True Lies
"Shut up!" The command echoed through the woods. The babble of voices stopped and all eyes focused on Chris Argent. Only the crackling coming from the small fires burning in the yard of the Hale house could be heard.
A growl rumbled through the sudden silence.
"That includes you, Hale." Chris turned his attention to Stiles who was trying to look cool by leaning against Jackson's Porsche. "Stiles, does your Dad know about any of this?"
"What?" Stiles started at the sound of his name and tried to straighten up from his cool slouch only to lose his footing and begin sliding under Jackson's car. He saved himself by grabbing hold of the door handle which snapped off. He looked down at the handle clutched in his hand. What happened, he wondered, to excellence in German engineering? This chauvinistic thought was replaced almost immediately by the realization of how many months of allowance the shiny piece of chrome represented.
"Stiles!" Scott's hiss cut through his mental fog.
"No sir. But there's a dead body in the house and he gestured with his sneaker at the nearest piece of the smoldering remains of Peter Hale, late Alpha of the Beacon Hills pack. Someone's got to tell him something, sometime."
"Exactly, Mr. Stilinski. But what that thing is has to be carefully managed and be consistent from all of us." His eyes swept over the group. "If necessary, our stories have to be able to stand up to questioning - perhaps - even vigorous questioning." Argent shrugged. "Under the circumstances, with six witnesses, one of them his own son, all telling the same story that probably won't happen. I have found that if you give the authorities a lie that's ninety percent true, they won't dig down to check on the ten percent that's not. The best lie is one rooted in the truth. We…"
The growl coming from Derek was louder this time.
"Something bothering you, wolfman?"
"You know this because you've had so much practice explaining dead bodies?" His eyes were a red glow in the darkness.
Argent's face hardened. "Probably as much as you have, Hale. You and I are the adults here. Act like one!"
Derek's eyes narrowed but their glow faded. The new Alpha stood, his arms stiff at his side, waiting for the Hunter to continue.
"As I was saying, we need to coordinate our stories and incorporate into them as much truth as we can safely share. Now, about that…" He stared down at the remains of Peter Hale.
"Why don't we just bury him…it…him?" Jackson rubbed his hand across his face. His face was pale in the headlights of the Porsche.
Stiles answered, "Because, Jackson, without him we don't have an explanation for all the people he's killed. The Sheriff thinks, thanks to Scott, that Derek killed them all." Scott glared at him over Allison's head as he did his best to comfort her.
"Derek's innocent." Stiles looked over at the Alpha, a dark menacing shape, grimly watching the proceedings. "We can't expect him to take the blame for all that; and none of us want him to be locked up in the county jail at the next full moon."
"Correct Mr. Stilinski. That is not a scenario that any of us wishes to see happen." Argent grimaced and continued. "Derek and Scott fought the Alpha to protect Allison. Even if I didn't owe Mr. Hale a blood debt for the innocents my sister killed, that alone would put me in his debt. So, we don't leave Derek as Sheriff Stilinski's prime suspect for all the "animal" attacks that have occurred."
"Thanks." The word, icy with sarcasm, rumbled out of Derek's chest.
The Hunter ignored his comment. "What we do is tell the Sheriff the truth about the Alpha." Argent's feral smile demonstrated a lifetime's familiarity with the predators he hunted and their ways. "We just don't tell him the ten percent of the truth that includes the fact that he was a werewolf."
Stiles nodded. "This can work. It really can," he said with increasing enthusiasm. "Dad already knows that the other murders were all of people who had histories that made them prime suspects in the Hale fire. He's not going to look for a supernatural angle. There's six years of hatred festering away inside the murderer to explain everything. Sure he chose methods of killing them that were creepy." His mouth twisted. "But any DA would believe that the pain from his injuries and his hatred drove him mad."
"Madmen do things like ripping the throats out of their victims?" Jackson asked from his side of the Porsche. His eyes were focused on Stiles whose right hand, the one holding the door handle, was hidden behind his back.
"The Sheriff's not going to think he did it with his own teeth," explained Stiles with the tone of one explaining the obvious to the feeble-minded. "He'll look for, and not find," Stiles noticed a smile on Argent's face "or find, as the case may be, some sort of tool that would explain the wounds."
Stiles nodded at the ground. "He won't be standing trial. There's barely enough left of him to fill a shoebox. The sheriff's department won't be sending any evidence they find off to the crime lab for forensic analysis. Can't afford it. The budget got cut."
"Plus, and this is the best part, the District Attorney will happily accept a story that solves so many crimes with so very little work and expense on the part of his office. He'll see this as a real win/win for him. Very neat." Stiles bounced up and down on the balls of his feet as he contemplated the beauty of the plan.
Argent took over from Stiles. "That's clear? Everyone heard" He paused, "What was his name?"
"Hale, Peter Hale!" Derek spat out the words.
"Everyone heard Peter boast about the revenge he took on those that destroyed his family." There were nods all around.
