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Sep. 3rd, 2007 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gone_byebyeSeptember 5, 2007
14 North Moore St
Manhattan
Whappawhappawhappawhap came the knock at the Firehouse door. “JANINE!” Peter bellowed. “Would you mind getting that? I’m too jet lagged to move!”
“That’s a lousy excuse, Doctor V!” Janine shot back, but she got up anyway. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, I’m- oh. Hi, Detective Chen.”
“Hi, Ms. Melnitz,” said Chen, running a hand over his disheveled hair. “Can I come in? We’ve got an emergency.”
“Sure,” said Janine. “I’ll get the guys.”
A few screeTHUNK noises later, all four Ghostbusters were clustered in the garage and Ecto’s blue scanner-light was sliding back and forth in the pattern of attentive listening. “How’s it going, Detective?” asked Winston.
“Not good,” Chen said. “We’ve got a screamer.”
“Huh, boy,” said Peter. “Serious, or just off his rocker and loud about it?”
Chen made a disgusted face. “Lemme put it like this,” he said. “Take your standard Port Authority crazy, okay? A really good one. Lots of endurance. The kind who’s still ranting when you get him into the holding tank.” He gratefully accepted the cup of coffee Janine put into his hand; they all knew him pretty well by now. “Now assume the guy’s got the ability to raise the dead.”
“Eew,” said Ray. “Anyone in particular?”
“Yeeeeah,” said Chen. “Leona Helmsley.”
“That’s not much of a challenge,” said Peter. “She’s barely been dead long enough for them to get to the will.”
“I know,” said Chen. “But this guy, Ivan von Stabbington-“
“What?”
“That,” said Chen, “is the name he gave us. Ivan von Stabbington the Third.” He said it with the kind of massively injured sense of propriety that you normally got in zookeepers when the white rhinoceros suddenly recovered from a week of constipation ten seconds before the emergency suppository was about to be administered. “The man’s a complete freaking psycho. He’s got Helmsley running around as a zombie, he says he’s holding a crate of kittens from the Bide-a-Wee shelter hostage, and you do not want to know what he did with a five-gallon container of ice cream.”
“No, probably not,” said Egon, pushing past Peter (whose expression indicated that his imagination had already gone there and that it was not a good place at all). “You said he was holding kittens hostage. Why haven’t police snipers taken him down yet? I thought the NYPD had issued tranquilizer rifles and long-range tasers to the Spook Squad.”
“It has,” said Chen. “Slight problem, though. You’re familiar with the concept of the dead-man’s switch?”
“Got one in my lightsaber,” said Ray. “If I drop it, the blade switches off.”
“Right,” said Chen. “Von Stabbington says he’s got something like that in place on the Empire State Building. The whole building. He won’t tell us what it is, but the air around the place tastes like chewing on tinfoil and those My First PKE Meters you gave my guys are going bugnuts. We need you to come up to the ESB and verify it before we knock this bozo out.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” said Peter. “We’re on our way.”
One of the nice things about working with the Spook Squad was that when they closed streets off, people listened. Ecto had no trouble at all getting through the normally nightmarish tangle of streets around Herald Square and pulling to a halt at a safe distance. “Okay, guys,” said Venkman. “Chen says the negotiators have Von Stabbington in an electronics store on the Thirty-fourth side of the building, but Leona’s supposed to be around here somewhere too. Spengs, you come with me down Thirty-third. Ray, you and Winston get to come around the Broadway side. Keep an eye out for any creepy grey women with too much makeup on.”
"What about me?" Ecto piped up.
"Area sweep and pattern interference analysis, please," said Egon. Peter still couldn't bring himself to feel quite right about talking to the car. "Especially anything aerial or in the buildings."
"Okay!" Ecto chirruped. Ray patted his daughter's fender fondly and started up Broadway.
"And I thought we'd get a break after Chicago," Winston muttered. "Is it just me, or did October come early this year?"
“Tough to say,” Ray answered, his eyes on the PKE meter. “Considering how active a year we’ve had overall, I sort of wonder if October didn’t come back in March.”
