::: in the land of gods and monsters: ii :::
take my hand i'm a stranger in paradise
all lost in a wonderland
if i stand starry-eyed
that's a danger in paradise
for mortals who stand beside an angel like you
i saw your face and i ascended
out of the commonplace into the rare
somewhere in space i hang suspended
until i know there's a chance that you care
won't you answer this fervent prayer
of a stranger in paradise?
PART TWO: STARDUST
V.
For a long, impossibly long moment, they are nowhere, neverwhere, whatsoever. Not even existing, just between, as if the wardrobe was opened into Narnia but not quite all the way, and they ran facefirst into the back of the wall instead. Then reality slams back in like a tempest – indeed exactly like a tempest, since it is one. Rain hisses and slices at them from every side, knocking them topsy-turvy like fallen leaves in a gust of wind, and as Chloe tries to scream and catch her breath at the same time, she flails out for something solid to catch onto, to steady herself, and gets – nothing. Just a fitful of swirling, damp grey stuff that slides through her fingers like spider silk, and as she skids again, she looks down, which is a terrible mistake. There is nothing but miles and miles of empty, storm-wracked air below her, cauldrons of churning clouds, spears of jagged lightning. She is half in and half out of a particularly impressive towering thunderhead, and sliding toward that yawning abyss. As ridiculous as it sounds – shit, that last instant before Lucifer lit the Babylon candle, he already told her not to think of anything while he was using it, it must take you wherever you imagine, and she was thinking about the sky, after that ridiculous fairytale about her actually being a fallen star, sent away to prevent his crazy witch-queen mother from eating her heart and powering up about a hundred levels –
At that moment, as the edge of the cloud crumbles and Chloe does, indeed, start to fall (as any human would do if chucked out of a magical plane at thirty thousand feet with no parachute – it proves exactly nothing about her heritage) a hand catches her by the wrist and hauls her up next to him. Lucifer is just as drenched to the skin as she is, with a look of aghast confusion on his face – wherever he meant to take them to escape the attack on Lux, it clearly was not this. "What the bloody hell did you do, Detective?" he bellows. "I told you not to – "
"Oh, so it's my fault your magical MacGyver backfired?" Chloe is not about to be blamed for this self-absorbed man-child's performance issues, even as she too has to yell over the racket of the storm. "Maybe if you weren't pulling it out of your ass about me being a star, I wouldn't have accidentally thought of – so what, how do we get down, fall again? I'm not going to jump off a fucking cloud – I said, I want to go – "
Just then, something flashes and snaps around them, and the next instant, they are encased in a cage of wet rope – like a heavy-duty fishing net, but who on literally-not-earth is fishing up here? Then they are both, fittingly, plunging out of the sky, a deck races up at them far too fast, and Chloe is lucky enough to land directly on top of Lucifer, who considerately breaks her fall. She's still plenty winded, but she can just make out that they are on something that looks almost like an old-fashioned ship, with a zeppelin in place of a sail and wide wire wings that crackle with lightning. That, however, is not her chief concern. That would be the glowering, grizzled men in raincoats and hats and goggles, gathering around and gawking at them like rare animals in the zoo. "Lightning marshals?" one of them yells. "You think, Cap'n?"
"Don't look like lightning marshals to me!"
"But what would they be doin' up here otherwise?"
"Let's think!" The man – the captain, evidently – glares daggers through his slow-witted subordinate. "MAYBE THE SAME GODFORSAKEN THING WE ARE!"
At the sound of the voice, Lucifer stirs underneath Chloe – he's not dead, which she's feeling uncharitable enough to consider rather a disappointment, but an unwanted stab of relief gets her in the gut anyway – and attempts to sit up, the best one can when entangled in a fishing net thrown by steampunk pirates plying the stormy skies of this-had-really-better-be-a-fucking-nightmare-land. "Captain Shakespeare?"
The captain – that name sounds vaguely familiar, Chloe knows Lucifer mentioned it before, when she was asking him how he could quote Romeo and Juliet without knowing a thing about England – briefly tenses. Then they are peeled out of the net with a thud and a tumble, the captain (who bears a remarkable resemblance to Robert de Niro, not that he likely is aware of that) peers at them critically, then bellows an order for them to be taken to the brig. Nautical terminology is not exactly Chloe's strong suit, but even she is pretty sure that means "jail," a suspicion which is confirmed as they are hauled to their feet and marched down to a dingy, iron-grated cubbyhole that smells like Moby Dick died in here. They are forthwith tied up, still soaking wet, and left alone to shiver as Lucifer says, "That wasn't what he was supposed to do."
"Friend of yours?" Chloe tries to work at the ropes. She knows how to get out of handcuffs and zip ties, but of course pseudo-Victorian airship pirates are old school in their prisoner-restraining methods. "Or no, wait. You made a deal with him sometime in the past, and he owes you something. So yes, of course he threw you in here to prevent you from babbling to his crew and blowing his cover. Makes perfect sense." She hates herself for thinking logically about this whole mess, but then, someone has to.
"Yes, well, I didn't consider that." Lucifer sounds mildly intrigued. "You're a sharp one, Detective."
"Not necessarily, I just think about other people apart from myself. And speaking of sharp, if you have anything like that, we could use it. Then we can get out of here, and – "
With that, Chloe stops. And what? Fight their way through the entire lot of them? Get struck by lightning? Leap overboard for a several-mile fall, so Queen Lilith's soldiers can helpfully collect her heart from the rest of her splattered remains? No matter how hard she tries, she isn't waking up, and she has no idea what to do. It's a dead end, pretty literally. She slumps forward, as best she can against their bonds, as the fight drains out of her like a punctured water balloon. "So, they're. . . just going to kill us, then."
"Don't think so. I'm sure I can persuade him otherwise."
"Right," Chloe says into her knees. "Because you're Mr. Persuasive."
"Well, that and offering him a trunk of frilly underthings. One of the two."
Chloe scoffs, as this is really no time for him to try to be funny, and is just about to wrack her brain for something, anything else she might have overlooked, when the brig door rattles and Captain Robert de Niro steps inside. He regards them menacingly for a long moment, then says, "And what exactly are YOU doing up in the aetherium, sonny boy?"
"I assure you. Entirely an accident, Oscar." Lucifer flashes him a winning smile. "You just happened to apprehend me with my new lady friend – I've definitely slept with her, by the way, slept with her several times, I really do love sleeping with her – after we, ah. Took a bit of an unexpected detour."
"Detour? DE-TOUR?" Oscar Shakespeare, if that is actually this lunatic's real name (though it isn't any less pretentious than Lucifer Morningstar) snorts in patent disbelief. "And somehow ended up with this lovely lady, far too radiant to belong to one man – it's share and share alike on this vessel!"
There is a loud cheer from outside the door. Great. Of course the entire crew is listening in. And if any of them lay a single finger on Chloe, she will stuff it so far up their ass that they will punch their own teeth out. This "arr, avast, ravish the womenfolk" act was old at least a hundred years ago, and she doesn't care what century they are stuck in. She will sue the shit out of them, even if she has to drag their fantasy-novel behinds over the Wall to Los Angeles Superior Court. "Look," she snaps. "I don't know who you think you are, but if you try anything, just know that it's the stupidest thing you will ever – "
"NO PRISONER WILL SPEAK THAT WAY TO ME!" He raises a fist, and Chloe flinches, but he just hits a nearby sack of flour, which makes a convincingly squelchy noise, to the accompaniment of more wild cheers from outside the door. To hell with pirates, they appear to have landed aboard a traveling circus. "The both of you will pay for your insolence, right here and right now – let's see how well you fly when I chuck you off the side of my – "
The end result of a furious stampede to the rail by the crew, the sight of a body plunging into the clouds below, Captain Shakespeare dragging a struggling Chloe on deck and into his cabin, and more obnoxious shouting and wolf-whistles from these dickheads, is that the door finally slams behind them, Captain Shakespeare straightens up, dusts off his hands, and says in an entirely different tone, "So. That went well, I thought."
"I. . . am still completely lost." Chloe sinks down on the nearest piece of furniture – which happens to be a fussy claw-footed chaise upholstered in red satin, and would not look out of place in some fashionable fin-de-siècle nightclub in Paris. Slightly an odd design choice for the terror of the high, uh, skies, but she's long since quit thinking that she has any idea what is going on. "Where did you get that mannequin? You two know each other? So that whole Oz The Great and Powerful act was just for the sake of the crew, can one of you please – "
Lucifer, who is sitting at the other end of the cabin after having the mannequin chucked off the airship in his place, evidently to give the impression that the fearsome Captain Shakespeare had knocked off this dangerous rogue without breaking a sweat, clears his throat. "What exactly shall I tell her about you, Oscar, darling?"
"Darl – " Chloe stares back and forth between them. She did not see that coming. "What, did you two have a fling too?"
"Tragically no, honey, but we do share an appreciation for fine couture." Captain Shakespeare gives her a knowing look, ushering her toward his closet. "By the way, take your pick. It's all very à la mode. I'm not quite sure what you're wearing, or rather used to be wearing, but – "
"Wait, is this some kind of 'let's get you out of those wet clothes?' shtick?" Chloe clutches her cloak closer; she is still wearing the secondhand garments left for her at Lux. They have certainly seen better days after her recent adventures, and a wet corset is among the most uncomfortable things in the world to wear, but like hell is she stripping down with Lucifer and Captain Fashionista standing there to admire the results (possibly one more than the other). "What you were going on about earlier, with that whole 'far too radiant to belong to one man' thing – "
"Oh, honey, no, no, no. I would never, ever disrespect a lady like that. The whole thing, the act, the terrible Captain Shakespeare, never cross his will – it all adds up to a fearsome reputation without ever having to spill one drop of blood. And besides, Prince Samael and I, we've done plenty of good business. Know each other."
"Prince Samael?" Chloe remembers their conversation at Lux, of asking why his parents would name him Lucifer, of hearing the names of his siblings and thinking that that didn't go with them, but deciding not to dig. "Is that your real name?"
Lucifer grimaces. "It was my name. I certainly don't go by it anymore."
"Okay." This is, shockingly, starting to make a certain amount of sense. Whatever Lucifer knows about Captain Shakespeare, and it's clearly something, he can't go blabbing, if that was something he felt inclined to do, because Captain Shakespeare likewise knows his true identity. That whole story about him running away from home, thrown out of the kingdom, having brothers who like to kill each other for power – Chloe can guess that he is not keen on having anyone put together the pieces to lead from Samael, Prince of Stormhold, to Lucifer Morningstar, owner of Lux and brokerer of sleazy small-time transactions. But then why did he tell her, so easily, the very first time they met? She could have been anyone, a spy for his mother, or. . . he had no reason to do that, to trust her. He just, well. Did.
"Well," Lucifer says after a moment. "We need to get her back to Wall, to the – to her world. She's fulfilled her end of the bargain, in helping me identify a killer. Now I fulfil mine."
"Wall?" Captain Shakespeare beams in delight. "Are you from England? Really? You must tell me all about it!"
"I – no. From – America." Chloe smiles uncomfortably. For all that she was insisting to Lucifer that he was crazy and she wanted to go home right before his mother's men attacked Lux, she still feels strange about actually doing it. "Wait, you're not from England, are you?"
"No, no, of course not. I merely grew up listening to all the stories, and though everyone told me they were only that, I knew in my heart that they were real, and I was right. I learned everything I could, so the name, Shakespeare – I'm thinking legendary British wordsmith, my enemies are thinking shake – spear! But honey, I'm talking too much. Do pick something out. You're safe aboard my ship, and I promise, I will get you to Wall. Just have a few stops to make on the way."
