Real Gods Require Blood

Summary:

Detective Louis (Lucifer) Morningstar is the best at what he does in Los Angeles: locking up serial killers. However, there’s been one – Mikaeli Hadad, AKA Michael Ryan – who evades his efforts with an uncontested, four-year kill streak that’s got the agency on edge. What the Hell is a guy supposed to do, then, when he catches this bombshell in the act?

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Los Angeles, 1948. It’s currently a breezy April evening outside with the sun close to dipping, its last rays drizzling down onto a worn brick building. Inside said building would be a series of (mostly) empty office spaces begging for some renters yet unable to find any considering it wasn’t in the best part of town .  .  .

.  .  .but that wouldn’t stop the currently humming engine of The Seven Deadly Detectives from bonking their heads together in their dingy, smoked-up space. Right now, a gaggle of five men of the ages 25 to 50 were all huddled around their reporter’s desk with the latest splay of photos. In them would be hacked up arms and legs and torsos and heads; worse still, most of the parts the team was able to find weren’t even the whole damn body, with all of them missing pieces they all considered lost forever.

“God fucking damn it.”

Begins the head honcho of this whole joint, Louis Morningstar. As the oldest of the bunch, he was the one who started this whole gig after squirreling away enough money to get out of his shitty beat cop job, had wanted to use the degree he slaved away at to some real use and keep his wits sharp. Thanks to him, he and the boys have solved some gnarly cases from minor killers that kept the lights on and their stomachs fed, but the skill with which this one had obscured his tracks was giving them all the runaround. “This bitch has been at it for almost four years and we ain’t one lick closer to solving it than when we started the case.”

Tell me about it, Azrael sighs. He was the forensic scientist of the group alongside with his older cousin, Azrael, who he only recently roped in after enough begging when he could no longer keep up with the body count. “Our only tell on her besides the lipstick stains is that she sticks exclusively to other criminals. Every time I’ve been able to trace their identities and Zadikiel runs their criminal records, all of them come up positive for heinous shit like rape and homicide.”

Yep,  Zadikiel confirms as he slips a hand in his pants pocket, hips cocked. “No consistency with a type either. I’ve seen ‘em young, I’ve seen ‘em old. Black, white, Asian. . . thin, thick, tall and short. Hell, she ain’t even nice about sparing other ladies if it fits her agenda.” 

Indeed, Auriel hums with the drumming of his fingers atop the desk. “It doesn’t help that there’s no consistency with the location, either. We keep receiving reports of new parts from Santa Clarita all the way to Long Beach. Whoever’s behind it must have a lot of resources to be able to drive around like this and scatter them.”

This loser needs a hobby, Gabriel utters under his breath. Since this was his desk, he was the one who got to sit, legs thrown up on an unoccupied portion of the surface.”Say, boss, when the fuck can I even get a real report out about this shit anyway? All I’ve been able to feed The Times is nothin’ more than ‘new parts found, Barbie Killer strikes again!’” 

I know, Louis grouches out. “Trust me, Gabe, it ain’t my preference to keep feedin’ the papers the same basic shit everybody and their mother gets already. We just kinda need to make due with the hand we got for now though and stay persistent, I’m sure we’ll make headway soon.”

In the meantime, though.  .  .Louis peels back from his hunched over position to stand up straight in the dying light. He was a lithe, handsome Black man with warm, mid-tone brown skin and brunette hair that laid at his waist like a wavy river. All the boys around him know him to be quite the joker when his mood was up and a real Devil when it was down, all finding him to be something in-between at the moment considering the way he heaves out a sigh from his lips. “Alright, boys, it’s clear we won’t get much further than this tonight. I’m at least gonna give the map one last look-see before I head out though and try to find a pattern we might’ve missed with the locations. The rest of ‘ya, go the fuck home, it’s late and I’ve kept ‘ya long enough.”

You sure? Azazel asks with his dark brows raised high. “We don’t mind pouring over this a little longer if you think – “

No, Louis counters with another sigh, hands tucking in the slack pockets. “That’s like beatin’ a dead horse at this point. I want you all to freshen up for the weekend so we can come in Monday ready to try again, and that includes myself.”

No protest from the boys. They all make like Moses and part, shuffling out one at a time with their good nights and good lucks wafting into the air. Once alone, Louis relaxes his shoulders, lips curling into the first blush of a smile. It was nice, having the boys around, but the detective found he did his best work alone, wanting to be able to hear his own damn thoughts as he shuffles into his office and unfurls the curled-up map of the city.

