"It's some kind of demon, Egon thinks," said Janine's voice from the radio. "The youth club manager said it was humanoid, but it looked like some kind of monster."

"Is she sure it's not just some stupid kid in a mask?" Garrett asked sceptically. He sat in the back seat of the Ecto-1, which was speeding through the streets of Manhattan with Roland at the wheel and Kylie sitting to his right.

"Apparently it has glowing yellow eyes and incredible strength," Janine returned. "She said it threw some of the kids out onto the street and started playing pool."

Garrett suppressed a laugh. Kylie, on the other hand, was in no mood for laughing. She was still trying to figure out who Lisa might be.

"How's Eduardo?" she asked Janine. "Has Egon looked at him yet?"

"Eduardo? No." Janine sounded puzzled. "He just went home."

"He did WHAT?" Kylie ejaculated, the forcefulness of her outburst making Roland lose control of the car for a split second.

"Calm down," Janine tried to pacify her. "He's sick. It probably wasn't a bad idea for him to go home."

"But... but," Kylie stammered. "He was getting a PKE reading! Didn't he tell you?" she squeaked incredulously.

"Um... no," Janine admitted. "Wow. Maybe I should give him a call."

"Don't worry," said Kylie, in a very off tone. "I'll do it when I get home."

Roland brought the Ecto-1 to a stop outside the Jamie Latham Youth Club. None of the Ghostbusters had known who Jamie Latham was, until Casey Jackson had knowingly informed his brother that he was some kind of aspiring rock star who had died young of cancer. In the moment it took to vacate the car, Garrett thought about founding a youth club and naming it after Emma.

All the youth of the club had apparently gone home, or at least somewhere else they could play pool and buy cheap cola. Either way they were no longer there, so the Ghostbusters found the meagre but lovingly decorated old warehouse empty save for a lot of turned-over tables and chairs, a jukebox that looked to be a write-off and, as promised, a demon playing pool.

They were about to attack, but were interrupted by a young redheaded woman in tight jeans and a most unattractive camel-coloured sweater. This, presumably, was Linda Higgins, the youth club's manager.

"Thank God you're here," the woman wheezed, silver bangles clanging as she tried to steady her breathing. "What is that?"

"It's just a class three," Garrett replied dismissively, as he took the creature's PKE readings. "If you'd like to step outside now, ma'am, we'll soon take care of it."

Roland smiled politely as Linda Higgins vacated the premises. The demon, he noticed, was like nothing they had seen before. It was wolf-like in appearance, and for some reason was wearing leathers. Taken out of context, Roland would have said the creature was a werewolf. But werewolves didn't do this, surely. And besides, it was early afternoon, and the night before there had been a crescent moon.

Whatever the demon was, it apparently liked to play pool in peace. By now it had spotted the Ghostbusters, and was advancing upon them with white foam dripping from razor sharp fangs. Never one to waste time, Garrett gave the usual signal: "On three."

"Three!"

Garrett and Roland caught the angry beast in their proton streams, and Kylie positioned the trap. Moments later the creature was sucked into the trap, and Kylie closed the device with a satisfied smile.

"Nice to get an easy one occasionally," observed Garrett, as Kylie went to retrieve the trap.

The three Ghostbusters wandered outside, where Linda Higgins was twittering beside a Dumpster. As Kylie and Garrett loaded the equipment back into the Ecto-1, Roland went to assure the young woman that her youth club was now a demon-free zone, and that she would be receiving an invoice for their services shortly.

"Roland, can you take me to college?" Kylie asked, once they were all loaded into the Ecto-1. "I have a class."

Roland glanced at his wristwatch. It was nearly half past two. He could get Kylie to college in time for the last class of the day, if he drove like Michael Schumacher. "You'll be late," he pointed out.

"Not if you step on it," Kylie hinted heavily.

"You should have told me," Roland went on. "I would have dropped you off on the way."

"Don't be stupid," scolded Kylie. "You might have needed me. With Eduardo off sick I can't go gallivanting off to college and leaving you two on your own. Besides," she added, with a frown at the car's speedometer. "There's plenty of time, as long as you're not planning to drive like my granny all the way. Garrett?"

Garrett started at the sudden mention of his name. "Um... yes?" he said.

"Tell me something," Kylie went on. "Why exactly did you go to see Patrick Fogg?"

"Because I wanted to try and get hold of Emma," Garrett replied. "I thought I told you that."

"You did," Kylie said, "but why? What did you want to say to her?"

"Well... nothing, really," Garrett confessed. "I just wanted to know how she was doing, see if she was ok. We've seen so many miserable ghosts in our time. What if something like that happened to her?"

"Something like what?" Roland asked.

"Yeah," Kylie added, somewhat unnecessarily. "Something like what?"

"Well like... like the house with all those trapped souls in it."

"But Emma died in a hospital bed," Kylie pointed out, "not a haunted house."

"I know," Garrett returned irritably. "I don't mean specifically that. Just something like that. I mean, what about Casper?"

"Casper's not real," Kylie pointed out.

