Chapter Six: Izanami-no-Mikoto

Izanami then gave birth to a fire god, Kagutsuchi, but with dire consequences. Izanami was burned during birth, and fell down to the ground. From her death, many more gods were born, including earth and water goddesses. Izangi's tears as he mourned his lover also created more dieties, and in anger, sliced Kagutuchi up with a sword. His pieces, too, became gods, and his spattered blood formed the stars of the Milky Way.

Izangi sought to return his beloved Izanami, and followed her to Yomi, the Japanese underworld. Eventually finding her in the darkness, Izangi begged her to return. She refused, and told him that she had eaten the dark food of Yomi and could not return to the world of the living. Later, though, as Izanami lay down to sleep, Izangi lit a torch to see. When he did, though, he saw his wife's decaying body. The sight shocked him, and he dropped the torch and ran.

Izanami was woken and tried to stop Izangi from leaving, but he created a barrier between the world of the living and the dead with a boulder. He announced that he would divorce his wife, and she protested saying that she would take 1000 of the living each day if he did. Izangi replied that he would give life to 1,500 each day.

Thus, death was introduced to the world.

x.

"So what could it have been?" asked Scott, his voice hushed. They sat in the lunchroom, their murmured conversation disguised by the hum of teenage chatter. It was all five of them again, although Lydia was leaning back in her seat, inspecting her nails, and Stiles sat with his head leaned against his hand, eyes half-closed. "Derek said it wasn't the other pack."

"It had to be," said Allison. "They came here looking to kill him, and now he's dead."

"Yeah, but," offered Isaac reasonably, "this is Peter. I wouldn't be surprised if there were plenty of other people looking to rip his head off." He considered this, then added, "Literally."

Scott looked inordinately distressed, and Lydia leaned forward. "Why do you even care so much?" she asked, sound almost betrayed. "You should be worrying about me. If that psycho tries to use me to bring him back again-"

"That shouldn't happen again," Allison reassured her. "Deaton said that was only possible because his body was intact."

"Which would be why your family cuts them in half," said Isaac vaguely, and Allison's expression faltered slightly as she glanced at him.

"Well," she said, "yes. But decapitation should work the same way."

"Yeah, but," said Stiles, sliding down until he was all but resting his head on the table, "there's got to be some kind of freaky Hale wolf magical contingency plan for that. The ones we've run into so far seem pretty bad at the whole staying-dead thing."

Scott looked at all of them, sitting there with look on his face like he was burning, waiting to say something. Allison said his name, and her hand flickered across the table, taking his. "What is it?" she asked.

He met her gaze for a moment, then, his voice getting even quieter, he spoke. "It makes sense that it was the other pack," he admitted, "but Derek said it wasn't, and I kind of believe him. Listen, if their Alpha killed Peter, then Derek and Cora's alliances should have shifted to her. Right?"

Allison nodded. "Right."

"So they would have gotten stronger," pressed Scott. "You said the other pack has, what, six Betas?"

"Five."

"So they should be that much stronger," continued Scott. "And – Isaac, I don't know about you, but-" he looked at Isaac, then glanced across the lunchroom, where Cora was sitting with Sam, talking to her quietly. A small smile graced her lips. "I can't tell any difference."

"Neither can I," added Isaac, "but you're better at this than I am."

"OK," said Allison, "but if it wasn't them, what's the alternative?"

He glanced around them. Even Lydia watched him, captured by the almost frightened look on his face. "This…thing," he whispered. "The other night, at the party, what Isaac and I both saw. What you told me about your mom, Allison, and then a while ago, when you had that – vision, or something, Lydia." He paused, then continued, "Even whatever's happening to Stiles, making it so he can't sleep. And now, Peter getting killed. It's got to be connected, and it's affecting everyone, not just the three of us who went under last year."

"Y'know," said Stiles, cutting him off; his mouth moved lazily, making him slur his words slightly, "I really, really doubt that my circadian rhythm being royally screwed up has anything to do with your weird haunting stuff. Insomnia doesn't generally fall under the same category of traumatizing horror as prophesizing the gruesome, totally disgusting deaths of all your friends." Lydia shot him a dirty look, but Scott continued.

