Chapter 76

"I can't just scream," Lydia protested, although Stiles heard her gather some things and walk through Peter's apartment at a decent clip. "I'll come to you."

"No, wait-"

But it was too late. Lydia had hung up on him and Stiles nearly passed out from the effort to keep his mountain ash moving, even if it was sluggishly.

Peter's grip around his neck tightened a little and suddenly Stiles felt like he'd downed two or even three energy drinks at once.

"What are you doing?" he asked, incredulous, even as he forced the ash into motion against its binding and lashed out against the wolf spirit he knew to be Deucalion. The silver and mistletoe mixed with it seemed to deliver a lasting blow and Stiles' mountain ash managed to slot another ward stone into its hole and bury it.

Peter sat down, eyelids lowered and his expression one of intense concentration. "I'm feeding you power from my alpha spark. I didn't think it'd work for a human, but apparently, it does if the human has sufficient magic himself." His voice lowered and he rumbled, "You're doing so well, sweetheart. Far better than I had hoped."

"Derek and Isaac are getting a nasty beating, though," Stiles muttered. A sudden jolt pulled him out of his moroseness. "Uh, wow! That's Scalyboy! He made contact with my ash and managed to scratch one of the twins. The dude went down like a ton of bricks! That's amazing! He even feels out cold. Good for Derek, Deucalion is still enough of a threat."

"Too bad you haven't had a good talk about killing one's enemies, yet," Peter replied. "That would turn the tables quite nicely."

"You mean you haven't been able to sway his dad to your way of thinking," Stiles retorted, some of his sarcasm returning with the influx of energy. "Jackson was ambivalent, the one time we touched on it. I don't think he's anywhere close to being ready for that."

"As I said, a shame," Peter rumbled, but he didn't sound upset. His mouth nearly touched Stiles' ear, sending a shiver down his back. "I can feel an echo of what you're doing … is that … ?"

"Ennis? Yep." With some effort, Stiles managed to punt said werewolf several dozen yards into the tree line and immediately disabled him by jamming a huge needle of silver and mistletoe-infused mountain ash into the meat of his shoulder. After that, it was child's play to order a bit of the ash to remain inside the man and keep him down until the fight was over.

Too soon, however, that heavy, dragging feeling was back, although the foreign force did seem to be straining now, as well.

"Shit," Stiles cursed when he missed incapacitating the second twin on the other side of the city by mere inches. "The magic user's upping their attack. How long can you keep doing your alpha mojo?"

Peter growled as sweat beaded on his forehead. "Not indefinitely, unfortunately."

For another few minutes, they somehow managed to keep the remaining two alphas from stealing more stones, but Stiles was also too handicapped to place the backups while also defending his friends.

And then, all of a sudden, Lydia was there and crouching down before Stiles. Her hands grabbed his cramping fingers and her pale eyes bored into his. Even her presence in his moment of despair was such a relief that Stiles could have cried.

Urgently, Lydia said, "I'm here. I have no idea how to scream like that on purpose, so you'll have to tell me how to do it. I haven't gotten that far in my studies yet."

Peter had trouble reining in his red eyes. He, too, was beginning to lose his strength, evidenced by the sweat on his face and neck and his slight pallor. "A banshee's magic isn't just passive. So far, you've only picked up on someone's unnatural passing and screamed to signal its injustice. Now you need to do it in reverse: threaten someone with justice if they don't cease their unnatural doings."

"You do know that it's not as easy as you make it sound," Lydia sniped even as she nodded her understanding of the principle.

"It can be. All you really need is a target," Peter replied, visibly controlling his slipping temper. He furtively looked around, but their hiding place in a small copse of trees was still safe for now. It helped that the sun was fully down now and the lanterns in the park barely reached them … and that they had placed stealth runes before beginning their operation. "As a magical being, all you have to do is turn your intent on the interloper. You must want to harm them with your powers."

"Oh, that's not a problem," Lydia said and narrowed her eyes. "Stiles looks like the walking dead; I'll get that magic-using bitch for that."

With a neat little manoeuvre that only girls possessed, she rose to her feet again without so much as wrinkling her short summer dress, never mind flashing someone. An intense look of concentration settled on her face and in the mild summer air, her long red hair was swaying gently.

"Try to protect your ears," Peter advised, letting go of Stiles to do just that.

