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The next day was reasonably decent. Stiles went to school. Peter reached out to the lawyers that handled the family trust about opening his apartment. Derek was still quiet but watchful. Nothing really unusual happened at the Sheriff Department.
Stiles must have talked Derek into going grocery shopping. Dinner was steaks on the grill, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob. Not a stalk of kale to be seen. Ice cream sundaes for dessert. 'Wolves had a sweet tooth -- who knew? John didn't question his good luck.
It all went to hell the next morning.
"Fire on the east side of town," Black reported to John. He looked around before lowering his voice. "It's the Argent house."
"Damn," John swore.
"I don't know anything specific, but it could be anyone," Black admitted with a shrug. "Once the word about the Hale Pack returning was passed along, there was a... feeling of unhappiness about the Argents being here."
"Well..."
Whatever John was going to say was interrupted by a call on their radios.
"SHOTS FIRED!" That came from Deputy Ramirez, who was on general crowd control duty at the fire. "I REPEAT. SHOTS FIRED!"
"Go!" John said. "Everyone to the scene. Vests and full gear."
John sprinted to his car and headed toward the scene. He parked half-a-block away and took the minute to get his vest on and make sure he had extra ammunition. He carefully made his way to Ramirez's vehicle.
"What do we know?" John asked.
"The fire department was trying to knock down the fire," Ramirez said, eyes wide. "They couldn't get inside because the house was fully engulfed when they got here."
"Okay," John nodded.
"So we're hanging out and they're working the fire and all of a sudden there's an explosion," Ramirez continued. "Then bullets started flying. The chief had the firemen pull back and do what they could from their truck."
More shots went off and they ducked behind the car.
John had to think. Oh, fuck. Hunters. He used the radio to call Black who was a block away, dealing with crowd control.
"What are the chances that there's an armory, or at least a weapons stash, in the Argent house?" John asked.
"Oh. D'oh. I didn't think of that. Pretty high," Black replied.
"Okay, the fire is pretty out of control," John said. "The only option now is to let it burn and try to save the houses on either side."
"Got it," Black replied.
"And if anyone has eyes on any of the Argents, hold on to them for me," John said.
"Will do."
John went to the fire chief and explained about the more-than-likely weapons cache.
The chief sighed and nodded. "That makes sense. While we heard shots being fired, a lot of it was muffled."
"An educated guess, since there's a teen in the family, is that it would be in the basement," John replied. "Let the house burn and do what you can to salvage the neighbors."
"That works," the chief said.
"Doesn't mean there won't be more ammo exploding, so maintain a reasonable distance," John directed. "We don't know what kind of ammo but expect some larger caliber shells. Those may go further. And there's likely to be armor piercing rounds. So keep your guys back."
"What do you know?" the chief asked, looking carefully at John.
"Nothing specific," John said honestly. "Making an educated guess."
"It'll do for now," the chief said. "I'm going to run the ladder up with a hose on it, and shoot water on the main fire from there, mostly to knock it down. The roof's about ready to go and I suspect the interior floors are pretty well gone. Water from above might get to the basement and deal with any remaining ammo. I'll get my guys to deal with the other houses."
John nodded. "Sounds like a plan."
An hour later, Black called. "Argents incoming. Mom and dad."
John sighed. The house was still burning, although there had been no ammo explosions in the last half an hour. The houses on either side had fire damage but would likely be livable in a short time. John idly wondered if they had volunteered to take the damage to 'sell' the fire on the Argent house.
"Sheriff!" A tall, dark--haired man with a goatee and icy blue eyes strode up to him.
"Mr. Argent, I assume," John said, holding out a hand. "Sorry to meet this way."
"What happened?" the woman demanded. Mrs. Argent, John assumed.
"It's way too early to know," John said. "As you can see from here, your home is, unfortunately, destroyed in the fire. The fire set off what must have been a weapons' cache, we think in the basement. Since we didn't know what was there or if it could even be contained, we were forced to err on the side of caution. Your home was already engulfed when the fire department got here, so the damage was largely already done. We've been forced to let the house burn, to protect the lives of the fire fighters."
"But..." Mrs. Argent started. She was a tall, thin woman with a pinched face and hard eyes. She looked ready to explode.
Mr. Argent put a hand on her arm.
"It is distressing," Mr. Argent said calmly. "It looks like the neighbors were also affected."
John nodded. "Once the ammunition started to explode, we moved away from your home and attempted to salvage what we could with the neighbors. While not risking lives."
Argent nodded. "That makes sense."
"I know this is tragic." John said the sort of thing he would say to anyone. "If you need assistance, we can call the Red Cross and get you temporary housing. It's going to be at least a few days before we can allow you to have access to whatever might be left."
"But..." Mrs. Argent was agitated and vibrating in place.
