Chapter Text
Chloe ended the call, letting the phone drop to her side. “You heard,” she said. “I’ve set the hook. They’ve got my cell number now.” She’d originally worried about using her phone but she was already revealing her identity, so she could only count on Lucifer and Maze to protect Trixie from any repercussions. Well, that duo and their allies.
She looked around. “Thank you for finding the phone number,” she said.
“Hey, no biggie,” Ella said. “I mean, really, it wasn’t hard at all. I just needed to figure out who the website was registered to.” She shrugged.
“Well, anyway, thank you. Thank you to you, too,” Chloe added, addressing the tall, bearded balding priest who was standing in the middle of Lucifer’s living room.
Father Kinley blinked at her. “All I did was confirm he was a leading member of the Order,” he said.
“Still,” Chloe said, giving him a brief smile, “it helped me know who to call.” She sighed, “even if I… we… don’t know who will come to the meeting.”
“I’m uneasy about that,” Lucifer said, clearing his throat. He was busying himself by the bar that was backed by the many bottles. He wasn’t, for once, making drinks. Instead, he was polishing some of the glasses, using that as a focus for his restless energy.
“I’m truly uncomfortable with you meeting one… or more… of the priests from the Order, Detective,” Lucifer said. “And why at that church, of all churches,” he added.
Chloe shrugged. “We need to lure them in,” she said soberly. “So, when and where isn’t something we can exactly dictate. At least we know the conditions of the churn, don’t we?”
Lucifer snorted. “If you mean dilapidated and next to abandoned, then, yes, we do!”
“And I’m not going to be alone,” she pointed out.
Lucifer sighed, feeling restrained in giving full voice to his reluctance… his doubts as to Father Kinley’s sincerity, his good faith.
But as Chloe reminded him, his own reputation wasn’t the best either, yet he was true for all that.
“I’d be happier if it wasn’t the two of us, myself,” Father Kinley said.
Lucifer hummed as Chloe said, “since they know about Lucifer, he has to be visibly elsewhere, or they might suspect it’s a trap.”
Lucifer and Kinley both sighed at that, a momentary bond that brought their eyes wryly together… and gave Lucifer a warmer sense of hope.
“Still,” Kinley said anxiously. “They already know my opposition… once I am introduced, what good will I be?”
“For one, you’ll be a witness,” Chloe said tartly. “I would hope that will give them pause, so they can listen to me!”
“I still wish you would let me accompany you,” Lucifer said.
“I know,” Chloe replied, “but you agree that you would be at Lux… performing… when we met them.”
Lucifer sighed dramatically but smiled wryly, too, as she rolled her eyes. “As you wish.”
When Chloe pulled into the parking space next to the church, it was her turn to look dubious. “It’s worse than I expected,” she said. “What… what is this? I don’t recognize it.”
Kinley looked at the dilapidated church. “it’s not an active church, but it hasn’t been deconsecrated yet,” he said. “It likely will be, but it’s status right now… well, would ‘limbo’ be a bit on the nose?” he suggested wryly. “I looked it up,” he added as she raised her eyebrows. “It’s pending deconsecration,” he said, “like the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana, though I’m not sure why. Vibiana was damaged by an earthquake, I read,” he said, “but I’m not sure why this one has been,” he added, his brow furrowed in uncertainty.
“Have you been to LA before?” Chloe asked.
No,” Kinley said. “I just like to learn all I can about the cities I visit. And in this case,” he sighed, “forewarned is forearmed….”
Chloe nodded, opening the door of her cruiser to get out. Kinley hastened to follow her example.
As they walked up to the dilapidated looking building, she muttered to herself, “you could’ve fooled me.”
At Kinley’s quizzical expression, she said, “that looks fairly damaged.” She pointed at the front door which look askew on its hinges. Slipping inside, there were more signs of disorder, in the form of disarranged pews and a large, discolored blotch on the floor next to the organ. There was no odor or sign of the building have been used by any homeless as a refuge or a toilet, though.
After they walked up the nave to stand near the organ, Chloe and Kinley both looked around, Kinley pursing his lips.
They heard a scrape and turned to look towards the sound, to see three men clad in clerical black emerging from a side chapel.
“Chloe Decker?” one of the men said, with a deep voice and a high forehead. “I am Father Deitrick. This is Father O’Halloran, and Father Vivian Errata.” His eyes went to Chloe’s companion. “I don’t know your… friend. We weren’t expecting you to bring a priest of your own. I thought you wanted… counseling.”
Chloe cleared her throat. “I said I knew the truth… and we needed to talk.”
“The truth about your partner, Lucifer Morningstar,” Father Deitrick continued. “That he is, in truth, the Devil.”
“Yes,” Chloe said, nodding. “That he is the… angel you call the Devil… but he is not evil, he punishes evil.”
