Welcome to the last chapter of an ongoing gritty noir series from ‘Sin Street’ created in partnership between Kate Granger and Sissitrix. Follow a woman’s desperate tale of humiliation starting in a pit of despair before her rebirth, revenge, and resurgence.
Previous Chapters, from First to Last:
Fallen Angel. Rude Awakening. Rest and Recuperation. Taking The First Step. From Rags To Riches. Revenge is a dish best served cold or warm. Did Erin cross a line? Are We Alone? Enter the Glass Cube. Leave or Die. Who Is My Friend? Going Underground. Death Ballet at the Ice Ring. A Swinging Dick. The Mansion House. A Time For Calm. The Virtue League. Resurgence Begins. Reunited. Apocalypse Now. Mirror Mirror On The Wall. A Funeral Pyre. The End Game.
The rusty wrought iron cages long abandoned in my Mansion House were pristine and full of naked, wretched people cowering in corners. The boardwalks were the same, but since all cages were up, the floor was flush and safe to walk on.
Shuffling feet drew my attention to the most shocking thing of all. I blinked at her in disbelief. My heart pounded, and adrenaline flooded me, confusing my calm with a torrent of wild thoughts and instincts.
“Hi, Erin. Are you okay?”
“You’re the child I saw eating her father’s arm. Abigail, right?”
“It’s my idea of having fun, Erin. I visit Treachery far too infrequently these days, but when I do come here, I enjoy making it an event.”
Abigail strolled toward me, tossing her father’s half-chewed arm at a cage, giggling childishly when its occupant whined and desperately reached out, gripping a finger and dragging the rotten half-gnawed flesh inside her cage until it wedged stuck between two bars.
The woman, a grime-covered naked wretch with disheveled hair, sniffed the bone and ragged flesh scraps that Abigail had left, smiled, and then bit in. My gag reflex activated, and the rising bile in my stomach choked me.
When the desperate cage occupier sucked on a finger bone, cleaving what flesh remained, I threw up, and Abigail roared with riotous laughter unbecoming a small girl.
“Who the fuck are you really?”
“I am whomever you wish me to be, Erin. I am everything and nothing, a figment of your imagination and a reality of your life.”
“A paradox, then?”
“Maybe… upon investigation though, Erin, will you find me to be well-founded or a ridiculous dream?”
I watched the child transform. First, her eyes lost their innocence, becoming fiery and enraged. Then, her body distorted and grew until it reached adult size.
The woman that had been a child moments ago was beautiful to the extent I felt overwhelming devotion and desperately wanted to fuck her. I shook my head, ridding a decadent intoxication that drove me to stare blankly at her beauty, blinking, as though that might change her back to Abigail.
I’m in hell.
“Are you Lucifer?”
Abigail chortled and stared through me with flaming eyes as though I were a fool she couldn’t abide to regard properly. She spat on the floor, and I winced at the barbarity of her retort.
“Fucking Lucifer? C’mon Erin… Lucifer is a sad old cunt who wanks himself off to the ridiculous games being played out by my son in Limbo. Lucifer doesn’t run anything around here.”
I reeled in shock, almost losing balance, gesticulating wildly in a panic while my brain melted.
“Your son is Max?”
“Yes, and he’s a very fucking sick puppy, Erin. I’m at a loss of what to do with him.”
“He wants to die and begged me to plead with you to permit that.”
“Not a fucking chance. Max will live on forever, and we will fix him together.”
I squinted and ran Abigail’s image through my memory’s facial recognition, recollecting old texts and documentaries, fables, myths, and stories I had heard in my childhood.
I shook my head, feeling irked because Abigail was playing spiteful games that I was in no mood to be the victim of.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Mephistopheles.”
Her voice echoed like a sniper’s bullet sent down a canyon. It thudded into the solid gray meat of my brain, and suddenly, I knew her.
“Hang on a minute. You work for Lucifer.”
“This is your problem, Erin… you think in straight lines. Just because some itinerant goat herder scribbled something about Lucifer two thousand years ago, you numb fuckers all believe it. I’m in charge down here.”
“Isn’t Mephistopheles a man?”
