Context: post season 2. The wings Lucifer burned on the beach in season 1 were fake. The supernatural are more powerful than the show suggests.

They followed the light and the shadow,

and the light led them forward to light

and the shadow led them to darkness

–T. S. Eliot, Choruses from The Rock, VII

Ω

One: The Man in the Bright Coat

Thistle faces danger. Chloe finds a dead body. Martin Capooche arrives in Los Angeles. Lucifer makes a choice.

Ω

By the time he reached the second alleyway, he realised he was being followed. A block earlier he had noticed a flash of darkness in the side mirror of a parked car, and now he saw it again–a dark shape sliding across the broken window of a store like a tentacle reaching out in the blackness of the ocean. It could be a coincidence, but he felt it in his bones, in the pricked up hairs on the back of his neck: something was following him.

He sniffed once, long and drawn in, like a swimmer before diving into the ocean. At first all he could smell was harsh metallic iron. This place was full of it; he could feel it in the air and under his feet, sapping his energy. He hawked up some phlegm and spat it on the ground. His nose would run for days now.

He sniffed again, sorting through the overpowering iron. He could smell the garbage in the alleyway ahead of him, the rain in the clouds that rolled above him. And beneath it all, something fouler–more of a feeling than a smell.

Dark. Rotting. Death.

Nothing good. How had they found him? Why were they hunting him?

He picked up his pace. It was night time, but he could see nearly as clearly as he could during the day–to him, the street was sepia-toned, like a light shade of oak wood. He hopped deftly over patches of refuse, and sidestepped light-poles and chained rusty bicycles.

To anyone watching, he seemed to skip lightly from foot to foot, barely touching the ground between steps as if he weighed barely more than the air. He wore old-style pants, soft leather, with supple boots that hugged his feet up to his knee. More noteworthy, he wore a deep purple coat over a simple low-cut V-neck top, which split in two at the small of his back and trailed down behind him. The coat billowed out behind him as he began to walk faster. To go any faster would require him to jog. He didn't want whatever was following him to know it had him cornered. This would have to do.

He felt the presence quicken too. It had grown less stealthy, and he could see it flashing in the corner of his peripherals. On the opposite side of the street a pair of garbage cans was knocked down, clattering against each other and spilling refuse out onto the street. He saw a flash of something dark, and then the culprit was gone.

Were there two of them? He might have been able to fight one. Might have. But two? He didn't fancy his chances.

But he wasn't much of a fighter anyway. He grinned, teeth gleaming and pointed. This required a subtler touch.

He had an idea. He didn't know if it would work, he had never tried something so complex before, in a place like this. This jungle of concrete and iron, where you had to look for nature caged up in little ceramic boxes, or poking out between gaps in the pathways, where garbage and refuse was piled up in corners, or stacked neatly into metal cans and plastic containers. He hated this place–he had to be here...

But that didn't mean he had to like it.

He could see the mouth of an alleyway ahead of him, and took a deep breath. He could feel the polluted air coating his mouth, and struggled not to cough. Everything had to be perfect for this to work.

As he kept moving forward, he breathed gently into his hands like he was drying them. He moved his fingers and hands like he was shaping clay although to nearly anyone watching, they would appear empty. He moved along like this, half-running down the street, fingers dancing like he was playing the piano. When he reached the alleyway he had seen earlier, he whispered into his hands and then blew on them again.

He ducked down into the alleyway as the mist unfolded from his hands, grew in size and colour, until a lookalike was walking along ahead of him making it seem like he had never stopped. It looked like his own twin, right down to the crinkles in his pants and the purple coattails of the jacket. It was good work, he admitted to himself and allowed himself a brief smile. He might just make this turn out okay.

He crouched down on his haunches, and pressed his back against the alleyway wall, grimacing as his neck pressed against something slimy. He breathed out again. The magic settled over him like a silk cloak, making his face tingle, and his nose twitch. He watched his image move ahead of him past the alleyway until it was lost from view, hopefully drawing whoever, or whatever, was following him away with it.

Bait on a hook.

He held his breath.

Something foul moved across the mouth of the alleyway. He forced himself to stay still. It was larger than a wolf, nearly the size of a small car, but it padded lithely, muscles under its matted black fur coiling and moving like the cogs of a machine.

He could feel a cramp growing in his left foot, and he shifted slightly to bring the weight off it.

