Chapter Text
Lucifer would forever go over this moment. He would obsess over the signs that were right in front of his face. Signs that he could have seen if only he had paid more attention. If he hadn’t blinded himself with hope and love.
The story of his existence.
Yet he didn’t see. He didn’t see the way that Chloe’s eyes watched him with fear. He didn’t hear the tremor in her voice that occasionally popped up. He didn’t even notice the way that she watched him, her attention rapt as he sipped on his wine. Her own grilled cheese sandwich barely touched despite it being one of her favorites.
In fact, Lucifer didn’t know that anything was wrong until black spots danced in his vision. Putting a hand to his head, Lucifer tried to blink the spots away.
“Lucifer?” her voice sounded so distant to his ears, which were now ringing. As if sound itself was now attacking him, something that Lucifer had never experienced before. It was disorientating. “Are you alright?”
“Something is wrong,” he said, his own voice just as distant as Chloe’s was. He tried to stand, not quite sure what he intended to do. It didn’t matter. The moment he stood, his legs gave out. Lucifer crashed to the floor just as blood filled his mouth with a metallic tang.
“Lucifer!” Chloe was suddenly there, her face appearing in his blurred vision. Her lips kept moving, indicating that she was talking. He couldn’t make out what it was that she was saying, the noise in his ears far too loud. Lucifer couldn’t even focus on her lips, his sight growing steadily darker.
‘Leave,’ he tried to say. He wanted to tell her that it would be alright once she was far enough away. Whatever was happening would stop the moment he was no longer vulnerable. But his throat clogged with blood and his tongue refused to work.
Lucifer struggled to stay away. He fought against the poison, for what else could it be, that spread throughout his body. The Devil had been hoping to warn Chloe about what would happen if he was injured enough to die before something like this happened. She had no way of knowing that dying wouldn’t be permanent for him. He’d wanted to ease her into it before springing too much else on her.
Another careful plan, shot to hell.
Instead, Lucifer found that he was too far gone to properly fight to keep awake. Still, he wasn’t worried. If this had to happen, it was for the best it was the both of them alone in his penthouse. After all, there was no one on Earth that he trusted more than the woman before him.
Lucifer was dragged into unconsciousness with the belief that everything would be fine by the time that he came to.
Chloe was there, after all.
Chloe Decker watched as Lucifer lost the battle against whatever the hell was in that ‘sedative’ that Kinley had given her to dose him with. Blood dripped from his mouth, trailing down his face and splattered onto the floor and his clothes.
It worked fast. One moment Lucifer was talking to her, the next he was cradling his head. Then, in quick succession, he had stood only to collapse immediately.
It was horrible to watch. Her insides twisted as she tried to reassure him that it would be alright. Chloe had tried to keep the guilt and fear out of her voice as she spoke, though it hadn’t seemed like he had been hearing her anyways.
It was now or never. Chloe turned his head to the side, giving the blood a place to drain. Choking on his own blood wasn’t something that she wanted to do to him. Even if this entire thing was her doing to start with. Even if Chloe was the one that had put that poison responsible for this in his drink in the first place.
She could stop now. Chloe could call an ambulance, get rid of all the evidence that it was her who had poisoned the drink, and have no one be the wiser. She was a Detective, it would have been easy to spin this properly. Kinley was the only one who would really know. It wasn’t like the priest could turn her in without implicating himself.
Part of her wanted to do just that. Tonight had been nothing like she expected.
Lucifer was awkward, not the charming character she was used to seeing. He’d been nervous and excited, clearly uncertain even as he pulled out all of her favorite things. Even the music she liked, music that he hated for the most part. It was thoughtful. Sweet.
And yet, Chloe couldn’t forget that burned visage with hellfire eyes looking at her from above the body of Marcus Pierce. Of Cain. She couldn’t forget deaths that had colored the years of their partnership. The priest Malcolm had killed just because he’d argued with Lucifer. Frank Lawrence, Rose Davis, Mike Carey, Reese Getty, and Charlotte. Who knew how many more? All people that might have lived if Lucifer had been in Hell where he belonged.
He wouldn’t go back there on his own. Chloe knew that. As much as it hurt to do this to him, to watch him suffer, Chloe couldn’t let his selfishness get more people killed. Earth wasn’t made for Lucifer. It wasn’t made for Maze, who was a demon. Neither of them belonged here, Chloe was just making sure that they returned to where they did belong.
Even if it hurt her heart to do so.
Being the right thing to do didn’t mean it was the easy thing to do.
“I’m sorry,” she said to his unconscious body, tears welling up in her eyes. “I hope that you forgive me for this, one day.”
Swiping the tears away from her eyes, Chloe pulled out the burner phone and dialed the newly familiar number.
She didn’t wait for him to speak when the ring stopped.
“It’s done.”
“You did well, child,” the voice of the priest answered back.
Chloe didn’t say anything else, merely hung up the phone and slipped it back into her pocket.
Heart heavy, Chloe gathered the wine glasses. She poured the rest of Lucifer’s wine into the bottle along with her own. Then she emptied the last remnants of the poison she’d used into the bottle as well. That done, Chloe took both to the sink to wash them.
