Webisode: Calm Before the Storm

The following characters are cleared for this webisode:
All approved SPN characters

Lenna was lying in the library, reading her parent’s journals. She really liked her dad it had so much information about so many things they hunt. It was like a super short but detailed encyclopaedia of weirdness. But it was her mom’s journal she read over and over again. Some pages were weird they made no sense, but she knew her mom well enough to know that even those pages would make sense eventually she just had to learn how to read them.
At the moment she was pondering over that fact that she hadn’t been alone when her parents died. She had two godparents… well no they had died but she knew Georgie for such a long time and she had no idea. This fantasy of her, this friend she always pretended to have it was real. Her thoughts where spinning around. Her parents had been hunters, and further her brother knew. That’s why when she confronted him that he was a werewolf he just accepted it he didn’t tell her that she was crazy. Why did no one ever tell her? She was not this stupid little girl that couldn’t have handled it. All her life she was sure that monsters were real but no one told her.
Lenna starred at the ceiling, right here Rome had made her take apart his gun and put it back together. It felt like a lifetime ago. Lenna got up put all her books back into the box and took the book Rome had used to show her how his gun was put together and went with it to find Rome. She felt like throwing up but she found him in the TV room.

“Hey, what are you doing? If you are not busy could you… um…” Lenna turned the book around that Rome saw the cover. “You showed me how to clean it but not how… to use it.” Lenna was ignoring all other problems and thoughts and tried to fix the one that was stupid to have in the first place.”Just if you have time and are not busy.”

"Christo," Rome said, half-joking and half-serious. When Lenna didn't flinch except to put her hand on her hip, Rome touched his bracelet to her arm. "Hmm," he said, mock serious. "Not a shapeshifter."

"Are you done?"

"Yeah, probably. This is your job," he said, rubbing his eyes clear from computer-screen-vision. "My only other guesses would be either you're not feeling well or Georgie wants to take you shopping so you picked the lesser of two evi--"

"You know what? Fine. Never mind. I shouldn't have ask--" Lenna began, but Rome grasped her wrist as she turned around:

"Hey, chica," he said, and smiled. "I was just kidding. Of course I'll teach you? You wanna come with me to get the stuff?" Rome asked, but still held onto her hand and hauled her up the stairs with him. Part of him didn't trust her not to chicken out.

"Okay..." he said, rifling through bags after an assortment of guns, and packing them, ammunition, and extra gear into a single duffle. "We'll start with something small and reasonable, like the Glock, which is only a .22," he explained, knowing she liked this sort of thing. "And what does the '22' mean?" he prompted.

"The bullet's 22/100ths of an inch in diameter," she responded, apparently having read up on the subject.

"Um, yeah, okay. Good. I...think," Rome said, then shook his head. "Okay, then we'll graduate to the .45 Tanfoglio, and the--" he paused at his Desert Eagle, the huge hand cannon that he knew for certain was too big for her hands, and put it back, "no, that one's my baby," he explained. "And if you're very good, we'll play with the assault rifle," he said, grinning broadly at her.

Lenna nodded, but she was a little nervous. The last time she used a gun was to shot Rome free out of a hole in the ground and she shot him in the shoulder.

“Yeah you Desert Eagle and I have no good memories together.” Lenna’s voice sounded small and rather shy.

Lenna looked at Rome, and he looked weirdly proud at her. A small smile appeared on her face and out of the blue she hugged Rome tight. He might not see it or know it but it meant a lot to her that he was helping her. And more that he was there for her without asking what was on her mind what was in the journals, what happened in Boston.

“Wait… there is nothing about rifles in the book. I didn’t read anything about any rifle. I don’t know what to do with a rifle.” Lenna suddenly stepped back away from Rome and was searching panicked through the book if there was anything about rifles in it but it wasn’t and it scared her. It scared her how helpless she felt to do something she hadn’t read anything about it beforehand. Lenna looked a lot like she planned on bailing from the entire lesson.

"I mean... I... I don't know how a rifle works what if I do something wrong?"

