The Good, The Bad and The Fanged

It was another warm night in L.A, Smoke was on patrol as he usually was, leaping from building to building as he surveyed the streets to find any trouble that he could deal with. It was surprisingly quiet tonight, there would normally be one or two criminals who want to get somewhere in the world and would decide to rob a store or something, but nothing. Smoke returned to the roof of his apartment complex, he sat on the edge of the building and looked out over the bright street lights, loud cars and potential victims of crime. Smoke began to feel the suit he had on, he had a habit of doing that when he was not busy, he loved the new suit he was in, it was much more attractive to look at than his old gear, and this one offered far better protection from his enemies. Smoke yanked the phone out of his pocket to check for any news reports of crimes anywhere, but still nothing. It was quite odd how a city with so many people, including famous people, would have such a low crime rate, maybe he criminals finally realized they would not be able to do anything as long as Smoke was around to stop them... yeah, that must be it.

Smoke was about to call it a night when he heard something behind him, without a second thought, he disappeared in a cloud of black smoke and reappeared standing up and staring at what made the noise.

Zoe slid down the side of a roof, clutching her side and growling faintly. Blood seeped through her fingers as she tried to staunch the flow.

Stupid demon; the blasted thing had come out of no here and attacked her, but she supposed that it was an occupational hazard when it came to being her kind. The Arae were known for attacking… not being attacked. Zoe yelped as she slid a few unintended feet before landing on the concrete and rolling sideways to avoid hurting herself further. She laid there dazed for a few seconds, the jagged claw mark wound seemed to pulse like it had a heart beat.

Poof! A guy in a super suit appeared and Zoe growled, scrambling to her feet with her palm pressed to her right side. Zoe figured she must be a sight, her red hair a mess and dirt and blood smearing her cheeks. The creature resisted baring fangs at the strange man… but then again he couldn’t see her face under the mask.

Smoke watched as, what looked like women, scrambled to her feet and she did not exactly look friendly. Smoke noticed the women grabbing at her side as she rose up, she was clearly hurt but truing to hide whatever it was that happened to her with her hand. If she was a villain, she probably would have attacked Smoke by now, either that or she knows that she if we was to start a fight in her condition, the chance of her winning the fight was slim. Smoke would have approached her if it wasn't for the feral growl she was giving him, and the fact that she had a mask covering her face was quite haunting. Smoke did not have any intention of hurting her unless she would try to hurt him first, he slowly raised his hands to indicate to her that he did not want to fight. He continued to look between her mask and her leg "Erm... Are you hurt? Can I help you in anyway?" there was probably nothing he could do, but he was standing on his apartment, she could at least rest in there for a little while until she gets back on her feet.

Zoe watched the man with apprehension; clearly she was one not to trust so easily. Her pale eyes narrowed at the British man.

“Why should I trust one that lurks in the shadows?” She asked quietly, adjusting her hand to take a peek at the long clawed gashes. They were bad, the dark red blood oozed freely from the cuts. Zoe hissed slightly in frustration at the wound. Her eyes flicked back up to Sam; the eye color seemed strangely silvery in the dark. It was fairly obvious that she was indeed wounded but she wasn’t trying to hide the fact.

“Were the heck am I at?” She mused, trying to calculate the quickest way back to the underworld to see how far away medical help would be. If the human caught wind of where she was going he would probably insist on tagging along like all pesky mortals do… now Zoe couldn’t have that.
Her chin and mouth were clearly visible in the dim moonlight, showing quite a few freckles and a tiny scar at the corner of her mouth. It would fade back to normal with time. Her voice was faintly accented… Scottish maybe? Or was it something different accent entirely?

Smoke recognized the accent of the wounded woman in front him, it seemed to be Scottish base, but it also had a slightly different twang to it. When she asked where she was, he thought it was fairly obvious, she must have been running around the city for some time now according to her wound, and she did not even know where she was, whatever caused damage to her must also have her slightly concussed as well.

"You're in Los Angeles California... America... Earth" he knew he sounded quite condescending, but this women did look slightly out of this world, and if she did have some kind of brain damage, she probably had no idea where she was. "That wound isn't looking too good, are you sure there is nothing I can do to help?" at least Smoke was trying to help, if she did not want it, it was her decision, even when it was not a smart one, in the state she was in, she should take whatever help is being given to her.

Zoe glared at him, her eyes narrowing and she hissed slightly.
"Do not scorn who you do not know," She snapped. Mortal mistakes, they annoyed her greatly. Not that they couldn't help it, it took years of training to get out of a mortal set of mind. California? Grr... it would take days to get medical help. She better get help from this guy then... if he tried anything... well... there was a bite waiting for him. Not that she liked biting mortals.

