Hey! I'm back! Sorry for the short chapter, but I couldn't think of a way to extend it. Don't worry, next one will likely be longer and also likely be within the next month!

Chapter 5

Acting Like Jello

Gabriel paced the area. He knew that there had to be something he was missing, though what, he had no clue. He and Maze had returned to the site of the second body, and so far, he couldn't see anything. Nothing at least that would suggest how the body got there, or who dumped it. Maze was standing to the side, letting him have a look with her arms crossed. She had asked him to look, which, well, he was doing.

Sighing, he crouched near where the body had been dumped, and allowed himself to slip into that not-quite-truesight he had. Not quite, since it, like the rest of his abilities, was on the fritz and very much not his truesight at all. When he opened his eyes, he scanned the ground, ignoring the throbbing behind his eyes as he did so.

There wasn't any spirit activity afoot, so he ruled that out, but considered the alternatives. Monsters, he knew would leave a physical trail. That was their MO. Shed skin, nails, evidence on the body, so he eliminated that. The Leviathans (ugh, frigging Leviathans, man!) would have eaten the body. And then there was Auntie Amara, who would have just left dark-veined bodies.

He rocked back onto his heels with a groan. There was literally nothing he could see that would merit anything strange going on, unless he counted the broken neck that Maze reported. But, that was about it. He couldn't detect anything out of the ordinary. He blinked away his truesight and rubbed his temples. "Well, there's nothing I can see that would go anywhere. Not that it makes a difference, anyway. My sight's still on the fritz, just like everything else."

He grimaced, stretching as Maze strolled over. "Well, what do you suggest then? We're both supposed to be looking for clues here so that I can grab this punk and drag him back to the station."

"That's the tricky part. I used to be able to do this easy. Now…" He waved his hand in an 'eh' gesture. "We're gonna have to do this the human way, which means looking around."

"Ugh." Maze frowned, thinking. "Well, there were no signs that this guy got dumped, so we're going to have to look around for how he got here. Backtrack. Not sure how since I didn't find anything the first time."

"We split up? You go one direction and I go another?" Gabriel shrugged. "Maybe something's changed since yesterday."

Maze snorted. "Yeah, stuff gets moved around here all the time. Containers come in and out with the ships." A considering look came over her face. "And would be a great place for trails go cold."

"And if I was a person that was trying to hide a couple of murders, I'd take to a place where no one would be able to figure out where I went." Gabriel stood, frowning. "Gimme a sec, will ya?"

He didn't hear Maze's reply as his wings burst from his back and he took to the skies. Landing on the nearest roof, he started scanning around, frowning. Maze was right about one thing. Things got moved around all the time, which made the search difficult, but not exactly impossible.

He honestly didn't know what he was exactly looking for. Some sort of evidence of foul play, obviously, but it wouldn't be obvious if that were the case, right? Someone would hide it, likely very well, if they didn't want to get caught. Wings folded close to him, Gabriel simply took to pacing the roof, frowning. If he were some sort of murderer, where would he hide something?

He glanced down to the ground, noting that Maze had moved off to stalk around. She would likely be just fine looking on her own. It wasn't like something could sneak up on her. Plus, she was a competent fighter, even without those blades of hers.

Blinking, he thought that over again, and before he knew it, he was landing right near her. Maze pulled up short from her search around one of the containers and gave him a confused look. ""What's up? Find something on your flight?"

"Your blades." Gabriel gestured toward her. "Luci said they can cut through angel wings. They can do some serious damage to angels, right?"

"They can, yeah." Maze gave him a considering look. "Gabriel wasn't killed by one, though."

"Even if they were melted down?" Gabriel's mind happily supplied him with the knowledge that the apocalypse world had done it with angel blades.

"You mean into bullets?" Maze crossed her arms, obviously thinking. "I don't know. Never been tested." She then looked suspiciously at Gabriel. "Why?"

"Because I think I know what exactly what killed your Gabriel. We just need to find it." Gabriel grimaced.

