"So what do you want to know first?"
The pack had gathered once again in the McCall living room. Blaine, who asked the question, is sitting on one of the dining room chairs. Sam is standing behind him almost leisurely but everyone could feel him coiled tighter than a snake about to strike. Blaine is holding one of Sam's hands, somehow keeping him in control. Cooper is also sitting in another chair beside Blaine, not bothering to hide his anxiety.
Scott's pack, sans the Sheriff and Melissa, were scattered around the room. There was a tense moment when Allison came in and had eye contact with Sam but they both just nodded and the tension dissipated. Lydia took one look at Blaine and said something about something being totally unfair and then quietly sat on the easy chair like a queen gracing her subjects with her presence. Deaton sat on the couch closest to Blaine with Danny beside him. Scott sat on the sofa arm rest while Allison, Chris, and Isaac stood around the room, leaning on walls, ready to burst into action if necessary. Scott hopes it won't be.
"Aswang FAQs," Scott says firmly. "If we're going to protect you we need to know what to watch out for and what you guys can do."
Blaine nods.
"Basically aswangs are shapeshifters, we can take on the form of any animal that we've eaten the heart of. There is usually a tell, though, depending on the clan. My clan, for example, the animal forms are always black and is a specific form to the aswang, no matter what the original color or species of the animal whose heart we ate. Also our eyes flash red in moonlight in our assumed forms. My clan can also only take the form of mammals and birds. Other clans can transform to reptiles, fish, even invertebrates. Size has no bearing or mass. One clan has the power to transform into a swarm of insects."
"How do you eat the heart of an insect?" Danny asks. "Do insects even have hearts?"
"Clan secrets," Blaine says shrugging, "I don't know how they do it only that they can. The tells of the other clans are in the journal."
"Also, don't say the names of the clans aloud," Cooper adds. "They have ways of following it back to the speaker. There are only three clan names you can speak without fear because those clans no longer exist."
"So you can't transform into another person?" Isaac asks.
"I can't," Blaine says, but he swallows hard and Scott sees Sam squeeze his hand. He thinks Sam is going to interrupt but he says nothing and Blaine continues. "There's a ritual that allows an aswang, any aswang, to eat the heart of a person or animal and turn into it exactly. The tells are suppressed. It's almost impossible to tell if it's the person or the aswang, worse still the aswang steals their memories and, if the aswang is good at this, even their skills."
"Some of Blaine and Sam's friends were killed in this manner," Cooper says quietly. "They led Blaine to a trap and it was only by sacrificing herself was Pamela able to save him. We ran away that day."
"Show them," Sam says expressionlessly. "They need to know their faces in case they show up."
Blaine, with shaking hands takes his phone out and passes it to Cooper who fiddles with it and then passes it to Deaton. Deaton passes it to Scott without looking at it. Lydia gets up and takes it gently from Scott, and uncharacteristically speaks softly, "Let me, I'll make copies and send it to the others." Scott just nods.
"We don't know if they got them all, we were able to send out a warning but we left that day, we don't know who has else been taken and who got away. We know for sure that Kurt Hummel, Tina Cohen-Chang and Finn Hudson were killed and their skins stolen," Sam is talking but without emotion. "They got to Finn first and used him to get close to Kurt and Tina. Kurt was Blaine's ex and Tina was one of his best friends. They were two of the people he trusted most in the world and they used that to get to him."
"The others?"
"My friends," Blaine speaks up again. "Our friends," he adds squeezing Sam's hands. "We were very close. High school can be tough and we grew particularly close because of it. If they want to get to me, these people are the key. Not only are they people I care about, they also know me and Sam pretty well. They can use their memories against us.
Blaine exhales and then straightens up in his chair. "I can tell if there are other aswangs about. Even when they steal someone's skin like this, even with the tells suppressed I can still detect them so if you see any one of them around, let me know I will be able to tell you if they are real or not.
"We're stronger than most," Blaine continues firmly changing the subject. "Faster, too. We have enhanced senses with smell being the strongest. I don't know how I rate up with werewolves though.
