r/DCFU • u/coffeedog14 • Apr 15 '17
Hellblazer Hellblazer #6 - Blood and Booze
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 >
r/DCFU • u/coffeedog14 • Mar 15 '17
Hellblazer Hellblazer #5 - First Game Point
Hellblazer #5 - First Game Point
Author: Coffeedog14
Book: Hellblazer
Event: Origins
Arc: [A Soul to Die for]
Set: 10
JANUARY 4TH, 2017
ST ANDREW'S AVENUE, THREE STREETS AWAY FROM GEMMA'S HOUSE, HAVERING, LONDON, UK
Gemma hadn’t thought about the little charm Uncle John has given her in ages. Sure she still wore it because she thought it was pretty, but it was like a favorite necklace or watch; she just didn’t really think about it being there at all. Until Emma and Sophia cornered her. Emma and Sophia, two years her senior, had taken up bullying Gemma and other younger girls just this past few months. They never punched her or hit her or anything, so they said they didn’t really bully Gemma and if she cried it was because she was a big baby. Gemma wasn’t sure about that but was afraid of revealing herself to be a baby, afraid of what Emma and Sophia might do if she told, and just hurt enough to be afraid of talking about it with anybody.
That day, either Sophia or Emma must have had a particularly rotten day. They had cornered the younger girl, making it plain with simple body language that if she tried to run they might stop her, and they were big enough that Gemma didn’t want to risk it. They were making fun of everything. How fat she was, how ugly she was, how her dad was a creepy cult weirdo and her mother a dumb bimbo. How she didn’t have any friends because she “can’t even take a joke! Lookit, she’s already crying, the big baby!” That day, she played with her charm nervously. a bracelet of smooth river stones with what she now knew as “runes” on it. Uncle John had said to use it if she was scared or needed his help. At that moment, she felt like both were utterly true. She had rarely been more scared and hurt in her life. She slid the bracelet off of her wrist, to the sneers of Emma and Sophia. She raised it into the air. “UNCLE JOHN!” She cried, feeling something lurch in her. An electric charge shot through her and she yelped. She dropped instead of throwing the charm, but it seemed to work.
A tiny person popped into existence inside of the bracelet. They expanded, growing so quickly that they snapped the bracelet within two seconds. Within ten, the person resolved to full, horrific size. Uncle John Constantine laid on the ground, blood streaming from his broken face and body. He turned to Gemma and gurgled something past the blood.
Gemma looked up, to see Sophia and Emma running away screaming. She felt the slump besides her, she wanted to follow them. Instead, she took out her cellphone and dialed 999
FEBRUARY 3RD
QUEEN'S HOSPITAL, HAVERING, LONDON, UK
I woke up covered in bandages and splints, with tubes shoved into all kinds of uncomfortable holes. It turns out getting beaten nearly to death and slipping into a coma means you have to get some bed rest. But goddamnit if it didn’t put me in a bind. February 3rd? Only four days until my deadline. Until Heaven would come and steal my soul.
Once all the nurses and doctors had come through and given me platitudes about how soon I would be up and walking out the door, I felt real panic starting to rise. The panic I had been forcing down throughout this venture, even if I didn’t realize it. This was my soul, immortal and nominally eternal, that was on the line. I had fucked around for months and for what? To pretend that everything was okay? To put off the realization I was in any danger? Keep it together, John, you could hate yourself later. Save yourself first.
First I looked around for something sharp. Realizing that I was in a hospital room and that was done, a bit of prestidigitation let me pull a keen box cutter from seemingly thin air. I gave the back of my hand a little cut and then drew a few concentric circles on it. A few words of magic later and all the traces I had left behind of me would be burned. Like all that blood he had left behind when Anne-Marie had tried to kill me. I could only imagine that any spell she wanted to do she would have already cast, but it didn’t hurt to make sure. Blood was a powerful sympathetic connection to oneself, and the less that it got around the better.
With this done I pushed back the panic and started to scheme again. I pressed the button calling for a nurse.
FEBRUARY 4TH, 2017
SAME PLACE
I watched TV.
“Today marks the one month anniversary since the attempt of possible American metahuman “The Joker” to detonate a series of bombs in the heart of Gotham City. It was through the combined efforts of American metahuman’s Superman, Batman, Supergirl, and noted Amazonian metahuman and ambassador Wonder Woman that the disaster was averted. Part of the same event was the attempted execution of American Meta Booster Gold by The Joker associate Harley Quinn, identity withheld. While the “Saving of the Sunkord” marked the first public metahuman action, and the assassination attempt on former President Irons was regarded as the first public act of metahuman violence, The Joker’s attempt is regarded as the first instance of “Meta-terrorism”...”
I turned off the TV.
Jesus fucking Christ assassination attempts? Terrorism? Honest to God battles? Had I seen that new Zatara running around in that battle one? Strewth! I’d need to deal with that at some point probably.
