Thanks to AWayward Hunter for betaing and soo much thanks for my anonymous beta who made me improve on descriptions and other stuff. (Also might edit the later parts a bit - but I've kept everyone waiting long enough and the content won't change - just the readability will increase ;))
everyone: sorry for taking so long, chapter was finished but my new beta showed me how much I still need to improve :(
Midnight Chamber: I do feel a bit for using Deuc as the bad guy, but given that he does not handle trauma well ... that was unavoidable.
Angela-Bennet: Thanks I try my best to keep everyone IC, which is sometimes not easy with the source material ;)
sharonpijl: Eventually I will write from Peter's POV view but I probably keep that for the final chapter. I like to keep everyone in the dark about his true motivations.
Weregrrrl13: This chapter is probably not what you've been hoping for but all the comping chapters (with the exception of 24) to 27 will all be predominantly Peter/Lydia.
John Stilinski felt absolutely rotten. He told himself that he'd had no choice but to let Lydia leave with Peter. Yet, it felt wrong. Whatever excuses he made, that didn't change how he felt about letting them walk out of the door.
He'd always figured if the werewolves made trouble, he would just arrest them.
It wasn't so easy, not when they moved faster than he could aim and shoot; from what his son had told him, an ordinary bullet might not do much to stop a werewolf, anyway. He remembered how Jennifer had kept coming at him. Alone, John had no chance. So he told himself, if he tried anything he would only get himself hurt or killed and would still not be able to prevent anything.
He told himself that he needed to call backup.
His body ached as he finally tried to stand upright again. Letting go of the supporting couch he slowly began to walk normal again, interrupted by phases of bending over a bit. His old bones needed the reprieve as they were not handling this level of violence well. John felt that had landed badly on his tail bone, when Peter had thrown him through the room earlier.
It took a moment to get used to the feeling, but the pain actually subsided as he kept walking on stubbornly ignoring it. He staggered on occasion but managed to avoid further aid from furnitures. By the time he stepped outside, he was walking more securely.
"Damn it!" he cursed angrily.
He had hoped to maybe get an idea into which direction Peter and Lydia had gone. There was not one sign of that. Just the dark, badly illuminated street. He would have to have word with city works about the lights on this street.
He opened the door and leaned in to get the radio from the dashboard. He cleared his throat before keying it up to to identify himself. Then when he let go and Sheryl in dispatch answered him, he paused. John realised that if he called for backup and put out an APB on Peter, he would only endanger his deputies. Peter had made it quite clear that he would not tolerate interference. It would probably mean that Peter was ready and willing to kill everyone standing in his way. He had lost men to a supernatural before. Jackson as the kanima, then being a slave to Matt's whims, had butchered the entire night-shift in a matter of minutes. He could not afford a massacre like the one Matt had caused when he had let Jackson, then being a slave to his whims as the kanima, butcher the entire night-shift. This was one of those things that needed to be solved by Scott and the others who were better equipped to handle the situation.
The sheriff and the adult in him cringed at the thought of leaving this to a bunch of teenagers but he had to admit that he was out of his depth on this one. Seeing the smashed window and the punched out concrete wall between them on the second floor, there was no denying it: unlike Chris he wasn't trained for this and the police force was no match for the supernatural speed and strength.
"Sheryl," he finally said. "I'm at the Martin residence, there has indeed been a break in. Send Percy and Miles over to secure the house and interview the neighbours. I also fired a warning shot at one of the perpetrators, but they got away."
"Consider it done, Sheriff," came the routine reply.
"And Sheryl?" he added, thinking of something else. "Have there been any other reports of shootings this afternoon or evening?"
"Let me take a look … there was one in the early afternoon - a cleaning accident with no casualties, except for a tv set, and an hour ago a shot was fired on Union Street along with a fight. We sent a unit around but nobody saw anything. There was no sign of a shooting - except for a little blood on the street."
John sighed; that always seemed to be the case. Sometimes, they could be lucky if people called 911 in the first place, but usually nobody wanted to get involved, and most were too afraid to even look. People always seemed to sense something dark going on in situations like that and kept out of sight accordingly. If he didn't solve this soon, he doubted he would be re-elected as Sheriff.
He felt a headache coming on. Just as he decided to head to Union Street, John heard his cell phone ring. From the ringtone, he could tell it was his son. He wasn't ready to explain to him what happened. Lydia was more than just a good friend; John knew that his son had harboured an unrequited crush on her for years. There also were her special abilities with which Stiles had been helping her as much as he could.
"Hi Stiles, is everything okay?" His hopes of not sounding too worried were quickly crushed.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Stiles said sounding suspicious. At least his son didn't seem to be in trouble; that was a relief. "Dad, did something happen?" he asked, anxiously.
"You can say that." John needed to tell Stiles about Lydia being taken by Peter face to face. As much as it would hurt to see his son's disappointment, it was not the type of message that one gave over the phone.
It was not yet curfew and so, running his fingers through his hair, John asked his son where he currently was.
"At the county's best veterinarian's. The one that patches up household pets as well as mythical creatures." There was a pause and he could tell that Stiles was not sure whether to go on. He had thought they were done with lying and half-truths.
"Stiles," he said with a slightly warning tone.
