They had to make one more stop before heading for the warehouse. Constantine claimed to need more supplies if he was going to close any more portals, so they stopped at his hotel. The hotel was one of LA's seedier ones. Chloe knew it by reputation. She had no desire to get a close look at Constantine's room.
That left her in the car outside the hotel with Lucifer, waiting for Constantine.
Lucifer had taken shotgun. He stayed silent, but he kept fidgeting. Like he couldn't seem to find a comfortable position. His silence gave Chloe some time to process the day so far.
It still felt unreal. She'd been finding a way back to something resembling normality, and then came this case. To be fair, when she wrote up this as a report, she'd be hard pressed to present anything like credible evidence for any of it. She had nothing but two bodies and no clues as to how they had died. But then she was a homicide detective and finding those clues was her job.
The episode at the hospital and Constantine's light show — those were a bit less of a daily occurrence. But again, bits of weirdness had been taking place around her for years now. There had always been some sort of reasonable explanation. Or at least that's what she had thought at the time. Only this time, the weirdness hadn't just been around her. It had been inside her. She'd felt it to her core, and she wasn't quite sure how to process those feelings yet.
Even focusing on something more familiar and tangible, like the conversation between Constantine and Lucifer, and Lucifer's subsequent admissions, left her a little lost. Lucifer had never spoken seriously about all the supernatural goings-on around him. He'd spoken about it plenty, of course — but never in a way she could have believed. Today, though, everything he had said had almost been casual. The explanations were incidental to what was really going on. And that made them more powerful than ever.
"Torture," Constantine had said.
"Punishment," Lucifer had corrected. But….
"You said people came to you, in Hell." The words were out almost before Chloe realized she was talking.
Lucifer stopped fidgeting for a second to look at her sideways. "That came with the job, Detective."
"And they asked for punishment?"
"They did." Lucifer looked away. "Of course, after the first few million , I didn't enquire personally for every single one."
"Million?" It was so, so easy to look at Lucifer and see a man. He wasn't. With this new willingness to really talk about himself came these occasional glimpses of Lucifer reasoning on scales outside of Chloe's comprehension. He'd said that time in Hell ran differently. It ran slower. That might have given him time to interrogate every soul in –ah - person. But had there been so many, that Lucifer could consider 'the first few million to be a trivial number?
"Every soul who ever lived came to me, Detective. Or nearly so." Lucifer gave her a quick glance before looking away again. "Only those who believed they should go to Heaven didn't end up on my doorstep." He grimaced. "Sometimes, even they came, if my siblings refused them entry."
"And you gave them what they said they wanted. Punishment."
"Yes. I've said."
An endless parade of people asking to be punished. No wonder he'd stopped asking. But…. "You let that go on. Until there was nothing left but darkness." That was a sticking point. Lucifer had never appeared cruel to her. But leaving people stuck in their torment like that was cruel.
Lucifer huffed. There was no power behind it. "I've told you that too, Detective. I'm a monster." He remained silent for a short time. "I got no joy from watching people who acted out of good intentions torture themselves — but how was I to stop them? And even though it is satisfying to see a true miscreant get their comeuppance — after a few weeks there is little difference between the two."
To some extent, Lucifer truly seemed to believe himself a monster. Someone who enjoyed watching people torture themselves indefinitely would be. But that wasn't Lucifer. She'd seen him take pleasure in people getting justice, and he wasn't above adding some ironic twists to that justice. But not more than that. Discussing it now, Lucifer sounded very, very tired. Tired of what?
From what Chloe had heard today, Lucifer had gotten the formula for her antidote from a dead man. By going to Hell. And if similar circumstances had been present when Malcolm had shot him….
"I thought you'd died."
"Oh, I did. I got better."
He had sacrificed himself for her. They were friends, back then. They had a partnership that worked well, and they trusted each other. But nothing worth sacrificing one's life for, surely?
And yet Lucifer had. Twice at least. Without telling her about it, without taking any credit – which he was usually more than happy to do. Those weren't the actions of a monster. "I don't believe you're a monster, Lucifer."
Lucifer opened his mouth to respond, but his answer was forestalled by Constantine exiting the hotel, duffel bag in hand.