Lucifer was in Hell.
Ash clogged his nose, and coupled with the smell of fire and brimstone, it was making it hard to breathe. It was dark, and oppressive and uncomfortable, the sound of tortured screaming echoing in his ears. For a second, panic gripped him, his heart beating furiously against his aching chest. Despite the way his thoughts were swirling, the fact that he was in pain managed to clear away some of the confusion; why was he hurting anyway?
He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself, but it was the wrong move. Ash filled his nose and his mouth, choking him. A violent cough his throat and pain suddenly exploded in his left side, making him gasp.
What was going on? How had he gotten back to Hell? Why did it feel like he'd been run through with a sword? And what was that tiny, fluttering noise that sounded like it was calling his name?
"Lucifer?" the sound came again from nearby. It was familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. His head spun as he attempted to identify its source.
Something small, soft and warm touched the side of his face, making him jerk away in surprise. The motion was met with another wave of pain ripping through his body and he groaned quietly as he tried to understand what was happening.
"Lucifer, please wake up," the voice said again, urgent, and it finally clicked. It was Beatrice's voice.
Beatrice! It all came back to him in a rush – the bomb threat, the Detective asking him to protect the child, the evacuation, the blast…- and his eyes flew open in alarm.
It wasn't ash that was choking him, but dust and grime from the explosion; it wasn't brimstone that he was smelling in the air, but burnt plastic and concrete and metal; and it wasn't screaming of damned souls he was hearing but a phantom ringing in his ears, no doubt a lingering effect of the blast on his eardrums.
He wasn't in Hell, but this tiny corner of the Earth certainly felt like it at the moment. Trapped in a half-collapsed building with the Detective's offspring, effectively isolated from everyone else by walls of debris, it was the closest he'd felt to Hell since he'd returned there last year searching for the antidote when the Detective had been poisoned.
"Lucifer…?" the child asked again. Her voice was trembling, fear now edging into full-blown panic, the sound of it enough to finally snap Lucifer out of his daze. He'd been in a bloody explosion with a child – the Detective's child, who was mortal and could be hurt, bleeding, dying…
"Child, are you hurt?" he asked, alarm in his own voice now as he struggled to get himself upright. Another jolt of pain tore through his side, but this time he didn't let it deter him. Despite the stomach-turning pain, he sat up and reached for Trixie, anxiously trying to detect any injuries – something which, between the scant light and the grime that covered them both, was proving quite a challenge.
"My arm hurts," she whimpered softly. "I fell on it and now I can't really move my hand." She was cradling her right arm close to her body, he noticed as he studied her. She also had some cuts and abrasions on her forehead, but they weren't bleeding much; aside from that, she seemed relatively unharmed.
"May I?" Lucifer asked, gesturing slightly towards her arm. He waited for her permission – a quick, unsure nod of her head – then reached for her, studiously ignoring the pain in his side which flared with the slightest movement. As his large hands gently touched her injured arm, a sudden, long-buried memory flashed into his mind.
Another time. Another place. Another child, in a sense – if a young angel could even be called a child. Michael... They'd been playing together; challenging each other to fly higher and Michael had failed to pull out of a dive in time, crashing hard and injuring his arm. The guilt Lucifer had felt for having egged Michael on, and the fear that his brother might be seriously hurt… Their Father had healed his twin in a second, of course, but those feelings had remained with him for a long time.
He inhaled sharply at the unwanted memory and forced his mind to focus on the present. This was the Detective's offspring, not Michael. They were on Earth, not in the Silver City. And Father would definitely not be coming to help them and heal her. They were on their own and caring for the child was solely Lucifer's responsibility.
He ran his hand delicately over the child's limb, not really sure of what he was looking for. There weren't any obvious injuries, no blood or bones sticking out, so he figured it couldn't be that bad, could it? Trixie suddenly gasped and Lucifer immediately stilled his hands, already apologizing for causing her more pain, but the child paid him no mind.
"Lucifer," she said urgently. He threw her a quick, alarmed glance, only to realize she wasn't looking at her arm at all. She was staring at his side instead, her eyes wide and frightened. "What's that?"
He followed her gaze then and he suddenly understood the reason for her panicked expression – and also located the source of that that sharp, unrelenting agony in his side that was making it so hard to concentrate. On the left side of his abdomen, just a couple of inches over his hipbone, a rather large piece of metal was sticking out of his body.
Bollocks.
His right hand flew to it automatically, but the urchin's voice stopped him before he could grab hold of it.
