Chapter Notes
Thank you so much as always to anyone who takes the time to leave me feedback! Chapter title credit goes to Haim.
●◊●◊●
"So, the warehouse Anton visited last night is owned by a Möbius, Inc.," Dan says as he returns to Chloe's desk.
Lucifer looks up from his phone for the first time in an hour. "Möbius, eh? Like the mathematician?"
Chloe has no idea what mathematician Lucifer is referring to, but she doesn't get a chance to ask.
Dan shoots an unfriendly look in Lucifer's direction before continuing, "Looks like a global antiquities dealer. No idea who owns the company, specifically, but I did find a contact number for their C.E.O. A man named Asaiah Möbius."
"So... not the mathematician," Lucifer decides.
"Well, given the name," Chloe says, considering, "either Asaiah is more than just the C.E.O., or a relative must own the company."
"Probably," agrees Dan.
She minimizes the affidavit she's been working on.
"Can you spell the name?" she says.
"Yeah," Dan replies, nodding, and he rattles off the letters as she types them into the D.M.V. database, with a brief timeout for her to Google how in the hell to wrestle an umlaut out of an American keyboard.
Luckily, Asaiah Möbius's name is weird enough that there's only one of him in all of California, which removes the need for process of elimination. She clicks the only search result, and his license photograph loads in seconds.
Cold amber-colored eyes stare back at her through the computer screen. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Gelid fingers stroke her spine. She's never seen that shade of iris on a human being before, though she thinks hazel eyes caught in odd lighting could possibly mimic it. She swallows, taking in the angular, craggy features, the beak nose, and the slicked-back black hair. The urge to close the picture is almost overwhelming, but she diverts her desire into a shiver.
"Um," she says. "Is he...?" Not human...?
From the low-pitched, stupefied, "Whoa," Dan utters, she isn't the only one who's creeped out. "Talk about feeling like someone stepped on your grave."
She glances at Lucifer to gauge his reaction, but he seems... almost sedate. Intellectually engaged, perhaps, but not unsettled. Like an entomologist examining a centipede.
"I know this man," Lucifer says, frowning as he reaches for the screen.
She blinks. "You... do?"
"I..." He shakes his head like he's trying to clear cobwebs. He strokes the side of the monitor with his index finger. "Yes...?" More a question than a certainty. His perplexed tone makes her feel uneasy.
"From where?" she says.
"I... haven't a clue." His frown deepens, as though the idea of him not remembering something disturbs him more than he's willing to admit. "I can't fathom when I ever would have crossed paths with him. But I've an eidetic memory. How could...?
"Maybe, at Lux?" she prods.
Lucifer peers intently. "No... No, not at Lux."
"But you just said you don't know."
"I don't," he replies, irritated. "But I know enough to rule things out."
"Is he... human?" she asks.
"He looks like the Devil," Dan says.
"I beg your bloody pardon?" Lucifer scoffs.
"No, man," Dan says, shaking his head as he gives himself the sign of the cross. "I mean the real Devil. Like from The Exorcist or some shit."
Lucifer opens his mouth to launch what appears to be scathing reply, but Chloe puts a hand on his shoulder, digging her nails into him through the wool of his suit jacket. "Lucifer," she says softly, feeling him tense up underneath her palm, "this isn't the time."
With his lips pulled back in a vicious sneer, Lucifer snaps to his feet and stalks away.
"You shouldn't say stuff like that around him, Dan," Chloe says as she watches Lucifer disappear into the break room with a flourish and a huffy, over-dramatic sigh.
Dan rolls his eyes. "Oh, come on. Don't tell me he's got you believing his load of shit, now, too."
"It doesn't matter what I believe," Chloe says slowly, pointing to the break room. " He believes it, and he's my partner. He's your partner, too. So can it, will you?"
"He got Charlotte ki—"
"No, he did not, Dan," she snaps. "Or do you think Charlotte and Pierce didn't make their own choices?"
Dan has no response to that except to look away and seethe. For a long moment, he doesn't reply. His temples flutter as he clenches and unclenches his jaw. And then, in a rough, twisted, upset voice he says, "No, I... I know." Like he's barely holding himself together. "I just..."
