Playing dead. A travesty to be seen played out by the Illustrious Grey Lions of Anhur…
Even so, it had its uses. Marco and his Pride only ever did it a few times. If ever they found themselves stalking the perimeter of a compound of Warlocks— or those tainted by them. Sometimes it was the most viable option. Sometimes they had too much firepower for anything else.
So, one just had to ingest the right concoction of herbs. Some Motherwort derivatives and whatever else the Druids could find, and then boom. Brontë and the others could hit the sun kissed grounds with a pulse that matched the dead.
Hunters liked that. They liked seeing them dead whole. That way they can carry them into their compounds and feel that power. The power of being above something crafted by gods.
Man thirsted for it ever since the first flame. Fittingly ironic that it was a mere Spark that powered the Werewolves.
Also fittingly ironic that Marco had to play dead once again. He said he wouldn't after he had to around the charred corpses of his family all those years ago. He wouldn't put himself beneath food.
But he did again.
He had to.
The drugs and alcoholic vapor in the air dulled his senses out of function. The silver bullet to the stomach irritated him, but it also reminded him of everyone else's mortality. He hadn't even made it to the Silver Resistance building portions of training yet.
He could've charged the woman. But she could've fired again….. and hit Derek. Or Scott. Alpha's were hard to come by. Especially True Alpha's.
So were women like Alison's mother.
He knew that as he rose up off the ground, not a sound from his shifting joints and muscles. Not a single change in the air. He was too smooth. Like a panther in the brush. A leopard in the trees. He was an animal in its element. Everything else was fair game.
Alison and Lydia were shocked into a frozen state. A distant sibling of fight or flight.
Alison's mother stood over the other Shifters.
But as Marco watched her it didn't totally feel like confidence. That sick and twisted response he knew they so often expressed at the sight of death. He saw fear— he smelled it, sticking to the moisture coating on his wet feline nose.
He saw urgency. She wasn't basking in their demise. She was disgusted by them, but urgent to save her daughter and Lydia.
Mothers were often the same across all life forms.
"M-Marco…?" Lydia finally took notice of the massive shape looming over Alison's mother.
The lady he stood behind went rigid. First mistake. If you weren't faster than your opponent you needed to be more surprising. Freezing put the ball in their court.
She spun around to try and put another bullet in him as the Wolfsbane smoke rose.
Marco caught her arm effortlessly and squeezed.
"AGHHHH!!!" She screamed as her wrist bone crushed to shrapnel wrapped in skin. Her old face grew new wrinkles in those moments. Before the gun could violently hit the floor and fire into one of the others he caught it on the knuckles of his transformed foot.
"Where is the Druid?" His voice sounded like death. Cold and perverse to humans.
"Die in a hole you animal!" Alison's mother shot back.
"We didn't kill the boy…. He was the reason innocents were dying. You will tell me where the Druid is…..now." Marco pressed with a snarl.
"What about every other death….? What about the maulings and the tortures? You think you can claim to help the innocents!?"
"You are ignorant, woman...it pisses me off."
Marco looked into her eyes. The markings on his arm itched. They burned. Speaking to him through physical pains since the mountain ash wrappings wouldn't allow anything else.
The burns were curses. The itching an incessant pleading.
Something like, "Please….Marco. Murder all of these soulless—"
"Marco STOP!" Alison's voice shook the room. It reminded him of Scott.
He looked over at her. Tears filled her eyes. They ran down her pale skin, dripping down onto her thin black shirt. It was covered in blood and dust. It hung over her like a curtain. So small. So afraid. Lydia seemed to be in a similar state despite her confusion. Their looks felt familiar.
Marco felt something stir within himself because he didn't care.
Then again, maybe he did. Maybe it was something else. You never really know.
Marco held her arm out still, and lunged at her shoulder. His jaws extended like that of a viper, wide enough to swallow the world. Filled with enough jagged feline and canine fangs to rip it all to shreds.
He could smell it on her. She thought it was her end.
No.
To her it would be something worse.
Marco bit down on her shoulder. She bucked and tried to shove him away. She wasn't strong. Not physically.
He held it there for a while. Alison screamed until she woke the Shifters beneath the smoke. That reminded him of their goal in his bloodlust and Wolfsbane daze.
He removed his fangs from her shoulder and threw her back through the doorway she entered.
Allison and Lydia ran to her. Marco began closing off the Wolfsbane emitting hose and busting open the windows.
The room cleared out. Slowly. Aggravatingly so. Like the entirety of Beacon Hills was just trying to annoy him.
He roared and punched a hole through the wall behind the dj's booth.
Outside air seeped in. He did it again…. And again… and again. Until he knocked the wall out entirely.
The night wind was cold. He didn't notice it as he picked up the others.
Scott arms fastened in his jaws. Derek and Isaac slung over his shoulders. He held Stiles by his shirt as if he were an oversized kitten. In his other hand he held his Guitar case. Never leave it.
He headed for the exit.
"What did you do?" Alison's voice sounded violent. Hurt. Enraged. He couldn't see her face but he could imagine it.
Marco turned his monstrous head. His mane of dreads ruffled.
"I followed an impulse…."
She didn't say anything more.
"Either she dies…. As she tried to kill us. Or she becomes…. Something more."
Marco jumped out into the night carrying the Wolves of the North right with him.
They had much more to do.
Deaton was taken.
***
An hour passed by in a blur. Marco carried them all as he bounded across building rooftops. He checked their homes for anything. He cursed himself for being a less than talented interrogator. He was much better at finishing the job. His oldest sister was the one who liked to draw it out.
Slowly but surely they began waking up.
Scott first. Followed by Derek, Stiles and Isaac.
By the time they reached the Vet Clinic, they were as good as new. Something they'd need based on the smell of blood inside.
He could feel Scott's hackles raise.
"Deaton…"
Marco looked at him as they stood in the forestry around the parking lot.
"Don't….—" Before he could finish Scott took off and busted into the Vet Clinic.
Marco and the others chased after him accordingly.
The smells of blood and death only rose.
Once inside it felt like it was drowning them.
The inside of the clinic was dark. But the waning moonlight peeking in through the windows shined on the blood and tufts of animal fur in the slim hallways.
They could feel the pain in the air. Like smoke.
Isaac sniffled and wiped his eyes.
"What the hell is this?"
"We feel what happened here." Scott explained as the veins in his left arms thickened and turned black.
"The Warlocks did this." Derek guessed.
Marco grunted a nod as Scott opened the door into the canine enclosure.
He sighed as whines began to emanate from the cages.
Marco bolted, turning to approach the cat enclosure. Before he even got inside he found his answer on the glass window of the door.
Blood.
Inside dead cat remains covered the floor like a gothic rug. He fought off the urge to vomit and destroy the entirety of Beacon Hills. The sight reminded him—
He stopped the thoughts where they were and focused on the window. Focused on the message written in blood.
"To the Cat and his Wolves…. You seem to be missing a Druid. Let's end things. No need for introductions. You know who I am, and I know who you are….. Marco."
Sometime along the way, everyone else stood behind him.
Their eyes glowed in the dark like balls of fire.
"It's the Principal…. Gerard, Isn't it?" Isaac questioned.
"We need to go to the High School. Now."
He didn't even need to say it. They were out of the Vet Clinic without a sound.
There was no full moon but things in the distance howled with a feral madness like never before…