Lucifer was indeed one office down the corridor. The door bore the label "Canaan."

Walking into the office was like walking into a wall of stale nicotine. Lucifer had been smoking, as further evidenced by a tumbler full of dog-ends on the table. The tumbler sat next to an empty bottle of Tullamore Dew.

Lucifer looked up as Chloe entered the room. An expression of relief spread across his face as he caught sight of her. But then his eyes shifted to Constantine coming in behind her, and his face darkened again.

He pushed himself up from where he'd been sitting and stalked over to Constantine. "You," he growled, and Constantine froze. Lucifer drew intimidatingly close to Constantine, making the most of their height difference. "You show up, and everything falls apart."

"You're blaming me?" Constantine spat up at Lucifer. He jabbed a finger into Lucifer's chest. The gesture didn't do much, but it at least brought Lucifer to a halt. "I wouldn't even be here except a friend called me in to fix your cock-up, you sanctimonious prick."

He stepped in even closer, right into Lucifer's personal space. "If you hadn't been gallivanting around up here and playing cop with your girlfriend—" He gestured to Chloe. "—folks down there—" A finger jab straight down. "—wouldn't be trying to find loopholes around your bloody worthless 'oath.'"

Lucifer's eyes widened and he shot a quick glance at Chloe. Then his expression darkened again. He drew himself up even further somehow and grabbed Constantine by the collar. "If she comes to any harm, John, I swear…."

"I just watched her almost get possessed by a demon coming through a portal to Hell," Constantine shot back, not even waiting for Lucifer to finish his sentence. "And you're telling me that it's nothing to do with you? Isn't it, my arse."

And there Constantine had it. Lucifer actually backed down. He let go of Constantine to move closer to Chloe. "What happened, Detective?"

Chloe held off answering that question. First she gave her best glare to the both of them. Lucifer looked suitably chastened, but Constantine just started fishing in his pockets. "Are both of you done with this pissing contest? I'd like to get back to our case." Constantine found a packet of cigarettes somewhere and flicked open a lighter. "And you can't smoke in here."

"Why not?" Constantine shrugged and lit up. He moved his head to indicate Lucifer. "He did."

Chloe rolled her eyes. She had to swallow the, "Oh, my God," that really, really wanted to come out at that statement. Saying it would most likely just provoke Lucifer into another off-topic rant. And yet… the situation felt so much more normal than it had in weeks. She settled for a sigh. "Lucifer, let's start with you. What happened here?"

Lucifer cast a sidelong glance at Constantine and cleared his throat. "I destroyed a soul." Constantine froze, his cigarette two inches away from his lips. Lucifer looked away, continuing, "And he thanked me for it." He fell silent, still not meeting either Chloe or Constantine's eyes.

Constantine, too, remained silent. The cigarette stayed in his hand, its cylinder of ash getting longer as Constantine regarded Lucifer. "You," Constantine eventually said, "you destroyed a soul?" He finally noticed the ash approaching his fingers and dumped the cigarette on top of Lucifer's collection of dog-ends. "I thought you enjoyed collecting them."

Lucifer's shoulders twitched, perfectly synchronized with the further downward turn of his mouth. He gave Constantine a foul look that made Lucifer look as old as he had claimed a few hours ago, and as weary as could be expected of that sort of age. "And I thought you knew better than to believe everything you hear, John." He worked his shoulders again, stretching his back before slumping slightly. "I never set out to collect souls."

"Could have fooled me. If I had a nickel for every person I've talked out of selling their soul to some demon…."

"And if I collected souls, would I allow them to be sold to someone else?" Lucifer bit back. The weariness lifted a little, showing some of his old indignation at being judged by his popular image. "Your soul is yours to do with as you please… including selling it to whoever will take it." A beat. "Which isn't me."

"For someone who wasn't trying, you did build up quite the collection."

"They came to me on their own. I just gave them what they asked for. No transaction required."

"They asked for torture, did they?"

"They asked for punishment, or for a second chance. And then they call me their torturer."

Chloe shook her head, trying to clear it. There were so many questions she could ask about this whole conversation. But she had to stick to the case at hand. "OK, back on topic, please. Lucifer, there are no signs of violence on the body in Linda's office. It looks like he dropped dead of his own accord. What makes you think you killed him?"

"I destroyed a soul." Lucifer paced around a bit, seeking support from the back of a chair. "With the soul gone, what's left is just a body. And it wasn't even the original one." He gestured to the wall that separated this office from Linda's. "The soul that belonged in that body was gone long before the one I destroyed got here."

