N/A: Your support is amazing and really inspires me (well, let's be honest, so does the show). I'm trying to focus more on character interactions than I'm used to (I'm generally more plot oriented), just let me know if it's too heavy-handed.

Let there be Truth - Taste no evil 3

Chloe didn't know what to make of this. Sure, she could imagine Lucifer as a teenager without trouble, but the Devil? What would such a powerful entity do when anger would take hold of him? She remembered her father's funeral. The blinding rage, the need to inflict a pain similar to hers. She would have cracked more than the paparazzo's lens if she had been able to throw more than one punch, that day. She frowned. Leaving Heaven and cutting his wings, that's probably something he would do. But then, would he really do that just for the benefit of sex?

Yes, most men seemed to place getting laid at the top of their list, but there was pain in his eyes when she'd touched his back. Not physical pain either, he was sad. Now that she thought about it, this might have been the only time she'd seen him sad. When he'd almost lost her just after he'd met her, when his protégée, a young singer, had been killed, he'd shown nothing but anger and resentment. Sadness was left alone for his father and their quarrel.

Her ever working mind suddenly piqued her interest elsewhere.

"When you were talking about the reason why he was cast from heaven, you mention the nature of angels," Chloe said. "What did that have to do with it?"

"According to some Scripture, the Flood was cast from Heaven in order to eliminate the Nephilim. That is the offspring of humans and angels. However not only are angels presumed to be genderless, but their nature does not entail that they should be able to procreate. They are immortal, their species does not need procreation to prosper, and there only needs to be one for every task God has bestowed upon them."

"So why do you think some angels fell?"

"Personally?" the reverend asked, apparently looking for the authorization to speak his mind despite his unpopular opinion. Chloe nodded. "I don't think they fell. I think Lucifer was the only one to leave Heaven."

Chloe suddenly thought about Maze. "What about the demons, then? Aren't they supposed to be fallen angels?"

The reverend slowly tapped his finger on the bit of fresco under Lucifer's representation. "God created light, Detective. The darkness was already there."

"Now, why would you do that?" Chloe asked, trying to keep the beast that was her rage under a tight leash.

"Well, isn't it obvious?" Lucifer said. "They are obviously going to check if what I said is true, which it is, by the way. Once they find out it is, they'll dispatch Artyom and come to me to find out where the intel came from. The Bratva inner workings aren't exactly that mysterious. It's not the DMV." Once again, he grinned at his joke.

"You send a man to his death like that?" Chloe looked at him, stunned by the nonchalance he was still displaying when talking about a man's life.

"Well, it's hardly my fault, is it? The man did his murdering all on his own. I won't be the one pulling the trigger." He shook his head. "You humans always misplace blame. Blaming a rape victim for wearing skimpy clothes. Pointing the finger at the police officer when a lunatic kills a man under his watch."

Chloe blinked. "But the man will die because of what you said!"

"I resent that accusation. He will only die because someone will kill him. I didn't order a hit on him." He frowned. "How can you be mad at me for telling the truth? Don't we want the same thing? Punishing bad guys?"

"If you had knowledge of a murder, you should have told the police, not a bunch of mobsters."

"You don't believe that, I hope. There's hardly any evidence, now. Artyom was very meticulous. The Bratva is way easier to convince than one of your petty courts. He would have gotten away with it."

"That's how the justice system works, Lucifer, whether you like it or not!"

"Well, I wouldn't say it works if murderers get away all the time." Lucifer turned towards Maurice who just came back with the food he had ordered for the both of them. He breathed in deeply the delicious scent of the lobster and salted sauce, then put his napkin on his laps. "Merci, mon cher," he thanked him without the slightest trace of an accent.

"Tout le plaisir est pour moi. And here is yours, Madame." The jolly Frenchman placed a plate in front of Chloe, but she was too pissed off to care.

Her eyes were still fixed on Lucifer and his smug face. "Don't you think that it's more important that innocent people don't go to jail?"

"Now, now, don't you think there's a reason I was made to rule hell, Detective?" He gestured towards his perfectly shaped torso. "Facts are not all that matters in judging a soul. You could hardly blame a mother for killing the man about to harm her child, unless of course she'd always been looking for a reason to kill. I find out whether people are evil or not, and trust me, I can assure you that Artyom Asimov is guilty as can be."

Good old Maurice took a step back, an expensive wine bottle secured by his fingertips in order to keep it safe without warming it. As the owner of one of the most romantic and expensive restaurant in LA, the man probably had seen his fair share of fighting couples. Chloe clenched her jaws. How could she ever think of them as a couple when Lucifer had such disrespect for something as sacred as a human life?

A teenager. It came back to her. If Lucifer truly lacked the experiences of living on Earth, then perhaps he didn't value life because he was seldom acquainted with mortality? It made sense, in a way. If he was the devil and had only dealt with eternal, wicked souls, then how could he see how precious and fragile a life was?

Lucifer cocked his head, surprised that she suddenly seemed out of repartee.

But she was struck by something that tasted very much like truth. A teenager. He'd done something stupid, and she'd been so bent over knowing why that she hadn't considered when. He was trying to get her attention and she totally dismissed him. If she'd hated getting the attention of the paparazzi, it had never been as harmful as being ignored by her mother because of her acting job.

Chloe stood up. She wasn't his girlfriend and she surely wasn't his mom.

"What are you doing, Detective?"

"I'm leaving," she said, perhaps a little too harshly.

"But why? You said it yourself, you're famished and the lobster is succulent."

Chloe glared at him. "I came here to listen to a conversation you interrupted. The LAPD doesn't need your help anymore in this investigation."

She left in a hurry. This wasn't what she wanted, not at all. He had once again put her whole investigation in danger because of his twisted morals, and was putting not only her carrier in jeopardy, but also…

Chloe froze at the door.

His life.