Chapter Ten: Mafdet

He cuts off your head with this his knife which was in the hand of the panther-cat Mafdet
she who lives [in the house of Life]

He draws those (teeth) which are in your mouth,
he saps your seed (poison) with those four strings
which were in the service of the sandal of Osiris.
Monster, lie down!

x.

Allison stood in her kitchen, the light on, shining in the darkness, a phone pressed to her ear. "Is he OK?" she asked, with concern. "I mean, it hasn't hurt him or anything, right?"

"No," replied Scott's voice, on the other line. "But I'm more worried about him hurting himself. And it doesn't help that tonight's the full moon, too."

In her home, Allison ran a hand through her hair, pulling her bangs away from her eyes. "Can I talk to him?" she asked.

"Um, I don't think so," said Scott, glancing back at a door in the small, dark apartment.

"Why not?"

Moving to the door, Scott replied: "He locked himself in the bathroom. He was talking to himself earlier, but now he's not really saying anything. Hold on." He took the phone away from his ear and reached up, tentatively knocking on the door. "Isaac?" he called, his voice kind. "Are you still in there?" Nothing. But Scott could hear Isaac's heartbeat from the other side of the door, smell his scent, sharpened by the dank, pungent odor of fear. "Isaac," said Scott again, leaning his forehead against the door. "Allison's on the phone. She wants to talk to you." Silence. "Don't you want to talk to Allison, Isaac? Come on. Just open the door. Don't be scared. Nobody's gonna hurt you, I promise."

There was a split second of total silence. And then, suddenly, piercing through the quiet, Isaac let out a shrill, ringing scream that resounded in Scott's skull, rattling him down his spine, and Scott shouted the other boy's name as he continued to scream, breathless and terrified. Scott dropped the phone, yelling at Isaac until finally he kicked hard, knocking through the door, rushing into the little bathroom, instantly on his knees before the other boy, who writhed on the floor, curled up. For an instant, Scott was reminded of the day they laid Isaac down in the tub full of ice; he had let out the same thrashing, whimpering screams then, although now they were much more intense. Just like then, when Scott moved forward, Isaac's hand shot out and grasped his arm tightly, clinging to him.

"It's OK," said Scott, holding on to Isaac, whose eyes darted around the room. He flinched away from something invisible, covering his face and eyes, a profoundly human instinct he'd developed far before he became a wolf. "Isaac," said Scott, and he tried to smile, tried to lift Isaac away from whatever was torturing him, holding on tightly. "Look at me. Come on, don't think about anything else. Look at me, I'm right here in front of you, and whatever you're scared of isn't real. OK? Isaac. Look at me."

Very slowly, Isaac's eyes seemed to refocus, coming in more clearly. He finally met Scott's gaze, but his grip did not loosen.

"See?" said Scott, smiling at Isaac. "Nothing to worry about. I'm right here." He moved slightly, tugging himself away, untangling his limbs from Isaac. "Are you OK?" he asked, and Isaac nodded dumbly, his mouth hanging open, staring around vacantly. "OK," said Scott, and he glanced back at where he dropped the phone. Without quite letting go of Isaac, he leaned across the floor, reaching out. His fingers barely brushed the tip of the phone; he elongated his claws, and managed to pull it back towards him, and he put it to his ear, tucking it between his shoulder, both hands going back to Isaac, checking his body methodically for any wounds. "Hi," he said, into the phone. "You still there?"

"Yeah," replied Allison. "Is he all right?"

"I think so," sighed Scott. "But he might not be much help for a while." Scott waved his hand before Isaac's face, and the other boy didn't even blink. "He's kind of out of it. I think I'm gonna take him home. I can't leave him here all alone."

"That's a good idea."

He paused, and then asked, "Speaking of, where are you?"

She replied, "At home."

"With your dad?"

"He's out," she replied shortly, shaking her head. "But I don't need him to keep me safe, Scott."

"I know that," said Scott. "But with everything going on right now, it's probably better if you're not alone either. Not because I don't think you can take care of yourself! – but if something happens, you should have someone there. For you."

Smiling slightly, leaning back on the counter, Allison replied, "That's sweet, but I'll make it fine on my own, Scott."

"Hey," said Scott. "I have an idea. Why don't I bring Isaac to your place?"

"Um," began Allison uncertainly, "I don't know if my dad would be cool with a catatonic werewolf crashing on the couch-"

"Not for a long time," Scott reassured her. "Just so I can be with you for a while, so you're not alone."

