Disclaimer: I don't own Lucifer in any way, shape or form, this work is entirely fictional, any resemblances to real people and/or situations are no more than a coincidence. Also, English isn't my first language, and I don't have a beta, so I apologize for any mistakes you may encounter while reading.

Part 1- Sympathy for the Dead.

"Please allow me to introduce myself

I'm a man of wealth and taste

I've been around for a long, long year

Stole many a man's soul to waste

And I was 'round when Jesus Christ

Had his moment of doubt and pain

Made damn sure that Pilate

Washed his hands and sealed his fate"

"Should I expect teatime in the throne room of Hell as something that will become regular?", Dream's voice drifted through the room as he glided without making a sound, his long robes dragging along the floor just as quietly.

"If you might.", was Lucifer's reply as he ignored the throne giving preference to a simple iron chair that matched the small table where the tea set was.

Lucifer was never very adept at something as mundane and ordinary as drinking tea. But he had to admit that associating himself with his little mouse was affecting him, the child had a preference for earl grey, a bit of milk, and only two sugars, and she even seemed determined to help him find out how he liked to drink his tea. The memory almost made the corners of his lips lift.

"Have you never had tea before?", the little creature's brown eyes looked even bigger than they normally were, as if Lucifer had said something so terrible it was pitiful.

The ex-Archangel rolled his eyes, crossing his arms like a petulant child (and he definitely wasn't pouting!).

"Can you stop looking at me like that?", he said to the girl who looked really sad for him, "It's not like it's something important, it's just tea!"

"Just tea?", and now she looked offended on top of it all, "Are you listening to yourself? Just tea...! ", she proceeded to grumble to herself about how her nan would pull his ear and twist it if she could hear what he was saying. Lucifer decided to wait and watch how long it would take her to get out of the spiral she put herself in, until the girl suddenly snapped out of it, "That's it! Today we are going to have tea. "

The Devil raised his eyebrow, his dark eyes never wavering from hers, "Do you even know how to prepare tea?", he asked, Lucifer took a certain amount of satisfaction in watching the girl flush a deep crimson after realizing she had no idea how to prepare tea as her nan does.

"It shouldn't be that hard.", she muttered mostly to herself.

"If you say so.", riling her up was simply too fun to let the opportunity pass by.

"I do say so.", Elaine couldn't help but be the one pouting now, and Lucifer would never, ever, admit how adorable his little mouse could be sometimes.

"You look... Oddly pleased with yourself.", Dream noted with a certain strangeness as he took a seat in the chair facing Lucifer, "My sister would certainly find this situation amusing if not unusual."

"Which sister?"

"The older sister."

"Well...", Lucifer finally deigned to look up from his teacup to fix his gaze on his guest, "Teleute has always been a strange one."

"I can't argue that.", was his response as he watched the Devil patiently brew him tea. If any of his demons were there to watch that scene they would certainly be sure that Lucifer was kidnapped and an imposter now occupied the throne room, but still, Dream reached for his cuppa before it could get cold and took a sip. Surprisingly, it tasted good, "But I believe you didn't just invite me to demonstrate your newly discovered skill in brewing tea."

Now, Lucifer had no idea where to start, so he decided to get out of the way what was bothering him the most.

"There's a creature in my Dreamscape.", he said, adding sugar to his cup, "So tell me: is the little mouse a member of The Dreaming?", because honestly, Lucifer didn't know how to feel at the thought of a creature that he feels so familiar and that brings him a kind of peace that the Devil has not been able to experience for aeons being just a fabrication of The Dreaming, it caused a bad feeling, like a knot forming in his throat through anxiety and denial.

"Impossible."

Lucifer blinked once.

Twice.

"What?"

"Impossible.", Dream repeated taking another sip of his tea, "The space I created for you should be virtually impossible to be reached by anyone who is not directly connected to your Grace. Not even your brothers would be able to do that, since each Grace is unique to the celestial to which it belongs. ", the Endless explained while raising the cup to his lips again, "Your father might succeed if he had access to my domain, but then I would know, after all, he wouldn't be able to hide his presence. Not from me. And not in my house.", Dream didn't have the best relationship with any God in general, no matter what pantheon it is, dealing with beings like Gods and Goddesses was almost always boring and tiring, and the Endless preferred his solitude much more, except now for tea breaks with the Devil, apparently, "So, a creature capable of invading your Dreamscape is impossible, or perhaps just a coincidence of cosmic proportions."

