Epilogue: Rebirth

Life had not been gentle to Mary Gervaise. In and out of juvie. Abused by her stepfather. Teenage runaway who started turning tricks. Then she'd tasted crack and meth. She'd drifted to Suicide Slum after her last stint in jail for soliciting. Twenty-five years old, but hard use made her look a decade older, the stolen clothes showed off her tits, the cheap tattoos, and when a car pulled up she'd raise her skirt to show the shaven snatch that was her only way to make money.

Hopes and dreams had long ago passed Mary by. No future to look forward to except the next hit. A part of her knew this life was a dead end. Pregnancy, disease, overdose...she tried not to smile, so as not to show her stained and crooked teeth, but sometimes she had to grin at the night as a grim fatalism came over her.

This is how it is. It might not be much of a life, but it's mine.

Not many workers on the street tonight. That meant there might be more customers, another hit from her dealer. She could feel the edge of her need, the addiction. Stronger than the hunger in her empty belly. Dimly, she realized that there had been fewer and fewer working girls on the streets these last couple of nights. Couldn't be cops picking them up, none of them came down to Suicide Slum, not unless they were in riot gear.

Some instinct made Mary reach for her shiv as she stood beneath the streetlight, ready to flash her cootch at any car that rolled by. Cold sweat beaded her neck as she felt eyes on her. She put her back to the street light, blade palmed in her hand, ready to cut and run...

Then a figure came out of the shadows. In a trench coat, hat pulled low, like out of some movie. Mary relaxed as she got it now. Some perv, out for a taste. She lifted her skirt to prove she had the goods.

Then the trench coat opened. Mary's knife dropped out of numbed fingers as a scream briefly rent the night.

In Suicide Slum, no one even cared. Soon, someone would notice the corner beneath the streetlight was empty. Prime real estate. Another whore would claim it within minutes.

In the darkness, the swollen bulk of the demon mother's gravid mound bulged. Through the almost-translucent skin, her corrupted womb glowed with an eerie ghost-light, to show the shapes within. As the bulk trembled, a trickle of liquid oozed from the gaping, mammoth lips of the distended cunt.

A pair of thin, delicate scarlet hands grabbed the monstrous labia and pulled it apart. The trickle became a flood. The Demon Mother groaned softly as another pair of hands reached into the gaping cavern of flesh and pulled. Slick with her birthing-juices, a slim female figure, red as blood, was pulled from the massive cunt. Fully-grown in every respect, the violet eyes closed, the small, pert breasts and slim hips those of a woman. Delicate pink horns dotted her brow, little more than stubs. A slash of a claw severed the umbilical, and the wound healed itself.

She was passed to her sisters. Eager tongues licked their mother's juices from her eyes and face. Hands sought her pussy and ass, the fingers penetrating with ease. Nothing born of the Demon Mother was virgin—and at the sensual touch the mouth opened to reveal sharp, triangle teeth like a shark, a small black forked tongue. The eyes opened, and for the first time the newborn made a sound—an ecstatic cry as a new evil was born into the world.

Mary Gervaise struggled in the arms of her captors. The red devil-women were strong, and worked together with an eerie precision. They chittered as they stripped the whore of her scanty clothing. Ignored the hard-earned roll of bills that was Mary's only stake in this life, let the crack pipe fall to the floor and shatter. She wasn't even sure what they were going to do to her...until four of them picked them up and carried the naked, struggling Mary toward the gaping portal of flesh that two more of them held open.

It had been a long time since Mary had been to church. Since she had believed in any sort of God. As her head was pressed into the warm, welcoming embrace of the Demon Mother's cunt, half-forgotten prayers babbled from her lips. Something black, sticky, and familiar sprayed into her mouth, and she tried to spit it out as the hot flesh walls closed in. As a terrible suction took hold. She could see, thanks to the terrible light of that womb, that burned through flesh like a furnace.

Until she was encased. Pulled and pushed. She felt the last hands of the scarlet devil-women pushed her feet in, even as something closed about her head. A ring of muscle. There was no air to breathe in there. Only thick, oily liquid that tasted like cum and cunt. The air bubbled forth from Mary's mouth as she felt it fill her lungs...for a moment, she knew she was about to die.

Then a pain, sharp and shocking, at her navel. Something pierced her navel there. In her last moments of consciousness, Mary tugged at the fleshy tentacle that had attached herself to her. Felt the burn spread throughout her body as liquid corruption pumped through her veins. Despite the light all around her, Mary's protests grew weak. Eyes heavy. Unable to keep them open. By the time consciousness left her, she hadn't realized that she no longer needed to breathe.

If she could have, by some superhuman effort, opened her eyes one last time, she would have seen the crimson stain spread out from the umbilical that had attached herself to her. The new skin that grew out from it was smooth, firm, young. Free of disease and ****. Mary might have felt the ache in her bones as they were re-shaped, re-purposed. Felt the new teeth grow, straight and sharp and perfect in her mouth.

Yet her eyes were shut. She curled into a fetal ball, next to the sleeping sisters undergoing their own transformation. In the dark dream, everything of her old life would be stripped from her. Her name, her pain, her addictions. Only a core of useful skills and experiences. Learning to suck a customer off quick. The first time she'd had a woman pay her for sex, and the weird excitement in her stomach at her touch. That night when six frat boys had hired her for a birthday party and one by one had held her down and pumped their jizz into her, each one taunting her they'd be the father of the baby she'd had cut out of her three months later.

In its place, something else—someone else—flowed. Memories mixed and mingled. A mind, vast and intelligent, inquisitive and oddly maternal, slipped into her mind and soul, and left a part of herself there. As the former Mary sloughed off her old name like a shake shedding its skin, the shiny new name became known to her.

Lois.

She was Lois. As all her sisters were Lois. The sisters that stalked the streets of Metropolis by night. That preyed on the homeless, the street people, the runaways; all those who would be ignored and forgotten. Lois could feel hundreds of her sisters out there, those in the birth-orgy and those that broke away to carry out the demon mother's bidding.

More victims brought, to become new sisters. Small robberies in libraries, museums, antique stores, private homes as the scarlet women collected bits of obscure arcana. Dusty grimoires, idols of forgotten gods, tools of magical art. As the Demon Mother learned, they learned. Naked sisters supplicated themselves before strange idols. Wards were set up. Plans were laid. Soon, their numbers and power would be enough to work more openly.

There would be challenges. From rivals, from would-be heroes. An image hovered in their minds, a succession of faces associated with symbols. The S-shield. The Bat-sigil. The Green Lantern. The Flashing Lightningbolt. So many more...too many to challenge all at once. But...if one of them could be captured. Brought to the Demon Mother. Made into one of their sisters...

In the dark womb, Lois smiled. Waited to be born. Metropolis was going to hell...and she was eager to do her part.