Holy crap I am so sorry! It's been like two months since I updated. I got reallly busy because I started full time college on top of the full time job I already have. My writing time just flew out the window and suddenly it was two months later. Anyway, here's a short-ish chapter. I have one more chapter that is typed and I just need to check for spelling errors and such one last time. It will be up later today.
I am never writing a chapter fic again. I am terrible at updating.
Derek's phone emitted a brief melody alerting him to a new text. It was probably Stiles trying to apologize for what had happened in the parking lot. He considered ignoring it out of spite – really he was very annoyed at Stiles' constant refusal to answer his questions – but ultimately he decided being childish wouldn't solve anything. He dragged the phone out of his pocket, noted that the text was – as suspected – from Stiles, and opened it.
It was only one word and Derek looked at in in confusion. "Darach." What was Stiles trying to tell him about the Darach? He tried to think like Stiles, so he could decipher what the boy had meant but he couldn't quite grasp an answer. It didn't help that trying to think like Stiles was nearly impossible. His mind turned from one thought to the next far faster than anyone else's. Did he have a new theory about the Darach? Had he figured out the next targets? Stiles had an awful habit of only saying part of his thought and then assuming the rest the world would catch up to him. He was always somehow surprised to find that his mind had left other people in the dust. Then the phone in Derek's hand jingled merrily again and a second message popped up on the screen.
He froze as he stared down at the small word. "Help." One simple word that made his blood run cold and his heart race in fear. Stiles needed help. Everything clicked into place as the first text became disarmingly clear. The Darach had gotten to Stiles.
The Darach. The psycho who thought they had some sort of magical powers. The Darach who kidnapped and murdered people freely. Had Stiles been kidnapped too? Was the Darach killing him? Was he already dead? No. He couldn't be. Stiles was too smart to let himself die that easily. He was probably busy debating with the Darach about the merits of keeping him alive. More than likely he was winning that debate. Though Stiles probably had a high chance of annoying the Darach so thoroughly that they decided to kill him just to shut him up. If Stiles was going to die, chances were pretty good it would be because he just wouldn't shut his mouth.
Stiles was going to die.
Derek took a deep breath, concentrating on not hyperventilating. He swallowed down the sick feeling rising up in him and he composed himself enough to try calling Stiles.
He hadn't expected it to work but it still sent fresh fear surging though him when he heard Stiles' bright and chipper voice telling him to, "Leave a message if you want to. If not hang up. I'll know you called though so if you don't leave a message I'll assume you're some kind of creeper just wanting to listen to my voice. It's understandable, my voice is damn sexy, but dude you need a life."
Derek practically snarled at the phone in frustration as he hung up and shoved the offending item back into his pocket. He grabbed his walkie-talkie and as quickly as he could he explained to anyone listening that they needed to find Stiles. Now. Then he marched to his car – growling at it in frustration when it took it's time starting up – and drove off in the direction he'd last seen Stiles heading.
He had gone barely two miles when he saw Stiles' Jeep. He almost wished he hadn't. It was turned over on its side, curled partway around a tree, and smoke drifted lazily up from the hood. Derek slammed on his brakes and came to a screeching halt on the road beside the wreckage. He stared at it in horror as he fought to stop the rising panic inside him.
The smell of burned rubber registered dimly in the back of his mind as he approached the familiar blue Jeep. When he was near enough to look inside he didn't know if he should be relieved or even more worried about the fact that Stiles wasn't in there. Was it better to have a missing Stiles in the hands of the Darach or to just have dying Stiles bleeding out in his broken car? Neither option particularly appealed to Derek.
"There's not a whole lot of blood." Said a voice from behind him.
Derek spun around to find Scott staring at the smoking wreck from a few feet away. "How did you get here so fast?"
"Dude, it's like a mile and a half from the station. It wasn't exactly hard to find." Scott offered with a shrug. "The important thing is that there's not a lot of blood. Either he wasn't too badly hurt in the crash, or the Darach got him out of the Jeep before he had a chance to bleed much. He could still be bleeding out in a warehouse somewhere."
Derek shook his head. "We'd see drag marks if he was bleeding still when the Darach got him."
Scott looked like he wanted to say something to that – like he wanted to correct Derek – but instead he turned towards Derek's car and gestured for him to follow. That was when Derek noticed that Scott's car was missing.
"You didn't drive here?" He asked quietly; almost more to himself than to Scott. "That's not possible. You can't have gotten here so soon without a vehicle." Silence met his statement as Scott opened Derek's car door. "Why are you getting into the driver's seat? That's my car. Scott, get the hell out of my seat!"
