Chapter Text
The penthouse was quiet at this hour—too quiet for Los Angeles, but perfectly suited to the two immortals who shared it. The shadows seemed to bend slightly as Lucifer crossed the room, long fingers gliding over the grand piano as if it were an old friend he had outgrown.
Maze followed behind him soundlessly. Humans walked; demons prowled.
“Your mood’s off,” she said. “You get like this when the centuries start piling on you.”
Lucifer gave a soft huff, a sound that might have been a laugh a few thousand years ago. “Centuries always pile on, Maze. It’s their nature. Humans fret about days; we collect epochs.”
She smirked. “Then why does one detective get under your skin?”
Lucifer didn’t answer. He simply poured himself a drink—something older than most civilizations—and let the amber swirl in the glass. Maze watched him with something between loyalty and reverence, hands clasped behind her back in a soldier’s rest position.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” she said. “You’re different around her. Softer. It’s… weird.”
“I am not softer,” he snapped, the room trembling ever so slightly—as if reality itself regarded him warily. Then, with a sigh older than time, he softened. “I am… curious.”
Maze’s smile sharpened. “Curiosity gets you into trouble, my lord.”
Lucifer’s eyes flicked to her, ancient and endless. “I have lived in nothing but trouble.”
Chloe Decker watched the two of them enter—Lucifer all fluid grace, Maze trailing close enough to be protective but far enough to pretend she wasn’t. Chloe had seen loyal partners. This was not partnership. It was… obedience.
Maze scanned the room like she was cataloging threats. No normal person moved with that predatory precision. Chloe tried not to shiver.
Lucifer leaned casually against her desk, but something about him felt off today—an energy she couldn’t name, like the air around him was too still.
“You’re late,” Chloe said.
“Time is relative, Detective,” Lucifer replied. “Some of us have known it longer than others.”
Maze stood behind him, hands still clasped, chin slightly dipped. Chloe’s brows knit.
“You two have a… strange dynamic,” she said carefully.
Maze’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “He’s Lucifer. I serve him. That’s how it works.”
Chloe blinked. “Serve him? That’s a weird choice of words.”
“No choice,” Maze corrected, tone cool. “Just fact.”
Lucifer shot Maze a warning look—not angry, but regal, old, commanding. She dipped her head immediately.
Chloe felt her stomach tighten. Something was wrong with all of this—wrong in a way she couldn’t explain but couldn’t ignore. The way they interacted… it wasn’t cosplay, wasn’t a kink thing, wasn’t a joke. It felt real.
Too real.
“Lucifer,” she said slowly, “one day you’re going to have to give me answers.”
He smiled—a small, ancient curl of his lips that didn’t match any human expression.
“One day, Detective,” he said, voice as smooth as sin, “you may not like them.”
Chloe watched them walk away—Lucifer careless, Maze stalking behind him like a shadow that chose its shape. And for the first time, Chloe truly wondered:
What if he isn’t lying about being the Devil?
The sun hadn’t yet burned the morning mist off the Hollywood Hills when Lucifer stepped under the crime-scene tape. He moved with an ease that suggested none of this was new to him—death, violence, ritual. The modern world dressed it differently, but the melody was the same as it had been for millennia.
Maze walked at his side, gaze flicking over the perimeter, nostrils flaring slightly. She smelled blood before Chloe even led them toward the body.
Chloe exhaled heavily. “Victim is male, mid-thirties. Neighbors reported screaming around 2 a.m. No break-in, but the scene is… strange.”
Lucifer tilted his head, something ancient stirring beneath the surface. “Strange is good. Strange is fun.”
Maze shot him a look. “You mean it’s familiar.”
He didn’t deny it.
They reached the bedroom. The victim lay on the hardwood floor, shirt torn open, a stab wound directly to the heart. But that wasn’t what drew the eye.
It was the pentacle—a large, deliberate one—drawn beneath him in his own blood. The drying crimson lines glistened under the dim light.
Chloe crossed her arms. “Lucifer, please don’t tell me this means something to you.”
He crouched gracefully, fingertips hovering just above the blood but never touching. His expression changed—not horror, not disgust… recognition. A slow, unsettling recognition.
Maze knelt beside him, almost mirroring his posture except hers was sharper, more predatory. “This symbol isn’t human occult nonsense,” she murmured quietly for him alone. “They drew it correctly. That’s not supposed to be possible here.”
Chloe heard the whisper, frowned. “What do you mean ‘here’? And since when do you two know anything about actual ritual symbols?”
