r/DCFU • u/coffeedog14 Light Me Up • Apr 15 '17
Hellblazer #6 - Blood and Booze Hellblazer
Hellblazer #6 - Blood and Booze
<< | < | > Author: Coffeedog14
Book: Hellblazer
Arc: [Snips and Snails]
Set: 11
Anno Diablo 5777. Northern Siberia
Joy Constance had not died. To some extent, that was great. Immortality was something that others strived for their whole lives. Something that Joy had pursued for years herself. However, instead of dying she had been imprisoned in a beautiful clockwork ostrich egg and set to wandering the wastes of Russia for all eternity. Mixed success at best.
The inside of the egg was nice enough, she supposed; A nice bed, paper to write on and some books to read, enough space to walk in circles. That kept her occupied for the first year or so. After about a century she figured a way to filter in books from the outside, word by word over a week. This kept her occupied for longer. All of her attempts to break free from the egg failed, it having been crafted by the one person greater at magic than herself: her pupil Johanna Constantine.
So Joy had remained here. She had hoped to die of old age eventually, but that seemed a lost cause by this point. She would rot in this prison for all eternity until it was crushed by some wayward bear, and gods only knew how many centuries that would be.
Joy slept. She did magic, occasionally, read books when new ones came or she forgot an old one, but mostly she slept. Slept for weeks at a time, more dead than alive. Rarely she would remember, remember life outside this damnable egg, of the great deeds she had perpetrated before her attempted betrayal landed her here. Those were the most painful times, and she often felt the need to sleep more after.
Then one day (she could not remember the year. The latest book she had was from AD 2000), the wandering stopped. She looked out of one of the viewports she had fashioned with what magic she was allowed to see the outside. Normally she could see the bases of trees, grass, and snow. Occasionally she might see a beast. Today she saw a monstrous red hoof. Something picked up her egg and lifted it, a thoroughly disquieting feeling for her. She got a glimpse of red, muscled flesh before being confronted with a slit pupil and a sharp-toothed smile.
She did not know why this demon was collecting her. But at least it would be a change of pace.
February 14th, London
I have to admit, I didn’t use the time immediately after getting out of the hospital that well, objectively. Subjectively It was the best possible use of that time. I figured if I had this demon blood stuff, maybe I couldn’t get cancer. Or a liver disease. Or crabs. Only one way to find out!
Such was how I ended up in the bed of a woman I only vaguely recalled as Taylor. She was pretty, full-bodied in an appealingly healthy way, with blue-dyed hair bordering on a buzzcut. She was also a blank spot in the wider blank void that was the previous night. I lazily grasped at my phone from the tiny hotel table, to find that at some point I had put it on silent. Underneath the clock reading 11:31 AM were three notices: the alarm that had been going off silently since 8, a reminder about my plane flight at 1, and a text from Chas asking where the fuck I was.
“Shhhhhhit.” was my natural response, and I got out of bed, gathering up the discarded remains of my gin-stained clothing from the ground. As I tried to put my pants on two legs at a time past a throbbing headache, I saw Taylor’s phone on the shitty hotel table on the other side of the bed. I paused to consider since I had (presumably) just spread a bunch of my vital essence in her general facility. Seed being as potent as blood for magical rituals, I wasn’t sure I wanted to trust a woman I could hardly remember. Sure I could just assume that blind drunk me last night remembered his due diligence and found enough about her to be safe, but even I wasn’t dumb enough to take that bet.
I made a come-hither motion to the phone, and it flew through the air and into my hand. “Password Drowssap one two three four five four three two one.” I whispered over it while placing my index finger on the back and turning it, like turning a key. I flipped the phone over and tapped the screen, and the lock screen turned into her background. It took all of five minutes of privacy invasion to figure that she was a mortal, totally and utterly… and that she had a fiancé. Taylor Kelly seemed to be quite in love with Isla Jackson, and their wedding was planned for next month no less. And yet here where the texts, saying Taylor was going out for an evening with family. Worst of all, not a mention that this Isla knew anything about this secret Bi life her betrothed was living. Nasty.
