Cain

Marcus Pierce is a major character in the third season as well as its main antagonist. He is an LAPD Lieutenant and the new boss of Chloe Decker, Dan Espinoza, and Ella Lopez. Later it is revealed that Pierce is actually Cain (also spelled Kane in several episodes' captions), the world's first murderer. While he remains human, he was cursed with immortality.

History

Firstborn of Adam and Eve, Cain is the world's first murderer. Cain and his brother Abel (Cain describing him as an "asshat") had been at each other's throats for years; their fights got progressively worse to the point that they were actively trying to kill each other, until Cain succeeded. After killing his brother, Cain was marked by God and "doomed to walk the Earth alone for a tortured eternity", being cursed with immortality, his mark making his body as immortal as his immortal soul. Later it is revealed that Amenadiel was the one that gave Cain his mark on God's orders. Since the Bronze Age, he has been trying to kill himself. He has tried many methods, including dropping into helicopter blades, being eaten by wolves, acidic bath, jumping into a volcano, and "grenade down the throat".

In 1958, he worked as a detective in Los Angeles, including on the Broken Hearts Killer case.

Sometime in the 20th century, he met a boy who later took the alias the Sinnerman. The Sinnerman was Pierce's right-hand man and the closest thing he had to a friend. Cain himself took the name of Marcus Pierce. As Pierce, he became an accomplished and well-respected police lieutenant.^[1]

At the beginning of season 3, Pierce transfers from Chicago to Los Angeles. There, he joins the LAPD and becomes the new boss of Chloe Decker, Dan Espinoza, and Ella Lopez. He also agrees to secretly help Lucifer to track down the Sinnerman. He claims that while in Chicago, he "butted heads" with the Sinnerman and that the Sinnerman killed his brother which is why he decided to transfer.

In "What Would Lucifer Do?", Pierce is severely injured after being shot by Jerry Blackcrow. It is later revealed that the injury would have been fatal to a regular human. In "The Sin Bin", Lucifer fatally stabs Pierce. A few moments later, Pierce is resurrected.

In "All About Her", after Lucifer discovers Pierce's true identity as Cain, Pierce admits to being behind Lucifer's kidnapping (at the end of season 2) as he needed Lucifer out of the way. Pierce found out about Chloe making the devil vulnerable and hoped that she would make him vulnerable too. He had hoped that he would be able to finally die if he was killed in her presence. Unfortunately, for him, it did not work. While admitting to the kidnapping, Pierce says he had nothing to do with Lucifer's wings returning and that it had interfered with his plans. Lucifer theorizes that God restored his wings to stop Pierce from defying him. As a result, Lucifer offered to help Pierce achieve his greatest desire, to permanently die.

Pierce also admits to the fact that the Sinnerman was his subordinate. However, he claims that the Sinnerman went rogue and that he does not know why the Sinnerman did what he did. Thus, Pierce concludes, "I had to take him out."

In "The Last Heartbreak", Pierce decides to get close to Chloe in the hope it would lead to making himself mortal. The pair go to an Axara concert and have dinner together. Lucifer gets jealous of Chloe's attention to Pierce, but later realizes that she can have all sorts of relationships in her life.

In "The Angel of San Bernardino", Pierce asks Chloe to meet him in the evidence room. Once Chloe arrives, they begin their sexual rendezvous, which gets noticed by Ella in the next room. Pierce gets closer to Chloe but struggles to get her to take the next step in their relationship and get her to say that she loves him. When he arrives back in his home, he notices that Maze has trespassed on his property and warns her of the legal repurcussions for such a crime to which Maze responded that they would have to catch her first. Maze impatiently asks Pierce whether it is time to kill him to which he said that it wasn't as he still possessed the mark. Maze then asked how Pierce would like to die and if he wanted a painful death, to which he declined as he had had plenty of painful deaths already. Maze then remarks that his death will result in suffering even if he isn't the one experiencing it. Maze begins to tell Pierce how ruthless it would be to make Chloe fall in love with him and then vanish and the pain it would cause to her. When he later arrives at Chloe's appartment with some chocolate cake, he nearly has her tell him that she loves him before realizing how his death would impact Chloe and decides against manipulating Chloe any further in fear of hurting her and ends their relationship. When Lucifer realized what Pierce had been doing and seen how much he had hurt Chloe, he broke into Pierce's home to confront him about it. During their altercation, Lucifer notices that Pierce's mark has vanished.