"Dude," he said, turning to his friend. "You should've heard yourself the other night. You wouldn't let me leave, you were so scared. You kept saying that you didn't want somebody to come back. Don't you remember any of that?"

"No," replied Stiles, closing his eyes, head lying on the table before him. "Aw, Scott, you don't have to make up excuses to snuggle up with me. Anytime, bro."

"I'm not kidding," stressed Scott. "You started crying, you were so scared."

"Dude," said Stiles self-consciously, glancing around.

"Scott," said Allison, her brow knit in concern. "What's your point?"

"My point," replied Scott, "is that – maybe this thing isn't just in our heads, or our hearts, or whatever. It's like it's hunting us, waiting for the right moment. And if it killed Peter, then it can kill us." He let out a little breath, and met his girlfriend's gaze. "So maybe it's time we started hunting it back."

After a moment, a small smile lit up Allison's face. Quietly, she answered, "I like the sound of that."

"Where do we start?" asked Isaac. "All we know about it is the dead people it keeps using to torture us. That doesn't give us anything."

"Yeah, but there's been some other weird stuff around lately, too," replied Scott. "Something in the air, something I can't even describe. And Stiles found something else, too."

"What?" muttered Stiles, his eyes fluttering half-open. Sounding loosely curious, he asked, "Did I?"

"About the cemetery," prompted Scott, and Stiles nodded his head.

"Oh, yeah," he began, clearing his throat. "There was a grave robbery. Or something. Sounded pretty weird. You'll never guess whose body was taken."

"Laura Hale," said Lydia immediately. "Derek's sister."

They all looked around at her.

She was pale. Blinking, she glanced up at all of them. "I saw it," she said, her voice faint. "The empty grave. I thought I was just imagining it, but…"

"And there's something else," said Allison, looking back to Scott, eyes narrowed in thought. "On the – when I saw my mother, she had a symbol, right here." She put a finger to her forehead. "Carved into her skin."

Scott leaned in eagerly. "That's right," he said, in awe. "Isaac, didn't you see? Boyd had something on his forehead, too. And so did Erica, and Matt too."

"Maybe that's some kind of sign," responded Allison. She reached down and dug into her backpack, taking out a notebook and a pen. Opening the notebook to a blank page, she continued, "Maybe it could lead us to whatever is doing this to us."

"But I didn't get a good look at it," said Scott, watching her. "What was it? A spiral?"

She shook her head, tracing something carefully onto the paper. "Not exactly," she replied, "I remember because it looked so familiar. I'm sure I've seen it before." she put the pen down and turned the notebook around, showing it to all of them. It was a wide shape with three sweeping corners, and a circle woven through the middle. Scott took the notebook, staring at it.

Lydia leaned in. "I've seen that," she said offhandedly.

"What?" asked Allison, her gaze snapping to the other girl.

"Mhm," replied Lydia, nodding. "It's a trefoil knot." At everyone's black expressions, she continued, "It's the simplest possible nontrivial knot." After another moment's confusion, she sighed impatiently and clarified, "It's a, what's it called, a trinity knot." She held out her left hand and slipped a ring off her index finger, held it up in the middle of the group. With one manicured finger, she pointed at the markings around the edges. Sure enough, the symbol was almost identical to the one Allison had drawn. "It's engraved on a lot of wedding rings," she told them. "The three strings are supposed to bring love, honor, and faithfulness. Or something, I don't know." She slipped it back onto her finger. "Clearly, it didn't work for my parents, anyway."

Staring up at her hazily, Stiles asked, "Why are you wearing your mom's wedding ring?"

Lydia shrugged, spinning the ring on her finger. "She's not using it."

There was a moment when Scott considered this, glancing between them all. And then, sliding the notebook back across the table to Allison, he said, "This is out of our league." He paused, then said: "Maybe it's time we ask Derek for help."

After school let out, Derek drove his sister home in silence. She said nothing, staring out the window the whole time, and neither did he. They were nearly back, turning down a small road around the edge of town, when Cora suddenly said, "Stop here, Derek."

