A/N – OK, so apparently some of you guys have decided to name the villain of this piece 'Goat-Dude', which is as good a name as any lol. Weirdly, I googled goat-headed fear-demons, and wouldn't you know it? Someone had the idea first! If you'd like to see a (cartoon) picture of this guy, look up 'Mongor' on the Thundercats wiki. He even fights heroes who are half-animal! Nothing new under the sun, folks. But the real question is, why would two separate people come up with that idea, unless somewhere deep inside, we KNOW he really exists somewhere….Bwa ha ha! I do not own Teen Wolf, but I DO own Mong- um, I mean Goat-Dude.

Derek woke up and was greeted by the sight of two very wonderful things. The first was the sunlight that was pouring into the room. The second was his mate snoring gently on the couch beside him, alive and well and ready to get the hell out of this den of horror. One sniff told Derek that the Pack was all there. He listened to their hearts…Jackson and Lydia were still unconscious, the beats very slow. The others were merely asleep, except for Scott who was awake and alert.

"Morning Derek." The head Beta said. He also heard Derek's heart speed up.

"That's good morning. Good because we are leaving." Derek stood and stretched. He rubbed his stiff neck, sighing when his healing factor washed it away.

"Put on a shirt, man. Nobody wants to see that." Scott almost smiled.

"Au contraire. He is actually wearing far too many clothes." Stiles yawned and gave his head a mild twist, his neck crackling. "Remind me to destroy this couch."

"Let Jackson's father do it, along with the rest of the place." This from Danny. "And I agree with Stiles about the excess of clothes." he told Scott.

Scott rolled his eyes. He gently nudged Allison awake, while Danny did the same with Ted.

"Anyone want me to make them breakfast before we leave? If you want a hot shower, I'm sure there's time." Ted joked. Stiles snickered at that.

An examination of Lydia revealed that her injuries had disappeared, though they could not rouse her or her mate. Scott picked up Jackson and placed him gently over his shoulder while Derek did the same with Lydia.

They all suspected, though they didn't voice it aloud, that the front door would be sealed shut, and they all breathed a sigh of relief when it opened easily. The relief lasted for a few seconds until they stepped outside.

"What the hell?" Derek looked around, blinking his eyes as he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing.

The sky was red shading towards orange. The last stars in their alien configurations were just fading away as the 'sun' continued to rise. Only it wasn't really a sun, more like a giant glowing yellow eye beginning to peek at them from beyond the edge of the world.

"We are so fucked!" Danny shouted. Ted tried to put a hand on his arm, but Danny flinched away. "We're not even on freaking Earth anymore! What the hell are we supposed to do now?"

"The goat-dude. This must be where he comes from. We're in his freaking world now. No wonder the phones don't work. I don't think there are any satellites up there…" Stiles walked a little way down the driveway where the tarmac was all torn up, trying to peer through the gates. Within the estate, the grass, trees and other flora were still there, but beyond the boundary of the gates, there was just dead black earth for as far as he could see. No feature was visible anywhere in that desolation. "This place must connect to the house back home, somehow. Which means that if today is Halloween, we have 24 hours to get back home before Jackson's dad demolishes the place. I don't want to worry you guys but…"

"Don't say it, Stiles. Just please don't say it." Scott muttered. "Let's go back inside. There has to be some clue in there about how to get back home."

Five minutes later, Jackson and Lydia were once again reclining on their couches while the rest of the Pack debated their next course of action.

"If there's a library, maybe there are some books that could help us. Stiles, come with me while the rest of you stay here and guard the Sleeping Beauties"

The Pack agreed and the two set off. They went up the stairs to the second floor, and tried each door they came to. The rooms were mostly filled with clutter and junk under sheets, but in one freaky instance, Stiles opened a door and stepped through only to come out of the door on the opposite side.

"Stiles! Don't do stuff like that!" shouted Derek.

"Der, this shows us that space is warped here. That's how Lydia got to the second floor from the bathroom. I bet the goat-dude controls it somehow. If there's something he doesn't want us to find in that library, then we may not even have a chance-" Stiles voice cut off as he opened the next door. "Huh! Library." Derek followed him into the room and looked around. Books lined shelves from floor to incredibly high ceiling, with rolling ladders attached to tracks on each wall. Floor mounted bookcases created aisles that stretched far ahead of them.

"So either I was wrong about that thing controlling the house, or…"

Derek finished the thought. "Or, it deliberately let us find it because there's no way in hell we could find what we need in time. Fan-fucking-tastic. I am never watching a horror movie again. 'The Notebook' sucks, but this stuff never happens in chick-flicks."