Georgie was alone in her room, staring at that one book she had always carried around with her but never dared to look into. They’ve been at Tex’ for a couple of days now and this book was constantly on her mind but yet she didn’t dare to open it. Georgie had dealt astonishingly well with her parents’ death, she was only nine when they died but she knew how to handle the situation. When she was about thirteen and her interest not only in hunting but also in finding out who or what killed Adam and Josephine Gilmore increased, Lewis gave her this particular book she was looking at right now- her mom’s journal. Apparently her mother had told him shortly before her death that her journal had to be passed on to her daughter in case something would happen to her, and despite the fact that Lewis didn’t want his only niece to get really involved with the hunting business, he assured Josephine that he would give Georgina the journal, not knowing that his sister-in-law was about to die very soon. Lewis waited a couple of years before he gave the journal to Georgie, and as much as the journal- one of the last remaining possessions of her mom- meant to her, she had never opened it and she probably wouldn’t have for another couple of years if Lewis hadn’t told her to look at it during her last visit in Boston a couple of days ago.
Georgie took a deep breath, picked up the book and opened the first page where she immediately recognized her mother’s neat and perfect handwriting, but then she closed it again.
She knew she acted ridiculous but this was harder than she had expected. She stared at the book in her hand, then put it aside and got up.
“Screw this”, she mumbled. “I need coffee.”

"You won't do anything wrong with the rifle," Rome told her wearily, intentionally ignoring her line about his Desert Eagle. "And it's an assault rifle, so you're probably looking in the wrong book. They're usually military issue: you have to have a special license to use one of these, because they're so freaking deadly and shockingly easy to use..."

Rome considered Elenna's eyes bugging out in terror, and decided to stop talking about that.

"Anyway, we're not starting with that," he said, as they made their way downstairs to the range. He was still limping from the gunshot wound a few days ago, but Tex had given him the go-ahead to move around on it a little, and he was frankly sick of his sedentary life.

He was chatty as he laid out the weapons and ammo on the table, sharing with Elenna what was happening in all the latest TV shows, what artists were on the Top 40, and a bunch of other stuff she didn't care about but at least didn't give her time to wuss out on him.

"Okay," he said, finally, standing back to let her take a look at the table. Her eyes were still wide and she looked nervous, though, so he paused:

"Hey," he said, and took her chin in his hand. "You okay?" he asked. It was tender enough, but he wasn't really asking her--

He was telling her.

Eyeing the weapons again, she nodded as much as his grip on her chin allowed. "Yeah. I guess. I mean--I need to learn this stuff," she added quietly, looking down.

He smiled and pulled her in for a hug. "We all need to learn about stuff we're scared of, baby," he told her.

Yeah? Want to take your own advice? said a tiny voice inside of him, which came from the unopened package from Raws that remained crammed in the drawer beside his un-slept-in bed upstairs as lonely as a Gideon's Bible.

"Okay. What do you do when you first pick up the gun?" He drilled.

"Um... Keep it pointed at the ground?"

"Well, yeah, unless you're shooting something," Rome grinned. "I meant you need to check if it's loaded." He pointed to the unintimidating .22 without touching it. "Show me how you check if that one's loaded."

"It's not, I can see," Lenna said, pointing to the magazine that rested beside it.

"Don't wuss out on me, Lennie," Rome said. "Check if there's a round chambered. Pick it up."

Lenna sighed it took her a few more moments until she stepped closer to the table. Her hands were shaking when she picked up the gun making sure it was pointed away from Rome and herself. The metal was heavy and cold in her hands. After another couple of deep breaths she pulled at the barrel and saw that the chamber was empty.

“See I said it is not loaded.” Lenna smiled triumphant at Rome.

“Yeah but you couldn’t have know that.”

“Maybe your psychic powers rubbed off on me.” Lenna giggled, but stopped when she saw that Rome didn’t find that funny. “Okay so the piece of deathly metal is not loaded what next?”

A part of Lenna didn’t want to know what came next but after reading all those books how the small handguns work she was curious to see them in action well in a safe environment it was nearly like an experiment. Maybe if she would tell herself this long enough she would not remember how deadly those things were. She didn’t tell Rome but she was really scared that she could hurt Rome… like she did that last time she used one of his guns.

"Pop the clip in there," he said, sounding nonchalant and easy about it, not giving her time to freak. She was smart, she'd figure out which way it went.

Sure enough, she slid the clip home.

"Good girl," Rome said, and leaned against the table as his leg twinged slightly. "Now it's a point-click interface, just like a computer--"

"Rome, I hate computers," she reminded him.

"And you hate guns, I know, but guess what? You're a hunter, and it's the 21st century: you're not a little girl and you're not a Luddite, so you don't got much of a choice," he snapped back, folding his arms across his chest. "Point it at the target, safety off, and pull the trigger."

