Guardian

Claudia Stilinski was a druid. A fairly powerful one, even, though she stood with no coven and drew no attention to herself. But all the power in the world could not help her now – she'd sifted through every book and every resource available to her. She had prayed to the Earth for a blessing, to the Christian God for a miracle; something, anything to save her baby boy.

In her desperation, she finally latched on to the exact opposite of a miracle.

Claudia patted a small mound of dirt down before sitting back on her heels, one arm steadying the precious bundle against her breast. In the sling, her baby breathed shallowly, but otherwise made no noise. The forest around the crossroads was quiet but for the hoot of an owl in the distance. A waning moon grinned down from the sky, bathing the road around her in weak light. There was nothing.

"Please," she whispered, eyes beginning to tear. "Please, please, please, let this work."

"Well, well, this is unusual," a voice called from behind her. Claudia stiffened and turned to look. The dark-skinned woman with long hair stood out from the scenery in her red cocktail dress, but the feature that truly marked her as other were the milk-white eyes. It stalked forward as Claudia stood, brushing dirt off her knees. "It's not every day that a demon is called on by a magic-wielder, let alone a druid. Your kind tends not to dirty their hands with deals."

"I've tried everything else." Claudia barely managed to keep her voice steady, but she didn't break from the demon's gaze as it raised one delicate eyebrow.

"What do you want, then?" it hummed. "Money, fame? It can't be power. You have more than enough of that already." It looked her up and down, chin tilting as is fixated on the sling. "Oh, how precious," it breathed, red-stained lips curling upwards.

Claudia fought down the urge to flinch and shield the bundle. "I need you to save my son."

"Do you? What's wrong with him?" it hissed, crowding into her space. Claudia wrapped both arms around her son but didn't step back.

"He's…he's got a problem with his brain. It's not developing properly – the doctor gave him three to six months before…before he dies. I can't have any more children. Please, he and my husband, they're all I've got left in the world. I need you to fix him," Claudia begged. For her son, she was prepared to swallow any pride and sensibility she had left to grovel before the hellish creature. She did flinch, violently, when it reached toward the sling.

"I need to touch the boy," it said neutrally. "Or I won't know what to fix."

Claudia stayed in place this time as it parted the sling, manicured nails settling over her boy's pale cheek. A moment later it drew away.

"I can't fix him." Her heart stopped.

"What? No, you have to! It's what you do – I'll give you my soul right this minute, just make him better!"

"I can't, you twit!" the demon snarled, its beautiful face twisting inhumanly. "That," it gestured at the baby, "is just an empty meatsack running on autonomous impulses. There's no soul now, if there ever was. No soul, nothing I can fix."

Claudia felt the words hit her like a baseball bat to the chest. She collapsed back to her knees, a puppet with its strings cut. "Oh, goddess," she bit out through a sob. "Isn't there something, anything you can do?"

The demon was silent for a while, but when it didn't move Claudia glanced up. Its cloud-white eyes seemed to be looking straight through her, eyebrows furrowed in thought. It took a breath, hissing through its teeth as it bit red-painted lips. "I am very old," it started, still not quite looking at her. "I have been in Hell for longer than any human can comprehend, gathered power the peons of the Upper Circles would kill for. I'm only working this dead-end job," it gestured around them, "because I will not fight for the current regime. I want to escape permanently, to walk free on Earth again." Finally its gaze seemed to focus on her face, a grin curling across its face. "If you make a deal with me, your son will live."

She couldn't think, couldn't breathe for the terrifying hope of it. "How?"

"Give me the boy's body."

Claudia was up and on her feet before she knew what was happening, but she wasn't fast enough at the demon caught one arm. "No! You can't have my baby!"

"Stupid woman!" the demon growled. "I won't take him from you – I'll become him. Ten years with your precious child to love and raise as your own. Think about it," it leaned in to breathe against her ear. "Your boy will laugh, will listen to bedtime stories. Will be everything you ever wanted."

