The devil gets a call
No answers to Raziel's questions were found. They all left the penthouse before midnight; Chloe and Lucifer to sleep at Chloe's place. In the morning a case came in: a dead woman in the hills outside the city.
"Body was found by some nerds that were searching for a drone that went out of control," Dan reported when Chloe and Lucifer arrived at the crime scene. "No ID, no personal belongings. A young woman. There is a triangular-shaped ink stamp on her wrist."
"Hold on," Lucifer said and took a look. "I might be able to help with this. This is something someone might find at a night club, event, sex club. To indicate who is allowed to enter. Men because they have paid, some attractive women can come for free."
"As you do in the Lux?" Dan asked with dislike.
Lucifer gave him a deadpanned look. "As we certainly don't do and don't need in the Lux."
"Hey," Chloe interrupted. "Anything more, Dan?"
"We found an abandoned vehicle registered to Uber. No sign of the driver."
Chloe took out her phone. "Uber can link license plate to the phone of the registered driver and…" She tapped and swiped. "On this map that phone is now on the corner of Crescent and Third."
"Impressive police work," Lucifer said with a smile.
"We try this one without cheating," Chloe said giving a smile back.
"Cheating?" Dan asked with a frown. Chloe shook her head.
The uni's found the Uber driver by the time Chloe had checked the payments that were made for that driver. The suspect was brought to the precinct to an interrogation room. Chloe laid the picture of the dead girl on the table in front of the driver: "Her name's Daria Mitchell. We traced her credit card to a small bank in Nebraska. We know you were the last one to see her alive."
"I didn't touch her!" he screamed.
"Well…" Lucifer bent over the sitting man and smiled. "Except to toss her cold, dead corpse into the bushes and run?"
"I told already." The man sounded as in panic. "I picked her up on the corner of Gower and Franklin, gave her a ride, and then she jumped out of my moving car."
He was sitting at the table in the room, Chloe was standing at the other side of the table, Lucifer was walking behind the man.
"You just left her there to die?" Lucifer asked over the man's shoulder.
"By the time I pulled over and found her, she was already… I'm on new meds. I wasn't thinking straight. I just got this job. I panicked." The man was crying while telling them.
"Killer cliché," Lucifer snapped. "I panicked, closely followed by…?"
"T-Talk to the other guy!"
"What other guy?" Chloe asked.
"She used my phone to call somebody. Her boyfriend, I don't know. She wanted to go over to his place, he threatened to kill her."
Before Chloe or Lucifer could react, a message popped up on Chloe's phone. "Ella's got something," she said.
"It the poison I suspected," Ella told them. "Takes at least an hour to start working, more likely hour and a half."
"So it can't be the uber driver," Chloe concluded. "Victim called a boyfriend, can you check the phone number?"
The 'boy friend' was an ex-boy friend. He was the chief of a restaurant and threatened them with a knife when they approached, thinking they were the 'vegie's' from next door. He took them to the garden where he and his wife were preparing food. Daria had been a waitress in his restaurant. His wife became angry when she figured out he had had an affair with Daria 'again a waitress you had an affair with' and ran into the house.
"Do you have an alibi?" Chloe asked the man.
"I was…" he checked to see whether his wife was really inside "with another waitress."
"Great," Chloe said. "If the alibi is confirmed, your wife won't hear from us."
"Oh. You might also check Naomi. She was roomies with Daria."
Chloe nodded. "Do you have an address?"
A woman called Lily shared rooms with Daria and Naomi. "I haven't seen them in a week," she told them, opening Naomi's door for them. They found Naomi inside on the floor, dead. Same triangular stamp, same poising.
Most of the money was laying at Trixie's side. She owned now all streets, stations and utilies but three and Maze and Chloe were broke. Only Lucifer was still in the game in possession of the other three streets, and had – as by miracle – avoided all Trixie's real estate for the least his last twenty turns. But his luck ran out. He landed on Pennsylvania Avenue where Trixie had an hotel. While he was handing over his last money and negotiating selling her one of his streets, Chloe phone rang.
"Ella?" Chloe put the call on the speaker.
"Hi, Chlo'. I found tissue damage to Daria's stomach lining."
"Ella. It's almost nine. Are you still in the lab?"
"Not anymore," Ella said. "Ray-Ray and me left the lab thirty minutes ago. That tissue damage could be caused by liquid nitrogen, the stuff that makes fancy cocktails smoke. We thought it's probably how she ingested the poison. The uber picked her up at the corner of Gower and Franklin so we went there, here now, to take a look."