Frowning at him, looking almost angry--which was good, having her pissed at him was better than having her scared--she turned and lifted an arm at the paper target hanging from the line.

"Oh, not like that," Rome said, pushing off from the table to stand behind her. "Both hands on the gun. Cup your left around your right, just like that, yeah. There'll be recoil, you want both hands on the weapon."

She nodded, took a deep breath, and on the release she pulled the trigger. She kind of squeaked and kind of fell back, but no harm had been done.

"You didn't hit anything," he told her.

"Oh, thank God," she said, "I was scared I--"

"No," he corrected: "you didn't hit anything. And the object of the game is to, you know, hit stuff." He pointed at the paper target that was only ten yards out. It was still clean, unblemished by the mark of a bullet. "Here, try again," he told her, rushing her again, not giving her time to start thinking. He stepped in close behind her and guided her hands and arms. "Drop your stance, bend your knees. Lean forward more, good..."

Lenna bit her lip and lowered her arms. “The target was moving.”

“Chica the target is a piece of paper. It can’t move.” Rome chuckled. “Come on lift up your arms or do you wanna shoot the table?”

“No. But this is really hard Rome.”

“So you wanna quit?”

Lenna shook her head. “No.”

“Good. So up the arms and pull that trig-” Rome couldn’t finish his sentence because Lenna did as she was told and had pulled the trigger, squealed and jump a little backwards into his arms.
Her shot wasn’t perfect but it was pretty centred on the little target disk.

“That wasn’t half bad.” Rome sad calmly. “Do it again.”

“Rome!” Lenna turned around in his arms, making sure the gun was pointed away.

“Lenna!” He said imitating her high pitchy voice.

Lenna looked up, she wouldn’t tell him but she liked it to do things just with him. Rome put his hands on her shoulders and turned her back around. Lenna nodded, she leaned a little more back into Rome. And as weird as it sounded her holding a gun she hadn’t felt that safe in a very long time.

“Rome my parents were hunters, and Nick knew he knew it since forever. Why didn’t they tell me?” Lenna whispered after she had fired the entire magazine and the weapon in her hands was empty clicking. “My mom’s journal is full with apologies, but she never told me. I thought she and I have this special bond, but apparently I wasn’t even good enough that she told me.”

Lenna leaned her head against Rome’s shoulder, needing him to be the one having it together while she was falling apart even though it was just for a moment.

After half an hour or so Richard put down the guitar. No matter how much he enjoyed playing it, sitting around got to him. He needed to do something, even if just to stretch his legs.

Downstairs, He made a beeline for the kitchen and the coffee pot, only to find it empty. With a sigh, he began to refill it.

As he waited for the pot to fill, Richard pulled out his notebook, and began counting the dashes. He knew the numbers off by heart, but it always help relax him if his quota was good. Then at the end he reached the question mark, the Croatoan ghosts. How many had made it onto his quota? All? None? Some? Depending on that answer, there was a chance for him to put his feet up for a bit. Or, if the opposite was true, he’d need to get back on the road again sharpish.

The coffee machined beeped as it finished its task, and Richard looked up to see Georgie hovering at the door. How long had she been waiting there?

“Hello Georgie,” Richard greeted her with a smile, as he slipped the notebook back into his pocket.

After Georgie had gone downstairs to get some coffee she stopped before she entered the kitchen because Richard was already there, writing in something that looked like some sort of notebook or journal. Since she didn’t want to interrupt him she waited a moment and didn’t storm in like that but then the coffee machine peeped and he looked up, seeing her watching him, and she noticed that he immediately put the notebook away. Georgie always noticed those kind of details. She adapted many things while living with a lawyer for most of her life, things like paying close attention to what was happening around her.

“Hello Georgie”, Richard said while he quickly put the little book in his pocket.

She sure was curious about that book but she decided not to ask him immediately. “Hi Uncle”, she said teasingly while she grabbed a cup and poured herself some coffee. “Have you seen Lenna and Rome by any chance? It’s weirdly quiet in this house.”

“I think Lenna is practicing how to shoot, with Rome’s help, of course.”

“Oh, Jesus”, she mumbled, then she cleared her throat. “So…what have you been up to? Anything particular?” She just couldn’t resist asking.

“Not really.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you just write?”
Yes, Georgie knew she was sometimes a little too direct, but that was just another thing she blamed on the lawyer DNA.

“Hm?” Richard pretended that he didn’t know what she meant but she wasn’t that easy to trick.

