Maze was the best hunter to ever come out of Hell. When demons had temporarily escaped their servitude, had risen up to the mortal world and possessed humans, Maze had always been the one Lucifer sent to make that escape temporary, to track them down and put a demonsteel dagger through the hearts of their human shells.
When Maze was on the job, nothing deterred her from her quarry, nothing distracted her from her target. She had been made for it, designed by her mother with desires that urged her towards hunting evildoers, instincts that taught her how to think like her targets, and a body that could defeat even the strongest of prey.
So as Maze stood up to take the file on their target from Ella, she was therefore wholly surprised to find that her mind was occupied not by her new target, but by the thought of her new companion—and his recent actions.
Perhaps getting distracted by such actions wouldn't have been so surprising in the case of, say, Ella or Linda. Percy had just revealed his involvement in a catastrophe of incredible scale, and Maze knew that all but the most depraved of mortals would likely be stricken by horror at the thought of what he'd done.
But that was not Maze's train of thought at the moment. No, her train of thought was rather more personal.
I was wrong. He doesn't resemble some random demon.
No, Percy resembled her.
A lot of demons could kill. Slightly fewer demons had blades capable of cutting their kin. And every demon held a sense of loyalty, though most devoted it solely to their liege.
But only one demon would kill their own kin without thought for their own survival. Only one demon had not just instincts to kill, but instincts to kill in defense of themselves and others.
After all, who wanted a bodyguard that couldn't understand the idea of protection?
Though admittedly, Percy would be best compared to a less tempered version of herself. He was obviously ruthless in a crisis, unable to do anything but give in to his instincts and kill until he was certain he would survive.
But when he was outside his crises, Percy still showed the world how broken his instincts had made him.
But Maze knew what would fix that. All she had to do was have Percy do the same thing she'd done when she was down in Hell.
Honestly, it was pretty simple. When you're broken the instant you go outside the bounds of your instincts, all you had to do was never step outside those bounds, to drown yourself in all that your body had been made to do.
Now, Maze didn't know for sure that all demigods had an instinct towards tracking people down.
But Percy hadn't been broken when he'd bargained with her for her assistance in finding Annabeth, so Maze was willing to bet that he did.
So Maze refocused, and carried on with the hunt.
Ella had come in now, the file on Maze and Percy's target in hand. "Alright, here we go. You guys good, or—"
Maze interrupted her, extending her hand for the file. "We're good, Ellen."
Ella handed her the manila folder, then muttered under her breath, "It's Ella. How hard is that to remember?"
Maze smirked, then took the obvious bait. "Apparently pretty hard, Ellen."
For a second, Ella just gaped. She'd obviously not meant for Maze to hear that, but what could Maze say—demon ears were just that good.
Then, recovering, Ella walked out of the conference, obviously annoyed.
Maze chuckled a bit there. That joke will never get old.
Then, she got serious once more. Maze slid the folder between her and Percy and opened it, paging through the various government forms and medical documentation until she reached the target's general biography. This was the place where Maze's understanding of who the prey was would come from, and before she did anything else on the hunt, she needed to read this.
Reading aloud for Percy's sake, Maze began. "Vanessa Mercer was born twenty six years ago to a poor single mother by the name of Gloria, and for all of her childhood, lived in a small, two-bedroom apartment in Santa Fe Springs. She struggled greatly in school, and eventually dropped out of Rio Hondo College in sophomore year, using her leftover tuition money to instead enroll in Universal Technical Institute as a mechanic."
Alright, so the target was a born and raised LA girl. That meant, so long as she had someone who would put her up while she was there, Vanessa would probably flee to LA in a crisis. Good information to know—as long as there was someone in LA who would help her. So it was rather unfortunate, how this next bit was making Maze realize just how unlikely it was that there was someone Vanessa could rely on in LA.
"As she was finishing her final year of trade school, Vanessa became the first 'audience member' of the serial killer later known as the Performer, with her mother brutally and slowly murdered in front of her as she was forced to watch."