In "A Devil of My Word", Pierce returns to his old role as the Sinnerman in order to get rid of Lucifer once and for all. He sets a trap in order to kill Lucifer before fleeing town as he knows Lucifer will never stop hunting him and he doesn't want to die anymore. With the help of a bunch of men, Pierce pulls Lucifer and Chloe into a trap, rendering Lucifer vulnerable and even threatening to kill Chloe if it means killing Lucifer. However, Chloe shoots Pierce and one of his men shoots Chloe in return. As Pierce's men fire on Lucifer, Lucifer shields himself and Chloe with his wings before flying to the roof with Chloe.

After seeing that Chloe had a bullet proof vest that blocked the bullet and seeing her wake up, Lucifer returns to confront Pierce, easily dispatching his men with blows from his wings. With Lucifer now invincible again, Pierce draws one of Maze's blades, the one thing that can kill Lucifer. After a fight, Lucifer overpowers Pierce and drives the blade into his heart. Without his mark, Pierce is mortally wounded for the last time, but is satisfied as he believes he will be going to Heaven as he regrets nothing that he has done. Lucifer points out that Pierce regrets killing Charlotte Richards and he will torture himself over it for eternity in Hell. As Lucifer tells Pierce that he can't outrun what he's done and what he truly is, Pierce notices Lucifer's devil face returning and tells Lucifer that Lucifer can't either. Laughing, Pierce dies for the final time, leaving Cain truly dead. Lucifer is found over Cain's body moments later by Chloe with his devil face and she realizes that he was telling the truth the entire time.

Personality

Pierce is strategic, reserved, and well-respected. Like Lucifer, he is charming, charismatic, and handsome.^[1] He has a disdain for cops who have committed crimes and immediately takes a disliking towards Dan Espinoza for his past actions. He also has a somewhat initial dislike towards Lucifer as he deems him reckless and later calls him an idiot for going after the Sinnerman. Pierce is compassionate as he told Lucifer to keep Chloe out of their search for the Sinnerman so they would not put Trixie's life in danger. Marcus is not willing to fall in love with or have attachment to someone as he fears that they will eventually leave him and he will remain immortal.

However it is unclear how much of Pierce's persona is an act since he is Cain and had a connection to the Sinnerman. Pierce admits that the Sinnerman was his right-hand man and a friend. However, he claims the Sinnerman went rogue, though it is unclear at which point.

Pierce claims to have an admiration for Chloe as a detective. In "What Would Lucifer Do?", he says, "the only reason I came here was so I could finally see you in action firsthand." This, however, is later proven to be a lie. While he did come for Chloe, it had nothing to do with her detective skills, but rather because he knew she made the devil vulnerable.

Pierce's greatest desire is to finally die, to get rid of his curse of immortality. He is tired of being alive. In his words, "I've walked this Earth for thousands of years. I have seen everything, I have done everything. I have watched everything I've ever known turn to ashes over and over again." Pierce agrees to Lucifer's comparison to it being like Hell. He is very determined in his goal, as shown by his multiple, and often extremely painful, attempts at suicide. Pierce also claimed to Amenadiel that, if it helped him find peace, he would have no problem murdering an innocent. This shows that when it comes to achieving his desire to die, he is willing to take any action, no matter how ruthless. However, after getting Chloe to fall in love with him, Pierce refused to let her say the words, afraid to hurt her if he were to successfully die, showing that he is not as ruthless as he has made himself out to be. Lucifer later suggested that it was Pierce's selfless desire to keep Chloe from getting hurt that caused him to believe he was deserving of the mortality he so desperately desired and got rid of the mark.

After the mark disappeared and he was freed from his curse, Pierce initially seemed to still be content with dying. However, after Amenadiel talked to him about how mortality meant they could go at any second, Pierce showed that he was truly afraid of death. This was most likely also due to the fact that he realized he would be going to Hell if he were to die, whereas before he was incapable of truly dying and he never had to bother with facing mortality or the possibility of hell. This fear has, ironically, led him to want to have his mark and curse back, to prevent his death from being permanent, and it led him to take even more ruthless actions, such as trying to kill Amenadiel to force God to restore the mark. In an effort to kill Lucifer, Pierce was even willing to sacrifice Chloe as he knew that Lucifer would never stop hunting him. However, despite this, he still cared about Chloe to the point that Pierce's first question after being mortally wounded was if Chloe was alright, showing that his one believed regret was that in his zeal he may have killed Chloe.

At the end of his life, Pierce was content, stating that he had no idea why he had feared his end so much. Though Pierce claimed to have no regrets over anything he did and would thus be going to Heaven, Lucifer told him that he knew Pierce had regrets over killing Charlotte Richards, accident or not and would torture himself with that for all of eternity.