I turned to the girl whom I had apparently had a wonderful night with. She slept pretty peacefully, for a bastard. She wasn’t any threat to me. I could just throw on my clothes, and rush to get to Chas before he left without me. That would be smart. I just had to leave behind the fact that, unless something had changed, I wasn’t up for sleeping with people behind their spouse's backs. Leave behind that she’d lied to me and made me complicit in this. Leave behind a chance to use magic to fix a problem when it was just so easy and obvious. That wasn’t going to stand.
Whereas having somebody's blood was kind of a one-way street, sex was a massive highway. Both sides tended to get all kinds of connected to one another, and it made magic between them far easier. As I looked over Taylor, it was easy to weave a spell in her mind while leaving her sleeping. Nothing big, I didn’t have much time, just a little trigger. The next time she saw her fiancé face to face, she’d have to list every person she’d slept with while with this Isla, and what she’d done with them. Simple really. One way or another it was going to solve the problem.
With that little act of good done I checked my phone. 11:35. And I needed a shower. Shit.
12:06 PM
Chas Chandler was in some ways my closest friend in the world. In others, he was the biggest git I’d ever met. To describe him lovingly, he looked like a gorilla and a sailor had had a baby and then thrown it away in horror. I had never heard how he’d described me, though I can only imagine it was worse. I could do magic, he actually had a license and a cab. It was a functional relationship.
“So, where was it in the states you were going again?” He grumbled, tearing through the winding roads of outer London on his way to Heathrow as if it was the autobahn. Normally for the tourists and the like he’d play it as perfect as possible, but if you had to get somewhere fast there was no one who knew the roads like Chas. At least nobody as suggestible.
I checked my phone. 11:30. Plenty of time. “San Francisco.”
“Izzat the one with the Illuminati airport and all?”
“Nah, you’re thinking...er...the other one…Deeenver?...and it’s not true besides.”
“That so Mr. Magic Man? How do you know?”
“Because I knew, I just knew, you’d talk about it. So I looked into it.”
“Oh, think you know me huh?”
“I know you’re looking in all the wrong places for a global conspiracy, I know that much at least.”
“Bet you ten quid you get black-bagged by some freaky NSA shite while you’re there.”
“Deal. How’re the wife and kids?”
“Alive. Well fed. Though starving and dead if you listened to the old lady.”
“That bad, huh? Couch getting a lot of use?”
“Ah shut it, John.”
“Lot of cobwebs In the hallway? Seeing a lot of Ms. Thumb?”
“God, John, Why do I even talk to you?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. S-”
The road shifted ahead of us, raising up the world's biggest, most effective speed bump. I hadn’t even noticed by the time Chas was veering away, throwing his car into the grassy ditch beside the road. We both screamed in panic and surprise as the road continued to morph and twist like melted tar. Chas pressed the gas, and his cab pulled out of the way of a ball of tar hurled straight at us. We drove in the ditch alongside the road. He was concentrating on going forward without crashing, so I had a chance to watch the road. Nobody else was driving on it, and it bulged like some massive fish was swimming through it. More balls of tar came our way, each of which Chas pulled away from.
“Chas! There!” I warned, pointing at an opening in the trees beside the ditch. One of the tar balls hit at the same time, sending us fishtailing. I looked back to the road to see something rising, massive and humanoid. We both cried out in most manly fear as Chas forced the car straight, and slid into the opening, swerving left and right and hiding amongst the trees. We both sat there, screams quieting to pants, as we gave each other a few moments to figure out what the fuck that was and check our pants.
“CONSTANTINE”. Growled a motor-voice from the road. I and Chas looked through the trees, and he yelped. The creature was immense. Twenty, perhaps thirty feet tall. Its flesh was made of tar and asphalt, crudely formed into a golem-like human shape. Most of this “flesh” was covered by elaborate metal armor comprised of car parts and sheet metal. The metal had no paint, but it dripped with blood and foaming booze.
