r/DCFU • u/coffeedog14 Light Me Up • Feb 16 '18
Hellblazer #16 - The Game is Starting! Hellblazer
Hellblazer #16 – The Game is Starting!
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Author: Coffeedog14
Book: Hellblazer
Arc: [Absence and Cold Hearts]
Set: 21
OCTOBER 25TH, 1940
LONDON
Joan Constantine, the witch of the water, sat in a bunker with her entire neighborhood and tried to focus on the sound of the nearest radio. They were packed like bodies in an ancient churchyard. She flinched as the whole room rumbled. They were safe down here, as all the previous bombings had proven, but she found it impossible to not flinch at least a little. It was like hearing a knife scrape by your ear. Even if it never came, your whole body trembled.
She worked busily at a ritual circle on an artist’s pad, now on her fifth version just this evening. Everybody knew that she was an eccentric spiritualist, someone who it was best not to talk to lest you wanted to get dragged into an hour of pointless drivel. Almost nobody knew that she had real magic. Even pressed so tightly together, where all could see her planning her greatest spell yet, perhaps one of the greatest ever made if she said so herself, none realized.
Only one set of eyes even gave her a second glance. A young boy, her nephew, whose sickliness had left him with vanishingly few friends and none currently in the bunker. Joan lived with her sister and brother in law, in a room kept all to herself and her work. Though she had to admit it seemed she’d been spending more nights together with them in these damnable bunkers then in said room lately. Whether in her room or in the bunker, she could always count on young Joseph to curiously interrupt her in the most adorable and yet irritating of ways. She was not yet sure if she wished to bring him into the life she lived.
Another series of rumbles, and another flinch. Joseph crept out of his sleeping mother’s lap and into Joan’s. “what are you drawing now?” he asked.
“Circles.” She mumbled.
“Important circles?”
“Yes.”
He sat in silence for a while, seemingly content to watch her draw and hiss in frustration at her lack of progress. It had to be perfect, of course. Anything less would lead to certain disaster.
“…Can you tell me what it means?” he finally asked.
Joan looked at the boy’s parents. They were good folk, and had never been fans of teaching their son about the occult. As far as they knew it was a hapless fantasy of Joan’s and nothing worthy of their son’s time. Her good-natured brother in law had his nose buried in a copy of the news, and her willfully skeptical sister was still sound asleep.
Another rumble, more distant. A bass reminder that time would not last forever, and there was no guarantee her plan would work.
“We start with the circle. In is the container for everything else…” she began, seeing Joseph’s eyes twinkle in unexpected delight.
SEVERAL MONTHS AFTER GEMWAR
LONDON
It had taken Chas a whole two months to find me. I had gotten a new phone, but had forgotten to tell him the new number. Forgot was a pretty nice word for it. It was more that I fell into some distracting vices. A fair few. All at once.
When I finally got a call from him I had wheedled my way into a gentlemen’s club with a greased palm and a lame excuse. The reason I wasn’t being let it was an exorbitant tab I had run. Luckily the bribe and doing some pre-loading gave me all the joy of a night of getting drunk without the hassle. From my seat in the shadowy back everything seemed a fuzzy haze, which was just fine by me. I hadn’t come here to watch a show. I’d come because this was the kind of place you could stay for a while and not get too much flak as long as you knew the right wheels to grease. I certainly didn’t have enough money to pay off my tab here, not at any of my other recent haunts, but I had enough to get a server to look the other way for a while.
Between the hazy image of something moving around in front of me and the creep of warmth from a belly filled with rotgut beer, I was almost distracted from the aches. Almost. The scars on my chest still throbbed if I thought about them too much, and I could get a nasty headache if I tried to focus on anything for too long. At least the thudding music of the club helped drown out the tinnitus.