"There is no such thing as coincidence.", Lucifer replied, "The universe was not designed to be so lazy."

But if the creature was not part of The Dreaming, what was it? And how the hell was she related to Lucifer?!

"However...", Dream spoke again after a few beats of silence, "If I had to risk guessing, I would suggest someone on the mortal plane. Humans tend to wander. And a creature with such disgustingly human habits must spend a lot of time among them."

Now, that was an idea: Earth.

His father's "masterpiece".

There were very few times when Lucifer could walk freely among humans, watching how they acted, doing a favour here and there just for the pleasure of watching things unfold before his eyes and watching how humans dealt with getting what they wanted. For the past millennia, while his father seems to have completely abandoned his pet project, Lucifer took it for himself as a small experiment that he could observe and interfere with as he pleased. The only complicating factor was Amenadiel, the git keeps throwing him back to hell whenever he realizes that Lucifer is not where he was supposed to be.

His last "intervention", if he recalls correctly, was about twenty years ago? Maybe more. The young Lord Craven would have lost absolutely everything his late father left him, he would have even lost his own life at the hands of relatives controlled by their own greed. Lucifer did not have to do much more than point the young Lord Craven in the direction of people who would be able to help him bring up relevant information about the Lordship succession.

"You know what.", Lucifer spoke with a smile stretching over thin, aristocratic lips, "You are right, Morpheus. Maybe it's time to visit some old acquaintances upstairs once again. "

Dream already felt bad for the poor sod who would have to deal with Lucifer.

"Do you know why you're here, Ms Belloc?", Dr Hollandr asked with a smile that was supposed to look warm and reassuring, but all Elaine could see was how impossibly white his teeth were, making the little girl think about sharks and other creatures with sharp teeth that would not think twice about making her into a bite-sized snack.

Elaine knew perfectly well why she was in that office.

"Because everyone thinks I'm crazy and dangerous.", it had been three years since the dreams about her Guardian Devil started. Elaine was now closer to the age of ten, and for the past seven months she had not found Lucifer in her dreams again and that made her uneasy. It left her lonely. She grew to get used to the Devil's presence almost every night in her dreams, they talked about everything and the girl had a lot of fun listening to the Devil recount how some historical facts really happened, Lucifer taught her to play the piano after both decided that her music teacher was useless and absolutely inept for said job, and Elaine taught him how to enjoy small things, like the quiet and comfortable company they made each other over tea time. She would tell about her day, her school, her parents and Lucifer would listen to her as if what she had to say was the most important thing for him at that moment as if she were important. Adults don't usually do that, they usually just pretend to listen while doing grown-up things.

"Your parents don't think you're 'crazy', they just care about you, which is why they sought my help. So why don't you tell me about what happened at the birthday party? "

Elaine sighed knowing that it would be useless if she refused to answer.

"If it were Lucifer he would certainly tell him to go about his own business and stop sticking his nose in other people's affairs.", the girl thought to herself before starting, "It was Anne's birthday, she is two months older than I..."

Elaine didn't want to go to that birthday party.

She wasn't even friends with Anne.

Elaine didn't have many friends, at least not many friends alive. There were her grandmothers, some wandering ghosts around her, and of course: Lucifer. The girl considered the ex-Archangel as her best friend (after Mona, of course) in the entire universe, besides, she's sure he would make a disgusted face if he heard her say it out loud (despite Elaine's sure he also sees her as his best friend, after all, why else would he waste three years talking to her and teaching her things?). Therefore, it is to be imagined that the girl does not have much experience in interacting with children her age.

"Elaine?", her mother's voice came through the closed door after a short knock, "Are you ready yet?"

"Yes.", she sighed in defeat thinking about the hell it would be like to spend hours at a birthday party surrounded by children who think she is a freak.

"Don't forget the gift you bought.", her mother still reminded her without trying to open the door, causing Elaine to look deadly at the wrapped box adorned with a bow that rested on her desk.