Yeah, Maze didn't really think Vanessa had much of a support system in Los Angeles these days.
Taking a break from the reading now that her idea had proven ineffective, Maze glanced over at Percy. He was definitely paying attention, his eyes rapt on the file, though he did appear to be squinting rather hard. Was he having trouble reading it? That didn't seem to make sense, given Percy's senses appeared to be quite enhanced just as Maze's own senses were. Did Percy not understand mortal script?
Apparently so.
Now realizing that her decision to read aloud had been more important than she'd at first thought, Maze started to read once more. She wouldn't let Percy's attention wander from the matter at hand. "Although the tragedy hit Vanessa hard, she pushed through with remarkable perseverance to complete her curriculum. Once she finished her education, she worked at another mechanic's workshop as an assistant, eventually getting promoted to full mechanic."
Huh. Well, good for her. And Percy seemed happy to hear that too, cracking a smile as Maze told him about how this woman had turned her life around.
Then Maze took a glance at the next section, and her mood soured, suddenly deeply conflicted by what this section was telling her. Yeah, this would help their search massively, and Maze was always glad to have some success. But Maze knew that those helpful conclusions would not be putting Percy in a good mood.
Still, delaying would only worsen the situation.
So Maze steeled herself, and once more began to speak. "Two years later, however, all of that would change. Vanessa abruptly uprooted herself, quitting her successful job as a mechanic to move to San Francisco and start her own mechanic's shop, with her own startup capital. Within a year, the shop was in the black, and the business was highly successful."
See, Maze didn't know a lot about business. But Maze knew enough to realize that this section of the file was feeding her and Percy nothing but a pack of lies.
No mechanic, however quickly promoted, made enough money that in two years they could start their own shop. And no shop, however well-run, could get into the black that quickly and easily.
Hell, Maze knew for a fact that Lux was still into the red, and that place was wildly successful!
No, however she'd done it, Vanessa must have found some sort of sponsor for her business.
Well, actually, were it just the startup capital, it could have been money from a loan shark or that she'd earned through criminal activity. But loan sharks wanted to be paid back, and crime didn't pay consistently—so neither of those lined up with Vanessa so quickly being in the black.
Considering that the authorities thought it was Vanessa's money that had been used, they probably weren't even an investor. Instead, they likely knew Vanessa through some sort of personal connection.
So therefore, Maze now knew that Vanessa had someone she could rely on in LA. And that was what she needed to be successful in this hunt.
And right now, Maze needed Percy to be committed to that hunt, or Maze knew he'd be broken all over again.
So moving beyond the fear at how Percy might react, Maze snapped the file folder shut and began to explain what she was now thinking, trying to anchor Percy to the case without driving him away. "Right, so that's all the relevant parts done with. All that was pretty valuable, but that last section—that was a gold mine. Now we know that Vanessa has some sort of rich guy to help her in LA, and she probably fled to them if she could."
Percy's expression brightened further when he heard that. Maze was momentarily weirded out by that—at least until she thought back to her own early days as a demon.
Ah. He was likely glad that at least part of his collateral damage had found a way out.
Okay, fair enough. Honestly, now that the internal conflict was over, Maze could admit that the situation was pretty nice. It certainly meant a lot less travel time on Maze's part.
But speaking of travel time… how would their target get from San Francisco to LA?
Well, all of that was dependent on what her situation was like when Percy's tidal wave hit her. So Maze reopened the folder, and flipped to the last page of the biography—obviously added only a few days ago.
Maze read the file aloud, now fully engrossed by the case. "On the day of the so-called 'Tsunami of the Century'—"
Percy flinched.
Oh, whatever! He'd get over it. "Vanessa's workshop escaped destruction, but her home was not so lucky. Eyewitness accounts currently show that Ms. Mercer was nowhere near her home at the time of its destruction, but no attempts to locate her in the San Francisco area have so far been successful, with most of the police force currently devoted to dealing with disaster relief, riot control, and the prevention of widespread looting."
Maze would have continued, but a dull thud had started to sound throughout the room, and Maze had a feeling as to why. Hopefully, she would be proven wrong.
