A/N: Welcome back! Back from the dead! Yes, yes! I know, I know! It's been over a month, but I really needed the time and probably still do. Life and muse don't come so easy at the moment, but the story is there and I'm on it whenever it tickles in my fingertips ;) So, I hope you're ready for some more content! *lures* Come in, come in! Delve deeper into the story and find out more about what happened! And also... what has Lucifer planned? You'll see! Enjoyyyy!

Recommended Songs:

Chris Rena - Lucifer Can Hear You

Suspenseful Tension Music

Chapter 6 – Evidence

[Chris Rena - Lucifer Can Hear You]

Parking in the side driveway of his club, he saw that his Corvette wasn't parked in its usual spot.

Deep in thought about where the bloody heck it could be, he entered Lux and stepped down the stairs. It was only when he heard a sudden high pitched crack that his eyes looked up, spotting Maze with a black leather whip in hand. In front of her sat a row of very frightened looking men and women, all dressed in suits and luxurious garments.

Five people, each of which he knew very well. They were exactly the five people he had thought about on his ride to Lux. The top five contacts he wanted to call and hire for his cause. The five people who themselves had dozens, if not hundreds of other contacts' help he could acquire. And not only that. They had skills and technical resources available far beyond those of the LAPD. Apparently Maze did have the same idea as him and she had just been a bit faster in gathering them together. She knew him well after millennia at his side in hell.

"Maze," he greeted her surprised, walking along in front of the human 'guests'. "I was about to invite the whole lot, but I see you beat me to it."

Offering him a crooked smirk, she tilted her head to the side and raised her whip to rest over her shoulder. "Thought you'd appreciate the head start."

Oh he sure did.

"Lucifer?!" one of the men asked upset with a thick Russian accent, his frightened gaze mixing with confusion and anger. "What the hell is going on?! She brought us here under false pretences and now she's threatening us! I swear, I will have you fucking carved out and hung by your entrails on the nearest street lamp for this!"

The man was Gregor Ivanov, head of the Russian mafia in LA and not a small guy by any means. He was able to tower Lucifer almost by another head as he got up from the booth. Packed with muscle and shoulders like a bear, he was like the mixture of a wrestler and a basketball player, topped off with an edgy chin and scar on his cheek. It was amusing to know how Maze had put the guy in his place before. To see Gregor now trying to show dominance towards him however, caught him on the wrong foot, and his rage lashed out uncontrolled.

In a blur, he took a hold onto Gregor's shirt, easily lifting him in the air, his chest heaving with enraged breaths. Eyes lighting up with eternal hellfire, he roared, his voice thick, dominating and crushing whatever resistance it was hitting. "YOU?! You have the AUDACITY to threaten ME?!" he bellowed, his voice thundering through Lux.

Gregor's face paled with terror, his whole body flinching in submission at Lucifer's voice and aura, not to mention the sight of his eyes, blazing with fire of all consuming damnation. "Oh my god. I- I-" he stuttered in fear, unable to tear his eyes away from Lucifer's soul-penetrating gaze.

"You WHAT, you sleazy little worm, hm?!" Lucifer growled with his teeth bared, shoving Gregor backwards until he hit the bar counter. "You will hold your bloody tongue and wait until I ask you a question. Then you disgusting imbecile will answer me respectfully." He could smell the fear, the deep, vibrating dread shaking through not only Gregor's bones, but also that of his other shady human guests.

Another high pitched crack sounded through the club. Maze cracked her whip with a feral snarl. "Sit tight, Ivy. You sure as hell won't get away if you try to outrun me," Maze hissed, staring down at a woman who had tried to make a run for it. Frozen on spot, the woman in high heels, leather pants and white chiffon blouse, Ivy, gasped and blinked concerned, visibly shocked and unsure what to do. "I said, sit," Maze repeated with a dangerous emphasis. "I'm not gonna say it again, bitch." Fervently nodding, Ivy hurried back to the booth and sat down, exchanging scared looks with the other three seated next to her.

