Chapter Text
Lucifer finally had what he’d gone to the trouble of dying for. The formula was in his hands at last.
He started to leave the loop, moving through the crowd of demons, but stopped for one last backward glance at the professor, making sure to put all of the terrible fire of hell into his features. His lips were curled up in a wicked sort of grin, one that wasn’t entirely for show. Carlisle deserved far worse than this, but knowing he was keeping himself imprisoned in his own personal hell was a start.
One day, perhaps, Lucifer would be back to show him just how truly delightful hell could be. But not now. He had places to be and a detective to save. Until then, he would have to content himself with the sight of the man screaming in fear, the hope vanishing from his eyes.
Lucifer walked out of the loop, letting the door swing shut behind him. Carlisle would never be able to open it on his own. No one ever could.
He scanned the piece of paper with the formula scrawled out in some of the worst handwriting he’d ever seen, panic having caused the letters to be misshapen, with jagged lines and overlapping edges. It was just this side of legible, though, and he took care to memorize it, knowing it wouldn’t come back with him. He had to be sure of each notation.
Once he had it, he crumbled the paper into a ball and tossed it aside, anxious to get back soon. He looked up at the formless sky, waiting for what, he didn’t know. He’d never been reliant on someone else getting him out of here.
But the minutes slid by and nothing happened.
“Where’s a resurrection when you need one?” Lucifer called out in frustration. He tried to do the math, but it wasn’t an exact science. How long had he been here, and how much time had passed on Earth? How much longer would he have to wait?
He hoped it wasn’t too long. He was already sick of the ash, and the muted screams, and the pulse of despair that beat through the realm like a forlorn heart. Worst of all, it was boring. There was simply nothing to do.
Probably he'd only been waiting for five minutes or so, but it felt like an hour. He started walking, giving in to the restless energy flooding through him. It didn’t really matter where in hell he was when they tried to bring him back, as long as he wasn’t in a loop. So he wandered, down one alley and then another.
The place was still just as wretched as when he’d left it. And walking only reminded him of the countless hours he’d done the same before. Maybe he should just pick a spot and wait, after all. It couldn’t be too much longer.
But just as he started to slow, he heard something that caught his attention. Something so entirely out of place among the screams and the rattle of chains.
Music.
Piano music, to be precise. Simple but unmistakable. A few notes strung clumsily together, each one clear and distinct.
Lucifer frowned, changing direction to follow the sound. He’d never heard music outside of a loop before. It shouldn’t even be possible. He’d tried so many times to bring music to this place, and it never worked. Hell swallowed the sound, distorting it into something dreadful. But here it was.
He rounded a bend and saw the source. Or rather, he saw that it was coming from a door. Odd. He’d never heard such clear sounds escaping from a loop before…
And more, it seemed to call to him. The music pulled him on almost by itself, stealing all of his focus so that he barely noticed his surroundings.
Transfixed, he walked the last few steps, until he was standing directly in front of the door. He had to know what the music was. He had to see for himself.
The song hovered in the air, unfinished, as if waiting for him. Even the never-ending pulse of hell itself seemed to pause, holding its breath in anticipation.
His lifted his hand.
“Lucifer?”
He froze, instantly wrenched from his trance, his fingers only inches away from the door.
He knew that voice. He knew all too well the sound of his name on her lips, spoken in a hundred different ways. Annoyance, anger, concern, longing, amusement, relief, wonder. And as it was now, ringing out in the stillness, suffused with awe and fear.
It was a voice that had no place in hell, even less so than the music. It was a voice that couldn’t be here. She couldn’t be here.
He spun around, desperately hoping he was wrong.
He wasn’t wrong.
Chloe stood before him, not ten feet away, gazing at him in shock, her eyes wide with stunned disbelief.
“No,” he whispered. No, this couldn’t be happening. He had the formula, he was going to save her, they were supposed to have time, and she was never supposed to be here—
Lucifer felt a tug deep inside, a tug at his very soul. No—
He tried to resist it, knowing what it meant, but it pulled at him again, more insistent this time.
