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Hollywood 1945.
The studio gates of Monarch Pictures weren’t designed to keep out a woman who had already lost everything. Mary moved through the shadows of the backlot, her breath hitching not from fear, but from a cold, sharp clarity. She knew these paths, she had walked them a dozen times for auditions, heart pounding with hope that had been curdled by the Director’s wandering hands and his mocking, final rejection.
“You’re a beautiful girl, Mary,” he’d told her while straightening his tie, the smell of his expensive scotch still cloying in her hair. “But you’re nothing special. Girls like you are a dime a dozen.”
That had been a month ago, and now she found herself in a situation with a condition that would stop her from finding work all together.
She was currently at Soundstage 4 - the set of the very film she was supposed to star in.
The stage was a mockery of a high society ballroom, filled with white painted pillars and velvet drapes. It was a lie built of plywood and plaster, and tonight, it would be her altar.
She dragged a heavy, ornate floor mirror to the center of the ballroom. In the dim security lights, her reflection looked back at her, pale, sharp eyed, and undeniably pregnant. She placed the leather bound book she’d stolen from the occultist in the canyons onto the Director’s chair.
“You wanted a star,” Mary whispered, her voice echoing in the hollow rafters. “Watch me burn.”
She took her time scratching the markings into the plywood floor. Making sure they were deep enough and correct before standing once more. She didn’t hesitate. She sliced her palm with a shard of glass from a discarded champagne flute and pressed the bleeding wound against the mirror’s surface. As she chanted the words she had memorized in her lonely boarding house, the air in the studio began to vibrate. The smell of jasmine and stage make up was replaced by the acrid, heavy scent of sulfur and ozone.
From the darkness of the mirror, a presence stepped forward, not a man, but a shadow that made the light seem to retreat.
“Mary” the voice spoke, the sound warm and seductive. “You seek the time the world would deny you. You seek the beauty that men would steal. I will give you the years, and I will give you the throne. But, the bloodline must be mine. Six heartbeats to pay for your vanity. And the first… must be your King.”
Mary looked down at her stomach, then back to the mirror. She saw the vision of the future, herself ageless and powerful, and a man at her side with mismatched eyes and a crown of bone. The taboo didn’t frighten her, in a world that had treated her like trash, the idea of keeping her blood for herself felt like the only true justice.
“I accept.” She whispered, before leaning forward and kissing the cold mirror face.
The mirror flared with a blinding, violet light. Mary felt the condition in her womb shift, not disappearing, but changing. Becoming something more than just a parasite.
As the presence faded, Mary picked up a fallen spotlight. She smashed the bulb against the heavy velvet curtains and kicked over a heater. The dry fabric caught instantly.
She walked towards the exit as the ballroom began to roar with orange flames. By the time she reached the gates, the sky was glowing. Behind her, the studio, the director’s pride, the place where her dreams of the silver screen died, was being consumed by an unholy fire.
Mary didn’t look back. She adjusted her coat, her skin already feeling as smooth and cool as marble. She wasn’t a wannabe starlet anymore. She was a mother. And soon, she would be a Goddess.
Los Angeles, 1967.
The hills were alive with the sound of chanting. Down in the canyon, the Ministry’s first Great Convocation was in full swing. Hundreds of followers, draped in black silk cloaks despite the California heat, were gathered around a stone altar. They were waiting for the promised spectacle, a ritualistic sacrifice to satisfy the hunger of the Pit.
But high above the altar, in the shadows of the master suite, the true ritual would unfold.
Sister Imperator stood at the balcony, watching the torches flicker below. She looked exactly as she had in the burning studio of twenty two years ago. Not a single line marred her forehead, her hair was a blond, lustrous river. She was living proof of the Devil’s honesty.
She watched as Nihil stood in front of the altar, velvet voice speaking to the crowd. Beside him, a young thing, dumb enough to believe she was dying for him. She was wearing a sheer white gown with her hair braided and decorated with flowers, a true picture of purity. As Nihil raised the ritual knife, a small smirk grew on Sister Imperator’s lips, once this was over, the real ritual would commence.
“Let them have their sacrifice,” She said as she raised her glass of red wine to the crowd.
The crowd erupted into a roar when Nihil sliced the sacrifice’s throat, spilling the hot blood onto the altar in the name of their Unholy Lord.
