How can one work with the devil
"… That was in essence Michael's plan," Chloe told lieutenant Monroe. "God did mention your name in the end, telling his children it was you who figured out were Michael was hiding."
"Saving the universe should be nice on my resume," Olivia said and smiled. "Well, I can't mention it within the LAPD, but I hope I get some credits for it later."
"After Michael was brought away about half of Lucifer's siblings wanted to shake hands with us, have a word, say hello. I was kissed by most of his sisters. Even Maze got a welcome. Well as I said from half of them. The other half left rather quickly."
"Same with Ella and, what's her name, Linda?"
"Yes. Ella could hug two dozen of angels. She was so excited. Anyway, Lucifer's dad and mom are now trying to find out how this Dahhak could reach Michael. But they admit, they have no idea what they are looking for."
Twenty minutes later Chloe left Monroe's office and went straight to Ella's lab. Dan was there with Ella and, opening the door, Chloe heard Ella say: "I can't tell you. You have to ask her yourself."
"You can't or you don't want?" Dan asked, his back to Chloe.
Ella looked up. "Don't want. Dan, I'm sorry. There is Chloe."
Dan looked over his shoulder, quickly came from his chair and almost tripped while he hurried to the other side of the table. "Hi."
"What's wrong?" Chloe asked.
"Nothing." Dan swallowed, looked at Ella. "I…"
"You want me to ask?" Ella asked.
Dan shrugged, looked down, but didn't speak.
"Ok. Where do I start? You remember you had a tracing app on your phone when you were married?"
Chloe nodded. "If anything would go wrong during a case, we could find each other."
"You realize you never turned it off?"
"No…" Chloe frowned. "I never used the app since Dan moved out of our house. Wait! Are you telling me…"
"Dan checks it sometimes," Ella said.
"You're spying on me?" Chloe raised her voice.
"Chlo', please," Dan said. "Only to make sure you're safe. Lucifer is charming and I'm grateful he helped me and Trixie seems to like him and he helps you. But we don't know anything of his background. We have no idea what connections he has. I just check whether you're safe."
"I don't believe this. It's not your business where I go in the evenings."
"The point," Ella said. "At the end of the Bert Halleman case, Dan noticed you were in LA, then your phone was not reachable for half an hour, then you were in Germany, then not reachable again and then at noon you suddenly were in the penthouse."
Chloe hold her breath for a few second. "Well… What did you tell Dan?"
"I said it could be a bug in the software of the provider." Ella sighed and shook her head. "But Dan had called our mister Kurt Friesinger."
"You were there!" Dan almost shouted. "You were in Germany and in less than an hour you were back in LA. And yesterday you were in the precinct and seconds later you were in Mar Vista and then your phone disappeared for hours, but the app says it was all the time powered up and searching for a network."
Chloe looked at Ella. Ella shrugged and said: "About Mar Vista and yesterday he had not even told me."
"Chlo', what is going on?"
Well, you're spying on me, she could shout back, that's going on. It might end the conversation for this moment, but it wouldn't make Dan less anxious. She could not think of any explanation that Dan would believe and at the same moment avoid all celestial stuff.
"I…" Chloe shook her head. "I don't know what I'm allowed to say, Dan." She saw Ella folding her hands and closing her eyes.
"Are you now praying?" Confusion sounded in Dan's voice. "You think our Lord will explain for you?"
Ella's phone pinged. She read the message and shook her head. "I didn't ask God for help. Dan. I prayed to the devil to ask for his input." She turned her phone to Chloe.
':devil-emoji: is ok if :detective-emoji: and :scietist-emoji: tell the :shower-emoji:. Let :detective-emoji: decide what is :thumb up: ' Chloe pursed her lips together, but admitted that he typed more words than emoji's. So it was her play.
"You won't believe us, anyway," she said.
"Try me," Dan snapped.
"Yesterday evening we were in heaven. Ella, Azrael, I, Lucifer, a few more. They don't have a network there."
"Please don't give me that bullshit."
"You saw me praying. To Lucifer," Ella said.
"O, yeah," Dan scoffed. "And he can hear your prayers, because he is the devil."
Ella showed him her phone. "If not, why would Lucifer send this message?"
Dan stared at the text, breathing heavily.
"He flew Chloe to Germany," Ella gave Dan a hug and then continued: "Angel wings, biologically he is an angel. Dan, you have believe us, there is no other explanation."
Dan crossed himself. "This is not serious. It can't be. God and the devil don't exist."