"All right," his son gave in. "Ethan might currently be bleeding like a stuck pig over here. Seriously, I hope Deaton likes the colour red because I don't think it's going anywhere for a while. Some crazy chick - excuse me, some crazy werewolf - with an assault rifle decided he'd look good with a few more holes in him. I know what you're thinking, too: a werewolf with an assault rifle? That's got to be cheating. And it totally is! I mean, you're given the natural advantage of claws and fangs and supernatural speed and you go with an assault rifle? How fu- effing lame is that?"
"Was he shot near Union Street?" The cop in John had to ask.
"We didn't ask him for the address given that he is bleeding all over the place ..."
In the background he could hear screaming and Deaton saying something that he didn't quite hear.
"I'll be there in a few minutes, th …" he stopped himself.
No reason to worry Stiles by announcing a dreadful message to come. Before he could hang up, though, he was interrupted.
"Wait, Dad! Aiden is here, too - that means Lydia is all by herself. Peter-phile tends to capitalize on those moments so we should give him as few as possible."
"Yeah, she told me about Ethan - I was in the neighbourhood."
"Way to be one step ahead, old man. It's a good thing I've got your genes."
John rolled his eyes. His son knew how to turn a compliment for him into one for himself. Stiles started speaking again, asking for a favour, and with each word, John felt worse and worse because he couldn't do it.
"Can you bring her to Deaton's?" Stiles asked, sounding so relieved. "You know, safety in numbers and all that."
"Son -" he began but yet again, Stiles interrupted him.
"Sorry, dad, they need another pair of hands." And with that, his son hung up.
John took a deep breath. This evening was going from bad to worse at a ludicrous speed, as his son would say. With a sigh, John got into his car and set off.
On the way to the animal clinic he kept thinking about what Peter had whispered to him before Lydia had reached the end of the stairs.
"With your son and his friends inviting so much death into this city, I suggest not making me an enemy. I can be a useful ally - but stand in my way and you'll regret it."
John wasn't sure what the werewolf was talking about but he had the feeling he wouldn't like the answer. While it was possible that he had only said it to mess with John's head, there was a smugness about the way Peter had said it that told him there was more to it. Especially, when John thought about the grin that followed when Peter had seen that John had no idea what he was talking about.
John and Stiles had agreed that there would be no secrets anymore but it seemed that his son and his werewolf buddies had still decided to leave something out.
Not that this revelation was making John any more willing to accept the help from a murderer, kidnapper, and rapist. That line of thought made his hands shake a bit when he also thought of Lydia. Once more, John felt like a coward and complete failure for not protecting her. If not for worrying about the life of his deputies, he would have gone ahead and issued that APB after all.
The really hard thing would be to explain to his son why he wasn't able to stop Peter from taking Lydia. With each mile that he got closer, John formed more ideas about what he might have done differently: he could have kept his distance, shouted a warning to Lydia so she could get away or stopped Peter from approaching him somehow. There had to be something that John could have said or done to change the outcome. It had happened so quickly, John had never experienced anyone moving so fast that he had not really seen the motion to begin with. It was just a blur and suddenly John's gun had been twisted from his hand. John felt quite lost in the face of something supernatural.
As John finally parked in front of the Clinic, even before he got out of his car, his attention fell he immediately on the trail of blood leading into the building. Knowing how busy everyone had been not twenty minutes ago when he had been on the phone with Stiles, he was not surprised that nobody greeted him. He parked the car close to the blood and when he got out he inspected the end of the trail, which started out of nowhere.
It was like someone had dropped him off, as the blood pooled at this point.
He could only speculate at this point and so he went towards the building, carefully not to step into the blood. The sign at the door read: Closed but he found the door was unlocked. Either they had left it open for him or forgotten to lock in all the hectic. Inside he saw the trail continue to the examining room. Knowing he was expected, he went on ahead. The smell of blood intensified but there was also an underlying smell of ammonia.
Only the twins and Dr. Deaton were in the examining room. Aiden stood behind his brother, calm for now but tense and full of anger underneath. Ethan lay on the examining table: bare chested and with a nasty looking gunshot wound. There was blood all over the floor and from the tracks in it, John knew the table had been shoved quickly into the middle of the room. Ethan didn't seem to be conscious. There was an oxygen mask on his face and his chest moved slowly but steadily.
"Sheriff." Deaton nodded in his direction while removing his second glove.
The veterinarian's white coat was covered with blood but he clearly had done his job right. Ethan's wound was no longer bleeding. It was still gaping open and definitely not in a condition a normal human's wound should be left in, but John knew very little about werewolf biology. It wasn't, however, healing as fast as John had expected from what his son had told him about their healing abilities.
"Is he going to be alright?" John asked, concerned.
"The bullet was laced with wolfsbane; not the deadly kind but enough to slow down the healing process," Deaton calmly explained.
Aiden looked absolutely livid but at the same time unwilling to leave his brother's side. John took this as a good sign that, at least, for now he wasn't about to do anything dangerous. From what he had heard about werewolf vendettas, it would mean even more bodies and he would not stand for that. Although, given that Ethan was a werewolf, going up against the shooter legally would be hard. They could hardly tell the truth in court and wouldn't even have proper proof of a wound. Never mind the fact that a veterinarian was not a legally viable option to treat the victim of a shooting.
"Dad!" Stiles greeted him enthusiastically, coming out of the lab room. His face grew worried as he looked around the room. He focused back on John, sounding serious as he spoke again. "I notice a distinct lack of 5'3" strawberry-blonde banshee."
