A Satanic Salon

The door opened...and the reporter blinked as she saw pale yellow light shining off of linoleum tiles. She grimaced in confusion as she found herself in what looked very much like a hair salon from her mother or grandmother's era...there were the rows of chairs in red vinyl with metal cones descending over them, tacky muzak buzzing through the speakers, inspirational posters of women with jutting breasts, slim waists, perfect makeup and hair.

Except there was something off about it all. The mirrors on the wall weren't normal glass, but sheets of black obsidian. The chairs weren't bolted to the floor, they seemed to grow out of it, metal roots sunk into the linoleum. The muzak was some 50s chintzy riff off of Black Sabbath and Venom, incongruous as it was obnoxiously catchy, and there were weird runes carved around the edge of those metal cones.

Weirder, there was no other obvious door or other exits. The shop was big enough to handle a dozen clients, but it was empty. Where the door should have been was only a single wall of solid black obsidian. The reporter frowned, her instincts screaming at her that there was something fundamentally wrong here.

Lois grabbed Tyrell and dragged the **** Black man out of the elevator. With the **** making its way through her system, it was a harder task than it might have been otherwise, and by the time Lois dumped his limp body into the nearest chair, she was damp with sweat and panting.

A red plastic barber's cape over his body, and lowering a metal cone over Tyrell's head completed the disguise. It wasn't much of a disguise, but she hoped it would buy her time.

Stepping through the hair salon, Lois felt the hairs rise on her arms and the back of her neck. This close, the chairs looked more like living things. There were bulges in the seat like animalistic tongues, straps that could tie arms and legs down. The muzak continued to blare its weird earworm, and Lois felt the odd sensation of eyes on her...but there was no one else here, no cameras. Just the black mirrors on either side and the great full-wall black mirror at the back of the salon.

The reporter approached the dark wall. The depth of the reflection was perfect. She could see the elevator behind her, all the seats in the shop, and approach it her own reflection stared back at her. Lois studied that reflection, and the other Lois stared back. Matched her breath for breath. On instinct, Lois reached out to touch that dark surface...

...and when she brought her hand away, she was still staring into the reflection of the empty salon. Yet now as she turned...four of the chairs were full. Women in transparent barber's capes writhed beneath the metal cones that concealed their faces, but did nothing to dampen their moans and cries of pleasure. Small red humanoids, naked and with horns and small whip-like tails, clambered like monkeys around each one, painting nails, drawing needles through nipples and labias, shaving pubic hair.

"Ah, Miss Lane? Welcome," a woman's voice said to the reporter's left.

Lois turned to the left. A figure stood there, taller than herself, lean and lithe as a greyhound, her ribs visible on her body, breasts small and barely covered by a costume that was little more than a plunging neckline, two orange straps that descended from her shoulders to meet at the belt of leering metal discs that hung low on her hips, emerging as a flowing loincloth that left her legs bare. Her skin was the color of fresh blood on parchment, her eyes pure white without pupil or iris, and dark horns rose above them. The dark black hair hung loose and wild down to her shoulders.

"Who are you?" Lois asked, instinctively curious.

"I am Blaze," the demon said. "And you are right on time for your appointment."