And I'm back! I was off doing Nanowrimo which is why I went MIA for a month but I'm back now! Nano by the way was awesome and I actually made the word limit and finished my novel for the first time ever! If you can't tell I'm extremely happy. But on to the fic!
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf.
Liam and Theo made their way home because they had only said they were going to study, not spend the night at Mason's and also Liam had an ingrained desire not to leave his parents alone home with George.
They went through the window instead of the front door which had Liam's mom raising an inquiring eyebrow but it was less suspicious than it might have been since that had been Theo's only mode of entrance until a few days it was also necessary to hide their club-appropriate clothes which were currently singed, and ripped in places.
They showered to get rid of the club scents still stuck on their skin and then made their way down to the living room where Liam's mom was working and George was watching TV.
Theo lounged in a couch plucking at his guitar, head bent over the instrument, but Liam could tell that he was really thinking. Liam himself, had his school books in his lap, still fighting up with the geography assignment that was threatening to defeat him.
At some point in time George tried to goad Theo but the chimera flicked his eyes at him and George promptly shut up which was the appropriate response. Any sane person would run far, far away from that look because the person giving it was clearly not sane. It was a look that was filled with ice and death and no inhibitions about visiting both on anybody.
Liam spared a passing thought that it was the first time in George's life that he had done something smart and returned to his homework. But he couldn't concentrate. His mind kept turning the night's events over in his mind. The sheriff was trying to find where the yuxa had been staying all this time but that would take time in itself. On the other hand, there was the spearfinger to try and stop. Theo's fingers plucked delicately across the strings and Liam could tell he was pissed about the night's results. Liam didn't blame him. He wasn't exactly crazy about the nights results himself.
"Okay," said Mason. "Give me something to do because I was bored out of my mind and candy crush cannot solve everything."
The sheriff gave the teenager a look.
"Mason, it is one in the morning. You have school in the morning. Go to sleep."
Mason shook his head. "No. I am literally on the equivalent of a coffee high because of boredom. Give me something."
The sheriff rolled his eyes and then remembered what Agent McCall had said. "There's been more cases about the spearfinger. They never connected them because they were across state lines and several years apart."
"Did they send the reports?" asked Mason, eyes lighting up. The sheriff made a mental note to stop Stiles from rubbing off on them. He loved his son but good grief, he would like to have his office for himself sometimes.
"Yeah," he said rubbing at his face. "I've got the electronic files here. He scanned them and sent them."
Mason quickly sat down at the sheriff's computer and began clicking through files. There was a pause and then he looked up. "Uh, do you want to go through them together?"
The sheriff's mouth twitches and then he says, "Sure, why not. Why don't you read and I make the time line?"
"Great yeah," Mason said. The sheriff uncaps a sharpie and sets to work on his whiteboard.
Parrish finds them both passed out in the office in the morning. When he knocks on the glass door they both startle awake and the Sheriff flicks the sharpie he had in his hand at the poor deputy. The sharpie hits Parrish right in the forehead and Mason gives an approving look at the marksmanship. Parrish blinks, looks down at the sharpie and then says to the Sheriff,
"Uh, I think your shift is over sir."
The sheriff groans and shakes his head. "Not yet. But I'll go home and freshen up. You too Mason."
Mason yawns and nods. He grabs his stuff, snaps a picture of the whiteboard and tells Parrish, "You have a sharpie mark on your head."
Parrish rubs at his forehead, remembers it's sharpie and sighs. "Go to school Mason."
"So what do we do now?" Corey asked Liam as they got ready for lacrosse practice. "I mean, will it leave Stacy-anne alone?"
"Probably not," said Liam. "Mason said that it's difficult to get people who are compatible right? So he probably won;t stop trying."
"So…"
"So the sheriff had deputy Farrel watching her the rest of last night. Argent is watching her this morning until she comes to school."
"And then?" asked Corey.
"And then she's all yours," said Liam. He clapped Corey on the shoulder and left the locker room leaving the chimera behind him looking bemused.
"I think she knows I've been following her," Corey groaned at lunch.
"How?" asked Liam, "You've been invisible."
"I know," said Corey, "I don't know how. But if you stare at somebody hard enough, they kinda know."
"Look, it doesn't matter," said Liam. "So long as we keep the yuxa away from her."
"Please tell me you're taking a shift," said orey. Liam winced.
"After last night? is taking a shift. If she sees me now I might get in trouble for harassment, and that's not something I want on file."
Corey sighed.