"So, Gregor. Do I have your full attention now?" Lucifer growled, pushing the Russian backwards over the counter and holding him down. "Because my temper is running very short these days."

"Aahh… guurrgh… y- yes, YES!" Gregor stuttered, quickly nodding, his eyes burning with tears of fright.

With a last rough shove, Lucifer pulled away from him, willing his eyes to finally return to their natural brown. Slowly his breathing and pulse began to calm again, but the hot anger stayed a silent, boiling companion in his guts. "Good. Now listen. All of you," he spoke up, turning to glare at the other humans, his anger seething with what he was about to say. "I am looking for a man. The problem is, that I really don't know anything about him, other than that maybe he's medically trained… but his skills and methods could be called debatable. What I do know is that he took something from me. Something very personal."

Stopping his pace in front of them, he leaned in to Ivy, who had sunken back into the leather, frightened. Ivy Strange was a feisty woman and the go-to when it came to the collection of curiosities. She was a specialist in finding the rarest items and a sales person through and through. And although she usually had quite the big mouth, it seemed that Maze's whip had put her back in her place.

"W-what did he take from you?" Ivy asked, her head awkwardly pulled back in attempts to get more distance to Lucifer.

"My wings," he answered darkly, keeping his Devil face in check to not accidentally slip.

The reaction of the humans was unanimous confusion.

"Your wings? Is that some sort of codename for something?" a man with a black pinstripe suit said with a thick Israeli accent. Among the others, he was the only one who had been able to compose his levels of fear best, not that Lucifer missed the slight tremor in his voice, or the twitch of his fingers as he had placed them on top of his thighs. Oh no. He knew that on the inside, Aryeh Mizrachi was terrified just like the rest of them. But Aryeh did have a huge advantage. He was a former Mossad agent and knew horror. He knew fear and death were going hand in hand. He had seen so many people die, that he had stopped counting. He counted only his own targets, his assassinations. 168 fulfilled contracts he prided himself with.

If Aryeh's targets wouldn't solely be the worst of the worst, Lucifer would've taken him down years ago himself, but when he had learned that Aryeh's skillset was reserved for hunting down sadistic lowlifes who had a foible for helpless women and children he gave him a pass. His nickname was The Demon of Jordan, and Lucifer knew all too well that sometimes it needed a monster to catch another monster. That was the reason these five were here with him after all.

"No, Aryeh. I mean wings. Actual wings. White. Feathered. Mahoosive. Wings. I'm talking the size of a bloody truck in their combined span, alright?" Lucifer explained grumpily, seeing how the hitman slowly nodded, likely more in attempts to prevent him becoming the next attack of an outburst rather than in true understanding of the matter.

"So you want us to search for your… wings. By doing what exactly? Asking people if they've seen them?" the other of the two women asked sceptically, her delicate brows rising in a fit of cockish mockery.

She had balls to confront him like that, he had to admit. She was covering her worry with arrogance and anger, obviously, but he knew her to be able to get along well, in a world filled with dangerous people. Her name was Connie Winter, also known as Black Dahlia, and she knew everything that was going on on the black market, on and offline.

"Yes. You will ask if they've seen or heard about them. If anyone passed a word of having acquired something angelic. If someone suddenly starts his own religious cult. When someone offers to sell something that sounds or has anything to do with wings. Even if you just hear of a damn feather, I WANT TO BLOODY KNOW!" he growled out at them, his eyes blazing up for a second before he returned to pace along in front of them. "But that's not all. Gregor, Aryeh and you, too, James," he looked between the three men with gritting teeth. "You'll dig into the drug market. The name of the drug is decamethonium. It's not illegal, mind you. I want to know the name of every single person in LA who's acquired it this month."

