Emma scanned the crowd around the swimming pool, looking at each group of high school students with a critical eye. Most were clean-cut, from relatively well-to-do families. A few, clustered at the far end of the bleachers, seemed a bit rougher around the edges. Maybe she'd have better luck trying to talk to them.
She really didn't fit in with this group, either, though, she thought, assessing them. Their outfits were less preppy, more like her own clothing, but their attitude was tougher, jaded. These teenagers seemed to posses a sort of world-weary sophistication that she lacked. Emma thought of her dad, the time he'd showed up unexpectedly at her mother's house, dapper in a dark tailored suit, playing the role of an investment banker. It was a marked contrast to the man she'd come to know, the gritty blue-collar warrior. She could play a part too, she decided.
Emma put a bit of a slouch in her step as she joined the huddle. She didn't attempt an introduction, just sipped her coffee and watched the swimmers with bored detachment. The other kids looked over at her, but soon resumed their conversation. Their attention was on the crowd rather than the swimmers, she quickly realized, and on mocking the popular kids.
"Ugh, look at Cyndi Champlin, with her mascara all smudged from crying over poor Jason," said one of the girls in a sarcastic sing-song. Maybe, Emma reasoned, Jason Hargitay wasn't as universally loved as the displays of grief would seem to indicate.
"Vultures," Emma chimed in, repeating her dad's remark with, she hoped, a sufficiently cynical delivery. The others glanced at her, neutral bordering on hostile, but then the girl who'd just spoken nodded agreement.
"They like the drama. Mourning for Jason Hargitay is, like, the latest fad." Her eyes swept over Emma. "I haven't seen you around before. Freshman?"
"Um, yeah?" Emma replied, hesitation making the answer into a question. Did she really look like a freshman? One of the boys snickered, but the girl simply nodded. The group went back to ignoring her. Progress, she thought wryly. At least they weren't shutting her out.
A low murmur rose, stirring through the warm, syrupy air. The next event was about to begin, members of the girl's swim teams mounting the starting blocks. A scattering of applause broke out as Kirsten took her place. Emma stared with frank curiosity at the girl whose boyfriend had drowned in this very pool less than a month ago. Hair hidden under a tight-fitting silicone swim cap, her face looked pale and tense.
"Is that the dead boy's girlfriend?" she prompted.
"Yeah. Kirsten Steadman," her informant supplied.
"That's so sad," Emma blurted, watching the girl waiting stoically to compete. Then, remembering her role, she commented, "It's kind of weird that a champion swimmer would just drown like that, huh?"
"The really weird thing is this other girl Jason was dating drowned, too."
"Yeah, they pulled her body out of the reservoir like, six months ago," the boy spoke up.
Emma couldn't hide her surprise.
"Really? Who was she? I mean, what was her name?"
"I dunno." He shrugged. "She went to Ogden High."
The swim meet ended, the crowd moving sluggishly out of the aquatics center, as if reluctant to miss a moment of drama. Dean, Sam, and Emma loitered on the bleachers.
"I found out Jason was dating another girl. Shelley Stevens. Or maybe Stevenson. Nobody I talked to seemed to know her very well," she reported, excited and pleased with her success as an interviewer. She'd drifted through the crowd, talking to students from Ben Lomond and their rival, Ogden High School, and gathered more information on Jason Hargitay's apparently complicated love life.
"Jason was cheating on Shelley with Kirsten. Or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, he was a player," Emma said disapprovingly. The slang term drew amused looks from her dad and Sam, but they listened without comment as she went on, "Shelley drowned in a lake near here, Pineview Reservoir." Her eyes widened. "They say she committed suicide."
"That fits in with a vengeful spirit," Dean began, but their attention was diverted as Kirsten Steadman walked by on the way to the locker room, still surrounded by a gaggle of family, friends, and the simply curious. Two older boys from the swim team preceded the group, clearing a path through the lingering crowd. Emma couldn't help but flick glances their way. Boys her own age were almost alien in their unfamiliarity. She stole another glimpse and blinked, puzzled. The young men's breath was visible, puffs of steam hanging in the too-warm air. Kirsten's and some of the others, too, she saw, as if the temperature around them had suddenly plummeted. Her dad's muttered curse made it clear he'd seen it as well.
Then Kirsten broke away from the group, skidding wildly across the slick tiled floor as if she'd been pushed by some invisible force. She teetered for a long moment at the edge of the deep end of the pool, then tumbled clumsily, a sprawl of slender limbs plunging beneath the surface of the turquoise water. There was a long moment of quiet after the splash, the onlookers stunned, unsure of what was going on.
Sam's booted feet echoed loudly off the bleachers as he descended in three great bounds. He flung off his coat as he crossed the floor at a dead run and launched himself into the water, breaking the surface with barely a splash.
