Chapter 4
Loops 5 & 6
Without opening her eyes, Chloe reached for her neck. Her fingers traced her throat's unbroken skin and came away completely dry.
It had been strange when the killer found her on the road two loops ago. For him to then track her to her home should have been impossible. So how? Maybe her initial conclusions were incorrect. Maybe she wasn't the only person to retain memories between each reset. If he did remember, it placed the two of them into a never-ending arms race that had ended in her death every iteration so far.
Dying wasn't new. Not after the last several loops. But Lucifer was.
Had that really been him? Why did he appear now? Chloe hadn't seen him in any of the other loops. Until she directly interfered, everyone else stuck to the course of their day. Did that mean he was following her all along? If so, why didn't he try to help her sooner?
Unless...
The Devil's ravaged face and burning eyes flashed through her mind.
Unless Lucifer was responsible... No. He wouldn't do that to her.
As the morning wore on, she wasn't sure anymore. She pulled on her professional attire and tried to go to work as usual. She had new leads to follow, namely her assailant's face. She even spoke with a police sketch artist to get a composite sketch done. But the face that haunted her through the morning was not her killer, but that of her former partner.
Surely, the Devil would have better things to do than mess with a nobody like her. But that brought up the uncomfortable question she had neither the opportunity nor courage to ask since Marcus' death: Why did he hang around for so long in the first place?
-x-x-x-
LUX's building loomed over her. It wasn't a skyscraper in the same sense as other LA buildings. Yet it seemed to block out the sun like a foreboding obelisk. On her way into the building, she caught sight of the plaque declaring the building as a historical landmark. The memory of his awe and gratefulness after she gave him the papers were overshadowed by the humiliation of being stood up at a restaurant, collecting pitying looks from the wait staff like it would pay out in her pension plan.
She came here for answers, not to reminisce.
The interior was dimly lit, almost as if someone forgot to turn off the mood lighting after closing up. Chloe found no one, neither Lucifer nor any other staff, lurking behind the bar or in the back offices. The entire club was silent as a cemetery.
She entered the elevator and pressed the button for the penthouse floor. As she ascended, she wondered if she was being too reckless. At best, Lucifer would be as oblivious as the rest of the world to the repeating day. But if he knew... If Lucifer was responsible... Chloe clenched her fists. If he was the key to escaping this never-ending day, then she wouldn't know until she confronted him.
Her head shot up and her spine stiffened when the elevator chimed. She took a deep breath and stepped across the threshold into the Devil's den. Whatever scene she expected, this wasn't it. The surface of his wet bar was entirely covered with empty bottles. Most were alcohol bottles, but there was also a small mountain of empty pill bottles. They weren't the only drug paraphernalia littered around the living room. She counted no less than six bongs and passed two solid bricks of coke left lying on top of his piano. At the epicenter of the disaster sat a disheveled Lucifer, wearing a pair of tight black boxer-briefs with his dress shirt hanging unbuttoned.
He lifted red-rimmed eyes to meet her shell-shocked gaze. Then he broke into a fit of bitter, rankling laughter that sprouted goosebumps down the length of Chloe's arm. "Lovely! No wonder that was such a rush!"
Her eyes fell to the rows and rows of neatly cut cocaine laid out across the coffee table's glass surface. Lucifer was never shy about his drug use, no matter how much she disapproved. But the picture he now presented made her sick to her stomach. God, he would probably be dead if he were human.
"What the hell, Lucifer?" she snapped.
"Yes, Hell, that does appear to be the case," he replied evenly. Looking down again, he appeared to consider taking his next hit.
"Oh no, you don't." She closed the distance between them in four firm strides and grabbed the back of his shirt, holding him in place and preventing him from stuffing his nose into another line of coke. "I am not having this conversation while you're coked out of your mind. I want answers, Lucifer."
He tilted his head back, eyes flashing blood red as his face distorted. "Release me."
She immediately let go of his shirt collar like it was hot coal. As she scrambled to get away, the back of her knees collided with something. She fell back into his sofa with a cry. Lucifer stared, watching blankly as she flailed against the cushions. He made no move to help her. After catching her breath, she clung to the arm at the far end of the sofa and glared daggers in return. Yet she couldn't shake the feeling she was a mouse staring down a viper.
