A/N~ This is the first chapter of the last book of the Spark to a Flame series, called Inferno. I hope everyone had a nice Holiday and that the bunny was generous with you and that you got to spend time with your families. Warning things are about to get a little weird, but then it's Beacon Hills what do you expect. ~A
Chapter 19
The werewolf heard the thunder of feet down the ladder behind him and knew it would be the Sheriff. What he saw was confusing and horrifying all at once. Stiles and Mary were on fire.
It made no sense. They had used battery powered lanterns for just this reason. He thought all this in the seconds it took him to rip his shirt off and began smothering the flames. Melissa was trying to do the same with her scrub jacket. When the flames were finally out, she ran to the work table and cried out, "I need my kit from the car."
"Ethan I need you!" The Alpha shouted, up the ladder as Peter was coming down the ladder. He moved toward the work table as Melissa held up one of the bags of solution, "Cut it open and pour it over the burned areas on them." she grabbed the bag she had carried all of her supplies in and pulled out the keys. Peter grabbed the bag before Derek could reac it and was already moving back toward the pair of comatose magic users.
Ethan eschewing the ladder, leapt into the opening of the root cellar. As soon as he stood at the bottom of the ladder, he stared at Derek and then seeing something he hesitated eyes wide. "Ethan is the fastest of us," Derek said.
"Ethan," Ms. McCall shouted, "Back seat, gold sedan, big bag, bring it back as fast as you can." she said tossing him the keys. Catching them midair, the twin turned back to the opening and was gone. They heard him shouting something and then there was just muttering from upstairs.
Cora called, "Don't go down there, unless they call you. You'll just be in the way, we can probably hear them anyway."
Peter used a claw to open the bag of fluid and trying to hold it carefully poured the liquid over Mary's face and shoulders and over Stiles arm and torso. The stillness of the two was disconcerting to Mellissa. People with such burns would have obvious suffering even in deep unconsciousness.
Peter said, "They should be moving and moaning. My nurse told me until my wounds healed I was screaming, actually she said howling."
Melissa didn't answer him at first, "We have to stop the burning," she called. "Getting two more bags of fluid out of her bag.
"We did," said Derek, "They're not on fire anymore."
"The tissue will keep burning and doing more damage until we cool it down," the nurse explained. Flipping the IV bags wrong side up she had the two Hales hold the bags as she used her scissors and cut the end off. Then she turned Mary on her side and Peter more carefully poured the liquid over the burned areas of the older woman's skin.
Peter had just finished and dropping the bag was about to help turn Mary onto her back when he noticed something and said, "Wait, Ms. McCall look at this." He drew her attention to where a root from the Nemeton had made its way down a support beam and was now attached to the older woman's ankle.
"Should we detach it?" the older werewolf asked.
Mellissa looked at the plant suspiciously, "The nurse in me says yes, but Mary said not to disturb their bodies at all until they came back. No leave it be, just help me keep an eye on it,"
"On them," Derek said as he showed them both where Stiles was similarly connected to the Nemeton. "If she told you not to disturb them should we even be doing this." Mellissa merely glanced at the root frond and then grim faced turned the teen onto his side so that Derek could douse him with the liquid.
"I'm hoping disturbing them means moving them out of the root cellar, I am beginning to wonder what they didn't tell us about all of this and something tells me that they left out a lot." the nurse said as she let Stiles roll back into place.
There was yelling from the surface followed by Ethan jumping into the entrance the large duffle thrown over his shoulder. Handing the nurse the keys first he carried the bag over to the worktable for her, and unzipped it. Then he looked over at Derek and Peter and said, "We have a problem."
XXXXXXXXX
"Someone was tracking me on the way back from Ms. McCall's car. Not fast enough to keep up with me but I think they were werewolves." Ethan said as he did his best to stay out of the way of the whirlwind that was the nurse.
"Did they smell dead?" Peter asked. The pair looked at him strangely and he reminded, "Stiles said the things that were coming were more dead than alive. He said the flesh was rotting off of them, one would assume there would be an odor of death and decay. So was there?"
Ethan looked down for a moment in thought and then said, "No not that I noticed."
"Other werewolves, wonderful. Ours still haven't recovered from being reborn yet. Stiles and Mary are down for at least a few days if not longer…" Derek said looking tense and worried.
"From what Lydia said they probably won't be doing magic or much of anything when they finally do come around." Peter added with concern. "Stay with your mate, Alpha. We'll have Lydia set a perimeter with the mountain ash. Just in case the wards don't hold against these intruders." his uncle said in a surprisingly formal and respectful voice.