"Well, this place looks about as cheerful as home." Not that Lucifer cared much about what Hell looked like. He had left for a reason. However, there was something that tickled at the edge of his senses, and he couldn't figure out what. It sent a tingle through him whenever he tried to stretch them.

Which, he wasn't about to admit to Chloe or Gabriel that Gabriel's ability to see more than what was visible was something he'd lost along with most of his other abilities. He retained something of it, like a sense when something wasn't quite right. It was how he was able to deduce that Cain was Marcus Pierce, and how he was able to believe his Mother was in Charlotte Richards's body.

Sadly, it didn't expand beyond that, though Lucifer wondered if his Father would have done so had He decided on an Apocalypse scenario. Still, it was useful, and he glanced toward the detective as she exited her car behind him. "Detective, perhaps it would be better if I took a crack at this."

"Considering the last time you decided to traumatize a victim's family member, I think we both should go."

Chloe looked around the apartment complex, probably seeing what kind of place it was. Lucifer thought it looked rather boring personally. There were porches with lawn chairs squeezed onto them, a patio with a grill standing ready, and well, the scene was rather suburban. Throw in a white picket fence, and he wouldn't have been shocked to see some kind of Stepford wives living there.

Still, he could sense that something was off, and he looked toward Chloe. "Detective, remember when Gabriel could sense that my brother's wings were there even when we couldn't see them?"

Chloe walked around the car, raising an eyebrow at Lucifer. "Yeah?"

"Well, there's something perhaps I should inform you about. I don't exactly 'see' things like that, but…" He gestured around the place. "Around here feels, well, normal. However, there is an apartment that doesn't feel quite right."

Chloe frowned, glancing from the complex to the door Lucifer indicated. "I don't feel anything."

Lucifer shook his head. "You wouldn't. It's a supernatural sense. Something feels off, and I can't explain why."

"Well, I can't exactly stay out here. You said I make you vulnerable."

Lucifer winced. Of course he had told her that, and she was much too close even staying in her car to let him go in safely. Still, he felt as though he didn't have much of a choice there. "All right then. Just... stay close. We don't know what's in there."

They walked to the door, the sensation growing in Lucifer's mind, until they stood before it. After Chloe's knock resulted in no answer, Lucifer frowned, but Chloe looked at him. "I don't think anyone's home, and we can't go in without a warrant."

"Well maybe you can't," Lucifer stated, reaching for the doorknob, "but I do have my own key, if you'll recall." He twisted it once, gave a bit of a shove of power, and the door clicked. Opening it, Lucifer gestured inside. "I can go first if you'd like."

It made Lucifer wonder when Chloe gave no complaint and let him go first. However, that was pushed to the side the moment he looked around the apartment. Javier Santos's place was a wreck. There were papers littering the floor, ripped apart, and holes punched in the walls. A smashed crucifix was tossed into a corner along with a framed image of some Christian poem.

Chloe already had her gun out when Lucifer turned to look at her. It was pointed down with her finger on the guard, and she was already stepping forward. "Melissa Haden? LAPD. Are you in here?"

When there was no reply, Lucifer glanced toward Chloe. "I get the feeling that there isn't a soul here."

"I don't think anyone's been in here for a while," Chloe corrected. She was looking into the kitchen, where an old sandwich was laying uneaten. Lucifer grimaced when he noticed mold.

"If no one's been here for a while, then why all the damage?" Lucifer gestured toward the rest of the apartment.

"I don't know." Chloe went on to investigate the rest of the place while Lucifer followed.

Lucifer curled his lips when he wandered into the kitchen, examining the remains of whatever had been in the sink. "Well, we can definitely exclude any cleaning services. I wonder where exactly Miss Haden disappeared off to."

Lucifer turned about, looking around the home. That feeling was still there, and Lucifer couldn't quite pinpoint where it was eminating from. Sighing, he rubbed his temples and glanced toward the side, blinking when he swore he saw something like a ripple in the wall.