"I always thought the same," Chloe said. "But they do. Well, you said you didn't know his background. Now you know."
"And Lucifer is the devil?" He crossed himself again, stepping backward until he bounced against the wall. "How can one work with the devil!"
"I can," Chloe and Ella both said. Dan was shaking his head when the door of the lab opened and Maze and Raziel came in.
"Another bounty brought in, Decker," Maze said loudly. "We invite you and Ellen for a girl's night with the tribe."
"Together with Ray-ray and Linda of course," Raziel added. Both the demon and the angel suddenly noticed Dan.
"You look sick," Maze said. "Or frightened."
"And then she should be a demon," Dan whispered.
"Ah!" Maze understood. "Revelation time? How did you find out?"
"Words," Dan snapped. "Only words. Lunatics. Cos-players. Delusional fools. No proof., no proof for anything."
"I recognize," Raziel said softly to Maze. "He is in the stage of having no other explanation but not wanting to accept the truth."
"He needs proof," Maze whispered back. "He can get proof." The left half of Maze' face turned into rotten flesh, the lips almost gone, a white eye without pupil and the skull visible around it, muscles and white tendons without skin over them.
Dan reached for his gun, but Maze was much faster. She made the steps towards him and pulled the weapon out of his fingers before he could aim at her. The demoness stepped back and handed Chloe the gun. Her face changed back to the beautiful human face she normally showed on Earth.
"And I am an angel," Raziel said. "But I better not show my wings with all the windows around."
"God welcomed Maze as his daughter-in-law," Ella said. "So relax, Dan."
"And you know," Dan hissed. Most likely he meant Chloe, although he kept his eyes on Maze.
"Lieutenant Monroe knows," Chloe said. Dan now looked eyes wide open at her.
"That Lucifer is the devil, I mean. And my mother knows," Chloe continued.
"Penelope? She let her daughter date the devil?"
"Linda knows, Trixie knows," Chloe finished her list.
"And father Frank," Ella said. "That priest we know from the Spider case. You met him at the diner in Sol Javier."
Dan sank in a chair, face in his hands. "Trixie…"
"Has seen my demon face," Maze said. "And thinks it's so cool."
At that moment the door opened and an officer held up a file. "Detective Decker?"
"Yes," Chloe said.
"A case. A man found dead in his house. Can you take it?"
"Yes. Of course," Chloe said.
"That's our cue to leave," Raziel said.
While the demon and the angel left, Chloe examined Dan's face. "Can you come with us?"
"Lucifer," Dan winced.
"Is in the Lux, where he has a business to run. He is meeting with some suppliers. But I will text him and no doubt he will come to help."
"Come, Dan," Ella said. "What has changed? Lucifer will make jokes just as he did last week."
"Why is he here?" Dan asked during the ride to the crime scene.
"For fun, pleasure, whisky, sex, good food. Anything that he can enjoy," Chloe answered. She was driving, Dan was in the passenger's seat, Ella on a seat in the back.
"He wants to take your soul to hell. He is after Trixie's soul."
"Lucifer and I have been in hell three times already."
"What?" Dan grabbed around, to the dashboard, to the door, to the middle console.
"How do you think we solved the Nicolas Sands case so quick. Lucifer flew me down. We interviewed Nicolas' soul and he told us Ray Codfree, head of HR shot him. We came back to Earth and only had to let Ray talk."
"He took you to hell?"
"I decided we visited hell, not Lucifer. And yesterday evening we visited heaven together," Chloe said. She chose not to mention it was not Lucifer's decision to visit heaven.
"The devil can't go to heaven," Dan sputtered. "I learned that at Sunday school."
"God lifted that ban last week," Ella said. "Chloe and I both were there and he called us his daughters-in-law."
Dan swallowed and breathed heavily.
"Hey," Chloe said. "See it as you were right. You said Lucifer might have connections in the underworld. Well, he has. As you predicted."
When Chloe parked at the crime scene no black Corvette model 62 was in sight. She noticed Dan relaxed. They ducked under the yellow tape and found officer Cacuzza with the victim, who wasban attractive young woman. "Victim is Sonia Wallace, twenty-nine, head wounds, attacked with some blunt instrument. She was found by a neighbor who heard a struggle and came to look."
Chloe looked around. "Where is the neighbor?"
Before Cacuzza could answer, Dan went down on one knee and said: "That is Sonia."
Cacuzza raised her eyebrows. "That's correct, detective Espinoza. Sonia Wallace, I just told you."
