It must have been caused by the fear and the pain. It must have been. For late into the night, whilst the cool wind blew against the glass, and while the floorboards of her little room creaked, she felt herself sink once again into the floor. Jezebel. Falling deeper, sleepy and tired, falling deeper into the bed. Falling into what she believed was a nightmare. She awoke, or presumed herself awake, as her body rose to consciousness gripping the sheets and blankets of her bed. She felt her hands sink into the blood-soaked sheets. She found no grip and fell. Into what? An abyss maybe, a hole. It was not her ability, not the phasing power she was starting to develop. It was something darker, deeper.

The pail of bloody water to the side of her bed fell, rattled a bit and rolled on the floor leaving a streak.

She was gone.

She was having a nightmare. Or what she believed it to be a nightmare, but what was really a warping of reality. She found herself scratching the sides of dark walls, falling. The earth around her beginning to collapse and crack. Falling. Crushing. A smothering feeling, of dark sheets and bondage and cushioned walls. It felt like an ocean.

She fell screaming. She reappeared, screaming. On her bed, the same bed (was it?), her upper torso raised while the rest of her body laid on the bed. She breathed hard. She dried her sweat with a blanket and looked around. She couldn't hear the wind anymore. The sound itself seemed muffled. And was the room bigger?

The walls were colored green. As if a light had streaked across, painting it with a slight neon tinge. The furniture was still intact, and turning on the television in front of her bed, she found static. No channels. She stood. Her foot brushed against the bucket, and it fell. The pail of bloody-water was empty, and there was no mess on the floor.

Opening the doors, she could see no difference. Not at face value, at least, it all still existed as per usual. But walking...walking...the long hall. She found something...odd. Her shadows, of which there were many, were cast across the walls and unmoving. Stranger still, there was no light of which to cast the shadows from. From the hall, she went to the bathroom. The mirrors reflected nothing but blackness and standing on top of the bathtub, to open a window above it into the night air, she could see no stars. She could see no city. Only even more blackness. A void. But still, her shadows existed in this light-less world.

She wasn't even sure how she could see.

That was about the time she began to worry. When her steps were filled with reticence, an anxious softness that made her sound like a mouse traveling through the house.

She moved with her back against the wall.

She made it to the living room. She held her breath. Someone was waiting for her. He sat amongst one of the three couches.

"You're here." This character said hidden in the darkness. He was like film barely developing in her vision. A slow burning in her retinas as she scrutinized and made sense of his shape and form in that darkness. She could see his limbs at least. She saw his arms and his legs and his palms and the pale flesh he was made of. Sickly pale, almost. That he (and she called him a him because he sounded it. Male, with a scratchy, tired voice) had strange, sharp nails, of obsidian black coloration. He wore clothes. A completely black suit, with a green tie. And in his left hand, he held two dice that he rattled in his palm and with the other, a drink.

"Take a seat," This man said. She stood scanning him, eyes wide before she sat opposite to him.

"Who are you, where am I?"

"I'm the person taking away your pain right now." He flicked his finger at her. "And the man who gives it, too."

She immediately squirmed and held her arm extended out. The veins bulging, the tattoo glowing and bleeding onto the couch.

He snapped again. Her breathing eased, she leaned back.

"You should have expected me, or did they forget to tell you?"

"You're Mammon, then?"

"Maybe." He said. "I am the man who owns you, which is a much more important title."

"No one owns me."

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He threatened her with another flick of his finger.

"We're all owned, nothing changes that. So with that knowledge, you really have to accept that life becomes a matter of choosing your slaver. Or having it chosen for you. There are many to choose from, and they come in many forms and names; tradition, civilization, faith. All servitude of a certain kind."

“So you’re the slaver driving my family then?” She asked.

"No. There's nothing I could truly do to drive your family to the lengths it's going to. All I offered was a prize, the lot of you handled the rest. No, I figure that the demon driving all of you is ambition. Ambition or fear, which might be the same thing under certain circumstances."

The man took a drink from the glass in his hands. It was pink. And bringing his face close to the lips of the glass had made it visible. His nose was crooked. Two piercings, on each nostril and eyes without irises. Pitch black with a small dot at the center, like eight balls.

"That's a cop-out, demon."

"Now, either you treat me with respect," He said. "Or I'll show you how much of a demon I really am."

He flicked his finger and watched her squirm. Or at least she presumed he was watching her, she didn't know why else he would cause her to suffer and to croak and bleed and whine.

