Chapter 5
Loop 7

I'm coming over now.

After sending the text to Lucifer, Chloe threw on the same outfit she'd worn every loop and shuttled Trixie to school at a breakneck speed. Then she turned on her siren and kept one eye on her phone for a reply as she weaved through Hollywood traffic. She parked right outside LUX's front door without a second thought. Traffic tickets were the last thing on her mind. She sprinted through the front door and almost ran face-first into something.

That something being Lucifer Morningstar.

They sprang apart; their chests heaving with each breath as they gaped at each other. He'd even pulled on a pair of wrinkled trousers to match his wrinkled shirt, which was messily done up.

Her lips parted, prepared to repeat the question she'd asked before the reset. He seemed so close to opening up in a way he'd never. But the manic light in his eyes, a visible sign of his renewed high, stopped her short. She swallowed his disappointment. There were other things that took priority over her closure.

She stepped away and made a beeline for the bar.

"Detective?" he called cautiously after she ducked behind the bar.

She re-emerged with several bottles of mineral water from the fridge under the counter. Marching back to him, she shoved a bottle into his limp hands and ordered, "Drink up. You need to sober up."

He twisted off the cap and gulped the water down without complaint. When he finished, she handed him another. He took a few sips from the second bottle before capping it.

"This isn't a Hell loop," she said.

He nodded and repeated, "This isn't a Hell loop. The reset was nowhere as seamless as a Hell loop would be."

Tears of relief sprang to her eyes but she fought them back. She'd found someone else who remembered. She wasn't alone.

"What is happening then? Why can you remember things from one loop to the next?"

"Easy, my divinity protects me. There aren't many things in the universe that can mess with a celestial being."

Right... The Devil—Lucifer was an angel once upon a time.

He narrowed his eyes and looked into hers. "The real question, Detective, is why do you remember? You shouldn't. You should be as blissfully ignorant as the rest of the human population..."

Dread gripped the base of her spine. By now the feeling was so familiar she wondered if it was fused into her nervous system. Something about the way he trailed off and how he stared at her made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on their ends. But before she could ask any more questions, he shook his head and straightened.

"But someone or some force is responsible. It's more power than intention, sloppily forcing everything back into place and wiping the slate clean," he said absently. "I doubt any of my siblings would be so bold to play with Dad's toys like this."

"Wait, so you're saying angels, you have the ability to reset the entire world like that?" She snapped her fingers for lack of any other descriptor.

"I and a few of my siblings might be powerful enough to try. Michael for one, but that bootlicker won't even jump without instructions from Dad first. Amenadiel has the ability to slow time. I don't think he's ever tried to even rewind time. He wouldn't dare do something this blatant though, and I'm sure he's still in the Silver City. Like I said, there's no finesse behind this. A few more forced resets like that can unravel the fabric of space and time itself."

The ease with which he spoke boggled her mind. In that instant, she was short of breath; her very world knocked askew on its axis by his casual explanation. "Then, is it your..." she swallowed a lump of panic. "Dad?"

"No," he replied without hesitation. "Dad's generally hands-off with humanity."

"What about all the stories in the Bible? The floods and plagues? Or the burning bush?"

He flapped his hand dismissively. "The floods were Mum's doing. Trying to kick up a temper tantrum to get Dad's attention. And the burning bush was all me. Don't worry about Mum. She's not around anymore. She's off in her own retirement universe and can't interfere with ours as a result."

Mum? Lucifer used to complain about his mother regularly. So Charlotte hadn't been Lucifer's stepmom? She had been his actual mom? God's wife? Dear Literal Lord, Dan slept with what? The goddess of all creation?

"Detective? Are you alright? You appear a tad green around the edges."

She stumbled toward the bar and collapsed against a stool for support. "No, I'm not okay. This is too much, Lucifer."

"Yes, divinity tends to confound the human mind. At least you're not falling to your knees in worship or begging for absolution." The disgust and bitterness in his voice cut like a dull knife across her back. "I'm telling you the truth, Detective, just as I've done since the beginning. Still, I don't mean to cause you more distress."

