Amy spent about an hour in the basement. When she came back up, she nodded with a tired smile when I offered her coffee and sat down at the table with a long sigh.

"Pennhurst Asylum," she said, and she did sound exhausted. "That's where Price picked it up."

I rummaged the pantry for more cupcakes and was lucky to find one last tray. I needed to tell Susan to get a dozen more for the weekend, or I would suffer withdrawal symptoms.

"Did he tell you anything else?" I asked, bringing her coffee and the cupcakes to the table. Trisha sat down opposite her.

Amy raised her eyebrows, like gathering her thoughts through the fog of exhaustion in her head.

"He was born there when the asylum was still open, and remained there after the courts closed it. Plenty of bad vibes around to feast on for centuries. He'd never paid attention to the living until our lovely Haunter came around. Looks like he started calling on any and all entities around. He invited them to use his and his teammates' energy to manifest. Kujo thought why not try that walking snack and took a bite at Price's energy. The tastiest thing he'd ever tried." Amy sighed again, shaking her head. "He'd seen other scavengers attach themselves to humans before, so he thought he could as well do it. And here we are."

"Why is he so damn massive?" asked Trisha.

Amy grimaced. "The nutritive value of Price's energy. Kujo started off as a regular two-foot-long parasite, and ended an eight-foot-tall half-breed demon."

"Jesus!"

"Language," Amy and I said at the same time, and the three of us chuckled.

"He has wings?" I asked.

"Yeah, but they're like broken."

Trisha showed her the screen grab and Amy sighed yet again. "He's too big to stay around, Fran. He needs a big dark place like Pennhurst to stay alive."

"But he will find another host!" Trisha argued.

I shook my head. "I don't think so. He won't risk getting chained again."

"She's right."

Trisha was googling something. "Pennhurst is three-hundred miles away from here."

"You think we can take him back home?" I asked with a hopeful smile.

Amy dropped her head until her chin touched her chest. "You two are an explosive pair, you crazy kids," she complained. "Yeah, we could. In your car, Fran, 'cause I ain't playing driver for half-breed demons."

"Sure!" I was delighted with the idea. "I can go visit him there from time to time!"

Trisha laughed out loud.

"But we need to talk to somebody from Pennhurst to let them know," argued Amy. "We can't just show up and set a half-breed demon free on their grounds without telling them first."

"Like they would care about one more drop in the ocean," I replied. "Have you visited or watched any investigation conducted there? They're up to the roof in dark entities."

"Bet Price would love to film the release of the shadow," said Trisha. "Another bait in the hook."

I grinned. "And he surely knows the whole staff." I winked at Amy. "He would know whom to call to give them due notice of the upcoming homecoming."

"You should ask him," said Trisha.

"When he shows up, if he actually does. I've been calling him and texting him almost every day for the last week. Enough already."

Amy narrowed her eyes. "You think he might chicken?"

I took my turn to sigh and shrug. "I don't know. I think he will come, but I can't tell if he will go through the whole process. We should try to come up with a plan B, in case he does chicken and bails the moment we turn our back on him."

"I'm sorry, but the witch being dead, he's our only plan B. The only way to effectively dissolve the chain is for him to recite the counter spell while wearing the pendant, as close to Kujo as possible."

"Then we should chain him down there," Trisha said, chuckling. "To keep him from bailing and give him a taste of his own medicine."

"I'd so love to do that," I said. "And what about feeding their parasites to Kujo?"

Amy grimaced again, shaking her head. "Not safe. Kujo gets too upset and agitated just by talking about Price. I wouldn't risk bringing them together before the ritual. Kujo promised you he won't hurt Price as long as they only meet for that, right? Then we cannot risk making him sit with his back turned to Kujo and give your pet a free pass to sink his fangs in Price's throat."

"Isaac Goodbein," Trisha said. She noticed we had no idea who she was talking about. "Didn't you tell me Price's bringing one Isaac with him? That's Isaac Goodbein, his right-hand man."

"Oh, yeah, the wingman!"

"He's got his own parasites we need to cleanse, right?" She winked. "It's worms and it's not Price. We can have Kujo eat those."

Amy's eyes got their bright spark back. "You're right!" she said. "We can do the first two cleansings together, and then, for the third and final session, meant to detach the parasites and burn them, I can take this guy Isaac to the basement."

"And what about Price?" I asked, frowning. "We need him clean too."

