Dollhouse

Chapter 5

"Werewolves?" I asked, tilting my head.
Blaire nodded, clapping her hands together once more.
"Yes. Werewolves."
Zenith took a step forward.
"Werewolves?" He enquired, slightly perplexed as to why she brought up such creatures.
"Yes! Werewolves! People who transform into wolves! Lycans, man-wolves or whatever else you want to bloody call them!" Blaire exhaled, madly throwing her arms about.

"No need to raise your voice," Zenith chided, placing a finger over his mouth.
A flash of ultimate distaste crossed Blaire's face as she turned and glared at Zenith.
She smiled, quickly swallowing it and turning back to me.
"So you know nothing of them?" Blaire questioned, taking a step towards me.
I nodded, "Next to nothing, yes."

She took a step back, scratching her chin in a way that signalled deep thought.
Her expression grew agitated as she turned over to Zenith again.
"I assume you'd at least know something about werewolves, right?"
Zenith tilted his head.
"Sort of... I've mostly just read about them, I've only ever encountered two in my entire lifetime."
Blaire scratched behind her ear, her face wasn't easy to read but her eyebrows tensed just enough for me to see that she might've been slightly afraid.

"And what did you... think of them?" she said, swallowing mid-sentence.
"Not much. They didn't give me any trouble if that's what you wanted to know."
Blaire's expression lightened slightly.
"Follow me," she stated softly before turning on her heels and heading towards a mass of velvet drapes at the far end of the shop.
She began pulling them back fluidly and without complications, quickly revealing an old, wooden door that was held together by vertical planks. Planks which honestly looked as if they were going to rot away at any moment.

Blaire bent down and stuck her hand under the door, retrieving the brass key that she unlocked it with.
She placed her hand over the knob as it slowly creaked open, with nothing but darkness to see from the newly created entrance.
Despite it being overwhelmingly ominous, Blaire strode her way down the passage, disappearing completely within a few seconds.
Zenith looked at me and smiled.
"I don't want to go down there," I said, feeling as if I may throw up.
Though given that I had never ingested food in my known lifetime, it was proving difficult.
"Neither do I. I'm not unconvinced that she'll murder the both of us if we follow her," Zenith joked, sounding more grim than amused.

"I trust her," I whispered, gesturing at the menacing blackness that I felt had begun to stare at me.
There was a loud scoff as Zenith wrinkled his nose and frowned.
"Is it because she gave you that dress? You cannot trust kindness from strangers Arianna!"
I narrowed my eyes and proclaimed,
"Well, I've been trusting you this whole time, where do you think that has got me?"

With that, I turned and finally followed Blaire into what was most likely a basement.
The wood (or whatever else it could have been) beneath my shoes squeaked with every movement as I began my descent.
The staircase was longer than I expected so I started to speed up in pace, but stopped when I almost knocked Blaire over.
Footsteps stared to echo from the top of the stairs as I gathered that Zenith began to follow as well.

When we all reached the bottom, it was pitch black.
There was shuffling, footsteps, the strike of a match and then finally the image of Blaire, standing next to a gas lamp.
I had my eyes trained on her, studying the table she was next to, trying to figure out if there were any weapons she could use for murder nearby.
Of course, Zenith was focused on something... else in the room.

"...Why?" I heard him mutter.
I turned and immediately saw what he was so confused about.
I gasped in shock as a laid eyes on a large, brown, wolf-like creature shut away in a cage, reading a novel.
"A... man wolf?"
"Werewolf," Zenith corrected.

"His name is Jonathan," Blaire piped up, coming to stand next the cage bars.
"Is he... dangerous?" Zenith asked.
"I'd like to think not," the wolf said, humorously.

I jumped back.
"Y-You... You talk...?" I sputtered, astonished.
Jonathan turned his eyes to me, his ears drawing back behind his head in confusion.
"I could say the same about you, young lady. You're a... living doll, correct?"
I nodded, my fear fading away with each passing word.

"You know of living dolls?" Zenith queried, stepping towards the cage.
"I know of a lot of things. I was once a man of great intelligence."
"You still are." Blaire whispered, pressing a hand on the metal bar that separated her from the wolf.
Jonathan stared at her with his giant, gold eyes, seemingly out of sorrow.

"So what does this have to do with the scared townspeople?" I questioned, tilting my head at the two of them.
"Well, obviously it has to do with the absurdly large wolf you're keeping here," Zenith pointed out.
Blaire nodded, reaching for a set of rusty keys on the table beside her.
Unlocking the cage, she proclaimed, "I have to let John out every evening to hunt... It was fine until the full moon happened, somebody died. I thought we'd be fine if we were more careful next time... then somebody died again. After that, people started disappearing, I know it wasn't him but I have no better explanation..."

"Maybe there's a vampire taking shelter in the area?" I propose, taking a step back from the enclosure as the door swung open.
"I don't think so, since this all started during the full moon and whenever bodies are found they are barely recognisable from the amount of carnage that occurred," Jonathan stated, stepping forward.
"Is Jonathan the only werewolf you know of here?" Zenith asked, turning to Blaire.
She nodded in response.

Things just became routine after that; Zenith and I settled down as workers for the shop and Blaire took her position as the owner. Jonathan even became allowed to wander around the house before and after business hours with Miriam no longer being a problem.
Unfortunately, people kept dying, and in more gruesome ways.
Because of that, Zenith developed a mistrust for Jonathan I personally didn't share.
I don't know why, but I just didn't find him threatening enough to have the ability to have killed all those people.
Though when I told Zenith that he stated firmly that the full moon changes a werewolf's entire mind.