Reluctantly, Maze looked over at Percy.
Oh.
Yeah, Percy had definitely not gotten over it.
Instead, he was banging his fist on the table in frustration, cracks spiderwebbing out on the glass at his fist's point of impact.
It's a miracle he hasn't broken it yet.
Never had Maze been this annoyed at being right.
Obviously, just Maze's Hellish coping mechanisms weren't going to cut it for Percy. It made sense when she thought about it—they were hardly in Hell—but it was still deeply annoying. That lesson had taken a long time to accept, and Maze was pretty sure getting Percy to accept it would notbe happening easily.
But it was just like in a fight. If you didn't at least try to kill your opponent, then the winner was already decided.
So Maze shot her hand out and placed it in a vice grip around Percy's fist, holding it in place just inches from the glass table.
Shocked from his blind rage at himself, Percy glared at her. "Let go!"
Maze didn't have time for this. "Focus! Do you want to find this chick or not?"
Apparently 'not', as Percy strained his muscles, trying to pull his arm out of her grip. When that failed, he took his other hand, and readied it in a hammer over Maze's own.
Maze grabbed that one, too.
Now, she had a captive audience, and Maze could finally start her lesson.
Her grip tight on the demigod's fists, forcibly twisting him to face her, Maze spoke. "I am being very generous here. Not just because I've decided not to smash your face in even though you disobeyed me, but also because I'm about to give a piece of wisdom that took me a long time to understand."
Maze's grip was iron, and she knew that Percy would listen. After all, he was so very much like her—and when violence came into play, Maze always paid attention.
Indeed, as Maze's flinty gaze bored into Percy's sea green eyes, she could tell that his attention was now on her.
"Demons were created. We weren't born in some fleshy womb—we were forged by Lilith, made to be Lucifer's servants from now to the end of time. Linda's always babbling about how humans want a purpose, but us demons—we had a purpose from the moment we began. And looking back on it, that sucked."
Maze's eyes narrowed, her mind looking back on those savage moments in the ashen corridors of Hell. "At the time, I loved it. The endless torture, the deadly violence, even the service to Lucifer—every second of it resonated with me, and I knew that what I was doing was what I was made for. Then I came up here, and all that changed."
Maze grimaced. These memories, while more embarrassing than anything, were still unpleasant enough that she very much did not want to recall them. but the lesson they led up to was important enough to make the embarrassment worth it. "For the first time, I was in a world that I hadn't been designed for. And I hated it. See, here's the thing: when you're made for a purpose, every part of you is designed for that purpose. I'd been designed as a master hunter and torturer, the most loyal servant Lucifer could ever ask for. So every part of me desires to hunt and kill those who flee me, to extract screams and suffering from the wicked, to serve and obey those whom I care about."
Maze gritted her teeth. "I tried to rage against those urges once I was on earth, to rebel against what I was and become something different. But I failed. Do you want to know why?"
Maze's voice was steely and unrelenting now, the same voice that even the strongest of her mortal opponents would flinch away from. But Percy didn't, merely raising an eyebrow as if to tell her, get on with it. I've got stuff to do.
It infuriated Maze. But if Percy thought annoying her would cause Maze to cut her advice short, he had another thing coming. "I failed because my instincts were immutable, just as my dear mother had designed. Those instincts, those desires to hurt and track and kill and obey, they were hardwired into me. Every single one of my attempts at a new life was ruined, as my body and mind rebelled against me whenever I found my instincts called upon. So I tried to pull the scraps of that older, more fulfilling life back together, when my service in the bowels of Hell had seen every last one of my urges fulfilled. But then that failed too, and I was forced to learn this lesson that I'm now giving to you."
"I learned that a being like me can't change her inborn desires—she can only change how those desires are fulfilled. I need to give my undying loyalty to someone, so I have friends that I would sacrifice everything for. I need to hunt the wicked, so I'm a bounty hunter. And I need to torture and kill, so… Well, needless to say, I do not hesitate when it comes to protecting my friends. I hate how my actions are constrained, how I ruin everything that doesn't fit with what Lilith made me—but that's who I am, and I have no choice but to accept it. So by now, you're probably wondering how this relates back to you… well you're in luck, 'cause I'm about to get to that bit."
