Chapter 21: Scoobies, Part 1

"When people were in serious trouble they went to a witch.
Sometimes, of course, to say, "please stop doing it."
—Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

Erica and Boyd met Jackson and Isaac at Jackson's car, and together they lugged up the books they had brought over from Derek's—including the new one's Derek and Jackson had bought downtown. Jackson didn't know what good books on 18th and 19th century witches would be if they were looking for a coven today, but Derek had insisted that buying them had been the right decision. They had also brought along the Hale family bestiary, on a small black flash drive.

"So," Erica asked, as they stood together in the elevator. "Anyone know where this whole buddy-buddy let's-all-work-together attitude suddenly came from?"

Jackson shook his head.

"It sounded like it was Scott's idea," Isaac volunteered. "He's into that whole 'getting along' thing."

Boyd snorted. They looked at him, and he raised an eyebrow. "Sure, he says he's into working together. But not enough to join our pack, or include us in his plans."

Erica nodded. "We're good enough to use, of course."

"Hey, Scott does his best, alright?" Isaac said. "Lay off of him."

The elevator dinged, signalling that they had reached Allison's floor. The doors slid open, and—speak of the devil—Scott McCall stood in front of them. "Hey," Scott greeted. Jackson wondered if he'd heard their conversation. If he had, he didn't let on.

"Scott, great to see you," Isaac said, dumping his books into Scott's arms. "Do you know what kind of snacks Allison has? I'm kind of starving."

Scott laughed, and shook his head. "I don't know why you and Stiles don't get along better," He said, leading the way to Allison's apartment.

Isaac looked thoughtful. "Hmm, interesting. Erica, do you know why Stilinksi and I don't get along better?" He asked, looking back at her.

Erica considered the question. "Maybe it's because he's a massive, gaping, stretchy asshole?"

Scott pursed his lips, while Isaac smirked and Boyd hid his laughter behind his hand. "Thanks for that imagery, Erica." Scott mumbled. "Super necessary."

Erica grinned.

Inside Allison's apartment, Allison and Stiles were waiting for them. Allison stood up to greet them when they entered, but Stiles seemed too busy with his bag of potato chips to care.

Lydia was there, too. Jackson's heart skipped a beat when he saw her. She looked tired.

"Holy crap that is a lot of books," Stiles noted, as they placed them all on the coffee table in Allison's living room. "Is that what Derek does with his time? Read? I guess that's less lame than what I always imagined." Scott raised his eyebrows. "Oh, I assumed he spent his days alternating between hours of sulking and brooding, with the occasional break for punching and threatening people."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jackson saw Erica and Boyd roll their eyes at each other. He was pretty sure Erica mouthed "here we go."

Jackson smiled to himself. A second later, he caught Lydia's eye, and dropped the smile from his face. Lydia gave him appraising look, and then walked over slowly. "Hello Jackson," She said stiffly.

"Lydia," He said. She looked up at him, and he wracked his brain for something to say. "How uh, how are you?"

Lydia smiled. "Awful, you?" She asked.

Jackson nodded. "Yeah, me too."

Lydia tilted her head to the side, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Alright everyone, we should get this meeting started, here," Stiles shouted, making Jackson jump. He turned and saw Stiles was staring right at him and Lydia, an envious glare on his face. Jackson glared back. Stiles turned to Allison, who was dragging a chair in from her kitchen. "Allison, don't you have things to say?"

Allison, looking a bit put on the spot, put the chair down. She cleared her throat, and hardened her expression. "Right," she said firmly. "Um, you can all sit down, if you want to," She said. She paused, while everyone took their seats on the two coaches and the few chairs that had already been placed there. Stiles pulled over the chair she had brought, and sat down on it backwards, next to where Lydia had seated herself.

Still glaring at Stiles, Jackson took a seat on the only empty chair, next to Erica.

"So, you already know that I've been having some pretty messed up dreams, for the past few months," Allison began. "Well, it turns out that one of the witches in the coven was trying to contact me—has contacted me, now."

"A witch contacted you?" Erica asked. "Why?"

"She says she wants to help—I don't know why," Allison said. "But she's been visiting me in my dreams, and I've been able to learn a little bit about her and her coven. The first thing being, these witches have been at our school. I don't know if anyone knows the three students that transferred to Beacon Hills High a few months back, but it's them. They've been there the whole time, and that's why it's only been students and teachers who're affected."

Everyone exchanged looks, obviously horrified.

