As crime scenes went, this was a strange one. The beach below the pier in the middle of a sunny Saturday was not where you expected a body to turn up. After the very public shooting of a murderer at the top of this pier several months ago, this might just earn this beach a spot on the Hollywood Mystery tour. This girl lay exactly where Dan had picked Charlotte Richards out of the sand after she and Lucifer had somehow thrown themselves off the pier.

Of course, the body hadn't just turned up. Several witnesses had recounted consistently that the woman had dropped dead with little fuss. The only even slightly odd thing was that she had pushed past several people as she headed straight to… somewhere. More mysterious circumstances that the tour guide could allude to.

Chloe was here to clear up those mysterious circumstances. Ella's initial assessment hadn't turned up a clear cause of death. Dan was canvassing the scene with the uniformed officers, trying to find anyone who could tell more of the story. Maybe the tale involved a hospital, given the gown and the paper patient-info bracelet on the woman's wrist.

Chloe finished her own inspection of the body. She put her sunglasses back on, eyeing the crowds gathering to observe the spectacle. Most of the onlookers were your standard LA revelers in high-fashion, low-coverage clothing. Their phones — every make and model under the sun— all had their cameras aimed at the scene. Of course.

One guy stood out. No phone in evidence, for one thing. Despite the balmy weather, he was observing the goings-on with his hands stuffed into the pockets of a long beige coat. He looked vaguely familiar, with his unshaven stubble and dirty blond hair.

Chloe started moving toward him. He caught her intent and turned away. Dan, bless him, had also spotted the guy and intercepted him from the other side.

He was still trying to get away from Dan when Chloe approached. He had an accent, English but regional, not the cultivated tones she was so used to hearing.

Chloe showed her badge and introduced herself. "We'd like to get your view on the events of this case."

The stranger shook his head. "I haven't got anything to contribute, love."

"Love," right. That wasn't helpful to ingratiate himself. "Still, we'd like to hear your side of the story."

Dan took his cue off her. "And since it looks like you don't want to hang around here, let's do it at the station."

-x-

At the station, the stranger's identity became clear. And it also became clear why he'd looked familiar. The man was John Constantine. He'd been their only suspect in a set of serial butcherings last year and had proven especially elusive. The LAPD had never caught up to him before the case went federal. In the end, the FBI had arrested a previously unsuspected woman on overwhelming evidence, with help from the Star City DA's office.

Strange for Mr. Constantine to have walked into the police station with only some token protest, this time. Although he was being evasive enough with the questioning.

Chloe observed Dan as he handled the first interrogation. Constantine had started off the interrogation by claiming to be a "master of dark magic." At least by the proxy of his business cards. But he hadn't tried to deny that ridiculous claim either, nor explain it as a professional affectation. When asked what he'd been doing at the beach, he claimed to be tracking a ghost. Dan looked like he hadn't had enough coffee for this nonsense.

Under other circumstances, Chloe might have agreed. But….

But in some ways, she was still reeling from her own entrance into the Twilight Zone.

Thinking about the whole thing here, in the station, never felt quite real. This was such a… mundane place. Not somewhere you'd expect the Devil to be walking around. And yet here he had been. Her partner. He might have been more, at that. They'd been so, so close to something… several times, even. Then Lucifer would do something impulsive and throw the whole relationship into a loop.

Lucifer might not have taken conscious action this time but showing his true self had definitely thrown their relationship into another loop.

The problem wasn't that he had never told her before. Lucifer had been quite insistent about being the Devil. But she'd always taken it as part of his… issues. A delusion, perhaps, but a helpful one. To him, because it let him function in society after a fashion. But also to her, because Lucifer's perspective, pain in the ass that he might sometimes be, helped her be a better her. He complemented her in ways she could never have imagined she needed, but she was already missing the casual insanity of having him by her side.

Little had she known that the world was crazy, not Lucifer.

He'd warned her off, one last time. He let her make the first move; decide that she wanted this relationship. She had made that move.

And then the phone call had come that Charlotte had been shot. Everything after that had been a rapid succession of surreal events. Her ex-fiance, the lieutenant, turning out to be the killer — the legendary Sinnerman! Lucifer knowing about that for months and not telling. That same killer, claiming he still loved her – but not enough that he wouldn't shoot her to get to Lucifer.

To be honest, Chloe wasn't quite sure what had happened next. She'd regained consciousness on a rooftop. Lucifer had expressed his relief at her being safe and then disappeared. She'd found bloody feathers on that rooftop, and she'd later found similar feathers in the gallery where she'd been shot. There had been a smashed rooftop window in the gallery. Taking all the crazy at face value, since that's what she should have been doing all along, left only one conclusion.