The creature turned to look directly at him. Its eyes were deep dark red, the colour of blood, and seemed to be filled with a fire that leapt and coiled and rushed within itself, as if angry it was trapped. Flies buzzed around the beast. Its teeth were visible as it lifted its lip: serrated, sharp, capable of tearing him in half.

He bit his tongue to stop himself from gasping. He felt sweat rolling down the back of his neck. He hadn't sweated for centuries. He froze, trusting in his glamour to keep him hidden. He didn't dare to breath.

The beast's nostrils flared, and it padded closer. He could see a mucus-like substance dripping down from its nose. Its whiskers twitched.

Its ears pricked up at something. If he strained hard too, he could only just hear it, a shrill noise so high, he could barely pick it up. And then the beast was gone in a flash of grey and black, leaving behind the rotten-egg smell of sulphur, a sense of relief, and a larger feeling of unease.

Things were worse than he thought. Someone, for some reason, had just tried to have him killed.

He counted a hundred breaths to make sure there wasn't a third beast waiting for him outside the alleyway. He flicked the magic off of him with his hand, like shaking off water, and uncoiled his body away from the alley wall. He rolled his neck back and forth to stretch out the kinks.

He brushed himself down, disdainfully inspecting the wet dirt (he hoped it was dirt, anyway) that clung to his knees and trailed down his left shoulder. He looked up. An old woman was looking at him from her window, across the street. He smiled at her and tipped his head.

Far away, he heard the whining noise, shrill, and angry–his pursuers had learned they'd been duped.

He needed a new place to stay–it wasn't safe to go back to where he had been before. An idea came to him, somewhere safe, and where a few of his questions might be answered, if he was lucky.

Then he grinned.

After all, what kind of fae didn't love a good party?

Ω

Ellen Holland was making tea for herself and her daughter when she glanced out the window. She couldn't afford to live in a very nice neighbourhood, so the windows were grated to deter break-ins, obstructing some her view of the street. She liked to bake, and look out the window while she was rolling pastry or when something was simmering away on the stove, or like now, when she was watching the kettle boil.

In the light of the white lamppost across the street, she saw the bricked side of the alleyway across from her house unfold from itself into the form of a tall, thin man. She blinked. The beads on her necklace clacked together as she pulled up her glasses hanging from her neck onto the bridge of her nose.

The man smiled at her, and tipped his head. He was wearing a strange coloured jacket (she preferred brown, beige, and black), but she smiled back anyway. Not enough of the young men were polite anymore. Some came through the street every few weeks or so, and threw rocks through her windows.

When she looked closer, the man was gone. She leaned closer to the window and looked left and right, but he wasn't there. It was as if he had vanished into the night air like mist.

"Mum, do you need any help with the tea?" her daughter called out.

Ellen blinked away anything she thought she saw. She hadn't been wearing her glasses anyway. It reminded her she was old. Her feet started aching again.

She reminded herself that she had to pay that electricity bill before the end of the month, and return Mrs Stevens' sewing machine.

"No, I'm right, dear," she called out into the living room, and bustled around her small kitchen, trying to remember where she had put the pot of sugar and the small plate of chocolate biscuits.

Later, after her daughter had left, while she had her feet up to stop them from aching, nursing a fresh cup of tea, she would hear the sound of breaking glass from the kitchen. She would shout at the blasted teens to stop, and shake out her hearing aid because of a persistent whining that seemed to pierce the back of her head. She would waddle out into the kitchen, and tut at the glass strewn across the floor. She would notice the grated bars on the window bent and twisted out of shape like pieces of driftwood. She would see the dark, shadow-like shape perched on the counter. Her bead necklace would clack as she raised her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose, and she would drop the tea cup in horror as the beast rushed at her.

But for now let her enjoy talking to her daughter about the orchids she keeps on her bedroom windowsill, and laugh about the stories her daughter reminds her of, when they were all younger, and her husband was still alive. When they all jumped in Lake Michigan on holiday, and drank tea in tiny cups, sitting cross-legged on their trampoline.

Let Ellen Holland sneak an extra chocolate biscuit into her mouth while she thinks her daughter isn't looking. Let her worry about nothing more than her electricity bill, and the returning of Mrs Stevens' sewing machine.

Let her remember the thin man in the bright coat she had seen outside her kitchen window, and tell herself she had imagined it all.

