What a Soul Goes For, Part Iii
Kirsten tried to talk, but couldn’t find the words,
So Endicott nodded and continued to speak:
“When you’ve been in Hell for millions of years,
you’ll do just about anything to get yourself free.
“And when I escaped, and came to this town
one hundred sixty of your years ago,
I said to the Big Guy, if you let me stay here
my powers shall be yours to control!
“Then He accepted, and gave me my task:
to stay in this great city and keep track
of the powers infernal that prey on you all,
if nobody will stand up and fight back.
“But I didn’t know the whole of the deal,
and from the day I was granted my stay,
bit by bit the darkness that once fueled my life
the Big Man gradually stole away.
“My eyes ones always glowed red with hate,
and now I’m tired and utterly spent,
from summoning the strength of Hell below
to drive that mad ghost from my lady friend…
“I should’ve know, all the way back then,
that He had ulterior designs.
The true price asked: embracing the light,
leaving my dark predilictions behind.
“But my task is my task, and I must go on,
though it leaves me in more and more pain.
Until the day He asks of me no more,
and leaves me to play the old mortal game.”
With that he got up, walking on out,
Kirsten could not begin to understand.
For days she wondered, prayed, and mused
about things well beyond woman and man.
She went to his flat seven days later,
and found him three sheets to the wind.
She said,”I thank you for saving my life,
But I don’t even know where to begin!
“Demons walking the earth, working for God?
Ghosts of murderous men thought long dead?
Glowing eyes and infernal powers…
It’s just too much for one person’s head.
“So I’m leaving town, and not coming back,
and I don’t want you following me.”
Endicott nodded, answering her back:
“If that’s the way that it has to be.”
So Kirsten left, moving far out west.
Endicott continued on with his look-out.
For evil is not quiet, and rarely rests,
he knew he’d fight again, he had no doubt.
But the tragic thing is that he never did,
and his love Kirsten never would know,
that for the next fifty years Endicott aged
and not once more did his eyes ever glow…
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