Work Text:
Southern Steak Recipe [circa 1920s]
[Addition #2 to the New Orleans Ripper case files]
Ingredients:
- 1 round steak
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 1 teaspoon salt & pepper
- 2 teaspoons oregano
Instructions:
- Tenderize the meat, by beating it with a meat tenderizer, or hatchet in some cases
- Fry the meat in a large pan, and fry it in cooking oil until it’s brown on both sides
- Let it simmer for a good while until tender, turning it occasionally
- While still in the pan, though with the stove turned off, sprinkle salt and pepper over the meat along with oregano
- Serve on a plate in quarter portions
***
[March 22nd, 1931]
Vincent really should be just as inconsequential to Alastor as any other person he’d spoken to over the course of his incarceration. Among those were many therapists that he thought he was doing much better when he acted like so, a particularly annoying warden of the prison, multiple nurses(including the one he’d taken a bite of), and the agent, now demoted to an analyst girl. All mostly blips in Alastor’s thoughts.
Vincent, however, was an entire paradox upon himself. He seemed to be insistent on the fact that he disliked Alastor and would avoid him as much as he could manage the second he could, yet proceeded to visit him more than a month after his work stopped making him do so.
The man was at his heels, chasing wherever he could be, along with that lovely little Morningstar.
Alastor was one to admit that being so desperately wanted this quickly—even if it was just so that he could be put in prison again—after his little escape stunt was quite nice.
He’d been following the ventures of that charming belle likewise to Vincent’s, and Vincent had been accordingly rewarded for putting up with talking to Al from what he’d seen, something about how they needed everybody who knew anything about Alastor’s personality on the case.
Considering that most everybody who knew Alastor was either dead, just as psychotic, or had a completely untrue view on Alastor’s personality, the only people who’d they really gotten for it were Miss Morningstar, and Vincent, despite the fact that he wasn’t an investigator.
It was safe to say in all the seven years that Alastor had stagnantly resided in one place he hadn’t been found.
It wasn’t even that subtle of a spot. He’d picked France after his escape, and simply went to Paris, because he knew some French. Not a difficult thought process to have, even if nobody technically knew about the fact that he knew any French. It was more Creole French than anything in the first place, but the point withstood.
Alastor had given himself an alias that wasn’t even subtle too. Dario as the last name. A very easy, simple anagram of Radio that somehow hadn’t gotten him caught.
The chase still continued with those investigators no matter how many hints Alastor dropped like breadcrumbs. They never had come close to finding him in seven years. It truly was a little ridiculous. Pathetic, even. That they couldn’t do their job properly. The only person who’d been smart enough to humble Alastor for his crimes was Rosie, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen that Alastor knew of.
Alastor had driven her into retirement, or something of the kind after almost getting her child killed, though. That was the events Alastor remembered hearing about. One day the papers were all talking about how Rosie was a saintly savior to everybody for catching Alastor, and the next thing everybody had known, she was retiring from her work.
It was a shame, really. One of the only three FBI agents that were also women at the time; one of the others had also retired, and the third one was Morningstar, who was too stubborn to quit and simply got demoted to an analyst—fault of the new policy about women being special agents—as a favor to her father.
Regardless, Alastor took some enjoyment in the fact that he had mindgames to play with people who hadn’t figured him out quite yet, even if mindgames with those who understood him like he was a puzzle; just with more pieces than the rest, were also quite enjoyable.
Alastor almost wanted to be caught at this point. After all, being caught in prison was what had brought him to his newest playthings. Interviews and things of the like.
It was a ridiculous notion for someone like him, to want to be caught hiding undercover in a church in Paris with an exceedingly obvious anagram of a last name; in fact, the idea sounded almost ridiculous, yet he was still curious if Vincent would look just as smug as Alastor has while handcuffing him.
Vincent truly was a parallel to Alastor sometimes. Alastor does wonder if he would have ended up like Vincent if not for the murder. Stuck in a dull cycle in a job that used to be fun. Vincent had tossed around the word egotistical, or the word narcissistic, when describing Alastor, to his face, but Alastor could certainly pinpoint the ego on Vincent easily.
