24. Chapter 24

Bizarrely, Agent Johnson actually led Lilith to the interrogation room where they were keeping Amenadiel, and Chloe had also been allowed to tag along, much to her amazement.

Dan had fussed about being allowed to come too, but Agent Price had kept him in the waiting room with a few comments on the power of the maternal appeal over patriarchal anger. Chloe ignored it all.

Trixie Trixie Trixie

“Are you really going to let me question him?” She didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it was highly unprofessional to say the least and she didn’t want to prejudice their chances of a conviction after the mess was over and she had her daughter back.

She would get her daughter back.

“We’ve already worked him over thoroughly,” Johnson admitted as they passed through another corridor. “The man’s a brick wall for all we can get out of him. Time is running out, so yes, if you can leverage your acquaintance, or play on his guilt, I’m going to let you try. We’ll sort the paperwork later. It’s all-in right now.”

“And her?” Chloe nodded to Lilith who strode ahead as if she already knew where they were going. Chloe refused to follow that thought to its logical conclusion, because there were some things that she was wise and jaded enough to turn a blind eye to. For now.

“She’s trouble, but they clearly have a history, so I’ll try that too. I’m also very curious about Mr Morningstar’s rather motley crew of friends. Aren’t you?”

Chloe kept her face blank. “No.”

“Is that so? Hmm, well, I’m sure I’ll learn something interesting from this, one way or the other.”

She was still mulling over the nuances of that sentence as they arrived outside the interrogation room.

Lilith took one look at Amenadiel – sitting at the desk, chained wrists on his lap, head bowed – and burst into laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Agent Johnson asked sharply.

Lilith dismissed him with a wave of her hand, still hunched over and cackling. She gasped a few breaths and forced herself upright with a visible effort. She was blazing with inner mirth; her eyes alight with cruel delight.

Chloe refused to take a step back. Even though she wanted to. Once again, she was forcefully reminded that there was something not right with this woman.

“I suppose you can’t see it, yet, Detective, but trust me when I say Amenadiel has been punished more brutally than Lucifer ever would have permitted. I must report this immediately to my Lord. Fare thee well.”

With that, she turned back the way they came and prowled off.

Chloe sighed. Why, out of all of that, was it the word yet she found most disturbing?

#

“I wondered when you would come.”

Chloe lowered herself down into the metal chair opposite Amenadiel, the stark desk between them too close to the man who had caused her so much pain, and too far for her to get her hands around his throat before the watchers stopped her.

She had no time for bullshit. Trixie had no time.

“Where is she, Amenadiel?”

Desolate eyes met her own. Chloe knew then that Lilith had been right; Amenadiel was suffering something awful. She’d never seen such a deep, hopeless despair before except maybe once, in Lucifer’s fathomless eyes, but Amenadiel had none of Lucifer’s inconsolable rage to fight that blackness.

She saw, acknowledged, and found that she didn’t give a shit. Let him suffer. Let him feel a fraction of her pain. He deserved it and worse, far far worse.

“Odd. I thought your first question would be ‘Why did you do it?’”

He sounded so…stilted, uncaring. It was appalling. How could anyone do something so vile and not care.

“Lucifer told me why,” she said, testing, “Orders and opportunity. Was he right?”

Lucifer hadn’t quite said it like that, but it was near enough.

Amenadiel looked at her, cool and dispassionate. As if she was the bug that he was considering pinning to a board for display.

“Lucifer.” He huffed. “I thought I sensed his taint on you. I hope whatever you bartered was worth the cost. There’ll be no forgiveness for dealing with him you realise? Not even if you beg from now till your dying day.”

Would engaging him in this nonsense be quicker than demanding answers? Chloe didn’t know. Agent Johnson had said Amenadiel was like a stone, but he was at least talking to her. Playing it out it was then.

“There was no cost.”

Except, she’d been thinking, and remembering and wondering if…if, always if.

“No?” Amenadiel leaned forward and smiled at her, pityingly. “You needed something, more than you’ve ever needed anything in your life and your mind went instantly to my fallen brother. That wasn’t coincidence, Chloe, nor friendship. It was temptation. In a moment of weakness, you spake unto the Devil and you said please.”

He sat back, darkly satisfied, and unease nipped at the edges of Chloe’s mind. If only he didn’t sound so bloody sure. It was madness, and yet…if.

She pushed her queasy meanderings down. No matter the religious trappings, Amenadiel was doing something she’d seen many a time in these rooms. He was trying to distract her by turning the questioning around. The petty thief hadn’t managed it, and neither had the rapist – Amenadiel wouldn’t be the one that did.

Personal as the situation was, Chloe was good at compartmentalising. If she aside her doubts and anger (she didn’t even try to set aside her fear for Trixie, knowing it to be impossible) then Amenadiel was just another suspect, and when they got upset, they slipped up and made mistakes.

Amenadiel was usually reserved, controlled and calm. Add Lucifer, and he got violent, emotional and downright mean.

The whole family had issues, surprise surprise.

She mentally drew it all back, pared it down to the bare facts. What did she know?

Fact: Amenadiel had orders to bring Lucifer back into the fold.

Fact: Lucifer had gone.

Fact: Amenadiel was pleased about that.

Fact: Lucifer now used family resources to rescue Trixie.

Fact: Amenadiel had used family resources to grab Trixie.

Fact: Two branches of the same Family now worked against each other.

That couldn’t be wise, Chloe thought, nor good for profits or reputation. She’d never heard of the Castello family, but presumably double crossing them would have consequences…

Was this the beginning of some sort of civil war?

