Succulent Prey (12 page)

"I-I'm sorry, Professor."

Professor Douglas peered curiously at

Joe over his glasses.

"That's quite al right, Joseph, and I promise we wil get to your question. It's just difficult to real y understand the cure without understanding the disease.

"You mean how they became

werewolves in the first place?"

"Yes, the theories on that vary from culture to culture and even within

cultures. There are a number of different ways to evoke the animal spirits. The

most common way as in the shamanic

`skin walkers,' the French loup-garou,

and the vicious leopard men of West

Africa, is to don the skin of a wolf. Some don ful skins and some, as in the loupgarou or the berserkers, wear only a belt or a vest fashioned from the hide of the animal they wish to become in order to

invoke the transformation. Others rub

their skin in salves and ointments made of animal fat or even human fat. The

leopard men drank a magical

concoction brewed from the intestines of their human victims, which they believed gave them their lycanthropic abilities. Some believe you need only drink water

from a werewolf's tracks in order to

become one yourself.

"There are magical texts, which

prescribe complex rituals for the

invoking of the werewolf spirit. One

recommends removing al of your

clothing and rubbing your skin in a

magical ointment made from the fat of a wolf and mixed with anise, camphor, and opium, then donning a wolf pelt and

drinking beer mixed with wolf's blood.

You can see how such a complex ritual,

particularly with the imbibing of alcohol and opium, coupled with the person's

desire to become a wolf could easily

lead one to believe he had indeed

transformed.

"There are likewise many cults and sects that have wild drunken orgies in which

live animals and even humans are

consumed and animal hides are worn.

During these rituals many of these

initiates believe that they have become animals. The Maenads, who worshipped

the wine god Dionysus and the horned

god of the forest Pan, had wild drunken bacchanals in which they consumed live

animals and humans and let wolf pups

suckle at their breasts. The Is-sawiya, a shape-shifting cult from northern and

western Africa, likewise engaged in

these wild organized rituals in order to gain their powers. During their

ceremonies they would dress a calf or a bul in human clothing and then rip it to shreds and devour its flesh raw."

"But that's for people who wanted to become werewolves. What about those

who were cursed, who became

monsters against their wil ?"

A round of snickers circled the

classroom. Joe turned around to glare at them and the room fel silent. He turned back to the professor.

"Wel ... there's usual y only a few causes for that and that's either by being

scratched or bitten by someone who is

already a werewolf or by involuntarily

drinking their blood, or by being cursed by a witch or sorcerer."

Joe paused for a moment in deep

thought.

"So, let's say someone is bitten and gets infected with this virus. How do they cure themselves?"

"You mean for those who have become lycanthropes involuntarily, I assume?

There are some who believe that if you

sever the lineage at its source, the

original shape-shifter that spawned that particular line, then you wil release al those wolves he created from the curse. That original werewolf would be the one who acquired his abilities voluntarily. He may stil don a wolf's skin when he hunts and he'd probably be envious of his

offspring who manage the transformation without any trinkets or rituals. But most agree that the only surefire way is a

silver bul et through the heart, severing of the head, or burning them alive."

Joe shuddered and fel silent. If what he suspected was correct then the man

who'd abducted him over a decade ago,

stabbed, mutilated, and nearly kil ed him, was the werewolf he needed to kil in

order to be free. Joe stared at the

professor in shock, not hearing another word the man said.

He was thinking about confronting

Damon Trent again.

Chapter Thirteen

Joe went to his art class and was

surprised to see the model from the

afternoon before waiting for him at the door.

"Here! I wanted to pay you for that painting."

She stepped forward and thrust a check

into his hands for one hundred dol ars.

"You don't have to do that. I can't take this."

"Are you saying you don't need it? You mean you aren't a starving student like the rest of us? What's your secret?"

"No, I'm not saying I don't need it. I definitely need it. I'm starving more than you could ever imagine."

"Then take the money."

Joe slipped the check into his pocket.

"You can use it to take me out to dinner if you'd like."

"Uh ... I'm kind of involved with someone at the moment."

"In love?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure."

"But you don't cheat on her?"

"She satisfies me."

"Wel , that's good then. Keep the check, though.

And if you ever need ... more, then you give me a cal , okay?"

"But I don't know your number."

"It's on the check."

Joe pul ed out the check and saw that it did indeed have her name, address, and

phone number printed on it. The model

winked at him then walked into the art

studio and dropped her robe. She

smiled as Joe stumbled into the room,

staring at her in that desperate way he had about him.

You're going to be mine, big boy, she

thought.

Joe sat down and immediately attacked

the canvas. In minutes he had run out of red paint. His canvas looked like a

massacre.

The model wasn't his type but something about her set him afire. She was such a wil ing victim, like Frank but a female. There was no way he could have sex

with her, though. Not after what had

happened with Alicia. He was afraid of

what he'd do to her. Besides, it would

have felt like cheating.

"I need more paint."

The teacher walked over and stared at

his gruesome canvas. She gasped

audibly.

"I ran out of red."

"Uh ... yes ... I'l go get you some more." She scurried away from Joe, nearly

tripping over the easel in back of him. Joe could smel her pheromones and

those of the model comingling in the air. It was like having a menage a trois

through his nostrils. The model's nipples were erect and pointing right at him. Her eyes zeroed in on the bulge in his crotch. She licked her lips when she saw him

looking at her. Joe turned away.

"Don't tempt me," he growled under his breath.