He glanced at her. "What do you-"

"Derek," she said, her voice hard and hostile in the small space of the car. He looked at her once more, then pulled over onto the side of the road, where the asphalt gave way to the earthy ground of the forest. The car stopped, and they sat there, listening to the tink-tink-tink of the cooling engine.

Then, staring straight ahead of her, Cora asked, "Are we going to talk about this?"

Derek looked around them. Warily, he began, "I was gonna wait until we weren't stuck in an enclosed space, but yes, I was planning on it eventually."

"I don't like the way you look at me."

He turned his body in the seat to face her, lips slightly parted, looking perplexed. "What does that mean?" he asked. "I'm not looking at you any different-"

"That's what I mean," she said bitterly, cutting him off, her shoulders slumped, eyes focused out the windshield before her. "You're pretending like you don't know. Why?" She was silent, and then she asked: "Are you afraid of me?"

He stared at her. "Cora," he said. "Nothing has to be different-"

"Things are different, Derek," she shot back, her gaze snapping up to him. "What do you want? Do you want to pretend we're still just brother and sister? Do you want to pretend Peter isn't dead? What about Laura? Mom and Dad?" She let out a pained, frustrated breath, and then said, "Stop telling me things don't have to change. They've already changed."

Neither of them said anything for a moment; Derek, it seemed, could find no words to say. Then, without a second look, Cora darted out of the car, slamming the door behind her. He followed her more slowly, slipping out of the car, standing on one side, reaching his arms across the top of the car. Cora stumbled away from the side of the road, then straightened up, staring into the forest. A breeze blew through her long hair, and she lifted her hands to her face, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.

"Cora," he said again. There was guilt in his voice, but he did not entirely know why, and it cut her deeply, wounding her like fire, hating the responsibility he did not need to shoulder in his voice. For a moment he said nothing, struggling to find the words, and then he said: "I promise you're safe. Do you hear me, Cora? I don't know what happened to Peter, but I will kill all of them before I let anything touch you. I would die in a second for-"

"Die for something worthwhile," she said, her voice loud, speaking over him. "If you're desperate to throw yourself in front of a bullet, do it for someone who could use the protection."

She looked over her shoulder, one eye meeting his.

Quietly, she said, "I'm not talking about Peter," and she blinked, and she turned to look at him with both eyes pulsing scarlet red, like the blood pumping in their bodies.

There was silence in between them.

Derek tore his eyes away from her, looking out at the street around them. A car shot down the road, past them. And then he said, "I knew already, didn't I? I've known for a while. But you took it from me." He remembered the wound on the back of his neck, when he had woken up from a haunting dream, blood seeping from a slit through which she had taken his memory. Cora did not immediately reply.

And then, slowly, she took a step towards him. "I didn't know how it happened," she replied. "I didn't know why. All I knew is that I took this from you, Derek, and I hate the way you shut up and listen to me, like you want to take orders from me." She stared up at him, the corners of her mouth curved downwards, her lip trembling. Her red eyes seemed to hang in the afternoon air, iridescent and separate from her body, leaving a glowing neon trail when she moved. "I didn't ask for this," she said, her voice hard. "I'm not Mom, or Laura, or Peter, or you. I have the eyes and the power, but I never wanted to be Alpha."

He watched her. Then, just as suddenly as she'd begun, she turned on her heels and darted away, into the forest. Shoving his keys into his pocket, Derek ran around the car, heading after her. "Cora!" he called. "Cora!"

Dimly, he could pick up her scent, following it deep into a forest. At first he thought she was taking him to their old home, but he quickly passed that. As he glimpsed the burnt-out husk from between the trees, he realized it had been weeks since he last set foot in the place.

As they moved on and Derek threaded through the woods, the path began to seem familiar, and all at once he realized where it was that Cora was headed. She stopped before he did, and he followed her scent to where she stood in the small clearing, staring at the thing before her.

On the huge, old, gnarled stump of the tree, a body was lain out perfectly, throat cut, arms splayed out, a long stake of wood pierced through his chest. Cora moved, approaching it, and Derek whispered her name and reached out to hold her back but she shook off his touch, stepping forward, staring at the body. It was a man with golden blonde hair and dark eyes, glassy and reflective in the gray light.

His voice pained, Derek said, "He's from Grace's pack."