Sister Imperator turned on her heel and entered the master suite. She unbuttoned her white dress and placed it onto the armchair opposite the bed and slipped on her red silk robe. Just as she finished tying it, the door opened and a beaming Nihil entered.
“They’re lust for blood has been quenched,” his voice drifted towards her.
“Good,” She replied with a small smirk.
As Sister Imperator beckoned him closer, Nihil didn’t move with the hesitation of a son or the casualness of a lover. He moved with the frantic, wide eyed devotion of a man who had seen the face of the divine and found it wearing his mother’s skin.
At twenty two, his blood was a riot of adrenaline and dark purpose. He looked at her ageless face, the blonde hair glowing like a halo in the candlelight, and felt a pull that was primal and absolute. She was the most dangerous thing in California, a woman who had burned down the world to stand in this room, and he wanted nothing more than to be the fuel for her fire.
When she opened her mouth for the blade, Nihil’s hand trembled with an overwhelming, ecstatic worship. He wasn't just giving her the blood of a sacrifice, he was offering her his soul, over and over, trapped in a cycle where she was the only sun in his universe.
Nihil looked at her, desire rising within him. The air in the room grew heavy, smelling of the same ozone and sulfur that had filled Soundstage 4. This wasn’t about love or desire, it was about the Second Heartbeat.
“The first son,” Nihil whispered, his gaze dropping to the robe she wore, “the one to lead them.”
“The cornerstone,” she corrected, her hand moving to the back of his neck, pulling him down towards her. “The first of five to follow you. The payment is due, my King. Tonight, we ensure our eternity.”
Outside, the world was celebrating a fake revolution. But inside, the first heir of the Ministry was being woven into existence.
Primo. The heartbeat that would buy Mary another decade of perfection.
1978.
The mid day sun beat down on the California estate, but the curtains in the study were drawn tight. Sister Imperator stood by the large wooden desk, her hand resting on a stack of Ministry ledgers. She looked at her reflection in the silver tray, thirty three years since the fire at Soundstage 4, and not a single grey hair.
But her eyes were tired.
The door burst open, and a blur of dark hair and laughter skidded across the rug. Terzo, at four years old, was already a master of getting what he wanted. He threw himself at her, his small hands clutching her leather skirt.
“Mama! Primo is being boring again,” he chirped, his eyes bright with a mischief that made her heart, the one that wasn’t supposed to feel, skip a beat.
She smoothed his hair, a rare genuine smile softening her marble features. “Is he, my little Hellraiser?”
Nihil stepped into the room, and the air immediately changed. He was in his early thirties now, the odd grey hair a stark contrast to his otherwise black hair, his face showing the lines of a man who spent his nights in rituals and his days in power plays. He looked at her with that same hungry, worshipful gaze, but there was a new edge to it, the edge of a man who knew he was aging while his lover remained a girl.
“The boys are restless,” Nihil said, his voice deeper, rougher. “Terzo desires the attention of everyone,”
He moved forward, gently ruffling the small boy’s hair.
“We have four heartbeats, Mary. Only four.”
Sister Imperator shot him a glare for using her old name. She no longer resembled that young foolish girl.
He leaned down, his breath hot against her ear. “The clock is ticking. You promised a Church. You promised a legacy. I think it’s time we discussed the fifth.”
A cold shiver of resentment ran down her back. She looked at Terzo, who was playing with a golden paperweight, then out toward the garden where she could see Secondo sitting under a lemon tree, and Primo reading on a stone bench.
The Devil’s cadence hadn’t been something she counted on. She had tried to slow it down, to savor her years, but no matter what she did she fell pregnant against her will. Nihil didn’t understand, he wanted the Six as much as the Devi did.
“I am not a broodmare, Nihil,” She hissed, though she didn’t pull away.
“You are a Queen,” he corrected, his eyes flashing with that terrifying mismatched light. “And Queens produce heirs. We have two more to go before the debt is settled.”
She looked at the calendar on the desk, 1978. Three boys in less than ten years, it wasn’t fair, but she planned on keeping the last two as far apart as she could.
1983.
By 1983, the warmth had completely drained from the villa. Primo was almost an adult, a stiff and imposing student priest of the Ministry, Secondo followed closely, a quiet effective shadow in the liturgy. Even Terzo, her little Hellraiser, had been folded into the black robes of the clergy.
