| Scars of Battle |
Theo watched her writhing-crawl towards him. She grabbed his shin, his thigh, his wrist, his shoulder. She looked him right in the eye. "You deserve this," Tara said, her foul breath lingering. She looked behind her brother. He followed her gaze, spotting Liam on the ground behind them. She shoved him aside. He cried out to her, pleading for her to stop, to not touch him. He looked at Liam as she clambered on top of the younger boy. Liam looked at him, fear encumbering his gaze. "Liam!" Theo shouted.
"Liam!" the chimera shouted, his vision and consciousness returning to him. Corey was leaning over him, the other chimera's hands doubled up on his chest.
"He's awake!" Corey yelled, looking away from his former alpha.
Theo took a deep strained breath inward and sat up. He looked around, spotting Hayden and Mason lifting Liam to rest between them, his arms over their shoulders. He was unconscious. "Good, let's go!" Mason yelled back.
"Can you stand?" Corey said to the boy next to him. Theo tried getting to his feet, yet they soon gave out at as the painful tingling coursing through him came to the fore. "Okay, okay." Corey grabbed the other by his armpits and lifted. He rested one of Theo's arms over his own shoulders and the pack slowly made their way towards the crowd, up ahead.
There was a panic. Most people were pushing and running and constantly looking behind themselves towards the stage. That's when Theo remembered the shooting. That's when he heard the gunshots again. That's when the screams followed. He could hear the footsteps of the shooter. No, shooters. They were far enough away, too slow, almost pacing, to be a threat to them at that point. They joined the crowd, doing their best to remain apart just enough not to be noticed but still get out as hurriedly as possible.
"The...the body…" Theo tried, his voice strained by his tingling vocal cords and numb tongue and painful teeth.
"Nothing we can do now," Mason said, his voice breathless.
"The voice…"
"What voice?" Hayden said, looking over her shoulder at the chimeras.
"Something else...out there…"
"Stiles' text, maybe?" Mason said. "'Abort.'"
"The cell network is still flooded," Corey said, holding up his phone.
"Liam first, then we can get to a wi-fi connection," Hayden said. They rounded the corner of the entrance to head for their cars just as the deputies' sirens appeared down the road likely accompanied by ambulances.
"I'll drive Theo," Corey offered.
"We'll be right behind you," Mason said as they got Liam to his car.
"Clinic," Theo said, his eyes starting to droop.
"We know," Corey said, shuffling the chimera further down the sidewalk.
/ | * | * | \
The man was leaned over, his elbows digging into his thighs and his hands tightly wound in his greasy hair. He was sobbing, rocking back and forth. He was still garbed in his bright yellow shirt, necessary for the construction site. He couldn't believe he'd ended up here: behind bars with a kid dead in the road, one he'd killed. He didn't him. He came out of nowhere. It was just a perfect confluence of timing.
And yet…
He'd killed him. He didn't even know the boy's name. He cared. That was the only question he had. His name. He had to know. He had to make amends. He never wanted to kill anyone. He wasn't that type of person. He never meant for any of this to happen. He hated that this happened. He hated that a life had ended.
Because of him.
"Because of you," a voice said.
It wasn't his own. He hadn't heard the door open. He looked up. In place of a deputy the voice was coming from a young man. "Who are you? You're not...one of his family?"
The young man smiled at him closed lips. "No, I'm not."
"Then who—"
"I'm an interested third party." The young man walked up to the door to the holding cell.
"I don't understand."
The young man took hold of the bars and pulled open the door. The driver of the truck within looked stunned, eyes drying as they widened. Like a reaction to hot sauce he could feel his nose clear almost instantaneously. "I have a thing," he began, slowly walking closer toward the man, "for chaos, strife, and pain." He held out his hand the back of it facing the man. His nails elongated into claws. The older man froze, shock taking over to prevent him from backing up in fear against the wall let alone run. The younger man took one finally step before leaning over and with two clawed hands he grabbed the sides of the other's skull. "And I haven't tasted it them in such. A long. Time." He smiled wide at the man, mouth open, revealing his glistening silver fangs.