He lunged for her, trying to get to her before it was too late. If he could only grab hold of her, maybe he could take her back with him—
Only a few more feet separated them when the third tug came, too strongly to fight against. He was powerless to stop it.
Their gaze met one last time, a split second that lasted forever.
Hell vanished from sight, taking Chloe along with it.
His eyes flew open, looking up at the dull white ceiling of the hospital room. No, no, no, no—
He gasped, struggling to sit up. His body felt so uncoordinated, each movement taking extra effort, like it didn’t want to respond to him. Pain radiated through his chest, but he ignored it. It wasn’t important.
“Lucifer! Are you okay?” Linda’s face hovered over him, filled with concern. “Oh my god, I can’t believe it worked—”
He didn’t have the breath to respond. Finally managing to sit up, he ripped the wires away from his chest and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
“Give it a minute,” Linda said, reaching to help him, but he shrugged her off and got to his feet.
“Did something happen?” Maze asked. He didn’t bother to answer, only brushed by her on his way to the door. He had to get to the detective, he had to see that they’d brought her back, too—
He burst out of the room, barely even noticing that his mother was right outside. “Son—”
He ignored her, too, and raced for the stairs.
Maybe he’d been mistaken after all. It had to have been his imagination, a trick—she couldn’t possibly be—
He rushed up the stairs as fast as he could, which wasn’t nearly as fast as he’d have liked. His body was still slow, his newly restarted heart beating a mile a minute. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter, except that it kept adding one torturous second after another.
When he finally staggered up the last of the steps, he pushed open the door to Chloe’s floor and ran down the hall.
Amenadiel caught him before he could enter her room, hands gripping his arms tight enough to stop him dead in his tracks. “Lucifer—”
“Is she okay?” he asked, struggling to break his brother’s hold, to see around him. “Is she—I have to—”
Amenadiel held fast. “Her heart stopped,” he said.
For an instant, his might as well have stopped again too.
There was no more denying it. Chloe really had been there, she was…she was…
“They’re trying to revive her, but—”
A dull ringing started up in his ears. He shoved against Amenadiel, putting all his strength into it, and broke free.
Only to be drawn up short in the doorway to Chloe’s room, anyway, as he realized there was nothing he could do.
He could only watch as the nurses worked around her, trying to get her heart beating again. He couldn’t even really see her, blocked as she was from view, only catching a few glimpses as the nurses moved.
Don’t do this, he pleaded. To her, to his father, to anyone who would hear. I came back. You have to come back, too.
“Clear,” someone said, and a second later they shocked her heart, just as Linda must have done to him.
But it didn’t work. The scream of distress from the monitor was too loud in his ears.
“One more time,” they said.
Please, Chloe, he begged. Please come back to me.
A jolt ran through her body.
The constant whining stopped. A steady beep, beep reached him instead.
All the air left his lungs in a rush of relief. Okay. She would be okay.
“There we go,” a nurse murmured. She said something else, too, but Lucifer stopped listening.
He moved unsteadily into the room, needing to see for himself that she was all right.
Stopping at the foot of the bed, he was able to see her face at last. Her eyes were closed, her face perfectly still. Only the slight rise and fall of her chest gave away the beautiful fact that she was alive.
Chloe wasn’t in hell anymore. She was here with him.
“You can’t be in here,” someone told him. “You need to give us the room.”
Eyes fixed on her face, he mumbled, “Right. Of course.” But his feet were still rooted to the floor.
A hand took his arm, one of the nurses trying to pull him away. “You need to leave.”
He finally tore his eyes away from Chloe. The nurse was right. He had to find Dan and give them the formula. The detective might be okay for now, but she wouldn’t stay that way for long without the antidote.
He left the room. Maze and Linda were outside with Amenadiel, all of them watching him. Linda asked, “Are you okay? You should probably sit down—”
“I’m fine,” he said, waving them off.
And then he froze as he realized he really was perfectly fine. Great, even. He felt strong, his mind was clear, his movements effortless. His chest didn’t hurt at all anymore.
He was no expert, but he was pretty sure dying and being brought back to life was supposed to hurt for longer than that.