The three priests looked cynically unbelieving. One made a scoffing sound. “The great deceiver… the father of lies.”
“No, the most lied about figure in history!” Chloe retorted.
“Proof that you are deceived!” said Father O’Halloran, his face wrinkling in disgust.
“No! Proof that she has eyes to see and ears to hear!” Father Kinley said. “Rather than repeat hoary old stories, she has examined the evidence of today in the clear light of day and the spirit of honest inquiry!”
The three priests looked at him with frowns on their faces. “And who are you to contract us?” said Father Deitrick, with a dismissive tone.
“I am Father William Kinley,” Kinley replied. “A former member of the Order, myself!”
One of the priests, Chloe wasn’t sure if it was Deitrick or O’Halloran, muttered “apostate!”
Kinley flushed. “An honest inquirer,” he said in reply. “Again, I looked at the evidence!”
The trio they faced off against sneered in reply.
Chloe drew herself up to her full height and said, “What is your evidence? Hearsay written down centuries ago, full of inuendo and assertion!”
“The word of holy men! Of priests and prophets and experienced inquisitors!” Deitrick affirmed in a fierce voice. “The Word of God’s servants! Exorcists with a thousand years’ experience driving out possessing demons! What matter the flesh when the soul is liberated from damnation!”
“Error is still error, whatever your intentions tend to be,” Kinley retorted. “And blood and terror will drive anyone to lie… to confess anything… just to bring it to an end!”
“Blasphemy!” one of the other priests said. “Holy scripture tells us to cast out demons! We cannot betray our faith for mere ‘kindness!” He practically spat out the last word.
“We suspected you were a snare,” Father O’Halloran said, drawing a bottle from one pocket. “We didn’t think you’d bring a renegade to help you,” he added, “but we are prepared to do our duty.”
“I won’t allow you to hurt her,” Father Kinley asserted in a firm voice. “It may be years since I tossed a caber, but I’m certainly ready to toss you lot around!”
“You won’t,” hissed Father Vivien Errata, pointing a pistol at him. “We didn’t expect you, but we’re prepared for you. And with the Devil busy at his nightclub, he’s not here to protect either of you!”
“Saint Michael will guide us in our holy duty,” Father Deitrick said. “When the fire consumes this building and your bodies, we will prepare the same for the Den of Iniquity!”
O’Halloran grinned at them as Chloe realized that the scent she’d detected from the neck of the bottle in O’Halloran’s hand wasn’t polish, but gasoline, her eyes now fixed on the rags that stuck out of the neck of the bottle in his left hand… and the lighter in his right hand.
“You can’t!” she said.
“We will, and God will bless us for it!” Deitrick sententiously proclaimed.
“You won’t… and He won’t,” a flat voice rang across the room. “I won’t permit it.”
Everyone’s eyes snapped towards the nave, where a tall saturnine figure stood, half in the shadows. Then he shifted and his face was illuminated, showing a calm but bleak face, with a close-cropped scruff.
“Saint Michael protect us!” Father Vivian Errata exclaimed. “The Devil himself!”
“Stand back! I’ll burn her!” Father O’Halloran said, raising the bottle threateningly, as his thumb clicked away at the lighter.
“You already plan to do so, so how does repeating your threat deter me?”
Father Deitrick began to recite something in Latin but broke off when the dark figure in the nave interrupted him.
“Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio; contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli este prasedium…”
“I am not a saint! And why you would try to invoke me against myself makes no sense at all!”
Father Kinley, still standing between the pistol-wielding priest and Chloe Decker, blinked at both the words and the flat American accent they were spoken in.
“It’s Michael,” Chloe said in a relieved voice. “Lucifer’s twin. He’s a friend.”
Father Kinley blinked again, the key to his surprise being that detective Decker described him as a friend.
“You lie!” shouted Father Deitrick. “You… you’re the Devil!”
“No, that’s the name you fastened on my fallen brother,” Michael said. “I have to say I’m no more fond of it as a title then he is.”
“I was trying to tell these… these idiots that Lucifer’s not evil,” Chloe complained. “But they kept talking about their predecessors’ ‘holy words,’ claiming possession’s real…”
Michael frowned.
“I’d tried arguing it wasn’t,” Kinley said, chiming in. “In the past. I was trying again…” he warily looked at the priests armed with a pistol and the Molotov cocktail. “I don’t think I’ve succeeded.”
Michael glanced at him. “You’re Kinley, right? Lucifer told me about you. Seem quite reasonable.” His eyes focused coldly on the other three priests. “You three are… seriously annoying me.”
They started at him with widened eyes, and one kept muttering in Latin.
“Enough!” Michael barked and his sable wings erupted from his back. “You. Are. To. Stop. Exorcising. The. Innocent! And they are all innocent! Demons are not present on earth!”