The man was much more fun than Alastor could have expected from some reporter that hadn’t even wanted to speak to Alastor in the first place, and messing with him was just as fun.
Once Alastor had questioned what Vincent would taste like. He’s always wondered if ego is something that you can tell from the taste of human meat, because somehow the arrogant ones always taste worse in Alastor’s mind. Perhaps he’s delusional and making things up for his case.
When he said that it was only cannibalism if they were equals, he meant it. If the person was below him, it was more like eating some game meat than a person, really. Yet, the court was simply insistent on prosecuting him. It was too obvious that they’d never tried cannibalism before. It was much too drastic of a crime in the court system than what it was in real life. Sure, it might be a little Jack the Ripper-esque often enough, but the killing was almost always an unavoidable aspect of the crime.
Regardless, Alastor was a felon, but he couldn’t be that bad. People were obsessed with him in the media, and it certainly showed how twisted all of society was. Everybody found their own entertainment in murder and all sorts of crimes, whether imagining them, or reading about it at breakfast; serial killers were simply the ones bold enough to make the entertainment and embrace the sadism deeply rooted into culture.
Alastor was almost certain that he didn’t serve as only the murderer of thirteen, but also as the topic of conversation between two bored children in the middle of a class. And he didn’t mind it.
Radio was entertainment; serial killing was entertainment. Alastor had always been an entertainer, no matter what he was doing. And how, he loved it. The attention and the glory, even as a wanted criminal.
And perhaps that was why he found Vincent so intriguing. The man was after him so very much, practically tripping over himself in obsession, even if his motives were supposedly rooted in hatred for Alastor’s immoral actions.
Loathing or not; Vincent was still desperate when it came to Alastor, in all his murderous glory, and how Alastor did love something so very pathetic.
***
[April 10th, 1931]
Alastor’s greatest enjoyment in murder had always been the victim’s torture. And he had not failed to do that with the detective finally catching onto his identity.
Hung up on the church’s crucifix. Disemboweled. Alastor had lots of fun with that blood. Cleaning it up would’ve been a chore, but this murder was a lucky public spectacle of his.
The man had been relatively nice, Alastor certainly didn’t mind conversation with him when he wasn’t complaining about something, but there was no kindness for those who tried to stop Alastor. They only met death. Depraved ones, more often than not.
Alastor always relished in that kind of murder. They were the most fun. Watching the fear fill the eyes of someone who hadn’t known a thing about what kind of person he was, or better yet, watching somebody who did know and was helpless to do anything about that fact, die by his hand.
The splatters of blood and gore on the floor were always a welcome part of the act, considering Al was far from one to love cleaning up the thick liquid left by bodies. Every time they coated his knives, he could still smell the iron from the blood after washing them.
He could still feel the blood stains on his hands after washing them. And he adored it more than anything. Everything was in his control and nothing was. It was all exhilarating.
He’d kept his murders much too on the down low for his taste in the past seven years, only really going after two others quietly, one endangering his cover, and the other simply to be petty, and because he was starving for another taste of human flesh.
This one, sure, he had an excuse for, considering the man had been closer to catching him than Morningstar and Whittman were, but Alastor had still gone overboard. He was a showman, and without a show to host for so long, he’d certainly gotten back in the market with a splash.
It was all he could see in the front covers of newspapers, front and center of the numerous billboards around the city and what all the radio stations had been speaking about when he flicked through them this morning. It was the prior thought on his mind as he walked to church for work, acting like someone struck by tragedy while all he really should be doing is grinning from ear to ear. He had technically worked with the man, so he’d have to act tiresomely upset for the rest of the day, but once he got home, he could celebrate with a nice whiskey and simply wait for the bureau to catch on for as long as they took.
The best part about it was how nobody had caught on. Not in the slightest. Alastor got to walk around like someone normal as he had for the past seven years, and no one suspected a thing.