The teacher came back with the red

paint and Joe once again took his

frustrations out on the canvas. It was

bloodied and bruised when he final y left the room for his next class. He left it sitting on the easel and felt some pride when he saw the model and the teacher

staring at it and whispering.

Let them fuck each other. It's a -bel of a lot safer than what I'd do to them, Joe thought as he hurried off to math class. If anything could douse the fire in him it was sitting in a classroom balancing

equations for an hour and a half.

Joe sat through over an hour of math,

trying his best not to think about the

scrumptious meat chained up in his

bedroom. The numbers on the page kept

jumbling up in his head and at the end of the class his paper was stil blank. He bal ed it up and tossed it in the trash on his way out the door. He'd much rather

get an incomplete than a zero.

Joe left the mathematics lab and walked back across campus to the library. The

sun was beginning to set and the fog

was already rol ing slowly across the

manicured lawn toward him. A cool

breeze slipped through the trees and

across the grass, whispering beneath

his clothes and across his skin. Joe

sighed and shivered. After having his

face glued to a page ful of senseless

mathematical equations for over an hour, the cool moist evening air was

refreshing, soothing. It calmed the beast inside him.

Joe felt relaxed and sedate as the fog

caught up to him and sucked him in. Stil , he could not stop thinking about Alicia. He didn't want to hurt her again. He had to find a cure for himself.

He tensed as he remembered what

Professor Locke had said:

Sever the bloodline. Kil the original

werewolf.

Hopeful y, there was another way. Joe

hadn't thought about Damon Trent in

years. Not until the hunger had started to come upon him and he'd looked into the

bathroom mirror to see the same pitiless lust-clouded eyes of his long-ago

victimizer staring back at him. He should have known then that the-man-had

passed something evil on to him.

The librarian looked up and smiled

nervously as Joe entered the building

and stalked past her desk. Joe rol ed his massive shoulders and smiled back at

her with a leering smile as he dragged

his eyes over her thick curves. Her smile faltered and fel from her face, landing in a hard trembling line. She lowered her

eyes and turned away. Joseph smiled

wider.

Joe struggled to maintain control over

the beast raging within him but the smel of her perfumed skin was driving him

mad. He walked past her and into the

rows of bookshelves, reeling like a

drunken man. He stopped in front of a

book in the mythology section cal ed

Vampires in Fact and Fiction. He pul ed it off the shelf and walked with it back to the huge oak table in the center of the room. He opened it and turned to the

section on ways to become a vampire.

There was some nonsense about being

born on Christmas Day or being

excommunicated from the church that

Joe immediately discounted as

superstition, then there came the part

about being bitten by a vampire or

drinking the blood of the undead.

Joe quickly turned to the section on

destroying vampires and read about

nailing them into their coffins by driving a wooden stake through their hearts or

through their skul s so that they could not rise to feed. There was a prescription

that cal ed for decapitating and burning the corpses of vampires or dragging

them out into the sun. Fil ing their mouths with garlic or placing host wafers in their coffins so that they could not lie there. Joe turned more pages until he came to

a section that reiterated Professor

Douglas's own remedy for the werewolf

curse. Curing a vampire of the curse

likewise cal ed for finding and kil ing the original bloodsucker. Joe slammed the

book shut and sat there thinking, first about Damon Trent the child murderer

and then about Alicia, whom he would

surely murder and consume if he did not cure himself. He got up and walked over to the computer to do a search on

Damon Trent.

Chapter Fourteen

Alicia was fast asleep when the door

slammed, waking her from her dreams

and plunging her back into the nightmare of reality. Joe stalked into the room

looking excited and agitated.

"I don't know what to do! I don't want to hurt you, but I can't see him again. I just can't face him again!"

He strode back and forth, gesticulating madly, whipping himself into a frenzy. He stopped abruptly and plopped down next

to Alicia, startling her and causing her to shrink away.

He rubbed a hand lovingly over her

voluptuous ass as she quivered in fear

and began to sob.

"Talk to me. Tel me what to do," he said, staring deeply into her terrified eyes.

"Let me go. You should let me go right away before you do something you'l

regret."

"If I let you go I'l just find another woman."

"Then turn yourself in. They have people who can help you."

"Doctors? Psychiatrists? They'l just lock me up with this hunger stil gnawing at me each and every day. That would be

torture. No, I need to find a cure, another cure, a different cure."

"Joe. Listen to me. You have to let me go, Joe. You can't keep me here. They'l catch you."

"You're right. I can't keep you here forever. I'm going to have to go after him. But I'm taking you with me.

Alicia had no idea what the man was

talking about, but it didn't sound good.

"You have to go after who?"

"Damon Trent. He's the one who made me what I am. I have to find him. Destroy him. In order to destroy the curse." Joe sat down and told Alicia everything and she listened, not just in order to gain his confidence and trust, but because

she was legitimately curious. The story he was tel ing was unbelievable, but by the time he was done he almost had her

convinced.

"So you believe that this Damon Trent guy passed on some type of virus to you when he molested you and that's what's

causing you to change?"

"It's changing me into a kil er! And if I don't find him then you're going to wind up being my first victim."

As much as it chil ed the blood in Alicia's veins to hear that he was thinking about kil ing her, she was encouraged by the

fact that he hadn't murdered her yet and also by the fact that he didn't want to. He didn't want to hurt her. It was that virus inside him making him crazy. It sounded ridiculous when she repeated it to