Fic: Prologue: Blood, Brass and Bounties; R; Death Note AU
Title: Prologue: Blood, Brass, and Bounties
Fandom: Death note
Pairing: N/A ATM
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Naomi Misora, L
Warnings: Some minor violence
Word Count: 2,195
Author's Note: This is a Steampunk AU written for dn_contest's Historical AU challenge. For those not familiar with Steampunk, it's essentially a blending of Victoriana with a science fiction or fantasy bent. Some examples include the works of Jules Verne, League of Extraordinaty Gentlemen, The Time Machine, and even Fullmetal Alchemist. And while I intended this to be just a little 'case' fic, it sort of spiraled into a Steampunk detective novel, so this is...a stand alone prologue, so to speak.
Summary: A serial killer, dead rent boys, a secret military 'archeological dig' in the desert, and the confusing death of a vacationing Gentleman all point to something amiss in the village of Tabernas. And it's up to the world's greatest crime solver and his bounty hunting companion to solve the mystery!
A dry desert wind blew in from the low rising mountains, carrying dust and heat into the village of Tabernas. Naomi ‘Massacre’ Misora stood outside a small tavern, one hand on her hip and the other raising a brass spyglass to her eye.
She had tracked her target across the Tabernas desert, on foot, on mule and on airship. She’d tracked him further, since before the borders of Spain, and still he eluded her.
No matter. She’d find him and bring him in if she had to follow him to the Americas or beyond. Her reputation as one of the continent’s most skilled bounty hunters was deserved for a reason.
Seeing nothing in the vast expanse of canyons and cliffs that filled the desert, Naomi put away her spy glass and entered the tavern. There were still the mountains to the other side of the village, but with the setting sun and the treacherous ground, she wasn’t going to bother today. The tavern would provide something to drink, and perhaps information.
Maybe. It was a run down, dirty little place. Tabernas had little to offer anyone, other than a few ruins and a place to lay low and hide from the law.
The tavern was nearly empty and Naomi took a seat at the bar. Her red leather long-coat was caked with dust, and her white blouse looked as though it hadn’t been washed in weeks and the lace that spilled out from under her jacket sleeves was wilted and ragged.
Ordering a beer, the bounty hunter surveyed the meager assortment of ne’er do wells and ruffians. She doubted any of them would be able to help her. They were a motley crew, dirty and poor and ragged and probably locals. She didn’t mind greasing a few palms when she had to, but it would be pointless in a place like this.
Tabernas may as well have been the end of the earth. The place stank of despair and death, and airships had to be paid special to make a stop at the edge of the desert. Most passed over, heading to more populated locals like Madrid or Barcelona, but Naomi’s trail had led her to this little dead end hell hole.
And the beer was bad. Scowling, Naomi left a coin on the counter beside the still-full glass of alcohol. She didn’t need a drink that badly - besides, watered down piss wasn’t going to have any effect.
The tavern offered rooms, but she’d seen a cleaner looking in a few streets up. She headed there, bowed against the hot desert wind. She needed to check in with her employer, after all.
***
Once settled into her small room, Naomi stripped out of her dusty and travel worn clothes and lit a fire beneath the tub in the washroom. She’d been lucky to find a room with a transmissions console installed. In a place like this, she’d been sure she’d need to reach her employer through telegraph. And lucky as well to find the rooms cooled, a relief from the burning sun.
It was a real nasty son of a bitch she was after this time. His reign of killing had started in Romania and continued all across Europe. His preferred victims were rent-boys, the pretty young things that haunted alleys and cheap pleasure houses. They were beaten to death and their faces mutilated.
The grainy, black and white photographs Naomi had been sent did little to display the true nature of the crimes. She looked at them as she soaked in the bath, studying the empty eye sockets, the ragged holes where ears once were, and the bulging, bisected tongues. The killer’s trademark.
She’d seen enough killers to know what certain patterns meant. Beatings by hand were personal. Post-mortem injuries were personal. Highly specialized post-mortem (or pre-mortem) injuries were hints and clues to the nature of the crimes.
Local peacekeepers and militia were stumped, but Naomi felt it should be obvious. In high circles of society (and that addled middle circle, that believed themselves to be more than they were), rent boys were just another dirty little reminder of the lower classes. And they weren’t even doing good, honest labor that would benefit their betters.
