Chapter 4:
Beacon Hills, California
"It explains why he always knew so much about everything." Lydia finally said, raising an eyebrow when all eyes turned her way.
"It certainly does explain a lot." Peter agreed with a smirk, but all eyes were on Derek now. Besides shoving the ring on Stiles' finger, the alpha had been silent, only asking one question and it set them all on edge. "Perhaps, you'd like to share your thoughts with the class," Peter prompted his nephew. "We're all just dying to know your opinion on Stiles' secret."
"He's a vampire." Derek bit out, and all the betas visibly flinched. Derek sighed before softening his tone, realizing he had the entire pack on edge.
"A vampire who only revealed himself to save my life, again." Erica pointed out, and Derek looked towards his beta, softening some more. "I know, I am thankful he saved you, my wolf is just a bit on edge right now, since I didn't see it before. I keep thinking its Stiles then my wolf reminds me that he might be threat to the pack." Peter calmed down a bit, seeing the struggle and having experienced it himself; on one hand, Derek was been his nephew and on the other hand, he had been a threat.
"But, he's still pack, right?" Scott asked tentatively, looking nervous and puppy eyes in full effect as he looked to the Alpha. The others quickly copied him, all looking to their alpha for reassurance.
"Yes, he is still pack. We already have a resurrected wolf, a hunter, a banshee, and a kanima turned wolf, we can have a vampire as well." Derek commented dryly, looking around at his make shift pack, watching them all relax at his words.
"Does that mean Stiles is going to help train us now?" Isaac spoke up, continuing when everyone looked at him. "No offence, but the Alpha Pack kicked our asses and Stiles dealt with them without breaking a sweat."
"I'll think about it." Derek replied, lips twitching when the other betas let out groans. He knew he was hard on them but as evidenced, the Alpha Pack was a lot stronger and had wiped the floor with them. The young Hale was sure Stiles would be even harder on all of them, but at least it would make sure they could stay alive in a fight, even if it was just to stall someone long enough for the others to come. He took out his phone, texting Stiles to come back over as the others cracked jokes and gently shoved Isaac for the harder training regime, ignoring the smug smile on Peter's face.
Driving the jeep into the driveway, Stiles saw a police cruiser already parked and smiled. After what he had done with the Alpha Pack, he was expecting some sort of retaliation and wanted the man to be prepared. Heading straight for the kitchen and pulling a blood bag out of the fridge, he turned and saw the Sherriff sitting at the table looking over some files.
Biting into it and beginning to drink, John looked up. "Ugh, I still don't understand how that tastes good to you." He cringed in disgust causing Stiles to laugh, throwing the now empty bag away.
"Of course you wouldn't John." I replied patting his shoulder and taking a look at the files, hearing him chuckle. John shook his head and ducked to look back down at the file. He was frowning at it more than usual. "Is something wrong?" Stiles asked, and John shook his head.
"I'm not sure, to be honest. You know those signs you asked me to watch out for?" John asked, and Stiles went completely still.
"Yes. Did you find something?"
"I'm not sure." He pushed one of the files towards Stiles, and Stiles zipped closer, bending over the paper. "Freak weather patterns and people being found drained of blood. It sounds like-"
"Yes, it does." Stiles read over the names of the towns and cities the events had happened in and relaxed when he saw they were all primarily focused in Virginia. Guess his family decided to go home after all these years, though he couldn't figure out why. He had heard some things about a doppelganger but Katerina had been born in Bulgaria. It would be one hell of an ironic twist if the next one had been born in their home town. "It doesn't look like they're coming closer though. Thank you for watching for this." The original said, touching the sheriff's shoulder, and the man nodded.
"Of course. I'll let you know if anything else happens." Stiles nodded and before catching the man up on everything that happened then headed upstairs to his room, giving a wave. Before getting to the staircase, his phone message tone went off. Pulling it out, he saw a message from Sourwolf asking him to come back over; feeling some hope rise he called out a goodbye to John before speeding to the loft, leaving his jeep in the driveway. As much as he liked it for its character and the reminder of Claudia, he preferred something more exotic and fast. He had always been a racer at heart, faster than all of his siblings before and after vampirism, it reflected in his taste in cars as well.
Standing in front of the loft, he slid the door open finding several faces snap towards him and relieved if slightly surprised smiles spread all around. He was a bit taken back by that, not expecting to still be considered a friend or pack. Stiles had been lying to Derek for close to a year now and the others even longer. Peter would somewhat understand but he probably wasn't going to let the betrayal slide without getting something in return. A Mikaelson didn't suffer betrayal lightly, neither did the Hales.