“You just wrote something in some kind of notebook or journal…” That reminded her of her mom’s journal again and the fact that she still hadn’t really looked in it although Lewis had told her to do so. “You keep a journal? Something like ‘Dear Journal, today I had a great day. I killed a monster, and the sun was shining as well.’”, she added jokingly.

“Oh, that…” He paused for a moment. “It’s nothing important.”

Georgie raised her eyebrows. She could totally tell when someone didn’t say the truth and she was very tempted to get the truth out of him, but on the other hand she didn’t want to be too annoying, maybe he really didn’t want to talk about it.
“Okay.” She just shrugged her shoulders and took a sip of her coffee.

"Lenna!" Rome cried.

Clearly, this wasn't about learning to shoot.

He gently scooped the gun out of her hand, thumbed the safety on and laid it on the table so he could bring his hands back to cup her face. "Lennie, baby, you were, like, nine years old when she died! She was trying to protect you."

Lenna started actually crying, so he wrapped his arms around her. "Lennie, baby," he whispered. "It's all right, okay? Easy," he told her, rubbing her tiny back, and feeling a swell of protectiveness. "She wanted to protect you," he said again. "When people love each other they want to protect each other."

"But she's not here anymore!" Lenna wailed, now weeping openly, and clinging to his shirt. Rome was struck by his own loss, missed his own mother, his father, missed his brother. A lump formed in his throat.

"I know, chica. But I am. And I'm gonna protect you."

Lenna had a hard time catching her breath. She wasn’t even sure why she suddenly was so upset about this, he parents were dead since a long time and she thought she had made her peace with it, but apparently not.

“I know you are. Sometimes I think it was fate that brought us together.” She broke off before she said something wrong. She didn’t intent to ever tell Rome about their true first time they met.

“I know you gonna protect me, you always have. You mean so much to me, sorry I’m such a mess. It’s just all those stuff Mrs. Gilmore gave me from my parents. It is messing with my head.” Lenna whispered, just before they heard the door to the shooting range open.

“Hey you two, get upstairs I looked through all the files Lewis Gilmore gave you. Tidy up here and meet me in the kitchen.” Tex as so often didn’t say anything about Lenna’s and Rome’s closeness. Lenna sighed, and nodded at the other woman. She turned around back to the table and together with Rome she packed his weapons back into the duffle he had carried them down. Just before she looked at the target she had shot on. “Hey look I hit the target.” Even though it was easy to see that Lenna had cried a few moments ago she was now smiling proudly, while she and Rome were walking back upstairs.

As he poured his own coffee, Richard mentally braced himself for the next question. Answers along the line of ‘doesn’t every hunter keep notes’ shot through his mind. But no questions were forthcoming, leading to an awkward silence.

“I’ll see you in the passing later,” Richard eventually broke the scilence. “My guitar isn’t going to play itself.”

“You play the guitar?” Georgie asked in surprise as they headed to the door, just as Tex walked into view, carrying a large wad of files and blocking their way.

“No going anywhere you two. Rome and Lenna are going to be here in a moment. And then where going to talk about this lot.” Tex half placed half thumped the group of files on the table for emphasis.

“They callin’ themselves ‘SWORD’,” Tex said, immediately down to business, with zero formalities or sugar-coating. “Near’s I can tell, stands for Supernatural, Witchcraft and Occult Reconnaissance and Defense. Sounds like they should be the good guys, like us, like hunters, taking out the things that go bump in the night. But,” she paused for a long moment. “There’s problems…

“First of all, no witnesses. All dead. Civilians, victims, too. Dead or disappeared.” She threw a stack of papers—obits, police reports, census data—down on the table as her proof. “When these guys clean up after themselves, they don’t leave nothing behind. It’s almost as if they don’t want anyone to know about anything supernatural, much less them.

“Couldn’t find much of a paper trail,” Tex told them. “And I got the best working on finding one. They might be government, could be freemasons for all I know. And based on your descriptions, I was able to find the three that were after you:

“Ex-Special Agent John Holyfield,” she said, tossing down a printoff picture of a face they already knew all too well. “Left the actual FBI a year ago, has since been impersonating an FBI agent. He’s been getting closer to your trail this whole time, in Jackson and at Roanoke, and I’m not even going to mention Boston.

