The first thing she was aware of was a strange clicking noise, like the combination of a rattling breath, static, and the frantic clicking of some grotesque insect. There were voices, disembodied, some sounded ordinary, others alien. Nothing made sense. Not the voices. Not the sounds. Not even her own existence.

Then there was the cold, like ice slipping over and around every facet of her being, suffocating her.

Success imminent.

No, she couldn't let that happen. He had to be stopped.

More voices. Confused. Jumbled. The painful cold pressed in on her and she heard her own voice scream out: make it stop! but she couldn't free herself, she just kept slipping back into the cold, all sense of self lost and distant, no idea where she was.

"Wake up!"

Her eyes snapped open and she gasped in cold air, but this cold was different, it was fresh and crisp. Like winter. The sunlight overhead was blinding white and she closed her eyes again. She took deep breaths, the cold biting her lungs but the sensation felt strangely comforting as it cleared her mind and banished the disorienting darkness that still tried to cling to her. Using each of her other senses, she slowly started taking in her surroundings. Birdsong. A cold breeze, but the sun beamed warm on her body. She explored the ground with her fingers. Wet and cold. In fact, her whole body seemed to be lying in something wet and cold. There was a smell. Dirt? Pine?

A shiver ran down her body and she ventured to open her eyes again, squinting in the bright sunlight. The sun was directly overhead and she could see the silhouettes of tree branches. She turned her head to the side and saw that she was lying on her back in a small, snow-covered clearing. There was a steady dripping sound as snow melted off of the trees.

She took several more steadying breaths and closed her eyes trying to remember...anything. She absentmindedly ran her hand across the skin on her stomach realizing that she wasn't wearing anything. Then she felt something. A long, raised line right above her navel. She opened her eyes and sat up, looking down at the scar left by the blade of the Oni.

She gasped. Images from her life flashed across her mind's eye. The Oni. The Nogitsune, Stiles. Beacon Hills. Her father. Isaac. Her breath caught as another face slid into view. His eyes flashed red. Scott.

Her name was Allison Argent.

Allison grasped at her chest and she gasped again as her memories flooded back. She wiped the tears from her face as she curled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to fight off some of the cold and calm her racing heart.

Slowly, her heartbeat returned to a normal rate and her breathing regulated as she overcame the initial disorientation of whatever had just happened to her. She looked around and realized that she had no idea where she was or how she got there. She carefully stood up, keeping her arms wrapped tightly around her chest, and started trying to take in her surroundings. She was obviously somewhere in the middle of a forest.

When she turned around she saw a small, dark pool. It shimmered sinisterly and mist clung to it. It seemed odd and out of place in such a beautiful, pristine clearing and something about it inexplicably bothered her. After a moment she realized it wasn't reflecting the sun despite the fact that the sun was at its apex directly above the pond. The shimmering, greenish-blue light seemed to come from the pond itself.

She stepped closer and crouched down, reaching out her hand to touch its surface.

"You don't want to do that."

Allison jumped in alarm and stumbled backwards, sprawling out in the snow. She looked up to see a man standing on the bank of the pond opposite to her. Her face burned as she stood up again, her arms once again wrapped tightly around her chest. "Why?"

"Not unless you want to return."

"Return where?"

But the man did not respond; he simply stared at her, something she was uncomfortably aware of.

"Who are you?" She asked although she got a strange feeling like she should already know.

"Pierre Dubois."

"I know you," She tried to wrap her mind around it. "How do I know you?"

"How are you speaking French?"

"I don't…" She paused, just realizing for the first time that they had in fact been conversing in French this entire time. She'd had no idea. How had she not even realized? She knew French from school, but this was different.

"How?" She asked in French.

"You speak French because Marie-Jean Valet Argent spoke French."

Allison suddenly remembered the last voice she had heard before waking up. "She spoke to me. She told me to wake up."

"Yes. She sensed you were slipping back into the void and called you back."

Allison turned and paced a couple of times as she felt her bare feet going numb in the snow. The man, Pierre, seemed to notice. He closed his eyes and flames began licking across his entire body, causing Allison to exclaim in alarm, but before she could say or do anything, heat radiated from him across the entire clearing, melting the snow almost instantly. She watched in fascination as the flames died down to embers that burned in stripes all across his body, then extinguished entirely.

"Who are you?" She asked again as she continued to stare at him. There were no burn marks or singes anywhere on his arms or bare chest.

"I believe I have already answered that question, but I assume you are in fact curious as to what I am, in which case, I will also answer. I am a hellhound."

"A hellhound?"

"Yes. I would be surprised if you ever heard of, let alone encountered a hellhound before. There are very few of us left these days."

