Chloe wasn't unused to seeing dozens of people in and out of Lucifer's apartment. She didn't care to count how many times she'd called him for a case and heard things in the background she couldn't unhear even if she tried to. Even when there was no one in the apartment except the club owner, there was a certain vibrancy to it – a strange, intangible pull to it that Chloe had grown to accept as part of Lucifer's home just as it was a part of the man himself. When Lucifer was in Lux, it was like the place had a life of its own.
Perhaps that was why now, despite the numerous investigators, including Dan and herself, and the forensics team, it seemed empty. Just a place, with no life or pulse of its own.
Lucifer was gone.
His phone was left on the table by the sofa, untouched with her 37 missed calls and numerous texts and voicemails.
There was no sign of violence. No blood, no broken furniture, and no one had heard anything over the pulse of the club members down below so unlikely there had been gunfire – even suppressed. Besides, guns didn't seem like this particular group's MO. Strange sigils and signs etched in blood, sure – but there wasn't even a trace of that.
The only sign of foul play was the disturbingly lifeless penthouse with its door left open.
That, and an absolutely livid ninja bartender, who was currently gesturing wildly and very, very angrily at Dan, who seemed to be failing miserably at keeping her calm enough to give an explanation as to what happened, and from what Chloe could overhear, sounded like utter nonsense.
"It was his wings," Maze hissed angrily. "Whatever they've been using to hide them, they lifted it enough that I could sense them. It was a distraction – as soon as I was gone, they must've taken him."
"Did the cameras get anything?" Dan asked.
Chloe knew the answer before Maze gave it.
Lux didn't have cameras. Lux didn't have any form of security, aside from Maze and Lucifer themselves. She knew that from her very first meeting with him and she wanted camera footage for the drive by shooting. Lucifer had looked at her like she had eight heads and asked why on Earth he would have security cameras because no one would ever dare steal from him – and if they did, he hardly needed cameras to find them.
She wondered if he ever thought there was a possibility someone would steal him.
"Anything?" she asked as the forensic team passed her.
One held up his phone in a plastic bag. "We dusted the place, but either he's got a helluva maid service or they didn't touch anything else. Nothing showing signs of a struggle, but we're gonna see if we can find anything on this. Sorry, Detective," the young man shrugged helplessly, and she waved him off.
It wasn't his fault that these people – whoever they were – seemed to be professionals at making people disappear. She stared at the door way, noting the absence of splintered wood or broken frame. Lucifer had opened the door for whoever it was, and if they were right about it being Delilah Rogers, it meant it was likely she was the one he opened it for.
Lucifer was nothing if not curious, and as soon as she found him again, she was going to give him an earful about the idiom of what happened to curious cats. He would've easily opened the door just to wonder what the hell the doctor was doing on his doorstep, and after that…it wouldn't be that difficult to take him.
Scratch that. She was making assumptions. Any time she'd ever seen Lucifer lose his temper and get into a fight, he relied heavily on superior force, which didn't make a lot of sense to her, considering he wasn't exactly the body building type. But she'd seen him easily lift people his own size with just one hand and not look like he was straining himself. She had no idea if he was capable of self-defense, because he rarely took it seriously.
If he hadn't taken Delilah seriously – which she doubted he would, because he never took threats seriously – he would've been entirely off his guard when she opened the door.
She glanced back to the room, which looked pristine despite the numerous people.
No fight. No altercation at all.
She turned back to the door.
So Lucifer opened the door, curious and possibly surprised to see Delilah there in the first place – or anyone at all, really, given the statement Maze had given about him not being in a partying mood, and then…what? Went with her willingly? Did these people really have that kind of sway?
No. That didn't make sense. Lucifer was taken. He didn't go anywhere, and considering the bitch fit he threw when he didn't want to go somewhere with her because he could be an obstinate child when he wanted to be, if he didn't want to go with Delilah, there would be some evidence of something.
Now the question was: how did anyone get Lucifer to do something he didn't want to do?
She gritted her teeth, forcing the gnawing worry in her gut to not explode into full blown panic. She snapped her fingers at Dan. "What the hell was it we found in the other victims? Midas…" she snapped her fingers again, getting angrier at herself for not remembering it off the top of her head.
"Midazolam?" Dan said, looking curious. "What about it?"