Cora sniffed pointedly. "I could tell," she said, her voice soft.

Neither of them said anything. His insides hot and sour, Derek said, "He had a mate."

At first, Cora did not react to this. And then she glanced back at him, eyes red, fangs bared. She growled, "I know," and at that exact moment came a screaming hiss, and a body collided with Cora's; Derek yelled her name in alarm, then let out a howling roar, launching himself towards his sister, reaching out to tear the redheaded werewolf off of her. Before he could touch her, Cora shouted, "She's mine!" and the authority in her voice was such that Derek could do nothing but stop, hating himself, hating the color of his eyes.

Grace's Beta – her name was Alex – had Cora pinned to the ground, a hand around her throat. Gasping for breath, Cora hissed, "I didn't do this."

"Like I'd believe you," uttered the other woman, hatred dripping down her voice, billowing around her in waves. "The famous and feared Hale pack, reduced to an Alpha and her Beta – you'd do anything to get your power back." She tightened her grip around Cora's throat. Lowering her face close to Cora's, her eyes lit up and livid, Alex continued, "But I'm going to teach you something you Hales never learned, not even the day they locked you in that house and burned your family to the ground." She lifted her claws, sunk them into the skin of Cora's face, raked down her cheek. "There are consequences to your actions."

The woman jerked back, off of Cora, and screamed; Derek had her by the neck, squeezing hard. "Derek!" shouted Cora, baring her teeth, eyes wide in fury. "Let her go!"

"She's got her pack's power behind her," countered Derek, "but we can take her together!" He held the struggling wolf; she kicked his legs, hard, slashing at his arms, throwing him to the ground. Cora threw herself at the werewolf, knocking her to the ground.

"You killed him!" shrieked Alex, writhing underneath Cora. Spittle gathered around her mouth, and her eyes rolled in their sockets, the frenzied grief of a widowed mate.

With one fluid movement, Cora swung her hand forward and hooked her claws underneath the werewolf's chin, piercing through the skin. An ugly gurgling noise came from her throat, and she stared up at Cora with stunned eyes, the agony hardly yet registering in her body.

"Listen to me," said Cora. "You take this back to your Alpha." Warningly, Derek took a step towards his sister, said her name. She ignored him. "If you," began Cora softly, readjusting her grip in the fleshy patch between the wolf's chin and throat, "touch my brother. If you come near him." She was silent. She slipped her claws out of the woman's throat, so quickly Derek barely saw the moment when the blood began to seep. "Then I will kill you," Cora said calmly, "all."

Cora stood up, feet on either side of the woman's body. She lifted her hands, pressing them to her throat, trying to stem the bleeding. With one final look at her, Cora let out a breath and turned around, wiping her bloodied hands on her clothes.

With difficulty, Alex pulled herself up to her feet, and then she let out a primal sputtering, gurgling sound that might have been a roar, if her throat had not been slashed open, and she threw herself at Cora. Barely blinking, Cora whipped around and held out her hands and inserted her claws once more into the open wound, then with the claws of her other hand she pierced the skin and tissue at the back of the woman's neck, and with a great heaving thrust she twisted and pulled, and the woman's body crumpled, blood spilling out of the gaping wound of her neck onto the ground.

Slowly, Cora turned her head, looking at the corpse before her, the woman's head still held in her hands.

Dropping it beside the body, Cora said quietly, "I guess I'll just have to tell Grace myself."

When she looked up at Derek, he flinched away from her red-hot gaze. Staring at the head separated from body, an eerie echo of another body ignited in his mind, and he did not dare to look up at his sister. "Cora," he began, his voice weak. He looked up at her, and said: "You killed Peter."

She stared at him, hard. And then she nodded. "Yes," she said. "I did."

There was a silence.

Then she moved towards him; in fear, he stepped back, and she stopped. Peering up at him beseechingly, blood still dripping from her claws, smeared onto her face, she implored him, "I didn't want to. I went there to warn him, I swear, that's all. But he knew how much I idolized Laura and he – you know he never trusted me, and he thought I was going to sell him out." Moving towards Derek again, he did not back away, and he reached out and took hold of his arm. The blood soaked into his clothes, spreading with the stitch of the fabric. She looked up at him, searching his eyes. "He attacked me," she told him, almost as if begging. "He would have killed me, but he didn't know I was an Alpha too." She let go of her brother, looking down at the dirt below them. "I didn't know what I was capable of," she said, sounding haunted. "I didn't know I could do that to…anybody. Much less my family, Derek."

