Lucifer crouched in the branches of a tree, yet to return to his human form, while anger lashed within his chest. Claws gripped the bark, causing it to grown under the growing pressure, while yellow eyes gazed upon the hospital below. The night was quiet and still around him but he was in turmoil.
Why was he so angry?
He couldn't quite locate the one cause within his mind, no matter how long he searched. It was just a mess of emotions amassed within him that pushed at his flesh for escape. He was frustrated with his lack of direction and purpose, irritated by the stagnation of their situation, and angry at himself for what he had become. He didn't deserve to be at Natalie's side. Not when he was the very reason she had become what she was. The reason a monster had left its mark on her and was now loose in the living world.
It was all his mess. He had chosen to fall. He had destroyed Heaven and Hell. And now Natalie was paying the price for it all when it should have been him.
Instead of fixing things, he had been playing house, and it disgusted him. He had told her once before that he was no house cat, and for good reason, because he couldn't do it. He was no good at it. He was the devil. He wanted to be out causing havoc and fighting in the front lines, not doting after Natalie like a wounded puppy, while she agonized over the state of the world.
He could stop this all on his own.
He would remain on patrol until he figured out what was stealing the souls of the children, and only then would he return to Natalie, with its head in his hands.
Natalie set a hookah down in front of a couple with a smile, "You guys enjoy."
"Thanks, Natalie!" they called after her as she turned and headed back to the kitchen. She had pulled her hoodie on that day, too depressed to try and decide on an actual outfit, and threw her hair up in a messy bun. She shuffled down the small hall and into the kitchen so she could watch the remaining coals on the burner come to life.
They just reminded her of him.
It had been a week since he had walked into her backyard and disappeared. Since then, both Raphael and Michael had assured her he was still in communication with them. He had chosen to search out the monster on his own, working with the other angels and demons in the field, and sent word to them every few days with updates.
He just needed to cool off and work out his anger.
It didn't make Natalie feel any better but she was happy to hear that he had not left them all together. But now she worried for him too on top of everything else. Her heart was torn in two and the only comfort she had was everyone's reassurance that he was alive and Jekyll's presence at her side. She had taken to bringing him everywhere with her. At that moment, he was sitting outside of the backdoor of the bar, napping next to the dumpster and dreaming of chasing prey.
She picked the coals off the burner and set them in a metal basket to be used for the next round of hookahs before shutting the burner off and leaving the kitchen for the office. She sat down at her desk with a heavy sigh and stared at the paperwork laid out for her to complete absently.
Outside, a thunderstorm threatened with deep rolling thunder while the office was far too quiet in comparison. She could hear the ticking of the clock on the bookcase in the corner, louder than ever, and it helped to ease her mind a bit.
Lucifer pushed the hospital door open and stared blankly at the darkness that greeted him. Not a sound could be heard from within the building; no voices, no machinery, not even the A/C was running. He set a black and clawed foot on the linoleum, allowing the door to swing shut behind him, and scanned the room slowly. This was the work of something far darker than he had faced in a long while, he could tell, the foul taste in the air was enough of a hint. The disturbing and heavy stillness that settled over the building like blanket was another.
He seemed to be the only source of light in the building, his eyes and flesh glowed through the darkness as he padded down a hall, in search of what had caused it. He had been sitting atop the tree that he had dubbed his watch post, when the lights had flickered out, and had gone down to investigate. Pax had been sitting with him, casually swinging his legs in the air, and had stayed behind to call Raphael as Lucifer instructed.
Lucifer, however, had wanted to find out for himself what they were facing.
He peered into a room, noting that a prone figure still laid within the bed, before he continued down the hall. Had anyone caught sight of him then, they would have screamed bloody murder, he was certain. He hadn't even bothered to reclaim his human form, finding it restricting and annoying, and had chosen to continue patrolling the areas hospitals and schools at night. Black flesh cracked and the fire within seeping out to lick the darkness with its warmth, while his horns curled back behind his head, and eyes gleamed. He wore only the remains of his torn robes.
Distantly, he heard the slightest whispers of a voice, echoing down the halls.
"Come, little one."
He grimaced, disgust marring his nightmarish features further, and turned down another hall while he cracked his knuckles. He stalked through the darkness like a true predator of the night, glowing eyes searching every room, until he came upon the very last one in the hall.
