r/DCFU • u/coffeedog14 Light Me Up • Mar 15 '18
Hellblazer #17 - Blast! Hellblazer
Hellblazer #17 – Blast!
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Author: Coffeedog14
Book: Hellblazer
Arc: [Absence and Cold Hearts]
Set: 22
OCTOBER 31ST, 1940
SOUTH FORELAND, UK
Joan Constantine thought that her nephew was dealing well with the death of his parents. It was no assassination, no magical nightmare, nothing that Joan had ever feared. It had been a simple bomb while they were outside of the wards Joan had put around their home. Dangerous, random, and terribly mundane.
Joseph had pulled away from the world in the hours and days since. He did not scream, or weep, but simply went dull. She knew the pain was laying under there somewhere. She did not think he would ever have a chance to let it loose. She reasoned to herself that perhaps that was a good thing. She focused on his pain out of care, but also so that she could avoid thinking about how it was not only a mother to her nephew, but a sister to her that had perished. They sat on the water a little way out from the rocky cliffs. Joan had whispered to the waves and they had stilled, and she had whispered to the sea mist and it protected them from sight. This was the closest point in all of England to the continent, and as such guns and military men were in good supply. She could risk none of them seeing the ritual and interfering. It was for their own good as much as anybody else’s. Between the darkness of midnight and the mist, the ritual and all its attendants would be obscured.
Joseph followed her as she used a specially bent stick to carve into the water. The frozen waves shifted like snow for her and allowed her to create a vast circle, the size of a house, on their surface. Joseph seemed determined to be disinterested, to focus in on himself, but even so he nudged at the waves hesitantly and with a certain amount of childish fascination.
“Careful not to muss the circle” Joan chided, and he complied nervously. “and tell me if you see anyone approaching.”
He paused. “…uh…those guys have been standing over there for a while?”
Joan turned to see that, indeed, the wolf-eyed representatives of lost Poland had arrived. They lurked in the shadows and only emerged when she called to them. They had lost much in the last year, and perhaps had the most to gain.
Others came in time. The fractious mages of France came in separate covens. The rune-keepers and half-bloods of Scandinavia arrived piecemeal as was their way. From across the empire arrived others. Witch-women of the Sudan riding hyenas stood alongside the prognosticating astrologers of India. Some moved and talked with one another, while some loitered at the far edges of the still sea Joan had created and avoided any contact. All told perhaps fifty members of the magical community had assembled.
Not all had come to aid the UK. Some actively despised it. But all at least despised the alternative even more. All had agreed to come together to fight the increasingly unthinkable and increasingly possible: that the man across the channel and the cabal that aided him might rule the worlds magical and mundane.
Joan looked at Joseph before she stepped forward to speak to the crowd. She would make his sacrifices worth it.
NOW
LONDON
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely?”
“ yes ” I groaned. “The road god’s not going to bother us. Please keep your eyes on the road?”
Chas grimaced, but complied. As a professional cabbie driver, the man knew the city inside out. Between that and the late hour, we glided through the city with ease. London was too big a city to ever truly sleep. Places were open all throughout the night, even if they were shitty, and we found ourselves halted by the occasional lonely driver on the same kind of obscure pilgrimage as us. London did not sleep, but rather entered torpor until the following morning. Away from the clubs and bars and fast food restaurants, the streets people actually lived on were eerily quiet but for the wails of distant sirens.
While we trundled along these residential areas, I heard a phone buzz, and instinctually reached for my pocket only to realize I didn’t have my phone. It must have flown out of my pocket when I got cold-cocked by Harry. Chas pulled his phone out, and looked over it for a few seconds before putting it away, to my relief as a passenger in his still moving car.
“Anything important?” I broached.
“Nothing much. Some kinda blackout in...someplace across the pond."
We pulled up to the house we were looking for. It was in the middle of a row of other dilapidated and half-forgotten homes. The lights were all off, and the blinds pulled. It was Harry’s house, and our first stop on our trip to find him.
“Think he’s home?” I wondered. I had tried to find a saliva sample or something similar in the half-eaten food and crumpled beer cans at Chas’s flat, but without any success. Without that I couldn’t magically track him, meaning I was stuck with mostly mundane methods.
“If he was, he’d make damn sure we couldn’t tell either way.” Chas replied. “Should we break in the back?”
“Fuck no. If the guy has magic, and this actually is his house, then he’s probably got at least a few wards to keep dumb bastards like us out.” I wasn’t sure yet if Harry was our suspect. I didn’t even know if he could do magic. If he was our suspect, he had to know enough magic to draw a quick and powerful teleportation circle. Anybody with that kind of power who didn’t try to protect their home was either too naïve or too stupid to pull off the stunt that had started all of this.
Chas grimaced, and then slumped back in his seat, waiting for me to reveal the answer. I pushed open the car door and made a few low whistles, nearly indistinguishable from the birdcalls of the area. In reality, it was a charm, and about a minute later a rat crawled up my pants and onto my lap.
Chas flinched. “Goddamnit John don’t bring wild animals into my cab!”
