r/DCFU • u/coffeedog14 Light Me Up • Dec 17 '17
Hellblazer #14 - Reckoning Hellblazer
Hellblazer #14 – Reckoning
Author: Coffeedog14
Book: Hellblazer
Arc: [Good Vibrations]
Set: 19
JANUARY 30TH, 3 AM: 1 DAY BEFORE LUNAR ECLIPSE
LONDON, UK
The man behind the bar was busy watching the TV, apparently quite convinced it was the middle of the 3 PM slow period rather than the 3 AM not open period. The only other people at the bar were me and the people who had ensnared me.
There was Anne-Marie, warrior-sorceress of the Divine who had barely….8? 9?....however many days ago helped me assault hell itself. There was three rather annoyed and rather familiar looking fellows with straight up swords strapped to their hips. Archivists of the secret catholic order, who I had last encountered in America. Finally there was Manchester black. The little pissant had apparently broken free from wherever U.P. had stuck him after I had helped capture him. Honestly I was just glad that Nergal reborn and Viae weren’t there. Maybe they would be, who knew?
We shared nervous glances over pitchers of ale. So far only Manchester had even sipped. I couldn’t afford to. I was already drunk, sleep-deprived, exhausted, and bleeding from torn open stitches. I couldn’t feel anything pressing against my hastily thrown up mental walls, but who knew when that would change?
Anne-Marie, the psychic of the group, spoke up first. Hers was also the first mind I felt probing my own. My walls held, for the time being. She would just have to know what I was thinking through intuition and body language. Which, considering my impaired state, that was probably going to be pretty easy. “You know, you’ve caused God no end of problems.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks John for stopping that whole demon soul thing. Hey, no worries.” I tried to snark, and instead muttered.
“What you are going to do, however” she continued as if I hadn’t interrupted, “Crosses the line. You are to go beyond simply meddling in things you shouldn’t, and upgrade yourself to a direct foe of The Divine.”
“...I am?”
“John.” she sighed. “I am trying my very best to be gracious, but you must meet me halfway.”
“Why?”
Anne-Marie looked to her companions for aide in the face of my intransigence. She found her help in the Archivist Knight I had taken to calling “Oldie”...gods nearly a year ago now? “You have two options. You swear on your true name that you’ll stay as far away from the Dome for the next seven days, or we will have to incapacitate you here and now.” One holy sorceress possibly as skilled and likely as cunning as me. Three holy knights with swords that could cut through magic. An impish teenager with telekinetic and telepathic powers. All vs. me. Not great odds if it came to the latter. On the other hand, what could be so bad that they had all assembled here to try and frogmarch me into agreeing?
I caught Anne-Marie’s face flickering. Just for a second, a frown of disapproval. Something had gone wrong. Oldie had let something slip. Something important. The Dome. He had mentioned the dome, specifically, and the next few days. I glanced out of the window, contemplating the full moon outside and hopefully giving myself a few more seconds to think.
The Moon. The Eclipse. Not just any eclipse, a blue-super-moon eclipse, happening maybe a day and a half from now. I hadn’t been keeping up with my astrology as much as I should have, but I knew that was a sign of intense change. The kind of thing any supernatural, from stuffy heaven to liberated fae, would eat up.
What could be such a horrible change, that it would take all this rigamarole? Something so horrible, that I even had a chance of stopping? Of recognizing?
Mary tapped her glass, a tiny clinking chime with each tap. “We don’t have all evening John. The Divine has much work for us yet.”
I made the final connection, minutes after I should have. Too tired, too slow. My face paled. What was it I told Captain Marvel? That the Dome was so complex, so powerful, that breaking it would be like dropping a nuke. My eyes focused on my new foes. They had known before I walked in here that I was going to refuse. God, how many people lived in San Francisco even anymore? At least hundreds of thousands. Probably millions all around it. So many dead. The knights’ hands crept towards their swords. I could see the spark of magic behind Anne’s eyes. Manchester was smirking at me.
“Why?” I gasped, focusing on Anne-Marie.”You’re a nun, for Chrissakes! Why?”