Lucifer rose to his feet, swaying from side to side.
"What are you doing?" Chloe pressed her back deeper into the cushion.
"I want a drink. Am I allowed to at least indulge in that, Detective?" He always spoke her title like an endearment. She had never heard the word sneered so unkindly before; not even from the mouths of people she'd arrested before.
Anger tightened in her chest; a fist gripping her heart. "Not like I can stop you."
"No, you can't."
Lucifer pulled a bottle from his half-empty bar shelves. At first, he grabbed two glasses, twisted open the bottle cap, then paused. He pushed one glass to the side and filled the other to its brim. He didn't so much drink the whiskey as chug it, before pouring a second one. Chloe pried her hands from the sofa and spun to face Lucifer. Only then did she realize he now stood between her and the only exit.
Gathering her courage, she plowed ahead. "Something strange is happening."
Besides the hint of apprehension that fluttered across his face, which he hid by downing that second drink, he showed no signs of what he was thinking.
Now that she started to talk, her words came tumbling out like a babbling brook. "No, strange is an understatement. What it actually is is an impossibility. But I'm constantly reevaluating what is and isn't possible ever since you..."
He grimaced but remained quiet.
"I was working my newest case, followed a lead all the way out to Topanga, but I was ambushed. He shot me here." She placed a palm flat across her stomach. "I died and then woke up in bed. At first, I thought I had a nightmare. I went about my day, worked my case, and tried to save the girl. Then I died again and everything restarted. Was I going insane? No matter what I did, I couldn't... And then you... you showed up." She swallowed hard, caught in the memory of drowning in her own blood with his hand cradling her neck and head.
"Here we go." His eyes and tone were equally flat when he spoke.
She refused to cower under his gaze. She sprang to her feet and crossed the room, stopping a foot away from him. "You were there, weren't you? You were there when he slit my throat. You remember me dying, don't you?"
He stiffened, eyes widening by a fraction. A single spasm shook his body, followed by a light ping as a hairline crack appeared in his drinking glass.
"You do remember. Unlike everyone else, you don't forget everything once we reset. Why?" she demanded. "Why do you remember?!"
"As if I could forget," he snarled. "That image will be seared into my brain for the rest of eternity."
Her anger blazed, fierce and suffocating as a Californian wildfire. "Is that why you're doing this? Are you tormenting me on purpose? Is this payback for not—"
"One second. You're blaming me?" But the wounded expression on his face was quickly supplanted by a bitter laugh. "Course you blame the Devil!"
"That is what you are!" she screamed. Her entire body shook but she was unsure if it was from rage or fear.
The stress of the last few days, albeit the same exact day over and over again, put down whatever lingering fears about Lucifer she still had. She was mentally exhausted. She was at the end of her metaphorical rope. "Satan! The Devil! The root of all evil! If you're not to blame for this, then who is? Why do I keep dying? Why does everything I do make no difference? Why won't this day end? It just repeats over and over again."
"Of course, everything's repeating! You're part of my bloody Hell loop!"
The bar shelves exploded without warning, sending the remaining bottles crashing to the counter and floor. Drops of alcohol splattered across her hair and cheeks. Embedded in the center of the now empty wall was a large shard of crystal. It was all that remained of the tumbler Lucifer had thrown. She scrambled back and drew her weapon. She knew he was sometimes violent, but rarely in this explosive a manner.
And never did she fear for her safety before.
"Stand down!" she barked.
"Shoot me all you like, Detective. It'd hardly make a difference." He pivoted to face her again, spreading his arms wide and grinning maniacally. "Seeing as I'm already in Hell."
"What?"
Ignoring her, he rambled on, "That'd be one way to spice things up. Maybe we can alternate each time. I watch you die, then you can kill me the next time around. Otherwise, this will grow terribly dull fast."
She rearranged her grip on her pistol. His voice kept repeating itself in her head: "Hell." Her head spun with his implication. "What do you mean? Explain, Lucifer! What do you mean we're in Hell? Am I dead?"
"I'm in Hell!" he snapped, then his face twisted in agony that speared her as deeply as her own terror. "You... You're a manifestation. Like Uriel."