She nearly fell this time. Her back hunched over, as she held her arm on the floor. The drool slipped from the corner of her lips, falling as a slimy string down to the floor.

"Have some more dignity, Jezebel. You're supposed to be one of the tougher ones, aren't you?"

"Why'd you put this on us?" She said in between pained breaths. The words seemed exhausted, pained.

"It's nothing you don't deserve. That brand is something that you've had all along, something your great forefathers before you decided long ago. A filial responsibility you're here to fulfill."

"What does that mean? Why does everyone speak in riddles? Give it to me straight, demon." She hissed. His hand went up and fell, and she began to writhe now, spinning circles on the floor.

"Now if talking with calm won't get you to respect me, then pain will. I hope this educates you,"

"What. Is. On. Me." She said. Barely. Her eyes were vein-strained, heartless almost.

"I appreciate your grit. I love it, even. But you have to ask nicely. If you're sweet, I'll be sweet. A king can be forgiving if you allow him to be."

"P-" She began the phrase. "Please!"

He waved his hand and immediately her face was relieved. The clenched muscles of her frown and teeth suddenly revoked to calm, and her eyes were no longer red, and her lungs could breathe fully and free with large, deep gasps.

She laid flat on the floor in the little room. The television screen nothing but static behind her. The ferns and other furniture immobile and far from her. She could hear the echo of her breaths, but she did not care. Pain was gone, pain that seemed a foreign memory.

“What’s on you is the product of a deal your great, great - Lord knows how many great generations before - grandfather put on you. Ezekial Wolfe. A civil war survivor who wanted his life so desperately as to sacrifice every Wolfe after him. You were sold out by a man, centuries back, who wanted to thrive in the heat and war of the south. That’s what your mark is. A brand of his deal.”

“What’d he deal for? What’d he sell us out for?”

“Immortality. Which is now what you all fight for.”

“Immortality?” She asked, standing. “Why’s dad dead then?”

“Immortality, not invulnerability.” He said, smiling. His teeth looked bleached. “I am Mammon, who deals with rarities and wealth. And what rarer, what richer item than time itself?”

“That’s what we’re fighting for? Immortality? Do the rest even know that?”

“Some of them do, I’m sure,” He said. “Does it even matter? As far as I’m concerned, you have bigger things to kill yourselves over. Money. The casino. All those petty things.”

“All of this…just for that…”

“Oh, the small things people will kill themselves for you.” He said. “Starve a man, and he’ll slit an infants throat for an apple, I assure you. And considering how diseased your family is, I’m not surprised at the lengths they’ll go to. Masquerading it as pride or tradition or some other noble thing is just the cover-up. You’re a savage bunch,”

She looked up at the ceiling, eyes wide. It was transparent, like a television glass screen. One that reflected back an image of herself. Sleeping on the bed. Rolling in the bed. She was still there, in bed. At least her physical self was. And she knew this was no dream. It was something worse.

“And you?” Mammon said. “You’re the worst of the bunch. I don’t suspect you’ll be winning.”

“I don’t care about winning.” She reiterated.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” He asked. “What do you want? What brought you here? It certainly wasn’t me or my brand. Something in your soul screamed for my help, what was it then?”

Her eyes settled back to the floor, to her arm bleeding and trickling down to the floor.

“I want to protect them.”

“What was that?” He cupped his hands to his ears and pointed them towards the girl, mumbling on the floor. She gripped the carpet and felt the faux fur of bear rug in between her fingers.

“I want to protect my family.” She said.

“Oh? That’s strange coming from a Wolfe. I knew it’d be you, though.” He said. “Okay? What do you want from me then? You're giving me a goal, not a demand.”

“I want power. I want to control my power.” She said. “I know we’re going to fight. Momma said so. I need to be ready…I need to strike first.”

His legs unwrapped, and he moved his torso forward.

“Then tell me about the deal you wish to broker. What will you give me in exchange for this power? Every gamble needs its ante.”

She looked in silence. Her eyes shaky, drifting. She looked side to side, knowing what she would give. Knowing he would only take what mattered to her.

Then she looked at her arms as if struck with inspiration. She looked at her tattooed arm...then to the other. Her clean arm, as she called it. She raised it in front of her. Her eyes, looking back. Her mouth grit.

And Mammon smiled.

"That's not much, but I'll take it."