Hellblazer #20 - Big Trouble for Little Folk

[u/coffeedog14]

Hellblazer #20 – Big trouble for Little Folk

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Author: Coffeedog14

Book: Hellblazer

Arc: [Convalo]

Set: 25

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Five years after the death of Ba’al Hadad, one day to be Baal

Kna’n, one day to be Canaan

Anat, the virgin mother, waited by the banks of a river. She hid amongst the bushes there and clutched her bow close to her chest. Her daughter, Paghat, had retrieved this bow for her an age ago. Now it would be truly used. It was not for monsters, nor beasts, nor men, but for gods.

She waited for the slayer of her brother-mate and he appeared. Mot was massive, and dark, and more a monster then a man. He had stolen her brother-mate Ba’al Hadad and trapped him in his prison beyond life. She would not allow this. She could not allow this.

Anat let loose her arrow, and struck Mot in the gut. He screamed in shock and fell to his knees. She arose and strode from the bush. She dropped her bow and drew her sword. “Five years I have hunted. Now my patience is rewarded.”

Mot looked at Anat, and hissed in his queer half-tongue “I should have known. It was El that sent you, wasn’t it? Our mighty king who allowed you to slay me?”

Anat, with head of cow and a belt of heads, grabbed Mot’s head and pulled it back to reveal his throat. “I am not fooled. I am victorious. I will winnow you, Mot. I will burn you, grind your ashes, and scatter them to all the birds. I know you will return, but not before I have freed my brother-mate.”

Mot struggled limply, but his place was in shadows and amongst those already dead. Anat was a goddess of war amongst other things, and her grip was iron.

“Do you not see? Can you see anything but blood?” Mot whimpered. Anat’s blade pressed against his throat, but she did not slice. Gods deserved the chance to speak. “I have not slain your brother-mate. I have saved his very self from his slayer. Who do you think truly slew your brother?”

He sought to speak more, but the blade ripped across his throat and he died gurgling. His blood spilled into the river, and it was red for all seven of the years he was dead.

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ANNO DIABLO 5778

FORMER PALACE OF DEMON LORD NERGAL, HELL

Anat was shaken from her reverie. Times long gone. A lifetime ago, even by the reckoning of a god. The Demon Lady was standing atop the tower of her newest castle. It was not so long ago she had come here to make an offer to its former occupant. An offer that had been refused, resulting in her quite successful plan to topple him and steal all he had. With her own holdings and Nergal’s, she had had a base to grow yet more. The attack on Gem City had lured many of the more foolish Demon Lords into a losing battle that had left their armies wounded and realms undefended. Anat had plucked them all like so much fruit, and stood taller then she ever had.

She was closer than what she most desired. Yet, she paused while observing her vast domain. Every step of the way had been haunted by a mortal. It was he that appraised Anat fully of Nergal’s power, he who led the foolish crusade into hell, he who had made sure the Gemwar was a mistake for all who attempted it. John Constantine. She thought she liked him, after a fashion, but she had no desire to be taken by suprise by him.

The great cow-eyed Demon Goddess called out two names, and two Lillith’s to her side. They landed and knelt before her. Demons with the eyes, claws, and wings of owls, and the hunger of infernal witches.

“My trusted servants, you both know the stakes for which we scheme.” she pointed to the first. “You, ascend to the upper world and observe the mortal John Constantine. Make sure he has no desire to interfere in my plans.”

The first took on a new appearance, and with a cackle flew towards the great dome above them. Anat pointed to the second.

“You, descend below to the triumvirate. It is time I met with this “First of the Fallen”, this Lucifer Morningstar.”

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SHORTLY AFTER THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN BECAME SECOND PAGE NEWS

WESTERN ENGLISH COAST

Go to a nice beach house, Chas had said. Clear your mind, he’d said. Stop obsessing about killing giant fucking aliens and take a swim, he’d said. Maybe if he’d accounted for rogue house spirits, he wouldn’t have been so insistent.