Lucifer had flown her out.

She remembered he'd come to her after someone had stolen his "Angel Wings" early on. She'd laughed about it, then. Well. He must have gotten them back. Not that she'd seen them.

That would have been a nice thing to have seen. Even if it would have been just as shocking.

Instead, she had made her way back to the gallery from the rooftop in time to see Lucifer crouched over the body of Marcus Pierce. She'd heard his voice, seen the sharp lines of his shoulders in his no-longer-so-immaculate jacket. But then he'd turned, and she hadn't seen Lucifer anymore.

She'd seen Satan himself.

The shattering of old illusions had been as much of a shock as the sight of him. As soon as he'd spoken, deep down she'd known Lucifer was still in there, and he hadn't changed. But her perceptions, at that point, had been in turmoil. It was all true. It was all real.

The existence of Evil, even with a capital E, was an easy concept to a police officer. People were capable of some fucked-up things. But Chloe had been an agnostic at heart, maybe even an atheist. She believed in the things she could see and touch, in what human hands could accomplish. To know beyond a doubt that there were greater powers — beings and events on a scale and with motivations and goals she had no perception of… that was scary.

That had made her recoil when Lucifer took another step toward her.

Her flinch had been enough for Lucifer. He'd stopped, his hand going to his face. His expression had fallen as soon as his hand had touched flesh. "Ah." He'd taken a step back, nodding as he went. "I'd best clean up. Avoid any awkward questions."

He'd gone back to Pierce's body, to the knife lodged in Pierce's sternum. He'd paused. "One question for you then, Detective. Do you want this to be traced to me, or not?"

Chloe had shaken her head. At that, Lucifer had pulled the knife from Pierce's chest. Then he'd picked up most of the feathers around the scene. He'd worked fast, keeping his distance from Chloe.

When he'd finished, he had faced her one more time. He had regained the face Chloe was most familiar with. She hadn't seen the transformation happen. "Detective… Chloe." Her name had come out almost as a sigh. "I'm sorry you had to see the truth this way. I would have preferred to show you differently. If…." He'd fallen silent. Chloe hadn't had an answer either. Too many things had still been going through her head. "I will be at Lux," Lucifer had finally said, "should you wish anything from me."

He had left, then, before Dan and Ella could arrive. Nothing…supernatural had been left at the scene. Well, almost nothing supernatural. Chloe had been standing on a few feathers. She had tucked them into her jeans' back pocket. But there had still been Marcus's body to answer for. That and a gaggle of unconscious thugs, some in severe need of medical attention.

The subsequent investigation was still ongoing. Internal Affairs had grilled the entire department, Lucifer included, after Marcus Pierce's involvement in the Sinnerman network became entirely too clear. The inquiry had proven to be sufficient distraction from the question of exactly how he'd died. Thank you, Dan.

Lucifer had stayed away unless called. And Chloe hadn't felt up to calling him. Unfortunately — or not? — the LAPD dispatchers hadn't got the message and called Lucifer whenever she was assigned a case.

He showed up, either at the crime scene or the precinct, and, when she didn't seem inclined to let him participate in the case, left again or busied himself helping other officers. Ella's lab had been another popular destination whenever Chloe wasn't there.

Chloe didn't feel up to letting the dispatchers know they didn't need to call Lucifer. Every time he walked in, looking and acting as normal as he ever did, made it a little easier to ignore the whole crazy Heaven and Earth scenario. His undemanding presence gave her distance in another way.

Most importantly, though, by acting as he did, Lucifer was demonstrating one thing to her: he wasn't leaving. He wasn't running away and letting her deal with the shock on her own. Not this time. If she wanted to talk, he'd be there. The silent raised eyebrows every time he walked in were enough testament to that.

So far, apart from a few very-basic case-related exchanges, Chloe hadn't felt up to talking to him. Now she might have to. John Constantine was an unknown quantity to her. But not to Lucifer. He'd been the one who had identified Constantine last year.

Lucifer hadn't been at the crime scene. But now, just as Chloe was considering talking to him, there he was. Chloe quashed the hackneyed expression threatening to float up from her subconscious. He walked in through the corridor that housed the interrogation rooms.

"Hey," she greeted him. Not her best opening line ever.

"Detective," Lucifer returned the greeting formally. No cheery innuendo now. He looked a little apprehensive. Even though it had been a simple greeting, Chloe had spontaneously said more to him than she'd done since… back then. She had to follow it up with something, though.