"Did my sister admit she caused the fire in the Hale house?" Argent looked around the circle. "You were there Allison." Allison nodded without looking at her father. "Anyone else hear her?"
"I heard her say it." Offered Scott.
"And you, Derek?" He was answered by a growl. "I'll take that as a yes. And as revenge for that act, Peter Hale killed my sister, Kate. Allison, you saw him do it?"
Allison nodded and then hid her face in Scott's chest.
"See how easy it is?" He asked as he rubbed his hand slowly across his forehead. "We've told almost all of the truth and solved…" he paused. "Does anyone know how many murders this solves?"
"With the eight deaths at the Hale house and the murders that Peter committed this year, it's about fourteen, I think."
Argent smiled at Stiles. "That should be enough to get your dad reelected at the next election." He nodded to himself. "In fact, as good, public spirited citizens, my wife and I will contribute generously to his reelection campaign." He smiled at the boy's amazed look.
"What about the Bitch?"
Derek's question elicited a sob from Allison, a glare from Scott, and a handgun pointed at him by Chris Argent. Stiles couldn't believe what had happened. He'd been looking at the hunter when Derek spoke and it was as though the gun just appeared in his hand. He was allowed only a moment to consider what he'd seen when the sound of growling brought him back to the dangerous reality he currently inhabited: a reality where body parts smoldered on the ground and a furious werewolf and an equally belligerent werewolf hunter glared at one another.
He saw Jackson slowly backing away from the headlights into the shadows and Scott looking panicked as he searched for a way to get Allison out of the area. Stiles understood their unease. Coming out of all this alive also ranked first on his list of things to do tonight. It looked like the adults were going to fight and the best place for the children to be was someplace miles away.
Derek's profile had changed. Less human and more wolfish it matched the claws beginning to extend out from his fingers. Stiles, however, didn't want anyone else to die tonight.
"The asshole, in his usual thoughtful and carefully considered way, meant what was your sister's motive for trying her damnedest to wipe out his family." Stiles could feel Derek's eyes on him. He turned to him and gave him a big, warm, goofy smile that wiped the belligerence from Derek's face. His now fully human face wore a confused expression in its place.
"Did your sister have a motive for burning my family alive, Argent?" Derek sneered at the older man?
Argent refused to allow Derek to provoke him further. He returned his gun to its holster; and then, with a gesture that encompassed not only the group standing in the yard of the Hale house but also the entire situation, he asked, "Well, children do any of you have an answer for Mr. Hale's question that doesn't involve the supernatural?" Chris Argent surveyed the group hopefully.
"She was a psycho!" Suggested Scott remembering her revolver pointed at his head.
Allison pulled away from Scott and turned to face the group. "I owe Derek a debt too." She hugged herself as though trying to warm herself. Scott stepped up and put his arms around her drawing her into his chest. "I knew that Kate was torturing him and I didn't tell anyone or try to stop it."
"Allison, you tried to tell…" Scott began.
"Scott, don't try to make excuses for me. Everyone thinks I'm just a little girl who has to be protected from the truth. Just let me do this." Allison pulled away from Scott and stood with her head up. "I was frightened and let her persuade me that Derek wasn't human and that what she was doing was necessary. Just because I didn't actually see her throw the switch, I knew what she was doing to him. I saw the wires."
She looked down at the ground, avoiding Scott's anguished face and the stony visage of Derek Hale. "I knew what she was saying and doing to him were wrong before I learned about you Scott."
She lifted her chin and looked directly at her father. "I can supply the motive. Scott's right, she was a psychopath. Tonight, on the way here she went on and on about how all the members of the Hale family were monsters, even the ones that didn't look like monsters. She talked about the cleansing power of fire and the need to rid the earth of monsters. That's when I realized she was the one responsible for the fire here."
She paused before adding, "Kate never explained why they were monsters. Just that they were." Her look of innocent puzzlement was utterly convincing. "She brought me along tonight so I could get bloodied." A tremor wracked her body. "That's why she had me bring my bow. Derek was to be my first kill. I shot him twice."
"You don't want to say that Miss Argent." Allison turned to face Derek, the unexpected gentleness of his voice surprising her. "Nothing supernatural, remember? You shot me twice and I'm almost healed now." Derek held out his arms stiffly. The girl blinked in surprise and turned to Scott for an explanation.
Her father spoke up instead. "Allison, he's right. Stick with the truth - that she wanted you to kill him. With the armory she has in the trunk of her car, the police will draw the conclusion we want. But you need to get your bow and collect the arrows. Put them in my car. If we can't provide a plausible explanation to the authorities for something, we can't leave it where they might find it." Allison gripped Scott's hand and started toward the spot where she thought Derek had fallen when she shot him.
"The shafts are near that tree," Derek offered helpfully. He slowly lifted his right arm and pointed to a large maple. "The heads I still have and will return to you…soon." He made a small bow to the young hunter. 'I am fortunate that you did not truly wish to kill me tonight, miss."
