Her Soul

"Oh mom," Lois said, putting her hands over her mouth.

Ella coughed. "There was just one teensy little problem...the state of said soul was...well...not great."

"What did you do?" Lois asked. Ella brushed the question aside with a wave of her hand, but the reporter could see her mother was shaking.

"I was offered...a way out. All the way out. No more Hell. Complete payment of my debt." Ella wore a **** smile. "She wants a date. With you."

"A date?" Lois asked.

"A date date," the old woman looked a little brittle, Lois thought, and made a rude gesture with her hands, thumb and forefinger forming a circle, index finger sliding in and out. "You're a modern girl Lois, you know about these things."

"Oh," the reporter said, then more quietly as she got her mother's meaning. "Oh."

"It was you or your sister," Ella added. "And I thought...well, you are the older, the more responsible one...oh, I'm so sorry to put this on you my dear."

Lois Lane took a deep breath. Her mother was...well, basically pimping her out to the devil. Not exactly the behavior the pastor said would get you into heaven. But did she dare not go through with it? If she said "no," was she damning her mother to an eternity in perdition—or setting up her own sister to put out for this Satanic bitch?

No, Lois conceded to herself. This is on me.

"Okay mom," she said. "Just one date. For you."

Ella leaned across the table and clasped her daughter's hands...and someone else stood over the table. A woman in dark jeans that hugged her skinny thighs, a loose black blouse that left her arms bare. Small breasts, dark eyes, a mass of black curls. A smile like the Mona Lisa, amused at some untold secret.

"Good evening," she said. "I am Angelica Blaze, your mother's...benefactor. I take it she has explained things?"

Lois looked up at the woman. The accent was unplaceable, something vaguely foreign, maybe Mediterranean. She seemed perfectly human...but looks could be deceiving.

"Yes," the reporter said, staring her in the eye.

"And I hope we've...come to terms?" The teeth behind those lips were very white, very even.

"One date," Lois said. "And she goes free?"

"With the dawning of the sun, I will release all bonds I hold on Ella Lane, so I pledge my troth," Angelica Blaze told her. "Now, as for our date..."