Claudia trembled, but inside she felt frozen. She could picture it all too easily – teaching him to walk, to talk, to cuddle with her and John at night. The thought of her husband brought sadness. He'd hate her for doing this, but…

"Can you really?" she whispered.

"Can I what?"

"Can you really love us?" Her voice was full of the tears she still refused to shed, but strong enough despite that.

The demon gazed at her, eyebrows knitted, before it admitted, seemingly without artifice, "I can try."

"And if I make this deal, I'll die in ten years?"

"You could get run over by a car tomorrow," the demon shrugged, "but your soul will be yours to keep for ten years."

Claudia breathed in, out. "I want one more thing." When the demon simply looked at her, she continued: "I want you to watch over John, protect him when I'm gone, until he dies."

"You're asking for quite the boon – to give up the freedom I'm bargaining for. That will steepen the price."

"Will you take years off my deal?" It was the best she could offer in the circumstances. They both knew the demon held all the power in this bargain. It twirled a ringlet around one finger, biting its lip again before it deemed to speak.

"No, I don't think so. You can have the full ten years, but in return for this…you'll give me your magic."

Claudia gaped. The thought of giving up her magic had never actually occurred to her, so unnatural was the thought. Outside of human sacrifice, it was almost impossible to take or augment a druid's power.

"Oh, don't be like that," the demon sighed. "I need non-demon magic to bind myself to the body, unless you'd rather the kid stay an ungrowing child forever. Demon magic doesn't account for healing without a soul. I'd also need the magic to stay hidden. After all, you don't want hunters and other demons coming after your precious son, do you?"

Claudia thought for several long moments, torn. "So if I make this deal, you become my son, I get ten years, and you'll stay with John until he dies."

"In a nutshell," the demon grinned. "I even promise not to help your husband along on the way to the afterlife."

She hadn't thought of that. This deal was riddled with loopholes, and there were likely a million ways the demon could weasel out of it, but…this was the best she could get. "Okay," she breathed.

"Yes?" the demon leaned toward her.

"Yes, it's a deal."

The moment the words passed her lips the demon crowed, dragging her by the shoulders into a deep, filthy kiss. Claudia gasped, all the air leaving her lungs as magic surged through the portal they'd made with their mouths. A second later, the magic was gone. Claudia couldn't feel the forest anymore. She stumbled, stunned, as the demon let go of her shoulders to wrap its arms around its body. Strange light started to shine under its skin, rolling up muscles and bones like lightning in a cloud.

"Quickly," the demon gritted out. "Speak the binding!"

"The what?" Claudia had no idea what it was talking about.

"The name! What's the boy's name?" it gasped.

She recovered some equilibrium. "It's Świętomierz, after my father."

"Świętomierz," the demon breathed, then threw its head back, black curls flying as it screamed, light cascading from its eyes, mouth, and nose. The light reached Claudia like a bullet train, throwing her on her back. Her head struck a stone, and the last thing she heard before the world faded was a high, thin cry.

Her baby's voice.

"Mommy, look!" Stiles pumped his legs a bit harder, trying to get more lift. Mom glanced up from her book.

"I see you, kochanie. Don't swing too high!"

Stiles wasn't worried; as long as he didn't fall off or try to jump from here, he'd be fine. Last summer's broken arm and six weeks in a cast had taught him that much. It was weird sometimes, being human again with a human healing rate. For the first several years he'd had to constantly remind himself that he couldn't just throw this body around willy-nilly, that he couldn't walk around on broken legs and not pay the price in pain and hospital bills.

It was also strange taking a male host for the first time in centuries. So many, many centuries ago at the dawn of man, he'd been a female courtesan in an era when humans were starting to realize they could pay for such things, and even in Hell in the centuries afterwards his form reflected a feminine disposition. Puberty was going to be a very interesting time, certainly.

"Stiles!" a voice called from across the park. He looked up to see a little boy and his mother crossing the grass.

