A New Client, Pro Bono

Lucian looked over the contract, taking another bite out of the carrot held. “It's quite solid when you consider this was written by a lesser devil.” He muses. “There is nothing I can really spot at a glance that me and my firm could really take advantage of.”
Cassidy and Brent looked at each other, concerned in their eyes. “Does that mean there is nothing you can do?”
Lucian shook his head, lowering the carrot down and rubbing his chin. “Now I didn’t exactly say that, did I? There is more than one way to get your son out of this situation. Results may vary, but we have taken cases like this many times before.”
Cassidy looked at the devil, its horse-like face intimidating, but eyes conveying a sense of honesty. “And what do you want for this?” She asks nervously. “The other one wanted one of our souls.”
Lucian lowered his head, a smirk forming at the edges of his muzzle. “Pro bono.” He remarks.
Brent looked up, a sneer on his face. “Pro what now?” He spat. “Speak clearly, our son is endangered.”
Lucian sighed. “Pro bono, it’s Latin, means ‘for the good of the public.’” He explains, taking another bite of the carrot. “Basically, it means I’ll do this for free.”
Cassidy gasped. “For… free?”
“What’s the catch?” Brent sneered.
“You mortals always think there has to be a catch to everything, don’t you.” Lucian said, rolling his eyes and snorting. “How about this, you’ll love your child, no matter the outcome that comes from this. Even should I fail, you’ll still give your child as comfortable a life as you can. After all, it was you who damned his soul.”
The words dug deep, and silenced the two parents as they looked between each other. “But we had no…”
“You always have a choice, you just made the wrong choice this time.” Lucian interrupted. “If your child had died, it still would have gone to a peaceful afterlife. Now, he has to contend with whatever torture you set them up for in the future.” Lucian took a breath. “However, considering the circumstances, I cannot blame you for your brash actions. Devils take advantage of situations such as the one you found yourself in.”
Lucians stood up from the chair, waving his hand over it to cast a repair charm to mend the damage his weight did to it. “No contract needed. We will fix this mess you got yourself in.” When the chair was fixed, his gaze turned back to the summoning circle he emerged from, he raised his hand and the gate emerged again. “You can clean the circle, but keep the area clear. I’ll return to the same place after I have an update. Inkwell, we’re leaving. Did you see the child?”
With that, a small imp wearing a purple suit appeared in the air around Lucian. “Got everything I need, boss. Just need to analyze it.”
Brent looked at the two, and stepped forward. “Wait, we said that you can’t see our child,” he spat.
“That I can’t see your child, not any of my associates.” Lucian corrected, motioning to Inkwell. “As you were very uncooperative, I had to deceive you to get the information we needed to conduct our investigation. I would apologize for the deception, but you were the ones who made it needlessly hard.”
The two moved towards the gate as Brent clenched a fist. A tear rolled down his face, as he leapt forward to punch the devil.
The devil felt the blow, and simply looked back down at him. “I give you my word no harm will come to your child.” He stated, before stepping back through the gate.


“It's been a while since any mortal threw an attack at you.” Inkwell laughed, hanging his suit up on the rack. “I’m surprised you didn’t give him the hoof right then and there like you did to the last guy. You could have reared back and… BAM!”
Lucian chuckled, throwing his green jacket over his desk chair. “Guy did it out of love for his son, rather than malicious intent.” He explained. Taking a seat and stretching back. Slouching in that cramped building does murder on his back and legs. “I decided to give him a pass this one time.”
“You're getting soft, boss.” Inkwell grinned, taking out his journal. “Anyways, I suppose you want to know what I found out from the kid.”
Lucian leaned forward to take the journal. “But of course. I’m going to look over the intel we gathered. Meanwhile, get the associates to dig up any information about a devil named…” he flips through his own notes he had taken. “Bonrar. See what you can find of this Bonrar fellow. Don’t have much to go on other than his name and that he had horns large.”
“Got it, what’s our take for this job this?”
“Ehh, decided to go pro bono this time” Lucian said as he ripped the sheet off his pad. “Our network has been pretty solid as of late, so we have enough soul energy to keep going for quite some time. It’s a good time to earn some good will from this plane.”
Inkwell grinned as he took the sheet. The network Lucian referred to was the loyalty mortals had towards him. With each mortal that Lucian earned the trust of, his power grew, channeling a small portion of their being through the portion of the souls he collected. It was not as strong as taking a full soul to strengthen himself, but with the amount of mortals he dealt with and how willing they were, Lucian and the Lesser Evil Firm had formed a large network of mortals willingly granting him a small fraction of their being. It was a weaker form of gaining power, but much more stable and reliable then other methods.
“I’ll see what our associates can rustle up. But with only a name it might take some time. Horns are a pretty generic thingnl for us.” With that, the Imp saluted his boss, and flew out the door to the associate floor.
Lucian rubbed his temple after Inkwell left, his headache not dying down. He had been spending too much time on mortal planes, he knew he needed to spend some time back home to replenish himself, but when news of this case reached him, he knew that only he and Inkwell could handle it. When a third party is introduced into a contract, even if it is just a baby, things get exponentially more difficult due to the number of people involved.
Especially if the parents were proving difficult to get the required information from.