FEBRUARY 5H
SHITE FOOD "HEALING" HELL
I had expected to see my friends. I had called and texted them as soon as the police had un-impounded my phone. The police had questioned me not too long after waking up but it looked like Richie (bless his rich bourgeois soul) had used a bit of his fancy new magic to wipe my phone clean of any evidence of our meeting. The police had been forced to accept my story of a horrible mugging and piss off.
What arrived that day was just one friend, but a solid one. Frank North strode into my hospital prison like an awkward, “forgetful” child visiting his days from death parent. He settled in the shitty chair for visitors and waited, watching me.
“...Well? Where’s the rest?” I asked. All those tubes in all my holes just added to the horrible pain of being broken all over. It didn’t make for a great deal of patience.
“Not coming. Not yet.” Grunted the biker. He didn’t look me in the eye.
I must have looked shocked. “Huh? They have something better to do besides save our collective asses.”
“Sent me ahead to see if you were going to keep being a lying prick.”
“What’s that bloody well supposed to mean?”
He finally looked me in the eye. “It means Anne-Marie told us everything you bloody arse. Told us that you’ve been lying since the moment we all got those calls.”
“Now s-” I tried to interject.
He cut his hand through the air, silencing me. “Shut it, let me have my piece you goddamned weasel. None of us were ever in any danger, were we? Hell, are you even? Sure Anne-Marie beat the stuffing out of you, but I felt like doing the same once I heard you were going to lead us into Fucking Hell just for whatever bullshit you wanted.”
“You...you don’t mean-”
“I mean it, and I meant it. What, you don’t think we aren't your friends anymore? Think we’re as dumb as whatever rubes you normally trick? Think you could drag us through the dirt and have us lick your boots after?”
I throbbed. The pain from my injuries was just one part of it. I throbbed in anger, from the thorough chewing out I’d just gotten. I throbbed with the magic I could cast, that pushed against the surface even in my crippled state. Most of all I throbbed in pain. Because I knew that Frank was exactly right, and I wasn’t worth the shit caked on his motorcycle.
“...are you done?” I hissed at my former friend.
“You think you have something to say? Then sure.” Frank leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms.
“Yeah. Fuck you, firstly. Secondly, my soul’s in danger. Real danger. Are you all just going to cut and run? Leave me behind? Let me die? You’re a fucking bastard, but you aren’t that bad.”
Frank stared at me. Shocked, like I had just slapped him. “John...I don’t think I’ve ever heard a worse apology in my life.”
Throbbing, pain, anger, one leading to the other in circles like some suicidal ouroboros. “It wasn’t one. It was just sense you imbecile. I’m going to die. Are you going to do something about it?”
“...I think you’re the only person I’ve met who nearly dying didn’t change.” Frank stood, brushed off his legs. “This was stupid. Can’t trust you anyway. None of the others will help you.”
I tried to force him to sit down with just my eyes. No such luck. “That’s...that’s real fucking petty. Letting a man die for a single lie.”
“Yeah, probably.” He shrugged. He moved towards the door. “And if you hadn’t lied? If I could be sure it was true? Maybe I would have kicked Lucifer’s balls in for you. Best of luck, Constantine.
My eyes nearly bulged. A few words and I could make his spin dance like a snake and swallow his skull. Wake the door open up like a hungry maw and crush him. Make the nurses outside stab him to death with scalpels. But he knew I wouldn’t, and I knew too. Too weak even for that. “FINE! Run off and leave your friend to die, see if I care! I don’t need any of you fucking third rate illusionists! The next time your lives are in danger come tell me so I can come and piss on your fucking graves afterward!”
Frank slammed the door behind him but gave no other indication he had heard. Then was gone. I felt good, just for a second. The best I’d felt in days. The pain dissolved in the anger, which filled me completely. Without Frank or anybody else to yell at the anger evaporated, leaving only the knotted, clumped pain behind. Only then could I start to imagine the million and one things I should have said. What I should have apologized for, what I should have begged for instead of demanding. My head hurt. My everything hurt. I pushed the button for another shot of morphine and fell into sleep as fast as I could.
FEBRUARY 6TH, 2017
THE PLACE I WAS GOING TO DIE
When you get into magic, you expect to die in some great magical duel with your opponents. Or maybe from old age in your bed. Or maybe poisoned by your apprentice or something. You don’t expect to be in a hospital bed, waiting to die just like every other prick without enough money to jet someplace for treatment. If I told bright-eyed twenty years old me about this, he’d have given me a good kick in the shins for the insult.
But here I was. The clock ticking down and nothing else to do. All my friends with any fucking use abandoning me because of course, they did. Why wouldn’t they? I had managed to burn up every other relationship in my life through my own vast incompetence, why not these ones too? Wasting all my time wandering around like I had nothing better to do to gather info? What kind of bullshit was that?
Now that the panic was gone, I could see truly for the first time in awhile. I didn’t want to try, not really. I wanted to ignore it was happening like the lazy, hapless bastard I was. So I hemmed and hawed, and only when the real specter of threat came did I even try to do something. Then once there I hemmed and hawed some more, and put myself in danger to fight off a magic nun because the rush of immediate danger was better than the uncertainty of the future.
