A/N: This chapter is a little short, for which you all have my sincerest apologies, but I liked the place it left off too much to change it.

Chapter Twenty-Five

"What?" several people ask, and there's a general clamor as people shift and demand answers. Danny looks somewhat disconcerted by the sudden influx of naked people, but nobody else seems to notice or care, not even Isaac, who's typically the most modest.

"Don't you see, it's perfect, it's so obvious," Stiles says. "Where are the two places we haven't been going while he's here? The warehouse and the Hale house. Because we know he knows that we might go there. He invited us to have that meeting at the damned warehouse so we would know he knew about it. And then he set up camp. Why is he just wandering aimlessly around the neighborhood before and afterwards? Because there was nowhere for him to come from and nowhere for him to go. He just had to vacate the premises long enough for us to get in and then leave. Every other time, he's just appeared out of the walls, but this time he didn't, because he didn't want us thinking that he was already there. It makes perfect sense!"

"Except for the part where it's three in the morning?" Scott says, clearly not yet on Stiles' brilliant wavelength.

"Ignore that part," Stiles says, flapping a hand at him. "And it's all thanks to Peter fucking Hale!" he adds, because he knows it's true. If he hadn't been so dead set against going to sleep, he wouldn't have just sat there, staring at the monitor, for upwards of forty minutes. In a strange way, he does have his own trauma to thank for this discovery.

Nobody knows what to say to that, so they decide to let it go. "Are you sure?" Derek asks.

"No way to be one hundred percent sure without going there to check it out, but it makes sense," Stiles says. "But we'll have to be careful. I don't want to scare him into moving again."

"Okay," Derek says. The wolves are settling back down. Erica and Boyd have already flopped over and gone back to sleep. Allison is yawning and Danny is rubbing his eyes. Derek narrows his eyes at Stiles and says, "I thought you were going to try that new sleeping pill."

"I, uh, yeah, I didn't," Stiles admits.

"Then go take it now and get some sleep," Derek says.

"No way, if I take it now and it works I'll sleep until three PM tomorrow and there's stuff we're going to need to do," Stiles says, but when Derek glares at him, he adds, reluctantly, "but I will come try to sleep, at least."

The wolves seem to decide that Stiles is not going to be allowed to get up again. When he lies down in the cushions, not only does Derek shift back and settle with his head on Stiles' chest, but Scott is lying across his feet, Erica's head is on his thigh, and Lydia is pressed against his other side. He rolls his eyes a little but tries to sleep anyway. He's had way too much Adderall and caffeine, and his mind clicks away at possibilities and plans until he eventually drifts off around dawn.

He leaps out of bed less than two hours later when he wakes up and finds that most of the pack is stirring. "We're splitting into two groups," he says. "Scratch that, three. Allison, I want you to go talk to you dad. Explain to him that we've found Stone, we need to check out the warehouse, ask if he's willing to come along and if he has any tools that might help us out. Scott, go see Deaton. I want to know if he can tell us how Stone always knows when we're on his turf. I'm going to go talk to my dad. Need to get some advice. Hey, there's nine of us, we split up pretty nicely into three now . . ."

Derek and Erica, of course, opt to go with Stiles. Allison takes Lydia and Isaac, as her father generally finds them inoffensive, which leaves Boyd and Danny with Scott. Scott doesn't have his own car, but Danny does, so he drives. Stiles, of course, still has his rented Civic. "So what do you want to talk to your dad about?" Erica asks, as he backs out of the parking space.

"Specifically," Stiles says, "I want him to find a safe place down at the station to put this bullet while we go confront Stone. Then I want him to find me a similar gun and fire it at a wall so I can bring a bullet that looks like the one Stone wants but isn't. Just in case a possible trade situation comes up and I need to string him along."

"Gotcha," Erica says, nodding. "Genius at work," she adds, grinning at him.

Stiles grins back at her despite everything. For the first time since Stone's arrival, he feels like he has the upper hand. He's going to get that piece of shit to pay attention to him and his fake bullet trade long enough for Chris to take him out. That's the plan, and he's sticking to it.