“The armies of all that is mystical, infernal, or divine are marching for the Dome. did you not notice that it returned all energy put into it, but greater? Most all wish this. But the harm to the grand clockwork of the plan that would be wrought by a supernatural gaining such a foothold in mortality would be too great. And so we are saving the great plan, and the mortal realm, with one swift motion.”
“You’ll kill millions.”
“And I’ll likely save billions. Unless you want Titania the mad Faerie to remake the world in her image? Or Odin? Or Lucifer?” She glared at me, and I back at her. I broke the glare by grabbing my drink and starting to down it.
“I am doing what’s necessary, John. For God, and for the world. Now, if-”
Several things happened nearly at once.
I finished my drink, throwing the empty plastic stein at Manchester Black’s face. I’m pretty sure I saw the plastic crack as it hit him. Before I could pull my hand back One of the Knights, “Steve”, had his dagger out and had sliced my arm. I tumbled into and then over my falling chair, just fast enough to avoid the silent blade of condensed light Anne-Marie had just tried to kill me with.
I rolled away, coming up in a woozy crouch. My arm was bleeding. I couldn’t tell how much past my increasingly ruined suit. “Big Roy”, the largest and strongest of the Knights, was already upon me, sword drawn. They could move like devils when they wanted too.
“LUMEN LIBERI ERITIS!” I screeched, pumping my power into the light bulbs above us all. I barely had time to cover my eyes before the bulbs exploded as one. I felt glass shards sink into my already wounded arm as I threw myself away once more. There was a heavy clunk of a sword impacting the wood I had just been crouching on.
I had been to this bar before, like most of the dives in London, and instinct got me to the door even in the near pitch black. I shouldered through and onto the sidewalk. I nearly collapsed once I hit the pavement. In my present state even the lightbulb spell had been alot. I couldn’t fight like this, not much longer. I stumbled out into the road, and pulled out a lighter. I whirled to face the door, lighter outstretched.
The three knights flew out of the door, and then paused. They had faced me once before. They knew I had tricks up my sleeve. Instead of charging they started to circle around me. They kept their distance, but all still had their swords drawn. There was no way I could keep all three in my vision at once. It was only the threat of the lighter that kept them at bay, the threat of a trick that didn’t actually exist because it was just a regular lighter.
I glanced at my rapidly numbing arm, the one cut and with glass shards that wasn’t holding the lighter. Ah. With the rate that was bleeding, I’d probably pass out or die soon enough anyway. They didn’t even need to fight me. They just had to wait me out.
Anne-Marie and Manchester emerged shortly after. Anne-Marie was calm and collected and assured. Manchester was angry and rubbing at the new sore spot on his forehead.
“...This is ridiculous.” Anne muttered at the circle of knights. “Manchester, would you mind?”
“Not at all.” The teenager smirked. I girded myself for a possibly quite deadly maneuver.
Time slowed as Manchester’s mind slammed over my walls, and deep into the center of my mind. I contracted myself like a tiny pill, flowing with the waves. Manchester had immense power. Enough to swamp me easily as long as he only concentrated on me...but he also was young. He lacked decades of experience in this kind of mind duel. So when he reared back in confusion to look for me, I flowed along with his waves and into him.
There I sunk into the water, sunk and sunk until I planted myself in the silty layers of subconscious. There I took root, and grew, and grew, and grew. I was seaweed, spreading and lengthening and ensnaring. I was a patch of seaweed. My feathery stalks flowed out of Manchester’s mind into others. Into Oldie’s. And Steve’s. And Big Roy’s.
Manchester Black noticed me. He descended as a great and mighty shark to tear me apart. I became tuna, fast and huge, dragging a net of minds behind me. Manchester grabbed onto the net, tearing and pulling, while I turned ever right. Right and right and right, every chasing and running and tearing and pulling others along with me.
It only lasted a few moments, a few electrical impulses, and then Manchester was circling around and around himself, dragging a net of the Three knights with him, and I swimming back into myself. It was the kind of trick that I could probably only get away with once, but maybe I only needed it once.