Stepping up towards the group, Maze took out her phone, accessed her gallery and made a few taps. Shortly after the men and women in front of her flinched, noticing that their phones vibrated from an incoming notification. "And as a third request, we want to know everything about the guy on the picture I just sent to you. Name, address, profession, friends, what sort of kinky shit he did in his freetime, everything. Got it?"

Lucifer arched a curious brow at her, but didn't interrupt or question her to show a united front. He didn't like to make Maze look anything but deadly in front of their guests.

"Alright. And what's the payment?" the last in the row, James Slaughter asked casually, fishing a cigarette out of his jackets' inside pocket.

His name was not program. He wasn't a killer per se, but definitely a hunter. Specialised in various crime departments, trained in combat, psychological profiling and all kinds of illegal, technological operations, the former FBI agent could be considered a Swiss army knife. He had been Quantico's top agent, until one operation where he had taken down a Lebanese human trafficking ring. He had found the head of the organisation with his dick in the corpse of a girl that could've been James' own daughter. That's where he had lost it.

In a fit of pure, buzzing, violent rage, he had grabbed a knife from the near counter and stabbed the prick over a hundred times and made him choke on his cut off dick. Eventually his team had caught up with him . It had needed seven men to pull him off the crime boss, who by then looked like he'd starred in Hostel. After that incident his time for the FBI was over. He had managed to evade being convicted and after having meticulously worked through a psychological assessment program, he was free to do whatever he wanted to. And that was the day his self-righteous, zealous ways of crime-fighting had begun.

Safe to say, the people sitting now next to him were all well aware of his past and knew to keep their shady businesses as far away from anything child-related as possible, if they didn't want to find themselves in a puddle of their own blood one day. One single enraged man could do a whole lot of damage, even to the head of a multi-national criminal organization like the mafia.

"The payment? Well. A favour, obviously. One I deem acceptable," Lucifer said matter-of-factly and headed to his bar. It was the end of this meeting and everybody thankfully understood that. Getting up, they quietly left Lux, leaving him and Maze behind in the dim lit club.

Grabbing a decanter and scotch glass, he poured himself three fingers and downed the liquor in two gulps. The smoky taste was good, soothing the turmoil inside his guts to a level he almost felt in control of. Almost. He knew he was impulsive and using methods the Detective would despise. She'd be disappointed, if she knew. But it didn't matter. Whether she looked at him disappointed or filled with pity, it all boiled up in the same pit of darkness inside of him. No. He needed to be in control again. He needed to take what he deserved, what was his, in order to feel remotely whole again. Even though deep down he feared that the abyss that had been torn into him was impossible to be filled up and closed again.

"How did you get that picture?" he asked in a husky breath, not turning to look at Maze.

"Took it while Decker wasn't looking and busy with you." Stepping up next to him, she grabbed the decanter and poured herself a glass before refilling Lucifer's. "We'll find him," she stated determined after a moment of quiet, watching his expression as he stared ahead in thought. He didn't react to either of her comments, but she could read him in the details he was unable to hide. The throbbing jugular, the slight tremble in his otherwise controlled breathing, and, the most telling, his aura. He was vibrating with wrath that was electrifying the air around them. She was aware of this state and had seen him like this a handful of times. An unstable condition of a highly dangerous cocktail of toxins that described his situation. Right now it was still held at bay, but if he would lose that last bit of control, the Devil would be walking destruction.

[Suspenseful Tension Music]

"I'm so sorry, Chloe. I shouldn't have said anything-"

"No… No, Ella. It's fine. You didn't do anything wrong. I did." Releasing an exhausted sigh, she shook her head at her own stupidity. She should have known better. She did know better. She had known he was unstable. So fragile. So hurt. And she had known how much her support and her trust in him kept him composed. How it gave him something to cling onto so he wouldn't lose himself.