Maze clenched her hands around Percy's fists, her demonic strength somehow ineffective against whatever guarded his flesh from harm. "See, the thing about you, is that you were made for a purpose just as I was. I was forged as one of Hell's servitors, to lessen the oh-so-difficult strain on its angelic ruler; you were born as the child of some Roman god, to be an unquestioning footsoldier in whatever conquests and missions they sent you on."
Maze leaned in close, her voice low. "And you want to know something about a soldier? When their life or their ally's life is threatened, they don't think about the consequences of their actions. They remove the threat. You're never going to be able to stop yourself from doing whatever it takes to survive, because doing that's just as much a part of you as those fancy water powers of yours. And just like me, you can't change that."
"So you can rage about it and slam your fists into the nearest breakable object," and Maze did just that, her hand rocketing down into the fractured glass with Percy's fist still in her grasp. The table shattered under the impact, glass raining down onto their feet as though to emphasize Maze's words. "But it's not going to change how you react when the only options are to kill thousands or die. You'll kill the thousands every time. So instead, you need to find a new way to live, one where you're not in situations that boil down to I'm going to wipe out this city to survive. Now are you going to suck it up and move on so we can get this job done, or are you gonna keep being a little guilty baby?"
Percy clenched his jaw, his sea green eyes churning with rage. "You're wrong. I know I can do better than what my instincts tell me to do, and that's why I'm beating myself up. Whenever I think about it, I realize how little my life mattered compared to those I killed, and I think about how easy it would have been to just give into the Gorgon blood and die."
The guilt was only because he thought he could go beyond his instincts? Well, that made getting him over it a lot easier.
Maze released Percy's hands, grabbed her blades, then struck like lightning. Her blades were aimed at his heart and sword hand, no hesitation in her movement as she tried to kill and maim the demigod.
It came as no surprise to her when Percy surged with motion, wresting away the blade aimed at her sword hand and launching it at her throat. So as soon as he did so, Maze was ready, stopping her blow at Percy's heart and summoning the knife Percy had thrown at her throat just as both had been about to hit their targets.
Point proven, Maze smirked. "Yeah, I really saw a whole lot of 'doing better' there. I especially liked the murder attempt. Really showed how you can go 'beyond your instincts'. Will you take the advice now?"
Percy glowered at her, his words full of a harsh bite. "I'm not going to blame those deaths on some random 'instincts.' That blame goes to me."
Maze spun the knife that had almost killed him on her pointer finger, bored by the argument by now. It was obvious Percy wasn't going to believe her any time soon. Any more of this would just be wasting time she could be using to help Ella out. "Those instincts are a part of you, so yeah, it does. Now get over yourself, so we can find this chick."
Percy's body tensed at Maze's harsh words, but he eventually gave in, just as she knew he would. "I'll let it rest, but not because you're right. I'll let it rest so I can help Vanessa."
His guilt may be unjustified, Maze mused as she brushed the glass off her combat boots, but while it's there, it's a great motivator.
But she really shouldn't be thinking about that right now. After all, it was time to get back to the case.
Maze knew the question here was transportation. They knew Vanessa wanted to be somewhere in LA so her rich patron could help her out. But how would she get there? Her car was destroyed with her house, and there was no way she was going to get her hands on a train or bus ticket with the amount of refugees flooding out of that place. That was, if Vanessa even had the money to get a ticket. In that sort of disaster, it was doubtful the banks would even have enough money on hand to satisfy all the account withdrawals. No, the only thing that Vanessa truly had to her name anymore was… the mechanic's workshop.
Of course. Maze grinned, luxuriating in the pleasure of having figured out her prey's path.
The mechanic's workshop would have had plenty of cars at it. The owners of those cars would be too busy being dead to pick them up. And Vanessa would have known exactly which of those cars could be repaired quickly enough for a quick exodus to LA.
