chapter eight.  

BOYD IS DEAD. Danny was a target, Deaton was taken and nearly sacrifice but Scott got their time and saved him along with Sherriff Stilinski, Derek ran away, Allison found out her dad may be the Darach. And all this happened while Arthur missed one day of school, what the fuck? His head hurts thinking about it, his side numb thanks to painkillers, his left cheekbone stained black and blue painless but that didn't stop Scott from constantly texting him wondering if he's doing alright.

And when he'd finally called, he discovered Scott has created a plan. Scott should never make plans and Arthur had to tag along or he could stay home and let his mother smother him to him to death.

Arthur sighed, his teeth grazing his bottom lip standing in the hall his hand firmly clutching a small bottle they needed to succeed in their plan, his hazel brown flicked over to Scott who looked as hesitate as himself. This isn't the only way, but it's the only way they know.

"Did you bring them?" A raspy voice demanded the moment the door to his room opened. A sigh escaped his lips, they could leave but Allison wouldn't get the memo. Scott steps inside his features harden, behind him Arthur wearing the same expression landing on the amused hunter. "Oh, come in, Scott," Gerard rolls his sleeve his arm stretched towards him, "And give an old man a little something for his pain."

"You don't have to do this." Allison whispers to Scott, her fingers clutching the door knob tightly prepared to leave.

"If you want me to talk, this is how it's gonna happen." Gerard hisses impatient. Arthur rolls his eyes, if only they had something for his mouth.

Scott steps towards him tugging up his sleeve, he didn't want to do this. None of them wanted him too, after all the suffering he's given them he deserves this and so much more. "If I do this, you have to tell us everything you know. Everything." Gerard growls lowly snatching his hand in his.

Arthur's hazel brown following the black lines swimming up Scott's arm taking away the old man's agony traveling up his neck, the beta grunts breaking free from Gerard's grip out of breath.

Two Ibuprofen pills falls out of the bottle and onto the wooden table, the hunter trailed his eyes away from them meeting hazel browns swimming with hatred. "I'm gonna need a lot more to get through my story, Arthur."

His fists clenched, taunting him. He's the one in withering in pain but here he is, still winning. Two more fall on his palm, "We're not here to relieve your pain, so, if you're little story isn't worth, Ibuprofen won't be able to help you." The pills slapped the table, Arthur returning besides Allison. Gerard's expression falling momentarily.

"Oh, you would've made a great hunter, Arthur, you have so much anger it could set the entire world ablaze." Gerard noted, a smirk on his thin lips black goo trickling down his nose. Arthur refuses to react, it would only add to the pleasure he's lacking in his life at the moment. "They found a third body?"

"Another doctor, right after Scott found Deaton." Allison replied, her back against the window, the boys leaning against a desk diagonal from the hunter.

"Right after?" He mused, a smile on his thin lips, "Almost like it was expected he'd survive."

Arthur's eyebrows creased, expected, like planned. He's suggesting either Deaton is the Darach or is working with them. Both sounds idiotic, Deaton wouldn't help them one minute then go killing the ones he helped. His index finger tapped the desk, but you never genuinely know someone.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Scott quizzed, his eyes narrowing.

"How do you know your dark druid isn't your wise veterinarian himself?" The Argent wondered trying plant a seed of doubt, wiping the black blood coated fingers on tissue. "Maybe he knew you'd find him. Maybe he planned it that way."

Arthur scoffed, he understands what he's trying to do, he wants to make them paranoid but also think, about what? "You think he risked his life to prove someone would save him? I think you've swallowed to many pills."

"You'd be surprised how far some people would go to get rid of someone like Deucalion."

"Or someone like you?" Allison retorts, resentment clear in her voice arms crossed behind him.

"I don't go easily, though, do I?" He spits black into his tissue, meeting the beta's gaze. "You know, Scott, you've made me something of a celebrity here. I'm a medical mystery. The cancer is now virtually undetectable, but the doctors have no clue why my body keeps producing and ejecting this bizarre black fluid." He takes two pills swallowing them down with water.

"Sucks to you." Arthur mumbles, flashing him a smile laced with fake sympathy.

"I did what you wanted me to do." Scott remained him, the night Jackson was killed then brought back as an electric blue eyed werewolf and taking his pain today, his voice tight, "Tell us how to beat him."

"You can't. I've tried."

Was Arthur surprised? No, more annoyed he tagged along to come, he wanted to leave ASAP letting the old man finally die spitting out black fluid achingly. Allison stands straighter and walks pasts Gerard over to the boys, "Then this is a complete waste of time. He doesn't know anything. Sorry you did this. Let's go."

"Wait. I can tell you one thing." Allison stops her back to him, their attention drawn to him. "Deucalion may have lost his eyes, but he's not always blind."

Arthur blinked once. Twice, the words taking its time to register in his mind. "Pardon?"

"They were all there... Ennis, Kali, Deucalion... each with their own packs," Gerard recalls, shoving his black tissue in his pocket. "Before they'd killed them all and decided to form their little all-star team." Scott, Allison and Arthur seats around him,

"But they didn't all live here, did they? The Huntress inquired, her hands folded on her lap.