Drying one, she used a rag to take it back over to Lucifer and carefully wrapped his hand around it in the same way she watched him pick it up earlier. Fingerprints now returned to the glass, Chloe used the rag to grab the wine bottle and swirl it. Making sure to mix the poison around. Then she poured more wine into the newly cleaned glass, making sure not to fill it all the way. She picked it up once more with the rag.
Standing next to Lucifer’s body, Chloe dropped the half-full glass to the floor, watching as it shattered. The red of the wine spread, a parody of the blood that was still pooling from Lucifer’s mouth onto the floor.
Her stomach churned at the sight. Tears threatened to fall again.
Chloe closed her eyes, forcing the sting of tears back. This was necessary, she reminded herself. Everything that was happening was because it needed to. The world wasn’t safe until the Devil was back in Hell.
Chloe moved around the liquid carefully. She needed to leave no evidence of her being here when this happened behind. Once she was out of range, the woman returned to the kitchen. With the same rag, Chloe carefully dried the wine glass left there before replacing it with the others. Moving to the other cupboard, Chloe used her ungloved hand to grab a regular glass. She opened his fridge, grabbed the orange juice there, and poured a glass full.
She made sure to take a sip, wanting to leave lipstick on the rim. It had to look real. Chloe had to look as if she hadn’t drunk any of the wine.
The taste of orange juice in her mouth made it more real, somehow. Chloe set the glass down, her head spinning as the implications of everything forced their way forward. Here she was, a police detective, setting the scene to cover up the crime that she had just committed. A crime that would very well get her arrested and sent to prison with the same people she, herself, had put there. No one would understand if she told them why she had done it. They’d think she was insane.
And they might have even been right. Chloe hadn’t felt sane since that day in the loft. She’d felt like her world was falling apart around her and she could do nothing to stop it.
“You can do this,” she whispered to herself, the sound of some of her favorite music in the background still playing. Chloe would never be able to listen to these songs again without thinking about this day. Thinking about the trust she had betrayed.
About the Devil, his burned flesh, and hellfire eyes that pierced her to her very soul.
Chloe dumped the rest of the orange juice in the sink. She ran the water, watching it swirl down the drain. Turning the water off, she set the glass in the sink. A quick walk back to where their dinner sat, and two plates joined them. She opened one of the drawers, retrieved a plastic bag, and dumped the sandwiches inside. She’d get rid of it outside the penthouse. Probably in the pub itself.
She was careful not to look at Lucifer as she gathered up her things. A quick check in the bathroom had her quickly fixing her makeup. She wanted it to look like everything had gone well on the cameras. Chloe couldn’t give anything away about what it was that she had done. She needed to have the perfect alibi.
Perhaps it would have been smarter to make it look like they’d had a fight and he’d run off again. It wasn’t out of character for him. He’d done it before their last date, coming back married to that stripper. Something that still boggled her mind, especially with recent events.
At the same time, it wasn’t fair of her to do that. Lucifer wasn’t choosing to leave. Chloe was making the choice for him. The least she owed him was to make sure that everyone knew that he hadn’t just up and left forever. They all deserved that. Dan, Ella, Linda, Trixie, and the rest of the LAPD deserved to know that Lucifer hadn’t just left.
And Lucifer deserved to be mourned. If Chloe was confining him to Hell forever, Lucifer deserved to know that he had at least mattered to those he’d left behind on earth.
Lucifer Morningstar had mattered. He’d been cared for. In a perfect world, where things like Devils and Angels weren’t a factor, Chloe thought he could have stayed here with them forever.
But Lucifer was the Devil. Even if he didn’t intend for it to happen, he brought death and destruction in his wake. He couldn’t be allowed to stay. Chloe couldn’t let him stay. She couldn’t keep him. God had chosen her to help Kinley send Lucifer back to where he belonged. Who was she to defy the creator of the universe?
Why else would Lucifer be vulnerable around her? Why else would he follow her, a mere police detective, around? Why would Satan ever care about a human woman if this was not what God had always intended for her? Chloe’s own heart did not matter.
(You’re afraid, a voice whispered in her head. You’re afraid, so afraid. That is why you’re doing this. This isn’t for the world, just for your own fear.)
Chloe left the bathroom. She let her eyes, for a brief moment, flicker to where she knew the unconscious form of her partner, of the Devil, lay.
Chloe turned away. She walked to the main elevator, glad that she had told Kinley about the service elevator. Lucifer didn’t have cameras there. She’d never been able to get a straight answer as to why that was.
It would make her alibi more solid. No one would know when the intruders showed up. They wouldn’t know how they got the code to the service elevator or how they would know there weren’t any cameras there to worry about. Chloe wouldn’t be a suspect.
(You’ll slip up. Someone will notice. They’ll notice something wrong with you.)
Chloe hit the button, watching as the elevator opened. Stepping inside, Chloe closed her eyes as the doors slowly shut behind her. She didn’t dare turn around to see if Kinley had arrived yet. Her work here was done.
She’d done the right thing, Chloe reminded herself.
(Then why does it burn?)
The first thing that he noticed when he woke was that his blood felt like it was ice. Burning in a way that fire couldn’t hope to mimic, unfamiliar and hard to ignore.
Lucifer bit back the whimper that wanted to break forward. He was not unused to pain. Hell had taught him much when it came to pain and pain tolerance. Being mortal around Chloe had opened even more doors to pain. Lucifer would not give whatever had caused this the satisfaction of knowing that he was hurting.