/ | * | * | \
"Get him on the table," Deaton said, putting on gloves as he watched Mason and Hayden come through the door separating the examination room and the front. "What happened?" he said, noting the dagger jammed in the werewolf's chest.
"I...I don't know," Mason said, panic starting to settle in.
"It was a setup," Hayden affirmed. "We were at the festival," she continued as the veterinarian began cutting through Liam's shirt. "Stiles gave us a lead about Brett and Lori's killer. We had a plan but—"
"He knew we were coming," Theo said, his legs able to move despite requiring continued support from Corey.
"The blade is covered in wolfsbane," Deaton said. "It's good that you decided to leave this in there; his supernatural healing is stunted and if you'd taken it out...well."
"We didn't even think…" Mason said. Corey let go of his fellow chimera to tend to his pale boyfriend, noting the perspiration on his forehead and the shaking of his hands. Theo took to lean on the door frame.
"What happened to you?" Deaton said, taking a glance at Theo as he got to work on the boy before him.
"There's something else out there," Theo said, looking at the blood now seeping out of the center of his boyfriend's chest.
"Something, not someone," Hayden said.
"It was just a voice. Had a mouthful of fangs. I couldn't see it and it sounded like it was coming from every direction. It hit me with something electric. High voltage."
"There was a broken power chord nearby," Corey confirmed.
"Kinda' wish I had Josh's power still," Theo said. Hayden and Corey looked at him with the same dark expression for a moment before they both turned their attention elsewhere. "Is he gonna' make it?" he said, trying to slowly make his way to stand next to Liam's unconscious body.
"He should. But here, place your hand alongside the blade. It's time to get this out."
/ | * | * | \
"I'm sorry to disturb you both so late," Stiles said, looking down at the phone on the middle console of his car.
"Your voicemail said it was urgent, Stiles?" Ken Yukimura said, the phone on speaker.
"I don't know if you've heard but Scott was attacked last night. He's currently in a coma."
"We saw something on the news about an explosion but we never...no, we hadn't heard."
"You have a theory, Stiles," Noshiko Yukimura stated.
"We didn't understand the earlier pieces. An eyewitness account of the bomber wasn't enough. But then someone I knew before died. When I was in Eichen House to keep me...you all safe." Stiles paused.
"We found something," Lydia said.
"I think I know who's behind the attack," Stiles said. "Both of them. I don't know what this means," he said, picking up his phone and sending an image to the device on the other end of the call, "but I think it's something that'll mean something to you. And you'll know too." They heard the ding come through the speaker.
"This is Japanese kanji," the kitsune said. "Kin. It means gold or money."
"Gold?" Lydia said.
"Yes. Stiles, you think the Nogitsune has returned."
"I do. But now I'm even more confused."
"The last time the Nogitsune was focused on a game called Go," the former history teacher said. "It's primarily about territories. Impersonal. If I'm to understand this message, kin refers to a piece."
"Like, on the board?" Lydia said.
"Precisely. But for a different game: Shōgi."
"Japanese chess," Lydia thought aloud.
"This game is more personal. One-on-one, requiring strategy of only mastery level against this kind of opponent. The piece it's referring to is kinshō, the gold general. There are two and they sit on either side of the king."
"The alpha," Stiles affirmed, running his hand through his hair before scratching anxiously at it.
"And he's not dead. He's unconscious. He's what the Nogitsune would say is ōte."
"Ōte?" Lydia said.
"Check."
/ | * | * | \
Liam looked around, his human eyes making out only the faintest of shapes in the dark. He let his eyes glow blue. He knew where he was. There was none of the familiar smell, but he knew. The tunnels. He looked around more closely. His head went numb, starting with a pulse of pain at the bridge of his nose. He was there. He never wanted to be there again but he was. He turned around and there it was. The ladder. Leading up to the street. He closed his eyes. He could hear the faint traffic above. There were no heartbeats. This wasn't that day.
"Stop!"
He knew that voice. It was his voice. But not.
"Stop hurting her! Stop hurting her! Arghhhh!"
