Pescador de Hombres: Fisher of Men.
Amenadiel's head was pounding. His vision was blurry, his limbs heavy.
The woman, Grisela, was quietly working at a metal table across the room from him. He couldn't see her hands, but he could hear the sound of liquid pouring into a container. When she turned, she held a red plastic cup. The color was so bright he squinted. It hurt his eyes.
He could hear Lucifer scolding him even now, the voice in his head calling him a series of demeaning names for daring to trust this stranger so easily. He hadn't hesitated a moment, believed every word she said, believed the pain and fear she presented. Now all emotional indicators were gone. She regarded him with a blank expression, not even coldly detached. Simply blank. Her eyes were dull, her shoulders down. Almost as though no one inhabited the body.
Useless, Lucifer's voice hissed into his head. Colossally naïve. Ignorant lout.
Amenadiel sighed and shifted his weight. The chains binding his wrists and arms were latched to the seat between his knees, holding him relatively still. Lucifer's voice scoffed in his head.
Even the phantom version of his prickly younger brother couldn't let a chance for criticism go unwasted. Worse, his headache made him agree with that voice. He'd spent his entire life being both invulnerable and God's greatest warrior, a force to be obeyed without question. He'd rarely interacted with humans outside of dragging Lucifer away from them until only the past few years. He'd never learned caution as Lucifer had; he plowed ahead, a bullheaded wall, believing himself the personification of right.
Once, he had been. Now, he wasn't certain how long it would take for the lights to stop whirling in slow, starry patterns across his vision.
Lucifer, he thought with purpose, I could use a hand.
Prayer hopefully begun, he focused on the woman who called herself Grisela. She had paused directly in front of him, holding that painfully red cup, and seemed to be waiting for him to meet her eyes before offering the drink.
"Is it water?" he asked. She nodded and pressed the flimsy lip against his mouth. He sipped carefully, then greedily, unwilling to waste this opportunity. He might not be offered water again for days.
I don't know where I am, but I'm chained to a chair.
The prayer continued as he divided his attention, relaying as much information as he could to a hopefully listening Devil.
"Thank you," he said when he'd managed his fill of the water. She lowered the cup and turned to walk back to the table. He noticed that a white pitcher was the only adornment, joined by the red cup and her hands in another moment as she leaned against the table. There was a long, painful pause as she gathered something within. He watched her shoulders twitch, her upper arms tense. The muscles were wiry there, now that he was sizing her up as a threat; he was reminded of Remiel.
I was led into a trap and they have me restrained. Lucifer hadn't replied yet or shown up, which could mean he was ignoring Amenadiel's call for help. There was one sure way to make sure that Lucifer reacted to the message, if he was receiving it.
I'm hurt, Amenadiel said. I can't fight them.
"I am sorry," the woman said. Her accent sounded similar to before, but not enough that he would have recognized her voice without seeing her. Amenadiel shoved thoughts of how much had been real aside; he knew acting. He'd done improv with Dan, watched countless movies, been raised by God and Goddess. He understood that this woman had lied to him, but there had been truth there, too. He wanted to know how much, and he might never get another chance to ask.
Instead of responding to her apology, he asked the question he most wanted the answer to.
"There really was a sister, wasn't there?"
Not quite, but there was someone. Her shoulders hunched too quickly for it to be a complete lie. She turned and met his eyes, that same blankness haunting her gaze.
"No," she said. He shifted in his chair; the metal links rattled. No response from Lucifer. Either he hadn't received the prayer, or he wasn't listening. Amenadiel began repeating the message, hopeful that just one prayer would make it through.
"What's your name?" he asked the woman. Amenadiel assumed it wasn't Grisela. By her sudden thoughtfulness, he knew he was right. Still, she thought longer than expected. When she finally spoke, his heart sank with pity.
"I don't remember," she said. She started to say more, then stopped herself with a sharp intake of breath. She hadn't meant to say even that much, it seemed. Amenadiel had a choice: press forward or fall back.
He could only ever be who he was.
