Evil Allure (13 page)

“Irvine,” I whispered.

“Hello? Speak up. I can’t hear you.”

I tried raising my voice but couldn’t because they would hear me if I spoke any louder.

“Irvine,” moving my mouth as close to the phone as possible. “Please... Help…”

The men were all gathered around Summer’s seemingly lifeless body.

“So, how are we going to do this?” one man said.

“The same way we always do it. Why should she be any different?”

The green-eyed man reached into his jacket and pulled out a large blade. The fear struck my heart and I found myself now pleading with a man on the other line who couldn’t hear me.

“Who is this?” Irvine said to me. “Who are… Ariel? Is this you, Ariel?”

“Yes,” I whispered, hoping that he would hear me.

“Y-you’re in trouble. Where are you? Wait, just stay on the line. I can trace your phone. Don’t move.”

It wasn’t like I had a choice. The man holding the large blade inched closer to Summer. Irvine’s voice on the other end didn’t do anything to remove the fear that was now racing through my body. My heart was pounding against my chest. I was breathing hard through my nostrils.

“Don’t move,” Irvine repeated. “I’m coming as fast I can. I know you’re in that abandoned apartment building. I promise I’ll get to you.”

“Please…”

I muttered the words and even though Irvine was listening, it was like they fell upon deaf ears. The green-eyed man stood just above Summer and raised the blade into the air.

“Tonight was quite a catch, boys,” he said. “We’re going to be dining well.”

He shoved the blade down into Summer’s chest and the blood sprayed out. I turned my head away and put a hand up against my mouth. Immediately, the tears started forming in my eyes and even with my eyes shut tight, I could fe
el them beginning to spill out.

There were murders happening all over the city. But now it happened to someone I knew. And right in front of me. I didn’t want to believe what I had just seen. It felt like some terrible nightmare but no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t able to wake myself up.

The sound of the men laughing and celebrating made me feel even more sick. Irvine continued to talk to me on the line but I wasn’t listening to anything he was saying.

“Let’s eat, boys. Make sure you leave some for the police to find. It’ll be a real head scratcher for them.”

I didn’t understand what I was hearing. I still hadn’t composed myself but it was the strangest thing I’d heard that entire night. Slowly, I opened my eyes and peeked through the opening of the closet. The men were all beginning to pace around the body. Something was happening to them.

It was like they were growing. They ripped off their jackets and took off the rest of their clothes as their muscles started to bulge. The darkness made it harder for me to comprehend everything that I was looking at. They stood their naked, their hard bodies suddenly being covered in hair. It was like there was fur growing on them. Their nails started to extend and their eyes started to yellow. The transformation was happening right in front of my eyes and I still couldn’t believe it. I suddenly found myself in a room with four men who looked like something I had seen in a movie.

“Now, let’s eat.”

His gravelly voice was loud and deep, different from the way he had just spoken moments ago. They didn’t look or sound like men anymore. They were creatures, all gathered around the body of a girl I knew.

I turned my head away again, unable to look upon the sight. They sounded like beasts. It was the kind of thing you would hear in the jungle that would make you run away. But that wasn’t an option for me.

“Stupid,” I thought to myself. “Stupid, stupid. How could you be so stupid, Ariel? Why did you have to go and bother them?”

One of the men turned his head up and started to sniff.

“Do you smell that?” he asked the rest of them.

“Yeah, she’s a real special one, this girl. Where’s a little too much perfume for my taste but I’m not complaining?”

“No, not her. There’s someone else.”

He sniffed into the air and one of the other men joined him.

“He’s right,” he said. “I can smell it.”

They all turned their heads up and started sniffing into the air. Slowly, they all started to pace around the room. I held my breath as they looked around. They were going to find me. There was nowhere else to go.

“It’s coming from over there.”

He pointed toward the closet and they all turned in my direction. I moved toward the back of the closet but it was no use. The door slid open and I stood face to face with one of the beasts.

“Well, what do we have here?”

Chapter 14

“Ariel, stay with me. I’m almost there.”

Irvine’s voice fell away from me as my phone was slapped out of my hand and onto the ground. He crunched it into pieces underneath his massive foot.

“Shit, she was talking to someone! What if it’s the cops?”

“And what if it’s the cops? Let them come. They’ll find two bodies instead of one.”

He turned back to me and I wanted to look away in disgust. I yelped when he grabbed me by the back of my hair and held me in his palm. He snarled at me. His teeth were long and jagged. His beard had grown more fully. His face was more pronounced, his mouth and nose extending out further. His ears had moved on top of his head into black, fur-covered triangles. And his eyes… they were the same hypnotizing green they were when I first looked at him but instead, they were hidden behind narrow slits, his pupils now black spirals.

“So, what do we do with her then, Kern?” one of them asked him.

“What do you think we should do with her? Don’t tell me you’ve already had your fill. Two waitresses from the same bar in one night. I say we go back there tomorrow to take care of the rest of them.”

