Author's note: Ben Lomond High School actually exists although my description of it is made up. I was just going to invent a fictional school for this chapter, but got to browsing around the internet and found the Fighting Scots and the rest is, well, fanfiction. The big steam engine trophy is a real thing, although, again, my description of it is mostly made up. Any characters resembling real people, or events resembling real events, are purely coincidental and no insult to the mighty Fighting Scots is intended.
As always, heartfelt thanks to all who have followed, faved, and especially dear to my heart, those who've reviewed!
"I'm a demon..."
"You're a dweeb," Emma's dad mumbled through a mouthful of bread, glancing at his brother over the top of the newspaper he was reading.
"Jerk."
"Hands off, demon." Emma held up an anti-possession charm, twirling it in her fingers for a moment. Pocketing the little amulet, she grabbed a salt shaker and tossed a few grains of salt across the table at Sam.
"And also, take that!"
"Ahh! It burns!" Sam snarled, hamming it up. Emma brandished the salt shaker threateningly.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas," she intoned, caught up in the game, but when Dean lowered his newspaper to watch she stopped, embarrassed.
"Go on," Dean and Sam chimed. The brothers looked at her expectantly.
"Um…" Emma drew a deep breath. "Omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo, draco maledicte. Exor- Ergo-"
"Ecclesiam tuam," Dean prompted.
"Oh, right. Ecclesiam tuam,securi tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus..."
"Audi nos!" her dad chimed in. "Adios, demon-dweeb!"
"Good job." Sam smiled. Dean shook out his newspaper.
"I think she's ready."
"Ready for what?" Emma asked, eager for her dad to reveal some new aspect of hunter training.
"Ready for a hunt. Remember that janitor I was telling you about?" he asked his brother.
"The one that drowned in the swimming pool?" Sam recalled. "What about him?"
"Another death, same swimming pool. A student, this time. Freaky thing is, he was on the swim team. 'Jason Hargitay, two-time all-district champion, five hundred yard freestyle'," he read aloud.
"Yeah, not a very likely drowning victim. Might be a vengeful spirit," Sam frowned, considering.
"That's what I was thinking. Let's go."
Emma could feel her body practically buzzing with excitement, electricity running through her veins. She packed her pink suitcase, forcing herself to gather her clothes and fold them methodically. Then she was launching herself off the porch of the cabin and throwing the suitcase into the back of the AMC Pacer wagon. She'd adopted Dean's disdain for the bulbous 'family truckster', but it was still a thrill to be allowed to practice driving on the back roads around Whitefish, Montana.
"Can I drive?" she asked, expecting a refusal and blinking in surprise when her dad tossed her the keys.
"Yeah, for a bit. We'll switch off when we get to the interstate."
Emma buckled her seatbelt and made a minute adjustment to the rearview mirror, acutely conscious of Sam in the back seat, where she normally rode. Technically, he was her first passenger. Her dad, riding shotgun as driving instructor, didn't really count.
Once they reached Ogden, Utah, Emma had to stay behind in the motel room while Dean and Sam split up to question the county coroner and Jason Hargitay's family. She didn't really mind. She couldn't exactly pose as an insurance claims agent, after all.
The brothers returned earlier than she expected, disgruntled after the grieving father had threatened to call the police on Sam.
"This guy Landon Hargitay must be some kind of bigwig," Dean grumbled.
"Yeah, he owns a big chunk of the local real estate, controlling shares in a lot of businesses in and around the state. A real high roller," Sam frowned. "He said he had the chief of police on speed dial, was going to have me thrown in jail for running an insurance scam." He shrugged. "I believed him."
"Yeah, we need to step lightly," Dean agreed. "No point in trying to talk to the local officials if Hargitay has them all in his pocket. And you should probably keep out of the guy's sight."
"You think he's covering up something?"
"Wealthy fat cat like that's always got some kind of skeleton in his closet," her father said cynically. He turned to Emma. "There's a swim meet tomorrow morning at the Hargitay kid's school. You can talk to the students, see what sort of dirt you can dig up on Jason Hargitay."
Emma couldn't help but stare as she walked into the lobby of Ben Lomond High School. This was what her dad and Sam kept promising her. School. A normal teenager's daily routine.
"Home of the Fighting Scots. They've got bagpipes, for chrissakes," Dean scoffed. "As if a regular marching band wasn't dorky enough. Although..." He paused, considering. "Actually, bagpipes are kind of awesome."
