Blood Hound

Anchors Part Two

                    Stiles drops the file into the pile and kneels in front of his father as Lena sits on the side of her father's desk. "Dad, you're not going back through all your old cases seeing if any of them had something to do with the supernatural, are you?" Stiles asked. "I admit the recent opening of my eyes to the greater mysteries of the universe has got me reassessing. There's at least one hundred cases here where I look at the details, and I can ask myself If I knew then what I know now....," Noah explained, but Stiles interrupted him. "Right, but are you sure you wanna go down that path?" Stiles asked. "Stiles is right, dad, that's a slippery slope to go down," Lena said in a worried tone. "Do I have a choice? There's one case in particular that I can't get out of my head," Noah explained as he stood up with a file in his hands. "Eight years ago, I was elected Sheriff of the County. My first official duty was to tell a man that not only had his wife and two kids died in a car accident. But, as best we could tell, the body of his nine-year-old daughter had been dragged from the wreck by coyotes," he explained as he handed Stiles the files with a picture of a little girl inside of it. Lena looked at the picture from over her brother's shoulder, feeling as if she knew the girl. "You mean dragged and eaten?" Stiles asked. "We didn't find the car until three days after the crash. They had driven off the road into a pretty deep ravine. Two bodies that were still in the car were covered in bites and slashes," Noah explained. "So you're thinking bites and claw marks, probably a werewolf attack?" Stiles asked as Lena reads over the files. "Maybe," Noah said. "But coyotes, they scavenge, right? So, couldn't they have just left the bites and the slashes?" Stiles asked. "Stiles...it was the night of a full moon," Lena said, catching her brother's attention. "Yeah," Noah said as Lena closed the file. Stiles eyes roam around the room at all the boxed files, "Hey, Dad, where are all these going?" Stiles asked, causing his father to hesitate for a few seconds. "Yeah, we, uh. We probably need to talk about that," Noah said as he looked at his children.

                    The next day at school, the whole gang sat at a picnic table, "Okay, so what happens to a person who has a near-death experience and comes out of it seeing things?" Scott asked. "And is unable to tell what's real or not?" Stiles asked. "And is being haunted by demonic visions of dead relatives?" Allison asked. "They're all locked up because they're insane," Isaac answered. "Been there, done that," Lena said as Lydia leaned against her intertwining their fingers. Stiles glares at Isaac, "Ha, can you at least try to be helpful, please?" he asked in annoyance. "For half my childhood, I was locked in a freezer. So, being helpful is kind of a new thing for me," Isaac said. "Hey, dude, are you still milking that?" Stiles asked in disbelief, causing Scott to lay his head on his arm with a sigh. "Yeah, maybe I am still milking that," Isaac said. "Boys!" Lena said, causing Stiles and Isaac to shut up as Kira walked up to their table. "Hi. Hi, sorry. I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about. And I think I actually might know what you're talking about. There's a Tibetan word for it. It's called 'Bardo.' It literally means 'in-between state.' The state between life and death," she explained, causing everyone to stare at her. "And what do they call you?" Lydia asked. "Kira. She's in our History class," Scott explained, causing everyone to look at him in surprise while Lena just smirks. "So, are you talking Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian?" Lydia asked. Kira sits at the table, "Either, I guess. But all the stuff you guys were just saying? All that happens in Bardo. There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear. And you can be visited by peaceful and wrathful deities," Kira explained, causing the gang to look at Lena. "Wrathful deities? And what are those?" Isaac asked. "Like demons," Kira explained. "Demons. Why not?" Stiles said sarcastically. "Sounds like a real party," Lena said sarcastically. "Hold on, if there are different progressive states, then what's the last one?" Allison asked. "Death. You die," Kira said.