They were dirty, wicked sins to indulge in. Vile. To a disturbed mind, one could even say evil.
Though Naomi was left wondering if this was a cleansing or simple shame turned to rage. It was difficult to tell. But she knew it was something along those lines. If she could just get a look at a fresh body, she was sure she could tell more.
Maybe that was a horrible thought. Maybe she’d been working with her employer for too long. But it wasn’t like Naomi was hoping some poor kid was going to get killed. Just that if one did, she’d be around to get a good look.
Tabernas had rent boys. Nothing special, nothing pretty, but teenaged boys who skulked in the alleys in low slung leather pants and vests, hoping for a little more coin by morning. The easiest thing would be to watch them, wait for the killer to strike. It was risky, but at the moment, she had no other choice. And she knew he was coming here. He stopped in all those little dead end towns, the places where people went when they didn’t want to be found.
Done with her bath, Naomi pulled on a dressing gown and powered up the old, rickety console in the bedroom. The brass box set crackled to life with a wheeze and a lurch. It rolled its paper, coughing and straining.
She tapped in the proper numbers, not worried about someone trying to hack in. While it was an old, outdated piece of junk, no one would be bothering with outgoing messages from Tabernas. Most all messages out of the place were probably along the lines of ‘send airship ASAP’.
After a few moments of pained groaning and whirring, a slip of paper was fed out of the machine. Contact.
Lafayette - no last name, nothing but simply Lafayette - was considered one of the greatest bounty hunters in the world. He wasn’t really a bounty hunter - though he was hardly shy at accepting reward - but it was the only word anyone knew to describe him. He chased down and caught criminals, and his success rate was 100%.
The only problem was, the man never showed himself. So Naomi more often than not found herself tapped to go running around for him, handling all the dirty, hands on work. Like now.
She had a complete write up of what she was looking for, and a variety of clues that would lead her to the man they hunted, but she’d reached a dead end. And she said as much, her fingers clacking over the keys rapidly.
She received one reply.
I will be there shortly.
***
Following the conversation with Lafayette, Naomi dressed in plain brown leather trousers, a white blouse and a leather duster and hit the streets again. The drunks would be out, and the rent boys, and there was a chance that she’d stumble on something to report to her employer in the morning.
Hands in her pockets to pull back her duster, pistol at her hip clearly displayed, Naomi took to the narrow, filthy alleys of Tabernas. Drunks slumped against the walls, their stink filling the still-warm streets. The alleys reeked of piss and booze and human stink, and Naomi wrinkled her nose.
The maze of alleys were devoid of coherent life. Not even the hookers - male and female alike - seemed to be out. Did they keep to the taverns? It was a possibility.
Or maybe there weren’t many, and they’d all been hired for the evening.
Winding through the narrow back streets of the dirty little town, a new smell joined the stink of human waste and wretchedness. Coppery and hot, drifting up from down the mouth of a dark alley shrouded in leaning buildings.
The smell of blood.
Naomi jogged down the alley, heart pounding. The rent boy killer had struck again! And this time she was right there. The bastard could even be just around the corner….
What lay around the corner was neither the rent boy killer or a dead rent boy. Instead, Naomi found the body of a well dressed young gentleman, beaten and bloodied, protruding tongue bisected in two and eyes plucked out of their still-bleeding sockets.
***
The great airship sailed silently over the desert, hidden by low cloud cover. Top of the line and state of the art, it made no noise as it passed. It was less a mode of transportation and more a floating mansion - housing opulent living quarters, a working kitchen, a library that rivaled even those of the elite scholars of Europe, and a variety of other amenities.
This was the airship of the world’s greatest criminal catcher, the man known only as Lafayette.
Not quite a bounty hunter - such a term was far too crass - but a man dedicated to justice. Especially in those places where justice was only as sacred as a handful of coins.
Tabernas fit the description perfectly. Naomi’s message had been less than surprising, and Lafayette - most often simply called ‘L’ - had already been on his way across the desert. The case had become slightly more complicated, and he had yet to inform his right hand of the particular circumstances that had caused her to lose her target.
Beyond Tabernas, in the mountainous desert, a military funded archeological dig was underway. He had intelligence that warned the target had slipped into the military zone, hiding among soldiers and explorers and learned men that had gathered in droves.