She pressed her forehead against the cool bar-top and took several deep breaths. Behind her, she sensed Lucifer, his presence as steady as it'd always been, hovering a step out of reach. It took longer than she preferred, but her heart rate eventually slowed from a racing pace to a respectable trot. She turned to face him once more and asked, "How do we solve this mess then?"

"We focus on you. It's possible you remain cognizant of the resets because you were exposed directly to the cause. Have you come into contact with anything strange? An artifact maybe? Or someone suspicious?"

She bit back a bitter laugh. "Lucifer, I'm a police officer. I do nothing but see suspicious people and things."

"Think, Detective," he insisted.

Her killer's face came to mind. "Can it be him?"

Lucifer tensed. "Him?"

"I'm in the middle of a case. The victim is a Jane Doe. I still don't know her name or who she really is, but I found her daughter. There's this man coming after her though. And no matter what I've done differently each loop, he always manages to find us."

He stepped closer, darkness radiating off him. "This man, was he the one who slit your throat?"

She nodded. "Slit my throat. Shot me several times. Ran me off the road. You name it. He never gives up. He keeps coming again and again."

Lucifer turned abruptly and marched toward the front door.

"Wait! Where are you going?" she called.

His shoulders shook when he spoke. "To find this cretin."

-x-x-x-

It was no easy task, but Chloe forced him upstairs to throw on a fresh suit. She couldn't roll into the station with a Lucifer who looked like he'd come right off a week-long bender. Even so, they still received their fair share of wide-eyed stares walking through the precinct. The desk sergeant spilled coffee into her lap after spotting him. Ella was so shocked that she stopped dead in the middle of her conversation with Officer Engles and stared as Chloe and Lucifer rushed past.

Dan, on the other hand, flew past shock and straight into a rage. He cut them off at the bottom of the steps and pointed an accusing finger at Lucifer. "What the hell is he doing here?!"

Every eye in the bullpen, including Lieutenant Grieve from inside his office, was on them now. She half-expected Lucifer to crack an inappropriate joke about his devilishness. He sneered but otherwise stayed quiet.

"Stop it, Dan. I need his help on a case."

Dan ignored her plea and didn't stop until he was chest-to-chest with Lucifer. "Get out!" He planted both hands on Lucifer's chest and tried to shove him back.

Lucifer didn't budge an inch. He leaned in to Dan's touch. "I'll leave when the Detective tells me to."

Dan balled his hands into fists and wound his arm back.

"Oh my god, watch out!" Ella screamed from the mezzanine.

Chloe glanced up and gasped. She forgot all about Ella's box of files. It would land on Lucifer, Dan, or both of them with how close they were standing. She barely squeaked the first syllable of a warning when Lucifer's arm shot out and tapped Dan's chest. He barely touched Dan but the force sent her ex stumbled back half a dozen steps. With his other arm, Lucifer caught the box without looking up or dropping a single file.

"Why'd you push me, you ass?" Dan roared.

Lucifer favored him with an arrogant look. "I saved you, Daniel. You can't afford a drop in your IQ given how low it already is."

"Nice catch, Lucifer!" Ella flew down the stairs, beaming and completely oblivious to the ongoing tension. Without waiting for him to put down the box, she threw her arms around his waist and squeezed. "I missed you so much! I'm so glad to see you!"

Ella's enthusiasm and Lucifer's reaction to her destroyed any remaining tension. Chloe even spotted a few faces in the crowd smiling at the pair. With the box now tucked under one arm, Lucifer used the other to pat Ella gently on the back. If he thought that might placate her and get her to release him sooner, he was wrong. Ella clung harder. Lucifer shot Chloe a silent but panicked plea for help. Dan was now gone, and his desk was empty. Chloe only hoped her ex stepped away to calm his temper. For a moment, everything almost felt normal again.

