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The Devil May Care

Part 21

For DuskCypher

By Draconicon

Cthulhu hadn't slept for more than a decade, and he was starting to wonder if he ever would again. Not that he needed it to live - god knew that he had been in and out of sleep for all of existence, with half the world and most of his followers believing that he was still deep in sleep and that he needed to be woken up - but it was wreaking havoc on his personal life.

The tentacle-faced lawyer sat in his office, hearing the dull mutterings of cultists across the world as they prayed to him. Their chants were babble even to him, and he wondered just how the language that had served for eldritch communication for millennia had managed to be butchered to that extent. He knew that there were difficulties to mortals pronouncing their words due to the lack of mandibles, bubble-faces, or mouth parts, but that was no excuse for this level of utter atrociousness.

I can't even tell what they want anymore.

POOF!

A dead baby appeared on his desk, charred and scorched from a sacrificial fire. The green-skinned monstrosity reached down with a pen, nudging it off his desk and into the trash bin, which was filled with sacrificed fetuses, goats, and a few other animals that he honestly couldn't identify from the remains. He sighed as he looked at the paperwork that he had started, only to be scorched by the sudden delivery of a sacrifice.

Time to start again...

He could feel the deadness setting in again, the wish to just collapse and be nothing for a while. Not that he could; Great Old Ones couldn't just disappear like that, nor could they ever fully die. They only went to sleep for a while. If they would just let him do that -

But no. The chanting had started up again, this time from another set of cultists, another asshole somewhere in the world that was pushing his luck.

Cthulhu thumped his head down against the desk, slime and more splattering against the surface of hardened seaweed (some had suggested a wooden desk, but as that caught fire more often, this was the compromise). If they would just shut up for a few hours, he would be able to get his job done. Hell, he might even be able to have the energy to tell what in the world they were babbling about without the proper parts for the language, but they never, ever, ever shut up. They just kept -

POOF!

Not a dead baby this time. It was a former virgin, sacrificed to the tentacle monsters that the cultists were able to summon. She was braindead, her eyes rolled back, her mind gone from the 'endless horrors' that she had been forced through.

Rape victim.

He shuffled her off, too, putting her in the 'live goods' box. If she woke up enough to be returned to the world, he would make sure that she woke up properly. No need for her to take the eggs with her, considering they'd probably kill her. Besides, the eggs could make for good omelets if his wife was in the mood to do some cooking.

Stars, his wife.

She had been on his case for the last three years for them to finally get some intimate time together, for him to breed her properly, but with all the stress from work piling up and the cultists driving him mad, he hadn't been able to do a damn thing for her. Not being able to get it up wasn't that much of a problem when he had the tentacles on his face and hands for some oral work, but getting her pregnant? Even he had his limitations.

She understood, for now, but -

There it was again. That goddamn muttering and mumbling and horrible sound that meant that another sacrifice was on its way.

There wasn't even a point of switching desks. The damn thing would always pop up in the spot that was most inconvenient for him, as if begging to take up his attention with whatever the most recent cult thought would be sufficient for their requests, whatever they happened to be. He knew that it was only going to get worse, and that he would end up destroying at least a continent. Atlantis had been the last one to suffer from that, after they kept him up with sacrifices for nearly a century straight.

Letting loose a string of profanities that would never have been understood in the upper world, Cthulhu burned his desk before the next sacrifice popped in, condemning whatever it was to an afterlife of horrors. Real ones, not just the imagined ones that the cultists kept bringing up and talking about.

They didn't know anything. They really didn't.

Taking a deep breath, the big, green-skinned tentacle man got up from his desk, sleepily wandering around the room. The lack of sleep for a decade hadn't done him any good. His face was starting to droop, and his arms didn't sweep about the room so much as they flopped as they were swung around by momentum. His tendrils hung down over his mouth with the sleepy nature of an old shark rather than the feasting frenzy of a young octopus. He sighed; he was losing it, bit by bit.

What I wouldn't give for a few serial killers right now...

It had been a long time since anyone but the cultists had tapped his services, and he was feeling particularly generous right now. If there was someone that could speak a civilized tongue - or even an understandable one - and asked him for something, he already knew the price that he'd ask. He'd -

"Cthulhu, sir."

A shoggoth wobbled into the room, blubbing about. One long strand of goo-slime pushed out, and four different mouths spoke as it offered him the end of a telephone line.

"There's a client on line three for you."

"...A client?"

"Yes, sir."

Well. That was new. Cthulhu hadn't had someone that actually knew how to dial in for nearly eight years. Most of them had to be found, summoning him in some way to try and get him to do a job for them. They never had the courtesy to call first. He took the phone, chaos itself enlarging it for the size of his head.