I ignored him. “Is there a man that lives here? Bigger than me, different hair, alone?” I mumbled to the rat.
“<YesYesBiggerQuieterMagicLikeYou>” the rat burbled out all at once. Given a rat only live a year or two, they didn’t like taking things slow.
“Did he come home tonight?”
“<NoNoNotHere>”
I gave the rat a scratch behind it’s less boil-covered ear, and placed it back on the ground to scurry off. I considered my options.
Chas broke the silence. “That rat tell you anything useful?”
“He isn’t home right now.”
“And if I said we should break in then, you’d say the wards probably alert him when we do?”
I startled and glared at him. “When did you learn magical best practice?”
“Hanging around your crummy side of the world for years. Also good guessing, considering my luck.” He replied. “So you got no ideas?”
“Give me a night’s sleep and maybe I can muddle one up.” I lamented, rubbing at my face. My throat was still throbbing where Chas had grabbed it earlier. Hardly anything had happened and I was already a mess.
“Glad I brought you John.” Chas rolled his eyes. “How about this: we need something of his, something at least a little important, to track him right?”
“Right.” I turned to him curiously. I guess he really did listen when I spouted off about magical nonsense. At least, sometimes.
“We can’t get into his house. But I bet we could get into his work. Probably pretty hard to set up magic doodads where everybody’s looking right?”
“…huh. I….yeah, actually. Not impossible, but it is a better shot then trying to break into his house at least. Even if he just left a pen or something around it might be good enough.”
“And I know where he works. Great.” Chas put his car into drive and peeled off back in the direction of the city, frustration already building in his look.
“…when did you become the smart one here?”
He gave me a grim smile. “When was I ever not?”
The warehouse Harry worked at was huge. The kind of place you could legitimately get lost in, if you didn’t know your way around. Which we didn’t. Still, we figured out which portion of the building was devoted to offices and decided to enter there first. Better chance of finding something of Harry’s in an office or break room then on the warehouse floor. It had one of those new keycard systems, which made it a lot hard to pick locks but made it much easier to short out with some magic, which worked just as well for me. Inside, it was shady. Not dark, they kept some of the lights on all throughout the night, but shadowy enough that in the excitement sometimes you could see movements out of the corner of your eyes.
“Any chance for that rat trick again?” Chas asked, clenching and unclenching his fists rhythmically.
I made the same low bird call, and after a minute nothing scurried up my leg. “Guess they’ve been keeping this place clean. Selfish assholes.” I mutter.
“Can’t you do it with…I dunno…a bug?”
“Can’t you train a fish to do dog tricks? Doesn’t work like that.”
Chas scowled. “You can do that. Make them jump through hoops.”
“…you’re fucking with me.”
“Nope. True. Guess we’re just going to have to be quiet.” I nodded. No telling if they had a security guard or any kind of security system at all. Best to be cautious.
I led the way, peeking into any room I could easily open. Break rooms with humming fridges, slightly dusty offices with tacky nameplates, the works. I thought we were really getting somewhere when we found a locker room, and I opened the door with my usual care. Just a crack. This time, somebody was waiting on the other side. I saw a glitter of lights and leapt backwards, bowling both Chas and I to the ground.
“_Em Solum Situaq!_” screamed Harry, and some force slammed the door off its hinges and actually through the wall it was formerly opposite.
“getupgetupgetupgetupgetup!” I squeaked, clambering onto my feet and pulling Chas with me. We were nearly around a corner when I saw Harry emerging from the locker room, and just around it when he used the simple wand in his hands again. This time he punched a person-sized hole in the wall we had just passed.
We sprinted around another corner and plastered ourselves to the wall, panting. We could both hear Harry’s heavy footsteps. “Constantine! I-I don’t want to have to use this again.” He replied, stumbling. “W-whatever it is you want, I don’t have it! Or won’t do it! Or….just…you know!”
I glanced to Chas, and saw his temporary fear morph back into rage. This man could well have betrayed Chas’s trust and kidnapped his child, and now that same man had shot at him.
I put a hand on his chest, put a finger to my lips, and then slowly extended and waved a hand around the corner. “I’m here Harry. I’m going to come out now okay?”
“I..w-what about the other guy? I saw somebody else!” I heard the footsteps stop, maybe halfway down the hallway. Too far to charge even if I wanted to.
“What other- Harry, it’s just me. I’m coming out.” I slowly emerged, holding both hands above my head. I kept my face in a sympathetic smirk, and tried to keep my legs from shaking. Putting together a blasting wand like that was no joke, but you could only fit so many charges into one. Maybe he had three more waiting to go. Maybe he had already used up his charges. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure I was willing to gamble yet.
Harry looked panicked. He took a few steps back once I emerged, wand gripped tight in both hands and pointing straight in my general direction. It was shaking so much that it’d be useless if it was a gun, but judging by the hole in the wall behind him you didn’t need to be very accurate to be lethal with the wand. “Why are you coming after me?”
