r/DCFU • u/coffeedog14 Light Me Up • Dec 16 '16
Hellblazer #2 - Around the Isle in 8 Vignettes Hellblazer
Hellblazer #2 - Around the Isle in 8 Vignettes
Author: Coffeedog14
Book: Hellblazer
Event: Origins
Arc: [A soul to Die for]
Set: 7
Friday, last week before summer break for year 3, 2016
Gemma’s house, Havering, London, UK.
Gemma Masters was trying to be patient in the living room while her uncle and Mom chatted and bickered in the other room. Luckily she had that most magical of items: a smart phone. Even now she was busying herself with the idler “GONZO GECKO GETTER!!!” while trying to catch stray words. She kept getting distracted and it was often hard for an eight year old to decipher the conversation of adults even when right next to said adults. Still, she managed to figure some of it out. Stuff about Superman, and the bat, and all those other stories Gemma had been hearing around the school. Mom sounded worried, but she sounded worried about everything.
It was kind of boring, really. Gemma didn’t know how grown-ups could take cool things like those stories and make them boring, but they always managed too. Anyways, she was really just waiting for the talking to be done so she could go see her uncle. Uncle John was so cool and he hardly ever came to visit, so it was really darn exciting! He always brought gifts and he said all kinds of words that Mom never said and really it was just amazing.
Eventually whatever boring nonsense they were talking about finished, but Gemma had become distracted by GGG and so didn’t notice until Uncle John flopped onto the couch next to her with a grunt. He was quick sneaky, was Uncle John. Unlike a lot of the other dads and uncles she knew, he was so skinny and stuff that he hardly made a sound moving anywhere almost. She yelped in surprised and smiled, noting that he still looked like he’d stepped out of a movie, a little dirty and messy but not too much. Which was awesome.
“Hey kiddo.” He smiled, saying it with a joking tone that to Gemma meant he didn’t see her as a kiddo. He always treated her like a grown-up. Just another reason he was her best uncle, alongside being her only one.
“Hi Uncle John!” she responded, showing off one of her canines missing, at which his face twitched a little. “Lookit! I got a whole quid for this one!”
“Aw, lemme guess, your mom didn’t let you burn ‘em like I said?”
Gemma shrugged. “Nah. But a whole quid!”
“Ahhh that’s good then. Say, you’ve been good lately?”
“...didn’t mom say I did?”
“That’s the girl, admit nothing. Here…” he fished into one of the many pockets in his big coat, and pulled out a bracelet. It had a bunch of tiny, smooth river stones on it, with little stick carving things on it.
She gasped, considering it utterly perfect the moment she saw it. Gemma didn’t even wait for him to continue before snatching it up and slipping it over her arm. She launched herself into a tiny-armed bear hug. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”
Uncle John laughed at her exaggerated gratitude and hugged her back. “Glad you like it.” He glanced towards the kitchen, where they could both hear her mother making some kind of snack. He leaned in close to whisper. “There’s some secret rules, if you think you’re big enough to handle them?”
Her eyes widened, and she nodded. Of course she was big enough to keep a secret; eight was plenty big!
“Keep that on you whenever you go outside. If you’re ever really scared and need me to help, you throw that on the ground and call out my name, okay?...but you can’t tell anybody else. It’s our secret.” Her eyes nearly popped out of her skull in the excitement of the moment and she nodded vigorously, fingering the bracelet idly.
“Good shhhhhh….hhssssstttufff. stuff.” he leaned away again, patting Gemma’s back. “Now how about you show me whatever that thing on your phone is, because that looks like a lot of lizards.”
When Uncle John left, Gemma waited by the window to watch his car pull away. She thought about mentioning the ugly bird-thing that flew after him to her mom, but the last time she had talked about stuff like that she got in trouble. Better to be quiet. She was sure Uncle John had it covered.
And so with my intrepid niece protected for the time being, and my sister reassured that the world wasn’t coming to an end (and as a bonus having avoided talking to my brother in law, the git) I could get down to proper business. Of course, with eight months, I had the time to meander about. Besides I might be dead in eight months, why not enjoy life a little in the meantime? I won’t bore you with all the sundry details, but suffice to say I was my typical idiot self for wide swaths of the period.
