Soulless AU by Gail Carriger. Requires zero knowledge of the book (and may be better without such knowledge).
Stiles Stilinski was not enjoying his evening. Undergraduate parties were never more than a passing amusement for graduate students at best, watching younger students make fools of themselves upon finding access to alcohol and freedom for what seemed like the first time in their young lives. At worst, he would run into a student from one of his classes while they were falling over drunk. Stiles tended to have more of the latter experiences, although that may have been because Erica insisted on dragging him to parties she knew his students attended. He had retreated to an upstairs bedroom hoping for a moment of quiet (really, a place to hide until Erica left with someone, therefore ensuring him free passage to leave himself), pausing at the door to listen for the tell-tale signs of a hook up happening inside. When he was sure the room was empty he went in, only to happen upon an unexpected vampire.
He glared at the vampire.
For his part, the vampire seemed to feel that their encounter had improved his party experience immeasurably. For there Stiles sat, alone, in a deep v-neck t-shirt that Stiles had told Erica clung a little too tightly.
In this particular case, what the vampire did not know could hurt him. For Stiles Stilinksi had been born with too much life, which, as any decent vampire knew, made him a person to avoid.
Yet the vampire moved toward Stiles, gliding out of the shadows with fangs ready. However, the moment he touched Stiles, the vampire was suddenly no longer gliding. He was simply standing as the bass from speakers below thumped in the background. The vampire's tongue licked around his mouth, searching for fangs that no longer existed.
Stiles was not in the least bit surprised; a touch from an effervescent neutralized supernatural abilities instantaneously. He glared. While most non-supes wouldn't peg him as anything other than another overworked, underpaid PhD candidate, a vampire should have known of Stiles's existence in the city.
The vampire recovered quickly and reared back away from Stiles. The fangs reappeared when contact was broken, but then the vampire immediately made to strike again.
"Excuse you," Stiles exclaimed. "Can't even introduce yourself first?"
Stiles had never actually had a vampire try to bite him before. He knew one or two from his studies and was friends with Laura Hale, Socialite Queen of New York City (who wasn't, really?), but was used to the supernatural being far more wary of him. Stiles, who was generally useless in a fight, consisting almost entirely of bony angles and caffeine, kneed him in the groin and shoved him away. While the vampire would not be in pain long after ceasing contact with Stiles, Stiles was at least confidant that he would be surprised by the fierce shock caused by the knee to a delicate area, particularly when one was a vampire and unused to pain.
As the vampire stumbled back, Stiles grabbed a baseball bat, conveniently leaning against a wall, ready to swing. When the vampire made to move again, Stiles swung at his head, a loud crack causing the vampire to crumple. Stiles pulled pencil out of a pocket and held it to the vampire's heart, hoping the vampire would be too dazed to realize Stiles couldn't possibly put enough force behind the pencil to drive it into the heart without breaking the pencil first.
"Explain!" Stiles demanded, increasing the pressure of the pencil till the tip broke on the vampire's now human chest.
"I'm sorry." The vampire was still confused, now using hands to feel around his mouth for fangs. "What are you?"
Stiles pulled his hand back away from skin, resting only the pencil at the vampire's chest. The fangs grew immediately, pricking the vampire's fingers as they still poked around his mouth for them.
"I thought you were alone. I thought you were theeking me or one of my kind out. Pleathe, I did not mean to prethume." The vampire's regrown fangs caused a lisp.
"I'm preternatural. Didn't your maker tell you of my kind?" Stiles looked on perplexed. Vampires, ghosts, and werewolves were able to hold onto a small sliver of life that refused to be extinguished. They owed their existence to the ability to hold onto that life, keeping them from death, but not enough, once transformed, to qualify as truly alive. It did come with other perks, so Stiles supposed it was an even trade-off. Most of them knew that people like Stiles existed, born with too much life, whose very touch could give a supernatural, if only temporarily, enough life to become as alive as a non-supe.
The Bureau of Unnatural Registry (BUR), a division of the FBI, were the only group that actually referred to Stiles's kind as preternatural. Stiles liked the term. The vampires' term was far less complimentary. Stiles's kind had once hunted them, though, and vampires had long memories. Most non-supernaturals had no ideas preternaturals existed, but any vampire out alone without a maker should have been warned of a preternatural's touch, especially a vampire in a city known to host one.
The vampire looked embarrassed and confused. But after a moment, his eyes narrowed into craftiness. Suddenly his hand shot out, attempting to grab Stiles's neck. Apparently, he had decided if he could not suck Stiles's blood, strangulation was acceptable. Stiles jerked at the same time, the pencil sliding into skin slightly.
The vampire stood, knocking Stiles back. He scrambled for the baseball bat, trying to find something to defend himself with. Just as he grabbed the bat, the vampire through him across the room, sending Stiles crashing into the footboard of a wooden bed. Stiles grabbed a splinter of wood as long as his forearm, standing at turning towards the vampire holding both the splinter and the bat.