“His partner, Agent Justice.” Now she added another picture, of a severe-looking black man. “This guy might as well be a ghost for all we know about him. I can’t find anything on him. Which is a far cry from this guy,” she said, concluding with a picture of the guy Georgie had used as a hostage to make their getaway from Boston. “Alexander Colt. Don’t know what’s going on there. He comes from a good hunting family. Talked to his folks, but they haven’t heard from him in a few years. Anyway, I got everything on him, could pull up his old myspace page if you want. Seems to be a low-level grunt working for them, anyway.”

“Do they have, like, a base?” Rome asked.

“This ain’t Mission Impossible, boy! Ain’t no such things as volcano bases and—“

“Fine, do they have an HQ, then?” Rome tried again.

“Probably. Couldn’t tell you where, though. All I know is that you’ve got their attention something fierce, and that ain’t a good thing. They got files on all y’all, and…” here she glanced around at the assembly, giving them each a hard, probing look in turn. “And in a lot of cases, they seem to know more about you than I do. And I don’t like that.”

Rome looked at the stack of papers, pictures, newspaper articles, and police reports that Tex set before him as she gave him the evil eye. “I…” he flicked through the papers, almost afraid to look at them. He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. “Uh. These are—I don’t even remember…”

“That’s just what the actual FBI wants you for,” Tex explained, and Rome dropped the file, with a sick sense of relief that he didn’t have to look through that pile—like, Oh, thank God, that’s only the normal everyday felonies that I committed when I wasn’t in control of my own body, as if that was any better. “Here’s your SWORD file, Remington,” she said, and slid a piece of paper to him.

This looked more like it:

[[REMINGTON, ROMULUS STEVEN
>DOB 01/03/83
>SSN 555-55-5555
>US MARINE CORPS 1st BATTALION, 2nd REGIMENT, INFANTRY
>>RANK: LANCE COPORAL
>>PRESUMED MIA
SUPERNATURAL PROFILE
>>PSYCHIC, UNKNOWN. POSSIBLE TELEP, TELEK, PRECOG, FORCE, CONDUIT
>>>LEVEL: UNKNOWN. PRESUMED 10+
>THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME
>PROFIT LEVEL: HIGH RISK
>CODE: A]]

“Well. Shit.” Rome said. “What the hell does all this stuff even mean? Psychic? I’m not psychic! It’d be a lot easier to score chicks if I was psychic, let me tell—“

“Rome, this isn’t funny,” Tex scolded.

“And I ain’t laughing! What the fuck’s their scale, here, anyway? Is ‘10’ good? Bad? What does ‘Code: A’ mean? And what the hell does ‘force’ mean? If I was a Jedi, I think I’d frakking know!”

Richard narrowed his eyes after glancing at the paper. “Telekenesis…. You can move things with your mind?”

“What? No!”

Lenna looked at him.

“Well. Maybe! Yes. It happened once. But I don’t have any control over it! I don’t know,” he groaned, settling back into the chair, his head in his hands.

“Rome, are you okay?” Georgie asked worriedly.

“Psychic headache,” he snapped, kind of sarcastically, kind of truthfully. “From dealing with too much bullshit today.” He sighed, and looked up at his friends. “I don’t know. Whatever you guys think, I don’t have any weirdo powers—that, you know, I can control. Stuff just happens, like, through me.”

“Since Andre?” Tex asked.

Rome looked up sharply. “Yeah. Since—but how’d you know—do they have his name, too?”

Tex nodded.

There was a silence.

“I…don’t mind admitting that these SWORD guys scare the freaking bajesus out of me.” Rome said.

Lenna was holding the holding the file that had her name on it. It should be empty, she is not having any powers…

[[FEE, ELENNA A.
>DOB 12/22/85
>SSN 351-26-2064
>>PRESUMED DEATH 09/20/05
SUPERNATURAL PROFILE
>>WITCH, MEDIUM, SORCERY, HELLENIC ELEMENTALIST, POSSIBLE DEMONIC TREATY
>>>LEVEL: UNKNOWN. PRESUMED 8
>THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME
>PROFIT LEVEL: HIGH
>CODE: A]]

Lenna gasped this wasn’t possible, she is not a witch or any of the things S.W.O.R.D thought she is. “I’m not a witch.” Lenna mumbled.

“I don’t know about that you do can do some freaky little tricks.” Georgie said partly impressed partly worried.

