Emily poured herself a glass of wine and collapsed onto her couch. The cheap bottle from three nights ago was finally getting some use. Today had been... incredible. Six new clients. All of them with real cases, real grievances against companies that had been screwing people over for years.
She kicked off her heels and let them clatter to the floor. Her feet ached from walking around the office all day, but it was a good ache. The ache of being busy. Of mattering.
"To justice," she said to her empty apartment, raising her glass.
The wine was terrible, but she didn't care. Emily Rose was back in business.
Her phone buzzed with another text. This one from Mrs. Patterson.
"Thank you so much for taking my case. You have no idea what this means to me and my family."
Emily smiled and typed back: "We're going to get you everything you deserve."
She meant it. Tomorrow she'd start working the Patterson case, and the grocery store would learn what happened when they let customers slip on floors they knew were dangerous. The insurance company would find out that denying legitimate claims had consequences.
Emily stretched out on the couch and looked around her apartment. Same water stain on the ceiling. Same broken radiator. Same furniture held together with tape and hope.
But it felt different now. It felt temporary.
Soon she'd be able to afford a real place. Maybe something with heat that actually worked. Maybe even a doorman.
Emily took another sip of wine and noticed her hands. They looked... steadier. More confident. Even her fingernails looked better, though she hadn't done anything different.
She held up her left hand and studied the small scar on her ring finger. White and slightly raised, about half an inch long. She'd had it so long that most of the time she forgot it was there.
But tonight, looking at it in the lamplight, she remembered exactly how she'd gotten it.
Eight-year-old Emily crouched behind the dumpster in the alley behind their apartment building. Brooklyn, July 1995. The pavement was hot enough to fry an egg, and the smell from the garbage made her want to throw up.
But the cat was hurt.
It was small, maybe a few months old, with black fur matted with blood. One of its legs was bent wrong. Someone had thrown a bottle at it, Emily was pretty sure. There were glass pieces scattered around the dumpster.
"Here, kitty," Emily whispered. "I'm not gonna hurt you."
The cat looked at her with eyes that were... wrong. Not the yellow or green you'd expect from a black cat. These were gold. Bright, impossible gold that seemed to glow in the shadow of the dumpster.
"It's okay," Emily said, crawling closer. "I'm gonna help you."
The cat hissed when she reached for it, but it didn't run away. Its leg was definitely broken. Emily could see bone poking through the fur.
She pulled off her t-shirt and wrapped it around the cat, ignoring the claws that scraped against her arms. One claw caught her ring finger and opened a gash that immediately started bleeding.
"Ow. Damn it." Emily sucked on her finger. Her mom was gonna kill her for swearing.
She carried the cat up four flights of stairs to their apartment. Her mom was at work, wouldn't be home for hours. Emily filled a shoebox with towels and set the cat inside.
"What am I gonna call you?" she asked.
The cat looked at her with those impossible gold eyes and said...
Emily blinked. The memory wavered for a second, like heat shimmer on asphalt.
Had the cat really talked?
The cat looked at her with those impossible gold eyes and purred. Just purred. That was all.
Emily found some milk in the fridge and a can of tuna from the cupboard. She wasn't supposed to use the tuna without asking, but this was an emergency.
The cat ate like it hadn't seen food in weeks. While it ate, Emily carefully cleaned the blood from its fur with a damp washcloth. The cat let her do it, even seemed to like it.
"You're gonna be okay," Emily said. "I promise."
The cat finished eating and curled up in the towel. Emily sat next to the shoebox and watched it sleep. She must have dozed off too, because the next thing she knew, her mom was shaking her awake.
"Emily Rose Carson, what in the hell is that?"
Emily's mom pointed at the shoebox. The cat was awake now, watching them both with those strange gold eyes.
"I found him hurt, Mom. He needs help."
"We can't afford a vet, baby. You know that."
"But he's gonna die if we don't help him."
Emily's mom looked at the cat for a long moment. She was tired from working a double shift at the diner, Emily could tell. Her uniform was stained with grease and her hair had come loose from its ponytail.
"One night," she said finally. "Tomorrow we take him to the animal shelter."
Emily wanted to argue, but she knew better. One night was better than nothing.
That night, Emily snuck the cat into her bedroom. She made a bed for him out of her old stuffed animals and watched him sleep. Around midnight, she woke up to find him sitting on her chest, staring down at her with those gold eyes.
"Thank you, little Emily," the cat said in a voice like warm honey.
Emily dropped her wine glass.