And it was caused by something. Looking for it, Lucifer could feel something foreign in his bloodstream. It was attacking his body’s natural healing response, almost like a virus that had infected a human if Lucifer understood how such things worked on a mortal level. The Devil’s mind raced as he tried to figure out what he had been dosed with and how.
Then he remembered something that was far more important.
Chloe.
He’d been with Chloe. Lucifer felt his anxiety rise. Part of him wanted to open his eyes to search for her. From the bite of steel around his wrists that pulled, he was no longer in his penthouse. No hospital would have chained him up, which meant that he, and possibly the Detective, had been captured by someone.
Chloe wouldn’t have left him. If he was here, then she’d either been incapacitated or captured as well. Neither of those were good options. For her sake, he hoped she was merely unconscious at his penthouse. Safe from whatever this was.
The Devil tried to stretch out his senses.
His knees ached against the hardness of what felt like tile. Or perhaps a smooth stone floor. It was slick and hard, smooth against the fabric of his pants. The room was chilled, only exacerbating the freezing burn within his veins. Wherever they were, there was some type of central cooling system. LA was hot during this time of year.
He could smell some type of fragrance. A mix of floral scents and the slight burn of smoke. Incense. Someone was burning incense.
As for sound…Lucifer grimaced when he realized that his hearing was still muffled. Whatever the drug was doing, his hearing had been impaired by it. He could still make out the soft murmur of voices, just not what they were saying. If this was how humans heard the world, Lucifer was going to owe more than one person an apology. Truly, this was dreadful.
The Devil considered his options. It was unlikely that he was going to gather any more data from his senses. He had two options. Either open his eyes and see for himself what was going on, or play dead until things started to progress. While opening his eyes would certainly give him more information, Lucifer had no idea what he was going to be waking up to. It could be anything, really, with what had been happening in the last few years.
At the same time, Lucifer wasn’t sure if the trade off would be worth it. Whoever was responsible might just be waiting for him to wake up to continue. If it was just himself at risk, Lucifer wouldn’t be bothered. The problem was that the Detective had been with him when he’d succumbed to the poison. There was no telling what these people might do to her if she was taken as well. The moment he was ‘awake’ their plans might go forward and it was guaranteed that wouldn’t be bad for Chloe.
Playing dead, however, had its own issues. Anything could be happening while he let himself hang here, eyes closed and breathing strained from the poison. Chloe could very well be somewhere else, far from here. She could be hanging right next to him, unconscious as well. Worse, the Devil thought with anxiety, her dead body could be right in front of him and he wouldn’t know.
On the other hand, it could buy them the time they needed. Either prolonging the wait for what was coming or giving Chloe the time to get help if she had indeed been left behind altogether. If she was here, it could give the others time to realize they were both missing. That something was wrong.
Decisions, decisions, Lucifer grimaced internally. Both had pros and cons that could be life or death if not handled right. While Lucifer wouldn’t be stopped by something as mundane as death, the same could not be said for Chloe. She was human. If she died, Chloe wouldn’t be able to come back from it. No human could, not without interference from the Divine.
Somehow, Lucifer didn’t see God resurrecting her if she died here. And only God could bring back someone who went to Heaven. Angels could only resurrect souls damned to Hell. Anything else required special permissions.
For Chloe’s sake, the Devil decided he would play dead. If she was here, it might save her life. If she was back at the penthouse, it would give her time to come to and alert help. Lucifer had to have faith in the humans he had come to know here. Chloe would find him if she was free. And if she wasn’t, the LAPD would find them. Miss Lopez and the Douche wouldn’t stop looking for them both if need be.
He just had to be patient.
Lucifer wasn’t answering the phone.
Linda frowned once more as the phone rang to voicemail.
In all the time that Linda had known the Devil, Lucifer had never missed an appointment. Not without a good reason and a phone call letting her know what was going on. In fact, he was rather timely. It was more likely that he’d show up early than late.
Something felt wrong to her. Off.
She called again.
This time, the phone went straight to voicemail.
Either his phone battery had died or he’d turned it off.
She didn’t have a good feeling about this.
The therapist bit her lip, considering what to do now. This behavior wasn’t normal for him. Lucifer had only ever disappeared on her willingly once before and that was because of the Goddess. He’d promised not to do anything like that again and Lucifer didn’t lie. The last time was because Cain had him kidnapped and dumped in the desert.
Cain was dead, now. Which only made her more worried. Lucifer hadn’t been dealing well with killing the Father of Murder, even if it was in self-defense. Not a single person blamed him other than himself.
Without Cain as a factor, Linda was at a loss as to what could possibly have him ignoring her like this.
It wouldn’t hurt, the therapist thought to herself, to send someone to check on him. Maze had been sulking nearly as much as Lucifer had in the last month. Maybe giving her the chance to talk to Lucifer might do them both good. They had a lot of history between them, if their friendship could be saved, Linda thought that it might be better for the both of them.
She dialed Maze.
“Linda,” Maze’s voice greeted after only a single ring. “What’s up?”
“Lucifer missed our appointment and he isn’t answering his phone,” she said, before she could chicken out. Maze sounded off, as if something was wrong. If Linda didn’t get it out now, she wouldn’t ask at all. “I’m worried. Can you go check on him?”
