Sorry - Spring Break kept me from writing much.
In the Cecil
Lucifer sat in a creaky old hotel chair with his back to the shadows, tattered drapes on windows of the drab little room letting in little of the city lights and full Moon. Through half-closed eyes he watched the shabby figure of Gabriel crouched in the opposite corner, the young man's eyes traveling between the door and the Devil. For a moment the Devil allowed himself to remember the various women he had enjoyed over the years then shrugged, not finding the face of the boy's mother in his memories. He couldn't smell the angelic in the boy's blood so he probably was not Nephilim, just a lost soul turned into the target for his mother's guilt at "living a wild life". "Not nervous are you?" Lucifer purred. "You're only alone in the room with the Devil. I'm sure your mentor Father Kinley told you all sorts of ugly little ways to protect yourself from me – like that little bottle I see you've tucked into your coat. Holy water, is it?" Lucifer snorted in amusement. "Last time Holy Water was effective for anything was in a bad Hammer studios movie."
Gabriel frowned. "It's supposed to be sanctified by the Church – something you can't abide."
Lucifer smiled. "I wouldn't take those old wives tales too seriously if I were you. The Bible and all other holy books were written by men long after any of the events. They did tend to twist the truth a tad to make themselves look better – especially the Church. Holy Water is nothing more than plain tap water no matter how many prayers you say over it. I've had it poured over me by the bucket loads and yet – I'm still here."
Gabriel stared at the door for a moment, then laid the bottle on the floor beside him. "What about a gun?" he asked, fingering the Saturday night special he had stolen from his uncle's desk. "Would that hurt you?"
Lucifer shrugged. "Probably not – but once all is said and done we can certainly try it out. Ah! Here are the ladies at last!" He rose from his chair as the door opened and three women hurriedly entered with Bertha Bradley leading the way. "So glad you could join us."
"Us?" Regina asked, her eyes not yet accustomed to the dim lighting in the room. She gasped as Gabriel rose, revealing himself to the group. "What is he doing here?"
"It's been a while, Regina" Gabriel said quietly. "I have been meaning to ask you if you ever mailed my last paycheck to Uncle Don's house or if you just pocketed it like you did others."
Regina backed up a step, bumping into Bertha as she did so. Bertha snarled and pushed her away, eyes moving angrily between the dark figure near the window and the shabby shape of her husband's insane nephew. "Why is he here?"
Lucifer waved a hand languidly in the man's direction. "I thought he might have an interest in finding out what all was really going on. He was, after all, in the middle of much of what we're about to discuss. Gabriel, be a dear and set up those chairs I had the cleaning staff bring up for our guests. They might as well be comfortable while we wait for our other guests."
"Other guests?" Candice squeaked, pulling away from Gabriel's tattered figure as he silently set up chairs in the middle of the room.
"What other guests?" She and her companions dropped into their chairs with a thud, all eyes still on the dark figure of Lucifer beside the window.
A knock on the door caused the women to jerk around. "Entrez" Lucifer called out gaily. The door swung open to reveal the two tall, hulking forms waiting in the hall – Mad Dog Gibson and his companion Amenadiel. "About time you two got up here. Didn't see the Detective on your way up, did you?"
Amenadiel slid pass the old gang member with a sigh. "So you did arrange for her to be here then?" he asked hopefully.
"No" Lucifer admitted. "But I know it's in her nature to wonder when things don't add up. She hasn't heard from me in hours so I rather thought she might come looking to see what else I might have dug up. Pity – she might just have enjoyed the show."
"What show?" Bertha snarled. "Why exactly did you drag us up here? You said something about the deaths of James and John, something we would want to hear."
"Oh I didn't drag anyone" Lucifer purred. "That's not how I do things. I simply present the scenario and let you little talking monkeys do your worst. Like you, for instance, my dear Mrs. Bradley. Sparkling society matron, always making an effort to keep up your end of the business arrangement that you're your marriage. Not a care in the world. But, of course, you did have one. That bleeding sod of a husband you had tied yourself to, the one who was banging anything in a skirt but holding the idea of losing access to all that wealth and prestige if you even looked sideways at another man. Why else would you be making all these plans to rid yourself of that rich oaf of a husband and using your fellow sorority members to help you. Such a banal plan but it really might have worked – if Annalise hadn't gone and disappeared on you." He smiled and held up a restraining hand as Bertha began to sputter. "Please – don't bother to deny it. Gabriel here has been very busy with his little camera and taken all many of lovely photos of you and the late unfortunate Mr. Milton doing the horizontal tango in your husband's bed. And, of course, there are all the little conversations you and your mates here have been having once Donny boy was out of the house. All very entertaining – am I right Gabriel?"
