A/N~ Ok so this is a little late and a little long. They kind of cancel each other out. Very happy that everyone is enjoying this story. Thank you for reading. I think after this story I may take an extended leave to kind of work on a few story ideas. Thanks to all my readers for keeping me going. Reviews would be great though. Posting of chapters will still be sporadic though. ~A

Chapter 52

Stiles looked up as the hunter came into the hospital room. He didn't really seem to be rushing, he was walking but his strides were long-legged and swift as he walked down the hall. His expression grim but determined. The Spark meanwhile was doing his best to stabilize the Beta as best as he could. Jackson's vital signs had started dropping significantly a couple of hours ago.

To the point that Peter had actually looked through the observation glass in a panic at Stiles. The teenager hadn't hesitated a fact that his father was obviously proud of. He may still not be sure of exactly everything that was going on in this town but he was sure of a few things. Things that went bump in the night were real. There were good and bad ones, just like there were good and bad human beings in the world. His son was one of the good ones.

Chris walked over to where Peter was studying some of the lab work. He looked up from the paperwork as soon as his lover came into the ICU unit. The two men conferred for several minutes before they figured out a way to get the cure into Jackson's system. Peter administers the drug with nearly the entirety of the Pack watching.

At first nothing happened then after a few minutes everyone noticed an improvement in Jackson's vital signs. Even though the majority of the Pack had no medical experience, they'd seen enough medical dramas on TV to recognize the improvements when they saw them.

Stiles heaved a bit of a sigh of relief and there were a few muted cheers from the Pack gathered in the ICU waiting room. For which they got scolded by several of the medical staff including Peter although the grin he had on his face belied the sharp tone he used.

Stiles shuffled out of the patients room to be engulfed in the arms of his Mate. He merely made an "Oomph" sound as the rest of the Pack closed in around him for a group hug. None of them said anything they merely stood around the Alpha pair. Chris and Peter were standing in Jackson's room staring out at the group with affection. Laura however was standing outside the group staring at her brother and sister wistfully as they stood in the middle of their Pack.

A slender arm suddenly snaked out of the knot of people and snagged Laura's arm and dragged her into the group. This movement was followed by a ruffle of the hair by her brother. A gesture he had started when he'd had a growth spurt and had gone from five feet eight inches to over six feet in the span of a summer. She hated it and loved the gesture at the same time, and had to smile as she scent marked her brother and sister deeply. Before repeating the gesture with all of the members of her brother's Pack.

The action simply wasn't done, an Alpha showing affection to another Pack was unheard of. The fact that her brother accepted it without comment and even returned it, especially after all that had happened she should have been gob smacked. Cora merely slapped her sister in the shoulder and said, "Don't over think it sis. Just go with the flow."

After everyone eased out of the group hug, Derek went back to being the Alpha he sent several of the Pack members, including his own mate home to sleep, eat, and do homework. He wasn't going to let them get out of school work, just because of a family emergency. That didn't mean he wasn't going to leave Jackson unprotected either.

"I need volunteers, to stand guard over Jackson while he's in the hospital. In his current state he can't defend himself and until we have proof, no one's going to believe that Allison is the one who poisoned him or did all this damage to him." Derek said seriously. Immediately the twins agreed to stay to watch over the Beta, while he was recovering.

John protested, "I think it would be better if I left two of my men on Jackson's door. After all it is what the Sheriff's Department is for."

"Yeah except the department is really short-handed right now, remember dad? So why don't you take the help and use those deputies where you need them more." Stiles reminded.

"You really do know a little too much about my work son." The Sheriff said before agreeing reluctantly to his son's plan, to leave the two werewolves as security for the teen.

Stiles tells his dad, "I'm going to crash at the loft since you're going to be working tonight dad." The Spark heads out to his jeep. While Derek stays behind to work out the schedule so that the Beta would always have at least one werewolf guard on duty.

The Alpha tells the rest of the Pack, "You all head home until its time for your shift to guard Jackson. Get some sleep everyone." He said as he set a chair near the doorway to Jackson's room.