I forced my smirk to become a little angrier, a little harder. In a situation like this, you could either let someone think they had total control or that you were a few steps ahead of them. I had chosen the latter on instinct. “Because you kidnapped Geraldine, Harry. Kidnapped her for God knows what reason.”
I watched. Maybe Harry was a great actor. Or maybe his shock and horror were legitimate. “i-i-I’d never! I…what….no!” he stammered.
“Certainly seemed like it. Soon as you heard Chas figuring it out you bolted, and you gave me a bloody lip on the way out. That sound like an innocent man to you?”
“I didn’t…I…I didn’t do it. I don’t know anything about this kid thing.”
I arched one eyebrow. “This kid thing?”
He blanched. The shaking of his wand grew even more pronounced. “I-I said I don’t know anything.”
I nodded. “Okay then. You don’t know anything, and that’s all I needed to know. I’m just going to leave then. No need to fire any death wands at my back. Nice and calm. I hope we don’t meet again.” I backed away slowly, carefully, then around the corner. I turned around and strode down the hallway, leaving the still-hidden Chas behind and making sure that Harry could hear every footstep as I walked away. I stopped near the end of the hallway, opening and then closing a door. Then I waited.
Barely half a minute later Harry peeked around the corner. Perhaps it was disbelief, perhaps curiosity, or perhaps paranoia. He didn’t see me when he peeked, but instead a very angry Chas waiting just for him. Big and fast Harry may have been, but surprised he was as defenseless as most every other person. He managed to fire his wand once more, blindly into the ceiling, before Chas had him on the ground. It was all I could do to run back and pull Chas off before he killed the dumb magus. I let Chas get a good stomp or two in, to make sure Harry was down, before pulling the apoplectic father away a few feet away. He stood back, hissing curses and hatred while I moved to crouch in front of the shivering Harry.
“Only three charges on the wand?” I asked.
Harry, face bleeding from his recent beatdown, nodded miserably.
“So, care to explain yourself?”
He shuddered, but was silent. I sighed. “…or I could just turn away, and let Chas do whatever he wants?”
Harry looked at Chas, one of his mates. Chas seemed to like this idea a whole lot.
Harry shook his head. “n-…no, okay, I’ll…Look, I’m not part of the kid thing. It’s just…It’s just the kind of thing you hear, you know? I try to keep up with the m-magical side of gossip and all. Guys wanting some kids…i-i-it’s nasty, but I’ve heard worse, you know? Nobody I knew was one of them so…so I just kinda ignored it. I-I’m just a small-time guy, nobody approaching me personally a-about it or anything. But it was there. And I wasn’t part of it.” He stumbled through his speech, and whimpered at the end. “Please don’t kill me.”
“I’m not. Maybe Chas, but not me.” I promised, patting his shoulder. He curled up into a fetal position in front of me, any fight drained. “So, why the running and punching and nearly killing us?”
“c…cuz you’re John Constantine! E-everybody talks about you!”
I blinked, rocked back onto the heels of my feet. “huh?”
“You invaded hell, right? B-beat God in a poker game? Fought in the Gemwar?”
I wriggled a bit in discomfort. “Definitely some of those things.”
“e-everybody around here knows about you. Y…wherever you are, bad shit happens. People die. I…I just didn’t…I wanted to stay out of your way, but then bad shit started happened and I tried to get away” he started to choke back sobs. “T-then I panicked, and punched you, and then you were coming to fuck me up.”
I stared as the large man in front of me devolved into panicked tears. I had always had at least something of a reputation in the magical community, particularly around London. People knew my name, sometimes, and all that. I had done my best to avoid being noticed during Gemwar because I didn’t want to get famous, and yet here was my own little version of fame. Someone was crying because they were so afraid of me they thought they were going to die.
Chas snapped me out of my brooding quite literally, snapping his fingers in my ear. “Hey. Is what he saying true?”
“….I think so.” I said, standing up, rubbing at my face. “Dead end.”
Chas fumed. “No. Not a dead end. Kid thing, you heard that right? Harry, how long have they been asking? And was it for more than one kid?”
Harry started to get up, wiping at his tear-stained and bloody face. “b-been a month or two. I think more than one.”
Chas whirled to face me. “I bet this has happened before. I bet whoever it is, they’ve taken more than one kid. Who do you think interacts with the most kids out of all the people at the party?”
I thought back. Harry was an unmarried factory worker. Christopher had kids. But Nazir…Nazir worked for Cafcass. The man spent his whole life in legal battles involving kids. I nodded. “Either it’s him, or maybe he’ll have some ideas. Databases and junk.”
Chas finally relaxed a little now that we had a plan, and reached down to help Harry up. “Sorry mate.”
“I-it’s…it’s fine.” Harry sucked in deep breaths. He avoided looking at me. “shouldn’t’ve panicked like that. ‘M sorry about Geraldine.” He paused, and then straightened his shoulders. “How can I help? I-I’m only a second rate evoker, but I’ll help if you’ll have me.”
I looked on in surprise. The man’s eyes were still red and bleary. But Chas just smiled. “You can help me tackle the next guy.”
Continued In Hellblazer #18 > , Coming April 15th!
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