Ω

All he had wanted to do was to move to the city he had always dreamed of living in, and die quietly without fuss. He had already bought a small plot in a cemetery. His will was up to date. He had paid for the headstone, and the coffin.

Nothing else seemed to be going to plan.

"What do you mean, you haven't received my reservation?" he asked the small woman behind the reception counter.

"We haven't received your reservation," the woman said around her piece of gum.

"Yeah, I got that part. Can you check again? It's under Capooche. Martin Capooche. C-A-P…"

As he recited his name out to the receptionist he found himself glancing over her shoulder at the statue on the wall. It was a man holding the world in his outstretched palms. He assumed it was meant to be depicted as loving and caring. But there was some glint in the statue's eyes that he wasn't sure if the artist had intended to put there. It looked self-satisfied. Like it had just pulled a practical joke. Capooche felt his stomach twist.

"Pardon?" he said.

"I said, you're not in the system. We haven't received your reservation."

"I have the receipt on my phone," he said. He pulled out his phone. It was out of battery. "It's out of battery," he said.

The receptionist raised an eyebrow. "Sure it is," she seemed to say.

He showed her the dead screen. "Just let me charge it," he said. "Do you have a power point?"

"Yeah," she said, "there's one here."

Capooche went to hand his phone over, but stopped as he remembered something. "Wait I don't have a charger," he said. It was still sitting in the power point above his hospital bed. He cursed to himself. He'd known he'd forgotten something. "Can I borrow one?" he asked.

"Sorry," she said. "Android." She shook her phone at him. She didn't look sorry at all.

"Well is there another room you could book me into?" He could get his money back later. He was sure the payment had gone through.

The woman stared at him. She chewed her piece of gum. Capooche clenched his fists. Took a deep breath. Gritted his teeth into a semblance of a smile. "Please," he said.

"Let me check for you," she said flatly. She looked down at her computer screen, and tapped at the keyboard with her two pointer fingers. "Yep," she said.

"What are they?"

"Let me check for you," she said.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"We got a suite," she said.

"Nothing else?"

"Let me check for you." Capooche had a headache. "Nope."

"Okay then, thank you for your lovely help," he said, and walked away.

"You don't want the suite?" The receptionist called out after him.

"No, I do not want the fucking suite," he muttered under his breath.

As he limped out the sliding doors of the hotel, trading smooth white marble floors with gum-spotted dirty pavement, he admitted that maybe he hadn't thought the move through. He hadn't even gone back to his apartment to pack. Just signed the discharge papers, threw out the shiny medal the police had traded him for his job, thanked his nurse, and booked his flight to L.A. and a week in a hotel to give him time to find somewhere more permanent. No, he'd thought he'd booked himself into a hotel.

So maybe he'd rushed it. But without the police work he just hadn't had anything left to stay for. He didn't want to rattle around his too-large apartment, sleeping alone in his too-large bed until he died. He looked around at the L.A. street. He was glad he had moved here, he told himself. A man brushed past him, making him stagger. Glad.

He limped his way up the street to the traffic lights. Taxis honked. People walked past wearing too much and too little He looked behind him at the hotel name proudly lit up on the top of the building in red. He flipped it the finger.

All he had were the clothes on his back, and the money left in his bank account. And the cane too, he supposed.

He looked down at it clutched with his left hand. He hated the damn thing. He'd refused to use it until Alice, the nice nurse whose eyes always seemed to be laughing, had put her hands on her hips, declared him as be being childish, and told him stop wasting all of their time and use the damned cane.

He lifted the cane off the ground, and tentatively stepped forward with his left foot, and shifted his weight forward. His leg buckled, he fell to the pavement. The cane clattered to the ground out of reach. Why had he thought he could do that?

He tried to lift himself up, but he couldn't. He rolled over onto his back and looked up at the sky. The stars were hidden by pollution. The streetlights shone in his face like shiny pennies. People brushed past him, like water flowing around a rock in a river.

"Sir, are you okay?" a police officer was standing over him. Shoes bright and shiny. Burnished bronze badge proudly displayed on her hip.

He didn't have the heart to answer at first.

She pressed his cane into his hand, and helped him lever himself to his feet.

"Sorry," he said. He smiled wryly at her. "Just a foolish old man."