XXXXXXXXX

Scott was actually texting and messing with his phone outside of the hospital. His mother was getting off shift in about a half an hour and rather than go home and wait he had decided to wait for her and escort her home.

He still couldn't believe his sweet Allison was this, this thing. Jackson still hadn't woken up. Ethan and Aiden were playing their part and his mother had promised to introduce them to the oncoming shift. The official story was that a gang had invaded Beacon Hills and were attacking random teens and others. The Whittemore boy was unfortunately just the latest victim.

The grape vine in a small town was all that people said it was. He imagined by the time his mother got off shift the whole town would know they had a dangerous gang in town doing random acts of violence. Although no one was sure if this group of kids could really help if the gang did attack.. The normal citizens of Beacon Hills were convinced of one of two options.

Option one was that the Sheriff and these kids were really a bunch f kids that had been caught in the middle of a gang war, through no fault of their own. The other group were convinced that Whittemore were all part of some kind of gang themselves and they were in the middle of a war with a rival gang who were trying to take over Beacon Hills.

Scott shrugged as he waited. "Not that far off really." he muttered thoughtfully as he continued to study the media feeds on his phone. Then his phone buzzed to let him know that he had a text from Kira.

She texted, Are you okay? How is Jackson?

Scott texted back. I'm good, just waiting on my mom right now. Jackson is still unconscious. The twins are watching over him. Allison is the one who attacked him. Still not sure why. Stay away from her and warn your folks.

There was a long pause and for a minute Scott thought she may have gone to bed or something when suddenly there was another ding on his phone. We think we may know what happened. Came the cryptic response from the other teen. Will be there soon.

The werewolf heard the sirens before he saw the frenzied activity that indicated there was bad coming into emergency. With a resigned air he texted Kira back, I'll be here.

XXXXXXXXX

Stiles was more than a little worn out when he got to the loft. That didn't mean he didn't realize that he had company waiting practically as soon as he arrived. He opened the sliding door to the loft and said amiably enough. "Good evening Allison. Or would you like to tell me your real name?"

"Allison will do nicely for now." she said an amused tone.

"Would you like something to drink? We have bottled water, sweet tea, orange juice, a couple of sports drinks. I wouldn't recommend the tap water. We haven't gotten around to upgrading the plumbing yet, unfortunately."

"I'm fine thank you," the possessed girl said with a slight nod of her head. She stepped away from the panoramic view from the large wall of glass that looked out over the Preserve and the hills beyond.

"Care to have a seat," Stiles said indicating the work table and the backed stools.

"I must say," the hitch hiker said as it took the offered seat and turned to face Stiles as he joined her at the table. "Your being very cordial about this whole thing."

"My mother taught me well," Stiles said with a slight bite in his tone now before adding, "I'll assume your upbringing was a little less a matter of honor and manners and more about violence and chaos."

"Oh I assure you over the centuries I've learned quite a bit about human rituals and mores. I just found them to be a useless affectation for an equally useless species." the cold voice coming out of the smiling and sweet faced Allison was disconcerting.

Stiles had begun to learn from Mary over the past several months that it really wasn't a good idea to let the enemy see when something bothered you as they would ultimately try to find a way to use it against you.

Although technically an emissary usually didn't have to take care of something possessing one of the Pack members often, it wasn't completely unique. The problem was emissary's usually would eliminate the threat, as in kill the possessed individual.

That's why the emissary was usually a neutral party, no messy emotional attachments to get in the way. Stiles wasn't going to be a normal emissary though. For one thing he was also the Alpha Mate, which meant the entire Pack minus the Elders were like his cubs. Even if most of them were the same age or even older than Stiles. Allison wasn't going to die if he could help it.

He saw the expression change just slightly to something less recognizable as Allison, as his expression remained neutral. "Obviously you find something useful about us, or you wouldn't need to keep hitching piggy back rides from us." Stiles said evenly.

The thing wearing Allison's face scowled at being corrected, then smiled like a young woman with a secret, "Oh, I agree. You do have the most amazing capacity for causing chaos and mayhem. Your creativeness in the mediums of blood and destruction are unbounded."

