Chapter Twenty
...
Stiles went quiet as they headed down into the creepy-as-fuck basement in the ruins of the Hale house. There was no sign of life, but that rarely meant a thing nowadays. He shone his torch through the blackened ruins, slowly and carefully, not wanting to miss anything important. Behind him, the werewolves were walking silently, sniffing gently. They were all tense, scenting the grief and pain and anguish, the wolfsbane and blood that had brought Peter back to life. It was an unpleasant combination for Stiles' nose, let alone that of the werewolves, and Derek especially.
Parrish took point as they went deeper into the basement and through to the escape tunnels. There was a trail of ash and soot on the walls, their footsteps sounding loudly in the concrete tunnels as they followed the path to the hellhound. Parrish stopped abruptly and looked around, his eyes glowing orange. "He's here."
"Okay, good. Can you tell him we're here to do the check thing?" Stiles asked.
Parrish nodded and let out a snarling noise, sounds and words interspersed between the noise. Stiles watched in fascination as a whole new language seemed to be created before his very eyes. There was an answering snarl from further down the tunnels, louder and with more snarl than words.
"He's agreed to check you over," Parrish said.
"Are you sure? That sounded like a lot of grrr for a yes or no question," Stiles said, his heart beating a little faster than normal.
"I'm sure," Parrish replied.
"I'm going with you," Derek said, his tone leaving no room for discussion or argument.
"Thanks, Der," Stiles said, squeezing his hand briefly.
Derek smiled briefly and they walked down the tunnel to where the hellhound was waiting, the three werewolves and Parrish walking behind cautiously.
Stopping at the entrance to the hellhound's hideout, there was another lot of growling noises. Stiles looked over his shoulder to where Parrish was standing.
"You need to take off your vest, otherwise he can't check properly. Kevlar isn't great for this," Parrish said.
"Stiles isn't taking off the only thing protecting him from being mauled to death by this guy," Derek snarled.
"He's not going to maul Stiles to death any more than I would," Parrish said, rolling his eyes.
"You threatened to maul him to death on the ride over," Okami pointed out, Tasha snorting in amusement beside her.
"Uh, guys?" Caleb called, both Parrish and Derek turning towards him with almost identical glares. "Stiles has apparently made his decision," he said, nodding to where Stiles was approaching the hellhound, sans vest. "Don't you have to report this to HQ?"
Parrish sighed and nodded, unclipping the radio from his belt.
It took all of Derek's willpower not to go after Stiles. He watched as the hellhound stood to his full height and his hand lit up with bright orange flames. Without any kind of warning, the hellhound plunged his hand into Stiles' chest, and Stiles screamed. For Derek, all other noise was drowned out. He was physically held back by Okami, Tasha, and Caleb, the werewolves practically wrapping themselves around him to stop him from moving forward.
"He'll be fine, honey," Tasha reassured Derek.
"If he's not, then we'll help you kill the hellhound, okay?" Caleb added.
"Trust Stiles; trust that he's made the right choice," Okami said, her voice firm.
"Of course I trust Stiles; I don't trust the hellhound," Derek muttered, not taking his eyes away from Stiles.
The hellhound snarled and growled something, but as Parrish didn't respond, it seemed to be for the hellhound's own benefit rather than any sort of conversation. There was another snarling growling noise and then the hellhound pulled his hand out of Stiles' chest, a black shadowy thing clutched in his grip. He immediately turned to volcanic stone, and Stiles dropped to his knees, gasping and gulping for air.
"Holy shit," Stiles groaned.
Okami, Tasha, and Caleb finally let Derek go, and he was by Stiles' side in a heartbeat.
"Stiles, are you all right?" Derek asked urgently, putting his hand on Stiles' side to drain his pain. He frowned when nothing happened, no black lines, no sense of pain or hurt. Derek tried again, pulling away when Stiles started laughing. "Uh, Stiles? Are you okay?"