She lowered her weapon, arms now too weak to stay up. She barely mustered enough strength to keep it from slipping her numb grip. She shook her head vehemently, clinging to a lifeline of denial. "No! That makes no sense. Why would Hell look like your penthouse? I've been out there. It's still LA. I've seen Dan, Ella, and Trixie! This can't be Hell. You're wrong!"
"I'm not." The finality in his words cut her like the swing of an executioner's ax.
She couldn't be dead. Not yet. What about Trixie? What about Morgan? "Then you're lying!" As soon as the accusation left her lips, she knew she'd overstepped.
He moved so fast that she never had the chance to fight back. Her gun skidded several feet away, spinning in circles on the marble floor after she dropped it in shock. The hard and unyielding wall against her back stood in direct contrast to his hand cradling her neck. While her feet stayed planted on the ground, he could have dangled her given all her troubles breathing. How many times had she seen him do this to their suspects? His face hovered close. From this distance, she spotted a thin cut across his temple and a thin stream of blood trickling from the wound down the side of his face. His breath, heavy with alcohol, played across her cheeks like a lover's caress, but the fury blazing in his eyes was anything but.
"Don't you dare," he hissed. His fingers twitched against her skin, tightening his grip almost imperceptibly. His palm against her throat burned like a brand. "You may wear her face, but you severely test the limits of my temper."
Lucifer was truly livid. But she had the feeling he saw her without actually seeing her.
"What's a hell loop?" she asked. Her mind raced into overdrive to piece together all the clues since she first arrived. He had been acting strange since the moment she stepped off his elevator. Like he had already drawn his conclusion and written her off.
"There's no point in explaining to you."
"Humor me," she insisted. "Please, Lucifer."
His grip slackened. His shoulders drooped. "Simple, this is my punishment."
"Please, Lucifer, listen to me. I'm not some figment of your imagination. Or a drug-induced hallucination. I'm here! I'm real!" she swallowed thickly after her voice cracked. "And I need your help. Please."
He stared unblinking at her face, and she fought to not squirm under his bleary gaze.
"No. I don't believe you."
Her temper flared. It was clear nothing she could say would penetrate through his thick head. With a twist of her body, she slipped free and threw her elbow high, popping him right in the face. He staggered back with one hand pressed against his nose to stem the flow of blood. He wore shock as well as an ill-fitted suit.
"You self-absorbed asshole. Not everything is about you!" she snarled as she bent down to retrieve her weapon and re-holstered it. "I came here because I thought... I don't know what I thought! Right now, you're useless to everyone, most of all to yourself!"
She fled the penthouse without another look.
Only later in the solitary confines of her car, trapped in typical LA traffic, did a tiny nagging remorse settle in. Would their conversation have gone better if he was sober? Probably not. Lucifer was too busy wallowing in his self-pity to even see straight. It became clear that their time apart had affected him deeply. Part of her ached when she remembered his red-rimmed eyes and his gutted expression. But in typical Lucifer manner, he was quick to make it all about himself. Just like when he'd abandoned her at the crime scene with Marcus' corpse or when he dropped off the face of the earth for months without a peep.
She scrubbed her neck, trying to ease the phantom pressure around her throat. Lucifer had always been volatile at his worst, but to have it directed at her like that? They had been partners for almost three years, and in one of her moments of greatest need... Even if he didn't believe she was real, it was difficult to write off how he'd threatened her. How he'd utterly dismissed her.
A BMW swerved into her lane, cutting her off. She slammed the brakes and jabbed the car horn viciously. The BMW's driver paid her no attention as it merged into the far left lane without signaling. Chloe was half-tempted to take down its license plate and forward it to a patrol vehicle. But then she caught the time on her dashboard: ten past four. She was running out of time to get to Morgan.
She turned on her siren and sped to the motel. When she finally pulled into the parking lot, the first thing she spotted was the room door swinging on its hinges. She left her cruiser parked across two empty spaces and her key in the ignition. She nearly pulled something in her shoulder in her rush to unbuckle her seatbelt.
Gripping the doorframe for support, she gaped at the unmoving body lying on the other side of the threshold. A dark, red stain bloomed under Officer Rollins like a bed of morbid flowers, matching the bloody posy across his uniform. She dropped to her knees next to the body. "Officer Rollins. Rollins!" she called.