She puts a hand on his shoulder, for the first time noticing how wrinkled his shirt is. How... unkempt he looks. "Hey," she says softly, stepping close. "Are you... okay?"
He rubs his eyes and looks up at her. His expression is bloodshot and tired, and he isn't crying, but she gets the distinct impression his lack of tears, now, is because he has no tears left to shed. He wipes his face with his palms, bare skin rasping against stubble born from grief hygiene.
"I haven't been sleeping," Dan confesses quietly. "I'm sorry I'm being such a dick." He directs a troubled glance at the break room, where Lucifer seems to have decided to vent his anger by not- exactly-thieving chocolate from the vending machine again. He jams a $100 bill into the open machine, his onyx ring flashing in the light, and withdraws a Snickers bar in exchange. Dan sighs. "I'll apologize... eventually. I just can't stomach it, now, though."
"It's okay," she tells him. A lump forms in her throat. "Can I do anything?"
Dan considers the question for a moment. "Can I pick up Trix tonight? I know it's not my turn..."
She frowns. "Well, sure, but...?"
He shrugs. "I'll take her to a movie or something and then drop her back with you. I just... need something. Something besides quiet." And Trixie is anything but quiet. He directs a raw look at Chloe. "My apartment is empty, and I..."
Her heart constricts. That, she can understand. Too much, really. "Trixie could stay with you tonight," Chloe suggests. Maybe, they'll do each other some good. "Honestly, she can stay with you as long as you want, as long as she's okay with it. I don't mind."
"Thanks, I'll..." He clears his throat. "I'll ask her when I pick her up."
"I'm sure she'd love some extended Dad time."
"I could really use it," he says, staring into space.
Chloe squeezes his shoulder, giving him a comforting rub from elbow to scapula. "I'm always here, too, if you need me," she tells him. "My guest room is... free right now. If you want to get away from your place for a while."
"Thanks, but I'll manage."
"You're sure?"
On his clipped nod and abrupt collecting-himself sniff, she turns back to her computer to give him a little space. She pulls up the affidavit she's already several pages into composing. The document jumped back to page one, somehow, and the address of Anton Ivanov's residence glares back at her.
"Don't worry, Chlo; we'll catch this guy," Dan offers back in reciprocal comfort.
She nods. "Yeah. I'm not worried."
Not about Mr. Ivanov, anyway.
She tries not to think of Mr. Möbius's creepy wolf-amongst-chickens stare. Or Lucifer's weird bout of déjà vu.
She tries.
●◊●◊●
When Anton opens his front door, he takes one stupefied look at the maelstrom of flashing lights at the curb, and then at Chloe. "It's you," he says, like the word you is a curse.
"My, my, that's usually the line people reserve for me," Lucifer says cheerfully beside her.
She holds up a signed sheaf of papers bearing the stamped seal of the Superior Court of California, which Judge Fletcher had been more than happy to sign. "Anton Ivanov," she says, "I have a warrant to search your domicile for evidence related to two murders."
Anton's eyes widen. Chloe glances over her shoulder at the cadre of uniforms standing behind her. "I'm also detaining you for questioning," she says, and she steps aside, yanking Anton out onto the front walk with her. She shifts, pulling out her handcuffs. Anton seems too shocked to say much of anything, and he's led mutely away to sit in the back of a squad car. Not an official arrest, yet, but she plans to make it one if they find anything of note during this search.
She heads inside with Lucifer following doggedly behind her.
Anton's duplex is even smaller on the interior than it looks from the exterior, so there isn't much to search.
In his bedroom closet, she finds the duffel bag, still stuffed to the gill slits with cash, along with a gun case. In the case, she finds a rifle of some kind. "Tranq gun," their ballistics specialist says without pause when she messages him a photo taken by her phone.
"Well, I think I found the curare," Ella says, grimacing, as she pulls a brown glass bottle half the size of a coffee mug from Anton's medicine cabinet. A skull and crossbones emblazon the water- stained label.
"I can do one better than that," Lucifer says, dropping a cellphone into Chloe's gloved hands. "Look at the text messages."
After a quick glance to make sure Lucifer put the phone into airplane mode — he did; he's learning — she navigates to the phone's text messages. There are several texts from a masked number, and Chloe's eyes widen when she sees what appears to be a D.M.V. photo of their still unidentified second victim. Omar Bakkal, the next text says, and includes an address, "claws," and a dollar value. $112,000. Scrolling further back, she sees Genevieve Tate, a familiar address, "eyes," and $9,000. Apparently dragon claws are worth far more than the eyes of a human psychic.