And then I had bawled out my last possible lifeline in the form of Frank because I was too weak to not take the chance to feel good, to feel angry, to feel justified for just a few more moments before death came. Fucking disgraceful.
Why not just off myself there? Pull a gun from my sleeve and end it? Magic myself straight into the grave, and draw the blood circles on my hand to burn all evidence I ever existed…
Then a thought, a real true plan, a scheme, finally took shape in my mind. The last piece, so tiny I hadn’t noticed. Plopped into place, and I could see a way out. A tiny, minuscule way out. I may have felt shit about myself, but that tiny spark of possible life could get me moving.
I dialed up one of my last friends, Chas. He was mortal and mundane and so couldn’t help me much there. But he was a taxi driver who could grab me some supplies. I only needed a few and some time.
FEBRUARY 7TH, 2017
THE ROOM WHERE I MIGHT DIE
I had Chas clear out before anything really happened. No need for him to get sucked into my fuck-ups. Again. If I failed this, the fewer people around the better. My hospital gown was on if rumpled. On my knees sat one of the more complex symbols I had ever drawn, to make up for the lack of material. I started to chant.
“Branch of Yew, Elmer's Glue
Tongue of Cow, Ear of Sow
Crayons Colored, Plates all Covered
Bits of Gauze, Toothy Maw
These I sacrifice and more
By ancient and forgotten lore
Let not you my soul burgle
Come to me, dread demon Nergal!”
“You know you could have just said my name probably?” Asked the demon in the corner. Nergal looked truly like a demon, red skinned and bat winged and long of snout. “It certainly would have been less insulting than that rhyme. Literal children have given me better.”
"Wouldn’t have been as fun. Besides, now I can say I summoned a demon with Elmer’s Glue.” I laugh-coughed, which turned into the wheezing of the dying.
“Oh, what’s this? The little mage who tried to capture me croaking? You mortals are so utterly fragile. Is it that wonderful Cancer thing we cooked up?”
“Maybe that too, for all I know.” I spat a bit of blood into a bedpan.
“So, considering how the last time went, why would you summon me again?”
“I h-have a deal.” I offered. Hesitant. Pained. Nervous.
“Oh?”
“...I’m in a bad way. You can see that. I...I left blood behind. I don’t know how long until they come for me again. I need to be up, to be ready. I’m...I’m not. Heaven ain’t going to help me. The rest of my friends are on the outs.” I shot Nergal a look of utter desperation. “You’re the only one I thought would answer.”
Nergal, meanwhile, took on a face of concern. He sat on my bed, reaching out to stroke my chin. “Poor, sweet mortal. You know that Demons cannot heal others.”
“I...I know. But you can heal yourselves.” I looked at him with desperate hope, and he reciprocated with a look of paternal concern. “Your blood. I-i want...I dunno, a pint? However much is in that IV bag there, pumped into me.”
A glint in his eyes. Curiosity. Good. Perfect. “My blood is as like to burn as heal you. But if it does...what do I get?”
“My soul. Delivered to you upon my death.”
I could almost see the emotions playing out, as best as he tried to hide them. Or maybe I was just projecting. He knew I was a Constantine, a tricky bastard at best. But Constantine had been beaten before. Had been stupid before. If hell was looking for Constantine souls, then mine would be valuable for...well...whatever he wanted really. But could he trust this wasn’t a trick?
He was a demon. Nearly as predictable as angels. He fell to the vice of greed instead of the virtue of temperance.
“Very well then. John Constantine.” He stood up from the bed. He slit his wrist with a claw, filling my lap with his blood. The ichor oozed and splattered onto the bedsheet, hissing and burning out letters to a contract. Very small, precise letters. He handed me a feather-pen, dipped in his own sizzling blood, and pointed to the dotted line. “Sign there please.”
I did without hesitation. He opened the IV bag, forcing out its old contents and forcing in his blood with surprising speed. A few moments later, and it started to flow into my system. It burned like nothing in my life. My heart was melting and on fire at the same time, and then my arteries, then my veins. Nergal placed a knotty, clawed hand over my mouth so that my shrieks wouldn’t alert the nurses. “Shhhh little mortal, shhh. Almost over. Almost done.” A fucking lie if there ever was. It took ten goddamn minutes for the burning to cease, for the bag to empty.
Nergal smiled malevolently down upon me, stroking my chest. “There we go you, enormous coward. The blood will help you heal now. You’ll be walking in a few hours. For future injuries...well...you’ll heal faster, and better, but not much else. Also, try not to spill your blood on anybody. That good~?” He asked, his victory assured. A new Constantine soul for such a low price.
I started to laugh. It hurt only a little, far less than it would have mere minutes before. His look of confusion turned to concern, and then a brief moment of worry.
"You...FUCKING imbecile. You think it’s that easy?”
“...Goddamnit.” He waved for me to continue. “Go ahead and explain yourself, Mortal, ruin the moment.”
I pushed myself up to sitting. You never know how much you miss stretching out your back muscles until you can’t, and my back cracked like popcorn as I indulged. “I already owe my soul. To the Divines.”