"Hello, what's this?" Lucifer bent forward, examining the wall closely. It looked normal, but Lucifer could have sworn it had done something that no wall should have been able to do. He frowned before he touched the wall lightly, then more firmly as the wall didn't seem to do anything.

Standing back upright, he straightened out his jacket before he realized that the sensation of wrongness had just dissipated. His frown deepened before he turned toward where Chloe had disappeared to. "I do believe we're quite alone here."

Chloe reappeared from her perusal of the rest of the house, shaking her head. "Alone, yes, but the place has been turned upside down." Chloe glanced around the room. "I'm going to call this in and have someone from the precinct look into Melissa's current whereabouts. We need to find out where she is and what she knows."

Lucifer nodded, glancing back toward the wall. "I would advise caution, except I don't think they'd believe me if I told them the wall was acting like Jello."

Chloe blinked. "Jello?" Stepping forward, Chloe examined the wall Lucifer was staring at. "I don't see anything."

"Supernatural senses." Lucifer reminded her. "That isn't the least of our problems, however. The wrongness is gone too."

"Wouldn't that be a good thing?"

Lucifer said nothing, examining the wall some more. He tried reaching out with his senses, but still found nothing of what he'd initially detected. "Normally I would say yes, but considering this is tied to my brother's murder, and angels are devilishly hard to kill, you can't be too careful."

"Right." Chloe pulled out her cell phone. "I'll call it in, put out an APB for Melissa, and we'll go from there."

She made her way back out of the apartment, while Lucifer continued examining the wall. Suddenly he felt like eyes were watching him. He glanced up toward the window, but whatever he'd felt, there was no one there.

"What are you doing?"

Maze stared as Gabriel drew some Enochian out in his blood. He'd chosen a discreet location, mostly because he was pretty sure that people tended to freak out when they saw stuff written in blood. However, the sigils he was writing were some sort of tracking spell for angels, and he hoped it could tell him where angel blades were too. He just wasn't sure if it would work in this world or not.

Putting the last touches on one of the glyphs, Gabriel settled back and took out the last components of the spell and set them inside the ring of writing. Okay, so he might have adjusted the spell to work with the materials of this world, but it should work. He heard Maze snort behind him and he glanced back. "What?"

Maze gestured to what Gabriel was working on, her features twisted slightly in disgust. "What's all this?"

"Enochian, feather from an archangel since I can't really get to my grace here, my blood, some myrrh, and I'm going to light this on fire." Gabriel stood, wincing as he looked at his hand. That definitely stung cutting into his palm. But, well, he had asked Maze for one of her blades since he discovered he couldn't just cut his own hand with a normal knife. "Once cast, I should be able to locate anything angelic in the city."

"Wait, it's a spell?" Maze looked incredulous. "This isn't any spell I've seen."

"Nope!" Gabriel turned with a flourish and smirked at the demon. "It's improvised, but I should be able to do it."

"You don't know if it's going to work." Maze deadpanned. She looked Gabriel up and down before throwing her hands up. "Whatever. Why do you think this has anything to do with angels, anyway? It's not like Azrael's blade is anywhere in this dimension."

"Which Azrael are we talking about?" Gabriel quipped. Maze leveled a look at him, and the angel shrugged. "Hey, it's a good question to ask. If I somehow got here, who's to say that someone else didn't get here too."

"What, you think someone else came through?"

Gabriel tapped his nose, amusement in his eyes. "Yep. I mean, the portal I probably got here through was open long enough, and if I know certain people well enough, they're likely here causing trouble." He observed his work for a moment, then gestured Maze back. "Might be a bad idea for you to stand too close."

He then pulled out a matchbook, frowning as he started chanting in Enochian. At the crescendo of his chanting, he dropped the match, watching as the ingredients flared up. He then paused to listen, tilting his head as he managed to hear something melodious on the wind. "Hear that?"

"Hear what?" Maze had stepped forward a bit, looking at the mess that remained of the spell.