There are no names listed before Genevieve that Chloe can see. Which hopefully means they caught this guy relatively early in his murderous descent. That doesn't, however, make her feel better. Her stomach flips over as she considers the ramifications of what she's looking at. Anton's text message history pretty much confirms the hitman-for-hire theory.
"So, what, now, Detective?" Lucifer prods, and she looks up at him, Mr. Ivanov's phone in hand.
"I think we need to find out a lot more about the payoff we witnessed," she says, feeling sick. Because if Anton's just the errand boy with a gun, that means the brains of this operation is still free and clear, and all he or she needs to do to continue his or her trophy collection is find another willing hitman. "And I want to question Mr. Ivanov."
Lucifer nods, a feral look in his eyes.
With a soft groan, she rises to her feet, and she heads out to the squad car to read Anton his rights.
●◊●◊●
"No idea."
Chloe frowns at Ella. "No idea? Really?"
Ella sighs, looking up from her computer. The white glow from her screen gives her a sickly, tired cast. "I mean I really have no idea, Decker." She gestures at Anton's cellular phone, which she's left in several pieces on her workbench at the center of the lab. "Whoever ordered those hits was texting from a masked number. The originating number is stored on the phone as [UNKNOWN CALLER]. Which is useless to us."
Chloe sighs. "So, I need to subpoena the text message records from the service provider." Which, even beyond the typing of the subpoena, is going to be a royal pain in the ass. Many service providers are notoriously squirrely about forking over private user data, even with a subpoena to force their hand. They hem and haw and delay, and often end up providing the data in useless formats that require a secondary forensic analysis just to collate.
But Ella shakes her head. "That's not gonna work, either."
"How do you know that?" Chloe says, frowning.
"Because I called my guy."
"Your guy?"
"Yeah, you know... my guy," Ella says. At Chloe's utter lack of recognition, Ella rolls her eyes. "Decker. Come on. My guy. At telcel. The one who helped me on the Waller case way back?"
"Oh, you mean Miguel?" Chloe says, snapping her fingers as she stares at the pile of phone parts on the workbench. Sure enough, the blue telcel logo emblazons the tiny S.I.M. chip. Ella has friends at both telcel and Verizon who sometimes help under the table with investigations, Miguel Hernández being one of them.
"Right, Miguel," says Ella with a nod. "He says the number is like... mondo spoofed. Like... it doesn't even read like a real phone number. He wasn't sure what to make of it."
"Well, what was the spoofed number?"
"Just garbage," Ella says, shrugging. "It wasn't useful."
"Oh."
"Sorry," Ella adds with an apologetic look. "A dead end, I guess."
Which means Chloe needs Anton to spill, or she's got nothing on the trophy collector. With a sigh, she stares through the lab's window at Lucifer, who's commandeered her desk in her absence while he plays some flashy game on his phone.
"But, hey, at least you don't need to type up a subpoena, right?" Ella adds brightly.
Chloe shakes her head. "Yeah," she says. "At least, there's that."
Somehow, though, that doesn't make her feel better.
●◊●◊●
"I think... I might need you to do your desire thingy with this guy," Chloe tells Lucifer as she returns to her desk, feeling like a bigger hypocrite with every stride. Because of course, when she needs to make use of his supernatural wuwu crap, she's more than willing to overcome her fears and doubts. Of course. "Mr. Ivanov, I mean."
Sure enough, Lucifer peers up from his phone with a wary frown. "Not that I'm not happy to assist, Detective, but—"
"Look, forget 'no Satan stuff,'" she says before he can finish his sentence.
His gaze darkens. "I don't break promises, Detective."
"But it was a stupid promise, and I shouldn't have asked you to make it."
He sets his phone down on her desk.
She takes a breath. "It isn't right for me to be your gatekeeper, and what's more, I don't feel right doing it."
Lucifer gives her a bland look. "Need this cretin to talk that badly, do you?"
"No," she says, shaking her head. Only to bite her lip. Shit, shit, shit. "I mean... yes. I do need him to talk, but—"
"I thought as much," he says with a sigh.
