Heartbreaker.... Hells Avenging Angel

PROLOGUE...

In 411 BCE, the end of a bitter war between two Celtic tribes called the Senovara and the defeated Drustani resulted in the latter being consigned to the flames. So vindictive was the Senovara king Orgetorix that he ordered their dead be dug up to burn with the living on the eve of Samhain , a night of celebrations marking the end of Summer. But as the Senovara retired to sleep off their drunkenness from the night's revelries, the gods summoned forth an unspeakable hate from the ash of the Drustani calling itself Caelen Gáeth to punish them as they were not pleased by their actions. The Senovara would eventually cease to be known as they too fell to become absorbed into the Helvetii bringing with them a curse destined to haunt their bloodline forever. Over the following centuries, they spread and intermarried often remixing their bloodline through incest as if drawn back together even if distantly related.

Isambard Octavius Carver was a man who made his fortune in the British Colonies bringing indentures from Europe, slaves from Africa and removing Natives to the Caribbean for his share of the lucrative sugar trade. He was also an explorer, an antiquarian and founder of the American incarnation of the Hellfire Club in the British Colony of New York where they worshiped Baphomet (the Loa called Baron Samedi ). His wife was the sister of his half-brother Leopold Charbonneau making his son William Ambrose Carver twice-bound to him by blood and William would be raised by his future wife, Amélie Pelletier Archambault , who was a year his junior but his mother's half-sister and allegedly his father's daughter. But where his father was loyal to the king, William had grander ambitions as he perceived great weakness in the British Empire being it was too thinly spread following the French and Indian War .

Part of his father's wealth came from committing great cruelty against the Mi'kmaq tribe in New France seeking their possible connection to the Knights Templar and a hidden treasure they learned was on  an island off the coast of Nova Scotia . Amélie's parents lost holdings in Luisiana Española of El Imperio Español (the Spanish Crown ) that she was determined to regain and convinced William to exploit the American Revolution to achieve this. This led to confrontations with an abolitionist named Aaron Burr because William was a slaveholder opposed to the passage of anti-slavery laws that threatened his new financial empire. After the war, William supported Nathaniel Gorhams efforts to get Prince Henry of Prussia to become king of a Constitutional Monarchy (which was refused) and finally fled to La Basse-Louisiane where Amélie's family had regained holdings from the Spanish Crown with the aid of Acadians (who had come there during Le Grand Dérangement ).

William also took a former slave calling herself Maman Brigitte as a mistress who used her dark magicks to found the Culte de Salomé while aiding William in his manipulations. The Third Treaty of San Ildefonso returning the region to France which Napoleon then sold to US President Thomas Jefferson with the Louisiana Purchase further destabilizing his relations with his Vice President Aaron Burr. What became of William would be lost in the chaos that followed as Burr became Governor of New York laying plans to secede New York and Massachusetts to found a new nation leading to the infamous dual where he killed Alexander Hamilton and Burr then began acting on another conspiracy to secede the Louisiana Territory into a new créole nation that included Texas and Mexico called Les états-unis de Louisiane (The United States of Louisiana) which ultimately failed as well.
The Story...

Leopold Charbonneau had volunteered to serve in the French army as a mercenary where he became known as le Boucher de Napoleon (Napoleon's Butcher) before retiring to Louisiana after its purchase by the US. There, he would purchase lands that the native Ishak warned was a place of great evil and where all whites who had sought to settle there had met with horrific ends. But Charbonneau was undeterred as William and Amélie Carver sponsored him on behalf of the Culte de Salomé and it was here that he laid the foundations for a manor called Château de Charbonneau . What became of them wouldn't be recorded as by the time of the US Civil War, the manor belonged to a man named Sébastien de Bellemonte Hart and the last recorded owner was a young boy named John Craven after which the community and the manor would be named.

As time passed, the manor fell into a ruined state of disrepair with only part of it being occupied by an old woman known as the Mistress of the Manor who was said to be the granddaughter of John Craven's Governess making her impossibly old. Whoever she was, she held trusteeship over the property in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana which was founded in 1823 and where Kravenwood had all but disappeared save for its cemeteries. Her name was supposedly Margaux Séraphine de Bellemonte and she was known from when she was younger in the 1920s before becoming a recluse with only delivery people and the occasional repairman visiting. Known as Bellemont Manor, the story of Kravenwood became a thing of lore with tales meant to frighten children that it was a living thing changing its shape and location entrapping unwary travelers within a purgatory of their own creation.

