When Chloe opened her eyes, she saw three things. First, Ella's house looked like a tornado had passed right through it. There were even dents in the walls that looked to be about man-sized.
Second, Ella was lying unconscious on her back, her face and chest covered with dried blood. Around her were-not joking-what looked to be dozens of white feathers.
Third, Lucifer, also covered in blood, was staggering as he tried to keep himself on his feet. He was panting like a prizefighter after 13 rounds.
Walking over to Ella, he picked her up in his arms. "I'm sorry, Azrael, but I have to do this." And with that, he vanished. Just then, Dan arrived with the police. "What happened here?" Then he noticed Chloe and yelled for the paramedics.
For the next three days, Lucifer did not show up for work at the precinct. When he did return on the fourth day, he looked like a man who had just buried his favorite cat.
Chloe did not press him for answers about what she had seen, as she sensed he was in great emotional and physical pain. The lab techs had analyzed the blood and feathers found at the crime scene, but all of their results were negative, as though the materials themselves were not of this world. Ella had disappeared, and her case was well on its way to being closed for lack of evidence.
After about a week, however, something miraculous happened. Ella entered the precinct as though nothing had happened to her. Chloe asked her where she had been and why she was only now coming back to the job.
"Well, I had some kind of seizure or something, and I had to spend a week in recovery at this really expensive health care place that Lucifer paid for. He was with me the entire time."
"Do you remember anything?"
"Not really."
"Okay then, Ella. But from now on, I want you to be more honest with me about any problems you're having. Understood."
"Yes, ma'am."
Lucifer himself refused to discuss what had happened, but later than evening he retreated to his penthouse and poured himself a glass of strong whiskey. Laid out on the table before him was the Blade of Azrael.
"I hope you're doing well in Hell, sister. Maybe one day I can find it in my heart to free you, but you harmed someone I care about, and that is unforgivable." He said this as he held a picture of him and Ella hugging, which he secretly kept under the penthouse bar.
Picking up the Blade, he placed it in a special compartment behind a portion of the wall he was having redone. "Let's just hope I never have to look at this ugly thing ever again."
Deep in the bowels of Hell, Azrael was chained up in one of the cells of the damned. With no physical host, she had taken to using Ella's face and body to represent herself in astral form. "This won't hold me, Luci. Especially not when our dear cousin finds out what you did."