"I feel great. Der, I think he just... he took the darkness away! It's not there. See?" Stiles said, sitting up properly and putting Derek's hand on his chest. "I feel light as a freaking feather," he said, grinning broadly.
Derek looked from his hand on Stiles' chest, to Stiles' face, sniffing briefly. There was no scent of darkness that usually hung around him, and even the bags under his eyes no longer seemed as puffy, his shoulders and body loose.
"That didn't come out with you though, did it?" Tasha asked, frowning.
Stiles looked over at the other four and shook his head slowly. "Well, yes and no. It was in us when we went in there; Scotty and I have had that darkness for a few years now. Maybe us coming back out with the darkness still in us woke him up? Either way, I'm not sad he's taken it." Stiles stood up slowly, brushing his body off and putting his Kevlar vest back on. "If it's not what he's looking for, then he'll probably wake up again. I hope he's sleeping at least, that's a shitty thing to be awake through," he said, far too tempted to poke the statuesque hellhound.
"Who is it?" Rafe's voice came from Parrish's radio, sounding impatient and worried.
"Allison," Lydia replied, her voice sounding distant.
Stiles blinked and looked at Derek in surprise, his own emotions mirrored back on Derek's face. "Let's go. Uh, we'd better bring this guy with us; I doubt he wants to be stuck down here for any longer than he has been."
Caleb, Okami, and Tasha all moved forward to carry the hellhound out of the tunnels and basement. Over the radio, Parrish took note of the coordinates that were given to Rafe, then let HQ know they were heading in the same direction.
...
"The Nemeton's trying to replace the power that's been stolen from it. It's not meaning to kill the rats, but it's getting whatever power it can from the creatures in the forest. It started off small, with a hive of ants and some bees, but so much power has been taken from the Nemeton that it needs more to balance it out," Jorge explained as they headed through the forest towards the Nemeton.
"We're not heading into a trap, are we?" Liam asked nervously. "We've got power, and we're heading straight for the thing that has been draining power from things."
"I'm also a little concerned that rats have any sort of power to begin with," Mason added, frowning.
Jorge shrugged. "All creatures have life, therefore they have power. Besides, the power has to be given willingly in order to balance the Nemeton. The animals are sacrificing themselves."
"How much more power does the Nemeton need?" Malia asked, frowning.
"More than the rats can provide," Yukimi said suddenly, stopping at the top of the next incline and looking to the forest below.
A herd of deer were dead, their bodies lying peacefully on the ground, strewn across the path they were taking.
"HQ, we're going to need help at the Nemeton sooner rather than later," Yukimi said into her radio.
"There's a whole herd of deer that're dead," Liam called in the background.
"The animals are sacrificing themselves and their power to restore balance, but the tree needs more and it needs to be willing. Anyone got any ideas?" Yukimi asked as they navigated around the herd and continued towards the Nemeton.
"What happened with the Druid they were after? Could he be convinced to give up his power willingly?" Yelena asked.
While Yelena was a human, there was a glint to her eye that made Malia think of a wild animal instead. "I like you," Malia said, grinning.
...
At the clinic, Scott was still fighting Sean, gouging five thick lines into the bark of his arm. Sean hissed in pain, sap running from the wounds. He didn't have time to recover as the door was flung open, another werewolf practically tumbling through the doorway and into Scott, all in the space of a second.
Scott snarled and swiped at the werewolf. The curly-haired werewolf - Zach? Isaac? Something like that, Sean thought - dodged his claws with surprising speed, his mouth set in a firm line of determination.
Ari seemed to be awake again - Scott had knocked her aside a few minutes ago - and blinked at the sight of the two werewolves. She tried to call to Scott again. "Scott, look at what you're doing. Isaac doesn't want to hurt you."
Scott's eyes flickered from red to brown to red again, taking almost a full second to return. Encouraged by this, Ari moved closer to the two werewolves, keeping an eye on where they were going to step to make sure she wouldn't be knocked out again.