"I know her from the fitness center," Dan said, looking at Chloe. "See her there at least once a week."
"You never mentioned her name," Chloe said.
"I never spoke with her," Dan said.
"You just look at her while she is exercising," Ella said with a grin.
Chloe noticed Dan's cheeks colored, shrugged. "Cacuzza, where is the neighbor?"
"Next door, her own home. Trying to calm down."
Chloe went with Dan to get the neighbor's statement, while Ella inspected Sonia's wounds. The neighbor had heard screams, banging and voices. "… but I don't know whether it was a man or a woman…"
"And you waited how long before taking a look?" Dan asked.
"The struggle was yesterday evening. It is none of my business, so I stayed home. But this morning Sonia didn't go for her run. She always run before breakfast, so I went to take a look and I saw Sonia on the floor."
The neighbor hadn't seen the murderer and she hadn't notice any unknown car in front of the house, so in the end Chloe and Dan went back.
They reached the crime scene again at the same moment as a black Corvette parked only a few yards from the yellow tape.
"Shit, no," Dan whispered. He did take a step back while Chloe got a kiss on the cheek from Lucifer.
"Sorry I'm late, detective," Lucifer said. "I tried to finish the meeting as soon as possible. Morning, Daniel."
Dan avoided his eyes, didn't answer, didn't move. Lucifer shrugged, turned his back to him and held up the yellow tape for Chloe.
Ella saw them coming, raised to her feet and grinned. She hold out a hand to stop them. "Stop, hammer time," she shouted and made some dance moves.
"Hammer time?" Chloe asked.
"Ah, come on. You must recognize hammer time from MC Hammer? Because she is killed with a hammer. I've been waiting for years to do this one."
I don't remember, Chloe thought, but before she could say it, Lucifer smiled and stepped beside Ella. "What are the moves?" Ella made them slowly again, Lucifer followed and a minute later the two were laughing and imitating the dance from Hammer time.
Dan had slowly come to Chloe. "What? Chlo' he is the devil. He is supposed to be… evil. He…."
"Is just having fun together with Ella. He is the same Lucifer that you know for a year. Guys! You're really great, but can we go on? Ella what did you find?"
"He is just a big child," Dan muttered behind her, while Ella stopped dancing and knelt next to the victim.
"There has been a struggle, she has brushes on the hands, arms, in the face and she is strangled."
"Strangled to death?" Lucifer asked.
"No. But I guess she was unconscious. She was raped and then hit several times on the head with a hammer. But her murderer knew what he was doing. I guess he was wearing gloves and used a condom. Also I can't find anything as a hair or so."
"A rapist using a condom?" Chloe mused. "Gloves. He must have this planned. How did he came in?"
"No signs of breaking into the house. She must have opened the door for him."
"What's her name?" Lucifer asked.
"Oh." Chloe realized he was not here when they first came in and gave him an update.
"So you liked the view of her, Daniel?" Lucifer said and grinned.
"Look at yourself," Dan snapped. "You're having ten different women each week."
"I'm with one single detective for months now, Daniel. And that will not change."
For the first time this morning the two men looked at each other. It was Dan who shrugged and looked away. "Sonia was pretty to watch. We often did."
"We?" Chloe asked.
"Me and just who was there of my buddies. With two or three we just watched as she exercised."
Chloe looked at Ella, who grinned and at Lucifer who smiled.
"No phone," Ella added.
"Most likely taken by the murderer."
"Which might indicate they knew each other and he doesn't want us to see call history or messages," Lucifer said.
After lunch they reviewed the case so far in the precinct. "No DNA at all," Ella said. "This guy knew what he was doing."
"No phone as you already knew, but also no laptop or tablet," Dan reported. "But I have an overview of relatives."
"I just got a list of all phone calls she made and with who she exchanged text messages," Lucifer said.
"How?" Dan started. Then he swallowed and looked away.
Chloe realized what Dan wanted to say: getting that officially from the telco provider would take days. "Lucifer called someone within the telco who owned him a favor," she explained. She took the list from Lucifer. "She made a lot of calls with a Jenna Wallace."
"She has a sister called Jenna," Dan said. "Lives in Spokane, Washington. She is Sonia's closest relative. Her parents are deceased."
"Call her or go there?" Lucifer offered to Chloe.
"The LAPD will not pay for a trip to Spokane," Dan hissed.
"No," Chloe said, tapping Dan's arm. "But Lucifer is not talking about a trip by plane."