“No kidding,” Winston said. “Man, I don’t remember it ever being this bad. Not even way back in the beginning.”
“My sister calls it ‘global weirding’,” Ray said. “A slowly but steadily rising incidence of recognizable, verifiable paranormal phenomena and ambient PKE levels everywhere, not just here in New York.”
Winston scanned the street ahead of them for signs of Von Stabbington or the walking dead, but the construction scaffolding that ringed the base of the Empire State Building made it tough to see into any of the windows. The distance didn’t help either. “No kidding. So much for the end of the world, huh?”
“Uh huh,” said Ray. “Hey, these are interesting… Egon?” He pulled his Nextel free and punched the Send button. “Egon, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, Ray,” came Egon’s voice. “I take it you’re getting the multiple point source readings too?”
“Multiple doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Ray said. “My meter’s lighting up like a string of Chinese New Year firecrackers.”
“All right. See if you can reach the negotiator without being spotted. Venkman and I plan on finding Ms. Helmsley.”
Ray clipped the phone back onto his belt and grinned at Winston. “Another day in the spice mines, huh?”
Winston just sighed.
The noise they’d been hearing in the background resolved itself into words as they drew closer to the skyscraper proper. “Sir,” came the tinny sound of a megaphone-enhanced woman’s voice. “SIR! Mr. von Stabbington-“
“MADAM!” boomed a voice that seemed to come from the entire Empire State Building’s base at once. “You will use my title, or the kittens get it!”
There was a pause. Then there was a barely suppressed sigh. “Sir, the NYPD isn’t authorized to refer to anyone as ‘Dark Lord Ivan von Stabbington III’ until we know exactly what you’re supposed to be Dark Lord of,” the negotiatior’s voice said wearily.
Winston tapped Ray’s shoulder and indicated two police up ahead in riot gear, flanking either side of an unremarkable door. A moment later the two Ghostbusters were being escorted into the building and up the stairs. The negotiator, a worn-looking woman of graying middle years, looked as if von Stabbington’s current rant material (something to do with the Helmsley organization and how it would shortly be serving the ‘little people’) were about as welcome as a hemicorporectomy.
“Ma’am?” said Ray, stepping forward as she lowered her megaphone. “I’m Dr. Stantz-“
“Yes, I know who you and Mr. Zeddmore are,” she said gratefully. “My name’s Maya Williams. What’ve you got for me?”
“This joker’s serious, for one thing,” Winston said. Ray held out the PKE meter for her to see. “Me, I’d go right ahead with calling him Dark Lord if I were you. At least for now.”
Ms. Williams heaved a sigh. “Any idea what it means yet?” she asked. “I mean, we’ve done our best to evacuate the building, but I’d like to know what’s going to happen if things go south, and he’s not cooperating.”
Ray’s Nextel whistled for his attention. “Ray! Winston!” Peter’s voice shouted. “We’ve got zombie sign! Eat protons, Greyface!”
There was a pause in the flow of the rant from outside. Then von Stabbington’s voice said, “Did I just sense what I think I sensed?”
Ms. Williams picked up her megaphone. “That would depend, your Dark Lordship,” she said. “What did you think you sensed?”
“Something disruptive. . . oh my God, you called the Ghostbusters!” Oddly, von Stabbington sounded delighted. “Oh, this is too good to be true!”
“Ex. . .cuse me, sir?”
“Don’t think I can’t tell when the NYPD is toying with me!” von Stabbington said. “The Ghostbusters can verify for you exactly how serious I am. Then you’ll HAVE to appreciate what I’ve done.”
“Dark Lord, we already-“
“Ray? Ray, get down to street level! Leona’s not even noticing the streams!” Venkman’s voice called. “Egon says you gotta cut off her head!”
“Yes! Yes, by all means, go ahead and try!” von Stabbington shouted, although Ray was already racing for the stairs to street level with his saber in his hand. “You do exactly that! And then you’ll see! You’ll all see! EVERYONE will!!!”