"No, Lucifer, that's my whole point. This arrangement we made. It's not fair to you to have to wait until I'm comfortable or I need something just to be yourself. If this were any other case, you'd already be in the interrogation room without me even asking — hell, I'd be restraining you — but right now you're not, and it's wrong, and I—"
"Apologies for the inconvenience," he says, glowering.
"It's not an inconvenience, Lucifer," she says, eyes watering. "And I love that you cared enough to try for me." She gives him a wavering smile. "But you should just be you. Always. Don't worry about me. I'll catch up eventually. Okay?"
"You're... certain," he hazards.
"I mean it," she says. She looks into his eyes, unblinking. "Just be you. Ghost peppers and all. And, maybe, I'll get scared or unsettled from time to time, but... maybe," she continues, gesturing amorphously between them, "that's what I need to get used to... this."
"And... in theory," he says slowly, reiterating their earlier conversation, "I'll not be offended when such a disturbance happens."
She nods. "Because, in theory, I want you here." Though... her desire for his companionship sure doesn't feel like much of a theory anymore. It feels like fact. Not even a nebulous one.
His gaze softens, though his doubtful look doesn't abate. "Very well, Detective," he says. He nods toward the interrogation room, where Anton's been left for the past three hours with nothing but his own thoughts for company. "Think our dear Mr. Ivanov has stewed enough, then?"
"Only one way to find out," she says with a shrug.
●◊●◊●
Anton sits in the interrogation room, his head buried in his hands, his fingers twisting through his greasy hair as he clenches and unclenches them in his distress. No one has gone in to talk with him, not even to offer him so much as a cup of coffee. Not her favorite tactic, playing bad cop from the get go, but... this guy is bad news, and he's not stupid, either. She's certain he's going to lawyer up. Her only chance is to get him to spill without thinking before he remembers his rights. And her only chance to get him to spill without thinking is to get him upset. Instilling hunger and thirst in him are a means to an end.
She glances at her watch as they stand outside the one-way mirror, watching him froth and worry and agonize. Three hours and fourteen minutes, he's been stewing. "Ready?" she says to Lucifer, clutching her case folder tightly.
Lucifer nods. "Of course," he says. A predatory glint sharpens his gaze. "Are you going first, or shall I?"
She bites her lip. Good question. When Lucifer's talents work, boy do they work. But when they don't work... they get answers like I want to build a cat sanctuary, which is the opposite of helpful, and eats up valuable time, particularly if the suspect is outright opposed to answering questions, which... Anton very much is.
"I'll try the old-fashioned way," she says, "but if it looks like I'm losing him, go ahead and jump in. Once he lawyers up, we're screwed."
Lucifer nods. "As you desire," he says, the words almost a purr, and she can't help but suck in a breath. He sizes up Anton a bit like a lion would put designs on a limping zebra, and it's ... somewhat disconcerting in full context. He is a lion amongst limping zebras, full of lethal grace. Her discomfiture bleeds like an open wound when he looks at her with a frown. "Are you... all right?"
"Yes," she squeaks. She clears her throat. "Um. Yes."
His frown doesn't abate.
"Sorry," she adds, "you just... startled me."
His frown deepens. "All I've done is stand here."
"I know; it's just..." She takes a deep breath. He looks haunted, now. Regretful. Self-conscious. It's barely been ten damned minutes since she told him he should just be himself, and she's already body-slammed them both into another "in theory" moment. Her guilt burgeons. "Never mind. Just... jumpy from lack of sleep."
"No, you're not," he says, looking stung.
Shit. Why does Lucifer have to be a walking lie detector when she least wants him to be? Couldn't he get his wires crossed when their relationship needs a falsity, rather than when their investigation needs a truth? Is that too much to ask? "Lucifer, I'm s—"
"You may have released me from my promise, but we do still have a deal about apologies," he says, cutting her off. "So, let's get on with this, shall we?" He sounds more irritated than bloodthirsty this time, and the hallway outside the interrogation room seems to chill by several degrees when he brings his frosty focus to bear on Anton again.
She closes her eyes for a brief moment. In theory, he's not offended. In theory, she repeats to herself. In theory. "Okay, let's go, then," she says.