A soft glow spilled out into the hall from under the door. It flickered with movement from within.
Lucifer stood straight and pushed the door open with one hand, feet rooted in the doorway, and stared at the image before him with bored loathing.
Crouched over a child's bed was an emaciated human figure, dripping tar on the blankets and flooring beneath, cooing over the child's prone from. It gurgled and wiggled its fingers in the air, luring the soul from the body, and chittered when it slipped out of the child's mouth and hovered in the air.
"The hell do you think you're doing?" he drawled but anger radiated through the air and his eyes blazed.
The thing slowly turned its head in his direction, eye sockets empty except for a violet glow, and laughed wetly.
He waited for approximately one minute for the thing to respond.
Lucifer lunged forward, an image of darkness and death itself, and grabbed the thing by oily and wet strands of hair as it rushed for the window. It screeched, flailing about on the floor where it fell, and sent splatters of tar dancing across the walls.
He growled and grabbed the thing by its throat, lifting it into the air, while tar seeped over his hand and down his arm. "I asked you a question," he reminded it darkly and tightened his grip on its throat.
It struggled to reach his face, clawing at his arm and desperately searching for a hand hold so that it could launch a counter attack, but Lucifer did not budge. He stood there as an immovable force, tall and foreboding, while the thing struggled limply in his grasp.
"You've grown, Lucifer."
Lucifer's face portrayed no emotion as he hurled the thing through the window. The glass shattered and decorated the concrete below as he casually strolled forward and glanced down after it. Nothing was left but a pile of smoldering tar and broken glass. But a laugh still echoed in the night. His eyes lingered on the line of trees across the parking lot before he snorted. He turned back to catch sight of the glowing orb, dancing about nervously in the air, before he picked a plastic bottle up from the bed side table and gently coaxed it into the small space. He screwed the lid back on and left.
Natalie returned home late that night just in time to catch site of Lucifer, still clothed in his demonic form, stepping out through the sliding glass door while Michael bid him farewell forlornly.
"Lucifer, wait!" she cried out but it was too late. He had already disappeared into the night before she had even shut the door behind her.
Michael glanced back in surprise before allowing a small saddened frown to overtake his face. He closed the distance between them and hugged her for all that he was worth. "It'll be alright, Nat, he's just working through things on his own," he assured her quietly as she struggled against tears. "He brought you a gift though!" he added with enthusiasm.
"He did?" she asked as she stepped back and wiped her eyes.
"Yep!" he chirped and presented her with a plastic water bottle, inside, a small orb of light flickered about.
Natalie gasped, taking the bottle from his hands gently, and smiled as tears spilled forth anew. She opened the bottle, struggling against sobs, and caught the soul within her hand as gently as she could. It rolled about, almost curiously exploring her palm, before it nestled into her flesh and was seen no more.
"He said he had caught the thing in the act, so we know it can be stopped, we just don't know how to defeat it yet," Michael explained as he pulled her into the living room to sit down on the couch.
"Did he say what it was?" she asked curiously while Michael covered her with a blanket and handed her the remote to the TV.
"No, he doesn't know, but he said it looked just as you described it," he continued before disappearing into the kitchen and coming back with a bowl of soup on a tray for her.
Natalie looked a little green, but she accepted the soup graciously, she was famished. She only hoped someone else had cooked it, and not Michael, as he was just as bad in the kitchen as she was. She sipped on a spoonful, marveling at the taste, before she patted the couch next to her.
"Gabriel made it for us," Michael explained as he sat down next to her with a sigh.
"It's really good," she moaned happily as her stomach rejoiced.
"Isn't it, dudes a genius," Michael agreed and leaned his head back on the couch to close his eyes.
"Thank you for taking care of me," Natalie added with a smile that he missed.
"Of course, Lucifer would skin me alive if I didn't," he shot back with a snort and ruffled her hair before sitting up again and taking the remote from her to flip the TV on. He went straight to Netflix and searched for a good movie that would put Natalie in a better mood.
Natalie smiled sadly down at the soup, glad that she had such an amazing support system, and took another spoonful to quiet her starving stomach.
Just then, a black form padded into the living room, and laid down at Natalie's feet with a huff. Jekyll had chosen to take on a smaller form so that he could join them inside, it seemed, and she chuckled. He was probably lonely outside without Jasper. She wiggled her toes into his side, enjoying the warmth, and chuckled again when he didn't even budge.