Trisha and Amy faced me with mocking smirks that made me blush.

"Trisha can assist you while you take care of ye olde heartthrob," Amy said. "Which means you'll have to perform all three cleansings on him. In order to succeed, this process must be performed by the same healer: if you are to finish it, you have to get it started."

"Whoa, whoa. Healer? I ain't no healer."

Amy laughed so heartedly, she infected Trisha, while I blinked like an idiot, waiting for some kind of answer.

"You? Not a healer?" Amy repeated, and another fit of laughter interrupted her. "Are you dumb? You've pretty much brought Kujo back to life, and made a low demon want to be good and feed on nice things! How are you not a healer!"

"Because he's not a demon," I replied stubbornly. "That's the mistake everybody makes when it comes to him. He's just an overgrown... worm, crawler, whatever."

"Edward told me you didn't sleep last night," said Amy, patting my hand. "That's why you keep mumbling nonsense."

The moment Amy mentioned my lack of sleep, was like my eyelids got heavy like stones. A minute later, I was yawning. Amy handed me a cupcake.

"Go to sleep, Fran. I need you rested and fresh in the morning," she said softly.

I just nodded, grabbed the cupcake and left the kitchen. I was sound asleep five minutes later.

The next morning, Susan almost had a heart attack when Amy asked to go to the guesthouse after breakfast.

"But I still didn't open it!" Susan argued. "I thought we didn't need it until Tuesday!"

"And you're right, Susan," I replied gently. "It's okay, don't worry. Amy only needs to see the place, that's all."

"Control freak much?" Trisha whispered while the three of us crossed the garden.

"Susan? Nah!" I replied, making her laugh.

Amy didn't need to go further than the wide living room. She stood there, hands on her hips, and spun around slowly.

"We're doing it here," she said. "Does the fireplace work?"

"No idea, but bet it does," I replied.

"Great. We have enough room for all of us, and the kitchen is right there to get all the fresh water we might need. Yup. It's the perfect place."

We turned around to leave and spotted Mike, coming from the Manor at a steady trot. Since he was there, Amy asked him about the heating and told him about a few more things she would be needing in the coming days. Mike nodded to everything she said and stayed at the guesthouse after we left.

Amy led us toward the Quabbin, and we spent a couple of hours there, sitting down on a carpet of pine needles and dead leaves by the shore, while she talked about the process of the cleansing.

"You're gonna be our guinea pig," she said to Trisha.

"What? Why me? What're you witches gonna do to me?"

"You're gonna end up squeaky clean, my dear girl."

"I want to film Fran's grasshopper training!"

"This is more important."

Susan left the Manor a full hour earlier than usual, and on our way back, we saw her hurry to the guesthouse.

"It's gonna be ready for tomorrow," I said, amused.

"No harm in being prepared," said Amy.

I left them to make sandwiches for lunch and went down to the basement. I wanted to spend at least a little while with Kujo every day. When I told him about taking him back to Pennhurst, I felt a hot touch on my shoulder.

"Would you like to go home?"

"Far from Fran?"

"Not far enough to keep me from visiting several times a year."

"Promise."

"You kidding? I'm gonna go knock on your door so often, you're gonna tell me to leave and never come back."

"Never."

"But I'd like you to promise me one thing in return: that you won't attach yourself to anybody else."

The shuffle threw me off, but his answer clarified it alright. "Never chain again."

"Good, 'cause I don't wanna go all the way to Pennhurst, pay the fee to enter the grounds and find you gone."

"Be there. Waiting Fran."

I leaned forward and waited to feel his heat against my forehead. "Five days, my boy," I whispered. "Only five days."

Amy would've wanted to teach me my first lesson in the garden, but we could see the Collins were still working full steam in the guesthouse, so she settled for the kitchen. We moved the table against the wall to make room and Trisha brought her tripod, to set her phone and film the whole thing as she wanted.

Then Amy made Trisha kneel down in the middle of the available space, keeping her body up straight and her arms down by her sides. The Blotters joined us to watch her perform the first cleansing on my friend, slowly and taking the time to explain to me every little thing she said and did, while I took notes as fast as I could. Next, she let me take a quick look at the notes and made me try to repeat the whole process, stopping me to correct this move or that word.

"Shit! This is frigging hard!" I grunted. "Sorry, Ann."

