Unlike the last couple of bodies, this one wasn't hanging on a cross. This time, he was splayed out on the ground, golden hair around his head like a halo. His pale face looked serene enough to only be asleep instead of dead, dressed all in white without a drop of blood on him.
Except he was a little too pale. A little too serene. That type of peace was only found in death, when one was unafraid to die.
There was another sigil, different than before, and no words this time. It looked like two upside down triangles, one smaller than the other, the edges of the smaller one extending out beyond the edges of the larger one in straight lines. The larger one, where the top point of the triangle met, continued to form two curled scroll-type ends. Another V was superimposed going in the other direction across the top of the intersection of the larger V's ends.
At the young man's bare feet was another symbol – again, without words. It looked sort of like someone tried to write symbols in cursive, connecting several together. Starting with a cross, the thin line of dried blood traced upwards into a loop, then dipped into almost a horse shoe shaped downward curve, then down into a lopsided V, with the far end being several inches longer than the other – Chloe thought it sort of looked like a backwards Y, and then there was another odd shape drawn through it on the down angle of the V – it looked like a hat pin as far as Chloe was concerned.
She wished she could say that the new body was the biggest surprise, but nope. The world had decided it was going to screw with her today, and when Dan showed up, he had an unexpected tag along – Lucifer.
Even stranger than the two of them arriving together was the fact that Lucifer actually referred to Dan as simply Detective instead of adding Douche to the end. Stranger still, Dan didn't seem to notice.
"Since when did you two hang out in your off hours?" Chloe asked, teasingly. She was actually rather proud of Lucifer. She knew he wasn't a huge fan of Dan from the moment they first met, but she could hardly blame him. For a while, Lucifer seemed to take a lot of his social cues from her – if she liked someone, he liked them – even if it was sort begrudgingly and didn't extend to kids. When she'd first come across Dan on the very first day she'd met Lucifer, she was in a less than charitable mood and Lucifer picked up on it instantly.
The enemy of my friend is also my enemy.
And yet…here he was, showing up to a crime scene that she hadn't called him about, only Dan, which meant that either they were together when she called, or Dan had purposely gone out of his way to not only tell Lucifer about the body, but go and pick him up from Lux.
Seriously. Personal growth aside…what the hell?
"I thought we could use his help," Dan said by way of explanation. Lucifer had walked right past her without even a hello, going straight for the body.
"He just got out of the hospital the other night, and you decided bringing him to another crime scene was a good idea?" Chloe hissed.
"And since when have you been successful at telling Morningstar no?" Dan said, crossing his arms.
Begrudgingly, Chloe had to concede at least that point. Lucifer pretty much did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to. "Fine. Fair point."
"Besides," Dan said, keeping his voice low enough that the club owner couldn't hear him. "Isn't it better to keep him where the two of us can keep an eye on him?"
Chloe's argument wasn't with the logic – Lucifer had flat out refused police protection when she'd dropped him off at Lux once the CDC had cleared it for him to return. At this point, she wanted to be able to keep him within direct line of sight until they caught whoever the hell was behind this.
At the same time, Lucifer was looking…tired. She'd never known the man to sleep unless the rest of the phrase involved sex. He burned the candle at both ends, partying long into the night and following her around during the day. Never once did he look like he could use some sleep – usually he was the polar opposite…practically ADHD enthusiastic about everything.
It hadn't been that long since Kincaide did whatever it was to him that put him in the hospital, and try as she might, she couldn't get shake the image of a hemorrhagic Lucifer gasping for air amongst the blood. Right now Lucifer looked superficially alright – he was back in his Prada suit, with that devil may care style that most GQ models strived for. But she could see the beginnings of dark shadows under his eyes, and maybe she was being a little bit of a mother hen, but he still looked pale and lacked his normal exuberance…which she could probably attribute to the fact that maybe he was finally understanding what they were dealing with.
"I want him safe," Chloe said. "I mean, I know you don't like him very much, and he's kind of a jerk half the time, but these people…whoever they are…they're seriously messed up. I don't want him here at the scene because I can tell it's bothering him, but at the same time..." She shrugged half-heartedly.
"Just because I'm not a fan, doesn't mean I want him dead," Dan pointed out. "Besides. We had a…revelation over bourbon. He wanted to come to this, he wants to help. He's taking it personally that people seem to killing in his name. Real or imagined."