Emma stopped in front of a large trophy, proudly on display on a wooden pedestal. Unlike the other awards displayed in glass cabinets along the walls, this was a sculpture of two antique trains, meeting head-to-head on a railroad track. The dark metal sculpture was more than three feet long.
"The Iron Horse? What's that all about?"
"That's what they called the old steam engines," Dean explained. "This must be some kind of football rivalry thing, you know, whichever school wins the big game gets to keep the weird choo-choo trophy for the next year. Football is a big deal. Swimming isn't nearly as big a draw," he opined, but as it turned out, he was wrong.
The air in the aquatics center was humid and stuffy and smelled of chlorine. The bleachers on the home side were packed, but the mood was strangely subdued for a sporting event. Emma and her father found seats, the teen still staring curiously at everything around her. There were flowers and hand-made posters: We Love You Jason and Rest In Peace.
"Bunch of vultures," her father muttered, displaying more of his cynicism. "Half these people are just here out of morbid curiosity."
The crowd stood for a recording of the National Anthem, and then a bagpiper played Amazing Grace in honor of the departed swimmer.
"This is more like a funeral than a swim meet," Sam whispered as he joined them. "Jason Hargitay's family doesn't seem to be in attendance, so I figured it was okay for me to come in," he explained.
Swimmers were stepping up onto the starting blocks, and the whistle blew to start the first race.
"EMF?" her dad queried, and his brother nodded.
"Off the scale. We've definitely got some kind of spirit manifestation."
Dean gave Emma a nudge and a nod of encouragement.
"You're up. Mingle. Pick up some gossip."
She felt awkward and conspicuous as soon as she left her seat. Teenagers crowded around the ends of the bleachers and a steady flow of spectators moved between the seating area and a small concession stand. Emma strolled along and bought a cup of coffee. There was no reason to be nervous, she reminded herself. To an onlooker, she was just an ordinary student.
The somber mood lingered over the aquatics center. Kids huddled in small groups and she caught whispers of 'Jason' over and over, along with another name: 'Kirsten'. One of the girls on Ben Lomond High's swim team sat on the bench, the center of her own protective huddle of grief and sympathy. Emma soon learned from overheard snippets of conversation that she was Jason's girlfriend, Kirsten.
Emma's eyes skittered past the boys on the team, their bare legs and chests repellent and fascinating in equal measure. Some were skinny, some pudgy. A few, the older ones, sported more mature, muscular physiques. Emma felt her cheeks flush and she focused furiously on her styrofoam cup of coffee. It was all a bit much to take in for a girl raised exclusively in the company of women. And her dad and Sam had been almost fanatically modest since she'd started traveling with them. She'd never been around boys her own age, especially not barely-dressed boys, she thought defensively. And her time with female peers was almost equally limited. So much for casual mingling with normal teenagers.
She willed herself to calm down. She wasn't here to socialize; she had a job to do. Emma picked a group of girls and moved over to join them, drawing a deep, steadying breath. They were about her own age, comfortingly familiar, at least on the surface. Blonde and clean-cut, they reminded her of her sister initiates.
"Hi. Do you go to Ben Lomond?" she asked, trying for confident but sounding nervous and awkward to her own ears.
"Um, yeah?"
They giggled and Emma felt her cheeks flush. Of course they did, it was obvious from the school colors they were all wearing. She was an idiot.
"My name's Emma. I'm uh, visiting my, uh, cousins," she soldiered on, forcing a smile and getting awkward smiles in return.
"Oh. That's nice," one remarked, noncommittal. Another gave Emma a look, up and down.
"Maybe you ought to go hang out with them."
More nervous giggles. The girls turned to watch the swimmers, bodies angling away from Emma, subtly but clearly excluding her from the group. She backed off, replaying that slow, assessing look in her mind. Somehow, she'd failed to measure up. Emma glanced down, seeing herself through their eyes. No make-up, no jewelry except for the necklace her mother had given her as a child and one of her dad's chunky sports watches concealing the tribal scar on her wrist. Bargain outlet jeans instead of a name brand, and already showing signs of wear. Clean enough, but there were stains at the hems and on the knees and the seat, ground-in grass and dirt from her sparring sessions with Sam.
Emma's fingers brushed the amulet concealed in her pocket, the lighter she'd made a habit of carrying since Sam had yelled 'I'm a wendigo!' and chased her through the woods. She smiled, the rejection suddenly a badge of honor.
'Kind of hard to find common ground with regular kids when your family hunts monsters for a living,' her dad's words came back to her, and her smile widened.
She was a hunter, or at least a hunter-in-training, living a life the average high school kid couldn't even imagine.