"No worries," she said. "You keep yourself safe." She walked away, radio crackling like electricity.

"Just a foolish old man," he repeated quietly to himself.

Someone else jostled him from behind.

He needed a drink.

Ω

By the time she arrived at the crime scene, forensics were already finishing up. The house was cordoned off with tape. Two police cars had their lights flashing. A small group of nosy teens stood as close as they could get, a police officer with his hands on hips standing in front of them. The teens were laughing, one of the ones at the back was jumping up and down, trying to see the crime scene.

Further away, another policeman stood with a crying woman wrapped in a foil blanket. Another policeman stood at the scene. He was the one she walked up to.

"Talk to me," Chloe said. The policeman had close cropped hair, which he ran his hands over nervously, his hat tucked under his arm. He had large, bushy eyebrows, and a large nose.

"Jesus…" he trailed off. "I've never seen anything like it –"

Chloe put her hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at her. His eyes flicked away and down. "Just the facts," she said gently.

The policeman raised himself up, took a deep breath. "Body has been identified by the daughter as Ellen Holland, 85, retiree. The daughter left the scene around 10pm after having dinner and tea with her mother, came back when she realised she'd left her phone behind, and found the body. That was around 10:30. We got here at 10:37 to lock down the scene."

"Any other witnesses?" Chloe asked. "Neighbours that saw anything?"

The policeman shook his head. "You'll have to do a full canvas later."

Chloe thanked him as one of the forensics brought her a white suit to avoid contaminating the scene. Chloe recognised her as Julie, they'd worked together before.

"Jesus, Decker," Julie said, as Chloe stepped into the suit. "It's bad."

"How bad?" she asked.

"You have to see it to believe it." Julie shook her head. "I haven't seen anything like this before. Ever." Chloe frowned, Julie had worked as a forensic for over 20 years. She'd seen some shit. If she was shaken… "It barely looks human," Julie said, while she checked over the back of Chloe's suit to make sure it had been done up correctly.

"I've seen some killers before who have barely been human."

"Not the killer. The vic. The body…" Julie trailed off, and Chloe stood there awkwardly shuffling from foot to foot.

"Thanks for the heads up," she said eventually. "Is there anyone left inside?"

"Ella's just finishing up. We haven't found much, no fingerprints, no fur –"

"Fur?" Chloe frowned. "What does fur have to do with a murder?"

Julie sighed. "Ella can fill you in. I'm heading home for a glass of wine. Or maybe a bottle."

Chloe entered the house with trepidation. The first thing she noticed when she stepped inside was the smell of blood, copper and metallic, that coated the back of her throat. The front door wasn't tampered with as far as she could tell. So the killer had either had a key, managed to pick the lock, or had entered through another way.

The entrance way was covered with floral wallpaper. There was a small cabinet next to the door against the wall with an old black and white photograph on it. It was a picture of a man, woman and their child. The couple were smiling but the child was squinting as if they were looking into the sun.

Chloe stepped through into the lounge room. It was small, but looked comfortable, with a leather couch taking up most of the room. The couch looked deep, like you could sit in it and sink all the way to the floor. There was a small plate of biscuits on the table in front of the couch. One was sitting askew, a large bite taken out of it. A few crumbs were scattered on the table.

Chloe looked through the open door on the right and saw the body. If you could even call it that anymore. Her stomach rose up, and Chloe swallowed it back down. The body had been ripped apart. Blood splattered the entire kitchen. The forensics team had started putting down little markers for each patch of blood, but Chloe could see that they'd given up after the first dozen or so.

A wrinkled hand, with bracelets on it was lying in the kitchen sink. Chloe had to step over the other arm to get into the room.

"Jesus Christ," Chloe said.

"It's something isn't it?" Ella poked her head out from where she was crouching out of sight, on the other side of the fridge. "Hey, Chloe."

Chloe didn't answer. Just stared around the room. She noticed glass on the kitchen bench. The window bars were bent inwards like they had been melted and sculpted away from the window. The window curtains fluttered in the light breeze. The curtains had once been white.

They weren't anymore.

"You'll get used to it eventually," Ella said. She motioned with her gloved hand around the room. "It just kind of blends into the scenery after a while. You know, like when you buy a nice painting and hang it on your wall, and you notice it for the first couple of weeks, and you're like 'oh that's a nice painting' but after another month or so, you don't notice it anymore."