Chloe nodded. "All right then. Keep an eye out for the crowd. There was that guy from the first scene, and Kincaide walked right up to him at the club…who knows if there's more?"
"Got it." Dan clapped her on her shoulder before heading off to talk to the uniformed officers addressing crowd control as Chloe turned back to Lucifer and the body.
"What can you tell me?" Chloe asked, pulling on her nitrile gloves.
"I think I'm losing my mind." He rubbed absently at the side of his head, like someone trying to massage away a headache. "You don't notice that?" he said.
Chloe glanced around, not seeing anything. "Notice what?"
Lucifer shook his head, and winced as he did so. "I think that exorcism is still affecting me. I swear I'm hearing voices."
Chloe raised an eyebrow. "You sure you're okay to be out here?"
"I'm fine," he grumbled.
She sighed in resignation. If he didn't want to talk about it, far be it for her to make him. She concentrated on the scene. "Do you recognize these symbols?" she asked, gesturing at the ground.
"Regrettably, yes," Lucifer said. "The one that's inverted triangles?" he pointed to the first symbol. "That's the one for me – for Lucifer. And the other one…the cursive drawing?"
He traced the outline in the air for the second one. "It's a little lopsided, but that's the one for Samael."
"Which is also you, right?" Chloe pointed out.
"Old me. Not the current me. You're sure you don't hear something?" he asked. There was something off in his tone. He rubbed again at his ear.
She carefully edged up next to him so no one else could hear them. "Hey, are you okay? You just got out of the hospital. Are you sure you want to be here?"
Lucifer chuckled darkly. "Want to? No. No, I most certainly do not. But someone is trying to get my attention, and they're going about it in all the wrong ways. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not appreciate worship or sacrifices – of animals or otherwise."
Chloe bit her lip, trying not to again point out that he wasn't really the Devil, and these murders or sacrifices or whatever he wanted to call them weren't because someone was offering him sacrifices. In all likelihood, she strongly suspected they were actually death threats.
The Enochian sigils and words – Damnatio memoriae, and the Latin phrase of 'misery loves company' and now flat out calling him by name? These were all the signs of a stalker turned deadly that got their hands on a darker side of Google search. Or, if her theory about him once being a part of these cults was right? Quite probably these people actually knew him. The real him – the one before the persona of Lucifer Morningstar that suddenly popped into existence five years ago. The messages were angry and accusatory. Whoever they were, they seemed to blame Lucifer for something, even if she didn't know what.
"Lucifer…do you know who the people behind this are?" she asked quietly.
He raised an eyebrow at her, looking thoroughly concerned about her mental health. "Of course not. Don't you think if I knew, I would be hunting them down to punish them?"
"You're sure?" she asked, trying not to push, but at the same time – she needed Lucifer to break his persona, if only for a minute. These messages, these murders, were getting strangely personal. The more research she did, the more she was convinced that whoever was behind the elusive 'Cult of Samael' had to know Lucifer on a personal level. The sigils, the symbols…she could find none of it online, or in books or in any database she could think of, but Lucifer always seemed to know, and they seemed to be leaning towards the promise of retribution against a rebellious son.
And it all kept going back to Lucifer's self-admitted prior identity of Samael, a name so old it wasn't mentioned in any Bible she could find.
"I keep trying to tell you, Detective," Lucifer protested. "Just because I'm the Devil doesn't mean-"
"Stop trying to convince people you're the Devil!" she snapped, interrupting him. "At least until we catch the people behind this, okay?"
"Fine," he growled. "We'll do this your way, shall we? What was your theory again? Right. Poor Lucifer, the delusional runaway. Let's go with that then. If that were the case, these people are likely part of a group that believes that God's Wrath is sorely lacking here on Earth and are those types that believe self-flagellation is the path to enlightenment."
Chloe sighed, pressing her hand to her forehead before counting to ten. "Lucifer, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be an ass about this, but I'm really worried, okay? Someone already tried to kill you once. They have people prepared to die for their belief that you are an actual fallen angel. Kincaide obviously wasn't working alone, and just the word cult gives a whole new dimension to the level of crazy we deal with."
Lucifer smirked. "And that right there is the reason why I don't try to convince you the same way I convinced the others."
Chloe assumed that was Lucifer's version of 'apology accepted'. "And why's that?"
This time, the smile he graced her with looked almost…sad. "Because I didn't want you to look at me like I was a monster."