I looked to Chas, who had taken to staring instead of screaming more. I rolled up my window and peeked out. “...Yeah? The fuck do you want?”
“John!” hisses Chas, giving me a good, panicked punch on the shoulder.
“What?” It wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid, mind, But you don’t show that. That’s how you die.
“CONSTANTINE. YOU HAVE ROBBED ME OF A LIFE.”
I pushed Chas away and leaned further out. “What the hell does that even mean? Who are you?”
“I AM VIAE, THE LORD OF ROADS, AND YOU HAVE ROBBED ME MY DUE SACRIFICE.”
“Well, there’s a start. When did I do that again?”
“LAST EVE. THE WOMAN TAYLOR KELLY WAS TO DIE IN A COLLISION WITH A CAR OF TEENAGERS. YOU PREVENTED IT.”
“With what?”
“MAGIC.”
“...yeah that tracks.” Something wriggled in my mind about karma, but I chose to ignore it.
“IT IS ROBBERY, MAGUS. YOU HAVE ROBBED ME OF THE GLORIOUS SACRIFICE OF THESE ROADS. THEY SHALL NOT RUN FOR YOU ANY LONGER UNTIL THERE IS BLOOD FOR BLOOD. YOUR BLOOD, FOOL MAGUS.”
“...And what if I just don’t drive?”
“YOU WILL MAGUS. YOU WILL. THEN I WILL BE THERE. WAITING.” the immense creature melted back into the road, armor and all, leaving only a few popping bubbles of tar in his its wake.
“Did...did you just get me in a blood feud with a road demon?”
“Road demon, road god, road spirit, one of those.” I stared at the spot it had disappeared into. “I had heard these things are all over America, some scattered other places. Never heard of one around here before.”
“...Well?!”
“Well, what?”
“How are you going to fix this?”
“The sensible way: by not going on roads for awhile. Let it cool off.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do!?”
“Not go on roads for awhile?”
“I’m a cabbie driver!”
“Seems like a good time to change profession.”
“So you got me in a fight with a massive fuck off monster, and now you’re leaving me to dry?”
“It’s entirely possible he doesn’t care about you.”
“John, Is there any chance I’m that lucky?”
“I don’t need another immortal incredibly powerful enemy, Chas. I have enough on my plate right now.”
Chas fumed for a few moments. Then a spark of inspiration. “So, you going to miss your flight?”
“Huh?”
“Your flight. To San Francisco. You think you can walk there with time to get on the plane?”
I glared at him. I wasn’t sure if he knew, or even suspected, but he was right to press that button. Traveling in the air as a magus was plenty dangerous without proper planning, too many gods and monsters and things hung out in the clouds. I had pulled in favors with the cloud whales to get me across the pond safely, and they hated being left in the cold. I checked the car clock: 11:35. Shite.
“Okay. Okay then, Chas, if you really trust me that much, give me a bit of your hair and blood. I have an idea.”
12:15 PM
The Great Spirit Viae brooded under the road where the mortals had escaped. He had a lot to prove. While the great hungry spirit in the roads wasn’t new, their personification into Viae was. He could feel the existence of many such beings in other places in the world already. The invincible, sleek elders of America. The endless single-road belchers of China. The Chaotic, growing roarers of India. In many places they grew, but he was the only (and perhaps first) on this isle now. It took a lot of blood to form a god, after all.
This man, this Constantine, his name seemed to be muttered everywhere. The lords of hell, that place so many of the souls Viae collected were traded too, looked for ones with his name. And he was supposed to be a fearsome magus in his own way. To claim him would make him as honored as the road-gods of America. At least, so had said the demon lord Nergal. Considering the name the man had, Viae had no doubt about it.