And the military didn’t look too kindly on bounty hunters - respectable and successful or otherwise.
They could neither land an airship or sneak across the border of a military zone. And negotiations would take weeks, perhaps even months considering the remote location.
It was, in short, a challenge. But Lafayette enjoyed challenges. And he was curious to see how Naomi would handle such an eventuality. She was quite a direct woman, not prone to subtlety or finesse. Perhaps this exercise would cure her of those habits.
The center chamber of his private airship was a novel set up. Housing the controls of the airship - the pump, the gears, the steam engine - it also held a number of glass screens, set into consoles. With those, L could see every area around and below the ship, as well as receive transmissions from great distances.
It was quite handy for gathering information and surveillance. And now, in one of the screens, he could see the lights of Tabernas flickering in the distance.
It would be easy enough to remain above the town, circling, cloaked to avoid being seen. And perhaps gather some intelligence on the dig in the mountains.
He had yet to discover exactly what it was the military was attempting to find out there. The logical assumption would be weapons of some sort, but it was uncommon to find anything more advanced than had been developed buried in the wilderness.
Perhaps something had been hidden. Rogue scientists and inventors, swearing no allegiances to anyone, weren’t entirely uncommon. Mad men, most of them, muttering and screaming in their caves and decrepit homes, crazed and containing the power to end the world if their minds were clearer.
Or perhaps less clear.
Lafayette reached for a plate of biscuits on the console, munching thoughtfully as he switched the views of his airship’s surveillance. He could see nothing in the mountains, only a few dim glows of lights beyond a low peak. Most frustrating.
Perhaps, after speaking with Naomi, they would move closer. His own cloaking technology was more advanced than the military could break - one of the perks of being wealthy and without alliance to any one government. And of course, possessing a genius mind more than capable out developting new advancements faster than the governments helped as well
Regardless, there were a variety of reasons he wished to inspect the dig.
Of course, the dig itself could be simply a cover for some military operation. Political tensions were high between a number of Europe’s countries. There were too many options and not enough facts, too many variables, and far too many hardened men with heavy firepower.
And in the midst of it all, a true killer hid.
Fandom: Death note
Pairing: N/A ATM
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Naomi Misora, L
Warnings: Some minor violence
Word Count: 2,195
Author's Note: This is a Steampunk AU written for dn_contest's Historical AU challenge. For those not familiar with Steampunk, it's essentially a blending of Victoriana with a science fiction or fantasy bent. Some examples include the works of Jules Verne, League of Extraordinaty Gentlemen, The Time Machine, and even Fullmetal Alchemist. And while I intended this to be just a little 'case' fic, it sort of spiraled into a Steampunk detective novel, so this is...a stand alone prologue, so to speak.
Summary: A serial killer, dead rent boys, a secret military 'archeological dig' in the desert, and the confusing death of a vacationing Gentleman all point to something amiss in the village of Tabernas. And it's up to the world's greatest crime solver and his bounty hunting companion to solve the mystery!
A dry desert wind blew in from the low rising mountains, carrying dust and heat into the village of Tabernas. Naomi ‘Massacre’ Misora stood outside a small tavern, one hand on her hip and the other raising a brass spyglass to her eye.
She had tracked her target across the Tabernas desert, on foot, on mule and on airship. She’d tracked him further, since before the borders of Spain, and still he eluded her.
No matter. She’d find him and bring him in if she had to follow him to the Americas or beyond. Her reputation as one of the continent’s most skilled bounty hunters was deserved for a reason.
Seeing nothing in the vast expanse of canyons and cliffs that filled the desert, Naomi put away her spy glass and entered the tavern. There were still the mountains to the other side of the village, but with the setting sun and the treacherous ground, she wasn’t going to bother today. The tavern would provide something to drink, and perhaps information.
Maybe. It was a run down, dirty little place. Tabernas had little to offer anyone, other than a few ruins and a place to lay low and hide from the law.
The tavern was nearly empty and Naomi took a seat at the bar. Her red leather long-coat was caked with dust, and her white blouse looked as though it hadn’t been washed in weeks and the lace that spilled out from under her jacket sleeves was wilted and ragged.