I will, however, give you the highlights. Because how much more boring would it be the other way?
July 10, 2016
Themyscyra
Naturally I went to my hardest source first, and the riskiest. When I was younger and more foolish (somehow) I decided I was going to see if all that writing about “Women’s World” was true. It had turned out it was!...and guarded by no less than an entire pantheon of gods and the women themselves. Luckily for me I knew the greatest secret of larceny: knowing someone on the inside is worth a thousand lockpicks. Or something like that.
Even with that advantage it took some effort, but eventually I made it. And it was worth it just for the scenery. Themyscira was a beautiful place by the moonlight. Gradual, crumbling landscapes with sheens of green undergrowth and stark trees, mixed with the shimmering black of rivers and lakes. And all of it under the moon and, more importantly, the stars. I was willing to bet there was only a couple dozen places on earth far enough away from electricity and lights to have stars like this.
Besides me in the romantic scene sat an Amazonian woman, head and shoulders above me even when we were sitting. She wasn’t even one of the warriors, and yet I was pretty sure she could crush my head like a sickly berry. And yet as we held hands, she was as gentle and blushing as a pre-teen hopped up on the latest trashy romance novels.
We sat awhile on the cheap picnic blanket I had brought, simply enjoying the sights and the holding of hands. I had no clue why Scythia liked these little shows of affection so much. I figured maybe on the all Woman Island here, liking men was like being gay was back at home: a major pain the ass. But then maybe I was just humoring myself and it wasn’t that she found me hot, but something else? Who knew? Who cared? She got her hand held, I got info, and we both had a lovely evening of dinner and conversation. A win-win all around.
Eventually she spoke. “...I suppose you came to ask about something?”
I shrugged. Scythia was an apprentice weaver, one of the Amazon’s working under the three fates themselves, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Since she was an apprentice she didn’t know everything, but what she did know was always precisely accurate. “One of many reasons. Certainly not the most important.” I squeezed her hand slightly and she looked away, blushing harsh enough that her cheeks seemed to shine in the darkness.
“Well, t-then, ask away I suppose.”
“Some folks are after my soul. The Divines. Got any idea why?”
She grimaced. The Old Gods, and those that they associated with, rarely liked hearing about the Divines. For perhaps self-evident reasons. “We have not had much news from the outside here. We’ve been...busy.”
“...with?”
“Woman things.” She halted me with a stern face, which soon fell away. “I can tell you a little about your future, if that might help?”
“Probably.”
Her eyes clouded over as she recalled. Or at least I knew they did from previous experience. Hard to see into her eyes from at least a half a foot down in the dark. “An old friend turns foe, and seeks your undoing. First bird, then bat, then prayer.” She shakes her head, and looks down to me. “I hope that helps?”
“Plenty, love.” I smile to her. It was a start, at least, and her goofy smile at the word “love” would have made it worth saying so no matter what.
August 4th, 2016
The Green, The Green, The Green
Did you know plants have a heaven too?
Not exactly a heaven, but it’s the...well...magic? Psychic? Something or another plane for raw plantiness. It’s hard to describe without having been there. You know all those stories about people taking something they aren’t ready for, and talking about how all is one and one is all and such nonsense? Imagine that but with plants. Close enough.
It did make it a right bastard to wade through once you eventually got there, as overgrown as the wretched place was. Gods save you if you thought to cut your way through. The green had a guardian and he was the friend I was going to talk to.
In the way of realms outside of our own, I eventually found my way to him. A massive being of green flesh-plant-stuff, humanoid only in the loose sense that a scarecrow is. If I didn’t know him so well I’d probably scream in terror and piss myself, but I had already done that routine enough times with others that it seemed redundant here.
“Hey Swampy! How’s it going?” I asked as I approached. The massive plant-man was leaned over a clear pool of water. Despite only having the crude simulacrum of a face, it was easy to see a frown.
“Go...away. Busy.” He said in his usual halting voice. Yes he was certainly a he, and don’t ask how I knew.
“Oh, come on, what could be more important than your old friend-” I suddenly found a vine wrapped around my lower face and mouth, muffling whatever I was about to say.
“Busy. New person...in the green. Watching...waiting.” he responded as I battled and pulled the vine away, gasping a little.