Stiles quickly followed his example, peeking up at Lydia from tired eyes.

Time seemed to halt for a second. There were no bird sounds and no kids' screams. Even the air seemed to stall in Stiles' lungs. A feeling of electric static settled onto his skin like a layer of clingfilm, sticky and annoying like a thousand strands of spider silk.

Then, Lydia screamed.

It started like a normal, human scream, but it quickly became louder and more shrill, gaining depth and volume even after a normal scream would've long since petered out. Following that first agonizing pitch, a subtle wave of magic burst from Lydia and rolled out and away in a veritable blast radius.

Stiles pressed his hands to his ears so tightly that even Lou couldn't quite negate the pain, but it was still so much better than getting caught up in Lydia's horrifying wail. Every hair on his body stood up and he felt incredibly judged. If that was what Peter meant by being judged by The Council's magic, Stiles could happily pass on that experience for the rest of his days.

Morbidly curious as he was, he still strained to see how everyone else was faring. Peter, to no one's surprise, was cringing even worse under the assault than Stiles, but what Stiles could glimpse of the people lounging on the grass around their little hiding place or walking the paths, showed that the normal good people of Beacon Hills weren't faring any better. Everyone was holding their ears and screaming in pain, several of them so disoriented that they'd dropped where they stood and curled up in a foetal position.

The singeing, furious magic flooding the city was like its own entity - Stiles knew because his mountain ash was quivering with it and defecting from his control after an urgent nudge - before finding what it was looking for and attacking with the ferocity of a starving animal. Combined, Lydia's voice and Stiles' mountain ash found someone distinctly female and knocked her out viciously.

Right at that moment, something audibly snapped in Stiles' mind and suddenly he felt so light and powerful that he nearly floated from his cramped crouch. It was disorienting, to say the least, especially since his ears were still ringing madly.

Finish the work, Lou hollered, his stash of mountain ash racing over Stiles' skin in crazy patterns. Now!

"Okay," Stiles croaked, in no state to argue.

He gathered what wits he could recover about him and sent all of his will and belief to the mountain ash on the front lines. The very first objective was to freeze the enemy, which it did in seconds given that Lydia's banshee scream had felled them like trees. Afterwards, all the stolen ward stones were recovered and placed into their assigned holes and buried.

Then, because he was a vindictive fucker when his family and friends were threatened, Stiles injected the twins and Deucalion with mountain ash as well, just to punish them for their attack and slow them down. It'd also give their allied magic user something to do.

Stiles really hoped Jackson had been able to find the witch because he was already tired of someone trying to cripple his magical efforts before he'd had a chance to seriously study the arts.

"You did good," Peter murmured through a thick fog in Stiles' brain, his arm back around Stiles' shoulders. "Let go now. I've got you."

Stiles sucked in a deep breath and forced himself to relax his stranglehold on the ash. He allowed himself exactly four seconds of snuggling before tapping Lydia's leg and supporting her as she went down. "Hey, you alright?"

Lydia was deathly pale and her fingers weak and trembling in Stiles' grip. "I don't feel so good," she whispered hoarsely.

"You probably saved Derek and Isaac's lives," Peter told her. "Well done, and thank you."

"Gimme the bag," Stiles said and made grabby hands at the backpack he'd carried here. "Let's get our electrolytes back up. It's no cola, but I promise that it'll revive us well enough."

He handed out two half-litre bottles of homemade lemonade that Derek had enhanced with potassium salt and vitamins and accepted half of Peter's after the werewolf had chugged down his share. Fat sandwiches followed which all of them scarfed down with relish.

"You mentioned that doing magic made you hungry, but I had no idea," Lydia mumbled in-between large bites of her ham and cheese sandwich. She glanced at Peter. "It's a good thing you're rich, I guess. Feeding werewolves and magical humans must be expensive."

"It's worth it," Peter replied, swallowing down his deli chicken salad sandwich. "Speaking of food, I'm still starving. Will you be alright for a bit while I find more?"

"Yeah, things are working fine now," Stiles said. "What will you get?"

"I thought chicken bites and fries, the diner is only a couple of blocks away," Peter said, though not with a little moue of distaste. "It's quick and easy, if not exactly nutritious."

"It's good enough," Stiles declared.

"Can you also bring some fruit or a small salad?" Lydia requested. "I need something decent with that or I'll be depressed for a week."

