Chapter 168: CHAPTER 164
"Can you pick up a trail scent?" Malia asked, annoyed at herself when she couldn't pick up this certain wind smell Tristan seemed to have picked up.
Tristan shook his head, almost frowning when he tried but failed to scent a trail. "I can't pick up anything else around here but I know this isn't natural. If it was something polluting the air we'd know, but this is different."
Malia tried her best to pick up the scent but to no avail. Her sense of smell, of everything except blood, was better than Tristan's as she was the literal animal between the two of them so for her not to be able to catch a certain smell of wind felt… sour?
"Stop whining, Malia." She broke out of her mental fit when Tristan chided her and just stood to the side and let him do his thing.
"Let's keep moving. I'll try to catch any other familiar scent if we come across them."
It wasn't an obvious clue, but at least it was something.
They continued on, more slowly this time around so they won't miss any smell they might come across, if they came across any.
If the first time was just a fluke or some unexplained phenomenon, or the unlikely scenario of Tristan lying, the second and third time Tristan picked up the same scent could no longer be attributed to coincidence.
'Why didn't I pick up these scent those times we came here?' Tristan thought.
"I think it's forming some kind of trail." Tristan said after he caught the same scent for the fifth time but Malia wasn't having it.
"That's bullshit, you know. How can you just start picking up windy scents when I can't? The lack of explanation is also one of things I'm prissy about."
Tristan could only shake his head wryly, what else could he say? Half of the things he could do he couldn't explain why. This was just another one atop the growing pile of unexplainable things a Bloodborn can apparently do.
He was about to say something to change the topic when Malia held out a finger to shush him. "I hear people."
"Malia-" He grumbled as he chased after her. What if it was a trap or she was running towards a stronger party? Trust Malia not to think too much before charging in.
Picking up the anxious flow and scent of a rather familiar blood, Tristan slowed down as there was no danger.
It was when he looked at Malia in front of him that he realized that she had picked up his scent and knew who it was. As for why she rushed in, a few plausible reasons came to Tristan's mind.
"Hey McCall. Fancy meeting you here. What have you been up to?" She was openly confrontational and her recipient, Scott, quickly realized why.
"Um nothing. I heard Stiles' dad was taken-"
"And you came here trying to find the Nemeton. Did Deucalion tell you that?" Okay, now she was actively trying to rile him up.
"Just leave him alone, Malia." Tristan drawled out lazily. Bickering with Scott when they were short of time wasn't a luxury they could currently afford.
"Aren't you curious about why he's been with Deucalion all this while?" She asked in disbelief but Tristan's answer remained a simple 'no'.
"If it's not something that can help us now then no, I don't care." He said and turned to walk back from whence they came but Scott's words made him stop for a brief moment before walking away.
"Deucalion won't let you go. He'll get you in his pack in any way he can."
After leaving Scott to his own devices, Tristan and Malia continued where they left off and while they would like to say they were getting closer, they didn't know with absolute certainty if they were going the correct way.
They only came across three similar spots an hour after they crossed paths with Scott.
"Honestly speaking, I have no idea if we're getting closer or not." Tristan suddenly said. First of all, what was this particular smell that Malia couldn't pick up? Was it really 'wind' or was it something else.
"It could be fucking with you for all we know."
"Huh?"
"I mean, the tree is like a natural wifi and we know that nature hates you it's fair bit. So what if it's deliberately hiding itself so that its 'enemy' can't find it?" Her words kept Tristan blinking owlishly as his brain registered the joking words as something really possible given how nature seemed to be petty and vindictive.
"Very funny, Malia." He rolled his eyes and took a deep breath and upon releasing it, his eyes turned red.
He was getting good at picking up the 'wind's' scent which he thought might be air but what if the scent he was picking up was something like emotion – An abstract concept?
"Tristan…"
"Mmn?"
"Tristan!"
He looked at Malia and then the direction she was looking at, and finally saw it.
Away from the surrounding trees and tall grasses, as if in a separate space, a huge old stump sat dug into the ground.
"How…"
"C'mon let's go!" Malia grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the huge tree stump sitting in an open clearing in the middle of the forest.
In their excitement and relief, Tristan picked up on it too late but by then they had already ran into the mountain ash barrier and were violently thrown backwards.
"Mountain ash." Tristan grunted irritably, slowly building up a deep hatred for the supernatural black ash because of how he's been running into it lately.
"Gah! What the hell? It's right there." Malia scowled as she punched the air only for her fist to impact a blue barrier and repel it.
"I'm more baffled how we just found it like that. It almost feels too easy." Tristan quipped lightheartedly, even stretching his hand to touch the barrier and feeling the strong repulsive force it emitted upon contact.
He brought out his phone to make a call but sighed despondently as he saw that they were in a 'No service' zone.
"No calls." He looked at the stump that was only a few meters away from them and could almost swear that the stump actually drew him forward by a step, inches away from the mountain ash barrier.
"What do we do now?" Malia huffed while resting her back against a tree and staring intently at the stump as if trying to bore a hole through the barrier with her stare. "One of us could go back and direct someone here."
"Who'll be going then?"
Malia clocked her brows at him in a way that said 'You, of course. Why even ask?'. "You brought us this near with that stupid thing you can suddenly do."
A good point, Tristan agreed, but that wasn't enough. "And you think I'll just leave you here? What if she comes back?"
"Remind me again who she has a 'death to all' boner for?" She countered but Tristan wasn't hearing it. She was the one Jennifer tried killing first before Tristan got his turn.
Seeing that Tristan wasn't giving her an inch for the same reasons why she wanted him to be the one to go back, Malia could only propose the safest choice and most effective choice open to them.
"We can try calling the pack. Even if not grandma, Derek's pack is somewhere in the Preserve and they'll hear it for certain."
At her suggestion, Tristan could only slowly nod his head as there was nothing to think about.
A howl could be used to signal a lot of things and they were going to howl to call the pack to their location.
"Ready?" Malia nodded, her brown eyes fading into a shining blue, and inhaled with her mouth.
AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Malia's howl was calm, sharp yet peaceful, and it tore through the wind, traveling out of the Preserve.
Since primal calls like these were sent with intent, any wolf of the pack who hears it can generally understand what the other is trying to say in a basic way.
For example, Malia's howl showed that she was fine and wanted her pack to find her, all with a sense of urgency underneath it.
All they had to do now was wait and use whoever comes as a messenger to get someone to disrupt the mountain ash circle.
As for Jennifer showing up before their pack arrives, they weren't overly worried as they were sure they could outrun her.
….
Back in Beacon Hills, inside a house with an old architectural design was a sitting Deucalion who held his folded cane in one hand while the other laid free.
AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
His eyes behind his dark shades snapped open and a feral grin came across his face as he looked in the direction the howl came from.
Gradually, the blinded eyes behind his glasses started brightening up in a sharp crimson until it reached a point that cracked appeared on his glasses which snapped him out of it.
He took off his shades revealing his beaded cloudy eyes. "I guess the conclusion starts now. Doesn't it, Jennifer?"
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