"You!" Chloe pointed to the unfortunate forensic technician who was putting the last of his gear into the evidence container. "What are the symptoms of Midazolam?"
The kid looked like a deer caught in the headlights, but he answered almost instantly. "It's an anesthetic used mostly for pre-ops, anti-anxiety and causes drowsiness and short term memory loss."
"Is it fast acting?" she asked.
The kid shook his head. "No, ma'am. You'd have to use something else with it, like…doxacurium or ketamine or something else like that."
"You think they drugged him," Dan said. "That's why there's no evidence of a struggle."
"It's the only possible explanation for him just disappearing with them," Chloe said. "You know what he's like when he doesn't want to do something, or if he doesn't like you. He would've opened the door, and we know he did because no one broke it down, and then before he could do anything, they would've had to hit him fast, with something just as fast acting. Think about all the other victims – no sign of struggle, no signs of being restrained. We know they had at least Midazolam and ketamine in their systems –"
"It would make sense if he was unconscious when they took him – and it would have to be more than one person. Lucifer's not exactly a small guy, and dead weight he'd be even harder to maneuver around."
"No blood or sign of struggle – so they didn't hit him over the head, or shoot him or anything else like that. But…" she trailed off, not really wanting to pursue her next train of thought but knowing that she had to. "The side effects for anything that can knock a person out like that is decreased breathing – and if they gave him enough to knock him out fast – fast enough that they wouldn't get a chance to fight, because Lucifer would've won any sort of physical altercation, they would've had to overdose him."
Maze watched the exchange go back and forth, her eyes narrowing as the two detectives talked about her boss without giving any real clue what they were talking about. "English, human. What does that mean?"
"It means there's a really good chance they might've killed him accidentally," Dan explained grimly, and immediately pulled out his phone. "It also means that in the off chance they didn't, they're going to need a life support system."
"Which means hospital, or missing or stolen equipment in the last couple of hours," Chloe said. She jabbed at her phone, refusing to accept that it was too late. Lucifer was not dead.
He couldn't be.
As she turned away, phone pressed to her ear as she waited for dispatch to pick up, she heard Dan mutter quietly to Maze.
"What about his brothers? Can't they do anything to help? Gabriel seems to find him easily enough."
"Lucifer is like a beacon – just like his wings. Normally, you couldn't lose him if you wanted to. Same with any else divine. But these people…" Maze spat the word out like it was something rotten. "They have some way of blocking them from me. They only lifted it long enough for me to get far enough away from Lux that when Lucifer's presence disappeared, I was too far to get back in time. I'm good, but I'm not that good."
Something in her just snapped.
"Enough with these stupid games, Maze!" she snapped. "I've had it! It's not cute anymore, it's not fun or quirky or some weird tic – it's dangerous. I don't care why you two picked role play – maybe it helped with the club, maybe you're both trying to hide from something, I really don't care. But thanks to it, and your complete inability to let go of your 'alter egos' or whatever the hell you want to call it, Lucifer is gone and there's a really good chance that if he's not dead already, his body is going to be the next one we investigate. So drop the goddamn act, and be helpful for once and knock it off with the damned devil crap and angel wings!"
Maze looked fully prepared to punch her square in her teeth, except as soon as she raised her fist, Dan grabbed it and used her own momentum to spin her around to face the door. "I'll handle this. Get contact info for his brother."
If she was to be perfectly honest, she was a little disappointed to see Maze listen – however begrudgingly – and storm off, her stilettos clicking angrily on the marble before she disappeared into the elevator. Her last view of the smaller woman was a nasty sneer and the middle finger as the doors closed.
"Chloe-" Dan started, putting a hand out towards her, but she didn't want sympathy. She didn't want Dan to tell her the same empty, stupid promises they both made to the victims' surviving friends and families.
She slapped his hand away. "He's not dead."
Strangely enough, Dan looked skyward, looking slightly nervous. "No, he's not. I think there'd be considerably more commotion if he was. But Maze is going to get in contact with his brothers, and maybe they can help out some way we can't." He took a deep breath, raising his hand like he wanted to pat her shoulder but instead settled for awkwardly shoving it in his pocket. "Chloe – I know you don't believe in Lucifer's…game, or whatever you want to call it. But we can't look at this anymore like he's not really the Devil because the people who took him? Delilah Rogers, or whoever the hell else is involved with this – that is exactly what they believe. So we can't think about what people would do to another person, we have to think of what people would do to an idol. You're good at thinking outside the box – if you wanted to prove Lucifer was exactly who you said he was…where would you go?"