And with the inflation to his narcissism, Alastor landed on getting even more upfront with Whittman and Morningstar being the best next course of action. So he purchased his plane ticket that very night, and fell asleep with an unnerving smile on his face.
That’s how he ended up on a flight to New Orleans early in the morning, flicking through a newspaper with it’s headline about his recent murder that had obviously not been traced back to him, but he certainly hoped that if either of them saw it, Whittman or Morningstar would be smart enough to suspect it.
Though, he doubted that they had enough time to flick through every crime report in all the countries of the world—considering how long it already took news to reach other places—and correlate them to Alastor.
Ah, well, at the very least, Alastor had left Paris with a treat. The city was too nice to torment all that much. Now that he was on his way back to New Orleans, no one was safe unless they were his lovely toys.
***
[July 15th, 1931]
Oh, caught at last. Technically. For all of Alastor’s ego, he’d known it would happen. And he never thought he’d like that fact so very much. Never thought that it would be so very entertaining for him to be right on the edge of being handcuffed and sent right back to that dreadful prison in New Orleans.
Well, he was probably the farthest from handcuffed in this room. Vincent was passed out on the bed, Alastor not bothering to do anything other than drag him to said bed after drugging him. He’d tied Charlie to the bedframe, who was also passed out. The only reason she’d been tied up was because of her access to self defense and weapons—perks of the FBI employment thing, Alastor would say.
Though, Alastor had found a gun and badge on Vincent. His guess was that the man had gone through the required training in the seven years they hadn’t interacted with, especially taking into account his involvement in Alastor’s case.
The two of them had cornered Alastor in the quaint little home he’d landed in that night—due to the fact that he was murdering the tenant—after finally following his extensive hints dropped for the pair of them. He’d left behind notes, flowers, newspaper clippings, and even an article about one about his own murders, all throughout the past month. He was simply someone taunting, and he’d had his fill with all of it.
Luckily enough for him, though, they’d finally gotten the minds to catch up. Not the minds capable of beating him just yet, but the pair was certainly on their way at this rate. Seven more years and perhaps he’d be back in prison. They really should get Rosie back if they wanted to put Alastor back behind bars.
The door pushed open with a soft click at the pressure of Alastor’s arm, his eyes flicking back to check on the state of the drugged analyst and drugged reporter(or new FBI agent)—still passed out—before he closed it, wandering into the the main room of the house, which happened to be the kitchen and dining table he’d left a dead body at.
Alastor hummed to himself as he rummaged through the cabinets and drawers of the kitchen in search of a pan and some oil, the corpse in the room sitting on the head chair of the table where he’d left it, halfway collapsed.
When he found the two objects he was looking for, he placed the pan on the stove with an absentminded look back to the door across the room, eagerly anticipating the wake up of one of the two in there. They’d probably be too drugged to even try anything; or at least succeed at any arrests.
As the oil simmered on the pan in the background, Alastor’s hands brushed over the knives collected in the kitchen before he picked the smallest one in the drawer, though also the sharpest one. The knife’s shine reflected Alastor’s manically lit up eyes in the light as he turned it, and Alastor was certainly glad that the man who owned this house kept his knives as sharp as a hunter’s. A dull knife simply wouldn’t do.
As he walked back to the body with a knife in hand, it slumped further. Alastor’s hand hovered over the head of the corpse, measured knife grazing the skin on the fresh corpse’s face, just barely not cutting it as Alastor lined the part of the head he’d have to cut, before he cut in like the body was a simple piece of meat and he was the butcher.
To him, it really was.
He lifted the upper part of the head to find the brain he’d been expecting, using the knife once again to cut into the brain this time. He took two pieces from the vital body part, popping one into his mouth raw and taking the other in his hand as he turned back to the stovetop.
He placed the small piece of it he got onto the pan nearby him, oil making a few splashes as the meat hit the surface, just as a stumbling Vincent wandered in from the bedroom of the house, leaning heavily against the wall. Good to know the drugs were this effective.