Thirty-Fourth was weirdly empty even of riot cops; Ray looked both ways, but saw nothing of note. Then his phone whistled urgently. “Daddy,” Ecto said, “she can climb.”
“Yeek,” Ray said, and looked up. Sure enough, the grey, decaying multimillionaire’s corpse was picking its way along the scaffolding. He pulled down his goggles for a better look-
And pushed them back up again immediately “Sweet Harley Warren,” he breathed, and yanked his phone free. “Egon, you need to see this! The scaffolding’s covered in power glyphs from one end to the other!”
Then he had no time for the phone, because the animate corpse leaped at him. The air was swiftly filled with mad cackling and the stench of formaldehyde. Ray was too busy fending the monstrosity off with his saber to be sure, but it sounded as if von Stabbington was shouting about his being an evil laugh- or something, anyway. The zombie Helmsley was distressingly quick, grabbing at his hands and forearms rather than simply trying to lunge and bite. Ray had to kick it in the shins several times before he could get his arm back far enough for a proper swing. Mere moments later, two sickly squishy thump noises heralded the thing being rendered armless. It spun on one foot and ran for Fifth Avenue before Ray could make an attempt at a head strike. “Get back here!” he shouted, and darted after it.
“Von Stabbington!” called Ms. Williams over the megaphone. “Dark Lord von Stabbington! What is it you want?”
The zombie Helmsley swerved to the left, staggering as one decaying ankle threatened to give way. “Why, my dear lady-“
Ray ignored von Stabbington’s voice and lunged after Leona’s corpse, but the thing wheeled and ran again. “Ecto,” he said as he grabbed his radio, “I need you to lock onto our hyperactive stiff and cut off her southbound street access for me.”
“Will do, Daddy.”
“ExCUSE me?” said Ms. Williams. “Run that by me again, von Stabbington?”
“You heard me! Disneyworld is to close its doors and cease its operations and send me every single employee who worked at the park in the summer of 1979 or I’ll close the park FOR them! FOREVER!”
A screech of tires from down the street heralded Ecto wheeling autonomously around the corner of 33rd and Fifth. Ray had never been so glad to see her in his life. The zombie hesitated, one foot dangling precariously in midair.
“Why?” von Stabbington continued. “Because when I was five years old, my mother took me to Disneyworld! I wanted to ride Space Mountain! Nothing else had ever captured my imagination like that coaster-“
Ecto’s lights flared into life, and her engine revved ominously. The corpse turned to face Ray.
“-but she was pregnant, so she couldn’t ride along with me-“
Ray tightened his grip on the saber and assumed a baseball batter’s stance.
“-put me on the People Mover and told me it was Space Mountain-“
The undead millionaire charged. Ray swung.
”AND THOSE DISNEY BASTARDS WERE COMPLICIT IN HER LIES!!!!!” von Stabbington screamed as Leona Helmsley’s head came flying off. “THEY’LL PAY! THEY’LL ALL PAY! I have enough power stored in the rigging around this building to turn the whole works into the world’s first intra-continental ballistic magic missile! I’ve got a laptop here with Google Maps centered on the geographic coordinates of Cinderella’s Magic Castle and I’m NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!!!”
“Daddy,” said Ecto urgently, rolling forward to pin down the still-twitching headless corpse, “Uncle Egon sent me his readings. I think if we take out the northeast corner of the scaffolding, all the power will dissipate.”
Ray reached over his shoulder for the proton thrower. He caught sight of Winston and the other two out of the corner of his eye, converging on the area with their own throwers drawn.
“The kittens were only a decoy! There were never any kittens! I just wanted witnesses!”
“Not like that, Daddy, that’s only gonna make it worse.”
“You’re sure?” Ray said, and Ecto’s front end bobbled up and down in the car’s equivalent of a nod. “Huh boy.”
“ALL OF YOU WILL SEE WHAT IT MEANS TO CROSS THE DARK LORD!!”
