Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The next feeling that drifted into Lucifer's consciousness was a repetitive and quick tapping against his arm. The tapping quickly turned into a squeezing sensation before whatever was squeezing his arm started to shake him a little.
Lucifer let out a loud groan and groggily opened his eyes.
"You're alive!" the blurry and upside-down image of the Detective's spawn appeared above his face. Lucifer slowly sat up causing Trixie to scurry backwards to get out of his way. Lucifer took a look around. They were in a barren room with very little light. The ground was concrete and one of the walls looked like it was corrugated.
"I'm fine," Lucifer put a hand to his head and twisted his torso so he was facing Trixie. His eyes scanned the young girl, "Are you all right?"
"I have a headache, but I'm okay," Trixie assured him, "Where are we?"
Lucifer grunted a little as he rose to his feet. He dusted off his slacks and walked around the room. It wasn't that large, maybe twenty feet by twenty feet – in fact, calling it a room was generous.
"I'm not sure," Lucifer stepped closer to the corrugated "wall."
"But based on this so-called wall, I'd say we're in some sort of storage unit."
"Where are my mom and dad and Miss Ella?" Trixie's voice shook as she stood up and slowly walked closer to Lucifer who looked like he was still inspecting the door.
"I wish I knew," Lucifer replied. He felt along the storage room door. It was solid metal.
"I'm going to try something. Stand back, Child."
Trixie took several steps back from Lucifer and huddled her arms. If anybody could get them to safety and back to her parents and Ella, it would be Lucifer.
Reeling one arm back, Lucifer struck a punch into the door, only succeeding in making a warped, fist-sized dent. Unfortunately, it seemed his supernatural strength was no match for the door, either that or the effects of whatever knocked them all out was still filtering its way out of his system.
"Damn it!" Lucifer swore when nothing came from his plan – well, almost nothing. He looked down at his fist. His knuckles were beet red and his fist started to throb. He was vulnerable.
"At least I know your mother is nearby," Lucifer shook his hand and then cradled it. He pecked a kiss on his knuckles to ease the pain.
"How do you know that?" Trixie asked.
"I hurt my fist from punching the door," Lucifer raised his fist and shook it a little in her direction to emphasize his point.
"What does that have to do with my mom?" Trixie wasn't following.
"Just trust me. The Detective is near," Lucifer said.
"Do you think she's okay? That they're all okay?" Trixie looked up at Lucifer.
"I certainly hope so," Lucifer sighed, "Now, let's see if we can find some way out of here."
"Okay," Trixie agreed, taking Lucifer's lead.
He made his way to the other end of the room. Trixie was right at his heel. There was scarcely any light but both of them could still see. It appeared that their only source of light came from a lone-hanging light bulb in the center of the room on the high ceiling. It only emitted enough light so they could see enough to get around the unit – the completely barren unit. Not even a chair. Nothing that could aid them in an escape. What kind of kidnappers were they dealing with? Not very hospitable.
"Hey, Lucifer," Trixie tugged on his sleeve.
It spoke volumes about their situation that Lucifer didn't comment on her alleged sticky fingers and simply looked down at the girl. He hummed to let Trixie know he heard her before she continued.
"Is that a camera?" Trixie subtly pointed up at the ceiling in the corner.
Lucifer looked up. Sure enough, there was an old-school dome-shaped security camera wedged in the corner focused on the room.
He narrowed his eyes in anger. Just who was observing them?
"Hello?! Bad guys?!" Lucifer exaggeratedly waved at the camera. Trixie stepped behind Lucifer, slightly hugging his waist from behind. It'd probably be best to let the Devil take the lead.
"Why don't we get some face time?! Your face in the ground!" Lucifer yelled at the camera. He gently cupped Trixie's elbow with one hand out of view of the camera, silently letting his Urchin know that he'd protect her. Trixie buried her face in his back, taking comfort in the fact she had the Devil on her side.
~*~
Chloe felt like all of her limbs were trapped under a weighted blanket and her head was stuffed full of cotton. What the hell happened?
"Do you think they're nearby?" Ella's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater to Chloe.
"I don't know… I hope so," came Dan's slightly clearer and louder reply.
Chloe let out a low moan as she put a hand to her head while still lying down.