"And he wasn't unhappy," Roland added.

"He was in the bit I saw," Garrett retorted. "He was remembering to Christina Ricci how he died."

"I never did see the beginning of that movie," mused Roland. "Whenever my brother watches it, I can't seem to walk in before the part where they're trying to get rid of the ghosts..."

"Look, just forget about Casper," Garrett said irritably. "I just mean..."

"It's ok," Kylie said gently, to save him the trouble of trying to explain. "I know what you mean."

* * *

Kylie walked into her psychology lecture five minutes late. Fortunately Professor Hughes arrived ten minutes late, so she didn't miss anything. The lecture was about stress. It made Kylie think again about her idea that Eduardo was under some kind of terrible stress. Maybe he was having problems with his brother again. That, she knew, was the status quo; but presumably things between Eduardo and Carl were worse at some times than at others. But of course that didn't explain the PKE reading she had got from him.

She got home at four thirty-five almost exactly. She really didn't feel like going back to the firehouse now. If they got a call, Janine could ring her or the guys could go without her. But then two calls in one day was uncommon. Kylie thought she would probably be ok staying at home for the evening.

Pagan started yowling for his supper. Just to shut him up Kylie shook a few little fish-shaped biscuits into a saucer. Then she kicked off her boots, picked up the phone and punched out Eduardo's number.

"Hello?" came an almost inaudible croak from the earpiece.

"You sound terrible," Kylie frowned. She took the cordless phone into the bathroom and positioned herself in front of the mirror, where she began removing her make-up. Her face, she realised, felt heavy; her skin seemed to be suffocating. But then that, she supposed, was the price of plastering oneself in cosmetics.

"I just need to drink something," Eduardo returned, and moments later Kylie heard the sound of a tap running. "You woke me."

"Oh. Sorry. How do you feel?"

"Terrible." He paused to take a swig of water. "My mouth feels like it's on fire. Kinda reminds me of the time I ate three vindaloos in a row."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because I was young and stupid, I guess."

"Why the hell didn't you get Egon to take a look at you like I told you to?" Kylie suddenly demanded.

"Because," Eduardo replied evenly, "I don't have to do what you tell me. Like I said, I felt better. I thought if I went home and got some sleep I'd be ok."

"But now you feel worse."

"Well... yes."

"Are you still giving off psycho-kinetic energy?"

"Oh, I don't know," Eduardo said wearily. "Please. I just want to sleep."

"Ok, fine," Kylie frowned, looking at her naked face in the mirror and realising that she looked completely different now. "I... hope you feel better."

"Thanks," Eduardo muttered, before hanging up without even a goodbye. Well, wasn't that just him all over.

Kylie padded barefoot into her bedroom, put the phone down and made herself comfortable on the bed. Pagan walked in, licking his chops and looking very pleased with himself, and settled himself down next to her. Kylie scratched his ears as she picked up the book she was reading. She was really enjoying it too. It was the kind of book that really inspired you to care about the characters.

Kylie was unsure whether to admire the heroine for being everything she herself wanted to be, or to hate her for that very same reason. This infinitely annoying woman's only fault was her total lack of sensitivity towards the truly wonderful love interest the writer had so kindly given her. He was handsome, charming in his own way and extremely loveable. So what was this bitch's problem? If you don't want him, Kylie thought dryly, I'll have him. She so wished she could dive into the story, steal the hero's heart and leave the ungrateful heroine to realise too late that she had actually loved him all along.

Barely two pages read, and there came a knock at the door. Kylie and Pagan were equally put out: he had been drifting off to sleep; and she had been about to delight in some truly wonderful images of the novel's hero in the shower, enjoying the moments of equilibrium before the insane killer burst through the bathroom window brandishing a kitchen knife. If there was one thing worse than running from a murderer, Kylie mused - as she climbed reluctantly from the bed - it was running from a murderer whilst naked. But at least in this case the annoying prima donna might finally see what she was missing. Surely, Kylie thought, she was bound to turn up in the scene where the guy was naked and vulnerable. Damn, she really wanted to read that book.

But she was at the door now, so she might as well open it. With no make-up, tousled hair and tired eyes, Kylie hoped it wasn't someone she only wanted to see at her best.

It wasn't.

"Holy shh...shoot!" she cried out in surprise, not wanting to swear in front of a virtual stranger. "What are you doing here?"

"I - I'm sorry," Patrick Fogg stammered. "This is a little hard to explain. Do I know you?"

"Well," Kylie said, "kind of. I've been to a couple of your seminars. You gave me a reading about my great-grandmother."

"Wait a minute." Fogg squinted at Kylie's face, making her feel slightly uncomfortable. "Are you the girl who yelled at me? You had a friend that was heckling me."

"That's me," nodded Kylie. "Um... sorry about that. The yelling and the heckling, I mean."

"Hey, don't worry about it. I remembered you, you know. Both of you. I just didn't recognise you without your make-up."

Kylie put a hand self-consciously to her face. She hated people who made personal remarks. With a challenging tone to her voice she asked again, "So what are you doing here?"