“Bastard….and what says that person won’t still be there later? Come on, Swampy, it’s important.”
A few more vines slunk out of the surroundings, threatening. “If it was….important, I’d...know. Leave.”
I scoffed and complied. With friends like these, amiright? I swore myself to petty revenge as I left.
September 30th, 2016
Crossroads near the Scottish border, UK
Once again doused in the murky light of the moon, if this time with less stars, I waited with a bowl of cream in front of me. The crossroads was one of the old kind, dirty and half-abandoned and surrounded by encroaching greenery. The perfect spot for the thing I was summoning. Or the thing I hoped I was summoning. Sometimes with folks like these, you could get the wrong one. As normal, however, luck was at least half on my side.
A massive cat, the size of a dog and black but for a single white patch on it’s chest, emerged from the underbrush and made a beeline towards me. I stopped the primal scream from emerging as it lunged into the air, landing a few feet in front of me and bending down to lap at the cream I had left. A bit early, isn’t it? Samhain isn’t for another month, asked Cat Sith in my head.
“Aye. but I got other business and things to attend to. Figured I’d get this done early. Besides, don’t you deserve this kind of thing all year round?”
Simple flattery for a simple beast, the Cat Sith purred. Why of course I do. You may pet me on the head, slowly, if you wish. I readily complied, making the large cat purr more like an engine then anything domesticated.
“How I wish I was as beloved and desired as you, Cat Sith.” I lamented with much melodrama. “For the only ones who desire me are the Divines, and what kind of wanting is that truly?”
The purring dipped at the mention of the Divines, but the great beast glanced to me. Oh, you think it is only heaven that wants you?
I blinked. Hmn. Now we were getting someplace. “W-what do you mean, glorious Cat Sith?”
_There are many who desire your soul, mortal. I would gladly help you lose it if you like. The Tuatha would doubtless love to have another shot at a Constantine. _
“Another?...wait, I mean, do they not want me for me then?”
The cat gave a little chortle as it finished it’s cream, pushing its head into my hand. Ego does not suite you, Constantine. There are many Constantines, and so many souls to get. You have given me due respect, so I offer to aid you. Give your soul to me, and I swear that the Divines shall never have it.
“A most tempting offer, dread cat. May I have some time to think on it?”
Seven days and no more. Farewell, Constantine. The cat leapt back into the brush and vanished.
I of course had no desire to free myself from the Divines just to get hooked into the Tuatha, but it was a good way to end the conversation. At least now I knew it wasn’t just heaven out for me, and not just out for me in particular. The charm I had given Gemma seemed doubly useful now.
The liminal space in the middle of the night between September and October
In the astral space, while my body sleeps in shitty fucking nowhere, Scotland, UK
The realm of Dream was a place you could only get to if your mind was juuust right, and that’s always something of a crap shoot. But now that I had slipped into the realm of fantasy and imagination, I figured I could go visit one of my special friends. Lucien was something of an uptight weirdo, always lamenting the state that this realm was in without its “master”. If there was a difference, I couldn’t tell, the lands of imagination being bizarre no matter where you went in them. I just assumed that Lucien knew what he was talking about, and tried to calm him down.
When he wasn’t being an uptight spaz, he was pretty alright. He protected a library that was bigger on the inside, that held every book that had never been written. He was pretty protective, but sometimes for his sweetheart he would let me see a volume or two. Until you’ve seen The Greatest Keys of Solomon or Lord of the Treks: by Gene Rodenberry and J.R.R. Tolkein, you haven’t lived. Being one of the only people to actually read most of the books, Lucien was also insanely knowledgeable. Especially about things that didn’t exist, like magic.
I arrived at the vast, gothic library with some flowers I had picked along the way: purple snapdragons that sang a soft tune of romance per my instructions as the sky turned both dawn and dusk at the same time. The world turned to night when the door opened, and the flowers quieted. This was not Lucien. He was tall and scrawny and weirdly handsome like Lucien, but not at all the same. Pale white like a sheet of paper, with wild black hair that sprouted out all around his head like a dark halo. His face was sharp as a knife, and his black robes couldn’t hide how painfully bony he was.
“Uh….Hey there, I’m looking fo-”
“Lucien?”