Chloe shook her head. "No, it's not really like that."

Ella paused, looked around the room, and her eyes seemed to go dark for a second. "No, not really."

"What kind of person could have done this?" Chloe said.

Ella shook her head. "Definitely not a person. I've never seen anything like this before. It looks like some sort of animal attack, but the bite marks we've managed to see… it would have to have huge jaws, and really, really large teeth. Like a mix between a sabre-tooth tiger and an elephant."

Chloe paused. She glanced around the room. "Was… anything eaten?"

"What?"

"Are any of her organs missing?" Chloe asked.

"No," Ella said, looking at each organ in question. "Everything's here."

"What kind of animal doesn't eat its victim?" Chloe asked.

Ella shrugged. "The whole thing is pretty strange… like how it broke into one house on the street, ripped a woman to death, and then managed to go out the same way it came in without anyone seeing it."

"The window…" Chloe tip-toed closer to the window, stepping over body parts, and things she didn't want to look at. It was as if someone had twisted the window grating apart as simply as a paperclip.

She looked behind her at Ella, who was bent over. Chloe noticed her necklace swinging out from her neck. It was the shape of a sickle moon. Ella stood up, tucking the necklace away. She walked up to Chloe. Chloe could smell Ella's perfume mixing with the smell of blood, and swallowed down before she gagged. She knew if she started feeling sick, she wouldn't stop until her whole stomach had been emptied.

Ella pointed at the window bars. "Look at the corners, how they're twisted. It's like a child bent them apart like play-dough."

"An animal was meant to have done this?"

"Yeah. I don't know. But hey," Ella punched Chloe lightly on her shoulder. "Knowing's your job."

Ella looked behind Chloe at the door, and Chloe turned too. There was no one there. "Where's Lucifer?" Ella asked.

"Said he couldn't work tonight, he wants to manage his club."

Ella looked at the decapitated head of Ellen Holland lying in the kitchen sink. "Lucky him," she said.

Ω

A group thronged outside the club, smoking, and leaning against the building. Large golden letters stood out incandescent on the side of the building: LUX. Young, attractive men and women, coked-up and half-drunk, shouted, and shuffled, and laughed within the confines of the roped off queue, heads bobbing like a choppy sea.

The street in front of the club was busy. A pair of police officers patrolled outside, stoic and stone-faced to what was happening around them. Capooche saw a woman throwing up onto the sidewalk. A group of friends staggered on the pavement, suddenly moving right to dodge the vomit, looking like a drunk puppeteer had lifted them up and moved them sideways. They collided with another group. They both started posturing, shouting insults at each other, wild-eyed, looking for a fight.

The police officers came in to intervene, and one boy was handcuffed, and led to the back of the parked police van, while both parties took the time out to laugh and jeer at him.

His leg had started aching as soon as he had started walking, after the policewoman had helped him up. So he had settled on the closest place he could get a drink, and found this. It wasn't really his scene, he conceded, as the girl from earlier threw up again onto the shoes of one of her friends. But as long as it served alcohol, it would do.

Capooche leaned on his cane, and waited in the line. The place was popular. He had already been waiting for ten minutes.

When he reached the front of the line, the bouncer looked him up and down and started laughing.

"Yo, yo, Jimmy, come and get a look at this." The bouncer waved over one of his friends who had been standing next to the line, smoking. "Grandpa's night out!" The bouncer said.

Jimmy laughed. Cigarette smoke blew into Capooche's face.

Capooche sighed. "At least I don't get carded anymore," he said.

The bouncer laughed. "True that. You have a good night, sir." He unhooked the rope in front of Capooche, and beckoned at the next person in line. Capooche limped forward.

Behind him, the bouncer's friend muttered something Capooche couldn't hear, and him and the bouncer both dissolved into laughter.

"Grandpa my ass," Capooche muttered.

He stepped into the club and entered a whole different world.

The club smelled like sweat and sex. It pulsed with energy. People grinded and spun and laughed. It was mood-lit, with soft blue and white lighting. Capooche saw people making their way out of the writhing dance-group off to the edges, sweat glowing on bared skin.