Chloe blinked her eyes. She half noticed Luicfer landing on Boardwalk, also with hotel, and handing over his last properties to Trixie.
"We found an abandoned building on the corner. It looked like they had recently had a party here," Ella continued.
"I know that neighborhood," Maze said in Chloe's phone. "There's a great tiki bar across the street from that building. I know the bartender. We could go and have a drink, ask about the dead girls."
"That sounds like a very good lead, Detective," Lucifer said. "If you want to retrace the steps of two hot girls on a girls' night, you need to think like two hot girls on a girls' night."
"I have to watch Trixie," Chloe said.
"Lucifer can stay with me, mommy," Trixie said. "While you and Maze go catch the bad man."
"With your lady parts," Maze grinned. "And piña coladas in hand."
"Oh, my God," Ella shouted over the phone. "I love piña coladas! Lovely! Azrael will also come and I will call Linda too."
At ten Chloe was more or less pushed to enter the tiki bar. Trixie was at home with Lucifer baby sitting and he had sworn to keep her in bed, let her sleep, not reading bed stories all night and not giving her more chocolate cake. Maze had also asked Raziel, so they were with six: three humans, two angels and a demon. Maze made sure the bartender understood the booze had to keep coming.
Chloe had brought a picture of the two poisoned women with her and tried to walk around and ask whether any one knew these girls. Tried: for both Linda and Maze pulled her back several times to drink, to have fun and – as Linda shouted – to do female bonding.
"… really getting to know each other," Linda said, downing another shot. "Sharing problems, origin stories, secrets."
Maze raised her brows. "Can't we just drink?"
"No." Linda took a next glass. "I'll start. Um... I worked my way through med school as a phone sex operator. 1-800- ProfessorFeelGood."
Phone sex? Chloe blinked her eyes, but Maze laughed. "I would totally call that."
"Nice," Ella yelled. "I'll go next, I guess. Um… I used to steal cars."
Even Maze looked astonished, but Azrael nodded. "She did. It was thrilling. What can I say? I fell in love with a human. Ella. Years ago. I fantasized kissing her." She looked a bit ashamed at her sister.
"My turn," Maze said. "If it has to be sex…"
"No, Maze," Linda said. "It can also be feelings."
"Sex," Maze repeated. "You've heard of Don Juan Tenorio?"
"That is the Don Juan?" Linda asked. "I thought he is fictional."
"Not fictional," Maze said with a smile. "I was assigned to torture him. Don't tell Lucifer, but I didn't set up his hell loop. Instead I closed the door of his cell and had sex with him for a century."
"Was he good?" Linda asked.
"Close to Lucifer."
"Wow, girl." She giggled and turned her eyes to Raziel.
The angel shrugged. "Secrets or sex? I was in the Silver City except the few times father had a mission for me… But Azrael said she fantasized kissing a human…" Raziel looked a bit embarrassed, then straightened her back and looked at Maze. "I fantasize about kissing a demon."
"And did you ever do?" Maze asked with a big grin. Raziel bent over to her, their lips touched, their hands cupped the other's head. When after minutes the two finally let go, Raziel said: "Yes, Maze. I just did."
Linda applauded. "Now, you go, Chloe. Female trust."
"Come on," Ella said.
"What's on your mind?" Raziel asked.
"What's on my mind... like, other than the case?" Chloe asked.
"Yeah," was the fivefold answer,
"Well… Hot Tube High School was a mistake. But… other than that I… No. I'm the most normal woman in the world. I never did anything worth mentioning."
"Come on, Decker," Ella said. "Every woman dreams of having the bad guy and you, you are dating the actual, biblical devil. How is he in bed?"
Chloe felt she blushed and looked away.
"Be friendly with her," Raziel said. "Come. Can we sing on that stage?"
They sang with the six of them on the stage in the bar, they drank, they laughed and they declared themselves a tribe. Chloe was talking to Linda when her eyes caught a man reaching to the bar to get some drinks. She felt a shock: that man's arm. "Hey," she shouted. "LAPD. Wait."
Either he didn't hear her or didn't realize she called him, but the man walked towards a group of men and women, handing out the drinks, laughing.
She raise from the bar stool and followed the man. "Sir."
The man turned. "Yes?"
"That triangle stamp on your wrist. What is that? Come." She pulled him to her friends and showed the man's wrist to Ella. "Look! Same hand stamp as Daria and Naomi!" And to the man: Where did you get this?
