METAMORPHOSIS • DEREK HALE [COMPLETED]

Chapter Five

"I guess you've been here long enough to hear we need to be quick about this," Sheriff Stilinski told Derek and Alex as they stood over Sean's body. They were on a tight time limit of five minutes until the young Deputy Parrish and other policemen would return to finish analyzing the crime scene. "Scott said he called himself a wendigo."

"Cannibalistic shape-shifters," Derek add," But I haven't heard of them in Beacon Hills for a long time."

"Me either," Alex shook her head.

The sheriff gave her a puzzled look, not recognizing the new face.

"Sorry, I'm Alex Chase," she introduced herself, holding out her hand. "Werejaguar," the word felt weird rolling off of her tongue.

He hastily shook her hand along with his head. The growing numbers and types of supernatural creatures that resided in the small town he thought he knew so well majorly confused him.

"How many people did Scott say were up here," Derek asked, turning away from the body to look over the edge of the roof. Him and Alex noticed a streak of blood not belonging to Sean.

"Just Sean and the ax-murderer who apparently has no mouth. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Alex said no, but Derek noted, "There was someone else. Someone young and male. Alex, do you smell that?"

She inhaled, her enhanced senses picking up too many scents for her to her discern how he could tell all of that from the minuscule puddle of blood. She shook her head, not detecting anything.

"Focus on it," he instructed. Zeroing in on the splash of blood by his feet, she smelled the iron, salt, and something else she couldn't quite identify. "Fear," Derek answered her unspoken question. "When people feel something, it's released as chemosignals. What you smell right now, that's fear. Don't worry. Soon you'll be able to tell the difference."

**********

"What happened," Alex exclaimed after coming home with Derek to find Peter struggling on the floor. The same weapon pictured in the case file was embedded in his chest.

He didn't respond but instead, he teared the interments from his sternum. Alex took the tomahawk from his hand as Derek helped him to his feet. Peter fell back onto the metal table, gasping through the pain; he wasn't healing.

Alex noticed a black residue on the blade. Most of it was Peter's blood, but there was another substance. "Aconite," she identified, handing it to Derek. "I don't know which type though."

He quickly studied it before putting it on the table. He didn't know either. "Since the ax was laced with wolfsbane, and we don't know the species, I'm gonna have to burn it out," Derek told him, holding up a lighter, slightly bemused.

"I think I can handle a little fire," Peter joked, breathing in sharply.

Derek silently and sarcastically smiled at their inside joke before igniting the lighter. Alex didn't quite understand the joke, but then again, she came to Beacon Hills after so much had happened.

Derek held the lighter up to a blow torch, sparking the blue flame.

Peter gulped, "Ah, hell." As the torched touched his skin, his agonized screams filled the loft air.

Derek seemed to burn away at his infected skin for a while. Alex was even beginning to feel sympathetic for him. Once Derek deemed him free of wolfsbane, he put out the torch, and Peter fell to the floor, thrashing in pain. Derek gave him a hand to help him up.

"What happened," Alex asked again.

"He said he was after you. The both of you."

Alex furrowed her eyebrows. Why would someone want me dead? She thought of the Calaveras, but then, they would have made their presence known, and they wouldn't have failed.