She looked up at him, and then she moved forward again, and, in the gray light filtering through the trees, with a decapitated body bleeding on the ground and another lying crucified on the wide surface of the Nemeton, Cora hugged her brother, burying her face in his chest.

"I don't know what to do," she whispered. "I don't like being this way. I hate this power."

He looked behind her, at the bodies, at the dark forest around them. And then he wrapped his arms around her sister, his eyes glinting icy blue, but he said nothing, unable to promise her that which she wanted to hear.

They met Scott's pack in the loft. Scott entered first, leading Allison, Isaac, Stiles, and Lydia on the end. Cora stood at the table, waiting for them, and Derek hung back, his deep, dark eyes fixed on Scott. "Really?" called Cora, looking at all five of them. "You had to bring the whole pack?"

"There's something after us," said Scott steadily, approaching her. "We're safer together."

"You think that," observed Cora, meeting his gaze, "because you've never seen what fire can do to a crowded room." Scott didn't reply to this, but glanced back at Derek, who did not move. Her eyes slid past Scott, briefly resting on Stiles, and then she said, "You found something."

"Yeah," said Allison, moving forward. From her bag, she pulled a sheet of paper with the symbol drawn onto it. "We want to know if you can tell us anything about this."

For a moment, Cora did not move, staring down at the paper. And then she picked it up, inspecting it carefully. Derek didn't move, but he narrowed his eyes, staring at the paper over Cora's shoulder. Lowly, she asked, "Where did you get this?"

"We've all been seeing it," replied Scott.

She stared at him. "Where?"

Scott didn't say anything.

Her eyes slit behind him, to where Stiles stood. "Stiles," she said, turning the paper over, showing it to them. "Where have you seen this?"

With a confused blink, Stiles opened his mouth to reply, but Scott instantly said, his voice hard, "Don't answer that."

After a second, her eyes slid back to Scott. She looked at the paper again, and then held it out beside her. Derek finally moved forward, still standing slightly behind her, and took the paper, scrutinizing the symbol. "We've seen it before," replied Cora guardedly, eyeing the others.

When she did not continue, Scott prompted, "Where?"

She watched him, and it seemed that she considered her answer for a long time. With a glance towards her brother, she finally relented, the tension in her posture relaxing slightly. She leaned her hands on the table before her and said, "Our mother had it tattooed on her back."

Scott watched them, mouth hanging slightly open, baffled. "What?" he asked. "What does it mean?"

"It's a version of the triskele," muttered Derek, tracing his fingers along the contours of the drawing. "Alpha, Beta, Omega."

"But," said Cora, still watching Scott, "it means something else. Something more." She took the paper out of Derek's hands and held it out, handing it back to Scott. "It's a symbol of our family," she said. "Like a claim, or a brand." Glancing at her brother, she said bluntly, "You wouldn't know it. Nobody expected you to be Alpha one day." Allison's gaze flickered to Derek, but if he reacted to the comment, she could not tell. "It's not used for anything," she said to Scott. "It's a symbolic thing. The mark was passed down from mother to daughter when the rank of Alpha was transferred, but I guess that tradition died with our mom."

Her voice echoed slightly in the room, faltering slightly on the final word.

She glanced past Scott's face. Something like a smile tugged on her lips, and she said, "Stiles."

"Don't talk to him," growled Scott, and Cora rolled her eyes.

"Relax," she said. "If I wanted another Beta, Scott, I would bite him, not date him." Nodding past Scott, she said, "Just get him home. He's no use to either of us when he's unconscious."

Scott glanced around; Stiles was leaning against a wall, arms folded, chin tucked into his chest. He was, Scott realized, embarrassed for his friend, snoring softly. When Scott glanced at Isaac, he went over to Stiles, pulling at him, waking him up. "Lydia," said Scott, "go with Isaac."

