They raced down the hall and up the stairs toward the continuous screaming. There in the lobby, Sarain first noticed the brunette woman, whom she had talked to only hours earlier, lying dead on the floor. Her throat had been torn out and now she lay sprawled out in a puddle of blood; for a woman who was willing to feed vil sangs, she had learned the hard way that not all vil sangs were willing to show restraint.
Standing nearby Sarain saw a vil sang trying to bite at Alorea, who was the one screaming. She was frantically thrashing and swatting at the vil sang trying to break his grip off of her. Sarain rushed towards them raising her sword and sliced the demon down its back. Alorea then successfully shoved him away, and Sarain gave one final blow towards his neck, decapitating the man.
Winston also ran to help one of the girls who had two vil sangs attacking her. The girl, a red head, was on the floor trying to kick them away. She had gone to the brunette’s aid earlier, but couldn’t help her and was the vil sangs’ next target after the brunette fell. Winston pulled one of the vil sangs off of her and threw him back, then ran another one through with his sword who was in the process of biting her. The girl screamed and rolled away from the impaled creature. She gripped her neck which was bleeding, but was otherwise alright. The second vil sang lunged at Winston while he was trying to pull his sword out of the other. It threw its weight at him, knocking him to the ground, but the force was enough to get Winston’s sword out of the other vil sang’s back, and he still held the blade tightly in his hand. Both men scrambled up, but Winston moved a few paces quicker, and was up before the other vil sang. He brought back his katana and sliced it through the air at the attacker, cutting his head clean off.
Winston turned toward Sarain and Alorea then called out, “Are you alright?”
Alorea stammered trying to catch her breath, then managed to get out, “Upstairs…More of them…Chased after the girls and clients.”
Winston hurriedly ran towards the higher levels of the building, and Sarain looked at Alorea and the red head and said, “You two need to go downstairs and barricade yourselves in one of the rooms. They haven’t gotten downstairs yet.”
The girls nodded at her and quickly went running for the stairs. Sarain took one last glimpse at the brunette on the ground, definitely dead. She wondered if this bothered Winston, he had been intimate with this girl, and now she was gone. But it was still unclear to Sarain whether or not he had had any real romantic feelings toward the woman. By his lack of a reaction towards the sight of her corpse, Sarain would guess that he had no real ties to the woman, and she didn’t know if that was because of the vil sang in him or the man.
Sarain darted down the hallway. She didn’t know which floor Winston was on, but she figured she would start on the first floor she came to. The first couple of rooms were empty, the two after that had dead vil sangs whom had already been dealt with. The next room had a dead half-naked man on the floor, apparently a client who was unable to fight off his attackers. Sarain could hear whimpering coming from a closet in that same room, and she opened the closet door causing the young blond woman inside to yelp.
“It’s okay,” Sarain immediately said, “Go downstairs to the basement, some of the other girls are waiting down there.
The girl looked a little relieved and ran out of the room. Sarain continued to search through the rest of the rooms on this floor, but found the rest of them clean; Winston had already come and gone through here. She ran up to the next floor, but then continued on up to the third floor, the last one. She figured that either Winston was taking care of the second floor or would have already done so, so to be of use, she decided that it would be best for her to move on ahead. Besides, Winston seemed perfectly capable of taking care of himself.
Right away, once Sarain reached the top of the stairs, she could hear a man and a woman screaming. She rushed toward the sound of the screams and ran into a room where a couple was being attacked by three vil sangs. The man was screaming for the vil sangs to take the girl and leave him alone, but the demons weren’t interested in that deal. They attacked him too, and one of the vil sangs was already biting at his neck. Another had a knife to the girl and was cutting at her leg while lapping up her blood. The girl continued to scream as the third vil sang sank his teeth into her neck. Sarain pulled the vil sang that was biting the girl’s neck back by the head just enough to get her sword into position to cut off his head. Soon after, the girl stopped screaming and appeared to have passed out from either shock or the loss of blood.
The man, noticing Sarain’s attempt to help the woman, called out to her from beneath his attacker and cried, “Help me!”
Sarain grabbed the vil sang on him and threw it back against a wall with ease. The human man gave her a frightened look, surprised by her strength, and then took off running from the room. Sarain then turned to see the third vil sang hurrying toward her with the knife. She dodged it, but was grabbed from behind by the vil sang she had thrown off the man, whom had already scampered back up. It tried to bite her but she leaned forward and swung her elbow back and up against its jaw. One of its fangs scraped her arm, but the vil sang still stumbled back losing its hold on her. The demon holding the knife came at her again, and she heaved her sword at him. It pierced through its throat, but it kept on moving at her. She needed to fully decapitate him. She grabbed at the knife with her free hand. It grazed her palm, causing her to bleed, but she got a hold of the blade and yanked it away from the vil sang. Then with a quick tug, she finished chopping off his head. The remaining vil sang grabbed at her waist from behind again, and tightly wrapped his arms around her, giving her little room to maneuver. She squirmed to break free, and started to be able to turn around, when the vil sang suddenly dropped to the ground.
Sarain spun around to see Winston standing behind her, having just killed the vil sang attacking her. She was relieved to see him, but made no effort to tell him so, instead she went to check on the girl she had saved earlier. The girl was covered in blood down her neck and all over her arms and legs; she was unconscious, but still had a pulse and was lightly breathing.
Sarain turned and looked at Winston, and asked, “Is the rest of the building clear?” He answered, “Yes.” And Sarain then said, “We need to move this girl then.”
Winston stepped forward, leaned in, and took the girl in his arms. He followed Sarain, who carried both swords now, out and down the stairs. They went to the basement floor to find the other girls, and after Winston called out to Alorea, they opened up one of the bedroom doors. A few more girls had found their way down to them, and with the one Winston carried, that left six still alive. Apparently ten girls worked there, which meant there were a few more dead upstairs that Sarain was unaware of.
Alorea looked glad to see Winston as she tended to the unconscious co-worker. She gazed at him with such affection in her eyes, seeing no connection between him and the other vil sangs who had just attacked the Velvet Rose. Sarain watched as Alorea stared lovingly at Winston, who was too preoccupied to notice the attention. Instead, Winston approached Sarain, looking at her hand, and asked, “Did you get hurt?”
Sarain looked past him at Alorea, who seemed saddened to see Winston standing with her, while she responded, “It’s just a scratch, I’m fine.”
“Good,” he said to her with a smile.
One of the girls then chimed in by asking, “Why did those men attack us?”
Sarain looked up at Winston and muttered, “Was it because of you?”
He shook his head, and said, “I don’t think so, they weren’t even looking for me just now.”
“Then why?” Sarain asked, knowing that vil sangs were cruel, but usually didn’t attack on groups of people.
“I’m not sure why,” he answered with a sigh.
Suddenly in the distance, they started hearing more screams. The women didn’t seem to notice; only Sarain’s and Winston’s sensitive ears could pick up on it. They told the women to stay there, waiting in the room, as they went back up to the lobby to investigate.
When they reached the lobby, everything inside still looked as it did earlier; furniture was knocked over, the brunette still lay dead on the ground. But they realized that the screams were coming from outside.
They approached the outer door, and could see a car crashed into the building across the street. The driver of the car lay on the ground by his open door, bleeding from the neck. People were running out of buildings, screaming, and a few bodies were in the street. Then Sarain noticed that some of the people who were running around had glowing eyes.
She quickly turned to Winston, and said with a revelation, “Sephor set his army loose!”