"Why are you here?" She had a case to worry about — one she needed Lucifer's help on. Yet somehow, that was the question that immediately came to mind once she had resolved to talk to Lucifer. Awesome.

The question seemed to confuse Lucifer, too. He frowned. "Because your dispatchers called me, of course." He half-turned as if starting to walk back out. "Should I go and tell them not to bother?"

Chloe shook her head and put out her hand to halt him, but stopped short of touching him. "No… no, that's not what I meant." She took a quick look around for people listening in – something she should have done before. She continued in a whisper. "Why does the Devil come to Earth, to LA? It can't be to be a consultant with the LAPD."

"Why not?" Lucifer looked mildly insulted. "It's my Dad who has the big plans, not me." He sighed, then opened the nearest door and stepped inside. Chloe followed him into the observation room for interrogation room 2 — not the one that currently held John Constantine. As far as privacy went, there were worse places.

Lucifer closed the door behind him before he started. "Here, at least, there are people who want what I would like to give. And unlike most of the poor souls in Hell, I don't appreciate unrelenting torture. There wasn't anything keeping me there, so I came for a break. I stayed because…." Lucifer trailed off. "Because it felt like the right thing to do." He shrugged. "That's all. No grand plans for me, Detective."

"You must have wanted something."

"What I wanted was out." Lucifer turned to face the one-way glass. "Out from under my Dad's plans." He sneered at the mention of his Father — yes, capital F — this time. "And out of a literal grind that lost any interest it might have had to me centuries ago."

Centuries? Chloe remembered Lucifer alluding to being immortal, to being old, but at that point, of course she hadn't believed it. He didn't look the part — with either of his faces. So it hadn't quite registered yet. But if he really was the Devil, he must be old indeed.

"How old are you, even?"

The question took Lucifer by surprise. His head snapped around so he could look her in the eyes again. He was frowning, but the frown faded quickly.

"That's not such an easy question to answer, Detective." His gaze drifted, as if he was thinking. "I've been on Earth for about two hundred years in total. " He coughed. "Of course, that's spread out over a couple of millennia."

"Millennia." There wasn't anything else to say. Two-hundred years were comprehensible, sort of. The world had gone from horses and muskets to electric cars and the Internet in two-hundred years. What had happened over thousands?

And yet, in this new and crazy world where Lucifer really truly was the Devil, a few thousand years seemed…. Too short? It didn't leave much space to fit in the dinosaurs or a few ice ages, that was for sure. "Doesn't seem to be that long if you count it from 'the beginning of time.'"

Lucifer smiled and shot her a look that was almost proud. "It is and it isn't." He gestured at the digital clock that was part of the room's recording equipment. "It's only here on Earth that time is constrained by the rotation of the galaxy, the beat of your heart, or—" Lucifer tapped the clock. "—the vibrations of an atom."

He turned fully toward her. "Everywhere else," he said, moving a hand in a circle as if to encompass the universe, "time is in your perception." The invisible trail made by his hand turned into a straight line. "It moves forward for the most part, but…."

His hand fell to his side. Lucifer trailed off. "Well," he eventually said, and turned away from Chloe. "Even here… a few hours spent playing a board game can feel like they lasted forever. And years of partying and sex, drugs and rock and roll would seem to have passed in a flash."

He paused until the digital clock changed its minute count. "One of your precisely measured seconds, spent in Hell, would appear like weeks. Even years." He snapped his fingers. "But everything after 'Let There Be Light' passed like that. Until… well…."

Lucifer fell silent again. This time, he didn't seem inclined to continue any further.

"What do you want from me?" Chloe managed to ask. That was the big question, of course. Everything else, however crazy, would eventually come down to that. Why her?

Lucifer closed his eyes and shook his head. He breathed. Twice. Deep breaths. Then he looked Chloe in the eye again. He reached a hand to her face but dropped it before he even came close. "All I wanted from you, Detective, you have already freely given." His hand moved to indicate his own face and then swept downward. "Before… this." He looked away. "I… I should like the previous state of affairs to continue. If that is still what you desire."

Chloe was trying to process his words. They hadn't answered anything. They only caused more questions.

After the digital clock clicked forward again, Lucifer took a deep breath. "So what will it be, Detective? Shall I make myself scarce, or am I to face further inquisition?"

Chloe shook her head. She had to get her train of thought back on track. "Neither. I've caught a new case, and it's… weird. I could use your assistance interviewing a witness."