"Hey, Scotty!" Stiles stopped swinging, kicking woodchips up everywhere as he braked with both feet. Scott was functionally his best and only friend in this life. Last summer when Stiles was laid up in an arm cast and not nearly as functional as he wanted to be, he'd been benched with Scott at recess since the other boy was prone to asthma attacks when combining the outdoors with any type of exercise. They'd bonded over their mutual restlessness and hate for green Skittles. (Years later, Scott would burst through his window crowing that their most hated color had been changed from lime to green apple.) "Hi, Mrs. McCall," Stiles chirped, trotting over to tackle Scott in a hug. This was one of the things he adored about being human – the ability to touch others without pain or derision. He took advantage as often as possible. Then he grabbed Scott's hand (eight was still little enough to do that, wasn't it? Stiles decidedly did not care about the human standards for these things) and dragged the other boy to the swing set.

"Get on and I'll push you," he ordered, but Scott just smiled and scrambled into the seat. This was something that wouldn't set off his asthma; something they could do together. As Stiles started pushing, Melissa sat on the bench next to his Mom and pulled out a matching novel. The two mothers had their own little book club over the summer, whenever Melissa could get off work. They fell into discussion right away, one eye on Scott and Stiles at all times. Stiles couldn't fight back a grin. For now, he was content as a human, one step closer to freedom on Earth. This was good.

This was good.

Stiles leaned over the sink, staring into the mirror with intense concentration. Objectively, he liked his human eyes – they were a light brown that shone almost amber in the right angle of sunlight. Dad always commented on them, saying he'd grow up to be a heartbreaker, just like Mom.

Right now, he'd give anything for them not to be human. He wanted his cloudy white back – even the lowest ink-black would be acceptable in the circumstances – but the druid power coursing through him functioned too well, and he'd never be a demon in anything but mindset as long as it hid him from prying entities.

"Shit," he gasped. "Shit, shit, shit."

It was three months until his ninth birthday, but today Mom'd come back from the hospital with bad news. After months of nightmares and insomnia, a MRI showed signs of rapid degeneration in the frontal-temporal lobes. Mom was very careful in explaining to him and Dad what that meant: blackouts, dementia, and eventual death. She'd held their hands, trying to give them some comfort, but Stiles only felt cold.

Later, she tucked him in for the night. "It's okay, darling, I have little more than a year left anyway." She said this with a soft smile, as if that made it better. It didn't. This wasn't how it was supposed to work. Claudia Stilinski had another year and four months on her contract before the hounds came, and it would be quick. Stiles would have made it quick.

"This isn't right. It's too soon," he whispered around the lump formed in his throat. This fucking human, who'd offered him a means of freedom and then burrowed so far into his heart he knew he'd never be able to get her out again. On the crossroads he'd promised to try to love her, and she'd made it exceptionally easy with every kiss and comforting touch he hadn't felt in any of the millennia before.

Stiles looked away from the mirror, tears pooling in all-too-human eyes. He couldn't even do anything with the druid power – light a candle, cast runes maybe – but the magic didn't belong to him and would never obey for something as intensive as healing a brain. It was likely he'd kill both himself and Claudia in the process. The notion made him feel like there was an invisible hand in his chest, squeezing a vice around his heart. Maybe I shouldn't have made the deal, his own traitorous voice whispered. Yes, he'd wanted freedom from his position as a crossroads dealer, but the pain of losing her – losing Mom – dragged up memories of the years spent on the rack, tortured and broken for nothing but the pleasure of it even as his soul slowly devoured itself and filled the holes with brimstone. The hurt was comparable. "Can you love us?" she'd asked once, and he knew the answer now: yes, yes I can, and I am so fucked.

"Sh-tm'ysh…" the noise startled Stiles out of his light slumber. A small blanket slid from his shoulders to the floor as he sat up. He cautiously leaned toward to hospital bed. The last time Mom had been awake…well, it had been bad.

"Mom?" he whispered. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at him. "Mom…do you know who I am?"

Claudia Stilinski smiled wanly. "M'baby. Świętomierz," she slurred. Stiles sighed and let the tension run from his body – she was lucid. "Where's…Dad?"

