Chapter 5

Lucifer swallowed thickly as he stared at his daughter, who stood very still and looked back at him with some trepidation.

'Please… have a seat,' he managed eventually, and it was wrong, so formal… until it wasn't, and the girl cautiously padded across the marble floor and settled herself on the edge of one of the leather sofas, nervously wringing her hands. 'Can I get you a drink?' As she shook her head, Lucifer picked up his own tumbler from atop the piano and moved to sit opposite her, clutching the glass like a lifeline.

'It's lovely to meet you, Eleonora,' he said softly as he sat down. He kept his moments quiet and slow, sensing her nerves, terrified of spooking her, of scaring her away, of her running and never coming back. 'Thank you for coming to see me. I… I am so sorry that we have not met before, but, you need to believe me when I say that the truth is I didn't know you existed, you or your sister… if I had, things may have been very different.'

'It's okay,' Eleonora all but whispered. 'It's not your fault that we Nephilim were one of Grandfather's best kept secrets.'

'Yes…' Lucifer mused. 'I can't believe He didn't tell me when He was here… Did He meet with you before He left?'

'Briefly,' she answered, slightly more confident now that there was conversation. 'We kind of saw it coming, you know? My cousin Cora has visions of the future, but she can't always make sense of them… He came and saw us and Uncle Jophiel's children before He left the Silver City, but Rory didn't come.'

'How come?'

Eleonora winced. 'They… didn't exactly get along,' she admitted. 'She'd been furious with him for years, they'd argued something awful when she came back from Earth, but I don't know what about.'

Lucifer sighed. 'I definitely owe your sister an apology,' he said. 'How I reacted when she came here the other day… I mean, she did catch me off guard, what with the wing to the throat, but regardless…'

His other daughter looked mortified. 'I am so sorry about her,' she said quickly. 'I know she has been angry with you for some time, but I should have kept a better watch on her, I should have stopped her, it's my fault really –'

'No, my darling, it isn't,' Lucifer reassured her. 'She has every right to be angry with me, and so do you.' He leaned forward, gazing at her intently. 'I imagine growing up in the Silver City you both heard many things about me, mostly bad. Your Uncle Michael had quite the smear campaign going on, it seems… One day I hope I can convince you all that most of what you have been told are falsehoods, but until then what I need you to know, Eleonora, is that I will never hurt you, or your sister, no matter how many times either of you try to raise the dead or stab me with a feather.'

Eleonora had listened to him carefully, but winced as he finished. 'Will the human be okay?' she asked. 'Rory said she just kind of left him.'

'Daniel will be fine,' Lucifer replied. 'I'll figure out a way to get his soul off the mortal plane, don't worry.'

She nodded. 'Good.' She exhaled with a shudder. 'I can't believe my sister did that… I promise you what she lacks in diplomacy she more than –'

'It's okay, Eleonora,' he smiled. 'Like I said, Aurora has every right to dislike me. I can only hope in time that I can make things right.'

'All I know is that, a few years back, we were both sent to Earth for a decade. Grandfather fixed it for us to be fostered, different families, different places – we didn't see each other all that time. But whatever happened to Rory during that time must have been… bad… because she was completely different when she came back to Heaven. She never spoke about it, but she was so much angrier, with the world, with you, with our mother, but especially with Grandfather, she practically hated Him.'

'He never was particularly good with managing angry angels,' Lucifer mused. 'You say you were fostered on Earth – was your family good to you? Did they treat you well?'

Eleonora gave him a small smile for the first time, a gesture that sent warmth throughout his being. 'They did, yes, they were so kind. I heard they died last year… I shall miss them.'

'They're not in Heaven?' Lucifer asked.

'No,' she replied. 'I grew up in the Cursed Islands, you know, so…'

'A race of soulless humans,' Lucifer continued quietly. 'No Heaven, no Hell, just death… Oh Eleonora, I'm so sorry, darling. That'll be one of the first things I fix when I become God.' He set his empty whiskey tumbler down. 'I am glad that you, at least, had good people around you, but… your mother? Was she from there too?'

'I… I don't know,' Eleonora replied, suddenly looking nervous again. 'We don't actually know who she was.'

'Yes, I did notice she was conspicuously absent from the Book of Nephilim,' Lucifer pondered.