Lucifer's eyebrows rose, and then the corners of his lips followed to form a careful smile. "Well, then. Lead on, Detective."

-x-

Chloe first led Lucifer to the next observation room over. The one that did have a view on Dan losing ever more of his patience listening to Constantine reiterate his claims. "We picked him up hanging around our crime scene. Woman dropped dead on the beach in the middle of the day. There isn't a mark on her and no sign that she'd gotten sick. Lab's not back on the tox screen, but Ella saw no indications of poison, either."

"Look who's a bad penny," Lucifer said, looking at Constantine with a sour expression. "And you left poor Daniel alone with him?"

"He wasn't being particularly talkative. And what he was saying, Dan wasn't believing anyway."

Lucifer tilted his head in a sort of acknowledgment. "Yes, Daniel has always been reliably uninquisitive when it comes to the supernatural." He shrugged. "You would think he might have caught on by now."

Chloe sighed. "It took me this long to figure it out. Dan hasn't spent as much time around you as I have."

Lucifer looked at her sideways, one eyebrow raised. "Dan walked in on me having been shot, looked at the bullet hole in my tuxedo, and let it go. He's not going to admit there's anything out of the ordinary unless forced to."

Dan had walked in on Lucifer being shot? Lucifer had to have been hiding things for a very long time… but hiding getting shot was a little more than not telling her about doing favors for people. Given the dubious legality of some of Lucifer's favors, it was at least understandable that he kept quiet about them. But if people were shooting at him, that meant he was putting himself in the way of criminals– and without telling her about it. "When was this?"

"Oh, about… two years ago now?" Lucifer waved his hand to dismiss the issue. "Tim Dunlear — charitable sports hero who was hiding his sexual preferences from the world." He grimaced. "But not from his wife. Not that she minded. But she definitely did mind him leaving everything to charity." His hand went for his chest. "We talked at Lux, and she let something slip so I realized she was our killer. Then she shot me to try to conceal it. Dan came in after."

That had to have been shortly before Mrs. Dunlear had been arrested. Lucifer had been there for the arrest, hale and hearty. Or at least he had appeared so. Chloe had seen Lucifer get shot, and he'd always bled even if he somehow made a miraculous recovery. The bloody feathers in her back pocket were further testament to that.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Lucifer huffed a mild laugh, then shook his head. "Would you have believed me?" He pointed at Dan, who was still in the interrogation room, shaking his head once more at Constantine's assertions. "Or would I have gotten that response?"

Lucifer had a point there. Still. "You've told me crazy-sounding stuff all the time."

"And how often did you believe it?" He faced the observation window again. "Sometimes if you don't want to be believed, an outrageous truth is better than a lie." This time, his finger found Constantine. "And that's what he's doing, too. Brazening out the truth, hoping you'll release him as a loony."

Constantine wasn't doing anything to dispel a "crazy" judgment, that much was true. Although he must be running out of tricks, because he was now resorting to flirting with Dan. On second thought, flirting with the interrogator while not yet officially under arrest wasn't such a bad move if the goal was to get dismissed as insane. "You think he's involved." She didn't phrase it as a question.

"He's here. He's involved in something."

Chloe frowned. "He turned out not to be involved last time."

Lucifer huffed. "He was involved. He wasn't the murderer, but he was involved."

"So you knew more than you told me about that one, too." Given all the revelations coming out today, Chloe didn't think she should be surprised. Still, it stung a little. More than a little. So many parts of the truth had been missing. So many secrets. Did she know Lucifer at all, by the parts he had told her about?

"Not at the time we talked about it," Lucifer said in a clear attempt to placate her. "I called in some favors to track John down." His lips pushed together, as if he'd bitten into something sour. "I walked right into an attempt by John and his friends to capture the demon who was after him."

Demon. The police report when the FBI closed the case had mentioned the woman that had been arrested. It hadn't mentioned any supernatural shenanigans. "Then who does the FBI have in custody?"

"That's the one." Lucifer frowned at her curiously. "Delivered to the authorities alive and unharmed, Detective. As promised."

And then again, there were statements like that. Chloe vaguely remembered making Lucifer promise — when he had looked like he was about to run off on his own — to bring in whoever he was going after. And although he hadn't deemed his actions worth mentioning until now — he'd still kept to his word. Somehow. And he was surprised that she would think otherwise. "A demon. The FBI—" She emphasized the letters in the acronym. "—have a demon in custody for a serial murder case. And you didn't think to tell them about that? To warn them, at least?"

