Creation began on 06-02-24

Creation ended on 09-09-24

Pact with the Devil

Breaking a Pact by Forging a Pact

A/N: Reading up on the film on Wikipedia gave me this idea for another tale of correcting mistakes in a way that changes things. Here goes.

As Henry was about to approach the handsome young man, a figure stood in his way.

"Never again," he tells Henry, and the older man backs away.

"You!" Henry frowns. "Why are you here?"

"Why else but people like you? You have two lives that belong to me now."

"You? No, I own their souls. You can't have them. Their pacts were with me. That's how this all works for me."

"That's how it used to work for you, but that was your old pacts, Henry Wooten, since that's the name you've become accustomed to using. Did you truly think that you were the only one capable of such things? You're not the only game in town that is capable of forging contracts with the people you target for your vices. Only those that seek redemption, even in the midst of hopelessness, can call upon me. Now, I'll only say this once: Hand over Bae Conick and Louis to me…or I will take them from you."

Henry recognized this man from multiple encounters and multiple tales that had been spun in the wake of his unimaginable revolution across time and lore. A man whose flesh was as dark as the soil from which life prospered…and whose eyes were so dark that they held a light that couldn't be breached. A man who had once failed in his duty to safeguard the innocent…and was now making sure to be more attentive to ensure he would never fail again. This…was Brother Correction, one of God's many, many children that was so much a defection from all else that he may as well have been considered a rogue in all that he did. But what Henry couldn't understand was why God chose to allow this disgrace to continue as he has.

"Anyone else," he tries to bargain with him. "Anyone else but these two. You can have Hitler. You can have Angelina. Hell, you can even have the scum from Chicago. But not these two."

But Brother Correction frowns; he was only here for Louis and Bae's souls; right now, he didn't care for any other soul this fallen angel had laid claim to. To make this work out, he needed their souls, and he would have their souls, even if it meant taking them through force.

"We can be civil and dignified, Mr. Wooten," he says to him, "or we can less than gentlemen and take off the gloves. The easy way…or the maddening way. It's up to you."

Despite being the Devil, Henry was afraid of Brother Correction, and had good reason to be. This man drew his power, his strength, his very dedication to ensuring benevolence from the people that believed in him, that held onto hope, to faith, to the truest of love and redemption. In any battle or war between light and darkness, he was a servant of both…but fought for the light to overcome the darkness. Maybe it was why he was considered by Henry to be among the favorite of Christ himself.

"Please," Henry was now forced to beg, "don't make me beg. I worked too hard for their souls."

Brother Correction got up in his face and locked eyes with him.

"We both know the answer to what profits a man to have the world at the loss of his soul," he says to Henry, "and I know the loss you will take to lose two souls for the sake of grace. You will receive two souls of the most bitter darkness in exchange, but these two souls belong to the light and must be released. Even if all manner of sins were ordained by the heavens, I must ensure that those whose lives can still be saved will be saved. Good and evil must be balanced. The scales cannot tip in anyone's favor, including yours. Hand…them…over…now."

Henry balled his left hand, wanting so much to knock Brother Correction's lights out and run while he still could, but he relented.

"I will not forget this," he warns Brother Correction, handing over the two souls.

"Neither will I," Brother Correction replies. "I'll see you around when I bring in two replacement souls. Enjoy your evening."

As he walks away from him, Henry fumes over how cheated he felt, not just by Brother Correction's presence, but over the fact that the handsome man he had attempted to go after to begin the cycle of Dorian Gray anew had been embraced by a woman, indicating that he was involved with someone already, ruining his ambitions.

Damn you, Brother Correction, he thought, loathing the former mortal with every fiber of his own existence. One day, you're going to suffer immensely.

Unbeknownst to him, the portrait of Louis in the cab he sent off had vanished; with the forfeiture of Louis' soul also came the loss of the portrait.

I suffer with each failure from the methods I employ that result in shame by the lives that choose not to be saved, and I learn to move past the lives that refuse to be saved to the ones that long to be saved. Can you understand how powerful hope becomes when you realize that it's right there for you when you need it? He hears Brother Correction's voice in his mind.

-x-

"Aah!" Louis gasps as he awakens in a room, seeing a dark man sitting next to his portrait. "Aah…aah…"

Brother Correction looks at him and smiles.

"Truth be told, I don't always like portraits of people," he tells him. "How do you feel?"

"I… Is this Hell?"

"No, this is your apartment from before you met Henry Wooten. Or the Devil, as some prefer to address the being who uses the power of the deal to obtain new souls."

"Who…who are you?"

"I'm called Brother Correction, and I'm here to offer you a better deal than the one you made for immortality and eternal youth."

"You want my soul, too?"

"No. I'm not in the business of taking people's souls. I'm in a different business that is more important than trading lives for leisure. I trade for the lowest points in life for the chance of undoing one's own mistakes and making better choices in the future remade."

"You…you want…to save me?"

"You and Bae."

"Bae, I can see being saved, but me… I did…terrible things, Brother Correction. My life became a monstrous corruption. I don't deserve to be saved."

"Dorian Gray thought the same thing when I came to save his soul."

Louis looks at him and thinks that he's gone crazy.

"No, really," Brother Correction tells him. "But he deserved salvation because he didn't want to make others suffer for his secret that he couldn't keep forever. Do you remember that day you wrote your alias in blood? That was when your pact with Henry was struck. What if you could go back to before that day? Before you ever met Henry…and walked down a different path that was different from what led you to your demise? Would you be willing to accept that life? Would you be able to go down that path?"