It hit the floor and shattered, red wine spreading across the hardwood like blood. Emily stared at the mess, her heart pounding.
The cat had talked. In her memory, clear as day, the cat had thanked her.
But that was impossible. Cats didn't talk. Eight-year-old kids had active imaginations. She'd probably been half-asleep, dreaming.
Except...
Emily got up and found paper towels to clean up the wine. As she knelt on the floor, sopping up liquid, she remembered the rest.
The next morning, the cat was gone.
Emily searched the entire apartment. Under the beds, in the closets, behind the couch. Nothing. The shoebox was empty except for the towels, and the window in her bedroom was still closed and locked.
"Maybe he got better and left," her mom said when Emily told her.
"But the window was closed. And his leg was broken."
"Animals heal fast, baby. Faster than people."
Emily wasn't convinced, but what else could have happened? The cat was gone. End of story.
Except for the scar on her finger where his claw had caught her. That stayed.
Emily finished cleaning up the wine and sat back on her heels. The apartment was quiet except for the usual city sounds filtering through the windows. Traffic. A siren somewhere in the distance. The couple upstairs arguing about whose turn it was to do laundry.
Normal sounds. Human sounds.
Not the voice of a cat thanking a little girl for saving his life.
Emily touched the scar on her finger. It was warm. Warmer than it should be.
She thought about Lucifer's golden eyes. About the impossible things that had happened since she signed his contract. About power flowing through her veins and information appearing in her head from nowhere.
What if the cat had been real?
What if it had really talked?
What if...
Emily's phone rang, making her jump. She looked at the caller ID. Dr. Patricia Wells from her mother's nursing home.
"Hello?"
"Emily, I'm calling with good news. We received a large anonymous donation today that covers your mother's care for the next six months."
Emily almost dropped the phone. "What?"
"Someone paid your mother's account in full. Plus additional funds for upgraded care. We have no idea who it was, but the check was certified and valid."
"How much money?"
"Thirty thousand dollars."
Emily sank onto the couch. "That's... that's impossible."
"I thought you'd arranged it. The note with the check said 'For Margaret Rose, from someone who believes in second chances.'"
After Dr. Wells hung up, Emily sat in her apartment staring at nothing. Thirty thousand dollars. More money than she'd seen in her entire life, appeared out of nowhere to save her mother.
The same day she'd signed six new cases.
The same day her power had grown stronger.
Emily walked to her bathroom and looked in the mirror. Her reflection stared back, brown eyes wide with confusion and something that might have been fear.
She waited.
There. A flash of gold, quick as lightning.
Just like the cat's eyes from her childhood.
"What are you?" Emily whispered to her reflection.
Her reflection didn't answer. But somewhere in the back of her mind, she could swear she heard an echo of warm honey voice saying, "Thank you, little Emily."
Emily backed away from the mirror and grabbed her phone. She scrolled through her contacts until she found the card Mark Harrison had given her. She started to dial his number, then stopped.
What would she say? That she thought the devil might be a cat she'd saved when she was eight? That anonymous donors were paying her mother's medical bills? That her eyes were turning gold in mirrors?
He'd think she was crazy.
Maybe she was crazy.
Emily put her phone down and walked to her window. The city sprawled out below her, millions of lights in millions of windows. Millions of people living their normal lives, completely unaware that the universe might be a lot stranger than they thought.
She pressed her palm against the glass. It was cold, real, solid.
But her reflection in the window showed gold eyes looking back at her.
Emily closed her eyes and tried to remember the cat's voice more clearly. Had it really sounded like warm honey? Or had it sounded like something else?
Like Lucifer's voice when he was being gentle with her in the coffee shop?
When Emily opened her eyes, her reflection in the window was gone.
But standing behind her, perfectly reflected in the glass, was a man in a perfect suit with golden eyes.
Emily spun around.
Her apartment was empty.
She looked back at the window. Just her own reflection, brown eyes wide with terror.
Emily's hands were shaking as she pulled the curtains closed. She double-checked the locks on her door, turned on every light in the apartment, and sat on her couch with her back to the wall.
Thirty thousand dollars for her mother.
Six new clients in one day.
A cat from her childhood that might have been something else entirely.
And golden eyes that followed her everywhere, even in her own reflection.
Emily thought about calling Mark Harrison again. This time she actually dialed the first three digits before stopping.
Because if she was right, if the cat had been real, if it had really talked to her...
Then Lucifer hadn't just made a deal with her three days ago.
He'd been watching her for twenty-nine years.
End of Chapter 8