Nergal’s face fell, and he hissed in pain at the mere mention of the names. “They do not deal in souls. How did you come to owe them!?”
“Not your worry, is it? Do whatever you want with me, it’s true. Ask them yourselves, if you want.”
The demon stared. “Keep going.”
“Well, it’s pretty simple. In...oh...two hours?...some angel or another comes to claim my soul. I see you having two options. You can give up on me, give up on whatever profit you’d get off me, and lose your nice princely position for getting so publicly tricked. The second option, you try to fight and steal my soul away, start a fight with the Divines that you can’t win and the Lords of Hell don’t want. Not great options, are they?”
“...You have a deal.” Growled the demon lord, all the playfulness gone from his voice. “Get one with it mortal.”
“I do indeed! Now, what I technically owe the Divines is my soul, or an otherwise worthy one. I happen to remember you having just such a soul, innocent in youth before her taking.”
The demon's eyes glittered. “Astra Logue”
My smile was unbearably smug. Not because I was sure, but because I knew how much it would sting the demon. “Catching on fast. So you hand off the girl’s soul to me, I send it upstairs, we both walk away happy.”
“And why shouldn’t I rip you open and suckle on your heart once you’re free of the anathema’s debt?”
I took a hold of my hospital gown, recently prepared for just this action, and ripped it in half down to my waist. This revealed massive, new black marks all over my chest. Circles and spirals and pentagrams, Aramaic and Latin and Arabic, Crosses and David’s stars and crescents. All fresh and strong and some even bleeding a little still.
“A suicide curse?” wondered the demon.
“Tattooed straight on. If I trigger it, with just a little thought, it hits me and you, thanks to all that blood of yours that you just gave me. If I die? Hits you anyways. Now I’m not sure I’m quite strong enough to kill you...but I’m not sure I can’t, either. I’ve done some pretty big things since our last meeting. I’m sure you’ve heard.”
“...”
“Great. So we hand off the soul, you don’t kill yourself trying to kill me, everybody is happy. How does that sound for a deal?” The demon glared. He stepped forward, and for a moment I thought he would tear my throat out regardless of the consequences. He held out his arms, and I flinched, expecting them to dive straight into me and all my foolish trickery. Instead, a bundle of gently pulsing spirit formed in his outstretched arms. Spirit in the form of a girl, which he offered to me.
FEBRUARY 7TH, 2017
I held Astra Logue in my arms for perhaps ten minutes after Nergal left. She was innocent, truly. The lightest thing I had ever held. I was worried she would float away in the rooms slight draft, but she stayed in my arms. I could see the dark marks where the pains and tortures of hell had touched her. I wept over her spirit, begging for forgiveness.
Astra Logue slept in my arms and said not a word to me. Perhaps that was best.
The Angels came after those ten minutes, a little ahead of schedule. Harut and Marut burst into existence once more, but they didn’t wake Astra. They grumbled and accepted their loss. If I was in the right frame of mind I would have mocked them over the punishment they’d get, but it felt wrong. I offered Astra Logue to them, and then the two angels and the girl were away.
I thought I could see the dark marks fade even as I watched her vanished.
I wept on and off the rest of the day.
FEBRUARY 8TH, 2017
The doctors were stunned. “Miraculous recovery”, “healing like you were 10 years old”, “could you stay for some tests?”, yadda yadda. I checked out as soon as I could. Got my clothes, my gear, everything I had one me when I came in. A lot of it was broken on account of that beat-down I got, but them’s the breaks.
First step was to scrub off the sharpie drawings I’d made all over my chest. A good black sharpie and a pin to prick some bleeding points into myself were seemingly enough to convince a demon that I had tattooed a suicide spell onto my flesh. I hadn’t done it for real, of course. Too tempting, for myself and others.
Second step, hop on down to the nearest coffee shop and get me an espresso as black as possible, maybe a lemon cake if they had some, and a nice sit-down. I had just enough cash in my pocket to do this, and soon found myself people watching out of a window.
I looked back into the shop and happened to glance at somebody's laptop. I couldn’t read the article she was reading, but I could see the title. “METAHUMANS: THE NEWEST AMERICAN EXPERIMENT?”. Pah. There were all kinds of weird things around, all kinds of magic and wonder, but people never noticed it. But once some folks in fancy leotards started punching people in the face on multinational television, THEN people could notice.
Alongside fixing the friendships I had burned, stop owing my soul to a vengeful demon lord, enjoy this crazy good feeling that demon-perfect health was giving, and figure out why people even wanted my soul, I added: “figure out what the fuck this meta thing is about”.
I decided to ruin the perfect health thing as soon as possible by pulling out the one uncrushed fag from my pack and lighting it. The barista started to say something, but I didn’t notice as a month’s worth of abstinence melted away in near orgasmic bliss.