"Victoria," Mr. Argent said firmly. She glared at him but remained quiet. "We have to let the Sheriff and fire department do their jobs. There's nothing that can't be replaced."
Victoria Argent huffed and crossed her arms. "What about Allison?"
John looked at his watch. "I assume your daughter is in school. My son spoke of her as a new classmate. Classes will be getting out for the day shortly. I can send someone for her, if you would like."
"No!" Victoria Argent said firmly. "My car is back at the roadblock. I will go and get her." She stalked away.
Mr. Argent's shoulders seemed to relax a bit. Interesting.
Mr. Argent sighed and rubbed his forehead. "We had hoped to make a home here," he said. "We've been traveling with the family business for a long time and this was a chance to settle down and plant some roots."
"It's not impossible to start again." John had to pretend to not know what the 'family business' might be.
"No," Argent shook his head. "I was going into business for myself and had a lot of business equipment in the house. It's likely to be a total loss and while the insurance should cover the house, it's unlikely to cover the business equipment."
"Ammunition?" John asked.
Argent nodded. "I'm a weapons dealer. I had a collection of weapons and ammunition in the basement. Which will largely be destroyed by the fire or the water."
"That's good to know," John said. "I can let the fire chief know so that he is careful about anything that may still be in the basement. I'll have my guys work with the fire department on handling the remains of weapons."
John wanted to grin when Argent couldn't protest a reasonable precaution. Having deputies along-side the fire fighters made sense, from a 'normal' person's point of view. From a 'Hunter' point of view, it was a disaster in the making.
"Will you need help with finding housing?" John asked. "I can hook you up with the Red Cross..."
Argent shook his head. "We'll be fine. In fact, I'll be sending Victoria and Allison out of Beacon Hills tonight. We have... family in Arizona they can stay with while I sort this out."
John nodded. "That's probably for the best," he said. He also strongly suspected that Argent would also be gone by tomorrow, but he wasn't going to say that aloud.
John handed Argent a business card. "This is the number for the station. You can give that number to your insurance company, to get the paperwork you'll need. Whomever you talk to will gladly give you the number for the fire department, for that paperwork."
Argent took the card as if it were radioactive. "Thank you," he bit out.
"If there's nothing else you need," John said. "I do need to pay attention to what is going on."
"Oh, right," Argent replied. "Thank you, Sheriff..." he peered closely at the card, "Sheriff Stilinski for your help."
John could see Argent roll the name around in his head. As if he recognized it from the night of the Hale fire. But John's evidence only had reference to a young woman, not a middle-aged man. He wondered how the two might be connected.
"Sorry for your loss," John said. "At least no one was hurt."
Argent nodded, looking bleakly at the still-burning building. "That is a good thing." He nodded.
John called out. "Ramirez! Come and get Mr. Argent's contact information."
Ramirez came over as Argent frowned. But he gamely gave Ramirez information that John would bet his house on was going to be fake. But it was part of the process that Argent couldn't protest.
When he was done with Ramirez's questions, Argent strolled from the scene. He probably had his own car since Victoria Argent had left earlier with a car to get their daughter.
John went back to the fire chief. "Just talked to the homeowner. He was a weapons dealer who had inventory in his basement. Once the fire is out, none of your guys go into that structure without one of mine. Since we don't know how the fire started, I'm treating it like a crime scene. If nothing else, I need to keep the looky-loos out."
The fire chief nodded. "Suspected something, from the volume of ammo we've heard going off. Sure, we can do that."
"Any luck with the neighbors?" John asked, looking at the other houses.
"The house on the garage side made out better, since there were no cars in either garage and the garages were side-by-side," the chief said. "There's smoke and water damage, mostly in the garage, but they should be reasonably good. The other house has sustained some major damage along the one side."
"Anyone hurt?" John asked.
"That's the only good news," the chief grinned. "The neighbors weren't home, either, so the houses were empty. My guys are fine, since no one had to go inside the house."
"That is good news," John said. "Property damage can be fixed."
"With the armory information, no one can come back to either neighbor's house for at least tonight," the chief said. "If there are hot spots, we don't want to risk ammo going off in the middle of the night."
"And I'll have a car here twenty-four-seven," John said. "Until we know more. Call me if you need anything."
"Will do!" the chief nodded.
John walked about the perimeter. He wanted to see who might be watching, as well as to check on his men. They were doing a good job of keeping the majority of the crowd away from the fire but there were those who lived across the street or in the backyard that should be checked on.
There had been no ammo explosions in the last hour, but John still worried about hot spots. He decided they should evacuate more homes, just to be safe.
"Black," John called, rather than using the radio. He needed to bounce this off someone. "We probably should evacuate the surrounding homes for the night, just because we can't be sure there won't be more stray ammo explosions."
