Chapter Eleven: Confrontations: Undead & Otherwise

The sun was setting when the pack, sans Stiles, finally called it a day. They had had no luck tracking the vampire, despite revisiting all the crime-scenes. They couldn't get a good lead on his scent, finding it either overpowered their senses or seemed to end abruptly, vanishing into thin air. They had checked a few locations Deaton had suggested might be beneficial lairs for a vampire, but had found nothing. There were a hundred other places he could be.

They slunk back to Deaton's office feeling discouraged and defeated. He tried to encourage them, but they knew they were running out of time. They needed to find this creature now, before he made his move on Stiles.

The question was: what should their next move be?

"Maybe we need to lure it out," Kira suggested, her head buzzing with battle strategies her mother had been drilling into her head since the nogitsune.

"Lure it out how?"

"Well, we know what it wants, or I guess who-"

"No," Scott barked, putting an abrupt end to any conversation of that kind. "We are not using Stiles as bait."

"I wasn't suggesting-"

"We're keeping Stiles as far away from this as possible."

"No one wants to see Stiles get hurt, Scott," Lydia said gently. "We care about him too. We're not going to do anything to jeopardize his safety, but maybe we're going about this the wrong way."

"There's nothing else we can do tonight. I'm going to his house to make sure he's okay." Scott turned abruptly, trying to contain his anger. It wasn't their fault, he had to remind himself. They didn't know how terrifying this was for Stiles; they didn't know just how monstrous the vampire hunting him was. They didn't understand where Stiles' earlier panic-induced illusion had come from.

The ringing of his phone caused him to pause. "Hey," he answered wearily. "Mom? Slow down. What's wrong? Okay. Stay there. We're coming!" Scott turned to the others, his plans to check on Stiles forgotten. "We've got to go! Mom's trapped with a vampire – and this time it's Danny!"

When Scott, Malia, and Kira arrived at the hospital, they used a rear emergency door leading to the basement, usually reserved for ambulances whose patients had died upon arrival. Shouts and bangs carried along the stillness of the corridor. "Mom!" Scott yelled, with no reply. "MOM!" They raced down the hallway. The noises suddenly stopped; Scott's frantic shouting the only sound. He burst through the morgue doors, finding it empty and quiet. "Mom!"

"Here." He almost didn't hear the reply, weak and strained from behind a wooden door. Scott opened the closet and dropped down beside his mother. Melissa McCall was propped against the back; she had attempted to hide herself behind cleaning supplies and medical equipment. A white sheet, splashed with blood, was wrapped around her torso. A scalpel was clutched tightly with both trembling hands. Blood trickled down the side of her face from a cut hidden beneath her curly hair. Bruises flowered the left side of her face; her eye was beginning to swell.

"Oh, god. Mom."

"I'm alright, Scott," she promised, swooning as he helped her to stand. "Just a bit dizzy." She put a hand to her head, and was surprised when it came away slick and wet.

"Where's Danny?"

"I don't know. One minute he was trying to break through the closet-" Melissa gestured at the door, and they noticed the scratch marks and dents in its surface, "but something must have distracted him."

"We need to find him!" Malia declared. "He may be able to lead us right to the Head vampire!"

Scott looked at his mother worriedly. "Don't worry, Scott. I'm fine," she comforted him. "You go after this guy." She gave him a frail smile. "What better place to be hurt than a hospital, right?" Melissa took a couple unsteady steps forward, and nearly fainted again. Scott wrapped an arm around her and steadied her. She leaned against him, wheezing from the effort. Scott stared at the girls apprehensively, torn between his duty to kill the vampire and his desire to protect his mother.

"I'll take care of her," Kira volunteered, putting Melissa's arm across her own shoulders, and shifting the woman's weight from Scott to herself. "I'll make sure she's okay, and then I'll join you as soon as I can. You need to catch Danny, before he hurts someone. Remember what Deaton said."