John wondered what to make of the banshee comment but that seemed beside the point when he had to explain Lydia's absence to the room. Scott, who had followed Stiles back into the examination room, gave him a look as if he knew already why she was missing. Aiden seemed to become angrier as well.
"I'm sorry, son. I couldn't stop him." John looked at his son.
"Fuck," Stiles shook his head. If cursing was ever appropriate it had to be at this moment. Besides it felt wrong to lecture his son about word use when he had failed to protect the girl he'd had a crush on since third grade. "Damnit, I knew it wasn't just a dream she had," his son was looking at Scott.
John looked at them with the distinct feeling that he was missing an important piece of information. It was Scott who saw the expression on his face and filled in the blanks. "Aiden and I heard her scream earlier. That usually doesn't mean anything good."
John remembered it from the night when he had been taken the Darach; the scream had echoed through the entire school, leading him to the classroom where Jennifer had tried to strangle Lydia.
"Peter took her," John quickly said to avoid them thinking the worst, even though it looked pretty bleak from where he was standing. "I got a call about a disturbance at her house - when I arrived Peter was already there. I tried to arrest him but he took my gun away, he moved so fast …" He felt his voice trail off, not knowing what else to say to explain his failure. Worst of all was seeing the expression on his son's face.
"Damn it!" Aiden slapped his fist on the steel table. "I should've taken her with me."
For a moment everyone just stared at the twin. It was undeniable that leaving Lydia alone had been a terrible decision but given the circumstances, nobody seemed to have the heart to say it out loud.
"Fucking Peter. We should've known he'd pull something like this. We should've - Derek should have killed him as soon as he popped back up and shook off the dirt!" Stiles suddenly burst out.
John found himself taken back by the reaction. It was shocking to see that his son would so openly want someone dead. Not only that but expected someone to kill him. Even more so it reminded him that Stiles had in fact been involved in killing Peter Hale a year ago. That was more disturbing than anything else, even though they dealt with a remorseless killer.
"Stiles." Scott took a step forward.
"We should have killed him when we had the chance," Aiden said with cold fury in his voice.
"Woah, okay - I know he needs to be stopped but I can't condone killing someone," John told them with growing firmness in his voice, before it swung around to sounding weak and defeated. He had more bad news to share. "There's something else."
Still upset, Stiles interrupted him: "She wasn't hurt, was she?"
"No, I mean…" John stopped, remembering that he had seen strangulation marks on her neck and the cut on her lip. "I think she was okay."
"That's not giving me as much comfort as you might think," Stiles said sarcastically, but there was real terror under the words."We know what he did with her once and even if it's just a repeat performance, she's still pretty shit out of luck."
That was not something John would even like to contemplate, that this was the reason why Peter actually came back for Lydia. She'd seemed so calm, practically asking him to let her go with Peter. John realised that she had been concerned for his safety, knowing well enough what could have happened if he had kept insisting that Peter could not take her.
"The thing is," he began, unsure of how to put it. "Lydia told me that Deucalion attacked her. It seems like Peter did save her."
Mentioning Deucalion made the situation even more tense. Aiden was fuming, Stiles shocked, and Scott looked somewhat guilty. Only Deaton kept his calm demeanour up.
It got worse once John had gotten to Peter's role in this evenings drama. If anything he didn't want to make it seem like that excused his behaviour but he also didn't want to brush this under the table. "I didn't have time to find out what exactly happened but the way Lydia acted around Peter," shaking his head, John sighed, "I don't think was responsible for her …"
"... her what?" Stiles said, carefully, like he was bracing for the worst. .
"There was a small cut on her lip and her voice sounded a bit," he paused, anticipating how awful this might sound for the others, "like she'd been strangled. She seemed alright apart from that."
"Well, so much for escorting Deucalion out of town," Aiden stated, flatly.
Scott shook his head and looked directly at Aiden. "We need to find a better solution; killing can't be our first option! Besides if you hadn't left her alone, she wouldn't have been in danger."
"Let's keep it real: both of you screwed up," Stiles said, pointing fingers at both standing alphas. "The question remains how do we get her back and will you be able to do what's necessary this time around?"
Looking from Scott to Aiden, Stiles' gaze lingered on the twin. It was clear that he expected a more violent resolution. While John understood the worry in regards to Lydia he couldn't condone planning with a kill in mind.
"Maybe if you worked together, we could arrest both of them: There has to be a way to prove them guilty."
"That might not be the best idea," Deaton finally interjected some advice into the conversation. "Deucalion might decide to take you all down with him. Losing his powers certainly made him more unstable than even before."
Scott nodded. "Plus, if Peter has his powers now - and if he managed to save Lydia from Deucalion, he probably has - I'm not sure he'd let himself be taken in. That's if we can find him."
"So we do nothing?" Stiles asked, throwing his arms in the air in frustration.
"We're going to find her. As soon as Ethan is better, we go out and don't stop until we get Lydia back." Aiden sounded very determined. It was clear he was still angry; not just at Peter and Deucalion, but also at himself.
It was evident that finding Peter might be the hard part. John told the others that even though he'd had his department on the lookout since their big meeting, nobody had seen him. There was no apartment registered to his name, no car, and nothing that pointed them in the direction of where they might find Peter Hale.