The devil's wings brought Chloe in less than thirty minutes from LA to Spokane. It took them a full hour to locate Jenna Wallace, who appeared to be working as sales woman in a shop.
"Sonia? No." Jenna looked eyes wide open at Chloe, face becoming several grades more pale.
Chloe showed a picture from the victim on her phone. Jenna looked and nodded. "My little sister. It must be that Hal. It is all your fault. The LAPD's fault."
"Please," Chloe said. "Who is Hal?"
"She told you every week what Hal did, but you never wanted to listen." Jenna was almost shouting.
"Jenna, dear." Lucifer knelt beside Jenna's chair. "We want to find this Hal." His charms worked on the woman. She calmed down, bowed her head and shivered.
"Hal," she whispered. "He did send Sophia pictures. Dirty pictures and he insisted she should send him selfies back. He said he wanted to see her naked body."
"And Sonia went to the police with this?" Lucifer said.
Jenna nodded.
"Did Hal ever call her? Or send text messages?"
Jenna shook her head. "Always social media. She changed her accounts several time and blocked his accounts, but he always found her back and contacted her from new accounts. Twice or three times a day. If Sonia changed her accounts it never lasted more than a day before he send to the new account."
"What did the police say?"
"That he never threatened her. He only asked politely and she should just ignore him. It was not enough to open a case, he said."
"Who is he?" Chloe asked.
"The detective of the LAPD who she spoke with."
"Do you know his name?"
"Graig. I never heard a last name."
Chloe had called Dan before leaving Spokane. Including avoiding to be seen while taking off and landing it took more than an hour to fly back and it was past six when they were back in LA. Chloe's phone pinged. It was a message from Dan. "Home with Trix. Need to inform you on the case immediate."
"Let's go there," she said to Lucifer.
"He didn't invite me," Lucifer hesitated.
"He has something case related, so I invite you."
Lucifer had never been to Dan's apartment and he lingered a few steps behind when Chloe rang the bell. Dan answered the door, saw Lucifer and froze. Before Chloe could speak, Trixie came, first shouting "mommy", giving her a quick hug and than shouting even louder: "Lucifer!" The girl launched herself into him and took him in a bear hug.
Dan stared at the scene then turned to Chloe. "Does he has to come?"
"You have information about the case and Lucifer is my consultant."
"He is the devil."
"He is my boyfriend."
Dan nodded, avoiding looking at her and let them in. Chloe had been here before and, looking around, noticed it looked more as a man-alone-household then last time. Dan didn't ask them to sit, but Trixie jumped on the sofa and pulled Lucifer with her.
"That Graig is detective Graig Norton. Sonia opened multiple cases against Hal on the web. Graig dealt with all of them. All remote on the phone, he called Sonia each time she opened a case and each time closed the case after one or two calls."
"Ok?" Chloe waited for more, this couldn't be enough for Dan to ask her to come.
"Graig Norton is also one of my buddies at the fitness center. We looked together at Sonia many times. He never mentioned a case or that Hal. He never talked to Sonia or introduced himself to her, but he whispered a thousand times that was a woman he would like to know better."
"If…" Chloe slowly nodded. If Graig would like to know her better, he only had to follow up on a case, no matter it had no change of finding that Hal. "Why didn't he talk to her?"
"Indeed who not? I thought it was strange," Dan agreed.
"You think he helps Hal?" Trixie interrupted them. "Maybe Hal is his brother and he knows Hal is bullying Sonia."
Chloe looked at her daughter. Trixie should not have heard this… but it was worth looking at the option she had brought up. "We will talk with detective Norton tomorrow," she decided.
"You can't interrogate a colleague," Dan warned. "Not without more evidence."
"We will not interrogate him," Chloe said. "We just will ask his opinion on the victim, since he had contact with her in previous cases."
"And then I will use my mojo," Lucifer added, beaming a smile at Dan.
Before Dan could react, a vague shadow appeared in the room, quickly grower more dark. Within a second the darkness contracted and a woman stood in the room. It was Rymane, her skin white as paper, her hair pale red. The same long black robe with a deep cleavage that she was wearing when Chloe met her first time in hell. The bottom half of her face with wounds, cuts, blood and ulcers with pus dripping out. The demoness held her hand up, a spinning coin was hovering two inches above her hand.
Dan screamed. Rymane gave him a short glance and her face changed to the all human, miss Universe version. Then she turned to Lucifer. "My king, I sensed something strange in hell. Something that frightens me."
