To Help You

"I...can sense things. I don't know how to explain it." Ella Lane said as she stared into her daughter's eyes. "But you're in danger. This case of yours has taken you into her domain, and she has such plans for you..."

The cold fingers brushed Lois Lane's cheek.

"Who is she, mom? How am I in danger?"

"Her name is Blaze," Ella said. "She is...the devil. Or maybe a devil. But she is powerful, and she is evil. She wants to use you to **** someone...someone you love..."

Unbidden, the image came to Lois Lane's mind's eye of Superman. His quiet, almost shy smile. That broad chest, marked with the S-shield. Cape snapping in the wind. The costume gripping him to show every line of those muscles, almost like a second skin.

"You came to warn me?" Lois asked.

"No my dear." Ella leaned forward, her voice dipping down into the barest of whispers, so that Lois could hardly hear her. "I came to help you. You can still save them, and get out of this with your soul intact. You just have to let me in."

"Let you in?" The reporter's forehead crinkled. "Mom, what do you me—"

Quick as a mongoose, the older woman darted forward, and sealed her daughter's mouth with a kiss.