Chloe chewed on her lower lip. "They're not going to go back to Three Rivers. They're going to find a place that has some sort of religious significance to the Samael lore. Something like – like a garden, or an actual meeting of three rivers, or…I don't know, Dan, I don't know, alright?"
Dan was quiet for a moment. "Do you think they're going to make him another sacrifice?"
Chloe shook her head. "No. No, that wouldn't make sense. But I think it's going to be something worse than that. They think he's this other guy, right? This other personality? Lucifer said he wasn't a good guy before becoming Lucifer. I'm more worried about what they're going to do to get that part of him back."
*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*
It was freezing.
That was the first thing he noticed.
The second was that everything hurt. His brain sluggishly tried to draw comparisons. Slightly less than when he fell, definitely more than the exorcism.
"Ah, Mr. Morningstar…you live."
The voice was feminine, which was not unusual for him to wake up to, and the fact that he couldn't recognize it also wasn't much of an oddity either.
His teeth chattering from the cold? That was new, and decidedly unpleasant. He blinked his eyes open, raising a hand to wipe he residual tackiness from the lids, wincing in the bright light and the stabbing pain it shot through his head.
That, and at the heavy weights around his wrists that clanked hollowly against the floor, banging against his joints.
Waking up in chains? Not…common, but not the first time, either. Usually there were some fluffy cuffs on them, but…
"Why do you sound surprised?" he asked, and winced at the dryness in his throat. "I'm not even entirely convinced you're right."
It took longer than he would've liked, but the world slowly bled back into focus…sort of. He seemed to be having trouble adjusting to the stark contrast of light and dark in the room.
"Well, for a while, we didn't think you were going to. My fault, really. I wasn't expecting you to be quite so…"
"Delicate?" Lucifer grumbled, closing his eyes against the bright white light above him. He could assess his position well enough without opening his eyes he decided, and let his head drop back against the floor. Bright light, dark room, no bed, and very, very cold floors. Beyond that, he ached too much to care.
"Human," the woman answered.
Lucifer actually chuckled at that, though without humor. "Mmm, yes…people are often surprised to find out how much of them is reflected in me."
"You don't seem that concerned about your position," the woman mused. "The other ones were usually in a panic by now."
Refusing to even sit up, Lucifer actually laughed out loud at that one, and he knew he sounded drunk. Bloody hell, what did she give him? "Disappointed?" he laughed. "Get in line." He waved his hand disjointedly in the direction behind the woman. "It starts back there."
This time, it was the woman who laughed. "Quite the contrary, Mr. Morningstar. It just proves I was right about you. You're exactly what I'm been looking for."
"Tall, dark and handsome?" he quipped. He jostled one of the chains. "Conveniently chained to the floor? You could've just asked."
"Your Father's son."
Of all phrases, that was the one that reminded him exactly how he got here. Well, sort of. Most of it was still a blur, but he dimly recalled the woman from the pseudo church showing up at his doorstep.
He grumbled non-committedly. "I wouldn't let Him hear that if I were you. It's liable to get you struck by righteous lightning."
"It hasn't happened yet," the woman said.
There was a click, and the bright light from overhead dimmed considerably, and Lucifer risked opening his eyes again.
The overhead light dimmed to the same level as the rest of the room, and he could finally see where exactly he was, and he almost groaned out loud.
A relatively bland, damp stone room without windows, a heavy wooden door in the far wall. Lining the other walls were large plaques with the alpha and omega sigils carved into the side, stacked in neat little rows. Soot stained the ceilings and walls from years of candle use before the electric lights were fitted to the crypt, the floor worn smooth with use. The lights were new, and so were the chains around his wrists, but everything else reeked of age and mildew.
"You must be joking. A church?" Lucifer growled irritably. "What is it with you people and trying to get me into my Father's house?"