There was a sparkle in her eye as she added, "You know with certain individuals there is really no need for me to do a great deal. A little encouragement here, a slight nudge there, a tweak to an already nearly foolproof plan are all I need to do."

"This one," she continued with a tap to the temple, "hardly needs any help at all. I can't tell you the number of plans her family had already planted in her beautiful little brain. She has a fantastic imagination as well, she took those plans and the permutations…. I just love the permutations."

"Fascinating, and yet instead of out causing trouble, you're sitting here talking to me. Why is that exactly?" Stiles asked his face still expressionless as he placed his chin in his hand and stared back at her unblinkingly.

She looked at him her expression slightly disappointed as she said, "I thought that would be obvious, I want something."

"As I said previously, sort of figured that out by the fact you're here, not out there somewhere wreaking havoc and mayhem on the citizenry." Stiles clarified. Luckily maintaining the unusually stoic façade he had been sporting for some time now.

"Oh I agree that there is a time and place for general chaos but I'm talking about targeted terror, Stiles." Dark eyes sparkling with insanity stared at him, as she continued, "This time it was Jackson. Next time what if it's one of my daddies, or Lydia."

"Yes the Banshee, seems a good target as she's still new. She's not familiar with her powers. I think it would be good to have a little fun with her." she goaded, trying to get a reaction out of the Spark.

"Derek might be a bit more of a challenge, but he does seem the type to take a bullet for a Pack mate doesn't he. Added bonuses, he is the Alpha so if I happen to take him out, the rest of the Pack will be weakened at least temporarily while a new Alpha replaces him. Then on top of that there is the fact that he is your mate and part of the Hale Pack, yes it would definitely have a multitude of advantages to it."

"Or maybe I'll just go after your father." the older teen said slyly.

Stiles eyes snapped up then to meet the dark eyed girls with eyes suddenly burning like embers. "I think you better tell me what you want Faker, before I get bored ." He said coldly.

Still playing the young woman said, "You're no fun."

"I'm tons of fun," the Spark said, his expression not changing one iota as he continued, "Until I'm not. Now what do you want?"

She looked at him for a minute longer until she recognized that he really had no intention of continuing to play her game with her. She pouted but she wanted to take advantage of these few minutes and she really wanted this artifact out of the protectors hands and in her own.

"Very well," she said with a huff. "The Hales have an artifact, a round wooden box with their family's mark carved into the top. You've bonded with the Nemeton right?"

Stiles nodded reluctantly, studying the skin bag she was wearing. Really could this one be more annoying? "Good then you should be able to recognize it's wood. The box is made from the wood of the Nemeton. I'm not really sure which one of the Hales has it but one of them is protecting it."

"Bring it with you to the school tomorrow evening. Well…no.. I guess its later this evening now." She said as she glanced at her cell phone. "Tick tock, Stiles, tick tock." Allison said as she stood and left the loft as calm and cool as if she owned the place.

XXXXXXXXXX

When Peter's shift finally ended he and his mate exited the hospital. Although Peter was exhausted and upset about the young werewolf in the ICU but he also knew they needed to decide what to do with the former Marshall.

The fact that the young woman was obsessed with his mate and now insisted on blaming him for the loss of her job, had Peter's hackles raised. Needless to say the Bolverk was always very protective of his Pack, but his mate and children were beyond the norm.

Allison's absence and obviously strange and dangerous behavior had the Beta wanting to go and track his daughter down. Considering the way she was raised though that would be potentially suicidal, especially in the dark.

They arrived at Chris warehouse where Boyd, Erica and Issac were waiting with the incensed Braeden. The dark haired woman was tied to a chair with a gag stuffed in her mouth. Peter raised his eyebrow at the younger Betas questioningly.

Erica replied to the implied question, "Her voice was getting on my nerves," she explained testily.

"Challenging to interrogate someone when they have a gag in her mouth." Peter said with a hint of sarcasm in his tone. Issac always quick to please, removed the gag from the woman's mouth quickly and carefully.