They all started to laugh as I struggled within his grip. I could feel the tears dripping down my cheeks. They all towered over me and I cried thinking about what they might do to me.

The one they called Kern leaned in closer to me and started to sniff my neck. I felt the coolness of his nose pressing against me and I shuddered in disgust.

“This one… there’s something strange,” he said. “She has a familiar scent on her. Do any of you recognize her?”

He turned around to all of them and they all shook their heads.

“I’ve never seen her before in my life, Kern.”

He turned back to me and looked me in the eye. His penetrating stare was hypnotizing. It was like he was trying to read me. I did the best I could to look away from him and when I did, he gripped my head with his other hand, his claw like fingers wrapped around my chin.

“No… It was someone else. Yes… I can smell him on you. That smell doesn’t go away despite whatever it is you might try. But curious… you’re still alive. Why would one of our clan leave you be? What makes you so special?”

“I say we fuck her and find out.”

“Yeah, let’s stop wasting our time. You’ve had enough time to play with our food.”

“No,” Kern interrupted both of them. “Now I see it… This one is different. This smell... She’s not like the others. No, we must take our time with this one.”

He threw me onto the ground and I landed against the hard wooden floor. Regaining my senses, I started to scream.

“Help!” I shouted. “Somebody! Please! Help me!”

“What a stupid bitch. Don’t you know why we use places everybody else is too afraid to go to? So that when victims like you scream, there’s nobody there to hear it.”

They all started to laugh at me as I laid there on the ground. They started crowding around me. I got back up on my feet and tried to rush past them but they grabbed and tossed me back down to the floor, ripping my shirt off of me in the process. I was sobbing as they made their way around me.

“Kern, I’m not used to dealing with a girl who’s crying. Usually, they’re into it.”

“Right. I forgot. It’s a shame she won’t remember any of this.”

He picked me back up off of the floor and gripped his large hands around my arms. I closed my eyes, trying to turn my head away. I could feel him breathing hard upon me through his snout. The smell of his fur was thick as it filled my nostrils. Slowly, I could feel him creeping closer to me, his mouth moving closer to my lips.

“Pucker up.”

Just before he kissed me, I heard something whip through the air. He released his grip from me and when I opened my eyes, he was on the ground with what looked like an arrow pierced through his chest.

“What the—”

Another arrow shot through the window and pinned another one of the beasts onto the ground. Suddenly, there was a loud crashing through the window. I fell down to my knees and put my hands over my head.

“Fucking shit!” one of the monsters said. “It’s a hunter!”

I lifted my head up and watched as Irvine had come to my rescue. The two former men lunged at him and he quickly moved out of the way. He leaned down next to me and brushed the broken glass from my hair.

“Are you okay, Ariel?”

“Y-yes… Yes, I’m fine.”

“Good.”

He pulled a blade that he had sheathed around his waist and held it up to the other two. I watched in amazement as Irvine fended both of them off with his sword. They growled and swung their arms violently, each time causing me to flinch. But Irvine deftly managed to escape their swipes.

One of them then rushed at him and Irvine extended his blade out, driving it through the monster’s chest. The other one attacked him from the other side. Irvine removed the blade quickly and gave the other one the same fate. Their four lifeless bodies were on the ground. Next to them were the remains of one of the girls I used to work with.

“It’s okay,” Irvine said as he kneeled down next to me.” You’re going to be okay.”

It wasn’t enough to stop me from sobbing. I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t want to believe what had happened. Irvine wrapped his arms around me and tried to console me.

“I’m sorry about your friend but we have to get out of here. There are more of them. Please, Ariel. You have to get up and follow me.”

I nodded my head, my heart still racing and my chest heaving. Irvine grabbed my hand and led me out of the abandoned apartment building and into his convertible.

As he drove through the city, I wrapped my arms around myself. My shirt was ripped in half and my bra was exposed but the cold weather was the least of my worries. Irvine had saved me just in the nick of time.

“W-what was—”

“I’ll answer all your questions, Ariel. I promise. We just need to get you somewhere safe.”

He pulled up to Phoenix’s place. It looked like it was already closed like all of the other shops on this street but when I got to the front door, the lights were still on in the back.

“Phoenix,” Irvine said as he knocked on the door. “Open up. It’s me.”

After a few moments, the door slowly opened up and the friendly old man greeted the both of us.

“Ms. Ariel, what happened to you?”

“She was attacked,” Irvine said to her. “She needs something to calm her down.”

“I’ve got just the thing.”

Irvine locked the door behind him as Phoenix disappeared into the back of his shop. After I took a seat at the table, Irvine took his coat off and wrapped it around me.

“Thank you… for everything.”

“I’m just doing my job, Ms. Everhart.”

“You called me Ariel back there.”

“You were in danger. There wasn’t any time for formalities.”

I let out a short laugh. The smile on my face didn’t last long. I was still trying to wrap my head around everything.

