Emily couldn't sleep.
She'd been lying in bed for three hours, staring at the ceiling, listening to the radiator clank and the couple upstairs argue about money. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw William Morrison's face. The way he'd clutched his chest. The panic in his eyes.
At 2:17 AM, she gave up.
Emily got dressed in the dark. Jeans, sweater, her old winter coat with the broken zipper. She grabbed her keys and walked out into the October night.
Bellevue Hospital was a twenty-minute subway ride from her apartment. The emergency entrance was still busy at this hour—drunk college kids, domestic violence calls, the usual Friday night chaos. Emily walked past them all, heading for the elevator that would take her down to the basement.
She'd been to hospital morgues before, back when she was working elder abuse cases. You learned things about a person's final moments from their body that you couldn't get from paperwork.
The morgue entrance was locked, but Emily had learned a few tricks over the years. A credit card in the right place, a little pressure on the door frame, and you could get into most buildings in the city.
The hallway smelled like disinfectant and something else. Something cold and final.
Emily found the main examination room and pushed through the double doors. Rows of metal tables stretched across the space, most of them empty. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in harsh white light.
She didn't have to look long to find Morrison.
He was on the table nearest the wall, covered by a white sheet. A toe tag with his name and the date. Emily pulled back the sheet and immediately stepped back.
Morrison looked smaller in death. Older. His gray hair was messy, his face pale as paper. But that wasn't what made Emily's breath catch in her throat.
It was the mark on his chest.
Just above his heart, burned into the skin, was a symbol Emily had never seen before. It looked almost like a letter, but from no alphabet she recognized. The burn was precise, clean-edged, like it had been made with a branding iron.
Emily pulled out her phone and took a picture.
"Interesting, isn't it?"
Emily spun around, her heart hammering. A man stood in the doorway, wearing a white lab coat over jeans and a t-shirt. He was tall, maybe six feet, with dark hair and tired blue eyes. A stethoscope hung around his neck.
"I'm sorry," Emily said, dropping the sheet back over Morrison's body. "I shouldn't be here."
"No, you shouldn't." The man walked closer. "But since you are, you might as well tell me what you think that symbol means."
Emily looked at him more carefully. He was young for a doctor, maybe mid-thirties. There was something about his face, something that suggested he'd seen more than his share of impossible things.
"Are you the medical examiner?"
"One of them. Mark Harrison." He extended his hand. "And you're Emily Rose, the lawyer who was in court with Morrison when he died."
Emily shook his hand. His grip was firm, calloused. Not the soft hands of someone who spent all their time in offices.
"How do you know who I am?"
"I make it my business to know when lawyers start showing up in my morgue in the middle of the night." Mark pulled up a chair next to Morrison's table. "Especially when they're connected to cases like this."
"Cases like what?"
Mark was quiet for a moment, studying Emily's face like he was trying to decide something.
"How much do you know about unusual death patterns?" he asked finally.
"Not much. Why?"
"Because Morrison is the third lawyer to die of sudden heart failure in the past six months. All of them young, healthy men. All of them in the middle of high-profile cases."
Emily felt something cold settle in her stomach. "That could be coincidence."
"Could be." Mark stood up and walked to a filing cabinet across the room. He pulled out two folders and brought them back. "Take a look at these."
The first file contained photos of a man in his forties. David Chen, according to the case notes. Emily read quickly. Corporate lawyer, died of heart attack during a board meeting. The photos showed the same symbol burned into his chest, just above his heart.
The second file was worse. A woman named Angela Martinez, age thirty-eight. Immigration lawyer. The symbol was there too, burned into her skin with surgical precision.
"Jesus," Emily whispered. "What is this?"
"That's what I've been trying to figure out for six months." Mark sat back down. "The burns appear post-mortem, but there's no evidence of external heat source. No chemical residue. Nothing that would explain how the marks got there."
Emily stared at the photos. Three lawyers. Three symbols. Three deaths that happened right after... what?
"What cases were they working on?" she asked.
"Chen was defending a pharmaceutical company against a class action lawsuit. Martinez was fighting deportation proceedings for a family of refugees. Both cases involved companies or government agencies with deep pockets and few scruples."
"And Morrison?"
"Hudson Construction. Fighting claims from injured workers and their families."
Emily's mouth went dry. "All three of them were on the wrong side."
"Wrong side of what?"
"Justice. They were all fighting for the bad guys."
Mark leaned forward. "That's an interesting way to put it. Care to elaborate?"
