Chapter 141: Lucifer’s Suspicion

Chapter 141: Lucifer’s SuspicionLucifer’s Apartment

The windows were cracked open.

Morning light spilled lazily into the room, touching the silk sheets tangled at the foot of the massive bed. A slow breeze drifted through, stirring the curtains like ghost fingers.

Lucifer lay stretched out, half-covered in sheets, bare chest rising and falling in a calm rhythm. He was still, peaceful. Too still.

Ella’s head rested on his arm. Her dark curls were messy. Her skin glowed faintly in the dawn light.

She shifted a little, eyes fluttering open.

Then—

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

A faint vibration came from the nightstand. Lucifer’s comm crystal.

He opened one eye.

Buzz.



He didn’t move. Just stared at the vibrating shard with faint irritation.

Ella groaned and pulled the sheets higher. "Can you ignore that for once?"

He smirked. "It’s not always about me, unfortunately."

Buzz.

He reached out lazily and tapped the side of the crystal. It glowed faint red.

A voice crackled through.

"Lucifer. It’s Dera."

He sighed, then sat up, letting the sheet slide off. His back was covered in faint scars—old ones, from wars no one remembered.

"What happened?" he said, rubbing his temple.

"We found two bodies. Torn apart in Lower Manhattan. Ghoul attack."

He blinked. "Ghoul?"

"Yes. Stable. Controlled. It wasn’t a feral burst. It was surgical. The thing was refined."

Lucifer frowned. "That doesn’t make sense. No vampire makes ghouls anymore. Not in this city."

"I know." Dera’s voice was calm, but something under it was tight. Focused. "I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t serious."

Lucifer stood from the bed, walked to the glass window, and looked down over the city. The skyline was fogged, blurred by rising smog and early sun.

Ella sat up behind him, the sheet around her chest. "What’s going on?"

He raised a finger. "Give me a second."

"I ruled out Vladimir," Dera continued. "And you. I know your stance on ghouls. But that’s the problem. Someone’s trying to start something. Maybe frame someone. Maybe escalate things."

Lucifer narrowed his eyes.

"What did the kill site look like?"

"It wasn’t a frenzy. It was... a message. The male was killed quick. The girl was... slow. Drawn out. The alley was painted. Intestines on the wall. Face torn. Bones arranged."

He stayed quiet for a beat.

"Anything else?"

"There’s more. I ran a scan. The blood left behind wasn’t just human. It had alchemical traces. Human-modified."

Now that made him freeze.

"What?"

"I think a human turned someone into a ghoul, Lucifer. A stable one. There was no clan mark. No sigil. No glyph to control it. And one more thing..."

He turned slightly. "Say it."

"The creature had a spiral mark. Above the right eye. No house uses that."

Lucifer’s jaw tensed. His hand lowered from his ear.

Ella noticed. "Lucifer?"

He turned around slowly. "Something’s wrong."

"Wrong like... war?"

"No. Wrong like someone playing with things they don’t understand."

He tapped the comm again.

"Send me all the data. Footage, scans, everything."

"Already on the way."

"And Dera—"

"Yeah?"

"Keep this quiet. Don’t tell the vampire clans about this. Not yet."

"Understood. But we both know that won’t last."

"I’ll buy us time."

He ended the call.

Ella stood now, wrapping the sheet around her. "Talk to me."

He walked past her, grabbed a black coat from the wall, and tossed it over his shoulder. "Ghoul showed up last night. Stable. Designed. Someone created it... not from instinct, not for blood. For war."

She blinked. "Vampire?"

He shook his head. "That’s the thing. It wasn’t vampire work. Or if it was... it wasn’t from anyone who should still be alive."

He picked up his gloves, sliding them on.

Ella stepped in front of him. "You said no vampire did this. So who did?"

Lucifer paused.

"There are artifacts... tomes from the old bloodlines. Things that were never meant to survive. That should’ve been burned."

His tone dipped lower. "If someone found one of those... and used it on a dying man..."

Her voice lowered. "Do you think someone found one?"

"I don’t know," he said.

He looked at her again.

"And I also know I can smell that blood even from here. It’s not natural. It’s not undead. It’s something else."

Ella looked down. Her hand clenched the sheet tighter. "You think it’s tied to you?"

He didn’t answer right away.

He didn’t know about the Crimson Grimoire.

Not yet.

But something deep in his bones stirred.

A pulse.

Old.

Ugly.

Whispering.

He exhaled slowly. "I’ll find whoever did this."