"Oh, right, not an angel." Gabriel turned, frowning as he focused on the music more. "It kind of sounds like my horn, but…"

Maze looked confused. "Your horn? Isn't that supposed to be in Heaven?"

Gabriel waved a hand dismissively. "Not a literal horn. A spell. It's supposed to summon angels, but that's not the spell I cast. And," he pointed in the direction he heard the music, "it's coming from over there."

Maze's eyebrows rose, but Gabriel was already making his way in the direction he indicated. He heard her follow, which was great, because he wasn't exactly sure what he was walking into wasn't a trap. His horn had been used as such before by Metadouche and Gadreel, so it was entirely feasible that someone had decided to cast the same spell. However, as they got closer to the sound, his eyebrows furrowed. If he was correct, that was a busy street over there.

The song continued, and Gabriel was proven correct when they had to cross said street. He could have taken to the sky, but he didn't exactly want to leave the demon behind. Instead, he led the way on foot, turning down several roads before they both found themselves in an alley. And a carjacking in progress.

Maze glanced at him, and Gabriel sighed and nodded at the unspoken question. The car being stolen was where the music was coming from, and she stalked up, grabbing the guy by the shoulder and turning him roughly around. The guy's back slammed into the car and Maze had one of her knives at his throat. "All right. Who are you, and do you know whose car this is?"

The man gaped, staring at Maze like she was crazy. Which, Gabriel admitted, was a pretty accurate description of how she looked. However, he held his hands up and shook his head. "Look, I was-"

"Just trying to break into the car?" Gabriel approached, crossing his arms. "We can see that. Question is, what do you know about the car?"

"It's just been sitting here for the past week or so. I dunno who left it here. No one around here owns it." The guy looked between Maze and Gabriel. "Um, it's not your car, is it?"

Gabriel snorted. "Hardly. I wouldn't be caught dead in this old jalopy." Illustrating his point, Gabriel kicked one of the tires, indicating the rust along the wheels and gesturing to the rust on the body. "Gimme a chance to work my mojo, and I could have it looking much better than this."

"So I'm not in trouble?" The guy looked hopeful.

Maze rolled her eyes and just shoved him away. "Well, you're useless. Go on, beat it."

The guy didn't hesitate and rushed off, leaving Gabriel alone with Maze, the car, and the music coming from it. Gabriel simply tilted his head, examining the car. "It's coming from the trunk."

"Is that all?" Maze reached over and wrenched the trunk open. "Done. Who would keep an angel in a trunk anyw…"

She trailed off, staring into the trunk, and Gabriel got closer to peer inside. His eyes went wide, and he reached inside, picking up the blade he'd discovered with hesitation. It was an angel blade. One of many, from what he could see of the dozens within the trunk. The one he was holding was an angel named Miriam's, and he could easily pick up that the others belonged to other angels he recognized. He spotted another further back, and he pulled it out while his stomach felt like it was doing flip flops. An archangel blade, and not just any archangel blade. His own.

Maze was studying him and her arms crossed. "So, what's with the knives in the trunk?"

"They're not just knives." Gabriel tore his gaze from his own blade to the others in the trunk. "They're angel blades. Pieces of grace. This world shouldn't even have these."

"So what? These blades really powerful or something?"

"Yeah, you could say that." Gabriel winced before stowing his blade away. He could wonder later how his blade ended up in a trunk a week before his own arrival. "They can kill angels."

Maze's eyes went wide. "So when you asked if someone could melt mine down…"

Gabriel glanced at her before gathering up his siblings' blades. "It was because someone figured out how to do the same to angel blades in another world." He turned, not exactly knowing how they were going to get all of them out of here, but knowing the blades couldn't stay. "We've got someone that knows how to kill angels running around here, from a world whose humans are trying to get rid of all their angels. And your Gabriel got caught in the crossfire." Gabriel snorted humorlessly. "Welcome to my world, where the Apocalypse is just another Sunday dinner."