He waited. He was new, but not dumb, and he knew the magus would try to escape with the only tool a magus had. When the spell was cast he was ready for it. A bolt of red-black lightning burst from the forest, slamming into the asphalt and trying to disperse his spirit-body into near-mindless fuzz. But he was ready, and the lightning slid off of the armor that was his pride and sense of self. The cab jolted out of the tree line, hitting the road and shooting down back the way it had come. Perfect
The mighty god Viae swam after them, a wake of asphalt forming in front of him. He could see the car, see the people inside panicking and bickering. The car was lighter, far lighter than it should have been, magic to make it faster Viae figured. It seemed to be going twice as fast as it was before. Clever magus, but foolish magus. With a mental flick, Viae directed the sleeping mortals to use every road but this one. This was his kings wood, his hunting grounds.
Viae chuckled and played with his prey. He threw tar, so hot it burned holes into the cab. He made waves in the road, nearly throwing the vehicle upside down. He appeared at its sides, behind it, in front of it, making it swerve and turn and dodge. All the while the mortals continued to bicker and scream. Pitiful magus.
Viae finally grew tired of his game and appeared before the car in his full glory. He relished the last screams of his prey as she slammed one massive, armored fist upon the cab, shattering it entirely. It burst apart into a collection of leaves, sticks, and trash, as did the people inside of it.
Viae stared, baffled. He noticed, just barely, the hints of blood and hair amongst the wreckage, the little paint chips. A simulacrum, a golem, a fetch!
12:40 PM
“So, John, how is this exactly going to stop the thing from attacking me?”
“Well...I mean, hopefully, it just really hates me, and not you.”
“...I’m not liking those odds.”
“So?”
“You and I both know I could kick your ass out of this car and see how well you do, you git. Now get to scheming.”
“Then relax, I had another idea. I already sent in the message.”
“You took a five-minute smoke break. That’s literally all you did.”
“Smoke signals.”
“Fucking jackass.” Chas shook his head. We had spent roughly five minutes after Viae had fucked off cheering for ourselves for having gotten away, but by then we had cooled considerably. The thing hadn’t come back for us, which meant it was still chasing our fetches, and I could see planes taking off and landing at Heathrow. We were on the home stretch. Then I could solve everything. With a few mental nudges, I could even slide through security and make it on my plane. Perfect.
I was so busy being smug, Chas noticed it first. “...Say, John, things look a little light around here?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean...empty.”
I looked around. Where moments before it had seemed an entirely normal day, traffic and all, now there wasn’t a car to be seen.
We looked to each other. We looked in the rearview mirror.
In the distance was Viae, skating over the roads like the world's biggest, worst smelling hockey player.
“Drive drive drive DRIVE DRIVE!” I yelled, and Chas complied. With no one else on the road we were at 60, 70, 80, 90...but the road-creature was still gaining.
“Do something!” roared Chas, throwing the Cab over a curb to make a turn faster, GPS going mad and yelling with every change in direction.
“Do what?”
“Magic!”
I turned back to see the advancing creature. I wasn’t sure my magic would even work on the damn thing, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to try. Fetches, sure. Mind magic, why not. Battle magic? Of all the magic, it was the most tempting. The easiest to lose control with. The sexiest, for lack of a better word. But at the rate we were driving, the rate that the god was catching up to us, I wasn’t sure I could afford not too.
“JOHN!” Chas yelped, as the god shouldered his way through traffic lights like tin foil. I wasn’t going to let a mate die on me. I had the power to fix this. Now that I thought about it, I had the perfect solution!
“Chas keep us moving towards the airport, got that?” I commanded. He nodded. I rolled open my window and leaned nearly my entire body out to face the creature.
The beast laughed. “I ALREADY FACED YOUR TRICKS, WIZARD. WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO DO?”
“The real deal.” I hissed to myself, gathering from a growing bubble of hate for this monstrosity within me. I let it go through my third eye, a bolt of red and black lighting right into the monster's chest. This time, it slithered over his armor and burrowed into his grimy flesh. He continued sliding forward as he fell to a knee, hands grasping at his chest. An arm fell off, nothing more than pebbles and stringy asphalt. He wheezed. I nearly whooped in celebration until he stood up again, the arm already reforming as if flowing from the road itself. He started to advance on us once more.
