Chapter Text
Lucifer wasn’t really in the mood for a party.
Truth be told, he wasn’t in the mood for much of anything.
After Amenadiel left the penthouse, chased away by cruel words that left a bitter taste in the back of Lucifer’s throat, he’d sat back down at the piano and tried to play. It usually soothed him, but every note sounded wrong, dissonant. He slammed the cover down over the keys and poured himself a drink, downing it in one gulp and glaring over the rim the glass at the Steinway.
He resisted the urge to throw the empty glass at it. He still cared enough about the piano, at least, not to want to damage it. Instead, he refilled the glass, drained it again, left it on the bar and took the bottle out to the balcony. He finished it while he watched night fall over Los Angeles.
He stayed shut up on the penthouse for the rest of the week, brooding.Nothing on TV could distract him. He had the piano tuned, but the notes still rang flat in his ears, and offered little solace. He considered calling a dominatrix he knew, thinking a good beating might snap him out of it, but he didn’t want punishment. Not from a stranger, at any rate.
So he sat on the couch and drank, and couldn’t sleep even though he was exhausted, and pretended not to notice that his phone remained silent and dark. When Saturday came he put on his costume, pasted on a smile, and went downstairs, because it was Halloween and he had a reputation to maintain.
He took a moment in the shadows to gather himself. Then he smoothed his suit, adjusted his cravat, and stepped onto the stage that had been set up in front of the DJ booth. The music stopped, and a hush fell over the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he purred into the microphone. “Welcome to Lux.”
***
Chloe hadn’t been planning to go to Lux’s Halloween party. For one thing, it was a murder mystery party, something she had a hard and fast rule against. She solved real crimes for a living, and didn’t need to spend her free time solving imaginary ones. For another, she usually avoided going out on Halloween; the parties got a little too crazy a little too fast for her taste. And then there was the fact that the host of this particular party had been acting like a grade-A jerk for the last few weeks. After all his talk about not wanting to go backward in that message he’d left her, he’d certainly been doing a lot of it—letting her believe he was actually going to open up to her, and then—well, she didn’t know what that had been, that day in the lab; bailing on her in the middle of a case, not to mention practically destroying said case; disappearing for days at a time without calling, probably because he’d been in the middle of some massive orgy.
So it was rather against her better judgment that she let Maze, Ella, and Linda cajole her—or threaten her, in Maze’s case—into going. After all, Ella had pointed out, Halloween wasn’t until Monday, so she’d still be able to take Trixie trick-or-treating and spend the evening watching scary movies with her on the couch, and the costume she’d gotten to go with Trixie’s worked just as well on its own—even without accepting Maze’s offer to “sex it up.” She’d grudgingly agreed to come, and promised herself she wouldn’t let things get out of control the way they had the last time the four of them went out together.
It was already crowded when they got there, people lining up down the block to get in. “Oh,” Ella breathed when they got inside, looking around. “Wow.
Chloe had to admit she was impressed. Lux was decked out like a gothic castle, the sleek modern tables and chairs shrouded in old-fashioned covers and adorned with heavy, antique lamps and candelabras. Realistic looking cobwebs clung to the corners of the room and along railings, and from somewhere a fog machine pumped smoke out to swirl around the guests’ legs. Lucifer was dressed to match, in a Victorian suit with a silvery lavender brocade vest and cravat. Chloe’s breath gave a little hitch at the sight of him when he stepped onto the stage to welcome them. God, he’s gorgeous. The thought came unbidden, and she scowled. Stop it, she told herself sternly. Whatever had been about to happen between them, he’d made clear that he didn’t want it, and Chloe didn’t have the slightest desire to go chasing after someone who didn’t return her interest. Especially not someone with the attention span of a goldfish. It was a mistake, anyway, she thought, and turned her attention back to the stage.
“You’re brave to set foot within these walls on All Hallow’s Eve,” Lucifer said. Chloe rolled her eyes at his melodramatic tone, but she couldn’t help but be drawn in as he continued. “You see, there are ghosts among us.” The lights flickered, and a knocking sounded from the walls. Lucifer glanced toward it, and then out over the now-hushed crowd, lowering his voice even further. “Unquiet souls haunt these halls.”
Despite herself, Chloe shivered. She glanced at Ella, who grinned and gestured at her costume with excitement. She was wearing a blonde wig, styled in a messy pompadour, a brown and orange jumpsuit, and round glasses with yellow lenses. Chloe grinned back, shaking herself. There’s no such things as ghosts, she thought, and then slanted another glance at Ella. And if there are, at least I’m with one of the Ghostbusters.
“I’ve asked you all here tonight for a reason,” Lucifer continued. “On this night when the boundaries between the living and the dead are at their thinnest, I’m hoping you all can help lay these souls to rest.” He explained that hidden around the club were clues to not one, but several murders that had taken place over the centuries. In addition, he encouraged the guests to talk to the “ghosts” themselves—several of his dancers were circulating among the the crowd, in pale makeup and diaphanous gowns. They had until midnight to solve the mystery, or the ghosts would remain restless for another year.