Lucifer waved a hand dismissively. "Obviously she doesn't have her powers anymore. The FBI wouldn't have been able to hold her otherwise. But without them, a regular cell should suffice. If adequately guarded." He took a deep breath. "So, shall we see what John there has to say for himself?"

"Hold up. How…." Chloe wasn't out of questions yet, but Lucifer was done answering and headed for the actual interview room. Chloe hastened to get ahead of him. She had to be the first into that room or she'd miss at least half of the point of setting this up — Constantine's expression when Lucifer walked in.

-x-

Lucifer slowed his steps as soon as she brushed past him, which let Chloe take the lead. He gave no sign of answering her half-posed question, however.

She knocked on the door to let Dan know she was ready to come back in again. Dan gave her a curious glance when he opened the door and saw Lucifer at her back. When Chloe shook her head, Dan mentioned talking to Ella about lab results. By the set of his shoulders as he walked off, he was glad to be out of that interrogation.

Constantine straightened a little from his slouch as Chloe walked in. He pulled the unlit cigarette from his mouth as if to say something. But then he caught sight of Lucifer coming in behind her, and the words died on his lips.

Constantine bolted upright, his hand tightening into a fist. The cigarette fell to the table in pieces . His eyes went from Lucifer to her, narrowing as he tried to get a new read on Chloe. He hadn't expected Lucifer to be here. Score one for Decker.

And then the moment was over. Chloe had to give it to him, Constantine's recovery hadn't taken more than a heartbeat. He slouched back down, expression neutral again. His shoulders stayed rigid, though.

"Hello, John," Lucifer started in the honey-sweet tones that usually pointed toward him working his mojo. Hypnotism. Devil-magic… whatever. He didn't sit down, instead leaning over the table to get a little closer to Constantine. "What kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time?"

Constantine took several seconds to answer. Unlike most of the people subjected to Lucifer's gaze, he wasn't in any way trying to avoid it. Neither was there the whimpering foreplay or asking Lucifer to stop. Instead, Constantine met Lucifer's eyes glare for glare. Constantine's jaw clenched. The fingers of his left hand were scrabbling for a fragment of the dropped cigarette.

Then Constantine nodded fractionally. "Your kind of trouble, I'm guessing."

His reply broke Lucifer's… spell. Lucifer frowned and sat down, shaking his head. "Hardly. I wouldn't even be here if you hadn't shown up."

Constantine shrugged. He gestured around the room. "And your buddies at the LAPD can tell you I barely had time to get in trouble. I only got into town yesterday evening."

That correlated with Constantine's earlier statements, his credit card history, and his hotel records. Chloe nodded. "But what you didn't tell us yet, Mr. Constantine, is why you came to LA. Was it to chase this 'ghost?'"

Lucifer leaned forward, grinning like a shark. "One day is plenty of time for you to get into trouble, too."

Constantine looked at Lucifer blankly for a few heartbeats to make it very clear he wasn't going to be responding to that jibe before turning to Chloe. "I was invited by a friend of a friend. She knew the grandmother of the girl in your morgue. She claims the girl's hospital room was haunted."

"Was it?"

"No clue, love." Constantine raised his hands. "Haven't seen the 'scene of the crime,' so to speak. When I got to the hospital, they were running around like headless chickens, looking for their patient. I tracked her down and ended up on the beach, just before she dropped." He frowned. "But she was definitely acting possessed then. She was moving like nobody else on that beach existed." A nod to the door. "Ask whoever else you've got out there."

"We will," Chloe said. Reviewing witness statements from the scene was the next thing on Dan's to-do list. She'd put it there, if not.

"Still traipsing all over the country to perform exorcisms, are you?" Lucifer said.

Constantine shrugged. "It's what I do for a living. Not too many people out there that can do it, either."

"Fewer and fewer, if the stories I hear are anything to go by," Lucifer said. His grin had teeth. "Looks like the only one who comes out still living is you."

"That's down to you as much as anything, isn't it?"

One instant, Lucifer had been sitting down, relaxed and smiling, though in a slightly threatening fashion. The next, without any apparent intervening motion, he was standing up, leaning over the table, his face only inches from Constantine's. Any traces of amusement were gone.

Constantine hadn't moved. He was so still, he couldn't even be breathing. Chloe found that her breath had hitched, too.

After two heartbeats, Lucifer spoke. "Tread carefully, John." The words came out like a barely restrained growl. She'd never heard Lucifer speak quite like that. "I don't respond well to baseless accusations."