'Aunt Remiel said she abandoned us,' she admitted, eyes downcast. 'She said she found us in a clearing in a forest when we were a few hours old.'

'She… abandoned you?' Lucifer asked, outraged. In the reflection of the whiskey glass, he saw his eyes flare crimson. 'Oh, no, Eleonora sorry, I… please don't be frightened!'

'It's okay,' she said with another small smile. 'Rory does that sometimes too… but please don't tell her I said that. I don't think she knows she does it.'

'The secret's safe with me. I wondered maybe if one or both of you had inherited any of my angelic abilities,' Lucifer said with a chuckle. 'Did you know your cousin Charlie can slow time now too?'

'Uncle Jophiel told me,' Eleonora nodded, with a little snort of amusement. 'Bless him, it must be crazy, getting your powers so young… I'd like to meet him someday.'

'You can!' Lucifer encouraged her with a grin. 'You should – I'm sure your Uncle Amenadiel would love to meet you, as would your Auntie Linda, Charlie's mother. I'll warn you, though, she'll have a lot of questions about what it means to be half angel, half human… Perhaps you could stay here tonight, and we could go together, tomorrow?' He took a couple of deep breaths, having spoken very fast. 'Sorry, I didn't mean to overstep –'

'That sounds great, Lucifer,' Eleonora said softly, and his heart soared. 'Are you sure I would not be intruding?'

'Absolutely not, darling!' he reassured her. 'Is it true you came to Lux the other day? My friends and I have been trying to find you, and or your sister ever since.'

'I did,' she admitted. 'I thought Rory might still have been there. When I didn't sense her, I didn't stick around… I've never been that great with humans, you know?'

'Well, this is an excellent opportunity to fix that, my dear,' Lucifer said. 'You must have heard of Eve?' As she nodded, 'Well, she is one of my good friends here on Earth, and her fiancé, Maze, is, or should I say was, my right-hand demon. You'll meet Linda, Charlie's mother, tomorrow, she's been a brilliant friend to us celestials over the years, not to mention that you, and probably your sister more so, could benefit from her professional services… There's Miss Lopez, I think you'd get along, and she's your Aunt Azrael's BFF, though she doesn't actually know about the celestial side of things… There's Daniel, too, the man Aurora brought up from Hell. Oh, and I'll have to introduce you to Chloe and her offspring!'

'Who's Chloe?' Eleonora asked, seeming somewhat overwhelmed by all the new information.

'My girlfriend,' Lucifer answered simply, a soft smile on his face as there always was when he spoke of her. 'Though more than that, really, she'll be my consultant when I take Dad's throne.'

'Wait, hold on,' his daughter said suddenly, thinking hard. 'That name rings a bell… is she the one that Uncle Michael, you know…'

'Killed?' Lucifer finished, the merest touch of venom in his tone. 'The very same.'

Eleonora sighed. 'I can't believe he did that,' she said, running a shaking hand through her hair.

'I unfortunately can,' Lucifer said. He paused. 'As I understand it, he was close to you both, growing up?'

'Yeah,' she confessed. 'He preferred Rory, I think, she's always been more sort of out there than me.'

'Well, if there's anyone who can help you get out there, it's me,' Lucifer said, fixing her with a smug smile, and delighting as she snorted in response. 'In the meantime, though, is there anything else you desire?'

Eleonora actually giggled. 'That won't work on me, Lucifer,' she told him. 'Me and Rory can do that too, but it never works on any angels.'

'Oh you can, can you?' Lucifer said, grinning broadly. 'No, I do not mean to trick you, darling. Truly, what is it you desire?'

She smiled and looked away. 'I want to see the wonders of the world, fly on dragonback with my sister and cousins and eat only cake,' she said with a light chuckle. 'Other than that… sometimes I wish Rory would open up about her time on Earth, and that our family was slightly less dysfunctional, but… that's it I think?' She paused as she thought about it. 'Only… call me Ellie. Please. People only usually call me Eleonora when I'm in trouble.'

'I think I can fix most of those when I become God,' he said. 'Apart from dragons, of course, I'm not that way inclined, although if there are any in this universe you are welcome to them.' He smiled at his daughter and resisted the urge to take her into his arms. 'From now on, things are going to be different. I promise, Ellie.'