He spun back around to Chloe’s room, a horrible suspicion forming in his mind. Maybe she’d just been gone long enough for his invulnerability to kick in, but after seeing her in hell—
She’s alive, he told himself. You saw she’s alive.
He had to check, anyway.
“Give me a knife,” he told Maze.
“What’s going on, Lucifer? Something happened down there. This is extreme even for you.”
“Just do it, Maze,” he said tightly.
She frowned but held out one of her curved hell-forged blades.
“No. A regular one.”
Her other hand dipped into a pocket and pulled out a scalpel. “What?” she said, at Linda’s noise of protest. “It goes with the outfit.”
Lucifer took it from her and pressed this thumb against the edge of the knife.
Nothing happened.
“Shit,” Maze said.
Panic rose through him. He raked the scalpel over the back of his hand, pushing down as forcefully as he could.
He felt the pressure, but it didn’t hurt. The skin stayed smooth and unmarred. Whole when it should be streaming blood.
He was invulnerable. And Chloe was right there, a dozen feet away.
No. Her body was here.
But Chloe was—
“Lucifer?” Amenadiel asked, a note of alarm in his voice.
The ground tilted beneath his feet, and a second later the scalpel clattered to the ground as he braced his hand against a doorway. He stared and stared as they moved Chloe out of her room, off to who knew where. Her eyes were still closed, her expression almost peaceful.
It was a lie. Whatever was happening to her now, it was far from peaceful.
Too late. He was too late.
“If you don’t tell us what happened, I swear to—”
“She’s not here,” he said, sucking in a ragged breath. “She’s still in hell.”
And he had no way to get to her.
Chloe didn’t remember falling asleep.
The last thing she remembered was lying in the hospital bed, curled up with Trixie. They’d talked for a while with Dan, and Chloe had done her best to pretend like everything would be okay, even though she had almost no hope that it would be. Dan had told her they’d run into dead ends, and time was quickly running out. They were some of the last moments she’d have with her family, and she knew it.
Trixie had fallen asleep first. Chloe had lain there with her arms wrapped around her daughter, holding her as close as she could, hoping against hope that they would find the answer. She’d tried her best not to think of it as goodbye, but she knew in her heart it was.
She’d fought against the desire to sleep herself for as long as she could, but exhaustion had weighed down her every limb. Eventually she’d caught herself drifting off, and even though she’d shaken herself awake again, it must have pulled her down anyway.
Because the next thing she knew, she was standing in a place that was definitely not her hospital room. Or anywhere else in the hospital. It wasn’t like any place she’d ever been to before.
It wasn’t like any dream she’d ever had before, either. Everything felt so vivid, so real.
It was dark, with hardly any light. What little there was illuminated the rough-hewn walls to either side of her, the uneven ground beneath her feet, and a gray, marbled sky above, as if in the throes of a turbulent storm. Wherever she was supposed to be, it was filthy; dirt coated the ground and swirled through the air, thick as snow.
The air was far too warm for it to be snow, though. Uncomfortably warm, in fact. She was wearing the outfit she’d had on the day before, jeans and boots, a long sleeve white shirt, and her brown leather jacket. The warmth was from more than just the jacket; it pressed against every inch of exposed skin, almost suffocatingly thick.
In front of her, half a dozen yards away, the hall came to an end. A door was set into the gray stone, light coming from within. Faint music trickled out, almost overshadowed by the dull roaring that came from somewhere in the distance. Not just one sound, but many different overlapping ones, ranging from deep bellows to high shrieks.
It reminded her disturbingly of muffled screams.
The thing she noticed the most, though, was the way it felt wrong. Nothing moved except for the dust, but anxiety was creeping through her, growing stronger with every passing second. And on top of that, an odd feeling struck her, again and again, washing over her along with the heat. Something that felt a lot like hopelessness, but as if she was watching someone else going through it rather than experiencing it herself.
This was a bad place to be.
Chloe didn’t know what would happen here, but she knew that whatever it was, she didn’t want to be there to see it. Every part of her was screaming to get out.
She had no idea how she was supposed to wake up, though. Or if she even could.
What if this was it for her? What if she was dying right now, and this was what her mind conjured up as a way of coping? One last dream to make sense of what it felt like to die?