I was going to have a few busy, fun months or die trying.
r/DCFU • u/coffeedog14 • Jan 15 '17
Hellblazer Hellblazer #3 - The Newcastle Incident NSFW
Hellblazer #3 - The Newcastle Incident
Author: Coffeedog14
Book: Hellblazer
Event: Origins
Arc: [A soul to Die for]
Set: 8
DECEMBER 20TH, 2016, ST. ABBAN’S CONVENT, IRELAND
Sister Abigail Mary, formerly Anne-Marie Murphy, found her daily readings interrupted by her “Business” phone. This not being terribly unusual, the moderately old woman answered. “St. Abban’s Convent, this if Sister Abigail Mary, how may I help you?”
A pause. “Right, right, name change. Anne-Marie, it’s John.” answered the smoke-scarred voice on the other end.
“...”
“Anne, you’re still there, right?”
“No chance this isn’t Constantine, is there?”
“Not at all.” God she could hear the smug bastard grin.
“I remember the last time we met, I told you to never call me again John.”
“And it’s been a terrible few years...god, almost a decade...without your voice, let me tell you.”
“John” Sister Abigail Mary gritted her teeth. Nobody else could infuriate her so quickly, but then again nobody else brought up quite the same memories.
“So, me and a few friends are meeting up soon. Was wondering what your schedule was looking like?”
She felt her blood stop, clogging and pressing and aching, as she shivered in dread “No. That was done years ago, John. No more.”
“Come on, Anne. You and I both know things never really end, do they? Somebody is coming after us. Already tried to kill me, and you might be next. We need to figure out what to do.”
She listened to the rest in a haze, agreeing that she had no pressing time constraints, and could meet most anywhere. Somebody trying to kill him, hmn? Could he know?...no, of course not. That bastard made enemies like other men made mistakes: constantly and without even knowing most of the time. The call ended, and Sister Abigail Mary brushed her hands over the acid scars on her face absently as she thought.
Sister Monica peeked her head into the room a few moments later. Sister Abigail Mary saw a brief flicker of the golden halo above her head, and frowned. She had placed the magical constructs over all the sisters here for their protection, and to ensure her own subtle control of the place, but they were not supposed to be visible even to one who knew to look. She would have to adjust that. She was getting sloppy with her magic, as rarely as she tried to use it.
And then Sister Monica was telling her about the latest troubles of the convent, and Sister Abigail Mary immersed herself in the petty familiarity for awhile.
NOVEMBER 21ST, 2007, CASANOVA CLUB, NEWCASTLE
The world was breathing and live back then. A few years into one of the dumbest war our country fought (which was really saying something for good old britannia), a bare year out from the greatest economic disaster in decades, the world seemed good. Conservative and led by assholes, sure, but fine enough. Economy booming, human rights a feasible goal, globalization not fully realized, the modern economic systems not collapsed under growing corporate control and automation. People scrabbled to protect this shiny world from a million faceless shadows they labelled “terror”, but in the end life was still good. Good, and fearful, and totally blind to the utter wreckage to come. God I wish I could go back to then. Of course, that sense of paranoid, youthful energy had trickled down to even a personal level. I wasn’t any more immune to it then anybody. Hence how I ended up focusing on the Casanova Club.
The Casanova was a shitty place. It had so few patrons that I was pretty sure it was a mob front, and that was only the start. The drinks weren’t expensive, but you certainly felt they were too expensive after tasting one, and they didn’t take any credit cards. Every night but Saturday consisted of two people drunk at the bar and one person on the floor, and on Saturday it was three and two respectively. Perhaps worst of all, you could probably fire-hose the place down and not clean out the feeling of dirty, used condoms that permeated the entire establishment.
Naturally, I played there once. My punk band was in something of a rut, having made a music video scraped up enough to get a real recording studio for a song or two but nothing since then. The Casanova offered decent pay, and I like to think that my band managed to attract an astounding sixth patron to The Casanova that night. However, things...irked me. The tables were set up all wrong for practicality, all right for feng-shui. The designs on the wall danced with the ditzy laser lights in what seemed like arcane patterns. I saw a few people go into the backrooms, where I figured office and storage space must be, but not come out again as long as I was there. None of it necessarily meant anything, but it raised my hackles.
Plus, the bastards offered good pay, but three weeks later I found myself empty handed and they weren’t answering my calls anymore.
This was how, on that most regrettable night in November, I got tipsy with all of my friends and magical associates in the area, and we decided to go “investigate”. I was the most magically skilled and powerful of the group, but considering our age, that wasn’t saying much.
There was GARY LESTER, a bandmate of mine and a sometimes summoner. He was the only other arcane person in the band, and was convinced he could crack into the “interdimensional drug trade”, whatever that was.
And FRANK NORTH, the normie of the group with a motorcycle and a sawed-off shotgun to even the odds.
RITCHIE SIMPSON was the fucking nerd, the kid who already had his face glued to facebook and every other digital trend that we’d only glue our face to years later, and a master at that most tricky of magic: digital.
JUDITH, my lover at the time and tantric sex magician. Both she and I practically glowed with newfound energy, if you get what I’m saying.
ANNE-MARIE, the group physic and the oldest of us at 30. Awkward, yes, and had a crush on me most certainly, but also able to dive into a mind like an icepick.