As they were rushing out of the veterinarian's office, Deaton had told Scott that young vampires were savable. As long as Danny's irises remained black, it meant he had yet to drink human blood, and therefore was not a full-fledged vampire. If the Head vampire could be killed before Danny drank blood, he should return to his human state. However, the hunger for blood was overpowering; if they had any hope of saving Danny, they would need to subdue him.

"What if his eyes aren't black?"

If a Head vampire was identified by his silver eyes, and a fledgling by his black ones, what color were the eyes of a plain old vampire? "They'll be red," Deaton replied gravely. If for werewolves, the bright scarlet color denoted leadership and strength, in vampires it signified only one thing: blood. "And you'll be forced to kill him."

Confident in and reassured by Kira's ability to care for his mother, Scott turned to Malia, his eyes flashing. "Let's go."

Scott was able to track Danny by sense of smell. He was familiar with Danny's human scent, traces of which still clung to him, despite the new addition of the horrific vampire smell that made Scott crazy. He and Malia followed it, keeping their eyes peeled for bleeding corpses, hoping against hope that Danny was somehow controlling himself.

The trail lead them further and further from the hospital, growing stronger. They pushed themselves harder, hoping they would soon overtake him. "Where is he going?" Malia wondered aloud. Scott inspected their surroundings – they had passed a MacDonald's at the last intersection and a disreputable park known for being a local drug hotspot at night. Up ahead he could see a 7-Eleven, the second neon "e" flickered on and off, changing the building from a convenience store to a Middle-Earth Fellowship sanctuary.

Just beyond that was a Motel 6. "I know where we are," Scott said. "I think Danny's looking for the Head." They crept up slowly, Scott leading the way to a side yard, where he and Stiles had rescued Danny only a few nights earlier. A tall, dark figure crouched over the earth, looking for something. His head snapped up when he heard them approach. A single bulb hung over an emergency exit illuminated half of his face. The snarling fangs, the pallor of his skin, and – thankfully – the midnight eyes sizing them up.

"Danny," Scott raised his hands in a sign of submission, shifting into his human form. "This isn't you. We're here to help you okay?"

"Help me?" Danny grinned. "I don't need your help, McCall. I feel great. In a city overrun by werewolves – and whatever the hell that pussy Jackson was – I'm finally powerful, strong. Unbeatable. But, man, am I hungry."

Danny lunged at them suddenly. Malia rolled away from his grasp, and Scott dodged to the left, but Danny's long nails swiped at him, cutting deep into his flesh. He howled in pain. He glanced down briefly at his wound. When he glanced up again, he had shifted. He charged at Danny, but the fledgling vampire easily leaped over him and kicked him, sending Scott sprawling to the ground. Malia growled and pounced on his back from behind, locking her arms around his neck and holding on with all her might. Danny bucked and scratched, attempting to yank her off, but she kept her grip. She clung to him as if her life depended on it – which it very much did. As Scott raised himself from the ground, the ribs Danny had cracked settling back into place, he dug a syringe from his pocket. Realizing what he was doing, Malia shoved a hand in Danny's face to distract and temporarily blind him.

Danny reached back and grabbed Malia from his back, tossing her at Scott like she was a rag doll. The two were-canines fell in a heap. The needle tumbled from Scott's grasp, and landed at the vampire's feet. Danny stood at his full height, looming over them. He stepped closer menacingly, the vial shattering under his bare foot. "Okay, now I'm really pissed."

The canines untangled themselves, poising for attack; Danny's eyes glinted with murder. Scott barred his teeth and released a low growl. He could feel Malia at his side, her heart pounding with anger and adrenalin. Danny was beyond reasoning. They were going to have to take him down.

Suddenly, a hand appeared from the dark, jabbing the distracted Danny in the throat. He roared tremendously and pulled the needle from his neck. He spun around, his attention now focused on the stealthy Kira. Scott saw his chance. He tackled Danny to the ground, Malia right behind him. As he struggled beneath them, his strength already beginning to wane, the werecoyote stabbed his thigh with yet another syringe.