"Um... this is going to be hard to explain," Fogg replied. "I've had a visit. I think it was from your great-grandmother again. Rose, wasn't it?"

Gosh, he really did remember her. "Ye-es," Kylie replied cautiously.

"She told me to get in my car and drive, and I've ended up here. There was a light over your door. I guess Rose wants me to come and talk to you."

"About what?" Kylie couldn't help but ask, though she was tempted to threaten this guy with the police.

"I don't know. She's not being very clear."

"That's your fault, not hers," Kylie said flatly.

"Right. Wait a minute, she's trying to tell me something." Fogg really seemed to be concentrating. This, Kylie thought, had to be for real. This time he had actually knocked on her door without even knowing who she was.

"By any chance," Fogg went on, "do you have a friend in a wheelchair? A young man?"

Kylie caught her breath. "Yes," she managed to answer.

"It's the guy that came to see me yesterday morning. You know, he got me into trouble with my wife."

"Really?"

"She didn't know I was a medium," Fogg explained.

"Oh." What the hell was she supposed to say to that? "Sorry."

"She's a grief counsellor, you see, and she doesn't approve of me telling people I can communicate with their dead relatives. But the thing is, I really can. Do... you believe that?" he asked slowly.

"I'm not sure." Kylie folded her arms across her chest and leant against the doorframe. "What else is Grandma Rose telling you?"

"It must have been her," mused Fogg, "that wanted to warn your friend about the letter E. I'm getting it again now."

"The letter E?"

"Yes."

"We know two people whose names begin with E," Kylie told him, though she was still on the defensive. "And Garrett - that's my friend who went to see you - knew someone called Emma who died recently."

Fogg shook his head. "I don't think it's her. It's somebody who's alive, and there's something wrong."

Pagan had appeared at Kylie's feet, and was now hissing at Fogg. Maybe he sensed Kylie's uncertainty about her visitor. She stooped and gathered the cat into her arms. He held still in her familiar hold, but still stared menacingly at the stranger, ears down in a gesture of sheer hostility.

"She's adamant about getting this message to you," Fogg continued, "but I don't know what she's trying to say. Do you trust me?"

"Not enough to invite you in," Kylie replied, "and I trust my cat enough to know that there's something not quite right about you. He's a very good judge of character."

"Cats are supposed to have psychic abilities. Maybe he can sense my gift."

"I can't ignore this, though," said Kylie, thinking of Eduardo. Maybe Rose was trying to get a message to her about him. "Do you know where the Ghostbusters' headquarters is?"

"Oh yes," Fogg nodded. "It's a thumping great firehouse with a big fat sign saying 'Ghostbusters' outside. You can't miss it."

"I want you to go there tomorrow morning, around nine," Kylie instructed him. "Then we can all look into this."

"Are you a Ghostbuster, then?" asked Fogg.

"Yes."

Pagan hissed, and Kylie stroked him to try and calm him down.

"Will you be there?" she asked.

"Sure," Fogg shrugged. "If it'll stop this woman from bothering me."

"Great. See you tomorrow."

Kylie shut the door and carried Pagan back to their bed. He gave her a questioning look, as though he had understood the words that had passed between her and Fogg, before stretching extravagantly and settling down to sleep. As for Kylie, she knew that the only way to stop thinking about the whole Patrick Fogg/Eduardo/Grandma Rose thing was to read the book she was enjoying so much. So she fluffed up her pillows, collapsed into them, tucked her feet underneath her and picked up the worn paperback.

* * *

Eduardo's eyes snapped open in response to the deafening ringing inside his head. Still naked, apart from the earrings he had neglected to remove, he was lying in a puddle of his own sweat. His eyes, ears and throat burned ten times worse than anything he had felt these last few days. Why oh why hadn't he listened to Kylie?

It was then that he realised the ringing sound in his head was actually the phone. Desperate to make the unbearable noise stop, he reached out and knocked the receiver to the floor. It took him a few moments to recover, before sinking to the ground and picking the wretched thing up.

"Hello?" It was Kylie, her voice filled with anxiety. "Eduardo, is that you? Are you ok?"
"No," Eduardo managed to croak.

"Oh my God, you sound awful! What's wrong?"

"I... I..."

But Eduardo could say no more. Before the phone fell from his slippery grasp he managed to hear Kylie saying, in urgent tones, "Don't move. I'm coming straight over."

For what felt like an age, Eduardo just sat on the floor, slumped against the bed. This did nothing to help the perspiration on his back, but he just couldn't bring himself to move. Then suddenly he heard the familiar sound of the Ecto-1's siren that signified Kylie's arrival. She must have put the siren on just for him. She'd better hope the mayor didn't find out about that.

Thinking quickly and summoning what strength he had, Eduardo crawled to the bathroom and clambered into yesterday's jeans. It was here that Kylie found him, just sitting in the middle of the bathroom floor.

"Oh God." If Kylie could possibly go paler than she already was, she did it now. She ran to Eduardo and dropped to her knees beside him, crying desperately, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Eduardo tried to speak but couldn't. Kylie put her palm on his shoulder, and it almost burnt her. Hurriedly she got to her feet, ran to the basin and filled the glass on the windowsill with cold water.