“So how do we destroy it if we can’t use the proton packs?” Ray said. Egon, who had just come up beside him, cleared his throat and glanced significantly at the car.
“I’m kinda bulletproof, Daddy, a little bit of construction scaffolding isn’t gonna hurt me much,” Ecto confirmed.
Ray hesitated. Then: “Do it.”
“NOW BEHOLD MY TRUE-“
“Yay!” Ecto said, and revved her engine. For a vehicle her size, she was remarkably quick at accelerating; the metal pipes made a horrible KEEEEERUnnnch noise as several thousand pounds of MBS-coated hearse slammed into them at high speed. The rigging collapsed, bent and broken and twisted seven different ways.
“Noooooo!” wailed von Stabbington. “What the hell did you people DO?”
“The triumph of properly applied technology, Mister von Stabbington!” Ray shouted back. “Consider your sinister plans officially thwarted! Ecto, kiddo, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Daddy,” said Ecto, backing away from the heap of tangled, smashed metal. “Smashing things is fun.”
“Don’t let the police hear you say that,” Ray said- but then looked up. Someone was running their way at high speed, and it wasn’t a cop.
The man was a little shorter than Ray, dark-haired, and dressed in what looked like a very badly thrown together amalgam of high-faluting businesswear and sequined, velvet wizard robes. Under one arm he had some kind of box. “YOU!” he screamed at the car. “It’s YOUR fault this didn’t work! I’ll show YOU what it means to thwart me-“
“Dr. Stantz! You and the Ghostbusters get out of the way!” Ms. Williams called over her megaphone. Ray could just about make out the wobbling red dot of a laser sight trying to get a bead on the wildly gesticulating von Stabbington.
“-spend the rest of your miserable existence in HERE!” the lunatic screamed, and held up what turned out to be a programmable toaster oven. “I still have that much power! Mens mechanem in corpore-“
The police sharpshooters didn’t even register in Ray’s brain at that point; von Stabbington was threatening his daughter. He leaped at the man, meaning to knock him away from Ecto before he could finish the spell.
It almost worked.
Almost.
14 North Moore St
Manhattan
Whappawhappawhappawhap came the knock at the Firehouse door. “JANINE!” Peter bellowed. “Would you mind getting that? I’m too jet lagged to move!”
“That’s a lousy excuse, Doctor V!” Janine shot back, but she got up anyway. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, I’m- oh. Hi, Detective Chen.”
“Hi, Ms. Melnitz,” said Chen, running a hand over his disheveled hair. “Can I come in? We’ve got an emergency.”
“Sure,” said Janine. “I’ll get the guys.”
A few screeTHUNK noises later, all four Ghostbusters were clustered in the garage and Ecto’s blue scanner-light was sliding back and forth in the pattern of attentive listening. “How’s it going, Detective?” asked Winston.
“Not good,” Chen said. “We’ve got a screamer.”
“Huh, boy,” said Peter. “Serious, or just off his rocker and loud about it?”
Chen made a disgusted face. “Lemme put it like this,” he said. “Take your standard Port Authority crazy, okay? A really good one. Lots of endurance. The kind who’s still ranting when you get him into the holding tank.” He gratefully accepted the cup of coffee Janine put into his hand; they all knew him pretty well by now. “Now assume the guy’s got the ability to raise the dead.”
“Eew,” said Ray. “Anyone in particular?”
“Yeeeeah,” said Chen. “Leona Helmsley.”
“That’s not much of a challenge,” said Peter. “She’s barely been dead long enough for them to get to the will.”
“I know,” said Chen. “But this guy, Ivan von Stabbington-“
“What?”
“That,” said Chen, “is the name he gave us. Ivan von Stabbington the Third.” He said it with the kind of massively injured sense of propriety that you normally got in zookeepers when the white rhinoceros suddenly recovered from a week of constipation ten seconds before the emergency suppository was about to be administered. “The man’s a complete freaking psycho. He’s got Helmsley running around as a zombie, he says he’s holding a crate of kittens from the Bide-a-Wee shelter hostage, and you do not want to know what he did with a five-gallon container of ice cream.”