"I can also use magic," Blaine adds, "but only if I use blood, whether my own or others'. Obviously if I use others I risk corrupting myself. I know some spells and rituals, mostly healing and warding."
"Like what you did to Sam?" Danny asks, a little eagerly. "With the shell?"
"Yeah," Blaine says. "But that ritual just doesn't work on anyone, there are conditions that need to be met."
"And the point is moot anyway," Cooper interrupts, "as that was the last of the conch shells."
"That ritual is considered light because I gave the blood back to Sam instead of keeping it for myself," Blaine says. "I know a couple of more but Cooper is the one who has read up on all this. To minimize corruption, I let him learn and cast the spell or ritual and I just power it."
"Coven-based magic," Deaton breaks in. "It allows more than one person to share the casting of a spell." Blaine nods. "I'm guessing that the other aswangs aren't as careful as you?"
"No, so I can't tell you what kind of magic is available to them," Blaine says shaking his head. "Cooper—"
"Also can't tell you much," Cooper interrupts. "I know more than Blaine but because of the ritual we need to cast on him, I also need to stay relatively pure. What spells and rituals I do know are the same: warding, healing, divining...nothing black."
"About this ritual—" Deaton begins but Scott interrupts him with an apologetic glance.
"Sorry, doc, one last question," Scott says and Deaton nods in acceptance. Turning back to Blaine he asks, "how do we stop them? You mentioned salt, ginger and chilli last night?"
"Sili, not chilli, although sili is a kind of pepper," Blaine muses but pulls himself together. "The first aswang is an abomination, an affront to nature. The weird thing is by breeding with it, the witches sorta kinda made it legit by creating a race. Still not natural by any means but bonding it to the human form—since our ancestral mothers were human, we are all human—bound it in some way to the natural world, well supernatural world.
"We are still freaks of nature," Blaine says wryly, "but the point is we are now freaks of nature...get it?
"But what we are makes us vulnerable to things of the natural world. Salt, ginger and chilli peppers have powerful properties and they affect us to a degree. But there's a catch, the more unnatural the aswang is the more susceptible he is to these things. This pretty much means how much they use blood magic and how often they use the rituals makes them more susceptible to these three things. Because I barely use the rituals, salt doesn't affect me, I can ignore ginger, and sili just gives me gas.
"But if I ever go over that line, even once, I won't be able to cross a line of salt, ginger will force me away and sili will be like acid to me. Table salt is useless except for the most depraved aswang, but enough of it will give an aswang pause. The best kind is sea salt, the more unrefined the better. Salt can even burn the skin of an aswang. Ginger is the least useful because at most it will keep an aswang at bay but an aswang doesn't have to touch you to kill you. However any ginger will do, just slice it open and the smell will keep them off sometimes even the juice will burn it. Ginger is better used as counter to aswang magic, like moly was for Circe. And as for chilli peppers, it depends on the variety. It's not always the hottest pepper that works—you won't be saved by jalapeños. The pepper has to have grown in the Philippines. Even chilli peppers that aren't indigenous to the Philippines, as long as the one you use was grown on Philippine soil, it's effective against aswangs."
"So if we see your friends walking around Beacon Hills...?" Isaac begins.
"Spill some salt in front of them, if they can walk over it, then that person is legit," Blaine says without pausing. "If they jump back or if the salt burns them, then kill them. Skin stealing is one of the darkest rituals, table salt will be effective against them and just the smell of ginger will give them hives if they are wearing their stolen skins. In their natural form, the effects won't be as extreme but it will hurt them pretty badly."
"So salt water to an aswang is like holy water to a vampire?" Allison asks.
"Pretty much," Blaine says, "but only when they are wearing their stolen skins. If they aren't, or if they are in animal form that is not a stolen skin, then salt works like it would on any other aswang."
"Isn't the Philippines an archipelago?" Chris asks. "You know, surrounded by salt water?"
"Why do you think you've never heard of aswangs before now?" Blaine points out. "I told you the babaylans cursed the witches and their offspring and the babaylans were masters of nature magic, with a particular affinity for water especially the sea. But don't celebrate, there's apparently a height limit to the efficacy of salt. An aswang, if he can turn into a bird, can fly over salt lines if he can get high enough. The oceans were still too big so it wasn't until commercial air travel became available that aswangs were able to cross the oceans. It isn't comfortable, but it can be done."