'Well, if you live miles away, what are you doing in LA?'

The uber had successfully avoided the worst of the traffic by taking a different route, but now Trixie and her new friend were just minutes away from home.

The girl – Rory, she had said her name was – smiled cryptically. 'Watching the aftermath of a situation I mishandled,' she said airily. 'And keeping an eye on someone I care about. What were you doing in that funny little side street?'

'Shortcut,' she said guiltily. 'Please don't tell my mom. Say I just fell.'

'Well, you technically did just fall,' Rory said casually. 'But if you wish to obscure the context then your secret is safe with me.'

'Thanks,' Trixie said. 'Where are you from?'

'North,' Rory replied simply. 'Sort of the middle of nowhere, really.'

'Is it nice there?'

'Yeah, T,' she smiled. 'It is.'

'Do you have any siblings?'

'A twin sister,' Rory answered. 'And cousins I'm close with, they might as well count, too.'

'What about your mom and dad?'

'My mother abandoned me when I was born, by which point my father was long gone,' she deadpanned. 'What about you, little mystery side-street-shortcut-taking runaway?'

'I'm an only child,' Trixie said. 'My mom used to have a really scary job, but she's stopped now. And my daddy… he died a couple months ago.'

'That's very sad, T,' she said. Trixie glanced at her, seeing sympathy in her eyes. But inside, Trixie's interest was piqued. She hadn't said 'I'm sorry' like everyone else did. She didn't sound condescending like most people. She sounded… friendly. Understanding. 'Did he have a 'scary job' too?'

'He was a cop,' Trixie answered.

'Where I grew up, law enforcement folk were the most revered,' Rory said quietly. 'It was considered a great honour.'

'My mommy used to be a cop, too,' Trixie told her.

'I bet you're glad she quit.'

'Yeah.'

'What's she doing now?'

Trixie pondered for a minute on how to phrase it. She couldn't mention her mom's real new job, this girl would think she was crazy. 'Her boyfriend's taking over his family's business,' she said eventually. 'She's gonna help him.'

'Cool,' Rory said. 'How'd you feel about that?'

'It's awesome!' Trixie gushed. 'He's great, and he looks after my mom. I wish they'd just get married already.'

Rory laughed. 'That excited about marriage? That's so last century,' she said.

'Were you even around last century?'

'I'm older than I look, T.'

'Is this the right address, miss?' the uber driver turned around. Trixie noticed suddenly that they were outside her mom's apartment building.

'Yeah, thanks!' Trixie replied. Then to Rory, 'Can you help me in?'

'Of course,' Rory said courteously, jumping out of the cab and walking round to open her door. 'That ankle is swelling up already.'

Trixie looked down, and was dismayed to realise that it was true.

'C'mon,' her friend said. 'Let's get you inside. Get it elevated, I've got some stuff in my bag that might help.'

It was slow progress, up the steps and across to the apartment. By the time Trixie knocked on the front door, she was exhausted.

'Trixie!' her mom admonished as soon as the door opened. 'You were supposed to be home a half-hour ago, why didn't you answer my calls? Wait – you're injured, what happened to you? – c'mon, Monkey, come inside…'

'I fell, Mom,' Trixie said as she hobbled in. 'This is my new friend, Rory.' Her voice was muffled at the end as she leaned harder into Rory's shoulder, meaning her mom did not catch the name.

'Lie on the couch,' Chloe instructed. 'I'll go grab the first aid kit from upstairs.'

Rory gently guided Trixie onto the couch, using the armrest to elevate her swollen ankle. The cut had stopped bleeding, but it still hurt as Trixie pulled the leg of her jeans up. Rory then withdrew a tiny drawstring bag from within her cloak and started searching within it, eventually pulling out a small bottle.

'This may sting a bit,' she warned as she uncorked it. 'But it'll stop it swelling, and hopefully dull the pain a bit too.' She carefully let out a few drops and looked on apologetically as Trixie hissed.

Chloe arrived back in the room as Rory set the little bottle on the table. 'Antiseptic?' she said. 'Good thinking.'

'Dittany,' she corrected. 'Trust the process, I swear this stuff's magic.'

