Rats were easy prey, especially in this city. Down in the sewers, where trash and refuse flowed as freely as the tainted waters, they grew fat and happy, multiplying faster than the city’s exterminators could kill them. Gorged on rotten food scraps and the odd bloated corpse, the rats of Scorched Sands didn’t so much skitter about as waddle, weighed down by their own corpulent bellies.

This suited Damian just fine.

Perched atop a cluster of rusted pipes, he licked his lips and watched intently as a pack of rats pulled themselves from the rotten waters and clambered up onto the old concrete walkway. The gloom of the sewers was no issue; it was the smell that bothered him more. One drawback of living in a desert was that the heat tended to bring out the worst olfactory experiences that mankind’s waste had to offer.

But experience bred resilience, or so Damian believed, and after living in these sluices, outflows and cisterns for nigh-on eight years, he had gotten used to the stench. Sort of.

“C’mon… just a lil’ closer…” he muttered, digging his sharp, black nails into the rust of the pipes.

Reaching over his shoulder, he silently pulled a heavily-worn machete from a handmade sheath on his back. Nicked, battered and rusted from years of misuse, the hefty iron blade was far from keen, and tended to smash his prey more so than slice it.

His stomach suddenly growled, causing one of the rats to stop in its tracks, its ears twitching as it peered all around for signs of danger.

“Don’t look up, for fucks sake…” Damian breathed, silently drumming his blackened toenails against the pipes.

A few tense moments of silence passed, permeated only by the dripping of racid water and the groaning of old pipes.

Finally, the rat decided to keep moving. Cut off from the rest of its brethren, it passed beneath Damian, leaving tiny wet footprints as it waddled across the stained concrete.

With a fearsome grin, he suddenly raised his machete and leaped from his perch.

“KHAKHAKHAKHA~!”

His maniacal laughter echoed off the sewer walls as he lunged at the rat, swinging his weapon in a savage arc.

The rat didn’t stand a chance.

Struck by the blunted blade, the bloated rodent was immediately killed as each and every one of its internal organs were ruptured and perforated by its own shattering bones. Its matted hide split as blood sprayed from the wounds, but Damian wasn’t one to waste good food. Tossing his weapon aside, he immediately scooped the brutalised rat off the floor and held it to his face, taking a deep whiff as warm blood oozed from between his fingers.

It stunk of rotten shit and hot garbage, but beneath all that, there was the scent of something delicious. Sweet yet salty, warm and full-bodied…

“Been too fuckin’ long…” he rasped, opening his mouth and exposing a pair of sharpened fangs to the dim light of the sewers’ service lamps.

He plunged them deep into the rat’s flesh, cleanly piercing its still-warm heart. Like the floodgates had been opened, hot blood poured from the corpse, guided by Damian’s black tongue to flow directly down his throat. It tasted deliciously salty with only a slightly disgusting aftertaste, but down in the sewers, it was the best he could get. He stood there for a few moments, greedily snuffling and slurping as he drained the rodent dry.

But it ended all too quickly. Bones cracked as he squeezed the last few drops out, but once the flow stopped, Damian belched loudly and tossed the desiccated corpse into the fouled waters.

“Ain’t enough,” the vampire muttered to himself, wiping his face with the sleeve of his filthy sweater.

His red eyes darted around as he searched for more rats, but they had long since dived back into the safety of the flowing sewer waters. Tutting irritably, Damian picked his machete off the floor and began to make his way down the tunnel, always keeping an ear peeled for more rodents to hunt.

“Could go topside…? Nah, nah… not worth the hassle…”

He idly scraped the machete blade along the concrete wall as he walked, but he suddenly halted upon hearing it strike off something metallic. With one eyebrow raised, Damian looked over to see a series of old metal rungs bolted to the wall, leading up through a tunnel in the sewer’s ceiling. Far above, orange streetlight shone through the gaps in a steel manhole cover.

His stomach rumbled once more.

“Well… it ain’t daylight…”

Sheathing his blade, Damian grabbed a hold of the ladder and took a moment to consider his options. Staying down in the sewers was always the safer option; no risk of sun, rats were plentiful, and humans only ventured down there if they were performing maintenance or if they were desperate for a place to stay. Up there, in one of Scorched Sands’ many rundown districts, he ran the risk of all sorts of dangers. He had lost track of the amount of times that he had been brutally beaten by roving gangs of disenfranchised hoodlums, or robbed of what little he had by drug addicts.