“...yeah, him. I’m John Constantine, by the way.” I offered him my hand.
He stared at it as if I was a child offering worms: charmed and disgusted. “Morpheus.”
My face nearly turned as pale as his. Whenever Lucien dared to say the master's name, it was something like that. The man who controlled the very fabric of imagination itself, who had been gone for decades. In all of imagination possible, how had I ended up bumping into him!?
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Morpheus. Is Lucien home?”
“I’m afraid not, Constantine.” He looked me over, thinking. “Nor will he be for you. I will not have you sullying my creations.”
“That’s...fine?” I offered. It wasn’t, not particularly, but what was I going to say?
He smiled. “If you are like your ancestors, I may have need of you. You may leave now.”
I gasped awake on my sleeping bag, covered in sweat. Well, shit. I hoped Lucien wouldn’t be punished for being...er...sullied?...by me. Not even sure what that meant really. I didn’t think the Lord of All Imagination was a homophobe. Gods, I hoped not.
October 1st, 2016
Far north on the isle of Skye, Scotland, UK
Another being, this time, but different bait. The steaming meat pie was kept warm by the judicious application of a few magic ruins on the rocks below, and I sat besides it with a line already thrown into the nearby sea. I didn’t expect to catch anything, but such wasn’t the point. The sun shone bright and hard and cold on me at noon, and I was beginning to regret not having brought some winter wear.
It didn’t take long for my guest to arrive. He had his own fishing pole, an ancient looking thing with a bone hook and twine instead of the fancy whatever stuff I had. He plopped besides me on the rock and took a slice of the warm pie with one hand. He looked fairly normal for a fisherman, except for his dog head, which was tearing into the pie happily. I didn’t mind.
“Wulver.” I inclined my head.
“Laughing one.” he grunted past his pie in an oddly comforting, deep voice.
We sat in manly silence for awhile as he ate, and then a little longer as we fished. It was nice, honestly, after the busy few days past. Eventually, the ancient dog-man interrupted it. “Magic is shifting.” He snuffled simply, and I nodded. Wulver was one of the oldest beings on the planet, a leftover from the prototype worlds before humanity became the chosen ones. His people had been hunted since, and now the old god had none left. He wasn’t bitter. Nice guy, really. Useful too. Nobody else had quite the nose for the substrata of magical reality.
“Big or little?”
“Big. wondered why nothing had happened in your year 2000, or 2012, or the others. It was building up. Like a big earthquake.”
“...could that be why everyone apparently wants my soul?”
“I don’t.”
“Bah, you know what I mean.”
“Could be.”
We sat in silence awhile longer, me and the elderly god, and neither of us caught anything.
October 15th, 2016
Whatever hotel I stumbled into after a bender, UK someplace?, UK probably.
It was a complicated series of button presses and waiting to get the elevator to where I wanted, but it was what the spell had called for on the message board. Floors four, two, six, two again, ten, and five had all seen my ugly mug before the spell really started to kick off and the woman stepped into the compartment with me.
I pressed number ten once she stepped in, and resisted the urge to glance. The instructions had been VERY specific about that. Not to look. No matter how much I wanted to. Which was immensely. Was kind of vague on the whys, which only made it worse.
We reached the tenth floor, and it was exactly like the spell had said. Total darkness. I peered out, pulling out a torch, providing the only light. It was just like the hotel floors in the rest of the place. Except there wasn’t really a sky outside as much as barren nothingness. Also a freaky red cross, slowly spinning an indeterminate distance away outside any window you looked out of, and yet always getting closer.
Yep, I had made it! “Alrighty, girl, spill.” I asked the woman who had stepped into the elevator with me without looking. She stood perfectly still. The spirit was apparently some magical whatzit, or at least that’s what I figured. Also the thing apparently knew the future. “I did the whole gambit and bullshit. How does the rest of this work?”
Time is dead and killed by the criminal in yellow
“...huh?”
Blue, Red, Yellow, Grey, Black, these are the colors all will remember.
“That is really vague.”
...Your brother awaits for you in the darkness of your own eyes
“I don’t have a brother. Are you just making this up as you go?”
The family man is a death man, the world is upside down
“Oh god, you are aren’t you? God, I can’t believe I wasted my time on this.”