"I haven't been able to find him or his downtown apartment," Scott admitted. "I honestly don't know what to do. What if Peter isn't lying about not being involved with the other killings? If we split our focus, we're never going to stop any of this. If we combine our efforts to go after Peter, then that leaves the others killers completely unchecked."
Stiles' mouth had dropped open as Scott began. Blinking in disbelief at the end of Scott's proposal, Stiles went off on a tangent. "So what? You actually suggest that we just leave her with someone we know is a depraved, undead sociopathic killer? What? Because it's difficult to get her back? Because you might have to do something that isn't hundred percent above board, true alpha?"
"No," Scott replied, defensively. "I've been thinking - Peter really has made an effort to show us that he's not running around killing people anymore. I think that's supposed to tell us something. I'm not excusing what he did to Lydia but if she's able to put that aside..."
"What if she's not? What if that is just him using his undue influence on her mind to manipulate her into going along with this?" Stiles was clearly opposed to Scott's line of thought. John was inclined to agree with his son. There was no telling what could happen to a seventeen year old girl, no matter how smart she was, if left alone with a shady figure like Peter Hale.
"The killings need to be stopped but we don't have anything concrete, while getting Lydia back is actually something we can manage." John interrupted their conversation to put some adult authority out there. "One thing we might do - or rather that I might do - is visit the family lawyer."
"Family lawyer?" Scott and Stiles said, almost simultaneously.
John saw that Aiden raised a disapproving brow in the background, but otherwise remained silent. There was no need to say anything - nobody was really happy with the suggestion, including John himself.
"The Hale family has a lawyer. He's been in charge of the family accounts, and he's the one who has paid for Peter's medical bills. Clearly, he has been in touch with him in the past year," John explained. "The only problem is that he's out of town and the secretary couldn't give me a phone number or an address. He's supposed to come back this weekend - so maybe I can get a location as early as Monday morning."
"Monday morning? Dad, it's Friday night!"
It was understandable that Stiles was upset about the prospect of leaving Lydia with Peter for the entire weekend, but even if they went out looking for her, there was no guarantee that they would find her any sooner.
"I know, but Peter Hale is not the only danger out there. You need to be careful. You can't just run frantically about hoping to find something. If you get yourself killed that won't help Lydia one bit." While the words were not untrue, it still felt to John as if he was hiding behind the convenient truth.
"If you're worried about Peter performing another ritual with Lydia's help," Deaton said, very calmly. "I doubt that's the case. The night of the ritual was New Moon. Even if he had a different one planned, the next probable date would be the full moon and there is still time."
"But we can't be sure - plus we don't know what else he's going to do to her. He might rape her again, just for the fun of it," Aiden said, barely waiting for the doctor to finish.
"I don't think Peter does anything just for fun - he's always scheming. Whatever he needs Lydia for, I don't think she's in immediate danger," Deaton explained dispassionately.
Scott was thinking aloud. "We can't jump blindly into action. That won't help Lydia or solve anything. She's been right about that; we need to look at the information without assuming." He walked up to the head end of the table and placed a hand on Aiden's shoulder. "Apart from finding Lydia and figuring out who is behind the killings, we need to figure out who was the woman who shot Ethan and who the other werewolf with her was."
Stiles scoffed loudly. "Yeah that's a real mystery right there."
"What do you mean?" John asked confused.
It was clear that Scott understood what his son meant, John even thought that Deaton seemed to give a slight nod into his direction.
"It's very simple, Dad. Peter is an alpha again. I wouldn't be surprised if he turned the first two people he ran into."
Deaton shook his head. "He planned this in detail, I doubt this time around he left it to chance to turn the right person. If those two belong to Peter's new pack, then they were chosen for a specific reason."
"Like being armed to the teeth?" John asked not really sure what criteria a homicidal alpha might choose to turn people into werewolves. "At any rate, I'd like to wait around to get a description of the attackers. While I can't make a charge stick without there being a bullet hole to show for it, I can have my people look out for them, as well. Who knows, they might lead us to Peter, if your theory about them is correct. You mentioned them being Native American. Has Ethan said anything else about them?"
Stiles shrugged but it was Aiden who spoke. "Ethan was drifting in and out of consciousness, but he mentioned that they were a werewolf couple, that the female one shot him. Not sure if she was Native American though; he also said something about them maybe being Mexican."
Scratching his head, Stiles interrupted Aiden. "No, he said she was Native American and he was Latino."
"Maybe," Aiden crossed his arms defensively.
John could imagine that Aiden was probably more focused on his brother's injuries then on what he had said. He knew his son was even better than himself at remembering the oddest details in the most stressful situations. Of course maybe Ethan, being shot and poisoned by the wolfsbane, had misremembered something especially given the pain he was in. They still didn't knew about how it happened; whether he had gotten a good look at the two werewolves or just caught a glimpse of them.
"How long until Ethan will wake up again?" John asked, realising that it was no use to wonder who remembered correctly what was said.
"A couple of hours." Deaton explained that he had put Ethan under while the wolfsbane was filtered out of his system. By then, he hoped that the healing process would speed up. His best estimate, though, was that it would be a day or two before Ethan would be on his feet again.
"Then maybe I should head back to Lydia's home and figure out what to write in that report."
That was one thing John hated already but if he dragged two psychotic werewolves into the limelight that would not end well. Even if his people would be able to make the arrest, proving what happened would likely not be possible without revealing the existence of the werewolves to the justice system and that could endanger Scott, Isaac and all the other werewolves who never harmed anyone.
