"Your meds, Mr. Price?" asked Amy from the fireplace. She couldn't have faked a smile at him even if her life depended on it.
He turned to her, frowning. "Come again?"
"I need your meds."
"I need them back by noon to take them."
Amy held his eyes for a heartbeat and turned to me. "The bag, Fran, please?"
I hurried across the room to give it to her. And stayed as close to the heater as I could without falling into the fireplace. Man, I loved to feel the flames after being outside on such a cold morning.
Price breathed deep, annoyed. His voice thundered across the whole house. "Isaac! Our prescriptions!"
The wingman trotted down the stairs like an obedient poodle a moment later, carrying a belt pouch overflowing with pill bottles. He handed it out to Price, who nodded to Amy.
"Let's go one by one," she said, taking out a bunch of small glass dropper bottles from her bag and lining them up on the mantelpiece.
The wing— Enough of calling him that. Isaac grabbed a random orange bottle and read the name of the drug aloud. Amy picked one of her bottles and traded plastic for glass with him.
"You're gonna take these drops instead of your pills," she explained before they could ask anything. "Each bottle is labeled with the drug it's replacing. Have as many drops as pills you usually take, as often as you usually do."
"What are they?" asked Price with a suspicious frown.
"You can call them homeopathic remedies. They work exactly the same as your pills."
"I don't need some random remedy."
"No, you two need to start working on your dependency."
Isaac raised his eyebrows and met my eyes. Yeah, we both would've rather left the other two alone to kill each other, but we were stuck in there with them.
"Dependency?" Price's voice was razor sharp. "Are you suggesting we're some kinda addicts?"
Amy shrugged. "I was just trying to be polite, but that's the right word for it. You have a particular kind of attachment that feeds addictions to feed on addicts' cravings. This is a way to weaken it, so we don't need to spend a whole month cleansing you guys to sever the attachment."
Price forgot all about his diminished demeanor to stiffen and stand tall, taking mortal offense.
"I'm not doing it."
Amy nodded to me. "Tell her. I'm doing all this to help her. Thought that was why you were here too: to help her so you can get your stupid shoot done in time."
If words were backhands, Price's nose would've been bleeding. His eyes descended on me as he raised his eyebrows slightly, the king commanding me to speak up or die. Amy wouldn't let me even open my mouth.
"So? Are you gonna bail cause you can't go without your fucking pills? Or are you enough of a man to let go of them for five days?"
I spotted a cat ball I'd forgotten on the coffee table. It started flashing the moment Amy cussed and I had to cover my mouth to fight back a silly giggle. That certainly fueled the fire of Price's hurting pride.
"What's so funny, young lady?"
Amy rolled her eyes. "Jesus! Is he really talking to you like he was your damned grade teacher?"
"Language, Amy!" I whispered.
I tried to control myself, but Isaac swallowed a giggle too. Avoiding eye contact wasn't enough, and we burst into laughter a heartbeat later. Price looked at us like we had spit in his face. At least Amy smiled.
"I know. I'm sorry, Ann. I didn't mean to forget my manners, but this man— Yes, exactly."
Price looked around, trying to see who she was talking to. He found nobody, so his eyes darted up, now looking for hidden cameras.
I tried to get a little grip on myself. "She's talking to Mrs. Blotter. She's— Where is she?"
Amy pointed at the couch. "There, with Edward and Joseph."
"What the fuck are you fucking talking about?" cried Price.
"Language!" Amy and I chided him at the same time.
Isaac faced me with an incredulous frown. "C'mon."
I produced my phone, where I had downloaded Trisha's SLS app, and looked up at the couch. "May I, ma'am?"
"Show him," the phone app replied, giving the Haunters a good start.
"Thank you." I opened the app and let Isaac see my screen. The sticks showed Ann sitting on the couch, with Edward and Joseph standing behind her like soldiers.
"C'mon!" Isaac cried, his eyes jumping from my phone to the couch and back.
"Enough, Fran. We don't have time for this," said Amy, taking her turn to address me like she was my damned grade teacher, and faced Price. "Are you gonna make up your mind anytime soon?"
Isaac handed me the belt pouch discretely and tiptoed up the stairs. I offered it to Amy, but she shook her head, staring straight into Price's eyes.