'We should probably clean out that cut, Monkey,' Chloe said to her daughter.

'She used to be a field medic, Mom,' Trixie said. 'How cool is that?'

'Very cool,' Chloe said distractedly as she looked at the vial-shaped bottle. 'What exactly happened, Trixie?'

'I fell,' Trixie repeated stubbornly. 'I tripped on something, I don't know what, and then I got an uber home. My phone died, and I made a new friend who helped me back here.'

Chloe watched as the strange girl who had helped her daughter put the bottle of dittany back into the smallest purse she had ever seen. As she straightened, the hood of her coat – or was it a cloak? – slipped off her head to reveal dark hair with pink highlights.

Wait – pink highlights!

'What did you say your name was again?' she asked.

'Rory,' she replied. 'Short for –'

'Aurora,' they said together.

Rory peered at her curiously.

'That's… a cool name,' Chloe recovered quickly. 'I'm Chloe… Hey, do you want to stay for dinner? It's the least I can do to thank you for helping Trixie.'

'Uh, sure… thanks,' Rory said.

'What's for dinner, Mom?'

'What would you like, Monkey?'

'Egg sandwiches!' Trixie demanded at once. 'And chocolate cake,' she added as an afterthought.

Chloe laughed as she made her way over to the kitchen. As soon as she was out of earshot, she whipped out her phone and dialled Lucifer's number. It couldn't be coincidence… She sighed as the call failed. He must have turned his phone off, or perhaps he was performing a set at Lux. She would try again after dinner.

She moved around the kitchen for a couple of minutes, cracking eggs, slicing up Hawaiian bread, getting the frying pan out of the cupboard. Just as she was going to the fridge to find chocolate cake, Trixie walked – walked – over to her.

'Look, Mommy!' she said excitedly. 'It's basically healed!'

'Wow,' she said, looking over to Rory, who had followed. 'That stuff really is magic, huh?' Heavenly, more like, she left unsaid.

'You are gonna love these sandwiches,' Trixie said confidently to her new friend as she took a seat on one of the barstools. 'They're the best.'

'I can't say I've ever eaten an egg sandwich, T,' Rory mused, doing the same. 'Or chocolate cake, for that matter.'

'Never?' Trixie looked scandalised. 'You've not lived!'

'What is your favourite food?' Chloe asked her, curious to find out as much about her daughter's-new-friend-slash-potential-future-sort-of-stepdaughter as possible.

'Stew,' she said, after pondering for a minute. 'I was fostered in a really cold place, we used to eat that stuff by the bucketful to keep warm. So good.'

'Fostered, huh?' Chloe said innocently, putting the eggs in the pan.

'Yeah,' Rory replied flatly. 'Don't get me started.'

'So how did you end up being a medic?' Chloe asked. 'You must have started training really young.'

She shrugged. 'I grew up in a rough area,' she said vaguely. 'I was mostly self-taught. People got hurt all the time… They kept coming to me for help, so I kept helping them.'

'That's so cool,' Trixie said admiringly.

'Did you ever get hurt?' Chloe asked, dreading the answer.

Rory seemed to close off. 'Once or twice.'

Not immortal then, Chloe thought with a pang.

'So you can fight, too?' Trixie asked.

Rory coughed. 'Not as far as local authorities know.'

Chloe chuckled, the honesty reminding her so much of Lucifer. 'I don't know what Trixie told you, but I'm not a cop anymore. And I can't exactly time-travel, either, so…'

'Then yeah, I totally can,' Rory said with another shrug.

Trixie laughed, and Chloe delighted in the sound, a rare thing in the last couple of months. 'She's so cool, Mom, can we keep her?'

Hopefully until Lucifer finds out she's here, she thought.

'How long are you in LA?' Trixie asked her.

'I'm going back home, soon,' Rory replied evasively.

'Do you want to stay the night?' Chloe asked. 'There's a spare room upstairs, and from here, it's only twenty minutes to the airport.' And only double that to Lux…

'Okay,' she agreed, after staring at her for a minute, as though determining trust. 'Thanks.'

'Sleepover!' Trixie cheered as her mom dished up two sandwiches, putting one before each girl. 'Thanks, Mommy!'

'Thank you,' Rory said.

