Chapter Text
Things were not going as planned. Holtz knows, she knows that this is not the way everything is supposed to be. She has enough experience to know that this is all going horribly wrong. There is something they’re missing. Definitely.
It all seemed suspiciously easy. Just threaten the guy and he gives up? No one in their right mind would be such a coward. Maybe that’s where they were going wrong! Of course Rowan wasn’t in his right mind; he tried to break the barrier that protected the world as we know it from ghosts!
Truth is, all they know is that Rowan has killed himself. Which is a stupid thing to do, considering all the work he had visibly put into his machines. Ah, the machines… deadly, scary, but beautiful. Just the way Holtzmann liked it.
Holtz had secretly taken a look at the machines while the others weren’t really paying attention, and it’s so advanced. It had taken Abby and Erin years and years of their life to come up with the theory behind it. And he had applied that theory and created something gorgeous.
But then again, why would Rowan spend so many years of his long, miserable life on something, and make it work... and then suddenly give up just because four women threaten to call the police? Obviously, the guy hadn’t been in much contact with women throughout his life, but they weren’t that intimidating, were they? Holtz just couldn’t comprehend it. And she hates it: she has spent her whole life studying the incomprehensible.
For days Holtz has been sitting in their workplace, trying to find out what Rowan could have done. Erin, Abby and Patty hadn’t thought this far. As far as they’re concerned, Rowan killed himself. End of story. Only Holtzmann seemed to understand how completely out of character his last move was.
But Holtzmann knows when something is up, and she knows it’s bad this time. She can see Patty reading something about the Jackson Whites, Abby writing about their ‘big win’ on Ghost News, and Erin writing fake speeches. She doesn’t think anyone noticed that Kevin hasn’t been to work ever since they ‘defeated’ Rowan. The poor guy probably doesn’t even know he’s supposed to be here.
It’s the fourth day of just staring straight ahead, when suddenly the silence is broken. A vociferous roar, an almost... thunder-like sound makes the four of them jump up. They rush to the window. Holtzmann can hear Patty screaming, something akin to, “Oh hell no, I ain’t doing this”. She can hear Abby’s surprised yelp, but above all, she hears Erin’s silence. A silence so loud it might as well have been a scream.
The Ghostbusters scramble to get their proton guns, and Holtz drives even faster than she normally does, but deep down they know it’s all in vain. Even before they got into the car, they knew that they would be too late. Everywhere around them, wherever they look, they see ghosts. What’s worse, they’re multiplying with every second that passes.
When the Ghostbusters finally do arrive, they catch a glimpse of Kevin going into the Mercado. Of course, the women have to find out what their assistant is up to this time. “We have to warn him,” says Abby, worry etched across her features, “He hasn’t got a clue what he’s getting himself into.” Determined, the four get out of the car and march to the once grand entrance of the Mercado hotel. The adrenaline only fuels their fury.
“Kevin!” shouts Abby once she spots him at the top of the majestic staircase. “Kevin, you have to get out of here, it’s dangerous!”
Kevin turns around and an eerie grin spreads across his face upon spotting his four colleagues. “Hello ladies,” he says, in a decidedly not-Kevin voice. “I see you’ve come to witness my grande finale.” Not-Kevin spreads his arms and he floats into the air. If he’d been a kid and wearing tunic rather than the jumpsuit he was wearing, he would’ve been Peter Pan. Well. He would also have needed to dye his hair. And other distinctive features such as the teeth and free-spiritedness were also lacking. And Kevin wears glasses, of course. Sort of, anyways.
Then it clicks. It’s not Kevin. And it’s not Peter Pan, either. “Rowan!” Holtzmann bellows. The ghost/not-Kevin freezes in his tracks. Holtzmann knows she’s right. She silently berates herself for not noticing it sooner - of course, a brilliant mind like Rowan wouldn’t just kill himself. That would be a terrible waste of all that intelligence. No, Rowan had had a plan. And it had worked because she hadn’t been paying attention.
The next few minutes pass almost like a blur for Holtzmann. She can hear all of her friends talking to Rowan, and she even thinks she might have said some words for herself, but she’s not too sure about that. It’s just all so wrong, like it’s somehow not how it’s supposed to be. She watches as Rowan’s spirit leaves Kevin’s body, watches how her friends struggle to catch the body as he falls down from the balcony, unable to move or talk or think or act.
She remains motionless as Rowan starts to change into “something nice and cute, like a friendly little ghost”, as Patty described it. She tries not to show how scared she actually is as Rowan keeps growing and growing and growing. Holtzmann knows she’s about to die. She can feel it in her bones. And she accepts it. Certainly, it’s not how she pictured her death (her imagined death involved much more balloons) and she can’t figure out how she going to die but she knows it’s determined. This is where the curtain falls.
Yet, it would have been easier when you know how you will die. Or at least that’s what Holtzmann thinks. She could’ve warned the rest of the team. She could’ve told them that it’s okay. She had always known she would be the first. They had all known.
Unfortunately, Holtzmann’s inner crisis doesn’t stop Rowan from growing, or the ghosts from flying out of the portal, or Rowan from throwing them out of the window with a force so powerful, it shouldn’t be possible by the laws of nature. So naturally, Holtzmann does what she has always done: she fights like her life is depending on it (which is probably the case, she thinks to herself. She never says it out loud, though).
She fights, and Abby fights, and Patty fights, and Erin, she frickin’ demolishes. It’s beautiful, but not enough. They know they aren’t going to win this. They were too late, they figured out his plan too late, and this was the price they were going to pay.
When Patty suggested to use the “nuclear thang” on top of the hearse, it was the only thing they got. Holtz tried to make a nice story around it, trying to reassure her friends that it would work. In reality she knew that if they shot the tanks, at least one of them wouldn’t survive it. Life doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints, Holtzmann thinks to herself as she aims her wand at the tanks, it takes and it takes and it takes and it takes, and we keep living anyway. She’s standing closest to the car. It’s a sacrifice, an action that would speak louder than any speech in any pub she could ever give - not that she has fantasised about telling her friends just how much she loves them.
It was her friends’ only shot at survival. They took it.
The Ghostbusters fire their proton guns, make sure the car gets into the vortex, and then fire at the tanks...
That’s where it all goes wrong.