"Well, we're here so let's look anyway." Stiles walked over to a section that seemed to be a collection of fantasy novels. "Holy crap, this is so bizarre!" he called out a minute later.

Derek ran over to him quickly, his heart pounding. "What?"

Stiles pointed to a shelf. "The complete eight-volume set of the Chronicles of Narnia. They were my favorite books when I was a kid."

Derek stared at him for a second. "SO?"

"Derek, there are only seven books in the series! This one doesn't exist!" Stiles picked up a book titled 'The Return of Queen Susan'.

"Fascinating, Sty. You can read it after we get trapped here forever and tell me how it turns out." Derek turned around and walked away…before spinning on his heel and coming back.

"I love you. You know that, right?"

"Yes. And I love you too, you big jerk." Stiles hugged his mate and they separated to search the shelves as rapidly as they could. After an hour of searching, they both brought their finds back to the ball room and handed out the books they thought might be relevant to the Pack. Derek had some local history books concerning Beacon Hills, Ted had some books covering supernatural phenomena, Danny was looking at stuff relating to monsters in folklore and Scott was staring buggy-eyed at a Quantum Physics book on String Theory and Alternate Dimensions, perhaps understanding a word on every sixth or seventh page. Allison chuckled and took the book from him and began to leaf through it, handing her mate some genealogy records of the Pheer family.

"Stiles, what are you reading? If it's that Narnia book, I'm chucking it straight into the fire." Derek grumped at him.

"Ha-ha. I'm reading the diary of Annabella Pheer. She's talking about what a jerk her husband is, boy can I sympathize!" Stiles teased while Derek just growled menacingly. "Love you too, Der. Anyway, it says here that he accused her of adultery, said the kid she had wasn't his."

"They had a kid? That's weird. The book I read before didn't mention it. I thought they died childless."

"No, she got pregnant right away after they moved in, though it says…ah, here it is. 'I thought to bide a while when Manfred was called away before consummating our love in the home he helped build with his own hands. But that night, he came to me and loved me as I lay alone and afraid in my marriage bed; I rejoiced when he stepped from the closet where he had been hiding, no doubt to surprise me. I have never known such ardor in a man. He was gone when I awoke the next morn, no doubt to attend to affairs long neglected.'"

Stiles flipped a few pages. "Oh. Manfred denied returning that night, and he figured she had an affair with a servant or something. When the baby came…'a girl child dark of hair and eye and having none of the yellow cornsilk hair and grey eyes that were the defining traits of the Pheers for generations, he took this as final proof of my infidelity.' Hmmm, he stormed around the house a lot, which pissed her off…the servants joked that 'Pheer was pregnant, and her child was rage.' Nothing much after that, just a lot of nasty remarks about him, right up until the Halloween Ball."

"What happened to the kid after they died?" asked Ted.

"Shipped off to relatives." Scott said. "Annabella's mother's family took her in, since the Pheers wanted nothing to do with her with the paternity in doubt. Hmm, they named the girl Stella, Stiles. She got married in 1930 and had a son named…Genim."

Stiles turned around slowly to look at Scott. "Dude, if that's a practical joke, it is seriously not funny."

Scott showed them all the book. "Genim Charles Latham. Latham was your mother's maiden name.

Stiles just turned away from them and stared into the fire.

Derek noticed a subtle change in Stiles' scent, and it made him nervous. "Who cares if you're descended from them, Sty. None of this is-"

"Der, if you say none of this is my fault, I'm going to rip out your throat with my teeth. This is all my fault from start to finish."

"There's other things in this book too, Stiles. They were all known for having vicious tempers when crossed. They also all got…sick…none of them made it to their fiftieth birthday."

"Well, that's not going to happen to me. Werewolf, remember?" Stiles said tonelessly.

"Guys, what she said in that diary is bothering me. She thought her husband came out of the closet…um, you know what I mean, an actual closet…you don't think that…" Danny left the thought unfinished.

The implications of Danny's remark stunned them all into silence. Stiles got up and walked towards the doors of the ball room.

"Sty! Where are you going?" Derek ran over and reached for his arm. He stopped himself at the last minute. Something told the Alpha it wouldn't be a good idea.

"I need to be alone, Der. Goat-Dude hasn't tried anything on me so far, and if there is something to the bullshit in those books, there might be a reason why. If you love me, then just let me be right now."

They watched him leave. Derek just stood there, staring after him, wishing he could help but not knowing what to do.

"I told him it would be bad idea to mess with this stuff." Danny muttered.

Derek was across the room in an instant, his eyes burning with crimson fury. Ted was suddenly up and blocking Derek's path to a frightened Danny.

"This is not his fault, Beta." Derek snarled at him.