Lucifer follows on lithe cat feet behind her as she enters the interrogation room.
Anton doesn't look up as she takes a seat across the table from him. The sounds of her and Lucifer settling into their creaky chairs echo strangely in the bare room.
"Mr. Ivanov, who paid you to kill Genevieve Tate and Omar Bakkal?" she says without preface.
The only reaction her interjection garners is Anton twisting his fingers more tightly through his hair, to the point that gnarled strands of it seem to be cutting off his circulation. The dim light and the quiet and the sight of him twisting and twisting his fingers makes her feel dissonant. Unsettled. She swallows.
"Mr. Ivanov?" she says.
No response.
"Anton," she snaps, smacking the metal table to get his attention. "Who paid you to kill two people?"
"I have killed no people," he snaps in return, almost a hiss, when he finally looks at her, and then at Lucifer, and then back to her. His expression seems... pleading almost... as he lowers his hands to his lap.
She opens her case folder and spreads a half-dozen grizzly crime-scene photos across the tabletop. "You didn't do this?"
Anton drags his gaze to the photos like he doesn't want to look. His lower lip quivers. He sniffs. "They are not people," he tells her. "I have killed no people. I would never kill a person. I'm a hunter. I hunt game. I hunt monsters."
Chloe gapes. "How on earth could you think these people are game?"
"Because they are not people!" Anton says, a snarl. He leans forward, restraints clinking as the chains pull tight. "Detective, they are not what they seem." He gestures wildly at the photo of Omar Bakkal. "This man was dangerous. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing. He needed to be culled to save us all."
"How was he dangerous, exactly?" Chloe says.
"He was a beast," Anton insists, the words dark and twisting and disturbed. "What friendly creature do you know with six inch claws like stilettos? Hmm?"
"And the woman?" Chloe prods. "How was she dangerous?"
Anton stares angrily at the table. "I want a law—"
"Anton, look at me," Lucifer says quickly, reaching out with a hand and snapping his fingers to draw Anton's attention toward him. "Look. Yes." He catches Anton's gaze and holds it like a snake would hold a bird's. "Yes, that's right," Lucifer purrs. "Look here." Anton's eyes go glassy. Lucifer's predatory grin is chilling, and it makes her stomach drop. "Tell me, Anton, what is it that you truly desire?"
"What I... d-desire?"
"Hmm. Yes," Lucifer says, leaning closer. "Tell me your deepest, darkest, most twisted little w—"
"Money!" Anton blurts.
Lucifer blinks, sitting back with a frown. "Of course, it is."
"I... I-I just... I needed..." Anton swallows, pulling his fingers through his hair in agitation. His temples bulge as he clenches his jaw, and his face turns a hideous shade of puce. "They fired me."
"The person who paid you for these murders fired you?" Chloe says.
"No, my..." Anton rubs the bridge of his nose. "I wasn't vested, yet. I lost my pension."
"Anton, who paid you to murder two people?" she prods, but she can see that she's already lost him.
"No," he almost growls, shaking his head as he folds his arms. "I want a lawyer." He looks back and forth between Chloe and Lucifer. "I want a lawyer. I want a lawyer. I will not speak to you anymore!"
Damn it. She sighs, rubbing her temples. She glances at Lucifer, but Lucifer can only shrug.
Fuck.
●◊●◊●
"So, no confession," she says with a sigh as they exit the interrogation room. "He seems like he's in complete denial."
"Well, he's denying that he's killed humans, yes," Lucifer says thoughtfully. "But he's not denying that he's killed. It's a fine distinction."
"He thinks he's killing monsters."
"I believe so, yes."
"But how could he believe that Genevieve was a monster?" Chloe says. "She was just some froofy new-age palm reader. Maybe, she had supernatural skills, but she was about as threatening as a mouse."
"It's... not a hard sell, unfortunately," Lucifer says. "Humans like to destroy what they don't understand. One of your poorest traits as a species. And an easy one to prey upon. One need only look at Salem."
Chloe looks up at him. "Do you think Omar was dangerous?"
"Dangerous?" Lucifer says, frowning. "Well, yes. But only in the same sense that you are."
"I don't understand."
"Basilisks are typically peaceful unless provoked, just like most humans. But, also like humans, their capacity for destruction is near unmatched."