She didn’t want to die.
She didn’t want this to be the last thing she saw.
She didn’t want to leave Trixie, or Dan, or Lucifer.
She wanted more time.
Fear flooded through her and she took a few steps forward automatically, as if she could outrun the inevitable. She couldn’t just stand still and wait for it all to disappear. It wasn’t in her to give up without a fight, futile though it was.
A moment later, though, she stopped again as a figure strode into view ahead of her from some break in the walls. They turned so their back was to her, walking to the end of the hall towards the door.
It didn’t matter, though. Chloe knew that figure. She knew his frame, tall and thin. She knew the way he moved, confident and with purpose, like he owned every room he walked into. She knew the crisp, perfectly tailored suit he wore and the neatly arranged dark hair on his head. She knew that if he turned, his eyes would light up as they always did when they saw her.
She just didn’t know why he was here in this hellish dream.
The word rang through her as if she’d been struck.
Hell.
Everything clicked together all at once.
The heat and the dirt that wasn’t dirt, but ash. The screams and the fear and hopelessness that came from countless people suffering. The person standing before her.
Lucifer Morningstar. The devil.
This place was worse than a nightmare, felt too vivid to be her imagination. Because it wasn’t. It wasn’t a last dream before she died.
She was already dead.
Hell was real, and she was in it.
“Lucifer?” she called, before she could think better of it. She suddenly had to see his face, needed him to tell her she was wrong—
Lucifer whirled around, seeming surprised to see her, and almost…afraid. He looked at her for a second and whispered a single word, so quietly she almost didn’t hear. No.
Then he darted forward, moving faster than she’d ever seen him move before, hurling himself toward her. He stretched his arm out as if to grab her.
Chloe didn’t even think to get out of the way. She was too stunned to move.
She lifted her eyes to his, and their gazes locked for an instant before he disappeared completely.
There one second and gone the next.
She blinked, looking all around her. How could he have just disappeared like that? He’d been right in front of her.
But if this was hell, then none of the rules she knew applied.
Lucifer really was the devil. He’d been telling her the truth all along.
He’d been here because he ruled over this place. And though he’d vanished, for whatever reason, he would probably be back any moment now.
Because she was hell’s newest inhabitant.
Dead. She was dead, and she hadn’t even been awake to know when she was dying. She hadn’t gotten to say her last goodbyes. She’d thought she’d have just a little more time, but now—
She’d never see her friends or family again. She’d never get to tell her daughter she loved her one last time. Oh, God, Trixie. Had she been holding her when she—?
Chloe sank to the ground, resting her weight on her heels, and held her head in her hands. Despair nearly swallowed her whole.
She’d left Trixie.
She’d never get to see her grow up. She’d never get to see her finish school or walk down the aisle or take the world by storm. She would never again be able to tell her how proud she was, or help her when she struggled, or share in the joyous moments with her.
She’d promised Trixie she wouldn’t get hurt, and she’d broken that promise in the worst way.
“I’m sorry, Trixie,” she whispered. “I'm so sorry.”
But she knew it went unheard. Lost amid the hundreds, thousands, millions of other people crying out their own anguish.
Chloe would have done anything to get back to her. But if she was dead, and this was hell…There was nothing she could do.
The realization struck her all over again.
She was dead. It was over for her. No more cases to solve. No more sipping coffee after waking up to a sunny morning. No more beach days or game nights, no more hot showers or cozy blankets, no more music or drinks at Lux.
There would only be this. Ash and terror and the dark. If not worse.
It was that thought that finally snapped her out of her spiral. She raised her head and stood again, then took her time scanning her surroundings. But it all looked the same as before. Dark stone walls and a door in front of her. Turning around, she saw a few more doors along the hall winding behind her. It curved off after a ways, leading who knew where.
There was nothing else.
Why was it so empty? She knew she couldn’t be the only one here, but where was everyone else?
Admittedly, she hadn’t thought she’d end up here, if there was a such thing as the afterlife. Had she really been so terrible? She’d made plenty of mistakes, but she always tried to do the right thing.
Apparently, it hadn’t been good enough.