She had failed him, not because she didn't let him in on the investigation just yet. She had failed him, because she had miscalculated his ability to cope. He had bitten off more than he could chew and she had been blinded from his words of calm, even in the face of his horrible flashbacks and changing behaviour. Maybe it would've been better to force him into talking with her, but maybe that would've made him snap as well, just a bit earlier. Running her hands through her hair she released a frustrated groan.

I should look after him now… But I need to find out who the heck did this and… and at least find his wings… God… Will they even grow back somehow, like they did before? Fuck! Fuck-Damnit!

"Hey, erm, Chloe?" Ella's voice suddenly took her out of her thoughts. "Can I ask you something about Lucifer?"

In a way, she was glad for the disturbance of her thoughts. It did take away her brain to make a decision and instead she had it done for her. "Sure… What is it?"

"Well… The medic was there before us and patched him up. The report said he had two large burns on his back. If these burns were done from his kidnapper, it would help if we could take a look at the marks. Maybe we can get some information on the object used."

She stared back at Ella in perplexity. "That's not… That's... " Swallowing she licked her lips, wondering just about how freely she could now talk with Ella about Lucifer and his Devilness. "It... It wasn't done from the kidnapper. Not the burns…"

The expectant expression on Ella's face faltered with confusion. "What do you mean? Not the burns? If they weren't done from the kidnapper, then who's responsible for them?"

Fingers fumbling nervously, she glanced over to the window adjoining the workspace area. Despite her own calm about the celestial knowledge she had, she was not talking as easily about it as Lucifer did all the time. It was always accompanied in her brain with weird looks from bystanders that would overhear a conversation and particularly weird vocabulary, and she couldn't stop the habit of making sure nobody was listening in. "Well erm… You found out about Lucifer… and that… he is…" Dragging along she rolled her hand in a gesture of process, waiting for Ella to fill in the blank.

"Yeah, I mean… phew! He's the real one… The one and only…" Ella exaggerated with a laugh, clearly avoiding to say the word.

And Chloe could understand very well, why that was. Saying it was crazy. It felt absolutely insane. It was world-changing. It made it real. It was frightening. But at the same time it had made things become amazing, mysterious and exciting. "It helps when you say it, Ella. Trust me. Just say it," she softly said, giving her arm an encouraging rub and a small smile.

Ella's anxious smile dropped to just plain concern. "Okay… okay…" she breathed, nodding. "Lucifer… is… holy shit. He is… the… Devil." Exhaling a heavy sigh, she took a hold onto the table to steady herself. "He's… the actual… Devil."

"Yep. He is," Chloe agreed, continuing to rub over Ella's back as the forensic seemed to process. "And... you know what else he is? Originally?"

Her face lit with the need to process, the cogs working, her memory kicking in its gears and searching for the information she knew was put away in some drawer of her brain. Suddenly her brows shot up. "Oh my god… he's… he's an angel!"

"Yeah. He is," she agreed again, a warm smile on her lips.

"But… w-what does that have to do with the burns on his-" The second Ella was about to finish her own sentence, her brain caught up and she froze. Mouth opening and closing, she stared back at Chloe. "Th-The two burns on his… his shoulders… Are those… where his…"

"Where his wings were, yes," Chloe quietly finished, forcing away the gruesome image of Lucifer's back. "The burns are from Maze. He had asked her to cut off the mutilated wing stumps and cauterize the raw flesh." Ella continued to stare at her, shocked. "Whoever kidnapped him, violently cut off his wings from his back and brought him to that warehouse, quite possibly to get rid of him there."

Ella's breathing began to flutter and became heavier, her eyes wide. "His… his wings got cut off?! Dios mío, ayúdame! Th-That is insane! H-how?! I mean… W-what… Wait… Wait wait wait wait wait!" Suddenly Ella started pacing excitedly, her hands going to her temples in thought. Then she came to an abrupt halt and turned to Chloe with an even more horrified expression. "Are you saying that… Lucifer was drugged with decamethonium and then some crazy guy cut his wings off, while he was conscious?!"