"Here," she said, taking Eduardo's chin in one hand, and feeding him the water with the other. "Don't try to speak."

Several minutes passed before Kylie helped Eduardo to his feet and led him to his bed. The sheets and pillows were in a terrible mess, but neither one of them noticed. Kylie sat next to Eduardo while he stared into space, trying to regain his composure. Finally his chest stopped heaving, the sweat subsided so it no longer flowed like a waterfall, and he was able to look at his saviour with weary eyes.

"What's happening to me?" Eduardo asked.

"You can speak," Kylie sighed. "Thank God. Um... I don't know. If I knew what was wrong then I'd help you."

"You just did," Eduardo pointed out.

He had noticed a pattern in this bizarre illness. He always felt at his worst when he was on his own. On occasions when he actually began to feel better, he had been with Kylie.

"Eduardo," ventured Kylie, "do you think you feel up to moving? I want to take you to the firehouse." She paused and then added quietly, "Patrick Fogg should be there."

"Patrick Fogg? Ow!"

Kylie wondered if it really was Fogg's name that triggered Eduardo to clutch a hand to his chest. His face contorted with pain, and for a horrible moment she got a bizarre feeling that he was going to drop down dead. However he managed to calm himself, and then say again in choked, incredulous tones, "Patrick Fogg?"

"I know it sounds crazy," Kylie said, "but he may be able to help you. Do you think you're up to the trip?"

"Sure," Eduardo rasped, getting unsteadily to his feet. "But Kylie... Patrick Fogg?"

"I'll explain on the way," Kylie promised, as she led him to his front door.

* * *

Polite and mild-mannered by day, Lisa Fogg was a total bitch in the mornings. And the earlier it was, the bitchier she was. Woken unexpectedly at eight o'clock, she let out a noise of frustration, shot out her arm and punched the alarm clock to the floor, shattering the mechanics of the device entirely.

"What the hell did you set the alarm for?" she yelled at her husband, as he clambered out of bed and made for the bathroom. "It's Saturday morning!"

"I know," Patrick replied patiently. "You go back to sleep. I have to go out."

"Out where?" Lisa murmured into her pillow.

Patrick wondered how his wife would react if he told her he had an appointment with a beautiful girl of Audrey Hepburn proportions who, from the look of her, couldn't be older than twenty. It was the entirely innocent truth, of course, but Lisa might not think so.

"I've got an appointment!" he called to her, over the buzz of his electric razor.

"God, Patrick, do you have to do that now? I'm trying to sleep!"

Oh well, at least in Bitch Mode Lisa was generally too tired to ask awkward questions. Once dressed, Patrick made the gesture of kissing his wife on the forehead, and then grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl before heading straight out of the front door.

* * *

Ghostbusters HQ. Interesting rendezvous. He felt that the woman presumed to be Rose was with him again. What the hell was going on here? Patrick hoped that on walking into that firehouse across the street, he would find out.

The receptionist looked harmless enough: a thirty-something woman with red hair and glasses. As Patrick approached her she smiled warmly, at once making him feel at ease.

"Can I help you?" Janine asked politely.

"I don't know," Patrick frowned. What exactly was he supposed to do now he was here? "I made an appointment yesterday."

"With whom?" Janine looked puzzled.

"With a girl. Skinny little thing with black hair."

"Oh." Janine's expression cleared. "You mean Kylie. You're Patrick Fogg, right?"

"Right."

"Kylie called me last night and warned me you'd be coming. Now, what is this about?"

"I... I'm not sure," Patrick stammered. "You know I'm a medium? Well, there's this dead lady who keeps talking to me. She's got some kind of problem and last night she sent me to this girl Kylie's home."

"Oh." Well, there really was no answer to that.

"I was hoping we might be able to figure this thing out," Patrick continued, "and she - Kylie, I mean - told me to come here at nine o'clock. Um... I'm five minutes late," he added. "Sorry."

"That's ok," Janine said. "Kylie was here half an hour ago, but she disappeared with the Ecto-1 and hasn't come back yet."

"The Ecto-1?" Patrick frowned.

"The Ghostbusters' car."

"Oh."

* * *

Egon was forced to make small talk with Patrick in the firehouse foyer until the Ghostbusters arrived. Aside from the weather and the state of the subway, they mostly talked about Patrick's "gift". He insisted it was genuine, and Egon believed him, simply because he had faith in humankind and saw no reason why this perfectly nice man should lie to him.

"Would you mind," Egon ventured, "if I did a PKE scan on you?"

"Depends," Patrick said cautiously. "What's a PKE scan?"

Anyone who knew Egon wouldn't have been surprised that this question triggered a lengthy explanation of how ghosts, paranormal activity, psycho-kinetic energy and the meters themselves all worked. But Patrick didn't know Egon, and he was at a complete loss as to know what to say, if indeed he was supposed to say anything. All he could do was sit and nod passively until Roland and Garrett arrived in Roland's Mustang.