Ordering a beer, the bounty hunter surveyed the meager assortment of ne’er do wells and ruffians. She doubted any of them would be able to help her. They were a motley crew, dirty and poor and ragged and probably locals. She didn’t mind greasing a few palms when she had to, but it would be pointless in a place like this.
Tabernas may as well have been the end of the earth. The place stank of despair and death, and airships had to be paid special to make a stop at the edge of the desert. Most passed over, heading to more populated locals like Madrid or Barcelona, but Naomi’s trail had led her to this little dead end hell hole.
And the beer was bad. Scowling, Naomi left a coin on the counter beside the still-full glass of alcohol. She didn’t need a drink that badly - besides, watered down piss wasn’t going to have any effect.
The tavern offered rooms, but she’d seen a cleaner looking in a few streets up. She headed there, bowed against the hot desert wind. She needed to check in with her employer, after all.
***
Once settled into her small room, Naomi stripped out of her dusty and travel worn clothes and lit a fire beneath the tub in the washroom. She’d been lucky to find a room with a transmissions console installed. In a place like this, she’d been sure she’d need to reach her employer through telegraph. And lucky as well to find the rooms cooled, a relief from the burning sun.
It was a real nasty son of a bitch she was after this time. His reign of killing had started in Romania and continued all across Europe. His preferred victims were rent-boys, the pretty young things that haunted alleys and cheap pleasure houses. They were beaten to death and their faces mutilated.
The grainy, black and white photographs Naomi had been sent did little to display the true nature of the crimes. She looked at them as she soaked in the bath, studying the empty eye sockets, the ragged holes where ears once were, and the bulging, bisected tongues. The killer’s trademark.
She’d seen enough killers to know what certain patterns meant. Beatings by hand were personal. Post-mortem injuries were personal. Highly specialized post-mortem (or pre-mortem) injuries were hints and clues to the nature of the crimes.
Local peacekeepers and militia were stumped, but Naomi felt it should be obvious. In high circles of society (and that addled middle circle, that believed themselves to be more than they were), rent boys were just another dirty little reminder of the lower classes. And they weren’t even doing good, honest labor that would benefit their betters.
They were dirty, wicked sins to indulge in. Vile. To a disturbed mind, one could even say evil.
Though Naomi was left wondering if this was a cleansing or simple shame turned to rage. It was difficult to tell. But she knew it was something along those lines. If she could just get a look at a fresh body, she was sure she could tell more.
Maybe that was a horrible thought. Maybe she’d been working with her employer for too long. But it wasn’t like Naomi was hoping some poor kid was going to get killed. Just that if one did, she’d be around to get a good look.
Tabernas had rent boys. Nothing special, nothing pretty, but teenaged boys who skulked in the alleys in low slung leather pants and vests, hoping for a little more coin by morning. The easiest thing would be to watch them, wait for the killer to strike. It was risky, but at the moment, she had no other choice. And she knew he was coming here. He stopped in all those little dead end towns, the places where people went when they didn’t want to be found.
Done with her bath, Naomi pulled on a dressing gown and powered up the old, rickety console in the bedroom. The brass box set crackled to life with a wheeze and a lurch. It rolled its paper, coughing and straining.
She tapped in the proper numbers, not worried about someone trying to hack in. While it was an old, outdated piece of junk, no one would be bothering with outgoing messages from Tabernas. Most all messages out of the place were probably along the lines of ‘send airship ASAP’.
After a few moments of pained groaning and whirring, a slip of paper was fed out of the machine. Contact.
Lafayette - no last name, nothing but simply Lafayette - was considered one of the greatest bounty hunters in the world. He wasn’t really a bounty hunter - though he was hardly shy at accepting reward - but it was the only word anyone knew to describe him. He chased down and caught criminals, and his success rate was 100%.
The only problem was, the man never showed himself. So Naomi more often than not found herself tapped to go running around for him, handling all the dirty, hands on work. Like now.
She had a complete write up of what she was looking for, and a variety of clues that would lead her to the man they hunted, but she’d reached a dead end. And she said as much, her fingers clacking over the keys rapidly.
She received one reply.
I will be there shortly.
***
Following the conversation with Lafayette, Naomi dressed in plain brown leather trousers, a white blouse and a leather duster and hit the streets again. The drunks would be out, and the rent boys, and there was a chance that she’d stumble on something to report to her employer in the morning.