Powers and Abilities

Former Powers

Cursed Mark: After killing his brother Abel, God had Amenadiel place a mark on Cain to curse and punish him for the very first act of murder. After falling in love with Chloe and truly believing himself worthy, the mark was removed. With the removal of his mark, Pierce lost all of the powers that came with it and became a normal human again.
- Semi-Immortality: Cain has not aged since recieving the mark. When Lucifer encountered him he appeared to be in his prime despite being alive for thousands of years.
- Resurrective Immortality: Cain was cursed to be unable to die, hence he is immortal. He can be wounded and killed like a normal human, but when killed he is resurrected after a short amount of time. He can even survive being killed by a demonic blade, which angels cannot do.
- Healing Factor: Pierce's body is constantly healing. While injuries take time to heal, they seem to heal at an accelerated rate compared to regular humans. Any tattoos or scars (except for the mark on his arm) fade and disappear within a few months. He can regenerate from being cut in half and from being engulfed in molten lava, though only one half of his body would regenerate the rest of it. Lucifer simplifies it to being 'Wolverine rules'.

Abilities

Marksmanship: As a trained member of the police, he has expert ability with firearms. He was able to shoot the Sinnerman multiple times while Lucifer was in close proximity with his target without hitting Lucifer with any stray bullets.
Eidetic Memory: Cain can easily recall every memory and experience from his whole life since ancient times, ranging from ancient languages to his suicide attempts.
- Arcane Knowledge: As an ancient human that has lived since the dawn of humanity, Cain has a wealth of knowledge. He is aware of Lucifer's true identity and has been tracking celestials when they come to Earth.
Expert Combatant: Cain was shown to be very capable in hand-to-hand combat, able to hold his own against Amenadiel fairly well, but was killed multiple times.
Keen Manipulator: Throughout the series, Cain has shown to be able to talk or forcefully get out of situations where trouble was surely to ensue, especially after his mark was removed. For example, during his fight with Mazikeen, he was able to keep her distracted long enough for him to incapacitate her with a syringe. He was even able to outwit Lucifer during their confrontation at the station, intentionally causing a scene in the precinct so that the officers would keep Lucifer restrained while he got away. He also drew Lucifer and Chloe into a planned ambush that would most certainly have resulted in their deaths had he not faced off against divinity. Eventually, this plan leads to his death after being stabbed in the chest with Mazikeen's blade by Lucifer.

Weaknesses

Flaming Sword: The Flaming Sword (and its component Azrael's blade) could eradicate humans. The human would be permanently gone, no Heaven nor Hell, and cannot be resurrected. However, the blade is permanently out of reach in Goddess's void.
Demon/Hell-Forged Weapons: These weapons are able to injure and kill human. In "Quintessential Deckerstar" he was afraid of getting injured by Maze's demon knife. In "A Devil of My Word", Lucifer killed the mortal Pierce with one to the heart.
Mortality: After the removal of his mark, Pierce became completely mortal and was thus vulnerable to any form of death a regular human was vulnerable to.

Appearances

Season Three
#1	"They're Back, Aren't They?"	Appears
#2	"The One with the Baby Carrot"	Appears
#3	"Mr. & Mrs. Mazikeen Smith"	Absent
#4	"What Would Lucifer Do?"	Appears
#5	"Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards"	Mentioned
#6	"Vegas with Some Radish"	Absent
#7	"Off the Record"	Absent
#8	"Chloe Does Lucifer"	Mentioned
#9	"The Sinnerman"	Appears
#10	"The Sin Bin"	Appears
#11	"City of Angels?"	Absent
#12	"All About Her"	Appears
#13	"Til Death Do Us Part"	Appears
#14	"My Brother's Keeper"	Appears
#15	"High School Poppycock"	Mentioned
#16	"Infernal Guinea Pig"	Appears
#17	"Let Pinhead Sing!"	Appears
#18	"The Last Heartbreak"	Appears
#19	"Orange is the New Maze"	Appears
#20	"The Angel of San Bernardino"	Appears
#21	"Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better"	Appears
#22	"All Hands on Decker"	Appears
#23	"Quintessential Deckerstar"	Appears
#24	"A Devil of My Word"	Appears
#25	"Boo Normal"	Absent
#26	"Once Upon a Time"	Absent

Trivia

Cain's conflicting personality is understandable as his obsession with dying drove him for millennia. Beyond that it seems he has a small amount of genuine care for people; however, its dwarfed by his willingness to do whatever it takes.
In the Bible, Cain is the son of Adam and Eve. He murdered his brother Abel and was punished to a life of wandering.
Some interpret the Bible to mean Lucifer having an affair with Eve with Cain being the result.
In the comics, Mazikeen is a child of Lilith. Lilith, in Jewish mythology, is Adam's first wife. If both details are true for the TV series, that would make Mazikeen and Cain step-siblings.
Cain's alternate alias "Marcus Pierce" may be a play on words of how God pierced his skin with a mark.