That made approximately zero sense. "You're going to have to slow down on that explanation." But there were at least two dots to connect. "Linda said she thought Reese had come back. Is that what you're talking about?"

Lucifer nodded and sat down onto the chair he'd been using for support. The chair had stood with its back facing toward Chloe. Lucifer didn't turn the chair around, but instead sat on it backwards, using the back of the chair as an armrest.

When he sat like that, both the whiskey bottle and the tumbler he had been using as an ashtray remained within arm's reach. Sitting on a chair when there was a couch available — sitting on it backwards, even, which couldn't have been comfortable — wasn't like Lucifer

"The short explanation is this: it's possible for souls to return to Earth from Hell. But…" Lucifer sat up straighter. "There needs to be a body for that soul to go into. It can't exist on Earth unprotected." He took a breath. "Not for long, anyway."

Another gesture toward Linda's office. "Our interloper was indeed doctor Linda's late ex —he mentioned something I had only spoken about to him. And I think what I said helped him find a way out." Lucifer's eyelids dropped. "But it does mean the original soul was long gone. Two souls cannot coexist in one body."

Chloe thought back to the hospital, the darkness closing in on her and cutting off control of her body. Was that what had been happening? Something driving the soul out of her body? "How does that work?"

Lucifer frowned. "You know, I'm not quite sure. In my experience, a returning soul takes the nearest available empty body — someone who has recently deceased." He thought for a beat. "Extremely recently. The new soul has to inhabit the body at the time of death."

"One very easy way to ensure that," Constantine interrupted, "is to cause the death yourself."

Lucifer sat up, an indignant expression on his face. But before he said anything, he looked at his ring and his expression softened. The silence lasted longer this time. "I would say you're wrong, John. But…" Another silence stretched to the point of awkwardness. Lucifer played with the ring on his finger, fondling the stone. "A soul on its own cannot affect the material world. But perhaps it could affect other souls, indeed."

He turned the ring on his finger so the stone was in his palm. He held out his hand, palm up, showing the black stone. After a quick glance at both Chloe and Constantine, he closed his eyes.

At first, nothing happened. But after three breaths, the color of the stone changed. It mottled, the obsidian starting to clear. Lucifer let out a sigh and rolled his shoulders. The stone cleared entirely, then somehow became brighter still. As if it was glowing.

Constantine had been slouching against the wall near the door. Now he stepped closer, eyes fixed on the ring.

Lucifer slowly opened his eyes. As he, too, looked at the shining ring, his mouth pulled downward. "Divine light," he said. Then he closed his fist, and the light disappeared. "When Mr. Getty touched me, I felt it being pulled from me. He absorbed it until he died. Again."

More silence. Chloe didn't quite know what to make of this little demonstration of the supernatural. Compared to Lucifer's face, compared to the feathers — compared to what she had undergone this afternoon, even — a ring changing colors was nothing. And yet it felt more solemn somehow.

Finally, Lucifer gave a single nod. "Every soul has a tiny little bit of that light." He looked at Chloe with what was almost a smile, before looking Constantine in the eye. "Even you, John." Another frown. "But Hell has a tendency to wear away that light. If a soul succumbs to its torture, eventually it becomes nothing but a shadow of itself. Mr Getty was a shadow, putting himself in the path of a light source."

He took a deep breath. "How long it takes for the light to fade depends on the soul — it might take milliseconds or it might take millennia — but it will happen. The exceptions are so rare I know them all by name."

"Who?" Constantine. Chloe looked over at him with annoyance. Even if she was also a little curious, the answer to that question was entirely unrelated to this case.

Lucifer seemed to agree. "That's not relevant at this point. And it's none of your business, anyway." He paused, trying to regain the thread that Constantine had interrupted. "Endure torture long enough, and the torture becomes the world. Everything else drains away until all remains is a… a core of darkness — the cause for the torture in the first place. But even though souls like that have no light of their own left, they'll reach out for any spark they can find."

He huffed out a humorless laugh. "Not that they should ever be able to find any, given that they shouldn't be able to find the doors of their cells, either." He looked up sharply, at both Chloe and Constantine. "But if they ever should get out, they would absorb the spark of light from a human soul easily. That would kill whoever they absorbed."

Chloe thought back to the darkness closing in on her vision, back at the hospital. And to the bright, warm light that had flared from Lucifer's feathers and driven the darkness away. "That sounds…"

Lucifer's attention was entirely on her as soon as Chloe opened her mouth. "Yes, Detective?"