"I don't think you should touch it," she said, her voice a combination of fear and concern. "It would probably hurt."
You don't say. Clearly, the one thing that the child had inherited from her father was his uncanny ability to state the obvious.
She was right, of course. Among the plethora of useless information that had been dumped on him during the safety training, there had been something about puncture wounds and the risk of bleeding out. If the object that caused the wound is still deeply embedded in the skin or muscle, do not remove it. He hadn't been particularly worried about something like that happening to him – even if it did, he just had to get far away enough from the Detective to heal – and he would never allow it happening to the Detective to begin with, but he'd figured he'd better be prepared anyway, for her sake, and so he'd paid attention. And of course, he had to score better than Detective Douche on the exam.
Turned out the information was proving quite useful after all.
He stopped just shy of touching the bar and placed his hand on his ruined waistcoat instead. It was damp with blood, but not sodden. It seemed a good sign, right? The blasted thing, pun very much intended, was preventing him from bleeding out. Too bad that even the light, indirect touch had been enough to reignite the searing pain. He bit back a curse, and as he did, he heard a quiet, whimpering breath escape the child.
"No need to worry, child, it's just a cut," he said as soon as he regained his composure, his voice unusually rough. It was, perhaps, a bit of an understatement, but not exactly a lie. "It's not even bleeding much." The fact that it hurt like Hell he kept to himself. And of course it hurt, he thought vaguely; when the bomb had gone off, the Detective had been just a couple of floors away from them – too close for his immortality to kick back in.
The realization that crashed through his mind was far more jarring than noticing that he'd been impaled. Again, his thoughts began to swirl in a disorienting way as his mind put the pieces together.
The Detective… She'd still been in the building! What if she'd been hurt in the blast? What if she was…
No! No, he refused to allow himself to even think such a thing. He clenched his jaw and shook his head as he forced his train of thought away from the worst-case scenario that he wouldn't dare contemplate. He patted his pockets frantically, searching for his phone, and finally located it in the inside pocket of his jacket. But when he managed to extract it, he his heart plummeted. He must have landed on it with all his weight, because the screen was cracked beyond repair and, not surprisingly, remained inactive despite several tries to unlock it. He muttered a phrase under his breath which would have cost him several significant contributions to the Detective's ridiculous swear jar.
"Wanna try mine?" Trixie piped up and before he could answer she was offering him the animal-shaped monstrosity she called phone.
And miraculously – well, not in the literal sense, for Dad didn't give a damn about him – it worked. As soon as he unlocked the screen, a bluish hue lightened the enclosed space.
"Are you going to call Mommy?"
"Yes."
"But she said we shouldn't use the phone in the building," she objected.
True – it was one of the cardinal rules when dealing with bomb threats. Never use a mobile phone or any other device that could inadvertently trigger the explosion. It was impressive that, despite the crisis they were facing, the child knew, and remembered, the instructions. Clearly, she was rather more intelligent than the average young human. That she'd definitely not inherited from her father.
"That ship has sailed I'm afraid," Lucifer replied, earning himself an uncomprehending stare. "The bomb has already gone off," he added as an explanation.
He quickly dialed the Detective's number – he didn't need to look for her contact in the phone, he knew it by heart – and thankfully, she picked it up at the first ring.
"Tri… -are you-…-fer?"
The line was so distorted that not a single intelligible word came through, but there was no doubt that the crackling sound was the Detective's voice. Lucifer would've recognized the sound anywhere, in any condition, and even those few disjointed syllables were enough to cause relief to flood through him.
"…ast and…-see?"
"Detective?" he tried, frowning, fruitlessly trying to make sense of the garbled sounds.
"…fer? Whe-… an-…" A few more jumbled sounds were all that he heard before the line went dead.
Dad damn it.
He looked at the screen. The battery level was low, but not yet in danger of shutting off; it was clearly a problem with reception – perhaps the rubble was interfering with the signal. Whatever the reason, it was obvious that phone calls were not an option.
Trixie sniffled quietly, evidently disheartened by the unsuccessful attempt at contact. Lucifer couldn't really blame her; he shared the sentiment, if not the instinct to break down.
The phone suddenly pinged, signaling an incoming text from the Detective.
Are you both OK?
Spawn OK. Possible broken arm. You OK? he texted back, then hurried to compose another message. Trapped in rubble. Ground floor, east corridor.
It took way longer than usual for the short messages to be sent, and a whole minute passed before they received another text.
I'm OK. Dan too. YOU?
Injured. Will be ok, minimal bleeding, he typed, while simultaneously relaying the Detective's message to the child.
