Chapter 3

"Vampires, Parrish?" The sheriff takes a few steps down the street, stops and turns on the spot. "What the hell do you know about vampires? What do you know about any of this?"

Parrish looks back at him, a frown creasing his forehead. "I don't know anything," he says. "But sometimes in this town, guys with swords materialize out of thin air. Cold cases pile up, strange, ritualistic killings. I catch words like 'pack' and 'alpha' in a context that makes no sense, or it didn't before tonight." He shakes his head, looks back toward the bar. "I don't know if vampires are real, or if it just means I'm going crazy, but did you see him smile when I said it? Did you see his teeth?"

The sheriff can't get the image out of his head. When Anton grinned, exposing long, pointed eye teeth, his heart stopped for a moment.

He sighs and starts walking again. "It's not the first time I've seen a set of fangs, kid. It won't be the last."

Parrish drops his eyes to the pavement as he catches up. "So vampires are real." He shakes his head, looks up. "How do we deal with vampires?"

"We don't. You're going home. I'm going to see someone who might know something about Anton and his friends."

Parrish stops walking, turns to face the sheriff. "No way. You can't cut me out of this. You know about this stuff, but I'm pretty sure you're the only one at the station who does. Now I know, too. That's gotta be a good thing, you don't have to be the only guy in town who deals with it."

"I'm not. But I'm damned if I'm going to just hand something like this over to a bunch of teenagers. Especially on a school night." He rolls his eyes. "I've got work to do, Parrish. Just go home, forget everything." He puts his hand on Parrish's shoulder, gives it a squeeze. "I'll make it up to you, I swear."

Parrish shakes his head. "I can help you with this. I can—"

He stops cold, and there's something in his eyes when he wraps his arms around the sheriff's neck and presses close.

As hair rises on the back of his neck, the sheriff starts to speak, is about to ask if the vampire is behind him, when Parrish kisses him. The blood in his brain rushes south, and the thought almost slips away with the heat of Parrish's mouth, the taste of his tongue.

Parrish pulls back. His pupils are big and dark, his eyelids are heavy. "Come home with me," he says, his voice like honey. "Please."

The sheriff doesn't know if that's why he nods, why he allows Parrish to pull him past the cruiser parked on the street and around the corner. But there might be a vampire right behind them.

He snaps out of it once they're in Parrish's truck and the engine is running. "Listen, Jordan," he says, as Parrish pulls away from the curb.

"He stepped onto the street outside the bar," Parrish says, eyes focused on the road. "I figure he could hear anything we said. And your car is kind of a giveaway. I don't think he followed, though. How fast can vampires move on foot?"

"I'm gonna err on the side of caution and say fast. So I'm stuck with you now?"

Parrish grins. "I'll drop you at the station if you order me to. Pretend I don't know anything." He glances away from the road for a second to make eye contact. "I would like a real kiss first. These fake ones are driving me crazy."

The sheriff clears his throat. "That felt real enough to me."

"Yeah. So did the one in the bar." Dimples form on Parrish's cheeks, and his eyes flick toward the sheriff again. "Still, it would be nice not to feel like we're being watched."

"Deal." He feels his skin warm as he imagines it, not having to pull away to share a whispered observation, or to resist the urge to look behind him. To know that it's real, and not just a cover.

"Good." Parrish's hands slide over the wheel as he turns a corner toward the station. "But hear me out. You know I spent time in the archives when I started here. Looked at some of the old files?"

"Yeah." It's standard procedure, a way of familiarizing new staff with the filing system.

"A lot of unsolved cases." Parrish gives the sheriff an apologetic look. "Missing persons, mysterious deaths. You know that already. But I remember seeing more than a few where the victims bled out. Bite marks. Most of them written off as animal attack. And I guess they just got lost in all the others, you know? But they're fresh in my mind, so I thought I'd mention it."

The sheriff blinks. He had a whole pile of 'animal attack' files, alongside the kanima pile and the darach pile. He'd been putting possible vampire attacks in the werewolf pile, and he didn't even know it. "All right, Parrish. But I don't want anyone else asking questions. You stay in the car, I'll get the files, and we go back to my place and sort through them."

Parrish pulls up outside the station, cuts the engine. "Isn't your kid home?"

Normally, that wouldn't be a problem, but he's got a chance to keep Stiles out of it for a change. "Got a better idea?"

"My place," Parrish says. "I straightened up and everything."

The sheriff lifts an eyebrow.

Parrish grins. "Just in case."

John smirks. "Okay. Sit tight. I might be a few minutes. I've gotta make a call."

---

"I know Anton," Deaton says. "He's not a killer."