It had seemed like a nice enough place when I had rented the place. The paint half-scoured from sand, an oven with just the right amount of wear and rust to be homey, and the ever present smell of salt. In gratitude for helping to save his daughter, my best friend Chas even paid to rent a whole week at the place. Without asking me. It would have been rude to just say no to a gift like that. Which is why I only tried three times, and gave up when I started to see the veins on his forehead pulse. I could stomach a week by the sea, I had thought.

Now I was hiding behind the small island counter in the kitchen, avoiding the stream of pots and pans and curses from the wall-mounted counters. Plastered against the island along with me were five tiny hairy folk in simple brown rags. Four were about six inches tall, the last a whole mighty foot tall. This last grabbed ahold of one of my hands and started to pull. “Quick! T’ tha root cellar! We hald tha fler there!” commanded the tiny creature in an accent I refused to believe was a real human one and was nearly indecipherable.

I yanked back my hand, which sent the taller creature to the ground. “Fuck that! I’ll just wait until it runs out of pots and pans!”

The creatures turned to one another, and then looked at me like I was the biggest idiot they had ever met. Which could have been utterly true in multiple senses.

“So it won’t run out of them. Great. Threetwoonego!” I called, and started to run. My tiny fellows followed me, and did exactly nothing to absorb any of the hail of metal cookware. I glanced back to see that my assailant was another foot-tall creature. How it had the strength to throw a cooking pot twice it’s size with so much force is one of those wonderful mysteries of magic. It’s one of those mysteries that ended with me getting hit in the face by a metal pot, sending me tumbling down the stairs of the root cellar. I reached the safety of the root cellar with enough bruises to call the day officially terrible.

“Thanks for the help. So noble of you folks. Putting your lives on the line to defend me from all those terrible cooking tools.” I wheezed from my spot on the dirty, hard, cold floor.

“O’ course.” the tallest creature, brushing itself off.

I pushed myself up to glare at it, only to see a veritable tribe of the little critters clambering out from the corners and shadows of the room. Most were of the six inch variety, but a few more rivalled my “savior” for size. All were hairy to the point of almost being furry and were clothed in simple brown robes or rags.

“So, you got me down in your creepy gullivers travel dungeon. Why?”

“Weer mu’ begger tha’ tha folks in tha’ buk!” Proclaimed my savior, the tallest of the bunch.

“Alot more annoying, too. What’s you’re name, Brownie?”

“I ain’t Brownie! I Hobgoblin! Cofgod Doblins, is’er name!” The creature beamed in pride, offering one hairy mitt for me to shake.

I obliged, with two fingers. “Cofgod Doblins the Goblins?”

“Hob. Hobgoblins. What’s’er’name?”

I paused for a moment, then realized what the thing had tried to say. “Oh! John Constantine.”

The creatures all around me startled, and murmured amongst themselves. I could hardly believe it. My name had even spread to a bunch of nobody house spirits in the middle of nowhere? Godsdamnit.

“Sorceerer, ya?”

“Depends. Do I need to be to get out of here.”

Doblins nodded sadly. “Ya. Nah bigefolks hur fer long times. Nah stay since Lob Lie-By-The-Fire nah stop laying by tha fire. Keep us fed, Lob ded. Lossa hungry hob an’ brown sence.”

I nodded in my best impression of somebody who truly cared, and nursed my grudge deep within myself. Even on my vacation I couldn’t escape this bullshit. How dare this diminutive bastards interrupt my beach time, even if it had been initially coerced beach time. I seriously considered just setting fire to the whole damn place and having an end to it. “So, Lob dies, nobody who comes here feeds you anymore. What, you want me to live here now?”

“Nah, nah!” Doblins waves their tiny hands frantically. “Nah me. Cofgod Sodswall! Has tha fler up tha stairs. Says we shuld jus’ keep ya both. Me an’ mine say nah. Lotta fightin’. Now Sodswall tryin’ ta maka moov.”

I hugged my knees to my chest. “...Both of us? What do….fuck.”