No response and she couldn't find either a breath or a pulse. She searched the bathroom, inside the closet, and under the bed for the little girl. There was no sign of her other than a discarded novel left behind on top of the bedsheets.
"Morgan?" Chloe called. "Morgan!"
She turned toward the door, determined to hunt down the black SUV and save Morgan. As soon as she stood up, vertigo swept her off her feet and laid her flat. Her eyes snapped from shut to open. The view of the motel parking lot was replaced with her bedroom ceiling, while Delilah's sweet voice heralded the dawn of the same new day.
-x-x-x-
When Chloe marched into his den, Lucifer didn't deign to acknowledge her. He bent his head and did another line of coke instead.
She didn't have the superhuman strength necessary to physically stop him, so she would rely on her words. "This isn't a Hell loop."
"And you know for sure how?"
"I didn't die during the last loop, but the reset still happened."
He froze; a disquieting statue stooped over his coffee table.
She continued, not knowing how much longer she could hold his attention. "Look, I don't know exactly what a Hell loop is, but I'm guessing they're a lot like time loops. Ella explained those to me. There's always a metaphorical reset button, usually someone dying. How many times do you think I've reset?"
He answered with such surety. "Three times."
"Wrong, this is my sixth time," she declared and crossed the room to stand over him.
When Lucifer met her eyes, he looked utterly lost and torn. He shook his head in denial. "That's impossible. I don't believe you." But he no longer sounded as confident as the previous loop.
"Then I'll prove it." She crossed her arms and stared him down.
Lucifer silently responded with an unblinking stare. After several moments, he broke eye contact first. "Do as you please."
She settled into the tiny office looking into the living room with her work laptop. The thin layer of dust covering the desk attested to how long it had sat empty. She wasn't keen on babysitting him, but she'd be lost if he decided to leave. She tried not to panic at the idea.
Her case had hit a dead end. Chloe wasn't ready to give up, even if all the work she did now amounted to nothing more than rote memorization. If she managed to knock some sense into Lucifer, she'd need to present the facts of her case. She even combed through the list of matches for the killer's partial license plate, hoping in vain one would pop out upon a second or third review.
Lucifer didn't leave or try to approach her as she worked. He was a ghost in his own home, alternating between gawking at Chloe and refusing to make eye contact. She, on the other hand, fought her well-honed cop instincts and the urge to clear up the mess of drug paraphernalia. Not that it'd do anything. He'd be flush with cocaine again once the day reset. At least he refrained from doing any other drugs while she was present.
By mid-morning, she suspected he'd burned through his remaining high. Still far too quickly for how much drugs he had swimming in his veins. If he was human, he would have overdosed days ago.
She flinched at the thought. Before she learned what he really was, a small part of her always feared that possibility. Between the excessive amounts of drugs, alcohol, and getting shot at, she used to wonder if he'd make it to forty.
Now the joke's on her.
She got up and leaned against the glass partition separating the office from the living room. He remained seated on the floor with his back to the office. The only time he'd moved was to retrieve more whisky from the bar. She stared at his back and the wrinkled shirt draped over him. She couldn't tell from this distance but did he seem gaunter than before?
Usually, he'd made a flirtatious remark or veiled innuendo by now. The silence was unnerving.
She cleared her throat. "Do you start every loop high?" when he didn't respond, she continued, "For me, every loop starts with me waking up in bed to my daily alarm. The radio's always playing the same song."
"I can't turn back the currents of time,
Every day keeps rushing forward.
I can't afford to stand still and wait,
As for the two of us?
Only time will tell."
In her youth, her pageant talent was ballet, not singing. So forgive her if her voice cracked on a high note or if her tone fell flat. At least her singing convinced Lucifer to face her. While the last echo faded, the lyrics sunk in for the very first time.
She huffed incredulously, "Okay, that song is way too on the nose."
"That's Delilah's song." It was impossible to deny the sorrow in his voice.
Then she remembered what the radio DJ said in a previous loop. "She died three years ago today."
"And we met for the first time. Yes, what a lovely coincidence." His mood sharpened into something cutting.
