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So sue her, Maze was nosy.
You had to be nosy if you were a demon.
Before she’d had to leave home, it was because the demons were always trying to pull shit on each other. Then, after Lucifer had dragged her to Earth with him for his “vacation,” it was because humans kept trying to seduce Lucifer into staying on Earth forever. And that wouldn’t do. Because it meant she’d never be able to go back to Hell.
When she whined one too many times about that, Lucifer had given her one perfect feather from his own wing.
“You can use this to get back to Hell,” he told her. “And I pray to Dear Old Dad that’s the last I hear about it.”
When he mentioned Dear Old Dad, it meant he was pissed off. Maze felt a little smug. That meant he still cared about her.
And then what had she done? Gone and squandered the feather on saving Amenadiel’s life. And after that, Lucifer had burned his wings, so there were no more feathers to be had.
Maze complained to Linda about that. “Why did he have to burn them?” To her shame she began crying. “What if I want to go back to Hell?”
Linda tapped her high-heeled shoe against her shin. “Forgive me if this sounds morbid,” she ventured, “but could you get back to Hell by, er, dying?”
“Did you really assume I never thought of that?” Maze scoffed. “But I’m not human or angel. I don’t have a soul. When this body dies, I don’t go anywhere. I simply cease to exist.”
Linda’s mouth hung open. “Really?” She scowled. “Only humans and angels have souls? Demons don’t have souls? Belinda doesn’t have a soul?”
“No, your pet cat doesn’t have a soul,” Maze told her. “I’ve never been to the Silver City, obviously, but I can assure you there are no cats in Hell.”
Linda clearly wasn’t sure whether to smile or cry. She pouted instead. “I don’t believe it. Cats must have souls.”
“You had trouble believing every other thing you learned about the Celestial and Infernal realms, too,” Maze pointed out coldly. “Look, aren’t you glad cats don’t go to Hell? You seem attached to the little monsters.”
“Of course I’m glad cats don’t go to Hell!” Linda retorted. Then she became speculative and added softly. “Even though it means I won’t see any of my cats when I die. But they must have souls.”
It wasn’t the first time Linda had seemed sure she was bound for Hell. Maze wanted to know why. But when she’d quizzed her about it, Linda refused to elaborate.
Maze didn’t want to argue about souls any more. “Ask Lucifer,” she told Linda.
Linda winced. “I asked Lucifer about cats once, and I don’t intend to do it again.”
~~~
So yeah. Maze was snooping when she found them. They were hidden at the very back of a clothes closet.
Lucifer had a lot of clothes. He’d amassed outfits from the last several millennia from nearly every corner of the Earth. And he never threw away any, claiming they held happy memories. It was a very deep closet. Maze felt like she was already almost halfway to Hell when she reached the back wall. The clothes back here had last been fashionable during the reign of the Pharoahs, so she was surprised when she saw a new bag hanging on the rack. This bag was very large — bigger than even the most ostentatious of Lucifer’s outfits. She wondered for a moment if it contained a framed painting. But she squeezed it and found its contents to be soft and giving.
So sue her. She opened it.
The white feathers sprung out, seeming eager to have more room, seeming to reach for her. Maze backed away. Then she let out a feral scream, turned, and ran, bolting out of the closet, slamming it shut and locking it.
~~~
Maze was angry. Nothing new about that. But it was a kind of anger she hadn’t encountered before. She found herself fighting off tears. The fearsome Commander of Hell’s demon army. Tears.
But why was she so surprised by this betrayal? she asked herself. Lucifer had been lying to her and keeping secrets ever since he’d brought her to Los Angeles. Why should he tell her the truth about this? Why should he tell her that he had acquired wings again? Even if he thought so little of them that he would take them off and store them in the 1500 BC part of his closet?
The worst thing was, he’d never done that — the lying, the deception — when they were in Hell.
In Hell, they’d had each other’s backs. And fronts. Maze remembered the long hours they had spent together, post-the-last-fuck and pre-the-next-fuck, discussing…well, everything. At the time, it seemed they’d been doing it out of boredom. Now, she realized it has been something a little more than that.