The temperature had dropped twenty degrees in an instant. Moisture condensed, making every surface a slippery hazard as they picked their way down the bleachers. Emma swore she could see frost riming the lip of the pool. The cavernous room was noisy now, echoing with a babble of confused voices. Somebody screamed, high-pitched and hysterical. The two senior boys and a girl who'd been walking close to Kirsten dove into the pool to join Sam's rescue effort.
He broke the surface, eyes wide as he searched out Dean in the crowd at the side of the pool. He didn't speak, just dragged air into his lungs and plunged under the water again after making eye contact with his brother. Through the clear, chlorinated water, Emma could see Kirsten's body flailing, the rescuers struggling, just out of reach of the girl. Some invisible force was holding her under, holding them back.
She started to shrug out of her jacket, feeling the urge to do something to help, but her father stopped her, grabbing her by the elbow and propelling her toward the doors. Slipping and sliding, almost falling, they made it out of the pool area and sprinted down the hall.
"We need iron," Dean yelled back to Emma. Iron would disperse a ghost. But where would they find iron in a school building? She struggled to keep up with his longer strides, her heart sinking even as it pounded from exertion. The linoleum tiled corridor seemed to stretch endlessly, lined with lockers. Metal lockers, but not the kind of metal they needed to fend off the ghostly force that held the girl under the water. But whatever weapon her dad might have in the station wagon, it would be too late. Emma imagined Sam hauling Kirsten's limp body out of the pool. Rescue workers crouching over her, trying to restart her heart and lungs. Failing. She was going to drown, just like the others.
Her father must have come to the same conclusion. His footsteps slowed as they reached the lobby. He turned in a tight half-circle, desperately scanning the area for something they could use. The delay gave Emma time to catch up. She skidded to a stop by the Iron Horse trophy just as Dean's eyes fell on the sculpture of the two antique steam engines.
"Is it iron?" Emma gasped.
"It's worth a try!" His eyebrows shot up as Emma took hold of the sculpture, tearing it loose from the plinth with a loud, protesting sound of splintering wood.
"Hey!" A few bystanders reacted to the vandalism, unaware of what was happening back in the pool. They wouldn't be able to understand even if they did know.
"Out of the way!" Dean bellowed.
They pelted back toward the pool, Emma shouldering the trophy like a big, ungainly javelin, Dean right behind her. She felt her father's hand on the back of the trophy, steadying it, offering support, assistance she didn't need. Instinct, she thought fleetingly. Or maybe he was trying to cover for her inhuman strength. It didn't matter. Her focus was on saving Kirsten, on changing the tragic outcome she'd pictured in her mind.
The crowd was still milling around in the aquatics center, Sam and the others still fighting uselessly against the malevolent force pinning the girl at the bottom of the pool. Emma planted her feet, skidding to a stop on the wet tile, and hurled the trophy into the pool. She felt her dad push along with her, adding his human strength to the throw. The Iron Horse plunged down through the water, straight as a spear thrown by an Amazon warrior.
Something snapped, a deep, echoing throb that stilled the surface of the pool, then rippled out from the struggle, sloshing water over the tile floor. The chill air seemed to shudder, and the temperature returned to normal. Sam burst upward in an enormous splash, Kirsten wrapped in his arms. He transferred her gently to one of the senior boys.
Bystanders reached out, helping the swimmers lift the girl out of the pool. The crowd was hushed, anxious. Kirsten coughed, then drew in a deep, gasping breath, shockingly audible in the waiting silence. The gathering erupted, some shouting, some crying, all excitement and joyous relief. Emma let out the breath she'd been unconsciously holding. They'd done it! Kirsten was safe. She was alive! They'd saved her.
Her smile faded as she looked around for Sam. Where was he? She turned to question her father, but he'd left her side. Emma turned, fearful again. Had the spirit targeted Sam? Was there some new danger? But there he was, clambering out of the pool, unnoticed by the crowd. Dean was right there beside him, wrapping him in his coat, an arm flung around his shoulders. Her father's own coat collar was turned up, concealing his face as he leaned into his younger brother, sheltering and protective. Hiding him, Emma realized. Sam's coat shielded his face, her dad's brotherly embrace keeping him hunched, half crouched as he hustled him out the door, disguising his height.
It wasn't fair, Emma thought, even as she became aware of the teenagers holding up cell phones, snapping photographs. News of the bizarre incident would spread all over town and beyond. She understood that they needed to lay low, not draw attention, but it was still so unfair. Sam and her dad were heroes. She was a hero. But no one could know about it. Even without the threat of the rescue making the evening news, of the Leviathans seeing it and tracking them down, Emma realized, they had to hide what they'd done. They had to preserve people's illusions, their ignorance. It was all part of being a hunter, keeping people safe from things they didn't even know were out to get them.
She grinned, high spirits restored, and turned to follow after her heroes.