"What's up?" Smirking a little at the surprise he received.
"How did you get here so fast? I texted you two minutes ago, literally two minutes ago." Derek demanded, pulling out his phone to verify the time the text was sent.
"I ran, Sourwolf." He deadpanned, the smirk on his face getting bigger when surprise changed to unimpressed.
"You ran all the way from your house to here, the other side of town, in two minutes?" Cora inquired, a little disbelieving. Understandable really, werewolves did not have the same speed as vampires. Heading to the couch, Stiles was about to answer when he suddenly stopped in his tracks, face contorting to confusion and alarm as he clutched his chest and gasped for breath that wouldn't come. The pack all jumped up, confused and alarmed as the originals skin turned grey and veins began to stand out. Desperately trying to suck in air, Stiles collapsed on the ground, his entire body grey and veiny.
"Stiles!"
"What happened to him!?" Several voices rang out through the loft as Derek hesitantly knelt down beside the Original, carefully picking him up. Stiles' body lay in his arms as if he was asleep, arms and head falling back, only for the alpha to carefully prop him up on his shoulder before laying him on the couch.
"I don't know." He replied, well aware that it wasn't the the answer the pack was looking for. He turned towards Peter but received a confused shrug in return, the elder Hale also not aware of what happened. All of a sudden, Stiles' eyes snapped open as he greedily sucked in air, the grey from his skin receding and the veins turning to normal as he slowly sat up to lean against the arm rest, his hand going straight to his chest but there was no blood or wound slowly closing up.
"Stiles!"
"What happened!?"
"Are you alright?"
Looking up, the original saw the concerned faces of his pack and slowly nodded.
"I'm fine. I'm fine." he reassured them "I don't know what happened." Knowing that his heart gave him away, he grabbed his phone out of his pocket and texted a witch he knew, the same one who helped pull this off to give him all the information she had on his siblings current actions, before putting it away and turning to give a more elaborated explanation.
"I don't know what happened exactly but I do have an idea, I'm just not sure how it's possible. I think I was daggered."
"Daggered?"
"I told you that my mother channeled the white oak tree for immortality in her spell. Well, that tree is the only thing that can kill us originals. A stake make out of white oak, which is why me and my siblings burnt that tree to the ground and into ash. About a century after we were turned, these daggers were created by a witch. When these daggers are dipped into white oak ash and stabbed into the heart of an original vampire, they put the original into a coma like state that you just saw for however long the dagger is still inside of us. As soon as the dagger is pulled out, the effects start to wear off and the original wakes up again. How long it takes them to wake up depends on long they've been daggered for."
"You've been daggered before, haven't you? But how did it happen now, you weren't … daggered?" Allison asked
"I have, we found out about the daggers when they were used against us by one Rebekah's many lovers Aleksander and his brothers. They stabbed all of us with them but the daggers don't work on Nik; they're made out of silver and silver doesn't work on the type of werewolf that Nik is. He pulled the daggers out of all of us, killed Aleksander and his brothers and kept the daggers so that they could never be used against us again. After some time, Nik started to become less of a brother and more of a dictator, anytime one of us angered or disagreed with him, he would put a dagger in us and cart us around in coffins until he felt we've learnt our lesson. He never did it to me up until the early 1900's, we had another fight about daggering siblings when he put one in Kol and he put one in me as well. He pulled it out right after, the effects hadn't even taken hold yet, but it was the final straw. After that I ran."
"As for how it happened, I don't know. I contacted a witch, she'll let me know but it's mostly to do with my siblings. The only way for all of us to feel the effects to being daggered without actually being daggered would be if we were linked. What happens to one happens to all; if we're all linked and one us gets daggered then the others would get daggered as well. It's just a theory but if its true then my witch will let me know. Other than that I can't do anything about it now."
"Your witch?" Erica raised an eyebrow
"My witch." Stiles grinned and confirmed. "I'm a Mikaelson, darling, we happen to very possessive of what's ours." he continued, letting his accent show for the first time since he threatened Deucalion. The surprised faces and raised eyebrows he received in return told the original all he needed to know. They had probably been too overwhelmed by everything else going on to pay attention to that little detail before.
"Your British?" Cora asked
"I'm a Viking, sweetheart; I've just spent a lot of time in Britain and picked up the accent."
"Sweetheart?" She returned, lips twitching up.
"Comes with the accent, though if you don't like that one there's always 'love' and 'darling'."
"Stick with Cora."
"As you wish, darling." Smiling cheekily and catching the pillow thrown at his face, they all settled down before looking at each other, not sure where to start.
