Chapter 21
"Daddy, I'm bored. And my battery's almost dead. Are we there yet?"
"No, Trix. It's a long trip. Why don't you take a nap?" Dan suggested.
"Can't I charge my Kindle first?" Trixie wrinkled her nose.
"No, because I don't have a cord. We'll be there in a couple hours, but you must be tired from school. Go ahead and sleep for a bit," he repeated. The miles were rolling by fairly quickly, and Dan had hope of reaching their destination in less time than he'd told his daughter. He lapsed back into his mild form of highway hypnosis-the headlights briefly illuminating a hemisphere of the dark pavement in front of him to the constant hum of the tires turning; the intermittent sparkle of the reflectors embedded in the lane lines. An electronic "ding" sounded, and Dan groaned aloud as he saw the reason for the car's warning. "New plan. We're gonna be stopping much sooner, but only for a few minutes while I get gas."
"I'm hungry!" Trixie complained, and as Dan looked at the time his own stomach growled.
"Yep, it's dinnertime. How about a drive-thru?"
"Yay!"
Dan tuned out Trixie's rambling about chicken nuggets and milkshakes as he slowed for the nearest exit. It promised a gas station and multiple fast-food options, so he obligingly made a left towards the bright lights along the main thoroughfare of the small town. It all looked so incongruous rising from the middle of the inky desert plains, ending just as suddenly as it began. The moon hung large and crescent-shaped above, surrounded by thousands of stars. He took a moment as he exited the car to just breathe and appreciate the night sky. "Look up, Trix. You can't see any of this back home."
"Wow, cool!" She poked her head out the window. "Daddy, can I go buy a charger and a toothbrush? And some new crayons? I wanna draw the stars."
"Yes, but be quick, and I'll be right behind you. Don't talk to anybody besides the guy at the counter—can you do that for me?"
"Of course, Daddy." She took the $20 bill and began to half-run, half-skip to the convenience store, but stopped herself midway and finished the journey at a sedate walk. Struck by how grown-up his daughter was getting, Dan automatically reached for his phone to snap a photo and send it to Chloe, but then remembered he'd tossed it out the window some 100 miles ago. Pulling up his sweatshirt's hood, he trailed Trixie into the Go Mart to buy a burner and pay for the gas.
"Lucifer!" Azrael threw herself into her older brother's arms. "I thought I'd never see you again! What are you doing on Earth?" Over her shoulder, Chloe caught sight of a messy stack of case files Ella'd been reading through.
"Long story, sis. For now, the same thing you are—finding Detective Douche. Now, Miss Lop—oof," Lucifer was cut off by a hug so tight from Ella, it nearly crushed him despite his supernaturally-strong bones.
"You're back, you sly Devil you!" The scientist winked playfully at him, but quickly sobered when she turned to face Chloe. "All right, here's what we've got so far. Most of Dan's car was found over in Compton. Looks like he abandoned it, but it might just appear that way because anything removable was removed. Fortunately for us, those guys didn't know there was a GPS tracker on the frame, so we were able to get a location. It's pretty clean, Chlo—as in, nothing to suggest where he went, no drugs or guns—except for some traces of blood in the trunk. It was not, however, clean as in 'not messy,' because wow, there's a bunch of trash in there."
"Blood, really? How about his phone?"
"We just got a hit on it, not far from where the 15 crosses I-10. The bad news is that it's not moving. So could be car trouble, might be a major traffic jam...or he ditched it."
"Oh, he would," she sighed. "Have we sent a team out there yet?"
"Yep, Janson's on it. He'll call you when they know more."
"Right. OK, did you look at the ballistics?"
Ella's face fell. "I had them put a rush on the testing, since Dan's a cop and because we're looking for Trixie. I'm sorry, Chloe. It's a match. Also, the gun they found on the O'Connell dude is definitely Dan's, and we confirmed that it's been fired recently."
Chloe slumped a bit against Lucifer, who put his arm around her to pull her close. "Great. Is O'Connell awake yet?"
"No, he just got out of surgery a little while ago. They weren't sure if he was gonna make it."
"Azrael?" Lucifer raised one eyebrow.
"Oh, no, he'll be fine," she answered calmly. "Ella, what does this machine do?" She pointed at the mass spectrometer. Ella launched into a brief but animated explanation of the analyzer's abilities.
"Well, there you have it, Detective. He'll recover and we can interrogate him to our heart's content."
"Interrogate, hmm?" As Chloe made a quick call, Linda raised an eyebrow at Lucifer, who smiled as innocently as possible.
"But of course, Doctor, just like we do all our suspects."
