James woke up to someone shaking his shoulder, the sensation dragging him up through quicksand. He lifted his head off the pillow and squinted at the intruder. “Hmm?”

“Hey man,” Graham said in a half-whisper. “Sorry, but Chris just called. He’s got a prospective roommate lined up that he wants us to meet today.”

Today? James realized the light coming in the windows wasn’t as thin as it normally was when he woke up in this room. “What time is it?” he asked, sitting up.

“Eleven.”

“What?”

He quickly sat up all the way, then fell back down as his body protested the movement. His joints felt stiff and sore and the places on his torso where the seat belt had dug into his flesh burned. His head hit the pillow, and he groaned as his neck protested.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Graham said. “I just got here a little while ago. Bradley and Madelyn have been trading off leadership duties and so far, the apocalypse has skipped over Leominster.”

“Maybe if I stay in bed a little longer,” James muttered.

“Chris wants the guy to come over at six,” Graham said. “Are you here then?”

“No idea,” James said. “Let me think.”

He took a beat to try to clear the cobwebs a little. “Um, yeah,” he said. “Wait, no. I was supposed to do the overnight last night and the day shift today. It’s eleven?”

“You’re injured. No one was going to mess with you,” Graham said. “I’m home at five, so we can both be there.”

“Thank God,” James muttered.

He slowly sat up again, bracing himself on the bed as he moved. Nothing seemed to be broken that hadn’t been yesterday. Instead, he just felt sore and grumpy. Coffee and Tylenol would help with that as much as anything would.

“Amelia called from the hospital,” Graham said. “She’s doing well.”

“I’m so glad. Sorry, I should have talked to her.”

“Yeah, she said don’t worry about it. She didn’t want to wake you up. But they’re going to release her later today and Madelyn’s picking her up.”

James wanted to ask if Madelyn was okay with the trip, but he knew that would be pushing it. If she wanted to get Amelia and felt up for the drive, he’d just appreciate it. And be available if she changed her mind.

“Is Madelyn here now?” he asked.

“Yeah, everybody is except Bradley. He took your shift last night, so we forced him to go home for a while.”

James would have to thank him later, even if he got a snarling response. He stood up and shook his head slightly, trying and failing to clear it. “I’m going to shower and have some coffee, then I can come join you guys,” he said.

“Don’t hurry,” Graham said. “You shouldn’t be working. You probably shouldn’t even be here.”

“You want to be home solo with a Chris who’s finding himself?” James asked.

“No,” Graham admitted. “Fair. But you’re not working more than a little today. If I can’t stop you, Madelyn is going to.”

“And my injuries are two years old, so you can’t use them as an excuse.”

James jumped as Madelyn’s voice came from the open door. She walked into the room with a smile. “How are you?” she asked.

“Sore,” he admitted with a laugh. “And I apparently slept twelve hours.”

“You can’t count that as your vacation,” she said. “We’re taking today off from the Delinsky case. Father McEnerney called earlier, horrified about what happened. He’s coming tomorrow to give you and Amelia some extra protection and reinforce some things around the house. If the Foundation even attempts to give you a hard time about it, I have a feeling they’ll be dealing with him.”

Father McEnerney seemed harmless, but James had worked with him long enough to know otherwise. And he could use a quiet day. Not that he was going to completely ignore work, but the idea of driving anywhere made him queasy. So rather than argue, he nodded.

“I’m going to shower,” he said again. “Then I’ll be out to sit on the couch or something.”

Neither of the others seemed to find anything wrong with this, so he walked out of the room and made his way to the bathroom. Before he got there, Gabriella was hurrying down the hall toward him.

“Your mom wants you to call her.”

Oh fuck. “I will,” James said. “I’m just going to shower first.”

“She said your phone is disconnected, so she called my mom, who called me.”

“It broke in the crash,” James said. “Did you tell her I was fine?”

“I did,” Gabriella said. “And I told your dad, too. And Uncle Tommy.”

“Uncle Tommy called?”

Gabriella seemed as perplexed by this as he did. “Yeah, he called my phone. I didn’t even know he had my number. He was concerned it was paranormal.”

“I mean, it was,” James muttered. “We just need to prove it. But for real, I need to shower, then I’ll call my mom.”

---

Half an hour later, James was getting off of the most guilt-inducing call he’d ever made. His mom wasn’t doing it on purpose. It wasn’t even her fault. But between the sobs when she picked up the call and the offers to buy him a new phone, to bring him soup, to do anything he needed, he was heartbroken he’d scared her like that. Then his father had gotten on the line and it had been more of the same, his usually stoic father offering any help he could with a shake in his voice that James never wanted to hear again.

He finally hung up, then set the phone back in the cradle with a sigh. He’d been awake less than an hour and already wanted to go back to bed. But before he could do anything, Gabriella walked into the room, her own phone to her ear.

“Yeah, hang on,”

She took the phone down, muffling the speaker in her hand. “It’s Uncle Tommy,” she said. “He wants to talk to you.”

They exchanged baffled glances, then James took the phone. “Hey, Uncle Tommy.”

“Hey, kid, how are you doing?”

Their uncle’s voice was still booming over the phone, even as he clearly tried to contain it. “I’m fine,” James said. “Just sore.”

“Yeah, that’s a real sonofabitch thing to have happened. On Foundation business?”

“Yeah, in the official vehicle.”

“What’s the case?”

He wasn’t allowed to go into detail, but it wasn’t like Uncle Tommy was going to call the press. “I think it’s a curse,” he said. “We’re still sorting it out.”

“That’s what I figured. But listen, kid, if you need, I got some buddies who are pretty good at this kind of thing. Just in case there’s anything that slips through the cracks with the Foundation, you know?”

Uncle Tommy, while not a professional, had his own experience with the paranormal. Back when James had been about twenty, Uncle Tommy had encountered vampires on a camping trip out in the small town of Savoy. James didn’t know the details, but he did know that while the Foundation had been involved in the investigation, Uncle Tommy and Aunt Mary had been the ones to get it all under control. So if Uncle Tommy was offering help, James knew it was legit.

Potentially not legal, but legit.

“Thanks,” he said. “Um, yeah, I’ll see what happens from here, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Yeah, I got my buddy Eric, up in New Hampshire. He’s got a house full of this shit. So just let me know.”

They chatted another minute, then James begged off the phone. After a few more minutes of trying to end the conversation, they finally hung up, and he handed Gabriella back her phone. “He’s got a buddy who can help us,” he said as she slid it into her pocket.

“Do you think it’s legitimate?”

“He says so. But we need to figure out what the hell we’re dealing with before we can even begin to get rid of it. But I’m almost positive it’s a curse.”

The side of his head where he’d been talking to Uncle Tommy was ringing. He knew the others were right, he shouldn’t be here. But maybe if he just sat on the couch and never moved again, he’d feel better soon.

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 13