Maze was silent for a moment. The therapist waited, trying to keep her anxiety down, as Maze considered. “Yeah,” the demon finally agreed. “I’ll check on him.”
Then she hung up without another word.
Linda sighed, setting her phone down.
She hoped that this was just some case that had gotten out of hand. That nothing was really wrong. Maybe Maze and Lucifer might even benefit from Maze seeking him out.
Linda hoped that the certainty that something was very wrong was nothing more than paranoia.
Maze walked past Paul with nothing more than a wave in greeting. The LUX employees, even the new ones, knew her by sight. Despite it all, Lucifer had always made sure that it was known that she was welcome here. Even siding with Cain hadn’t changed that.
It was part of the reason that she was avoiding him.
Guilt was not something she was used to feeling. And damn it, she felt guilty. For putting the little human in danger, for the way she’d been lashing out, for not talking to Linda before going off the deep end.
For breaking the trust that Lucifer had in her. For being part of the reason he cut his wings off, alone, again and again. She hadn’t thought about what playing the healer, convincing Lucifer he was healing people in his sleep, would do to him beyond messing with his head. It never even dawned on her that he would cut the wings off repeatedly.
Remembering how he’d been when she had done the deed, back on the beach that first night on Earth, churned her gut. The screams and whimpers of pain haunted her.
Thinking about him doing that alone…it hurt.
But she was also angry still. Angry that he had dismissed her so easily. That he had refused to take her home. That she seemed almost secondary to Chloe in Lucifer’s eyes. That it felt like he didn’t see her as just as important as that human he’d known for a handful of years despite having been with Maze for millennia.
Maze had no idea what she would say to him, once she found him. Maybe yell at him for worrying Linda and forgetting about his appointment with the woman. Maybe yell at him for worrying her by worrying Linda. Maybe even yell at him for whatever it was he was doing at all.
She might even throw her phone at his face and yell at him to call Linda.
With a deep breath, Maze entered the elevator and easily selected the Penthouse. Despite the unfamiliar emotions roiling inside her, she almost felt at ease in this elevator. It was familiar. The entire process was one she had done many times, in the years they had been on earth. While everything else had changed, this remained the same.
It soothed the anxiety.
A mere handful of years was nothing compared to the millennia that she had spent at Lucifer’s side. Fighting, killing, and obeying in the pits of hell. His right hand. The General of Hell’s Armies. Maybe it was different and harder now, in this place where humans were so complex and the world made little sense. At the same time, Maze knew Lucifer like Lucifer knew her. And he still trusted her with unlimited access to him.
Linda had been telling her to talk to him for a while now. She was so convinced that it would make Maze feel better once she did. Standing here in the elevator, Maze thought that Linda might be right. Maybe it was time to talk.
Smiling a little to herself, Maze confidently walked out of the elevator. Instead of Lucifer’s clean, spotless penthouse, the demon found destruction.
The blade was in her hand before she even really thought about it. Stalking forward, Maze took it all in with a snarl forming on her face.
Something foul colored the air, mixing with the copper tang of blood and the sweet scent of wine. Creeping ever forward, Maze growled as she noticed broken glass by the bar of the penthouse.
“Lucifer?” she called out, her ears picking up nothing moving in the penthouse around her. Not the sound of breathing, or movement. She could smell him, but the scent was wrong. Tainted.
There was no response.
She moved to the broken glass, hissing angrily when she noticed that it was not just wine that colored the floor red. Blood, wet and tainted, shimmered slightly on the floor. The soft shimmer told her that despite the wrongness of the scent, it belonged to Lucifer.
Linda had been right to send her.
The demon closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Poison, she thought. Strong. Cyanide mixed with Tetradotoxin and Batrachotoxin. Something else, as well. She inhaled deeply, taking it in. Her heart froze as she recognized it.
Holy water. Mixed into the wine was holy water.
This was bad. Very bad.
She knew what had happened here, knew what was coming, and Maze wanted to scream in fury. After everything that had happened, the demon hadn’t thought this was something they needed to worry about. Modern humans hadn’t tried this in decades, nearly a century. They were too caught up in reality and morality.
Yet, the evidence was right there. Staring her in the face. Holy water and poison, Lucifer nowhere to be seen.
She needed to find Lucifer, now.
Maze’s instinct was to leave. To tear the city apart to find the missing Devil. To render those stupid little priests as nothing more than minced meat. Lucifer had warned her about exorcisms when in your own skin. The magic might not be enough to separate an angel from their body, but a demon might not be so lucky. With no real soul, a demon in their own form could very well be destroyed. If not, it would hurt.
Lucifer knew because it hurt him. He’d returned to Hell more than once, muscles spamming in agony and disorientated from the pain. It was a wonder Amenadiel never realized what was going on. There was a reason that Maze had acted as the Devil’s bodyguard. In those instances, Lucifer was in no state to protect himself from any demon that got uppity. So Maze took care of it instead.
When they had come here, nearly a decade ago, Maze had sworn that she would never allow it to happen again. That no priest would dare.
She’d failed.
And it made her crave the blood of those who dared cause her to fail.
The only thing stopping her was that Maze no longer carried the bond that would take her to her King. Lucifer had released her from her oath. The magic no longer connected them. Maze would have to track him the old-fashioned way and that would take too long. The longer she spent looking, the longer Lucifer remained in the hands of these upstart priests.
