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The first hint Eli had that something was different was a wave of cold, a chill bracing wind that was scentless but felt so sweet against his skin, causing it to pebble with goosebumps and the hairs to stand on end. The fog followed it curling around his ankles.
Eli didn't think he had any more fear in him until the fog, dark, swirling, ashy, started to form into figures, the shadow ninja guys, hundreds of them, all on their knees holding out their swords on their palms with their heads down. Parrish, Scott, and his dad were all too busy to see, they had the fox-thing in their claws and Liam was trying to pull Hikari out of the way knowing something was coming but her eyes were glowing orange, and when she smiled her mouth was full of sharp silver teeth. Teeth like the monster-fox-thing had.
The leaves swirled up in the cold wind and the fog and then there was a figure there, standing before the kneeling shadowy ninjas, hooded, with fabric pooling into the shadowy-ashy fog around its knees but Eli wasn't scared of this thing and he didn't know why.
Hikari, pretty pretty Hikari with her black hair and Eli wanted to ask her so many questions, fell to her knees and, like the ninja-soldier, things offered it her sword.
Liam said something through his fangs as Scott was thrown away and the world stopped.
Parrish's flames stopped flickering but were still as hot - Eli could feel their heat on his skin, the spittle on his dad's chin was frozen there and the figure stepped forward with the leaves and the fog accompanying him.
"Enough," it said.
The fox-demon thing, Eli had so many questions, paused. It actually stopped. It was not stopped like the fire was, it stopped of its own accord.
"Did you really think I wouldn't come?" Eli wasn't sure if the hooded figure was talking to the fox monster or to Scott. He thought it might be Scott. "I know you," he paused, "filthy parasite of a thing, stealing all the powers of the things you possess." It barked out a laugh, "I'm a thousand years old, you can't kill me," it was a mockery, "something you touched was, but it wasn't you, weak little thief. Nasty little leech that you are," their tone was even, "I was just a child when you got your claws into me." It raised its hand and moved it down in a diagonal slash but it didn't move closer. It didn't need to as the swollen belly of the fox-monster split open in an eruption of grey dust, sparklike like there was glitter inside. "Derek, step away,"
His dad said something, a protestation but the figure just tilted its head. Eli couldn't tell anything about the hooded figure other than it was wearing a hooded coat and had appeared out of nothing in the humus of the forest. The open hand held out closed and vines and branches exploded out of the tree stump to grab the fox demon and pushed, violently pulled, Eli's dad out of the way.
"Parrish," it said, stepping forward and taking the sword that Hikari had offered out to him and she whined, a high awkward noise in her throat. Parrish stepped out of the way, not letting the fox thing go, but allowing the figure to step up onto the tree stump and stabbed him all the monster all of the way through.
This figure knew his dad. Eli had so many questions. Especially as he didn't feel that this thing, this hooded shadow with its claws and the way it made the ninjas kneel and offer their swords - his dad was usually good at telling him what was going on. The figure said something quietly in the monster's ear as a fire of green and orange and white erupted through him.
Only when the figure was gone, sucked into the nemeton did the figure turn to look at them, nodding at Eli's dad, and then looking at the girl who had been hunting them but was now an ally, or maybe, Eli had no idea what was going on, and once this was over Eli was getting some answers - dammit. "Hey Allie," it said, offering the girl its hand.
She answered one of the questions because she named the figure but Eli couldn't make out what it was she said, "You have questions," he told her and from the air he pulled a leaf, "spearmint, your favourite."
"You can't do this," Scott yelled, he had his alpha eyes on and Eli didn't know what was happening, but Scott didn't want this to happen which meant Eli should support him but he was pinned, the ashy fog was holding him down. It wasn't hurting him, it was like he had been tucked in with his favourite weighted blanket but he couldn't help the alpha.
It was a strange thought to realise this wasn't his alpha.
That meant that Scott wasn't his dad's alpha either. He certainly wasn't his uncle Peter's - although Eli wasn't allowed to spend a lot of time with Uncle Peter - he was a "bad influence" apparently. He bought the best gifts though and taught him how to hotwire a car.
"What don't you want her to remember, Scott?" The figure asked, "or is it that you want to tell her what happened?" it paused, "how she broke up with you; how she chose someone else; how if you stopped to think about it you would have brought her straight to her dad- but you didn't. This," he held up the leaf again, "will just let you remember, and make your own decisions, it works like an ibuprofen too."
She took the leaf and let it dissolve on her tongue.