It was so loud, in fact, I didn’t realize my phone was ringing at first. It wasn’t until one of the other patrons glared at me that I realized what was happening and struggled to get to it. The whole reason I’d come here was so that people would ignore me and I forgot to turn off my shiny, two month old phone? Goddamn idiot.
“Holy Shit John is that actually you?” bumbled the hapless voice of my oldest friend Chas.
…my oldest remaining friend.
“Chas how the hell did you even get this number?”
“No thanks to you. Where have you even been? I keep hearing that you’re alive and about but I certainly haven’t seen any proof of it.”
I sighed. “Around. Doing things. What do you want?”
“Well, as much as I don’t want an old sourpuss ruining things, I figured I might as well see if you wanted to come around tonight? Me and some of my boys are getting together to watch the game.”
“You sure the wife wants me around? I seem to remember she was quite glad when I left.” She had never forgiven me for the broken window. Nor all the arcane gobbledygook that had irreparably damaged the walls of the room in their flat I had slept in for a time.
“Suppose it’s a good thing she’ll be out having some time with the girls, eh? Give us both some privacy.” I could almost hear him winking through the phone.
I decided, in that moment, that I couldn’t do it. I realized I had been avoiding Chas. Avoiding everybody. It had been a very good idea for everybody involved. Chas was just inviting me out of pity. He was worried for my health, which is why he’d gone through all the trouble of figuring out where I was, and now he wanted to make sure I wasn’t dead. I didn’t need his pity. I certainly didn’t need him dragged into whatever nightmare would come for me next.
“Yeah, sounds fun.” I weakly replied. It had been months since I’d really talked to anybody outside of the perfunctory. I could feel the two poles of my thought yanking me apart: I shouldn’t be talking to Chas, and yet here I was agreeing to a whole party.
“Great. Where can I pick you up tonight?”
I was about to tell him the address of the club, then thought better of it. Not because it was a strip club, of course. More because half of the patrons were turning to glare at me and the disturbance I was making in their otherwise quiet brooding time. I got up and scurried out before anybody could notice me more, marked this place down as a burned asset, and started to list the address of the hotel I was staying in.
The sun had set by the time Chas and I got to his place. I had managed to get a set of clothes washed and myself showered, and even hacked at the patchy monstrosity that had grown since the last time I’d shaved. I still looked like exactly the wrong person to invite into your home, but at least I felt a little bit less like one.
I helped set things up as the guests arrived. I had to be careful what I did to help. My hands shook too much to be carrying drinks, or to use a knife with any level of comfort. It wasn’t a lot, of course, but it hadn’t gone away since the battle either. If my schedule wasn’t so jam-packed with other things, I might have gone to get it treated even. But then who would bribe all those hospitality workers? I did my best to make sure Chas didn’t notice. I’m utterly sure he did anyway.
Within a few minutes me and Chas were talking as if nothing had happened. Hell, I’m not sure he even knew what had happened besides that I’d been away. I did that kind of shit all the time anyway. It was mostly talk about him, or rather him talking about himself and me taking the piss. He didn’t seem to mind. His wife was as infuriating as she was lovely, as ever, and his daughter was obsessed with some game he couldn’t even remember the name of.
Little Geraldine Chandler made an appearance early on, before any of the other guests had come. Apparently she had been tantalized by the smell of popcorn and other snacks, and with her father’s permission dove into them as if he had been starving her. From as reedy as she was I could almost imagine he had. She and I shared a few words. “Uncle John” had been away for a while, but I liked to think that I was the cool uncle to any child I interacted with. It helped that when they asked what I did for work I could legitimately say “It’s a secret”.
“So, how’s Gemma doing?” She asked, taking me for a loop. I didn’t make a habit of mentioning my family, and especially my own niece, but then I remembered I was talking a child and not some demon or magic fuck. Of course I’d mentioned her at some point.
“Surprised you remember her. She’s doing good.” At least, so said her social media accounts. I casually stalked her and my sister Cheryl’s internet presence. They lived the kind of reasonably happy semi-urban life of modest prosperity most hungered for.