After a determined look and a movement that was clearly designed to tell Derek he needed to sit in the passenger seat, Scott turned the keys and waited impatiently for Derek. With a glare, Derek slid in next to Scott.
"Sorry man," Scott explained. "You just look a bit shaken up by this and I don't really want you driving right now. Last thing we need is to wreck our car on our way to saving Stiles from whatever wrecked his car."
Derek hadn't really noticed it until Scott mentioned it, but his hands were shaking and his breathing was shorter and faster than normal. He clenched his fists to stop the trembling as he focused on deep breaths and the fact that there hadn't been much blood. Stiles was probably fine. They were going to find him, rescue him, and finally take down the Darach all at once. They just had to figure out where to look. Though wherever Stiles was, Derek was pretty certain it wasn't the Vet Clinic. Which was where he inexplicably found himself.
"What the hell are you doing Scott? We need to come up with a plan to find Stiles. We have to get back to the precinct. Why are we at Dr. Deaton's?"
"Just… trust me. Please. You know that 'Big Bad Secret' we're all keeping from you? Believe me when I say that it is 100% relevant right now and that Deaton is the best resource we have to deal with it."
"To deal with what exactly?"
Scott glanced at him without a word and promptly left Derek fuming in the passenger seat of his own Camaro. Angrily, Derek thrust open his car door, slammed it shut behind him, and strode into the clinic after Scott.
Deaton was already letting Scott into the back of the vet office and Derek followed all while glaring at the back of Scott's head. He couldn't for the life of him figure out a good reason to look for Stiles at the veterinarian's. Scott's time wasting could be the death of Stiles.
"The Darach has Stiles." Scott blurted out with no preamble the moment Derek had joined them in the back room.
Deaton sighed heavily and replied, "I was afraid this would happen at some point. I know Stiles is doing the best he can but sometimes he needs to remember that he's in more danger than the rest of us. Until he finishes his training with me, he has got to stop angering people that are stronger than him."
To say Derek was confused would be an understatement, "His… his training with you? Stiles is a detective, why is he training under you? Why would he need to learn about being a vet? More importantly, how does any of that factor into him being taken? The Darach isn't targeting veterinarians."
"Stiles is learning something from me that is altogether different from my usual profession. It has to do with him being taken because once his training is complete he will be much better equipped to deal with this kind of enemy. Though with his skill and power, he is fairly well equipped already if he just knew the proper methods. Unfortunately, he jumps into danger regardless of whether or not he is prepared for it. That boy has no regard for his own safety when it means saving someone else."
Deaton seemed to feel he had explained enough to Derek so he turned to his cabinets and started grabbing things. As he collected a small pile of plants and unidentifiable objects, he talked. "Scott, I'm going to give you a jar of powdered mistletoe. That should be enough to repel her temporarily. Get Stiles out and get him back here to me. I have a plan to take her down permanently but I need Stiles' help to do it. I'll work on what I can before he gets here." With that Deaton slid a jar of white powder towards Scott and with a furtive glance Derek's way he added, "If you have to change in front of him to save Stiles, do it."
"I was already planning on it." Scott assured the older man.
Derek meanwhile just stood staring at the two as if they were speaking a foreign language. "Mistletoe? How is a plant going to save anyone? What do you mean about Scott changing?" Really he was getting very aggravated about constantly feeling like he was two steps behind the rest of the town. This giant gap in his knowledge of what was going on had never bothered him more than it did right now with Stiles' life on the line.
Scott gave a noncommittal shrug and replied, "You'll find out when you need to."
Fury flashed through Derek. He tried to keep his voice steady as he hissed out, "Stiles could by dying, might already be dead, and you're still wasting time trying to hide things from me? Aren't we past that?" He forced himself to take a calming breath and then in a quieter but no less angry tone he asked, "Is it really worse for me to know what the hell is going on than it is for Stiles to die?"
For half a second Scott looked sorry for Derek, "If it helps, I'm pretty sure that you will have all the answers you want by the end of the day. It's not my place to tell you though. Not unless you truly have to know. Stiles is the one that needs to make that call and I won't go behind his back. Make him answer your questions when we see him next because honestly I think at this point you deserve to know. Now, we need to focus on finding Stiles."
"He's at the bank on the corner of National." Interjected Deaton. When he received confused looks from both of the detectives he explained, "I looked at where the ley lines cross on the map. If the Darach is following the pattern I think it is, Stiles will be there."
"Good enough for me." Scott said, grabbing the jar of mistletoe, "Let's go."