She needed backup. Maze needed help.
And she knew just the people to help, the demon thought. She took out her phone and dialed.
Daniel Espinoza stared at the destruction around the familiar penthouse with a sinking gut. When Maze had called, demanding he get over to Lucifer’s, he almost told her to go to hell. The only reason he hadn’t was that he didn’t fancy ending up naked in the precinct, again, or ending up dead. With Maze, you could never be sure what her revenge would look like.
He was glad he had come. For all that he wanted to scream at Lucifer right now, he didn’t want the club owner dead. And the blood on the floor and broken wine glass didn’t look good for the consultant.
Crime techs walked around, taking pictures of everything. The wine bottle that was open on the bar was carefully sampled and sent off to be analyzed. Fingerprints were swabbed from everything and even the empty dishes in the sink were photographed.
Maze was pacing back and forth, growling as she did so. She’d refused to leave even after the others arrived. No one wanted to challenge her right now either. The bounty hunter was terrifying on a good day. Properly pissed off like she currently was, Dan nearly felt bad for whoever was responsible for this.
Almost.
Because he was pissed as well.
“Nothing on the cameras,” Ella said, coming back into the main room with a blank look on her usually expressive face.
The second time in just over a month that one of their group was targeted. Everyone here was quiet as they worked, no one quite willing to be the one to say it out loud.
There was a real possibility that they would be finding Lucifer’s body.
Dan had, at his darkest point in the last month, wished that it had been Lucifer that had died and not Charlotte. Faced with the reality of the man’s possible death, Dan wanted to take it back. For all that he was angry, Lucifer didn’t deserve to die. He didn’t deserve whatever had happened here.
And Chloe didn’t deserve the heartbreak that Dan felt every day that Charlotte was gone.
“I have to call Chloe,” Dan rubbed a hand over his face. Ella flinched, tears finally welling up in her eyes. “Maze, you said Linda called you?”
The bounty hunter stopped pacing, eyes almost black as she looked at him. “Yes,” she growled, her voice gravely with rage. “Lucifer missed his appointment. He doesn’t miss appointments and didn’t answer his phone when she called.”
Dan nodded, bringing out his notepad to right that down. Just another case, he tried to convince himself. Just another victim. Establishing behavior was important in a missing person’s case. They needed all the information that they could get.
And they needed to be quick. The first twenty-four hours were integral to every missing persons case.
“Chloe had a date with Lucifer last night,” Ella said, softly. Dan turned to her, surprised. “He wanted advice,” the forensic admitted. “On what to do. Since Chloe isn’t big on fancy places, I told him that he should make their first date comfortable for her instead of him. I even helped make a playlist of her favorite songs with him.”
Dan wrote that down, his gut sinking further. That made it likely that Chloe was the last person to see him. Making this just that much worse. Christ, he hoped that they found the man alive. Ella wiped tears away from her eyes.
Something flashed across Maze’s face when Dan looked at her. The woman narrowed her eyes as she considered Ella, the growling tapering off. “We need to talk to Chloe,” Maze said, her voice dark.
Dan considered telling her that there wasn’t a ‘we’. At the same time, he had no doubt that Maze would not be leaving this alone. Telling her no seemed like a good way to end up back on her bad side. “Ella, keep gathering evidence here,” Dan told the forensic. “Make sure that everything is run. Maze, we’ll take my car.”
Time was ticking.
Dan had no intention of wasting a single minute.
Time was up.
Lucifer knew that the moment he felt liquid slam into his face. Sputtering, he gave up on playing dead. He cracked his eyes opened and glared at the startled man holding a newly empty bucket. “Was that necessary?” the Devil growled. He tasted copper on his tongue as he forced back a wet cough.
The poison was still cycling through his system.
He dropped the bucket, scrambling backward with wide eyes. “Father!” the coward screamed. “It’s awake!”
“It?” Lucifer’s glare deepened. “He, thank you very much. I am a he.”
That was about the time he noticed what the coward was wearing. The garment was traditional alter boy garb. The name of it escaped him. The Devil had never really cared for the name. He didn’t need to know much more than that it was hideous.
That was when it clicked in his head. “Did you just dump holy water on me?” he asked, disbelieving. “What the bloody Hell was that supposed to do other than make me wet?!”
“Philip,” an older voice demanded.
The newly named Philip fled quickly, leaving the bucket behind. Lucifer bit back another cough, the tainted blood foul in his mouth. He wanted desperately to spit it out. Showing weakness to these people, however, was unacceptable.
Especially now that Lucifer had a better idea of what was happening.
This was no criminal going after himself and the Detective, as he’d thought. No, this was far more old hat and aimed only at him. A glance around confirmed his suspicions.
This was a Church basement. Candles for prayer dotted the room, crosses hung from the walls, and a white-washed picture of his half-brother nailed to that damned cross was painted artfully on the main wall. Why humans used the weapon of his half-brother’s torture as a symbol of their faith, Lucifer had never been able to understand. Linda hadn’t even been able to explain it to him. He hadn’t managed to work up to asking Miss Lopez. With how attached she was to the thing, Lucifer was reluctant to do something that ruined it for her.
“This isn’t going to work,” the Devil drawled, looking at the small gathering of priest as they entered the room. “It never has.”