She considered this for a second, her desire to be with Scott clashing with her instinct to take care of herself. And then, almost reluctantly, she said, "Sure. I've been meaning to take another look at the bestiary, anyway. You can help."

"That isn't exactly what I had in mind," replied Scott, grinning, still holding on to Isaac, "but OK. Sounds good. See you soon."

"See you. 'Bye." She hung up, holding her phone before her for a moment, in the still quiet of her house. Then she put it on the countertop and looked up, around her. Deliberately, she did not glance above her, to where the blood had pooled on the night she saw her mother again. But she did look around her, eyes open and alert, leaning against the counter. Her body was not completely relaxed. She didn't move. She was not afraid. She was waiting.

It started, as it had before, with a chill tickling up the length of her spine. Allison didn't immediately move. Instinctually, her hand traveled down her leg, expecting to reach a weapon, but then she reminded herself that she had abandoned them, locked them up and away from her. There was something ominously invasive about the visions she had been seeing, but she could not think they were any physical danger to her. Like Scott had said about Isaac, if she panicked, if she forgot her training and wielded the weapons she thought she knew so well poorly, then she was the biggest threat to herself. The memory of shooting blindly at the wolves which hadn't been there ran through her mind, and a part of her trembled in fear as she imagined what could have happened if her father had entered the Hale house a few minutes earlier, when she was in the midst of her hallucinations. No. If these things – hallucinations, or ghosts, or whatever – were trying to trick her into hurting anyone, including herself, she would not let them.

The sound of something falling in the garage. Instantly, her gaze snapped to the door. She remembered the knock coming from the same door, the blood tightening around her throat, her mother's dead eyes staring at her, thin, white lips saying her name. The second she thought it, she heard it again, flooding in like a whisper from beneath the garage door, like a gas trickling in. Her name chimed, a chorus of voices, reaching her, tugging her towards the door. She moved forward, and, spending no time to consider what could be on the other side, she opened the door to the garage.

The light was on, emitting the supremely mundane buzz of fluorescent lighting. Her car was there. At the far end, guns and weapons hung on the wall, behind a chain-link cabinet. As she watched, her eyes narrowed, there was a slight creaking sound, and one side of the cabinet banged uselessly in place. The lock, she saw, was no longer there.

For a moment, she did not move. And then, steeling herself, Allison moved forward, crossing the garage, putting her hand against the cold metal surface, searching around on the table for the padlock. Tools surrounded her. Weapons, blades and guns, blinking at her, taunting her. Behind her, someone laughed. She whipped around, heart pumping. There was no one there.

Slowly, she turned back to the table, reaching her hand up again to touch the cabinet. Like a ring of fire bursting around her wrist, burning her, sending pain up every nerve in her body, a hand clamped around her wrist, so tightly she felt bone scrape in the joint. Struggling, she looked around, and her mother looked back at her, the symbol carved into her forehead. "Allison," said her mother, her pupils covered with a shining film, "listen to me. It's not that hard. It's something of a tradition. Violence. Blood. It's very simple."

Allison did not breathe, her eyes focused on her hand, which her mother forced down with unnatural strength. Her palm was flat against the wall beside a display of thick hunting knives, all of which Allison had wielded before.

Again, her said quietly, "It's not hard. There are people waiting for you, daughters of our family." She shifted, and the stink of rot blew into Allison's face as her mother pressed against her, her face hovering beside her cheek. "In your family," she whispered, her head cocked slightly, moving with some indefinable reptilian capacity; a great smile broke out on her lips, and she continued, "…our leaders do not die gently."

Abruptly, her mother's hand slid upwards along Allison's skin, curling Allison's fingers around the hilt of a knife. Allison's breath finally broke and she tore the knife from its holder, whipped around, and began to thrust the knife towards her mother's chest.

She froze, knife in hand. Her mother stared at her with those gray eyes. Blood trickled down from the corner of her mouth as she watched her daughter, and Allison could see nothing but the knife already lodged in her mother's chest, piercing her no longer beating heart. The long hunting knife clattered out of Allison's hand, onto the floor.

Victoria Argent put her hand to her chest, grasped the hilt of the kitchen knife in her chest, and drew it out, leaving a gaping wound in her body. "No," she said quietly. "We have no patience for quiet deaths."