Her throat closed up and her head felt spinning. Ella was not only correct with her logical conclusion. She was also on point with her freakout because she had felt exactly the same the night before when she had found Lucifer, only that she had not yet had the possibility to spill it out loud, but cried it out in her mind in silence. "Yeah," she breathed, tears having welled up in her eyes and her nose sniffing from the emotions her body was overflowing from. "He was conscious. He hardly remembers anything, but now it seems that snippets are coming back and… it's difficult."

Stressed, Ella started pacing again. "Oh god… This is… I… I don't even have words for this. Chloe, the drug, it has several really bad side effects. And knowing what he's gone through… Jesus…"

She was afraid to know, afraid to hear something she might not be able to take. But she needed to know. She had to. "What side effects?" she asked timidly, biting on her lip to keep it from trembling.

"It causes a massive amount of psychological distress. He was fully conscious and couldn't move or scream for help. He has felt everything that has been done to him. Every cut, every tear, every crunch, whatever that psycho did to remove the wings, Lucifer felt every second of it. And not only that. The drug also doesn't affect the senses. So he has heard everything, smelled everything, tasted and maybe even seen everything that has been done to him." Resting back against the table for the sake of her own stability, Ella swallowed thickly, her hand reaching to her cross necklace in thought and silent prayer for the Devil. "The amount of stress he must've experienced is beyond comprehensible for us. I mean… did you know people can die from suffering enough pain?! It's only logical to assume that the distress he suffered is the cause for his memory loss."

Her head was spinning, her stomach turning in agony at Ella's words and the realizations bubbling up in her mind. It was too much. Too fast. Rushing over to the far corner of the room, she bent over the big sink and turned on the tap. Feeling the muscles acting against her will, her stomach forced the undigested parts of her morning sandwich back up and in a wave of painful retching, she threw up. Again and again, she retched, feeling the blood rushing into her head again, causing her mind to clear into a soft, fuzzy daze, the nausea slowly fading.

When her body settled with only coughing on an empty stomach, she spit out the remains of the acid cocktail of spit and bile, and rinsed her mouth several times before closing the tab. Exhausted, but feeling somewhat better, she felt Ella's hand gently rub over her back while her other held a fluffy, small towel in front of her.

"Sorry, Chloe," she quietly apologized, offering her a sad smile.

"It's okay… I'm sorry…. I really didn't see that coming," Chloe muttered, wiping and drying her mouth. Taking several deep breaths, she rubbed her temples, trying to focus back on what needed to be done. Helping Lucifer by finding out what the hell happened to him. "Okay so erm… Do we have anything else yet, evidence wise?"

The Latina went to the other side of the room and brought a box to the big table. Lifting the lid, she reached inside and took out dozens of pictures she had taken the night before of Lucifer: His face, chest, back, arms, legs and close ups of several marks she had spotted on his hands, knees and neck. Additionally she spread out more pictures she had taken of the crime scene, inside and outside of the warehouse, of the parked SUV and the opened chain with padlock and bolt cutter sunken into the mud. At last, she pulled out a plastic bag from the box that contained a cellphone which Chloe identified immediately as Lucifer's.

Spreading them all out on the table Ella let her take her time to look through them as well. "Alright so… Given it's still early in the morning, I'm on the most pressing traces first. The ones that concern Lucifer directly. Let's start with his own blood. The drug he was injected with has a natural half-life, but since his blood seems to be completely different to ours, I can't say anything about when or how much had been put into his system."

"That's not a particularly good start…" Chloe sighed, but something about that itched her brain. "He does have a crazy high metabolism. Whoever did this… he must've known. He must have at least been able to adjust the dose, keep it steady in his system."

"So… you'd think medically trained?" Ella asked with a worried glance.

