What A Soul Goes For Poem by David Welch

Kirsten bought the old Delacroix place,
built back in eighteen hundred thirty-four.
A rambling home in the old federal style;
seven bedrooms, five baths, and three floors.

People whispered about the house
and all the things that had taken place there.
In haunted New Orleans this home was
the spookiest of a town with it's share.

There was talk that a demon haunted the grounds,
raised up from the darkest pits of Hell.
That he would do the bidding of those who asked,
if to the Dark One their soul they would sell.

That, along with strange shrieks and howls
were not even counted amongst the worst.
All knew for a fact, that one century back
Guillame Delacroix had gone quite berserk.

He killed his whole family with a great axe,
so he was sentenced to sing from a rope.
Yet on the gallows he'd smiled and said:
"Fools, it is not yet my time to go! "

For long years after, the legends do say
Mad Guillame stalked through the old house.
Some warned Kirsten that he and the demon
were still within and haunting it now.

But she didn't really believe in that stuff,
and the deal offered she couldn't resist.
She even figured that to make extra cash
she could give ‘ghost tours' to the tourists!

Making it even better, living not far off,
was a young man named Endicott James.
She found herself taken by his genteel charms,
and the old soul that within him lay.

Months went by, then one night while alone
a kitchen pot flew off of the wall.
Made of cast iron, it struck poor Kirsten,
and to the hard tiles she did then fall.

Endicott found her earl the next morn
and took her to get her checked by a doc.
Things seemed okay, until the next day
when she full under a grandfather clock!

Endicott he knew something wasn't right,
something more serious than her broken leg.
So he went home with her, tucked her in tight,
then stood watch while she slumbered in bed.

It was nearly one when a figure appeared,
dressed a whole century out of style.
Endicott said, "Delacroix, we meet again.
I must say, it's been quite a while."

The specter it screamed and leapt for him,
awakening Kirsten where she did lie.
She came to just in time to witness,
a red fire glow in Endicott's eyes.

He grabbed for the ghost, seizing its neck,
somehow grasping this writhing phantasm.
Eyes burning bright, he squeezed out its life,
until Mad Delacroix jerked and spasmed.

The ghost with a roar faded into naught,
and Endicott collapsed back on the bed.
Kirsten watched, stunned, as her lover's eyes
turned back to blue from their fiery red.

She looked at him, her mouth gaping wide,
and said, "What in God's name are you? "
He said, "I'm the demon they all speak of.
That much of it at least is all true."

She backed away, unable to run out,
hobbled by her bad leg and the cast.
Endicott said, "You've no need to fear me,
the evil once inside is long past."

She stuttered and said, "How can that be?
They say to control you will cost me my soul."
He shook his head sadly, and smiled at her,
"That was not the deal made in days of old."

"The selling souls part was completely true,
And it was my soul that great powers sought.
But it wasn't to the Devil, that I sold out.
No, this demon sold his soul to God."

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…