Chapter Eleven

Much to Lucifer's dismay, there were no semen stains, stray pubic hairs, or other signs that Martin and some random woman did the wild thing in the back of his car. Now the Devil sat huddled next to Chloe, shivering and miserable once more because his temperature had crept up again, and she'd had no choice but to put the ice back on. She'd also given him more Tylenol, even though technically it was too soon for another dose. The thought of him possibly OD-ing on acetaminophen scared her, but right now his fever scared her more.

"There's only one set of fingerprints on the driver's side door handle," Chloe said, forcing her voice to sound more intrigued than she actually was. She glanced over at Lucifer, but he just continued staring at the screen with glassy eyes.

"That's a little unusual, don't you think?" Chloe prompted.

Lucifer coughed and shivered. It seemed to take him an extra-long moment to realize she'd been speaking to him. "Sorry, Detective…what was unusual?"

"The fingerprints on the driver's side door handle," she repeated patiently. "There's only one set: Martin's bloody ones from the night of the murder. Aside from those, the handle was clean."

Lucifer stared at her blankly, clearly not seeing the significance.

"Think about how many times a day you get into your car. Usually, there are fingerprints all over the place. This seems like someone wiped the handle clean, then deliberately placed Martin's prints on it."

"Perhaps he'd just been to the car wash," Lucifer offered in a tired voice. "Some of us like to keep our vehicles pristine."

Lucifer's jet black 'Vette was his pride, joy, and obsession. Chloe often used its gleaming exterior as a mirror to check her hair one last time before they went in to talk to a witness. On the rare occasions they drove her squad car instead, Lucifer usually made a face at the sight of all the squashed bugs smeared on her windshield. One time, he'd even bought her some wiper fluid as a not-so-subtle hint.

"Though with that rustbucket," Lucifer went on, gesturing at a photo of Martin's dilapidated vehicle, "the car wash does seem a waste of money. He'd be better off leaving it unlocked in a bad neighborhood and collecting the insurance money."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Chloe said, scanning for any evidence that he might be right about the car wash.

Lucifer rubbed at his dark-ringed eyes. "Come now, Detective. Insurance fraud may be—" His chest hitched as he tried to swallow back a cough "—a crime, but trust me, it's a far worse crime to own a—" He broke off abruptly, coughing hard into his paper towels.

Chloe set a hand on his back, as she'd taken to doing whenever he had a bad fit like this. She doubted it gave any physical comfort, but at least it reminded him she was there. This time, however, she almost yanked her hand back.

Chloe could actually feel the thick wetness rattling around inside his chest. His muscles quivered under her touch, his lungs shaking with the effort of trying to expel blood and sludge, then struggling to draw in a few quick, insufficient gasps between the spasms, like a drowning person barely surfacing for air before going under again.

Just when she didn't think she could stand it anymore—when she thought she'd have to pull away, just to save herself from the visceral awareness of what he was going through—the fit finally subsided. Lucifer remained hunched over on the bench, taking shallow, wheezing breaths and looking like he was trying not to pass out.

At least it was over. For now.

Chloe shifted her hand to his shoulder, trying to massage away some of the rigid tension. Lucifer flinched at the contact, quickly shrugging out from under her touch like he couldn't bear it anymore.

Chloe frowned. "Lucifer, what's—?"

Before she could finish, he lurched to his feet, swayed, and took two very unsteady steps in the direction of the bathroom. On the third step, his legs buckled.

"Lucifer!" she cried, running over to him as he crashed to the floor on his knees.

Crumpled, bloody paper towels spilled from his right hand and rolled onto the concrete. Lucifer made no move to hide them, either unaware that they were splashed with red or too sick to care. Sweat glistened on his face as she hunkered down beside him. His breaths came in short, fast, open-mouthed gasps.

"Lucifer, what do you feel?" she asked desperately. "Talk to me." Chloe tried to meet his eyes, but they darted sideways.

"I…I…"

Unable to get any more words out, he started to sag forward, one hand clutching his chest in a gesture that meant only one thing in Chloe's mind: Heart attack.

Her own heart froze into a solid ball of fear. There was absolutely nothing in the medical kit for heart attacks. No defibrillator, not even any aspirin. The kidnapper's warning echoed in Chloe's skull: You'll be lucky if you make it the full twenty-four hours.