The Summer of 1968 was as long as it was hot when Anthony and Lorraine Hart arrived in the community of Broussard Louisiana to claim an inheritance. Anthony had been a successful New York attorney with a life built on secrets that came crashing down on him after a schoolyard fight. The Harts experienced three miscarriages before the successful birth of their daughter Jennifer who was born with several birth defects requiring years of surgery to correct. Then came the birth of their daughter Katrina who was perfect in form but possessed what would later come to be known as attention deficit disorder making her an extremely difficult child who was nonetheless her mother's favorite. For all the pain she endured, Jennifer would grow strong and tall for her age with her father calling her Daddy's Little Girl raising her like the son he had always wanted.

It was soon after Katrina's birth that they learned that the reason for all their sorrows was that they had the same father, a secret their mothers hadn't considered but both had become pregnant before meeting the men they would marry. While Anthony accepted what he was told, Lorraine went into denial leading them to hide their secret to preserve their marriage for the children's sake. But then came the fight where Jennifer beat a high school boy to death with her bare hands for ridiculing her as Frankenstein because of her scars not realizing how strong she was or how much pain he had caused her. Anthony lost everything defending Jennifer in the courts to prevent her from being taken from him and on the very day banks foreclosed on their home, a mysterious stranger came knocking on their door with news of the inheritance.

While the locals offered them hospitality, they weren't happy to have strangers in their midst let alone from New York. The local probate attorney served as executor of the estate and took them to a heavily overgrown manor that had been partially maintained by its former owner but was at least partly live-in ready. With liquid assets totaling twenty million dollars, the family moved in and began renovations in earnest after paying off their debts. Anthony gained entry into the Louisiana State Bar to practice law and Lorraine began social climbing where both were establishing themselves with the locals. From the moment they moved in, Jennifer's health seemed to improve and she healed incredibly fast leaving only the traces of scars to remind her of her pain. For all that she had endured, Jennifer never saw herself as a victim because her father's love helped her to endure the pain caused by corrective and cosmetic surgeries.

To celebrate her final surgery, Anthony allowed her to get her first tattoo which Jennifer created herself that included a sabbatic goat . Upon seeing the finished tattoo, Anthony wasn't pleased but all was quickly forgiven with a chocolate milkshake and a joke about the figure being the spitting image of her maternal grandmother. More body art was to follow covering up additional scars and discoloration providing Jennifer with newfound confidence because she viewed her body as a work in progress. Possibly, for this reason, modesty was not a virtue she possessed as her powerful athletic physique was revenge against those who had treated her like a monster and she liked to show it off. Jennifer was actually becoming physically attractive, even for the scars, and somewhat of a tomboy always trying to please her father and even took up boxing which was his favorite way to exercise.

While hunting in Devil's Bayou with her father, they discovered a wrecked 1950 Mercury Eight that had been abandoned some years before. Bringing the car back to the manor, it became a passion project for the two of them and they kept it in an old Italianate style ruin they had converted into a garage. Her mother was grateful to have Jennifer busy elsewhere because she unreasonably blamed her for all of their problems while Katrina could do no wrong. Jennifer called her sister "Lil Miss Perfect" and when not with her father, spent time with friends she made at school whom she occasionally invited to their home. Anthony's skills in defending the community on legal matters led him to the Mayor's office while Lorraine's abilities as a community organizer vastly improved their position in society. But Lorraine was becoming an alcoholic and taking advantage of her husband's extended absence to entertain other men thinking she was clever enough to hide her activities.

After turning fifteen, Jennifer became more withdrawn even with her father and she began talking to herself which he dismissed as roleplay. Her parents were increasingly quarreling with one another which finally came to a head one dark stormy night leading to an accident plunging off a cliff in their car. Only Lorraine survived the accident and Jennifer found herself alone as the only person who truly loved her was now gone with her mother having his remains cremated. Jennifer's hatred only grew for her mother as did her silence because she was aware of her mother's betrayals and that she had stopped loving her father long ago. She loved the man who would replace him as Mayor and intended he take her father's place. Lorraine even became more interested in Jennifer's life but the reason became abundantly clear as she began planning a sweet sixteen débutante ball to further ingratiate herself with the elite.