"Hey, Dad?" He pushes the door to his house open and jogs inside with the other two on his heels. "You home?"

"It's Sunday morning, where else would I be?" Stilinski asks from the kitchen, where he's drinking coffee and doing the crossword puzzle. He's terrible at them, and is known to simply make up answers and pretend that he doesn't notice the inconsistencies. "You look suspiciously perky."

"Today has been unexpectedly awesome," Stiles says. "Ooh, hey, coffee," he adds, going for a mug while Derek rolls his eyes. "Okay, so, here's the sitch," he says, and starts summing things up. He gets through the bullet and the warehouse and the surveillance camera footage and everything. He talks about the theoretical trade but doesn't mention the idea of a sniper shot. There are some things his father doesn't need to know; the fact that he's aiding and abetting his son planning a murder is definitely one of them.

Sheriff Stilinski takes the bullet and says, "Not very large caliber. Probably a 9 mm of some sort. Shouldn't be a problem to find something similar. Won't even have to fire one; we can take one out of evidence."

"Cool," Stiles says, bouncing in his chair. "As long as it won't fuck up an existing case, that is." He takes the bullet back from his father and tucks it into the pocket of his jeans. He'll hang onto it until they get somewhere he can put it. "Can we use your safe at the office?"

"Sure," Stilinski says. He rises to his feet but then stumbles suddenly. Derek, who never sat down, grabs him before he can fall.

"You okay?" Stiles asks, shooting upright.

"Yeah, I just – nngh!" Stilinski lets out a cry of pain and sags against Derek.

"What is it, what's wrong?" Stiles asks, his voice rising in panic. "Is – is it your chest? What about your left shoulder – " This is it, then, the moment he's been dreading ever since he was old enough to understand what 'cholesterol' was –

"No, it's – " Stilinski manages to choke the words out. "I just hurt – "

Derek eases him down onto the floor, and Stilinski doubles over, curling up a little. "Hurt where?" Derek asks, in that calm, flat tone he gets when he's extremely worried. "Talk to us."

"My – my head and my stomach and – " Stilinski breaks off into another groan.

Stiles grabs his phone and dials 911. He gets a busy signal. This makes him blink, startled out of his panic. He didn't know you could get a busy signal at 911. He hangs up and tries again. Same result. He's about to tell Erica to try her phone when his own rings with an incoming call. He looks down and sees that it's Allison, and grabs it. "Are you okay?"

"I am, but, but my dad, something's wrong with him," Allison says, breathless with fear. "My mom, too. She just collapsed. Dad's doing a little better, but he says he feels like he's being stabbed with hot pokers all over and I – "

Stiles' phone beeps to let him know that someone else is trying to call him. He knows without even looking that it has to be Scott. "Allison, I need you to take a deep breath," he says. "Something's going on, obviously, something magical and bad. Scott's calling me and I need to talk to him to see if I can get Deaton on the line. Make your parents as comfortable as you can and then haul ass back to my place."

Allison agrees, tearful but in control. Stiles jabs the screen of his phone to accept Scott's call. "What's going on?" he asks, scrambling for the bag of mountain ash he's been keeping in his backpack. Derek is still holding onto his father, bracing him as he struggles not to cry out.

"Something's wrong over here," Scott says. "Deaton's okay, but there was this couple here, their dog got hit by a car and they called him so he came in, and he had just finished surgery and was talking to them when we got here. But then all of a sudden, they just collapsed. He says there's some heavy duty magic going around. They're okay, he put them in that copper circle in his basement, but he says Stone must be casting some huge magical spell."

"Put him on," Stiles says, and moments later Deaton is on the phone. "What can we do?"

"I don't know." Deaton sounds shaken. "Stiles, I don't – I don't understand how he's doing this. A spell of this magnitude – he shouldn't be capable of it."