"That might be a good idea." Deaton agreed. "Scott, would you mind cleaning up the blood out front? I'll see what I can do about it in here."
With a very unhappy expression, Scott nodded and went into a what was probably a supply room.
"I could come with, Dad. I'm kind of especially talented when it comes to cover stories." Stiles winced almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, likely realising that most of his 'cover stories' involved feeding a load of bull to his own father.
John shook his head. "Sorry, I'll have a hard enough time explaining all this without having to come up with a reason for having you tag along."
He certainly could use someone to make sense of what he might find. Given that it might look strange to his deputies and they in turn might carry that bit of information unwittingly to the eyes and ears of Agent McCall and his team of investigators. The last thing he needed was Scott's father investigating what happened tonight at the Martin residence.
Stiles tried to reason with him, offering him reasons like knowing the house better than he did, that he could have shown up on his own to look in on her or even pointing out his amazing rambling abilities that left everyone to confused to make sense of what he just said.
In the end, his son had to concede that keeping the FBI out of this was of vital importance. The feds were anyway way too closely involved.
"Great, so I've no excuse not to be on janitor duty, scrubbing alpha intestines off the floor," Stiles complained as he turned towards Alan. "Hey, that stuff isn't contagious or anything?"
"I wouldn't recommend ingesting it," the doc said and when Stiles gave him an uneasy look, he added. "You should be fine."
Stiles walked toward the supply room, where Scott was noisily moving a bucket. John saw the occasional glimpse of him looking at different cleaners from a shelf. At the door, his son turned and looked around.
John sighed. "I'd better get going, then."
He was about to leave the building, with one foot on the outside already, when John heard Aiden reluctantly offering to help with cleaning the room. John shook his head and closed the door behind him. The amount of aggression that came from that boy made him wonder how much safer Lydia was with him. He seemed ready to lash out in anger, Stiles had seen him involved in physical alterations with the other werewolves more than once and it seemed just a matter of time till Lydia might find herself at the end of beating. The violent types never stopped at just beating up others. Him being a werewolf made him just that much more prone to inflict life-threatening damage, especially with a person not being able to heal fast.
John still didn't buy the "Deucalion made the twins do it" angle. The fact was that they killed their entire pack and the emissary who clearly was no actual threat. All because of a perceived wrong done to them. Aiden easily felt wronged by Lydia. From what he knew about her through Stiles and his own observations, Lydia wasn't the easiest person to get along with.
John made a mental note to ask how Ethan had gotten to the clinic, as it seemed strange that they would have parked the car elsewhere after dropping him off. Especially since, as far as he knew, the twins owned bikes. On the drive back to the house, he caught up with dispatch about whether there were other reports of significance. Apart from the earlier disturbances, everything was pretty calm. Fear and the curfew coming up kept most people inside their homes, and mostly out of trouble. For now at least, it was working as well as was to be expected. Most people paid attention to the curfew, but such a situation would eventually boil over once people got fed up with being confined all the time.
When he pulled on Muholland Street, John saw that his deputies had strung up the area under the broken wall and window section with police tape. Now that he thought about it, John wondered how the two werewolves had managed to damage the wall like that. Stiles had told him that they were capable of punching through a concrete wall but John still had a hard time believing it. Not because he thought it wasn't true; it was just something so extraordinary that it would take him a while until these new rules about how reality worked made it into his daily thought processes. Some things needed to be seen and in this case, John knew it would help him adjust faster. Not that he really wanted to witness it. However, closing his eyes and pretending werewolves, ancient gods, and magic were not real was not an option anymore.
John parked the car in the driveway with the other police car standing prominently in front of the home. Looking around, glad to see that the neighbours were not gawkers, he looked for unusual footprints. It seemed whoever had run away from here had worn shoes. That was something. He only hoped that if a neighbour had seen something out of the ordinary, like a big hairy man-shaped wolf taking off into the night, they wouldn't mention it, because that would bring Agent McCall into this mess and blow it up to a giant clusterfuck.
As he walked into the house, John found the two deputies in the living room, documenting the the chaos there.
"Percy. Miles." John greeted them with a nod. "What have you found?"
"Most of the house is untouched, although there are some weird scratch marks on the back staircase," Percy reported. He was loyal to his sheriff, but also a tiny bit too thorough.
"The real damage is in the girl's room. Friends with your son, am I right?" Miles asked and continued after he saw John nod. "Looks almost like the robbers fought, but I'm slightly worried. we found a girl's phone upstairs, totally trashed. The neighbours couldn't tell if anyone was home - there was no tv on and they heard the boy's motorcycle drive away earlier."
"Nobody saw anything," Percy groaned and shook his head in disgust. "Not even the woman who called about the noise."
"That's the rich snobs for you," Miles added. "The home security was not even on. Hadn't been turned on since last night. Really careless."
"But you said that nobody but the perpetrators were here?" Percy asked.
John hated lying to his own people, especially since he feared it might all come back to bite him in the ass, but he felt like he had no choice. "Yeah, just them, taking off. I think you might be right; they argued about something and a fight broke out. The newspapers made Miss Martin sound like a rich girl strung out on too many drugs, because of her strange episodes-"
"Yeah, maybe they thought that she was having some prescription drugs and started arguing over it," Miles clicked his fingers. "That would explain why the damage is most prominent in her room."