“No, probably not,” said Egon, pushing past Peter (whose expression indicated that his imagination had already gone there and that it was not a good place at all). “You said he was holding kittens hostage. Why haven’t police snipers taken him down yet? I thought the NYPD had issued tranquilizer rifles and long-range tasers to the Spook Squad.”
“It has,” said Chen. “Slight problem, though. You’re familiar with the concept of the dead-man’s switch?”
“Got one in my lightsaber,” said Ray. “If I drop it, the blade switches off.”
“Right,” said Chen. “Von Stabbington says he’s got something like that in place on the Empire State Building. The whole building. He won’t tell us what it is, but the air around the place tastes like chewing on tinfoil and those My First PKE Meters you gave my guys are going bugnuts. We need you to come up to the ESB and verify it before we knock this bozo out.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” said Peter. “We’re on our way.”
One of the nice things about working with the Spook Squad was that when they closed streets off, people listened. Ecto had no trouble at all getting through the normally nightmarish tangle of streets around Herald Square and pulling to a halt at a safe distance. “Okay, guys,” said Venkman. “Chen says the negotiators have Von Stabbington in an electronics store on the Thirty-fourth side of the building, but Leona’s supposed to be around here somewhere too. Spengs, you come with me down Thirty-third. Ray, you and Winston get to come around the Broadway side. Keep an eye out for any creepy grey women with too much makeup on.”
"What about me?" Ecto piped up.
"Area sweep and pattern interference analysis, please," said Egon. Peter still couldn't bring himself to feel quite right about talking to the car. "Especially anything aerial or in the buildings."
"Okay!" Ecto chirruped. Ray patted his daughter's fender fondly and started up Broadway.
"And I thought we'd get a break after Chicago," Winston muttered. "Is it just me, or did October come early this year?"
“Tough to say,” Ray answered, his eyes on the PKE meter. “Considering how active a year we’ve had overall, I sort of wonder if October didn’t come back in March.”
“No kidding,” Winston said. “Man, I don’t remember it ever being this bad. Not even way back in the beginning.”
“My sister calls it ‘global weirding’,” Ray said. “A slowly but steadily rising incidence of recognizable, verifiable paranormal phenomena and ambient PKE levels everywhere, not just here in New York.”
Winston scanned the street ahead of them for signs of Von Stabbington or the walking dead, but the construction scaffolding that ringed the base of the Empire State Building made it tough to see into any of the windows. The distance didn’t help either. “No kidding. So much for the end of the world, huh?”
“Uh huh,” said Ray. “Hey, these are interesting… Egon?” He pulled his Nextel free and punched the Send button. “Egon, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, Ray,” came Egon’s voice. “I take it you’re getting the multiple point source readings too?”
“Multiple doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Ray said. “My meter’s lighting up like a string of Chinese New Year firecrackers.”
“All right. See if you can reach the negotiator without being spotted. Venkman and I plan on finding Ms. Helmsley.”
Ray clipped the phone back onto his belt and grinned at Winston. “Another day in the spice mines, huh?”
Winston just sighed.
The noise they’d been hearing in the background resolved itself into words as they drew closer to the skyscraper proper. “Sir,” came the tinny sound of a megaphone-enhanced woman’s voice. “SIR! Mr. von Stabbington-“
“MADAM!” boomed a voice that seemed to come from the entire Empire State Building’s base at once. “You will use my title, or the kittens get it!”
There was a pause. Then there was a barely suppressed sigh. “Sir, the NYPD isn’t authorized to refer to anyone as ‘Dark Lord Ivan von Stabbington III’ until we know exactly what you’re supposed to be Dark Lord of,” the negotiatior’s voice said wearily.
Winston tapped Ray’s shoulder and indicated two police up ahead in riot gear, flanking either side of an unremarkable door. A moment later the two Ghostbusters were being escorted into the building and up the stairs. The negotiator, a worn-looking woman of graying middle years, looked as if von Stabbington’s current rant material (something to do with the Helmsley organization and how it would shortly be serving the ‘little people’) were about as welcome as a hemicorporectomy.