"I'm sorry to hear that," he said with real sympathy. "Is 'Gris' alright then?"
She seemed at a loss for words. He wondered if she'd ever had a conversation like this with a previous victim.
"I'll call you 'Gris' until you tell me a different name," he said. He smiled as he said it, making himself as real as possible. She was troubled by whatever was happening to him, and he didn't want to lose whatever advantage this might give him.
The door to this small room opened, and Gris stepped to the side to give the newcomer space. Whoever he was, he took stock of the entire scene in a single moment: the pitcher, the red cup with droplets on the inside, and Gris looking ever so slightly wary of his approach.
"Ándate," he snapped at her. She left the room without glancing in Amenadiel's direction. The man scowled at the water. Apparently, she wasn't supposed to give him any.
"La Tunda has a soft spot for you," the man said with amusement. His accent was closer to Gris' current version; perhaps they came from the same land. "Qué lástima."
Amenadiel didn't have Lucifer's gift for human languages, but the man's mocking tone was obvious enough. She was in trouble, and he'd said he'd protect her. Trick or not, he would follow through as best he could. It was, as ever, who he was.
"Why do you call her that?" He didn't try to pronounce the name. The man chuckled anyway, shaking his head.
"Don't feel bad," he said. "She's the – ah, lo que usan pescadores…ah, lure. The lure."
"The lure for what?" Amenadiel shifted again, purposefully drawing attention to the chains. The man clearly enjoyed feeling superior, powerful. Amenadial would oblige him to get as much information as he could.
"You," the man said with good humor. His eyes were shining with mirth. He was enjoying whatever this was. "And she's good at it, you know? She changes forms, changes names, talks to people, pulls them in. La Tunda."
The last part was said with finality. Not a name, then, but a title. Amenadiel understood titles, too. Lucifer had once been the Lightbringer, and had chosen two of his other titles for his name now. Titles had power to them. They provided identity, purpose, even function.
Amenadiel pressed this new title deep into his thoughts to remember for later research. He didn't consider that he might never escape this place.
"What about you?" Amenadiel watched the man pour more water into the red cup, then begin sipping it himself. The action was possibly meant to taunt a prisoner, but Gris' kindness meant that Amenadiel was spared that torture for now. The man's eyes flickered to him in annoyance. He stepped closer, holding the cup in one hand, looking like a friend coming to chat about last night's episode of some popular show.
"Me?" His voice was still amused. "I'm the bridle. You know? She needs someone to guide her."
The amusement was mixed with something darker, colder. He winked one dark eye at Amenadiel, who felt a slight chill slither down his spine. There was something unsavory implicated here. This man set his nerves alight with the instinct to attack him.
"Guide her?" Amenadiel regretted asking the question as he watched the man's face twist into an amused leer.
"Never kiss and tell, my friend. Now. You'll be here for a while. Comfortable, eh?" He gestured the cup at Amenadiel's chains. "Only the best for the guest of honor."
"Why am I here?" Amenadiel wanted to take as much advantage as he could of the man's apparent chatty nature. The more information he gathered, the more he tried to communicate with Lucifer in his head. He had yet to receive a reply. He didn't dwell.
"Ah, to die," the man said cheerfully. "Well, to be killed. It's a very specific request, no?"
The former angel considered this declaration. He'd been lured here by Gris, who this man claimed was a killer. Whoever wanted him dead didn't want her to kill him. They wanted to do it themselves.
Amenadiel often had sudden realizations dawn upon him. Despite Lucifer's insistence that he was "as useful as a box of rocks," he had a canny intelligence for picking up on small clues and extrapolating from them. Now, he was presented with the knowledge that someone wanted him dead, and they wanted to kill him personally.
He immediately knew who had done this. It was a sudden, snapping knowledge that made him sigh slightly. Like many of his revelations, he didn't have all of the evidence; instead, he had a certainty, a fierce instinct which insisted he was right.
Cain. Cain had done this. He knew Cain was the Sinnerman; Lucifer had told him. And Cain had already tried to kill him several times. He'd only lost because Amenadiel was more skilled at combat and didn't care to repeatedly kill a human who wouldn't stay dead.