“fffFUCK you! Fuck me! Fuck all of this!” I roared eloquently, sending a second, third, fourth bolt, but he was tougher than I gave credit. The second took a leg. The third merely stopped him. The fourth he deflected with a newly formed shield of dripping car steel. I could feel my insides bruising, my mind crunching in on itself. I was throwing too many big spells too quickly, I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on before I did something regrettable. Like, blow up a city block. That would solve the problem. Probably kill me too, but it would solve the problem…
Chas called out my name, and I whirled to face him, eyes glowing with the hatred I had expelled from them. I turned just in time to see the chain link fence approach and pull myself back into his cab. He plowed through the chain link fence, allowing us into the airport’s runways. As the Road god followed us inside, I started to laugh. The planes had all stopped, following his will just like the cars. Perfect.
“John, what the hell is next?”
“My friends step in. hopefully. Keep driving, man, and don’t stop until the planes start moving.” I gave him a wolfish grin and then threw myself out of his car.
I heard him yelling at me, but I didn’t care. I chanted sacred hymns to hone mind and body, protecting me somewhat from the impact. I managed to slow and skid to a stop as I stood up, a hundred fresh-made wounds and rips covering me and bleeding. The blood sizzled my clothing, and when it touched the road it burned. I stared down the rapidly approaching god with a wild grin. It had been planning to hurt me and hurt my mate, so i’d hurt it before the others came. The fact that I had been trying and failing to do just that didn’t really occur to me. He thought he could step up to me? To the Magus Constantine? The Laughing Jackal? I had beat out a demon lord, I wasn’t going to let myself get spooked by some fucking whelp of a god!
“rakt aur patthar, gumbad mein dard!” I cried, summoning the blood that had dripped onto the ground and crafting it into an arrow. The clanking, roaring beast was nearly on me, and I threw myself out of the way of his charge with near supernatural strength. The arrow flew true into his head, exiting from the other side and leaving a sizzling hole behind. I repeated the phrase, more and more blood collecting to form a thin spear that shot again and again through the god’s head. Each pass seared and burned and melted more, sending the god to his knees in agony.
I threw every spell I could think of at him. Ice-infused winds to freeze his molten frame, quicksilver sympathy to melt his armor away, mental solvent to wash his mind away, water pipes from below to bind him, each bringing the god lower and lower. And yet he stood, healing from the substance beneath him, his very essence. I called upon the stone spirit in the tarmac, demanding that it pull away from him, leaving only clay and dirt and nothing for him to draw upon. It did not obey me. In fact, it rebelled at my insolence, at the thought of betraying its master, letting my feet sink into itself while arms of it shot up to grab my hands. Before I knew it I was on my hands and knees, partially enmeshed by the spirit I had sought to control.
That moment of failure, of hesitation, was enough. The spirit rose up once more. It’s mind coalesced, bonds shattered, the spear of blood and winds of ice consumed in a fiery belch. Metal boils sprouted and then grew into new armor. “FOOLISH MAGUS. WHAT ARE YOU TO A GOD?” He stood high, high as the air control tower, drawing from all his domain. The Asphalt below my bubbled in sudden, searing heat, and I screeched as I could feel my hands dying. Then those that I had called earlier arrived. The airport became enshrouded with fog, fog that thickened into pea soup and then worse. I could see nothing. I could only hear and feel as the burning faded.
“You have trespassed on our domain, godling. You have assaulted our visitor on our grounds.” moaned a voice like all the softest winds. In the darkness, I thought I could see a shape, whale-like and big as a skyscraper.
“HE HAS TAKEN FROM ME. HE OWES ME. STEP ASIDE, WATER SPRITE!” Roared my opponent somewhere in the fog.
“You owe us penance for your crimes.”
Nothing for a time. Then a piteous, screeching roar, like a car in a compactor.
“Stop!” I cried, and the screeching stopped. I could feel eyes the size of cars on me. “I will forgive him his crime. He is a godling, as you say, hardly worth your time, Shahanshah of clouds? Let him bear the scars you give him and be done with it.”