"You?" Garrett gave Patrick a puzzled and disapproving frown. "What are you doing here?"

Egon stopped talking, and Patrick was at a loss for words. This was the second person to ask him that question in the space of about seventeen hours, and still he had no answer. Fortunately he was rescued when the Ecto-1 screeched to a halt just yards away from him, almost knocking him down.

"Oh good, you're here," Kylie said breathlessly, jumping out of the hearse and then running round to open the passenger door. She stooped and asked the figure in the car, "Are you ok? How are you feeling?"

"Not so bad."

As Eduardo spoke he climbed out of the car, sounding almost normal. He still didn't look quite himself, everyone noticed. Everyone but Patrick, who had met him once, very briefly, several days ago.

But apparently it was too much to hope that Eduardo was over his strange illness. He turned, took one look at Patrick and announced, "I think I'm gonna be sick."

Everyone watched, baffled, as Eduardo ran into the main building. Then all eyes turned to Patrick. "Why are you all looking at me?" he said defensively. "It's not my fault he's sick."

"Do you remember him?" Kylie asked.

"Sure," Patrick replied. "He's your heckler friend."

"I apologised for that," Kylie reminded him.

"Excuse me," Roland ventured, "but what is going on here?"

"That's a very good question," Egon put in. Then looking from Kylie to Patrick he added, "Perhaps one of you would care to explain?"

"It's this kid's great-grandmother," Patrick said, jerking a thumb towards Kylie. "She won't stop bothering me. It's this person whose name begins with E. But I don't know why I had to come here."

"Is she here now?" Garrett asked suspiciously.

"Who?" returned Patrick.

Garrett rolled his eyes. "Queen Victoria," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Then, "Kylie's Grandma Rose! Who do you think?"

It was then that Eduardo returned, still looking pale and drained. Kylie's green eyes found his, burning red in the shadowy hollows of their sockets, and she asked, "Are you ok now, Eduardo?"

"Your name's Eduardo?" ventured Patrick. "Well it's him then, duh!"

"What are you talking about?" Eduardo challenged. "What are you even doing here?" He had found Kylie's explanation somewhat unsatisfactory.

"Good question." Patrick turned on Kylie, and Eduardo immediately readied himself to leap to her defence if necessary. "Why did you bring me here? Your grandmother wants you to help him. Surely you could have figured that out from what I said."

"Ok," Kylie returned, "but we don't know what's wrong with him. Answer that, mister medium."

"Kylie," Eduardo said quietly. "I thought we'd established this guy was a fraud."

"But I'm not a fraud," Patrick defended himself. "Kylie's great-grandmother is here, and she's telling me to tell her to help you."

"What about all that stuff with Eduardo's father?" Garrett ventured to ask. "Was that for real?"

"Um... well, no," Patrick confessed. To Eduardo he said, "I just did it to spook you. I guess it was a pretty rotten thing to do. Sorry."

Eduardo shrugged and said, "Sorry I heckled you."

"It was the first time I ever made anything up," Patrick went on hastily. "Kylie, I really did get in touch with your grandmother, and now she won't leave me alone."

"Can you get her to tell you what's wrong with him?" Kylie asked. "It's not like I haven't been trying to help him, but nothing's working."

"Sure it is," Eduardo said quietly.

Kylie turned to look at him in surprise. Finally she said, "What?"

"You remember the state I was in first thing this morning," Eduardo continued. "You gave me a glass of water and pulled me off the floor and I felt better."

"Egon."

It was Roland who spoke. He was holding his PKE meter close to Patrick's back, and frowning at it the way he did when he was deep in thought.

"Oh my," Egon said, looking over Roland's shoulder.

"Hey." Patrick turned round and then took a step back. "What are you doing?"

"Mr. Fogg," Egon began, "you are giving off a fairly strong PKE reading."

"It's not all that strong," Roland put in, "but it's way more than a human should be giving off."

"Which is nothing," Garrett added helpfully.

"So... what?" asked Patrick.

"Well." Egon furrowed his brow in thought, and took a few moments before continuing. "This gift of yours. I think it's stronger than you realise. I think you have psychic abilities you don't even know about."

Patrick looked blank. He didn't know Egon, and he didn't know how to react to what he said. He did know, however, that Rose was telling him to listen to this guy.

"In fact," Egon went on, "I think you may be responsible for Eduardo's condition."

"I am not!" Patrick objected.

"Yes," Egon said evenly, "you are. When he heckled you at your seminar, I expect that made you a little angry."

Patrick pulled a face, as a reaction to the bizarre situation he was in, as well as the memory of how angry Eduardo really had made him that night. "Sure," he said.

"So you told him you were in contact with his dead father to spook him."

"Yes," Patrick confirmed.

"Well." Egon's expression remained emotionless all the time he spoke. "I think you did a lot more than spook him. I think you were so angry with him that your desire to hurt him emotionally also resulted in a physical manifestation."

"I told him not to heckle," Kylie muttered.