Allison wrapped her arms tighter around her chest, grateful for the warmth in the clearing, but still feeling vulnerable. "And Marie-Jean?"

"Your ancestor."

"The Maid of Gévaudan."

"But she is more than just your ancestor. A part of her lives inside you, is a part of you and always has been since the day you were born. In a way, you are her."

Startled, Allison forgot her vulnerability for a moment. "Like reincarnation?"

The hellhound paused for a moment. "Not quite. More like an imprint of her soul returning to the mortal world attached to her great-great-granddaughter. I met her and her husband at the end of my life. I see her goodness and bravery in you."

"You…met her?" Allison looked at Pierre more closely and realized for the first time that the same strange glow that clung to the pond also seemed to cling to him like an aura. "You're not…y – "

"I am not alive. I died two-hundred and fifty years ago."

"But, then…I died. I was killed by the Oni. Does that mean – am I – "

"No, you are not. You are very much alive. You have been brought back as Marie-Jeanne's, shall we say, vessel, to help counteract the darkness that the world is about to be plunged into. Her purpose or her mission was to protect against the dark forces that threaten the natural balance of the world. Those same forces have risen again and bring with them far greater horrors than you have encountered before."

"Her vessel? So does that mean I'm not…me?"

"You are still Allison Argent. It is more like you are her heir, meant to carry on her mission and restore balance."

"But how is that any different than what my family, the Argents, have been doing for decades? Why am I her heir?"

"Because your ties to Marie-Jeanne go deeper than just blood. Her soul is imprinted upon your soul. You carry in you all of her memories, her knowledge."

"But I don't remember anything."

Pierre smiled. "Perhaps not now, but when you need her, she will speak to you and you will remember. She is a part of you."

"Because that's not weird or anything."

Pierre didn't respond

Allison took a deep breath and began pacing again, trying to walk off some of the chill that had begun to settle over her once more. She would give anything for a pair of pants and a hoodie right now. She turned back to Pierre. "What darkness?"

"Dark, unnatural forces have worked unceasingly for almost three centuries now to resurrect the Beast of Gévaudan. Tonight, on the other side of the world, as I understand it, where you died, they have finally succeeded. The Beast, or Sebastian Valet, is once again on this earth to ravage and destroy as he once did. But the ones behind this atrocious event have tapped into forces they do not fully understand." He gestured toward the pond. Allison glanced at the pond and then looked back at him, confused. "The veil between the mortal world and the void – the world of the dead – has been torn.

Even if Sebastian Valet is once again defeated, this world is about to see horrors and darkness like it has never before seen, save for once that I know of in the year 1779. The one responsible for the resurrection of the Beast today tried it once before only twelve years after Sebastian Valet was slain by his sister."

"The Beast of Gévaudan was Marie-Jean's brother?"

"You never heard the whole story, did you?"

"I guess not. What happened in 1779?"

"Sebastian's most loyal friend, Marcel, worked tirelessly to find a way to the underworld. It was how he believed he'd be able to bring Sebastian back but of course he was wrong and since then he has discovered a successful way to resurrect the Beast."

"Marcel is still alive?"

"Only a shadow of himself; an abomination that barely counts as something living, but in 1779 he was still a man, albeit a monster of a man, but a man nonetheless. He discovered a druidic transcript that spoke of an Orpheus door: a way to open a path into the land of the dead. He was successful in opening the door," Pierre once again gestured toward the pond, "but he misunderstood how it works; that it would never work for his purposes nor did he understand the dire consequences opening an Orpheus Door would have on the world."

Allison remained quiet for a moment, trying to grasp what the hellhound was saying. She didn't want to imagine what the consequences of opening an 'Orpheus Door' might be, so she thought over what he said before that. "His purposes…meaning resurrecting the Beast?" She continued when Pierre nodded his response. "But the myth of Orpheus – doesn't Orpheus successfully travel to the underworld and bring back the woman he loved? So why couldn't Marcel bring Sebastian back?"

"Where most myths are founded in truth, most are also dismally inaccurate. Your family name is an excellent example of how stories can be misinterpreted. I don't know the true story of Orpheus, all I know is that one cannot be selective about who or what comes through an Orpheus Door."

"But something can come through an Orpheus Door?"

He nodded again.

"Like what?"

When he spoke again, his voice sounded weary. "And therein lies the crux of the issue at hand. It also answers the question you have not yet asked: why are you here?"

She didn't respond, not entirely sure she wanted to know the reason why she was dragged back from the dead, her dead ancestor in tow. All she wanted right now was some warm clothes and to go home, but she continued to listen to the hellhound while wandering around the clearing, trying to stay warm and hoping lamely that clothes might magically appear in the underbrush.