Derek nodded distracted, then coming alert he looked sharply at his uncle as he said, "Wait, my mate, what mate."
"The one who has marked you nephew, despite your denials." Peter said with surprising affection, "I take it you haven't had a look at yourself in a mirror since you spent time with Stiles."
The Alpha shook his head and then his hand went to his bare shoulders, first the right shoulder where the hickey was just beginning to fade. Then over to the left shoulder where a bite mark was clearly visible. A look of awe settled on his features as he rubbed his fingers carefully over the bruise. Stiles hadn't broken the skin but the bite was clearly delineated.
Then Derek's face slowly crumbled as he said softly, "He didn't mean it that way, he was delusional."
"Delusional people are usually the most honest," Mellissa said as she carefully applied ointment to the burns on Mary's face. The werewolves looked startled as they had forgotten she was in the cellar with them.
"Or it was the purifying agent Mary gave him talking," Derek replied morosely.
"Really so did he say someone else's name when he made that mark. Did you force him to make it?" said the nurse as she continued to wrap bandages here and there.
"No, he said my name," he said thoughtfully remembering the events.
"He was right," Mellissa said as she continued to work quickly with her patients, "you really do have a masochistic tendency to believe you don't deserve any joy in your life."
"He thinks that?" Derek asked.
"We talked about it this summer," said Mellissa as she seemed to be finishing up with her patients. She looked over at Derek and said, "He's been my surrogate while Scott's been gone. Doing Scott's chores, eating with me, visiting me. He even jumped off my car when the battery died. He talks to me, like I hope he would have talked to Claudia if she were still alive. We talk about everything, especially you Mr. Hale."
Derek merely nodded thoughtfully, "…And he wants me to be happy."
"And to have your family back," she said as she began to put some things back in her duffle bags while arranging other on the work table.
"You mean my Pack," Derek said absently.
"Of course, but he also specifically said, your family…." she said from across the room. Not seeing when his eyes snapped to the damaged bodies still lying on the air mattress. The burned bodies.
"He wouldn't," said Derek.
"For you, he would," Peter said quietly in awe.
"We've got company up here," and that was the Sheriff calling down the ladder to them. Derek felt a pang of guilt as he realized that it had probably been the sheriff Cora had spoken to earlier.
"Go," Derek said sharply to his uncle. As the older werewolf scrambled up the ladder, the Alpha leaned down and whispered in Stiles ear, "You were all I needed, always." Before following his uncle up the ladder.
XXXXXXXXX
The Alpha, came up to see that things had changed dramatically. The moon was beginning to set but the moonlight still bathed everything in the clearing in a silvery light. The area around the Nemeton base was filled with moving bodies and the spark of metal was seen here and there.
Someone had pulled Erica and Boyd to sit beside each other and they had leaned them against each other for support as they recovered. The pair were obviously trying to force themselves to heal faster. Ranged on either side of the pair were Allison who was up on one knee, bow in hand, her father was beside her, his guns already in hand. He and his daughter were talking softly but it was obvious that sheer force of will was keeping the archer on her feet.
Issac was on the other side of the pair of werewolves, and one of his familiar sweaters was wrapped around Erica, who of the lot looked the worse for wear. She looked very much like she had before she had been bitten except for her eyes which were glowing golden.
Boyd looked a bit better, his eyes were also glowing golden. The order of death apparently also affected how quickly they recovered from the process. Derek thought as he saw the younger werewolf flash his eyes gold at Derek respectfully.
Over to another side, still facing the woods, were Ethan, Aiden, Danny and Jackson. Jackson and Ethan were in front. Danny was behind them and Aiden had a hand on the Hawaiians shoulder and was leaning on the lean young man a little heavily. Danny was holding a wood baseball bat that had some symbols etched into it. Derek didn't recognize the symbols but was fairly sure the bat would pack a hell of a punch if anyone ever actually played baseball with it. He also had a sneaking suspicion that although the bat wasn't familiar that the owner was down in the root cellar hanging onto his life tenaciously
He heard Aiden say to the taller teen in a husky voice, "I'm telling you that won't work on our kind."
Jackson responded for his friend, "That's Stiles new bat. I have a feeling that thing would work on a kanima, an Alpha wolf or just about anything else."
"So we're trusting Stiles now," Aiden asked incredulously.
Ethan answered this time and with a quelling look to his brother he said, "Look around, he brought you and all of these others back to life. All in one night. So yeah I'm thinking we're trusting him. We're also being nice to him so he doesn't put you back wherever he found you."