'Excuse me just one second,' Chloe said, picking up her phone and dashing to the bathroom. Once inside, she locked the door and tried three more times to call Lucifer, failing each time. Oh well, she thought. I have until morning now, at least.

She quickly tapped out a message to Amenadiel. 'Hi Amenadiel. If you're with your brother, can you get him to call me? Not an emergency, but something he needs to know. Thanks.'

She then swiped onto Lucifer's contact, sending several texts in the hope that the notifications would alert him. 'Hey Lucifer', 'Not to alarm you or anything', 'But a girl I'm almost certain is your daughter Aurora is at my place', 'She and Trixie are best friends now', 'Any chance you could come over first thing tomorrow morning?' 'Love you'.

As she sent the last one, a reply came in from Amenadiel's phone. 'Hey Chlo, this is Linda. Amenadiel is in heaven right now, said he had some stuff to do. Heaven, haha. This is my life now, lol. Hope everything's okay, call me if you need!'

Chloe sighed.

Amenadiel strode purposefully through the Silver City. He had been interrupted in his quest by three siblings already – the whole Host was now abuzz with the gossip that other Nephilim exist besides Charlie – and he felt guiltily responsible. He should have realised that nosy little Gabriel would have been watching his every move…

He found the garden that Eve had described easily enough. He remembered as he walked through it, with a pang, that he had spent many a time here in his own, very early, youth, and wondered briefly why he had stopped. It was beautiful, tranquil, and currently, not entirely unoccupied.

A young girl was sitting at the base of the tree, and appeared not to notice Amenadiel as he approached. The memory of the pictures in the Book of Nephilim told him that this was Lezmegadiel's daughter – waist-length dark hair, olive complexion – and she was sitting exactly where Eve had said.

As he approached and sat close to her, she was holding what seemed to be a hedgehog in her hands, and she was talking very quickly in a melodic voice. 'Four legs, very short, can't run fast, but can run far. It has six thousand, three hundred and twenty eight spikes, that's four hundred and fifty two fourteens. It has good eyes for night, but I don't believe it can see me now.'

'Why is that, do you think?' Amenadiel said gently, not wanting to startle her.

She fixed him with an intense stare. 'It is beyond our understanding.'

'I suppose some things just are,' he countered. 'Cora, isn't it?'

'Uncle Amenadiel,' she answered with a nod, the strength of her gaze unwavering. 'I knew this would happen, you know. A secret can never remain so forever.' She put the hedgehog down and watched as it scuttled away. 'Thirteen and thirteen when six.'

'It's nice to meet you,' the angel faltered, entirely confused by her speech. He had intended to ask her about Lucifer's daughters, but instead decided to steer into a topic he would understand, regardless of her nonsensicality. 'Hey, did you know I have a son now? He's half-angel, half-human, just like you.'

'Charlie,' she said. 'A prince of time, a prince in time. Loops of time spin loops of life. A favour for a friend in need proves a favour to end all strife. A curiosity sated, a disaster abated.'

'O-kay,' Amenadiel replied. This was getting weird and quickly. 'Um, did you want to meet him? I heard the Nephilim are a close group, and I know Charlie would love to meet his cousins.'

Cora smiled sweetly at him. 'I would like that. I'll let them know.' She got up and practically skipped out of the garden, practically singing. 'Thirteen and thirteen when six, thirteen and thirteen when six!'

Amenadiel stared after his eldest niece, dumbfounded. How did anyone understand a word she said? Her father was a patient angel, everyone said so, but Remi? Uri? Hell, Michael?

Scrub, scrub, scrub.

The static dragging of the tiny brush…

Scrub, scrub, scrub.

Bristle fibres against stone, hissing… screeching… screaming…

The fall, the thump, the pain, searing through muscle and bone and sinew, stretching across shoulders and arms and chest.

Torture.

Scrub, scrub, scrub.

Had it been weeks? Years? Millennia? It was hard to be sure.

The pain, oh, the pain, and guilt, so much guilt… Had this been how he felt?

Were knees even knees if you couldn't feel them?

Scrub, scrub, scrub.

He deserved this, he knew. If anything, he deserved so much worse…

He spat out a mouthful of ash. Oh, that was a mistake, the motion sending savage agony across his broken back. He deserved that.