“I was once, but to be honest, I can fuck far more people as a woman, and I love the way men in Sin Street and beyond swoon and stare at me when we meet, falling in love much like you just did.”
“That’s not true.”
Fuck, I answered too quickly.
“Would you like to kneel down and lick my creamy pussy, Erin?”
She had me and knew it. There was little point in objecting or arguing. I was in the presence of evil incarnate, a being who could do as they wished with me.
“You tempt men into evil and then drag them to hell.”
“Not fucking true, and by the way… hell is not as you perceive it. I serve Mother Nature and ultimately collect the souls of those who are already damned. Come and see who I have over here.”
I followed Mephistopheles to the farthest cage away, where I fell to my knees on seeing a cowering naked man squirming in a pool of his piss and shit.
“You have Brian… my husband?”
“Yes, Erin, he was a horrible cunt to you in the real world, and I’ve punished him every day and night since that gambling debt got him killed, and you fucked like a war refugee. I loved the look in his eyes when I came for him. They all realize what’s going on, you know? The total cunts know why I come for them straight away.”
“Sissitrix crushed him to dust, and I flushed that bastard down the toilet. This can’t be Brian.”
I pointed at Brian, disgusted, angry, and desperate to claw his eyes out.
My husband stared at me with tears flooding his filthy face. His eyes recognized me, but a muffled scream couldn’t escape the lips because Mephistopheles had stitched them together.
I moved closer, sneering without meaning to, staring at his demise. It was him for sure; I felt it was my husband, felt his pain and the sorrow that drowned him for what he’d done to me, but it was too late because Brian was damned to eternity, and I didn’t care a fuck.
“Fuck you, Brian… if it’s even really you. I hate you for an eternity, you horrible cunt.”
“You’re still thinking in straight lines, Erin. You crushed his body in the real… I have Brian’s soul forever, here, in the afterlife. He’s my fucking toy - look around you, Resurgent Whore, they are all my toys.”
A roaring of horses with thundering hooves caught my attention, and I spun around to confront an enemy coming fast.
All six Red October acolytes came at me from different paths out of the maze with their eyes blazing with hatred. They brandished steel cavalry swords that glinted and rode massive horses with thunderous hooves, bearing down on me.
I stood my ground, unafraid, until suddenly, each apparition dissolved when they reached within inches from my face, taking their stampeding hooves to hell.
When I turned back to face Mephistopheles, she grinned, knowing I’d had an epiphany. Treachery’s keeper ambled forward, sniffing me, circling around, hunting down an iota of fear.
“I’m unafraid, Mephistopheles. If you’d wanted me dead, I already would be.”
“Maybe there is hope for you, yet Erin.”
“You created me.”
“Yes. I set up your rape, but Brian made a choice to lead you into that chasm of doom. He might have saved you and both your lives would be very different.”
“That was a nasty thing to do”
“It was necessary. Not for you. but to save the wretched souls of those who live in the real world.”
“Why?”
“I need a resurgent whore, and now, here you are. You soaked in evil, endured pain and suffering to an extreme, and yet you rise, rise again like an angel. Nobody keeps you down for long girl.”
“Dispense with the theatrics and flattery, please. What do you want me for? I can’t believe for a moment that my future looks pleasant.”
Mephistopheles smiled and wagged a finger at me. I felt as though she liked me, but perhaps I only amused the supernatural being in passing.
“I want you to run Treachery properly and strike fear back into the hearts of Sin Street’s citizens. Your City is the human gathering place for Limbo, and the throughput lately has been fucking disappointing, Erin.”
“So these desperate, valueless souls wind up in Sin Street, then, when you feel they have sufficiently gravitated to evil, they are brought to Limbo.”
“Yes.”
“And Limbo is the gathering place for Treachery, right Mephistopheles?”
“Yes, now you’re getting it, and so it goes on, lower and further down the silo thy progress until each soul reaches its natural place.”
“What happened to Treachery that you have no order?”
Mephistopheles smirked and looked doleful, ashamed almost. She strutted around, starting to explain several times, then curtailing, struggling for the words while wagging a finger as though it might galvanize her thoughts.
“I fucked up.”
“Fucked up, how?”