Dan was the first to notice and quickly dropped down to her level to help her sit up, "Chloe!"
"You okay, Decker?" Ella knelt down on Chloe's other side.
"I think so," Chloe rubbed her temple as she sat up, "Where are we?"
"No clue," Dan shook his head, "A creepy room?"
Chloe closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Now that she was a little more lucid and the cottony feeling was starting to subside, she opened her eyes and took a look at their surroundings. A "creepy room" was an apt description. The ground was concrete and nothing else was in the room but her friends and an old box television set sitting on a wheeled cart. A dim light came from the center of the room – scarcely lighting everything. One wall was actually a door – a corrugated one.
"Are we in a storage unit?" Chloe asked as she tried to get to her feet. Dan and Ella helped her up.
"Looks like it," Ella said, "What do you think happened?"
"Well, we were all knocked out and kidnapped," Dan stated the obvious, "And taken to some storage location. Maybe in an old warehouse or something?"
"Wait a minute… where's Trixie?! Where's Lucifer?!" Chloe whirled her head around the room, frantically searching for her absent daughter and partner.
"I don't know. Hopefully they're okay and nearby," Dan shook his head, "I only woke up like a minute before you. Ella was the first to wake up."
"Yeah, and let me tell you… waking up without knowing where you are with two of your best friends still unconscious and all of your phones missing… NOT. FUN," Ella stated.
"How long do you think we were out?" Chloe wondered.
"Going off of the pounding in my skull…" Ella guessed, "Maybe an hour or two."
"Why would they split us up like this?" Chloe asked.
"Huh?" Dan asked.
"I was just thinking out loud," Chloe explained, "If somebody went through all this trouble to kidnap all of us – why did they split us up? Why not have all of us together?"
"Maybe they didn't abduct all of us and Trixie's with Lucifer someplace safe," Ella hoped, though from the tone in her voice, Chloe could tell that she highly doubted it.
BANG.
"What the hell was that?!" Dan snapped his head toward the loud bang.
"It sounded like it was coming from what would be across the hall – or maybe down the hall," Ella pointed toward the door and walked up to it. She pressed her ear to the metal, "Maybe Lucifer and Trixie are in another unit somewhere across the way."
"But what was that bang?" Chloe asked worriedly.
"Hello?! Bad guys?! Why don't we get some face time?! Your face in the ground!" the trio heard Lucifer's voice faintly coming from somewhere.
Chloe, Ella, and Dan all exchanged glances. That answered their question.
Chloe hurried over next to Ella by the door and called out, "Lucifer!"
Lucifer's attention quickly went from the camera to where he heard the Detective's faint voice yell out.
"Detective?!"
"Mommy!" Trixie ran over to the door. Lucifer quickly followed.
"Trixie?! Are you okay?!" Chloe's voice echoed.
"I'm okay! I'm with Lucifer! Are you okay?! Are Daddy and Miss Ella with you?!" Trixie replied.
"I'm right here, Monkey!" Dan called out. He stood on Chloe's other side.
"Me too!" Ella assured them.
"We're all okay!" Chloe had her palm flat against the corrugation, relief rushing through her that her daughter was as okay as she could be under the circumstances.
"Lucifer! Are you all right?!"
"Nothing a good scotch couldn't cure!" Lucifer returned.
Chloe couldn't help the watery smile escape her lips. In spite of the situation they all found themselves in, Lucifer was still Lucifer. That was a comfort. She looked back at the old box television set sitting on the other end of the room, the gears in her Detective mind turning.
"Do you guys have a television in there with you?!" Chloe asked.
"Television?" Lucifer muttered in confusion. He looked down at Trixie and then back at the camera. Could it be?
"No! No television in here! But turn it on, Detective!"
Chloe furrowed her brows in confusion but trusted her partner enough to follow his lead. She made her way over to the set with Ella following.
"I've got the plug," Ella held it up and quickly began to look for a place to plug it in.
"Detective?!"
"Mom?!"
Lucifer and Trixie called out when there was silence for a beat too long.
"We're plugging the TV in!" Dan called back as a way of explanation.
"Why did you ask my mom to turn on a TV?" Trixie asked.
