Emily's apartment was a fourth-floor walkup in a building that should have been condemned twenty years ago. The hallway smelled like cigarettes and broken dreams. Her key stuck in the lock like it always did, but tonight she had to jiggle it three times before the door finally opened.
The envelope was waiting on her floor. Bright yellow. Official looking.
She knew what it was before she picked it up.
"Notice of Eviction," the header read in bold black letters. "Failure to pay rent. You have 72 hours to vacate the premises or legal action will be taken."
Emily dropped her bag on the couch. The zipper had broken months ago, and her files spilled across the cushions. Case notes, client information, everything she'd need for the appeals she'd never get to file.
The apartment was freezing. The heat had been turned off two days ago. Emily pulled on a sweater over her damp clothes and tried to ignore the water stain on the ceiling that kept getting bigger. Every time it rained hard, a few more drops made it through.
Her phone buzzed. Text message.
"This is St. Mary's Nursing Home. Your mother's account is now 60 days past due. Total amount: $4,847. Please call immediately to discuss payment options."
Emily sank into her desk chair. It was the same chair she'd had since law school, bought secondhand from a Goodwill store. The armrest was held on with electrical tape.
She opened her laptop. The screen flickered before coming to life. The battery was dying, and she couldn't afford to replace it.
Bank account: $17.43.
Credit cards: All maxed out.
Savings: What savings?
Emily stared at the numbers on her screen. Seventeen dollars and forty-three cents. That was it. That was all she had left after ten years of practicing law, ten years of trying to help people who couldn't help themselves.
Her mother's face smiled at her from a photo on the desk. Taken three years ago, before the Alzheimer's got really bad. Before Emily had to put her in the nursing home that cost more per month than most people made.
"I'm sorry, Mom," Emily whispered to the photo. "I'm so sorry."
Another text. This one from her credit card company.
"Your payment is overdue. Your account has been frozen. Please call customer service."
Then another from her bank.
"Insufficient funds. Your checking account has been placed on hold pending resolution of overdraft fees."
Emily put her head in her hands. The silence in the apartment was crushing. No TV because she'd sold it months ago. No music because she'd canceled her streaming subscriptions. Just the sound of her own breathing and the drip-drip-drip of water from the leak above.
She thought about Lucifer's offer. Someone dies every time she wins a case.
But people were dying anyway, weren't they? Maria Santos's husband was already dead. How many other people would die because companies like Hudson Construction cut corners and bought off judges?
Her phone rang. Emily looked at the caller ID. Dr. Patricia Wells. The head nurse at her mother's nursing home.
Emily almost didn't answer. She knew what the call would be about.
"Hello, Dr. Wells."
"Emily, we need to talk." Dr. Wells had been kind to Emily's mother, but there was no kindness in her voice now. "I'm sorry to call so late, but we've been trying to reach you for weeks."
"I know. The payment. I just... I need a little more time."
"Emily, we can't wait any longer. Your mother's care is expensive, and we have other patients on our waiting list who can pay."
Emily felt something cold settle in her stomach. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that if we don't receive payment by Monday morning, we'll have to transfer your mother to a state facility."
Emily had visited state nursing homes before, when she was working on elder abuse cases. Understaffed. Underfunded. Places where people went to die alone.
"She won't survive in a state home," Emily said. "You know that."
"I know. And I'm sorry. But this is a business, Emily. We can't provide care for free."
The call ended. Emily set her phone down on the desk with shaking hands.
Seventy-two hours to come up with rent money. Three days to find almost five thousand dollars for her mother's care.
Impossible.
Emily walked to her kitchen. The refrigerator was mostly empty. A carton of milk that was probably spoiled. Some leftover Chinese food from three days ago. A bottle of wine she'd been saving for when she won her next case.
She opened the wine.
It was cheap stuff. The kind that came with a screw-top instead of a cork. Emily poured herself a glass and sat back down at her desk.
The eviction notice stared at her from the desktop. Bright yellow like a warning sign.
She thought about calling her law school friends. But most of them worked at big firms now, making more in bonuses than Emily made in a year. They'd moved on. Found success. Left her behind.
She thought about calling Sarah, her best friend from school. But Sarah was a psychologist now, with her own practice and her own life. Emily had been leaning on her too much already. Always borrowing money, always crying about her latest failure.
Emily finished her wine and poured another glass.
Outside her window, the city hummed with life. Lights in other apartments, people living their normal lives. Going to work, paying their bills, taking care of their families.
Normal people with normal jobs who didn't spend their days fighting impossible battles for impossible causes.
Emily picked up Lucifer's business card. The gold lettering caught the light from her desk lamp. In the dim apartment, it almost seemed to glow.
"Tomorrow, 42nd Street. You'll know when."
Tomorrow was today now. It was past midnight.
Emily closed her eyes. She thought about her mother, alone in a nursing home bed, her memory fading a little more each day. She thought about Maria Santos and her baby. She thought about all the clients she'd failed, all the cases she'd lost.