Lucifer rose, dusting off invisible particles with a composure that felt out of place in a room soaked with death. “Detective, humans have been playing with symbols for centuries. Ninety-nine percent of the time they get it wrong.”
Maze added, “This one didn’t.”
Chloe stared at Maze. “You sound like you’ve seen this before.”
Maze looked at her as though assessing whether Chloe could survive the truth. “Maybe I have,” she said flatly.
Lucifer stepped between them—not protectively, but authoritatively. “Mazikeen.”
Maze immediately dipped her head.
Chloe’s eyes widened. She’d seen that dynamic before, but never so stark. “Okay, seriously—what is going on with you two? This isn’t normal.”
Lucifer smiled tightly. “We are far from normal, Detective.”
He looked back at the pentacle. His smile faded.
“This particular mark,” Lucifer said slowly, voice shifting into something deeper, older, “predates your little New World by a few thousand years. Whoever drew it knew what they were invoking.”
Chloe felt a chill crawl up her spine. “Invoking what, Lucifer?”
His eyes glimmered—not Devil-red, but something ancient flickering in the shadows.
“A summoning,” he said.
“Or an invitation.”
Maze tensed. “An invitation to who?”
Lucifer stared at the symbol as though it were speaking to him across time.
“To me,” he whispered.
Chloe straightened, rubbing her temples. “Okay, Lucifer… an invitation for you? Really? Not everything weird involves you.”
Maze’s jaw flexed like she was holding back a laugh—or a threat. Lucifer merely arched a brow in that infuriatingly ancient way of his.
“Detective, I assure you, I’m not being dramatic. Whoever crafted this symbol understood—”
Chloe cut him off. “Understood what? How to draw a spooky star? We get ritual killings all the time. Half of them don't know the difference between a pentagram and a pentacle.”
Lucifer sighed, long and slow. “Mortals do love playing occult dress-up…”
Maze leaned toward him, voice low. “She doesn’t believe you. Again.”
“Yes, thank you, Maze, I had gathered that.” Lucifer turned back to Chloe, schooling his tone. “Detective, this symbol is not merely decorative. It has structure, intention, history—”
“And we have a murder victim,” Chloe said briskly. “So unless you can give me something more concrete than ‘ancient vibes,’ we follow normal procedure.”
Lucifer frowned as though the phrase physically offended him.
The living room looked untouched, minimalist in that Hollywood way—white surfaces, chrome finishes, strategically placed art meant to impress without meaning anything. Chloe scanned the area.
“Victim’s name is Grant Whitmore. Studio consultant. Single. No priors. No enemies on paper.”
“People always have enemies,” Lucifer replied absently. He was gliding along the walls, fingertips brushing over objects not to feel them, but almost to listen to them. Like they held secrets humans couldn’t hear.
Maze stuck close, posture sharp. “This place feels wrong,” she muttered.
Chloe glanced back at her. “Wrong how? Like ‘my boyfriend keeps weird candles in the bathroom’ wrong, or ‘I saw this in Hell once’ wrong?”
Maze blinked. “Mostly the second one.”
Lucifer shot her a warning look.
Maze dipped her head instantly.
Chloe threw her hands up. “There it is again! What is with that? Every time Lucifer looks at you like that, you—what, submit?”
Maze’s eyes narrowed. “I’m loyal. Something humans don’t understand.”
“Enough,” Lucifer said quietly, but the air shifted. Chloe felt it—like pressure deep in the bones. Maze went still.
Chloe swallowed. She couldn’t explain why it felt like the room was holding its breath.
“Let’s just… focus,” she said.
Chloe opened the small side office, flipping on the light.
It was surprisingly chaotic—papers everywhere, notebooks shoved into drawers, sticky notes plastered across the walls. Many had symbols scribbled on them. Not occult symbols—Lucifer could tell with a glance—but close enough to unsettle.
Lucifer stepped inside, studying the notes with an expression somewhere between irritated and thoughtful. “He was trying to replicate something. Trying and failing.”
“Lucifer,” Chloe warned, “don’t start with the supernatural leaps.”
He gave her a wounded look. “Detective, I am attempting to assist you.”
“You’re attempting to turn this into one of your Devil stories.”
Maze tilted her head. “If the shoe fits…”
“Maze,” Lucifer snapped, but with the tone of a long-suffering monarch reining in a particularly gleeful soldier.
