End: Back To Where It All Began

The Black Lantern Lois Lane knew everything that the reporter had known in life—and as the naked zombie got her bearings, she grinned a ghastly grin. There was a place nearby teaming with life...lust...everything she would need to make her own lantern. The club where Lois had first hoped to find the missing women...the place where Lois had been corrupted, her body violated...where she had died.

The ghostly form of the real Lois Lane zipped ahead of her, desperately trying to think of a solution.

Normal people don't have any chance against a zombie! There must be someone powerful enough to stop her! Lois thought...

Boston Brand kept pace with her easily, the spectral hero oddly corpse-like and grotesque in his red uniform as they passed above the crowds.

There's one, he said. But it's risky. Even if it works...your soul might be damned to hell.

Which is when the Deadman told Lois about the demon Blaze, who had set the trap for Lois in the first place. Once he had given it a name, Lois could feel the presence of the scarlet succubus, like stepping within the aura of a bonfire. She only had to turn her face toward the source of that heat and, disregarding any lingering feelings of self-preservation, fly toward that dark sun.

Passing through brick and concrete, the pair emerged into Blaze's lair...where the scarlet succubus sat, monitoring her club through myriad screens. On one display, a woman was at a gloryhole in the bathroom, chained to the wall, sucking one cock and jerking two others off. In another, a woman with dead eyes was bent over a sink, shooting up as a man fucked her so hard in the ass that rivulets of blood ran down the back of her legs, eyes vacant, a line forming behind her. A third woman was tied to a wall, legs spread, between two urinals; the men preferred to piss in her exposed pussy; the woman handcuffed and kneeling beneath, a double-dildo shoved down her mouth and the other end crammed inside the first's ass, closed her eyes so that the yellow rain mixed with her tears.

Lois Lane recognized the women she had come to save...and she recognized too that the demon had not yet seen the dark, blood-and-jizz-stained form that was shambling toward the entrance, the camera going dark as it neared.

Blaze's aura was alive with emotions Lois could barely name. The unnatural lusts and unnamable sings that blackened her spirit were like a living thing, so dense that Lois felt singed just being this close to her. To attempt to possess that would be like diving into an open pit of sewage.

The ghost of Lois Lane steeled herself for what was to come...and then plunged down into the darkness.

Unnatural heat burned through the pure ectoplasm that was Lois Lane's substance. The spiritual pressure crushed her, form wavering, losing its human aspect. Blaze instinctively reacted to expel the foreign spirit...or to swallow her...yet Lois Lane would not surrender her individuality. The knowledge of what Blaze had done to those women...and what the Black Lantern would do to the innocents in the club...spurred the reporter on beyond her limits, to tap reserves of inner strength she had never known, to dive straight down to the core of Blaze's being and grapple with the vibrant spark that was the demon's ego.

Then Lois Lane opened her eyes.

She stood up, the feel of mass and gravity strange and unfamiliar for a moment. Blaze was taller than her, lighter...her limbs were lithe and well-muscled, and the reporter briefly touched her blood-red skin, pressed the small breasts through the revealing strips of orange cloth that the demon wore as a costume, touched the dark horns that curled up from her broad brow...and then she heard the voice of Boston Brand.

Upstairs, now!

Lois went to run, visualizing the front door of the club...and then lightning burst from the ground, black lightning that engulfed her....and the demon's naked feet landed on the pavement, an arm's breadth away from her naked body.

The black ring glinted on the zombie's hand, which thrust forward toward the demon's chest. Lois caught the arm with one red hand, acting on instinct, moving at super-speed...and then she closed her hand and the zombie-Lois screamed as the pale arm exploded in a shower of black goo.

Someone screamed...yet Lois knew her job was not done. With superhuman strength, she dismantled her old body. Tore limb from naked limb, wrenched off the jaw that sought to bite her, crushed the skull between her hands in a shower of corrupted fluids. Out of the corner of her eye, the demonic reporter saw the hand with the ring crawling away...and one red heel landed on it, crushing the dark artifact...and the bits and pieces of Lois Lane's corpse stopped twitching and moving, lying still.

The crowd had run away...so that there was no one around as a familiar figure landed lightly on the pavement, red cape fluttering in the breeze...and the embodied ghost realized what she must look like, a crimson demon standing over the dismembered corpse of Lois Lane.

Too late, she tried to leave Blaze's body...and couldn't. Cold panic ran through her body as the Man of Steel's eyes began to glow.

"Superman!" Lois said, her voice unfamiliar to her ears. She held up her gore-stained hands as the Man of Steel stepped toward her, anger and sadness etched in his features. "This isn't what it looks like! I mean, it is, but I'm...I'm really Lois Lane..."

She didn't fight as his hand clutched around her throat. Desperately, Lois tried to think of something only she and Superman would know.

"Please!...agh...Re-remember when we first met and you took me flying and I ate that bug and I made you promise to never tell anyone..."

The hand didn't loosen it's grip...but the eyes ceased to glow. There was a shadow of a doubt. Rapidly, Lois told him the whole tale, leaving nothing out...and she could see that seed of doubt grow, little by little.

Which is how, some hours later, she found herself in the Tower of Fate, Wonder Woman's lasso of truth around her body, Doctor Fate and Zatanna staring at her aura, Green Lantern scanning the remains of her old body.

"Black Lantern energy signature," Jessica Cruz, the Green lantern said. "That part of the story is true."

"Boston Brand's account matches hers, and the Amulet of Anubis reveals the same. It is Lois Lane in Blaze's form. A reverse possession," he intoned from within the golden helmet, voice echoing strangely.

"Can you get her out of there?" Superman asked. "Restore her?"

Zatanna's mouth was a hard line. "Superman...even if the Black Lantern hadn't corrupted her body...there's too much tissue damage. There's nowhere for her to go back to."

"So...I'm stuck like this?" Lois said. "We can't make a clone, or bring me back from the dead, or..."

The heroes looked at one another. Their mood was grim.

Lois shuffled her red feet. "Can I go to the bathroom? I need to pee."

Wonder Woman undid the lasso. Doctor Fate pointed toward the washroom.

"What are we going to do?" Superman said, quiet enough that the demonic reporter can't hear. "She's...being a demon, it'll ruin her life."

"Not necessarily," Doctor Fate said slowly. "She has the demon's powers now. Shapeshifting is one of the least of those powers. We could teach her..."

"...and in the meantime, maybe she could use her powers for good?" Zatanna suggested. "Blaze was powerful. If Lois is in control, she'd be a great asset to the League."

Superman grit his teeth as he stared at the tangled remnants of what had been the love of his life. He wanted to hope...that it really was her in there. That this wasn't all some trick of Blaze's.

Wonder Woman gripped his shoulder. "Kal...I know this is hard on you. But you're the one who is closest to her. We'll follow your lead."

Which is why, when Lois Lane came back from the toilet, wincing as she banged her horns on a low doorway, she saw them standing there...and Superman asked.

"Lois...I know a lot has happened to you tonight. But how would you like to join the Justice League?"