So if she deserved to be in hell, why wasn’t she being punished, or tortured, or something? Lucifer had gone on about it plenty of times before, but there was nothing she could see that resembled anything like that. The only thing causing her any pain right now was the knowledge that she was dead.
All in all, it was far from what she’d pictured hell as being like. There was ash, but no fire. Screams, but from the way it sounded, nowhere close to where she was. The devil, who was no longer present.
Where was he, anyway? She didn’t know how long she’d been here, but it’d been long enough to dull the edge of her panic. He’d rushed for her, had seemed as panicked as she was. Why? Why had he just disappeared like that?
Chloe walked over to one of the walls. Bits of stone were scattered around the sides, some jagged, some even enough to sit on. She picked one that seemed the most stable and perched on top, glad to not have her back exposed anymore. The stone was as warm as the air around her, just this side of bearable.
Sooner or later, Lucifer would be back for her.
She’d been trying her best not to think about it, but that fact pressed in on her now. Her partner was the devil. Not just someone who thought of himself as worthy of the name, but really, truly the devil. Who’d apparently been running a nightclub and helping her solve murders for the fun of it. Who broke all the rules but always had lines he didn’t cross. Who liked to drive her insane one minute and then say all the right things the next, things she didn’t even know she needed to hear. The one person she trusted to always have her back.
Why, though? Why did he do all those things? He was supposed to be here, running hell, not hanging around on Earth with some random human. He could have picked anyone he wanted and he’d chosen her, of all people. Why did he want to be her partner at all?
What did she know, though? Maybe it got boring to only be near the most interesting people on the planet. Maybe she was just someone who’d caught his eye because she’d told him no. Maybe this was all just a game to pass the time.
But if that were true, why did he care about her so damn much? If she was just a passing fancy, why would he have turned her down when she waltzed into his penthouse in open invitation all those months ago? Why would he have hesitated after their kiss?
Shit. She’d actually kissed the devil.
And it didn’t freak her out nearly as much as it probably should have.
God, what was wrong with her?
Maybe it was all just an act. Maybe she’d fallen for his “I’m not worthy” speech when all along it was designed to make her feel a certain way.
Although…if it was an act, it wasn’t a very good one, not with all the missteps and times he’d screwed up. The times when he became exactly like the persona he showed the world, someone who only did things if it benefited him and who didn’t care about anyone else. She had no problem seeing the devil in that side of him now.
But the thing was, there was more to him than that. She knew what it was like when people only pretended to care. And one of the reasons why she had liked being his partner was because she’d seen that underneath the posturing, he did care. About his reputation, about righting wrongs, and about her.
He actually put in the effort to get to know her. He paid attention to the little things and listened to her when she was dealing with her own personal problems, even when he didn’t understand them himself. He’d been there for her when she was struggling to get justice for her father. And he was always, always there when she was in trouble, willing to do whatever was needed until she was safe again.
All she had to do to be sure that it wasn’t an act was remember the look on his face when he’d found her with the nosebleed, knowing what it meant. She just didn’t think such raw, instant fear like that could be faked.
He’d been doing everything he could to find the antidote, impossible though they both knew it was. Trying to save her yet again.
But it seemed there were limits to what the devil could do. It was over.
So where was he?
Chloe did another slow sweep of her surroundings, but it was the same as before. She was still just as inexplicably alone. He’d seen her here. He knew exactly where she was. Why would he just leave like that?
Come to think of it…Why had he even been here in the first place? If he’d been trying to get the formula, why would he waste time walking around hell? He should have been trying to track down anyone Carlisle might have shared it with, even though it was likely no one else knew.
Understanding crashed over her.
Carlisle was the only one who knew the formula, and he was in hell. Right here where Lucifer had access to him.
She closed her eyes against the realization that she’d been so close to a miracle solution, after all. It might have been enough, if only he’d had a little more time. But it was too late now.
Maybe that was why he’d left. Maybe he’d been trying desperately to get her the antidote, anyway, hoping they could reverse the damage.
Her hopes were nonexistent, though. She’d been here so long already. Even if there’d been a slim chance for Lucifer to make it work, that window had to have closed.