-x-x-x-

The list of matching partial plates was still as long as the first, second, and third time she ran the search. Chloe still didn't have any way of paring down the list. Sighing softly, she snuck a glance at Lucifer out of the corner of her eye. He sat slouched in the chair next to her desk. But instead of playing with his phone or rearranging her desk, he was diligently reviewing the case file. His mouth was set in a grim line as his dark eyes perused the pages of evidence and photos. The sight was unnerving for its mixture of familiarity and novelty.

Chloe redirected her attention to the entrance. The rest of the bullpen gave them a wide berth once the commotion died down. Ella went to her lab with a skip in her steps. Dan returned to his desk long enough to grab files and to glare at the back of Lucifer's head before disappearing again. He ignored Chloe entirely, which meant he wasn't likely to speak to her all day. Chloe counted that as a blessing at this point. They would only argue.

"Worried about Detective Douche?" Lucifer drawled, drawing out the syllable in "douche" and rolling it across his tongue like a sip of fine wine.

"No, that patrol I sent to pick up Morgan isn't back yet."

He dropped the file on her desk and started to prop his feet up on the edge, but then reconsidered and sat up. "That's the victim's daughter?"

She nodded. "She's a very quiet girl. It took me three, four loops to learn her name. It's possible she's traumatized, so we'll need to handle her gently."

"Yes, gently, like an antique vase." Lucifer shuddered. "Well, as long as she keeps her distance and her hands to herself."

Chloe swiveled her chair to face him fully and folded her arms across her chest. A new tension suddenly set into her jaws. "What is the deal with you and kids? Is this a," she dropped her voice surreptitiously before finishing, "Devil thing?"

"Hardly." He sniffed, folding his hands over his lap. "They're helpless and needy for the most part. I don't see what the fuss is about."

"They're kids. They're young. Of course, they need someone to take care of them. Don't you have any sympathy for them? I mean, you have siblings. Although given how bratty you act, you might be the baby of the family."

"Third oldest," he corrected. "Out of hundreds, but who's counting? Besides, we weren't born like you humans. Mum and Dad molded us from their divinity, assigned us our roles, and willed us to take form."

"So what? You all sprang into existence fully-grown." She shifted in her seat, once again all too aware that the man before her wasn't human.

"More or less. No mess, no fuss. Though your way of making offspring is more entertaining." He waggled an eyebrow and ran his tongue inside his mouth.

Much to her annoyance, she flushed at the insinuation. Lucifer was still Lucifer, and he had a one-track mind when it came to sex. She used to wonder how he wasn't constantly buried under paternity suits. He may not be interested in children, but accidents were bound to happen with the insane amounts of sex he had.

Then as if he read her mind, he added with a smirk, "Don't worry, Detective. I'm a responsible Devil. I promise there are no little Anti-Christ ankle-biters running amok."

"Good, I like this world, even as messed up as it gets sometimes." She swiveled back to face her computer monitor, desperately trying to bury her embarrassment.

"As do I, Detective."

His soft admission gave her pause. But her musings were interrupted by someone calling her name. She looked to the front of the bullpen, where two uniformed officers stood at the base of the stairs. One held Morgan's hand, while the other towed the two rolling suitcases retrieved from the motel room.

Chloe stood and waved her arm. "Over here." Then she shot Lucifer a warning look. "Behave."

He threw up both hands in concession.

The two officers made their way over to her desk. Chloe stepped around Lucifer to meet them halfway when he grabbed her wrist and held her in place.

"Let go," she hissed.

He shook his head and tightened his grip until it was almost bruising. For a second, she imagined her wrist shattering between his fingers. She pulled harder to escape him.

"Don't go near her," he barked, eyes glued on the approaching group. More specifically, he glared at Morgan, who'd frozen in the center of the bullpen with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

She forced a stiff smile and addressed the two officers. "Can you please take her to the conference room? I'll be there in a second. Lucifer, come with me. Now."

She finally shook his hand off, grabbed his elbow instead, hauled him to his feet, and marched them both to the privacy of the interrogation room. She made sure the camera and microphones were off before releasing him.