"I – thank you." Chloe is oddly touched, not least because she was expecting a whole lot worse just an hour ago. "If you don't mind me asking, what exactly do you do?"
"We collect lightning. Barrel it, sell it at a good price, to discerning buyers. Very useful stuff, lightning. Means quite a bit of flying in storms, though." Seeing that she has still not approached the apparently life-changing wonderland of his closet, Captain Shakespeare flings it open to reveal dresses in every cut and colour, feather boas, fringed shawls, high heels, ruffled parasols, painted fans, strings of pearls, and all other sorts of accessories. There is also a gramophone, a three-paneled mirror, and a full makeup kit in a handsome wooden case, until Chloe wonders just who exactly all of this is for. It's not like she saw any fugitive exotic dancers on the crew, but then, it was dark and raining. "Doll, take your pick."
"My name is Chloe Decker, not doll." Still, he means well, so she doesn't feel the need to scold him too vehemently. She browses among the dresses, all of which look far more expensive than anything she would wear at home, until she pulls out a simple purple and black one, velvet and chiffon, and some dry undergarments. Once she has shut the closet to change inside, peeling off the corset and grimacing at the whalebone grooves worn into her torso, she can still hear Lucifer and Captain Shakespeare conferring in low voices outside, but can't make out what they're saying. Grateful as she is not to be thrown over the side or providing the evening's entertainment for a pack of mouth-breathing lightning thieves, Chloe still can't quite relax. Surely if Lucifer is telling Shakespeare to take them back to Wall, he's dropping the whole thing about her being a star. Why he would say so in the first place, she still doesn't know, but –
Unless he's not. Unless he's doing the same thing they did before, sending her into the human realm now that Queen Lilith is once more on the loose, to save her life, stop the witch-queen from eating her heart and becoming too powerful to be destroyed. As if it's just too dangerous to let her stay, and Lucifer will go back, see if Maze survived the attack on Lux, and take up the fight either with her or entirely alone. Chloe can go back to Earth more or less unscathed, just as she wanted. Away from this more-than-mortal battle and all its strange and terrible implications for who she might really be, where she comes from. Her parents always called her their miracle child – there was never any indication that she was anything less than theirs. If for argument's sake she was adopted, why wouldn't they just tell her? It's not as if it's a shameful secret these days. They wouldn't –
Again, though, Chloe hears Lucifer telling her that they erased the star's memory, so that she wouldn't grow up with the burden of knowing. What would her parents tell her, that she was a magical star from another world? Did they even know, or were they so happy to receive a child for adoption that they were given some mundane cover story about her origins and believed it? No one ever wanted her to come back here, if it was so paramount that she stayed away. Better to let her think that she was a completely normal human, growing up in a completely normal life. A human who shines when she's happy, and has always felt more alive on clear starry nights than anywhere, anything else.
Chloe sinks down to sit on the padded pouf, staring at her hands. How can she just. . . not be who she is? Did whoever arranged to smuggle her out of Stormhold also meddle with John and Penelope Decker's memories, so they never even had the choice to tell her? A surge of blind anger wells up in her, so strong she thinks she might be sick, as she leans forward, breathing hard. What is she, just some cosmic chess piece? As long as Lilith couldn't eat her heart, it didn't matter what happened to her? Does she even matter to them, or –
Just then, there's a knock. "Detective? All right in there? The feathers didn't eat you, did they?"
"Fff. . ." Chloe's voice seems to have deserted her. It sounds strange and strangled when it finally comes. "I'm fine. Just a minute."
There's a pause, and then the closet door opens. Lucifer lets himself in, waggling an eyebrow at all the fabulousness on display, then shuts it. He looks at her awkwardly, in what a normal person would be concern for a friend, but in him, so foreign to any kind of selfless action, is. . . Chloe doesn't know what. She's tired of guessing, and doesn't have the patience to humor his ignorance or innuendos right now. "You can go, Lucifer. I said, I'm fine."
He mulls this over. She waits for him to make a stupid joke. Then he crosses the floor and crouches down next to the pouf. "I imagine this doesn't help at all," he says, "but I know the feeling. Of falling out of the sky, that your family betrayed you, that the whole lot of it is a lie and now you're going to be alone, so. . . well. If you wanted to, I don't know, have a chat about it, or something? Sex is always on the table."
Chloe snorts. "That's how you fix everything, isn't it?"
"Well, it usually works," Lucifer admits. "You're quite a mystery to me, Detective. And it's not just because you're a star, because I have met others, and that went as it usually does. It's something about you, particularly." He cocks his head, considering her. "I'm not sure."
"But – you said your mother rebelled long ago. I'm not that old. If I was the star exiled when that happened, shouldn't I have arrived in, what, the medieval era? Fall of Rome? Before?"
He looks puzzled, as these dates don't mean anything to him, but he can grasp the point. "Not necessarily. Remember what I said, about how now Stormhold and Earth run to the same time, but they didn't always, and how a day here could have been two hundred years there? When you were sent out, you could theoretically arrive in any time, any place, on the other side of the Wall. I suppose there was a little extra magic involved in making sure it was where and when you were supposed to be."
"Supposed to be according to who?"
"I don't know." His mouth twists. "Dad, probably."
"And you must be what – hundreds of years old? Thousands?"
"I don't know," he says again. He shrugs. "I'm half-Lilim, and there's plenty of fae in me too. I last a long time. I'd only ever be permanently immortal if I also ate a star's heart, but, well. Not my cup of tea. You're that old too, even if you don't remember it. How long you'll live – I don't know, it could be different for you. You're the only star who's ever gone out of Stormhold, crossed the Wall, and lived. Must have never taken off your protection charm, or you'd have crumbled into a little heap of stardust."
Chloe flinches. Her hand moves toward her necklace, that one she has always worn, no matter what. That it terrifies her to think of taking off. Finally, she says, "So, who. . . who took me out of here, then? Do you know that?"
"Actually, yes." Lucifer's eyes flicker to her. "My brother Amenadiel. Terribly boring pompous ass, but never mind that. Delivered you to your new human parents, on Dad's orders."
"And did he wipe their memories?" It bursts out of Chloe before she can stop it, as she rises half to her feet, burning with anger she can no longer contain. They knew she was adopted, of course, but did anyone even ask them if they wanted to take her in, her danger, if Lilith had found a way to follow her into their world? Oh God, what if – all this time, she thought her dad was just a beat cop shot at a robbery gone wrong, but what if –
"Detective." Lucifer tries to catch her arm, but she shakes him off. "I don't know, I didn't even know it was you, obviously. Just that he smuggled the star out before Mu – Queen Lilith could find her – you. My family is – "
"Yeah, I can see where the god complexes come from, and it's not just the names." Chloe inhales a deep, ragged breath. "I want to find Amenadiel."
Lucifer looks shifty. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Why not? Not good for you, you mean? You're friends with the captain. Tell him to fly to Stormhold, or wherever your brother is. I'm a detective, Lucifer. I want the truth."
He considers her for a long moment. "A common lightning pirate such as Shakespeare would be seized and thrown off the tallest tower of the keep if he dared to set one well-dressed foot in Stormhold – and trust me, is a long way down. Nor do I have any interest in renewing relations with my bloody family, or in taking that fall again. However, Amenadiel is abroad fairly often, and we could possibly. . ." He hesitates. It is clear that this goes against every one of his instincts. "Chloe, are you sure you want to know?"
His use of her first name catches her off guard, as he prefers "Detective" the rest of the time, half-teasing and half-tenacious, as if no matter anything else, come hell or high water, he will be a gentleman. She wants to shout at him, but that breaks her, somehow, and she turns away, hugging herself hard, not looking at him. "Yes," she says at last, and that one word is more than just agreement to the current proposition. It is as well an acknowledgement that this is real, that this is really happening, and the truth about her entire life is – whatever it is, it's nothing like she thought. As she said, she solves mysteries, connects clues, reveals culprits. She just never expected that mystery to be her.
"Yes," she says again, as steadily as she can. "I want to know."
Lucifer looks at her for a moment longer. Chloe isn't sure why it feels so. . . hot. Must just be the rush of her anger, the heat of her supposed starshine glow, whatever strange alchemy is at work in her, turning her into. . . this. Then he nods once. "All right," he says. "I'll ask the captain."
VI.
They spend the next few days aboard Captain Shakespeare's ship, the Caspartine, soaring far above the world below – a world which neither Chloe, nor anyone else, has ever seen from an airplane, and she sits by the porthole with her nose glued to the glass, trying to look at everything. They're not allowed to come out of the cabin yet, since Shakespeare is going to pretend to take them on at the next port – his crew is still under the impression that he chucked Lucifer over the edge and took Chloe here for his personal very manly amusements, after all. But it's comfortable, they have everything they need, and one afternoon with the sun slanting through the diamonded windows, spilling golden motes across the mahogany beams and polished brass fittings, the unique and beautiful navigational equipment and charts (she's sure she has seen them surreptitiously switch their painted lines and landscapes, since after all, the world is not always where you left it in Faerie) twinkling in the beautiful blown-glass lamps and the spines of gilted, leather-bound books written in languages she can't read, Chloe finally, finally takes a breath and allows herself to savor the adventure, the strangeness and charm. This is here, this is happening, she's flying in an airship, she's in this magical realm, she's seeing all kinds of –
And then worry, as usual, comes crashing in over her delight. She knows Lucifer promised to send a message to Linda explaining that she was staying that one night, but it has now been quite a bit longer than one night. Has she missed her flight back to America? Have people gotten concerned, contacted the police? Does Trixie think her mother is never coming home, or are Penelope and Dan putting on a brave face for her, telling her that Mommy is probably just having a good time in England? Jesus. Chloe has to remember, no matter how much merry gallivanting she is currently doing, what is at stake here. Her family, her home – no matter the truth she wants so badly from Amenadiel – is still on the other side of the wall. This place has been doing what Faerie does to you. Making her forget.
Lucifer catches sight of the expression on her face. "All right, Detective?"
Chloe's first instinct, as usual, is to brush him off, but several days of living in close quarters have rendered him marginally less obnoxious – she must be building up her tolerance, and he might be able to actually help with this. She tersely explains her dilemma, asks if there is a magical post office around here or something, and he says there may be something of the sort when they make port, but heaven knows how long it would take to be delivered to Linda, let alone her family. He has connections back in Lux and his usual haunts, but this is wild, uncharted territory, the borderlands. If Chloe wants to send something, she can, but the odds are equal or greater that Queen Lilith's black knights will intercept it en route. And that would put all of them in terrible danger, especially Linda. She's right there in Wall, ripe for the picking, if Lilith finds a way in – and she could. Doubtful that she'd try to cross without a star's heart to rescue her from her current state of decrepitude, but you never know.
Chloe has to take that in for a moment. She has noticed the stiff, impersonal way Lucifer speaks of his mother – always "Queen Lilith," cold and formal. If her mother was a murderous demon (she's only played a vampire queen on screen, to the best of Chloe's knowledge) she might do the same, but she senses a fragility there as well. The same reason he calls her "Detective" instead of "Chloe" she thinks, before she can stop herself. Lucifer might have been estranged from his mother for God knows how many literal centuries, but if he started calling her "Mum" on a regular basis, allowed himself to have some faint hope that that damage could be mended, that relationship restored, he'd be exposed. Vulnerable. And she's already getting the sense that any real emotion, anything he can't ward off with an inappropriate joke and wink and favor and sexy smolder, anything that reaches him deep and seizes him in its claws, is terrifying. Not that she knows anyone else like that. Certainly not where the wise-ass remarks are concerned. (No, an unwelcome voice whispers. Her defense mechanism is burying herself in work.)