But where there were people, there was blood…

“Fuck it. Fuck it!”

Hooking onto the ladder rungs with his toes, the vampire began the long ascent to the surface. With every inch he climbed, the sounds and smells of the city grew stronger. Even below street level, he could hear the cacophony of traffic and the clattering of distant construction sites. Wincing as the smell of exhaust fumes assaulted his sensitive nostrils, Damian placed a hand upon the manhole cover and lifted it out of the way.

It was a clear, cool night in the Mojave Desert, and yet Damian could barely see the stars though the harsh light shining from Scorched Sands’ downtown districts. Towering skyscrapers bedecked in neon lights and holographic advertisements jutted into the sky like accusing fingers, scraping the wispy clouds with pointed spires. Corporate aircraft circled the tallest towers, each heavily laden with the latest in mounted weaponry and advertising hardware.

“Hell of a sight,” the vampire sighed, hauling himself out of the manhole and into a shaded alleyway.

Scorched Sands was an odd kind of city, one entirely financed by various corporations from all across America. Built on a flat desert plain in a few months, the city gradually grew into a sprawling mess over the course of forty years; a bright neon metropolis spattered with abandoned streets and hollow buildings. In a city build on mercenary attitudes, as soon as something was no longer deemed useful by the talking heads, it was discarded without a thought; be that a worker or an entire district.

But Damian wasn’t one for ruminating on the callous nature of his home. If anything, the many abandoned neighbourhoods dotted around the city was a good thing. The scum of Scorch Sands society tended to congregate there, and it was from these marginalised groups that Damian had the best chances of feeding.

“HELP~!”

The vampire froze in place.

“SOMEBODY HELP ME, PLEASE~!”

Somebody was screaming for their life, and they sounded close. With their desperate pleas ringing in his ears, Damian turned sharply on his heel and rushed off in the direction of the voice. It wasn’t the first time he had rushed to somebody’s aid in the dead of night. Nine times out of ten, they were victims of muggings, left to die by their attackers. Finishing them off was an easy job, and if he was quick, he could drink deep before they completely bled out.

“I’m comin’…!” he tittered to himself, leaping over a toppled trashcan as he grew more and more excited.

Skirting a corner, his smile grew into a delighted grin at the sight of a woman lying slumped against the wall of an abandoned tenement building. With a quick scan of his surroundings to ensure that he was alone, he put on a concerned face and trotted over to the woman’s side.

“Y’alright, miss?” Damian called, jogging across the empty parking lot.

She was smartly dressed; likely a wageslave from one of the city’s finer districts. Her once-white shirt had been stained red, and she was clutching her stomach.

“Oh god, oh god… I don’t wanna die…!” she gasped, wincing as blood trickled from between her fingers.

Raising his hands, the vampire slowly approached.

“Hey, take it easy. I’m here to help,” he lied, biting his tongue to stop himself from smiling.

She looked up at him with reddened, tear-filled eyes.

“Y- You are…?”

Getting down on his knees, he gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

“Yeah… Here, lemme get a look at that…”

Nodding shakily, the woman slowly moved her hand to reveal a ruptured blood pack that she had burst against her stomach. Before Damian could react to this deception, she got to her feet and roughly kicked him in the chest, bowling him onto his back. Reaching into the back of her trousers, she produced a sleek black pistol and aimed it right at him.

“Back the fuck up, leech,” the woman hissed, tossing the spent blood pack aside.

He narrowed his eyes and bared his fangs, no longer having to hide them.

“Know what I am, huh? Then you know that lead ain’t gonna do shit!” Damian spat, nodding at the gun.

She frowned, took aim at his leg and pulled the trigger.

In a flash of gunfire, a bullet was sent straight into the side of the vampire’s thigh, but he knew as soon as it made contact that something was wrong. It burned hotter than unholy hellfire, causing his entire leg to buckle and spasm as the bullet wound began to smoke and hiss.

“GAAAAH~! YOU FUCKIN’ BITCH!”

Teeth gritted, Damian dug a finger into the wound and dug the bullet out with his long nails, only to cry out in pain as his skin made contact with the slug.

It was silver.

Tossing the crumpled bullet out onto the ground, Damian spat and swore as he clutched the still-smoking wound.

“I’ve got the leech on lock,” the woman stated, holding a finger to a device in her ear.

“I’LL FUCKIN’ KILL YOU~!”

