What the devil desires most
As you have seen, Trixie & Chloe have kept Maze at Lucifer's side, so no way Amenadiel can find his wings.
No stolen container with wings, but we will swing back to close canon later, when Father Frank shows up
Chloe figured it out. 'Did my father send you?' he had asked when they met outside 2Vile's house. She hadn't understood the question and had not answered it. She now realized she was immune both for his charm and for his power to let people confess their desire. That had made him wonder back then, but only for a moment. It made her wonder now. She looked at the picture again. His father – God – has caused her to exist. Why? God had brought her on his path, immune to his powers. Weeks ago Lucifer might have ignored the question, did my father send you, but with this picture as proof, he…
Every story she ever heard about God and the devil, including all comments from Lucifer himself, told her the two had huge problems and now there she was. He had ran away, that was the best description, and she understood.
Next morning after he ran from her house there was a case. Chloe called Lucifer, but he didn't answer. She sent him also a message with the address, but got no reaction and he didn't show up at the crime site. It was a simple case: a man shot his neighbor, there were multiple witnesses, he confessed within an hour. The afternoon and the next day were filled with paperwork, so she had no reason to call Lucifer. But she missed his presence, his voice, his comments and his small talk.
At ten in the evening of the second day after he ran, there was a knock on her door. Her heart skipped a beat, maybe… She opened the door and saw Maze.
"Hi. Come in."
"Hi. Do you really live here? How do you afford this place? Do you take bribes?"
"I don't," Chloe chuckled. "It's for free. My mother owns it. You want a drink?"
"Always." Maze skipped all small talk. "What happened between Lucifer and you?"
"I… I don't know for sure. I showed him a picture." Chloe picked up the picture that was still on the table.
"Amenadiel…" Maze said.
"And my mother." She repeated what she told Lucifer and added what she had reasoned.
Maze nodded. "That explains why he locked himself in the penthouse for two days. Last night he didn't take anyone to the penthouse for sex. I can't remember that happened ever before. There is one more thing. You remember he cut himself with the knife during our diner? Normally he is invulnerable, but he cut himself! We tried later after you left, but no knife could cut him. And then he was cut by a glass scarf while you arrested Lindsay."
"Yes?" Chloe frowned. "How could?"
"I have a theory," Maze said. "It must be you. He is vulnerable when you are around."
Chloe thought that over and combined it with what she already had concluded. "I have to stay away from him?"
"He stays away from you."
They talked all evening about that and halfway Maze said: "It doesn't make sense. My hell forged knives can kill any immortal. Some feathers in an angel wing are sharp as a dagger and can do the same. Lucifer's dad is omnipotent and can simply whip anyone out of existence. If God wants to hurt Lucifer, why does he take this long way of letting you being born, letting the two of you meet and make him vulnerable next to you?"
After several bottles of wine, they still had no answer to that.
The morning of the third day after he ran, brought a new case. Chloe hesitated before texting Lucifer a message with the address of the crime scene. It was delivered in seconds, but an hour later it was still not read. She wanted to cry but she had to go to the crime scene.
The victim, Roger Brady, died on the street, several people had seen the young man fall. There was a lot of blood, but no one had seen an attacker. There was a wound in his back, but no bullet.
"It's not a bullet wound," a man from forensics told her. "More an arrow or a knife."
"There was no one close to him," a witness assured her again. And there was no arrow.
Her phone chimed. She looked at its screen and felt her skin tingle. "Lucifer?"
"You're alive, detective?"
"Yes?" She blinked her eyes. "Why do you ask?"
"I'm on my way. You are still on that crime scene?" And he ended the call…
Feeling a bit dizzy she looked at her phone, then she shook her head and went on with searching the victims belonging. On his way? She took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the case.
"Detective," an officer said to her, showing her his phone. "On the news."
Police woman shot, was the headline. Officer Christel Decker died in hailstorm of bullets, was the next line that hit her eye.
"Happened an hour ago in Santa Barbara," the officer said. "Is she a relative? I mean: Decker."
"Not that I know," Chloe said. "There are many Deckers and I have never met this poor Christel."