"Is he just tossing it out like a fishing net?" Stiles asks. "And we're okay because we've got the protection charms? Because I would understand if it was just my dad and Allison's dad, he knows who we are so theoretically he could target people close to us, but some random people who happened to be in your office? Could it be targeted by space, or is it going to affect everyone in town?"

"I'm not sure," Deaton says.

Stiles grits his teeth. "Are you sure of anything?" he asks.

"Only that, in order to do this, there must be a large power source," Deaton says. "This isn't the kind of spell he could do on his own."

"Like, something he's using as a battery," Stiles says, and Deaton confirms. "I know where he is. If we go there, can you get us inside without him knowing the instant we set foot there?"

"Yes," Deaton says. "That I can do."

"Okay. Put Scott on." Stiles realizes that he's ordering Deaton around like he's a wayward wolf cub, and is about to apologize when Scott's voice comes back on. "Take Deaton and get to the warehouse. We'll meet you at the corner of ninth and Carson street and converge from there."

"Okay," Scott says, and hangs up.

"Call Allison," Stiles snaps to Erica. "Tell her where to meet us. Derek, get my dad into the living room. I'm going to put him in mountain ash."

"No." Stilinski grits his teeth and shoves his way up to his knees. "I'm going with you."

"Dad, you can't – "

"There's nothing physically wrong with me," his father says. "I can handle some pain. The last year and a half, every time I turn around, you're going into danger without me. Not this time. I'm going with you whether you like it or not."

Stiles swallows, but then gives a jerky nod. He would feel the same way if he were in his father's shoes, so he can't exactly argue; if for no other reason, he doesn't have time. "Derek, help him," he says, and Derek nods and gives the sheriff something to lean on. "Dad, we're taking your car. I have a feeling it might be messy out there."

His feeling is absolutely correct. The spell hit suddenly, and the effects are everywhere they go. They see cars that have skidded off the road or pulled over, a woman who was walking her dog who has curled up on the sidewalk while the dog anxiously licks her face, a group of children who had been outside playing hopscotch crying in a driveway.

"Motherfucker," Stiles snarls, punching the steering wheel. "How the fuck did he do this?"

"What did Deaton say?" Derek asks.

Stiles gives him the gist of it. "And that matches up with what I've read, I mean, it's one thing to do little voodoo dolls or mess with my brake lines, but fuck, something like this? Not only would it be huge on a representational scale – which again means that the warehouse is the most likely place for him to be, fuck, nobody ever goes there – but he can't just power it with a wave of his hand. Nobody has this much power."

"What can you use as a, you know, battery?" Erica asks.

"I've got no clue, and I didn't have time to ask Deaton."

Stiles burns rubber all the way there, lights and sirens wailing, narrowly avoiding three accidents. His father is clearly gritting his teeth in the passenger's seat. Stiles can see his fists clenching, both against the pain and Stiles' driving. But he isn't the only one who's decided to come along despite the factors that weigh against it: Allison is standing on the corner with an arm around her father's waist, keeping Chris on his feet. Stiles pulls the cruiser up to the curb and they unload. He gives Chris a brisk nod. "How're you doing?"

"I've had worse," Chris grinds out, "but not very often."

"How's your mom?" Stiles asks Allison.

She grimaces a little. "She wanted to come, too, but . . . she's not really a fighter, you know?"

Despite the situation, Stiles almost cracks a grin. He can almost hear Victoria quoting Robin Hood. 'I've given birth to eight babies; don't you talk to me about gettin' hurt!' He clears his throat and hastens onward. "Have we heard from anyone else?"

"My mom called me to see if I was okay," Erica says, much subdued from her normal fiery self. "She . . . she's okay, but she's scared."

Lydia and Isaac haven't heard from anybody, and Derek has no one to hear from, so that's it for the time being. Stiles sends Erica to try to get a look in the warehouse, mainly to distract her and give her something to focus on. But she comes back saying the windows have all been blacked out. Scott shows up with Deaton and the others a minute later.

"Check in with your mom?" he asks Scott.