"Hello?" he said, though in words far more archaic than that.

"Greetings and Salutations to he who slept, who now wakens and sees the world for the sprawling wasteland that it will one day become," said the caller, though again, in language more archaic than that. Cthulhu was impressed, even if the accent was atrocious.

But it was the depth of the voice that really caught his attention. It wasn't merely a mortal's voice, though it was speaking from a mortal's throat. Cthulhu sat up a bit straighter in his seat, cocking his head to the side as he tapped his fingers on his desk. There weren't many that would speak that way, and fewer still that would remember the old words and phrases. And far fewer that had the strength to boost their signal that far.

That only left one person.

"Lucifer?"

"Close," the voice said. "I have his soul."

"That's certainly unexpected."

"He lost it in a summoning circle when he didn't read the fine print."

"Ah. Someone that knows the rules."

"Someone that knows how to bend them, certainly."

"And someone that can speak...intelligibly," the tentacle-faced Great Old One said. "To what do I owe the 'honor' of this call?"

"I need help."

"Hmmph. I do not get involved in the wars of Heaven and Hell. My work is separate to that."

"I know. Which is why I'm calling you for legal help."

"...Now, that is an entirely different matter."

Despite himself, Cthulhu had sat up a bit in his chair, finding himself more interested than he expected in the call. Whoever this was, they were certainly offering more than a mere 'conquer the world' plot, nor were they trying something that would get him entangled in a war that he didn't really wish to participate in. Nor was there a guarantee of victory on any side for a war between Heaven and Hell, even with his help. Mostly because there was a real danger of very little being left over afterward.

He crossed his legs slowly under his desk, snapping his fingers at the shoggoth. The unspoken signal to get him the file on the man on the other end of the line given, the shoggoth slumped away, sliming and slugging its way along. The call went on.

"What exactly are you wanting representation for?"

"Stalking, kidnapping, and general harassment by Heavenly hosts."

"Odd. They usually keep to themselves."

"Well, they've decided that the new Satan should either be turned to good or pushed to trigger Armageddon."

"They must have considered you an idiot."

"I nearly was."

Able to speak, an interesting case, and able to admit fault. Now, that was a rare client. Despite his exhaustion, Cthulhu's tentacles twitched ever more in interest, and he found himself half-hoping that this client could actually overcome his tests to reach him. After all, he had standards.

The shoggoth returned, holding up a paper file. Again, Cthulhu reached down, taking it and growing it for his own vision. He listened to the voice on the other end as he saw the picture that his records had.

Black cat, well-trained in the magical arts, a black-magic virtuoso, summoned the devil and kicked him out the window after stealing his soul. Several outstanding contracts and debts with the lesser old ones, but nothing debilitating or enforceable...

It seemed that they had had some contact with this Dusk already, and that the cat had come out the better for it. That explained how he knew what to say and how to say it. The studies of eldritch workings gave the cat the knowledge of how to get in touch, and the power of the devil allowed him to boost that signal past everything else that was trying to get the Great Old One's attention all the time.

Hmmm...there may be an opportunity here for me, Cthulhu thought.

"I'm afraid that we've run to the end of a free consultation," he said, cutting off Dusk's speech. "However, if you wish to hire me directly, you certainly have my attention."

"How do we go about that?"

"Come here, and we'll talk terms."

"To you? Directly?"

"Yes. Is that so hard?"

"...No."

Liar, but the thought came with a smile. To cut through dimensions was no easy feat, and particularly to the ones that were sideways from Heaven, Hell, and the mortal plane. It was something that others had accomplished, but he wondered if this Dusk could do it.

He rather hoped that the strange little feline could.

"I'll see you in ten minutes...or not at all. Whatever happens, happens," he said, then hung up.

Dusk looked down at the 'phone' that he had summoned for the purpose of getting in touch with Cthulhu, and began the slow process of stripping his own brain of all the junk that had come with using that old language to talk to ye olde Tentacle-Face. He rubbed his forehead a few times, trying to get rid of the worst of his mental confusion, but eventually, it cleared. He was able to see the walls of the mage's house again, and he was able to think clearly. In English, even.

As he turned from the spell, he wasn't too surprised to find Selene looking at him with an eyebrow raised.

"I don't suppose that you have time to explain your plans?" the lioness asked.

"Not particularly."

"Then at least let me know who you called."

"Cthulhu," he said, pulling his sword from his hip, aiming it at the same spot that the phone had occupied. "He's going to be representing me if I can get to him in the next ten minutes."

"...Well, you are determined to turn the world upside-down."