"You're not a monster, Lucifer," Chloe said, returning the smile. "Even if you were the Devil, I've seen enough of you to know you're not the bad guy."
Lucifer glanced down at the body of the young man. "Too bad other people don't seem to understand that."
"That makes them monsters," Chloe said gently. "Not you."
Lucifer smiled wanly. "I'll still get the blame. I always do."
Rather than let Lucifer continue down his self-recriminating path, Chloe turned back to the crime scene. Therapy later – now was not the time.
"Besides your two former names, is there anything else here? Anything like a message that we saw at the last few?"
Lucifer shook his head. "There's no words. No letters, no anything. All they are, are symbols. Like you writing your own name. But there's something…different here. Something malicious. More so even than the last one, and that one was practically roiling with it. I can't believe you don't notice it."
Chloe raised an eyebrow in surprise, glancing back down at the body. By comparison, this one actually had the least signs of violence. He wasn't tied, he had no bruising, no signs of struggle. It looked simply like he had laid down and never gotten back up again. Even his clothes looked pristine – the other victims were borderline hobo-chic. Even the sigils were carefully drawn, looking more like penmanship than blood drawings.
"Lucifer…humor me on this one," Chloe said carefully. "Ignoring my belief about who or what you are…do you think these people really believe you're the Devil? Or are they trying to prove you're not?"
Lucifer glanced up, frowning, but shook his head. "I honestly have no idea, Detective. Detective Espinoza and I were discussing that possibility earlier. He seems to believe that they're purposely trying to upset me by doing the exact opposite of what I believe in. These murders, these sacrifices…they're more than that, it's like they're trying to insult me."
"What do you mean?" Chloe pressed.
Lucifer pointed out the two names. "When I was Samael, I was my Father's executioner. At the time, it didn't really bother me, because that was how we all were. Angels, even Archangels, don't get free will. All of us have a purpose. We're designed that way, created to have one job, and one job only. No deviations, open interpretation or thinking for yourself. Michael was His general. Gabriel was His messenger. Archangels are absolute. These people are trying to appeal to someone who simply no longer exists. These are sacrifices from the Old Testament version of my Father. The God who demanded sacrifices of children from his True Believers, like Abraham and Isaac. And even if you weren't a Believer, look at what happened in Egypt. Every first born son in the land of the pharaohs, in one night, slain in their beds."
"So…these are for your father, not you?" Chloe asked.
"Not what I said," Lucifer said irritably. "Heaven is all about destiny. Preordained, unchangeable fate. There's a reason why the church-y types always say it's my Father's will when someone dies, or some tragedy befalls them. I decided I didn't like having the entirety of an immortal life span planned out for me, and I chose my own path. Cost me dearly, but I like free will more than I like a favored position in Heaven. The insult, Detective, lies in that fact that these people aren't being murdered so much as someone is convincing them to give up their free will. That's what cults are. Someone lecturing from on high about how much you need to give up in the name of God. I believe in free will. I don't believe in worship, or sacrifice, and that is where the insult lies."
Something Lucifer said suddenly clicked. "They're not interested in you as Lucifer, are they? They're interested in your other name. They're not looking for a rebellious son; they're looking for a favorite son."
Lucifer huffed. "Which makes no sense because one, most people have completely forgotten that's what I used to be, and two, no one ever called on me when I was Samael. There's no prayers or invocations for the angel of death, I only answered to my Father."
He rubbed again at the side of his head, grimacing as he did so.
"You okay?" Chloe asked, frowning. She wasn't sure if he'd noticed, but he was starting to tilt to one side, like his balance was off.
"You don't hear that?" he asked. His voice sounded strained, and she could see him start to blink rapidly.
She strained to listen, hearing nothing except the usual movement of the crowd just beyond the yellow tape or the other police officers on the scene.
"I don't hear anything….what-" She didn't get to finish her sentence, because suddenly Lucifer pitched forwards, clapping both hands to his ears.
Not again, Chloe thought frantically, her mind immediately conjuring up the memory from Lux. Nobody was standing near them, there hadn't been anybody close to them. There was nothing that she could hear, but Lucifer was reacting as if someone had an air horn next to his ear.
"Lucifer, talk to me," she said, trying to get his attention but not having any idea what she was supposed to be doing. Lucifer had his eyes squeezed shut, breathing rapidly like he was trying not to scream but she couldn't tell why.