Just then Mason dropped down at their table. He appeared to be deep in thought. Corey and Liam glanced at each other and then Liam said tentatively, "Mason?"
Mason didn't reply.
"Mason!"
Mason jumped. "What?!"
"Are you okay?" asked Liam.
"Yeah, you were kinda zoned out," said Corey.
"Sorry," said Mason, "The sheriff and I were going through the file for the spearfinger last night. I'm just trying to sort through the information now."
"Got anything?" Liam asked.
"I don't know," said Mason. "Something about it is bothering me but I can't figure out what."
"You'll figure it out," said Liam confidently, "You always do." Corey nodded in agreement.
Mason gave them a quick smile and returned to thinking deep thoughts.
Theo glanced at them as he moved off behind Stacy-ann's car. Liam nodded in return and then he and Mason headed off to the Sheriff's station because Mason wanted to go over the files and wanted fresh eyes to go over them with. Corey was staying back to finish the group project with his group.
"So," said Mason, as he was driving towards the sheriff station, "The problem is that I can't seem to find anything that connects any of the victims together."
"Not like we did with the dullahan," said Liam.
"Exactly," said Mason. "There doesn't seem anything that shows how the spearfinger is choosing her victims."
"Which leads us to a problem because then we can't predict who she might hurt next."
"Exactly," said Mason again. "And that leaves us with more bodies."
"She's killed two people already," said Laim, "Maybe she'll leave now."
"Or maybe she won't," said Mason. "Look most preternatural leaves when the authorities come too close to the truth. But if the authorities already are in the know, like our authorities, then why leave? It's not any more dangerous than any place that's looking for her. Less even because she doesn't have to hide what she is."
"But our pack is here," pointed out Liam.
"True," said Mason, "But that didn't seem to deter her. And we have a nemanton. We don't know what effect, if any, that has."
Liam sighed. "Yeah. You're right. Let's see if we can find anything to tie the victims together. There has to be something."
They parked in the sheriff station and walked into the sheriff's office to find him staring at the timeline he had made earlier, with Mason.
"Hey boys," he said.
"Hey Sheriff Stilinski," said Liam. "Any luck?"
"That that I've found," said the Sheriff. "Connections are few and far between. Nothing solid."
"There has to be something," said Mason, "Accessibility to victims?"
"Not all of the victims were in easy to kill places. They were either snatched from their homes or taken from somewhere else."
"Is there anybody we can talk to" asked Liam. "Maybe they'll tell us something about our victims that we didn't know before."
"Like with the dullahan," Mason nodded. He turned to the sheriff.
The sheriff quickly shuffled through his papers and found the files for the two spearfinger victims.
"Um, the first woman, Hilda Cranes, lived alone. She moved here from LA actually. No family in the area."
"Friends?" asked Liam.
"None here," said the sheriff. "We asked around her workplace. All her friends were still in LA. She didn't seem to have made any new ones here apparently."
"What about the second guy?" asked Liam.
"Um, Jerry Tales. He has a visiting grandmother here at the moment," said the Sheriff. "We talked to her but she'd only been here for two days before this happened. She wasn't staying with him. She was in a motel and went to bed early. She might be by his house now though. She was starting to clear it up."
"What's the address?" asked Liam, "Maybe she noticed if he was acting strangely. Melissa and Corey said that this guy had a hole in his heart. Maybe she noticed if her was weaker, slower, something. "
"Alright, fine," said the sheriff. He gave him the address but said, "Take Parrish with you. She'll probably talk to the cops better than a teenager."
Liam nodded and dashed out to get Parrish. The hellhound listened to him and then picked up his keys.
"Well," he said, "Let's go if we want to catch her by her grandson's place."
The ride over to Jerry Tales' house was uneventful. They parked outside the gate and walked in. Liam's eats told him someone was inside, moving things around and he assumed it was the grandmother packing up Jerry's things to send to his parents or give away to goodwill. Parrish knocked on the door and a throaty old voice called out.
"I'm coming. GIve me a minute!"
Liam took the time to look around the house. It appeared sort of sad and not just because it's owner was gone. The place was a little run-down and a little dull. There didn't seem to have much life in the place at all. Jerry hadn't been a person who cared much what his front yard looked like. In fact he didn't seemed to have cared about the outside on the whole.
The door creaked opened and an old lady, slender but full of the life, Jerry's house seemed to miss, said, "Yes? How can I help you officer?"
"Hi ma'am," said Parrish. "I'm deputy Parrish with the sheriff's office. I know we already talked to you but do you mind answering some more questions? We're trying to rule out some options."