"Who else?" Boyd asked. Everyone looked at him, and Boyd shifted slightly in his seat. "I mean, didn't Deaton say it would have to be a huge coven, to have this much power? So, it's the transfer students, and...?"

Allison bit her lip. "It's just them," She said.

"Nope," Isaac spoke up. "No way, I don't buy that." He said. "There is no way it's just three teenage girls doing all of this—messing with the weather, and getting in our heads like this, making us see—" Isaac broke off, and his jaw tightened. "It can't be."

"It is," Allison said. "But there's more." Jackson heard Erica sigh. "They're not just teenage girls. They're a coven of witches from around the 1800's... they did some kind of... spell," Allison said, hesitating over the word. "I don't know the specifics, but whatever they did turned them into something less than human."

"That's awesome," Erica said dryly. Despite her tone, Jackson thought she looked a little freaked out. "Anything else? Like how we can kill them?"

Allison shook her head. "The only other thing she said was that we would all have to work together, to take down her coven,"

"And if anyone knows where we can find some druids or a harbinger," Scott added, "Feel free to let us know, because we're supposed to work with them too."

"What the hell is a harbinger?" Isaac asked, looking vaguely disturbed. Scott shrugged.

"A druid like Deaton?" Jackson asked. Everyone turned to stare at him, and Jackson sat back in his chair. "I mean, he's a druid, right? It probably meant him."

"Deaton is a druid?" Scott asked, his eyebrows knitting together. "How do you know that?"

"He told me,"

"He never tells me anything!"

"Well, I mean I kind of asked..."

Scott made a noise of frustration, and hung his head for a moment. Then he dug his cellphone of his pocket, and hit a few buttons. He put the phone on speaker, and Jackson heard it ringing. "Scott?" Deaton said. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, it's fine—are you a druid?" Scott asked.

There was silence for a moment. "Yes."

"Great," Scott ran his fingers through his hair. "We need your help."

Jackson, Boyd and Erica were spread out on Allison's floor, wearing identical expressions of concentration and slight annoyance. Jackson had been reading "Demon, Deities and Bringers of Darkness" for over a half an hour now, and he was still only partway through the "Demons" section of the book.

Erica and Boyd kept switching their books back and forth between them, probably in attempt to not grow horribly numb with boredom. Jackson wondered if it was working.

Lydia was taking her time choosing a book, and had spent the last half an hour with every book they'd brought spread out on the floor in front of her, her hand roaming over the covers, pausing occasionally to hover over a certain volume before moving on again. Stiles too had not touched a book, and was instead staring intently at Lydia. Every now and then he would poke her shoulder, and ask her what the hell she was doing.

Allison was lying upside down on the couch, reading "Witches of the 19th Century," which Jackson realized had now become relevant to what they were looking for. When Stiles began to bug Lydia for the 16th time, Allison smacked him upside the head without taking her eyes off her book, and told him to leave her alone.

Just as Lydia finally settled on "Witches of the 18th Century," and selected it from the group, the door to the apartment sprung open, and a rain-soaked Isaac and Scott came splashing back inside. Lydia looked up for the first time in 30 minutes, and took in their dishevelled appearance. "When did it start raining?" She asked, standing up with her book under one arm.

"Like 20 minutes ago, Lydia," Stiles said, just as another clap of thunder sounded around them. Stiles stared at Lydia, his mouth open slightly in a look of disbelief mingled with awe. "Seriously, where have you been for the last half hour?"

Lydia shrugged, and sat down on the couch next to Allison. "I was concentrating," She said simply. Stiles made a loud noise of frustration, and fell back on the floor.

"Did you get it?" Allison asked Scott. She was now sitting right side up on the couch.

Scott nodded. "Yeah, I got it," He said, pulling something in a plastic bag out from his wet jacket. Scott removed the bag, and Jackson saw it was a silver hard drive.

Everyone stopped what they were doing, and crowded around Scott as he plugged the hard drive into Allison's computer. "His bestiary needs a whole terabyte?" Allison enquired, examining the drive.

"It's not just a bestiary," Scott explained. "Deaton says it's a whole database, updated by people like him all over the world."

"'People like him?'" Boyd questioned.

"He says they call themselves emissaries. They're like advisers to wolf packs. Deaton says they've been compiling this information for centuries. There has to be something here."

Erica raised her eyebrows. "If they've been gathering this information for centuries, do you realize how long it's going to take us to go through it all?" She glanced around. "Centuries."