Hands in her pockets to pull back her duster, pistol at her hip clearly displayed, Naomi took to the narrow, filthy alleys of Tabernas. Drunks slumped against the walls, their stink filling the still-warm streets. The alleys reeked of piss and booze and human stink, and Naomi wrinkled her nose.
The maze of alleys were devoid of coherent life. Not even the hookers - male and female alike - seemed to be out. Did they keep to the taverns? It was a possibility.
Or maybe there weren’t many, and they’d all been hired for the evening.
Winding through the narrow back streets of the dirty little town, a new smell joined the stink of human waste and wretchedness. Coppery and hot, drifting up from down the mouth of a dark alley shrouded in leaning buildings.
The smell of blood.
Naomi jogged down the alley, heart pounding. The rent boy killer had struck again! And this time she was right there. The bastard could even be just around the corner….
What lay around the corner was neither the rent boy killer or a dead rent boy. Instead, Naomi found the body of a well dressed young gentleman, beaten and bloodied, protruding tongue bisected in two and eyes plucked out of their still-bleeding sockets.
***
The great airship sailed silently over the desert, hidden by low cloud cover. Top of the line and state of the art, it made no noise as it passed. It was less a mode of transportation and more a floating mansion - housing opulent living quarters, a working kitchen, a library that rivaled even those of the elite scholars of Europe, and a variety of other amenities.
This was the airship of the world’s greatest criminal catcher, the man known only as Lafayette.
Not quite a bounty hunter - such a term was far too crass - but a man dedicated to justice. Especially in those places where justice was only as sacred as a handful of coins.
Tabernas fit the description perfectly. Naomi’s message had been less than surprising, and Lafayette - most often simply called ‘L’ - had already been on his way across the desert. The case had become slightly more complicated, and he had yet to inform his right hand of the particular circumstances that had caused her to lose her target.
Beyond Tabernas, in the mountainous desert, a military funded archeological dig was underway. He had intelligence that warned the target had slipped into the military zone, hiding among soldiers and explorers and learned men that had gathered in droves.
And the military didn’t look too kindly on bounty hunters - respectable and successful or otherwise.
They could neither land an airship or sneak across the border of a military zone. And negotiations would take weeks, perhaps even months considering the remote location.
It was, in short, a challenge. But Lafayette enjoyed challenges. And he was curious to see how Naomi would handle such an eventuality. She was quite a direct woman, not prone to subtlety or finesse. Perhaps this exercise would cure her of those habits.
The center chamber of his private airship was a novel set up. Housing the controls of the airship - the pump, the gears, the steam engine - it also held a number of glass screens, set into consoles. With those, L could see every area around and below the ship, as well as receive transmissions from great distances.
It was quite handy for gathering information and surveillance. And now, in one of the screens, he could see the lights of Tabernas flickering in the distance.
It would be easy enough to remain above the town, circling, cloaked to avoid being seen. And perhaps gather some intelligence on the dig in the mountains.
He had yet to discover exactly what it was the military was attempting to find out there. The logical assumption would be weapons of some sort, but it was uncommon to find anything more advanced than had been developed buried in the wilderness.
Perhaps something had been hidden. Rogue scientists and inventors, swearing no allegiances to anyone, weren’t entirely uncommon. Mad men, most of them, muttering and screaming in their caves and decrepit homes, crazed and containing the power to end the world if their minds were clearer.
Or perhaps less clear.
Lafayette reached for a plate of biscuits on the console, munching thoughtfully as he switched the views of his airship’s surveillance. He could see nothing in the mountains, only a few dim glows of lights beyond a low peak. Most frustrating.
Perhaps, after speaking with Naomi, they would move closer. His own cloaking technology was more advanced than the military could break - one of the perks of being wealthy and without alliance to any one government. And of course, possessing a genius mind more than capable out developting new advancements faster than the governments helped as well
Regardless, there were a variety of reasons he wished to inspect the dig.
Of course, the dig itself could be simply a cover for some military operation. Political tensions were high between a number of Europe’s countries. There were too many options and not enough facts, too many variables, and far too many hardened men with heavy firepower.
And in the midst of it all, a true killer hid.