There was scattered applause as he stepped down, and the music started back up, along with excited chatter from the crowd as guests began investigating the items set out on the tables with new curiosity. Beside Chloe, Ella was fairly bouncing on her toes.
“This is so much fun!” she cried, seizing Chloe’s wrist. “Come on, let’s see what clues she can find.”
Chloe laughed, but gently pulled away from Ella’s grip. “Definitely not. I get enough crime-solving at work. I’m getting a drink.”
Ella’s face fell, but she brightened when Linda said, “I’ll come with you, Ella. I’m intrigued. And I have the right costume for it.” She adjusted her red hat and trench coat.
Maze frowned at her. “Isn’t Carmen Sandiego a thief?”
Linda opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, Ella pulled her away. She gave a shrug and a wave. Maze watched them wade into the crowd, and then raised an eyebrow at Chloe. “Drink?” she asked.
“Drink,” Chloe agreed.
Lucifer found them at the bar and bowed over Chloe’s hand, still playing his character to the hilt. “Detective. Or should I say General Organa?” he asked, eyeing her costume. “Only you could make khaki look quite so fetching, my dear.”
Beside her, Maze snorted, but Chloe barely noticed the comment. Up close, Lucifer looked . . . haggard. He was as impeccably groomed as ever, his hair smooth, eyeliner carefully applied, but makeup couldn’t completely conceal the dark circles under his eyes, or the pallor of his skin. There was a heaviness to his movements, too, that she hadn’t quite seen from afar. She reached for his hand as he turned away to greet another guest. “Hey.” She waited for him to look at her. “Are you okay?”
He looked down at her hand wrapped around his. Something raw and pained flashed across his face, but then his expression shuttered again and he pulled his hand away. His lips stretched into a paper-thin smile. “Fine. Enjoy the party, Detective,” he said, and let himself be drawn off into the crowd.
Chloe watched him go, frowning. “Do you know what’s going on with him?” she asked Maze.
Maze shrugged. She’d been away all week after another bounty, and seemed to have been keeping her distance from him lately. Whatever had passed between them recently, it had chilled their relationship. But Chloe didn’t didn’t think that was why he seemed so—so brittle tonight.
She felt a stab of guilt that she’d let the week go by without checking in on him. She’d been preoccupied after Pierce’s shooting, and hurt and angry at Lucifer’s recent behavior, but it was unusual for him to go more then a day or two without at least sending her a stupid text, or bothering her about their next case. She had every right to be angry with him—Lucifer hadn’t exactly been open and honest with her—but he was her friend, and her partner, and it bothered her now that she had only thought the worst of him when he’d started acting more like the Lucifer Morningstar she’d met two years ago than the Lucifer Morningstar she’d come to know and care for.
She spotted Amenadiel at the other end of the bar and made her way over to him. He wasn’t in costume, or even particularly dressed up. He stared into his drink with a dejected air, barely seeming to notice the party going on around him.
Chloe took a seat on the empty stool beside him. “What’s wrong with your brother?” she asked.
Amenadiel grimaced. “What isn’t wrong with my brother?”
That almost made her laugh. She sipped her whiskey and soda and studied him over the rim of her glass for a moment. The man sitting beside her now seemed very different from the one she’d met at that auction two years ago: more subdued, less sure of himself. Chloe didn’t know him well enough to have a real read on his relationship with his brother, but she thought there was real affection there, even with all the tension between them, their whispered arguments, Lucifer’s clear distrust.
Amenadiel finished his drink and waved the bartender over. When his glass had been refilled, he said, “I realized recently how lonely he must be.” He glanced at her. “He doesn’t have very many friends.”
Chloe glanced around and found Lucifer in the crowd. He was surrounded by a group of admirers, passing out favors, hinting and teasing, but he moved on before long, never letting himself get drawn into conversation for long. She thought about that long list of men and women she had interviewed about him, how he didn’t think of the people he slept with as anything like friends, how they had all called their time with him as meaningless, and felt her stomach knot a little more with guilt. “No,” she agreed. “He doesn’t.” And lately he’d been doing his damnedest to put distance between himself and the few friends he did have, she realized.
“I used to think my father sent me to Los Angeles to bring him back—” He broke off. After a moment he went on, “Now I think he sent me here to look out for him.” He followed Chloe’s gaze toward Lucifer. “Luci thinks I’m giving him too much credit.”
Chloe gave a soft snort, partly in response to the diminutive, partly because she agreed with Lucifer. “You told him that?” she asked.
Amenadiel nodded. “We argued. He said some things. He— He’s trying to push me away.” He paused. “He’s very angry.”
Chloe bit back the obvious reply. Of course Lucifer would be angry, if Amenadiel let him think the only reason his brother was sticking around was to please their father—the father Lucifer hated. Apparently, being an idiot about relationships ran in the family. Instead she asked. “Is that different than normal?”
Amenadiel shrugged. “It’s worse. He— Something’s happened, and he’s—” He frowned, and then closed his eyes, as if just realizing something. “I think he’s frightened.”
Chloe opened her mouth to ask why, but before she could, an earsplitting scream split the air, followed by the unmistakeable sound of gunshots, and all the lights went out.