Amenadiel perched on the top of his apartment building, drink in hand.
He no longer had wings, but he still liked to hike up to the top and feel the wind.
He smirked to himself, looking up at clouds painted in orange and red. You can't take the sky from me.
Not the view of it anyway.
Still, something smelled wrong in the wind. His angelic senses gone, he wasn't sure what, but it resonated in his bones.
He always counted on his younger brother holding something back. But something felt slightly more. Imminent.
He sipped his rum and coke. He had to take the drinking a lot easier these days, lacking Lucifer's constitution for the stuff.
He hadn't heard a peep from his brother all weekend. Not that even that was really weird.
Amenadiel finished his drink and checked his phone. Linda sent him a note. He smiled.
He replied and pulled up Lucifer's number.
He tapped out a few lines, then backed up.
There was always tomorrow. He darkened the screen.
She wasn't going back to hell.
If Lucifer himself could do it, so could she 'retire'. If only the damn humans would stop getting in her way.
She knew it was a mistake not to leave her new home sooner. She counted too much on this human attachment of his to distract him.
He made her, like Mazikeen.
Unlike Mazikeen, she was unimportant. An afterthought. No one would have missed her.
If she hadn't shed human blood, they might not have noticed at all.
Lucifer himself didn't notice, next to his pet human. That was all she could be, a pet. A plaything. That was all she should be. Mortals.
He abandoned his creations, save Mazikeen. The rest were useless to him. Eons doing his bidding, and what thanks does she get?
Nothing.
Not even a 'how do you do.' on his way out.
Ungrateful bastard.
He carelessly offered apartment space, not even knowing who she was. She didn't have a blade. It would have sung to him.
She didn't take one with her when she left hell. She was more cunning than that. Between the two of them, she had no hope of killing either, if it came down to it, so she hid instead. Like she had to do again, before they noticed she didn't turn up.
She didn't need a blade.
Absently, she chewed on one of her fingers.
She wasn't going back to hell.
After not getting new replies to her last text, Chloe found Dan passed out on the apartment couch when she got back home. His back pressed against the cushions with an arm under a throw pillow. She thought he might be twitching in a dream.
Maze still hadn't returned, or they missed crossing paths again. No weapons were lying out in the open, marking it as unlikely Maze had stopped back by.
Chloe walked past the edge of the couch, eyes drifting over him. A few years ago, she would have planted a quick kiss on his forehead.
She moved on, cracking Trixie's door open to find her daughter napping too, still wearing the glitter skirt in a crunchy poof around her waist. She stepped in to gently lay a blanket over her, then went back out.
Shucking her boots off, Chloe thought about waking Dan. She threw off an urge to curl up on the couch as a little spoon, wondering where it came from. She put up her boots in the shoe closet, picking up a few things here and there around the place.
He didn't wake up, sleeping like a log.
As an afterthought, she grabbed a fleece blanket and settled it over him too.
The longer she watched, the sleepier she got. Chloe moved to her own bedroom and lay down for a few minutes.
Lucifer fidgeted in the afternoon sun. It was neither late, nor early. He finally put on formal wear, a lighter blue-grey with a vibrant teal button up and matching pocket square.
The place echoed, empty of companions and he found himself restless. There would be hours to fill before the club got going again. Even on a Sunday night, it could get pretty full. Until then, he had some time to kill. Just a few months ago, it wouldn't have taken long to get a nice, warm body or three up here for some entertainment, but that wasn't an option.
It was enough to make him want to text Amenadiel. His brother probably should know what happened, exposure-wise.
He paused, a thumb hoving over the 'send' graphic.
Changing directions, he scheduled the house cleaner to come by before later tonight, and to bring a new full set of towels. Not a terribly unusual request, certainly.
Which reminded him of something else.
He took the elevator one floor down, but found the usual guest bedroom empty. Not even a bag. No one had so much as disturbed the sheets.
He took the stairs back up and called through his club's business line. The bartender on duty picked up.
"Patrick? Has someone named Claire -" He didn't get her last name. "Come by about a room?"
"Sorry, no. As far as I know, none of the spare rooms are occupied right now."
Lucifer tried to dismiss it. "I guess she changed her mind. Do me a favor and do tell me if you hear from her."
"You got it. Need anything else? Bar restock upstairs?"
"No, wait, hang on." Lucifer checked the trash. "Can you send someone out for a few packages of a particular brand of cupcakes? And I could do with some more bacon. Take it out of petty cash."
Ella hadn't moved in ages.
Something was missing and it snagged on her brain like a fingernail in wool.
She originally dismissed a long, thin scratch on the glass murder weapon as having come from an animal. Probably when the thing was thrown into the culvert.
She came back into the lab after stopping in a church. Randomly, she thought. It was a beautiful day, so she walked to work, making a few detours for coffee and apparently, prayer.
The air and sun helped clear her head, and she found herself wanting to take another dive into the evidence room.
Ella was nothing if not thorough. When the glass murder weapon was cleaned by the lab, she had them keep the grime around it in a separate container. There might be a fingernail or hair follicle or something leftover that could be used to identify someone.
There was 'something' leftover.
She sorted through the debris, checking by eye for bits of rock, torn biological material, anything the interns or other techs might have missed.
She almost did too.
The thing was as black as the glass weapon, but it didn't match any broken parts. The first pass through the material, she set it aside and it pricked her finger through her glove.
Angry with herself, and knowing she'd have to check her tetanus shot schedule, she left to wash, bandage up her finger, change gloves and come back. As a result, she left the offending piece of sharp glass as the last thing to double check.
She picked it up carefully with tweezers and something flaked off. Glass wasn't supposed to do that.
Upon further inspection, it looked light-sucking black, without a reflection that comes with polished glass.
She squeezed the object and it gave ever so slightly.
Wary of the curved end now, she turned it over.
It was a claw.
It was unlike any claw she'd ever seen before in her life. Like a curved fingernail, but with a narrow, wicked tip. Under the microscope, it reminded her unpleasantly of a cockroach leg, with jagged backwards tips that would catch and rake flesh.
It didn't come from anything that had retractable claws. It wasn't a dog claw, certainly. It wasn't a strange, but dangerous fake prop fingernail. Not plastic. Not metal. Organic. Kind of.
Ella set it down again, for probably the third time. She mechanically photographed it, re-bagged it and set it in a drawer. It would keep for tomorrow. This case had her on edge as it was. Maybe it was getting to her. She'd come back in the morning and it would be a perfectly normal mountain lion claw.
Yes, that's it.