She needed to reel him in before she lost him or her temper again.
"You still think this is a Hell loop. I gotta admit. I thought there'd be more fire and brimstone in Hell. This?" She gestured around his penthouse with its priceless curios. "Looks downright cozy."
He rose to his feet, glaring. "Hell is nothing so pedestrian. Hell knows all your darkest secrets. All your deepest regrets. Hell prepares a tailor-made torment for every single one of its damned souls."
The sun's journey across the clear blue sky placed it in such a position to cast nearly all his face in shadow. Despite the brightness of the clear spring day shining through the penthouse windows, a shiver ran down her spine. He spoke with such authority and knowledge befitting the king of such a place. No one else on Earth knew Hell as thoroughly as Lucifer. And the only person that might know Hell better was Lucifer's father: God himself who was both omniscient and omnipresent.
It was too much. It was all suddenly too much for her to handle. Heart hammering in her ears, she retreated into the study.
-x-x-x-
Later—after processing his words and the sudden existential crisis they wrought—she stepped out to find the living room reasonably cleaner. The rotting takeout boxes and the mountain of pill bottles were cleared away, along with the two bricks of coke that once sat on the piano's lid. She hoped he hid the drugs and not consumed them. Lucifer, now clad in a crimson dressing-gown, was smoking on his terrace. When she reached the balcony entrance, she hesitated before forcing herself to step outside. She didn't stop until she reached his side and leaned against the balcony railing.
Lucifer kept one of the best views of Hollywood from his terrace. On a clear day like today, she could see as far as Griffith Observatory. And when the city was bathed in warm yellow light at night, it was beyond romantic. They'd had their share of hearts-to-hearts and almost-moments against this backdrop of LA.
"Back to torture me more?" he muttered around the cigarette between his lips.
"Shouldn't it be the other way around?" she shot back unkindly.
He scrubbed his unkempt face, where his stubble now entered "mountain-man" territory. "Again with this charade. Uriel wasn't nearly this tedious."
"No, what you've said makes no sense. You keep insisting this is your Hell loop. But if that's the case, why am I dying over and over again? Wouldn't this be my Hell loop or whatever?" she argued. That last option might be the truth, but she couldn't allow herself to consider the possibility, however slim. For now, she had to trust her guts.
"Impossible. You're nothing more than a mechanism in the loop."
"How many times do I have to tell you? I'm real, Lucifer." She resisted the urge to stomp her feet or wring his neck.
Finally, he looked at her and gave an infuriatingly smug smirk; though the light never reached his eyes. "We—Two people can't share the same loop. That's not how Hell works. Loops are tailor-made to the individual. You can even say Hell is an eternity of isolation with only your guilt for company."
"Fine, say you were right," she hissed. "This still doesn't add up. I remember dying five times. This is my sixth loop. If all this was meant to torture you specifically, why didn't you appear until the fourth time? Why weren't you there from the start? And why did everything reset though I didn't die this last time?"
His brows creased before he turned away. But Chloe wasn't ready to drop the conversation. Convincing Lucifer to see reason was never an easy task. It required persistence above all. She stepped closer and grabbed his elbow. They both jumped at the contact; she remembered the last time they had been this close, but he seemed panicked. If anyone should be afraid, it should be her. Nothing matched her imagination during the occasions she dared to imagine their reunion. She waited for him to throw her off. He didn't; not even a muscle twitched.
"You're actively refusing to believe me. Why are you being so stubborn?" she asked.
He extended an arm toward her, reaching out to maybe caress her face. But the red of his sleeve caused her to flinch. He dropped his hand and moved back. Yet he still gazed at her with an undeniably tender light in his eyes, one that made her breath catch. "Because that would be false hope."
He flicked his cigarette over the railing and left her to her thoughts.
-x-x-x-
The rest of the afternoon passed without any further confrontation or conversation. She focused on her case, searching through law enforcement databases for mentions of Morgan, Robin, or Chloe's many-time killer. Sometimes, she felt like Sisyphus. Her every attempt to crack the case was limited by what she accomplished in a span of nine hours. Without the ability to carry over evidence, she was cursed with a nearly blank slate at the start of each loop. Any document generated or in-progress searches vanished into thin air.