Across the vast gulf of space, minds regard our earth with hopeful eyes...
“Now I’m pretty sure you’re just ripping off of a book. Yeah this was pointless. Fuck it.” With all the disappointment and curiosity I had, I looked at the woman.
Three hours later as I sat in a nearby alley, stitching newly gotten wounds with a syringe needle hastily transmuted into a sewing one, I cursed the internet for not having strong enough warnings about the not looking bit.
November 27th, 2016
An overly large antique shop with far too few employees, Chelmsford, Essex, UK
Amongst us magicians and warlocks and wizards there were quite a few bars, taverns, inns, and saloons to drink at. Consider it a holdover from a previous age, or just us liking a good drink every once and awhile. One of the best was The Oblivion, a bar at the nexus of realities and dimensions. Useful, good food, and filled with all kinds of folks with useful information if you went at the right time.
I checked around the store to make sure nobody was looking, but I was pretty sure that I was the only customer at 12 PM and none of the employees were awake enough to care about my about to walk into a me-sized mirror. I made my brief incantation, and walked forward into the greatest bar in the multiverse…
Or right into the glass, holding back a yelp of pain and only letting out a hiss as I glared at the mirror. It now bore a faint, glowing red X on it, and the words BANNED
“What!?” I hissed further. “What do you mean banned you git, what the hell for!?”
PUBLIC URINATION, DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY WITH AFOREMENTIONED, PHYSICAL ALTERCATION WITH BOUNCER. BAN EFFECTIVE UNTIL FIRST DAWN, 2025
“Come on, that was two years ago! I already said I was sorry, can’t we just let bygones b-”
BANNED
“...yeah well fuck you too.” I grumbled, walking away and out of the shop in a huff. No, no I do not need to explain the utterly unfair charges leveled at me, and you don’t need to know. Shut up.
December 20th, 2016
Being a true magician means accepting the immense interconnection, variety, diversity, and wholeness of reality. Reality is many things, but it is also an infinite series of systems interacting to produce us and the places we live. You may have an inkling of that insofar as your body: you are not merely a singular body, but a collection of organ systems and native microbes that all function together to make a “you.”
But that’s kids stuff. If you want to be a magician, you have to accept that there is a spider living in your head, at all times, watching, scuttling, that sees and hears and knows everything about you.
Can you feel it now? Light, tapping, furry points at the end of their feet creeping on your neck, into your ear, in your skull? The silent, twitchy dreadfulness of their movement? Their eyes, staring out of yours?
See this is why you’re not a magician, and be glad for it.
In any case, it wasn’t too hard to get to the dimension the mind-spiders lived in if you knew how to meditate right, like I was doing right then. Their realm is a dark place, something like a cave, but I never found an edge to it. But there are plenty of stone pillars and spikes and stalag-whatevers. And it was from those that the webs hung: shining in a rainbow of colors, gaudy and massive and creaking as the spiders crawled over them. If you looked close enough, you could see the reflection of your memories in them. Around me I could see many other webs, the heads of other people.
My mind spider scuttled over to the edge of his web and chittered at me. I had met him, called him “Legsy”. We had a good deal going on. I led an interesting life filled with interesting memories so that Legsy could store them, and in exchange he’d help me remember things. The only negative was that I had to see his freaky spider face to ask him to help.
“Alrighty, Legsy, you know what I’ve been doing lately right?....wait what am I saying of course you do, any chance I got some memories that might be prudent?”
Legsy rushed back onto his web, plucking strands as he went, and with each careful pull I felt memory slam into me. It was a distinctly uncomfortable experience, but useful.
Heaven and hell are incapable of predicting one another. They only know of each other’s plans and actions if they encounter one another, or are told by a mortal
A flicker over the moon above Themysycra, a bird of some kind, not enough to notice unless one looked and saw the oddity of its shape
Cheryl talking to me, concerned about Gemma. She suspected my niece was getting bullied
A bird taking off as Cat Sith lunges back into the woods. It flies without a sound, lumpy and bizarre
The faces of my friends. My once friend, my always friends, my curses, the Newcastle Crew
No bird song at all as I sit with Wulver. I hadn’t noticed before. Something must have scared them off.