"Sure you didn't have something...extra...in mind?"
"There's an officer stationed in his room, and she's gonna let us know as soon as he wakes up. Until then we need some other clues to what Dan's been up to." Chloe put her phone away. "What we do know is his duffel bag is gone from the apartment, and his backup weapon is also missing. It looks like he's the one who shot O'Connell and dragged him to the hospital."
"Right, the blood in the trunk!" Linda covered her face with her hands. "Oh, Dan."
"Azrael and I looked through his desk already, and his computer. Dan's password was so obvi, but that was actually a good thing this time. The only thing I could find is that he's super-obsessed with proving Lucifer was behind everything at the Mayan. He thinks it's really suspicious that you disappeared right afterwards." Ella held her hands up in a calming gesture. "As far as I know, Detective Brody hasn't even looked your way, Lucifer. They're still trying to piece it together, but they're sticking with the religious cult angle. Anyway, I did actually learn something while I was getting coffee," she shared. "It turns out there's some evidence missing from the lock-up—two kilos of cocaine. Apparently Dan was the only person to stop by there around the time it disappeared, so some people think he took it."
"What?" Dread pooled in the pit of Chloe's stomach.
"That's not even the craziest part. Another guy showed up to raid the vending machine, and he was whispering to the first two that the stolen drugs matched the stuff that was found all over the warehouse."
"Ella, can we use your board to make a timeline?" Chloe asked. Ella dragged it away from the wall and cleared a small space for the group to write on.
"When were the drugs taken?" Azrael started them off.
"It was the end of last week, I think."
"So that was first. Then came the warehouse shooting, where the same drugs happened to be, and Dan's gun shot some gangsters. Sinaloas."
"All right, then we have the shooting in Detective Douche's apartment yesterday, and the ne'er-do-well who turned up at LACH." Pleased with his contribution, Lucifer crossed his arms and casually sauntered over to the stack of police reports.
"Turned up with Dan's gun! Maybe he took it from Dan and shot the other gangsters." Ella opined, adding a note to the entry. She walked to her computer, tapped a few keys, and brought up a report. "Aha! Looks like the bad guy's fingerprints actually were on Dan's Glock."
"Yeah, but that still means Dan was there, in the warehouse." Chloe sighed.
"He switched cars right after that in Compton, picked up the junker I saw him in today when he left with Trixie." Linda looked at the board for a minute. "I could understand Dan wanting to lay low for a while, sure...But it just seems like a big jump, to go from dumping a bad guy at the hospital to being so terrified that he needed to grab Trixie and get outta here."
"I agree. There's something else, something we're not seeing..." Chloe leaned against the counter, absently tapping it with one hand as she thought. Ella paced, Linda continued to stare at the board. Azrael was still making a slow circuit of the room, checking out the equipment. The only break in the silence was the sound of paper rustling as Lucifer continued to read through the files.
"Wait," he said. "This might be it. The Sinaloas, right?" At Ella and Chloe's nods, he continued. "There was a shooting in a place called Mar Vista Gardens...it was called in anonymously, but by the time the police got there everything was cleaned up. Of course, no one saw anything. But the caller said one of the individuals involved was wearing a black and maroon bandana, and the officer who started this file wrote that those are Sinaloas colors. There are notes that a crime scene team was dispatched, but there's no report from them here." He looked up. "We need more information. If Daniel was involved in this shooting with a number of Sinaloas, that might be why he's turned tail and run."
Chloe nodded. "OK. You two, find out more about the shooting. Lucifer and I will take Linda home—hopefully Amenadiel's back by now."
Those hopes proved in vain as Linda opened her front door. "Amenadiel? Charlie?" The silence stretched on. "Sorry, guys, they're not here."
"It's OK. You gonna be OK on your own?"
"I am gonna lock the door, pull the shades, and take a nice hot bath."
"Just keep your phone close by." Back in the car, Chloe turned to Lucifer. "All right, pal. I want some answers."
"But of course." Lucifer made himself as comfortable as possible in the confines of the passenger seat. "What is it you want to know?"
"Ella told me I'm apparently some sort of miracle, that my parents would never have conceived without your brother's help. How long have you known about this? Is that what you were talking about, in New York?"
Lucifer looked ashamed. "Yes. I found out from Amenadiel himself. That's what prompted me to leave for Las Vegas. This has all been so much, Chloe, and we haven't had time to properly talk about much of anything, really."
"It's still ridiculous that I had to hear it from Ella, of all people. Neither you nor your brother could find even a minute to maybe tell me something that important, but you could tell Ella?"