"I saw some hot women, uh, g-going into a party across the street last night. Okay," the man stammered. "It was just…"
"Do you recognize these women?" Chloe asked, showing him the picture of Daria and Naomi. "Did you see these girls there?"
"What's your deal?" one of the woman of the group the man was with shouted.
"Hey," Ella said. "She's just asking a few questions."
"Well, he's taken," the woman yelled. She raised her fists to threaten Chloe. "So back off, skank! I…"
"Hey!" Maze interrupted her. "No one calls my skank a skank."
Ella and Linda tried to pull Maze back.
"I'm hurting her," Maze snapped.
The friends of the man and woman came forward, more fists were clenched. Maze lifted two men and threw them aside. Ella and Raziel joined Maze
"Maze, remember," Linda shouted. "Aggression is not the answer, okay. Clearly, this woman is having some serious trust issues."
Maze clearly didn't listen, grabbed the next man. The fight was chaotic. Chloe got involved when she had to defend herself against a few guys that tried to hit her, well one gave her a blow against her head. Ella and Linda fought with a few girls, Azrael only watched and laughed, but Maze and Raziel made it a short fight; both of them were much too strong for humans and knocked over their opponents as pins on a bowling alley. When Maze grabbed the man with the stamp on his wrist from the floor and raised him in the air, Chloe yelled: "Maze, I wasn't done questioning him!"
Maze dropped the guy in a chair. Raziel came with a glass with some unknown drank and splashed the drank in the man's face.
"Did you see these girls?" Chloe asked showing the man the picture, a demon hanging against her right shoulder and an angel against her left, both grinning.
"Yeah, maybe. It was… it was…"
"Where?!"
"It was a crowded sex club, and there was so many hot girls… Don't tell my girlfriend. Just…"
"Who did that to you?" Dan asked next morning in the precinct, looking at the brush on Chloe's forehead. "Did Lucifer hit you?"
"No. Girls' night out," Chloe said. "Me and Linda Martin, Ella and her friend, Maze and a sister of Lucifer. We had a little bar fight."
"Night out? You had Trix."
"Lucifer was baby-sitting her."
His face darkened. "What? You let her alone with that lunatic that thinks he is the devil. He is no good for Trix, Chloe. She talks as if she believes him."
"It was work, Dan. We went undercover to get a lead on our two dead blondes."
"Oh…"
"Well, we were lucid enough to destroy a tiki bar. But I found a guy with a same hand stamp as Daria and Naomi. The stamp is from a roving, pop-up sex party. Men only and only on invite party. Well Lucifer managed to get an invite for you and him."
"Nope," Dan said.
"Yes."
"Mm-mm. No way."
"Yes," Chloe repeated. "It's good to have Lucifer there with you as back up. So they don't think you're a cop."
Lucifer and Dan went to the party and came back with valuable information. A bartender had seen Daria and Naomi leave with some one who called himself Yuri, together with a third hot blond. And he had given them Yuri's license plate.
They found Yuri sick, vomiting. "I only went to that club because Crystal promised me newbies," he manged to tell them after throwing up again. "I paid five grand apiece for those two sweethearts."
"Who's Crystal?"
"She was with Daria and girls had no idea that I was their date."
"You're telling me Daria and Naomi had no idea it was a sex club?"
"No. When they found out, they wanted to leave. Crystal bought them drinks, but they drank them and bailed anyway. I was so upset that I took the last sip and…"
He had a picture of the three girls. Lucifer and Chloe took a look and said: "The third one is Lily. Daria's and Naomi's roommate."
Chloe and Lucifer confronted Lily, who confessed she was payed to bring Daria and Naomi to the party and had put mandrake in their drinks. "… I thought it was an organic kind of roofie. I didn't know that it would kill them. I was just trying to loosen them up," she said while Chloe handcuffed her.
On their way home from the precinct to the Lux, Lucifer's phone rang. He wanted to pick it up, while driving the Corvette, but Chloe took it out of his hands. "No phone calls while driving."
"Detective. I have…"
"You have many things, but I don't want to be stopped by some colleague." It was Frank Lawrence calling. She accepted the call. "Hello father, Chloe Decker."
For a moment the phone was silent, then Frank said: "I thought this was Lucifer's number."
"It is, but he is driving. The Corvette has no hands free or blue tooth or whatever. Old, primitive car." She grinned at Lucifer.
He gave her an offended look. "Old, primitive?"