Chloe spun on her heels and snapped, "What the hell are you playing at, Lucifer? You may think human children are disgusting or whatever, but you can't scare them like that. It's bad enough that you sometimes treat Trixie like she's the plague, but this is the victim's daughter! Her mom's dead, and there is a madman after her life. I brought you on to help me figure out this mess. But if you're going to make things worse, you can leave right now!"

"You don't understand, Detective. She's dangerous," Lucifer insisted as he reached out with one hand.

Chloe slapped his hand away. Her temper finally blew the lid off her composure. "She's a ten-year-old!"

"Who's not human!" He shouted in return.

At first, it was the force of his voice that sent her stumbling back until the implication of what he said set in as well. She planted a hand on the interrogation table for support. "What?"

He ran a hand through his hair, messing up his stylish coif. His bangs now laid limply across his wrinkled forehead. "Well, she may be part human, but it's overshadowed by her aes sídhe blood."

Her clumsy tongue fumbled to reproduce his pronunciation. "Aes sídhe? What's that?"

"You know, Fae, people of peace, the good neighbors, the fair folk." Lucifer grew more and more exasperated in tone in response to her blank look at each name.

That last one sparked a vague memory from her childhood when her father used to read her bedtime stories. "Morgan's a fairy?"

"Essentially."

"But she looks so human. Where are her wings?" she blurted out.

"Detective, please, the wings are a Victorian invention. Even if she had them, she wouldn't wander around with them out in the open. I certainly don't."

"You have wings?!" Her voice pitched higher than she meant. She clamped a hand over her own mouth. The image of a pristine set of white wings flashed through her mind. He really was telling her the truth since the very beginning.

Lucifer pulled his shoulders tight. Given his uncomfortable expression, she wondered if he pulled something in the process. "That's beside the point. Given what she is, it's best you don't approach her. She could very well be responsible for this whole mess."

Chloe thought back to her previous interactions with Morgan. Morgan may be a bit precocious for her age, but she was always quiet and well-behaved. If anything, she was too well-behaved. Morgan didn't fake her tears, her terror, or her heartbreak. If she was at least part human, Morgan had parents: a mother who gave birth to her and a father that probably missed her. Chloe shook her head and walked to the exit. As she turned the knob, she paused and said, "She's still a little girl who lost her mother. I can't abandon her."

She let the door fall shut behind her without another glance at Lucifer. She met the two officers that brought Morgan in, thanking them after a debriefing on her case. By the time she saw them out, Lucifer was still nowhere to be found. With a heavy heart, she returned to the conference room.

Morgan studied Chloe for a moment before her attention drifted away in search of something or someone through the clear glass walls behind Chloe. She pulled a chair over to where Morgan sat and said, "Hi, Morgan. I'm Detective Decker, but you can call me Chloe."

"You know my name." Morgan held her pendant with a small hand.

"I do, but I'm here to help you."

The child looked her up and down, pausing momentarily at Chloe's hips. Chloe adjusted her jacket to better hide her gun and badge.

"I believe you," Morgan said and settled both hands folded in her lap.

-x-x-x-

Chloe blinked owlishly when Lucifer collapsed into the chair next to her. He'd vanished for the better part of the afternoon. As they approached the end of the workday, she assumed he'd left for good. "You're back."

Lucifer pulled out his flask, took a sip, and pocketed it again. "I went to verify my hunch. Her mother—" He pointed at Morgan, who looked up from her novel in that same instant. "She's also aes sídhe."

"You went to the—" She cut herself off before she said "morgue." She'd yet to break the news to Morgan this loop.

Leaning forward, he propped his elbow on top of the conference table and rested his chin against his palm. His posture may scream nonchalance to the casual observer, but Chloe spotted the undercurrent of tension lining his spine. Both he and Morgan were now engaged in a one-sided staring contest. Lucifer seemed to forget how to blink, but Morgan refused to look away despite her inherent handicap. Chloe would have intervened, but Morgan wasn't afraid. The little girl gawked at Lucifer like he was the most fascinating thing she'd seen. In fact, it reminded Chloe of how Trixie sometimes looked at her partner.