"But the marks on the stairs and walls…" Percy was clearly not convinced.
There was no way to explain this part easily, it would take a bit more to not let this situation get out of hand. Johnn could only hope that Lydia would back him up as soon as they've gotten her back.
"Okay, this is strictly between the three of us," John told them. "There were probably drugs in her room; she's not taking that many anymore but she still tends to sleepwalk. I know she's with an old friend, and will remain there there until her parents can get back. I haven't managed to reach her parents but I prefer for this to stay under wraps. Don't mention the scratches. Most likely they were made by Miss Martin - again."
"Ouch, that poor girl," Miles shook his head slowly. "That attack on her last year got her really messed up, didn't it?"
John gave an empathetic nod to that. "There is also Agent McCall, if he hears anything about something out of the ordinary, he'll descent on her like a plague of locusts. She's has enough problems. I'm not sure what to make of her psychic shtick but …"
As he looked for words, the two deputies, both looked at each other and then turned to him. "Hey, you can count on us," Miles said.
"Mr. Wonder Fed is butting in on our turf enough at the moment, so what else can this be? You know the girl, John. She's troubled but okay, right?" Percy asked.
"I'll inquire gently about her prescription drugs, "John sighed, thinking he would need a moment with Lydia for that first, "but yeah, I'll stay on this personally. Just in case anything does turn up, you two won't be on the hook for it."
Now he was covering up a kidnapping, an assault, and having the police look for the wrong suspects. If someone fired him from his job at this point, it would be probably well deserved. At least for now, he had the situation under control with nobody seeing anything and his deputies were far from getting the full picture.
"Finish up here. I'll go and take a look upstairs," he told them and turned towards the stairs.
With a sigh he climbed up the stairs, reaching the damaged door to Lydia's room with a few strodes. Once he had taken a first look into Lydia's room, John could only commend the girl for being so calm. With an eerie feeling he entered the room.
The back area near the window was totally trashed. His deputies were right to decide it had been a fight. Someone had been thrown into a large bookcase and the contents were littered over the floor in front of it and the windows. A chair was toppled over on it's back and plants were also littered among the broken figurines.
Upon closer examination, the destroyed window chilled him even more. He could only hope that the deputies blamed weak construction or just assumed the robbers had brought a sledge hammer. Or something. Tomorrow, John would have to work overtime to clean up this mess.
A quick look into the bathroom showed him the remains of her smartphone which lay shattered on the tiles. John wondered whether it had been Deucalion or Peter who had destroyed it. Without a cell phone Lydia was certainly even more isolated. It also eliminated any hopes of locating her via the GPS. The idea had crossed his mind back at the clinic but he hadn't been sure of how he'd get a trace without admitting that Lydia had been kidnapped.
He crouched down and looked for the SIM card among the mess of broken cell phone parts. With that gone, he could at least make a case for her having gotten a new model and thus leaving her old one at home. When John finally saw the SIM card, it took him three tries until he had picked it up. Luckily, nobody saw the clumsy attempts made by trembling fingers. Tampering with evidence was the logical conclusion of covering up a crime. Even though he did it with the best intentions, his stomach felt hollow.
After he was done, John switched the light off and closed the door to the bathroom. It was crazy how easy brushing things under the rug became for him. He still didn't sleep easily at night, though. He had high hopes that would change once they put an end to the killings. Now, worrying about Lydia being caught between two homicidal werewolves would add to his sleep problems. As he walked back downstairs, he had to face the possibility that his sleep would suffer for a long, long time.
Miles and Percy looked at him, having obviously wrapped up since their notebooks were pocketed and they stood around waiting and had talked about how a couple of junkies was the last thing they needed right now. where the two deputies wondered what was going on.
"Would you two mind, calling Ramsey over and make sure he boards up the room without touching anything? I'll come back tomorrow and see if I can fix up this mess quietly." He sighed and decided it was time for another lie. "I'm worried that if Lydia is hassled anymore by the feds, it will be our department that catches the wrath of the Martins' lawyer."
"Isn't that the Whitemore guy?" Percy asked, his lips curled in disgust.
John nodded, it was probably not that much of a lie, but it was the least of his problems. He needed to talk with the others again, before he could decide anything more.
"Yeah, we got it covered," Miles assured him. "It's not like her parents won't be happy about her leaving off the alert, that should make their insurance company happy."
"Thank you, guys." John gave them an appreciative look.
Given that his son was friends with Lydia, the two deputies did not find John's straying from proper procedure too strange. It wasn't like they never made an exception for family and friends. Plus it meant less work for them.
Thanking them again for handling the wrap up, he mentioned that he needed to make sure a certain someone was home before curfew. With that comment he left the house. John went back to his car and when he sat down behind the wheel he had to fight off the shakes. Right in that moment he wouldn't have said no to a stiff drink.
Instead, he took a couple of deep calming breaths. This was going to be a long night. Depending on what Ethan had to say, and what the mysterious killers were up to, who knew if it might not get even more troubling. If John knew one thing, it was that if something bad happened, it would all happened at the same time.
Before returning to the animal clinic, he decided to drive by Union Street, hoping that it would give him a better chance at understanding what happened once Ethan was awake and ready to talk. Over the radio, Cheryl pointed him to the area with the "Esoteric Books" store and the "Golden Dragon" a Chinese Restaurant one side of the street, and the fashion, jewellery and handicraft stores on the other. Everything was closed and, apart from a couple walking their dog, nothing was out of the ordinary. The little terrier barked fiercely as they passed the bookstore and while John was not able to see the blood from where he sat in his police cruiser, he was sure that was where it was. He nodded to the couple and drove on.