“I took my eye off the ball, and Red October consumed Limbo. They turned it into a fucking perverts circus earning a fortune at my expense.”
“You could have stopped them at any time.”
“Not so, Erin. I must have keepers at all levels.”
“What happened to the one you had in Treachery?”
“The keeper here got fed up waiting for souls that were being consumed and enjoyed by deviants in Limbo. My Limbo should not be a fucking commercial venture. Max lost control in Limbo.
“Why didn’t you fix the problem?”
'“Because first, I need someone here in Treachery. Then… I fix Limbo, and the conveyor belt can restart.”
“If there is nowhere for people in Limbo to go, Max loses control, and the bullshit of Red October begins afresh?”
“Yes. I’m recruiting a new keeper for Treachery.”
“And you want a Resurgent Whore?”
“Finally, you fucking understand, Erin. I’m literally exhausted by your incompetence.”
“You’d better learn some tact and diplomacy, Mephistopheles, or you can fuck off.”
Mephistopheles circled me again, and I felt she knew I wanted to fuck her so badly. The scent of my sex and her tawdry juices of arousal was such a heavy scandal in the air, I was sure her pussy leaked directly on my tongue, but I needed to control myself.
“Are you evil, Mephistopheles?”
“Everyone here is evil, Erin, present company excepted.”
“That’s you and me.”
“Yes. This may be a philosophical question, Erin, but would you like to hear my rationale?”
“Go ahead. At this point, I’ve got nothing else to do aside, listen.”
“Am I an evildoer when my evil is directed solely upon those who have already committed evil acts?”
“Roughly translated as - is torturing a pedophile evil?”
“Yes, Erin… that’s precisely the dilemma at the core of my, perhaps, our existence. And that isn’t a rough translation; it’s a very precise analogy. I have many pedophiles down here who need help.”
“What do you mean help?”
“Extracting pain from these cunts is such hard work, Erin. They need more suffering in their existence, and you need to help me provide that.”
Movement caught my eye, and I saw real Red October people slink into the room. They could only see where they looked, much as I had been able to on arrival. Mephistopheles whispered in my ear.
“I control everything here, and I’m offering that power and responsibility to you, Erin.”
“To deal with Red October however I see fit?”
“No, to stay here for eternity after you’ve sucked the life out of Red October. I want you to manage this place and decide who lives, dies, or is roasted over hot coals for eternity.”
“You want me to stay in Treachery alone… here, forever?”
“You may come and go from this place as you please, taking one loyal consort and friends that may travel in and out of Treachery with you or by your permission.”
“And you are saying your power is mine to wield as I please?”
“Yes, Erin, but in return, the billions of souls already entrapped in my myriad of Treachery’s catacombs will be consigned to your care.”
“You’re asking me to reign over what people in the real world and for all of history call Hell.”
“It’s a segment of Hell, Erin. Let’s not lose sight of the fact the people you refer to live in blissful ignorance of the truth, as I wish them to continue doing so. There is no Hell as you recognize it.”
“Sorry, yes.”
She leaned in, grinning inanely.
“Is that a yes then, Erin?”
“No.”
Annoyance flickered across her face, and she raised eyebrows at me.
“Is that a fucking no then, Erin?”
“No. I have a question, please.”
“Go ahead, but know that we are running short of time if you wish to avert the battle about to rage in Sin Street. Also… those Red October cunts are real this time.”
“That’s my question. How far-ranging are my powers?”
“In this place and Sin Street, you have unlimited power. Leave Limbo to my son, and I will care for him.”
“You’ll fix Max?”
“With time, he will heal. You will help because he likes you a great deal.”
My enemy closed in, flashing stiletto blades in semi-darkness, slicing the air as I parried, dodged, and skipped out from one sything arc of death after another. It was a deadly dance, and my enhanced abilities, gifted by Max, kept me alive.
I slapped one woman in the face, dealing a stinging rebuke for her deadly thrust that I narrowly avoided. I laughed in her face and saw fear because she knew I could beat her.
“Red October is a fucking joke.”
“Then kill them all, Erin. You only need to ask, and I shall give.”
“Give the power to me now, Mephistopheles.”