"I'm sorry," said Patrick. "I can't believe all this. But..."

"But what?" demanded Kylie.

"Your Grandma Rose is still here, telling me it's all true. But how could she possibly know all that?"

"Maybe," Roland said slowly, "we could talk to Rose directly."

"What?" Kylie looked up, her eyes wide and her voice filled with urgency. "How?"

"Well, we know she's here," Roland explained. "I see no reason why we can't bring her to the physical plane with Egon's mass-maker gloves."

That was enough for Kylie. She dashed towards the door to the main building, pushing it open with the force of her entire body and then disappearing through it. The group of men watched her with interest, and then Roland turned back to Egon and asked, "Will that work?"

"It should do," Egon said gravely. "If Rose is here - "

"She is," Patrick muttered wearily.

"If Rose is here," Egon said again, "and she can hear us, all she needs to do is pass through the forcefield generated by the gloves. Then she should take corporeal form."

Kylie returned more quickly than any of them would have believed possible, and had the gloves activated within seconds. Patrick stared at the gloves in awe; they seemed to be a pair of gauntlets, made of metal, with all sorts of bizarre gadgets attached. When Kylie put her knuckles together, the gloves emitted some kind of forcefield: bright yellow fingers of light zigzagging between the girl's hands.

They had to be uncomfortable, surely. They made a most unnerving crackling sound. Kylie's pale face was bathed in blinding light, and the force she was wielding sent her long black hair billowing out behind her.

"Come on, Grandma Rose, come on," Kylie urged her great-grandmother's ghost, through gritted teeth.

Eduardo shook his head. It wasn't going to happen. And when Kylie realised this, she would be crushed. He suspected that she had realised it already, but still she held her position, the desperation in her face illuminated by the gloves' forcefield.

Then, finally, she gave up. Kylie deactivated the gloves; they dropped to the floor and she kicked them across the room in a gesture of frustration. She said nothing, and with her painted black lips pursed in apparent listlessness, her face gave away nothing. Eduardo stared at her, trying to see past the thick lashes into her soulful green eyes. Her face was a plaster cast. Here was someone who literally wore a mask, and now she was actually using it to hide.

"Hey," Eduardo said gently, approaching Kylie and putting a hand on her shoulder.

Kylie took a deep breath and said, "Guess she's not here."

Patrick knew better than that, but he also knew better than to say as much.

At last Kylie was able to bring herself to look at something other than the ground. She turned to Eduardo and asked, with genuine concern, "What about you? Do you feel any better?"

"Not really," Eduardo replied, "but now I've got some idea of what's wrong, I think I might know what to do."

"Really?" Roland looked puzzled. If he hadn't figured out what to do next, how could Eduardo have done it? "What?"

"I think I just have to, uh..." For some reason Eduardo looked down at his feet. "Channel my grief."

Suddenly Patrick looked up, alert, as if in amazement. With a piercing stare at Eduardo he repeated incredulously, "Channel your grief?"

* * *

Alberto Juan Rivera
March 1938 - July 1990
Devoted husband and father
Died serving his country

"HIS country," Eduardo fairly spat. "Whatever."

Fists bunched into his pockets, Eduardo stepped back from the headstone that he hadn't set eyes on in at least five years. Carl was constantly deriding him for it, but Eduardo maintained that he didn't have to stare at some cold, lifeless piece of stone to remember their father.

And besides, the epitaph pissed him off.

Despite all this, however, Eduardo actually felt better, if not for the visit to his father, then for the walk through the graveyard. It was quite a nice place really, if you didn't think about what it actually was, and what all the very pretty ornaments adorning the pathways actually meant.

Walking through the children's section of the graveyard was one way to spoil a perfectly nice day. It was too upsetting, so as he approached the tragically small graves, Eduardo veered off to the left. Then he stopped short, muttering an obscenity as he heard a familiar voice call, "Eddie!"

"My name's Eduardo," he snapped, continuing to walk as Garrett pulled up beside him.

"Whoa," said Garrett. "Where'd that come from? I always call you Eddie. You know," he added, "for short."

"Yeah, well don't," Eduardo muttered, knowing full well that he would be Eddie to Garrett again in a matter of hours, if not minutes. "I am so sick of everyone Americanising my name."

"What do you mean everyone? I thought it was just me."

"And Carlos."

"Oh."

"I mean, what's so wrong with being from Mexico?" Eduardo said with feeling. "Why do they want to hide it by changing our names? Eddie, Carl, Al..."

"Who's Al?" As if he had to ask.

"No one," Eduardo muttered. "So what are you doing here anyway?"

"Visiting Emma," Garrett replied, the perk in his voice instantly disappearing.

"Oh. Channelling your grief, huh?"

"Am I?"

"I don't know," Eduardo shrugged. "I never did understand what that meant. But I do actually feel a little better for coming here. How about you?"

"Not really," said Garrett. "I still want to find out if she's ok."

"Maybe you should see Patrick Fogg."