“I never made a deal with a demon to gain demonic witchcraft. I don’t even have any powers I just channel the energy that is around. A few years ago I got a book from…” Lenna looked up at Rome, she wasn’t sure how to tell him, “… Andre… that showed me how I can use the powers of the elements. But I never made a pact with him, my soul is still mine. So I am not a witch!” Lenna starred at the file, wondering what it meant that her profit level was high. What profit, profit for whom?

“This sucks they are totally lying about me!” Lenna was sulking like a little child she looked at Rome worried now that he found out that they met before they had met.

"Wait, what? Andre was after you, too? When did--" Rome began to ask, and then did the math. The pause was long enough, and Lenna wasn't looking at him enough to confirm his suspicion:

"You're kidding me. Andre gave you a spellbook while he was riding my ass around?" Strangely, that was kind of embarrassing, as if letting someone see him possessed was like someone seeing him naked--if, you know, being naked embarrassed him at all. And then another thought struck him: "And you didn't do anything?" he demanded angrily, before Tex slammed a fist down on the table:

"Okay, okay, that's enough, hotshot," Tex ordered. "I think you should be more worried about Andre, and SWORD, than getting bitchy at each other."

Lenna waited until Tex well not looked less authority and Rome was silent when she mumbled. “I did try to safe you, and I thought for a minute the exorcism worked but then he was back or never had left and then you vanished into thin air and left me in the cold in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota. You were the reason why I left Bobby to find you and exorcise Andre properly, which in the end nearly killed you.”

Lenna had never told Rome because she didn’t want him to know that he was the reason that she left Bobby so early, no hunter in its right mind would work on its own when she was barely eighteen. She didn’t want him to be angry that she couldn’t have saved him earlier.

“I tried my best but it wasn’t enough.”

Lenna looked guilty at the table. She knew she should have saved Rome earlier. She should have.

“You were a child Elenna it is a wonder that you are still alive.” Tex looked from Lenna at Georgie and Richard they were rather quiet while they looked at their files. If they knew about their powers, or if they were in shock that they had powers?

[[GILMORE, GEORGINA E.
>DOB 07/04/83
>SSN 172-12-7825
SUPERNATURAL PROFILE
>> PSYCHIC EMPATH
>>>LEVEL: UNKNOWN. PRESUMED 5
>THREAT LEVEL: LOW
>PROFIT LEVEL: HIGH
>CODE: A ]]

This file didn’t make any sense. According to those SWORD guys she had some sort of supernatural power as well. The only ‘supernatural’ power she might have was that she could run really fast in high heels, which most women didn’t manage, but other than that…
Well, she did notice, or at least she sometimes thought that she could feel what others felt. It was not just random guessing, she could really ‘feel’ others’ emotions. But maybe that wasn’t anything unusual and she didn’t have to worry about that. She had also noticed that it had gotten stronger from week to week. Sometimes, when she was in a room with more people, it felt like she received all their emotions at the same time- which wasn’t fun at all. That’s how a pregnant woman must feel, having so many different emotions at once. And she sure as hell wasn’t pregnant.

“It wouldn’t hurt if you’d look into your mother’s journal, Georgie, that will give you some answers concerning your powers”, Tex said.

Georgie looked up in surprise. “Wait, what? How do you know about my mom’s journal?”

“I called your uncle briefly, just to check in if SWORD hasn’t shown up at his house again, and he mentioned something about a power that had been given to the women of your family for generations, and he guessed that you might be affected too, and it either hasn’t developed yet or you just haven’t mentioned it...”

This was a bit awkward.
“I…I’m not sure what he’s talking about.”

“Then it’s time you’ll check out that journal, maybe then you know what he’s talking about.” Tex had this ‘don’t-you-even-think-about-coming-up-with-excuses’-look on her face.

Georgie crossed her arms, giving her an equally tough look. “Fine”, she said, not liking the fact that someone pressured her to do something.

“Now don’t you give me that attitude, Miss Gilmore”, Tex said sarcastically. “I hope you’re all aware that this matter is serious.” She looked from one to the next, hoping they would listen to her for once.

Great, reading her mom’s journal was especially tough now, since it was no longer just something that reminded Georgie of her mother, but apparently it would also reveal the kind of power she had. How wonderful that Lewis –once again- forgot to mention this tiny, little, insignificant detail about the powers that have been passed on among the women in her family. But Tex was right, Georgie had no other choice but finally read this journal to find out why SWORD might be interested in her as well. It was probably not because she could run in high heels…

"That's weird. You mean to tell me that psychic powers like this are, what, like, genetic?" Rome barked out a derisive laugh. "There's no way any of my family had this problem."