Scott spoke up. "Mr. Argent, there's still the problem of the Alpha. The Sheriff will want to know what happened to him."
Chris Argent turned to Stiles and Jackson. "How are you two going to explain being out here in the middle of the night with a couple of Molotov cocktails in your car?"
Stiles stopped slouching against the car and stood up straight. "We tried to use one the night we were trapped in the school. It didn't work that time." He shot a glance in Jackson's direction. "But Dad knows about them because the unburned liquid was all over the gym floor."
Jackson refused to look at Stiles as he picked up the thread of the explanation. "They were Stiles's idea. He thought we'd need something to protect ourselves if we ran into the murderer. I knew the formula because I helped Lydia make them the first time. That time I grabbed the wrong chemical." Jackson could tell from the expression on Stiles's face what he thought of his mistake. "Which I have apologized for. But I figured out what my mistake was. So, we went back to school from the hospital, broke in." Argent coughed. "Let ourselves in through the gym because, as Co-Captain of the lacrosse team, I have a key, and I mixed up a new batch." Jackson stared at the slowly cooling embers. "Obviously I got the formula right this time"
"The Sheriff's going to want to know why you came up here." Derek offered.
Jackson and Stiles exchanged blank looks.
"When you left the hospital you thought you might meet the murderer and need a weapon. What happened that made you think that? In my experience, the Law hates loose ends. Your father is not dumb, Stiles. He will want answers to those questions."
"We came up here because Stiles helped Peter locate Derek." Stiles flinched at Jackson's words. They earned Stiles a glare and a flash of fang from Derek. "We knew that the Alpha, I mean, Peter Hale was heading for Derek and both of us had a score to settle with him for what he'd done to Lydia. Stiles was also afraid that Scott would end up in the middle of all this werewolf angst."
"Okay, that's what you are not going to tell the Sheriff." The red glow in Derek's eyes was pronounced. "So what are you going to tell him?"
Jackson looked at Stiles and shrugged. He handed off to Stiles the task of creating a false, but plausible, narrative.
"Jackson, you sent Allison a text about Lydia and that's why she came to the hospital, right?" Jackson nodded. "That's when we learned that it was her aunt who was driving her around after the dance. At the hospital dad told me that the woman who was a suspect in the Hale fire had a pendant just like the one Kate gave Allison. Besides being pretty, my dad also said that the suspect would be in her late twenties now. Woman in late twenties, who gave niece suspicious pendant, and member of werewolf hunting family. It's not hard to connect the dots and realize that Allison's cool Aunt Kate is really the crazy woman who killed the Hale family. It's also not hard to figure out that she'd want to finish off the last of the Hales if she had the chance." Stiles checked to see Derek's reaction to all this.
"Genius, that explanation needs some serious editing." Derek's expression was sarcastic.
"Right, it's a work in progress. I need to lose the werewolf mention and concentrate on the psycho female angle." Stiles thought for a moment before continuing. "I didn't tell my dad because I had no proof about anything. I figured that coming out here with crazy Aunt Kate on the loose, Jackson and I needed the protection that a little chemical warfare could provide. Especially since my dad, the Sheriff, had changed the combination on his gun cabinet again and Jackson's parents don't own any guns." He shot Jackson a look of scorn. "We needed to improvise something fast and that's how we came to have a backseat full of Molotov cocktails."
"When we got here Peter had just killed Kate and was going after Allison. Why? I don't know why. I didn't even know who he was. I just knew that I'd seen a man kill Allison's aunt and now he was going after Allison. So Jackson and I piled out of the car. We each had a cocktail and threw then at him. The end."
Chris Argent studied Derek Hale. "What do you think?"
Derek returned his stare and nodded. "It should be enough."
"I agree." He looked at the kids scattered around the yard of the old Hale house. "Do all of you know what you're supposed to say; and just as importantly, what you are not supposed to say?" No questions came out of the dark from his young listeners.
"Good." He held up his hand and ticked off his points. "One. Keep things simple. Two. Answer only the question you're asked. And three. Don't volunteer any information. I know this may be difficult for some of you." Stiles flinched and was glad that no one could see him in the dark. "Do this and everything will be fine."
Argent spoke directly to Derek. "We have a truce Hale but it's conditional. You keep your nose clean and your pack out of trouble and I won't hunt you again. Understood?" The two predators locked eyes.
"And you, Argent. Stay away from my family and the members of my pack and I won't hunt you. Do you understand?"
Chris Argent nodded his understanding before walking to where Scott and Allison stood holding hands. "Thanks for your help, Scott. Allison, I need you to call my cellphone." She gave him a puzzled look. "You called me after the boys killed Hale. That's why I'm here, right? Allison nodded slowly. " We need that call on the record in case anyone checks." He stretched out his hand to her. Allison gave Scott a kiss on the cheek before joining her father.
Argent pulled his daughter to his side. He looked over the group one last time.
"Stiles, call your dad. Let's get this show on the road."