Tears flooded her eyes, blurring the sight of Lucifer slowly sinking toward the floor in a bow, like he was praying. No, no, no. It couldn't be happening. Not now. Not like this. They were supposed to have another fifteen-and-a-half hours.

"Detective…"

At the sound of his fading, breathy voice, the frozen ball in her chest melted. Turned to fire. Cold fingers brushed Chloe's hand and she latched onto them, squeezing tight. She raked an arm across her eyes, roughly clearing away the tears. Lucifer was hunched low, his head almost resting in her lap. Like he was surrendering. Giving up.

Chloe shook her head. This was not happening. She wouldn't let it happen. Chloe grasped him by the shoulder, shoving him back up into a sitting position.

Lucifer instantly tilted his head back, gasping at the ceiling. His fingers were limp in hers. His other hand held his chest.

"Lucifer," she said, "listen to me. No matter how much it hurts, you have to hold on. Just hold on for a little while until I can figure out—"

"Doesn't…hurt," he panted. His head flopped forward, eyes full of poorly concealed panic. "I just…can't…" Losing his words, he rubbed the hand on his chest in a circle.

Can't breathe, she finished for him. You're not having a heart attack, you just can't breathe.

"Okay," Chloe said, jumping to her feet. She raced over and grabbed one of the two oxygen tanks by the bathroom and ran back to Lucifer, the wheels bumping wildly over the iron in the floor.

Chloe's hands shook as she fumbled with the valve on the side, her knowledge of the mechanism limited to a single case back in her first year as a detective. Air hissed through the tube and into the mask. The numbered dial on the tank ranged from 0.5 to five. Chloe rolled it to four and tried to shove the mask onto Lucifer's face.

He turned his head away, instinctively avoiding something being put over his mouth and nose when he already couldn't get enough air. Chloe forced the mask on anyway and held it there. After a moment he stopped fighting it. His breaths deepened as oxygen seeped back into his bloodstream. His eyes fluttered shut. Lucifer reached up to grasp the mask himself, pressing it harder against his face, trying to drink in even more. He sucked at the air with fast, greedy gulps. Too fast.

"Whoa, take it easy," Chloe warned, her own body trembling with a combo of relief and adrenaline release. "Slow it down a little. You're going to hyperventilate."

She put a hand to his shoulder, snagging his attention, and then breathed with forced slowness to demonstrate. His dark eyes watched her carefully as he matched his breathing to hers.

"That's it. There you go." She smiled encouragingly.

Lucifer blinked slowly at her, his long black lashes brushing together.

After a minute or so of steady, even breathing, Chloe nudged the dial down to three with her fingernail. When Lucifer seemed strong enough, she helped him back over to the bench, dutifully wheeling the tank along with them.

Once seated, Lucifer looked up at her, his eyes soft with gratitude. "Thank you, Detective," he murmured from under the mask.

Chloe nodded, swallowing past a thick lump in her throat. "You…you good for a minute?" she asked. By some miracle, her voice came out semi-normal.

He nodded.

"Okay, I'll be right back." It took everything she had to walk calmly to the bathroom and not run there and slam the door behind her. Once inside, she gripped the metal edges of the sink, trying to stop the tremors in her hands.

It's okay. He's okay now. Situation handled.

Chloe forced a few deep breaths, letting them out through pursed lips. She splashed icy, rust-smelling water on her face and wiped herself dry with one of the awful paper towels. It was like rubbing sandpaper on her cheeks, but Chloe didn't mind. The feeling grounded her. Brought her back from the edge she'd been teetering on. She tossed the crumpled wad in the trash and glanced in the mirror. A total stranger stared back at her. A pale wisp of a woman with huge, terrified eyes. A victim. Chloe squared her shoulders and schooled her expression until she looked like herself again.

When she was sure her hands and voice would not betray her, she exited the bathroom. Lucifer sat languidly on the bench, holding the oxygen mask to his face and gazing dreamily at the lights on the ceiling. He must've gotten up at some point, though, because the bloody paper towels had been removed from the floor.

That was a good sign. At least he could still get around. He just needed a little extra oxygen to do it.