Cain had lost his mark through a show of selflessness. He had claimed to want death, but after living for so long he might be regretting the change. Perhaps this was some kind of effort to regain God's judgement. He'd received the mark the first time for killing his own brother. Perhaps killing God's first and favored son would earn him that same ire.
The logic was so clear, and so very damaged. Amenadiel felt a swelling of pity for the man, which he'd certainly never felt in the past for any action taken at God's command. His Fall had changed him tremendously, giving him the opportunity to see the consequences of his unquestioning actions. Cain's misery in the face of hopeless centuries hadn't bothered him until this moment – it was Lucifer's ingrained inability to accept that Amenadiel wanted to help him which impacted him most.
His younger brother tolerated him, even seemed to like him some of the time – but he couldn't trust Amenadiel. His instant snarling anger when Amenadiel pressed on even the slightest wound was evidence enough of that. He'd never called upon his elder brother for help in the many instances when Lucifer could have used his support. He would rather suffer than ask Amenadiel for help. He perhaps couldn't imagine that Amenadiel would want to help.
It hurt to know that their relationship might never recover. It hurt the same way that remembering Lucifer's expression when Amenadiel forced him back to Hell in the middle of a joyous occasion hurt.
He'd gotten lost in his thoughts. He glanced at the man and that red plastic cup; the man was watching him with that same jovial smile.
"Pondering death, hm?" he said. "You can pray, if you want. Call out to God for help. He'll come, I'm sure."
Taunting, smirking, and cruel. The man was enjoying this, had likely enjoyed this many times before. Amenadiel wanted badly to lunge from his chair and attack. Instead, he continued his praying in the hopes that Lucifer might hear him.
Luci, I could use a hand…
Mazikeen's anger rode two distinct waves: either she'd been recently betrayed by someone, or she'd recently spoken to Lucifer.
Over the past few weeks, her temper rode both waves in equal measure. When she'd thought Lucifer might express something other than selfish need for her presence, then dashed her hopes, she fumed. When Chloe scolded her for some arbitrary human rule Maze had no way to know about, she scowled. When Linda and Amenadiel betrayed her trust, she raged. When Trixie burst into tears…
Maze snarled and punched the wall behind her with a closed fist.
This was Lucifer's fault. He should have taken her home when she asked. He should have understood she didn't belong here. Hell was home; Hell made sense. She expected backstabbing and selfishness from her demon siblings. She anticipated it, even reveled in it, and participated in it herself. She'd never felt one moment of the emotion she'd felt when she turned and saw Trixie's scrunched-up nose, the hurt in her expression. The little human had turned and ran, Dan following after her, and Maze left as quickly as she could.
She was hurting every human she'd gathered into her small, rabidly protective circle. She was pushing them as far away as she could, trying to force Lucifer's hand. He'd take her home once he realized she was hurting all of their small circle of friends. He'd give in and open those pretty wings and fly her down where she would stay forever.
Linda's voice echoed through her memories. What Amenadiel and I found was completely unexpected, but 100% real, Linda had said, and Maze felt a wall of guilt and self-loathing crash over her again as she was reminded of something she could never have, something she'd stolen from her supposed best friend. Linda was awesome; Linda put up with her beyond reason. Linda was kind and could die any day, from any human malady, and the worry which choked Mazikeen's throat when she thought of the many years she'd live without Linda in her life sometimes made her see stars.
So human, and weak.
Hell was home. It always made sense because it made no sense at all. She would be better off, and so would everyone else.
Trixie hadn't sent a single text since that day. No emoticons, no silly memes about violence. No requests to come and glare at a certain teacher through a window. Nothing.
Maze didn't need them. She'd lived millions of years alone, and she would live millions more. This was fine. Everything was fine.
Trixie's little face, which she so adored, crushed and crying. The demon swallowed hard.