He looked through his notepad and reviewed the case. The pair were having complications with their pregnancy, and it was determined by the clerics in the church that the child was not going to survive the birth. The parents were devastated, seeking any possible way to save their child at any expense. Nothing seemed to have been working. That was when a demon (or more appropriately, devil) named Bonrar approached them, promising the safe birth of their child in exchange for one of their souls. Desperate and pressed for time, the parents had agreed, and three months later they gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
What the parents didn’t know is that the devil had put a claim on their son’s soul, instead of either of the parent’s souls. They were devastated by the news when Bonrar delivered the news after his obligation was fulfilled. One of The Lesser Evil’s plants within their local church heard the parents plead to their clergy, but they refused to help due to the family’s devilish dealings. Hence, they slipped them a copy of Dealing with Interpretation, the guide written by Lucian on how to deal with Devils, and more importantly, how to contact the firm.
Lucian sighed, as his attention turned to the copy of the contract the family had signed. He looked over the contract, carefully reading each term one at a time. As he read, he cross referenced each word carefully with the terms on the page, looking for a different use of the words.
Halfway through going over the contract, Inkwell returned to the room. “Guys down in intelligence are working on tracking this ass down. How you doing with the contract?”
Lucian sighed, putting it down. “I’d put souls on it that this guy did his homework.” He groaned, shaking his head. “Really locked down and specific in a lot of the terminology. Very deliberate use of words, I highly doubt the parents understood what they were signing if they didn’t even know what Pro Bono meant.”
Inkwell chuckled, and brought a bottle of Hellfire Wine over to him. “If the parents had been looking for a solution for a while, it would have given our perp time to prepare something.” Inkwell surmised. “This is not one of these opportunistic contracts we normally take on.”
Lucian took the bottle, uncorking it with one of his claws and pouring two glasses. “You're getting better at drawing conclusions, Inkwell. That’s exactly what I came to as well.”
“Yeah, well, I also think those mortals are not being completely straight with us, either?” Inkwell stated.
Lucian looked over at the imp curiously, wondering what he was getting at.
“Take a look at what I discovered about the kid. I think you’ll be surprised by my findings.”
Lucian nodded, and took the small journey. Flipping through the pages he arrived at the latest entry.
“Child is male, fairly healthy, and untouched by corruption. Not much else to say, just seems like a regular human baby to me.”
Lucian’s eye arches as he looks back to Inkwell. “Untouched by corruption?”
The little imp took his custom goblet and took a sip of the wine. “Yeah, I didn’t really think about it until I was sharing your orders with the others. Wouldn’t a mortal who was healed by dark magic be tainted in some way.”
Lucian lowered his head, looking at the wine. “Normally, yes. Are you sure you weren’t mistaken?”
“Are you questioning me? I am sure about what I saw and wrote.” Inkwell scoffed, taking another swig of his wine. “I am certain of what I saw.”
“No mutations, no fiendish signs?”
“Not even a bump resembling a horn or a devilish birthmark.” Inkwell stated. “Kid was absolutely clean, and I was through.”
Lucian lowered his head. “Interesting. I can’t think of anything that would lead to no taint or marking.” He said, bringing the wine to his mouth. “Quite a unique situation, really.”
“I’m leaning towards this Bonrar guy using smoke and mirrors, personally.” Inkwell stated, finishing off his wine. “There is nothing that I can think of that would not leave a mark on the child.”
Lucian nodded “Certainly looking that way, proving it will be difficult though.” He stated, taking a sip of the wine. “Someone who is this careful with their contracts would not leave many loose threads.”
The two worked together looking over the contract and for the next few hours, carefully considering the terms and their meanings. Of course there was the regular clause devils often use to try to prevent mortals from sharing the details of the contract, but it was something that Lucian learned a long time ago how to navigate, taking the contract himself without the knowledge of the mortals involved.
The obligation of the Bonrar was the part that Lucian and Inkwell focused on the most. ‘I, Bonrar, pledge to allow you to give birth to your baby, which will be healthy and alive.’
Inkwell looked at the clause, frowning. “Maybe the baby was already healthy, and the cleric was wrong about the spawning ritual?” He guessed.
Lucian’s brow furrowed, and he shook his head. “I had considered that, but that would be difficult to prove as a whole without approaching the cleric. I’ll put it as a possibility.” He glanced further through the contract, but he kept coming back to Bonrar’s obligations. It was the only part of the contract that had flimsy wording.
“You said that you felt as though the mortals were not being straight with us. Why did you think that?”
The imp shrugged as he poured himself another wine. “I don’t know. You know how I started to take traits from you after being fed power from you for so long. I always thought mortals were kind of the same way. They would start to look like those he fed them.” He emptied the bottle into his goblet and took a swig. “You didn’t see that baby, but I saw nothing of the father in it.”
“You're saying that you think the wife is a succubus?”
“I wasn’t thinking succubus, I was more thinking harlot.” Inkwell corrected. “But it could be something to look into at least. We may be able to get Bonrar on the fact it's not the Father’s baby.”
Lucian considered Inkwell’s words, but frowned. “Right, but it still says ‘your’ baby. It still was birthed by the mother, there is no denying that fact, but at the very least if you are right we can get the father out of the terms.”
“Even though he threw a punch at you.”
Lucian chuckled. “Yeah. Even though he threw a punch at me.” He rolled up the contract and began putting the notes away. “Anyway, I don’t think we can do much else until we learn more about this Bonrar guy. You want to go down to the Blood Pits to have a soak.”
Inkwell grinned. “As long as you don't overexert yourself. You’ve been working hard lately, and it's starting to show.”
Lucian grinned, punching the imp lightly. “That's why I keep you around, to keep me in check.” Lucian took his coat and started towards the gate. “Come on, might as well relax before we go all in on this. I think I might have underestimated this contract, and am going to be contributing long hours towards this.”