"Well at least these are things that aren't hard to acquire," Danny says.
"What about the Beast?" Chris asks. "When you transformed into that, we couldn't move, it was like..."
"A nightmare?" Blaine asks with an apologetic expression on his face. "The Beast is our link to our progenitor. He was a thing out of nightmares. We can transform into that—"
"Well that's great because when you did we were about as effective as pair of kindergartners with nerf guns!"
"Fresh ginger on you will minimize the effect of the aura," Cooper cuts in.
"Also most aswangs can't transform into that," Blaine adds in. "I can because I haven't eaten the heart of a human. By eating a human heart, an aswang satisfies his craving but it also ties it closer to its human form, pulling it away from the Beast."
"At least that's what it says in Pamela's journal," Cooper says. "It's ironic but there it is. The journal also suspects, and both Pamela and I agree, that the babaylans' curse had a hand in that as well."
"There is a ritual that lets an aswang who has eaten human hearts reclaim this form but either it wasn't in the journal when Pamela inherited it or Pamela herself did not add it when she rewrote the journal."
Scott, Chris and Deaton share a look when Cooper confirms Deaton's theory about the journal.
"But an aswang does have a Beast form. This is basically an amalgamation of all the things he can transform into. It's almost always humanoid and he can pick and choose what he wants to add: claws, wings, venom, spikes. But this form doesn't have an aura and if the aswang isn't good at this sort of thing it can actually be a hindrance."
"How?"
"Giving himself armor like a turtle and the strength of an ox will make him slow and if he doesn't construct the armor correctly he can seriously impair his movement and flexibility."
"Spikes in the wrong places can actually poke him if he's not careful," Sam says suddenly, breaking into a smile. "It's how we got away in Denver, idiot put spikes on his kneecap pointing upwards because it "looked cool", I kicked him behind his knee and he impaled himself."
Everyone couldn't help but break out into grins. It's not so much the thought of someone dying that's funny but the tension had been steadily building as Blaine and Cooper was giving them the information on aswangs and they needed an excuse to release that tension.
"Unless there's nothing else," Deaton says. "What about the ritual?"
"Like a dog with a bone," Isaac says under his breath. Fortunately it seems that only Scott heard him. If Blaine or Sam did—Scott wouldn't put it past Sam having enhanced senses, too—they showed no sign.
"Pamela said there's a ritual that can cleanse Blaine from the curse of the aswang," Cooper says. "She showed me the ritual and walked me through it. It needs a conduit to the earth..."
"The Nemeton," Danny breathed out. Cooper nods and continues.
"And Blaine must be pure, meaning he must not have eaten a human heart or directly cause any suffering on man and beast and he will be cleansed of the curse."
"What do you think that means?" Deaton asks with a sharp eye on Cooper.
"It won't stop him from being an aswang if that's what you think I mean," Cooper says wryly, "but I expect it to strip him of the connection to the Beast and I think with it, the cravings."
"As an aswang I am both more resistant to, and more vulnerable to blood magic," Blaine says softly. "General spells that use blood as a reagent, I can resist far more easily and I can manipulate with a thought, but a blood spell specifically made for aswangs are impossible to resist. One of the things that tie me to the clans is our progenitor."
"So if you cut the ties that bind you to him..."
"They won't be able to find me," Blaine says. "I might not even smell like an aswang anymore."
"We're thinking a lot of his powers will be diminished but then so will the downsides," Cooper adds.
"It'll be worth it," Blaine says softly, "if they just leave us alone."
"No thoughts of revenge?" Lydia asks. Scott looks at her wondering if she's provoking Blaine.
"Thoughts? Yes," Blaine says giving her a tight smile. "But it won't be worth it in the end. If I wanted revenge, I'd be choosing to walk down a different path. If they decide to call it quits, that will be enough for me. I'll mourn my friends but I want to keep the ones still alive breathing more than I want to avenge those that died."