This was an easy fix. If Lucifer wouldn't fly her home, and Chloe wouldn't arrest her and lock her away for a human lifespan, she would leave. Maze had places to go; she'd accrued a network over time, taken homes from her bounties. She sometimes slept in the open, but not often; she preferred drug dens when she could find a spot to hunker down in. The smell, the suffering – it all reminded her of home. A place she might never see again, but found small spots of here on Earth.
Her phone trilled. She looked at the screen and saw Charlotte's face glaring back at her. It wasn't Charlotte in this picture; Maze had taken a picture of Goddess and never bothered to change the photo once Charlotte regained her body.
She was sometimes mildly annoyed that Lucifer had banned demons from entering the bodies of the damned while humans were apparently just fine to crawl back up from Hell. Sliding into a fresh corpse and rising from the ground to chase their screaming loved ones had led to a series of hilarious games over the years.
Pleasant memories. She pushed them aside and answered the call.
"Yeah?"
She never identified herself.
"Maze," Charlotte said. She sounded worried. Maze felt a sigh brewing in her throat, and let it loose.
"What?" she said. Her annoyance was barely contained. Charlotte didn't appear to notice.
"Have you talked to Amenadiel?" Charlotte said. Maze tightened her fingers around the phone, cracking the screen. A small shard of glass tried to embed itself in her cheek. She scoffed.
"No." She didn't bother hiding her anger. The phone was barely holding on.
"Have you seen him? Any contact at all?"
Charlotte sounded worried, which made Maze smirk. Maybe her ex-lover was having an affair with Charlotte. Wouldn't Linda just love that? Maze sure would.
"No," she said again, propping one foot up against the wall behind her. She couldn't bring herself to care beyond a single syllable at a time.
Charlotte made a sound, and Maze found herself tensing up. She'd heard that sound from Linda, Chloe, Dan, even Amenadiel at times. Chloe and Dan made it when they worried about Trixie; Linda made it when she worried about any of her friends. Even Amenadiel made it sometimes when he worried about Lucifer's reckless tendencies.
It was a sound humans made when they were afraid someone was hurt and didn't want to show it. Maze perked up.
"Why?" Her interest pitched her voice. "Do you think he's hurt?"
And oh, wouldn't that be fantastic. She could drag his sorry carcass to Linda's doorstep, ring the doorbell, and yell surprise! when her former best friend opened the door. The look on Linda's face –
"If you hear from him could you let me know?" Charlotte wasn't trying to hide her worry anymore and made sounds like she was about to hang up. Maze called out to her, trying to get her attention back. The lawyer paused.
"You want me to find him?" Maze could do that, for the right price.
"Yes," Charlotte said, her voice abruptly firm. This wasn't Charlotte, Worried Friend; this was Charlotte, Badass Lawyer. "How soon can you start?"
"For you?" Maze grinned and traced a finger against a demon blade. "As soon as you promise to pay my fee."
"Right," Charlotte said, and the deal was done.
"I'll call when I find him," Maze said. She hung up and slid the broken phone into her pants, pushing off the wall in the same movement.
Time to find an ex-angel asshole.
"Hey boss." The voice was tinny; the phones weren't high quality.
"Well?" Cain wasn't one to fraternize, and neither were his forces. They were all trained to do their assignments without complaint, and report back without excessive descriptors. Now, the man on the other end of the line reported in efficient, short sentences.
"She met him for dinner," he said. "They spoke. They're leaving now."
Cain hadn't expected that. They both were critically incapable of opening up to each other. Had she decided Lucifer was just a man? She'd maintained a strong sense of denial for so long that she might not be able to adjust her thinking. He'd given her as much as he could without revealing information he didn't want her to know. Now she was with Lucifer, as though nothing Marcus provided her meant anything at all.
Anger swelled slowly inside of him, a rising tide which washed through his entire body. He didn't see red or tense; his heart rate remained the same. This was an old anger, a familiar feeling of betrayal, of being found wanting. He'd grown accustomed to the feeling over the millennia, focusing his anger into his organization. He was powerful, and wealthy, and very, very dangerous, but he was now also just a mortal man.
