Part 4: In Your Heart of Hearts

I was in the cop car, hands cuffed, sitting in between the two men who screwed me over. I'll get put in the slammer, and then I'll probably be executed, and these men beside me will watch as I draw my last breath. Take photos, and hang them on your fucking wall, you've accomplished nothing. I spit in your face, I won't give you the satisfaction of knowing that I caved in under your pressure, if you want my life, you're going to have to take it from my bloody, writhing hands.

Okay, so I was pissed. I've dedicated my life to the force, I've worked damn hard to make it as far as I did. I sat in the cop car, fuming at the cunning and nerve of the two men beside me. They were scum, lower than scum. And they thought that they were better than me? Over my dead body. Yeah, that's how it will end; over my dead body. They took me to the station. First time in my life I've entered this building treated as a criminal, and this is the first time in my life that I've entered this building as a victim. And the people I had worked with, my colleagues, almost none of them had known what Lincoln was up to. They just saw me in cuffs and stared me down in bitter disappointment. How could one man go so wrong, they were thinking. Their thoughts should be directed at the man behind me, pushing me towards the interrogation room.

I walked down the corridor, down the stairs, I had been down here my fair share of times, I didn't even need Lincoln's guiding hand to direct me to interrogation. What puzzled me was why he'd need to interrogate me, he'd frame me, and send me off, no questions asked. Lincoln was a man held in high regard, why would he need to bother with procedures for something he could get done immediately? Unless this had become some sort of game, was he in such a delusional state that he had taken to playing mind games, drawing this out into a battle of wits? He opened the door and pushed me into the room and followed me. In the moment before he closed the door, I noticed that Lucifer had followed us down here, but he just walked straight past the door. He would obviously be monitoring us on the screens.

The room was pretty much the same as it always was, the two stainless steel chairs bolted to the floor, the stainless steel table between the two chairs. The four grey walls, the two-way mirror covering most of the wall next to the door, and the single light suspended from the ceiling. And the case file on the table. This one was thick. No doubt it contained all sorts of details about my work, my alleged crimes and my personal life. It got me wondering how long they had been planning this, months... years? Lincoln sat me down in front of the file, facing the mirror. He took the other seat, facing me. And he would take his time in explaining to me every little thing that he's done to destroy me, until I break down and give up, or until he finishes his story and takes me off to jail.

He opened the folder. The wife and child of John Westacott.
"You" he flicked to the next page, which was John himself. "You did this." And the next page, a Sarah Norwood.
"I don't even know who this is?" My mind was ticking, how many had they blamed on me?
"Sarah? You don't remember her? You don't remember that she was killed in your home, on the very bed you sleep in. You don't remember standing over her as you killed her? You don't remember wrapping the bag over her head? You don't remember dragging her lifeless body into your car and later disposing of it?"
"Of course I don't remember, I didn't touch her, it was... that guy that you killed, the Grim."
Lincoln laughed at this. "Don't be stupid, I am the Grim, I am the true mastermind. He was but a pawn in my game."
"And you were but a pawn in mine..." Both Lincoln and I looked towards the speaker system as Lucifer's cold voice cut through the room.

"Yes, Lincoln, you've only ever been a disposable part of my plans. I thank you for killing Shaun Brighton for me, just as he did Sarah. You're too ambitious, Lincoln, just as Shaun was too efficient and Sarah was too elusive. David, you were wondering who killed John Westacott? That was Sarah's work, and you didn't suspect a thing, not even Lincoln and his team knew. He was too focussed on ratting you out. He was too caught up in his own selfish plans that he couldn't even step out of his own snow globe to realise that the world still turns, whether he's here or not. He didn't even notice Westacott did indeed murder his wife and child. And Lincoln didn't notice my affiliation with the man. David, you knew me as Chuck. Well that is who I am... that is who I was. Chuck Needham, CEO of Somerville Accountants. I worked day in, day out, for years, and then... I snapped. Lucifer was born, and it became my mission to lay bare all the deceit and lies in the world, to show people their true colours, and to show how willing people are to stab each other in the back. People will kill others that they don't even know, if they think it'll benefit themselves. And people will kill others that they do know, if they feel that their own integrity and success is compromised by another. David, take a long look at Sergeant Lincoln here. Take a long look into those cold, dark eyes. What do you see?"
I stared, as instructed, into Lincoln's unblinking eyes.
"You see the eyes of a jealous man."