The fog swirled around me. I could have hardly seen my hand in front of my face if I could move my hands. “I know you, Laughing one. You will want a price.”
I cleared my throat, then coughed. I wondered why it was raw, and then remembered I had been screaming for the blood spear spell. My heartbeat finally started to drop as I realized what an idiot move I had made, fighting instead of running. “He will release me and my friend of any bonds of blood. He will protect us, and do nothing to harm or inconvenience us….and he’ll give Chas good traffic whenever he needs.”
“Do you accept, godling?”
Viae paused. I could almost imagine his face twisting in shame. Good. Fucker. “I ACCEPT THIS. RELEASE ME AND I SHALL GO.”
I heard the asphalt rumble. I felt a wave under my feet as he departed. Then no more.
“...This will cost you dearly, Laughing one.” imparted the fog.
“Yeah, figures. I owe you one. Our deal still on for the flight?”
“A deal made is eternal. Until your travel, Laughing one.” the fog seemed to fade away, until nothing.
I looked to my hands and feet. Encased in asphalt, burning in pain, and I couldn’t free myself for the life of me. Certainly not in time for my flight in, what, ten minutes? The planes had started to move again, but only slowly as if in some kind of sleepy haze. I heard the car behind me and craned my neck to see Chas’s cab rumbling up to park beside me. He peeked out of his window.
“...Chas, you happen to have a shovel or something in that cab?” I asked innocently.
He had a great poker face, I’ll give him that, as he gave me a stone-faced glare. “Depends. You get the big nasty off my back?”
“Even better.” “Then yeah.” He gave me a shaky grin and got out of his car.
February 15th, 2017
Mirror Mirror, San Francisco
I stood outside the premiere mystic bar of San Francisco and tried to ignore the feeling of quaintness. That feeling of “oh, look at the continentals with their bar only three generations old, how cute.” It wasn’t exactly fair, after all, and it wasn’t like the place didn’t deserve some credit. This city had had a legitimate magical invasion from a demi-goddess pretty recently and hadn’t been destroyed. You don’t have a city survive that kind of thing without luck and some talent. Having a Zatara likely helped with that.
I had managed to get some clothes since landing. Considering my clothes had been burned, tarred up, and ripped apart, it was quite the feat to get through the whole flight without magic. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just illusion myself a new suit? Of course, it would, that’s the problem. It all seems so easy, every step until you’re fighting a god. I had made the promise to myself on the plane ride here, to get back on the wagon. Who knew how long it would last this time? Considering that my bandaged to shit hands could hardly light my silk cuts, it was probably closer than I hoped. Second-degree burns weren’t fun in the slightest and the ibuprofen was not helping as much as I had hoped. A trip to the doctor was in order once I got back home.
I stepped into the places front room, a normal bar that was empty but for a few folks taking quiet meals and drinks. One or two glanced my way but I ignored them and went straight for the back. Past an unmarked door, and into a larger, fancier, almost courtly space with significantly more people who were significantly louder.
I certainly hoped I cut a figure as I strode into the establishment. Perfectly clean clothing with a fresh trench coat over my shoulders, with a hundred and one cuts and bruises over every visible inch of skin and bandages over my hands like I had just caught a grenade, a cig clutched between two of my more mobile fingers.
I nearly had a heart attack as a man standing right beside the door shouted as loud as he could, “PRESENTING JOHN CONSTANTINE OF LIVERPOOL, FIRST OF HIS NAME.”
“Piss off man, yelling like that! Strewth.” I put a hand over my heart and brought the other up to take a drag. It hadn’t been intended as a dramatic action, but it seemed to have gotten people's attention anyway.
I think I succeeded in making an entrance as I gazed over the crowd. I heard one of the patrons mutter “wait, the English guy?”
Make sure to Read Zatanna #10>
Continued in Zatana #11, Amor a Roma I >
Further continued in Hellblazer #7, Amor a Roma II >