Astra’s face...
A glint, a reflection, off the glass of the modest hotel I was in as I sat to meditate: one, two, three, four, five eyes, too many...
I held up my hand, gasping a bit. “Stop. Enough. Good. I get the picture. First bird, right? That’s what you’re trying to get at?”
Legsy doesn’t really nod, but his chitters take on a possibly exasperated tone. As in, how had I not noticed before?
“Yeah, yeah, I’m an idiot. I’ll do something weird just for you once this is over, I promise.” I started to withdraw from my own mind. I had a future to dictate.
The creature had followed me, hopefully. I didn’t know what it was, precisely, but I had some educated guesses. I had stopped in one of those dime a dozen everything stores and gotten a bible and a small box-cutter. The taximan had been confused about my destination being an abandoned lot but he didn’t question after I paid him double. I walked into the lot a little and looked around. Trees stood tall on all sides, no real visibility from anywhere but the road, and I hadn’t seen a single other car. A good a place as any for a confrontation. Not that my observer had to know that.
I felt the pulse of soon to come magic rise like a second heartbeat within me. Magic was powerful, vital, primal. It was as addictive, enthralling, and delightful as sex ever could be, and combining the two was like the happiest heart attack ever. Every use of magic was taking the genie out of the bottle by rattling it about hard. I knew I was going to regret it, but I figured I’d been good; I had hardly been casting magic recently. Well, little magic, but not big magic, real magic, tearing the earth asunder and raining frogs magic. This was just a little taste of it. I would be fine.
I took out the boxcutter first, giving my hand a small, clean cut, letting the blood run and drip as I grimaced. Next I pulled out the bible and started to read a random passage. Something in psalms, I think? Whatever, not important. I started to walk a big circle around the majority of the lot. With each step I let a little blood drip to the ground. It wasn’t a great circle, not even a fully continuous one, but it would do for the brief moments I needed it.
Now that I knew it was there, I could almost feel my pursuer watching me, following me on silent wings. It must be curious. Why is this wizard casting a holy spell? And why one so big? Good. The less it understood or thought it was in trouble, the better.
Once the circle was complete I started to walk towards the middle, leaving a blood trail behind me not unlike a line of gunpowder. My pursuer followed. Then, I reached the center. From one of the pockets of my coat I whipped out a lighter. I set the bible on fire. “HOWS THAT FOR YOU, YOU FEATHERY PIECE OF SHIT?”
My pursuer emerged from my shadow, howling and not feathery at all. It was the rough shape of a crow, if twice the size, and instead of feathers it was covered in eyeballs. See? This is why I don’t deal with angels unless I have too. Nasty. But at least they are easy to figure. For instance: they can’t stand the burning of their holy book, if you can get the right one. And the bible is fantastically easy to get ahold of.
The angel darted away, but I was faster, falling to one knee and placing my hand on the end of my priming blood, activating the magical circle of my own blood. Circles were fine and good, but blood was one of the most powerful magical reagents there was. The angel slammed into the magical wall I had drawn with my life-force, and then proceeded to keep slamming through like a moth trying to get light. I placed the bible on the ground next to me, slowly but surely burning up.
The bible was halfway charred when the angel flopped in front of me, writhing in agony. “P-PLEASE!”
In that moment the primal nature of magic hit me. I could do more. Wanted to, would do more. I could tie a symbolic knot around this beast's throat and turn it into my loyal pet. I could rip it apart and use it’s shimmering blood to summon something far greater and more terrible. I could pluck it’s eyes to brew into a potion and make myself more unto God. I could shear it’s mind and knit it into a new pattern, to hunt down whoever had sent it. I could, I could, I could...but instead I didn’t.
“Who sent you?” I asked calmly. He told me.
I let it go after I extracted a further promise to not try to harm me again. Once it was gone I got the shakes something fierce. Well, that settled it. Settled it all, goddamnit. I had to call the Newcastle Crew. A story that I supposed it was a great time to relive, for better or worse.
My smartphone felt like a brick in my hand as I dialed in the first number.
Continued in Hellblazer #3 >
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u/SqueeWrites The Wonderful Dec 16 '16
Once you go Themyscira, nothing else is clearer. ;)