One Hot Date
"Hey Hikari, how are you doing? Listen congratulations on the Wellman class action, we still can't figure out how you played out that mean bastard Dieter to be anything other than what he is but another feather to your cap." She rolled her eyes at the answering machine and plopped down unto her sofa, waiting for the remaining part of the message and the request that was sure to come, "So what are you doing Thursday night? I just need your consult on something- Diane and I are thinking about getting a divorce a-and I know it's not your area of expertise but you're worse than any cut throat divorce lawyer I know. So just give me a call when you get this."
Hikari's satisfied smile had turned into a frown by the end of the message. She knew her old college classmate Eric Waterhorn and his wife had recently been going through rough patches in their marriage but nothing as serious as divorce. They'd been married for more than a decade now- well past the life expectancy of the average marriage- but it seemed nothing was cast in iron any more. This was just more evidence that her way- the sex with no strings attached way- was the way to go. After witnessing her parents' seemingly perfect marriage of fifteen years crumble to dust before her very eyes, no one could ever be safe from the menace of monogamy.
She sighed and pressed the button once more to listen to the last of five messages that had been saved on her machine the night before, and cringed at the familiar growl. "Where the hell are you Carmichael and what do you think this is, your father's practice? You have gridlock of case files lying on your desk, you've got your assistant lying for you here and I know you haven't-" Hikari groaned and switched off the machine, cutting the regular tirade mid way as she fell over backwards on the couch, spluttering from the resultant shower of dust that rose up to her face. Jeb had ever reason to be screaming a litany into her phone; for the past two weeks she'd barely shown up and those cases come in like an endless waterfall.
Two weeks ago she would have been making frantic attempts to make peace with Jeb but a lot of things had happened in the space of two weeks. For one thing, she was no longer involved with petty cases like burglary or even the odd felony or two, no in the space of two weeks Hikari had shot up to the pinnacle of a pinnacles and was now involved in the trial of, well the trial of ever. One can't get much bigger as a lawyer than defending the most infamous personality of all time.
She got to her feet with a wry twist of the lip and padded barefooted over the creaking wooden floorboards to the small kitchenette by the left, where a quick inspection narrowed her options for breakfast to water crackers, a bottle of water and an orange. Hikari pulled a face as she shut the refrigerator door and contemplated the fruit in her hand, muttering under her breath about larger than life clients and their idiosyncrasies. The mere fact that no one, not even her client, could predict the time of the trial meant she had to be prepared at any moment for her soul to be sucked out of her body and transported to the seventh realm- something that would be bit of an inconvenience if she just happened to be patrolling the isles of the neighborhood supermarket at that particular moment.
And so for her own safety, and not to confound the entire medical society with her sporadic deaths and resurrections, Hikari decided to keep her movements to a minimum and stay within range of both the sofa and the bed. She cut the orange into four quarters and moved back to the living room, sucking on a piece while her eyes intently stared at the small frame art right opposite her. Hikari supposed that another person would have been startled, if not terrified at being contacted by the supreme lord of the underworld but then thanks to her mother's stoic temperament and her father's objective way of looking at everything, she'd taken it all in stride like every other momentous event in her life. After all like every other jaded defense attorney working the streets, she'd seen it all...
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"Hey Carmichael, phone call for you!"
She winced and looked up when her assistant's fiendishly loud voice carried across the large room and hit her ears with the decibels of a sub woofer system. "Is that so Trisha, well who from?" Perhaps it was bad timing or what a two week older Hikari would now pin on a stroke of luck, the whole room suddenly went silent just as the other woman yelled her response, "Calls himself the devil's personal assistant." Once again Hikari was forced to contemplate the reasons she kept Trisha on her payroll and they included the fact that good help- actually any help- was impossible to find with what the Agency paid her at the end of each trial- and the fact that the other woman was a single mom trying to further her education and needed every break she could get. However, the clearly yelled statement resulted in a tidal wave of titters and chuckles as her colleagues milling about took it upon themselves to make quaint remarks about the crank caller and the intended recipient. She scowled and got to her feet, marching to the phone ready to give the caller a piece of her mind. "Who is this?"
"Hello, Hikari Carmichael," A polished voice smoothly replied and she was confused for a moment. "Excuse me, I thought my assistant made it clear that this call is meant for Hikari Carmichael, attorney and none other." There was a slight edge to the voice now- it sounded almost mildly amused, if only it didn't for some reason send the hairs on her neck standing. "This is Carmichael speaking, who is this?" Cultured or no, Hikari had way too much paperwork to bother to be civil to the next hoity-toity with an ego problem and her agitation spilled into her voice. "I'm sure he also made it clear about who is speaking." The edge was now a definite bite of impatience and for a moment Hikari found herself believing she was answering a collect call made by...the devil.
Then she heard Jeb's voice roaring from the other end of the room and came right back to earth. "Alright listen, this is all very cute but I've got a lot of work to do and I don't have the time to play knock-knock with anybody." She slammed the phone and hurried back to her desk, summarily putting the whole conversation away from her mind and that was where it would stay until she got back to her appointment and opened the door to find a woman sprawled on her couch, waiting for her.