Now all that remained was to figure out what cars Vanessa could have used.
Flipping through the file, Maze scanned for any mention of what repair jobs Vanessa had recently accepted. Percy was obviously confused by that, now that she wasn't explaining everything to him, but who cared? She'd given him good advice and he'd spat in her face.
Eventually, Maze found a section of the file labeled Mercer Mechanics. Looking through it, Maze spotted the information she'd been looking for.
Apparently, the San Francisco PD had scanned in Vanessa Mercer's business ledger while doing their bare-minimum due diligence. And according to that, there were only four commissions that hadn't been completed and paid in full.
So we're looking for either a white Cadillac Escalade, a red Porsche Boxster, a black Maserati Ghibli, or… a blue Ford Focus? What the Hell?
Ok. Obviously, Vanessa had been doing someone a favor there.
Still, the rest of that list was rather impressive. Mercer Mechanics must have had quite the reputation.
So now, all Maze had to do was track down every one of those cars in LA that had arrived within the last week.
Thankfully, Maze had recently gotten her hands on something to make that job significantly easier.
Ugh, Dan needs to get a better password, Maze thought as she pulled out the beat-up iPhone she'd snagged out of his pockets and tapped out its four-digit code, I mean, really, Charlotte's birthday?
Navigating to Dan's already signed-in precinct files, Maze searched for all reports of the four vehicles Vanessa could have taken within the last week.
37 results.
Was that all? Maze had to say—with these kinds of resources, there was only one way to describe this hunt:
Easy.
Well, at least for Maze. Hopefully, Percy had some sort of endurance as part of his demigod powers. Otherwise, he might pass out twelve hours in.
Maze walked out of the conference room with the file in hand, calling out to Percy as she did so. "Come on, Percy! Time to see which car our prey stole to get here."
Maze's instincts were surging to the surface, excitement and pleasure flooding her veins as she stalked out of the precinct with the demigod behind her.
It's time to get to work.
Lucifer and Daniel sat in the interrogation room, waiting for the witnesses as they'd been ordered. In the meantime, they were each engrossed in their own dilemmas.
Lucifer… Lucifer couldn't help but dwell on why Daniel was angry with him. Lucifer knew that it was about how he'd failed to inform the others at the precinct of Cain's nature as the criminal mastermind known by the ridiculous moniker of… 'The Sinnerman'.
Lucifer chuckled despite himself. Cain really had possessed absolutely zero sense of proper naming, hadn't he?
Humor aside, it could not be denied that because of Lucifer's secrecy, Daniel had lost the one that was most precious to him. Cain had killed Charlotte Richards when she jumped in front of a bullet meant for his then-Fallen brother Amenadiel.
Yet Lucifer had gained revenge for what Cain had done! Lucifer had seen to it that Cain died, and had seen to it that the First Sinner condemned himself to Hell.
It brought him back to the latest of his life's oddities—why was everyone making such a fuss over what had happened with Cain? Linda believed that the murder had harmed his psyche. Maze wanted forgiveness, of all things, for how she'd helped Cain in his plans. And Dan was still angry at Lucifer for keeping the secret of Cain's criminal history.
Why? He's dead and buried! Can't you all just give it a rest?
So that was how Lucifer occupied himself—through stately brooding over his social circle's refusal to accept the idea of moving on from Cain's murderous ways and Lucifer's subsequent murder of him.
As for Daniel—well, suffice it to say that his actions were… rather less dignified.
"Really, Daniel. Could you please stop it with that? You may be fine with humiliating yourself, but some of us don't want to be seen in the company of the… buffoon you're being right now."
Lucifer had been silently enduring the spectacle so far as he occupied himself with his own thoughts, but at this point, the joke had stretched on for far too long.
Daniel was patting down his clothes furiously, the small impacts creating a constant thwumping sound that echoed through the interrogation room's surprisingly good acoustics. "Look, man, I need that phone for the investigation. Besides, haven't you ever lost anything? This is how people find stuff when you lose it!"
