For the love of Death

Anger

Detective Kenneth POV

By the end of the afternoon, the autopsy reports were on my desk. I went and made myself a cup of dark, strong coffee before settling down to read them. It confirmed what I already knew, mostly. The cause of death was a single stab wound to the chest that had punctured the heart and right lung. Death had come quickly for the poor mite. She was very drunk, but none of her possessions had been stolen, and her kidneys and liver were in perfect working order. Her name was Isabell Maka, and she was, for all intents and purposes, completely normal. Your average, every day nineteen year old.

But it was impossible to figure out a serial killers 'thing' after just one kill. Much as I disliked it, I needed to wait for kill number two before I could develop a potential profile. Until then, I needed to focus on trying to get a list of suspects, or better yet, just catch the killer outright.

There was just one problem. There was practically no evidence. The alley had no CCTV coverage, and neither did the street outside the club. The exterior of the club itself only had one camera, and because it was pointing at the door, it hadn't picked up anything suspicious. It told us what time the girl left which let us estimate the time of death more accurately, but that was about it. The team my boss assigned to me had combed the alley all day, but to no avail. The killer hadn't left any DNA, not even a single hair. The ground was grubby concrete, so no footprints showed up. The entire alley had been dusted twice, but no trace of a fingerprint. The entrance wound showed that it was a kitchen knife, which was utterly useless.

Everyone and their mothers had access to a kitchen knife. Had the murder weapon been left behind, that would have given us something at least, but no. We weren't catching a break. The only thing I could do was recommend more patrols in the area.
"You got anything?" I looked up with a start. My boss was stood in the doorway, an exhausted look that mirrored mine on his face.
"Nothing. This guy is either an expert, or seriously lucky. I hate to say it, but we either need to catch him in the act, or wait for him to strike again." Muscles jumped in his jaw. I understood how he was feeling, I didn't like it anymore than he did.

But our hands were tied. The only thing that keeping me going was my family. My family, which was soon going to grow. My darling Marlene was pregnant.

***********************************

It was the next day, and I honestly thought we were out of leads. No one had come forward, and no one else had died. I sighed deeply, and let my head fall into my hands.
"Detective!" I jerked upright at the harsh cry. A rookie to the force had just burst into my office, panting and red in the face.
"What is it?" I grumbled. I had a terrible migraine coming on.
"There's been another murder. A prostitute in the seedy part of town. Possibly the same person." From this we could figure out the MO! I leapt to my feet and hurried from the office.

THE DEVIL HIMSELF POV

I stood and stretched out my limbs. I had been sat on my throne for hours now, dictating my will to those who served me. My plan was coming together brilliantly. Slowly, I was shifting the balance of souls.

I wasn't the one who started this. God was. He'd started to shift the balance of soul distribution in his favour, so slow that it took me a few decades to notice it. He'd been subtle. I still didn't know his motivation for it, but I wasn't going to roll over and let it happen. So I pulled the balance back towards me, and I didn't dawdle. After all, subtlety wasn't exactly my forte. I entered my office and sat in the blood red leather chair. Finally, some chance to be alone. I still hadn't gotten word from the seven deadly sins or the four horsemen. How irritating.

It was their fault this was happening anyway. If they had told me the balance was shifting, we could have talked it out. But no. They stuck their damn heads in the sand and did nothing about it. I didn't care if they were neutral, they were either with me or against me. If they were with me, I would reward them handsomely when I won the war. And if they were against me, well, they were in for a world of pain.