Chapter 7 – A Warning to the People
"Who decided that going into the woods in search of a psychotic murderer is a good idea, again?"
Scott fought the urge to snap back a response, clamping down on his irritation. Isaac had a habit of snarking when he was nervous, and he knew he didn't mean any harm by it. Really, he should be grateful it was just Isaac. If Stiles were here, the two would be bickering back and forth, and that had always driven him crazy.
Unfortunately, Malia seemed to have inherited her boyfriend's lack of patience, and was more than happy to fill the void.
"If you're scared, leave. No one's forcing you to be here," she sniped, flashing electric blue eyes in Isaac's direction.
Scott was tempted to bang his head against a wall, but fortunately Kira intervened. "Well, I'm kind of nervous," she volunteered quietly, and Malia's expression softened. "This isn't exactly our best plan, but what choice do we have? There's already four dead bodies, and we're all here because we don't want there to be any more."
"So what are we looking for again?" Parrish asked hesitantly.
"We don't know," Scott replied. No one looked particularly comforted by that, so he sighed and continued. "Look, we know that someone's committing sacrifices, and we know that they're strong, but that's it. There's no claw marks, no obvious scent, and the bodies were dumped so we don't have a crime scene to give us clues. That's why we're here. We need to know what we're up against if we're going to be able to stop them, and I'll bet anything that these sacrifices have something to do with the Nemeton. If the murderer isn't there, then traces of them probably will be, and maybe we can prepare ourselves to be able to fight them later on."
"This sounds like something that the cops would be awfully good at, though," Isaac pointed out. "Why isn't Stilinski here?"
Scott swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Because Stiles is gone, and the least I can do for him is try to keep his dad safe. I don't want him involved in this, okay?"
He glanced around at his friends, whose faces reflected understanding. Malia's eyes were blue again as she gave off waves of loneliness, and Lydia was staring at the ground, breathing uneven. Kira gave him a small smile and reached out to squeeze Scott's hand, and with an effort Scott pushed past the pain and pulled himself together.
"Alright, so - Parrish. You've found the Nemeton before, think you can do it again?"
Okay, so maybe this wasn't his best plan. They'd been traipsing through the Preserve for half an hour, and so far there was no sign of the Nemeton. There was however, a distinctive smell of rotting eggs that seemed to be getting stronger the further into the woods they got, and it was starting to drive Scott to distraction. Isaac had pulled his scarf up to cover the bottom half of his face, and even Lydia was wrinkling her nose in disgust.
"Got your sense of direction yet?" Isaac's muffled voice reached him, and Parrish shook his head uncertainly.
"I'm not sure-" Parrish broke off as a loud crack sounded behind him and he spun around to face an intruder, gun appearing in his hand.
The man standing before him didn't seem intimidated in the slightest. He was middle-aged and lean, and simply raised his eyebrows as he stared down the barrel of the gun. "Oh, this is going to be fun," he said with a smirk, and before Scott knew what was happening the man's eyes flickered to black and he knocked the gun out of Parrish's hand and grabbed him by the throat.
Chaos erupted, and Scott growled, feeling his fangs emerge as he flicked open his claws. He was peripherally aware that other people had appeared from all sides and the unmistakeable sound of fighting was breaking out around him, but he focussed on the man currently trying to strangle Parrish and took off toward him with a powerful leap.
He never landed, something heavy crashing into his side and knocking him forcefully into the dirt. There was a sickening crack and a burning pain exploded in Scott's ribs, and for a second he couldn't breathe. His chest was on fire, but Scott struggled to push the pain to the back of his mind. There wasn't time to deal with it right now.
Pushing his legs beneath him, Scott started to lever himself off the ground, but made it only a few inches before he was pushed back into the dirt, pinned by a blonde woman who was glaring at him with those same black eyes.
"Come on, little wolf, show me what you've got," she taunted, baring her teeth, and an unfamiliar anger ignited in Scott's chest. Eyes burning, Scott roared, and wound back his arm to throw a violent punch at her face. She went flying and Scott didn't stop to feel guilty, instead taking a second swipe at her as he leapt to his feet, before glancing up at Parrish.
Parrish was still being held by the neck, but as Scott watched his eyes burned amber and his hands clenched onto the man's arms, tearing them sideways and off his throat with a strangled yell. He seemed to have found his momentum, so Scott refocussed his attention on the woman in front of him, who was clambering to her feet with a pissed-off expression twisting her features. "Oh you've done it now," she threatened, and for a moment Scott saw red.
He was done with all these monsters. No matter how many they defeated, these things kept coming to Beacon Hills, and Scott was tired of losing friends. He roared, and for the first time allowed the wolf to surge forward completely. He threw another fist at the woman, and with a sickening crack her head spun around and she slumped into the dirt. She was still moving but didn't seem be to getting very far, so he glanced up to see Lydia pinned to a tree, struggling furiously as a man leered at her.
Scott vaulted in their direction, tackling the man into the ground and slashing at his face; once, twice, three times. Blood spurted from the man's mouth and he made a guttural choking sound; ignoring him, Scott fixed his eyes on the man attacking Isaac. His gaze skipped over Malia and Kira; they had positioned themselves back-to-back and seemed to be giving as good as they got, whereas Isaac was stepping backwards, desperately warding off the huge man advancing on him without managing to land any hits of his own.