Before Allison could move, something grabbed her from behind, arms wrapped around her throat, pulling her backwards, knocking her off her feet. Gasping for breath, she struggled against the grip, her throat constricted. She scrabbled desperately against the arms at her neck, her fingernails rending through flesh, and then she dropped onto the floor, sucking breath into her lungs, her pulse skyrocketing in fear. And then, above her, there was laughter again, that awful, chuckling laughter, and through hazy eyes she looked up, and Kate crouched above her, bloodstained below the gaping tear across her throat, her face pale and bloodless. "Leader?" asked Kate, tauntingly. Her hand shot out, catching Allison around the throat. "This little girlie? This kid? Allison, you're cute and all, but you were never-" she thrust down on her throat, crushing Allison's larynx; she could feel the breath caught in her lungs, Kate bared her teeth in hatred, and her blood dripped down onto Allison's face as she hissed, "-capable."

Kate laughed again, and Allison's mother watched her, the knife in her hand. Allison could do nothing, her blood loud and rushing in her ears, tears pooling in her eyes and fear twisting in her chest, her senses lost on the dead women before her, the pain in her body, the pain that she knew could not be real. She looked up at her aunt again, at that expression of hatred in Kate's eyes that she had never, ever known, and then something seemed to click into place in Allison's body, and she stopped struggling.

She raised her hands to Kate's, at her neck. The breath she could not breathe was no longer painful. Slowly, she lifted her fingers before her eyes.

And then, quick as the arrows she so often let loose, she reached up and took her aunt's head in her hands, twisting sharply. On a living human, her neck would've broken and she would have died instantly, but in this awful ghost, the neck twisted but she hardly moved. Allison tore herself away from those cold hands and grabbed a handful of her aunt's hair, throwing her to the ground. At the same moment she jabbed her knee upwards, colliding solidly with the front of Kate's face, with a dull, satisfying, crunch.

Getting to her feet, she allowed the ghostly body of her aunt to fall to the ground, filmy gray eyes moving restlessly in their sockets. Allison wiped her cheeks with her sleeve and then spat, "That was for Derek."

And then she stomped, hard, on Kate's face. Blood did not flow, but it oozed from her nose and the wounds along her cheek and brow bone. She did not move, her limbs splayed loosely out. Raising her foot one final time, she came crushing down on the ghost of her aunt's jaw, and there was a loud, satisfying crack, and some odd, unattached quality to Kate's face when Allison removed her foot.

"And that," she said breathlessly, staring down at the body before her, "was for his family."

She glanced up, her eyes dark.

The ghost of her mother still stood there, the knife in her hand at her side. "Allison," she began, stricken, "look what you've done. To your family. You are a disgrace. You are not worthy of your family's legacy."

Allison knelt down and tugged a knife from the belt at Kate's waist. "Allison," insisted the thing. "You listen to me. I am your mother-" Barely glancing up, she twisted it around her fingers, then threw it forward at the ghost-thing, with force. It landed on her forehead, squarely in the mark of the Morrigan, and she stared at her with wide eyes. And then she was gone, and so was Kate's body, and Allison was alone.

Breathing hard, Allison shook back her hair. She stared around her, and then, lowly, she said, "You are not my mother."

A padlock sat on the surface of the table, and she took it and slipped it onto the cabinet before her, then went back into the house, turning off the light in the garage behind her, running her fingers over her unwounded neck as she left.

With difficulty, Scott managed to get Isaac out to the car, tucking him into the passenger seat, buckling the seatbelt across his body. He got in before the wheel, starting the car. For a moment, they didn't move, and Scott glanced over at Isaac.

"What did you see?" he asked, and the sheer depth of the stark, simple compassion in Scott's voice was breathtaking. He didn't glance away from Isaac, eyes big and worried. Gently, he asked, "Did you see your father?"

It took a moment, and then Isaac suddenly turned, looking at Scott as if he had just realized he was not alone. Slowly, he turned his gaze back to the windshield before him, and he shook his head. "No," he murmured, very quietly. "No…"

Scott blinked, leaning forward, trying to catch Isaac's gaze. "No?" he repeated. "Who was it, then?"

Isaac's lips began to move, but no sound came out. Finally, it came with a rushing sigh, more breath than word, and Scott stared at Isaac, blinking.

Isaac whispered, "Derek."