"No way. Even I've had enough of that guy, and I only met him twice. And how do I know he won't curse me as well...? But if I did want to see him, here's the next best thing," Garrett added, as Lisa Fogg approached them. She had just left two young women by one of the graves, and now she looked up at the pair she approached with recognition on her face.

Eduardo stared, open-mouthed, as Lisa walked towards them. Garrett was about to say a polite hello, but Eduardo got there first:

"You?!"

"Eduardo Rivera? It is you, isn't it?"

"What?" Garrett muttered to himself. "Oh, now this is just getting silly."

"Yeah it's me," Eduardo said defensively, crossing his arms across his chest, erecting the metaphorical wall between himself and Lisa.

"Good Lord," the woman went on, shaking her head with disbelief. "How long has it been?"

"Seven years," Eduardo replied quickly. He had been twelve the last time he saw her, and even he could subtract twelve from nineteen fairly speedily.

"Seven years," Lisa repeated, with a note of disbelief. "Has it really been that long? So how have you been coping?"

"Fine."

"That's what you said seven years ago."

"Yeah. Well. I was coping fine then, and I'm coping fine now. I might even go so far as to say I'm coping better without you."

"Oh Eduardo." Lisa shook her head patronisingly, and for a split second Eduardo was transported back in time to 1991. "Still not opening up, I see. Did you ever take my advice?"

"How could I? I didn't understand what the hell you were talking about," Eduardo shot back. "Like I said at the time, grief is not the Suez Canal."

"What?" Garrett suddenly said. This earned him a strange look from Lisa, and then she asked, "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

"Yes," Garrett answered. "I, uh, paid your husband a visit the other day."

"That's right," Lisa nodded. "Boy was I mad at him when I found out he was still working as a medium. Working in a bar my ass!"

"Well... we'd better be going," Garrett said, with a polite smile.

"Me too," said Lisa. She nodded towards the two girls she had been with and said, "I'm working."

"Who is it?" Eduardo asked.

"Their mother."

"Bummer. Poor them. Well." Eduardo walked past her without a second glance. "See ya."

"So what did you mean by that?" Garrett asked Eduardo, once Lisa was out of earshot. "Grief is not the Suez Canal. What does that mean?"

He waited for an answer, but didn't even get a "Shut up, man."

"Come on, Eddie, tell me," Garrett persisted. "What does the Suez Canal have to do with anything? And who is she to you, anyway?"

"Oh man!" Eduardo suddenly exploded. "Would you just shut up?!"

Close enough. Garrett smiled to himself. Whatever spiritual self-realisation Eduardo had just gone through, it must have done the trick. Eddie was back, sulky, unpleasant and hostile as ever.

* * *

Eduardo wasn't sure he liked being back to normal. Trying to sleep on the sofa in the firehouse at one o'clock in the morning, he reflected as much. Ok, so the sweating, the vomiting, the headaches and the impossible emotional strain had stopped. But so had Kylie's kindness and concern towards him. Once again she was treating him like an annoying child.

Thinking about Kylie sometimes helped Eduardo sleep, because thinking about Kylie sometimes made him feel calm, happy and keen to get into a vivid dream. At other times, like this, thinking about Kylie made his brain ache, his heart rate escalate and his eyes seem to weld themselves open.

Get to sleep, get to sleep, get to sleep... Eduardo scolded himself continuously, but it didn't do the slightest bit of good. At least close your eyes, he thought to himself; but he couldn't even do that. Then he realised that he was going to have to get up to go to the bathroom, in which case he may as well turn on the light and order a pizza when he came back.

The pizza idea never came through. On returning to the sitting room from the bathroom, Eduardo's attention was grabbed by the mass-maker gloves, which lay on the coffee table. Their presence puzzled him for two reasons: he didn't remember them being there before; and he wouldn't have thought Egon would put them there in the first place.

He supposed Slimer must have been fiddling. It was a more than likely explanation, in which case why was he finding the wretched things so damn hard to ignore? Something in the back of his mind - perhaps a repressed childhood tendency to fiddle with unusual or interesting objects - prompted him to slip his hands into the gloves and activate them. He knew it was probably a bad idea, because he knew that by doing this he could allow any bizarre creatures passage to the physical plane. But he felt he just... had to.

There was an explosion of light. Eduardo deactivated the gloves, and found himself staring into the face of an elderly woman.

"Rose?" He simply could not believe it.

"Ah," the old lady smiled. "So you do recognise me."

"You've got Kylie's eyes."

He didn't mean to say it. He wasn't even conscious that he had noticed Kylie's eyes before. But out it came, and a smile spread across Rose's translucent, ghostly lips.

"Thank you," she said. "Kylie has nice eyes."

"Nice? They're beautiful."

Ok, where did that come from?

"She is beautiful," Rose agreed, taking a seat on the sofa and inviting Eduardo to join her. "But then I don't need to tell you that."

"What are you doing here?" Eduardo asked.

"I just wanted to talk to you. Make sure you're really all right. I was hoping you might talk to Kylie. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon."

"She doesn't want to talk to me," Eduardo returned bitterly.