The image of blunt bones and raw flesh, torn, ripped and cut, flashed into her mind and she quickly shook her head to rid herself of the memory of what must have been the most horrifying, blasphemous thing she had ever seen. "Maybe," she choked and tried to steady her voice. "Going from the looks of his back, it stands to question how much medical training that sick bastard had. Maybe he even wanted to be messy and cause him more pain." She knew she wasn't unbiased, wasn't emotionally distanced. How could she be, having seen the most cruel agony inflicted onto God's most beautiful creation? Having been able to see beneath his shields, beyond the looks and shiny surface of his smiles, she knew the scarred wasteland of his soul that yearned so desperately for every loving drop of water to nourish his aching core.

And this was pure evil at its finest. She'd never been much of a religious person and although she was now in the know of celestial existence, it still was a strange concept to her. But while she previously had her issues with believing without proof, what she had always known to exist was good and evil. Neither of it was existing purely in humanity, nobody was simply good or bad. Everyone had their own, ever-changing composition of a greyscale. And people who had drifted to the far end of the darker spectrum were the true Devils in this world. People who had lost their path for balance, who didn't care for the collateral damage but rather relished in the ongoing destruction their own actions caused.

To think that someone truly evil had managed to slice through Lucifer's barriers and into his already maltreated core, was to grasp what it meant to kick a traumatized dog again and again. He would snap. In all his pain and anguish, the hurt and rage would boil up and explode in frantic defence and quite possibly vengeance, seeking out to cut the cord to the one responsible with the same amount of violence that he had been forced to endure. Violence would eventually lead to violence again. And knowing Lucifer's history, knowing how much pain and blame he had already swallowed in his existence, she knew that this, this personal act of violence against him, was likely the final straw that made him snap.

"-loe? Hey, Chloe?"

Blinking, she shook out of her thoughts. "Hm? What? Sorry. What were you saying?"

"The analysis of the blood samples from Lucifer and the victim, as well as most fingerprint traces are still in process. I'll update you as soon as I know," Ella explained, putting aside a few of her data sheets and reaching for a couple of pictures she brought in line to focus on. The pictures were close ups of Lucifer's hands, knees, mouth and throat. Pointing at the last one, she looked at Chloe. "I had made routine shots of his throat, before he even remembered that he was injected with something. This one shows the spot. It's quite a big puncture, not the delicate type of needle we see at the doctor's office, mind you."

"Okay… yet another sign the asshole didn't give a damn… Great," she muttered, biting on her lip in frustration.

"I know, this isn't the news you'd like to hear, Chloe, but it's something. Every tiny information might help us get along."

"You're right. Okay…" Looking through the pictures she pointed at the ones taken of Lucifer's hands. The palms and backs of his hands were covered in blood and dirt, but as she looked more closely, she spotted small cuts at his knuckles. Additionally, there were several longer cuts along his palms, but those didn't run too deep. "What can you tell me about his hands?"

"The cuts on his palms stem from a sharp object, those on the knuckles however, well, those are typical from a punch in the face."

Chloe's mind was reeling. "He defended himself against the knife and he dished out with his fist in return. Those are from the victim's teeth," she concluded deep in thought. "That would imply that at the beginning Lucifer hadn't been the one with the knife in hand. So it really might have been self-defence."

Nodding, Ella pointed to the picture of Lucifer's mouth, his lips split and his skin bruising. "Exactly. But it also seems that our victim landed a good hit on Lucifer. Wait… There's something else that is important though. Here, check this out." The Latina gathered a different set of pictures and spread them out. "The SUV's licence plate came back as stolen two weeks ago. We've got clean fingerprints from the steering wheel that match those of the victim. They currently run through the database to see who that guy is. Now back to the more worrying part: The trunk was covered in blood. Quite the amount actually. And despite the heavy rain we could see a pair of drag marks leading from the SUV towards the building."