“Ma’am?” said Ray, stepping forward as she lowered her megaphone. “I’m Dr. Stantz-“
“Yes, I know who you and Mr. Zeddmore are,” she said gratefully. “My name’s Maya Williams. What’ve you got for me?”
“This joker’s serious, for one thing,” Winston said. Ray held out the PKE meter for her to see. “Me, I’d go right ahead with calling him Dark Lord if I were you. At least for now.”
Ms. Williams heaved a sigh. “Any idea what it means yet?” she asked. “I mean, we’ve done our best to evacuate the building, but I’d like to know what’s going to happen if things go south, and he’s not cooperating.”
Ray’s Nextel whistled for his attention. “Ray! Winston!” Peter’s voice shouted. “We’ve got zombie sign! Eat protons, Greyface!”
There was a pause in the flow of the rant from outside. Then von Stabbington’s voice said, “Did I just sense what I think I sensed?”
Ms. Williams picked up her megaphone. “That would depend, your Dark Lordship,” she said. “What did you think you sensed?”
“Something disruptive. . . oh my God, you called the Ghostbusters!” Oddly, von Stabbington sounded delighted. “Oh, this is too good to be true!”
“Ex. . .cuse me, sir?”
“Don’t think I can’t tell when the NYPD is toying with me!” von Stabbington said. “The Ghostbusters can verify for you exactly how serious I am. Then you’ll HAVE to appreciate what I’ve done.”
“Dark Lord, we already-“
“Ray? Ray, get down to street level! Leona’s not even noticing the streams!” Venkman’s voice called. “Egon says you gotta cut off her head!”
“Yes! Yes, by all means, go ahead and try!” von Stabbington shouted, although Ray was already racing for the stairs to street level with his saber in his hand. “You do exactly that! And then you’ll see! You’ll all see! EVERYONE will!!!”
Thirty-Fourth was weirdly empty even of riot cops; Ray looked both ways, but saw nothing of note. Then his phone whistled urgently. “Daddy,” Ecto said, “she can climb.”
“Yeek,” Ray said, and looked up. Sure enough, the grey, decaying multimillionaire’s corpse was picking its way along the scaffolding. He pulled down his goggles for a better look-
And pushed them back up again immediately “Sweet Harley Warren,” he breathed, and yanked his phone free. “Egon, you need to see this! The scaffolding’s covered in power glyphs from one end to the other!”
Then he had no time for the phone, because the animate corpse leaped at him. The air was swiftly filled with mad cackling and the stench of formaldehyde. Ray was too busy fending the monstrosity off with his saber to be sure, but it sounded as if von Stabbington was shouting about his being an evil laugh- or something, anyway. The zombie Helmsley was distressingly quick, grabbing at his hands and forearms rather than simply trying to lunge and bite. Ray had to kick it in the shins several times before he could get his arm back far enough for a proper swing. Mere moments later, two sickly squishy thump noises heralded the thing being rendered armless. It spun on one foot and ran for Fifth Avenue before Ray could make an attempt at a head strike. “Get back here!” he shouted, and darted after it.
“Von Stabbington!” called Ms. Williams over the megaphone. “Dark Lord von Stabbington! What is it you want?”
The zombie Helmsley swerved to the left, staggering as one decaying ankle threatened to give way. “Why, my dear lady-“
Ray ignored von Stabbington’s voice and lunged after Leona’s corpse, but the thing wheeled and ran again. “Ecto,” he said as he grabbed his radio, “I need you to lock onto our hyperactive stiff and cut off her southbound street access for me.”
“Will do, Daddy.”
“ExCUSE me?” said Ms. Williams. “Run that by me again, von Stabbington?”
“You heard me! Disneyworld is to close its doors and cease its operations and send me every single employee who worked at the park in the summer of 1979 or I’ll close the park FOR them! FOREVER!”
