#plot answer

It’s hard to sort out where to begin. I guess, let’s start with: a human dies and their soul goes somewhere. Where it goes depends almost entirely on the soul itself. If that soul believes they deserve Heaven, to Heaven they will go. If that soul believes they do not deserve Heaven, then to Hell they will go. It is a soul’s assessment of the life it has led.

(This is also why some souls who believe in a different afterlife go to neither Heaven nor Hell—they believe they will end up somewhere else, so they do, and that somewhere else has its own pantheon’s rules and regs.)

There are some exceptions to the self-determination rule. There are some things, no matter how ‘rightly’ perceived by the soul, that are unforgivable. Unfortunately, this matter is not clear-cut. I can’t say ‘all those who murder go to Hell,’ because we know some murders are self-defensive. However, all rapists go to Hell, as there is no sympathetic reasoning for it.

Similarly, there are some atrocities which are unique to the individual and the moment in which it was done but not applicable to another person. It is these sorts of nuances that are reserved for the Judges of Purgatory—3 appointed angels and 3 appointed demons, whose appointments rotate. If they cannot come to a unanimous decision, the Devil weighs in.

So, let’s say a soul goes to Heaven. That’s more simple; the soul ascends and, as souls are energy without distinctive form, the soul reaches a vibration point (for lack of a better term) that keeps them in a state of bliss. Whatever that means for them, they experience what the feeling of Heaven is. Souls can interact, but their bliss is not dependent nor affected by that.

Okay, so—what if the soul goes to Hell? That’s a bit more complicated.

If the soul comes from Purgatory or the soul believes it deserves punishment, it goes to a very specific part of Hell entire: the realm of the First Legion. Satan’s domain. Lucifer used to give specific instructions per-soul when they came in, but over the many ages he’s learned to just number the severity of punishment from 1-10 and let Satan do his thing.

At first, Satan punishes with pain and torture according to his whim and perception; one of the originals, he feels no cleansing can occur without such ‘trial by fire.’ After, each soul is ‘damned’ to its own torment, reliving the moment that brought them there, on repeat, forever, until they can own up to what they’ve done and be properly cleansed.

How long that takes is entirely up to the soul—they could be in that loop forever, and so, ‘eternal damnation.’ But a soul who is willing to understand the reason they got sorted there is able to transcend that space.

So what happens to souls who leave Satan’s domain, and what happens to souls who just didn’t go to Heaven because they didn’t think they deserved it?

They go to “the rest” of Hell, which is, surprisingly, quite a lot like Heaven. If the soul hasn’t been deemed in need of cleansing, then the reason they feel they don’t deserve it is personal and unfounded and not in need of retribution, simply based on their own perceptions. Therefore, their soul will also ‘vibrate’ on the frequency of bliss, instead just in this realm.

There is a sleek black cab waiting for her outside of the house, clearly private, and Lucifer-as-Olivia gets inside. Gently, he puts her to sleep for the four-hour-drive to Las Vegas. Lucifer retrieves the vial of cure himself, immediately bringing it to the team of scientists he’s been prepping as he witnessed Kiara and Olivia make progress. The vial was enough for a fair few doses—but for now, Lucifer only needed two. Two syringes were prepped for him and the remainder was split between the scientists and his personal storage.

He slid a locked case with the two syringes softly padded into the black cab beside Olivia’s sleeping form. He then retreats back to his home as the cab carries her—and the two doses of cure—another four hours safely back to Los Angeles. When he wakes her, it’s a little after eight thirty am. Lucifer is still stretched inside of her and has her take the case to one of his safety deposit boxes. After that, she is taken back to Sunset Tower, asleep in her own bed by nine am, Lucifer again withdrawn to the background. She might have a headache and no memory of the evening, but no worse for wear. 

TWO: THE BEST GIFT IS A PROPHECY— February 1st, 2017, circa 8pm.

February is the time that always brings the Nephilim together: it’s their birthdays, one after the other. First comes Maria, which means that Magda has tried to find something—anything—for the woman who literally has not stopped living since the Garden. What do you get the woman who’s seen everything? The only thing she hasn’t seen: the future. As much as forcing a prophecy is a difficult subject for Magda right now, she goes out of her way to procure an annurca apple, swallowing her flashbacks as she swallows the pieces.

She doesn’t want to put Maria through watching this, so she does it alone, in her apartment, phone recorder on, focusing on the cure:

Some things hard won come around in time A reach and a want but the road is without you Some things prize patience toward the sublime A breach and a haunt but the road comes to you

It is this recording she brings, utterly unsure of what it means, to Maria, a half-smile on her face, the phone in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other. It’s not her job to understand the prophecies, but at least this was a baby-step toward giving them again without the shadow of a brute man hanging over her. “Happy Birthday,” she tells her sister, perhaps not by blood but by something greater in this incarnation, and hopes that somehow this gift is enough to help something this time around.

THREE: A PAIR OF TWOS RULES TONIGHT February 9th, 2017, circa 8pm.

We set the scene with a series of unknowns, the outcomes to be revealed later. 

The Devil gathers his power and sends a telepathic message to Belial and Abaddon: Check your mailbox, now. It wasn’t hard to persuade a way into getting them open, but they were hardly as secure as a warded safety deposit box. In each of their mailboxes is a padded envelope, and in that envelope a sleek black wooden box, and inside that box, a syringe with a note, Kiara’s Cure. Do they inject themselves? Do they dare hope that it could work? A human and a demon’s physiology is quite different, after all. It took Olivia weeks to know if it worked on her. Will it work, or a placebo effect?

Somewhere, in another part of Los Angeles and entirely unrelated, two phones buzz. One belongs to Joshua, the other to Noah. An untraceable burner phone has sent each one a text message, testing their mettle:

Give at least a black eye to Noah Jackson, or your sister gets bones broken. If you tell anyone about this message, I will know, and you will pay. Do not go to the police. Just do it. Do not test me. You have until Tuesday at midnight.

Get at least a black eye from Joshua Osborne, or your best friend loses a finger. If you tell anyone about this message, I will know, and you will pay. Do not go to the police. Just do it. Do not test me. You have until Tuesday at midnight.