She raised the pistol once more.

“Shut the fuck up or the next one goes in your head.”

Pressing the hot barrel against his temple, she circled around the vampire and pulled his machete from its sheath. As he guttered on the ground and cursed beneath his breath, Damian’s ears suddenly pricked up as he heard a dozen boots thumping against tarmac. All around the parking lot, men dressed in sleek combat gear revealed themselves, each wielding an advanced-looking submachinegun. They surrounded Damian, their laser sights coalescing on the vampire’s forehead.

Spitting a gob of bloodied saliva on one of their boots, he flashed his fangs and hissed.

“Ain’t regular hunters, are ya?”

“You can certainly say that again, Damian,” a commanding voice suddenly replied, startling him.

The crowd of combat operatives parted as the sound of clacking echoed throughout the empty lot.

“You’ll find that you are in fact in the custody of BEDLAM agents. A cut above the likes of the freelancers that have gone after you in the past.”

A pair of black high heels stepped into view, but from Damian’s position on the ground, he couldn’t see the person wearing them. They tossed a handful of photographs in front of his face, each depicting an individual covered in gaping wounds and doused in their own blood. Some of his previous victims. Self-professed vampire hunters that didn’t quite measure up to the real thing.

“A- All that was self-defence. They came after me,” he grumbled, wincing as the gun barrel was pressed harder against the side of his head.

He heard a woman sigh.

“Agent Johnston, please stand down. I want to get a look at our quarry’s face.”

“Yes ma’am!”

The weapon was pulled away, giving Damian room to breathe. Pulling back, he looked up at the owner of the high heels.

The person that stood before him was not a soldier like the others. She wasn’t a human, either. Dressed in a crisp, clean suit, the woman’s skin was an iridescent purple colour, and a pair of long yellow horns sprouted from her forehead. As Damian gawked, she ran a hand through her raven-black hair, causing a small pair of batlike wings on her back to flutter.

“Y- You’re a demon, ain’tcha…?” he murmured, pointing at her.

She smirked humourlessly, thrashing a tail tipped with a heart-shaped spade behind her.

“How very astute, of you. Yes, I’m a demon; a Succubus, to be exact. Hell stock, born and bred,” she sighed, planting her hands on her hips.

Damian grinned and nervously eyed up the submachineguns aimed at his head.

“Demons ain’t supposed to have guns.”

She nodded.

“Good to see that even those living in squalor are up to date on our bylaws. But I’m not wielding a firearm, Damian.”

As quick as a flash, the Succubus rushed forward and grabbed Damian by the throat. Whipping a wicked combat knife from a sheath on her belt, she pressed the tip of the blade against the vampire’s chest, right above his heart.

“I don’t need to.”

Damian swallowed hard, afraid of even breathing.

“O- Okay, ya made your point. Who are ya, and what d’ya want with me?”

The demon smirked.

“Very well. My name is Arlette McArva, director of the Bureau of Extra-Dimensional Logistics, Affairs and Militancy. That’s BEDLAM, if you want to get short with it.”

Despite the precarious situation he was in, Damian snorted.

“Seem’s like y’all were stretchin’ to get that- okay, okay, I’m sorry!” he cried, cutting his snide remark off as the knife sliced through the front of his sweater.

“We’ve been trying to track you for a while now. For a man that stinks to the high heavens, you’re surprisingly hard to find”

Arlette pulled back, but kept a firm grip on her knife.

“We were hesitant to use an agent as bait, but honestly I shouldn’t have doubted your predatorial instincts.”

“Fuck you! If yaw anna kill me, then fuckin’ do it already!” Damian suddenly roared, growing tired of her prattling.

Flipping the knife around, she quirked an eyebrow.

“Whatever gave you that idea, Damian? I came here not to kill you…”

Rolling up her sleeve, Arlette suddenly drew the blade across her wrist. She hissed between her teeth as blood began to flow, immediately transfixing the vampire.

“… but to offer you something.”

By then, Damian was barely listening. Instead, he stared hard at the thick, red fluid flowing from Arlette’s wrist, already salivating as the scent hit his nostrils. Fresh, warm blood… he could almost taste it on the wind. Hot, sweet and sumptuous… His stomach protested his hesitancy, but the vampire couldn’t move. This entire situation stank, and not in a good way.

Sensing his reluctance, the Succubus smiled.

“Well? Care to hear me out?”