"He got called in. There's a huge pile-up on the highway and they needed everyone. He'll be back soon," he took her hand, hesitating. "Do you remember the last time you woke up?"

Mom's eyebrows crinkled, searching for something just above his head, before she let out a crackling sob. "Oh, kochanie, m'so sorry. I didn't mean it," she wailed, her grip tightening marginally around his even as her flesh burned fever hot.

"It's okay, Mom, it's okay. I know you didn't," he rushed out, placing his hand on hers. He tried to project comfort, as much as any child could, but in his head he just heard the shattering of glass and screaming (you're not my son, my baby, get out of him!). No matter that she was off her head – the words were true enough, and the truth hurt. Scott's mom had been the one to pull him from the room that time. She took him to the nurses' station and sat him in a corner with a blanket and a Styrofoam cup of cocoa, while Dad stayed back trying to get through to Mom. All he'd been able to do was sit with his chin on his knees and cry.

"Really, I love you," Claudia whispered. "I know you're – that you're not…you're my son. You are."

"I know; it wasn't you. Dad and I were so scared, though. It's been two weeks."

"Two," she breathed, tears spilling down her parchment-thin cheeks. "Since I've been l-luuu…since I've been awake?" She sagged against her pillows, hand still clasped hot in both of his. "Then this is the end of the line, kotku. I can feel the fever in me now." Her words were frank, honest with him in a way most parents would be uneasy with due to his body's age. "You should not have to watch me suffer."

He had watched thousands of souls upon the rack, tormented thousands more himself, but no, he did not want to watch this woman suffer. "I have something for you," Stiles said, letting one hand slip from hers to reach into his jean pocket. "You…can decide if you want it."

She turned her head to look at him as he opened his hand, revealing a capped syringe full of clear liquid. "Świętomierz…" she trailed off, voice trembling.

"I know how much you hate wasting away, Mom. It's killing Dad just as slowly and I-" Stiles swallowed. "I think you deserve some peace, and this will be. Peaceful, and quick." They sat in silence for a few moments, just looking at one another. Then she let out a long, slow breath, and nodded. Stiles sat forward, pulling the cap off with his teeth so he wouldn't have to let go of her hand. He looked up.

"I love you." His child's voice contained more weight than was possible for a nine-year-old boy. "These past years have been…some of the best of my existence."

His mother's eyes crinkled in a smile. "And seeing you grow has brought light to my life, Świętomierz, my bright boy. I love you – will always love you. Thank you."

Stiles put the needle against her arm, against the stark blue of her veins, and slid it under the skin.

"Take care of your father for me," she whispered, a reminder.

"Of course," Stiles said, and he depressed the plunger.

"Of course, Stiles, let's go find a dead body," he muttered to himself. "Let's feed your bloodlust by dragging your best friend into the woods to be bitten by a fucking werewolf." Stiles yanked a steel mixing bowl from the cabinet, sending dishes clattering. It wasn't silver, but it was better than nothing. He took the bowl upstairs and shut the door to his room before crossing to the desk, pulling out a bottle of ink and a lighter. "Okay, let's do this."

Stiles leaned over by the bed, raking his fingers across the carpet until he caught a few long, brown hairs – probably left from the last round of Halo he'd played with Scott. Good thing he wasn't all that skilled at keeping on top of vacuuming. He dumped the ink into the bowl, an improvised black mirror, and pulled his blinds shut to dim the room. Carefully, Stiles twisted the hairs into a bunch and flicked the lighter under it, dropping it before he burnt his fingers. He swirled the ink with both hands on the bowl until finally, the singed hair sank. The chant that slipped past his lips then was a mere whisper, in a tongue older than Latin though the spell was all the simpler for it. As the ink settled, reflections on the makeshift black mirror began to blur. He squinted at the ink as a shape gradually came into focus: it was a flower, cone-shaped with many purple petals shooting off from the central stalk. Wolfsbane, he thought. Stiles let out a sigh of relief, his breath disturbing the surface as the image vanished.

