Ella finds out

Ella Lopez searched in the back in her car for some equipment and then turned to re-enter the tunnel, this morning's crime scene again. While she was at her car, Lucifer and Chloe had arrived. The couple was standing hand in hand in front of the victim, Nicolas Sands, burned, bound to a pillar. Chloe had the case file in her free hand and was reading bits and pieces to Lucifer. "… an exec at the Internet startup called Wobble," Ella heard Chloe say.

"Wobble?" Lucifer asked. "Don't tell me that's a pornography site."

"Oh no, no," Ella said, coming to stand next to her friends. "Wobble's like a next gen Facebook, you know? People post updates, photos, links. Mine's mostly slo-mo videos of me doing cannonballs onto inflatable pool toys. You should check it out."

She noticed Lucifer's disgust and grinned.

"I'll pass, but thank you," Chloe said.

"You're not in for a pornography site?" Ella teased Lucifer. "When I was first time in the precinct, I was told you're such a playboy."

"I was, miss Lopez. Past tense. Now I'm a one-woman devil." He smiled and bent to kiss Chloe on the temple.

"Not in public," Chloe whispered, but smiled at him.

"You two are such an adorable couple," Ella said.

"The detective is adorable indeed, miss Lopez," Lucifer answered. "But I'm sure there is nothing adorable on the devil."

"Do you ever drop that devil character for a second?" Ella asked.

"As I told you several times, miss Lopez, there is nothing to drop. I am the devil."

"Right." Ella shook her head while Chloe and Lucifer looked at a video that was posted on Wobble six hours ago, just before the murder, showing the victim confessing what a terrible person he had been. Ella didn't get it. Chloe was the most sober person she knew, someone that would never go into a relation with someone that was delusional. So Lucifer couldn't believe this devil thing, he must be a method actor. And a good one, neither be caught out of character. But Ella had never heard he went for an audition or whatever, so what was the use of his acting.

"Ella," Chloe said. "Do we know how the fire started? Any chemicals we can trace?"

"So far, all we've got is paraffin oil," Ella said. "Which is highly flammable, but also, like, everywhere. Even in crayons, so color at your own risk."

"Doesn't help us narrow the suspects," Lucifer said.

Ella nodded. "Based on the burn pattern, which is pretty gnarly in this case, it looks like the highest concentration of accelerant was placed, well... here." She pointed at Nicolas' crotch."

"Goodness gracious," Lucifer said with a grin. "Great balls of fire."

"Lucifer!" Chloe said. "Behave."

Lucifer laid his arm around Chloe's shoulder "I mean, I've heard of hot pants, but this really brings new meaning to the term "fire crotch," doesn't it?"

"Lucifer," Chloe said again, but she leant against him.

"Wait. I have more," he continued. "Smokey Bobinson. Weekend at Burnie's."

"His burning bush?" Ella suggested.

"Oh. Very good." Lucifer chuckled. "That was actually me, by the way, so don't tell anyone."

Ella rolled her eyes. "You stretch your character a bit too much, buddy."

"So sorry, miss Lopez," Lucifer said and shrugged with a wink. "What can I do to make up with you?"

Now Ella grinned. "Get me a cup of coffee."

Lucifer looked over his shoulder at the patrol car of officer Missner, knowing Missner always had several thermos flasks with coffee on the back seat. "You can't mean what he brought with him."

"There is nothing else here, Lucifer," Ella answered.

"In hell we torture souls by letting them drink such stuff. But if that's what you desire…"

"It is, Lucifer."

He sighed. "O well. Detective?"

"No, thanks," Chloe said. "Not for me."

While Lucifer walked to the patrol car, Chloe and Ella turned to the burned victim again. "Well, Nicolas, who killed you?"

Suddenly the charred head of the victim moved. The mouth opened and closed and then it whispered. "Detective Chloe? It's me, Na'amah."

Ella felt her body turning into ice, her muscles stiffened, her heart racing. What the hell?

"Na'amah? How are you…" Chloe said.

"I will not possess this body," the dead guy continued, "but when you visited hell, Lucifer ordered me to help you. And you asked who killed Nicolas."