"Focus on the moves," Amy said. "If we do it together, I can recite the prayers for us both."

"These are prayers?" Trisha asked.

"You can call them that. Incantation is the right word, but it sounds too pagan for most ears."

I understood she didn't want to upset the Blotters and shrugged. "Okay, let's try again."

"The whole thing? I can't feel my knees!" Trisha complained.

Amy grabbed one of the seat cushions and threw it to the floor before her. "There, crybaby," she replied, making me laugh.

We kept going until I was able to do the whole thing correctly. By then, night had closed, the Blotters were late for dinner and Trisha needed our help to get back to her feet.

"Perfect!" said Amy, beaming like only she could. "That's it! We have to do that every twenty-four hours, three times straight, and we're good to go. We're trying again tomorrow, so you won't need to be looking up at me to know what's next, but we're as ready as we'll ever be."

"So now we just sit and wait for Haunter charming to show up," Trisha said with a mocking smirk.

That was the exact moment my phone buzzed on the table. With an incoming text from the Haunter Charming himself, telling me —because he didn't ask— to call him.

I rolled my eyes, snorting. "Are you here, Ann?"

"She's serving dinner," Amy replied. "Why?"

"Fucking arrogant prick. He's still a thousand miles away from here and I'm already fucking sick and tired of his bossing me around."

Amy and Trisha turned to me, raising their eyebrows.

"Yeah, sure," said my friend.

"Poor thing, being forced to call her celeb crush," Amy added, and shooed me away like I was a fly. "Go, go, call him. The last thing we need is to give him an excuse to bail on us."

So I wore my jacket and headed out the backdoor, still shaking my head and snorting.

"Hey, there, Fran," he greeted me like we were besties.

"Mr. Price," I replied with a tight smile.

Shit. He'd picked up on facetime as usual, from his truck. He was driving, wearing only one of his black long-sleeved tees, and the angle his phone was set showed me a wide panoramic of his broad chest and every toned muscle of his right arm under the light cotton fabric.

He pursed his lips. "Why so serious? Everything okay?"

Yeah, I'm just feeling the weirdest tingling in my fingertips. "Sure. Getting ready to welcome you back to Blotter Manor."

"That's why I wanted to talk to you."

I knew it. The son of a bitch had found an excuse to stay away. Anytime. I didn't care if I had to rent a jet across the country. If he as much as suggested he wouldn't come, I would go to Los Angeles and abduct him.

"I'm listening," I replied, grinding my teeth.

Price pulled over by the curb and grabbed his phone to bring it closer to his face. The street light fell straight on his cap, casting a thick dark shadow on his eyes. But he seemed to notice and turn a little in his seat, as to let the light touch his face.

"We're about to start an all-night shoot in Albany, New York, and we'll be wrapping up about six in the morning. Meaning I can be at the Manor tomorrow about nine, right in time for breakfast."

I frowned, completely taken aback. "Tomorrow? I expected you on Tuesday."

"Oh, don't worry, we can find accommodations nearby if you want." He shrugged with one of those charming smiles that didn't work on me anymore. I mean, I saw through them by now, even though they still caused me that weird tingling. To make it worse, he lowered his voice to a warm, almost intimate tone. "I thought you'd be glad to get this thing started sooner, and have two extra days together, just in case we need more time."

Together! The bastard! He'd said it like we were lovers that wouldn't want to part so soon! Or maybe I was hearing things, and he was just trying his charming ways to get away with it, as usual.

"I'm not sure. Give me a minute."

I ignored his surprise when I didn't accept right away and hurried to the kitchen window. I knocked on it from the garden and waved for Amy to come out.

"Price says he can be here tomorrow morning," I said the moment she stuck her head out the door.

"Is the guesthouse ready?" asked Amy, just as taken aback as me.

"Guess so?"

"He should get a good sleep before coming." I didn't dig the way she narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. "Guess he can sleep here, right?"

I glared at her and faced my phone again, forcing a smile. "You can come tomorrow."

For a heartbeat, his smile looked unscripted and natural. It turned into his controlled nice smile as he nodded. "Then it's a date, Fran." He winked at me, the bastard. "For breakfast."

"Have a good shoot, Mr. Price."

"See you tomorrow, Fran."

**If you wanna know more about Kujo's home, just google Pennhurst Asylum and you'll find a zillion articles about the appalling story of the place.**