Though werewolves had the same basic origins – a curse from Apollo, according to classical Greek myth that Stiles hadn't been topside at the time to verify – there were two distinct European lycanthropes that he knew about. Romanian werewolves (the ones that gave credence to the silver bullet theories) were truly cursed, a product of ancestors too ignorant or bloodthirsty to seek out the aid of druids or magicians of the era. The full moon was a time of horror, when such beings would lose their minds and hunt either to create packmates or harvest human hearts.

Stiles had been deathly afraid of seeing a silver bullet or knife in his mirror; a sign that he should put Scott down before the kid killed anyone. Scott wouldn't be able to live with himself if he killed an innocent person, as Stiles well knew. Sometimes the human's – now werewolf's – goodliness and naiveté was admirable, but mostly it was fucking annoying. Thankfully, he'd seen wolfsbane in the mirror. French werewolves could be just as nasty as their counterparts, but their kind had a long-standing tradition of pack hierarchy and druid emissaries that lent stability to their race as a whole. Plus, like the Romanians, the werewolves of French ancestry had long lines of hunters dedicated to subduing the rabid ones.

Stiles sighed again. The good news was that he didn't have to off his friend, and Scott could learn to control his wolfy side. The bad news: that was all he really knew about werewolves. He'd cut a deal with one years upon years ago – a young girl-child who'd wanted her brother brought back to life after he'd been killed by an alpha – but she'd been taken down by hunters soon after the revival and he'd never had the occasion to learn more. Stiles hadn't even bothered to learn any magic specific to wolves, since there was never a situation where his demon powers hadn't proved useful. He needed to know more.

"Shit," Stiles raked fingers over his buzzed scalp. "I'm gonna have to remember where I buried a few bodies…"

Explaining werewolves to Scott goes about as well as he could have hoped – that is, terribly. It didn't help that he was so distracted by Allison, but when Stiles tried to call off the party date he was thrown heavily into a wall. He didn't flinch when Scott drew back a fist, too busy blinking stars out of his eyes from his head cracking into the plaster.

"I-I'm sorry," Scott mumbled, stepping away to pick up his bag. Stiles still felt too dizzy from the blow on top of an adderall overdose to move.

"Scott," he called. The boy stopped. "When was the last time you hit me like that? Or anyone?" Stiles took no small pleasure in his friend's full-body flinch. Serves him right. "You've never lost your temper like that before, and," Stiles continued, pulling his desk chair off the ground, "look at this."

Scott turned his head, looking over his shoulder as Stiles swiveled the chair to show him three parallel gouges in the back. His friend's mouth dropped open. "Just for a second, I want you to imagine doing this to Allison," Stiles said quietly.

"Oh my God." Scott dropped his backpack to the floor, looking ill.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," he replied, straddling the chair with his legs wedged between the back and armrests. He agreed with the sentiment, if not the exact wording of it. It wasn't like he could walk around saying "oh my Satan" either, considering his views on Hell's political climate and the fact that he didn't really need any Satanic rumors to add to his generally off-putting demeanor amongst the gossip mill of Beacon Hills.

"Oh my God, what am I going to do?" Scott looked at his hands, which looked perfectly human at that moment. "I can't go the party like this!"

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Priorities, Scotty. Just tell Allison something came up and ask if she'd rather go out for milkshakes or something on Saturday night. You know, after the full moon."

"What, like, on an actual date? I don't know, man. What if she doesn't want to?"

Stiles foresaw a lot of facepalming in the near future. "Focus, dude! Allison is not your number one priority right now, considering any little thing could set you off. Which would end up with little pieces of awesome," he patted his chest, "scattered all over the place. We need to work on your control. Also, I'm pretty sure there are people out there whose job it is to hunt you down and gut you like a fish if you actually hurt anyone."

"Wait, what?"