"Detective!"
She looked up and saw Lucifer coming to her. He hugged her and whispered: "Not you. You're alive."
She got it. "You saw the news? But that was a Christel Decker, Lucifer."
"I can read, detective. But most of the times these newspaper people can't spell. Dad knows what they can make of Chloe."
She smiled at him. "Well. It's not me."
"It would have been my fault," he stated.
"Your fault? Of course not."
"Of course it would. I promised I would be available for cases and I let you down. I didn't come when you asked. Only because… well. Never mind because. For no good reason. I'm here and I have your back."
"You stayed away for a good reason. I talked with Maze yesterday evening."
"With Maze? What about?"
"She came to ask what happened between you and me and she explained I make you vulnerable."
"Still not a good reason," he said. "But as said I'll have your back from now on. What's the case?"
She decided to let it rest for the moment and told him what she got. He looked at Roger Brady's wound and made a picture of it. "I'll send the image to Maze," he said.
Chloe expected him to go back to the Lux once she was in the precinct. "No one is going to shoot me in here, Lucifer."
"I will just look at you while you are searching this Roger Brady."
"At Lux there will be better-looking women to look at," she said after an hour of searching.
"I happen to disagree, detective. You're looking exceptional stunning today."
It made her body tingle. "I'm sure I'm looking nothing different than three days ago." Which was previous time she saw him and he saw her.
"I know, detective. You were looking exceptional stunning three days ago."
She rolled her eyes trying to hide her smile. "The victim is named Roger Brady, 24, student, studies Pharmacy, no criminal record, not even a speeding ticket. Plays hockey, field hockey."
"Peculiar in LA."
"Yes. We… I… Do you want to go with me?"
"Definitely, detective."
"We are going to talk with his parents, fellow students, members of his hockey team."
He nodded. "Motive, alibis, background. I start to get the pattern, detective." His phone beeped. "Maze. She is willing to bet a hundred bucks it was a crossbow arrow. And she doesn't understand why there is so much blood."
Chloe gave it a thought. "But there was no arrow."
He slowly nodded. "Let's go talk with all those people."
For one and a half day all the talking gave them some background, but no possible motive and no suspects until a girl, a fellow student that was also playing field hockey said: "And he has a lover, a mistress or so."
"We talked with a few girls that he regularly dated."
The girl shook her head. "I know. Roger had one night stands each weekend. But a few months back, once when he had drunk too much, he mentioned he would go to someone who was married. He denied everything the next day, but I kept an eye on him and sometimes he goes out and no one I know, knows where and he doesn't talk about it."
Walking back to the car Chloe said: "Secret dates with a married lover?"
"And an angry husband that found out," Lucifer added.
"Only a theory," she said. "I go back to the precinct and check his phone again."
"You checked calls, texts and Whatsapp already."
Chloe nodded. "I'm going to check pictures and movies again, searching for this lover."
He looked at his watch. "I have an appointment with my therapist."
"Still that doctor Martin?"
"With Linda, yes."
"Only a few miles from here. I will bring you there before going to the precinct."
During the ride she noticed a car behind them as if someone was following her. When she parked in front of Linda's office, that car also parked. She frowned, watched Lucifer going inside and then with her hand on her gun waited to see what the person following her would do.
He came out of his car and walked to Linda's front door. Amenadiel. The angel stood in front of the door, looked around, went back to his car and drove away.
Chloe raised her eyebrows, shook her head and texted a message to Lucifer to tell him his brother had followed them. Ninety minutes later it became marked 'read' and in the same minute Lucifer called. "You are save?"
"I'm in the precinct, going through thousands of pictures."
"What did Amenadiel exactly do?"
She told him the few details she hadn't typed in the text. "I think he was after you, not after me," she ended her story. "He didn't even look at my car."
"Strange guy.Yesterday he also approached Maze again," Lucifer laughed. "I think he doesn't dare to go back to Silver City. Then he would have to tell dad I didn't listen to him. Any plans for the evening, detective?"
"Making diner for Trixie, read her a bedtime story and watch tv."