Exorcisms removed foreign souls from bodies not their own. Lucifer was in his own body. He couldn’t be forced from it. The most exorcisms did was hurt like a bitch. Combined with the poison they had dosed him with, Lucifer was only going to end up in pain with no reward for their efforts.
He was relieved to see that Chloe was nowhere in sight. Considering the people behind this, he hoped that meant she’d been left behind. Priests didn’t tend to kill innocents, too caught up in their righteousness to be bothered. Relief bloomed in his chest.
This wasn’t going to be fun, Lucifer was already dreading the upcoming exorcism, but it did mean that he had plenty of time for Chloe to find him. He only needed to hold out.
“As if we would believe a word from your filthy mouth,” the oldest of the priest’s sneered. His accent was different, Italian, and Lucifer didn’t bother to keep from rolling his eyes. A bloody Vatican representative. Of course, there was. “Your lies will not help you here, Satan. We know what you are.”
The Devil was not impressed. Mostly, he was pissed. Letting Hellfire light his eyes, Lucifer watched as they priests flinched backward.
This was more like it. These priests, with their judgmental eyes and sneers were more in line with the priests of the past that Lucifer had met. Truly, Father Frank was an outlier. The rare good soul in this profession.
This was why Lucifer didn’t want a religion. Not when it let people like this believe they were righteous and just. When it let evil hide behind Father’s words to justify their actions. Words so twisted that they no longer resembled what had actually been said. Too many humans adding and taking away things that furthered their goals. A shadow of what it had once been.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Padre,” Lucifer purred through the blood on his tongue.
“Take your positions,” The priest motioned to the others. They quickly formed a circle around him, papers in hand. Lucifer frowned. That wasn’t the usual exorcisms.
Distracted, he didn’t notice the gag until his mouth was forced open. Lucifer attempted to pull his head away. The poison kept him from using his normal strength to break free, making his struggle useless.
“We will hear no more lies from you,” a different priest said into his ear as the gag was tightened in his mouth. Then the hands were gone as the priest rejoined the circle. Lucifer snarled, furious.
That was enough of this, the Devil decided before yanking against the chains binding him. Instead of snapping like they should of, Lucifer felt electricity spike throughout his body. Only his own Will kept him from screaming in pain. It lasted far longer than reasonable, leaving his muscles spasming from the current.
He turned his attention to the shackles, for the first time really looking at them. Runes engraved into metal glowed slightly purple. Magic, Lucifer thought with the beginning of true dread. Enochian magic.
Someone was going to be in a lot of trouble for this. That kind of spell work shouldn’t be on earth. If it worked on Lucifer, it would work on any of his siblings. Including Michael.
This was not good. It was bad, very bad, actually. It meant that Lucifer’s second thought, praying to Amenadiel, was not going to work. Lucifer was well and truly fucked unless the Detective and the other humans found him.
Because the exorcism wasn’t going to work. It was never going to work.
“I see you understand your position,” the original priest, the Italian, said. He looked so damn smug as well. “Since discovering your presence amongst us, I have done my research. Through the vast library of the Vatican, I have found every reference to you. Every appearance on Earth you have made. The sightings of you are numerous, Devil.”
No, the sightings of them were numerous. Lucifer knew for a fact that some of those had been Michael. While they had not interacted with each other directly during those periods, something that still hurt even now, Michael always made sure to leave some sign that he’d been in an area recently. Hidden in plain sight where only Lucifer would notice it.
It was a game they’d been playing. Lucifer did the same. A way to track each other, even separated as they were, without attracting the attention of their siblings.
No doubt God knew about their game, but He had never stopped it. So the two had kept it up.
For a long time, it was only that game that had kept Lucifer sane. In the face of Amenadiel’s hatred, the silence of the Host, and God’s disregard for him, the game he played with Michael was the tether that kept him from losing himself entirely.
And when Judgement was passed, well, Lucifer was there to make sure that Punishment followed.
The last time they had played with World War II, if Lucifer remembered right. Michael had been in Germany, leaving behind a feather that he’d left at the bunker where Hitler had committed suicide. Judgement had been passed.
There was more than one reason that Lucifer hadn’t had an answer for Linda when she’d asked about what had happened to Hitler. Lucifer didn’t really know. He had a feeling that it wasn’t good. Say what you will about God, but the being had thrown His Wife into Hell for committing genocide. Cain had only killed his brother when he’d been cursed to live forever (or until he felt regret, as it turned out). Considering Michael had been there and Lucifer hadn’t delivered Punishment, that meant God had taken matters into His own hands.
Lucifer had been pretty sure that telling Linda that, when she was only coming to grips with the fact that he really was the Devil, would have been a bit much when she’d finally stopped hiding. They never did talk about that sandwich.
“No,” the human continued. Lucifer wanted to sigh. This was going to be dreadfully boring. It always was when these fanatics got their hands on him. “We are doing this much differently this time. The Lord has seen to it that we will succeed where others have failed!”
Lucifer blinked at that, baffled. What in Dad’s name was the priest talking about? Was he talking about the chains and shackles? If so, he was mistaken. God was going to be furious with whichever sibling had given these to the…humans…
Oh. Oh no.
Lucifer should have put the pieces together much sooner. Much, much sooner.