Stiles sighed. "I hate it when people make me feel guilty about my food choices. Salad for me, too, please."

"Noted. Don't move, I'll be back in a few minutes. Do me a favour and call the others. Ask them to join you here," Peter instructed. "We'll go back to my apartment together; I'm not risking you on a false sense of security."

"Will do," Stiles promised.

As soon as Peter had left the tiny clearing, Lydia was on the phone, trying to reach Jackson. Stiles called Isaac first since he'd taken more damage than Derek. His sustained pain was echoing through the mountain ash connection as the ash was trying to stem the worst of the bleeding without impeding Isaac's ability to move.

"Use what cards you have but then come here at once," Stiles insisted when Isaac tried to play down his injuries. "My backpack is full of healing cards and I also brought the healing dice. I'll use them right now because Lydia's scream hurt some people at the park pretty badly. Plus, Peter's getting food to tide us over until we can go home."

He hung up and dialled Derek, who was far more receptive to his request.

"I could eliminate the alphas before I find you," Derek said, still breathing hard. His voice was calm, however, and he didn't sound overly stressed. "I should do it while I still can. The one the kanima took out is still paralyzed, he'd be easy pickings."

"Let's not," Stiles retorted. "I appreciate the offer, but you'll hate yourself tomorrow and that's just not on. My dad would agree."

There was a long moment of silence. At last, Derek murmured, "I wouldn't mind, this time. They're a huge threat. And I could do with the extra power."

Stiles closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "You could, but do you want it? Be honest, Sourwolf."

Derek was silent for a long, long minute. "No," he finally admitted. "Not really."

"We'll talk about it later when we've got the time. In the meantime here's my counteroffer: you leave them alive but put the fear of God into them. Tell them that their life is fucking forfeit if they decide to attack a third time," Stiles said, meaning it. "Second chances are all fine and dandy, but they're on their third now and no matter what my dad might say, enough is enough. The same goes for their magic bitch."

"Okay," Derek agreed and hung up.

"It suits you," Lydia commented thoughtfully, "your dedication to the … the pack. And the city. Contrary to popular belief I don't hate living here."

"Well, it's not like I could talk any of them out of it if they really wanted to do it," Stiles retorted huffily. "You bet that Peter would've killed at least the leader if he'd been there."

She pursed her lips. "I'm not sure I could fault him for it. The alphas were terrifying on that security video ... but I agree that it'd be cheap to use Derek and Isaac for that. Or Jackson."

"Peter tends to vanish his enemies himself if he can help it anyway," Stiles said. "That's what makes him a good alpha, you know."

"You don't have to sing his praises. I've accepted him as the supernatural authority in Beacon Hills and your significant other a while ago," Lydia informed him and smirked when Stiles winced. "Oh, relax. None of us will tell anyone, not even Jackson. You do want to keep the eye-fucking down to a minimum, though, because I don't think our magical abilities include memory-wiping."

"They should," Stiles muttered. After a few seconds of scowling, he slumped a little. "Thanks, Lydia."

"You're welcome. Here, take some of my lemonade. I've had enough," she offered.

A few minutes later Peter was already back, carrying four huge, bulging paper bags with fast food. Like wolves, Stiles and Lydia raided one of those and stuffed chicken and fries into their mouths with abandon.

Isaac arrived first, just before the first police squad car, and gratefully grabbed one paper bag. As he ate, Stiles monitored the healing on the visible parts of his body and tried to parse the feedback the mountain ash on Isaac's body fed him. It was slow-going, as was expected since an alpha inflicted the wounds, but Isaac had gotten a headstart with one strong healing card.

Another ten minutes later, Derek also joined them and took the fourth bag of food and ravenously inhaled all of it. By now, several ambulances had arrived and the EMTs were taking care of the still disoriented people. Twice, a pair of them had come so close that they should've seen the five people hidden among the cluster of trees, and twice Stiles was glad for Peter's almost paranoid need to make provisions; the werewolf had come early in the morning and painted the stealth runes Stiles had given him for this occasion on the trees.

"I'm no expert, but it seems like an amazing piece of magic," Lydia commented when a deputy shone a light among the tree trunks, only to wander off again after finding nothing of interest. "It almost feels like the camouflage gets stronger the more intently people are trying to find something."