"Morgan, this is Lucifer," she gently introduced the Devil to the fairy child. You know, because that was her life now.

Morgan scrunched her nose in thought. "Like the Devil?"

"Exactly." Surprise flitted across his face before lobbing his sarcastic question, "Morgan. Like Morgan le Fay?"

"Exactly." Morgan mimed with a cock of her head.

His face turned sour, and Chloe snorted. Based on the look he shot her, he failed to appreciate the humor of the situation. But he quickly turned his attention back to Morgan. Narrowing his eyes, he leaned further forward. "Tell me, Morgan-not-le-Fay, what do you—"

He looked her straight in the eye.

Chloe threw herself at Lucifer, almost knocking him out of his chair and sending them both tumbling to the floor. He caught her around her waist at the same moment she slapped both hands across his mouth. "You are not using your weird mojo on a child!" she exclaimed, outraged.

He huffed and blew hot air over her palms. "Lilt whunt hlurt hern."

A wet swipe of his tongue against the webbing between her middle and ring fingers startled her. She pushed him back, and his chair slid a foot or so before it slowed to a stop.

"It won't hurt her," Lucifer repeated calmly. He scooted his chair back into his previous position.

She wiped her hands on her blazer. Something, probably irritation, crawled under her skin. "I don't care. You're not allowed to whammy her."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine. Morgan, why are you here?"

Chloe sighed, confident nothing will come from his prodding. She already told him it was difficult to communicate with the girl. He was also used to questioning adult witnesses, and he barely understood how to interact with children on his best behavior. But knowing a little more about his lack of a childhood, it made sense why he treated children as miniature people.

Chloe was about to remind him when Morgan's small voice stunned her into silence.

"Mommy says we have to hide from the monster."

Chloe zeroed in on Lucifer with an angry glare.

"I swear I didn't do anything," he protested. His interest was obviously piqued by Morgan's statement. "Really? A monster, you say?"

Chloe was left to her own devices to figure out whether Morgan's monster was figurative or literal. If fairies existed, it was possible they had predators too.

He continued with his questions. "Then did this monster follow you here from home?"

Morgan hesitated before nodding.

He leaned back and crossed his legs in a relaxed posture. But his chest also puffed up and his shoulders rounded to make him appear broader. "Where's home then? Tír na nÓg? Mag Mel?"

The strange names and their resonant syllables caused a shiver to run down Chloe's spine. She finally understood what books and TV shows described as names carrying power. "Are those..." she trailed off, unable to finish her question.

"Otherworld realms. You can say they're their homelands," Lucifer explained without taking his eyes off Morgan. "They're not places any mortal should want to travel to."

Morgan screwed her face, lips pursed and nose scrunched. She was the very image of a confused child. "No. Edison."

Chloe's eyebrow shot up. "Here in California? Near Bakersfield?"

"New Jersey."

She and Lucifer shared an incredulous look. His shock was probably due to her answer residing on the earthly realm though. Still, New Jersey was a long way from California. She'd yet to see any signs of them having flown, but she would have to look into recent FAA and TSA records to confirm. But if Robin and her daughter were fleeing someone/something, California was as good as a hiding place without leaving the continental USA.

This was more than Chloe every managed to pry out of the taciturn child over multiple loops. She leaned over and whispered into his ears, "Ask her for her and her mom's full names. It'd really help in the investigation."

His calm snapped for a second, but he wallpapered over it with a blank expression. "Detective, don't ever deal in names with the aes sídhe. She may look harmless at this age, but she won't be for long."

This was one area where Lucifer knew best, and she'd have to concede to his expertise. "Fine. Her hometown will narrow down the search. I can't believe she told you so much when you just met," she scowled. He'd done it so easily too, even without using his Devil powers.

He flashed a cheeky smile very reminiscent of the old Lucifer. "She must recognize my inherent charm."