Stiles didn't know how long he had been unconscious and he didn't want to risk getting out his phone to see the time. Better to hang on to his phone in case he had a chance to use it later. His head throbbed and he could still feel the small trickle of blood cooling on the side of his face. Somewhere in the back of his mind he noted that he was lucky he had made it out of the crash with only a minor head wound. It could have been a lot worse. Closer to the front of his mind however, he realized that surviving the crash did very little good if he was about to be killed by his old High School English teacher.
He always had hated her class.
Probably would have hated it more if he had known she was evil. Actually, on second thought, he had always kind of believed she was evil. He just hadn't thought she was the supernatural kind of evil.
Right now though, even though her face had morphed back to its usual and more beautiful self, Ms. Jennifer Blake was quite possibly the scariest person he had ever seen. Stiles stood up a little taller, pasted on a joking grin, and did what he did best. He talked. "Hey, Ms. Blake. I didn't expect to see you here. Or at all. I kind of thought once I escaped your class I'd never have to see you again. I'm kind of wishing I had done my book reports like I was supposed to instead of turning in detailed essays on the prevalence of homosexuality in Ancient Greece. Though to be fair to myself, that was an excellent essay."
"Yes. You were one of the more annoying students." Jennifer said thoughtfully, "That should make it easier to kill you."
Stiles took a step back in mock surprise, "Whoa! Kill me? Ms. Blake, why would you want to kill me? I mean, obviously you've killed a few people already, but I'm cool with not telling anybody. I don't even fit your Super Special Sacrifice qualifications so I really don't see a benefit to killing me. Especially because if there's one body you don't want turning up in the morgue it's the body of the Sheriff's son. He finds me on that slab and he won't stop at arresting you, he'll kill you. Really nothing but bad things happen to you if you kill me, so why would you do it? I'm much better alive. I much prefer myself alive. Why don't we just agree to not change my status as a living person?"
"Because you irritate me." She answered, "Because you know too much and have gotten far too close. Because I have known you long enough to know, that if I let you live, the first thing you would do is tell your father who I am."
"That's where you're wrong. "Stiles interjected. "What good would it be to tell anyone when I have no proof?"
The Darach scoffed at him, "When did you start needing proof? Don't you usually just get your werewolf friends to take care of any problems you can't handle with legal methods?"
"Werewolves? What are you talking about? Werewolves aren't real." Okay, so that was possibly the worst attempt at lying he had ever done. Really it wasn't his fault; he spent all his time with friends who could detect a lie in his heartbeat. He didn't exactly have much use for developing superb lying skills. Jennifer arched an eyebrow at him and Stiles slumped a little in defeat. "Yeah, okay, so I have werewolves on my side." He perked up a little as an idea struck him. "If anything that should just convince you to let me live. You don't want werewolves hunting you because they find my horribly mutilated body and want revenge."
"You keep assuming that I'm going to leave a body behind." It was amazing really how casually she could say that. "If you just happen to disappear and there happens to be evidence that you left town then no one will realize you died until far too late. Because you're right, I don't want the Sheriff and the wolves after me for revenge. Though, without you leading them I doubt they would ever get anywhere close to figuring out who I am. I hate to admit it, I really do, but you are the brains behind the entire law enforcement or Beacon Hills."
Stiles didn't know if he should feel proud of himself or insulted for his friends. He settled for just being angry at the entire situation. If he focused on the anger it was easier to ignore the stinging pain of his head and much easier to pretend that he wasn't terrified. He told himself that someone would find him in time. He had sent the text to Derek long enough ago that he had probably found the Jeep already and was well on the way to finding him.
Not that he would know where to look.
Or have any way to stop the Darach.
Honestly, thinking about it more, if Derek did show up he would probably die too.
Shit.
He was dragged from his thoughts by the cackling laugh coming from the Darach. "You probably thought that you could buy time for yourself by talking. Thankfully, I had two years of listening to your inane babble in my class and I am more than ready to shut you up. Trust me when I say I have no reason at all to listen to your stalling."
"I wasn't stalling, I was just trying to point out to you what a spectacularly bad idea this is."
"I'll take my chances."
Jennifer drew a symbol slowly in the air in front of her as she seemed to concentrate hard on something. Power crackled around her and Stiles did not fail to notice the vicious gleam in her eyes.
He also very definitely noticed the sudden pain flooding through every nerve in his body. His legs buckled underneath him as the pain hit and he fell to the ground with a scream. It felt like he was on fire. He wondered briefly if he actually was on fire. His hands scrabbled at the cold floor trying to crawl away at the same time that he curled his body in on itself trying to escape the agony. Black curled at the edges of his vision and his ears rang with the sound of his own hollow cries.