"Where'd Lucifer run off to?" she asked after a moment of silence.
Michael continued searching through their options as he spoke, "He wanted to speak with Raphael and update him on the situation."
Natalie imagined it was strange for Michael, who would have been in command not so long ago, but made no comment on it. Instead, she chose to finish her soup before she set the tray on the table and leaned back into the couch to watch the movie he had chosen. She closed her eyes minutes later and fell asleep.
Raphael crouched over the splatter of tar and glass with a look of curious disgust.
"I have no idea, but I'm certain it's not dead, the thing was laughing," Lucifer stood over him, still dark and demonic, while he pulled from a cigarette that sat between his sharp teeth. Pax stood next to him, wearing a frown, with his hands thrown behind his head.
It was still night and the buzzing of the hospital had returned to normal while they huddled around out back. The broken windows blinds had been closed against the night but the mess below had been ignored. Crickets chirped under the buzzing of the parking lot lights.
A cloud of black smoke was spewed forth into the night by Lucifer as he watched over his brother's shoulder. The tar had cooled and solidified in the cool air quickly, but it still reeked of hell. Rotten eggs and brimstone, along with wet dirt and decay, radiated from the mass. Raphael was struggling to stand so close to it but it was a smell Lucifer was very familiar with.
Raphael stood, scratching at his head, and side eyed Lucifer with a stoic expression. "We gained a lot of information tonight, well, a lot more than we had, but it has only bred more questions," he muttered frustratingly and dropped his hand. He lifted his face to the night sky.
"No kidding," Lucifer grouched. "The thing knew my name."
"Did it?" Raphael questioned curiously.
"It said I've grown," he added as he flicked the cigarette bud across the parking lot and cracked his knuckles again.
"You've grown? Since you were an angel then," Raphael mumbled, recalling that Lucifer had only changed his appearance after he had fallen. "That does, actually, narrow our search down."
"Sure it does," Lucifer drawled sarcastically as he stood lazily and turned his eyes towards the rest of the parking lot.
"Why don't you go home to Natalie?" Raphael chose to jump onto another topic, satisfied he had gotten all the information he could from Lucifer.
"Mind your own damn business," Lucifer shot back but lifted a hand to his face as frustration welled within his chest. His heart ached to be by her side, but everything else warred against it, and he refused to see her until he had sorted himself out.
Raphael sighed and dusted his hands off with a clap. "Fine, do what you need to do, but she's more vulnerable without you by her side, so hurry it up."
"Listen, you nosy ass-," Lucifer exclaimed but cut himself off once Raphael had disappeared in a flash of light. He growled viciously and about faced, marching off into the wooded area next to the hospital, while Pax followed behind at a leisurely pace.
"Where'd he run off to?" Pax called out to him as he traipsed through the foliage without a care in the world, it would seem.
"Probably to find Gabriel," Lucifer shot back as he shoved past a branch irritably. The foliage bounced back and smacked Pax in the face as he attempted to follow in his master's footsteps. He flailed about for a moment before pushing through with a curse. "Or maybe to talk to the shopkeep since someone," here Lucifer shot a dirty look back at Pax from over his shoulder, "Was dumb enough to destroy my book."
"It wasn't me!" Pax cried and hurried to catch up to Lucifer.
"No, but you watched him do it with a stupid look on your face," Lucifer muttered and stepped over a log, he glanced over to Pax, "Like that one."
Pax scowled, "Why are we walking through the woods, anyways?"
"Because I bloody well feel like it. You decided to follow," Lucifer said and slid down a steep incline into a clearing where a small stream cut through the woods. He brushed his hands off as he straightened and shuffled into the clearing determinedly.
"You're in a mood," Pax muttered as he followed. "But seriously, why?"
Lucifer paused in exasperation and lunged for Pax's hood as he passed, tripping him as he walked and shoved his face into the ground. "That," he pointed with a finger at a splatter of tar among the leaves of the forest floor, "is why. Can you shut up now? Before I shove your own foot down your throat?"
Pax pushed his head up with some effort and frowned. "Fine."
"Jesus," Lucifer breathed as he stood and continued down the path left for him. That thing had gotten away, or, what he had faced was just an extension of it. Either way, it was still alive and kicking and it needed to be dealt with. To hell with whatever Raphael said.