"Derek, chill way out." Ted said quietly. "Please. The last thing we need is to fight with each other. We need you to look after us, not beat us into submission."

"He's right, Derek." Scott and Allison moved to stand on either side of Ted.

"Then you will all respect his position in this Pack. If anyone is to blame here, it's me. I'm the Alpha. You're all my responsibility…and now I've failed you twice." The crimson light faded from his eyes, and the rest of the Pack could see the guilt that was eating away at him.

"Derek, the decision was actually left to me. And instead of having the balls to say yes or no, I flipped a damn coin. I could easily say the blame is mine." Ted said quietly.

"And I voted yes…even though I really didn't want to. I thought I was being a good friend to Stiles." Allison came over to Derek and put her hand on his shoulder.

"I'm the head Beta…I should have been a better influence on him, I'm his best friend." Scott sat across from Derek.

They all looked at Danny. "What?" he asked. "Sorry, can't play the blame game with you guys. I was against it and said so from the beginning. But…look, it doesn't matter. We're all Pack, and if one or more of us screw up, then we work together to fix it. Right?"

The rest of them nodded.

Scott picked up the genealogy book. "What this said about the Lathams having bad tempers. That's not Stiles. I've never seen him flip out at anybody like that…except when he slugged Jackson at the High School when Peter was after us. I couldn't believe he did that, but I guess he was just worried about his dad."

"I've seen it." Derek said quietly. The others looked at him.

"You are never to mention this to him, he doesn't remember. That Christmas when I…you know. When I found him out in the snow and made it through the Mountain Ash trees…he attacked me. I've never seen him like that before. He almost killed me, in fact. He would have, if not for…"

Derek's eyes widened.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Don't get your hopes up, but there's something I just thought of that might help. Scott, are there any pictures of Stiles' mother in that genealogy book?"

Scott looked confused. "No, the history ends with his grandfather. Why?"

Derek looked around, and spotted Stiles' phone on the couch where it had fallen out of his pocket. Derek picked it up and flipped it open, cursing when he saw the battery was at 10% power. The charger was in Stiles' Bumblebee…in another universe.

"The phones don't work, Derek." Scott told him, wide-eyed.

Derek punched in the code to unlock the phone (his own name) and quickly scanned the saved pictures hoping the battery would last long enough for his desperate idea to work.

"Stay here. I'll be right back." Derek left and made his way to the kitchen. When he arrived, he found what he was looking for. An old picture of Stella Stilinski smiling into the camera.

"Stella…you said to me once that if I ever needed a favor I could call on you. Oh boy do we need you now! Please help us."

The lights in the room dimmed and flickered. The cell phone grew very warm in his hands. Derek almost thought he detected a voice on the very outer edge of his hearing, a feminine voice. He couldn't make out the words, but he thought it might be a question from the tone. It was coming from the cell phone. Derek placed it directly against his ear, the picture still displayed on the screen.

"I can't hear you! We aren't on Earth, we're in some alternate place, the old Pheer House!"

The phone gave a warning tone in his ear, and Derek looked at the depleted battery bar, completely panicked now. The phone was about to shut itself off…for good. Then the lights dimmed some more, and an arc of electricity shot out of the overhead fixture and struck the phone, causing Derek to drop it. He cursed, grabbing it up again and hoping it wasn't broken. The battery bar rapidly filled up while he watched. Then the text message indicator beeped a short rondo he recognized as 'Jingle Bells'.

Did you say Pheer House? The text was sent by an unknown number.

Derek typed as fast as he could, explaining the situation.

Where are you in the house? Are you alone? I'm trying to home in on your signal. came the swift response.

Yes. The kitchen. He answered back.

I'm coming.

The fixtures in the room slowly began to vibrate, the cupboard doors swinging open and the dishes rattling on their shelves. The giant refrigerator was shaking violently, and the big window (so recently repaired by the diabolical forces of the house) developed a huge diagonal crack and then shattered completely. Even the floor under his feet was rumbling.

Something was pouring through the broken window, gathering in the air in the center of the kitchen… a sense of heat and light coalescing into a tight glowing ball that suddenly exploded outward, knocking Derek across the room and into a wall. Dazed, he slid to the floor.

A hand reached down to him, and Derek took it. He was easily pulled to his feet. A woman with jet black hair and the darkest eyes stood there, wearing a Christmas-themed apron.

"Mr. Hale. Do you have any idea what you lot have gotten yourselves involved in now? Mercy me, trouble does seem to find you werewolves, doesn't it? I don't need to tell you that my coming here has broken a truckload of rules!" her face had a very severe expression on it.

Derek wanted to cry with relief at the sight of her. He threw his arms around her and hugged her tight. She was surprised for a moment, then her features softened and she returned the hug, a tear coming to her own face.