"Not if we know what we're looking for," Scott objected. "We can just run a search..."

"We could, if we did," Erica replied. "But we don't."

Scott looked towards Allison. "Don't we?"

Allison hesitated. "Uh, specifically?" Scott nodded. "Then no."

Scott groaned loudly. "Oh man, Erica's right, this'll take forever." Erica smiled, obviously pleased with herself. "Stiles," He said, lifting his head back up. "Show me those snacks you got."

Scott and Stiles disappeared into Allison's kitchen in search of food, while Isaac took off his coat, grabbed a random book from the pile Lydia had made and plunked himself down on the floor beside Boyd. "Anyone find anything while I was gone?" He asked.

"Oh yeah," Boyd replied, not looking up from his book. "We cracked the whole thing wide open."

Isaac nodded, and flipped open his book. "Well that's good."

When Scott and Stiles emerged from the kitchen, their arms were full of junk food; bags of chip, a box of powered donuts, red vines, cookies and Jackson didn't know what else. "Alright, who wants what?" Scott asked, passing the food around. "We have... uh, everything."

"You're welcome," Stiles said, handing Allison a tube of ranch flavoured Pringles. Allison smiled while rolling her eyes.

Erica called for the red vines, and caught them one handed when Scott tossed them over. Isaac grabbed a bag of barbeque flavoured chips from Stiles' arms, causing him to drop a box of Maltesers, which Lydia caught, before settling back on the couch with her book.

Everything was quiet after that. They each had their respective research methods and snacks, and they were ready to get to work. Jackson went back to "Demon, Deities and Bringers of Darkness," occasionally taking red vines from Erica when she offered them. Allison resumed her upside-down reading on the couch, now with Lydia curled up next to her. Scott and Stiles sat across from each other on laptops, Scott going through Derek's bestiary and Stiles browsing Deaton's database.

For an hour, the only sounds were the clicking of keyboards and the turning of pages, punctuated by the sounds of munching and chewing, the occasional rustling of a bag as someone reached for more chips.

"Hey, how about this," Stiles spoke up, punctuating the silence. Jackson glanced up, and so did Allison and Scott; everyone else continued reading. "It's a demon, called the... Nekgeneis. It torments its victims with visions of their dead relatives, making them go insane."

Isaac looked up, and so did Boyd and Erica. Lydia remained absorbed in her book.

Stiles looked around at them, waiting for a response. "Has anyone... anyone seen that? Dead relatives, I mean?"

"Have you?" Scott asked softly. Stiles ducked his dead, and nodded. "Why didn't you tell me that?" Stiles shrugged. "What happened?"

"Ah, not much," Stiles said. "Just my Mom, telling me I killed her by being a massive burden, you know that sort of thing. No big." Stiles forced a grin that went no where near his eyes.

Scott reached out a hand and put it over Stiles, gave him a small squeeze. Then he turned to the group. "Has anyone else experienced anything like that?"

Isaac nodded. "Uh... yeah, kind of. I mean, yes. I saw my Dad..." He trailed off, and shrugged. "He mostly just picked up where we left off."

"I saw my sister," Boyd said, his mouth set in a firm line. "She... she blamed me, said it was my fault she..." He shook his head, and Erica put her arm over his shoulder. Jackson stared at him. He hadn't even known that Boyd had a sister, let alone one who died.

They were all silent again, for a few minutes. "But we know it's witches, not a demon," Allison said. "So it can't be that, right?" She looked around at them.

"Maybe the... Neck-thing can appear as whatever it wants," Scott volunteered. He glanced at Stiles, but Stiles seemed once again engrossed in the database. "Has everyone seen a dead relative?"

Jackson shook his head. "No, no relatives."

"Me neither," Erica said. "Lots of other fun stuff though."

Allison raised her eyebrows. "Like what?"

"None of your business," Erica sneered.

Allison gave her a look. "If we want to find some solid information on who's doing this, we need to know what exactly they've been doing. What everyone's been experiencing or seeing." She turned to Jackson. "Who did you see, Jackson?"

"What?"

"You said you haven't seen any relatives," Allison said. "But you've seen someone. Who?"

Jackson ground his teeth. It took a lot of restraint not to repeat Erica's line. "I saw... Matt," he admitted, through a clenched jaw. "He... he told me I would become a kanima again." Not a lie, not really. Just certain truths left out.