"You're his friend, Scott. You don't want to hurt your friend, do you?" Ari asked, her voice soft and lilting, drawing more brown from Scott's eyes than red.
"Come on, Scott. Please," Isaac begged.
"Howl," Ari said in her normal voice.
"Uh, what?"
"Howl; it will get through to him faster," Ari promised.
Isaac avoided Scott's claws again, again, and then dodged a second too slow, one claw cutting through his skin like a hot knife through butter. He howled in pain.
Ari continued to talk to Scott, telling him how he was hurting his friend and he needed to stop, to regain control. His eyes were filtering back to brown when on the radio at Sean's belt, Lydia's voice filtered through. "Allison."
Scott's eyes turned brown completely and he looked around the room in confusion, seeing that Deaton was nowhere in sight. His eyes widened when he saw Sean and Isaac's injuries. "What did I do?"
...
Ethan had been on route to the hospital so he continued that way, hoping the Calaveras would have the sense to not hurt him in public. Araya was there, as were her two sons and daughters, and the five crew that went everywhere with them. There were others within the Calaveras' organisation, of course, but the organisation itself still needed to be run, so only a select few were allowed to join the hunt.
"Keep running, boy. We will always find you!" the matriarch called out. "You know the blue eyes are not for innocents," Araya added.
Ethan's eyes flashed blue, even as he tried to ignore her words, tried not to think of the accident that had led to his blue eyes in the first place. He sighed in relief when he saw the hospital up ahead. Araya saw it in the same instant, swearing in a mix of Spanish and English and urging the cars to go faster. Ethan ran faster still, almost smashing into the hospital doors as he ran inside. Skidding to a halt in front of the nurse's station, Ethan took a moment to catch his breath. Now that he was actually here, he had no idea what to say, and he tried to think of something that would make sense, let alone be believed.
"Ethan?" Melissa asked, frowning at seeing the young man in Beacon Hills, let alone in the hospital.
She'd seen him after Aiden's death and helped patch his wounds, as they hadn't healed properly on their own. Melissa had left Ethan sleeping in a hospital bed and when she'd returned less than three hours later, the bed was empty and Ethan was gone.
Ethan looked up at her, his eyes widening when he heard the hospital doors open behind him and scented the Calaveras. "We need to go."
"Oh, no, we do not," Melissa said. "I have patients and I'm not leaving them unprotected against whatever's about to happen," she snapped.
Ethan was surprised at the ferocity in her voice, but he stepped aside with a brief sneer. "Be my guest."
Melissa ignored the young man's tone and walked to the Calaveras. Araya looked at her stern expression and returned the gaze with one of her own.
"That boy is ours," Araya said firmly.
"That boy belongs to no one, especially not you. If you have no injuries or illnesses, you can leave my hospital. You are not hurting these people," Melissa practically snarled, obviously having spent far too much time around werewolves.
"That boy is not a person," Araya said, her eyes bright with anger and her accent thick.
"He's more of a person than you are right now!" Melissa snapped.
"Is everything all right here, Mrs. McCall?" a deep voice asked.
The Calaveras looked up to see a large bulking man standing beside Melissa, his face stern and his biceps bigger than their heads. He wore the outfit of a security guard, and looked ready to physically throw every single one of them outside, probably all at once.
Araya clenched her jaw. "We will take this outside. When the boy is ready to face us, we will be waiting."
Melissa waited until the group of ten had left the hospital foyer before turning to the security guard beside her. She patted his arm gently. "It's all right, Teddy. Just make sure they don't come back in, okay?"
Teddy nodded firmly and moved to sit where he could keep an eye on the door and the group outside.
"You hired security guards?" Ethan asked, surprised.
"The Board thought it a necessary expense considering the amount of attacks we've had in the last five years. I have patients to check on, so you can tell me what's going on along the way," Melissa said, grabbing a stack of files from the nurse's station and walking, not waiting or looking to see if Ethan would follow.