Lucifer simply pointed back at the camera. Trixie quickly caught on.
"Got it!" Ella found a plug. Chloe had to wheel the set and the cart it was on closer to the wall so Ella could plug it in. Not two seconds after Ella plugged the television in, Chloe quickly turned it on. The screen slowly blinked into life. Right in the center, they could see the backs of Lucifer and Trixie standing by their unit's door in grainy black and white.
"Oh my God, there they are," Chloe placed her hand over her mouth.
"Did you plug it in yet?!" Trixie yelled and Lucifer flinched back at the volume – the same movements mirrored on the TV viewed by their friends. Trixie's words were heard in stereo. Apparently, they had audio.
"We've got it plugged in. We can see you two. Can you guys hear us?" Chloe asked at a slightly more normal volume, but loud enough to be picked up by however the rooms were wired.
Trixie and Lucifer turned around at the sound of Chloe's voice, her question answered. The two of them walked closer to the camera and therefore got closer to their view on the television screen. There must've been a speaker somewhere in their storage units, perhaps blending in with the wall. With any luck, that audio connection went both ways.
"We can hear you," Trixie said a little louder than a normal volume, but not quite yelling.
"Good. We can hear each other without yelling now," Chloe stood directly in front of the television. Ella and Dan were on either side of her.
"Why did our kidnappers make it so that we could hear each other but only have us be able to see you and not the other way around?" Ella brought up a good point.
"Something we might get an answer to soon enough, Miss Lopez," Lucifer said, "That is, if our cheery kidnappers have the balls to show themselves."
"Language, Lucifer," Chloe chastised, "Trixie's right there."
"One cannot expect the Devil to be mindful of those around him," a mysterious voice came over the speakers in both storage units.
"Speak of the me," Lucifer quipped and cocked his head up toward the sound of their kidnapper, "Care to identify yourself? I've got this thing about disembodied voices."
"My name is Father William Kinley," Kinley introduced himself.
Ella and Chloe looked at each other. That was the name of the priest whose prints were on their victim's book.
"Ah, the founder of International Association of Exorcists?" Lucifer made the same connection as his friends.
"You've heard of me then?" Father Kinley wasn't expecting that.
"Just by your association with an Ivan Wilson," Lucifer said, "That name ring any bells?"
"Regretfully, yes," Kinley replied truthfully, "A member of a group dedicated to serving the Adversary – The Old Scratch-ing Post. Ivan was a misguided soul that needed assistance in seeing the light out of the darkness."
"Did you kill him?" Ella's voice was hard.
"A means to an end," Kinley replied, faux sorrow in his voice.
Chloe's eyes widened. He just confessed to a murder to two homicide detectives and he seemed completely unbothered. What kind of a psycho was this guy?
"What do you mean by that? What do you want with us?" Chloe asked.
"For you all to see the light," Kinley answered cryptically.
"The same way you had Ivan see the light?" Dan bit back.
"Hopefully such drastic measures won't be needed for you all," Kinley said.
"Do what you need to do with us, but let my daughter go," Chloe pled as her gaze dropped from the ceiling to the screen where she could see Trixie hugging Lucifer's middle, her face barely visible in his side.
"Yes, the child," Kinley said as if Trixie were an afterthought, "I must admit that she was not part of my initial plan, but needs must. In fact, it might be to my advantage."
"A plan you care to share?" Lucifer called out, his thumb unconsciously soothingly brushing Trixie's arm where it hung around his middle, "It's a bit anticlimactic, but if you insist."
"Silence, Serpent!" Kinley yelled.
Lucifer's eyes flashed red in anger; his lips twisted into a scowl at this priest's audacity.
"Once your friends see your true colors, they will happily aid me in my quest," Kinley declared before going silent.
"Just what the hell did he mean by that?" Chloe shook her head. She looked back at the screen just in time to see Lucifer walk out of view, leaving her daughter standing in the middle of the room.
"Lucifer? Don't let what he said get to you," Chloe said, though she couldn't see him, "I know you."
Chloe let out a sigh. Clearly this Father Kinley took Lucifer's Devil shtick seriously enough to commit murder and drag them all into his game. And knowing Lucifer, he was taking it all to heart.
Trixie soon walked out of view too.