Finding a dealer of dried aconite was surprisingly difficult even for Stiles, who had a black belt in Google-fu. His initial search suggestions tried to convince him he was looking for dried wolf's urine instead of wolfsbane, which, no. He finally managed to find a third-party seller out of South Dakota, then ordered a bunch of seeds and leaf cuttings. He figured he could cultivate a corner of the backyard since Dad usually left it alone. Stiles got a great variety after some extensive reading – apparently wolfsbane didn't just have lethal effects on wolves and humans, but different species could induce hallucinations or even healing, depending on how they were applied. He finally had cause to dig out some of the cloth-bound tomes Mom left him on druid practices. Even though he had no talent for wielding the stolen magic with any proficiency, Claudia Stilinski wanted to make sure her son was prepared for any eventuality. This included several tomes of lore, a scant bestiary written in Polish (that Stiles was making little headway in, because honestly, learning English in the first place had been difficult enough), and a heavily annotated Book of Shadows that served as the woman's journal and grimoire. All in all, Stiles has a lot of homework to do.

Going back into the woods the night of the full moon didn't seem like the best idea, but neither of them knew what to expect and they didn't want to chance something happening to their parents, so the woods it had to be. After lacrosse practice where Scott showed off entirely too much, they went to Stiles' house. He shoved a flashlight, nightvision binoculars, the bestiary, and a Polski-English dictionary into his backpack. Stiles briefly considered handcuffs, but doubted they'd hold more than a few minutes against Scott's werewolf strength. Too bad my order isn't coming in for another week…with that thought he ran downstairs to shuffle through Dad's desk, pulling out an unopened can of mace. It wasn't exactly legal for civilian possession, but it'd probably do the job of distracting Scott or an alpha werewolf long enough for him to get away.

They pulled up on the edge of the Preserve, opposite where Scott was bitten and far from where the police were still searching for the girl's body. "Feel anything yet?" he asked, setting the parking brake.

Scott squinted at the slowly-setting sun. "Not really. Just…restless…like I've got a lot of energy. So like you, basically," he grinned.

Stiles clapped his shoulder. "At least someone's in a good mood. And hey, I was thinking during practice today – you were super active but you didn't need your inhaler at all." Scott's poleaxed expression made him laugh.

"Dude, I didn't even think of that. You think being a werewolf cured my asthma?"

Stiles shrugged. "Don't see why your super-healing powers wouldn't extend to chronic illness. Guess that's one good thing to come from this." He watched as Scott looked away, frowning. A few days had passed but Scott wasn't handling becoming a creature of the night very well. Stiles could sympathize, though he couldn't quite understand. He'd sold his soul in an era where humanity was still steeped in the practice of magic and the ways of demons, and even in Hell he hadn't fought becoming a demon. Rather, he'd reveled in the sloughing-off of his humanity, had enjoyed the power for centuries before he started to understand the kind of freedom he'd given up in return. He hadn't felt bad about the suffering he'd inflicted there, either; the great majority of souls in Hell had a good reason for being there, after all.

They walked some length into the forest, far enough off the beaten path that he wasn't too concerned about running into anyone. Everywhere he looked was just trees, dead leaves, and a little undergrowth, so Stiles finally picked a spot and flopped down against a tree trunk.

"Nervous?" he asked, breaking the comfortable silence that came from years of knowing each other.

"A little," Scott said, hands in his pockets as he paced nearby. "Do you think there are any hunters around here? Since that girl was killed…"

"Probably." Stiles pulled out the bestiary, hoping the get some of the wilkołak section done before the moon came out. "I don't think werewolves murdering people tend to go over well, and since this guy bit you without asking I'm guessing he's got a few screws loose. That makes him more dangerous."

"Without asking?" Scott sounded bewildered.

"Look, most of the literature I've been able to find about your type of werewolf says that alphas hold consent in high esteem. Biting you without asking is like, werewolf rape in the supernatural world."

"Alphas? What are you talking about?"

Exasperated, Stiles snapped his book shut. "Did you even skim the book I have you yesterday? That had a lot of important stuff."

"I've been a little busy with real life, okay?" Scott threw up his hands.

"This is your life now. I don't know if you think ignoring it will make it go away or you'll find some miracle to make you human again - and that's really unlikely – but if you aren't careful you could kill someone, or get killed. I don't want to trip over half a best friend lying around in the woods, Scott!" By this time Stiles was on his feet, yelling with both hands clenched in fists at his sides. The sun was completely down at this point, and any minute now the moon would be out.