A minute went by – and the battery went down one percent. Then, the phone pinged again.
Bomb squad & rescue crews enroute. Hang in there.
He sent a thumbs-up in reply, then locked the screen to spare battery life. As the screen shut off, their surroundings plunged back into relative darkness. Not that there was much to see apart from the metal protruding from his side and the bits of dust that hung in the air around them. Still, he mourned the loss of the light. The child did as well if the whimpering sound she made was of any indication.
"Well, Child, rescue is on the way, but it might take a while," Lucifer stated, carefully shuffling back until his back was leaning on the wall. "We might as well get comfortable."
Comfortable was clearly a bit of a stretch, but strangely enough, right now he didn't really mind sitting on the filthy, unpleasantly hard floor among dust and debris. The mere act of shifting backwards had sent enough pain through his midsection that he was thankful to simply be still. The very thought of doing anything that implied movement of any kind sounded very unappealing.
He heard her move around, shifting closer to him, then felt her small frame pressing into his uninjured side. He immediately noticed the fine tremors racking her body. She couldn't be cold, he reasoned, the space they were in was so cramped that just their body heat was already making it warmer than he would have preferred. It was so small he barely had room to stretch his legs in front of him while the debris looming overhead was close enough that he wouldn't be able to stand upright, not that he had any intention to. Her tremors must be from shock, or fear, or possibly a combination of the two. With a resigned sigh, he maneuvered his arm behind her back and drew her closer.
She all but melted into his one-armed embrace, her uninjured hand gripping tightly a handful of his shirt, no doubt creasing it beyond repair. He bit back another sigh and said nothing. The suit was as good as gone anyway.
He closed his eyes, mentally noting that there was next to no difference in what he was able to see. He ran through what had happened in his mind, trying to piece the events together and make sense of it.
A millisecond before the explosion, he had leapt for cover, completely by instinct, in a small waiting room on the right, so small it didn't exactly qualify as a room, more like a widening in the corridor. He couldn't explain the split-second decision, but he was quite certain that it had saved their lives; while he hadn't really had the chance to watch the blast, he was almost positive that it had come from the end of the corridor – the direction they had been running to.
If he hadn't jumped when he had, they would've been caught squarely in the explosion. He tried not to think of the officer that had been navigating evacuees toward the exit. He had an instinctive feeling that they hadn't survived the blast. He had been so focused on making sure the child was secure that he wasn't even sure which officer it had been. He found himself absently hoping it wasn't one of the ones he'd grown fond of like Cucuzza.
They stayed like that for he couldn't tell how long, holding to each other in silence, until he heard her sniffling quietly.
"Child?" he asked worriedly. "Is your arm bothering you?"
"Yeah," she whimpered softly, "and I'm scared."
Right – of course she still was. But he was already providing her contact – something that, for reasons Lucifer found utterly unfathomable, she craved even in normal circumstances, let alone in a moment of crisis – and he had absolutely no idea what more he could do.
Though, that wasn't quite accurate; having visited Earth quite often over countless millennia and having now lived among humans for several years, he knew what they expected to hear – what they needed to hear – in life-threatening situations like this: comfort, encouragement, reassurances that everything would be fine.
All things he couldn't offer – for the Devil did not lie, and didn't make promises he wasn't sure he could keep. But then, if hollow reassurances and empty promises weren't possible, what kind of comfort could he offer?
If he'd had his wings, he could at least have healed her with a feather; but no, he'd chopped the bloody things off again that very morning, so celestial healing was off the table, too. For the first time, he truly regretted the act of self-mutilation.
But, then again, he couldn't have used those damned appendages anyway, he reasoned. He couldn't expose the offspring to divinity and run the risk of traumatizing her! The Detective would never forgive him, and, frankly, all things considered, he guessed he wouldn't want that either. Even clingy, noisy, and emotionally needy as she was, he had to admit the child wasn't completely intolerable. Her mind was keen for her age and, if nothing else, she amused him. There were moments when he was certain that the child understood the truth about him.
"Well, Urchin," he began, carefully choosing his words to stick to the truth, "I have no doubt that right now your mother is doing her best to get us out of here. She'll do anything in her power to protect you and she's the kind of woman who gets what she wants. Your father, too," he added, for he knew that, even Douche-y as he was, Daniel cared for the child deeply. Well, Lucifer did have some doubts regarding Dan's ability to get what he wanted, but this he'd better leave unsaid.
"Yeah, I know," the child sighed after a moment of consideration. "But I wish Mommy was here already."