Unimpressed, Chloe addressed the young girl instead. "Morgan, don't answer strange men so easily or honestly in the future."

"You wound me deeply, Detective!" he protested.

Morgan's gaze bounced between the two adults in the room, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But it was difficult to say what conclusions she might draw. Her attention drifted back to Lucifer though. Chloe wished she understood the girl's fascination with him. What did it mean for a fairy child to trust the Devil?

"You glow like the sun. The light is warm," Morgan said quietly.

"Light?" he asked dumbfounded.

Morgan pointed to the center of Lucifer's chest. "You're shining."

Come to think of it, this wasn't the first time Morgan spoke about glowing people. She previously wrote it off as a child's overactive imagination. "Does everyone glow?" she prodded gently.

Morgan shook her head. "Only you two."

"Me?" Chloe gasped, flabbergasted. Even Lucifer seemed disturbed by the declaration. "Lucifer, what does this mean?"

He wet his lips nervously. "I think she can see my divinity."

"Then why do I glow?!" she demanded while worry tied a tight knot in her chest.

Lucifer didn't provide an immediate answer. He shifted in his seat and fiddled with his cuffs for several long moments. When he finally did speak, he wouldn't look her in the eye. "You may have a spark of divinity."

She narrowed her eyes, suspicious of his sudden reluctance to speak. But before she could interrogate him further, a uniformed officer popped his head into the conference room and announced, "Detective Decker, the Lieutenant wants a word with you."

"Now?"

"I think so." The officer shrugged and showed himself out.

Lucifer's palpable relief made her ground her teeth. "This conversation isn't over," she warned. "Keep an eye on her until I get back." As she left the room, she straightened her shoulders and prepared for the worst.

Lieutenant Grieve questioned/lectured her for almost a full hour before releasing her. Then as soon as she left his office, Dan pulled her aside for another fifteen to twenty minutes. By the time Ella waved from the doorway of her lab, Chloe was thoroughly exhausted with the men in her life. Because as soon as she walked back into the conference room with Lucifer, it would be a new can of worms.

"You find something?" Chloe asked, leaning heavily against the lab table. Before she "stepped" into her meeting with Grieve, she'd asked Ella to run a search on Morgan and Robin through New Jersey's police databases.

Ella nodded vigorously. "You betcha!"

Chloe perked up. A break in the case finally! "What'd you find?"

Ella slid a stack of print-outs across the table. The cover sheet on top contained the seal for the Edison Police Department, and the rest of the content was not one but two missing person reports similar to the ones she'd been reviewing by the truckload. A mother-daughter pair, named Dana and Morgan Carey, was reported missing three weeks ago. Dana's husband, Robert, called the police after returning home from work to find an empty house. Chloe flipped through the pages, eager to get her hands on a photo that always accompanied these reports. She found one sandwiched between two pages of the interview transcript between Robert and the police. There were three people in the photo. Robin, or more accurately Dana, had both arms wrapped around Morgan's shoulders. The little girl smiled at the camera, but there was something about the way she clung to her mother. A man who must be Robert stood next to Dana, one arm draped solidly across his wife's shoulder.

"It's him!" Chloe screeched. That was the cocky face of her many-time killer grinning up from the photo.

Ella leaned over, then pointed to the man in the photo. "You know him?"

Chloe gulped. "Yeah, I've seen him around. He's Robert, isn't he? He's the husband."

"Yep."

"I gotta go. Thanks for your help, Ella."

Chloe gathered the papers together and flew out the door. But when she rounded the corner on approach to the conference room, she froze. She couldn't see either Lucifer or Morgan. She stumbled into the empty room, peeking under the table in the vain hope they were playing hide and seek. No such luck. She dropped the report on top of the table to pick up Morgan's abandoned novel. Chloe flipped through the pages, her mind racing to figure out what happened.

The break room! Maybe Lucifer dragged Morgan off to play accomplice while he stole from the vending machine.

But she didn't find them in the break room, at her desk, or in either the men's and women's restrooms.