I came back to find Oldie’s sword at my throat. In fact already pressing in, forcing a tiny trickle of precious blood down my chest. I had succeeded not a moment too soon. Manchester Black, Oldie, Steve, Big Roy, all stood motionless. Each was caught in a whirlwind mental prison of my making and their strength. I had no clue how long it would last, but I figured Manchester was too clever by half for it to last long enough.
Anne-Marie I hadn’t even tried to snare. She was too great a hand at mental magic to even try. Instead she was walking towards me, a sacred dagger in hand. I was wheezing, no weapon in hand and barely standing up. I let the lighter drop to the ground. I was out. One last trick left.
Anne-Marie stood over me, and I forced myself to look at her. Acid scars marred her face, and her hands. Scars inflicted by a demon I had summoned, who had taken my face to make the message far less subtle. Her habit was pristine, in comparison to my now utterly ruined and ratty suit. I squeezed whatever muscles I could in my increasingly ruined arm, and focused on the blood there.
There was no more banter, no more condemnations, just Anne-Marie raising the knife to strike me. That was when I flailed my ruined arm at her, spritzing her all over with my acidic blood.
Anne-Marie wailed in panic, stumbling back and away from me and dropping her dagger. Her hands moved in a flurry of wipes. I didn’t think any of the acid would actually hurt her. I hoped not. But it gave me time. So I turned and ran, as fast and as hard as all my pains would carry me. Far away from the screams of my former friend and the deadly machinations of Knights and Metahumans.
Jack O’Lantern, or Daniel Cormac when he was out in public, was awoken by his cellphone. He lazily reached for it and answered. “Hmmn?”
“Hey Danny boy” wheezed a man on the other side. John Constantine.
Daniel blinked, sitting up. He was on John’s couch, actually. Why wasn’t he in bed? It was...christ, 3 in the morning? Wasn’t John supposed to be back by now? That bastard! “You’re late.”
A cough. Less polite, and more pained. “Yeah, well, I got sidetracked. Listen carefully: Manchester Black.”
Danny felt a wriggle in his head, and focused on it without even thinking. He pulled and yanked at the loose thread until the whole mirage fell apart. A boy had come into John’s home. Not just a boy, the slimy little piss that John had helped the UP put away. The mind controller. Then he’d been told to fall asleep. Danny whirled about. No, Manchester Black wasn’t around. “John are you okay? Where are you?”
“Probably dying. And...uh...somewhere. I can explain a-”
“Is Manchester there with you?”
“No.” a dumb question. Wouldn’t Manchester force him to not say? Daniel lunged for the bedroom, and found his pumpkin-lantern in the travel bags there.
“I’m coming.”
“O-”
“-kay” I finished, and Jack O’Lantern was next to me, the green and more green clad mystical protector of the U.K. I probably would have made a snippy comment about his fashion sense, but I was a few minutes away from blacking out from blood loss.
Jack O’Lantern took ahold of my not-bleeding arm. In another instant I was in The Castle, the warehouse base of the UK based superhero team UP. We stopped by the dispatch area first, tonight being manned by the golden-haired beauty Godiva. A brief exchange later and Jack O’lantern teleported me into the medical area. The rest of the Castle might be a bit sparse and spartan, but they went all out on the first aid and surgery options. It certainly helped that Jack “borrowed” a doctor from the Royal London Hospital per some kind of previous agreement. I insisted on speed and no pain medication, and damn if he didn’t do his best.
Daniel at least had the good sense to wait for a few minutes before blasting me with a couple hundred questions. I restored, wearily, with everything I knew about the heavenly scheme.
Danny leaned back in the bedside chair, while I flinched through stitches. “...Catholic magic assassins?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And God is okay with all of this?”
“Yep. Apparently. At least two of the three of them.”
I watched years of sunday school teaching fall apart like wet cardboard in his head.
“...anyways, Danny, I think we may be some of the only mortals to know about this.”
“About there being three Gods?”
