Chapter 12: Short and Nerdy

There was a lot of discussion between the four of them as to exactly what the LAPD's consultant would be like. Gates had informed Beckett that a Detective Chloe Decker, the consultant's police partner, would be accompanying him to New York. However despite asking, they didn't actually have a name for the consultant himself.

"I'm going with short and nerdy." Castle said over the rim of his third cup of coffee for the day. "You know, little fussy professor type. Glasses, tweed suit that look."

"Could you be more stereotypical?" Beckett snorted. "He could just be a normal guy." She was more interested in the detective who was coming. It was always nice to meet other female detectives and Beckett was looking forward to balancing out the testosterone in the room a bit more.

"He could be a priest." Kevin offered up.

"Nah man, why would the LAPD have a priest as a long term civilian consultant? I'm with Castle. He's going to be some nerdy professor with no stomach for blood or the serious side of police work." Javier supplied, folding his arms across his chest.

The discussion had been going on since they got in that morning. The two were supposed to be arriving from LA this morning. Gates didn't have anything further and even Castle's googling work hadn't produced any useful information.

"Detective Beckett?" Beckett jumped at Gates' voice from behind her. She had been so focused on their discussion that she hadn't heard the captain come up behind her. The three boys started as well and spun to face their commanding officer.

"Captain?" Beckett asked. Gates flicked a glare at Castle who was straightening his coat.

"This is Detective Chloe Decker from the LAPD, and Mr. Lucifer Morningstar, the man responsible for your translations." Beckett had been so focused on Gates she hadn't paid attention to the two people behind her.

Decker stepped forward with her hand extended so Beckett shook it. Detective Chloe Decker was a good looking blonde, she had Irish blue eyes, immaculate skin and a firm handshake. She gave Beckett a polite, white smile which Beckett returned. "Pleasure to meet you Detective Beckett, I only hope we can help." She had a matter of fact tone that Beckett liked immediately. This was a woman who knew what she was doing.

"Even just the extra hands will be helpful on this one." Beckett told her honestly. Decker turned to shake hands with Castle, however the writer was looking at the other detective's consultant.

"Did Gates say 'Lucifer'?" He said with absolute surprise. Javier and Ryan looked just as surprised and Beckett had been sure she saw Ryan cross himself.

The man standing just behind Decker smirked. "Yes, the Detective is lucky enough to work with the devil himself." The cultured English accent was a surprise, but Beckett stared, she couldn't help herself. Whatever they had been expecting, this man was the complete opposite. He was tall and lean, dressed in a suit that looked like it cost more than her pay packet. He had black hair and perfectly groomed stubble across his cheeks and jaw. His eyes were very dark and there was something almost hypnotic about them. Beckett shivered, he was frighteningly handsome. Decker seemed unsurprised by all of their reactions to her much taller partner, she rammed her elbow into the consultants side causing him to flinch sideways. "What was that for?" He asked, one hand grabbing his side.

Decker glared at him. "Turn it down Lucifer." She said with obvious exasperation.

They were gifted with another very smooth smirk. "Not as easy as you'd think, Detective." He pointed out, tugging his clothes straight.

Beckett shook her head forcing down the breathlessness that came from first contact with Lucifer. "Is your name really Lucifer?" Castle asked. Beckett was glad he did. It might make a little sense if someone who had taken on the persona had taken the time to learn an angelic language.

"Of course." He replied, straightening his cuff links.

Decker sighed. "Lucifer owns a nightclub in LA." As though this explained everything. Beckett thought maybe it did, there were all kinds in LA. However it did seem like an odd choice for a police civilian consultant.

There was a long moment of silence where the New Yorker's tried to adjust their minds to their new helpers.

Finally Beckett told herself to be professional and pushed on. "Well let me run through everything with you." Beckett said turning back to the murder board she started to go through the two murders they had so far. "The translations have helped but we're still no closer to working out who this guy is." Beckett finished.

Chloe nodded slowly, eyes scanning the board. "So you're still looking for some kind of connection between the victims."

"Or the churches." Javier added. "Nothing solid to link them yet, but we're working on it."

"We were hoping you might have some more insight seeing as the killer is communicating using this weird language." Castle told Lucifer.

The man's eyebrows rose. "Two tiny phrases in Enochian. Apart from being a bit of an attention seeker there's not much to go on."

"What about people who can write in this language? There can't be many of them." Ryan asked. He seemed the most unsettled by Lucifer and Beckett was pretty sure the newcomer had noticed. Beckett got the feeling that if Chloe hadn't been there he would have played off on that more. So that was why the LAPD was sparing one of their detectives. The consultant needed a baby sitter.

Chloe leant back onto Beckett's desk. "You said it wasn't hard to learn." She reminded Lucifer, this was obviously a conversation they had had previously.

