Old Scars, Future Hearts

53

The teens met in the sheriff's station to tell the sheriff what they'd found.

"It's a deadpool," Scott informed. "A hit list of supernatural creatures. This is only part of it. The rest still has to be decoded."

"Who found the list?" Sheriff wondered.

"Lydia," Marika and Dmitri replied.

"How?"

"She wrote it," Marika said. "Actually, transcribed it without knowing."

"Banshee?" Sheriff Stilinski questioned.

"Banshee," Stiles and Dmitri confirmed.

The sheriff sighed. "Beautiful. All right, what are these numbers next to the names?"

"We're getting to that. First, you need to know that the code was broken with a cipher key."

"Wait. You mean, like a... Like a keyword?"

"Actually, a name," Marika answered.

"Allison," Scott confirmed.

Stiles licked his lips. "Her name broke a third of the list."

Marika let out a sigh. "Which means there are two more cipher keys. And they could be any name in town."

The sheriff gave a slow nod. "Which will give us the rest of the names. Okay. So how do we get the cipher keys?"

"Same way we got the code," Stiles replied.

Marika flipped her hair back as she said, "Lydia has been at the lake house all weekend. She's been trying to find the other two keys."

Sheriff Stilinski frowned and looked at the list. "You guys didn't know about Demarco or Carrie?" They shook their heads. "Hmm. And what about these other two names on the list. Uh, Kayleen Bettcher and Elias Town. They were werewolves too?"

Scott shook his head. "I don't know. But Deaton said that the Nemeton would draw supernatural creatures here."

"Here in Beacon Hills? Or Beacon County? The population of Beacon Hills is just under 30,000."

"And dropping like Morpheus made people fall asleep during the Battle of Manhattan," Dmitri said. "Not fun times."

The sheriff frowned at his words before saying, "But if we're talking Beacon County, then you're looking at close to 500,000. Look. How many werewolves, Banshees, kitsunes, demigods, and whatever the hell else is out there are we talking about? And what if the next cipher key uncovers not 12 names, but 100?"

Stiles shook his head. "We don't think there would be that many. There's a limit."

"Because of the numbers," Scott clarified. "We think that once we decode the names, the numbers will add up to 117."

"117 what?" Sheriff questioned.

"Million," Marika and Dmitri replied.

"117 million dollars, Dad," Stiles said. "Stolen from the Hale vault and is being used by someone to finance all these murders."

The sheriff attempted to understand the situation at hand. "So the coded list goes out. And somehow these professional assassins get that list."

"And a cipher key."

"And then they go after the names on the list. They being killers with no mouths, tomahawks, thermo-cut wires that can take your head off."

Stiles sighed and studied the list. "Let me see. Carrie was also stabbed. What's this mark?"