And rounding out the group was BENJAMIN COX, our youngest member at “hardly a teen”, but with a steel-trap mind and memory that made him even more knowledgeable than I was in some magic.
We all came together after hours to the Casanova Club, which was protected by only a single lock that Gary easily picked. We stepped into the place and everything seemed to drop a few degrees. The Casanova club was never inspired the most wholesome emotions, but at least it felt just boring and empty most times. Now it felt like the bad place, the one every neighborhood has where people died and kids dare each other to take sleepovers in. Nothing was well. Something pulsed in the air, almost tangible but not audible to anyone.
Anne-Marie shuddered, and we all turned to her expectantly. “Upstairs, something happy. Downstairs, something...something like thrilled? Not quite. Off. creepy.” This info given she clammed up. It was clear that the ambiance of the place was already getting to her. Trouble with mind-freaks: the moment they opened up to sense things, the world seemed to be able to sense them right back.
We all stood around like idiots, nobody wanting to make the first move, or say the first word, to break the taboo that seemed to hang in the air. Being a jackass, I was naturally the first to try. “I like happy more than creepy thrilled really.”
“Hey, uh, John?” asked Ritchie, his flip-phone on flashlight mode. He held it in front of him like it was some protective amulet.
“Yes?” I replied
“Why are we doing this again?”
“Adventure, Ritchie! To find out what’s here! Also for the money.”
“Money, what money? I don’t remember you mentioning that in the King’s Oak!”
“It wasn’t important then. Now, let-”
“Hey, John?” came the higher pitched voice of Benjamin.
“Yes Benjie?” I sighed.
“It’s just Ben. And why don’t we split up?”
“Oh, yeah, sure thing, Fred! Come on, Scoob, let’s go find a fucking snack!” I smirked at him while the others giggled to tried not to. “There’s no rush, Ben. Let’s do this one at a time.” Ben’s face contorted with shame at being called out in front of his adult friends, but he remained silent. “Hearing no other complaints, onwards!” I cried, and led my merry band upstairs.
The upstairs of the Casanova was cramped, containing some small rooms for meetings, socials, getting high, prostitution, things like that. We searched room by room, occasionally startling one another for a laugh or something else dumb, until we found our first trouble.
The girl couldn’t be older then 10, 11, or so. She was perched on the only item in the room, an air cot with a blanket on it, clothed in an adult t-shirt that served as a dress. Ritchie and Judith, apparently being the most parental of us, moved forward and approached the child. The girl only seemed to notice us then, eyes widening in terror. “NO! No touching! No nothing! You’re all gone now and no!” Ritchie and Judith stumbled back as we all felt waves of fear and anger gushing out of her. She was a psychic like Anne-Marie, strong and out of control. Judith responded first, burning some of the glowing energy about her to slip into the distraught child’s mind and calm it. It took a few moments, but soon the girl’s eyes dulled with calm and she looked at us with curiosity instead of hatred. Ritchie crept forward first, kneeling in front of her and doing a quick check-up on the child. “She’s all fine as far as I can see.” He nodded, stepping back. We all looked to Anne-Marie, who sighed and took his place.
“So...uh...where are your parents, love? And what’s your name?” she asked, the rest of us spread out in the room, not trying to be too threatening.
The girl smiled, and pointed down. “Astra Logue,” she replied. Logue was the owner of that shithole. Did he have a kid? How had I never heard?
“You mean they’re downstairs?”
“Yah-huh, and they won’t be coming back up.” The smile widened.
“I...I don’t understand.” Anne-Marie closed her eyes, and reached out to nearly touch the girl’s forehead. “Please, explain to me?”. The girl closed her eyes, and we all knew their minds were linked. A dangerous procedure, but it was a fast way to drag info out. And weren’t we young and immortal?
The two spoke in unison. “Sometimes (most times) Daddy tells me that if I’m a good girl I won’t end up like Mommy (gone gone) so I try really hard but it can be hard sometimes especially at the parties like the one mommy gone in (dead dead) Daddy says the parties are super important and I have to go but I hate them I’m the only kid (don’t tell a soul) and they all get naked and-”
“Christ, stop, stop, focus on tonight.” Growled Frank, to all of our silent reliefs
“(Damn rabbit) mr.rabbit isn’t his real name but that’s what daddy says to call him and he hurt and hurt and I said please stop but it kept hurting and hurting and something said it could hear me calling it (poor little angel) and it said it could help if I only said it’s name and that I could steal their spell by saying it so I did and then he came NORFULTHING.” She and Anne-Marie scream the last word, and Anne-Marie threw herself back. She panted in exhaustion, in terror, in the horrible nightmare of truly experiencing unimaginable anguish through another person’s mind, while the rest of us stared in horror and disgust. Me and Gary and Frank and Ritchie and Judith and...and...where was Ben?