Not far away, Stiles blinked up in the near-darkness, his chest rising and falling quickly. "OK," he said, his voice unusually high, "should we have maybe not done this on the full moon?"

"Why?" murmured Cora, her hands on either side of his head, lowering her mouth to nip against his jaw; despite his reservations, he turned his head, allowing her for easier access, and she sucked at a spot at the top of his neck, and he squeezed his lips together, biting back a noise. Lips drawing back in a smile, she whispered into his ear, "You don't think I can control myself?"

"Oh, God," he said in reply, his arms thrown uselessly out on his bed on either side of him. "I'm hoping you can't control yourself, if that's what you're talking about. But if you're talking about the claws and fangs thing, I mean, no, yeah, I'd prefer it if we could avoid that."

She giggled, and his stomach fluttered a little, both in arousal and because every time she laughed, he wanted her to never stop, he wanted to bottle that feeling and drink it every day. Her left hand went up to the side of his face, cupping his cheek, and it occurred to him for the first time how much smaller than him she was, her thin fingers trailing along the skin of his face. Her hand trailed down her neck, and she moved her head, pressing her mouth against the side of his face, his temple, his forehead. Stiles's eyes were open, and the light of the moon illuminated her skin before him, the delicate, thin sinews of her neck, her chest, the spot where the neckline of her shirt began. He stared, and then, meekly, he began, "Is it OK if I-"

"Yes," breathed Cora, her hand pressing against the crook of his neck. "Yes, Stiles, could I be any more obvious?"

"Hey," protested Stiles, leaning forward, reaching up and around her, pressing his lips against the base of her neck. "Don't you know that-" he kissed her skin, electricity running up his spine as he dragged his teeth along her collarbone, nibbling there, sucking gently, "-communication is-" she leaned forward, letting out a moaning breath, a hand trailing down his side, "-communication is important, Cora-"

She sat up, tearing her skin away from his mouth, and he made a noise of protest, raising his hands, grabbing emptily at air. He looked up at her, jutting out his lip in a faux-pout. With another giggle – something in him died a little, he needed that giggle so badly – she slid down on his body, straddling his hips. "Fine," she said faintly, her hands on his still-clothed stomach, staring down at him intensely. "Then communicate."

With that, she slipped her hands underneath his t-shirt, and he let out a funny little yelp, and she grinned. "Louder," she said, sliding her hands up his skin, trailing along his ribs. Her hands slid across his nipples and he let out another groan, telling himself he was humoring her, but he squirmed underneath her touch and it was irrepressible. Then her hands appeared above his collar, tucking behind his neck, and she tugged, and something brought him back and he lifted his arms, moving in tandem with her to pull his t-shirt all the way off. She stared at his body for a moment, until he wriggled slightly, comically folding his arms, covering up.

"Oh, stop," he muttered, batting his eyelashes at her. "I'm indecent."

She laughed once more, and lowered her head, tucking a hand behind his and kissing him on the lips. They lingered there for a moment, and then she pulled away, lowering herself down to his neck then trailing down across his chest and stomach. He made another noise, partly because he knew she liked it and partly because her fingers were tracing along his lower stomach, just above the waist of his jeans. She did indeed seem to like it, running her hands along his body, her mouth working on her chest. Vaguely, it occurred to Stiles that he'd have marks all over him tomorrow morning, and that made him let out another noise, for which she, again, rewarded him.

His fingers dug into her head, twisting her hair through his fingers. He tugged upwards, and she took her mouth away from his skin and slid back up to hover above his face, her body lying completely against his. "That's pretty…" began Stiles, his fingers still in her hair, "…wow." He let out an awkward laugh, and then said, "Phew. Wow. Oh my God. Please tell me this is really happening." She kissed the side of his face, and he let her, hardly moving. "Because," he continued, his eyes fluttering shut slightly, "if this is some crazy good dream, I… I mean, I'll be comatose. Forever. I don't even care. I really, really, don't, like I would pretty much miss out on basically all of life if I could just – if you would just…" he trailed off, and her kisses on his jaw turned more aggressive, and she nipped at him with her teeth. "Ouch," he breathed, his hand flickering up to his face. "That hurts."

She drew back, looking at him with shining, reflective eyes. He thought he saw something in them flicker scarlet. Patiently, she muttered, "It's supposed to."

He swallowed, staring her in the eye. Faintly, he said, "OK."

Again lowering herself to his chest, she murmured, "How long before your dad gets home?"