He nods. "Yeah, fuck, she's on shift at the ER today and she says it's a fucking madhouse, and of course all the doctors and nurses are in as much pain as everyone else but still trying to do their jobs."

"Jackson called, too," Danny says, his tanned skin paler than usual. "Freaking out because his parents are affected. He's okay. He was wearing the charm."

Stiles bites back the urge to say he really wishes he'd thought about getting a charm for his own father before getting one for Jackson, but there's no use worrying about it now. "Okay," he says, and turns to Deaton. "Get us in."

Deaton lets out a breath and nods. Then he says, "I need a hair from each person going in."

Stiles looks at his father and Chris. "I suppose there's no chance I can convince the two of you to wait out here?" he says, and they give him identical 'I don't think so' looks. "Okay then. Give the man a hair."

Deaton holds out a little Zip-lock bag, and one by one, everyone present puts a hair inside. He kneels down with a piece of chalk and draws a circle around the bag and several symbols. Then he holds his hands over it with his eyes closed for what feels like an eternity to Stiles. After which he opens his eyes and says, "That should keep us under any magical radar he's set up. Of course, if we walk in and he's standing right there, it won't help us."

"Good enough," Stiles says. "But he's almost guaranteed to be there, right? To be working the spell? This isn't exactly a set-up-and-walk-away sort of thing."

"It could be," Deaton says. "Depending on what's powering it. He can't be powering it himself. If he's got it hooked up to some kind of magical generator, then theoretically, yes, he could walk away."

"But he'll know we're coming," Allison says, anxiously gripping her bow. "He'll be waiting for us."

"Right, but he might not be waiting inside," Chris points out. "Not if he's relying on his magic to tell us when we get there."

Stiles lets out a breath. "Only one way to find out," he says, and starts purposefully towards the warehouse. The others fan out behind him. Derek is still supporting Sheriff Stilinski, and Allison and Lydia are on either side of Chris, helping him hobble along. Deaton is unaffected by the magic; Stiles presumes that he has protection charms of his own that have nothing to do with Stone.

The warehouse looks nothing like the last time he saw it. Everything has been pushed aside – boxes, shelving units, even the old subway car. The interior of the warehouse has been left completely bare of what it had once contained. Instead, there's a massive web of red and black thread inside, like the one that Stone had used to interrupt the pack bond but a hundred times larger. The threads are linked and tangled, spanning all four walls, always red and black twined together. And the walls themselves are covered with photographs. They've clearly been taken all over town. A snapshot of the inside of the Starbucks. The waiting line at the DMV. The stands at a lacrosse game.

"Jesus," Stiles breathes out. "He's been working on this for months . . ."

There are undoubtedly a few people he's missed, but from the number of photographs, Stiles wouldn't be surprised if he had ninety-eight percent of Beacon Hills linked into this spell. He sees both his father and Chris Argent in a photograph from the lacrosse game. They've clearly just scored; Sheriff Stilinski is standing with his fist thrust in the air. Melissa McCall is in the same picture. He sees Erica's parents in a restaurant. Jackson's dad as he gets out of his car in a grocery store parking lot. Most of his classmates are in there somewhere. In some of the pictures, people are wearing tank tops and shorts. Stone has been taking pictures since the day he arrived in town.

As the threads move from the photographs on the walls to the center of the web, they start to weave together more densely. By the time they reach the center, they're as thick as a rope, braiding together into one circle that's around a man's neck, tied like a noose. It's tight enough that it's pressed against his skin – but more than that, it seems to be attached to him, digging into his skin and burrowing there. The veins in his neck are maroon where the threads are drawing out the life of the man inside and using that energy to spread pain and pandemonium throughout the city.

"My God," Deaton says, seeing the center of the web. "This . . . this is an abomination. How could he . . ."

The others are outright staring. It's only Chris who has to narrow his eyes and say, "Who is that?"

But Stiles knows, of course he knows, he's the one who told Stone to use, who he hates most. It's Adrian Harris.