Silvern | Stiles Stilinski (Book 2)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Damnatio Memoriae

I sat on the floor of Stilinski's hospital room, looking up at Stiles as he went through some different documents. There had been an attack at the communication towers, a large creature had killed a technician and we had a horrible feeling that it was the last chimera. "Hey, Ari" Stilinski groaned as he woke up.

I smiled, "Hey, how are you feeling?"

"Slightly less like death. Is that my laptop?"

"Yep" Stiles didn't even look up from the screen.

There was a pause, "Do you have my password?"

Stiles nodded, "I have all your passwords. You know they just brought in another body from last night?"

"Yeah, I was hoping you wouldn't find out. Now give me my damn computer"

Stilinski reached for it, but Stiles put it out of arm's reach. "Hang on, hang on. I think there's some footage missing, or something missing in the footage"

I frowned and leaned over his shoulder, "What do you mean?"

Stilinski ignored me, watching his son anxiously, "I think there's something missing in your head"

"You need your rest" Stiles said as he moved the laptop further away from his dad. We looked closely as the footage played, I gasped a little as a large creature loped out of the building, shrouded in a black smoke.

"The hell is that?"

——————

Stiles and I walked into Scott's house, heading to his room. "Hey" Stiles murmured as we saw Scott in the bathroom.

"Hey"

I frowned as I glanced at the deep wound on Scott's chest, "Still not healing?"

He shrugged, "Sometimes it just takes a little longer. What are you guys doing here?"

"Uh, you heard about the guy who got killed out at the communication towers, right?" Stiles asked. Scott nodded and pulled on a shirt, "I think we may have figured something out"

"You want my help?" Scott sighed.

There was a pause and I took a step back, letting them talk a little more privately. Stiles paused, "Yeah, well, you said you can find the clues that I can't and you're probably a little better than Ari at finding them. No offence" I chuckled and waved his comment aside. It was true. Scott silently agreed and Stiles showed him the footage on his phone, it was slightly sped up. "Here, take a look. This is when the technician first arrived. You see him going in? Then Deputy Clark goes in. Then something really big and really fast comes charging out. And now comes Clark. Eventually, technician's body is carried out by paramedics"

Scott looked at us, "Okay, what am I missing?"

"Two people go in, three come out," I explained, "We checked all the footage, not a single person enters that building before the technician the entire day. There's no visible loop or edit point that I can find"

"So where does that something really big and really  fast come from?" Stiles continued.

Scott's eyes widened, "There's another way in"

——————

We trudged through the corridors of the communication towers, trying to find any kind of evidence. Stiles shone the flashlight at the ground, showing a large red puddle. "You see that?" he asked us.

Scott shrugged, "I see blood"

"Look where it leads to" he pointed to a large metal box. Scott and I ran over to it, using all our strength to move the box out of the way. Scott winced in pain and I looked to Stiles for help. He made his way over to us, helping us to lift and move it. 

There was a ladder where the box had been, leading down into darkness.

Once we had made it down the ladder, we began to walk through the ill-lit tunnels. Stiles' flashlight illuminated a strange dark blue-ish smoke on the ground. We followed the smoke around a corner, until we found something written on the ground. "What is that?" Scott asked.

I tilted my head slightly as I read it out aloud, " 'Damnatio Memoriae ' "

"It looks like Latin" Stiles frowned.

"Hold the light still, I'll get a picture of it" I instructed, getting my phone out. The light went out and I sighed, "Stiles, I said to hold the light still" I gasped when I heard a thud. Stiles groaned in pain, holding the back of his neck as he lay on the floor. 

Tracy hissed as she ran towards us, trying to claw at us. "Guys, behind you!" Stiles yelled. I turned to see Josh running towards us, his hands crackling with bright bolts of electricity. He punched me, causing me to shake uncontrollably as I stumbled into the wall. Scott growled, grabbing Tracy's hand and making her stab Josh. He yelled in pain, falling next to Stiles, "Sucks, doesn't it?"

I stood up again as Scott snarled at a wall. Corey materialised in front of us, looking absolutely terrified at the prospect of fighting us.

"Okay!" Theo called as he strode into the light, "Maybe they're not ready to take on an Alpha, especially one that can smell fear"

"He's got fangs!" Corey protested.

I stared at Theo in bewilderment, "What did you do?"

He shrugged, "I found some new friends. I don't take rejection well"

"Hey, Theo" Stiles huffed, still lying on the ground.

"Stiles," he sighed, approaching us. His foot suddenly came down on the smoky message, causing the ground to crack and the words to break into fragments. "You're gonna leave here thinking that you need to worry about me. But you're wrong. We're actually back on the same side. Because that thing..." he pointed up at the ceiling, "That's what we need t worry about. Your pack and mine, we're gonna go back to school and pretend like we're normal teenagers, but at night, we're going to be fighting for our lives"

Stiles frowned, "What is it?"

Theo paused, "It's not a chimera"

"But it's just a kid underneath, someone like us" Scott reasoned.

"Not anymore"

As soon as the chimeras were gone, Scott and I pulled Stiles up so that he was leaning against the wall. "He knew what it meant and I can't remember the words" Scott sighed as we sat either side of the paralysed boy.

"Damnatio Memoriae," I explained, "It means the condemnation of memory. It also means that whatever the Dread Doctors created, whatever this last chimera really is, it's not something new. It's something old, really old"

"So they didn't create a new creature" Scott frowned.

Stiles nodded, "They resurrected one"

Scott leaned forwards, drawing a circle in the dust. "We need help. If Theo's got his own pack now, then we need ours. We have to get the others back"

"The others?" Stiles asked, "You mean Kira who's currently battling a homicidal fox spirit inside of her, Malia who isn't even speaking to any of us, Lydia who's stuck in Eichen House and Liam who almost killed you?"

"Also known as our best friends" Scott shrugged.

Stiles and I glanced at each other and I sighed, "Okay, how?"

He paused, "One by one"

"You're not seriously going to make me do it?" Stiles groaned.

"You're part of the pack, right?"

He huffed, "Okay" he slowly leaned forwards and used three fingers to draw a larger circle around the other.

I grinned, picking him up bridal style and carrying him out of the tunnels. "Yay, best friends!" I cheered quietly, earning a glare from him.

Scott chuckled, "We need to find Kira"

"I still hate that tattoo"

"I know"