"Lucifer..." Chloe breathed. "He was brought to that warehouse like a sheep to the slaughter." The feeling of prior nausea made place for anger to boil inside her. It took her all the strength she had to control herself and not punch the table. Swallowing thickly, she licked her desert dry lips. "There is… one giant additional question mark to this whole case and I have no clue where to even begin on this." She took a deep breath, turning to look at Ella. "Lucifer's immortal. Human weapons cannot harm him. That is, unless he is close to me. I'm… kinda special. And this really isn't meant as some cheesy cliche-romance-movie line. He's vulnerable around me. The issue is… If he hadn't been close to me yesterday while he was kidnapped, drugged and mutilated… How the hell could that bastard harm him? If it was a human that is. I mean… Maybe the one who did this wasn't human but something else. I have no idea. And with the wounds you photographed… I'd say he got those in the warehouse from our dead guy. So whatever caused his vulnerability still worked at that time."

Ella's expression was lost in shock, worry and an opened world that seemed far too big for her to process at the time. "O-okay... Erm… So… If I understand you correctly, Lucifer's sorta superman and you're his Louis Lane and kryptonite combined?"

She froze, momentarily dumbfounded from Ella's nerdy analogy. "Well, I mean… I'm not… You… erm…" Huffing, her shoulders sunk. "Let's say I give that a pass, even though it's having some minor mistakes in the equation."

Ella gave her back a crooked, weak smile. "Sooo… Something else than human, huh? Another angel?" Her eyes suddenly widened. "Oh oh oh! A demon?!"

It would have been amusing to see how quickly Ella seemed to adapt to her newfound celestial world, if the topic were less worrying. "Maybe. He doesn't have a whole lot of friends in heaven and hell. From what he told me, not all demons are his loyal, bootlicking servants." Silence softly spread between them, as Ella obviously was at her wits end in concerns of celestial vulnerability and so Chloe quickly shifted back to earthly matters, reaching for the bag with Lucifer's phone. "What about his phone? I tracked him with this app we both have installed. Can you get any data from it?"

"Yes, absolutely. They save up all the GPS data." Suddenly she sighed and looked at Chloe with a pleading expression. "It's just so much stuff I gotta work on, I wish I had more hands to get this all analysed more quickly really."

"Don't you worry. You get another pair to help you out. I'll talk with the Lieutenant and get you an assistant," she promised, making a mental note, to ask him right away when she was done with Ella. "Okay. Is there anything else you can tell me already so far?"

Ella turned around to grab one of the evidence bags. "The knife. Not your typical I've-got-a-little-protection-in-my-pocket kinda knife. This is a big baddie called bowie knife. It's more like heartfelt buy rather than being made for something specific these days. Back in the days they were famous as heavy work- and combat knives. Heydays were in the 1860's, so, civil war and cowboy days."

Chloe looked back at her with a surprised brow inching its way up her forehead.

"What?" Ella muttered in self defence. "I've got a thing for knives, okay? Especially historical ones."

A small smile creeping up her lips, Chloe nodded. "Okay. I'm fine with that. Anything else?"

The latina sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm afraid that's all for now. No usable traces on the broken lock at the warehouse door or the bolt cutter. Full ME report will be done later today, same as the rest of the blood and fingerprints analysis like from those on the knife," Ella finished right as the door swung open with an energetic clank.

Dan strode inside, his face shining with success. It was obvious right away, he had found something. In his right hand he waved with a file and stepped up to the table where the women stood, slapped it down on the surface with its content open. On the left side a picture of the victim, taken on the crime scene, was pinned to the file. On the right side a set of papers came into view, right on top of it, showing a set of fingerprints as well as a neat picture of the man when he had been still alive, a little reference sign with a criminal registry number beneath. "Fingerprints of the victim landed a hit in the system. His name is Zak Boone, 37 years old, and, boy, he's done it all, and I mean that quite literally. It's as if the guy has had a list of crimes increasing in intensity, and he's ticked off all the boxes, one after another: Robbing, drug-dealing, arson, battery, rape, human trafficking, murder, you name it. And if he hasn't done it himself, he was somehow involved with it."