Pierre watched for a little as if waiting for her to say something before continuing, "when an Orpheus Door is open – like this one once again is open – the veil between worlds grows thin. The spirits of the dead that are already here grow restless and stronger and more follow from the void, slipping through the door and any other tears that will begin appearing the longer this door remains open. I am one such spirit."

"So they're not evil?"

"Most of them are not, but they do not belong in this world, regardless. The longer they are here and the stronger they become, the darker this world will grow, thereby drawing even more spirits here from the void, including the malevolent ones, the ones banished to the deepest recesses of Hell. These damned spirits are known among the druids as the Dorocha.

They feed off of human misery and death and bring with them a sense of doom and despair. They and other spirits are invisible to the eyes of most mortals save for hellhounds and those who have already seen them."

"How…?"

"Anyone who has traveled into the void and returned back to life."

"So I'll be able to see them."

"Yes, but it comes with a drawback."

Allison closed her eyes and held her breath, knowing she wasn't going to like where this was going. She let out a sigh. "Of course."

"Dorocha are drawn to death. Places where people have died, are dying, and those who have died – "

"And come back."

"They sense those souls that have been to the other side, that have been touched by death, they sense a soul that is out of place, that has that little bit of darkness in them and they seek to free that soul from its mortal entrapment."

"They have that power?"

"Indeed. They rip the soul from the body, killing the body and dragging the soul to the depths of Hell. For now, they will only attack if they are provoked or when they have hunted down a soul – like yours – that has been marked by the void.

But as their numbers grow they will bring their hell to your mortal world, giving them strength and diminishing the hope and joy of mankind. Eventually this world will disappear into the void as the Dorocha grow more brazen and drag more and more souls to hell, turning many of those unfortunate souls into Dorocha themselves. But we have time before it comes to that."

"Good…" Allison said faintly. She felt sick to her stomach as Pierre painted the vivid picture of what was to come. "If we have time, then I take it there is a way to stop all of this?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"The same way Marie-Jean and her husband, Henri Argent, put an end to it all the last time this door was opened: with the help of a hellhound."

"You?"

Again, Pierre simply nodded.

"What about the Beast of Gévaudan? Isn't he the reason I – or Marie-Jean – was brought back?"

"Part of the reason. We'll call it the catalyst. His resurrection has thrown off the already precarious balance of the world and as big of a threat as he may be, your mission, Marie-Jean's mission, is of greater importance. You must find a living hellhound and bring it here to this Orpheus Door and close it before creatures even worse than the Beast of Gévaudan emerge. As long as it is open, the Dorocha and other spirits will pour through this opening and there is precious little or possibly nothing you can do to keep them at bay."

"They can't be killed?"

"They are already dead. But they can be banished from this world, back to the void. If you go to the location of the old Argent homestead about seven kilometers from here, you will find a vault. There are four blades there, forged by your ancestors, from huntsteel. Imbued with the power of the Hunt, they have the power to banish the Dorocha."

"Huntsteel?"

"Are you familiar with the Wild Hunt?"

"A little."

"The ghost riders of the Wild Hunt draw power from the void. In a way, they are a lesser form of Dorocha and the Hunt is a limbo between the mortal world and the void. Souls who perish in the Hunt, fall into the void and – in most cases – eventually become Dorocha. Huntsteel is a type of metal that has been brought back from the Hunt and refined using mountain ash and can be used against any creature from the Hunt or the void. It is incredibly rare."

Allison thought it over for a moment while she formed her next question. "You said other creatures would come through this door. Will Ghost Riders?"

"No, they live in their own realm of existence that is parallel to the mortal world, but with the veil as thin as it is, the Hunt will have more power than it has had in centuries and become more and more active. It will pose as a threat in the coming months, no doubt, as they harvest more souls.

Allison shivered and rubbed her arms. "You still haven't answered my question: what about the Beast of Gévaudan? What am I supposed to do about him? You said he was resurrected in Beacon Hills – "

"I do not know Beacon Hills…"

She waved her hand dismissively. "Where I died – "

"Yes, and you were resurrected where Sebastian died. A poetic way for the universe to – as the druids say it – regress to the mean, or find balance."

"Yes, and that means my friends and my home are in danger. If I am truly Marie-Jean's heir, I need to go home and stop him – "

"No. As I said, your mission is more important. Your friends will need to handle him without you. It will be difficult, but they will find a way to stop him."