"At the hospital…" Chloe waved her hands, trying to indicate… something. She wasn't sure herself what. "Something tried to take me over. It was dark, and I couldn't move, and…"

Lucifer was on his feet before she could finish speaking, taking the few steps required to reach her in a heartbeat. He stood close enough to hug her, but instead his hands found her upper arms, and he looked in her eyes, concern on his face. "Are you all right?"

"No thanks to you," Constantine interrupted.

Lucifer hands dropped to his sides. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Can we perhaps agree to a cessation of accusations for a moment, John? What happened at the hospital?"

"There was a weak spot there. Something big came through from Hell at some point, and it left a portal these things could use." Constantine put his hand on Chloe's shoulder. "They nearly took her over."

Chloe took Constantine's hand and lifted it off her shoulder. "I can talk for myself, thanks." She turned back to Lucifer. "But that's about what happened, yes. At least as far as I understood it."

"Something came through from Hell?" Lucifer frowned. "Where was this?" He shook his head. "Which hospital, I mean."

Chloe gave the name of the hospital. "I think the room was right above mine last year." And she got to see the color draining from Lucifer's face.

"Ah." Lucifer took a few steps back. "Yes, that would be a place where a soul could come through." He turned slightly to the side, looking thoughtful.

"So we're done, then?" Constantine asked. "I already closed the portal that brought your interloper here."

"That seems unlikely," Chloe said at the same time Lucifer responded with, "Perhaps not." Constantine quickly looked from one to the other.

Lucifer held out his hand to her, palm open. "After you, Detective."

"We don't know yet who—" Chloe paused. This wasn't an easy sentence to continue. "—Ah… donated the body in Linda's office. But he doesn't look like a recent patient. And the uniform he's wearing isn't the one the security guards at the hospital wore, either." She checked her notes. "Ella said this firm mainly does industrial security. And I know I've seen them at airfields."

Lucifer nodded. "Like where we had the unfortunate encounter with Detective Graham?"

"Yeah. The uniform was familiar."

"I dare say it was." Lucifer sighed. "It appears I may indeed carry some responsibility for today's events, Detective." He turned so he was also addressing Constantine. "What came through in that hospital room was me."

Constantine frowned. "You're not telling me that every time you go back and forth between Hell and Earth you're leaving holes between the worlds."

Lucifer shook his head. "Not every time, no." He fidgeted, as if he didn't particularly want to continue. "But these were… special circumstances. And there was one other time when similar circumstances were present."

"With Malcolm." Chloe didn't phrase it as a question.

"Exactly."

"Great," Constantine said, forestalling any further discussion. The enthusiasm implied by his word choice wasn't present in his voice. "We've got another of these portals to seal. Let's get to work before we've got any more souls walking around in bodies they don't belong in." He stepped up to Lucifer and planted a finger on his chest. "And this time, you can help clean up your bloody mess."

Intermezzo

Inside the morgue, a female officer approaches me, asks for my name. She's pretty, despite the bulky uniform. She looks a little familiar, like I've seen her before somewhere, although I can't place her. But this isn't about her. This is all about the formal identification I'm about to make.
I don't see anything of the corridors leading to the morgue itself. I only see the table with the body on it. The policewoman says something kind, and she sounds like she means it. But then the sheet is pulled back, and that, too, is irrelevant.
I don't know how long exactly I've been standing there, crying over the body of my mother. But while I'm drying my tears, I look up and realize there is a fourth person in the room, beside the policewoman and the doctor. Was he supposed to be here?

He almost looks like he belongs. He's leaning casually against the wall next to the door, and his face carries a somber expression. He's not even looking at me. Instead his eyes follow the policewoman as she moves across the room. He's even taken off his jacket and left it somewhere, so he's in shirtsleeves and a suit vest. But he doesn't belong. The suit is far too nice for a police officer or a city ME. Nobody else around here is dressed as well as that. And someone who had dressed nice for a special occasion wouldn't be in the morgue.

More importantly, although the man's eyes are on the policewoman almost constantly, she doesn't acknowledge him. She doesn't even appear to see him. She talks to me and to the doctor, but this new man is ignored entirely. As if he wasn't there

When she guides me outside, the policewoman almost looks the new stranger in the eye, and his face lights up with a smile. But still he doesn't get a response, and the smile fades as I, too, walk past him.