Ella touched his arm. "You’re not alone, you know."

He gave a small smile. "I know."

She tilted her head. "Lucifer... what if this is just the beginning?"

"Then I hope whoever’s playing this game understands the price of waking a sleeping monster."

He kissed her forehead gently.



Then walked to the elevator, his long coat flaring behind him.

As the doors closed, Ella whispered to herself—

"...Please don’t become one."

Lower Manhattan – One Hour Later

Crime Scene – Sealed by Hunter Authority

The black car stopped one block from the alley.

Lucifer stepped out alone. No entourage. No theatrics. Just the weight of silence that followed him like a second shadow. His coat snapped faintly in the breeze. The wind here carried no scent of the sea. Only metal. Blood. And something older.

He walked past the barricades. The hunter guards at the perimeter stiffened when they saw him. One reached for a comm, the other simply nodded.

Lucifer didn’t speak.

He ducked under the tape and entered the alley.

The moment he stepped inside, the air changed.

Still.

Tight.

Wrong.

Blood didn’t just stain the bricks—it haunted them. The smell was stale now, but potent. Like rage had soaked into the concrete itself.

Lucifer walked slowly, eyes scanning the ground. No footsteps. Not even dried footprints. The kill had been surgical. Clean—but loud. Meant to draw attention. Not to feed.

He passed where the man had died first. Still a dark pool there. Flakes of torn muscle stuck to the gutter edge. The blood smelled cold—human, mostly—but laced with something twisted. Something synthetic.

He crouched beside the mark on the wall. A sharp gouge. Claw mark. Straight through brick.

Lucifer traced it with one finger.

"Four inches deep. Clean edges. High velocity."

He narrowed his eyes.

Then looked up.

To the spot above the dumpster. The second kill.

He approached it like a hunter examining prey.

Blood was still splattered across the wall—ribbons of dried crimson trailing down like the alley was crying. Chunks of scalp stuck to the side of the dumpster lid. Fingernails clawed grooves into the metal. She’d tried to escape.

Lucifer stopped in front of the biggest blood smear. Reached into his coat. Pulled out a thin glass shard.

He clicked it once.

The shard glowed red.

Blood shimmered. Lifted in the air. Like glowing dust.

Lucifer moved his fingers and the particles formed a slow-motion reconstruction. The man. Killed instantly. Spine crushed. Ribs split.

Then the girl. She stumbled. Slipped. Screamed.

The ghoul didn’t attack. Not immediately.

It tilted its head.

Like it was deciding.

Lucifer frowned.

"No ghoul thinks."

But this one had.

He fast-forwarded the projection. Saw the way it moved. Too fast. Too precise. No tremble. No instinctual twitch.

Then—

There.

"Pause."

He zoomed in on the creature’s face.

Just above its right eye.

A spiral. Burned into the skin.

Lucifer stared at it. Eyes cold.

"Dera wasn’t lying..." he muttered. "This isn’t vampire work."

He stood up slowly. Tapped the shard again. The image dispersed like ash in wind.

Then he turned to the blood pool behind the dumpster.

Walked over.

Knelt again.

He dipped two fingers in the blood. Rubbed it between his thumb.

Still faintly warm, even hours later. That meant something unnatural kept it from cooling.

He sniffed it.

Then froze.

Lucifer’s eyes widened just slightly. Then narrowed.

He knew this blood.

Not from scent alone—no. From memory.

It was human once.

It was Calen Rooks.

The same Calen who tried to poison him. Who tried to kill Luna.

Lucifer remembered the face. The hate. The twisted anger behind every word.

He stood abruptly.

Clenched his fists.

The air around him seemed to vibrate for a second—like it wanted to tear.

"Someone turned him?"

He took a deep breath.

"No... someone used him."

He walked further into the alley. Then stopped again.

A glint of metal caught his eye beneath a broken pipe.

He reached down and pulled it free. A broken fragment. Thin.

Runes carved into the side.

Not vampire script.



But blood-reactive glyphs. Alchemy.

He turned it in his palm. The edge shimmered red for a moment.

Then flickered—faint sparks of Crimson magic bleeding through.

Lucifer’s expression darkened.

"Not just alchemy."

"It’s the Grimoire."

He didn’t know the name. But he knew this magic. Ancient. Wrong. Buried for a reason.

The spiral mark. The hybrid blood. The alchemical resonance.

Someone had found one of the forbidden books.

Used it.

And turned Calen into a monster.

Lucifer stared at the shard a moment longer before it disintegrated in his hand. Ash. Gone.