The Shining ¥ Teen Wolf

twelve

    Scott lifted the hem of his shirt as he came through the vet clinic's door after his losing fight with Derek. "Why aren't you healing?" he asked the deep gash in his side.

"Because it's from an alpha." In the operation room of the vet hospital, its owner stood next to a slashed up body.

Scott's eyes widened at both the dead body and Deaton's being there. "Oh-"

"I think we better have that talk now," he said to Scott. He motioned with his hand as he went to a small table. "They're coming back, so we don't have much time to talk." He dripped a clear liquid onto a cotton ball, concerning Scott.

"What is that?"

"Rubbing alcohol," Deaton replied. "You don't want it to get infected do you?" When he got a worried nod, he dabbed the cotton ball onto the wound. "You'll heal the same, just not as quickly because of Derek."

Scott winced in pain but didn't sway. "Okay, how do you know all this? Actually, how do you know anything?"

"It's a long story," he said as he taped gauze over the gash. "What I can tell you is that I know about your kind." He bit off a strip of tape from the roll. "Your kind, I can help." Pressing it on Scott, he then glanced back to the body. "This...this is something different."

"W-well do you know what did it?"

"No," Deaton replied, "but the Argents will. And this is the crucial part. They'll have some kind of record or book. It'll have descriptions, histories, notations of all the things they've discovered."

Scott's jaw fell, his words stammering out. "All the things? How many different things are there?"

They both stiffened, a pair of cars pulling up.

"Hide," Deaton warned, pushing him towards a door to another room. He took a breath, walking over to the dead hunter and tending to him as Chris and Benny came into the back. "I'm starting to think I need to buy a more prominent 'closed' sign."

Chris rolled his eyes, walking in further to reveal not only his father, but another as well.

"Hello, Alan." Gerard stepped in, "It's been a while."

The suited man behind him stayed silent and out of the way.

"The last I heard," Gerard said to Deaton, "you had retired."

"Last I heard, you followed a code of conduct," Deaton retorted.

"If you hadn't noticed," Chris jumped in, "this body is one of ours."

"I did," Alan said. "I also noticed the gunpowder residue on his fingertips. So don't assume I'll be swayed by your philosophy just 'cause I'll answer a few questions."

"He was only 24," Chris told him.

"Killers come in all ages."

"All ages, sizes, shapes," Gerard agreed. "It's the last one that concerns us."

Chris was done with small talk, having lost one of his men. "How about you tell us what you found?"

"See this cut?" Deaton asked as he stepped around the Bennett's head on the exam table. He put it to the side, revealing a small, thin wound. "Precise. Almost surgical. But this isn't the wound that killed him. This had a more interesting purpose."

With glasses on to help see the body, Gerard looked up to Deaton. "Relating to the spine?"

"That's right," he agreed. Whatever made this cut was laced with a paralytic toxin potent enough to disable all motor functions." Alan motioned a hand over Bennett's chest. "These are the cause of death. Notice the patterns on each side?"