"That's the whole secret, basically," Stiles said, grinning proudly. "The ward is using the intent of our enemies, for lack of a better word, and fuels itself with it. The stronger the intent, the stronger the ward. It probably wouldn't have held against the alpha's magic lady, but it works just fine against the mundanes." He paused. "If I'm not getting completely sapped, anyway. That feeling wasn't fun at all."

"Very interesting," Lydia decided. "I'd like to study the runes if you've got some time during the next few days."

"Sure," Stiles said, spearing the last of his salad and munching contentedly. "We've got some room to breathe now, might as well use it."

"Has everyone gotten enough food?" Peter asked, balling up his trash and stuffing it into Isaac's empty paper bag.

"I'm good," Isaac replied. "I'll need some more later, but right now it's fine. A clean T-shirt, though, that'd be nice. I bled through my spare."

"I'm fine," Derek said quietly. He looked weirdly at Stiles. "Can I sleep at yours tonight?"

Stiles frowned. "You don't need to ask, man." Deciding that Derek needed some cheering up, which in this case probably translated to losing the mean-looking gash in his side that was slow to heal even after one of Stiles' healing cards, Stiles took the two turquoise healing dice and a dice cup from his backpack and told Isaac to shake them. "While my trusty assistant does that, I, myself, will perform a riveting reading of healing spells in Latin, using the arguably most amazing invention of mankind: the smartphone."

"Har," Isaac snarked, but he did begin to shake the dice in the cup mellowly.

For half an hour, Stiles got lost in his reading. It helped with his adrenaline response and calmed down Lou so well that the wolf spark used his mountain ash to crawl over to his four companions and wound around arms and ankles in his search for comfort and reassurance.

Most of the healing effect escaped from the pack's hiding place, of course, but the compounding of dice magic and the spells was more than enough to help the injured werewolves along and still send quite a bit of healing energy towards the people around them. Their relatively rapid recovery time surprised the medics somewhat, but everyone was largely glad that no one needed to be hospitalized for longer than a night of observation.

"I feel bad about unleashing my … my power on everyone," Lydia murmured after Peter had relayed the deputies' talk of clearing the park. When Isaac made to protest, she explained, "I know that I helped and it's not that. It's just that I didn't think about casualties, and I should have."

"Well, we needed you right then to save our bacon, which you did, so let's just declare this a freebie," Stiles said. "It's not your fault, you were studying at your own pace and being all responsible about it, too. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine. I asked for you."

"Only because I didn't think of it," Peter said evenly. "Because I knew that you weren't ready, Lydia. But you did perform admirably. From here on out, you'll be able to train that aspect of your powers and mitigate casualties."

"Really?" she asked.

Peter nodded shortly. "The banshee that ran with my old pack for a while could hit a single target with her voice. She didn't always have to scream for it to happen, either. It's all a matter of training and discipline and you have the latter in spades, or so Stiles told me."

"I do," Lydia replied, sitting a little straighter. "But where do I find a competent teacher?"

"I have contacts I can approach," Peter said, "but they'll demand that you take your training seriously. If you want to go slow, you need to let them know beforehand. Otherwise, you'll insult them gravely and that's akin to suicide in the supernatural world. Furthermore, you'd insult me not only by making me look bad in front of them, but needlessly costing the pack money. Teaching services don't come cheap. If they do, run the other way."

"I understand. I do think I need to take it slow, though," Lydia admitted and rubbed her naked arms. She bit her lip. "What I did … I didn't feel in control. Not really. Only when I found that witch and sort of dragged Stiles with me to knock her out did I snap out of it. It was … uncomfortable. I know that I'll need to master this skill, but I need to feel my way towards it."

"You can make that happen, right?" Stiles asked Peter, giving the man his best Bambi eyes.

Peter eyed him hungrily, a vague smile on his face. "Anything for you, Stiles."

Echoing in his mind, Stiles felt in detail how Lou was tangling with Peter's hand. It was almost like he did it himself and it was surprisingly intimate and even erotic. Like a tiny clandestine affair, right under the noses of their friends.

Stiles grinned back, happy enough with how the Mission: Ward Drop had turned out and gladder than he could put into words that Lydia was so serious about her supernatural powers and heritage. Now they only had to debrief Jackson and spend some time with the rest of the team before he could crash and sleep for a couple of days.

End of chapter 76