"But she does," Rose insisted. "Or at least she did. I tried to tell you so when I visited you in your bathroom that night. The mirror," she added. "I hoped it might enable me to talk to you. But after you turned round and broke eye contact, I couldn't come back."

"Um... sorry."

Eduardo cast his mind back that unpleasant night. He seemed to remember that, when Rose had visited him, he had been in something of a state of undress.

"Oh, that's all right," Rose chuckled. "You weren't to know."

This, Eduardo thought, is completely bizarre. Here he was, in the firehouse in the middle of the night, talking to Kylie's dead great-grandmother as though it was the most natural thing in the world. And what's more, he liked her. He found that he was talking quite freely to her, feeling totally at ease. It really was too bad he couldn't have known her when she was alive.

"She still wants to talk to you about this," the ghost continued, "but she fools herself and everybody else that she doesn't. Just because you don't have six PhDs and your own scientific theory, she thinks you're not right for her. And even if she realises she's wrong, she won't admit it even to herself. That girl has always been headstrong. But then," she added with a sly smile, "that's one of the things I love about her. I expect you feel the same."

Eduardo said nothing. This woman was a ghost, and he thought his secrets were probably safe with her, but still he didn't feel like disclosing any of them.

"Oh, come on," Rose smiled. "You can tell me. You love her, don't you?"

Eduardo looked into the old lady's eyes. They were like Kylie's, with one notable difference: the kindness shone from them, clear and bright, while Kylie hid hers in a mask of defiance and heavy mascara.

"Honestly?" Eduardo said, with a half-smile. "I love her so much it physically hurts."

"I thought as much," Rose nodded. "Don't give up. I know her better than anyone, and I'm sure she'll see sense eventually."

"Can you stay?" asked Eduardo, enjoying the encouragement he was getting. "Do you have to... be somewhere?"

"Not for a while. At least I have time to answer some questions. You do have questions, don't you? I'm sure there are some things you still don't understand."

"Just one. Why didn't you come to us the other day? You know, the morning when - "

"Yes, Eduardo, I know the one. I was there, but I really couldn't face that Egon of yours, and your other friends. And that Patrick Fogg..." She shook her head. "He calls himself a medium, but he can talk to ghosts in the same way that Kylie talks to her cat. Something to do with the letter E indeed! I was screaming your name, and hers. In the end I had to send him to her front door!"

"Yeah, I know. But Kylie... She really wants to see you, man."

"I know," Rose nodded. "I suppose it's easier for me. I can see her whenever I want. It wasn't so easy that year she was on her own, mind you, with nobody but her cat to love her. Now don't get me wrong, Pagan is a wonderful friend to her, but you just can't beat a bit of human companionship. I so hoped she would make friends at college. When you boys came into her life and she joined the Ghostbusters, I was so relieved. But I must admit, I'm a little puzzled as to why you and she still aren't together."

"She's not interested," Eduardo said simply.

"It's all a front. I've been watching you these last few days, and you came so close. But you really ought to let her in, you know."

"No way." Eduardo shook his head, adamant. "I can't talk about that stuff. Not with her, and not with anyone."

"How can you expect her to love you if she doesn't know you?"

That one stumped Eduardo just for a moment. He had no answer. There wasn't one. There was, however, a perfectly good counter question:

"What if I let her get to know me and she doesn't love me?"

"She will," Rose insisted, "if only as a friend. She won't leave you on your own if that's what you're afraid of."

"Ok," Eduardo said. "One more question. Can you, like, hang out with other dead people?"

"Of course I can," Rose answered. "I haven't seen your father anywhere about, I'm afraid. Well, I may have done, but I wouldn't know him. But Emma. Now, I knew when she died she would be cause for concern in your little circle. You can tell that nice young man Garrett, she's perfectly happy. She's with her grandmother."

"He'll want to know how I found out."

"So tell him," Rose said with a shrug. "Just don't tell Kylie about this. She may resent you for it."

"Why? It's not my fault."

"Well, you did put on the gloves."

"Yeah," Eduardo conceded. "I guess I did."

"I hoped you would. I think you needed to talk. You know, to help you, uh... channel your grief."

"Do not remind me of that woman," Eduardo returned, with a shake of the head. "I didn't even need a grief counsellor. I was coping fine."

"Who made you go to her?" asked Rose. "Your mother?"

"Yeah. She thought there must be something wrong with me because I... stopped talking for a little while. But I was ok," he added hastily. "I was eleven and my father had just died. I didn't feel like talking."

"Well, I'm no expert," was all Rose said on the matter. "Now if there's nothing else you want to say, I'll be going."

"Well, it was nice meeting you," Eduardo smiled at her. "And... thanks."

Much like the Cheshire Cat of Wonderland, Rose's smile was the last part of her to disappear. Eduardo couldn't see the old dear grinning like the Cheshire Cat, but her warm smile stayed imprinted in his mind as he was finally able to drift off to sleep. He thought about Kylie, and now found that it calmed him and made him smile. His mind at ease and his body in complete comfort, Eduardo fell into the first peaceful sleep he had experienced for days.

THE END