Beacon ⌲ Stiles Stilinski [1] EDITING

twenty five

"What the hell is a kanima?"

Scott grasped the straps of his backpack. "It's a type of shape-shifter."

The teen wolf, my sister, Stiles, and I were walking down the halls of Beacon Hills High together towards our next class: Chemistry with Harris. We were closely huddled and speaking quickly in hushed tones about what the boys had uncovered the previous night. Considering our suspicious behaviour, we might've stood out like a sore thumb normally, but it was midterm exam season and everyone was rushing around like we were.

Although, they were all panicking about functions and formulas, not supernatural creatures.

Unaccustomed to bestiary detective work, my head throbbed dully while I took extra long strides to keep up with the group. I found comfort in how we at least had a namesake and category for our mystery now along with a few character traits.

"So it's like you then?" I motioned to Scott.

He tilted his head. "Well, not exactly. I'm a shape-shifter too, but a kanima is confused by its own reflection. It was like it didn't recognize itself, like it didn't even know who or what it was."

"And it's scared of water, or it can't swim," Stiles added.

Allison and I had learned that last night, after Scott had retrieved the USB, he had wolfed out and came face to face with the kanima. Meanwhile, Stiles nearly drowned with Derek Hale in the school pool facility.

The only thing that saved them was the fact that the creature would hiss at any contact with the pool, and apparently Stiles could tread water for an hour and hold up a fully grown paralyzed werewolf while doing so. Seconds before switching back to utter terror and disbelief, I had been impressed.

Once they recovered and ran the USB files through Scott's computer like originally planned, they fortunately found the bestiary in PDF form. The whole time we had been searching for an old encyclopedia with battered leather bindings and creased pages, it had been right under our noses and scanned for the use of modern hunters.

However, our one key to finally getting some answers was written completely in illegible archaic Latin. We hadn't even figured out the name 'kanima' ourselves. Derek Hale had filled in that blank for us after he had neglected to be overly gracious towards Stiles and trudged off with murder on his mind.

Derek wanted to kill the kanima and he had the numbers to do it.

"So if none of us can read the bestiary, how are we supposed to learn how to stop this thing?" Allison wondered.

"I tried Google," Stiles shrugged. "The only thing I could find about a kanima was a werejaguar from South America that goes after murderers."

"A were-what?"

"Jaguar," he nodded. "Not all shape-shifters automatically change into wolves. Maybe it's a regional thing?"

Scott shook his head. "Well that thing was definitely not a jaguar."

"Yeah, and it came after me. I'm not exactly a murderer."

"But it came after Derek too, and Derek Hale's a murderer," I mumbled.

"Either way," Scott persisted to Stiles. "It knows you saw it kill someone, which is probably why it tried to kill you. It could be still trying to kill you. And it might not stop until you're dead."

I winced at his words and the thought of what happened at the auto-repair garage. 

"You know, sometimes I really begin to question this 'friendship'," Stiles guffawed.