"There's no guarantee that they'll leave you alone though," Chris said. "You can be powering yourself down for no reason except to make it easier for them to catch you."
"That doesn't matter," Blaine says looking at Chris with steely eyes. "I don't want to be a monster. If they kill me at the end, at least I'll die human...or as close to it as I can get."
"They won't get a chance," Sam says grimly.
At that a silence descends on the group.
"Is that it?" Cooper asks, breaking the quiet. "Are we good?"
Scott looks at Deaton, letting him make the decision.
"Yes," Deaton says and Cooper doesn't bother hiding his relief. "Yes, we're good. I'd like it to give it one more night. I want to study the ritual more closely and make sure our assumptions are correct. I also want to give my sister a chance to catch up to us, she's more versed about these sort of things than I am and her involvement will be invaluable but I think it's best we do the ritual before the moon waxes whether or not she makes it. I know enough to know that even if the ritual isn't what we think it is, it will not hurt Blaine or the Nemeton."
"We have no problems with that," Cooper says, the light coming back to his eyes, "we originally were going to ask the Hale Emissary to perform the ritual anyway so this is actually pretty much our Plan A."
"Do you mind if I hold on to it a while longer?" Deaton asks.
"Keep it!" Cooper says, "It's yours, our way of paying for your services."
"Besides," Chris says wryly, "I'm sure you already made copies."
Cooper just grins and then winks at him. Chris just manages not to break out into a laugh. As it is, he can't help but return the man's grin.
"Blaine," Sam's voice cuts through the general hubbub that came up when the meeting ended. "You wanted me to remind you if you forget to tell them about the Ritual of Inang Bulan."
The group descends into silence again as Blaine looks up at Sam. "Thanks for reminding me Sam."
"What's the Ritual of Inang Bulan?"
"Inang Bulan was the matriarch of the Dumancas clan. They were a powerful clan, steeped in lore and wielded the darkest, vilest magic," Blaine starts to say and the others begin to settle down again. "The Dumancas were the first skin stealers and they were the most practiced at it. They are the ones that gave rise to the myth of the aswang who eats unborn children and every Dumancas aswang had long prehensile tongues even if they never performed the Ritual of the Unborn Life. They had clan members hundreds of years old and practiced magic that are lost today.
"Inang Bulan created a ritual, it was a variation of the skin stealing ritual. You see, if an aswang stole Isaac's skin, he'd look and sound and smell like Isaac. He would have his memories and if he's particularly good at the spell, he'll pick up all of Isaac's skills as well and at the level that Isaac had them. But he would not be able to get Isaac's werewolf abilities. An aswang cannot steal the skin of a born werewolf at all. He can steal Deaton's knowledge but not his ability to cast magic, he can fake it because aswangs do have magic but he cannot steal Deaton's ability to work with nature.
"But Inang Bulan found a way. I don't know the specifics, and I don't want to know, only that the ritual takes time to cast and that it must be done during the new moon with no stars shining above.
"When the clans learned about this ritual they banded together for the first time since that sabbat with the Beast. They waged war on the Dumancas and the two other clans who joined them for the promise of power. In two years the three clans were wiped out to the last man, woman and child. No one with their blood—whether they were human or aswang—was allowed to live and when an aswang hunts the blood, you can bet there is no escape. Unfortunately for the clans, the war left none of them untouched. The population of aswangs was decimated. Three clans were completely extinguished. One clan was comprised of just one family so they swore fealty to another clan for fifty generations just so they would not suffer the same fate. One clan merged with another clan to protect both their interests, and two other clans did the same. Only four of the original thirteen clans still stand unchanged.
"Unfortunately that ritual survives," Blaine says. "The clans set aside their greed and lust for power long enough for common sense to rule and they decided to destroy all of what the Dumancas hoarded and created, acknowledging that it was better to destroy it all rather than letting one of them gain that much power. They knew another war like that would prove fatal for all of them. So they did. Centuries of lore and spells and rituals and artefacts erased, for the good of all; except someone kept a copy of the ritual. This is known because the leaders of the ten surviving clans were found with their hearts missing.
"And they never did find the body of Inang Bulan."