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Paula
It was almost midnight. Officer Paula Cacuzza found herself the last one to leave the crime scene. Malcolm’s dead body had been taken away hours ago, Detective Decker and her daughter had been send home even before sunset. CSI and two detectives had finally finished inspected the crime scene and had just left. Cacuzza had turned off the lights inside and had walked to her car, the only police vehicle still parked in front of the building. When she turned on the car’s lights she noticed a convertible in front of her with somebody sitting in it. A corvette. That was… She did get out her car and walked over to the corvette. Lucifer indeed.
“Why are you still here? You were send home at eight.”
He looked up and sighted. “I’m thinking.”
“Thinking? More overthinking maybe? You should go to detective Decker. Support her. Emotionally.”
“I am the devil, dear. How can I support someone emotionally.”
“Lucifer, this is serious. Playing that role now is stupid. I would expect…”
He waited a few moments before asking. “What would you expect?”
“It's none of my business, but… After all the cases detective Decker and you did, I would have expected the two of you together.” She tried to read the expression on his face. Paula did see herself as a matchmaker, always eager to bring a couple together. In the LAPD she had helped two couples to get a relation, outside the LAPD three more… Well she had at least been involved in all five of these processes.
“It’s complicated. It…” Lucifer shrugged. “How could that work?”
“Why not. You like her.” She studied him, head tilted. “More than like her. And she feels the same for you.”
He didn’t answer.
“You’re a player,” she said.
“I am.”
“Would you want to give that up for a relation with detective Decker? I think she just want two things.”
“What?”
“A monogamous, exclusive relation and to know who you really are, beneath that devil character you play.”
“If…” He hesitated and repeated: “I am the devil.”
Paula sighed, walking around the car and dropped in the passenger seat. “You’re a nice guy, almost perfect. And everyone may have his little fantasies. But supporting detective Decker – especially at the moment, after this Malcolm crisis – is now more important than playing this devil character.”
Now Lucifer sighed. “You don’t believe me. The detective doesn’t believe me.”
“Surprised? No one does,” Paula reacted.
“Nevertheless I am the fallen angel. You remember how Jimmy Barnes collapsed? He went catatonic just because he learned the…..”
Paula waited for him to say more, but he just stared ahead. “How did he learn what?”
“He saw my face and learned I truly am the devil.”
“Your face?” She raised her hand and touched his cheek. “What does this face prove?”
“Not this face, my other face. Blisters and scabs on red-burned flesh. Eyes that burn with the fires of hell. Any human that sees it panics.”
Paula took a deep breath, wanted to deny but of course remembered Jimmy Barnes who had gone catatonic after being arrested. That couldn’t be related. Lucifer was… he never lied. He… he never had said anything he couldn’t deliver. She closed her eyes. “Suppose…”
“What?”
“Suppose it is true…”
“It is.”
“Do you want to take me to hell? Or detective Decker, or...”
“Paula! I never will. Neither you, nor the detective.”
Paula frowned. He was just making up a story. But he looked serious. “But if someone knows what to expect?” She bite her lip: as if she believed him. Which of course she didn’t.
“To expect?” Lucifer frowned.
She thought that over. Should she go on with this? Would he laugh because it sounded as if she took his words seriously. But he didn’t look as if he would laugh. “You never first told someone what to expect before showing that face?”
“Tell?” He blinked his eyes.
“You never took a picture upfront so one can prepare for what was coming?”
“Prepare? How could I?”
“You can’t take a selfie from that face?”
He stared at her, mouth half open. “Selfie? Well... How? Most of my life cameras didn’t exist.”
“If all this is true…” Paula shook her head. “Blisters and red-burned flesh. Ok. Red eyes, ok. Take your mobile. Step out of sight, take a selfie, come back and let me see before showing your red face.”
“Devil face,” he corrected softly while frowning.
“Whatever.” Would he? Would he find an excuse to leave? They sat in silence for minutes, Lucifer staring ahead.
“You will panic,” he whispered.
“From a selfie?” She thought it over and shrugged. “You know how many horror movies I’ve seen?”
“What would you do if you know the truth? Run to a priest?”
She didn’t have to think about that, it was completely clear to herself. “Are you kidding? Who else could say she is the matchmaker for the devil.”
After a moment he stepped out of the corvette and walked around a corner of the building.
Chloe
Chloe did slide a second Hawaiian bread sandwich on her daughter’s plate. “Do you want to go to school, monkey?”
Trixie immediately shook her head. “No, mommy. I want to stay home.”
“We could go to the beach together,” Chloe proposed.
The little girl took both a bite and the time to think it over, before she said: “Maybe in the afternoon? I would like to stay now.”
“That’s ok,” Chloe said. “I’ll call your school to say you have to stay home today.”
“Can I wear my Halloween princess dress? And than we can watch a movie together.”
