Chapter 1: The Devil's Dictionary
Antebellum. What a wonderful word! Beautiful. Melodious. Pleasant to the ears, if you will.
Belle: a beauty. Young. Supple. Elegant and chaste. Dancing in the waves of youth with young men staring from all around, offering their hands with a kiss. Meeting the lips in the dark, unaware of sneaking eyes lurking about. The gossip! The elder women forgetting to reminisce the days of their past. A scandal! Bright, white peaks of blossoms in the otherwise deadly summer sunlight. Gorgeous. Glorious to behold! Jewels to thine eyes. Oh, my Father in heaven! Could any other have any part in the responsibility for such beauty? It must truly belong to You!
Bellicose: a catastrophe. Dark ash rises into the sky. Morning fades into darkest, moonless night. Embers burn the skin. Rust the complexion. Like pristine waters, murky after the flood. Where are your young callers now, my young beauty? Is it now their blood that brims the Mississippi? Staining the banks red. Crimson, just as once were your now pallid lips. Dry. All is dry, save the lusting ground. Is it moist with life? Or does it jeer, fooling its residents with the tone of dew? A façade of hope for a new day. . .
All quickly comes to pass. It seems all at once. And then one wakes from the whimsical chime of their music box. Wakes to a sound of screaming.
"NO, WAIT! THAT'S BEEN IN THE FAMILY FOR YEARS!"
Tears add to the oncoming ominous tune as they patter to the floor. Oh how simple it seemed when it was the tiny naked feet pattering upon that very same floor! And the music to which they moved! Quick beats of innocence beneath the erotic canopy of the sweating sultry night.
Another scream. Another cry. Utterly alone. But you are not a child.
"GET OUT OF MY FATHER'S HOUSE!" and "THIS IS MY HOME! HAVE YOU NO HEART?"
You scream for such paltry things until . . .
"STOP! GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF OF ME!"
Antebellum. Is it even possible for such a thing to exist? When men are living, and women are spreading their wanton childhood dreams as possibilities. Can chivalry truly be dead, when brothers have always wished the same poison upon each one's life? Has it ever lived at all? And what about war? Is one war really a new affair-completely incomparable to the last? Or is one just a continuation of when the other left off? History will say so.
Antebellum. Ha! Thou art a sham! A blasphemy against the very One who would wish you into being.
A human creation. A false deity conjured by the occult. Sinners! Devils! Every last one!
A sham! But a sham is what we turn to when there is nowhere else to go. Just as we turned to chivalry when we lost pride in ourselves as special beings. The chosen ones. Yes! We were the ones chosen to till this land . . . And now, it is being extracted from our very bones-poured out and washed away in the blood of young men.
Those very callers, my dear-the very ones that you once called young men-they are now our soldiers.
Send a prayer their way. And pray-pray for your life!-pray that no word with such arrogance as "antebellum" has ever touched their ear.
For, if it has, then we are all surely amongst the damned!
As my mistress looked upon the wilting inferno that had once been her family's land-the tears now withheld by a hellish anger-she heard a voice speak to her.
"With God as your witness, will you dare to enter into a contract with me? Will you give up the future bliss of your soul for the vengeance you now seek?"
My mistress forced back the tears with another blow from her proud will. She removed her shaking hands from the railing and, with hot conviction in her eyes, turned to the one now pressing her with his questions.
"Take what you will from me!" she said. "Everything else has been stolen from me. If I do not agree to give you what's left, who's to say that it won't be stolen later? The least I can do is avenge my family's honor. It's what they would want me to do. You say a demon is surely responsible for this . . . Well, I suppose a demon would be my best bet for taking them down."
"That is a grand answer," my mistress's tempter replied. "However, I must have a definite answer in case you ever choose to go back on your word. Then you will have no excuse, for you have been warned that this contract cannot be broken once written. So what is it-yes or no?"
"Yes, then."
"Very well," the tempter said, his lips curling upward to reveal a frightful flash of white.
My mistress winced, stricken by a sudden pain. Blood trickled through the laceration that had slashed itself across the front of her body and soaked the front of her gown. But, strangely, it did not stain the fabric. Instead-as though sucked out by some supernatural force-it flew to the floor. The crimson fluid swirled around for a bit until it formed my mistress's name.
Miss Scarlet O'Connor
And with another supernatural-like force, the blood flew through the air and seeped into the foot of the creature who had been speaking to my mistress. Without another word, the creature changed. Its features stretched and became more distinct. The flesh turned from a dark black to a human ebony until the form of a man stood where the creature once stood.
"Remus Faulkner," the man said in a clear, tenor voice as he made a formal bow. "At your service."