"Mind if I join? I will make the two of you, no the three of us diner."
Lucifer was already preparing the diner when Chloe came home. She payed Trixie's sitter and walked to the door with the woman. "What a man, mrs Decker," the woman whispered. "So charming, so handsome. How is he in bed?"
"I really don't know." She saw the surprise in the sitter's eyes. She smiled at the woman and closed the door.
"What did you not know?" Lucifer asked when she was back in the kitchen area.
"Just some talk. What are you cooking?"
How he managed to get in her modest size kitchen a four course diner with as main course a mix of six kinds of grilled meat or fish, each with their own sauce, she couldn't understood, even not while she could see him doing it. After diner they played Monopoly, what Trixie won. She brought Trixie to bed and when she came back in the living room he stood up.
"I will see you tomorrow, detective," Lucifer said.
Do you want a drink, she wanted to say, but she nodded. While she walked with him to the door, she imagined he would turn and kiss her. That he would whisper in her ear about the best night ever. But he smiled and said: "Sleep well, detective."
Next morning there was a new murder, almost the same as of Roger Brady: a guy felt dead on the street with witnesses around, a wound in his back and no arrow, bullet or knife.
"Matt Davids, 26," Chloe briefed Lucifer.
"Again a lot of blood. Drops have spatted yards away. Hockey player? Student?" he asked.
"Can't say yet."
They interviewed the few people that had seen him fall and where still around. No one was nearby when he fell, they all told. Back in the precinct Chloe checked what she could find on the guy. "Just graduated as lawyer, would start as junior in a law firm next week. Baseball, no hockey. Father is politician, congress man."
"What is Roger Brady's father?" Lucifer asked.
"Judge," Chloe knew.
"Mm." He gave it a thought and shook his head. "How does the murderer hide the weapon…"
"You asking me?" she said.
"More myself. But if you know the answer, feel free to tell me."
She rolled her eyes. A colleague of forensics came and told Chloe they couldn't open Matt Davids phone. Lucifer picked up the phone, waited until the man was gone and then handed the phone to Chloe; unlocked.
"How…" Chloe asked.
"Locks open for the devil, detective. A phone just has an electronic lock."
She began to check Matt Davids' phone. Lucifer picked up Roger's phone and swept through the footage on it. Suddenly he sat straight. "Detective!"
Chloe looked at the screen he turned to her. She saw a group of people with glasses of beer in the hand. Glasses high for the picture. She had seen that picture yesterday.
"Third man from the right," Lucifer said.
She bent to the phone. "That looks like… Matt Davids."
"I'm sure it is Matt," Lucifer said. "On Roger's phone. So there is a connection between the two victims. The picture is taken eleventh of March last year."
"Can you see where?"
Lucifer shook his head. "Phone doesn't store locations of pictures. I will check other things for the eleventh."
Chloe checked Matt's mails and messages for that date and it was she that found the place. "Matt had a 'beer tasting event' in the afternoon and evening. In San Clemente."
"That's along the coast?"
"Roughly an hour by car." Chloe gave it a thought: first interview acquaintances of Matt or first go there and find the connection between Matt and Roger. "We first go to San Clemente so we better know what to ask his friends and relatives."
The beer tasting event had been in a bar along the coast at the end of a dead end street. The owner apparently remembered the event from last year. "I told all I know already to your colleagues."
"From the OCSD?" Chloe asked.
He blinked his eyes. "What? Whoever."
"We're LAPD. Two men who where here on the eleventh have been murdered. So can you tell us, please?"
The man sighed. "It was a normal beer tasting. Some drunk too much, as always. That girl went outside to get some fresh air and to vomit. An hour later she was found dead, hit by a car. After that, I don't know. I didn't see anything and I never knew their names."
"We will visit the OCSD," Chloe said.
"OCSD?" Lucifer asked while they drove to the policy station of San Clemente.
"Orange County Sheriff's Department," Chloe answered.
They found the sergeant that had handled the accident last year. "Matt Davids and Roger Brady murdered?" he said and laughed dryly. He searched in his computer and turned the screen to Chloe.