Emily realized she'd said too much. "I just meant... look at the pattern. Pharmaceutical companies that poison people, construction companies that cut safety corners, government agencies that tear families apart. These lawyers weren't exactly fighting for the little guy."
"No, they weren't." Mark's voice was carefully neutral. "But that still doesn't explain how they died, or how they got those marks."
Emily looked at the photos again. The symbols were identical, burned with mathematical precision into each victim's chest.
"Have you shown these to the police?"
"I've shown them to everyone who'll look. Homicide, FBI, even some specialists in ritualistic crimes. No one has an explanation."
"FBI?"
"I used to work with them. Before I became a medical examiner."
Emily studied Mark's face. There was something he wasn't telling her, something behind those tired blue eyes.
"What did you do for the FBI?"
"I investigated things that didn't have easy explanations."
"Like what?"
Mark was quiet for a long moment. "Like unexplained deaths connected to supernatural phenomena."
The words hung in the air between them. Emily felt her heart start to race.
"Supernatural."
"I know how it sounds. But after twenty cases involving impossible circumstances, you start to consider impossible explanations."
Emily thought about Lucifer's golden eyes, about the power that flowed through her veins, about the contract she'd signed in blood.
"What if it's not impossible?" she heard herself say.
Mark looked at her sharply. "What do you mean?"
"I mean... what if there's something out there that can kill people with a thought? Something that leaves marks like these?"
"Something like what?"
Emily almost told him. The words were right there, ready to spill out. She wanted to tell someone about Lucifer, about the contract, about the terrible power that was running through her body even now.
But then she remembered Lucifer's warning from the coffee shop. Anyone who knew about the contract would die.
"I don't know," she said finally. "I'm just... trying to think outside the box."
Mark stood up and walked to the window that looked out into the hallway. "Emily, can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Have you noticed anything unusual since Morrison died? Anything strange or unexpected?"
Emily's breath caught. "Like what?"
"New clients calling. Cases falling into your lap. Success that feels... too easy."
Emily stared at him. "How could you possibly know that?"
"Because it's part of the pattern. Every time one of these lawyers dies, someone else's career suddenly takes off. A rival firm gets a big break. A prosecutor wins a case they should have lost. The universe likes balance, Emily. When it takes something away, it gives something back."
Emily felt like the floor was tilting under her feet. "You think I killed Morrison?"
"I think you're connected to what killed Morrison. The question is whether you know it or not."
Emily backed away from the table. "This is crazy. I should go."
"Wait." Mark stepped between her and the door. "I'm not accusing you of anything. But if I'm right, if there is something supernatural going on, then you might be in danger."
"Danger from what?"
"From whatever's doing this. From whoever's pulling the strings." Mark's voice was urgent now. "Emily, these deaths aren't random. Someone or something is targeting lawyers who fight for the wrong side. If you're benefiting from their deaths, then you're part of the system."
"What system?"
"I don't know yet. But I intend to find out."
Emily looked at the photos scattered across the table. Three dead lawyers, all marked with the same impossible symbol.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I think you're one of the good ones. And I think whoever's doing this is counting on that."
Emily's phone buzzed. A text message from an unknown number.
"Curiosity killed the cat, Emily. Be careful who you trust. - L"
Emily deleted the message quickly, but not before Mark saw her face change.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. Just... work stuff."
Mark didn't look convinced, but he didn't press. "Emily, I'm going to give you my number. If anything strange happens, anything at all, I want you to call me."
He handed her a business card. "Mark Harrison, Medical Examiner, Federal Consultant."
"Federal consultant?"
"Old habits." Mark walked her to the door. "Promise me you'll be careful."
"Why do you care?"
Mark paused with his hand on the door handle. "Because I've seen what happens to people who get caught up in things they don't understand. And I've seen what happens to the people who care about them."
Emily looked into his eyes and saw something that surprised her. Not suspicion. Not fear.
Concern. Real, genuine concern for her safety.
"I'll be careful," she promised.
Mark let her out through a side entrance that led directly to the street. Emily walked to the subway station, her mind racing.
Three dead lawyers. Three mysterious symbols. And a medical examiner who investigated supernatural crimes for the FBI.
As the train pulled into the station, Emily realized two things.
First, Mark Harrison knew more than he was telling her.
Second, she was pretty sure he was right about the system. Someone was pulling strings, balancing scales, making sure justice was served through death.
And she was working for them.
The question was: what was she going to do about it?