Oh, Los Angeles. What a beautiful testament to spitting in God’s face. A city of this size in the middle of the fucking desert shouldn’t exist, especially not as it stands now with all the new houses being built so hastily right next to highly flammable trees but hey, what would he know about architecture? He’s just one of about 2 million people making due here, wasn’t complaining about the perpetual glory of the sun and the banger joints it had to offer. That’s why he’ll lazily scan the map with the smile still on his face, is using the back end of his pen to trace all the x’s to see if he could make sense of the scattershot killings. 

And nothing. Louis’ eyes are too fatigued at this point to make heads or tails of where this cheeky girl does her dirty work, so after a good fifteen minutes of fruitless staring, the detective decides he too should just call it in and try to enjoy his weekend before the grind resumes again.

Well, 

Few things reset the mental better than a nice stroll home, right? Normally, Louis would prefer the swift fifteen minutes it takes him to get from here to his apartment, but he every so often tries to keep his body as limber as his mind and opts for the relaxing 45 minute stroll instead. That’s how you get one chipper detective whistling some of his favorite songs to himself as he begins the walk, both hands in his pockets with one gripping his revolver in case a little bitch wants to try it.

No bitch does, though. Matter of fact, the walk started to bore the detective with how few people were out on this side of the city for what should be a bustling Friday night. To amuse himself as a result, Louis stops about halfway through when he notices a busted street lamp that flickers on and off and off and on, takes a right towards it despite it being on the off-beaten path. 

Cheap fucking idiots.

Louis now thinks in amusement, lips curling into the hint of a smirk. Can’t even be assed to fix the lights ‘cause we don’t make as much money on this side of the city. Bet it’s all going to those stupid mansion parties where they all fuck and do blow.  

Rustle, jingle, creak. The sound of a dumpster lid gets the detective curious considering the absolute lack of existence going on, so he and his noisy self peer down the alley on his left.  .  .

.  .  .where Louis Morningstar sees something that changes his entire life: a young man who he’ll guess is in his mid-twenties dumping a garbage bag that’s oddly uniform for trash. Instead of random shit like rotten food and plastic bottles jutting out from the edges, it looked more to the detective like two small tree trunks with rounded ends, the black of the bag wrapped near around them.

Then it hits him: It wasn’t fucking bark this guy was pushing, they were a pair of disembodied legs.  And then, then, Louis does his double take at the man who’s so casually yeeting the hacked-up limbs into the dumpster’s abyss, finds himself more stunned at the gorgeous sway of his long, straight hair than he is about finding –

The Barbie Killer.

Louis concludes with a breathy little smile, his lilac eyes widening at the sight. I think I’ve found The Barbie Killer!

And God, what a looker this wicked bastard was indeed. Louis would only be proven more right about that one when the killer drops the lid with a heavy clang,  dusts off his gloved hands, and turns to face the detective for one brief second with the street lamp deciding now is the time it wants to work; Louis’ gaze then meets a set of rich, blue eyes more bruising than the Pacific Ocean with skin so tan and hair so blonde it’d make Hollywood itself jealous.

---

When he was a child, Mikaeli (Michael) Hadad’s favorite toy in the world wasn’t legos, or dinosaurs, or even those goofy, plastic tool sets they give little boys to practice how to be a man. No. Michael’s favorite thing to play with was the recently minted Barbie doll; when it made its debut back in 1927, the first thing the blonde did was yank on his father’s jumpsuit while angrily waving the toy catalogue about saying ‘this, this, I want this, get it for me, please – ‘

Which Yahweh did, why wouldn’t he? Michael was his spoiled brat through and through; Barbie then arrived just a week later, a pristine, plastic woman with her blonde hair tucked back in an elegant side bun that complimented a long, glittering black dress that flared out like a mermaid tail at the end.

And it was good. Good until Michael realized that his Barbie was alone ‘like you hate being when dad has to go visit Iran’ he’d say, much to Yahweh’s bittersweet amusement. Fortunately for them both, Ken came out just a few months later, and was ordered so promptly that the blonde didn’t even have to ask.

And it was good. Good until Michael then realized there was a problem with this set up: Barbie was a girl and Ken was a boy, but Michael was pretending he was Barbie so he could date the Ken because he preferred Kens to Barbies. Naturally, Yahweh at first offered to just get Michael another Ken so it was easier for him, but Michael said Ken isn’t pretty the way he wants to be pretty, which is why he loved the Barbie so much. He then complained how Ken’s hair wasn’t long like Barbie’s and Michael just assumed all men should have long hair like his dads did, leading him to stop playing with them altogether. 