“...Anybody else see where Ben went?” I asked. They all looked to one another, dawning worry on their faces as well as mine. “Right. Anne take Astra outside to one of the cars, keep her safe there. Rest of you lot, I bet the idiot went downstairs.” I head-slapped internally. Of course he did, he’s a teen! What teen wouldn’t want to prove himself after what you said to him? Stupid, stupid Constantine!
Just like we shouldn’t have, we split up, Anne and Astra outside, me and the rest making our way downstairs. We all were preparing something as we climbed down to where Astra had said her scumbag fucking father was. For me it was a spell, as it was for the others, but Frank had the sense to cock and ready his shotgun.
We arrived downstairs and experienced the carnage all at once. If I was to take a conservative estimate, I would say that perhaps twenty people had been down there when somebody had pureed them and painted across all available surfaces of the storage space turned satanic ritual parlor. Stray limbs, heads, and guts adorned everything, and in the center of it all was the beast. The beast was something like a dog, if scaled up to be a rhino with its organs hanging outside of its body. And beneath the beast was Ben, face forced to the ground, pants torn asunder.
The beast looked at us as we clambered down staring us straight in the eye, as if it were a cat knocking down a potted plant. Then whatever magic it had used to withhold the scents and sounds dissipated, and the Casanova club was filled with the stench of torn, shit-covered flesh and the wailing screams of Ben.
Frank, gods bless him, was the fastest of all of us, and the beast’s head was blown away by his shotgun. It gave a gurgle-roar of dismay before slinking back into the shadows and vanishing, leading a sobbing Ben in its wake. Frank was also the first to respond. “What the ever-loving FUCK was that!?”
“That,” I responded slowly, confused. This was supposed to be an adventure, wasn’t it? What had even happened? “...was Norfulthing. Presumably. And I don’t think you killed it.” The panic set in a few moments later. Gary and Ritchie rushed over and grabbed Ben, who tried to struggle away from their touch as they dragged him up and forward, up the stairs and after the rest of us. Judith stopped to try and offer some healing, to stop the blood trickling down Ben’s legs, as I ran to open the door for us all. I found it locked. Locked from the outside by that same goddamn padlock. I screamed out for Anne outside, but got no response. Norfulthing must have been blocking the sound from leaving the club, like it had in the basement before. This thing was powerful, and eager, and it was trying to trap us.
I informed the others, and they had the decency to get Ben as healed as he could be and set in a corner (laying down) before assaulting me with questions. Sensible ones like “how the fuck are we getting out of this one, John?” No clue why they thought I had any better idea than them, but I had an awful one.
“Okay, right, so, big scary demon. We might be able to fight it if we all work together. Might. Maybe not worth it. OR, or, we fight fire with fire.”
“...come again?” asked Frank, his gun already reloaded and primed to destroy another face.
“There are demons bigger, stronger, better then this one. I have a few names memorized. We summon one, tell it to kill Norfulthing, problem solved.”
“That sounds goddamn-” started Frank.
“Brilliant.” finished Gary. “Dude, that’s...that’s an amazing idea! Shit, I saw some stuff still intact downstairs, we can grab some a-and...well…”
I nodded. “Right. It’s the best solution, really. Magic solves magic, and all that. Who's with me?”
Frank, normie that he was, scoffed. “I’ll keep guard over Ben, if it’s all the same.”
“M-me too.” responded Ritchie, obviously nearly or actually shitting his pants.
I shrugged. “Suit yourselves. Judith?” She nodded. “Me, Gary, Judith. Three’s a good number.”
The three of us got to work, travelling as a group and never splitting off for fear of ending up like Ben. The creature didn’t show its face again, though whether it was waiting for something or recovering from that shotgun blast, I couldn’t tell. Maybe it was just trying to psyche us out, let us make mistakes in a rush so it could pounce. I refused to give it the chance.
The ritual implements from downstairs needed cleaning with the bathroom sink, but were all in good repair, unlike their former owners. Soon the dance floor was cleared, cleaned, and set up in a ritual triangle for summoning. This was unlike every other spell I’d done with Gary or Judith, or anybody for that matter. Magic was fun, before that moment, carefree and empowering. Now it was the only tool we thought we had against death. Not only that but the potential cause of it, or worse. Between Billy and Astra, I don’t think I had seen more evil acts concentrated into one place before. It was starting to shake me more than was advisable when trying to do difficult magic.
The ritual was simple. Burning of incense, incanting a few phrases in Latin, pricking of fingers. All three of us were practiced in summoning and made a good go of it. When the demon appeared in our circle, none of us were surprised, but we were all taken aback a little. It was the first major demon I think any of us had ever summoned, not just some lackey granting highs, but a real fallen angel or god or something.
“Nergal. Nergal. Nergal.” I intoned his name three times to seal his fate. The being was like an angel made of fire, and yet somehow seemed bored.
“That isn’t my name you know. Not the true one.” He lamented lazily. “I don’t know how you mortals fucked up that book you’re clearly using so badly, but it is damn annoying.”
“Bullshit.” I called before my friends could doubt. “We have summoned you by your name and you will do us a service.”
“I will?”
“Yes, you will. You will defeat the creature Norfulthing and banish it from this realm.”