"Oh, right," Black replied. "Umm... the Mayor won't like it, but offer to have the town pay to put anyone up at the hotel by the highway. They have reasonable prices and it's nice enough that no one should complain."
"Good idea," John nodded. "Get Graem and Mathis to work on that. One of them should call the hotel and let them know that we'll pick up the bill. Especially for the houses bordering the back yard. The yards are decent size but we need to be careful."
It was full dark before the fire chief declared the fire to be out. He left a truck on site and a hose hooked up, just to be safe. John set one of the deputies to watch the property.
"If someone tries to enter the property, call for help first," John said.
Chen looked startled. "Why? Is there something going on that I should know?"
"Argent admitted he is an arms dealer, but I don't know anything beyond that bare-bones statement," John said. "But weapons can bring in a... questionable element. We need to err on the side of safety."
Chen nodded. "Got it."
"Evans is on call, if you need a break," John said. "He'll be in a car, so he can get here relatively quickly. And don't hesitate to call me, if needed."
Another nod.
"Danvers is on over nights, so he'll come in at the end of your shift," John said. "I'll touch base with him directly."
Chen debated for a moment. "I understand the Hales are staying with you," he said carefully.
Oh. John nodded. "Peter Hale has recovered from his injuries. Peter and Derek are staying with me for the moment but Peter is working with... lawyers to re-open an apartment he evidently has in town. It's all in the early stages."
Chen nodded. Then looked at the burnt house. "Good to know."
John nodded. "If you're set, I've been here all day. I need a shower and a hot meal."
"I'll be fine," Chen nodded. "Get out of here."
When John went back to his car, he found that the roadblock had been pulled closer to the house and that Black had left.
John stopped by the station to leave messages for Danvers and Maximillian, who would be on the night shift. He'd check on them when they were on duty.
Once home, John sat in the cruiser in his driveway. Suddenly exhausted by the long day.
A tap on the window brought his attention to Stiles.
"Come on," Stiles said. "There's food ready but--" Stiles sniffed "--you need a shower. You smell like smoke." He glanced at the house. "I suspect that's not going to go well for Derek and Peter."
John rubbed his face. He hadn't thought of that. But he couldn't avoid it.
"Let me go around to the back, so I can at least take the clothes off in the back hall," John decided.
"I'll throw it all in the laundry," Stiles replied.
John nodded. He got out of the car and went around to the back door. He stripped down to his underwear and Stiles gathered up the uniform. Since the office where he stored his weapon was at the back, John took a minute to secure his gun.
Peter and Derek hovered for a moment. They both wrinkled their noses and backed away.
"Sorry about the smoke," John said. "The Argent house went up in flames today."
Peter shook his head. "Not that..." He took a step closer, a sniff, and an immediate step back. "Wolfsbane."
John frowned. "Don't know what that is?"
"Wolfsbane is a plant," Peter said, taking another step back. "Aconitum or monkshood. Most of the strains of the plant are deadly to 'wolves. There are special strains that have other properties but, well, most are deadly."
"And I smell of it?" John asked.
Peter nodded.
"Huh," John said. "Stiles has taken my uniform to the laundry, so it also will have some on it."
"I'll let him know to run an empty load when it's done," Peter said. "An empty load, using bleach, will clean the washer."
"Glad it's relatively simple," John said. "I'm guessing that means the Argents had wolfsbane plants in their house?"
"Quite a lot of it," Peter said. "Or dried plants. It doesn't have to be fresh to be deadly and some strains are even more potent after they've been dried."
"Is it deadly to... others?" John waved a hand. "Or just 'wolves."
"It can be poisonous to a number of supernaturals, and even to humans in large enough doses," Peter replied.
John sighed. He went back to his office and picked up the phone. He called Black.
"Hey!" John said. "I just found out that the Argents had to have a cache of wolfsbane in the house. I came home smelling of it. So anyone at the scene will likely have it on them."
"Fuck."
"My thoughts exactly," John replied. "I'll call the chief and let him know he needs to decontaminate for... we can call it weapon-related chemicals. But the neighborhood will be bad until we get some rain."
"I'll spread the word," Black said.
"Chen seems to be in-the-know and he's watching the house," John said. "I'll call him after I talk to the chief."
"Huh," Black said. "I didn't ping him as anything."
"Might be family," John said. "I think living in Beacon Hills is going to be even more interesting."
Black laughed.
John wasn't sure what the fire chief knew, so he stuck to the weapons-related chemical story.
"Yeah, one of my guys had come down with a rash of some sort," the chief said. "So we were doing at least a basic decontamination process. I'll let everyone know and we'll work on a full decontamination."
John turned to Peter, who hovered in the doorway.