"You don't have to interrogate me," Braeden said harshly. "I'll tell you why I'm here." She said looking at the two men. "I know he's assassinated several people and that they were part of the supernatural. When I tried to tell my bosses about the supernatural angle they fired me for being obsessed with the Desert Wolf cases."

"They refused to listen to me." she continued bitterly, "They fired me when I wouldn't let it go."

"Danny looked her up, she's a mercenary now," Erica said helpfully as she paced around the other woman. "Kind of altruistic but she isn't completely ruthless and isn't beyond helping our kind. Although you usually do have to pay her."

Boyd caught the female Beta by the nape of her neck and reeled her to his side. The large Beta continued to massage the blonds neck for reassurance. Chris replied, "I don't suppose it matters why those people died?" the arms dealer asked.

"Why would it?" Braeden snarled.

"Because they were killers," Peter interjected angrily.

Braeden's head snapped around to look between the two men before asking, "What are you talking about?"

The couple looked at each other, as though they were having a conversation in that gaze. Chris sighed and shook his head, "The people who died were rogues werewolves or other supernatural's who had killed humans."

"Or didn't you do your research?" Issac asked. "It's not like it was that hard for Danny to find it out. Course he has skills."

The mercenary bristled before asking in a brittle tone, "Are you saying this is online?"

"According to Danny all of this stuff about the people who were assassinated being suspected of various murders and other crimes. Yeah all of that is online." Issac responded seriously.

"Yeah, so why was is it you didn't know it?" Erica asked and there was no mistaking the nasty tone in her voice. "Better yet why didn't your bosses know it. After all the government has even better computer experts than Danny so why didn't they know. Why didn't they tell you all of this?"

The expression on Braeden's face was indescribable. Doubt, anger, several other emotions flitted across the expressive and beautiful face. She looked at them her face hostile and suspicious. Erica answered the expression with her bitch face, but the others wore open expressions not without a little suspicion on Peter's face.

They weren't lying she would bet her Glock on it and she loved that gun. Her mind, her wild angry thoughts suddenly focused to laser beam clarity. Certain things she had heard, looks she had seen, disparate little its and pieces that hadn't seemed to fit into the puzzle of the Desert Wolf, fit together into a different puzzle.

It was part of a larger puzzle and there were some rather large empty areas in the new puzzle but there were also a lot of players that fit into that puzzle. Players she knew all too well, some of them she was even related too. Although why they would be against these people was still a mystery to her.

She was so focused on her own thoughts it took her a few minutes to register that something had happened in this small group around her. For one thing the man who had stood beside the Desert Wolf, was actually releasing her from the chair.

She stopped him as he tried to return to the other man's side. An action which had everyone else bristling in the large bare walled place. Peter raised his hand and the growls from the werewolves ceased. The hunter who had his gun aimed at the woman paused as Braeden asked, "Why?"

Peter merely smiled and there was a cold expression in his eyes as he said, "I've not been a good person for a long time," Peter said and there was no remorse in the confession. Chris made to protest, only to have the werewolf shake his head at his lover, "At first I did the things I did because my sister commanded it. Or because I perceived it was for the good of the Pack or my family."

"Now I have a new perspective. My daughters, my mate, my Pack has changed me. Made me a better person. I will still defend them, protect them, maybe even kill for them. But I will also have to set an example for those who come after so I will think about it more. You are going to be the start of that for me, so I thank you for that." As he finished the statement he extended his hand to her.

Braeden studied the man she had been chasing for four years and rose from the chair. She grasped his hand and felt him shake it firmly before releasing it and returning to the silver haired man's side.

The mercenary drew a deep breath and said, "Decaulion is the one who let me know where you were. Just so you know I don't think he was doing it to set you up. I think he knew this would happen," she continued, indicating the space between she and Peter with a wave of her hand.

"I have some things to clear up and I may come back if that's okay?" she asked a little more timidly.

Peter and Chris glanced at each other before nodding at the young woman. She glanced over only to discover that the teenaged werewolves had already disappeared. Apparently having decided that the fact their elders had released the mercenary meant their services were no longer required.