The women's dresses were expensive, he could see flashes of gold watches, and he nearly had to blink from the lights shining off all the sparkling jewellery. For a second he thought he saw gauzy wings coming out of the back of one woman, but he blinked and they were gone, some figment of his imagination. The woman smiled and winked at him, probably thinking he had been checking her out. Capooche looked down, scratched at his stubbled face, suddenly aware of his appearance in comparison to the people around him. At least he was wearing a suit. He looked down at his blazer. He picked a piece of lint off the arm and flicked it away. He could remember buying it what must be twenty years ago

He pushed his way through the crowd up to the bar, pushed himself up onto a seat and leant his cane next to him.

He turned his neck from the bar, looking behind him. There were two levels to the club, but from outside, the building had looked taller. Maybe there was a third, private level?

"Whiskey. Double-shot," Martin Capooche said to the bartender.

"What kind of whiskey?" The young bartender spoke loudly over the music. Capooche wriggled on the bar-stool, trying to get comfortable. His cane fell from where he had leant it against the bar, clattering onto the floor. He cursed, but left it there for the meantime.

"The cheap kind that will get me drunk."

The bartender nodded, and Capooche could see him imagining what could happen later–having to call the bouncer on the rowdy drunk old man, raving about immigrants and the good old days. Capooche snorted.

The whiskey poured out in a golden arc into the glass. Capooche raised it to the bartender in thanks, who nodded cautiously. Capooche took a sip and grimaced.

It tasted cheap. But it would get him drunk. He took another sip.

A few people stood on the second level, behind a railing. Capooche noticed a young woman (a girl, really) with a plunging neckline. He looked away to the left, embarrassed. His gaze landed on a man, leaning down on the railing, surveying the whole club. The lights slid across his suit. It was expensive. He wore it well. The man was stubbled, the kind of stubble that only looked good with a chiselled jaw, on a younger man. Capooche could remember a time when he could have pulled it off.

Their eyes met. His eyes were dark.

The man raised a tumbler of something. Capooche raised his own glass in response, and took another sip. When he looked back up, the man was already looking away. He turned sideways, sidling up to the woman Capooche had seen earlier.

He opened with something that made her laugh.

Capooche chuckled into his drink, and shook his head. He wished the man luck.

For a moment he reminisced on his younger days. Chasing girls, drinking too much, driving five hours away with a group of friends to jump off cliffs, and light large fires on the cliff tops, hanging up their clothes on sticks to dry.

He tipped the rest of the whiskey back, and set the glass carefully down. It was a different time back then.

Capooche looked for the bartender, trying to flag him for another drink, but the bartender was busy chatting up a group of young women to the left of him, large arms rested on the bar, leaning forward with intent. Capooche saw him glance down one of the girl's tops.

Capooche trailed his fingers across the oiled, shining wooden bar-top. Something Capooche had noticed was that there was no metal he could see in the club. It was mostly dark wood, some black matte substance, and glittering glass.

It was quite classy, he admitted.

Perhaps the strangest accoutrement he could see was the grand piano sitting alone in the centre of the room. A few couches were scattered around, facing in. Capooche didn't know of many clubs that played much live music. He wondered if it was jazz. He liked jazz.

Capooche swept his hand across the dark grains of the wooden bar top. What had he been thinking, moving to a place like L.A.? He had nothing here. Nothing. He took another drink.

In the corner of his eye he noticed a movement in the air like the heat ripples you see above the road or metal roofs. The ripple shook and then fell apart and now standing there was a tall, slender well-dressed man wearing a purple coat and knee-high leather boots. Capooche shook his head. What was that? He looked down at his drink. Was he already drunk? Had he been spiked? No, it was just a trick of the lighting. Capooche looked up again and the man was looking at him. There was something about that look that made him shiver. Then the man was walking over to him and faster than he thought (how could he move that fast?) the man was in front of him.

"You can see me," the man said. "Why can you see me?" He spoke in a strange accent, a little British, a little American, and something else that Capooche didn't recognise. It was a strange mix.

"What do you mean?" Capooche asked. He brought his hand lower to his belt just in case, but no, of course the gun wasn't there. What were you going to do anyway, Marty? he thought. Shoot him right here in the middle of the club? He wasn't thinking straight.

"What are you?" The man stepped closer to Capooche. His cheekbones were sharp and defined. The lights slid off him, casting one side of his face in shadow. He had the most beautiful face of a man or woman Capooche had seen.

"Me. I'm myself," Capooche said, chuckling nervously. What did the man want? "Can I buy you a drink or something?"