She frowns. "Near unmatched meaning... there are some worse things out there?"
"Yes."
"What's more dangerous than a basilisk?"
"Well, I am, for one. Quite a lot more."
"But you wouldn't do anything like—"
"I killed Cain," he says quietly. "I broke his hand, and then I stabbed him with a knife meant for killing far worse things than a human. I'm... monstrous."
"That was self-defense," she says, frowning.
His doubtful look makes her heart constrict. "Yes, well," he says, looking away for a moment like he can't bear the weight of what he thinks must be her judgment. He takes a breath. When he meets her eyes again, his expression is slate — flat, cold, unreadable. "So, what's next, Detective? I'm assuming you'll want to look into the warehouse where Mr. Ivanov received his payment."
"Lucifer—"
"An interview with Mr. Möbius, then? Another stakeout, perhaps? Do warn me about stakeouts this time, please, so that I can bring a large enough flask."
She bites her lip. "Lucifer, I trust you," she tells him, not willing to let him change the subject. "Not in theory, either. I mean it."
"And I you, Detective," he says with a serene nod, not brokering any further discussion. He raises his eyebrows. "A stakeout, then?"
"Yeah," she says with a sigh. "I think that's a better plan than setting up an interview with Mr. Möbius. I don't want to tip anyone off prematurely that we're investigating."
"I thought as much," he says.
She glances at her watch. It's way too late in the shift to get any more done today. "We'll start tomorrow morning, yeah?"
"I'll bring the cool-ranch puffs," he says with a wan smile and turns to go.
"Lucifer," she says, and he stills.
"Yes, Detective?" he replies over his shoulder.
"I really do trust you."
He's silent for a long moment. Unmoving. Considering. And then he walks away without replying.
●◊●◊●
Dan is already gone to pick up Trixie, and Chloe is just finishing writing her ops plan for the stakeout tomorrow, when a rumble of interested murmurs spills through the precinct like a breaking wave. She looks up to find Maze descending the steps, dragging along by his collar a bruised, muscle-bound perp twice her size.
"Fuck you, bitch!" the guy is screaming, but Maze only sneers as she wipes a glistening drop of blood away from her busted lip.
Her arms are covered in scratches. Her hair is disheveled, and her shirt is ripped and stained with who-knows-what. But despite her fought-with-a-weed-whacker-and-lost appearance, she seems to be nothing but gleeful as she drags the squirming scumbag along.
Everybody parts for the bedraggled, cacophonous pair as they pass.
Chloe bites her lip, unsettled by the intrusion, and she tries to refocus on her paperwork. She takes a breath and blows it out and takes a breath and blows it out. That woman used to live with her. With Trixie. She'd been blatant with her sadism and her kinks, just like Lucifer had been blatant about his devilish nature. And Chloe had only concluded from that that Maze was weird.
Weird, of all things.
Talk about a bankrupting reality check.
"I need to pick up some stuff later," Maze says, and Chloe nearly falls out of her chair in surprise at the sight of the dark-eyed demon standing behind her desk.
What the...?
Chloe glances toward the holding area. The noisy perp Maze lugged into the precinct is handcuffed to the bench there, glowering, waiting to be processed. When had...?
"Decker."
Chloe gives herself a little shake, looking back to Maze. "Uh... what did you say?"
"I need to pick up some of my stuff from your place later," Maze elaborates, speaking slowly like she thinks Chloe's lost a screw from her set.
"That's—" Chloe swallows, heart thumping like a drum. "—fine."
Maze regards her for a moment, expression flat and grim.
"Really, that's fine," Chloe says.
"I don't know when."
Chloe nods. "Okay."
But Maze doesn't take the hint and doesn't leave. Her eyes narrow as she folds her arms, and she stares at Chloe with cold judgment. Chloe has no idea what else to say. Awkward silence ensues, and she feels the heat of Maze's scrutiny licking down her face and neck like flames.
"Maze, look," she begins, swallowing. "I—"
"I'm not gonna apologize for every scumbag I have to rough up."
Chloe swipes a loose bang out of her eyes. "Did I ask you to?"
"Then why stare at me?"
"Just... wondering if that could have ever been me," Chloe replies honestly. "Or Trixie."