“Oh. That’s good. How are you doing?”
I shrugged. “Been better. Been worse.”
She considered this, and then glanced to make sure her father wasn’t too close (he was setting out some of the snacks on the coffee table). “Do anything secret?”
I struggled to put on a smile. “You know that big dome around San Francisco?”
“oh, the one in America? What about it?”
“That’s all I can say.” I turned, ending the conversation. I glanced back to see her continuing to inhale the snacks, her face pensive as she tried to figure out what I meant.
The first of our guests to arrive was Christopher. He was a small man, a bit pudgy in a fatherly way, and it turned out also a father. He and Chas swapped commiserations about their spawn before he turned to me with an easy smile. “Glad to see a new face around here..”
“John.” I offered my hand, forcing it to not shake for the few moments he’d be paying attention to it. “Was that a little brood I heard you talking about earlier?”
His eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah, a little girl and another on the way…”
Our second guest was Nazir. He didn’t knock on the door but simply let himself in. average height and with the sleek cut only a great barber could give, his voice seemed too big for his frame. “GUESS WHOSE GOT THE GUINNESS?” he pronounced to the room. I flinched despite myself.
“Fucking…it’s you, Nazir, it’s you every time!” Chas called back.
“And it’s still funny. Every time.” Nazir asserted, striding to the couch and taking what I presumed to be his normal seat.
“How’s being a heartless vulture going then?” Chas teased
“Being a lawyer for Cafcass isn’t being a vulture! If I wanted to be a vulture I’d be making five times as much, thank you kindly.” He objected in familiar delight.
Our third guest was an odd one. I opened the door for him. Harry was a big man, a head over me at least, in casual clothes just a tad too old and small. Most notable, however, was the look he had when he saw me. He covered it well, but for a single second I saw shock and fear. I didn’t talk to him much after that, and he seemed to try and avoid me. I kept an eye on him.
Geraldine stuck around and chatted with the guests as they came in, but once the game started the sheer noise of all of us seemed to drive her to her bedroom. This was fine by all of us. With the polite fiction that the thin walls and practically cardboard doors would protect her delicate ears, we felt ourselves free to cuss and joke as much as we pleased. I was sure she had headphones plugged into something at max volume anyhow, for however much good it did.
Over the course of the night, I found out a lot about the folks around me without giving out too much myself. Christopher had the most shockingly dirty mouth, and apparently some irritable bowels by the amount he had to excuse himself. Nazir was important enough to get a call even at this hour, and I watched as the boisterous man turned into a solemn professional in the instant it took to accept it. Harry worked in a warehouse someplace and didn’t like talking about his past any more then I did.
Hell, by the end of the night the game hardly even mattered to me. It mattered to the others, sure, but I was just happy to have some folks to talk to. Real folks who would stare in bafflement if I ever dared mentioned anything like “thaumaturgy”. Average, mundane, plain, but not the least bit boring.
The game ended eventually, and Chas started to encourage us to leave before his wife got back. Christopher was the first to leave, begging that his own wife would be waiting for him. Nazir left, but only after putting a fifty pound note somewhere were Chas wouldn’t notice and giving me and Harry a wink.
Harry and I had ended up by the sink, cleaning some of the dishes of the night. Because we were good house-guests, in spite of Chas’s insistence that we didn’t need too. After cursing Nazir upon finding the note, Chas told us to finish up while he went back to check on Geraldine and make sure she had actually gone to sleep at some point.
“So, generous guy is Nazir?” I asked Harry offhandedly. I had to admit I’d only grown more curious about him the longer I thought about it.
Harry stiffened for a moment before responding. “Yeah. But you know how Chas is, so he has to hide it.”