"A word, Francesca?" he said with a suspicious look at the couch. "Outside."
I tried a soft tone to make up for my harsh words. "I'm sorry, but you need to answer Amy. If you refuse, we don't have anything left to say."
He rolled his eyes and snorted. "Whatever." He pointed a menacing finger at Amy. "But if those remedies don't work, I'm out."
"Of course, 'cause you're not an addict."
Isaac was back with a K2 and a tri-field meter, but Amy signaled him to approach her. "Come, let me show you."
He glanced at the couch and sighed. I couldn't help myself.
"Don't worry," I said, patting his arm. "This is their home, so they ain't going anywhere."
I left Amy and Isaac trading bottles and motioned for Price to lead the way out. When he spun around, I paused by the couch.
"Everything okay downstairs?" I whispered.
I wished the phone app would whisper too. "Upset but holding."
Price opened the door and turned to me with a questioning frown, but I ignored him.
"Call me if you think I'm needed there."
"Don't worry."
I flashed a tight smile at the couch and left the guesthouse with Price.
"I can't work with that woman!" he complained the moment we were outside. "Don't you know any other medium?"
Okay, here we go. "Have you seen the Quabbin this time of the year?" I asked. "Come, it's just five minutes away."
He walked with me across the garden in angry silence, clenched teeth, hands in his pockets. I wasn't sure how much I should tell him, but I had the feeling that a little honesty was required to smooth out such a rough start.
"Please forgive her. She's the sweetest person I've ever met." I overlooked his scoff. "She's acting out 'cause she can see your attachments, and they scare the living hell outta her."
"What're you talking about?"
We started down the trail in no hurry, side by side, and I tried to repeat how Amy had described his parasites.
"That's weird. I'm supposed to be clean." He didn't sound offended or even annoyed, but puzzled. "After what happened here five years ago, I hired a psychic to cleanse me after every investigation."
"I'm afraid they're not doing their job. Did you get any kind of cleansing or energetic healing right after leaving your attachment here?"
He shook his head with a curious frown. I grimaced.
"Amy thinks that's what left you so open for parasites to attach themselves to you, several at a time."
We reached the Quabbin while I was still telling him about the open wound in his energetic node and all that. He didn't interrupt me even once. He listened to my every clumsy word, walking slowly to match my pace, gloved hands still in his pockets and eyes down on the trail under a focused frown.
I showed him my fallen-tree bench and we sat down almost shoulder to shoulder. Well, biceps to shoulder. He didn't say a single word after I finished talking. Lucky me, he'd flipped his inner switch the moment we were out of the guesthouse, leaving the arrogant prick back there.
Then he faced me. "You don't seem afraid of me like the medium."
"Because I can't see them." And because I was pretty sure I had an invisible bodyguard standing right behind us, ready to snap in two any worm that tried a bite at me. "And I always try to think about them as parasites instead of demons."
He stiffened. "Demons? You're suggesting I have a demonic attachment?"
I nodded, grimacing, and was forced to offer another of my clumsy explanations about how scavengers feeding on living energy developed demonic treats, enough to be considered lower demons.
"Fuck," he muttered, looking away with a serious frown. He was about to say something, but instead, he sunk his head between his shoulders with a grimace.
"Migraine?" I asked, concerned.
He shook his head slightly, taking a gloved hand to the back of his neck to rub it. "It's like hot pricks," he murmured. "It's my stiff neck. The back always feels kinda fevered."
"I think that's the parasites. The shadow in the basement feels hot too."
"How would you know?"
"Remember the long story—?"
"That keeps getting longer? Yeah."
"Well, I've touched it. That's how I know."
"You what!?"
He leaned to the other side, pursing his face. Yeah, the Dr. Octopus of parasites seemed disgusted being so close to somebody who had but touched one.
"He's not attached to me. He's chained, remember? You chained him."
"Him?"
"Yeah. Amy says we can consider it sort of masculine. So it is a he."
"She let you touch it?"
"Actually, I did it behind her back and she went bonkers when she found out."