At her wit's end, she went to Dan. "Have you seen Lucifer?"

Dan's face turned thunderous. "No. I'm doing my best to forget he exists entirely," he snarled.

She tightened her grip on the edge of his desk. "I can't find Morgan. Have you seen her? "

Detective McDonald spoke up from the desk next to Dan's. "Lucifer left with the girl about twenty minutes ago."

"Nobody stopped him?!"

McDonald shrugged and went back to his paperwork.

"See, Chloe, you can't—"

She cut Dan off mid-sentence. "I don't have time for your I-told-you-so's." She turned on her heels and marched back to her desk. First, she tried calling his number. It rang forever before going to his voicemail. The second time she tried, it rang once before she was immediately redirected to voicemail. And it went straight to voicemail the third time.

She stared at her phone in disbelief. Her entire body shook. He turned off his phone.

Chloe was a hairbreadth away from issuing an AMBER alert. She would have if she didn't know for a fact that he was the Devil. His phone's GPS—she'd tracked him before with it. She could still get its last location even if he turned it off. The record placed him last in the Wholesale District. She recognized the location immediately. Devil or not, she was going to wring his neck when she got her hands on him.

-x-x-x-

The warehouse door was unlocked, and the do-not-enter tape that once adorned it was torn. It shouldn't have been. The crime scene had not been released yet. But Lucifer had always found his way around locks so easily. Maybe his talent for trespassing was more a result of his inhuman nature than a predilection for felony misdemeanors.

The body had been found deep inside the warehouse that required she navigate a twisting maze of halls and interconnected rooms. Without any lighting, she cast long shadows across the dusty corridor walls. Like an explorer, she traveled by the light of a makeshift torch: her cellphone's flash. Her every footstep echoed through the empty cavernous spaces. Chloe kept her ears wide open, hoping she'd hear Lucifer before she saw him.

She glanced at the time. It was almost 4:30 PM. She needed to find them both as soon as possible.

After what felt like an eternity, Chloe finally made her way into the shuttered loading bay where Dana Carey's body was found. The sunlight filtering through the row of windows sitting high on one far wall was broken by the rows of concrete pillars. She pulled her blazer closer, suddenly chilled to her bones by the unseasonable cold. Voices boomed around her like church bells, so loud that she couldn't make out actual words. On instinct, she ducked behind a pillar. Only then did she recognize one of the voices as belonging to Lucifer. The other voice was also vaguely familiar.

Her heart skipped a beat. It was the killer. Robert Carey was also here.

She unclipped her holster and drew her weapon. She scanned the vast, empty space for Morgan. However, the only people she saw were Lucifer and Robert. Scanning up and down the rows of pillars, she plotted a course to advance forward and to see if Morgan was hiding like her. She tried her best to stay behind Robert and find an advantageous position to take him down. Lucifer and Robert's conversation grew louder as she moved closer to the two men.

"I have nothing to say to you," Robert snarled.

Lucifer lifted one arm. Chloe's heart leaped into her throat at the sight of him leveling a gun at Robert. "Are you sure about that?"

The ensuing silence dragged as the two men stared at each other. When the stony-faced Lucifer moved his finger to the trigger, she nearly mirrored the movement on her own weapon.

"Kidding," Lucifer sing-sang.

He tossed the pistol carelessly back. It skated across the warehouse floor until it hit the base of a concrete pillar. The motion drew her attention to his chest, where his shirt now sported a handful of holes clustered around his center of mass. She was struck by the realization of what they were: bullet holes. But his ruined white shirt was clear of bloodstains. Though she was relieved he wasn't hurt, her mind raced with all kinds of questions.

Lucifer continued casually, "I have no interest in shooting you. You're clearly as human and as mundane as they come. So what's your interest in the aes sídhe girl? If you seek fame or fortune, you're sorely mistaken. She won't be able to give you either."

"She's an abomination."

Lucifer's expression darkened. "Nothing good will happen if you harm her either."