"Lucifer," she whispered to the empty apartment.
Nothing happened.
Emily felt stupid. Of course nothing happened. She was talking to a business card from a man who might have been a hallucination brought on by stress and desperation.
"Lucifer Morningstar," she said louder. "I know you can hear me."
Still nothing. Just the sound of the apartment settling and the distant hum of traffic.
Emily stood up. The wine was making her dizzy, but she didn't care.
"I don't know if you're real or if I'm losing my mind," she said to the room. "But if you are real, if your offer is real, then I need help. I need help now."
The temperature in the apartment dropped ten degrees in an instant.
Emily's breath came out in visible puffs. The lights flickered. And then, sitting in the chair across from her desk as if he'd been there all along, was Lucifer Morningstar.
He looked exactly the same as he had at the coffee shop. Perfect suit, perfect hair, golden eyes that seemed to see right through her.
"You called," he said simply.
Emily's heart was hammering in her chest. "How did you... I mean, you weren't..."
"I wasn't here, and then I was. Yes, that's generally how these things work." Lucifer looked around her apartment. His gaze lingered on the water stain, the taped-up chair, the eviction notice. "Lovely place."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't mock me. Not tonight."
Something in her voice must have gotten through to him. His expression softened, just a little.
"You're right. I apologize. This isn't easy for you."
Emily sat back down. Her legs felt weak. "Are you real?"
"That's a complicated question. Real enough for our purposes."
"The offer you made. In the coffee shop. Was that real too?"
"Every word."
Emily looked at the eviction notice. At the photo of her mother. At her bank statement on the laptop screen.
"Someone dies every time I win a case."
"Yes."
"Someone innocent."
"I never said innocent." Lucifer leaned forward. "The world isn't divided into innocent people and Death Eaters, Emily. Most of us are somewhere in between."
Emily almost smiled despite everything. "Did you just quote Harry Potter?"
"I keep up with popular culture. The point stands. The people who die won't be saints. They'll be people who've made choices, people who've caused harm. The universe has a way of balancing things out."
"And you get to decide who lives and who dies."
"Not me. The universe. I'm just... a facilitator."
Emily stared at him. In the dim light of her apartment, he looked less like a businessman and more like something else. Something older. Something dangerous.
But also, strangely, something sad.
"What do you get out of this?" she asked.
"That's not your concern."
"It is if I'm signing a contract with you."
Lucifer was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer than she'd heard it before.
"I get to see if there's still hope for humanity. If someone can be given unlimited power and still choose to do good."
Emily felt something shift in the room. A heaviness, like the air before a storm.
"And if I can't? If I use the power for selfish reasons?"
"Then I'll have learned something important about the nature of human beings."
Emily picked up the eviction notice. Seventy-two hours. Three days to lose everything she'd worked for.
"I'll do it," she said.
Lucifer smiled, but there was no triumph in it. Just sadness.
"Are you certain?"
"My mother is going to die in a state nursing home if I don't get money by Monday. I've failed every client who trusted me. I'm about to be homeless." Emily met his golden eyes. "What exactly do I have left to lose?"
Lucifer reached into his jacket and pulled out a single sheet of paper. It was old-looking, like parchment, with writing in a language Emily couldn't read.
"The contract," he said. "Sign it, and you'll never lose another case. Every argument you make will be flawless. Every jury will see things your way. Every judge will rule in your favor."
Emily took the paper. It was warm to the touch, and the writing seemed to shift and move in the light.
"What does it say?"
"The terms we discussed. Your success in exchange for... balance."
Emily looked at the contract. The words were starting to make sense, as if her brain was translating them automatically.
One clause caught her eye: "This contract shall remain in effect until the signatory completes seven acts of pure altruism without using the granted abilities, or until the signatory's natural death, whichever comes first."
"There's a way out," she said.
"There's always a way out. The question is whether you'll be strong enough to take it when the time comes."
Lucifer handed her a pen. It was old-fashioned, silver, with a sharp tip that looked more like a needle than a writing instrument.
"This will hurt a little," he said.
Emily pricked her finger with the pen. Blood welled up, dark red in the lamplight.
She signed her name at the bottom of the contract.
The moment the blood touched the parchment, Emily felt something change inside her. Power flooded through her veins like electricity. Her mind felt sharper, clearer. She could sense things she hadn't noticed before—the rhythm of Lucifer's heartbeat, the sound of her neighbor's television through the thin walls, the smell of rain that was still hours away.
When she looked up, Lucifer was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read.
For just a moment, she could have sworn she saw something in his golden eyes that looked almost like compassion.
Then it was gone, and he was standing up, straightening his perfect suit.
"Congratulations, Emily Rose. You're about to become the most successful lawyer in New York."
He walked toward her door.
"Wait," Emily called after him. "What happens now?"
Lucifer paused with his hand on the doorknob.
"Now you find out what kind of person you really are."
And then he was gone, leaving Emily alone in her freezing apartment with a contract signed in blood and power flowing through her veins like fire.