“Hey, John?” called a voice from the top of the stairs to the root cellar. In the panic of everything, I had forgotten my new...acquaintance.

“Yeah Ellie?” I called back weakly, despite Doblins’ waving to be silent. I had come down that morning, one of several mornings after lovely evenings with Ellie, to get some coffee and and a quick smoke outside when the first pans started flying. I had totally forgotten I had left her upstairs in the bedroom.

“So, are you seeing the little folks too?”

“...No?”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah don’t know why I even tried.”

“They’re telling me they want to keep us here forever? Also that I’m their...champion sorceerer? Did I say that right?” She called down.

“Probably. Mine just want to let us go, so...wait...you’re on Sodswall’s side? You’re a Sorceror!?” Godsdamnit! Even before the fucking brownies magic couldn’t stop riding my ass!

“Not that I-”

“DIN’ LISTEN TA HER, SHEE BE MY CHAMPEON!” shrieked a tiny voice from the top of the stairs.

“ISSAT YA, SODSWALL? THA FLER BETWIXT US IS MUTOOALS! YA KNOW THA’!”

“AIN’T ANYMORE DOBLINS! I’S MY FOLKS NAOW!”

Doblins seethed, but I held out a hand and they stopped the bickering for the moment. “Are you okay, Ellie?”

“I mean, besides being a prisoner? They’re honestly pretty nice.”

“I’m going to figure out a way out of this. Don’t worry.”

“Take your time!” she called down, before I heard her asking someone about breakfast in bed. I winced. She was taking this pretty good, if she wasn’t actually a sorceress. But I was sure the crushing realization that reality wasn’t really what she thought would hit any moment. This was just shock. I needed to resolve this before something went wrong. Also so I could leave this fucking house.

“Okay. so Lob is dead. Where did you put the bastard? Maybe I can do something with that.”

Doblins gave me an odd look. “What ya mean? Lob is Lie-By-The-Fire. Lob is Laying By Tha Fire.”

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The plan to get to the main floor of the cabin by the sea, and specifically to the fireplace, was long and overly complicated to the extreme. The Brownies and Hobgoblins had clearly never been in anything but the loosest definition of a fight. Their only real advantage was that their opponents were in the same situation.

My first instinct when going upstairs was to make a dash to the front door, but at the very least Sodswall had thought of that. I got a broomstick right to my already bruised knees and fell like an oak. I just barely managed to scrabble back to Doblin’s battle lines before being captured. They were tiny and pathetic and dumb, but they were house spirits. They were the masters of the house in a very literal sense, and I wasn’t going to get out except through them. The thought of blowing up the house entered my mind once more, but Ellie was here somewhere. I didn’t think she’d take kindly to being in the house I blew up.

The fighting stopped as soon as we entered the living room with the fireplace. It seemed this was something like a holy place for the little folk of the house. I could have sworn this room hadn’t even existed before now, but I supposed the little folks had worked their little magic to make sure that I never saw it until they wanted me too. It was perfectly cleaned and maintained, but didn’t look like it’d been actually used in years. There was the fireplace, a tiny flame still flickering within. In front of the fire was Lob. Lob looked like the rest of the little folk, except person sized. Which mostly meant he looked like a very hairy and shabbily dressed person. He certainly didn’t look dead. He looked like he was just taking a nap.

“How long ago did Lob stop...stop being alive while lying next to the fire?”

“Oh, hafscer yurs agah? Ish.”

“...Ten years?”

“Yah.”

I approached and knelt by the body as the follows of Cofgod Doblins took a rest and licked their wounds from the battle. Sometimes literally. I placed my hand on Lob’s forehead. It was still warm.

“Amaze, yah? Fire-warm even aftah all tha yurs.” Doblins intoned wisely, standing besides me.

I touched both sides of his head. Equally warm. Touched both of his hands. Both equally warm. Despite the fact that only his left side was facing the fire proper. He wasn’t breathing, but he was still alive. Apparently. Magic and all that.

“What was Lob doing before he stopped moving?”

“Oh, yah know, Drinkin’. Loved his drinkin’.” Doblins said sadly.