"Can you name someone else that God and Mercy would listen to?"

"Well...not particularly, I admit."

"Then be quiet and let me focus."

Considering everything that he had dealt with when it came to Mercy, he half-expected Selene to be an utter bitch and make it harder for him to keep his attention on the spell at hand. Instead, the lioness went silent, sitting down further back in the room. He appreciated it more than she knew.

After all, if I get this wrong, then it won't just be a failed spell...

Contacting the eldritch planes was a bit iffy at the best of times, and that was when you were just dealing with the minor creatures that called that realm of existence home. When you were dealing with the bigger ones, you had to make sure that you were not just aiming for the right plane of existence, but also the right spot. They tended to have a lot of minions, and those minions were generally quite hungry.

The average mage would never risk something like this, but Dusk was anything but average.

With the blade from Hellsmith still glowing with the power of the Wrath demon trapped inside of it, he gently pushed the tip of the sword through the spell that he had just used. He hooked it through the still-existing opening, rolling the point around until he was able to rest it against the still-there opening, nodding slightly to himself.

"Let's see if this works..."

He started chanting under his breath, not in a cultist summons - he knew that barely worked, and he wasn't going to butcher a language that he didn't have the biology to speak - but rather in the language of the black magic. He dragged his blade down slowly, cutting through the reality between him and Cthulhu.

Eventually, he reached as much as he could do on his own, having opened a hand-sized hole in reality. It twisted around the sword, though, and he knew that it didn't quite reach all the way to the Great Old One.

Alright...if you need more...

He pulled at the soul of the devil, dragging the power from it and channeling it through his sword, pushing it down through the Wrath demon right to the tip of the blade. As soon as the power of the devil touched it, the sword flared brightly, becoming a burning blade that would have been seen throughout the different realms.

He pushed down, cutting through the barriers between the different realms and dimensions in his way, and as he did, he felt the unreality that was Cthulhu's existence. Dusk linked to it, pushing himself forward to get a grip on it, pulling himself through the portal and towards the Great Old One.

"I'll be back!" he shouted over his shoulder to Selene, and then dropped through.

Falling through the shuffling hole between the realms was a very different feeling to calling the creatures to him. It pulled at him, dragging at his being, his essence, and more than once, he worried that he might lose everything that he was to the portal. He growled under his breath, forcing his will upon himself to hold onto everything that he had, including his blade and coat. They buoyed him, giving him a reminder of what he was, what he had become, and it helped him stay himself.

Further, further he fell, until he finally emerged on the other side of the rippling, swirling tunnel of light. He hit surprisingly hard ground, but still managed to land on his feet without stumbling. Dusk sheathed his blade immediately, not wanting to look threatening.

But as he looked up, he wondered if anyone could look threatening to...him.

Great Cthulhu, lawyer and attorney at law, looked down at him from the heights. There was a gesture from the Great Old One, and soon, they were looking at each other at even heights. The black cat didn't know if he had grown or Cthulhu had shrunk, and he decided that it didn't really matter. Not right now, not for what he needed.

Cthulhu cocked his head to the side, and those many tentacles rolled with the gesture.

"So...you managed to make it through in time. I'm impressed."

"The old devil could have done it."

"Perhaps, but he would have done it through brute force rather than through technique."

"You speak like he tried."

"Once. It didn't work out for him."

"Any reason why not?"

"He wasn't...interesting enough."

Taking the unspoken warning not to waste the Great Old One's time, Dusk immediately set to business. He reached out, starting to conjure, only for Cthulhu to cancel it out with a wave of his own hand.

Another warning. They were both about as powerful as the other, if not slightly in Cthulhu's advantage for being in his own realm.

"Don't show me things. Tell me what's happening."

"Briefly or completely?" Dusk asked.

"As completely as you can."

"That'll take a while. We don't have a great deal of time."

"Then allow me to freeze it."

And without further ado, the world did seem to freeze. At the very least, the many writhing tendrils in the background and the rolling eyes and the - were those dicks? They looked like dicks - stopped throbbing and pulsing. Cthulhu shook his head.

"There. You will have sufficient time to speak without anyone doing anything."

"You are...quite a bit more powerful and generous than I expected."

"I have been waiting for something to do for some time. Now...speak."

Well, if you insist...

And so, Dusk laid out the situation from start to finish. He 'confessed' to the Great Old One how he had gained his powers, with trickery and guile. He told of how he had been drawn into a conflict in Hell, regarding who was powerful and who was not, who would take the throne and who would sit on the sidelines. And then, he spoke of Mercy.