His first instinct was always to eliminate. He'd never grown away from this impulse, instead following it where he needed to go to secure his own place in human society. He'd been born long before modern sensibilities, and his ethical code was flexible.
He needed an advantage. Right now he could die, but so could Lucifer. It was a matter of timing, and a sniper with good aim.
That wouldn't be satisfying, though. Cain's first murder was by hand, his fingers bloodied with his younger brother's cooling gore. He'd felt the weight of that blood for centuries after, wondering if his parents ever forgave him, never feeling remorse for his actions. He'd been rejected by God Himself; he felt entitled to bitterness.
Now he was being rejected by the woman he loved in favor of God's worst son. The son so foul that he was cast down from Heaven into Hell itself. God had never second-guessed that decision. He'd never reached out or offered absolution. Cain suspected that Lucifer broke at some point, that he begged and pleaded for his Father's mercy. Cain had too, once upon a time.
But God never forgave those He cast out of His favor. Moses wasn't allowed into the promised land, Lucifer wasn't allowed into Heaven, and Cain wasn't allowed to die.
Until now.
For a shining, glorious moment, Cain thought he might have a reason to live. Chloe's love was so tender and pure, her emotions sweet and deep. She'd loved a bad man before, married him and had his child. Cain's hope flickered so brightly when she accepted his proposal; he could live with her, grow old with her, die and join her in Heaven. He could see his siblings, his parents, his children and their children's children. Most of his family waited above, and Chloe would be there too. In his dreams, it was perfect. It was absolutely divine.
And not a full day later, she changed her mind.
He hadn't let her say it yet. He'd done the only thing he could think to do: throw doubt on her relationship with the man he knew she was rejecting him for.
And yet.
The part of him that remembered God's rejection had known it was coming. He was always second-best; that was his true legacy. His identity began and ended in that moment when God looked upon two brothers' offerings and made a choice. Now he'd offered stability, familiarity, an overlap of personal interests. He'd offered sexual prowess and the occasional kind word. He'd brought cake to a child he hardly knew.
Cain's greatest disappointment in himself was allowing that flicker of hope to spark at all. He hadn't in thousands of years - why start now? He'd rejected the advances of thousands of women, uninterested in the pain knowing and connecting with them would inevitably cause. He'd tried, once, to marry again, and had loved as deeply as he could; yet his mark remained, she died, and now her tomb was overrun by new human development.
Never again, he'd sworn.
"Keep following her," he said.
"You want us to put someone on him too?"
Cain smirked. "Don't waste your time. Where she goes, he'll go."
Like an annoying, awful pet that didn't know its place. He'd tried a few ways to get rid of Lucifer. Now it was time for an old approach. Ancient, even.
Once he had his mark back, he'd face Lucifer head-on. He knew how to make the Devil heel.
Chloe would need to be there, and she might even see what happened, and a part of him – the ancient, hardened part which slithered through his innards and felt no remorse at the blood on his hands - wanted to watch the expression on her face as he beat her partner to death.
Ella rode down in Lucifer's elevator with him. They alternated between teasing each other and discussing their elusive case. Lucifer insisted he'd not been wearing a vest when he was shot. Ella considered her options, following him out from the doors into his garage.
Her car was sleek and clean, prompting Lucifer to lament the Detective's lack of automotive cleanliness. Nerves dashed across his expression as he spoke. Chloe's text, can we talk, had activated a full onslaught of masculine trepidation. Ella wondered if Chloe had used those specific words on purpose, giving Lucifer a taste of what it was like to worry and fret over someone else's intended meaning.
Ella would never tell him, but she respected Chloe for the move, a little.
She decided to show him a smidge of mercy.
"It'll be fine, buddy," she said to the taller man as he strode toward his Corvette. He didn't turn to look at her, but he did scoff.
"We shall see, Miss Lopez," he said. She flashed him two thumbs up, he smirked, and then he was in his car and gone. He'd assumed she'd leave right after him and was too distracted by Chloe's message to worry about why Ella might not be climbing into her own car already.