"I still dun understan' why ye 'ave ta give tha' girl a gift.", Grandma Furness spoke while one of her eyes was in the box and the other slowly floated away from what now looked like an abstract portrait of what was once a human face, "Ye can't even put a curse in it."

"Peggy!", Grandma Dickman admonished the witch, "Don't give Elaine that kind of ideals. The influence He has on her is already enough. We don't need you to make things worse!"

The little banter made Elaine chuckle despite internally agreeing with Grandma Furness, after all, why did she have to spend her allowance buying a gift for someone who wasn't even her friend if she did not even have the option to put a hex on it? It didn't have to be dangerous, just something simple that would make her laugh and feel better for having to put up with Anne's and her cronies presence for hours.

"Your... Grandmothers?", Dr Hollandr asked, to which the girl replied with a shrug, "Very well... Tell me about what happened at the party."

"Who invited the Freak?"

"Mother made me invite her.", one could easily hear the disgust in Anne's voice while stating said fact.

"You see... Sometimes a small part of me wish I had more friends.", Elaine said, pausing her narrative about the birthday party, "But then I am reminded about how obnoxious most of them are and that sudden desire disappears."

Dr Hollandr almost snorted trying to hide his laugh after hearing a nine-year-old saying that about children her own age, "Aren't you also a child, Ms Belloc?", he pointed out with just a bit of amusement. However, the only answer he got was a stare that made quite obvious what said nine-year-old thought about his comment on that.

"I wasn't talking about children.", she had to hold on the urge to roll her eyes at him, "I was talking about living humans. Obnoxious creatures that always believes to know better, to be better..."

"But you are also a living human being, Ms Belloc. Don't you think that perhaps you are judging them too harshly, and maybe doing the same with yourself?", he suggested, noticing that walking on eggshells around her would lead nowhere and that Elaine Belloc wasn't like most of the patients in her group age that he worked with. It wasn't the case of 'an imaginary friend' that got out of hand or some trauma caused by adults or some awful situations. Ms Belloc carries herself as an adult even before the incident, she speaks like one and apparently sees the world as someone who has met God and wasn't impressed.

"Am I though?", it was hard to know if she was talking to him or to herself, "Sometimes I wonder."

Elaine stood there watching the other children playing and sometimes making snide remarks about her. The grown-ups weren't any better, always wondering what was wrong with her, it was easy to spot the shame on her mother's face. Everything would've gone well and she would just head back home in more two or three hours wasn't it for the "incident", at least it's how she decided to call it. Some of the boys got tired of whatever it was that they were playing and well... Elaine really makes the easy target: always alone and far from the adults. The girl didn't even notice what was happening until she was face-down on the grass, she could recognize the faint but telltale smell of blood coming from her nose, she got pretty used to the smell thanks to Grandma Furness' classes on witchcraft, the witch was actually teaching her how to control the absurd amount of power Elaine seems to have.

"Anyways... Nothing really happened after that.", she said.

Dr Hollandr's eyebrow raised at hearing that, after all, he had access to the police report about the aftermath.

"According to the police two kids are dead and one is badly injured.", he pointed that out as gently as he could without beating around the bush, if he was to help that little girl he needs to understand how she could have survived without a scratch and not even act traumatized.

"But I didn't lay a finger on them.", she didn't need to, but she felt like most adults were blaming her for not being dead too.

She was used to ghosts, and even some other sort of apparitions ever since she started learning more and more about witchcraft and even risking one or two spells every now and then. They aren't pretty, that's for sure, however, she spent most of her early life talking with dead people who didn't really care about looking the way they did when they died, so gore doesn't really bother her.

But what she saw that afternoon... It wasn't just any apparition.

It didn't look like a dog or a wolf, but something in between. With black, thick fur that smelled of rusted blood and burnt flesh, eyes red, a familiar red, like when Lucifer would get really mad when talking about his family his eyes would turn a fiery red, the first time it happened he got scared that he had hurt her somehow but Elaine wasn't even scared, she thought his eyes were pretty that way too. But that hound eyes were different...

Savage.

Bloodthirsty.

She barely registered what was happening until blood hit her face and stained her dress. Lifeless eyes staring at her from the ground where the head of one of the boys landed, the others started screaming, alerting the parents that something wrong was happening. Elaine couldn't feel her legs, too scared to move and positive that she would also be killed.