"She needs to die." Even though Chloe couldn't see Robert's face, the hatred was clear in his voice.

"Tell me, Mister Fairy Hunter. Why do you desire the girl's death so much?"

Even from this distance, Lucifer's eyes struck like a viper's hypnotic gaze. Robert's entire body stiffened when he fell under the Devil's spell. Then he blurted out without reservation, "That bitch lied to me. We were married for twelve years and she wasn't even human. I need to wipe all traces of her from this earth."

"You're the urchin's father." Understanding dawned across Lucifer's face, quickly followed by dark clouds of fury. He advanced on Robert, menace rolling off him in waves.

"Stay away from me, you monster!" exclaimed Robert.

"Monster?" Lucifer stopped dead in his tracks. Then he closed the distance in the blink of an eye, nightmare incarnate looming over Robert. The Devil cocked his head and asked with a gaping smile, "Then what does that make you, Mister Filicide?"

She slammed a hand over her mouth, biting into her palm to keep from crying out. Lucifer's face... She could only compare the sight to having distilled fear injected straight into her amygdala. This was different from seeing his real face after that mess with Marcus. His human face simultaneously split and melted away, revealing a myriad of fleeting images: the red of fresh-spilled blood, falling at terminal velocity with the ground rising up to meet her, the emptiness and blackness inside a black hole, and other awful sensations she couldn't put to words.

"Demon!" screamed Robert. One hand drew the sign of the cross while his other reached into his waistband. Chloe caught a glimpse of metal tucked under his shirt. Was it another gun?!

She jumped out of her hiding place. "Lucifer! Watch out!"

"Detecti—" Lucifer's speech transformed into a wounded cry mid-syllable as Robert lunged forward.

Chloe brought up her gun, but her partner stood too close to Robert to allow for a clean shot. Robert looked over his shoulders, face white as a sheet and eyes bulging. As soon as he spotted her gun, he pushed Lucifer away and dove for cover behind the nearest pillar. Chloe's two shots flew wide, impacting the side of the concrete. Rapid footsteps rang through the loading bay. Robert was making a run for it.

She turned to issue orders at Lucifer but stopped mid-address, stunned into silence by the sight of him. His face was human again, wide-eyed and shell-shocked as he gaped at the metal spike plunged into his chest. A rapidly growing spot of red bloomed outward from the spike.

"Oh my god, oh my god." Chloe somehow caught him before he collapsed, but his heavy weight dragged them both to the floor.

She laid him flat on the floor, unable to tear her eyes from the metal sticking out of his chest. It was a railroad spike, like the one used to kill Dana Carey. And he was still bleeding. Why was he bleeding? This sort of wound was fatal for a human. But he wasn't human. He was the Devil. Tears gathered in her eyes. "Lucifer, what do I do? You're going to be okay, aren't you?"

He laughed wetly. "Afraid not, Detective. Fear not, I'm acquainted with the guy who runs the place where I'm headed."

Hell. She realized with a touch of hysteria. He was dying. He was going back to Hell. "You can't die."

He cupped her hand and tugged it away from the spike. "Dying is old hat for me. Save the urchin, Detective. She's hidden but he'll always find her. She's the trigger. If she dies, everything will reset again."

Chloe froze. Morgan was the trigger? She met Lucifer's dark eyes, watching as the light inside faded. A horrible thought crept up on her. Even when she died so many times, she woke up alive and whole at the start of each loop. If Morgan died, then the day would restart. Lucifer would live then. If she let Morgan die, Lucifer would be fine.

She could only save one. Without a loop, it was Lucifer or Morgan. One or the other, but not both. The choice should be obvious. She should—

Chloe's eyes slammed open. She was back in her bedroom, which meant Morgan...

She ripped off her covers and fled to the bathroom. The sound of her slamming open the toilet seat echoed off the tiles, louder than a gunshot. Delilah's singing haunted her even as Chloe retched into the toilet bowl.

Everything—from her throat to the deep well of guilt in the pit of her stomach—burned.