Chloe is still chewing this over when they finally soar in and make port. She was expecting, you know, a town, which is her first mistake. It is one, sort of, but it's floating in midair, clearly a docking station and truck stop for passing airships without putting them to the bother of actually landing the damn thing. She and Captain Shakespeare step off onto a narrow gangplank that sways several thousand feet above the rugged glens below, struts twined with shreds of blowing cloud, and Chloe clutches his arm, even as she forces herself not to look back for Lucifer. This is the first time she has been separated from him at all since she arrived in Faerie, and no matter how much she's told herself she can't wait to do just that, she feels naked without him. She has no idea what else it is, but she knows that if he's around, she's safe. She can't explain it. Despite the danger and weirdness and earth-shaking revelations about her past, she just feels. . . protected, somehow. Like he has her back, always, no matter how annoying he is about it. By herself, she is just one woman, who still knows almost nothing about this world.
She and Captain Shakespeare cross the jungle gym of skywalks to a rather seedy dwelling, which belongs to a short and annoying man in a fedora (aren't they all?) called Ferdy the Fence, clearly the buyer for all the black-market lightning that Shakespeare and his crew have been smuggling. It's entertaining to watch them haggle, even as Chloe can't help but have a look at all the fantastic (and probably very illegal) items and artefacts lining the walls of Ferdy's rundown trading post. But he ears prick up as she catches something that sounds distinctly like "star." Sure, they could be discussing the usual nocturnal astronomical configurations of this place, but she doesn't think so, especially when she then hears "Lilith." Drifting unobtrusively in their direction, she can make out Ferdy asking Shakespeare if he's heard the rumors of a star on the loose, and the witch-queen, out of prison at last, hotly hunting her. The price she's offered for it is a good one, but think. A star is a treasure beyond price, all kinds of use for it. Eternal life. Wouldn't it be something to have a thing like that. In all his peregrinations, Shakespeare hasn't heard a whisper of anything like that, has he?
Chloe hopes it's her imagination that Shakespeare's eyes flicker ever so slightly toward her – they, of course, have not told the captain, or anyone else, who she is. Lucifer trusts him, more or less, but that seems more based on mutually assured blackmail and profitable business interests, rather than a deep and reliable personal bond. Shakespeare is a pirate, after all, even if he steals lightning (how can you steal lightning?) rather than gold and gems. He could still sell them out if it got too dangerous or expensive to keep them away from –
"No," Shakespeare says. "Nothing."
Ferdy looks disappointed. "You sure?"
"Quite. Now hand over that two hundred, get your layabout lads to fetch the barrels – it's not getting any fresher, after all – and by the way, you haven't by chance heard of the whereabouts of one Amenadiel, Prince of Stormhold?"
Ferdy whistles. "That's a dangerous bloke to be sniffing after. Get yourself chucked off your own ship, is that what you want?"
"My business." Shakespeare folds his arms. "Well?"
Ferdy picks his teeth. "Some tale of one of those princes rattling around in a big black coach, near the Market. Also looking for the star, by the way. What would that be for?"
"You're a nosy wanker, Ferdy."
"Just like to know the value of information." Ferdy squints, even as Chloe's heart skips a beat at the news that Amenadiel may also be looking for her in return. Why? To once more bundle her away from his psycho mother, back to Earth without any memories of this? It sounds like something he might do, if he's in the habit of ignoring people's feelings in the name of some greater good. And yes, Chloe wants to go home, wants to be safe from crazy queens wanting to eat her, wants to see her family again – but she doesn't want to forget. She doesn't want to forget this adventure, what she's learned, even if it's been far more uncomfortable and unsettling than she could ever have bargained for. What she's seen, done, tasted, touched, felt.
And Lucifer.
She really doesn't want to forget him. More strongly than she ever imagined she would. She's never going to see him again once she leaves – it's not like you can just pop over to Faerie for weekend visits, and what would she do anyway? Listen to him brag about his sexual conquests and gripe about his insane family, which either wants to kill her or make her forget she was ever here? She won't miss him or anything. Of course not. That's stupid. But she does not want to forget him, so much it almost hurts. And no. It doesn't make sense to her either.
Once Ferdy and Shakespeare have finished their badinage, and the barrels of lightning have been offloaded, the party heads back to the Caspartine – where a dashing figure springs up from where he has been relaxing on the deck, and Chloe's breath briefly and annoyingly catches in her throat. Lucifer has had some kind of magical makeover too, since his hair is now shoulder-length and swept back in a thick black ponytail that suits him horribly well, with his usual artful stubble and slightly unbuttoned blouson shirt, jacket and boots and a leather strap over a broad shoulder, from which swings a basket-handled sword. He looks like a very, very sexy pirate (fittingly, since they are, after all, aboard a pirate airship) and Chloe's mouth is too dry to swallow as Captain Shakespeare loudly introduces the crew to his nephew, Sam. He'll be coming aboard for the next leg of the journey – oh, and Shakespeare has a present for him, this lovely wench they picked up out of a storm a week back. He hopes she'll keep "Sam" very happy.
Much as Chloe bristles at this whole disgustingly chauvinist notion of being given as a present to anyone, even for show, she knows it's the only way to explain them continuing to share a cabin (even if the crew didn't know they were doing so in the first place). She's also wondering why all this obvious dick-swinging is necessary, what secret Captain Shakespeare is so diligently trying to conceal from his men that he would rather they think he's a bellowing murderous rapist. He's nice. A little, you know, flamboyant, and he's certainly taken good care of them and agreed to help them, at what must be no small risk to himself. It doesn't just seem to be in fear about what Lucifer could possibly reveal about him, but what does she know?
In any event, Shakespeare gives Chloe a push so she stumbles forward and lands against Lucifer's chest, he catches her and makes some kind of gesture that causes the crew to roar, and settles his arm around her waist, tucking her into him. Chloe reminds herself that it's for appearances, ignoring the slight flutter in her stomach that doesn't seem at all to do with nerves. So what. He's attractive. Really attractive, right now. She's allowed to notice. That doesn't mean she has any intention of catching whatever faerie STDs he probably has, especially in a place that has not yet invented penicillin.
They untie from the mooring and reverse back into the air, the wind rippling their hair back from their faces. Lucifer goes off to confer with Shakespeare, and by the looks they throw at her, Chloe can definitely guess what the subject is. After some discussion, he strides back to her. Seems they have decided that Amenadiel is most likely in the village just on the other side of Wall, the one Chloe stumbled into when she first arrived. So that's a sort of two-birds, one-stone thing. Get the truth from him, and then she can go home.
At that, however, Chloe can't help but wonder if she's being stunningly naïve to think that she can just track down Amenadiel, he'll willingly fess up everything he knows, and then let her go on her merry way again without any consequences. After all, he and his father went to great lengths to make sure she got out of here for good, and all their hard work is in danger of being undone in an instant, if Lilith catches up to her. She has strained and strained to call up any repressed memory, any flicker of knowledge from before her childhood in Los Angeles, but she can never get any further than that dream she had that night in Lux. Just that feeling of being cast out, alone, fallen and fragile, banished far from her life and home, and never, never able to find the way back.
Captain Shakespeare says it's a journey of another week from here to Wall, and there is no way to make it go faster. So, Chloe supposes, she might as well try to enjoy it. She can't deny that she is, very much. Lucifer plays the piano in the cabin in the evenings, and she perches on the bench next to him, wanting to join in, even though three years of lessons have only left her barely able to plink out "Chopsticks," much to his disbelief. But he wants to teach her how to play again, and Chloe can feel it coming back to her as they go. Or by day, she sits outside on the quarterdeck as they fly through endless blue sky and sculpted columns of puffy white clouds, watching Lucifer and Captain Shakespeare practice their sparring. Lucifer with a sword is, well. It's incredibly hot. Sue her.
The sunsets are even more spectacular, and the air is warm from the heat of the zeppelin, as glimmering lakes and dark forests and snowy mountains reel away below. One night, Captain Shakespeare hauls out his gramophone (clearly the latest in music tech around here) puts it on, and takes Chloe by the hand, leading her in a stately turn across the weathered boards. She's already insisted that she doesn't dance, but he likewise insisted that of course a lady dances, and it feels a bit ungracious to refuse. As he twirls her closer, he leans in and whispers, "Chloe, I know what you are."
She tenses, starting to pull back.
"But have no fear," he goes on, just as quietly. "Nobody aboard this vessel will harm you, but there are plenty who would. Your emotions give you away. You must learn to control them. You've been glowing more brightly every day, and I think you know why."
Chloe blinks, nonplussed. Yes, she's felt rather, well, shiny recently, but it's still barely processed that this is an actual, physical effect – that white light that Dan always said she gave off when she was especially happy, but which she thought was just a romantic figure of speech. And oddly, despite all the reasons not to be, she is happy. More than she's been in a while, what with the endless work and the fallout of Palmetto and the painful process of the divorce, even if she and Dan had agreed cordially and mutually that it was the best thing to do, and no point dragging it out. Maybe it's because, if she is a star, she has been living in the sky at last, freed from the toil and constraint of earthly cares. Up here, where the world goes on forever – was this the view, the existence, the place in the universe she was always meant to have, watching over the world (or rather, worlds) below? She might not consciously remember it, but that doesn't mean she can't still feel it, deep in her heart.
At that moment, Captain Shakespeare steps back, turns around, and offers her hand to Lucifer, who has stepped up behind them. Chloe hesitates, for no good reason. "I – no, I still can't dance, I don't think this is a – "
"Come on," he says, giving her a tug. "Come on, just once."
Chloe starts to dance by herself, stupidly and half-heartedly, as if dragged onto the floor at a packed club by an overeager friend and trying to get through it as quickly as possible. Lucifer, however, is having none of that. He pulls her into his arms, spinning her light as a snowflake and drawing her close, her chin on his shoulder and his hand on her back, the other engulfing hers, as they whirl and waltz in time to Captain Shakespeare's jaunty gramophone. Chloe can't help it, she feels her face stretch into an almost unbearable smile, as the very sky seems to slow around them, the stars – her sisters, if this is true, and as an only child, she has never had them – peering in excitedly to look. And then she can feel it beyond all dispute, a hot white shine from head to heel, strong and light and pure. Her heart has butterfly wings, and her stomach rushes and leaps, and she has never, never been so happy in her life as she is just then. In his arms, and all the world faded away beyond the circle of the lantern-light, until it is nothing, no one, but them. Take my hand, I'm a stranger in paradise.
She doesn't believe in fate. Kismet. Destiny. Any of that. She never has.
Somewhere in space, I hang suspended.
But – and even she cannot deny it, hard as she tries – this moment right now, here, with him, whatever it is, feels an awful lot like it.
VII.