"Um," he said, eyes closed, back arching involuntarily at her touch, "I don't know. What time is it?" Cora stopped, sitting up, reaching for her phone, and he said, "No, no, no! Don't stop, oh my God." She smiled at him coyly, then returned to his skin. "I don't know, like a few hours or something. He said he'd be late tonight, but, you know. We could always get started, if you wanted." He shifted beneath her, taking a deep breath. "I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm, like, halfway there already."

She looked up again, her fingers scraping down his chest. "You're so easy," she remarked, and she sounded amused.

"I am," said Stiles, nodding, taking her hands. "I am so easy. I am the easiest. Would it be at all possible to get naked now?"

Whatever he began to reply was lost as it turned into a high whine as she sat up, straddling his waist, and curled her fingers beneath the hem of her shirt, tugging it off. When he breathed again, after a single moment of stunned silence, it was a layered, shuddery sort of breath, and Cora grinned, bending back over to press their faces together. Her eyes were so close that they were out of focus, almost blurry in his vision, he whispered, "You're incredible."

"And you're such a virgin," she said pointedly, smirking at him.

"Exactly," he replied, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, then trailing his hands down her back. "Which literally puts me in danger right now. I mean, not right now. Not unless you go all crazy full moon werewolf on me, which, to be honest, you probably totally could. Which wouldn't be that bad." She raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged as best he could, lying with her body above him. "There are worse ways to go," he said sagely, "than in bed with a beautiful woman with her werewolf-legs wrapped around your waist."

"That's ambitious," she said, deliberately pulling one leg upwards. Gently, she rolled her knee in between his legs, and he let out another loud breath. "Keep talking and I'll put my clothes back on."

"You barely have your clothes off-"

She shook his arms off of her and sat up, then pulled the straps of her bra off of her shoulders, and grinned at him.

"Oh," he said dimly. "OK."

Her back curving into a perfect, delicate arch, she leaned down and kissed him on the mouth again. Pulling away, she began, "Can you…?"

And he responded, "Can I…?"

Without another word, she pulled her legs off of him and then looked at him expectantly. When he seemed lost, she just sighed, "Get up."

"Up?" he repeated uncertainly, slowly sliding up the bed.

"Just sit up," she said, reaching out, putting a hand on his side, feeling his ribs beneath his skin. "Just like that."

He sat with his back pressed against the wall, and Cora slipped back onto him, sitting on his lap. Finally, he reached out with his own hands, pressing them against her warm skin, slowing making his way up from the gentle curve of the top of her hips to the hard underwire of her bra. Gazing at her open-mouthed, he slipped his fingers underneath, gently pressing against the swell of her breasts. Sitting on top of him, she rocked back and forth slightly and he retracted his hands, clinging to her breathily, mouth breathing hotly onto the side of her neck. Her hands hovered at his waist, digging into the top of his jeans at the back, fingers meeting the waistband of his boxers. He opened his eyes hazily, pressing his face into the crook of her neck, staring down fuzzily at the length of her back.

And then, abruptly, he lifted his head, the looseness in his body disappearing, replaced with a taut, conscious movement. "Oh my God," he said, reaching around her, pressing at her skin at the base of her neck. "What the hell is that?"

"What?" she asked instantly, pulling away from him. She reached a hand behind her back, touching the spot where his fingers had touched her. As she did so, the cup of her bra on the opposite side lowered, and Stiles, still enormously and now inconveniently aroused, had to tear his eyes away from the sight of her chest, biting his lip. "What is it?"

With a tremendous force of will, Stiles gently pushed Cora away, extracting himself from her. "Turn around," he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "This better not be some trick," she said, but she obliged, shifting in the bed to sit facing away from him. "If you can't get my bra off without looking at it, you can just ask me for help, you know."

"That's not it," he snapped. Then, tentatively he added, "Although now that we're here…"

"Stiles," she said. "Just tell me what's going on."

He didn't say anything for a moment, watching her face, slightly turned over her shoulder. And then he reached out and collected her long hair in his hands, parting it, exposing her upper back. "Here," he said, reaching out and lightly placing a finger on the mark. "Like a tattoo, or something. It's the Morrigan, the symbol of the Morrigan."

Again, Cora reached behind her back to touch the spot; this time, Stiles caught her fingers, holding them. He traced her index finger along the black grooves of the mark, and then, slowly, he let her hand go, his own hand falling down back to the bed. "Oh," said Cora.