Ella shivered, winced, could hardly breath.

"Nicolas Sands was killed by Ray Codfree who does human resources at the same company as Nicolas worked."

"Thank you, Na'amah," Ella heard Chloe saying, as if talking with a dead, charred body was perfectly normal. "I'm grateful. But be careful when you possess a dead body."

"I am careful, detective Chloe. I heard you talking and learned that only Ella, that must by aunt Ella, was there. No other humans. Goodbye, detective Chloe, aunt Ella."

The dead head dropped. The body didn't move anymore. Ella screamed, eyes closed. Then she felt arms around her. Chloe. "It's ok, Ella. Nicolas is dead. He wouldn't harm you."

"What happened?" Lucifer asked behind them. Ella was still in Chloe's arms, shivering.

"Well…" Chloe hesitated. "You asked Na'amah to help me."

"Uh… Yes."

"She took that literally. She possessed Nicolas' body to tell me who killed Nicolas."

"She…" Lucifer's voice raised.

"And she thought Ella was aunt Ella," Chloe interrupted him. "So she could speak to me without problems."

"Aunt Ella." Lucifer echoed. "O, dad. And it frightened miss Lopez."

"Chloe," Ella whispered, trying to get her thoughts under control. "What… how…"

"You're safe, Ella," Chloe assured her. "Safe. Someone used Nicolas' body to tell me something about the murder, well murderer, but she is gone and nothing will happen to you."

"Someone that can talk through a dead body?" Ella breathed heavily. "What someone?"

"A demon," Lucifer explained. "Apparently Nicolas is in hell. A demon – Na'amah – found he came from LA and she checked whether it was a case in which she could help the detective."

It did send more shivers along Ella's spine. "A demon, but…" What did it mean? If demons were real – well, she has always believed in God and the devil, in heaven and hell, so demons are real. And ghosts were real. But… "Lucifer?" she whispered.

"He told you the truth when you met him three weeks ago and ever since. He is the devil."

"And you?" Ella asked Chloe.

"Me? I'm a human just as you, nothing special, nothing different. Lucifer is not after your soul, he will not tempt you to sin."

Ella thought it over, repeated in her head the scene with the dead body and asked: "Aunt Ella? Why does a demon calls me aunt?" Again some panic raised in Ella's mind. "What does she want from me?"

"She wants nothing from you. Please, believe me, Ella," Chloe said. "Come let's walk a bit away, so we can talk without witnesses."

"We don't know whether you will be aunt Ella," Chloe said as soon as they were a few hundred yards from the crime scene.

"But ever since we first met, we guessed you will be," Lucifer added.

Chloe tapped and swiped on her tablet and then handed it over to Ella. "A few months ago my daughter had gone to the Lux, Lucifer's nightclub, without telling me. The woman behind the bar is Maze, a sister of Na'amah, but I didn't know anything of demons when this video starts. I didn't believe in God, the devil, the whole bible stuff."

Ella looked at the first minutes, until a girl with wings appeared from thin air. "What?" She scrolled back, watched it again. "… from 2032. I'm just testing my time travel with aunt Ella…" Ella replayed that minute of the recording a dozen times. Then she looked up to Chloe.

"Aunt Ella," Chloe said. "We didn't know an Ella, but since we met three weeks ago, Lucifer and I guessed it could be you."

Ella let the recording continue until Rory left. Then she went back and replayed "O, granddad. This is not 2047 … No, it is 2017" a few times.

"Watch the remaining," Chloe said.

Ella watched until the end of it, the moment Chloe got a call. Then she watched all once more before giving the tablet back to Chloe. She stared in the distance. She had loved Fantasy her whole life. She had visited conventions and Fantasy fairs. She had dressed up as elf, starship trooper, princess Leia or troll. Of course, she knew a ghost… Well, she thought Ray-Ray was real, but no-one else had ever seen her. Ella had dreamed of traveling through the galaxy or through time. And deep inside she had always known it was – apart from Ray-Ray – just fantasy, illusions, not real. "Time travel," she whispered and turned to Chloe. "For real. And I will help a girl that can do it."

