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Azu didn’t know where she was. She’d been in a fight, she remembered that much, but then there was nothing, save for the small apartment that surrounded her.
A familiar yet shadowy figure stepped into the room, and Azu sat bolt upright, ready to fight. Her gun was gone from her holster, so she started to reach for a lamp in case she needed a weapon, but she was interrupted before she got too far.
“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you,” the dark stranger said. “If I’d wanted to, I would’ve done it while you were passed out on my couch.”
Azu glanced around her and noticed that she had indeed been sprawled out on a comfy couch, several blankets tossed over her sleeping form until she discarded them in her terror of waking up in an unknown locale.
“Right. Okay. Who are you? What am I doing here?”
“You got knocked out. So I dragged you back here. You’re big, you know that?”
“I saw you… at the museum. You’re a thief and a…”
“I’m a vampire, yeah.”
“Right,” Azu said again, trying to parse out the stories from the truth.
“Name’s Sasha."
"Azu."
"I know. Do you want some food?”
Azu drew back slightly. “Do you mean… blood?”
With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, Sasha replied, “No. I popped out and got a bunch of takeaway. Didn’t know what you might like, and I don’t really remember how much living people eat anymore, so I just got a few things. I figured you’d be hungry.”
“I am, yeah. Thank you,” Azu said cautiously, hoping the rumble of her stomach wasn’t too loud. She allowed Sasha to lead her to the kitchen, where nearly two dozen boxes of takeaway food were placed on the counter.
“I hope it’s enough,” Sasha added.
Azu couldn’t help but chuckle. “You’ve been a vampire a long time, then? Because this is a lot of food. Like you said, I’m big, but this is enough for several days’ worth.”
“Oh. Well, you got leftovers then.”
Azu noticed that Sasha didn’t answer how long she’d been a vampire and decided not to push it. Even though she was kind enough right now, she didn’t want to risk the ire of a person with some very strange abilities, undead or otherwise, especially while in their abode and weaponless.
Instead, she picked up a box of Indian food and followed Sasha back to the living room, where she sat on the couch and dug in.
“Do you… can you… do you want some?” Azu questioned as she noticed Sasha watching her intently.
“No, no, I can’t eat that stuff anymore. Well, I can, but it’s not pretty.”
“Fair enough.” After a moment, Azu froze, and moved a hand to her neck. “You didn’t… bite me, did you? Is that why you’re not hungry? You drank my blood?”
Sasha sighed again, but this time there was a faint smile on her lips. “I don’t just drink random people’s blood; you never know where it’s been.”
“Where do you get your blood, then?”
“Blood banks, mostly. It’s all vetted and tested. And that way there aren’t people or corpses showing up with bites on their neck. We vampires already get a bad rap, we don’t need any more people coming to look for us.”
“Makes sense.”
Azu finished eating, then closed the takeaway box and set it on the coffee table. She leaned forward toward Sasha. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Why did you rescue me? How did you even know where I was? What’s going on?”
“I mean, you saw me at the museum. You saw me… acquiring some antiques for some… appraisal…”
“You were stealing from that fancy gem exhibit, yeah.”
“If you want to put it like that,” Sasha chuckled. “You saw me as a thief and a weird monster, but you didn’t strike me down. You could’ve shot me, you could’ve screamed, but you didn’t. I wanted to know why.”
“You weren’t the person I was looking for.”
“That’s it?”
Azu nodded. “I didn’t know much about vampires, didn’t know for sure if they were real, but it’s hardly the strangest thing out there.”
“Well… thanks, for not shooting me. So, I followed you? I was curious.”
“You were following me? How? I didn’t see you at all.”
Sasha smirked. “I’ve always been good at hiding. Since turning undead, I’ve just gotten better. Don’t feel bad. Nobody sees me coming.” She continued, “When the Hunters caught up with you and questioned you, I saw them hit you, and I had to do something. So, I lured them off, and then came back to get you. What are you looking for?”
“I’m trying to figure out who is stealing priceless ancient artifacts from across the city,” Azu explained. There wasn’t much use in hiding her mission, was there? "Some of them are important to Aphrodite, and we want to recover them." She gestured to the pink insignia on her chest.
“And yet you didn’t try to stop me?”
“You were stealing gems. There was a group of people stealing a stone tablet on the far end of the wing. I think it was clear which thief I was tasked with finding.”
Sasha let out a heavy sigh. “Mortals are looking for them too, then.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know. But they’re nicking a bunch of important things and leaving dried out bodies around. It’s bad for business. There are more Hunters running around town now than there ever were before.” She hesitated. “I want to help you.”
“Help me?”
“Yeah. I can help you on the case. I want to stop them too, most vampires do. They’re not subtle; more people are going to be looking into what they’re doing, and that means it’s more likely some innocent vampire is going to get caught and killed in the process. I want to help stop them. I can’t do it on my own.”
“I don’t know…” Azu pondered. After getting knocked out twice, once in the museum, and once by the group of Vampire Hunters that came to question her on the street, though, she figured it couldn’t hurt to have someone watching her back. “You know what, sure. Why not?”
Sasha beamed. “Alright. I’m not used to being a good guy.”
“Bad guys don’t generally offer to help cops track down a bunch of murderers and thieves.”
“Doesn’t make me a good guy, though.”
Azu smiled. “We’ll see about that.”