Maybe someone should keep an eye on that store. But without more information the decision if to observe or not to observe, was yet to be made. Besides it was not a job for the department, that would fall to someone who was either a werewolf or knew a great deal about them.
There was nothing left to do here late at night, he told Cheryl that he was taking his son home and later would start with his patrols as planned. The streets were mostly empty and the Sheriff hoped that it would minimize the threat level. There were always people who disregarded curfews and common sense and those would be the most likely target of the next attack.
On the drive he tried to organize what he had seen tonight, knowing it would require him to write two reports, one just for him that needed to be well hidden, then another official one, that would not get him into much trouble. He just hoped answers would come in soon, but news about Lydia would probably have to wait until Monday. Ethan on the other hand might have regained consciousness and could tell him more about what had went down on that street.
Back on the parking lot, John saw that Scott and Stiles had removed all superficial traces of Ethan's blood. The large stain on the asphalt along with the trail outside was washed away and the reception area was also clean and reeked of bleach. Deaton was sitting unimpressed by the stench behind his desk, sorting through paper work.
"How is the patient?" John asked, hoping the answer would be a positive one.
"Still sleeping but I'm sure he will wake up soon," Deaton replied looking up from whatever he was working on. "How are things on your end?"
"Does it ever get easier? I mean, when I asked you last year about the bite wounds, you were so convincing when you told me it was a mountain lion." John shook his head. Deaton had been keeping secret for years, so if anyone knew the answer it had to be him.
"It can become routine," he replied looking at him before looking at his desk. "Hiding the truth is often necessary with these matters, the difficult part is knowing when to reveal it."
John had a vague idea what Deaton meant but he was not sure how this applied to himself. He had hoped for a less philosophical reply. In the end, maybe that was the only way to answer his question. Just as he wanted to ask Deaton about what kind of DNA a werewolf would leave on a crime scene, the door from the examination room was pushed open and Stiles walked through it.
"How did it go? Any word yet?"
Apparently his face told his son everything he needed to know so instead of waiting for a reply, he began complaining. "Ethan lost more blood than John McClane in the first Die Hard. I had no idea how hard it is to scrub dried blood of this floor. I had to do most of it, as Scott tended to scrub the floor off with the blood." Then Stiles went on by pointing out how he had gotten bloodied cleaning water on his jeans, how that was never going to come out.
As they talked they all went back into the examining room, where Ethan now under a warm blanket still slept deeply. Whatever Deaton had given him it worked very well. The room did not smelled as bad, Aiden had obviously opted against using bleach. The air still smelled like hospital but it was more breathable.
John was just mentioning the shattered cell phone, when an unfamiliar ringtone interrupted him.
"That's mine!" Stiles said surprised.
John knew that his son had set up everyone he knew with a special ringtone: he himself, Scott and his friends all had their own individual songs assigned. Even other acquaintances from school were grouped so that when they called the 21 Jump Street theme song would play. Judging by the look on Stiles' face as he looked at the display, the number on display was not familiar either.
Accepting the call he kept it to a simple: "Now's really not the time to try to sell me on a new long distance plan. Thanks but no thanks."
John knew how upset and worried his son was. Seconds after he had ended his rant, he saw those brown eyes light up with anger. John saw that that both Scott and Aiden were listening probably hearing what the person on the other end said and by the words uttered, John had no doubt that it was Peter Hale.
"You're really going to preach manners to me while you're holding someone hostage? That's a whole new level of cracked you've reached, even for a zombiewolf", Stiles snapped into his cell phone. Then he abruptly stopped breathing rather sharply as he listened to whatever the person at the end of the line said.
"If you dare to hurt her..." he started but was obviously cut short.
"Put him on speaker." John was mostly mouthing the suggestion. In the middle of his sentence, the smug voice of Peter Hale filled the room.
"... you should know by now, that I'm more powerful than I ever was. It's about time you start changing your tune, I've no intention of humouring you anymore."
Scott interrupted him: "I don't care how powerful you've become, if you don't let Lydia go, we're coming after you."
"You and who? The non-injured half of the twins?" Peter scoffed.
"It was you, wasn't it?" Aiden said with a slight growl that he wasn't able to suppress in his anger. John thought it was not the best idea to confront Peter with their suspicions but there was no stopping the alpha. "Those were your betas, you had Ethan shot to lure me away."
"I've no need to lure you away to get to Lydia. If I had, I certainly made sure I'd be there the second you left …" Peter sighed. "But you're right, those were my betas, you're lucky I've ordered them not to start a feud."
"Lucky? Ethan nearly died!" Scott interrupted.
"Who do you think dropped him off at the clinic?" Peter asked sounding as condescending as ever. "My betas didn't start the fight - but given the outcome of them being surprise attacked by an alpha, you wouldn't want them on the warpath."
It was another very thinly veiled threat. While John was not really feeling like he had a good grasp on all the werewolf stuff from what Stiles had told him, betas usually did not fare too well against alphas. A sneak attack might even the odds and that seemed more likely than Peter's pack being the ones who were attacked. John hoped that Scott would knew that but he asked aloud anyway. "Why should we believe you?"