Chloe mumbled something under her breath, but it was too low to be discernable to the priestly trio. Kinley only caught a word… maze… but thought you might be saying something like ‘you might be amazed…’
“Demonic possession is not a fact! It is not real! My brother has forbidden it and is here to enforce that ban! To protect humanity! So. Leave. Him. Alone!” Michael arched his widespread wings to emphasize his words.
The exorcists hovered for a moment and Chloe held her breath, hoping that they would take Michael’s words to heart. And then the spell broke. One of them, she wasn’t sure which, threw something at Michae as he screamed “Lying Devil!”
Father Vivian Errata turned the gun on her at the same moment that Father O’Halloran flung himself at her, Father Kinley intercepting him before his hands could reach her throat. Chloe didn’t exactly duck, but she couldn’t’ entirely avoid flinching as the priest’s gun fired… but the bullet didn’t reach her. Instead, in that moment there was a “whoosh!” and a flare of white light as wing wings flared into existence, shielding her, though it was accompanied by a grunting sound.
The grunt didn’t come from Lucifer Morningstar, who had suddenly arrived in time to interpose his wing between Chloe and the bullet, it was from Father Vivian Errata, who found a leather-clad demon had just seized him by the throat and was deftly choking the breath… and his ability to threaten Chloe… out of him.
The brief struggled were brought to a close by Father Kinley knocking Father O’Halloran down and sitting on him, twisting his arms behind him, and Michael swatting Father Deitrick on the back of the head with his outstretched wings.
Chloe pocketed her Glock, which she’d drawn but not fired, and took out a pair of handcuffs which she applied to Father O’Halloran. Farther Vivien Errata, though the one who had possessed the gun, wasn’t the one she handcuffed because Maze had clearly subdued him. He lay unconscious but still breathing on the ground.
Maze grinned at Chloe. “Good to see you’re still alive, Decker,” she said with a grin.
“Thanks, Maze,” Chloe said. “Glad you and Lucifer showed up when you did.”
“Yeah, well, Lucifer said his brother was praying to him, so he grabbed me and we popped in… just in time it appears.”
“Thank you, Michael,” Chloe said before looking at Lucifer in alarm. “You’re bleeding!”
“Worth it,” Lucifer managed to gasp out. “Had… had to protect you.”
As Chloe rushed to his side, Michael also moved swiftly, plucking a sable feather from one of his wings and pressing it to Lucifer’s wounded wing.
Lucifer drew a sharp breath, closing his eyes for a moment as a muted glow surrounded him, and then he released a long sigh.
“Thank you, brother,” he said, shooting Michael a look of gratitude.
“Michael said something in a liquid language that Chloe did understand but both brothers smiled at each other with a warm understanding.
Chloe looked around. Maze had now produced two more pairs of handcuffs, and they were being applied to the two priests who had not yet been handcuffed.
“They’re not my personal handcuffs,” Maze told her. “These are my bounty hunter handcuffs,” she explained. “I’ll show you my personal ones later, if you like.” She gave Chloe a salacious grin which just made Chloe shake her head with a laugh.
“No thanks, Maze,” she said. “I’ll pass on the offer.” Then she looked at the three restrained priests. “I’d hoped to avoid this,” she said. “But you’ve left me no choice. I’m arresting you for assault and battery, assault on an officer of the law, conspiracy to do bodily harm… that would be against Lucifer… and possible additional charges once we’ve reviewed the evidence. For now, let me tell you this….” At that, she mirandized the three priests, being careful to get their, however reluctant, acknowledgment that they each understood their rights.
Father Kinley watched this with widened eyes.
“How… I mean,” he began.
“We’ll leave the actual celestial aspects out of this,” Chloe said with a sigh. “We won’t say that Michael or Lucifer are angels; we’ll simply truthfully say we were trying to forestall an attack on him… Lucifer… and that they tried to use a gun in the commission of a crime. Maybe that will deter their colleagues.”
“If not, I’m prepared to have a serious talk with each and every one of them,” Michael said in a menacing tone.
“And Tony called me,” Lucifer added, "saying that he met with his, ah, ‘boss’, and that the Pope had said he was going to issue orders for an immediate suspension of the rite of exorcism, barring any future exorcisms on penalty of expulsion and suspension of holy orders. So, that should be that... at least for the church's official position."
“Took long enough,” Maze muttered.
“I don’t disagree with you, but… be nice, Maze,” Lucifer said, though his grin told both Maze and Chloe that he recognized that Maze was being nice.
“Yeah, well, they should’ve learned to be nice, themselves, long before now,” Maze said in a dry voice. “And as for these clowns, well, it’s not like I’m going to cut anything off or damage them permanently... unless they provoke me.”
Chloe shook her head wryly and pulled out her phone to call for backup to take the priests for booking.