Daniel had taken off his jacket at this point and was dragging it on the floor, squinting intensely at the fabric as it flowed on the incredibly dirty floor of the interrogation room.
Upon seeing, Lucifer couldn't help but drawl out a response. "No, I'm quite certain the average person does not do that to find a lost item."
Daniel simply persisted in dragging the garment across the floor, only bothering to spare Lucifer an explanation rather than continuing their typical witty repartee. "It's a simple technique. My phone has a black case, so I might not be able to see on the floor on its own. This way, if the jacket bulges as I drag it across a section of the floor, then I know where my phone is."
Lucifer scoffed. "Yes, that or one of the precinct's rodents decided to—"
Lucifer was cut off as the interrogation room's door swung open, and the witness shuffled in.
She wore an intricate black dress that spoke of wealth. Her Prada purse, glittering jewelry and elegantly coiffed hair all told the same story—that of a lazy, upper-class bliss. Then Lucifer looked at her rather than the ensemble she wore, and he realized how wrong he was.
Her body that was practically designed for a seductive sashay merely trudged its way over to sit down at the interrogation table, her makeup applied so poorly and lightly that it augmented her face's flaws rather than subtracting from them. Her face was devoid of any expression whatsoever, and her posture was so poor that the slinky black dress, rather than clinging to her every curve, instead draped away from her flesh.
This was a woman in indescribable pain at the loss of her loved one, and Daniel seemed to know it. Evidently supremely embarrassed, Daniel awkwardly unbent his knees and walked back over to the interrogation table.
Having humiliated himself just as Lucifer had predicted, Daniel awkwardly shrugged his jacket back on and sat down at Lucifer's left. Daniel flipped open the case folder, eyes averted downwards to avoid the woman's accusing gaze. A silence stretched through the room, one that Lucifer was finding entirely too amusing to break.
Instead, Daniel—buzzkill that he was—broke the silence. "Hello, Ms. Rozier. Thank you for coming in. We just have a few questions to ask you about what you recall from your… experiences with the Performer."
Ms. Rozier's eyes seemed to drill into Detective Douche's sockets as she bit back, and Lucifer had to suppress a laugh at the hapless Douche. "You mean, what I recall from my fiancé's torture and murder?"
Lucifer decided to cut in.
Though it was a shame to lose such an amusing show, Lucifer had resolved to make amends. And Lucifer always kept his promises—regardless of the cost.
Now, what did the Detective usually say at this juncture… Ah, yes. There it was.
Lucifer held his hand out to stop Daniel before he got started, his own voice flowing out to take over the interrogation. "Yes, precisely. Now, would you happen to recall anything of the killer's appearance? Their height, size, shape, unique or notable features?"
Jolted out of her frustrations with Daniel, Ms. Rozier just shook her head sadly.
Odd. Usually, the Detective got better results with that. "Really? Nothing at all?"
Ms. Rozier was choked up, clearly caught in the memories, but somehow she managed to verbalize her answer. "I'm sorry, but… no. It was so dark, and they were wearing all-black, and the only light in the room was focused on David. I… I never really paid attention to them. I…"
Here, she lost her grip on her voice, and began to sob, attempting to choke it down and speak all the while, yet unable to succeed.
Well, Lucifer had tried the nicer way. But clearly, his attempt at the Detective's methods had failed.
Now, it was time for his way.
Lucifer leaned forward, his hand gently tilting the woman's chin up so that her eyes met his own. He spoke at a moderate volume, his silk-smooth voice entirely regretful. "My apologies for this. But needs must. Now, Ms. Rozier…"
Lucifer felt the power begin to surge, felt the connection vibrating between the two of them as he peered deep into her eyes. "What do you desire?"
The words spewed forth from her mouth, just as Lucifer had known they inevitably would. "I want to protect the Performer!"
Now, that—that, Lucifer had not known.
But Lucifer had been through this process many times, and he knew how it worked. You never gave those you interrogated a moment to breathe, always assaulting them with follow-ups. So Lucifer gave Ms. Rozier a follow-up. "Why would you want to protect your fiancé's killer?"