As he turned though, intending only to threaten the vampire, the vampire charged. The force of the charge combined with Stiles's turning motion pushed the splinter into the vampire's heart, right next to a now broken piece of pencil.
The vampire seized for a moment. He then fell backward, flopping limply. His pale skin turned ash gray and he went still. Although there was the increasing smell of death in the room, the vampire's body did not disintegrate or decay, leading to Stiles to believe that this must have been a very young vampire indeed.
Stiles intended to merely leave the room, leaving no one the wiser to his actions. As he stepped towards the door, though, a couple stumbled through. Stiles jumped back to avoid a collision and in doing so, noticed that he must have gotten a concussion in the fight. Suddenly finding his head swimming, Stiles merely sunk onto the capsized bed while a girl (who, really, couldn't be more than 18, Stiles thought through the haze of pain) screamed and her hookup for the night starting drunkenly yelling into his phone at 911. Stiles felt it was easier to just lie back, although he had to use a leg to steady himself on the broken bedframe.
After what seemed like either hours or five minutes, Stiles wasn't sure, he heard a sound he half anticipated, half dreaded. An authoritative voice cleared the room of the drunk partier who had called 911, other interested party goers over 21 (those underage had long since cleared out), and anyone else milling about. The voice ordered everyone to get out while he got a statement in a tone that allowed for no refusal.
Silence descended.
"Stilinski, get up. Don't make me call your father," came the voice in Stiles's left ear. The voice was low and had a slight growl. Stiles merely sighed and pulled himself up.
"And a good evening to you Agent Hale. Lovely weather tonight, isn't it?" He patted his hair for a moment, in an attempt to smooth it out, before remembering he probably had a head injury and any contact merely exacerbated the pain. Stiles tried to look about for Agent Hale's second in command, Agent Argent. Hale tended to remain calmer when his Beta was present. In fact, that appeared to be Argent's main role in Hale's life.
"Agent Argent! How nice to see you! Agent Argent. Argent Agent. Do you know how much fun it is to say your name?"
It was possible Stiles's head injury was worse than he initially thought. That didn't stop him from smiling in relief when he saw the Beta in question. Agent Chris Argent was a slight, sandy-haired gentleman, who retained a calm and tidy disposition no matter the circumstances. He nodded as he pulled on his tie, expertly matched to a dark, tailored suit that had not a button out of place.
"Good to see you again, Stiles." His voice was quiet, but authoritative.
"Chris, stop humoring him." Agent Derek Hale was much larger than his Beta and not nearly as calm. Or, at least he always seemed to be angry in the presence of Stiles, ever since the swimming pool incident (which really, honestly, had not been his fault). He did have unreasonably pretty green eyes, dark almost black hair, and a particularly nice mouth. The eyes were currently glaring at Stiles from a very intimate distance.
"Why is it, Mr. Stilinski, that every time I have to clean up an incident around this campus, you happen to be in the middle of it?"
Stiles glared and brushed down the front of his wrinkled, now torn, and still very tight shirt, checking for previously missed injuries.
Agent Derek Hale appreciatively watched him do it. Stiles Stilinski might have a mouth that wouldn't shut, but there was nothing wrong with the rest of him. Hale would have to be actually dead to not notice this appetizing fact. Of course, Stiles always spoiled the appeal by opening his mouth and refusing to close it. In his experience, and Hale had plenty, the world had yet to produce a more annoyingly verbose person, male or female.
Argent coughed softly to get his Alpha's attention. Hale's gaze quickly turned. Argent was crouched over the vampire, examining the splinter.
"Very little mess. Almost complete lack of blood. There should have been something when this pencil went in." Argent indicated the piece of broken pencil still barely sticking out of the vampire's chest.
"You tried to kill him with a pencil?" Hale's gaze swung back towards Stiles accusingly.
"Well, I wasn't trying to kill him. Just threaten him a little bit. And it was all that was handy. I didn't come up here to fight a vampire, did I?" Stiles retorted.
Argent interrupted them once again by taking a loud sniff of the vampire's body. "Definitely Manhattan."
Hale seemed to understand. He turned his gaze to the vampire. "He must have been starving."
"Starvation would explain why the vampire was desperate enough to try for Stiles at a party, rather than taking to one of the homeless like the smart ones do when they get this bad."
Stiles grimaced. "No associated hive either."
Hale arched one black eyebrow. "How could you possibly know that?"
Argent rolled his eyes and explained for both of them. "A hive would never have let their brood get into such a famished condition. We must have a rove on our hands, one completely without ties to the local hive."
"I have a different theory." Stiles gestured to the vampire. "Cheap t-shirt and jeans and attending an undergrad house party? No hive would let one of its own out like that."
"Cheap clothing is no excuse for killing a man," Hale said archly.