They arrive in Wall at the end of the week. Or rather, the Faerie side of it, which is a bit of a trek from where the Caspartine dropped them off, post-an extremely eventful landing by Captain Shakespeare, who doesn't actually seem to know how to steer the damn thing very well (if the aghast look of the helmsman as he clutches the wheel protectively is any indication). They are disembarked and well-wished by the captain as Chloe thanks him for his kindness, and rolls her eyes tolerantly as he hastily remembers himself and shouts at Lucifer to make sure he doesn't wear that wench out. The two of them step off the gangplank, Lucifer tips the pirates a rakish salute over Chloe's shoulder, and they all "arrr!" one more time, just for good measure. They stand among the green hills, watching the Caspartine take off and rise up into the clouds, and only when it is fully out of sight do they start to walk. According to the weathered wooden signpost they shortly pass, it's five miles to Wall. Almost back.
Chloe tries to ignore the odd ambivalence of her reaction to this – or not even ambivalence, if she's being honest, but flat-out disappointment. Maybe it's only natural. The last time she was here was in her Earth clothes, her Earth life, stumbling into the market after trivia night at the pub and thinking Lucifer was just some local eccentric, intending to walk away and not look back and let that be that. Now she's in the dress and cloak and jewelry that Captain Shakespeare let her keep, fresh off a fortnight of magical adventure and airship travel, having learned that she is actually a fallen star, that the world is so much wider and stranger than she ever knew, and there is still so much of this place she wants to see. Not that she can just disappear from her real life for six months to go on an extended sabbatical to Faerie. Any more, and she might not want to come back at all. Or remember that she ever had a life anywhere else.
They walk in a companionable silence, Lucifer shortening his long strides to stay at her side. He is still in his swaggering pirate getup, with a cylinder of the fresh-bottled lightning that Shakespeare gave him just in case swinging alongside his sword, and her eyes keep flicking to him, as the wind steals curling black tendrils from his ponytail to frame his face. It feels as if there's an hourglass between them, running short of sand far too fast, and Chloe would give anything to make it slow down. Finally she says, "Why is Captain Shakespeare so determined to make his crew think he's such a douche?"
"Douche?" Lucifer looks over at her, not recognizing the word, but clearly understanding that it's supposed to be an insult from how she used it. "Douche? Douuuuuche? Oh, that is excellent. Love the way it just flows trippingly off the tongue. Know many douches, do you? Your former husband, for instance?"
"Dan is not – he does his best," Chloe says. Lucifer has certainly seemed quite interested in the subject of Dan's failings, but that is not what she is presently concerned with. "But Shakespeare, I mean, he's actually a very decent guy who helped us out of a serious jam – "
"A jam which you caused, Detective, with your hijacking of the Babylon candle."
Chloe gives him the evil eye, remembering that she is, of course, going to be plenty happy to leave this twerp behind. "Never mind that. The point is, he came through, he just had to do this jerk act the entire time, or at least when they were watching. Reminded me of. . . you, almost."
"Oh?" Lucifer looks intrigued. "What's my jerk act?"
"Never mind, it's not an act, it's just the way you are. But in his case – "
"Ah, that." Lucifer considers. "Likely because he enjoys dressing up in fancy ladies' clothing and dancing the cancan. Doesn't think it would go well with his reputation as a fearsome, swashbuckling outlaw of the skies."
"He – " Chloe coughs. She was kind of getting the impression that Captain Shakespeare had an inner fabulous side, what with that extensive closet of clothes and accessories, as well as the general mannerisms, but now all she can picture is Robert de Niro dressed in drag, winking and flirting and vamping it up in a lacy petticoat and fan. She chews her lip furiously, as it feels uncharitable to laugh. "There's nothing wrong with that, you know."
"Oh, I'm not the one it matters to, but he is, shall we say, conscious of his crew's expectations." Lucifer shrugs. "Though if you ask me, he's wasting his time. I'm quite sure they already know. But being yourself can be frightening, can't it?"
That catches Chloe off guard. That, she has come to realise, is just like Lucifer: casually delivering some off-the-cuff comment that is actually rather profound or genuinely good advice, and then being completely oblivious about how it could apply to him in any way. She's also thinking that she might know why Captain Shakespeare picked "Oscar" for a first name, but she doesn't say so. Instead, changing the subject to what is weighing most heavily on her mind, she says, "Do you think Amenadiel will be in the village?"
"Possibly." Lucifer gets the wary expression he wears every time they mention his older brother. "I'll hunt him down for you. I don't want you walking around in public, now that the entire bloody country knows there's a star here. My mother isn't the only one who'd snatch you up for her own benefit, so – "
"Yeah," Chloe says, stomach lurching unpleasantly. "I heard that Ferdy the Fence person talking about it to Captain Shakespeare."
Lucifer sniffs disapprovingly, as he apparently has plenty of strong opinions on Ferdy, but refrains from sharing. "Very well, then. We'll get a room at the Slaughtered Prince and I'll – "
"Excuse me, the what?"
"Slaughtered Prince. Inn in the village. Rather grim name, yes – I did tell you that Stormholders in the male line have a habit of offing their brothers." Lucifer does not look at all perturbed by this, even as Chloe is still sputtering – this does not exactly sound like the safest place to sleep. But after a five-mile walk, she is definitely ready to sit down somewhere, and if all goes well, she'll be back at Linda's by this time tomorrow, with the absolute hell of a story to tell and hopefully not having caused too much alarm and/or inconvenience in changing her travel arrangements. The thought of being back on modern Earth, with its noise and clutter and technology and steel and lights and crowds, is utterly foreign. Sitting in some dull airport lounge in Heathrow, drinking vending-machine coffee, after soaring among the clouds on Captain Shakespeare's airship, dancing on the deck at sunset. Los Angeles smog and traffic, a line at the Starbucks drive-thru on the way to work, someone else dead, another day, another case. It doesn't even feel like her life any more.
They reach the village just before sunset. It's still crowded, Lucifer has to shoulder through the narrow streets to clear a path, and someone runs into Chloe and almost knocks her flat, causing her to skin her hands on the cobbles breaking her fall, and to learn a lot of Stormholder curses as Lucifer shouts imprecations in the direction of the clumsy arse responsible. He helps her up, and then doesn't let go of her arm the rest of the way to the Slaughtered Prince, which despite the name is a perfectly handsome whitewashed, half-timbered building that probably does not have an axe-murderer lurking in the basement. They get a room, and while Lucifer heads back out in search of Amenadiel, Chloe takes a hot bath. This is not as simple as merely running a tap, since the water has to be heated in cauldrons and hauled slopping up the stairs to be dumped into the huge copper tub, but what the hell. If it's her last night here, she's going to enjoy it.
She soaks for a while, telling herself that she's happy this is all over, then gets out and wraps herself in a towel. She's just started to rub dry when the room door swings open, and Lucifer bursts in without knocking. "Detective, before it goes any more to pot, I think you should – "
Startled, Chloe screeches, loses her grip on the towel, and the next second, she is giving him a full-frontal, head-to-toe appreciation of her assets, which he does not even pretend to look away from in the name of decency. Instead, his face splits in a grin from ear to ear. "Detective! My, my, you've really kept things up since those – what did you call them? – Hot Tub High School days. Well done."
Absolutely mortified, Chloe snatches the towel up, wondering what on earth possessed her to tell him about that. Part of confessing why she left the acting business and became a cop, but she should have known it would backfire. "Lucifer! I am naked!"
"So I very much see, my dear. I can be too if you want, I'm an equal-opportunity sort of gent." He reaches for the buttons of his shirt. "Decided you can't resist me?"
"I was taking a bath. Not – Lucifer, don't you dare take your clothes off, I will smack you." Chloe re-knots the towel tightly, face still burning, as he looks crestfallen and drops his hands. "Did no one ever teach you to knock, or is barging in on women while they're changing your go-to move? Besides, did you find your brother or not?"
"I – yes." He clears his throat. She notices he has a blossoming black eye and a split lip, as if the brotherly reunion was more a bit of a punch-up. "He was rather displeased, but I've dragged him here for the moment. Get dressed – or don't, you could give him a heart attack and trust me, it would be very funny – and I'll take you down."
Chloe isn't entirely sure she wants to face a potentially stabby and certainly pissed prince of Stormhold right off the bat, especially if Lucifer has been literally throttling him into compliance, but this might be her only chance to get answers about her past, and even her inadvertent flashing of Lucifer has to be forgotten. Forcing him back behind the carved wooden screen to wait, she dries off in a hurry and hauls back on her dress and cloak, combing her fingers through her damp hair and twisting it into a knot. Then she emerges and follows Lucifer down the stairs, to a small room at the back of the tavern. There is someone else inside, pacing like an angry lion, who turns abruptly when they enter.
The first sight of Prince Amenadiel is surprising. Chloe doesn't know what she was expecting, but he is tall, muscular, bald, and black, with a neat goatee and solemn dark eyes, one of which also looks as if someone has punched it recently. She's about to ask, but decides that they are, after all, quasi-immortal magical/demonic/faerie beings, they can look however they please. Amenadiel continues to regard his brother with considerable mistrust, even as he inclines his head politely to Chloe. "Miss Decker."
She supposes they have met before, when she was only a very small girl, which she of course does not remember.. She doesn't quite like being called "miss," as it is likewise little-girlish and she is a grown woman, thirty-five, but now is not the time to quibble over nomenclature. It occurs to her that she doesn't know what to call him – she's not choking out a Your Royal Highness or anything like that – so she says only, awkwardly, "Hello."
Amenadiel casts a significant look at Lucifer as if expecting him to leave the room. Lucifer folds his arms and remains exactly where he is.
"Whatever you have to say," Chloe says levelly, "you can say to both of us."
"Do you think that's wise? Trusting him?"
"I've been traveling with him for the last few weeks. I trust him a lot more than, say, you."
Amenadiel smiles faintly, acknowledging the point. He is wearing a handsome high-necked tunic of grey velvet and a cloak in a matching shade, trimmed with fur. "I've been looking for you. You need to leave this realm before my – before our mother catches up to you. Did he tell you why?"
"Yes." Chloe looks back at him coolly. "Yes, he told me everything."
Amenadiel raises an eyebrow. "Good, then. You know that if you stay, you risk undoing everything we have struggled to defend against these many years. And of course, this world is not your home, so I'm sure you won't find any difficulty in leaving it and – "
"Excuse me." Chloe doesn't much like this sanctimonious look-how-much-I've-done-for-you take on things. "It's not my home because you and your father made the decision to send me away and wipe my memory, and probably were never going to fill me in if you could possibly avoid it. What about my p-parents? Did you magically mind-wipe them too, so they couldn't interfere with any of your plans? Because what did my life matter, against the greater good?" Her voice breaks slightly on the last two words. She can't help it.
Amenadiel looks stunned, as he has clearly not expected this accusation. He shoots a look at the door as if thinking about cutting the interview short and leaving, but Lucifer shifts his weight, blocking him. At last he says, "John and Penelope know – knew – who you are. I told them not to tell you until you were at least twenty-one, so you could be an adult when this was put on you, not a child. I doubted you'd believe it, or that you would come back. Or if you did, that Mother would still be imprisoned, and it would not matter. But. . ." His voice trails off.
"But," Lucifer repeats harshly. "You arsed it up as usual. She did come back, and Mummy Dearest did escape, and now you're left scrambling to fix it. Just like you to – "
"I'm not the only one of our brothers looking for Chloe!" Amenadiel glares at Lucifer. "There are others. Have an idea that there's a way to permanently solve this problem, rather than risking her stumbling back in again later. Know what I mean?"
At that, Lucifer goes very still. Then, half in a growl, he breathes, "Do they?"