She counted to sixty, waiting to see if he returned. He didn't. She returned to the elevator, pressed the button for the penthouse, and rose into his empty quarters for a more thorough and less distracted investigation of her own.
She'd insisted for the past twenty-four hours that he not return here because of the inherent danger of returning to the scene of his own potential murder. Ella wasn't immune to fear that she herself might become a target if the mysterious Mariana made an appearance, but she was too curious and willing to take advantage of his absence to miss this opportunity to search the entire penthouse from top to bottom.
She divided the penthouse into segments, focusing first on his closet contents and bathroom before moving outward to the bedroom, the living area, the balcony, the kitchen, and the wall of books and his desk. She was methodical and precise, making a mental grid in her head which she overlayed across each section. She encountered the locked safe embedded behind the truly astonishing painting of a mermaid and filed the knowledge away for later. His bed was neatly made, his possessions neatly stored and categorized. The closet contents were color-coded. The Devil apparently liked order in his possessions, preferring to keep his actions chaotic instead.
Ella wondered if part of the attraction for Chloe was knowing that her house would be forever spotless and in order if Lucifer lived with her. Ella felt no attraction to Lucifer, finding the very idea a bit nauseating. He was a brother figure for her; she wanted him happy, and she hoped the conversation tonight went well enough that her own work-life balance could start to even out again. She missed the easy camaraderie from before Marcus Pierce became their lieutenant.
She drew her thoughts away from her infuriatingly stubborn friends and continued her search. Her thorough methods turned up every illicit substance he kept in the apartment, all organized and some even labeled and dated to note their age. Ella wondered idly if Lucifer had always been so fussy, or if something from his childhood made him this way. The man was a series of quirks strung together with desperation. She wouldn't be surprised if his parents had been hoarders.
She finished her full search in an hour and a half. She chewed her lip, considering, and started again. She figured that if Lucifer returned here tonight, she could scold him for coming back here and ignore his inevitable accusations of her own hypocrisy.
"I'm not the one who got shot," she'd say, and he'd scoff and huff and straighten his cuff-links in annoyance. Ella smiled. He was so predictable.
And unless he kept the vest in the safe she couldn't open, he really didn't have a bulletproof vest.
Ella chewed at her bottom lip, considering. She was a scientist, yes, and a damn good one; but she was also a fervent Catholic. She believed. She was best friends with a ghost. And despite her unwavering claims that Lucifer was a method actor, she sometimes couldn't help a twinge of maybe.
The trail was short and easy to follow: Lucifer was incredibly strong, although she'd not personally seen any of his more incredible feats of strength. He was apparently magnetic to everyone; she had seen his eye trick. He was also terrifying somehow. She'd seen suspects reduced to pleading puddles of remorseful goo after just a few seconds in his presence.
And Lucifer was adamant that he didn't lie. He'd never denied her theory of method acting, but he'd never agreed to it either; whenever the topic came up, he insisted he was the Devil.
Ella had grown up in Detroit hearing the tales of actors in Los Angeles. She'd seen enough while living here that it was easy to dismiss Lucifer's insistence as part of the role. She'd seen all kinds of costumes while walking and driving around the city and was used to having to take different routes because of a film or TV show crew closing up large swaths of road for filming.
It made sense, sure. Lucifer was charismatic enough to be an actor, and definitely loved the attention the role brought him.
But...
Ella chewed and chewed, her thoughts bumbling about through a lens of science and faith. She'd seen the bullets and the holes in his shirt. They'd definitely hit something, and he had all the marks of being the target save for the wounds.
"Huh," she said. She glanced up, once. "Huh."
She thought of texting him the cursed words: can we talk. But she didn't need a long chat, not really. Lucifer skirted truth like a champ, but he wasn't great with direct questions asked in earnest. She pulled out her phone and typed out her question:
So like, you're really the real devil? Actually really? Y/N
She climbed into the elevator and started the journey home, tucking her phone into her back pants pocket for now. Lucifer was probably busy, and she had a bottle of tequila at home calling out for a reunion.