The man didn't answer him; gave no indication of having heard him. He leant in closer. Wait was he sniffing? Was the man sniffing him?

"Human," he said. "How can that be? What human in this century is skilled enough to see through glamour?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Capooche said.

The man looked him in the eyes. His eyes were violet. Coloured contacts? They had to be contacts, right? Capooche had never known anyone with eye colour as vibrant as that.

"No, I don't believe you do."

The strange man looked up behind him. Capooche followed his gaze up to the man in the suit Capooche had noticed earlier. The strange man raised two fingers in a salute and the man in the suit started down the stairs.

The man in the suit strode up to them, face like a thundercloud. Capooche leaned back in his chair.

"What are you doing here?" the man in the suit said. He had a British accent and a presence that Capooche couldn't explain. He felt a tingling on the back of his neck and his palms. It was like the man in the suit had a magnet that was pulling all of Capooche's being toward him. It was disconcerting.

The man in the suit motioned to the bartender who immediately poured him a glass of something. The man in the suit paused with his drink nearly to his mouth before he brought it back down again. "Would you like a drink?" he asked.

The tall man smiled, and shook his head. The man in the suit shrugged and downed the drink in one go, then brought the glass down onto the table.

"Hello, Sammael," the tall man said, holding out his hand. "It's been a long time."

The man in the suit's jaw clenched. He didn't accept the handshake.

"It's Lucifer, now, as you well know." He motioned with one hand (his rings flashed brightly) like he was sweeping something foul away from him. "I've put my past behind me. I'm a new person. Not that you would know anything about that, ***********."

His words ended with a sound that rung deeply in Capooche's ears. He winced and grabbed his head. It was high and piercing, like a needle in his brain. Like he'd taken a sip of something too cold or too hot and his bran was freezing and burning at the same time.

"Call me Thistle," the tall man glanced at Capooche. "It's easier for… everyone on this plane. You've been here long enough that you should know that."

"What do you want?" The man –Lucifer asked. What kind of name was Lucifer anyway? Were his parents Satan worshippers? Crazy people? Capooche felt bad for eavesdropping, but they were talking right there, beside him. What else was he meant to do?

"I need your protection," Thistle said.

Lucifer laughed, and took a long drink. "What on earth would you need protection from?"

"Hellhounds."

Lucifer jolted. "Impossible. They're barred from earth."

"Not anymore."

"Then…"

"It's collapsing."

"What is?"

"You know what."

The two men paused. Lucifer pulled at his shirt cuffs. He was nervous, Capooche thought.

"Let's take this discussion upstairs," Thistle said gently and laid his hand on Lucifer's shoulder.

Lucifer grabbed Thistle's wrist in a blur of motion. His teeth were gritted. When Capooche looked up into his eyes they seemed to glow with a terrible light. He found himself trembling. "No," Lucifer snarled. "I will not go back begging to my father for his forgiveness or his help like a naughty child!"

Everyone around him paused. The bartender looked up from where he was pouring drinks, a woman nearby stopped dancing and back away. The club was held in suspension like everything was made of water.

Thistle smiled. "I meant upstairs, upstairs." He motioned toward the balcony with his free hand, and the water fell down and Capooche breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh," Lucifer said. "Well. Yes, of course." He let go of the other man's wrist. "After you." He beckoned Thistle in front of him.

Capooche watched them walk away. Well that had been interesting, he thought. And as he stood up, and slipped the last note in his wallet under his glass, he found himself strangely relieved that the men were walking away and that he would never had to see either of them again.

The tall man stopped and looked over his shoulder. "You too, mortal," he said.

"What?" Lucifer asked. "What's he for? A late-night refreshment?"

"I'm the wrong species," the man said. "Trust me on this. He could prove useful."

Capooche stood there paused, listening to the men talk about him and felt like a crack in the sidewalk. So he snatched up his cane while they were still arguing and walked up to them without limping at all.

"So," he said brightly. "What now?"

Ω

A/N: I started writing this fic because I am disappointed in the direction the show has taken. I wanted Lucifer to dive headlong into the supernatural and fantasy instead of being just another crime procedural comedy.

Updates will be sporadic but large. If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a review and tell me what you liked! If you didn't enjoy this chapter, please leave a review and tell me what I can improve on.

~WCW

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