"They just... Died.", she said looking at her fingers.

"Ms Belloc, they were eviscerated. In front of you.", the doctor tried to be kind, but in such situation, it was almost an impossible mission, no child should have to witness such a thing, but he had to get more answers, both for Elaine's sake, as for the sake of the investigation about those children deaths, after all, the only other witness was still in a coma, "I understand it's scary. It would be scary even for a grown-up. But if you remember anything about the attacker, anything at all it would help the police to catch them."

She wanted to be of help. But who in their right mind would believe her if she said a hellhound did that?!

They would think she's crazy.

They already do.

"I saw no one."

There're days that Augustus Hollandr hates his job.

Days when he has to deal with victims of rape was one of those, or when he has to interrogate children who witnessed people being murdered. It was hard, it was brutal and simply wrong in so many ways he could barely start naming. And today was one of these days. Detective Inspector Walter Craig called earlier about the attack on four children during a birthday party, two were murdered, one is still in a coma but the doctors aren't sure he will survive, and the last and only survivor is a girl who got to witness everything and escape unharmed. His office had already contacted her parents to explain that it would be better if she was interrogated by a children psychiatrist instead of by an officer and that he could offer his help with her afterwards regarding dealing with the trauma. Only after getting the parents approval, he got his hands on Elaine's files. And God, where they extensive.

He spent most of the week reading through it. The diagnosis made by other psychiatrists that worked with the said child for almost four years, and by the end, he wasn't sure what to believe anymore.

The child could be easily called a genius when looking at her marks in school and how many grades she was able to skip. She had an overactive imagination, but later some of the nurses suggested that it could be a sign of schizophrenia, and Augustus delved into the descriptions of what some of them observed on her behaviour on the short times she was hospitalized through the years, the whole conversations she would have, the somewhat erratic behaviour and even about apparent self-harm that at first her school Counsellor thought was caused by her parents, only to be revealed that they were innocent.

And now, after speaking with said child, he was even more confused. She spoke and acted so much like and adolescent or even a young adult that he was thrown out of it for a second but was able to recover quickly enough and continue with the "interrogation", and he was using the term loosely.

The knocking on the door alerted him to his assistant opening the door moments later.

"Doctor. Mr and Mrs Belloc are here.", she said before letting them inside and closing the door.

"Please, take a seat.", he said gesturing towards the pair of chairs in front of his desk.

"Your assistant said you wanted to talk to us about Elaine.", Mrs Belloc started no giving any of them the chance to start on eggshells. It was clear to Hollandr that they were already used to hearing not so good news from psychiatrists about their daughter, and Hollandr felt bad for them since he hadn't invited them to give good news exactly.

"I talked with your daughter. She doesn't seem deeply traumatised about what she witnessed, but that's only because she doesn't remember much.", he raised his hand stopping Mr Belloc of interrupting, "Sometimes our brain chooses to forget some things to protect ourselves, there's a chance that she will remember things later and act on it. However, I would suggest trying the hospitalization again. At least until we are sure she's okay. And I would also like to have her observed for at least a couple of weeks to make sure of some of the things on her files. I have a friend who runs an institution that specializes in helping patients in her condition...", Mrs Belloc started crying. It was never easy to accept that your kid had to deal with a condition that you're not able to help with, "She will be safe and in good hands, that I can promise you."

On the far north of Scotland, a man dressed in priest garments wiped his hands in a white handkerchief that slowly turned into a red colour.

"So it wasn't her too...", he murmured to himself, sharp eyes looking in disgust at the mess of blood, guts, flesh and hair that the child became after he was finished with her, "Guess I'm finished here. Time to start in England now."

AN: Hello everyone. First and foremost: I'm deeply sorry for taking too long to post an update, work and school got the better of me and I was mostly exhausted by the end of the day to be able to do anything, but I'm happy that people kept reading and following this fic, it gave me the energy to write a little bit each day until this chapter was finished (even though it's short).

Now, thank you for reading until the end of this chapter. I decided to skip some years of Elaine's life so the story would evolve more towards some conflict and so that I can start introducing more characters to you guys.

If you like don't forget to leave a comment.

See you guys on the next update!