There was a silence. Then Stiles asked, "Oh?"

"Yes," she replied curtly. "Oh."

"What do you mean, oh?" he asked, tugging at her to turn her around again, meeting her eye. "Your sister – your dead sister – had this same exact thing right here, exactly like you. What does that mean?"

"Wow," she said, already irritated. "You really know how to charm a girl, mentioning my dead sister while we're in bed and all."

"I'm not joking," said Stiles loudly, his voice hard. "If you're in danger-"

"Then what?" she demanded, staring up at him with eyes flashing crimson. "You're going to protect me? What can you do, Stiles? Answer that, and I'll let you. How would you protect me?"

He stared at her for a second, and then glanced around the room. "I don't know," he replied, almost as sharply. "Deaton said I was an emissary now. So some weird druid magicks, that's what I'd do for you."

She stared at him. "Some weird druid magicks."

"To keep you safe? Hell yeah."

"I don't need your help," she said. "Whatever's happening to my family is happening to my family. You aren't involved."

"Um, yeah," countered Stiles, "I kind of am? I leaked black goo right out of my nose, that's usually an indicator that there's freaky werewolf shenanigans afoot, and that I may or may not become casualty to one of them. Besides, what do you mean I'm not involved? I thought pack was family."

At this, something changed in her expression, almost imperceptibly. "You're not in my pack," she told him. "You're in Scott's."

"Yeah," said Stiles fairly, nodding. "I guess. I love that guy to death and back, Cora, but…" he paused, then looked up at her. Meeting her gaze, his voice slightly quieter, he finished, "…there are a lot of reasons I'd want to be with you."

Neither of them said anything immediately. Stiles leaned forward, reaching out a hand to take her chin for a kiss. She turned her head away, and his lips met only the side of her face.

Lowly, she said, "I shouldn't have come."

"Um, yeah," said Stiles. "Not quite there yet, but-"

With more force, she said, "I don't like needing people."

"Well," said Stiles, "OK, but – do you need me, or do you just want me, because I'm totally cool with either or-"

"You were right," she said suddenly, and her gaze was far away, beyond Stiles. "They're bringing her back."

"Oh, woah," he said, leaning forward, taking hold of her arms. "What? Your sister?"

"Laura," she said, her expression grim. She closed her eyes tightly, pulling her face away from him, and then, after a few moments, she continued, "They're bringing her back and I – I want them to. I want them to do it. I don't care what it takes." She lowered her face, refusing to look at them. So lowly he could hardly hear, she whispered, "I hate myself for needing her. I didn't need anyone for a long time, Stiles, I don't want to lose – all of that-"

"Woah, woah, woah," said Stiles, bewildered. "Listen. Cora. You don't lose anything just because you want the people you love back. And you don't lose anything by loving anyone in the first place, either. I mean, think about Scott, there's basically no one in the world he doesn't love, and he's a True Alpha. I think it even makes him stronger." He paused, then asked, "But what do you mean they're bringing her back? Who is?"

"Grace's pack," she breathed. "Grace was – Grace was Laura's mate, before the fire. And now she's here and she's bringing Laura back and she's using me."

"Using you?" asked Stiles. "How?"

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head. "It has something to do with me becoming the Alpha. And they're…"

She let out a frustrated breath, and then pulled up the straps of her bra, moving her legs out between them, holding them in to her chest.

"Sam is one of them," she said bitterly. "She was playing me. I should've seen right through it."

There was a silence. And then Stiles said, "Hey. At least you have one friend."

She looked up at him, her eyes shining.

Deadpan serious, he said, "Your brother." She made a face, and he laughed and said, "I'm kidding, totally kidding. I meant me. I'm your one friend. Your one friend-who-is-a-boy. Your boyfriend. Maybe. I don't know. If you want."

She watched him, worried. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her whole body awkwardly, leaning his head on her knees.

"The mother, the crone, and the maiden," he repeated, his voice soft. "I didn't really give a damn about that guy from the other pack, or Allison's grandfather, but we don't really let people kill kids around here, Cora. I know you want your sister back, but if that means sacrificing an innocent probably-virgin-"

"Stop worrying," she said, reaching outand patting him on the cheek. "I doubt your virginity is deciding factor on this one."