He looked down, something he should have done since he’d first given up playing dead. Beneath him, carved into the floor, were Enochian runes. A binding circle. Lucifer had thought that the poison was taking a while to filter out of his system while he’d played dead. He’d figured it was because Chloe had been there when he digested it.
No, instead it was because he was standing in the same runic magic that had kept the Goddess imprisoned in Her cell within Hell. The magic She had been able to study for millennia, enough to break through them once she’d gotten to Earth.
She’d distributed maps to Uriel’s grave so that Azrael’s blade would fall into human hands just so She could get Dad’s attention. Why wouldn’t She give Enochian magic to them as well? Just enough to bind an angel in place. That would get Dad’s attention, alright.
Only, Goddess had never been too interested in Enochian magic beyond what it could do. She preferred manipulations, subtlety, and twisted words. She was the type to get one human sick with a deadly disease and watch as creation spread Her work without Her having to lift another figure. Father was the more direct of them. He was the one who had crafted the binding circles for when one of them had gotten a bit out of hand with their powers and He felt like they needed to be brought into line.
What Lucifer was looking at was a direct copy of something only he, God, and Goddess had ever seen. God would not distribute it for the same reason Lucifer would have never let another see the spell work: it was crafted to contain the power of the Goddess, suppressing it to the point that a demon could hurt Her. Any angel bound by the magic would be vulnerable.
And not vulnerable in the way that Chloe made his body mortal. No, they were vulnerable down to their very soul. Inside this circle, an angel could be killed permanently.
Lucifer was in far more trouble than he’d thought.
Why is it that everything Mother does always comes back to bite me in the worst way? So much for not wanting to hurt Her children.
Waiting for Chloe was not an option. Lucifer needed to get out of this circle as soon as possible. There was no telling what other magic these priests had in their possession right now.
He closed his eyes and prayed.
Or he tried to.
Lucifer bit back a scream as electricity spiked through the shackles and chains once more. No, no, no!
A prayer directly to God should not have had that reaction. To Amenadiel, yes, but to God? It wasn’t supposed to be possible for that connection to be blocked off. Not even Dad had blocked it when Lucifer Fell.
He was on his own.
Lucifer watched the smug smirk on the priest’s face spread. He looked at the dagger, a ritualistic ornate thing, in the man’s hand.
For the first time since waking up here, Lucifer was well and truly afraid.
Chloe opened the door after the third knock. She was exhausted, having not slept at all the night before. She couldn’t forget the look of trust on Lucifer’s face or the way he’d sworn to her that he would never lie to her. Promised to answer any questions she had.
Dan stood there, Maze just behind him. “Hey,” he said, his face looking grim. “Can we come in?”
Chloe fought down the panic that jumped up when she’d seen the demon looming behind her ex-husband. Part of her had forgotten Maze in the haze of what she’d done the night before. Kinley, once Lucifer was back within Hell, would be sending her back as well. “Well, Maze does live here,” she smiled weakly. “Come on in.”
She was too far in now. Keeping Maze close was necessary to pull the plan off. Chloe forced herself to turn around, even though putting her back to Maze felt like the stupidest thing she could possibly do. You shouldn’t turn your back on a demon.
But she needed to keep up appearances.
“Trixie is at a friend’s,” she told them both as she walked to the living room. “So if this is that apology, she’s not here.”
Maze owed Trixie that apology. Being a demon didn’t give her the right to take it out on Trixie. Chloe used that anger to steady her racing heart.
“No,” Maze said, her voice steady. “I already apologized.”
Chloe snapped her attention to the demon. “When?” she demanded, mind spinning and heart sinking.
Maze frowned at her. “Precinct,” the demon answered. “She knows I didn’t mean it. Even forgave me.”
Chloe relaxed. “Good,” she said, because Trixie had been heartbroken. “Good. She wouldn’t talk to me about it. That doesn’t mean I will be leaving you alone with her for a while. That trust needs to be earned back by more than just her,” Chloe warned.
She couldn’t let a demon around her daughter unsupervised. Who knew what Maze had been teaching Trixie in the past? What damage the demon had already done to her sweet little girl? Chloe also couldn’t ban Maze completely. And Trixie would ask questions if Maze still lived here but she wasn’t allowed around the demon at all. If Chloe didn’t want Trixie sneaking around with Maze like she liked to sneak to LUX, Chloe needed to allow the interaction where she could see what was going on.
Maze was still watching her, frowning. Studying her. “You said she was mad,” the demon said.
“She was,” Chloe defended because that had been the truth. Just not the most recent truth. “Then she stopped talking about it at all and clammed up when I asked. I assumed she wasn’t going to say anything more until she talked to you and that wasn’t happening until I was sure you weren’t going to make things worse.”
Like she had before, Chloe didn’t need to say. Maze cringed, finally looking away.
Only years of dealing with the demon and even more years of acting experience kept Chloe from panicking at taking that tone with a literal demon.
“This isn’t about that,” Dan said, giving Maze a look. Right, he’d been there when Maze had said those things. “Chloe, I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this. Lucifer is missing.”
And reality came crashing back. Chloe stared at Dan, her mind blanking. How could he possibly know that? Chloe hadn’t thought anyone would notice until she got a case and ‘discovered’ his penthouse empty, the wine, and the broken glass. “What?” she rasped, suddenly feeling like the world was collapsing.