As with all good parents, though, Yahweh figured out a solution, an expensive one where he dialed up Martel’s manufacturer and told their asses to custom make ‘better looking dolls because my son hates your product.’ Then, after a lot of cursing and a couple of phone slams, two new dolls were slapped on their front door a month later. 

And now, now it was good! The Ken was a lot more handsome with all that long, shaggy hair and deeper skin (because he was too pasty, said Michael), and the Barbie, well. The Barbie was technically neither a Barbie or a Ken but somebody in between, for it had the Barbie’s body (I like her waist, I want it, said Michael) but not the breasts because he didn’t have those and they made no sense to him. As a result, the doll looked exactly how he wanted to look one day: a handsome gal with long, silken blonde hair, tanned skin, and pouty lips. 

(“Someday, father, you think I really will?”

“Of course, Mikaeli! If Barbie can be anything, so can you.”)

And those were the words Michael kept close to his heart right up to this very moment. You know, the one where we pan to him taking a real casual stroll down a dark alley with a pair of legs slung over his shoulder. Since Barbie could be anything, Michael ended up doing the same: he could sew, hunt, cook, and skin. He could dance, fight, throw, catch. Science and religion were friends, not enemies. Math and Literature make music, who knew?

“Yet nobody knows what it’s like to be anything with no way to decide.”

The killer concludes aloud, is talking to the legs since they were his only companion for the moment. “If I can do it all, what’s left for me to conquer?”

Naturally, the legs don’t answer. Once Michael arrives at the lone dumpster bin hiding behind the shut-down library, he’ll flop them down by the metal body of the container and give them a good ol’ smack, lips twitching into the bare hint of a grin. “Eh, not like you would know, would ‘ya? You barely got ten kills under your belt before I folded you like take out, you two bit joke of a killer.”

Rustle, jingle, creeeeaaaaak. Michael opens up the lid, nose scrunching up into clear disgust at the stench that greets him. Whatever, that’s Los Angeles for you. Anyway, he’ll prop open the lid for a tick so he can reach down and grab the legs, throwing them down into the yawning abyss of garbage without ceremony. In that breath of time, he would now think with much amusement that the city decreed him The Barbie Killer, a delicious irony that tickles him pink every time he reads about those dinky little side articles saying ‘Barbie Killer at it again, new parts found at X!’

Fucking fools.

Michael concludes to himself as he slams the lid shut and dusts his nice, leather gloves of the filth that inevitably coated the dumpster. They’re never going to figure out it’s me. I’ve scattered the parts so far at the most random intervals so they can’t find anything consistent. Hell, it’d be a miracle if they even find the rest of the pieces in the ocean.

A pleased sigh now escapes the killer’s lips as he whirrs on his heel. With the rest of the ‘Bus Boy Shanker’ (stupid name if you ask Michael, by the way) disposed of, he was just going take the exit to his right and loop back around the building towards his car,

Or, at least, he would have had he not looked up to see a striking figure standing tall and proud beneath the flickering street lamp mere inches away. Along the walk, Michael noticed it go on and off and off and on in the distance, its warm, faint glow coming ever closer as he approached the alley’s end. It wasn’t worth noting in his mind and so he didn’t, especially when it wasn’t like there was a stranger standing there before this.

Doesn’t matter. There’s somebody here now and the way he’s looking at Michael has him torn; first, the ‘I-prefer-denial’ parts of his mind tries to justify that there’s just no way he’d know, how could he? As far as this fucker was concerned, Michael was just throwing his trash away like anybody else in the city would. Then, then the critical, thinking parts of his mind realizes with the first jitters of paranoia that he wasn’t in a regular part of the city, this was the fucking ghetto and the library was straight abandoned, who the fuck else would come here? 

Last, though. . .there’s the irrational, emotional parts of his mind that, for just one, glorious second, wipe out both fear and dread alike upon registering some of the stranger’s features. He was shorter than Michael by a good several inches but no less proud in his stance, head held high with what appeared to be a smile on his lips. Beneath the light, he saw the long, elegant hair spill from his scalp like waves, which complimented his beige trenchcoat and wide-brimmed hat. Last was a set of puncturing, lilac eyes that seemed like they could rip through shadow itself, eyes that were fixed right into his own.

(‘Lord,’ both of them think at the same time without knowing it, ‘I would submit myself to the disaster of loving him.’)