Tether ⌲ Stiles Stilinski [2]

twenty

In the early hours of the morning, once we had successfully escaped the loft and made sure every hypothermic patient was now safe, Isaac, Allison and I crowded around my father's desk. Chris Argent had a lot of explaining to do.

First, after we showered off the paint from our bodies, we detailed everything we had witnessed at the party. However, despite describing an unstoppable force of what seemed like militant shadow demons, nothing that we said seemed to catch Chris by surprise. Not even the detail about a mysterious scar left behind Isaac's ear, behind all of the victims' ears where the creatures had touched them.

"There was something almost ritualistic about it, wasn't there?" my father asked. "And their eyes glowed as if they could look into your soul."

"Uh, yeah," Isaac shifted uncomfortably. "That's a fairly accurate description."

Allison narrowed her eyes. "You've expected all of this already."

"No, not expected exactly," Chris shook his head and stood up. He stalked over to his cabinet, from which he pulled a nondescript wooden box. "But I have seen it before."

The three of us stared at him, prompting him to launch into an explanation.

"It was my very first gun deal. I was only 18 years old and it was supposed to be a simple exchange. Except Gerard happened to leave out the minor detail that the buyers were yakuza."

I scoffed. "Typical."

"He wanted to see if I could adapt in the moment. Testing my ability to improvise. Half of our men were slaughtered before... Well before they even showed up."

Isaac crossed his arms. "They? Like the same creatures we're dealing with now."

He nodded. "The moment the sun went down it was like they materialized out of the shadows. They had swords of straight, black steel. They cut down every living thing in their way to get to the kumicho, the boss."

"Did they mark him too, like they did with us?"

"They killed him. Brutally."

A shiver went down my spine. I feared that Isaac would have faced the exact same fate earlier if he had continued to intervene after they materialized their sword out of thin air. And I was eternally grateful that they hadn't turned to murder yet.

"Okay, what are they?" Allison asked. "And why were they going after the kumicho? If they were going after him back then, why are they going after the werewolves now? And Lydia."

Chris sighed. "I don't know what they are. But I think I might know someone who does. There were a few others who survived that night. One of them was a man named Katashi. He was also called Silverfinger because of an unusual prosthetic he wore. I've been looking for him to talk."

"What if he doesn't want to talk? What if he doesn't even remember you? No offence, Dad, but you kind of don't look 18 anymore."

"He'll remember this," Chris said. He ran his hand along the top of the wooden box on his desk. Unclasping the lock on it, he opened it to reveal a small bundle of cloth inside. Carefully and calmly, he moved to unfold the cloth piece by piece. Held in the middle of it were the shattered pieces of a dark, gruesome mask. A mask exactly like what had donned the faces of the shadow creatures. "I know I didn't kill it. I'm not sure you can. But by shooting at its mask, I slowed it down long enough for us to get out of there."

I swallowed, eyes trained on the intricately carved black ceramic. "What was behind the mask?"

"Darkness," Chris muttered. "Absolute darkness."