anchor » scott mccall

stalking

stalking – chapter forty nine

stiles

I entered the animal clinic. I needed to talk to Deaton and ask him a few things. And a soon as he saw me, he smiled.

"You're out of school early."

"Yeah, free period, actually." I spoke up. "Uhm, I was just headed home to see my dad. He's a.... You know, I guess you probably heard people are kind of getting murdered again. It's his job to figure it out."

"I gathered as much from the sheriff title." Deaton said.

"Yeah, um, you know, but it gets kind of hard for him to do his job when he doesn't have all the information. And we all know he's missing pretty much half the story here, right? So, I started thinking, and I remembered someone who does have a lot of information. Someone who always seems to know more than anyone else around here. You." I murmured and Deaton sighs.

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

"All these symbols and things, the triskeles, the bank logo, the mountain ash, all of it is from the Celtic Druids. And anyone who has ever looked up human sacrifice before knows that the Druids had a pretty big hard-on when it came to giving on up to the gods. You ever hear of the Lindow Man? Two thousand year old body found in England? He was found strangled, head bashed in, throat cut. Threefold death. They also found pollen grains in his stomach. Guess what favorite Druid plant that was..."

Deaton grabbed a bottle, showing me what was inside of it, a little plant between his fingers.

"Mistletoe."

"I'm just telling you everything you already know, aren't I?" I asked and Deaton looked down "Then why aren't you telling us?" I almost yelled.

"Maybe because when you've spent every moment of the last ten years trying to push something away.... Denying it. Lying about it. Becomes a pretty powerful habit." Deaton shook his head.

"All right, so this guy, is he a Druid?" I asked.

"No. It's someone copying a centuries-old practice of a people who should have known better. Do you know what the word "druid" means in Gaelic?"

"No."

"Wise oak. The Celtic Druids were close to nature. They believed they kept it in balance. They were philosophers and scholars. They weren't serial killers."

"Yeah, well, this one is." I mumbled.

My phone started vibrating and I grabbed it, pulling to my ear. "Hey, I can't talk right now—"

"Stiles, there's a teacher I—I think he's missing, okay? And he might be dead like the others." Lydia said.

"Wait, what? Okay, are you sure he's missing?" I asked.

"Not just missing, taken."

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Deaton stopped hearing the phone that Lydia found. We were at the school now, trying to find out more. I was looking around the music classroom, trying to find anything that could help.

"Can we get a copy of this?" Deaton asked.

Lydia nods, grabbing the phone.

"Hey, Doc, any help would be, you know, helpful." I said.

"Each grouping of three would have its own purpose, its own type of power. Virgins, healers, philosophers, warriors..."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Warrior, could that also be like a soldier?" I asked, looking at a picture that was on the teacher's drawer.