Had Lorraine paid closer attention to Jennifer's blank stare and the fact she no longer spoke at all, she might have known to fear what others were beginning to sense. But her mother only thought of herself and her alcoholism dulled her senses just enough that she wouldn't care even if she did sense the changes in her daughter. While they had never gotten the Mercury to crank, Jennifer stole her father's ashes and mixed them with the purple paint they had intended to paint it before his death adding the word Demon to the hood. On the night before the Sweet Sixteen event, Lorraine invited some of Jennifer's friends to stay the night with her hoping to put her in a better mood while she enjoyed herself with several of her closest friends for a night of revelry. It would be a stormy night in which Jennifer and her friends discovered a subterranean area uncovered by workmen into which they went exploring and became hopelessly lost.

The following morning, workmen reported they had heard screams that seemed to come from beneath the ground but these claims were quickly dismissed as nonsense because of the raging storms. Lorraine Hart overslept because of her partying the night before and began making calls to the invited guests as the skies had cleared for her daughter's birthday event. But things didn't feel right as this was a haunted land where you could feel otherworldly things transpiring around you even if it did not manifest for your senses to detect. Jennifer would make her appearance still wet from the night before and Lorraine grabbed a towel to dry her off before making sure her dress fit properly. The day then seemed to fly by as guests began arriving and as they gathered, the hallway clock rang out six chimes and a loud clap of thunder reminded people of the torrential rains from the previous night.

After introducing Katrina, the night's activities shifted to Lorraine as she had intended and word came that Jennifer was preparing herself as promised. But, as the storm grew in intensity, it knocked out the electricity, and a groundskeeper was called to turn on backup generators. Accommodations were being made for the guests to stay over as a downpour came that was so strong they could not even see their vehicles and the Emergency Alert System informed them it was now too dangerous to travel. A lightning strike then blew out the power generators and what electricity did arrive came from powerlines that flickered on and off creating a sense of unease. Their attention finally became drawn to a figure standing on the second-floor balcony where another flash of lightning partially illuminated a figure visible in front of the large bay windows.

Leaping from the balcony, she landed with a thud splattering blood and gore everywhere as she crushed a man with a large sledgehammer causing chaos as people scattered in all directions. Lorraine knew immediately who the killer was as she recognized the fetish wear and the devil mask Jennifer was wearing as the things she had worn to entertain her male friends. But what she couldn't know was how her hatred and indifference had groomed her daughter for the awakening of an ancient spirit reincarnated from within her. But the men at the manor were not unarmed and opened fire on Jennifer only to see their bullets cut through her and seemingly not do a damn bit of harm save to cause bloodstains where the bullets had penetrated. Hours later, rescuers finally arrived at the location alerted by cries from someone on a citizen's band radio that the wealthiest people in their community were being slaughtered by an unkillable woman in a devil mask.

What they found was an absolute bloodbath as even along the way they had found the first victims crashed by the roadside and shot dead by arrows. When they reached the mansion, more bodies were found in the yard before discovering the carnage inside and then adding to the body count themselves when Jennifer began killing them. Calls for police reinforcements and the National Guard followed as memories of the Manson Family and Helter Skelter were still fresh in the minds of many. They knew the persistent rumors of an active cult in the area and the fear was that drug-crazed hippies were on a mindless rampage regardless of surviving witness testimony warning them of the truth. Death had now come to Broussard and agents known as Men in Black (aka fixers ) were soon on the scene under the command of an agent named Ginger Nix.

They were here because Kravenwood was known to them as a nexus where Hell and Purgatory manifested creating the darkest place on Earth for those who accidentally find their way into it. Agent Nix was aware of what they were dealing with as Jennifer had become a particular type of Wraith called a Crym dubh , a being more spirit than flesh who might appear and disappear when not seen by human eyes. As the Sun began to rise, a child emerged running from the manor screaming for her life as a massive arrow struck and lifted her off the ground slamming her into a police car dead before she hit it. Only then would the killer emerge covered in blood, her clothes torn into rags by people fighting for their lives, and wearing a skull upon her face unlike what they were told possibly confirming their fears of cult activity.