See, now that she'd admitted to her carefully hidden desire, Lucifer expected her to vindictively explode into an explanation of her deeper motivations and actions. After all, why conceal your method of crime if the police already have your confession? His follow-up would quicken the inevitable process, and speed their interrogation along nicely.
Indeed, everything seemed to be going apace..
Ms. Rozier's prior grief-stricken façade had dropped, and what was behind it had been revealed: a woman for whom all the accessories spoke only the truth, who truly was happy that their fiancé was gone.
And in keeping with that new truth to her, she held nothing back in her reply. "Because my fiancé was a blighted wart on the backside of humanity that threatened me into an arranged marriage using my family as pawns. I'm grateful someone killed him, and I'm even more grateful that the killer gave me the chance to watch." She leaned forward, her smile full of sadistic pleasure. "Does that answer your question?"
Of course!
The Performer wasn't like Cain, killing others for selfish gain and enjoyment! The Performer was like Lucifer— a person who killed only the evil, in order to punish their misdeeds and aid those who suffered because of them. Yet unlike Lucifer, they seemed to receive gratitude for their actions rather than disgust.
The Performer held the secret to Lucifer's social circle moving on from his murder of Cain.
Now, as Lucifer had been thinking through this, Daniel had been arresting Ms. Rozier on some sort of 'obstruction of justice' charge. But that didn't particularly matter. There were six more witnesses, and plenty more opportunities to understand why the Performer's righteous deeds were appreciated by his 'audience members'.
After that, it all sort of blended together—yet each and every bit of it seemed only to confirm the righteousness of the Performer.
It was the same for each witness, the same routine that they were subjected to.
They'd act in some exaggerated fashion, making sure to broadcast their 'grief' to the world.
The second witness was evidently working class, his thick boots thumping on the ground as he trudged to his seat.
The third witness couldn't have been older than twelve, and though her walk was normal, her soft features were pulled into the sort of resigned expression no child should ever bear.
The fourth witness still wore his wedding band, and nervously twisted it as he walked up. Though it was evidently a nervous tic, every other aspect of him was calm. This one, needless to say, was not an expert deceiver.
The fifth witness likely appeared perfectly normal and respectable to Daniel, and indeed, to most members of the LAPD. Yet to Lucifer's trained eye, it was clear that his clothing was an off-the-rack atrocity, poorly fitted and poorly maintained. Obviously, this one saw the value of subtlety in his façade.
The sixth was a rather handsome man, of a quality such that Lucifer would have normally been quite tempted to sleep with him. Unfortunately for Lucifer's libido, he bore a striking resemblance to Lucifer's brother Amenadiel, both in appearance and dourness—and if anything was a mood-killer for Lucifer, that was it.
The final witness was an elderly woman, who limped her way into a seat. Her act was the best of them all—she truly seemed apathetic to it all, every facet of her face full of depression.
After they'd entered, Daniel would greet the witness and begin the interview. Every time, he was a bit less sympathetic, his tone a bit more cutting, until by the final witness all he could manage was, "Alright, Ms. Monroe. Let's get this over with."
Then Lucifer would attempt to question them as the Detective would, and inevitably, they would deny that they knew anything of his appearance, focused as they were on their loved ones.
They would force Lucifer to use his mojo, and so he would stare into their eyes, and ask that single question to confirm their approval of the Performer's righteous kills: "What do you desire?"
Then, inevitable as could be, they would give their answer, would confirm that Lucifer's own answer for obtaining approval of his righteous kill lay with the Performer.
"I want to help the person who killed my son." the first witness said, his eyes full of gratitude. "That boy peddled his filth to his own sister, and when she died of it, he didn't even show enough respect to admit his fault in the matter. I enjoyed his death."
"I want to thank the Performer for rescuing me from my uncle," the middle-schooler said, her voice quiet and eyes glistening with emotion. "That man abused me every day I spent in his house, and the Performer gave me a chance to escape. I have a future now because of him."