Chloe doesn't know exactly what this means, though the way Amenadiel said "permanently" gives her some idea and a cold shiver down her spine, but she's never seen that expression on Lucifer's face, and would prefer not to see it again. He looks unspeakably, icily furious – but also scared, and she's never thought until now that he even has the capacity to be frightened. Yes, he's said that his brothers are a homicidal bunch, but that never seemed to bother him – at least when it was about him. About her. . . that appears to be quite a different story.
"Which one?" Lucifer says, still in that growl. "Perchance?"
Amenadiel eyes him suspiciously. "Uriel."
This makes Lucifer swear, with great invention. He looks as if he's on the brink of rushing out to do – Chloe doesn't know what, but something. Amenadiel is also looking as if he is about to blow this pop stand, and in a rush, before she loses her chance, Chloe says, "My father – he died when I was nineteen, he was shot, I thought it was just a robbery gone bad, but if it had anything to do with this – with this world – "
"No," Amenadiel says. "As far as I know."
That is something of a relief, at least, but it still leaves Chloe with the question of why her mother didn't tell her on her twenty-first birthday, if that was indeed what Amenadiel asked her to do. But then it occurs to her that Penelope must have been scared. Scared out of her mind, in fact. She had already lost her husband, and now if she told her daughter, her only child, about her fantastical origins, there was an excellent chance that Chloe would run off here, either get killed as well or just never come home. She's already had to struggle against the desire to stay here forever, and it's only been a few weeks. The risk of having her heart eaten with fava beans and a nice Chianti is also quite clear. Penelope must have hoped that if she didn't, if Chloe never found out, she could keep her. Knowing it was wrong, but rationalizing it to herself. The greater good.
At that, Chloe feels her heart twist hard. She always struggled far more with her relationship with her mother than she did with her father, and this gives her a poignant, painful glimpse into the fact that her mother might indeed love her more than she has ever known. But it makes her wonder if her dad, her hero, would have told her, done the right thing, or if he too would have been too frightened of losing her. Amenadiel. Penelope. Dan. All these people, however good their intentions, have lied to her and misled her and kept her in the dark in the name of ensuring her safety, of maintaining some literal celestial balance, of shielding themselves from having to face the consequences. The only person in her life who has never done that, who is frankly and sometimes shockingly honest with her, who has only acted to protect her and is too damn selfish to give a single shit about any of these abstract ideas of higher morality, is standing behind her, one dark eyebrow arched cuttingly at Amenadiel. No wonder it's been like being doused in cold water, being around him. Woken up, out of the comfortable dreamy haze that everyone else seems to want to keep her in. Knowing, for better or worse, the simple and utter truth.
"Okay," Chloe says, since Lucifer and Amenadiel both seem to be waiting for her to say something. "So. . . what? Are you going to Obliviate me now?"
"I. . . no." Amenadiel looks tired. "I do, however, think it's best that you go back to your – the other world, and stay there. Go home. We can't guarantee your safety here, and if our mother gets hold of you, much worse will happen. I'll let you have a chance to say goodbye, but. . ."
"How generous of you." Lucifer's voice is cold and flat. "Let us have a chance to say two words before you bundle her back off again, never to return, just like you did the first time. You know, I think I'm regretting bringing you here – "
"You didn't bring me here, Luci, you ambushed me here, and why are you going to all this trouble for – "
"No more fighting!" Chloe gets between the brothers, who are glaring each other's heads afire (barely metaphorically) and adopting the voice she uses to arrest suspects, as she pushes them apart like scrapping kids on the playground. Not that they are kids – they are both unfairly tall and probably freakishly strong. "Look, we already knew that the best thing was for me to go back. That's what we planned. That's what we have to do. Just. . . make sure your mom doesn't burst in for the next twelve hours or so. Besides, we don't have a choice."
Lucifer and Amenadiel are still glowering at each other, but the sense of this appears to grudgingly pervade their very thick skulls, and they slouch off in loathing alliance to do as she says. As they go, she overhears Amenadiel ask, very unexpectedly, "How – how's Maze?"
"Pining into her pillow, crying every night, because she can't bear to live without you."
"Really?"
"No, of course not, you nobhead. In fact, I need to find out if she even survived Mum's delightful little attack on Lux. And I don't suppose it's coincidence that Mum knew exactly where to find me, and Delilah thinking she was the star, in all of Faerie? After all those years in prison? Have anything to say for yourself on that front, bro?"
"I. . . look, Luci, she. . ." Amenadiel blows out a heavy breath. "Said she wanted to make it up with me, and the rest of her children. You know how she can get to us, know what buttons to push. She wanted to know where you might be found, and I thought it was. . ."
The door shuts behind them, cutting off Lucifer's undoubtedly heated reply, and Chloe cautiously presses an ear to the wood to make sure they aren't going at it in the hall again. Once they're gone, she blows out a slow breath of her own, feeling absolutely shitty. Well, then. Guess this is how it ends. Not with a bang, etc., etc. The brothers will spend the night bickering on guard duty, she'll sit in her empty room, and tomorrow morning she will return to Wall. Be starting the trek down to London. Going further and further away. And memory charm or not, she will start to forget. Wake up another few weeks from now, and this will all be just a dream.
Chloe pays a visit to the front of the tavern, gets a few flagons of mead (very medieval of her, really) and carries them back up to the room. It's a bit of an acquired taste at first, thick and honey-sweet with a slightly sour, fermented flavor after you swallow, but it is good, and more importantly, it is very strong. After a cup or two, Chloe is feeling just about out of general fucks given about the situation. She's let her hair down from its damp knot and is swaying drunkenly around the bedchamber, belting a bad version of some Kelly Clarkson angst-pop anthem, when she hears a noise at the threshold, turns, and sees Lucifer standing there, blinking at her in utter confusion. "Detective? Are you –?"
"If that door's open, you better walk on through it." Chloe saunters toward him. She's just about decided, without remembering how or when, that she is entitled to do something dumb and reckless, since this is all going to be gone anyway. She reaches him, as he takes her by the hand and attempts to steer her back to the settee. "Ugh. Lucifer. How'd I even end up in this mess?"
"Because you're a kind person who puts the needs of others above her own. Horrible irony, but there you go." He sits down next to her. "Hence why you're voluntarily choosing exile again."
"But you don't, do you?" Chloe turns toward him, with limpid, imploring eyes. "You just – take. Whatever you want."
With that, she leans forward, hands on his shoulders as she climbs onto his chest, intending to kiss him. And after that, well, you know. He hasn't shut up this entire time about his burning desire to do the nasty with her, she feels like flipping the bird at the universe somehow and he is an excellent assistant in this regard, and as noted, nothing she does tonight really matters, because it all gets zapped away in the morning. Maybe she will be able to hold onto this memory slightly longer, so she doesn't lose all of it. Probably hate herself for it, but whatever. She doesn't care. She's drunk and more than a little heartbroken. He's here. He can put her up on his wall of conquests later, she doesn't care. Won't be around to see it.
But as she chases his mouth with hers, he most unexpectedly leans backward, denying her even this one minute of bad judgment. Her fists bunch on his shirt. "What's – whas' happening?"
"It would seem. . ." He reaches up a hand, trying to gently loosen her grip. "I'm saying no."
"But why? Oh God, what am I doing? Drunk, throwing myself at you?" She blinks hard, and shakes her head dazedly. Thinks again of Penelope, and how she didn't tell her. "It's something my mother would do."
"Come now, Detective. Come here. We don't all turn into our parents, do we?" He settles her against him, snuggled against his chest, his arm around her and her head on his shoulder. She feels warm and heavy and exhausted and safe, that way she always oddly feels with him, and a deep haze is creeping swiftly over her. He is still talking, but he's always talking, and she just wants to wish the world away, wants this over, get it over with like ripping off a bandage, doesn't want the pain. Doesn't want.
Doesn't want.
Doesn't want.
VIII.
When the detective is snoring wetly, tucked up in the inn bed as a light rain begins to mist the windows, Lucifer pulls on a hooded cloak, buckles on his sword, descends the stairs as quietly as a shadow, looks both ways, and slips out into the night. He did a good job of putting Amenadiel off the scent earlier, but he considers his job only half done. If Uriel is lurking around here somewhere, if he's got Chloe in his sights. . . he's as stubborn as a dog with a bone, very beholden to his particular ideas of justice, and willing to do whatever it takes to make sure their mother doesn't regain power. If that involves making sure Chloe's heart can't ever be used, by getting cleanly rid of her so they don't have a repeat of this fiasco in five or ten years if she comes back – not that she would, and Lucifer is being wildly optimistic to think that Faerie would be anything the same if his mother took over the rule of Stormhold again – there are other spells, enchantments, sacrifices to hold her over while she waits for a star, another one could fall bloody tomorrow, you never know –
Lucifer's thoughts are racing over and over, and can't seem to settle into coherence or sense. All he knows is that he has to catch up to Uriel now, and that waiting until the morning may well be too late. He doesn't know precisely what the wee bastard is plotting, but if he – if Chloe – if anything happens to her – she would never have come back to this world at all if he hadn't opened his fool mouth and dared her, all but dragged her – his fault, his –
He's traveling fast (well, it helps that he stole one of the black horses from Amenadiel's ridiculous carriage – he doesn't need six of them anyway) and soon leaves the village behind, thundering across the rugged countryside with the non-fallen stars beaming coldly down on him from above. Whatever foxhole Uriel has burrowed down, he'll turf him out. His pestilential little brother prefers to operate this way, in the shadows, nudging things just so until they topple as inexorably as a chain of dominoes, until it's impossible to say what was circumstance and what was chance. He won't give up. He never does.
At last, Lucifer spots a dim glow ahead, and shortly reins up at a lonely crossroads inn. There is a horse tied up outside that he recognizes as a fine Stormholder stallion, directly from the royal stables, and knows he's in the right place. He swings down and strides inside, making no attempt to disguise his entrance. "So! Uriel! This is almost a bloody family reunion, isn't it?"
A cloaked figure in the corner starts, then turns, looks up from his drink, and gives him a very cool smile. Prince Uriel, youngest of the seven sons of King Deus and Queen Lilith of Stormhold, is shorter than either of his elder brothers, with thick dark hair and a slightly beaked nose, clever and reserved and calculating eyes, as he regards Lucifer's sudden appearance without apparent surprise. "Brother. I knew you'd be coming."
"How? Playing around with the runes again?"
Uriel shrugs. "Perhaps you're just predictable. You'd hate that, wouldn't you? Though I did stop on the way to ask a certain fearsome airship pirate – or at least what the world thinks is a fearsome airship pirate – but Twinkletoes wouldn't talk."
"Bloody good for him. I hope Shakespeare kicked your arse black and blue while wearing a frilly pink petticoat."
Uriel's nostrils flare, as it is clear that if not Shakespeare, someone did some arse-kicking, presumably Shakespeare's crew, and he had to flee post-haste from the Caspartine in rather less triumphant glory than he was expecting. "Never mind all that. You don't need to tell me why you're here, though, because I know that too. About the star, isn't it."
"You said that, not me." Bloody hell, Lucifer has forgotten just how much he hates being wrong-footed by this insolent imp. "What the devil are you planning to do to her?"
Uriel shrugs again. "We all have the same aim, don't we? Preventing Mum from regaining her power, weaseling her way back into the kingdom, renewing her thrall over Dad, and plunging us into a new war. And if you're not going to help with that, well. . ."
"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO HER?"