"If I could, would I be able to prevent the deaths of everyone I ever hurt?"

"You could. You can. All you need to do is one simple thing."

"And that would be…"

"Never barter your soul again. Trust me, nobody ever truly receives a good deal for doing so. It's been done multiple times, and the only person that wins big is the one everyone calls the Devil. Anyone can be the Devil, but there are many devils in life that long to have it all…and never do because of people like me. People that will offer hope to the hopeless. Do you accept my terms?"

Louis nods his head in agreement with this man that was offering to give him a second chance to live his life. Then…Brother Correction takes out a small blowtorch and tosses it to him.

"Burn the portrait," he says to him.

"Huh?" Louis asks him.

"Burn the portrait. It's just a representation of the past and it's not the real you. You're the real you. Burn the portrait that is the shadow of who you once were…and begin your life anew."

Louis pulls the trigger and raises the torch to the canvas, setting it ablaze. He watches as it burns away within five seconds, leaving only a few ashes.

"What now?" He asks Brother Correction.

"Begin anew," he answers him. "Begin…anew."

-x-

"…Do you…like this one?" Bae Conik asks her employer as he examines the photos she had taken of some city scenery.

"I really admire your work," he responds with a smile, setting down a photo of several skyscrapers taken from an angle. "There is truly something special about simple photos of common places taken from angles that can arouse fascination within the hearts of the intrigued. I'm proud of your style, Ms. Conik. This is good work."

"Thank you, sir."

Bae, just waking up one day with a renewed sense of peace in her soul, turned away from taking pictures of people and switching over to scenery. She found a beauty in the way certain streets or parks were captured with a snap of a camera that immortalized them for the people to look at later in life. And she owed this new lease on life to Brother Correction, who released her from her pact with Henry, just as he released Louis from his pact.

"It's a real shame that you won't consider photographing members of the celebrity community," her boss had told her once upon learning that she ceased taking pictures of people to focus on places. "There are dozens of photographers that are working to capture the best snapshots they can, including Louis, who started as an assistant, and even they don't have that spark just yet…but they're all doing their best. This magazine brand owes you all, Ms. Conik. I owe you all. Thank you."

Bae had turned away from the fame and fortune of her past and was just trying to be humble in her photography career.

"But tell me something," her boss says. "There's this celebrity event happening at a local theater in three days. Some new actors are going to be putting on a stage performance. Could you be there to get some shots of the stage and at least three people? I'm told that one of the actresses going to be there has recently been involved with a photographer that knows her."

Bae sighs and accepts the job, only to get some shots of the theater; her shots of the celebrities will be a secondary concern for herself.

-x-

Brother Correction was present at the theater, mainly because of the show he was to see. It was a rendition of The Crow, a very popular film based off the comic book by a man that created it as a means to cope with the premature passing of his wife due to an unfortunate traffic accident that claimed her life, and one of the greatest representations of how love transcends death. He was actually looking forward to watching these young people translate from film to stage; unlike certain people, he was unbiased to adaptations until after he saw them in their entirety to have an opinion.

"What brought you here to see it on stage?" A woman asks him on his left in the row he was sitting in.

"I love representations of how love is stronger than death," he explains to her. "Yourself?"

"Brandon Lee made the film a legacy. I will always love the film, but I wanted to see how the play will measure up."

Soon enough, the curtains were pulled up and the lights began to dim. On the stage, the background had these red and orange curtains that were being moved. Sparks of special effects occurred at random…and a man dressed in black with a mask shaped like an avian creature's head stepped out onto the stage before everyone.

"People of the past, days long gone and where few who remember, once believed in the power of the crows, spirits and guardians that would watch over the living until it was their passing hour. In such a time, it was believed that when one dies, a crow is born to carry their soul to the land of the dead," the actor informs the audience, showing a different background, a white curtain, where the shadows of a person falling down and another person, sporting large wings and a beak-like mask, moving behind the curtain. "But sometimes, even in the days of the present, when someone dies, a terrible sadness is carried with the crow, preventing the soul from receiving its eternal rest, such as the loss of a loved one. But then…only sometimes, the crow that carries the saddened soul…can return it to the land of the living…to set right to the wrongs that led to their demise. This is such a tale in the legend of the Crow."

He slowly walks away…and another curtain pulls down, revealing a depiction of a neighborhood, and a prop shaped like an automobile on the left side of the stage where seven people stood.

Meanwhile, Louis, among the people in the front row of the audience, held up his camera and began to take pictures of the performance. He fell in love with the performance the actors were giving to the audience. It was a form of magic that captures the imagination of many viewers. And when he saw the dark hero of the play in all his glory, prepared to face the criminals that were ready to set the city ablaze, he took a shot of him that he prayed would be seen in the newspapers later on.

Bae, taking angle shots from the nosebleed section on the right side of the auditorium, also fell in love with the performance. The way the actors were moving, the way they were talking, the overall magic that was there to be witnessed.

"Buildings may burn," the narrator dressed as a crow utters as the dark hero walks away in the beyond with his truest love that had waited for him, "people that live may one day die, but true love will outlast all."

The curtain drops…and the people applaud, having been mesmerized by the play.

"That was beautiful," went Brother Correction.

Fin

A/N: What did you think?