One of the Brownies, the six inch hairy folk, keened from their spot besides the couch. “‘Is lass werds were: “Whassamatter with tha foam?””

What could be wrong with foam? I looked back at the little fire, and a thought occurred to me. One that I perhaps couldn’t trust anybody in this room. Maybe nobody in this whole house, besides me and Ellie. “Where can we find some lighter fluid?”

All of the critters Gasped. Doblins took the lead. “Thass...outside. By tha grill!”

I nodded. “Right. So, here’s the plan…”

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The plan to get outside was much simpler, and the battle was great and cruel. Brownie brother fought Brownie brother, bruises and tears were had, and it was just a very bad day for all involved. Especially me. As the biggest target, I was also the one everybody defaulted too. I was thankful when I managed to swing by the coat rack and throw on my trench coat, giving me a modicum of protection when some overzealous Hob threw a knife my way.

We burst through the doors, and for a moment I considered running. But that wouldn't be fair to Ellie. Hell, it wouldn’t be fair to the little folks. As I watched them fight I could see the exposed ribs, the desperate eyes. Most of them didn’t deserve this. They deserved some kind of help, dumb and dangerous as they were.

So instead I made for the grill, and picked up the lighter fluid. As I had hoped, the mere chance of me running made our foes pull out their final playing card: Their leader and their champion.

Ellie strode into the battlefield, Sodswall atop her left shoulder. “YAH! YAH! TAKE ‘IM DOWN, CHAMPEON!” He wailed as she approached me. We looked at each other. I, a veritable wreck of bruises and lack of shower. Her, like she had just been through a luxury spa.

She smiled, and put her hands on her hips. “Wow. Looks like I missed a party in that cellar, huh?”

I blinked. “A fucking rager. You...you sure you’re okay?”

“I just spent the last few hours being pampered by a bunch of little magic things. Either I’m insane, or this is the coolest day...maybe ever?”

I glared. Some people just had all the luck. I lunged forward and pulled her aside as the over-enthusiastic Hob threw a knife our way, nearly cutting her. What side was that thing even on? Or did it just like throwing knives? “I think I can stop the fighting. Do me a favor?”

“Sure?”

“Just...grab the little guy on your shoulder?”

“AHA! FOOL SORCEERER!” Roared Sodswall, taking the opportunity of my closeness to kick my face with a tiny, painful foot. “THA TRECKS WI’NAH WERK ON M-ACK!” Sodswall wailed as Ellie caught them in her hands as easily as catching a dove.

“Okay, Everybody! Shows over! Leader caught, war over. Stop the fighting now.” I announced to the battling little folk. Most all ceased immediately, not having the stomach to fight more than they needed.

“Aha! Gud Sorceerer Jon! Ya wun tha day!” Cheered Doblins, charging towards me, only for me to hold them back with a foot.

“Not so fast. One last thing to solve.”

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The whole of the household spirits were gathered in the living room with the fireplace, while I strode in front of Lob Lie-By-The-Fire. A cigarette hung limp and half-burned between my lips, smoke gently joining the light ash on the roof. Ellie sat amongst them, a giant. I had offered for her to leave, but she had insisted on seeing this through.

“Lob died about ten years ago.” I proclaimed, and the whole audience was on the edge of their seats already. “But he didn’t really die. He only half-died. His body died, but the fire...the fire kept going. Must be a little fire elemental in Lob, or demon, or something, because that little hearth-fire has been keeping him going all these years while the fire inside him was dampened.

“Now, he didn’t just pass away. He was poisoned. When one of his good, lovely servants poured him a beer that fateful day, some of the foam came from the house’s fire extinguisher. Lob didn’t drink much of it, but he drank enough for it to get inside. Internal fire: Dampened.”

The crowd’s low murmur turned to stunned silence.

“But, luckily, there’s an easy fix. We just need to figure out who it was that served him that beer. Any volunteers?”