Tex pursed her lips. She looked like she was about to say something, but stopped herself. Then, apparently, she changed her mind, and, with a put-upon sigh, said, "You do know your Momma was a Campbell, don't ya, boy?"

"Um. Like, her maiden name? Yeah. But I don't..."

"And you never met her side of the family, did you?"

"Um. Well, no..."

"Trust me, son. It's in your blood."

How did Tex know more about his family than he did? This was getting beyond weird.

Petulantly, he snatched Georgie's sheet from her hand and read it out loud. "'Psychic, empath'? What does that mean? You're not psychic--are you?" Because if she was, he had reason to worry.

"Rome, that's private!" she cried, snatching it back and whacking him over the head with it.

"No, really, it's not," he said, standing up. "We are all of us up to our necks in a river of crap. We can't help each other if we keep lying to each other!" He rounded on Richard, who had been suspiciously silent this whole time. "And you!" he said. "What's your story, anyway? Back on Roanoke, what was that? I was willing to let it go before, but now, shit just got real. You the ghost whisperer or something?"

Richard gave a dry humourless chuckle from the corner of the room. He had glanced at his file, it now sat discarded on the counter-top. SWORD didn’t know everything, but they knew far more than most.

“Not a whisperer, if anything I’m the opposite of that. You really want to know? I don’t have any flashy powers like you three.”

“I think we still need to know, especially if SWORD does,” pointed out Rome. Richard spent a few moments gathering his thoughts, trying to work out the best place to start.

“Have you ever died? Have you seen what’s on the other side?” Richard didn’t give them a chance to reply. “I have walked the plains of Erebus and returned. My first hunt, before I was even a hunter, ended badly. As in being crushed by a falling roof badly. Then next thing I knew I was in a dark, cavernous unending plain. And it turns out some old myths are true. Some of those ancient pantheons do exist. Because I was approached by one of the Greek Gods. Hades, the ruler of Erebus, the pathway of the dead. Hades offered me a deal, a chance to return to life.” Richard shrugged. “Erebus scared the crap out of me, I took it. SWORD knows I made a deal, but they don’t know exactly who with or its conditions.”

“Are what were the conditions? What would a Greek god want with you?” asked Georgie.

“I was given ten years of life. Ten years to track down those who escaped from Erebus or never arrived. The undead, ghosts, zombies and so on. If I retrieve enough I get my life back. If not, I end up back in Erebus.” Richard looked back up at the group.

“I think I have an idea where Reapers come from.”

Rome opened his mouth to speak, but it hung open for almost a full minute before he closed it again. He sort of felt like Hooper in JAWS during the showing-off contest, where Brody points to that one scar Quint clearly doesn't want to talk about, but Hooper's drunk and teasing and makes him talk until Quint tells them he served on the freaking Indianapolis and it's like, whoa, buzz kill.

Everything else was kind of been a blur, all except--

"You...died?" Rome couldn't believe he was saying it, couldn't believe he was repeating it, but it was somehow the only thing that mattered. Tex looked like she was about to smack him for his insolence, but she refrained, barely.

Richard only nodded, and didn't look at anyone.

And Rome thought he had problems.

No, in fact, he was being stupidly selfish about this whole thing. He was definitely not the only to whom freaky things happened. Why did the world revolve around him and his own problems? That would be a pretty frakking stupid solar system.

"Well," Rome said, stepping forward. "It doesn't matter." He got a few sharp looks for that until he explained, "It looks like these SWORD people are after all of us, indiscriminately, and that's a giant problem if these guys are as nasty as Tex says they are. Speaking of, Texie, if these guys are so good, how'd you get all this intel?"

Tex snorted. "You kids think you invented the internet!" she said, by way of explanation. "And I know some people. Good people. Let's leave it at that."

Rome shrugged. "Okay, fair enough. So. First order of business: Tex, can we stay here? We need to lay low, but I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want all this on your doorstep. I'm sure we can find other places--"

"Here's as safe as you'll be," Tex said, folding her arms, and that was clearly the end of that discussion.

Rome nodded, wanted to thank her, but she'd probably just roll her eyes at him, so he continued. "Okay. Also, we need to come clean with each other as much as possible. So if anyone's unclear about anything, we should--"

"I have a question," Richard said, giving Rome a hard look. "Who's this 'Andre' character?"