"Rash? Would that be a reaction of a 'wolf or something else?" John asked when he was off the phone.
Peter nodded. "Mild exposure might generate a rash," he replied. "On the skin but not inhaled might do that. If it's washed off, healing should kick in and make the rash go away."
"Okay," John nodded. He called Chen.
"Just so you know, there was wolfsbane in the Argent house," John said. "We don't know what form, but it'll be in the air and in the ash. I'm learning this as I go along but the ash is likely dangerous to 'wolves and maybe to others. Black is putting the word out but you need to know, since you're on site."
"Ah! We should have suspected," Chen replied.
"The story is weapons-related chemicals," John went on. "That's what I told the fire chief. Evidently, one of his firefighters developed a rash and they will be doing major decontamination. The truck that's still there will need to do the same thing, when it goes back to the firehouse."
"I'll let them know about possible chemical exposure," Chen replied.
"That would be good," John said. "Thanks."
John stood for a moment and debated. Fuck it. He needed a shower before he called the Mayor.
John washed his hands before he picked out clean underwear to take into the bathroom. He wasn't going risk speading this wolfsbane stuff on his other clothes. The hot shower and clean clothes felt good.
"Eat, before you do anything else," Stiles said.
John sat and ate the ham and scalloped potato casserole Stiles had prepared. It was hot and filling, something he needed after a day on his feet.
"I still need to call the Mayor," John admitted.
"Derek explained about wolfsbane," Stiles nodded. "I'll take care of the washer when I'm done."
"We're lucky that Argent admitted that he had weapons in his basement," John said. "We're calling it weapons-related chemicals, so that covers a multitude of possibilities and will help keep people away."
"Where are the Argents staying?" Stiles asked.
"Last I knew, Victoria Argent said she was picking Allison up from school," John replied. "Mr. Argent said he'd be sending them to family in Arizona." He shrugged. "I don't know if that's true, but I did get a definite 'leaving town' impression."
"Oh, man!" Stiles groaned. "Scott is going to be awful about that. He's fixated on her and, if she leaves, I have no idea what's going to happen." He sat back in the chair. "He's a supernatural reveal waiting to happen."
"Talk to Derek and Peter," John suggested. "Maybe they have some ideas."
Stiles sat down with the Hales as John called the Mayor. The Mayor, as predicted, was not happy but agreed with what John had decided.
John moved to the living room to join the discussion.
Peter sighed. "I suspect I made a major mistake, Biting that boy."
"You were mostly insane at the moment," Derek replied. "Scott was... convenient."
"What can we do?" Stiles asked. "I can already hear the whining when he realizes Allison isn't in school and likely left town."
"His attraction was... immediate?" Peter asked thoughtfully.
Stiles nodded.
"I need to do some research," Peter said. "While there are stories about 'mates,' that is what they are. Stories. I want to think your friend Scott's attraction was... encouraged."
"How?" Stiles was amazed.
"That is what I'd like to have time to research," Peter said. "What do you normally do on the weekend?"
"Tomorrow is Friday, so there's lacrosse practice after school and on Saturday morning," Stiles said. "Scott's going for first line this year and, with his new abilities, he should make it."
"What about you?" Derek asked.
Stiles shrugged. "I mostly sit on the bench," he admitted. "With Scott's asthma, that's where we've both been."
"You said at one point that you've been pulling him through school," Peter said. "How would he do if you weren't there?"
"Oh. His grades would tank in a heartbeat," Stiles admitted. "What are you thinking?"
"Still looking for options," Peter said. He looked at Derek, who nodded. "We'll move to the apartment tomorrow, while you're at school." At Stiles' sound of dismay, Peter reassured him. "We won't be far, and we'll be here tomorrow night. But invite Scott to be here on Saturday. First of all, it will be interesting to see if he even realizes we were here."
"Ha! Not going to happen," Stiles scoffed. "Since I didn't know 'wolves could identify others, I didn't teach it to him. He only knows what I've taught him."
"More than likely," Peter nodded. "He should know someone was here."
"Maybe?" Stiles shrugged. "Scott's pretty lazy."
"It will give me a better idea of what we're dealing with," Peter replied.
"Sure," Stiles replied. "We haven't played video games in a bit, and he'll need to whine about Allison and school work and life."
"That will give us time to come up with some options," Peter replied.
"Okay, that works," Stiles said.
"I'll likely have to work on Saturday," John put in. "The clean-up of the Argent fire will take days." He looked at Peter. "I need an honest fire investigator," he said. "I'm going to call the State in on this, since it's not something my guys can do. If you have some contacts that are in-the-know, that likely would be good."
Peter nodded. "That, I can do."
"Good," John said. "I'm calling it a night. It's been a long day, and I suspect we have a couple of long days ahead of us."