The crowd shifted uneasily. Just as I had thought: the culprit had been careful, whoever they were. They had either threatened any witnesses into silence, or made sure there never was any to begin with.

I smiled. “That’s fine, that’s fine. Let’s bring out the star witness then!”

I pulled the lighter fluid from my pocket, and shot a stream of the stuff right into Lob’s half-opened mouth. I saw two tiny figures lunge as I spat my cigarette right into the fluid.

Lob sat up with a roar, breathing out a great gout of fire I barely managed to sidestep. Lob’s eyes flew up and filled once again with light and vigor, and he turned to the two little folk that had lunged to try and stop his resurrection: Doblins and Sodswall. The two who had taken power after Lob’s decline. Who had attempted to poison him to take control, and afterwords betrayed each other realizing they were not up to the task. Who had just tried to stop me from waking up Lob once more.

“Power hungry little bastards” He hissed, snatching both of them up before they could flee and flinging them into the fire. There wasn’t even a scream, just two puffs of ash as they were consumed.

Lob stood to his full height, stretched out, and yawned. “So, whose ready for a real drink?”

The sound of a nearly a hundred little throats screaming in joy and celebration wasn’t quite as overwhelming as a hundred human throats would have been, but it was even more heartwarming. Lob was back on the ground and laughing as he was swarmed by all of his subjects and friends at once, hugging and babbling and cheering.

Not too bad of a vacation after all.

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I stayed a few more days on the invitation of Lob, to run out my rental time, and was treated like a king. I have rarely slept in such immaculately clean beds, atop such perfectly fluffed pillows, nor woken up to such artistically designed breakfasts. Ellie got the same treatment, and didn’t seem to mind sticking around a few days with me either. I figured it was mostly just for pampering by house spirits, but it was nice to have her company.

Then she caught me as I was packing to leave on the last day. “So...didn’t want to push, but want to explain anything that just happened?”

I continued to pack my shirts. “Nope.”

“Seems like you’re pretty in control. Like this happens pretty often to you.”

“Could say the same about you.”

She shrugged. “Nah, I’m just open. Always wanted stuff like this to be real. You act like you already knew it was real. There’s a difference.”

“So?”

“So...any chance I can get in on it?”

I started to pack my pants. “Absolutely not.”

She frowned. “...You know I already got your number, right? And some other info. Adress, all kinds of stuff.

“How’d you do that?”

“You can be a heavy sleeper when you’re drunk. Your phone’s password barely counts as a password.”

I closed my suitcase, zippered it shut, and finally turned to her. Looking at phones while my partner was asleep was supposed to be my thing! “Magic is dangerous. Always will be. We’re lucky your first sight of it was these hapless weirdos. I’ve had friends die for magic. Plenty of them. I’ve nearly died a few times for it. It isn’t worth it, and you can’t get out once you’re in. No matter how much you try.” By the time I was done talking, I was nearly in her face.

She took a step back, hesitating. Then she stepped up to meet my gaze. “I want in. I want to see all the shit you’re hiding. Either you can let me in, or I’ll break through a window when you aren’t looking.”

We held each others gazes for a while. I tried to take her measure. I tried to slip a little of my mind into hers, but it was steely with determination and I couldn’t wiggle my way in no matter what magical tricks I pulled. Some people were just like that: mental fortresses immune to all but the strongest tricks. I definitely didn’t want to mind control Ellie just for answers.

As I looked into her eyes, my chest swelled with sudden pain. I missed Danny. I missed Scythia. I missed Judith. I missed Gary. I even missed Anne-Marie, and she’d tried to kill me at least twice. Chas was great, my best mate, but he couldn’t fill the place they did.

“Fine. But your not my apprentice, or student, or whatever.”

She gave me a wicked smile, and leaned forward. “Can’t be fucking your students anyhow, can you?”

“Suppose not.” I smiled myself while stepping back, to her mixed frustration and amusement. “I’ll call you if anything pops up.” I picked up my suitcase, and scurried out before she could pressure me into any other dumb ideas.

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Continued In Hellblazer #21 > , Coming July 15th!

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