She glared at him. "I thought I was here to, what? 'Regress to the mean' by defeating the Beast. I can't abandon them to face him alone, not when I was brought back specifically to stop him like Marie-Jean stopped him before – "

For the first time since meeting the hellhound, he looked angry, dangerous even as his anger literally burned in his eyes. In milliseconds, he crossed the pond, his feet never touching the surface, and stopped directly in front of her. She instinctively recoiled and wrapped her arms around her chest again, acutely aware of how vulnerable she felt.

"You must not return to your old life. You must let go of Allison Argent if you want to be able to connect to Marie-Jeanne. The more you return to your life as Allison, the more difficult you will find it to recall your ancestor's memory." He studied her for a moment as if daring her to argue with him before continuing. "Yes, you are the one who can certainly kill Sebastian Valet, but your return is not to defeat the Beast of Gévaudan, rather it is to counteract what the Beast's resurrection has introduced into this world. If you do not close this door, then your friends will not die at the hands of the Beast which you so valiantly wish to stop, but at the hands of some hellish creature far worse than Sebastian Valet. You alone can prevent this as long as you embrace the knowledge and guidance of your great grandmother.

I will issue this one warning: if you return home, even for a short time, you will become entangled in their problems out of obligation to Allison Argent's loved ones. Their trials are and will be great, but they will be greater still if you fail to heed my warning. Do not allow yourself to become distracted from your mission by worrying about them. Focus on your destiny as Marie-Jeanne's heir."

Her breath caught in her throat as she felt the panic begin to rise. Ever since the moment she remembered her name, she had been filled with the strong conviction that she was going home. Home to see her dad again. Her friends. Scott. Now she felt as if a balloon in her chest had been punctured as all of the air left her lungs.

She stumbled backwards away from Pierre and sat down on the wet ground, curling her knees up to her chest. She had been brought back from the dead to be told that the world was ending unless she stopped it with the help of her great-great grandmother's voice in her head and a living hellhound which were practically extinct. The last thing she wanted was to be alone. To do this all alone. All she wanted right now was to have her dad wrap his arms around her, bury his face in her hair, and tell her everything was going to be alright.

"I must return," she could hear what sounded like a hint of concern in his voice, "the spirits are growing restless and as a hellhound, I must return to my post as a guardian of the underworld. My brothers and sisters and I will do everything we can to hold back the dorocha as they seek their freedom through the Orpheus Door, but it won't be long before they start flooding this continent. You must find a hellhound to close the door."

Allison looked up at him, tears running down her cheeks. "Do you even know where I can find one? Or do I have to do that alone too?"

"No, but there is always a Druid near these parts and you would be wise to seek their help. And you must hurry, the Dorocha know that a hellhound is the only creature that can close the door again and they will also be hunting them down. Fetch the huntsteel blades from your family vault, they can protect against the deadly touch of the Dorocha."

"What happens? I mean, when the dorocha rips your soul out?"

Pierre crouched down to be eye to eye with her, a look of sadness in his eyes. "I pray that you never have to experience it or witness it happen to anyone else." He sighed. "When a dorocha draws near, it feels as if all the warmth has been sucked from the air. It can make midsummer's day feel as cold as midwinter's night. The mind is tormented with fear, misery, and despair. It's enough to crumple even the bravest soul. But when they sink their claws into a mortal's flesh, it goes deeper than a meer physical wound, it cuts into the very soul, separating soul from body, slowly and very painfully. The cold of the void seeps in and fills every part of the mortal's existence. They know only the piercing cold that is so deep that – with a deep enough wound – even a hellhound's fire can be extinguished."

Mortified, Allison stared at Pierre as he spoke. He shivered unconsciously and a painful, haunted look appeared behind his dark eyes.

"That's what happened to you, isn't it? You were killed by the dorocha."

He looked down at his hands and when he looked up again at her, he had a sad smile on his face.

He stood up again and she followed suit. He began to slowly walk backwards toward the pond. "It was the price I paid to close the door," he looked around the clearing, obviously revisiting old memories, "and protect my friends."

"The Argents. Marie-Jeanne and her husband. This is where it happened?"

"This is the same door Marcel opened the first time, yes, in this same clearing. His actions today tore open this door again. The veil was always thin here, and such an unnatural act as resurrecting the Beast of Gévaudan tipped the balance here. I don't think Marcel knows of it, but neither would he care."

Pierre took a couple more steps and stopped just above the center of the pond. "Trust in your connection to Marie-Jeanne. Find the hellhound. Find it before the dorocha do and all is lost. They will do everything they can to kill any living hellhounds so it is imperative that you bring the hellhound safely back here. Then I will speak with you again."

He began fading. "Good luck, Allison Argent." His last words echoed strangely and he faded into nothing more than a figure of mist and sunk into the depths of the eerie pond, leaving her standing alone and naked in the middle of the clearing.