Curse Of The Aswangs (The Vasquez Brothers #1)[COMPLETED]

18: JASPER

I swam back into consciousness the moment I heard a loud thud. I opened my eyes immediately.
I was in an unfamiliar place, just outside of a commercial building. There were at least forty aswangs in the parking lot, all in their human forms. I could identify the faces of the aswangs earlier as they were standing just right in front of me. The rest of the hostages lined in a row with me.

Only the man with maroon shirt had his ridges. He almost resembled as a vampire, its teeth were yellowish white.

"Armando!" I turned to my left and saw a man with a defiance look at Armando.

He walked towards him as he slashed his claws across his torso. "Be patient! Master doesn't like impatient humans."
The man gave a loud shriek from the wound. The pain in his chest must've been searing.

"They brought you here too." I didn't notice Roy was beside me. His eyes were empty.
"Yeah. Knock in the head was pretty fun." I said sarcastically.
"You don't have a clue what was the place about?"
"I thought it was an aswang headquarters."

"No." Roy looked at me. "The Armando mansion is place where humans go to when they want to be turned into an aswang or sacrifice themselves to be their food."

My throat tigtened. I made a huge mistake by coming there, and Emily...
"Son of a-!"
Several aswangs turned their heads at me with a scowl. Oh dear. Emily set me up. She must've had a connection with the aswang clan. My fear was replaced with anger.

Zade's girlfriend sent me to my doom. I was impulsive, and this was all my fault.

The door to the building suddenly swung open. Everyone went quiet for a moment. I anticipated something monstrous would come out in a heartbeat. Armando walked over to the dark entryway and said. "We caught five men, sire."

A figure emerged, draped in tattered robes that once shimmered in a forgotten age. He had a sword strapped around his body. His gaunt frame seemed to ripple with the night itself, his eyes gleaming like embers. He had thick muscular arms and having sharp features, almost triangular face and hair in a slick dark brown. His steps were slow, and deliberate, each one leaving the earth behind him withered and cracked.


Armando glanced over at their clan leader. Every aswang knelt down and took a bow to the clan leader as he passed through by them. He acknowledge their bows. That terrifying aura sent shiver down my spine. He was viewed like a God. The clan leader stopped in front of the man who still had the rosary beads around his hands.

He leaned on, both a taunting and superior look was on his face. Everything about him dripped with superiority and respect--An ancient, malignant energy that made the blood of every living creature freeze. He did not need to bare his fangs or shift into the monstrous form. His very being commanded fear. His mouth, thin and dry, parted, and the wind seemed to carry his words before he even spoke. "Are you not afraid of the aswangs? Are you not afraid of what they can do?"

The faithful man whimpered. "P-please, turn me! Just don't eat me!"

The clan leader examined his troubled expression for a second. He has such frightening charisma to make them fear him. "What kind of sins that you've committed and escape punishment? I can offer something better, faithful one. I can offer you...immortality."

"You're a monster, Enrique!" The man with the wound yelled spitefully.
Enrique snapped his attention at him. "A monster? Am I a monster? Then do you think that God's favorite creature is any different?! They're sinful! They can do such inhuman deeds" He said and then looked at Armando. "Do it, Armando."

"Sire?" Armando asked.
"Kill him." Glowering, Enrique commanded his minion.

Armando's claws retracted again and he stabbed the wounded man through his chest. A chorus of laughter swept around the aswangs as the wounded man collapsed to the ground, blood pooling around his body.

"Life is already cruel, my friends." He stood straight, looking at each one of us. "I'm offering you this. Be part of my clan and live forever. Will you join?"

"Yes!" The one who was holding the cross said. It was so easy to give up faith if a dark desire was presented.
"There we go! That wasn't hard. was it?" a dark delightful smile played over his mouth.
Before he exit the crowd, he came to stop. "You!" Enrique scrutinized me. I jumped out on my seat. Sniffing, he came closer. "You're either want to be turned or to be sacrificed! What is your business here?"

"Emily told me to come at the mansion."

"The dark witch told you?" Despite the seriousness of the situation, he couldn't help but laugh-an amused low-pitch that echoed around the parking lot. "Aah, you are the new witcher. The new mandirigma. That little bitch does have some leverage after all."

****

Armando led me into a private room above the commercial building. "What did she say?" I asked Enrique the moment the door shut.

"We felt it, Mr. Vasquez." said Enrique. "The awakening of your power. She wanted to have one hundred thousand of my money. Tell me, are you Ash, Zade or Jasper?"

"Depends on how you can tell."

"This town holds nothing but despair, Mr. Vasquez." He opened a bottle of red whine and poured it into the glass. "Wine?"
"No, thank you."

"This wine is made of wine and..." He held his eyes. "human blood."
Suddenly, I wasn't feeling well. I grimaced at that thought. At that very thought that they drained human blood and mix it with wine. "You drain their blood."

"Yes."

"How did you get a lot of money?"
"I'm the clan leader. I also ran the criminal underworld here. We transport these goods to other aswang clans." Enrique sat down on the black velvet chair.
There was a moment of silence before I said; "You're murdering humans."

"The Philippines is already an overpopulated country. This resolves the problem." He waved the wine on the display table. Enrique stood up to open the door to a balcony. It overlooked the entire Nueva Bonifacio. "I have known your kind for more than a century." He said bitterly. "I have looked into the gaze of hunters over and over again. It sickens me. And your mom has been very naughty, Mr. Vasquez. She hid something from me."

"What did she hide?"
"A certain scroll." Enrique drank from the glass. "One of the Hell Artifacts that was left by Armos himself."

Armos? The one who created the aswangs. I thought as I gave Enrique a suspicious look.
"A scroll that has carvings of a powerful spell. With it in my hands, I can create a new world for all of us. We could call upon a demon god to remove our crave for flesh and instead give us the power. Aswangs are cursed beings, Mr. Vasquez." Enrique finished his drink and set the glass on the table.

"I hardly believe in the aswang stories, Enrique." I said. "I used not to."

"Look at me." One moment, he was by the table, the next, he was squeezing my shoulder. A dark amusement was on his gaze. He strolled over at the entryway.

"The night shows us for what we truly are! We are Sumpa. (Cursed) For how many decades, I've been walking on earth with the hunger of warmth flesh. For how many decades, I feel nothing but insatiable thirst for blood. We embodied the myths and legends that were feared by Filipinos and Spaniards. You might start believing in aswang stories, young man." Enrique said as he stepped out under the moonlight. His face morphed a grotesque alterations of brow ridges, red eyes, and elongated upper canines. "Because we are so real."

"And thanks to me, I'm going to slay you." I said it out of the rising fear.
"No." A smile grew from his lips as if he'd like to fight a mandirigma now. "Thanks to you, you're here."
Uncertainty weaved into my voice."And who can find this scroll?"
"That's why I can't devour you, yet." He paused. "And that's why Emily sent you here."