She couldn’t go back.
But Lucifer could come find her.
The more time passed, though, the more she was starting to wonder if he actually would. She sat there and waited, and waited, and waited some more. The anticipation of him returning any second now had faded, and she was left with nothing but the heat and the quiet misery coursing through her.
She was dead, and she’d left her daughter behind, and now she was in hell. Her only source of comfort was the devil himself, and he wasn’t even around.
She was scared, and in pain, and alone, and she just wanted her partner to be there with her.
The fact that he was the devil and she was in hell probably should have filled her with dread, or something, but it didn’t. The idea that Lucifer would return to do his job and torture her seemed so utterly ridiculous. That wasn’t him. He didn’t hurt people.
Well…okay, he did sometimes. He’d gotten into fights and had no problem roughing someone up. There were a few times where she’d stopped him from doing worse. She’d seen the rage that lurked deep down, and how others feared him.
He’d never once turned that on her, though. Only people who deserved it.
But then, if she was here, didn’t that mean she deserved it? Would he have no choice?
No. No, that couldn’t be right. He’d left hell a while ago to live on Earth. He had a choice. However that was supposed to work.
Time dragged on, and on, and on.
She had no idea how much. There was no way to mark the passage of time here. Nothing changed; not the sky, not the screams, not the lack of anyone else around. Not even the ash gave it away; it was constantly drifting down, but it never seemed to actually accumulate anywhere.
It felt like it had been a while since she’d first found herself here, though. If she had to guess, it’d been at least a few hours. Long enough for some of her fear to fade and irritation to take its place.
Was Lucifer playing with her? Why couldn’t he just show up and tell her what happened next, already? Even if he didn’t want to stick around for long, he could have at least given her that courtesy instead of leaving her to figure it out herself.
The more she sat there, the more her anger built up on itself.
She was angry that Lucifer had never told her the full truth, that he’d left her completely clueless as to what was really going on around her. She was angry with herself for not seeing it sooner. And above all she was angry at the very fact that she was here, that her life had ended so soon.
She wanted to live. She wanted to see all the places that life might have taken her. She wanted a chance to finally have a relationship with Lucifer, whatever that would look like.
The thought drew her up short. Did she still want that, really? What did it mean for her to be in love with the devil?
No, not in love. But there was something.
If she’d known the truth before, would she still feel the same way? Did it even change anything now, really? Because here she was, still waiting for him to be with her.
She shoved that thought to the side. No. She wasn’t waiting for him so she could fall into his arms, she was waiting for him because she wanted answers.
Ridiculous, all of it. She was dead. It didn’t matter. Her feelings towards him, devil or not, didn’t matter. She’d never get a chance to figure it out. They’d never get a chance. And now he couldn’t even come back to make this just a little bit easier for her.
Well, fine. She was done waiting around.
She got to her feet and looked in either direction. There was nothing to indicate what she should actually do now. But she eyed the door Lucifer had been walking toward, the one he’d started to reach for just before she’d called his name. Why had he been here, specifically? Was Carlisle behind that door? Or was it something else?
Chloe walked over and hesitated only a second before trying the handle. There was no way to know what was on the other side, but she couldn’t let fear control her actions. It was hell. Nothing about it was going to be pleasant.
The knob turned under her fingers, but when she pulled, the door wouldn’t open. It was sealed tightly shut. She put as much force into it as she could, but it didn’t budge.
Giving it up, she glanced at the hall that branched out from the one she’d been in. It curved to the side not far from where she was standing, so she couldn’t see where it might lead. That was where Lucifer had appeared from, though.
It was as good a direction to start as any.
She started walking. Once she’d rounded the corner, she saw that the hallway opened up into something that was more or less a straight line. And every few yards, there was another door set into the walls.
She kept going, suddenly much more reluctant to try opening random doors as she passed them. Was this all hell was? Hallways filled with doors that led to…what, exactly? If there were this many, she was guessing they had to relate to the souls who were supposed to be gathered here. Like prison cells. Maybe they each held a certain type of person, or maybe each one was a different method of torturing people. Or it could have been something else entirely, since there was a distinct lack of anybody moving around here.