"No, but there was an exceptionally powerful Alpha who did live here. She had a capacity to shape-shift that was rare among her kind. That made her something of a leader, the kind of person that they would go to for advice and guidance... Talia Hale."

Arthur leaned his face between his fist on his thighs, Gerard recalled when they found the nemeton accidentally, a twisted tree climbing out of the ancient cellar it'd back tattooed with A Celtic five fold knot, Chris knew more about the dark Druid, and found sacrificial blood it's how they made the connection. Ancient Celtic druids would usually choose a large, older tree in a grove. It would represent the center of the world. There was a vbelief that cutting or harming the tree in any way would cause serious problems for the surrounding villages.

The hazel brown already knew bits about their beliefs thanks to Sage, who adored history. They believed cutting down the tree would bring fires, plagues, strife... death and destruction of all kinds.

"How does he know all about Celtic symbols and druids?" Allison inquires interrupting his story, flickering her brown eyes between her fingers and Gerard.

"Know thy enemy, Allison." He quoted ruffly, eyes narrowed with a daunting smirk. "The older wolves had a relationship with the druids. They called them emissaries."

"Like my boss, Deaton." Scott realized, leaning forward in his seat.

The hunter stood up, "Do you know the myth of Lycaon?"

"I know it's where we get the word "lycanthropy"." Scott answered. Arthur followed Gerard to the table where a wooden box stood his curiosity peeked as the box opens, Allison glancing over Scott's shoulder.

"According to myth, some Greek citizens believed they owed their lives more to Prometheus than to the gods of Olympus." Gerard summarizes, flicking through pages of a book. "And some followers even took names to honour the titans instead of the gods.

"Like Deucalion." Arthur pipes up, eyebrows knitted together trying to piece Gerard's hints.

"The son of Prometheus." Gerard paused on a dark drawing of the son of Prometheus fallen below his father refusing to meet his eye. "Lycaon didn't just refuse to honor the gods. He challenged them. He invited Zeus to a banquet and then tried to serve him the flesh of a human being." He paged through revealing the feast, before Zeus was a human body mixing their head chopped served with vegetables. Arthur grimaced.

Angered, Zeus blew the place apart with lightning bolts and then punished Lycaon and his sons by turning them into wolves. The part that's lesser known is how Lycaon sought out the druids to help turn him back to human." Another page shows them in mid shift their bodies covered with hair faces no longer human but a wolf, surrounded by fire trying to escape.

"Why druids?"

"The belief was that the ancient druids knew how to shape-shift. They couldn't make Lycaon and his sons human again, but they did teach them how to shift back and forth. And so the druids became important advisors to the packs."

* * *

"I WASN'T REALLY surprised when Deaton came to arrange a meeting with Deucalion." Gerard continued, back in his chair wiping goo from his thin lips. "As William Blake said, 'Any sinister person who means to be your enemy always start by trying to become your friend'."

"How do you know he wasn't going there to make peace?" Scott demanded, annoyance flaring in his veins. If Gerard hadn't assumed the worst then all this might have been avoided, the Darach might not even be here or exist.

"Because I'm not an idiot." The hunter counters, fiddling with his tissue, "Do you know the sanskrit fable of the scorpion and the turtle?"

"Yeah, the scorpion asks the turtle for a ride across the river." The beta replies, his shoulders shrugged lightly.

"And when the scorpion stings the turtle, dooming them both, what does he say to explain his behaviour? "

"'It's my nature'." Arthur mutters, understanding his pathetic excuse for not giving them a chance before slaughtering them all.

"I know a werewolf's nature. I knew exactly what was coming... a trap." He revealed, excited.

"They attacked you?" Allison inquired eyebrows creased, lurching forward in her seat.

"It was an ambush." He clarifies, his fingers clutching his chair tight. "He's not always blind."

Arthur's eyebrows creased, he stabbed him in human but not a wolf, two different forms. So, if his human eyes were knifed that means ⏤ "He sees as a wolf." Arthur murmured, leaning back in his chair. Gerard could've told them that in the beginning instead of forcing them to sit and piece his metaphors.

Allison spins to Scott besides her, standing, "Maybe we can use it against him." They nod standing up.

"Scott." He holds out his hand or the beta to take his pain one more time. "You too, Arthur." Said boy unwillingly drops three more pills on the desk. The orderlies refused to give him pills afraid it'd have negative side effects and who better to ask than the boy studying medicine. "Oh, I think about you sometimes, Scott. I do. I wonder, what if I'd done things differently? Getting the bite to cure my cancer. And I wonder when it became my nature to believe most things couldn't be asked for but had to be taken."

"I don't believe you. The whole time that you were telling your story, I was listening to your heartbeat." Scott revealed, chocolate brown narrowed into slits stretching his fingers. Arthur twisted the bottle shut, his eyes falling on the two. "It never went up. It never went down. It was steady the whole time."

"Because I was telling the truth." The old man tries to assure him.

"Or because you're a really good liar." Arthur suggested, shrugging his shoulders lightly.

Gerard didn't have time to blink his hand aching in the beta's grip, and jerked him dangerously close, "If you lied and it gets people hurt... I'll be back to take away more than your pain."