They’d had a lot in common. Starting with being the only two entities in the Realm who actually gave a fuck about doing things right. But not only that. They shared a morbid fascination for the nonsense humans got up to through the millennia. And they both hated the Silver City gossip that Lucifer’s siblings would bore them with during their (infrequent) visits.
But, within a few years of their arrival in Los Angeles for Lucifer’s “vacation”…it had all gone sour. The lying and deception and secret-keeping had started, eating away at their connection until there was nothing left but a raw, angry wound and memories that had turned bitter.
She remembered using the precious feather from Lucifer's original wings, her ticket home, to save Amenadiel. “It’s OK,” she’d told herself. “I can find another way to get back to Hell if I really need to.”
It occurred to her that if Lucifer had wings again, she could take another feather. Or even demand he put on the damned things and bring her home.
But no. The secret wings were the final straw. She’d already moved out of Lux and quit her job as bartender–bouncer–bodyguard. She liked Chloe and Linda and she’d truly miss Trixie, but they would now just remind her of Lucifer’s latest betrayal.
She had one choice left to her. She could unmake herself. She was ready. Well, she'd be ready after one last, blow-out round of debauchery.
~~~
Several days later, Maze stumbled in through the back door at Lux. In the basement rooms she’d lived and played in before she moved out, a few weapons and toys were languishing. Now that she was going to unmake herself, it seemed important not to leave anything of hers scattered around.
No one had occupied her quarters since she left, and the front room was dark. But light was shining from under the bedroom door. She knew she hadn’t left it that way. She always kept her rooms dark, as an antidote to Lucifer’s obsession with light.
When she opened the bedroom door, there they were, laid out on her bed. All twelve feet of them, glowing such a pure white that she had to shield her eyes.
What. The. Fuck.
Her karambit was suddenly in her hand. She began backing away slowly.
She hit something solid.
“Going somewhere?”
His voice still felt like velvet.
She whirled and struck out mindlessly with the demonic blade. Lucifer nimbly dodged. Almost as if he were expecting the blow.
“Ah-ah,” he said, shaking his finger. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Maze found her voice at last. “Leave me alone!” she cried.
Lucifer’s face fell.
Maze wanted to rage at him, but instead, she felt like an absolute heel. She’d been angry that he’d kept secrets? But here was the secret, laid out on her bed.
But why did he decide to show them to her this way? Did he have to be so dramatic about it?
Oh, who was she fooling. Of course he did.
So he wanted to bring honesty back into their relationship? He’d made the first move. She supposed it was her turn now.
“So your wings came back?” she said, gesturing at the wings without looking at them. “Why’d you leave them in my room? Do you want me to get rid of them for you again?”
Lucifer looked puzzled.
“That’s what you asked me to do last time,” Maze reminded him.
“But these wings aren’t mine,” Lucifer said.
“Of course they’re yours,” Maze replied. “Only the Lightbringer could have wings like that.”
Lucifer shook his head. “I thought so when I first saw them. But when I touched them, I realized they weren’t mine. I admit I was furious. I didn’t want the wings, but it seemed utterly galling that they would belong to someone other than me!” His eyes briefly flashed red. “But when I talked to Linda about it, I figured it out. They’re white now because of their potential. But when you put them on, they’ll take on colors suited to you. At least I assume so. It’s the first time this has happened, after all.”
Maze threw up her hands in annoyance. She’d hoped Lucifer would answer the questions she had, not burden her with more.
Lucifer went on, his words tumbling over each other in excitement. “Linda thought there should be a formal ceremony including all the people you know. At least, the ones you aren’t itching to kill. I told her you’d hate that. But I’m gasping with curiosity to see what happens,” Lucifer said. “So can I watch?”
Maze couldn’t keep silent any more. “What are you talking about??!” she cried.
Lucifer gave her puppy-dog eyes. She hadn’t seen them directed at her for a millennium. “Put on your wings,” he said. “Please?”
“My wings?”
“Yes, yours. Can’t you tell they’re yours? I knew as soon as I touched them.”
“I didn’t…”
It was Lucifer’s turn to look puzzled. “When I saw the bag had been opened, I assumed you had.” Lucifer crossed behind her and picked up the edge of one wing. “Touch,” he directed.