"You don't know that!" he said. "For all you know, forces of darkness are waiting under the bed right now, until you leave without having sex with me, at which time they will appear, and carry my poor virginal body off to the Nemeton, where they will use me to revive your sister. That sounds awful. I do not want that to happen."

She watched him for a moment. And then, lifting her head, she asked, "Are you trying to extort me into sex?"

"What?" he said instantly. "I'm… no, I'm just saying…"

With a small sigh, she pulled away from him, scooting to the edge of his bed, hanging her head off the side, lowering the top of her head to the floor. And then she pulled herself back up and told him smartly, "Nope. No forces of darkness under your bed."

"Oh," said Stiles, "well, good. Looks like I'm not in any danger, then."

"I'll protect you," she said, reaching out, taking hold of his face. "Whatever's haunting everybody else, no matter how stupid it sounds – I'll keep it away from you. I promise."

He put a hand on hers, on his cheek. And then, quietly, he asked, "How?"

Cora watched him. "I don't know," she murmured, "but she's my sister. I know her."

"Yeah, but," he said, curling his fingers around her hand, looking up at her, "what if she's not?"

She stared at him. "What does that mean?" she asked, turning her head, looking slightly away.

"I'm just saying," he continued, and she pulled her hand away, but he still held onto it. "This all seems a lot more witchy than it should. Even Peter didn't use sacrifices when he came back." He paused, watching her, eyes wide and alert. "Her body was cut in half, Cora," he said. "And now it's like the Morrigan is torturing all of us – us, Scott's pack, and we're not even-"

He broke off suddenly, eyes widening.

She turned to him, seeing the expression on his face. "What?" she asked. "What is it?"

When he spoke again, his voice was lower, a different timbre. "Lydia said something," he said, looking to her. "About the other pack." He reached out to her; she took his hands, confused. "How long have they been here?"

"How long?" she repeated doubtfully. "I don't know. Since school started, I guess. That's when the animal mutilations showed up, and Grace talked to me." Stiles stared at her hands, thinking hard. She held onto him, leaning forward. "What?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

He glanced up, met her eye. "This haunting," he said, "or whatever the hell it is, whatever it is that's been happening to me. I was sure it was unrelated, and that's partly because…" he hesitated, then admitted, "It's been going on for months now. Before school started, before the other pack showed up. All summer, almost since before you and Derek left."

She blinked at him. "What does that mean?" she asked.

"Cora," he replied urgently, "what if Grace's pack isn't here to revive your sister? What if they came here because they knew she was already coming back?"

There was a moment of silence. "She said there was someone else," said Cora, looking up at him, the cogs turning on and on in her head. "Someone who'd complete the spell. Maybe they started it in the first place, before her pack showed up." She watched him, her breath steady and measured. "But if it wasn't Grace and her pack," she said, "then who is it? Who's making the spell?"

"I don't know," said Stiles, shaking his head. "I don't know, I don't know." He thought about this, a hand pressed over his face, and then he looked up at her and asked, "When did you become the Alpha?"

"That depends," she replied, nodding her head. "When Derek saved my life, his power transferred to me. It's a version of an ancient ritual, the way Alpha is usually passed down from mother to daughter."

"What?" asked Stiles, his gaze snapping up to her face. "What, what do you mean, an ancient ritual? How is Alpha usually passed down?"

She looked around the bed, and then she found her shirt, slipping it on, pulling her hair out of the collar. "When an Alpha gets too old to lead the pack," she told him, "her eldest daughter takes her place. It doesn't require that the daughter kill her mother, but the siphoning of power is so strong that…" she glanced up at him, her eyes dark and low, "…the mother doesn't usually survive."

"Why didn't it kill Derek?" asked Stiles seriously.

"Because it was a weak version of the ritual," she replied, shaking her head. "I didn't know it could be done like that at all – Alpha runs in the blood of our daughters, so technically it wasn't his power to give. Which is probably why Peter told him about it in the first place, he just thought Derek would lose his status as Alpha. And then he was next in line." Stiles began to say something, a look of confusion rising on his face, but she continued, "That's why I wasn't as powerful as I should have been as Alpha until after I killed Peter."

The room went dead silent, as if something had been dropped. After a single moment, a hand flew to her mouth, covering her lips in horror. Stiles stared at her.

His voice hard, he said, "You told us the other pack killed him."