The woman – whose name he'd completely forgotten because he hadn't even been paying that much attention when they met – smiled. "I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but anything touched by God gives off a certain…light. You're much too powerful to hide…not completely, anyway. We learned that almost any church, but especially the old ones – particularly the tragic history ones – has a similar light to it. Enough to cover up what the wardings couldn't, anyway."
Lucifer struggled to sit up, wavering slightly as the world swam in and out of focus. "You're trying to tell me that the reason why we couldn't find my wings is because you hid them in the basement of one of my Father's churches? Have you no decency?"
The woman – something with a D, if he remembered correctly – shrugged with one shoulder. "It's the last place you or your pet demon would look. And no one else seemed to be able to find them either, did they? Do all of your kind have that kind of arrogance?"
"More like a shared trait between distant cousins," Lucifer answered flippantly. He scrubbed one hand across his face, trying to force himself into some semblance of coherency. "It's a common attribute of my Father's creations, considering the arrogance it takes for you to think you can contain me."
"For long periods, I would have to agree," the woman said, her tone just as dismissive. "Even Hell couldn't keep you prisoner, could it? But as far as temporary standards go…I think you'll find we're more than capable of keeping the Devil in his dungeon for just a bit longer."
Lucifer didn't have an answer for her, so he ignored her.
"You don't deny who you are?" the woman asked.
Doris. No, that wasn't right. Daisy. Dimwit. Douchenozzle. Delia. Delilah. That was it. It made sense, he supposed – the awful woman in Sorek with her boyfriend that she betrayed for money set a precedence, it would seem.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "What would be the point? You already ran me through your gauntlet, and if that hadn't convinced you, I wouldn't be sitting here now, would I? Besides…" he smirked, even though it was a fraction of what he usually offered. "I have never lied to anyone about who I am."
Delilah smiled, leaning back against the wall, just out of reach of the binding sigil on the floor.
If Lucifer had to guess, his chains probably didn't even allow him to cross the edge of it, even if he wanted to.
"I suppose you and I have a different definition about lying then, Samael," Delilah said, drawing out the last word.
"Don't call me that," Lucifer snapped.
"Why not? It's your real name, isn't it? This Lucifer persona you seem to have adopted…it's a mask to hide behind."
"No more than the one you wear while playing doctor."
Delilah smiled. "It's Hollywood. Everyone has their roles to play. But I at least know that my mask is just that – a mask. You…" her lip curled upwards in a sneer. "You seem to believe that this is the real you. This…simpering, wannabe human, who runs around the city solving crimes and trying to pretend that you're someone else."
"I didn't change who I was. The only thing I can agree with you on is that yes, as much as I loathe to admit it – I am my Father's son. I am as I was created," Lucifer growled. "This isn't a mask, or some alternate personality – this is me. So sorry I don't live up to expectations."
"You've let yourself be blinded," Delilah said. "You've been playing pretend so long you forgot what you really are."
Lucifer banged his head against the wall. "It's like talking to Amenadiel…listen up, you amoral twat waffle. Samael is long gone. That's not me anymore. And even if I was, what could you possibly want from him? You think the Devil is wrathful? I just let you talking monkeys punish yourselves. I didn't create Hell. I didn't send you there. But Samael? God's Poison? You think you want that part of me back? What in the bloody Hell for?"
Delilah didn't say anything, simply standing quietly with her arms folded in front of her, looking expectant, as if she expected him to drop his 'act'.
Lucifer pushed himself to his feet, and was grateful he managed to stand upright without tilting, carefully stalking towards the barrier line of the seal, his chains dragging behind him. "Didn't you ever wonder at the name, Samael? Names have meaning when they come from my Father. Samael wasn't just the Angel of Death, he was…" Lucifer struggled to come up with a word that could describe what he'd been like those many years ago. The misery and suffering that he was responsible for along with his brothers. "Cruel in a way humans can't understand. You think Death is unfair now – when he simply ferries souls from one place to another."
He let his forehead thunk against the barrier, resting it there as he willed the world to stop its slow spin around him. "I wasn't an impartial executioner. You think I could what, be a weapon? I was a punisher. A wicked angel who delighted in what he did. I am the reason you humans are still afraid of the dark."
Instead of recoiling, instead of understanding just why what she wanted was a terrible idea, Delilah smiled – a wide, empty smile with empty eyes, and stood herself on tiptoes to whisper in his ear: "I know."