Chloe ran a hand along the desk, eyes narrowing. “If he was drawing these for days, someone might’ve seen something. Anyone close enough to hear screaming last night?”
“Neighbors reported it,” Lucifer said. “You already said so.”
Chloe froze. “I didn’t tell you that yet.”
Lucifer paused, then offered a thin smile. “Ah. Yes. Well. I assumed.”
Maze muttered, “He didn’t assume.”
Lucifer glared. Maze bowed her head.
Chloe exhaled sharply. “Okay, seriously? You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?” Lucifer said innocently.
“The I know more than a human should but I’m pretending not to thing.”
Lucifer’s smile sharpened. For a moment he didn’t look like a nightclub owner. He looked like something ageless wearing a nightclub owner as a costume.
“Perhaps,” he said softly, “I simply pay attention better than most.”
Maze smirked.
Chloe bit her tongue. No matter how many strange things Lucifer said or did, she couldn’t put “ancient supernatural being” in her police report.
“Let’s go talk to the neighbors,” she said finally, pushing past him. “And Lucifer?”
“Yes, Detective?”
“No theatrics.”
Lucifer placed a hand over his heart. “Detective, I would never.”
Behind him, Maze snorted.
Maze’s phone buzzed. She glanced at it, expression immediately shifting into annoyance.
“It’s the club,” she muttered. “Some idiot lit a table on fire. Again.”
Lucifer sighed. “Maze—”
“I know, I know.” She rolled her eyes. “You want me to stay. But Lux will be missing too many bottles, bodies, or both if I don’t go.”
Lucifer hesitated—not obviously, but Chloe caught the flicker of reluctance. He was suddenly aware of Maze leaving his side in a way Chloe hadn’t seen before.
Maze stepped closer, tone dropping. “I’ll be back soon, my lord.”
Chloe watched the exchange, unsettled by how formal Maze became when speaking to him alone. Maze dipped her head, then slipped under the police tape and vanished with a predator’s urgency.
Chloe raised a brow. “She calls you ‘my lord’ now? Really?”
Lucifer brushed invisible dust off his cuffs. “She always has. You’re simply hearing it more clearly today.”
“That’s not normal, Lucifer.”
“Neither is she.”
“Neither are you.”
He flashed her a smile that didn’t help his case. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Detective.”
She sighed and turned back toward the house. “Let’s just keep going.”
Chloe and Lucifer stepped onto the patio, sunlight cutting through the trees. The backyard overlooked the hills—a sweeping view expensive enough to hide a hundred secrets.
Lucifer walked with his hands clasped behind his back, posture straight, deliberate. He wasn’t strolling—he was surveying.
Chloe noticed.
“You’re in… a mood,” she said.
“I am always in a mood, Detective.”
“No, this is different. Maze leaves, and you suddenly get all… tense.”
Lucifer stopped. He didn’t look at her; he looked out over the city with eyes that seemed too old for the morning light.
“Maze handles certain matters for me,” he said carefully. “Her absence shifts the balance of… vigilance.”
“You mean you’re worried?”
He scoffed. “Worried? Hardly. Merely… aware.”
Chloe opened her notebook. “Okay, well, let’s focus on what we can solve. The victim had a neighbor on the east side who claimed he heard metal scraping last night. Could be the killer climbing the fence.”
Lucifer tilted his head. “Or dragging something heavy.”
“Lucifer—no supernatural leaps.”
He held up both hands. “Very well. No leaps. Merely observation.”
They reached the side gate. Chloe crouched by a patch of disturbed dirt near the fence.
“Footprints,” she murmured. “About a day old.”
Lucifer crouched beside her with that unsettling grace of his. He didn’t need to touch the prints; he stared at them like something about them spoke a language only he understood.
“Small feet,” he noted. “Light stride. Someone quick. Someone who knew their way around shadows.”
Chloe frowned. “You can’t tell all that from footprints.”
“Can’t I?” he asked, with a maddening half-smile.
“Lucifer…”
He sighed and stood again. “Fine. A guess, then.”
She didn’t buy it.
Chloe tries to focus on normal procedure, but Lucifer is strangely quiet beside her—too quiet for someone who normally fills silence with ego and commentary.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Perfectly.”
“Because you seem… on edge.”
Lucifer stopped walking.
“Detective, someone replicated a symbol older than your country, older than your continent. And the victim bled into it perfectly, as if guided.”
Chloe stiffened. “Guided by who?”
He turned to her. His expression wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t playful. It was ancient.
“That,” he said softly, “is what concerns me.”