"I could use some medical supplies, some gauze and sports tape... maybe some pain killers if you have them." Zoe wouldn't get far without help and unfortunately it had to come from this human. Fortunately none of her facial expressions were visible because of her mask. The mask itself looked like a dancer's mask, but it had black red and gold swirls giving her a slightly terrifying look. "If that wouldn't be to much."  

The items that the women asked for rattled around Smoke's brain, he did not have a first aid kit per say, but he did have the resources she asked for.

"I have gauze, duct tape and pain killers, that should work fine" Smoke looked back to the wound on her leg, "I don't think you should be walking on that leg of yours, i can get you to safety quicker if you trust me and take my hand" she could have easily sliced his arm off of when he extended it out, but if she wanted to get that wound looked at, she would have to trust him, Sam has teleported himself and someone else a few times before, and both times it had hurt him slightly, so he was practically sacrificing himself to get her to safety.

Zoe winced as she put pressure on her leg, it was just a sprain but it throbbed painfully in time with the demon’s claw marks. Not particularly wanting to she grasped his forearm and leaned on him, not particularly listening to what the human was saying. His palm was warm and rough to the touch. Then he teleported, Zoe shrieked and her grip on him tightened, the whole teleporting thing made her head spin.
After recovering from the event she stated, "Don't do that again."

It was clear that she did not want to do it, but she grabbed Smoke's arm anyway, he quickly teleported into his apartment and the women made her opinions on the transportation known, telling him not do it again. Sam quickly dropped to one knee on the floor and his nose began to bleed again, this time it did not hurt as much as other times, but the damage was still clear to everyone as he stopped the bleeding with his hand, he pushed himself up to a standing position and led the women over to his couch, she laid down as Amber watched her intently in cat form. Sam quickly rushed to his bathroom and opened his cabinet, pulling out painkillers, he then took those into his kitchen where he opened up something he liked to call the "Man Drawer" a draw that consists of things that Sam did not need to use at the time, but might be of some use in the future, for instance, it was full of yet to be used batteries. He dug his hand deep inside and pulled out duct tape and gauze, he slide the drawer closed and poured out a glass of water, he managed to pick all of the items up and brought them over to the wounded woman, he gave the women the glass of water and the painkillers as he wrapped the gauze slowly around her wound, trying not to make it worse, when he deemed it successful, he cut off small pieces of tape and stuck it down, making sure that it was stable.

It was the first time Sam had ever done anything like that to someone else, he thought he did ok, but the woman he did it too probably thought it was all a shambles. Sam stood up and inspected his work before asking "You probably don't need to know this, but I'm Sam" he walked over to Amber and scratched her behind the ears, ever since he found out about her powers he always felt slightly weird when he did that. He turned back to the wounded woman and then asked "If you don't mind me asking, what in hell made that wound? That looks way too big to be anything I've ever seen"

Zoe watched as the human fell onto his knees with a bleeding nose… lots a blood wasn’t there? She mused, waiting for him to stand. Then she was led over to his couch, feeling slightly light headed, and she laid her head down onto the side pillow before standing up again and moving to the kitchen counter. At least there the blood would be easier to clean up.

Before she had a chance to remove the bloodied jacket and shirt the human came over and began tending to her wounds… the poor guy obviously had no idea as to what he was doing. So when he was done, she sighed and began to undo the mess.

“When someone is hurt, you want to get the bandage as close to the wound as possible and not over too many layers of clothing,” Zoe said gently, not to embarrass the poor mortal. “You’re also going to want to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding. Not directly onto the wound. “

The freckled woman removed her mask and laid it on the counter; she unzipped her jacket, and then pulled off her shirt, showing a black sports bra. She leaned over and grabbed the roll of paper towels sitting out on the counter; she pulled off several sheets and got them wet in the sink. With that Zoe began the painful process of cleaning off the blood. When that was done she took the gauze and duct tape from Sam and folded the gauze into thick squares so the blood wouldn’t bleed through before putting tape around the edges.

Gingerly, she slid off the counter and placed her hand on Sam’s shoulder for balance.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” She stated, flashing him a small but dangerous grin. “Do you have a shirt I could borrow? Since mine is shredded.”
Zoe moved back over to the couch with the pain killers and glass of water, downing it all in a single gulp.