Chloe had found enough air for a single word. "Lucifer," she managed to get out. On second thought, she had heard that kind of tone once before. Just before she'd ended up shooting the man — Devil — before her.

Lucifer's head snapped around, and for a fraction of a second Chloe was caught in the cold intensity of his glare. She suppressed a shiver. There he was: the Devil. Then Lucifer blinked and nodded at her. He straightened, stepping away from the table.

Constantine's shoulders drooped, and he took a deep breath. "No baseless accusations here, mate." He pointed down at the table. "I've been dealing with more and more possessions, demon incursions, and in general a rising darkness for the past, oh… six years or so." A pause. "When was it you came up here?"

Lucifer snorted. "You're spouting nonsense." He stepped back further to lean against the one-way mirror. "That's nothing to do with me." His accent had sharpened, back to the aristocratic tones it had had when Chloe first encountered him. She hadn't noticed it softening, over the years. All undone by a single well-placed comment.

Points for bravado to Constantine, at least. The man knew who Lucifer was; the cues in his body language didn't show someone at his ease. But he wasn't going to let his fear stop him from saying whatever he wanted to say. The discussion was going off-topic for their current investigation — but it was providing more insight into Lucifer than Chloe had expected to get.

Constantine made a show of looking around the room. "I'm not seeing anyone else in charge of Hell in here."

"I'm not in charge of Hell," Lucifer shot back. He moved his shoulders to settle into his lean against the mirror. He also turned to look at Chloe for his last sentence. "Not anymore."

"And that's the problem, isn't it? All the things going bump in the night. There's nothing keeping them downstairs anymore. So now they're coming up here."

Lucifer rose to his full height and drew his head back, so he was looking down his nose at Constantine. "I never kept them in Hell. Even most of you humans could walk out whenever you wanted. But the demons…"

He pushed away from the wall. "To them, Hell was a refuge. My siblings—" Lucifer cast a glance upward. "—were driving them from Earth. I took them in." He lifted a hand, open palm upward. "And yes, to keep the heavenly host from my gates, I made them swear an oath not to return to earth. To each other. Not to me personally." He took a step forward. "But before my siblings started their purge, those demons were gods in their own right. With their own worshippers."

Lucifer approached the table, leaning on it. He was in full aristocrat mode now. He looked Constantine in the eye again. His words came coldly once more. "If a human says the right prayers, nobody can deny a believer their free will. The demon they called can answer if they so choose." He stepped back but kept his eyes on Constantine. "And the human gets what they bargained for. Isn't that right, John?" Lucifer sounded smug as he uttered those last words, as if he were laying down a final argument.

Constantine looked up at Lucifer from beneath lowered eyebrows. "I've made my mistakes," he admitted through gritted teeth, "and I'm still paying the price for them." He looked down. "Doesn't mean I have to let anyone else get hurt the same way."

"Oh yes, and you've been so successful at that."

The two of them glared at each other across the table. At some point, one of them would strike. Time to intervene. "Lucifer," Chloe said, and repeated his name when he didn't budge. When she finally did have his attention, she motioned her head to the door.

Lucifer made one more movement toward Constantine, but then he nodded and strode for the exit, leaving Chloe to follow.

Once outside, Lucifer rounded on her. "This was a bad idea, Detective."

"It will be, if you keep on bickering with our witness instead of focusing on the actual case." In minutes, even seconds, Constantine had managed to get to Lucifer. Lucifer had been on the defensive and had responded by lashing out. Did they have that much more history than what she knew about? "What are you so scared of?"

Lucifer huffed and drew himself up. "I am not scared of a two-bit sorcerer who gets all of his power from artifacts or demons."

Bullseye. "But you are afraid of Constantine."

Lucifer sighed and bit the inside of his cheek . "He... has a talent for making people act against their own interests."

"That's it?" she said. Lucifer grimaced, but didn't elaborate further. "Does he actually force people to do… whatever it is that's bad for them?"

Lucifer thought about that one for a while. "Not generally, no. At least not in the ways you're thinking about." A beat. "But the people he associated with last year are still dead, Detective, even if they harbored him willingly."

"You can't blame Constantine for that, Lucifer." Lucifer's expression set itself in preparation for another objection. Chloe continued, "If you can't at least be civil to our witness, I can't use you on this case."

Lucifers protests died. He recoiled as if she'd hit him. Then he closed his eyes and nodded. "Understood, Detective. I'll get out of your way." He turned away from her, back straight, shoulders down but with his head held high. And he strode off.