“Oh, you’re up, honey?” Alastor mocked as Vincent’s now wide eyes locked onto the lifeless body oozing with blood from the brain, Alastor wiping off the blood on the sharp knife with a finger as he spoke. He let some of the blood drip onto the pan from his finger before dragging the latter half of it left over his tongue. He’d had better.
“You…” Vincent reached a hand up to his head, rubbing at his temple. He obviously had a headache from the drugs, as Alastor had presumed earlier. Vincent pointed to the body. “I…I knew that guy. I talked to him yesterday morning and…”
Vincent’s freaked out rambling trailed off as he kept on forward with a hopeless lean against the wall, obviously not in an ideal state.
“Is Charlie up too yet?” Alastor questioned him simply, walking over to take Vincent’s arm, draping it over his shoulders to support the man until he could put him in a chair right next to that body. That terror on Vincent’s face maximized would truly be one of the most wonderful sights of Alastor’s life.
As Alastor pushed him down into the chair, Vincent’s eyes locked onto not the corpse as Al had suspected, but instead the sizzling piece of brain on the pan. His expression held the same terror; disgust too, that Alastor had wanted, so he was satisfied all the same.
“You’re deranged. And disgusting,” Vincent managed, simply not answering Alastor’s question. He looked positively nauseated the longer he looked at the pan that was directly in view from his seat. Alastor simply thought that the meat was probably going to burn if he neglected it too long. Oh well. He still had the other part of the meat that was a lot more than what he’d taken to cook if that piece didn’t succeed.
“Come now, Vincent, don’t be rude,” Alastor smiled, grabbing Vincent’s face with a light grip, the red blood on his fingers already staining the man’s pale skin. “Haven’t I ever told you how much I value manners?”
“You can’t value manners when you’re cooking someone’s brain,” Vincent replied, trying to shake his head out of the grip and failing to do so; showing just how much the drugs had messed up his system, considering how light Alastor’s handle on him was.
“Oh, but I used my mother’s recipe!” Alastor cooed, letting go of Vincent’s head to wander back over to the pan. While he technically did use his mother’s recipe, he had far from properly followed the recipe that was originally meant for steak. Oh well.
Alastor picked a spatula from the collection of utensils by the stove, flipping the almost burnt piece of brain with a casualness to the motion of someone utterly practiced in such twisted recipes.
“That’s…that’s not…” Vincent groaned, the drug likely kicking in again as his expression filled with more discomfort than disgust. Alastor, in turn, simply opened up the fridge without any show of concern, peering through the mostly empty appliance until he picked up a container filled with basil. Not quite oregano, but it’d do.
“Keep an eye on this for me, will you, darling?” Alastor asked Vincent as he sprinkled the herb into the pan, followed by an addition of three more pieces of brain. “Wouldn’t want my little meal to burn.”
Vincent glances up from where he stares down at the table with a look that’s both horrified and annoyed. Alastor does not bother to wait for a response from the affronted man before he’s walking back over to the bedroom to go check on Miss Morningstar.
Charlie is most certainly more awake than Vincent—Alastor had suspected that would be what would happen, considering long time FBI agents typically have a much higher level of resistance to torture, and she was a former one for long enough—but she’s also thankfully tied up, because Alastor plans ahead.
“What did you do?” Charlie asks, looking disgusted with Alastor more so than Vincent had, and he’d seen brains. Guess Morningstar has the highest moral compass between the three of them.
Her expression was quite the contrast to the oddly bright smiles she’d given Alastor back all those years ago when he was in prison, like she thought someone like him could be redeemed. Silly girl. Much too hopeful, that one. She’d have to learn the ways of modern society if she wanted to fare well in this world.
“Oh, calm down, Charlie dear,” Alastor gave a disappointed tsk as he crouched down to meet her eye level, knife still brandished in his hand as he dragged it down Charlie’s cheek. “There’s only one dead body out there, not a whole collection of them. I have a little self-control, you know.”
“You shouldn’t be—” Charlie cut herself off hopelessly, head falling back against the corner of the bedframe with a thump to avoid the grazing touch of the knife Alastor wielded. The scent of the currently grilling brain wafted into the air of the room, Alastor noting that it was probably on the verge of burning.