The raw, stung look in Maze's eyes conveys palpable affront. "I wouldn't hurt you or the kid. Not like that."
"So, you draw the line at pot brownies and cutting words."
Maze grits her teeth. "I told you, Decker, I'm not used to feelings. I'm..." She blinks and looks away like she's actually near tears, though the cut glass in her expression disappears when she sighs.
"Who would you hurt?" Chloe says quietly, curious. "Like... really hurt."
"People who belong in Hell," Maze replies with a shrug.
"How does that work?"
Maze's eyebrows knit. "How does what work?"
"How do you determine who belongs in Hell?" Chloe says, nervously licking her lips. "I thought people decide that for themselves when they die." That's what Lucifer told her, anyway, when she asked. When he told her "everything."
"Well, I..." Maze trails into silence with a blink, not countering Lucifer's assertion. "Decker, what do you want from me?"
"Nothing," Chloe says. "Nothing, Maze." She sighs. "I'm just... trying to make sense of all this."
"And, what, Lucifer gets a pass because you want to fuck him?" Maze snaps incredulously. "He's just as scary as I am. Hell, he's more scary."
"Maze, I can't even work up the nerve to ask him out for a drink," Chloe snaps back. "And he left early today. I'm pretty sure because he's tired of watching me freak out, and I make him feel like a monster." She pushes her chair back, rising to her feet, and folds her arms to meet Maze at eye level. "Does that really sound like a 'pass' to you?"
"Oh," Maze says softly.
"Yeah, oh," Chloe says, almost a growl, anger blazing like hot coals in her gut. "You. Him. This whole thing is a mess. I'm trying, but..." She grinds her teeth. "And what do you mean, he's more scary than you?"
Maze gives her an incredulous look. "He's an archangel."
"So?"
"So, he's the walking talking wrath of God."
"But he and God are estranged," Chloe says slowly.
"Yeah, exactly," Maze replies. "Lucifer's a loose cannon, Decker. Completely unchecked. And he could burn the fucking world down if he wanted. Have you even read the damned Bible? Look up Sodom and Gomorrah if you want a crash course in what wrath of God can look like."
"He wouldn't ever do that," Chloe says, heart pounding.
"If you say so."
"I do," Chloe snaps, glaring. He doesn't even seem to have the stomach for killing an individual, not even in self-defense. Genocide-from-the-hip might as well be dividing by zero for him. It's impossible. "And he wouldn't."
Maze gives her a bitter, unhappy look. "Sounds like a 'pass' to me."
"Look, Maze. I know him."
"And you don't know me?" Maze says, the words almost plaintive.
"I thought I did," Chloe says, "but..." She flops back into her seat with a sigh. This is such a fucking mess. There're no other words for it. She pinches the bridge of her nose, near tears again.
There's a scraping sound, accompanied by the thunk-thunk-thunk of Maze's leather-boot soles striking the floor, and Chloe looks up to find Maze dragging a chair across the bullpen from another desk. The demon drops into the chair beside Chloe with a heaving I-can't-believe-I'm- doing-this sigh.
"You could... practice," Maze grumbles to her knees.
"Practice?" Chloe says.
Maze shrugs. "The drinks thing. Asking Lucifer for..." She grits her teeth, like even offering to do something that might help Lucifer galls her. She continues with a begrudging, "You could... practice. On me," which is said again to her knees, not to Chloe's face.
Chloe gapes. "You... want me to ask you out for drinks?"
"Linda said you might respond better to me if we interact on neutral ground," Maze replies unhappily. "So..." She sighs. "Any bar that's not Lux?"
"Oh, another tribe night?" Ella exclaims with a grin as she appears, seemingly from out of nowhere. It's like she has a fucking radar for this ladies'-night shit. "Sweet! I'm in! When do we go?"
"I... have a stakeout," Chloe says weakly.
But Ella shakes her head. "Oh, no, no, no. 24/7 work is not allowed. How about later this week?"
"Sounds good to me," says Maze, grinning like a fiend.
The pair of them stare at Chloe expectantly. "I... s-suppose I could," she says, cornered.
"Awesome," Maze says, clapping Chloe on the back. "I'll tell Linda."
"Great," says Chloe, wondering what in the hell just happened.
Seriously.
What in the hell just happened?