"Nancy Lape was hit by a car on March the eleventh, around ten o'clock in the evening, just outside that bar. Nancy was found quarter past eleven. Her sister Rachel Lape claimed a guy named Ben Kipric left the event at ten to ten, drunk, and no other cars had been on that road. He must have hit her sister. Four guys: your Matt and Roger and two more testified Ben was with them until eleven in the bar and drinking. Of course we checked Ben's car, but no sign of a collision was found on it."
"You think Rachel was right?"
"O, yes. But we were not able to prove those four gave a false testimony, so we had to let Ben go free and the case is never closed. I will get you a copy of the file."
On the way back to LA, Chloe was driving while Lucifer in the passenger seat was reading parts of the case file to her
"Rachel claimed Ben Kipric was pushing her aside when he left. She was smoking just outside the bar so she knew for sure he left at ten to ten" followed by "Matt Davids, Roger Brady, Neil Brown and Stan Mullock. They testified Ben was with them until eleven. The five know each other from High School."
"A fact we didn't know yet," Chloe said.
"Old buddies, drink a beer together twice or thrice a year."
"No thrice anymore, Lucifer. I told you."
He grinned. "Been in Victorian England too often, detective."
She rolled her eyes. "Officially they still count as witnesses. But being old buddies makes them suspicious witnesses."
"Listen to the next fact, detective," he said loudly. "Case solved."
"What?"
"What do you think this sister Rachel Lape is?"
She gave him a quick glance. "Jedi? Werewolf?"
"Detective! Jedis only exists in Starwars and a werewolf is a myth. Do you really believe in such supernatural creatures?"
She looked at him eyebrows raised. He had the decency to grin.
"Tell," she said.
"She is a crossbow champion. She won several tournaments. Be glad you didn't take Maze's bet."
"One problem," Chloe said. "In court every attorney will simply ask: show me one of the arrows. We need to talk to her. Where does she live?"
Back in LA the first person they visited was Rachel Lape, that was: they tried to visit her. A neighbor told them Rachel hadn't been home for at least two weeks, maybe three. "We say good morning and good evening when we see each other, that's all. I have no idea were she works, whether she works or whether she has a relation. I have never seen someone visiting her."
Although Chloe remembered him he had to follow protocol, Lucifer opened Rachel's door for her. A quick search of the apartment didn't bring new insights in where Rachel could be. Back in the car Chloe asked: "Next one. How lives closest? Ben, Neil or Stan?"
"Stan Mullock." He gave her directions.
Stan was shocked when he heard Roger and Matt were killed. He turned pale when Chloe hinted at their testimony for Ben Kipric. At that moment Lucifer stepped close to him, looked in his eyes and asked. "What do you want, Stan? What do you desire most in your life?"
"That I had never lied about Ben being with us. He left before ten, but we are buddies."
"So he left the bar at the time Rachel said and he was drunk?"
"Yes, yes, yes," he said still looking in trance in Lucifer's eyes. "He had a client and was late already."
"A client?"
Stan blinked his eyes and shook his head. "I… I don't know."
"What kind of client? Nancy, Matt and Roger are dead and you know you could be the next one," Chloe said. That was bluffing, but it worked.
"It has nothing to do with Nancy," Stan said. "Really."
"Just tell."
"Ben and Roger work as gigolo, one or two nights a week. Ben had a client that night and he stayed too long in the bar and drunk too much. He was really in a hurry when he left, so he might have overlooked that girl. But it was her fault. She was sitting in the middle of the street."
"How could it be no trace of the collision was found on Ben's car?" Chloe asked.
Stan laughed. "The next day the police checked Ben's car."
"Yes, so?"
"Wrong car. Ben was driving his father's car that night. Big Mercedes. He uses that to impress the clients."
When confronted, Neil Brown told them the exact same story.
Ben Kipric was a handsome guy, 27 as Chloe knew from the case file. He told them immediately he had nothing to say and only would to talk in the presence of his lawyer.
"O, no, no, Ben," Lucifer said with a smile. "Tell me. What do you desire more than anything in this world?"