Opening fire on her, they managed to cut Jennifer down by the sheer volume of bullets being held back by Agent Nix who knew what they were dealing with and that Jennifer wasn't dead even if she wasn't truly living either. Then came a roar as loud as thunder from an outer building before a car exploded forth killing everyone in its way as it rolled over the woman they had felled. Within moments, they were away with police giving chase until they reported that the car had disappeared as if into a haze on a hot summer's day. Agent Nix could only curse that these things had happened on her watch and she had performed poorly so that all they could now do was collect the bodies and create a cover story. Called to see one particular body impaled on a wall and ripped open like a butchered animal, Agent Nix reasoned that the killer had taken their time with this victim later identified as Lorraine Hart.

The woman's skull had been shattered which Agent Nix reasoned was where the killer gained her new mask and, looking at the body, could only wonder what she did to cause all of this as there was always a trigger and this woman pulled that trigger. As the bodies were being removed, Agent Nix found the subterranean area where Jennifer had killed her friends. In it, she found a grimoire detailing the history that had begotten such evil and just being there was causing her partner great distress. Agent Michael Dare was an empath with the ability to see into the Spirit World moreso to witness imprints or memories of the past play out before him by touching objects or entering places where such imprinting is strongest. In this place, he was overwhelmed and in agony seeing the past and how this was part of the original manor and the deaths caused by Maman Brigette seeking to release Baron Samedi into the world of men.

With Baron Samedi would come greater evils from the Guédé class of Loa shadow demons but the arrival of a local militia ended with their destruction and burning of the original manor. The victory cost them dearly so that they could only fill in the subterranean levels with debris which the next owners of this land removed when they built their own manor on the land above it. Assigned to pursue Jennifer, the two agents learned much about her in their travels and it was Agent Dare who created a file about her where he gave her the identity of Heartbreaker because reports of her murderous rampage always included stories of a mysterious woman silent, flirtatious, and beautiful. Clearly, this was no brainless killer but the reports then tell of extreme violence, wearing broken skulls as a mask, and then there was the demon car that always seemed to be nearby.

Information gathered from the grimoire indicated that Jennifer was not killing indiscriminately as she was the reincarnated soul of Caelen Gáeth and she was targeting descendants of the Senovara. This would explain Jennifer's dual personality as she could seem almost human even drinking a beer or eating a pizza one moment, then becoming a merciless killer the next cold and seemingly devoid of emotion. Agent Nix suspected that Jennifer was something more than this as her training included knowledge of the Forsaken and the Unholy whose traits she was finding within Heartbreaker. If true, Agent Nix knew that destroying Heartbreaker would be impossible and that capturing her would only be possible by exploiting Jennifer's limitations. In their pursuit of Heartbreaker, Agent Nix has sustained several injuries including surviving an explosion that left her badly burned and the replacement of limbs with cybernetics by her employers.

During their battles, Agent Nix would only accomplish saving some of Heartbreaker's would-be victims as she didn't care about those who got in her way except to get them out of her way. If she was denied her intended target, Heartbreaker seemed to sense when this person was more vulnerable and return to finish the job which Agent Nix would use in efforts trying to capture Jennifer that would fail. But it was during these battles that Heartbreaker would reveal a secret about Agent Nix's own past as Heartbreaker always seemed to spare her pursuer and during one encounter, Agent Nix asked Jennifer why and she responded with a single word... Drustani! So it was that Agent Nix learned there was a link between them and although Jennifer threw her through a plate glass window, she would again survive to continue the pursuit of predator and prey.
Heartbreaker Facts...

Unlike other types of wraith, Heartbreaker retains a higher degree of her human personality at least when searching for her target victims. Heartbreaker can only sense the area where her victims may be and can sense if they are moving in regard to what direction but must use her other abilities to bring her closer to them. When she finds her victim, then she can sense their movements from almost anywhere to begin her pursuit of them allowing no one to get in her way. That said, Heartbreaker often seeks to avoid confronting others and seems to possess certain abilities like other wraiths to disappear and reappear over short distances as long as no one is looking at her. This is a trait of all wraiths which those researching the supernatural believe happens because they phase or dissolve into the spirit world which cannot be witnessed by ordinary human eyes.

As Caelen Gáeth, she wasn't very intelligent and was covered in scars caused by her adversaries even if she could regenerate. In her current form as Jennifer Hart, she retains much of her human intellect and a bit of vanity as she uses her limited changeling abilities in combination with her healing ability to appear normal unless she wishes to appear more terrifying. She can alter her appearance by thought alone but these changeling abilities are extremely limited so if you know what she naturally looks like, you can notice similarities. Agent Nix has honed so she can almost recognize Jennifer regardless of how she transforms herself just as she can recognize the Demon although she can, at times, prove mistaken so that she is cautious when assuming she's found either of them. Heartbreaker can also alter her clothing but must occasionally don new clothing because she can't repair any damage done to them.