When he'd made his gallant speech, Rome hadn't quite expected it to come back and bite him in the ass so immediately. But he tried his best, though he was sure he was telegraphing all the signs of please-not-this-I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it-I'm-scared-and-embarrassed-and-please-can-we-talk-about-something-else:

"A demon, we guess--"

"We know," Lenna jumped in.

"We know," Rome corrected. "Like, from hell, possession, The Exorcist type of demon. He's the reason the Feebs are after me, because he was--I was possessed for, I think, about eight months, and he--I think he killed a lot of people. I don't remember everything," Rome concluded.

"And he visited me," Lenna said. "Gave me the spell book." Rome reached out and took her hand, and squeezed it, apologizing for his harsh words before.

"And me," Georgie said, as all eyes turned back to her.

“Wait, what?” Rome looked surprised at her. “You met Andre as well?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t think that this little detail might have been important for us to know?”

“Look, it wasn’t like he gave me a spelling book or possessed me, actually, nothing happened at all, so I didn’t see the need to tell everyone that I met him.”

Lenna crossed her arms. “Well, great thinking, Barbie. So where did you meet him?”

“At a college party, back in Yale.” Georgie didn’t even blink while she said that.

It was quiet for a moment, but she could already see a stupid grin on Rome’s face. “Come on! Do you want to tell us that he was dressed like a preppy boy, wearing corduroy pants and a pastel Lacoste shirt?”

“As a matter of fact, yes”, she said dryly. “And I knew you would think this is a joke, but it wasn’t. I just started my second year at Yale, but already during my first year I had this feeling that I shouldn’t be there, especially since I always knew what my parents did and how they died, so pretending to be the normal, all-American college girl wasn’t really working for me. Anyway, the second year had started and I went to one of the bigger party events when I noticed that some guy had watched me the entire time. Now, that wasn’t anything unusual, but a bit later he approached me and started talking to me, first about random things, nothing particularly important. I could actually tell from the moment I saw him that something was weird about him and before I got the chance to turn away from him he mentioned something about how tragic it must be to lose both parents at the same time. There was no way a normal stranger could have known that, and when I asked him where he got this information from, he said he had known them and had looked for me ever since they died. At that moment I knew he wasn’t any normal college guy but we were surrounded by a large crowd of students, so getting out my gun was kind of risky. I was about to get my gun out anyway because I worried that he could harm everyone who was there, but at that moment a group of drunk guys pushed me aside, and a second later this weird guy was gone and didn’t show up anymore. That night I looked everywhere for him but he didn’t come back.” Georgie paused for a moment. “I knew I had to call Lewis, so I did, and then he told me about this demon who is apparently around for a while now, looking for specific hunter families. After that I knew two things; I wasn’t safe at college anymore, and I definitely had the final reason to become a hunter- which, of course, was something Lewis wasn’t particularly thrilled about. I later found out that this demon was going by the name Andre…”

Lenna had her typical ‘thinking-face’ on. “So, there’s obviously a connection. I mean, it can’t be coincidence that we all ran into the same demon.”

Georgie was quiet. She quickly looked at Richard, not knowing what to make of his story yet. She was sort of mad, not at him, but at the fact that she had found a family member and –oh, what a surprise- he had already been dead. What a perfectly normal family she had... She needed some time to get over that news but she also knew that this wasn’t the appropriate moment to start a discussion. Georgie crossed her arms and wondered if Lenna was right and there really was a reason why Andre had appeared to all of them before.

Rome knit his brow, thinking, staring off into space, as if he could bore a hole in the refrigerator with his mind.

Rome didn't really do thinking.

And since he probably could bore a hole in the refrigerator with his mind, he decided that it really wouldn't be a good idea to try.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, to the room at large.

"What?"

Rome was silent.

"Rome," Lenna said, gripping his arm tight enough to hurt, "You didn't do these things. Andre did. And anyway, no harm done."

"You shouldn't use that book, Lenna," Rome said. He was responsible. If only he had been stronger. "I'm sure it's a trap of some kind. Whatever Andre was doing giving you the spell book, I'm sure it wasn't out of the kindness of his heart. And that might get SWORD off your back, too."

He turned to Georgie. "But why would he visit you just to taunt you? Why all three of us--before we met each other? Was he trying to get us together for a reason? G, did you--did you come find me? In Gallup, when we met, did you remember me? Did you only just now realize that the guy who you met at the party--that I was possessed?"