The moment Emily signed her name, everything changed.
Not just in the room—though the temperature did drop another ten degrees and her breath came out in white puffs. Not just in the contract—though the parchment burst into flames and disappeared without leaving so much as a trace of ash.
Everything inside her changed.
Power hit her like lightning. It started in her fingertips where she'd pricked herself with Lucifer's silver pen and shot through her entire body in waves. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Her vision sharpened until she could see dust motes floating in the air, could make out the grain in the wooden desk across the room.
She could hear things she'd never heard before. Mrs. Chen's television two floors down. A conversation happening on the street outside. Her own heartbeat, loud as thunder in her ears.
"Whoa." Emily gripped the arms of her chair. The electrical tape felt different under her fingers. Rougher. More textured. "What's happening to me?"
Lucifer stood by her window, looking out at the city lights. "The contract is taking effect. Your mind is expanding, Emily. Your senses are becoming more acute. You're becoming what you need to be."
"Which is what exactly?"
"The best lawyer who ever lived."
Emily tried to stand up and immediately sat back down. The room was spinning, or maybe she was. Her body felt like it was vibrating at a frequency she couldn't control.
"How long does this last?"
"The adjustment period? A few hours. Maybe less." Lucifer turned away from the window. "You're handling it better than most."
"Most?"
"You're not the first person to make this kind of arrangement, Emily."
Something cold settled in Emily's stomach. "What happened to the others?"
"That's not important right now."
"It's important to me."
Lucifer walked over to her bookshelf. Emily had maybe thirty books total, mostly law textbooks she'd kept from school and a few paperback novels she'd found at thrift stores. He picked up a copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and flipped through the pages.
"Some handled the power well," he said without looking at her. "They used it for good purposes, helped people, made the world a little better. Others..." He set the book back on the shelf. "Others didn't."
"What does that mean?"
"It means power reveals who you really are, Emily. It doesn't change you. It just amplifies what was already there."
Emily's head was starting to clear. The spinning sensation was fading, replaced by something that felt like being plugged into an electrical outlet. Energy coursed through her veins, making her feel more awake than she'd been in years.
"I can feel it," she said. "The power. It's like... like there's something else inside my head now."
"Legal knowledge," Lucifer said. "Every case that's ever been tried. Every precedent. Every loophole. It's all there now, waiting for you to access it."
Emily closed her eyes and immediately saw flashes of courtrooms she'd never been in, judges she'd never met, cases she'd never heard of. The information was vast, overwhelming, but somehow organized. Like having the entire legal system downloaded directly into her brain.
"This is impossible," she whispered.
"So was signing a contract with someone named Lucifer, but here we are."
Emily opened her eyes. "Are you actually him? The devil?"
Lucifer's smile was enigmatic. "Would it matter if I was?"
"I'd like to know what I've gotten myself into."
"You've gotten yourself into exactly what you asked for. The ability to never lose another case." He walked toward her door. "The rest is details."
"Wait." Emily stood up. This time she didn't feel dizzy. She felt strong. Stronger than she'd ever felt in her life. "That's it? You give me supernatural legal powers and then just leave?"
"You don't need me anymore, Emily. Everything you need is right here." He tapped his temple. "In your head."
"But what about the people who die? How does that work?"
"You'll find out soon enough."
Emily followed him to the door. "I need more than that."
Lucifer paused with his hand on the doorknob. "The universe seeks balance, Emily. When you save a life through legal victory, it takes a life to maintain equilibrium. You don't control who dies. You don't choose the target. You simply provide the catalyst."
"The catalyst for what?"
"Justice."
"Your definition of justice or mine?"
"There's only one definition that matters. The universe's."
Emily felt a surge of frustration. "You're being deliberately cryptic."
"I'm being necessarily vague. Too much information too soon and you'll second-guess every decision. You need to learn to trust the power, Emily. Trust that it will guide you toward the right choices."
He opened the door.
"How do I contact you if I need help?"
"You don't. From now on, you're on your own."
"But what if something goes wrong?"
Lucifer turned back to her. For a moment, his expression softened. "Something will go wrong, Emily. That's the nature of power. The question is whether you'll have the strength to make it right again."