Danny was losing consciousness. "I'll get you for this, McCall," he threatened, and he sounded so much like Jackson, Scott couldn't help but laugh. "You're laughing now, but you won't find Him as funny." Danny smirked. "Stiles is a dead man."

They held him down until they were sure he was out cold, then Scott stood and stretched. "Let's take him back to Deaton's; he can keep him sedated while we're out hunting. We need to find this vampire tonight. We don't have any other choice."

TEENWOLF

The minute Stiles arrived home that afternoon, he flopped onto the living room couch and fell asleep. As he drifted off, he was foggily surprised at how quickly sleep came, considering the long restless hours he had endured every night for weeks. But there was something reassuring and calming about the light that filtered through the blinds, and he realized just how exhausted he was. Maybe, he surmised, he needed to adapt a nocturnal schedule: awake at night, sleeping during the day, when he knew he was safe.

This was the last conscious thought on Stiles' mind before he dissolved into a deep and dreamless sleep, emphasized by his snoring.

Stiles awoke to the sound of the front door opening, and someone calling his name. Groggily Stiles sat up, yawned, and rubbed his eyes. The grey light that had seeped through the curtains was now dull and gloomy, the sun setting in the west. He checked the hands of the wall clock, and realized he had been asleep for hours.

"Stiles?" the voice asked again.

"In here, Dad."

His father appeared from the entryway. His face a mask of shadows and fatigue. His expression grim and hard. "Why haven't you been answering your phone?" he demanded.

Stiles yawned again and picked his cell off the coffee-table. He had 6 missed calls – all of them from his father. Not good. "It's on vibrate," Stiles admitted sheepishly. "I was asleep and didn't hear it ringing."

Surely the sheriff couldn't be angry at him when he'd finally gotten a few hours restful shut-eye. "I've been going near out of my mind trying to get hold of you! I thought..." John stopped mid-sentence and gazed distractedly at the space in front of him. Stiles could tell there was something going on.

"You thought what?" he pressed.

Sheriff Stilinski collapsed into his favorite lazy-boy chair and scrubbed his face with his hands. Instead of answering his son's question, he said, "Elana Santiago was murdered in her hotel room last night."

The color drained from Stiles' face. "W-what?"

"This morning Pierce called me. Someone – or something – killed Santiago. No, didn't just kill her, completely slaughtered her." He allowed this information to sink in, watching closely the emotions that crossed Stiles' face. Then, he asked, "Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"

"No?"

The sheriff sighed. "Santiago's hotel room was a bloody mess. I thought our resident vampire might be responsible, but then it didn't fit the profile. The vampire had so far only killed men, right? I still hadn't found the pattern, but Elana certainly didn't seem to fit into it. Maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe it was just a coincidence. What could a vampire possibly want with an FBI agent?"

Each word was careful and intentional. Dripped into Stiles' mind like drops of water in Chinese water torture. He could tell his father was driving at something, but he wasn't sure what. It could be a trap. He didn't want to be tricked into revealing anything his father didn't know. Stiles maintained his silence, and fidgeted on the couch.

Stiles' speechlessness irritated the sheriff, and soon his calm plan to wheedle the truth out of him was thrown out the window. John stood abruptly. "Goddamn it, Stiles! How am I supposed to protect you if you won't tell me the truth?"

"What are you-?"

"Marshall is the vampire!"

Stiles' astonishment, coupled with his lowered head, and inability to refuse the statement confirmed the sheriff's guess. Stilinski pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "The vampire is Marshall, and Marshall is after you, and what? You just weren't going to tell me? You were going to try and deal with this on your own?"

"I didn't want you to worry-"

"Worry? Of course I'm going to worry! I'm your father, Stiles! Some homicidal pervert is after my son; how else am I supposed to react? He's killed two of your classmates and an agent sent to protect you, but you thought you wouldn't clue me in? You'd let me keep believing these were separate cases? That you weren't the target of a deranged blood-sucking vampire!?"