A screech of tires from down the street heralded Ecto wheeling autonomously around the corner of 33rd and Fifth. Ray had never been so glad to see her in his life. The zombie hesitated, one foot dangling precariously in midair.
“Why?” von Stabbington continued. “Because when I was five years old, my mother took me to Disneyworld! I wanted to ride Space Mountain! Nothing else had ever captured my imagination like that coaster-“
Ecto’s lights flared into life, and her engine revved ominously. The corpse turned to face Ray.
“-but she was pregnant, so she couldn’t ride along with me-“
Ray tightened his grip on the saber and assumed a baseball batter’s stance.
“-put me on the People Mover and told me it was Space Mountain-“
The undead millionaire charged. Ray swung.
”AND THOSE DISNEY BASTARDS WERE COMPLICIT IN HER LIES!!!!!” von Stabbington screamed as Leona Helmsley’s head came flying off. “THEY’LL PAY! THEY’LL ALL PAY! I have enough power stored in the rigging around this building to turn the whole works into the world’s first intra-continental ballistic magic missile! I’ve got a laptop here with Google Maps centered on the geographic coordinates of Cinderella’s Magic Castle and I’m NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!!!”
“Daddy,” said Ecto urgently, rolling forward to pin down the still-twitching headless corpse, “Uncle Egon sent me his readings. I think if we take out the northeast corner of the scaffolding, all the power will dissipate.”
Ray reached over his shoulder for the proton thrower. He caught sight of Winston and the other two out of the corner of his eye, converging on the area with their own throwers drawn.
“The kittens were only a decoy! There were never any kittens! I just wanted witnesses!”
“Not like that, Daddy, that’s only gonna make it worse.”
“You’re sure?” Ray said, and Ecto’s front end bobbled up and down in the car’s equivalent of a nod. “Huh boy.”
“ALL OF YOU WILL SEE WHAT IT MEANS TO CROSS THE DARK LORD!!”
“So how do we destroy it if we can’t use the proton packs?” Ray said. Egon, who had just come up beside him, cleared his throat and glanced significantly at the car.
“I’m kinda bulletproof, Daddy, a little bit of construction scaffolding isn’t gonna hurt me much,” Ecto confirmed.
Ray hesitated. Then: “Do it.”
“NOW BEHOLD MY TRUE-“
“Yay!” Ecto said, and revved her engine. For a vehicle her size, she was remarkably quick at accelerating; the metal pipes made a horrible KEEEEERUnnnch noise as several thousand pounds of MBS-coated hearse slammed into them at high speed. The rigging collapsed, bent and broken and twisted seven different ways.
“Noooooo!” wailed von Stabbington. “What the hell did you people DO?”
“The triumph of properly applied technology, Mister von Stabbington!” Ray shouted back. “Consider your sinister plans officially thwarted! Ecto, kiddo, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Daddy,” said Ecto, backing away from the heap of tangled, smashed metal. “Smashing things is fun.”
“Don’t let the police hear you say that,” Ray said- but then looked up. Someone was running their way at high speed, and it wasn’t a cop.
The man was a little shorter than Ray, dark-haired, and dressed in what looked like a very badly thrown together amalgam of high-faluting businesswear and sequined, velvet wizard robes. Under one arm he had some kind of box. “YOU!” he screamed at the car. “It’s YOUR fault this didn’t work! I’ll show YOU what it means to thwart me-“
“Dr. Stantz! You and the Ghostbusters get out of the way!” Ms. Williams called over her megaphone. Ray could just about make out the wobbling red dot of a laser sight trying to get a bead on the wildly gesticulating von Stabbington.
“-spend the rest of your miserable existence in HERE!” the lunatic screamed, and held up what turned out to be a programmable toaster oven. “I still have that much power! Mens mechanem in corpore-“
The police sharpshooters didn’t even register in Ray’s brain at that point; von Stabbington was threatening his daughter. He leaped at the man, meaning to knock him away from Ecto before he could finish the spell.
It almost worked.
Almost.