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"So I guess it is true then what they say about trial lawyers having even worse manners than over worked ER surgeons," the sloe eyed, raven haired beauty propped her head over a hand and stared lazily at her from between lowered lashes, for all intents and purposes unaware of the shock written all over her face. "H-how did you get in here?" Hikari glanced back into the hallway just to be sure they were alone and the other woman got to her feet in one sinuous motion, "How does it look like? The door was open." She took a step forward and the lawyer inched backward, frowning at the bunch of keys in her hand, "I'm very sure this door was locked on my way out this morning and the super can't possibly have the keys." It was true; after a particularly grueling trial involving members of warring gangs, the attorney had gone out of her way to change all the locks and window fittings in her apartment without the manager's knowledge or consent but a more pressing question was why she wasn't more disturbed by this intrusion than she should be.
The other woman shrugged and folded her arms, leaning backward against the arm of the couch in an action that sent the hem of her already outlandishly short dress riding a few more inches, exposing her chin long legs to the attorney's eyes and raised brow. "Well what can I say, it wasn't to the likes of me; no door ever truly is." Her cryptic response was followed by another step forward and an approving smile, "Hikari Eliza Carmichael, how you've grown! But then the last time I remember, you were an itty bitty mite of what was it, twelve? Some things do get better with time." Hikari found herself shrinking away from the very obvious leering, an action that brought the other woman's face up to meet hers, and she nearly fell face forward when their eyes met.
There was so much power and self possession in those amber eyes; they were filled with a kind of knowledge that she instinctively knew was unnatural and impossible for a mere mortal to comprehend. They rang with stinging clarity and yet carried veil upon veil of hidden intent and meaning and as those long black lashes moved, they drew her up and spat her back to the ground, all the while not even minuscule nuance of emotion changing on her flawless features. Her smile was altogether appraising and dismissive in the same breath, depending on which ever the attorney chose to read, and with increasing agitation in her midsection, she found herself believing she was staring into the face of the devil after all.
"W-who are you?" Hikari finally whispered when those eyes moved away and the other woman shrugged, "That generally depends on what hemisphere you're thinking about; I've been given so many names, it'd be hard to keep track of them all if I weren't, well...let's go with this for now: Call me Light bringer or just Lucy, it sounds so much nicer than what some other people call me."
Her smile turned derisive and then self deprecating as the seconds ticked by. The lawyer blinked and cleared her throat. Light Bringer...Lucifer...she wasn't joking. "You expect me to believe that you are, how do they say it, Evil Incarnate?" Light Bringer raised an eyebrow as she casually lowered herself unto the armrest of the sofa, "And why is that so hard to believe? You don't see too many people going about calling themselves that these days" Hikari shrugged and stepped in, shutting the door behind her, distinctly remembering a comedy skit the night before involving one of the most important figures in the government and said salutation. "Ah I don't know, it's just with all the hype and star power you've been accredited with over the millennia, I just assumed you'd be more...well, more."
The other woman chuckled and shook her head, "More what exactly...oh I see, you expected a big red monster with ram horns and pointed tail, not to mention the menacing pitchfork. Oh don't tell me you're so sexist; you expected a man." The lawyer blanched as her very thoughts were expressed back to her and quickly sought a way to dodge the bullet. "Well it's just that all my life I've never actually seen the devil embodied as a woman...except if you want to talk about that movie-"
"Mmm-hmm, I see," Lucy rolled her eyes and leaned back into the sofa, an unreadable smile on her face. "I can spot a Sunday school shirker when I see one. Didn't they ever tell you Angels, even fallen ones, have no determinable gender? Oh if only your mother could see you now. Besides, we're in the twenty first century and whatever happened to the Feminist movement?" Hikari ignored the jibe in the last statement, walking on into her living room to drop her keys and briefcase with the usual air of normalcy, as if fabled supernatural beings regularly dropped in unnoticed into her apartment to strike discussions on theology. "So what do you want Lucy, don't you have bigger things on your mind like I don't know, global chaos and destruction to wreak?"
The immortal ignored her sarcastic tone, turning around at an angle impossible for the human body, "Ah well these days you guys seem to have it all covered don't you?" She got to her feet with a coquettish jump and moved closer, drawling softly as she did, "Actually I feel like a little dinner, come with?" Hikari paused in the process of hanging her coat, pondering upon the devil's meal, and a vivid image of a bleeding human arm lying on a gold plate flashed to her mind. Lucy laughed and folded her arms, "Wow, and I was thinking more like chicken fried steak but your idea doesn't seem that bad. Besides, I'm not the one who has to watch her figure. Oh did I just say that out loud?"
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"So you're telling me that you've been issued a subpoena."