"Yes. Ella? You're not panicking?"

"Panic? Chloe! All my life I dreamed of things beyond our world." She looked at Lucifer. All panic was gone, there was just excitement and expectations. "May I ask questions?"

"Of course, miss Lopez. If I know the answer I will answer any question."

"You're not going to drag us to hell?"

"Never, miss Lopez. I…" He stopped talking when she hugged him.

"Demons and angels," Ella whispered. "And I'm going to meet them. A half-angel calls me aunt. I had never expected to talk with the devil. Well, not while I was alive. Ask him questions!"

"You will not meet me after you die either," Lucifer said.

"But first we have a murder to solve," Chloe interrupted them.

"What?" Ella said. "O. Yes. The murder. But you know a guy named Ray Codfree is the killer."

"Indeed, miss Lopez," Lucifer said. "But we need prove that can be used in court."

"Yeah. Yes, of course." Ella grinned. "Who is this Na'amah? A demon that will know your daughter."

While they slowly walked back, Chloe told her about her visit with Lucifer to hell.

"Wow… You really did trust Lucifer." Ella smiled, stared ahead and repeated. "Wow."

"Come to Lucifer's penthouse this evening," Chloe said. "Then you can ask questions."

"… but is there any other celestial body? Is hell a planet orbiting some star, even in another universe?" It was the next of a long list of questions that Ella was firing at Lucifer.

"There is a brown fog around, miss Lopez," Lucifer answered after a zip of his drink. "I once flew up for hours, thousands and thousands of miles, and nothing changed. The same fog."

"But gravity should cause pressure to drop if you go that high." Ella frowned. "Unless the laws of physics are different."

"I have no idea, miss Lopez," Lucifer confessed. "I never gave it a thought. No-one ever tested…" He was interrupted by the bell of the elevator. Ella turned and saw two women entering the penthouse: a tall blonde, late thirties, extremely good looking and a nice girl, or woman?, with a ponytail, looking ageless.

"Lucifer?" the tall woman said. "Why are you avoiding me?"

"Avoiding you?" Lucifer said. "Mum, I didn't see you in days."

"That is exactly what I mean, my boy."

"Mum, if you just listened to Amenadiel and Raziel." Lucifer raised and walked with the woman to the balcony.

"Mum?" Ella asked Chloe. "She is his mother?"

"The body is of a dead human. A woman that died a few weeks ago. The soul possessing the body is Lucifer's mother," Chloe explained. Then Chloe looked at the girl with the ponytail.

"Mother wanted to talk to Lucifer in person," the girl said. She looked at Ella. "The human knows who Lucifer is?"

"This is Ella," Chloe said. "Ella, please meet Raziel, Lucifer's sister."

"Raziel?" Ella's eyes opened wide. "Angel of Mysteries?"

"I am," the angel acknowledged. "Ella? Maybe aunt Ella?"

"We think so," Chloe said.

"And then you must be aunt Raziel?" Ella asked.

Raziel laughed and sat down next to Ella. "So you also have seen the video of Rory's visit. Of course we don't know for sure whether I am the aunt Raziel that she mentioned."

"But Raziel is a rare name," Ella said. "There will be much more Ellas than Raziels."

Raziel looked for a few seconds at her and then said: "My feeling is, it is you. So who are you?"

"A colleague of Chloe, from the LAPD."

"And a good friend of me and Lucifer," Chloe added.

"And you are Lucifer's favorite little sister?" Ella asked.

"A little sister, yes. Favorite? No. I hardly spoke with him before his fall and banishment to hell. In the last few weeks I spoke more with him than in the billions years before. No, his favorite little sister is Azrael. Or Ray-Ray as he called her."

"What?" Ella sat straight. "Who?"

"Azrael," Raziel said. "Angel of Death."

"How did Lucifer call her?"

"Ray-Ray."

"About my length? Hair in a bob-cut. A bit an Asian look. Glasses?"

"Azrael wears glasses yes. Just for the look, as an ang… Wait. You know her?"