"It's my life. I just want to be normal, okay?" Scott growled, his eyes burning luminescent yellow in the falling dusk. Stiles held up both hands when Scott took a step forward.

"Whoa, hey, calm down, dude." He didn't seem to be listening, taking a few more steps. Stiles' heart started jumping like a jackrabbit's. He bent down, both eyes on his friend as he fumbled a canister out of the bag. "Scott, listen, you've gotta get a hold of yourself. I don't want to have to use this stuff on you." He shook the can a little. Scott paused, a hand going up to his hair as his eyes darted between Stiles' and the can of mace, but the growling hadn't stopped. "Yeah, that's right buddy, it's your good friend Stiles. You don't want to hurt me, right?"

There was a pause, then, "Shitapparentlyyoudo-" Stiles staggered to the side as the werewolf lunged, cursing his body's lack of grace. He'd possessed dead meatsuits with infinitely more poise. His hand went up on autopilot as Scott came around for another lunge, and his friend let out a blood-curdling howl as the mace hit his face. Stiles tripped backwards onto his ass. Above them, the moon peeked bright through gaps in the tree canopy. By the time he regained his feet, Scott was gone. "Son of a bitch!" That howl was sure to attract the attention of hunters, possibly even the alpha if he was in the woods tonight.

He tucked the mace in his sweatshirt, threw his book back in the bag, and pulled out the flashlight and binoculars. He shouldered the pack and stood for a minute. Which way had Scott gone?

Stiles had been walking for close to thirty minutes when he heard the crunch of leaves in the distance. Cautiously, he turned off the flashlight and held the nightvision binoculars to his face. Even with the forest lit up in green light, he couldn't make out anything from where the noise originated. "Scott?" he called softly, wary. There was another rustle about twenty feet away. Either whatever it was moved fast, or there was more than one. Oh Hell, should've brought a gun with me too. There was a sharp whistle, and then a thunk as something impacted a tree right by his head. "Holy fucking shit," Stiles flailed. A crossbow bolt was buried in the wood. Hunters. Best to go with the harmless human approach. "Holy hell, dude! You almost killed me."

(He was actually pretty sure that, if he was ever close to really dying, the magic he'd taken from Mom would kick in. Or, failing that, his demon powers would return to ensure he didn't commit what he saw as a breach of the deal. Whether the aftermath would result in him still possessing a corporeal body was still up in the air.)

Three men stomped their way out of the shadows. Two were bearing guns, but Stiles could immediately tell the stubbly one in the middle was the guy to look out for, even if he was only armed with a crossbow.

"What are you doing out here?" Stubble Guy snapped.

"I'm the one who should be asking that! You almost shot me! What are you doing out here?"

"Hunting," Stubble Guy answered as the other two kept silent. The guy on the right lifted a flashlight, shining it in Stiles' eyes. Checking for eyeshine. "Now answer the question, kid."

Stiles thought fast. "Owl watching," he held up the binoculars. "Like birdwatching but, you know, at night. Because owls are nocturnal." Stubbly didn't look like he believed him. Whatever. "What are you guys hunting, anyway? Because deer are out of season and I don't know what else you'd hunt with buckshot or crossbows." He gestured at the guns the men carried. "My dad, the Sherriff, really doesn't like people hunting without a license."

Stiles suppressed a grin as the men traded glances. Stubble Guy attempted a smile that looked more like a grimace. "We're looking for a mountain lion. Why don't you get home? The woods can be dangerous a night."

"Especially if there's someone shooting at you," Stiles said, grinning as Stubble Guy scowled at him. "Yeah, I get it. No more bird watching for me. You guys have fun," he called, throwing them a mock salute. They let him go.

When Stiles was far enough away he broke into a run, cursing the fact he'd left his phone in the Jeep's cup holder. He had to call Scott and warn him. There was nothing more he could do in the woods tonight.