"Well, I was going to teach you a lesson for allowing my son to put himself in danger again…but there never was any stopping him when he was determined to do something silly. And besides…you're my son too now and I intend to treat you that way. Which means anything that tries to hurt you dies."

Derek stepped back from her.

"Stella, I know this doesn't mean anything, but I'm so sorry I let him talk me into coming here…I had no idea that-"

"-ghosts existed?" She gave him an ironic smile. Derek looked down at the floor.

"Well, you have far more to worry about than ghosts, although I intend to sort them out as well. I have a lot to tell you, and this is stuff they don't bother keeping secret from you once you've passed on, so no blabbing to anyone else! The thing that dwells here was able to use the construction of this house and the negative energy of its history to poke through into our world, which connects to its own in just the one spot. In fact, from here you can get to quite a few alternate universes. But only in the one you and I call home was that creature able to set a plan into action that could free it from this world to roam ours forever. This absolutely cannot be allowed to happen, at any cost. Our world is hostile to it. Its essence cannot survive without its physical form there, though it can create illusions and touch minds and even make things happen. When the house is destroyed, it will be stuck here forever as you boys surmised. It was only through purest chance that you happened to put victory in its grasp."

"What's going on? How does it intend to get free?" Derek asked.

"It feeds on souls, on life force for sustenance. Anchoring the Pheers here as ghosts allowed it to feed and survive for years, and its power is already growing even stronger from the banquet Jackson and Lydia's enhanced werewolf life-forces are providing it. It can feed off of a living person if it can terrorize them enough; fear is it's gateway into us. When night falls, it will come for you all at full strength. But it wants more than sustenance…it wants power, the power to free itself, and that it can only get from feeding off its own children and taking their power for itself. My namesake is the daughter of that creature, and it intended to kill her when she was born and escape, but it failed to appreciate the nuances of society that led to the child's removal from the house after her parents died. Its…essence…bonding with a human caused some problems as well. The children were never as viable as normal human stock, and prone to lethal cancers at an early age. Also…as you have seen…we are given to terrible rages. I did a few things I wasn't proud of as a teenager, let's just leave it at that. Now, there are actually two gateways, and each one only works one-way. The gate that leads here is the gateway to the estate at the bottom of the driveway. I hate to say it, but the only reason you all came through is that Stiles unwittingly opened the way for you. The gateway that leads to Earth…our Earth, is the closet of the master bedroom on the top floor. It is open partway, but for any of you to leave it has to be opened completely. You will have to kill the creature first, it will never allow you to leave otherwise and that is the only way to restore Jackson and Lydia. Also, only a descendant of that creature could hope to open the gate, meaning Stiles or myself. Mr. Hale…son, Stiles must be kept alive at all costs. Otherwise, the creature will consume his life-force and escape through the gate, and you will all be trapped here. The thing has to kill Stiles, it can't terrorize him to feed on his life-force, since that would trigger…the family temper."

"What about you? Can it use you to escape? You're already…you know." Asked Derek, still trying to assimilate everything Stella had just told him.

"I'd like to see it try. No, it's the act of killing, or causing the death in some way that would let it feed. I died quite peacefully elsewhere of natural causes, and I retained the power to cross dimensional boundaries I was born with…how else do you think I'm able to break so many rules? They quite don't know what to do with me on the other side."

"What should we do now?"

"I'll deal with the ghosts, but Stiles will have to kill the creature. Your job will be to get your Pack to the master bedroom and through that closet door, keeping everyone alive until you can escape. Stiles will fight the creature, and you must help him as much as you can. The creature will try to take more of you…you must keep the others from fearing. Good luck with that. Now go and tell the Pack what you will. Above all, stay together. Your race is strong, and even stronger when you are together. I doubt the creature ever encountered werewolves before, so it may be unprepared for a united front."

"Got it. Stella? Thank you. I wish to God you could be around all the time. It would make Stiles…and me…so happy."

"Thank you…I appreciate hearing that. But go on now. I have two swamp dogs and their mistress to deal with, and you have…Goat-Dude? Keep the phone and text me if you need me. Good luck."

She faded away, and Derek went back to the ball room to get the others ready. They were relieved to see him, though Stiles was still not back.

"Let's go. We need to find Stiles and get the hell out of here. I know how we can escape."

The Pack cheered, and Allison started crying with relief. Scott hugged her, and Danny gave a pleased Ted a kiss full on the lips. As they looked at him, he realized how much they were really counting on him to save them, and that they had 100% confidence that he could do it. This is what it meant to be an Alpha…to be able to earn and maintain the trust that others put in you. He vowed again as he had a hundred times before, never to betray that trust.