"To get away from that stupid accident. That no one remembers that drunken slut that gave me all that trouble." He blinked his eyes and stepped back. "I didn't say that. There was never an accident."
"Maybe it is better that you make a full confession," Chloe suggested.
"No. No," Ben snapped.
Lucifer did a step closer to Ben. "You made a mistake, Ben. A bad one, but that can happen. But if you continue this way you go to hell. Do you know how long an eternity of torture will last?"
"Shut up, imbecile. I don't believe…" His voice died away. Chloe couldn't see Lucifer's eye's, since Lucifer was standing two steps ahead of her with his back to her. Although it was daytime, she could see a faint red glow on Ben's face. Ben wined. His body started to shake.
"No, no," Ben sobbed. "Let me go. I did it. I hit her. I didn't see her. Let me go."
At the end of the afternoon Chloe could send copies of the signed confessions of Stan, Neil and Ben to the OCSD's San Clemente precinct. They went to the Lux and Lucifer ordered hamburgers with fries which Maze brought in person to the penthouse.
"Caught a lot of killers today?" she asked.
"We solved a case for the OCSD, but are a bit stuck with our own case," Chloe said.
"Explain," the demoness said. She poured herself a bourbon and listened to Chloe's explanation.
"… and I also don't understand why she didn't kill Ben Kipric first," Chloe said. "He was the one that hit her sister. Why care about Roger and Matt first?"
Maze laughed. "Torture one-o-one, Decker. She wants Ben to panic, to know his turn is coming, to have nights without sleep frightened by every sound outside. Clever lady."
Chloe nodded thoughtful. "We need to get her. The LAPD has put a bounty on her of two thousand dollar. I hope someone finds her."
"A bounty? What does that mean?" Maze asked.
"If anyone finds her, arrests her and brings her to the LAPD he gets a reward of two thousand bucks."
"He? Or she?"
"Oh, of course. He or she. But most bounty hunters are males," Chloe answered.
Maze leaned back and stared eyes half closed at Chloe. "Can I see the picture of that wound on the second victim once more?"
Maze studied the pictures while Chloe and Lucifer finished their burgers. "Definitely caused by an arrow," Maze said. "And I still bet it's from a crossbow."
"But where are the arrows?" Lucifer asked.
Maze grinned. "Did you let those science people take a DNA sample of the blood?"
Chloe frowned. "You mean Forensic or CSI? No. We know who the victim is. Well, was.
"Let them take a look at it and compare with the victim's DNA," Maze said with a broader grin. "So if I find that Rachel Lape and bring her to you, I get two thousand?"
"Yes. How do you think to find her?"
Maze ignored her question and turned to Lucifer. "Patrick and Jean can run the Lux for a few days. I'm off. I want to earn that money."
"Maze?" Lucifer said. "You don't need the money. You can take from the Lux what you need. What you want."
"I visited that therapist of yours, that Linda, twice. If I'm staying here I have to understand humans better. Linda said I should earn my own money so I won't completely depend on you. Something with self-esteem. Linda knows what that is."
"But you can't just walk around and hope to find her," Chloe said.
"Of course not. I know where to start," Maze answered.
"Well," Lucifer said. "If that is what you want."
Maze raised and walked to the elevator. "It is what I desire."
"More than anything else in her life," Chloe said when the elevator doors were closed.
"Apparently," Lucifer said. "Self-esteem? I've never known demons desire anything else than a fight, drinking and sex. One can be surprised."
"Well. Maybe you have some surprises also." She brought her eyes close to his eyes. "What does the devil want? What do you desire more than anything in your life?"
He chuckled. "By accident I gave that a good thought during the past days when I tried to stay away from you."
"No one night stand," she warned.
"Definitely no one night stand," he said.
"O? I'm curious." And a bit disappointed also, but that she didn't say.
"I…" He took a deep breath and gave her a shy smile. "I thought it over and I think I know what you would expect from it."
She frowned and shook her head. "What do you mean?"
Looking away he whispered: "I would like to be your boyfriend."