Every fiber of my body stiffened until I felt like iron, and then an intense heat melted me, and I saw my body’s atoms dispersed across the entire Universe. The whole of life came into sharp focus, and I saw all of human history and its future collide at Sin Street.
I saw myself as a baby.
Then, a girl in love.
Then, a woman defiled.
Then, a Resurgent Angel of death.
When I hit the floor, absorbing the hit with bending knees and a crouch, I picked myself up. The Red October gang had their eyes unshielded to a blindness Mephistopheles had created. They gathered like a wolfpack, attacking me instantly, screaming with blood-curdling terror as they hunted me down.
I laughed at them because a new awareness surged inside me. I was arrogant but not evil or self-absorbed.
“Boys and girls… I’m seriously fucking dangerous now. You can still run and hide to make this more fun for me.”
They kept coming, sneering, stabbing, and lunging, so I wafted a hand. I didn’t need to make any movements because my thoughts were enough. The Red October acolytes disappeared, screaming with rage, then squealing in fear like pigs being slaughtered when they reappeared in the cages around me.
Each man and woman accompanied those desolate souls who were already parked naked inside cages and covered in piss and shit.
I moved closer and examined them, totally freaked out by the power I had just wielded. They were trapped, the room was emptied of a threat, and I was safe. I laughed, pointing at Red October, each cunt in turn.
“Is it really as easy as that?”
Mephistopheles reappeared beside me, wrapping an arm around my waist, grinning broadly. I knew the demon had trapped me into managing Treachery forever because instinctively, I understood there were consequences so awful for me if I failed in doing her bidding.
“If you think it, Mother Nature will do it for you, Erin.”
“So, if I command Mother Nature to send everyone home in Sin Street and be at peace, it will happen?”
She winced and grimaced as though disgusted with my suggestion, holding both hands high, pleading with me to say no more.
“You don’t tell Mother Nature to do anything, Erin. You think it, and Mother Nature will do it… that’s not the same thing.”
“What if I peeve Mother Nature?”
“She will fucking damn well peeve you back bitch. Don’t go there… I never have.”
I focused my mind, closed my eyes, and saw Sin Street in the midst of a calamity. Public disorder reigned with riot shields banging, burning cars, and Sissitrix marching with our army to quell the destruction.
“Go home, everyone… be at peace.”
I saw a shimmering in front, and a massive mirror appeared. In its reflection, I saw the rioting on Sin Street from my mind’s eye. It stopped, and for a moment, people were confused until they blinked and held up their weapons, staring in disbelief as though surprised to see them.
Opposing sides nodded at each other, dropped everything, and walked peacefully away from burned-out cars, caved-in shop front windows, and the scenes of debauchery and violence that Red October had spawned.
“Bring Rex and Sissitrix to me.”
Sissitrix strolled down Sin Street toward me, meandering around massive shards of broken glass and burning cars. They looked relaxed, coming to me through the mirror, hugging, while Rex walked through another, grinning broadly.
When my boyfriend held me close, and we kissed, in my mind, I had to ask even though I knew his answer.
“Do you want to join me here for an eternity, Rex?”
“Yes, please.”
I faced my dear savior and partner, Sissitrix, eyeing their grin suspiciously.
“Why are you grinning, Sissitrix?”
“I knew you could do it, Erin.”
“We did it together.”
“And what next? You are the keeper of the underworld now.”
“Only a segment of it, and you may come and go here as you please.”
“I shall, and thank you, Erin, but now, I must finish my Fuck Factory and make our Sin Street a better place.”
Dive deeper into Sin Street on Sissitrix.com, where violence lurks in every alley and sex is a weapon. Brutal characters, tangled plots, and dark places in a corrupt neo-noir city that will drag you into its chaos. Written by Kate Granger, illustrated by Sissitrix.
A sensationally curious image has the last word in our first saga that twisted and turned. What does it mean? Is this the end or a new beginning? More of this storytelling from Sissitrix and Kate? Indeed, we shall because we feel we must.
Fresh stories arise from the dark, dank Sin Street, our hallowed, multi-layered hell.
Thanks for a good finish to this chapter, both of you.