For a moment, she said nothing. And then, slowly, she removed her hand from over her mouth, and her expression was unafraid. "Peter killed my sister," she said, her voice steady. "And you've seen the way he is with Derek, the way he humiliated him-"

"I thought that was just being an Alpha," Stiles shot back. "You're the same way with Derek now. It's like he needs your permission to speak."

"That power is mine," she replied stonily, "rightfully."

"No, it's not," countered Stiles. "It's your sister's. And it looks like she's coming back for it."

"You think I regret killing Peter?" she asked loudly, slipping off his bed, standing up. There was a manic sort of energy in the way she held herself, staring at him with big, angry eyes. "I don't. My uncle got out the same way I did, Stiles, and he knew I was alive. I pulled him down, out of the fire. I was eleven years old, and I saved his life, and did he once – did he once ever tell Derek? Did he ever mention me?"

She stared at Stiles, her chest heaving with furious breaths. A cloud passed in the sky, and shining moonlight filtered in the window, illuminating the side of her face, casting dark shadows across her skin. Her eyes burnt red.

"OK," said Stiles lowly, getting to his feet, hands held up. "Fine. I understand. Calm down, Cora. I get that you're angry and, hey, wow, I'd probably kill somebody too if I were in your position. I'm not mad or anything. Come on. Just calm down."

She watched him painfully, stepping back when he approached her. There was an ache in her eyes as she said, "You're afraid of me."

"I'm not," said Stiles, shaking her head. "Like, oh my God, ten minutes ago you had your hands down my pants. Would I have let you anywhere near that highly sensitive area if I were afraid of you?" She said nothing, only watching him. "Come on, Cora. I don't care about Peter. OK, sure, I'm a little peeved that you lied to us, but hey, you're a Hale, absolute honesty is not really something I expect from you guys at this point. Although, for the record, if we are, you know, a thing, we might have to have a conversation about that."

She watched him carefully for a long moment, and then stopped, shaking her head, dropping her gaze away from him.

"But," he continued, "I think I just figured something out." He went to the bedside table, grabbing his phone, scrolling through it. "We need to get you back to your brother," he said. "And we should call Scott too, probably. And Allison, and Isaac, I guess. And we need to get some of that mountain ash stuff, too-"

"What?" asked Cora, watching him. "What are you talking about? Why?"

"Because," he replied, looking up at her. "Don't you get it? Cora, it's you. You're the maiden. You're the third aspect of the Morrigan."

"What?" she demanded. "But the Morrigan only takes boys."

"Right," he continued, the panicked frustration rising in his voice. "But it's not about to sacrifice you, it's going to transfer your power. Like how Derek saved you by giving you his – your sister is going to take Alpha, and it'll bring her back…" he trailed off, staring at her, fear in his eyes, "…but it's going to kill you."

In Allison's house, she and Scott sat around the coffee table in the living room, Isaac curled up on the couch behind them. A laptop computer was open before them, and they both peered at the writing there. "Look at this," said Allison, frowning at the screen, pointing to a line of words. "This talks about the Threefold Goddess, which is – probably the same thing as the Morrigan, right?"

"Probably, yeah," said Scott, leaning over her shoulder. "What does it say?"

"Here," she said, pointing to something. "It says that she feeds on the death of soldiers, but it also says something else." She narrowed her eyes in concentration. "It says…blood. It needs blood."

"Well, I mean," replied Scott, "we kind of already knew that, right?"

"No," she continued, shaking her head. "Not just any blood, not from the sacrifices or anything. But from one of their own." She paused, then turned to look at Scott. "The maiden," she told him, "doesn't mean, like, a virgin, or something."

"OK," said Scott, with a slight hint of a grin, "Stiles'll be happy to hear that."

"It means," said Allison, ignoring his comment, "a relative. Family. It doesn't mean blood spilt – it means a bloodline. The Morrigan requires a bloodline sacrifice to be completed."

Allison and Scott stared at each other. And then Scott began, "Does that mean-" Suddenly, a loud ring came from his pocket. Scott dug his hand down and retrieved his phone, answering it, putting it to his ear. "Stiles?"

"Get to the animal clinic, right now," he said, on the other end of the line, he voice hard. "I got it. I know what's going on."

He hung up abruptly, and Scott looked up at his girlfriend, something hovering dark and heavy just above their heads, like a noose tightening around their necks.

chapters 10 and 11 are being posted as a double update because i'm behind on my schedule woohoo