"Because it is not me you've to worry about," the reply came fast and very assured. "You've invited something powerful and undead to Beacon Hills, it's killing people and it will kill even more as it grows stronger with each kill. Your idiotic alpha twin left the only person who has a chance of even figuring out what it is all by herself."
Aiden uttered a disapproving growl but even that could not distract John from how angry Peter sounded. He realised that he still had not asked about what Peter had meant by inviting this thing to the town. As far as he knew it was Jennifer's sacrificing to the Nemeton that was the source of attracting other beings to Beacon Hills.
"Don't tell us you actually care about stopping those killings," Scott said bitterly.
"No, of course not, why would I care that we got the FBI in town? That it is just a question of time until more hunters come into town who mostly likely cut you and all the other werewolves in half, before they even glimpse at what's truly going on. I don't care about that at all."
Sarcasm aside, Peter was making a convincing argument. They looked at each other and realised that Peter did not need to care about people dying to have a reason to want to stop the killings.
"What about Lydia? Is she okay? What did you do to her?" Stiles' worried voice made his father feel so bad for the situation he had helped to create.
"Apart from Deucalion choking her when he assaulted her in the bathroom, I think she's doing fine. But don't worry, she's way stronger than any of you give her credit for."
"Let us talk to her," Scott said with his best attempt at a serious authorial voice.
"Eventually," Peter sounded amused. "First, I want to emphasize what a colossal waste of time and energy it would be to try and find me. Because you won't, you could walk right past this building and wouldn't see this place. With what's out there - this is the safest place Lydia could be."
"Don't worry we will find you - eventually," Scott was stating firmly.
"I'm not so sure," Deaton spoke up again. "I've heard there are ways to protect your home from the eyes of the enemy. Ways witches know more about than druids."
"Ah the emissary straight out of retirement," Peter said with an icy tone. "I hope he gives Scott better advice than he gave to my nephew. I wonder what matters more to the good doc: Stopping the killings or keeping his true alpha safe?"
John saw how Scott seemed to brood a bit on that. It seemed nobody really understood what Deaton's goal was, however nobody wanted to give Peter's words much credence and eventually Scott replied that the best advice was lost on someone who was not listening.
"Too true," Peter agreed with glee. "But I've hopes you might overcome that deficit eventually, Scott."
A moment of silence spread, that was not quite the reply they had expected and neither Scott nor the others had anything to say, with the exception of Stiles who added after the first few moments: "Let us talk to Lydia, then we'll see about not skinning your hide when we'll find you."
"Oh very well, I'm growing tired of this conversation. Waste your time looking for me or running around aimlessly in the woods." Then a mere second later, Lydia was on the phone. John knew she had to be sitting next to Peter. The question was just for how long and why she had not said anything. "Hey, how is Ethan doing?"
"He'll recover in a day or two," Aiden ensured her eagerly. "Then we'll come looking for you!"
"I really wish you wouldn't," she said her voice filled with worry and something John could not quite pin down.
"Don't worry about us, Lydia," Scott said reassuringly. "We're not going to abandon you."
"That's good to know - but I think you're forgetting about something - two undead somethings to be precise. Both are roaming around Beacon Hills killing off people."
John was impressed how calm Lydia remained and also slightly surprised that she would care more about others than her own safety. Stiles had mentioned how she had ignored him all those years and she certainly had been the school's top socialite before Peter had bitten her. She continued almost with a hint of annoyance. "I know I can figure out what one of these things is. Like it or not, it makes sense to do that right here with Peter's help."
"Lydia, you can't mean that, can you? Is he making you say that?" Stiles asked concerned.
"It's a logical conclusion, if you actually paid attention to the facts and not let your personal bias make your decisions for you, then you'd see that," Lydia said sounding very passionate and a bit offended. "If you want to do something for me, convince your father not to get my parents involved. Beacon Hills is not safe for them, Deucalion or whatever else is out there might see them as a target. I'll call you once I've discovered something helpful."
Then the line went dead. They all looked at each other, it was clear that they were just as uncertain about what to make of Lydia's words. He had to admit that logic was on her side. With the events that nearly had cost his life and that of Allison's father and Scott's mother he understood her worries. At the same time it was his duty to inform them that something had happened to her house.
"Come on, guys, we know he's making her say this," Stiles insisted.
"Is she?" Aiden said icily. "She is not exactly uncomfortable around him. Her tone revealed not the slightest hint of fear. Lydia clearly wants to stay with him."
John noticed how the twin's hands clinched to fists. An alpha motivated by jealousy was disturbing, especially given that Lydia seemed to make just the best out of this situation. He hoped that defending her from Aiden would not be Scott's next task.
"Aiden is right, she wasn't afraid. I think we need to trust her on this - besides she is right, we got bigger problems." Stiles raised his voice in protest but Scott interrupted him and continued. "If she does not call us soon, we will look for her."
It was clear his son hated the situation more than anyone else. John knew that in the worst case scenario he'd end up having to explain to Lydia's parents why he did not tell them she was in peril or the opposite. If the second option happened that was certainly something that might drive her further away room her friends. Adding all the possible risks to his men and their inability to actually help getting Lydia back, he decided for now it was best to keep them in the dark.
A/N: I am up to chapter 27 ... but getting this beta-read is really what slows the posting down. Sorry about keeping everyone waiting.