Sister Imperator watched them from her office balcony. She didn’t feel pride. She felt the heavy, sterile weight of their existence. Every time Primo assisted a sermon, he was a reminder that years of her eternity had been spent. She stopped being a mother and became a supervisor. If they had woes or doubts, they brought them to her desk like employees seeking a performance review. She cleaned up their messes, her boys had the same appetite that Nihil did, and more than one beautiful woman had found herself in the family way. Every single time, Sister would make arrangements within the Ministry and those parasites would be taken care of. She would not tolerate off spring that she did not authorise.
She had been careful. For years, she navigated Nihil’s worship with precision, ensuring the cadence stopped at three. She watched Nihil age, his dark hair gaining more salt and pepper, the skin around his mismatched eyes beginning to crinkle. She still loved him, he was the only one who knew her true face, but his ageing was a threat. It was a ticking clock. A cruel reminder that if Nihil's fertility failed before the sixth heartbeat was conceived, she was in trouble.
Then came one morning in July 1983.
The morning she threw up.
It was a violation. After ten years of successful evasion, the cadence had returned with a vengeance.
She was the most powerful woman in the Ministry, but currently she clutched the porcelain of the toilet in her private bathroom, the cool marble floor biting into her knees. She was an ageless Goddess who had outlived the youth of her own sons, yet here she was, anchored to the floor by a biological reality she thought she had outmaneuvered.
She looked up at her reflection.Still perfect. Still twenty four. But she felt the condition stirring, the fourth heartbeat.
“Not now,” She pleaded, “not yet.”
Nihil was thirty eight years old now, his spirit remained as lustful and devout as young man in his early twenties. When she told him, he didn’t share her dread. He looked at her with a terrifying, revitalized joy. For him, this was proof he was still a King. For her, it was the sound of a guillotine blade being sharpened.
March 3rd 1984.
The air in the private wing was sterile and cold, smelling of ammonia and the faint, lingering scent of ozone that she had come to associate with the Devi’s presence. In her mind, she was still a girl of twenty four, and she intended to stay that way for a while longer.
“Ten years,” she hissed through gritted teeth as a contraction rippled through her. She was alone with the doctors and nurses, like every single time. She refused Nihil’s presence, she didn’t want him to see her in a moment of human vulnerability. “The last one… the… final heartbeat… will not come until 1994. I will make sure of that.”
The labour was brutal, a grinding punishment from her own body, but she bore it with a grim, silent ferocity. When Copia was finally brought into the world, his loud, demanding wail was music to her ears.
The nurses wrapped the boy in a black towel and placed him in her arms. He was beautiful, golden, warm and vital. He was her fifth payment. She looked down at him, her marble smooth face reflecting a cold, possessive triumph. Five. She had one more left in the bank. And she would make sure it didn’t come too soon.
She was awarded three minutes of peace, cradling the newest addition.
Then, the world tilted.
A sharp, jagged pain tore through her abdomen. She gasped, convinced it was the placenta, but the doctor’s eyes went wide as he moved back between her legs.
“Seestor… wait. There is… there is another.”
“No!” she rasped, her voice cracking. “No! Only one!”
But the Devil was a master of fine print. As Perpetua was delivered, the room seemed to lose its color. He didn’t wail like his brother. He was unnervingly silent, his pale skin and dark, curled hair a perfect image of the shadow she had kissed in the mirror nearly forty years ago.
The silence was broken, the heavy silver mirror on the far wall developed a single, deep crack right down the center.
“No!” Mary screamed, feeling terror for the first time in decades.
A nurse took a crying Copia from Sister Imperator, her face a mask of pure terror as she watched the hysteric woman.
To the outside, it looked like Sister Imperator was simply in denial of having twins, but in reality, deep within her being she felt the shift. Time had resumed, the contract being fulfilled with the sixth and final heartbeat.
“Get it away from me!” She shirked, recoiling from the silent infant as if he were a demon. She wouldn’t touch him. She wouldn’t even look at his face. “It wasn’t part of the deal! Nobody mentioned twins!”
Her voice began to rise to a hysterical shout. The hormones, the shock and the visceral horror of the truth created a terrifying, singular focus, if the world didn’t see it, it didn’t exist.