When he first brought the feline up, the tentacle-faced lawyer cocked his head to the side, but he didn't say anything. As the attorney gestured for him to continue, Dusk did, going through all the harassment that he had been subjected to from start to finish, as well as giving admission to what he had done by accident and by mistake, from leaving his people unguarded to lashing out with as much of his power as he had.

By the time that he reached the end, with the description of what Mercy had done with his whores and what she had threatened him with, as well as what Selene had told him, Cthulhu had gone from idly listening to paying rapt attention. It was like looking at someone that had been pulled in by the most epic story that they had ever heard, who couldn't wait for the next part. Cthulhu shook his head as Dusk came to an end.

"Hmm...aside from what you told me about Selene, that all is very troubling," old Tentacle-Face said. "Unfortunately...Is this Pride demon an expert in her field?"

"She was the former confidante and plaything of Lucifer."

"Tricky, very tricky..."

"I'm guessing that her testimony would be rendered hearsay in a heartbeat?"

"Self-interest, more accurately. It would be one of those where Heaven could argue that she lied to stir the pot, or even told the truth for her own ends, that it didn't quite mean what she said it meant, but that she poisoned you regardless."

"...That doesn't make sense."

"When it comes to Heaven and their goals, what does?"

Dusk had to admit that that was a good question. As the Great Old One paced about the office, there was a weird feeling of the big green guy growing and then shrinking, growing, and then shrinking. He kept changing size and proportions, and it was a bit difficult to keep what was his real size in mind.

Yet, Dusk didn't say anything to interrupt. It was hard enough to believe that he had gotten this far. Cthulhu was known as one of the sharpest legal minds in all of existence, able to render up all sorts of works that ended up distorting reality to suit the new laws and judgment. He didn't work by fiat, as God did, nor did he work by corruption, as the devil did. He merely made reality his bitch, and then told it what the rules were.

And that, more than anything, was what Dusk needed right then and there.

As Cthulhu made one more circuit, the Great Old One looked down at him again.

"You know that this will not be free."

"I figured that you would take payment, if you took the case."

"That's a given." The Great Old One nodded. "I want you to get rid of the cultists that have been worshiping me if I do this."

Dusk blinked. "The cultists?"

"They haven't shut up for almost a decade."

He whistled. He knew that the cultists were somewhat dogged in their pursuit of the one that they called 'master', but he hadn't thought that they were that annoying. No wonder the big guy had been willing to listen to him when he called more politely.

Dusk thought about it. He had the power to kill off quite a few people, if he chose to flex it. The whole issue was whether Heaven would allow it to happen. Considering that there was every reason that the big guys would want to get on Cthulhu's good side if the court case went their way, he would imagine that God and Mercy would be rather helpless to stop him. And considering that the cultists were some of the most harmful mortals on that plane of existence, it wouldn't hurt to get rid of them.

More to the point, it would help ensure that I didn't have to share power. If they were merely worshiping God, perhaps, but him? Dusk chuckled. It serves two purposes. Excellent.

"Provided that we win, I can agree to that."

"No payment is required until we win," Cthulhu confirmed.

Despite everything, Dusk couldn't help but feel a slight grin creeping up along the side of his face. There was something remarkably reassuring about the fact that he had managed to get the aid of the greatest legal mind since the system was invented. The power of the eldritch was hard to master, but as he had just confirmed, it had some seriously amazing rewards.

Dusk leaned back against a wall that he hadn't even realized was there as he looked up at the ceiling. Things were finally starting to turn around.

"So...What do you think our chances are?"

"Considering what Heaven will try and throw at us in the first round? I'd say fairly good," the Great Old One said, shaking his head as he sat down at his desk once more, growing to massive size again. "As long as they don't drive us into a Heavenly court, then there's a good chance that I get to control the pace of things."

"And if they get into the Heavenly courts?" Dusk asked. "I want to know the worst case."

"Then there's no way we win."

"...That bad?"

"God runs everything up there. If he so much as hints that Mercy is innocent, then we can kiss any case goodbye."

"Then I guess we better hope we get it into a Hellish one."

"Better eldritch," Cthulhu said.

"Why? So you can rig it?"

"Oh, no. So you can't get in the way while we do the court." The big guy turned to look at him, smirking slightly. "I know you now. You will try and interfere in the court case if you can, if only out of fear. I will not have that."

"Heh, you think I'd cheat?"

"I know you would."

"...Well, you got me there," the black cat admitted, shrugging. "Should I leave this with you, then?"

"Yes. I'll let you know when everything is set up. I'll file suit for the trial immediately."

And with that, the Great Old One flicked his finger, and Dusk went flying right back through the hole which had brought him there in the first place.