"I want to pay the Performer back for how he helped my family," said the fourth witness, the wedding band now forgotten. "My drunkard wife was forcing me to remarry her under the threat of losing custody. Because of the Performer, my children have a safe home to come home to."
"I want to show how grateful I am to my business partner's killer." the fifth witness declared, his voice swelled with pride. "I learned later that he'd been embezzling from the business, letting me and mine starve as he got rich off our suffering. Watching him die screaming was, in retrospect, the best moment of my life."
The sixth witness' voice was full of a tranquil gratitude, all traces of his former dourness having vanished. "I want to protect the Performer as thanks for giving me revenge. Until the Performer killed her, my sister was the worst person I'd ever met. She stole our parents' life savings! I smiled when I saw her body go limp."
The final witness had a face red with fury, all her apathy forgotten now that Lucifer had called forth her desires. "I want to see that son of a whore rot for what they did to my Jim!"
Wait. What!?
Did one of the Performer's audience members really hate him? If so, why?
Before Lucifer could step in to clarify her meaning, Daniel had begun his own inquiry. He spoke cautiously, but with a bit of hope, as he asked, "And by 'son of a whore', you mean…"
The old woman's mouth twisted. "Why, that 'Performer' jackoff, of course. Who did you think I was talking about? My latest Shih Tzu?"
Daniel brightened at that.
Lucifer wasn't sure why. This was horrible! The Performer wasn't a righteous murderer—they were nothing more than a two-bit serial killer. They couldn't help Lucifer at all.
After that, Detective Douche did his best to calm the irate woman, eventually simply ushering her out of the interrogation room as quickly as he could.
Once she was gone, the Douche shut the door, then turned around to speak with Lucifer. Daniel's excitement was obvious, so intense that it shone through even his grudge against Lucifer—one that he'd nursed since Charlotte's death. "This is the break in the case that we need!"
Well, that sounds promising.
Still, Lucifer was skeptical of any detective work performed by the same man that usually couldn't figure out who'd eaten his pudding. So in a dry tone, he questioned, "And that would be what, exactly?"
Daniel didn't seem to let even that damper his enthusiasm, however, and as began to root through the casefile, the Douche rushed through his explanation of the 'break in the case'. "See, usually, a serial killer is personally linked to at least one of their kills. That personal kill is usually the one which made them want to kill in the first place, and therefore, once you find out which of a serial killer's kills are personal to them, you can just tackle that singular kill as if its a normal murder investigation. Now before with the Performer, we didn't know what linked the victims, so we couldn't figure out which of the kills was personal. But now…"
Lucifer was nodding along at this point, the logic irrefutable. "Now we know that the second kill was the personal one. But that still means we have to conduct a murder investigation. It's not like this just solved the case for us—it just gave us an idea of where to start."
Daniel smirked. "Actually, it does. Every time a new body dropped on the Performer case, the investigators would hit a dead end attacking it as an overall case. So they'd approach it as an individual murder and select the suspects with the most possible motive, means, and opportunity for the crime."
Then Daniel tugged a piece of paper out of the file, his vindictive grin still in place. "In the case of the second murder, the investigators narrowed it down to three suspects. But considering the first one died in a car accident, and the third one just admitted to wanting revenge on the Performer, then I was more right than I knew. We just cracked the case."
Lucifer couldn't help himself. He may dislike Detective Douche, but the satisfaction of solving a good mystery couldn't be denied—even if it wasn't the same without the Detective. "So who is the Performer?"
Then, Lucifer noticed that the smile had slipped from Daniel's face. He'd frozen in place, presumably stricken by shock at what he'd discovered.
Lucifer didn't understand why. Daniel had worked with Lucifer and the Detective enough that nothing should have surprised him.
Then Lucifer leaned over to look at the file which declared the Performer's identity, and suddenly he understood the shock.
Grant Barnes
Assistant District Attorney
The Performer was one of their own.
The Performer had been Charlotte's boss.
And judging by the expression of pure rage spreading across Dan's face, the Performer was a dead man walking.