Snarling, Scott's muscles bunched and within moments he was flying through the air at the man, crashing into him and sending both of them rolling across the rough ground. He was slashing, punching, kicking, and the man barely had a chance to defend himself. He was so caught up in the fight that he almost didn't notice when his opponent suddenly stopped, muscles becoming stiff and eyes opening wide.
Confused, Scott paused and looked up. Around him, all of the attackers had frozen, standing rigidly in place as they struggled to move. The woman who had attacked him first seemed to be least affected, snarling as she slowly made her way toward Lydia with black eyes glaring furiously. That was when Scott realised that Lydia was speaking, her voice a soft but steady chant in the background.
"Ergo draco maledicte, et omnis legio diabolica," she was saying, and as one the attackers crashed to their knees, heads wrenching backwards as though pulled by an invisible force. Even the woman advancing on Lydia stopped in her tracks, seemingly unable to move.
A few seconds later, Scott's eyes widened in surprise. The attackers' mouths opened, and columns of thick black smoke poured out, tracing their way upward and blotting out the stars before vanishing into the night.
Lydia stopped speaking, and a heavy silence hung throughout the clearing. Isaac was sitting on the ground clutching a wound in his arm even as it knit back together, Malia was drenched in blood and Kira still had her sword raised defensively before her. Parrish, for some reason, was covered in soot, and his shirt appeared seared at the edges. Everyone, however, was staring at Lydia with wide eyes.
Isaac was the first to break the silence. "What the hell was that?"
Lydia turned, and Scott realised that she was trembling, her heart racing in her chest and her green eyes wide in the moonlight. "An exorcism," she replied. Her voice was threaded with adrenaline even as she stared at the group in disbelief. "Didn't any of you memorise the one that Argent gave us?"
Scott shifted his weight guiltily, remembering the piece of paper languishing in his drawer. He felt slightly better when a glance around at his friends made it clear that no one else had read it either. Thank god for Lydia and her gift for learning.
Thankfully, Kira spoke up to change the topic back to the matter at hand. "Demons?" she asked, voice shaky. "Well, I guess we at least know what we're dealing with. So, successful mission, right?"
Malia let out a thin laugh and gave Kira a one-armed squeeze in response, and Scott released a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. They were all alive, and now they at least had an idea of what they were up against.
His gaze settled on the pale, bloody bodies scattered on the ground, and Scott's mouth tightened. Successful mission, sure, but this was only one battle. Somehow, he had a feeling that they were teetering on the edge of war.
It was quiet in Bobby's house, and Dean strained to make out the odd grunt and grumble from the kitchen as he shrugged off his jacket. When he had first gone outside, Bobby, Sam and Dave had all been peering intently at a computer screen, and Dean had left them to it with a shrug. Now, the Impala was gleaming, tyres pumped and oil refilled, and he felt somewhat more equipped to deal with whatever the brains trust had in store for him.
Edging his way around a pile of books, he manoeuvred into the kitchen and raised his eyebrows at the scene before him. Bobby was sitting at one end of the table, nose buried in a book as thick as his arm, jotting notes down on a pad resting near his elbow. Next to him was Sam, scrolling rapidly through a search engine and pausing only long enough to click open tabs before continuing on. Dave was seated at the opposite end of the table, eyes racing back and forth across the laptop screen before him, attention completely consumed by whatever he was reading.
Research, great. Suddenly regretting his decision to return to the house so soon, Dean considered volunteering for a supply run, but as he turned to leave his boot squeaked against the floor and he felt three pairs of eyes immediately fix upon his back. They'd spotted him, goddamnit.
"Dean, come see this," Sam said, and Dean took a moment to sigh as his escape route vanished before giving in and circling the table to lean over Sam's shoulder. Sam clicked closed the browser window, revealing what looked suspiciously like a weather map behind it. "One of Bobby's contacts managed to recreate Ash's old program. Remember the one he made to track weather patterns for us?"
"Yeah," Dean replied, intrigued despite himself. "He used it to track Azazel, of course I remember. But with all the demon activity around these days, I would have thought it would be useless."
Sam nodded in agreement. "I thought the same thing, and in a way we're right. There's freak storms all over the place. But this, this is interesting." He tapped a few letters on the keyboard, and suddenly the map became a sea of yellow and orange, with a few odd red and green areas. He pointed out the smaller areas as he continued. "There are some areas in the country that are relatively unaffected; they're showing up as green. These red areas, they're showing high amounts of unusual weather patterns in the last few months."
Dean couldn't stop his eyes from widening, impressed. "So what you're saying is, there's likely to be more demonic activity in these spots."
Sam cocked an eyebrow in response, a small smile appearing on his face. "How much do you want to bet Abaddon's in one of these areas?"
Dean leaned past Sam, studying the screen more closely. "How many of these areas are there? Five, six?"
"Six," Dave confirmed from the other end of the table, eyes returned to his screen. "They're not particularly small regions, so I'm trying to research towns in the areas, seeing if there's any unusual news reports around there recently."
"Sounds like a great idea," Dean replied, straightening up and bringing his hands together firmly. "I feel like this effort should be supported with nourishment. Anyone want anything from the shops?"
There was a snort behind him, and Bobby finally looked up from his book. "Not a chance, boy," he said, and pulled out the chair beside him. "There's an extra laptop in the study, get to it."
Dean sighed internally, but didn't complain as he wandered into the disaster of a living room and started hunting for the laptop. Research meant they were getting somewhere, and that meant they would soon be on the road. With any luck, he'd have Abaddon's head on a plate before the week was out.