Serial Soulial killer.

This was new. What Ashford had decided he'd do. It was a new feeling. Normally, where he came from, events seemed to find him. He'd walk a short distance, find someone, and from there, he'd do what he'd been told to do. He was a good little solider like that. A pawn to a story teller. But here, he didn't have a forest to walk though. People to tell him what to do. He didn't have someone trying to weave his actions like a story.

He was in this city. LA, he had heard it being called, because there were a lot of murders recently. A lot. Strange murders, murders that many had found simple at first. A person died, and it was natural, like old age, a heart failure. But then, the body count became a little too high, and no longer was it so innocent as natural causes. Someone was causing it. A meta. A being of more mystical standings? That had been the word on the paper some news agency was selling. Someone was writing a lot about people suddenly dying with no clear cause.

Eventually, Ashford couldn't help but notice. He was a simple man, and a simple man with no clear purpose did what any man did. They found a purpose. He had Thalia to thank for that as well. The little hunt encouraged him to perhaps do some hunting himself, but while she sought prey of her kind, monsters. He was hunting a murderer. Not a monster. He'd met monsters before.

It was something to do. That and it was a good thing to do. Clearly, the law of these places couldn't find the killer. So he'd have too. After all. There was no one better to ask then the dead. But this meant he had to be smart. He couldn't just wonder, expecting to find this killer or a recently deceased of the killers. He had to find a thing called the morgue, which was ether at a police station or a hospital, so he decided the hospital would be better. After that, he needed to figure out which hospital, but a quick few questions from some people that no longer liked him told him an area where a lot of people were dropping.

After that, it was finding the morgue in that hospital. By the end of the day, not a lot of people were going to like him, and some of them were going to have some headaches. A lot of them, but he eventually made it."Cold..." That one word described a morgue. Cold. Lifeless. He supposed that it suited the resting places of these corpses. Breaking into their metal coffins was no hard task, but he always hated this part.

Resting his bandaged hand on a dead man or woman, he was gifted the sight of their life, mere fragments of it. He could direct those fragments to recent times, but these people were not killed by this mysterious killer, none of them where, not till he encountered a certain corpse. Clean, untouched. A natural murder by all common looks. Not till Ashford touched them.

When he expected the fragments to swarm. There were none. He lifted his hand, and placed it back down. Nothing. "This isn't possible... Don't tell me you're growing old coat. Your power is limited by me sure... Unless." He rested his hand once more on the dead, and when nothing came, he decided that only one case could be true. The coat dealt in souls. These dead no longer had a soul, not even a remnant of one. There deaths came from someone taking it and a few more cold touches told him that this killer had been hungry. "That's... Unexpected... And interesting. How do you catch a soul stealer?"

The homes air was scented with incense and  crackling burning paper.  Damian took in the sight of his newest victim, battered, bruised and used until he took their soul.  No more evidence than the fact they had been killed aside from broken bones, internal bleeding and the like. He wanted to see what the police would assume from this scene compared to his others. There were plenty of marks here, enough to suggest either a large  man or some kind of metahuman.  Maybe they would assume it was another killer entirely, and if that were the case then that would only lead to another long search foe someone that didn’t even exist.

He adjusted the dark blue hood over his head, covering up his hair and most of his upper facial features.  Soon enough the fire would escalate and he didn’t want to be there when it did, leaping through an open window and landed on the ground below with a silent thud.  Grass crunched underneath, smoke quickly beginning to pour through the windows and rising into the sky. That would draw some people, though he wondered how long it would take for them to find the body. So many questions  and the wait that came for an answer.  So he picked out a cafe a few blocks away from the site,  walking through and allowing his hood to slip down.

A pretty waitress smiled at him and offered as menu as he sat down. He perused the laminated pages, eyes scanning over them until he picked out a simple burger and a basket of fries with a brand of cola that was popular at the time. Soon enough the sound of sirens could be heard, a fire truck  zooming past an exterior window with those bright flashing lights.

“Wonder what that’s all about,” The waitress wondered out loud settling down a refill to a pleasant smile from him.

”Don’t know. Nothing good likely,” He stated with faux-worry that sounded convincing enough to him. Maybe if he was lucky a detective of hero would begin to investigate this, because that sounded interesting. Enough to  kill even, though he wondered what their soul would be compared to the average people he went after.

Only one way to find out.

Minutes later, a coroner came into the morgue with a diener, but Ashford didn't learn those roles till after he'd closed in behind them, surprising the two with a hi and knocking them to the ground. Still not making any friends, but he at least learned something. The coroner, willingly, albeit under threat of a sore head in the morning, told Ashford how to find the addresses of the deceased, and the diener led him to the computer that told him how. It was, all for all, a rather pleasant conversation and transaction.

"Why?" The coroner questioned, having thought he knew how these men and woman had died. Sudden death syndrome he called it, Ashford laughed.

"I suppose sudden death is a side effect of having one's soul removed so violently." Ashford insinuated as he gathered the addresses, and then had one of them teach him how to find said addresses with the computer. It was rather easy he learned. Too easy for his liking, but he wasn't going to argue results. The deaths had been in a square just about, like a safe zone of city blocks. Made sense in a few ways.

Could be this killer was new, getting their feet wet. More so, could be that this was their hunting grounds. He had only just gotten here, but who knew how long this had been really happening. "Starting to think like Hunter I am." Grumbling, Ashford thanked the two, and then proceeded to make sure they'd wake up with a sore head in the morning. Perhaps a little lighter then what he could have done, at least.

Avoiding the way he had taken into the morgue, Ashford found the hospital abuzz with life, and quickly asked someone what was happening. They explained that a fire had broken out, unsurprisingly, around the area he had figured to be the killers safe zone. Looking for someone of higher regard, he soon found a paramedic and stopped her. "What?"

"Your phone. I need you to look something up for me." He insisted, but she looked at him aghast, telling him that she had no time. But from what he knew, the fire had been roaring for a while, anyone who hadn't been evacuated from the building, would already be dead. She didn't like his tone, trying to move from him and leave. He was determined. "Look. Call it a hunch, but I might know where to find who started the fire, and yes, I think someone started it, I just need you to tell me where someone might go to... I don't know, relax. Where would you go. Please." He stated, and the paramedic relented, telling him of several places one could go in the area, and when he asked for what was closer to the location of the fire, he smiled.

He did like coffee. But... He couldn't just start a wild goose chase. This wasn't a forest where people sought him out. This was a city, and one he didn't know. But a soul stealer... Maybe if he made himself obvious, he could draw attention, of course, that was if he could get in sight of this killer, and if the fire was even related. Albeit, Ashford had to hope it was, and so he had to treat it like it was.

Leaving the hospital, he rolled up his sleeves so that his bandaged and metal arms could be easily seen. Not that he didn't standout, armed with a rapier, a fleshy mess of a dagger and another dagger just hidden under his coat, he was a stand out in any crowd if he could find himself in one. But the more the merrier. Dangerous, considering who it was he hunted for. But it was what he was going to do anyway. Walk by the cafe's and coffee places, glance around. See if he attracted a follower.

A terrible plan, maybe. But it wasn't like he had much other a choice, and despite his prior negative outlook on things being a goose chase... He always had a way of finding trouble. And having trouble find him.