The vampires angel

The ambulance

Silas's Point of View

The flashing lights of the police cruiser painted the alleyway in a familiar, unsettling strobe. Silas sighed, the weariness settling deep in his bones. Another night, another… whatever this was. The call had been vague: "unconscious female outside a nightclub." Could be anything from too much booze to something darker. He'd seen enough of the darker things in his twenty years on the job to not get his hopes up for a simple drunk.

His young partner, Maya, was already hopping out of the ambulance, her movements quick and eager. Bless her rookie enthusiasm. It wouldn't last. He grabbed the jump bag and followed at a more measured pace, his senses already taking in the scene. The damp, grimy alley, the knot of police officers, the young woman pacing with a visible tremor – classic signs of distress.

Then he saw the body. Slumped against the brick, unnaturally still. Even from a distance, there was a wrongness to the posture, a stillness that screamed more than just unconsciousness. He exchanged a brief, grim look with one of the officers. Yep. Not a drunk.

"Alright, Maya, let's assess," he said, his voice calm and professional, the years of similar scenes having worn away most of his initial shock. He knelt beside the young woman, his practiced fingers immediately checking for a pulse, noting the coldness of the skin. "No pulse. Pupils fixed and dilated." He didn't need a monitor to confirm what he already knew.

Maya hovered beside him, her face pale. He could smell the cloying sweetness in the air, stronger near the body. That damn sweet smell again. Always a bad sign. It made his stomach churn slightly. He'd encountered that smell a couple of times before, always with the strange ones, the cases that never quite added up. He made a mental note. Forensics would have a field day with this one.

"Rigid," Maya murmured, her voice barely a whisper as she touched the arm.

"Yep," Silas confirmed, his gaze sweeping over the scene. The lack of obvious trauma was unsettling. No signs of a struggle that he could immediately see. Just… gone. Like a light switched off. He'd learned long ago that the quiet ones were often the most disturbing.

He saw the young woman who'd been pacing talking to one of the officers – Ridger. Silas had worked with him a few times. Decent cop, though there was always something… different about him. An intensity in his eyes, a way he seemed to notice things others missed.

"Alright, let's get her on the backboard," Silas instructed, his movements efficient and practiced. "Document time of death. Notify dispatch." He kept his voice steady, a shield against the grim reality of their task. Another one gone. Another mystery for the living to unravel. He just had to do his job, bag and tag, and try not to let the darkness of it all seep too deep under his skin.

Maya's Point of View

The sirens wailed, a stark contrast to the music she'd been listening to just moments ago. Every call still felt like a surge of adrenaline, a chance to make a real difference. Tonight, a possible unconscious person outside a nightclub. Maybe just someone who'd partied too hard. She hoped so.

She practically bounced out of the ambulance, eager to assess the situation. Silas, her partner, moved with a more deliberate, almost weary, pace. She still had that initial burst of energy, that feeling that they could fix anything.

The scene was… grimmer than she'd pictured. The alley was damp and smelled of stale beer and something else she couldn't quite place – a heavy, almost floral sweetness that was strangely unsettling. A young woman was pacing nearby, her face etched with distress, talking to a police officer. And then she saw the figure slumped against the brick wall.

Her breath hitched. This wasn't just someone sleeping it off. There was a stillness, a lifelessness, that sent a shiver down her spine. She rushed forward, her training kicking in, but a knot of anxiety tightened in her chest.

"Let's check her out," she said, her voice a little too bright, a nervous energy bubbling beneath the surface. Silas knelt beside the person with a practiced calm that she admired, a composure she wished she could fully emulate.

She reached out, her fingers trembling slightly as she checked for a pulse at the wrist, then the neck. Nothing. Her heart sank. "No pulse," she whispered, her optimism starting to fray.

Silas confirmed, his voice flat, "Pupils fixed and dilated." Maya swallowed hard, the clinical terms suddenly feeling cold and final. She noticed the paleness of the skin, the unnatural stillness of the limbs. It was her first confirmed… deceased on scene. The training exercises hadn't prepared her for the sheer reality of it.

She touched the young woman's arm, a tentative gesture. The coldness of her arm was shocking, seeping through her gloves like ice water. "She's… rigid," she murmured, the word feeling heavy and awful in her mouth.

Silas just nodded, his gaze steady as he scanned the surroundings. Maya felt a wave of sadness wash over her. This was someone's daughter, someone's friend. The young woman talking to the officer looked devastated. She wanted to go over and offer comfort, but Silas's professional demeanor held her back. There would be time for that later, maybe. Right now, they had a job to do.

She tried to focus on the task at hand, the procedures they'd drilled countless times. Backboard, C-spine precautions. But the image of the still, pale face kept intruding. Even in this grim scene, she tried to find something… anything. Maybe they'd find a cause, maybe there was some explanation that wasn't completely awful. She had to hold onto that sliver of hope.

As they carefully moved the body onto the backboard, the cloying sweetness in the air seemed to intensify, making her feel slightly nauseous. She glanced at Silas, but his expression was unreadable. He'd seen this before. But for Maya, this was a stark and brutal introduction to a side of emergency medicine she'd only read about in textbooks. The optimism was still there, a tiny spark, but it was flickering in the face of this undeniable loss.

Silas's Point of View (Continued)

After the quiet thud of the ambulance doors closing behind Izzy, Silas watched as the distraught young woman – Maria – left with the man who had just arrived, presumably her boyfriend. Maya was securing the equipment in the back of the ambulance, preparing for the transport. Silas walked over to Officer Derrek to speak with him about their findings.

"She's dead on arrival," Silas stated, his voice flat. "I assume you got all the information you needed from the young lady. This won't be an easy phone call, or case, to solve. We've seen this a great number of times in the past five years. If she's like the others, there won't be a definitive cause of death." He reached into his pocket and glanced at the worn face of his old watch.

Derrek's gaze remained fixed on the alley for a moment before turning to Silas, a weariness mirroring the EMT's own. A subtle tightening around his jaw betrayed a deeper reaction to Silas's words. "You're right, Silas," he said, his voice low. "The details... they echo. Too many times."

A cold numbness washed over them. The vibrant energy of the nightclub now felt like a distant memory. This alley, this lifeless form, was the stark truth.

As Silas spoke of the past five years, a torrent of half-forgotten cases flooded Derrek's mind. Unexplained deaths, young victims, no discernible injuries. The files growing cold with "undetermined cause." Whispers of old legends, vampires and angels, just stories he'd always dismissed. Yet, a nagging feeling crept into the back of his mind.

He rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. "Five years," he repeated, the words heavy. "And nothing ever sticks. No witnesses, no suspects, no damn answers." He looked back at the alley, the yellow tape going up. The legend, as outlandish as it seemed, offered a horrifyingly simple explanation. One he desperately didn't want to believe.