“You,” she pointed a long trembling finger at a nurse, “take it. Take it to the nearest church, not ours! A catholic one! Leave it on the steps! If it isn’t recorded, it never happened!”
“But Seestor, Papa-”
“Doesn’t know!” she seethed, her eyes wild with a predatory desperation. “If any of you speak a word of this- if Nihil ever hears that there were two, I will ensure you never leave this Ministry alive. There was one son. Copia. The fifth of our blood. Do you understand?”
She was shaking. In her mind, if she could just discard the sixth heartbeat within the Catholic church, the Devil would be forced to stop the clock. Would be forced to give her more time.
But as the nurse hurried out of the room, clutching the silent baby to her chest, the crack in the mirror didn’t heal. The sun had finally set on the ageless Mary, and no amount of denial could bring back the dawn.
An hour, she had given the order to wait an hour before letting Nihil enter. She needed that time to calm down and gather her thoughts.
The door to the delivery wing groaned open. Nihil stepped in, his face glowing with a triumphant pride. He had been waiting in the hall with Primo, Secondo, and Terzo. They had all heard the muffled, animalistic screams through the heavy doors, screams that sounded less like birth and more like a soul being torn in half.
He expected to see his eternal Goddess holding the fifth heartbeat with her usual icy poise.
Instead, he found a room that felt different.
Mary sat upright in the bed, but her posture was shattered. She was clutching Copia to her chest, her knuckles white. Her blonde hair was matted with sweat, her eyes bloodshot and wide with a panicked, darting energy. She was shaking, visibly, violently shaking.
"Mary?" Nihil whispered, his heart thudding. He moved to her side, his mismatched eyes scanning her face.
She looked exactly the same. Her skin was still smooth, her jawline still sharp. But the light was different. The unnatural, marble like glow was gone, replaced by the dull, warm reality of living flesh. To anyone else, she looked like a beautiful woman who had just endured a traumatic labor. To Nihil, she looked... fragile.
"The birth," she rasped, her voice cracking. "It was... it was not easy, Nihil."
Nihil reached out, tentatively touching her hand. It was hot. It was damp. It felt human. "We heard you screaming. The boys... they were worried. I told them you were fine, that you were strong."
"I am tired," she snapped, a flash of her old fire returning, though it flickered weakly. "I have given you the fifth. Copia. Take him. I… need to rest."
Nihil took the small infant, looking down at his fifth son with awe. But his gaze kept drifting back to Mary. He could see the unsettling fear. It was like a heavy weight had finally settled onto the room. The air didn't smell like ozone anymore, it smelled like blood and sweat and salt.
"You look..." he started, struggling to find the word.
"I look like a mother who has done her duty," she hissed, her eyes boring into his, demanding he accept the lie. "Leave me. I need to sleep. Five, Nihil, we have five."
Nihil nodded slowly, putting her state down to the sheer physical toll of the birth. He gathered his new son and left the room to show the three older brothers their new sibling.
Mary waited until the door clicked shut. Then, she reached for the silver hand mirror. She stared at her reflection. She looked the same. But she leaned in close, watching her own chest rise and fall. She felt the heavy, rhythmic throb of her pulse.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
She wasn't a monument anymore. She was a woman. And somewhere out in the California night, a nurse was driving a silent, dark haired secret toward a stone cathedral. Mary closed her eyes, praying that by casting the sixth heartbeat into the dark, she had bought herself just a few more years of the light.
Then, she let the tears fall.
As Nihil walked out into the dimly lit hallway of the Ministry, cradling the tightly wrapped Copia, his three eldest sons stood waiting.
Primo, now 15, looked at the infant with a practiced, stoic distance, already calculating the child’s place in the hierarchy. Secondo, now 13, looked at the bundle with a strange, quiet sadness, sensing the heaviness of the house. Terzo, now 10, stood on his tiptoes, his eyes bright with interest, unaware that he was no longer the baby of the family.
"Is she... is she okay?" Terzo whispered, his voice small in the vaulted hallway, wanting nothing more than to go to his mother and cuddle her.
Nihil looked back at the closed heavy doors of the delivery suite. He remembered the heat of her skin and the frantic look in her eyes. "She is tired, Terzo. Things were not easy"
But as they walked away, the three brothers and the father, none of them knew of the bundle that was sitting on the steps of a nearby Catholic church.