He let out a soft chuckle, shaking his head. Only then he really looked up and ahead. The view made him forget what he was about to say, and it was plain to see why. The sun was high enough for the first ray of sunlight to reach over the woods, and beam across the bright blue sky like a golden spear, lighting up all the colors and shapes. The water was warmer than the air, and the steam coming out of it condensed in a thin foggy carpet a couple of feet above the surface of the reservoir, surrounded by trees wrapped in all the glory of their fall foliage. A hundred birds sang and a hundred more flew around us. The cold breeze made the smell of the woods fill the air.
"It's a gorgeous place," he muttered.
"Yeah, I frigging love it."
He sat up, like extracting himself from the lure of the place to turn to me again.
"So what's the plan for the next days?"
"You should ask Amy. All I know is that we need to perform three cleansings over three days on you and your friend, in order to rid you guys of all your parasites without leaving an open wound. Then, you can come into the Manor, and we can perform the ritual to unchain Ku— the shadow."
He narrowed his eyes. "You once told me you have a name for it."
"I call him Kujo."
He tried not to laugh and failed. "Oh, right! Like Stephen King's novel Cujo!"
"Well, he's big and angry and dangerous like a rabid Saint Bernard, right?"
"Right!" He laughed heartedly a moment longer. "Sorry. You're just full of surprises, young lady."
"Go figure, old man."
He elbowed me, laughing out loud again. When he calmed down, he took another look around again.
"I like it here," he muttered.
"Get rid of those nasty attachments and you can come over whenever you want."
"Careful, I might hold you to your word."
Lucky me, my phone buzzed before I had a chance to say something irreversibly stupid. I read the text and showed it to him: Amy called us back to the guesthouse. Price stood up with a sigh, stretching out his gloved hand to me. I accepted it and he pulled me gently up to my feet.
We headed back to the garden in no hurry, simply enjoying the walk, pointing at a squirrel on a branch or a very old oak. But he stopped on a dime when he heard twigs snapping to his left.
"What's that?" he whispered, shooting suspicious glances around.
"Joseph?" I asked, smiling.
"Edward," my phone replied, startling Price.
"Oh, thank you." Looked like they considered Price enough of a threat to earn me the toughest bodyguard.
I motioned for Price to keep walking and smiled in response to his questioning look.
"It's Mr. Edward Blotter, Ann Marie's firstborn," I explained calmly. "One of the Blotters currently residing in the Manor."
"How come you didn't even flinch?"
Trisha's exact words, so I replied exactly the same. He looked back from over his shoulder, trying to spot anything otherworldly, then shook his head.
"I've been dealing with ghosts and demons for over a decade and they still get me started every time."
"I think it's because you go to dark places, bound to have dark entities, and it's always different places," I said, thoughtful. "While I share with them the house where I spend every day. Of course I was scared, at the beginning. But I got to know them and they're super nice and caring. Like, regular folks."
"Regular folks."
Once again, he tried to fight back a chuckle and ended up laughing out loud. He was still chuckling when we reached the guesthouse. Amy and Isaac traded a look, seeing us come in like besties.
I noticed Isaac had set their original Kinect SLS camera on a tripod aiming at the couch, and an original Ovilus V on the coffee table, with his K2 and his tri-field meter. I grimaced, trying to look at Ann.
"I'm sorry, ma'am."
"It's fine, Fran," my phone app said.
"How come you get so many words?" asked Isaac.
"It's an app developed by a Brit ghost hunter. Works better than the Ovilus. And touchpads work wonders, too."
"Touchpads? Really?" Isaac looked up at Price. "We should totally hire this girl."
"Over my dead body," said Amy. "Let's go, Fran. They need to rest."
"But I wanna get the cleansing started as soon as possible."
Jeez. Price and Amy only needed to see each other to bristle up like hedgehogs.
"Then go to sleep, Mr. Price." Amy checked the time. "We can have the first session before sunset."
They still glared at each other, so I tried to step up between them. "Relax and enjoy the break. I'm afraid your vegan supplies won't be here before tomorrow, but I'm texting you the link to a vegan restaurant with delivery in this area. You have my number, so text me if you need anything."
I headed out after Amy. Behind me, Isaac leaned in toward the SLS screen.
"Look! They're leaving too!" he cried.
"Oh, shut up!" Price grunted.
Yeah, I liked Isaac the Wingman. But he was so damn loud.