Asad from Seville

Mahdism doesn't just cause wars. As an ethos and a mythos, its (minor) influence has extended to every aspect of Iberian global culture, Christian and Muslim.

Mahdism has shaped the Ibero-Romance languages, giving them metaphors just like Jacobitism gave English sub rosa IRL. It's established an iconography and a lexicon of motifs (the keys on the necklace, hunter green shot through with silver thread) that are recognized worldwide. It's been a recurring inspiration for a pan-Iberian artistic corpus - especially a lyrical corpus: Mahdism has produced marches favored by directors as far south as the CRC, and its melodies have been set to different lyrics and become recognized as far away as Japan.

That said, though, Mahdism's mostly felt through its violence. It's caused three wars in Iberia itself; it's caused no end of troubles in Spanish North Africa, not counting the infamous Chergui; it is the impetus for considerable terrorism, especially that of the G1200.

The most legendary Mahdist terrorism, though, may have been neither Mahdist nor terrorist. We would call it the work of a serial killer, but when he struck there was no word in any language to describe the carnage he left behind.

That terrorism was the work of a single man, Asad from Seville.

The lion tastes blood

The first kill was a locally famous Muslima apostate [who?], who had visibly converted to Catholicism. Her marriage had been in the Spanish Crown's headlines that week, in a year whose astrologers forecast rioting in the South. [details?] Both husband [who?] and wife were found dead inside a week, shot once in the head with a 7.65mm bullet. Nobody claimed it.

Over the next few weeks, a few other bodies surfaced in Seville. All, again, had been shot with a 7.65mm bullet; all were fairly new Christians, either converts or settlers. A detective [who?] was assigned to the case, and made a big public announcement about how the murderer would be brought to face justice.

The lion claims its kills

Ten days after the announcement, the detective failed to show up for work. When somebody came to check on him, they found him with one bullet in his heart, two in his forehead, and a bite mark taken out of his cheek. They also found his wife (headshot) and his children (killed in their beds with one bullet each, through the temples.)

The morning after that, a long letter in macaronic Arabic and Moorish arrived in an envelope at one of the newspapers. [which?] It claimed responsibility for the death of the detective's family, the dead apostates of the prior month, and two of the other murders (but not all of them, significantly.) Attached was a photograph of a box of 60 7.65mm revolver bullets, short the number that had been used already - and what would become a legendary closing formula to the letter: "There are X bullets left. Find me before I find another. Asad from Seville."

The lion prowls

For the rest of the summer, Asad from Seville cemented his modus operandi. He didn't kill individuals; he would kill entire households, showing an impressive ability to conserve ammo; of all his victims, only the detective ever took more than two bullets to kill. Most only took one. One day after the bodies were discovered, a new letter would be published in the newspapers, complete with a photograph of the same box in the same position, and that legendary closing: Find me before I find another. Asad from Seville.

The police never did. It didn't help that the Moorish community in Seville did everything in its power to make their search harder:

• A fair number of Moors wound up buying 7.65mm handguns of their own, mostly from ACP. When they were cracked down on, they established themselves as crime guns instead, starting the Andalusian cottage industry of gun forgery.
• The riot: The astrologers were right; there actually was a riot in Seville late that summer. [details?] During the violence, a fair number of copycat kills took place - as did one that Asad actually claimed, backing it up with the trademark bullet box.

Muslim support for Asad only ended when the victims, abruptly, turned out to be his first Muslim family. Asad claimed them the next day, bullet box and all - and then, abruptly, the killings stopped, with 20 bullets still to go.

Hunting the lion

Or, at least, the killings stopped in Seville. The next report was in Cadiz, with a number of bullets missing. (In the final week of the hunt for Asad, the missing bullets were accounted for; en route from Seville, he had apparently killed an entire family in the countryside, leaving behind an envelope with an appropriate bullet-box sealed inside.)

Asad's career ended, apparently, in hot pursuit by police. After killing two of them with a single shot each, facing two more with weapons drawn, he turned the last bullet of the revolver on himself.

Asad's final letter was posted in the newspaper in Cadiz that day. The trademark bullet box was empty, and he gloated that he would never be caught now. Thus ended the lion's career.

The legacy of Asad from Seville

Asad from Seville is Andalusada's Jack the Ripper. Prior to him, the concept of a single person systematically killing that many people was unfathomable; after him, it was all too real. (Asad drifts into steampunk social science territory here by being much cleaner than most IRL serial killers; most later ones will be unfavorably compared with Asad, whose "leonine dignity" will be unironically praised next to the butchery of his successors. Usually this praising will be done by people who have never seen an actual lion kill.)

• Opinions of Asad are still mixed in Moorish Spain. During the summer he hunted, Asad briefly became the most popular Moorish boy's name in Iberia.