Maze reached out a tentative hand. She gasped.
Running her palm over the feathers was like coming home. The wings felt like part of her own body.
She turned her face up to Lucifer, suddenly vulnerable.
“You’ll put them on?” Lucifer asked.
“Yes, Lucifer. Please help me put them on.” She pulled off her leather vest.
Lucifer’s face changed in a familiar way when he saw her bare breasts. He desired her. That gave her a moment of feeling at home, too.
She turned her back to him. “What do I have to do?”
“I don’t know. You’re the first demon to have wings.”
He draped the wings across her back. And then, they were just part of her.
Maze moved the wings experimentally. They felt both new and familiar. Her body knew instinctively how to spread and fold them. And she couldn’t exist another minute without using them to fly. She turned to Lucifer, her eyes alight.
“Fly with me?”
He shook his head, a little sadly. “I got rid of mine. I’ll accept a ride, but—” He put on a stern face and arched an eyebrow playfully. “—only after you’ve had a little practice!”
~~~
The next few days were some of the best in Maze’s millennia of existence. Flying felt even better than sex. Well, most flying felt better than most sex.
The wings had changed color as she used them. They were now a mottled black and gray with a vivid red stripe. “My bloody streak, I presume?”
Lucifer shrugged and grinned.
“Would you like me to groom them?” he asked.
Maze hadn’t even realized she was capable of blushing, but she did it now. “I don’t know. Would I?”
She remembered how much he had liked it. There was a particular happy noise he’d made when she’d stroked his feathers that he only ever made in one other circumstance. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to feel that kind of pleasure at his hands. It was too soon. Or too late. She couldn’t decide which.
She said yes anyway. This is something he can’t do with Chloe or any of the other humans he fucks, she thought, and then she wondered why she cared. But she knew. The wings were prying open the closet where she’d stored millennia worth of vulnerable emotions.
Then she was lying on her belly with her wings extended over the sides of the bed, and she learned why Lucifer made the same happy noise when he was inside her, fucking her deep and slow, and when she smoothed the edges of his pure white wings.
She asked him to stop after only a few minutes, because she knew if she let him continue, she’d second-guess the decision she’d made.
~~~
“I’m going to go home,” Maze said.
Lucifer was polishing a bar glass. She loved watching him do the work he used to expect her to do. He made a scoffing noise. “Really? Why would you want to go back there?”
Maze had expected this question.
“First, I actually care about the way Hell is run, and I’ve been hearing rumblings that things aren’t going so well. Since you’ve quit, I’m the only one who can make a difference. Second, it’s my home.”
Lucifer regarded her for a while, expressions she couldn’t quite read moving across his face. Then he held out the glass.
“Farewell round?”
“If you’re willing to break out the good stuff.”
“Only the best for you,” he said, unlocking the special cabinet.
~~~
“So do yours pop out at embarrassing moments?” he said, pouring a second round for both of them.
“I don’t know. I thought it best not to risk letting humans see them. But I know you learned how to control that.”
Lucifer nodded, then wiggled his eyebrows. “Care to experiment?”
“Sorry, but no.”
“How about with Amenadiel? Or Linda?”
Maze thwapped him with her coaster.
“You have another way to intimidate demons,” Lucifer remarked next.
They’d always cowered when Lucifer showed his wings.
“I don’t need one,” she replied coolly.
“Of course you don’t.”
Maze hated goodbyes. So she waited until Lucifer had gone to fetch a second bottle before leaving.
As he’d told her, all she had to do was unfold her wings and think of home, and she was on her way.
~~~
It was exactly like she remembered it. And it was completely different.
She spent weeks flying from one end to the other, checking in with all the team leaders, fixing what was broke, knocking down the demons that had gotten too big for their britches, rewarding the ones that had kept their departments running smoothly, partying with her FWBs.
The wings did pop out a few times at the beginning, always terrorizing whoever she was fucking, but it hadn’t been too hard to figure out how to control that. A couple of her especially kinky minions decided they enjoyed it when she unfurled them at some key moment: a new form of fear play.
Weeks stretched into months into routine.
