"Someone! Please! Help!" There was a scream echoing around the lower circle of a colony.
Finally reaching a final roof, Luciel stopped in his tracks, observing the situation.
There, on the ground, was a middle-aged woman with her hands in the air. Hovering above her, one could see a peculiar creature.
The creature looked like a human, could be a vampire, but not counting the vampire king, Alukah, Luciel never saw such an ugly beast before.
Its hair was falling down like it went through chemotherapy.
The skin was gray with a green undertone and a few patches of blue and purple. But the worst part of it all was its rotten smell, like an expired chicken that stayed in the fridge for a month, if not more.
The crowd started to gather. The brave men went to attack the creature, but it completely ignored them. It couldn't feel their punches and they were too weak to make it budge due to the beast's strength.
The situation was dire and Luciel finally jumped down from the roof right onto the strange creature with his head down, retracting his fangs as something horizontal went across his eyes, turning them from crimson-red eyes into chocolate brown.
It was a little bit uncomfortable since it felt itchy, especially if he needed to continue fighting in this state, but it was better like that than causing even greater commotion.
Even if people knew that he was a vampire, they shouldn't immediately panic since it would need time for the fact that he was a vampire to settle in.
Luciel could feel the creature struggling beneath him. It felt like wrestling with a truck.
"Hey, hold on still now!" Luciel could kill this creature right here and now but didn't want to do so. Under all this rotten stench, he could smell a human now that he was close.
The creature continued to struggle until it finally pushed off Luciel from its back and pounced towards the nearest man from before who was trying to protect the woman.
Luciel quickly got up, going to save the man who was fighting against the strange humanoid beast, but before he could take another step, Kai jumped down and pierced his hand right through the creature's chest before throwing it aside.
"A ghoul?" Kai asked himself, staring at the corpse, trying not to throw up at the smell of rotten chicken, but something was odd.
"Wait, no," Kai smelled the blood on his hand and even went to take a small lick of it.
It tasted disgusting like moldy toast. But under all of this stench and horrible flavor, he could still detect a familiar note, "A human?"
Kai started frantically looking around, trying to figure out what was going on or what could have happened. He was familiar with lots of supernatural creatures, but this was the first time he encouraged something like this.
Every creature had its distinctive scent and not even one was overlapping with each other. Even bloodhounds wouldn't have a tiny trace of their human smell. No one would know that they were once human if not for the knowledge of how they were created.
"Hey, are you all right?" Luciel went to help out the lady first, assisting her to get up. He held his hand for her and she gladly accepted it.
The woman placed her hand on top of Luciel's and as she was getting up, she made eye contact with him.
"You are… Luciel?" She froze for a moment. Luciel was a well-known figure and she could recognize that face almost any time.
Luciel heard what the woman had asked, but he didn't respond, there was something else that was concerning him.
He stared at the woman's hand and quickly went to grab her wrist. "Hey, Kai, come and look at this!"
"Hey! Let go of me, you disgusting beast!" The woman's tone quickly changed after seeing who, or what, saved her, showcasing how humans can be ungrateful and thoughtless even towards those who saved them, just because of their prejudice.
"What is it?" Kai lifted his head and walked towards Luciel who just proceeded to ignore the woman and pointed towards her hand where one could see a bite mark.
The bite mark seemed to be swelling, gray veins could be visible and the skin was changing in color, now resembling the one that had attacked them.
"It seems to be spreading." With his free hand, Luciel traced the gray veins that were advancing all the way toward her elbow.
"Is it infectious?"
"Looks so." Luciel went to rip off the bottom of his shirt before shifting his gaze towards the rude woman, "Stay still." He ordered.
After making a small commotion, the woman seemed to calm down after hearing an interaction between Luciel and Kai.
She nodded slowly and Luciel finally let go of her, going to wrap the cloth right above her elbow, making sure to tighten it.
"If I were you, I would hurry to the hospital and tell them what happened. If you are lucky, you might survive this at the cost of your arm."
Before the woman could say anything, there was a growl that came behind the two vampires and the creature jumped on Kai, biting his shoulder.
Seeing what was happening, Luciel didn't hesitate even for a second and went to punch the creature right in its head, ripping off its jawline.
"Kai! You all right?" Luciel quickly went to check the wound that the creature made on Kai's shoulder.
Moving away Kai's shirt collar, he went to inspect the wound that already seemed to be healing, but so far, no signs of infection could be seen.
"It hurts…" Kai bared his fangs and clenched his fist, making Luciel feel concerned.
There was an agonizing expression on Kai's face which was unusual for a vampire. Most of the wounds they would receive would feel numb except the burns.
Luciel fixated his gaze on Kai. He wanted to help him but didn't know how.
With the few interactions he had with Kai and Melisa, he grew attached to them. They seemed innocent, even for a vampire, and they also had one thing in common, they all used to be humans.
"Hold on Kai, we'll find someone to help you," Luciel reassured him, patting him on the back before lifting his head.
He heard another sound coming from the creature as it was slowly starting to get up. Pieces of its jaw were missing, but it still didn't give up.
With humans that finally ran away, the only thing it could attack were the vampires that were forced to stay.
"Luciel…" Kai granted, "You need to kill it. This creature is more dangerous than we think."
"Kill it? How?" Luciel protested, the only thing he had left was cutting its head, but without a weapon, that seemed to be like an impossible task.
"I don't know, figure something out!" Kai placed his hand on the place where he got bitten.
He felt his body healing the wound, but there was something else that was making its home inside his body.