nag of yours taken care of and get in here.” Chris bellows from the door of the jail. “ ‘Ey Cowboy, what’s up?” Vin asks, ignoring the insult about his horse. Chris and Peso have a love/hate relationship going. Chris hates the horse, and Peso loves to bite him. “Travis is retiring and Mathers is being given the Denver office.” “Fuck no, I ain’t working for that man.” “None of us are, you just need to sign the paperwork JD’s filled out. We’ll print it out tomorrow when we go to Denver to clean out our offices.” “Travis know?” “Who do you think told me?” Chris snorts, “He knows how the Teams feel about that damn beancounter. I hear there’s already a pool down in the secretarial dept. on how many people resign due to his shenanigans before the brass in Washington replace him.” “What did he have to say about our unexpected absence?” “Told him that we’d taken some of our vacation time before we lost it. Since we didn’t have any open cases and were just completing paperwork, he didn’t complain, too loudly.” “I’ll bet he didn’t.” Vin snorts, “So what time are we leaving in the morning?” “Just after seven. We’ll reach the ranch around eight, transfer to our trucks, and start packing once we get to the office. Josiah’s going to rent a u-haul for the furniture. With the help of some of the cleaning crew Travis is lending us, and using the freight elevator, we should get everything out of the office in three trips. He’ll be in his office tomorrow to accept our resignations with his deepest regret.” “Damn, sounds like he’s doing everything but helping us pack.” “If he could, he probably would be.” Meanwhile, back in Denver AD Orrin Travis carefully puts the receiver down on his phone, and still moving carefully as if disarming a bomb, presses the intercom button to call his secretary into the office. “Rose, will you please send a memo to all the ATF teams saying that Team Seven is resigning, effective the first of next week? If anybody wants to help them clean out their offices, please show up tomorrow morning around nine a.m.? And send a memo to Payroll, telling them to cut their last checks and whatever they have left of their vacation pay after debiting the last three weeks.” “It was just a matter of time.” Rose Simpson says, remembering the trouble Team Seven had had dealing with Special Agent in Charge Mathers when he had briefly taken over the leadership of the Denver office when AD Travis had been on vacation. Mathers had hated Team Seven’s unorthodox methods and reveled in harassing them for the least little thing. And he had instituted sweeping changes on all paperwork down from requisitioning office supplies to adding new forms for all arrests, even trying to cut the amount of supplies needed in the bathrooms by regulating how many pieces of toilet paper could be used at one time. Travis had been horrified when he returned to the office. He had immediately removed all the complaints and black marks against their records, as well as all the new forms he had created while he was in charge. AD Travis looks at the office, stripped bare of twenty years of knick-knacks, and once again curses the regulations that are making him retire because he’s reached their mandatory cut-off age. Meanwhile, back in the outer office, Rose types up the memos and sends them off before pulling up a file and printing out her own resignation. She’d been slowly removing her own belongings from the outer office when she learned of Mathers’s appointment to head the Denver office, and there’s no way she’s going to be sent back to the secretarial pool because Mathers plans on bringing his own leggy blonde secretary to replace her, not after having held this position for fifteen years. Orrin Travis looks up as his secretary enters the office again, and smiling sadly, hands him a sheet of paper. Taking the form, he reads it and looking back up at her, smiles sadly. “Are you sure, Rose?” “Positive, I’m not about to be replaced by some bleached blonde bimbo and sent back to the secretarial pool at my age. I’ve been offered a job at the courthouse by Judge James, his secretary is leaving to have a baby.” “I’ll miss you Rose, you were the best Secretary I’ve ever had.” “Thank you Orrin, your praise means a lot.” “I hope Mathers know what he’s throwing away.” “That asshole? He’s a bootlicker, that’s why he’s been given this position despite his track record and lack of qualifications. I just hope the big brass in Washington realizes it when they have to keep replacing Agents.” Rose says, looking up as she heads back to the outside office. Orrin looks at the clock, and picking up the last box of his belongings left in his office, leaves the office for the final time. The next morning, the door outside of Team Seven’s offices is filled with people when the freight elevator opens to reveal the seven men. Buck blinks when he sees everybody there waiting to help them move, then smiles sadly as he unlocks the office he’s shared with JD for the last four years. “What goes?” Mike Andrews, sharpshooter asks as Buck begins to take framed photos from the wall while JD disconnects all the computers from the mainframe. “Everything but the carpet. When we formed Team Seven, we brought in all our own equipment.” “Even the computers and other equipment?” “Yeah, we buy new computers whenever computer services suggests it. This way, we can custom make the computers to suit us.” “Damn, wonder why Team Six doesn’t do that. It would be a lot easier than using the standard models Computer Services sends us, they’re always outdated and freeze constantly.” “Hey John,” Mike asks, “Why don’t we buy our own computers instead of using these clunkers from Computer Services?” “Can we?” “Hell yeah, go down to Alex in Computer services and tell him you want to buy your own stuff. He’ll go over what you need in a computer and have them custom made. It usually takes a couple months, but it’s well worth the effort.” “How do we pay for them?” “It’s taken out of your check weekly until they’re paid off.” Buck says, filling a box of stuff from the office and putting it on a cart maintenance brought up. The contents of their desks take two more boxes, and soon their office is empty. JD had already sent the computers down in the first load and Buck helps Josiah and two other men move Ezra’s custom-built desk down the hall to the freight elevator. Five hours later, Chris makes a last round of the office they’d used for the past four years. There’s nothing left to show it had ever been occupied except for the marks in the carpet where the furniture had stood and those will vanish when the cleaning crew vacuums. Smiling, he removes the last of the wards they’d placed on the office the first day they moved in and placing his badge and agency issued weapon on the desk in AD Travis’s office with the others, he shakes hands with the AD one last time, takes the folder of paperwork dealing with their resignations and allows security to escort them from the building one last time. |
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