It was an entirely ordinary moment. She was helping direct the Hell loop of a particularly nasty dictator. (Dictators’ Hell loops typically involved a cast of thousands.) As she pulled the hood over his head preparatory to his next round of interrogation, the realization came to her.
Hell was still her home, but she’d moved on.
She hated the self-pity of the tormented souls. On Earth she hadn’t had to care about whether someone felt self-pity, she only had to care that they paid for their drinks and didn’t try to beat anyone up. Or that they came along quietly (or unconsciously) when she captured them as bounty.
Most of all, she now hated that the cacaphony of Hell never stopped. Never varied.
Lux had been a maelstrom of chaos every night, but eventually the guests all went home for a few hours, whether willingly or unwillingly. But in Hell? The torments, the heat, the stench, the bad metal music, the sticky feeling of spilled beer on the soles of your shoes — they were ubiquitous and never-ending. They jangled her ears and her nerves and made her feel twitchy and mean. Well, she was always mean. They made her more mean.
Maze plopped down onto the cold concrete floor of the interrogation chamber, and covered herself with her wings.
Delicious silence. Only the company of her own mind. And, wedged into a back corner of that mind, the answer to the question that had been nagging at her.
She had a soul. That was why the wings had appeared.
Thing was, she didn’t feel any different. Same old Maze, always angry, never satisfied, except when she was cleaning blood off her karambit with her tongue. Efficient as the place she’d been calling home. Fierce protector. Hadn’t she kept impulsive Lucifer in mostly one piece ever since he’d arrived? She’d like to see any other demon manage that.
Maybe she’d had a soul all along.
Maze added rest breaks into her days. When she was nestled under her wings’ strong muscles and soft feathers, she could reignite her enthusiasm and continue with her work. At least for a while.
~~~
“You don’t seem quite yourself today,” Baalphomet remarked.
She knew the demon was right. They’d had a good fuck, but she’d only been able to come a couple of times.
“Has your time on Earth weakened you?” they asked.
Maze was startled to hear it described like that, the restlessness and dissatisfaction that had continued to build up even after she’d started taking regular breaks to huddle inside the cone of her wings. It was true: She’d gotten used to a less chaotic life. Maybe that was weakness.
“I’m starting to understand why Lucifer decided to take a vacation,” she told them.
“So take a vacation,” said Baalphomet easily. “Hell ain’t going anywhere.”
“What if I take a vacation and never come back?”
Baalphomet shrugged their spiny shoulders. “Hell’s not the same without you, Commander, but we still ain’t going anywhere.”
~~~
It had seemed momentous, making the decision — for herself this time — to leave Hell behind. Hundreds of demons attended her going-away party. Quite a few damned souls were there as well, hoping she’d favor them with a few final torments.
In fact, the party was such a success it went on for a week.
But as soon as Maze put forth the will to leave and felt her wings lift her, she was sitting again at the bar at Lux, as if she’d never left.
Lucifer entered from the elevator, clutching a couple of favorite vintages that he kept in his penthouse. He fetched some wine glasses from the bar.
“Sorry that took so long. Someone misfiled them. I’ll be dealing with them later — unless you want to.”
“I’ve had enough of punishing for a while.”
Lucifer’s eyes narrowed. “Of all the sentences I never expected to issue from Mazikeen’s mouth...” He leaned forward to peer at her face. “I’ll be...well, you know. You went, didn’t you? And you’re back already! Did you forget your toothbrush?”
“Shut up. While you were fetching more booze, I spent half a year down there.”
Someday, there would be an academic discipline of Celestial and Infernal science. And someday they’d discover why time in Hell and on Earth ran differently.
Lucifer actually did shut up and poured the drinks. He downed his in one long swallow and poured another. Maze sipped hers. Good wine was everything antithetical to where she’d just come from, and it tasted divine. Well, she didn’t know if it tasted divine. But it was damned good, that she knew for certain.
She watched her former boss and master until she worked out where his twitchy energy was coming from.
He’d been afraid she wouldn’t come back.
She clinked her glass against his.
“Moon’s full. Shall I take you for a quick flight around the neighborhood?”
She’d seen it so few times she could count them on her fingers. Lucifer’s face lit up...with gratitude.
“I thought you’d never ask.”