Hikari stared at the other woman with an incredulous expression and she sighed, "I know, imagine the nerve of it all, sending something so-so ugh!" She tossed her hair in an all too girly fashion, which did nothing to help dispel the lawyer's mounting suspicion that all these eons as evil incarnate had rendered her with several personalities. "He's bringing me in on a simple technicality and I'm obligated to appear because our contract was legal and binding. Now I can overturn the whole thing with a number of loopholes but it's been dragging for far to long and frankly-" She leaned in to whisper, "It's been giving me a bad name all over. Word is beginning to spread that Old Daddy Bones must be losing his touch if a mere mortal and his pesky lawyer can put me in a bind."
Her expression turned feral for a moment and the attorney felt a chill run down her spine. "So, I need you to take this case for me," Lucy finished with a sweet smile. Hikari's eyebrows were in danger of merging fully with her hair by this time and she pushed back her plate. "Wait, you need me to defend you in a case you'll pro-most likely win anyway- might I ask why? What happened to the Cochrans of our age, and I'm sure you can find at least one decent liar-lawyer in the underworld."
Lucy gave an exaggerated sigh and rolled her eyes, leaning in to speak slowly as if she was talking to a mental invalid. "Okay let's try this once more. Do you honestly think a court ruled by mortals can subpoena me? Well then this is a Grand Arcane High Court, and a summons from such a court cannot just be ignored- it is also in a realm utterly inaccessible to mortals and so we're dealing with souls here. Now for certain realms and purposes, a soul can neither be too pure or too sullied." She stopped and blinked expectantly at Hikari to fill in the blank and the lawyer scoffed, "And you're telling me that mine is just right?"
Her question was met by a deadpan stare. "Yes Goldilocks, you happen to walk the fine line between jaded cynicism and irrepressible idealism very well and that is just what I need. Besides I feel a certain attachment to this particular mortal." Lucy reached out and patted the other woman's head as if she were stroking a pet, chuckling when the latter recoiled from the touch. "So now that you've got the basics, I'll let you know the other things. The Court has no fixed place in time and space and so trials can begin at any given time, so don't make any travel plans, and you don't have to bother about what to wear; your soul will be doing all the walking and talking."
"Whoa-whoa where's all this Me coming from? I haven't said anything remotely near an agreement to take this case," Hikari snapped with a frown and the Immortal shrugged, "Well we both know you will because for one thing, under all those crusty layers of cynicism and that smart aleck attitude, there is a mind as razor sharp as any I've ever known, not to mention lots and lots of ambition. Admit it Eliza, you don't want to spend the rest of your life moldering in the agency and it's only a matter of time before you break out. Well look at this as the opportunity you've been waiting for. Take my case and shoot to super nova status."
She shifted backward and sipped her drink, waiting patiently for the wheels to finish turning in the mortal's head. It didn't matter how long it took; she could spare the time and it was rather enjoyable being in the other woman's company. Her eyes moved around the table, lighting briefly here and there on diners before flitting away with disinterest, and then she heard a sigh. "So what happens if I win the case?" Lucy blinked and smiled widely, "Well this bothersome business becomes a thing of the past, I claim my errant prize and you get to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of your life."
"And if I lose?" Hikari leaned closer and lower, resting her chin on the very tips of her fingers while her eyes tried and failed to hold the Immortal's. "If that happens, I'll deal with this case another way, claim my errant prize and you still get to live in the lap of luxury. Face it Eliza, you won't ever get a trial bigger than this and I'm more or less giving it to you on a silver platter."
That brought up another interesting point and the attorney commented, "Yes Lucy, you are giving this to me on a silver platter, and it only makes me wonder why? I mean you're being too generous and like you said, I'm just too cynical to believe it's coming from-dare say it- the goodness of your heart, so what are you gaining from all this?" Amber eyes glimmered with humor and mischief for a moment before she replied, "Like I also said, I feel a certain attachment to this particular mortal."
Somewhere during that conversation it became a given that she'd take the case but she was too busy thinking about her next question to notice. "So this renegade, he got a name?" Lucy's smile slipped and her amber eyes darkened to nearly black. "Faustus." The lawyer stopped and leaned closer, voice bleeding with laughter "Faustus, as in the Faustus?"
The immortal rolled her eyes and dabbed the corners of her lips, "It's a good thing I'm not dealing with more than one of those, yes the Faustus- what can I say? Free will was all the rage back then and I got a little less technical with the whole bargin thing. There are a few files containing everything you need to know about our agreement, which will be delivered to your place by your new team of assistants later tonight. I think we're about done here, luck to you Hikari, and don't forget I have high expectations of you."
With that she got to her feet and vanished in to the air. Suddenly there was increase in the background noise and Hikari found herself feeling lightheaded; she'd been held in the throes of the Immortal's power for all this while without even knowing.
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...And that was how she became contracted into the devil's team, in a manner of speaking but the lawyer had to admit it was an intriguing case, one that she actually had a good chance of winning- with her soul intact just the way she liked it.
Something told her there was more to the soul balance thing that her client had let on, and so she took extra measures not to say or involve herself with situations that could potentially tip the balance. This dinner with the devil was one she was very determined to eat with a long spoon.