"We won't let that happen," Scott said. Jackson sneered, refusing his pity. Scott rolled his eyes.

Jackson looked at Erica, who had her arms crossed over her chest. Boyd gave her a small nudge, and she glared at him. He raised his eyebrows, and she sighed. "Fine, alright. I've been having seizures again. Everyone happy? That's what's been happening to me." With that, she picked up her book, and shoved her nose back into it, refusing to say any more.

"So, doing a bit more reading," Stiles spoke up. "It turns out that this demon does its thing by excreting parasites that bite its victims, injecting them with a venom that causes the hallucinations. The victims are left with big red bites on their wrists or neck... also there's a picture—" Stiles turned the computer around for them to see. The drawing was of a huge monster that looked like it was made up of melted crayons, with big holes in it's body filled with skittering parasites. "So he's probably not our guy."

"Duh," Lydia mumbled, turning a page in her book.

Everyone sighed, and went back to what they were doing.

Allison's entire brain had gone numb. And her left arm, a little bit. She sat up and stretched, then determinedly turned yet another thick yellow page of "19th Century Witchcraft." She was halfway through the volume, and had been ready to quit approximately 200 pages ago.

It was close to midnight now, and she was beginning to wonder if they were really going through with this whole "no one leaves until we find something" shtick. It had seemed like a good idea at the time... less so, now.

The words on the page blurred in front of her, and Allison began to fantasize about her father coming back early from his business trip—he was supposed to be gone for the entire weekend—and kicking everyone out of the apartment. Then she could get some sleep...

Allison jumped half a mile in the air, sending her book toppling to the floor, as Lydia gave her arm a forceful shove.

"Oh god Allison, I'm sorry!" Lydia said, reaching over to pick her book off the floor. "I was just trying to get your attention."

Allison sighed, waiting for the pounding in her chest to slow. "It's fine, Lydia. What's up?"

Lydia's eyes gleamed, and she sat up on her knees. "I got her. I found her. Look!" She turned her own book towards Allison, and pointed to a charcoal portrait at the bottom of one page. The drawing was of a young, familiar looking girl, with long dark hair and round eyes. The caption read "Charlotte Hasting, 1706."

Allison's mouth fell open.

"It's her," Lydia said excitedly. "The younger sister, the dead one."

"What?"

Allison and Lydia looked up, to find everyone in the room staring at them. It was Erica who had spoken, and she was looking back and forth between the two of them as if they'd lost their minds.

Lydia seemed unconcerned. "The coven sacrificed their youngest sister in their crazy let's-be-all-powerful-uber-witches ritual," She explained. "I saw her when I found Luis Kennedy. This is her!"

"You found Luis Kennedy?" Asked Boyd.

"You saw a dead chick?" Stiles questioned.

Ignoring them both, Allison grabbed the book from Lydia, and began to read the article accompanying the picture. "Fifteen year old Charlotte Hastings (1691-1706, pictured)," Allison read aloud, "Is believed to the first victim of Nan, Abigail and Isbel Hastings, her sisters. Charlotte was found dead in the woods in September 1706, and shortly thereafter the elder Hastings sisters were tried and found guilty of practicing witchcraft and satanic rituals which included the mutilation of their own bodies and the murder of their youngest sister."

"The Hastings sisters were never punished for their crimes, as every participant in their trial was either murdered or committed suicide. Shortly after these events, the town in which they resided burned to the ground. They are believed to have died in the fire, but their fates are unconfirmed."

Allison looked up, speechless. This was them. They had names, lives... They had found them, at last.

"Well," Stiles said, teetering back in his chair. "I guess we can confirm that they didn't die in that fire."

Jackson snorted. "Died in it? They probably set the damn fire."

"They probably made someone else set the fire," Boyd added.

Erica nodded. "And laughed while everything around them burned."

"Stiles," Lydia interrupted. Stiles' head snapped up, and he set the chair back on all four legs. "Do a search for the Hastings sisters, see if there's anything in the database. Scott, do the same thing with the bestiary. Everyone else, start checking indexes."

Stiles saluted, and began typing away on his computer. Lydia retrieved a book out of her purse, a small red book with gold writing on the front, and began to flip through that. Everyone else went back to their books with renewed vigour, aside from Erica and Isaac who did not seem to find this new information as exciting as her and Lydia. Considering what they'd told them they'd been going through, Allison didn't exactly blame them. But still, small as it was, this information felt like everything.

They were getting close, she could feel it.