Chapter 7:
"Werewolves?"
"Yea."
"Um…witches?"
"Yup."
Booth paused. "Tooth fairy."
Dean glanced over to him. "No."
Booth grinned. "I was kidding." He paused. "Sorta."
"You ever come upon something you couldn't explain?" Dean asked as they walked down the road. "I mean aside from tonight."
Booth sighed, thinking. "Well, Bones and I did have this one investigation involving Voodoo, but…nothing really that I couldn't explain. There was this father who'd killed her daughter because he was convinced he could bring her back from the dead…it was a whole mess."
"Yea. I've said it before, I'll say it again," Dean said. "Demons I get. People are crazy."
"I agree with you there. And I've never even met a demon," Booth replied.
"Trust me, you're not missing anything," Dean said.
"So…how do you get into something like this?"
"I guess you could say it runs in the family."
"How many generations? Or do you not know?" Booth asked.
Dean pursed his lips. "Our dad started hunting when I was four. He was the first."
"That must have sucked."
"Nah, it wasn't so bad. It's all I know really. How'd you get into being a feeb?"
"Well my dad was a fighter jet pilot. Served in Vietnam. I was an Army Ranger for a few years, sniper, then decided to join the FBI. I was about 25. Been doing it ever since."
"Nice," Dean replied. "My dad was in the corps. He was a corporal."
"Raised by a Marine," Booth said with a tight smile. "Good times."
"Yea."
"Where he at now?"
Dean paused. "Demon took him out about a year ago. Same demon that took out mom when I was four. Just me and Sammy now."
Booth nodded slowly, keeping pace alongside Dean. He thought for a second. "Bigfoot."
"No."
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"It might be faster for me to tell you what isn't real rather than what is real," Sam said with a smile.
Brennan grimaced slightly. "Maybe I should remain uninformed on most of hunting. If I ever come upon something supernatural, I can call you."
"That works," Sam replied. "Dean and I have helped out law enforcement a few times. And there are one or two cops out there that have our number or know how to get in touch with us if they need to."
Brennan paused. "Is there a God?" she asked suddenly.
Sam glanced to her out of the corner of his eye. "Ah…not sure on that one. There's a Hell. And we're pretty sure there's a heaven. But something omnipotent enough to put a label on him as God…that's something else entirely."
"Okay," she murmured. Brennan kept quiet for another minute or so before she spoke up. "What challenges do you find yourself facing as a hunter?"
"Challenges?"
"Obstacles. Morally and ethically speaking. I'm…unfamiliar with this culture. I'm an anthropologist. It's fascinating to me."
"Fair enough. Well. There was this one time Dean and I came upon this nest of vampires. We'd actually put the area on the map as possible demonic omens. Cattle mutilations. But it turned out that the vampires were feeding off of cattle blood instead of attacking humans. They abducted me from my motel room and then let me go, just to prove a point."
"To prove that they meant you no harm?" Brennan asked.
"Yea. Dean's attitude was that they were vampires, period. That being a vampire in itself made them evil. But my attitude was that since they weren't hurting people, they weren't evil. That they deserved the chance to live if they weren't hurting anyone."
"I believe that's true," Brennan replied. "To hunt vampires based solely on the fact that they're vampires is no better than if Caucasian humans were to hunt Negroid humans based solely on the fact that they had dark skin."
"Yea. So that's one of the obstacles we'll come upon as hunters."
"How many hunters are there?"
"Worldwide? No idea. There is sort of a vague community. A grapevine, so to speak. If you need advice on a hunt or some sort of supernatural artifact, you can ask another hunter. Chances are, if you found something that needs hunting, another hunter could have found out too. So we'll run into each other on a job now and then."
"I noticed you call it that. A job. Do you consider this your job?"
"Not in the normal sense of the word. Your job is a forensic anthropologist. Booth is an FBI agent. But normally a job comes with pay. We don't get paid for this."
"How can you survive if this is your job and you don't get paid for it?" Brennan asked. "How do you earn money? I mean it's obvious that you have expenses. Ammunition, weapons, Dean's car must require a lot of gas…."
"Mostly hustling pool and poker. Credit card scams occasionally."
"Credit card scams?"
Sam smiled. "Yea. We'll put fake names on the applications and stuff." He glanced to her. "I usually don't talk about this stuff, much less with a law enforcement official."
"I don't plan on reporting any of this to Booth or his superiors," Brennan said softly. "You save lives. But you have to be able to have the tools necessary to do so. Ergo, unconventional methods of acquiring funds."
"Unconventional methods of acquiring funds," Sam repeated. "I think that's the nicest description I've ever heard of what we do."