"Oh, well, I can assure you she is close by, even if there's a wall of debris separating us," Lucifer commented with a grimace. Which wasn't a lie, either, if the sharp pain pulsating through his side was of any indication.
As long as the Detective remained nearby the building – or what was left of it - he wouldn't be able to heal, he knew. An unfortunate circumstance, but there was no remedy. Of course, she wanted to stay as close as possible to her trapped child; and so, even if he had the chance, he would never ask her to leave. He couldn't.
He placed a hand on his side, careful not to touch the thing embedded in his flesh. It came away slightly wet, and he hurried to dry it off on his already ruined trousers, momentarily glad for the fact that the darkness meant the blood on his hand wouldn't have been visible. No point in scaring the child even more.
"I just – I don't really like darkness," Trixie admitted quietly after a while, following her own train of thoughts.
"Well," Lucifer sniffed, "I don't care much for it either, in truth."
This caught her attention. "You're afraid of the dark?" she whispered in a tone that was halfway between intrigued and understanding, like this made them somehow partners in crime – the crime being the fear of darkness.
"I most certainly am not afraid of it," he sputtered indignantly. What an utterly absurd notion! "I just prefer light. I'm the Lightbringer, after all, aren't I? My very name says so," he added smugly, sure he'd scored a point.
Too bad it fell flat.
"Your name?" Trixie asked uncomprehendingly.
"Of course, Child. Lucifer, Lightbringer. It's obviously Latin. Lux stands for light, and ferre means to bring. Lucem Ferens. Lucifer," he repeated, putting stress on the syllables in hope to make the etymology sound evident.
It didn't work if the urchin's casual shrug was anything to go by.
"Ooookay…?"
"Don't they teach you Latin in that school of yours?"
"Uh-uh," she said, and he felt her shaking her head against his shoulder, her jiggling pigtails tickling his neck.
"No wonder the world is slowly falling apart," he complained with a scoff. "The education system in this country is appalling. What grade are you in, again?"
"Fourth," she replied in a tone that was the verbal equivalent of an eyeroll. Admittedly, he might have asked her a couple of times already. In the last month or so.
"But you can read, correct?"
"Of course, I can read," she retorted with a half-amused, half-insulted huff.
"Just checking," he shrugged, raising a hand in a defensive manner. Not his fault if the dreadful institution they called school had its priorities all twisted up. Four years of schooling and still no Latin at all… Ridiculous! "Maybe next year," he mused.
"Maybe," she said, but she didn't sound very convinced. "I know we'll learn about climate zones next year," she stated, and he could've sworn she sounded rather proud of such knowledge. "Jimmy is in fifth grade already and he told me. He said they got something to do with the fact that Earth is, like, a bit tilted."
"Ah, yes, the inclination of the axis," he replied. "It's a funny thing. Mind you, it was perfectly straight at the beginning of time, but then there was a bit of an accident, so to speak, with my brother Gabriel and, well, it ended up the way it is now. And then Dad decided it should stay that way."
There was a couple of seconds' pause as she absorbed the news.
"Your brother crooked Earth?" the urchin finally asked in awe. "That's so cool!"
"Well, by accident," Lucifer hurried to clarify. "And, mmh, not directly – none of us is strong enough to move a planet. It was more like a chain reaction that was absolutely not my fault, just Gabriel's. He's dreadfully clumsy; still I had no way of knowing he would trip at the worst possible moment," he scoffed.
"You were there?" she asked, clearly fascinated by the notion.
"Back then, yes, I was still there," he told her with an unseen nod. He felt a slight tightness in his chest as he thought of that time. He hesitated a second, then cleared his throat. "Do you want to hear the whole story?" He didn't particularly want to tell it, but she seemed less fearful and the trembling in her had subsided as he spoke.
"Yes!" She squealed in what was not exactly a delighted tone but was decidedly more animated than before.
And so, he told her about the incident, the memories from a long, long gone past resurfacing in vivid detail, as if just mere days had gone by since then, and not millennia. Remembering and sharing them was bittersweet, causing an unpleasant, painful tug in his chest, but he could tell, even without seeing her, that she was listening with rapt intensity, every now and then interrupting him to ask for more details.
Her distress wasn't completely gone, obviously, but at least their predicament ceased being her primary focus for a while. And so, one arm firmly pressed against his injured side, the other still wrapped around the urchin's shoulder, he talked and talked about his youth in the Silver City, a place he once used to call home and from which he was now banished for all eternity.