Chloe held her notebook a little tighter. “Lucifer… rituals aside, this is just a murder. Humans hurt humans all the time. We’ll find the killer.”
“And if the killer is not human?”
“Lucifer.” Her voice sharpened. “You’re doing it again.”
He looked at her with a patience that felt older than the hills around them.
“Detective… you asked me to be honest with you once. Truly honest.”
He stepped closer.
“Today is not the day you want that.”
Chloe swallowed hard. “Let’s just talk to the neighbor.”
Lucifer nodded once, the mask sliding back into place. “As you wish.”
They crossed the narrow walkway that separated the two properties. The neighbor’s house was clean, modern, and much more lived-in than the victim’s. Chloe knocked, and after a long moment, a middle-aged man cracked the door open. His eyes were red—lack of sleep or nerves, Chloe couldn’t tell.
“Mr. Caldwell? I’m Detective Decker. This is Lucifer Morningstar. We’re investigating the incident next door.”
The man opened the door fully and rubbed his arms. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Come in.”
Lucifer stepped inside without hesitation, glancing around with an almost bored curiosity—though Chloe could tell he was scanning, analyzing.
Caldwell gestured them toward the living room. “I didn’t see much,” he said quickly. “Just… heard something.”
“When?” Chloe asked as she sat down.
“Around two a.m. I was up late. Couldn’t sleep. I heard shouting—like arguing. At first I thought it was just a party. Happens a lot in these hills.”
Lucifer wandered toward a wall of photographs. He stared at them not with interest, but… intent focus. Chloe shot him a warning glance, but he gave her only a flick of his eyes in response.
Caldwell continued, “Then I heard a loud noise. Like something heavy falling. Or furniture getting pushed.”
“Did you see anyone?” Chloe asked.
He hesitated. “Not clearly. I went to my balcony and looked toward his backyard. There was someone near the fence. A small person, maybe? Hard to tell in the dark.”
Lucifer turned sharply. “How small?”
Caldwell blinked. “Uh… five-foot something? Thin. Quick. They moved like they knew where they were going. Hopped the fence and disappeared downhill.”
“Male or female?” Chloe asked.
“No idea. Hoodie, dark clothes. Face was covered.”
Lucifer’s gaze sharpened. “Covered with what?”
Caldwell frowned. “I… don’t know. Something dark. Maybe a mask. I only saw the shape of it.”
Lucifer stepped closer—not threatening, but unnervingly poised. “Did they look back? Even once?”
Chloe stiffened. “Lucifer—”
Caldwell swallowed. “Yeah. Actually. Right before they climbed the fence, they turned toward me. I couldn’t see their eyes but… I felt like they were looking at me.”
Lucifer nodded slowly, as if that confirmed something only he understood. “Fear?”
“I—” Caldwell shook his head. “Not exactly. More like… warning me to stay quiet.”
Chloe leaned forward. “Did the person carry anything? A weapon? A bag?”
Caldwell’s forehead creased. “Could’ve been a bag. I think I saw one strapped across their shoulder.”
Lucifer’s voice dropped, softer but older. “And the symbol. Did you see any blood on them?”
Caldwell recoiled slightly. “Symbol?”
“Lucifer,” Chloe said sharply, “enough.”
He ignored her. “Well? Did you?”
Caldwell shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. I just saw someone leaving fast. That’s all.”
Chloe stood. “Thank you. We might come back with more questions.”
The man nodded and walked them to the door.
As soon as they stepped outside, Chloe rounded on Lucifer. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“You interrogated him like you already knew the killer. You asked about blood on their clothes, about whether they looked back—why?”
Lucifer watched the wind move through the trees between the houses. “Because someone performing a ritual that old would not flee without checking the witness they left behind.”
“That’s not evidence,” Chloe snapped. “That’s you making everything mystical again.”
Lucifer looked at her, utterly calm. “Detective, you asked me to behave. I did. I didn’t mention demons or ancient rites. I didn’t tell him what the symbol meant. I merely asked the right questions.”
“The right questions for what exactly?”
“For determining whether the killer was confident. Or desperate. Or something else entirely.”
“And?” Chloe asked.
Lucifer’s expression darkened in a way she hadn’t seen before—not angry, not smug. Ancient. Assessing.
“He wasn’t running,” Lucifer said. “He was finishing.”
Chloe felt a chill crawl up her spine. “Finishing what?”
“That,” Lucifer murmured, “is the part I intend to find out.”