"How can you not hear that?" he ground out without opening his eyes.
"Hear what?" she said, and suddenly found herself with an armful of Lucifer as he almost shoved himself into her.
"Make it stop," he demanded, sounding desperate.
She floundered, not having a clue what the hell he was talking about or what she was supposed to do. His head was tucked down so far his chin was practically on his chest, and she couldn't see his face. "Lucifer, I don't know what you want me to do, I don't- Dan!" she shouted as Lucifer staggered sideways falling to one knee.
She heard someone call for an ambulance, and the pounding of running feet and Dan slid to a stop next to her.
"What the hell happened?" he asked, looking just as stunned as Chloe felt. "No one got by us, I know."
"He was complaining about a sound ever since he got here, and-" Chloe shrugged helplessly. "Lucifer, I have to see your face." She tried to pry his hands away from his ears, are at least force his head up so she could see, while trying to duck her head far enough she could get a glimpse of his face. She needed to see if it was the same thing as at the club.
"Lucifer!" Dan said, firmly grabbing the club owner's chin and pulling him upright.
Lucifer's face was free of blood, except for where he'd bitten into his lip, trying to stop himself from screaming.
Thank God…Chloe thought. Not the same thing as the club, but it meant it was something new.
"Get him away from the sigils," Dan ordered, and without waiting for Chloe to help, he grabbed Lucifer under his arms and forcibly dragged him backwards until they were almost fifteen feet away.
"Dan, what-"
Dan ignored her for a moment, looking down at Lucifer as if trying to gauge something. "Better?" he asked.
Lucifer gasped, opening his eyes, blinking rapidly. He carefully moved his hands, barely lifting them away from his head.
Whatever the hell he could hear before was obviously gone now, because he heaved a sigh of relief and collapsed backwards, completely ignoring the fact that he was leaning against Dan's knees.
"Ow," Lucifer managed. He rubbed absently at his ear, and his hand came away bright red. "Well that's not good."
"What happened?" Chloe looked from Lucifer to Dan, who shrugged.
"No, no, no, don't you dare tell me you don't know what the hell is going on," Chloe threatened, taking a step closer to her ex, waving her index finger like she was scolding Trixie. "Why did you say get him away from the sigils? You don't seriously believe they actually do anything, do you?"
Lucifer ignored her, working his jaw back and forth like he was trying to get his ears to pop.
Dan just looked exasperated. "Look, maybe it's a psychosomatic thing, okay? He thinks they cause issues, therefore they cause issues. I was actually thinking that whatever the Kincaide woman did to him at the club only affected him, right? Maybe he has some sort of allergy or sensitivity or I don't know…but everything else seems to be tailored to him, so I figured just get as far away from it as possible." He gestured triumphantly down at Lucifer who had yet to say anything. "And it worked!"
Chloe knew he was hiding something, but she didn't have the energy to pursue it just then. And Lucifer still hadn't actually said anything, which was a more concerning matter. "Lucifer?" she prompted.
When he still didn't look up, she waved her hand in front of his face.
"What?" he said, much louder than necessary.
"Well, now we know what the blood is from," Chloe sighed. She was used to Lucifer's level of weirdness. The constant insistence that he was in fact the Devil was one thing. So was his bizarre ability to get people to tell him their darkest secret. But hearing sounds that apparently were high pitched enough to rupture eardrums that only affected him? Mystery hemorrhagic allergies? This case was getting weird even for her newly defined level of acceptable strange. "Can you tell me what you heard?" she asked, speaking loud enough for him to hear her, enunciating carefully.
Lucifer frowned. "As crazy as it sounds…I think I heard voices."
And that bar of acceptable strangeness? Just kept going higher.
"They say anything in particular?" Dan asked, folding his arms. Lucifer was still leaning against him and showed no signs of moving. It was a testament to Dan's tolerance for the club owner that he didn't protest or really seem to care.
Idly she wondered just what the hell 'revelation over bourbon' was a euphemism for.
Lucifer touched a finger back to his ear, which was still bleeding sluggishly, wincing as he did so. "Surprisingly, yes…ho en o ra, zamran. Repeatedly. And very, very loudly."
"What the hell does that mean?"
Lucifer looked up, glancing between the two detectives before back at the body now several feet away. "It's Enochian," he said bitterly. "And it means 'true son, show yourself.'"