Uriel blinks, then grins. "It's pretty obvious that you care for this little star of yours a tad more than you do for Mum, I have to say. But it's not what I'm going to do to her, Lucifer. It's about what you will. About, in fact, what you have already done."
Lucifer turns cold from head to heel. "What are you – "
Uriel holds up something small and sparkling. "Recognise this?"
For a moment, he doesn't – and then he does. Chloe's necklace, the one with the enchanted diamond, the one she's never taken off. The protection charm that enables her to cross into the non-magical human world, and live there. The one without, as soon as she steps foot over the Wall tomorrow, not even having noticed that it's gone – would you pay special attention to see if you still had your arm or your leg, when it's always been part of you? – she will die. Turn straightaway into dust, with no heart to be eaten. Problem solved. Case closed.
She will die.
"How did you – " Lucifer's voice barely sounds like his own. "How did you get that?"
Uriel smirks. Twirls it around his finger, then pockets it. "Afraid I may have accidentally bumped into her, back in the village."
"That was – " Lucifer is speechless. Thought it was just some berk not bothering to look where he was going, but this, but this – "You miserable thieving git, GIVE IT BACK!"
"Sorry." Uriel's eyes burn. "See? She'll wake up tomorrow, and you'll be gone. Ran off, just like she figured you would. She'll be confused and angry and hurt, so she'll decide to just go back to her world, since you left without saying goodbye. Head for the Wall, and. . . poof." He waves a hand. "Stardust."
"You – " Lucifer takes a lunging step at him, but Uriel adroitly darts out of the way. He glances around – if the other patrons are taking notice of this, there could be more trouble. But there aren't any. Just a rather goaty-looking innkeeper and a ginger-haired barmaid, neither of whom seem keen on getting into the middle of this confrontation. In fact, they're backing away as fast as they can, as Lucifer's hand drops to his sword. After all that practice with Captain Shakespeare, he's feeling quite the thing. "I said, give it back. Now."
"Do you really think I'm going to do that?" Uriel plunges a hand into his cloak, and comes out with a knife. Not just any knife, but one of their elder sister's special ones. Princess Azrael of Stormhold has always been more terrifying than all her brothers put together. "I'm going to destroy it."
"You idiot, you –" Provocation tendered, Lucifer goes for his sword. The unsheathing rings like a thunderbolt, as Uriel eyes him with savage glee. Then puts back the knife, and draws his own sword.
"Sure," he breathes. "We can do this the hard way."
Without another word, Lucifer goes for him. Uriel's blade flashes up to intercept, as he twists away, but can't escape Lucifer's slashing overhand, as the spelled steel sparks and screeches where it tangles. Back, forth, over, under, high, low, left, right, they duel furiously across the inn, sending tables and chairs tumbling, tankards clanging, glass breaking, as Lucifer keeps trying to get close enough to snatch the necklace from Uriel's cloak, but can't. They battle up the stairs, onto the landing, dodging and ducking in the close quarters, swearing and slashing – until Uriel gets lucky, catches Lucifer dead to rights under the chin with the hilt of his sword, and sends him somersaulting over the railing, crashing into the antlered chandelier and then straight into the floor below. Lucifer hits with crushing, bruising, blinding force – he's barely conscious, can't see, can't breathe, knows that Uriel is drawing out Azrael's knife to destroy the necklace and –
"Hey. Why don't you pick on a girl?"
It can't be –
Lucifer's reeling vision can barely keep up as a third figure stalks out of the shadows, dressed in leather and more leather, brandishing her dark curved daggers – Maze. She's alive, she must have been looking for him, escaping the destruction of Lux and tracking him across the country, which can't have been easy when he has been mostly above it, rather than on it. She faces Uriel in cool defiance, as he seems momentarily taken aback at this new challenger, then raises his sword. "Come on, little demon. You think you can match against a prince of Stormhold?"
Maze, never a woman to waste words when a punch will do, takes the opportunity to attack like a whirling murder dervish, as Lucifer struggles to sit upright. Blood is running in his eyes, his head is ringing, he wonders if he's broken something in the plunge, though in the ordinary course of things he is impervious to such common injuries. Uriel and Maze are slugging it out, the world is still cartwheeling around him – it won't snap back into place no matter how hard he pushes at it, and all he can hear is his terror, screaming in his head. Maze is putting up a terrific fight, but she's on her heels as well – then the next instant she's flying across the taproom and landing with an almighty crash in the glass rack, and Uriel regards his handiwork with grim satisfaction. Then he takes out Chloe's necklace, and the knife. "Well. Since you made this really difficult, I don't think I'll stop with just getting rid of her protection charm. I'll make sure she turns into dust, no matter if I have to drag her over the Wall myself, and you can't stop – "
Lucifer doesn't know where the strength comes from. Just that he throws it all into one titanic leap, and flashes across the darkened, smashed-up taproom, wrenching their sister's knife from Uriel's hand. Swings his arm back, and buries it point, half, hilt-deep into his brother's heart.
Uriel jerks. His legs give out, and he collapses, as Lucifer catches him reflexively, madly, in his arms. His eyes are turning glassy. "I. . ." he breathes. "I did not see that coming."
His head falls back. His blood laps across the sawn boards of the floor. Lucifer's hands are covered with it. He didn't – he didn't mean – now he's just like the rest of them, after so long priding himself on being different – the princes of Stormhold kill their brothers – it's practically a joke, they always do, it's inescapable, inexorable. He – here – Uriel –
His hand opens slackly on the blade. He looks up in utter, unbearable horror.
"Lucifer." Maze is trying to get him to his feet. "Lucifer, this place reeks of Lilim magic – I think it's a trap, your mother wanted to know where the star was, Uriel would have led her right to it by accident, and I'm not interested in fighting off another black knight attack. She's gone, she's gone to the village, if she gets the star, you know what will – "
Her words clatter emptily off his ears. The necklace gleams in Uriel's cloak pocket, cold and stark as a star itself. Lucifer cannot touch it with these bloody hands. He would only profane it.
He is at last, beyond all dispute, a monster.
IX.
Chloe wakes up feeling like ten tons of crap in a one-ton bag. The sunlight pierces her head like a drill as she struggles to screw one eye open, feeling as if sitting up might dislodge her abruptly from the face of the earth and send her corkscrewing wildly into the void. The apparent other pertinent feature of mead is that it gives you the actual hangover from hell – is that why Vikings chugged it like water to prove they were real men, one wonders? But fascinating historical drunk miscellanea aside, Chloe has larger concerns. The last thing she really remembers last night was the Kelly Clarkson woeful karaoke, and then Lucifer walked in on her, and she – and she –
Oh God.
Ignoring the spear of nauseous lightning that strikes her from head to toe and makes her want to retch her brains out, Chloe bolts upright, gasping and grimacing at the effort, as she realizes that she is naked in bed, and he is nowhere in sight. Well, mostly naked – her dress appears to have been removed by a blind troll, and her shift and drawers (drawers, god, what a stupid name for underwear – it makes her sound like a cabinet) are still more or less in place. What, did Lucifer not even bother to undress her properly before he took her up on her incredibly ill-advised offer? Wow, some romantic. She hopes her insensately sozzled carcass was an awesome lay, then, though if he's made it even worse by just gathering up his things and vanishing into thin air –
As Chloe is really about to lose it, however, the nearly-drowned voice of reason in the back of her head speaks up, pointing out that while she indisputably feels like the morning after a lot of drinking, she doesn't feel like the morning after a lot of drinking and sex. She had that a few times in the Hot Tub High School days, unfortunately, and she knows what that feels like. The only indent in the bed is hers, there are no mysterious marks or love bites or bruises or anything else on her, and she has been known to rip off her own clothes when she gets too hot, especially if she was engaged in a sloshed battle of wills with the corset and just wanted the damn thing off. She doesn't ache in the bits that should be aching, pleasantly or otherwise, and she doesn't even have a hazy memory of a really good orgasm to take the edge off. So. . . what? Lucifer just pityingly tucked her up in bed like an eighteen-year-old spring-breaker who needed to recover from her first encounter with tequila, and split town before she woke up and either of them had to endure the embarrassment of talking about it?
Wow. Classy. Not quite as bad as if he slept with her while she was a wreck, even if she did throw herself at him, but still something that makes a surge of anger rise in Chloe's chest, twisting around her lungs until she almost can't breathe. She was an idiot, sure, but she almost thought that despite his jerkish nature and selfishness and whole magical-playboy act, there was some kind of real connection between them, that they had gotten past the walls and the jokes and the. . . but no. Apparently, resolutely not. She's made the oldest mistake in the book. She's the girl who thought she was different for the player, because he made her feel special. Because he literally does that with everyone, and then throws them away when he's bored and goes to the next gullible sap. After all her assurances to Linda and to herself that she was smarter than this, that she was above all this obvious bullshit, look at her.
Furiously smudging away something that feels suspiciously like tears, Chloe ignores further head-lightnings, gets out of bed, and starts roughly pulling on her clothes. She might cause a stir in Wall walking in looking like one of Those Weirdoes, but she'll just hide in a phonebooth and call Linda to pick her up, assure her that she hasn't been strangled and had her body dumped behind a windmill somewhere. She'll say she was at a fancy costume party, if anyone actually asks. They probably won't. It's not too out there. People wear dresses. She's just stalling. As if she's going to look out the window and see Lucifer running back like the airport scene in Love Actually. Yeah. No.
Chloe pulls herself together, leaves the room, turns the key in at the desk, and emerges from the Slaughtered Prince into the pale spring morning, torn between taking final looks at Faerie and wanting to just get out of here as fast as possible. She knows the way back to Wall from here, it isn't far, and her pace speeds up as she reaches the top of the hill and descends toward it, looking the same as ever, the break in the old stones where she passed through the first time. The brief and horrible thought occurs to her that Lucifer was wrong about the time differential, and she's about to emerge years or decades or worse after when she went in, but she can't see any futuristic robot colony or artificial satellite hanging in the sky, so there's that. She has just reached the wall proper now, and pauses a moment, one last moment, then starts to take a step –
Someone catches her wrist from behind, scaring the life out of her, and for a mad, impossible moment, she is sure that it is Lucifer. But no. She turns to see a striking, statuesque woman perhaps in her forties, dressed in green and black, with honey-gold hair twisted in an elegant knot and an expression of deep concern. "No! You can't cross the Wall, you'll – you'll die!"
"What are you – " Chloe struggles reflexively to free herself, but the woman's grip is very strong. "What – how did you – "
"Your protection charm." The woman looks at her queerly. "You don't have it on. If you go back into the human world without it, you'll turn to dust."
What the – Aghast, Chloe fumbles at her neck, and discovers to her further horror that the woman is right. Her necklace, the one she's never taken off, is missing, and she hasn't even noticed. How long has it – ? Oh God, did Lucifer skim it off her while she was unconscious and use it for some sordid little deal of his? A star's enchanted diamond must be close to priceless. It seems impossible that she just happened to lose it, the chain snapped somewhere, when it never has for the rest of her time on Earth. So – what, did he not just abandon her, but implicitly leave her to die? No. No, he wouldn't, he couldn't – but he was the only one who knew what it was, that she had it, that she –
"Let me help you," the woman says. "I know a fair bit about magic, let me see if I can't possibly fashion you a replacement."
"I – " Chloe is wary. "I can't pay you."
"Oh, no, you don't need to pay me." Still keeping hold of Chloe's wrist, the woman waves her free hand, and a black coach rolls up, apparently on its own accord, its heavy wheels leaving muddy ruts in the wet grass. It looks rather like Amenadiel's, actually. "My name is Charlotte, I was – well, these days I'm just a simple innkeeper's wife. Let me take you back, and we'll see what we can do."
