Epilogue: Family Matters

Angelica Blaze-Lane twisted the ring on her finger. She couldn't help it. Lois had wanted to make it official, before the babies were born. No ceremony, just a justice of the peace, a bit of paperwork...and the rings, which Blaze had bought herself. Even the stars had been right; Clark Kent and his cousin Kara had been their witnesses, and it didn't take a genius to see that the two were a lot closer than they had been before...

She pushed open the door to the Oblivion Bar, and felt the change in energies as she crossed the threshold, the spiritual equivalent of her ears popping as the pressure changed. Though in mortal guise, human in appearance, and dressed in a simple suit appropriate for her work at the Daily Planet, the demon could sense the energies of Heaven and Hell, fey and subtle realms mix and mingle.

"Blaze," the voice was like Humphrey Bogart, though it came from no human throat. A chimpanzee, dressed in a suit and trenchcoat, a deerstalker cap on his head, sat at the edge of the bar.

"I go by Angelica these days," the demon said. "Detective Chimp. Our...mutual friend...said you had questions?"

The ape tilted his head toward a booth in the back, then loped down from the stool and walked away at a kind of waddle. Angelica followed. There were heroes fathered there. The demon recognized Enchantress, shuffling her tarot cards; the Blue Devil with his trident; Nightshade and the Warlock's Daughter, even the angel Zauriel, whose face was utterly inscrutable.

"Well?" The demon said. "I'm here."

Blue Devil stared at her. She respected his strength...he could fight toe-to-toe with Etrigan...but he still thought as a human, and a heroic human at that. His sins were small, petty things, like flavors in an overproof cocktail. Dangerous, but only if provoked.

"There's been a series of incidents. Women and men transforming into demons after sex. We've traced it back to some bootleg erectile dysfunction and pregnancy prevention pills."

Detective Chimp placed two evidence bags onto a table cluttered with drinks. The demon reached down and picked up the erectile dysfunction pills. They looked like the usual small blue lozenges, typical of Viagra knock-offs...but these were impressed with tiny pentacles, and there was something else.

Blaze narrowed her gaze and opened the bag, sniffing at the contents. Her mortal nose smelled a vague, chalky chemical odor, but her supernatural senses "smelled" something else...something terribly familiar...

"My brother," she said. "Satanus. This is like the DMN **** we created, with some of our own essence. Tiny amounts; those afflicted must be regular users. I would expect more of them, and soon...possibly among sex workers and their customers. That would be an effective marketplace for such a thing."

The demon stared at the baggie of ****. It had been months since she had thought of her brother. For millennia they had been close, as only siblings could be...but they had grown apart at times too, working their own plots separately. Yet they had always come together again. Angelica thought of her wife, twenty weeks pregnant with quadruplets, back in their apartment.

She wasn't sure she wanted him back in her life. Wasn't sure how he would respond to Lois.

"When was the last time you saw your brother?" Enchantress asked.

"Nearly a year ago. I haven't been to hell in...months. I suppose he might have taken my throne." She said the last part out loud, without meaning to. It suprised her to even think of what might have gone on in hell in her absence.

"He hasn't contacted you?" The chimp asked.

"No, he hasn't," Angelica frowned like that. Of course, she hadn't sought to contact him, either. Indeed, perhaps she should start making more efforts to conceal her presence. Her standard skein of spells would hide her from the normal prying eyes of the occult world, but her brother knew her enchantments inside and out. They had few secrets, when they had been together.

"The afflicted," Blue Devil said. "Is there a way to return them to human?"

"Exorcism," Blaze said. "One which includes Satanus' name should be very effective. Can any of you read Sumerian?"

A hand went up. The demon fetched out an envelope and stub of pencil and stabbed out a cuneiform inscription in swift strokes. It had been a long time since she had heard this particular spell...and then it had been used against both of them. It felt like another life...another person...

She set the envelope down. One of them picked it up, eyes flicked across it, mouthing the words...and nodded.

"Alright. Anything else?"

Silence. Then the angel spoke.

"What is your price for this information?"

Angelica blinked. To be honest, she hadn't even thought of this in a quid pro quo transaction. She clicked her teeth together; six months ago she would have come in here with a price in mind, ready to charge them dearly, to double-cross them, to fight or flee at a moment's notice...and that's if she would have come in here at all. Had she really lost her edge? Gone so far in being the loving dickgirl spouse and parent-to-be that she had lost touch with the old Blaze? That could be dangerous.

"Forty bucks," she said at last. "I'd like to buy my wife some flowers on the way home."

Looks were exchanged. There was a great patting of pockets. Money appeared on the table, in a handful of mixed bills, and Angelica bent down to scoop it up.

Zauriel laid his hand on hers. She looked up, and for a moment her dark eyes went pure white, horns burst from her forehead, the pale skin as red as blood...he withdrew his hand, and Blaze blinked and resumed her human form.

"You have changed," he said, and there was nothing of mockery in that tired voice. Maybe a bit of wonder. "Or perhaps you are changing. Go in peace...Angelica."

The demon swallowed.

"Whatever happens," she said. "Keep my name out of it. My brother...I don't want him to know I was involved."

"We understand," Detective Chimp said, in that weird Bogartian voice. "But if we need to call you again..."

Blaze stuffed the money into her pocket. "I promised no villainy. That doesn't mean I'm a hero. I don't mind being...consulted. You know how."

She turned and left. No backward glances, but her occult senses strained within the limits of her human form. They watched her all the way to the threshold...and then she was through, out into the streets again.

What have I become? Angelica pondered on her way home. Her brother was out there, somewhere, an old devil up to his old tricks. Without a partner. She knew how he could get, without someone to bounce ideas off of, to balance him out. They had honed their wits against each other, always prying, always testing. It was them against the world, after their mother had abandoned them. Just they two...through darkness and glory...and now here she was, starting a family.

Without him.

"Angie!" Lois Blaze-Lane smiled as the demon presented the roses to her wife. Lois was already beginning to assume the pregnant waddle, her belly sticking out in front of her, easy to mistake for full-term if you didn't know she was having multiples. Her breasts hadn't begun to swell out nearly as much, but Lois had still outgrown her old bras.

"I've been thinking," the pregnant reporter said. "After dinner, I want to try hanging my head off the bed and letting you fuck my face that way. It's getting harder and hard for me to get on my knees to suck your dick."

Angelica smiled, and reached around to hug her wife from behind, her hands on the swollen stomach with their unborn children. The demon's lips found Lois Lane's neck as she let her human form melt away. "Well, I can't possibly argue with that."

Just then, in their cosy little apartment, the former queen of Hell cared not a whit for the Shadowpact, or her brother Satanus. Right here and now was all that she needed.