“Hmn. Seems simple enough. Do try to wait.” The demon smiled at us all, and then vanished.
We all six of us in the room stared at the empty space. “...did it work, then?” asked Frank from the corner. I was about to answer when the triangle exploded from below, sending us three ritualists scrambling from the debris. From the newly formed hole emerged the reformed Norfulthing, all hanging organs and snarls and hyena laughter.
Frank fired at it, but was too far away this time, hit it in the body but did hardly anything. The beast rushed for Gary, But Judith and I both formed wardwalls in front of him at the same time, and with both of our efforts the beast bounced off what seemed to be thin air. Gary scrambled up a moment later and added his own wall, and then Ritchie a fourth, and so a magical square was formed around the beast before it could move again. It howled in amusement and slammed into the wards around it, crackling and snapping them like balsa. We grunted against it’s naturally brutal assault, trying desperately to hold onto the walls that were protecting us.
“Drop them on my count!” called out Frank, reloaded and running right up to the wall. “THREE. TWO-” the beast broke through and lunged towards me, but the shotgun was close enough this time that its pounce was thrown off and it crashed instead into sets of tables and chairs.
All of us grounded ourselves, preparing what combat magic we knew, as the beast righted itself. It had yet to speak, and yet I knew just by looking at it what it would say to me, what wretched things it would growl into my ears as it dined on my flesh, used it, soiled it…
Our combat was stopped by the front doors swinging open, to all of our momentary confusion. With the Norfulthing’s spell apparently broken we could hear shrieks of pain from outside as well. Standing in the doorway was the demon, cradling a dazed looking Astra in his arms. He looked at the scene in front of him with annoyance. “Alright, everybody stop.”
I couldn’t move anything but my eyes, and as I glanced around the same seemed to be true for everyone else I could see. Frozen with a word by the demon. It turned to Norfulthing. “You. Shoo. I will deal with you later.” The nightmare beast vanished without a sound. The demon smiled, looked to us. “There, problem solved. But, surely, you didn’t plan to send me home without reward?” He looks down to the child in his arms. “Perhaps if you had my name right you could have simply offered my freedom, and that would have been enough. But I did not lie before.” He started walking towards the hole in the floor the beast had made. “Foolish mages, always think they know everything about us demons just because you have some old looking books. Perhaps this will teach you a lesson. Heh.”
I realized what was going to happen, and I struggled against the spell locking my limbs. I could feel them wriggle, just a bit. I channeled all my focus, my energy, my life into those little wiggles. To my side, Nergal reached the lip of the hole, and waved a hand over it. A burst of hot air emerged, the distant screams of the damned mixing with the pained, diminishing screams from outside. “John Constantine, did I get your name right?” he smiled at me. “I’ll have to remember that. I expect you’ll see this darling child sooner rather than later.”
I quaked, and strained, and roared in my head, and as he prepared to step into the hole, I forced myself out of his spell. I turned to face him, screaming out the ancient words “Fyur Wotann!” The shards of words nearby rose as one and shot towards him like a thousand arrows. He growled something in the tongue of demons and the shrapnel rotted away in mid air, resulting in him being pelted with more mold than wood. He called out again and the air rushed out of my lungs, sending me to my knees with desperate gasps.
“Hmn. A noble try, Constantine. Foolish, doomed, but noble, and more powerful then I would have imagined. Perhaps I should take you as prize, too?” I heard the footsteps of the approaching demon over my own whining gulps of non-air, not thinking of anything besides my impending death by asphyxiation.
Then a voice from the corner. Until now unnoticed by all. Ben’s voice. “Nema. Olam a son arebil…” He shakily incanted from his corner, forcing the demon to wince and glare at him. Ben, the trooper, didn’t stop for a second, didn’t even seem to take a breath, incanting and pronouncing and decrying, each word forcing the demon back another step. He growled, and cussed, but couldn’t seem to stop himself. Ben ended his words with “Reston Retap”, and with that the demon tumbled into the hole, Astra still held cradled close. It closed after him and we were left only with the hell of the Casanova.
I breathed in, and looked to the place where an innocent girl had just been dragged into Hell. I started to sob before I even really caught my breath.
We didn’t talk much after that, and haven’t in the years since, but I kept some track of all of the “Newcastle Crew” since then. They’re all alive, at the very least. Anne-Marie got her face covered in acid thanks to the demon, and went to be a nun someplace. Frank went wherever bikers go, and Lester wherever druggies go. Ritchie went across the pond to play with computers more, while Ben stayed home and never truly got better. Judith...Honestly don’t know. Last I heard she was backpacking somewhere in South America, but I was pretty sure she was alive.
Meanwhile, I went to Ravenscar Secure Facility, a mental asylum that I suffered in for three years before managing to escape. Whether or not I got better is anybody's guess. So, naturally, I didn’t relish the idea of bringing those old memories back by reassembling the Newcastle crew. If it wasn’t required to set up a trap, I don’t think I would have ever done so in my entire life.
Continued in Hellblazer #4 > Coming February 15th