It probably would have been a smarter idea to give the items to her and let her do it herself, she seemed pretty capable of doing it, however it did sound quite disrespectful to do something like that when she was clearly hurt. She seemed pretty comfortable in his apartment already, she was walking around and doing what she wanted to do, she was so comfortable in fact that she had stripped the top half of her body down to just a sports bra so she could clean the blood of off herself. More importantly though, she had taken the mask off of her face and Sam could catch a glimpse of the woman he was helping, she shook her head from side to side as locks of her ginger hair flailed around her and then dropped back down into place, her face was covered in freckles and she had large blues eyes that stood out from the rest of her face. The woman dropped her hand on his shoulder to keep herself balanced, Sam then noticed Amber in the corner of his eye slowly walk closer to the both of them, she clearly did not like what was happening. Sam tried his best to keep eye contact with the lady as she casually waltz'd around his apartment, doing what she could to help herself, thankfully she asked him if she could use one of his shirts and it allowed him to excuse himself from this strange situation he had found himself in.

He quickly darted to his bedroom and flung his wardrobe doors open, pulling his shirts from side to side, they would all fit her fine, but it was just a question of picking which one he disliked the most, because judging from her attitude, he wondered whether he would end up getting it back or not. Sam reached the end and decided to take out a thin, loose fitting, green and grey thick lined shirt, the colours on it were slightly tattered and he was slowly beginning to dislike it, and giving it to her was a much better use of it than throwing it out. He tore the shirt off of the hangar and took it into the living area, she was casually sitting on the couch as Sam walked around it and gave it to her, still keeping eye contact with her, "Hopefully that one fits" he said.

Zoe accepted the shirt and pulled it over her head, hiding most of her pale freckly skin from view. Her eyes didn’t leave the human’s face.

“Sam? Right?” She asked, trying to remember if she had his name right. The cat was staying as far away from her as possible. Zoe paid the cat no mind however as she was only paying attention to her natural instincts of staying away from a predator. “As I said before, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what had attacked me.”

Her blue eyes watched the cat as it slunk around the edge of the couch. “I am Zoe by the way. Figured a name for a name would be proper payment. As far as your cat goes, she is a very unique cat. Isn’t she not?”

At least she cared about Sam enough to remember his name, he wouldn't be surprised if he left a few hours and returned to find that she had burgled the place whilst he was gone, she did not seem like the most trusting of people. Sam's heart rate lowered as the woman covered herself up with his shirt, as repayment for the shirt, she told him her name, Zoe. After announcing her name, she began to stare intently at the cat that was cautiously walking around, she too was staring back at Zoe with intense eyes. Zoe began to question the cat's uniqueness, did she know that she was a shapeshifter? There was no way that she would know, Amber was acting the way she normally does.

"Oh her? She is pretty unique, i can't remember ever seeing a cat with one amber eye and one blue eye, and to think that she was just a stray and now she is a part of my life" Sam tried to steer clear of the fact she was a shapeshifter and change the subject to her eye colour as he crouched down and stroked her behind her ears again, she did not seem to be fussed by it this time as she continued staring at the woman on the couch. It appeared Amber found Zoe to be unique aswell, there was something about her that bugged her, but she could not simply turn into her human form and accuse the woman of whatever she knew, she would have to lure Sam off somehow and tell him in private.

Zoe was slightly amused at hearing the mortal’s heart rate. Males were mostly the same in any species. She did have sharper senses considering she was a tracker after all. But her face did not betray her amusement, “A stray? Hm… it may have been possible that she was thrown out because of her eyes. In some religions it’s considered bad luck. “

Zoe ended the staring contest with the cat before standing and retrieving her shredded shirt and leather jacket. She scowled at the two before cleaning the dirt and blood off of her face in the sink. They were both beyond repair and they would need to be replaced. The woman was still walking with a slight limp however.

“I suppose I will be leaving now,” She stated, tossing her long red hair over her shoulder, plans swirling around her mind. Zoe had planned on going straight into danger and finding out what those demons wanted. But after thinking about it for a few moments she decided against it. Zoe needed to go home to recover properly after all.

Luckily for Sam he had not had any bad luck with Amber being around, well except for one thing, but he tended not to dwell on that. There was more to this cat than she knew, so maybe on this one occasion, she might have been wrong about the bad luck. Zoe stood up and hobbled into the kitchen to clean herself off once more, she picked up her previous clothing that was practically ripped to shreds and stated the she thought she should leave, by the way she was casually acting around the apartment, you would have thought that Sam was the guest between the two of them. Sam felt bad about letting her go out again in the state she was in, he was perfectly willing to let her stay the night and then leave the next morning instead of risking more injury.

"You can stay for the night if you want, rest up and head out tommorrow morning, unless you have somewhere you need to be now" Sam then felt a sharp pain in the back of his right leg, he turned to see Amber sitting behind him and yawning, as if she had not done anything, however after closer inspection, she had actually scratched him in the back of his leg. Sam would have given her a talking to if Zoe was not still in the room, but Sam felt she was trying to tell him something, he just didn't know what it was.