"No, you're right, it's unforgivable. To be fair, Amenadiel's spent a lot more time with you recently, but I should have at least checked in with you. There are so many things I want to tell you, and I don't know if I'll ever get the chance." He sighed. "What else can I tell you?"
"How did that...dream...thing work?"
"Ah, the dream-walk. Most humans know it as a Native American concept, but it wasn't their idea to start with. You can thank my brother for that." He shook his head. "Basically what it amounts to is opening a gateway, or what you would nowadays call a portal. The Native Americans had to be in the right, er, frame of mind to do it, which is where the peyote comes in—but Chamuel obviously doesn't need it, not that it would work on him anyway."
"A gateway?"
"Yes. They've always been important. I know you're a bit of an atheist, but there are at least 100 Biblical references to gateways: using them, standing in them, guarding them...as it became more and more clear that humanity couldn't handle interaction with the divine, even us appearing in their dreams, the other angels stopped using them. Chamuel, though, well, he made a special exception for this country's natives. Don't ask me why, but he was right, they handled it much better than the Israelites did. Only problem was, they didn't believe in Dad per se, so I have no idea what the point was."
"So, can you do it? Open one of these...gateways?"
"Unfortunately, no. I could, once upon a time, but I haven't been able to since the—since Dad kicked me out. It's something that's fallen out of practice, so Chamuel's really the only one left who still can. Believe me, I was surprised that he offered to help us. We didn't hate one another, but we were never what one might call close."
"Damn. I was hoping we could at least talk to Trixie." In the ensuing quiet, Lucifer began to fiddle with the radio dials. "Ugh, please, no music. Lately, it just makes me...just, please not right now."
A bit out of his depth, Lucifer reached over and slowly, cautiously took Chloe's hand in his own. "I truly am sorry. I wish I could be of more assistance."
"How much longer can you be here?"
"I will need to return in a few hours, but for now only Clisthert knows I've gone. Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. I finished reading that book you brought me, and there's a second prophecy."
"What? Really? Tell me."
"Let me see if I've got it straight." He reached into a pocket inside his suit jacket and removed a folded piece of paper. "Here we go. 'After the second rebellion, there will emerge a worthy successor to the obsidian throne. A new reign will commence once all that is hidden has been revealed, and thus the Devil shall be set free by that which first did bind him.'"
"The second rebellion... the demons. And a 'worthy successor...' So there's someone out there who can take your place!"
"I don't know of any celestials who'd be even remotely interested."
"Doesn't have to be a celestial, remember? And couldn't things that are hidden be desires?"
"Why, yes." He sat up straight. "And you're right about the celestial bit, I'd forgotten...awfully hard to reach said obsidian throne, though, without a set of wings. But 'set free by that which first did bind him' is rather confusing."
"You're right, that could be anything." She looked down at their entwined hands. "And where do you currently stand on our feelings for one another? You still think they're meaningless?"
"I very much hope they are not. But the only way to find out would be to ask my Father."
"Good." Chloe turned in her seat to face him. "Let's go see Him. Right now."
"I—Beg pardon, Chloe darling, I realize this day's been quite difficult...but we've already discussed this, remember?"
"Well, a lot's changed since then. Dan's in trouble, Trixie's missing, and I'm not in the mood to wait around when there's something I could be doing. So we're going, together, right now, because dammit, it's the right thing to do and under all the bullshit you are a good...angel, Lucifer. So yes, it's gonna be hard and it's gonna be awkward, but nothing bad is going to happen to you because I won't let it. You can wait outside if you want, but you have to take me because I don't know how to get there on my own."
"Well, it's against the rules to bring a hu-" Lucifer was cut off by Chloe getting out of the car and unfurling her wings.
"You were saying?" She watched him narrowly as he also emerged from the car, looking distraught and uncertain. This time, she was the one who reached for his hand, and the raw emotion on his face from that one small action almost had her turning away.
"Are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do?"
"Yes. Plus, Amenadiel's still up there, so we'll have help. Lucifer, it's gonna be OK."
"I will take you to the Silver City, because I would do anything for you. But if our whole...us ends up being just some side-plot of my Father's, promise me you won't hate me afterwards."
She smiled, and reached up to touch his cheek. "I can't hate you. I actually tried, you know? But I can't. You mean too much to me, even without us." She kissed him soundly, then took a step back. "Come on, we need to get going."
"You really are a bossy little thing, aren't you. What have I signed up for?" He sighed and spread his own wings. "I really must teach you how these wings actually work. Ah, some other time, though. Come on, let's be on our way, then." He took off, checking that Chloe was close behind him.