Glancing back at Stiles, Lydia began, "Why do I have to-" but Allison cut her off, firmly but gently saying her name. Annoyance painted across her face, she went to Stiles's side, and she and Isaac helped him out of the place.

They all turned around to face each other again. The tension was palpable in the room, a heavy fog, dense and opaque, between Scott and Cora. After a few moments, Allison shot through it, her words light and comically grotesque. She asked, drolly, "Who died and made you Alpha?"

Cora's gaze snapped to the other girl. She cocked her head slightly, narrowing her eyes.

"That's another thing," said Scott, after shooting Allison a look at which she did nothing but offer a halfhearted shrug. "We think there's something out there, something besides the other pack, and whatever it is, it killed Peter. Whatever it is that's affecting us – and there is something, although we don't know what it is yet – it's not just some side-effect of what happened last year – it's dangerous. If it killed him, it could kill one of us too."

Something shifted in the air. Cora crossed her arms, watching them, and Derek would not lift his sight off the ground.

"Sure," said Cora. "The other pack could probably kill you. They're the ones who killed Peter, after all."

Scott blinked. "But Derek said-"

"Derek was wrong," said Cora sharply.

There was a silence. And then Allison began: "OK. But if they killed Peter…then why are you the Alpha now?"

Cora didn't say anything. Her gaze raked over to Allison, like iron nails scraping against concrete. Her voice softer and yet somehow infinitely more threatening, she asked, "Let me ask you something, Argent." The deep hatred and revulsion in her voice turned the name into something more like an oath. "Not that I'm complaining, but don't you think a literal sacrifice is taking it a little too far?"

Allison stared at Cora. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

"You're hunting the other pack," Cora shot back, "after we explicitly told you they were our responsibility. It's not as if Peter was innocent, or defenseless – you have no reason to go after them."

"We didn't," replied Allison, with authority in her voice to rival Cora's. "We haven't touched the other pack. We're tracking them, but we haven't even seen them, besides the emissary."

"Right," said Cora, leaning forward, eyes wide, "then you tell me how it was one of them ended up stuck through the heart with mistletoe, pinned to the Nemeton."

"That's impossible," said Scott.

"We saw it," pressed Cora. "Your girlfriend is a hunter before anything else, Scott, don't forget that."

"No, I mean," began Scott, shaking his head. "A sacrifice on the Nemeton. That's literally impossible. It caved in after what happened last year."

About to continue, Cora trailed off. She and Derek exchanged glances, and when he caught her eye, she nodded. "If it did," he said, "it's fixed now. It didn't look any different than it has for years." He paused, added, "Except, of course, for the dead body."

"We didn't do it," said Allison, shaking her head. "Maybe whatever killed Peter killed one of them too."

Cora's eyes flashed red and she slammed her hands on the table, baring her fangs. "I just told you," she hissed. "They killed Peter."

Allison said nothing to this, watching Cora warily.

Sweeping her long hair back, Cora said, "We're done here."

"Fine," said Scott. "But if you find anything else-"

"Stay out of this," she said lowly, glaring at him. "You'll just get hurt."

"Which is my point," said Scott desperately. He looked away from Cora, appealing to Derek, standing silently beside her. "I'm trying to figure out what's going on," he said, "so that nobody else gets hurt. So I can protect everybody. But I can't do that unless you help me!" Derek didn't look up, eyes fixed on the ground. Scott lowered his face, trying to catch Derek's gaze. "Derek," he said. "Please."

Cora stepped in front of her brother. "Leave," she said stonily. "You can keep your pathetic Betas, human or not, but you will not touch mine." She stared at him, her lips slightly parted, as if words on the tip of her tongue. "We're barely a pack," she said quietly, "but we still are a pack. And you will respect that," she said, "or I will tear your head off of your body."

They left after that.

Once they heard the sound of Stiles's Jeep fading into the distance, both of the Hales let out a silent sigh of relief. Cora collapsed into a seat before the table, her fingers at her forehead. Derek watched her, arms crossed. And then he leaned against the table, looking down at her, and he asked, "What did you say about dating Stiles?"

She glanced up at him, then pressed her hands against her forehead, as if hiding her face. "Don't start."