"Holy crap…" Chloe breathed, stunned. That was quite the list indeed. Pulling the file around so she could read in it, she skimmed through the data available shortly, before she stumbled over a particular detail. "What?! He's never been convicted?! How's that possible?"

Dan sighed, his expression bitter. "Yeah. I looked into the available files superficially. Apparently the guy pulled out the best lawyers available out of nowhere. And not just any superstar lawyers, but those who are famous for protecting the underworld."

"Great", Chloe huffed. "And do we know who the guy had been working for? Was he part of a gang?" Chloe asked, flipping through the pages of Zak's file.

He shook his head, hands stemmed onto his sides. "As far as we know, nope, he's not listed anywhere, nor do we have any other popular names connected to him."

"He's got a bunch of tattoo's," Ella put forth. "But those don't ring a bell so far. Seems all are just personal preference and not a link to a gang."

Well, shit. This wasn't much help so far. Nothing really ruled out Lucifer as the main suspect to Zak's murder and there was no indication as to who mutilated him either. But she had to do something and start somewhere. She had the overwhelming urge to get out and kick in a door. And with the victim being dead, she at least could get moving to one particular door, even though kicking it in was not procedure. Writing down the victims last known address, she stepped around the table to head out. "You guys continue with your research here. I'm gonna go check the address. I'll check back with you later."

Dan grabbed the file and turned towards her, about to rush after her. "I'm coming with you-"

"No!" Her response was abrupt and caused both Dan and Ella to flinch and pause in their movements. Relaxing her voice she sighed. "I… I rather go there myself. I'll call if I need help. Besides, Ella can use every additional helping hand." Heading out, she directly aimed at the Lieutenant's office.

She was glad that the Lieutenant was a kind-hearted man who reminded her a lot of her dad. He was great at reading people, could see through whatever facade they had pulled up and always had an open ear for his colleagues when they needed someone to talk to. It came as no surprise that, once she had been granted an assistant for Ella, he asked her if she herself needed help with the case. He could tell it was personal. Of course it was. With Lucifer and her openly dating, this was hardly deniable.

Chloe herself was good at reading other people though, and she noticed easily how Lt. Fletcher was not asking because he thought she wasn't capable of handling the situation. In fact it was rather the opposite: He wanted to support her to catch the one who hurt her partner – not that he had any clue about the real damage that had been done to Lucifer – and, in consequence of that, also her. He was a full hearted cop who was there for his colleagues. And in doing so, he silently accepted her and her team even being on the case, rather than have it be investigated by a whole other team. "No," she stated quietly, but determined, returning a small, knowing smile towards him. "Thank you though. I appreciate the offer." And she truly did.

With a last nod exchanged between them, she left the office and headed to her car. Her pulse began to rise. This was better. She could feel it. She was doing something to catch the bastard responsible for Lucifer's situation. Adrenaline started to tingle in her veins, her brain was on high alert and her muscles tensed. Her body and soul were ready. Ready for the hunt.

A/N: *inserts suspense chase music* Well folks, the hunt just started :3 Our poor Lucifer got injected with some crazy shit, and now you can better understand what happened. Well… partially. ;) You probably know more than Lucifer himself right now and I think we all know how difficult it is for him to "deal" with his issues, so that will be quite something for future chapters! But ohhh ohhhhhhh you know nothing yet my dear friends! BIG PLANS STILL. :D

As for the substance used, here's the Wiki text on it:

"Decamethonium does not produce unconsciousness or anesthesia, and its effects may cause considerable psychological distress while simultaneously making it impossible for a patient to communicate. For these reasons, administration of the drug to a conscious patient is strongly advised against, except in necessary emergency situations. Decamethonium was used clinically in the UK for many years, but it is now available only for research purposes."

Alright, that's it! See you soon in the next chapter!

- Luni