At this point, Lincoln seemed to hit an extreme low point. He looked completely crushed, shocked to know that he too had been played by Lucifer.
"You're lying." Lincoln said.
"Am I, Lincoln? Am I? You don't sound sure of yourself." Lucifer was layering it on thick, crushing Lincoln's spirit with every honest word that spilled from his mouth.
"You're a corrupted man, Lincoln, there's no hope for you, my friend. I can tell you without a doubt that your life ends here, in this room. Now, whether it is by David's hands or my own that you die is up to you two."
"Wait, my hands? You... you want me to kill him?" I asked in a shocked voice.
"Why does that astound you, he would eagerly do the same to you. I'll give you the options again, you can kill him and I'll ask no questions, you've still got some integrity left in you, or you can sit there and let your dear old sergeant here kill you, in which case I'll take Lincoln's life into my own hands. Like I said; the choice is between you two."
At this point, Lincoln was shaking his head. "No... There's no fucking way..."
I got up out of my chair.
"No David, don't... don't do it. He's just using you... he's just fucking with your mind like he fucked with all of our minds. Kill him, not me!" He too got to his feet, and he was backing away from me. "Kill him, not me... kill him, not me... kill him, not me!" He backed into the corner, repeating those words, shrinking away into the shadows, as I moved in closer to him, as I moved in for the kill.

I knew that what I was doing was wrong, I knew that doing this would make me a monster, and I knew that if I did this, I'd still have to face Lucifer. I brandished my fingers like knives, somehow thinking that a gouging motion would make the whole ordeal easier for me. Yeah right, this was never going to be easy.
"Yes... feel the hate rush through your veins." Lucifer encouraged me to unleash my inner demon, he truly was a devil, himself, bastardised into the loathsome creature he is now.
"No, I will do what must be done because it must be done, not because I would kill a man under ordinary circumstances."
I moved closer still to my cowering victim-to-be, held back by the anticipation of Lucifer's response.
"I beg to differ. Once you acquire the taste for blood, there is nothing you can do to stop. Continue killing or be killed. You will come around."
I knelt down on Lincoln's body, pinning him into his corner, and pummelled him to a pulp. He didn't even bother to raise a fist in defence, his game was beat. And I had begun to sense that part of what Lucifer had just said was true. I felt a part of me changing, my innocence fleeting. Of course, in my line of work, I've had to shoot and injure people before, but nothing like this, and the only way I could pull through was to let go of everything and rush in head first, no holding back this wild beast.

I fell into a rage, and the anger and chaos that was Lucifer ran strong through my veins. My clothes were stained with the blood of this lifeless man, my face was contorted with emotions that were not mine. I broke his bones, beating down my fists on his chest, his skin broke apart, and in the interrogation room, I beat his chest open and held his barely beating heart in my own hands. Regret poured into my soul. How could I do such a thing. Ba-boom, ba-boom. Life fading, all within my hands. After all he's done, even a person such as Lincoln didn't deserve this. No-one deserves this. Ba-boom, ba-boom. I ripped his heart from his chest, the Lucifer in me was lavishing in my relentless violence. I hadn't a clue what I was doing or why I was doing it, but as I squeezed his heart in my hands, and as a tear trickled down my cheek, a small capsule slipped out from one of the heart's chambers. I popped it open and pulled out a thin sliver of paper. It read: "Death does not defeat me, it consumes me. My successor is my equal, for he has brought death upon me- The Grim Reaper."