It didn’t fit. Lucifer’s Family was terrifyingly vast, and amazing at covering their tracks. It was at conspiracy levels (and she suddenly had a lot more sympathy for all of those conspiracy theorists online and their tinfoil hats). They didn’t do clumsy – and civil war was bad for business.

Fact: Amenadiel called Lucifer the favourite son.

“You got kicked out.”

Chloe knew she was right when Amenadiel’s face twisted in to a sneer.

“You know nothing.”

Lilith must have been able to tell. Some missing bit of jewellery, or the cut of his clothes, or sign Chloe didn’t have the knowledge to recognise. This Father figure – she refused to call him God even inside her own mind – had sacrificed Amenadiel to reel Lucifer back in. A ‘seraphim’ for an ‘archangel’ or a pawn traded for a queen. Ruthless, logical and profitable, just what she’d expect from the sort of man who could create and run such an awful business; the sort of man who could burn Lucifer’s back.

Pushing here wasn’t the solution though; Amenadiel was too hurt and still too loyal for any sort of plea bargain to work.

She changed tact.

“Why Trixie?”

“Why?” He laughed, a sour scalded thing, “Do you really not know?”

She stared at him evenly. “I really don’t.” Sure, Mazikeen had said Trixie was the only child Lucifer could be made to care about – but did Amenadiel see it the same way, or was there another motive?

“Lucifer would not listen to me, not even when I carried the Word of our Father. He would not do his duty. If he no longer cares for Father, then he cares for nothing or so I thought until he found you.”

“You’ll forgive me if I doubt I’m the only woman with children Lucifer cares for,” Chloe said dryly.

“Do you think my brother cares for any of the women he lures to his bed?”

For a man who professed to be his brother, he clearly didn’t know Lucifer very well. Lucifer was a hedonist of the highest order, but he didn’t use women. They wanted to be there; honestly, it was like no man but Lucifer believed a woman could just want good sex too.

“He loves all of them,” Chloe smiled in the face of Amenadiel’s disbelief. She knew, and that was enough.

“How very like a daughter of Eve,” Amenadiel sighed, actually looking disappointed in her, and yep, apparently she could despise him more.

“Lucifer cares for no-one but you,” Amenadiel explained, slowly and clearly as if he was speaking to a foreign child. “A mistake he wouldn’t usually make, but he’s been away from his mantle too long. The lack of it seems to be warping his nature. I was contemplating the problem when I sensed the man you call The Collector. I knew then it was a sign.”

She had a choice to make. Query the Collector, or Lucifer?

Trixie.

“How did you meet the Collector?” Chloe asked quietly, adding, “How did you know it was a sign?” Hopefully, that tallied with his delusions.

“A man who preys on children without hurting them? It was obvious.”

Chloe counted backwards from ten, slowly, in German, twice.

“Do you really believe Trixie isn’t hurt?” She seethed, fists clenching so hard her knuckles protested instantly.

Amenadiel ignored her.

“And it worked. You went to Lucifer, and he went for his mantle.” Amenadiel’s face fell then. “What went wrong? Why hasn’t Lucifer gone home? Why am I being punished? I don’t understand. Father, please, help me. Help me to see the path I should walk.”

As he drifted off into la-la land, looking as miserable and confused as a child, Chloe knew she’d lost him.

Fuck.

#

Outside the interrogation room, the gathered agents watched, listened and learned.

“So it was about Mr Morningstar,” Michaels said, leaning against the back wall.

“This is worse that we thought though. He talks as if the Collector is the sideshow to the fraternal drama.” Price added, sipping at yet another coffee.

“Means to an end or not, our mission is the same. The Collector. What have we learned?”

“Amenadiel is in contact with him.”

“He was in contact. I don’t get the impression they’re in cahoots. More like Amenadiel pushed or asked him to take Trixie and that was the end of it. No continuing relationship. His goal is very clearly Morningstar and this…mantle.”

“Somehow, I get the impression we aren’t talking fireplaces.”

“No, he uses the word in the traditional sense. When one chief falls, they take the ‘mantle’ of chief and put it onto the shoulders of the son who is from that moment chief; A heavy cloak, a necklace or torque, a symbol. When he says mantle, he means some sort of role, position – power.”

They all mulled that over for a while.

In the back of his mind, agent Johnson thought about wolves.

“We also know religion and guilt are important to Amenadiel. That particular play worked so we should keep at it.”

“We’ve established a connection too. He’s obviously willing to talk to her.”

A pause.

“That’s the second man we’ve had in an interrogation room convinced that Morningstar is the Devil.”

Another pause.

Wolves when the breed was extinct. A man who was mauled to death not thirty feet from where he stood and no one heard a sound. Two men driven to madness. His own strangely loose tongue. The wary reactions of the locals. The lack of records. The aura of danger.

Impossible, only…No. He turned away from the one-way mirror.

“It’s been a long few days. We’re all tired. Let’s not lose focus now. We need to know how Amenadiel met the Collector. The extent of the Castello’s involvement. I want more research on Amenadiel and Morningstar. I want-“

#

Anon: 13.00. L found Boss. Said A there. Boss will deal with A later. Plan A not looking likely. Plan B still ready. Stay strong. Next update 14.00.

Anon: 14:00. Plan A scrapped. Plan B a go. Busy. Next update 15.00.

Anon: 15.00. We’re ready. FBI on way to you. Texts too risky now. See you on other side.

666: Fear not. I will return your daughter to your arms today. I just… please, Detective, don’t hate me when you find out. I’ll see you soon, with spawn. Lucifer.

#

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