A new worry crept to the forefront of Chloe's mind as she looked at the oxygen tank Lucifer was using, then at the spare one by the bathroom. Based on the case Chloe had worked several years ago, she knew that tanks this size could last about six hours if the dial was set at the typical oxygen level most people used, which was two. Dial it down to one or 0.5, and it would last a little bit longer.

The suspect in that old case had been on oxygen due to a combination of lung cancer and congestive heart failure. When the woman was accused of shooting her old boss—a man who'd knowingly risked the health of his employees by sending them to clean out asbestos-filled buildings without proper protection—the oxygen tank had been her alibi.

Her doctor attested to the fact that she could not be without it, even for a short time. The woman's boss had been murdered in a remote cabin—a four-hour drive from civilization. The suspect had a large plug-in machine to make oxygen at home, but she was waiting for the insurance company to approve a refill on her prescription for portable oxygen, and in the meantime only had one tank. Which, she coldly pointed out, would not have been enough for her to drive out to the murder site and back.

Chloe did a few quick calculations. With fourteen-plus hours left to go, they should have enough oxygen to last…if they put it on the lowest setting. Any higher, and they risked running out towards the end, when Lucifer would probably need it the most.

He seemed pretty spaced out at the moment, but not in any distress. Hopefully she could turn the dial down without causing him any problems. As she approached the bench, Lucifer tilted his head to look at her.

"Feeling better?" Chloe asked, forcing cheer into her voice.

He smiled lazily at her from under the mask. "Yes."

His loopy expression made her smile too. "Good."

"This stuff is marvelous," Lucifer went on, looking at the green-and-silver canister with something like wonderment. "Truly top-shelf. What exactly is in here?"

"Just plain ole oxygen."

"Really?" His eyes widened in amazement, and Chloe almost laughed in spite of everything.

"Yes, really, you goof," she said. Then Chloe caught sight of the dial on the tank and her eyes popped wide. He'd turned it all the way up to five. "Um, do you really need it set that high?"

"Hmmm?" He followed her gaze down to the dial. "Oh, no this is strictly for pleasure. Speaking of which, would you care for a hit?" Lucifer lifted the mask off his face to offer it to her. Plastic-scented air hissed out into the warehouse like spilled drops of precious water in the middle of the desert.

"No," Chloe said quickly, shoving the mask back at him and thumbing the dial down to 0.5. "And please don't waste it. We have to use as little as possible right now, because we might…need it later." She didn't want to scare him—or herself—by saying the phrase "run out." Something of her fear must've shown on her face, though, because Lucifer's expression turned serious.

"All right." He turned the valve, cutting off the airflow, then hung the mask on its little designated hook.

Chloe studied him carefully. "You're okay without it?"

"I think so." He cast the mask a longing look, like it was his favorite bong or a particularly well-cut bag of heroin. "You know…I've never realized the pleasures of pure O before…do you think I should install an oxygen bar at Lux?"

"I'm not really sure that idea would gel with your usual customers," Chloe said, a smirk of amusement on her face as she turned back to the computer, which had gone to sleep during their crisis.

"You're right," Lucifer mused, "I'd probably have to…mix it with something more fun, like nitrous."

He sounded a little out of breath without the mask, but not too bad. She would just have to keep an eye on his breathing, like she was with the fever.

"Nothing too illegal, though," she murmured absently, already intently reading the report on the screen. "I don't want to lose you as a consultant."

Lucifer pillowed his cheek on her shoulder. "Oh Detective…I would never let that happen. I'm afraid you are quite stuck with me. We're a matched set…just like those horrible beer steins."

Chloe decided not to remind him that the steins, in fact, did not match. Not to mention one of them had been used as a weapon to bludgeon its owner to death.

In a weird way, Chloe knew exactly how the poor stein felt. Because right now, she was the weapon. Wielded against her will to murder one of the people she loved most in this world. The virus might be what was technically killing Lucifer, but her proximity was enabling it to do so. If he died, it would be because he'd chosen to work with her. Because he had trusted her instincts, her judgment, to keep them both safe.

Instead, she'd led them right into a trap.

And the guilt of that…well, it might just be enough to drive a person to Hell.