A Sweet Start

Rose was sitting cross-legged in the back seat of a rust bucket 1966 Mustang Shelby. With hands firmly on her knees she strained to concentrate energy in her body. She breathed hard and tensed all her muscles in a wave starting from her arms and then extending through to her chest, stomach, and then back around all the way to her toes. Despite her tries to keep her back straight through all of this, she was hunching over a little in her seat as if trying to keep her balance, but the ride so far was smooth. Under the hood, Bobby's car was well maintained. All the parts were new and tuned to perfection, while on the outside it seemed a wonder the thing started at all.

Rose breathed in deep and said, "Ut invocent omnes in ventis et pluviis , ut tibi omnia sanare."

Nothing happened, but Rose felt a surge of energy run through her body or maybe it was the quick relief in releasing all her muscles at once. Her heart rate was aflutter and her breathing much quicker now. She opening her eyes when Charlie, who had turned around from the passenger seat said, "That was really good. Now with some practice, you will learn to do all of that without popping a vein." She chuckled.

At this point they had been on the road for eight hours on the way to Casper, Wyoming and all the while Bobby hadn't said a single word to Rose. He was giving her the silent treatment. Not the way a hot young dame might brush off an open mouthed passerby. No, what Bobby was doing was closer to a bitter four year old but with the focus and perseverance of a Buddhist monk. Even with her training the ride had become quite boring, leaving Rose with plenty of time to think up reasons for his contempt. At first she thought that perhaps he was just misogynistic or that he didn't like girls but that didn't make sense. In the single day she was at school she saw him both help a squirrelly looking girl pick out a library book and later flirt with at least two cheerleaders and not at the same time. Maybe he was a little full of himself but he was kind and he definitely didn't have trouble speaking to girls. So the fault was clearly her own, she thought, or at least he must have thought so. Then she thought back to the night she was rescued from her hometown and the vampires. She remembered how even though she was saved, the whole thing was just a test.

Rose wasn't sure how that made her feel. She would be forever grateful that she still drew breath but somehow there was this whisp of an emotion that wouldn't go away and the more she thought about it, the greater it felt. Yes, she was saved, but that was an afterthought. She wasn't the mission, just extra credit.

The car slowed a bit as Bobby pulled into the parking lot of Morty's Motel, a grim shack of a place with unpainted but stained cement walls. It was the middle of the day, still the standing neon sign flickered visibly. A small plastic rectangle hung from the door, dancing with the breeze, flipping from open to closed uninvitingly. The three hunters climbed slowly out of the car, muscles creaking and sinew snapping from the long drive and Rose stretched and threw her arms towards the sun in a pose that would have been more normally were she a cheerleader.

There wasn't a single other car in the lot. Morty's was all alone in this part of Jasper, Indiana, a single asphalt lot surrounded by hills of grass and dirt. Cheap and secure enough for what they needed to do, this would be their safe house.

−−−−⊰↝Ω↜⊱−−−−

When the trio approached the reception desk they found a black and green haired man, his feet locked up on the old worn wood of it, a scratch pad in his lap, and the butt of a pen dangling half chewed from his mouth. He was staring intently at the wall on the opposite side of the entrance but there was nothing there. In truth it wasn't the most plain wall that Rose had ever seen but it had no posters, no calendar, no TV embedded in it, nothing that would warrant that focused expression. The man didn't even hear them approach until Charlie taped the little bell on the desk.

The man jumped, rather he twitched alert and turned to see the group as if they had suddenly appeared from thin air.

"He- Hello," he said. His arms were suspended now, hovering and Rose noted how he looked just like a little dog. It was only for a moment but he looked like he wasn't sure if he would run or get on all fours and howl. He relaxed, pulled the pen out of his mouth, and smiled.

"Excuse me, I didn't see you all come it. My name is Carl." The man gestured to the embroidery on his polo and sure enough it said Carl. He leaned somewhat exaggeratedly to the right and peered behind them then turned his neck to look at their faces. "You guys seem a little young to be renting a room. What can I do you for?"

"Oh," Bobby said coolly, "my dad is parking the car. Let me go get him." He walked out the plate glass door and turned towards the covered area. Rose thought it was odd that he was walking in the opposite direction of their car but not as odd as him mentioning Sam Winchester. Had he been following behind them this whole time?

The door opened again and this time a tall man walked in. He looked to be in his 40s with a strong scruffy chin and short messy black hair. Admittedly he looked a lot like Bobby. In fact if she was not mistaken they were wearing the exact same clothes. The man walked up to the desk.

"Hi, I need one room with two beds." The man's voice was deep with a rich hint of raspiness. He pulled out a wallet a produced a few bills and an ID card then handed them to Carl. Rose was quick to notice it said Benjamin Griffin as it passed hands.

"Family trip?" Carl asked as he reached for a brass key from the desk drawer.

Ben smiled and said, "Internship."

−−−−⊰↝Ω↜⊱−−−−

Bobby dropped their bags in the Motel room and took a much needed breath in. Rose had just seen him transform right before her eyes. There was no flashing lights or swirling liquids of magic made manifest. Bobby was Ben. Then suddenly he was himself again as if he always was and the difference was only now noticed in her mind. He had been cackling to himself the whole way to their room and only now had enough breath in him to say, "I got you so good. I've been waiting to do that the whole ride over here".

"You punk!" Rose gave him a slightly harder than friendly punch in the arm. "I thought you were mad at me this whole time!"

Bobby rubbed his arm but chuckled lightly as he did. Both Rose and Charlie joined him now and all the tension Rose had felt before seemed to melt away.

"I was never really mad at you. I just don't like it when my dad treats me like a kid." Bobby's laugh subsided into a small but sincere smile. "Besides we are going to be a team now and you're going to have to learn fast if you want to get to our level." He looked at Charlie who was now sitting on one of the two floral print beds.

"Or if you want to stay alive," she added. "You won't have time to learn the Alter Self spell today, but you'll see Bobby and I use it plenty and you can stay here and practice as much as you like."

"There's no way I'm staying here while you two get to go investigating," said Rose.

"I thought you would say that." Charlie smiled bigger. "Don't worry. You can tag along for all the interesting parts and then come back here for the boring bits."

Bobby pulled out the papers from the folder his father gave him. He laid them out on the small stand sitting by the motel room window. "First thing we need to do is ask around at this burger joint called Astra. The victim ordered a burger and when he went to take a bite, it burst into flame." He pulled one paper off the table and handed it to Rose.

The first line read "Terrence Winnecott" and had a picture of a balding man with glasses the seemed a tad too small for his face.

"Terrence Winnecott. Male. Age 51. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina. Never Married. No children." Rose read. "Theres an address here too. Should we split up and take both at once?"

"For now we stick together," Charlie said hopping off the bed and starting for the door. "I know you've got experience fighting but today you learn a finer art; manipulation."