"I found the pre-nup he had you sign" Gabriel said quietly, choosing to stand on the other side of the window from Lucifer where he could easily watch the room. "It was in his desk. And I heard him talking to his lawyer about what needed to happen to make you disappear from his life." He nodded at the figure beside him. "He's right about the conversations I've been hearing around the house. That last set between the three of you where you started discussing ways to save your plan from disaster was fascinating."
"I KNEW you were snooping around" Berth snarled. "I never wanted you around the house, looking into every drawer for something to hold over our heads. Almost as bad as having to have that little wretch of a charity case the Sorority admitted in the name of diversity working all my well planned out society affairs just she could see and be seen. She, at least, turned out to be useful. I knew my husband wouldn't be able to resist her and…"
"And so your plan began to take shape when you noticed Don's interest in your young sobriety sister?" Lucifer continued, leaning on the wall behind him. "What else did you see or hear Gabriel? Something about the plot to a film noir about a mistreated wife and mistress scheming together to get rid of the lout that was abusing them both?"
Gabriel shrugged. "First conversation I hear between these three after I had arrived. I didn't understand what they were on about until I caught the movie on some streaming service in uncle's study. In the movie the Plan was they would kill the husband and split everything in half – only one of them was actually planning on turning on the other and using them to through the police off her scent."
"Devious – I love it!" Lucifer said happily. "I'm going to assume the mistress morphed into Annalise with the thought that Donny boy's reputation for liking his lovers young and impressionable would make it easier to sell the story. And, of course, Bertha would play the character from the script who pretended to help with the act only to later turn on her accomplice" He smiled at Amenadiel, who had stepped closer to Gibson to keep him from advancing on the women in front of him. "Then, of course, things started to go wrong. Annalise disappeared. One wonders if she or Donny boy might have caught wind of your little plans. Or did they just grow tired of waiting? How did your husband gum up the works Candice? Did he grow too insistent on finding Annalise when vanished? You hadn't expected him to be so worried – or had you? Was jealousy the reason your brother killed your husband for you? Because you suspected his worry for his little friend was more than he was presenting it as?"
"McIntyre wasn't having an affair with Annalise" Gabriel said quietly. "I followed them around constantly once I knew they were poking into the history of the hotel – waiting to see if they actually found a reason for Cecil's bad luck. That was why I came here in the first place – to find out what effect the Cecil had on people that they died or killed because they were in its rooms. Uncle Don got me a job here thinking to get me out of his house so he wouldn't have to deal with me. That was fine – I met Annalise and then John when they were working on their podcast and at first it was fine. They were just friends – but it was pretty apparent that Annalise had been taken in by Uncle Don and his money. I tried to warn her that her indiscretions would make the hotel turn on her but neither she nor John believed me. Then she disappeared and he got scared. Afraid that whatever evil inhabited this place had dragged her down like it had the others."
Lucifer snorted rudely. "The only evil that inhabits this hotel is from the minds of the men and women who make use of it. It's no worse than any other supposedly haunted house or complex anywhere in the world. People screw up and blame the environment or the Devil for the outcome. Usually the Devil though frankly it annoys me no end to be blamed for the idiocy of mankind."
Gabriel shrugged. "Looking at these three harridans I'm kind of seeing your point."
Amenadiel cleared his throat. "So this Milton character killed the first victim – McIntyre?"
Gabriel nodded. "Yes – one of the homeless druggies that live around the corner told me what he saw. They trusted me, sort of, because I was one of them. He saw them arguing in the alley. Candice's brother pulled a gun and fired before his brother-in-law could stop him. Though I suspect that was more at Bertha's suggestion than at any fear of him making a fuss about Annalise's disappearance."
"Another "chat" you listened into?" Lucifer said sympathetically.
"Not exactly" Gabriel admitted. "I just heard her comment on how John would ruin everything if he found Annalise before she had dealt with her husband problem. I'm guessing Milton decided the best way to solve her problem was to end his sister's husband. Not like he liked the guy or anything. He was just a means to an end to Milton – a way to get access to lots and lots of money."
Amenadiel looked between the tattered figure of Gabriel and the well-dressed form of his brother Lucifer with a frown. The boy was doing a very good imitation of the Devil, down to the way he stood and the tone of his voice. He was sure the boy was human but still – it wasn't a good thing to have someone too precariously on the edge of sanity mimicking the Devil so closely. "Fine – to Milton killed John McIntyre. So who killed Milton? And who killed that poor drug-addled kid who supplied the police with all that information that flash-drive we found in this room?"
"Yes – who indeed?" Lucifer mused, eyeing his "guests" thoughtfully. "Who indeed?"