She glanced at the time on her screen. It was well past four. If she was right—no, she had to be right, the loop would restart in a matter of minutes.
She shut down the laptop and stretched out the kinks in her back when she stood. No sign of Lucifer in the living room, out on the balcony, at the bar, or in his library. Shit. Did he leave while she was working? She rushed to the elevator, hoping he'd gone downstairs and no further. Before calling for the elevator, she glanced into his bedroom and breathed a sigh of relief when she recognized the figure lying on his bed. Cautiously, she approached the steps into his bedroom and climbed them after he failed to acknowledge her.
Lucifer lied on his back on top of his covers, while his dressing gown spread open under him like a pool of blood. His eyes were closed, but she didn't believe for a second he was asleep. Given the dark bruises under his eyes, he needed the rest. She touched her matching bags self-consciously.
A tidal wave of questions nearly swept her under. From the significant to the trivial, there was so much she wanted to ask him. Were drugs and alcohol the only thing he did in the last few weeks? Did he keep any company? Where was Maze? Why did he leave her at the loft? Why? Why didn't he show her the truth sooner? Why then? Why after killing Marcus?
She swallowed all those questions and cleared her throat before speaking, "Any moment now. We'll reset back to the beginning."
For several long moments, he gave no reply. The only sound was their individual breaths, falling in and out of sync with each other.
"You're as stubborn as ever, Detective," Lucifer said without opening his eyes.
A lump formed in her throat. "You finally acknowledge me."
"No. I figure this will be the only remaining opportunity to speak with you."
She blinked, fighting the tears gathering in the corner of her eyes. But could she say he was wrong? Would either of them have reached out to the other if the current situation hadn't forced them? God, she had spent so long being afraid of him and his intentions. Every story throughout time and history said that he, the Devil, was the embodiment of evil. Lucifer may be vain and self-absorbed. He would scare their suspects half-mad. He also brought her burgers for dinner, yet break her heart through missed appointments and terrible admissions. In these past weeks, she had wondered if he was toying with her or manipulating her.
Yet seeing him now made her reconsider hard. He drank and did drugs with the desperation of a drowning man or ironically, one trying to flee his demons. She hadn't seen him this wrecked since he tried to throw himself in front of a sniper's bullet that one Halloween. He just looked defeated.
"Answer one question, Lucifer, and answer truthfully." She stopped at the edge of the bed, towering over him in a reversal of their usual positions.
His eyes popped open and he glared. "I always tell the truth."
She swallowed. "No, you tell the truth when it suits you. Otherwise, you evade or obfuscate as far as you can without outright lying."
He waved a hand at her, speaking with a hint of mocking, "Ask away, Detective."
"Why do you believe you deserve to be punished?"
He pushed up on his elbows and slid into a seated position. The move brought him almost eye-level with her. "Pardon?"
She folded her hands together and twined her fingers in a white-knuckled grip. "If Hell loops are punishment, why are you being punished? The Devil is supposed to be Hell's ruler. Couldn't you leave? So if you accept this is a Hell loop, it must mean you believe you should be here. That you should be punished. I mean, you left Hell to come to LA."
His eyes were wide and dark as a deer's when frozen under a predator's attention. His Adam's apple bobbed every time he swallowed. "Take your pick of sins. Firstly, I killed Pierce."
"What does that matter?" Pierce tried to kill them first. Surely the Devil didn't care that much for one measly human life.
"That was Dad's one rule I never broke, until him... Cain may have been diminished and warped, but he was still human to his core."
Her head spun, but the rest of her body stayed firmly rooted to the spot. Now was not the time to back down. "Why did you kill him?"
"Really? An interrogation, Detective? Very well. I'll humor you. Because he killed Charlotte. Because he hurt you. Because he tried to kill you." His eyes flashed red with fury.
"Why do you care about what happens to me?" She barely managed to scrape the question past her parched throat and dry mouth. "I'm nobody. Why would the Devil care about me?"
In one fluid movement, Lucifer swung his long legs over the side of the bed. His knees brushed against hers before he rose gracefully to his feet. One second he opened his mouth to reply, and then he was gone. Chloe directed a scream of frustration at her bedroom ceiling, drowning out Delilah's voice.