“What was that?” I said. “Those men. They were…”

I looked up at Irvine and he was staring back at me. I still couldn’t believe it even though I had seen it with my own eyes.

“Werewolves.”

Irvine slowly nodded his head.

“They’re the ones responsible for all of the murders in the city?”

“Those particular werewolves, I couldn’t tell you. There are more than just the four you ran into.”

“What do you mean there are more? How many?”

“Thousands.”

“Thousands? There can’t be that many. Where are they?”

“Not all of them are the same. Some of them are more violent than others. These ones in particular have been causing inexplicable problems as of late. I’ve killed several of them already but there are still more lurking in the shadows.”

Phoenix emerged from the back and placed a small cup in front of me.

“Any scratches?” Irvine asked me. “Any bites? Did he kiss you? Any physical contact at all?”

“No,” I said as I shook my head. “He only grabbed me. Thank you.”

I nodded my head to Phoenix and he slowly made his way to the back room. I sipped the tea and thought about everything that Irvine was telling me. It all felt so surreal. I wanted to laugh at how silly it was but couldn’t.

“You don’t work for the police, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Your credentials—”

“Forged. I have access to that.”

“One of… them. They called you a hunter. What is that?”

Irvine leaned back in his seat and sighed a deep breath.

“I work for a group called The Agency.”

“The Agency?”

“Yes. I don’t work directly for them. They hire me to investigate any extreme incidents caused by paranormal beings. There’s a lot going on around you that you don’t know. Most humans don’t concern themselves with these matters. And they shouldn’t because most of the time, they’re completely harmless.”

“But—”

“But the werewolves you ran into are from a clan called the Rucai. There are clans all over the world. They all live in peace. But the Rucai are a plague. This group only, they’re spreading around their destruction like locusts. And they’ve decided to start with this city.”

“You can’t possibly stop them by yourself.”

“I know, Ms. Everhart. That’s why I need your help.”

“What? Me? W-what am I supposed to do?”

“The man you call Vaughn is a Rucai.”

Irvine looked at me with a seriousness on his face that I didn’t want to acknowledge. Vaughn was strange but I didn’t want to think that he was a killer or capable of these kinds of things.

“No, he isn’t.”

“Yes, he is, Ms. Everhart. I can assure you of that.”

“No. Vaughn isn’t like the rest of them. I… I spent time with him. He had every opportunity to kill me.”

“I know, Ms. Everhart. That’s what makes this entire situation so strange.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m not just some ordinary man. I’ve been dealing with their kind for decades. I have the tools necessary to pick you out of the dark. I could see your eyes from across the room. It was obvious.”

“My eyes…”

“Wolves have a venom in their lips. It’s more potent when it's in human form. It causes their victims to lose control of their inhibitions. They suffer from memory loss. You can see it in their eyes. The redness consuming the whites of your eyes is the venom beginning to take its effect. If you consume enough venom, you lose complete control.”

I remembered the look in Summer’s eyes. I remember the darkness staring back at me. It was so dark in that apartment building that I couldn’t see clearly but now I knew that her eyes had become completely red, bloodshot just like mine were after I spent that night with Vaughn.

“This is how they find their mates. They inject their venom to influence them. But the Rucai have been doing more than that. They’ve been defiling every woman they’ve come across, mutilating their bodies then feasting upon them. It’s… out of their nature.”

“What’s causing this?”

“I don’t know, Ms. Everhart. My job was only to investigate the Rucai in this area and take down the targets they’ve given me. There are dozens more in this area, including…”

“No,” I said as I shook my head. “You’ve got Vaughn all wrong. He’s not like the rest of them.”

“Yes, he is. He’s from their clan.”

“I don’t care! He’s different! He had the chance to do all of those things to me and he didn’t.”

Irvine sighed again and looked around the room. Vaughn wasn’t capable of something like this. I didn’t care what group of wolves he was from. There was something I felt being around him that made it seem like he cared about me.

“You’re being influenced,” Irvine said to me. “The tea he gave you doesn’t clear out the venom completely. It still lingers and connects you to the one who gave it to you. It’s how they lure their prey.”

I thought about Vaughn and remembered my intimate moment with him. He was adamant that I spit it out.

“What about…” I had trouble saying it.

“Yes?”

“Is their venom only on their lips?”

“It’s in their saliva and the rest of their bodily fluids. Their semen is lethal.”

“Lethal?”

“Yes, lethal… You didn’t—”

“No… No, I didn’t.”

I turned my head down bashfully and stared at the half-empty cup of tea in front of me.

“The biology of a wolf is radically different from a human’s,” Irvine explained to me. “It’s more than just a physical appearance. There’s not just hair or teeth or nails or the structure of their faces. Genetically, we’re too different. The body of a human rejects these fluids but they begin to impose themselves on someone. Human immune systems can’t handle it. Enough of a werewolf’s semen will cause a person to shut down completely.”

I finished the rest of my tea. It calmed me down more than I thought it would. But not enough to the point that I was comfortable in my seat.