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Easy. Easy now. Ashby's voice was hardly above a whisper as he approached the wounded boy. The bloodied form was cowering in the corner, weak from exhaustion and whimpering with fear. He had been badly lacerated - the deep crimson scars covering him, overpowering the paleness of his skin. His hair, dark and matted, was soaked with his blood, clinging to his forehead and the nape of his neck, which seemed to be where a good deal of visible damage had been committed. Two open sores on his jugular gushed with the interior of his neck, exposed muscles throbbing with the desperate pumping of his quickening heartbeat. He stank of impending death.

As Ashby grew closer, he cocked his head slightly, taking a brief moment to observe the young male. He was a teenager, perhaps seventeen. He had several tattoos on his body. The dark hooded sweatshirt he wore was ripped open in areas. He wore jeans, although it was hard to tell by the mess.

Anyone with a heart would have been worried. They would have been empathetic, eager to do anything possible to help this poor tortured soul. But Ashby only felt weariness and hesitancy. He had seen enough in his time when he had been a chief of police and even more now as an investigator for the supernatural devision of the CIA. He had been studying things that most of the world would only mock.

When Ashby was close enough, he bent down, his eyes narrowing as he examined the boy's body. Hey... he tried to appeal to him with what he hoped was a friendly, caring voice. The boy glanced at him from black and blue eyelids, tucking himself tighter into the fetal position. This kid had been bitten by a vampire, that much was obvious to anyone in his field. This, however, was more than just a typical vampire feeding. This was a mutilation. Whoever has done this to him hadn't simply been looking for their next meal. Whoever had done this had wanted the victim to suffer and to endure a long, painful death. Where many vampires would take their fill from a human's blood, seal the wound and leave the victim dazed and confused somewhere with hardly an idea of what had happened, the vampire that did this wanted to be remembered, wanted to make a mark and without question wanted to take a life.

Please... the boy pleaded, Please. Kill me. Ashby looked into his eyes and saw nothing but misery. He had been here for a few hours at least. Who did this to you? Ashby asked, ignoring the beseeching tone of boy's voice. The young man turned his eyes downward, A... monster. the boy struggled to speak, darkness beginning to take him. He began coughing. At first it sounded as though he was clearing his throat. Soon the cough evolved into hacking and then quickly to choking and gasping. He was drowning in his own blood.

Sighing and giving a small inconspicuous shake of his head, Ashby pulled out the Nordic pocket knife from inside of his right boot. With quick, expert movements, Ashby drove the knife into a spot in the teenage boy's spinal chord which killed him immediately. He watched as the small amount of light left in the kid's eyes leave with one last haggard sigh.

Ashby pulled out a white towel from his backpack and wiped it clean of the blood. As he stood from the lifeless body, he took note of his surroundings, trying to find a trail, anything that would indicate where the altercation had come from.

Ashby had found the boy in the corner of a dark alley, curled between a dumpster and a brick wall of various sorts of graffiti. The night air prickled at his skin, indicating the eerie feeling that only autumn could birth. Ashby pulled a camera from his bag and took a series of pictures, both of the fresh corpse and the alleyway itself. He turned toward the opening of the long, narrow opening where his car was parked alongside the curb.

The atmosphere was all too familiar. The damp streets were lit by the chilling glow of the flickering street lights. A slightly deep puddle of rainwater in front of his car reflected the nearby building in its glassy water. Once at the driver's side, he pressed the 'open' button on his keys from inside of his pocket. The car beeped with a welcoming sound. Climbing inside, he closed the car door behind him, adjusting to his seat, finding a comfortable seating position. He took his camera out again, looking through the digital copies on the screen.

He scrolled through the dozen or so he had taken and stopping toward the end of the series, an eyebrow rising in unexpected surprise. He stared at the photo intently. In the picture he was studying, was the entire scene of the alley, taken from the entrance before he had left. On top of one of the roofs, he could swear there was a shadowy figure, who seemed to be holding something that gleamed.

Ashby stared at the digitalized picture for a few long moments, squinting and playing with the filter options, but couldn't seem to get a clear idea of what he was looking at. After adjusting the colors, the shadows, the lighting he finally was able to make out a pair of eyes. He let the camera sit in his lap as he looked out the front windshield, his gaze penetrating the night to scan the nearby rooftops. Something just wasn't right.

He turned his camera off and packed it away swiftly. Perhaps whatever, or rather whoever was behind those dark eyes would bring him closer to unfolding the killer of the innocent victim in the street. Before he could even debate going after the suspect, he had to call for backup. He needed to get in touch with the morgue to have the body properly removed. He needed to arrange what would become a crime scene. Ashby made the appropriate calls and waited. An hour passed before he say headlights in his rearview mirror.

Ashby craned his neck to the side, releasing the stress and tension from his vertebrae. A truck pulled up behind his car and two men stepped out. One was someone from the morgue and the other looked like his assistant. As he emerged from his own vehicle, Ashby eyeballed them. The mortician was as one might expect. He was stereotypically creepy. His figure was long and gangly, his eyes squinty and dark with black hair that was combed in such a way as to suggest he took his profession to heart. The other, a slightly younger man was the exact opposite in every way save the creep factor. He was short, plump, with cropped sandy blonde hair and a nervous demeanor.

Welcome. Ashby's voice was apathetic, aloof. He shook their hands as a courtesy, but otherwise kept his distance. As he stepped away from them, more vehicles started to arrive. Agents were already making their way down the alley along with a few local police officers, and EMTs.

Seems to be that kind of night, huh? The blonde mortician's apprentice commented, trying to make small talk while his lanky mentor walked to the alleyway.

Seems so. Ashby wasn't much for talking. He preferred to remain levelheaded at all times, maintaining his composure wasn't simply a job requirement, it was embedded in his DNA. To avoid any further awkward conversation, Ashby turned away, looking back up to the tops of the buildings. Without excusing himself, Ashby walked away toward the crowd that had gathered at the mouth of the alley.

A strange chill shot up Ashby's spine. He turned and saw the same eerie figure on top of a building down the street. Attempting to pretend he hadn't seen the shadowed person, Ashby slipped to the neighboring alley before he could be noticed and made his way, as silently as possible, up the fire escape.