"What else can vampires do? What's fiction and what's fact?" Lydia asked, rolling her eyes at the silence.
"Ask, I'll answer." Stiles offered before hastily holding up a hand. "One at a time."
The pack all shared looks before gracefully letting Lydia in the lead.
"You eat garlic." she stated, getting a confused look for everyone else but an amused nod from Stiles, who had plopped down on the couch next to Derek.
"You already explained how sunlight in not an issue, so crucifixes'?"
"Decorative, but not really my thing. Whether it's the right side up or not."
"Coffins?" At that smile fell of and he sighed.
"Sort of true but also not true. Vampires don't sleep in coffins, really its just personal preference. The coffin thing came from my family, Nik had just un-daggered Kol and a human saw him just as he was waking up; his skin was still half grey and veiny. After that the rumors of vampires sleeping in coffins came around."
"Holy Water?"
"Drinkable."
"Mirrors?"
"Myth."
"Consecrated ground?"
"No I do not burst into flames when I step into a church." This time he did roll his eyes, but there was a small smile playing on his lips as he enjoyed the friendly banter.
"What about speed and strength?" Jackson asked
"Our speed is far more enhanced than a werewolves, so is our strength. For werewolves, an alpha is the strongest and an omega is the weakest but for vampires it depends entirely on age. The older the vampire is the faster and stronger they are. Its why my family and I are considered the strongest. We are the first vampires in creation and we were created by magic. Other vampires are not so they're fundamentally weaker than us."
"How are other vampires created if not with magic?" Lydia questioned
"A person needs to have vampire blood in their system when they die, they would wake up in transition and have 24 hours to decide if they want the vampire lifestyle. If they do, then they have to drink human blood within 24 hours, if not then they die, this time permanently."
"Why would anyone drink vampire blood?" Scott spoke up before his eyes widened and he hurried to add on the 'no offence'.
"Because vampire blood has healing properties." he smiled at the stunned looks and continued "and no I can't prove it right now. Not without one one you being injured. If you have been physically injured then I'll prove it." At that Lydia got up and went to the kitchen, thinking she was getting a drink no one stopped her, only to jump in alarm when the smell of blood permeated through the loft. Before they could go into the kitchen, Lydia came back into the living room.
"Here, an injury. Now prove it." She demanded.
"Jesus Lyds, you could have waited until someone actually needed to be healed." Stiles frowned at her.
"That would have taken to long. Now are you going to heal me?"
"I shouldn't. I really shouldn't. You cut pretty deep there, the scar just might teach you to not go and spill blood with a starving vampire in the room!" He stared at her unflinchingly when her demanding look deepened into a glare.
"Starving!?" Several alarmed voices rang out
"Getting daggered basically means fast acting desiccation. Desiccation means all the blood in a vampires body dries out, so yes starving. Your lucky I'm not a ripper and have a thousand years of self control helping me or else you'd be drained dry at this point." Stiles elaborated, watching as a slightly remorseful look fell over the genius' face. Sighing, he got up and to the alarm of everyone else, he brought out his fangs and bit his own wrist, blood pouring out and he lifted his wrist and held it to Lydia's wrist.
"I'm not ruining my make up for a demonstration." She stated, looking at Stiles like he was crazy. He rolled his eyes, speeding into the kitchen and coming out a minute later with a glass of red liquid, handing it to Lydia. She sniffed it before bringing it to her lips and taking a hesitant sip. She wrinkled her nose a bit at the metallic taste but gulped the rest down, deciding that the taste wouldn't be as bad if swallowed quickly. Putting the glass down, the entire pack watched in awe as the wound quickly knit it itself back together fast enough to rival a werewolf's healing.
"What's a ripper? You said Lydia's lucky your not a ripper." Jackson asked
"A Ripper is an infamous nickname given to sadistic vampires who enjoy abusing, dispatching, and/or mutilating their victims. They usually have turned off their humanity, therefore simply not caring about their actions, but not always." Stiles took in the horrified faces and hurriedly continued "It's not always true, there are vampires that are so addicted to human blood that when they get a taste, they just can't control themselves. They are often unaware of what they are doing and black out, end up feeding until the person if dead, they only come back to themselves when the flow of blood has ended. It's like an addiction, like alcoholism. Some can control themselves but some don't care enough to control themselves."
Everyone still looked a bit horrified but settled at the explanation. Lydia looked relieved and a bit ashamed but got over it quickly enough when Stiles softened his gaze and reassured her that it was fine so long as she didn't do it again.