Selene was there waiting for him, and surprisingly, so was Seraph. He wasn't sure how the fallen angel managed to find him, but he would bet a great deal of money that the lioness was involved somehow. He glanced between the lioness and the bull, raising an eyebrow at the both of them, but he didn't say anything. Not at first.

And that was mostly because his bull walked over and held him.

There was something strange about being hugged again after so long being at the top. It didn't break him, nor did it weaken him and make him want to fall to his knees. Instead, it just made him want to pat the big guy on the back.

"I'm fine," he muttered.

"You weren't."

"I am now, though." He took a deep breath. "I'm better, and I'll keep getting better, as long as this goes the way that it's supposed to."

"He agreed, then?" Selene asked.

Dusk nodded. The lioness took a deep breath, then let it out again.

"Well...this is a step that nobody ever imagined happening."

"You sound surprised," Dusk said.

"I am, to an extent. All of Hell will be surprised. The idea of our Satan pushing up and challenging Heaven, even to this limited extent, has never happened outside of fantasy and dream. Having you do it, having you reach out and stand up for those that belong to you, will ripple through Hell as an impossible rumor...until you confirm it."

It was something that he hadn't thought about, and the more that he heard about Lucifer, the more he realized that the old devil had been nothing more than a powerful bully that had gotten in well over his head. Perhaps it was down to being part of Heaven's politics until his removal, or maybe it was just the way that Lucifer had always been, but it was clear that he had been trying to turn Hell into a Heaven, but without all the background work and power that God had to make his realm work.

There was much that had to be done to whip Hell into a proper shape, and he knew that he would be forever doing it. That said, he knew that it would be worth doing. He smiled to himself.

"Then go back to Hell, Selene."

"...Why?"

"Because you should spread the message. Give the other demons the Pride they deserve knowing that their Satan will stand by them."

"..." The lioness smiled. "You are learning."

"I could scarcely get stupider."

"Oh, you could have. And you nearly did."

He nodded, wincing ever so slightly as he remembered how close he had come to losing control and utterly shattering all of reality. Heaven had very nearly played him like a fiddle, and he owed Selene a great deal for pulling him out of it and making him save himself.

Now, he had to save what else Heaven had endangered.

"Go on, Selene."

The lioness nodded, then faded. It seemed that demons could leave the mortal world swiftly enough, or perhaps she had been summoned in another part of the world, and she had just relaxed that spell enough to allow her to leave. Either way, it left him and Seraph alone in the mage house.

Looking down at the still-unconscious man that had summoned him, he nudged the mage out of the way and opened a portal of his own, going back to the pocket dimension that held the people of House Onsen. He looked at Seraph, offering his hand.

"Let's go home."

He had managed to settle in, waiting as quietly as he could while he waited for something, anything from Cthulhu. The machinations of the eldritch were slow, but he knew from his studies of black magic that they always wore down to a fine point. It was just whether that point would be accomplished in time.

One hour passed, then two, then three. The sun was starting to go down when he leaned back against the couch. Arnis had left, but Seraph was still there, serving him tea. Dusk could have had a hundred different demons there entertaining him, but he was too anxious to get it up and have his fun.

The fourth hour passed, and then the fifth. The clock was running down, and so was his faith with it. He had heard nothing, not even an update that the whole thing had started or that the papers had been filed for the case. All he knew was that he had lost five hours of time that he could have been using to plot against Mercy waiting for Cthulhu to do his job.

The black cat sat there, his fingers itching on his sword as the sixth hour passed. Was he supposed to go out and kill someone first? Was there a wink that he had missed about not paying until the end? Was there a bribe he was supposed to give?

The seventh hour came and went. Dusk started to stand up, but Seraph pulled him back down.

"Don't do anything rash, Master," he said.

"That's Peter and Andrew out there."

"You came up with this plan, Master. If you do something now, you will make it harder for Cthulhu. If he's arguing for an Eldritch court, then you reaching out and smashing something will only make it harder for him.

He hated the fact that the bull was right, and sat down again, taking a deep breath to try and control himself. This was getting harder all the time.

The eighth, ninth, and tenth hour passed. It wasn't until halfway through the eleventh that a portal opened in the middle of his living room. Dusk lifted his head from his lap, watching as the shoggoth messenger passed through. Three, seven, four mouths opened.

"The trial is set. We have an eldritch court."

And finally, the real battle was due to begin.

The End

Summary: Dusk makes contact with Cthulhu, and aims to secure the eldritch being as his lawyer.

Tags: No sex, cat, cthulhu, lovecraftian, series, fantasy, modern fantasy, humor, sacrifices, tension, magic,