Scrub, scrub, scrub.

Memory hurt too. His sister, those humans, the shocked faces of his family…

Like a loop.

Of torture.

Scrub, scrub, scr-

'You know that's a pretty pointless thing to do, right? Like, the tile behind you is just as bad as before you scrubbed it.'

A new voice. Human. Turn, look…

The stranger was unfamiliar. Freckled skin, auburn hair, skinny… dangerously skinny by human standards…

Well. She is dead.

'Look, you definitely look like you could use a break.'

Pain, so much pain… Steady green eyes met dark brown.

'Dude, your back is fucked! Get in here, it'll never heal out there!'

One knee forward. Other knee. Other one again. Deserve this.

Pain.

Through the door.

And… not darkness?

Lucifer smiled fondly at his daughter as he drove. The early morning sun was beautiful, but not as much as Ellie's excited face when he pressed the accelerator far harder than necessary to overtake a car travelling half their speed. It was barely past dawn, in truth, but that was the best time to drive – before the swathes of humans joined the road in pursuit of work or fun.

'A true American beauty,' Lucifer had told Ellie as they had got in. 'The Chevrolet Corvette 1962. Top speed of 140 miles an hour… take care of her, and she will take care of you.'

They had talked almost all night. Lucifer had put his personal phone, and his own Lux security radio on silent, revelling in spending every possible second with his daughter. They'd kept clear of difficult or personal topics, but the hours had all but melted away. And when he had shown Ellie to a guest room, no, sorry, her room, at nearly two in the morning, he could admit it so easily. He loved her.

It was only as he had then gone to his own room and glanced at his phone that he had seen the vast number of text messages and missed calls, from Chloe, Amenadiel and Linda.

Oops.

Lucifer felt pretty certain that Aurora had not gone to Chloe's apartment – how would she know about her, if Ellie didn't? – but the idea of spending the day with her and Trixie and Ellie starting early excited him greatly.

'Will she like me?' Ellie had asked nervously as she had readied herself to leave the penthouse. She was no longer wearing the white dress from the Silver City; Lucifer had given her access to Maze's old wardrobe and she had picked out a knee-length leather-like red dress, and paired it with a dark grey knitted cardigan that Lucifer recognised as one his father had left behind.

'Of course!' Lucifer had rushed to assure her. 'What's not to like?'

And she had smiled that smile he was growing to cherish so much.

'We have to slow down now!' he called to her now. As she made a face, 'Well, that was nearly a hundred miles per hour, darling! Just be glad that there are enough traffic cops that owe me favours!'

Ten minutes later, Lucifer arrived outside Chloe's apartment complex, slamming on the brakes at the last second to make Ellie laugh.

'Please don't be nervous, darling,' he said gently as they got out of the car. 'Chloe and her spawn are not like other humans, they're good and kind.'

Ellie smiled and nodded at him, then stopped dead, frowning.

'What's wrong?'

'Nothing,' she said quietly. 'I thought I sensed… never mind.'

He put an arm around her shoulders as they walked up the steps, only dropping it to ring the doorbell.

Chloe answered swiftly. 'Good morning, Lucifer!' she said cheerily. Then, as she noticed Ellie, she added much more softly, 'Hello, again!'

Ellie smiled shyly. 'Hello.'

'This is Ellie,' Lucifer introduced them. 'Ellie – Chloe.'

'Lucifer!' came a high-pitched yell, as Trixie left her room. 'Hey, who's this?' she asked, a happy grin on her face.

'Monkey, remember how I told you the other day that Lucifer has two daughters? Well, this is Eleonora – Ellie.'

'Hey, Ellie!' Trixie chirped. 'Nice to meet you!' She went in for a hug, but stopped when she saw the panicked look on the girl's face.

Footsteps on the stairs reminded Trixie that her new friend was still in the house. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she stopped short, as did Lucifer.

'Ellie?'

'Rory?'

Rory scoffed as she looked between Chloe and Lucifer. 'How do you know each other?'

Lucifer looked flabbergasted. 'I think the better question is how do you three –' he indicated Chloe, Trixie and Rory – 'know each other?'

'How do they know each other?' Trixie asked, looking between Ellie and Rory.

'Oh dear,' said Ellie.