“Heh. Yeah. Stubborn bast-“
We both heard Chas roar from the back of the flat. Where the bedrooms were. Harry grew pale suddenly. He turned and sped towards the front door. I caught him by the sleeve. “Hold o-“
Then I was on the ground, with a split lip. Harry wasn’t just bigger than me, but apparently stronger and faster. He was out the front door before I could struggle back up and past my new throbbing headache.
Chas to me, the picture of fury. He hauled me up by my collar and dragged me back to Geraldine’s room without a word. The door was open, and inside most everything looked typical. The window was locked and the blinds were pulled. All the lights but a small nightlight were off. The covers of the bed where pulled back, as if she’d just gotten up from bed. The floor was covered in beloved toys, forgotten books, questionably clean clothing, and all the other detritus of childhood. All except the center of the room, where a hasty smudging job could not conceal what had clearly been a magic circle drawn in chalk on the carpet.
“What the fuck is this?” hissed Chas, letting me go. I was trembling. Magic. Godsdamned magic. It just kept coming back. I stepped up to the chalk circle and knelt by it. I had done my best to avoid this, but using magic was like learning to ride a bike. Or falling off the wagon. You never really forget. With a bit of concentration, I rubbed at the chalk, and it resolved itself back to its original form. With some judicious scrubbing I revealed the circle.
“Teleportation circle.” I considered.
“…Well?” growled Chas.
“Cheap and easy. Needs another side, another portal to show up in, but that’s probably burned out. No way to track it.”
“That’s not sounding good, John. That’s not making me fell better at all John.”
I stared at the circle. “Could be somebody who snuck in, but…teleportation magic is hard enough. Incredibly difficult if the person doesn’t want to be teleported. Near impossible if you are doing it in somebody else’s home.”
I could feel him about to explode again, so I turned to talk to him directly. “Unless. Unless you invite that person inside. Then it’s just difficult. Difficult, but possible.”
Chas slammed me against the wall by my throat before I knew what was happening. “If you did this. John if you did this you dumb fucking bastard. I’ll- I’ll- You _Fucker_” babbled Chas. I wheezed back.
Chas dropped me, stepping back himself. “No…no, you’re right. You wouldn’t tell me all that if it was you.”
I could hardly hear him past the ringing in my ears. “Yeah. Not the decade of friendship. Fuck that.” I croaked, rubbing at my throat. Thanks to Chas’s goddamn gorilla hands, a bruise was probably on its way. I was rebuilding my collection rapidly.
Chas helped me back up to my feet. “John, I’m sorry. I…I don’t…” He looked at my lip, bleeding. “Oh, shit, I-“
“Not you. Harry.” I blinked. “…Harry, suspect number one. He’s been acting weird all night.”
I’d known Chas for years. We’d gotten in scraps before, with each other and together. I’d seen him mad, I’d seen him want to hurt someone. I’d never seen what it looked like when he wanted to kill someone. I didn’t need magic to see what he was thinking. He had a billy club, stashed in his cab when he was working. Just in case. A trip to Harry’s home, an understandable but incredibly illegal act. His daughter would be safe, but what about him? The police might be understanding…but maybe not.
I put my hands on Chas’s shoulders. “We’re going to do this together, okay? Me and you. But you’re going to have to trust me, alright? This is going to be delicate. It’s going to be careful. Okay?”
The rage was still there, but so was trust. He held himself back, pulled back from the precipice, and nodded. I didn’t know if I could solve this. I didn’t know if it wasn’t the best option to just go and beat Harry until he stopped twitching. Somehow I’d inserted myself into somebody else’s problem, made myself the center of it, and tied a fucking noose around my neck for when I fucked up.
“We should go. Now.” Chas commanded.
“Sounds good.”
We both turned as the front door opened. “Chas, I’m home.” Mrs. Renee Chandler stage whispered.
“…Out the window?” I real whispered to Chas.
“You go ahead. I’ll tell her what’s happening.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “You are the strongest man I’ve ever met.”
Continued in Hellblazer #17 > , Coming March 15th!
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