Stiles smiled grimly and evaluated Agent Hale. He was wearing a well-tailored suit that probably cost more than the majority of Stiles's wardrobe. He had lost the jacket at some point during the night and the shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows, but this merely gave him the look of a successful, if overworked, businessman, rather than a detective. He wasn't entirely clean-shaven, but Hale could pull off the look without looking scruffy. His tie, pulled loose, was black with a pattern in thread so dark it was hard to make out. Could it be – Stiles grinned with glee – it was. The pattern was tiny crescent moons in dark grey thread. Stiles was certain Hale had only been forced into the tie under great sufferance. He probably preferred to wander shirtless at home. The idea made Stiles shiver oddly.
Derek Hale was normally quite patient. Like most werewolves, he learned to be in polite society. Stiles seemed to bring out the worse in him, though. "Stop trying to change the subject. Tell me what happened."
Stiles almost refused, hating to be ordered around, but he looked back at Hale and saw that his Hale's expression had changed to that of a BUR agent's face. It was one Stiles knew well, as his father was a cop and wore a similar expression while working.
"Fine," Stiles sighed.
"Fucking preternaturals." Hale growled out behind an eye roll. Argent continued to examine the body, hardly minding the conversation between Stiles and Hale.
Stiles wrinkled his nose. The fact that he was preternatural had been explained to him at age six by a nice gentleman from the FBI. Along with a Polish given name that nobody was allowed to call him on penalty of death (or at least severe hatred from Stiles), preternatural was something Stiles inherited from his dead mother. Stiles, age six, nodded politely at the man. Then he had begun reading everything he could get his hands on about both preternatural and supernatural alike. He wanted to know as much as he could about himself and about anyone else connected to or affected by his preternatural state.
Hale growled at him again and Stiles decided to get on with the story.
"I came into the room to get some space. I hate undergraduate parties. I see too many of my students here drunk and its very awkward for me the next time I see them in class. I only came because Erica refused to come alone and drug me along. And then I was attacked! Unprovoked!"
Hale gave him a look. "Stilinski, you know how it is these days. Rove vampires will show up to a party or two if they think they can get a drink. You wandering into the room was precisely what he was waiting for." He looked Stiles a rude once-over. "Hell, if the moon had been full, I might even have attacked you."
Stiles glared again, unable to tell if Hale was teasing. The idea of Hale teasing anyone was unimaginable, but at Hale's words, there was that odd shiver that ran through Stiles again.
Argent, who had been mostly silent, finally spoke again with greater urgency. "Stiles, I do not believe you understand the situation. Unless we can establish self-defense, you could be facing murder charges."
Hale turned to glare at his Beta. Derek Hale was relatively new to the New York area. He had arrived an unknown entity, challenged for Newark Castle Alpha, and won. He gave young ladies (and quite a few young men) heart palpitations, even outside his wolf form, with a combination of mystery, danger, and well-tailored pants. Having acquire the BUR post, Newark Castle, and some celebrity status from the dispossessed former pack leader, Hale never lacked for society invitations. His Beta, inherited with the pack, had a tense time of it. Bluntness was Hale's most consistent social gaffe and sometimes it seemed to rub off on the Beta too. He had meant to shock Stiles, but now look subdued.
"Sorry, Stiles. I just mean, we need to get your story. This could be serious."
"I simply walked in. He launched himself at me, unprovoked. If I had not been preternatural, he would have bled me dry. I simply defended myself."
Argent nodded. A starving vampire had two legal options: willing drones from the hive or blood-whores by the docks. One simply did not attack a private person uninvited.
Argent once again kneeled by the body. "There are no signs of confinement or torture, so he wasn't held captive till starvation. Do you know what this means?"
"Someone is making vampires outside of BUR regulations," replied Hale not quite convinced. He turned back to Stiles. "And you're sure he attacked you first?"
"Would you like to take a look at my injuries?" Stiles was more than a little frustrated. He launched himself at Hale, pushing his hair aside to show a cut he had sustained to the side of his head. Unfortunately, Stiles had been sure his head injury had improved in the time he had been talking with the BUR agents. His sudden movements caused the pain to resurge, causing him to stumble and fall to the floor, clutching his head. Hale caught him before he landed, worry crossing his features.
"Stiles, dammit. Why didn't you say you were injured?" Hale rushed out of the room, shouting over his shoulder. "Argent, secure the scene. I'll be back after I take him to an ER."
A few hours and one CT scan later, Agent Derek Hale dropped Stiles, now diagnosed with a mild concussion but no hemorrhaging, off with his father, because he was not allowed to stay alone for the night. The elder Stilinski immediately sent his son to his former bedroom to sleep.
"Tell him I'll find him in a day or two to finish taking his statement." Hale turned to leave. "And tell him to stay out of trouble."
Police Commissioner Stilinski snorted at the FBI agent on his doorstep. "If you can get him to do that, tell me your secret."
Hale briefly smirked before stepping out into the black New York night to return to his Beta and an unknown dead vampire.