“He missed an appointment with Linda,” Dan said, gentling his voice. “She called Maze. His penthouse is trashed. Chloe, when was the last time you saw him?”
Linda. Oh god, Linda. Chloe had forgotten her in everything that happened. Of course Linda noticed something was wrong. Lucifer didn’t miss appointments unless he ran off to Vegas or ended up somehow tossed into the middle of the desert (she had many, many questions about how that had happened now that she knew he was telling the truth the entire time). “Trashed?” she whispered because that wasn’t how she’d left it.
“Ransacked. Might be a burglary gone wrong,” Dan moved to grab her arm. “You need to sit before you fall over.”
Chloe let him lead her to the couch, unbalanced on her feet. “I saw him last night,” she finally answered his question. “We had a date. He made grilled cheese and got out wine. As if I was going to drink when I’m on call, the moron. Only thing he had beyond alcohol and water was orange juice so I got a glass of that and we just talked. It was…enlightening.”
Heartbreaking. Filled with Lucifer’s promise to her to always be honest and her anxiety as she slipped him the poison. Of waiting for it to take effect. “I’m not even sure when I left, just that it was late. He’d broken open a new wine bottle and sounded like he was planning on being up for a while. Was anything taken? Any clue left behind? What about the cameras?”
Did they suspect? Did they know it was her?
Dan looked at her with sympathy that was greatly misplaced. This wasn’t the same as Charlotte. Lucifer was the Devil, he wasn’t capable of dying. Worse, Chloe was the one that had slipped him the poison.
And it was a poison, not a sedative. Chloe had realized that when he’d coughed blood. At the same time, did it really matter? He was the Devil. Poison wasn’t going to kill him like it would a human. Maybe to Lucifer, it really was a sedative. Just like some human medications were poisons to animals. It was a matter of perspective.
(Or you’re just in denial.)
Maze was watching her closely now. “That’s your question,” the demon said, her voice suddenly hard. “Clues, cameras, things taken. What about the how, Decker? Surely you’re curious about that.”
Dan shot Maze a cool look. Chloe remembered about the blood on the floor and wondered how much was there when they found it. Dan would have some idea that whatever was going on, Lucifer was hurt. For a normal person abducted, that wasn’t a good sign. Usually, it was a very bad sign to have blood left behind. It meant they could be looking for a body.
“I would be,” Maze continued, ignoring Dan. “Because you know, now, Decker. And I doubt Lucifer, in your talk, wouldn’t have told you certain things. Only, you don’t seem to know them.”
Chloe stared at her, eyes wide.
Suddenly, Chloe understood what she’d done wrong. She’d been playing it up for Dan, who thought Lucifer was human. To Dan, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Lucifer to go missing. It had happened before. Chloe had assumed that would also apply to Maze. Lucifer had been kidnapped, shot, and wounded in various ways over the years. Yet Maze was implying that Chloe should be confused by how he’d been kidnapped this time.
There was something else at play Chloe didn’t know about that Maze thought she should, if Chloe had actually talked with Lucifer like she’d said.
“Of course I’m interested in the how,” Chloe snapped at her. “I’m interested in a lot of hows, Maze. How did he end up in the desert that one time? How the hell did everything with Malcolm happen? We didn’t go over three years of information in a single night!”
Dan was looking between them, face completely confused. But it wasn’t Dan she needed to convince right now.
It was the demon, watching her with dark eyes.
“You’re lying,” she hissed. “I should have noticed it when I walked it. It’s the same scent. What’s in your purse, Decker, that smells like what was in Lucifer’s wine?”
Chloe felt her heart freeze at the question. “W-what?” she asked, staring at Maze with wide eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
“Maze?” Dan asked, looking completely baffled. “What the hell is going on here?”
Maze looked at him, considering. “You fought off the Azrael’s blade,” she mused. “Try not to scream, Espinoza.”
Chloe could do nothing as Maze’s face shifted. One minute, she was her normal self. The next half her face was rotten. Her eye on that side was cloudy and Chloe could see her teeth through Maze’s cheek. Dan shouted, up from his own seat and backing away quickly as he stared at the demon.
Then she was back to her normal self. “Now that we’re all caught up,” Maze purred darkly. “Answer the question, Decker.”
Chloe couldn’t get her mouth to work. She was too busy trying to stop her racing heart. Next to the image of Maze’s face in her mind, she remembered the face Lucifer had worn standing next to Marcus’ body. Cain’s body, she corrected. Marcus was Cain. He’d killed his own brother.
“Oh god,” Dan whispered, his voice soft. “Oh my god.”
That was the thing about carefully laid plans. All they needed was the right person before they all came crashing down.
Lucifer screamed as the knife bit into his flesh and soul. Magic chanted all around him, biting into his back until his wings were forced into this plain of existence. And once there, the magic dug into feathers and bit deep, drawing blood with each further slice of the knife the priest held in his hands. Molded and guided by their desire to see him hurt.
Each slice was shallow, designed to hurt as much as possible. To draw out the pain, which fed the magic that the gathered circle chanted. Human magic being powered by the pain and blood of a celestial.
Only the gag kept Lucifer from biting his own tongue off in his pain.
Please, Lucifer begged silently. Please, Detective. Find me soon.
It was the last conscious thought he had before there was nothing more than pain.