"That's kind of you, but – " Chloe hasn't forgotten that warning from Captain Shakespeare about there being plenty of people who want to harm her, and she's pretty sure that accepting rides from strangers is just as bad an idea in Faerie as it is on Earth. Worse, probably. "I'll just – "
"No, dear. I insist."
Chloe pretends to agree, and takes a step toward the coach – then rips her wrist out of the woman's grasp and starts to run, which is quite a chore in long skirts and on boggy, slippery ground. She doesn't get a dozen yards before something punches her very hard in the small of the back, wraps stinging tendrils around her legs, and she rolls over to see a lash of fire curling up them, which Charlotte appears to be spinning from her fingers. She cracks it again and hauls Chloe kicking and struggling through the mud, then lifts her with one hand and opens the coach door, shoving her against it. "Ride inside, my dear, or be dragged behind. Your choice."
Chloe starts to sputter some choice words at her, if that's how they are playing this, but Charlotte gives her another shove, and she topples into the musty, gloomy interior, still covered in mud and grass. There are two benches upholstered in rather moth-eaten green velvet, one of which she perches on with great hauteur. Charlotte climbs in after her and wedges the door shut, clicks her fingers briskly, and the coach starts to move, rocking and swaying as if the invisible horses (do they have thestrals here, Chloe wonders?) are at full gallop. Charlotte looks older than she did a minute ago, face more deeply wrinkled and hair streaked with white, and while Chloe of course is a total amateur at identifying the power levels for sorcerer/esses, if this is actually a humble innkeeper's wife, she'll eat her fancy petticoat. Surely it can't –
At that moment, a horrible suspicion comes over her, one she really isn't sure she wants confirmed. As the coach continues to rattle and bump, she stares at her captor and breathes, "Lilith?"
The other woman smiles. "Queen, darling," she says. "Queen Lilith. But frankly, I don't like having my true name spoken by you grubby little mortals – I suppose you aren't one, you're a star, but you've been raised by and living among them, their stink is all over you. You, therefore, may continue to call me Charlotte."
"Look, you – " Chloe has had to negotiate with crazies as part of her job before, but always with a trained response team at her back, and never with her own neck on the line. "You can't just eat my heart."
Charlotte looks surprised. "Of course I can."
"There's no way immortality is worth that, if you – " Chloe makes a stab in the dark, something she heard Amenadiel say last night. "If you want to reunite with your sons, what will they think if you do it this way? They'll hate you, they – "
"I very much doubt you know anything about me or my children." Charlotte's voice is cool and flat. "But I am willing to do whatever it takes to be with them again, and I can't do that if I am weak and old and powerless, can I? It's nothing personal, dear. But since it is the – "
"Lucifer won't let you," Chloe blurts out, before she can stop herself. She then wants to bite her own tongue off.
"Lucifer?" That has indisputably gotten Charlotte's attention. She leans forward. "You know Lucifer? How? Ah, wait, yes. It was his tavern my knights attacked, looking for you. I suppose that is slightly awkward, but he'll soon see that it was for the best, and – "
"You killed his friend Delilah, thinking she was me. Just for a start. I don't think he's going to be too interested in – "
"Come now, dear, that was just a silly human." Charlotte waves an airy hand. "They die so easily, you know. That's what they were designed to do. And besides, if Lucifer cared for you so much, why were you about to cross the Wall, alone and without your charm, looking as if you couldn't wait to be gone? Why wasn't he with you? Why didn't he stop you?"
Chloe opens her mouth – and then shuts it, as Charlotte has of course just struck exactly at the heart of everything she was thinking just that morning. She's deluding herself to think that Lucifer even has a clue where she is, much less has any inclination to lift a finger to rescue her. Probably thinks that was fun and now it's time to seduce a brunette, just for variety. The thought makes her feel as if someone has punched her in the stomach. She's going to try to get out of this, if there's any way for her to match against a centuries-old demonic witch-queen with incredible power, because she has a life and a job and a daughter to get back to. She'll fight for Trixie. Lucifer can go fuck himself.
There is no apparent way to start until they get to wherever they are going, however, which isn't likely to be much better. Chloe sits tensely until the carriage starts to descend into what looks like a vast quarry, rock walls hollowed out into a massive open pit, with some sort of formidable stone palace at the bottom. The coach rolls to a halt before it, and Charlotte marches her out, through the heavy carved doors, and then inside to a long, dim, high-ceilinged hall, hung with dusty chandeliers and lined with mirrors and animal cages and shadowed grottoes. A grand staircase leads up to a stone table that looks hideously like the sacrificial altar, and Chloe looks back and forth for someone, anyone else. "Weren't you supposed to have sisters? Two sisters?"
"So you're not entirely ignorant." Charlotte sounds mildly impressed. "I did, dear, I did. But we were only able to build up enough strength to get one of us out of the prison where my husband cast us, and of course, that did have to be me. I promised them that when I captured the star, cut out her heart, and restored myself to my full power and beauty, I would of course go back and free them. So, see. You're a gift to our family in many ways."
Chloe is about to say that she doesn't care – and by the look on Charlotte's face, she's pretty sure that she has no intention of doing any such thing – when a furtive movement by the filthy window catches her eye. She tries to look without being too obvious, half-thinking she imagined it, as she is more concerned with finding something heavy to hit Charlotte with – if being a star was the least bit of use, now would be the time for it to manifest. Can't she, what, smite Charlotte with the force of a thousand fiery suns? Call down a meteor? Or just –
Then the movement comes again. Chloe is less sure she imagined it this time. And for a split second – confusingly, impossibly, since the woman hates her guts – she thinks she recognizes it.
Maze.
Chloe's endangered heart skips a beat. There is no real reason she can think of for Maze to be here, sneaking around outside the palace, unless – of course, she could be here to help Charlotte tie her down and gouge out her innards for gourmet dining, but she has gotten the sense that there is very little love lost between them. So if Maze is here, does that mean –
Chloe doesn't have time to ruminate on this, however. Charlotte clicks her fingers again, she is bodily hoisted into the air as if on a meat hook, and sent skidding toward the stone table. A black glass knife glitters evilly on it, clearly the same kind of weapon that was used to kill Delilah, but Chloe cannot take pride in this successful exercise of forensic aptitude when it's about to be her turn in a minute. Leather straps spring into existence, binding her painfully to the stone, and she twists and kicks but can't loosen them a single inch. There is nothing for it. She's completely overmatched. So this is it, she's just going to die after all, not by turning to dust but by having her heart cut out of her chest like some gruesome Aztec sacrifice, some –
And just then, the doors at the end of the hall burst open.
Charlotte, who has been reaching for the knife, is distracted, as is Chloe, who turns her head madly just in time to –
What the hell –
Lucifer, Maze, and Amenadiel charge in at a dead run, looking as mud-splattered and road-worn as if they too have been riding all night, and without further ado, Maze throws a dagger. It hisses past Charlotte's head and clatters just a few feet away from Chloe, and she redoubles her struggles – if she can get hold of it, slice her bonds –
"MOTHER!" Lucifer roars, voice echoing among all the stone, dancing off and off like a thousand ghosts of itself. He looks quite mad. "DON'T YOU DARE!"
"Boys!" Charlotte turns to face her sons with an entreating smile, attention momentarily distracted from Chloe, who feels her stomach turn over. She doesn't know how it's possible that he's here, that all three of them are here, but there is the faintest, the smallest chance that everything she has thought since she woke up alone this morning is wrong, and that fires her in a way she can't prepare for or defend against. She twists and writhes and heaves, fingers groping at the dagger which is still just out of her reach, as Charlotte starts to descend the stairs. "You're just in time. Once I cut out the star's heart, there will be plenty for all of us, and we'll be stronger than we've ever been. We'll all go back to Stormhold together, and then your father – "
"You know we can't let you do that, Mother." It's Amenadiel who speaks, stepping forward. "Untie the star and come with us quietly. We don't have to – "
"What? Hurt me? You're not going to hurt me." Charlotte looks almost confused. "I know it's been a long time, I know things are different, but I still want to be your mother. We just – "
"Not like this." Amenadiel continues to advance, hands outstretched. "This isn't the right way. You can't kill her."
"Yes," Charlotte says, as bemused as she was when Chloe suggested to her in the coach that murder and cannibalism might not be the way to solve her problems. "I can."
Amenadiel shoots a sidelong look at Lucifer and Maze, who have split to either side of the staircase and started to climb it, then back at his mother. "You can't – "
Charlotte sighs, makes a flicking gesture as if swatting a fly, and Maze is thrown bodily back down the stairs, doing a somersault and landing hard. She turns toward Lucifer – who, Chloe can see at this range, is covered with blood in addition to mud and road-wear, and wonders for a minute if he is in fact here to do – she doesn't know what, but nothing good. He looks much less human than he normally does, though it's impossible to say exactly how. Just like the air's not behaving as it should, as if the force of his presence, and his anger, is pulling the normal warp and weft of reality askew. He reaches for Maze's dagger, almost gets it, and –
"I told you to wait until Mummy was finished," Charlotte says, sounding aggravated. She clicks her fingers, evidently intending to bind Lucifer with more of the leather straps, but his hand flashes up, knocking them away, and there's a crash of breaking glass as several of the mirrors explode instead. Amenadiel is helping up Maze, who gives him a searing look as if she does not need his help, but is prevented from further editorials by the clear urgency of the situation. There is a thump and creak as several statues start to move, stepping off their plinths and raising their stone axes and swords, and Amenadiel and Maze are encircled by them. Amenadiel draws his sword, Maze her remaining dagger, as the animals in the cages croon and keen and screech.
"There. That should keep them out of my hair for a moment. Now, as I said." Charlotte turns back to Lucifer, reaching for the glass knife. "Why don't we – "
Lucifer's eyes are black pits. "Mother, I swear. Lay a hand on her, and I will rip – "
"Oh, so you do care for her?" Charlotte looks intrigued, as Chloe continues to try to work up any slack in the bindings. "She seemed to think there was indeed a chance you would attempt to stop me. But son, just think. Now you can leave this – this. Stormhold will be ours to reshape, to rule, however we like. You know how unjust it was that you were thrown out in the first place. Come home. Come home with me, and – "
"Stormhold is not my home." Lucifer's gaze remains fixed on her. "I don't intend to go back."
"Lucifer, honey. Don't be foolish. Come with me, and – "
Just then, there is an explosion from beneath the balcony, and stone limbs fly everywhere as Maze goes to town on the statues. Amenadiel has his hands full with several more, and Charlotte's attention is distracted. Lucifer dives past her, but as he grabs for Maze's dagger, it spins out of reach and down a crack in the floorstones, and he swears, fumbling after it, but can't find it. Fires are bursting into life up and down the hall, summoned by the power of Charlotte's gathering magic, and a chandelier plummets and shatters in a shower of lethal crystalline droplets. The animals are yowling and screeching and clawing and biting at the bars of the cages, and as Chloe twists once more, her gaze meets Lucifer's. She jerks her head, pointing him toward the glass knife that Charlotte has dropped, and –
At the last instant, Charlotte remembers it, whirls, and snatches it from beneath his fingers, backing him off like an animal trainer with an unruly lion in the circus ring. The moment of standoff is so tense that it nearly snarls, their eyes locked on each other, as another mirror explodes, circling – circling –
And then, before Chloe can brace herself, Charlotte whirls to her, slashes the knife down, and –
The leather straps part with a hiss, sliding off and falling, and Chloe sits up fast, even as she has no idea why the queen would set her free rather than finishing the job. Charlotte, however, looks pale, shaken. "I – " she whispers. "No, I can't. My sons – my sons are right, I couldn't – "
She makes a quick gesture, and the statues fighting Amenadiel and Maze freeze back into their usual inanimate stone, as both of them lurch forward and look confused when their blows meet only empty air. "Go!" Charlotte cries, flinging the doors of the hall open with a flick of her fingers. "Go, quickly!"