She gave him a wink. Frank said: "Well, I can ask you also. Can I come along. There is a girl I want to ask you about, but I don't want to bring trouble for her. I don't want to make it an official police case."
"That's ok. Shall we come to you?" She was already planning ahead who to ask to stay with Trixie.
"No, I can come to you. To the penthouse."
She grinned. "No penthouse tonight, father. We are at my apartment. If you came at nine, we have my daughter in her bed."
"Old and primitive?" Lucifer repeated after she had given father Frank her address.
"Well, you must admit: no hands free set, no navigation system, no anti-lock breaking system, no airco…"
"Airco in a convertible? Detective! He looked at her, most likely noticed her huge smile and muttered: "You're kidding me."
"Yes, Lucifer. Everyone envies you for this car."
He frowned for one second and then smiled. "Several weeks since last time we saw father Frank."
"Yes." She thought that over. Weeks. She counted. She frowned, took at her phone and checked her agenda. Seven weeks since she had her period. Lucifer, but also Raziel and Maze and Azrael all had assured her an angel and a human can't have offspring. There had been some stressful events: being shot by Jimmy Barnes, visits to hell, dealing with Lucifer's mother. Stress could make once's cycle irregular, simple explanation and no need to worry. And there was also Lilith's ring, no idea what Lilith's powers had done.
"Anything wrong, detective?" he asked.
"No, nothing. Just wondering what Frank wants to discuss."
Frank arrived at ten past nine, embraced both and accepted a glass of bourbon. "Maybe I'm distressful about nothing, but there is a girl I'm worried about. I only know her first name, well, assuming she told me her true name."
"What her name?"
"Rory. That's all I know."
Chloe showed him one of the pictures she had from Rory.
"That's her." Frank gave her a puzzled glance. "Is she in trouble?"
"No, father. Not that I know of. Lucifer and I just have questions for her, not an official police case. But please first tell your story."
"I have a few spare rooms in the vicarage. Rooms used in the past by curates. If needed I let people use them for a few days or weeks. Homeless, women on the fly for aggressive husbands, prostitute trying to escape her pimp. Ten days ago this girl came and asked for a room. She even wanted to pay for it."
"If she could pay, why didn't she go to a hotel?" Chloe asked.
"I asked the same. She said she didn't want her name registered."
"Well. If you rent rooms…" Chloe raised her eyebrows.
"I should also register their names?" Frank smiled. "Maybe according human laws, Chloe. But I think Lucifer's father wants me to help people that have a reason to stay anonymous."
"You following a higher authority. Oh, my," Lucifer said with a grin and shaking his head. "But what is the deal with this girl, with Rory."
"Well I asked her several times if she was in trouble, but she didn't answer that. She then only smiles and friendly tell me not to worry, everything will become clear soon. She paid me cash, as far as I know she has no credit card."
"Logical, if she want to hide for whatever," Lucifer said.
"Yes, but she has a bag with gold and sells some of it each few days to get that cash. Is she on the fly? How did she get bare gold then? Is she on the run for the police or for a gang? If it is for a gang, can you help her?"
"We couldn't find her face in any police database," Chloe said. "So I don't think she is on the run for the police."
Frank nodded. "I suggested to her to pray. I said the Lord might help her if she talks to him. You know what she said?"
"We have no idea," Lucifer said. "I would give a very rude comment on this if it came from any other priest, you know that." He smiled with those words.
"She said: I talked with Ayaya about this. He knows my plans and schedule. I first thought she said Allah," Frank said. "That she was muslim, but I asked and she said she is not. She repeated the name. She said Ayaya. And she added: it is Amagal I need to convince not to do to do stupid things. I need to talk to her."
"What?" Lucifer snapped. "You're sure?"
"Yes."
"You know this Ayaya and Amagal?" Chloe asked Lucifer.
"I have no idea who this Rory's Ayaya and Amalgal are, detective. There are many languages in which the one of the words means anything, but the combination…" he shook his head. "And making sense in her sentences? It must be Sumerian. Sumerian is a language spoken in the Middle East, more than four thousand years ago. It is the human language closest to the language of the Silver City, which was spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden."
"What do the words mean, Lucifer?"
"Grandfather and grandmother."
Frank stroke his chin and said: "So when I asked her to talk to the Lord, she answered: I talked with grandfather about it and he knows her plans?"
"Yes," Lucifer said.
"As if God is her grandfather," Chloe whispered. "And she needs to talk with her grandmother… which would be…"