Chloe smiled. “Go and change, monkey.”
Trixie did enter her room, leaving the door half open. Next moment there was a knock on the front door. It turned out to be Lucifer. “May I come in, detective?”
You normally walk in without asking, she wanted to say, but he looked nervous.
“I want to come straight, detective,” he said softly. “I want to move on. Not telling you the truth is a kind of lying.”
Blinking her eyes she stepped aside. “Come in. What do you mean? What truth?”
“You don’t believe I’m the devil.”
“No. I don’t.” She sighed. “You realize nobody does?”
He raised his hand. “I… No, Paula said I should first tell you you are safe.”
“Paula?” Was that one of those bimbo’s that filled the Lux…
“Paula Cacuzza. Yesterday evening Paula and me, we had a talk after everyone had left the crime scene. You know you are safe? I will never harm you, detective. I want to prove to you I am the devil, but most I have to tell you you don’t have to be afraid.”
She sighed again. “Lucifer…”
He interrupted her. “You do know how Jimmy Barnes ended. Panicking twenty four seven. He saw my face, detective. My other face.”
Chloe now hesitated. She had seen a reflection, a burned face with red flaming eyes. But that must have been a hallucination, from the shot wound. She shook her head. “It can’t…”
“And I have a picture to prepare you. And you’re safe. Paula said I had to keep telling you that.”
She thought that over. “You did show Paula?”
“She insisted. She wants to be the matchmaker for the devil.” He took out his phone and held it in front of her. “Just take a look. This is only a picture.”
She stared at his hand that was holding out the phone. It couldn’t be true. She took the phone. The face he described. The face she had seen reflections of. She took a deep breath. Yesterday he had saved her, he had saved Trixie. He had told her he only wanted to show her the truth, because…
“This is...”
“My face was burned after I fell from Heaven to Hell, detective. That is it: just burned.”
She stared at the picture, but than something else he had said came back up. “Move on?” she whispered.
“Paula said you want an exclusive relation. Just you and me.”
She studied Lucifer’s expression. Tensed. Nervous. For what? For her reaction If Paula had handled this, she could also. “Give me this proof.”
“You are safe,” he repeated himself.
She nodded. She knew. His face changed. Bald, Red. Burned. Fire in his eyes. She made a step forward and slowly raised her hand. If this was true… It meant that all she believed was wrong. But it also meant he never lied to her. Her fingers almost touched his cheek. He didn’t move.
That was the moment Trixie rushed from her room and shouted: “May I also see it? Wow. Oh! Look! That is so cool!” She wrapped her arms around Lucifer’s waist and looked up to him.
Lucifer turned to Chloe. “Detective, I will never harm the urchin.”
He kept repeating that, but she first turned to her daughter. “Trix! You’ve been eavesdropping!”
“No,” her daughter claimed. “You and Lucifer were talking so loudly, I just had to hear everything.”
Chloe realized that was the case. She looked at the scene in front of her: Trixie embracing Lucifer, almost jumping with excitement and not a trace of fear, Lucifer with what he called his devil face, motionless and looking as if he was trying to find a way out.
She started to laugh, that caused even greater confusion with Lucifer. His faced turned back to the handsome human, no handsome angel face.
“So it is all true,” she said.
“Detective…”
“Can you look a movie with us,” Trixie interrupted him.
“Urchin, I don’t think your mother…”
“The mother would like that,” Chloe interrupted him. “Trix, go select a movie.”
Her daughter rushed to the tv. Chloe waited until she was looking at the menu of the screen before she whispered: “I have a lot of questions, but not while Trix hears us.”
“You are not afraid?” he whispered back.
“No. I might freak out because heaven and hell and everything is real, but not because you are the devil. But…” She looked at Trix who was scrolling through some menu. “Us talking might have to wait until this evening.”
He nodded. “That is ok. Do you want me to leave now?”
“No. But what do you want?”
“Stay with you.”
Paula
The victim was a young woman found dead in a roundabout on a studio set. Two chunks of metal with driven in her scull. Gillian Taylor was the woman’s name. A new colleague, Ella Lopez, was doing the forensics, while Paula Cacuzza was guarding the yellow tape around the crime scene to make sure no civilian would enter. Detective Decker would come to handle the case she was told and Paula was anxious looking to see whether she would be alone or… There. She saw Chloe appear round a corner, with her consultant. Immediately she noticed the two walking close and talking together. It was Lucifer who noticed her first. He grinned, laid his arm around detective Decker and gave her a quick kiss on her hair. Chloe gave him a short look and then also noticed Paula.
“We talked,” Chloe said when they reached the yellow tape. “Thank you.”
“We really did other things also, thank you,” Lucifer added. That made Chloe elbow him in the side, which made Lucifer grin and Paula smile.