Her strength levels are at least three times that of a normal human but she can become stronger with exertion as stress causes her body to create adrenaline that has also been altered by the changes that overcame her. Her healing abilities seem almost spontaneous at times while taking longer at other times. If she loses a limb, electricity can cause her to regenerate that limb while concealing her remains can allow her to phase back into the spirit world enough to allow her to bring about these changes although she will retain scars for a considerable time. She has a fondness for wearing the shattered skulls of her victims as masks that at least partially absorb into her own face until she removes them. She will wear other types of masks including gasmasks, Halloween masks, or even medical masks but can also alter the pigment of her face to look like a painted skull.

While Heartbreaker can often seem like an unstoppable killing machine being relentless in her pursuit of victims, she doesn't kill children. She will injure children if they get in her way and this can get worse for teenagers, but it appears she has some moral code against killing anyone younger than sixteen which she seems able to sense if they are older than this. While letting them live, she returns for them later so this is just a reprieve and the greatest means of escaping her often proves to move into larger cities because more people make it difficult for Heartbreaker to isolate them as long as they remain hidden and inconspicuous. Should Agent Nix help her would-be victims escape, this is where she tells them to move and how to live unless they're willing to join Dark Ops which will use their resources to protect them.

Those who have encountered her as she searches for her victims are interviewed by Agents Nix and Dare in their pursuits where they're told that Jennifer is mute but that her body language and writing tell them all they need to know. Anyone leaving with her, being seduced by her beauty, is often found brutally killed but sometimes they're found alive not even aware she's carved a bleeding heart into their body. This is where Agent Dare got his nickname for her case file as she could use sex appeal to aid her which was extremely unusual for a wraith. While mute most of the time, Heartbreaker can actually whisper in a haunting voice and speak aloud in a frightening voice Agent Nix describes as a bag of screaming cats or a guttural sound from the back of her throat. Learning of the name given to her, Heartbreaker began to kill using the methodology of tipping the hearts out of her victim's chest with her bare hands.

Some in the media also began calling her Hellmaker because she tends to spread chaos, is drawn to loud music, and can generate a form of hellfire which seems more for effect like a will-o'-the-wisp although it can cause secondary fires which can get out of control. Heartbreaker prefers swamp-like areas for this reason and brings a smell of swamp or fish and rain it's also been described as. While she likes loud music, her preferences are country, metal, and classic rock & roll or music that she grew up with rather than modern music which she's more likely to kill someone over than bear listening to it. But, the media learned of the bloody, heart-shaped ideographs and that law enforcement called her Heartbreaker which became her primary identity... and then there was The Demon which could appear as any car with blacks out windows.

Agent Dare would develop a theory that Heartbreaker does operate on some sort of internal clock where if her intended victims can survive long enough during the hunt, she moves on as there are too many potential victims for her to linger... but she will be back! The Senovara bloodline could have thousands, or even tens of thousands, of members with none knowing because it is impossible to track their genealogy to an ancient tribe through anything other than maybe modern DNA testing... but Heartbreaker knows and can sense her targets when within a few miles of them. Not being invulnerable, Heartbreaker has been destroyed at least once when it was discovered that she returned to Kravenwood to form a new body for herself in the swamps. There, she interacts with those who have become lost in Kravenwood as well as with the Culte de Salomé, Maman Brigitte, and other Loa like Baron Samedi .

It's important to note the Demon because Heartbreaker relies heavily on the car to get from location to location and it has many of the same powers that she possesses including the ability to alter its shape into different vehicles. Like her, The Demon has a skull painted on its hood and sometimes manifests chrome skulls either as a hood ornament or real skulls and even severed heads making it look quite evil. Its windows are blacked out and people who've looked into the windows or mirrors have been found in shock having witnessed things manifest in the glass from their fears and nightmares. As a side effect of being in The Demon, Heartbreaker sometimes seems like a cyborg as The Demon absorbs technologies from other cars (like GPS) upgrading and becoming more customized which Heartbreaker also seems to absorb just as she seems to use weapons taken from tools kept in the car like a crowbar or wrenches.

An idea about the Demon but I can't get it right in AI.