The Teenage Exorcist

     It was about four in the mourning when Kale finally started to wake up. Alex figured the boy just had to sleep it off. While not looking good as new, at least it looked like he was not going to puke or pass out or anything. 

     "Morning sunshine!" she said.

     "What the hell?" he shouted.

     Alex could only understand too well, waking up in an unfamiliar situation with a strange person. Brought back good memories of her training days with grandma.

     "You passed out, had a bad reaction to something. Any allergies?" she asked.

     He seemed to notice they were in a heavily forested area, and she was driving with her lights off. She liked the challenge, but did not want to freak him out further so flipped on her brights. With the new illumination, her family's house was clearly visible. Alex switched to normal lights, not wanting to wake anyone up. She knew her dad, grandma and brother would be up waiting for her, but a ton of people lived in that house, all of them probably asleep. 

     "What was that monstrosity? Some sort of private school out here in the boonies?" he was still pretty upset by the looks of it.

     Calling it a school was not too far off in her opinion. It was where she had been trained and served more than just her immediate family, people from all over the world sent their rich kids here to study under grandma. Most were turned away, but occasionally they had the required spiritual presence to follow through with training. They did not receive anything close to what a member of the family got mostly because they never stayed for more than a year or two. Members of the family had a lifetime commitment whether they wanted it or not. None the less, Alex did not see an academy but rather her home. There were several buildings encased behind a ten foot fence of painted concrete, taking up a surprising amount of acreage. The two largest structures were the main house and the training grounds, which was really an over-glorified tent. The smaller buildings were for extended family, students and storage. Several of the sheds at the very far end of the estate had not been opened for generations. 

     "Its home." Alex said simply.

     "You live at a school?" Kale said, nonplussed.

      "No. Well, sorta. We do take on students from time to time and a lot of people do live here but I am related to most of them." she explained

      "Nice. What do people learn here? I can't imagine there's a systems integration course." he laughed at his own joke.

     "Ha, no the isn't." Alex was not going to say anything further to an outsider before she got permission from grandma. That old bat could be scary as hell if you did not keep her in the loop or talk to her about impotant matters. She was probably alredy upset that Alex had taken so long getting home. She could hear it now 'In my day we got home in time for dinner, no matter if we had to walk home!' She was very old fashioned. Speaking of old fashioned she thought, looking at what Kale was wearing.

     He had on jeans and an undershirt, which Alex couldn't blame him for considering it had reached the mid eighties yesterday. When she reached around him into the back seat he did not even bat an eyelash, it disturbed her that he thought she was so harmless. What does a girl have to do to get a little credit around here? Kill twenty more demons? She sighed to herself and threw an extra one of her black button ups at the clueless guy sitting next to her. 

     "Oh, come on its four in the morning and its already hot as hell." he complained.

     "You don't have to put it on, I could drop you off at the front gate and have you walk home. That will save you the trouble of being kicked out by my old fashioned grandma and probably my dad. I don't think I have ever brought home a boy who looks as dirty as you do right now." she explained.

     "Brought home lots of guys, have you?" he jabbed.

     Despite the insult she could practiacly see the cogs in his brain turning as the car approached the front gate. Alex had to get out of the car and use her key to unlock it, as well as a few other methods. Most of the things on the estate were manual so nothing would become a liability if a demon attacked and there was a power outage. There were still modern things like phones and electricity but anything to do with security was strictly stone age. She parked the car next to her dads and got out, motioning Kale to follow her.