"Dad, please don't yell-"

"And instead of hearing all this from my own son, I see it written in blood in some cruddy hotel room!"

"What?"

The sheriff's tirade came to a screeching halt. "Nothing. Forget I said anything."

"You can't just do that. You can't say-"

"Oh, so now you want to be honest with each other?" Stiles bit back the remainder of his sentence, and Stilinski felt a stab of guilt. He sat next to Stiles on the sofa. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you like that." He rubbed his face again, the bristles of hair on his chin coarse against his palms. "Whoever killed Santiago wrote your name on the bathroom mirror in her blood. It was a hell of a way for me to find out this thing is after you. But you already knew that, didn't you?" Stiles stared at his hands in his lap. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to worry."

"Stiles, how many times do we have to go through this? Of course I'm going to worry about you, you're my son! But I need you to stop keeping things from me. I can't help if I don't know what's going on. Hey," the sheriff put his fingers under Stiles' chin and gently raised his head, so he was looking at him, "I know how you hate to worry people, but you can't handle this on your own. I wouldn't want you to, and I know your friends wouldn't either. It's okay to ask for help."

"I told Scott," Stiles admitted, "about Marshall, as soon as I figured out the correlation between all the victims is me."

Jealousy pricked at Sheriff Stilinski's heart. He couldn't help feeling hurt that Stiles would confide in Scott but not in him. Sure, he knew teenagers are more likely to spill their secrets to their friends, not their parents, but he wished he could be that person for Stiles. He hated knowing how much Stiles kept from him, maybe was still keeping from him. This was a psycho rapist-vampire they were talking about. He should have been the first person Stiles told when he had discovered the pattern linking the murders. All the sheriff said was: "That's good. Scott can protect you."

"He will."

The sheriff shifted his weight awkwardly. "I still wish you would have told me."

"I didn't want-"

"To worry me, I know. I got it. But it would have been a lot better hearing about this from you. I know I don't know a lot about this supernatural stuff, but I would give my life to protect you. I'm the parent and you're the child. You don't need to worry about protecting me. I worry about protecting you."

Stiles didn't agree with this last statement, but he offered his father a weak smile. "Okay."

Sheriff Stilinski looked as though he were going to reach out for Stiles and pull him into a hug, but his cell-phone suddenly rang, ruining the moment. He answered gruffly, his frown deepening as the person on the other end delivered yet more bad news. The sheriff sighed and stood. "They found another one. A girl this time – a sophomore. Killed last night by the looks of it. I have to go. Will you be safe here?"

"Scott's coming over later," Stiles reassured his father. "He might spend the night. I don't know. Until then, as long as I don't invite any vampires into the house, I'm safe."

"Alright." Times like these the sheriff despised his job; hated when his duty called him away from his son, leaving him alone and vulnerable. He was relieved Stiles wouldn't be alone tonight, and that he'd have a werewolf looking out for him. And yet, an inner voice berated him shamefully, you should be the one home with your son tonight. Not Scott.

Stilinski shoved his hand into his back pocket, retrieved his worn wallet, and extracted a few rumpled bills. He laid them on the coffee-table in front of Stiles. "Why don't you buy yourselves some pizza? My treat."

"Thanks, Dad."

The sheriff watched him closely for a long moment, and if Stiles had been better at reading into people's eyes, he would have seen the unfathomable love and concern in those seafoam depths that didn't quite make it into his father's tired face and gruff body language. "Be careful tonight. Don't leave the house."

Stiles smiled. The line a repetitive chorus he had heard most of his life. "I will be. You be careful out there too." The sheriff nodded curtly and left.

Once he had gone, Stiles picked up the phone and ordered an extra-large deluxe pizza with extra everything and a couple 2L bottles of Pepsi. He had just settled down to watch a re-run of 'Project Runway' and wait for his food, when there was a knock at the door.