"Oh my, " said the old lady. "I don't know what you think I can do to help but I'll try. Come in, come in. Don't mind the mess. Oh my poor boy jerry. He was such a slob in real life. Now I'd given anything for him to throw towel in the wrong place." She wiped away tears from slate grey eyes as she lead them to the living room.
The place was indeed a mess, compounded by her packing away of things. But the couches were clean and free of debris. Parrish and Liam sat on one couch and the old woman took a comfortable looking armchair.
"Alright dears," she said, "What questions do you have for me. I'll try to help you as I can."
"There must be something!" Mason said frustrated. "Theo said it himself last time: serial killers develop an MO. If you kill for that long, there's got to be something you learn to like and you would subconsciously gravitate towards that person."
The sheriff sighed also feeling frustrated. "Okay fine. How about we leave the victims for now. How about we go back to the spearfinger itself. You said that in the old days they only hunted a certain type of people right?"
"They used to hunt people who had wandered off alone," said Mason, "Easy prey. That's why the indians went out in pairs and didn't used to trust someone who had returned after being alone for long."
"Why wouldn't they trust them?" asked the Sheriff, frowning.
"Oh because the spearfinger would take the shape of the person they killed and go back to the camp and kill everyone there. Sometimes they would take the shape of family members of the young children they killed."
"So, it attacked easy prey," said the sheriff frowning. "But it's not doing that now. He frowned looking at their timeline and suddenly his eyes lit up. "Not easy prey," he said. He looked at Mason. "You said this thing attacked people who were by themselves right? Who were alone?"
"Yeah said Mason, frowning. "What about it?"
"That's the link," said the Sheriff. "The spearfinger doesn't attack people who are physically alone anymore. It attacks loners. People without friends. People who spent a lot of time by themselves. Jerry Tales worked at home and barely got out. Hilda Cranes didn't make friends easily. She kept to herself by all accounts of her co-workers. Her only friends were those she made in LA. It's nearly the same for all the previou victims." The Sheriff quickly spread out the flesh of the victims that they had printed out.
"Loners," said Mason, "People who had been alone. That's...an interesting way to look at it. But it fits."
"Wait a minute," said the sheriff pausing. "Did you just say the spearfinger took the shape of the person it killed?"
"Yeah," said Mason, "But doing that here wouldn't make any sense because we have the dead bodies."
"Exactly," said the Sheriff and Mason realized that the Sheriff had made a Stiles-like leap of connection where A and B had been completely ignored to get to C.
"So it wouldn't take the bodies of its victims," said Mason. "It would take the shape of the family members."
"Jerry Tales' grandmother," said the Sheriff.
Mason had his phone out and was dialing Liam even before he had finished talking.
Parrish had just finished talking to Jerry Tales' grandmother who had been frustratingly unhelpful but only because the old lady really didn't know anything. She was trying though and Liam had soon realized that Parrish handled her better than he did so he left most of the interview to him. He mostly concentrated on figuring out if she was lying or not which she didn't but her heart trembled a bit on occasion. Actually it happened enough that Liam was starting to think it was just because she was old. In fact he might have dismissed it altogether but there was something niggling at him throughout the entire interview.
When they were about to leave Parrish said, "My condolences for your loss."
And Jerry's grandmother replied. "Thank you. I loved him very much." And her heart skipped a beat. A lie.
Liam frowned. She had just lied about loving her grandson. Why lie about it? Lots of family members didn't like each other. It was no secret that family always had their little spats. Just look at George and his family. So why lie? Why the tears at the start? Then his nose realized something else. The old woman didn't have a scent. That's what had been bothering him.
"Liam!" called Parrish from the door. Liam realized that he'd been standing at starting at the old woman.
"Can I help you with something dearie?" she asked and there was wicked, bright intelligence to those grey eyes.
"Yeah," said Liam, "You can leave Beacon Hills the hell alone."
Behind him he felt Parrish come alert and the old woman cackled. Her skin paled and then darkened to grey.
"Oh little wolf," she said, her voice now heavy and distorted, "You are no match for me." Liam watched as the first finger on her right hand grew to a long sharp spear. The dress she was wearing, shimmered and greyed too, folding and fitting around her like armour.
Just then Liam's phone rang. He ignored it and then the radio on Parrish's shoulder crackled.
"Liam, Parrish get out of there!"
"Too late," Parrish answered.
"Too late," Liam agreed. He flicked out his claws and roared.
Tell me what you think!