She had the sudden thought that maybe this was a sort of residential part of hell. Maybe Lucifer had been checking in on something personal. Weren’t there supposed to be demons here? Was this where they lived, and they would return at some point?
Maze’s face suddenly flashed through her mind. She’d been so caught up in her own predicament and in Lucifer that she’d almost forgotten Maze was part of it, too. How many times had she heard Maze referred to as a demon? Often by Maze herself?
I followed him through the gates of hell, Maze had told her once. Like everything else Chloe had dismissed, it was true. And now so many things about Maze’s personality made sense.
Her roommate being a demon was as hard for her to understand as the devil working for the LAPD. She just wanted some damn answers. What did Maze really want? Was there some actual reason for it all? Or had Maze really just needed a place to live while doing…whatever it was she did all day?
The possibilities for what that was now seemed a lot darker to her.
She couldn’t believe she’d let her daughter live with a demon.
Although, it was hard to really work up any actual fear of Maze. It wasn’t easy to live with her, but for some reason, all Chloe could picture was her laughing at bad TV shows while tossing handfuls of cereal in her mouth straight out of the box. And she was always so good with Trixie. She’d never done anything to hurt them, not even when they’d first met and she’d tossed around thinly veiled threats to do just that.
And as with Lucifer, the idea that Maze would show up now to torture her seemed hard to believe.
She kept walking. The hallway was long, turning every now and then but never actually coming to an end. There were several breaks in the walls where it connected to other paths as well, and as far she could tell, all of them were the same: monotonous gray stone and endless doors.
But still there was no one in sight.
Until she rounded a bend and came face to face with a demon.
There was no doubt he was a demon instead of another human like her. His skin was deep red, and his eyes were entirely black. Instead of hair, spiky ridges patterned the top of his head.
They both stopped and blinked at each other in surprise.
“Who are you?” the demon asked, scanning her up and down. “I’ve never seen you before…You don’t look like one of us. Are you human? Did you escape?”
He grinned in apparent delight, and the sight set off every alarm Chloe had. She knew that unlike Maze, she had every reason to fear this demon. The promise of terrible things to come was alight in his eyes.
If he was as strong as Maze, she was in trouble. One she could handle, maybe, but he was familiar with this place, likely had weapons, and could undoubtedly call for others.
They would take her and have fun tormenting her.
Even if she was supposed to be in hell, that didn’t mean she had to accept it without a fight. The demon thought she’d escaped, so that meant something had to have gone wrong, and she was free when she shouldn’t have been.
She didn’t mean to waste it. She wouldn’t let them take her to do whatever they pleased.
Chloe raised her head and tried the only thing she could think of to avoid a confrontation on the off chance it would work. “I’m here with Lucifer,” she said, putting every ounce of conviction into the words as she could. “Leave me be.”
He hesitated for a second and then shook his head, grin widening. “Tricky little human,” he crooned. “Lord Morningstar has not been here in an age.”
Damn it. Apparently Lucifer really had only been back for the formula.
“Come on. I’ll help you back to your loop.” The demon’s hand shot out, reaching to grab her.
Chloe dodged on instinct and then punched him in the throat.
A normal person would have been out of commission for a few moments at least, but he only staggered back half a step, likely in surprise more than anything. She took off before he could recover, sprinting as fast as she could down the hall.
Sputtered curses rang out behind her, and when she chanced a glance, she saw the demon already in pursuit, too close for comfort.
She couldn’t fight him off and she couldn’t outrun him forever. She needed a place to hide, but this place was like one giant maze of towering stone. The nearly sheer walls rose up high in the air; she wouldn’t be able to climb fast enough. There were no hidden alcoves or smaller passageways.
Her only option was to try a door and hope the demon didn’t find her. And that there weren’t more on the other side.
She put on a burst of speed, some part of her mind noting the fact that she wasn’t getting tired or out of breath. There was a gap in the wall a few yards to her right. She took it without slowing down and grabbed the knob of the first door she saw, hoping this one wasn’t locked too.
Unlike the first, it swung open easily.
Chloe darted through and shut the door behind her.