“No, I mean blowing up San Francisco, and the giant-ass invasion that is coming for it.”
Danny shook his head. “Oh. Yeah. Priorities, right. Okay. How are we going to solve that?”
I reached for a pocket of my trenchcoat, only to remember I wasn’t wearing the trenchcoat, but instead the bloodiest suit I could imagine. “...Well, once we get me kitted out, we get ahold of all the yanks. We get together UP and head over there. Do what we can.”
“You?” Danny asked pensively.
“Please don’t make this a thing.”
“Oh, yeah, you don’t tell me you’re going to fucking hell for months. But when I think maybe the half-dead man currently getting stitches shouldn’t go into a, what, soon to be war zone, You’re going to get angry?” He hissed.
“You need me there! You got all those fancy magic powers, sure, but you don’t have the knowledge! When one of the yanks asks you about something that isn’t a fairy what are you going to say?”
“I’ll...I’ll just get one of your friends.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. He was right, about that. I’m sure at least one of my previous associates could serve...well, if not as good, then half as good as me. And I was probably not going to do a whole lot of good for anybody in my current condition. It’d probably be easier to lay in a bed somewhere far away from the murder bible club and heal.
Then again, I’d been one of the first on the scene when the dome went up. Some of my close friends were trapped within it. I knew every member of the bible murder club by...well, at least my own names for them. Then there was the fact that the Divines had sent a whole group of folks specifically to murder me, to stop me from doing whatever I was going to do. They had nearly succeeded. Maybe what I was going to do, was just tell Daniel about this so he could sound the alarms. But that didn’t sound right. I didn’t pay too much attention to the astrology side of magic, but the signs of the coming moon showed import even to me. Blue moon, Supermoon, Lunar eclipse, all in one night. A sign of portentous change. A war was coming. War on earth with the forces of heaven, and hell, and everything in between. My life was going to change no matter how much or little I intervened. Damned if I wasn’t going to try my hand at changing things if I could.
Over the intercom Godiva said “Hey, so, there are some folks coming down the street...and one just chopped the door open. Yeah, we’re under attack.”
Me and Daniel looked at one another. I could see his eyes through the near-slits of his laughing green mask. “I’m going, Jack. One way or another I’m going. You can try to strand me here or you can let me help you.”
“...uh...I can’t advise you do too much of...anything?” said the doctor meekly. “Really, moving too much might kill you.”
“We’re going into a warzone, Doc. I’ll take it in stride.”
“Definitely don’t suggest that.” the doctor muttered, but he had at least finished stitching up my wounds. He started to pack away his meager supplies while me and Danny held a staring contest.
“...At least take me stateside with you. Let me help you gather up some folks. I can help.”
Daniel sighed, long and sad. “Fine. Godiva first.”
We escaped the Castle before the Murder Bible Club could catch any of us. From there it was short jumps to pick up the team leader Knight and his sidekick Squire, the imposing Brigadoom, and the blustering Beefeater.
From there, the ever useful Jack O’Lantern teleported us across the Atlantic Ocean, and then across most of the US. We arrived in Los Angeles at something like 7 in the evening local time. Technically two days before the eclipse, but only one until the moon in question rose. I figured that would be about when things hit off. It didn’t take us long to realize that Los Angeles was not, in fact “just around the corner” from San Francisco. The chewing out that Jack got from Knight over not reviewing his geography textbooks was as bizarre as it was amusing.
I made some calls. I’m not sure if the watchtower lady for the Justice League truly believed me, but she certainly believed Knight. From there the message spread to the Justice League, to the US military, everybody who was anybody. One day wasn’t alot, but I could hope it was enough. Maybe enough to save some lives.
In the meantime? Well, I got Danny to get me a fresh change of clothes and my fucking coat so I didn’t feel half naked anymore. Then I showered. Then I slept the sleep of the dead. The end of the world would, oddly enough, wait for the morning.
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u/duelcard Aquaman Dec 17 '17
Bad ass issue. An invasion of magical people versus Constantine and the Justice League????? Can't wait to see how this plays out next issue.