Amenadiel and Maze stare at each other, up at her, at Lucifer still there with her and Chloe, and then decide not to peer their good fortune too closely in the teeth. They sprint down the length of the hall and dodge through the doors, as Charlotte turns to Lucifer. "It's been so long," she says. "So long. But I – I can't buy my future with the blood of someone else you care for. You're right. I'm so sorry, son. Please, please forgive me."
Lucifer looks utterly baffled, and more than a little suspicious, but he likewise doesn't seem to want to linger around, in case she changes her mind. He moves forward and helps Chloe off the table, as she wants to yell at him to explain himself, what the hell has happened, but is well aware that that too can wait. They hurry down the stairs, toward the still-open doors –
And then, directly in front of them, they slam shut.
Lucifer skids to a halt so fast that Chloe almost runs into his back. He puts her behind him, almost unconsciously, as he turns around to face his mother, who is standing at the top of the stairs with the glass knife in her hand, a strange, intent, exultant expression on her face. The silence persists, awfully, a moment longer. Then she says, "Lucifer, step aside."
"Mother – "
"The star's heart wasn't much good to me when it was at such a low ebb, angry and bitter and broken." Charlotte takes a step, face burning with an unearthly, hellish glow. "But you know, we did call you the Lightbringer, once upon a time. I didn't know it was for her as well, but it suits. And Morningstar – to match this star, almost. A touch of destiny, wouldn't you say? If you're making her shine again, I will become even stronger than before. I'm sorry, Lucifer. I am. But I did not spend all those centuries in that foul prison where your father cast me, when neither you nor any of my children came to find me and break me out, to let the star go now. Stand aside."
Lucifer hesitates for a final moment. Then he says, "No."
Charlotte raises her hands, as the dwindling fires spring back to life, as the shattered mirrors shine with a dark, dangerous light, as the statues turn their carven heads with a tangible weight of menace. "I don't want to hurt you, son."
Lucifer shifts his weight, reaching for his sword, but Charlotte makes a gesture, and it flies out of his hand, clattering away across the filthy flagstones. He lunges to retrieve it, and in so doing, leaves Chloe, just long enough, standing there undefended. Charlotte winds up like a baseball pitcher, and unleashes a massive fireball at her.
Chloe dives out of the way just in time, feeling the sharp sting of broken glass in her hands, as the fire hits the animal cages and bursts them open. Wolves and badgers and alligators and weasels and roosters and rats and snakes pad and slink and slither and gallop out, still making that racket – but they don't go for Lucifer and Chloe. They rush the stairs toward Charlotte, who must keep them around for some cruel dark magic, and she scatters them with a rather frantic gesture, but doesn't deter them entirely. They continue trying to get up the stairs to her, as Lucifer takes the opportunity of his mother's distraction to grab Chloe by the wrist and drag her toward the door, but as hard as both of them push, yelling at Amenadiel and Maze on the far side, they can't get it open. The statues converge on them, as Lucifer slashes at them with his sword and one of them catches it in its stone gauntlet and rips it out of his hand. Then he unslings the cylinder of lightning that Shakespeare gave him, opens it up, and blasts them.
There is a violent explosion of hot white glow, hissing and snarling and crackling, as Lucifer scythes down the statues – the charge runs out just as the last one is crumbling into dust, ozone-scented smoke heavy on the air. Water hisses and slops and fizzes from the fountains, and broken glass from the mirrors and the chandelier lies everywhere. The animals hiss and bark and chitter. Charlotte is still coming, descending the stairs with glass knife upraised, face dead white. Lucifer seems to be in an utter trance as he stares at his mother. They have no other weapons.
And yet. Chloe has an idea. It's a completely foolish, impossible, desperate one, and it will probably delay their (or at least her) savage execution by a whopping thirty seconds or so, but it's all she has.
She turns to Lucifer. "Grab hold of me," she says hoarsely, "and close your eyes."
"Detective – I – "
"Just do it!"
For once, even Lucifer doesn't argue. He grabs her, pulling her close, as she pushes his head down into her shoulder (it takes a lot of pushing, what with the height difference) and fixes her eyes on Charlotte. She doesn't know where she gets the strength, exactly. It's Trixie, and snuggling with her in bed and reading her a story after a late shift. It's Dan, still trying his best to be there for her, even after he sent it totally FUBAR. It's Linda, inviting her to Wall, telling her to stay as long as she wants, to rest. It's those memories of spending weekends with her dad, learning how to fix things, and the first day she stepped into the precinct and saw his name on the In Memoriam wall. It's her mom, despite everything, all the difficulties. It's Captain Shakespeare, teaching her to waltz on the deck of the Caspartine. It's in Chloe herself, because star or no star, no matter who she might be by genetics or magic or whatever else this is, she's lived a human life. Known human pain and loss and struggle and darkness, and not even the kind where stars do what they do best.
Shine.
And yes.
Yes, more than she can possibly fathom or understand or control, so much that it bursts out of her as she goes alight, blossoming and dazzling with brilliant, scorching, unearthly white light, it is him. Lightbringer. Morningstar.
Lucifer.
Don't send me in dark despair, from all that I hunger for –
Both of them burn like stars and suns and galaxies. Like the very heavens themselves.
And tell him that he need be a stranger no more.
X.
Chloe Decker returns to Wall, England, two days later.
She gives the townspeople quite a fright, stumbling into a tearoom looking like she's escaped from a Ren Faire and with eyes that still reflect unearthly fire. Her disappearance has, of course, been noted, and there are missing posters and policemen who want to interview her, but she can't give any of them a satisfactory answer. She tries, but it's just gibberish, and she can't manage it for more than a few minutes before she almost breaks down. They decide it's better not to press her (and some of the older members of the force have more than an idea of what might have happened) and call Linda to pick her up. Linda drives her home, still in her dress and cloak and loosened hair and a gaze that seems a thousand miles away. She is once more wearing her small diamond necklace, which glows softly with a renewed strength of magic.
She does not say a word, and Linda does not ask her any questions.
In the morning, Chloe tries to explain, but finds that even to Linda, the words won't come. She doesn't think it's a spell, though it might be, Faerie guarding itself against any more interlopers. She wants to tell Linda everything that happened, and she wants to tell her that when she opened her own eyes in the witch's hall, after that ultimate, utter moment of truth, there was nothing left of Lilith but ashes, that she burned her with the brightness of her being, somehow. Wants to tell her about stumbling outside and finding Maze and Amenadiel, and Lucifer giving her necklace back to her and telling her that he had made sure it wouldn't fail her again, and it was time for her to go home. That she couldn't help herself, and wanted to know if perhaps he would come. If they might see each other again. You know. Thought she'd ask.
He said that he couldn't. His eyes flickering past hers, staring at something only he could see. The blood that wasn't his, or anyone she could think of, dried on his hands. The sense she had that he had done something terrible, and was – the odd and particular tragedy of both of them, her from the sky, him from Stormhold, and them now for each other – falling. Falling. Falling.
I can't, he said. It's best. Go home, Detective.
Lucifer. Talk to me. Tell me what you –
No. His lips smiling, but his eyes looking at her like those of a drowned creature from the very bottom of a well. I've made sure your charm won't fail you now. Go, Chloe.
Go.
And how she feared, was terrified, when she was walking to the Wall, that it wouldn't work after all, that it was some trick to see if she could cross, but it wasn't. She stepped from Faerie back into Earth, and did not turn to dust. Whatever he's done, whatever bargain he made, whatever sin he committed, whoever's blood he spilled, she won't know, and it does not matter. He's given it up for her, given it all up, and the moment she knows it was real, that she didn't dream any of it, that it was what she thought, that it was, it was – she loses it.
Chloe isn't entirely sure she's ever going to actually shine again.
She supposes she doesn't need to, this side of the wall.
She starts the long journey home. She's only late by a few days, and can't answer Linda when she asks if Chloe will want to come back sometime. How can she come back and enjoy the village and pretend not to know what lies beyond the wall, resist the utter temptation to cross? But she can't. Lilith's sisters are still in their prison. They could get out one day.
Faerie is no safe haven for a star. No home for her. Hers is here. That is the choice that, this time, she made.
Chloe returns, at long last, to Los Angeles feeling as if she's in a dream from which she can't quite wake. She's glad to see Trixie, and she's glad to get home, but that first night back, sitting on the balcony, watching the palm trees sway and gazing out over the skyscrapers in the distance, looking at the lights of traffic and the strange noir magic of this place with its dreams and its mysteries and its murders. Its thin places, where perhaps a bit of that other world peeps through. The stars can barely fight through the city glow, but even here, they shine. Especially on a beach at midnight, perhaps, and a door that opens between here and there –
But that is, after all, the real dream. And it is over.
Wake up, Chloe.
Wake up.
She goes inside at last, shuts the curtains. Undresses, and prepares to get into bed. Her life begins again tomorrow. Her return to work. To the question of how you go back, after everything.
And then, as she's turning down the covers, there is a knock on her front door.
She tenses. It's very late for a new case, but maybe this one is urgent. It's also too late for a package delivery, or a visitor, or anyone except trouble, and suddenly she wonders if perhaps someone unwelcome has found where she lives. She is in the line of work where it's best to keep your home address under wraps, after all, and she checks that Trixie is in bed, her door shut, before she reaches for her gun. Eases down the stairs, thumb on the safety, and crosses to the front door. Takes a better grip, opens it a crack. "Who's there?"
"Well," a familiar voice says. "You know. I did say I wanted to come to Los Angeles."
Chloe's heart stops in her chest. She can feel it. And then it starts again, the world starts again, even as it is rushing onwards helter-skelter, too fast for her to keep up, and she can't breathe, feels as if she has been doused in cold water, and she knows that, she'd know it anywhere. She doesn't understand, she doesn't, but just then, it doesn't matter a single damn.
She drops the gun and pushes the door open.
Lucifer Morningstar grins at her, dark eyes sparkling, still as wet as if he has just waded from the waves. "Good evening, Detective," he says as she stands there, and stands there, and stands there, staring without a word. "I tried, you know. To stay away. But I – " He pauses, shaking his head, as if it is an unfathomable mystery to him as well, and finally says, quietly, softly, simply, as if it is the only explanation he can come up with, "I didn't want to."
Chloe reaches out, and draws him across the threshold. There is a dim light in the hall that does not come from any lamp, or torch, or bulb, or candle, or sun, or moon.
It's above her head, faint at first, then stronger. Whiter. Brighter.
As his arms come around her waist, as hers link around his neck, as their mouths meet, as her lips open, as they kiss silently and lightly at first, and then as if they have been starving for a hundred years and a hundred more, it blazes.
Starlight.
It rattles the very windows.
And outside, somewhere high in the sky, in the dark and deep firmament, gazing on the earth below, her sisters look down, see her – see them –
and smile.
THE END.