He made a face, and shrugged. "There are worse options out there."

"Like any one of your old girlfriends?"

"Yeah," he sighed, patting her on the shoulder, then heading away. "You're definitely an Alpha, Cora. Suits you well."

Late that night, Allison sat on her bed, phone pressed to her ear. "There's something weird going on," said Scott on the other line, his voice tinny and artificial through the phone. "I don't know what to believe about this other pack. I haven't even met them yet."

"Have you been looking for them?" she asked, playing with the thin silver chain around her neck.

"Kind of. But – it's weird. It's kind of like they're avoiding me. Like they don't want a fight. To be honest it's kind of like – it's like a bunch of Omegas, you know? Like they're too scared to engage." Lost in thought, he added, "There's something about them Derek doesn't want us to know."

"Something Cora doesn't want us to know," corrected Allison. "You saw the way she was controlling him. She barely let him talk to you."

When Scott spoke again, he seemed unsure. "They're family, though," he said. "He would die for her. I don't know what's going on, Allison, but I'm not about to question the two of them. Not after what they've been through for each other."

Allison didn't answer, and then she rubbed her eyes. "OK," she said. "I need to go to sleep. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, see you. Goodnight."

"'Night." She hung up the phone, staring at it in her hand for a moment. Then, with a deep breath, she stood up, heading across the room and sitting down before her mirror. Her eyes were dark, and there were bags beginning to appear under them. With distaste, inspecting the darkness under her eyes, she took out a white cleansing pad and wiped it across her skin, removing the last vestiges of her makeup for the day. She dropped the pad in the trash beside her, and then something caught her eye. The large square pendant – her family's crest – sat on top of an old book. It was a book she had not opened in a long time, and there were traces of dust along the outside pages. Taking it in her hands gently, she opened it, flipping through the pages, remembering the first time she learned the story of la Bête du Gévaudan.

She turned through the pages, something lodged at the back of her mind, some memory that seemed important, but she could not quite recall. Still examining the book, she turned the pages more slowly now, scanning through the letters, as if searching for something.

Another page, and she froze, staring down at the book before her. Heart beating hard, she turned, pulling open her bag, searching for something. A breeze blew in from the open window, fluttering the paper as she finally extracted it and laid it down flat on the desk beside the book. On both pages, there was a shape with three curved points, and a circle threading through the middle, like the symbol which had been carved into the ghost of her mother's forehead. She peered down at the text, searching for some explanation of what it could mean.

The Triquetra, she read, originally a pagan concept, was said to be an indicator of caves and dens where the Beast would reside. Its presence or appearance in a village was generally considered a harbinger of great death and disruption.

Allison stared at the symbol before her, breathing low and slowly. Tucking the paper into the book in order to save the spot, she stood up again, brushing her long hair back, stretching her limbs. A chill ran down her spine and she went to the window to close it and keep out the cold draft. Her eyes focused on the window itself, she tugged it down and then glanced through the glass, at the street below. She looked away and then something shot into her body, resonating deep in her chest, and she slowly turned back to the window, squinting out into the darkness.

Hovering ominously in the middle of the street, something dark and on four legs stood unmoving, its snout upturned, as if staring straight into her window. It was far too large to be a coyote, but was covered in thick fur, and its eyes reflected the light coming out of her window and out of streetlamps, shining up at her blindly. The wolf did not move.

Profoundly disturbed, she stepped away from her window, closing the curtains, her heart pounding. Although her father still did not allow a lock on her door, she took her chair and propped it up under the doorknob, out of fear of something she could not quite explain. The animal's preternatural eyes stayed with her, burned onto her mind, and she curled up tightly in bed that night, one hand clenched beneath her pillow around the hilt of a knife.

I did some /major/ chapter reworking, so now there'll be 14 chapters instead of 13. So I'll have to speed up posting at least 2 of the chapters to get it all out on time. This chapter is also about 1,000 words shorter than it was originally going to be. Reminder that although this fic is finished, it certainly isn't set in stone, and if you have any suggestions or feedback, let me know! Thanks so much.

Also - the "This isn't you" teaser doesn't fit /perfectly/ for this fic, but I'd definitely keep an eye on Allison, and the wolf watching her...