“Why are you cooking something?!” Charlie exclaimed with horror, head snapping back to check Alastor, but instead looking back to the closed doors, and then her constraints.
“Don’t you ever remember that I’m a cannibal?” Alastor said with a dry sigh, standing back up. He dropped the knife by Charlie’s feet. If the girl was smart, she’d figure out how to get out of her constraints after Alastor leaves. “And if you’ll excuse me, I do believe I have to check on that cooking you mentioned. Don’t want to disappoint the ones I’m cooking for. The media will surely be curious about it.”
“Don’t—!” Charlie protested halfway, Alastor not even bothering to listen as his eyes locked onto a slumped over Vincent. Passed out again, he supposed.
Alastor tapped Vincent’s head, who surprisingly looked up at the touch. So he had recovered from a second passing out, or simply sat in silence the whole way through. Those drugs were either really in his system, or he was letting Alastor get away with his crimes for some reason.
“You’re feeling useless today, hmm?” Alastor quipped, shooting Vincent a glance of pure depraved delight before he strolled back over to the pan leisurely. He pushed the contents of the pan around with the spatula lying by it he’d left.
“You drugged me!” Vincent snapped, sitting up properly only to fall back against the chair once more. Vincent didn’t bother to struggle against his sluggish state any longer after that one.
“Same difference,” Alastor shrugged, turning the stove off with a twist of the knob next to it, shuffling the food onto a clean plate from the cabinet. It hit the ceramic with a satisfying plop, oil dripping from the rim of the pan. “Feeling useless, being drugged. They’re linked enough.”
“They should put you back in prison,” Vincent muttered as his eyes trailed the meal. A lovely home cooked one, Alastor would call it. Alastor did tend to eat most human meat raw, but it truly was a delicacy when cooked. It was unfortunate that Vincent would never deign to try the food because of some silly little moral compass.
Alastor only hummed a happy tune, one that was intended to resemble of ‘When You’re Smiling’, a recent song from a few years ago that he quite enjoyed.
Alastor placed the plated meal of greens and brains on the table in front of the corpse, stabbing a fork into one piece of the brains. He swallowed it with a contemplating hum, dropping the fork back onto the plate.
Quite delectable.
Alastor turned his head, surveying the room with curiosity before he decided to go over to the radio in the room, turning it on with a click. He switched through the channels with an intrigued look, listening to each song or chattering on it until he found one that he decided he liked—
Vincent shook his head once again, something that looked more like desperation in those heterochromic eyes showing. “I am not letting you get away again, you crazy mass murderer bitch.”
"You’ll have to. You know, when life becomes maddeningly polite, think about me,” Alastor mused to Vincent, neglecting the steaming plate of food past the one bite as he reached for the coat of his he’d put on the hanger like someone there for a polite visit and not a murder. “Think about me, Vincent, don't worry about me."
“What?” Vincent said helplessly, words only further ignored by Alastor yet again as he pushed open the door, planning to simply leave the house in plain sight at whatever late hour of night it was—around 1:00 AM, he suspected.
“Make sure the police know that the meal’s a gift from me!” Alastor chirped before closing the door shut behind him and stepping out into the street with a sigh, moonlight bathing his skin along with the perfectly cool air of a summer night.
Now, where to next?
***
NEW ORLEANS RIPPER FILE #1
Date of crime: July 15th-16th, 1931
Location of crime: New Orleans, 17th Street SE
Victim(s): Adam Turiag
Witness(es): Vincent Whittman, Charlie Morningstar
Type of crime: Murder, highly possible cannibalism
Assigned to: Agent Whittman
Suspects: N/A
Notes: drugs found in systems of both witnesses, meaning some claims they make could be invalid. Radio in the room was playing a station talking about a murder that occured in Paris a few months ago, which could be a nod to this being the same killer as the one there, someone who took inspiration from that murder, or the radio could be a reference to the ‘Radio Demon’ killer, which could also make him inspiration to the crime.
Case #2096