Danny said, "Stiles wouldn't do that." Then he looked at the recently returned twin and said, "He'd keep you alive so he could torture you first." he concluded deadpan.
The Alpha smirked slightly as he looked around for the others in their group. The Sheriff and Parrish bracketed Lydia. The red haired Banshee had one of Allison's ring daggers in her hand.
Cora and Malia were staring at Peter. When Derek got there the trio stared at him, he said sharply, "We are a pack, we deal with what's coming as a family. Agreed?"
Cora nodded her head and said, "Agreed." and allowed her brother to draw her into his arms.
Peter offered his hand to his daughter, who looked at it suspiciously and then looked up at her father, then cautiously she took the offered hand . It was obvious that Peter wanted to draw her close as his nephew had done to his niece but the older Hale was wise enough not to try.
The four Hales headed to the barrier where Ethan stood facing the tree line as they could see three young men emerging from the woods and walking toward them. There were two older teens and a younger one who looked no older than fourteen or fifteen. Oddly enough the youngest seemed to be in charge.
He tried to cross the barrier and was obviously surprised, when he wasn't able to, pretending he didn't even notice the barrier he said, "Whoever you are you're trespassing, this is Hale land."
Derek and the remainder of the Hale family came to stand in front of their friends and pack. "Then it's a good thing, we're Hales." Said Peter in his usual arrogant tones. "Funny thing, I don't remember you being at any of our very limited family reunions.
One of the older teens came forward and gropped the younger teens shoulder. Which was a good thing as the younger leader looked as if he had just been hit by a two-by-four. The older boy said in awe, "It's them, Seth. We've caught up. We have to tell the others."
The dark haired teen merely nodded his head and the three, morphed into their beta forms and ran back into the woods at full speed. "We could catch them," offered Jackson as he, Issac, and Ethan stepped forward.
"No," Derek said sharply, "One, they said tell the others. That means more of them, it also means they'll probably be coming back here. Save our energy, make them use theirs. Two, it's been ten years, but did that remind anyone else of Uncle Jamie's son, Seth." He said looking expectantly at Cora and Peter. Both nodded at him, looking decidedly shell-shocked.
Derek shook his head and said almost under his breath, "He really did it." Then looking up at the three teens he reminded, "And three if after all that Stiles has done to get us all back together again, I let you run off and get killed, exactly how many levels of pain do you think Stiles will bring down on my head?"
"If I know my son," the Sheriff said helpfully, "If any of you end up injured or dead before he wakes back up? I would say that he may just invent a few new levels of pain, murder and mayhem. Just to cover it." The words were spoken clearly and soberly and the werewolves who had listened in, realized two things. One the sheriff was being completely honest and that they just might have underestimated Stiles, severely.
Derek looked around to find that Boyd and Erica while woozy were slowly coming back up to fighting form. Allison being human and a hunter was conserving her strength. Issac had come to sit by her side and the girl leaned her head on his shoulder. Chris sat in front of the pair, speaking quietly too them.
Ethan and Jackson were reacquainting Aiden, Danny, and Erica and Boyd with things that had happened locally and in the world since their deaths. It was a lot to catch up on, and a lot to take in. Luckily they seemed to be handling their reanimation surprisingly well, and without any signs of insanity or psychosis
All around the clearing the Pack were getting acquainted or reacquainted. Derek was pleased with the actions of his family and betas. He knew Stiles would be as well. Thinking of the Spark made the werewolf want to see the young man. He walked back to the Nemeton and went down the ladder.
XXXXXXXXX
Mellissa was injecting something into the I.V.'s, looking up as the young man climbed down into the root cellar. "I'm giving them something to prevent infection because of the burns."
"Did either of them mention anything about fire to you?" he asked the older woman quietly.
The nurse sighed heavily as she shook her head in the negative, "Neither of them said anything at al about it. I take it they didn't say anything to you either?"
"No. Did Mary tell you how long they might be out?" the werewolf said as he came to stand beside the slightly scorched air bed. Absently he was surprised that the thing hadn't deflated or more frightening fused with the two magic users skin. When it had been subjected to the sudden burst of flame. Then he tuned back in when he realized that Ms. McCall was speaking to him.
"Mary didn't say anything and Stiles said that they really weren't sure because apparently no one had ever tried this before. His best guess at least four days and upward of two weeks. I don't know how we're going to keep them here for two weeks. Supplies alone will become an issue, not to mention, we're all going to have to care for them. I have to work and sleep sometime," she said with weak amusement in her voice. "And that's just for the coma, the recovery after…they may be like that till after Scott returns."