The animal clinic is dark, everything is bare surfaces and shining steel, as though the doc was about to lock up for the night. The sheriff crosses his arms over his chest and chews on the inside of his cheek. "You knew," he says. "There's been vampires in this town for however long, and you knew."

Deaton shrugs. "Anton's been here a long time, since Derek's great-grandfather was the Alpha. He's never caused a problem, and neither have his children. I understand he chooses them carefully."

"Children?" The sheriff pulls a face.

Parrish steps forward. "Alpha of what, exactly?"

Deaton looks at Parrish, a confused expression on his face, then flicks his eyes back to the sheriff. "Those he turns. Why is he here?"

"Because I've got this." Parrish sets a file folder open on the exam table, fans the reports out in two piles. He indicates the larger of the two. "Animal attacks, all with a single bite, all bled out." He turns to the other. "Missing persons, all with a connection to Anton's bar."

Deaton steps closer, leans in to examine a photograph. "This is new." He looks up at the sheriff. "I generally see the ones who have been torn apart. I think you know why."

The sheriff nods. "These are careful, tidy. Bodies dumped in the lake or buried. It's not a full moon thing."

He glances up at Parrish. There's a curious look on the deputy's face, determined. John can almost see the working of his mind as he pieces the clues together.

"No." Deaton shakes his head, then turns his attention to the missing persons reports. "These, though, I might be able to explain."

"Anton's previous chef," the sheriff says, dragging the top sheet off the pile with one finger. "Disappeared at the time of the break-in. I thought he might have done it, cleaned out the safe and run, but Anton swore there was nothing missing. He seemed more upset about the dirty floor."

"He was a vampire," Deaton says. "And he was murdered."

"Let me guess," Parrish says. "Vampires turn to dust when they die?"

Deaton nods. He pulls out the next sheet. "This man was a security guard. Worked nights. He had a family."

The sheriff leans in to read. "Reported missing by his wife, never came home after work one morning. Employers said he stopped checking in at three AM." He looks up. "He was a vampire, too?"

Deaton nods as he flicks through the remaining files. "All of them were." He lifts his head. "They're all Anton's, all vampires he made. There's only one reason he might kill his own, and that's if they started killing humans. They had no reason to. Many of them have families, jobs. They're no different from you or me, except that they need a little human blood to live. And Anton provided them with donors. Willing donors."

"Then who's killing these people?" Parrish says, his hand hovering over the first pile of reports. "Another vampire?"

"How far do they go back?" Deaton asks.

"We've got some in the car that go back five or six years," the sheriff says.

Deaton nods. "Once there was no pack here, it left the town unprotected. I think it's time to tell Scott."

"No," the sheriff says. If Scott gets involved, so does Stiles. "If there's a murderer in my town, I'm going to be the one to deal with it. I don't know what it takes to kill one of these bastards, but at least until we find who's doing this, we're keeping the kids out of it." He gathers up all the files, shoves them back into the folder. "Come on, Parrish. We've got work to do."

---

"I've got a theory," Parrish says as he drives them across town toward his apartment. "And you can tell me I'm crazy, but it's the only one that makes sense, especially after finding out that vampires are real and the local vet is the go-to for info on the supernatural."

"Let me hear it," the sheriff says. "I'd believe almost anything at this point."

"Werewolves. There are werewolves here in town, and your kid is one of them." Parrish keeps his eyes on the road.

John smiles, half in amusement, half in relief that Parrish is only half right. "Stiles is not a werewolf."

"Dammit." Parrish sighs. "But the doc said 'Scott'. That's the name of Stiles' friend, right? And you said 'keep the kids out of it' and all the stuff about pack and alpha and something about the full moon?" He glances over. "I don't have anything else for that."

"Scott was bitten a little over a year ago," John says. "A lot has happened since then, but now he's the alpha, and a seventeen year old boy and his pack is all that stands between this town and whatever supernatural bullshit rears its head. Unfortunately, where Scott goes, Stiles goes. And my kid knows more about this stuff than I do. I want to protect him from that stuff, as much as I can, so if you can help me do that..."

He trails off, looks down at his hands where they twist into the fabric of his pants. "That's probably too much to ask."

"It's not," Parrish says. He pulls into a driveway, turns off the engine. "They might know more about it, but we've got training. I've seen far scarier things than vampires and werewolves."

"The werewolves aren't the bad guys," the sheriff says. "At least, most of the time they're not."

"If we're to believe the doc, neither are the vampires." Parrish pops the door, but turns before he gets out. "He thought Anton might kill his own if they got out of hand. Do we just trust that his vampires aren't eating people?"

The sheriff reaches into the back seat, pulls out the box of files he took from the station. "No," he says. "We find out for ourselves."