And then he was gone, leaving Emily alone in her apartment with power crackling through her veins and a thousand questions buzzing in her head.
She closed the door and leaned against it. The apartment felt different now. Smaller. Like she'd outgrown it in the space of a few minutes.
Emily walked to the bathroom and flipped on the light. The fluorescent bulb flickered and hummed, casting harsh shadows across her face.
She looked the same. Same brown hair, same tired eyes, same pale skin. But something was different. Something in the way she held herself, maybe. She stood straighter. Her shoulders weren't hunched with defeat.
She looked... confident.
Emily leaned closer to the mirror. Her reflection leaned with her.
That's when she saw it.
Her eyes flashed gold.
Just for a second. A brief flicker, like lightning in a storm cloud. Then they were brown again, ordinary and human.
Emily blinked hard and looked again. Brown. Definitely brown.
But she knew what she'd seen. For just a moment, her eyes had been the same impossible gold as Lucifer's.
"What the hell?" she whispered to her reflection.
Her reflection didn't answer.
Emily splashed cold water on her face. The water felt different against her skin. She could feel each individual droplet, could sense the temperature variations, the mineral content. It was like her nervous system had been rewired.
She walked back to her desk and sat down. Her laptop was still open, still showing her pathetic bank balance. But now it didn't look like a death sentence. It looked like a problem that could be solved.
Emily opened a new browser tab and typed in "legal jobs New York urgent." Dozens of results popped up. Cases that needed immediate attention. Clients who were desperate enough to hire anyone, even a lawyer with a losing streak.
She scrolled through the listings. Personal injury. Wrongful termination. Medical malpractice. The kinds of cases she usually took, the ones that paid badly and came with astronomical odds against success.
But now...
Emily found herself analyzing each case description with perfect clarity. She could see the legal strategies, the precedents she could cite, the arguments that would sway a jury. Information flowed through her mind effortlessly, organizing itself into winning game plans.
She clicked on a wrongful termination case. "Client fired after reporting workplace safety violations. Company claims budget cuts. Need representation immediately."
Emily read the details and immediately knew how to win. Section 11 of the state whistleblower protection act. Combined with precedent from Martinez v. Industrial Solutions. And if that didn't work, she could pivot to the federal OSHA regulations and cite Thompson v. Consolidated Manufacturing.
She knew all of this without looking anything up. It was just there, in her head, clear as daylight.
Emily picked up her phone and dialed the number listed on the case.
"Hello, this is Emily Rose from Rose Legal Services. I saw your posting about wrongful termination. I'd like to take your case."
The conversation lasted twenty minutes. By the end of it, Emily had her first client as a supernaturally enhanced lawyer. The retainer was five thousand dollars, paid up front.
More money than she'd seen in six months.
After she hung up, Emily sat back in her chair and stared at her phone. Five thousand dollars. Just like that. And she knew—knew with absolute certainty—that she would win the case.
She walked back to the bathroom mirror.
This time, she stared directly at her reflection, waiting.
There. Another flash of gold. Quicker this time, but unmistakable.
"Why?" she asked the mirror. "Why do my eyes look like his?"
The mirror, predictably, didn't answer. But something in the back of her mind whispered that maybe, just maybe, her connection to Lucifer ran deeper than a simple business contract.
Emily touched the glass with her fingertips. Her reflection touched back.
For a moment, she could have sworn she saw something else in the mirror. Not her apartment behind her, but somewhere else. Somewhere with marble columns and stained glass windows and the smell of incense in the air.
She blinked, and it was gone.
Just her crappy bathroom with its cracked tile and leaky faucet.
Emily turned away from the mirror and walked back to her desk. She had work to do. A case to prepare for. A life to rebuild.
But as she sat down to research whistleblower protection laws she already knew by heart, one question kept nagging at her.
What exactly had she become?
Outside her window, the city hummed with life. Somewhere out there, a man named Richard Blackwood was probably sleeping peacefully in his expensive apartment, completely unaware that the balance of the universe was about to shift.
Emily opened another browser tab and searched for recent obituaries.
Tomorrow, she suspected, there would be one more.