Liam ran. He knew where it was coming from. The operation theater was far from here but he could make it. But why? Why this day? And...it wasn't an operation theater anymore. It was an apartment. Theo's apartment. Why this moment? Why now? Why here?
He turned the ouroboros plate, revealing the door. He grabbed at the handle and pulled to the side. He dashed in. It was the apartment. There were no huge vats and yellow lights and tubes and medical instruments. There were no Dread Doctors. Hayden wasn't here. Neither was...he? He looked around. It was like he remembered. Recently remembered. Theo's couch. His TV. His computer. His kitchen. His bedroom, as he walked further in. He looked at the sheets, the same from that night. Their first night.
"Please stop hurting her."
Liam whipped around. In the middle of the operating theater was his family. His father looked dead, unconscious at least as he was slumped against one of the pillars. His mother was writhing next to him, hands tied just the same, chest bound around them both around the support beam behind them. She was pleaded, trying to get free to stop him. Him. Theo. He was straddling a woman on the ground. She turned to look at his mom. Her eyes moved to Liam's. Aunt Jayna's eyes.
"I'm glad to see you, Liam," Theo said, looking at the werewolf, too. He was smiling. Smiling that smile. His eyes were dark and his fangs were showing and his nose was flared. He turned his gaze back downward. He struck at Jayna's face.
"Stop!"
Then her chest. Her neck.
"Stop hurting her!" He tried to move. Tried to stop him. To save her.
Her shoulder. Her collar. Her neck.
Her neck.
Her neck.
Her neck.
Her neck.
Her neck.
/ | * | * | \
Like every moment of his panic, Stiles burst through the door of the animal clinic. Lydia followed in, followed him back. They had passed Hayden on the way in, likely talking to her sister. They had passed Mason and Corey sitting in the lobby, hunched up together. Inside the examination room, Liam was still spread out across the top of the table. His chest was slowly rising and falling, a large bandage covering the center of his torso. On the far side of the table was Theo, seated in a chair, his head turned to the side and resting on top of his folded arms. He was fast asleep resting right near the injured werewolf's shoulder.
"It's good to see you both," Deaton said, coming out of the storage room holding a jar containing greens, a tentative smile planted on his lips.
"How is he?" Lydia asked, looking over Liam's still form.
"He should pull through without issue," the Druid said, walking over to a cabinet above the counter on the wall dividing the rooms. "It's been a rough 24 hours for this pack. Do you have a lead, or any theories perhaps?"
"You have that look like you already know what's going on," Stiles said.
"I have a theory, yes," Deaton said, gently placing a grounding bowl on the counter next to the jar.
"That's wolf lichen, isn't it?" Stiles said. The veterinarian only smiled. "His name was Jasper Allen. I don't know how it escaped or how it came to possess him. I suspect it's been long enough that it's now in full control. I'm not sure that will do much good."
"Oh?"
"He's killed a lot of people. It's different this time. Those people in the pub. At the festival tonight. The truck driver that killed Oliver. Oliver's parents. He may even have killed Oliver himself; I've never seen someone so possessed by fear." Stiles looked over at Lydia, worry written across his face. "He almost killed Scott. Now Liam. And all while he's playing us." He paused, looking over Liam and Theo's forms. "Mr. Yukimura said he's playing Shōgi this time."
"And he's taking out pieces move by move," Deaton offered. "If you're right about how far gone Jasper Allen is, then yes, the lichen will be useless. Changing the body of the host will be useless." Stiles and Lydia both met his gaze with the same look of despair. "I understand the Nogitsune may have moved in conjunction with Brett and Lori's murderer."
"Harper Graham, yeah. Gerard's man."
"Then I need to offer an even more disconcerting thought: Gerard, on two critical occasions, was more than willing to utilize the supernatural to conquer it; what's to say Monroe wouldn't do the same as her mentor?"
Stiles and Lydia both exchanged the same look with each other.
"It's not a question of 'would,'" came a familiar voice from inside the lobby. "She did."
Lydia hurried to the dividing frame between the rooms and looked at the two additions. "Isaac?"