"How does that make you better than the demon?" Scott asked, struggling to stand up. "Using the same demon powers?"
The figure laughed and finally threw back his hood revealing Eli's Tata, who he didn't see nearly as often as he liked, he had an important job but Eli wasn't quite sure what it was because it was for the government but he had his dad and Grandpa and Nana Melissa and Uncle Peter - often when none of the other grown-ups were looking - it took a pack to raise a pup, his dad said, and that meant sometimes the pack members had to leave but they always came back.
His Tata winked at Eli as he looked at Scott, "You didn't stop to ask, Scott, you never stop to ask, because it doesn't matter if the world burns as long as you get what you want," Scott roared at his Tata, in his face, and his Tata just pushed him away.
"Who called you?" Scott was trying to talk through his fangs, he seemed to have too many, Eli thought. Uncle Peter had allowed him to poke at his teeth and ask about his eyebrows and pull at his ears but Scott had too many fangs and his eyes were weird, the whites of them were black.
"Peter," his Tata answered, "as soon as he learned that the shit had hit the fan," Scott couldn't do anything about Uncle Peter. No one could do much about Uncle Peter - he was just Uncle Peter. "but there were a lot of people who should have called me long since." He looked at Eli's dad who suddenly found the ground fascinating. Eli wasn't allowed a phone of his own so he wasn't in trouble. "Melissa called me too, and Chris Argent. For some reason, they thought I might be interested to know that the thing that possessed me might be up and about again."
"Didn't have a signal in the demon dimension," Eli heard his dad mutter under his breath. His new werewolf hearing was awesome.
"Oh and Parrish called me, and Jackson." He helped the girl, Allie, to her feet, "Parrish, pants, please." He sounded a little strained when the cop turned around and flashed all and sundry which had Allie trying sort of to cover her eyes and Hikari laughing, it sounding like the high yip yip of a fox.
"For fucks sake," his Tata said checking his phone, "I think the Waffle House called me to see if they needed to close."
"You are not welcome here," Scott said determined to steer the conversation and become the most important person in the glade.
Tata laughed, a deep belly laugh and the leaves and vines started to swirl around him. "This is not your territory, Alpha McCall," he said, "and Alpha Hale might have a thing to say about you threatening me."
"There is no Alpha Hale," Scott insisted, he was spraying spittle with the force of what he said.
"Scott," Dad said, stepping forward and Parrish said it as well, and Eli felt safe, that weighted blanket feeling all over him and he knew it came from his dad, that whatever had happened on the tree stump had caused it. Scott roared and Tata didn't even blink at the werewolf roaring in his face and Eli noticed that the vines grabbed Scott's wrists.
"Read the room, McCall," Liam said, from where he stood next to Hikari. "It's all changed. We don't have to listen to you, not anymore."
Scott looked around, the vines still holding him in place. Eli had seen a horror movie with that once and it hadn't gone well for the girl in question and then even Uncle Peter had said it wasn't the kind of movie he should be watching and he normally didn't mind.
The red slid from McCall's eyes and the weird shift melted back into his skin. Eli kinda wanted to poke at his teeth but didn't think that he would be allowed, because he had too many teeth for his mouth, much more than Uncle Peter had. "This isn't over, Stiles," he said.
Tata just pushed past him, ignoring the threat and the posturing to help Eli to his feet, "come on, pup, it's getting late and even the Waffle House closes sometime." Tata knew that Waffle House was Eli's favourite no matter how many times everyone had tried to introduce him to more types of food. There were places that just looked at you weird when you poured maple syrup over beefsteak but not Waffle House.
"Does this mean I can get a puppy? I mean I got kidnapped by some smelly fox-thing and I," both his Tata and his Dad looked at him. This was not a new argument between them.
"We'll talk about it," his dad said, as his tata said, "let's get some food first."
"You didn't tell me you could do that," Eli told his Tata as they left the stump in the woods. "The magic thing. I figure that means I should get some points in my favour in the puppy argument."
"You also stole the jeep twice this last week," Dad added and Tata laughed.
The rest of it could get sorted tomorrow when everything had settled down, and he could find if maybe he could get the details of the girl his Tata had given the magic leaf to if she was the same age he was, which he thought she might be, and he could find out why Parrish could flame on like he was the human torch and why Dad was suddenly an alpha but his Tata had an army of shadow ninjas offering him their swords and - yeah he was sure he could get a puppy out of this. "Tata, were you really possessed by that monster?" Maybe two puppies.