"It's not. The list of people who can write in Enochian is actually fairly extensive. My entire family for example, although it would be pretty unlikely that any of them would go on a murderous rampage." Lucifer sighed, there was a flicker of disgust on his face. Beckett didn't think he got along well with his family.

"Anyone else?" Beckett pressed.

Lucifer shrugged. "It's not like there's a book club Detective Beckett. You could probably find a reasonable amount of information on the internet. If not there's a collection of very old, very boring books about it." Lucifer shook his head. "I can't see why the language itself is important, if he was looking for obscure languages there is a whole list of them. Just be grateful it's not ancient Sumarian, because I can't read that."

"That's not much help." Decker said. "There has to be some connection between these two victims other than the language. There has to be something that drew our killer to these two people above anyone else. Otherwise this is a serial killer and it doesn't really feel like a serial killer."

Beckett nodded, the longer this went the less it felt like a serial case. She was glad Decker agreed. "It feels like he's sending a message."

Decker nodded. "You've been so thorough. You've checked the buildings, the phrases, the victims. What else is there?"

There was a long moment of silence then Castle jumped to his feet in excitement. "I've got it."

Decker looked surprised. "Got what?" She asked.

"The connection. It's so obvious." Castle laughed with significant relief.

"Castle!" Beckett snapped. "What's obvious?"

Castle spun to look at the board smiling widely. "I mentioned it earlier, but I didn't make the link. The connection is between what these two represent as whole. We've been breaking it down too small. We needed to look at everything from a distance." Castle pulled down the typed translations of the Enochian. "The first line was about heaven and the man who was killed was positioned like Jesus on the cross…"

Lucifer snorted and muttered something under his breath to Chloe who gave him a startled look and shushed him.

Castle continued. "This victim, he was basically a saint."

"Saints are overrated. They're usually the ones with the darkest secrets." Lucifer commented dryly.

"Bear with me." Castle insisted. "Everything about this particular individual crime was about displaying goodness and holiness. Everything about the second crime was about evil and darkness. The phrase mentions hell, the victim was a career criminal, positioned like someone searching for penitence."

"Like he was in Hell." Chloe added. Beckett could see where Castle was going with this and Chloe could too.

"I fail to see how this is going to help." Lucifer shook his head.

"It's the words that connect them. Our killer is picking the victims to suit the words, not the other way around." Castle insisted, pinning the paper back to the board with a look of triumph

"That doesn't help us that much because we don't know what the next phrase is going to be." Ryan pointed out.

"We may do." Lucifer said thoughtfully. He was studying the two pages with his translations. "These phrases seem familiar. I just can't quite remember where I've heard them before." He frowned for a moment longer then shook his head and his gleeful smile returned. "I'll think of it eventually. Most likely, as Miss Lopez says, when I'm not thinking about it. During a threesome or something."

Chloe rolled her eyes at her partner. "Ella meant while you were in the shower."

"Same thing." Lucifer chuckled. Beckett and Castle exchanged a look of confused surprise.

Decker smiled at them, though it looked a little forced this time. "Ok, so we worked out a possible connection, now what?"

Beckett grimaced. "We keep working that angle. If the phrase has mentioned heaven and hell, what are the next lines likely to be?"

"What else is there?" Javier said. "Heaven, Hell, Earth isn't that all the options?"

"Don't be ridiculous. There are a whole host of other places you could reference." Lucifer told them. "Purgatory, the Dreaming, the House of Windowless Rooms, the Sunless Lands, you could even try for the Void if you were really keen." Lucifer waved one hand vaguely. "The options for other dimensions are virtually limitless."

Beckett looked at Decker and asked. "Do you know what he's talking about?"

"Only in the vaguest sort of sense." Decker said with a sigh. "Ok so what's the most likely 'realm' for lack of a better word? What fits with what we have so far?"

Lucifer considered this with what might actually have been dedication. "Purgatory probably. You humans do like to clump the three together. Something to do with that awful Virgil fellow. I should have locked him in one of the Hell circles when I saw him wandering around in the first place." The New Yorkers stared at him. This guy really bought into his own crazy. However when Beckett looked over at Decker there was no disbelief or confusion, just mild frustration as though she had heard it all and was just hoping Lucifer would get to the point eventually. For all the insanity this guy must have a massive closure rate for cases.

Lucifer looked at Beckett and frowned. "Well? You invited me here for advice, are you going to take it?"

Beckett stared at him for a moment longer before she shook herself. She put up with Castle, she could put up with Lucifer Morningstar for a little while. "Alright let's see if we can find anything that might link up to purgatory. Mostly churches and their congregations. It's probably our best chance."

"Detectives." Gates said from behind her. Beckett turned and almost swore. "You have another body."