Looking out through the foyer doors, Ethan saw the Calaveras lounging against their cars, ready and waiting, as promised. He looked away from them and hurried after Melissa.
...
Jackson found Gerard. Or rather, Gerard found him. The elderly man smirked at him from the driver's seat of his car, Jackson pinned against a warehouse wall. Jackson glared at Gerard the whole time he spent destroying the corrugated iron wall behind him, wishing that looks could kill. The old bastard just smirked back at him.
"We worked well together, didn't we? Why not join me again?" Gerard asked, even as he pressed his foot on the pedal, driving his car further into Jackson's abdomen.
"Don't say that like I had a choice!" Jackson snapped, Gerard sneering back at him.
The wall behind him finally gave way and Jackson fell flat onto his back, turning his head to the side as Gerard drove forward over him entirely. As soon as the exhaust pipe was out of his sight, Jackson was up and racing towards the forest.
He heard Lydia's whisper of Allison, but more importantly, Jackson heard Isaac's howl of pain. He growled under his breath and, ignoring the rest of his patrol, he followed Isaac's scent instead.
Jackson was going to kill whoever had hurt Isaac.
...
"Allison," Lydia whispered, her eyes wide.
Her friend was crouched low in front of one of the caves in the forest, further outside of Beacon Hills' territorial lines than Mr. Forrester's home. Lydia didn't even notice the chicken feathers that were scattered around the entrance of the cave, stepping forward until she was only a few metres away from Allison.
"Stay back!" Allison snarled, a threat and warning in her tone all at once.
"Ally?" Lydia asked, confused.
"You're not in the Wild Hunt anymore," Sara called out. "It's over."
"The Wild Hunt never ends," Allison growled under her breath, not believing the witch.
There was movement behind her, and Lydia could have been knocked over with a chicken feather when she saw who was behind Allison.
"Erica, Boyd. You're alive," Lydia said, not at all proud of the way her voice turned into an awful croak or the unbidden tears that sprang to her eyes.
She pressed her hands to her eyes to stop the tears, trembling as she was overwhelmed and overcome with emotions that she couldn't even hope to name. Lydia hadn't even realised that their deaths had hit her just as hard as Allison's until that very moment.
"L-Lydia?" Allison asked, her fierce expression fading at the sight of her trembling. "How do I know this isn't another trick?" she asked a second later, her voice hard and with an edge to it that Lydia had never heard before.
"What's the Wild Hunt?" Li asked, frowning. "Stiles didn't explain it very well, apart from the train station thing. Well, that wasn't explained very well either, really," they added, their frown deepening.
"Stiles?" Erica asked, one hand clutching Allison's shoulder, the other Boyd's hand. "He's here?"
Jade seemed emboldened by her response and nodded. "He's not here right now, but he's dealing with a hellhound elsewhere in town. We can get him on the two-way?" she offered.
Boyd nodded for the three of them.
"Stilinski, you're needed as proof of life over here. There's a few people who seem invested in you being alive," Sara said over the radio.
Kuhle hid a laugh behind his fist at her disbelieving tone.
"Hey, Sara. Who's invested in me? What's going on?" Stiles asked.
"Batman?!" Erica almost squealed, Jade flinching back at the loud noise.
"Erica?! Shit, Derek!" Stiles cursed as Derek's knees gave way at the sound of his pack member's voice.
"Derek's there too?" Boyd asked.
"Boyd?! Holy... What the fuck is happening? Fuck the Nemeton; where are you?" Stiles demanded, his voice close to breaking.
"We can get to the Nemeton from here," Boyd called.
"Okay, we'll be there in ten... Maybe five," Stiles amended, seeing Derek's expression.
"HQ to all teams: rendezvous at the Nemeton in ten minutes. Report in if not possible," the Sheriff said. "We'll meet you there." He sure as hell wasn't missing this.
...
End of the twentieth chapter.