"You know where to find me." Peter offered, his face slid into it's Beta form and he looked over at his mate before adding with amusement lacing his gruffer tone, "I'm not hiding."

With that the two men headed out of the warehouse hand in hand.

XXXXXXXXX

Scott had stopped hanging around the entrance to the emergency room when the ambulances had started arriving at the entrance. By the time that Kira and her mother had arrived he was out on the sidewalk nearer the parking lot.

He had heard that there was an explosion at the Sheriff's station he had already called the Sheriff and found out that he was fine but that there were several of the deputies who had been seriously injured in the bomb blast.

The fact that it was a bomb and not some accident like a gas leak had been confirmed by Parrish. Interestingly several of the victims said that at the moment of the blast, a fiery angel-like being had protected them by gathering several of them under the protection of it's wings.

This only served to convince several of the hospital staff that some gas had been involved and that the group were suffering from a group hallucination. Scott hadn't stuck around after the doctors started talking PTSD and psych evals. He rolled his head around on his neck trying to release some of the tension in his shoulders.

He didn't want to think it but he was pretty sure that Allison had been taught about explosives and so forth by the Argents. He just didn't have the guts to call and ask Chris Argent if that subject was really on the Hunters training regimen or not.

The wind had actually picked up around the hospital and he began to hope that Kira would get here before what promised to be a doozy of a storm hit. He also hoped that his mom would be done with her shift before the bottom fell out. He hated riding his motorbike in the rain and he didn't want to ride with his mom and leave his bike here either, especially not in the rain.

The rain started almost as soon as he had the thought. It was bad enough, the rain seeming to come down in sheets but the addition of the wind had the rain swirling around and soaking everyone and everything. The addition of the crowded entrance to the emergency room, and slick roads had one of the ambulance drivers swerving, sliding, and slamming into an electrical pole.

Scott started to run forward to help as did several others when the electrical line came loose from the top of the pole. The line sparked and whipped around like a living thing. Suddenly he saw someone flip off the top of a car to catch the line. It wasn't until she landed about twenty feet in front of him, that Scott recognized Kira. Before he could say anything she closed her eyes and wrapped her bare hand around the sparking end of the electrical cable.

The power of the electrical lights on the hospital sign and the facility itself. Kira opened her eyes and their eyes met, hers glowing orange. Scott felt his own eyes flash golden at her and she smiled. She carried the cable over to the bottom of the power pole and dropped it there in the grass. Scott noticed that the end of the cable was no longer sparking.

He wondered how she had done that and as a host of other questions occurred to him. A woman he vaguely recognized as Kira's mom was trying to hustle her daughter away from the gathering crowds. Scott added a little wolf speed and was suddenly in front of the duo. "So," he said conversationally, "is this what you wanted to tell me?"

The girl extracted herself gently from her mothers grasp as she said, "Some of it. Can you handle this?"

Scott looked around to see the crowds that had come to help were more interested in a couple of people who had been shocked and the patients that had been in the ambulance that had wrecked, than in their little group. He still guided Kira and her mother to a darkened part of the parking lot to continue their conversation.

"Truth for truth," he said honestly. "If you can handle this I can handle your secret," before shifting in front of the pair.

"Wolf," snarled Mrs. Yukimura.

"Kitsune," said Kira with a wide smile as she reached out to touch Scott's ears wonderingly.

"What's a kitsune?" Scott asked.

Despite her mothers repeated attempts to shush her daughter, Kira proceeded to tell him about kitsunes, the history, the different types, and about the Nogitsune. "Basically it's a Void, it's always hungry and it feeds on chaos, mayhem, strife."

"So how do we stop it? How do we force it out of the host, without hurting the host?" Scott asked.

Mrs. Yukimura answered and there was no mistaking her hostility as she said, "You don't? It has to leave the host willingly, and it's not going to do that unless the host is dead or dying. The host is a friend of yours?" she asked, not without compassion, "The only way to save your friend is to kill them. They will be dead but at least you will have saved the lives of hundreds of others as well as the soul of your friend from the corruption of the Nogitsune."