There was something in her tone of voice that had Derek look at the woman sharply, "What aren't you saying?"
The older woman sighed as she said, "I've known Stiles almost his whole life. He's changing. He was different when he came to save us in this place when that dark druid put us down here. He was different when we thought he was dying, one second he would be the little boy I'd known for years, the next cold, distant…oily."
She shook her head as she continued, "Now he's… he's older. I saw it before sometimes, after his mom died, when his father couldn't really handle Claudia's death. His eyes would have this age in them, like an old soul. Then he would hide it behind the sarcasm and Stilesiness."
She looked up at the young werewolf and added, "Now he's changed again. He used to be for lack of a better word, Scott-centric. Scott was his world, his center, his brother. Scott knew it and took advantage of it. He would manipulate Stiles, convince him away from other people so that Scott could keep his attention focused on him. Scott did the same thing to me when his father came back. I recognized it though. Then I started recognizing it when Stiles started dating Malia, I'm fairly sure Stiles did too. He refused to stop dating her even when Scott didn't approve and tried to break them up."
"Scott got ticked off that's why he went off with the rest of the lacrosse team." The older woman confessed with shame coloring her voice over her son's behavior. "Even though we couldn't really afford it. He manipulated his father to get the money for it." she looked away but not before Derek saw the disappointment in her eyes, "He actually told Stiles that it would be a good team building thing, he made it clear that he didn't consider Stiles part of the team and that he wasn't just talking about the lacrosse team."
It was obvious the woman was becoming more upset as she put to voice things she had kept to herself for far too long. "Ever since he became an Alpha, his childishness, his self-centeredness, its just become more obvious. When he and Allison broke up I actually thought it would be good for him. It would make him mature, it didn't. He nearly sent Issac through the wall just for kissing her. Then he started dating Kira and I thought that would be good for him but I've seen him manipulate her as well."
She pursed her lips before continuing with a slight hitch in her breath, "I think when he gets back and all of this has changed it will be dangerous. I think when he figures out that Stiles is in love with you and no longer remotely centered around him, if Stiles is still weakened like this…." Even now Derek could see she couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't put to voice how dangerous her son, her child just might be.
At first he couldn't say anything, he could smell how real her fear and concern were. Stiles had voiced his own concerns and anger over the issue. He hadn't said anything to Derek per say, but Derek had overheard him talking to Mary about it on occasion. He'd also heard it in the tone of voice he used when they were talking about Scott. The Spark seemed to be outgrowing his friend or at least outgrowing Scott's attitude.
Derek had no idea what he was going to say but whatever it was got interrupted by Peter calling down, "Nephew, they're back"
A strange chill went down the Alpha's spine at those words, two Alpha's couldn't occupy the same territory usually. Even when they were in the same family. Usually the battle that followed would be deadly, with all but the youngest killed or forced to submit to the new Alpha. Even those who did submit were usually merely Omegas. He wouldn't let that happen even if what he thought Stiles had tried to do was successful. He patted the older woman's shoulder reassuringly as he went to the ladder.
The glow of dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky and giving everything a pearly gray appearance. Lydia was there in front of him before he was even able to see the arriving Pack. "They aren't supposed to be here, I'm not sure why, but I know that." He looked up from her brown eyes to see the flames in the eyes of the deputy who stood protectively beside her.
"I think this is all part of Stiles plan, Lydia. Still not sure what that is exactly but I guess we're about to find out." he said giving the Banshee a charming smile.
The redhead fell into step beside him and said, "You know you've started doing that a lot more."
The werewolf looked down at Lydia questioningly, eyebrow raised, "You smile more. I'm sure we don't know why that is?"
"Your point, Lydia?" Derek asked but he couldn't keep the smirk from his face as the redhead returned his grin with a knowing smirk.
"You're good together, we approve," she said not looking back up at the Alpha as they headed to the barrier. Parrish flanked the Alpha on the other side, his rifle slung over his shoulder. A grim, yet confident expression on his face. The sheriff then fell into step beside Lydia and the rest of the Pack spread out around them.
The other pack was already approaching the barrier, front and center was a large she wolf with glowing red eyes. Derek stepped up to the barrier and said respectfully, "Hello, Mother," before flashing his own red glowing eyes back at the black she-wolf.
The she-wolf rose from the ground easily, the transformation from full wolf to human easy and fluid. One of the humans who were in her pack came forward and draped a cloak over her shoulders. Before anyone could say anything else though there was a bright flash of light and everyone in the clearing fell to the ground unconscious.