"Yeah, Buddy, we all know you," Ella assured him and Dan agreed, "Yeah, that priest can suck it."
Chloe's eyes scanned their empty view of Lucifer and Trixie's unit. Why did they walk out of frame? Father Kinley said that once they all "saw his true colors" they would join his crazy quest. So, he literally went out of their sight. Leave it to Lucifer to take things quite literally.
"You don't have to stay out of view, Lucifer," Chloe told him.
She tried not to let his silent response bother her.
"You okay over there?" Chloe asked. She couldn't stand not knowing what was going on with her partner and daughter.
"We're okay, Mom!" came Trixie's reply for the both of them.
Chloe let out a relieved sigh.
"We're gonna figure this out, guys," Chloe promised.
Dan tapped Chloe on the arm and nodded for her and Ella to stray away from the television for a moment.
"How are we gonna figure this out with psycho priest listening in?" Dan whispered once he had both of their attentions.
"I have an idea," Chloe whispered back and walked back over to the TV. Ella and Dan followed.
"Lucifer, Trixie, I'm going to turn the television off," Chloe said, "But I promise it won't be for too long… We are going to figure this out together… Okay?"
There was another beat of silence before they all heard the duo respond, Trixie's voice a little louder than Lucifer's.
"Okay!"
Chloe turned the television off.
"We are gonna figure everything out, aren't we?" Ella looked to an uncertain-looking Chloe. Her question was met with a weary release of breath followed by a small but determined nod.
~*~
The moment Kinley yelled at Lucifer to be silent, Lucifer felt a strange ripple of energy surge through him from head to toe. He tapped Trixie's hand around his middle lightly, trying to signal her to let him go. Sensing that something was up, Trixie immediately acquiesced with the Devil's silent request.
"Once your friends see your true colors, they will happily aid me in my quest," Kinley's words echoed in Lucifer's head.
Lucifer slowly walked to the other side of the storage unit so he'd be in the camera's blind spot. Whatever was happening, he had a feeling he didn't want the Detective to see. He turned around so his back was to the wall. He backed up slightly until his back hit the wall and he lightly bumped the back of his head against it. Slowly, he slid down until he sat on the concrete floor, his long legs stretched out in front of him with his feet flat on the ground. That strange feeling rippled through him once again.
"Lucifer? Don't let what he said get to you," he thought he heard Chloe say, but it sounded muffled to his ears.
He looked up to see Trixie had ventured over to him, looking down at him with a look of concern on her young face.
"Are you okay, Lucifer?" Trixie couldn't mask the worried look on her features or in her tone.
He opened his mouth to reply but no sound came out. Trixie knelt down so she was sat on her knees in front of him. She shuffled a little closer to him so that her knee touched his outstretched foot, flat on the ground.
He barely registered the reassuring words of his friends, his focus locked on Trixie. She asked him again if he was okay. That strange energy surge he felt before began to dampen, but it was still there. Was whatever was going on affecting his ability to speak?
Well, he wouldn't know unless he tried. Lucifer nodded and cleared his throat. He managed to whisper out in a slightly more gravely tone, "I think so, Child."
"We're okay, Mom!" Trixie called out.
"Lucifer, Trixie, I'm going to turn the television off," he could hear Chloe a little clearer over the speaker.
He and Trixie looked up at Chloe's voice as she continued, "But I promise it won't be for too long… We are going to figure this out together… Okay?"
No matter what was going on with him, Lucifer had no doubt that Chloe would figure something out to get everyone to safety.
"Okay!" Lucifer and Trixie called out at the same time. After a moment, they didn't hear anything from the other storage unit. Chloe must have already turned their connection off.
"Apologies, Urchin, I-I don't know what came over me," Lucifer apologized as he brought his knee up further and rested one arm on it. He didn't want to worry her.
"You don't have to apologize, Lucifer. I'm just glad you're okay," Trixie said, "Because that looks like it really hurts."
"What looks like it really hurts?" Lucifer wasn't following.
Trixie pointed at her own face and then Lucifer's.
Lucifer tilted his head in confusion before the metaphorical penny dropped. With a gulp, Lucifer very slowly looked down at his hands… his very red and scarred, leathery hands.
"Shit."